Introduction to Bashō: The Narrow Road to the Deep North and other Travel Sketches
[In the essay below, Yuasa remarks on Bashō's genius, which lifted haiku above the efforts of his predecessors to the realm of perfect poetry. The critic goes on to discuss the travel sketches, in particular The Narrow Road to the Deep North, in which, Yuasa contends, Bashō is seeking a vision of eternity in the impermanent world.]
Haiku, or hokku as it was called during the lifetime of Bashō, is the shortest among the traditionally accepted forms of Japanese poetry. It consists of seventeen syllables,1 divided into three sections of five-seven-five. For example,
Furuike ya, kawazu tobikomu, mizu no
oto.
Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water—
A deep resonance.(2)
It is obvious, however, that it is not sufficient to define haiku purely from the standpoint of syllabic structure, for haiku, like any other form in literature, has grown out of a long process, and it is subject to a number of restrictions historically imposed upon it. Let me, therefore, attempt by way of introduction a short history of haiku so that the reader may get acquainted with the essential traits of this most fascinating literary form.
Long before haiku, or even its distant prototype, came into existence, there was already an established form of poetry in Japanese literature, and this form, waka, consisted of thirty-one syllables, divided into five sections of five-seven-five-seven-seven. For example,
Haru no no ni, sumire tsumi ni to, ko
shi ware zo,
no o natsukashimi, hitoyo ne ni keru.
Coming with a light heart
To pick some violets,
I found it difficult to leave
And slept overnight
Here in this spring field.(3)
Or again,
Hisakata no, hikari nodokeki, haru no
hi ni,
shizugokoro naku, hana no chiru ramu.
On a long spring day,
When all is happily bathed
In the peaceful sun,
Cherry blossoms alone fall—
Unwilling to stay?(4)
As these examples indicate, this older and longer form of Japanese poetry was particularly suited for emotive expression and refined description of nature. Hence it became extremely popular among aristocratic courtiers. Courtiers, however, employed this form sometimes in their playful mood as a medium of witty conversation, breaking it into two separate halves of five-seven-five and seven-seven. For example,
Okuyama ni, fune kogu oto no, kikoyuru
wa.
Nareru konomi ya, umi wataru ramu.
How is it that I hear
The noise of creaking oars
In the deepest mountains?
Because of the ripening fruits
That rub against wood as oars do.(5)
Or again,
Hitogokoro, ushimitsu ima wa, tanoma
ji yo.
Yume ni miyu ya to, ne zo sugi ni keru.
It has passed midnight,
I no longer wait for you,
Pining for sorrow.
Oh, dear, I overslept,
Wanting to see you in the dream.(6)
Sometimes the order of the two halves was reversed to give more independence to each counterpart and greater freedom to the exercise of wit. For example,
Ta ni hamu koma wa, kuro ni zo ari keru.
Nawashiro no, mizu ni wa kage to, mie tsure
do.
The horse grazing on the bank
Seems to me black in colour.
I think it otherwise,
For its reflection in the paddy
Says chestnut-brown.(7)
This kind of witty verse, which continued to be written under the name of linked verse (renga) throughout the Heian period (794-1191), seems to me to be the earliest germ of haiku poetry, for it is here that for the first time the five-seven-five syllabic structure came to be recognized as a poetic unit, though not completely independent, and furthermore, the witty and playful tone of the linked verse is a heritage which passes into the marrow of later haiku, though somewhat modified by subsequent developments.
Towards the end of the Heian period, and more universally in the Kamakura period (1192-1392), arose the fashion of writing a long chain of linked verse by multiplying the number of links. For example,
Nara no miyako o, omoi koso yare.
Yaezakura, aki no momiji ya, ika nara mu.
Shigururu tabi ni, iro ya kasanaru.
I wonder how it is now
In the ancient capital of Nara.
Those time-honoured cherries
That bloom in double flowers
Must be in their autumnal tints.
Each rain of fall brings forth
Ever-deepening colours in the leaves.(8)
In the beginning, the number of poems thus linked together was relatively small, but before long as many as thirty-six, forty-four, fifty, or even one hundred poems began to be included in a series. What must be borne in mind in reading these long sequences of linked verse is that they were written by a number of poets sitting together and writing alternately, and that each poem in a series was linked to the immediately preceding one either by witty association or verbal play. The result was often a kind of kaleidoscopic beauty with infinite variety revealed to the reader in a slowly evolving movement.
Inherent in these long sequences of linked verse, however, was a danger that they might degenerate into chaotic confusion or tedious monotony. To prevent this, therefore, various attempts were made to establish certain rules of composition, and various schools of poets began to be formed. During the Kamakura period, these schools were classified roughly into two groups, serious (ushin) and non-serious (mushin), the former trying to emulate the elegant style of waka and the latter persisting in witty composition of a lower order. Towards the end of the Kamakura period and during the Muromachi period (1393-1602), however, the poets of the serious group won gradual ascendancy, and with the coming of Sōgi (1421-1502) the art of linked verse reached its perfection. Let me quote here the first eight poems of his masterpiece called Minase Sangin as an example of his superb art.
Snow-capped as they are,
The gentle slopes of the mountains
Fade into the hazy mist
At twilight on a spring day.
The river descends far and distant,
Plum-fragrance filling the village.
In a soft river breeze
Stands a single willow tree
Fresh in spring colour.
At early dawn every push of the oar
Is audible from a passing boat.
There must be a moon
Dying in the morning sky
Wrapped in a heavy fog.
The ground is covered with frost,
The autumn is drawing to its close.
In a sorrowful voice
A cricket is heard singing
Beneath the withering grass.
I paid a call to a friend of mine,
Taking a desolate lane by the hedge.(9)
Note in the above how each poem takes up the suggestion of the preceding poem and yet opens a new world of its own, so that the reader is carried through the whole series as through the exquisitely arranged rooms of a building, always entertained by delightful changes but never arrested by sudden contradictions. It is no longer witty association or verbal play but something in the depths of the human heart that combines these poems. I think it is particularly significant from our point of view that already in the times of Sōgi, the starting piece (hokku) of a series, which was always written in the five-seven-five syllable form, was given a special place and composed only by the most experienced of the poets. At least two things were considered essential to the starting piece. First, a reference to the season in which it is written, and second, the existence of the so-called breaking word (kireji), a short emotionally charged word which, by arresting the flow of poetic statement for a moment, gives extra strength and dignity. These are restrictions that bind later haiku as well.
Towards the end of the Muromachi period and in the early part of the Edo period (1603-1866), linked verse of a lower order (haikai no renga), which continued to be written in the preceding age merely as a kind of recreative pastime, gained enormous popularity. This is, of course, partly due to the over-refinement and elaboration of serious poetry, but mainly because freedom and open laughter, which characterized linked verse of a lower order, suited the taste of the merchant class which was then rising throughout the country. The earliest innovators are Sōkan (dates unknown) and Moritake (1473-1549). Let me quote here some of their poems (hokku) to give a glimpse of their poetic world.
In a perfect circle
Rises the spring day,
But it gains an enormous length
By the time it sinks.
To the moon in the sky
If you put a handle,
It will certainly be
An excellent fan.
A hanging willow
In beautiful green
Paints eyebrows
On the brow of a cliff.
Not in the flower
But rather in the nose
The smell resides—
So it seems to me.
Even in the technique of linking, they seem to have almost gone back to the playful mood of the poets of the Heian period. For example,
I wanted, yet not quite wanted,
To use my sword to kill a man.
Capturing a thief,
I was surprised to find him
None but my own son.(10)
Or again,
Lighter than paper,
Plum blossoms are sent flying
In the holy compound
On a spring day.
Unwilling it seems, to fall behind,
Crows and bush warblers fly about.(11)
The witticism of Sōkan and Moritake was carried a step further to a bold and conscious acceptance of colloquialism by Teitoku (1571-1653). He it was who first stated explicitly that linked verse of a lower order had an artistic merit peculiar to itself, and that it, being ‘the voice of the happy people’, should not hesitate to use any popular terminology (haigon) available to provoke healthy laughter. What actually happened in his poetry, however, was somewhat different from what he proposed to do in his theoretical statements, for he did everything so consciously, so calculatingly: almost by rule and measure. For example,
Wonderful coolness
Is packed intact
In the lumpish moon
Of a summer evening.
No bigger than a fist, it seems,
The clouds that brought the shower.(12)
This linked verse happens to be fairly good poetry, but if one looks at it closely, one realizes that the link is provided by an elaborate net of verbal association (‘lump’ and ‘fist,’ and ‘evening’ and ‘shower’). Bashō criticized this kind of linking technique as being mechanical (mono-zuke), for, carried to an extreme, it often leads to the impoverishment of poetry. The same tendency can be detected in Teitoku's hokku.
Dumplings rather than flowers
They seem to choose—
Those wild geese
Flying home to the north.
The year of the tiger
Has come—
Even the spring mist rises
In spots and stripes.
What Teitoku intended but did not quite succeeed in doing, was achieved by Sōin (1605-82) and his disciples, particularly Saikaku (1642-93) among them. I think it is significant that both Sōin and Saikaku chose as the centre of their activityŌsaka, the city where the power of the merchant class was strongest. In the poems of Teitoku, as we have seen, the language was often colloquial enough, but the depicted scenes themselves were not greatly different from the elegant scenes of serious poetry. In the poems of Sōin and Saikaku, however, all the events of this ‘floating world’ are reported with absolute freedom—in cheerful rhythm and truly popular idiom. To quote some of their hokku:
Long rain of May,
The whole world is
A single sheet of paper
Under the clouds.
Exactly in the shape of
A letter in the Dutch alphabet
Lies in the sky
A band of wild geese.
Saying, ‘Shishi, shishi,’
My wife encourages the baby
To pass water, and I hear
The noise of a morning shower.
Walking in a desolate field,
I picked up a woman's comb;
She must have come here
To pluck flowers in spring.
Sōin and his disciples insisted that the real merit of their poetry was in metaphor (gūgen), that is, saying one thing and meaning another. This is an idea that was later developed by Bashō into the more significant theory of substance (jitsu) and essence (kyo) in poetry. As interpreted by Sōin and his disciples, however, metaphor meant simply bringing together two things of different categories by ingenuity. For example, a morning shower and urination in the third poem quoted above. The same kind of ingenious flight can be detected in the linking technique.
Thus gathered in a company,
We have in the midst of us
A tree of laughter and talk,
A fragrant plum tree.
The piercing voice of a bush warbler
Is an alarm for the slumbering world.
On a misty morning,
A line of smoke from my pipe
Is broken sideways.
Palanquin-bearers having passed,
There arose a blast of mountain wind.(13)
Here the links are provided by clever interpretation and ingenious transfer (what Bashō called kokoro-zuke). It was certainly an improvement over the mechanical linking technique of Teitoku, because it opened a new world of poetry by giving a freer play to the human mind. There was, however, something vitally important lacking in the poetry of Sōin and his disciples, as is amply testified by their inferior works which almost degenerated into nonsense verse. Just when people became aware of this—when poets like Gonsui (1650-1722) and Onitsura (1661-1738) were making their efforts to save poetry from vulgarity—our master, Matsuo Bashō (1644-94) employed his great genius to lift haiku once and for all into the realm of perfect poetry: poetry that embodied in itself at once the seriousness and elegance of Sōgi and the freedom and energy of Sōin, indeed, poetry that is worth reading hundreds of years after his death, or for that matter, at any time in human history.
Bashō was born in the city of Ueno in the province of Iga (now a part of Mie Prefecture) in 1644. His father, Yozaemon, was a minor samurai in the service of the Tōdō family that had ruled the city for a number of generations. Bashō had two elder brothers, and one elder and three younger sisters. Financially, his family was not particularly favoured, and his father is said to have supported the family by teaching writing to the children of the vicinity. Bashō was called Kinsaku in childhood, and Tōshichirō, or sometimes Chūemon, after his coming of age. In 1653, when Bashō was only nine years old, he entered the service of the Tōdō family, officially as a page, but in reality more as a study-mate of the young heir, Yoshitada, who was older than Bashō by only two years. Thus began their relatively short but extremely warm friendship. In 1655 Bashō's father died.
Born with a delicate constitution, Yoshitada took more to the acquisition of literary accomplishments than to the practice of military arts. He and Bashō studied the art of linked verse under the guidance of Kigin (1624-1705), one of the ablest disciples of Teitoku. Yoshitada must have been a fairly good poet himself, for he was given the pen name of Sengin, which had one character in common with his teacher's pen name. Bashō's pen name in those days was Sōbō. The following two poems (hokku) of his, published in 1664 in the anthology named Sayono-nakayama Shū, are the earliest recorded.
The moon is the guide,
Come this way to my house,
So saying, invites
The host of a wayside inn.
The leafless cherry,
Old as a toothless woman,
Blooms in flowers,
Mindful of its youth.
Needless to say, one can detect a heavy influence of the deliberate style of Teitoku in these poems. In 1665 Sengin, together with his fellow poets, composed a chain of linked verse consisting of one hundred pieces to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Teitoku's death. Bashō contributed seventeen poems, but they were written in a style quite similar to that of the poems quoted above.
In 1666 Sengin died at the age of twenty-five. His early and sudden death must have given Bashō a tremendous shock, for upon returning from Kōyasan, where he enshrined the mortuary tablet of Sengin by the order of the bereaved father, Bashō asked for permission to resign from his service. The permission denied, he ran away to Kyōto.
The exact manner in which Bashō spent the next five years in Kyōto is unknown. It is generally believed, however, that, making his abode at the Kinpukuji Temple, he studied Japanese classics under Kigin, Chinese classics under Itō Tanan, and calligraphy under Kitamuki Unchiku. One can detect an air of greater freedom in the poems Bashō wrote during his stay in Kyōto. For example,
Unable to meet
At their annual rendezvous,
The two stars fret
In the fretful sky of July.
Coquettish bush-clovers
Stretched out on the ground,
Ill-mannered just as much
As they are beautiful.
The sharp-crying cuckoo
Seems to have dyed
With the blood of his mouth
These azaleas on the rocks.
The episode with Juteini is also believed to be an event of those years. Historically, however, there is nothing known about this woman except that she was the mistress of Bashō in his youthful days. In any case, the five years in Kyōto must have been very fruitful and yet in many ways stormy ones for Bashō.
In 1671 Bashō returned to his native place, and in the spring of the following year, he presented to the Tenman Shrine of Ueno City the first anthology of his own editing, named Kai Ōi. It was a collection of hokku coupled in pairs, each pair compared, judged and criticized by Bashō. For example,
Time and time again,
Nipped by a sickle
With a click—
Beautiful, beautiful cherry.
Come and take a look
At this tapestry of cherry,
Tapestry-coated old man,
My friend, Jinbe.
The first poem, by Rosetu,14 is excellent in that it praises the cherry tree by saying, ‘Time and time again’. Wit of this kind is certainly a model for all composition. The second poem by myself, tries to communicate the idea that Jinbe's rich coat will lose its colour, if he comes to see the cherry. It must be admitted, however, that this poem is weak not only in structure but also in diction that gives real beauty to the poem. Let me condemn my poem therefore, by saying that Jinbe's soft head is no match for the sharp blade of the sickle.
It is possible, of course, to suspect that this judgment was formed by Bashō out of the modesty which was so characteristic of him, but at the same time, no one will fail to observe that this anthology was the work of a very ambitious man. So in 1672, after a short stay of several months in his native place, Bashō left for Edo (Tōkyō), the city which was thriving as the seat of the Tokugawa government. His firm determination at the time of departure is expressed by the poem he left behind.
Separated we shall be
For ever, my friends,
Like the wild geese
Lost in the clouds.
Now, unlike Kyōto, Edo was a relatively young and growing city, and there was a great deal of activity and freedom in the air. For the first few years at least, Bashō seems to have found it difficult to decide what he really wanted to do. He stayed with his friends and admirers, and engaged in work of a miscellaneous character. Even through those years of groping, however, Bashō seems to have gained an increasingly firm footing in the poetic circles of Edo, for in 1675 when Sōin came from Ōsaka, Bashō was among the poets who were invited to compose linked verse with him.
The encounter with Sōin must have been an epoch-making event for Bashō, for upon this occasion he changed his pen name from Sōbō to Tōsei. Deep respect for Sōin, as well as his marked influence, can be felt in the linked verse he composed in the year after.
Under this plum tree,
Even a black bull will learn
To sing a song of spring
Filled with cheerful joy.
Coming, as it is, from a human throat,
The song is better than the frog's chorus.
Lightly, fancifully,
Sprinkled upon this world—
Tiny rains of spring.
In the field, young shoots float in pools
Muddy as bean-paste mixed with vinegar.(15)
Note in the above the absolute freedom of movement which was typical of Sōin and his school. In the first poem, Bashō identifies himself with a black bull and admires the plum tree which is the source of his poetic inspiration, namely Sōin. In the second poem, one of the Bashō's disciples praises him for writing a beautiful song. What Bashō learned from Sōin is the special value in poetry of the humble and unpretentious imagery of everyday life, as he himself testifies by saying,
If you describe a green willow in the spring rain it will be excellent as linked verse of a higher order. Linked verse of a lower order, however, must use more homely images, such as a crow picking mud-snails in a rice paddy.
Bashō is reported to have said, ‘But for Sōin, we would be still licking the slaver of aged Teitoku.’
In the summer of 1676, Bashō returned to his native place for a short visit—with the following poem.
My souvenir from Edo
Is the refreshingly cold wind
Of Mount Fuji
I brought home on my fan.
Returning to Edo almost immediately, he actively engaged in writing poetry. During the following four years, his poems were published in different anthologies in large numbers, and also anthologies consisting mainly of his and his disciples' poems began to be published, among which Edo Sangin, Tōsei Montei Dokugin Nijū Kasen, Inaka no Kuawase, and Tokiwaya no Kuawase may be mentioned. On the whole, however, Bashō's poems of this period reflect the playful tone and ingenious style of Sōin. To quote some of them:
A male cat
Passed through the hole
In the broken hearth
To meet his mistress.
So it was all right,
Yesterday has passed safely,
Though I ate and drank
Quantities of globefish soup.
Ah, it is spring,
Great spring it is now,
Great, great spring—
Ah, great—
Bashō, however, was not satisfied to remain in this kind of low-toned atmosphere of the ‘floating world’ for long. There was something in him which gradually rebelled against it. In 1680, Sampū,16 one of the admirers of Bashō, built for him a small house in Fukagawa, not far from the River Sumida, in a relatively isolated spot. In the winter of the same year, a stock of Bashō tree (a certain species of banana tree) was presented to him by one of his disciples. Bashō seems to have felt a special attachment to this tree from the very beginning, for he says:
I planted in my garden
A stock of Bashō tree,
And hated at once
The shooting bush-clovers.
Or again about the same tree, he wrote in later years:
The leaves of the Bashō tree are large enough to cover a harp. When they are wind-broken, they remind me of the injured tail of a phoenix, and when they are torn, they remind me of a green fan ripped by the wind. The tree does bear flowers, but unlike other flowers, there is nothing gay about them. The big trunk of the tree is untouched by the axe, for it is utterly useless as building wood. I love the tree, however, for its very uselessness … I sit underneath it, and enjoy the wind and rain that blow against it.
This must have been another epoch-making event for Bashō, for it is from this tree that he took a name for his house, and eventually a new pen name for himself.
Bashō's life at his riverside house must have been an externally peaceful but internally agonizing one, for as he sat there meditating all by himself, he began to revolt more and more from the world which surrounded him. Signs of tremendous spiritual suffering are seen in the poems collected in Azuma Nikki, Haikai Jiin, and Musashi Buri, which were published shortly after his removal to the riverside house. To quote some of them:
A black crow
Has settled himself
On a leafless tree,
Fall of an autumn day.
At midnight
Under the bright moon,
A secret worm
Digs into a chestnut.
On a snowy morning,
I sat by myself
Chewing tough strips
Of dried salmon.
Tonight, the wind blowing
Through the Bashō tree,
I hear the leaking rain
Drop against a basin.
Oars hit waves,
And my intestines freeze,
As I sit weeping
In the dark night.
It was also during those years of suffering that Bashō came to know the Priest Bucchō17 and practised Zen meditation under his guidance. Whether Bashō was able to attain the state of complete enlightenment is a matter open to question, for he repeatedly tells us that he has one foot in the other world and the other foot in this one. There is little doubt, however, that this opportunity gave him the power to see this world in a context in which he had never seen it before.
In 1682, when Bashō's house was only two years old, it was destroyed by a fire that swept through a large part of Edo. So Bashō sought a temporary abode in the house of Rokuso Gohei18 at the village of Hatsukari in the province of Kai (now a part of Yamanashi Prefecture). This misfortune must have shaken him considerably, for something almost like despair is heard in the poems collected in Minashi Guri (Empty Chestnut) which was published immediately after his return to Edo in the summer of 1683. To quote from it:
Tired of cherry,
Tired of this whole world,
I sit facing muddy sake
And black rice.
Who could it possibly be
That mourns the passing autumn,
Careless of the wind
Rustling his beard?
With frozen water
That tastes painfully bitter
A sewer rat relieves in vain
His parched throat.
But despair is hardly the word to express the state of Bashō's mind through those years, for those were the years of the deepest meditation and severest self-scrutiny which developed his awareness of an important truth. It is best expressed by his own words.
What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that it has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry.
This is easy to say but difficult to practise. The poems Bashō wrote during the period 1680-83 are not entirely free from the overtones of the ingenious style of Sōin, but they point to the direction in which Bashō was moving—all by himself, finding his way, step by step, through his own suffering, with no one to guide him.
In the summer of 1683, Bashō's mother died in his native place, and in the winter of the same year, a new house was built for him in Fukagawa by his friends and disciples. On this occasion Bashō wrote as follows:
Overhearing the hail,
My old self sits again
In the new house,
Like an overgrown oak.
Bashō, however, did not stay in this house for long, for in the summer of 1684, he started on the first of his major journeys. A vivid account of this journey is given in The Record of a Weather-exposed Skeleton (Nozarashi Kikō). …
What must be borne in mind in reading the travel sketches by Bashō is that travels in his day had to be made under very precarious conditions, and that few people, if any, thought of taking to the road merely for pleasure or pastime. Furthermore, as I have already indicated, Bashō had been going through agonizing stages of self-scrutiny in the years immediately preceding the travels, so that it was quite certain that, when he left his house, he thought there was no other alternative before him. To put it more precisely, Bashō had been casting away his earthly attachments, one by one, in the years preceding the journey, and now he had nothing else to cast away but his own self which was in him as well as around him. He had to cast this self away, for otherwise he was not able to restore his true identity (what he calls the ‘everlasting self which is poetry’ in the passage above). He saw a tenuous chance of achieving his final goal in travelling, and he left his house ‘caring naught for his provisions in the state of sheer ecstasy’.
This tragic sense is given beautiful expression in the opening passage of The Records of a Weather-exposed Skeleton. Viewed as a whole, however, this work is not a complete success, because there is still too much self forced upon it—because now and then crude personal emotions hinder the reader from entering into the world of its poetry. It is written in haibun, prose mixed with haiku, but the two are not perfectly amalgamated. Sometimes prose is a mere explanatory note for haiku, and sometimes haiku stands isolated from prose. Particularly towards the end of the work, prose seems to be almost forgotten. In spite of these defects, however, the work is amply rewarding to those who read it with care, because it is the work of a man who tries to cast his own self away and almost achieves it—because here and there in the work we find beautiful poems and prose passages where the author seems to have found for a brief moment his true identity. Indeed, The Records of a Weather-exposed Skeleton is the first work of Bashō where we find glimpses of his mature style.
Bashō returned to his home in Edo in the summer of 1685 after about nine months of wandering. In 1684, while he was still in Nagoya, however, an anthology of great importance was published. It was called Fuyu no Hi (A Winter Day), and it constitutes the first of the so-called Seven Major Anthologies of Bashō (Bashō Shichibu Shū). If one compares the linked verse of this anthology with the linked verse (quoted above) Bashō wrote back in 1676 under the influence of Sōin, one realizes the great spiritual distance he had travelled in less than a decade.
With a bit of madness in me,
Which is poetry,
I plod along like Chikusai
Among the wails of the wind.
Who is it that runs with hurried steps,
Flowers of sasanqua dancing on his hat?
Under the pale sky of dawn,
I importuned a water official
To pose as a tavern keeper.
A customer having arrived, his red horse
Stands shaking his head moist with dew.(19)
About the special features of Bashō's linking technique I shall have more to say later. Note here, however, the sweet elegance with which the whole poem moves. The influence of Sōin is still faintly detectable, but ingenuity has given place to something at once deeper and quieter—something which is probably best described as human wisdom.
In 1686 two anthologies, Kawazu Awase (Frog Contest) and Haru no Hi (A Spring Day), were published. The former is a collection of poems on frogs by Bashō and his disciples. The latter is traditionally counted as the second of the Major Anthologies, though there are only three poems of Bashō in it. The importance of these anthologies rests on a single poem by Bashō included in them, which is probably the best known of all his poems. It has already been quoted at the beginning of the introduction, but let me quote it here once again with a comment by one of his disciples.20
Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into water—
A deep resonance.
This poem was written by our master on a spring day. He was sitting in his riverside house in Edo, bending his ears to the soft cooing of a pigeon in the quiet rain. There was a mild wind in the air, and one or two petals of cherry blossom were falling gently to the ground. It was the kind of day you often have in late March—so perfect that you want it to last for ever. Now and then in the garden was heard the sound of frogs jumping into the water. Our master was deeply immersed in meditation, but finally he came out with the second half of the poem,
A frog jumped into water—
A deep resonance.
One of the disciples21 sitting with him immediately suggested for the first half of the poem,
Amidst the flowers
Of the yellow rose.
Our master thought for a while, but finally he decided on
Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond.
The disciple's suggestion is admittedly picturesque and beautiful but our master's choice, being simpler, contains more truth in it. It is only he who has dug deep into the mystery of the universe that can choose a phrase like this.
So many people in the past have commented upon this poem that it seems to me that its poetic resources have been well-nigh exhausted. Still it is possible, I believe, to use this poem as an illustration of Bashō's mature style. What is remarkable in this poem is, in my opinion, the symbolism which it achieves without pretending in the least to be symbolic. On the surface the poem describes an action of the frog and its after-effects—a perfect example of objectivity. But if you meditate long enough upon the poem, you will discover that the action thus described is not merely an external one, that it also exists internally, that the pond is, indeed, a mirror held up to reflect the author's mind. Bashō explains this himself in the following way.
Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and do not learn. Your poetry issues of its own accord when you and the object have become one—when you have plunged deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there. However well phrased your poetry may be, if your feeling is not natural—if the object and yourself are separate—then your poetry is not true poetry but merely your subjective counterfeit.
Some people have spoken as if Bashō entered into the realization of this principle the very moment he wrote the frog poem. It is difficult to believe that it was so. On the other hand, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that all the poems written by Bashō in his mature style are based on this principle, for it was exactly what Bashō had in mind when he said that there was a permanent, unchangeable element (fueki) in all poetry. In any case, crude personification and ingenious self-dramatization have completely disappeared from his poems. To quote three more:
Under the bright moon
I walked round and round
The lake—
All night long.
Build a fire, my friend,
So it will crackle.
I will show you something good,
A big ball of snow.
All the livelong day
A lark has sung in the air,
Yet he seems to have had
Not quite his fill.
In the early autumn of 1687, Bashō left on a short trip to the Kashima Shrine. The records of this trip constitute A Visit to the Kashima Shrine (Kashima Kikō), the second of the travel sketches translated in this book. Although this is an extremely short work, it is carefully organized with a climax (rather an anti-climax, for Bashō beguiles the reader in his own ironic way) falling just where prose ends and poetry begins in the middle of the work. Its somewhat religious atmosphere is due to the fact that it is a kind of tribute to the priest Bucchō with whom Bashō studied Zen. In its quiet beauty and also in its pseudo-archaic flavour, this work occupies a unique position among the travel sketches by Bashō.
Almost immediately after he returned home from his trip to the Kashima Shrine, Bashō left on the second of his major journeys. This time he stayed on the road for about eleven months, following nearly the same route as he did in the first journey. … This expedition resulted in two travel sketches, The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel (Oi no Kobumi) and A Visit to Sarashina Village (Sarashina Kikō), the third and fourth of the travel sketches translated in this book. The former covers the first half of the journey from Edo to Suma, and the latter is an account of the detour he made to the Sarashina Village (now a part of Nagano Prefecture) on his way home.
Viewed from an artistic point of view, The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel is a great advance over his previous travel sketches, for here for the first time an attempt was made to bring prose and haiku into an organic whole. When Bashō left on the journey of The Records of the Weather-exposed Skeleton, as I have already pointed out, he was just coming out of the agonizing years of self-scrutiny, and was busy finding his identity in nature. In The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel, however, he seems to have succeeded in maintaining a certain artistic distance between himself and his materials. That is why we find in it such beautiful passages as the description of the Suma Beach at the end of the book, superb indeed for its tragi-comical effect. The book is not, however, without its flaws. For one thing, Bashō writes too much about the travel—why he has taken to the road, how he wants to write the travel sketch, and so on. These statements, of course, have their own value, especially read as sources of critical and biographical interest. They do not necessarily, however, contribute to the total effect of the work. It seems to me that there is an air of an ‘étude’ about The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel, and that it should be read as a kind of stepping-stone for the subsequent travel sketches.
A Visit to Sarashina Village is the shortest of all travel sketches by Bashō. It carries on, however, the wonderful tragi-comical effect of the concluding passages of The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel. In its fine polish, in particular, it is unrivalled and shines forth like a gem.
Bashō returned from his expedition to Suma and Sarashina in the autumn of 1688, and already in the spring of the following year he left on the third of his major journeys. Shortly before his departure, however, Arano (Desolate Wilds), the third of the Major Anthologies, was published. Bashō's poems included in this anthology reveal the unusual depth of mind he had achieved after a year of wandering on the road. For example,
How amusing at first
How melancholy it was later
To see a cormorant show
On the darkening river.
Confined to my house
By winter weather,
I snuggled as before
Against an old pillar.
Bashō's third major journey brought him The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi), the last of the travel sketches translated in this book. Leaving Edo in the spring of 1689, he spent more than two and a half years on the road. It is significant, I believe, that he had sold his house in Edo prior to his departure, for it means that he did not expect to return from this journey. What is more significant, however, is that he went to the North this time, avoiding the familiar Tōkaidō route. In the imagination of the people at least, the North was largely an unexplored territory, and it represented for Bashō all the mystery there was in the universe. In other words, the Narrow Road to the Deep North was life itself for Bashō, and he travelled through it as anyone would travel through the short span of his life here—seeking a vision of eternity in the things that are, by their own very nature, destined to perish. In short, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is Bashō's study in eternity, and in so far as he has succeeded in this attempt, it is also a monument he has set up against the flow of time.
It seems to me that there are two things remarkable about The Narrow Road to the Deep North. One is variety. Each locality, including the little unknown places Bashō visited in passing, is portrayed with a distinctive character of its own, so that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that Bashō was in possession of a magical power to enter into ‘the spirit of place’. Even the people he met on the road are given characters, each different from the others, so that they leave enduring impressions on the imagination of the reader. Furthermore, we often find in reading The Narrow Road to the Deep North themes and subjects of his previous travel sketches recurring—modified to fit a new pattern, of course, but used to create that enormous variety which alone can give the work an illusion of being as large as the universe and as infinite as time itself.
The other remarkable thing about The Narrow Road to the Deep North is its unity. To use Bashō's own classification, variety, being the temporary, changeable element (ryūkō), is in the substance (jitsu) of the work. Unity, on the other hand, is the permanent, unchangeable element existing in the essence (kyo) of the work. In other words, unity is invisible on the surface, but it is the hidden vital force that shapes the work into a meaningful whole. In The Narrow Road to the Deep North, we often find that even place-names are made to contribute to the total effect. Indeed the whole structure of the work is so determined as to meet the demands of unity. Take the major events of the journey, for example. They are arranged not simply linearly according to chronological sequence, but also circularly, according to time of another sort, as is demonstrated in the following table, where the events on the left half of the circle must be related to the opposing events on the right half of the circle.
This is, of course, a simplification, and the work as a whole does not present neat regularity like this. Nevertheless, anyone who reads the work with care will not fail to notice the tremendous effort Bashō makes to achieve unity through variety. Scholars have pointed out that in his attempt to achieve unity Bashō took such liberty as to change the natural course of events, or even invent fictitious events. The result is a superb work of art where unity dominates without destroying variety.
Just one more thing need be mentioned about The Narrow Road to the Deep North. In his preceding travel sketches, as I have already pointed out, Bashō failed to maintain an adequate balance between prose and haiku, making prose subservient to haiku, or haiku isolated from prose. In the present travel sketch, however, Bashō has mastered the art of writing haibun so completely that prose and haiku illuminate each other like two mirrors held up facing each other. This is something no one before him was able to achieve, and for this reason, The Narrow Road to the Deep North is counted as one of the classics of Japanese literature.
Bashō travelled the great arc of the northern routes (Ōshūkaidō and Hokurikudō) in six months, arriving inŌgaki in the autumn of 1689. This is where the record of The Narrow Road to the Deep North breaks off. Bashō, however, did not return to Edo till the winter of 1691. He spent this two-year period travelling a great deal in the vicinity of his native place, making short but happy sojourns at the houses of his disciples. Among such houses, Genjūan (the Vision-inhabited House) and Mumyōan (the House of Anonymity), both situated not far from Lake Biwa, and Rakushisha (the House of Fallen Persimmons) in the suburbs of Kyōto, should be mentioned. Of the last, Bashō wrote as follows:
The retreat of my disciple, Kyorai,22 is in the suburbs of Kyōto, among the bamboo thickets of Shimo Saga—not far from either Mount Arashiyama or theŌigawa River. It is an ideal place for meditation, for it is hushed in silence. Such is the laziness of my friend, Kyorai, that his windows are covered with tall grass growing rank in the garden, and his roofs are buried under the branches of overgrown persimmon trees. The house has developed a number of leaks, and the long rain of May has made straw mats and paper screens terribly mouldy, so that it is difficult to find a place to lie down. Ironically, the sun reaching into the house is the gift with which the master of the house welcomes his guest. I wrote:
Long rain of May,
I saw on the clay wall
A square mark of writing paper
Torn recently off.
Bashō wrote an equally beautiful Essay on the Vision-inhabited House (Genjūan no Ki), and Saga Diary (Saga Nikki) was also a product of his stay at Rakushisha.
During the two-year period we are now dealing with, two anthologies of great importance were published. They are Hisago (A Gourd) and Saru Mino (A Coat for a Monkey), the fourth and fifth of the Major Anthologies. The former is a slim volume consisting of five linked verses, but the latter is a large collection of some four hundred poems (hokku) plus four linked verses and the Essay on the Vision-inhabited House, and it is generally believed that those two anthologies demonstrate the mature style of Bashō (shōfū) at its highest pitch. To quote some poems (hokku) from this period:
A man's voice piercing
Through the air,
The northern stars echo
A beating fulling-block.
In the first shower
Of early winter,
Even a monkey seems to crave
For a raincoat.
Under a cherry tree,
Soup, salad, and all else
Are brought to us,
Dressed in gay blossoms.
With a friend in Ōmi
I sat down, and bid farewell
To the departing spring,
Most reluctantly.
If nothing else,
I have this tree at least
To take shelter in—
A pasania in summer.
Hardly a hint
Of their early death,
Cicadas singing
In the trees.
Under the bright moon,
The children of the vicinity
All lined up
On the porch of a temple.
A sick stray goose
Falling into cold darkness,
I slumbered by myself—
A night on the journey.
For his morning tea
A priest sits down
In utter silence—
Confronted by chrysanthemums.
With your singing
Make me lonelier than ever,
You, solitary bird,
Cuckoo of the forest.
A white narcissus
And a white paper screen
Illuminate each other
In this quiet room.
Now, taken at the surface level, all these poems are purely descriptive, but if one broods upon these poems long enough, one realizes that they also have a symbolic quality. This symbolic quality inherent in the poem is called by Bashō sabi (loneliness), shiori (tenderness), and hosomi (slenderness), depending on the mode of its manifestation and the degree of its saturation. Although definition of these terms in any strict manner would only lead to misunderstanding, let us take, for example, what Bashō says (through the mouth of a disciple23) about sabi.
Sabi is in the colour of a poem. It does not necessarily refer to the poem that describes a lonely scene. If a man goes to war wearing a stout armour or to a party dressed up in gay clothes, and if this man happens to be an old man, there is something lonely about him. Sabi is something like that. It is in the poem regardless of the scene it describes—whether it is lonely or gay. In the following poem, for example, I find a great deal of sabi.
Under the cherry
Flower guards have assembled
To chatter—
Their hoary heads together.
In other words, sabi is the subjective element, deeply buried in the objective element of the poem, but giving it a profound wealth of symbolic meaning. It is indeed by these qualities of sabi, shiori, and hosomi that Bashō's mature style is distinguished from the styles of his predecessors or his own immature style.
It is necessary, I believe, for us to turn at this point to the special features of Bashō's linking technique. I have already pointed out that Teitoku's linking technique was based on verbal association (mono-zuke) and Sōin's on clever interpretation and ingenious transfer (kokoro-zuke). Bashō says that in his case the link is provided by what he calls the aroma (nioi), echo (hibiki), countenance (omokage), colour (utsuri) and rank (kurai) of the preceding poem. Here again the strict definition of the individual terms would only cause confusion, but let us take as an example what Bashō (again through the mouth of a disciple24) says about hibiki.
When you hit something, the noise comes back to you in a matter of an instant. This is what I mean by hibiki. In the following pair, for example, the second poem is a perfect echo of the first.
Against the wooden floor
I threw a silver-glazed cup
Breaking it to pieces.
Look, now, the slender curve
Of your sword, half-drawn.
Even through this brief explanation, I think it is clear that the special features of Bashō's linking technique exist in its imaginative quality. Instead of lashing the poems together forcibly by wit or ingenuity, Bashō moors them, so to speak, with a fine thread of imaginative harmony, giving each poem fair play. It is indeed by virtue of this imaginative linking technique (nioi-zuke) that Bashō was able to achieve an unprecedented degree of perfection in his linked verse. Let me quote here the first few poems of a linked verse collected in Saru Mino as an example of his superb effect.
Combed in neat order
By the first shower
Of winter—
Thick plumage of a kite.
A storm having passed, fallen leaves
Have settled themselves on the ground.
Early in the morning
I wade across the swollen river
My trousers in water.
Silent air is broken by farmers ringing
Piercing alarms to drive a badger away.
In twilight, the horned moon
Reaches to the ruined lattice-door
Through an overgrown ivy.
Here is a greedy man who keeps to himself
The beautiful pears ripe in his garden.(25)
Here is indeed something that is comparable to Sōgi's masterpiece in seriousness and elegance, and to the best of Sōin's poems in freedom and energy.
Bashō returned to Edo from his third major journey after two and a half years of wandering, in the winter of 1691, and in the spring of the following year a new house was built for him. Bashō spent the next two and a half years in this house. For a number of reasons, however, Bashō's life of this period was not a happy one. An unusual degree of ennui is expressed in the essay he wrote in 1693 to announce his determination to live in complete isolation.
If someone comes to see me, I have to waste my words in vain. If I leave my house to visit others, I waste their time in vain. Following the examples of Sonkei and Togorō, therefore, I have decided to live in complete isolation with a firmly closed door. My solitude shall be my company, and my poverty my wealth. Already a man of fifty, I should be able to maintain this self-imposed discipline.
Only for morning glories
I open my door—
During the daytime I keep it
Tightly barred.
Two anthologies of importance were the product of these two and a half years in Edo. They are Fukagawa Shū (Fukagawa Anthology) and Sumidawara (A Charcoal Sack), the latter being the sixth of the Major Anthologies. In the poems Bashō wrote during this period, however, there was a strange sense of detachment from life, which sometimes produced a slightly comical effect—what Bashō called karumi (lightness), but at other times a somewhat sombre effect. For example,
A bush-warbler,
Coming to the verandah-edge,
Left its droppings
On the rice-cakes.
The wild cries of a cat
Having been hushed,
The soft beams of the moon
Touched my bedroom.
Warming myself
At an ashy fire,
I saw on the wall
The shadow of my guest.
The voice of a cuckoo
Dropped to the lake
Where it lay floating
On the surface.
Confined by winter,
A man is guarded
By an age-old pine
On the golden screen.
In audacious quickness
The spring sun rose
Over a mountain-path,
Sweet scent of the plum.
In the sky
Of eight or nine yards
Above the willow—
Drizzling rain.
In the spring of 1694, Bashō left on the last of his major journeys. This time he was determined to travel, if possible, to the southern end of Japan. He was already fifty, however, and his health was failing. The poems he wrote on this journey suggest something almost like a shadow of death. For example,
Autumn drawing near,
My heart of itself
Inclines to a cosy room
Of four-and-a-half mats.
My feet against
A cold plastered wall,
I took a midday nap
Late in summer.
Ancient city of Nara,
Ancient images of Buddha,
Shrouded in the scent
Of Chrysanthemums.
Deep is autumn,
And in its deep air
I somehow wondered
Who my neighbour is.
While Bashō was lingering in Ōsaka and its vicinity, he fell a victim to what seems to have been an attack of dysentery. Here is a vivid description of his condition four days before his death by one of his disciples.26
On the night of October the eighth, though it was almost midnight, Donshū was summoned to our master's bedside. Soon I heard the clatter of an ink bar rubbing against a slab. I wondered what manner of letter it was, but it turned out to be a poem. It was entitled, ‘Sick in bed’.
Seized with a disease
Halfway on the road,
My dreams keep revolving
Round the withered moor.
Later I was summoned by our master, who told me that he had in mind another poem which ended like this:
Round, as yet round,
My dreams keep revolving.
And he asked me which one I preferred. I wanted to know what preceded these lines, of course, but thinking that my question would merely give him discomfort, I said I preferred the first one. Now it is a matter of deep regret that I did not put the question to him, for there is no way of knowing what a beautiful poem the second was.
Thus died on 12 October 1694 one of the greatest geniuses in Japanese literature, and five years after his death, the last of his Major Anthologies, Zoku Saru Mino (A Coat for a Monkey, Continued), was published, being the collection of the poems he wrote in the last few years. Fortunately, however, his works survived him, and through them we can enter into the inner depths of this great man. His travel sketches, in particular, show him at his best or on his way to his best, for they are, as I have already pointed out, the products of his ripest years.
Notes
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Count the number of vowels to reckon syllables. The Japanese language falls most naturally into breathing groups of five or seven syllables.
-
This haiku is by Bashō, probably the best known of his masterpieces.
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This waka, taken from Manyō Shū, is by Yamabe-no-Akahito, a nature poet in the years of Tempyō (729-48).
-
This waka, taken from Kokin Shū, is by Ki-no-Tomonori, a contemporary of Ki-no-Tsurayuki (868?-945).
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This linked verse is taken from Toshiyori Zuinō. The first poem is by Ōshikōchi-no-Mitsune, a contemporary of Tsurayuki and the second is by Tsurayuki himself.
-
This linked verse is taken from Shūi Shū. The first poem is by an anonymous court lady and the second by Yoshimine-no-Munesada, who is better known as Henjō (816-90).
-
This linked verse is taken from Kinyō Shū. The first poem is by Eigen and the second by Eisei. These priests lived in the middle of the Heian period.
-
This linked verse is taken from Ima Kagami. The first poem is by Fujiwara-no-Kinnori (1103-80), the second by Minamoto-no-Arihito (1103-47) and the third by an anonymous woman.
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This linked verse is by Sōgi and his disciples. The starting piece is by Sōgi himself (1421-1502), the second by Shōhaku (1443-1527), the third by Sōchō (1448-1532), and this order is followed in the part of the series quoted here.
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This linked verse is taken from Shinsen Inu-Tsukuba Shū edited by Sōkan (dates unknown).
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This linked verse is taken from Moritake Dokugin.
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This linked verse is taken from Gyokkai Shū. The first poem is by Seishō who is better known as Teishitsu (1610-73) and the second is by Teitoku (1571-1653).
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This linked verse is by Sōin and his disciples. It is commonly known as Danrin Toppyaku In. The starting piece is by Sōin (1605-82), the second by Sessai, the third by Zaishiki (1643-1719), and the fourth by Ittetsu.
-
Hardly anything is known about this poet.
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This linked verse is taken from Edo Ryōgin. The starting piece is by Bashō, the second by Shinshō who is better known as Sodō (1642-1716), the third again by Shinshō, and the fourth by Bashō.
-
Sampū (1647-1732) was a rich merchant in Edo, and acted in many ways as a financial supporter of Bashō. He was a good poet himself, whose style may be best represented by the following poem.
Blinded by the glimmer
Of the spade I am,
As a farmer wields it
In a spring field. -
Bucchō (1643-1715) was the head priest of the Komponji Temple, twenty-first in descent from the founder. Bashō practised Zen under his guidance at the Chōkeiji Temple in Edo during the years of Empō and Tenna (1673-84).
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Rokuso Gohei (dates unknown) was one of the pupils of Bucchō in Zen.
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This linked verse, taken from Fuyu no Hi, is entitled ‘the Wails of the Wind’ (‘Kogarashi’). The starting piece is by Bashō, the second by Yasui (1658-1743), the third by Kakei (1648-1716), and the fourth by Jūgo (1654-1717).
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The disciple's name is Shikō (1665-1731). This passage is taken from Kuzu no Matsubara, a collection of his critical essays.
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The disciple's name is Kikaku (1661-1707), probably the most important of Bashō's disciples. He is well known for the masculine sharpness of his wit and his habit of drinking. His style is probably best represented by the following poem:
Locked firmly
By a heavy bar—
This wooden door
Under the winter moon. -
Kyorai (1651-1704) was a native of Nagasaki, whose importance as a disciple of Bashō is probably second only to Kikaku. A collection of his critical essays entitled Kyorai Shō is the most important source for Bashō's ideas on poetry. The style of his poetry is probably best represented by the following poem:
Under the cherry
Flower guards have assembled
To chatter—
Their hoary heads together. -
Kyorai. This passage is taken from Kyorai Shō.
-
This passage, like the preceding one, is taken from Kyorai Shō. The linked verse quoted here is taken from Izayoi Shō edited by Ginboku. The first poem is by Ryūkō and the second by Shigenari.
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This linked verse, taken from Saru Mino, is entitled ‘The First Shower of Winter’ (‘Hatsu Shigure’). The starting piece is by Kyorai, the second by Bashō, the third by Bonchō (?-1714), the fourth by Fumiyuki, the fifth by Bashō, and the sixth by Kyorai.
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The disciple's name is Shikō. This passage is taken from his Oi Nikki.
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