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願はくは花の下にて春死なむその如月の望月のころ negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month

Saigyō's wish to die under the blossoms at the full moon: the readings of 下, the day it was kept, and the death-poem label.

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Japanese Scroll of Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month願はくは花の下にて春死なむその如月の望月のころnegawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

願はくは花の下にて春死なむその如月の望月のころ, let me die in spring, under the blossoms, around the full moon of Kisaragi, is a waka of the monk Saigyō 西行, already written when he set it in his own poem-match, 『御裳濯河歌合』, judged about 1187 by Fujiwara no Shunzei 藤原俊成, who called its form unlovely, said that one who had not entered the deep way would likely fail if he tried to compose so, and judged it a draw [1]. Saigyō died at the temple of Hirokawa in Kawachi on the sixteenth of the second month of 1190, which Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 noted was that year's full moon, and Shunzei wrote that it moved him as a rare thing; a collection of tales of 1254 [2], the earliest dated telling read here, moved the death to the fifteenth, the day of the Buddha's passing, and to 1198, and that is the version that reached English first among the books read here, in 1914 [3][4][5][6][7]. The word 下 in it has two readings and both are old: the manuscripts of his collections that write it in kana read shita, all but one, as the edition of 1982 transcribes them, the oldest of them copied in the early Kamakura period, while his poem-match as printed, his judge Shunzei and Jien wrote moto [8][9][1][5][10]. Called his death poem in a copy of his talk on poetry that carries an Edo scholar's notes, and the famous death poem in print by 1922, it is a wish made years before the death, and I read it as a wish about a season and a day, kept [8][11][12].

Overview

The text. The poem as brushed here reads 願はくは花の下にて春死なむその如月の望月のころ. Its five lines are 願はくは / 花の下にて / 春死なむ / その如月の / 望月のころ. The witnesses spell it many ways, in characters and in kana, and differ in three places that a reader might hear: the word 下, which is read shita or moto and is taken up under The reading of 下; the first line, which Shunzei quotes once as 同じくは, if it must be; and the third, which some quotations give as われしなん, let me die, in place of 春死なむ, let me die in spring [5][4][10]. They are taken up in the Notes.

The sense. 願はくは is what I wish is; 大町五城, in 1922, explains it as the verb 願ふ, to wish, drawn out: 故にねがはくは願ふの詞を延べたるなり [11]. 花 is the blossoms, and every reading of the poem read for this history that names the tree takes them as cherry but one, an English magazine of 1914 that made them plum; the others say blossoms or flowers and leave the tree unnamed [13][14][15][7]. 花の下, in the dictionary's entry, is 花が咲いている木の下。花の陰。, under a tree in bloom; the blossoms' shade, a season word for spring, the dictionary's first example being from the 『後撰和歌集』 of about 951 [16]. 春死なむ is let me die in spring, the ending む a wish or intention. 如月, kisaragi, is 陰暦二月の称, the second month of the lunar calendar, a season word for spring; by the solar calendar it falls about March [17][18]. 望月 is 陰暦十五夜の月。満月。, the moon of the fifteenth night; the full moon [19]. The fifteenth of the second month is the day of the Buddha's passing into nirvana, kept as 涅槃会, nehan-e: 陰暦2月15日の釈迦入滅の日に行う法会, the service held on the fifteenth of the second lunar month, the day of Śākyamuni's death [20]. The poem does not name the Buddha; the date does. So it says: what I wish is to die in spring under the blossoms, at that full moon of the second month.

The reading of 下. The modern reference works read 花の下 as hana no shita, and so does the work order [21]. The dictionary enters the phrase only as はなのもと, hana no moto, and in a second sense the same 花の下, read moto, is the dictionary's name for the commoner lovers of linked verse of the Kamakura and Nanbokuchō periods [16]. Both readings stand in the witnesses, and they divide by kind of witness, not by date. The poem-match Saigyō arranged about 1187 writes the round's text ねかはくは花のもとにて in the printings read, and Shunzei's judgment on it says 左の花の本にて; every witness read for this history that quotes the poem as someone else's and spells the word writes moto too: Shunzei again in his memorial headnote after Saigyō's death, the monk Jien 慈円 in a note quoted by an Edo encyclopedia, the collection of tales of 1254, and the tale of Saigyō's life [1][5][4][6][8]. Teika's note writes the character 下, which leaves the reading open [3]. The collections of Saigyō's poems differ. Most copies write the word as the character 下, which leaves the reading to the reader; those that write it out in kana write shita, all but one. 『山家心中集』, a selection from his poems, is transcribed in the edition of 1982 from a manuscript whose box attributes it to his hand, copied in the early Kamakura period by three writers, as ねがはくははなのしたにてはるしなむ; two later copies of the same selection write はなのしたにて, one of them read for this history at the leaf, a copy that the editor of its facsimile judges was made by attendants for the emperor Reigen (1654–1732); in the same edition's transcriptions, the 陽明文庫 manuscript of 『山家集』, of the late Muromachi period, writes 花のしたにて, and a manuscript of the imperial anthology 『続古今和歌集』 attributed to Fujiwara no Tameuji 藤原為氏 writes はなのしたにて [8][9]. One copy of a collection of his poems, of the late Muromachi period, writes はなの本にて, as the edition transcribes it [8]. So moto is the reading of the poem-match as printed and of the poem's first readers, and shita is the reading of his collections where they spell it out, but for that one copy.

The text in English. The earliest known European rendering, in the Internet Archive's full text and the books read here, is German, of 1881, and it reads moto as the stems of the flowers [22]. In English the poem is printed twice in 1914, once with moto and once with shita, and the romaji has divided by writer, not by date, ever since [7][23]. The renderings are read below, from 1914 to 2018.

The historical record

About 1187. The poem-match. Late in life Saigyō arranged two matches of his own poems, each set against another of his own, and dedicated them at the Ise shrines; the first, 『御裳濯河歌合』, he asked Shunzei to judge [24][5]. Round seven sets our poem on the left against こむ世には心の中にあらはさむあかでやみぬる月の光を on the right, and Shunzei writes, in the typeset of 『群書類従』, read at the page in two printings [1]:

左の花の本にてといひ、右の來む世にはといへる、ともに深にとりて、右は打まかせて宜歌の躰なり。左は、ねがはくはとをきて、春しなむといへる、うるはしきすがたにはあらず。此躰にとりて、かみしもあひかなひ、いみじく聞ゆる也。さりとて、ふかき道にいらざらむ輩は、かくよまんとせば、かなはざることありぬべし。これは又、いたれるときのことなり。姿は雖不相似、なずらへて持とす。

The left says 花の本にて and the right says 來む世には, and both are deep. The right is a good poem of the ordinary kind. The left, setting ねがはくは first and saying 春しなむ, is not of a beautiful form. In this kind, the upper and lower halves agree and it sounds very fine. Even so, those who have not entered the deep way, if they tried to compose like this, would likely fail. This is what comes of having arrived. Though the forms are unlike, I judge it a draw. So the poem was Saigyō's by about 1187, and its judge, the first in the witnesses read, praised it while finding its shape not beautiful.

When it was written. The poem is in 『山家集』, the larger collection of his own poems, among poems on the blossoms. 久保田淳, in an encyclopedia entry, says the collection does not include his last work and may be a gathering he made himself before he moved to Ise in his early sixties [21]. Shunzei's memorial headnote says only that Saigyō wrote it 先年, in a year before, when he was writing many poems on cherry blossoms [5]. William LaFleur puts it probably more than a decade earlier than the death; Makoto Ueda, in 1970, toward the end of his life [25][26]. The poem itself shows it was made before the spring it asks for: 窪田空穂, in 1938, from its wording, 「春死なむ」といつてゐる所から見ると、春に先立つ季節に詠んだものと見える, seeing that it says 春死なむ, it appears to have been composed in a season before spring [12]. No witness read gives a year.

1190. The death. Shunzei's headnote in 『長秋詠藻』 tells the end. Saigyō had sent his second match, for the outer shrine, to Shunzei's son Teika to judge; the judgment reached him ill at a mountain temple, Hirokawa in Kawachi, and he was overjoyed; he said he was a little better and would come up to the capital at the year's end; and 二月十六日なむかくれ侍りける, on the sixteenth of the second month he passed away [5]. Shunzei goes on, in the typeset of 1925:

彼の上人先年にさくらの歌おほくよみけるに 同じくは花のもとにて春死なむその二月の望月の比 かくよみたりしををかしく見給ひしことに、つひに二月十六日望の日をはり遂げけること、哀に有りがたく覺えてかきつけゝる

Some years before, that holy man wrote many poems on cherry blossoms, among them 同じくは花のもとにて春死なむその二月の望月の比; it had been found delightful that he wrote so, and now that he had at last died on the sixteenth of the second month, the day of the full moon, I was moved by how rare it was, and wrote, and his poem follows: 願置きし花の本にて終りけり蓮の上も違はざらなむ, he has ended under the blossoms as he wished; may the lotus above not fail him either [5]. Jien, in his own collection, dates it 文治六年二月十六日未時, the sixteenth of the second month of the sixth year of Bunji, in the hour of the sheep, in the early afternoon, and says the end was truly fine and did not differ from how he had lived, and that people spoke of it as 世のすゑにありがたき, a rare thing in these latter days; the year is read at the leaf of an undated woodblock print of Jien's collection, and his note quoting the poem is taken from an Edo encyclopedia that prints it whole and gives the year once as 文治二年 and once as 文治六年 [4][10]. Teika, in a poem sent to the 三位中將, adds the fact the others imply: 上人先年詠云 願はくは花の下にて春死なむその二月の望月の頃 今年十六日望日也, the holy man wrote some years ago 願はくは …; this year the sixteenth was the full-moon day [3]. The sixth year of Bunji became the first of Kenkyū later that year, so the year is given both ways, and it is 1190 [3][10]. He was seventy-three [21].

1254. The fifteenth. 『古今著聞集』 Kokon chomonjū, a collection of tales compiled in 1254, tells it more neatly. In the typeset of 1901, read at the page: 西行法師當時より釋迦如來御入滅の日終をとらんことをねがひてよみ侍ける, Saigyō wished to end his life on the day of the Buddha's passing, and wrote, then the poem in the form ねがはくばはなのもとにて春しなんその二月のもち月のころ, and かくよみてつゐに建久九年二月十五日に往生をとげてけり, having written this, he at last attained rebirth on the fifteenth of the second month of the ninth year of Kenkyū [6]. The ninth year of Kenkyū is 1198. An edition of 1930 prints 九 and notes that it should probably be 元, the first year; the year is the collection's own, as transmitted, and so is the fifteenth [6]. The later tale of Saigyō's life, 『西行物語』, keeps the fifteenth and 1198 and sets the poem late, at a hermitage in the eastern hills of Kyoto [27][8]. The Edo encyclopedias carried 1198 until 山岡浚明, in 『類聚名物考』, set the sources side by side and wrote 然るに實は文治六年庚戌二月十六日に身まかれり, in truth he died on the sixteenth of the second month of Bunji 6, proving it from Jien and Shunzei [10]. Yamaoka also records 元禄二年…二月十六日 上人五百年忌, the five-hundredth memorial of the holy man, on the sixteenth of the second month of Genroku 2, 1689: by then the anniversary was kept on the sixteenth [10].

The anthology. The poem was taken into the imperial anthology 『続古今和歌集』 of 1265 [28], in the first book of miscellaneous poems, under the headnote 花の歌の中に, among poems on blossoms; the 『国歌大観』 of 1901–03 numbers it 1535 and sets it as ねがはくば花の本にて春死なむそのきさらぎの望月の頃, and a manuscript attributed to Tameuji, as the edition of 1982 transcribes it, writes はなのしたにて under the same number [29][8]. It is not in the 『新古今和歌集』. Two English books say it is, under two different numbers, 1846 and 1993 [30][31]. Laurel Rasplica Rodd's complete translation of the 新古今 has no such poem in its index of first lines, and a full-text search of the volume of that 『国歌大観』 which holds the 千載, the 新古今 and the 続古今 finds the poem once, in the 続古今 [32][29].

How it has been read. The readings, in order:

The three wartime books are read here only through the National Diet Library's search windows, rebuilt passage by passage; their pages are not shown outside Japan. In the windows read, the poem itself is not made a call to die for the nation: it is glossed as Buddhist and as a love of blossoms, quoted further on in a book that remembers men who longed to die beneath this flower, and parodied by one writer who rejected it.

The poem in German and English

1881. August Pfizmaier. In the proceedings of the Vienna Academy, translating a Japanese account of the places of Ōmi and Mino, Pfizmaier comes to a passage where the traveler remembers the poem; his Japanese prints 花ノモトニテ and, in place of 春, 松, pine, and his German follows it: O wenn es doch wäre, / Dass die Stengel der Blumen / Fichten würden / In diesem zweiten Monat, / In des Vollmonds Zeit, O if it only were, that the stems of the flowers became spruces, in this second month, in the time of the full moon [22]. Moto is read as the stems, and 松, pine, stands where every witness has 春, rendered Fichten, spruces; the traveler's own poem, which follows, asks how he who had wished for the blossoms comes to lodge in a pine's shade [22]. It is the earliest known rendering in a European language, in the Internet Archive's full text and the books read here.

February 1914. The Japan Magazine. In a piece on the month's observances: Negawakuba / Hana no moto nite, / Ware shinan, / Sono kisaragi no / Mochizuki no koro, Would that I might die under the plum flowers in February when it is just full moon!, and on the 15th of the second month when the plum trees were all opal and ivory, he passed away in the year 1198 [7]. The date and year are those of the 1254 telling and of the tale of Saigyō's life; ware shinan is Jien's wording; the plum is the magazine's. The May issue repeats it [7].

1914. An Official Guide to Eastern Asia. In its sketch of Japanese literature, under a paragraph on the poets of the 新古今: Negawaku wa / Hana no shita nite / Ware shinan / Sono kisaragi no / Mochizuki no koro, Ah! Would that I might fall asleep / Beneath the fair Spring flowers, / The full moon shining overhead, / Bewept by April showers! [23]. The same year as the magazine, it reads shita; it too has ware shinan, and among the English books read here it is the first to print the poem under the 新古今's poets.

1936. Asatarō Miyamori. Masterpieces of Japanese Poetry, vol. 1, titled 死, Death, with the kana ねがはくは花のもとにて春しなむそのきさらぎのもち月のころ: I wish that I might die in spring / 'Neath flowers of a cherry-tree, / About the anniversary / Of merciful Buddha's demise, and the note It is generally thought almost a miracle that the pious poet actually died on the sixteenth of February [13]. The cherry and the sixteenth are back.

1950. R. H. Blyth. Haiku, vol. 2, beside a haiku of Raizan, with the poem in characters: My earnest desire / Is that I may die / Beneath the cherry-blossoms, / In spring, the second month, / At the full moon [14].

1970. Makoto Ueda. Could I but die / Under the cherry blossoms / In springtime / On the night of the full moon / In the second month of the year, in hana no moto nite, quoted for Bashō's link [26].

1981 and 1991. Burton Watson. Let me die in spring / beneath the blossoming trees, / let it be around / the full moon / of Kisaragi month, revised in 1991 to under the blossoming trees and that full moon, with the note that Saigyō died on the sixteenth day of the second month of 1190, a feat that greatly impressed the people of his time [38].

1986. Yoel Hoffmann. Japanese Death Poems, as Saigyō's death poem, in hana no shita nite: I wish to die / in spring, beneath / the cherry blossoms, / while the springtime moon / is full [39].

1991. Steven D. Carter. This is what I want: / to die in the springtime, / beneath the blossoms— / midway through the Second Month, / when the moon is at the full, with the note that the second month is March by the modern calendar [18].

1993. Donald Keene. No rendering; his famous last wish (which was ultimately granted) [40].

2003. William LaFleur. Let it be in spring / and under cherry blossoms that / I die, while the moon / is perfect at midmonth, like / it was for his peaceful passing, in hana no shita nite, and on the same page Shunzei's answering poem in hana no moto nite; the temple is printed Horokawa-dera where it is Hirokawa [25].

2007 and 2018. Haruo Shirane and Peter MacMillan. Shirane: My wish is / to die in spring / under the cherry blossoms / on that day in the Second Month / when the moon is full, labeled Shinkokinshū, Miscellaneous, no. 1846; his note gives the sixteenth and says that at least four other monks of the medieval period are said to have successfully entered nirvana on the same day as the Buddha [30]. MacMillan: If my wish were to come true / I would die in spring / under cherry blossoms / of the second month, / when the moon is full, (Shin-kokinshū no. 1993) [31]. The poem is in the 続古今, not the 新古今 [29][32].

Today. The work order's English is Let me die in spring beneath the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month, the house's own. A rendering should keep the wish in the first person and the date as a date, and should not name the Buddha, which the poem leaves to its date. The plum, the year 1198, the fifteenth and the 新古今 have all traveled in English with the poem, and none is in the record of his death.

A reading

The words first. 花の下 has two readings, and the witnesses do not let either one go. The poem-match Saigyō arranged writes moto in the printings read, Shunzei, who judged it in Saigyō's lifetime, wrote moto in his judgment, and so did Jien and the tales that quoted it after the death, while Teika wrote the character [1][5][10][6][3]. The collections of Saigyō's poems, where a copyist chose to spell the word out, wrote shita, all but one, as the edition of 1982 transcribes them, from a manuscript of the early Kamakura period whose box gives it to his hand, down to a copy made at court some five hundred years later, which I read at the leaf [8][9]. A modern reader who says shita is not modernizing. A reader who says moto is speaking as Shunzei did. I read hana no shita, with the collections of his poems, and hear moto in the poem-match and in the mouths of his first readers.

The date next. The poem asks for the full moon of the second month, and the full moon of the second month is the night of the Buddha's passing. It does not ask for the Buddha's day by name; the 1254 tale says it did, and moved the death a day to make it fit [6]. Saigyō died on the sixteenth, and Teika noted, as a man noting a fact, that the sixteenth was the full moon that year [3]. The record needed no help, and the legend gave it some anyway. Shirane's note, that other monks were said to have died on the Buddha's day, and that many tried, says what the wish was in its time: an ambition other monks were said to have met, and many tried for [30].

The label last. The poem was written, as Kubota read it from its own verb, in a season before the spring it wishes for, and it was a finished poem in a judged match about three years before the death [12][1]. It is not a death poem. A copy of his talk on poetry with an Edo scholar's notes called it one, and by 1922 it was the famous death poem in print [8][11]. That is fair to what happened, since the wish was kept, and Shunzei, Jien and Teika treated it as the poem of his death from the month he died [5][4][3]. I read it as Shunzei did, not beautiful in form and very fine, and as those three did, a wish about a season and a day that was kept. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the poem. Point by point, against the witnesses read for this history:

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
願はくは花の下にて春死なむVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
願はくは花の下にて春死なむVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
願はくは花の下にて春死なむVD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Saigyō - Let me die in spring, under the blossoms, at the full moon of the second month (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
願はくは花の下にて春死なむVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

『山家心中集』, the manuscript traditionally held to be in Saigyō's hand, of the early Kamakura period, privately held, read here only as the 1982 edition transcribes it in the National Diet Library's search windows. It would show his own selection's spelling of 花の下 at the leaf.

『続古今和歌集』, the manuscript in the 尊経閣文庫 attributed to Fujiwara no Tameuji, likewise read only through the 1982 edition's transcription.

The three wartime books of 1939 to 1943 at their pages, and 窪田空穂's 『歴代歌人研究』 of 1938, at the National Diet Library, whose text is shown outside Japan only as search snippets. They would show whole what the windows show in part.

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

References

  1. 『御裳濯河歌合』, 七番, with 藤原俊成's judgment, in 『群書類従』 第八輯, p. 977, scan 496, at the National Diet Library, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1879742/1/496; and the other printing, 巻第二百十七, p. 1036, scan 526, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1879502/1/526
  2. 「橘成季」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 and デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/橘成季-93486
  3. 藤原定家, 『拾遺愚草』 下, in 『国歌大観』 続, 1925, p. 298, scan 156, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882940/1/156
  4. 慈円, 『拾玉集』, the 国文学研究資料館 print (六家集), volume 4, canvas 187, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200001935/187
  5. 藤原俊成, 『長秋詠藻』 下, in 『国歌大観』 続, 1925, scans 19–20, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882940/1/20
  6. 橘成季, 『古今著聞集』 巻十三, in 『国史大系』, 1901, p. 455, scan 236, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991105/1/236; and 『日本古典全集』 『古今著聞集』, 1930, snippet view, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1912666; at the National Diet Library.
  7. The Japan Magazine, vol. 4 no. 10, February 1914, p. 608, and vol. 5 no. 1, May 1914, pp. 42–43, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/jm-1914-v4.9-5.2/page/n157/mode/1up
  8. 『西行全集』, 1982, transcriptions of each text from its base: 山家集 (陽明文庫本) search index 16, 西行集 (伝甘露寺伊長筆本) 218, 山家心中集 (伝西行自筆本) 243–244, (伝冷泉為相筆本) 256, (内閣文庫本) 272–273, 御裳濯河歌合 290, 西行上人談抄 (神宮文庫本, with an Edo scholar's notes) 306 and 311, 西行物語 502 and 514, 続古今和歌集 (尊経閣文庫蔵 伝藤原為氏筆本) 566 and 572, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12454642
  9. 『山家心中集』, 貴重図書影本刊行会, 1931, a facsimile of the 宮内省図書寮 copy, canvas 4, and 佐佐木信綱's 解題, canvases 47–48, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1188959/1/4
  10. 山岡浚明, 『類聚名物考』 巻五十二 人物部, scan 437, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869498/1/437
  11. 大町五城, 『和歌詞源抄』, 大日本歌道奨励会, 1922, p. 175, scan 106, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970110/1/106
  12. 窪田空穂, 『歴代歌人研究』, 1938, search index 33, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1222062
  13. Asatarō Miyamori, Masterpieces of Japanese Poetry, Ancient and Modern, vol. 1, Maruzen, 1936, p. 392, read on the house's shelf in the Greenwood reprint of 1970.
  14. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, 1950, p. 352, read on the house's shelf.
  15. 田中常憲, 『大日本国民歌詳釈』, 至文堂, 1943, search index 300, and 『大日本明倫歌詳釈』, 1939, search index 303, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1069674 · https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1256345
  16. 「花の下」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/花の下-2074992
  17. 「如月」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/如月-473407
  18. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology, Stanford University Press, 1991, no. 311, p. 165, read on the house's shelf.
  19. 「望月」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/望月-142458
  20. 「涅槃会」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/涅槃会-111496
  21. 「西行」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) (久保田淳) and 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (大隅和雄), and 「山家集」, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) (久保田淳), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/西行-17980 · https://kotobank.jp/word/山家集-70422
  22. August Pfizmaier, on the places of Ōmi and Mino, Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna, 1881, pp. 1040–1041, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_magVAAAAIAAJ/page/n1054/mode/1up
  23. An Official Guide to Eastern Asia, vol. 2, Imperial Japanese Government Railways, 1914, p. cxcvi, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.96772/page/n218/mode/1up
  24. 「御裳濯河歌合」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (竹下豊), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/御裳濯河歌合-1209677
  25. William R. LaFleur, Awesome Nightfall: The Life, Times, and Poetry of Saigyō, Wisdom Publications, 2003, pp. 68–69, read on the house's shelf.
  26. Makoto Ueda, Matsuo Bashō, Twayne, 1970, p. 86, read on the house's shelf in the Kodansha International printing of 1982.
  27. 「西行物語」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 (今西祐一郎), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/西行物語-1168048
  28. 「続古今和歌集」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/続古今和歌集-534128
  29. 『続古今和歌集』 巻第十七 雑歌上, no. 1535, in 『国歌大観』 歌集部, 松下大三郎・渡辺文雄 編, 1901–03 (the library's record, 明34,36: the text and its index of lines in one volume), p. 296, scan 153, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873348/1/153
  30. Haruo Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, Columbia University Press, 2007, pp. 578–579, read on the house's shelf at its text layer.
  31. Peter MacMillan, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, Penguin Classics, 2018, the commentary to poem 86, read on the house's shelf in an edition without page numbers.
  32. Laurel Rasplica Rodd, Shinkokinshū: New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, Brill, 2015, the index of first lines, read on the house's shelf.
  33. 「荷兮」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, and the excerpt of the 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 entry 【冬の日】 on the same page, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/荷兮-461022
  34. 幸田露伴, 『冬の日抄』, 岩波書店, 1924, pp. 208–209, scan 110, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1882417/1/110
  35. 佐藤庄太 編, 『名士と金言』, 1899, search index 16, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/758383
  36. 石井満, 『鉄道生活訓』, 鉄道研究社, 1941, search index 127 and 130, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039660
  37. 津村敏行, 『南海の日章旗』, 海洋文化社, 1942, search index 4, 58 and 60, snippet view, National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1900035
  38. Burton Watson, in Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor, 1981, p. 180; and Burton Watson, Saigyō: Poems of a Mountain Home, Columbia University Press, 1991, p. 40; read on the house's shelf.
  39. Yoel Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems, Charles E. Tuttle, 1986, p. 48, read on the house's shelf.
  40. Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart, Henry Holt, 1993, p. 679, read on the house's shelf.
  41. 『山家集』, 宮内庁書陵部 511・1, manuscript, canvas 9, https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100003191/9; and 『山家和歌集』, the 国文学研究資料館 print, canvas 9, https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200001936/9; at the 国書データベース.

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-19, citations — the cited web addresses opened and the quoted words looked for at each; every address answered with the words sought; nothing found to differ · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-10-19, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL, both, on wrong facts of date and range (the night of the poem, decades of editions); round 2 FAIL on a reader's finding that a distance between pages was not in the sources; round 3 FAIL, both, on a table's phrase about modern editions; round 4 PASS, both; corrections made

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

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 願はくは花の下にて春死なむその如月の望月のころ (negawaku wa hana no shita nite haru shinamu sono kisaragi no mochizuki no koro)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/saigyo-negawaku-wa-hana-no-shita-nite.