the rough sea / stretching towards Sado Island/ and the Heavenly River
荒海や佐渡によこたふ天河
araumi ya / Sado ni yokotau / amanogawa
Sora’s Diary, July 6, 1689
According to the notes of Sora, Matsuo Basho’s younger companion on his journey to the north, the two arrive in Niigata after a grueling 9 days from Sakata, during which the humid weather afflicts the nerves and there is no writing. On the night of July 6, Master Basho stares out at the rough Japan Sea towards Sado Island and observes the sea, the island, and the Milky Way as one.
Basho and Sora arrival on July 7th coincides with the celebration of Tanabata or Star Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (“star crossed lovers” Vega and Altair), who it is said are separated by the Heavenly River and allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.
Basho did not make the trip to Sado Island, which is about 40 miles off the western coast of Japan. The isolated island was well known as place where noblemen, warriors, artists and high priests were exiled for political crimes. It is home to several temples and shrines.
Notes on translation
荒海 rough seas
に into
佐渡 Sado Island
天河 Milky Way, literally Heavenly River
First Snow falling on the unfinished bridge, Oh, if only on top
わからない, Wakaranai, I don’t understand
“Master Basho,” the disciple says after reading this haiku, “Wakaranai, わからない, I don’t understand.”
After a momentary pause, Master Basho replies, “Those who speak, do not know. Those who know, need not speak.”
The disciple bows his head, the fingers of his two hands interlaced in his lap, and exhaling a deep breath before repeats, almost as if in prayer, “Wakaranai.”
The old master removes his cap and runs his hands through his graying hair. Then he strokes the beard of his chin as if it were the fur of a cat and says, “We are all looking for answers. But some things in life are mysteries. There are no answers my son. Perhaps, a haiku, a word picture may suffice.”
After a moment, the disciple nods.
Unexplainable, unknowable, ineffable
Even the most gifted writers know than not all experiences can be rendered into language. A common example, the first light of the morning sun parting the darkness greeting the new day. “You had to be there,” one usually says when trying to describe the unexplainable, the unknowable, the ineffable.
Matsuo Basho’s haiku is inspired by the building of the lofty Shin Ohashi (New Great Bridge). Constructed in the fall of 1693, it spanned the Sumida River, and for the first time linked the bustling city center of Edo (old name for Tokyo) and rustic Fukagawa, where Basho lived in a hut provide to him by his disciples. One source reports that the construction was begun “in July and finished in five months on Dec. 7 1693.” (See the online essay, The Spaces of Robert Hass, March 10, 2015, James Karkoski). If so, it still allows time for the a first winter’s snow before the bridge’s completion, a moment for Matsuo Basho to stand below the unfinished bridge.
Although it depicts rain and a completed bridge, this later day painting by Japanese artist Hiroshige, 1857, conveys a sense of being exposed to the Nature’s elements.
Hiroshige Atake, Shin Ohashi bridge, Shizuoka city Tokaido Hiroshige Museum of Art
Lost in translation
Translators rarely agree about wording and Matsuo Basho’s poem is no exception.
The most Spartan example by David Landis Barnhill:
first-snow ! / make / bridge ’s top
Robert Hass:
first snow
falling
on the half finished bridge
This last example seems to eliminate the last line of Basho’s poem, の上に, no ue ni, which I render as “If only on top” and adding the gratuitous exclamation “Oh”.
One might add a little more context to the haiku by explaining that Basho moved from Edo to Fukagawa in 1680. The river Sumida separated the two and there were no bridges. I suspect that not all of the residents would look forward to becoming a part of metropolitan Edo (Tokyo).
Understanding and knowing
One has to wonder if there is a difference in Japanese between understanding and knowing. My answer is: わかりませんです, Wakarimasendesu.
First snow and
the daffodils leaves bend
to nothingness
First snow
the daffodil leaves bend
barely
初雪や
水仙の葉のたわ
むまで
hatsuyuki ya
suisen no ha no tawa
mu made
The prompt
Today we call them prompts. A word or a phrase that elicits a response.
The prompt is followed by an attempt to sketch a scene in a few words. The goal is to capture the pure essence of an action or emotion. Matsuo Basho and his disciples used such devices to write haiku. From Basho’s frequent use of 初雪や, hatsuyuki ya, or “first snow and” in Basho haiku, we learn that snow was often the subject. There are for example first snow and the great Buddha, first snow and the crow, and many others, including the one above about daffodils.
Daoism teaches us the paradox of the Way – those who know do not need to speak to show that they know.
How to say a lot in a few words
Haiku are meant to be self-explanatory. Like a sunset or a rainbow, the smile of child, the smell of spring, the first snow of the year when the daffodil has already bloomed.
If not, they should be rewritten. For this reason, Basho often rewrote haiku if he found that it was misunderstood by the common people that he associated with. I apologize for using the term “common people”. It is not a term Basho was likely to use. He was the great equalizer, recognizing that we all have value, that we are all struggling to understand the life we live and find our way in this world.
Knowing the unknowable
Having said that no explanations should accompany a haiku, I will nevertheless try to explain this one as I see it. Others have, sometimes ad nauseum, why not me?
First of all, it is important to understand that “first snow” means the first snow of the lunar New Year. Better to think of this as an early snow in March, one that accompanies the blossoms of the cherry trees, or the flowering of daffodils. When winter has been to soon forgotten…
Next, understand that, although Basho has only spoken of the leaves of the daffodil and not the flower, he is intending both. We learn this from a painting Basho later made to go with the haiku, on that displayed the white daffodil flower drooping in the white snow.
Finally, we are presented with the Kireji (切れ字, “cutting word”), the final three characters, むまで, mu ma de, literally “to the utmost”. The conundrum, which Basho intended, is that a literal translation does not capture the true meaning. Basho uses the character む, mu, which is intended to be an indefinable nothingness.
How Zen…
Words do not help.
Instead we are left with the vision – daffodils struggle with the weight of the snow bent until blossom and snow become one.
First snow and there stands the great Buddha a pillar of strength
初雪や いつ大仏 の柱立
Hatsu yuki to Itsu daibutsu No hashiradate
The Great Plains in March
It snowed last night in early March. Not an entirely unusual occurrence on the Great Plains, but unwanted to those who long for spring. The morning was gray and bitter cold. Even the dog would not go out willingly or for long. My calico cat stood at the door, looking about, then turned and ran away.
Todai-ji Temple
When Master Basho visited the Todai-ji Temple in Nara, he found the monastery in disrepair. There in an uncovered courtyard, he found the statue of the Great Buddha exposed to the wind and the snow, standing upright.
The meaning of Basho’s haiku is, seemingly elusive. It snows and there silent and stoic stands the Great Buddha in the midst of the snow and cold.
Why not go inside?
Matsuo Basho describes Buddha as “Pillar-like” (の 柱立, standing like a pillar, 柱). Society is supported by principles in the same way that a building is supported by upright pillars and columns.
We can not fathom the Way, just as we can not fathom the mysteries of Nature. The master of the Way fights neither his own body, nor Nature. The forces of Nature are greater than one person. We must adapt to survive.
Master Basho instructs us by example. The Great Buddha does not complain when it snows, nor should we. The virtuous are upstanding.
Tōdai-ji (東大寺, Eastern Great Temple), located in the city of Nara, contains the Great Buddha Hall which houses the world’s largest bronze statue of the Buddha. At the time of Basho’s visit (1689-1670), the Buddha was still without its head and cover.
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.”
― Matsuo Basho
Hello World
Thanks for joining me on a journey to who knows where!
Let me begin by introducing our guide and companion, Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644–1694). He was and is Japan’s most famous poet of the Edo period (1603-1867). While this may sound like literary hyperbole, the kind of praise found on the dust jacket of a new book, consider this: Matsuo Basho refined the poetic form into the haiku we continue to use today.
It is a three part poem – typically, containing a subject, an action, and an explanation that incorporates surprise, all of this usually rendered in 17 syllables. What was refreshing then and now about Basho’s haiku is that they captured the essence of moment in simple words that everyone could appreciate. Many of the haiku have an air of Buddhism to them. That is they strive towards “enlightenment.” Such is the aim of Basho’s well-known frog splashing in the pond haiku.
Becoming Basho
He did not begin life as Matsuo Basho. That was a pen name he acquired after many years of study and writing. And this name by which we know him today was taken only after Matsuo (his family name) moved from his home in Ueno to Kyoto, then to Edo, the capital of the Shogunate, and from the bustling city center of the Edo to Fukagawa, where Basho took up a humble residence in a cottage. A disciple gave him a house warming gift of a banana tree (芭蕉, bashō), which when planted grew up beside the cottage, surviving many storms, giving him shade in the summer.
Thus, like Jim Croce’s singin’ bird and the croakin’ toad, our poet had a name for the ages.
On the Road
Matsuo Basho followed in the footsteps of others. The 12th century Buddhist monk Saigyo is one, but as Basho explains, he sought to experience what they sought, and he sought his own unique experiences.
To better see the world, Basho and his neighbor and friend Kawai Sora took to Japan’s dangerous back roads in the spring of 1689 with little more than writing supplies, writing his most famous haiku, Oku no Hosomichi, a travelogue that would not be published until after Basho’s death.
Beware, the journey is not always pretty, not always fun, but hopefully witty, and full of surprise.
蚤虱 馬の尿する 枕もと nomi shirami/ uma no shito suru/ makura moto
Among fleas and lice, a horse pissing next to my pillow. — Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, Summer 1689
matsuo-basho-haiku 