Basho - Sour rain on plums - Complete haiku (2), 1666-A

1666 (Kanbun 6), 23 years old

Basho in the years 1666-1671

Early in 1666, on the thirteenth anniversary of Teitoku's death, Basho's haiku companion Sengin (Todo Yoshitada) sponsored a commemorative one hundred verse session (hyakuin) of linked haikai in which Kitamura Kigin participated (either in person or by mail-he wrote the wakiku, the second verse). Other participants included Basho and other Iga poets. Sengin wrote the opening verse, expressing his gratitude to Teitoku and no doubt speaking for Basho as well. "...the care in the use of language insisted upon by a learned poet like Kigin undoubtedly influenced Basho and may have first revealed to him that haikai poetry should be not only of the moment but for all time, no less than a waka or a renga." (Donald Keene, World Within Walls, p. 74)

On May 28, 1666, Basho's haiku companion Todo Yoshitada died suddenly in his 25th year. For the next five years, Basho's activities are not documented. It is only certain that he left the service of the Todo clan, as he no longer enjoyed any special favor. However, it is plausible that he continued to live with his family in Ueno, as he is identified as "Sobo of Ueno in Iga Province" in some of his poems from these years. It is also plausible that he visited Kyoto regularly and maintained his relationship with the Kigin circle. What is certain is that he devoted himself more and more to haikai poetry - his verses were published almost every year. We have a total of 37 hokku for these five years (undoubtedly a small portion of what he wrote) - for 1666 alone we have 20 hokku. All of them appeared in various haiku anthologies compiled by renowned masters - most of them in an anthology compiled by Kigin's son, which shows that Basho remained closely associated with the Teimon school.

This also means that many of Basho's early haiku are primarily meant to amuse, and the amusement is created by his skillful use of language. But they express little of Basho's own feelings. Basho simply followed the conventions of the Teimon school, such as playing with words (not only puns, kakekotoba, but also changing the sound of a syllable to change the meaning of a word, called kasuri) and making oblique references to classical literature or turning popular sayings on their heads.

(4)

despite aging others he remains Young Ebisu

toshi wa hito ni torasete itsumo waka ebisu

年は人にとらせていつも若夷

In Edo japan, every year at New Year's, vendors came through the streets selling Ebisu charms, which buyers used to stick on their doors or decorate near the altar of the New Year's God (toshitokudana or ehodana, a shelf set up in the direction of the deity of the year), praying for good luck in the coming year.

Ebisu was originally a god of fishermen and merchants, but he evolved into a general lucky god, one of the well-known Seven Lucky Deities (Shichifukujin). Ebisu is normally represented as a plump figure, smiling happily, and wearing a kimono, a divided skirt (hakama) or a Heian period hunting robe (kariginu) and a tall cap folded in the middle (kazaori eboshi). He holds a fishing rod in his right hand and carries a sea bream (tai, a symbol of good luck) under his left arm. He may also be depicted sitting on a rock, angling.

These amulets carry the same image of Ebisu every year, as if he never gets old - in a contrast with us humans, who have added another year to our lives at New Year's. The poet scolds Ebisu for making us older because Ebisu himself never grows old. He also uses a pun on the name "Waka Ebisu," "Young Ebisu,": "itsumo Waka Ebisu" (Forever Waka Ebisu) puns on "itsumo wakai", "forever young."

The season is New Year (kigo: Waka Ebisu).

(5)

today in Kyoto, ninety-nine thousand people are out to view the blossoms!

kyo wa kuman kusen kunju no hanami kana

京は九万くんじゆの花見哉

A hokku describing the large number of people who fill the city to see the cherry blossoms (hanami). It is a parody of two types of well-known expressions, "Kyo wa kuman hassen-ke," the traditional view that "Kyoto has 98,000 households," and the expression "kisen kunju," "a crowd of rich and poor," in which "kisen" is changed to "kusen" to make in combination with kuman "99,000" - meaning the crowd is even larger than normal. The term "kisen kunju" is also used in No plays to represent a large, bustling crowd, such as the crowd visiting temples and shrines, or the crowd of flower watchers. "Kyo" is both "Kyoto" and "today."

Note the rhythmic alliteration with "k-sounds".

The season is spring (kigo: hanami)

(6)

even the eyes of the poor can see flowers: Japanese thistles

hana wa shizu no me ni mo miekeri oni-azami

花は賤のめにも見えけり鬼薊

Japanese thistle (no-azami)

"Shizu" means "a lowly person," "an ordinary person. There is an old saying that says, "A demon (oni) cannot be seen by ordinary eyes" ("me ni mienu kishin" is also a term that appears in the Kana introduction to the Kokinshu). But Basho says that even though he is an ordinary person, he can clearly see the purple flowers of the thistle - thus making fun of a proverb.

"Oni", "ogre", is combined with "azami", "thistle", to form "oni-azami"="no-azami"=Japanese thistle (Cirsium japonicum). Oni is a "kakekotoba," a pun which also functions in the abovementioned proverb. "Shizu no me ni mienu oni" (a demon the eyes of the poor can not see) is also a phrase from the No play Yamamba (The Mountain Crone).

The season is spring (kigo: azami).

(7)

monsoon rains: pardon my neglect, moon's visage.

samidare ni on-mono-do ya tsuki no kao

五月雨に御物遠や月の顔

"Samidare", "Fifth Month Rain", is a term for the rainy season which in our calendar starts usually in June. I like the term "monsoon" for these heavy, but warm, seasonal rains. The Asian monsoons may be classified into a few sub-systems, such as the Indian Subcontinental Monsoon which affects the Indian subcontinent, and the East Asian Monsoon which affects southern China, Taiwan, Korea and parts of Japan. This seasonal rain is known as Bai-u (plum rain) in Japan, as in this season the Japanese plums (ume) are getting ripe.

The moon is personified and addressed by a common greeting expression, "on-mono-do", which is comparable to the modern "go-busata (itashimashita)," "my apologies for my long silence."

The "face of the moon" (tsuki no kao) is also mentioned in classical literature as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, The Tale of Genji, etc., although with another association: looking at the face of the moon is considered as "imi," "an ill omen."

The season is summer (kigo: samidare).

Like all further hokku for 1666, this poem appeared in Zoku Yamanoi, a selection of haikai compiled by Koshun under the supervision of his father Kitamura Kigin, published in 1667 - showing Basho's continued association with the Teimon school.

(8)

monsoon's splashing: my ears sour with plum rain.

furu oto ya mimi mo su naru ume no ame

降る音や耳もすう成る梅の雨

[Unripe ume fruit]

Even today, the rainy season (a sort of monsoon), which lasts from about the second week of June to the middle of July (depending on the year and where you are in Japan), is called "tsuyu," a term written with the kanji for "ume rain" 梅雨. This is because the ume fruit ripens at this time of year, perhaps aided by the heavy rains. By the way, ume is often translated as "plum" because it is handy when you are short on space in a poetic line, but technically it is a different fruit, related to both plum and apricot, but unique from both (and only native to Japan and China).

Japanese plums are used to make "umeboshi", pickled plums, an extremely sour (and salty) mouthful! But there is also a saying, "An umeboshi a day keeps the doctor away".

The plums are picked before they are fully ripe. While still green, the umeboshi are cured with sea salt for several months. Umeboshi are eaten as pickles on rice. A bento consisting only of rice and a red plum is called "Hinomaru (Japanese flag) Bento". The red color is obtained with red shiso leaves, a natural method. The flavonoid pigment in shiso leaves gives the plums their distinctive color and a richer flavor.

The same fruit is used to make umeshu, called "plum wine" (but actually a liqueur), which is made by soaking green Japanese plums in shochu or (even more delicious) sake.

In this hokku, Basho makes a joke about the sourness of ume and the fact that tsuyu is written as "plum rain: if you listen to the sound of this rain for too long, even your ears will become sour...

The season is summer (kigo: ume no ame).

(9)

Japanese iris: its water reflection, a perfect duplicate

kakitsubata nitari ya nitari mizu no kage

杜若にたりやにたり水の影

Kakitsubata

Kakitsubata (Iris laevigata) has been cultivated in Japan for over a thousand years. It grows in shallow water and seems to prefer swampy and still ponds. The flowers are usually blue, purple or violet. Kakitsubata is similar to another cultivated Japanese iris, hanashobu (Iris ensata), which also prefers a watery environment (unlike ayame or Iris sanguinea, which grows wild on dry land).

The flower also appears frequently in literature, such as in the Ise Monogatari (Section 9 on Yatsuhashi), where each line of a poem attributed to Ariwara no Narihira begins with one of the five syllables of "ka-ki-tsu-ba-ta". While resting by the Yatsuhashi, or "Eight Bridges," in the famous iris marshes of Mikawa Province, Narihira composed a waka poem that combines the themes of the sense of loss at leaving the capital, considered the only place of society and culture, longing for lost loves, and the beauty of the natural environment. And in the No play "Kakitsubata," a traveling monk meets the spirit of the iris on the bank of a stream in Mikawa Province and is told the story of Narihira and Yatsuhashi.

The Nezu Museum in Aoyama, central Tokyo, owns a pair of National Treasure screens painted by Ogata Korin, which contain the most famous depiction of kakitsubata in art. The screens are displayed every year from mid-April to mid-May, when the kakitsubata are blooming in the pond in the museum garden.

[Korin: Irises, right screen]

Basho's hokku contains a pun on kakitsubata with "kaki-utsusu," to copy. In other words, the image in the water is an exact copy of the real iris. The copying process is also reflected in the repetition of "nitari" in the second line.

The season is summer (kigo: kakitsubata).

(10)

enthralled by the evening glory - I feel weightless, adrift

yugao mitoruru ya mi wo ukari-hyon

夕顔にみとるるや身もうかりヒョン

yugao

"Yugao" literally means "evening face" (or "twilight beauty") and is the name of a bright green vine with white flowers - the English name is "bottle gourd". The young fruit can be used to make kanpyo (dried strips of this gourd used to bind food ingredients together, for example in certain types of sushi), and the mature fruit can be used to make containers for liquids such as sake. But it is the flower, not the gourd, that is undoubtedly meant here, in reference to a famous scene in The Genji Monogatari, where Yugao becomes the nickname of a young woman of low status who lives in a modest house with a woven fence where these inconspicuous flowers grow. When Genji happens to pass by and picks some of the flowers, she sends him a flirtatious poem, thus initiating an affair.

"Mitoruru" means "to be captivated, fascinated". "Ukari" is in modern Japanese "ukkari", absent-minded, but here it is also a pun on uku (ukareru), "to float". The "hyon" at the end makes it a slangy expression, while also providing a pun on hyotan, gourd (which floats on water). It couldn't be more complex, but the meaning is clear: the poet is completely dazzled by the charms of the evening glory. The humorous element is that the unsightly fruit of the plant is brought up in "hyon/hyotan" and that it floats away.

The season is summer (kigo: yugao).

(11)

azaleas by the rocks: tinted red by lesser cuckoo's tears

iwa-tsutsuji somuru namida ya hototogishu

岩躑躅染る涙やほととぎ朱

[The lesser cuckoo]

The "hototogisu" is the "lesser cuckoo" (Cuculus poliocephalus), but it should be noted that it has more positive connotations than its European relatives. The bird has relatively large wings and a long tail, a gray back and a white belly with black stripes. The bad habit it has in common with the Western Cuckoo is that it is also a parasitic breeder. But the Japanese lesser cuckoo has a gentle call and is one of the most popular Oriental songbirds. Because it arrives in Japan around May, it is considered a harbinger of warmer weather.

Since the time of the first collection of poems, the Manyoshu (8th century), this small bird has inspired poets. In haiku, it appears as a seasonal word for "early summer". Because the hototogisu's call is rather sad, it has also been interpreted as expressing the melancholy longing of the soul of a dead person. And because it was believed to sing until it coughed up blood (or shed tears of blood), the modern haiku poet Masaoka Shiki, who suffered from tuberculosis, took "hototogisu" pronounced "shiki" as his pen name...

[A field of red azaleas]

Japan is a paradise for azaleas, and the hardy plant has long graced urban gardens, often blooming for several weeks. Their popularity began with Prince Kusakabe of Nara in the 7th century (who wrote about azaleas in his death poem) and continues in The Tale of Genji, where Genji gives his young lover Murasaki a garden where azaleas grow among other flowers. In the Edo period, there was even a kind of azalea boom among samurai gardeners, who, looking for something new, developed interesting new varieties of the flower.

Azaleas can be distinguished from rhododendrons, of which they are a subgenus, by the fact that they have only five anthers per flower.

Another name for hototogisu is "token," and token or "tokenka" can also mean "azalea". Basho imagines that the azaleas are red because of the bloody tears of the lesser cuckoo. He emphasizes this by using a play on words: he calls the bird "hototogishu", changing the last syllable "su" to "shu", which means vermilion or red. This technique is called "kasuri" in Japanese, but I do not like it very much - it is rather superficial - and cannot be brought out in the translation.

The season is summer (kigo: hototogisu).

(12)

awaiting the lesser cuckoo feels like eons, though brief.

shibashi ma mo matsu ya hototogi-su sennen

しばしまもまつやほととぎす千年

Because it was a harbinger of warmer weather and had a beautiful, musical call, people in Basho's time waited impatiently for the song of the lesser cuckoo.

"Matsu", "to wait", is a pun on "matsu", pine tree - a tree that was said to live a thousand years. Another rather silly pun is found in the last syllable of the name of the hototogisu: "su" is a pun on "suu", several - making this a rather silly hokku (fortunately, these childish puns disappear in translation!). The haikai element is in the exaggeration.

The season is summer (kigo: hototogisu).

(13)

autumn wind against the door's mouth: a piercing cry.

akikaze no yarido no kuchi ya togari-goe

The sound of the autumn wind is personified and compared to a sharp, human voice. There are two sets of wordplay which are untranslatable: "yari" of "yarido," "sliding door" also means "spear"; and "kuchi" is both "opening" (of the door) and "mouth."

In Matsuo Basho, Makoto Ueda says about this hokku (p. 38): "The poem is a clever display of wit, if not much more."

The season is autumn (kigo: akikaze).

Basho Complete Haiku