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梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家 nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure ie Shiki - A pear tree is blooming, By a collapsed house, on an old battlefield

梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家 (nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure ie) is Shiki's verse of pear blossom and a house fallen in where the battle was. He wrote it at 金州 in the spring of 1895, as a war correspondent, and printed it himself in 1902. This study follows its prints, its Japanese readings and its English from Blyth to Sato.

Japanese Scroll of Shiki - A pear tree is blooming, By a collapsed house, on an old battlefield (nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure ie) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Shiki - A pear tree is blooming, By a collapsed house, on an old battlefield梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure ie

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家, pear trees in bloom, and a house fallen in, where the battle was, is Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規's, written in his own hand in the fourth book of his manuscript 寒山落木 at 金州, where he had gone as a war correspondent in the spring of 1895 as the Sino-Japanese War was ending. It was first printed in April 1902, in the selection of his verses he made himself, under the manuscript's headnote two verses at 金州; every witness after it agrees on the poet, and two later prints write the あと of the middle line in kanji, as traces. Blyth set the verse among his first examples of the loneliness of haiku and printed his three lines three times; Beilenson, Higginson, Watson and Sato followed him into English, and Higginson read the kana line as an answer to Bashō's summer grass.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家, and the record carries one text in several writings. The autograph writes 梨咲くやいくさのあとの崩れ家 [1]: 咲 in kanji, いくさ and あと in kana. Shiki's own selection of 1902 prints it so [2], and so do nearly all the printings after it; the 1915 selection writes 梨さくや, kana for the verb [3], as Blyth does [4][5]. Two prints write the あと in kanji, and both as traces, not after: the selection of 1908 writes いくさの趾の崩れ家 [6], and a collection of 1910 that follows its order writes いくさの跡の崩れ家 [7]. The 2022 reprint of Blyth's essay of 1951 writes 後, after [8]. One real misquotation: the 1929 railway guide to South Manchuria prints 梨咲くや戰のあと崩れ家, dropping the second の and a syllable with it, on a page that sets the verse under Nogi Maresuke 乃木希典's Chinese quatrain on the same battlefield [9]. The sense holds across all of them. The meter is five, seven, five: な・し・さ・く・や, い・く・さ・の・あ・と・の, く・ず・れ・い・え. The designs served for this text differ in writing. Two of the three scroll designs, and two of the four word designs, write いくさ in kana, as the autograph does, and the rest write 戦. One scroll design and one word design write the verb of the last line in kana, くずれ家. Two scroll designs and two word designs write 崩家, the kanji without its kana ending, a writing no witness here has.

The sense. Kawahigashi Hekigotō 河東碧梧桐, who went to Kobe with Shiki's mother to nurse him in hospital there on his way home, read the 金州 verses in his commentary on the 1902 selection, printed as a book in 1907: calm, graceful, tolerant, with nothing pressing in them; though they are scenes after a war, not a trace of exaggeration, no pointless tragic diction, no bluster. He allowed that a real scene of wreckage after a war might have borne grieving words, and then gave the verses their due: within this calm a scene after the war plainly appears, and the sense of standing in the real place is a master's [10]. The 1942 textbook, wanting war poetry, found none of the raw breath of war in them [11]. Blyth in 1949 set the verse in his chapter on Zen as the first example of the loneliness of haiku, not that of the poet as a recluse, not that of desolate places and forgotten men, though it may be induced by them [4]; in 1950 he gave it a picture: the house has fallen down for no apparent reason, from disuse and lack of repair perhaps. Near it, thousands of human beings gouged one another's eyes out … But this too time can change into something of pathos and faint splendour. A pear-tree stands there, its white blossoms quite still. What has it to do with battles long ago, or this tumble-down hut? [5]; in 1951: the loneliness of Shiki is that of Buson, more inclusive but with less serenity [8]. Higginson in 1985 heard Bashō in it. Bashō's 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡 ends on ato, and in both poems there is a pun on the word ato, which may be written any of three ways: as a character meaning "track"; as a character meaning "after"; or in phonetic script which leaves the choice up to the reader. Shiki writes the whole middle line in kana, ikusa carrying Bashō's kusa, grass, inside it, so his choice of ambiguity is not accidental: with a ruined house rather than a castle or fort, and a recent battle rather than a long-ago one, he made the cruelty of war, rather than its grandeur, a fit subject for haiku [12]. Watson in 1997 gives the place and the month and no reading [13].

The words. 梨 is the pear, its white bloom a spring season word; さくや, blooms, and, the cut. いくさ is battle, war. あと is after, and written 跡 or 趾 it is traces, the ground where a thing was; the kana holds both, and the second の binds the phrase to the house. 崩れ家 is a house fallen in, kuzure-ie. As words the line says: Pears in bloom: the fallen house of after the battle. Nothing in the Japanese says old; the battle was some five months gone.

The verse in English. Blyth printed the same three lines in 1949 [4], in 1950 [5], and in his essay Buddhism and Haiku of 1951 [8]; Beilenson gave his own in 1968 [14], Higginson his in 1985 [12], Watson in 1997 [13], and Sato rendered it as one line in 2018 [15].

The historical record

1895, spring. Shiki at 金州, in his own hand. 寒山落木 is Shiki's fair copy of his verses by year and season; the fourth book is Meiji 28, 1895. On the 梨花 leaf: 鞦韆の影静かなり梨花の月, then the headnote 金州二句, two verses at 金州, then 梨咲くやいくさのあとの崩れ家 and 梨老いて花まばらなり韮畠, each with Shiki's own selection circle and the second with Hekigotō's red 碧 beside it; the facing page carries Chinese poems [1]. The manuscript was reproduced in facsimile in the collected works of 1924, the leaf as it stands [16].

1902 (April). Masaoka Shiki, 獺祭書屋俳句帖抄 上巻, 俳書堂. The selection is Shiki's own. His preface says he chose the verses himself, as if my own ghost were choosing my old verses, and that the thought first came when Takahama Kyoshi 高浜虚子 asked whether he had anything for 俳書堂 to publish. Printed page 43, 明治二十八年 春: 須磨 / 敦盛の塚に櫻もなかりけり / 鞦韆の影靜かなり梨花の月 / 金州二句 / 梨咲くやいくさのあとの崩れ家 / 梨老いて花まばらなり韮畠, the manuscript's order and its headnote. The first print of the verse, in the poet's lifetime [2].

1907. Kawahigashi Hekigotō, 新俳句研究談. A commentary on the 1902 selection, fewer than eight hundred verses chosen from many thousands. On the verses of Meiji 28 he remembers the spring: the farewell before Shiki left, the news from Hiroshima and 金州, the news from Kobe, the weeks at the hospital. Then, printed pages 156–157, the 金州 verses, seven of them, this one and its pair among them, all spring verses, because it happened to be spring, and, he adds, the other 金州 verses were made after he came home to Japan. His reading, quoted above, follows [10].

1908. Segawa Sozan 瀬川疎山 (ed.), 子規句集, 文山堂. Printed page 37, under 梨花: 梨老いて花まばらなり韮畠 / 梨白し此の頃美女を見る小家 / 鞦韆の影靜かなり梨花の月 / 梨咲くやいくさの趾の崩れ家 / 對の屋に灯の殘りけり梨の花, with no headnote, the あと written 趾 [6].

1909 (20 June). Takahama Kyoshi and Kawahigashi Hekigotō (eds.), 子規遺稿 第五編, 子規句集, 俳書堂. Printed page 29, 梨の花: 鞦韆の影靜かなり梨花の月 二八 / 金州 / 梨老いて花まばらなり韮畠 同 / 梨花白し此頃美女を見る小家 三〇. The editors chose the pair and not this verse [17].

1910 (3 January). 文禄堂編輯局 (ed.), 俳諧三家集, 文禄堂. Printed page 92, under 梨花, in the 1908 selection's order: 梨咲くやいくさの跡の崩れ家, the あと written 跡 [7].

1915 (5 December). Samukawa Sokotsu 寒川鼠骨 (ed.), 寒山落木より 子規句集, 政教社. Under 梨花: 梨老て花まばらなり韮畑 二八 / 金州二句 / 梨さくやいくさのあとの崩れ家 二八 / 梨花白し此頃美女を見る小家 三〇, the two 金州 verses in the reverse of the manuscript's order and the headnote between them; both dated 二八, Meiji 28 [3].

1918. 俳句研究会 (ed.), 子規名句集, 崇文堂. The verse, 梨咲くやいくさのあとの崩れ家 [18].

1929. 南満洲鉄道 (ed.), 南満洲鉄道旅行案内, the 金州 pages. The guide says the Second Army under Yamaji and Nogi took the city in the Sino-Japanese War. Under 玉皇廟と鐵牛, Nogi Maresuke's 山川草木轉荒凉。十里風腥新戰場。征馬不レ前人不レ語。金州城外立二斜陽一。, with the kaeriten as the guidebook prints them and 凉 for the received 涼, then, as Shiki's, 城壁の上に見えけり春の山 / 梨咲くや戰のあと崩れ家 / 古城や菫花咲く石の門, then Numanami Keion 沼波瓊音's verses [9]. The railway's guidebook quotes the verse a syllable short and gives it a company.

1942. 厚生研究会 (ed.), 文学入門, the chapter on war haiku. 戰ひのあと少き燕哉 子規 / なき人のむくろを隱せ春の草 同 / 梨咲くやいくさのあとの崩れ家 同 / 古城やいくさのあとの朧月 同 / 行く春の酒をたまはる陣屋哉 同 / これらは、日露戰爭の折、正岡子規が從軍し金州で作つた句でありますが、ほとんど戰蹟俳句とも見られるやうな、戰爭の只中にあるなま〳〵しい息吹は…, these are verses Shiki made at 金州 as a correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War, almost battlefield-site haiku, without the raw breath of being in the midst of war. The wrong war by ten years, and the right observation [11].

The attribution. Shiki's, in his own hand, and dated by the manuscript's arrangement and by his own headnote; printed in his lifetime in the selection he made himself [1][2]. 金州 is Jinzhou near Dairen, which the Second Army took in the campaign that occupied 大連 and 旅順 in November 1894 [9][19]. Shiki went to the war as a correspondent for 日本 in the third month of Meiji 28 and was coughing blood by the fifth [20]; the armistice came on 30 March 1895 and the peace was signed on 17 April [19]; Watson places him at 金州 in April, immediately after the end of the Sino-Japanese War [13]. Hekigotō, who nursed him in Kobe, names this verse among those made at 金州 and sets apart the 金州 verses made after his return [10]. The 1915 selection dates both pear verses 二八 [3]. So the verse is spring 1895, written on ground fought over the autumn before, by a man who arrived after the fighting.

What is not a source. The railway guide's 戰のあと崩れ家 is a misquotation, not a variant. The 1942 textbook's 日露戰爭 is wrong; the manuscript's own book is Meiji 28.

The verse in English

1949. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 177, in the chapter on Zen. 梨さくやいくさのあとの崩れ家 子規; By a house collapsed, / A pear tree is blooming; / Here a battle was fought. [4]

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, pages 323–324, PEAR-BLOSSOMS. 梨さくやいくさのあとの崩れ家 子規; Nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure-ie; By a house collapsed, / A pear-tree is blooming; / Here a battle was fought [5]. With the paragraph quoted above.

1951. R. H. Blyth, "Buddhism and Haiku," Monumenta Nipponica 7. The same three lines, after the loneliness of Shiki is that of Buson, more inclusive but with less serenity; reprinted in Poetry and Zen, 2022 [8].

1968. Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press. By that fallen house / The pear-tree stands full-blooming / An ancient battle-site, signed Shiki [14]. The first English here to make the battle ancient.

1985. William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook, McGraw-Hill, pages 22–23. In the account of Shiki as war correspondent, beside Bashō's summer grass: the pear blossoming / after the battle this / ruined house, interlinear with the romaji, and the reading quoted above [12].

1997. Burton Watson, Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems, Columbia, page 34, no. 36, Chin-chou. Pears in bloom— / a wrecked house / left from the battle; 1895 SPRING; the footnote on the city and the month [13].

2018. Hiroaki Sato, On Haiku, New Directions. Pear blooms: after a battle a collapsed house, one line, with the Japanese and the romaji, among the 金州 verses [15].

A reading

I read the verse as its first critic did: a scene after a war, with nothing pressed. The pear blooms because it is spring; the house has fallen because a battle passed; the verse holds them side by side and says nothing about either, and the second の, which the railway guide dropped, is what keeps the house the battle's and the pear its own. The kana あと holds after and traces at once, and I would not choose between them; Higginson's Bashō is there to be heard, and the verse does not need him. Blyth's battles long ago is his, and Beilenson's ancient battle-site his, not the poem's; the battle was five months gone.

Sources not seen

ホトトギス, volume 5, number 10, July 1902, ホトトギス社 (National Diet Library digital collection, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/7972181, served to registered readers in Japan only). The library's own text of the issue carries the verse and the words of Hekigotō's reading, 穩雅優容, which his book of 1907 prints; reading the issue would settle whether that reading was first printed in July 1902, in Shiki's lifetime, and so whether the Overview should give that date.

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

References

  1. 正岡子規 Masaoka Shiki 自筆『寒山落木』巻四, 1895. National Diet Library pid 2546168, scan 44. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2546168/1/44
  2. 正岡子規『獺祭書屋俳句帖抄』上巻, 俳書堂, April 1902, printed page 43; the author's preface at scans 1–7. National Diet Library pid 875216, scan 39. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875216/1/39
  3. 寒川鼠骨 Samukawa Sokotsu 編『寒山落木より 子規句集』, 政教社, 5 December 1915, printed pages 72–73; the colophon at scan 190. National Diet Library pid 954209, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954209/1/69
  4. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949, p. 177.
  5. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1950, pp. 323–324.
  6. 瀬川疎山 Segawa Sozan 編『子規句集』, 文山堂, 1908, printed page 37. National Diet Library pid 875080, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875080/1/24
  7. 文禄堂編輯局 編『俳諧三家集』, 文禄堂, 3 January 1910, printed page 92; the colophon at scan 142. National Diet Library pid 875352, scan 63. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875352/1/63
  8. R. H. Blyth, "Buddhism and Haiku," Monumenta Nipponica 7, no. 1/2 (1951), https://doi.org/10.2307/2382960; reprinted in R. H. Blyth, Poetry and Zen: Letters and Uncollected Writings, ed. Norman Waddell, Shambhala, 2022.
  9. 南満洲鉄道 編『南満洲鉄道旅行案内』, 1929, pp. 18–19; the 金州 history at scan 38. National Diet Library pid 1915520, scan 39. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1915520/1/39
  10. 河東碧梧桐 Kawahigashi Hekigotō『新俳句研究談』, 東京大学館, 1907, printed pages 156–157, scans 82–84. National Diet Library pid 875170, scan 84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875170/1/84
  11. 厚生研究会 編『文学入門』, 1942, pp. 128–129. National Diet Library pid 1127096, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1127096/1/69
  12. William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 1985, pp. 22–23.
  13. Burton Watson, Masaoka Shiki: Selected Poems, Columbia University Press, 1997, p. 34.
  14. Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press, 1968.
  15. Hiroaki Sato, On Haiku, New Directions, 2018.
  16. 正岡子規『子規全集』第2巻, アルス, August 1924, the manuscript in facsimile; the colophon at scan 216. National Diet Library pid 978836, scan 53. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978836/1/53
  17. 高浜虚子・河東碧梧桐 編『子規遺稿』第五編, 子規句集, 俳書堂, 20 June 1909, printed page 29. National Diet Library pid 871911, scan 26. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871911/1/26
  18. 俳句研究会 編『子規名句集』, 崇文堂, 1918. National Diet Library pid 933037, scan 53. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/933037/1/53
  19. 「日清戦争」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and 日本大百科全書, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/日清戦争
  20. 「正岡子規」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/正岡子規

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), 2026-09-06, citations · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — a couple of renderings added — Higginson and Satō, missed though both carry the poem; several OCR readings marked

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 梨さくや戦のあとの崩れ家 (nashi saku ya ikusa no ato no kuzure ie)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/nashi-saku-ya-ikusa-no-ato-no-kuzure-ie.