Haiku Travels
Tokyo
banana plant in autumn gale
hearing all night
rain leaking into a tub
basho nowaki shite | tarai ni ame wo | kiku yo kana
芭蕉野分して盥に雨を聞く夜かな
In 1680 haikai master Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) moved from Nihonbashi in the bustling center of Edo to a small country house in Fukagawa, in the countryside on the opposite bank of the river. Here he started new haikai activities. Away from the city with its endless rounds of linked verse (renga) sessions where he acted as referee (and which brought in a reasonable income), now he was free to concentrate on his art and bring it to new heights, in a sort of self-imposed exile. Most famous haiku date from this period.
There has been much speculation about where exactly he would have lived, but the general area was that of the present Basho Museum (Basho Kinenkan), so that is a good place to start out tour. The museum's exhibits include calligraphy of Basho's haiku (amongst others by haiku poet Buson); portraits of the poet; an example of the clothes he may have worn when traveling, as well as an ingenious small writing brush with ink pot for use on the road (yatate).
In the garden stand a few haiku stones as well as a miniature copy of Basho's hut. To remain wholly in style, the museum also has plantains (basho) growing against its walls. These refer to the poetical name that Basho assumed after starting to live here: he named himself Basho after the plantain (sometimes also called banana plant) that disciples had planted in the garden of the cottage.
Basho received this plantain in 1681 and was delighted with the gift. He felt empathy with the plantain because of its small and unobtrusive flowers, exuding a certain loneliness, and the soft leaves that were easily torn in wintry storms. Above all, the tree was of no practical use whatsoever - like the poet himself. Basho perhaps thought of the useless tree in a famous anecdote in the Chinese philosophical work Zhuangzi, a tree which was spared the carpenter's axe, and therefore attained a ripe old age.
At night Basho sat alone in his hut, listening to the storm ripping the plantain leaves (a nowaki is in fact a typhoon). On stormy nights the tree was pitiful indeed, shaken by the inclement climate of the northern land where it did not feel at home. The roof of the hut leaked and Basho had placed a basin under the hole to catch the rain drops. The dripping went on all night and strangely mingled with the rustling leaves outside.
Perhaps noting the affinity between poet and tree, visitors started to call the hut Basho-an, or Plantain Hut. The name then also stuck to the poet himself and he was happy with it. For the rest of his life, he would call himself Basho – in contrast to the many different sobriquets he had used before this – and that is how he is known today.
The plantain apparently survived the poet: it was incorporated into a samurai mansion built on the spot of Basho's hut and lived until the early Meiji-period (1868-1912), when it finally withered and died.
The original hut did not survive – in fact, there were three different Basho huts, because fire once took its toll (in 1682) and in 1689 Basho himself moved out on the faraway journey to northern Japan. The third hut, finally, was built near the former site in 1692. When in 1917, after a tsunami hit a ceramic frog was found here that people believed to have been in Basho's possession (I do not know why, except the fact that he wrote a famous frog haiku! The frog stone can be seen in the museum), it was decided that this must have been the location of Basho's hut. Now a small Inari shrine in the usual vermilion color standing between residences and small warehouses occupies the spot just south of the museum. Opposite is a staircase leading to a rooftop garden where you will find a nice Basho statue. The haiku master sits pensively staring at the river, probably contemplating the enormous changes that have taken place here.
[Inari shrine on the purported spot of Basho's hut
(near the Basho Museum)]
plantain leaves
to hang on the pillar
moon in my hut
bashoba wo | hashira ni kaken | io no tsuki
芭蕉葉を柱に懸けん庵の月
There were in fact three 'Basho huts': the first was one built in 1680, when Basho moved from Nihonbashi in the center of Edo to Fukagawa in the countryside on the opposite bank of the river. This hut was destroyed by a fire in 1682. The second one was built soon after that, but sold in 1689 when Basho went on his long trip to the North. The third hut, finally, was built near the former site in 1692.
The present haiku dates from that year, when Basho's disciples replanted the old plantain to the new hut. Why does the poet hang a leaf of the plantain on the pillar of his hut? Perhaps because it reminds him of moon viewing sessions in his old hut: he enjoys seeing the moon shine through the soft and fragile leaves of the plantain, the tree that he loved so much and from which he took his poetic name. After the long trip to the North, he finally feels at home again. But is not the comfort of worldly possessions or attachment to physical comfort that makes him feel at home: it is moonlight seen through a basho leaf...
[The Observation Garden with statue of Basho,
close to the Basho Museum]
Basho Kinenkan (Basho Museum). 10:00-17:00, Closed Mondays, year-end and New Year period. 1-6-3 Tokiwa Koto-ku, Tokyo-to 135. Tel. 03-3631-1448. Access: 5 min. from Kiyosumi-Shirakawa Station on the Oedo line; 7 min. from Morishita Station on the Shinjuku Subway line; 25 min. from Monzen-Nakamachi on the Tozai Subway line; 20 min. from Ryogoku Station on the JR Sobu line. https://www.kcf.or.jp/basho/
Translations and Studies of Basho
Basho's Haiku, 2 vols, by Toshiharu Oseko (1990 & 1996, Maruzen): Basho and his Interpreters, Selected Hokku with Commentary, by Makoto Ueda (1992, Stanford U.P.); Traces of Dreams, Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, by Haruo Shirane (1998, Stanford U.P.); Basho's Narrow Road, by Hiroaki Sato (1996, Stone Bridge Press); Basho's Journey, The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho, by David Landis Bamhill (2005, State University of New York); Basho Yamatoji by Daiyasu Takashi considers Basho's travels in the Nara area and the haiku he wrote there (Izumi Shobo, 1994)
All photos in this post by Ad Blankestijn.