“Having searched for it this much, it is so strange that we can’t find the house. Since she was bitten by a dog, wouldn’t it be more likely that her leg was covered with fur?”41
He insisted, “No, no, she had a human pulse; there’s no doubt about that!” Since that time he has continued to live in longing for this person he now meets only in his dreams.
[Honchō suikoden, Kiko, Mino nikki, Oriorigusa, SNKBT 79: 460–465, introduction and translation by Lawrence Marceau]
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1. This hokku was composed around 1743 when Buson visited Tōhoku, the northeast region of Honshū. It is both a description of a natural scene and a haikai variation on a famous classical poem by Saigyō (1118–1190): “By the side of the road, alongside a stream of clear water, in the shade of a willow tree, I paused for what I thought would be just a moment” (Shinkokinshū, Summer, no. 262). Matsuo Bashō wrote about the same willow tree in his Narrow Road to the Deep North: “A whole field of rice seedlings planted—I part from the willow” (ta ichimai uete tachisaru yanagi kana). Having come to the place where Saigyō had written this poem, Bashō relives those emotions, and before he knows it, a whole field of rice has been planted. In contrast to Bashō’s poem, which recaptures the past, Buson’s poem is implicitly about loss and the passage of time, contrasting the situation now, in autumn, when the stream has dried up and the willow leaves have fallen, with the past, when the clear stream beckoned to Saigyō and the willow tree gave him, as it did Bashō, shelter from the hot summer sun.
2. This poem was composed between 1754 and 1757, when Buson was living in Kyoto. Summer river (natsugawa) can refer to either a river swollen from the rainy season or a cool brook. Here it is the latter, a stream shallow enough to walk across and delightfully cold on a hot summer day. Nakamura Kusatao and other modern haiku poets have praised this hokku for capturing a sense of youth in its purity. Kaya is a village near Kyoto.
3. Rice seedlings were transplanted into the wet fields (taue) by young women in a communal effort. Here a woman has been abandoned or divorced by her husband, probably against her will, and now, to her shame and embarrassment, she must appear in front of everyone and join in the seedling planting, perhaps even in her former husband’s field. This poem, which was published in 1758 and is typical of Buson’s narrative or fictional style, captures the emotions of the woman by noting that she “stomps into the field.”
4. The “spring sea” (haru no umi) suggests a relatively calm, open surface. The light waves gently rise and fall, either out at sea or against the shore. The onomatopoeic phrase notari notari suggests a gentle swelling and subsiding, whereas the phrase hinemosu (all day long) implies a sense of time stretching out forever. This poem was published in 1762.
5. Buson composed this hokku in 1768 on the topic of “sweetfish” (ayu), a seasonal word for summer. It is a light, trim, clean fish with a subtle aroma and is prized as a delicacy. On a summer midnight, there is an unexpected knock at the gate: a friend leaves sweetfish, caught that day, and departs without stopping to talk. The poem captures the nature of the friendship—one in which the friend brings a perfect gift but does not stay to brag about or savor it—a friendship that harmonizes with the delicate, light nature of the sweetfish.
6. Buson composed this poem in 1768 on the topic of “lightning,” a seasonal word for autumn. Lightning was associated in the ancient period with the rice harvest (ina). It enables the viewer to see—as if from far above the earth—the waves surrounding all the islands of Akitsushima, an ancient epithet for Yamato, or Japan. This poem is an implicit paean to the country’s fertility and beauty.
7. This poem was composed in 1768 on the topic of “sudden winter showers” (shigure). The camphor (kusu) is a large tree with large branches protecting the trunk from the showers and causing the roots at the bottom to turn moist only after a long time, that is, “quietly” (shizuka ni). The hokku captures the passage of time, as the showers gradually dampen the camphor tree, which implicitly gives off a scent that matches the quiet atmosphere.
8. Buson composed this hokku on the topic of “spring’s end” in 1769. “The passing spring” (yuku haru) was a classical subject that implied regret and sorrow at the slipping away of a beautiful season. The poet resents a poetry anthology editor (senja)—probably in the Heian or Kamakura period, when inclusion in an imperial anthology could mean immortality—who has failed to include a poem by the poet. The poet’s feelings are embodied in the passage of spring, which is implicitly passing the poet by.
9. Komabune were the large Korean ships that sailed to Japan in the ancient period, bringing cargo and precious goods from the continent, a practice that had long been discontinued by Buson’s time. Viewed from the land, the Korean ship appears at first to be heading for the port but then gradually disappears into the “mist” (kasumi), a seasonal word for spring. The mist covers the water, blurring the boundaries between the real and the unreal, the present and the past. The key middle line, “not stopping, passing back” (yorade sugiyuku), suggests a long passage of time, a sense of growing anticipation and then of disappointment. This poem was published in Haikai shinsen in 1773.
10. Buson composed this hokku on the topic of “autumn storms” (nowaki) in 1768. Toba Palace, which appears in medieval military tales as the site of political intrigues and conflicts, was an imperial villa that the retired emperor Shirakawa (1053–1129) constructed at Toba, south of Kyoto, in the eleventh century. The hokku, which has been compared to a scene from a picture scroll (e-maki), is representative of Buson’s narrative style. The word nowaki, like the armed horsemen, suggests a sense of both turmoil and urgency.
11. This poem was published in 1776. The wakaba (young leaves) are the early-summer leaves that have reached maturity but still retain the freshness and vitality of spring. They seem to cover the whole earth, leaving only Mount Fuji, which is implicitly so massive that even the wakaba cannot cover it. This may be an aerial view.
12. Buson probably composed this hokku in 1771. Botan (peony), a seasonal word for summer, is a large, colorful flower that was highly admired by Chinese poets and painters and was imported to Japan in the Genroku era. The sound of the phrase uchikasanarinu ni san pen suggests the slow dropping of the large, heavy petals. Some readers believe that the peonies are in a flower vase, with the petals dropping on a table; others, that they are in a garden, dropping on the dark ground.
13. The speaker, thinking that the tree is dead, sinks his ax into the trunk several times, only to be surprised by its scent, which reveals life beneath its lifeless exterior. This poem was published in 1772.
14. In the poetic tradition, the passing of spring (yuku haru) brings regret. The speaker (probably an elegant Heian courtier) picks up a lute (biwa), perhaps starting to play a piece on the passing of spring, and feels that the instrument is heavier than usual, a heaviness that echoes the sense of spring (life) passing. Some readers have interpreted the lute in the courtier’s hands as a phantom woman. Buson composed this hokku in 1774/1775.
15. Kites were flown by children on New Year’s Day, and “kite” is a seasonal word for spring. The sky around the kite is not the sky of today but that of the past; that is, the kite or, rather, the sky around the kite takes the speaker into the past, not just of yesterday, but of many yesterdays, perhaps nostalgically back to childhood days. For Hagiwara Sakutarō (1886–1942), the poem implies that while time and space (represented by the sky) change, the kite, a kind of bearer of memory, remains unchanged, alone in the sky. This poem was probably composed in 1769.
16. “Long day” (osoki hi) is a late-spring day when the sun sets late and the day seems to last forever, reminding the poet both of the past, of youth, which seems so far away, and of the many springs and years that have come and gone since that time. This poem was composed in 1775.
17. Samidare, the continuous rains of the summer rainy season, have caused the river to swell, leaving the two houses on the bank in a precari
ous position, seemingly with only each other for protection. One modern commentator and poet (Andō Tsuguo) sees the two houses as Buson and his only daughter, who was recently divorced, leaving both in a precarious position. This poem was composed in 1777.
18. The widower, sleeping alone, accidentally steps on a comb in the dark, bringing back memories of his relationship with his wife. Mi ni shimu (piercing chill), a seasonal phrase for autumn, refers to the sense of loneliness that sinks into the body with the arrival of the autumn cold. This poem is fictional. Buson composed it while his wife was alive; in fact, she outlived him by thirty-one years. Buson composed the poem in 1777.
19. Yoi no haru is a warm, hazy spring evening, evocative of romantic or mysterious things, a mood matched by the mysterious behavior of the fox. Buson was fascinated by the strange nocturnal movements of foxes and badgers, as evident in his many verses on this topic and in his stories in New Flower Gathering (Shinhanatsumi). Buson composed this hokku in 1777.
20. This poem is deliberately ambiguous about time so that the second half can also be translated as “who long ago stood outside the brushwood fence?” The poem suggests that someone (perhaps a lover) once waited for the subject of the poem (probably a woman, in the poetic tradition of the waiting woman) outside the fence where the plum tree now blooms, who even now feels that someone is waiting there. The “white plum blossoms,” a seasonal word for spring, conjure up memories of the distant past. Other interpreters have treated the white plum blossoms as a lover who is waiting outside the fence. The word shiraume (white plum) suggests the word shiranu (don’t know), implying there is no answer to the questions posed. Buson composed the hokku in 1776.
21. Buson composed this poem, a death poem, in 1783, when he was sixty-eight. Plum blossoms, which are admired for their light fragrance, appear at the beginning of spring when the weather is still cold. The darkness of the cold night turns into the dim light of dawn amid the faint whiteness of the plum blossoms, which seem to embody Buson’s spirit as it disappears into the light of dawn. The poem is also about the transition from winter to spring. Buson died on the twenty-fifth day of the Twelfth Month, the last month of winter, just before the arrival of spring on the first day of the First Month.
22. Zoku is translated here as “common,” but it also can refer to the vulgar or popular, as opposed to the refined and elegant.
23. Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768), a Zen master, painter, and calligrapher.
24. The sequence begins with two panoramic hokku in the third person evoking a young woman returning to her village during a three-day break granted by her employers beginning on or around the sixteenth day of the First Month, in late February, a time when the weather is growing milder. The opening hokku is a wide view of the young woman leaving Osaka, while the second hokku is a closer view of a specific location north of the city. The young woman crosses the Yodo River eastward at the point where the Nagara River branches off from the larger Yodo, and when she climbs to the high bank on the east side of the Yodo, she feels a fresh breeze.
25. The series now shifts to a verse in literary Chinese spoken in the first person, a form that continues in the next verse, also in Chinese. As the young woman nears the area where she grew up, the wind brings the scent of early herbs, and she remembers pleasures of picking them years ago, although she feels that the thorns are jealous—presumably of her great happiness at going home at last. She speaks to natural objects now with the same intimacy she once did as a girl.
26. The form shifts again to a laconic, scenic hokku in which the narrator suggests her feeling that a willow has changed since she last saw it.
27. The form shifts to Sino-Japanese prose in which the owner of a teahouse for travelers remembers the young woman and praises her for the stylish woman she has now become. The old woman’s praise probably comes from sympathy, since she has known the young woman for years and is aware of the hard life she leads as a servant in Osaka. The young woman must wait at the small teahouse until two men from Osaka leave. They may be apprentices or, like herself, servants returning home on a short leave from the commercial district in south Osaka where they live and work. They speak in the language of south Osaka merchants (or perhaps the licensed quarter there), and they are feeling a bit rich at the moment, since it was the custom to give male servants monetary gifts before they went home. The men either know the young woman or salute her as a fellow returnee. Once a regular stopping place for travelers, there is little money or lively city conversation in the place now, only a few old houses that double as inns.
28. The form shifts to a hokku with very long lines of the type influenced by the Sino-Japanese phrasing that Matsuo Bashō, Onitsura, and others experimented with in the 1680s. The number of men and the number of strings of coins are linked to the number of houses, and the lonely cry of the tomcat echoes the conversation of the two, no doubt single, young men.
29. Outside the hedge of one of the houses, a hen calls in a very different way to her chicks, in Chinese verse. The mother hen’s warm, loving call marks a turning point in the poem, and the young woman begins to yearn even more strongly for home. She has left behind the fast-moving, fashion-conscious world of Osaka, just as the female cat has left the male cat to his own yowling.
30. In this Sino-Japanese style hokku, an inaudible voice comes from the woman’s memory: her mother is calling her to take the best path, a choice that brings back further memories of walking and picking dandelions and of leaving the area three years earlier to go to Osaka to work.
31. The white liquid that oozes from the dandelion stem is, in Japanese, homophonous with the word for mother’s milk, and the form returns to a hokku, although one with long lines. The white liquid initiates another series of verses linked by new spring images.
32. The first and most basic spring images are the young woman’s strong memories of spending several springs at her mother’s breast. The image is probably to be taken literally, since children often were nursed for several years. Her mother’s warm breast is a kind of utopian season unequaled by later seasonal springs. Here the traditional waka form (or perhaps a hokku plus a linked second verse, or wakiku) resonates with the young woman’s early experiences. Eventually she had to leave her mother and go to work in Osaka in the house of a rich merchant. As she learned Osaka city life and its styles, she has also experienced physical love—literally, spring feelings—perhaps with a male servant in the large house where she lives and works.
33. In this song, consisting of three hokku, she compares love to a plum tree that is newly blooming in the middle of the First Month, in the garden of the house where she works.
34. In Osaka she has matured and learned to look attractive and has nearly forgotten her mother and brother, but as she nears home she suddenly feels she is a plum tree that has been taken away and grafted onto a distant trunk in Osaka. Something about her newfound sophistication and beauty now makes her feel artificial. In this song, two forms—a passage of Sino-Japanese prose and two hokku—have been grafted together to give the reader the sensation of moving back and forth between the two.
35. As the young woman comes even closer to her village, spring takes on psychological tones in this song in Sino-Japanese and feels to her even further advanced. In her mind the plums give way to more modest rows of budding willows planted along the high riverbank to prevent erosion. Their long limbs are no doubt swaying in the breeze, and their beauty will continue long after the plum blossoms have fallen. Since she feels spring has deepened, she may already be feeling again the warmth she once felt at her mother’s breast. Her village is not very far from Osaka in terms of physical distance, but her longing for home makes her journey seem endless. Both time and spring deepen, and finally at dusk she reaches the place where a path goes down the embankment to the village. In the following Chinese verse, she can almost see her mother and brother again, yet they are not quite visible.
36. The sequence shifts from the fictional narrator’s songs to a h
okku by Buson’s late friend and fellow poet Taigi (1707–1771). The direct address to the reader breaks the fiction of a single forward-moving journey: the hokku is said to come from another poet now in the world of the dead. The shift indicates a movement from the daughter’s acute visual imagination in the first seventeen songs to a tactile, bodily, and emotional level at which the daughter can sleep again like a child within her mother’s dark, enveloping, loving “special spring.” The Sino-Japanese address generalizes this experience to all readers. It has been suggested that Buson is also expressing his own prayer here for the soul of his mother and for the success of his daughter’s marriage.
37. Negishi was north of the Kan’ei-ji monastic compound in Ueno, northwest of Asakusa’s Sensō-ji, and west of the New Yoshiwara licensed quarter.
38. Yamauba, or Yamamba, is a well-known figure in Japanese legend, believed both to devour children and to wreak havoc on those traveling in the mountains, as well as to provide good fortune to those in need.
39. According to the Edo meisho zue (1:115, 119, 120–121), the Yanagihara (field of willows, referred to as “Yanagigahara” in the text) dike extended along the Kanda River from the Sujikai to the Asakusa Bridge. Centrally located here was the Yanagi-no-mori (willow grove) Inari Shrine. Foxes figure prominently in Inari lore. Kamita is an archaic form of Kanda. This area was only a few blocks from the neighborhood near Benkei Bridge where the author Ayatari lived for a time.
Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900 Page 80