Month: June 2023

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

mustard field, rapeseed

As in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for Matsuo Basho, a visit to an ancient castle ruin on midsummer day becomes dream-like.

Summer grass —
what’s left of
a brave warrior’s dream

夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡

natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, June 1689

Notes on Translation — natsukusa (summer grass) ya (emphasis) tsuwamono (a brave warrior, samurai) domo (very) ga (but, used to show contrast) yume (dream) no (of, possessive showing a relationship) ato (left behind)

Hiraizumi

In Matsuo Basho’s Journey into the Northern Interior (Oku no Hosomichi), Basho takes us into a dream-like world of the samurai at Hiraizumi.

Three weeks on the journey into Japan’s northern interior, 230 miles (380 kilometers), as the crow flies from Edo. Lost for two days on a lonely mountain trail, making only 10 miles a day on foot, Matsuo Basho and Sora have come to tiny Hiraizumi (平泉), in Iwate Prefecture, home to the lost glory of the Fujiwara clan. Once known as the “mirror of Kyoto” and capital of the historic North.

Fujiwara no Hidehira (藤原 秀衡, c. 1122-1187) was the third ruler of Northern Fujiwara clan in northern Mutse Province (today, Iwate). He sheltered the samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who fell out of favor with his brother Minamoto no Yoritomo. In 1187, Hidehira died, but not before exacting a promise from his son to continue to shelter Yoshitsune. 1189, Yoritiomo surrounded the Fujiwara castle with his troops. Yoshitsune committed seppuku and Yoritomo destroyed the castle, killing Hidehira’s son, ending, as Basho says, “three glorious generations” of brave warriors.

Basho writes:

“June 29, 1689, the glory of three generations of the Fujiwara clan
passed as if in a dream. The ruins of the Great Gate (大門, daimon) lie less than half a mile from the castle.”

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, at Hiraizumi, June 1689

Changing Directions

At this point, barely a month into the journey, Basho concludes that it is time to quit traveling north. Time to head west, across Japan’s interior by way of the swiftly flowing Mogami River, then home, back along the western coast.

Chinese poets of the Tang dynasty also wrote of the devastation of war. One well known poem by Du Fu, goes, in part, “Our country is in ruins, while hills and streams remain. In Spring, grass and trees grow in the cities…”

Clip Clop

Tenwa, 3rd year, Summer
1685, Age 41

In late 1684, Matsuo Basho left Edo to once again travel alone on the highways connecting the capital and Kyoto. Along the way he rethought his haiku style and reflected on life. In 1685, as summer ended, he made his way home back to Edo.

A horse, peaceful and quiet
(boku, boku, clip clop)
Oh, I see myself
In a summer field!

馬ぼくぼく/ 我を絵に見る/ 夏野かな
Uma boku boku ga o e ni miru natsuno kana

Matsuo Basho, Summer, 1685

French

Un cheval, calme et tranquille (clic clac)
Oh, je me vois
Une image sur le champ d’été !

Meanwhile in Europe

René Descartes (1596–1650), French mathematician and philosopher, is inquiring into the difference between perception and reality. “Cogito ergo sum,” he concluded, all that I can know is that I think, therefore I am. Basho is one step removed. “Learn about pine trees from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.”

Is Basho now thinking he is the horse, or the rider, peacefully walking through a summer field?

Once in Montmartre

Present day, more or less, remembering.

Either way, Basho is “going to the balcony,” (the painting), a mental attitude of detachment where one can calmly see what is happening.

Years ago, it seems like yesterday, I was with an artist friend in Montmartre, Paris’ artist village that sits on top of a hill. Five French artists were lined up with their subjects in front of a cafe where my friend and drank beer and watched. One artist, the best, would occasionally look away and shake his head before turning back to the canvas. When I asked my friend why he did this, he explained that the artist was removing his preconceived notions from his head, detaching himself from the scene and painting what was there and not what he perceived.

Matsuo Basho riding a horse by Sugiyama Sanpū 杉山杉風 (1647-1732)

Notes on Translation

Uma (horse) boku boku (boku meaning “I” or “me” in a humble way, boku boku, onomatopoeic, the sound of walking), ga (“I”, “myself”) o (“o” separating Basho from the action of riding the horse) e (picture) ni (at) miru (look, looking, watching) natsu (summer) no (field) kana (particle indicating both doubt and exclamation, “oh my”)

Sugiyama Sanpū (1647-1732) was a wealthy fish merchant in Edo and life-long patron of Matsuo Basho. He provide Basho with the Bashoan (banana) cottage in Fukagawa, Edo. Sanpu was present when Basho and Sora set off on the trip that was to become Oku no Hosomichi (1689). Basho referenced Sanpu, saying “the eyes of a fish (meaning Sanpu) are full of tears.”

Wild Abandon

June, 1687

It is June 21. Summer has arrived and everything has changed, or has it? Matsuo Basho is out for a walk, alone, with paper and pen, composing, on a warm day, when suddenly he is startled by a frog jumping into an old familiar pond.

“Poems are never completed — they are abandoned.”

Paul Valery, La Nouvelle Revue Française, 1933

That is close to the truth of what Valery said, but not exactly. Exactly said, it is this: “Aux yeux de ces amateurs d’inquiétude et de perfection, un ouvrage n’est jamais achevé, – mot qui pour eux n’a aucun sens, – mais abandonné.”

In English, it becomes: “In the eyes of these lovers of restlessness and perfection, a work is never finished – a word which for them has no meaning – but abandoned.” As Valery was discussing his poem The Cemetery by the Sea, work becomes “poems”.

Even that, dear friends, is not exact, for Valery goes on to add other words by way of explanation. That is, he adds context. Context is the setting, time, mood, age, feeling, something that clarifies its meaning.

Let us take Matsuo Basho’s well known frog haiku:

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

古池や蛙飛こむ水のおと

Old pond — frogs jumps in — sound of water

Matsuo Basho, Jōkyō 3, 1687, age 43

Does it matter if the pond is large or small, covered in lily pads or algae, the frog is startled, that the frog was croaking, that Basho is startled, that he was walking or sitting, thinking, talking, the sound is splash or kerplunk?

The frog disappears. Is this a spiritual transformation? kawasu — 換える, 替える, 代える, are verbs meaning “exchange” or “substitute”. Suddenly, we are on a metaphysical plain.

What if we think or the haiku as a question: What is the sound of water? Of course, it is many things, the sound of waves on the shore, or a mountain stream that flows upon the rocks. What if we ask a small child?

To a frog, she thunk — “kerplunk.”

Thus, to the enlightend Buddhist monk and the delighted little girl, Basho’s haiku is this:

An old pond, the frog that jumps becomes, the sound of water.

Matsuo Basho, revised haiku

Let us write with wild abandon, get lost in thought, never done.

Basho no yona, Summer 2023
An old pond, a frog jumps, the sound of water. To a little girl, she thunk — kerplunk.

The Ant

Birds for sure, fish, of course, a famous frog, and crickets, insects galore, but no ants for the Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Basho. Was it their work ethic that kept him from writing about them? Who knows, but surely they followed him on his many journeys. To demonstrate Hiaku Lives, I have written a few verses, renga style about the tiny ant.

The Ant

I stepped on an ant today
But I don’t think he knew …
What was about to hit him

I suppose he thought
If he thought
Why can’t he mind his own business

There are plenty of us,
the other ants weighed in,
And only one of him

in the end,
we’ll win,
and crawl all over him

Bashō no yōna, March 2023
アリ, 蟻, ari, ant

Knotweed and Chili Pepper

Needs to simmer on the stove a little longer …

Otsu, Lake Biwa, Autumn 1690. Open the grass door to my hut, enjoy a simple vegetarian meal.

Open the door of my grass hut
Recognize flowering knotweed
and chili pepper

草の戸を知れや穂蓼に唐辛子
kusa no to o shire ya hotade ni togarashi

Matsuo Basho, Otsu, Autumn 1690

Basho often complained of stomach ailments. Therefore, he ate sparingly.

Notes. kusa no to (grass, of, door, i.e. door made of grass. A short hand was of saying the roof of the simple hut is made of thatched grass) o shire (know, see) ya (emphasis) hotade (flowering smartweed, or knotweed, the flower buds may be pink to red, ducks eat it. Compare the similar sounding hotate scallops, a fancier fare. Hotade has some medicinal value.) ni togarashi (red chili pepper).

草の戸を知れや穂蓼に唐辛子

My Treat

When a guest arrives, Matsuo Basho has only tiny mosquitos to offer for a feast.

わが宿は蚊の小さきを馳走かな

waga yado wa / ka no chiisaki o / chisō kana

In my hut
the tiny mosquitos,
are my treat!

Matsuo Basho, at Genju-an, Summer 1690

My Treat

Matsuo Basho was staying at the Genju-an (Phantom Dwelling) in Otsu on Lake Biwa, which explains the presence of mosquitos. His guest, Akinobo, was a Japanese monk about whom little is known. Akinobo lived as a hermit in complete simplicity and poverty, begging for some rice to eat in summer and a little charcoal in winter to keep warm. So, it may be that Basho was visiting Akinobo and not the other way around.

waga わが my and yado wa 宿は, inn or hermitage

ka 蚊, mosquito; chiisaki 小さきを, a small thing

chiso 馳走, treat, banquet, feast

By the Sea at Suma

cuckoo bird

Suma, Japan, Jokyo 5, Genroku 1
Summer 1688, age 45

Poetry — like an arrow, let loose, following its own path.

From the fall of 1687 to the late summer of 1688, Matsuo Basho travelled from Edo to Iga, to the Grand Ise Shrine, on to Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Otsu, and finally to Suma. The poems he wrote along the way became the musings in the book, Oi no Kobumi (笈の小文), Notes from My Knapsack.

at Suma’s seaside
shoot an arrow,
at the cry of a cuckoo

須磨の海士の矢先に鳴くか郭公
Suma no ama no / yasaki ni naku ka / hototogisu (kakkō)

Matsuo Basho, Oi no kobumi, Summer 1688

Notes on Translation

This haiku is best understood if one is familiar with The Tale of the Genji. Genji lived at Suma. One of the tales concerns the 12th century poet and archer Minamoto Yorimasa (源 頼政), who shot a monstrous bird whose nightly call annoyed the emperor. As the Minister of Right was about to give Yorimasa an award for silencing the bird, he said:

Hototogisu na omo kuomi ni aguru kana
A cuckoo raising its head to the clouds in the heavens calls its name

To which, Yarimasa replied:

Yumihari-zuki no iru ni makasete
I only bent my bow and the arrow shot itself

(Source: Warrior Ghost Plays from Noh Theater, Chifumi Shimazaki. See also, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon: no. 58, Minamoto Yorimasa, by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi)

Suma (Suma, home of Genji, a beach near Kobe) no ama (sea, seaside) no / yasaki (an arrowhead) ni naku (cry) ka / hototogisu (kakkō, cuckoo bird)

cuckoo bird
鳴
くか郭公, Nakuka hototogisu, the cry of the cuckoo