The Sound of an Axe

Written in the 8th year of Enpo (延宝8年), 1680,
Basho age 37.

The following two haiku were likely written in Edo at a tea ceremony where charcoal is use to heat the tea and charcoal is also use to write down the poems by the participants in a renga party. Multiple puns are employed.

消炭に薪割る音かをのの奥　　

keshi-zumi | making charcoal
ni maki waru oto ka | by splitting wood, the sound of
Ono no oku | the back alleys of Ono?
(the back of an axe)

Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680

keshi-zumi (making coal) ni (by) maki (firewood, compare makiware, an axe for wood cutting) waru (splitting) oto (sound) ka (?) Ono no oku (may refer to Ono 小野, a suburb of Kyoto, Japan, known for its charcoal used in tea ceremonies. Ono is also a homophone for ono 斧, an ax). Oku 奥, back, or deep, as in Oku no hosomichi 奥の細道, the title of Basho’s best known book.

Makiwari, an axe for the wood-chopping.

Maki 薪 has two other meanings, other than firewood. In sushi preparation, it can refer to a small segment cut off from a long roll. The charcoal is made from slender oak trees cut into small segments to be used in heating the tea. Maki 槇 may also mean the tip of tree.

Note. Charcoal is made by heating wood in an oxygen starved environment.

Matsuo Basho would follow up this haiku with another haiku about Ono.

小野炭や手習ふ人の灰ぜせり　

Ono-zumi ya | with charcoal from Ono!
tenarau hito | one learns by to write
no hai zeseri | and correct in ashes
(gray)

Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680

hai (ashes, but also the color gray) zeseri (correct, one can not only practice writing but correct one’s mistakes). The point of the haiku — one learns by practice. And secondly, that nothing is “black and white.”

Sound of…

Six years later, Matsuo would again use the idea of the “sound of” creating a haiku. This one being about a frog jumping into an old pond, making the sound of water.

古池や蛙飛こむ水のをと

Furu ike ya | an old pond
kawazu tobikomu | a frog jumps in
mizu no oto | the sound of water

Matsuo Basho, Summer 1686

You Had to Be There

I confess to reading other translations of Basho’s haiku. This practice provides insight and joy, as variations occur in interpreting the meaning of the phrases Basho uses. In this pair of haiku, I particularly liked Basho’s use of hai, a word that means both ashes and gray. A double meaning reminding us to practice, it can be messy, and remember that not everything is clear.

The Darum Museum Gallery provides a detailed explanation of Matsuo Basho’s haiku. It also reference other uses of the word Ono. For example, Ono no Takamura 小野篁 (802 – 852), a scholar and poet, who practiced his calligraphy in the ashes of his stove.

Another site, Yamanishi-ken gives a concise explanation in Japanese.

There is a saying, “you had to be there,” which is used when telling a story and the one hearing the story doesn’t quite get it. I imagine that is true for many of Basho’s haiku. So here I imagined Basho and his disciples gathering at a tea house in Edo, the capital, watching the tea being prepared in a pot heated with charcoal, the pellets of which might have looked like sushi, or reminded Basho of his younger days in Kyoto (something he like to reminisce about). And being instructive, Confucius-like, he reminded his disciples to practice, practice, practice, as the old joke about Carnegie Hall goes.

Me, I wasn’t there at the tea ceremony, but reading Basho’s haiku gives me a glimmer of what it must have been like.

Tanoshimu!

Enjoy!