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遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かな osoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi kana Buson - The long slow days of spring, piling up, so far away the past

遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かな (osoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi kana) is Buson's verse of long slow days piling up, and how far away the past. It was printed in his 蕪村句集 of 1784 under the headnote 懐旧, longing for the past. This study follows Shiki's reading of it as subjective time, and its English from Chamberlain in 1902 to Shirane.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - The long slow days of spring, piling up, so far away the past (osoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi kana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - The long slow days of spring, piling up, so far away the past遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かなosoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi kana

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かな, the long slow days piling up, and how far away the past, is Buson's, first printed in his own 蕪村句集 of 1784 under the headnote 懐旧, longing for the past. The 1992 Kōdansha complete works dates it to 1775 from his autograph verse-book. Shiki read it as the rare old verse that shows subjective time, his circle called it wholly subjective, and in 1920 木村架空 named two waka as its parents. In English it runs from Chamberlain in 1902 through Noguchi, who set it beside Landor, and Blyth, who heard bitterness in its sounds in 1950 and a dream in them in 1963, to Shirane.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かな, and the witnesses write one text a few ways. The 蕪村句集 of 1784, the source, writes the last words in kana, 遠きむかしかな [1], and so do the 1911 edition of the 蕪村句集講義, 潁原退蔵's 1925 edition and Fujii 藤井's of 1935 [2][3][4]. Shiki's 1889 copy writes 昔哉 [5], and the 1925 三千句 and Handa's edition write 昔かな [6]. The almanac 月令博物筌 writes とほき in kana and closes the column with a small cursive character after むかし, which its 1894 typeset edition prints as 哉 [7]. Shiki, in his survey of 1896, writes 永き日 for 遅き日 [8]. Six of the seven scroll designs brush 昔かな; one brushes the source's むかしかな. The meter is five, seven, five: お・そ・き・ひ・の, つ・も・り・て・と・お・き, む・か・し・か・な.

The sense. The headnote has done the reading since the 句集: 懐旧, longing for the past. Shiki gave the verse as his example of an old haiku that shows subjective time [8]. In the 蕪村句集講義, the round-table of his circle, Hekigotō 碧梧桐 called it wholly subjective and Meisetsu 鳴雪 called it a verse he loved [2]. Satō Kōroku 佐藤紅緑 in 1904 answered a reader who called it arithmetic with an old man dozing through a long spring day until fifty years become a dream [9]. 木村架空 in 1920 gave the verse two waka for parents [10]. Noguchi 野口 in 1914 heard Landor in it [11], and Hagiwara Sakutarō 萩原朔太郎 in 1936 heard a lullaby remembered in a spring dream and called it Buson's representative verse [12]. Blyth in 1950 heard Tennyson, O Death in Life, the days that are no more, quoted without his name, and bitterness in the sounds; in 1963 the same sounds gave him a dream-like feeling [13]. Shirane in 2002 read the long day as what reminds the poet of youth, far away, and of the many springs since [14]. The verse has never had two meanings, only two temperatures: Blyth's bitterness in 1950 against the headnote's plainer 懐旧; by 1963 Blyth heard a dream in the same sounds.

The words. 遅き日, also 遅日, is the long day of late spring, the season word. The 日本国語大辞典 gives it as the spring day, the long day, and quotes this verse, from the 句集 of 1784, as its example [15]. Shirane: a late-spring day when the sun sets late and the day seems to last forever [14]. The almanac files the verse under 遲日 beside a 万葉集 poem and a 詞 entry on the same theme [7]. つもりて is piling up, said of days as of snow. 木村架空 gives it two waka for parents, in Buson's voice in a dream [10]. One is Narihira 業平's 大方は月をもめでじこれぞこの積れば人の老いとなるもの, I will not even praise the moon; it is this that, piling up, becomes a man's age. The other is 家隆's 高砂の尾上の鹿の啼かぬ日もつもりはてぬる峰の白雪, even on days the deer of 高砂's peak does not cry, the white snow of the summit piles to its end. The 1992 edition's note points instead to a Chinese line, 杜審言 Du Shenyan's 遅日園林悲昔遊, in the long day's gardens I grieve for the outings of old [16]. 遠き昔 is the far past, and かな the exclamation. Blyth hears the sounds: the k and the t sounds express the painfulness of time, in 1950; osoki, tōki; tsumori, mukashi; no, na, in 1963 [13]. As words the line says: The slow days, piling up; how far away, the past.

The verse in English. Chamberlain put the verse into English in 1902 under its headnote, as Memories of the Past [17]. Dickins [18], Noguchi [11], Blyth [13], Keene [19], Katō [20], Carter [21], Shirane [14], Haldane [22], and Sawa and Shiffert [23] followed. Two of the later renderings read it through Hagiwara's thesis of Buson as a poet of nostalgia, and Shirane gives its date, 1775.

The historical record

1784. 蕪村句集, the poet's own collection, edited by 几董. In the first volume's spring section: 西山遲日 over 山鳥の尾をふむ春の入日哉, then 遅き日や雉子の下りゐる橋の上, then the headnote 懐旧 over 遅き日のつもりて遠きむかしかな, and next 春の海終日のたり〳〵哉 [1]. The source every later editor names, by Handa's 1925 tag, 潁原's tag and Fujii's 1935 colophon [6][3][4].

1804 and after. 鳥飼洞斎, 月令博物筌, an almanac of the seasons by topic. The work was first printed in 1804; the copy read is undated. Under 遲日, after a 六百番歌合 poem, a 万葉集 poem, a 詞 entry and 重五's haikai verse 傘張の…, the column 俳 遅き日のつもりてとほきむかし, a small cursive character, and 蕪村 beneath. The revised edition of 1894, set in type, prints the column 遲き日のつもりてとほきむかし哉 蕪村 [7].

1889. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規, 発句類題全集, his manuscript anthology by topic, two copies. One copy under the small headnote 懐旧, 遅き日のつもりて遠き昔哉, signed 蕪村 with the source 句集 in parentheses; the other names 蕪村 [5].

Shiki's survey of 1896, 明治二十九年の俳句界. Against Kyoshi's verses of objective time, Shiki sets the old verses of subjective time, and gives this one first, as 永き日のつもりて遠き昔かな, under the past. In the survey's appendix: a verse such as Buson's 永き日のつもりて遠き昔かな is one example; only, such verses are rare, and not the rule [8].

By 1904. 蕪村句集講義, the round-table of Shiki's circle on the 句集. Under 懷舊: 碧梧桐氏曰。はる〴〵昔を懷ふ情で、遲い日が積り積つて遠い昔となつたのであるといふ、全く主觀的の句である, a feeling of longing for the far-off past: the slow days pile up and become the far past; a wholly subjective verse; 鳴雪氏曰。私の大好きな句です, a verse I love. Kōroku quotes Meisetsu's line from it by title in 1904 [2][9].

1904. Satō Kōroku 佐藤紅緑, 蕪村俳句評釈. Under 懷舊, a reader asks whether a verse saying that days pile up into the past, which any fool knows, can really be Meisetsu's favorite. Kōroku answers with an old man on a long spring day, drowsing through his memories until fifty years are a dream: 此句は純然たる主觀の句なんだね, this is a purely subjective verse [9].

1914. Yone Noguchi, The Spirit of Japanese Poetry. In English: first for its sound, then beside Landor's I warmed both hands before the fire of life; / It sinks, and I am ready to depart, as the atmosphere in which Buson wrote [11]. In 1920, in Japanese, he recalls making the comparison in his Oxford lecture on haiku, and makes it again in 1926 [11].

1920. 木村架空, 蕪村夢物語. 架空 prints the 講義's two remarks as a conversation, then gives Buson himself the last word, in a dream: 蕪村曰はく、この句には生みの親がある, this verse has parents, the two waka quoted above [10].

1925. 蕪村三千句; Handa Ryōhei, 蕪村俳句全集 季題別; 潁原退蔵, 蕪村全集. The 三千句 prints the spring run under the section heading 遲日: 山鳥の尾をふむ春の入日かな with the headnote 西山遲日, then 遲き日や雉子の下り居る橋の上, then 懷舊 over 遲き日のつもりて遠き昔かな. Handa prints the same three under 遲日 in the same order and closes them with 右三句、句集 [6]. 潁原 prints 懷舊 遲き日のつもりて遠きむかしかな under 遲日, tagged (句集), with no note [3].

1935. Fujii Shiei, 名家俳句集, the 蕪村句集 section. 西山遲日 山鳥の尾をふむ春の入日哉, 遲き日や雉子の下りゐる橋の上, then 懷舊 遲き日のつもりて遠きむかしかな, and next 春の海終日のたり〳〵哉. The section closes with 蕪村句集 on the following leaf [4].

1936. Hagiwara Sakutarō, 郷愁の詩人与謝蕪村, the poet of nostalgia. The verse opens his commentary on the spring verses: the one that sings Buson's feeling most directly, to be taken as his representative work; its subject is a longing for the heart's home on the far shore of time, the memory of a lullaby heard as in a dream on a calm spring day [12].

1992. The Kōdansha 蕪村全集, volume 1, edited by 尾形仂 and 森田蘭. Number 1264, under 安永四年, 1775, Buson's sixtieth year; its note points to 杜審言's 遅日園林悲昔遊. In Buson's autograph verse-book, the 自筆句帳, the verse stands between two other verses of 1775 [16].

The dictionaries today. The 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank, quotes the verse under おそき日 as its example of the season word, from the 蕪村句集 of 1784 [15].

The attribution. Buson's at every witness that names a poet, with no rival: the 句集 is his, edited by his pupil 几董; the almanac writes 蕪村 under the column; Shiki's copy signs it 蕪村 and names the 句集; and the collections of 1925 and 1935 print it in his 句集 section with the headnote 懷舊 [1][7][5][6][3][4]. The date, 1775, is the 1992 edition's, from the place the verse holds in Buson's own verse-book, as 清多英樹 quotes it in 2001 [16]. Shirane gives the same year in 2002, and Carter's 1991 anthology, before it, files the verse under Poems of Unknown Date [14][21].

What is not a source. The two waka are the verse's parents in one book, 架空's of 1920, spoken by Buson in a dream; they are a reading, not a record of what Buson had in mind [10]. The heading 西山遲日 belongs to the neighboring verse in every collection, and any listing that puts it over this one has read across a column.

The verse in English

1902. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, volume 30, page 350, number 176; again in Japanese Poetry, John Murray, 1910, page 250. Headed Kwaikyū (Memories of the Past.): Osoki hi no / Tsumorite tōki / Mukashi kana (Buson); Oh! distant past, made up of slow / But ever accumulating days! [17]

1906. F. Victor Dickins, Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts, translated into English, Clarendon Press, Oxford, page 313, number XLVI. Osoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi, without the kana, in a run of epigrams whose texts, Dickins says, are Chamberlain's; Oh, the past of distant days, / slowly summing tale of days! [18]

1914. Yone Noguchi, The Spirit of Japanese Poetry, John Murray, pages 35 and 40. Slow-passing days / Gathered, gathering,— / Alas, past far-away, distant!, after Landor's lines [11].

1949, 1950 and 1963. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, page 368; volume 2, Spring, page 46; A History of Haiku, volume 1, page 261, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo. Slow days passing, accumulating,— / How distant they are, / The things of the past!, in the first two; the 1963 History re-cuts it, Slow days passing, / Accumulating,— / How distant past things! In the first, the verse stands without comment among examples of the representation of soul states, after Crashaw's stanza on the Nativity. In the second: Thinking of long ago, all one spring day—this day, too, now belongs to the old, forgotten, far-off things. It is as remote, as irrevocable, as the most distant ages. O Death in Life, the days that are no more!, Tennyson's line unnamed; The bitterness of the feeling comes out in the onomatopoeia, and The k and the t sounds express the painfulness of time. In the third: The onomatopoeic assonance is noteworthy here: osoki, tōki; tsumori, mukashi; no, na,—all give a dream-like feeling to the verse [13].

1976. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, page 343. Long, slow spring days, / Piling up, take me far away / Into the past., headed Recalling the Past, cited as the verse Hagiwara Sakutarō used to prove his thesis of Buson as a poet of nostalgia, with Keene's note that the mood is strengthened by the repetition of the o sounds [19].

1983. Katō Shūichi, A History of Japanese Literature, volume 2, The Years of Isolation, translated by Don Sanderson, Kodansha International and Macmillan, printed page 126 in both editions; again in the 1997 abridged edition. Slow days build up / The distant past., as the example of nostalgia understood as the discovery of the past in the present, paired with the kite in yesterday's sky [20].

1991. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology, Stanford University Press, page 394, no. 983. Under Poems of Unknown Date, headed SPRING: Days getting longer / and memories building, going / far into the past. [21]

2002. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900, Columbia University Press, page 545, under Literati Meditations. Longing for the past: / osoki hi no / tsumorite toki / mukashi kana / The long, slow days of spring / piling up—so far away, the past!, and note 16: "Long day" (osoki hi) is a late-spring day when the sun sets late and the day seems to last forever, reminding the poet both of the past, of youth, which seems so far away, and of the many springs and years that have come and gone since that time. This poem was composed in 1775. [14]

2006. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022. lingering days / accumulate the distance / of the past, romanized osoko hi no, as he romanizes the other 遅き日 verse beside it [22].

2007. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press (first published 1978), page 36. Lengthening days / accummulate—farther off / the days of long ago!, headed Yearning for the Past and tagged (Kaikyu), the 懐旧 of the source; the spelling is the book's [23].

Chamberlain, and Dickins after him, put the past first; every rendering since Noguchi's keeps the order of the Japanese, the piling before the distance.

A reading

I read the verse under its headnote, as the 句集 prints it: not Blyth's bitterness of 1950, which is Tennyson's, but the mild vertigo of a day so long it makes the years visible, which is nearer where Blyth ended, in 1963. Shiki's word for it, subjective time, is still the best short account: the days are not counted, they are felt piling. 架空's two parents are a reader's gift rather than Buson's, but Narihira's 積れば人の老いとなるもの is the whole verse in a waka's last line, and worth keeping beside it as a reading.

References

  1. 几董 編『蕪村句集』前編, 1784, 巻之上 春之部. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, biblio 300106341, canvas 12, the left page. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300106341/12
  2. 内藤鳴雪 等『蕪村句集講義』, 1911 edition, printed page 124. National Diet Library pid 875705, scan 65. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875705/1/65
  3. 潁原退蔵 編『蕪村全集』, 1925, 発句篇, printed page 5. National Diet Library pid 1018320, scan 30. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/30
  4. 藤井紫影 校『名家俳句集』, 1935, printed pages 396–397. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 222. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/222
  5. 正岡子規 写『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586392, scan 111, and pid 2586444, scan 208. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586392/1/111
  6. 『蕪村三千句』, 1925, National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 6, printed page 6; 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925, National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 11, printed page 9. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/6
  7. 鳥飼洞斎『月令博物筌』, undated copy of a work first printed 文化元年 (1804), National Diet Library pid 2557809, scan 6, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2557809/1/6; the first printing at the National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, work 24748; 『改正月令博物筌』, 1894, National Diet Library pid 874899, scan 116, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874899/1/116
  8. 正岡子規「明治二十九年の俳句界」and its 附記, in 高浜清 編『俳諧大要・俳人蕪村・俳句問答・俳句の四年間』, 1913, printed pages 48–49 and 148. National Diet Library pid 947487, scans 402 and 452. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947487/1/402
  9. 佐藤紅緑『蕪村俳句評釈』, 大学館, 1904, printed pages 64–65. National Diet Library pid 875716, scan 37. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875716/1/37
  10. 木村架空『蕪村夢物語』, 1920, National Diet Library pid 947592, komas 9, 93. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/947592/1/93
  11. Yone Noguchi, The Spirit of Japanese Poetry, John Murray, London, 1914, pp. 35 and 40; 野口米次郎『日本の美術』, 大鐙閣, 1920, National Diet Library pid 981161, komas 127–128; 野口米次郎『蕪村俳句選評』, 1926, National Diet Library pid 1019055, scan 45.
  12. 萩原朔太郎『郷愁の詩人与謝蕪村』, 第一書房, 1936; read in the 1946 printing, printed page 23. National Diet Library pid 1128410, scan 14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128410/1/14
  13. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, pp. 368–369; vol. 2, Spring, p. 46, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949–1950; A History of Haiku, vol. 1, p. 261, Hokuseido Press, 1963.
  14. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900, Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 545, note 16.
  15. 「遅日」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank, under おそき日. https://kotobank.jp/word/遅日
  16. 清多英樹「與謝蕪村〈遅き日のつもりて遠きむかし哉〉をめぐって」, 『一般教育部論集』 25, 創価大学, 2001, pp. 21, 26–27, quoting 尾形仂・森田蘭 校注『蕪村全集』第一巻 発句, 講談社, 1992, p. 681, no. 1264. https://soka.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/38772
  17. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. 30, Rikkyo Gakuin Press, Tokyo, 1902, p. 350, no. 176; Japanese Poetry, John Murray, London, 1910, p. 250. https://archive.org/details/transactionsasi20japagoog
  18. F. Victor Dickins, Primitive & Mediaeval Japanese Texts, translated into English, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1906, p. 313. https://archive.org/details/primitivemediaev00dickuoft
  19. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, 1976, p. 343.
  20. Katō Shūichi, A History of Japanese Literature, vol. 2, The Years of Isolation, tr. Don Sanderson, Kodansha International and Macmillan, 1983, p. 126 (both editions); 1997 abridged edition.
  21. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology, Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 394, no. 983.
  22. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, 2022 (rendering first published 2006).
  23. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, 2007 (first published 1978), p. 36.

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 — several corrections made — Blyth's 'all three books' wording corrected to match the 1963 edition's own phrasing; Shirane's inserted dash restored to the source's line break; Katō's stated page corrected to the true printed page in both editions; and Sawa & Shiffert's merged lines restored to the source's three

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 遅き日のつもりて遠き昔かな (osoki hi no tsumorite tōki mukashi kana)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/osoki-hi-no-tsumorite-toki-mukashi-kana.