Haiku Of Kobayashi Issa
De GA.
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| - | <br> | + | <br> His mother died when he was a toddler; his father died almost a decade before he wrote this poem. Commenting on a similar haiku, Shinji Ogawa informs me that mame signifies "healthy" when it is used as an adjective. Of the seventeen on (sound units) in this musical haiku, twelve have the vowel sound of a. Issa humorously applies a human tendency to the plants: as if the wildflowers have made a conscious decision to live with "their own kind" in an exclusive neighborhood, apart from the fast-growing bamboo. This is a funny and raw haiku with Pure Land Buddhist overtones. Eons ago, Amida promised that all who rely on him will be reborn in the Pure Land (the Western Paradise). Issa watches his earnest hand gestures but also, at the same time, the green summer trees that surround him. Readers who latch onto Issa's verses of personal sorrows and consequently paint him as a poet of suffering, should remember this haiku. The bird would be better off not emulating the hard, often hungry lifestyle of a wandering poet.<br><br><br> In Issa's haiku shirazu ("not knowing") is curtailed, but a negative phrase nakari keri makes the haiku grammatically sound. Knowing this, Issa uses the word hito ha in a completely different way to make the haiku comical. A whimsical haiku. Issa imagines that the umbrella-shaped daffodil can protect the samurai from the rain. In this case, I believe that sake is involved. This one also holds a plum. Though literally translated as "red rice," aka no meshi (also aka no gohan) is a rice and red bean dish served in a bowl. Kaki can be translated as "fence" or "hedge." In this case, the latter fits. The delight of seeing a baking pan in this unexpected place, worn as a hat, is justification enough for the poem--a sketch from life that isn't straining to reveal deeper meaning. Shinji Ogawa, who assisted with this translation, helped me to grasp the meaning of Issa's double negative: nizaru ("not resemble," "be unlike") and yama mo nashi ("not a mountain") together denote, "not a mountain is unlike" the mountains back home in Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture). In this version, he ends with kusa no hana ("wildflowers"), completely changing the meaning. Issa juxtaposes the cozy interior of the hermit's hut with the harsh world outside.<br><br><br> The 48-year-old man, who cannot afford to have a wife, has to deal with no one but his own kneecaps when it's getting dark outside. In my translation, I specify that the crow has served as a "nest warmer": an explanatory addition that wouldn't have been necessary in Issa's day. Plum blossoms bloom much earlier than cherry blossoms so that their beauty and faint fragrance are highly appreciated as messengers of spring. When I contemplate this haiku, I suspect that Issa is purposely zoning out the preacher's words, implying that the beauty of Nature itself--embodied in the trees--is Buddha's promise. In a Chinese book, Enanji (in Japanese pronunciation) published in the early third century, it is written that when a paulownia leaf falls, the world's autumn is known. This is an early haiku written in the 1790s. During this period, Issa was traveling far from his native village of Kashiwabara in the mountains of Shinano Province, a place, incidentally, without a "cove" (iri-e), which would suggest that Issa is seeing some other village in the moment: someone else's hometown.<br><br><br> By Issa's time it means "a dry windy day during the late autumn--deep winter season." It is classified as a winter season word. Or did he purposefully change the last word and the punch line of the haiku? Since paulownia leaves are the crest of the Tyotomi family that ruled Japan in the sixteenth century and was ruined by the Tokugawa, the word hito ha ("one paulownia leaf") implies a sort of sadness. This is a spring haiku; the wild geese are leaving Japan (i.e., returning to northern lands). Adults in Japan are getting younger, literally. The idea that the sandals are for sale isn't stated in Issa's Japanese but is implied. Issa is referring to ishinadori, a game that is played with little stones. Even so, I picture "angry" Issa complaining to the dog with a smile on his face. Issa provides an interesting perspective: he stands on an island under the moon, imagining the viewpoint of another person, on another island, looking in his direction. Issa (rhetorically) asks the man under the tree if he would be sleeping alone in his house, should he sleep there.<br> |
