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Home › Library › Philology › Bashō - In the plum blossom scent, the sun pops out, a mountain path

梅が香にのつと日の出る山路かな mume ga ka ni notto hi no deru yamaji kana Bashō - In the plum blossom scent, the sun pops out, a mountain path

This is a philological study of the haiku 梅が香にのつと日の出る山路かな (mume ga ka ni notto hi no deru yamaji kana), given to Bashō. It spans from the sequence's publication in 炭俵 in 1694 and examines the Meiji-era grammatical argument that settled how the verse works, and the eight translators who carried it into English.

Japanese Scroll of Bashō - In the plum blossom scent, the sun pops out, a mountain path (mume ga ka ni notto hi no deru yamaji kana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Bashō - In the plum blossom scent, the sun pops out, a mountain path (mume ga ka ni notto hi no deru yamaji kana)

Haiku by Bashō on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

梅が香にのつと日の出る山路かな, in the scent of plum, suddenly the sun comes up, a mountain path, is the hokku of a sequence Bashō composed with his disciple Yaba 野坡 in the early spring of 1694, published that summer in 炭俵 among the last verses of his life. Every witness gives it to him unanimously, and Meiji-era commentators fixed the sense that still holds: に marks the place of the scent, not its cause, so the sun rises where the plum is, not because of it. Miyamori, Blyth, Shirane and five other translators carried it into English across the twentieth century, most keeping Bashō's order — scent, then sun, then path.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 梅が香にのつと日の出る山路かな, and the witnesses have one text in several spellings. The first word is むめ in the 炭俵's critical text, むめがかに, and 梅 everywhere else: 梅か香に in the 1774 蝶夢 collection and the 1909 芭蕉句選, 梅か香にのツと with a katakana ツ in the 1927 dictionary, 梅が香に in the modern prints. The last word is 哉 in the 1909 句選 and one Edo manual and かな in the rest. One reading is not a variant: the 1896 reprint scans as 梅が香り, and the Edo 犬註解 is too corrupt to quote. No witness varies a word. The page's romaji mume follows the 炭俵's kana rather than the modern ume every translator uses, and it is the one place the page is closer to the source than the translators are. The meter is five, seven, five: む・め・が・か・に, の・っ・と・ひ・の・で・る, や・ま・じ・か・な.

The sense. The verse has had one sense and two arguments. The sense is the received one: plum scent on a mountain path at dawn, and the sun all at once. The Edo manual called it far-reaching; the Edo commentary argued whether the cold was spring's or autumn's, and the sequence's own season words and every modern reader answer spring. Numanami 沼波 in 1912 made the argument the verse still turns on, that に is place and not cause, so the sun does not rise because of the scent but where it is [1]. Miyamori in 1932 called it generally counted among Bashō's best verses and a supreme masterpiece of realistic description [2]. Blyth heard synesthesia, he had smelled the sun, had seen the scent of the plum-blossoms, and put the suddenness in the poet's mind rather than the sky [3]. Shirane reads it as the hokku of a sequence, with the pheasants of Yaba's 脇 flying up at the footsteps [4]; Fitzsimons makes it the type of karumi, plain in theme, light in tone, yet evocative [5]. Nobody has read it any other way.

The words. 梅が香, in the source's kana むめがか, is the scent of plum, the early-spring season word; the season of the verse is 余寒, lingering cold, by Shirane's note and Fitzsimons's, and the one Edo commentary that argues about it, the 犬註解, records a dispute whether the feel is 余寒 or 残暑 that the scan garbles and the leaf does not settle. に is the crux the commentators name: Numanami in 1912 reads it as place, 梅が香のする所で … このには場所を示す働きをして居る, where the scent is; this に marks the place [1]. のつと, notto, is suddenly, with a lurch: Blyth calls it the "jerk" to the mind of the poet of his impressions, rather than the suddenness of the sun rising [3]; Shirane, a colloquial adverb with a roundish, warm sound [4]. 日の出る山路 is the mountain path where the sun comes up, and かな the exclamation. As words the line says: In the scent of plum, all at once the sun comes up: a mountain path.

The verse in English. Miyamori translated the verse in 1932 [2], and Yasuda in 1947 [6]; Blyth followed across three books, in 1950 [3], 1963 [7] and 1964 [8], Henderson in 1958 [9], Buchanan in 1973 [10], Shirane in 1998 [4] and 2002 [11], Reichhold in 2008 [12], and Fitzsimons in 2022 [5].

The historical record

1694. 炭俵, the anthology of Bashō's last year, edited by Yaba, Koizumi Kōku 孤屋 and Ikeda Rigyū 利牛, with Kashiwagi Soryū 素龍's preface. Opened in Hagiwara Ragetsu 萩原蘿月's 1929 critical text: the preface's date and signature at page 223, and at page 224 the first leaf of 俳諧炭俵集 上巻, むめがかにのつと日の出る山路かな 芭蕉, 處〳〵に雉子の啼たつ 野坡, and the sequence on, with the editor's notes on the 原本 [13].

1698, printed 1909. Itō Fūkoku 風国, 泊船集. The verse in the early collected edition of Bashō's verse, as the 1909 typeset carries it [14].

1774. Chōmu 五升庵蝶夢, 芭蕉翁発句集. Under the year heading 元禄七戌年: 蓬莱に聞ばや伊勢の初便, then 一とせに一度つまるゝ若菜哉, then 梅か香にのつと日の出る山路かな, then the spring verses of that year [15].

Edo, undated. 幻住庵俳諧有也無也関, a haikai manual. In its 発句八躰之事, the eight styles of the hokku, the verse is the third under 無心躰, the artless style, after 赤々と日はつれなくも秋の風 and 夏草やつはもの共が夢の跡; the label 悠遠躰, the far-reaching style, which follows it on the leaf, heads the next group (ほとゝぎす消行方や島一つ, 水無月や峯に雲おく嵐山), since in this manual every style name stands at the head of its verses: the next leaf ends the list with two verses after the last name, 風曲躰, and then 右發句八躰の事. Eight verses up, at the head of the whole list and before the first name, 幽玄躰, stands 人も見ぬ春や鏡のうらの梅 [16].

Edo, undated. 風俗文選犬註解, a commentary out of Kyoroku 許六's circle. The verse in a cursive leaf that scans corrupt; the verse itself is legible, and the commentary around it remains unsettled [17].

1896. 炭俵集, a 常磐新誌社 reprint. The verse under the heading 炭俵集, which the preface calls 祖翁家集の内炭俵集; it scans as 香り [18].

1909. 芭蕉句選, a verse list by season appended to a 菅菰抄 typeset; and Numanami, 俳句の作り方. The 句選's 春之部, page 143: 梅か香にのつと日の出る山路哉, two verses above 人も見ぬ春やかゝみのうらの梅, with 山里は萬歲おそしむめの花 between them [19]. Numanami lists it among the plum verses that carry のどか [20].

1912, 1913. Numanami, two manuals. The gloss on に quoted above [1], and この句の描く所は、山路を通つて行く梅が香のする所へ來た。その時俄に山の一方が開けた所へ出たので、春の霞んだ朝日がヒヨクリと見えた, what the verse paints: walking the mountain path he came to where the plum scent was; just then he came out where one side of the mountain opened, and the hazy spring morning sun popped into view; and, 有名な句である, a famous verse [21].

1926, 1927. Shida Gishū 志田義秀, 俳文学選; 新撰俳諧辞典. Shida prints the verse signed 蕉 [22]. The dictionary, in its 連句作法 under 脇の季, on a page whose running head already reads 脇の月, gives the verse and its 脇 as the example: 梅か香にのツと日の出る山路かな 芭蕉, 脇 所々に雉子の鳴立 野坡 [23].

The attribution. Bashō's from its first printing, and no one has said otherwise. The verse is the hokku of the sequence 梅が香, which Bashō composed with Yaba in Edo in the early spring of 1694; Yaba's 脇 is 處〳〵に雉子の啼たつ, here and there pheasants crying as they fly up, and the 1927 dictionary prints the pair as its textbook example of a 脇 [23]. The sequence was published in 炭俵 that summer: the 1929 critical text carries the preface あらじかしとくちをつぐむ。元祿七の年夏閏さつき初三の日、素龍書, dated the third of the intercalary fifth month of Genroku 7 and signed by Soryū, and opens its first volume with this verse, 芭蕉 against it and Yaba against the 脇 [13]. The 1774 Chōmu collection already files the verse under 元禄七戌年 [15]. Bashō died in Osaka that winter, so this is among the last verses he wrote, and Shirane says so [4]. The critical edition Shirane cites is 芭蕉句集, 炭俵, NKBT 45:414.

What is not a source. The page's paragraph, the cold misty path and the poet looking up, is the received reading in Miyamori's and 沼波's words, and it invents nothing; it is not a source, and it does not claim to be. The 犬註解's season dispute is in the tradition but remains unsettled at the leaf. The dating rests on the 炭俵's preface and the 1774 heading, not on any manuscript of the poet's.

The verse in English

1932. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, page 163, no. 54. Headed 日の出, The Sunrise: On the mountain road the sun arose / Suddenly in the fragrance of plum-flowers, the sun put first; then the judgment quoted above and a paragraph of scene, the great ball of the red sun rose suddenly, shedding its radiance on the snow-white petals [2].

1947. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Tuttle. From plum-scented veil / Of haze suddenly rose the sun / On the mountain trail [6].

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, under PLUM-BLOSSOMS, page 305. Suddenly the sun rose, / To the scent of the plum-blossoms, / Along the mountain path, with the note on notto and the smelled sun [3].

1963. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. The same rendering [7].

1964. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, volume 2, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. The same rendering again [8].

1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor. Under the title Mountain Plum Blossoms: With the scent of plums / on the mountain road—suddenly, / sunrise comes!, with his word-for-word gloss beneath, dated 1694 [9].

1973. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications. On sweet plum blossoms / The sun rises suddenly. / Look, a mountain path!, the path made a discovery [10].

1998. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, pages 89 and 204. in the scent of the plum blossoms / suddenly, the sun comes up / a mountain path, with 野坡's 脇 and the sequence's headnote, Plum Blossom Scent (Ume ga ka, 1694), and note 46 on 余寒 and the roundish, warm sound of notto [4].

2002. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, pages 201–202. In the plum blossom scent / the sun pops up / a mountain path, with the same sequence headnote and note [11].

2008. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, no. 597. plum blossom scent / suddenly sun of rise / mountain road, her word-order literal, with the romaji [12].

2022. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō, University of California Press, no. 841. A waft of ume / and out of the blue the sun / on the mountain path, dated Spring 1694, a poem often used to illustrate Bashō's idea of karumi, and a poem of yokan [5].

Today. The house page carries no English rendering; its paragraph is the received scene. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep, and six of seven translators keep it: the scent first, then the sun, then the path, in Bashō's order.

A reading

I read the verse as Numanami did in 1912 and as Shirane does: the scent is where the poet is, the sun comes up there, and the path is the last thing named because it is what he is standing on. The season dispute of the Edo commentary is settled by the sequence and should not be raised.

References

  1. 沼波瓊音 Numanami Keion, manual of 1912. National Diet Library pid 947447, scan 26. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947447/1/26
  2. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, p. 163, no. 54.
  3. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1950, p. 305.
  4. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 89 and 204.
  5. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō, University of California Press, 2022, no. 841.
  6. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Charles E. Tuttle, 1947.
  7. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1963.
  8. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 2, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1964.
  9. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 49.
  10. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications, 1973.
  11. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, pp. 201–202.
  12. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, 2008, no. 597.
  13. 萩原蘿月 Hagiwara Ragetsu 校『炭俵』, critical text, 1929, pp. 222–225. National Diet Library pid 1176910, scan 114. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1176910/1/114
  14. 風国 Itō Fūkoku 編『泊船集』, 1698, 1909 typeset. National Diet Library pid 875664, scan 20.
  15. 五升庵蝶夢 Chōmu 編『芭蕉翁発句集』, 1774. National Diet Library pid 2540314, scan 75. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2540314/1/75
  16. 『幻住庵俳諧有也無也関』, undated. National Diet Library pid 2539775, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539775/1/15
  17. 『風俗文選犬註解』, undated. National Diet Library pid 2579648, scan 60.
  18. 『炭俵集』, 常磐新誌社, 1896. National Diet Library pid 875188, scan 4.
  19. 蓑笠庵梨一『奥細道菅菰抄』, bound with 擲筆菴 編『芭蕉句選』上巻, 1909, p. 143. National Diet Library pid 888896, scan 82. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888896/1/82
  20. 沼波瓊音 Numanami Keion『俳句の作り方』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 994608, scan 22.
  21. 沼波瓊音 Numanami Keion, manual of 1913. National Diet Library pid 812042, scan 36.
  22. 志田義秀 Shida Gishū『俳文学選』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 947714, scan 71.
  23. 『新撰俳諧辞典』, 1927, p. 15. National Diet Library pid 1128241, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128241/1/22

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, 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 — a couple of renderings added — Henderson and Reichhold both carry translations the account said did not exist; one page citation corrected