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Home › Library › Philology › 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 Buson - To white plum blossoms, Each night just dawning, Evermore

This is a philological study of the haiku 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's last verse, dictated on his deathbed the night before he died in 1784. It spans more than a century of Japanese and English witnesses and examines the deathbed account, the verse's small spelling variants, and its four 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 (shiraume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri)

Haiku by Buson on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master 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 几董 on the night of the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month of 天明3, hours before his death at dawn on the twenty-fifth (25 January 1784). 几董's own account of the deathbed, printed in から檜葉 in 1784, is the earliest witness, and every later Japanese edition and every English translator carry the same text, but for small orthographic variants in the middle phrase. Blyth in 1950, Sawa and Shiffert and Morris (both known through Hass's 1994 note), and Shirane in 2002 all rendered it into English. Every reading, Japanese and English alike, takes it as a verse about what the nights have become, not as a riddle about dying.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり, and it stands as one text with its middle written three 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]; the 1897 and 1925 typesets keep しら梅 and はかり [2][3][4], the 1924 typeset of Ōemaru 大江丸 writes 白梅に明る夜はかり [5], and the twentieth-century editions, Blyth, Hass and Shirane write 白梅に … ばかりと, which is the scroll's form [6][7][8]. 明る / 明くる: the print and every Buson edition write 明る, read akuru; a 1910 anthology [9] and two 1930s school books [10][11] write 明くる, spelling the reading out, and so does 「与謝蕪村」at kotobank [12]. に / の: a 1932 department-store biography and the 1933 年譜 built on it write しら梅の明る夜ばかり [13][14]; every other witness に. と / に: kotobank's 日本人名大辞典 line reads 明くる夜ばかりになりにけり [12]; every edition と. The sense holds across all of them. The meter is five, seven, five: し・ら・う・め・に, あ・く・る・よ・ば・か・り, と・な・り・に・け・り.

The sense. 几董 read it as the master did: the last words of a life, with a season heading asked for in the last hour, so that the verse would stand in the new year's part of the book [1]. 月溪, who took it down, made its finishing the moment of death [1]. Ōemaru kept the heading in his memorial [5]. Blyth in 1950: 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. He died in the serenity of natural beauty in which he had lived [6]. Shirane in 2002: the plum's faint whiteness seems to embody Buson's spirit as it disappears into the light of dawn, and the verse is also about the passage from winter to spring, the poet dying in the last month of winter [8]. Hass: this poem is difficult to translate, and three renderings laid side by side [7].

The words. 白梅 is the white plum, shiraume, the first blossom of the year and a season word for early spring, which is why the poet asked for the heading 初春 in the last week of the twelfth month. に locates the dawning at the blossoms. 明る夜 is the night that dawns, 明くる in full; ばかり, only, nothing but; となりにけり, it has become, the classical perfect with its exclamatory weight: it has come to be that. As words the line says: It has come to this: nights that do nothing but dawn on white plum blossoms. Blyth's from now and Morris's each and every night are readings of ばかりとなりにけり, not of a separate word in the Japanese [6][7].

The verse in English. Blyth in 1950 [6], Sawa and Shiffert and Morris, both known through Hass's note of 1994 [7], and Shirane in 2002 [8] all carried the verse into English. Every rendering keeps ばかり as an exclusivity, and none finds an easy way into the closing なりにけり; Hass calls the verse itself hard to translate.

The historical record

1784, the night of the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month of 天明3. 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, said 病中の吟あり, I have verses from my illness, called 月溪 to his side and told him いそぎ筆とるべし, take up the brush quickly; while brush, inkstone and paper were being fetched, the disciple 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, after 几董's piece, dated at 金福寺 in the twelfth month and signed by him; the mourning verses of the disciples follow, among them 月溪's own, under the headnote 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, the master finished the white-plum verse, closed both eyes: now was the time to take leave of the world. The death followed toward dawn on the twenty-fifth, 25 January 1784 by the Western calendar; the poet sixty-eight [1].

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 [2]. 雪人 prints the 終焉記 with a gloss box on 王維 and the mourning verses with the 〔白梅の一章〕 gloss [3].

1902 to 1935. The editions. 山田 1902 [15], Iwamoto 岩本's 標註 1906 [16], Reiyoshi 零余子 1921 [17], the 蕪村三千句 [18] and Handa 半田's season-and-year edition of 1925 [19] (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) [4], the 1935 Handa [20].

1910 to 1953. The variants in the popular record. 明くる夜 in the 1910 俳諧三家集 [9] and in 1936 [10] and 1938 [11] school books that give the verse as 辭世 with the date; しら梅の in the 1932 上方俳星遺芳 [13] and the 1933 年譜 [14]; the 1938 蕪村一代物語 retelling the deathbed with 暫くあつて [21].

The attribution. Buson's, the last verse he made, on the testimony of the disciple who wrote it down, above [1]. 洒竹's 1897 life gives the day and the age from the same source [2]; Shirane's note has 1783, when he was sixty-eight and the twenty-fifth day of the Twelfth Month [8]. The headnote 初春 is the poet's own, dictated 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 [4][19].

What is not a source. The 蕪村句集 of 1784 does not carry the verse, by one instrument checked in order; it was compiled before the death. The 1932 biography's しら梅の is its own [13]. The date 1783 in English books is the Japanese year; the death fell in January 1784.

The verse in English

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, page 312, TREES AND FLOWERS. 白梅に明る夜ばかりとなりにけり 蕪村; Shiraume ni akuru yo bakarito nari ni keri; Every night from now / Will dawn / From the white plum-tree. With the paragraphs quoted above; again in Oriental Humour (1959), page 354, set against a senryū on a maid at dawn [6].

1978, 1986, via Hass 1994. Yuki Sawa and Edith Shiffert; Mark Morris. With white plum blossoms / these nights to the faint light of dawn / are turning (Sawa and Shiffert); Now each and every night will end / Dawning in white plum blossoms (Morris), quoted in Hass's note with the deathbed scene from Sawa and Shiffert, page 48 [7].

2002. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia, page 546, LITERATI MEDITATIONS. Early spring: / shiraume ni / akuru yo bakari / to narikeri / Amid white plum blossoms / night turns to dawn— / the time has come, from 蕪村全集 (Kōdansha, 1992) vol. 1, with note 21 [8].

Today. The house page's To white plum blossoms / Each night just dawning / Evermore stands. A rendering has one thing to keep: the only, ばかり, which makes the dawns the whole of what is left.

A reading

I read the verse as 几董 wrote it down: a man who has just made two verses about a bush warbler and a hedge of 王維's, still working, and then, after a pause, this, with a season heading for a spring he would not see. The white plum is the first flower and the color of the light before sunrise; ばかりとなりにけり says that this is now all the nights are for. It is not a verse about dying; it is a verse about what the nights have become, and that is why it is the best death verse in the language after Bashō's. The scroll's text is the editions' and every translator's; the print's しら梅 and はかり are the woodblock's spelling of the same words.

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.
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  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. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1950, p. 312; Oriental Humour, Hokuseido Press, 1959, p. 354.
  7. Yuki Sawa and Edith Shiffert; Mark Morris, quoted in Robert Hass, The Essential Haiku, Ecco Press, 1994, Notes, p. 278.
  8. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 546.
  9. 『俳諧三家集』, 1910. National Diet Library pid 875352.
  10. A 1936 school book. National Diet Library pid 1279518.
  11. A 1938 school book. National Diet Library pid 1145037.
  12. 「与謝蕪村」, 日本人名大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/与謝蕪村
  13. 三越大阪支店 編『上方俳星遺芳』, 與謝蕪村略傳, 1932. National Diet Library pid 1187282, komas 11–13.
  14. A 1933 年譜. National Diet Library pid 1688733.
  15. 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.
  16. 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, komas 28–30.
  17. 零余子 編, 1921. National Diet Library pid 968346.
  18. 『蕪村三千句』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 16. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/16
  19. 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
  20. 半田良平, 1935. National Diet Library pid 1090303.
  21. 『蕪村一代物語』, 1938. National Diet Library pid 1223003.

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