1678 – matsuo-basho-haiku

Bashō no yōna violates Basho’s rule, which is to never speak of politics. A conversation full of sound and fury, where nothing really changes.

In poetry
there is no place
for politics

In Japan
the LDP is slipping
but not yet fallen

In America
Trump says
America is back

Where am I going
With this?
Nowhere

How Dao!

What can one say about politics? People have their minds made up and so they rarely listen. Why we can’t get along is an enduring question that has no answer. How Dao.

Matsuo Basho spoke not of politics. The closest he comes is in the following haiku where he implies that both the Tokugawa Shogun and the Dutch Capitain must pay homage to the spirits on sacred Mt. Tsukuba. Mount Tsukuba was the home of the Shinto gods It is located northeast of Tokyo, Edo which, in Basho’s day, was the seat of political power.

In the following haiku we have a play on words. “Kabitan” or “Kapitan” refers to the captain of the Dutch ships that arrive at trading post on Dejima Island in Nagasaki. In Basho’s time, each year on the first day of March, the Dutch captain “crawled” or made his way in a long procession beating gifts to the Shogun at his castle in Edo near Mt. Tsukuba. Tsukubaru (つくばる) is also an old poetic form meaning to crawl. To “obsequiously come” if one wants to pontificate. Submissive is clearer. Ah, but the shogun too makes his homage to Mt. Tsukuba.

Basho was 35 when this was written. He too had come to Edo a few years earlier, seeking fame if not fortune.

the Dutch Captain,
must come to Mt. Tsukuba
each Spring

the Dutch Captain
comes crawling (to the Shogun)
in Spring

甲比丹も. つくばはせけり . 君が春
kapitan mo . tsukuba wa sekeri . kimi ga haru

— Tosei (Matsuo Basho), Spring 1678

the Dutch captain also	甲比丹も.	kabitan mo
to Mt. Tsukuba must come	もつくばはせけり	Tsukuba wa sekeri
each Spring	君が春	kimi ga haru

endless numbers flow,
a circle’s secret message,
Pi enough for all
— Bashō no yōna, Pi Day

Pi (π) is a mathematical representation, approximately 3.14159, of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The sequence of digits do not repeat in any predictable pattern. Thus, Pi is an irrational number, meaning the numbers go on and on to the end of time without ending.

How Dao!

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 …

Interesting facts:

The frequency of numbers will average out the more decimals that appear. Numbers will occasionally repeat consecutively, numbers will appear consecutively. Since the sequence is infinite, every possible combination will appear. Thus, one will see a Fibonacci sequence (“12321” at position 3,632) or a palindrome (“2002” at position 12,563). See the monkey paradox.

Basho was no mathematician. Basho did not focus on numbers. But Basho’s fame comes from his mastery of the haiku. The form is characterized by its 5-7-5 syllable structure.

Basho on numbers. This was written in 1678, the 5th year of the Enpo era, when Basho was 33 or 34 years old. Basho had not yet taken on the name Basho. Rather, his pen name was Tosei meaning “unripe peach.” To support himself he was working for the waterworks department in Edo. His haiku appeared in a work called 江戸吟三 Edo Sangin, literally meaning Three Hundred Verses from Edo. It is a collection of 300 verses edited by 信徳 (Shintoku) including haiku by Tosei (Basho) and Shinsho (Sodo). It was written in Edo and published in Kyoto.

Kadomatsu —
The New Year’s pine —
To think,
One night feels like thirty years.

門松やおもへは一夜三十年
kadomatsu ya omoeba hitoyo sanjuunen
— Tosei (Matsuo Basho) New Years, 1678

Note. Kadomatsu (門松), literally gate (門) and pine tree (松). It is a New Year’s decoration made of pine, bamboo, and occasionally flowering plum branches. It is placed at the entrance (gate) of the home to welcome the toshigami (年神), the New Year deity, who brings good fortune. What’s in a name? Notice Basho’s family name was Matsuo 松尾.

omoeba (おもへは), I think, to think, in my thoughts. I like to think Basho’s thoughts had something to do with René Descartes (1596 – 1650) or maybe Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) and his Pensées, but that is highly unlikely.

What was Basho thinking?

“The past is prologue,” as Shakespeare said. And what’s to come, one might ask. Basho would literally write the future.

Will this be the year
this unripe peach ripens
in the sun of summer?
Bashō no yōna, 2025