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蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山 katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama Issa - Snail, ever so slowly climb, Mt Fuji

蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山 (katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama), snail, slowly, slowly, climb Mount Fuji, is a haiku of Issa's. Its earliest print known here is his disciples' collection of 1829, and no page of his own has yet been found to carry it. This study follows it through Meiji moral readers, a Zen teacher and the Fuji road to its translators in English, Blyth among them.

Japanese Scroll of Issa - Snail, ever so slowly climb, Mt Fuji (katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Issa - Snail, ever so slowly climb, Mt Fuji蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山, snail: slowly, slowly, climb Mount Fuji, is Issa's in every book read here that names a poet for it, the earliest being the collection his disciples published in 1829, two years after his death, which gives it no date and no headnote. The editor who in 1925 dated Issa's verses from two of his diaries gave it no year, as he gave none to most. Meiji moral readers set it under 登高自卑, climb high from low, walkers on the Fuji road quoted it as advice on pace, and in 1934 the Zen teacher 飯田欓隠 glossed its slowly, slowly as keep the mind quiet and do not fuss, adding that the Zen master 南天棒 often brushed it. Miyamori, Henderson, Blyth, Hass, Hamill and Lanoue carried it into English, Miyamori as a lesson in perseverance and Blyth, setting that aside, as his own reading: If you are a snail, be a snail.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山, and the witnesses write one text several ways. 蝸牛 / かたつぶり. The 1902 edition, the 1925 dated edition and the 1908–1912 moral readers write the kanji; the 1829 print, the 1897 selection, the 1908 一茶一代全集, the 1910 preacher's dictionary, the 1914 有朋堂 text, the 1921 and 1926 editions, the 1928 index and the 1927 travel essay write the snail in kana, つぶり or, as the old prints write it without the voicing mark, つふり: katatsuburi, the older form of the word, never katatsumuri, the modern one, which the 1934 Zen reader writes. Henderson in 1958 and Lanoue in 2017 romanize katatsuburi; Blyth and Hamill, katatsumuri. The kanji carry either reading. そろそろ. Every edition of Issa's verse read here writes the second そろ with a repeat mark, a sign used only in vertical writing, which the quotations here write out; the 1897 selection misprints the first kana, ろろ; the moral readers spell the word out, as the scroll does. 登れ / のぼれ. The 1829 print writes 登れ, and so do the 1897 selection, the readers, the 1914, 1921 and 1926 editions and the index; the 1902 and 1925 editions write のぼれ. 富士の山 / 不二の山. The 1829 print writes 冨士, the scroll's 富士 with a variant form of 富; the 1897, 1902, 1910, 1914 and 1925 books write 不二, the old spelling of the mountain's name that the same 1829 print uses in another verse; the 1921 and 1926 editions each print the verse twice, once with 富士 and once with 不二; the 1908 一茶一代全集 writes the mountain in kana, ふしの山; the readers, the index and the essay write 富士. No witness read here varies the sense: they differ in spelling, and in the 1897 misprint. The meter is five, seven, five: か・た・つ・ぶ・り, そ・ろ・そ・ろ・の・ぼ・れ, ふ・じ・の・や・ま. The only served design brushes the catalogue's form.

The sense. The 1908 teacher's manual sets it under 登高自卑, climb high from low, among verses on starting from where one stands, with 一步づゝつい頂へ富士まふで, one step at a time and you are at the summit: a Fuji pilgrimage, just before it; the 1911 civic handbook keeps it in the same company. The walkers of the 1920s took it as pace. Miyamori in 1932: Needless to say, this is a didactive verse teaching that even a dull-witted man can achieve a great thing with diligence and perseverance. Be slow but sure. In 1934 the Zen teacher 飯田欓隠, in a reader on Zen for a lay public, quoted it and wrote: そろそろとは心靜かにして騷ぐなといふことぢや。一步一步に距離はない。何里來たとあとを見、これから何里あると先を考へれば、それだけ無駄の頭と時を費してをる, "slowly, slowly" means keep the mind quiet and do not fuss. Between one step and the next there is no distance. Look back at how many miles you have come and ahead at how many are left, and you waste that much head and time; and of the verse, 南天棒がよく書いた, 南天棒 often brushed it. Blyth in 1942 turned it: act according to your nature, snail; act according to God's will; be a snail!; and in 1952 gave the reading of commentators he does not name and set it aside for his own: Issa may have meant this, as commentators explain it, as a contemptuous reference to themselves, meaning, "little by little, you may attain something if you persevere long enough." I wish to take it differently, however, as of universal application. If you are a snail, be a snail. And if as a snail you climb, follow your snail nature, your Buddha nature, and climb slowly, slowly! No commentary in an edition of Issa's verse has been found here; the dated edition gives it only its place among the snails.

The words. 蝸牛 is the snail, katatsuburi or katatsumuri, a summer season word (the dictionary the account cites gives 季語・夏); the meter takes either reading at five. そろそろ is slowly, little by little, the adverb doubled; 登れ the imperative, climb. 富士の山 is Mount Fuji by its full name, the mountain of Fuji, and 不二, not-two, is the old spelling that the 1902 and 1925 editions keep. Lanoue in 2017 says the snail climbed a small replica of the mountain in a temple garden, and Kern in 2018 that some commentators take it as a simulacrum; neither gives a source, and no witness read here has a headnote that places the verse. As words the line says: Snail, slowly, slowly, climb Mount Fuji. Blyth's but slowly, slowly, Miyamori's very, very slowly and Hamill's you climb but slowly, slowly are all そろそろ; none of them adds anything the Japanese does not hold except the but. Lanoue's inch by inch takes it as the snail's own measure.

The verse in English. Miyamori translated the verse in 1932 [1], with Porter's earlier rendering beside it; Henderson followed in 1934 [2], Blyth across three books, in 1942 [3], 1949 [4] and 1952 [5], Henderson again in 1958 [6], Hass in 1994 [7], Hamill in 1997 [8], and Lanoue in 2017 [9].

The historical record

1829. 一茶発句集, 俳諧寺社中校正, 仏都 仁龍堂; the summer section. The snail verses stand together on the twentieth leaf, in the summer section's second share: 夕月や大肌ぬいでかたつふり / 柴の戸や錠のかはりにかたつふり / かたつふりそろそろ登れ冨士の山 / なかなかに安堵貌なり羽抜鳥, the print writing each doubled word with a repeat mark. No headnote, no date; each share of the book closes with the count of its verses and the names of the two who checked it [10]. The book was published by Issa's disciples for his third-year memorial, two years after his death. The editors of the 1930 一茶叢書, who reprint it, describe it: 文政十二年、一茶の三囘忌追善に、俳諧寺社中の重立つた門人達が分擔選集して開板したものである, it was published in 文政12, for the memorial of the third year after Issa's death, from selections the leading disciples of the 俳諧寺 circle made in shares; they judge it far more trustworthy than the enlarged edition of 1848, and report that its afterword says the disciples found his manuscripts and books scattered when they came after his death; and they add that forgeries of his hand were current from about that time, この頃から一茶筆蹟と稱するまがひ物も相當行はれたやうである [11]. A study of the book in 1957 calls it the earliest of Issa's collections to be compiled, and matches 383 of its 522 verses, three in four, in his notebooks and diaries or in haikai books connected with him; its tables count verses by source and name none, so they do not say whether this verse is among the 383 [12].

1897. 俳人一茶, edited by 宮沢義喜 and 宮沢岩太郎, 三松堂. A book of the poet's verse arranged by topic. Under 蝸牛, page 101: 夕立や大肌ぬいでかたつふり / 並んだる豆粒程のかたつふり / 柴の戸や錠のかはりに蝸牛 / 雨一見のかたつふりにて候か / かたつふりろろろろ登れ不二の山, the adverb's first kana misprinted [13].

1902. 一茶俳句全集, 内外出版協会, Tokyo; the summer book, under 蝸牛. A collected edition, the snail verses in a run: 夕立や大肌ぬいで蝸牛 / 並んだぞ豆粒程の蝸牛 / 雨一見の蝸牛にて候 / 蝸牛そろそろのぼれ不二の山 / 朝燒が喜ばしいか蝸牛 / 俚俗蝸牛をでいろといふ 此雨のふるにどつちへでいろかな / 犬いけんして曰 蝸牛見よ見よ己が影法師 / 柴の戶や錠の代りに蝸牛, printed page 153. No headnote, no date [14].

1908. 一茶一代全集, edited by 俳諧寺可秋, 又玄堂. Among the snail verses, かたつふりそろそろ登れふしの山, the mountain in kana [15].

1908–1912. The moral readers. Takehara Hisanosuke 竹原久之助's manual of special instruction for elementary teachers (1908) sets the verse under 第十八 登高自卑, climb high from low, fourth of five, after 深きには雪も淺きをはじめ哉, 名を知るも足元からぞ草の花 and 一步づゝつい頂へ富士まふで, one step at a time and you are at the summit: a Fuji pilgrimage, and before さがすには足元からぞ茸狩; each verse has its poet's name at its foot, 一茶 for this one and 虛白 for the other four [16]. The civic handbook 斯民之友 (1911 [17], reprinted 1912 [18]) prints it in a run of 教訓的俳句, haiku for moral teaching, set beside a list of headings that includes 登高自卑, between 學ぶ身はうれしき秋の夜長哉 and 名を知るも足元からぞ草の花, with 一茶 at its foot. Lessons, not poetry books, and both name the poet at the line.

1910. 布教新辞典, 森江書店, the entry イツサ. A preacher's dictionary lists the poet's 名句: 蓬萊に南無南無といふ子供哉 · 玉川やまづ御先ヘと飛ぶ蛙 · … · かたつぶりそろそろ登れ不二の山 · かたみ子や母が來るとて手をたゝく · 露の世は露の世ながら去ながら [19].

1914–1935. The Issa editions. The 有朋堂文庫's 名家俳句集 (1914, reprinted 1922, 1927, 1935) prints it in its 一茶發句集, in the 1829 book's order: かたつぶりそろそろ登れ不二の山 after 柴の戶や錠の替りにかたつぶり and before なかなかに安堵がほなり羽拔鳥 [20]; the 新選一茶全集 (1921) prints it twice, in the summer collection and again in a run of Fuji verses (菜の花のまつばづれなる富士の山 / かたつぶりそろそろ登れ不二の山 / 河豚喰はぬ人には見せな富士の山) [21]; the 一茶選集 (1925) [22], the 一茶発句集 (1926), which also prints it twice, with 富士 among the 1829 book's verses and with 不二 in a later section [23], the 一茶蕪村名句全集 (1926) [24], the 1829 book as reprinted in the 一茶叢書 (1930) [11] and the 一茶名句集 (1934) [25] carry it in the same company. The dated edition of 1925, 一茶俳句集 季題別年代考, compiled by 半田良平, takes every verse of the 一茶發句集 in its enlarged edition of 1848, of Issa's own notebook 一茶句帳 and of おらが春, and against a verse it puts the year in which he found it in the two diaries he worked from, the 七番日記 (1810–1818) and the 旅日記 (1804–1808), or in a few other dated sources. Most of its 1,965 verses carry no year, and his preface says that those may be taken as written in other years. Under 蝸牛: 朝燒がよろこばしいか蝸牛 (文化二) / 柴の戶や錠の代りに蝸牛 (文化十二) / 夕月や大肌ぬいでかたつむり / 一本、夕立や / 里俗かたつむりをでいろといふ 此雨の降るにどつちへでいろかな / 蝸牛そろそろのぼれ不二の山, the last verse under 蝸牛, with no year against it, like two of the four before it; the next, 蟬なくや我が家も石になるやうに (文化十), is the first under 蟬 [26]. Its 1935 successor prints the same [27].

1920–1934. On the road, as a saying. A walker in 名所ところどころ (1920), facing one more hill, decides to go 「かたつぶりそろそろ登れ」で [28]; Taniguchi Rika 谷口梨花's 汽車の窓から (1927), on the Fuji climb: 呼吸は靜に、步調は極めて緩かに、遲速を念頭に置かず、「かたつぶりそろそろ登れ富士の山」の調子で行かねばならぬ, breathe quietly, keep the pace very slow, put speed out of your mind, and go at the tempo of "snail, slowly, slowly, climb Mount Fuji" [29]; 景観を尋ねて (1933) quotes it among Fuji verses [30]. In each the verse is advice, and the poet is not named. As a maxim it travels further: a 1929 anthology for popular education gives it to Issa beside 猷禪和尙's すべつてもころんでも登れ富士の山, slip or fall, climb Mount Fuji, and the German 徐に急げ, make haste slowly [31]; a 1930 bankers' handbook sets it against timidity, 銀行家は怯懦に陷る勿れ、唯夫れ用意周到なるべし, let the banker not fall into timidity, only be well prepared [32]; and the Zen reader of 1934 quotes it without the poet's name [33].

1928. 俳諧全句索引, the index to the 日本俳書大系. 一茶 / カタツ (選抄) かたつぶりそろそろ登れ富士の山… (一茶二九), between かたゝがひ幸あり武庫の郭公 and 蝸牛見よ見よおのが影法師. The source tag 選抄 is the series' own 俳句選抄, its editors' selection from the collected verse, so the index gives no older book [34].

The attribution. Issa's, from the earliest print known here: the collection his disciples published two years after his death, where it stands among his snail verses [10][11]. Every later book that names a poet follows them: the 1897 selection [13], the 1902 edition [14], the 1908 and 1911 moral readers at the line [16][17], the 1910 preacher's dictionary [19], and the 1914 text, which keeps the 1829 book's order around it [20]; the travel writers and the Zen reader quote it without a name [28][29][30][33]. The 1925 dated edition gives it no year, so it is not among the verses its compiler matched in the 七番日記 and the 旅日記; most of his verses have none [26]. The 1928 index sources it only to the series' own selection [34]. The disciples report that his papers had been scattered before they began, and the 1930 editors that forgeries of his hand were current from about then [11]; the 1957 study matched three in four of the disciples' verses in his notebooks and diaries or in books connected with him, and its tables name no verse [12]. Whether a page of his carries this one is the question the modern edition of his writings would settle. Miyamori in 1932 gave it to Issa in English with Porter's older rendering beside his [1], Henderson from 1934 [2][6], Blyth from 1942 in three books [3][4][5], Hass in 1994 [7], Hamill in 1997 [8], Lanoue in 2017 [9]; each names Issa and none argues it. So the attribution is his school's, made in print two years after he died and followed by every book since that names a poet, and it does not yet stand on a page of his own.

What is not a source. Delphi's 2022 anthology carries katatsumuri only in its list of season words [35].

The verse in English

1932. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, page 533, no. 534, THE SNAIL. 蝸牛 そろそろ登れ 富士の山; Oh, snail, climb Mount Fuji, / Very, very slowly. Issa; and, quoted beside it, William N. Porter's earlier rendering, The snail does all he can, / Yet very, very, sluggishly, / He climbs Great Fujisan, with the paragraph quoted above [1].

1934. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom, Houghton Mifflin, page 91. Among Issa's verses, under the title THE SNAIL: Snail, my little man, / Slowly, oh, very slowly — / Climb up Fujisan!, with his word-for-word gloss beneath [2].

1942. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido, page 107. O snail, / Climb Mt. Fuji, / But slowly, slowly, with be a snail! [3]

1949. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido, page 222. The same lines [4].

1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido, BIRDS AND BEASTS, page 250. 蝸牛そろそろのぼれ富士の山, Katatsumuri sorosoro nobore fuji no yama — O snail, / Climb Mount Fuji, / But slowly, slowly! Issa, with the two readings above [5].

1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, page 152. His 1934 rendering again, under the title The Snail: Snail, my little man, / slowly, oh, very slowly / climb up Fujisan!, with the word-for-word gloss under the romaji Katatsuburi soro soro nobore Fuji-no-yama and a note on the mountain: The famous peak is known either as Fuji-no-yama (Fuji-mountain or Fuji-san Mt. Fuji). The western name "Fujiyama" is unknown in Japan [6].

1994. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco, page 155. Climb Mount Fuji, / O snail, / but slowly, slowly [7].

1997. Sam Hamill, The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala. O summer snail, / you climb but slowly, slowly / to Fuji's summit, with the romaji Katatsumuri / soro soro nobore / fuji no yama; the page number is not given here [8].

2017. David G. Lanoue, Write Like Issa, HaikuGuy, page 113. The verse in romaji, katatsuburi soro-soro nobore fuji no yama, the older reading, among the book's numbered examples. Earlier in the book he renders soro-soro as inch by inch and writes that Issa's snail actually ascended a small replica of Mount Fuji in a Buddhist temple's garden, not the real mountain; he gives no source [9].

2018. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, pages 163 and 341. snail / bit by bit ascend! / Mount Fuji, and in the commentary: Some commentators have suggested that this is a simulacrum rather than the real mountain. J. D. Salinger quotes this verse in Franny and Zooey (1961). Kern names neither the commentators nor the simulacrum; Lanoue's replica (above) is the same reading, also without a source [36].

Today. A rendering has two things to keep: the imperative, which makes the line an address to the snail and not a picture of one, and the doubled adverb.

A reading

I read the verse as pace, as the walkers of the 1920s did and as the 1908 manual's lesson does: climbing high from low, one step after another. The snail is told to climb the highest mountain in the country and told how, and the how is the whole of the verse; そろそろ is not slowly as a limit but as a method. 飯田 said it in Japanese in 1934: between one step and the next there is no distance. Blyth's reading is another one. He set the commentators' perseverance aside and told the snail to be a snail, which is about what the climber is more than how it climbs. The oldest witness is the book Issa's own disciples printed two years after he died, and I take their word for it: they were his students, no witness names anyone else, and every book since that names a poet names him. What the verse does not have is a date or a page of his. It is not among the verses the 1925 compiler matched in two of his diaries, and the 1957 count does not say whether it is among the verses found in his notebooks, so I say only that the attribution rests on his school, not yet on his hand, and that the index to the modern edition of his writings is where it would be settled.

Sources not seen

『一茶全集』, 信濃毎日新聞社, Nagano, from 1976, the modern critical edition of Issa's writings, and its 『一茶発句総索引』, 1994; held by Japanese university libraries, as their catalogues record, and not on hand here. They would say whether any page in Issa's hand or entry in his diaries carries this verse, with any headnote saying where it was written, and so whether it can be dated.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, pp. 533–534.
  2. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1934, p. 91.
  3. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1942, p. 107.
  4. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949, p. 222.
  5. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, p. 250.
  6. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 152.
  7. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, p. 155.
  8. Sam Hamill, The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala, 1997.
  9. David G. Lanoue, Write Like Issa, HaikuGuy, 2017, p. 113; the replica note between pp. 89 and 93.
  10. 『一茶発句集』, 俳諧寺社中校正, 仏都 仁龍堂, 文政12 (1829), 2 vols. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, work 96071; the 県立長野図書館 copy, BID 100005293, canvas 26 (leaf 20). https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100005293/manifest
  11. 信濃教育会 編『一茶叢書』第9編 下巻, 古今書院, 1930: the 解題 to the 一茶發句集 (scan 154) and its text (scan 161). National Diet Library pid 1186739. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/154
  12. 尾沢喜雄「文政版一茶発句集の成立を廻つて」『連歌俳諧研究』13, 俳文学会, 1957, pp. 15–25, at p. 22. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/haibun1951/1957/13/1957_13_15/_article/-char/ja/
  13. 宮沢義喜・宮沢岩太郎 編『俳人一茶』, 三松堂, 1897, p. 101. National Diet Library pid 875627, scan 62. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875627/1/62
  14. 『一茶俳句全集』, 内外出版協会, 1902, p. 153. National Diet Library pid 874848, scan 79. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874848/1/79
  15. 俳諧寺可秋 編『一茶一代全集』, 又玄堂, 1908. National Diet Library pid 874846, scan 40.
  16. 竹原久之助 Takehara Hisanosuke『小学校に於ける特別教示』, 宝文館, 1908, p. 50. National Diet Library pid 810395, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/810395/1/29
  17. 小林恭三郎 Kobayashi Kyōzaburō 編『斯民之友』, 本盛堂, 1911, p. 8. National Diet Library pid 897939, scan 11. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/897939/1/11
  18. 本田善平 Honda Zenpei 編『斯民之友』, 本盛堂, 1912 printing. National Diet Library pid 1084225, scan 13.
  19. 『布教新辞典』, 森江書店, 1910. National Diet Library pid 818595, scan 44.
  20. 『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂文庫, 1914. National Diet Library pid 1913599, scan 436.
  21. 『新選一茶全集』, 町田書店, 1921. National Diet Library pid 970100, scans 28 and 218.
  22. 『一茶選集』, 春秋社, 1925. National Diet Library pid 977663, scan 61.
  23. 勝峯晋風 編『一茶発句集』, 古今書院, 1926. National Diet Library pid 1019188, scans 25 and 86.
  24. 『一茶蕪村名句全集』, 更生閣, 1926. National Diet Library pid 968909, scan 130.
  25. 『一茶名句集』, 文進堂書店, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1032569, scan 77.
  26. 半田良平 編『一茶俳句集 季題別年代考 附・一茶年譜』, 紅玉堂書店, 1925: the 例言 (scans 5–7) and the verse (scan 25). National Diet Library pid 917542. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/917542/1/25
  27. 『一茶俳句全集 季題別年代附』, 素人社書屋, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1034501, scan 24.
  28. 『名所ところどころ』, 博文館, 1920. Search-level witness; no local pid.
  29. 谷口梨花 Taniguchi Rika『汽車の窓から』, 1927. National Diet Library pid 1915562, scan 52.
  30. 『景観を尋ねて』, 鉄道省, 1933. Search-level witness; no local pid.
  31. 黒岩万次郎 編『玄堂雑纂 通俗教育資料』, 1929. National Diet Library pid 1110824, scan 27.
  32. 一瀬粂吉 編『銀行業務改善隻語』, 大阪銀行集会所, 1930. National Diet Library pid 1110153, scan 29.
  33. 飯田欓隠『通俗禅学読本』, 中央仏教社, 1934, p. 6. National Diet Library pid 1035149, scan 7. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1035149/1/7
  34. 『俳諧全句索引』, 日本俳書大系刊行会, 1928. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 262. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/262
  35. Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022.
  36. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin, 2018, pp. 163, 341.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations (the s43 history of that date; superseded by the s189 gate and the ten-s744 coding) · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — every claim tested at its address; Henderson added; corrections made — the account's claim that Henderson omits the verse is false, and its list of translators said to be absent was mistaken, all six are held here; a couple of its page image findings refuted by hand (the s92 history of that date; superseded by the s189 gate and the ten-s744 coding)

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 蝸牛そろそろ登れ富士の山 (katatsuburi sorosoro nobore fuji no yama)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/katatsuburi-sorosoro-nobore-fuji-no-yama.