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Home › Library › Philology › Issa - The bitter part, eaten by the mother, mountain persimmon

澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿 shibui toko haha ga kui keri yama no kaki Issa - The bitter part, eaten by the mother, mountain persimmon

This is a philological study of the haiku 澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿 (shibui toko haha ga kui keri yama no kaki), which Issa set down in his verse diary under the year 1820. It examines three readings — a schoolbook's moral, 津田左右吉's biographical frame and Blyth's love that is not self-denial — and the verse's English renderings from 1942 to 2009.

Japanese Scroll of Issa - The bitter part, eaten by the mother, mountain persimmon (shibui toko haha ga kui keri yama no kaki) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Issa - The bitter part, eaten by the mother, mountain persimmon (shibui toko haha ga kui keri yama no kaki)

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

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Abstract

澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿, the astringent part the mother ate: wild persimmons, is Issa's. He set it down in his verse diary under the year 1820; the diary is known from a copy finished in 1851 and first printed in 1927, and the verse was already in a collected edition of 1902. 津田左右吉 in 1921 read it as the verse of a man who lost his own mother at three, painting the mother he watched other children have; a Fukushima school text of 1935 read it as a mother's care, the mother tasting first and giving the child the sweet end. Blyth rendered it three ways between 1942 and 1952, Beilenson paraphrased him in 1968, and Addiss and the Yamamotos translated it in 2009.

Overview

The text. Every Japanese witness has the words 澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿; the writing splits only in how とこ, the verb and 澁 are written. The diary copy writes とこ as 所, 澁い所母が喰ひけり山の柿 [1]. 喰 in the diary, the five Issa editions and the index, 食 in Takashima 高島's 1910 anthology, Tsuda 津田's 1921 study, the 1935 school text and the 1935 girls' school collection; one verb. 澁 is the old form on every leaf; the scroll's semi-cursive designs write its modern form 渋, and the cursive designs do not decide between them, since the two meet in cursive; one character. One scroll design writes the verse almost wholly in kana, with only 母 and 柿 in kanji, and Blyth prints it in kana in 1942 and 1952, しぶいとこ母がくひけり山のかき, and in kanji in 1949. Two readings are noise: a 1935 scan of Handa 半田's edition shows 濃いとこ, a recognition slip for 澁, and the 2022 Shambhala collection of Blyth's essays prints 渋いこと for とこ, a slip in that edition that no Japanese witness has, his own 1949 page included, and that makes no sense where とこ, the part, does. No witness varies a word. The meter is five, seven, five: し・ぶ・い・と・こ, は・は・が・く・い・け・り, や・ま・の・か・き.

The sense. The verse has been read as a verse about a mother since it was first anthologized, and the readers divide on whose mother. Takashima in 1910 filed it among the children in haiku [2]; Katsumine 勝峰 in 1921 among the mothers [3]. The Fukushima school in 1935 read it as a mother's care: the mother tastes first and gives the child the sweet end, and that is how a child is raised [4]. Tsuda in 1921 read it from the poet's life: Issa, motherless at three and mistreated by a stepmother, is not describing his own mother but the mother he watched other children have, and the verse is one of four in which he painted a happiness he was shut out of [5]. Blyth set it in two places. In 1942 it closes a run of verses about children as an instance of childlikeness before he turns to Wordsworth [6]. In 1949 it closes a passage on a love that is not the means, the first step, but the end and aim and consummation of our pilgrimage here, expressed in quite other ways than altruism and self-denial, effortless and continuous, unconscious and nameless, but we feel it and know it in ourselves and others as the health of the soul [7]. Beilenson in 1968 made the mother's act a thing to notice: And notice how the mother / Eats the bitter parts [8]. Addiss and the Yamamotos in 2009 made the mother the child's: Her mother eats / the bitter parts [9].

The words. 澁い is astringent, the persimmon's tannin that dries the mouth; bitter is Blyth's word in 1942 and 1952, astringent his word in 1949 and the exact one, and Lanoue's puckery the plain one [10]. とこ is ところ, the part, the place on the fruit. 母が喰ひけり is the mother ate it; けり closes it as a thing seen and done. 山の柿 is wild persimmons, the small unreliable fruit of the hills, an autumn season word; the 1935 school text glosses it, まして山の柿などはあぶないものだ, and wild persimmons above all are chancy [4]. As words the line says: The astringent part, the mother ate: wild persimmons.

The verse in English. Blyth rendered the verse three ways, in 1942, 1949 and 1952, and a posthumous collection of 2022 prints the 1949 rendering again [6][7][11][12]; Beilenson paraphrased him in 1968 [8]; Addiss and the Yamamotos translated it in 2009 [9], and David Lanoue's online archive of Issa's verse carries a rendering of its own [10].

The historical record

1820, in a copy of 1851. The 八番日記, Issa's verse diary for 1819 to 1821; 栗生純夫 (ed.), 新校八番日記, 信濃郷土誌出版社, 1946. The editor's introduction: the diary in Issa's hand 今日に至るまで未だ發見されてゐない, has not been found to this day; the text is a copy made by 風間新藏, an Inariyama oil merchant, whose last leaf reads 嘉永四年亥八月十二日寫終, copying finished on the twelfth day of the eighth month of 1851; the copyist stopped transcribing the daily entries from the second month of 1820 and kept the verses month by month; the title 八番日記 is the editor's, who first printed the copy in 1927. On printed page 141, in the year the diary heads 文政三辰正月 (1820), the verse stands as 澁い所母が喰ひけり山の柿, between きわ〳〵し女組やら五十雀 and 小粒ても武也けり唐からし, a few verses before the heading 十月, the tenth month [1].

1902. Ōtsuka Kōzan 大塚甲山 (ed.), 一茶俳句全集, 内外出版協会. Printed pages 222–223, under the heading 柿 in a run of persimmon verses: 湯上りの拍子に凉む熟柿かな, 柿の木であいと答へる小僧かな, 澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿, 澁柿と烏も知つて通りけり, 京の見柿の澁さをかくしけり, and over the page 澁柿をこらへてくふや京の見, 山柿も佛の目には甘からむ [13].

1910. Takashima Heizaburō (ed.), 竹久夢二 (ill.), 児童を謳へる文学, 洛陽堂. Under 俳句に現はれたる兒童, children as they appear in haiku, 澁いとこ母が食ひけり山の柿, the section credited 一茶 [2].

1921. Tsuda Sōkichi, 文学に現はれたる我が国民思想の研究, 第4. Pages 343–344. Issa's feeling for children has a second root: 幼にして母に別れ、繼母に虐待せられ、六歲にして「われと來て遊べや親の無い雀」とおのづからなる句を口ずさんだといふ彼は、母の愛に饑えてゐた, parted from his mother in infancy, ill-treated by his stepmother, said to have murmured at six the verse "come and play with me, sparrow without parents," he hungered for a mother's love; the family circle was 彼にとつてはみづから入ることを許されざる天國, for him a heaven he was not permitted to enter; まづ彼が如何に母子の情を寫したかを見るがよい, first see how he portrayed the feeling between mother and child, and four verses follow: 「下冷の子とねかはりて添乳かな」、「ねせつけし子の洗濯や夏の月」、「澁いとこ母が食ひけり山の柿」、「母親を霜よけにしてねた子かな」(橋上乞食)。母ある子の如何に嬉しく彼の心には感じたであらう, how happy a child with a mother must have seemed to his heart. This verse is the third of the four [5].

1921. Katsumine Shinpū (ed.), 新選一茶全集, 町田書店. In the classified section 一茶俳句分類, pages 392–393, the headings 親子, 夫婦, 父, 母: under 父, 父ありて曙見たし靑田原; under 母, this verse first, then 母の分もひとつ潜る茅の輪哉, 母親を霜よけにして寢た子哉 and five more [3].

1925 and 1935. Handa Ryōhei (ed.), 一茶俳句集 季題別年代考; 一茶俳句全集 季題別年代附. Pages 52–53 of the 1925 edition, 植物, 柿: nine persimmon verses in a run, this one third, none carrying the year tag the editor gives where he can [14].

1926, 1934, 1935. Four more prints. The 1926 一茶蕪村名句全集 in its 柿 run [15]; the 1934 women's-conduct book under 川柳 with no name [16]; the 1934 児童百科大辞典 in a run of 柿 verses, where the heading 柿の俳句、短歌 sits after the run, so whether it governs this verse is not settled [17]; the 1935 girls' school collection 母子の楔 under 句 with no name [18].

1928. Katsumine Shinpū (ed.), 日本俳書大系, the kana index 俳諧全句索引. Under 一茶, シ: シブイ (選抄) 澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿; by the index's own key, (選抄) is the series' own selection of Issa's verse, 俳句選抄 [19].

1935. 郡山市赤木尋常小学校, 実際的家庭教育, a school's book for parents. Pages 112–113, the chapter 子供を歌へる詩歌, section (七) 母性愛を詠める歌: 母の愛ほど世に至純にして貴く强いものはあるまい, nothing in the world is purer, nobler or stronger than a mother's love; then two verses of Issa's, 蚤の跡數へながらに添へ乳かな and 澁いとこ母が食ひけり山の柿, and the gloss: 蚤の喰つた跡でさへ氣にかゝる母である。まして山の柿などはあぶないものだ。先づ自分で毒味をして、甘い所を子に與へる。子を育てるにはかうした細かい注意がなければならない, a mother who worries even over the marks a flea has bitten; and wild persimmons above all are chancy. She tastes first, and gives the sweet part to the child. Raising a child needs care this fine [4].

The dictionaries today. kotobank's entry for Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 gives the poet's dates, 1763 to 1828 in 大辞泉 and 文政10(1827).11.19 in Britannica, and does not quote the verse [20].

The attribution. Issa's at every edition of Issa and at every anthology that names a poet: Ōtsuka's 1902 全集 [13], Takashima's 1910 anthology of children in literature (the section credited 一茶) [2], Tsuda 1921 [5], Katsumine's 1921 全集 and his 1928 index [3][19], Handa's 1925 and 1935 editions by season and year [14], the 1926 一茶蕪村名句全集 [15], the 1935 school text [4]; Blyth in 1942, 1949 and 1952 [6][7][11]; Beilenson 1968 [8]; Addiss and the Yamamotos 2009 [9]; Watson does not carry it. Two anthologies print it without a name, a 1934 book of conduct for women under a 川柳 heading and a 1935 girls' school collection under 句 [16][18]; lapses of credit, not rival claims. The diary copy dates it to 1820 [1], and Lanoue's archive gives the same year [10]. The editions do not: Handa's 1925 edition, which tags a year in parentheses wherever the manuscripts allow, leaves every 柿 verse untagged, as does his 1935 edition [14], and Katsumine's 1928 index tags it (選抄), the series' own selection of Issa's verse, not an Edo source [19]. The collection of Issa's verse his disciples printed in 1829, two years after his death, does not carry it: it is absent from the autumn section and from the first-line index of the 1930 volume that prints it [21]. The 1921 全集 files it under the heading 母, mother, in its classified section, directly after 父 with 父ありて曙見たし靑田原, and before seven more 母 verses beginning 母の分もひとつ潜る茅の輪哉 [3].

What is not a source. No printed edition before the diary copy dates the verse; the 1928 index's 選抄 is the series' selection, not a diary. How the verse reached the 1902 edition, twenty-five years before the diary copy was printed, is not traced here. The sweet-end-and-bitter-end reading has a Japanese witness that says the same, the 1935 school text. Bitter for 澁い is soft; the fruit is astringent, and the sweet end of the same fruit is why the verse works. The 2022 collection's こと is that edition's slip.

The verse in English

1942. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 361, chapter CHILDREN. Wild persimmons: / The mother is eating / The bitter parts. The Japanese in kana beneath, しぶいとこ母がくひけり山のかき, the last of four children's verses on the page, no poet named for any of them; then But this childlikeness is just as effective when applied to serious things, to death, for example, in We are Seven. The earliest known English rendering [6].

1949. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 259, chapter ZEN. 澁いとこ母が喰ひけり山の柿 一茶, Mountain persimmons; / The mother is eating / The astringent parts. Issa. At the head of the page, closing the passage on love that ends the page before, as the health of the soul; then Zen cannot change a man's inborn character [7].

1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Autumn-Winter, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 135, PERSIMMONS. しぶいとこ母がくひけり山のかき 一茶, Shibui toko haha ga kuikeri yama no kaki, Wild persimmons, / The mother eating / The bitter parts. Issa. Unglossed, after Bashō's 里ふりて柿の木持たぬ家もなし [11].

1968. Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, unpaginated. Nice: wild persimmons… / And notice how the mother / Eats the bitter parts, signed Issa, on a page with verses of Sōkan and Shiki; Blyth's three words the bitter parts kept and the rest recast in the Peter Pauper manner [8].

2009. Stephen Addiss, Fumiko Yamamoto and Akira Yamamoto, Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Shambhala, Boston, section Human Voices. Her mother eats / the bitter parts— / mountain persimmons, signed Issa, in a run of verses on children that includes Issa's flea-bite verse the 1935 school text pairs it with. The editors say the book draws on their five earlier Weatherhill anthologies of 1992 to 2007, with some modifications in translation [9].

2022. R. H. Blyth, Poetry and Zen, Shambhala, a posthumous collection. 渋いこと母が喰ひけり山の柿, Mountain persimmons; / The mother is eating / The astringent parts. (Issa). The 1949 rendering word for word, in an edition whose Japanese has slipped a kana [12].

Undated, online. David G. Lanoue, Haiku of Kobayashi Issa. 渋い所母が喰けり山の柿, dated 1820: Mother eats / the puckery part... / mountain persimmon, with the note The mother eats the more puckery places, letting her child enjoy the sweeter bites [10].

A reading

I read the verse with Tsuda: the mother is not Issa's, who died when he was three, but the one he watched other children have, and the editors of 1921 who put the verse under 母 beside 父ありて曙見たし, another verse of a parent he did not have, read it the same way. The school's reading is not wrong, it is the verse's surface; 津田's frame turns a moral into a poem. Blyth's 1949 placing is the closest to the verse's own manner: the mother does not give anything up, she simply eats the astringent part, and the poem is the watcher seeing a love that does not know it is one. Bitter should be astringent, since that is what a wild persimmon is and the sweet end is the point. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep: the persimmons come last, and the mother's part comes first.

References

  1. 栗生純夫 校訂『新校八番日記』, 信濃郷土誌出版社, 1946, printed pages 140–141; the editor's introduction, komas 3–4 and 8. National Diet Library pid 1128414, scan 72. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128414/1/72
  2. 高島平三郎 編, 竹久夢二 画『児童を謳へる文学』, 洛陽堂, 1910. National Diet Library pid 871654, komas 83–84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871654/1/84
  3. 勝峰晋風 編『新選一茶全集』, 町田書店, 1921, printed pages 392–393. National Diet Library pid 970100, scan 224. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970100/1/224
  4. 郡山市赤木尋常小学校『実際的家庭教育』, 1935, printed pages 112–113. National Diet Library pid 1442173, scan 74. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1442173/1/74
  5. 津田左右吉『文学に現はれたる我が国民思想の研究』第4, 1921, printed pages 342–345. National Diet Library pid 1913174, komas 185–186. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913174/1/185
  6. R. H. Blyth, Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1942, p. 361.
  7. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Eastern Culture, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1949, pp. 258–259.
  8. Peter Beilenson, A Haiku Garland, Peter Pauper Press, Mount Vernon, 1968.
  9. Stephen Addiss, Fumiko Yamamoto and Akira Yamamoto, Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Shambhala, Boston, 2009, section Human Voices.
  10. David G. Lanoue, Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, online archive, the entry shibui toko haha ga kui keri yama no kaki. https://haikuguy.com/issa_modern/search_modern.php?romaji=shibui+toko
  11. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Autumn-Winter, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, p. 135.
  12. R. H. Blyth, Poetry and Zen, Shambhala, 2022.
  13. 大塚甲山 編『一茶俳句全集』, 内外出版協会, 1902, printed pages 222–223. National Diet Library pid 874848, scan 114. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874848/1/114
  14. 半田良平 編『一茶俳句集 季題別年代考』, 1925, printed pages 52–53; 『一茶俳句全集 季題別年代附』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 917542, scan 34; pid 1034501, scan 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/917542/1/34
  15. 俳禅舎主人 編『一茶蕪村名句全集』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 968909, scan 152.
  16. 山脇房子『黄金の釘を打て 詩歌に現はれたる女性訓』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1052657, scan 30.
  17. 小原国芳 編『児童百科大辞典』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1740507, scan 59. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1740507/1/59
  18. 広島高等女学校『母子の楔』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1111443, scan 35.
  19. 勝峰晋風 編『日本俳書大系』, 俳諧全句索引, 1928, printed pages 216–217. National Diet Library pid 1179400, scan 274. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1179400/1/274
  20. 「小林一茶」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/小林一茶
  21. 信濃教育会 編『一茶叢書』第9編下巻, 古今書院, 1930: the typeset of the 1829 一茶発句集, its autumn section at scans 163–166, and the volume's first-line index at scan 175. National Diet Library pid 1186739, scan 175. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/175

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 — one count corrected, one heading qualified — the cited heading found not to demonstrably govern the verse on its own leaf; its attribution doubt refuted from the page