Tag: Melons

Becoming and Speaking

Matsuo Basho’s thoughts on writing poetry were simple:

松の事は松に習へ、竹の事は竹に習へ
Matsu no koto wa matsu ni narae, take no koto wa take ni narae

a pine trees as a thing, be a pine tree,
for bamboo as a thing,
be bamboo

At the same time, Basho warned his students:

我に似るなふたつに割れし真桑瓜
ware ni niru na futatsu ni ware shi makuwauri

Don’t mirror me
like two halves
of a melon.

Basho’s student, Doho, gave us this Tao-like thought:


造花にしたがい、造花にかへれとなり
zoka ni shitagai, zoka ni kaere to nari!

to make a flower, submit and obey,
to make a flower
go back and become!

from Doho’s “San-Zoshi,” explaining Basho’s poetical teachings

Speaking

This fits in nicely with advice I was once given on public speaking

When talking to an audience
Pause, then
Speak from the heart

This did not always work. For fear always lurks nearby. In case of panic, the advice is “curl your toes” this distracts and unfreezes your mind. It works.

Becoming Basho was a long process. He was for a long time, Tosei, an unripe peach. A move to Edo, a trip across the Sumida River to Fukagawa, a simple cottage, cold nights, loneliness, a gift of a banana plant, in time, a basho tree weathering the storms.

Notes on Translation

Matsu, a pine tree. There is a well known haiku, that goes Matsushima, Matsushima, Matsushima, Ah! This was, supposedly, Matsuo Basho’s exclamation on arriving at Matsushima, considered to be one of Japan’s most beautiful spots. (Basho visited here on the Oku no Hosomichi, the Journey to the Northern Interior.)

koto, thing.

zoka 造花, make a flower; shitagai, submit, obey.

kaere, go back, return; nari, to be, become: go back and become

ware, me; niru, resemble, look like, mirror

futatsu, two

makuwauri, oriental melon

You Be You

Being You

Your English teacher told you, your mother told you, no doubt, you’ve heard it a thousand times, a thousand ways,

“Be yourself and nobody else.”

Be yourself
everyone else
is already taken

Oscar Wilde, 19th c. Irish playwright and poet

The five month long journey into Japan’s northern interior, a trip that one day will become Oku no Hosomichi is over. Matsuo Basho will now spend his time editing his notes and haiku. A restful trip to Lake Biwa and the Ishiyama temple breaks up the monotony. Students still seek his advice.

don’t copy me,
like the second half
of a split melon!

我に似るなふたつに割れし真桑瓜
ware ni niru na futatsu ni wareshi makuwauri

Matsuo Basho, Summer, 1690

makuwa uri 真桑瓜, a sweet melon like a musk melon or cantaloupe.

Ecclesiastics says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” And English teachers say, “It has all been said, it is how you say it that makes the difference.”

Isn’t it ironic,
a translator saying,
“don’t copy me.”

Bashō no yōna
makuwa uri 真桑瓜, a sweet melon