Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694) on Fireflies

Fireflies are one of my favorite things about summer. Bashō seems to have felt similarly. Here is one of his several poems on the matter, using the Japanese orthography given by the Yamanashi Prefectural University:

❦

草の葉を落つるより飛ぶ螢哉

Kusa no ha wo otsuru yori tobu hotaru kana

On blades of grass, how the fireflies alight to take off again!

The interjection kana, here given the kanji 哉 but now usually spelled with hiragana alone, had its sense shift from admiration to mild doubt or worry shortly after the poet’s lifetime. The third spring poem of his that I translated here uses the word with hiragana alone and possibly in something closer to its current sense.