An early summer rain
Falling on this and that
And the Temple of Light
An early summer rain Does not dim The Temple of Light
Samidare no/ Furinokosite ya/ Hikari-do
五月雨の 降のこしてや 光堂
May, 1689
It is an early summer rain in Kansas, some three hundred thirty one years since Matsuo Basho wrote this haiku. At the time, Basho and his traveling companion Sora were on the famous Journey to the North. Visiting Hiraizumi, Basho would have taken the pathway on Tsukimi-zaka slope to Chuson-ji Temple and its golden hall of Hikare-do (Konjiki-do).
[Note on translation. Furinokosite ya, 降のこしてや. The second line of the haiku is a turn of a phrase. The first character in the line 降 indicates a fall, as in the rain falling, but also to subdue, to lessen or decrease in stature, hence the verb “dim”.]
Basho had come not only to see Hikare-do, the Temple of Light dedicated to the Buddha, but also to reflect on the the rise and fall of the northern Fujiwara clan, and the tragic end of the samurai Yoshitsune, an event that took place some five hundred years previously.
Of Yoshitsune, Basho wrote another well-known haiku; one that seems to express a contrasting emotion.
The summer grass is all that remains of a warlord’s dreams.
松風の 落葉か水の音 涼し matsukaze no ochiba ka mizu no oto suzushi
The wind in the pines And falling leaves Cool is the sound of water
Like the wind that sighs in the pines Like the leaves that rustle and fall Refreshing is the sound of the waves
Autumn, 1684, in the hills above Suma Bay near Kobe, overhearing the waves on the beach
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) – Suma Beach at Night
Autumn 1684
In the autumn of 1684, Matsuo Basho begins a western journey that will give rise to his first travel journal,Nozarashi kiko, Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field. The trip took him from Edo to Mount Fuji, to Kyoto, where he had studied as a young man, and finally to Ueno, his mother’s grave and home.
With a simple walking stick and a backpack containing pen and paper, he set off, traveling on average 20 miles a day, resting underneath a shady willow beside a stream when he wanted, sleeping amid the flowers when alone, lingering awhile when he encountered friends.
Passing Osaka and Kobe, Basho descends from the hills that surround Suma Bay. A cool wind stirs in the pine trees, the white sandy beach stretch out before him. It is fall and so the red and yellow leaves of the deciduous trees rustle and begin to fall. All along Osaka Bay, the waves gently lap the shore. Even after his day’s journey, Basho feels refreshed.
Matsukaze
Matsukaze (Pining Wind, Wind in the Pines) is a well-known Noh play by by Kan’ami, revised by Zeami Motokiyo. Matsukaze and Murasame (Autumn Rain) are two sisters who ladled brine to make salt by the sandy shore of Suma. The story is about long lost love and heartbreak. Love grown cold.
Notes on Translation
I find sonorous, the sounds matsu and mizu; no ochiba and no oto. Suzushi is an example of onomatopoeia, it sounds like it means.
松風, Matsukaze is a combination of 松, matsu, pine, and 風, kaze, wind. Pine may be the noun as in pine tree, or the verb, as in to pine for a long lost lover. Kaze, wind, is probably familiar to those who have heard of kamikaze, divine wind.
落葉, Ochiba, falling leaves place the haiku in autumn, the seasonal word.
水, Mizu, is water; 涼し, suzushi, cool, refreshing. In this case, Basho meant the sound of the waves at Suma Bay.
withered and bowed
a world upside down,
as bamboo to snow
shiore fusu ya yo wa sakasama no yuki no take
萎れ伏 すや世はさかさまの 雪の竹
Bashō’s Early Haiku
In 1666, after the death of his samurai master, Matsuo Bashō, age 24, moved to Kyoto to study haiku. That winter Bashō visited the home of a young couple whose child had died. Bowing in respect, he entered, and saw the parents’ tear-streaked faces.
The scene reminded Basho of a Nōh play by Zeami Motokiyo (c. 1363 – c. 1443), Take no Yuki, Snow on Bamboo. In the play, a father rids himself of his wife for a “trifling” reason. He sends his daughter to live with he mother and keeps his son to be the heir to his fortune, and takes a new wife. When the father goes on a pilgrimage, the step-mother sends her step-son into a bamboo grove and the freezing snow. He dies, but the gods, moved by the grief of his father and real mother, bring him back to life.
In the play, Tsukiwaka, the young boy, is given these lines just before he dies:
The wind stabbed him, and the night wore on, The snow grew hard with ice, he could not brush away. “I will go back,” he thought, and pushed at the barred gate. “Open!” he cried, and pounded with his frozen hands. No one heard him, his blows made no sound. “Oh the cold, the cold! I cannot bear. Help, help Tsukiwaka!” Never did the wind blow more wildly!
Notes on Translation
Shiore fusu, 萎れ伏 , withered and bent down. 伏, fusu, bowing down, a mark of respect Bashō gave the grieving couple on entering their home.
Sakasama, 逆さま, literally upside down, inverted; yo wa, 世は, the world, but a word play on being unsteady or tipsy.
Normally, A black crow is detestable – But on a snowy morning?
higoro nikuki karasu mo yuki no ashita kana
ひごろ にくき烏も 雪の朝哉
Koishikawa yuki no ashita, Snowy morning at Koishikawa
A haiku about nothing
Before there was Jerry Seinfeld, there was Matsuo Basho. Jerry Seinfeld was an American comedian who made observational humor. He had a long-running television show, whose moniker was, ” a show about nothing”, where the nothings consisted of the daily doings of Jerry and his friends. These events somehow became funny.
Like Seinfeld, Basho’s haiku often concerned everyday events that in one way or another took on meaning.
This poem was written in 1691, at Gichu-ji, a Tendai temple in Otsu on Lake Biwa, where Basho often stayed in a cottage called Mumyo-an, “Nameless Hut”. Basho was there with Mizuta Masahide, and with little to do replied to a friend who had written him a letter.
“Yesterday, it snowed and was terribly cold. I was in my hut and so, did not go anywhere. Then I had this thought. ‘Normally, a black crow is a detestable thing, but what about on a snowy morning?'”
Translating the Haiku
Higoro,ひごろ, normally, daily.
Karusu, 烏, crow or raven. These big black hungry birds in flocks of hundreds often make an early morning noisy nuisance.
Yuki no ashita, 雪の朝, a snowy morning.
About the Image
“Snowy Morning from Koishikawa” (Koishikawa yuki no ashita), circa 1830, by Katsushika Hokusai, 葛飾 北斎, from the series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)”. This image may be found at the Art Institute of Chicago and elsewhere.
in the eye of a white chrysanthemum there is not a speck of dust
gazing intently at a white chrysanthemum — and not a speck of dust
Matsuo Basho’s homage to the female poet, Shiba Sonome (斯波 園女).
November 1694
In 1694, Bashō left Edo (Tokyo) for one last trip south to his place of birth and to the Ise Shrine. Arriving in Osaka, where he had studied as a youth, he visited the poetess, Shiba Sonome, who was born in Ise, the daughter of a priest from the Ise Shrine, and later the wife of a doctor. Both Sonome and her husband had been students of Bashō. Later, after the death of her husband, she became well known for her poetry, her care for others, and her beauty.
Dust on Chrysanthemums, Kiku no Chiri, 菊の塵 was one of her published works.
Bashō did not live to make it to the Ise Shrine. Within a month, as the chrysanthemum flower began to fade, he died. The date, November 28, 1694.
Notes on translation
This haiku is often translated from the point of view of the poet gazing at the chrysanthemum. I prefer a more objective view. The eye of the white chrysanthemum exists without dust.
白菊, shiragiku, the first two characters of the haiku, translate as white chrysanthemum. 立, literally, to live, to exist, suggests, at least to me, the Zen idea that no dust exists in the eye of the chrysanthemum.
Has Spring come, Is the Old Year gone, This New Year’s Eve?
Iga region, 1663
New Year’s Eve, 1662
In the second year of Kanbun, the Shogun is Tokugawa Ietsuna. Matsuo Kinsaku is a servant to the samurai Tōdō Yoshitada (藤堂 良忠). He is not yet 20, and not yet the accomplished poet the world knows as Matsuo Basho.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
New Year’s Eve is a good time to look both ways.
Perhaps, young Matsuo and a few friends are having a traditional fare, eating a steaming hot bowl of noodles called Toshi koshi soba (年越し蕎麦), literally, the New Year’s Eve noodle. A traditional fare usually accompanied by generous helpings of Saki.
Because Spring in 1663 started on the 29th of the new year, and not the 30th or the 1st day, Basho wrote this amusing conundrum. Amusing to the diners. For buried within the haiku are the rhyming words “koshi toshi,” a play on the name of the dish, Toshi koshi soba.
Noodles — because last year’s hardships are easily broken up, and worries are swallowed and washed away with Saki.
Matsuo Kinsaku inspired
All poets copy, the great ones are inspired.
This is thought to be Matsuo Basho’s earliest dated haiku, referring to 1662-1663, the 29th day of the lunar month before the Lunar New Year.
The inspiration and wording is based on an earlier poem by Ariwara Motokawa (888–953).
if during the old year spring has come and one day is left; should we call it last year or this year?
年のうちに 春は来にけり 一年を 去年とやいはむ 今年とやいはむ
toshi no uchi ni haru wa ki ni keri hitotose o kozo to ya iwan kotoshi to ya iwan
冬枯れ や 世は一色に 風の音 Fuyugare ya / yo wa isshoku ni / kaze no oto
Winter’s withered plants A World of One Color The Sound of Wind
Bleak is the Winter White is the Color And the Sound of Wind
Winter’s Solitude A World of one color — The Sound of Wind
Night Snow, Utagawa Hiroshige, circa 1833, The Met
World of One Color
It is bitter cold, one can see nothing but white, and hear nothing but the sound of wind.
One could imagine Antarctica in the winter, or a Siberian scene in Dr. Zhivago. For me it was a “white-out” in eastern Colorado, early January of 2020.
I was driving my son’s ancient Camry from Ft. Collins, Colorado to Wichita. Being an intrepid soul, I avoided the quicker Interstate 25, and instead headed east early in the morning, driving through Windsor, Colorado, on to Highway 34, then picking up Interstate 76 to Fort Morgan, before switching back to US Highway 34, then south on lonely Colorado Highway 59, and finally, at Seibert, on to Interstate 70 for the majority of the trip.
Interstate 76 and 70 in the winter are both windy, but one has the company of other trucks and cars being buffeted about. If the snow and wind are too great, then the interstate is shut down and one stays in a hotel room if one can be found.
Out on the two lane Highway 34 and the side roads like Colorado 59, the experience is quite different. There are few trees, few towns, and few houses. In places where the land has been plowed for hay, or corn, or wheat, the winter brings on vast fields of snow that when the wind blows, makes the world one solid color of white. It is frightening to drive in such conditions.
Slowing down or stopping, one hears the sound of wind, a high pitched whistle, that along with the bitter cold cuts to the bone.
Notes on translation
fuyugare,冬枯れ, is literally the withering winter. One can infer from this that Bashō was referring to the bleakness of winter or winter’s desolation or isolation. One could also use the cliche “dead of winter,” but cliches should be avoided. Some translators speak of winter’s solitude, and that works too. Solitude, however, may suggest serenity, and that is not what I choose to take away from my experience in eastern Colorado.
Ah, is not the beauty of poetry that it expresses something unique to each of us? Or does it depend on the moment? Dr. Zhivago is shivering away trudging through the snow, but quite happy in his frozen palace.
ya, や, is similar to “and” in English
wa isshoku ni, 世は一色に, is literally a world of one color, which, in this case, is white.
kaze no oto, 風の音, the sound of wind, or the voice of wind, if one wishes to hear the wind speak.
The banked fire The guest’s shadow on the wall – A silhouette.
Uzumi-bi ya/ Kabe niha kyaku no/ Kageboushi
埋火や 壁には客の 影法師
Meaning of Matuso Basho’s haiku
A banked fire is like the guest’s shadow, is like a silhouette. A silhouette, the essence of a human being reduced to its most basic form. A shadow without substance.
A banked fire, 埋火, literally, a buried ember. The banked fire is built around rocks or stones and protected from the wind. Thus, we find Matsuo Basho and his disciples on a cold winter’s night sitting around a fire with their backs facing the wall of the inn or the home, their face and hands warmed by the fire’s heat, until the flames die down and it is time to go to bed.
If the coals from the fire are protected, there will usually be enough heat in the embers to start a fresh fire the next day. The first character 埋 also implies the quality of being buried or hidden, a fire that lies within the embers.
Kageboushi, 影法師, literally “shadowman,” refers to a silhouette, and to Shadow Theater, and indirectly to Puppet theater which became popular during the Edo Period.
William Shakespeare, Basho’s near contemporary, thought of theater as life, and life as theater: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” (As You Like It, 1603). Matsuo Basho too, was fond of theater, in particular Noh theater in which the main players wore masks to represent emotions. For Basho, the year 1694, the play comes to an end.
年々や 猿に着せたる 猿の面
Toshi doshi ya/ saru ni kisetaru/ saru no men
Year after year, it’s a monkey in a monkey’s mask — Matsuo Basho, December 1693
1693 – 23 months to go
[Revised January 2020, revised December 2020]
1693 has ended, 1694 has arrived. In Buddhism, there is no self in any being, nor any essence in any thing. Still a monkey still wears a monkey face.
Toshi doshi, year after year. If we count by the Gregorian calendar, Matsuo Basho had 23 months to live when he wrote this haiku. If we count by the lunar calendar which Basho followed, then it was less. Remember, in 17th century Japan, New Year was based on a lunar calendar. It was the first day of spring, and the rebirth of life after winter’s slumber.
The end of 1693, we find Matsuo Basho, age 49, back in his familiar Banana Hut (basho–an), in the Fukagawa District across the Sumida River from Edo. In August he takes no visitors. The year 1694 arrives and he finds “no peace of mind”.
Of this haiku Basho remarked:
“I jotted down this haiku because I was sad to see people stuck, struggling in the same way, year in and year out.”
Notes on Translation
Toshi doshi, 年々や, year after year. Basho would repeat this sentiment in another haiku.
Toshi doshi ya / sakura o koyasu / hana no chiri. Year after year, falling blossoms nourish the cherry tree. Spring, 1691.
Saru no men, 猿の面, could easily be translated as monkey face or mask. The phrase is phonetically similar to the idiomatic saru mane, 猿真似, “monkey imitation,” “monkey see monkey do”.
Noh Theater and Sarugaku
In Noh Theater masks expressed human emotions and a monkey mask represented someone acting foolishly. Sarugaku, 猿楽, “monkey music” was also a popular form of entertainment consisting of acrobatics, juggling, and pantomime, sometimes combined with drum dancing, later including word play reminiscent of Basho’s own haiku.
A banana leaf Hanging on the pillar And the moon over my hut
芭蕉葉 を柱に懸けん 庵の月 bashō ba o / hashira ni kaken / io no tsuki
Why I am called Matsuo Bashō
“[T]he bashō’s useless nature is itself reason to admire it. The monk Huaisu lovingly followed the bark with his brush to learn its ways. The astronomer, mathematician and poet Zhang Heng watched the leaves unfold to inspire his studies. I am like neither. I rest in the shade of the bashō leaves, because they are so easily torn.”
Bashō,芭蕉, in English, is the banana tree, not the yellow fruited kind we are familiar with, but of similar stature, tall and leafy. “Useless,” Bashō called the tree, its flower plain, its stalk thick, but one no axe-man cares to fell.
A banana tree grows in Fukagawa
By 1680, Matsuo Bashō, having achieved some fame, moved from Edo’s bustling city center across the Sumida River to the quiet and rural Fukagawa district. A disciple brought Bashō a banana plant as a gift and it thrived, growing tall and strong, sprouting other saplings. Bashō admired its resilience in the wind and the rain.
In time disciples took saplings to plant as a sign of respect.
In the spring of 1689, Matsuo Bashō tired of Edo and decided to take a journey north which would eventually become a book which would further enhance his fame. He sold his hut wrote a well-known haiku on his departure and left.
Bashō returned to Edo in the autumn of 1689. His disciples then built him a simple hut of three rooms near where the old one had been. It had a simple bamboo gate, a reed fence and a view of Mt. Fuji. Pillars of Japanese conifer stood guard at the entrance. A single banana leaf was attached to one of the pillars.
New banana saplings were planted in the garden.
His disciples had take a bashō leaf and written eight haiku on its backside. This was then placed on the pillar at the entrance to the hut. Overjoyed by the gift and the thought, Bashō imagined watching the autumn moon through the swaying leaves of the newly planted bashō trees.
“What year did I come to nest in this area? … My new thatched roof hut, near my first one, fits me well with its three small rooms… I’ve transplanted five banana (bashō) samplings so that the moon when seen through the leaves will be beautiful and moving. The bashō’s leaves are over seven feet in length. When the wind rips the leaf to the leaf-spine, it is as painful as seeing a phoenix with a broken tail, as pitiful as a torn green fan…
Like the ancient mountain trees, the bashō’s useless nature is itself reason to admire it. The monk Huaisu lovingly brushed the bark to learn its ways. The astronomer, mathematician and poet Zhang Heng watched the leaves unfold to inspire his studies. I am like neither. I rest in the shade of the leaves, because they are so easily torn.”
matsuo-basho-haiku 