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A world of grief and pain: Flowers bloom; Even then ... ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote 苦の娑婆や 桜が咲けば 咲いたとて issa 一茶

Japanese Scroll of Issa - A world of grief and pain, Flowers bloom, Even then (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとて Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとて, this world of suffering; if the cherry blooms, even granting it has bloomed, is Issa's, and it comes down in two forms, both his. The earliest writing of it known to the witnesses read here is in the 1819 part of his verse journal, the 八番日記, among the verses of the tenth month, as 苦の娑婆や花か開けはひらくとて, the flower opens, so it opens; that plainer line is the one his pupils printed in 1829 and the collected editions read here, 1902 to 1935 (the 1928 index apart). The form with the cherry is the one on a pair of silk hangings Ogiwara Seisensui attributes to Issa, written over a seated figure Ogiwara calls the self-portrait Issa liked to draw; Ogiwara photographed the pair and described it in his book of 1938, and Blyth in 1950 reproduced a pair with the same two verses, with the words 人も一茶 added to the cherry verse and the note that the haiga is also by the poet; neither says the two pairs are one. The English renderings, from Miyamori and Blyth on, carry both forms; no witness read here records an occasion for the verse, though Sōma in 1935 imagines one, and a child's death as its occasion is written at none.

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Overview

The text. The scroll carries 苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとて. The first phrase is one text everywhere; the second and third come down in two forms, and both are Issa's. The first is the journal's. In the 八番日記, Issa's verse journal for 1819 to 1821, known from a careful copy finished in 1851, the verse is written among the verses of the tenth month of 1819 as 苦の娑婆や花か開けはひらくとて [1]. The bundle titled だん袋, autograph sheets of the early 文政 years that his pupil 雲士 of Naganuma collected, carries it again, 苦の娑婆や花が開ばひらく迚, four years on: the 1930 print sets the page in two registers, the run reading from the upper into the lower, and the entry dated 文政六 二月十二日, 1823, stands in the upper register, the verse in the lower, before the entry dated the fifteenth [2]. The 一茶発句集 his pupils printed in 1829 sets it among verses on the blossoms, 苦の娑婆や花か開けハひらく迚 [3]; 一具's enlarged edition, which the 1930 editors date to 1848, keeps it in the same place [4][2]; and the collected editions read the same: Ōtsuka 大塚 in 1902, 苦の娑婆や花が開けば開くとて [5]; Katsumine 勝峰 in 1921 [6] and 1926 [7]; Shimada 島田 in 1925 [8]; Handa 半田 in 1935 [9]. The second form is the one written over a painting. Ogiwara Seisensui 荻原井泉水, in a chapter that has just described a visit to the house called 水石亭, writes after a section break of a pair of silk hangings: the cherry verse, in his spelling 苦の娑婆や櫻がさけば咲いたとて, over the one-stroke seated figure Issa liked to draw as his self-portrait, and a second verse over a picture of a house; he had the pair taken down from the alcove and photographed it, and both its verses, he says, were ones often seen; his book is of 1938 [10]. Blyth in 1950 reproduced a pair with the same two verses, the cherry verse as 苦の娑婆やさくらが咲ばさいた迚 with the words 人も一茶 added, and noted that the haiga is also by the poet [11]. Neither says the two pairs are one. The 1928 index of the 日本俳書大系 files the cherry form under the source tag 選抄, which the index page does not expand, 苦の娑婆や櫻が咲ばさいたとて [12], and Sōma Gyofū 相馬御風 quotes the cherry form in 1935, writing 苦の娑婆や櫻が咲けば咲いたとて [13]. Miyamori, who printed both forms side by side in 1932, calls them one verse with exactly the same meaning [14]. He is right about the sense; among the witnesses read here, the cherry form is the one written over the paintings, and the flower form the journal's and the printed collections'. The meter of the brushed form is five, seven, five: く・の・しゃ・ば・や, さ・く・ら・が・さ・け・ば, さ・い・た・と・て; the journal's form runs five, seven, five: は・な・が・ひ・ら・け・ば, ひ・ら・く・と・て.

The sense. One sense and two tempers. Fujii Otoo in 1906 lists the verse among his examples, after a sentence on Issa's use of proverbs and the common word [15]; Tsuda Sōkichi 津田左右吉 in 1921 cites the verse as an instance of a Buddhist-style pessimism, 佛敎式悲觀思想, which he calls only one side of Issa's thought, who was by no means a pessimist at root [16]; 市島 in 1929 hears in it 含蓄 and 諷刺, implication and satire, lodging a truth [17]; Miyamori in 1932 gives the Sanskrit and the plain meaning and says the two Japanese forms mean the same [14]; Blyth in 1950 writes under it that the relation between pain and beauty is the major problem, not only of poets, but of all men, and that in the insolubility of the problem lies the meaning [11]; Hamill renders it once in 1995 and three ways in 1997 [18][19]. The とて allows both a pessimistic and an optimistic reading, and the verse does not tell you which.

The words. 苦の娑婆 is the world as a place of suffering. 娑婆 is the Buddhist word for this world, the Sanskrit sahā in Chinese letters, translated 堪忍 and 能忍, enduring: the place where beings who cannot shake off their passions live by bearing their pain [20]; Miyamori gives the derivation and adds that in ordinary use it simply means the world [14]. The phrase is Issa's stock, not a coinage for this verse: the 1908 全集 carries 苦の娑婆やヤレ花見ソレ月見とて, this suffering world: now flower-viewing, now moon-viewing, and 苦の娑婆と艸さへ伏すか秋の暮 on the same words [21]. 桜が咲けば咲いたとて is if the cherry blooms, even granting it has bloomed: とて here is the concessive particle, 仮定の逆接を示す。たとえ…としても。…ても (日本国語大辞典, 接続助詞), which デジタル大辞泉 says is used with an expression of negation or a rhetorical question, 打消し・反語の意の表現を伴って, …としても。…といっても [22]. No such expression follows here: the verse stops, and what it would say is left unsaid. The journal's 花が開けばひらく迚 says the same with flower and open. The unsaid clause is where both a pessimistic and an optimistic reading live, and the verse does not choose between them. As words the brushed line says: This world of suffering; if the cherry blooms, even granting it has bloomed, and what would follow is left unsaid.

The verse in English. Miyamori in 1932 printed both Japanese forms side by side and gave one rendering for both, Ours is a world of suffering, / Even if cherry-flowers bloom, lines he also sets among Issa's in his Introduction [14]; Bowers in 1996 prints the same two lines under the journal's romaji, initialled AM, which his key gives as Miyamori, listing his One Thousand Haiku of 1930 [23]. Blyth carried the cherry form, in two renderings: A world of grief and pain: / Flowers bloom; / Even then......, in a volume first printed in 1949 [24], and A world of grief and pain, / Even when cherry-blossoms / Have bloomed, in a volume first printed in 1950 [11]. Mackenzie, in a book first printed in 1957 [25], Hamill from 1995 [18][19] and Silent Flowers, which reprints Blyth [26], render the cherry form too, Mackenzie and Hamill's 1997 book with romaji, none with the Japanese script; Donegan in 2010 renders the journal's, this world of suffering— / even if the flower opens / even if it opens [27].

The historical record

1819, the tenth month. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶, the 八番日記, the verse journal, as the 1946 edition prints it from the 1851 copy. Among the winter verses of paper robes: 紙衣似合と言れしも昔也 / 目出たからるゝともしよせん紙衣哉 / 苦の娑婆や花か開けはひらくとて / 目出度と人はいへとも紙衣哉. No headnote at the verse. The month is the copy's own: 十月 opens the lower register at the end of p. 72, the month's daily register runs to its tally at the top of p. 76, and 十一月 opens p. 81; the year's total closes 文政二 on p. 92, and 文政三辰正月 opens p. 93. The earliest writing of it known to the witnesses read here [1].

1823, the second month. Issa, a page of だん袋, as the 1930 print sets it in two registers. Upper register: 文政六 二月十二日 / 畠打や通してくれる寺參り …. Lower register: 吉原三日花 / こちさらも目の正月ぞさくら花 / 苦の娑婆や花が開ばひらく迚 / 齒ももたぬ口に咥へてつぎ穗哉 / 二月十五日 / せうばんに我らもごろり涅槃哉. The run reads from the upper register into the lower: verses of 夜寒 close p. 528's lower register and open p. 529's upper, and the butterfly verses run on from p. 529's upper register into its lower [2].

Undated. Two descriptions of a pair with the same two verses. Ogiwara's pair of silk hangings: a one-stroke seated figure with 苦の娑婆や櫻がさけば咲いたとて, and a house with にはの蝶子が這へばとび這へばとぶ [10]. Blyth's plate: 苦の娑婆やさくらが咲ばさいた迚 / 人も一茶, and にはの蝶子が這へばとび這へばとぶ / 家も一茶 [11]. Neither says the two are one pair.

1829. The 一茶発句集, printed by his pupils. The 1930 editors describe it as 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, selected in shares by the leading pupils of the 俳諧寺 circle and printed [2]. Among verses on the blossoms: 今の世や猫も杓子も花見笠 / あり様ハ我も花より団子かな / 苦の娑婆や花か開けハひらく迚, and then a headnote on 山下常楽院. The earliest print read here [3].

1848. 一具's enlarged 一茶發句集, as 有朋堂 reprints it in 1935. The 1930 editors know one 一茶發句集 besides the 1829 book, 善光寺の今井彥右衞門が增補して嘉永元年に板行した小菊本二册, two small volumes, enlarged by 今井彥右衞門 of Zenkōji and printed in 嘉永元年, 1848 [2]; the record of the work lists printings of 1829, 1848 and 1851 [4]. The verse in the same run, 苦の娑婆や花が開けばひらく迚, now followed by さる人は病氣をつかふ花見かな, and then, under the headnote 新吉原, by 行灯ではやしたてるや花の雲. 一具's preface, signed 弘化丁巳彌生 as the reprint prints it, a cyclical year the 弘化 era does not contain, says the pupils' collection was what is called 藏板, 世におほやけならざる, not public, and that he added to it verses heard and verses found in letters and prints [4].

1902. Ōtsuka Kōzan, 一茶俳句全集. 苦の娑婆や花が開けば開くとて, between 今の世や猫も杓子も花見笠 and the verse that opens さる人ば病氣を [5].

1906. Fujii Otoo, 俗諺論, an essay on proverbs. 近世の俳人にして、巧に諺を用ひしは、俳諧寺一茶なり。一茶は滑稽を好み、俗語を愛す, of the poets of the recent age, the one who used proverbs skillfully was Issa; he loved humor and loved the common word, and this verse among his examples [15].

1921. Tsuda Sōkichi, 文学に現はれたる我が国民思想の研究. 「苦の娑婆や花が開けば開くとて」のやうな佛敎式悲觀思想をさへ時には述べてゐるのであるが、それは彼の思想の一面に過ぎないのであつて, he sometimes even states a Buddhist-style pessimism, as in this verse, but that is only one side of his thought [16].

1921 to 1935. Katsumine Shinpū's 新選一茶全集 [6] and 一茶発句集 [7]; Shimada Seihō's 一茶選集 [8]; Handa Ryōhei's 季題別年代附 [9]. The journal's form, 花が開けばひらく迚 or 開けば開くとて.

1928. Katsumine Shinpū, 日本俳書大系, the index volume. クノシ (選抄) 苦の娑婆や櫻が咲ばさいたとて, the cherry form, under the source tag 選抄, which the index page does not expand [12].

1929. 市島謙吉, 春城漫筆. The verse among Issa's that carry 含蓄 and 諷刺 and of themselves lodge a deep truth, beside 露の世を押しあひへし合萩の花; 以上一茶 [17].

1935. Sōma Gyofū, 道限りなし. 俳諧寺一茶の次の如き句である。苦の娑婆や櫻が咲けば咲いたとて, glossed 何てまあ苦勞や苦情の絕えない世の中ぢや, what a world, never free of toil and complaint; and he imagines its occasion, Issa sighing at people who fret even when the cherry is in bloom, 卽ちこの一句となつたのであらう, that, presumably, became this verse [13].

1938. Ogiwara Seisensui, 一茶を尋ねて. After a visit to the house called 水石亭 and a section break: 一茶が自畫像として好んで書いてゐる一筆がきの坐像に題して, over the one-stroke seated figure Issa liked to draw as his self-portrait, 苦の娑婆や櫻がさけば咲いたとて; and, 同じやうな家の圖に題して, over a picture of a house done the same way, にはの蝶子が這へばとび這へばとぶ. 双方とも、しばしば見かける句だけれども, both are verses one often sees, but a pair on silk, set against each other, is careful work for Issa; 私はこれを、第一に床から外してもらつて寫眞に撮つた, I had this taken down from the alcove first and photographed it [10].

The dictionaries today. At the kotobank entry for the poet, デジタル大辞泉 gives his dates as 1763–1828; 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives 宝暦一三～文政一〇年, 1763–1827 [28].

The attribution. Issa's, at every witness read here that names a poet: in a copy of his verse journal, on a sheet the 1930 editors place among his autograph sheets, and over the paintings of the pair Ogiwara describes and the pair Blyth reproduces, each attributed by its author to him. The 八番日記 sets the verse among the verses of the tenth month of 文政2, 1819, in his fifty-seventh year by the old count; it is the journal of the year of おらが春 and of the year his daughter Sato died, as the 1946 editor's introduction recounts, and it gives the verse no headnote [1]. The journal survives in a copy made by 風間新藏 and finished in 1851, which the 1946 editor thinks very accurate, 極めて正確と思惟される; the autograph, he writes, had not been found [1]. The verse stands again in だん袋, the bundle of his autograph sheets from the early 文政 years that his pupil 雲士 of Naganuma collected, under a title slip in Issa's own hand, four years later, in the run after the entry dated 文政六 二月十二日, 1823, and before the entry dated the fifteenth [2]. The cherry form is written over a painting: Ogiwara names the figure as the seated one Issa liked to draw as his self-portrait [10], and Blyth, printing a pair with the same two verses, says the haiga is also by the poet [11]. Fujii Otoo in 1906 lists the verse among his examples, with no proverb beside it [15], Tsuda Sōkichi in 1921 cites it as an instance of a Buddhist-style pessimism [16], 市島謙吉 in 1929 one of the verses that lodge a truth [17], and the English translators read here, from Miyamori to Donegan, all name Issa [14][24][11][25][26][18][19][23][27].

What is not a source. The sentence beauty had the audacity to be in the same world made Issa's pain all the greater is in no text of Blyth's read here: the word audacity occurs in none of his renderings or essays on this verse read here, and his passage on the verse says the problem is insoluble, not that the flowers add to the pain [11]. A child's death as the verse's occasion is written at no witness read here: the journal sets the verse in the year Sato died and gives it no headnote, and a date beside a grief is a neighbor, not a cause [1]. The other 苦の娑婆 verses are the phrase's company in Issa, not sources for this one [21].

The verse in English

1932. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, pages 537–538. Both Japanese forms printed one above the other, 苦の娑婆や 花が開けば ひらく迚 and 苦の娑婆や 櫻が咲けば さいたとて, each with its romaji, then Ours is a world of suffering, / Even if cherry-flowers bloom, the Sanskrit derivation, and the judgment that the two readings have exactly the same meaning; the same two lines stand among Issa's verses in his Introduction, p. 41 [14]. Bowers prints the same two lines initialled AM, which his key gives as Miyamori, listing One Thousand Haiku: Ancient and Modern, Dōbunsha, Tokyo, 1930 [23].

1949. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 177; read in the twentieth printing, 1971. In the chapter on Zen, after It is in the painful things that happen when we are happy, in the pleasant things that happen when we are sorrowful: 苦の娑婆や櫻が咲けばさいたとて, A world of grief and pain: / Flowers bloom; / Even then...... [24].

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 2, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 351 and the plate before it; read in the tenth printing, 1967. A world of grief and pain, / Even when cherry-blossoms / Have bloomed, with the sentences on pain and beauty quoted above; and, on the plate between pp. 350 and 351, a pair with the same two verses, with the note the haiga is also by the poet and the words added to the verse rendered The people, and Issa, too [11].

1957. Lewis Mackenzie, The Autumn Wind, John Murray, London; read in Kodansha International's reissue, Autumn Wind Haiku, new paperback edition, 1999, no. 118. Ku no shaba ya / Sakura ga sakeba / Saita tote, A world of care! / And if the Cherry flowers— / Well; it has flowered!, followed by (Men—and Issa too), the English he gives Hito mo Issa at no. 108; 人も一茶 are the words on Blyth's plate [25][11].

1967. Silent Flowers, Hallmark, from Blyth's four volumes. Lines that match his 1949 rendering, A world of grief and pain: / Flowers bloom; / Even then [26].

1995 and 1997. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water and The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala. A world of trials, / and if the cherry blossoms, / it simply blossoms in 1995 [18]; in 1997 that and two more, each under the romaji Ku no shaba ya / sakura ga sakeba / saita tote: This suffering world: / the flowers will blossom, but / even at that . . .; Pain and suffering— / even if the old cherry / had somehow blossomed [19].

1996. Faubion Bowers, The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Dover, page 68. ku no shaba ya / hana ga hirakeba / hiraku tote, Ours is a world of suffering, / Even if cherry-flowers bloom, followed by the initials AM, which Bowers's key to translators gives as Asatarō Miyamori, One Thousand Haiku: Ancient and Modern, Dōbunsha, Tokyo, 1930 [23].

2010. Patricia Donegan with Yoshie Ishibashi, Love Haiku, Shambhala. The journal's form, ku no shaba ya hana ga hirakeba hiraku tote: this world of suffering— / even if the flower opens / even if it opens [27].

2022. R. H. Blyth, Poetry and Zen, Shambhala. The 1949 lines with other punctuation, in the essay Haiku as Poetry Transcended, to which its text layer gives no first date: A world of grief and pain: / Flowers bloom: / Even then…., with the remark that the loneliness of Issa is that of Bashō, but with less of nature and more of man [29].

A reading

The attribution is sound, and so is the cherry form: it is not a translator's variant but the form written over the paintings of the pair Ogiwara describes and the pair Blyth reproduces, each attributed by its author to Issa. The plainer line is the journal's and the printed collections'; on the witnesses read here the cherry is the one over the paintings, the form he chose when the verse was to hang on a wall. Miyamori is right that the two mean one thing. Read as words, the verse is a man looking at a cherry in bloom and declining to be consoled by it; Tsuda was right that this is one side of Issa and not the whole of him, and the とて keeps the other side in the same breath. The journal puts the verse in the year Sato died. The verse does not say so, and it needs no death to be true.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Issa - A world of grief and pain, Flowers bloom, Even then (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとてVB6CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Issa - A world of grief and pain, Flowers bloom, Even then (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとてVC6BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Issa - A world of grief and pain, Flowers bloom, Even then (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとてVD5BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Issa - A world of grief and pain, Flowers bloom, Even then (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとてVS5CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『上田郷友會月報』, 1893, National Diet Library pid 13342193, and 『國學院雜誌』, 1897, pid 3364670. The library's full-text search finds 苦の娑婆や花 in both, the oldest periodical prints it knows; both are on its restricted service, and they would show what the verse was read as before the collected editions.

Asatarō Miyamori, One Thousand Haiku Ancient and Modern, Dōbunsha, 1930, National Diet Library pid 1680896, open only in Japan. Bowers credits Miyamori's two lines to it [23]; it would show them at their 1930 page.

『集古』, 1935 and 1936, pids 1890780 and 1890784: a sale list the full-text search reads as naming a tanzaku by Issa, 苦の娑婆やさくらがさけは咲た迚; 荻原井泉水 編『一茶真蹟集』, 1937, pid 1172481; and 『日本古典文学全集』42, 『近世俳句俳文集』, 1972, which the search reads as describing a painting inscribed 苦の娑婆やさくらが咲ばさいた迚 一茶. Each would add to the brushed witnesses of the cherry form; the history rests that form on the two it has read.

『一茶八番日記』, 1927, pid 1186726, the journal's first edition, from the same 1851 copy as the edition cited.

The 一茶全集, 信濃毎日新聞社, 1976–1979, which would date the painted pairs and give every witness in one place.

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

References

  1. 小林一茶 著, 栗生純夫 校訂『新校八番日記』, 信濃郷土誌出版社, 1946, printed pages 78–79 (the verse) and the 解題 at the front. National Diet Library pid 1128414, scans 41 and 3–5; the month and year headings at scans 38 (p. 72), 40 (p. 76), 42 (p. 81) and 48 (pp. 92–93). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128414/1/41
  2. 信濃教育会 編『一茶叢書』, 1930, printed pages 528–529 (the verse), the 解題 of だん袋, and the 解題 to the 一茶發句集. National Diet Library pid 1186739, scans 58, 56 and 154. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/58 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/154
  3. 『一茶発句集』, 文政12 (1829), 県立長野図書館 copy, canvas 17. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース BID 100005293. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100005293/17
  4. 藤井紫影 校『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂, 1935, 一茶發句集: 一具's preface, printed pages 783–784, and the verse, printed page 797. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scans 425–426 and 432. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/432 · The edition of 嘉永元 (1848) in the National Institute of Japanese Literature's record of the work, 96071. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/api/workDetail/96071
  5. 大塚甲山 編『一茶俳句全集』, 1902, printed pages 68–69. National Diet Library pid 874848, scan 37. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874848/1/37
  6. 勝峰晋風 編『新選一茶全集』, 1921. National Diet Library pid 970100, scans 24, 244. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970100/1/24
  7. 勝峯晋風 編『一茶発句集』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 1019188, scans 17, 74. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019188/1/74
  8. 島田青峰 編『一茶選集』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 977663, scan 52. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/977663/1/52
  9. 半田良平 編『一茶俳句全集 季題別年代附』, 1935, printed pages 22–23. National Diet Library pid 1034501, scan 18. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1034501/1/18
  10. 荻原井泉水『一茶を尋ねて』, 育英書院, 1938, printed pages 184–185. National Diet Library pid 1261240, scan 110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1261240/1/110
  11. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1950, p. 351 and the plate between pp. 350 and 351; read in the tenth printing, 1967.
  12. 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』, the kana index, 1928, printed pages 200–201. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 266. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/266
  13. 相馬御風『道限りなし』, 厚生閣書店, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1236313, scan 20. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1236313/1/20
  14. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, pp. 537–538 and p. 41.
  15. 藤井乙男『俗諺論』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 902816, scans 166 (the sentence) and 167 (the verse among his examples). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902816/1/166 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/902816/1/167
  16. 津田左右吉『文学に現はれたる我が国民思想の研究』第4巻, 1921, printed page 706. National Diet Library pid 1913174, scan 367. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913174/1/367
  17. 市島謙吉『春城漫筆』, 1929. National Diet Library pid 1174229, scans 212–213. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1174229/1/212
  18. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water, Shambhala, 1995.
  19. Sam Hamill, The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala, 1997.
  20. 「娑婆」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/娑婆-511583
  21. 俳諧寺可秋 編『一茶一代全集』, 1908 (kin verses on the same stock phrase; this verse absent from the three komas read). National Diet Library pid 874846, komas 47, 98, 141.
  22. 「とて」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/とて-584150
  23. Faubion Bowers, ed., The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Dover, 1996, p. 68 and the key to translators.
  24. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949, p. 177; read in the twentieth printing, 1971.
  25. Lewis Mackenzie, The Autumn Wind: A Selection from the Poems of Issa, John Murray, London, 1957; Kodansha International, 1984; no. 118, read in the reissue Autumn Wind Haiku: Selected Poems by Kobayashi Issa, Kodansha International, new paperback edition, 1999.
  26. Dorothy Price (ed.), Silent Flowers, Hallmark, 1967.
  27. Patricia Donegan with Yoshie Ishibashi, Love Haiku, Shambhala, 2010.
  28. 「小林一茶」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/小林一茶
  29. R. H. Blyth, Poetry and Zen, Shambhala, 2022.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 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), 2026-09-05, citations · GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — the meter corrected and one page citation corrected

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 苦の娑婆や桜が咲けば咲いたとて (ku no shaba ya sakura ga sakeba saita tote)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ku-no-shaba-ya-sakura-ga-sakeba-saita-tote.