Shogun – 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

When the Dutch “Kapitan” comes to greet the Shogun in Edo in Spring.

甲比丹も. つくばはせけり . 君が春
kapitan mo . tsu kuba wasekeri . kimi ga haru
the Red (Dutch) Captain,
when he comes, cowering before
his Master each Spring
Tosei (Matsuo Basho), Spring 1678

Wisely

Each Spring, the Dutch made a long winding procession to pay homage to the Shogun in Edo. The procession began in Nagasaki, the only port open to Dutch trade. The first known procession was in 1627. At the front, in a carriage, carried on the shoulders of six men, was Pieter Nuyts, the designated Dutch councilor of the Indies. He was followed by some three Dutch soldiers, armed samurai, their pages, and translators.

This tradition was either yearly or every two years, or less often, up until 1790.

Wisely, one thinks, Matsuo Basho did not engage in political debate. He was born in 1644
near Ueno, Iga Province, and as a young boy served a Samaurai master in Ueno Castle. His master, Tōdō Yoshitada, gave him his first taste of poetry, but Yoshitada’s death in 1666, left the young poet on his own at the age of 22. Six years in Kyoto, where his nascent poems were published in anthologies, then, in 1672, at the age of 28, the poet moved to Edo, the seat of power of the Shogunate, and the reigning Tokugawa Ietsuna (徳川家綱), the fourth in the line of Tokugawa shoguns who brought peace and stability to Japan.

Notes on Translation

My understanding of this haiku is certainly amateurish, but still one tries, and tries again.

kapitan mo . tsu kuba wasekeri . kimi ga haru

Kapitan mo 甲比丹, kapitan, an obvious homophone for “kapitein,” the Dutch word for captain. Mo referring to the unfamiliar red face or red hair of the Dutch visitors. After briefly trading with the Spanish and Portuguese, the Japanese limited their trade with Europeans almost exclusively to the Dutch. The Shogun excluded the Catholic Spain and Portugal for proselytizing. The English had some early trade but it did not appear to be profitable.

Tsukubu, kneels, cowers? In another post, I tried to relate Tsukaba to Mt. Tsukaba, which is north of Edo, but now I am doubtful.

If we are looking for hidden meanings, one may take the fact that the Dutch would have had to make their way past Mt. Fuji, the symbol of Japan, and the symbol of the gods. Tsu, meaning “both,” referring to the fact that Mt. Fuji was the true symbol of divine power, one the Shogun also respected, and was watched over by.

Wase はせ, somewhat unclear to me. I suspect some wordplay. Possibly relating to the wavy line of the procession. Keri, a suffix, used to indicate past tense, or realization. は (wa, or ha) may indicate “as you wish.”

Kimi, sovereign, lord or master. Take your pick.

One observes that, as in all poetry, a syllable can be grouped in one phrase or the next, depending on intonation and meaning. If we follow the standard haiku practice of 5.7.5, my grouping is correct except in the fact that we are one syllable short in the first phrase. Perhaps,m their is a nuance in the Japanese adoption of the title “captain” into Japanese. Tsu often has the meaning of “too” or “also”. I have given it the idea of “when he comes”.