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Home › Library › Philology › Chiyojo - To the person breaking off the branch, giving its fragrance, the plum blossom

手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅の花 taoraruru hito ni kaoru ya ume no hana Chiyojo - To the person breaking off the branch, giving its fragrance, the plum blossom

This is a philological study of the haiku 手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅の花 (taoraruru hito ni kaoru ya ume no hana), given to Chiyo. It spans from its earliest witness, her own printed collection of 1764, and examines the headnote that makes it an emblem and how it came into English.

Japanese Scroll of Chiyojo - To the person breaking off the branch, giving its fragrance, the plum blossom (taoraruru hito ni kaoru ya ume no hana) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Chiyojo - To the person breaking off the branch, giving its fragrance, the plum blossom (taoraruru hito ni kaoru ya ume no hana)

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

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Abstract

手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅の花, to the one who breaks its branch, the plum gives its scent, is Chiyo's, printed in 1764 in a collection compiled with her own preface, over a headnote that makes the verse an emblem, 仇を恩にて報する, to repay enmity with kindness. Every later witness that names a poet gives it to her, from a 1799 Kyoto garden guide through Meiji collections, preachers, grammar textbooks, and the English of Miyamori, Yasuda, Blyth and Haldane. Critics have called it slight since 1899; the public, on the evidence of her own book's title, has read it as a maxim.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅の花, and the record carries one text in a handful of writings. 薫 / 薰 / 香 / かをる / かほる. The 1764 print writes the verb in a cursive read as 薫 [1]; the 1799 guide 薫 [2]; the Meiji collections 薰, the old form; a 1909 Christian magazine 香る; the 1909 grammarian, a 1909 maxim book and a 1926 one spell it かをる or かほる. 梅の花 / 梅花 / うめの花 / 梅のはな are writings; the 1799 guide and two of the collections print 梅花, read the same at five. 手をらるゝ in a 1913 dictionary of maxims is the verb in kana. The undated manuscript 俳諧漫画's 手切 is a scribe's variant or a misreading of the leaf, unsettled. There is no variant of sense; every witness disagrees on nothing but spelling. The meter is five, seven, five: た・お・ら・る・る, ひ・と・に・か・お・る・や, う・め・の・は・な. The headnote travels with the verse: in the 1764 print, in the 1799 guide, in every collection that prints her section, in Miyamori's Japanese and as Blyth's prescript; the scroll and the page carry the verse alone.

The sense. The poet titled it, and the title is the sense: 仇を恩にて報する, repay enmity with kindness. The 1799 guide kept the title; the 1881 preacher made it doctrine, the gain of the Law even for its slanderers [3]; Takeshima 武島 in 1909 made it the textbook case of a verse with a reverse face [4]; the maxim books of 1909–1926 filed it among rules of conduct; the grammar books of 1925–1934 among passives. 静斎 in 1899: 輕妙, light and deft [5]. Miyamori in 1932: This didactic verse is generally considered to be of little merit [6]. Blyth in 1963: moralistic but less successful, and the joke, the moral of this seems to be Break off flowering branches! [7] Horikiri Minoru 堀切實 on the poet, in the dictionary: her style generally popular, prized in her day for its clever play of wit [8]. The 1940 primer: famous among ordinary people [9]. The critics and the public have disagreed about this verse for a century, and the public has the 1764 book on its side: she chose to title it.

The words. 手折らるゝ人に is to the person by whom it is broken off: 手折る, to break off by hand, in the passive らるゝ, which makes the plum the subject and the breaker the recipient. 薫るや is it gives its scent, with the や of exclamation. 梅の花 is the plum blossom, the first flower of spring and a season word for it. As words the line says: to the one who breaks off its branch, the plum gives its scent. The underside, from Takeshima's 1909 textbook of interpretation, which uses this verse as its type case of 裏面, the reverse face, of a sentence: 手折る is 害を加ふる, to do harm; かをる is 善を以てむくゆ, to repay with good; 梅の花 is 君子, the gentleman; and the reader has the verse only when both faces are held at once. The headnote says the same in eleven characters.

The verse in English. Miyamori translated the verse in 1932 [6], and Yasuda in 1947 [10]; Blyth gave it twice, in 1963 [7] and in the 1981 printing of his Haiku [11], and Haldane rendered it in 2006, via the 2022 Delphi collection [12].

The historical record

1764. 千代尼句集, compiled by Kihaku 無外庵既白, with the poet's preface (宝暦14). A run of 梅 verses, then the small headnote 仇を恩にて報するといふ事を, then 手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅の花, then the small heading 追悼 and 梅ちるや松のゆふべも秋の声 [1].

1799. Akisato Ritō 秋里籬島, 都林泉名勝図会, volume 3, the last leaf. Seven plum verses close the volume: 梅か香やことに月夜の面白く / 仇を恩にて報するといふ事を 手折らるゝ人に薫るや梅花 / 我袖のわか袖ならすむめの花 / 眼のさめる伏水のむめのさかりかな / 梅か香や山も葛屋も動くかと / むめのはなあの月なから折はやな / 無かしみし夜のおもむきや梅の月, with the names at the foot, one under each column, and かゝ, Kaga, above 千代. The verse is hers by the 仝 beneath it [2].

1881. 服部鑁海, 真言宗在家勤行法則和解, a lay manual of Shingon practice. 疑謗の逆緣まずも此教に進ひ奉れハ。往生得脱の利益蒙らる … 此意を古人グ觧し易く 手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅の花 かく詠まれてある, even those who doubt and slander the teaching, once they come to it, gain rebirth and release; an ancient put this meaning where it is easily grasped, in the verse. The verse as doctrine, and the poet unnamed [3].

1899. 福島静斎, 静斎遺稿. 千代が仇を恩にて報ふるといふ事をば「手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅の花」とは輕妙といふべし、「稻妻やきのふは東けふは西」とは其角の句中にても秀れたる者なりとかや、而も「萍やけふは向の岸に咲く」といふに及ばざる者は他なし、餘情に乏しければなり, Chiyo's verse on repaying enmity with kindness may be called light and deft; Kikaku's lightning verse is said to be among the finest of his, and yet nothing falls as short of the duckweed verse as it does, for want of resonance. The judgment of 餘情 is on Kikaku's verse, not hers; hers gets 輕妙 and a full stop [5].

1903–1927. The women's collections. 永井孤秋's 女流俳家全集 (1903) [13], 古谷知新's 女流文学全集 (1919) [14], Katsumine Shinpū 勝峰晋風's 閨秀俳家全集 (1922) [15] and his 日本俳書大系 volume (1927) [16] each print it in her section under the headnote, 仇を恩にて報ずるといふ事を 手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅のはな / うめの花 / 梅花; Andō Wafū 安藤和風's 閨秀俳句選 (1905) [17] prints it without the headnote after 薰れよと梅折入れつ御所文庫.

1909. Takeshima, 国語解釈法; and the moralists. Takeshima: 例せば手折らるゝ人にかをるや梅の花。といふ句において「手折る」は裏面においては「害を加ふる」といふ事なり、「かをる」は「善を以てむくゆ」といふ事、また「梅の花」は「君子」などいふ意味と心得てはじめてこの句の表面の意は … 裏面においては君子は善を以て惡にむくゆといふ意なる事知られて作者の眞意のくまなく知らるゝならずや, the passage glossed above [4]. The same year 櫟林集, a Christian magazine, quotes 手折らるゝ人に香るや梅の花(千代) in an essay on a woman's 高潔 [18], and 金声玉言, a book of maxims, lists ○手折らるゝ人にかほるや梅の花。(加賀の千代) between Seneca and 貝原益軒 under the conduct of society [19]; 格言大観 (1913) [20] and 東西格言国民座右銘 (1926) [21] keep it among the maxims, 修養十二ケ月 (1916) closes a sermon on eternity and greed with it [22], 牛 (1918) makes it the secret of pleasing others [23], 心学道話集 (1927) sets it beside 踏れても咲く蒲公英の笑顔哉 under 堪忍, forbearance [24].

1925–1934. The grammar textbooks. 富山房's 最新女子文典 (1925, 1934) [25] and 最新日本文典 (1926, two printings) [26] set the verse as the first sentence of an exercise on auxiliary verbs: 左の文中の助動詞を指摘しなさい。一、手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅の花。-千代女 二、尾を振る犬は打たれず。…; the passive らるゝ is the point.

1930. 貞心と千代と蓮月, 春秋社, three nuns; reprinted 1932, 1939, 1949. Its 千代尼句抄 prints 梅さくや寒い〳〵が癖になり / 仇を恩にて報ずるといふ事を 手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅の花 / 追悼 梅ちるやまつのゆふべも秋の聲, the order of her 1764 book [27].

1940. 俳句の作り方味い方入門, 洛東書院. 手折らるゝ人に薰るや梅の花 … 俗間に有名なのであります, famous among ordinary people, in a page on the women poets [9].

The attribution. Chiyo's, on her own book. The 千代尼句集 was compiled by Kihaku and printed in 1764 with her preface, eleven years before her death, and its plum section carries the verse with the headnote above it and 追悼 heading the next verse, the order every later typeset keeps; that is the attribution settled. The 1799 Kyoto garden guide prints it second in a run of seven plum verses with the poets' names in a column at the foot, one name to a column: かゝ 千代 under the first verse, 仝, ditto, under this one, then 大江丸, 二柳, 嘯山, 唯然, 定雅. An 1881 Shingon preacher says 古人, an ancient, which is a preacher's vagueness; the critic 静斎 in 1899 says 千代; the 1903, 1919, 1922 and 1927 collections print it in her section under the headnote; the 1909 magazine and the two 1909 maxim books name her; three grammar textbooks of 1925–1934 set it as their first exercise sentence with 千代女 after it; the 1930 life of three nuns prints it in its 千代尼句抄. Miyamori in 1932, Yasuda in 1947, Blyth in 1963 and again in the 1981 printing of his Haiku, and Haldane in 2006 give it to her; none argues it. The dictionary's warning that several of her most famous verses are hers without proof does not name this one, and her own book answers it [8].

What is not a source. Shiki's manuscript copy of the 発句類題全集 (1889) surfaces in the search for 薫るや梅の花 but carries a different verse, 明る戸に旭薫るや梅の花, and is not a witness [28]. Nothing dates the verse.

The verse in English

1932. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, page 430, no. 388, THE PLUM-BLOSSOM (Good for Evil). 梅の花 (仇を恩にて報するということを) 手折らるゝ 人に薫るや 梅の花 千代尼; The plum-blossoms give their perfume / To the man who broke off the branch. Chiyo-Ni, with the sentence quoted above [6].

1947. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Tuttle, PLUM-BLOSSOM. Chiyo (1701-1775) — Taoraruru / Hito ni kaoru ya / Ume no hana; the English above it, headed PLUM-BLOSSOM (Good for Evil): Flowers give their perfume / To the one who breaks the branch / From the plum in bloom [10].

1963. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido, Women Haiku Writers. The following also is moralistic but less successful; it was written in reference to the saying "Return good for evil": Taoraruru / hito ni kaoru ya / ume no hana — The flower of the plum / Gives its scent / To him who breaks off the branch [7].

1981. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 1, Hokuseido Press, 1981 printing, SPRING. The flowering branch of the plum / Gives its scent / To him who broke it off. This has the prescript, "In regard to requiting evil with good." Chiyo-ni. [11]

2006, via Delphi 2022. Michael Haldane. taoraruru / hito ni kaoru ya / ume no hana — fragrant / to the hand that breaks – / plum-blossom, in the Chiyo-ni section of Delphi's Bashō and the Haikuists, translated by Haldane, 2006 [12].

Today. The house page's To the person breaking off the branch / giving its fragrance / the plum blossom stands as a rendering of the verse. What it lacks is the title: a rendering of this haiku has one thing to keep, the headnote in Japanese and in English, on repaying enmity with kindness, without which the reader has a plum and not an emblem.

A reading

I read the verse as she titled it and as the 1909 grammarian taught it: a sentence with two faces, a plum that scents the hand that broke it and a gentleman who repays harm with good, and the verse is the fit between them. That is what a maxim book wants and what a critic of 餘情 does not, and both are right about what they are looking at; 静斎's 輕妙 is the fairest word, light and deft, a verse that does exactly one thing.

References

  1. 千代尼 著『千代尼句集』, 無外庵既白 Kihaku 編, 宝暦14 (1764), her preface. NIJL 国書データベース WID 372758, BID 100041085, canvas 17. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100041085/manifest
  2. 秋里籬島 Akisato Ritō『都林泉名勝図会』巻之三, 1799, the last leaf. National Diet Library pid 9369511, scan 185. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9369511/1/185
  3. 服部鑁海『真言宗在家勤行法則和解』, 1881. National Diet Library pid 819460, scan 31.
  4. 武島羽衣 Takeshima Hagoromo『国語解釈法』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 868076, scan 56.
  5. 福島静斎『静斎遺稿』, 1899, p. 122. National Diet Library pid 898705, scan 75. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/898705/1/75
  6. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, no. 388, p. 430.
  7. R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido, Tokyo, 1963, Women Haiku Writers.
  8. 「千代女」, デジタル大辞泉 · 日本大百科全書 (堀切實 Horikiri Minoru) · ブリタニカ, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/千代女-98376
  9. 『俳句の作り方味い方入門』, 洛東書院, 1940. National Diet Library pid 1116343, scan 99.
  10. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Charles E. Tuttle, PLUM-BLOSSOM, 1947.
  11. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1981 printing, SPRING.
  12. Michael Haldane, in Bashō and the Haikuists, Delphi Classics, collected 2022 (rendering first published 2006).
  13. 永井孤秋 編『女流俳家全集』, 1903. National Diet Library pid 875137, scan 11.
  14. 古谷知新 編『女流文学全集』, 1919. National Diet Library pid 957686, scan 245.
  15. 勝峰晋風 Katsumine Shinpū 編『閨秀俳家全集』, 1922. National Diet Library pid 970129, scan 62.
  16. 勝峰晋風 Katsumine Shinpū 編『日本俳書大系』, 1927. National Diet Library pid 1179392, scan 85.
  17. 安藤和風 Andō Wafū 編『閨秀俳句選』, 1905. National Diet Library pid 874986, scan 46.
  18. 『櫟林集』, 聖書研究社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 898662, scan 46.
  19. 『金声玉言』, 文成社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 755191, scan 130.
  20. 『格言大観』いろは引, 1913. National Diet Library pid 906263, scan 51.
  21. 『東西格言国民座右銘』, 春江堂, 1926. National Diet Library pid 917288, scan 156.
  22. 菅原洞禅『修養十二ケ月』, 1916. National Diet Library pid 955825, scan 28.
  23. 『牛』, 培風館, 1918. National Diet Library pid 954825, scan 63.
  24. 塚本哲三 Tsukamoto Tetsuzō 校『心学道話集』, 1927. National Diet Library pid 1186670, scan 178.
  25. 『最新女子文典』, 富山房, 1925. National Diet Library pid 917606, scan 19.
  26. 『最新日本文典』, 富山房, 1926. National Diet Library pid 925304, scan 20.
  27. 『貞心と千代と蓮月』, 春秋社, 1930. National Diet Library pid 1212531, scan 152.
  28. 正岡子規 Masaoka Shiki 写『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586399, scan 6.

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; one rendering restored — Yasuda's English wrongly said not to be captured by the text held here, it is present