Blossom Drunk

Cherry Blossoms in Edo,
Spring, 1681-2
Basho, age 37-38

In 17th century Edo, women’s fashions are changing.

Drunk on blossoms
a woman in a haori,
pointing with a sword

花に酔えり羽織着て刀さす女
Hana ni yoeri haori kite katana sasu onna
Hana ni ee ri haori kite katana sasu onna
Matsuo Basho, Edo, 1681-2

Translation. Hana (flower, here meaning a cherry blossom) ni (particle to indicate cause) yoeri (to become drunk) haori (a short jacket, women wear over a kimono) kite (wearing) katana (sword) sasu (pointing, stabbing) onna (woman)

Cross-Dressing

Japan was unified under the Tokugawa clan. War was over. Peace was at hand. In Spring, the population turned its attention viewing cherry blossoms and getting sloshed on sake. What one wore was a sign of a person’s status and family background. The haori, a lightweight jacket, became casual wear for samurai warriors and popular attire for up and coming townspeople. Women adopted the style along with the men as it could be worn over a kimono.

But a woman carrying a sword would be quite the site.

Onna-Bugeisha, literally, “female who practices the Art of War.” The 3rd century Empress Jingū, was one of the earliest female warriors. It is likely that Matsuo Basho was familiar with the Tale of Heike which recounts the story of Tomoe Gozen, a female samurai who fought for the Minamoto clan. Basho wrote a haiku about the Genpei War between the Minamoto and the Taira clans.

Gabi Greve and the Japanese site Yamanashi date this haiku to when he was 38 to 40, first to third year of Tenwa, 1681 – 1683. A year before, Matsuo had moved from central Edo to the rural Fukagawa District to take up residence in a simple cottage. A house warming gift of a banana plant (basho) was planted by the front door, and Matsuo had the idea of a new name.

God’s Face

1st year of Genroku,
Spring of 1688,
Basho is 45 years old,
Mt. Yamato Katsuragi

Always seeing within
a flower at the break of dawn
— the face of God
Matsuo Basho, Oi no kibumi, Spring 1685

From the travelogue, Oi no kobumi, a trip from Edo to Iga-Ueno (Basho’s hometown), then to Mt. Yamato Kasuragi in Nara prefecture. In Spring, Bashō came to Mt. Katsuragi to see the cherry blossoms. Near the Shinto shrine for the local god, Hitokotonushi, he wrote this haiku:

猶みたし花に明行神の顔

nao mitashi | always seeing within
hana ni ake yuku | a flower at the break of dawn
kami no kao | the face of God
Matsuo Basho, Oi no kibumi, Spring 1685

The ugly god

Hitokotonushi (一言主), literally, god of one word, meaning that as long as your prayer is short, god will listen to it.

There are several stories about Hitokotonushi-nokami, the god of Mt. Katsuragi. (Dr. Gabi Greve has collected many of them.) One is this: Hitokotonushi had a very ugly face. According to legend, a long time ago, a monk prayed for help, then began building a trail from Mt. Katsuragi to Mt. Kinpu (two Shinto holy sites). Hitokotonushi, embarrassed by his ugly appearance, would only help at night.

David Bowles calls Basho’s haiku “Longing for the Divine.”

And I could use Hitokotonushi’s help.

hana ni ake yuku (花に明行) has given me some trouble translating. First I would say that Goggle Translate gives one “Hana ni myōgyō” with no explanation of myōgyō. Literally, I come up with: hana (flower), but what of ni ake yuku — ni (within) ake (dawn) yuku. Does not 明に mean ‘brightly’? Or perfection? And does not 行くmean ‘going to a place.’

Seeing is believing, if not completely understanding, which is the first step in the “awakening”.

Like David Bowles I am longing for inspiration.

Sakai Hōitsu, Japanese
ca. 1805
detail of image from The Met

Warm Wind

Likely composed in Kyoto, 7th year of the Kanbun era, 1667, age 24.

Perhaps, it was windy.

An East wind, ah
swaying in every direction
— willowy hair

あち東風や . 面々さばき . 柳髪
Achi kochi ya . menmen sabaki . yanagi gami
Matsuo Basho, Kyoto, 1667, age 24

Meanwhile

Here in middle America, last week was unseasonably warm. The weatherman celebrated March first as the first day of Spring. It was a beautiful day for walk in the park with the dogs off leash. A gentle breeze stirring thoughts of Spring.

For the young poet (not yet known as Basho), three years had passed since the death of Todo Yoshitada, his Samurai master and poetic mentor. At the age of 21, the poet ran away to Kyoto, to stroll along the serene Shirakawa River lined with yanagi (willow trees) and sakura (cherry trees). Kyoto would forever stay in his heart, long after he moved to Edo in 1672.

Notes on Translation

Kochi, literally and East wind, a warm breeze. Menmen sabaki, literally, menmen, in every direction; sabaki, judgement. A person sees things as one wants. Yanagi gami, hair that blows to and fro like a willow branch in the wind; yanagi, meaning willow or willow-like, fine and slender.

あち東風や . 面々さばき . 柳髪
Achi kochi ya . menmen sabaki . yanagi-gami

Fading Beauty

Kanbun year 4, 1664
Matsuo Kinsaku (Basho), age 20 or 21,
Kyoto in Spring?

Fading beauty,
she blossoms in old age
— her memories

姥桜咲くや老後の思い出
uba-sakura saku ya rougo no omoide
ubazakura saku ya rougo no omoi-ide
Matsuo Kinsaku (Basho), Spring 1664, age 20 or 21

Notes on Translation

ubazakura (ubasakura) is a particular kind of cherry tree. In Spring, its blossoms appear on leafless branches. It is a metaphor for a woman who is old but still attractive.

uba-sakura (“a faded beauty,” a combination of nursing mother and sakura, cherry blossom) saku (to bloom) ya (emphasis) rougo (old age) no (particle connectining old age and memories) omoide (memory or keepsake)

Becoming Basho

Fukagawa, just outside Edo
Spring of 1681

It had been eight years since our poet (he was not yet called Matsuo Basho) took the momentous step of moving to Edo. Tired of the noise and the crowds, and wanting peace and quiet, he moved to rural Fukagawa, to a simple cottage. There to study and think, to become someone new. The gift of a banana plant (basho) was welcome, but not the silvergrass that grew up alongside it.

by the banana just planted
a sign of something disgusting
— perhaps silvergrass

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, Fukagawa, Spring 1681

bashō (banana) uete (I planted) mazu (first sign) nikumu (hated, disgusting) ogi (silvergrass) no futaba (sprouting) kana (expressing wonder or puzzlement)

ogi, silvergrass, not the ornamental kind that grows in clumps, but the tall, quickly spreading perennial grass I know as Thompson Grass (other names include knotgrass and eternity grass, because it chokes out other plants and is so hard to get rid of).

By removing himself from the fashionable and noisy Nihonbashi District of Edo, to the remote district of Fukagawa, across the Sumida River, which had yet to be connected to Edo by a bridge. our poet was becoming lonely. He was not married and had no children to distract him. Sure, he had a neighbor, Sora . And there were the steady stream of devoted disciples who crossed the river by boat to get instruction in the art of writing haiku, but, still our poet was without the daily social contact that makes one human.

He read other poets. He studied. One inspiration, the 12th century poet Saigyo, who wandered, was having his effect. Our poet was becoming something, someone else.

But what and who?

The cottage where he lived was the gift of a disciple. So too was a banana plant that our poet planted outside his front door. He watered it, and it took to the soil and the sun, and grew. But in the spring, beside it, there was something emerging.

And one day the poet realized that he was like this banana tree.

Frail and useless, withstanding the sun and rain alike, sometimes battered by the wind, but still there.

Inspired, our poet discarded his old pen name, Tosei, meaning ‘unripe peach.’ After all, he had taken that name, inspired by the Tang poet who inspired him with his short four line verses, Li Bai.

Thus, he emerged from his long slumber and took a new name.

Becoming Matsuo Basho.

Note. Some sources date this haiku to 1680 when our poet first moved to the cottage in Fukagawa. But the move took place late in 1680. In winter.

Winters in Tokyo are sunny but dry, and frost free days don’t come until February. That would be a good time to plant a banana plant. And in March, the hated Silvergrass would appear. Basho’s new cottage was close to the Sumida River, and suitable, if not perfect for the annoying Silvergrass.

bashō uete mazu nikumu ogi no futaba kana

let your heart go forth

Spring, 1692

“Parting gift for one heading east,”

let your heart go forth with
a flower blossom and
one set of begging bowls

この心 . 推せよ花に . 五器一具
kono kokoro / suiseyo hana ni / goki ichigu
Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1692

Basho’s Cottage

By the Spring of 1692, Matsuo Basho was nearing the end of his life. He was, most sources agree, back home in Fukagawa caring for his sick nephew Toin and Toin’s wife. Now and then visitors came by to reminisce. It had been two years since Basho’s own well known journey into Japan’s northern interior (Oku no Hosomichi). Perhaps a friend was following in Basho’s footsteps and this was Basho’s parting gift.

kono kokoru (この心), the English translation may be as simple as an affectionate way of saying “this” or “your heart.”

suiseyeo (推せよ), by itself, 推, has a meaning that is unclear to me, perhaps meaning think, talk, conjecture (Google Translate first says “push”), and せよ, meaning “let us.” Combined with hana, flower, one possibly gets the idea of a monk carrying a lotus flower and his set bowls for his daily meal.

goki ichugu, a set of bowls carried by a monk, one for tea or soup, the other for begging. Goki refers to its deep, flared shape that made it suitable for liquids. Goki, elsewhere implies expressing respect. As ichu means “one” and gu refers to a “tool” or “means to,” ichugu may have the underlying meaning of how to live one’s life, that is, simply, like a monk.

Note. Other translations of this haiku may differ. Sometimes I feel like one of Buddha’s blind men in a tent hearing the words of the haiku (or grabbing parts of an elephant) feeling something different from the rest.

To Philosophize

A week at the beach during Spring Break, near Sarasota, Florida, my God, the cars, the crowds, no peace.

“To philosophize is

To learn

To die.”

Michel Montaigne, French

Haiku —

To see the world

In lines of three.

…

The sun, the sand,

The wind, the waves

I finally reached the beach.

On Casey Key,

Poor Pyrrho of Ellis

Couldn’t afford to stay

— Basho no yona

Previously, two plus millennia ago, back in the Peloponnesus…

Pyrrho of Elis (4th c. BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher who disdained wealth and luxury and preached the philosophy of ataraxia, by suspending judgment about beliefs.

In France and Japan one philosophizes, one waxes poetic.

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) gave us the essay. Basho gave us the haiku. The beaches along the Florida Keys near Sarasota are a place to rest amid the restless waves.

Three Women

Winter is quickly passing. Life moves on, but not for all.

Bashō no yōna idolizes Matsuo Basho, so, like his idol, he goes to school, taking a philosophy class at Wichita State University. Along the way, he passes the “Tres Mujeres Caminando,” a sculpture by Francisco Zuñiga (1981).

I stopped to watch
Three women walking,
Not talking
Bashō no yōna, March 2024

What is the meaning of the bronze? That is for each of us to say.

“**Tres Mujeres Caminando**” by Costa Rican-born Mexican artist Francisco Zuñiga (1981)

The Sound of an Axe

Written in the 8th year of Enpo (延宝8年), 1680,
Basho age 37.

The following two haiku were likely written in Edo at a tea ceremony where charcoal is use to heat the tea and charcoal is also use to write down the poems by the participants in a renga party. Multiple puns are employed.

消炭に薪割る音かをのの奥　　

keshi-zumi | making charcoal
ni maki waru oto ka | by splitting wood, the sound of
Ono no oku | the back alleys of Ono?
(the back of an axe)
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680

keshi-zumi (making coal) ni (by) maki (firewood, compare makiware, an axe for wood cutting) waru (splitting) oto (sound) ka (?) Ono no oku (may refer to Ono 小野, a suburb of Kyoto, Japan, known for its charcoal used in tea ceremonies. Ono is also a homophone for ono 斧, an ax). Oku 奥, back, or deep, as in Oku no hosomichi 奥の細道, the title of Basho’s best known book.

Makiwari, an axe for the wood-chopping.

Maki 薪 has two other meanings, other than firewood. In sushi preparation, it can refer to a small segment cut off from a long roll. The charcoal is made from slender oak trees cut into small segments to be used in heating the tea. Maki 槇 may also mean the tip of tree.

Note. Charcoal is made by heating wood in an oxygen starved environment.

Matsuo Basho would follow up this haiku with another haiku about Ono.

小野炭や手習ふ人の灰ぜせり　

Ono-zumi ya | with charcoal from Ono!
tenarau hito | one learns by to write
no hai zeseri | and correct in ashes
(gray)
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680

hai (ashes, but also the color gray) zeseri (correct, one can not only practice writing but correct one’s mistakes). The point of the haiku — one learns by practice. And secondly, that nothing is “black and white.”

Sound of…

Six years later, Matsuo would again use the idea of the “sound of” creating a haiku. This one being about a frog jumping into an old pond, making the sound of water.

古池や蛙飛こむ水のをと

Furu ike ya | an old pond
kawazu tobikomu | a frog jumps in
mizu no oto | the sound of water
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1686

keshi-zumi | making charcoal, making tea, practice writing and writing poems

You Had to Be There

I confess to reading other translations of Basho’s haiku. This practice provides insight and joy, as variations occur in interpreting the meaning of the phrases Basho uses. In this pair of haiku, I particularly liked Basho’s use of hai, a word that means both ashes and gray. A double meaning reminding us to practice, it can be messy, and remember that not everything is clear.

The Darum Museum Gallery provides a detailed explanation of Matsuo Basho’s haiku. It also reference other uses of the word Ono. For example, Ono no Takamura 小野篁 (802 – 852), a scholar and poet, who practiced his calligraphy in the ashes of his stove.

Another site, Yamanishi-ken gives a concise explanation in Japanese.

There is a saying, “you had to be there,” which is used when telling a story and the one hearing the story doesn’t quite get it. I imagine that is true for many of Basho’s haiku. So here I imagined Basho and his disciples gathering at a tea house in Edo, the capital, watching the tea being prepared in a pot heated with charcoal, the pellets of which might have looked like sushi, or reminded Basho of his younger days in Kyoto (something he like to reminisce about). And being instructive, Confucius-like, he reminded his disciples to practice, practice, practice, as the old joke about Carnegie Hall goes.

Me, I wasn’t there at the tea ceremony, but reading Basho’s haiku gives me a glimmer of what it must have been like.

Tanoshimu!

Enjoy!

So, what was he?

Buddhist, Shinto, Tao — the question often asked is, what religion did Matsuo Basho follow?

Matsuo Basho studied Buddhism and Buddhist like to claim him for their own, saying he studied under Butcho. And Basho emulated the Buddhist monk Saiygo in his travel and reclusive lifestyle. But that is not to say that he was curious about the world about him. Often he visited Shinto shrines as well as Buddhist ones.

古人の跡をもとめず、古人の求たる所を.もとめよ
kojin no ato wo motomezu, kozjin no motometaru tokoro wo motomeyo

“Don’t follow in the footsteps of the old masters’ footsteps,
seek what they sought.” Basho said.

Funny thing, it appears Basho borrowed this from an older friend, Kōbō-Daishi (774-835), and (in 1693) imparted it to his disciple Kyoriku, in what has come down to us as “Words of Farewell to Kyoriku.” All this is out there, in books and online.

This makes it more Confucian like, for one needs to learn. Basho’s advice on how to learn might go like this:

Travel widely,
While carrying as little as you can
Write down a word or two
Bashō no yōna, 2024

And then go back.

Leaving us back at the beginning of the circle, Tao-like. Finding, that if you walk long enough, one day, to your surprise, you’ll find yourself among the very wise. And even if you don’t, you’ll have fun from the beginning to the end.

One can find many of these ideas expressed in Toshiharu Oseko’s book, Basho’s Haiku.

Note. It was Kyoriku who provided the cottage on Lake Biwa for Basho’s retreat after Oku no Hosomichi, the Journey into the Northern Interior. In that, there is another lesson.

“Step back to see what is close to you.”