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我と来て遊べや親のない雀 ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent

我と来て遊べや, come and play with me, sparrow with no parent: signed in 1819 as Issa's verse at six, though his 1814 diary gives no age.

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Japanese Scroll of Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent我と来て遊べや親のない雀ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

我と来て遊べや親のない雀, come and play with me, sparrow with no parent, is a spring hokku by Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 (1763–1828), told for more than a century as the verse he made at six, when the other children shunned him [1][2]. Issa wrote it down five ways: in his diary in 1814, at fifty-two by the Japanese count, with no age and a verb that describes; on a sheet in his own hand for the poet 夏目成美, which its editor dated to the same year, headed when I was eight; in an autograph copy, the 『自筆本』 of the apparatus of the 1979 collected works and known here only from it, with the same kind of verb; in 『おらが春』, 1819, as an invitation signed Yatarō, six; and in a fair copy its editor judged late, with 八ヽ時, which he reads as perhaps the eight again [3][4][2][5]. The six-year-old was doubted in print by 1926, from the diary, and defended the same year by 勝峯晋風, citing Issa's manuscript of 『おらが春』, while in English the verse is first found, in the Internet Archive's full-text index and the library's books, with Chamberlain in 1902, who joined it to the mother's death [6][7][8]. The history reads it as a recollection, made in Issa's fifties and framed in 1819 as a child's verse, and holds the 1926 defense beside that reading.

Overview

The words. 我 ware, I, me [9]. と, with; 来て kite, come and. 遊べ asobe is the imperative of 遊ぶ, play, and や is the calling particle: come and play with me. 親 oya is a parent, a father or a mother [9]; 親のない oya no nai is with no parent, said here of the sparrow; the 大辞泉 gives the noun 親無し as 親がないこと。また、その子。みなしご。孤児, having no parent; such a child; an orphan [10]. 雀 suzume is the sparrow, in the 大辞泉 the common bird of houses and fields (JMdict: tree sparrow) [11][9]. The young sparrow, 雀の子, is a season word of spring: the 日国 gives it as 雀の雛。二、三月頃に孵化する, with 《季語・春》 [12], and Issa files the verse in spring, under the first month in his diary and among spring verses by topic in his late fair copy [3][13]. The verse itself says 雀, not 雀の子. Word for word: I-with come / play! / parent-none sparrow.

The poet. The dictionaries give Issa's mother as dead when he was three and a stepmother from his eighth year; ブリタニカ: 3歳で母を失い，8歳のとき迎えた継母と不和で; his father died in 1801, when Issa was thirty-nine; Issa himself died on 文政10年11月19日, which falls in January 1828 by calendar conversion; the 日本人名大辞典 prints 1828, the other dictionaries 1827 [14]. Japanese Wikipedia dates the mother's death to 明和2 (1765) and the stepmother's coming to 明和7 (1770) [15]. Ages here are counted as the sources count them, the Japanese way, one at birth: 六才 is a child in his sixth year, five at most by the Western count, which may be why Chamberlain says five (he does not say), and Ueda gives the signature both as five and as in his sixth year [8][16].

Forms. The diary: 我と來てあそぶ親のない雀 [3]. The sheet sent to 成美: 我と来て遊ふや親のない雀, headed 八才の時 [4]. An autograph copy, the apparatus's 『自筆本』: 遊ぶや, in the apparatus of the 1979 collected works [17]. 『おらが春』: 我と来て遊へや親のない雀, signed 六才 弥太郎 [2]. 『浅黄空』: 我と來て遊ぶ親のない雀, with 八ヽ時 below it [5]. The form on the work order, 我と来て遊べや親のない雀, is 『おらが春』's in modern spelling.

The historical record

The diary, 1814: no age, and a verb that describes

Issa's diary of the years 文化7 to 文化15, 『七番日記』, survives in a manuscript held privately, which was not reachable; it is read here in the typeset the 信濃教育会 edited and published in 1927 in its 『一茶叢書』. Under the year 文化十一甲戌 (1814), in the first month, between 石川をざぶ〳〵渡る雉哉 and 我庵や先ハ燕のまめな貌, stands [3]:

我と來てあそぶ親のない雀

There is no headnote and no age. Issa was fifty-two. The verb is あそぶ, the plain form: the sparrow with no parent that comes with me and plays, a description, not an address. The collected works of 1976 print the same, and their note on 『おらが春』 calls this the verse's first appearance: この句の初出は、『七番日記』文化十一年(一茶五十二歳)一月の条に「我と来てあそぶ親のない雀」の形で見える [18][19].

The diary's typesets do not agree on one syllable. The typeset of 1910 by the 一茶同好会 printed あそべよ, as three readers of the 1920s quote it [6][20][21]; 相馬御風, setting out 川島つゆ's argument of 1928, describes the 信濃教育会 edition, the typeset read here, which prints あそぶ, as 舊同好會版のそれよりも嚴密な校訂をなされたと言はれる, said to have been more strictly collated than the old 同好会 edition [21][3]. The 1910 typeset was not read at the page, and the manuscript not at all; this history names both readings and does not choose between them on the diary's leaf.

The sheet sent to 成美, dated to the same year: eight

Issa sent his verses in batches to the poet 夏目成美, who marked and commented on them [22]. One sheet of that run, in Issa's hand, was printed in facsimile in 1926 in 『株番』 [4]. On it, in a column of its own:

八才の時
我と来て遊ふや親のない雀

The headnote, when I was eight, is written small beside the verse. The verb is 遊ぶや, still a statement. The second character of the headnote and the ふ were read at the plate's resolution; the 1976 typeset of the same sheet reads 八才, the 1926 typeset 八歳 [19][23]. 成美 gave the verse one point and wrote at its head 小鍋ほしと啼けむあはれにきこへ候, it sounds as pitiful as the cry "I want the little pot" [23][20]: 井泉水 and 山口剛 both trace his words to a child's poem in the 袋草紙, 鶯よなどさはなきそちやほしき小鍋やほしき母や戀しき, warbler, why do you cry so? Is it milk you want, or the little pot, or do you long for your mother? [20][22]. The sheet carries no year. The editor of the 1926 typeset, 荻原井泉水, dated the batch with this verse to 文化11, 1814, as 山口 reports (校訂者は…我と來ての句のあるものは十一年の分と推定してゐる), and 井泉水 saw another sheet of the run marked 正月廿四日出、三月四日來(文化十一年) [22][20].

The editors of 1926 said why they included the leaf: 「我と來て遊ぶや親のない雀」の句が後年の作なることを證する爲め特に此一葉を加へた, we have added this leaf in particular to prove that the verse 我と來て遊ぶや親のない雀 is a work of later years [24].

『おらが春』, 1819: six, and an invitation

In 『おらが春』, the book of the year 文政2 (1819), Issa sets the verse after a passage on his childhood. In the print of 1852 [2]:

親のない子ハとこても知れる爪を咥へて門に立　と子ともらに唄はるゝも心細く大かたの人交りもせすして　うらの畠に木萱なと積たる片陰に跼りて長の日をくらしぬ　我身なからも哀也けり
我と来て遊へや親のない雀
六才　弥太郎

"A child with no parent shows it anywhere: he stands at the gate chewing his nails," the other children would sing at me, and it made me forlorn; I kept away from them, and crouched the long day in the shade of the wood and thatch piled in the back field. Even as it was my own self, it was pitiful. Then the verse, and below it, small, the age and the childhood name, Yatarō, six. A printing of 1878 reads the same, line for line [25]. The print's year is the catalogue's; the copy read has no dated colophon. Issa's own manuscript of the book, held by his family, and its facsimile of 1925 were not available here, so 六才 弥太郎 is read in the print; 勝峯晋風 reports the same signature in Issa's manuscript, 「一茶眞蹟本おらが春」 [7].

Only here does the verse invite, 遊べや, come and play, and only here is it signed with the childhood name and the age six. In the prose the word 親のない comes first from the other children's song; the verse turns it on the sparrow.

The late fair copy: eight again

『浅黄空』 is a fair copy in Issa's hand of his spring verses, arranged by topic. Its editor, in a volume of the same series of 1930, thinks its latest verse probably of 文政5 (1822), 文政五年の作かと思はれる, and the hand probably late, 晩年の筆になつたものであらう, so it was most likely written out after 『おらが春』 [13]. There the verse has a prose headnote, 親のない子ハ肩身でしれるなど、唄れ、心くるしく、うらの毛小屋(ニ)一人日なたぼこして, they sang that a child with no parent shows it in his bearing, and it pained me, and I sat alone in the sun by the hut out back, then [5]:

我と來て遊ぶ親のない雀

and below it, small, 八ヽ時. The editor reads the note 八才の時といふ意味であらうか, perhaps it means "when I was eight", and the 1979 apparatus 「八つ(歳)時」 [13][17]. The editor adds that another manuscript he does not name was headed 八才の頃を思ひ出して, recalling when I was eight [13].

So Issa gives the verse five ways in the texts read and reported: in the diary of 1814 with no age; on the sheet its editor dated to 1814 with eight; in the autograph copy, undated here, with 遊ぶや [17]; in 1819 with six; and in the late fair copy with 八ヽ時, read as eight again; on the 1927 typeset of the diary, four times as a statement and once as an invitation, and on the 1910 typeset's あそべよ, three and two. The eighth year is the year the stepmother came [14].

The six-year-old in print

The oldest book on Issa that the National Diet Library's catalogue finds by title, 『俳人一茶』 of 1897, makes the verse the child's own: 六歲の時實に左の一句を發しぬ, at six he truly uttered the following verse, and says of the prose before it, 俳文の部に載せたる此句の前詞は、翁後に自らつけ加へたるものあり, the headnote to this verse, given in the prose section, was added by the old man himself later; that section of the book prints, under ○親のない雀, the passage of 『おらが春』 that ends in the verse signed 六歲 彌太郎 [1]. The tellings of those years already disagree on the age before any of Issa's other forms was printed: six in the magazine 少國民 in 1896 [26], seven in a memorial address of 1903 and a teaching manual of 1907 [27][28], eight in a book of poets' anecdotes of 1901 [29]. A school reader's companion of 1913 has the boy 父母を失ひて孤となり, having lost father and mother, an orphan, though the father lived [30][14].

1926: the doubt and the defense

The diary argument. 栗生純夫, in 『一茶新考』 of 1926, quotes the verse and says [6]:

文化十一年正月既に「我と來て遊べよ親のない雀」と自ら記し、作句のあとを明かに見せてゐると言ふことである。しかもこの時は、六才といふ文字は勿論、他に一字の前書すらないのである。

In the first month of 1814 he had already written it down himself, showing plainly the trace of its making. And at that time there is not only no "six," there is not one character of headnote. Those who hold it a child's verse, he goes on, rest on one thing, that Issa was not a man to forge a verse of his childhood; to which he answers that forgery need not come into it: 「六才の折の回想」と解すに何の苦心もいらない, it takes no effort to read it as "a recollection of the time when I was six." In a second essay, dated April 1926, he says the first drew no response, and adds that Issa played with his own age elsewhere, signing himself 九十九齡一茶, Issa, aged ninety-nine, and writing in 1819 that he had climbed to the top of the slope of sixty [31]. 井泉水 in 1929 names a young man of 小布施, 上林, as perhaps the first to publish the doubt, であらう [20]; he could not be traced. No earlier statement of the doubt is known in the National Diet Library's full-text index.

The sheet. The same year 『株番』 printed the 成美 sheet, with its editors' 後年の作 [24].

The defense. Also in 1926, 勝峯晋風, an editor of Issa's texts, set the verse in his chronology under Issa's sixth year, citing it and 六才彌太郎 from Issa's manuscript, 「一茶眞蹟本おらが春」, and wrote [7]:

此句から誰彼に師事して當時既に發句を習作せるやうにいふ舊說は否定したい。六歲の小童彌太郎の偶作と見て決して不自然に聞えない。

I would reject the old story, built from this verse, that the child was already studying hokku under this or that teacher. Taken as the chance verse of the six-year-old Yatarō, it does not sound at all unnatural. 栗生 answered in his April essay that his point was not the signature but the diary [31].

A manuscript the two sides read differently. 川島つゆ, in 1926, reported an autograph 若水帳 of 1819, 「おらが春」と殆ど體裁を同じくする, and read in its facsimile beside the verse 「六歳の頃を思ひ出て」或は「忍びて」と讀み得る文字, characters that can be read recalling when I was six or remembering fondly [32]. 勝峯 read the same document as the same as 『おらが春』 in text and verse, differing only in its picture: 若水帖はさし繪こそちがへ、本文及び發句とも同一であるから、六才の頃を思ひ起した後年の作とする說も亦從ひ難い [7]. The facsimile is in a book that can be read only in Japan, and was not seen; this history rests nothing on either reading.

After 1926

川島 in 1928, having the diary, the 成美 sheet and the 1910 and 信濃教育会 typesets before her, concluded that the six-year-old reading 消滅する, falls away, and that the verse was 實は五十二歳當時の作, made in fact at fifty-two, as 相馬御風 reports her argument and quotes her in 1941 [21]. 井泉水 in 1929, finding the verse in the 成美 sheet: 實は六歲でも八歲でも、どちらでもよろしい、つまり幼時を追憶しての作, six or eight, either will do: it is a verse recalling his childhood, and he heard the recollection in the 時 of the headnote and the statement 遊ぶや [20]. 山口剛, in 1931, put the question as 六歳か、八歳か、五十二歳か, six, eight or fifty-two, and wondered whether 成美's association with the 袋草紙 had been drawn by the headnote's eight [22]. 藤本實也, in 1930, held for the child: 天才一茶が六歳や八歳で此の句が出來ないとは決して思はれない, as 相馬 quotes him [21].

The collected works of 1976: もと幼時の追憶吟であったものを、ここには幼時の作らしく作為してある, what was at first a verse recalling his childhood is here contrived to look like a verse made in childhood [19]. The 世界大百科事典 calls it そのころを追想した吟, a verse recalling the stepmother years [14], and Japanese Wikipedia the same [15].

我 or おれ

Every Edo witness read writes 我 in kanji, with no kana [3][4][2][5]. The Meiji tellings print おれと from 1896 [26][29], and われと from 1902 [33]; Chamberlain in 1902 romanizes Ware to kite [8]. Whether the Meiji おれと reads Issa's character or retells with another word, the windows read do not say. The sheet's 我と stands on every witness of Issa's own that was read here; the diary manuscript, the おらが春 autograph and the 自筆本 were not opened.

The verse in English

1902. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his paper on the Japanese poetical epigram: You little sparrows left without / A mother, come and play with me. and This is said to have been composed by Issa at the age of five, when he had just lost his own mother [8]. No earlier English is known in the Internet Archive's full-text index or the library's books. His five may be the Western count of 六才 (Ueda gives the signature both ways [16]; Chamberlain does not say); the joining of the verse to the mother's death, which came when Issa was three, is his. He reprinted it in 1910 [34].

1910. Michel Revon's French anthology: Avec moi, / Moineaux sans / Parents, venez jouer!, with the note On dit qu'il composa ces vers à l'âge de cinq ans, alors qu'il venait de perdre sa mère [35]: Chamberlain's five and his mother, in French.

1916 to 1932. An English sketch of Issa in The Japan Magazine in 1916, by T. Masaoka, sets the verse in the years after the mother's death and before the stepmother, with motherless sparrows (read in its text layer only) [36]. Robertson Scott in 1922: Come and play with me, / Thou orphan sparrow! [37]. Miyamori in 1932 prints 遊べよ and O, motherless or parentless sparrows, / Come here and play with me, the two words set one above the other, with This verse is said to have been composed by Issa at the early age of six when he had lost his mother, and a second English by Glenn Shaw and Revon's French [38]. In his introduction he gives the children's song in English, An orphan is known at once anywhere, sets the verse at six, and tells how the boy's teacher, Nakamura Rokuzaemon … the pen name of Shimpo, On hearing of Yatarō's verse on "Orphan Sparrows," … was struck with wonder and admiration at his genius [38]: a story of the kind 勝峯 had rejected six years before, of a child already learning hokku from teachers [7].

1934 and 1958. Harold G. Henderson, in The Bamboo Broom: The story goes that one day when Issa was about six, there was a village festival for which all the other children, including Issa's half-brother, got new clothes; Issa, shunned, saw a little fledgling sparrow, which looked utterly forlorn, as if it had just fallen from the nest, spoke the verse, and burst into a storm of tears; then The original Japanese is too poignant, and too perfect, to have been composed by a child of six, and the probabilities are that Issa wrote it many years later [39]. In 1958 he tells the same story with the child about nine, and romanizes Ore to kite where in 1934 he had Ware to kite; he does not give his reasons [40]. The festival, the new clothes, the fledgling and the tears are in no Japanese witness read here.

1950. R. H. Blyth: Come and play with me, / Fatherless, motherless / Sparrow., and Issa's mother died when he was three. Issa was an orphan [41]. He printed the same lines in later books. Peter Beilenson in 1958: COME NOW, PLAY WITH ME… / FATHERLESS / MOTHERLESS DEAR / LITTLE SPARROW-CHILD [42].

1976. Donald Keene: A poem that appeared in 1814 was signed with Issa's childhood name and a note stating that it was composed when he was a boy of six or eight; perhaps he actually wrote the poem when his father remarried, or perhaps he merely ascribed it to his childhood in retrospect, and Come with me, / Let's play together, sparrow / Without a mother. [43]. No 1814 witness read carries the childhood name: the diary has no headnote, and the 成美 sheet has 八才の時 with no name [3][4]; the signature is 『おらが春』's, 1819. Keene does not tie his when his father remarried to the headnote's eight; the remarriage fell in Issa's eighth year [14]. Haruo Shirane's note to his translation of 『おらが春』 in 2002 says the same of the 1814 entry, six or eight years old (read in its text layer) [44]. Faubion Bowers in 1996 printed Keene's lines with swallow for sparrow, saying a picture Issa later drew to illustrate the poem shows a swallow, without naming the picture [45].

2004. Makoto Ueda: a hokku he claims to have written at the age of five, Yatarō in his sixth year, and The consensus of today's scholars is that the entire episode is fictional and that Issa made it up many years later to dramatize his lonely childhood. But the episode and the hokku ring true as far as his character is concerned [16].

The romaji differ with the Japanese each translator followed: asobe ya (Chamberlain, Blyth), asobeya (Ueda), asobe yo (Miyamori, Henderson, Keene, Bowers) [8][41][16][38][39][43][45].

What is not a source, and what is not claimed

A reading

I read the verse as a recollection, made by Issa in his fifties and set in 1819 inside a childhood he was writing down. The order of his own witnesses carries most of this. The first record is a diary line of 1814 with no age; on a sheet its editor dated to the same year he gives a fellow poet the headnote when I was eight, with 時, when, the word of someone looking back, as 井泉水 heard it [3][4][20]; and only in 『おらが春』, five years later, does the age become six and the name Yatarō, inside a prose account written to be read as a life [2]. His fair copy, judged late, has 八ヽ時, read as the eight again [5][13]. I take the eight as the year the stepmother came, the occasion Keene's when his father remarried names [43][14]. 栗生's note that Issa played with his age elsewhere tells in the same direction [31]. This is a reading. 勝峯, citing the manuscript of 『おらが春』, heard nothing unnatural in a six-year-old's chance verse, and nothing read here proves that no child said it [7].

The form we sell is the one Issa framed as the child's. In 『おらが春』 the sparrow is spoken to: 遊べや, come and play; the diary speaks to it too if the 1910 typeset's あそべよ is the leaf's. The other forms say what the sparrow does, a parentless sparrow that comes with me and plays; this one asks it to come. The prose gives the turn its weight. The children sang 親のない子 at him, and the verse gives the same words to a sparrow, with an invitation where the song had a taunt [2]. That is how I read the line on the scroll: one creature the others would not play with, asking another to play. Signed, 典.

Notes

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
我と来て遊べやVB5JBlock
Japanese Scroll of Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
我と来て遊べやVC5JCursive
Japanese Scroll of Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
我と来て遊べやVD5JEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Issa - Come and play with me, sparrow with no parent (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
我と来て遊べやVS5JSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. 宮沢義喜・宮沢岩太郎 編, 『俳人一茶』, 明治30 (1897), p. 2 and the 俳文の部 pp. 33–34, National Diet Library pid 875627, scans 12 and 27–28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875627/1/12
  2. 小林一茶, 『おらが春』, the print catalogued as 嘉永5 (1852), 東京藝術大学 (脇本), canvas 27 (no dated colophon on canvases 45–48), at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100288356/27
  3. 小林一茶, 『七番日記』, 文化11 (1814) 正月, in 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 上巻 (新校七番日記), 古今書院, 1927 (colophon, 昭和二年六月八日發行, scan 207), p. 311, National Diet Library pid 1186690, scan 174 (the year heading 文化十一甲戌歲, scan 169). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186690/1/174
  4. 湯本五郎治 編, 『株番 : 一茶遺稿』, 春秋社, 1926, plate (九), 成美評一茶句稿の一部, a collotype of Issa's sheet, National Diet Library pid 978294, scan 12. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978294/1/12
  5. 小林一茶, 『浅黄空』, in 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第9編 下巻, 古今書院, 1930, p. 557, National Diet Library pid 1186739, scan 72. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/72
  6. 栗生純夫, 『一茶新考』, 西沢書店, 1926, 「一茶俳句考說」, pp. 14–15, National Diet Library pid 978210, scan 24. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978210/1/24
  7. 勝峯晋風 編, 『一茶新集』, 古今書院, 1926, 「一茶新年譜」, pp. 2–3, National Diet Library pid 1019812, scan 10. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019812/1/10
  8. Basil Hall Chamberlain, "Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram," Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan vol. XXX part 2, 1902, p. 357, no. (297) for 197, at the Internet Archive (image n59). https://archive.org/details/basho-and-the-japanses-poetical-epigram
  9. JMdict, entries 1196670 (我), 1365040 (親), 1373560 (雀) and 2828852 (雀の子), in the local copy of the dictionary used by gokanji.com.
  10. 「親無し」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E8%A6%AA%E7%84%A1%E3%81%97-455061
  11. 「雀」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9B%80-524782
  12. 「雀の子」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%9B%80%E3%81%AE%E5%AD%90-302638
  13. 『浅黄空』, 解題, in 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第9編 下巻, 古今書院, 1930 (colophon, 昭和五年一月廿四日發行, scan 183), p. 550, National Diet Library pid 1186739, scan 69. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/69
  14. 「小林一茶」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典 小項目事典, デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus and 世界大百科事典 (旧版), at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B0%8F%E6%9E%97%E4%B8%80%E8%8C%B6-16260
  15. 「小林一茶」, Japanese Wikipedia, revision of 25 September 2026, § 母の死と継母. https://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=111147241
  16. Makoto Ueda, Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa, Brill, 2004, p. 7 (the library's copy).
  17. 『一茶全集』 第1巻 発句, 信濃毎日新聞社, 1979, the entry and its apparatus (search window only), National Diet Library pid 12457587. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12457587
  18. 『一茶全集』 第3巻 句帖 2, 信濃毎日新聞社, 1976, 七番日記 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 12457590. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12457590
  19. 『一茶全集』 第6巻, 信濃毎日新聞社, 1976, the note to おらが春 and the text of the 句稿消息 (search windows only), National Diet Library pid 12457593. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12457593
  20. 荻原井泉水, 『旅のまた旅』, 1929, 「湯田中にて」, pp. 198–202, National Diet Library pid 1175401, scans 108–110. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1175401/1/108
  21. 相馬御風, 『一茶素描』, 1941, 「幼年時代の一茶」 § 三, pp. 8–13 (pp. 8–11 quoting 川島つゆ, 『一茶の種々相』, 1928), National Diet Library pid 1128429, scans 12–14. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1128429/1/12
  22. 山口剛, 『西鶴・成美・一茶』, 1931, 「一茶の六歳の俳句」, pp. 292–295, National Diet Library pid 1174782, scans 157–158. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1174782/1/157
  23. 湯本五郎治 編, 『株番 : 一茶遺稿』, 春秋社, 1926, 成美評一茶句稿, pp. 240–241, National Diet Library pid 978294, scan 148. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978294/1/148
  24. 湯本五郎治 編, 『株番 : 一茶遺稿』, 春秋社, 1926, 遺墨解説, note (九), p. 339, National Diet Library pid 978294, scan 197. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978294/1/197
  25. 小林一茶, 『おらが春』 (我春集), a printing of 1878, 国文学研究資料館, image 27, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/200003967/27
  26. 『少國民』, July 1896 (search window only), National Diet Library pid 1589270. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1589270
  27. 岸上克己 (香摘), 『香摘文抄』, 岸上後援会, 1940, 「俳諧寺一茶を祭る文」, headed 明治三十六年十一月發行誠友四十二號 and dated 明治癸卯 (1903), p. 204, National Diet Library pid 1271135, scan 144. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1271135/1/144
  28. 福沢悦三郎 (青藍), 『韻文教授法』, 1907, p. 154, National Diet Library pid 812034, scan 84. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/812034/1/84
  29. 安藤, 『俳家逸話』, 1901, p. 58, National Diet Library pid 875445, scan 46. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875445/1/46
  30. 大槻文彦・市川源三, 『高等女学読本備考』, 1913, p. 63, National Diet Library pid 910431, scan 49. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/910431/1/49
  31. 栗生純夫, 『一茶新考』, 西沢書店, 1926, 「六才の吟再疑」, dated 十五年四月 (April 1926), pp. 80–83, National Diet Library pid 978210, scans 57–58. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/978210/1/57
  32. 川島つゆ, 『一茶俳句新釈』, 1926, no. 〔四五〕, pp. 38–39, National Diet Library pid 1019779, scan 41. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019779/1/41
  33. 大塚甲山, 『一茶俳句全集』, 1902, p. 47, National Diet Library pid 874848, scan 26. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874848/1/26
  34. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanese Poetry, John Murray, 1910, no. 197 (text layer of the library's copy).
  35. Michel Revon, Anthologie de la littérature japonaise des origines au XXe siècle, Delagrave, Paris, 1910, p. 398 and note 3, at the Internet Archive (a 1923 printing, image n411). https://archive.org/details/anthologiedelal00revogoog
  36. T. Masaoka, "A Haikai Poet," The Japan Magazine vol. 7, November 1916, pp. 389 ff. (text layer), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/jm-1916-1917-v7-U-of-California
  37. J. W. Robertson Scott, The Foundations of Japan, John Murray, 1922, p. 107, at the Internet Archive (leaf 156). https://archive.org/details/foundationsjapa00scotgoog
  38. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, Tokyo, 1932, Introduction pp. 80–81 and pp. 536–537, no. 538 (the library's copy).
  39. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom, Houghton Mifflin, 1934, pp. 83–84 (the library's copy).
  40. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, pp. 128–129 (the library's copy).
  41. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido, 1950, p. 228 (the library's copy).
  42. Peter Beilenson, The Four Seasons, Peter Pauper Press, 1958, p. 18 (the library's copy).
  43. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, 1976, p. 366 and note 23 (the library's copy).
  44. Haruo Shirane, ed., Early Modern Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 2002, The Spring of My Life, note 22 (text layer of the library's copy).
  45. Faubion Bowers, ed., The Classic Tradition of Haiku, Dover, 1996, p. 61 (the library's copy).
  46. 藤村作 編, 『日本文学大辞典』, 新潮社, 1935, National Diet Library pid 1127343, scan 105. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1127343/1/105
  47. Glenn W. Shaw, "Issa and Nojiri," Present-day Japan 1929 (The Asahi English Supplement), p. 75, at the Internet Archive (image n72). https://archive.org/details/present-day-japan-1929/page/n72/mode/1up

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-10-30, citations — every reference with a web address opened where a script could open it and the quoted words looked for at each; the three rows that differed were text-layer misreadings, and the page images read as the history quotes them; two sentences found firmer than their pages were reworded to them (the 1897 book does not name 『おらが春』; the stricter edition is 相馬's report, in his words); the leaves a script could not open (the National Diet Library scans, the 国書データベース canvases, the Internet Archive images) were opened in the reading by eye · two fresh-context readers (Claude), 2026-10-30, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim, in two rounds: the first failed on one wrong fact, conceded and fixed (the English was said to be known most often by two renderings, which nothing counted); the second passed, with wordings scoped to what was read (the 成美 sheet dated to 1814 by its editor, 荻原井泉水; the fifth way an autograph copy known only from the 1979 apparatus; the remarriage tied to the headnote's eight by this history, not by Keene; Chamberlain's five perhaps the Western count; Issa's death in January 1828 by calendar conversion, where some dictionaries print 1827)

Research depth: step 4 of our 10-step ladder, sources traced · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 我と来て遊べや親のない雀 (ware to kite asobe ya oya no nai suzume)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/ware-to-kite-asobe-ya-oya-no-nai-suzume.