karasu – matsuo-basho-haiku

Upon a withered branch
A crow has stopped this
Autumn evening

Kareeda ni/ Karasu no tomarikeri/ Aki no kure

枯枝に烏のとまりけり秋の暮

detail of image by Kawanabe Kyōsa (1831 – 1889)

Autumn 1680

Matsuo Bashō has by the autumn of 1680 now achieved fame. Moreover, he has just moved from Edo across the Sumida River to the Fukagawa neighborhood where he lives in a simple hut with a new banana tree, a gift from a student. A bridge had yet to be built across the river.

At the age of 36 Bashō was experiencing what we would call a Mid-Life crisis, he was cut off, dissatisfied, and lonely. In a couple of years he would begin his epic journey to the North. But for now, he took up the practice of Zen meditation, but it seems not to have calmed his mind.

This haiku has more than 30 published and hundreds of online translations. Why so many variations? Why so many attempts?

Zen

The answer, I suppose, lies in Zen’s ineffability. For Zen’s essence is to understand directly Life’s Meaning, without being misled by language. Life is what we view directly, no more, no less.

Bashō sees a crow perched upon a withered branch. It is autumn, more precisely, an autumn evening as the dusk settles in and darkness descends. The air is still or perhaps there is a gentle breeze. Then a crow stops upon a withered branch. Its crow and tree become one color against the ever deepening blue of the evening sky.

Bashō, like the crow, stops for a moment. And in that suspended moment this haiku is formed.

The Crow, 烏, Karasu

Do I need to say that the crow is a bad omen? In Japan, there is a belief that if a crow settles on the roof of a house and begins cawing, a funeral will soon follow. Did the gloomy Bashō foresee his own death? Did Basho in his own unique way presage Yates who wrote, “An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick.” Is there not a little of Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven to be heard tapping at one’s door?

A melancholy thought, for which I have little to add other than that I love the repetition of the “k” throughout the haiku which must bring to mind the cawing that Bashō must have heard.

Notes

I see that I watched this crow stopping on his withered branch before, September 19, 2019.
For the semantically punctilious, much depends on the translation of とまりけり, tomarikeri. Perched, alighted, arrested are all possibilities. “Stopped” seems best to me.
For an academic discussion of various English translations, see A CROW ON A BARE BRANCH: A COMPARISON OF MATSUO BASHŌ’S HAIKU “KARE-EDA-NI…” AND ITS ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, by Elin Sütiste of Tartu University in Estonia.

A haiku about nothing

Before there was Jerry Seinfeld, there was Matsuo Basho. Jerry Seinfeld was an American comedian who made observational humor. He had a long-running television show, whose moniker was, ” a show about nothing”, where the nothings consisted of the daily doings of Jerry and his friends. These events somehow became funny.

Like Seinfeld, Basho’s haiku often concerned everyday events that in one way or another took on meaning.

This poem was written in 1691, at Gichu-ji, a Tendai temple in Otsu on Lake Biwa, where Basho often stayed in a cottage called Mumyo-an, “Nameless Hut”. Basho was there with Mizuta Masahide, and with little to do replied to a friend who had written him a letter.

“Yesterday, it snowed and was terribly cold. I was in my hut and so, did not go anywhere. Then I had this thought. ‘Normally, a black crow is a detestable thing, but what about on a snowy morning?'”

About the Image

“Snowy Morning from Koishikawa” (Koishikawa yuki no ashita), circa 1830, by Katsushika Hokusai, 葛飾北斎, from the series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)”. This image may be found at the Art Institute of Chicago and elsewhere.

Tag: karasu

A Crow Upon a Withered Branch