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Matsuo Basho’s haiku in alphabetical order with dates.
the oil is frozen
the lamp light is fading
from sleep, I am awakening?
油こほりともし火細き寝覚哉
abura kōri / tomoshi-bi hosoki / nezame kana
— Matsuo Basho, Fukagawa, Winter, the third year of Jōkyō (1686).
Winter, 1686
Edo, Fukagawa, age 42
Happily ensconced in his simple cottage south of the Sumida River, Basho was enjoying success. But not the weather. A few years earlier, his cottage had burned down and his disciples gave him a new one. His mother died which had a profound impact on him. Two years earlier, Basho had taken to the road, although he worried that thieves and bandits lay in wait. It was a trip back in time, to Ueno, his birthplace, and to Kyoto, where he spent his student days.
Then, as Fall arrived, back to Edo to resume teaching his students. The winter of 1686 was a cold one, for the oil in the lamp was freezing or frozen. Is it not in such conditions, that one know one is truly alive?
an East Wind is blowing,
and everywhere swaying,
her willowy hairあち東風や面々さばき柳髪
achi kochi ya / men men sabaki / yanagi gami
— Matsuo Basho, Spring, the 7th year of Kabun (1667)
Spring, 1667
Kyoto, age 24
Spring in Kyoto, a young girl is walking, the branches on the willow trees are swaying, and so is her hair.
…
Daybreak,
While the purple haze lingers on,
Comes the call of the cuckoo曙はまだ紫にほととぎす
akebono wa / mada murasaki ni / hototogisuMatsuo Basho, Otsu, Spring, 1680
April 1, Genroku, year 3, (1680)
Otsu, on the southern shore of Lake Biwa,
Age 36, Moving on
Basho explains. “I visited the “Genji no Ma” room at Ishiyama-dera Temple, (in Otsu), where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have written “The Tale of Genji.”
Akebono, meaning daybreak, or the dawn of a new era. The Tale of the Genji was just that, Japan’s and the world’s first novel. Written in the 11th century by the Imperial lady-in-waiting, Murasaki Shikibu. It is a tale of the emperor’s outcast son, Genji, and his romances.
The call of the cuckoo.
Hotogisu, cuckoo, appears as the subject in several of Basho’s haiku. In Japan, the cuckoo symbolizes the coming of summer. Life is moving on, Basho thought, and so must he.
1680, The Awakening.
The year 1680 for Matsuo Basho was monumental. He was still living in Edo and going by the pen name, Tosei, meaning “unripe peach.” But Basho had decided to leave the hectic city for the rural life, moving out of Edo, and going south of the Sumida River to a simple cottage where he might work in relative peace and quiet. It was here that he would find his name — Basho, the fortuitous result of a gift, a banana tree (basho), given by a disciple, and planted next to the cottage. The banana, symbolizing for the poet, something that produced no fruit, but weathered the storms, and gave some shade to the weary.
[There are multiple sources to work from. An invaluable source is Terebess Asia Online.]
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