Tag: Basho

Moving On

Daybreak,
While the purple haze lingers on,
Comes the call of the cuckoo

曙はまだ紫にほととぎす
akebono wa / mada murasaki ni / hototogisu

Matsuo Basho, Otsu, Spring, 1680

April 1, Genroku, year 3, (1680)
Otsu, on the southern shore of Lake Biwa,
Age 36, Moving on

“For all of us, in Spring, to be thirty-something is a time to move on.”
— Bashō no yōna, Spring, 2025

Basho explains. “I visited the “Genji no Ma” room at Ishiyama-dera Temple, (in Otsu), where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have written “The Tale of Genji.”

Akebono, meaning daybreak, or the dawn of a new era. The Tale of the Genji was just that, Japan’s and the world’s first novel. Written in the 11th century by the Imperial lady-in-waiting, Murasaki Shikibu. It is a tale of the emperor’s outcast son, Genji, and his romances.

The call of the cuckoo.

Hotogisu, cuckoo, appears as the subject in several of Basho’s haiku. In Japan, the cuckoo symbolizes the coming of summer. Life is moving on, Basho thought, and so must he.

1680, The Awakening.

The year 1680 for Matsuo Basho was monumental. He was still living in Edo and going by the pen name, Tosei, meaning “unripe peach.” But Basho had decided to leave the hectic city for the rural life, moving out of Edo, and going south of the Sumida River to a simple cottage where he might work in relative peace and quiet. It was here that he would find his name — Basho, the fortuitous result of a gift, a banana tree (basho), given by a disciple, and planted next to the cottage. The banana, symbolizing for the poet, something that produced no fruit, but weathered the storms, and gave some shade to the weary.

daybreak

On the First of April, 1680, Basho visited the Ishiyama-dera Temple, in Otsu, at the southern end of Lake Biwa. This is where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have written the tragic Tale of Genji.

Who has not risen at dawn to watch the sunrise. In the lingering lavender just before the sun rises, to hear the winsome cry of a lone bird telling a tragic tale.

it is not yet dawn,
in the lingering lavender sky,
— a cuckoo calls

曙はまだ紫にほととぎす
akebono wa mada murasaki ni hototogisu
— Matsuo Basho, April 1, 1860

はまだ (wa mada), it is not yet

紫 (murasaki), purple, and its many shades, including lavender.

Matsuo Basho would hurry back to Edo where he prepared to move across the Sumida River to the rural Fukagawa District. This move would foretell the poet’s renaming as Basho when a disciple gave him a banana plant as a housewarming gift.

politics

road to the mountains

Bashō no yōna violates Basho’s rule, which is to never speak of politics. A conversation full of sound and fury, where nothing really changes.

In poetry
there is no place
for politics

In Japan
the LDP is slipping
but not yet fallen

In America
Trump says
America is back

Where am I going
With this?
Nowhere

How Dao!

What can one say about politics? People have their minds made up and so they rarely listen. Why we can’t get along is an enduring question that has no answer. How Dao.

Matsuo Basho spoke not of politics. The closest he comes is in the following haiku where he implies that both the Tokugawa Shogun and the Dutch Capitain must pay homage to the spirits on sacred Mt. Tsukuba. Mount Tsukuba was the home of the Shinto gods It is located northeast of Tokyo, Edo which, in Basho’s day, was the seat of political power.

In the following haiku we have a play on words. “Kabitan” or “Kapitan” refers to the captain of the Dutch ships that arrive at trading post on Dejima Island in Nagasaki. In Basho’s time, each year on the first day of March, the Dutch captain “crawled” or made his way in a long procession beating gifts to the Shogun at his castle in Edo near Mt. Tsukuba. Tsukubaru (つくばる) is also an old poetic form meaning to crawl. To “obsequiously come” if one wants to pontificate. Submissive is clearer. Ah, but the shogun too makes his homage to Mt. Tsukuba.

Basho was 35 when this was written. He too had come to Edo a few years earlier, seeking fame if not fortune.

the Dutch Captain,
must come to Mt. Tsukuba
each Spring

the Dutch Captain
comes crawling (to the Shogun)
in Spring

甲比丹も. つくばはせけり . 君が春
kapitan mo . tsukuba wa sekeri . kimi ga haru

— Tosei (Matsuo Basho), Spring 1678

the Dutch captain also甲比丹も. kabitan mo
to Mt. Tsukuba must comeもつくばはせけりTsukuba wa sekeri
each Spring君が春kimi ga haru

Pi Day

apple pie

endless numbers flow,
a circle’s secret message,
Pi enough for all
— Bashō no yōna, Pi Day

Pi (π) is a mathematical representation, approximately 3.14159, of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The sequence of digits do not repeat in any predictable pattern. Thus, Pi is an irrational number, meaning the numbers go on and on to the end of time without ending.

How Dao!

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 …

Interesting facts:

The frequency of numbers will average out the more decimals that appear. Numbers will occasionally repeat consecutively, numbers will appear consecutively. Since the sequence is infinite, every possible combination will appear. Thus, one will see a Fibonacci sequence (“12321” at position 3,632) or a palindrome (“2002” at position 12,563). See the monkey paradox.

Basho was no mathematician. Basho did not focus on numbers. But Basho’s fame comes from his mastery of the haiku. The form is characterized by its 5-7-5 syllable structure.

Basho on numbers. This was written in 1678, the 5th year of the Enpo era, when Basho was 33 or 34 years old. Basho had not yet taken on the name Basho. Rather, his pen name was Tosei meaning “unripe peach.” To support himself he was working for the waterworks department in Edo. His haiku appeared in a work called 江戸 吟三 Edo Sangin, literally meaning Three Hundred Verses from Edo. It is a collection of 300 verses edited by 信徳 (Shintoku) including haiku by Tosei (Basho) and Shinsho (Sodo). It was written in Edo and published in Kyoto.

Kadomatsu —
The New Year’s pine —
To think,
One night feels like thirty years.

門松やおもへは一夜三十年
kadomatsu ya omoeba hitoyo sanjuunen
— Tosei (Matsuo Basho) New Years, 1678

Note. Kadomatsu (門松), literally gate (門) and pine tree (松). It is a New Year’s decoration made of pine, bamboo, and occasionally flowering plum branches. It is placed at the entrance (gate) of the home to welcome the toshigami (年神), the New Year deity, who brings good fortune. What’s in a name? Notice Basho’s family name was Matsuo 松尾.

omoeba (おもへは), I think, to think, in my thoughts. I like to think Basho’s thoughts had something to do with René Descartes (1596 – 1650) or maybe Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) and his Pensées, but that is highly unlikely.

What was Basho thinking?

“The past is prologue,” as Shakespeare said. And what’s to come, one might ask. Basho would literally write the future.

Will this be the year
this unripe peach ripens
in the sun of summer?
Bashō no yōna, 2025

No Bells

The End of March, 2nd year of Genroku, 1689
Kanuma City, Tochigi Prefecture,
Oku no Hosomichi

鐘撞かぬ.里は何をか.春の暮
kane tsukanu . sato wa nani o ka . haru no kure
When no bell rings
What do the villagers do,
— Spring Nightfall

Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, late Spring 1689

What do you do when no bell rings to tell you its sunset?

After leaving Edo, this was Matsuo Basho’s fifth or sixth stop on his five month long journey, Oku no Hosomichi. Bell ringing at dusk is symbolic in the Buddhist religion. The ringing of the bells (or bell,m depending on the wealth of a village and its temple) is to purify the heart of its 108 earthly desires. Each stop, each village bell, on Basho’s journey, one supposes was shedding one earthly desire. At the very least, the bell told the farmers it was time for rest and relaxation.

Basho had not yet gotten to Nikko. Desiring to see Urami Falls, he took a detour. Indeed, he would take many detours along the way.

鐘撞かぬ.里は何をか.春の暮
kane tsukanu . sato wa nani o ka . haru no kure
When no bell rings
What do villagers do,
— Spring Nightfall

The sound of tossing rice

Winter overlooks
this home, for the tossing of rice
is like the sound of sleet

冬知らぬ宿や籾摺る音霰
fuyu shiranu / yado ya momi suru / oto arare

— In the first year of the Tei-Kyō era (1684), Matsuo Basho, age 41.

Let’s trick Mother Nature by tossing rice in a basket while cold sleet pounds the roof.

Preparing rice by tossing it in a basket to remove the husks is a long forgotten task to the modern family. Rice comes in bags ready to cook. In Basho’s time, removing the chaff from the grain would precede tossing the rice in the boiling water. Add to this soothing sound, the happy chatter of the family inside a warm home, and the sound of the cold snow or sleet falling outside, and you have the makings of a warm winter haiku.

Fuyu shiranu — one, winter doesn’t know; winter passes by; three, winter misses; four, invisible to winter. Basho wrote this poem during his journey he called “Nozarashi Kiko.” He was on his way to the Nagao shrine in Katsuragi in Nara, when he stopped at the home of a wealthy family.

rice being tossed in a basket like the sound of hail

It is beginning to snow

It is beginning to snow. How delightful, unless you are a young monk, out on the road, standing in the snow, begging for a coat. It was the fourth year of the Genroku (1691-92), Basho was returning to Edo, saddened, I suspect, for he was not feeling well. Basho was 47 turning 48, and it was beginning to snow.

It is beginning to snow
and the saintly young monk
is the color of his wooden backpack

初雪や .　聖小僧が .　笈の色
Hatsu-yuki ya . Hijiri-kozo ga . Oi no iro
— Matsuo Basho, Winter 1691-92

The Backpack Color
White or red. Two theories on the backpack color. One, the backpack was white from the snow, and the monk was getting pale. Two, the backpack was red (as I have seen online) and the monk’s face was red from the bitter cold.

Kōya Hijiri (高野聖), young monks from Mount Kōya, south of Osaka, who were sent out to preach Buddhism with nothing more than a wooden backpack and bowl to beg for food.

man on horseback in snow, Hiroshige, source Wikipedia

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