Category: War

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

mustard field, rapeseed

As in Shakespeare’s, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for Matsuo Basho, a visit to an ancient castle ruin on midsummer day becomes dream-like.

Summer grass —
what’s left of
a brave warrior’s dream

夏草や 兵どもが 夢の跡

natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, June 1689

Notes on Translation — natsukusa (summer grass) ya (emphasis) tsuwamono (a brave warrior, samurai) domo (very) ga (but, used to show contrast) yume (dream) no (of, possessive showing a relationship) ato (left behind)

Hiraizumi

In Matsuo Basho’s Journey into the Northern Interior (Oku no Hosomichi), Basho takes us into a dream-like world of the samurai at Hiraizumi.

Three weeks on the journey into Japan’s northern interior, 230 miles (380 kilometers), as the crow flies from Edo. Lost for two days on a lonely mountain trail, making only 10 miles a day on foot, Matsuo Basho and Sora have come to tiny Hiraizumi (平泉), in Iwate Prefecture, home to the lost glory of the Fujiwara clan. Once known as the “mirror of Kyoto” and capital of the historic North.

Fujiwara no Hidehira (藤原 秀衡, c. 1122-1187) was the third ruler of Northern Fujiwara clan in northern Mutse Province (today, Iwate). He sheltered the samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who fell out of favor with his brother Minamoto no Yoritomo. In 1187, Hidehira died, but not before exacting a promise from his son to continue to shelter Yoshitsune. 1189, Yoritiomo surrounded the Fujiwara castle with his troops. Yoshitsune committed seppuku and Yoritomo destroyed the castle, killing Hidehira’s son, ending, as Basho says, “three glorious generations” of brave warriors.

Basho writes:

“June 29, 1689, the glory of three generations of the Fujiwara clan
passed as if in a dream. The ruins of the Great Gate (大門, daimon) lie less than half a mile from the castle.”

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, at Hiraizumi, June 1689

Changing Directions

At this point, barely a month into the journey, Basho concludes that it is time to quit traveling north. Time to head west, across Japan’s interior by way of the swiftly flowing Mogami River, then home, back along the western coast.

Chinese poets of the Tang dynasty also wrote of the devastation of war. One well known poem by Du Fu, goes, in part, “Our country is in ruins, while hills and streams remain. In Spring, grass and trees grow in the cities…”

War

the summer grass
is all that remains
of a soldiers’s dream

the summer grass
the splendid dreams
of Samurai warriors

夏草や　兵どもが　夢の跡

Natsukusa ya/ Tsuwamono domo ga/ Yume no ato

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, 1689

Note. Basho uses Tsuwamono (兵), an old term for a soldier and not Bushi, 武士, samurai warrior.

Ukraine, February 2022

As I write this, Russian military forces are invading the Ukraine. Vladimir Putin who ordered the invasion has bemoaned the collapse of the Soviet Union as the demise of “historical” Russia and dreams of returning the Ukraine to Russian rule.

Ukraine, grass and trees

A dream within a dream, 夢のまた夢

As the dew appears
As the dew disappears
Such is my life, that Naniwa
Is a dream within a dream.

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

[Death haiku of Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598)]

Toyotomi-Hideyoshi-3

 

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 豊臣 秀吉

The author of this dream poem is Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598), a military general in the late Warring States who succeeded in unifying much of Japan, and the precursor to the Tokugawa Shogunate. Hideyoshi died in 1598, but the final end to the Warring States came 15 years later at the siege of Osaka (大坂の役 Ōsaka no Eki), Hideyoshi’s dream castle called Naniwa.

Gentle reader, you are no doubt scratching the back of your neck, wondering why I have chosen to repeat Hideyoshi’s death haiku in a blog about Matsuo Bashō.

First, there is the obvious connection to Bashō’s own death haiku.

Second, I have wondered, as other scholars have, about Bashō’s claim to samurai status. Little is known. Little can be gleaned from Bashō’s own writings. We do know that Matsuo Bashō was born in 1644, near Ueno, in Iga Province. His brothers became farmers. Bashō became a servant to the samurai Tōdō Yoshitada, who had acquired the haikai name of Sengin. After Tōdō Yoshitada’s death, Basho traveled to Kyoto and studied haiku in earnest.

I have not come across a statement by Bashō himself that his father was of samurai status. He wrote about military battles often, and had a fondness for generals who died in battle. But the proof certain of his samurai status is not there.

There are at least two scenarios. First, that Bashō’s father Matsuo Yozaemon,or his grandfather fought for on the winning side with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Peace being established, the many armies were disbanded and low level samurai were given land to farm instead of swords to wield. It is also possible that the Matsuo clan fought with the opposing forces, with General Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who was based in Osaka, then called Naniwa. Osaka and Naniwa is near Ueno in Iga province, and Iga castle where he served the samurai Tōdō Yoshitada.

We will never know and I do not know that it matters. The poetry is beautiful; and, after all, life is what we make it.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598)

Life as a dream

Life as a dream is a common metaphor. What are we to make of this?

William Shakespeare wrote plays about it. Lewis Carroll wrote about it in the delightful Alice in Wonderland. The 17th century Spanish poet and playwright, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, wrote a poem saying, “Man dreams the life that’s his,” and ending with “dreams themselves are dreams.” A dream within a dream.

Even a children’s nursery rhyme speaks of life as a merry illusion:

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Matsuo Bashō’s Death Haiku

旅に病んで　夢は枯野を　かけ廻る
tabi ni yande/ yume wa kareno wo/ kakemeguru

sick on my journey,
my dreams go wandering
on this withered field

Matsuo Basho, Death Haiku, 1694
milky-way-sea

The Death of Matsuo Bashō

The end came abruptly in November of 1694.

Bashō had left Edo (Tokyo) for the last time in the summer of 1694, spending time in Ueno, his birthplace, and Kyoto, where he studied as a youth, then arriving in Osaka, where he had many friends and disciples when an old familiar stomach illness came back.

It is said that Basho delivered this haiku on his deathbed to 60 of his disciples who had gathered to say a final goodbye. Four days later, he died, age 50.

Fittingly, this was to be his final haiku.

Lake Biwa, Otsu on the western shore, artist Hiroshige, ca. 1835, The Met

Burial in Otsu

Pursuant to his last wishes, his disciples took his body to Otsu, next to beautiful Lake Biwa. And he was buried at the Buddhist temple of Gichū-ji. This temple was dedicated to Minamoto no Yoshinaka, a general of the Minamoto clan. Yoshinka was killed by his cousins at the Battle of Awazu in 1184. According to a play in the Theater of Nō (Noh), his spirit wanders about.

If Basho’s spirit wanders about Lake Biwa, it is fitting for he often visited this area.

Notes on translation

Tabi ni yande 旅に病んで,  sick on my journey; tabi 旅, meaning trip, travel, or journey

Yume wa kareno wo 夢は枯野を,  “like dreams on a withered field”. A second interpretation – the dream withers or dies on this field. Basho juxtaposes differing interpretations of death. In one scenario. life is extinguished and the dream dies. In the second, as in the Theater of Nō, the spirit of the deceased wanders about.

Basho had the second idea in mind as he had discussed with his friends his wish to be buried near Yoshinaka, who was killed in battle, and was himself the subject of a play in the Theater of Nō where his spirit wandered about.

Kakemeguru かけ廻る, to run or rush about.

The Golden Hall

The summer rain has spared the Golden Hall

五月雨の　降のこしてや　光堂

Samidare no/ Furinokosite ya/ Hikari-do

Matsuo Basho visited Hiraizumi on June 29, 1689 in the midst of Japan’s rainy season (五月雨の, samidare no, literally the rainy season of the fifth month). There he composed his famous haiku on the Fukiwara clan. “The summer’s grass / Is all that’s left / Of ancient warrior’s dreams.” After which he visited the Golden Hall where the four Fujiwara leaders are entombed.

golden hall hiraizumi

Chusonji Temple in the town of Hiraizumi in Iwate Prefecture sits atop Mount Kanzan. It is the oldest of the Hiraizumi sites, base of the northern branch of the Fujiwara clan. Its Konjikido (Hikari-do) or “Golden Hall” is a mausoleum containing the remains of all four leaders of the Fujiwara clan, which fell at the end of the 12th century. Kiyohira, the founder, Motohira, Hidehira, and Yasuhira, the last leader, are enshrined.

The first in a line of Fujiwara lords, Kiyohira lost his wife, father and one child to war. The inhumanity he witnessed drove him to create a domain resembling the pure land, a world driven by the higher principals of Buddhism. His vision flourished for a century.

The Golden Hall is encased in a protective glass enclosure. Its ornate structure is decorated with gold leaf and mother-of-pearl. Unbelievably, the Konjiki-dō used to sit outdoors in the open air, but by Basho’s time it was enclosed.

Sora later recounts in his diary that he and Basho could not find anyone to open the doors to the Golden Hall and left without seeing the Golden Hall.

Summer Grass 夏草 natsuka

summer grass
all that remains
of a Samurai’s dream

夏草や　兵どもが　夢の跡

Natsukusa ya/ Tsuwamonodomo ga/ Yume no ato

battle

June 29, 1689

Having left Edo in late spring of 1689, Matsuo Basho and Sora travel north, arriving at Hiraizumi on June 29th.  Once the seat of the Northern branch of the Fujiwara family, it was destroyed in 1189. As the poet gazes down at the old battlefield, he hears in his head the words of the ancient Chinese poet Du Fu and explains:

“In the space of a dream, three glorious generations of Fujiwara vanished; two miles in the distance are the remains of the Great Gate. Hidehira’s headquarters have turned into rice paddies and wild fields. Only Kinkeizan, the Golden Fowl Hill, remains as it once was.

First, we climbed Takadachi, Castle-on-the-Heights, from where we could see the Kitakami, a broad river that flows from the south. Nearby, Koromo River rounds Izumi Castle and at a point beneath Castle-on-the-Heights, it drops into Kitakami. The ancient ruins of Yasuhira and others, lying behind Koromo Barrier, appear to close off the southern entrance and guard against the Ainu barbarians.

With his most loyal retainers, Yoshitsune fortified himself in the castle, but his dreams of glory quickly turned to grass.

“The state is destroyed, / rivers and hills remain. / The city walls return to spring, / grasses and trees are green. “

With Du Fu’s lines in my head, I lay down my bamboo hat and let time and tears flow.”

Notes on translation

夏草 natsuka, summer grass

兵 tsuwamono, warrior, soldier, more specifically a brave and strong soldier, a Samurai 侍 which Basho once was. Basho’s use of the older term 兵 tsuwamono, is suggestive of a lowly soldier or pawn, someone utilized by others

夢の跡 yume no ato, the trace, mark of a dream. Compare Basho’s idea with William Shakespeare’s “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on.” (The Tempest, 1610/1611)

More thoughts on Basho’s Summer Grass

The grass of summer
And warriors’ dreams
Are all that’s left.

The grass of summer, the only trace of a Samurai’s dreams

Summer grass! All that left of a Samurai’s dream.

samurai helmet