The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
Basho's youthful consciousness in his first renku sequence
Legend:
Words of Basho in bold
Words of other poets not bold
Haiku, in spite of their world-wide fame, are only a small part of Basho’s poetry. Here we explorer 12 Basho stanzas from the first renku sequence he participated in, in Spring of 1665.
The majority of his verses are stanzas of renku, or linked verses, composed by a team of poets, each writing one stanza in succession, each somehow linked to the one before. Some of Basho’s most fascinating renku stanzas appear within Field by Snow, a sequence of 100 stanzas, the first sequence of the 307 Basho participated in. The year was 1665, and Basho about 21, living in his hometown of Iga. He was one of six poets; the leader of the event was Sengin, the poetry name of the young samurai Basho’s master Yoshitada, a young relative of the feudal lord of Iga Province.
This was 15 years before autumn of 1680 when Basho wrote his famous haiku about the crow on the withered branch, the haiku of deep wabi sabi (impersonal, desolate loneliness) which many scholars consider Basho’s first significant work. Everything Basho wrote before 1680, according to these scholars, is shallow and of little worth. I, on the other hand, have little interest in wabi sabi, and find these early poems express a profound youthful consciousness of human experience which may appeal to young people today who care not for desolate loneliness.
Of the hundred stanzas, Basho wrote 18 of which I present 12, along with sixteen stanzas by other poets which lead to or follow Basho’s stanzas. Each tsukeku has a commentary beginning with the volume and page number of the verse in the Basho Renku Zenchuu, plus the number of each stanza to give a sense of where in the full sequence it appears. Basho’s first stanza – the first of 1700 renku stanzas he wrote in 29 years -- follows two stanzas about a papier-mâché doll:
Papier-mâché bald, but
she will not throw away --
Today as is wishing to care for it till Doll’s Festival
Till the twilight crescent
shall ladle peach wine
Calm peaceful magical thinking cannot be surpassed
兀田頼子も/捨てぬわらはべ / けふあると/もてはやしけり/ 雛迄
月のくれまで /汲むももの酒
長閑なる/仙の遊にし/くはあらじ
Hageta hariko mo / sutenu warawa be
Kyou aru to / motehayashi keri / hihina made
Tsuki no kure made / kumu momo no sake
Nodoka naru /sen no yuu ni shi / kuwa araji
(1: 4-6; #s 4-7) The doll has lost its hair and paint, but the loving child does not mind how it looks. We feel her willpower, her drive to do something for the little one. She accepts that the doll must go, however persuades the person in charge to let her care for it until Doll Festival on the 3rd day of the 3rd Moon (early April by the Western calendar), obviously the highlight of the year for a doll. The child’s concern for the welfare and feelings of the doll is her innocence – yet she also shows maturity in looking forward to a future time.
Basho switches from the world of little girls to that of adult friends on this festive day drinking sweet wine in the tranquil April weather. Since the lunar month begins on the night of no moon, and Doll’s Festival is the 3rd day, the moon that night is a slender crescent that rises during the day, becomes visible in the twilight sky, then sets early in the night -- shaped like a ladle, perfect for drawing peach wine from a celestial bucket and serving to us. Concern for future time is a mental function of adults; infants are always in the now and as children learn the nature of time.
Since the previous stanza is about preserving a doll until a certain day, Basho suggests that this wine has been preserved till Doll’s Festival, so now we -- the poets gathered together to compose this sequence of renku -- can share it under the twilight moon. Still a youth himself, he travels a child-like fantasy path to that message of gratitude and friendship. To appreciate his stanza, we must keep in mind the context of group consciousness in Japanese society.
Basho leaps from concern for keeping a worn-out doll to a particular day to concern for preserving a limited supply of peach wine until that festive day. Leonard Shlain, in his book Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Changed the Course of Human Evolution: proposes that the human concept of continuing time originated in a prehistoric woman from two clues: the cycle of the moon together with the cycle of her menses. By synthesizing putting these two clues – one from the world, and one from her own body – she discovered how time flows from past to future, thus enabling all of human consciousness and technology.
Basho recognizes the clue in the moon: as we observe Luna, learning how she changes her shape and schedule from night to night, in stages that remain the same month after month forever, we learn the nature of Time; as Shlain puts it, we “see beyond the moon to the next month.”
À world where the ladle of moon serves us sweet wine would be a world of “magical thinking,” a world in which when we want something we magically call it forth – as a child gives her dolls thoughts and feelings, and even has one doll interact with another – manipulating the Force -- like Yoda lifting the space shuttle from the swamp -- so it cannot be surpassed. The attraction to magical thinking comes from the ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Tsu.
Magical thinking is normal in children aged 2 to 7. Susan A. Miller, Ed D. says, “During this magical-thinking stage of development, cause and effect are not necessarily objectively determined, but slanted by the preschoolers' desires. . . The most amazing part of magical thinking for young children is their belief that they can make life be anything they want it to be.”To conceive modern insights into child developments in Basho’s linked verse is a way to make his poetry come alive for us today.
Confusion between path of Truth and path of Love
Unable to proceed
dark night of futility
まどはれな/実の道や/恋の道
ならで通えば /無性闇夜
Madoware na /makota no michi ya /koi no michi
narade toueba / mushou yami no yo
(1: 9; #15, 16) For Basho the “Path of Truth” is Buddhism, and the Path of Love is what 20 year olds
are drawn to. Mushou can be “without sexuality” or “without the temperament to attain enlightenment,” or “without the ability to reason”; I translate “futility” not because this is the same as mushou, but rather because it conveys a similar emptiness.
Unattached, the cat outside, how she cries
Charcoal fire
gone out, twas cold in retirement
なつかでで猫の/外面にぞ啼く
埋火も/ きえて寒けさ/隠居所に
Natsukade neko no / tono mo ni zo naku
uzumi bi mo / kiete samukesa / inkyosho ni
(1: 13; #s 24, 25) Natsukade is the negative of natsuku, to be attached and connected, so this cat is experiencing the loss of attachment. She expected to retire for the winter close to the hearth where the charcoal fire keeps her so warm and nice, but for some reason she is outside, freezing her paws off. Iji explains: the fire in the kotatsu went out, and inside became as cold as outside, so here she is, crying.
Moon at dawn only my shadow figure for a friend
Still deep in the night
a lonesome traveler
在昭の /影法師のみ/友として
未だ夜深きに/ひとりたびびと
Ariake no / kageboushi nomi / tomo to shite
Mada yoru fukaki ni / hitori tabibito
(1: 15; #s 31. 32) The moon at dawn is only a pale whiteness in the sky; it casts no shadow at all, so this human traveling in the first light of day has no friend. Basho has given the “shadow figure” an identity. At night the entire world is shadow, while no humans are on the road, so the shadow travels alone
So it will not melt this ice we dedicate
New Year’s dawn
the morning sun a faint glimmering
解けぬやうにと/氷りささぐる
あけて今朝 /あさ日ほのぼの /ほのめきて
Tokenu you ni to /kouri sasaguru
Akete kesa /asahi honobono / honomekite
(1: 17; #38, 39) In a Shinto ritual, the ice of winter is preserved in an ice house until midsummer, and that spirit of perseverance offered to the kamisama. The Japanese constantly exhort each other, gambatte, “persevere, hold on, maintain your strength!” Issho switches from mid-summer heat to freezing cold New Year’s Day; just before the first bit of Sun appears, a glimmer on the horizon announces the coming event. Can we expand our minds to see Sun rising from horizon as one with ice melting.
The stanza-pair is a poetic representation of the yin-yang symbol. Yin is dark and cold; Yang light and hot. The bit of ice in the midsummer heat is the dark spot in the white field; the sun rising in midwinter is the bright spot in the dark field. The two fields with their opposing spots together form the cycle of the year, of reality, of consciousness.
“Like the Goddess of Spring” princess is neat and tidy
Green willow her hips and hair like willows
Weary of waiting wind through the pines also is yearning
佐保姫と/言ん姫御の/身だしなみ 青柳腰 /ゆふ柳髪
待ちあぐみ /松吹風も/なつかしや
Sayohime to / iwan himegumi no /mi-dashinami Aoyanagi koshi /yuu yanagi-gami
Machi-agumi / matsu fuku kaze mo /natsukashi ya
(1: 18; #42, 43) A girl speaks of Sayo Hime, the goddess who spreads spring over the earth; she cares for her body and clothing as meticulously as the goddess forms petals on the flowers. Her hips and hair, as slender and flexible as willow branches covered with young green leaves swaying sensually in the wind; This is a most gorgeous female image – then Basho makes her wait for a lover who does not show. Notice the contrast between her willowy beauty and her unfulfilled desire so intense it fills the wind.
Starting to learn the alphabet from ra-mu-u-i-no
Foolishness has stopped,
youngster in the bedroom
いろはおば /らむういのより/習い初め
わるさもやみし/閨の稚い
Iroha oba / ra-mu-u-i-no yori /narai-some
Warusa mo yamishi / neya no osaai
(1: 21; #s 47, 48) A boy practices the classical Japanese alphabet with 48 sounds, starting with the middle of the sequence: “rah-moo-oo-ee-noh” is like “l-m-n-o-p” in our song. This is his "foolishness." But now the mischief maker sleeps. Sleep consolidates what we learn awake, so the programs are retained and available for later use. Both stanzas are about the learning process. The poets have given us a unique view into the elementary learning process in this era.
Worship of the North Star shrine ritual is admirable
Setting forth prospects of the boat are our concern
Life spent with tears while the journey lasts
Hoku o matsuru / gishiki shashou ya
Deshisomuru / fune no yukuei / kizukaware
Namida de kurasu / fune no ryushuchu
(1: 23; #52-54) Ijo begins this trio with the divinity of the North Star, the one constant in the night sky, and a Shinto ritual which reachs out to that divinity. Basho continues with the boat which will navigate by the North Star, although even with that constant guide, may not survive the storms on the sea. Sengen continues with the family at home waiting with anxiety for husband on the boat to return. Notice how Basho’s image connects both with the stanza before and the stanza after.
Starting to flirt hair parted in the middle long and glossy
So a vision emerges
from back of her head
だてなりし /ふり分け髪は / のびねるや
俤にたつ /かのうしろつき
Date-narishi / furiwake kami wa / nobi neru ya
omokage ni tatsu / kano ushiro-zuki
(1: 24; #s 57, 58) “Hair parted in the middle” suggests a young girl; as she enters adolescence and starts to flirt, her hair becomes long and elegant. 21 year old Basho “sees” through her hair to a vision of the beauty hidden to sight. Other males of this age should be able to get the feeling he has for the hidden female. Thisis an 'attachment' of the sort the Buddha warns us against.
After such a long time he seeks her pardon
An employee's
leisure time seen only in others’ eyes
久しぶりにて /訪妹が許
奉公の /隙も余所目の /隙とみつ
Hisashiburi nite / tou imo ga gari
houkou no / hima mo yosome no /hima to mitsu
(1: 28; #s 74, 75) He has not visited her for a long while – but here he is now, and he obviously wants sex. Basho’s stanza is the excuse he gives her. Is he telling the truth or bullshitting? Does his job actually take up so much of his time? Or is he actually spending his spare time with another woman? If he is lying, how much else of his words are lies? Do I really want to sleep with such a liar? Which is best for me, to forgive him and go on with our relationship, or break up and go on without him? The eternal dynamic of men seeking a way into women, and women wondering about men’s fidelity.
Basho told his students:
Make Poetry Ride the Energy
This 'energy' is ki, the universal energy of Oriental martial and healing arts, or as George Lucus called it, "the Force."
Hand of the dancer quietly descending
More than appears small child is obedient to the Energy
いとも静な /舞の手くだり
見かけより/気はおとなしき/小児にて
Ito mo shizuka na / mai no te kudari
Mikake yori / ki wa otonashiki /kochigo nite
(1: 31; #s 84, 85) Sengin offers an elegant image of Japanese classical dance, and Basho takes that into the world of children: The movement of the dancer’s hand expresses more, much more, than simply getting from up to down; it expresses the dancer’s obedience to ki, the Universal Energy of Oriental medicine and martial arts, the Force of Star Wars. Likewise the small child may not follow adult commands, but is obedient to that universal Energy.
Impatient with people who provoke with words
When pushed again pushing back in a crowd
堪忍ならぬ /詞からかい
おされては /又押し返す /人込みに
Kannin naranu / kotoba karakai
Osarete wa / mata oshikaesu / hitogomi ni
(1: 34; #s 96, 97) Basho (1644-1694) counters with his take on what his contemporary Isaac Newton (1642-1727) called the Third Law of Motion – although Basho’s version is more human and personal. An eye for an eye. What goes around, comes around. You provoke me with words, I provoke you back. It gets very complicated because we are in a crowd with many different action/reactions occurring at once.
These early Basho tsukeku, like so many he will write in the next 29 years, focuses not on the feelings scholar Edwin Cranston calls the “traditional trinity of Japanese poetry: love, death, and divinity,” but rather aspects of reality the Japanese do not usually considered “poetic.Consider the themes in his eleven stanzas:
The moon, time, and intoxication
The paths of Truth and Love
Our attachment to warmth
Daybreak and solitude
Ice, the rising sun, yin and yang
Women and waiting for love
Women’s hair and what is hidden
Children, learning, and sleep
Male excuses and female trust
Children and Universal Energy Personal action and reaction
Young Basho already had a genius for ‘linking’ through human life and consciousness.
I plead for your help in finding a person or group to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material, to edit and improve the presentation, to receive all royalties from sales, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide and preserve for future generations.
The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.
The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems
Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.
These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.
Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.
“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”
"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"
Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.
Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.
I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.
Quotations from Basho Prose
The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.
The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.
All the more joyful,
all the more caring
Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.
