Category: 1681`

A women with a sword

women cherry blossoms Edo period

A woman with a sword is drawn to the cherry blossoms. That is something worth noting. Oh yeah, she is wearing a haori too. What is this world coming to?

Drawn to the cherry blossoms
A woman in a haori
Armed with a sword

花に酔へり羽織着て刀さす女
Hana ni yoeri . haori kite katana . sasu onna
— Matsuo Basho, (1681-1684)

Sasaki Rui

Drawn by the beauty of the cherry blossoms, is a woman in a haori coat with a sword stuck inside. It seems strange. Strange because the wars were over and samurai men became administrators and women were expected to be docile companions and child bearers. One exception was Sasaki Rui. Her father was a martial arts master. She had no brothers and her marriage ended in divorce. Around 1660, she went to Edo and opened her own studio. She went about the city wearing a man’s haori and the traditional samurai sword. Most likely to the garb and sword was meant to ward off the remnants of old samurai who had not found a place in a peaceful society.

I imagine it sounds better in Japanese. It begins hana ni, then, yoeri haori. Followed by kite katana. Ending with sasu onna.

Let’s re-imagine the haiku from the woman’s point of view.

Alarmed at first,
But beguiled by beautiful blossoms
She tucked in her sword
— Bashō no yōna, 2025

This was written somewhere in the Tenwa era (1681-1684). In 1680, Basho had moved to the Fukagawa District. Now when he went back to Edo he was observing people as if they were fish in a fishbowl. A woman with a sword gazing at cherry blossoms was certainly a memorable site.

women cherry blossoms Edo period
花に酔へり羽織着て刀さす女

Basho’s My Name

Fukagawa, south of the Sumida River
Spring, 1681

My name is Matsuo Basho. I am thirty-six years old, and I live in a cottage by the river, south of the Edo, with a clear view of Mt. Fuji. I wasn’t always called Basho. Indeed, most of my life, I have been called Tosei, a peach, its flower having fallen, is now, waiting to ripen. Last winter, a friend came by. Humbly presenting me a housewarming gift, a banana plant. Like me, it survived the winter.

In growing a banana
the first thing to hate
the two leaves of the plant

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, Spring 1681

Basho’s haiku indicates that it took a while for our thirty-six year old poet to get used to the idea of becoming a banana plant. This was, as he later explains, it is useless, producing no fruit. Later, he appreciated it for the shade it provided from the sun, and its resilience in a storm.