Category: Winter

Snow upon snow

It is said to have been written in the first year of the Jokyo Era (貞享), 1684. A compilation of poems including Basho’s had been published called Shriveled Chestnuts. And Basho was on the road on the Five Highways on the first of his four major wanderings.

Snow upon snow
Tonight, the last month is December
Is there a full moon or not?

雪と雪 . 今宵師走の . 名月か
Yuki to yuki . Koyoi shiwasu no . Meigetsu ya
— Matsuo Basho

Version Two, when there is a glimmer of hope.

Snow upon snow
Tonight, the last month
Is there a sliver of a moon or not?

The Moon 月

It has been said that this haiku was written to settle a disagreement between two individuals (snow upon snow), each part frozen and unwilling to compromise. The moon was supposed to mediate the differences, but the cloudy weather and the snow got in the way. Tsuki is any moon. Meigtsu, refers to a full moon. A sliver of a moon (mikazuki) seems appropriate if we are trying to patch up differences.

雪と雪 . 今宵師走の . 名月か
Yuki to yuki . Koyoi shiwasu no . Meigetsu ya
image, Wikipedia

November

freezing monkeys

Oz, Kansas
Late November, 2025

The opening verse of the anthology Sarumino 猿蓑, Monkey’s Raincoat (1691).

初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也
hatsu shigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari

the first winter rain —
the monkeys shiver and shake,
wanting straw raincoats.
— Matsuo Basho, Sarumino 猿蓑, Winter (November?) 1691

Late November

Here I sit, late in November, looking out the window at the falling leaves blowing in the cold wind. I am preparing for Thanksgiving knowing the weather will turn cold. How cold, the monkeys will know as they shake and shiver in the first freezing rain of the season …

Late in November. How late? Matsuo Basho died on November 28, 1694.

初しぐれ hatsu shigure means the first cold shower, the first winter rain of the season, most likely November.

The sound of ice breaking

Sounds of Nature

We have heard Matsuo Basho repeatedly speak of Nature talking. Most famously in the haiku about the frog, the pond, and splash, kerplunk. Basho has also spoken of rain dripping, sleet falling, and rice being tossed in a basket.

The sounds of Nature are familiar to us all.

Here is one we have all encountered in winter:

Baby steps on thin ice,
Ice cracking,
Breaking the silence
— Bashō no yōna, February 2025

The sound of ice breaking a bottle. Basho did, for a period, study Buddhism. On cold, frigid night in 1693, alone at home, ice shattered a bottle. Perhaps, nezame kana was his “Awakening and Enlightenment.”

Or maybe, it simply disturbed his sleep.

a bottle of water is broken,
a cold icy night,
— an awakening!
瓶割るる / 夜の氷の / 寝覚め哉
kamewa ruru / yoru no koori no / nezame kana
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1693

This haiku is given as the sixth year of Genroku, 1693. If so, it was Basho’s last winter in Edo, and Basho’s last winter. He died in November of 1694.

The sound of tossing rice

Winter overlooks
this home, for the tossing of rice
is like the sound of sleet

冬知らぬ宿や籾摺る音霰
fuyu shiranu / yado ya momi suru / oto arare

— In the first year of the Tei-Kyō era (1684), Matsuo Basho, age 41.

Let’s trick Mother Nature by tossing rice in a basket while cold sleet pounds the roof.

Preparing rice by tossing it in a basket to remove the husks is a long forgotten task to the modern family. Rice comes in bags ready to cook. In Basho’s time, removing the chaff from the grain would precede tossing the rice in the boiling water. Add to this soothing sound, the happy chatter of the family inside a warm home, and the sound of the cold snow or sleet falling outside, and you have the makings of a warm winter haiku.

Fuyu shiranu — one, winter doesn’t know; winter passes by; three, winter misses; four, invisible to winter. Basho wrote this poem during his journey he called “Nozarashi Kiko.” He was on his way to the Nagao shrine in Katsuragi in Nara, when he stopped at the home of a wealthy family.

rice being tossed in a basket like the sound of hail

It is beginning to snow

It is beginning to snow. How delightful, unless you are a young monk, out on the road, standing in the snow, begging for a coat. It was the fourth year of the Genroku (1691-92), Basho was returning to Edo, saddened, I suspect, for he was not feeling well. Basho was 47 turning 48, and it was beginning to snow.

It is beginning to snow
and the saintly young monk
is the color of his wooden backpack

初雪や .　聖小僧が .　笈の色
Hatsu-yuki ya . Hijiri-kozo ga . Oi no iro
— Matsuo Basho, Winter 1691-92

The Backpack Color
White or red. Two theories on the backpack color. One, the backpack was white from the snow, and the monk was getting pale. Two, the backpack was red (as I have seen online) and the monk’s face was red from the bitter cold.

Kōya Hijiri (高野聖), young monks from Mount Kōya, south of Osaka, who were sent out to preach Buddhism with nothing more than a wooden backpack and bowl to beg for food.

man on horseback in snow, Hiroshige, source Wikipedia

Brrr, it’s Cold

Winter, Genroku 5, 1693
Matsuo Basho, age 49 years.

At the fishmonger’s shop, is Matsuo Basho having a premonition of death?

塩鯛の歯 . ぐきも寒し . 魚の店
Shio tai no . haguki mo samushi . uo no tana

Salted Sea-bream,
Baring their teeth, lie chilly,
At the fish shop
— Matsuo Bashō, 松尾芭蕉

At the Fish Shop

At open air markets around the world, it is customary for fishmongers to display their fish outdoors on ice. In winter, when it is cold, ice is not needed.

Dante in his masterpiece, the Inferno, reserved the the Ninth and last Ring of Hell for cold hearted traitors. This ring contained a frozen lake called Cocytus. And at the very center of which lay Satan, up to his waist in ice, blue and menacing, baring his teeth, no doubt.

If Basho was having a premonition of death, it was fairly accurate. He met his end in Osaka, dying in 1694, at the relatively young age of 50.

If one is looking for a literary allusion, then one should read death’s tale as told in “An Appointment in Samarra.” (a poem and a book). Meeting death in the marketplace one grabs his horse and rushes to a distant city, only to meet death.

Haguki – literally “gums”; samushi, “cold”. Anyone who has seen Sea Bream at a fishmonger’s shop will readily see what Basho meant.

塩鯛の歯 . ぐきも寒し . 魚の店
Shio tai no . haguki mo samushi . uo no tana
Salted Sea Bream baring their teeth at the fish market

Haiku in Latin

There is no reason, one supposes, Haiku can’t be written in Latin. Is there a reason why it should? Why it shouldn’t?

Haiku in Latin,
Is there a reason,
Why it should?

Haiku latine scripta,
Estne causa,
Quidni debet?

Caeli sereni,
Aqua lucet in rivo,
Vox avium cantat.


Serene skies,
Sunlight shimmering in the stream,
The sound of birds singing.

This is not the case today, as it is snowing cats and dogs, a metaphor that makes no sense. It isn’t supposed to for to snow cats and dogs would be very unusual which is what the weather is.

Nix cadens durior,
Arbor ramis frangentibus,
… Tum silentium.

Snow falling hard,
Tree branches breaking,
… Total silence.

As for the white winter weather, Matsuo Basho had this to say:

Wintry weather,
When the world is one color,
One hears the sound of wind.

冬枯れや世は一色に風の音
Fuyu gare ya yo wa hito iro isshoku ni kaze no oto
— Matsuo Basho,

Fuyugare ya yo wa hito iro isshoku ni kaze no oto

A good one for December

Brrr, baby it’s cold outside. This is a good one. A good one for December, or for any month when the temperatures are freezing, the sky is gray, and the wind brisk.

The oil is freezing
The lamplight thinning,
is this my awakening, I wonder
油こほりともし火細き寝覚哉
Abura kōri / tomoshi-bi hosoki / nezame kana
— Matsuo Basho, year unknown

In French?

L’huile gèle
La lumière de la lampe s’éteint,
C’est mon réveil ?
— Matsuo Basho, Francaise, peut-etre

Basho’s Awakening

At what age do we become serious?

Thirty-six is not a bad answer. One has a job, settled down, a few years under the belt, one is figuring things out, wondering, what is the next big step.

Matsuo Basho began his study of Buddhism while in his twenties. In his thirties, he moved to Edo. He enjoyed the Nihonbashi’s night life. He had a gathering of students and disciples. But he began to think there might be more. So, late in December of 1680, at the age of thirty-six, he left the comfort of Edo for the then remote Fukagawa District, across the Sumida River. There he found a small cottage and weathered the winter and awakened as a poet.

He did in time find a new name. Tossing aside Tosei, the unripe peach, for Basho, meaning banana plant. The story is a banana tree was given to him as a gift. It flourished well in the new environment, providing a little shade from the hot sun, but otherwise mostly useless.

I am no expert on the subject but I guess Basho’s oil came from fish or a type of vegetable oil lik canola which comes from rapeseed. Both of these oils would produce a somewhat smoky lamplight. Basho’s awakening would therefore be a little cloudy.

Original Japanese and English Translation

the oil is freezing油こほAbura kōri
the lamplight thinningりともし火細きtomoshi-bi hosoki
is this my awakening?寝覚哉nezame kana

Nezame 寝覚, there is an 11th century Japanese tale called Yoru no nezame, Awakening at Night, but this appears unrelated. There is also the Nezame no toko Gorge (寝覚の床), meaning bed of awakening, on the Nakasendo which Basho must have passed many times.

Loneliness by Saiygo

As Matsuo Basho found inspiration in the writings of the Buddhist monk Saiygo, who wrote, “one must master loneliness.”

“If not for loneliness,
in this mountain village,
where no one comes to visit,
it would be hard to live here.”

とふ人も
tou hito mo
思ひ絶えたる
omotaetaru
山里の
yamazato no
さびしさなくば
sabishisa nakuba
住み憂からまし
sumiukaramashi

Matsuo Basho’s take on winter’s lonliness:

Winter will wither,
The world to one color,
One hears the sound of wind.

When winter has withered (the leaves)
And the world is one color,
One hears the sound of wind.

冬枯れ や .  世は一色に . 風の音
Fuyu gare ya . yo wa hito iro isshoku ni . kaze no oto

Playing with language.

Crudo invierno
(El invierno se marchitará)
El mundo de un solo color
Y el sonido del viento
.
l’hiver a fané (les feuilles)
et que le monde est d’une seule couleur,
on entend le bruit du vent.
.
Wenn der Winter verwelkt hat,
und die Welt ist nur einzige Farbe,
hört man das Geräusch des Windes.
— Spanish, French, and German

Winter comes, but so does Spring. And Spring brings the desire to travel.

“The days and months are eternal travelers. So too are the passing years. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth must endure the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives on the road. A great number of ancients died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander. And wander I must. Alone…”

Matsuo Basho, Introduction to Oku no Hosomichi (paraphrased)

l’hiver a fané (les feuilles)
et que le monde est d’une seule couleur,
on entend le bruit du vent.