梅遠近南すべく北すべく ume ochikochi minami subeku kita subeku Buson - Plum blossoms everywhere, I should go south, I should go north
This is a philological study of the haiku 梅遠近南すべく北すべく (ume ochikochi minami subeku kita subeku), given to Buson from his own 句集 of 1784. It spans more than a century, from that book's plum verses to a 1935 school rhetoric's use of it as the textbook case of the unsaid close, and examines the verse's variants, its attribution and its two English renderings.
Abstract
梅遠近南すべく北すべく, plum blossoms here and there; south would do, and north would do, is Buson's, carried by his own 句集 of 1784, where it stands among the spring plum verses without a headnote. Its earliest witness in circulation is a Kyoto gazetteer of 1799, which closes a run of plum verses on the 梅溪 near Fushimi with the poet's name inline. The verse entered English in Blyth's two renderings of 1952 and 1994, and Sawa and Shiffert added a third in 2007. The one Japanese gloss on record and both English translators read the verse as plenitude — plum everywhere, so any direction is good — not as a dilemma between two blooms.
Overview
The text. The scroll carries 梅遠近南すべく北すべく, and the second and third phrases are stable in every witness. The first phrase is 梅遠近 in the 1784 句集, in cursive kanji, and in seven of the nine later witnesses [1]; 梅をちこち in a 1940 school reader, which fixes the reading ochikochi in kana [2]; and 梅園を, the plum garden, in one 1934 anthology, an editor's variant or misprint and not the scanner's [3]. The 1799 gazetteer writes すへく without the dakuten, as its kana do throughout [4]. One witness of 1899 carries only the phrase 南すべく北すべく, extended to 朱すべく黑すべく in an essay on schooling, evidence for the phrase's life as a saying and not for the poem [5]. The meter is six, six, five, seventeen in all: う・め・お・ち・こ・ち, み・な・み・す・べ・く, き・た・す・べ・く.
The sense. The verse has had one reading, and it is the one its grammar forces. The 1799 gazetteer used it for a place where plum is everywhere [4]; Numanami 沼波 in 1909 filed it under のどか, the leisurely spring mood [6]; the 1899 essayist could stretch its second half into a saying because everyone knew it meant either way [5]; the 1935 rhetoric said outright that the omitted close is as the heart pleases [7]; a 1931 examination could set it because a schoolchild could read it [8]. Blyth in the essay printed in 1994 heard the newness of spring, and yet … the luxury, the bounty, the universality of the season; in truth, anywhere will do in these days of renewed life and beauty [9]. No reading carries a dilemma between the two directions: the two readers who gloss the verse, the 1935 rhetorician and Blyth, read the blossoms as everywhere, so that any road is good.
The words. 遠近, read をちこち · ochikochi, is here and there, far and near, the classical adverb written with two kanji as a 熟字訓; the 1940 reader spells it out [2]. 南すべく · 北すべく is 南す and 北す, to go south, to go north, each with べく, the 連用形 of べし, should, may, would do, and nothing after: the sentence hangs. The 1935 rhetoric names the figure, 断叙法, the truncated statement, and supplies the missing close, 「何方にても心のまゝなり」とでも言つたやうな語句が略されてゐる, a phrase like "either way, as the heart pleases" is left out [7]; Blyth reads the same hang, anywhere will do [9]. As words the line says: Plum, far and near; one could go south, one could go north.
The verse in English. The verse entered English in Blyth's two renderings, the romaji alone in his 1952 appendix [10] and a full translation in his 1994 essay [9]; Sawa and Shiffert added a third in 2007 [11]. Both keep the verse open, without a closing thought, and Sawa and Shiffert's keeps the two すべく as two questions.
The historical record
1784. 蕪村句集, 前編 巻之上 春之部, edited by 几董. 梅遠近 南すへく北すへく, in cursive kanji and unmarked kana, in the 梅 run without a headnote [1].
1799. Akisato Ritō 秋里籬島, 都林泉名勝図会, the illustrated gazetteer of Kyoto's gardens. Under 伏見山 and its 梅溪, after a run of Chinese-style plum verses by 梅華仙, 六如 and others, the column 梅遠近南すへく北すへく 蕪村 closes the leaf, both へ in the same 部-form kana and neither with a dakuten [4]. The earliest known print of the verse in circulation, and a plum-viewing place's.
1899, 1909, 1913. An essay on schooling; Numanami Keion, 俳句の作り方; Ōmachi Keigetsu 大町桂月, 文章大辞林. The phrase 南すべく北すべく leaned on as a saying his readers know, and stretched to 朱すべく黑すべく [5]; Numanami's list of plum verses that carry のどか, beside 梅が香にのつと日の出る山路哉 [6]; Keigetsu's dictionary of prose with the verse and (蕪村) after it [12].
1925. 蕪村三千句; Handa Ryōhei 半田良平, 蕪村俳句全集 季題別. Both print the verse [13]; Handa prints it last of the seventeen 句集 plum verses and closes them (右十七句、句集), the editor's statement of where it comes from [14].
1931, 1934, 1935. A school entrance examination; an anthology by season; Fujii Shiei 藤井紫影, 名家俳句集. The examination sets the verse for interpretation [8]; the 1934 anthology prints 梅園を南すべく北すべく 蕪村 [3]; Fujii prints the received text inside his 蕪村句集 section without a note [15].
1935. Obara Kuniyoshi 小原国芳 (ed.), 児童百科大辞典, the volume 文藝の基礎學, under (ク) 断叙法. 梅遠近南すべく北すべく(蕪村)これなどでも、終りに「何方にても心のまゝなり」とでも言つたやうな語句が略されてゐるのである, the verse as the textbook case of the unsaid close, beside a 枕草子 sentence and a verse of 素堂 [7].
1940. 慶応義塾大学 (ed.), 国語教程, a reader. 梅をちこち南すべく北すべく, second on a page of famous verses, after 涼しや朝草門に荷ひこむ, the pair signed 蕪村 beneath; the first word in kana [2].
The dictionaries today. kotobank's entry for 与謝蕪村 gives the poet's dates and works, and does not quote the verse [16].
The attribution. Buson's, at every witness that names a poet, and from his own book. The 蕪村句集 of 1784, published by 几董 the year after Buson's death from the poet's late self-selection, carries the verse in 巻之上 春之部 among the plum verses, after 小豆賣小家の梅のつぼみがち and before the headnote 早春 that belongs to the next verse; it has no headnote of its own [1]. Handa Ryōhei in 1925 prints it as the last of seventeen plum verses and closes them 右十七句、句集 [14]; Fujii Shiei in 1935 prints it inside a section headed 蕪村句集 [15]. No witness dates the composition, and no headnote or occasion travels with it. Its earliest witness after the 句集 is not a haiku book but a Kyoto gazetteer of 1799, which closes a run of plum verses on the 梅溪 near Fushimi with it and the poet's name inline: fifteen years after the 句集 the verse was already attached to a plum-viewing place [4].
What is not a source. The 1934 梅園を is one editor's and stands against the 句集's own 遠近 [3][1]. The 1899 essay is a witness to the phrase's life as a proverb, not to the poem [5].
The verse in English
1952 and 1994. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Appendix I, Hokuseido Press; The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, pages 92–93. The romaji alone in the 1952 appendix [10]; in the posthumous essay, Ume ochikochi minami subeku kita subeku — Plum-blossoms here and there, / It is good to go north, / Good to go south, offered as an example of the delicacy of the haiku poet, where the feeling is quite a nameless one, without words to express it in any language, yet expressed, faultlessly and unequivocally, and the sentence on renewed life quoted above [9].
2007. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press (first published 1978), page 62. Plum flowers far and near. / Shall I go to the south? / Shall I go north?, romaji Ume ochi-kochi minami subeku kita subeku, in a run of plum verses [11]. Sawa and Shiffert's rendering keeps the two すべく as two questions.
Today. The house page prints Plum blossoms everywhere / I should go south / I should go north, Blyth's shape with should for his good to and everywhere for his here and there; the rendering is defensible, should carrying the edge of べし. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep: it must not close. Blyth's does not, and neither does the page's.
A reading
I read the verse as the 1935 rhetoric and Blyth read it, and as its grammar reads it: plum everywhere, so both roads are good and the sentence can stop in the air. That is the reading I sign: not a man deciding between two trips but a spring in which any direction is right.
References
- 『蕪村句集』前編 巻之上 春之部 (几董 編, 1784). National Institute of Japanese Literature, biblio 300106341, canvas 7, right page, column 2.
- 慶応義塾大学 編『国語教程』, 1940, printed pages 36–37. National Diet Library pid 1056675, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1056675/1/24
- 若月紫蘭『紫蘭句集』, 新月社, 1934, printed page 4. National Diet Library pid 1056180, scan 112. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1056180/1/112
- 秋里籬島『都林泉名勝図会』, 1799, 伏見山 梅溪. National Diet Library pid 9369511, scan 181. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/9369511/1/181
- 松村介石『学生の前途』, 警醒社, 1899. National Diet Library pid 813462, scan 4. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/813462/1/4
- 沼波瓊音『俳句の作り方』, 文成社, 1909. National Diet Library pid 994608, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/994608/1/22
- 小原国芳 編『児童百科大辞典』, 文藝の基礎學, 1935, printed pages 196–197. National Diet Library pid 1720361, scan 114. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1720361/1/114
- 『高等学校・専門諸学校入学試験問題全集』, 山海堂, 1931, 東京音楽学校 国語. National Diet Library pid 1457666, scan 121. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1457666/1/121
- R. H. Blyth, The Genius of Haiku, British Haiku Society and Hokuseido Press, 1994, pp. 92–93.
- R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Appendix I, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952.
- Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, 2007 (first published 1978), p. 62.
- 大町桂月『文章大辞林』, 至誠堂, 1913, 四季の部 春 梅. National Diet Library pid 951697, scan 34. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951697/1/34
- 俳禅舎主人 編『蕪村三千句』, 俳禅舎, 1925, 春 草庵. National Diet Library pid 924926, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/924926/1/15
- 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 紅玉堂, 1925, printed page 20. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/17
- 藤井紫影 校『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂, 1935, 蕪村句集 section. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 220. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/220
- 「与謝蕪村」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/与謝蕪村