Summer grass, all the warriors are, but the remains of dreams natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato 夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡 bashō 芭蕉

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡 Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡, summer grass: where the warriors' dreams have vanished, is Bashō's, composed at Hiraizumi in the fifth month of 1689, printed in the anthology 猿蓑 in 1691 under the heading 奥州高館にて, at Takadachi in Ōshū, and set in his travel journal 奥の細道; a prose piece on the dead prince Yoshitsune 義経 carries it as well, though its prose may be the anthologist's rather than the poet's. 猿蓑 and the journal in print, in the copy reproduced in 1932, read が; the anthology 泊船集 of 1698 printed の, the first English translators read here who give the Japanese or romaji, from Chamberlain in 1902, wrote の too, and the の endures in some books after 1932. Some two dozen English translators read here, from Chamberlain to Fitzsimons in 2022, have carried the verse, disagreeing chiefly over whether 夢の跡 means the dream is over or still being dreamt.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡, and the witnesses that quote the verse divide on one particle; 潁原's apparatus of 1947, at pp. 117–118, records no other variant ^[1]. 兵ども and 兵共, 草 and 艸, 跡 and あと, つはもの and 兵 are writings: the 奥の細道 editions read here (志田 1926, 萩原 1929, 西山 1936), 島田's 1927 全集 and Hagiwara 萩原's 1942 book print 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡; Itō 伊藤 in 1934 writes 夏艸; the 1931 一代集 writes 兵共; the 1933 children's encyclopedia writes 夢のあと with the old word glossed in kana above; Miyamori prints つはものどもが夢のあと. The journal in print, from the fair copy Kashiwagi Soryū 柏木素龍 made of its final text, writes 夏草や兵どもか夢の跡 in the copy photographed in 1932, the particle a cursive か without dakuten, read が by ordinary practice and plainly not の ^[2]. 猿蓑, the anthology that printed the verse in 1691 under the heading 奥州高館にて, reads 夏草や兵共がゆめの跡 ^[1]. The other reading is nearly as old. The anthology 泊船集 of 1698 prints なつ草や兵どもの夢の跡 under the same heading; 潁原退蔵 Ebara Taizō, in his 1947 edition of the complete verse, records that two more books, 生駒堂 and 渡し船, print 兵どもの; and 服部畊石 Hattori Kōseki in 1932 sets the 泊船集 の beside the journal's が as the verse's two forms ^[1][3]. Others wrote the の in passing: Kyōden 京伝 in 1813 made 夏草や兵どもの夢路の落人 a chapter title, and a diary of 1897, reporting a companion's visit to Hiraizumi, gives the verse as 兵どもの夢のあと, while an Edo picture-book borrowed 兵どもが夢の跡 for a castle ruin. The first English books read here that give the Japanese or romaji gave the の, not the printed journal's が: Chamberlain's romaji in 1902 and again in 1905, where he also set the Japanese in type as 夏草やつはもの共の夢の跡 ^[4], Dickins copying Chamberlain in 1906 ^[5], and Nitobe in 1909, whose own footnoted Japanese is 夏草や武者どもの夢の跡, with 武者 for 兵 as well ^[6]. Miyamori in 1932 is the first English book read here to print が ^[7]. The の endures beyond the Edo witnesses: Blyth in 1960 prints the Japanese with の, Sato in 2018 prints it once with の and once, as 夏艸や兵共か夢の跡, with が, and Lewis Mackenzie's introduction to his Issa, first published in 1957 and reprinted in 1984, gives the romaji as tsuwamonodomo no ^[8]; the other witnesses after 1932 read here that print Japanese or romaji write が (Henderson 1934 and 1958, Keene 1955 and 1976, Miyamori 1932 and 2002, Miner 1981 for 猿蓑, Higginson 1985, Ueda 1992, Sato 1996, Barnhill 2004, Reichhold 2008); the の is a living reading, as old as 泊船集 and not only a Meiji one. The meter is five, seven, five: な・つ・く・さ・や, つ・わ・も・の・ど・も・が, ゆ・め・の・あ・と.

The sense. The dictionaries today give 夢の跡 as a place: デジタル大辞泉, 夢のように消えうせた所。現実のむなしさをいう, a place that has vanished like a dream; it speaks of the emptiness of the real; 精選版 日本国語大辞典, 今となっては夢のようにあとかたも残っていないところ。また、往時はそこにいた人人がいろいろな夢を馳せたであろう古いあと, a place of which, now, as of a dream, no trace remains; or the old site where the people once there must have dreamed their many dreams, both entries citing this verse ^[9]. 夏草 is summer grass, the season word, in both, and 兵 read つわもの is a fighting man, or especially a very strong warrior, with this verse as the example ^[9]. The prose around the verse fixes its sense and nobody has moved it: the warriors' glory became the grass, and the poet wept. What the readers add is what kind of thing the verse is. Shirane in 1998 reads it against the Noh play 邯鄲 and 李華's 弔古戦場文, the landscape as the memory of a text ^[10]; Konishi, carried by Ueda and Fitzsimons, says for the first time in the history of haikai, an idea has become the subject of a poem ^[11]; Miyamori in 1932 warns that the ellipsis lets a casual reader take it as grasses wave where the warriors dreamed of glory when the phrase implies as much as "did heroic deeds which have proved empty as a dream" ^[7]. The one live question is in 夢の跡, and the translators show it: is the dream over, so that the grass is all that remains, or is it still being dreamt, so that Porter's soldiers sleep beneath the grass dreaming? Shirane's traces sit on the first side: All that is left of the once great ambitions are the "traces" or "tracks", the barely visible marks of the past ^[10]. No Japanese commentator read here has the soldiers asleep beneath the grass, though one, in Ueda, has each soldier's dream lingering on each blade of it; whether the Japanese permits Porter's reading is argued under A reading. Two facts about the line's resistance to English belong beside this: Henderson's twenty-five years of trying and his wish that some genius could find the proper English, and Miyamori's own note that the Japanese is ambiguous. The Japanese commentators Ueda gathers read the phrase in more than one way too: for Nobutane the battle is long past and seems like a dream, for Mizuho each soldier's dream is lingering on each blade of grass ^[12].

The words. 夏草や is summer grass, the summer season word, with や the particle of exclamation, デジタル大辞泉's 詠嘆・感動の意を表す, for which that dictionary gives this verse as its example ^[9]. 兵ども, tsuwamonodomo, is the warriors, the older word for a fighting man, and ども a plural suffix that, used of people, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 calls less respectful than たち: 目下、または軽蔑すべき者たちの意を含めて用いる, used with the sense of those beneath one, or held in contempt ^[9]; Mizuho, in Ueda, hears in it each soldier's dream ^[12]; the 1933 encyclopedia glosses 兵 in kana above the line for children. 夢の跡 taken word by word is the trace, site or aftermath of a dream, and that is the phrase the English translators work from; Shirane glosses 跡 as site, aftermath, trace, track and 夢 as dream, ambition, glory, and says the poem depends on polysemous key words ^[10]; デジタル大辞泉's senses of 夢 include 将来実現させたいと思っている事柄, what one hopes to bring about, and はかないこと, a thing that does not last ^[9]; Miyamori calls the phrase Yume no ato a puzzel (so printed) to most readers ^[7]. The translators show the range of the phrase: all that remains in Blyth, all that's left in Nitobe and Hass, all that is left to us now in Carter; traces in Shirane and Revon; glory's aftermath in Fitzsimons; a relic in Chamberlain; and Porter's soldiers asleep within the grave, still dreaming. The 1936 school edition gives the plain sense: 嘗て忠義な士たちが勇戰し功名を立てた、その功名も夢の如くはかなく過ぎ去つてあとかたもなく, the loyal men who once fought bravely and won their names; even that glory passed like a dream and left no trace, and one sees only the heedless summer grass, green ^[13]. Built from both dictionary entries, the place gone like a dream and the place where the warriors once dreamed, this history's gloss reads the line: Summer grass: where the warriors' dreams have vanished.

The verse in English. Chamberlain's 1902 paper to the Asiatic Society is the earliest English rendering read here, and its romaji writes の, as the books of the next thirty years that give the Japanese or romaji do too ^[4]; Miyamori in 1932 gave the first が ^[7], and more than fifteen further translators read here, through Fitzsimons in 2022, carried the verse on, disagreeing chiefly over whether 夢の跡 names a dream already over or one still being dreamt.

The historical record

1689. Bashō, 奥の細道, the Hiraizumi entry, as Shida Gishū 志田義秀 prints it in 1926. 三代の榮耀一睡の中にして、大門のあとは一里こなたにあり。秀衡が跡は田野に成りて、金鷄山のみ形を殘す。先づ高館にのぼれば、北上川南部より流るゝ大河なり。衣川は和泉が城をめぐりて、高館の下にて大河に落入る。泰衡等が舊跡は、衣が關を隔てゝ南部口をさし堅め、夷をふせぐと見えたり。偖も義臣すぐつて此の城にこもり、功名一時の叢となる。國破れて山河あり、城春にして草靑みたりと、笠うち敷きて時のうつるまで泪を落し侍りぬ。 The glory of three generations passed in the space of one sleep; the site of the great gate is a league this side of here. 秀衡's seat has turned to paddies and fields; only 金鷄山 keeps its shape. First I climbed 高館: the 北上 is a great river flowing down from 南部; the 衣川 circles 和泉's castle and falls into the great river below the hill. 泰衡's old seat, beyond the 衣 barrier, guarded the 南部 road against the northern tribes. Here the chosen loyal men shut themselves in this castle, and their glory became in a moment the grass. "The country broken, the hills and rivers remain; the castle in spring, and the grass is green": I spread my hat and wept until time passed. Then the verse, and after it Sora 曾良's 卯の花に兼房みゆる白毛哉, in the white deutzia I see 兼房's white hair. Shida's margin glosses Du Fu, 國破れて云々—杜甫、春望「國破山河在、城春草木深」, and Kanefusa 兼房 as Yoshitsune's old retainer who fought with his white hair streaming and died ^[14].

1689. 松尾芭蕉, 御曹子, a prose piece, as the 1931 一代集 prints it. さてもそのゝち御さうしは、十五と申はるの比、鞍馬の寺を忍ひ出、あづまくだりの旅衣、はるけき四國西國も、此高館の土となりて、申ばかりはなみだなりけり。 And so, after that, the young lord, in the spring of his fifteenth year, slipped out of the temple at Kurama in a traveler's robe for the east; he who had gone as far as Shikoku and the western provinces became the earth of this 高館, and there is nothing to say of it but tears. Then 夏草や兵共が夢の跡 旅士 はせを. The piece is dated 元祿二年作, and the editor's note says that Shadō 洒堂's 白馬集 carries it with the words 「此一章得『古翁眞蹟』如『墨末』乾」也, that this piece was had from the old master's own hand with the ink, as it were, still wet ^[15]. 服部 in 1932 quotes the piece from 白馬集 without comment ^[3]. 白馬集 itself is a book of 1702, compiled by Shadō and Masahide, thirteen years after the journey, and Fitzsimons's list of sources does not name it for this verse ^[16]. 潁原 in 1947 prints the piece as one of the verse's forms, tagged 白馬, and doubts the prose: 古い繪卷の十二段草子にこの詞書とほゞ同じ文句がある。それをとつて白馬集の撰者が附したものか, the old picture scroll 十二段草子 has words almost the same as this preface; perhaps the compiler of 白馬集 took them from it and attached them ^[1].

1691. 去来 Kyorai and 凡兆 Bonchō, 猿蓑, an anthology of the poet's school. 奥州高館にて, at Takadachi in Ōshū, then 夏草や兵共がゆめの跡: so 潁原 prints it in 1947, taking this print as the verse's text, and his note gives the journal's 兵どもが beside it ^[1]. A copy printed later from the same blocks, with the 1691 afterword and the Kyoto publisher 井筒屋庄兵衛's imprint, sets the heading on its own line, 奥刕高舘にて, and the verse in cursive, 夏草や兵共かゆめ乃跡, signed 芭蕉: ゆめ in kana, the line ending in 乃 (の) and 跡, and after 兵共 a glyph that is not the 乃 the same hand writes for の at the line's end, so が, unvoiced as the print leaves it, and not 泊船集's の ^[17]. The cursive was read with 潁原's transcription beside it, by a non-specialist eye, not a paleographer's. The book was published in Kyoto in the seventh month of 1691, two years after the journey ^[18]. Fitzsimons's heading, At Takadachi in Ōshū Province, translates this preface, and his list of sources names 猿蓑 for the verse ^[16]. Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri's 1981 translation of the anthology prints it as number 132, "At Takadate in Oshu" / Natsukusa ya / tsuwamonodomo ga / yume no ato, The summer grasses / the high bravery of men at arms / an aftermath of dreams ^[19].

1702. 奥の細道 in print, in Soryū's hand, as photographed in 1932. The journal was printed from the Nishimura text, one of the two fair copies Soryū made of its final version, which Bashō chose and carried on his last journey in 1694 ^[10], and first published by 井筒屋 in Kyoto in 1702 ^[20]; the copy the 1932 editor reproduced at full size closes with the imprint of the Kyoto publisher 井筒屋庄兵衛, so it is a print, not the manuscript, and which impression it is was not read. The Hiraizumi passage in Soryū's cursive: 偖も義臣すぐつて此城に籠り功名一時の叢となる 国破れて山河あり城春にして草青みたりと笠打敷て時のうつるまで泪を落し侍りぬ, then in its own column 夏草や兵どもか夢の跡, then Sora's 卯の花 verse and 兼て耳驚かしたる二堂開帳. 兵 and 跡 in kanji, ども in kana, the particle a か without dakuten. Of the witnesses read here it stands closest to the fair copy, and its particle is read が; the cursive judged by a non-specialist eye, not a paleographer's ^[2].

1698. 風国 Fūkoku, 泊船集, an anthology of the poet's verse, as 潁原 prints it in 1947. Shirane dates the anthology to 1698 and names Fūkoku its editor ^[10]. 奥州高館にて, then なつ草や兵どもの夢の跡, the particle の ^[1]. 服部 in 1932 prints the same form in normalized spelling, 夏草や兵どもの夢の跡, beside the journal's が ^[3]. Both editions name it for the の, dated seven years after 猿蓑; 潁原 names two more witnesses to the の, 生駒堂 and 渡し船, without their text or a date.

Edo, undated. Shōtei Kinsui 松亭金水 and Hiroshige 広重, 絵本江戸土産, a picture-book of Edo. The phrase 兵どもが夢の跡 borrowed, without the poet's name, for the ruin of the 里見 castle at 国府台: the verse's words taken for another ruin ^[21].

1813. Kyōden, 雙蝶記, a tale, illustrated by Toyokuni 豊国. 夏草や兵どもの夢路の落人, summer grass: fugitives on the warriors' dream-road, as a chapter title in a tale of 北条時行 (the body text prints 兵 with the reading つはもの above it; the contents leaf carries the reading only, 夏草やつはものどもの夢路の落人), and 夏草の露と消にし夢の跡 as an allusion in the text. The verse remade for a story a century and a quarter after it was written ^[22].

1897. 西川太次郎, 全國週游日記, a traveler's diary. The diarist reports that his companion 砂川, who had parted from the party at Sendai, visited the old castle at Hiraizumi and 中尊寺 and rejoined it the same day, and adds 「夏草や兵どもの夢のあと」の句あるは此近郊とす, the verse "summer grass: where the warriors' dreams have vanished" belongs to these parts; the account places it under an old tree at 衣が關, 衣が關古樹の下に, and says nothing of how it stands there; the diary writes の ^[23].

1927 to 1942. Shimada Seihō 島田青峰; Obara Kuniyoshi 小原国芳's 児童百科大辞典 of 1933; Itō Shōu 伊藤松宇's 俳諧雑筆 of 1934; 西山隆二's school edition of 1936; Hagiwara in 1929 and 1942. The verse in a kigo run, in a children's encyclopedia with つはもの glossed, in an essay on Bashō climbing the hill 弔ひ, to mourn, with the verse, in a school reader with the gloss quoted above and the note that Bashō changed Du Fu's 草木深 to 草青みたり, and there the craft lies ^[24][13].

The dictionaries today. The Britannica entry on kotobank gives the poet's dates; its separate 奥の細道 entry dates the journey to 1689 ^[20].

The attribution. Bashō's, in his own book and in his school's anthology of 1691 ^[1][18]. The journal dates the setting out, 十二日、平泉と心ざし, on the twelfth, making for Hiraizumi, and not the arrival ^[14]; the day of the visit is the editors'. The 奥の細道 entry: the glory of three generations of Fujiwara 一睡の中にして, gone in the space of one sleep; 秀衡's seat 田野に成りて, turned to rice paddies and wild fields; then the climb to 高館, the castle hill where 義経 and his retainers died ^[16], and the prose that leads to the verse, quoted above ^[14]. Shirane's index gives the day as the thirteenth of the fifth month of Genroku 2, June 29, 1689 ^[10], and Barnhill the same ^[25]; 服部 in 1932 heads the passage 五月十四日, the fourteenth ^[3], and the pre-1949 Japanese books we searched among the NDL's openly readable full texts divide between the two days. Fitzsimons heads the verse At Takadachi in Ōshū Province and dates it Summer, 1689 ^[16]. A second text carries the verse, first placed here from the 1931 一代集: a short prose piece headed 御曹子, the young lord, on Ushiwakamaru 牛若丸, who left the temple at Kurama at fifteen and whose journeys ended as the earth of this same hill, 此高館の土となりて; it closes with the verse signed 旅士 はせを, the traveler Bashō, and the piece is dated 元禄二年作 and named as carried by Shadō's 白馬集 ^[15]. The verse is the poet's in both; the prose is his only if 潁原's doubt is wrong, since the preface nearly repeats the old 十二段草子 and may be the 白馬集 compiler's ^[1]. No source read here gives it to anyone else, and no English translator read here gives it to another poet.

What is not a source. Du Fu's 春望 is the text Bashō quotes on the hill, and the 1936 editor is right that the craft is in the one word he changed; it is the verse's company, not its origin. The Noh play and 李華's lament are Shirane's frame ^[10]. Kyōden's chapter title, the picture-book's borrowed phrase and the 1897 diary's line are the verse's Japanese afterlife, and they show its words borrowed in Japanese, for another ruin and for a story, before the verse reached English; they are not sources for it. Its sources are the journal and the 1691 anthology, with the 白馬集 prose beside them under 潁原's doubt, read here in twentieth-century editions and not at an Edo leaf.

The verse in English

1902. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, volume 30, Rikkyo Gakuin Press, Tokyo, page 305, number 46. Natsu-gusa ya / Tsuwa-mono-domo no / Yume no ato; Haply the summer grasses are / A relic of the warriors' dream. Then his gloss: That is, "Of the warriors' dream of power and glory, nought remains but the high grasses waving o'er the moor that is their tomb." Introduced as Bashō's lines composed on one of Japan's most famous battle-fields, now a desolate moor. The earliest English rendering read here, and the one Miyamori collects in 1932 as Chamberlain's ^[4].

1905. Basil Hall Chamberlain, A Practical Introduction to the Study of Japanese Writing (Moji no Shirube), second edition, Crosby Lockwood, London, and Kelly & Walsh, Yokohama, pages 223–224, number 8. The Japanese set in type on page 223, 夏草やつはもの共の夢の跡, and on page 224 the romaji with の and The summer grasses are what remains of the warriors' dreams. (Composed on an ancient battle-field.), beside 古池 and 物いへば as reading exercises. A plainer second rendering by the same hand ^[26].

1906. F. Victor Dickins, Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts, translated into English, Clarendon Press, Oxford, "Epigrams — Hokku," page 310, number XXXII. Natsu-gusa ya / tsuwa-mono-domo no / yume no ato; Nought but summer grasses tall / fallen warriors' dreams recall. (The vanity of glory.) Page 309 says the texts are taken verbatim from Professor Chamberlain's admirable paper and the translations based on those there given; so one witness for the text and a second for the rendering, a rhymed couplet ^[5].

1909. 新渡戸稲造 Inazō Nitobe, Thoughts and Essays, Teibi Publishing Company, Tokyo, "In Hiraizumi," page 153. My thoughts are again with the dead, as my feet wander among these fields on the banks of the Kitakami and the Koromo … Even if the master epigrammatist sings,— "The summer grass!— / 'Tis all that's left / Of ancient warriors' dreams," I will not believe that the waving weeds are all that remain of strong men's aspirations and endeavors. Their brave deeds are ours still. His footnote prints the Japanese as 夏草や武者どもの夢の跡. The piece is undated; the one before it is signed Sakata, January 1906. The rendering Miyamori collects in 1932 as Nitobe's, at its first printing ^[6].

1921. Paul-Louis Couchoud, Japanese Impressions, with a note on Confucius, translated by Frances Rumsey, preface by Anatole France, John Lane, London, "The Lyric Epigrams of Japan," page 65. Or above all by the grave and perpetual thought of death: … The summer's green! / All that remains / Of the dreams of dead warriors. This last example was written on the site of a battlefield. The French line in English, and not Revon's; Couchoud's French original remains out of reach ^[27].

1923. Curtis Hidden Page, Japanese Poetry: an historical essay with two hundred and thirty translations, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, page 116. Old battle-field, fresh with Spring flowers again — / All that is left of the dream / Of twice ten thousand warriors slain. Unattributed on the page, inside his pages on these apparent trifles of Bashō's. The summer grass is gone and spring flowers stand in its place; only a search for dream followed by warriors turned it up ^[28].

1926. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, Masterpieces of Chikamatsu, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, the introduction and a translator's footnote. The introduction sets the verse under the year 1686 as the famous ode that showed Bashō's new style, in Chamberlain's romaji with の, Natsu-gusa ya / Tsuwa-mono-domo no / Yumé no ato, and Chamberlain's rendering, Haply the summer grasses are A relic of the warriors' dream. The footnote: Of the warriors' dream of power and glory nothing remains but the high grasses waving upon the moor that is their tomb. Chamberlain's 1902 gloss, nearly word for word, six years before Miyamori's own anthology: his debt to Chamberlain is older than 1932 ^[29].

1927. Inazō Nitobe, Japanese Traits and Foreign Influences, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, "On Haiku," page 131. The 1909 lines verbatim, now set in a scene of his own: Bashō at the old battlefield of Koromo Fort, on his straw hat, the cicadas and the tall grass, then He feels intensely the vanity of human life ^[30].

1932. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, printed pages 125–126, number 17, 高館の廢墟. Ah, summer grasses wave! / The warriors' brave deeds were a dream!, and on the same pages five earlier renderings collected: Chamberlain's relic, Porter's soldiers asleep within the grave, Page, Nitobe and Revon in French. Chamberlain, Page and Nitobe are read at their own pages above; Porter and Revon are known here only through him: the harvest's one copy of Porter's A Year of Japanese Epigrams (1911) is scanned upside down and its text is unreadable, and Revon is French ^[7].

1934. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, page 27. The summer grasses grow. / Of mighty warriors' splendid dreams / The afterglow., with a word-by-word gloss that writes tsuwamonodomo ga ^[31].

1949–1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 3, Summer–Autumn, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, a four-volume series of 1949 to 1952; the copy read carries no year. Ah! Summer grasses! / All that remains / Of the warriors' dreams ^[32].

1955. Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature, Grove Press, New York (Tuttle, Tokyo). The summer grasses— / Of brave soldiers' dreams / The aftermath., romaji Tsuwamono domo ga. Reprinted unchanged in his Narrow Road to Oku (Kodansha International, 1996) and quoted as Keene's by Beichman 1982 ^[33].

1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, New York, page 27. It is almost impossible to reproduce this in English, because we have no proper words. His notes on the words: 夏草 stands for all the quick-growing plants of summer; tsuwamono, literally "the strong ones," a name for medieval warriors, somewhat archaic even in Bashō's time; ato includes relic, trace, aftermath, what is left behind. His literal line, Summer grasses: the afterward of strong men's dreams, and then, after twenty-five years of trying, the best that I can do: Summer grass: / of stalwart warriors splendid dreams / the aftermath. And: I wish that some genius could find the proper English for this haiku ^[34].

1960. R. H. Blyth, Japanese Life and Character in Senryu, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. Cites the verse as the model of a senryū parody, printing 夏草やつわものどもの夢のあと, the last word in kana, romaji tsuwamono-domo no, and his rendering in Haiku. The の, in Blyth's own Japanese, in 1960 ^[35].

1966. Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, Penguin, page 118. Four lines, A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams and ambitions / Of ancient warriors ^[36].

1968. Cid Corman and Kamaike Susumu, Back Roads to Far Towns, Grossman, New York. summer grass / warriors / dreams' ruins. Corman again in One Man's Moon (Gnomon Press, 2003), page 16: The summer grasses / the mightiest warriors' / dreams' consequences ^[37].

1976. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, pages 103–104. A second rendering, The summer grasses— / For many brave warriors / The aftermath of dreams., and his note that the hokku's strength is partly sound: the first line has only a and u vowels ^[38].

1981. Hiroaki Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor, page 285. One line, Summer grass: where the warriors used to dream. Again in Bashō's Narrow Road (Stone Bridge Press, 1996), romaji tsuwamono-domo ga, and in On Haiku (New Directions, 2018), where he prints the Japanese once as 夏草や兵共のゆめの跡 and once as 夏艸や兵共か夢の跡. The の, in Sato's Japanese, in 2018, beside the が ^[39].

1985. Lucien Stryk, On Love and Barley, University of Hawaii Press, number 252. Summer grasses, / all that remains / of soldiers' dreams. Again in Zen Poetry (Grove, 1995) ^[40].

1985. William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook, McGraw-Hill, page 22. summer grass / those mighty warriors' / dream-tracks ^[41].

1991. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, Stanford University Press. Summer grasses— / all that is left to us now / of warriors' dreams ^[42].

1991. Sam Hamill, Narrow Road to the Interior, Shambhala. Summer grasses: / all that remains of great soldiers' / imperial dreams, kept in The Sound of Water (1995), The Essential Bashō (1998) and The Poetry of Zen (2004), where he calls it a brilliant indictment of the stupidity and cruelty of war ^[43].

1992. Makoto Ueda, Bashō and His Interpreters, Stanford University Press, pages 242–243. summer grasses / where stalwart soldiers / once dreamed a dream, romaji tsuwamono-domo ga, and the Japanese commentators in sequence: Nobutane on the scorched leaf-tips, Ebara on the transitoriness of glory, the emptiness of prosperity, Shiison on the summer grass warm with blood against Buson's cold gale, Imoto on stalwart soldiers meaning the Fujiwara and their warriors as well as Yoshitsune and his retainers, and Konishi on the endeavors that have left no trace on the present landscape ^[12].

1994. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press. Summer grass— / all that's left / of warriors' dreams ^[44].

1998. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, pages 238–239. summer grasses / traces of dreams / of ancient warriors, and the reading against the Noh and the Chinese lament; the book's title is the traces of dreams of his rendering ^[10].

2002. Miyamori, Classic Haiku, Dover reprint of the 1932 anthology, pages 79–80. The 1932 page with its lineup, and his own note that the Japanese is ambiguous, and might lead a casual reader to construe it as "Ah! summer grasses wave where the warriors dreamed of glory." ^[45]

2004. David Landis Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, number 386, page 93. summer grass: / all that remains / of warriors' dreams, with the date in his notes: 1689, thirteenth of the Fifth Month, June 29 ^[25].

2008. Jane Reichhold, Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Kodansha USA, number 528, notes. The word gloss summer grass / soldier common of / dream of trace, and a reading of her own: the pillow of grass of journey poetry, the cut grass under the poorest soldiers' heads still holding a trace of their dreams. Her verse rendering in the main text was not located ^[46].

2018. Minh Nguyen, editor, New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics, Lexington Books, page 233, the essay "Bashō and the Art of Eternal Now." Ah, summer grass! / brave warriors' / site of dreams ^[47].

2022. Andrew Fitzsimons, Bashō: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Bashō, University of California Press, number 515, page 191. The summer grasses / For warriors of the past / glory's aftermath, headed At Takadachi in Ōshū, dated Summer, 1689, with Konishi's judgment carried from Ueda ^[16].

A reading

Two things I would add. The sentence before the verse, Du Fu's line and the hat spread on the ground, because the verse is an answer to that line and a reader who has the line has the verse. And the heading the verse went into print under, 奥州高館にて, at Takadachi: the hill where Yoshitsune died, not the Fujiwara capital at large, so that from the earliest dated printing read here the verse stood under the name of the place where the prince and his men died, and asks to be read for them and not only for the view. The 白馬集 prose says the same louder, but I would not rest anything on it while 潁原's doubt stands. On 夢の跡 I hold the phrase open, as Shirane's gloss of 跡 and 夢 does: a rendering of this line has to keep it open, because the Japanese does, and his traces of dreams keeps it best, though his own note reads the traces as what is left. I think Porter's soldiers asleep and dreaming under the grass is a real reading the Japanese permits and the Japanese commentators do not take, which is exactly the kind of thing a history should record.

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡VB5CBlock

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡VC4BCursive

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡VC6BCursive

夏草や兵どもが夢の跡VD4BEri's Choice

References

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2. 野村宗朔 Nomura Sōsaku (ed.), 『奥の細道 : 素竜本』, 大倉広文堂, 1932: a full-size photographic reproduction of an 井筒屋 print of 奥の細道 in 柏木素龍 Kashiwagi Soryū's hand (the editor's preface, p. 二, and the imprint, p. 108), pp. 52–53. National Diet Library pid 1175286, scan 41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175286/1/41
3. 服部畊石 Hattori Kōseki, 『芭蕉句集新講』, vol. 1, 四条書房, 1932, pp. 440–442. National Diet Library pid 1145820, scans 226–227. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145820/1/226 · https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/1145820_226
4. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. 30, Rikkyo Gakuin Press, Tokyo, 1902, p. 305, no. 46. Internet Archive, leaf 333: https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi20japagoog
5. F. Victor Dickins, Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts, translated into English, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906, "Epigrams — Hokku," p. 310, no. XXXII. Internet Archive, leaf 454: https://archive.org/details/primitivemediaev00dickuoft
6. 新渡戸稲造 Inazō Nitobe, Thoughts and Essays, Teibi Publishing Company, Tokyo, 1909, "In Hiraizumi," p. 153. Internet Archive, leaf 171: https://archive.org/details/thoughtsessays00nito
7. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, pp. 125–126, no. 17.
8. Lewis Mackenzie, Autumn Wind Haiku: Selected Poems by Kobayashi Issa, Kodansha International, 1984 (first as The Autumn Wind, John Murray, 1957), introduction, note 6.
9. 「夢の跡」, 「夏草」, 「兵」 (つわもの), 「や」, 「共」 (ども) and 「夢」, at kotobank (デジタル大辞泉; 精選版 日本国語大辞典). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A2%E3%81%AE%E8%B7%A1-652309 · https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%8F%E8%8D%89-588932 · https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%B5-573070 · https://kotobank.jp/word/%E3%82%84-647430 · https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%85%B1-477596 · https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%A4%A2-145376
10. Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 238–239; p. 302 n. 5 and the bibliography, p. 345 (泊船集, 1698, Fūkoku); p. 329 n. 18 (the Nishimura text).
11. Makoto Ueda / Andrew Fitzsimons, carrying Jin'ichi Konishi's judgment.
12. Makoto Ueda, Bashō and His Interpreters, Stanford University Press, 1992, pp. 242–243.
13. 西山隆二『受験奥の細道・鶉衣』, 玄鹿洞書院, 1936, a school edition, pp. 61–62. National Diet Library pid 1275207, scans 40–41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1275207/1/40 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1275207/1/41
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17. 去来・凡兆 編『猿蓑』, 京 井筒屋庄兵衛, afterword 元禄4年 (1691); a later impression from the same blocks, 東京大学総合図書館 南葵文庫, at the 国文学研究資料館 国書データベース, BID 100419956, image 14, left leaf. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100419956/14
18. 「猿蓑」, at kotobank (精選版 日本国語大辞典; 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 白石悌三). https://kotobank.jp/word/%E7%8C%BF%E8%93%91-70194
19. Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri, The Monkey's Straw Raincoat and Other Poetry of the Basho School, Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 145, no. 132.
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21. 松亭金水 Shōtei Kinsui・広重 Hiroshige『絵本江戸土産』, undated. National Diet Library pid 8369306, scan 21.
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24. 島田青峰 Shimada Seihō (ed.), 『芭蕉俳句紀行全集』, 緑蔭社, 1927, National Diet Library pid 1194541, scan 41; 小原国芳 Obara Kuniyoshi (ed.), 『児童百科大辞典』, 1933, pid 1720355, scan 120; 伊藤松宇 Itō Shōu, 『俳諧雑筆』, 明治書院, 1934, pid 1235614, scan 43; 萩原蘿月 Hagiwara Ragetsu (ed.), 『奥の細道・芭蕉翁文集』, 改造社, 1929, pid 1189216, scan 16, and 『芭蕉の精神』, 弘學社, 1942, pid 1899874, scan 123.
25. David Landis Barnhill, Bashō's Haiku, SUNY Press, 2004, no. 386, p. 93.
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27. Paul-Louis Couchoud, Japanese Impressions, with a note on Confucius, trans. Frances Rumsey, John Lane, London, 1921, "The Lyric Epigrams of Japan," p. 65. Internet Archive, leaf 93: https://archive.org/details/japaneseimpressi00couc
28. Curtis Hidden Page, Japanese Poetry: an historical essay with two hundred and thirty translations, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1923, p. 116. Internet Archive, leaf 148: https://archive.org/details/japanesepoetryhi00page
29. 宮森麻太郎 Asatarō Miyamori, Masterpieces of Chikamatsu, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London, 1926.
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36. Nobuyuki Yuasa, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, Penguin, 1966, p. 118.
37. Cid Corman and Kamaike Susumu, Back Roads to Far Towns, Grossman, New York, 1968.
38. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, 1976, pp. 103–104.
39. Hiroaki Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor, 1981, p. 285.
40. Lucien Stryk, On Love and Barley, University of Hawaii Press, 1985, no. 252.
41. William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook, McGraw-Hill, 1985, p. 22.
42. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry, Stanford University Press, 1991.
43. Sam Hamill, Narrow Road to the Interior, Shambhala, 1991.
44. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994.
45. Asatarō Miyamori, Classic Haiku, Dover, 2002, pp. 79–80.
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47. Minh Nguyen (ed.), New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics, Lexington Books, 2018, p. 233.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5, 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 — every claim tested at its address; most resolve; a couple of corrections made — a citation's page index corrected from a PDF marker to the printed page, and a quoted ending's kana restored where the account had printed kanji; its unopened page images re-opened by hand

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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 夏草や兵どもが夢の跡 (natsukusa ya tsuwamonodomo ga yume no ato)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/natsukusa-ya-tsuwamonodomo-ga-yume-no-ato.