Basho’s haiku
Narrow Road to the Interior – Oku-no-hosomichi
The moon and the sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
– Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694)
***
…Very early on the twenty-seventh morning of the third moon, under a predawn haze, transparent moon barely visible, Mount Fuji just a shadow, I set out under the cherry blossoms of Ueno and Yanaka. When would I see them again? A few old friends had gathered in the night and followed along far enough to see me off from the boat. Getting off at Senju, I felt three thousand miles rushing through my heart, the whole world only a dream. I saw it through farewell tears.
Spring passes
and the birds cry out – tears
in the eyes of fishes
Xuân qua đi
chim òa khóc – lệ
trong mắt cá
Basho
With these first words from my brush, I started. Those who remain behind watch the shadow of a traveler’s back disappear.
***
…On the first day of the fourth moon, climbed to visit the shrines on a mountain once called Two Wildernesses, renamed by Kukai when he dedicated the shrine. Perhaps he saw a thousand years into the future, this shrine under sacred skies, his compassion endlessly scattered through the eight directions, falling equally, peaceably, on all four classes of people. The greater the glory, the less these words can say:
Ah – speechless before
these budding green spring leaves
in blazing sunlight
Ah – không nên lời
trước lá xuân non
trong nắng rạng rỡ
***
…Chomei (1154-1216) bore witness to countless thousands of deaths after the great fire swept Kyoto: “They die in the morning and are reborn in the evening like bubbles on water.” Basho walks across the plain where a great battle once raged. Only empty fields remain. The landscape reminds him of a poem by Tu Fu (712-770) in which the T’ang poet surveyed a similar scene and wrote,
The whole country devastated,
only mountains and rivers remain.
In springtime, at the ruined castle,
the grass is always green.
Trọn xứ đắm hoang tàn
chỉ núi sông còn lại.
Nơi pháo đài đổ nát,
xuân về
cỏ vẫn xanh.
Tu Fu
For Basho, the grass blowing in the breeze seems especially poignant, so much so that his eyes fill with tears. If Tu Fu, both as a poet and as a man, is a fit model – to be emulated, not imitated, Basho insists – he is reminded of how little we have learned from all our interminable warfare and bloodshed. The wind blows. The grasses bend. Basho moistens his brush months later and writes, remembering,
Summer grasses –
all that remains of great soldiers’
imperial dreams.
Cỏ hạ –
tất cả còn đọng lại
mộng bá vương xưa.
Natsugusa ya
tsuwamono domo ga
yume no ato.
Basho
The poem implies that the grasses are the only consequence of warriors’ dreams, that the grasses are all that remains of the immeasurable desires of all passing generations.
The reader, accustomed to being conscious of reading translation and having fallen into the unrewarding habit of reading poetry silently, often misses Basho’s ear by neglecting the romaji or romanized Japanese printed with the poems. Onomatopoeia, rhyme, and slant rhyme are Basho’s favorite tools, and he uses them like no one else in Japanese literature. He wrote from within the body; his poems are full of breath and sound as well as images and allusions.
***
…Basho immersed himself in studying the Taoist masterpiece Chuang Tzu, and in his Zen studies under Butcho. Several of his poems from this period draw directly from Chuang Tzu’s allegories, perhaps most obviously:
In this season’s rain
the crane’s long leg
have suddenly been shortened
Chân sếu dài
bỗng ngắn lại
dưới cơn mưa
Samidare ni
tsuru no ashi
mijikaku nareri
Basho
But for the “seasonal word”, the poem is almost a quotation, and unusual for its syllabic structure of 5-5-7 (normally, a haiku has 17 syllables in total, with the structure of 5-7-5). He would later write to a disciple, “Even if you have three or four extra syllables, or even five or seven, you needn’t worry as long as it souds right. But if even one syllable is stale in your mouth, give it all of attention.”
***
…During 1684 and early 1685, Basho traveled to Kyoto, Nara, and his old home in Ueno, and composed Travelogue of Weather-Beaten Bones (Nozaraishi Kiko), the first of his travel journals and one notable for its undertone of pathos. His mother had died in Ueno the previous year, but Basho had been too poor to be able to make the journey to her funeral.
He spent only a few days in Ueno, but his meeting with his brothers inspired one of his most famous poems:
If I took it in hand,
it would melt in my hot tears –
heavy autumn frost
Nếu tôi hứng trên tay
em sẽ tan trong lệ nóng –
ôi hạt sương thu
Te ni toraba
kien namida so atsuki
aki no shimo
Basho
***
…A hundred yards uphill, the waterfall plunged a hundred feet from its cavern in the ridge, falling into basin made by a thousand stones. Crouched in the cavern behind the falls, looking out, I understood why it’s called Urami-no-Taki [View-from-behind Falls].
Stopped awhile
inside a waterfall –
summer retreat begins
Dừng chân chốc lát
qua lòng thác chảy –
hạ về, tiêu du
Basho
***
…Set out to see the Murder Stone, Sessho-seki, on a borrowed horse, and the man leading it asked for a poem, “Something beautiful, please.”
The horse turns his head –
from across the wide plain,
a cuckoo’s cry
Ngựa ngoảnh đầu –
ngoài đồng cỏ
cúc cu kêu
Basho
Sessho-seki lies in dark mountain shadow near a hot springs emitting bad gases. Dead bees and butterflies cover the sand.
***
…We spent several days in Sukagawa with the poet Tokyu, who asked about the Shirakawa Barrier. “With mind and body sorely tested,” I answered, ‘busy with other poets’ lines, engaged in splendid scenery, it’s hardly surprising I didn’t write much:
Culture’s beginnings:
from the heart of the country
rice-planting songs
Vụ nông mới:
giữa đồng ngân nga
bài ca trồng lúa
Basho
“From this opening verse,” I told him, “we wrote three linked-verse poems.”
***
In the shade of a huge chestnut at the edge of town, a monk made his hermitage a refuge from the world. Saigyo’s poem about gathering chestnuts deep in the mountains refers to such a place. I wrote on a slip of paper: The Chinese character for “chestnut” means “west tree”, alluding to the Westtern Paradise of Amida Buddha; the priest Gyoki, all his life, used chestnut for his walking stick and for the posts of his home.
Almost no one sees
the blossoming chestnut
under the eaves
Basho
***
…At dawn we left for Shinobu, famous for dyed cloth – called shinobuzuri – named after the rock we found half-buried in the mountain. Village children joined us and expained, “In the old days, the rock was on top of the mountain, but visitors trampled farmers’ crops and picked grain, so the old men rolled it down.” Their story made perfect sense.
Girls’ busy hands
plant rice almost like
the ancient ones made dye
Basho
***
…Through narrow Abumizuri Pass and on, passing Shiroishi Castle, we entered Kasashima Province. We asked for directions to the grave-mound of Lord Sanekata, Sei Shonagon’s exiled poet-lover, and were told to turn right on the hills near the villages of Minowa and Kasashima when we came to the shrine of Dosojin. It lies nearly hidden in sedge grass Saigyo remembered in a poem. May rains turned the trail to mud. We stopped, sick and worn out, and looked at the two aptly named villages in the distance: Straw Raincoat Village and Umbrella Island.
Where’s Kasashima?
lost in the rainy season
on a muddy road
Kasashima ở đâu?
lạc giữa mùa mưa
trên con đường lầy
Basho
The night was spent in Iwanuma.
***
…We visited Yakushido Shrine and the Shrine of Tenjin until the sun went down. Later the painter gave us drawings of Matsushima and Shiogama. And two pairs of new straw sandals with iris-blue straps – hanamuke, farewell gifts. He was a truly kindred spirit.
To have blue irises
blooming on one’s feet –
walking-sandal straps
Basho
***
…In Yamagata Province, the ancient temple founded by Jikaku Daishi in 860, Ryushaku Temple is stone quiet, perfectly tidy. Everyone told us to see it. It meant a few miles extra, doubling back toward Obanazawa to find shelter. Monks at the foot of the mountain offered rooms, then we climbed the ridge to the temple, scrambling up through ancient gnarled pine and oak, gray smooth stones and moss. The temple doors, built on rocks, were bolted. I crawled among boulders to make my bows at shrines. The silence was profound. I sat, feeling my heart begin to open.
Lonely stillness –
a single cicada’s cry
sinking into stone
Tĩnh lặng –
một tiếng ve kêu
chìm vào trong đá
Basho
***
… Today, we came through places with names like Children-Desert-Parents, Lost Children, Send-Back-the-Dog, Turn-Back-the-Horse, some of the most fearsomely dangerous places in all the North Country. And well named. Weakened and exhausted, I went to bed early, but was roused by the voices of two young women in the room next door. Then an old man’s voice joined theirs. They were prostitutes from Niigata in Echigo Province and were on their way to Ise Shrine in the south, the old man seeing them off at this barrier, Ichiburi. He would turn back to Niigata in the morning, carrying their letters home. One girl quoted the Shinkokinshu poem,
“On the beach where white waves fall,
we all wander like children into every circumstance,
carried forward every day…”
And as they bemoaned their fate in life, I fell asleep.
In the morning, preparing to leave, they came to ask directions. “May we follow along behind?” they asked. “We’re lost and not a little fearful. Your robes bring the spirit of the Buddha to our journey.” They had mistaken us for priests. “Our way includes detours and retreats,” I told them. “But follow anyone on this road and the gods will see you through.” I hated to leave them in tears, and thought about them hard for a long time after we left. I told Sora (Basho’s companion), and he wrote down:
Under one roof,
courtesans and monks asleep –
moon and bush clover
Sora
***
Sora, suffering from persistent stomach ailments, was forced to return to his relatives in Nagashima in Ise Province. His parting words:
Sick to the bone
if I should fall, I’ll lie
in fields of clover
Sora
He carries his pain as he goes, leaving me empty. Like paired geese parting in the clouds.
Now falling autumn dew
obliterates my hatband’s
“We are two”
Basho
***
… My friends arrived by day and night, all to welcome me as though I’d come back from the dead. A wealth of affection!
Still exhausted and weakened from my long journey, on the sixth day of the darkest month, I felt moved to visit Ise Shrine , where a twenty-one-year Rededication Ceremony was about to get underway. At the beach, in the boat, I wrote:
Clam ripped from its shell,
I move on to Futami Bay:
passing autumn
Basho
)
