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やせ蛙負けるな一茶これにあり yasegaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari Issa - Skinny frog, don't lose: Issa is here

やせ蛙負けるな一茶これにあり (yasegaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari) is Issa's verse on a frog battle. He wrote it in his diary in the fourth month of 1816, cheering on a thin frog. Where he saw the battle is a question his diary and a pupil's later copy answer differently.

Japanese Scroll of Issa - Skinny frog, don't lose: Issa is here (yasegaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Issa - Skinny frog, don't lose: Issa is hereやせ蛙負けるな一茶これにありyasegaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

やせ蛙負けるな一茶これにあり, skinny frog, don't lose: Issa is here, is a hokku by Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 (1763–1827), written in his diary, the 七番日記, in the fourth month of 文化13 (1816), after he went to see a frog battle, frogs massing in spring to mate, so many that they look as if they were fighting [1][2][3][4]. Issa wrote it 瘦蛙まけるな一茶是ニ有 in the diary, and with the frog in kana in a draft for his patron Natsume Seibi 夏目成美; no witness in his hand read for this history names a place, and 竹の塚 in Musashi, north of Edo, the place later books give, stands in the headnote of a copy made by his pupil 湯本希杖 in 1827, the year of Issa's death [2][5][6][7][8]. The spelling most readers know, with これにあり in kana, was in print by 1894 and in the national school reader by 1937 [9][10]. I read the verse as Issa's report of a scene in his own province, seen when his newborn son was six days old, and the place in Musashi as a later attribution that the witnesses read here cannot settle.

Overview

The sense. No dictionary read for this history enters the verse as a headword. デジタル大辞泉 quotes it under かえる【蛙】, as the example of the frog as a seasonal word of spring: 《季 春》「痩―まけるな一茶是(これ)にあり／一茶」 [11]. So the dictionary reads the frog かえる, kaeru, voiced in the compound as gaeru, reads 是 as これ, and keeps Issa's kana まけるな. What the verse calls a battle, the dictionaries call a mating swarm. デジタル大辞泉 defines 蛙合戦 by 蛙軍, and 蛙軍 as 群れ集まった蛙が先を争って交尾するさま, frogs gathered in a swarm, mating and jostling to be first; 精選版 日本国語大辞典, under かえるいくさ, has 蛙が群集して、争って交尾すること。多くの蛙が戦っているさまに似ているところからいう。早春にアカガエル、ヒキガエルが行なう, frogs crowding together and mating in competition; so called because it looks like many frogs fighting; done in early spring by the brown frog and the toad, with its first example from a temple diary of 1482 [3][4]. The thin frog is losing in that crowd, and the poet calls out to it.

The words. やせ is thin, from 痩せる, to lose flesh [12]. 蛙 is the frog, read kaeru in デジタル大辞泉's entry; the earliest prints read for this history write it in kana, かはつ, kawazu, the older word, and a teachers' guide of 1937 reads the line やせかはず, yasekawazu [11][13][9][14]. まけるな is the negative command of 負ける, to lose, to be beaten: don't lose [15]. 一茶 is the poet's own name, so the verse speaks of him in the third person. 是 is これ, this, as デジタル大辞泉 reads it, and これにあり is is here, literally is at this; some editors read 是 as ここ, here, which gives the same sense, and a teachers' guide of 1938 sets out the question, whether 是に is to be read ここに or これに [11][16][17][18]. 有 is ある, to be, written あり in the classical form [19].

The text in English. The verse was in English by 1902, when Basil Hall Chamberlain rendered it Emaciated frog! be not worsted in fight:—Issa is here, the earliest known rendering, on the Internet Archive's full text and the house's shelf [20]. It was often translated by 1934, when Harold G. Henderson called it so and rendered it Lean frog, don't give up the fight! Issa is here! [21]. Glenn Shaw had printed it in 1929, and Asatarō Miyamori in 1932 with the headnote naming 竹の塚, and with Shaw's rendering and Michel Revon's French beside his own [22][23]. R. H. Blyth's Thin frog, / Don't be beat, / Issa is here! followed in 1950; later translators kept Shaw's skinny or made the frog scrawny, and Issa, as Michel Revon's French note had him in 1910, a rescuer [24][25][26][27]. The translations are taken in order below.

The historical record

1816. The diary, 七番日記. Issa kept the 七番日記 from the first month of 文化7 (1810) to the twelfth month of 1818, the year the era became 文政, on デジタル大辞泉's and 日本国語大辞典's dates [28]. It was printed whole from the manuscript by the Shinano education society in 1930, in two volumes of its 『一茶叢書』, and on p. 77 of the second, among the verses of the fourth month of 文化13, it reads [2]:

蛙たゝかひ見ニまかる四月廿日也けり 瘦蛙まけるな一茶是ニ有

Going to see a frog battle; it was the twentieth of the fourth month. Thin frog, don't lose: Issa is here. The verse stands among summer verses, 初松魚, 螢 and 初袷, after the diary's tally of the spring, 三春 二百六十二句, and in the old calendar the fourth month is the first month of summer, so Issa filed it as he dated it [2]. The twentieth day of the fourth month of 文化13 was 16 May 1816 [29]. The diary's own days around it say where Issa was. On the fourteenth, 上町ニ入 菊女生男子, went to 上町; Kiku gave birth to a boy; on the eighteenth, 六川菅相山ニ入, went to 菅相山 at Rokugawa; on the nineteenth, thunder and rain at night; on the twentieth, 晴, fair, and nothing more; on the twenty-first, アサノニ入, went to Asano [30]. Kiku was his wife, whom he had married in the fourth month of 文化11 (1814), at fifty-two by the Japanese count [31]. In the fifth month, on the eleventh, the diary has 四月十四日生男子寅刻沒, the boy born on the fourteenth of the fourth month died at the hour of the tiger [32]. Ōba Shunsuke 大場俊助, in 1965, read these days to mean that the verse was written at Rokugawa, and the frog battle seen there or nearby; Ōishi Minoru 大石實, in 1999, says that on the day of the boy's seventh night Issa was travelling in Kamitakai district, in what is now Nagano [7][33].

The diary carries the verse a second time. In the first volume of the 1930 edition, p. 65, a block of verses headed 文化十三年四月十八日よりの部, from the eighteenth of the fourth month of 文化13, and then a block headed 文化十三年六月之部, the sixth month of 文化13, stand in the lower half of leaves that carry the diary's days of the eighth month of 文化7; the edition keeps them where they are written [34]. Two pages on, in that block, the headnote and the verse stand again, word for word as on p. 77: 蛙たゝかひ見ニまかる / 四月廿日也けり · 瘦蛙まけるな一茶是ニ有 [34]. Neither copy names a place.

About 1816. The draft for Seibi, 句稿消息. The 句稿消息 is the drafts Issa sent by courier to the Edo poet Natsume Seibi 夏目成美 for his marks, from his return home in 文化9 to about the spring of 文化13; it had no title, later hands gathered the drafts into one book, and its editors named it, printing it in 1930 [35]. On its p. 201 [5]:

蛙たゝかひといふを見ニまかる / 四月廿日也けり。 瘦がへるまけるな一茶是ニ有

Here the frog is in kana, がへる, gaeru. The edition prints Seibi's marks before some verses on the page, and this verse carries none [5].

After 1816. A fair copy, 淺黃空. The 淺黃空 is a notebook in which Issa chose and fair-copied five hundred and twenty-nine spring verses by season word; its editors, who gave it its title from the first verse, judged it by its hand a work of his last years, and the latest verse they could date in it is probably of 文政5 (1822) [36]. Among its frog verses, p. 560 [37]:

たゝかひを見て 瘦蛙まけ(る)な一茶是に有

Seeing the battle. The る is set in parentheses by the editors, who supply it; the notebook writes まけな [37].

Autographs. In 1922 the haiku poet Takahama Kyoshi 高浜虚子 reported a photograph of an autograph, 寫眞版が出てゐて、それには「蛙たゝかひ瘦かへるまけるな一茶是に有」とある, a photograph has been published, and in it is written "frog battle: thin frog, don't lose: Issa is here" [38]. Ogiwara Seisensui 荻原井泉水's catalogue of Issa's autographs, 1937, lists a hanging scroll and a poem card of the verse, both under the short headnote 蛙たたかひ [39]. Miyamori, in 1932, reproduced a poem card as Penned by the poet: read at the plate, it carries a headnote of three or four characters beginning 蛙, in a single short column, and the verse, which as far as the plate can be read is 瘦かへるまけるな一茶是に有, with the frog in kana [6].

1827. A pupil's copy, and 竹の塚. The place enters with the 希杖本一茶句集, a copy of Issa's verse made in 文政10 by his pupil 湯本希杖 of Yudanaka, in the last half-year of Issa's life, as Ōba wrote in 1965; Ōba quotes its headnote: むさしの国竹の塚といふに、蛙たたかひありけるに見にまかる、四月廿日也けり, went to see a frog battle that took place at a spot called 竹の塚 in the province of Musashi; it was the twentieth of the fourth month, and says that the copy added a place to the verse's headnote [7]. The apparatus of the standard editions of 1970 and 1979 gives the same headnote to the 希杖本 and lists the diary, the 淺黃空 (headnote たゝかひを見て) and the 句稿消息 beside it [8][40]. Ogiwara printed the 希杖本 in 1937 in one volume with the 志多良 and called it 希杖本「しだら」 [39]; that is why the teachers' guides of the 1930s say the place comes from the 志多良 [41]. The 志多良 itself is Issa's notebook of verse of 文化10 (1813), three years before the frog battle, titled by Issa from that year's New Year verse [8][42].

Where the battle was, the books read here answer four ways, all in snippet view. Ōba Shunsuke, 1965: at Rokugawa or nearby, on the diary's days [7]. 『国文学 解釈と鑑賞』, 1967 and 1983 (author not seen): Issa recalled a frog battle he had seen at 関屋の里 with the poet 秋香庵巣兆, and so wrote in 武蔵竹の塚 [43]. Uryū Takuzō 瓜生卓造, 1979: the temple 炎天寺 in Edo seems the most likely place, and of the pupil's headnote, 一茶自身の文ではないが, it is not Issa's own sentence, but Issa must have told it [44]. Ōishi Minoru, 1999: there is also an autograph that names むさしの国竹の塚, so the year cannot be known [33]. The autograph Ōishi names has not been found for this history.

1829 and 1848. Not in the first anthology. The 一茶発句集 of 文政12 (1829), the earliest printed collection of Issa's hokku read for this history, has seven frog verses in a run, おれとして… to ゆうぜんとして山を見る蛙哉, and this verse is not among them; the re-edition of 1848 has twelve, and it is not among them either [45][46]. The run was read at the leaf in the University of Tokyo's copy of the 1829 book, against the reprint of 1926, line for line [47].

1893 to 1925. The verse in print. Read at the page unless marked, the prints set the verse in these forms. 1893, 三森幹雄 『俳諧名誉談』: 疲(やせ)かはつまけるな一茶是(これ)にあり [13]. 1894, 『俳諧史伝』: 瘦かはつまけるな一茶これにあり [9]. 1896, 大橋又太郎, in snippet view: 瘦かはづ負けるな一茶是にあり [48]. 1897, 宮沢義喜 and 宮沢岩太郎's 『俳人一茶』, among verses that show Issa's use of everyday speech: 瘦かはづ負けるな一茶此處にあり [49]. 1898, 佐々政一 『日本文学史要』: 痩せ蛙、まけるな。一茶これにあり。 [50]. 1902, Ōtsuka Kōzan 大塚甲山's 『一茶俳句全集』, with the headnote 蛙たゝかひといふを見にまかる / 四月二十日なりけり: 瘦せ蛙負けるな一茶こゝにあり [17]. 1908, 『一茶一代全集』, headnote 蛙たゝかひといふを見て: 痩蛙まけるな一茶これにあり [51]. 1925, Handa Ryōhei 半田良平's 『一茶俳句集』: 瘦蛙負けるな一茶是にあり, dated 文化十三, while his preface spells it 瘦蛙負けるな一茶爰にあり [52][53]. The kana かはつ of the earliest prints gives way to 蛙; 負けるな in kanji appears beside Issa's まけるな from 1896; and 是 is read これ in some prints and ここ in others, first, on what was read, in 1897.

1925 and after. The son's name. Handa's chronology of 1925 names the son born in the fourth month of 文化13 混藏 and gives the name 千太郎 to a second son born and dead in 文化14 [31]. The diary, as the 1930 edition prints it, names neither child at the birth or the death; but among its summer verses of 文化13, after the boy's death, a headnote 千太郎ニ申, said to Sentarō, stands over はつ袷にくまれ盛ニはやくなれ, in your first summer kimono, grow quickly to the age of mischief [54]. Okano Hiroshi 岡野博, in 1976, calls the twentieth of the fourth month the day of 千太郎's seventh night [55]. Two readers make the thin frog the boy, both in snippet view: Ōba, in 1965, who says Issa carried over into it his own thin and sickly child, 痩蛙には痩せた虚弱児のわが子を…転移しているのだ; and the 1967 article, in which Issa cries the verse in his heart as a father refusing to let death take his son, わが子を死神にとられてたまるものか [7][43]. The diary sets no child beside the verse [2]. It does end one more verse that summer with the same words: among the verses of the fifth month, the month in which it records the boy's death, 時鳥なけ〳〵一茶是ニ有, cuckoo, cry and cry: Issa is here [56]. Ōba reads the two verses together [7].

1933 and 1941. Two readers' notes. Maezawa Engetsu 前沢淵月, in 1933, printed やせ蛙(がへる)まけるな一茶(いつさ)是(これ)に有(あ)り and wrote of it 四月の事、蛙合戰(かへるがつせん)を見に行つた時の句、場所は江戸の郊外でせう, in the fourth month, a verse from when he went to see a frog battle; the place, I suppose, the outskirts of Edo, with his own rendering, 『負けるな。おれは此處に居る』 [57]. Katsumine Shinpū 勝峯晋風, in 1941, quoted the diary's spelling, 瘦蛙まけるな一茶是ニ有, dated it 七番日記(文化七年), and heard in it 强者への反抗と自嘲的な滑稽味, defiance of the strong and a self-mocking humor, which he found missing from the toad passage of Issa's おらが春 that he was annotating [58]. His year is the year of the leaves on which the diary's second copy stands (1816, above).

1937. The school reader. The national primary-school reader of 1937, 『小学国語読本』 尋常科用 巻9, set the verse among five of Issa's; a teachers' guide to that volume, of the same year, reproduces the lesson's text: やせ蛙(がへる)まけるな一茶これにあり [10]. So the school spelling of 1937 has やせ and これにあり in kana, the kanji 蛙, and Issa's kana まけるな. Guides of 1922 to 1930 to earlier readers quote the verse with こゝにあり, in snippet view [59]. Which reader first set it as a lesson has not been settled for this history.

The verse in English

1902 and 1910. Basil Hall Chamberlain. In his essay Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram, in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan for 1902, p. 358, no. 199: Yase-kawazu / Makeru-na Issa / Kore ni ari; Emaciated frog! be not / Worsted in fight:—Issa is here. He gives it as an example of Issa's style, for the most part colloquial [20]. He reads the frog kawazu, as the Japanese prints of 1893 to 1897 write it in kana. He reprinted the essay, and the verse, in his Japanese Poetry of 1910, p. 258 [60].

1910. Michel Revon. In French, in his Anthologie de la littérature japonaise, p. 399: Maigre grenouille, / Ne cède pas : Issa / Est ici !, with a note: Les biographes d'Issa nous disent que, bouddhiste convaincu, il ne voulut jamais tuer une mouche. On conçoit donc qu'à la vue d'une pauvre grenouille attaquée par quelque autre animal, il soit bien vite venu au secours de la victime, Issa's biographers tell us that, a convinced Buddhist, he would never kill a fly. So one understands that, seeing a poor frog attacked by some other animal, he soon came to the victim's rescue [25]. Revon's frog is attacked by another animal, not in a battle of frogs, and Issa is its rescuer; neither is in any Japanese witness read for this history. Miyamori reprints the French in 1932 [23].

1923. Curtis Hidden Page, Japanese Poetry. p. 139, without the poet's name at the verse: The frog, of course, is not forgotten — this time it is a poor lean one, worsted in battle by some larger animal: O frog, so skinny and thin, / Fight on, and don't give in — / Issa is here! [61]. Worsted is Chamberlain's word, and some larger animal echoes Revon's quelque autre animal; no Japanese witness read for this history has the animal.

1929. Glenn W. Shaw, Issa and Nojiri. In the Asahi's English annual Present-day Japan for 1929, p. 75: On seeing a frog in a fight with other frogs, he wrote, Yase gaeru makeru na Issa / koko ni ari; You skinny frog, you, / Don't be beaten, don't give up! / Here stands Issa by you. [22]. Shaw reads 是 as koko, as the Japanese prints of 1897 and 1902 do.

1932. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern. p. 536, no. 537, The Lean Frog (痩蛙): Yase-gaeru / Makeru na Issa / Kore ni ari; Don't be beaten, lean frog. Issa is here. He adds: This verse is accompanied by the introductory remark:—"I went and saw a battle of frogs which occurred at a place called Take-no-tsuka in Musashi Province." Beside it he prints Shaw's rendering of 1929 and Revon's French [23]. On what was read, the pupil's headnote came into English with Miyamori.

1934. Harold G. Henderson, The Bamboo Broom. p. 87: The famous and often-translated haiku about the lean frog (Lean frog, don't give up the fight! Issa is here!), is a typical example of such identification, Issa's identifying himself with his subject; the interlinear reads Yase gaeru makeru na Issa koko ni ari, Lean frog do-not-be-beaten! Issa here is, so Henderson reads 是 as koko, as Shaw had [21]. He kept the rendering and the reading in his Introduction to Haiku of 1958 [62].

1950. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2. p. 248, with the Japanese set 痩蛙負けるな一茶これにあり: Yasegaeru / makeru na issa / kore ni ari; Thin frog, / Don't be beat, / Issa is here!, and of Issa's state of mind, that it is not Ryōkan's, Bashō's, Kikaku's or Buson's, but a mingling of all these, plus a real fellow-feeling for the physically and spiritually weak [24].

1957 and 1958. Lewis Mackenzie; Sources of Japanese Tradition. Mackenzie: Lean frog, / Don't you surrender! / Here's Issa by you., introduced as a verse as celebrated and now, unfortunately, as hackneyed as Issa's motherless sparrow, from the time when Issa looked down on an uneven duel in Musashi, that home of swordsmen [63]. Mackenzie places it in Musashi, as the pupil's headnote does. The Columbia anthology of 1958, p. 440, reading Koko ni ari: Skinny frog, / Don't give up! / Issa is here., under the sentence With him the democracy of poetry attained universality [64].

1960 to 1997. The frog as underdog. Nobuyuki Yuasa, 1960, p. 24: Be brave, / Skinny frog! / Here I am / To back you up. [65]; a selection for children by Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert reprinted it in 1969 and credits it to him [66]. Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite, 1964, p. 122: Thin little frog, / Don't give in: / Issa is here, you know. [67]. Daniel Crump Buchanan, 1973, files the verse under summer, as the diary's month does, with Oh thin little frog / Don't lose the fight. Issa / Is right here to help. and It is said that one day the poet saw a large frog and a little thin one fighting [68]. Donald Keene, 1976, p. 366: Skinny frog, / Don't get discouraged: / Issa is here., written in 1816, when Issa went to watch a fight staged between two frogs; the staging is Keene's [69]. Steven D. Carter, 1991, p. 422, under spring, 1816, Watching frogs fight: You, skinny frog— / don't go giving up just yet. / Issa's here!, with a note that the frogs are males fighting in the mating season [70]. David G. Lanoue, 1991, scrawny / frog / fight / on! / Issa / to / the / rescue, a haiku that most Japanese schoolchildren know by heart, the frog locked in a mock-epic (losing) battle over croaking rights in a pond [26]. Faubion Bowers, 1996, p. 62, his own: Puny frog / Don't give up / Issa's here!, Written on seeing two bullfrogs fight during mating season [71]. Sam Hamill, 1997: Be calm, skinny frog! / Now that Issa's on his way, / you needn't worry [27].

2002 to 2016. Haruo Shirane; Makoto Ueda. Shirane, 2002, p. 941, from the 七番日記, the fourth month of 1816: Skinny frog, / don't give up the fight! / Issa is here!, Henderson's line, with a note that male frogs gathered in spring to fight over a female, that the verse also may mean that Issa, single and without a family for most of his life, is talking to himself about his marital prospects, and that makeru na Issa kore ni ari is a military phrase used by a commander to urge on his troops [72]. On the diary's evidence, Issa had been married two years when he wrote it, and his wife had borne a son six days before [31][30]. Ueda, 2004, pp. 106–107, has the same English among Issa's verses on animals of 1815 and 1816, and hears in Issa is here the self-announcement of a samurai on the battlefield, which adds a touch of humor [73]. Shirane, in 2016, p. 414, keeps the rendering, sets the Japanese as makeru na Issa ga kore ni ari, with a が that no witness read for this history has, and says the commander's phrase of makeru na alone [74]. The commander's phrase is Shirane's and the samurai's announcement Ueda's; no dictionary read for this history records これにあり as either.

Today. A rendering should keep the thinness, the command and the name: skinny frog, don't lose: Issa is here. Don't give up the fight adds a fight the Japanese leaves to the headnote.

A reading

I read the verse as Issa's own report of a frog battle seen in Shinano. The diary is the only witness of the day: it dates the battle, names no place, and puts Issa at Rokugawa on the eighteenth and at Asano on the twenty-first, with nothing recorded on the twentieth itself [2][30]. The headnote that names 竹の塚 in Musashi is in a pupil's copy made eleven years later, in Issa's last half-year; it may carry what Issa told him, as Uryū thought, or a memory of another battle, as the 1967 article argued, and nothing read here settles which [7][44][43]. Ōishi's autograph naming Musashi, if it is found, would be the witness that could [33].

The verse is comic, and it is not only comic. A man in his fifties announces himself to a frog in the voice of a champion, and the joke is the gap between the voice and the frog. On the diary's days he wrote it when his son by Kiku was six days old; nothing in the verse speaks of the child, and the reading of the thin frog as the boy, Ōba's and the 1967 article's, is a reading [7][43]. I hear in it what Blyth heard, fellow-feeling for the weak, said in a joke so that it can be said at all [24]. Signed, 典.

Notes

The forms of the verse. Issa's three witnesses read here agree on 瘦, まけるな, 是 and 有, and differ on the frog [2][5][37]. Point by point, against the prints and today's dictionary:

Over fifty years the prints move toward kana やせ and これにあり; 負けるな in kanji stands in the prints of 1896, 1897, 1902 and 1925 beside Issa's まけるな, which the others keep; today's dictionary keeps Issa's kanji and kana but for あり.

The season. Issa dated the verse in the fourth month and the diary files it among summer verses; デジタル大辞泉 makes the frog a seasonal word of spring, and 日本国語大辞典 puts the frog battle in early spring [2][11][3]. On the diary's date the battle was in mid-May.

Sources not seen

荻原井泉水 校, 『一茶遺稿 志多良』, 1937, and 『定本一茶全集』 第1巻, 1949 (National Diet Library, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1229039 and https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1707530, served only inside Japan). They print the 志多良 and the 希杖本 together, and would show the 竹の塚 headnote as Ogiwara set it, with whatever he wrote of the 希杖本's date and hand.

荻原井泉水 編, 『一茶真蹟集』, 1937 (National Diet Library, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1172481, served only inside Japan). Its plates and notes would show the autographs of the verse and their headnotes.

大石實, 『福岡県の文学碑 古典編』, 1999 (National Diet Library, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14139801, in-library), and the autograph it names with むさしの国竹の塚. If the autograph is Issa's, it is the witness that would settle the place.

若月敬夫, 「一茶と炎天寺考」, 『長野』 214, November 2000, listed in the bibliography of that year's papers in 『連歌俳諧研究』 101 (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/haibun1951/2001/101/2001_101_17/_article/-char/ja/). The one paper found on CiNii Research and J-STAGE whose title names Issa and 炎天寺, the temple of the 竹の塚 tradition; not online.

信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 別編 第3, 1928, the photographic edition of the 句稿消息 (National Diet Library, https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186557, served only inside Japan), which would show whether Seibi marked the verse.

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

References

  1. 「小林一茶」 and 「一茶」, デジタル大辞泉, ブリタニカ国際大百科事典, 日本大百科全書 (ニッポニカ) and other encyclopedias, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/小林一茶-16260
  2. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 下, 1930, p. 77, scan 50, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186695/1/50
  3. 「蛙軍」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蛙軍-459012
  4. 「蛙合戦」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蛙合戦-468679
  5. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第7編 『我春集・株番・句稿消息』, 1930, 『句稿消息』 p. 201, scan 123, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186714/1/123
  6. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, 1932, plate "The Lean Frog"—Issa, Penned by the poet (See P. 536), given as p. 532 in the book's list of plates, read on the house's shelf.
  7. 大場俊助, 『一茶の作家肖像』 後編, 1965 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1343716
  8. 『古典俳文学大系』 15, 1970, the apparatus to the verse (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12456895
  9. 小此木信一郎・布川孫市, 『俳諧史伝』, 1894, scan 145, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875373/1/145
  10. 芦田恵之助, 『小学国語読本と教壇』 巻9, 1937, p. 96, scan 56, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1149437/1/56
  11. 「蛙」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蛙-43221
  12. 「痩せる」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/痩せる-648447
  13. 三森幹雄, 『俳諧名誉談』, 1893, scan 77, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875564/1/77
  14. 佐藤末吉, 『生活学習小学国語読本の指導』 尋常科用 巻9, 1937 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1452291
  15. 「負ける」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/負ける-633921
  16. 「此れ」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/此れ-505397
  17. 大塚甲山 編, 『一茶俳句全集』, 内外出版協会, 1902, p. 57, scan 31, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874848/1/31
  18. 坂本豊, 『実力成長小学国語読本の教授』 尋常科用 巻9, 1938 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1710670
  19. 「有る」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/有る-428392
  20. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Bashō and the Japanese Poetical Epigram, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. 30, 1902, p. 358, no. 199, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/basho-and-the-japanses-poetical-epigram
  21. Harold Gould Henderson, The Bamboo Broom: An Introduction to Japanese Haiku, Houghton Mifflin, 1934, p. 87, read on the house's shelf.
  22. Glenn W. Shaw, Issa and Nojiri, in Present-day Japan 1929 (The Asahi English Supplement), p. 75, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/present-day-japan-1929
  23. Asatarō Miyamori, An Anthology of Haiku Ancient and Modern, Maruzen, 1932, p. 536, no. 537, The Lean Frog, read on the house's shelf.
  24. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 2, Spring, Hokuseido, 1950, p. 248, read on the house's shelf.
  25. Michel Revon, Anthologie de la littérature japonaise des origines au XXe siècle, Delagrave, 1910, p. 399 and note 1, at the Internet Archive (a later printing; the copyright page reads 1910). https://archive.org/details/anthologiedelal00revogoog
  26. David G. Lanoue, Issa: Cup-of-Tea Poems: Selected Haiku of Kobayashi Issa, Asian Humanities Press, 1991, pp. 2 and 23, read on the house's shelf.
  27. Sam Hamill, The Spring of My Life and Selected Haiku, Shambhala, 1997, among the selected haiku, read on the house's shelf.
  28. 「七番日記」, デジタル大辞泉 and 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/七番日記-520901
  29. 国立天文台 暦計算室, 「日本の暦日データベース」, 文化13年4月14日, 20日 and 5月11日 converted to the Gregorian calendar. https://eco.mtk.nao.ac.jp/cgi-bin/koyomi/caldb.cgi
  30. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 下, 1930, pp. 80–81, scan 52, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186695/1/52
  31. 半田良平 編, 『一茶俳句集：季題別年代考 附・一茶年譜』, 1925, 年譜 pp. 71–72, scans 43–44, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/917542/1/43
  32. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 下, 1930, p. 85, scan 54, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186695/1/54
  33. 大石實 編著, 『福岡県の文学碑』 古典編, 1999 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/14139801
  34. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 上, 1930, pp. 65–67, scans 51–52, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186690/1/51
  35. 小池直太郎, 解題, in 『一茶叢書』 第7編, 1930, pp. 12–13, scan 18, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186714/1/18
  36. 解題 to 『淺黃空』, in 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第9編 『小篇三十種』 下, 1930, scan 69, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/69
  37. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第9編 『小篇三十種』 下, 1930, 『淺黃空』 p. 560, scan 74, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186739/1/74
  38. 高浜虚子 編, 『中学読本中の俳句評釈』 春夏, 1922 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/968372
  39. 荻原井泉水 編, 『一茶真蹟集』, 1937 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1172481
  40. 『一茶全集』 第1巻, 1979, the apparatus to the verse (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12457587
  41. 浅黄俊次郎, 『新小学国語読本指導精説』 巻9, 1937 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1462653
  42. 「志多良」, work record, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/work/1201054
  43. 『国文学 解釈と鑑賞』 32 (5), 至文堂, April 1967, and 48 (5), March 1983 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6059518
  44. 瓜生卓造, 『小林一茶』, 1979 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12457601
  45. 勝峯晋風 編, 『一茶發句集』, 1926, the 文政 (1829) text, pp. 18–19, scan 13, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019188/1/13
  46. 勝峯晋風 編, 『一茶發句集』, 1926, the 嘉永 (1848) text, pp. 128–129, scan 68, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019188/1/68
  47. 『一茶発句集』, 文政12 (1829), 東京大学 竹冷文庫 copy, canvas 13, at the 国書データベース. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/100392550
  48. 大橋又太郎 編, 『俳諧独学』, 1896 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875456
  49. 宮沢義喜・宮沢岩太郎 編, 『俳人一茶』, 三松堂, 1897, p. 14, scan 18, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875627/1/18
  50. 佐々政一, 『日本文学史要』, 1898, scan 61, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/871975/1/61
  51. 俳諧寺可秋 編, 『一茶一代全集』, 1908, scan 21, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/874846/1/21
  52. 半田良平 編, 『一茶俳句集：季題別年代考 附・一茶年譜』, 1925, scan 17, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/917542/1/17
  53. 半田良平 編, 『一茶俳句集』, 1925, preface (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/917542
  54. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 下, 1930, p. 93, scan 58, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186695/1/58
  55. 岡野博, 『茨城の人物散歩』, 1976 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12254126
  56. 信濃教育会 編, 『一茶叢書』 第4編 『新校七番日記』 下, 1930, p. 86, scan 55, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1186695/1/55
  57. 前沢淵月, 『一茶はうたふ』, 1933, p. 43, scan 30, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1107291/1/30
  58. 勝峯晋風, 『評釈おらが春』, 1941, p. 127, scan 79, at the National Diet Library. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1129783/1/79
  59. 友納友次郎・田上新吉, 『尋常小学国語読本教授詳案』 巻5, 1922, and other guides of 1922 to 1930 (snippet view, National Diet Library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/938437
  60. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Japanese Poetry, John Murray, 1910, p. 258, no. 199, read on the house's shelf.
  61. Curtis Hidden Page, Japanese Poetry: An Historical Essay with Two Hundred and Thirty Translations, Houghton Mifflin, 1923, p. 139, read on the house's shelf.
  62. Harold G. Henderson, An Introduction to Haiku: An Anthology of Poems and Poets from Bashō to Shiki, Doubleday Anchor, 1958, pp. 132–133, read on the house's shelf.
  63. Lewis Mackenzie, Autumn Wind Haiku: Selected Poems by Kobayashi Issa, Kodansha International (first published by John Murray, London, 1957, as The Autumn Wind), p. 12, read on the house's shelf.
  64. Ryusaku Tsunoda, Wm. Theodore de Bary and Donald Keene, compilers, Sources of Japanese Tradition, Columbia University Press, 1958, p. 440, read on the house's shelf.
  65. Nobuyuki Yuasa, trans., The Year of My Life, University of California Press, 1960, p. 24, read on the house's shelf.
  66. Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert, A Few Flies and I: Haiku by Issa, Pantheon, 1969, p. 57 and the acknowledgments, read on the house's shelf.
  67. Geoffrey Bownas and Anthony Thwaite, The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse, Penguin, 1964, p. 122, read on the house's shelf.
  68. Daniel C. Buchanan, One Hundred Famous Haiku, Japan Publications, 1973, p. 70, read on the house's shelf.
  69. Donald Keene, World Within Walls, Grove Press, 1976, p. 366, read on the house's shelf.
  70. Steven D. Carter, Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology, Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 422, read on the house's shelf.
  71. Faubion Bowers, ed., The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology, Dover, 1996, p. 62, read on the house's shelf.
  72. Haruo Shirane, Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900, Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 941 and note 18, read on the house's shelf.
  73. Makoto Ueda, Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa, Brill, 2004, pp. 106–107, read on the house's shelf.
  74. Haruo Shirane, The rise of haikai: Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa, in Haruo Shirane, Tomi Suzuki and David Lurie, eds., The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 414, read on the house's shelf.

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.

Not yet reviewed.

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of やせ蛙負けるな一茶これにあり (yasegaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/yasegaeru-makeru-na-issa-kore-ni-ari.