Kanbun year 4, 1664 Matsuo Kinsaku (Basho), age 20 or 21, Kyoto in Spring?
Fading beauty, she blossoms in old age — her memories
姥桜 咲くや 老後の 思い出 uba-sakura saku ya rougo no omoide ubazakura saku ya rougo no omoi-ide
Matsuo Kinsaku (Basho), Spring 1664, age 20 or 21
Notes on Translation
ubazakura (ubasakura) is a particular kind of cherry tree. In Spring, its blossoms appear on leafless branches. It is a metaphor for a woman who is old but still attractive.
uba-sakura (“a faded beauty,” a combination of nursing mother and sakura, cherry blossom) saku (to bloom) ya (emphasis) rougo (old age) no (particle connectining old age and memories) omoide (memory or keepsake)
It had been eight years since our poet (he was not yet called Matsuo Basho) took the momentous step of moving to Edo. Tired of the noise and the crowds, and wanting peace and quiet, he moved to rural Fukagawa, to a simple cottage. There to study and think, to become someone new. The gift of a banana plant (basho) was welcome, but not the silvergrass that grew up alongside it.
by the banana just planted a sign of something disgusting — perhaps silvergrass
ばしょう植ゑてまづ憎む荻の二葉哉 bashō uete mazu nikumu ogi no futaba kana
Matsuo Basho, Fukagawa, Spring 1681
bashō (banana) uete (I planted) mazu (first sign) nikumu (hated, disgusting) ogi (silvergrass) no futaba (sprouting) kana (expressing wonder or puzzlement)
ogi, silvergrass, not the ornamental kind that grows in clumps, but the tall, quickly spreading perennial grass I know as Thompson Grass (other names include knotgrass and eternity grass, because it chokes out other plants and is so hard to get rid of).
By removing himself from the fashionable and noisy Nihonbashi District of Edo, to the remote district of Fukagawa, across the Sumida River, which had yet to be connected to Edo by a bridge. our poet was becoming lonely. He was not married and had no children to distract him. Sure, he had a neighbor, Sora . And there were the steady stream of devoted disciples who crossed the river by boat to get instruction in the art of writing haiku, but, still our poet was without the daily social contact that makes one human.
He read other poets. He studied. One inspiration, the 12th century poet Saigyo, who wandered, was having his effect. Our poet was becoming something, someone else.
But what and who?
The cottage where he lived was the gift of a disciple. So too was a banana plant that our poet planted outside his front door. He watered it, and it took to the soil and the sun, and grew. But in the spring, beside it, there was something emerging.
And one day the poet realized that he was like this banana tree.
Frail and useless, withstanding the sun and rain alike, sometimes battered by the wind, but still there.
Inspired, our poet discarded his old pen name, Tosei, meaning ‘unripe peach.’ After all, he had taken that name, inspired by the Tang poet who inspired him with his short four line verses, Li Bai.
Thus, he emerged from his long slumber and took a new name.
Becoming Matsuo Basho.
Note. Some sources date this haiku to 1680 when our poet first moved to the cottage in Fukagawa. But the move took place late in 1680. In winter.
Winters in Tokyo are sunny but dry, and frost free days don’t come until February. That would be a good time to plant a banana plant. And in March, the hated Silvergrass would appear. Basho’s new cottage was close to the Sumida River, and suitable, if not perfect for the annoying Silvergrass.
let your heart go forth with a flower blossom and one set of begging bowls
この心 . 推せよ花に . 五器一具 kono kokoro / suiseyo hana ni / goki ichigu
Matsuo Basho, Spring, 1692
Basho’s Cottage
By the Spring of 1692, Matsuo Basho was nearing the end of his life. He was, most sources agree, back home in Fukagawa caring for his sick nephew Toin and Toin’s wife. Now and then visitors came by to reminisce. It had been two years since Basho’s own well known journey into Japan’s northern interior (Oku no Hosomichi). Perhaps a friend was following in Basho’s footsteps and this was Basho’s parting gift.
kono kokoru (この心), the English translation may be as simple as an affectionate way of saying “this” or “your heart.”
suiseyeo (推せよ), by itself, 推, has a meaning that is unclear to me, perhaps meaning think, talk, conjecture (Google Translate first says “push”), and せよ, meaning “let us.” Combined with hana, flower, one possibly gets the idea of a monk carrying a lotus flower and his set bowls for his daily meal.
goki ichugu, a set of bowls carried by a monk, one for tea or soup, the other for begging. Goki refers to its deep, flared shape that made it suitable for liquids. Goki, elsewhere implies expressing respect. As ichu means “one” and gu refers to a “tool” or “means to,” ichugu may have the underlying meaning of how to live one’s life, that is, simply, like a monk.
Note. Other translations of this haiku may differ. Sometimes I feel like one of Buddha’s blind men in a tent hearing the words of the haiku (or grabbing parts of an elephant) feeling something different from the rest.
Written in the 8th year of Enpo (延宝8年), 1680, Basho age 37.
The following two haiku were likely written in Edo at a tea ceremony where charcoal is use to heat the tea and charcoal is also use to write down the poems by the participants in a renga party. Multiple puns are employed.
消炭に薪割る音かをのの奥
keshi-zumi | making charcoal ni maki waru oto ka | by splitting wood, the sound of Ono no oku | the back alleys of Ono? (the back of an axe)
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680
keshi-zumi (making coal) ni (by) maki (firewood, compare makiware, an axe for wood cutting) waru (splitting) oto (sound) ka (?) Ono no oku (may refer to Ono 小野, a suburb of Kyoto, Japan, known for its charcoal used in tea ceremonies. Ono is also a homophone for ono 斧, an ax). Oku 奥, back, or deep, as in Oku no hosomichi 奥の細道, the title of Basho’s best known book.
Makiwari, an axe for the wood-chopping.
Maki薪 has two other meanings, other than firewood. In sushi preparation, it can refer to a small segment cut off from a long roll. The charcoal is made from slender oak trees cut into small segments to be used in heating the tea. Maki 槇 may also mean the tip of tree.
Note. Charcoal is made by heating wood in an oxygen starved environment.
Matsuo Basho would follow up this haiku with another haiku about Ono.
小野炭や手習ふ人の灰ぜせり
Ono-zumi ya | with charcoal from Ono! tenarau hito | one learns by to write no hai zeseri | and correct in ashes (gray)
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1680
hai (ashes, but also the color gray) zeseri (correct, one can not only practice writing but correct one’s mistakes). The point of the haiku — one learns by practice. And secondly, that nothing is “black and white.”
Sound of…
Six years later, Matsuo would again use the idea of the “sound of” creating a haiku. This one being about a frog jumping into an old pond, making the sound of water.
古池や蛙飛こむ水のをと
Furu ike ya | an old pond kawazu tobikomu | a frog jumps in mizu no oto | the sound of water
Matsuo Basho, Summer 1686
keshi-zumi | making charcoal, making tea, practice writing and writing poems
You Had to Be There
I confess to reading other translations of Basho’s haiku. This practice provides insight and joy, as variations occur in interpreting the meaning of the phrases Basho uses. In this pair of haiku, I particularly liked Basho’s use of hai, a word that means both ashes and gray. A double meaning reminding us to practice, it can be messy, and remember that not everything is clear.
The Darum Museum Gallery provides a detailed explanation of Matsuo Basho’s haiku. It also reference other uses of the word Ono. For example, Ono no Takamura 小野篁 (802 – 852), a scholar and poet, who practiced his calligraphy in the ashes of his stove.
Another site, Yamanishi-ken gives a concise explanation in Japanese.
There is a saying, “you had to be there,” which is used when telling a story and the one hearing the story doesn’t quite get it. I imagine that is true for many of Basho’s haiku. So here I imagined Basho and his disciples gathering at a tea house in Edo, the capital, watching the tea being prepared in a pot heated with charcoal, the pellets of which might have looked like sushi, or reminded Basho of his younger days in Kyoto (something he like to reminisce about). And being instructive, Confucius-like, he reminded his disciples to practice, practice, practice, as the old joke about Carnegie Hall goes.
Me, I wasn’t there at the tea ceremony, but reading Basho’s haiku gives me a glimmer of what it must have been like.
Buddhist, Shinto, Tao — the question often asked is, what religion did Matsuo Basho follow?
Matsuo Basho studied Buddhism and Buddhist like to claim him for their own, saying he studied under Butcho. And Basho emulated the Buddhist monk Saiygo in his travel and reclusive lifestyle. But that is not to say that he was curious about the world about him. Often he visited Shinto shrines as well as Buddhist ones.
古人の跡をもと めず、古人の求たる所を.もとめよ kojin no ato wo motomezu, kozjin no motometaru tokoro wo motomeyo
“Don’t follow in the footsteps of the old masters’ footsteps, seek what they sought.” Basho said.
Funny thing, it appears Basho borrowed this from an older friend, Kōbō-Daishi (774-835), and (in 1693) imparted it to his disciple Kyoriku, in what has come down to us as “Words of Farewell to Kyoriku.” All this is out there, in books and online.
This makes it more Confucian like, for one needs to learn. Basho’s advice on how to learn might go like this:
Travel widely, While carrying as little as you can Write down a word or two
Bashō no yōna, 2024
And then go back.
Leaving us back at the beginning of the circle, Tao-like. Finding, that if you walk long enough, one day, to your surprise, you’ll find yourself among the very wise. And even if you don’t, you’ll have fun from the beginning to the end.
One can find many of these ideas expressed in Toshiharu Oseko’s book, Basho’s Haiku.
Note. It was Kyoriku who provided the cottage on Lake Biwa for Basho’s retreat after Oku no Hosomichi, the Journey into the Northern Interior. In that, there is another lesson.
From the Nozarashi kiko (1684-1685), the year after his mother died. From Edo, along the Tokaido Road, home to Iga, then to Nagoya, on the road to Nara, Basho chanted verse to himself, as we all like to do when we walk alone.
年暮れぬ . 笠きて草鞋 . はきながら Toshi kurenu . kasa kite waraji . haki nagara The year is fading, wearing a hat and straw sandals, while aspiring to keep it together
Matsuo Basho, Nozarashi kikō, New Year, 1685
toshi (year) kurenu (getting dark, fading) kasa (covering hat, often made of bamboo) kite waraji (straw sandals) haki (can mean drive or ambition) nagara (while, simultaneously)
Maybe Basho’s student is aspiring to find a little more meaning in an otherwise straight forward haiku. Most transalators do no better than to say,
“Another year is gone, and I still wear a bamboo hat and straw sandals.”
Americans have a saying “squeeze the lemon” which can mean getting the last ounce of goodness out of something. A pejorative twist is to get everything you can from another person, for good or bad. And then sometimes, when you squeeze a lemon all you get is lemon juice, meaning “that’s it.”
Bashō no yōna often thinks there is more to a haiku, and there isn’t.
The Lunar New Year this year comes February the 10th. It will be the year of the dragon, which I suppose is something. And if you are born this year then you are naturally lucky and gifted.
Squeeze the lemon All you get is lemon juice . easy peasy lemon squeezy that was easy . mi kasa y su kasa make two kasa
氷苦く偃鼠が咽をうるほせり kōri nigaku . enso ga nodo o . uruoseri Ice is bitter, in a rat’s mouth, but it quenches his thirst. Ice that’s bitter, in a rat’s mouth, just enough to shut him up
Matsuo Basho, Winter 1683
Shut up, uru sei
Most translators are happy to let the rat quench his throat with the bitter taste of ice. A second interpretation is that it makes him ‘shut up’. Uru sei (うるせい) and Uru oseri (うるほせり) being the slight distinction. Of course, For Basho, it is winter, bitterly cold and he is trying to get some sleep. A noisy rat needs to shut up.
Winter of 1683
The year 1683 was bitter for Matsuo Basho, whose mother died earlier that year. His beloved Basho-an, his hut in Fukagawa, had burned down the previous winter, but friends had found him a new one. One no doubt he was getting used to, accompanied by the river rats. (Basho lived near the Sumida River.)
No doubt, also on his mind was that, in the Japanese zodiac, the year to come, February 15, 1684, to be exact was the year of the Rat.
2024
The year 2024 is the year of the Dragon, almost half way in to 12 year cycle that makes up the Chinese and Japanese zodiac. The Rat begins again the cycle.
Gentle Reader, in case you are curious, today, for those born under the Rat sign things look fabulous — despite the bitterly cold weather sweeping the land.
Please, will someone let the weatherman know.
Notes on Translation
kōri (water) nigaku (bitter) enso (rat, mouse) ga nodo (rat’s mouth) o uruoseri (quench, satisfy). Uru sai literally means noisy or annoying, but is often used to get someone to shut up. Being a non-native student of Japanese, I come up with ‘get satisfied’ for uro oseri うるほせり.
Last year, first news Genroku, 7th year,1694 New Year’s Feast at Edo
The news is not good in Edo. It is cold. His sick nephew Toin, who he had taken in, had died of tuberculosis, and Basho is alone in his cottage. Basho himself is dealing with recurring stomach problems. At a New Year’s gathering, Basho wants to hear of the news at the Grand Shrine at Ise.
In the summer of 1694, Basho would leave his cottage for the last time. He would die in November.
At a New Year’s Feast I want to hear The first news at Ise
蓬莱に聞かばや伊勢の初便り hōrai ni kika baya Ise no hatsu dayori
Matsuo Basho, Edo, New Year 1694
Grand Shrine of Ise
Matsuo Basho visited the Grand Shrine at Ise many times. This is not surprising since the Buddhist shrine is in Mie province, near to Iga-Ueno where Basho was born. On the New Year the shrine is particularly popular with visitors and the news would be buzzing about.
hōrai (a New Year’s feast) ni (a participle to indicate location); kika hear, ask, listen; baya (want) Ise (Grand Shrine of Ise) no (participle connecting Ise with the New Year tidings) hatsu dayori (hatsu, first time, and dayori, news of tidings, New Year’s news or tidings)
Horai. A paradise based upon the Chinese Penglai. In Horai there is no death, no pain, and there is no winter. Horai also refers to the New Year’s banquet.
Fukagawa, Basho-an, his cottage, Year 8 of the Enpo era, 1680 Basho 37 years old
If the rich eat fine cuts of meat and the poor, radishes, then Basho has a treat this week, dried salmon.
雪の朝 独リ干鮭を噛み得タリ yuki no ashita / hitori karazake o / kami e tari
A snowy morning here by myself chewing dried salmon.
Matsuo Basho, near Christmas, 1680
yuki (snow) no (particle with many uses) ashita (morning) / hitori (alone) karazake (dried salmon) o (particle, on) / kami e tari (able to bite, chewing)
My powers of translation are extremely limited. I wonder if there is not something more at play here. 噛み kami is chew. It is a homophone with 神, meaning a deity or God. 得 which forms part of e tari hints at obtaining something of benefit. If Basho is referring to fresh salmon, smoked and dried, he is talking about Sockeye salmon that runs from November to December.
The dried salmon, no matter how dry, is a treat.
Today, salmon are released into the Sumida River that borders Fukagawa where Basho had his cottage.
Merry Christmas
If there is a Christmas haiku for Matsuo Basho, this one comes close.
I do not always refer to the Era names in identifying the date of the haiku. Era names are created based on a significant event. This one was great fire in Kyoto. And the era name, Enpo, meant ‘prolonged wealth,’ the hope that after the fire prosperity would come. The era lasted 8 years. Then the shogun died and a new one was chosen. And Matsuo Basho moved from Edo, the capital, to Tokugawa, to be alone.
Salmon, grilled with rosemary and marjoram, image by robsonmelo
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