Japan’s rainy season is called “tsuyu” 梅雨. It occurs in June and July. Because the plum ripens at this time, the rainy season is also”meiyu” 梅雨. Basho is refering to the fact that sometimes the plums collect mildew and turn sour. The Ume fruit, or plum, is a popular summer fruit. and the riper it gets, the more sour.
Written in Kyoto, in the 7th year of the Kanbun era (1667), when the artist was 24 years old.
Ah, the sound of rain falling — to the ears, it sounds sour as it rains, the plum ripens
降る音や耳も酸うなる梅の雨 Furu oto ya mimi mo san unaru ume no ame — the poet who one day become Matsuo Basho, 1667
The poet, then known as Tosei 桃青, meaning green peach.
Let’s be honest Let’s be real We are lucky just to be — Bashō no yōna, 2025
One who traveled as much as Matsuo Basho must have thought about the Tao de Ching, the Dao, the Way. The ways included the Nakasendo Way connecting Edo and Kyoto, the coastal route, called the Tokaido Way that would have taken Basho near his home. Then too there was the shorter Koshu Kaido, that was an alternative of the Nakasendo Way. Then too, Basho and a friend Sora made their own way through Japan’s northern interior and along both coasts. This was the famous Oku no Hosomichi, the book that made Basho famous.
Basho wrote the book, part travelogue, part haiku about his five month journey in the spring and summer of 1689. He spent the next five years editing it until his death in 1694. It was not published until 1702.
It is easier to write Than edit, Harder still to publish.
In the blink of an eye, from here to there and back again
In the blink of an eye, from here to there and back again
On May 27th, 1689, Matsuo Basho and his companion Kawai Sora set off on a journey north into Japan interior, then to the coast at Matsushima, and back again across the interior to Sakata, from there south and west along the coast to Osaka.
By July 13th, two months in, the pair had past Matsushima, and reached Yamadera (it translates simply to “mountain temple”) and its mountain Buddhist retreat Risshakuji. To reach the top, Basho must climb the 1,015 stone steps to Okunoin Temple. The noisy village was far behind. The mountain air was clear. His lungs were struggling to keep up. Then, as he gazed out on the valley …
Tranquility …, then, the cicada’s speaks deep within the rocks shizukasa ya . iwa ni shimiiru . semi no koe 閑けさや 岩にしみいる 蝉の声 — Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, July 1689
Tranquility
shizukasa (閑けさ), tranquility, a state of peace and tranquility. This is often translated as “silence.” Take a walk along a creek or on a trail that leads up a mountain side. Then, half way there, when it is utterly quiet, you decide.
It is strange, to think that no matter how hard one thinks, one will never know what the cicada thinks. And that, one supposes, is the point of it.
Don’t try so hard.
Risshakuji is known as a Zen Buddhist retreat. Zen focuses on meditation as the key to understanding nature, and awakening one’s inner wisdom. I would say stress, but stress has too many contradictory connotations. In Zen, one must stay calm, relax.
sigh, this summer grass is all that remains — a mighty samurai’s dreams . natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato. 夏草や兵共がゆめの跡
Hiraizumi, Iwate prefecture Summer 1689
Like swallows, like the stork, like the Monarch butterfly, in summer, man migrates from home to vacation and suffer the heat. Matsuo Basho did not invent summer travel in Japan, but he did popularize it. His travelogues, a combination of haiku and commentary on local scenes were published during and after his lifetime. Highways were built.* Way stations were maintained and rest-stops and inns were conveniently located at distances of 20 miles apart.
Along the Oku no Hosomichi, Basho’s journey into Japan’s northern interior in the summer of 1689.
At Hiraizumi, the northernmost point on Basho’s journey that one day would be called Oku no Hosomichi, Basho detoured to the land where the Oshu Fujiwara clan prospered for three generations in the late Heian period (Heian, meaning peace, 794 to 1185).
Here, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the third generation of the powerful Minamoto clan, fled fleeing the fickle emperor for whom he had gallantly fought but now was condemned. Far to the north, surrounded by mountains, to Hiraizumi he fled. Given refuge, he lived in peace, until the death of his protector whose son betrayed vilely him. In a final battle, Yoshitsune met his end.
Standing on the hill, in the midst of the dying summer grass, there Yoshitsune’s forces fought to the last man.
What do you think?
Grass as a metaphor for a dead warrior
Basho’s thoughts: “Three generations of glory of the Fujiwara clan vanished like a dream; the hills and rivers remain unchanged, as they were in the past.” How Dao, death comes to us all, and Nature reclaims everything, in the passage of time, restoring what is to the way it once was.
“Cry out,” a voice said, And said I, “What shall I cry?” “Our flesh is like grass, its beauty like the flower of the field… The grass withers, the flower fades.” Isaiah, 40:6–8
“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855
Note. Five Routes established by the Tokugawa shogunate. The Nakasendo and Tokaido were the most popular. Both connected Edo and Kyoto, the Nakasendo through the mountains, Tokaido along the coast. The Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige immortalized the “55 Stations of the Tokaido” in print.
Matsuo Basho wrote this haiku in the summer of the 7th year of the Genroku era. It is 1694, the year Basho’s life would come to an end.
A spark of lightning in my hands in the darkness — this paper candle . 稲妻を . 手にとる闇の . 紙燭哉 inazuma o . te ni toru yami no . shisoku kana — Matsuo Basho, June (?), 1694
It was 1694, the last year of Matsuo Basho’s life. I suppose without knowing for sure, it was summer and raining. Matsuo Basho sat up late, writing by the light of a lamp. Perhaps, the lamp light went out, then lightning, then Basho lit a paper candle to find his way in the darkness.
For me, it is in the middle of June, early morning and raining. My dog Lucy hides in a corner in the closet, afraid of the thunder and lightning. Why, I wonder?
Gentle Reader:
You may disagree with my translation. You may draw other conclusions. This is reasonable for haiku are meant to be personal. Like the way my dog Lucy reacts to the lightning and thunder.
Inazuma (稲妻) translates to “lightning,” or “flash of lightning,” that is, the cosmic spark of divinity that lights up the sky at night. As a metaphor, it symbolizes the ability to cut through ignorance and delusion, the way a lightning bolt illuminates the darkness. Buddhism expresses the thought as a transitory moment. I see, but only for a moment.
Then comes the phrase te ni toru yami no (手にとる闇の) which means “take the darkness in your hands.” This is followed by shisoku kana (紙燭哉), meaning a small paper candle or torch. Lacking matches, the Japanese of Basho’s time, lit these paper candles from another source then carried them about to either light the way or illuminate a lamp.
As an aside, let me quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” So, dear friend, be the light and not the darkness.
Specifically, the 山吹き yamabuki, a yellow flowering rose shrub that grows in thickets on a mountain slopes.
Matsuo Basho’s rose haiku (three versions) on a yellow rose written one year before his death. This is one of those times one says, “You had to be there.” One can not feel the mist on one’s face, see the petals lying scattered in the grass on the ground, or hear the roar of the waterfall. One can’t compete with Mother Nature.
Petals falling and scattering From a yellow rose To the noise of a waterfall
Yellow petals of a rose tumbling to the thunder of a waterfall
Petal by petal A Yellow Rose is falling To the sound of the waterfall
ほろほろと 山吹ちるか 瀧の音 Horo horo to yamabuki chiru ka taki no oto Matsuo Basho, 1693
Red Roses
Juliet says, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Of course one is aware that a haiku takes a particular form of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, whose goal is to evoke an image of the natural world that transcends a purely objective view. This does not prevent us from looking at other forms of literature as variations on the haiku. Here, for example is a truncated version of Victor Hugo’s poem, La tomb dit a la rose, a conversation between the grave and a rose.
The Grave says to the Rose The grave to the rose: – Why cry at dawn Flower of love? . The rose to the grave: What do you do with what falls Into this bottomless abyss? . The rose: Dark crypt, These tears are shed in the shadows A perfume of amber and honey. . The grave: Wistful flower, Each soul I take I make — a heavenly angel! — Victor Hugo, Poems, XXXI, 1888
An old pond A frog jumps in The sound of water 古池や 蛙飛び込む 水の音 Furu ike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto
Let us speak of forms and shapes, of the fluidity of life, of being and being gone. Of warm summer days, of turtles and frogs, of walks with the dogs down by the creek…
Matsuo Basho’s famous frog haiku has been translated ten thousand times (万 wàn, also meaning “many” or, so many, one looses count). The words have been parsed, the meaning interpreted a thousand ways (千 sen, also meaning many in countless ways). Its parts dissected like that poor old frog in a high school biology class.
I like to go for walks with my two small dogs to Pawnee Prairie Park in Wichita, Kansas. There is a spot where we round the corner and approach the creek high up on the bank. Most days, I hear the plop of the turtle as it slips off a log into the water. I try to be silent, but somehow the turtle knows I am coming.
Am I hearing the sound of the creek or the turtle? Am I witnessing a magical change of form, the fluidity of turtle and the water?
In one sense Basho gives voice to the old pond that is otherwise silent. Is the pond offended by the interfering frog? Or does it welcome the abrupt change to an otherwise dull existence? One wonders.
Other philosophical questions to ponder:
One wonders, if a banana, is still a banana, when it is eaten?
If not, when does it cease to be a banana and become me? — Bashō no yōna
Along the same lines:
Are the bricks in a building One and the same If the building falls down? — Bashō no yōna
These amusing musings all deal with Plato’s Theory of Forms. The physical world we soon learn is not the ultimate reality, as Basho discovered at the Old Pond.
To fail is no sin — the true wrong is not to try, then, sit and wonder. — Bashō no yōna, May 2025
First Thoughts
“If I fail, it is not a sin, the sin is not to try and wonder.”
Random stuff on relationships. Has Bashō no yōna gone off the track? I think not. Bashō’s spirit is kept alive, of observing nature and relationships. The twist, a modern introspection. 5–7–5 or close enough, cause nothing’s perfect.
Haikus
Separate journeys — sometimes paths will intertwine, sometimes they depart.
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Not just random chance— relationships have their way, kismet, fate — who knows.
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we were meant to be two burning stars, now spent — nothing is forever
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God, the universe — whatever your guide may be, always works for YOU.
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This is the way it ends, Not with regret, But tears and goodbyes.
Last thoughts
Inspired by William Shakespeare’s quote: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our lives are rounded by a little sleep.” Thank goodness, now that I’ve dreamt, I can rest.
May has come, May has gone, May it come again… — Bashō no yōna, 2024
The passage of time is persistent theme in Basho’s haiku. The prologue to his travelogue Oku no Hosomichi goes like this:
The Narrow Road to Northern Interior
Prologue “Days and months travel throughout eternity. So too are the years that pass. Those of us who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb beneath the weight of years, spend every moment traveling throughout their lives. A great number of the ancients, died on the road (Way). For a long time I was tempted by the cloud-moving wind, filled with an irresistible wanderlust”. — Matsuo Basho, Prologue to Oku no Hosomichi
It was in the spring of 1689 that Matsuo Basho began his adventure. On the 27th of the third lunar month, not March according to the Gregorian calendar, but near May the 14th. Basho did not complete the book in his lifetime. He died in 1694 and publication of the book Oku no Hosomichi occurred some eight years later in 1704.
Since then, it has been read and read again.
It is now May 26, 2025, Memorial Day, a fitting day to remember May again.
Before he left Edo for the last time, Matsuo Basho’s disciple Shisan (子珊) gave him a going-away party.
紫陽草や薮を小庭の別座敷 ajisai ya yabu o koniwa no betsu zashiki
among the bushes and hydrangea — a little garden off the tatami room — Matsuo Basho, May, 1694
Ajisai
“Say it with flowers.” An advertising slogan by florists
Asked by the host to begin the festivities with a haiku, Basho wrote about hydrangea. In Japanese culture, the pretty blue, white, and pink flower is associated with the emotions of gratitude and apology. An emperor, the story goes, gave a blue hydrangeas to the family of the girl he loved as an apology for neglecting her and show how much he really cared for her.
After the party Matsuo Bashō left Edo for the last time, spending time in Ueno, the town where he was born, and Kyoto, where he had been a student, before heading to Osaka. In November, surrounded by friends and disciples, he passed away.
Matsuo Basho’s remains were then interred at the Gichū-ji a Buddhist temple in Ōtsu on the southern shore of Lake Biwa. Just to the north of Lake Biwa is quiet Lake Yogo which features thousands of hydrangea bushes.
Ajisai (hydrangea) ya . yabu (bush) o koniwa (small, little) no . betsu (extra, separate) zashiki (tatami room)
Zashiki (座敷) a tatami room, akin to a sitting room, a parlor, with woven tatami mats made of rush grass.
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