うらやまし美しう成て散る紅葉 urayamashi utsukushū natte chiru momiji Shikō - How enviable, Turning beautiful then falling, maple leaves
うらやまし美しう成て散る紅葉 (urayamashi utsukushū natte chiru momiji) is a verse of envy for maple leaves that turn beautiful and then fall. Bashō's disciple Shikō wrote it in his last illness in 1730, and it was printed in 1732. This study follows his revision of its opening, how its envy has been read, and its English from Miyamori.
Abstract
うらやまし美しう成て散る紅葉, enviable: to turn beautiful, and then to fall, the maple leaves, is a hokku by 各務支考 (1665–1731), one of Bashō's ten disciples, written in the ninth month of his last illness on a visit to the memorial he had raised for himself, and first printed in 1732 in the record of that illness his disciple 廬元坊 published the year after his death. The same record says he later changed its opening to 花よりも, more than the flowers, and both forms have been printed under his name since. The line opens on its feeling and gives its object last: a Japanese reading of 1934 heard in it a sick man looking back on his life, and Miyamori, whose anthologies hold the earliest known English, the samurai's admiration for what falls at its height. The attribution rests on the poet's own circle, in print within five years of his death.
Overview
The text. The scroll carries うらやまし美しう成て散る紅葉. The earliest witness, the record of the poet's illness printed in 1732, writes it almost wholly in kana, うらやましうつくしうなりてちる紅葉 [1]; an anthology of 1736 writes うらやまし美しうなりて散紅葉 [2]. The scroll's spelling of the verb, 成て, is first found in a typeset edition of 1905 [3] and in one of the two books of 1909 [4]; the other 1909 book writes なつて [5]. 成て can be read either way, and the earliest witnesses write なりて, narite. No witness varies a word of the verse. The meter is five, eight, five: う・ら・や・ま・し, う・つ・く・し・う・な・り・て, ち・る・も・み・じ, the middle line one over its count, whichever reading the verb takes. The 1732 record adds that the poet afterwards replaced the first five syllables with 花よりも, more than the flowers, as letters among his disciples reported [1]. 花よりも美しくなりてちる紅葉, which Miyamori printed as another reading [6], is therefore the poet's own second form of this verse.
The sense. One sense, given in order: the feeling first, how enviable, and its object last, the maple leaves that turn beautiful and then fall. The record gives the occasion. Late in the ninth month, ill, the poet visited his 鑑塔, the memorial he had built for himself in his lifetime, and wrote the verse under the words 道に逍遙のこゝろを, in the spirit of a stroll along the way [1]. The anthology of 1736 set it under 無常, impermanence [2]. 高木蒼梧 read it in 1934 as the poet looking back on the life he had passed through and envying the leaves for falling at their most beautiful: 此句ありて支考を尊とからしめる, this verse makes 支考 worthy of honor [7]. Miyamori set it in another frame, the 山桜 that scatters at the height of its beauty, the samurai's flower, and the maxim 玉砕瓦全, better a jewel broken than a tile whole [6].
The words. うらやまし is enviable; how I envy. 美しう成て is having become beautiful, 美しう the classical adverbial of 美しく, read utsukushū. 散る紅葉 is the maple leaves that fall; 紅葉 is a season word of autumn, and the verse was written in the ninth month, while the 1905 edition files it under winter, under the heading 紅葉散 [3]. As words the line says: Enviable: having turned beautiful, to fall; the maple leaves.
The verse in English. The verse entered English with Miyamori, in his anthology of 1930 [8] and again in that of 1932: How I envy maple leafage / Which turns beautiful and then falls! [6]. Henderson gave it the line every later English version keeps, Envied by us all, in 1934 [9]; Yasuda rhymed it on that line in 1947 [10], and Henderson printed it again in 1958 [11]. All of them name 支考, and all keep the envy first.
The historical record
1732. 廬元坊 (ed.), 『文星観』, the memorial collection for 支考. Its first book opens with 病中記, a month-by-month record of the poet's last illness. In the ninth month, after the Chrysanthemum Festival, it records the visit to the memorial and the verse, set off on its own line, and on the facing page the revision [1]:
月も後の五日比ならん鑑塔に詣て道に逍遙のこゝろを · うらやましうつくしうなりてちる紅葉 · 此五文字そのゝち花よりもと置かへ給へるよし門下の文通にきこゆる
Toward the end of the month, it would have been, he went to the memorial and, in the spirit of a stroll along the way: enviable, having turned beautiful, the falling maple leaves. Of these first five syllables it is known, from letters among his disciples, that he afterwards put 花よりも in their place. The next entry is his 秋夜吟, and after it the anniversary of Bashō's death on the twelfth of the tenth month. The same book prints a picture of the memorial, 鑑塔之図. A commentary on the second form printed in 1934 dates the visit to 1730, when the poet, gravely ill, had rallied [12]: the autumn before his death in the second month of 1731 [13].
1736. 沙白 and 非吹 (eds.), 『俳諧聟引出集』, an anthology from 岡山, preface dated 享保丙辰. At the end of its second book, under the heading 無常, the verse stands alone, signed 梅花佛, the name under which the poet's memorials were held [2]:
無常 · うらやまし美しうなりて散紅葉 梅花佛
1905. 星野麦人 (ed.), 『蕉門十哲句集』, the collected verse of the ten disciples. Page 286, in the winter section, under ◉紅葉散, maple leaves falling, with 支考 at its foot [3]:
うら山し美しう成て散紅葉 支考
The spelling of the scroll's verb, 成て, is first found here.
1909. 沼波瓊音, 『俳句の作り方』, a manual of haiku composition. Pages 86–87 list verses by their closing forms; under 「し」 the verse stands second, with the poets' names in a column at the foot that sets 支考 beneath it, among verses by 芭蕉, 杉風 and 野坡, with no comment [4].
1909. 高木武 (ed.), 『文学錦嚢』, a literary anthology. Page 10, in its section of famous verses, prints the verse with the verb in kana, うらやまし美しうなつて散る紅葉, with 支考 beneath it [5].
1934. 高木蒼梧, 『小学・中学師範・高女読本俳句評釈』, a commentary on the verses in the school readers. He gives the second form and its occasion, the verse he wrote on visiting the memorial he had built for himself, calls the first a verse from near the end of his life, and of it writes [7]:
過ぎ來し一生を顧みて、美しうなつて散る紅葉を、うらやましく感じたのであらう。此句ありて支考を尊とからしめる。
Looking back on the life he had passed through, he must have felt envy for the maple leaves that turn beautiful and fall. This verse makes 支考 worthy of honor.
The attribution. 支考's, and on the word of his own circle: the record of his illness printed by his disciple the year after his death [1], and an anthology four years later that signs it with his memorial name [2]. Every later witness, Japanese and English, names him [3][4][5][6][9][10][11], and no other attribution is known. 各務支考 (1665–1731), of 美濃, one of the ten disciples of Bashō, founded the 美濃派 after his teacher's death and wrote 笈日記 and 葛の松原 [13]; Miyamori calls him first a Buddhist priest, later a physician [6], and Blyth first a Zen monk of Daichiji Temple who afterwards became a doctor [14]. The chronology of the poet's life by 堀切実 (1969) places the verse and its revision where the 1732 record does [15].
What is not a source. The 山桜 and the maxim 玉砕瓦全 that Miyamori sets beside the verse are his frame for it, set there in 1932 [6]; the verse names neither, and the 1732 record frames it by the memorial and the illness.
The verse in English
1930. Asatarō Miyamori, One Thousand Haiku Ancient and Modern, Dōbunsha, Tokyo. The earliest English book known to carry the verse; the National Diet Library's full-text search finds it there, and its wording is not read here [8].
1932. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, no. 229, pages 308–309, under 紅葉, The Maple Leaves. The verse, the translation, a biography of the poet, a note, and the second form. The translation [6]:
How I envy maple leafage Which turns beautiful and then falls!
The note:
The yamazakura or wild cherry, which scatters its flowers soon after they attain the zenith of their beauty, is considered a symbol of the spirit of the samurai … Better be a jewel broken into pieces than a tile kept whole … These traditional ideas led the writer of this verse to admire the maple leaves.
Of the second form, 花よりも美しくなりてちる紅葉, he writes another reading of this verse and renders it The maple leafage turns more beautiful / Than cherry-flowers, then falls readily. The rendering of the first keeps the verse's order, the envy first and the leaves last.
1934. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom, page 51, under MAPLE LEAVES. Among the verses of Bashō's pupils, with a word-by-word gloss beside it, Urayamashi utsukushiu natte chiru momiji as Enviable beautiful becoming fall-scattering red-leaves [9]:
Envied by us all, Turning to such loveliness: — Red leaves that fall!
It adds a subject the Japanese does not name, us all; うらやまし says only enviable.
1947. Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, under MAPLE LEAVES. Henderson's first line, rhymed, with the romaji Urayamashi / Utsukushū natte / Chiru momiji and the name Shikō (1664-1731) [10]:
Envied by us all, The leaves of maple turn so Beautiful — then fall!
1958. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, page 66. His 1934 version again, lightly repunctuated, Envied by us all, / turning to such loveliness— / red leaves that fall, signed SHIKO (1664-1731), with the gloss Enviable | beautiful | becoming | falling | red-leaves [11].
Today. The house title, How enviable, Turning beautiful then falling, maple leaves, is Timothy L. Jackowski's, for Takase Studios, and it keeps Miyamori's sense and his order. A rendering of this line has one thing to keep: the envy comes first and the leaves last.
A reading
I read the verse as the 1732 record frames it: a sick man at the memorial he had raised for his own death, envying the leaves that end at their most beautiful. The envy is the point, and it is the poet's own. Miyamori's samurai are a frame brought to it two centuries later; the record has only the man, the memorial and the season, and that is enough. The later opening, 花よりも, turns the verse from the feeling to a comparison; the first, the one the scroll carries, keeps the feeling first, and it is the one the poet wrote at the memorial.
Notes
- The poet's birth year. The Japanese dictionaries and Blyth give 1665 [13][14]; Miyamori, Henderson and Yasuda give 1664 [6][11][10]. 日本人名大辞典 dates his birth to 寛文5年, which is 1665 [13].
- The verb. 成て carries either reading. The 1732 and 1736 witnesses write なりて, narite; one 1909 book writes なつて, and Henderson and Yasuda romanize natte.
References
- 廬元坊 編『文星観』巻上「病中記」, 1732, leaves 4 verso–5 recto. NIJL 国書データベース WID 487229, 東京大学総合図書館 竹冷文庫 copy, BID 100392450, canvas 6. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100392450/manifest
- 沙白・非吹 編『俳諧聟引出集』, 1736, 無常. NIJL 国書データベース WID 1586045, 東京大学総合図書館 洒竹文庫 copy, BID 100412732, canvas 23. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100412732/manifest
- 星野麦人 編『蕉門十哲句集』, 国民書院, 1905, p. 286. National Diet Library pid 875132, scan 159. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875132/1/159
- 沼波瓊音『俳句の作り方』, 文成社, 1909, pp. 86–87. National Diet Library pid 994608, scan 48. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/994608/1/48
- 高木武 編『文学錦嚢』, 文成社, 1909, p. 10. National Diet Library pid 872638, scan 15. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/872638/1/15
- Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, no. 229, pp. 308–309. Internet Archive anthologyofhaiku0000asat. https://archive.org/details/anthologyofhaiku0000asat
- 高木蒼梧『小学・中学師範・高女読本俳句評釈』, 隆章閣, 1934, scans 374–375. National Diet Library pid 1234302 (served to registered readers in Japan only); the passage as the NDL Digital full-text search displays it: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=美しうなつて散る紅葉&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
- Asatarō Miyamori, One Thousand Haiku Ancient and Modern, Dōbunsha, Tokyo, 1930. National Diet Library pid 1680896 (served to registered readers in Japan only); the NDL Digital full-text search finds the verse in it: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=うらやまし美しう&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
- Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom: An Introduction to Japanese Haiku, Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1934, p. 51. Internet Archive bamboobroom0000unse. https://archive.org/details/bamboobroom0000unse
- Kenneth Yasuda, A Pepper-Pod, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1947; Charles E. Tuttle, 1976, MAPLE LEAVES.
- Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, Garden City, 1958, p. 66. Internet Archive introductiontoha00hend. https://archive.org/details/introductiontoha00hend
- 改造社 編『俳句講座』第2巻, 改造社, 1934, scan 70, the note on the second form (served to registered readers in Japan only); as the NDL Digital full-text search displays it: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=美しくなりてちる紅葉&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
- 「各務支考」, デジタル大辞泉 · 日本人名大辞典 · 旺文社日本史事典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/各務支考-15776
- R. H. Blyth, A History of Haiku, vol. 1, Hokuseido, Tokyo, 1963, p. 162. Internet Archive historyofhaikuin0001unse. https://archive.org/details/historyofhaikuin0001unse
- 堀切実『支考年譜考証』, 笠間書院, 1969, scan 47. National Diet Library (served to registered readers in Japan only); as the NDL Digital full-text search displays it: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=鑑塔に詣&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC
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