Matsuo Bashō

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SOURCE: “Bashō,” in A History of Haiku, Volume 1: From the Beginnings up to Issa, The Hokuseido Press, 1963, pp. 105-29.

[In the following excerpt, Blyth discusses the variety and originality of Bashō's haiku, noting that the poet's sensitivity to nature, love of beauty, and warmth of heart show through in his verses. This essay originally contained ideographic characters, which have been silently removed for this reprinting.]

Bashō wrote Furu-ike ya, the model verse of the Bashō School, in 1686. The school came to an end with the death of Hajin, the teacher of Buson, 1742. The Genroku Period was from 1688 to 1703, but Bashō died in 1694, and thus his great poetic work was all done at the beginning of Genroku. Until 1686, when Bashō was 41, he had written only mediocre verses, and for only eight or nine years, the last years of his life, did he write real poetry. In this respect he is the opposite of Wordsworth, whose best work was done at the beginning of his life, in the ten years between 1798 and 1808, with versifying up to 1850.

When the Genroku Period began, the Tokugawa government had been in power eighty years. Saikaku in prose, Chikamatsu in drama, Kumazawa Banzan in Confucianism made the period famous. In Buddhism also the various sects produced great monks, and in art Kōrin and Itchō are names that will never be forgotten.

Bashō was born in 1644, and in his youth was in attendance upon Yoshitada, the eldest son of his feudal lord, who loved literature, and studied haikai under Sengin. At his death, Bashō, being then 23 years old, left the samurai service, and later, at the age of 29, went to Edo. At first he used the pen-name Tōsei, but changed it to Bashō after he went to live at Bashō-an, “The Banana Hermitage,” at Fukagawa.

                    Bashō nowaki
shite
tarai ni ame
                    wo kiku yo kana
                    A night listening
To the rain leaking into the tub,
                    The banana-plant blown by the gust.

This is signed Tōsei of Bashō-an. The banana plant comes again in a haiku by Chiri, with whom Bashō went to his native place and Yoshino and Kyōto between August 1684 and April 1685:

                    Fukagawa ya
bashō wo fuji ni
                    azuke yuku
                    Fukagawa!
We depart, leaving the bashō
                    To Mount Fuji.

Bashō spent much of his life in travelling, and most of his works are diaries; even the haiku are a kind of poetical diary. Bashō's first verses are of the Danrin type:

                    Ara nan to mo na
ya
kinō wa sugite
                     fugu to shiru
                    Well, nothing seems to have happened,
Though I ate swell-fish soup
                    Yesterday.

This is early Bashō, with its popular, anti-waka tone, though the language of the first part is borrowed from Nō. After living in hermitage after hermitage throughout the country he came back to Edo and stayed there for about two years. A verse of this period:

                    Ume ga ka ni
notto hi no deru
                    yamaji kana
                    Suddenly the sun rose,
To the scent of the plum-blossoms
                    Along the mountain path.

He left Edo again, for the last time, and returned to his native place. One of the verses composed on this journey:

                    Ōigawa
nami ni chiri nashi
                    natsu no tsuki
                    The River Ōi;
In the ripples, not a particle of dirt—
                    Under the summer moon.

He went on to Nara, and Ōsaka, where he died. His death-verse is worthy of such a great poet:

                    Tabi ni yande
yume wa kareno wo
                    kakemeguru
                    Ill on a journey;
My dreams wander
                    Over a withered moor.

This verse has mystery without solemnity, finality without despair, truth without ornament. It should be compared to the following by Izen, composed the night before Bashō's death:

                    Hipparite
futon ni samuki
                    warai kana
                    Pulling the bed-clothes
Back and forth, back and forth,
                    Wry smiles.

This verse was occasioned by Izen and Masahide, sleeping under the same quilt. Bashō himself smiled when he read it. Master and disciples had the relation of parent and children. Bashō reminds us a little of Goldsmith.

Bashō's verses are comparatively few in number, about two thousand in all, of which about a hundred are really good, but one thing that strikes us about them is their variety. We can see in his verses the tendencies which later poets developed.

Epic

                    Fukitobasu
ishi wa asama no
                    nowaki kana
                    The autumn blast
Blows along the stones
                    On Mount Asama.

Chinoiserie

                    Yogi wa omoshi
goten ni yuki wo
                    miru aran
                    The bed-clothes are so heavy,
The snow of the sky of the Kingdom of Wu
                    Will soon be seen.

Still Life

                    Shio-dai no
haguki mo samushi
                    uo no tana
                    In the fish-shop
The gums of the salted sea-bream
                    Are cold.

Unconventionality

                    No wo yoko ni
uma hikimuke yo
                    hototogisu
                    Lead my horse
Across the moor
                    To where the hototogisu is singing!

Humour

                    Mugi-meshi ni
yatsururu koi ka
                    neko no tsuma
                    The lady-cat,
With love and barley-rice
                    So thin!

Picturesqueness

                    Shigururu ya
ta no arakabu no
                    kuromu hodo
                    First winter rain,—
Enough to turn
                    The stubble black.

Delicacy

                    Chimaki musubu
katate ni hasamu
                    hitai-gami
                    Wrapping rice-dumplings in bamboo leaves,
With one hand she fingers
                    The hair over her forehead.

When we call Bashō the greatest of the (haiku) poets of Japan, it is not only for his creation of a new form of human experience, and the variety of his powers, illustrated above. He has an all-round delicacy of sympathy which makes us near to him, and him to us. As with Dr Johnson, there is something in him beyond literature, above art, akin to what Thoreau calls homeliness. In itself, mere goodness is not very thrilling, but when it is added to sensitivity, a love of beauty, and poetry, it is the irresistible force which can move immovable things.

What was it that made Bashō suddenly realise that poetry is not beauty, as in waka, or morality, as in dōka, or intellectuality and verbal wit as in haikai? Some say it was the result of his study of Zen, but this seems to me very unlikely. Bashō does not seem to have urged his disciples to do zazen, and seldom speaks about Zen and its relation to haiku. The fact is that haiku would have come into being even if Bashō had never been born. We cannot say, however, that somebody would have written Shakespeare's plays even if Shakespeare (or Bacon or Marlowe or the Earl of Oxford or Queen Elizabeth) had not. What Thoreau said, that “Man, not Shakespeare or Homer, is the great poet,” is truer of Japan than of any other country, where custom and tradition are stronger, and where the poetry was not a romantic or classical solo, but a democratic trio or quartet. Again, as was noted before, Onitsura, Gonsui, and many lesser men were composing good haiku at the same time as Bashō. However, they did not have the modesty, the generosity, the ambitionlessness of Bashō. Onitsura loved sincerity and truth and made them his object, but Bashō just loved.

The following are some verses left untranslated in the four previous volumes.

                    Uguisu wo
tama ni nemuru ka
                    tao-yanagi
                    Making the uguisu its spirit,
The lovely willow-tree
                    Sleeps there.

This early verse of Bashō (written before 1683) seems to be based on the famous story of Sōshi's dreaming he was a butterfly. The willow has dreamed itself into an uguisu while it stands there asleep in the warm spring day.

                    Komo wo kite
tarebito imasu
                    hana no haru
                    Who is he,
A straw-mat over him,
                    This flowery spring?

People go to see the cherry blossoms in their best apparel, but here is someone lying under them covered with a straw-mat, a beggar or a madman, or a wandering master-less samurai. His spring, his flower-viewing must be different, more Thoreau-like than that of ordinary people; Bashō does not “pass by on the other side.”

                    Kono aki wa
nan de toshiyoru
                    kumo ni tori
                    This autumn,—
Old age I feel,
                    In the birds, the clouds.

It is evening. Bashō is on a journey, his last; half a month later he will be dead. The birds of the air have their nests and the foxes their holes, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head. The onomatopoeia of this verse is striking; Bashō sounds as if sobbing or choking.

                    Asagao ya
hiru wa jō orosu
                    kado no kaki
                    Morning-glories blooming;
Locking up
                    The gate in the fence.

What Bashō means is that if he leaves the gate open, someone will come and he will have to entertain him. He wants to enjoy the morning-glories while they bloom. Morality gives way to aestheticism.

                    Kashi no ki no
hana ni kamawanu
                    sugata kana
                    The oak tree
Looks careless
                    Of the cherry blossoms.

The oak tree seems quite boorish and rustic compared to the delicate and civilised cherry flowers, but Bashō liked the former better; Wordsworth also.

                    Okiagaru
kiku honoka nari
                    mizu no ato
                    Faintly the chrysanthemums,
After the water subsides,
                    Rising again.

Heavy rain in the day-time has caused the garden to be a stretch of puddles. As evening comes on, the water drops, the flowers begin to raise their heads again, but now it is half-dark and the flowers have something ethereal and even ghostly about them. It reminds us of Lawrence's writing of flowers, lilies, pinks, and irises in Sons and Lovers.

                    Shihō yori
hana fuki-irete
                    nio no umi
                    From all directions
Come cherry petals,
                    Blowing into the lake of Nio.

Nio-no-umi, or Lake Biwa, is very large, and this verse gives us a feeling of the expanse of cherry flowers surrounding it, and blown by spring breezes onto the surface of the water.

                    Kao ni ninu
hokku mo ideyo
                    hatsu-zakura
                    The first cherry blossoms;
May the hokku
                    Be unlike our faces!

Oriental aestheticism is different from Wilde's, and even from Pater's green tie. The haiku poets were on the whole an awful-looking crowd, and never tried to look anything else.

                    Kakitsubata
kataru mo tabi no
                    hitotsu kana
                    Talking before the iris flowers:
This also is one of the pleasures
                    Of travelling.

This was written at a man's house in Ōsaka, when on the journey described in Oi no Kobumi.

                    Suma no ama no
yasaki ni naku ka
                    hototogisu
                    Is the hototogisu crying
At arrows shot
                    By fishermen of Suma?

This is the kind of verse which can hardly stand by itself, but requires the poetic narrative in which it is embedded. Bashō tells us some twenty lines before, that there were fish called kisugo spread out on the shore to dry, and crows stole them. The villagers, disliking this, shot at the crows with bows and arrows, which Bashō comments was hardly becoming to fishermen, and says that this cruelty may be perhaps ascribed to the fact that many battles were fought here in olden times. In the haiku Bashō expresses the feeling that the hototogisu by this shore may be crying in sympathy with the crows, or in fear of its own life.

                    Kambutsu no
hi ni umareau
                    kanoko kana
                    On the very day of Buddha's birth,
A young deer is born:
                    How thrilling!

On Buddha's birthday, a small statuette of the Buddha is continually laved with sweet green tea. From this comes the name Buddha-laving Day. The word “thrilling” is a very strong word to use of kana, which is hardly more than an exclamation mark.

                    Kono yama no
kanashisa tsuge yo
                    tokoro-bori
                    Make known
The sad stories of this mountain temple,
                    Yam-digger!

This verse, which comes in Oi no Kobumi, was written at Bodai Hill Temple at Yamada in the province of Ise; it was in ruins at this time. Bashō, with a kind of earthy humour, relates the Buddhism to the yams the man is digging up.

                    Kami-gaki ya
omoi mo kakezu
                    nehan-zō
                    The Fence around the Shrine:
Unlooked-for, unforeseen,—
                    The picture of Buddha entering Nirvana.

This was composed at the Ise Shrines, on the 15th day of the Second Month, and Bashō is expressing his surprise (and pleasure) at something which, however much sanctioned by ancient custom, is still astonishing, namely, the fusion of Shintō and Buddhism. This amalgamation took place at the beginning of the 9th century a.d., when the Shington Sect developed the doctrine of Ryōbu-Shintō,1 or Shimbutsu-Kongō2 by which the gods of Shintō were recognised as manifestations or incarnations of the Buddhist divinities.

                    Yoshino nite
sakura mishō zo
                    hinoki-gasa
                    Cedar-strip kasa!
At Mount Yoshino I will show you
                    The cherry blossoms.

This verse is interesting in its playful simplicity. Bashō was going to Yoshino, with Tokoku, to accompany him. Besides the above verse, they also wrote in their kasa, umbrella-like hats,

Two fellow-travellers, dwelling-less in the Universe.

This expression, so deeply tragic, is to be put together with the verse above, just as they were in the kasa.

                    Nao mitashi
hana ni akeyuku
                    kami no kao
                    Still, I would fain see
The god's face
                    In the dawning cherry blossoms.

The verse was made at the foot of Mount Katsuragi. There was a story3 that En no Otsuno, a necromancer, born 634 a.d., when intending to make a bridge between Katsuragi and Yoshino, asked a god, Hitokoto-nushi, to help him. His face was so hideous that he only appeared and worked at night. Bashō feels that the place is so beautiful that he cannot believe the face was ugly, and wishes to see it. This is an indirect, but all more impressive tribute to the beauty of the place and the person.

We often feel Thoreau misanthropic, though perhaps he only disliked shallow and self-important people. We find Wordsworth a little cold to humanity, though he loved his sister and his friends passionately. But Bashō has such a warm heart, warmer even than Hakurakuten. In the Oi no Kobumi we find the following haiku:

                    Wakaba shite
onme no shizuku
                    nuguwabaya
                    Young leaves coming out,—
Ah, that I could wipe away
                    The drops from your eyes!

This was composed at Shōdaiji Temple in Nara. The temple, the main temple of the Risshu Sect, was founded by Kanjin, a Chinese monk of the Tang dynasty, who came to Japan in 745 a.d. Bashō says that he endured “more than seventy distresses at sea,” his eyes being injured by the salt air, and becoming totally blind. The haiku was made when worshipping before his image that stood in the temple.

                    Meigetsu ya
kado ni sashi-kuru
                    shio-gashira
                    The autumn full moon;
The foaming tide
                    Rolls up to the gate.

The tide flows up to the gate and the moon shines on the waves. The moon is reflected in the water, and falls and breaks with it. There is the silence of the moon and the thunder of the waves. It is the moon of autumn, and there is an inexplicable feeling of grief and sadness.

                    Kyō made wa
mada hanzora ya
                    yuki no kumo
                    On a journey to the Capital,
Only half the sky traversed,
                    With clouds foretelling snow.

Bashō wrote this at Narumi. When Masaaki Asukai, a noted poet, died 1679, passed a night in this town, he composed the following waka and gave it to his host:

                    The Capital
Far, far away
                    From this Bay of Narumi,
With the vast, remote seas
Rolling between.

This reminds us of:

From the lone shieling on the misty island
Mountains divide us and the waste of seas.
                    Shiraga naku
makura no shita ya
                    kirigirisu
                    Beneath the pillow
Where the grey hairs are pulled out,
                    Chirps a cricket.

Somebody is pulling out his white hairs for him as he lies in bed. Beneath the floor under his pillow, a cricket is chirping. There is something in the voice of the cricket, its melancholy resignation, which accords with Bashō's feeling of old age and the inevitable passing of time.

                    Nehané ya
shiwate awaseru
                    juzu no oto
                    The anniversary of the Death of Buddha;
From wrinkled praying hands,
                    The sound of the rosaries.

It seems that this is the original version; later the first line was emended to, Kambutsu ya, The Ceremony of pouring Water over an Image of Buddha on his Birthday. It is difficult to imagine why Bashō changed this, except perhaps on the general principle that a discord is better than a harmony,—a very doubtful idea anyway.

                    Ka wo saguru
ume ni kura miru
                    nokiba kana
                    Smelling the plum-blossoms,
I gazed up at the eaves,
                    And saw a godown.

This verse was the first verse, the hokku, of a set of linked verses made at a poetical party held at a house near Atsuta Shrine in Owari. There are three beautiful things here, the scent of the plum, the curving eaves, and the white-walled, castle-like warehouse.

                    Tametsukete
yuki-mi ni makaru
                    kamiko kana
                    Smoothing its creases,
I go out snow-viewing
                    In my kamiko.

The poetry of this is faint but real. The kamiko, a kind of rain-coat made of paper, is all crumpled when he puts it on, and for this poetical viewing of the snow-landscape, he makes the best of this poor garment, straightening it here and smoothing it there. He wishes to look his best when the snow looks its best. This is expressed also by the literary terms tametsukete, makaru, instead of nosu, yuku.

                    Togi-naosu
kagami mo kiyoshi
                    yuki no hana
                    The sacred mirror
Is re-polished and clear,
                    In the snow-flowers.

This verse comes from the Oi no kobumi, and was written concerning “The Completed Rebuilding of Atsuta Shrine,” near Cape Irako in Mikawa Province. The point of the verse is the purity of the newly-polished mirror, and that of the snow. This verse has more (Shintō) piety than poetry.

                    Tabine shite
mishi ya ukiyo no
                    susu-harai
                    Seen on a journey,—
The year-end house-cleaning
                    Of this transitory world.

Bashō felt himself to be homeless, though actually he was at this time, the 10th of December 1687, on his way to his native place.

                    Kareshiba ya
yaya kagerō no
                    ni-san-zun
                    Over the withered grass,
At last an inch or so
                    Of heat-waves.

The grass is still withered, with no eye of green in it, but already there is an inch or two of heat-waves above it. This verse follows another one:

                    Haru tachite
mada kokonoka no
                    noyama kana
                    Spring has come,—
But moor and mountain
                    Are those of the ninth day.

These haiku are not very poetical perhaps, judged as literature, but they show how deeply interested Bashō was in the procession of the seasons. The same is true of the beginning of the Tintern Abbey Ode:

Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters!
                    Hoshizaki no
yami wo miyo to ya
                    naku chidori
                    The crying plovers,—
Do they bid me gaze upon
                    The darkness round Hoshizaki Cape?

The plovers are whistling from the darkness in the direction of this headland. The verse was composed at Narumi where he stayed when on a journey to his native place, 1687. We feel in it the sadness of a traveller who knew his journey to be without end. The question-form of this verse is deeply significant. Poetry is never in the answers, but in the questions,—or rather it lies in the region between question and answer, between known and unknown. Compare Shōha's verse:

                    Nani wo tsuru
oki no kobune zo
                    kasa no yuki
                    What are they catching,
The small boats out in the offing,
                    As snow falls on my kasa?

One of the most representative of Bashō verses:

                    Tabi-bito to
waga na yobaren
                    hatsu-shigure
                    The first winter shower;
My name shall be
                    “Traveller.”

This was the first haiku Bashō wrote when setting out in November on a journey to his native place. Up to this time, he has been “Bashō,” or “Tōsei,” or “Teacher,” but now he has joined that vast multitude that journey without rest from one place to another, like torn-off leaves carried no one knows whither by the wind. This is the democracy of Bashō, the democracy of Nature.

                    Fuyu no hi ya
bajō ni kōru
                    kagebōshi
                    A winter day;
On my horse's back
                    A shadow sits freezing.

This verse was composed when Bashō was passing along the Amatsu Nawate, “a narrow path through the ricefields, where a strong cold wind was blowing from the sea.” Bashō feels himself to be a mere shadow, frozen stiff. There are several other forms of this verse, for example:

                    Samuki ta ya
bajō ni sukumu
                    kagebōshi
                    The cold rice-fields;
On horse-back,
                    My shadow creeps below.

Here the shadow is imprinted on the field as he passes.

                    Akebono ya
shirauo shiroki
                    koto issun
                    In the morning twilight
The lancelets,
                    Inch-long white things.

On the way to Nagoya, near Kuwana, Bashō went down to the sea-shore in the early morning, before it was still properly light. Fisherman were at work there, and he saw something white gleaming on the sand. Going closer, this mass of translucent whiteness, reflecting the eastern skies, resolved itself into small fishes, each of about an inch in length.

                    Shinimosenu
tabiji no hate yo
                    aki no kure
                    Still alive
At the end of the journey!
                    An evening of late autumn.

On the second of his journeys (eight in all) and the first of which he made a record (The Nozarashi Kikō) Bashō reached his native place in the autumn of 1684, when he was forty one years old. It was about this time that Bashō realized that “our being's home is with,” not “eternity,” but nature, and he had resolved to give up life itself in order to live there. He registers in this verse some surprise at finding himself not dead yet, in spite of a weak body upon an arduous journey of altogether eight months.

                    Tabi-garasu
furu-su wa ume ni
                    nari ni keri
                    The old nest
Of the journeying crow,—
                    It has become a plum-tree.

This could hardly be called a great poem, or even a particularly good haiku, and yet when we know it is by Bashō, it expresses the whole of his character and way of life, that is, way of poetical living. It was probably composed in 1685, when he went back to his native place. He had been a young samurai; now he was dressed in black, monkish robes. Then it was his home; now it was the home of the plum tree in the garden. Bashō sees nature,

With its calm oblivious tendencies,
And silent overgrowings.
                    Uma ni nete
zanmu tsuki tōshi
                    cha no kemuri
                    On horseback half-asleep,
Half-dreaming, the moon far off,
                    Smoke for the morning tea.

Bashō left the inn in the early morning. He had not slept well, and he sat on the horse still half-asleep. In the western sky the moon was fading as it sank, and from here and there rose in the air the smoke of the fires being lit for the morning cup of tea. The horse, Bashō himself, the dreams of the night, the faintness of the moon in the distance, and the unwilling smoke are all in harmony with the morning stillness and half-awakeness.

                    Imo-tane ya
hana no sakari wo
                    uri-aruku
                    The cherry blossoms at their best,
They walk about selling
                    Seeds of the yam.

Potato seeds are sown just at this time, and Bashō, though brought up as a samurai, and living chiefly in Edo, took a deep interest in the seasons as such.

                    Hi no michi ya
aoi katamuku
                    satsuki-ame
                    In the rains of June
Does the hollyhock turn
                    To the path of the sun?

It is raining, and the hollyhock turns perhaps in the direction of the unseen sun. We feel the secret life and faithfulness of things, the bond that unites them.

                    Uguisu ya
take no ko-yabu ni
                    oi wo naku
                    The uguisu,
In the grove of bamboo shoots,
                    Sings of its old age.

It is early summer, and bamboo shoots are already appearing in the groves. The voice of the uguisu is past its prime, and as the sound of the bird declines in power and sweetness, the young sprouts are coming out of the ground with all their vitality and energetic growth.

                    Hirugao ni
kometsuki suzumu
                    aware nari
                    The rice-pounder,
Cooling himself by the convolvulus flowers,—
                    A sight of pathos.

The rice-pounder is exhausted, and sits in the shade mopping his brow. Along the fence the convolvulus flowers are blooming because of and in spite of the heat. The half-obliviousness of the flowers on the part of the man, and the complete obliviousness on the part of the flowers, gives Bashō a feeling which, like God, is nameless.

                    Harusame ya
hachi no su tsutou
                    yane no mori
                    Spring rain falling
The roof leaks,
                    Trickling down the wasps' nest.

This is a minute observation of the inconsequence, the haphazardness of nature, one of Wordsworth's “random truths.”

                    Mikazuki ni
chi wa oboro nari
                    soba no hana
                    The earth is whitish
With buckwheat flowers
                    Under the crescent moon.

Sometimes this hard, solid, matter-of-fact world looks ghostly and unreal; which indeed is the true one?

                    Nagaki hi wo
saezuri taranu
                    hibari kana
                    Singing, singing,
All the long day,
                    But not long enough for the skylark.

There is something insatiable about nature, as there is also in man, and though in general there seems a fitness and balance in things, we find also the ravenous, the excessive, infinite desire. The skylark is a simple and innocent example of this. It sings without sense or reason, from morning to night, a creature which the longest day can never satisfy or weary.

                    Asa-tsuyu ni
yogorete suzushi
                    uri no doro
                    In the morning dew,
Dirty, but fresh,
                    The muddy melon.

Bashō perceived in 1694, the year of his death, what Crabbe grasped a hundred years later, that mud is the most poetical thing in the world.

                    Kusamakura
makoto no hanami
                    shite mo ko yo
                    Come, come
To the real flower-viewing
                    Of this life of poverty.

We may find a hint of Bashō's attitude towards the cherry blossoms in a waka from the Kokinshū, Volume XV, by Komachi:

                    The invisible colour
That fades,
                    In this world,
Of the flowers
Of the heart of man.

Occasionally we can see what an emotional person Bashō was, though usually he represses his feelings:

                    Te ni toraba
kien namida zo atsuki
                    aki no shimo
                    Should I take it in my hand,
It would melt in my hot tears,
                    Like autumn frost.

He is referring to the white hair of his dead mother which he saw when he returned to his native place in 1684.

                    Aki chikaki
kokoro no yoru ya
                     yojōhan
                    Autumn is near;
The heart inclines
                    To the four-and-a-half mat room.

When summer is ending, and autumn approaches, poetical people feel drawn to the small room where the tea ceremony is held. Tea, like nature itself, belongs to no particular season, yet as the energy of summer declines, the meditative mood, a more passive state of mind arises, and we wish to express the harmony and beauty of life in a meeting of friends, an association with simple and beautiful things only, and for this mood the tea ceremony was made, since out of this it proceeded. Bashō's verse is undeniably subjective, but it is not purely individual, for tea is a social thing, and further, through the expression of his own desire, he has given us something of the objective nature of the autumnal season as it takes the place of late summer.

What makes Bashō one of the greatest of the poets of the world is the fact that he lived the poetry he wrote, and wrote the poetry he lived.

Notes

  1. ryōbu means “two parts,” what arises from the Kongōkai, the Diamond Wisdom; and what arises from the Taizōkai, the Universe-Treasure.

  2. By analogy with these two, we get Shimbutsu-Kongō, Shintō and Buddhism blended.

  3. Recorded in Okugishō, a collection of waka, with notes, by Fujiwara Kiyosuke, 1104-1177.

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Bashō

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Matsuo Bashō: The Poetic Spirit, Sabi, and Lightness

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