Fine Japanese Calligraphy

The Art of Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase

Visa, Mastercard, AmEx, PayPal accepted
Home › Library › Philology › Buson - An evening orchid, Hidden in its scent, The flower's whiteness

夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し yoru no ran ka ni kakurete ya hana shiroshi Buson - An evening orchid, Hidden in its scent, The flower's whiteness

夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し (yoru no ran ka ni kakurete ya hana shiroshi) is Buson's orchid at night, hidden in its scent, its flower white. It is first known from the 蕪村句集, printed in 1784 after his death. This study follows the reading Shiki's circle argued over in 1902, and Blyth's English of 1952, the earliest known.

Japanese Scroll of Buson - An evening orchid, Hidden in its scent, The flower's whiteness (yoru no ran ka ni kakurete ya hana shiroshi) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Buson - An evening orchid, Hidden in its scent, The flower's whiteness夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白しyoru no ran ka ni kakurete ya hana shiroshi

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

All Fonts ›

Abstract

夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し, the orchid at night, hidden in its scent, the flower is white, is Buson's, first known from his own late selection, the 蕪村句集 printed in 1784 after his death; Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵's edition of 1925 knows no other source for it. The verse has no headnote: the two characters 蘭夕 that follow it in every edition are the first words of the next verse. When Shiki's circle read the book together in 1902, Hekigotō 碧梧桐 took the flower itself to be hidden in the scent, and Meisetsu 鳴雪 answered that then white would do nothing, since the plant is hidden and only its flowers show white; Hekigotō gave up his reading, and in 1934 judged the verse more skilful than felt. Blyth gave the earliest known English rendering in 1952.

Overview

The text. The scroll carries 夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し, and so does the poet's book. The 蕪村句集 of 1784 writes it in its autumn section, after 朝貌や手拭のはしの藍をかこつ, in a column of its own with no headnote [1]. Ebara's edition of 1925 prints it from that book and names no other source [2]. The editions after it reprint the text word for word: the 1896 句文集 [3], the 1906 annotated edition [4], the 1935 edition of the 句集 [5]. Shiki's manuscript compilation of 1889 writes 隠れ for かくれ at one of its two entries, a kanji for the same word [6][7]. Two books print a different text by slip. A phrase-book of 1907, Haga Yaichi 芳賀矢一's 詞藻類纂, gives 夜の蘭香にかくれてや色白し, color where the poet wrote flower [8], and Handa Ryōhei 半田良平's seasonal edition of 1925 drops the や, 夜の蘭香にかくれて花白し, which leaves the middle line a syllable short [9]. Neither names a source for its reading, and every book that reprints the 句集 has 花 and や. The meter is five, seven, five, with 香 read ka: よ・る・の・ら・ん, か・に・か・く・れ・て・や, は・な・し・ろ・し.

What follows it. The next verse in the book is 蘭夕狐のくれし奇楠を炷む, an orchid evening: I will burn the incense-wood the fox gave, and its first two characters are part of it, a headnote neither to this verse nor to that one. The 1784 leaf writes 蘭夕 at the top of that verse's column, at the height where every verse on the page begins, while the book's headnotes stand a character lower in a column of their own, as 澗水湛如藍 does two columns earlier on the same page [1]. Ebara glosses 蘭夕 as a word of that verse and notes that another collection writes it らにの夕 [2]; Handa sets the reading ゆふべ beside its 夕 [9]; and Shiki's circle discussed those two characters as that verse's opening, Hekigotō taking them for 蘭の夕 shortened for the meter [10].

The sense. Two readings are on record, and one of them was given up. At the reading of 21 February 1902 in Meisetsu's house, Hekigotō said that at night the scent reaches the nose before the shape or the flower is seen, and that the verse is the moment 香ひのして居る中に花の朧に白く見える, the flower showing dimly white inside the scent, perhaps an orchid in a pot on the veranda. Meisetsu answered that an orchid is prized for its leaves, so 蘭 first calls up the leaves: 其蘭全躰は香にかくれて見えないで、たゞ花ばかりが白く見えて居る, the whole orchid is hidden in its scent and cannot be seen, and only the flowers show white. If the flower too were hidden in the scent, he said, 「白し」が働かない, "white" does no work. The record closes 碧梧桐前說を捨つ, Hekigotō withdraws his earlier reading [10]. Blyth in 1952 reads it as Meisetsu did: nothing could be seen of the stem and the leaves, but the fragrance was stronger than ever, and the orchid hid in its own perfume, the white flower alone faintly seen, palely gleaming through the darkness [11]. In 1934 Hekigotō, writing alone, kept Meisetsu's reading and found the verse wanting: 夜の蘭 is set there only to call up 香にかくれてや, and 香にかくれてや, 巧みな表現ではあるが、言葉の巧みさがさきに立つて、感情は藻ぬけになつてゐる憾みがある, a skilful expression, but the skill of the words goes first, and the feeling is left an empty shell. He preferred the next verse, 蘭夕べ狐のくれし奇楠を炷かん [12].

The words. 夜の蘭 is the orchid at night; 蘭 is an autumn season word [13], and Blyth files the verse under ORCHIDS in his autumn volume [11]. 香にかくれてや is hidden in its scent, with や an exclamation at the hiding, or a wondering at it, as Addiss's close rendering takes it [14]; what is hidden, on Meisetsu's reading, is the plant, its leaves and stem [10]. 花白し is a predicate, the flower is white: the one thing left to see. 香 is read ka, the reading the meter needs. As words the line says: The orchid at night: hidden in its scent, the flower is white.

The verse in English. Blyth's 1952 rendering is the earliest known [11]; Sawa and Shiffert in 2007 [15], Addiss in 2009 [14] and Kern in 2018 [16] followed. Blyth keeps the last phrase a bare statement, The flower white; the other three each make it a noun phrase, the white flower, the white of its flower, their blossoms' white.

The historical record

1784. 蕪村句集, 前編 巻之下, 秋之部, edited by Kitō 几董, the poet's own late selection. The verse in the autumn run after 朝貌や手拭のはしの藍をかこつ, in a column of its own; the next column is the verse 蘭夕狐のくれし奇楠を炷む [1].

1889. 正岡子規, 発句類題全集, a manuscript compilation of verses by topic. Under 蘭, 夜の蘭香に隠れてや花白し 蕪村 [6]; and in a second volume, 夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し with the poet and the source, 蕪村句集 [7].

1896. Mimori Mikio 三森幹雄, 蕪村句文集, an edition with the editor's marks. The verse in the autumn run, 朝顏や手拭のはしの藍をかこつ before it and 蘭夕狐のくれし… after [3].

1902. Shiki's circle reads the 句集 together, 蕪村句集講義. At the reading of 21 February 1902, Hekigotō's reading, Meisetsu's answer, and Hekigotō's withdrawal, as quoted above; the circle then discussed 蘭夕 as the next verse's opening [10].

1906. Iwamoto Shiseki 岩本梓石, 蕪村俳句全集 標註, an annotated edition. The same run, 夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し, then 蘭夕狐のくれし…; the edition annotates the verse's neighbors and not this verse [4].

1907. Haga Yaichi 芳賀矢一, 詞藻類纂, a phrase-book of poetic diction. Among verses on the orchid, 夜の蘭香にかくれてや色白し (蕪村), 色 for 花 [8].

1925. Ebara Taizō 潁原退蔵, 蕪村全集, 発句篇. Under the heading 蘭, 夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し with its source, the 句集, and no other; the note on the page belongs to the next verse, 蘭夕 glossed there [2]. 1925. Handa Ryōhei 半田良平, 蕪村俳句全集 季題別, the verses by season word. 夜の蘭香にかくれて花白し and 蘭夕狐のくれし奇楠を炷む, both from the 句集, the や dropped [9].

1934. Kawahigashi Hekigotō 河東碧梧桐, 蕪村名句評釈. Meisetsu's reading kept, and the verse judged more skilful than felt, as quoted above [12].

1935. Fujii Shiei 藤井紫影, 名家俳句集, the 蕪翁句集 巻之下. The verse in place, with 朝貌や手拭のはしの藍をかこつ immediately before it and 蘭夕狐のくれし奇楠を炷かむ after [5].

The dictionaries today. The Nipponica entry on kotobank, 蕪村, gives the poet's dates 1716–1783; Shimizu Takayuki 清水孝之's judgment that the 句集 was the poet's own late selection is at the attribution below [17]. The 日本国語大辞典 describes the 蕪村句集 as Kitō's arrangement of 868 verses by season, printed in 1784 for the first anniversary of Buson's death [18]. The デジタル大辞泉 files 蘭 under autumn [13].

The attribution. Buson's, and never anyone else's. The 句集 that carries it was published under Kitō's name with a postscript dated 天明四甲辰之冬十二月, the twelfth month of 1784, which falls in January–February 1785 by the Western calendar [1]; the encyclopedia entry on kotobank, following Shimizu Takayuki, holds on the evidence of Buson's own late verse-books in the 本間美術館 that the selection was the poet's own and that Kitō copied it faithfully to print [17]. Ebara's edition gives the 句集 as the verse's only source, so no print from the poet's lifetime is known to it [2]. Shiki's 1889 manuscript enters the verse twice and names the 蕪村句集 as its source at the second entry [7]. The 1896, 1906 and 1935 editions are editions of Buson [3][4][5]. Blyth in 1952 carries it and does not doubt it; Sawa and Shiffert in 2007, Addiss in 2009 and Kern in 2018 carry it too [11][15][14][16]. No witness dates the composition.

The verse in English

1952. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, volume 4, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, under ORCHIDS, pages 125–126. An evening orchid,— / It hid in its scent, / The flower white, with the note on the darkening and the perfume quoted above [11].

2007. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press. An orchid at night— / hidden by its own fragrance, / the white flower, with the romaji [15].

2009. Stephen Addiss, Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Shambhala. In the introduction, as the example of a verse whose word-for-word English needs freeing: a close rendering, Evening orchid— / is it hidden in its scent? / the white of its flower, and a freer one, Evening orchid— / the white of its flower / hidden in its scent [14].

2018. Adam L. Kern, The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin Classics. orchids by night — / within their fragrance looms / their blossoms' white!, romanized yoru no ran / ka ni kakurete ya / hana shiroshi, with his note: Apart from its synaesthetic mix of scent and colour, this verse may intimate that, in spite of the orchid's prototypical association with mid autumn, there lurks in the dark of late-autumn nights a whiff of the coming white stuff. [16]

Today. The house English, An evening orchid / Hidden in its scent / The flower's whiteness, is Blyth's first line to the word, his second with It hid made Hidden, and his third with The flower white made The flower's whiteness, and the page credits it to Blyth's Haiku of 1952.

A reading

I read it as Meisetsu did, and as Blyth did after him. By day an orchid is a plant, and a Japanese reader looked first at its leaves; at night the leaves and the stem go into the dark while the scent grows, so that the orchid seems to have hidden inside what it gives off, and the one thing left to the eye is the flower, white. That is why 花白し has to stay a statement: it is what the hiding leaves behind, and on Meisetsu's point, if the flower were hidden too the last phrase would have nothing to do. Hekigotō's later charge, that the phrasing is cleverer than the feeling, is a fair question of taste, and I do not share it: the skill is in noticing which sense wins at night, and that noticing is the feeling. Text, attribution and romaji stand.

References

  1. 几董 編『蕪村句集』前編, 1784, 巻之下 秋之部. National Institute of Japanese Literature, 国書データベース, biblio 300106341, canvas 45. https://kokusho.nijl.ac.jp/biblio/300106341/45
  2. 潁原退蔵 編『蕪村全集』, 1925, 発句篇, p. 187. National Diet Library pid 1018320, scan 121. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1018320/1/121
  3. 三森幹雄 評点『蕪村句文集』, 1896. National Diet Library pid 875710, scan 32. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875710/1/32
  4. 岩本梓石 編『蕪村俳句全集 標註』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 875714, scan 92. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875714/1/92
  5. 藤井紫影 校『名家俳句集』, 有朋堂, 1935, 蕪翁句集 巻之下. National Diet Library pid 1259717, scan 233. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1259717/1/233
  6. 正岡子規 写『発句類題全集』, 1889. National Diet Library pid 2586429, scan 31. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586429/1/31
  7. 正岡子規 写『発句類題全集』, 1889, second volume. National Diet Library pid 2586452, scan 256. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2586452/1/256
  8. 芳賀矢一 編『詞藻類纂』, 1907. National Diet Library pid 991947, scan 396. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/991947/1/396
  9. 半田良平 編『蕪村俳句全集 季題別』, 1925. National Diet Library pid 964212, scan 36. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/964212/1/36
  10. 内藤鳴雪 等『蕪村句集講義』秋之部, ほととぎす発行所, 1911, pp. 60–61. National Diet Library pid 875707, scan 33. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/875707/1/33
  11. R. H. Blyth, Haiku, vol. 4, Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1952, under ORCHIDS, pp. 125–126.
  12. 河東碧梧桐『蕪村名句評釈』, 俳句評釈選集 第2巻, 非凡閣, 1934, pp. 183–184. National Diet Library pid 1148254, scans 97–98. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1148254/1/98
  13. 「蘭」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蘭-428100
  14. Stephen Addiss, Haiku: An Anthology of Japanese Poems, Shambhala, 2009.
  15. Yuki Sawa and Edith Marcombe Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson, White Pine Press, 2007, p. 138.
  16. Adam L. Kern (tr. and ed.), The Penguin Book of Haiku, Penguin Classics, London, 2018, the verse and its commentary note.
  17. 「蕪村」, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蕪村-124888
  18. 「蕪村句集」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/蕪村句集-2079879

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), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations · Claude Sonnet (Anthropic), 2026-09-14, citations — a couple of renderings added — translators wrongly said not to carry the verse do; one date glossed — the postscript's lunar date reconciled against the record's own Gregorian conversion

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 夜の蘭香にかくれてや花白し (yoru no ran ka ni kakurete ya hana shiroshi)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/yoru-no-ran-ka-ni-kakurete-ya-hana-shiroshi.