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白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri Buson - To white plum blossoms, Each night just dawning, Evermore

白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり (shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri) is Buson's last verse, of night dawning at the white plum. He dictated it to his disciple 月溪 hours before he died, in January 1784. This study follows the deathbed account, the three ways Japanese readers take ばかり, and nine English renderings.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - To white plum blossoms, Each night just dawning, Evermore (shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - To white plum blossoms, Each night just dawning, Evermore白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけりshiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり is Buson's last verse, dictated to his disciple 月溪 on the night of the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month of 天明3 (16 January 1784), hours before he died toward dawn on the twenty-fifth (17 January 1784). The earliest known witness is 几董's account of that night, printed in から檜葉 in 1784, which writes しら梅に; 月溪's own later sheet is reported to write 白むめの, and the の form was in print by 1901. Japanese readers divide over one word, ばかり: most take it as nothing but, nights that will now always dawn at the white plum; some take it as about, the hour of one dawn; and a study of 2025 takes it as the one night that is all the time left. The verse has come into English at least nine times since Blyth in 1950, and the renderings divide the same way.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり, one text written several ways. The 1784 print writes しら梅に明る夜はかりとなりにけり, kana for 白 and はかり without the voicing mark, as the woodblock hand does [1]. 雪人's typeset of 1897 and Ebara's edition of 1925 keep しら梅 and はかり [2][3]; 洒竹 in 1897 writes しら梅 with ばかり [4]; the 1924 typeset of Ōemaru 大江丸 writes 白梅に明る夜はかり [5]; and the editions of the twentieth century write either しら梅 or 白梅, with ばかり [6][7][8]. 明る / 明くる: the print and every Buson edition write 明る, read akuru; a 1910 anthology [9], two school books of the 1930s [10][11] and the 日本人名大辞典 at kotobank [12] spell it out as 明くる, and Hagiwara in 1936 writes the modern 明ける [13]. に / の: the print writes に. 月溪, who held the brush that night, is reported by 堀勝博 to have written 白むめのあくる夜斗と成にけり on a sheet made some time after the death [14]; the の form was in print by 1901, in a chronology of haikai that gives it, with 斗 for ばかり, as the death verse [15], and again in 1923, 1926, 1932 and 1933 [16][17][18][19]. With の the white plum becomes the subject of the dawning, where with に it is the place of it [14]. と / に: the dictionary's line at kotobank reads 明くる夜ばかりになりにけり [12]; every edition と. Two anthologies of 1922 and 1934 print となりけり without the に, by their text layers [20][21], and Shirane's romaji is to narikeri [22]. The meter is not five, seven, five: し・ら・う・め・に, あ・く・る・よ・ば・か・り, と・な・り・に・け・り, eighteen morae, the last phrase one over.

The sense. The deathbed account is plain [1]; the dispute is over what ばかり does. Most readers take it as nothing but: from now on every night will be a night that dawns at the white plum. That is Blyth's every night from now [23], Sawa and Shiffert's these nights [24], Morris's each and every night [25], Ueda's from now on every night [26], and, by 堀's survey, most Japanese commentaries and annotated editions, from 暉峻康隆 in 1956 to the 講談社 全集 of 2009 [14]. A smaller number take ばかり as about, the approximate hour: it has come to about the time the night dawns at the white plum, one dawn rather than many; 堀 names 麻生磯次 and 小高敏郎 (1990) and 深沢了子 (2012), who reads the heading as one more night before the new year [14], and the English of Sato, Shirane and Crowley reads it this way: time has come for the day to break, the time has come, it is now the moment [27][22][28]. 堀 in 2025 argues a third reading from the grammar: ばかり after a word for one span of time, as in 今年ばかり or 一夜ばかり, limits it to that span, once; and 月溪's headnote has the master asking whether the night is still deep, so the verse was said in the dark, of a dawn not yet come. The night that will dawn at the white plum is all the time left to him, and to the year; the heading 初春 turns the verse toward a spring he would not see [14]. Whether it is a death verse at all is also asked: 堀 reports a view that it was a light verse on spring's coming rather than a composed farewell [14], and 玉城司's article of 2022 is titled Neither Bashō nor Buson composed a death verse [29].

The words. 白梅 is the white plum, shiraume, a season word for spring; the デジタル大辞泉 gives this verse as its example, and the 日本国語大辞典 dates the word from 凡兆 in 猿蓑, 1691 [30]. に marks where the dawning happens. 明る夜 is the night that dawns: 明る is the attributive form of the verb 明く, to dawn, written 明くる in full. It is not the prenoun 明くる, next, following, as in 明くる四月一日, which the dictionary derives from the same form [31] but which cannot take 白梅に before it. ばかり is nothing but or about, as above. となりにけり: と marks what a thing becomes, なり is the verb なる, become, に the perfective, and けり the realization, it has come to be. As words the line says: It has come to be nights that dawn on the white plum, and nothing else; or, on the second reading, it has come to about the hour when the night dawns on the white plum.

The verse in English. Nine renderings are known to this study, from Blyth's in 1950 to Crowley's in 2007, and two more books reprint two of them; they are in § The verse in English below.

The historical record

1784, the night of the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month of 天明3 (16 January 1784). 高井几董 (ed.), から檜葉, the memorial collection, opening with 夜半翁終焉記. 几董's own account: the master, 靜にして言語も常にかはらず, calm, his speech no different from usual, called 月溪 to his side, said 病中の吟あり, I have verses from my illness, and told him いそぎ筆とるべし, take up the brush quickly; while brush, inkstone and paper were being fetched, they listened, 吟声を窺ふに, and heard 冬鶯むかし王維か垣根哉 and うぐひすや何こそつかす藪の霜; ときこえつゝ猶工案のやうすなり, and he seemed still to be working; しばらくありて又, after a while, again: しら梅に明る夜はかりとなりにけり; こは初春と題を置べしとぞ, this one, he said, should be headed 初春; 此三句を生涯語の限として睡れるが如く臨終正念にして往生を遂げたまひけり, with these three verses as the last words of his life he passed, as if into sleep, with a mind at rest. The verse stands at the head of canvas 10's recto of the 北海道大学 copy. Among the mourning verses that follow is 月溪's, under a headnote that reports the master's last words: 師翁白梅の一章を吟し終て兩眼を閉、今そ世を辭すへきの時也、夜ハまた深きやとあるに、万行の涙を拂ふて, the master finished the white-plum verse and closed both eyes: "Now is the time to take leave of the world. Is the night still deep?" At that, wiping away ten thousand tears: 明六ツと吼て氷るや鐘の聲 [1]. The death followed toward dawn on the twenty-fifth, 17 January 1784 by the Western calendar [32]; the poet was sixty-eight by the Japanese count.

After 1784. 月溪's sheet. As 堀 reports it from the 講談社 全集 of 2009 and from 岡田利兵衛's study of 1977: a sheet in 月溪's hand, written over a light ink sketch of plum blossom some time after the death, with the three verses; after the two on the warbler, しばらく有て暁の頃, after a while, toward dawn; then 白むめのあくる夜斗と成にけり and 初春の題を置候様あとにて仰られ候, afterwards he told us to set the heading 初春. 岡田 held that 月溪's record, as the one who heard the words at the pillow, should be followed; 堀 notes that 几董's account was written first, finds the two hard to choose between, and allows that の has the finer turn [14].

1799. Ōemaru, 秋存分, the seventeenth-anniversary memorial. 夜半亭蕪村居士病床にありて 白梅に明る夜はかりとなりにけり。初春と題を置へしとて云終て、唾れる如く往生の素懷を遂られけるも、はや十とせあまり七とせの昔となりけり, Master Buson on his sickbed: the verse; he said it should be headed 初春, and having said it passed as if into sleep; already seventeen years ago [5].

1897. 大野洒竹, 与謝蕪村; 阿心庵雪人, 蕪村全集 校註. 洒竹 quotes 几董's account whole from から檜葉 and closes: 天明三年癸卯の歲、冬十二月の廿四日夜、是れ蕪村か菩薩となりし日なり。日面佛、月面佛、『しら梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり』、行年六十八齡なりき [4]. 雪人 prints the 終焉記 with a gloss on 王維 and the mourning verses with 月溪's headnote [2].

1901. 牧野望東 and 星野麦人, 俳諧年表. Under 天明3: 辭世、白梅の明る夜斗と成にけり。歿日に就て、二十四日、二十九日、十一月十日、享年六十七、七十等の諸説あれ共皆誤なるべし, his death verse: 白梅の明る夜斗と成にけり. As to the day of his death, the twenty-fourth, the twenty-ninth, the tenth of the eleventh month, and ages of sixty-seven and seventy have been given, all doubtless wrong [15]. The chronology of 1923 prints 白梅の明る夜斗となりにけり [16].

1902 to 1935. The editions. 山田 1902 [6], Iwamoto 岩本's 標註 1906 [7], Reiyoshi 零余子 1921 [33], the 蕪村三千句 [34] and Handa 半田's season-and-year edition of 1925 [8] (both under 臨終), Ebara 潁原's 全集 of 1925 (初春 / しら梅に明る夜はかりとなりにけり (から檜葉), with the note 初春——この句蕪村終焉の吟) [3], the 1935 Handa [35].

1924. 岡田播陽, 殺される吾等. A hostile reading: the verse takes the 碧巌録's 銀碗裡盛雪 whole and mixes it with Bashō's 春の夜は桜に明けてしまひけり, and the heading was asked for because a painting needs a title [36].

1936. 萩原朔太郎, 郷愁の詩人与謝蕪村. 白々とした黎明の空氣の中で、夢のやうに漂つて居る梅の氣あひが感じられる, one feels the presence of the plum drifting as in a dream in the pale air of dawn; a symbolist verse, like the symbolism Yeats aimed at, and an exception for a poet who prized the sharp, direct image; had it not been his last, Hagiwara thought, it might have opened a new manner [13].

1956 to 2025. The Japanese commentary. 堀勝博's study of 2025 sets out the readings of the annotated editions and dictionaries since the war and argues his own, above [14].

The attribution. Buson's, the last verse he made, dictated to 月溪 and recorded by 几董, above [1]; 洒竹's 1897 life gives the day and the age from the same source [4]; the 1901 chronology already had to set rival dates aside [15]. The headnote 初春 is the poet's own, asked for with the verse; Ebara's 1925 全集 prints the verse under it with the tag から檜葉, and the 1925 season-and-year editions print it under 臨終 instead [3][8].

What is not a source. The 蕪村句集, which 几董 compiled for the first anniversary of the death and printed at the end of 1784 [37], does not carry the verse: the 1935 reprint of the book, read in order, has no 白梅に, no 夜ばかり and no 明る夜 [38], Ebara names から檜葉 as its only source [3], and the 1911 講義 on the 句集 mentions 夜半翁終焉記 only for the burial [39]. The date 1783 in English books is the Japanese year; the death fell in January 1784 [32].

The verse in English

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 2, Spring, page 312. Every night from now / Will dawn / From the white plum-tree, with: it has no further, no ulterior meaning beyond the simple fact that every day now, dawn comes from the direction of the white plum-blossoms. But the emphasis on the night brings out the power of the glimmering white flowers; however many times darkness covers the earth, and thick darkness the people, they have the power to bring back the dawn again; and: this verse of Buson's is said to be his death-verse, 辭世. It shows a stage of enlightenment to which even the word "selfless" is inapplicable. Again in Oriental Humour (1959), page 354 [23].

1978. Yuki Sawa and Edith Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson. Under Early Spring: With white plum blossoms / these nights to the faint light of dawn / are turning; and 几董's account in English, ending For this one you should put the title 'Early Spring' [24].

1981. Hiroaki Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands. Under PLUM, (Buson's last hokku): For white plum blossoms, time has come for the day to break [27]. Faubion Bowers reprints it in 1996 with the note Buson's farewell and final poem (jisei) [40].

1986. Yoel Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems. Of late the nights are dawning plum-blossom white, with the romaji akaru, a slip for akuru [41].

1994. Mark Morris, quoted in Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku. Now each and every night will end / Dawning in white plum blossoms, set beside Blyth's and Sawa and Shiffert's under Hass's This poem is difficult to translate [25].

1995. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water. Among his Buson, without the Japanese: Pure white plum blossoms / slowly begin to turn / the color of dawn, a free version that appears to be this verse [42].

1998. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn. from now on / every night will dawn / with white plum blossoms, with the master's last words, The time has come for me to leave this world. Is the night still deep?, and It was near dawn on January 17, 1784; In the last hokku the poet sees the dawn that is not yet there and the spring that has not yet arrived [26].

2002. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, page 546. Early spring: / shiraume ni / akuru yo bakari / to narikeri / Amid white plum blossoms / night turns to dawn— / the time has come, from the 講談社 全集 of 1992, with the note that the plum's faint whiteness seems to embody Buson's spirit as it disappears into the light of dawn [22]. Lowenstein reprints Shirane's lines in 2007 [43].

2007. Crowley, Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bashō Revival, page 2. it is now the moment when white plum blossoms lighten into dawn: The fact that Buson did not live long enough to welcome the new year he anticipates in these verses gives them a special poignance [28].

The renderings part where the Japanese readers part: every night, these nights, each and every night, from now on every night on one side; time has come, the time has come, the moment on the other.

A reading

I read the verse in the dark, as 月溪's headnote places it: the master has made two verses on a warbler, worked a while longer, said this one, asked for a spring heading, and then asked whether the night was still deep. With 堀, I take ばかり as a limit on a single span: what is left is the night that will dawn on the white plum, and nothing more, for him and for the year alike, and the heading 初春 sets that last night at the door of a spring he will not see. The majority's every night from now makes a lovely verse and is the reading English learned from Blyth; the grammar 堀 lays out, and a dawn that had not yet come, favor the one night. Of the two texts, に is 几董's and the print's and の is 月溪's by report; the scroll follows the print.

References

  1. 高井几董 編『から檜葉』, 1784. National Institute of Japanese Literature, から檜葉 WID 140976, copy BID 100000054, canvases 3, 9–10, 13, 18. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100000054/10
  2. 阿心庵雪人『蕪村全集 校註』, 1897. National Diet Library pid 875713, scans 124, 129, printed pages 220–221 and 230–231. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875713/1/124
  3. 潁原退蔵 編『蕪村全集』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 1018320, scan 48, printed pages 40–41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/48
  4. 大野洒竹『与謝蕪村』, 1897. National Diet Library pid 875927, scan 68, printed pages 118–119. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875927/1/68
  5. 大江丸『秋存分』, 1799 (1924 typeset). National Diet Library pid 977304, scan 32, printed pages 210–211. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/977304/1/32
  6. 山田三子 (麟太郎) 編『蕪村俳句全集』, 内外出版協会, 1902. National Diet Library pid 875715, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875715/1/28
  7. 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875714/1/29
  8. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/17
  9. 文禄堂編輯局 編『俳諧三家集』, 1910. National Diet Library pid 875352, scan 59. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875352/1/59
  10. 垣内松三 編『女子国文新編 第三版 教授参考書』, 1936. National Diet Library pid 1279518, scan 79. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1279518/1/79
  11. 友納友次郎『新読本の指導精神』, 1938. National Diet Library pid 1145037, scan 209. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1145037/1/209
  12. 「与謝蕪村」, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/与謝蕪村
  13. 萩原朔太郎『郷愁の詩人与謝蕪村』, 第一書房, 1936; read in the 小学館 printing of 1946, National Diet Library pid 1128410, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128410/1/24
  14. 堀勝博「蕪村辞世「白梅」句の解―副助詞「ばかり」の用法を中心に―」, 『神女大国文』36, 神戸女子大学国文学会, 2025, pp. 37–50. https://suica.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/2000457
  15. 牧野望東・星野麦人『俳諧年表』, 博文館, 1901, p. 148. National Diet Library pid 992182, scan 95. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/992182/1/95
  16. 平林鳳二・大西一外 編『新撰俳諧年表』, 1923. National Diet Library pid 969169, scan 151. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969169/1/151
  17. 光風館編輯所 編『師範国文教授備考』, 1926. National Diet Library pid 925333, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925333/1/105
  18. 三越大阪支店 編『上方俳星遺芳』, 1932, 與謝蕪村略傳. National Diet Library pid 1187282, scans 11–13. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1187282/1/12
  19. 乾猷平 編著『蕪村翁伝年譜並落款印譜』, 1933. National Diet Library pid 1688733, scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1688733/1/10
  20. 俳句研究会 編『蕪村名句集』, 1922. National Diet Library pid 925569, scan 29. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925569/1/29
  21. 俳句研究会 編『蕪村名句集』, 1934. National Diet Library pid 1032535, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1032535/1/28
  22. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 546.
  23. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1950, p. 312; Oriental Humour, Hokuseido Press, 1959, p. 354.
  24. Yuki Sawa and Edith Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, Heian International, 1978; read in the White Pine Press reprint of 2007, pp. 59–60, 219, 250.
  25. Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, Notes, p. 278.
  26. Makoto Ueda, The Path of Flowering Thorn, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 152–153.
  27. Hiroaki Sato, From the Country of Eight Islands, Anchor Books, 1981, pp. 340–341.
  28. Crowley, Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bashō Revival, Brill, 2007, p. 2.
  29. 玉城司「芭蕉・蕪村・一茶の辞世句 : 芭蕉も蕪村も辞世句を詠まなかった」, 『俳句』71巻9号, 角川文化振興財団, 2022, pp. 116–121 (CiNii record). https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1520856229453836416
  30. 「白梅」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/白梅
  31. 「明くる」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/明くる
  32. 国立天文台 暦計算室「日本の暦日データベース」, 天明3年12月24日 and 25日. https://eco.mtk.nao.ac.jp/cgi-bin/koyomi/caldb.cgi
  33. 長谷川零余子 編『蕪村俳句全集 校註解釈』, 1921. National Diet Library pid 968346, scan 27. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968346/1/27
  34. 俳禅舎主人 編『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/16
  35. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別年代附』, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1090303, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1090303/1/15
  36. 岡田播陽『殺される吾等』, 1924. National Diet Library pid 1021497, scan 243. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1021497/1/243
  37. 「蕪村句集」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蕪村句集
  38. 『名家俳句集』(有朋堂文庫), 1935, the 蕪村句集 section. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scans 219–243. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/219
  39. 内藤鳴雪 等『蕪村句集講義』, 1911. National Diet Library pid 875708, scan 49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875708/1/49
  40. Faubion Bowers (ed.), The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Dover, 1996, pp. 59–60.
  41. Yoel Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems, Charles E. Tuttle, 1986, pp. 147–148.
  42. Sam Hamill, The Sound of Water, Shambhala, 1995 (the text layer carries no page number at the verse).
  43. Tom Lowenstein, Classic Haiku, Watkins, 2007, PDF page 41.

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), 2026-09-06, citations · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — every claim tested at its address; nothing changed; its Hass page finding refuted from the page image — the page reverts an earlier 'correction' that had moved it wrongly, restoring the original page

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり (shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shiraume-ni-akuru-yo-bakari-to-nari-ni-keri.