hydrangea – matsuo-basho-haiku

Ajisai, Hydrangeas
Edo,
May of Genroku 7, 1694

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.

Ajisai, 紫陽草

It is August in the Midwest, my hydrangeas (ajisai) are spent, wilting in the afternoon sun, the colors fading, the once stunning and colorful flowers now withered and dry. Until the Edo Period, the Samurai saw this perennial flower as a symbol of immortality, but the changing colors and wilting flowers made them less favored. Matsuo Basho took up the hydrangea twice. The second time was in the summer of 1694, just before he made his very last trip.

hydrangeas —
it’s time for summer clothes
in pale blue
紫陽草や帷子時の薄浅黄
ajisai ya katabira-doki no usu asagi
Matsuo Basho, undated, Summer

ajisai (hydrangea) ya (exclamation) katabira (a thin kimono for mornings or summer wear) doki no (of) usu (thin) asagi (pale blue).

Note. Asagi-iro, 浅葱色 means pale blue. Basho uses the characters 薄浅黄, which Google Translate interprets as usu-asaki, ‘pale yellow.’ Not sure why the discrepancy exists.

hydrangea —
a little thicket in my garden,
another sitting room

紫陽草や薮を小庭の別座敷
ajisai ya yabu-o koniwa no betsu zashiki
Matsuo Basho, Edo, Fukagawa, Summer 1694

ajisai (hydrangeas) ya (exclamation) yabu-o (thicket, a homophone for one who dabbles in Zen meditation, used as the direct object in the haiku) koniwa (small garden) no (of) betsu (separate) zashiki (tatami room, sitting room)

The Summer of 1694

Basho left Edo and his simple cottage in Fukagawa for the last time in the summer of 1694.

In 1691, his nephew Toin joined him at the cottage, and it is likely Toin’s wife, Jutei and four children were there as well. This and the many guest who came to visit created the need for a detached sitting room (tatami).