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目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹 me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo Sodō - Green leaves for the eye, the mountain cuckoo, the first bonito

目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹 (me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo) is the best-known verse of Yamaguchi Sodō 山口素堂 (1642–1716), a friend of Bashō's. This study reads its 1678 print and follows the eye, the ear and the mouth that readers, the poet first, have found in it.

Japanese Scroll of Sodō - Green leaves for the eye, the mountain cuckoo, the first bonito (me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Sodō - Green leaves for the eye, the mountain cuckoo, the first bonito目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹, green leaves for the eye, a mountain cuckoo, the first bonito, is a hokku of Yamaguchi Sodō 山口素堂 (1642–1716), printed in 1678 in the anthology 『江戸新道』 under his other name 來雪, Raisetsu, as 目にハ青葉山郭公初鰹 [1][2][3]; it names three things of early summer and no verb, and the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives it among its examples under both 青葉, the green leaves of the season, and 初鰹, the first bonito of the year [4][5]. In his own verse contest, printed after his death in 1735, Sodō set it under the headnote 鎌倉一見の頃, when I went to see Kamakura, and in judging it suggested, as a question, that once for the eye, green leaves is said, the ear and the mouth come through of themselves [6][2]; in 1764 a treatise on cutting printed it in the short form 眼に青葉, for the eye, green leaves, and said that the first five syllables hold all three senses [7]. In English it has been read, from Henderson's trinity of early summer in 1934, as three delights, and once, by Blyth, disliked for its greed [8][9]. I read the は of 目には as the word that makes the list a contrast, and the verse as a poem about appetite that knows it.

Overview

The text. The verse as brushed here is 目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹, with ほととぎす, the cuckoo, in kana. The 1678 print writes 目にハ青葉山郭公初鰹: the は as a small katakana ハ, and the cuckoo as 郭公, which the 世界大百科事典 reads ほととぎす when it quotes the verse [1][2]. It is signed 來雪 with a small 山口 above, and the ニッポニカ, the 日本国語大辞典 and the ブリタニカ each list 来雪 among Sodō's names [1][2][3].

The sense. 目には青葉, for the eye, green leaves; 山ほととぎす, a mountain cuckoo; 初鰹, the first bonito. The 精選版 日本国語大辞典 defines 初鰹 as 初夏のころ、いち早く漁獲して最初に市場に出た鰹。特に、江戸では、これを食べることを誇りとする風習があった。, bonito caught early in the beginning of summer and first brought to market; in Edo especially there was a custom of taking pride in eating it, and gives this verse among its examples, after one from 1614; it gives the verse again under 青葉 in its sense of 若々しい葉。若葉。また、青々と茂った若葉。新緑。, leaves newly sprouted that year; young leaves; also, young leaves grown thick and green; new green, a summer season word [4][5]. The デジタル大辞泉 gives the verse under 初鰹 as well, and says of the fish: 江戸時代には黒潮に乗ってきたものが鎌倉・小田原あたりでとれ、珍重された, in the Edo period, those that came on the Kuroshio current were caught around Kamakura and Odawara, and prized [4].

The words. There are three nouns and two particles, に and は, both on the first word. 目には sets the eye apart: as for the eye, the green leaves. The ear and the mouth are not named; the cuckoo, which is heard, and the bonito, which is eaten, name them. With は, the first part runs to six syllables, me-ni-wa-a-o-ba, one more than the five of the measure; without it, 目に青葉, it runs to five. An anthology of 1996 notes that the verse holds three season words, and calls that unusual [10].

The text in English. Harold G. Henderson gave it in 1934, as Sodō's trinity of early summer, Green leaves to see, / A mountain cuckoo, and the first / Bonito — all three!, and his romanized line under it reads Me ni aoba [8]. The renderings since are taken in order below.

The historical record

1678. 『江戸新道』. An anthology of haikai verse compiled by Ikenishi Gonsui 池西言水, dated 延宝六 (1678) by the 国書データベース, which records one copy with images, at the University of Tokyo (洒竹文庫) [1]. On the left page of the eighth image, a short line in kana stands lower than the verse columns, and after it [1]:

目にハ青葉山郭公初鰹　　山口 來雪

The short line before the verse is a headnote. I could not settle it character by character at the image; its shapes fit かまくらにて, at Kamakura, and 洒竹's quotation of the verse in 1897 prints 鎌倉にて in that place (1897 below) [1][11].

The poet. The 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (桜井武次郎) gives Sodō as 姓は山口，名は信章, born in 甲斐国 to a family of 郷士, who studied the Chinese classics in Edo under the Hayashi house, sat with 桃青 (Bashō) at a 1675 gathering for 宗因, published 《江戸両吟集》 with him the next year, and moved to 葛飾 about 1685–86; the entry closes with the verse and its source, 〈目には青葉山郭公（ほととぎす）はつ鰹〉（《江戸新道》） [2]. The ニッポニカ (堀信夫) gives his other names, 別号に来雪、松子、素仙堂、蓮池翁, and ends with the verse [2]; the 日本国語大辞典 gives 別号来雪・素仙堂など and his dates, 寛永一九～享保元年（一六四二‐一七一六）, and the ブリタニカ his names, 別号，来雪，松子，素仙堂，蓮池翁 [3].

1735. 『とくとくの句合』, the poet's own judgment. A verse contest of Sodō's, its verses set in pairs and judged; the 世界大百科事典 says it was printed after his death, in 1735, and the ニッポニカ lists it among his works [2]. Read here in its 1914 typeset, at the page image, round twelve; the page names no poet for either verse [6]:

十二番　左　鎌倉一見の頃 目には青葉山ほとゝぎすはつ鰹 　右 夜鰹やまたじとおもへば蓼の露 左目には青葉といひて耳に郭公口に鰹とおのづから聞ゆるにや鎌倉中の景色これにすぎず右も來ぬ夜あまたのといふ古歌を取りてほとゝぎすの對には尤の事ながら左と同日の論にあらず

Round twelve. Left, "When I went to see Kamakura": green leaves for the eye, a mountain cuckoo, the first bonito. Right: "Night bonito: thinking I will not wait, dew on the smartweed." On the left, having said "for the eye, green leaves", perhaps "for the ear, a cuckoo; for the mouth, bonito" come through of themselves. All the scenery of Kamakura goes no further than this. The right, too, takes up an old poem's "many nights it does not come", and is apt as a match for the cuckoo, but it is not to be spoken of on the same day as the left. The judgment's にや makes its middle a question, softened here as perhaps. The headnote here is 鎌倉一見の頃, not the 鎌倉にて that 洒竹 prints for the 1678 page (1678 above) [6][1][11]. The right-hand verse is a night bonito verse; Shirane's account of that name is under 2012 below.

Two more anthologies, reported. The 日本国語大辞典 cites the verse, as 「目には青葉山ほととぎす初がつほ〈素堂〉」, from the anthology 『曠野』 (1689) [4][5]. A lecture series of 1930 says it is in 『續虛栗』 and prints it with the headnote 鎌倉にて, in the National Diet Library's snippet view [12]. Neither book was opened for this history.

1764. 『俳諧有也無也之関』, the eye, the ear and the mouth. A treatise on haikai, its first page headed 幻住庵俳諧有也無也關, printed in 明和元 (1764) by the 国書データベース's record of the copy read [7]. On leaf 五 it illustrates kinds of cut. After the two-part cut, 二段切, it gives the three-part cut [7]:

三段切　眼に青葉山郭公初鰹 　梅若菜まりこの宿のとろゝ汁 右目に耳に口にといへる心を五文字に含て三段の切となれり

Three-part cut: "green leaves for the eye, a mountain cuckoo, the first bonito"; "plum blossom, young greens, and grated yam soup at the Mariko inn". In these, the sense of "for the eye, for the ear, for the mouth" is held in the first five syllables, and they become a cut in three parts. The verse is printed without は, 眼に, and the treatise says that those five syllables carry all three senses. A commentary on another treatise, 『芭蕉翁廿五ヶ條解』, in the same reprint of 1899, says the same at more length: 我家の三段とは目に靑ば山ほととぎす初鰹…前は眼に靑若〔葉〕を見耳に子規を聞き口に鰹を味ふと眼耳口の三物三躰に對して, what our house calls a three-part verse is "green leaves for the eye…": in the first, one sees the green leaves with the eye, hears the cuckoo with the ear, and tastes the bonito with the mouth, set against the three, eye, ear and mouth; its own date was not established for this history, and it is read in the National Diet Library's snippet view [13].

1797. A gazetteer. 『東海道名所圖會』 gives the verse, as 目には青葉山郭公初かつほ, signed 素堂, in the National Diet Library's snippet view [14].

1897. The headnote in a quotation. 大野洒竹 Ōno Shachiku, editing the volume of verse before Bashō in 『俳諧文庫』, quotes verses of three poets from 江戸新道(延寳六年), 其風躰を見ん, to see their manner, among them, under 來雪, 「鎌倉にて 目には靑葉山時鳥初松魚」, writing the cuckoo 時鳥 and the bonito 初松魚, in the snippet view [11]. The 1678 print writes 郭公 and 初鰹 [1].

The phrase in prose. Japanese books and magazines of the Meiji era and after, in the National Diet Library's full text, use the verse's words as a name for the season; among the oldest forty items the full text returns for 山郭公初鰹, thirty-seven of them with the words in the window, the short form, 目に靑葉 or 眼に靑葉, is the commoner, two of them being reprints of the 1764 treatise. A history of Nihonbashi of 1916 says that in 彼の「目に靑葉山郭公初鰹」の季節, the season of "green leaves for the eye, a mountain cuckoo, the first bonito", 市價又非常に高騰する, the market price, too, rose very high, in a passage that mentions the fish wholesalers, 魚問屋, in the snippet view [15].

1942. A credit to Bashō. A book of 1942 by 高田集蔵, 『耳で物を喰べる話』, begins a passage 芭蕉の句に、目に靑葉山ほとゝぎす初鰹と云ふのがありますが, among Bashō's verses there is one, "green leaves for the eye…", in the short form, in the National Diet Library's snippet view [16]. It is the one witness read for this history that names Bashō as the poet. A book of 1920 about the Edo poet Ōta Nanpo, 『蜀山人風流記』, has a speaker say 翁も目に靑葉山郭公初鰹魚と言はれたが, as the old master said too, "green leaves for the eye…", without a name; the same book writes 芭蕉の翁, the old master Bashō, elsewhere, so the 翁 is probably Bashō; in the snippet view, the page itself not opened [17].

The verse in English

1934. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom. Sodō's trinity of early summer: / Green leaves to see, / A mountain cuckoo, and the first / Bonito — all three!; and in the word-for-word note, Me ni aoba / yamahototogisu / hatsu katsuo, Eyes in green-leaves mountain-cuckoo first bonito [8].

1958. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku. The same lines, set as Green leaves to see, / a mountain cuckoo, and the first / bonito—all three!, with the reading made explicit: the point is the piling up of the similar effects of three delightful things acting simultaneously on three different senses; (To a Japanese the first bonito is as much a delicacy as the first trout is to us.) [18].

1963. Blyth, A History of Haiku. He is famous for a verse (which I dislike for its greediness) of eye, ear, and tongue, printed as 目には青葉山時鳥初松魚, Me ni wa aoba yama-hototogisu hatsu-gatsuo: Green leaves for the eye; / The mountain cuckoo, / The first bonito. [9].

1966. Yuasa. In a note to his translation of Bashō's travel journal, Nobuyuki Yuasa gives Sodō's style as probably best represented by the following poem: Fresh green for my eye, / In the mountains, for my ear / The songs of cuckoo — / First bonito for my tongue. [19].

1996. Bowers. A view of greenery, / a wild cuckoo, / the first bonito, in a translation signed EGS, with the note One of the most famous of all haiku. Unusually, it includes three "seasonal words" (kigo). It tells of the trio of splendid summer enjoyments for eye, ear and tongue. [10].

1999. Ueda. In a note to the Edo comic verse it costs nothing / for the eye and ear, but a lot / for the mouth (me mo hana mo tada da ga kuchi wa takaku tsuki, from the senryu collection he abbreviates SHM, Tenmei 2), Makoto Ueda says it alludes to a famous hokku by Yamaguchi Sodō (1642–1716) that cites the three great pleasures offered by nature in early summer, and gives green leaves for the eye / cuckoos in the forest / and the first bonito, romanized me ni aoba / yama hototogisu / hatsugatsuo [20]. The senryu's Japanese characters are not on the page, and it is given here only in his romanization.

2012. Shirane. Before my eyes the green leafed hills, the small cuckoo, and the first bonito, with This famous hokku grasps early summer through three senses: sight (new green leaves in the hills), sound (the voice of the small cuckoo), and taste (the first bonito) [21]. Shirane's green leafed hills takes 山, mountain, with the leaves; every other rendering read here reads 山 with the cuckoo, as its place or its kind. At the foot of p. 184 and the top of p. 185, Shirane writes that In the Edo period, bonito were caught at Kamakura or Odawara (present-day Kanagawa Prefecture) and rapidly couriered to Edo, where they arrived by night (thus the name night bonito …), romanizing it yo-gatsuo, and gives Bashō's Were they alive when they left Kamakura? The first bonito; Sodō's verse, he writes, brings these elements together [21]. The デジタル大辞泉 says the same of Kamakura and Odawara [4]. On these two pages Shirane does not mention Sodō's headnote or his contest.

A reading

The record first. The verse is Sodō's, printed under his name 來雪 in 1678 with 目には, written 目にハ, and a short headnote that 洒竹's quotation gives as at Kamakura [1][11]. By 1764 it was printed in the short form 眼に, and read as eye, ear and mouth [7]. The English read here has read it the same way from Henderson on, and of those renderings only Blyth's holds the appetite against it [8][18][9].

The readings next. Sodō, judging his own verse, suggested that the ear and the mouth come through of themselves once the eye is named, and that Kamakura's scenery goes no further than it; the 1764 treatise found the three senses in the first five syllables; Henderson found the piling up of the similar effects of three delightful things; Blyth, greed; the Edo comic verse Ueda quotes, the bill: the eye and the ear are free, the mouth is dear [6][7][18][9][20]. None of this is mine.

What I sign is this. The は in 目には is the word the short form drops, and it is the hinge of the verse. 目には means for the eye, and as for the eye: it sets the eye against what is coming, and the verse never names the ear or the mouth, because it does not need to. Sodō said as much of his own verse, as a question: once the eye is named, the rest perhaps おのづから聞ゆる, comes through of itself [6]. A cuckoo is heard, and a bonito is eaten. With は, the first part runs one syllable over the measure, and the extra syllable is the contrast. So the list is not three equal pleasures piled up; it is a turn from two that are free to one that costs, the turn the comic verse saw and Blyth disliked. In the Edo the 日本国語大辞典 describes, where people took pride in eating the first bonito, a poet who names the leaves and the bird first, and the fish last, knows where the season's appetite lands. I think the verse is about that appetite, and is good-humored about it. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the verse. Point by point, against the witnesses read for this history:

Sources not seen

『曠野』 (1689) and 『續虛栗』 at a leaf. Both are reported to carry the verse, the first by the 日本国語大辞典 and the second by a lecture series of 1930; reading them would show each form and whether each has the headnote.

The headnote of 1678 at a higher resolution, or in a second copy. The 国書データベース records one imaged copy; the headnote's reading as 鎌倉にて rests here on 洒竹's quotation.

『素堂家集』, the two collections of Sodō's verse the ニッポニカ names, not opened.

『東都歳事記』 (1838), which the 日本国語大辞典 names under 初鰹 and which the National Diet Library's snippets show quoting the verse among 初鰹 verses, not opened at the leaf.

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

References

  1. 言水 編, 『江戸新道』, 延宝6 (1678), canvas 8, the copy at the University of Tokyo (洒竹文庫), at the 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100411287/8
  2. 「素堂」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (桜井武次郎) and 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) (堀信夫), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/素堂-90212
  3. 「山口素堂」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/山口素堂-144072
  4. 「初鰹」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/初鰹-602292
  5. 「青葉」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/青葉-24156
  6. 素堂, 『とくとくの句合』, 宮崎璋蔵 校訂, 1914, p. 九, scan 6, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/920748/1/6
  7. 『俳諧有也無也之関』, 明和元 (1764), leaf 五, canvas 7, the copy at the Hachinohe City Library, at the 国書データベース, 国文学研究資料館. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100059446/7
  8. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom: An Introduction to Japanese Haiku, Houghton Mifflin, 1934, p. 8, read on the house's shelf.
  9. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido, 1963, p. 188, read on the house's shelf.
  10. Faubion Bowers, ed., The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, Dover, 1996, p. 11 and its note 3, read on the house's shelf.
  11. 大野洒竹, 「俳諧略史」, in 『俳諧文庫』 第2編 『芭蕉以前俳諧集』, 博文館, 1897 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1876095
  12. 『国文学講座』 第23巻, 1930 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1120183
  13. 『芭蕉翁廿五ヶ條解』, in 『俳諧文庫』 第15編 『続俳諧論集』, 博文館, 1899 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1876192
  14. 『東海道名所圖會』, 寛政9 (1797), 巻6 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2559319
  15. 『日本橋区史』 第3冊, 1916 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951553
  16. 高田集蔵, 『耳で物を喰べる話』, 1942 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1092580
  17. 徳川歌山, 『蜀山人風流記』, 1920 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/908848
  18. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 7, read on the house's shelf.
  19. Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa, Penguin, 1966, p. 162, note 50, read on the house's shelf.
  20. Makoto Ueda, Light Verse from the Floating World: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu, Columbia University Press, 1999, p. 208 and its note 1, read on the house's shelf.
  21. Haruo Shirane, Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts, Columbia University Press, 2012, pp. 184–185, read on the house's shelf.

Authors

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

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

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 目には青葉山ほととぎす初鰹 (me ni wa aoba yama hototogisu hatsugatsuo)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/me-ni-wa-aoba-yama-hototogisu-hatsugatsuo.