Bashō and the Haikuists

(1644-1694)

Contents

Introduction

Introduction to Haiku by Michael Haldane

The Haiku

Prominent Haikuists

Other Haikuists

Analysis

Poetry of the Seventeenth Century by William George Aston

Japanese Poetry by Basil Hall Chamberlain

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

© Delphi Classics 2022

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Bashō and the Haikuists

By Delphi Classics, 2022

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Bashō and the Haikuists - Delphi Poets Series

First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2022.

The Haiku translations by Michael Haldane, 2006, appear in this collection by the kind permission of the author.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 80170 043 6

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NOTE

WHEN READING POETRY on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size and landscape mode, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

Introduction

Ueno, a city in Mie Prefecture, Japan — Bashō’s birthplace

Bashō’s supposed birthplace in Iga Province

Introduction to Haiku by Michael Haldane

CONTENTS

1. Form

2. Methodology and Translation Techniques

3. Terminology

‘Bashō meets two farmers celebrating the mid-autumn moon festival’, a print from Yoshitoshi’s ‘Hundred Aspects of the Moon’, 1891

1. Form

A HAIKU CONSISTS of 17 onji (or morae) divided into lines of 5, 7 and 5 onji, and so it appears, at first sight, to be more symmetrical than the form from which it evolved, the tanka or waka (5, 7, 5, 7, 7 syllables).  We may think of the Chinese character for mountain (Chinese reading SEN; Japanese reading yama), in which the central peak is slightly higher than the side ones.  Yet this symmetry is deceptive, for these three divisions actually form two units, a phrase of 12 onji and a fragment of 5 onji. The effect of the haiku largely depends upon the juxtaposition of the two images presented in these two units.

An onji is a unit of sound; it may also be called a haku (in English, mora, a term from Latin prosody).  It is not quite the same as an English syllable: for example, ‘haiku’ is two syllables in English, but in Japanese, a language without diphthongs, ‘ha-i-ku’ is three onji.  Consequently 17 onji are roughly equivalent, in length and effect, to 11 or 12 syllables.  Much poetry in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish is based on a 10/11 syllable line, which tests have revealed to represent the length of a moment.  Japanese poetry, however, traditionally employed 5- and 7-onji lines in varying degrees of alternation, the 5-7-5-7-7 of the tanka being most popular.  By putting three of these lines together, the haiku forms a moment to Western ears – a slightly elongated moment, with two breaks, one major and one minor.

This division of a poem into three units is extremely rare; the majority of world poetry is binary and parallel in construction.  The ternary structure is almost unique to Japanese.  Most present translators reproduce it; very occasionally, a Japanese translator has rendered haiku, or tanka, into four-line English verse.  A substantial body of such verse already exists in English, and it is of a considerably higher standard than anything that Mr. Yuasa (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) and Mr. Honda (One Hundred Poems from One Hundred Poets) have to offer.  I do not simply want to know that the ternary division exists in the original; I wish to experience it.  There are also the heroic couplets of William Stewart, whom we may term ‘the last of the Augustans’.  It is a sobering thought that this book of translations has run through 25 printings; one is reminded of the translations of Chinese poetry by Arthur Waley, a great translator who always wrote superb prose.  Finally, there are the one-line translations of Hiroaki Sato, which are not a success; quite simply, anyone who attempts this approach is doomed.  In order to allow greater interplay between the constituent elements, it is necessary to cut the line, to set locks in the canal of thought; through division, we define stages of time and bestow depth and complexity on the relationships we have created.  It could be argued that we could place divisions within one line, to create a horizontal equivalent of the usual vertical effect, and this is certainly a possibility; however, the modern eye is trained to look for poetry in lines.

There is the danger that Westerners, in their attempt to come to terms with and appropriate the haiku, will restrict its range and make it less flexible than the haiku in Japanese.  For example, we sometimes exaggerate the Buddhist tendencies of a haijin, paying insufficient regard to the importance of the Shinto belief in the oneness of nature and possible conflicts between this belief and Buddhist transcendence; we may advocate the absence of personal pronouns and, as far as possible, of verbs, even though several Japanese haijin employ them quite merrily; or we may turn a blind eye to the humour of haiku.  In translation, I attempt to follow the author in such matters.  This exaggeration is perfectly understandable, for we wish to separate the values of haiku from those of Western poetry, and this is easier to achieve when the genre is tightly defined.  In the past, too many restrictions were placed, haiku sometimes being considered synonymous with Bashō, or perhaps also with Buson, the work of many other notable haijin, such as Issa, Tan Taigi, and Chiyo-ni, being neglected.  Nowadays we have gone to the other extreme; relativity has created a world without borders and without defining features.  Poetry, like life, needs restrictions.

2. Methodology and Translation Techniques

MY TRANSLATIONS GENERALLY employ 11-12 syllables, this length being approximately correspondent to 17 onji.  Some poets like to follow the Japanese syllabic pattern when composing haiku in English, but translators seldom adopt that method (Kenneth Yasuda being an exception), Japanese being a more polysyllabic and inflectional language.  At no stage did I feel that I was forced to omit anything essential; on the contrary, adopting 11-12 syllables as a rough limit assisted my attempt to reproduce the economy of the originals and acted as a guard against interpretative adjectives and pathetic fallacies.  The essence of haiku lies in suggestion, in an unstated emotional response to (seasonal) nature.

My translation is my own work; the strengths and demerits of each version are mine alone.  Some people like to co-translate, or to consult the original poet, and on occasion such collaborations may be of benefit, especially if the translator is not versed in the source language (there seem to be many co-translations from Hungarian, for instance).  However, I find such a procedure to lead to conflict; there can be only one driver, and a poet is but a passenger in foreign lands.  A translator views a poem from a perspective that is closed to the author, who does not possess as deep a knowledge of, and feel for, the target language.  As concerns notions of ‘originality’, I shall merely observe the following: when Bashō composes a haiku that is the same as one by Sōgi but for one word (yo ni furu mo/ sara ni sōgi no/ yadori kana; yo ni furu mo/ sara ni shigure no/ yadori kana), his poem is considered an original work, for that one word, that one small change, alters the whole.  The new poem thereby establishes roots, and strengthens the roots of its predecessor, in the native tradition.  Translators constantly make such changes; this is unavoidable when one is transferring data from one language into another, for there are no perfect inter-lingual synonyms.  Is their work not therefore original?

Translation may be defined as a search in the snow for what we did not plant; of course, as with many comments on translation, the image is applicable to almost any use of language, and we must bear in mind that the planter was working on prepared ground.  When encountering a language as different from one’s mother tongue as Japanese is from English, the snow is deep.  Haiku is essentially nature poetry, and the English are less alive to the seasons than the Japanese.  We approach it as children, but then we ‘grow up’ and lose ourselves in petty emotional concerns; haiku return our attention to the small details of nature that we have failed to notice since our first, incomplete discovery of the natural world.  The Japanese possess a vocabulary – including a more specific calendar, with shoshū (early autumn) and banshun (late spring) – that exceeds our word-store, so the translation of such words cannot bear the same force in English.  It is fascinating to observe the way in which they monitor the advance of the cherry-blossom front in spring: after all, what is more important than flowers?  Our sense of season is being further weakened by climactic change and our gradual flattening of the festivals of the year: when I was a child, a firework display took place on one night only; nowadays, they occur with inescapable regularity, and the fascination and poetry of ‘flower-fire’, as the Japanese call it, disappears.  There is also the significant structural difference of the two languages.  When writing essays in academic English, Japanese students often use the passive voice incorrectly and excessively, for it occurs more frequently in their language.  I am not advocating the avoidance of the passive voice to be found in Microsoft Word and some academic journals; I am simply concerned with its correct employment.  If we consider the following haiku by Chiyo-ni, in which the blossoming of the plum-flower heralds the arrival of spring:

ume ga ka ya  plum-blossom scent (kireji)

doko e fukaruru  where to [in what direction] is blown

yuki onna   snow woman

How are we to translate the final two lines?  We could anticipate:

where has she been blown, / the snow woman?

We could make the passive active:

where has the wind blown / the snow woman?

Or, in this instance, we may retain the passive through the use of enjambement:

whither has the snow / woman been blown?

English/American translators of Japanese poetry often claim to have retained the order of the images in the original poem as far as was possible, and their practice often belies their theory.  I shall make the same claim and leave the reader to test its veracity.  There are limits: for example, in Issa’s:

yama-yake no mountain-fire’s

akari ni kudaru light in going down

yobune kana night-boat [kireji]

we note how the object precedes the verb, an arrangement that cannot be reproduced in English.  Furthermore, Japanese has particles and postpositions, English has prepositions:

sabishisa ni  from loneliness (Sekitei)

I generally avoided pronouns, especially the subject pronoun, in order to create ambiguity, a sense of selflessness, of being one with nature:

meigetsu ya  harvest moon –

ike wo megurite milling round the pond

yomosugara throughout the night (Bashō)

In general, haijin employ a concrete and neutral vocabulary.  The poem is noun-heavy, often constructed around the particle ‘no’, a small but significant bridge between two or more nouns, two or more states, and the bearer of the process of mutual enriching modification; in that respect, haiku evoke the German language more than English.  Constructions such as ‘no oto’ (‘the sound of…’) and ‘no koe’ (‘the voice of’) are frequently found.  It is difficult to maintain this neutrality in translation, for one phrase can change considerably in a new context.  Let us consider two hokku by Bashō in which ‘semi no koe’ (‘cicada voice’) appears:

shizukasa ya  silence –

iwa ni shimi-iru into the rock

semi no koe icada drill

yagate shinu  no sign

keshiki wa miezu of dying soon –

semi no koe  cicada chirp

In such cases, translators are often unsure whether to use the singular or to pluralise.  There is also the question of how to translate ‘koe’.  Neutral terms in Japanese can make a significant phonetic contribution to the poem; this is not the case in the above poems with ‘sound’ or ‘voice’.  The translator usually wishes to employ a more specific term that is suggested by the context and which will enrich his version.  Thus the term that designates the sound of cicadas in English – ‘chirp’ – is employed for the second hokku, with its cheerful connotations, to add poignancy to a hokku on the premature death of Bashō’s patron.  The same term would be inappropriate for the preceding hokku, in which the noise made by the cicadas gradually eats into the rock.

Finally, I retained the occasional Japanese word. With ‘sakura’ (cherry-blossom), ‘sazanka’ (camellia sasanqua) and, ‘susuki’ (pampas-grass), the sibilants and the velar stops were simply irresistible.  Of course, we must accept that Japanese has more Ks than English, and it is often impossible to reproduce that sound effect, unless we fill our page with blossoming sakura and singing skylarks!  Yet it is difficult not to covet the sounds of other tongues; the temptation is always there to essay to reproduce the sounds that carry the poem to our ears, to rewrap the present in the same paper, rather than to create a parallel system of sounds.  The attempt was made to utilise assonance and alliteration wherever possible, although the fact remains that a language with only single consonants and very few vowel-sounds, and in which virtually every mora ends with a vowel (the exception, ‘n’, used to be ‘mu’), is being translated into a language rich in vowel-sounds whose words are often thickly wooded with consonants.  That vocalic variation commonly forms the sinews of the English poetic line; in the haiku’s three-tatami mat room, however, the repetition of vowel-sounds forms an enchanting, almost ritualistic, rhythm.

Ultimately, our reaction to a translation depends on the extent of our knowledge of the source language.  If the English is all that we have access to, then a good translation may arouse the wish to imitate; if we can see, and understand, the Japanese, then we may experience the desire to translate.  A translation can only be similar to its original; sameness is an impossible dream.  Yet we cannot help pursuing this dream, for we want our language to convey the same meaning, and we wish to capture and come to terms with the poem in our mother tongue; there is something both stimulating and unnerving in being moved by words in a foreign language.  It expands the limits of our individuality while simultaneously calling into question the nature of the self.  So we note the difference between original and translation, and we search the banks of language for the narrowest of crossings; in the end, we build our own bridge.

3. Terminology

AWARE: A MELANCHOLIC response to the sadness of transitory beauty; elegant pathos; a gentle appreciation tinged with sorrow; lacrimae rerum, the pity of things. 

Haibun: terse prose containing haiku, the most famous example being Bashō’s ‘Oku no hosomichi’ (‘The Narrow Road to the Interior’, the Interior/Depths being Tohoku).

Haiga: an abstract painting that accompanies a haiku, or is accompanied by a haiku in calligraphy.

Haiku: A minimalist beginning; a guest’s greeting.  The meeting of the eternal and the momentary; the sound of snow beneath the stones; the wind seen by candlelight; the fire inferred from a glimpse of smoke.

Hiragana: one of the two Japanese phonetic syllabaries – the elegant one.

Hosomi: ‘slenderness’.  Sparse, understated expression.

Ji-amari: (‘character-excess’), the use of extra onji in a haiku.

Jisei no ku: a death-bed poem.

Kake-kotoba: a ‘pivot-word’.  More common in tanka than in haiku.  It is an elaborate pun and may be thought of as a hinge for two doors.  The pivot-word is written in hiragana; if the poet were to use kanji, the ambiguity would disappear.  For example: in his tanka ‘yamakage no’, Ryōkan writes ‘sumiwataru’ in hiragana, so the reader sees only the sounds; it is kanji that carry the basic meaning.  Ryōkan is punning on ‘sumi’ which means both ‘live’ and ‘clean/pure’: he leads a pure life.  These two meanings of ‘sumi’ are distinguished through separate kanji.

Kanjaku: supreme quietness.

Kanji: Chinese characters in Japanese.

Karumi: ‘lightness’.  The simple treatment of the beauty to be found in the ordinary; common poetry, not that of the court.

Katakana: the unattractive, over-used Japanese phonetic syllabary that squashes round foreign sounds into squares.

Kigo: a ‘season word’.  This may be explicit – ‘spring night’, ‘autumn evening’, ‘winter’ – or it may take the form of a creature or natural phenomenon associated with a particular season.  Thus ‘harvest moon’ suggests autumn, as does ‘lightning’; ‘thunder’ implies summer; and ‘sazanka’ are associated with winter.  A small selection is given here; for more thorough lists, and for information of the historical usage of kigo, the reader is referred to a saijiki and William J. Higginson’s The Haiku Seasons: Poetry of the Natural World respectively.

New Year: hanetsuki (battledore and shuttlecock ~ badminton), hatsumōde (New Year visit to a shrine), hatsuyume (first dream of the year), kadomatsu (a pine-tree at the gate, as a New Year decoration), kagami-mochi (‘mirror rice-cakes’, offered to the Gods on New Year’s Day), otoshidama (handsel).

Spring: abu (horsefly), aomushi (caterpillar), atatakasa (warmth), awayuki (light [‘bubble’] snow), chatsumi (tea[leaf]-picking), chō (butterfly), hamaguri (clam), hanami (cherry-blossom viewing), hibari (skylark), kaeru (frog), kasumi (mist), kiji (pheasant), kochi (spring wind), komadori (robin), makuren (magnolia), masu (trout), mugi (wheat), nadare (avalanche), neko no koi (cat’s love), nishin (herring), nodoka na (tranquil), nori (laver), noyaki (burning dead grass), oborotsuki (hazy moon), rakka (fallen cherry-blossoms), saezuri ([bird] twittering), shinkirō (mirage), shiohigari (shellfish-gathering), sumire (violet), suzume (sparrow), tagayasu (ploughing), tako (kite), tanemaki (sowing), tanpopo (dandelion), tauchi (hoeing), tsubaki (camellia), tsubame (swallow), tsuki no kasa (halo of the moon), tsutsuji (azalea), uguisu (bush warbler), umemi (plum-blossom viewing), wasurenagusa (forget-me-not), yanagi (willow), yūgiri (evening mist), zansetsu (lingering snow).

Summer: aosagi (heron), ari (ant), asagao (morning-glory), ase (sweat), atsusa (heat), ayu (sweetfish), banka (late summer), bara (rose), biwa (loquat), endō (pea), funsui (fountain), fūrin (windchime), ga (moth), hanabi (fireworks), hanashōbu (iris), hasu no hana (lotus-flower), hebi (snake), hideri (drought), higasa (parasol), hikigaeru (toad), himawari (sunflower), hirune (afternoon nap), hoshigusa (hay), hotaru (firefly), ichigo (strawberry), izumi (spring, fountain), ka (mosquito), kaminari (thunder), kani (crab), katatsumuri (snail), keshi no hana (poppy), kingyo (goldfish), koi no bori (carp-shaped streamer), kōmori (bat), kumo (spider), kurage (jellyfish), kuroichigo (blackberry), kyūri (cucumber), melon, mugi no aki (ripe wheat), mugikari (barley-cutting), mugiwarabōshi (straw hat), nanbū (summer [southern] breeze), nasu (aubergine), niji (rainbow), ran (orchid), samidare (early summer [5th-month] rain), semi (cicada), sensus (folding fan), shoka (early summer), sōmatō (revolving lantern), sudare (bamboo blind), suiren (water-lily), suzuran (lily of the valley), suzushisa (coolness), take no ko (bamboo shoot), taki (waterfall), tamanegi (onion), taue (rice-planting), tessenka (clematis), tomato, tōmorokoshi (corn), tōrōnagashi (lantern floating), tsuyu (rainy season), wakaba (young leaves), yagurumasō (cornflower), yūgao (moonflower), yukata, yuri no hana (lily), yūsuzumi (enjoying the cool evening air).

Autumn: amanogawa (Milky Way; ‘River of Heaven’), asasamu (morning coldness), budō (grape), donguri (acorn), gan (wild goose), hōnen (good rice-crop), hoshizuki yo (starry night), ichijiku (fig), inazuma (lightning), inekari (rice-reaping), kakashi (scarecrow), kaki (persimmon), kamakiri (mantis), karasu (crow), kari (goose), karita (reaped field), kiku (chrysanthemum), kinoko (mushroom), kinokogari (mushroom-gathering), kiri (fog), kitsutsuki (woodpecker), konomi (nuts), kōrogi (cricket), kōzui (flood), kuri (chestnut), kurumi (walnut), mangetsu (full moon), [chūshū no] meigetsu (harvest-moon), mikan (mandarin), mizusumu (clear water), momiji (maple[-leaves]), mozu (shrike), mukuge (rose of Sharon), nowake (autumn storm; ‘moor-divide’), ringo (apple), ryūsei (shooting star), shika (deer), shion (aster), suika (watermelon), taifū (typhoon), tonbō (dragonfly), tsukimi (moon-viewing), tsuru (crane), tsuyu (dew), wataridori (bird of passage), yonaga (long night), yozamu (night-chill), zakuro (pomegranate), zansho (lingering heat).

Winter: bōnenkai (end-of-year party), chidori (plover), fukurō (owl), fuyugare (winter desolation), hakuchō (swan), hi’iragi (holly), hisame (icy rain), itetaki (frozen waterfall), kaki (oyster), kamo (duck), kareha (dead leaves), kareki (bare tree), kazahana (snowflake; ‘wind-flower’), keitoamu (knitting), kitakaze (North Wind), kitsune (fox), kogarashi (cold winter wind), kōri (ice), kuma (bear), mizudori (waterfowl), ochiba (fallen leaves), sazanka (camellia sasanqua), seki (cough), setsugen (snow field), suisen (narcissus), taka (hawk), takibi (fire), tōji (winter solstice), tsurara (icicle), usagi (rabbit), yuge (steam), yukidaruma (snowman).

Kireji: a ‘cutting-word’.  A pause of thought.  Often ‘ya’, and usually following the ‘kigo’.  This word is emphatic, and is translated as ‘–’, ‘!’, ‘…’ or ‘:’.  There are also the old-fashioned translations by an old-fashioned translator, William Stewart: ‘lo!’, ‘behold!’  It serves as a low wall between the initial scene and the following, juxtaposed image.

Other kireji are: kana, a soft sigh (‘Ah!’), frequently at the end of the haiku; keri, an emotive verbal suffix; ramu/ran (the final ‘n’ being originally written ‘mu’), a verbal suffix meaning ‘It may be that…’; and shi, an adjectival suffix that requires a predicate adjective at the end of the clause in English.

Makoto: sincerity.

Makura-kotoba: a ‘pillow-word’.  This is a decorative epithet which, like all Japanese qualifiers, precedes the noun.  It makes the reader rest his head on a pillow, as it were, and reflect on the noun.  Thus ‘kusa-makura’ (‘grass-pillow’) is a pillow-word for ‘journey’ or ‘evening’.

Mushin: ‘without heart’.  Denotes frivolous intent and language (in renga).  The opposite of ushin.

Miyabi: courtly elegance.

Renga: (‘linked-elegance’).  A long poem formed of three- and two-line stanzas composed by several poets sitting together.  The first stanza, composed by the senior poet, is called the ‘hokku’, and this is the term that describes the poetry of Bashō: ‘haiku’ was coined by Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902).  The second stanza is the ‘wakiku’ (‘side-verse’) and the third is the ‘daisan’; apart from this, only the final stanza has a specific name (‘ageku’), all other stanzas coming under the nomenclature of ‘hiraku’ (‘ordinary verse’).  A renga is a series of imaginative, almost scientific, leaps, a train journey on which the passenger frequently alights at unfamiliar stations and wonders how on earth he arrived there; it is one of the most lateral forms of poetry.

Sabi: Asymmetrical, impermanent beauty; quiet elegance; acceptance of transience. A ‘positive sadness’ (Sanford Goldstein et al, Ryōkan: Selected Tanka. Selected Haiku. Niigata: Kōkodō, 2000, ); ‘detached loneliness’ (Patricia Donegan, Chiyo-ni. Woman Haiku Master. Tokyo; Boston; Singapore: Tuttle, 1998, ); ‘Beauty with a sense of loneliness in time’ (William J. Higginson, The Haiku Handbook. Tokyo; New York; London: Kodansha, 1985, ).  The unfortunate term ‘wabi-sabi’ has become quite trendy nowadays.

Saijiki: a kigo dictionary.

Senryū: ‘river willow’.  Named after the nom de plume of Karai Hachiemon (1718-90).  The same basic form as the haiku, but the language is more colloquial, and the content and tone are different; the senryū is more concerned with mankind, especially with human foibles, and it is frequently epigrammatic, witty, satirical.  It gives the reader a pointe, not a moment; there is no kigo, no mysticism; it is a song not free from mud, although this earthiness can be its strength.

Shasei: a still-life (Shiki).  The presentation of an actual scene as it is (‘sono mama’), not the poet’s aroused reflections, during the process of observation.

Shibumi: ‘astringency’.  Subdued images; light, faint strokes.

Shiori: ‘bending, withering’.  The delicate, sensitive observation of the world; sympathy with ambiguity.

Tanka: ‘short poem’.  For many centuries the dominant poetic form in Japanese, as is attested by its old name, waka (‘Japanese poem’).  It originated from chants to the gods, which explains its rhythmic variation: it comprises 31 onji in a 5-7-5-7-7 structure, alternation being followed by terminal repetition.

Ushin: ‘with heart’.  Refers to the employment of classical diction and a sincere, elevated tone (in renga).

Utsuri: ‘reflection’.  Denotes the sense of transference between renga stanzas.  This transference can also be seen to be compressed within the haiku.

Wabi: Beauty in poverty, in austerity, in simple living and things.  Non-dependence upon material possessions; the satisfying appeal of solitude and loneliness.

The Haiku

A statue commemorating Matsuo Bashō’s arrival in Ōgaki

Prominent Haikuists

Translated by Michael Haldane, 2006

CONTENTS

MATSUO BASHŌ (1644-94)

Haiku by Matsuo Bashō

CHIYO-NI (1703-75)

Haiku by Chiyo-ni

YOSA BUSON (1716-84)

Haiku by Buson

KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763-1827)

Haiku by Issa

MASAOKA SHIKI (1867-1902)

Haiku by Shiki

MATSUO BASHŌ (1644-94)

THE MOST FAMOUS poet of the Edo period in Japan, Matsuo Bashō was born in 1644, near Ueno, in Iga Province. The Matsuo family was of samurai descent and Bashō’s father was probably a landowning peasant, granted certain privileges of samurai.  Widely regarded as the greatest haiku poet, he was a Zen Buddhist, who liked to portray his religion in his poetry. He helped create a “new style” of poetry to capture the meaning of the world into simple poetry. His works are celebrated for contrasting two separate experiences, for example nightfall and autumn portrayed together. Bashō aspired to reflect his real environment and emotions in his work. Even during his lifetime, the effort and style of his poetry was widely appreciated.

The aim of Bashō’s poetry was to capture the beauty of a single moment, taken directly from nature. This is probably his most famous haiku, which gives an effective example:

An old pond
a frog jumps into
the sound of water.

Bashō attempts to replicate the simple impression of an animal disturbing the peace of an old pond.  The climax of the Haiku is limited in description and avoids the use of onomatopoeia; it instead relies upon the reader’s own imagination to produce the “sound of water”.

After his death in 1694, Bashō’s fame continued to increase. Several of his students compiled quotations from him about his poetry, most notably Mukai Kyorai and Hattori Dohō. During the eighteenth century, appreciation of his poems grew more fervent and commentators such as Ishiko Sekisui and Moro Nanimaru went to great length to find references in his writings to historical events, medieval books and other poems. In 1793 Bashō was deified by the Shinto bureaucracy and for a time criticising his poetry was literally blasphemous.

Portrait of Bashō by Yosa Buson, c. 1775

Portrait of Bashō by Hokusai, late eighteenth century

Haiku by Matsuo Bashō

inazuma ya
                            lightning –
yami no kata yuku
                            into the darkness
goi no koe
                            a night-heron’s cry

byōgan no
                            a wild goose falls
yosamu ni ochite
                            ill in the cold night;
tabine kana
                            itinerant sleep…

hototogisu
                            cuckoo
kieyuku kata e
                            fading towards
shima hitotsu
                            a lone isle

meigetsu ya
                            harvest moon
ike wo megurite
                            milling round the pond
yomosugara
                            throughout the night

tsuki hayashi
                            the moon is fleet
kozue wa ame o
                            while branches clasp to
mochinagara
                            the rain

araumi ya
                            turbulent sea;
Sado ni yokotau
                            over Sado Isle
amanogawa
                            the River of Heaven*

* amanogawa: the Milky Way.

furuike ya
                            an old pond
kawazu tobikomu
                            a frog jumps into
mizu no oto
                            the sound of water

nao mitashi
                            wishing once more to glimpse
hana ni akeyuru
                            in the dawning blossoms
kami no kao
                            the face of the god

saki midasu
                            among a confusion
momo no naka yori
                            of peach-blooms,
hatsu-zakura
                            the first cherry-blossom

natsu-kusa ya
                            summer grasses;
tsuwa-mono-domo ga
                            ruins
yume no ato*
                            of soldiers’ dreams

Alternative transations:

summer grasses
warriors’ dreams
over

summer grasses;
remnants
of veterans’ dreams

summer grasses –
the aftermath
of strong men’s dreams

* Composed at Hiraizumi, Iwate Prefecture, where Yoshitsune, the hero of the HEIKE MONOGATARI, met his end.

tabi ni yande
                            waning on a journey
yume wa kare-no o
                            dreams through withered fields
kake-meguru
                            are wandering

kono michi ya
                            no one walks
yuku hito nashi ni
                            with this road –
aki no kure
                            autumn evening

samidare* o
                            gathering summer
atsumete hayashi
                            rain, the swift
Mogamigawa
                            Mogami River

* samidare: early summer rain, lit. ‘five-month-rain’. In the traditional calendar, the fifth month, ‘satsuki’, begins on June the 6th; ‘samidare’ refers to the persistent drizzle that is followed by intense heat and humidity.

atsuki hi o
                            sinking the hot sun
umi ni iretari
                            into the sea –
Mogamigawa
                            Mogami River

shizukasa ya
                            silence –
iwa ni shimi-iru
                            throbbing through the rock
semi no koe
                            cicada cry

yagate shinu
                            no sign
keshiki wa miezu
                            of dying soon –
semi no koe
                            cicada chirp*

* Bashō’s patron, Sengin (‘cicada-song’), died young.

ushi-beya ni
                            in the cowshed
ka no koe yowashi
                            mosquitoes whirring weakly –
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

hasu-ike ya
                            lotus-pond –
orade sono mama
                            unpicked, intact,
tama-matsuri
                            for the festival of souls

fuki tabi ni
                            every gust a voyage –
chō no inaoru
                            the butterfly in a whirl
yanagi kana
                            on the willow

mono ieba
                            but a word
kuchibiru samushi
                            and lips are cold –
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

yo no naka wa
                            time for the world
inekaru koro ka
                            to harvest rice?
kusa no io
                            grass-hut

mugimeshi ni
                            on barley meal
yatsururu koi ka
                            or attenuated love?
neko no tsuma
                            cat’s mate

nomi shirami
                            fleas and lice
uma no shito suru
                            and a horse drizzling
makura moto
                            by my pillow

fūryū no
                            poetry
hajime ya Oku* no
                            rising; an Oku
taue uta
                            rice-planting song

the seeds of art;
a rice-planting song
of the North

* Oku: the North of Honshū; the Interior.

suzushisa o
                            taking my quarters
wa ga yado ni shite
                            at coolness,
nemaru nari
                            I repose …

tsuka mo ugoke
                            … shake your tomb!
wa ga naku koe wa
                            my weeping voice …
aki no kaze
                            … autumn wind …

aka aka to
                            red, red,
hi wa tsurenaku mo
                            the heartless sun, yet
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

muzan ya na
                            ruthless
kabuto no shita no
                            underneath the helmet
kirigirisu
                            cricket

ishiyama no
                            a sharper white
ishi yori shiroshi
                            than the stones of Ishiyama –
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

haiide yo
                            crawl out!
kaiya ga shita no
                            beneath the silkworm shed
hiki no koe
                            the croak of a toad

samidare no
                            spared from falling
furinokoshite ya
                            early summer rain –
hikari-dō
                            Hall of Light

suzushisa ya
                            refreshing –
hono mikazuki no
                            a faint crescent moon’s
Haguro san
                            Mount Haguro

hitotsu ya ni
                            sharing a roof
yūjo mo netari
                            with sleeping harlots –
hagi to tsuki
                            bush-clover and the moon

mayuhaki o
                            reminiscent
omokage ni shite
                            of eyebrow brushes –
beni no hana
                            safflower blossoms

sabishisa ya
                            the loneliness!
Suma ni kachitaru
                            deeper still than Suma,
hama no aki
                            autumn shore

meigetsu ya
                            harvest moon –
hokkoku biyori
                            weather without order
teimenaki
                            in the North

no wo yoko ni
                            turn the horse’s head
uma hikimuke yo
                            towards that moor;
hototogisu
                            hototogisu

kane kiete
                            the bell fades,
hana no ka wa tsuku
                            the flower-fragrance rises –
yūbe kana
                            evening

saru o kiku hito
                            the monkey’s cry
sutego ni aki no
                            a child abandoned
kaze ika ni
                            autumn wind  (imit.)

tako-tsubo ya
                            octopus-pots;
hakanaki yume o
                            empty dreams
natsu no tsuki
                            by the summer moon

fuki tobasu
                            blowing in stones,
ishi wa asama no
                            the autumn tempest
nowaki kana
                            from Asama Mountain

fuyugomori
                            winter seclusion;
mata yorisowan
                            nestling this post
kono hashira
                            once again

ro no koe nami o utte
                            the slap of oar on wave,
harawata kōru
                            a night to freeze
yo ya namida
                            the bowels – tears

chiru yanagi
                            falling willow-leaves;
aruji mo ware mo
                            Master and I
kane o kiku
                            listen to the bell

nagaki hi o
                            the day isn’t long
saezuri taranu
                            enough for the song
hibari kana
                            of the skylark

hiru mireba
                            seen by day
kubisuji akaki
                            the firefly’s nape
hotaru kana
                            is red

hiya-hiyato
                            cool, cool,
kabe o fumaete
                            feet against the wall;
hirune kana
                            midday snooze

hototogisu
                            cuckoo-cry –
koe yokotau ya
                            obliquely
mizu no ue
                            over the water

kyō nite mo
                            in Kyōto,
kyō natsukashi ya
                            yearning for Kyōto –
hototogisu
                            hototogisu

sumadera ya
                            Suma Temple –
fukanu fue kiku
                            listening to the unblown flute
koshitayami
                            among the pine-tree shades

tsukimi suru
                            a company viewing
za ni utsukushiki
                            the moon; not one
kao mo nashi
                            has a beautiful face

mi ni shimite
                            the bitter white radish
daikon karashi
                            bites into me –
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

niwatori no
                            in the voice
koe ni shigururu
                            of the cock, the cow-shed
ushiya kana
                            in drizzle

hito mo minu
                            unseen Spring –
haru ya kagami no
                            at the mirror’s reverse,
ura no ume
                            the blossoming plum

yo no natsu ya
                            summer in the world;
kosui ni ukabu
                            floating in the lake,
nami no ue
                            on the waves

On a self-portrait by Unchiku, a Kyōto monk, with his face turned away:

kochira muke
                            turn this way –
ware mo sabishiki
                            I am lonely too;
aki no kure
                            autumn evening

chō tori no
                            unknown to bird
shiranu hana ari
                            and butterfly, this flower:
aki no sora
                            autumn sky

On a night when rain obscured the full moon:

tsuki izuko
                            where is the moon –
kane wa shizumite
                            the bell has sunk
umi no soko
                            to the ocean floor

ikka mina
                            all the household,
shiraga ni tsue ya
                            grey hair and sticks,
haka-mairi
                            visit the graves

asagao ya
                            morning-glory –
kore mo mata waga
                            this, too can never
tomo narazu
                            be my friend

shira tsuyu o
                            without spilling
kobosanu hagi no
                            white dew – the swaying
uneri kana
                            lespedeza

asagao wa
                            morning-glory –
heta no kaku sae
                            even poorly painted,
aware nari
                            it has pathos

higoro nikuki
                            even the crow,
karasu mo yuki no
                            normally hateful –
ashita kana
                            snowy morn

sukumiyuku ya
                            crouching onwards –
bajō ni kōru
                            on horseback
kagebōshi
                            a frozen shadow

umi kurete
                            darkening sea –
kamo no koe
                            the wild ducks’ cries
honoka ni shiroshi
                            are dimly white

inazuma ni
                            how striking!
satoranu hito no
                            those not enlightened
tōtosa yo
                            by the lightning

CHIYO-NI (1703-75)

REGARDED BY MANY as one of the greatest haiku poets, Chiyo-ni was born in Matto, Kaga Province in February 1703. She was the eldest daughter of a scroll mounter. At an early age, Chiyo-ni was introduced to art and poetry, and she began writing haiku at the age of seven. By the time she was seventeen, she was extremely popular all over Japan for her poetry.  She also achieved fame through her painting and calligraphy. At the age of fifty-two, she became a Buddhist nun, as she expressed a need to “teach her heart to be like clear water”. Today, Chiyo-ni is revered for using haiku poetry to promote women’s rights. This is especially important as the poetry form has become more dominant with female poets in recent times.

‘Chiyo-ni standing beside a well’ by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, c. 1840

Haiku by Chiyo-ni

mi-agari* ni
                            her body-debt paid,
hitori nezame no
                            she wakes up alone –
yosamu kana
                            ah, the cold of night

* mi-agari: the money paid to obtain a prostitute’s release.

shimizu ni wa
                            in clear water
ura mo omote mo
                            there is no back
nakari keri
                            no front

suzushisa ya
                            coolness –
yo fukaki hashi ni
                            strangers on a bridge
shiranu dōshi
                            deep in night

ha mo chiri mo
                            leaves and dust
hitotsu utena ya
                            on the one lotus-calyx –
yuki no hana
                            flowering snow

nanigoto mo
                            the commutation
fude no yukiki ya
                            of the writing-brush –
fuyu-gomori
                            hibernating

oto sōte
                            companion sounds –
ame ni shizumaru
                            the rain falls more softly
kinuta kana
                            cloth-pounding

meigetsu ya
                            full moon –
yuki fumi wakete
                            steps part the snow
ishi no oto
                            the sound of stone

hatsu shigure
                            first winter rain
doko yara take no
                            and somewhere…
asaborake
                            bamboo dawn

taoraruru
                            fragrant
hito ni kaoru ya
                            to the hand that breaks –
ume no hana
                            plum-blossom

iriai wo
                            evening
sora ni osayuru
                            suppressed in the sky;
sakura kana
                            cherry blossoms
(read as ‘iriai no kane’, ‘evening bell’)

ne wo tsukete
                            woman’s passion
onago no yoku ya
                            taken root;
sumire-sō
                            wild violets

kaketaranu
                            never enough
onna-gokoro ya
                            a woman’s heart;
doyōboshi
                            summer airing

natsu no yo no
                            a summer evening
chigiri osoroshi
                            vow is appalling;
hashi no shimo
                            frost on the bridge

more izuru
                            unveiled
yama mata yama ya
                            mountain meeting mountain;
hatsu-gasumi
                            first mists

ume ga ka ya
                            plum-blossom scent –
doko e fukaruru
                            whither has the snow
yuki onna
                            woman been blown?

somekanete
                            one mountain-slope retinged
katayama momiji
                            with maple leaves;
kataomoi
                            unilateral love

kaoru kaze
                            fragrant wind
oku ni hikaete
                            held in the depths
matsu no hana
                            pine flowers

hototogisu
                            cuckoo –
mada shirakami no
                            still blank paper
aware nari
                            poignancy

mikazuki ni
                            in the crescent moon
hishihishi to mono no
                            deeply lowers
shizumarinu
                            hush

yūgure wo
                            twilight
yoso ni azukete
                            is left elsewhere;
momiji kana
                            red leaves

meigetsu ni
                            harvest moon –
kaerite hanasu
                            returned with nothing
koto wa nashi
                            to say

izayoi no
                            sixteenth night*
yami wo kobosu ya
                            darkness in the taro
imo no tsuyu
                            dew drops

* The day after a full moon.

shiragiku ya
                            white chrysanthemums –
beni saita te no
                            the horror
osoroshiki
                            of rouged fingers*

* White chrysanthemums were placed around the head of the deceased; fingers applied rouge to the lips.

shinawaneba
                            if one does not bend
naranu ukiyo* ya
                            in the floating world…
take no yuki
                            bamboo-snow

* Shinawaneba naranu: ‘if one does not + verb, that will not become [do]’ – the Japanese way of expressing ‘must’.
Ukiyo: the ‘floating world’ of intransience and of sensual delight.

hatsu yuki ya
                            the first fall of snow;
mono kakeba kie
                            if I write a word, it melts,
kakeba kie
                            if I write, it melts

yo no hana wo
                            the flower-world
marū tsutsumu ya
                            enveloped –
oboro-zuki
                            hazy moon

chōchō ya
                            butterfly…
nani wo yume mite
                            what dreams does it see
hane tsukai
                            fanning its wings?

kiji naite
                            the pheasant sings
tsuchi iro iro no
                            the earth
kusa to naru
                            a spectrum of grasses

hito ashi ni
                            human legs
sagi mo kieru ya
                            herons disappear –
wakana no no
                            seven-herb field*

* Wakano no no: on January 7th, seven herbs are collected to make seven-herb-porridge, a New Year’s dish that is believed to bring health.

akebono no
                            the parting of daybreak
wakare wa motanu
                            is never worn
hi-i-na kana
                            by dolls…

matsu kure mo
                            waiting for evening
akebono mo naki
                            and daybreak no more;
kamiko kana
                            paper clothes

hirou mono
                            picked up
mina ugoku nari
                            everything moves –
shio higata
                            ebb-tide beach

tsukubōte
                            squatting,
kumo wo ukagau
                            visiting the clouds –
kaeru kana
                            a frog…

mono no oto
                            a night of sounds
mizu ni iru yo ya
                            entering water –
hototogisu
                            ho-to-to-gi-su

suzukaze ya
                            coolish breeze –
tamoto ni shimete
                            ensconced in my sleeves
ne-iru made
                            until sleep

koborete wa
                            spilt
moto no mizu nari
                            it is water again –
beni no tsuyu
                            safflower dew*

* Safflower: the flower from which rouge is made.

taki no ne mo
                            the sound of the waterfall
hosoru ya mine ni
                            narrows; in the peaks
semi no koe
                            cicada voices

hatsukari ya
                            first wild geese –
iyoiyo nagaki
                            a lengthening line
yo ni kawari
                            of long nights

chanohana ya
                            tea-flowers –
kono yūgure wo
                            dusk delayed
saki nobashi
                            by blooms

kasatori no
                            Kasatori
yama ya warai mo
                            Mountain – a smile
modokashiki
                            still expecting

tsukikage mo
                            the moon’s shadow,
tatazumu ya hana no
                            too, pauses – cherry-
asaborake
                            blossom dawn

tomokakumo
                            anyway
kaze ni makasete
                            leave it to the wind
kareobana
                            dry miscanthus

ware yuki wo
                            I, snow
mizu ni utsushite
                            reflected in the water,
nirami keri*
                            glaring

* The speaker is a winter-hawk.

kawa bakari
                            only a river
yami wa nagarete
                            darkness is flowing
hotaru kana
                            fireflies…

yuku mizu ni
                            in moving water
onoga kage ou
                            chasing its reflection –
tonbo kana
                            dragonfly

chō wa yume no
                            butterfly –
nagori wake iru
                            traces of a dream within
hana-no kana
                            a field of flowers

yume samenu
                            a dream does not fade –
tatami ni kiku no
                            in the tatami today
sakishi kyō
                            chrysanthemum blossoms

shigururu ya
                            winter drizzle –
hitorima ni kinō
                            in a room yesterday
kyō mo kure
                            today ends

hitorine no
                            sleeping alone
samete shimoyo wo
                            wakened by the chilling night
satori keri
                            and aware

meigetsu ya
                            harvest moon;
ittemo ittemo
                            I walk, and I walk,
yoso no sora
                            yet in a sky elsewhere

nani kite mo
                            whatever we wear,
utsukushiku naru
                            we look beautiful
tsukimi kana
                            viewing the moon

iu koto mo
                            also arranging words
hana de totonou
                            with its wings –
kōcho kana
                            butterfly

no ni yama ni
                            on moor and mountain
ugoku mono nashi
                            nothing moves –
yuki no asa
                            snowy morning

tsuki mo mite
                            and I saw the moon;
ware wa kono yo wo
                            now to this world
kashiku kana
                            farewell

YOSA BUSON (1716-84)

CONSIDERED AMONG the greatest poets of the Edo Period, Yosa Buson was born in the village of Kema in Settsu Province, now part of Osaka city, in 1716. His family were very rich, but he gave up his wealth to be a poet. As a young man, he moved to Edo (Tokyo) and learned poetry under the tutelage of the haiku master Hayano Hajin. After Hajin died, Buson moved to Shimōsa Province. Following in the footsteps of his literary hero Bashō, Buson travelled through the wilds of northern Honshū that had been the inspiration for Bashō’s famous travel diary, Oku no Hosomichi. He published his notes from the trip in 1744, marking the first time he published under the name Buson. He would become the leading Haiku poet of the eighteenth century and a famous painter. Buson’s poetry is characterised for its sensuous and ornate style, which is rich in detail, much like his beautiful and elaborate paintings.

Portrait of Yosa Buson by Matsumura Goshunby, c. 1800

An example of Buson’s artwork: “Xiao He chases Han Xin”, Nomura Art Museum, Kyoto, c. 1770

Haiku by Buson

hashi nakute
                            no bridge and day
hi kuren to suru
                            on the point of falling –
haru no mizu
                            spring waters*

* the traveller is stopped at a stream swollen by the spring rains.

mizu-giwa mo
                            the water also loses
nakute furue no
                            its edges; drizzle
shigure kana
                            at Furue

haru no umi
                            spring sea;
hinemosu notari
                            rising softly, softly
notari kana
                            subsiding, all day …

osoko hi ya
                            tarrying day;
kodama kikoyuru
                            echoes in nooks
kyō no sumi
                            of Kyōto

osoko hi no
                            lingering days
tsumorite tōki
                            accumulate the distance
mukashi kana
                            of the past

muramura no
                            in the villages
negokoro fukenu
                            sleep wears on;
otoshi mizu
                            falling water

se no hikuki
                            on a low horse
uma ni noru hi no
                            riding through a day
kasumi kana
                            of mist

ochi-kochi ni
                            heard far and near,
taki no oto kiku
                            the rush of a cascade –
wakaba kana
                            young leaves

yama-dori no
                            stepping on
o o fumu haru no
                            a copper pheasant’s tail –
iri-hi kana
                            spring sunset

fuyugare ya
                            winter wasteland;
yo wa hito iro ni
                            in a monochrome world
kaze no oto
                            the sound of the wind

shōjō to shite
                            bleakly into
ishi ni hi no iru
                            stone, the sun on
kareno kana
                            the withered moor

hatsushimo ya
                            the first frost;
wazurau tsuru o
                            seeing a suffering crane
tōku miru
                            in the distance

harusame ya
                            spring rain –
hito sumite kemuri
                            someone is there, smoke
kabe o moru
                            from the wall

ashiyowa no
                            muddied by wearily
watarite nigoru
                            wading feet –
haru no mizu
                            spring water

hina-mise no
                            when closing
hi o hiku koro ya
                            the doll-shop lights –
haru no ame
                            spring rain

hata utsu ya
                            tilling the field;
konoma no tera no
                            from the forest, the temple
kane-kuyō
                            bell tolls

harusame ya
                            spring rain –
mono kakanu mi no
                            the pity of one
aware naru
                            who can’t write

hata utsu ya
                            tilling the field;
ugokanu kumo mo
                            the motionless cloud
nakunarinu
                            is gone

uguisu no
                            a nightingale
ategatte oku
                            is singing – turning
kakine kana
                            here, turning there

umi koete
                            crossing the sea
kasumi no ami e
                            into a net of mist,
iru hi kana
                            the sinking sun

uguisu no
                            a nightingale’s voice
koe tōki hi mo
                            in the distance
kure ni keri
                            another day ends

kaeru kari
                            returning wild geese;
tagoto no tsuki no
                            the rice-field moon
kumoru yo ni
                            in gathering cloud

ie ni arade
                            away from home;
uguisu kikanu
                            the warbler unheard
hitohi kana
                            for a day

tsurigane ni
                            stopping
tomarite nemuru
                            on the temple bell
kochō kana
                            the butterfly asleep

kimi yuku ya
                            you leave;
yanagi midori ni
                            in the green of willows
michi nagashi
                            the road is long

yama kurete
                            the mountains grow dark,
momiji no ake o
                            divesting the maple leaves
ubai keri
                            of their crimson

shiraume no
                            the white plum-tree
kareki ni modoru
                            is back at barrenness –
tsukiyo kana
                            moonlit night

ikada-shi no
                            with the storm
mino ya arashi no
                            the raftsmen’s raincoats
hana-goromo
                            are blowing robes

hana chirite
                            the blossoms have scattered –
ko-no-ma no tera to
                            now to the branches
nari ni keri
                            the temple

kusa kasumi
                            grasses in mist
mizu ni koe naki
                            waters with silence;
higure kana
                            evening

yuku haru ya
                            departing spring;
shunjun to shite
                            late cherry-blossoms
osozakura
                            waver

shoku no hi o
                            conducting a light
shoku ni utsusu ya
                            with a flame;
haru no yū
                            spring evening

kusa kasumi
                            misty grass
mizu ni koe naki
                            and voiceless waters –
higure kana
                            falling night

fuji no hana
                            wisteria blossoms;
ayashiki fūfu
                            a doubtful couple
yasumi keri
                            at rest

akikaze no
                            set in passing motion
ugokashite yuku
                            by the autumn wind –
kakashi kana
                            scarecrow

yūkaze ya
                            evening breeze –
mizu aosagi no
                            water laps against
hagi o utsu
                            the heron’s shins

kirigirisu
                            the cricket
jizai o noboru
                            climbs up the pothook –
yosamu kana
                            cold, cold night

kōrō no
                            sunk in the lights
hokage ni shizumu
                            from the lofty tower –
wakaba kana
                            young leaves

mijikayo ya
                            short night;
kemushi no ue ni
                            pearls of dew
tsuyu no tama
                            on the butterfly grub

furuike no
                            at the old pond
oshidori ni yuki furu
                            snow falls on mandarin ducks
yūbe kana
                            in twilight

yūdachi ya
                            sudden shower –
kusaba o tsukamu
                            clinging to blades of grass,
murasuzume
                            the village-sparrows

ichinichi no
                            another today;
kyō mo kayari no
                            mosquito-smudge
kemuri kana
                            smoke

sushi oshite
                            pressing sushi;
shibaraku sabishiki
                            a gradual feeling
kokoro kana
                            of loneliness

hototogisu
                            the cuckoo
hitsugi o tsukamu
                            snatches at the coffin
kumoma yori
                            from the clouds

tori mare ni
                            birds are few
mizu mata tōshi
                            and waters far;
semi no koe
                            cicada-cry

kagiri aru
                            a limited
inochi mo hima ya
                            life’s leisure –
aki no kure
                            autumn twilight

hitori kite
                            one came
hitori o tou ya
                            and visited someone;
aki no kure
                            autumn evening

asagiri ya
                            morning mist;
e ni kaku yume no
                            a dream in paints
hito-dōri
                            of people passing

akisame ya
                            autumn rain;
mizusoko no kusa o
                            walking in water
fumaretaru
                            on grass

akikaze ni
                            scattered
chiru ya sotoba no
                            in the autumn wind –
kanna-kuzu
                            stupa shavings

kanashisa ya
                            sadness –
tsuri no ito fuku
                            a fishing-line blows
aki no kaze
                            in the autumn wind

sendō no
                            the ferryman’s pole
sao toraretaru
                            has been stolen –
nowaki kana
                            autumn storm

yasezune no
                            a breeze through the hairs
ke ni bifū ari
                            of skinny shanks –
koromogae
                            spring clothes

gōriki wa
                            the mountain-guide
tada ni misuginu
                            simply ignores
yamazakura
                            the sakura

machibito no
                            far away,
ashioto tōki
                            the long-awaited footsteps;
ochiba kana
                            fallen leaves

kasa torete
                            his hat blown off,
menmoku mo naki
                            the scarecrow
kakashi kana
                            loses face

yama wa kure
                            on the mountain, night;
no wa tasogare no
                            on the moor,
susuki kana
                            susuki dusk

sara o fumu
                            the sound of a rat
nezumi no oto no
                            scuttling over a plate –
samusa kana
                            cold, cold

kangetsu ya
                            winter moon;
mon naki tera no
                            the temple has no gate,
ten takashi
                            how tall the sky

kogarashi ya
                            winter blast –
kane ni koishi o
                            pebbles are blown at
fukiateru
                            the bell

kangetsu ya
                            winter moon;
sō ni yukiau
                            meeting a monk
hashi no ue
                            on the bridge

waga hone no
                            my bones
futon ni sawaru
                            feel the futon –
shimoyo kana
                            frosty night

KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763-1827)

KOBAYASHI ISSA WAS a lay Buddhist priest of the Jōdo Shinshū, who is lionised today for his haiku poems and journals. He is known simply as Issa, a pen name meaning “One cup-of-tea”. Along with Bashō, Buson and Shiki, he is regarded as one of the Great Four haiku masters.  Reflecting the popularity and interest in him, Japanese books on Issa outnumber those on Buson and almost equal in number those on Bashō.

Issa was born the son of a farmer family of Kashiwabara, now part of Shinano-machi, Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture) in 1763. He suffered the loss of his mother at the age of three. Her death was the first of numerous difficulties young Issa would endure.

Indeed, his life was fraught with tragedy.  He had a very unkind step-mother after his father’s untimely death. His first wife gave birth to four children, and they all died in childhood.  His wife also passed away in the final childbirth. In spite of these daunting challenges, Issa went on to become the leading poet of nineteenth century Japan. He is famous for depicting everyday life with great sympathy and sensibility. He produced a huge body of work, including 20,000 haiku, which make liberal use of local dialects and conversational phrases.

Issa’s portrait by Muramatsu Shunpo, Issa Memorial Hall, Shinano, c. 1850

Haiku by Issa

uguisu ya
                            before the lord,
go-zen e dete mo
                            the nightingale sings
onaji koe
                            the same song

daimyō o
                            the daimyo
uma kara orosu
                            was made to dismount –
sakura kana
                            sakura…

tsugi no ma no hi de
                            in the next room’s light
meshi o kuu
                            I eat my meal –
yo samu kana
                            cold out

yama-yake* no
                            floating down
akari ni kudaru
                            mountain fire-light
yobune kana
                            night-boat

* yama-yake: ‘mountain-fire.’  In spring, fires were started in the mountains to burn away dead grass and prepare the fields for tilling.

ō botaru
                            a large firefly
yurari yurari to
                            flickering, flickering
tōri keri
                            flits by

beta beta to
                            sticking and clinging
mono ni tsukitaru
                            to everything –
haru no yuki
                            spring snow

uguisu no
                            the nightingale sings
mekikishite naku
                            with a critical eye
wagaya kana
                            on my house

yase-gaeru
                            thin frog,
makeru na Issa
                            don’t give in,
kore ni ari
                            Issa is here

kado-gado ni
                            at every gate
geta no doro yori
                            spring stands in the mud
haru tachinu
                            on the clogs

haru na hi ya
                            spring day;
mizu sae areba
                            evening remains
kure nokori
                            in pools

ware shinaba
                            when I am gone,
haka-mori to nare
                            guard my gravestone,
kirigirisu
                            cricket

oni to nari
                            now an oni,*
hotoke to naru ya
                            now the Buddha,
doyō-gumo
                            dog-day clouds

* oni: Japanese demon/ogre.

ikite iru
                            alive,
bakari zo ware to
                            that’s all; I and
keshi no hana
                            the poppy

kasumi hi ya
                            misty day;
sazo tennin no
                            tedium
otaikutsu
                            in heaven  (imit.)

yabuiri* ya
                            Apprentice Day;
haka no matsukaze
                            in the pines round the grave,
ushiro fuku
                            the wind blows behind

* yabuiri: on the 16th of January

katasumi ni
                            the two sooty dolls
susukeshi hina mo
                            in the corner, too,
fūfu kana
                            are man and wife

uguisu ni
                            the fence
ategatte oku
                            shall be allotted
kakine kana
                            to the warbler

ariake ya
                            daybreak;
ame no naka yori
                            from the middle of the rain
naku hibari
                            a skylark song

kyō kara wa
                            as from today
nihon no kari zo
                            you are geese of Japan –
raku ni ine
                            sleep in peace

chō tobu ya
                            the butterfly –
kono yo ni nozomi
                            flitting in this world
nai yō ni
                            without hope

kinodoku ya
                            I’m sorry
ore o shitōte
                            that you follow me,
kuru kochō
                            butterfly

kerorikan
                            with a nonchalant
to shite karasu to
                            manner, the crow
yanagi kana
                            and the willow

yama no tsuki
                            the mountain-moon
hana nusubito o
                            shineth on
terashi tamō
                            the flower-thief

shiratsuyu no
                            don’t tread on the drops
tama fungaku na
                            of white dew,
kirigirisu
                            cricket

yūdachi ya
                            summer downpour;
hadaka de norishi
                            riding naked
hadaka-uma
                            on a naked horse

oto bakari
                            just the sound –
demo yūdachi no
                            yet a summer shower
yūbe
                            evening

shinanoji ya
                            the way to Shinano;
ue no ue ni mo
                            higher, yet higher,
taue-uta
                            the rice-planting song

mi no ue no
                            knowing the bell
kane to shiritsutsu
                            is tolling our days;
yūsuzumi
                            evening cool

ka-ibushi mo
                            the mosquito-smudge
nagusame ni naru
                            brings comfort, too,
hitori kana
                            when alone

kōmori ya
                            bats;
tori naki sato no
                            a birdless village
meshijibun
                            at tea-time

yo ga yokuba
                            the world is well;
mo hitotsu tomare
                            another fly may settle
meshi no hae
                            on the rice

nikenya ya
                            two houses;
niken mochitsuku
                            two houses making mochi,
aki no ame
                            autumn rain

kuchi akete
                            opening their mouths,
oya matsu tori ya
                            the fledgelings wait;
aki no ame
                            autumn rain

tama-arare
                            hailstones –
yotaka* wa tsuki ni
                            in moonlight, the nighthawks
kaerumeri
                            come home

* yotaka: the lowest kind of prostitute in Edo, who would walk the streets with a straw mat.

suzukaze ya
                            cool breeze;
chikara ippai
                            the grasshopper singing
kirigirisu
                            his all

dochira kara
                            whence
samuku naru zo yo
                            does the cold become,
kakashi-dono
                            Mr. Scarecrow?

makegiku o
                            looking again
hitori minaosu
                            at the chrysanthemum
yūbe kana
                            that lost; evening

hiikime ni
                            regarded
mite sae samui
                            in a favourable light,
soburi kana
                            he still looks cold

mikazuki wa
                            the crescent moon
soru zo samusa wa
                            is bent back; the cold
saekaeru
                            is keen

kossori to
                            quietly
shite kasegu nari
                            earning his keep –
misosazai
                            the wren

hito chirari
                            people whirling,
ko-no-ha mo chirari
                            leaves whirling,
horari kana
                            swirling …

fuyukodachi
                            winter grove –
mukashi mukashi no
                            the tones of long,
oto su nari
                            long ago

MASAOKA SHIKI (1867-1902)

MASAOKA SHIKI WAS a poet, author and literary critic in Meiji period Japan. Like Bashō, he came from a samurai family of modest means. He was born in 1867 in Matsuyama City in Iyo Province (present day Ehime Prefecture). His father was an alcoholic that died when Shiki was five years of age. His mother, Yae, was a daughter of Ōhara Kanzan, a Confucian scholar. At the age of fifteen, Shiki became a political radical, attaching himself to the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement and getting himself banned from public speaking by the principal of Matsuyama Middle School, which he was attending. Around this time, he moved to Tokyo and first enrolled in Kyōritsu Middle School and later matriculated into University Preparatory School. While studying there, Shiki enjoyed playing baseball and befriended fellow student Natsume Sōseki, who would go on to become a famous novelist.

He entered Tokyo Imperial University in 1890, though by 1892 Shiki he was so engrossed in haiku writing, he failed his final examinations, left the Hongō dormitory that had been provided to him by a scholarship, and dropped out of college. He is largely responsible for making haiku popular after it had been widely viewed as old-fashioned and neglected.

Unfortunately, Shiki contracted the lung disorder tuberculosis when he was a young man and suffered poor health through much of his life. In spite of this, Shiki strove to write poetry that would set itself free from the structural and thematic constraints of centuries passed. He is famous for saying that poets should present things “as they really are” and should write in everyday language. A major figure in the development of modern haiku poetry, Shiki is credited with writing nearly 20,000 stanzas during his short life, during which he also wrote on the reform of tanka poetry. He died of tuberculosis in 1902 at the age of thirty-four.

Masaoka Shiki, 1889

Haiku by Shiki

iku tabi mo
                            again and again
yuki no fukasa o
                            I ask for the depth
tazunekeri
                            of the snow

natsu yase no
                            summer thinness –
hone ni todomaru
                            life holds
inochi kana
                            at my bones

sunahama ni
                            in the sandy beach
ashiato nagaki
                            footprints; long
haruhi kana
                            spring day

shinnen no
                            at New Year,
hitsugi ni ainu
                            I met a coffin,
yonaka goro
                            around midnight

kawa ni sōte
                            beside a river,
yukedo hashi nashi
                            walking without a bridge;
hi no nagaki
                            the day is long

haru no yo ya
                            spring evening
tsuma naki otoko
                            what is the man
nani o yomu
                            with no wife reading?

ōbune no
                             a ship
kobune hikiyuku
                            towing a boat;
kasumi kana
                            mist

izakaya no
                            the tavern
kenka mushidasu
                            quarrel rekindled;
oborozuki
                            hazy moon

shimajima ni
                            on the islands
hi o tomoshikeri
                            lights are lit;
haru no umi
                            spring sea

hashi ochite
                            fallen bridge
ushiro samushiki
                            and lonely behind
yanagi kana
                            the willow

kamibina ya
                            paper dolls –
koi shitasō na
                            their faces just look
kao bakari
                            like they want to be in love

yūdachi ya
                            summer shower –
amado kuridasu
                            sliding out the shutters,
gejo no kazu
                            many maids

enten ni
                            under the burning sun
kiku o yashinau
                            the master fosters
aruji kana
                            the chrysanthemums

hoshi no na o
                            a man knew well
yoku shiru hito ya
                            the names of the stars;
kadosuzumi
                            cooling at the gate

chōchin no
                            the lantern
shidai ni tōshi
                            ever more distant;
hototogisu
                            hototogisu

kōmori no
                            the sound is dark;
tobu oto kurashi
                            a bat in flight
yabu no naka
                            in the thicket

nemuran to su
                            I want to sleep;
nanji shizuka ni
                            be so kind as to swat
hae o ute
                            the flies softly

te no uchi ni
                            inside the hand
hotaru tsumetaki
                            the firefly’s light
hikari kana
                            is cold

hakabara ya
                            field of graves –
haka hikuku shite
                            the stones are low,
kusa shigeru
                            the grasses dense

kawasemi ya
                            kingfisher –
mizu sunde ike no
                            in the limpid pond
uo fukashi
                            the fish are deep

kasa tatamu
                            furling the umbrella,
genkan fukaki
                            the entrance is deep
wakaba kana
                            with young leaves

nagaki yo ya
                            long night;
shōji no soto o
                            outside the screen
tomoshi yuku
                            a lantern passing

hi tomoseba
                            lighting the lamp,
hi ni chikara nashi
                            the flame has no strength;
aki no kure
                            autumn dusk

uma orite
                            dismounting,
kawa no na toeba
                            I ask the river’s name;
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

mon o dete
                            ten paces
juppo ni aki no
                            out the door – the vast
umi hiroshi
                            autumn sea

hito ni nite
                            the scarecrows look
tsukiyo no kakashi
                            like men in moonlight –
aware nari
                            so sad

aki no ka ya
                            autumn mosquitoes –
shinuru kakugo de
                            resigned to death
ware o sasu
                            they bite me

tsukuzuku to
                            earnestly
waga kage miru ya
                            watching my shadow –
mushi no koe
                            insect voices

kangetsu ya
                            frozen moon;
sekitō no kage
                            the stone pagoda’s shadow
matsu no kage
                            the shadow of the pine

kinden no
                            the palace
tomoshibi hososhi
                            lights are slender;
yoru no yuki
                            snowy night

Other Haikuists

Translated by Michael Haldane, 2006

CONTENTS

Early Haiku

YAMAZAKI SŌKAN (1458-1546)

ARAKIDA MORITAKE (1473-1549)

SUGIKI MOICHI (1585-1667)

RYŪHO (1594-1669)

1600’s

SŌIN (1604-82)

YASUHARA TEISHITSU (1610-73)

KIGIN (1623-1705)

CHIGETSU (1632-1706)

SODŌ (1641-1716)

KAKEI (1647-1716)

SUGIYAMA SAMPŪ (1647-1732)

MUKAI KANA (c.1651-c. 1704)

MUKAI KYORAI (c.1651-1704)

HATTORI RANSETSU (1653-1707)

KONISHI RAIZAN (1654-1716)

ETSUJIN (1656-1702)

SAKAMOTO SHUSETSU (1656-1733)

MORIKAWA KYOROKU (1656-1715)

YASUI (1657-1743)

MIZUTA MASAHIDE (1657-1723)

TOHŌ (1657-1730)

RIYŪ (1660-1705)

UEJIMA ONITSURA (1660-1738)

ENOMOTO KIKAKU (1661-1707)

YAHA (1662-1740)

NAITŌ JŌSŌ (1662-1704)

SONO-JO (1647-1726)

KAGAMI SHIKŌ (1665-1731)

RŌKA (1669-1703)

OTSUYŪ (1674-1739)

RYŪSHI (c. 1681)

KI’IN (1697-1748)

GOCHIKU (1699-1781)

SHARA (17TH c.)

RIKUTO (17TH c.)

1700’s

KYOKUSUI (c. 1717)

ŌSHIMA RYŌTA (1718-87)

YAMAMOTO RYŌKAN (1758-1831)

YOKOI YAGŪ (1702-83)

TAGAMI KIKUSHA (1753-1826)

TAN TAIGI (1709-71)

KINPŪ (D.1726)

ENOMOTO SEIFU (1732-1814)

HARI BAKUSUI (1718-83)

MATSUOKA SEIRA (1740-91)

KAWAKAMI FUHAKU (1719-1807)

FUJIMORI SOBAKU (1758-1821)

SAKAI HŌITSU (1761-1828)

TOYODA CHŌSUI (1750-1813)

MIYAKE SHŌZAN (1718-1801)

CHŌMU (1732-95)

AMPŪ (c.1707)

KUROYANAGI SHŌHA (fl. 1771)

TAKAI KITŌ (1741-89)

SHIRŌ (1742-1813)

KAYA SHIRAO (1735-1791)

HOKUSHI (fl. 1718)

ŌTOMO ŌEMARU (1722-1805)

TŌRI (fl. 1779)

KATŌ GYŌDAI (1732-92)

BAISHITSU (1768-1852)

KATSURI (1732-1817)

GINKŌ (1718-90)

KOYŪ-NI (18TH c.)

MIURA CHORA (1729-81)

1800’s

NAITŌ MEISETSU (1847-1926)

CHŌSHŪ (1852-1930)

MURAKAMI KIJŌ (1865-1930)

SEISEI (1869-1937)

ROSEKI (1870-1918)

ARŌ (1879-1951)

OTSUJI (1881-1919)

IIDA DAKOTSU (1885-1962)

CHŌI (1886-1930)

HARA SEKITEI (1886-1951)

MIZUHARA SHŪŌSHI (1892-1981)

1900’s

KAWABATA BŌSHA (1900-41)

NAKAMURA KUSATAO (1901-83)

KATŌ SHŪSŌN (1905-93)

NOZAWA SETSUKO (1920-95)

Early Haiku

YAMAZAKI SŌKAN (1458-1546)

koe nakuba
                            without a voice
sagi koso yuki no
                            white herons were only
hitotsurane
                            snow in a line

te o tsuite
                            with splayed hands
uta mōshiaguru
                            offering up a song,
kawazu kana
                            the frog

samuku tomo
                            though you grow cold,
hi ni na atari so
                            don’t draw close to the fire,
yukibotoke
                            Snow-Buddha

ARAKIDA MORITAKE (1473-1549)

ganchō ya
                            New Year’s Morning;
kami-yo no koto mo
                            I think of the Age
omowaruru
                            of the Gods

SUGIKI MOICHI (1585-1667)

kaze o sae
                            he beckons
maneki dashitaru
                            even the wind
ōgi kana
                            with his fan

RYŪHO (1594-1669)

tsukikage o
                            moonlight
kumi-koboshikeri
                            scooped and spilled –
chōzubachi
                            wash-basin

1600’s

SŌIN (1604-82)

kaze ni noru
                            riding the wind
kawagiri karushi
                            the light river mist
takasebune
                            and high-sided boat

YASUHARA TEISHITSU (1610-73)

uchitokete
                            variance resolved,
kōru to mizu no
                            water and ice
nakanaori
                            are at peace

suzushisa no
                            coolness
katamari nare ya
                            as a mass –
yowa no tsuki
                            midnight moon

KIGIN (1623-1705)

natsu yase to
                            summer slimness,
kotaete ato wa
                            comes the reply,
namida kana
                            then tears

CHIGETSU (1632-1706)

hitorine ya
                            sleeping alone;
yo wataru oga no
                            a mosquito crosses night
koe wabishi
                            with a lonely voice

shitte shiranu
                            knowing not knowing
mi no hodo kanashi
                            the sad bounds of self –
aki no kure
                            autumn dusk

yamazakura
                            mountain sakura
chiru ya ogawa no
                            are falling; the mill
mizugurama
                            on the brook

uguisu ni
                            nightingale;
temoto yasumen
                            I stop my work
nagashimoto
                            at the sink

SODŌ (1641-1716)

ware o tsurete
                            viewing the moon;
wa ga kage kaeru
                            my shadow
tsukimi kana
                            brings me home

KAKEI (1647-1716)

u no tsura ni
                            torches fall
kagari koborete
                            on cormorants’ faces –
aware nari

SUGIYAMA SAMPŪ (1647-1732)

na wa shirazu
                            I don’t know the names;
kusa-goto ni hana
                            but every weed has blossoms
aware nari
                            and poignant charm

MUKAI KANA (c.1651-c. 1704)

tsukikage ni
                            in moonlight
ugoku natsu ki ya
                            moving summer
ha no hikari
                            trees; leaf-light

MUKAI KYORAI (c.1651-1704)

iwa hana ya
                            the edge of the rock;
koko nimo hitori
                            here is another caller
tsuki no kyaku
                            on the moon

ishi mo ki mo
                            and rocks, and trees –
manako ni hikaru
                            in the eyes the light
atsusa kana
                            of heat

kogarashi no
                            winter gale –
chi ni mo otosanu
                            the rain can’t reach
shigure kana
                            the ground

u no hana mo
                            where the deutzias
taema tatakan
                            come to an end, I’ll knock
yami no mon
                            on Darkness Gate

HATTORI RANSETSU (1653-1707)

ganjitsu ya
                            New Year’s Day –
harete suzume no
                            the cloudless tales
monogatari
                            of sparrows

ume ichirin
                            a plum-blossom more;
ichirin hodo no
                            a blossom’s more
atatakasa
                            of warmth

aosagi no
                            the heron’s
gyatto nakitsutsu
                            harsh screeching while
kyō no tsuki
                            today’s moon

meigetsu ya
                            harvest moon;
kemuri haiyuku
                            smoke crawls over
mizu no ue
                            water

KONISHI RAIZAN (1654-1716)

amado kosu
                            distracted flame –
aki no sugata ya
                            across the shutters slides
hi no kurui
                            the shape of Autumn

ETSUJIN (1656-1702)

chiru toki no
                            falling
kokoroyasuki yo
                            so composedly!
keshi no hana
                            the poppy

yuku toshi ya
                            departing year –
oya ni shiraga o
                            I hid my grey hairs
kakushikeri
                            from father

andon no
                            the lantern
susuke zo samuki
                            is sooty; cold
yuki no kure
                            snow nightfall

SAKAMOTO SHUSETSU (1656-1733)

ashioto mo kiete
                            the footsteps, too,
shigure no
                            fall away; once more,
mata ne kana
                            a drizzling sleep

MORIKAWA KYOROKU (1656-1715)

imo o niru
                            as far as the potatoes
nabe no naka made
                            boiling in the pot –
tsukiyo kana
                            moonlit night

degawari ya
                            change of servants;
karakasa sagete
                            taking her umbrella,
yū nagame
                            evening view

rōsoku ni
                            to the candle
shizumari kaeru
                            as still as the grave –
botan kana
                            peony…

rakugan no
                            falling, overlapping,
koe no kasanaru
                            the cries of the wild geese
yosamu kana
                            and the cold of night

rankan ni
                            rising to
noboru ya kiku no
                            the balustrade – the shadows
kageboshi
                            of the chrysanthemums

YASUI (1657-1743)

harukaze ni
                            in the spring wind
chikara kuraburu
                            the pitted strength
hibari kana
                            of the skylark

MIZUTA MASAHIDE (1657-1723)

tori chirasu
                            a scatter of toys
asobi dōgu ya
                            abandoned –
aki no kaze
                            autumn wind

TOHŌ (1657-1730)

kagerō ya
                            shimmering heat;
horohoro ochiru
                            sand falls in fits and starts
iwa no suna
                            from the rock

RIYŪ (1660-1705)

kumo no mine
                            billowing clouds;
ishiusu o hiku
                            a stone mill grinding
tonari kana
                            next door

UEJIMA ONITSURA (1660-1738)

kono aki wa
                            this autumn,
hiza ni ko no naki
                            no child on my knee
tsukimi kana
                            to watch the moon

tanimizu ya
                            sakura-slopes;
ishi mo uta yomu
                            in the valley-stream,
yamazakura
                            even the stones make songs

shitagau ya
                            concordance:
oto naki hana mo
                            a flower without a sound
mimi no oku
                            and the depths of the ear

ō-ashita*
                            on the first day,
mukashi fukinishi
                            the pristine swish
matsu no kaze
                            of the wind in the pines

* ō-ashita, ‘great day’: the first day of the year.

saku-karani
                            the blossoms bloom,
miru-karani hana no
                            we look at them,
chiru-karani
                            the blossoms fall,

ume chitte
                            after the fall
soreyori nochi wa
                            of the plum-flowers –
tennōji
                            Tennōji Temple

fude toranu
                            will anyone not
hito mo arō ka
                            be reaching for his brush?
kyō no tsuki
                            this day’s moon

ara ao no
                            how densely green,
yanagi no ito ya
                            the willow boughs
mizu no nagare
                            in flowing water

ENOMOTO KIKAKU (1661-1707)

waga yuki to omoeba
                            if I think the snow mine
karoshi
                            my hat
kasa no ue
                            becomes light

(on the death of Bashō’s pupil, Kōsai)
sono hito no
                            not even the sound
ibiki sae nashi
                            of his snores;
aki no semi
                            autumn cicadas

tonbō ya
                            dragonfly
kurui-shizumaru
                            lunacy wanes –
mikka no tsuki
                            crescent moon

14th December, 1701: the Night of the 47 Rōnins:
tsuki yuki no
                            among the moon-lit
naka ya inochi no
                            snow; where life
sutedokoro
                            shall be forsaken

yamadori no
                            in the sleepless
nekaneru koe ni
                            copper-pheasant’s cry
tsuki samushi
                            the moon is cold

inazuma ya
                            lightning –
kinō wa higashi
                            yesterday is east,
kyō wa nishi
                            today is west

yūhi kage
                            evening sun
machinaka no tobu
                            fluttering in the street
kochō kana
                            a butterfly

YAHA (1662-1740)

hototogisu
                            cuckoo –
kao no dasarenu
                            my face forestalled
kōshi kana
                            by the lattice

hitogoe no
                            human voices
yahan o suguru
                            passing by at midnight –
samusa kana
                            cold, cold

NAITŌ JŌSŌ (1662-1704)

sabishisa no
                            falling through
soko nukete furu
                            the bottom of loneliness –
mizore kana
                            sleet

no mo yama mo
                            field and mountain
yuki ni torarete
                            taken by the snow
nani mo nashi
                            are nothing

harusame ya
                            spring rain –
nuke-deta mama no
                            still shapeless,
yogi no ana
                            the empty pyjamas

matsukaze o
                            listening to the blows
uchikoshite kiku
                            of the wind through the pines,
kawazu kana
                            the frog

hototogisu
                            a cuckoo
naku ya kosui no
                            calls; the lake
sasa nigori
                            is a little muddy

yuki yori mo
                            snow is not nearly
samushi shiraga ni
                            so cold – the winter moon
fuyu no tsuki
                            in white hairs

SONO-JO (1647-1726)

te o nobete
                            stretching out a hand
ori yuku haru no
                            in walking; the sprays
kusaki kana
                            and leaves of spring

haru no no ni
                            in a spring field
kokoro aru hito no
                            the depth of an unpainted
sugao kana
                            face

KAGAMI SHIKŌ (1665-1731)

suge-gasa o
                            wearing a sedge-hat,
kite kagami miru
                            looking in the mirror,
chatsumi kana
                            picking tea

RŌKA (1669-1703)

kanashisa ya
                            sadness –
shigure ni somaru
                            dying the gravestone,
haka no moji
                            the cold, persistent rain

OTSUYŪ (1674-1739)

aki fukete
                            autumn wears on;
ko-no-ha goromo no
                            robes of fallen leaves
kakashi kana
                            for scarecrows

RYŪSHI (c. 1681)

shizukasa ya
                            stillness;
ochiba o ariku
                            the sound of a bird
tori no oto
                            walking the fallen leaves

KI’IN (1697-1748)

kōsaku no
                            in the worked fields
no wa shizumarinu
                            hush has fallen;
yū hibari
                            evening skylarks

GOCHIKU (1699-1781)

nagaki yo ya
                            long night;
omou koto iu
                            issuing thoughts,
mizu no oto
                            the sound of the water

SHARA (17TH c.)

yoaruki ya
                            walking in night;
toshi no nagori no
                            parting from the year,
yuki ga furu
                            snow is falling

RIKUTO (17TH c.)

kuma mo naki
                            in a cornerless sky
sora ni kakururu
                            hides
hibari kana
                            the skylark

1700’s

KYOKUSUI (c. 1717)

samuki yo ya
                            chilly night –
umi ni ochikomu
                            the noise of a waterfall
taki no oto
                            into the sea

ŌSHIMA RYŌTA (1718-87)

asa-kaze ya
                            morning breeze –
tada hito-suji ni
                            only a line
age-hibari
                            of rising skylarks

owarete wa
                            when hunted,
tsuki ni kakururu
                            he hides in the moon –
hotaru kana
                            firefly

tomoshibi o
                            looking at the light,
mireba kaze ari
                            you see the wind;
yoru no yuki
                            snowy night

mono iwazu
                            not speaking a word,
kyaku to teishu to
                            the guest, the host,
shiragiku to
                            and the white chrysanthemum

meigetsu ya
                            harvest moon –
umare-kawaraba
                            the birth of change,
mine no matsu
                            a pine on a peak

hitotsu to wa
                            unthinkable
omowanu yo nari
                            there should be only one –
kyō no tsuki
                            this day’s moon

YAMAMOTO RYŌKAN (1758-1831)

akikaze ni
                            autumn wind –
hitori tachitaru
                            a figure
sugata kana
                            standing alone

hatsu-shigure
                            first winter-rain –
namonaki yama no
                            a nameless mountain
omoshiroki
                            quaintly

teppatsu ni
                            in the begging-bowl
asu no kome ari
                            tomorrow’s rice –
yūsuzumi*
                            evening breeze

* yūsuzumi: cooling oneself in the evening after work and the heat of the Japanese summer day.

yuku aki no
                            the poignancy
aware o tare ni
                            of closing autumn, whom
kataramashi
                            to tell?

hito no mina
                            when everyone
nebutaki toki no
                            wants to sleep –
gyōgyōshi
                            reed-warblers*

* ’gyōgyōshi’: ‘exaggerated’. It refers to the sound made by the yoshikiri (reed-warbler).

Someiro* no
                            bring tidings
otozure tsugeyo
                            from Mt. Shumi,
yoru no kari
                            eventide wild geese

* Mt. Shumi: at the centre of the Buddhist paradise. Ryōkan is requesting the migrating wild geese to return from the West with news of his father.

taorureba
                            fallen
taorurumama no
                            still
niwa no kusa
                            garden plants

YOKOI YAGŪ (1702-83)

fūrin wa
                            the wind-chimes
nara-de tokei no
                            do not tinkle, the clock
atsusa kana
                            heat–

TAGAMI KIKUSHA (1753-1826)

kumo kasumi
                            imbibing clouds and mist
nomitsutsu koen
                            I cross the chrysanthemum
kiku no yamaji
                            mountain-path

tsuki to ware
                            the moon and I
bakari nokorinu
                            alone remain;
hashisuzumi
                            cooling on the bridge

tsuki o kasa ni kite
                            to wander with the moon
asobaba ya
                            as a hat –
tabi no sora
                            traveller’s sky

TAN TAIGI (1709-71)

sore-zore no
                            each and every star
hoshi arawaruru
                            is brought to light –
samusa kana
                            how cold

(The starving deer)
sato e deru
                            emerging at the village,
shiki no se takashi
                            the deer is tall
yukiakari
                            in the light of the snow

chiri wa mina
                            only sweepings,
sakura nari keri
                            no blossoms to be seen;
tera no kure
                            temple sunset

ume ikete
                            the blossoming plum
tsuki to mo wabin
                            and the moon – beauty at peace
tomoshikage
                            in lit shadows

fuyugare ya
                            withering winter;
suzume no ariku
                            sparrows hop
toi no naka
                            in the gutter

nodokasa ya
                            peacefulness;
hayaki tsukihi o
                            the fleetings months and days
wasuretari
                            passed from the mind

nagaki hi ya
                            long day;
me no tsukaretaru
                            my eyes are wearied
umi no ue
                            over the sea

kawa-shimo ni
                            downstream
ami utsu oto ya
                            the slap of a net –
oborozuki
                            hazy moon

furimukeba
                            behind, they are lighting
hi tomosu seki ya
                            the barrier lanterns;
yūgasumi
                            evening haze

hakikeru ga
                            having swept,
tsui ni wa hakazu
                            I cease to sweep
ochiba kana
                            the fallen leaves

hae o utsu
                            even the sound
oto mo kibishi ya
                            of their swatting flies is strict –
seki no hito
                            barrier-guards

asasamu ya
                            cold morning –
tabi no yado tatsu
                            risen voices
hito no koe
                            leaving the inn

tsumetasa ni
                            fingernails nipping,
hōki sutekeri
                            I left the broom under
matsu no shita
                            the pine-tree

mizugame e
                            a rat
nezumi no ochishi
                            fell into a water-jar –
yosamu kana
                            cold night

kangetsu ya
                            winter moon –
ware hitori yuku
                            walking alone,
hashi no oto
                            the sound of the bridge

KINPŪ (D.1726)

neko no koi
                            a cat in love
nezumi mo torazu
                            can’t even catch a mouse –
aware nari
                            pathetic
                            (imit.)

ENOMOTO SEIFU (1732-1814)

umi ni suru
                            limpid in the ocean
uo no goto mi
                            its body like a fish
tsuki suzushi
                            chilly moon

hina no kao
                            the faces of the dolls;
ware zehi naku mo
                            without intending to,
oi ni keri
                            I have grown old

ki makura ni
                            my white hair grows attached
shira kami nazumu
                            to the wooden pillow –
yo samu kana
                            chilly night

HARI BAKUSUI (1718-83)

tani mizu o
                            wrapping and spilling
tsutsunde kobosu
                            the valley-stream;
momiji kana
                            red leaves

MATSUOKA SEIRA (1740-91)

hane-oto sae
                            even the flapping of wings
kikoete samushi
                            is heard in the cold
tsuki no yoru
                            moon-lit night

ochi-tsumishi
                            on the heap
tsubaki ga ue o
                            of fallen camellias,
haru no ame
                            spring rain

KAWAKAMI FUHAKU (1719-1807)

ara no yuku
                            over the wild moor
waga kage mo naki
                            I have no shadow –
atsusa kana
                            how hot …

FUJIMORI SOBAKU (1758-1821)

furu o sae
                            I had forgotten
wasururu
                            it was falling;
yuki no shizukasa yo
                            the silence of the snow

SAKAI HŌITSU (1761-1828)

hoshi hitotsu
                            a star is left
nokoshite otsuru
                            by falling
hanabi kana
                            fireworks

TOYODA CHŌSUI (1750-1813)

shimo no kiku
                            frost on the chrysanthemums,
nakigoto iini kuru
                            a woman come
onna
                            to complain

MIYAKE SHŌZAN (1718-1801)

mijikayo* ya
                            short night –
mada nure iro no
                            my washed hair holds
arai-gami
                            its wet colour

* mijikayo: a summer KIGO

CHŌMU (1732-95)

choki-bune* ya
                            open skiff –
haru no yukue o
                            as if in pursuit
ou gotoshi
                            of departing spring

* choki-bune: a small, low-hulled, pointed-bow boat with one oarsman; a popular form of transportation in Edo times.

AMPŪ (c.1707)

koe bakari
                            only its voice
ochite ato naki
                            falling without a trace –
hibari kana
                            the skylark

KUROYANAGI SHŌHA (fl. 1771)

haru tatsu ya
                            spring rises –
shizuka ni tsuru no
                            quietly, to the feet
ippo yori
                            of the stork

furuki to ni
                            on the old door
kage utsuriyuku
                            the shadow cast in flight
tsubame kana
                            of the swallow

yūhikage
                            shadows of the sinking
michi made izuru
                            sun – the scarecrow
kakashi kana
                            reaches the road

TAKAI KITŌ (1741-89)

kuren to su
                            night descends
haru no kurui ya
                            hail falls;
arare furu
                            insanely spring

kiri fukashi
                            the fog is thick;
nani yobariau
                            what calls between
oka to fune
                            hillock and boat?

tatazumeba
                            standing still,
nao furu yuki no
                            the snow falls further –
yomichi kana
                            evening road

SHIRŌ (1742-1813)

dokoyara de
                            somewhere or other
uguisu nakinu
                            a nightingale sang –
hiru no tsuki
                            midday moon

KAYA SHIRAO (1735-1791)

hito koishi
                            my heart is yearning
hitomoshi goro o
                            candles are lighted
sakura chiru
                            flowers are falling

kayaribi no
                            at the end of the smoke
kemuri no sue ni
                            from the smudge,
naku ka kana
                            humming mosquitoes

hayanagi no
                            down Temple-Street
teramachi suguru
                            with leafy willows;
amayo kana
                            rain at dusk

HOKUSHI (fl. 1718)

waregane no
                            even the vibrations
hibiki mo atsushi
                            of the broken bell are hot –
natsu no tsuki
                            summer moon

ŌTOMO ŌEMARU (1722-1805)

kyonen made
                            the melons I
shikatta uri o
                            scolded him for last year –
tamuke keri
                            my offering

ou hito ni
                            lending
akari o misuru
                            the pursuer light –
hotaru kana
                            firefly

TŌRI (fl. 1779)

kawasemi ya
                            kingfisher –
nureha ni utsuru
                            the setting sun reflected
yūhikage
                            in its feathers

KATŌ GYŌDAI (1732-92)

akatsuki ya
                            daybreak;
kujira no hoeru
                            the singing of whales,
shimo no umi
                            a frosty sea

hi kuretari
                            descending with day
mi’i dera kudaru
                            from Mii Temple,
haru no hito
                            the people of spring

ochiba ochi
                            fallen
kasanarite ame
                            leaves falling rain
ame o utsu
                            on rain

BAISHITSU (1768-1852)

se no takaki
                            I passed
hōshi ni ainu
                            a tall priest –
fuyu no tsuki
                            winter moon

KATSURI (1732-1817)

hitori zutsu
                            one by one,
furikakeruyuku
                            the walkers fall from sight;
yukimi kana
                            snow-viewing

GINKŌ (1718-90)

mizutori no
                            water-fowl,
mune ni kuchibashi oku
                            beak nestled in its breast;
ukine kana
                            floating sleep

KOYŪ-NI (18TH c.)

hana chirite
                            the blossoms have fallen:
shizuka ni narinu
                            our hearts and minds
hito-gokoro
                            are at peace

MIURA CHORA (1729-81)

tabisugata
                            a traveller to the eyes,
shigure no tsuru yo
                            a stork in light cold rain –
bashōō
                            Bashō the Master

sukashi mite
                            looking through,
hoshi ni sabishiki
                            the willow is lonely
yanagi kana
                            with stars

hana ni kurui
                            beside itself at flowers,
tsuki ni odoroku
                            astonished by the moon –
kochō kana
                            the butterfly

tabibito no
                            the willow-tree
mite yuku kado no
                            by the gate; the travellers
yanagi kana
                            look as they go

shizukasa ya
                            silence –
chiru ni sureau
                            the sound of blossoms
hana no oto
                            jostling as they fall

yo wa ureshiku
                            happy nights
hiru wa shizuka ya
                            and quiet days –
haru no ame
                            spring rain

1800’s

NAITŌ MEISETSU (1847-1926)

kogarashi ya
                            withering wind –
sora ni korogaru
                            in the sky a single,
tsuki hitotsu
                            rolling moon

onna hitori
                            a woman,
sō hitori yuki no
                            a monk, a ferry
watashi kana
                            in snow

CHŌSHŪ (1852-1930)

kudakete mo
                            broken, again;
kudakete mo ari
                            broken, there, again:
mizu no tsuki
                            the moon in the water

MURAKAMI KIJŌ (1865-1930)

haru no yo na
                            spring night
naki-nagara neru
                            crying to sleep
kodomo-tachi
                            my children

SEISEI (1869-1937)

chikurin ni
                            in the bamboo grove
shigure fukikomu
                            drizzle blows
yūbe kana
                            into evening

ROSEKI (1870-1918)

tsure mo naku
                            no companion,
no ni suterareshi
                            cast away on the moor –
fuyu no tsuki
                            winter moon

ARŌ (1879-1951)

hiyodori no
                            the bulbul sings
sorekiri nakazu
                            no longer;
yuki no kure
                            sunset snow

OTSUJI (1881-1919)

tomo sureba
                            concomitance –
kiku no ka samushi
                            chrysanthemum scent is cold
yamiagari
                            when convalescing

IIDA DAKOTSU (1885-1962)

yama-dera no
                            mountain-temple
to ni kumo asobu
                            gate in drifting cloud –
higan kana
                            spring equinox

mura-boshi ni
                            wisps of cloud
usu-gumo wataru
                            cross the host of stars –
shoshū kana
                            early autumn

fuyu-tomoshi
                            winter lamp –
shi wa yōgan ni
                            death from the face
tōkarazu
                            is not far

         winter flame –
death from the face
does not keep its distance

(Imitation:)
                            winter-lit
a face once-removed
from death

CHŌI (1886-1930)

akikaze no
                            autumn wind –
honemade tōru
                            until the very bones
kakashi kana
                            of the scarecrow

HARA SEKITEI (1886-1951)

sabishisa ni
                            from loneliness,
mata dora utsu ya
                            striking the gong again,
kabiya-mori
                            Kabiya-keeper*

* A Kabiya is a lookout post to protect crops from foxes and boars.  Smouldering wood emits an unpleasant smell that keeps them at bay.

MIZUHARA SHŪŌSHI (1892-1981)

yama-zakura
                            mountain sakura –
setsu-rei ten ni
                            in the snow-peak sky
koe mo nashi
                            no sound

tōtsu-yo no
                            far generations
omowa kashikoshi

                               similar faces –
kibori-bina
                            woodcarved dolls

ichi-rin no
                            a single
shimo no bara yori
                            frosty rose
toshi akuru
                            opens a year

kamo wataru
                            wild ducks cross
gekka roteki no
                            beneath the moon; the rushes
oto mo nashi
                            make no sound

1900’s

KAWABATA BŌSHA (1900-41)

suishō no
                            reflected in the crystal
nenju ni utsuru
                            of my rosary –
wakaba kana
                            young leaves

meimetsu no
                            the flickering
izure kanashiki
                            of soon sorrowful
hotaru kana
                            fireflies

NAKAMURA KUSATAO (1901-83)

fuyu umi ya
                            winter sea –
rakka no gotoku
                            shed from the clouds
kamome uku
                            seagulls float

fuyu sude-ni
                            winter already
rohyō ni magau
                            like a signpost,
haka ikki
                            the gravestone

KATŌ SHŪSŌN (1905-93)

yamu hitomi niwa
                            to the ailing eye
mabushiki mono ka
                            they are dazzling,
fuyu sōbi
                            winter roses

NOZAWA SETSUKO (1920-95)

ame-tsuchi no
                            matching their breath,
iki aite hageshi
                            Earth and Heaven
yuki furasu
                            bring down tempestuous snow

samidare o
                            June rain
sekitsutsu yume ni
                            coughing as I travel
tabi shi ori
                            in a dream

Analysis

Poet’s Memorial Hall in Iga, Mie, which was built to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Bashō’s birth.

Poetry of the Seventeenth Century by William George Aston

From ‘A History of Japanese Literature’, 1899

HAIKAI, HAIBUN, KIŌKA

Haikai

IT MIGHT NATURALLY be supposed that in the Tanka of thirty-one syllables poetry had reached its extreme limit of brevity and conciseness. But a still further step remained to be taken in this direction. In the sixteenth century a kind of poem known as Haikai, which consists of seventeen syllables only, made its appearance. The Haikai is a Tanka minus the concluding fourteen syllables, and is made up of three phrases of five, seven, and five syllables respectively, as in the following: —

“Furu ike ya!
Kawadzu tobi-komu,
Midzu no oto.”

It differs from Tanka, however, in more than metre, being much less choice in diction and matter than the older kind of poetry. It admits words of Chinese derivation and colloquial expressions, and often deals with subjects which the more fastidious Tanka refuses to meddle with.

The earliest professor of this accomplishment was Yamazaki Sō-kan, a Buddhist priest (1445–1534). The verses of his which I have met with have mostly a comic character. Here is one: —

“Even in the rain, come forth,
O midnight moon!
But first put on your hat.”

A halo is called in Japanese kasa, which also means a broad hat or umbrella.

Another early Haikai writer was Arakida Moritake (1472–1549). The following is from his pen: —

“Thought I, the fallen flowers
Are returning to their branch;
But lo! they were butterflies.”

Coming down to the Yedo period, the first name of note in this department of literature is that of Matsunaga Teitoku (1562–1645). A well-known Haikai of his is the following: —

“For all men
’Tis the seed of siesta —
The autumn moon.”

In other words: The autumn moon is so beautiful that people sit up half the night to gaze on it, and have therefore to make up for their want of sleep by a siesta on the following day.

If it were not, however, for the fame of Matsura Bashō (1643–1694) and his disciples, it would hardly be necessary to notice this kind of composition at all. He imported a more serious element, and greatly refined and improved the Haikai, until it became a formidable rival to the Tanka. The latter had in these days become too exclusive for the popular taste. The Fujiwara family, who were its special patrons, practisers, and critics, maintained the traditional canons of the art in all their rigidity, and the nation was glad of a new and more unconfined field for its poetical talent. To write tolerable Tanka required a technical training, for which the many had neither time nor opportunity, but there was nothing to prevent any one with ordinary cleverness and a smattering of education from composing Haikai. Saikaku, an unlearned man, is said to have produced twenty thousand stanzas of this kind of poetry during one day’s visit to the shrine of Sumiyoshi, and to have received on that account the cognomen of “the twenty-thousand old man.” The story is an obvious exaggeration, but it shows what an easy thing Haikai writing was thought to be.

Bashō belonged to a Samurai family, hereditary retainers of the Daimio of Tsu, in the province of Ise. He acquitted himself with credit in an official capacity connected with water-works in Yedo, but for some reason threw up his appointment and entered the Buddhist priesthood. He built himself a cottage in the Fukagawa district of Yedo, and planted a banana-tree beside the window. It grew up and flourished, and from it he took the name of Bashō (banana), by which he is known to posterity. He was a diligent student of the Zen Buddhist doctrines and of Taoism, and was also an artist. From time to time he took long excursions to the remotest parts of Japan, leaving behind him traces of his presence, which remain to this day, in the shape of stones inscribed with poems of his composition. On one of these journeys he took suddenly ill, and died at Ōsaka in the fifty-first year of his age.

Shōtei Kinsui relates the following incident which happened on one of Bashō’s tours. It illustrates the favour in which Haikai was held even by the lowest classes of the people: —

Once, when on his travels, Bashō passed through a certain rural district, making Haikai as he went along. It was full moon. The whole sky was flooded with light, so that it was clearer than noonday. It was so bright that Bashō did not think of seeking an inn, but continued his journey. In a certain village he came upon a party of men who had brought out saké and something to eat with it into the open air, and were enjoying the moonlight. Bashō stood still to watch them. Presently they fell to composing Haikai. Bashō was greatly pleased to see that this elegant accomplishment was practised even in so remote a place, and continued looking on, when a silly fellow of the party noticed him and said, “There is a priest who looks like a pilgrim. He may be a begging priest, but, never mind, let us invite him to join us.” They all thought this would be great fun. Bashō could not refuse, so he joined their circle, taking the lowest seat. The silly fellow then said to him, “Everybody here is bound to compose something about the full moon. You must compose something too.” Bashō apologised. He said he was a humble individual, belonging to a country place. How should he presume to contribute to the entertainment of the honourable company? He begged, therefore, that they would kindly excuse him. “No! no!” said they, “we can’t excuse you. Good or bad, you must compose one verse at least.” They urged him until at last he consented. Bashō smiled, folded his arms, and turning to the clerk of the party, said, “Well, I will give you one: —

‘ ’Twas the new moon — —’”

“The new moon! What a fool this priest is!” cried one. The poem should be about the full moon.” “Let him go on,” said another; “it will be all the more fun.” So they gathered round, and mocked and laughed at him. Bashō paid no attention, but went on —

“’Twas the new moon!
Since then I waited —
And lo! to-night!
[I have my reward].”

The whole party were amazed. They took their seats again and said, “Sir, you can be no common priest to write such a remarkable verse. May we ask your name?” Bashō smilingly replied, “My name is Bashō, and I am travelling about on a pilgrimage for the sake of practising the art of Haikai.” The rustics, in great excitement, apologised for their rudeness to an eminent man “whose fragrant name was known to all the world.” They sent for their friends who were interested in Haikai, and began their al fresco feast anew in his honour.

It has been objected that Haikai, even in the hands of an acknowledged master like Bashō, is too narrow in its compass to have any value as literature. The Kangakusha Dazai Shuntai calls it a tsutanaki mono (a stupid sort of thing), and Shōtei Kinsui admits that in the eyes of “the superior man” this is doubtless so. Its popularity, however, is undeniable. The name of Bashō was known to the very cow-herds. He had ten disciples, and they in their turn had pupils whose name is legion. Monthly conferences of Haikai amateurs were held regularly both in the capital and the provinces, and there were professors who contrived to make a living by practising this art.

It would be absurd to put forward any serious claim on behalf of Haikai to an important position in literature. Yet, granted the form, it is difficult to see how more could be made of it than Bashō has done. It is not only the metre which distinguishes these tiny effusions from prose. There is in them a perfection of apt phrase, which often enshrines minute but genuine pearls of true sentiment or pretty fancy. Specks even of wisdom and piety may sometimes be discerned upon close scrutiny. Suggestiveness is their most distinctive quality, as may be seen by the following: —

“A cloud of flowers!
Is the bell Uyeno
Or Asakusa?”

To the English reader this will appear bald, and even meaningless. But to an inhabitant of Yedo it conveys more than meets the ear. It carries him away to his favourite pleasure resort of Mukōjima, with its long lines of cherry-trees ranged by the bank of the river Sumida, and the famous temples of Uyeno and Asakusa in the vicinity. He will have no difficulty in expanding it into something of this kind: “The cherry-flowers in Mukōjima are blossoming in such profusion as to form a cloud which shuts out the prospect. Whether the bell which is sounding from the distance is that of the temple of Uyeno or of Asakusa I am unable to determine.”

But brevis esse laborat, obscurus fit. A very large proportion of Bashō’s Haikai are so obscurely allusive as to transcend the comprehension of the uninitiated foreigner. The following are some of the more lucid. The same quality of suggestiveness pervades them all.

“An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in.”

“I come weary,
In search of an inn —
Ah! these wistaria flowers!”

“Ah! the waving lespedeza,
Which spills not a drop
Of the clear dew!”

“’Tis the first snow —
Just enough to bend
The gladiolus leaves!”

“Of Miïdera
The gate I would knock at —
The moon of to-day.”

That is to say, How beautiful the scenery about the temple of Miïdera must look on a fine moonlight night like this! I would that I were there to see it.

“On a withered branch
A crow is sitting
This autumn eve.”

“The cry of the cicada
Gives no sign
That presently it will die.”

The following are by other writers: —

“’Tis the cuckoo —
Listen well!
How much soever gods ye be.”

“’Tis the first snow,
Yet some one is indoors —
Who can it be?

“The club-shaker’s
Rising and falling in the water
Until it becomes a musquito.”

The water-grub, which subsequently becomes a musquito, moves about by the rapid vibration of its tail. Hence the name “club-shaker.” To the Japanese it is an emblem of the mischievous boy who is destined to develop into a wicked man.

“O ye fallen leaves!
There are far more of you
Than ever I saw growing on the trees!”

“Alas! the width of this musguito-net
Which meets my eye when I wake
And when I lie down.”

The following characteristic specimen of this kind of poetry is quoted in Mr. B. H. Chamberlain’s Handbook of Colloquial Japanese: —

“Asagao ni
⁠Tsurube torarete,
Morai-mizu!”

Literally, “Having had my well-bucket taken away by the convolvuli, — gift-water!” The meaning, as Mr. Chamberlain not unnecessarily explains, is this: “The poetess Chiyo, having gone to her well one morning to draw water, found that some tendrils of the convolvulus had twined themselves around the rope. As a poetess and a woman of taste, she could not bring herself to disturb the dainty blossoms. So, leaving her own well to the convolvuli, she went and begged water of a neighbour. A pretty little vignette surely, and expressed in five words.”

Haibun

The Haibun is a kind of prose composition which may be conveniently mentioned here, as it is a sort of satellite of the Haikai, and aims at the same conciseness and suggestiveness. The most noted writer of Haibun is Yokoi Yayu (1703–1783), a high official of Nagoya, in Owari. He is the author of the much admired apologue which follows: —

“An earthen vessel, whether it be square or round, strives to adapt to its own form the thing which it contains: a bag does not insist on preserving its own shape, but conforms itself to that which is put into it. Full, it reaches above men’s shoulders; empty, it is folded up and hidden in the bosom. How the cloth bag which knows the freedom of fulness and emptiness must laugh at the world contained within the jar!

O thou bag
Of moon and flowers
Whose form is ever changing!”

In other words: How much better it is to yield our hearts to the manifold influences of external nature, like the moon and flowers, which are always changing their aspect with the weather and the season, than, self-concentrated, to try to make everything conform to one’s own narrow standard!

Kiōka

Kiōka (literally “mad poetry”) is a comic and vulgar variety of Tanka. There is here an absolute freedom both in respect to language and choice of subject. The Kiōka must be funny, that is all. In this kind of poetry, of which an immense quantity was produced during the Yedo period, the punning propensity of the Japanese has been allowed full scope. Share (pronounced “sharry”) reigns there supreme. Share is one of those numerous Japanese words for which there is no exact English equivalent. It may be translated “wit,” but in order to express its full meaning a spice of what is comprehended under the terms gaiety, esprit, playful fancy, stylishness, must be added. Japanese wit, like that of other countries, has an element which defies analysis or classification. But the jeu-de-mots predominates. Share infests not only the Kiōka, but the drama and fiction, to an extent well-nigh intolerable to European tastes. Dr. Florenz, Professor of Philology in the Imperial University of Tokio, has treated this subject with truly German conscientiousness and erudition in a paper read before the German Asiatic Society of Japan in July 1892. Following a native investigator named Tsuchiko Kaneshiro, he classifies share under two heads with divisions and subdivisions, making in all twenty different kinds. Our old enemy the pivot-word is here, also the pillow-word, and several varieties of the ordinary pun, with various fearfully complicated acrobatic contortions of speech which I shall not attempt to describe. Even the reader who has a competent knowledge of the language requires a special study to understand and appreciate them. He follows these far-eastern waggeries with a halting step, and frequently finds himself in the position of the Scotchman who was heard suddenly to burst into laughter at a joke which had been made half-an-hour before. Nothing testifies more strikingly to the nimbleness of the Japanese apprehension than their delight in these “Taschenspielerkunstchen des sprachlichen Ausdrucks” (linguistic prestidigitations), as Dr. Florenz has aptly called them, whether in conversation or in books. It may be doubted whether such an excessive fondness for mere verbal wit does not amount to a disease, and whether it has not constituted a serious obstacle to the development of higher qualities in their literature.

In quite recent times a popular kind of lyrical poetry has come into fashion which somewhat resembles the ancient Naga-uta in form. The following may serve as a specimen: —

“Vain has been the dream
In which I thought that we met;
Awake, I find myself again
In the darkness
Of the wretched reality.
Whether I try to hope
Or give way to gloomy thought,
Truly for my heart
There is no relief.

If this is such a miserable world that I may not meet thee,
Oh! let me take up my abode
Deep in the far mountains,
And deeper still
In their furthest depths,
Where, careless of men’s gaze,
I may think of my love.”

Japanese Poetry by Basil Hall Chamberlain

From ‘Things Japanese’, 1905

JAPANESE PROSODY, though exceptionally simple, has interest in the eyes of specialists, because it is one of the few indisputably original productions of the Japanese mind. There is no rhyme, no weighing of syllables, as in China and other lands further to the west. All syllables count alike. The rule is that lines of 5 syllables and 7 syllables must alternate. Besides this, there must be an additional line of 7 syllables at the end. That is all. “Stanzas,” “cantos,” etc., are things entirely unknown. Thus, Japanese poems assume the following shape:, 7, 5, 7, 5, 7, . . . . . . 7. Some poems may run into as many as fifty or a hundred lines, say, a page or two of this book. Such are styled Naga-uta, literally “long poems,” though they would be deemed short in other literatures. But the overwhelming majority are tiny odes (Tanka) of no more than five lines each, of the shape 5, 7, 5, 7, 7, making but thirty-one syllables all told. The first three lines of such an ode, is called the kami no ku, or “upper hemistich;” the second is the shimo no ku, or “lower hemistich.” A slight pause is always made between the two in reciting. Thus:

(5) ⁠Hototogisu
(7) ⁠Nakitsuru kata wo
(5) ⁠Nagamureba —
(7) ⁠Tada ari-ake no
(7) ⁠Tsuki zo nokoreni

that is, literally rendered,

“When I gaze towards the place where the cuckoo has been singing, nought remains but the moon in the early dawn.” — Such is the narrow circle within which the poets of Japan have elected to move.

The favourite subjects of the Japanese muse are the flowers, the birds, the snow, the moon, the falling leaves in autumn, the mist on the mountains, in fact, the outward aspect of nature, — love of course, and the shortness of human life. Many of our Western commonplaces are conspicuously absent: no Japanese poet has expatiated on the beauties of sunset or starlight, or has penned sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrows, or even so much as alluded to her eyes; much less would he be so improper as to hint at kissing her. Japanese poetry has commonplaces of its own, however; and rules from which there is no appeal prescribe the manner in which each subject is to be treated. One rule of general application in the odes forbids the employment of Chinese words, — a circumstance which narrowly limits the range of thought and expression, seeing that more than half the words in the language, and nearly all those denoting abstractions and delicate shades of meaning, are of Chinese origin.

Many Japanese odes are mere exclamations, — words outlining a picture for the imagination, not making any assertion for the logical intellect. Take, for instance, the following, written by an anonymous poet a thousand years ago:

Shira-kumo ni
Hane uchi-kawashi
Tobu kari no
Kazu sae miyuru
Aki no yo no tsuki!

that is,

“The moon on an autumn night making visible the very number of the wild-geese that fly past with wings intercrossed in the white clouds.” Such a manner of expression may seem strange at first, but its charm grows upon one.

With the doubtful exception of the Nō, or classical dramas, all the genuine poetry of Japan is lyrical. The Japanese have also burlesque or comic stanzas. Even their serious poetry admits of a curious species of pun, named “pivot,” in which the first part of the sentence has no logical end, the second part no logical beginning; and also of “pillow-words,” — terms which, often devoid of meaning themselves, serve as props for other significant words to rest on, somewhat after the fashion of the stock epithets in Homer. Acrostics, anagrams, and palindromes are well-known to the Japanese, all such conceits having come in early in the Middle Ages. The introduction of the poetical tournaments known as Uta-awase, which originated in China about A.D. 760, may be traced to the end of the ninth century. It was then that the custom grew up of setting themes on which thirty-one syllable odes were written to order on the spot, — a custom which has lasted ever since, and has done more than ought else to conventionalise Japanese poetry alike in subject-matter and in treatment, and to degrade it into a mere exercise of ingenuity. The poets of an elder day had given expression to the genuine feelings evoked from time to time by their individual experience. Henceforth this was rarely to be the case. The narrow bounds of the thirty-one syllable form contributed towards the same undesirable end. It contributed doubly, — on the one hand by enabling almost anybody to say something in verse, on the other by making it well-nigh impossible for even the truest poet to say anything of value. But the limit of the little was not yet reached. A favourite game at these tournaments, called Renga, wherein one person composes the second hemistich of a verse and another person has to provide it with a first hemistich, seems to date from the eleventh century. Out of this, at a later date, by the dropping of the second hemistich, grew the Haikai or Hokku, an ultra-Lilliputian class of poem having but seventeen syllables (5, 7, 5). Here are a couple of specimens:

Rakkwa eda ni
⁠Kaeru to mireba
Kochō kana!

⁠”What I saw as a fallen blossom
returning to the branch, lo! it was a
butterfly.”

Yūdachi ya
⁠Chie sama-zama no
Kaburi-mono

⁠”A shower, and head-gear variously
ingenious,”

this latter a vignette of the scattering caused by an unexpected shower, when one, maybe, will hold up a fan, another don a kerchief, etc., to get as little wet as possible. — Millions of these tiny dashes of colour or humour have been considered worthy of preservation. In fact, the votaries of the Hokku claim, not without justice, that, though but half the length of the classic ode, it is wider in scope, as no theme however unconventional is excluded by its rules, neither does it lay half the dictionary under a ban.

The nearest European parallel to the Japanese poems of thirty-one or seventeen syllables is the epigram, using that term in its earlier sense. Or we might say of the seventeen-syllable poems in particular, that they correspond to such prominent half-stanzas as

“The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods,”

or

“And Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves,”

which, in the hands of our poets, are evolved as parts of members of a complex organic whole, but would in Japanese literature each stand alone as an independent composition. Naturally the brevity needed to put any statement into so narrow a compass soon led to an elliptical and enigmatic style, which continually crosses the border-line of obscurity.

The twin stars of early Japanese poetry are Hitomaro and Akahito, both of whom loved and sang during the opening years of the eighth century. Perhaps the most illustrious next to them — illustrious not only in verse, but in prose — is Tsurayuki, a great noble of about the year 930, after which time the decline of Japanese poetry set in. There are many other well-known poets, and also poetesses. But the Japanese consider poetry more as the production of an epoch than of an individual. They do not, as a rule, publish separately the works of any single author, as we publish Chaucer, Spenser, and the rest. They publish anthologies of all the poetical works of an era. The Man-yōshū, or “Collection of a Myriad Leaves,” was the first of these anthologies, and is therefore the most highly prized. It was compiled in the eighth century. The moderns have devoted a whole mountain of commentary to the elucidation of its obscurities. The Kokinshū, or “Songs Ancient and Modern, collected by Tsurayuki and including many of his own compositions, dates from the tenth century, a period whose style has remained the model which every later poet has striven to imitate. Other collections — all made by Imperial order — followed in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. These, together with the “Songs Ancient and Modern,” are known under the general name of the “Anthologies of the One-and-Twenty Reigns” (Ni-jū-ichi Dai Shū). A much shorter collection, the Hyaku-nin Is-shu, or “Hundred Odes by a Hundred Poets,” brought together by Teika Kyō, a nobleman of the thirteenth century, has long enjoyed exceptional favour with the public at large, — so much so that every one having a tincture of education knows it by heart; but the native critics justly refuse to endorse this superficial popular verdict. The acknowledged king of the seventeen-syllable style is Bashō, who flourished at the end of the seventeenth century, and left ten principal followers, the so-called “Ten Wits,” who flourished early in the eighteenth, and in their turn left imitators innumerable down to the present day.

Previous to the changes wrought by the revolution of 1868, it was considered one of the essential accomplishments of a Japanese gentleman to be able to write verses. This was not so difficult as might be imagined; for nothing was less honoured than originality. On the contrary, the old ideas had to be expressed in the old words, over and over again, plagiarism being accounted no crime, but rather a proof of wide reading and a retentive memory. Japanese gentlemen also composed Chinese verses, much as our schoolboys compose Latin verses. A good deal of all this still goes on. Numbers of persons, both men and women, make their living as teachers of the poetic art. Meetings are held, diplomas conferred, and time spent in elegant exercises, around which, as is the Japanese wont, a whole forest of technical terms has grown up. There lies before us the programme for 1904 of one of these teachers, an accomplished lady, whose poetry days are the first Sunday of each month. July and August are vacation time. The themes set for the other months, printed on neat little slips of paper and circulated among her friends and patronesses, are as follows, and may serve as specimens of a score of others: —

January.

Snow in the Capital. The Pleasures of Seclusion.

February.

A Traveller Listening to the Nightingale. Plumblossoms in the Snow.

March.

A Moor in Spring. A Mountain Hut in Spring.

April.

Cherry-blossoms on a Dark Night. A Wistaria Blossoming on a Ruin.

May.

Rice-fields in Summer. A Prospect of Villages and Green Trees.

June.

Taking the Air at Eve. Clouds on the Mountains.

September.

The Moon upon the Waters. Coolness after Rain.

October.

A River in Autumn. Wild-geese Traversing the Clouds.

November.

The Deer at Eve. Maple-leaves Stained by the First Hoarfrost.

December.

Winter Flowers. Distant Mountains Seen through the Leafless Trees.

It will be noticed that the themes are in most cases appropriate to the month to which they are allotted, — a consideration made clearer still by reference to Japanese literary conventions. For instance, an uncultured European may suppose that the moon belongs equally to every season. He is wrong: the moon is the special property of autumn, and the still more private and particular property of September. You ask, why? That only shows your want of education. Educated persons accept all such literary dicta without question. European notions may be all very well in such matters as railways, and drainage, and steam-boilers, and things of that sort; but when it comes to poetry, the Japanese cry halt, for this is sacred ground. There are, no doubt, some heretics in these latter days: — one programme shown to us proposes such themes as “A Torpedo-boat,” “The Yearly House-cleaning,” “Lucifer Matches.” (!) A few men have even endeavoured to lead Japanese poetry into completely new paths, — to introduce rhyme, with stanzas formed on the English model, etc.; but such innovators have scant following. — To return to orthodoxy. The Palace itself, conservative in most things non-political, offers to the nation an example of fidelity to the national traditions in matters relating to poetry. The Imperial family has its teachers of the art. The Emperor’s passion for poetry is such that he devotes a portion of every evening to the writing of verse, and during the nine years from 1893 to 1901 composed no fewer than 27,000 odes in the thirty-one syllable style. Once a year too, in January, a theme is set, on which the Emperor, the Empress, and other exalted personages compose each a thirty-one syllable ode, and the whole nation is invited to compete, with the result that many thousands of verses are sent in, written on thick paper of a certain size prescribed by custom. In January, 1904, the theme was “A Pinetree on a Rock.” In January, 1903, it was “The Plum-tree at New Year.” In other years it was “Patriotic Congratulations,” “Pine-trees Reflected in the Water, and so on, the general custom being to insinuate some delicate compliment to the reigning house, even when the theme may make that a feat involving some difficult twisting.

All that has been written above refers to the poetry of the educated. As for the common people, they have songs of their own, which conform as far as possible to classical models, but are much mixed with colloquialisms, and are accordingly despised by all well-bred persons. The ditties sung by singing-girls to the twanging of the guitar belong to this class. Perhaps we should also mention the Wasan, or Buddhist hymns, which, sharing in the general contempt poured by the modern Japanese spirit on all things Buddhistic, yet retain considerable influence over the uninstructed classes. The Rev. Arthur Lloyd, who has made a special study of this recondite subject, informs us that not a few of the hymns composed by a famous abbot of the fifteenth century, named Rennyo Shōnin, will bear comparison with the productions of Christian hymn-writers. Many others are simply versified paraphrases of sutras.

One poor little category, standing apart on the lowest plane, is mnemonic verse. Its use suggested itself early; for there still exists a booklet of such, intended to teach the Chinese characters, which goes back to the ninth century of the Christian era. Quite recently a whole shower of these charitable endeavours to prompt dull youth has fallen on the Tōkyō bookshops. There lies before us a little volume enumerating in orthodox fives and sevens all the thoroughfares and sights of the metropolis; two others give the stations on various lines of railway; a fourth quite a triumph of doggerel — serves to impress on recalcitrant memories the names of the ships forming the Imperial Japanese navy, together with the speed and tonnage of each. One feels almost sorry, on glancing over it, that so much industry should not rather have been devoted to something more generally useful, stone-breaking on the highways, for instance.

The Delphi Classics Catalogue

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Series Contents

Series One

Anton Chekhov

Charles Dickens

D. H. Lawrence

Dickensiana Volume I

Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth Gaskell

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

George Eliot

H. G. Wells

Henry James

Ivan Turgenev

Jack London

James Joyce

Jane Austen

Joseph Conrad

Leo Tolstoy

Louisa May Alcott

Mark Twain

Oscar Wilde

Robert Louis Stevenson

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Walter Scott

The Brontës

Thomas Hardy

Virginia Woolf

Wilkie Collins

William Makepeace Thackeray

Series Two

Alexander Pushkin

Alexandre Dumas

Andrew Lang

Anthony Trollope

Bram Stoker

Christopher Marlowe

Daniel Defoe

Edith Wharton

F. Scott Fitzgerald

G. K. Chesterton

Gustave Flaubert

H. Rider Haggard

Herman Melville

Honoré de Balzac

J. W. von Goethe

Jules Verne

L. Frank Baum

Lewis Carroll

Marcel Proust

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nikolai Gogol

O. Henry

Rudyard Kipling

Tobias Smollett

Victor Hugo

William Shakespeare

Series Three

Ambrose Bierce

Ann Radcliffe

Ben Jonson

Charles Lever

Émile Zola

Ford Madox Ford

Geoffrey Chaucer

George Gissing

George Orwell

Guy de Maupassant

H. P. Lovecraft

Henrik Ibsen

Henry David Thoreau

Henry Fielding

J. M. Barrie

James Fenimore Cooper

John Buchan

John Galsworthy

Jonathan Swift

Kate Chopin

Katherine Mansfield

L. M. Montgomery

Laurence Sterne

Mary Shelley

Sheridan Le Fanu

Washington Irving

Series Four

Arnold Bennett

Arthur Machen

Beatrix Potter

Bret Harte

Captain Frederick Marryat

Charles Kingsley

Charles Reade

G. A. Henty

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Edgar Wallace

E. M. Forster

E. Nesbit

George Meredith

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Jerome K. Jerome

John Ruskin

Maria Edgeworth

M. E. Braddon

Miguel de Cervantes

M. R. James

R. M. Ballantyne

Robert E. Howard

Samuel Johnson

Stendhal

Stephen Crane

Zane Grey

Series Five

Algernon Blackwood

Anatole France

Beaumont and Fletcher

Charles Darwin

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Gibbon

E. F. Benson

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Friedrich Nietzsche

George Bernard Shaw

George MacDonald

Hilaire Belloc

John Bunyan

John Webster

Margaret Oliphant

Maxim Gorky

Oliver Goldsmith

Radclyffe Hall

Robert W. Chambers

Samuel Butler

Samuel Richardson

Sir Thomas Malory

Thomas Carlyle

William Harrison Ainsworth

William Dean Howells

William Morris

Series Six

Anthony Hope

Aphra Behn

Arthur Morrison

Baroness Emma Orczy

Captain Mayne Reid

Charlotte M. Yonge

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

E. W. Hornung

Ellen Wood

Frances Burney

Frank Norris

Frank R. Stockton

Hall Caine

Horace Walpole

One Thousand and One Nights

R. Austin Freeman

Rafael Sabatini

Saki

Samuel Pepys

Sir Issac Newton

Stanley J. Weyman

Thomas De Quincey

Thomas Middleton

Voltaire

William Hazlitt

William Hope Hodgson

Series Seven

Adam Smith

Benjamin Disraeli

Confucius

David Hume

E. M. Delafield

E. Phillips Oppenheim

Edmund Burke

Ernest Hemingway

Frances Trollope

Galileo Galilei

Guy Boothby

Hans Christian Andersen

Ian Fleming

Immanuel Kant

Karl Marx

Kenneth Grahame

Lytton Strachey

Mary Wollstonecraft

Michel de Montaigne

René Descartes

Richard Marsh

Sax Rohmer

Sir Richard Burton

Talbot Mundy

Thomas Babington Macaulay

W. W. Jacobs

Series Eight

Anna Katharine Green

Arthur Schopenhauer

The Brothers Grimm

C. S. Lewis

Charles and Mary Lamb

Elizabeth von Arnim

Ernest Bramah

Francis Bacon

Gilbert and Sullivan

Grant Allen

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Hugh Walpole

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

John Locke

John Muir

Joseph Addison

Lafcadio Hearn

Lord Dunsany

Marie Corelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Ouida

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Sigmund Freud

Theodore Dreiser

Walter Pater

W. Somerset Maugham

Series Nine

Aldous Huxley

August Strindberg

Booth Tarkington

C. S. Forester

Erasmus

Eugene Sue

Fergus Hume

George Moore

Gertrude Stein

Giovanni Boccaccio

Izaak Walton

J. M. Synge

Johanna Spyri

John Galt

Maurice Leblanc

Max Brand

Molière

Norse Sagas

R. D. Blackmore

R. S. Surtees

Sir Thomas More

Stephen Leacock

The Harvard Classics

Thomas Love Peacock

Thomas Paine

William James

Series Ten

A. E. W. Mason

Abraham Lincoln

Baruch Spinoza

Carolyn Wells

Charles Brockden Brown

Earl Derr Biggers

Evelyn Waugh

F. Marion Crawford

Fred M. White

Frederick Douglass

Gaston Leroux

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

George Berkeley

Howard Pyle

John Kendrick Bangs

John Steinbeck

John Stuart Mill

J. S. Fletcher

Martin Luther

Sherwood Anderson

Thomas Dekker

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Jefferson

Willa Cather

William Faulkner

William Le Queux

Series Eleven

A. Merritt

Blaise Pascal

Charles W. Chesnutt

Dashiell Hammett

Dinah Craik

Elizabeth Inchbald

François Rabelais

George Griffith

George du Maurier

Hamlin Garland

Hugh Lofting

Joel Chandler Harris

John Calvin

M. P. Shiel

Matthew Lewis

Nevil Shute

Olaf Stapledon

P. G. Wodehouse

Philip Massinger

Raymond Chandler

Romain Rolland

Sabine Baring-Gould

Sarah Orne Jewett

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Browne

William Wycherley

Series Twelve

A. A. Milne

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alphonse Daudet

Anne Thackeray Ritchie

Arthur Quiller-Couch

Clark Ashton Smith

Dorothy L. Sayers

E. T. W. Hoffmann

Emanuel Swedenborg

Ernest Thompson Seton

H. Bedford-Jones

Harry Collingwood

Ivan Goncharov

James Branch Cabell

Jane Porter

Louis Joseph Vance

May Sinclair

Mrs Humphry Ward

Mystery, Morality and Miracle Plays

Raphael Holinshed

Sinclair Lewis

The Mabinogion

Theodore Roosevelt

Thomas Hughes

Thomas Wolfe

William Black

William Godwin

Ancient Classics

Achilles Tatius

Aeschines

Aeschylus

Ambrose

Ammianus Marcellinus

Apollodorus

Appian

Apuleius

Apollonius of Rhodes

Aristophanes

Aristotle

Arrian

Athenaeus

Augustine

Aulus Gellius

Bacchylides

Bede

Callimachus

Cassius Dio

Cato

Catullus

Cicero

Claudian

Clement of Alexandria

Coluthus

Cornelius Nepos

Demosthenes

Dio Chrysostom

Diodorus Siculus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Diogenes Laërtius

Ennius

Epictetus

Euclid

Euripides

Eusebius

Eutropius

Florus

Frontius

Fronto

Gregory I

Herodian

Herodotus

Hesiod

Hippocrates

Homer

Horace

Isocrates

Josephus

Julian

Julius Caesar

Juvenal

Livy

Longus

Lucan

Lucian

Lucretius

Marcus Aurelius

Manetho

Martial

Nonnus

Onasander

Origen

Ovid

Panyassis

Pausanias

Petronius

Phaedrus

Pindar

Plato

Plautus

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Younger

Plotinus

Plutarch

Polybius

Procopius

Propertius

Ptolemy

Quintus Curtius Rufus

Quintus Smyrnaeus

Sallust

Sappho

Seneca the Younger

Septuagint

Sidonius

Sophocles

Statius

Strabo

Suetonius

Tacitus

Terence

Tertullian

Theocritus

Theophrastus

Thucydides

Tibullus

Valerius Flaccus

Varro

Velleius Paterculus

Virgil

Vitruvius

Xenophon

Delphi Poets Series

Adam Mickiewicz

Adelaide Crapsey

A. E. Housman

Alexander Pope

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Andrew Marvell

Beowulf

Charles Baudelaire

Charlotte Smith

Christina Rossetti

Confederation Poets

D. H. Lawrence

Dante Alighieri

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Delphi Poetry Anthology

Edgar Allan Poe

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Waller

Edward Lear

Edward Thomas

Edward Young

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Emily Dickinson

Epic of Gilgamesh

Ezra Pound

Francis Thompson

Friedrich Schiller

George Chapman

George Herbert

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Giacomo Leopardi

Hafez

Heinrich Heine

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Henry Lawson

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Isaac Rosenberg

James Russell Lowell

Johan Ludvig Runeberg

John Clare

John Donne

John Dryden

John Gay

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Gower

John Keats

John Milton

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Joseph Addison

Kahlil Gibran

Leigh Hunt

Lord Byron

Louise Imogen Guiney

Ludovico Ariosto

Luís de Camões

Mary Robinson

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Prior

Medieval Poetry Collection

Michael Drayton

Nikolai Nekrasov

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Petrarch

Rabindranath Tagore

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Robert Browning

Robert Burns

Robert Frost

Robert Southey

Rumi

Rupert Brooke

Saadi

Sanskrit Epics

Sara Teasdale

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Thomas Wyatt

Sir Walter Raleigh

Thomas Chatterton

Thomas Gray

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hood

Thomas Moore

Thomas Otway

Torquato Tasso

T. S. Eliot

W. E. Henley

W. B. Yeats

Walter Savage Landor

Walt Whitman

Wilfred Owen

William Blake

William Congreve

William Cowper

William Wordsworth

Masters of Art

Albrecht Dürer

Alphonse Mucha

Amedeo Modigliani

Andrea Mantegna

Anthony van Dyck

Artemisia Gentileschi

Berthe Morisot

Camille Pissarro

Canaletto

Caravaggio

Caspar David Friedrich

Claude Lorrain

Claude Monet

Correggio

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Diego Velázquez

Donatello

Edgar Degas

Édouard Manet

Edvard Munch

El Greco

Eugène Delacroix

Francisco Goya

Georges Seurat

Giotto

Giovanni Bellini

Gustave Courbet

Gustav Klimt

Hieronymus Bosch

Hokusai

Jacques-Louis David

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Jan van Eyck

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

J. M. W. Turner

Johannes Vermeer

John Constable

John Everett Millais

Leonardo da Vinci

Masaccio

Michelangelo

Nicolas Poussin

Paolo Veronese

Paul Cézanne

Paul Gauguin

Paul Klee

Peter Paul Rubens

Piero della Francesca

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Piet Mondrian

Sandro Botticelli

Raphael

Rembrandt van Rijn

Thomas Gainsborough

Tintoretto

Titian

Vincent van Gogh

Wassily Kandinsky

William Hogarth

Great Composers

Antonio Vivaldi

Franz Schubert

Frédéric Chopin

Giuseppe Verdi

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johannes Brahms

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky

Richard Wagner

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Alphabetical List of Titles

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Gichū-ji, a Tendai Buddhist temple in the Baba neighborhood of the city of Ōtsu, Shiga Prefecture, Japan — Bashō’s final resting place

Bashō’s grave