Translation Needed for Blade Signed in Sosho "Grass Script" and Accompanying Tsuba

[ChrisW]

Hello gentlemen,

I am currently trying to puzzle out this mei on this blade and accompanying tsuba. The blade's mei is written on Sosho script, aka grass script and is proving to be somewhat problematic for me to discern. After working on this a while and discussing it with a few others, I've come to this much of the mei as a working but still yet not wholly decided translation:

 

I came up with Hirotaka and Kansei 6 at first; however Moriyama has furnished a far more comprehensive translation and I just want to run this by everyone else before settling on it.

 

藝州住廣隆 – Geishu ju Hirotaka

寛政五年春二月 於 – Kansei 5^th year (1793) spring, 2^nd month, At …

秋水亭造之 – Shusuitei, made this.

 

明珍紀

宗古作

 - Myochin Ki no Soko saku

 

I also want to publicly thank Moriyama for his assistance.

Thanks to everyone else who contributes!

~Chris

[YourBabyBjornBorg]

Hi, this sword looks great even just by its Mei! And all the translation looks good, too!

 

春 and 州 are two of the hardest in here, I think (because 寛政五年 is sort of a given), so here are some of their iteration for anyone interested.

 

 

[Bugyotsuji]

Fantastic cooperative effort, and thanks indeed to Moriyama San, but you should also be aware that some sources pronounce the two rather rare kanji 宗古 as 'Munefuru'.

1. The Kokin Kinko Zenshu lists 宗古 Munefuru (五鉄錬) as an artisan of the Tosa Myochin branch. (It also suggests he used the name 宗定 Munesada.)

2. The Shin Kacchushi Meikan on p.262 gives more detail about Munefuru, commenting inter alia that his work was good and that this name has also been found on (a) ryubu-men.

These two do not list the name as Soko, but it would not be 'wrong' to read it that way, and I would not be surprised to find a 'Soko' reading elsewhere.

See photo of entry 2 above for example:

 

 

[ChrisW]

This is a great discussion gentlemen!

I look forward to any other input others may have.