Becoming Basho

Fukagawa, just outside Edo
Spring of 1681

It had been eight years since our poet (he was not yet called Matsuo Basho) took the momentous step of moving to Edo. Tired of the noise and the crowds, and wanting peace and quiet, he moved to rural Fukagawa, to a simple cottage. There to study and think, to become someone new. The gift of a banana plant (basho) was welcome, but not the silvergrass that grew up alongside it.

by the banana just planted
a sign of something disgusting
— perhaps silvergrass

ばしょう植ゑてまづ憎む荻の二葉哉
bashō uete mazu nikumu ogi no futaba kana   

Matsuo Basho, Fukagawa, Spring 1681

bashō (banana) uete (I planted) mazu (first sign) nikumu (hated, disgusting) ogi (silvergrass) no futaba (sprouting) kana (expressing wonder or puzzlement)

ogi, silvergrass, not the ornamental kind that grows in clumps, but the tall, quickly spreading perennial grass I know as Thompson Grass (other names include knotgrass and eternity grass, because it chokes out other plants and is so hard to get rid of).

By removing himself from the fashionable and noisy Nihonbashi District of Edo, to the remote district of Fukagawa, across the Sumida River, which had yet to be connected to Edo by a bridge. our poet was becoming lonely. He was not married and had no children to distract him. Sure, he had a neighbor, Sora . And there were the steady stream of devoted disciples who crossed the river by boat to get instruction in the art of writing haiku, but, still our poet was without the daily social contact that makes one human.

He read other poets. He studied. One inspiration, the 12th century poet Saigyo, who wandered, was having his effect. Our poet was becoming something, someone else.

But what and who?

The cottage where he lived was the gift of a disciple. So too was a banana plant that our poet planted outside his front door. He watered it, and it took to the soil and the sun, and grew. But in the spring, beside it, there was something emerging.

And one day the poet realized that he was like this banana tree.

Frail and useless, withstanding the sun and rain alike, sometimes battered by the wind, but still there.

Inspired, our poet discarded his old pen name, Tosei, meaning ‘unripe peach.’ After all, he had taken that name, inspired by the Tang poet who inspired him with his short four line verses, Li Bai.

Thus, he emerged from his long slumber and took a new name.

Becoming Matsuo Basho.

Note. Some sources date this haiku to 1680 when our poet first moved to the cottage in Fukagawa. But the move took place late in 1680. In winter.

Winters in Tokyo are sunny but dry, and frost free days don’t come until February. That would be a good time to plant a banana plant. And in March, the hated Silvergrass would appear. Basho’s new cottage was close to the Sumida River, and suitable, if not perfect for the annoying Silvergrass.