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

rider on horseback in the snow, hiroshige

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

Home for the Holidays

Why Haiku?

Home for the holidays,
a walk in the woods,
the topic — Haiku

To be more precise, it was poetry not haiku. But the daughter meant haiku. It is short and to the point. Poetry can be be brief, but it can also be long, like Homer’s Iliad or the Odyssey. All good, but long poems serve a different purpose. Entertainment on a long cold winter night.

Haiku is off-the-cuff, it’s quick, lickety-split, it’s visual, a flash in the pan. So simple, a child would enjoy it. An adult would again know what it is like to be a child again.

Words, words, more words
Repeatedly washed and rinsed
Stories recycled

Meanwhile, continuing our walk.

Dogs off leash
Scampering through the trees
Looking for deer

How Dao, the dad say, they never catch them, wouldn’t know what to do if they did, still we keep on dreaming, don’t we?

Stones in a stream
Crossing a roaring river
A giant leap of faith

The next to last day of an old year

Kanbun Era, year two, 1662
Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa, as he was then known, not Basho
The a page to the samurai Tōdō Yoshitada, age 18,
in Ueno, in the city of Iga, Mie prefecture

春や来し年や行きけん小晦日
haru ya koshi toshi ya yukiken kotsugomori
.
Spring, is it here?
The next to last day,
of a new year?
— Matsuo Basho, December, 1662

In the lunar calendar, kotsugomori (ん小晦日) is December 29. The Day before New Year’s Eve (December 31st). The penultimate day of the year? How confusing. Winter’s not over, Spring is no where near. Moving ahead, New Year’s Eve, omisoka (大晦日).

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.

Four Seasons

Four Seasons, Basho’s Thoughts

There is a progression in thought as one proceeds through the seasons. Spring,a little hazy, and unclear. The summer sun, indeed it’s hot, one seeks the cool water of the ocean. Autumn, it’s still unclear, one is lost as if a bird in the cloud. Winter, the moonlight fades, but still the insects sing, until the moon (the month) itself is gone.

spring has come
a nameless mountain
a fine mist
.
the summer sun
cooling in the western sea
— Mogami River
.
this autumn as
I grow older
(lost) as a bird in a cloud
.
a winter garden
the moon above a slender thread
as insects sing
.
Matsuo Basho, haiku, the four seasons
From 1685 to 1694, when Basho died

Notes on Translation

Spring has come (indeed), a nameless mountain, a fine mist
春なれや名もなき山の薄霞
haru nare ya / na mo naki yama no / usu-gasumi
— Spring 1685,

note. on the way to Nara, a place associated with Saiygo

the hot sun, sinking (flowing) into the sea, the Mogamai River
暑き日を海にいれたり最上川
atsuki hi o / umi ni iretari / Mogamigawa
— Summer, 1689, Oku no Hosomichi

note. Basho had gone by boat down the Mogami River to the western port of Sakata

this fall as I grow older, (I feel like) a bird (lost) in a cloud
この秋は何で年寄る雲に鳥
kono aki ha/ nande toshiyoru/ kumo ni tori
— September, 1694, as he lay dying

note. leaving Edo for the last time in the summer of 1694, Basho went home to Ueno, then to Kyoto, then to Osaka.

a winter garden, as the moon becomes a thread, insects sing
冬庭や月もいとなる虫の吟
fuyu niwa ya / tsuki mo ito naru / mushi no gin
— Early winter, Genroku, the second year (1689).
Late autumn in Iga Ueno (his home town) after finishing the Oku no Hosomichi.

Lost Thoughts

Have you ever had a great thought and let is slip away?

Thoughts drip one by one
Like fresh coffee
Percolating
.
Write it Down
Or its Gone
— Haiku
.
Words on a paper
In my pocket
Gently laundered
— Bashō no yōna, December 2024

Lost and Found

I lost the book long ago, but kept the memory.

Long ago, one summer, between college semesters, while traveling in Europe, I came across a book on a train somebody left. It was a well worn paperback copy of Arthur Koestler’s, The Act of Creation. In a nutshell, the idea was that the creative process consists the interplay of the seemingly unrelated ideas. A left and a right brain sword play. The strike of steel on flint to create a spark of inspiration.

The idea of idea forming held true whether the task was artistic, scientific, or comic. It’s not new unless you look at something from a different point of view. Take an apple, smell it, cut it, cook it or bake it. Let it ferment, you’ve got cider.

The process can occur while brewing a cup of coffee in the morning, or walking the dogs in the park in the afternoon, or lying in bed, trying to sleep, dreaming.

It is a dance between imagination and logic. Let emotion lead and logic follow. One must be willing to play the child and be different.

Loneliness by Saiygo

snowy trail

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.