Birds for sure, fish, of course, a famous frog, and crickets, insects galore, but no ants for the Japanese haiku poet Matsuo Basho. Was it their work ethic that kept him from writing about them? Who knows, but surely they followed him on his many journeys. To demonstrate Hiaku Lives, I have written a few verses, renga style about the tiny ant.
The Ant
I stepped on an ant today But I don’t think he knew … What was about to hit him
I suppose he thought If he thought Why can’t he mind his own business
There are plenty of us, the other ants weighed in, And only one of him
Otsu, Lake Biwa, Autumn 1690. Open the grass door to my hut, enjoy a simple vegetarian meal.
Open the door of my grass hut Recognize flowering knotweed and chili pepper
草の戸を知れや穂蓼に唐辛子 kusa no to o shire ya hotade ni togarashi
Matsuo Basho, Otsu, Autumn 1690
Basho often complained of stomach ailments. Therefore, he ate sparingly.
Notes. kusa no to (grass, of, door, i.e. door made of grass. A short hand was of saying the roof of the simple hut is made of thatched grass) o shire (know, see) ya (emphasis) hotade (flowering smartweed, or knotweed, the flower buds may be pink to red, ducks eat it. Compare the similar sounding hotate scallops, a fancier fare. Hotade has some medicinal value.) ni togarashi (red chili pepper).
When a guest arrives, Matsuo Basho has only tiny mosquitos to offer for a feast.
わが宿は蚊の小さきを馳走かな
waga yado wa / ka no chiisaki o / chisō kana
In my hut the tiny mosquitos, are my treat!
Matsuo Basho, at Genju-an, Summer 1690
My Treat
Matsuo Basho was staying at the Genju-an (Phantom Dwelling) in Otsu on Lake Biwa, which explains the presence of mosquitos. His guest, Akinobo, was a Japanese monk about whom little is known. Akinobo lived as a hermit in complete simplicity and poverty, begging for some rice to eat in summer and a little charcoal in winter to keep warm. So, it may be that Basho was visiting Akinobo and not the other way around.
Suma, Japan, Jokyo 5, Genroku 1 Summer 1688, age 45
Poetry — like an arrow, let loose, following its own path.
From the fall of 1687 to the late summer of 1688, Matsuo Basho travelled from Edo to Iga, to the Grand Ise Shrine, on to Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Otsu, and finally to Suma. The poems he wrote along the way became the musings in the book, Oi no Kobumi (笈の小文), Notes from My Knapsack.
at Suma’s seaside shoot an arrow, at the cry of a cuckoo
須磨の海士の矢先に鳴くか郭公 Suma no ama no / yasaki ni naku ka / hototogisu (kakkō)
Matsuo Basho, Oi no kobumi, Summer 1688
Notes on Translation
This haiku is best understood if one is familiar with The Tale of the Genji. Genji lived at Suma. One of the tales concerns the 12th century poet and archer Minamoto Yorimasa (源 頼政), who shot a monstrous bird whose nightly call annoyed the emperor. As the Minister of Right was about to give Yorimasa an award for silencing the bird, he said:
Hototogisu na omo kuomi ni aguru kana A cuckoo raising its head to the clouds in the heavens calls its name
To which, Yarimasa replied:
Yumihari-zuki no iru ni makasete I only bent my bow and the arrow shot itself
To a traveler, Shii flowers, like the heart of a traveler (like the thoughts of a traveler)
旅人の 心にも似よ 椎の花 tabibito no / kokoro ni mo niyo / shii no hana
Matsuo Basho, Summer, 1693
May 6, Genroku 6, 50 years old, 1693
Through the summer of 1693, Basho continued to teach and attend haiku parties (renga). Presumably, at one such party, he composed this haiku, a farewell poem to Morikawa Kyoroku (1656―1715), who was headed to the mountains.
Notes on Translations
Shii is a general term for an evergreen tree of the Birch family. Sometimes called the Japanese Chinquapin, it can be found in the southern US, as well as Japan. In June, it bears separate male and female fuzzy spikes that emit a strong odor that some liken to a cross between honeysuckle and rancid meat. It hosts mushrooms (shiitake), hence the name.
Kokoru, 心 meaning ‘heart’ (Chinese pinyin: xīn). The character looks like the “heart” of a person. The ancients believed that the heart is the organ of thinking, so thoughts and feelings may be substituted.
MorikawaKyoroku was a samurai of the Hikone Domain, artist and haiku poet. He drew a picture of Basho and another individual, possibly Kyoriku himself.
Southern Utah has five National Parks and Zion ranks as the best. Towering cliffs of red and white Navaho Sandstone, box canyons the are a hikers delight, winding roads with scenic views draw travelers from around the world.
Ironic that Las Vegas is nearby. Sin City and the Holy Place.
The plum (ume 寒) and its fragrance (ume ga ka寒さか) was a familiar subject for Matsuo Basho, one he wrote about no less than eleven times. Spring’s beauty is fleeting, the plum blossoms briefly, it’s smell prolonged by the cold, or does the coldness recall the smell? I wonder.
I wonder, is the fragrance of the plum brought back by the coldness
Ah, the fragrant plum! Brought back By cold weather
梅が香に 追いもどさるる 寒さかな
ume ga ka ni oi modosa ruru samusa kana
Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1684-1694
April 2023
Here in Middle America, we are halfway through April. It rained last night, it’s cold.
Notes on Translation
ume (plum) ga (indicating the thing, the plum) ka (fragrant) ni (exclamatory marker) oi (recalls) modosa (and returns) ruru (continuously) samu (cold) sa (suffix indicating the state of being cold) kana (I wonder)
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
It was a very good year, one might say for Matsuo Basho. He was happily living in Edo at his Basho hut, named for the banana tree outside. He is a respected haiku poet and a teacher of his style of poetry to a select group of disciples. When the spirit moves him, he makes an occasional foray along the the Tokaido and Nakasendo trails to and from Kyoto, and to his home in Ueno. He is also in the midst of planning a longer trip into Japan’s northern interior that would become famous as Oku no Hosomichi.
The Spring wind is howling while I’m bursting with laughter — wishing for flowers
春風に吹き出し笑ふ花もがな haru kaze ni fukidashi warau hana mogana
Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1668
Notes: haru (spring) kaze (wind) ni (on) fukidashi (today, this translates as speech bubble; fu 吹, to blow, to brag; kiき, tree; dashi appears to mean to put something out, like a kite or banner); warau (laugh or smile); hana (flower) mogana (wishing for)
Thoughts from the Midwest on the last day of March — the wind is still howling, driving me crazy.
The wind howls at the trees Will it stay, Better yet, will it stop?
Bashō no yōna, March 31, 2023
Something old, something borrowed:
March winds and April showers bring May flowers and June bugs
An old standard
Slightly altered, Nature becomes our nemesis:
March winds, April showers, then heavy rains and mosquitoes
He was not yet famous, he was not yet known as Matsuo Basho, but five years of living in Edo had brought him some recognition as a master of haiku.
in spring, its spring! each spring is great and so on 於春々大哉春と云々 ah haru haru ōinaru kana haru to un nun
Matsuo Basho, 1680
By 1679, Matsuo had taken the pen name Tosei (桃青), meaning “green peach.” His own poems were published in several anthologies; and twenty students who called him master published their own poems, Tōsei’s Collection of Twenty Poets (桃青門弟独吟二十歌仙). The year of 1680 was to be a year of great changes.
Haru, haru, how do you do? The first dandelion is simple and bright But what happens next?
matsuo-basho-haiku 