In the summer of 1690, Matsuo Basho was 56 years old, staying at the “Unreal Hut” (幻獣庵Genju-an) beside Lake Biwa near Otsu. He had just completed his long journey that one day would day become, “Oku no Hosomichi” (Journey to the Far North).
all that I see will soon die, but one finds no sign in the voice of the cicada . やがて死ぬ けしきは見えず 蝉の声 Yagate shinu keshiki wa miezu semi no koe Matsuo Basho, Summer of 1690
Basho added this note to the haiku, “無常迅速.”
Impermanence is swift 無常迅速 Mujōjinsoku
An English equivalent, “Here today, gone tomorrow.” Like a cicada, adopt a devil-may-care attitude, don’t worry.
This phrase often appears as 生死事大 無常迅速, (Shōshijidai Mujōjinsoku) meaning living and dying are matters of importance, impermanence is swift.
An English equivalent, “Make the most of your life.”
Note. Those noisy cicadas 蝉 are a bane to those who love silence, but a treat for hungry birds. Patience, dear friend, most of them are gone by the middle of July.
Matsuo Basho wrote this haiku in the summer of the 7th year of the Genroku era. It is 1694, the year Basho’s life would come to an end.
A spark of lightning in my hands in the darkness — this paper candle . 稲妻を . 手にとる闇の . 紙燭哉 inazuma o . te ni toru yami no . shisoku kana — Matsuo Basho, June (?), 1694
It was 1694, the last year of Matsuo Basho’s life. I suppose without knowing for sure, it was summer and raining. Matsuo Basho sat up late, writing by the light of a lamp. Perhaps, the lamp light went out, then lightning, then Basho lit a paper candle to find his way in the darkness.
For me, it is in the middle of June, early morning and raining. My dog Lucy hides in a corner in the closet, afraid of the thunder and lightning. Why, I wonder?
Gentle Reader:
You may disagree with my translation. You may draw other conclusions. This is reasonable for haiku are meant to be personal. Like the way my dog Lucy reacts to the lightning and thunder.
Inazuma (稲妻) translates to “lightning,” or “flash of lightning,” that is, the cosmic spark of divinity that lights up the sky at night. As a metaphor, it symbolizes the ability to cut through ignorance and delusion, the way a lightning bolt illuminates the darkness. Buddhism expresses the thought as a transitory moment. I see, but only for a moment.
Then comes the phrase te ni toru yami no (手にとる闇の) which means “take the darkness in your hands.” This is followed by shisoku kana (紙燭哉), meaning a small paper candle or torch. Lacking matches, the Japanese of Basho’s time, lit these paper candles from another source then carried them about to either light the way or illuminate a lamp.
As an aside, let me quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” So, dear friend, be the light and not the darkness.
Let us set the stage with the death poem of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), who brought order to a warring Japan:
like dew dropping down, like dew, then disappearing could that be me — maybe all that I’ve done in Osaka, a dream within a dream — Tototomi Hideyoshi 豊臣 秀頼, 1598
露と落ち 露と消えにし 我が身かな 難波のことは 夢のまた夢 tsuyu to ochi / tsuyu to kienishi / waga mi kana / naniwa no koto wa / yume no mata yume — 豊臣 秀頼, 1598
Then, Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川 家康 (1543-1616), who brought peace for a very long time.
Happy I am To wake up again And want to sleep some more
To dream of a floating world And the sky at dawn — Tokugawa Ieyasu (1616)
嬉しやと 二度覚めて 一眠り うき世の夢は 暁の空
Ureshi ya to/ Futatabi same te/ Hito-nemuri/ Ukiyo no yume ha/ Akatsuki no sora — 徳川 家康, 1616
Then, too, we have our beloved Matsuo Basho 松尾 芭蕉, who died on the road.
sick on my journey, dreams on a withered field go wandering
旅に病んで 夢は枯野を かけ廻る tabi ni yande/ yume wa kareno wo/ kakemeguru — Matsuo Basho, Death Haiku, 1694
Or, if you like,
sick on my journey dreams lost in a barren field running, round and round
On Death
What got me thinking of death today?
Was it Shakespeare who gave the doomed King Richard II this speech?
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills: And yet not so, for what can we bequeath Save our deposed bodies to the ground? … — William Shakespeare, King Richard II
Was it the fact it has been too hot for late September. That last night it stormed and rained, and this morning the clouds remain?
Whatever it was, let’s leave it at that, … And live! — Bashō no yōna, Fall, 2024
The year of 1666 was a turning point in the life of Matsuo Minefusa (as Basho was then known).
In April, Todo Yoshitada (藤堂 良忠) died. Two or three years Matsuo’s senior, he was the third son of a samurai general, lord of the castle in Ueno, Iga Province, near where Basho was born. Matsuo was his servant or vassal. And it was Yoshitada, who adopted the pen name of Sengin (蝉吟, literally ‘chanting cicada’), who introduced Basho to poetry and haiku.
In the sharp sound of the autumn wind coming through an open door, I suspect young Matsuo heard the voice of his master and mentor.
The autumn wind, coming through the sliding door, a sharp voice.
秋風の鑓戸の口やとがり声 aki kaze no yarido no kuchi ya togari-goe
Matsuo Basho, Autumn 1666
Notes on Translation
What Basho meant by togari-goe is unclear. Was it the sharp voice of his master, summoning him? Was it the piercing cry of one who died too soon. Is it Basho himself mourning the loss of his mentor?
aki kaze (秋風) — autumn wind. Basho would begin at least four haiku with aki kaze, one with aki no kaze. Aki, autumn was a seasonal word signifying change and the nearness of winter, or death.
yarido (鑓戸) — A door made of latticed wood. Others, including Frank Watson, suggest that there is a play on words involved here – yari (鑓) also meaning spear. To me, this is suggestive of the wooden strips on the door looking like spears, or the sound of the wind being similar to the sound made by throwing a spear. Assuming, as I do, that his haiku was written after Yoshitada’s death, I think Basho intended to write it as a salute to Yoshitada on the occasion of his death.
kuchi (口), opening, meaning either an open door, or simply that the wind is blowing through the slats.
togari-goe — a screaming voice, togari (とがり) sharpness, piercing; goe (声). Compare Basho’s well known haiku about a frog, an old pond, and the sound of water. Basho uses mizu no oto (水の音), the sound of water.
Note. when koe becomes goe. An example of rendaku (連濁) – repeating a consonant in compound word, gari-goe. Compare the ‘voice of a cicada’, semi no koe.
1689
Mt. Yamadera A Journey into the Northern Interior
Twenty-three years later, Basho has achieved fame. Along the way, he has taken his own pen name, Matsuo Basho, Basho, meaning ‘banana’ for the banana tree that grew outside his cottage in Edo. Yet, he still hears the distant voice of Sengin (Todo Yoshitada) as he climbs the stone steps on Mt. Yamadera on his way to the Temple of Risshakuji.
A 1,000-step climb on stone steps brings one to the top of Mt. Yamadera and the Zen Buddhist temple of Risshakuji. Along the way, Basho hears a cicada’s voice deep within the stones. Perhaps, it is Sengin, still chanting after all these years. One supposes that Basho had a Noh play on his mind in which a spirit comes back to bring a message.
Ah, in stillness, deep within the stones — the cicada’s voice
閑けさや 岩にしみいる 蝉の声 Shizukesa ya iwa ni shimiiru semi no koe
Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, Summer 1689
Notes on Translation
shizukesa, quietness, stillness, serenity, tranquility; ya, emphasis
iwa, rock, stone; ni, indicating within; shimiiru, soaking in, seeping
semi no koe, cicada’s voice
The sutra repository of Risshakuji Temple on Mt. Yamadera (original image from Wikipedia)
Haikus are a different way of seeing things, a microcosm of a larger idea, of an emotion or feeling, a postage stamp or a postcard that takes us on a journey by night or day.
We are not leaving Matsuo Basho for good, we are merely taking a sojourn to a hillside in England where the poet William Wordsworth wandered over the hills of Grasmere with his fellow poet, Samuel Coleridge. I have restructured Wordsworth’s famous poem in set of three lines similar to a haiku renga.
From Odes on Intimations of Immortality:
By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more…
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, …
Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come …
Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy …
William Wordsworth, Odes on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, 1804
It was a customary practice of Japanese monks, Samurai, and poets to write a poem at the moment of their death. In late fall of 1694, Basho suffered his final illness. Although he did not use the word “dying,” I have included it as this is considered his death poem. Tabi ni yume wa, literally, on a trip, and falling ill. A dream, an incorporeal body, wandering a withered field is a reference to the Noh plays popular in Edo when Basho arrived there as a young man.
旅に病んで 夢は枯野を かけ廻る tabi ni yande yume wa kareno wo kakemeguru
Sick and dying on my journey my dreams ever wandering on this withered field
Here’s a foolish notion — The spirit world is like An autumn evening
愚案ずるに冥土もかくや秋の暮 guanzuru ni meido mo kaku ya aki no kure
Matsuo Tōsei (Basho), Autumn 1680
Edo, 1680
By 1680, Matsuo Basho was teaching twenty disciples, living in Edo, but contemplating a move out of the city. He was not yet Basho, but Tōsei, a peach that has yet to ripen.
Translating, as usual, is not so easy.
Guanzuru ni, 愚案 may be both a foolish notion and a humble opinion. On a cool autumn evening listening to the birds, feeling the breeze, watching the setting sun, perhaps with a glass of wine, Matsuo Basho comes up with the notion that the netherworld, that of the spirits where the dead go (meido, 冥土), can be described as (kaku, かく) something like this.
Not to be feared, shadowy for sure, but on the whole, quite nice.
two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl year after year how I wish you were here
Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
On the occasion of the final illness and imminent death of Toin, Matsuo Basho’s nephew, Basho wrote a letter to his friend and disciple Torin. It was spring, Toin was slowly dying of tuberculosis. But the cherry trees were in full blossom.
Basho took Toin to see cherry blossoms one last time. He was happy at the sight of the fleeting beauty.
Torin came to Basho’s Fukagawa hut and sat up with Toin as he lay dying. After Toin’s death, Basho and Kyosho, another friend, made the trip to Basho’s home to deliver the news. Kyoriku made the journey as far as the Kiso Valley, leaving Basho alone.
Basho wrote two haiku on the occasion of the trip with Kyoriku — two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl.
Upon a withered branch A crow has stopped this Autumn evening
Kareeda ni/ Karasu no tomarikeri/ Aki no kure
枯枝に烏のとまりけり秋の暮
detail of image by Kawanabe Kyōsa (1831 – 1889)
Autumn 1680
Matsuo Bashō has by the autumn of 1680 now achieved fame. Moreover, he has just moved from Edo across the Sumida River to the Fukagawa neighborhood where he lives in a simple hut with a new banana tree, a gift from a student. A bridge had yet to be built across the river.
At the age of 36 Bashō was experiencing what we would call a Mid-Life crisis, he was cut off, dissatisfied, and lonely. In a couple of years he would begin his epic journey to the North. But for now, he took up the practice of Zen meditation, but it seems not to have calmed his mind.
This haiku has more than 30 published and hundreds of online translations. Why so many variations? Why so many attempts?
Zen
The answer, I suppose, lies in Zen’s ineffability. For Zen’s essence is to understand directly Life’s Meaning, without being misled by language. Life is what we view directly, no more, no less.
Bashō sees a crow perched upon a withered branch. It is autumn, more precisely, an autumn evening as the dusk settles in and darkness descends. The air is still or perhaps there is a gentle breeze. Then a crow stops upon a withered branch. Its crow and tree become one color against the ever deepening blue of the evening sky.
Bashō, like the crow, stops for a moment. And in that suspended moment this haiku is formed.
The Crow, 烏, Karasu
Do I need to say that the crow is a bad omen? In Japan, there is a belief that if a crow settles on the roof of a house and begins cawing, a funeral will soon follow. Did the gloomy Bashō foresee his own death? Did Basho in his own unique way presage Yates who wrote, “An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick.” Is there not a little of Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven to be heard tapping at one’s door?
A melancholy thought, for which I have little to add other than that I love the repetition of the “k” throughout the haiku which must bring to mind the cawing that Bashō must have heard.
Notes
I see that I watched this crow stopping on his withered branch before, September 19, 2019.
For the semantically punctilious, much depends on the translation of とまりけり, tomarikeri. Perched, alighted, arrested are all possibilities. “Stopped” seems best to me.
1694, Genroku 7, on the 21st day of the ninth lunar month
An Autumn evening (sigh) Breaking down How will it end – (an angry) talk?
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” Translators, like Nick Carraway’s character in The Great Gatsby, never totally agreeing, trying to make sense of Matsuo Basho’s haiku. This however provides hours of fun and never-ending chatter, for when it comes to the sense of a poem, in Zen, there is no right or wrong.
How will it end – In pleasant chat or angry talk?
Three alternative translations
In the autumn night, Breaking into A pleasant chat
1694 – Basho is traveling again for the last time, going from the house of one friend to another. In the year 1694 (Genroku 7, on the 21st day of the ninth lunar month), shortly before his death, he arrives at the home of Shioe Shayo in Osaka. Old friends gathering, reciting haiku, and talking of the olden days.
One month later, on the 12th day of the tenth lunar month, he peacefully passed away.
Notes on Translation
秋の夜を 打ち崩したる 咄かな Aki no yo wo/ Uchikuzushitaru/ Hanashi kana
Line one. 秋の夜 をAkinoyo wo, An Autumn night. The final character を imparts the idea of a sigh or emphasis.
Line two. 打ち崩したるUchikuzushitaru, most translation agree that this conveys the meaning “breaking down into”. I imagine an evening that began as a Renga party where a group of poets each contributed a verse under the direction of a renga master, Matuso Basho. Each verse a haiku that contained three lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Eventually all games come to an end, breaking down into congenial chatter and sometimes anger.
Line three. 咄かな Hanashi kana. Basho leaves us with a bit of a mystery. After three centuries, Hanashi comes down to us as a talk, a story and a chat. But the character 咄 when repeated becomes a loud voice (onomatopoeia), especially in an angry way; like tut-tut or tsk-tsk. The final two characters かなkana express wonder.
If the evening ended in anger and disagreement, I imagine Basho sitting there, a bit groggy from the wine, shaking his head, sadly thinking, this is how it ends. Thankfully, I am in the minority on this point of view. A month later, on his death bed, Basho is pictured, at peace, surrounded by friends.
From “Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field” – Matsuo Basho left Edo with man named Chiri as a companion and aide, on a trip in the eighth month of 1684. He had barely begun his journey, when, crossing the Fuji River, he heard the wail of a small child.
“I was walking along the Fuji River when I saw an abandoned child (捨子, sutego, foundling), barely two, pitifully weeping. Had his parents been unable to endure this floating world, wave-tossed as these rapids, and so left him here to wait out a life, brief as the dew? He seemed like a bush clover in autumn’s wind (秋の風, aki no kase, autumn wind)that might scatter in the evening or wither in the morning.
I tossed him some food from my sleeve and said in passing:
Hearing the monkey’s howl, Or an abandoned child’s crying in the autumn wind
– Which is worse?
You, who listens to the monkey’s cry, What of the abandoned child Weeping in the Autumn Wind?
Basho consoles himself we these words:
Why did this happen? Were you hated by your father, neglected by your mother? Your father did not hate you, your mother did not neglect you. This simply is from heaven, and you can only grieve over your fate.
Not a flattering picture.
To me, Basho comes across as uncaring, but what is a poet to do? Especially one who follows the tenets of Buddhism. But then, did not Buddha say, “However many holy words you read or speak, what good do they do if you do not act on upon them?” (A paraphrase of verses 19 and 20 from the Dhammapada.)
matsuo-basho-haiku 