Spring

Spring has Sprung

Matsuo Munefusa, as he was then known, wrote this haiku when he was only nineteen.

“It is only the twenty ninth (of January), yet Spring has sprung (Risshun, 立春).“

春や来し年や行きけん小晦日

haru ya koshi | oh spring, has sprung
toshi ya yukiken | year after year is gone,
kotsugomori | it’s New Year’s Eve

Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa, Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1663

If it was still January, then Spring was early for the budding poet. For the Lunar New Year took place on February the 8th.

This haiku, like many others that I have translated, comes back again and again, year after year, like Spring, then gone.

This is the first known haiku by the poet who would one day become Matsuo Basho. It was written in the Spring of 1663. The young poet was then a servant to his samurai master, Tōdō Yoshitada.

One has to ask …

The Japanese, like the Chinese (and not unlike the ancient Egyptians), used a lunar calendar to calculate when to plant, harvest, and celebrate the cycles of the year. Already, the young poet who would become Matsuo Basho was

Spring, by Oriental reckoning, begins in February when it is still very cold, but the first signs of Spring can be seen in a few blades of green grass that sprout, the swelling buds on trees, and a warm breeze.