SARUMINO

Linked Poetryof the Basho Schoolwith Haiku Selections

S8.95

In 1690 the haiku master Basho and other poets of his school wrote four long poems that have been be­loved by the Japanese people ever since. Originally published in 1691 in an anthology called Sarumino (Monkey’s Raincoat), these poems arc presented here in a lively English translation that brings across what Basho called the “high and low” of the haiku world in all its transcendent power.

The four poems, one for each of the four seasons, are each written in a linkcd-verse form known as the renga. One poet sets down a three-line verse on the season chosen for that poem. A second poet follows with a two-line verse, somehow related to the first verse. A third poet follows with a verse related to the econd, and so on. The unexpected twists and turns ? ordinary happenings, affectionate humor, quiddi- s of the natural world, profundities of religion and lilosophy, the elegance of the court and court

poetry—these disparities are set side by side in the renga in what appears to be random selection but is in fact a careful ordering.

How the somewhat hidden structure of these poems—the linking techniques, renga rules, and means of creating tempo—results in a satisfying wholeness, a true poetry of experience, is explored by the translator in her Introduction. Readers will find that her confidence and delight in the ancient art of linked verse lead them to a new level of under­standing.

In addition to the four renga, the translator has(continued on back flap)

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Calligraphy by Yakushiji Soseki of Basho’s poem (p. 50).

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MONKEY’SRAINCOAT

MSARUMINO

Linked Poetry of the Basho School

with Haiku Selections

translated byLENORE MAYHEW

CHARLES E. TUTTLE COMPANY Rutland • Vermont / Tokyo • Japan

m REPRESENTATIVES

For Continental Europe:Boxerbooks, Inc., Zurich For the British Isles:Prcnticc-Hall International, Inc., London For Australasia:Book Wise (Australia) Pty. Ltd.I Jeanes Street, Beverly 5009, South Australia

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Published by the Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.of Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japanwith editorial offices atSuido 1-chome, 2-6, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo

Copyright in Japan, 1985 by Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc.

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 85-051629 International Standard Book No. 0-8048 1500-3

First printing, 1985

Printed in Japan

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

page 7 List of Illustrations

9 Acknowledgments

11 IntroductionHistorical Background / 11The Four Kasen of Monkey's Raincoat / 13Structure in Renga / 17The Haiku of Monkey's Raincoat / 42Notes on Translation / 46

51 Biographies

61 The KasenWinter Rain (Hatsnshigure) / 63 Summer Moon (Natsu no Tsuki) / 77

6 I TABLE OF CONTENTSI

Autumn Cricket (Kirigiristi) / 91 Grass and Plum (Umc Wakana) I 105

119 Haiku SelectionsSequence 1/121 Sequence 2/133

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145 Notes to the Poems

149 Bibliography

151 Index of Poets.V

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LIS T OF ILL US TRA TIONS

(Frontispiece). Calligraphy by Yakushiji Soscki1. “A Poetic Gathering,” by Matsumura Goshun2. “The Deserted Fields,” by Sengai Gibon3. “The Toad,” by Sengai Gibon4. “Chrysanthemum,” by Sengai Gibon5. “Bamboos,” by Sengai Gibon6. “The Shrine of Tcnjin,” by Eto Reigen

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to William McNaughton, sinologist, and to Ronald ]. DiCenzo, professor of History and East Asian Studies at Oberliti College, for their generous guidance through troublesome areas in the text. If inaccuracies or misinterpretations remain, I alone am responsible.

I would also like to thank the following for providing illustrative materials: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund; the Kurt and Millie Gitter Collection; the Idemitsu Museum of Arts; and Master Yakushiji Soseki, who wrote the calligraphy for the frontispiece.

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Note: Throughout the book, Japanese names are given in traditional order, that is, surname followed by given name. Where a single name appears, this is the name by which the poet is commonly known, generally the given name or a pseudonym.

Romanization of Japanese follows the Hepburn system; macrons, signifying a long vowel, are included in the romanized version of the poems, to show the correct syllable count, and in the text only when a term or proper name appears with Chinese characters.

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INTRODUCTION

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The four long poems in this book are in a Japanese poetic form known as the renga or “linkedpoem.” Briefly, a renga is a series of alternating three- and two-line verses of set syllabic structure composed by a group of people working together. Except for the medieval troubadour’s tensons and partimens, or “verse debates,” such a genre of poetry is virtually unknown in the Western world.

This sort of group exercise might seem to Western minds less original and less worthy than work by one person, but the Japanese feel differently about it. Indeed, poetry everywhere in the Far East is as much a social as a private pursuit. Reciting, discussing, or writing poems is often a pleasant pastime at parties. The renga is, in fact, a game, but that does not, in the minds of the players, detract from its seriousness.

\2 I INTRODUCTION

As early as the twelfth century, Japanese courtiers were writing renga. In the fifteenth century, as samurai and merchants began to have leisure time, they, too, played the game. Their poem sequences were called haikai no renga or simply haikaiIn these exchanges elegance, charm, and decorum were ignored. The new values were wit, satire, word play, eroticism, freshness. Haikai no renga, while lively and entertaining, were sometimes not what courtiers would have called poetry. Some were, in fact, vulgar doggerel, like the party poems of Robert Bums or certain unpublished work of T. S. Eliot.

In the sixteenth century, dissatisfaction with haikai no renga led to the establishment of new schools of renga to defend the older, more aristocratic values. The school of Matsunaga Teitoku (1571-1653) for a time successful in reasserting elegance; but with the establishment of the Danrin school, founded by Nishiyama Soin (1605-82), rules were relaxed and renga again became primarily comic.

It was Basho (1644-94) who saw possibilities in the renga form beyond the sterile polish of court poetry and the vulgar dazzle of comic verses. At first a member of the Danrin school, Basho gradually de­veloped a poetry and a theory of poetry that were founded on neither form nor wit, but on the use of form and wit to express the reality of experience. Like

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THE FOUR KASEN \ 13

the Chinese poets he admired, Basho wrote poetry of the moment, poetry that captured the particularity of whatever he was speaking about. His object was to show us the miraculous in the ordinary. One of his aesthetic principles is kakcri a word which means “pcnetratingly,” “shrewdly,” “cleverly to make your point.” Basho seems to use the word to describe his way of cutting through the usual perception of things, an idea not unlike that of the young Bertolt Brecht when he exclaims in his diary, “Oh, God, please let my sight cut through the crust, pierce it.” Basho’s method of cutting, reflected in his famous dictum “Learn of the pine from the pine, of the bam­boo from the bamboo,” was to set aside all used-up phrases, literary notions, ideas current and traditional and to go to the thing itself. Molded by Basho, renga, in its origin almost a game and still, on the surface, often light-hearted, came to be a profound and seri­ous art.

THE FOUR KASEN OF MONKEYS RAINCOAT

Renga are written as follows. One person composes a hokku ^§6}, or “opening verse,” the three lines of this poem containing seventeen syllables distributed in the pattern 5-7-5. This poem must be complete in itself, but the next step is that some other person an-

i14 I INTRODUCTION

swers it with a two-line fourteen-syllable poem ar­ranged in the pattern 7-7. Then a third person responds to the 7-7 with another 5-7-5, and next a fourth per­son (or the first poet if only three are writing) responds again with a 7-7. This 5-7-5 / 7-7 / 5-7-5 / 7-7 . . . pattern can be repeated until there arc a thousand verses, but writing a hundred was much more usual. In Basho’s day the kasen Refill, a renga of thirty-six verses, became standard. The term “kasen” translates as “singing sennin,” referring to the Thirty-six Im­mortal Poets,* and thus indirectly to the number of verses in this type of renga.

In the first month of 1690, Basho was in Otsu, near Lake Biwa, and his friend, student, and supporter Otokuni was about to set out for Edo (present-day Tokyo). To celebrate this trip, these two and six other poets (one of them Otokuni’s mother, Chigetsu) started to compose a kasen. Basho was the host and wrote the opening verse. Otokuni followed with the

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*sennin: often translated “hermit,” this term refers to one who lives secluded from the world, for example, in a mountain hut.

The Thirty-six Immortal Poets (Sanjurokkasen) were a group of thirty-six prominent poets chosen by the government official and poet Fujiwara-no-Kinto (966-1041), who collected poems from each of them for an anthology. This early collection evidently set a precedent: in later times poems by other groups of thirty- six people (the “new” Thirty-six Immortal Poets, the “modern- day” Thirty-six Immortal Poets, etc.) were anthologized.

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THE FOUR KASEN / 15

second. However, this group got only as far as verse twenty. Verses twenty-one to thirty-two were com­posed later that year by poets in Iga Province (Mie Prefecture), Basho’s birthplace, when the master paid a visit there. This brought the number of participants to twelve. The last four verses were written in Kyoto by four additional poets, so that the finished kasen has sixteen authors. (Strangely, there is another version of this poem, for it seems that Otokuni took the text with him to Edo and had it completed there.)

Three more kasen were composed in a much less haphazard fashion. One was written that summer at the home of the poet Boncho (d. 1714) in Kyoto, with only Basho, Boncho, and Kyorai (1651-1704) parti­cipating. Then some time late in August or early in September at the Mumyo-an, “nameless hermitage,” at Yoshinaka Temple in the Otsu area, the same three poets, with Yasui (1658-1743) making a fourth, wrote another kasen. Finally, in early winter at the Rakushi- sha, “hut of the falling persimmons,” Kyorai’s hermi­tage on the outskirts of Kyoto, those same three (Basho, Boncho, and Kyorai), with Fumikuni put together the last kasen.

In 1691, Boncho and Kyorai, under the supervision of Basho, collected the four kasen, as well as essays and other collections of poems, into an anthology. The work of Basho, Otokuni, and the others became the

:1 16 I INTRODUCTION; t

ispring kasen, translated here under the title “Grass and Plum.” The names of the rest of the kasen followed the season in which they were composed: “Summer Moon,” “Autumn Cricket,” and “Winter Rain.” The title of the anthology, Sarumino or Monkey’s Raincoat, derives from the first poem in one of the other poetry sections:

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iWinter’s first rain monkey needs a raincoat too.

Hatsushigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari

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When the poems were anthologized, they were not put into chronological order, but appear (as they do in our book) in the order Winter, Summer, Autumn, Spring. The compilers have not explained this un­usual proceeding. Possibly they were enjoying the sharper contrasts in the pairings winter-summer and autumn-spring. We notice, too, that by ending with spring the compilers imitate the way in which this season is used in the renga itself. The renga must end on an upbeat; in the kasen the thirty-fifth verse is a flower verse, the last verse a spring verse.

Not only by putting spring last but also by present­ing the seasons out of order have the compilers imi­tated the way of the renga itself. A kasen starts with the present moment and so with the season of the present

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 17

moment, but after that there arc no rules for giving seasons in order, and commonly seasons do appear out of chronological order. This “out of order” can be seen as a way of presenting the four seasons all at once, thus reflecting Buddhist ideas about time. Kasen, as we shall see, scatter not only seasons but topics and landscapes and concepts in such a way as to make us feel that they arc “all present together.”

Basho’s influence on the four kasen in Monkey's Raincoat was profound. He was probably the “renga master” at Otokuni’s farewell gathering, keeping the renga rules (discussed below) in mind, accepting verses that pleased him, helping when help was needed. We know that when Boncho, Yasui, and Kyorai sat down with Basho at Yoshinaka Temple to begin “Autumn Cricket,” Basho said, “Let’s squeeze the juice from our bones.” Perhaps on that occasion this admonition was all the tutelage necessary. Poets work­ing with Basho were often able to extend themselves, to write at the top of their form.

STRUCTURE IN RENGA

Linking TechniquesA renga goes forward in much the same manner as

a conversation, for while we can and do change the subject in a conversation, what we say usually has

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18 I INTRODUCTION

' some connection with what has been said. There is, however, an important difference. In conversation, speakers may stay for several paragraphs with one topic. The renga writer responds only to the lines that directly precede his. Each poet is saying, “And that reminds me that...” These remindings, however, may take quite unexpected turns.

The techniques for linking verse to verse are subtle and various. In an attempt to talk about what these techniques are, Basho used five words: tiioi 'fejl', “scent”; hibiki I?#', “echo”; utsuri 0 (sometimes

0), “change” or “reflection”; kurai {£, “rank”; and omokage Hji£, “mental image.” These five terms, even in Basho’s special use of them, have been subject to many interpretations. Basho, Basho scholars, and renga writers then and now have used them as im­pressionistic labels reminiscent of Dante’s “shaggy,” “glossy,” “combed out,” and “rumpled” as classi­fications of Italian words.

The first two, tiioi and hibiki, refer to linking tech­niques that recreate in a verse an atmosphere similar to that in the preceding verse. The difference between the two seems to be a difference in emotional intensity. Nioi refers to gende feelings, hibiki to states of mind more agitated or exalted.

The two following verses are said to be connected by nioi} or “scent”:

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 19

Fennel seedscarried off

by die night wind.

It’s so chilly!And the priest sets out for the temple.

These verses, from “Summer Moon/’ both have a “winter is coming” atmosphere.

Another example of nioi is found in “Grass and Plum”:

Thin snow fallingon the bamboo geta* at the door.

Flowers again, and again I can’t decide

whom shall I take to look?

The snow gradually changing the appearance of the waiting geta is the pleasant visual experience of some­one enjoying his leisure. The next poet then thinks of the soon-to-be-changing trees. These two, cherry blossoms and snow, are two especially prized and much written about beauties. Of course, it is not only

*geta: raised wooden clogs.

I 20 I INTRODUCTION

pleasure in beauty that sets the tone of these verses; there is also a mild loneliness. There is only one pair of geta at the door, and while the speaker in the next verse intends to have someone with him to sec the blossoms, he is not quite certain that he can find an ideal companion. Perhaps he, too, will in the end be looking by himself; or he may be with someone and wish to be by himself.

Let us look at another example from “Grass and Plum’*:

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Again this summer tie up the rivet

in the broken fan.

Let the shoyu* sit awhile and watch the moon.

In these two verses there is an air of relaxation and yet of industry—the “smell” of summer on a small farm. It is easy to find examples of nioi, since it is prob­ably the most common of the linking techniques.

As stated above, the linking technique called hibiki, or “echo,” is much like nioi, except that the emotional tone in the verses is less mild. “Urgent,”

* shoyu: a sauce made from fermented soy beans; soy sauce.

STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 21

“agitated,” “exalted” arc all words that have been used to describe the atmosphere in verses linked by hibiki. Here is an example from “Summer Moon”:

Only the second batch of weeds . . .

and cars on the rice.

Shake the ashes from the dried sardine.

The summer is so hot that the crops come in too fast, and the farmers cannot take a proper meal, but eat their small fish right in the fields. The sense of hurry is in both verses.

The third of Basho’s five linking techniques, utsuri, has two meanings, “change” and “reflection.” When the word means “change,” it refers to a change of image from verse to verse while the emotional tone stays the same. This sounds familiar and, in fact, is in a general way little different from tiioi. The second meaning, “reflection,” refers to the deepening of meaning in a first verse by its association with a second verse, while the second verse derives its full

from its association with the first verse.meaningEach casts its color on the other. Here is an example from “Autumn Cricket”:

t22 / INTRODUCTION

i ;Out of the rain but. . . change and death.

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The wild heronsleeping:

undisturbed nobility.

In the first verse the idea that we can find temporary security is juxtaposed to reality as the Buddhists see it: we are but aggregates, part of may a, or “illusion/* These ideas are answered by the next poet with the beautiful image of the heron, undisturbed by any conscious knowledge of his place in the universe. “Change and death” intensifies our appreciation of the beauty of the wild heron. “Undisturbed nobility” gives us a new way of thinking about “change and death.”

Kurai, or “rank,” is linking by carrying the social ambience of one verse into the next. In “Grass and Plum” we find the following sequence:

Taking turns,eat the catered dishes.

On the sweat towelan X

in navy blue thread.

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 23

Under the hanging hen-coop hurried good-byes.

The second verse here continues the festival scene of the preceding verse, giving us a close-in shot, not even of a particular person after the crowd scene, but of a small detail of a particular person’s belongings, a homely and ordinary detail, but one that keeps us related to the human energy generated at the festival. Because some caring person may have sewn on that X, the poet of the next verse writes about hurried good­byes—but these take place under a hanging chicken coop, which, like the sweat towel, is not elegant. The juxtaposition of sweat towel and hen-coop, the crea­tion of such a continued ambience, is kurai. It will be obvious from this example, however, that the linking of any two verses is a complex process. Those hurried good-byes, that sewn-in X, they are part of the scene, too. We do not know for sure if love is hanging around in these verses until

Shamelessno way she can stop

loving.

tells us that the next writer takes it that way. In renga much of the poetry is between the verses.

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24 I INTRODUCTION

Omokage, or “mental image,” is the most difficult to explain of the linking techniques. Indeed, it is sometimes almost impossible for a non-Japanese reader to understand these leaps unless he has footnotes to the material. The mental image that the responding writer has in his mind is generally something from the Japanese tradition, some scene from The Tale of Genji, for instance, or from an early legend. However, in making his verse response he does not refer directly to the image in his mind, but chooses something further, some new image. Here are three verses from “Sum­mer Moon”:

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r Nanao in Noto— a grim winter.

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Old agesucking on

fish bones.

The lover has a key to the small gate.

What is the logic of linkage in these verses? In the first place, religious hermits liked Nanao in Noto (in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture) because it was cold and isolated, so it is not difficult to see why the

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STRUCTURE IN RRNCA / 25

next verse is about old age: there is much in old age that can be as cold and desolate as the hermit’s life in winter. It is harder, however, to sec what a lover at a small gate might have to do with cither old age or coldness and desolation. To appreciate the link, the reader must know the precise scene in The Tale of Genji to which this verse refers. When one does know, the association between verses is a particularly rich one. In The Tale of Genji, Chapter 6, Prince Genji is going to visit one of his mistresses, and he finds the gate locked. When the gateman with the key is finally located, he turns out to be very old and feeble. He is unable to push the gate open so that the carriage can get through, even though he is assisted eventually by a large, awkward girl, probably his granddaughter. One of Genji’s servants goes to their assistance, and the gate swings open. Genji, having also noticed that the girl is suffering from the cold, remembers some lines by Po Chii-i (722-846): “The little children run naked in the cold; / the aged shiver for lack of winter clothes.”* It is this leap, from old age and fish bones to the third verse, via the scene from Genji, that is omokage.

Here is another particularly fine example of omokage, also from “Summer Moon”:

*Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, trans. Arthur Waley (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967): Part 1, Book 6, p. 123.

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26 I INTRODUCTION

Without one backward look he leaves one hermitage

for the next.h*

Glad to be alive!My poems have been anthologized.

' Love.So many different ways

to have been in love.

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In the first verse the monk—he may be a monk living by the Buddhist precept of issho fuzai, or “stay not in one place”—reminds the responding poet of the priest Saigyo (1118-90), whose poems were often anthologized, and this brings into the next poet’s mind Ariwara-no-Narihira (825-80), another famous and much anthologized poet who was also (after the fictional Genji) Japan’s most famous lover. But in the verses neither Saigyo nor Narihira is named. How­ever, with the next verse,

At the end of life— all Komachis.Hit

we are fairly certain that this has been the train of thought. Ono-no-Komachi (c. 860) was “the most

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 27

beautiful woman in the world,” a distinguished poet, and a famous lover. The legend is that her life ended in poverty and obscurity.

These five linking techniques connect verse to verse in ingenious procession. What we have in fact are overlapping poems: 5-7-5 / 7-7 is a poem, but the 7-7 verse of that poem becomes the beginning of another poem, which has the structure 7-7 / 5-7-5, and so on. This overlapping gives renga a tight struc­ture in spite of the fact that the renga rules prohibit continuous narrative. Thus the linking techniques allow the renga to speak of lice, of Buddhist concepts, of fa­mous lovers with no sense of discontinuity. The humble, outrageous, comic haikai no renga game of the people and the thoughtful, sensitive aesthetic poems of the aristocrats are made to fit smoothly together.

Renga RulesIt is not, however, only the linking techniques that

create structure in the renga. There are other aids to composition, namely, the renga rules. The renga has no grand plan for the whole that relates to sense or ordered thought; it has instead a plan like an abstract painting or like a piece of music, a balancing of colors or chords, an ordering of images. The rules have two purposes: they assist in assuring that there is no “sense” except between verse and verse, and they contribute

28 I INTRODUCTION

to an ordering of elements that creates a formal structure.

Writing renga is not easy (some experts say that twenty years is hardly sufficient to learn the craft), and the rules make the task appear that much more formidable. There are so many of these that for hun­dreds of years it was the tradition at gatherings of renga enthusiasts to have a “renga master” keep them in mind and be the final arbiter of whether verses qualified or not, since it was felt that simultaneous attention to rules and to the creating of verses was too inhibiting. Of course, the rules were known to the participants and operated as guidelines, but with the renga master there, poets felt they had been freed of the responsibility of playing the role of critic. In the Basho school, use of the rules had become flexible and creative, but it would not have occurred to anyone to write without them.

Many of the rules have to do with spacing. In order to distribute images in a balanced way through the whole, categories were created: first, the four seasons; second, phenomena such as rising things (for example, mist, smoke, haze). Buddhism, travel, love, reminis­cences, mountains, dwellings, and so on. There are, of course, long lists of words for each category, and in some categories there was a further classification into tai fc, “essence,” and yu #j, “attribute.” Under

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STRUCTURE IN RUNGA / 29

mountains, for example, peaks, caves, and foothills arc all fixed things and arc labeled tai. Rope bridges, waterfalls, and fallen trees arc changeable and are con­sidered yu.

There arc three methods of distributing these categories: seriation, intermission, and repetition. One rule under seriation is that summer, winter, mist, Buddhism, and certain other phenomena may be carried through three verses, no more. Spring and autumn, however, are each allowed a run of five verses as a maximum and of three verses as a minimum.

Reminiscence (nostalgia and grief, life in this world) for purposes of seriation is put together with transiency (the fragility of life, death) to form one category and allowed runs of three verses. In the earliest times of renga writing, love was allowed three verses in a row, later two. (Love was not any sort of love, however. In renga, love is always yearning, unrequited, some­times even undisclosed love, just as it was in court poetry. In Basho’s time, however, love, probably still unrequited, could nevertheless be treated humorously.)

Some sequences of tai images and yu images were deemed acceptable by renga writers, while other sequences were not. The sequence tai-tai-yu} for ex­ample, was permitted; tai-yu-tai was not.

This tai-yu-tai pattern resembles one of the rules governing intermission of elements, namely, that one

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30 I INTRODUCTION

cannot return to any theme with only one verse in between (one sees how carefully any continuous “sense” is avoided). Seasonal words, for example, “late cherry blossoms” for spring, and “cricket” and “plantain” for autumn, may be used only seven verses. Paddy, pine, rose, and “dream” are also governed by this rule.

Some of the rules of repetition are even more restricting than this seven-verse intermission rule. “Peony,” “nightingale,” and “firefly” are thought to be so striking that their use is limited to one verse in a hundred. There are other lists of words that may be used only two, three, four, or five times in one hundred verses. (In a kasen, of course, three or four times would be too many.) Then there is that spectac­ular list of five words that are limited to one mention in a thousand-verse renga (virtually a prohibition):

bear, tiger, dragon, demon, and woman !Mention of the moon and flowers required special

treatment. There are two flower verses and three moon verses in a kasen. The required “seats of the moon” are verses five, fourteen, and twenty-nine. The first flower verse should be verse seventeen; the second, verse thirty-five. In practice both the flower and the moon verses were often shifted from their usual places, except that verse thirty-five is almost always a flower verse, as it is in the four kasen of Monkey's Raincoat.

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 31

The renga, then, seems to have been designed to be chaotic and cohesive at the same time. The ordered world of season following season, of events develop­ing into stories is carefully avoided. On the other hand, there is a skillful balancing of images, a subtle patterning of events, of emotional tone. The course often zigs and zags like the path of a dragonfly, but there are moments of straight motion. The rules are the aids to composition that first make the renga erratic and then give it a certain coherence.

Types of VersesNo reader of renga consciously labels verses as he

reads; nevertheless, the various types of renga verses create patterns to which he responds. This patterning of verses, like the spacing of elements under the renga rules, contributes to the poem’s abstract structure. The various classifications of verses in the renga ultimately derive from the techniques of ordering verses in early Japanese court poetry.

The first of these classifications describes the relative closeness of successive verses: the terms used are soku

“distantly related verses,” and shitiku H'pJ, “closely related verses.” The connection between verses may not be unmistakably “close” or “distant.” Differences of degree, however, only serve to make the patterning more subtle.

32 I INTRODUCTION'’

How arc successive verses judged in terms of being “distant” or “close”? Three verses in succession about autumn, for instance, would probably be closely related, but if autumn in the third verse were not the dominant aspect of the verse, the relationship would perhaps be distant. Close association of images, words, even of atmosphere makes closely related verses. Distantly related verses, by contrast, arc those without what Ezra Pound calls “boring unity of surface.” There is something hidden that relates them. Verses that are linked by literary allusion (though much depends on the obviousness of the reference) might well be distantly related. Successive verses having undercurrents of feeling, sudden shifts in idea that make the relationship tenuous, would also be examples of distandy related verses.

Sokuj distantly related verses, keep the kasen free and flexible. Let us look at three verses in “Winter Rain”:

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Mats for the young boys raveling at the edges,

dirty.:

IILotus flowersfalling by ones and twos.

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STRUCTURE IN RBNGA / 33

To begin withsoup

of Suizenji seaweed.

Lotus flowers and raveling mats seem at first to have no connection at all except that of place (they are side by side in the fiction of the poem), but the passing of time and the disintegration of “things” through time also connect them. The first two verses are soku.

But what is the connection between the lotus flowers and the soup in the second and last verses? Again, these verses are soku, but they are perhaps not so distantly related. This time the verses connect through atmosphere. The lotus flowers have become a pleasant backdrop for a temple lunch, though there may also be some surface connection between plant and plant, the lotus and the seaweed.

Shitiku, closely related verses, of course, keep the poem stable. When too long a run of loosely con­nected verses makes the reader uneasy, it is time to make the links smooth and straightforward. For instance, in “Summer Moon,” we find:

Six pieces of green wood

laid across the puddle.

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34 I INTRODUCTION

Dreaming, he spoils his tabi* in the black mud.

We might almost miss the obviousness of the con­nection in the surprise and humor of the second verse, but the juxtaposition of verse to verse is easy and close.

The other distinction found in early court poetry concerns the use of “striking” and “plain” verses. We have already seen that in renga certain words like “firefly” were too striking to be used often. Court poets had a similar attitude about striking verses in an anthology. Naturally they did not limit them as severely (as “firefly”but they did feel that in a long chain of striking verses, competition could dull effectiveness. They preferred some quieter, less demanding moments in the whole. This attitude came to prevail, too, in the renga world. In renga, striking verses are called moti and plain verses ji Using mon and ji verses creates patterns that are felt rather than perceived by the reader. They have a similar effect to the natural rise and fall of a story line, giving back a dimension that is lost when, as in renga, there is no continuous narrative. Of course.

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as one striking verse in one hundred verses was so limited under the renga rules),

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 35

verses may not be conclusively either mon or ji; sub­jective attitudes and interpretations play a part in any labeling.

The categories that we saw earlier in the discussion of renga rules closely resemble the soku-shitiku and mott-ji categories into which poems were put when they were arranged in court anthologies. These renga categories were still operating in the composition of kasen, but they had also evolved into a simple classi­fication of verses into “seasonal,” or ki and “mis­cellaneous,” or zo $|. Seasonal verses are verses that mention one of the seasons or use a kigo a word associated with one season. Miscellaneous verses arc those which are not seasonal. In the kasen in Monkey's Raincoat about half the verses are miscellaneous and half seasonal.

Tempo in RengaOne further element in the formal structure of the

renga has to do with tempo. The words used to dis­cuss this element of renga —jo J^, ha and kyii &— come from court music, in which they were used to label the three sections of a composition: the introduc­tion, the development, and the close, respectively. Later, as used of the Noh drama and of renga, the terms designated both structural divisions and tempo. As terms of tempo they mean something like “slow,”

36 I INTRODUCTION

“fast,” and “faster still.” In the Noh play, there is an incredible excitement in the kyu section.

What do the words mean in the composition of kasen? As terms of structure, they are fairly straight­forward: the first six verses are the introduction, jo; the last six are the close, kyu; and the twenty-four in between form the development section, ha. In practice, the jo section can be a little longer and the kyu section can begin a little early. It is interesting to note that kasen are written on two sheets of paper—four sides —with six verses on the first and last sides (the jo and kyu) and twelve verses on each of the other two sides (die ha).

The way in which renga poets achieve effects as the court musicians do with their tempos and the Noh playwrights with the different paces of different parts of their plays is a more interesting matter. Clearly, the poets have resources which are quite different (there is no fast beating drum in the kyu). Here, too, several procedures—rules and techniques—come into pky.

The jo portion of a renga cannot include verses on religion, love, impermanence, anecdotes, illness, or indeed any striking or unusual subjects. These intro­ductory verses should be quiet in tone and should flow easily. The first verse begins with a response to the present moment, the time, place, and setting of the

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 37

writing of the renga, and includes mention of the season. This perception of how a renga should begin is rather like the decorum of ordinary conversation. At a party, guests do not begin their verbal exchanges with profound talk, with complaints of illness, or with their favorite hilarious anecdotes, but are more likely to begin on a neutral plane. They may even begin by talking about the weather! Not strangely, then, the jo is likely to have a high number of seasonal stanzas.

Things vivid, forceful, compelling are left for the ha section. Supposedly, love, by Basho’s day, could be discussed only once in the whole poem, but this rule was often broken in Basho’s school: love could be mentioned twice, both verses placed in the ha, as Ba- sho felt the subject of love was a great agitator of verses. There are still seasonal verses in the ha, but the pro­portion of non-seasonal to seasonal verses is higher than in other parts of the poem. While taking a new direction in a new verse is part of the quiddity of renga, in the ha changes in direction may be quite radical. These sudden shifts help to pick up the tempo.

In all this, one is reminded of the progression d’effet in a Flaubert novel, except that the pickup in tempo comes toward the end of the development section in the novel while in the ha of the renga the allegro tempo should be maintained throughout. However, just as the novel builds to a fast close at the end, so the renga

38 I INTRODUCTION

ends with the fast close of the kyti. In the kyii, as in the jo and the ha, there is no simple recipe for es­tablishing a tempo and a structure. The effect is newly created each time by a unique and subtle use of tech­niques in combination. One useful device is the avoidance of involved links in the kyu. For instance, the technique of deliberate misinterpretation of a verse in order to make a radical shift between verses is appropriate to the ha, but not to the kyu. Many subjects suitable to the ha, as love, arc avoided in the kyu. To return to the decorum of conversation, if a party is to end at midnight, there are things that can be said at nine-thirty that would be out of place at a quarter to twelve. In fact, the formula for the kyu sounds like an ideal ending for a party. The kyu should move quickly, with a simple forward thrust, a possible climax, and then should end on an upbeat.

In the kasen the upbeat is taken care of with the flower verse at thirty-five, which is usually followed by a spring verse. In kasen, particularly, it is possible that some of the speed of the kyu section comes from mimesis. The poem has been talking about other things (verses thirty-one to thirty-four) and suddenly it’s spring, the same explosion in the poem as in the year.

The kyu in “Autumn Cricket” begins with the following verses:

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STRUCTURE INRENGA / 39

Seen from the high bank dense rice plants:

cool energy.

The Kamo Shrine: what better!

Note the beautiful pairing of the mystery of burgeon­ing plants with the atmosphere of gods present at the Shinto shrine. The kyu continues:

The hawker’s voice up and up . . . and

clipped off.

Again we have two distantly related verses (soku) to provide speed, but what a difference! The mood of the shrine grounds has been interrupted.

With the next verses,

Out of the rain but.. . change and death.

The wild heronsleeping:

undisturbed nobility.

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40 I INTRODUCTION

•Jthe elevated tone of the kyu resumes and the climax is reached. This is followed by:

Lap, lapping of water perceptible stir of water grasses.

These lines make the closest link in this kyu, slowing the tempo, but preparing for the flower and the spring verses that must end the kasen:

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The weeping cherry:open flowers

in full force.

Spring in March, early morning sky.

The kyu sections of “Autumn Cricket” and of “Sum­mer Moon” equal the best of the Noh plays in reach­ing the level of the sublime.

^ Not all the verses in kasen (some of them are plain ^ mon verses) are strong enough to be enjoyed on their

own. Many verses, however, and not just the opening ■fcX ' verse, do have that strength. They move us in the

reading and they slide back into the mind afterward. They have that special immediacy of the “now” that we associate with good haiku. We also enjoy the thirty-

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STRUCTURE IN RENGA / 41

one-syllable poems that come into being through the links, and pass away again as the verse changes be­cause of its new link, just as the ten thousand things of real life arc apt to change in context.

We have seen how the kasen, lacking continuous sense, is yet a structured whole. Even so, we might expect that the “lacking sense” would make it unlikely that in retrospect we could distinguish one kasen from another. Actually, each good kasen has its own special style. There is a story that illustrates this point. The kasen of Basho’s day take their titles from a line in the first verse, but in earlier times a fushimono a word or phrase that somehow characterizes the poem, was set at the beginning to serve in lieu of a title. One medieval emperor instructed his courtier poets to write him one renga with a “black,” one with a “red,” and one with a “white” fushimono. Obviously, each of these plotless linked-verse poems was expected to achieve an individual tonal quality. The best renga still do. We fmd that we remember the whole of “Summer Moon” or any of these four kasen just as we remember, not just the tunes from, but the whole effect of, a piece of music.

Finally, it should be remembered that the four kasen of Monkey's Raincoat formed one section of the original anthology and should be read together. They are one

42 I INTRODUCTION

symphony, from the sleeked-down feathers of the kite to the spring wind in the doll’s sleeve.

THE HAIKU OF MONKEY S RAINCOAT

As mentioned earlier in this Introduction, Boncho and Kyorai included in Monkey's Raincoat poems besides the four kasen. These additional poems in­cluded three hundred eighty-two hokku, the poems used as the opening verse of a renga, arranged in four sections (one section for each season),* as well as a group of thirty-five such verses.

Learning to compose the opening verse was an important part of the training of a renga writer. This verse, according to the rules, had to be complete in itself but also needed to be provocative enough to get the sequence going. Not surprisingly, it always had a seasonal word (kigo) because the renga, which may quickly become fictional, usually starts with the reality of the present scene: the time, place, setting, happen­ing, or mood of the occasion of its writing.

Since this is the one verse that is not written in response to another verse, examples could be written up ahead of time. The renga master might arrive at the renga party with his hokku precomposed. The

*Thc poem quoted on page 16 as the source of the title Monkey's Raincoat is the first poem of the winter section of hokku.

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THE HAIKU I 43

host and the guest of honor might be ready, too, in ease they had the privilege of starting the poem. Renga teachers often assigned hokku as exercises. Interest in hokku increased, and a great many written and put into collections were never in fact used as opening verses, yet somehow they were never thought of as something separate from linked poetry. Sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century, “hokku” became “haiku” the latter term being an abridg­ment of “haikai” and “hokku.” By the nineteenth century the haiku had become a verse of interest in itself, and by the twentieth century nearly everyone had lost sight of the fact that the haiku had once been a hokku and part of the art of linked verse. The struc­ture of the hokku and the haiku is, of course, the same, and the latter term is often used for both hokku and the later poems having the 5-7-5 syllable structure.

The haiku, like other forms of poetry, is condensed; indeed, there could not be poetry more condensed. Three lines are not much space in which to make an impression. There is, for example, no time to talk about something; there is only time to present some­thing. Haiku is immediate; it is about the here and now.

There is also no time to comment, to give opinions. Direct expression of personal feelings is not part of haiku. There is an old Zen saying—

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44 I INTRODUCTION

Entering the forest lie does not disturb a blade of grass

Entering the water he docs not cause a ripple.

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The poet is there, “in with” the images, the mood, the meaning of the moment that he presents in his poem, but he doesn’t “disturb a blade of grass,” he doesn’t “cause a ripple.”

Haiku makes many of its points by the juxtaposi­tion of images. The shrikes at sunset evoke something, and a wilderness of red pines at sunset evokes some­thing; putting the two together evokes a new some­thing (see the first poem on p. 139). It should come as no surprise, given the roots of haiku in linked poetry, that this use of juxtaposition underlies and enlarges the meanings of these short poems. There is the same care and contriving in putting image and image together within the verse as there was in adding poem to poem in the renga.

The haiku sequences presented here have been se­lected from the four large groups of seasonal haiku in Monkey’s Raincoat. In Kyorai and Boncho’s anthology the four sections are presented in the same order as the four kasen: Winter, Summer, Autumn, Spring. The linking of verse to verse in these haiku sequences is not done quite as it was in the kasen. The most notice-

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THE HAIKU I 45

able difference is that there arc poems in series (any­thing from two to twelve verses) on a single topic. Each section is arranged as a long haiku sequence. In our book, twelve haiku have been translated from each of the four sections. From these, two haiku se­quences were made, each sequence containing six poems from each section. The order of the sections follows that of the original. In this “anthology of an anthology,” the verses have not been ordered by topics, but have been linked using some of the tech­niques employed in linking the poems of a renga.

The haiku in Monkey's Raincoat are distinguished haiku. In the Chinese essay that concluded the an­thology, the priest Naito Joso (1662-1704) tells us that the editors wanted to use poems that followed the style of the Basho school, and he says that that included poems by women and children and old people. “If we find their poems are not the best possible,” he says, “then neither are the others”—a statement that speaks, we hope, to seventeenth-century prejudices, not to ours, and that is, in any case, entirely too modest a description for a collection of poetry that came to be called “the Kokinshu of haikai.”*

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* Kokinshu: c. 905, the first and best of the twenty-one imperial anthologies of Japanese poetry. The term “haikai” refers both to poetry sequences of the type in Monkey’s Raincoat and to hokku and haiku collectively.

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46 I INTRODUCTION

NOTES ON TRANSLATION

One of my teachers used to present his students with several lines of Shakespeare and ask them to tell him something about those lines, “including obvious things,” he said. Even so, lie could never get anyone to say that the lines were in English. “Isn’t that too obvious?” the students asked. He always replied, “Obvious, yes, but fundamental.”

In translating, then, from Japanese into English, the genius of the two languages must be taken into account. Japanese is unaccented (in terms of stress, at least) and mostly polysyllabic. English has definite stress patterns and has both monosyllabic and poly­syllabic words, but the Anglo-Saxon core of the lan- guage is monosyllabic: house, tear, love, hate. There are of course important words with two syl­lables—“mother,” “father,” “hunger,” but we can say many things in English without using a three-syllable word at all. Of the almost 140 words I have used so far in this section there are only 20 words with more than two syllables.

Two things happen if translators try to use seventeen syllables in translating a Japanese haiku into English. First, new words (and thus new concepts and images) have to be added to the English version in order to fill it up. And to add new concepts and images is to mis-

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NOTES ON TRANSLATION / 41

translate. Second, seventeen syllables can fall happily into English speech patterns, even musical speech patterns, but more often if the translator says what the Japanese says with seventeen English syllables, the result is an awkward, bumpy sort of English. Nor­mally in English, it is not syllables that arc counted, but “feet,” patterns of stresses and unstressed syllables.

Coleridge, in making his lines in “The Ancient Mariner,” counted only stressed beats. This is the method of counting that I have used to try to create a verbal music in English that does not replicate but does imitate the music of Japanese. I translate the haiku us­ing three lines (the use of four lines to imitate English forms seems to me to be beside the point and to create padded verses). In the three lines, I call a stressed beat pattern of 2-3-2 in English equivalent to a syllabic pattern of 5-7-5 in Japanese. Or for greater flexi­bility, as there is so much besides the musical pattern to translate, I sometimes admit stanzas which have beat patterns of 1-2-1, or 3-5-3, and so on. Some­times, in a ploy which any musician (I trust) will understand, I invert the pattern to 3-1-3. It is even possible to use 5-7-5, counting stressed beats, but as haiku are so brief, that seldom happens. In the trans­lation of kasen, of course, I would be counting 2-3-2/ 3-3, and so on.

To be sure, any discussion of technique must be

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48 I INTRODUCTION

; tempered with good sense—Ezra Pound’s “Listen to die sound it makes,” for instance. Rules, even ones made by the translator, are meant to serve, not to intimidate. In the first twenty-four haiku I have translated from the haiku section of Monkey’s Rain­coat, I find I have made three “irregular” verses.

I find it awkward to use rhyme. Two rhymes in three lines arc rather heavy. English, in any case, is “rhyme poor,” making it difficult to say what the Japanese says and to rhyme, too. English is, however, rich in assonance, families of sound, which can be used to create patterns.

Japanese is a particularly mellifluous language, and kasen and haiku have beautiful sound patterns based on repetition, both of individual sounds and of syl­lables, and on correspondence of vowel sounds. The only way to repeat these patterns exactly would be to repeat the Japanese. But as this is an English translation, an equivalent music in English must be attempted. Especially in translating kasen, which have as many flyaway elements as stable ones, I like to try to pin the whole together with verbal harmonies because I feel that there are verbal harmonies in the Japanese that serve this function.

A further discussion of technique is probably beyond the scope of this Introduction. Most of the principles I have followed can be found in George Duhamel and

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NOTES ON TRANSLATION / 49

Charles Vildrac’s Notes sur la Technique Poetique and in two essays in T. S. Eliot’s To Criticize the Critic and Other Writings entitled “Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry” and “Reflections on ‘Vers Libre, be remembered that this is all talk of intention. I have at all times intended to serve the beauty of the original work. I hope that from time to time I have come near.

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Hatsushigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari

Winter’s first rain monkey needs a raincoat too.

—BASHO

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BIOGRAPHIES

Brief biographies of the five main contributors to the kasen of Monkey's Raincoat are presented below. Although relatively little is known about some of the other poets, perhaps a brief mention should be made of them. At least two of the poets (Hattori Doho, 1657-1730; Yamaguchi Hanzan, 1653-1726) were from samurai families of Ueno, Iga Province, Basho’s birthplace. Doho is remembered for his work on Basho entitled Sanzoshi (Three books on the art of haiku). Matsukura Ranran (1647-93) was also a samurai and, like Kyorai, left the military to write poetry. Kawai Otokuni (dates unknown), whose trip to Edo was celebrated by the writing of “Grass and Plum,”1737) was a physician. Takarai Kikaku (1661-1707) is not one of the poets about whom not much is known. Though he does not have many verses in Monkey's Raincoat, he was a famous and prolific haikuist, a brilliant and impetuous townsman. He was

rich merchant. Hamada Chinseki (d.was a

52 I MONKEY'S RAINCOAT

in character and style a different sort of man from Basho, but the two were great friends. Two of the six women contributors to the anthology arc repre­sented in the present work: Kawai Chigetsu (d. 1708), who was Otokuni's mother, and Uko (dates un­known), Boncho’s wife.

BASHO (1644-94)

Matsuo Basho was born in Ueno, IgaProvince (present-day Mie Prefecture) into a samurai family of low rank. At an early age he was engaged as a companion to Todo Yoshitada, the son of a high- ranking samurai family, and studied poetry with the other young man under Kitamura Kigin (1624-1705). Basho showed talent from his youth, and his verses were first anthologized in 1666, when he was only twenty-two. Unfortunately, at about this time Yoshi­tada died, whereupon the grief-stricken Basho left the service of the family and went up to Edo.

In Edo, Basho was employed for a time by the waterworks and continued to study poetry with Kigin. In 1680 his material life was improved some­what when he was given a small hermitage in the Fukagawa area of the capital. This place was called the Basho-an (basho, banana tree; an, cottage); it was here that the poet began to call himself Basho. Basho had a great deal of affection for the banana tree, for

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BIOGRAPHIES / 53

as he said, “Being completely useless as wood for building, it never feels the ax.”

Basho had been studying calligraphy, Chinese and Japanese poetry, and Taoism (his ideas about the banana tree arc strongly Taoist); now he began to study Zen, shaving his head and wearing the simple clothes of a priest. Often living as a recluse, he began to develop a quiet, natural style of poetry that came to be called shofu, “Basho style,” by his disciples.

In 1682 the Basho-an burned down, but it was rebuilt for the poet in the following year. In 1684, however, he left Fukagawa on the first of his pilgrim­ages. He went first to the great shrine at Ise and then to Ueno, his hometown. He visited other poets on these journeys, and many poetry parties were given in his honor, gatherings which provided him with numerous friends and disciples, with the result that the Basho style spread throughout Japan. It was on one of his journeys, in 1685, that the five kasen that form most of the anthology Fuyu no Hi (Winter day) were written.

On these journeys Basho also wrote the poetry and prose statements that became the famous Basho travel diaries, the most well known of which is Oku no Hosomichi (The narrow road to the North), written on a journey which began in 1689. Between trips the poet lived with friends in various retreats. The year 1691 saw him for a time at Kyorai’s Rakushi-sha, at which time Monkey’s Raincoat was compiled.

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In these years of alternating retreat and travel- teaching, Basho became a superb haikuist and haiku teacher, perfecting his own poetry and training a generation of fine poets. Greatly influenced by Zen, Basho wanted poems to be written in that moment when one is not separate from the world. In Doho’s Sanzoshi, Basho is quoted: “If you get a flash of insight into an object, put it into words before it fades away in your mind.”* The best poems happen when one is concentrating on something outside of oneself, because then “the color of the mind naturally becomes a poem.” He says further that if the poet doesn’t understand true concentration, “nothing in him will become a poem”; he will have to make his poem through an “act of personal will.” Basho was that best of teachers, the one who teaches students to write not in the teacher’s style but in their own respective

During Basho’s several years of travel, the Basho-an had been turned over to another person, but in 1692 another hermitage of the same name was built by subscription. Five new banana trees were planted at this new home, where the poet lived until May 1694, when he again set out for distant places. In July he was in Ueno again; by September he was in Osaka writing renga at poetry parties, but at one of these he fell ill.

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biographies I 55

It proved to be more serious than indigestion (it was probably dysentery), and as the news traveled, his friends and disciples hurried to Osaka. Asked for a death verse, he said, “Each of my verses has been a death verse.” But on October 8 he called them to his bed and said, “This is and is not a death verse. At any rate, it has something to do with my illness.”

On my journey lying ill, my dreams run on

over the winter moor.

Basho died on October 12, 1694, and was buried at Gichu-ji, a temple in the suburbs of Otsu near Lake Biwa, a place he had always loved.

BONCHO (d. 1714)

Nozawa Boncho was born in Kanazawa,the capital of Kaga Province (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture); he later lived in Kyoto, where he was a physician. It is not known when he took up the writing of haiku, but his work began to be anthol­ogized in about 1688, and by 1690 or before he had become involved in the Basho school.

Boncho is known for his perceptive eyes: the line of a river in the snow, buds coming out on wood cut for the fire, a razor going rusty in one day, ashes on

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56 I MONKEY'S RAINCOAT

die sardines, water spilling from a bucket. He fully appreciated the humor and pathos of the human situation. His verses do not lead us out from the moment, they simply enter into the “suchness of things” without comment.

Boncho was married to a poet named Uko, who also contributed some verses to Monkey's Raincoat, and whose work too shows a keen interest in small happenings.

In 1693 Boncho was implicated in a crime and spent some time in prison. When he was released he again wrote haiku, but his later work never equaled the strong verses he created when he was actively engaged in the affairs of the Basho school.

FUMIKUNI (dates unknown)

Little is known of Nakamura Fumikuni except that he was born in Owari Province (pres­ent-day Aichi Prefecture) and practiced medicine. He seems to have joined the Basho school shortly before the publication of Monkey's Raincoat. Besides sharing the authorship of the winter kasen, he con­tributed about a dozen haiku to the haiku sequences of that anthology.

Many of his haiku present two or three images in rapid sequence. In the following, for example,

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The cuckoocries out. Between the trees

a tower.

there is not one moment, but two: the moment when we heard the bird and the moment when we turned our head to find it and were surprised. This use of mo­tion instead of stopped focus is characteristic of Fumi- kuni’s work.

KYORAI (1651-1704)

Mukai Kyorai was born into a samuraifamily in Nagasaki. When he was still a boy it was decided that he would have a military career, so he was taken to Kyoto to start his training. He later moved to Kyushu, where he lived with an uncle and continued his studies. He eventually decided against a life with the military, however, and in about 1685 started to study poetry with Basho. At about this time also, he built the Rakushi-sha, his retreat in the suburbs west of Kyoto. With the publication of Monkey's Raincoat in 1691, his reputation was made.

Although the range of Kyorai’s subjects and tech­niques is wide, his haiku are often about people and their feelings: anger calmed by cherry trees, lovers parting, a man swaggering his sword (Samurai / takes

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his big sword / to the flower festival). Even when people arc not present, there is a strong emotional tone, such as an empty house in autumn or a spectac­ular sunrise.

Kyorai was one of Basho’s most devoted disciples and became one of the authorities of the Basho school in western Japan. We arc particularly indebted to him for his editing of Basho’s Oku no Hosomichi and for the Kyoraisho, an anthology of Basho’s comments on the writing of haiku.

In his last years Kyorai lived as a haiku teacher near Higashiyama, in the eastern suburbs of Kyoto. He died at the age of fifty-three.

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Okada Yasui born in Nagoya, was arich shopkeeper and city elder. As a haiku poet, Yasui sometimes made rather stunning juxtapositions be­tween and within his poems, such as when mountain clouds are followed by the energy of the difficult horse barely restrained by its rider. His most famous haiku may be

Wheat-stealing wild geese, but still

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Besides his participation in Monkey’s Raincoat, his work also appears in the first two of the seven Basho anthologies, Fuyu no Hi and Ham no Hi (Spring day). During his later years Yasui became adept at the tea ceremony.

1 (Overleaf). “A Poetic Gathering” (detail), by Matsumura Goshun (1752-1811).Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art, Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund.

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i; Note: An asterisk (*) following the poem number indicates that an explanatory note for that poem or a word or phrase therein appears in the Notes to the Poems section beginning on page 145. A small raised number next to the poem number refers to the page number of the Introduction on which the links between that verse and suc­cessive verses are discussed.

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CWINTER RAIN

Hatsushigure

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64 I THE KASEN

Tobi no ha mo1.*))»•kaitsukuroinu

hatsushigurci

Hitofuki haze no ko-no-ha shizumaru

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1 1::

Momohiki no asa kara nururu

kawa koete

3.

Tanuki o odosu shinohari no yumi

4.

Mairado ni tsuta haikakaru

yoi no tsuki

5.j

:

Hito ni mo kurezu meibutsu no nashi

6.i\

I!.

mill

■:

: 31

WINTER RAIN / 65

First winter rain, the kite’s rag-tag feathers

sleeked down.

1.

—KYORAI

After the burst of wind leaves rest.

2.

—BASHO

With morning undershorts already soaked

he fords the river.

3.

—BONCHO

Neighborhood badgers afraid of set bows.

4.*

—FUM3KUNI

5.* Over the double doorsivy crawling.

Early moon.—BASHO

Won’t share the local pears.

6.

—KYORAI

Ii

66 I THE KASEN

Kakinaguru sumie okashiku

aki kurete

7.

;Hakigokoro yoki meriyasu no tabi

8.■

I

9. Nanigoto mo mugon no uchi wa

shizuka nari

■ \

10. Sato miesomete uma no kai fuku

11. Hotsuretaru kozo no negoza no

shitataruku)

;Fuyo no hana no harahara to chiru

12.;h:j

!!

i!■;

ii1

WINTER RAIN / 61

Casual sketching ink drawing just for fun

and autumn’s over.

7.

—FUMIKUNI

Especially comfortable knit tabi.

8.*

—BONCHO

Whatever happens, not talking about it

makes for peace.

9.*

—KYORAI

Our first look at the village, noon, the shell trumpet.

10.*

—BASHO

Mats for the young boys raveling at the edges,

dirty.

II.32

—BONCHO!

Lotus flowersfalling by ones and twos.

12.

—FUMIKUNI

i

!

;

68 I THE KASEN=i

13. Suimono wa mazu dekasareshi

Suizenji

Sanri amari no michi kakaekeru

14.-: !

,> i Ii

Kono haru mo15.!Rodo ga otoko

man tiite

i

;

iSashiki tsukitaru tsuki no oboroyo

16.

Koke tiagara hana ni naraburu

chozubachi

11.

i

Hitori naorishi kesa no haradachi

18.

■

t

!

WINTER RAIN / 69

To begin with13.*soup

of Suizcnji seaweed.—BASHO

Still more than seven miles to go.

14.

—KYORAI

This spring,who wants the contract signed,

Rodo or his man?

15.*

—FUMIKUNI

Haze under the moon, the cutting’s taken hold.

16.

—BONCHO

Lined up with the flowers

the moss-covered wash basin.—BASHO

17.

Mended:this morning’s anger.

18.

—KYORAI

10 I THE KASEN

Ichidoki ni futsuka no mono mo

kiitc oki

19.

Yukike ni samuki shima no kitakazc

20.-

Hi tomoshi ni kurureba noboru

mine no tera

21.

I f I'

22. Hototogisu mina nakishimaitari

Yasebonc no mada okinaoru

chikara naki

23.

Tonari o karite kuruma hikikomu

24.

WINTER RAIN / 71

At one sitting— today’s dinner

and tomorrow’s.

19.

—BONCHO

Snow cold:the island’s north wind.

20.

—FUMKUNI

In the thin light after sunset he climbs to the temple

at the summit.

21.

—KYORAI

All the cuckoos dancing in the trees.

22.

—BASHO

Bone-thin he still can’t

sit up.

23.

—FUMTKUNI

Borrowing space at the neighbors’ they bring around a carriage.

24.*

—BONCHO:

,

.

12 I THE KASEN

Uki hito o kikoku-gaki yori

kugurascti

25.

Ima ya wakare no katana sashidasu

26.

Sewashigc ni kushi de kashira o

kakichirashi

27.

'

Omoikittaru shinigurui mi yo

28.

29. Seiten ni ariake-zuki no

asaborake

Kosui no aki no Hira no hatsushimo

30.

IWINTER RAIN I 73

Ukifunc’s lover makes it through

the thorny oranges.

25.*

—BASHO

Morning parting— she holds out his sword.

26.

—KYORAI

Restless,she combs her hair,

scribbles a little.

27.

—BONCHO

Finally resolves “Struggle to the death.”

28.

—FUMIKUNI

In a cloudless sky the white moon:

daylight.

29.

1—KYORAI

The lake, autumn, Mount Hira’s first frost.

30.*

—BASHO

:74 I THE KASEN

Shiba no to yn soba nusumarete

uta o yomu

31.,

Nunoko kinarau kaze no yugure

32.I

Oshiotenete wa mata tatsu

karimakura

33.!V. .

!

Tatara no kumo no mada akaki sora

34.

Hitokamae shirigai tsukuru

mado no hana

35.

36. Biwa no furuha ni ko-no-me moetatsu

jl'■ !::

1

WINTER RAIN I 75

l IBrushwood gate— someone stole his buckwheat

and he’s still chanting poems.—FUMKUNI

31.

!■

Already used to padded clothes— night wind.

32.

—BONCHO

Waking and sleeping wedged-in up early, at night

another makeshift pillow.

33.

—BASHO

Clouds over the foundry still reddish brown.

34.

—KYORAI

At the cottage crupper making

and a flower at the window.—BONCHO

35.

In last year’s loquat leaves new green.

36. i—FUMKUNI

:

'

:

!• 76/l

}

;

i

O 3. “The Toad,” by Sengai Gibon.Courtesy of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts.

I<0

=:H l

SUMMER MOONNatsu no Tsuki

'

r.

• i

:i

;

i

5 !

78 I THE KASEN

Ichinaka wa mono no tiioi ya

natsu no tsuki

1.;

Atsushi at sushi to kado kado no koe

2.

i ;Nihangusa

tori mo hatasazu ho ni idete

3.

'

4. Hai uchitataku urume ichimai

5. Kotio suji wa kane mo mishirazu

fujiyiisa yo

6. Tada tohyoshi ni nagaki wakizashi

■ •

■ ;i Hiij

i••. !

SUMMER MOON / 19

In the town smells of things

under a summer moon.

1.!

—BONCHO

“It’s hot, it’s hot”:At every gate the same sigh.

2. !

—BASHO

Only the second batch of weeds. ..

and ears on the rice.

3.21

|—KYORAI

■

■:Shake the ashes from the dried sardine.

i 4.

—BONCHO

Around here silver coins are oddities.

Damned inconvenient.

5.>

;li—BASHO

6. Fantastic, swagger sword.

*—KYORAI ::

i::>

ItI

80 I THE KASEN

7. Kusamura tti kawazu kowagaru

yumagure

;Fuki no me tori tti attdo yurikesu

8.

.

Doshin no okori wa hana no

tsubomu toki

9.) .

! 10. Noto no Nanao no fuyu wa sumiuki

Uo no honeshiwaburu made no

oi o mite

Machibito ireshikotnikado no kagi

SUMMER MOON / 81

Walking through the wet thicket—

frightened of a frog.

7.*

—BONCHO

Picking butterburr sprouts . . . the light goes out.

8.

—BASHO

The Buddha Mind— with the first flowers

wakes up.

9.*

—KYORAI

10.24 Nanao in Noto— a grim winter.

—BONCHO

Old age11.sucking on

fish bones.—BASHO

i

The lover has a key to the small gate.

12. ;

:—KYORAI

i !

82 I THE KASEN! :! jl

B Tachi kakari13.bydbu o taosu

onagodomo

1

Yudono wa take no sutioko wabishiki

14.

Uikyo no mi o fukiotosu

yuarashi

15.■

So yaya samuku ter a ni kaeru ka

16.

Saruhiki no saru to yo ofuru

aki no tsuki

17.

;;:fi18. Nen ni itto no

jishi hakaru nari■

.

*‘

SUMMER MOON / 83

A lcaned-on screen13.always falls.

Servants! i■

’

—BONCHOV:Bamboo grating on the bathroom floor—

not too cheerful.14. .• -

—BASHO•.

Fennel seeds15.19 -carried off t

Iby the night wind. .«>

—KYORAI

It’s so chilly!And the priest sets out for the temple.

—BONCHO

16.

The monkey masterleads his monkey through the world ...

autumn moon.

17.

:!ii—BASHO

18.* He pays out the onc-to tithes. sI —KYORAI!

:!

,1!

i

84 I THE KASEN

19. Go- roppoti namaki tsuketaru

mizutainari

Tabi futniyogosu kurohoko no tnichi

20.

21. Oitatete hayaki ouma no

katanamochi

Detchi ga ninau mizu koboshitari

22.

To shoji mo mushiro-kakoi no

uriyashiki

23.

Tenjo-mamoriitsu ka irozuku

iliSUMMER MOON / 85 !

19.83 Six pieces of green wood

laid across the puddle.

.! .

;:I—BONCHO ;

Dreaming, he spoils his tabi in the black mud.

20. I;

—BASHO

iNot as fast as the horse:

21.;I

the sword-bearer. :—KYORAI

:The apprenticespills the water he carries.

22.

—BONCHO

23.* Shoji doors, a straw-mat fence:

the large house is for sale.—BASHO

i:iPeppers in the garden will be green, then red.

24. !i

—KYORAI

j i 86 I THE KASEN

Kosokoso to waraji o tsukuru

tsukiyo sashi

25.

:

1 Nomi o Jurui ni okishi hatsuaki

26.

; :,

Sotio mama ni korobi-ochitaru

masu-otoshi

21.

t!

Yugamite futa no awanu hambitsu

28.

29. Soati ni shibaraku ite wa

uchiyaburi

:

Inochi ureshiki senjii no sata

30.I

I'

iffIHit!,;l!iIII

'SUMMER MOON / 87

Quietly with no fuss making sandals

in the moonlight.

25.

—BONCHO

Early morning in the fall: shaking out fleas in private.

26.

—BASHO

The mousetrap27.overturned

and empty.—KYORAI

Clothes chestso bent the lid won’t fit.

28.

—BONCHO

Without one backward look he leaves one hermitage

for the next.

29.26

r—BASHO

Glad to be alive!My poems have been anthologized.

—KYORAI

30.

;■

■

■

i88 I THE KASEN'

. i- Samazama ni shitia kawaritaru

koi o shite

31.

Ukiyo no hate wa tnina Komachi nari

32.

Nani yue zo kayu susuru ni mo

namidagumi

33.

;: !

Orusu to nareha hiroki itajiki

34.

Te-no-hira ni shirami hawasuru

hana no kage

35.

36. Kasumi ugokanu hiru no nemutasa

4: !

i1r ■

i

ISUMMER MOON / 89 -

■

=i

31. Love.So many different ways

to have been in love.

=

=\ ■■:—BONCHO

' i32.* At the end of life— all Komachis.

—BASHO

“Why?” She sips gruel

33.

iiand can’t stop the tears.

—KYORAI

This huge wooden floor— when he’s away from home.

34. I I

1—BONCHO

He lets the lice crawl on his hand

shaded by cherry flowers.

! 35.

i

—BASHO

Immobile haze36. :imoon, spring, sleep.

—KYORAI

|

lI

1 90 I

;

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> 4. “Chrysanthemum,” by Sengai Gibon. Courtesy of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts.

:AUTUMNCRICKET

.

■

Kirigirisu;

--\

-;i

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II

a0 li5 i

>) :■ -

f 1i;

lin

IiIt

i

92 I THE KASEN

\ Aku-oke no shizuku yamikeri

kirigirisu

1.

\

Abura kasurite yoine sum aki

2.

; Aradatamishikinarashitaru

tsukikage ni

3.I'-;*ftill>

1- Narabete ureshi to no sakazuki

4.

Chiyo fubeki mono o samazama

nenobi shite

5.

6.[i Uguisu no ne ni tabira yuki furu

■

AUTUMN CRICKET / 93

Ash-water from the pail dripping, dripping, stops—

sound of crickets.

1.

;—BONCHO

Autumn: scrape the oil, go to bed with the dark.

2.

—BASHO !i

3. Green tatamilevel

in the moonlight.—YASUI ;

4. Happy to set out ten wine cups.

—KYORAI

Thousand-year things by the thousands:

the Day of the Rat.

5.*

—BASHO

The nightingale singing ... thin snowflakes.

6. !

*,—BONCHO

■

■

'■

i

: 'I94 I THE KASEN

!

I Noridashite kaina ni amaru

haru no koitta

7.

;

I* Maya ga takane ni kumo no kakareru

8.

t!

Yiimeshi ni kamasugo kueba

haze kaoru

9.

: \r j :|

! ^ i ■

Him no kuchido o kakite kimi yoki

10.U ■"

11. Mono-omoi kyd wa wasurete

yasumu hi ni

12. Mukae sewashiki tono yori no fumi{• i

:!| j ■ u

IHiMi

!A UTUMN CRICKET / 95\

The rider bends forward arms too weak

for the spring horse.

57.

>:!—KYORAI ■

*At the top of Mount Maya a clash with clouds.

8.* :'i—YASUI

i

9. Evening—eat pike

INand smell the wind.—BONCHO

5

After the water leech the pleasant scratch.

10.

—BASHO

Love?11.forget it!

It’s the day off!—YASUI

!Summoned home by the impatient lord.

12.

=—KYORAI

:;

I!il[\; H

1:l 96 I THE KASEN

1 Kintsuba to hito ni yobaruru

mi no yasusa

13.

I:ll| P

Atsuburozuki no yoiyoi no tsuki

14.

:Chonai no

aki mo fukeyuku akiyashiki

i 15.;;1••1.

?

16. Nani o miru ni mo tsuyu bakari tiari!

!■

1 IHana to chiru

mi wa Sainen ga koromo kite

17.

Kiso no suguki ni haru mo kuretsutsu

18.

H! !

s;.

!

pi

'AUTUMN CRICKET / 91 \

i :!They call me “gold knife”:13.*

Iswordfor special advisors.

—BASHO'•! i

!Hot bath freak? Enjoying the moon.

14.' h

—BONCHO

i!In this neighborhood, too,

autumn escapes.Empty villa.

15. ;; a

—KYORAI

Transient as dew: anything we see.

16. |!1

■—YASUI

The flower falls and like Sainen

we wear Buddhist robes.

17.*

—BASHO

The end of springand of turnip pickles at Kiso.

18.* :

—BONCHO

=I £•!

—1-

'i

98 I THE KASEN!I

Kaeru yara yamakagc tsutau

shijukara

19.

;

i;it- Shiba sasu ie no

mime o karageru20.. ii

I

: i: 21. Fuyuzora no are ni naritaru

kita-oroshi

- -:•i1.

«Ij

Tabi no chiso ni ariakashi oku

r i 22.

Susamajiki onna no chie mo

hakanakute

23.

24. Nani omoigusa okami no naku■

h' 1' I

AUTUMN CRICKET / 99

Going homeflying north along the mountains—

chickadees.

;19. >t

:

—YASUI:f

Along the ridge of the roof the farmers reinforce the thatching.

20. >'

—KYORAI '

In the winter sky the coming storm—

north wind.

21.

—BONCHO

Set meal at the inn and the all-night light.

22.

n—BASHO

Extraordinary woman’s wisdom

short lived.

23.

—KYORAI

Bellflower love-potion and the wolves howl.

24.

—YASUI

El; 100 I THE KASENI

Yuzukiyo oka no kayane no

gobyo morn

25.■

;' ;

% Hito mo wasureshi akasobu no mizu

26.

Usotsuki ni jiman iwasete

asoburan

21.

;

Mata mo daiji no sushi o toridasu

28.

Tsutsumi yori29.ta no aoyagite

isagiyoki

Kamo no yashiro wa yoki yashiro nari

30.isif M|: |i

I P; i

1■

AUTUMN CRICKET / 101

Miscanthus.In the moonlight

someone guards the emperor’s tomb.—BASHO

25.

;

In the forgotten well rusty water.

26.

—BONCHO

The storyteller starts to boast:

free afternoon.

27.

—YASUI

And now the sushi should be served again.

28.*

—KYORAI

Seen from the high bank dense rice plants:

cool energy.

29.39

—BONCHO;

The Kamo Shrine: what better!

30.*

—BASHO

f102 I THE KASEN

31. Mono-uri no shirigoe takaku

nanori sute'

: '> Ante no yadori no mujo jinsoku

32.(i

i n

!1

Hiru neburu aosagi no mi no

totosa yo

33.'

IM i■

: -I: !

1 : i Shoroshoro mizu ni i no soyoguran

34.

Itozakura hara ippai ni

sakinikeri

35.

.!36. Haru wa sangatsu

akebono no sorai-M%

AUTUMN CRICKET I 103

The hawker’s voice up and up . . . and

clipped off.

31.]

—KYORAI

Out of the rain but. . . change and death.

32.22 r

I—YASUI

:The wild heron33. :

sleeping: J 9

undisturbed nobility. -—BASHO

Lap, lapping of water, perceptible stir of water grasses.

34.

—BONCHO

The weeping cherry:35.open flowers

in full force.;—KYORAI 1 - l:•;Spring in March,

early morning sky.36.

—YASUI|

.;

:

■

104 I

I:

iti11i;| 11

■

I

!i :

> 5. “Bamboos,” by Sengai Gibon.Courtesy of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts.

■

GRASSANDPLUM l

Ume Wakanar

!■

!

f

m:

■

£ i::

i* i

:iI

; i1!

II II 106 I THE KASENf!.m Ume wakana

Mariko no shuku no tororojiru

1.

i b: ll

.;■

it Kasa atarasltiki haru no akebono

2.

t ‘sr ( I- Hibari naku

oda ni tsuchimotsu koro tiare ya

3.

Shitogi iote kudasarenikeri

4.

5. Katasumi ni mushiba kakaete

kure no tsuki

6. Nikai no kyaku wa tataretaru aki

GRASS AND PLUM / 107

Plum, the new grass and at the Mariko Inn

yam-froth soup.

1.*

!i—BASHO ;■:

;iThis spring morning a new umbrella.

2. ;! !; :

—OTOKUNI BII

Lark song flying up and fresh dirt in the paddies:

it’s that time.

3.

i 1l—CHINSEKI

J

Dumplings for Horse Day: “Thank you, sir.” :

4.*

—SODAN

Sitting in the comer she holds her toothache cheek.

Twilight, and the moon up.—OTOKUNI

5.

The upstairs guest is gone. Autumn.

6.

I—BASHO

i!i

I

'108 I THE KASEN

\Hanachiyaru

uzura no ato wamie mo sczu

7.i: •

ii :

i j Inc no hanobi no chikara naki haze

8.

1: ' eHosshin no

hajime ni koyuruSuzukayama

9.

::

J Kura-no-kami ka to yobu koe wa tare

10.

U-no-koku no minote ni narabu

Konishigata

11.

12. Sumikiru matsu no shizuka narikeri. J:

iinijii

f;iGRASS AND PLUM / 109 ;

Pet quail out of the cage

and out of sight.

7. 1 *-r;

—SODAN

In the weak wind in the paddy, sprouted leaves.

8.

—CHINSEKI

9.* Conversion and then up over

Mount Suzuka. -—BASHO

10.* Who calls out,“Are you Kura-no-kami?”

—OTOKUNI

11.* Six a.m.Konishi troops

in double crescent.! I—CHINSEKI

Black shape . . . only a peaceful pine.

12. :

—SODAN .;

;

Js 110 I THE KASEN1

: Hagi no fuda susuki no fuda ni

yominashitc

13.:: '>■

I \

i

it Suzunie katayoru mozu no hitokoe

14.*:

ill'■ aIn 1

Futokoro ni15.te o atatamuru

aki no tsuki■;

i imShio sadamaranu soto no umizura

16.

17. Yari no e ni tachisugaritaru

hana no kure

18. Hai makichirasu karashina no ato

■ |1il jft!

it

GRASS AND PLUM / 111 .-

On the label in the hagi bush, on the label in the pampas grass,

writing verses.

13.* i i

!—OTOKUNI f

-A party of sparrows.One cry from the butcher-bird.

14.

—CHIGETSU

He warms his hands in his armpits.

Autumn moon.

15.

—BONCHO

High waves in the open sea.

16. !:

—OTOKUNI

He stands there leaning on his spear shaft—

evening of flowers.

17.

—KYORAI

Where the mustard’s pulled wood ashes scattered.

18.

—BONCHO

ill!

::

■

■

j

1 112 I THE KASEN

; 11 Horn no hi ni19.\

I

shimote kaerukyozukue

■

Ten’yamono ku torno no tcgawari

20.

!;

21. Asenuguihashi no shirushi no

kon no itoi

Wakare sewashiki niwatori no shita

22.

23. Daitan ni omoikuzurenu

koi o shite

24. Mi wa nuregami no toridokoro naki

GRASS AND PLUM / 113

!On this spring clay finished—so put it back,

the sutra desk.

19.

—MASAHIDE

Taking turns,eat the catered dishes.

20.22

—KYORAI

On the sweat towel21.an X

in navy blue thread.—HANZAN

’ :Under the hanging hen-coop hurried good-byes.

22.

—DOHO

Shamelessno way she can stop

loving.

23.

—HANZAN

As for special virtue in the self: a piece of wet paper.

24.

>—DOHO

.

:!

J!

114 I THE KASEN

25. Kogatana no hamagnriba naru

saikubako

\

Tana ni hi tomosu otoshi no yoru

26.

I Ifi

!

Kokomoto wa omou tayori mo

Suma-no-ura

21.r

s!f■■

£

28. Mune uchiawase kitaru kataginu: : I lift

29. Kono tiatsu mo kaname o kukuru

yare-dgi

Shoyu nesasete shibashi tsuki miru

30.ir. ;

in!

:

' - it

wGRASS AND PLUM / IIS

-

The knife in the tool box about as sharp

as a clam shell.

25.

—HANZAN

tOn the special shelf, the special light: year’s end.

26.1{: i—EMPU

F27.* Out here

no news .. . 5?

beach at Suma. -/—ENSUI

■>

1 Making careful folds he wears his katagim.

28.*s

—HANZAN

Again this summer tie up the rivet

in the broken fan.

29.20!

—EMPU

Let the shoyu sit awhile and watch the moon.

30.*

—ENSUI

-.

116 I THE KASEN

Shiwabuki no tonari wa chikaki

enzutai

31.

Soeba sou hodo kokumen na kao

32.

Katachi naki33.e o naraitaru

Aizubon

Usuyuki kakaru take no warigeta

34.

135. Hana ni mata

kotoshi no tsure mo sadamarazu

36. Hina no tamoto o somuru harukaze' :

i: .i

-=

i

GRASS AND PLUM / 117

Close neighbor31.a dry cough

from his veranda.—DOHO

The more you know him the more the spirit shows.

32.

—EMPU

33.* Every design some habitual picture:

Fukushima lacquerware.—RANRAN

Thin snow fallingon the bamboo geta at the door.

34.19

—FUMIKUNI

Flowers again, and again I can’t decide

whom shall I take to look?—YASUI

35.

In the spring wind, the doll’s sleeve a deeper blue.

36.*

—UKO

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6 (p. 118). “The Shrine of Tenjin,” by Eto Reigen (1721-85). Courtesy of die Kurt and Millie Gitter Collection.

Note: The numbers in parentheses signify the poem numbers in the original Japanese text. An asterisk (*) following the poem number indicates that an explanatory note for that poem or a word therein appears in the Notes to the Poems section on pages 147-48.

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{Sequence 1]>

WINTER

Damasareshi hoshi no hikari ya sayo shigure

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Silencing the glitterof the stars: *<

Inight rain. ■

—UKO (11)

Ima wa yo o tanomu keshiki ya fuyu no hachi

Like all things;dependent: ;

winter wasp.—TANKO (33)

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122 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 1

Mozu no irn nonaka no kui yo kaminazuki1

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Shrikeon a post in the field

November.—RANRAN (19)*

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HMichibata ni Taga no torii no samusa kanaIrl;

On the road the Taga Torii:

coldness.—shohaku (36)?!

Shinuru made misao naruran taka no kao

Holding on to virtue’til the end

hawk’s face.—tanko (54)

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I::WIN TER I 123 ■1::Nagatiaga to

kawa hitosuji ya yuki no hara

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Riverone long line through

snowy fields.—BONCHO (73)

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124 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: I

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:SUMMER

Hi no michi ya aoi katamuku satsuki-ame

Leaning to the sunhollyhocks

in summer rain.—basho (141)

Furyu no hajime ya oku no taue uta

Aestheticsbegins in the back country

with planting songs.—BASHO (149); !:

ill

;SUMMER I 125

Suzushisa ya asa kusa mon tii ttinai komu

: ;,

:.Coolness

clipped grass brought to my gate before noon. r

—BONCHO (184)

Chiru toki no kokoro yasusa yo keshi no hana

Fallingbut with easy hearts—

poppies.—etsujin (ill)

Suzukaze ya ware yori saki ni yuri no hana

The cool breeze I feel, passed first over

lily flowers.—OTOKUNI (160)

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126 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 1!

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Takotsubo ya hakanaki yumc o natsu tio tsuki

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Octopus traps evanescent dreams

under the summer moon.—basho (125)

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AUTUMN .

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Okie ya hakobu yasai no tsuyu shigeshi in

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Mount Hieicarted vegetables, growing

thick dew.—YADO (197)*

Ue yuku to shita kuru kurno ya aki no sora

Upper setting off lower coming back: clouds

in the autumn sky.—BONCHO (250)

.

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128 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 1

Asagao ya nukago no tsuru no hodokarezu

IIu Morning glories

and yam vines, permanently tied.

!

I—KYUKEN (204)

IHatiasusuki daimydshu o matsuri kana

Pampas grass a big gang of daimyo

at the festival.—RANSETSU (260)

1

Inakama no usuberi samushi kiku no yado

Back countrymats, thin and cheerless but

chrysanthemums.—SHOHAKU (252)

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AUTUMN I 129•: i

I■1Akikaze ya hasu o chikara ni hana hitotsu

;

iAutumn wind

the strength of the lotus in a single flower.

—ANONYMOUS (189)

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130 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: I

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SPRING

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Hatsuichi ya yuki tii kogikuru wakanabune

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The first market, pulling through the snow:

sprout boat.I

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i Yabu no yuki yanagi bakari wa sugata kana

Snow in the thicket— in her own shape, only

the willow.—TANGAN (296)

!

SPRING I 131

Hyakuhachi no kanete mayoi ya yami no umc

Altogetherone hundred and eight illusions

the dark, the plums.—kikaku (279)

Yamabuki ya Uji no hoiro no niou toki

Kerria flowers the tea kilns fragrant

at Uji. ;—BASHO (350)*

Katatsuburi uchikabusetaru tsubaki kana

The snailwearing a camellia

for a hat.—SAKAGAMISHI (353)

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132 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 1

Hibari naku naka no hydshi ya kiji no koe:

;! The lark singing

bound up in his measure a pheasant’s voice.

—BASHO (347)

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(Sequence 2)!

!IWINTERr

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Minasoko o mite kita kao no kogamo kana

After touringthe bottom of the water—what a face!

Duckling!

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i—JOSO (52)

Isogashi ya oki no shigure no maho kataho

Busy, busy, out on the open sea in winter rain

full sails, reefed sails.—kyorai (13)

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134 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

Hatsushimo ni yuku ya hokuto no hoshi no mac\ i

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:: First frost

my way lies northeast facing the stars.

—HYAKUSAI (14)

Zendera no matsu no ochiba ya kaminaznki

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iAt the Zen temple

pine needles falling— November.

H —BONCHO (18)

Sumitsukam tabi no kokoro ya okigotatsu

Still in his travel-mind he cant settle in—

foot warmer.—BASHO (39)

WINTER I 135

Shimogyd ya yuki tsumu ue no yoru no ante

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In the lower city on the piled-up snow—

night rain.—BONCHO (72)

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136 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

SUMMER

Hototogisu kyd ni kagirite tare mo nashi

Cuckoo calling today of all days when

no one’s here.—SHOHAKU (98)

Kamisori ya hitoyo ni sabite satsuki-ame

Razorrusted in a single night

summer rain.—BONCHO (140)

SUMMER I 137

Manic urn hata mo kibeya mo meisho kana

Bean-planted field. A few woodsheds.

Famous place!—BONCHO (117)*

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Yaregaki ya waza to kanoko no kayoimichi

;

The break in the hedge left there as a pass-through

for deer.*

—SORA (118)

Watarikakete mo no hana nozoku nagare kana

Starting to cross I see the duck-weed flowers

whisked away!—BONCHO (169)!

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138 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

Funahiki no tsuma no shoka ka nemu no hana

The tower’s wifesings

flowering silk tree.—SENNA (170)

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II/ 139

AUTUMN■

Mozu naku ya irihi sashikomu mematsubara

The shrikes cry— .sunset

in the red pine wilderness.—BONCHO (217)

Mikazuki ni fuka no atama o kakushikeri

Beneath the crescent moonshark’s head

keeping well under.—shido (225)

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140 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

Mono no oto hitori taoruru kakashi kana:

ih Th—r—ump!

Did someone fall? Scarecrow!

—BONCHO (246)

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Hie no ho no uma nigashitaru keshiki kana

.Plumed millet.

likea runaway horse.

—ETSUJIN (243)

Takatoro hiru wa mono uki hashira kana

Stone lanternat noon. Sadly unimportant

on its pillar.;—SENNA (207)

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AUTUMN I 141

Soyosoyo ya yabu no uchi yori hatsu-arashi

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Softly, softlyfrom the center of the thicket

the first autumn storm.—TANKO (209)

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142 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

SPRING

il Kura narabuura wa tsubame nokayoitnichi

Lined-up warehouses and behind them the swallows’

zig-zag.

I

—BONCHO (324)Hai sutete shira-ume urumu kakine kana

Discarded ashes dimming the plum-glow

in the hedge.—BONCHO (274)

SPRING I 143

Harusame ya yane no ogusa ni hana sakinu

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Spring rainsand in the housetop thatch

a bright flower! ■

—RANKO (326)

IUguisu ya geta no ha ni tsuku oda no tsuchi

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Warblers nowand in the teeth of my clogs—

paddy mud.—BONCHO (294)

Aoyagi no shidare ya koi no sumidokoro

Green willows drooping, the carp’s

hideout.—ITT AN (300)

1.

144 I HAIKU SELECTIONS: 2

Ko ya matan amari hibari no taka-agari

Child waitingearthbound. Cloud sparrow

higher and higher.—SAMPU (346)

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/ 145

notes to the poems

WINTER RAIN4 (p. 65). set bows: these may have been devices of bent bamboo

designed to spring up when touched by an animal, thus scaring it away.

5. Now we see a house, and in verses 6 and 7 the kind of people living in it are imagined.

8 (p. 67). tabi: Japanese-style socks, sewn to separate the big toe from the rest so that sandals may be worn.

9. “Peace” is a link back to the comfortableness of the tabi, but the quiet is interrupted by the appearance of a village in verse 10.

10. shell trumpet: a conch that sounded the noon hour.13 (p. 69). Suizcnji seaweed: “Suizenji” literally means “Suizen

Temple” (in Kumamoto, no longer extant), but the temple long ago gave its name to a kind of laver.

15. Rodo: Chinese poet and tea master Lu T’ung (790-835).24 (p. 71). This verse refers to The Tale of Genji, Chapter 4, in

which Genji visits an old servant woman and meets Yugao, a lady who lives next door.

25 (p. 73). Ukifune: a character in The Tale of Genji, Chapter 51; her lover was Prince Niou.

30. Mount Hira: a mountain situated along Lake Biwa.

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146 I NOTES TO POEMS

SUMMER MOON

7 (p. 81). Braggarts (v. 6) arc just the ones frightened of the dark.9. The Buddha Mind: that spiritual potential in all of us that

makes us open to enlightenment. The light coming on in this verse is contrasted with the light going out in verse 8.

18 (p. 83). to: a unit of volume equal to approximately 18 liters (in this poem, of rice).

23 (p. 85). shoji: sliding wood-frame doors paneled with paper.32 (p. 89). Komachis: refers to Ono-no-Komachi (c. 860), a

famous beauty and poet who is thought to have died in poverty and obscurity.

AUTUMN CRICKET

5 (p. 93). Day of the Rat: a special day early in the New Year for celebrating longevity.

8 (p. 95). Mount Maya: a mountain northeast of Kobe.13 (p. 97). gold knife: a particularly elegant sword affected by

samurai in the Edo period (1600-1867).17. Sainen: a Buddhist monk. It is not known whether he was a

real or fictitious person.18. Kiso: an area, in present-day Nagano Prefecture, where poets

liked to go.28 (p. 101). sushi: rice flavored with vinegar to which other

ingredients, such as raw fish, arc added.30. Kamo Shrine: a shrine in Kyoto. This verse alone is a rather

flat statement, but to link the energy of the gods at Kamo with the energy of the rice plants (v. 29) is the kind of juxtaposition that is Basho at his best.

GRASS AND PLUM

1 (p. 107). Mariko Inn: a stopping place famous for its yam soup along the old Tokaido Road (in present-day Shizuoka Prefecture).

4. Horse Day: a holiday in the early part of the year on which the landlord gives his tenants or other workers a special dumpling celebrating the new planting.

NOT ns TO POP. MS I 147

9 (p. 109). Mount Suzuka: The Suzuka Mountains form the border between present-day Mic and Shiga prefectures. In earlier times the Suzuka Pass, on the Tokaido Road, connected the Kyoto- Osaka area with eastern Japan. The barrier set up there became a symbol for the difficult. Basho is saying (probably echoing similar sentiment from the poetry of the priest Saigyo, who likely made a pilgrimage through this same area) that accepting religion does not exempt one from the uncertainties of life.

10. Kura-no-kami: an official title.10-12. These verses arc linked by omokage (see p. 24). At first

someone calls out just as someone else has made it over the mountain (v. 9). The author of verse 11 then evidently pictures a scene of an early morning battle, which is in turn linked in verse 12 to the silence immediately preceding a great battle.

11. Konishi troops: refers to troops under Konishi Yukinaga (d. 1600) at the battle of Sekigahara (1600), where Konishi was defeated by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616).

13 (p. Ill), hagi: bush clover.27 (p. 115): Suina: a part of present-day Kobe. In this verse,

Suma refers to a place far from the capital, but it may also recall Genji’s exile there in The Tale of Gettji, Chapter 12.

28. kataginu: a ceremonial robe of the samurai.30. shoyu: a sauce made from fermented soy beans; soy sauce.33 (p. Ill): Fukushima: a prefecture on the northeast coast of

Japan in which a kind of lacqucrware called aizubon is produced.36. This verse refers to the Doll Festival, March 3.

i

HAIKU : SEQUENCE 1kaminazuki (Winter, 19): the name of the tenth month of the old

(lunar) calendar, which corresponds approximately to November. Mount Hici (Autumn, 197): a mountain northeast of Kyoto.Uji (Spring, 350): a city near Kyoto noted for its fine tea.

148 I NOTES TO POEMS

HAIKU : SEQUENCE 2Famous place (Summer, 117): refers to Kyorai’s retreat, the

Rakushi-sha, famous (though modest) because of the haiku written there.

/ 149

bibliography

WORKS IN ENGLISH

Blyth, R. H. Haiku. 4 vols. Tokyo: Hokuscido, 1950-52.-------- . A History of Haiku. 2 vols. Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1963, 1964.Carter, Steven D. The Road to Komatsubara: A Classical Reading

of the Renga Hyakuin. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, forthcoming.

-------- . “Rules, Rules and More Rules: Shohaku’s Renga Rulebookof 1501.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (1983): 581-642.

--------. Three Poets at Yuyama. Berkeley: Center for JapaneseStudies, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of Califor­nia, 1983.

Duhamel, George, and Vildrac, Charles. Notes sur la Technique PoStique. Paris: Chez Champion, 1925.

Eliot, T. S. To Criticize the Critic and Other Writings. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965.

Hisamatsu, Scn’ichi, cd. Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Literature.Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1976.

Ichikawa, Sanki. Haikai and Haiku. Tokyo: Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai, 1958.

Konishi, Jin’ichi. “The Art of Renga,” Trans. Karen Brazel and Lewis Cook. The Journal of Japanese Studies 2 (Autumn 1975): 29-61.

i

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ISO I BIBLIOGRAPHY

--------, Brower, Robert H., and Miner, Earl. “Association andProgression: Principles of Integration in the Anthologies and Sequences of Japanese Court Poetry, A.D. 900-1356.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 21 (1958): 67-127.

Matsuo Basho. Monkey’s Raincoat. Trans. Cana Maeda. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973.

Miner, Bid. Japanese Linked Poetry: An Account with Translations of Renga and Haikai Sequences. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.

-------- , and Odagiri, Hiroko. The Monkey’s Straw Raincoat andOther Poetry of the Basho School. Princeton: Princeton Uni­versity Press, 1981.

Ueda, Makoto. “Basho and the Poetic of Haiku.” Journal of Aesthet­ics and Art Criticism 21 (Summer 1963): 422-31.

-------- . Matsuo Basho. New York: Twaync, 1970.-------- Zeami, Basho, Yeats, Pound. The Hague: Mouton, 1970.Yuasa, Nobuyuki. Basho: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and

Other Travel Sketches. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966.

WORKS IN JAPANESE

Hagiwara, Ragetsu. Haikai Shichibushu. 2 vols. Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun-sha, 1973.

Otani, TokuzS, and Nakamura, Shunjo. Basho Kushu. Vol. 45 of Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1962.

/ 151l

INDEX OF POETS

Note: Only the poem pages are listed. Basho 65-75, 79-89, 93-

103,107,109,124,126,131,132, 134

Boncho Jlifc 65-75, 79-89,93-103, 111, 123, 125, 127,134-37, 139, 140, 142, 143

Chigctsu 111 Chinscki 107, 109 Doho 113, 117Empu [gja, 115, 117 Ensui 115 Etsujin 125,140 Fumikuni 65-75, 117Hanzan « 113, 115 Hyakusai 134Ittan —143 Joso 133 Kikaku 131 Kyorai ££ 65-75, 79-89,

93-103, 111, 113,133

Kyuken 128 Masahide 113Otokuni 107, 109, 111,

125Ranko IMlM 143Ranran l&M 117, 122, 130Ransctsu Jfi'M 128Sakagamishi Sjtft 131Sampu 144Senna 138, 140Shido 139Shohaku 122, 128, 136Sodan %% 107, 109Sora 137Tangan 130Tanko 121, 122, 141Uk5 117, 121Yado 127Yasui if* 93-103, 117

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(continued from front flap)selected forty-eight haiku from the large seasonal collection of these poems found in the anthology and has arranged them in two seasonal haiku sequences. All the poems are rendered in romanized Japanese along with the English.

In this new translation, then, the work of Basho and his school comes across in English as the original was and still is: fresh, modem, and accessible.

About the TranslatorLenore Mayhew is the translator of two books of Chinese poetry in English, including A Gold Orchid: The Love Poems of Tzu Yeh (with William Mc- Naughton; Tuttle, 1972). Her translations of poetry from several languages have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, as have her original poems, the first of which was published when she was thirteen.

She has made several research trips to the Far East and has taught courses in Japanese literature in translation at Bowling Green State University and Oberlin College. A graduate of Mills College with a degree in Music History, Miss Mayhew lives in Ohio, where, in addition to pursuing her literary talents, she is an enthusiastic gardener, cook, and amateur musician.

Jacket design by Hidi Doki, with detail from ”A Poetic Gathering” by Matsumura Goshun. (Courtesy of The Cleveland Museum of Art,Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund).

k-rm ru«naft i <;nn_a Qnial. J T

"Books to Span the East and West”

Pagoda, Skull, and Samurai: Three Stories by Rohan Koda translated by Chieko Irie Mulhertt

To the Spring Equinox and Beyond by Soseki Natsume; translated by Kingo Ochiai and Sanford Goldstein

Romaji Diary and Sad Toys by Takuboku Ishi- kawa; translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda

Twenty-Four Eyes by Sakae Tsuboi; translated by Akira Miura

Guide to The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibuby William J. Puette

A Gold Orchid: The Love Poems of Tzu Yehtranslated by Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton

The Haiku Form by Joan Giroux

The Japanese Haiku: Its Essential Nature, History, and Possibilities in English, with Selected Examples by Kenneth Yasuda

A Chime of Windbells: A Year of Japanese Haiku in English Verse with verse translation and an essay by Harold Stewart

Anthology of Modern Japanese Poetry translated and compiled by Edith M. Shijfert and Yuki Saw a

A Pepper-Pod: A Haiku Sampler by Kenneth Yasuda

CHARLES E. TUTTLE COMPANYPUBLISHERS