白露を こぼさぬ萩の うねりかな shiratsuyu wo kobosanu hagi no uneri kana bashō 芭蕉 Not spilling the glistening dew, the bush clover, undulating

Not spilling the glistening dew,
the bush clover,
undulating

白露をこぼさぬ萩のうねりかな (shiratsuyu wo kobosanu hagi no uneri kana): the white dew it does not spill, the swaying of the bush clover. 萩, hagi, is bush clover, one of the seven grasses of autumn, its long stems bending in wind; 白露 is the white dew of the same season; うねり is the long undulation of a bough; かな closes on the swaying. The poem turns on one restraint: the clover moves, and the dew still does not fall. Two early books of the verse differ by one particle. The first collection after Bashō's death, in 1696, reads 白露も, even the dew. A disciple's book of 1698 reads 白露を, the text the scroll brushes. In 1948 Ebara Taizō, the twentieth century's leading Bashō scholar, argued that を was the poet's own revision. Shiki praised the verse in 1893 as a perfect rendering of the clover's bearing, quoting it with も. Some of the designs write 白露 or 萩 in kana. The English is Timothy L. Jackowski's, made for Takase Studios.

Bashō inscribed the verse on a painting of his own, by the earliest dating in the autumn of 1693 at 杉風's garden retreat 採茶庵 in Fukagawa, though a biography of 1762 sets such an inscription in Iga in 1694.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 白露をこぼさぬ萩のうねりかな.

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The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with real silk borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by Sankō (株式会社三幸) in Gifu prefecture, which has been making high quality scrolls since 1947, and we have worked with Sankō for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase