The Garden by Ezra Pound (United States, 1916)

The Garden

Ezra Pound

                                                                                    En robe de parade.  
                                                                                    Samain.

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
⁠of a sort of emotional anæmia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like someone to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
⁠will commit that indiscretion.

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885-1972) was an American poet, critic, translator and publisher. He was one of the most important figures of the Modernist movement in the first half of the 20th century, and he exerted a large influence on writers active in that period.

From 1908 Pound made Europe his permanent home. After working briefly as a guide in Gibraltar and publishing a book in Venice, he went to live in London, where he worked as the London correspondent for Poetry Magazine and was among the first to review the work of Robert Frost and D.H. Lawrence. In 1924 he moved to Italy. Pound became a controversial figure because of his support of Mussolini in the 1930s and during the war years. This is cited as the reason why he never won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Pound is well-known for his interest in Japanese and Chinese literature and culture. Cathay (1915) is a collection of classical Chinese poetry translated into modernist English poetry based on Ernest Fenollosa's notes that came into Pound's possession in 1913. Until Pound's time, English translations were made on rhyme, which forced the translators to divert much further than Pound did from the Chinese originals; after Pound, renderings in blank or free verse became the norm (and still are). Of course, there is a good reason why Imagist poets reworked Chinese and Japanese poetry: East Asian lyrical poetry is based on images and not on rhetoric or reasoning as is so much of Western poetry. Everyone knows Pound's Imagist haiku "In a Station of the Metro": The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.

"The Garden" was written during WWI, a convulsion which would completely change Europe. It formed in every sense the true end of the 19th c. and brought immense social change - and that is what Pound ironically addresses in this poem. Kensington Gardens is the western extension of Hyde Park in the fashionable neighborhood of Kensington. Pound contrasts a wealthy and emotionally blocked woman from the dying upper-class, with the filthy but strong and vigorous children of the poor she sees playing in the park. He concludes that these children will own the future, not the bored upper-class which has ruled so far but which is bound by antiquated customs. The social change of the early 20th c. is made tangible in just 12 lines of poetry!

Source: From Lustra, 1916. Wikisource, Public Domain.

Photos:
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lyric Poetry Around the World Index

The Taxi by Amy Lowell (1914, United States)

The Taxi

Amy Lowell

When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

[Amy Lowell, c. 1916]

The American poet and critic Amy Lawrence Lowell (1874-1925) was one of the leading figures in the Imagist movement. Lowell was born into a prominent Boston family. She was the sister of the later astronomer Percival Lowell and of Abott-Lawrence Lowell, who became rector of Harvard University. She herself did not follow a university education (as that was not deemed proper for women at the time), but read a lot, to the point of obsessiveness. She traveled widely, also for a long time through Europe. In 1910 she published her first poems and in 1912 her first collection: A Dome of Many-Colored Glass. Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914) was her second book of poems.

Together with her life partner, former actress Ada Dwyer Russell, she traveled to England in 1912 and became friends with Ezra Pound. She joined his Imagist movement, which she also supported financially. While her first collection was still fairly traditional, her later poetry would be more modernist in character under the influence of Pound.

The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. They emphasized the use of precise, sharp images as a means of poetic expression, and strove for precision in their choice of words. The poet was given the freedom in the choice of subject and form and should preferably use colloquial language. Most of the Imagist poets wrote in free verse, using stylistic tools such as assonance and alliteration rather than formal metric schemes to structure their poetry.

As well as being a poet, Lowell was also known as an imposing, self-confident personality and as an advocate for women's rights. She was constantly overweight and smoked big cigars. In 1925 she died of a heart attack, aged 51. In 1926 she was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Interestingly, like Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell was deeply interested in Chinese and Japanese culture, and she wrote many paraphrases of poems from those countries, for example in Pictures of the Floating World (1919) and in Fir-Flower Tablets (1921).

[Ada Dwyer Russell]

The poem cited above is one of the love poems Lowell addressed to Ada Dwyer Russell. Others include "Absence", "A Lady In a Garden", and "Madonna of the Evening Flowers." Lowell's poems about Russell have been called the most elegant lesbian love poetry written since Sappho (see "Equal to the Gods").

Cited from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed by Amy Lowell (1914), at Gutenberg.org. This book is in the public domain.

Photos:
Amy Lowell: Houghton Library, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Ada Dwyer Russell: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Advice to the Good Traveler from Steles by Victor Segalen (1912-1914)

Advice to the Good Traveler

Victor Segalen

translation Ad Blankestijn

Town at the end of the road and road extending the town: therefore do not choose one or the other, but take one and the other by turns.

Mountain encircling your gaze confines and contains what the round plain sets free. Love to jump rocks and steps; but caress the flagstones where the foot falls flat.

Rest from sound in silence, and, from silence, deign to return to sound. Alone if you can, if you know how to be alone, sometimes pour yourself into the crowd.

Be careful not to choose a refuge. Do not believe in the virtue of a lasting virtue: break it with some strong spice that burns and bites and even gives a taste to blandness.

Thus, without stopping or stumbling, without halter and without stable, without rewards or punishments, you will arrive, no not, friend, at the swamp of immortal joys,

But at the intoxicating eddies of the great River of Diversity.



Conseils au bon voyageur

Ville au bout de la route et route prolongeant la ville : ne choisis donc pas l'une ou l'autre, mais l'une et l'autre bien alternées.

Montagne encerclant ton regard le rabat et le contient que la : plaine ronde libère. Aime à sauter roches et marches ; mais caresse les dalles où le pied pose bien à plat.

Repose-toi du son dans le silence, et, du silence, daigne revenir au son. Seul si tu peux, si tu sais être seul, déverse-toi parfois jusqu'à la foule.

Garde bien d'élire un asile. Ne crois pas à la, vertu d’une vertu durable : romps-la de quelque forte épice qui brûle et morde et donne un goût même à la fadeur.

Ainsi, sans arrêt ni faux pas, sans licol et sans étable, sans mérites ni peines, tu parviendras, non point, ami, au marais des joies immortelles,

Mais aux remous pleins d'ivresses du grand fleuve Diversité.

[Victor Segalen]

Victor Segalen (1878-1919) was a French writer, physician, archaeologist and ethnologist. Segalen was born in Brest and studied medicine in Bordeaux. He became a naval physician and traveled to Polynesia (1903-1905) and China (1909-14 and 1917). He conducted archaeological research during his travels through China. During the First World War he served as a doctor in France at the front until he became seriously ill. He suffered from increasing depression during the last years of his life, something connected to his use of opium. He died during a lonely walk in the woods of Huelgoat, not far from his Breton birthplace. It has never been determined whether his death was an accident or suicide. Shakespeare's Hamlet was found open next to his body.

[Steles in China, photographed by Segalen]

In 1912, Segalen published in Beijing the collection Stèles, a series of prose poems, inspired by his contact with Chinese civilization. Steles (in Chinese shibei, in Japanese sekihi) are stone plaques, mounted on a plinth, raised towards the sky and bearing an inscription. They can be grave memorials (steles often stood near graves of important people), texts honoring individuals or events, historical inscriptions, or poems. They did not have any practical function (such as pointing the way). In the late second century, also the Chinese Classics were inscribed on steles to keep them unchanged for posterity, and Confucian temples often had a courtyard completely filled with steles ("a forest of steles"). 

Segalen was a unique writer because he left exoticism and Orientalism far behind him - his work fits a new postcolonial interpretation. Segalen was truly interested in Chinese civilization. However, his Steles are not translations of Chinese texts - rather, they are new French texts that have been inspired by ancient Chinese prose. The style Segalen uses imitates Chinese inscriptions, but the contents belong to Segalen and his personal life and thought. Steles is truly an original work.

The poem translated above end on an important theme for Segalen: that of the transformative power of diversity.

Besides Steles, Segalen's work includes an novel set in China (Rene Leys, 1922), and the important Essay on Exoticism: An Aesthetics of Diversity.

P.S. The life and work of the Dutch poet J. Slauerhoff was in many ways comparable to that of Segalen.

Full original text of Steles at French Wikisource (as the author died in 1919, Steles is in the public domain)

A full English translation is available as Stèles (Wesleyan Poetry Series, 2007) translated and annotated by Timothy Billings & Christopher Bush.

Segalen's novel Simon Leys has been translated by J.A. Underwood in New York Review Books (preface by Ian Buruma).


Photos public domain from Wikipedia.

 

Lyric Poetry Around the World Index

The Suicide by Piet Paaltjens (The Netherlands, 1867)

The Suicide

Piet Paaltjens (The Netherlands, 1867)

Translation by Ad Blankestijn

In the depths of the woods
     - 't was in autumn and cold -
A gentleman wandered alone.
     Oh, his eye looked so dim!
     And his suit was so foul!
And like a millstone his teeth kept grinding.

     "Harriot!" so cried he quite mad,
     "A viper I've hatched,
No, worse, a dragon I've hugged at my bosom! "
     And he hit at his coat,
     And stepped in a puddle;
Splashing in the mud which nearly stained his collar.

     And forthwith his gaze sought
     a branch in an oak,
Enough strong to carry his weight.
     Then he took a noose
     Out of his pouch, and stuck his neck into it.
Soon he couldn't splash anymore.

     The forest fell still
     And ten times as cold,
Because wintertime came. And meanwhile
     Always hung on his branch,
     Quite at ease,
That gentleman, shocking the sparrows.

     And winter went
     Because spring appeared,
To give way to summer again.
     Then came strolling - 't was hot -
     A lover's pair armed
Through the wood. Would they be stunned!

     Because, while they, softly
     hugging, came walking along with the thought:
"Under that oak is a good spot to kiss",
     Came a boot from the man,
     Who was hanging up there,
Flying off his rotten left leg.

     "My goodness! From where
     Came that boot? ” cried the pair,
Looking up to see what was up there.
     And they saw to their shock
     That man, once so fat,
Now gnawed to a skeleton bare.

     On his graying head
     His hat still stood tall,
But the border was gone. And his linen
     Was frayed and gray.
     Through a hole in his sleeve
Spiders, ants, even worms looked out.

     His watch had stopped,
     and one glass from his glasses
Was broken, the other fogged up.
     On the edge of a pocket
    of his vest sat a snail,
A slimy snail silently gnawing.

     In an instant the urge
to make love disappeared
With the pair. Not a word dared they speak.
     From fright they turned as white
     as a sheet, for a day long
bleached on the lawn.

 

 
In het diepst van het woud
     - 't Was al herfst en erg koud -
Liep een heer in zijn eentje te dwalen.
     Och, zijn oog zag zoo dof!
     En zijn goed zat zoo slof!
En hij tandknerste, als was hij aan 't malen.

     "Harriot!" dus riep hij verwoed,
     "'k Heb een adder gebroed,
Neen, erger, een draak aan mijn borst hier!"
     En hij sloeg op zijn jas,
     En hij trapte in een plas;
't Spattend slik had zijn boordjes bemorst schier.

     En meteen zocht zijn blik
     Naar een eiketak, dik
Genoeg om zijn lichaam te torschen.
     Daarna haalde hij een strop
     Uit zijn zak, hing zich op,
En toen kon hij zich niet meer bemorsen.

     Het werd stil in het woud
     En wel tienmaal zo koud,
Want de wintertijd kwam. En intusschen
     Hing maar steeds aan zijn tak,
     Op zijn doode gemak,
Die mijnheer, tot verbazing der musschen.

     En de winter vlood heen,
     Want de lente verscheen,
Om opnieuw voor den zomer te wijken.
     Toen dan zwierf - 't was erg warm -
     Er een paar arm in arm
Door het woud. Maar wat stond dát te kijken!

     Want, terwijl het, zoo zacht
     Koozend, voortliep en dacht:
Hier onder deez' eik is 't goed vrijen,
     Kwam een laars van den man,
     Die daar boven hing, van
Zijn reeds lang verteerd linkerbeen glijen.

     "Al mijn leven! van waar
     Komt die laars?" riep het paar,
En werktuigelijk keek het naar boven.
     En daar zag het met schrik
     Dien mijnheer, eens zo dik
En nu tot een geraamte afgekloven.

     Op zijn grijzende kop
     Stond zijn hoed nog rechtop,
Maar de rand was er af. Al zijn linnen
     Was gerafeld en grauw.
     Door een gat in zijn mouw
Blikten mieren en wurmen en spinnen.

     Zijn horloge stond stil,
     En één glas van zijn bril
Was kapot en het ander beslagen.
     Op den rand van een zak
     Van zijn vest zat een slak,
Een erg slijmrige slak, stil te knagen.

     In een wip was de lust
     Om te vrijen gebluscht
Bij het paar. Zelfs geen woord dorst het te spreken.
     't Zag van schrik zóó spierwit
     Als een laken, wen dit
Reeds een dag op het gras ligt te bleeken.

"Piet Paaltjens" (a funny name in Dutch) is the pen name under which François Haverschmidt (1835-1894) wrote his "light verse." In daily life he was a Dutch minister, having studied Calvinist theology at Leiden University, and by using this pseudonym, he kept his serious prose works and sermons separate from his frivolous poetry. In Dutch literature, the 19th c. was the century of the "minister-poets", who are now of course unreadable, but the only exception is Haverschmidt exactly because he didn't write serious verse. His poetry has been written in the light, humorous verse tradition of student magazines (where he indeed debuted). 

 

Especially the above poem is rather cruel and sardonic. Unfortunately, Haverschmidt himself was plagued by depressions and in 1894, a few years after the death of his wife, he ultimately committed suicide. What seems funny to us, may have been inspired by pure despair...

"The Suicide" was published in the collection "Snikken en grimlachjes", in the public domain and available at the website of DBNL (in Dutch).

Snikken en grimlachjes at Project Laurens Jz Coster.

Dutch website about Piet Paaltjens

Lyric Poetry Around the World Index

 

 

 

Sickbed Snowfall by Masaoka Shiki (Japanese Poetry)

Shiki: Sickbed Snowfall

Four haiku

translated by Ad Blankestijn

it is snowing!
I see it through a hole
in the paper door

yuki furu yo | shoji no ana o | mite areba

雪ふるよ障子の穴を見てあれば



again and again
I ask how deep
the snow has gotten

ikutabi mo | yuki no fukasa o | tazunekeri

いくたびも雪の深さを訊ねけり



all I can think of
is that I am lying
in a house in the snow

yuki no ie ni | nete iru to omou | bakari nite

雪の家に寢て居ると思ふばかりにて



open the paper doors
let me take a look at
the snow of Ueno

shoji akeyo | Ueno no yuki o | hitome min

障子明けよ上野の雪を一目見ん

[Shiki, by Nakamura Fusetsu]

Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) in his short life single-handedly brought the genres of haiku and tanka into modern age. He wrote 20,000 haiku and is regarded is one of the Great Four, together with Basho, Buson and Issa. Shiki was born in Matsuyama, but later moved to Tokyo. Shiki turned haiku into a legitimate literary genre and argued that haiku should be judged by the same yardstick that is used when measuring the value of other forms of literature — something that was contrary to views held by prior haiku practitioners. His particular style rejected "the puns or fantasies often relied on by the old school" in favor of "realistic observation of nature". Like other Meiji period writers, Shiki was influenced by the dedication to realism in Western literature.

Shiki's achievements are all the more remarkable considering that he suffered from tuberculosis much of his life. In 1888 / 1889 he began coughing up blood and soon adopted the pen-name "Shiki" from the Japanese "hototogisu", the lesser cuckoo, as it was thought that this bird coughs blood as it sings. Shiki's early tuberculosis worsened after he went to China as a war correspondent in 1895. He continued to cough blood throughout his return voyage to Japan and was hospitalized in Kobe (read the haiku he wrote while recovering in Suma).

[Shiki, self-portrait]

After being discharged, he returned to his home town Matsuyama and convalesced in the home of the famed novelist Natsume Soseki. During this time he took on disciples and promulgated a style of haiku that emphasized gaining inspiration from personal experiences of nature. In 1897 a member of his group established a haiku magazine which was called Hototogisu after Shiki's pen name - a magazine which today still is going strong.

In Tokyo Shiki worked as haiku editor for the newspaper Nippon. Bedridden by 1897, Shiki's disease worsened further around 1901. He developed Pott's disease and began using morphine as a painkiller. During this time Shiki wrote diaries and other autobiographical works, as Bokuju itteki, "A drop of ink," and Byosho rokushaku, "The 6 foot long sickbed." He died of tuberculosis in 1902 at age 34.

Snow was something special for Shiki as in his native Matsuyama it rarely snowed, so he is as excited as a child about the white world he can see from his sickbed.

Translations and studies:
Masaoka Shiki, Selected Poems, by Burton Watson (Columbia U.P.);
The Winter Sun Shines in: A Life of Masaoka Shiki, by Donald Keene (Columbia U.P.);
Masaoka Shiki: His Life and Works, by Janine Beichman (Kodansha International);
Masaoka, Shiki, Songs from a Bamboo Village: Selected Tanka from Take no Sato Uta, translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda, Tuttle, 1998
If Someone Asks..., Masaoka Shiki's Life and Haiku, Matsuyama Municipal Shiki-Kinen Museum.

e-texts of Shiki's works (Japanese) at Aozora bunko

In Matsuyama is an interesting Shiki Memorial Museum,


Photos: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Japanese Poetry Index

'Round my Old Dwelling Poplars Stand by J.H. Leopold (The Netherlands, 1897)

'Round my old dwelling poplars stand

J.H. Leopold (The Netherlands, 1897)

translation: Ad Blankestijn

Around my old dwelling poplars stand,
"My love, my love, where have you gone"
a narrow lane
of soggy leaves, the fall is coming.

It's raining, raining as if you hear
"My love, my love, where have you gone"
and on and on
without a break, the wind becomes mute.

The house is empty and full of gloom
"My love, my love, where have you gone"
a whisper sounds
up in the attic, under the rafters.

There lives a man bent deeply low
"My love, my love, where have you gone"
with hollow eyes
who cannot find peace and rest.


Om mijn oud woonhuis peppels staan
‘mijn lief, mijn lief, o waar gebleven’
een smalle laan
van natte blaren, het vallen komt.

Het regent, regent eender te hooren
‘mijn lief, mijn lief, o waar gebleven’
en altijd door en
den treuren uit, de wind verstomt.

Het huis is hol en vol duisternis
‘mijn lief, mijn lief, o waar gebleven’
gefluister is
boven op zolder, het dakgebint.

Er woont er een voorovergebogen
‘mijn lief, mijn lief, o waar gebleven’
met leege oogen
en die zijn vrede en rust niet vindt.

[J.H. Leopold]

Jan Hendrik Leopold (1865–1925) was a Dutch poet and classicist. Leopold was born at 's-Hertogenbosch. In early 1892, he moved to Rotterdam, where he became a teacher of classical languages at the Erasmian High School. The same year he received his doctorate in Leiden. He was friends with his student Ida Gerhardt, who as a poetess and teacher of classical languages followed in his footsteps.

Leopold's oeuvre is not very large and according to some rather hermetic in character. One of his most famous works is the poem "Cheops", which is also one of the most famous works of modern Dutch book printing. Leopold was also a translator of works by Sophocles. He translated portions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into Dutch.

I especially like the above poem, because it strikes me as a sort of 'ghost  story.' Leopold seems to be conjuring up a house with an apparition for us here - although I don't know if that is an officially recognized interpretation. Yet, especially in the second half of the poem, the ghost story elements seem clear enough: the whispers in the attic, the (cracking of) the roof trusses (rafters) and above all: the 'hollow eyes' and the announcement that the person who lives here can not find peace and rest. Do we have the tragic situation of a wandering ghost here? Is the situation of the poem that someone has entered his old (or former) home, and that he thinks he hears the words "My love, my love, where have you gone?" Or perhaps he speaks them in his own mind?

The quotation marks seem to indicate that the "I" implied in the first line hears a voice, either as a result of talking to itself, or as a manifestation of an inward "other". In the second couplet, it is the murmur of the rain in which he hears what controls his thoughts. In the third couplet the whispering in the attic may be caused by "another" presence - a ghost?

All in all, both possibilities remain open: either there is a second - shadowy - character present in the poem, or this second character is an aspect of the grief-torn interior of the poet. The second character haunts the spirit of the first (the poet), as the first visits the old dwelling of both of them.  One could almost say: the dead seeks the living, the living "haunts" the dead. 

 

By the way, one could also think of the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw at the beginning of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. (The above thoughts about the poem were inspired by Wiel Kusters, "Aantekeningen over Leopold" in De Gids (https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_gid001198201_01/_gid001198201_01_0064.php).
 

Another situational reading which is purely my own is that the poet/narrator has killed his beloved and now - full of guilt and remorse - returns to their former dwelling where the murder has taken place - only to be greeted by her ghost...

 

Besides the above poem, the following short one by Leopold is also famous in the Netherlands:

 

Oh, when dead, when dead I will be
then come and whisper, whisper something sweet
my pale eyes I will lift
and I will not be surprised.

And I will not be surprised;
in this love, death will be
only a sleeping, sleeping assured
a waiting for you, a waiting.


O, als ik dood zal, dood zal zijn
kom dan en fluister, fluister iets liefs
mijn bleeke oogen zal ik opslaan
en ik zal niet verwonderd zijn.

En ik zal niet verwonderd zijn;
in deze liefde zal de dood
alleen een slapen, slapen gerust
een wachten op u, een wachten zijn.
 

Perhaps we are allowed to connect this to the first poem?

Photos:
Leopold: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Lyric Poetry Around the World Index

Yosano Akiko, Ten Poems from Tangled Hair (Japanese Poetry)

Ten Tanka from "Tangled Hair"

Yosano Akiko

translated by Ad Blankestijn

(1)
that girl, now twenty,
her black hair
flowing through her comb,
takes pride in the beauty
of her springtime

sono ko hatachi | kushini nagaruru | kurokami no | ogori no haru no | utsukushiki kana

その子二十 | 櫛にながるる | 黒髪の | おごりの春の | うつくしきかな


(2)
fresh from my hot bath
I dress before
the tall mirror
smiling at my own body
as I do every day of my life

yuagari no | mijimai narite | sugatami ni | emishi kino no | naki ni shi mo arazu

ゆあがりの | みじまひなりて | 姿見に| 笑みし昨日の | 無きにしもあらず


(3)
pressing my breasts
I softly kick open
the Gate of Mystery
how deep the crimson
of the flower here

chibusa osae | shinpi no tobari | sotokerinu | kokonaru hana no | benizo koki

乳ぶさおさへ | 神秘のとばり | そとけりぬ | ここなる花の | 紅ぞ濃き


(4)
this hot tide of blood
beneath soft skin
you have yet to touch -
are you not lonely,
you who preach the Way?

yawahada no | atsuki chishio ni | furemomide | sabishikarazuya | michiwo toku kimi

やは肌の | あつき血汐に | ふれも見で | さびしからずや | 道を説く君


(5)
spring is short,
nothing has eternal life -
with these words
I made his hands seek out
my strong breasts

haru mijikashi | nani ni fumetsu no | inochi zoto | chikaraaru chichi wo | te ni sagurasenu

春みじかし | 何に不滅の | 命ぞと | ちからある乳を | 手にさぐらせぬ


(6)
the clear water of love
flowing from my breast
has finally become muddy
you a sinner
I a sinner

mune no shimizu | afurete tsui ni |  nigorikeri | kimi mo tsumi no ko | ware mo tsumi no ko

むねの清水 | あふれてつひに | 濁りけり | 君も罪の子 | 我も罪の子


(7)
after my bath
at the hot spring
they feel rough
to my soft skin
these clothes of the human world

yuami shite | izumi wo ideshi | yawahada ni | fururu wa tsuraki | hito no yo no kinu

ゆあみして | 泉を出でし | やははだに | ふるるはつらき | 人の世のきぬ


(8)
a thousand lines of hair
of black hair
of tangled hair
the more I love
the more my love gets tangled

kurokami no | sen suji no kami no | midaregami | katsu omoimidare | omoimidaruru

くろ髪の | 千すじの髪の | みだれ髪 | かつおもひみだれ | おもひみだるる


(9)
hair tangled by my late rising -
shall I smooth it
with spring rain
dripping from the wings
of swallows?

tsubakura no | hane ni shitataru | harusame wo | ukete nademu ka | waga asanegami

つばくらの | 羽にしたたる | 春雨を | うけて なでむか | わが朝寝髪


(10)
strolling past Gion
on the way to Kiyomizu:
cherry blossoms in moonlight -
every person I meet tonight
is beautiful to gaze on

Kiyomizu e | Gion wo yogiru | sakurazukiyo | koyoi au hito | mina utsukushiki

清水へ | 祇園をよぎる | 桜月夜 | こよひ逢ふ人 | みなうつくしき

[Yosano Akiko]

Japanese poet Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) was born into a prosperous family and grew up in a house full of books. During her education at Sakai Girls' High School (south of Osaka) she broadened her knowledge of Japanese literature and added European literature and poetry to it.

In September 1895, Yosano Akiko published her first poem, a tanka, in Bungei Kurabu (Literary Club), a Tokyo magazine. In August 1900, this publication led to a meeting with the famous poet Yosano Tekkan (1873-1935), the leader of the Romantic movement in Japanese poetry. Although he was a married man, his marriage was about to break up and soon love was born between him and the young poet. In June 1901, Akiko started to live with him in Tokyo, after which they married in September of the same year.

From then on Akiko published her work in Myojo (Morning Star), her husband's well-known monthly poetry magazine. She also took over part of the editorial tasks.

Her first collection of poems, Midaregami (Tangled Hair), containing some 400 poems, was published in 1901. This bundle is a swirling expression of uninhibited sensuality; a daring project for a man at the time, let alone a young woman! Midaregami (Tangled Hairs), was a hymn of praise to the love and early, fierce emotions of youth. The descriptions in the poems were, certainly at that time, experienced as very erotic. They caused a storm of protest and a veritable scandal because of their unbridled expression of female sexuality. This ran counter to the Confucianism of the Meiji period which tried to suppress and hide sexuality. The book was not well received by the critics (who complained it was "as if a precocious girl speaks unashamedly about adult matters"), but the public thought differently and the unabashed expressions became the strength of Midaregami as well as the basis for the immense success of the collection.

The work stood at the beginning of a rich legacy: more than 20 collections of poetry and several acclaimed translations from classical Japanese, including a widely used translation into modern Japanese of the Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji).

Yosano Akiko is particularly credited for her contributions to Japan's first feminist creative writing magazine, Seito (Blue Stocking). She became a strong advocate for women's education but despite her commitment and feminist vision, she never became a radical political activist.

In 1911 the Yosanos went on a study trip to France. In Western Europe, numerous encounters with well-known writers and artists followed, which opened their eyes. Akiko in particular returned with a changed view of the social problems during the Taisho period in Japan, especially with regard to the position of women.

In 1921 she became dean and professor at Bunka Gakuin (Cultural Institute), a free co-educational school which she founded with her husband.

Just as Yosano Akiko's popularity took off, her husband's star began to wane. Thanks to the sale of her books, they were able to make both ends meet - even though Akiko became the mother of eleven children.

[Yosano Akiko]

Other translations and studies:
Beichman, Janine. Embracing the Firebird: Yosano Akiko and the Birth of the Female Voice in Modern Japanese Poetry. Honolulu (Hawaï), University of Hawai'i Press, 2002.
Yosano, Akiko. Tangled Hair: Selected Tanka from 'Midaregami' by Akiko Yosano. Goldstein, Sanford en Shinoda, Seishi (vert.). Boston, Cheng & Tsui Company. 2002.
Tsuchiya Dollase, Hiromi (Fall 2005). "Awakening Female Sexuality in Yosano Akiko's Midaregami". Simply Haiku.
Emmerich, Michael (13 August 2013). The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature. Columbia University Press.
Rowley, G.G. (2000). Yosano Akiko and The Tale of Genji (Michigan U.P.).

Photos: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Japanese Poetry Index

Ryokan: Eleven Poems

translation Ad Blankestijn

(1)
it's not that
I never fraternize
with the world -
but I'm better at
playing by myself

yo no naka ni
majiranu to niwa
arenedomo
hitori-asobi zo
ware wa masareru

世の中に
まじらぬとには
あらねども
ひとり遊びぞ
我はまされる


(2)
in the village
I bounce a temari ball
with the children -
let this spring day
not turn to dusk!

kono sato ni
temari tsukitsutsu
kodomora to
asobu haruhi wa
kurezu tomo yoshi

この里に
手鞠つきつつ
子どもらと
遊ぶ春日は
暮れずともよし


(3)
wait for the
light of the moon
before you head home:
on the mountain trail
chestnut shells are scattered

tsukuyomi no
hikari wo machite
kaerimase
yamaji wa kuri no
iga no otsureba

月よみの
光を待ちて
帰りませ
山路は栗の
毬のおつれば


(4)
without telling
the tainted world:
"be clean"
the water of the mountain stream
is pure on its own

nigoru yo o
sumetomo yowazu
waga narini
sumashite misuru
tanogawa no mizu

濁る世を
澄めともいはず
わがなりに
澄まして見する
谷川の水


(5)
in my begging bowl
violets and dandelions
are mixed together
I wish to offer them
to the Buddhas of the Three Worlds

hachinoko ni
sumire tanpopo
kokimazete
Miyo no Hotoke ni
tatematsuritena

鉢の子に
菫たんぽぽ
こきまぜて
三世の仏に
たてまつりてむ


(6)
I forgot
and left my begging bowl
but no one took it
no one took it
my pitiable begging bowl

hachinoko o
waga wasururedomo
toru hito wa nashi
toru hito wa nashi
hachinoko aware

鉢の子を
わが忘るれども
取る人はなし
取る人はなし
鉢の子あはれ


(7)
left behind
by the thief:
the moon in my window

nusubito ni
torinokosareshi
mado no tsuki

盗人に
とり残されし
窓の月


(8)
in the village
flute and drum
are sounding
here on the hill
only the rustling of pine trees

satobe ni wa
fue ya tsuzumi no
oto sunari
miyama wa matsu no
koe bakari shite

里べには
笛や鼓の
音すなり
み山は松の
声ばかりして


(9)
with a hand towel
I hide my old face
the Bon dance

tenugui de
toshi wo kakusu ya
Bon-odori

手ぬぐいで
年をかくすや
盆踊


(10)
showing its back side
showing its front side
a falling maple leaf

ura wo mise | omote wo misete | chiru momiji

うらをみせ
おもてを見せて
ちるもみじ

 
(11)
I would like to leave
something as a memento:
flowers in spring
cuckoos in summer
tinted leaves in fall

katami tote
nanika nokosan
haru wa hana
natsu hototogisu
aki wa momijiba

形見とて
何か残さむ
春の花
夏ほととぎす
秋は紅葉ば

[Statue of Ryokan in his birthplace Izumosaki]

Ryokan (1758-1831) was a Soto Zen priest who never headed a temple but choose to live alone in a tiny mountain hut, begging his food, and playing games with the village children. But Ryokan who was also a writer of unusual and highly personal poetry in Japanese (tanka, haiku) and Chinese (kanshi), and a master calligrapher.

His poems mainly record his daily activities - begging expeditions to town, chores like carrying his firewood, lonely snowbound winters (he lived in Niigata's snow country!), and meetings with friends. They also demonstrate the rich spiritual and intellectual life Ryokan enjoyed despite his poverty.

Ryokan was born as Yamamoto Eizo in the village of Izumozaki in Echigo Province (now Niigata Prefecture) to the village headman. He renounced the world at an early age to train at a nearby Soto Zen temple, where he met the visiting Zen master Kokusen of Entsuji in Tamashima (now Okayama Prefecture), and he was accepted as the master's disciple. After a stay of twelve years at Entsuji, Ryokan attained satori and was presented with an Inka by Kokusen. After Kokusen died the following year, Ryokan left Entsuji on a five-year long pilgrimage before settling as a hermit on Mount Kugami, north of his hometown of Izumozaki. He lived in a hut (Gogoan, or "Five Scoop Hut") that belonged to the Shingon temple Kokujoji.

For a living he was dependent on friends and begging. His life was very hard, especially in the snowy winter, and there was always a risk of starvation. Around 1826 health problems forced him to give up the hermit life and move to a house on the estate of a wealthy friend and sponsor in Shimazaki. There he met Teishin, who became his student. She was 40 years younger than Ryokan, but when they met it was an instant heartfelt meeting (like that of Ikkyu and Mori). She stayed with him until his death in 1831. Teishin recorded that Ryokan, seated in meditation posture, died "just as if he were falling asleep."

Just as was the case with Japan's other two great Buddhist poets, Saigyo and Ikkyu, Ryokan's life soon becam the stuff of legend. Many stories were told about him - his eccentric character, his friendliness, his humility - and Ryokan became enormously popular - something which lasts to this day. His nickname was Taigu, which means "Great Fool". He loved the simple life in nature, surrounded by plants and animals, and did not even like to harm a louse. A special love for moonlight and pine trees is expressed in his poems. It was atypical for a monk that he liked to take part in village festivals of the farmers and also drank sake. He is said to have sneaked into these festivals disguised as a woman (see poem 9). He loved playing with children so much that he often forgot about his begging round. But these are so many stories - Ryokan was above all a great poet in the East Asian tradition of the hermit poets and Zen eccentrics, capturing the pathos and beauty of human life in a way that still makes his poetry relevant.

Ryokan's tomb is located in Shimazaki, and his hermitage still stands on Mount Kugami. It is now a popular tourist destination. In his birthplace, Izumosaki, we find a Ryokan museum, and Entsuji temple, where he obtained enlightenment, has honored the poet by a statue.

[Ryokan's portrait on whch Poem 1 has been inscribed]

Notes:
Poem 1. One of Ryokan's most famous tanka, written by him on a self-portrait that shows him wearing a priest's hood and reading by a lantern. "Playing by myself" is a humorous expression for the activities he undertook alone in his hut: reading and writing Japanese and Chinese poetry and doing calligraphy.

Poem 2. In a head-note, Ryokan wrote "Early in spring I went to a place called Jizo Hall" - a temple that was located close to Ryokan's hut on Mt Kugami. A temari ball is made out of cloth bound together with various colored threads. They are still sold in stores where traditional toys and souvenirs are available. In the past, children used to bounce the ball while singing songs. The competition consisted in how long one could continue bouncing the ball without loosing it. Ryokan loved temari balls and his partner late in life, Teishin, also used to make them for him. In the poem, it is finally spring with its longer daytime light (short winter days last for a long time in Niigata!), so Ryokan is happy that he has more time to play the temari game.

Poem 3. Another popular poem in Japan, which shows Ryokan's concern for his friend Abe Sadayoshi. Abe was a wealthy sake maker and headman of the village of Bunsui, not far from Ryokan's hur on Mt Kugami. Abe is visiting Ryokan in his hermitage and they are having a good time so Ryokan wants his friend to stay as long as possible - so he uses an excuse to keep his friend longer: as long as the moon is not yet out, the path is dark, and Abe my step on the sharp chestnut shells, which have fallen on the path and might hurt his sandaled feet.

Poem 4. This is also a very famous poem, a sort of Zen sermon "which is a no-sermon." It has the head-note "On Gogoan." Ryokan believed that sermons were superfluous as nature showed the way to mankind. A mountain stream of course contains the best natural water, clear and fresh. Nature doen not teach sermons, but, by being itself, demonstrates to human beings how to act. At the same time, the clear mountain stream is a symbol for Ryokan himself.

Poem 5. The Buddhas of the Three Worlds are the Buddhas of the past, the present and the future. Ryokan loved spring flowers, especially violets and dandelions, so his offering is a precious one.

Poem 6. Another well-known poem. Ryokan had been busy picking violets (previous poem), and not caring much about possessions, he returned home to his hut only to discover he had left his begging bowl behind. Ryokan's bowl was made of wood as he used it both for meals and for begging (normally, begging bowls would be made of iron). Fortunately, Ryokan found the bowl where he had left it. He calls the bowl "aware," which means something like "sad beauty", an important concept in Japanese aesthetics. So it is not pitiable in the sense of worthless here!

Poem 7. There are several stories about Ryokan telling how he gave away his clothes or his bedding out of sympathy to a thief. One of them goes as follows: one evening a thief visited Ryokan's hut at the base of the mountain only to discover there was nothing to steal. Ryokan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away. Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."

An important point in this haiku is of course that the moon is symbolic of Enlightenment - a thief can rob you of your possessions, but Enlightenment can never be taken away.

Poem 8. The Bon Festival is the Buddhist festival held in mid-August, when the souls of the dead are welcomed back to the earth and entertained with food and music. At the Bon festival, slow communal dances are held, moving in a circle, and Ryokan was fond of such dances. In this poem, while staying in his hut on Mr Kugami, he hears the flute and drum music accompanying such dances from the distant village. On the one hand he wants to go there and join in, on the other hand he enjoys his solitude on the mountain, where only the sound of the wind in the pine trees can be heard (the summum of wabi).

Poem 9. A haiku about the Bon festival. Participants would dress in yukata (summer kimono) and wear a straw hat or use a hand towel to hide their identity. Ryokan was in fact recognized, but he was happy when someone jokingly said "she" was a good-looking dancer.

Poem 10. The haiku Ryokan offered to his companion Teishin on his death bed. The meaning is that he has shown his (normally hidden) bad side and his good side to Teishin - and now he falls like a leaf in autumn, never to return.

Poem 11. The novelist Kawabata Yasunari referred to this poem in his Nobel Prize address in Srockholm in 1968. The legacy Ryokan and Kawabata wanted to leave to the world is nothing less than the beauty of nature.

[Statue of Ryokan with begging bowl in Entsuji]

Translations and studies:
Ryūichi Abé and Peter Haskel, Great Fool: Zen master Ryōkan: poems, letters, and other writings. University of Hawaii Press, 1996.
Ryokan: Selected Tanka and Haiku, translated from the Japanese by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizoguchi and Fujisato Kitajima (Kokodo, 2000)
Ryokan, Zen Monk-Poet of Japan, by Burton Watson (Columbia U.P., 1977)
One Robe, One Bowl; The Zen Poetry of Ryōkan (ISBN 0834801264), 1977, translated and introduced by John Stevens. Weatherhill, Inc.
The Zen Poems of Ryōkan translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa, Princeton University Press, 1981.

Photos:
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Japanese Poetry Index

 

Haiku Travels (28): Shushiki and Ueno Park (Tokyo)

Haiku Travels

Ueno Park (Tokyo)

In danger, 

the cherry at the well:

a drunken party

idobata no / sakura abunashi / sake no yoi

Shushiki

[The well in the grounds of the Kiyomizu Hall in Ueno Park]

Ueno Park, situated on an elevation from which one in the far away past could see Edo Bay, stands in the unlucky northeast direction or kimon seen from Edo Castle, and therefore a large temple was located here to protect the city (just as Kyoto was protected by Enryakuji on Mt Hiei). Kaneiji was built by the abbot Tenkai at the request of the second shogun Hidetada. Sponsored by the shogunate (some of whose members were laid to rest in the temple's graveyard) it prospered and soon counted 36 halls and 36 subtemples in an area which covered more than a million square meters, presided over by a huge main hall. It was the headquarters in eastern Japan of the mighty Tendai denomination from Mt Hiei. That hall is no more (it used to stand where the fountains now play, in the center of the park) as it was destroyed with much of the rest of the temple in 1868 when 2,000 Tokugawa loyalists made a futile last stand against a superior imperial army. It was the Dutch military doctor and professor of medicine A.F. Bauduin who in 1873 persuaded the new Meiji government to turn the huge temple site into a city park, in line with other large cities of the world that all have their famous patches of greenery (out of gratitude his bust was put up in the park, but until 2006 mistakenly the statue of his brother stood here...)..

[The Kiyomizu hall of Kaneiji]

Kaneiji still exists but has been so much split up and scattered that it seems as if there never was a temple here. Its simple new main hall (obtained from a temple in Kawagoe) has been tucked away behind the heavy barrier of the Tokyo National Museum. In the park itself, only two of the original buildings still survive: the Kiyomizudo Temple, a smaller imitation of the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto (although there is little resemblance); and the Five Storied Pagoda standing forlorn inside Ueno Zoo.

Already in the days of Kaneiji, Ueno was famous for its cherry blossoms - and today it is the prime blossom spot in Tokyo. The cherry trees were planted by the third shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in commemoration of Tenkai, the priest who had established Kaneiji. The trees were brought from the famous cherry blossom viewing area of Yoshino, in present-day Nara Prefecture.

[Cherry blossom viewing near Kiyomizudo in Ueno by Hiroshige (100 Views of Edo)]

The inhabitants of the city turn out in large numbers at blossom-viewing time, so that a visit to the park has more the character of 'people-viewing.' Groups sit under the trees, showered upon by the falling blossoms. People eat and, especially, drink, and the sake is responsible for quite a hilarious atmosphere.

Jolliness is not always good for tender blossoms and slender trees. This was already noted by Oaki, the 13 year-old daughter of a sweet shop in Nihonbashi, who wrote haiku under the literary name of 'Shushiki.' The poem, written in the Genroku era (1688-1704), became famous in the whole city. Oaki was a pupil of Kikaku, who in his turn had studied under Basho.

Whether the well on the above photo which stands in the grounds of the Kiyomizudo is really Shushiki's original well, is rather questionable - to say nothing about the cherry tree standing at its side. But through the centuries the small poem still speaks to us in all freshness.

 

The haiku stone stands - just as the well - at the back of the Kiyomizu Hall in Ueno Park, behind a fence, and dates from 1940. The present cherry tree was planted in 1978 and is the ninth in line.

Location: Ueno Park is next to Ueno Station on the JR Yamanote Line, and the Ginza and Hibiya Subway Lines. The Keisei Line towards Narita also starts here. The Kiyomizu Hall stands not far from the steps that lead into the park from the main entrance close to Ueno Station (where the statue of Saigo Takamori looks down upon the city). Admission free.

Read about the history of Ueno Park and Kaneiji in Tokyo Now & Then, An Explorer's Guide, by Paul Waley (Weatherhill 1984) - unfortunately, like so many other excellent books, out of print.

Photos:
The photos are my own.

Ukiyo-e
Hiroshige , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Index Haiku Travels

Haiku Travels (26): Basho and Toshodaiji (Nara)

 

Haiku Travels

Toshodaiji (Nara)

with young leaves

I want to wipe

the tears from your eyes

wakaba shite | onme no shizuku | muguwabaya

若葉して御めの雫ぬぐは ヾや

Basho

[Toshodaiji temple]

On one of his visits to Nara (in 1688), Basho also came to Toshodaiji where he worshiped the dry-lacquer portrait statue made of the temple's founder, the Chinese monk Ganjin, as he related in his Knapsack Notebook. Ganjin had reached Japan only after many tribulations and gone blind because of his hardships. Still, he was determined to make the dangerous sea voyage to bring the correct Buddhist precepts and rules for monastic life to Japan. After working in Todaiji, at the end of his life he retired to Toshodaiji, his private temple and a school for training monks in the Vinaya, the monastic rules.

The statue shows him seated in deep meditation, peaceful but also powerful. Thanks to the soft dry-lacquer used, and the natural paint that has still not faded, it makes a very realistic impression. It was reputedly made a few days before his death, after his chief disciple had had the ominous dream of seeing the roof of the temple collapse. Ganjin died on the 6th day of the 5th lunar month 763, aged 76. He passed away calmly and quietly, seated upright and facing west.

[Statue of Ganjin]

The slightly swollen eyes of the statue seem to hint at Ganjin's blindness. The closed eyes, with the eyelashes painted on, attract the viewer's attention to the face. It is a moving statue that manages to capture the essence of Ganjin. Basho must have harbored the same sentiment. The tears are rather Basho's own tears, on meeting the blind monk, who almost lost his life when bringing the Buddhist Precepts to Japan.

Wiping the eyes with green leaves is also a compassionate gesture towards the monk who can not see the green, young leaves of the new spring. In this way, he can feel their soft new life and smell their freshness... Indeed, the Ganjin statue almost seems alive. Facing him, one can not help but being filled with great respect and affection.

[Ganjin's grave in Toshodaiji]

Toshodaiji is one of my favorite temples in Nara. The main hall houses a wonderful set of three statues: in the center a hollow-core dry-lacquer statue of the seated Birushana Buddha, which is over three meters tall, on the left a gigantic Thousand-armed Kannon, rare because it really has 1000 arms stretching out like a halo behind it, and a Yakushi Nyorai, the Healing Buddha, who dates from the last years of the 8th century. It is a wonder these fragile statues have survived the ages unscathed.

There is more in Toshodaiji: the beautiful Lecture Hall, originally from the Nara Palace, with its Miroku statue; the 8th c. sutra and treasure repositories, two storehouses in the log cabin style of the Shosoin; the elegant Drum Tower; and the Mieido housing the above mentioned statue of Ganjin (which is only shown on June 6, the day Ganjin's death is commemorated) - the hall itself is new and has been decorated with wall paintings of pine forests and seascapes by nihonga painter Higashiyama Kaii, a masterwork of modern art.

Ganjin's grave can be found at the back of the temple grounds. In front of it have been placed a marble table and bronze incense vase in Chinese style. Behind that, steps lead up to a small stone stupa. It is a very tasteful arrangement.

[Toshodaiji's Lecture Hall]

Basho also saw Nara's deer again (how can anyone miss them?) and he wrote:

on Buddha's birthday
happens to be born
a baby deer!

kanbutsu no | hi ni umare-au | ka no ko kana

灌仏の日に生れあふ鹿の子 哉

The head note says: "Worshiping at various temples in Nara on the celebration of the Buddha's birthday, we happened to see a fawn born, a remarkable event given the day." Buddha's Birthday was (and still is) celebrated in temples throughout Japan, and is also called Hana Matsuri, Flower festival. The modern date is April 8. At Buddhist temples, people pour amacha, a kind of sweet tea, over a small image of the Buddha as child. 

[Deer in Nara Park]

deer horns
growing into branches
our separation

shika no tsuno | mazu hitofushi no | wakare kana

鹿の角先一節のわかれかな

After the visit to Toshodaiji, Basho wrote the above haiku with the head note "departing from my old friends in Nara," pointing at a group of disciples from Iga-Ueno, who had traveled with Basho. 

The deer horn changes every year, as a new horn grows in early summer to part into its two branches. The expression "hitofushi no wakare" points both at the parting into two branches after the first section of the horn, and also at the end of the meeting with friends.

All three above haiku have been included in Basho's Knapsack Notebook.

Toshodaiji
15-min. walk from Nishi no Kyo or Amagatsuji Stations on the Kintetsu Line; 15-min. walk from Yakushiji. There is also a bus from Nara St and Nara Kintetsu St.

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)

Basho's Knapsack Notebook is included in the above mentioned translation of Basho's prose by David Landis Bamhill.

[The photos in this post are my own, except the photo of the Ganjin statue (Wikipedia)]

Haiku Travels (27): Basho and Nara town

 

Haiku Travels

Nara

 chrysanthemum scent -

in Nara, ancient statues

of the Buddha

kiku no ka ya | Nara ni wa furuki | hotoketachi

菊の香や奈良には古き仏たち

Basho

[Gangoji temple, one of the ancient temples in Nara town]

In 1694, just before he fell ill and died in Osaka, Basho spent one night in Nara. That was on the ninth day of the ninth month, 1694, the day the Choyo no Sekku or Chrysanthemum Festival was celebrated (our October 27). He wrote this haiku while taking a rest in Shonenji temple and one imagines that the temple grounds were filled with chrysanthemums. The haiku wonderfully catches the atmosphere of Japan's ancient capital, it is as if all these Buddha statues are our old friends.

As the capital of Japan in the 8th c. when Buddhism flourished as a state religion, Nara was (and is) known for its many old temples and wonderful statues of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and other figures from the Buddhist pantheon, a true treasury of religious art.

"Kiku" is a kigo for autumn; "hotoketachi" is a vernacular haikai phrase.

"The chrysanthemum, considered the aristocrat of flowers in classical poetry, possessed a strong but refined fragrance. The many Buddhas in the ancient capital of Nara evoke a similar sense of dignity, solemnity and refinement, as well as nostalgia for a bygone era." (Shirane, Traces of Dreams, p. 90) 

[Chrysanthemum festival in Nihonmatsu]

Shonenji is a tiny Jodo sect temple standing in the southwest corner of the block that forms the old Nara town. It is almost not part of that old town anymore, standing within hearing distance of a busy road and encircled by small apartment buildings. The laundry of the inhabitants, hanging from their balconies, almost covers the grounds of Shonenji. One would expect Buddhist banners and pennants here, but instead finds T-shirts and underwear fluttering in the wind.

[Shonenji]

The temple was founded by Chogen (1121-1206), the Todaiji priest who was responsible for the rebuilding of the temple after it had been destroyed in the Genpei War in 1180. It must therefore date from the 12th or early 13th c.; the only reminder of those days is a statue of Shandao (one of the founders of Jodo or Pure Land Buddhism) brought back from China by Chonen and now still in the temple. It is not normally on view.

In fact, one only comes to this temple to see the Basho haiku, inscribed on a stone in front of the small temple hall. The haiku stone is old: it was put up in 1793, to commemorate that already one century had passed since the demise of the haiku master. 

[Deer near the Kasuga shrine]

languishing cry
sadly drawn out
deer at night

bii to naku | shirigoe kanashi | yoru no shika

ぴいと啼く尻声悲し夜の鹿

Nara's deer are considered the messengers of the main deity of the Kasuga Shrine, Takemikazuchi, who came riding a deer all the way from Kashima in present-day Ibaraki Prefecture to Nara. At the same time, they remind us of the Deer Park in Benares, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. They therefore have both a Shinto and Buddhist meaning and admirably fit the religious multiplex of Kofukuji Temple and Kasuga Taisha shrine which originally stood here. There are about 1,000 of them and they have always been a protected species. In the past, people who killed one of these animals received the death sentence by being buried alive; now offenders are punished in a somewhat lighter manner. It seems, unfortunately, that this protection has rather spoiled the deer, who have lost their natural meekness and have become positively aggressive. They have been observed to snatch and consume handbags of innocent visitors.

At night the deer are gathered in an enclosure lying to the side of the path leading to the Kasuga Shrine. A trumpet signal calls them together. To prevent them from getting into fights in rut time, their antlers are cut every year from the middle of October to early November. This is done in a special ceremony on Sundays and holidays in that period and attracts many spectators.

On the 8th day of the 9th month in 1694 (so just before his visit to Shonenji) Basho, accompanied by three disciples, took an evening walk near Sarusawa pond and heard the melancholy call of the deer in the distance. Autumn is rut time, when the deer let their cry resound through the forest. These cries in fact vary from a short presence cry, to a long and sad languishing cry (as in the haiku), a defiance cry on a high note, a pursuit cry (when the buck runs behind the doe) and triumph cry. To hear the languishing, melancholy cry in the forest, while around you the shadows are falling, can impart a feeling of deep loneliness, especially when you are a traveler.

[Chrysanthemum festival in Zenkoji, Nagano]
 

First Haiku:
The haiku stone stands in front of the main hall of Shonenji temple. One can freely enter the grounds to see the haiku stone; the temple hall itself is closed.
20-min walk from Nara Kintetsu Station or JR Nara station

Second Haiku:
The haiku stone stands in front of the deer enclosure to the right side of the path leading to the Kasuga Taisha Shrine. This is where the deer are gathered at night and where the ceremony of cutting the antlers takes place.
30-min. walk from Kintetsu Nara Station. Or bus from JR or Kintetsu Nara Stations to Kasuga Taisha Honden bus stop. The place where the haiku stone stands is always freely accessible.

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)

[The photos in this post are my own]

 

Index Haiku Travels 

 

Takamura Kotaro, Two Under the Trees (Japanese Poetry)

Two Under the Trees

Takamura Kotaro

translated by Ad Blankestijn

- by a pair of pine trees in far-off Adachigahara,
I see her standing
at the roots of the trees -

That is Mount Atatara,
that brilliance over there is the Abukuma River.

While sitting down like this with few words,
only the pine wind of distant times blows light green
through my drowsy head,
in this vast landscape of early winter.
No need to hide the joy of loving quietly, holding hands with you,
from that white cloud looking down on us.

You let a mysterious elixir burn in the jar of your soul,
oh, you draw me down to the bottom of the sea of mysterious love.
The view of the seasons of ten years we've walked together,
reveals the infinity of woman in you.
What smolders in that infinity,
is precisely what cleanses me of the desires that afflict me,
and pours the fresh fountain of youth into my troubled life.
It's difficult to catch as if bewitched,
and keeps changing shape all the time.

That is Mount Atatara,
That brilliance over there is the Abukuma River.

Here is where you were born,
those small dot-like white walls are your family's sake brewery.
Let me stretch out my legs,
and inhale the air full of the fragrance of the trees of this empty, sunny north country.
Let me wash my skin in this atmosphere which is just like you:
cool, pleasant, smooth and supple.

I will again be far away tomorrow,
in the deceitful capital, in the chaotic vortex of love and hatred,
into the midst of that human comedy that I fear and yet cling to.
Here is where you were born,
the heaven and earth that gave life to your wonderful unique flesh.
The pine wind is still blowing,
tell me once more about the place names of this lonely panorama in early winter.

That is Mount Atatara,
that brilliance over there is the Abukuma River.


Juka no futari
--Michinoku no Adachigahara no Nihonmatsu matsu no nekata ni hito tateru miyu--

Are ga Atatarayama,
ano hikaru no ga Abukumagawa.

Ko yatte kotoba sukuna ni suwatte iru to,
uttori nemuru yo na atama no naka ni,
tada toi yo no matsukaze bakari ga usumidori ni fukiwatarimasu.
Kono okina fuyu no hajime no noyama no naka ni,
anata to futari shizuka ni moete te wo kunde iru yorokobi wo,
shita wo mite iru ano shiroi kumo ni kakusu no wa yoshimasho.

Anata wa fushigi na sentan wo tamashi no tsubo ni kuyurasete,
aa, nan to iu yumyo na ai no umizoko ni sasou koto ga,
futari issho ni aruita junen no kisetsu no tenbo wa,
tada anata no naka ni nyonin no mugen wo miseru bakari,
mugen no kyo ni kemuru mono koso,
Konna ni mo joi ni nayamu watashi wo kiyomete kure,
konna ni mo kuju wo mi ni ou watashi ni sawayaka na wakasa no izumi wo sosoide kureru,
mushiro mamono no yo ni tsukamaegatai,
myo ni hengen suru mono desu ne.

Are ga Atatarayama,
ano hikaru no ga Abukumagawa.

Koko wa anata no umareta furusato,
ano chiisana shirakabe no tenten ga anata no uchi no sakagura.
sore de wa ashi wo nobinobi to nagedashite,
kono garan to harewatatta kitaguni no ki no kaori ni michita kuki wo suo,
anata sono mono no yo na hiiyari to kokoroyoi,
sunnari to danryoku aru funiki ni hada wo arawo.
Watashi wa mata ashita toku saru,
ano burai no miyako, kontontaru aizo no usu no naka e,
watashi no osoreru, shikamo shuchaku fukai ano ningen kigeki no tadanaka e.
Koko wa anata no umare furusato,
kono fushigina bekko no nikushin o unda tenchi.
Mada matsukaze ga fuite imasu,
mo ichido kono fuyu no hajime no monosabishii panorama no chiri o oshiete kudasai.

Are ga Atatarayama,
ano hikaru no ga Abukumagawa.


樹下の二人
――みちのくの安達が原の二本松松の根かたに人立てる見ゆ――

あれが阿多多羅山、
あの光るのが阿武隈川。

かうやつて言葉すくなに坐つてゐると、
うつとりねむるやうな頭の中に、
ただ遠い世の松風ばかりが薄みどりに吹き渡ります。
この大きな冬のはじめの野山の中に、
あなたと二人静かに燃えて手を組んでゐるよろこびを、
下を見てゐるあの白い雲にかくすのは止しませう。

あなたは不思議な仙丹を魂の壺にくゆらせて、
ああ、何といふ幽妙な愛の海ぞこに人を誘ふことか、
ふたり一緒に歩いた十年の季節の展望は、
ただあなたの中に女人の無限を見せるばかり。
無限の境に烟るものこそ、
こんなにも情意に悩む私を清めてくれ、
こんなにも苦渋を身に負ふ私に爽かな若さの泉を注いでくれる、
むしろ魔もののやうに捉へがたい
妙に変幻するものですね。

あれが阿多多羅山、
あの光るのが阿武隈川。

ここはあなたの生れたふるさと、
あの小さな白壁の点点があなたのうちの酒庫。
それでは足をのびのびと投げ出して、
このがらんと晴れ渡つた北国の木の香に満ちた空気を吸はう。
あなたそのもののやうなこのひいやりと快い、
すんなりと弾力ある雰囲気に肌を洗はう。
私は又あした遠く去る、
あの無頼の都、混沌たる愛憎の渦の中へ、
私の恐れる、しかも執着深いあの人間喜劇のただ中へ。
ここはあなたの生れたふるさと、
この不思議な別箇の肉身を生んだ天地。
まだ松風が吹いてゐます、
もう一度この冬のはじめの物寂しいパノラマの地理を教へて下さい。

あれが阿多多羅山、
あの光るのが阿武隈川。

[Mount Adatara]

Takamura Kotaro (1883–1956) was a Japanese poet and sculptor. He was born in Tokyo and educated at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. His father also was a sculptor - in fact one of the earliest sculptors in Japan who worked in the Western style. Between 1906 and 1909, the son studied in New York, London and Paris, and became known for his intricate wood sculptures and powerful bronzes.

[Takamura Kotaro]

In 1914 Takamura Kotaro published his first book of poetry, written in the international style of "free verse" (so not in the traditional style of tanka or haiku), which brought him immediate praise. He is especially famous for his 1941 collection Chiekosho ("Selections of Chieko", in English sometimes titled "Chieko's Sky" after one of the poems), a collection of poems about his wife, Chieko (1886-1938).

Chieko was born in what is now the city of Nihonmatsu in central Fukushima, as the daughter of a family engaged in sake brewing. In 1903, she attended Japan Women's University in Tokyo, and graduated in 1907. She became an oil painter, and made colorful papercuts. She also was an early member of the Japanese feminist movement Seitosha, joining in 1911. She made the cover illustration for the first issue of their magazine, "Seito". In February 1914, she married Takamura Kotaro, whom she met soon after he had returned from France.

[Takamura Chieko]

Following the breakup of her family home in 1929, Chieko was diagnosed in 1931 with symptoms of schizophrenia – she was hospitalized for that disease in 1935. She died from tuberculosis in 1938. Takamura Kotaro's book of poems about her and their love - which ended tragically due to Chieko's illness - is still widely admired and read today in Japan.

Here is another famous poem from the collection:

Child's Talk

Chieko says there's no sky in Tokyo,
I want to see the real sky, she says.
Surprised, I look at the sky:
among the leaves on the cherry trees
is a familiar clear sky
that I can't separate from -
the blurred, hazy horizon
in the light pink dampness of morning.
Gazing into the distance, Chieko says:
the blue sky that appears every day
above Mount Atatara,
that's what I call the real sky, she says.
This is just child's talk of the sky.

(written in 1928)

[Takamura Chieko's parental home in Nihonmatsu (originally a sake brewery),
now a museum dedicated to her]

Notes
The quotation at the top of "Two Under the Trees" is a tanka (traditional-style poem) by Takamura Kotaro. "Michinoku" is a traditional name for "Northern Japan". Nihonmatsu is a historical city in Fukushima, between Fukushima city and Koriyama. Adachigahara is an area in Nihonmatsu. Mt Adatara (in the poem the old name is used, Atatara) is a 1700m high mountain - it consists of multiple volcanoes forming a broad, forested massif, which stretches about 9 km in a north-south direction. Seen from Nihonmatsu, the mountain has a beautiful shape. There are several onsen (hot springs) in the vicinity. The Abukuma River is the major river flowing through Fukushima Prefecture. Takamura Kotaro contrasts the naturalness and freshness he finds both in Chieko and the surroundings that have molded her, with the "deceitful capital" Tokyo, the big city where he has to make his living.

Chiekosho by Takamura Kotaro (d. 1956) entered into the public domain in Japan in 2005, as at that time copyright was set at author's death plus 50 years. Although in 2016 the copyright term was extended to author's death plus 70 years, this is not applied retroactively to works which already had entered the public domain before 2018.

Original text available at Aozora Bunko.

Studies and translations:
A Brief History of Imbecility, Hiroaki Sato, University of Hawaii Press, 1992
The Chieko Poems, tr. by John G. Peters (Green Integer, 2007)
Birnbaum, Phyllis. Modern Girls, Shining Stars, the Skies of Tokyo: Five Japanese Women. (Columbia University Press, 2015).

The story of Chieko and Kotaro was filmed in 1967 as Chieko's Portrait, with Iwashita Shima and Tanba Tetsuro.

Photos:
Mt Adatara: photo by blog author.
Takamura Kotaro: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Takamura Chieko: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Chieko's parental home: public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Japanese Poetry Index