Basho-an (Basho’s cottage) at Fukagwa, outside Edo, Summer, 1693
The morning-glories growing along the fence have made a chain that keeps guests out.
By the late summer of 1693, Matsuo Basho was feeling unwell and tired of guests. The morning-glories trailing along the fence must have looked like a chain to keep away guests. On this day, he must have been feeling better as he was willing to unlock the gate.
Morning-glories! Now that it is daytime, let down the chain That locks the gate at the fence.
朝顔や昼は鎖おろす門の垣 Asagao ya hiru wa jo orosu mon mo kaki
Matsuo Basho, Summer, 1693
Locked Out
Not being a native Japanese speaker, I struggle to get the sense of Basho’s meaning. But, as the poets says, to learn from the pine, be like the pine. One can put oneself in the place of the morning-glory, locking the guests out, or the guests, who on arriving at Basho’s cottage to visit, find that the tender blossoms and tendrils have locked them out.
Asagao, morning glories bloom from early summer to the first frost of fall. Besides its beauty, the flower buds serve as a laxative which might have helped Basho with his on-going stomach ailment.
Asagao ya (morning glories, followed by an exclamation) hiru (day, daytime) wa (topic marker for daytime) jo (chain, lock) orosu (take down, lower) mon mo kak (gate at the fence)
At a renga party. One hundred verses, the last haiku. How do get rid of the last annoying guest? With sleepy eyes, your host appears, your hat and summer coat in hand.
time to say farewell — your hat and summer coat in hand 別れ端や笠手に提げて夏羽織 wakareba ya kasa te ni sagete natsu-haori
Matsuo Basho, Fukagawa, Summer 1684
Summer 1684
I have invented a renga party as the occasion for the farewell and this haiku.
By the summer of 1684, Matsuo Basho was living in Fukagawa in the Basho-an (his simple cottage shaded by a banana, a.k.a, basho, tree), adored by his students and disciples. Basho’s mother had died the year before. He was restless.
As summer became autumn, it was time to go home, to say goodbye.
Notes on Translation
Renga (連歌, linked haiku), usually of 36 or even 100 verses. Wow! That’s long.
Those crazy Japanese poets!
One person writes the first hokku (haiku), identifying a single subject (i.e cherry blossoms, the autumn moon, goodbyes and farewells), each person adding to the chain, but delivering a creative twist. Now, the party has gone on too long, too late. The guests have drunk too much and most have left. Saki cups and paper haiku litter the floor.
Wakareba (別れ端や) I get it, I understand, after some difficulty. Farewell!
Kasa (笠) hat. Haori (はおり), a thigh-length jacket with short sleeves, generally used for cold evenings. Basho describes it as a summer (natsu, 夏) garment, suggesting that the season is changing.
Fukagawa. By the age of 36, Matsuo Basho had achieved some success in Edo, the capital of Japan. He had refined the haiku as an art form, and the renga as a convivial setting for its connected verse. He had a group of devoted students and disciples who referred to him as Tosei, the unripe peach. Matsuo wanted more, and departed Edo in 1680 for the more rural Fukagawa district, where, beside his small cottage, he planted a banana tree (basho), saying farewell to Tosei, eventually becoming Basho.
The master said, “Year after year, people stop at the same place and do the same thing, making resolutions and throwing them away.” The year 1693 is ending. Matsuo Basho, age 49, is back in Edo in his familiar Basho–an (his third Banana Hut). He was living there quietly with few guests. To others he was saying, “saru” go away. Now he is wondering — “Am I making any progress?”
年々や/ 猿に着せたる/ 猿の面 toshidoshi ya/ saru ni kisetaru/ saru no men
year after year, dressed like a monkey in a monkey’s mask
Matsuo Basho, 6th year of Genroku (元禄6年元旦), 1693
Year after year
It was the 6th year of the reign of Emperor Higashiyama Genroku of Japan. Ninety years since Tokugawa Ieyasu was designated Shogun, the start of the Edo Period. Almost 60 years had passed since the policy barring Japanese from leaving the island and foreigners from entering on pain of death.
At the Hatsukoshin Festival, during the New Year, one buys a monkey mask to ward off evil spirits, as the Japanese word for “monkey” (saru) is a homophone of “go away.”
No gift had a greater impact on Matsuo Basho than the giving of a banana plant by his disciple Rika. Indeed, when he was given this gift in the spring of 1681, Matsuo was not yet Basho, a word that means banana plant in English. The occasion of the gift giving was Matsuo’s move from central Edo south across the Sumida River to the rural Fukagawa District.
The basho plant (芭蕉) was a housewarming gift.
The ogi, 荻 which once grew profusely near Matsuo’s cottage, dwarfing his tiny banana tree, had now become a threat to his new banana plant. The Latin name of the ogi is Miscanthus sacchariflorus, better known in a nursery as Amur silvergrass, that flowers in the fall and keeps its silvery silhouette throughout the winter.
As the banana plant thrived, Basho’s cottage would become known as Basho’an.
Becoming Basho
I can think of three reasons why Matsuo would choose Basho as his pen name. First, he was then writing under the name Tosei, meaning an unripe peach. Matsuo had by this time mastered much of what there was to learn about haiku, so it was time to become something more substantial.
A banana plant is anything but substantial, and that is probably what Matsuo liked most about this plant. Its broad leaves blew in the wind, and in a storm, they were often torn. Moreover, this particular banana did not produce fruit. It was decorative.
An artist’s view of himself or herself in society.
Finally, I will add this — the banana originated in China, in Sichuan to be more precise. And Matsuo owed a debt to his Chinese counterparts, the poets of the Tang dynasty like Li Bai and Bai Juyi.
The Basho plant, ばしょう
As Years Go By
Years later when the first Basho-an burned down, a second one was built. Basho brought to this new location a sprout from the original banana plant, then reflected:
What year did I come to nest here, planting a single Bashō tree? The climate must be good — around the first one new trunks have grown up, their leaves so thick they crowd out my garden and shade my house. People named my hut after this plant. Every year, old friends and students who like my tree take cuttings or divide the roots and carry them off to this place and that.
Matsuo Basho, Basho-an, 1683-84
Later that year Matsuo Basho left Basho-an on the first of four major wanderings.
Simple Gifts
The simplest gifts are the best gifts. The gifts that mean the most is the gift of family and friends.
Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free, ‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be
Simple Gifts, Shaker song, Elder Joseph Brackett, 1848
Of Jim and Della, it is said they were not wise. Each sold the most valuable thing he and she owned in order to buy a gift for the other. And discover the greatest gift is each other.
Being in Love, their gifts were Wise ones — the Gift of Each Other
O’Henry, The Gift of the Magi, 1905
Note. This post was written December 26, 2021, after all the gift giving has been done.
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