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Home › Library › Philology › Buson - From far and near, Hearing the sounds of waterfalls, Young leaves

をちこちに滝の音聞く若葉哉 ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku wakaba kana Buson - From far and near, Hearing the sounds of waterfalls, Young leaves

This is a philological study of the haiku をちこちに滝の音聞く若葉哉 (ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku wakaba kana), given to Buson. It spans from Buson's own verse diary, 新花摘, where he set the verse down in 1777, to its renderings into English, and examines two printings that read fallen leaves for young, one of them under Bashō's name.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - From far and near, Hearing the sounds of waterfalls, Young leaves (ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku wakaba kana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - From far and near, Hearing the sounds of waterfalls, Young leaves (ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku wakaba kana)

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

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Abstract

をちこちに滝の音聞く若葉哉, here and there the sound of waterfalls: young leaves, is Buson's: he set it down in his verse diary, 新花摘, under the eighth day of the fourth month of 1777, the day the diary begins, writing the verse's first word おちこち; the diary was printed in 1797 from a carving of his manuscript, and every Buson edition since carries the verse [1][2]. The reading of it as a verse of the ear is 佐藤紅緑's, of 1904 [3]. Two later printings read 落葉, fallen leaves, for 若葉, young leaves: one a slip in the same essayist's own third book, the other Blyth's 1952 volume, which prints the verse under Bashō's name in the wrong season, an error his own later books correct. Miyamori gave the verse's earliest known English rendering in 1932, and Blyth, Henderson and Blyth again gave three more between 1958 and 1964.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries をちこちに滝の音聞く若葉哉, and every Buson edition has these words; the writing splits in 滝 and 瀧, 聞く and きく, 哉 and かな, which are one verse. 新花摘 itself writes the first word おちこち, which 藤村作's annotated edition of 1935 marks as an error, おちこちは、をちこちの誤。遠近の意, and its editors print the last word わかは in 1897 and 若ば in 1935 [2][4][5]. をちこち is the older spelling of 遠近 [6]; Shiki's 1889 copy writes it, and so do most editions after him [7]. Two witnesses read 落葉 for 若葉, fallen leaves for young leaves, autumn for summer. One is Obata Jūichi 小幡重一's 響 of 1938, where the verse recurs in a different essay, a radio talk on sound in the 万葉集 and 新古今集, by the author whose 耳の詩人 essay printed 若葉 in 1934 and 1936; the leaf prints 落葉, so it is the compositor's or the author's and not the scanner's [8]. The other is Blyth's Haiku, volume 4, where under FALLEN LEAVES the page prints をちこちに瀧の音聞く落葉かな 芭蕉, Ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku ochiba kana, and a paragraph on Bashō's feeling [9]. Fitzsimons's complete Bashō carries no such verse and no verse with 滝の音 but 山吹 and the 西河 [10]; no Japanese witness gives the words to Bashō, and neither 服部畊石's commentary on Bashō's verse of 1932 nor 潁原退蔵's complete Bashō of 1947, including its section of verses wrongly given to him, carries it [11][12]; in the National Diet Library's digitized library, only Obata's book prints this verse in the 落葉 form. So there is one poem, Buson's, in 若葉, and two prints of it in 落葉, one of them under the wrong name. The meter is five, seven, five: を・ち・こ・ち・に, た・き・の・お・と・き・く, わ・か・ば・か・な.

The sense. The readers hear it. 佐藤紅緑 said it first, in 1904: 芭蕉は終に耳の詩を有せざりし, Bashō never came to have a poetry of the ear, and then Buson's verses of sound, this one among them [3]. Obata, a physicist writing on sound, took up 紅緑's list, naming his debt, and made this verse one of three pure natural sounds, its art in setting two sounds against each other [8]. Shiki, in 俳人蕪村, set the 若葉 verses beside Bashō's one or two as Buson's 積極的, positive, summer [13][14]. 藤村作: in the young leaves of the whole mountain, full of life, the sound of waterfalls comes, far off or near: the refreshing scene of early summer [5]. Miyamori: a refreshing scene in early summer [15]. Blyth, in his History: here it is the glittering element that joins sound and sight, and then Buson's deep feeling of time [16]. Blyth in 1952, having moved the verse to autumn and to Bashō, heard submergence in Nature, waters falling into boulders and withered leaves falling through cold damp air, the one who stands there, what is he? He is the hearing of the sounds of the waterfall, the seeing of the falling leaves; a fine paragraph on a verse that does not exist [9].

The words. をちこちに is 遠近, here and there, far and near; Miyamori here and there [15], Blyth from here and there [16]. 滝の音聞く is hearing the sound of waterfalls, plural by the をちこち. 若葉 is young leaves, the fresh green of early summer, a summer season word; Shiki counts this among more than ten Buson verses on 若葉 and calls 若葉 a 積極的 topic [13][14]. In 新花摘 it opens a run of four 若葉 verses on one page [2]. 哉 closes on the leaves. As words the line says: Here and there, hearing the sound of waterfalls: the young leaves.

The verse in English. Miyamori gave the verse's earliest known English rendering in 1932 [15]; Blyth translated it three times more, once in 1952 under Bashō's name and in the wrong season [9], and twice correctly, in his 1963 and 1964 History [16][17]. Henderson gave a fourth rendering in 1958 [18]. Ueda in 1998, Haldane in 2006 and Sawa and Shiffert in 2007 rendered it again as Buson's [19][20][21]; Aitken in 2011 took it from Blyth's 1952 page, Bashō's name, falling leaves and all [22].

The historical record

1777, printed 1797. 与謝蕪村, 新花摘. Buson began the diary on the eighth day of the fourth month of 1777, meaning to write ten verses a day, probably in memory of his mother, and kept it for sixteen days; after his death 月渓 added pictures, and the print of 1797 is carved from the manuscript [1]. The verse stands before the heading 九日, the ninth, in the diary's opening run, after 金の扇にうの花畫たるに句せよとのぞまれて, 白がねの花さく井出の垣根哉, うの花も咲や井出の里 and うの花や貴布禰の神女の練の袖, and before 山畑を小雨晴行わか葉かな, 般若よむ庄司が宿の若葉哉 and 夜走りの帆に有明て若ばかな [2][5].

1889. 正岡子規, 発句類題全集, his manuscript copy. Under the topic 若葉 (瀧): 瀧の根を深く見せたる若葉かな 宗瑞 (百番句合), いつの間に瀧をつゝみし若葉かな 沈水 (鞍馬筆), をちこちに瀧の音聞く若葉哉 蕪村 (新花摘), 透とをる瀧を櫻に若葉かな 太無 (太無集), then 白雄 and 闌更. The verse with its poet and its source, in Shiki's hand [7].

1897. 阿心庵雪人 (ed.), 蕪村全集 校註. In 新花摘's order, おちこちに瀧の音聞くわかはかな, the diary's spelling [4].

1899. 正岡子規, 俳人蕪村. 若葉も亦積極的の題目なり。芭蕉の之を詠ずる者一二句にして … 皆季の景物として應用したるに過ぎず。蕪村には直に若葉を詠じたる者十餘句あり皆若葉の趣味を發揮せり, young leaves too are a positive topic; Bashō's verses on them are one or two, and use them only as the season's scenery; Buson has more than ten verses that go straight at young leaves, and all bring out their savor, with seven examples ending with this verse [13][14].

1904. 佐藤紅緑, 蕪村俳句評釈. 芭蕉は終に耳の詩を有せざりし … 蕪村に就きて之れを見る、大に面目を異にせるものあり, Bashō never came to have a poetry of the ear; look at Buson and it is another face altogether, and five verses of sound: 古井戶や蚊に飛ぶ魚の音くらし, 水深く利鎌ならす眞菰苅, 鮓の石に五更の鐘のひゞき哉, をちこちに瀧の音聞く若葉哉, 落ちあふて音なくなれる清水哉 [3].

1906. 岩本梓石 (ed.), 蕪村俳句全集 標註. 般若よむ庄司が宿の若葉哉, をちこちに瀧の音聞く若葉哉, 出家して親王ます里の若葉哉 [23].

1925. 蕪村三千句; 半田良平 (ed.), 蕪村俳句全集 季題別. In the summer run, をちこちに瀧の音きく若葉かな; 半田 closes the group 右九句、後篇 [24][25].

1934, 1936, 1938. Obata Jūichi, 聞える音・聞えぬ音; 音の映像; 響. The essay 『耳の詩人』蕪村 in the first two, whose opening page names its debt, この一篇は著者が二十余年の昔高等學校時代に讀んで非常な感興を覺えた佐藤紅綠氏著「蕪村俳句評釋」に負ふところ少くない, this piece owes not a little to 佐藤紅緑's 蕪村俳句評釈, which the author read as a schoolboy twenty-odd years ago; then, over the page, three verses of purely natural sounds, 古井戶や蚊に飛ぶ魚の音くらし, をちこちに瀧の音聞く若葉哉, 五月雨のうつぼ柱や老が耳, and 相對比せしめた二つの音の種類の選擇に蕪村の非凡なる手腕が認められる, in the choice of two kinds of sound set against each other Buson's uncommon skill is seen [26][27]. The 1938 book quotes the verse again in a talk on sound in the 万葉集 and 新古今集, and there it reads 落葉哉, on its leaf [8].

1935. 潁原退蔵 (ed.), 俳文俳論新選. Shiki's passage of 1899, reprinted under the heading 芭蕉と蕪村, 子規, with 潁原's notes [14].

1935. 藤村作 (annotator), 新花摘. お(を)ちこちに瀧の音聞く若ばかな, with the note おちこちは、をちこちの誤。遠近の意。生氣躍る滿山若葉の間に遠く或は近くどう〳〵と瀧の音が聞えて來るといふ初夏の爽快な景趣 [5].

The dictionaries today. kotobank's page for 与謝蕪村 gives the poet's dates and names 新花摘, and does not quote the verse [28]; its page for 新花摘 gives the diary's dates [1].

The attribution. Buson's, at its source and at every Buson edition and every anthology that names a poet: 新花摘 is his own diary, printed from his manuscript, and Shiki's 1889 copy writes 蕪村 and, in his hand, 新花摘 [2][1][7]. 阿心庵's 1897 edition, Shiki's 俳人蕪村, 紅緑's 評釈, 岩本's 1906 標註, the 蕪村三千句 and 半田's edition of 1925, Obata's three books, 藤村's 新花摘, Miyamori 1932, Blyth's History in 1963 and 1964 all give it to Buson [4][13][3][23][24][25][26][27][8][5][15][16][17]. 半田 closes a group of nine with 右九句、後篇, these nine from the 後篇, a stratum of the corpus and not a book named at that entry. The verse does not stand in the 1784 蕪村句集, where three neighboring accounts in this family find theirs; its book is 新花摘. The one dissent is Blyth's 1952 page, which credits 芭蕉; his own History of Haiku gives it to Buson twice, and the 1952 page is his error [9][16][17]. The diary dates the verse: the eighth day of the fourth month of 1777. The book is of 1797.

What is not a source. Blyth's 1952 page is not a witness to a Bashō verse; it is a slip in season and name that his own later books correct, and Obata's 1938 落葉 is a second slip, unrelated to the other. 半田's 後篇 is a stratum, not a book. The verse is Buson's and summer's at every Japanese address.

The verse in English

1932. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, page 466, no. 439, 瀧, Taki. をちこちに瀧の音聞く若葉かな 蕪村; Ochi-kochi ni / Taki no oto kiku / Wakaba kana; Waterfalls. Hark! waterfalls are heard, / Here and there, through young leaves. Buson. A refreshing scene in early summer [15].

1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Autumn-Winter, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 357, FALLEN LEAVES. をちこちに瀧の音聞く落葉かな 芭蕉; Ochikochi ni taki no oto kiku ochiba kana; From far and near, / Voices of waterfalls are heard, / Leaves falling. Bashō. The verse in another season under another name, with the paragraph quoted above [9].

1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor. Under the title The Sound: Here… there… / the sound of waterfalls is heard— / young leaves, everywhere, with his word-for-word gloss beneath [18].

1963, 1964. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, volumes 1 and 2, Hokuseido Press. Listening to waterfalls / From here and there: / The young leaves!, with the sentence on sound and sight; and I listen to the sound of the waterfalls / Here and there / Among the young leaves! Both Buson's [16][17].

1998. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson, Stanford University Press. Among six hokku from the diary entries, far and near / the sounds of waterfalls / through the young leaves, romanized ochi kochi ni / taki no oto kiku / wakaba kana and cited to the complete works, 1: 340 [19].

2006, collected 2022. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, under Yosa Buson. heard far and near, / the rush of a cascade – / young leaves, with the romaji line by line [20].

2007. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, page 97. Far and near, far and near / sound of cascading waters— / the fresh new leaves!, the first two words doubled, with the romaji [21].

2011. Robert Aitken, The River of Heaven, Counterpoint. Under the title Voice of a Waterfall: ochikochi ni / taki no oto kiku / ochiba kana — From far and near, / voices of waterfalls are heard— / leaves are falling., with a commentary that begins It seems to Bashō that he is surrounded by the sound of waterfalls coming from nearby and far away. Here and there, withered leaves fall soundlessly through the damp air. Blyth's 1952 page, the poet, the season and the three lines, carried whole into a new book fifty-nine years on [22].

Today. The house page carries its own translator's lines, credited by name, and its slug reads from far and near, hearing the sounds of waterfalls, young leaves; from far and near is Blyth's 1952 phrase. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep: the sound comes before the leaves, and the leaves are young.

A reading

I read the verse as 紅緑 did, and Obata after him: a verse of hearing, waterfalls placed by their sounds in a landscape the eye does not need, and the young leaves as the only thing seen, which is why the season word matters and why 落葉 breaks it. Buson wrote おちこち; をちこち is the older spelling of the same word, and the verse is the same. The text, the poet and the romaji stand.

References

  1. 「新花摘」, at kotobank (精選版 日本国語大辞典; 改訂新版 世界大百科事典, 田中道雄; ブリタニカ国際大百科事典). https://kotobank.jp/word/新花摘-82435
  2. 与謝蕪村 著, 月渓 編・画『新花つみ』, 塩屋忠兵衛, an undated impression of the print of 1797. National Diet Library pid 2539964, scans 3–4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2539964/1/4
  3. 佐藤紅緑『蕪村俳句評釈』, 1904, pp. 18–19. National Diet Library pid 875716, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875716/1/14
  4. 阿心庵雪人 編『蕪村全集 校註』, 1897, p. 130. National Diet Library pid 875713, scan 74. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875713/1/74
  5. 藤村作 註解『新花摘』, 栗田書店, 1935, pp. 2–4. National Diet Library pid 1028405, scans 48–49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1028405/1/48
  6. 「遠近」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/遠近-447514
  7. 正岡子規 写『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586414, scan 131. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586414/1/131
  8. 小幡重一『響』, 1938. National Diet Library pid 1257540, scan 45. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1257540/1/45
  9. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Autumn-Winter, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, p. 357, under FALLEN LEAVES.
  10. Fitzsimons, Basho: The Complete Haiku, University of California Press, 2022 — no verse with 滝の音 ending 落葉 (its only 滝の音 verse is 山吹散るか滝の音).
  11. 服部畊石『芭蕉句集新講』上・下, 四条書房, 1932. National Diet Library pids 1145820 and 1145829. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145820
  12. 潁原退蔵 編著『新校芭蕉俳句全集』, 全国書房, 1947, the 誤傳の部 from scan 170. National Diet Library pid 1128353. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128353/1/170
  13. 正岡子規『俳人蕪村』, in 俳諧叢書, ほとゝぎす発行所, 1899; read in 『俳諧大要・俳人蕪村・俳句問答・俳句の四年間』, 籾山書店, 1913, the 俳人蕪村 section pp. 13–15. National Diet Library pid 947487, scans 109–110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947487/1/109
  14. 潁原退蔵 校註『俳文俳論新選』, 大倉広文堂, 1935, the section 芭蕉と蕪村, 子規. National Diet Library pid 1053619, scans 94–98. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1053619/1/96
  15. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, p. 466, no. 439.
  16. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1963.
  17. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 2, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1964.
  18. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, p. 104.
  19. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and Poetry of Yosa Buson, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1998, the diary hokku cited as 1: 340.
  20. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, collected 2022 (rendering first published 2006), under Yosa Buson.
  21. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, Buffalo, 2007, p. 97.
  22. Robert Aitken, The River of Heaven, Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2011.
  23. 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 61. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875714/1/61
  24. 『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 38. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/38
  25. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/27
  26. 小幡重一『聞える音・聞えぬ音』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1181386, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1181386/1/24
  27. 小幡重一『音の映像』, 1936. National Diet Library pid 1230298, scan 66. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1230298/1/66
  28. 「与謝蕪村」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/与謝蕪村

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 · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — every claim tested at its address; most resolve; one rendering added — Henderson was wrongly said to lack the verse, it carries it in full