Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Brills Japanese
Studies Library
Edited by
H. Bolitho
K.W. Radtke
VOLUME 27
Haikai Poet
Yosa Buson and
the Bash Revival
By
Cheryl A. Crowley
LEIDEN BOSTON
2007
On the cover : Have I run into Matabei? Haiga. Itsu Art Museum.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication data
Detailed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the Internet at
http://catalog.loc.gov
ISSN:
0925-6512
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15709 5
ISBN-10: 90 04 15709 3
Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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CONTENTS
List of illustrations...........................................................................................viii
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................ix
Introduction ........................................................................................................1
Chapter One
Buson, the Bunjin (Literati), and the Bash Revival...............................14
Chapter Two
Buson and His Audience: Anxiety And Transcendence.......................35
Chapter Three
Anxiety and the Formation of a Poet: Hokku 17401770....................52
Chapter Four
An Unarmed Blossom Guard: Hokku 17711783.................................93
Chapter Five
Resisting Communality: Linked Verse Sequences .............................. 130
Chapter Six
Buson and Haiga....................................................................................... 165
Epilogue .......................................................................................................... 244
Appendix ........................................................................................................ 249
Bibliography ................................................................................................... 292
Cited Buson Hokku....................................................................................... 301
Index................................................................................................................ 304
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations for this book are taken from Buson zensh, vol. 6, except for
Figures 3 and 4, which come from Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori
bunko tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series, edited by Zaidan Hjin
Kakimori Bunko (Itami: Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996); and
Figure 10, which comes from Buson ten, edited by Ibaraki Kenritsu
Rekishikan (Mito: Benrid, 1997). All works are by Buson and all are in
private collections unless otherwise noted.
1 Group portrait of haikai sages. Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko ..40
2 First dream of the year. Haiga by Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City
Museum ..................................................................................................... 193
3 Calling cry, cry! Haiga by Miura Chora .......................................... 196
4 At the convent. Illustration from Fourth month principles
(Uzuki teikin) ............................................................................................. 208
5 Ama-no-hashidate. Hanging scroll.................................................... 212
6 Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson............................................... 213
7 The manzai dancers. Haiga .................................................................. 218
8 Cause the madwoman of Iwakura. Haiga......................................... 221
9 Young bamboo! Haiga......................................................................... 224
10 That she walked beneath the blossoms. Haiga ................................ 228
11 Have I run into Matabei? Haiga. Itsu Art Museum...................... 231
12 Dancing! Haiga...................................................................................... 233
13 Willow leaves, fallen. Haiga. Itsu Art Museum ............................. 238
14 Narrow road to the interior scroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art 241
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful for the guidance and encouragement of my dissertation advisor, Haruo Shirane. Kawamoto Kji kindly supervised my
research in Japan, and I received generous grant assistance from the
Shinch Publishing Company. Kira Sueo permitted me to join his
seminar on Buson. I thank Ogata Tsutomu, Horikiri Minoru, and Hori
Nobuo, who offered a great deal of valuable help on this project. The
members of my dissertation committee, Paul Anderer, Lawrence
Marceau, Eri Yasuhara, and Shang Wei, gave me many useful suggestions
and comments. I would like to also acknowledge the help of friends and
colleagues, among them Inoue Yoshiko, Shimizu Tomoe, Kno Taeko,
Okada Akiko, Takeuchi Akiko, Sakaguchi Akiko, Shimizu Hisako,
Ogoshi Eiko, Azuma Shko, Junko Mackert, Kat Yukiko, and Kinugasa
Masaaki. I am also grateful to many teachers, among them David
Anthony, Linda Chance, William LaFleur, Phillip Yampolsky, Ryuichi
Abe, and Barbara Ruch. My colleagues Juliette Stapanian-Apkarian,
Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Corrine Kratz, Matthew Bernstein, Joachim
Kurtz, Patricia Graham, Suzanne OBrien, and Anne Commons have
given me much good advice.
Finally, I thank Kathleen and Kara Crowley and David Mold for
many years of wisdom, good humor, and patience.
INTRODUCTION
Poet and painter Yosa Buson died on the 24th day of the
Twelfth Month of 1783. He was sixty-eight. Buson had long impressed
his friends as being remarkably healthy and active for an aging man, and
in the last years of his life had undertaken frequent trips to places
renowned for their natural beauty, including a visit to Gich-ji at
mi, the gravesite of the great haikai poet Matsuo Bash
(16441694). However, towards the end of 1783 he became ill with
stomach pains, and after the remedies he tried brought no relief, he took
to his bed in considerable discomfort. Tomo, his wife, and Kuno, his
daughter, stayed with him, and his most trusted disciples visited and took
turns keeping watch.
Busons chief disciple Takai Kit (17411789) later described the events leading up to his teachers death in Account of Elder
Yahans Final Days (Yahan- shen ki ), the opening
section of the memorial anthology Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba
, 1784). According to Kit, at one point it seemed like Buson
would recover, and he struggled to complete a preface for an anthology
in memory of his friend, Kuroyanagi Shha (17271771).
However, he abruptly took a turn for the worse, and his disciples began
to quietly discuss what they would need to do after his death. Hearing
this, Buson rallied again, and chided them for giving up on him too
soon. Eventually, though, he began to sense that death was not far off,
and he called to Matsumura Gekkei (17521811, art name
Goshun ) to bring him a brush and paper so that he could compose
his death poem.1
The practice of writing death poems (jisei ) was fairly common in
pre-modern Japan. Such poems were thought to reflect the spiritual
condition of the writer and to indicate his or her readiness for the next
existence; typically, they express a tranquil resignation to the inevitability
of lifes end. However, Buson was not at peace as he contemplated his
death poem. Despite the severity of his physical suffering, a single
1 Maruyama Kazuhiko and Yamashita Kazumi, eds., Buson zensh, vol. 7, Hencho tsuizen
(Kdansha, 1995), pp. 316320. Henceforth Buson zensh is abbreviated as BZ in the
notes.
INTRODUCTION
Bash
First Buson composed two verses on the topic of the uguisu or bush
warbler:
fuyu uguisu
mukashi I ga
kakine kana
winter warbler
long ago, on Wang Weis3
brushwood fence4
uguisu ya
nani gosotsukasu
yabu no shimo
warbler
something is rustling
in the forest frost5
Both uguisu (bush warbler) and white plum blossoms are common early
spring topics, and as it was very close to the end of the year they are
appropriate to the season. The fact that Buson did not live long enough
to welcome the new year he anticipates in these verses gives them a
special poignance. However, even more compelling than the poems
themselves is the description in Account of Elder Yahans Final Days
of Busons state of mind as he composed them, a mood of profound
2 tani Tokuz and Nakamura Shunj, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei, vol. 45, Bash
kush (Iwanami Shoten, 1963), p. 216. Henceforth Nihon koten bungaku taikei is abbreviated as NKBT in the notes. Verses by poets other than Buson, like this one, are indicated
with the poets name.
3 Wang Wei (ca. 701761) was a Chinese poet and painter.
4 Ogata Tsutomu and Morita Ran, eds., BZ, vol. 1, Hokku (Kdansha, 1992), no.
2412.
5 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2413.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2414.
INTRODUCTION
An Anxiety of Reception
Busons anxiety in regard to his relationship with readers was common
to the poets of the haikai community with whom he associated. These
poets believed that their genre was in a state of crisis. Haikais popularity
had steadily grown since the beginning of the Tokugawa period (1603
1868), but some of its most vocal proponents in the early- and mideighteenth century, who equated popularization with vulgarization,
viewed its very success as problematic, and they began to work to reverse
this trend.
An offshoot of the elite linked verse form renga, haikai of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries relied heavily on allusions to
works of classical and medieval literature, and it demanded of the poet a
mastery of complicated rules and structures. In its most basic form,
haikai was composed in a group. It typically consisted of a hokku
(starting verse) written in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern by one poet, to which
another poet linked a waki (side verse) of a 7-7 syllable pattern;
tsukeku (linking) verses alternating these 5-7-5 and 7-7 patterns
were added to make a chain poem usually 36 verses long. However,
the middle of the seventeenth century saw the rise of a kind of haikai
that placed more emphasis on wit than on knowledge of the literary
tradition. This was called point-scoring or tentori haikai. Tentori
haikai had simplified rules; this made it accessible to a less sophisticated
audience. The teachers who specialized in tentori haikai, known as tenja
INTRODUCTION
7 Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bash
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 117.
INTRODUCTION
8 Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), p. vii.
INTRODUCTION
appreciation, and their control over their work diminishing. This pattern
of development has been observed to precipitate a crisis of modernity
in which the writer no longer knows for whom he writes but is instead
the victim of economic networks that controlled the fate of published
works.9 Thus, a deep divide between writer and audience appeared. This
divide was based in an uncertainty about the future reception of texts
that was in turn related to authors contempt for a public that neglected
them and an audience of professional critics who attacked them.10
A similar phenomenon arose in Japan. The seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries in Japan saw a rise of a class of people who had the
money, leisure, education, and ambition to aspire to participation in
literary practice. It was an era of profound change that saw dramatic
increases in the population of cities (estimated at 1,000,000 in Edo, and
between 300,000 and 400,000 in Kyoto and Osaka in 1700),11 improvements in transportation and communication, and for significant numbers
of people, better education and more disposable income.12
These developments led to the emergence of one of the worlds first
examples of popular culture, or as Peter Nosco defines it, culture that
pays for itselfi.e., self-sustaining forms of culture that are financed
by [their] consumers.13 Increasing numbers of urban commoners (chnin
) and wealthy farmers gained access to arts that had previously been
restricted to elite classesranging from painting and tea ceremony to
flower arrangement and utai singingnot only as consumers, but as
producers as well. Central to this new popular culture was literature. The
literacy rate at the end of the early modern period has been estimated at
40 or 50 percent for men and around 25 percent for women,14 Reading
for pleasure as a pastime even for commoners was established by the end
of the seventeenth century,15 and the distribution of printed texts
equaled or even surpassed those that were made in Europe.
9 Jean-Francois Lyotard, cited in Andrew Bennett, Keats, Narrative, and Audience: The
Posthumous Life of Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 4.
10 Newlyn, p. xi.
11 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
p. 153.
12 Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan
(Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990), pp. 1819.
13 Ibid., p. 16.
14 Ibid., p. 24.
15 Peter F. Kornicki, The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the
Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 262.
INTRODUCTION
16
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
The genres in which he specializedhaikai and nanga (Chinesestyle landscape painting, literally, southern-style painting)also placed
him at the center of early modern cultural development. While they built
on the traditions of Japan and Chinas elites, both genres reworked these
traditions in such a way as to be accessible to segments of society that
historically had been excluded from many forms of elite culture, i.e., the
lower classes. Both haikai and nanga blend and amalgamate disparate
cultural idiomshigh and low culture in the case of haikai, and indigenous and continental painting techniques in the case of nanga. For all of
these reasons, Busons work provides a useful vantage point from which
to begin consideration of the culture and society of early modern Japan.
Busons reputation as a haikai poet underwent several reversals in the
century following his death. During the last years of the eighteenth
century and through most of the nineteenth, Buson was better known as
a painter than as a haikai poet. His verse was largely ignored in the last
years of the Tokugawa period, despite the fact that the number of haikai
practitioners continued to grow. It remained relatively obscure in the
first decades of the Meiji period (18681912) as well. Haikai itself was
still popular as a form of recreation, but in the literary and intellectual
climate of these years it increasingly drew criticism, and there were even
calls to abandon it altogether.
Buson was rediscovered in the late Meiji period by the poet and
literary critic Masaoka Shiki (18671902). Shiki responded to
criticism of haikai by advocating the reformrather than the abandonmentof the genre. Shiki called modern haikai haiku, and eventually
settled on Buson as the best classical model for modern haiku poets.
Looking at Busons work as a painter, Shiki found in Buson the ideal
exemplar of shasei (realism) in literature, and called him a forerunner of modern Japanese poetry. While Shikis preference for Buson over
Bash was not shared by most other haiku poets, Busons work has
continued to be viewed as an important precursor to haiku: progressive,
presciently modern verse by a poet whose achievements were different
from those of the great Bash but which nevertheless suggested a
potential of haiku that Bashs had overlooked.
Shikis writing at the turn of the nineteenth century laid the foundations for the appraisal of Busons work for most of the twentieth
century. His image of Buson as a painter in words has been at the base
of much writing about Buson as a visual poet. More scholarly readings
of Busons work have also addressed the question of how Busons work
10
INTRODUCTION
18 See Ebara Taiz, Buson, Osaka: Sgensha, 1943, and Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13,
Ch Kronsha, 1979; Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu, Shibund, 1977 and Yosa
Buson no kansh to hihy, Meiji Shoin, 1983; Haga Tru, Yosa Buson no chiisana sekai, Chk
Bunko Series, Ch Kronsha, [1986] 1995; Ogata Tsutomu, Bash, Buson, Kashinsha,
1978 and Buson no sekai, Iwanami Shoten, 1993; and Kira Sueo, Anei sannen Buson
shunkyj, Taihei Bunko 38, Insatsu Kyshinsha, 1996.
INTRODUCTION
11
12
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
13
images in these verses were not just illustrations; in haiga, text and image
interactively created meaning. The book concludes with a epilogue that
briefly discusses assesments of Buson by two modern poets, Masaoka
Shiki and Hagiwara Sakutar (1886-1942). Full translations
of important Buson texts mentioned in the discussion are given in the
appendix.
Yosa Buson was an extremely prolific poet. Over 2,800 of his hokku
are extant, as well as some 120 linked verse sequences, as well as
numerous examples of haiga, three haishi unconventional verses
which are a hybrid of haikai and Chinese poetry, and several kanshi
(poems in Chinese). In addition to compiling eleven anthologies himself,
he also wrote many prefaces for collections edited by poets both inside
and outside of his school. It is impossible to characterize such a prodigious set of works simply. However, a consideration of the effect that
Busons audience had on his haikai poetry will help to create a framework from which to understand it better. I will argue that Busons view
of his audience was shaped by anxiety, an anxiety related to his position
in the community. This position was one that he negotiated until the last
moments of his life.
In the next chapter, we will begin our examination of the community
of poets in which Buson worked, starting with an overview of the ideal
of the literatus, and continuing with a discussion of the historical
background of the Bash Revival.
CHAPTER ONE
15
1 Alan Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice of Reclusion in Early Medieval China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 45.
2 Ushiyama Yukio, Kinsei no bunjintachi: Bunjin seishin no shos (Kanrin Shob, 1995), pp.
814, 1618.
3 Yoshikawa Ch et al., eds., Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu, vol. 18, Nanga to shaseiga,
(Shgakukan, 1960), pp. 170171.
16
CHAPTER ONE
history, and poetry, and these highly trained people staffed bakufu and
domain schools. Demand for education was also rising among commoners. At the forefront of this trend were merchants and artisans who lived
in cities, where there was greater access to schools and more incentive to
educate children, but it also extended to the many rural people who
migrated to the cities because of economic pressures. Education
improved even in the countryside, as increasing numbers of farmers
embraced agricultural methods that required higher levels of learning.
Because Chinese studies was at the foundation of the early modern
curriculum, the spread of education increased interest in the ideal of the
literatus-scholar throughout the society as a whole.4
One of the many schools of Chinese studies that flourished was that
of Ogy Sorai (16661728). Whereas many other scholars
were primarily interested in Confucian philosophy and ethics, Sorai also
emphasized accomplishment in a wide range of artistic pursuits, including poetry and calligraphy. Sorai encouraged achieving a direct understanding of Confucian texts without the encumbrance of commentaries
or the special markings (kunten ) that enabled Japanese readers to
understand written Chinese. He taught his students to write in classical
Chinese and even to speak it, and to make the tradition present and
immediate, a part of everyday life.5 Members of the Sorai school believed
that the classical Chinese tradition was not something to be passively
memorized, but to be lived out in practice, and the bunjin represented a
model to which many of them could aspire.
There were close connections between the Bash Revival movement
and the sinophile groups that gave rise to the idealization of the bunjin. In
the first place, many haikai poets also had close affiliations with these
groups, particularly those who also wrote kanshi. To take the Yahantei
school as an example, as a young man Buson is thought to have studied
with Sorais successor, Hattori Nankaku (1683-1759). His
close friend and disciple Kuroyanagi Shha was also Nankakus student,
and Shha continued his training in kanshi with Tatsu Sro
(17151792) in Osaka. Another colleague and mentor, Miyake Shzan,
was a prolific kanshi poet whose collected verse fills several volumes; his
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen , 1763), an important
17
Revival collection, was laid out according to the same principles as the
seminal Chinese work Tang shi xuan (Selected poems of the Tang period;
Japanese Tshisen ). Busons disciple Matsumura Gekkei became
one of the most famous and successful bunjin painters. Finally, there was
considerable overlap between Busons haikai acquaintances and the
clients who bought his Chinese-style paintings and therefore had an
affinity for bunjin tastes.
Ideologically, there were two main points of intersection between the
bunjin ideal and the Bash Revival. In the first place, its stress on the
value of poetrywriting it as well as reading itwas important to both.
For admirers of the bunjin, not only was poetry a pleasure to be enjoyed,
it also had a more exalted function: the cultivation of the spirit. Revival
poets, who worked to resist haikais reversion to a frivolous pastime,
were in considerable sympathy with the bunjin valorization of poetrys
higher purpose. The emphasis that the Sorai school in particular placed
on studying the writing of the ancient sages without depending on
centuries worth of interpretive accretions was also attractive to Revival
poets. They treated the works of Bash as their classics, and encouraged disciples to read and internalize their teachings. Busons comment
that, If for three days you do not recite the works of Bash, thorns will
grow in your mouth6 is a good indication of how much importance the
Revival poets placed on familiarity with Bashs writings.
The second point of intersection was the contempt for ambition and
profit that was common to both the bunjin ideal and Revival poets.
Amateurism was the hallmark of the Chinese wenren, who painted for the
sake of self-cultivation, unlike the professional court painters who
worked to please patrons. This had special resonance for wealthy
commoners attracted to the bunjin ideal and Revival haikai alike. Denied
access to real elites (i.e., aristocratic status, participation in government)
and contemptuous of the excesses of commoner culture, glorification of
the amateur was a way for non-elites to aspire to some kind of elite
status insofar as it gave them the moral ground on which to stand as they
castigated popular tenja for being venal and profit-driven.
Of course, Japanese bunjin painters like Buson were not actually amateurs; they exchanged their paintings for money. However, Buson was
able to maintain the pose of the bunjin amateur as a poet precisely
6 Ogata Tsutomu and Kazumi Yamashita, eds., BZ, vol. 4, Haishi haibun (Kdansha,
1994), p. 142.
18
CHAPTER ONE
because this other source of income allowed him to keep his haikai out
of the marketplacethat is to say, apart from the kind of commercialism
that he enthusiastically deplored in tentori haikai poets.
19
associated with the aristocratic tradition; rather, haikai had the most
appeal for commoners. Because haikai began as a lesser form of renga,
and because its practitioners usually belonged to people of low social
status, haikais position relative to other forms of poetry was an issue
from the beginning.
Another issue was the commercialization of the genre as it became
established in the seventeenth century. Some renga masters were able to
support themselves through teaching, and this was also true of many
people who practiced haikai. However, haikai was far less demanding in
terms of time and education, and as the population of well-off farmers
and working urban dwellers grew during the long period of peace and
stability in the early modern period, the market for haikai also grew. The
job of teaching haikai to students and evaluating their haikai eventually
became a professional occupation.
The professionalization of haikai in the seventeenth century is related
to the emergence of the iemoto or house system throughout the
artistic community, and its attendant concerns with lineages, authenticity,
and small exclusive communities. As was the case in many of the arts of
this period, haikai poets and their disciples organized themselves in a
structure modeled after a patriarchal family. In the iemoto system, the
schools teachings were passed on directly from master to disciple,
organization within the school was hierarchical, leadership was hereditary, and a permit system was set up whereby disciples eligibility to
become teachers was strictly controlled.7 The transformation of haikai
schools into an iemoto-like structure took decades, but from the genres
earliest beginnings its most serious practitioners were deeply sensitive to
matters of artistic lineage, and competition between factions was very
strong.
Haikai had attained the status of an independent genre around the
beginning of the seventeenth century, largely through the work of the
followers of Matsunaga Teitoku (15711653), the Teimon,
who formed the first haikai school. Teitoku was a master of both waka
and of standard renga, having studied with two of the most admired
poets of the day, Satomura Jha (ca. 15251602) and Hosokawa Ysai (15341610). Although as a commoner Teitoku
was unable to receive initiation into the esoteric tradition of waka, he
7 Patricia Graham, Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1998), p. 146.
20
CHAPTER ONE
8 Akabane Manabe, ed., Kch Haikai Gosan sakuin hen, vol. 1 (Fukutake Shoten, 1983),
pp. 24-25.
21
more than just an amusing pastime. In Air and water treatise, he writes,
Haikai is of one body with waka. It is not a Way that should be taken
lightly, arguing that although haikai had been dismissed in the past as
being inferior to waka and renga, because it allowed the use of vernacular, non-literary language it was actually the most appropriate one for the
present day.9 Even more importantly, despite his own reluctance to
actively promote the genre, he attracted energetic disciples who would
make his school, the Teimon, a stable and influential force in haikai for
decades.
Almost as soon as the Teimon established canons and standards,
though, some poets set about breaking them. Most successful among
these were the members of the Danrin, founded by followers of
Nishiyama Sin (16051682). Danrin poetry emphasized
cleverness, word play, and speed of composition; their verses frequently
strayed into earthiness and vulgarity. Making an impression on an
audience, either through wit or speed, was a key value.10 For example,
Ihara Saikaku (16421693), a Danrin poet as well as a fiction
writer, is said to have composed 23,500 solo verses at a haikai event that
lasted just a day and a night.11
While poets of the Teimon might have found Danrin poetry tasteless
and crude, it had great mass appeal. The Teimons efforts to bring haikai
more in line with classical poetry by creating a tradition for it with the
compilation of rulebooks and collections of exemplary verses supported
haikais claims to legitimacy, and this attracted followers. However, the
Danrins use of the opposite tacticbreaking the rules and catering to
the tastes of lowbrow cultureenhanced haikais popularity even more.
The lively quarrels between the Danrin and Teimon and their fierce
competition for disciples demonstrate how vital and active a genre it had
become after the middle of the seventeenth century.
Around the time that the Teimon and Danrin poets were competing
for dominance in Kyoto and Edo, another phenomenon was unfolding
in Osaka that would play a crucial role in the development of haikaithe
rise of short form linked verse or maekuzuke . Teimon and
Danrin haikai tended to favor long verse sequences that were typically
22
CHAPTER ONE
12
13
23
distant tenja put the practice within reach of people in the provincial
towns and rural areas.
14
24
CHAPTER ONE
furiuri no
gan aware nari
Ebisu k
Bash
The words are restrained but evocative. The wild goose customarily
appears in classical poetry as a figure of splendor, a wanderer in the sky
returning home after traveling great distances. In Bashs verse it is
15
Ibid., p. 217.
25
16 Sugiura Shchir et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 46, Bash bunsh (Iwanami Shoten, 1959),
p. 51. Sgi (14211502) was a renowned renga poet; Sessh (14201506) was famous for
his ink painting; Sen no Riky (15221591) was a founder of the tea ceremony.
17 Imoto Nichi and Kid Saiz, eds., NKBT, vol. 66, Rengaron sh, Haironsh (Iwanami Shoten, 1961), p. 437.
18 Ibid., p. 398.
26
CHAPTER ONE
19 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
pp. 296304.
27
capital, they were eager to increase their stock of what Pierre Bourdieu
calls cultural capitalprestige that allowed them a stronger sense of
participating in the culture of the people in power.20 Thus they began to
demand access to arts that had previously belonged only to those of elite
status. Arts of all kinds found a growing, enthusiastic market in the
newly wealthy commoners of the Kyh period, and one of the most
successful of these arts was haikai.
Haikai appealed to a broad swath of commoner society. It could be
practiced as a hobby, as it had been made easy by willing tenja who
worked to simplify its rules as much as possible. On the other hand,
because of the efforts of poets like Bash, it also was seen as a worthy
pursuit for those who aspired to more refined aesthetic and literary
expression. And so, Kyh haikai poets were roughly divisible into two
categories: those who composed solely for pleasure, and those who were
motivated by a more purely aesthetic purpose. The poets of the second
category, who looked down on the first, were the forerunners of the
Revival movement.
Within these two broad categories, the community was further divided into numerous factions and lineages. The Teimon and Danrin, for
instance, continued to attract followers, and the tentori schools were
growing in both size and number. Most influential of all, though, was the
Shmon; that is to say, the schools that were founded by Bashs
disciples.
The Shmon itself was divided into two large factions, the urban and
the rural. This division was related to the stylistic changes Bashs haikai
underwent over the course of his life. The followers that he had attracted
earlier in his career remained loyal to him but continued to prefer his
older style, while those who joined him as he moved into new directions
tended to favor his newer styles. For this reason, while a large number of
disciples called themselves Bashs direct successors after his death, they
practiced very different kinds of haikai. The most ambitious among them
set up schools, claiming to preserve his authentic teachings, and they
vied with one another for leadership.
The urban Shmon flourished in Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. It was
centered around the activities of Bash disciples Kikaku and Hattori
Ransetsu (16541707), though Mizuma Sentoku
20 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 303.
28
CHAPTER ONE
21 Two of Shiks most famous treatises were Haikai ten discussions (Haikai jron,
afterword dated 1719) and Twenty-five tenets (Nijk kaj, published 1736). In Nihon
bungakushi, Kinsei II, ed. Hisamatsu Senichi (Shibund, 1964), pp. 250251.
29
A prose passage by Gik on the same topic is also included in the text:
In todays world there is no one who does not write haikai, but few are
those who really dedicate themselves to its Way. People think that as long
as they get good points in point-scoring, they are free to do what they
want; they think that they are accomplished after only two or three years,
they openly praise themselves without knowing the Four Ways (i.e. the
basics of verse linking). There are many who think that this is all there is
to it. It is for this reason that no respected poets have emerged.24
One possible impetus for the Ink of five colors poets interest in bringing
change to the haidan was related to their own backgrounds: they all came
from families with close ties to the shogun, either as gokenin
(high-ranking retainers) or merchants who supplied the bakufu. Reasserting the importance of elegance, Ink of five colors stood as a challenge to
tenja who were primarily interested in profit, and their disciples, who saw
haikai simply as a form of entertainment; it marked the start of a new
mood of change in the haikai community.
22 The other Five colors ink poets were Sogan (later, Bak ), Szui ,
Shijaku (later, Rywa ) and Renshi (later, Keirin ). Gik wrote
the preface.
23 Katsumine Shinp, ed., Fukyban haisho taikei, vol. 72, Chk haikai meika sh (Shunjsha, 1929), p. 35.
24 Ibid., p. 42.
30
CHAPTER ONE
As we have seen, the Kyh period was a time of reform and vibrant
development. However, in many respects the haikai of this period
became a victim of its own success, and the more followers it attracted
the more its quality degenerated. The greed of many tenja, the spread of
game-like forms, and the low literary standards that characterized much
of the verse being produced at the time caused some poets, Yosa Buson
among them, to aspire to greater things.
31
25
26
32
CHAPTER ONE
33
emotion, but on the other hand, rural haikai was too often simplistic and
bland, and pandered to the limited abilities of unsophisticated poetasters
with literary pretensions.
Another reason that the Revival poets made tentori haikai practitioners
their target was that the latter focused on money and profit. Haikai was a
source of income for tentori tenja, and they treated it like that, lowering
their standards in order to attract students. Of course, the Revival poets
also worked as professional haikai teachers, and made a living from their
work as poets. However, they used a number of strategies to minimize
and deflect the appearance of being merely hacks out to make money,
not the least of which was scorning others who did so blatantly.
The Revival movement did not die with Buson, Kytai, and Kit, but
actually gained momentum as haikai fell in with the process of institutionalization that most of the arts underwent at this time. By the end of
the century, the Bash style came to be established as true haikai, and
Bash designated the genres saint.27 The prestigious Nij school of
waka poets conferred on Bash the title Hana no moto no ssh
(, literarily, master under the blossoms), their highest honor,
bringing haikai into line with long-established courtly poetic traditions of
organization and authority. In doing so they finally affirmed the claim
that haikai poets since Teitoku had been makingthat haikai was the
equal of waka and renga.28 Ironically, the Revival movement, which had
been sparked by a desire to resist commercialization and professionalism
in haikai, concluded with the institutionalization of the Shmon as the
orthodox school of haikai.
Despite its conservative rhetoric of returning to the ideals of Bash,
the Revival movement actually looked forward to new directions in the
development of Japanese poetry. As much as the leaders of the Revival
movement deplored the popularity of maekuzuke and similar forms that
were composed outside the highly-regulated, refereed, and communal
setting of a linked verse gathering, their own preference for the hokku
gave further emphasis to the development of a style of poetry that placed
more emphasis on an individual, rather than a collective, voice. By
arguing that language and allusions to ordinary experience had a place in
literaturethat zoku could exist comfortably and legitimately within the
confines of gathey gave support to the notion that commoners have
27
28
34
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
1 The information in this section comes from several sources: Tanaka Yoshinobu,
Yosa Buson (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1996); Yamashita Kazumi, Giy no haijin Yosa Buson;
(Shintensha, 1986); Fujita Shinichi, Buson; and Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu.
36
CHAPTER TWO
37
2 The appendix include full translations of Busons three haishi, the prose portion of
New flower gathering, and the Peaches and plums sequence that is not included in the main
text.
38
CHAPTER TWO
39
Another theory is that Buson left the area because of natural disasters:
several floods and famines struck the area between 1721 and 1735.
40
CHAPTER TWO
However, Buson himself said little about his upbringing and youth, so it
is not known whether or not this is true. In any case, he kept his past a
secret. His only direct reference to his early life survives in a letter he
wrote to two female disciples, Ryjo and Gazui , which states
that he spent his childhood in Kema, a village in Settsu Province, now a
suburb of Osaka. He noted this detail in order to provide a context for
his haishi Verse on the Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment.6 This
poem takes the voice of a young serving woman returning home from
Osaka to Kema, and some scholars have speculated that he based its
persona on memories of his own mother. Whatever his actual parentage
was, no documents exist where he acknowledges it.
Figure 1
Group portrait of haikai sages, detail. Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko.
6 tani Tokuz et al., eds., Buson shokan sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1992), pp. 188189.
Henceforth Buson shokan sh is abbreviated as BSS in the notes.
41
Buson was more keen to create evidence for his poetic ancestry than his
biological one. A striking statement of this kind is his earliest extant
painting, Group portrait of haikai sages, completed while he was in the
northeast (Figure 1). The painting depicts a group of fourteen haikai
poets from the genres beginnings. The earliest are Arakida Moritake
(14731549) and Yamazaki Skan (late fifteenthearly sixteenth centuries); Bash and his disciples Kikaku and
Ransetsu are also included. The most recent poet represented is Busons
own teacher, Hajin.7 Group portrait of haikai sages is a visual work of
genealogy, linking Busons teacher Hajin with a set of eminent poetic
ancestors. It is an important document in the Revival movement,
because it suggests that even at this point, many poets understood
haikais history as a narrative with Bash at its center, setting the stage
for a return to Bash. At the same time, the painting also serves to
establish a lineage for Buson himself. While Busons own image does not
appear, the painting implies that, as Hajins disciple, Buson also becomes
a successor to an illustrious line.
Busons statements in memorial volumes in honor of Hajin such as
Far in the west (Nishi no oku , 1742) and Make the past present
(Mukashi o ima , 1774) also reinforce the relationship between
Buson and Hajin. While it was customary for haikai poets to commemorate their teachers with such collections, Busons comments to these
works suggest a special intimacy with his teacher, and imply that Hajin
acknowledged Busons extraordinary promise:
Not long ago Hajin rescued me from my solitude, and lavished on me an elderly
mans compassion. Surely we had some connection in a previous existence. Now
there is nothing to do to ease my sorrow that he has gone away and will never return. My heart is full and I cannot think of anything to say.
waga namida
furuku wa aredo
izumi kana
Aside from trying to conceal his past and create links to a prestigious
haikai lineage, Buson was also quite critical of other poets in response to
what he perceived as their hostile attitude toward him. For instance, in
later life he looked back on his youthful days in Edo and describes them
7
8
42
CHAPTER TWO
as troubled, as if his poetic style made him unwelcome in the environment in which he found himself. Kits unpublished manuscript related
to the composition of the Peaches and plums sequences quotes Buson as
saying:
Long ago, I was in Edo, and I searched for the inner teachings of the Master Bash, and the verse which I wrote was elegant and refined; mainly, I
aspired to the lofty style of Empty chestnuts and Winter day. However, the
people of the world did not know that kind of excellence. At that time, I
was around 27 years old, not yet past my youth, but because my verse style
had the quality of agedness the people of the world looked at me as if I
were an enemy. Once someone said to me by way of advice, Haikai is
humorous, its main attribute is to make harmony between people and be
amusing. The kind of eccentric thing youre doing deviates from that basic
essence. Why dont you abandon this and give into human feeling? I listened to these words, and, coming to a realization, I finally went to the
northeast and spent some time traveling around.9
43
away. Indeed, old priest Sainen-b uses their verses to patch his
paper coverlet at night, and old nun Myshin-ni uses them to label her jars of miso; is this not a disgrace?10
Buson wrote this in a letter to Kit, who was the target of some unspecified criticism or blame from other Yahantei members soon after the
group formed in 1770. Whatever the circumstances, this letter and others
make it clear that Buson felt he had few equals in Kyoto, but that Kit
was one of them. These statements of superiority should be balanced
against the many in which Buson expresses the worry that his haikai is
not very good. Whatever his true feelings might have been about his own
abilities, there is ample evidence that shows that he regarded almost
everyone around him as his inferior.
Buson reserves some of his most hostile criticism for poets of rural
Bash schools; that is to say, the people who should have been his
closest allies. Generally speaking, he disapproved most strongly of the
poets of the Ise and Mino schools. The following passage appears in his
10 BZ, vol. 4, p. 90. Sainen-b and Myshin-ni are typical clerical names; they refer to
no one in particular.
11 BSS, pp. 2526.
12 BSS, pp. 5859.
44
CHAPTER TWO
The rural Bash poets came in for the most biting criticism in part
because they were vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy, as many poets
associated with these schools taught a watered-down version of Bashs
teachingssimplified so as to appeal to unsophisticated country people.
In essence what they were doing was little different from what tentori
haikai poets were doing, although as ostensible followers of Bash, they
should have known better. Another reason for Busons hostility was that
the rural Bash poets were also the rivals of the urban poets, to whose
lineage Busons teacher Hajin belonged. And though Buson acknowledges that the urban poets were not as good as Bash himself (in one
document he calls them half as good), he thought that the rural school
poets were vastly worseonly one tenth as good as Bash.
Busons letters also testify to a private ambivalence even towards
writers like Ueda Akinari (17341809), Chora and Kytai,
who were strongly supportive of his aims to bring back haikai to the high
standards set for it by Bash. While letters addressed directly to these
people praise them and express wishes for further cooperation, Buson
shows a different side in others. One letter alludes to a rumor going
around the community that Buson and Chora both looked down on each
others verse, and makes haste to deny it.14 Another uncompromisingly
refers to Kytai as narrow-minded.15
The third strategy Buson used to manage his public image was to
avoid definitive statements on the subject of his own poetic style. While
he did not hesitate to point out others mistakes, with one notable
exception, the preface to Shundei verse anthology, he was imprecise in his
prescriptions for good haikai to the point where it appears that he was
afraid of being pinned down by critics. One passage that offers insight
13
45
into Busons attitude about the power of the audience to shape a poets
work through acts of interpretation is included in New flower gathering, in
which he warns his readers against being too hasty in setting out in print
a definitive edition of ones work:
I think it is better not to publish hokku collections. After a collection is
published, ones reputation always diminishes immediately. One cannot
help feeling that works like the Ransetsu anthology (Genbsh ) and
the Otsuy anthology (Bakurinsh ) did not serve the reputation of
their authors. Why should we even discuss those of mediocre poets?16
16 Ransetsu and Otsuy were prominent poets of the urban and rural Bash schools,
respectively. BZ, vol. 4, p. 59.
17 BZ, vol. 4, p. 95.
46
CHAPTER TWO
This preface was written at around the same time as Kits draft cited
above, where Buson is quoted as remembering Edo as full of enemies,
and so their similarity not surprising. However, all of these passages
indicate that Buson is wary of critics who might regard his verse as
antiquated, as insufficiently like his teachers, or unfashionable. He
argues that his verse is unlike most peoples because his ideals are higher
than other peopleshe is trying not to stay up to date with what others
are doing, but to create an authentic expression of his own experience.
Busons relationship with the Bash Revival was a complex one: he
was both apart from the movement and a part of it. On the one hand,
for Buson, the pose of returning to Bash was not just a matter of
slavishly imitating his predecessors poetic style. Rather, he responded to
Bashs example in a way that was informed by the cultural discourse of
the mid-eighteenth centuryone that was quite different from that of
the Genroku period in which Bash was active. Busons verse was
distinguished by a pervasive nostalgia for both an idealized Japanese past
and an imagined China, a sense of gloom and frustration with the social
and political conditions of the daywhich he, like many of his contemporaries, met with a desire for escapeand a playful delight in the
fantastic, the fictional, and the grotesque. On the other hand, Buson
shared with other Revival poets some key values: one, an uncompromis-
18
19
47
48
CHAPTER TWO
20 Ebara Taiz, Shha, in Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13 (Ch Kronsha, 1979),
pp. 294308.
21 BZ, vol. 4, p. 172.
49
Here Buson refers to the early Qing (16441911) Mustard seed garden
manual of painting (Japanese Keshien gaden, Chinese Jieziyuan
huazhuan), compiled by Wang Gai (16451707). The Mustard seed
garden manual was first published in the late seventeenth century in Japan,
and proved so popular that it was reprinted in 1748. It was particularly
influential among nanga artists. The passage that Buson paraphrases,
Avoiding the banal () emphasizes the destructive influence of
commercialism on the ki of artists; reading literary classics, it argues, is
the best way to counteract this poisonous force:
In painting, it is better to be inexperienced (young in chi) than stupid. It is
better to be audacious than commonplace. If the brush is hesitant, it cannot be lively; if commonplace, it most likely will produce only banalities. If
one aims to avoid the banal, there is no other way but to study more assiduously both books and scrolls to encourage the spirit (chi) to rise, for
when the vulgar and the commonplace dominate, the chi subsides. The
beginner should be hopeful and careful to encourage the chi to rise. 23
22
Ibid., p. 172.
Mai-mai Sze, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: Chieh Tzu Yan Chuan,
16791701, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 34. Chi is the WadeGiles romanization of qi.
23
50
CHAPTER TWO
Later, Shha asked which of the many haikai factions that were active at
the time was the best choice for achieving what he called the innermost
teaching. This would seem to have offered a self-serving person an
opening to promote his own method, but Buson shows much more
finesse:
In haikai there are no gates and doors... The various painting masters did
not divide into gates or build doors. Gates and doors exist in themselves.
Haikai is just like this too. Learn exhaustively each tradition, and keep
these in your mind, and you yourself will choose the best from among
them, and make use of it according to the occasion.24
By gates and doors, Buson refers to the different factions that were
active in the haikai community. The Chinese painting masters, he points
out, recognized that loyalty to the teachings and style of any single group
restricted an artists development. Rather than worrying about upholding
a specific literary orthodoxy, Buson says, good haikai poets learn what
they can from a variety of sources, and do not let their devotion to a
particular tradition cloud their judgment. The notion that one should
change ones style according to the occasion frequently occurs in
Busons description of his poetic goals. That is to say, he makes a virtue
of his unwillingness to commit to a particular style.
Furthermore, his mention of factions and the desirability of avoiding
entanglements with them testifies to the fact that there was a great deal
of competition in the haidan, and that poets did well to worry more
about their verse than their standing in any one of them. He goes on to
say, again referring to the world of Chinese art, that one can learn even
from bad examples, thus making clear the Yahantei schools antipathy
towards rural Bash poets at the same time as acknowledging that even
they provide opportunities for learning.
Buson also describes in detail the kind of life a haikai poet should
lead. Most importantly, he says, one must choose the right companions.
I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in Sod,
and accompanying Onitsura, naming three Bash disciples and the
idealistic Uejima Onitsura (16611738) as the best friends that
a poet could have. Of course, all four were long dead, and Buson is really
repeating the recommendation to read books and scrolls that he made
above, but here the classics are not those of Chinese literature, such as
the authors of the Mustard seed garden manual or their Japanese bunjin
24
51
followers would have imagined, but the work of exemplary haikai poets
of the past. What is notable here is that in designating these poets as
right companions, Buson is creating an orthodoxy for haikai, in which
the proper models are not poets of classical elite genres. It may seem
obvious that aspiring haikai poets should emulate other haikai poets.
However, this was a formative phase of the genres development, and
Busons words here are in line with the direction that later forces of
canonization would take: these four poets remain central figures in later
configurations of haikai history.
Afterwards, Buson continues his admonitions, stating that one
should separate oneself from the realm of fame and fortune, enjoy
nature, wine, and witty conversation, and let poems come into the mind
spontaneously, without trying to force them. The behavior that Buson
describes here is precisely the one that admirers of the bunjin sought for
formation themselves; only here he presents it as the most conducive
climate for producing haikai.
The Shundei verse anthology preface is a significant document because
despite its brevity, it touches on a number of issues that were important
to the Bash Revival movement and indeed to the literary discourse of
the late eighteenth century more generally. These issues relate to the
identity of the writer in an era when developments in education,
publishing, and political and economic structures conspired to create an
expanding market of readers whose values and expectations were
different from those of the educated elites of the past. Its central
message, that excellence in writing was a consequence of withdrawal
from competition for commercial success, was a direct response to the
popularization of haikai. It suggests that the efforts of Revival poets like
Buson to find a standard for their verse that neutralized the effects of
zokuthe ordinary, everyday worldwas related to a desire to define an
identity that transcended their lower social status. While few haikai
theorists after Buson were to so explicitly identify haikai and Chinese art
and literature as Buson does in the preface to Shundei verse anthology, the
close connection he makes between poetry and painting continued to be
one of haikais central tenets.
In the next chapter, I will begin discussing Busons hokku, or seventeen-syllable verse, exploring the ways in which the keen awareness that
Buson shows in Shundei verse anthology of pressures on haikai poets
affected his formation as a poet and his early forays into hokku.
CHAPTER THREE
53
makes almost no reference to his natal family or his youth, it is very hard
to tease out the relationship between his verse and his experience in the
first part of his career. Even in his later years, after he established his
reputation as a painter and a poet, the connections between the world
created in his verse and the events of his life are indirect at best. Thus, it
is possible to view many aspects of Busons verse as part of a pattern of
deliberate efforts to construct a public identity and control information
that might influence the reception of his work.
Finally, Busons verse constructs an alternate world, in which the
everyday realities of life are transformed into a landscape drawn from
imagination and the literary tradition. As we shall see in this chapter, a
notable characteristic of many Buson hokku is their ability to create the
sense of an entire fictional narrative in the brief space of seventeen
syllables, transporting the scene to Heian or medieval Japan, or to a
setting derived from Chinese poetry or history. Alternatively, other hokku
describe landscapes with such remote detachment and apparent objectivity that interpreters of Buson in the Meiji era like Masaoka Shiki,
heralded him as a forerunner of objective realism in modern haiku. In
short, Busons verse demands that readers look beyond the details of its
authors life for possible clues to its interpretation.
At the same time, however, it is precisely haikais communal nature,
which makes it impossible to detach from the social context in which it
was written. Busons maturation as a poet was informed by the environment in which he worked, and so any discussion of his verse must be
mindful of the forces in the community that helped to shape it. Also,
while it is not possible to discern obvious shifts in stylistic development
over the course of Busons lifetime, certain general patterns can still be
observed. Thus there is merit to ordering a discussion of his verse
chronologically. With this in mind, I structure my exploration of Busons
hokku in two sections: those he wrote during his time in Edo northeastern Japan and places in and around Kyoto when he was learning the
haikai craft and developing a distinctive voice (17311770), and those
contained in anthologies compiled during the last part of his life (1770
1784) after he became the leader of the Yahantei school. By viewing
Busons hokku as part of a social context, it will be possible to discern
the effect that Busons highly ambivalent awareness of his audience has
on his verse.
54
CHAPTER THREE
55
furu ike no
kawazu oiyuku
ochiba kana
56
CHAPTER THREE
Bash
2 Haruo Shirane, Aisatsu: The Poet as Guest, in New Leaves: Studies and Translations in
Honor of Edward Seidensticker, ed. Aileen Gatten et al. (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 89104.
3 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 37.
57
In Bashs verse, the kireji ya follows furu ike (the old pond), cutting it
into two phrases, the old pond and a frog jumps in / sound of
water. The tension of the verse is created by the juxtaposition of these
two phrases: the contrast between the static image of an old pond,
evocative of stillness and silence, and the dynamic energy of a living
animal, which moves (tobikomu, to jump in) and creates a sound (mizu no
oto, the sound of water). Bash adds another layer of surprise by using
the word kawazu (frog, here acting as the kigo), which by virtue of its honi
suggests to the reader that the sound it will make will be that of its own
voice, calling out to its mate. Bash defies these traditional expectations
by focusing on the plop that it makes jumping into the water. This
creates a situation that is considerably less elegant than what one would
expect from classical waka, and for this reason the verse is gently
comicala parody of classical poetry that refer to kawazu as expressive
of romantic longing. On the surface it might appear to be nothing more
than a description of a natural scene that the poet actually observed, but
it has another layer of meaning that is accessible through an appreciation
of the way that the poet calls on the classical tradition.
Busons verse is in turn a parody of Bashs, adding its voice to the
long ongoing dialogue between Japanese poets and their predecessors.
While Busons verse perhaps could also be interpreted as an account of
something he observed directly, the parallels to Bashs verse are so
obvious it seems unlikely that they were not deliberate, and the addition
of the headnote makes the connection indisputable. Both share the
structure furu ike [particle] / kawazu [verb], which would almost certainly
cause the reader to recall the earlier verse, and in inviting this comparison Buson causes the differences between the two to become the focus
of the readers efforts to interpret his verses meaning. Replacing Bashs
kireji ya with the possessive marker no, and placing his kireji in the
last section of his verse, the old ponds / frog grows elderly is juxtaposed with fallen leaves. As a result, the readers experience is not so
much the amusement of an expectation comically redirected, as we saw
in Bashs hokku; rather, it is more like the relief of a puzzle solved. Read
with the knowledge that this verse is a parody of Bashs landmark The
old pond (Furu ike ya), Busons The old ponds (Furu ike no) can be
interpreted not as an account of the poets observation of a natural
scene, but as a form of address to his poetic predecessor. It then
becomes possible to read it as a comment on the state of the haikai genre
of the day, that is, a statement of frustration and dissatisfaction with the
58
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59
Kyoto and Gik, whose verse was included in Ink of five colors. Hajin
spent about ten years in the Kyoto area, becoming acquainted with a
variety of haikai styles. He returned to Edo in 1737 at the urging of his
disciple Isaoka Gant, a rich merchant who lived in Yki, in present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture; later, Hajin established a haikai school in Nihonbashis Koku-ch, and called it Yahantei (Midnight studio).
Hajin was a forerunner of the kind of poet that would take an active
role in the Revival movement: his approach to haikai was eclectic, openminded, and focused on achieving authentic expression rather than
impressing others or copying his teacher. Busons description of Hajin in
the preface to the memorial volume Make the past present alludes to these
qualities:
One evening, he sat formally and said, The Way of haikai is not necessarily a matter of devoting yourself to your teachers rules. Change with the
times, transform with the times, in a spontaneous manner, disregarding
what has existed before or what may come into being later is the way it
should be. Struck by this meditation-masters rod I had a sudden insight,
and have some small understanding of the authentic freedom of haikai. 4
60
CHAPTER THREE
point of origin of some issues that were common to Busons poetry all
of his life. Most importantly, it is possible to identify the genesis of a
spirit of resistance, that is to say a rejection of the kinds of frivolous
verse that were the mainstay of the tentori and commercially-minded
urban haikai poets. As we shall see, Buson starts his career with verses
that show a delight in the kind of superficial word play that was popular
with the urban school, but he also wrote some that suggest the beginning
of a desire to transcend the common, popular modes of haikai practice
of the day.
Indeed, from Busons earliest days as a haikai poet, it is possible to
discern three consistent themes: first, a stance critical of the haidan,
second, a strong tendency to create fictional worlds, and third, frequent
allusions to Bash and his work. These three themes intertwine, since the
desire for escape to an idealized world of the imagination and the
valorization of Bashs example are both linked to Busons anxiety and
rejection of what he saw as the vulgarity of the contemporary haidan.
The earliest verse that can be attributed to Buson was included in
Fourth month principles (Uzuki teikin ), an illustrated haikai
collection edited by Rogetsu (16671751) that was published in
1737. Buson also contributed a picturea line drawing of a young
woman reading a letter, seated alongside a small pile of plant stems:
amadera ya
jya ni todoku
bin kazura
at the convent
a cosmetic arrives
during the Ten Nights Ceremony5
61
hundred poets, one poem each (Hyakunin isshu ). In this verse, the
persona addresses the vine, asking it to draw his absent beloved to him:
na ni shi owaba
Osakayama no
sanekazura
hito ni shirarede
kuru yoshi mo gana
Sanj no Udaijin
In keeping with the urban style, the hokku is humorous: though the
woman is in a convent, her mind is not on her devotions, but on the
lover who has sent her the letter. The verse was written on the topic of
things associated with Kamakura, and Buson chooses two of them
Tkei-ji temple and a beauty aidto make a comic juxtaposition.
Other Buson verses of this period also show a taste for light-hearted
word play, such as this one from Peaches and cherries (Momosakura ,
1739), Hajins memorial anthology honoring the thirty-third anniversary
of the death of his teacher, Kikaku:
suribachi no
misomi meguri ya
tera no shimo
the mill
grinds miso thirty-three times
frost at the temple7
Misomi means thirty-three, and it contains the word miso, soybean paste.
Meguri, turns, refers both to the action of the mill turning to grind the
soybeans, and the thirty-three times the year has turned since Kikakus
death. The mill (Suribachi no) is a fitting aisatsu to Kikaku, who was
fond of using word games in his hokku.
While these verses are consistent with the urban style, others suggest
that Buson was already developing a desire to avoid its excesses, and to
aspire for something a little more aesthetically ambitious. One example is
this verse from the Yahantei new years day booklet (saitanch ) of
1738:
Fuji o mite
tru hito ari
toshi no ichi
6
7
Haruyama Yko, Hyakunin isshu, Koten shinshaku shiriizu 18 (Chdkan, 2003), p. 42.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 7.
62
CHAPTER THREE
Year-end market (toshi no ichi) is a market that sold goods for the new
year; it was open from the middle to the end of the Twelfth Month. In
the midst of the crowds at the market, the verses persona takes a
moment to appreciate the sight of Mount Fuji, clearly visible in the crisp
winter air. On one level it is a fairly typical new years hokku, bringing
together the lofty image of Mount Fuji with the more mundane but still
felicitous image of the year-end market. At the same time, as Shimizu
Takayuki has argued, it also conveys another meaning: Busons feelings
of loneliness and isolation within the Edo haidan, where poets were so
concerned with profiting financially from their verses that they failed to
notice its potential for elegance and grandeur.9
Other very early Buson verses, published under the name Saich
(or )which he used until around 1744, are similarly bland and
conventionalized, like these that were included in new years anthologies:
ume sageta
ware ni shiwasu no
hito tru
omonoshi no
yoake o neiru
shiwasu kana
the seamstress
still asleep at dawn
year-end rush11
Shiwasu (year-end rush) refers to the period just before New Years day,
when people hurried to pay off lingering debts, tidy the house, and
prepare themselves to start the new year with a clean slate. In Carrying a
branch of plum (Ume sageta) the speaker is surrounded by busy,
distracted people, and he alone takes the time to appreciate the beauty of
the signs of coming springin this case, plum blossoms. In The
seamstress (Omonoshi no) a young woman, having stayed up late working
on the sewing projects she needs to finish in time for new years day, is
too weary to wake up even though it is daylight.
This final very early Buson verse is also in celebration of the new year,
though it uses a slightly different strategy:
shirami toru
kojiki no tsuma ya
ume ga moto
63
This is a good example of the way that haikais humor derives from its
combination of elements of literary elegance with images of ordinary life.
Shirami (lice) and kojiki (beggar) belong to the realm of zoku. Plum trees
in blossom (ume), on the other hand, are a classical poetic topic. Following the description of a lower-class person engaged in a base physical
activity with a reference to the graceful blossoms, which Buson frequently uses as an emblem of purity, creates a sense of dissonance that is
gently comic.
12
13
years end
rubbish goes floating by
on the Sakura River13
64
CHAPTER THREE
This hokku is another good example of the way that haikai brings
together the realms of the elegant and the everyday. The Sakura River
runs along the south of Mount Tsukuba (in modern Ibaraki Prefecture),
and was an utamakura (poetic place name) associated with cherry
blossoms. Mount Tsukuba was connected with renga because it is
mentioned in the poem exchange between the legendary figures Yamato
Takeru no Mikoto and Keeper of the Fires which is considered the earliest example of the genre:
nibari
tsukuba o sugite
iku yo ka netsuru
After passing
Niibari and Tsukuba
how many nights have I slept?
Counting them up
of nights there have been nine
and of days there have been ten14
14 Mack Horton, Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sch and Poetic Life in Late
Medieval Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 196197.
15 BZ, vol. 1, p. 11.
65
to Edo for business, and that way stay in touch with urban trends.
Intellectually, too, wealthy Shimsa merchants rivaled their urban
counterparts, and Busons circle of acquaintance included highly
educated and literate people. These affluent Shimsa commoners were
very comfortable in economic terms, and they were eager to acquire the
kind of prestige afforded by patronage of artists like Buson.
While in the northeast Buson depended on these patrons for financial
backing and access to paintings and books that he could study, but they
were useful to him in another way: they offered him a community where
he could practice his haikai. In return, Busons presence brought them
the prestige and social recognition associated with being sophisticated
supporters of the arts.
The Impact of Chinese Poetry: Busons Narrow road to the interior Journey
In addition to the financial help and companionship he received from his
patrons during this period, Buson also benefited from exposure to their
knowledge of Chinese poetry. As we have seen, the early part of the
eighteenth century saw a rise in interest in the Chinese classics and the
figure of the bunjin. Busons frequent allusions to Chinese poetry can be
understood as part of this phenomenon, as his patrons in the northeast
were interested in the bunjin ideal, and many of them composed kanshi as
well as haikai.
It is likely that one of his earliest encounters with Chinese poetry was
through the teachings of Hattori Nankaku, a disciple of Ogy Sorai,
whose academy of Chinese learning was not far from where he stayed
when he visited Edo after Hajins death. Though the evidence is slight,
most scholars agree that Buson either studied with Nankaku directly or
absorbed some of his teachings through his students. Also, Gant was
acquainted with Nankaku, and would have been able to introduce the
two.
Nankaku was one of his generations most prominent teachers and
writers of kanshi. He had originally been in the service of Yanagisawa
Yoshiyasu (16581714) advisor to shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (16461709) and the founder of the famous Tokyo
Rikugien garden. However, Nankaku eventually left his position
with Yoshiyasu to open his own private academy. Like his mentor Sorai,
Nankaku emphasized the connection between poetry and virtue and put
66
CHAPTER THREE
16 Yamamoto Kazuyoshi and Yokoyama Hiroshi, eds., Edo shijin sensh, vol. 3, Hattori
Nankaku, Gion Nankai (Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 337344.
17 BZ, vol. 1, no. 12.
18 Masaoka Shiki, for instance, includes this verse as one example of Busons Objective beauty in Haijin Buson, Haikai taiy (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), p. 118.
67
Saigy
While the willow about which Saigy wrote his verse was one he saw on
a painted screen, the waka became the basis of legend. Saigy and the
willow became the subject of the N play, The traveling priest and the willow
(Yugy yanagi ). A tree in Ashino, in modern Tochigi Prefecture,
came to be identified with Saigys willow. Bash, who admired Saigy,
visited it on his Narrow road to the interior journey. He composed this
verse:
ta ichimai
uete tachisaru
yanagi kana
a whole field
was planted before I left
a willow20
Bash
Bash himself went on many journeys to famous poetic sites, and
recontextualized them as haikai. Busons visit to the site of Saigys
willow some fifty years later was homage to Bash as well as Saigy and
the verse he wrote acknowledges and confirms haikais links to the
classical tradition. However, in the spirit of Bashs kanshibunch style,
Buson takes this process a step further, recasting the classical Japanese
literary tradition into the context of Chinese poetry, thus making a
familiar trope strange and new. Here orthography becomes a particularly
effective device. The early printed versions of this verse present it
entirely in Chinese characters, and even later versions minimize the use
of kana, so that the verse looks very much like a line of kanshi. Buson
also uses strict syntactic parallelism: a noun followed by a verb in yanagi
chiri (willow leaves, fallen) / shimizu kare (stream dried out)a characteristic of Chinese literary prose and poetry. Bashs hokku A whole
field (Ta ichimai) takes up the theme of the passage of time so sensitively
expressed in Saigys waka, and reworks it in a haikaiesque mode by
linking it with the ordinary work of farmers planting their fields. Buson
takes this reworking another step. Instead of using imagery from the
world of common experience to create a contrast with the elegant
19 Hisamatsu Senichi, ed., NKBT, vol. 28, Shin kokin waka sh (Iwanami Shoten,
1958), no. 262.
20 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 85.
68
CHAPTER THREE
Although Matsushima had been one of Bashs most important destinations on his trip through northeastern Japan, when he finally saw it,
Bash declares that it was too beautiful to write a hokku about it. Buson
does not try to achieve more than his predecessor did. He compares his
own experience to an empty shell: hollow and inadequate to the task of
responding to the sublime vision of the moon over Matsushimas islanddotted bay.
Moonlight plays a major role in another verse written during this
journey. This one is not explicitly connected to the Narrow road to the
interior journey, but it is worth noting because of its great charm. The
verse is introduced with an extensive headnote:
Once I was on my way to Michinoku from Dewa, when it ended up that I was in
the mountains when night was falling, I barely managed to get to a place called
Yashiyabukuro, and I sought lodgings. All night there was a noise like the sound of
something thumping, but when, full of fear, I got up to look, in the garden of the
ancient temple there was an elderly custodian, pounding barley with a mortar and
pestle. When I went out there for a stroll, the moon shone on the lone peak, a
breeze blew through the thousand-bamboo thicket, and there are no words to describe the scenery of the clear night.
suzushisa ni
mugi o tsuku yo no
Uhei kana
21
22
in the cool
a moonlit night of pounding barley
oh, Uhei22
69
The interest of this verse hinges on its use of homonyms. Mugi o tsuku
refers to the practice of using a large mortar and pestle to grind barley.
Tsukuyo is a moonlit night. Therefore, tsuku is a pivot word, simultaneously referring to grind and to the moon. Also, Uhei is a male
personal name, and on the surface it refers to the elderly temple custodian, who has put off the sweaty work of grinding barley until after
nightfall, when it is cooler. However, Buson writes his name with the
character u , rabbit, which sets off another chain of associations.
According to popular belief, the shadows on the face of the moon form
an image of a rabbit using a mortar and pestle to make mochi. Seeing the
man pounding barley in the cool of the evening, the speaker draws a
connection to the legend of the rabbit in the moon.
In his later years, Buson painted two haiga versions of this poem and
its headnote. In these versions, he includes simple sketches of the rabbit
and his mortar and pestle. The figure of the rabbit is presented in a very
whimsical, endearing fashion, dressed in a mans jacket and standing on
two legs and using his front paws like hands to hold the pestle.
The practice of retracing Bashs steps on the many journeys that he
recorded in haikai travel diaries like Narrow road to the interior and Record of
a weather-beaten skeleton (Nozarashi kik , compiled 1685
1687) became more common as the popularity of Bash spread,
eventually turning into a kind of pilgrimage route for aspiring poets who
came to call Bash haisei , haikai saint. Busons journey in 1743 was
in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bashs death, and the
fifty years that were to follow saw an increasing number of observances
and events like these that contributed to the positioning of Bash and
his school as the center of the haikai community. Even at this point,
Buson was not a mindless imitator of Bashs style. However, his teacher
had been the student of a Bash disciple. Furthermore, even fifty years
later haikai poets in the area northeast of Edo cherished the memory of
Bashs visits and had the highest respect for his travel diaries that
elevated their own hometownswhich historically had been viewed as
rustic and uncivilizedinto literary space. In short, it would have been
difficult for Buson to ignore Bashs legacy while he was in the northeast, and indeed, he was able to make use of his connections to it in
numerous ways throughout his life.
70
CHAPTER THREE
At Daitoku-ji
hototogisu
e ni nake higashi
shirojir
hototogisu
sing to the painting
the east is blanched white24
23 James Cahill, The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 162163.
24 BZ, vol. 1, no. 33.
25 Yamashita Kazumi, Buson no sekai (Yhikaku, 1982), p. 33.
71
autumn already
this cicadas
brief life26
26
72
CHAPTER THREE
painters like Buson might lead in Kyoto. This is a good example of the
hokkus function in a linked verse sequence: retooling an elegant poetic
phrase into something suitable for the occasion, Buson both praises his
host and amuses the other guests with its cleverness.
Motsu was another important early acquaintance in Kyoto. Motsu
was not the most important of Busons associates, and information
about him is sparse. However, the two texts that were created in the
context of their relationship demonstrate both poets commitment to
haikai reform, and the sense of solidarity that they felt in sharing this
goal. The first is Busons afterword to the collection Ancient and modern
poetry card anthology of 1751. As we saw in Chapter One, Buson uses the
opportunity to lambaste commercially minded poets like tentori aficionados and traveling tenja. Editors of haikai anthologies usually tried to find
a prominent poet to contribute introductory pieces for their anthologies,
and the fact that Motsu invited Busonwho was then an unknown
to write the afterword of Ancient and modern poetry card anthology suggests
that he felt some strong affinity with Buson; the fact that they had a
common view of the degenerate state of the haikai community clearly
influenced his choice.27
The Buson hokku that Motsu included in Ancient and modern poetry card
anthology is affecting and sweet, rather than critically charged:
Yamaga ni yadoru
sarudono no
yosamu toiyuku
usagi kana
27
28
Tanaka, p. 53.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 24.
73
quince
also means shave your head
Edo talk29
The verse is a comic aisatsu to Motsu, who like Buson, kept his head
shaved in the manner of a priest. The hokkus headnote is also lighthearted, but contains a suggestion that Buson and Motsu shared a sense
of idealism about their role in the haikai community:
The first thing I did when I arrived in Kyoto was visit Motsu. When
Motsu had traveled to Edo, he and I became harmonious friends. In
those days we promised to transform the haikai world together, to take the
tonsure, wear priests clothes, and extol the moon over the capital. He did
not go back on his promise in the least, and recently changed his status to
that of a priest, and took the name of Taimu . While we were talking
about the past, of matters such as how earnest had been our interest in
knowing to the utmost the dreams of the floating world, Kchiku
came along carrying quinces (marumero) in his sleeve as a pious offering,
and I made up this verse 30
The headnote untangles the meaning of this somewhat cryptic hokku, but
more importantly, it is a statement of Busons sense of common purpose
with Motsu in aiming to effect some change in the state of affairs in the
haikai world.
The most significant relationship that Buson formed during this period, however, was his friendship with Miyake Shzan. Shzan, a
pawnbroker by trade, was active in Kyoto and Edo literary circles for
decades. He was an extremely productive kanshi poet: his collected
kanshi, Shzan kanshi anthology (Shzan shish , preface dated
1789), fills ten volumes. Well-versed in other kinds of Chinese literature,
he also wrote tales that were modeled after Chinese vernacular fiction.
Shzan is also noted for having published several important haikai
anthologies, including Haikai selected old verses, Kyoto twenty kasen (Heian
nijikkasen , 1769) and Haikai selected modern verses (Haikai
29
30
74
CHAPTER THREE
faint darkness
a flounder glints
in the light of the lingering chill
Shzan
baku no
ren no karabi ya
fuyukodachi
Shzan
Even the second verse, which alludes to the baku sect of Zenan
important source of Chinese learning in the early modern perioduses
the words baku and ren as decorative and distancing. In other
words, Shzans haikai verses are not kanshi written in Japanese. Despite
his familiarity with Chinese literature in other contexts, in Shzans
haikai China is a source of romance and exoticism.
In any case, Shzan was an important mentor for Buson during this
part of his career, and Buson was careful to maintain this relationship
even when he was working outside Kyoto. A letter Buson wrote to
Shzan from Tango around two years after he arrived explains one of
the reasons that he wrote few hokku while he was there. In this area,
31
75
Busons disdain for the local accent is perhaps not surprising to hear
from someone who was trying to gain acceptance in the capital, which
was the center of culture and refinement. However, given the antipathy
for the area that he expresses here it is not clear why he chose to take
Yosa as his surname.
The letter to Shzan also includes a hokku:
Kenk wa
kinu mo itowaji
koromogae
Yoshida Kenk
surely did not disapprove of silk too
day of changing to summer clothes
32
BSS, p. 26.
76
CHAPTER THREE
The juxtaposition of sandals in hand (te ni zri) with oh, the joy!
(ureshisa yo) makes a direct and visceral statement of the speakers delight.
As the headnote makes clear, Buson is praising the landscape around
Kaya not just as being visually appealing, but pleasant in a more tactile
way. On another level, the verse recasts the ordinary, unremarkable
Japanese setting into a more elegant and exotic Chinese one by alluding
to White Rock Shoal, a verse written by Pei Di (fl. 72050), as
part of an exchange with Wang Wei:
White Rock Shoal
On tiptoe, on a rock, again I face the water
I have not yet had enough of playing in the waves
33
77
But the sun has set, and the river shoal runs cold
Clouds float in paleness, without color.
Pei Dis verse was part of a series of twenty quatrains that he wrote in
response to a series of quatrains written by Wang Wei on the subject of
the landscape on the Wang River estate. Buson deeply admired Wang
Wei, who was also a poet and a painter, and an exemplar of the bunjin
ideal. His reference to this famous exchange between friends in his hokku
was high praise to his addressee, as it put their friendship on the same
level as that of the famous Chinese poets. Whether this was the direct
result of his acquaintance with Shzan, or grew out of the exposure to
Chinese poetry Buson had in Edo and in Yki is impossible to establish.
However, it seems clear that there was a great deal of crossover between
the communities of haikai and kanshi poets.
78
CHAPTER THREE
sararetaru
mi o funkonde
taue kana
though divorced,
she stamps down hard
planting rice34
34
35
79
waga sono no
makuwa mo nusumu
kokoro kana
yumitori no
obi no hirosa yo
takamushiro
narrowness of
the warriors belt
bamboo mat39
The topic of Getting a half-days rest (Hanjitsu no) is semi no koe, the
droning sound that cicadas make at the height of summer that seems to
make a hot day even hotter. Busons verse makes use of a pun that
would be recognized by someone familiar with the work of the Chinese
36 Tanaka, p. 92; Ogata Tsutomu, Yosa Buson: Kaiga to bungaku, roundtable discussion with Sasaki Jhei, Hirai Terutoshi, and Hayakawa Monta, Bungaku 52, 10 (1984):
23.
37 BZ, vol. 1, no. 57.
38 BZ, vol. 1, no. 59.
39 BZ, vol. 1, no. 61.
80
CHAPTER THREE
40
81
43
44
82
CHAPTER THREE
45
83
These three Taigi hokku are especially good examples of his lucid,
untrammeled style:
hanetsuku ya
yo gokoro shiranu
matage
playing hanetsuki
unaware of the ways of the world
they run boisterously49
Taigi
furakoko no
eshaku koboruru ya
takami yori
bowing
in a swing
from a height50
Taigi
iro iro ni
tani no kotaeru
yukige kana
Taigi
The first two verses are perceptive and wonderfully sympathetic
observations of children at play. In the first, Playing hanetsuki (Hanetsuki ya) Taigi describes the behavior of little girls engrossed in a New
Years Day game where a shuttlecock is batted back and forth with a
wooden paddle. The player who keeps the shuttlecock in the air longest
wins. The girls in Taigis verse are so intent on their play that they forget
to act like ladies, and instead shout and run around indecorously. In
Bowing (Furakoko no) a child seems to dip his or her head, as the swing
reaches the top of its arc, much as people do in nodding greetings to one
another. Finally, in From other valleys (Iro iro ni) the spring thaw
causes masses of snow to crack and shift noisily, and water trickles
loudly in mountain streams. Neighboring valleys ring with the many
sounds of lifes regeneration.
Despite the fact that Taigi lived in the licensed district under the
patronage of a brothel owner, his verse maintains a serene detachment
from vulgarity and worldly concerns. This was what most impressed
49 Abe Kimio and As Isoji, eds., NKBT, vol. 92, Kinsei haiku haibun sh (Iwanami
Shoten, 1964), p. 153.
50 Ibid., p. 153.
51 Kuriyama Riichi et al., eds., Nihon koten bungaku zensh, vol. 42, Kinsei haiku haibun
sh (Shgakukan, 1972), p. 236.
84
CHAPTER THREE
Buson, who was aiming for a similar kind of high-mindedness in his own
verse.
The other member of the Sankasha group that was to have a profound impact on Busons work was Kuroyanagi Shha, in whose honor
Buson wrote the Shundei kush preface. Kuroyanagi Shha was of a more
conservative temperament than Taigi, but was still an eccentric; he
retired from his business at the age of 40 to pursue the arts. As we
discussed in Chapter Two, Shhas early training had been in Chinese
learning, and he was probably instrumental in informing Buson about
Chinese literature and thought. Shha began to take part in Sankasha
meetings in the last few years of the 1760s, and Buson considered him,
with Taigi, one of the two leading poets in the group. Often Sankasha
meetings were held at his studio, the Shhatei .52
Like Taigi, Shha led a life that was an embodiment of the ideals that
Buson was trying to achieve with his theories of rizoku or using the
mundane at the same time as keeping distant from it. As Buson tells us
in his preface to Five cartloads of wastepaper (Gosha hgu , 1783),
though he lived in the midst of the city, Shha typified the bunjin ideal of
detachment and transcendence. Buson describes Shhas son Korekomas experience of looking through a collection of his fathers papers
posthumously, and notes that it was full of kanshi, unfinished fragments
of hokku covered with corrections, and letters from companions inviting
him to go cherry blossom- or snow-viewingeverything one might
expect to find in a proper bunjin recluse:
When Korekoma was observing the thirteenth anniversary of his fathers
death, he made a collection and called it Five Cartloads of Wastepaper.
There was no profound reason for doing so, but naturally he gave it this
name because of his fathers verse, Holed up for the winter. Furthermore, when he untied the string of the overstuffed bag that was full of the
writings he had amassed, there were manuscripts of kanshi exchanges,
there were letters of invitation to go cherry-blossom viewing, and there
were letters from drinking companions that made invitations like, How
about going to look at the snow tonight? There were also dashed-off
verse sequences, still half-finished, marked here and there with corrections. On the backs of these were written the verses of many other people,
and also his own. 53
52
53
Yajima, p. 142.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 225226.
85
Shhas hokku are varied, but especially compelling are those that are
informed by his bunjin ideals:
ganjitsu ya
kusa no to goshi no
mugibatake
Shha
kaidan no
ushiro fuke yuku
yosamu kana
Shha
The first verse mentions a thatched cottage, a bunjins typical dwelling
remote and evocative of genteel poverty. The speaker is spending a quiet,
constrained new year, with few material comforts with which to celebrate. However, the barley field across from his house has sprouted, and
its gentle green suggests hope for a bright new year. The speaker in the
second verse has been staying up late on a summer night sharing scary
stories with friends. Suddenly the hair stands up on the back of his
neckis it just a chilly breeze, or has he crossed paths with a ghost? An
appreciation for the grotesque is also a hallmark of Japanese bunjin, and
54 Takai Kit, Shin ztan sh, in Shimizu Takayuki, ed., Koten haibungaku taikei, vol.
14, Chk hairon haibun sh (Sheisha, 1971), p. 405.
55 NKBT, vol. 92, p. 174.
56 Ibid., p. 176.
86
CHAPTER THREE
like Buson, Shha was fond of describing situations tinged with the
supernatural.
Two more Shha verses that illustrate his bunjin-inspired tastes are:
uki koto o
kurage ni kataru
namako kana
Shha
fuyu gomorite
gosha no hgu no
aruji kana
Shha
While humor is fundamental to all kinds of haikai, the strategy Shha
uses here is considerably different from the sort of ostentatious puns or
scatological jokes favored by many of his contemporaries. Here the
comedy is gentle, elevated, even a bit mad. An appreciation for small,
cute thingsfox cubs in some cases, sparrows, or as in the case of
Telling melancholy things (Uki koto o), conversational sea slugsis
connected to the bunjin ideal. Likewise, in Holed up for the winter
(Fuyu gomorite), the speakers insatiable mania for poetry has got him
almost buried in a flurry of drafts. Both verses are statements of a
refined sensibility that sets them apart from the popular, commercially
successful haikai of the day.
57
58
87
In total, Sankasha met forty times between the Sixth Month of 1766
and the Ninth Month of 1770. Hokku composed at its meetings were
collected into an anthology called From summer (Natsu yori ). Even
though the groups professed purpose was to recapture the ideals of
haikai poets of the past, the From summer hokku bear little resemblance to
those of Bash and his contemporaries. Busons contributions are
outstanding, as are many of Taigis, and it appears that this is the period
when Buson begins to find some confidence in his work as a poet. In
general, Busons From Summer hokku show characteristics that were to
become the hallmarks of his mature style: the suggestion of narrative,
often based in classical or medieval Japanese literature, allusions to
Chinese poetry, and a facility for building into the restrictive seventeen
syllables of the hokku form a sense of vastness in time and space.
I will discuss four kinds of verses from Busons Sankasha period. The
first date from the sessions that met before Buson left for Sanuki, are
unambitious, even bland. The verses that Buson wrote after his return,
however, are quite different, and show that Buson was finding his own
poetic voice. The first type shows Busons fascination with classical
Japanese and Chinese literature; in the second, Buson describes a scene
that is metonymic of a larger narrative. In the third, Buson plays with
imagery related to time and space in another way that shows his efforts
to overcome the snapshot-like quality of hokku and to convey a sense of
nostalgia.
Sankasha only met twice in 1766 before Buson left for Sanuki. The
following are good examples of the somewhat plain and flat hokku of
these first two meetings:
hirugao ya
machi ni nariyuku
kui no kazu
convovulus
approaching the town
there are a number of signposts59
hatsuka ji no
senaka ni tatsu ya
kumo no mine
59
88
CHAPTER THREE
Both Convolvulus (Hirugao ya) and Twenty days road (Hatsuka ji no)
describe the experience of travel, but they are entirely generalized and
imaginary. They were written not to celebrate a particular place, but to
come as close as possible to capture the honi (conventional meaning) of
the assigned topic, convolvulus (hirugao) and peak of cloud (kumo no
mine).
The following verses were written after Busons return from Sanuki,
and show a marked change. They are good examples of the type of
Buson verse that alludes to an imagined Chinese past:
aoume ni
mayu atsumetaru
bijin kana
ayu kurete
yorade sugiyuku
yowa no kado
In the first verse, the seasonal topic is aoume (green plum), a fresh,
enlivening image of a plum tree in new leaf. Sitting underneath is a
beautiful woman, whose brows are knitted. The allusion is to the famous
Chinese beauty Xi Shi (Japanese Seishi), whose face was marked by
a perpetual frown owing to her sorrow at being sent to serve in a foreign
court. Busons beauty scowls not out of sadness: green plums are so sour
to the taste just looking at them makes her contort her face. Under the
green plum trees (Aoume ni) makes a humorous twist on a sad, romantic
story. Similarly, the second verse alludes to a Chinese setting, this time
imagining a relationship between two literati. The gift of sweetfish (ayu),
admired for its clean fragrance, would be appropriate when the recipient
is a person of discrimination and taste. The giver comes late on a
summer night, and leaves without waiting for thanks or praiseprecisely
the kind of gesture that one refined literatus would extend to another.
In the second type of verse, Buson creates the impression of a larger
story behind his words. The situations in these verses range from broad,
panoramic scenes that could have been taken from an epic telling of
history, such as the medieval war narrative Tale of the Heike (Heike
monogatari ), or they focus on small private scenesthe quiet
62
63
89
kogarashi ya
ika ni yo wataru
ie go ken
winter wind
however do they get through life
in these five houses?65
yado kasanu
hokage ya yuki no
ie tsuzuki
lights
where they refused me lodging
house after house66
64
90
CHAPTER THREE
end of spring
the poet
resents the poetry judge68
maku majiki
sumai o nemono
gatari kana
Komabune no
yorade sugiyuku
kasumi kana
The first verse juxtaposes two examples of regret. Regret for the end of
spring was considered an elegant emotion, particularly appropriate for
sensitive poets. Senja mainly refers to an editor or compiler of a poetry
anthology. The poet in this hokku has his elegant regret for the end of
spring compounded by his more earthy resentment at having his work
passed over again by yet another unsympathetic editor. The second verse
presents a persona of a different social status, but one who is also
disappointed: a defeated sum wrestler chatting gloomily with his wife
before falling asleep. Many years later, in 1783, Buson used it as an
inscription for a painting that included verses by Ransetsu, Rykyo,
Taigi, and Kit, with the headnote, Feeling nostalgia for the past, but
in From summer, it appears in a series of verses written on the assigned
topic sum (sumai). Finally, in the third verse, the spring season word
hazy mist (kasumi) creates a mysterious, otherworldly atmosphere,
blurring the boundaries between the past and the present. Komabune
(Koguryo ship) refers to official ships that sailed from the continent to
Japan up until the Nara period, a practice that ended almost a thousand
years before Busons lifetime. The word lends the verse an archaic,
storybook quality.
68
91
In the third type of verse, Buson represents time and its passing. One
way he does this is to show the progression of time by contrasting the
present with the past in a single location:
ikanobori
kin no sora no
aridokoro
paper kite
in the same place as it was
in yesterdays sky71
kin ini
ky ini kari no
naki yo kana
here yesterday
here today; tonight
the geese cry, flying72
hana chirite
konoma no tera to
nari ni keri
blossoms fallen
the space between
turned into a temple73
All of these verses share the same point of view: the speaker is looking
up at the sky, observing similar phenomena on separate occasions. In
Paper kite (Ikanobori) it is a kite that appears in the same place as it had
on the previous day. Kite flying was an activity for boys, especially
during the new year season; in this sense, the kite links the present not
only to the immediate past, but to the more distant past of the speakers
own childhood: it reminds him not only of the kite he saw yesterday, but
of those he played with himself as a child. Similarly, in Here yesterday
(Kin ini), the speakers observation is of something flying in the sky
abovethis time, geese flying back to their northern breeding grounds
after spending the winter in Japan. While most spring topics are hopeful
and convey a sense of optimism, geese (kari) is tinged with regret, and
filled with the same gentle melancholy as the geeses farewell calls. As in
Paper kite, the fact that the situation is identical yesterday, today, and
tonight only further serves to emphasize that time, like the geese
themselves, is passing by. Lastly, in Blossoms fallen (Hana chirite),
Buson focuses on a particular detail of the landscape to convey the sense
of times passing. When the cherry trees were in full bloom, the temple
was hidden behind masses of blossoms and the crowds of visitors who
had come to see them. Now that the blossoms have fallen, space has
opened up between the branches to reveal the temple. The visitors are all
71
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CHAPTER THREE
gone too, and the place has returned to its usual state of contemplation
and silence.
The From summer manuscript is the record of a dedicated, energetic
group of poets who met regularly once or twice a month for the better
part of two years. Their membership was also steady, and by the last
several sessions included thirteen or fourteen people. However, the
record trails off with the meeting on the sixth day of the ninth month of
1769spaces are left blank above the names of several of the poets, as if
waiting for verses that were yet to be composed. The end of Sankasha,
however, was really a beginning: the attendance roster of the Yahantei
school that Buson established the following year shows that at its start
the new group was basically Sankasha with a new name.
The hokku of Busons early years are few in number, but they still
demonstrate a certain amount stylistic development. His very earliest
hokku show a marked influence of urban school haikai and its delight in
impressive displays of word play and cleverness. This tendency becomes
muted as Buson begins to associate himself more closely with the rural
poets of the northeast. After he moved to Kyoto and began to work
towards establishing himself as a painter there, his verse starts to take on
many of the characteristics that were to make it distinctive, such as an
affinity for Chinese literary models and nostalgia for an idealized past.
Busons early hokku are most notable, though, for the way that they
offer insight into the close relationship that haikai composition had with
the community that produced it. The volume of Busons haikai fluctuates
greatly depending on where he traveledwhile his production was
relatively large when he was in the northeast, it slowed to almost nothing
during his years in Tangoa place where, by his own description, there
were few people worth working with. This is also the case when he visits
Sanuki. It is not until he begins to gain a foothold in Kyoto and find
himself in the company of other talented poets like Taigi and Shha that
the quality of his verse begins to improve markedly, and he starts to
attain a strong and confident voice. However, despite Busons growing
maturity as a poet, and the standing he gained in the haikai community,
he continued to avoid formal engagement with that community.
In the next chapter, I will take a closer look at Yahantei and the anthologies it produced, to consider the ways in which Buson negotiated
between his public status as a leader of the haikai community and
professional painter on the one hand, and his espousal of the bunjin
amateur recluse ideal on the other.
CHAPTER FOUR
1
2
BSS, p. 36.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 727.
94
CHAPTER FOUR
95
drens game, as artists do, but at least to maintain for a long time, sometimes a whole lifetime, a childs relation to the world.4
4
5
Bourdieu, p. 5354.
Cahill, p. 154161.
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Yahantei Procedure
Yahanteis meetings, like those of Sankasha, were relatively egalitarian:
they were conducted in a discussion format where every member of the
group was encouraged to express his opinion. Those who were excessively critical or who flattered others were not invited back. This
indicates that even after he re-opened Yahantei, Busons ambivalence
about the work of a haikai master persisted. Although he was the head of
the group, he did not dominate it. Furthermore, much of the work of
organizing and editing anthologies for Yahantei he left up to his disciples, mainly Takai Kit.
We can gain some insight into Busons views on Yahantei from Rules
for selection, his statement on the schools procedure and standards of
excellence.6 They are particularly valuable given the fact that Buson
wrote so few articulations of his poetic theory.
1. All of these styles may be chosen: The powerful ones of Kikaku. The
highly-regarded verses of Ransetsu. The straightforward verses of Kyorai.
The lighthearted verses of Sod. Bakurin (Otsuy) and Shiks verse styles
are vulgar but both established his own school, and some of theirs may be
chosen.
2. What binds all of these poets is Master Bash. However, the ones
who come close to Bash, Kikaku and Ransetsu, are only half as good.
Bakurin and Shik are only one-tenth as good.
3. There are those in the world who call themselves Shmon (the
Bash school). In particular they do not know the style of Master Bash.
The verses that they compose as well as what they theorize about do not
get beyond the level of Shibaku7 commonness. There are times when
these are called Ise School or Mino School. How can we call them Shmon? People in the know call them by the nickname Backwoods Bash
school....
5. Knowing the Great Way of haikai is nothing other than this: extolling the moon and appreciating the blossoms, causing your mind to venture outside of the world of dust, always keeping as friends those who dip
into the stream of Master Bash, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. You should consider escape from the spirit of vulgarity to be the best way.
6 The text is preserved in two versions that were transcribed by his disciples, one,
Teramura Hyakuchis (17491835) Posthumous Buson writings anthology (Buson
iboku sh ), and the other Kits Treatise on verse-marking (Tenin ron ,
1786). Written in kanbun (the Japanese form of classical Chinese) with Japanese glosses
added, the two versions are nearly identical in content. The text of paragraph 4 is quoted
in Chapter Two.
7 That is, they are similar to the styles of Bakurin and Shik.
97
6. As for the way we select verses: we meet together in a group and all
of us speak of our intentions, mainly conducting discussions. We should
not pay deference to other schools. Neither will we permit those who
curry favor, become intimidated or ridicule others outside the circle to join
in subsequent meetings. 8
8 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 113116. Both versions are given, A) Teramura Hyakuchis
Buson iboku sh , published in Ogata Tsutomu, Hairin shy in Bash, Buson,
Issa, Kuriyama Riichi, ed. (Yzankaku Shuppan, 1978); B) Kits Tenin ron , 1786.
Hyakuchi and Kit were instrumental in promoting Busons reputation after his death.
9 The regard the Yahantei school poets held for Bashs work is also indicated in
Busons choice of symbols in his schools system for scoring outstanding hokku.
Mediocre verses received no points, but better verses merited scores of seven, ten,
twenty, and twenty-five points depending on their quality. Buson used special seals to
mark the verses that used phrases that made allusions to famous Bash hokku. For
example, Rob no sumire (roadside mallow flower), that referred to Michinobe no
mukuge wa uma ni kuwari keri (Mallow flower / by the roadside / eaten by my horse!),
denoted seven points; a picture of a frog, referring to furu ike ya /kawazu tobikomu / mizu
no oto (the old pond! /a frog jumps in / sound of water), meant twenty points. Busons
written responses to disciples work also show that Bash represented the groups
standard. He comments on one verse, this is todays up-to-date Shmon style (ryktai
); on another, you dont find this in the Bash style. While the Yahantei school
was not a typical tentori haikai group, verse-scoring remained an important pedagogical
tool.
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10
99
god. Ake no haru is either early spring or a dawn in spring, and here
suggests the morning of the first day of the new year. The speaker of the
poem imagines the Katsuragi god taking off his paper garment after a
long night of hard work, expressing the wish that the new year will
similarly bring a new beginning. The paper garment may be emblematic
of unpleasant memories, but it also suggests an old, outmoded style that
the poet wishes to exchange for a new oneentirely appropriate for
inclusion in the first new year anthology of a new haikai school.
A verse on a similar theme is:
uguisu no
sos ga mashiki
hatsune kana
the warblers
inexperienced simplicity is better
years first song11
The song of the bush warbler, uguisu, was eagerly anticipated as a sign of
spring. While it was admired particularly for its distinctive call, the voice
of the young uguisu is not fully developed by the time of hatsune, the first
birdcall one hears in the new year. As this is the first Yahantei anthology,
Buson makes the effort to acknowledge the new groups lack of experience, but implies that this is actually what makes it most appealing.
Other Spring in Meiwa 8 verses rely on references to Chinese and classical Japanese literature, though in very distinct waysone, delicately
romantic, the other, comic:
usuginu ni
kimi ga oboro ya
Gabi no tsuki
in a gossamer robe
you are veiled in haziness
moon over Mount Gabi12
Enp no kuh
mochi kytai no
kabi o kezureba
kaze kry no kezuri kake
11
100
CHAPTER FOUR
14 J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, eds., Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The
Wakan rei sh (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 31.
Song of the Moon over Mount Emei
Li Bo, in Maeno Naoaki, ed., Tshisen, vol. 3 (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), pp. 136137.
15 Yamamoto Kenkichi, Kihon kigo gohyaku sen (Kdansha, 1991), p. 404.
16 Rimer and Chaves, p. 31; Chinese text is in sone and Horiuchi, p. 15.
101
Pure Land Buddhist belief teaches that the Amitabha Buddhas paradise
is in the west. By lamenting that his haikai has gone to the west, Buson
claims that his poetic skills have died with Shha. Shundei verse anthology
17
18
102
CHAPTER FOUR
naki fushite
koe koso shinobe
take no yuki
19
103
104
CHAPTER FOUR
matters like this. Why would I ask group members like Kaen or
Raisen ? I just dont understand the reason any members could be
angry with you. We will talk more of this when I see you. 20
As this letter suggests, not all of the Yahantei members had the same
high regard for Kit as Buson did. Despite this, the privileged relationship Buson had with Kit endured for the rest of Busons life. And, after
his death, Kit lived up to his responsibility as chief disciple by publishing commemorative works such as Withered cypress needles and Buson verse
anthology without delay, and he presided over Yahantei school activities
until his own early death in 1789 at the age of forty-nine.
Kits public relations abilities were immensely valuable to Buson. As
much as Buson was concerned about managing his identity as a poet, his
work as a painter kept him busy. While Buson did personally compile
and edit numerous anthologies for Yahantei, most of these were smallscale affairs in marking of some event, especially new year or memorial
anthologies that mainly contained verses by his acquaintances. By
contrast, Kits projects tended to be more elaborate collections that
showcased works of poets who were not affiliated with Yahantei as well
as those that were. Kit was the editor of three of the major Yahantei
collections: Light of the snow, Dawn crow, Sequel to dawn crow, and was closely
involved in the production of at least two others. Kit also compiled
Buson verse anthology, a collection of 869 hokku that was published as a
memorial the year after Busons death.
The first verse collection that Kit oversaw for Yahantei was Light of
the snow, a memorial anthology in honor of his father Kikei, who had
belonged to the original Yahantei school. It was supposed to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Kikeis death, although the actual date
was not until three years later. While the ostensible purpose of the
anthology was a solemn one, i.e., commemoration of Kikeis life and
work, in fact Light of the snow includes a variety of verses, many of them
irreverent and comic, especially in the second half of the collection.
Thus, in addition to memorializing the life and work of Kikei, Light of the
snow was also a promotional piece for the Yahantei school. Buson
explains Kits reasoning this way in his preface:
Nowadays, everyone composes haikai, from nobles and daimy to fishers
and woodcutters. Making a name for oneself among them as a haikai master is difficult in the extreme. In Kyoto and Osaka one can count them on
20
105
no more than three or four fingers. Of those three or four, Kikei was the
main one.21 Kikei had originally practiced haikai with the Hajin studio.
However, he did not learn the straightforward style there, so on the side
he associated with the members of the Hanji studio (i.e., the school of Matsuki Tantan). Still, he was not converted to its complexity, but alone he
used common parlance and ordinary language, and skillfully expressed
form and feeling completely. To draw an analogy, his verses were like
Chinese novels, whose evocative use of language is more interesting than
the excellent prose of many historical records. []
On the thirteenth anniversary of his death his son Kit collected a volume of writings to honor his spirit. Unlike the usual memorial collection,
it does not contain a lot of pious verses; on the whole, they celebrate the
blossoms and extol the moon. It is like mixing fish and meat with herbs as
an offering to the deities. I said, this is what your father would have
wanted. The Chinese sage (Liu Yiqing )22 was in accord with precisely the man (Wang Rong ) who slept on a chicken-bone mat, with
his body growing emaciated and his eyes sunken, rather than the man (He
Jiao ) who stayed shut up in the prayer alcove, practicing assiduously,
rosary in hand, chanting the holy phrase conspicuously, giving alms to the
clergy and wearing strange padded-out clothes. Does not this work of
Kits come close to the former mans actions?23
21
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CHAPTER FOUR
filial devotion of life, while Wang Jungs is the filial devotion of death.
Your Majesty should not worry about Chiao, but rather about Jung.24
old well
a fish jumps at a mosquito
the sound is dark25
haru no umi
hinemosu notari
notari kana
spring sea
all day, waves rise and fall
rise and fall26
Old well (Furu ido ya) recalls two Bash verses. One is the famous
Old pond / a frog jumps in / sound of water (Furu ike ya / kawazu
tobikomu / mizu no oto). Also similar is the Three notebooks verse In the
barn / mosquitos buzz is dark / lingering heat (Ushibeya ni / ka no koe
kuraki / zansh kana)27 that, like Busons verse, uses synesthesia, describing a sound in terms of darkness. In Spring sea (Haru no umi) Buson
relies on another technique, the repetition of the onomatopoeic word
notari (rise and fall) to create the impression of constant movement over
a vast expanse of spacethe gentle motion of waves on a calm spring
day. Buson composed Spring sea at least ten years before Light of the
snow, and it had already been included in several anthologies by this time.
Other Buson verses Kit included in Light of the snow are more humorous, like the following:
24 Wade-Giles romanization in original. Translators notes omitted. Liu I-ching, Shihshuo Hsin-yA New Account of Tales of the World, trans. Richard B. Mather (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1976), pp. 1011.
25 BZ, vol. 1, no. 429.
26 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.
27 BZ, vol. 1, note 109, p. 40.
sensoku no
tarai mo morite
yuku haru ya
the footbath
tub is also leaking away
spring runs out28
gakumon wa
shiri kara nukeru
hotaru kana
scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly29
107
28
29
108
CHAPTER FOUR
ariake no
nashiuchieboshi
kitari keri
at dawn,
putting on
a hunting cap30
Kits preface makes it clear that not only is Dawn crow intended to serve
as a wake-up call to the rest of the haikai community to return to the
lofty ideals of Bash, he also wants to distinguish what the Yahantei
school is doing from the more popular Bash schools, i.e., the rural
schools of Shik and Bakurin. He quotes Busons statement that many
30 Hattori Doh , Sanzshi, NKBT, vol. 66, p. 424. The link here is based
on the feeling of tension and urgency. The tsukeku introduces the scene of a hunter
quickly donning his cap at daybreak, with a sense of excitement similar to that in the
maeku, where the persona is unsure whether the sound he hears is that of the wind in the
pines, or of a fast-approaching enemy.
31 That is, members of the school of Kat Kytai in Nagoya.
32 Bakusui and his followers.
33 Takai Kit, Akegarasu, in Yamashita Kazumi et al., eds., Shin Nihon koten bungaku
taikei, vol. 73, Tenmei haikai sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1998), pp. 5557.
109
who call themselves members of the Bash school are in fact frauds who
know the surface aspects (hiniku , literally, skin and flesh) of
Bashs teachings but fail to grasp their deeper essence (funkotsu ,
literally, powder bone). In including this quotation Kit points to the fact
that Dawn crow represents the work of poets from many parts of Japan
Nagoya, Ise, Kaga, Kyoto, and Osakaemphasizing that the ideal of
reclaiming Bashs teachings transcends barriers both of geography and
poetic lineage, and was in fact a unifying force in the haikai community.
Dawn crow includes both hokku and linked verse, with contributions by
116 poets in all. The highest number of verses belonged to Buson, Taigi,
Shha, Kikei, Kytai, Chora, Bakusui, Chmu, and Ryta; many less
well-known poets were represented only by a single verse. Yahantei
members, of course, were most prominent, but Dawn crow also includes
many verses by poets outside Yahantei. These other poets belonged to
groups that in one sense competed with Yahantei, but at the same time
they were allies with a common goal, the Bash Revival movement.
While the presence of Kytai, Chora, and Itton was understandable, as
Buson frequently collaborated with these poets in linked verse sequences
and hokku gatherings, the inclusion of Bakusui is a bit more surprising.
Bakusui belonged to the rural school tradition of Bakurin and Shik
the rural backwoods Bash school that Buson singled out for nearly as
much criticism as he did the tentori poets. However, Busons statement
suggests that Bakusui and his followers had corrected their mentors
errors, and were worthy colleagues in the task of bringing about haikai
reform.
Kit included both old and new Buson hokku in Dawn crow. As ostensible representatives of the orthodox Bash style, Busons Dawn crow
verses suggest that components of this style include at least two elements: powerful, evocative depictions of the natural world, especially
famous places; and the recasting of imagery derived from classical
Japanese literature into new contexts, such as imagined Chinese settings
or situations of daily life. However, despite his avowals of the importance of faithful observation of Busons teachings, Buson actually takes a
very different approach in his own work.
The following are examples of Busons landscape verses:
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CHAPTER FOUR
Fuji hitotsu
uzumi nokoshite
wakaba kana
nawashiro ni
Kurama no sakura no
chiri ni keri
flooded fields
the cherry blossoms of Mount Kurama
have scattered35
Mount Fuji alone (Fuji hitotsu) was not a new poem. It had been
composed during Busons Sankasha era, though it does not appear in the
Sankasha collection From summer. Wakaba, a classical season word, means
leaves in early summer that still retain the vitality of spring. Lush and
irresistible, they almost drown the foreground in green, but in the
background Mount Fuji rises, silent and unperturbed. Flooded fields
(Nawashiro ni), another Sankasha-era hokku, describes squares of rice
fields filled with the pale green of new shoots in late spring. Scattered
cherry blossoms drift on the dark water that floods them. The lateblooming cherry trees on nearby Mount Kurama have already turned
from pink to green, so the speaker concludes that these petals must have
been carried down from the mountain on the wind.
These two verses point up some obvious differences between Busons
and Bashs techniques. Bash emphasized close personal observation of
geography and objects. Much of his life was spent traveling to view
famous places for himself, and one of his most often-quoted teachings
was learn about the pine from the pine, learn about bamboo from the
bamboo.36 Buson, by contrast, did not make travel the center of his
haikai practice. It is unlikely that either of these verses represent scenes
that Buson actually witnessed himself. Instead, he invented them from
memories of similar scenes and then juxtaposed them with place-names
that had conventional associations to the topic, fresh new leaves
(wakaba) in Mount Fuji alone and cherry blossoms (sakura) in
Flooded fields.
An example of the kind of verse that recontextualizes an allusion to
classical Japanese is the following, which matches a reference to a
Chinese poem in one of the most famous phrases in Heian literature:
34
111
haru no yo ya
yoi akebono no
sono naka ni
night in spring
its between
twilight and dawn37
The Chinese shi poet is the Song poet and painter Su Dongpo
(10361101), the waka poet is the author of the Pillow book (Makura no
sshi ), Sei Shonagon (ca. 9661028). Su Dongpos
verse Spring Night contains the line, A quarter-hour of spring night is
worth one thousand gold pieces.38 The Pillow books opening line is, In
the spring, dawn (is best).39 Using a headnote to make his sources
unambiguous, Buson creates a humorous twist on the classical tradition:
juxtaposing the words yoi (evening) and akebono (dawn) with haru no yo
(night in spring), he notes that night literally comes between these times
so much admired by famous poets, and has an appeal that should also be
savored.40 Whereas Bash was famous for his ability in elevating the
events of everyday life to the level of classical poetry by his skill in
juxtaposing the ordinary with the elegant, here Buson blurs the distinction between classical literature and the imported Chinese tradition.
The third anthology that Kit was involved with was Sequel to dawn
crow, which was published three years after Dawn crow. Kit regarded it as
a continuation of his previous project. He included verses by most of the
poets whose work had appeared in Dawn crow, and added some new
ones: Rank, Much (Ueda Akinari), Yay, and Chiyo, and as such,
Dawn crow and Sequel to dawn crow represent almost all the major poets of
the period. Kit planned it as his generations answer to one of the
central works of the Bash school, Monkeys straw coat (Sarumino ,
1691). Although it was a product of Busons Yahantei, it was less
focused on showcasing Busons verse than it was about promoting
Kits image: for example, it includes almost twice as many Kit hokku
37
112
CHAPTER FOUR
(45) than Buson hokku (17). Also, as the afterword by Akinari indicates,
Sequel to dawn crow was also intended to serve as a commemoration of the
seventeenth anniversary of the death of Kikei, Kits father. Furthermore, for a collection that is nominally a Yahantei school anthology, it
contains a very large proportion of verses by non-Yahantei poets. As a
consequence, rather than functioning as a defining statement of Yahantei
style as Monkeys straw coat did for the Bash school, Sequel to dawn crow
was more like an index to the major figures of the Revival movement.
Of the seventeen Buson verses that Kit chose for the collection,
only a few allude directly to those of Bash, such as:
uki ware ni
kinuta ute ima wa
mata yamine
as I am melancholy
beat the fulling block,41 but
stop now, its enough42
I hope my hood
doesnt make me look
like a mere playboy43
41 A kinuta (fulling block) was used to beat cloth in order to soften its texture. In
classical poetry it was associated with the melancholy and cold of long nights in autumn,
as poets wrote of hearing its lonely sound on a sleepless night on a journey, and thinking
of loved ones far away (Yamamoto Kenkichi, pp. 527529).
42 BZ, vol. 1, no. 1285.
113
nakanaka ni
hitori areba zo
tsuki o tomo
well now,
if I am to be alone
Ill take the moon as a friend44
gazing idly
although
it brings no comfort
Ill take the moon as a friend
spending the night awake45
Saigy
Busons hokku lifts the line tsuki o tomo (Ill take the moon as a friend)
directly from Saigys waka. Even though the speaker has no one with
whom to enjoy the evening, it is too fine to ignore. Being solitary also,
the moon makes a perfect companion. In doing so, the speaker makes an
aisatsu to Saigy, including him in the circle that contains the night, the
moon, and himself, making the loneliness of the night a pleasant one.
The pose of regret that one is without a companion to appreciate
beautiful scenery is common to Chinese poetry also.46 Here Buson links
the worlds of Chinese poetry and waka to create a haikai verse that
expresses one of Bashs most important poetic principles, fky.
43
114
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115
who lack understanding of this criticize me, saying that turning ones back
on ones teacher is a terrible sin, and so forth. With this in mind, the two
sequences that follow depart from that sabi-shiori style, instead, they earnestly imitate Hajins style, and are humbly offered to him.47
Fuke48 departed
but a fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms
Ransetsu
Genb kyoshi
nioi nokorite
hana no kumo
Layman Genbs
fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms
Hajin
47
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CHAPTER FOUR
Sa kyoshi sanjsan
kaiki seit
hana no kumo
mie ni kasanete
kumo no mine
clouds of blossoms
lay three times as deep
mountains of cloud49
Hajins verse expresses his grief for his mentor Ransetsu by reworking
one of his own verses: Genb is an alternate name for Ransetsu. Buson
takes up this chain of associations with his own verse. Clouds of
blossoms is a spring topic, and refers to cherry trees blooming in such
profusion they could be mistaken for clouds. Busons verse moves the
setting to summer by changing the topic to mountains of cloud, the
towers of clouds that form in a clear sky on a hot summers day. In
doing so, the scale of the verse becomes solemn and grand, underscoring
the seriousness of the emotion it depicts. Just as this is the third layer of
allusion, the speakers sentiment is three times as deep as that of an
ordinary verse, and this is appropriate for an anthology marking the
thirty-third anniversary of his teachers death.
It was three years before Buson tried his hand at another anthology;
and this one, Midnight music, was, like Make the past present, also small and
limited in scope. Midnight music was planned as a saitanch, a new year
anthology to be released at the beginning of the first month, but it was
not actually distributed until the end of the second month, more like a
shunkyj. More famous for its two haishi (haikai free verse), it is not a
particularly good example of Busons hokku, because it includes only
one: a starting verse to a kasen that was written by thirty-six of his
disciples, who each contributed one verse:
saitan o
shitari gao naru
haikaishi
The other forty-three hokku Buson includes were written by his disciples
on the topic of the coming of spring, which makes it a good example of
the function of the new year anthology to document the membership of
the group.
Far more interesting for a study of Busons hokku is New flower gathering, an exceptional collection of verse and prose that he also completed
49
50
117
in 1777. New flower gathering has an unusual history. Buson did not publish
it during his lifetime. In 1784 Matsumura Gekkei added illustrations and
an afterword explaining the circumstances under which it was written,
but it was not published until 1792.
Buson wrote the hokku section of New flower gathering first. In his afterword, Gekkei explains that it was intended as a summer devotion
(gegy ) in memory of Busons mother. Buson originally planned to
write ten hokku a day for one hundred days. As the title of the collection
indicates, Buson found inspiration for his project in the example of
Kikakus Flower gathering (Hanatsumi , 1792) a hokku collection also
written in honor of his mother. Unlike Kikaku, however, Buson gave up
a few weeks into the project, claiming illness. Later that year, however,
he returned to his notebook and decided to fill it with short essays on
various topics in the style of zuihitsu.
Most of Busons 2,800-odd hokku were composed in the context of
meetings or other social exchanges and were published in group
anthologies; in other words, they exemplify haikais typical collaborative,
public aspect. The New flower gathering hokku, however, were different.
These were written in a private setting where there was little pressure to
outshine rivals or impress students. As a result, they have a quiet,
contemplative quality, and occasionally come tantalizingly close to
promising a glimpse of Busons inner life. Whether or not they are
actually biographical, each is given a date and has a place in a sequence
that Buson determined, and so it is possible to observe a process taking
place that is distinct from what otherwise might be found in more
conventional anthologies.
In particular, the anthologys first six poemsthose composed on the
first day of the projectseem to have a non-fictional cast to them. They
are some of the most moving and heart wrenching verses Buson ever
wrote. The sequence begins on the eighth day of the fourth month,
traditionally observed as the Buddhas birthday:
Eighth day
1. kanbutsu ya
motoyori hara wa
kari no yado
Buddhas birthday
its a brief shelter,
the womb
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CHAPTER FOUR
2. uzuki yka
shinde umaruru
ko wa hotoke
3. koromogae
mi ni shiratsuyu no
hajime kana
4. koromogae
haha nan Fujiwara
uji nari keri
5. hototogisu
uta yomi yjo
kikoyu naru
hototogisu
I hear a courtesan
composing poetry
6. mimi utoki
chichi nyd yo
hototogisu
51
119
greedy man who only wanted her for the money she might bring to his
household. According to this interpretation, it is Kuno who lost a child
to miscarriage.
In any case, the emotion in these verses is so plain that it is hard not
to imagine that they directly describe some events in Busons life; at the
same time, they do not develop a consistent narrative. Instead, like a
linked verse sequence, the situations and personae change from verse to
verse. Read together, however, something that does remain constant is
an overtone of longing and sorrow. Each of the six hokku is like the
facets of a jewel that reflect the same complex mood from different
angles. Buson began his project on the eighth day of the Fourth Month,
which was observed as the Buddhas birthday, so it makes sense that the
verses he composed on that day were spiritual and contemplative. As the
second verse, Eighth day of the Fourth Month (Uzuki yoka), shows,
the word hotoke simultaneously means Buddha and dead person. A
birth implies a future death; the change of seasons marked in the
beginning of the fourth monthwhen one exchanges winter clothes for
those of summerreminds the speaker of the ephemerality of life, and
his thoughts turn to the Way of Buddhism.
As the days passed, however, Busons contemplative mood seems to
lift, and he steadily reels off witty and imaginative verses, many of which
return again and again to the same topic, such as this excerpt from a
series on sushi:
Seventeenth day
82. sushi o osu
ware sake kamosu
tonari ari
85. mashirage no
yone issh ya
sushi no meshi
a peck of
pure silvery white
rice for sushi
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CHAPTER FOUR
86. takuj no
sushi ni me samushi
Kangyotei
All of these verses are more or less self-explanatory, though it might help
to point out that the sushi Buson refers to here is not the fresh, Edostyle variety that is commonly eaten today, but funazushi or fermented
sushi, which was made by layering fish with salted (later, vinegared) rice
in a tub, covering it with a stone, and then leaving it for several months
to ripen. The impression verses like these create is one of restless
creativity, as Buson views his topic from different angles, finding new
and often comic insights every time.
New flower gathering is exceptional among the group of anthologies that
the Yahantei school poets produced. It was not part of Busons effort to
consolidate the groups image, or of his own, because the hokku within it
were written as a private exercise rather than as part of a public event or
communal project. Although a few New flower gathering hokku later appear
in other anthologies, Buson did not publish the collection himself; and in
fact it did not appear until after his death. So while Make the past present
can be included under the broad category of anthologies that were used
to promote Yahantei to a wider audience, the New flower gathering hokku
section deviates from this pattern, and gives us a glimpse of an introspective, less studied Buson.
Blossoms and birds collection was the last anthology that Buson edited. It
was published in 1782, the year before his death. Buson had originally
planned Blossoms and birds collection as a new year anthology, like Midnight
music; however, after a visit to Yoshino, famous for its cherry blossoms,
he ended up deciding to create a collection devoted to verses on the
topic of cherry blossoms and hototogisu. Blossoms and birds collection was a
small but exquisitely designed volume, with illustrations by Buson and
elegant calligraphy in his hand. It contains verses not only by Yahantei
members, but also Busons friends, including courtesans and kabuki
actors. While it includes verses by the usual Yahantei members and
patrons such as Kit, Korekoma, Donshi, Hyakuchi, and Dry, there
are none by Bash Revival poets like Kytai, Chora, or Chmu that are
featured in Kit-edited anthologies like Dawn crow. Buson organized
Blossoms and birds collection as a way to acknowledge his friends and
52
121
departing spring
seems to hesitate
late-blooming cherry trees53
tanomarete
sakura mi ni yuku
otoko kana
when asked
he goes to check on the cherry trees
what a guy54
Buson uses the haikai name Kink for Departing spring (Yuku
haru no). The verse describes an apparent pause in the process of
transition from spring to summer, as the blossoming of the lateblooming cherry trees seem to pull time back to the middle of spring,
when ordinary trees normally bloom. The beauty of the trees is so
magnificent that it almost arrests the passage of spring itself. Departing
spring is followed directly by When asked (Tanomarete) although
Buson uses a different haikai name here, Shunhan . This verse is
also bright and playful; having invited a friend to go cherry blossom
viewing, he impresses everyone by going to check on the trees to make
sure they will be ready for the party.
The third Buson verse is different. It is set off from the others by a
long headnote and an illustration, a stylized drawing of a kasa, or travel
hat. Buson uses the haikai name Yahan. The headnote and hokku are as
follows:
53
54
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CHAPTER FOUR
hana chirite
mi no shita yami ya
hinoki kasa
blossoms fallen
what darkness below
my cypress travel hat55
Blossoms fallen (Hana chirite) brings the focus to Bash, who was so
famous for his journeys that the image of the travel hat alone makes us
think of him. But more directly, the verse alludes to a famous poem
Bash wrote about cherry blossoms at Yoshino:
Yoshino nite
sakura mish zo
hinoki kasa
Bash
In contrast to Bashs verse, which is a playful expression of the
aesthetic of fky, or poetic madness, Busons verse is gloomy and selfabnegating. Busons poem places the speaker in a time and place after
the blossoms of Bashs poem have fallen, in later, darker days. Though
he has visited Yoshino, which so entranced Bash, the speaker in
Busons poem does not claim to be equal to the task of appreciating it,
and uses the hat to hide his face. Blossoms fallen is one of many
Buson verses which evoke a Bash source poem, only to express a sense
of inferiority or humility as a novice might in the presence of a master.
In this sense, it is a good example of an expression of Busons anxiety of
reception: though he is convinced of the rightness of following Bashs
lead, Buson is careful to preempt any criticism that might be provoked
by leaving himself open to comparison with his brilliant predecessor.
55
56
123
124
CHAPTER FOUR
hana ibara
koky no michi ni
nitaru kana
brambles in bloom
just like the ones on the road
to my hometown57
ureitsutsu
oka ni noboreba
hana ibara
lost in melancholy
when I climb the hill
brambles in bloom58
in the shoals
a military ship
summer moon60
57
Cited in Teruoka Yasutaka and Kawashima Tsuyu, eds., NKBT, vol. 58, Buson sh, Issa
sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1959), note 541, p. 128.
60 BZ, vol. 1, no. 581.
125
This was written in 1771, a few years after the previous verse, and has a
completely different aspect. Instead of a shadowy world of vague
foreboding and power, the setting here is sunlit and open. A hunter
heads for home, his days objective met. The pheasant is a common
topic in classical Japanese poetry; its brightly colored plumage made it a
spectacular image. Poets also admired the springtime mating calls of the
pheasants, the piercing cry of the male and the females gentler, plaintive
answer. Pheasants were associated with spring because this is the season
their haunting calls are most striking. Busons verse suggests the pheasants call in the repetition of i sounds; visually, it also invites the reader
to imagine its glossy, iridescent feathers shining in the sunlight as the
hunter carries it home on his back.
Busons Five cartloads of wastepaper verses also show another side of his
interest in telling stories: the fascination he had with eerie, supernatural
happenings:
suisen ni
kitsune asobu ya
yoi zuki yo
61
62
in the daffodils
a fox frolics
moonlit twilight62
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CHAPTER FOUR
Nishi no ky ni bakemono
no sumite, hisashiku
arehatetaru ie arikeri.
Ima wa sono sata nakute
harusame ya
hito sumite keburi
kabe ni moru
departing spring
the heavy-hearted feeling of
embracing a lute64
In Departing spring (Yuku haru ya) the persona holds a biwa, or fivestringed lute. The biwa, similar to the Chinese pipa, was still played in
Busons day, but in mentioning it here Buson introduces a decidedly
archaic and romantic atmosphere. The end of spring (yuku haru) is cause
for regret, as we saw in Busons Light of the snow verse, the footbath /
63
64
127
tub is also leaking away / spring runs out (sensoku no / tarai mo morete /
yuku haru ya). Trying to dispel this mood, the persona picks up the lute to
play something cheerful, but it feels heavy in her arms. Busons verse
alludes to one by Chinese poet Wang Changling (c. 690c. 756),
Spring Melancholy at the Western Palace, and, given that the Chinese
poem is written in a womans voice, the persona in Busons hokku is
understood to be female:
In the quiet night of the Western Palace, a hundred flowers are
fragrant.
I thought to roll up the jeweled blinds, but I pass the spring night
in sorrow.
With a pipa leaning in my arms, I gaze at the moon.
Zhaoyang is hidden in trees that are colored in pale, pale light.
65
Departing spring also alludes to the Bash verse link:
kakaeshi kin no
hiza ya omotaki66
Later commentators have praised this verse for Busons use of a physical
sensationheavinessto describe a psychological state, and the skill
with which Buson used this device is probably the reason it was included
in Korekomas anthology.
Another Five cartloads of wastepaper verse that refers to Chinese poetry
is:
hironiwa no
botan ya ama no
ipp ni
a peony
in the open garden
a corner of heaven67
Buson was very fond of peonies. The word botan (peony) is Chinese in
origin, and has overtones of splendor and opulence. Here he matches the
65
128
CHAPTER FOUR
68 Translation by Burton Watson, in Jonathan Chaves, The Chinese Painter as Poet (New
York: The China Institute Gallery, 2000), p. 138.
129
analyzed the differences between these two texts, most notably Ogata
Tsutomu in Buson jihitsu kuch (1974).69
The next chapter explores Busons linked verse, or haikai no renga.
While Busons concerns about his place in the haikai community had a
profound effect on his hokku. This effect was even more pronounced in
his work in the linked verse form. While linked verse had lost some of its
popularity during the Kyh period, it was still extremely important, and
Busons linked verse is among the most masterful of the entire genre.
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CHAPTER FIVE
RESISTING COMMUNALITY:
LINKED VERSE SEQUENCES
Linked verse is a particularly compelling subject of exploration as it
offers an intimate glimpse into the way that poets directly negotiated
with their colleagues at the site of their practice. Linked verse sequences
were usually composed by two or more people in a single session,
bringing together the creative energies of poets of diverse backgrounds,
training, and factional allegiances. While there were a large number of
complex rules governing the composition of linked verse, unpredictability was one of the forms greatest fascinations. Another was the knowledge that each session was a unique and unrepeatable occasion, contingent on the time, place, and the character of its participants.
The practice of linked verse composition was on the wane during
Busons lifetime. Bash had been one of the greatest exponents of the
kasen, or thirty-six link sequence, and the linked verse that he and his
disciples composed forms the core of the collections that his school
compiled. However, even in Bashs day linked verse had to compete
with single-verse forms such as the hokku or maekuzuke, and its decline
became even more precipitous in the Kyh period. One reason for this
was that the rules of linked verse were very demanding and took a great
deal of effort to master. Also, linked verse was extremely timeconsuming and required the participation of other poets. While haikais
social aspect was always one of its central attractions, as the ranks of
haikai practitioners swelled with the presence of less well-educated
merchants and farmers, its communality took different forms, and
eventually came to center on competition over individual verses rather
than collaboration on lengthy sequences.
Nevertheless, linked verse did not disappear entirely during the eighteenth century. The inheritors of Bashs legacy were among its most
enthusiastic proponents, particularly followers of the rural Shmon poet
Shik, haikai theorist and systemizer of Bashs teachings. While
maekuzuke and other competitive forms flourished in the urban areas,
members of Shiks Mino faction and its close ally, the Ise faction,
remained avid supporters of linked verse. Given Bashs strong interest
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
131
in linked verse, it is not surprising that Revival poets also connected the
form with the work of returning haikai to his ideals. As early as 1744,
poets who admired the Bash schools Twenty kasen of the Enp era (Enp
nijikkasen , 1680), published Edo twenty kasen (Edo
nijikkasen Like its model, Edo twenty kasen was a
collection of solo thirty-six link sequences by twenty poets; its title and
format reflect its purpose as a tribute to Bash. The rediscovery of
Bash-related manuscripts was also an impetus to compile linked verse
collections. As I mentioned in Chapter Three, Kyoto twenty kasen, edited
by Shzan, Taigi, and Zuiko, was published after Zuiko found a letter in
Bashs handwriting; the collection includes the twenty kasen that the
three poets wrote in celebration of this occasion. Similarly, Kytai and
his disciples wrote four of the sequences included in Autumn day to
accompany a previously unpublished sequence with a hokku Bash wrote
while visiting Nagoya in 1688.
However, Revival poets viewed linked verse differently than Bash
and his disciples did. Despite their avowed interest in following Bashs
example, hokku was the mainstay of their practice. Also, as a result of the
simplifications introduced by Kyh-era theorists like Shik, rural Bash
school poets tended to favor sequences that reflected everyday experience rather than deep knowledge of the classical literary tradition, and
this trend came to influence the Revival poets more generally.
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CHAPTER FIVE
thorns will grow in your mouth. However, the Elders verses exist in a
broad range of anthologies, and are not easy to find. Thus we have taken
excerpts, condensed them, and should there be people who are devoted to
the Way, we make them available.1
However, compared to the large number of hokku that Buson wrote, his
production of tsukeku is relatively smallaround 120 sequences in all,
many of which are incomplete. Looked at another way, while the
anthologies that he worked on throughout his life contain a fair number
of sequences, his contributions to them are remarkably sparse. His
tsukeku appear only occasionally in sequences published before 1750.
Sankasha and Yahantei gatherings focused almost exclusively on hokku,
and the Danrinkai , a Yahantei-affiliated group that formed in
1779 with the express purpose of composing linked verse, abandoned
the practice almost as soon as it started.
Busons ambivalence towards linked verse composition may derive
from the fact that it obligated poets to relinquish autonomy over their
work. After each poet composed a verse, his or her colleague stepped in,
considered the various possible meanings of what was deliberately
written to be a highly evocative and ambiguous verse, and finally chose
one meaning to the exclusion of others. Sensitivities about interpretation
of ones own writing were out of place in linked verse, as the ability to
write a tsukeku that made a surprising or unexpected connection was
highly valued.
Also, as the example of the small and elegant Yahantei anthologies
like Blossoms and birds collection shows, Buson was a meticulous craftsman,
and the improvisational nature of linked verse did not appeal to him very
much. He even resorted to unconventional methods to avoid the need
for spontaneous composition. For example, the Peaches and plums
sequencesoften called the finest example of linked verse of the
Yahantei school, and possibly the entire late eighteenth centurywere
composed by exchange of letters over the span of several months, which
allowed him time to carefully revise and rethink his tsukeku.
In short, while collaboration in some linked verse sequences was
inevitable for a Revival poet, Buson preferred to devote himself to
activities like painting and hokku composition where he had more power
over their outcomes. Nevertheless, the linked verse that Buson did write
is important, not only because of the admiration it attracted, but because
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
133
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CHAPTER FIVE
hokku. Typically, it referred to the same season as the hokku, and ended
in a non-declinable word, such as a noun.
The person next in rank to the senior guest composed the daisan. The
daisan had a special importance, as it indicated the likelihood of the
sequences success. Each verse link or tsukeku could only refer to the
verse immediately preceding it, i.e., the maeku; the tsukeku had to break
with the verse that came before the maeku, which was called the uchikoshi
or superseded verse. The daisan was the first point in the sequence
where this shift happened. If the poet writing the daisan failed to break
cleanly from the hokku, its uchikoshi, the sequence as a whole was unlikely
to turn out well.
The last verse in the sequence, the ageku, was similar to the hokku in
that it was expected to be light in tone. Like the daisan, it was also
something of a tricky verse to write, because a bad ageku would reflect
poorly on the sequence as a whole, no matter how fine were all the
verses that preceded it.
In addition to these four special verses, certain hiraku or plain verses
were assigned mandatory topics: the moon or cherry blossoms. In a
thirty-six link sequence, verses in positions 5, 14, and 29 were supposed
to refer to the moon; 17 and 35 to blossoms.2 As the moon was an
Autumn topic and blossoms a Spring topic, this requirement helped to
ensure variation in the sequence.
There were other rules. For example, after the introduction of a
Spring topic, the next three to five verses had to mention spring. The
same was true of Autumn verses. Summer and Winter were supposed to
be followed by one to three similar verses. It was common to separate
verses that referred to a season with one or more miscellaneous (z )
verses so that the transition between the seasons was not too abrupt.
Also, love was another important topic, and strict guidelines covered
its treatment in the sequence: it could not appear in the first six verses;
the topic had to continue for the next one to four verses, and so on.
Novice poets needed to put a lot of effort into training and practice in
order to master these rules. Reading sequences by acknowledged masters
2 Historically, the numbering of haikai verses took into account their place on the
sheets of paper used to transcribe them. Two sheets were used to write kasen. Sheet One
had six verses on the front and twelve on the back; Sheet Two had twelve on the front
and six on the back. Using this system, moon verses came at Number 5 on the front and
8 on the back of Sheet One, and 11 on the front of Sheet Two; blossom verses belonged
at Number 11 on the back of Sheet One and 5 on the back of Sheet Two. A detailed
discussion of the rules of haikai sequences is in Sat, pp. 921.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
135
was one way to do this; studying one of the many handbooks of verse
linking technique (called yoriai or tsukeai ) that were available
was another.3 The best way to learn, however, was to take part in the
activities of a haikai school, where one had a setting in which to work
with others and a knowledgeable teacher from whom to receive instruction.
Not only was the makeup of the sequence prescribed in detail, the
participants behavior in the session was also precisely regulated. Formal
linked verse sessions involved three roles: the arbiter (ssh ), the
recorder (shuhitsu ), and the contributing poets (renju ). The
arbiter might be a groups teacher, though this was not necessarily the
case; the recorder had to be a highly competent poet and calligrapher.
Sessions were organized by a host, who provided the space, supplies, and
refreshments; they could last from six to eight hours in the case of a
kasen, eight to ten for a 100-link sequence, and longer ones continued for
several days.
On the day of the session the host prepared the room by setting up a
portable writing desk for the recorder, and placed it in front of the
alcove (tokonoma), which was hung with a painted scroll. The scroll was
often a portrait of the god of literature, Tenjin (Sugawara no
Michizane [845903]); or Manysh poet Kakinomoto no
Hitomaro . Alternatively, if the session commemorated the
anniversary of the death of a teacher or colleague, a sample of that
persons calligraphy might be displayed; and eventually portraits of
Teitoku and Bash also became common. Participants were seated
according to their rank and function: the most prestigiousthe arbiter,
the recorder, and the senior guestsat near the alcove, and persons of
lesser status filed out alongside the senior guest.4 Etiquette demanded
that participants arrived on time, sober, and in a tranquil frame of mind;
during the session they were not supposed to fall asleep or chatter; and
at all times they were expected to defer to the judgments of the arbiter
and recorder.
Before the other participants entered the room, the recorder first
organized the materials on the writing desk. When everyone came in and
took their places, the arbiter opened the proceedings with a word of
3 The most famous of these was Nij Yoshimotos Secret treatise on the principles of linking
(Renri hissh , 1349).
4 Inui Hiroyuki and Shiraishi Teiz, eds., Renku e no shtai (Yhikaku, 1980), pp. 108
116.
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CHAPTER FIVE
greeting, and then the recorder dedicated the poetry about to be written
to the deity or honored person whose portrait was enshrined in the
alcove. The session began with the senior guests hokku. The rest of the
sequence proceeded in order, with the arbiter evaluating the quality of
the verses each participant composed, and the recorder simultaneously
making sure that all the rules were properly observed and writing down
the verses as they were approved. At the end of session the recorder
completed his transcription of the sequence and offered them before the
alcove. The session concluded with a party, organized by the host, where
all the participants could relax from the rigors of the days work.
Linked verse offered haikai poets a chance to reinforce connections
not only with their allies in the present day but also their counterparts in
history. It was not uncommon for poets to start their sequences with a
hokku that had been written years before by a long-dead predecessor,
whether as a gesture of remembrance to be included in a memorial
volume, or an expression of identification with an admired exemplar.
Gathering as a group to produce a long, complex work like a verse
sequence was also a powerful affirmation of solidarity and cooperation
with living colleagues, where participants either put aside their differencesor learned to appreciate themin order to bring the session to a
successful conclusion.
The protocols of linked verse sessions made them reenactments of a
practice whose origins extended back to the medieval period; in this
sense, linked verse composition was a ritual that let its participants
imagine that they were actually embodying the past. As such, it had
special meaning for the Revival poets who were trying to both establish a
community of their own in what they viewed as a decadent age, and to
reclaim the old elegance Bash represented.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
137
lowest number of verses of any of the participants (between two and five
to his colleagues thirteen, fourteen, or even seventeen verses); however,
Scrap paper coverlet is valuable because it offers insight into Busons poetic
development at a stage where relatively few of his verseshokku or
tsukekusurvive.
Buson contributed only two verses to Willow leaves, fallen (Yanagi
chiri), the first and the fourth. Keeping in mind that the privilege of
writing a sequences first verse was typically reserved for the groups
most honored guest, the fact that Buson starts this sequence, whose
other participants were far senior to him, testifies to the admiration that
his colleagues felt for his remarkable hokku.
1. Buson
Kannazuki hajime no koro hoi,
Shimotsuke no kuni ni shugy
shite Yugy Yanagi to ka ieru
furuki no kage ni, mokuzen
no keishiki o mshiide haberu:
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro
5 Text of the complete sequence is in Maruyama Kazuhiko et al., eds., BZ, vol. 2,
Renku (Kdansha, 1992), pp. 5761.
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CHAPTER FIVE
At the same time as the send-off bell sounds, fish sellers are stacking up
the fresh catch to be sold that day. Busons verse uses the onomatopoeic
expression zarari zarari todescribing slipperinessto evoke the image
of glistening shad slipping over one another as they are handled. The
romance of Riseis verse that described an elegant rider uttering poems
to the moon has disappeared; instead, the setting is slightly seedythe
early light shows a less glamorous side of the licensed quarter as fish
sellers prepare for a day of work.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
139
5. Risei
shio ni
ashida torareshi
niwa no omo
wooden sandals
taken by the high tide
in front of the garden
Riseis verse picks up Busons maritime image, and establishing the place
as a yard in front of a house near the beach. It is so close to the sea that
during an exceptionally high tide, wooden sandals left outside are carried
off by the water.
6. Hyakuman
makura kaitsute
okosu Kantan
Hyakuman accounts for the fact that the wooden sandals were washed
away by introducing the figure of the houses owner, asleep as the tide
came in. The verse refers to the Chinese story of Lusheng (Japanese Rosei), a traveler in Handan G (Japanese Kantan) who fell
asleep as he was waiting for breakfast in a teashop, and dreamed he had
lived an entire lifetime before waking to find that the millet for his meal
had not even finished cooking. This story was popular in Japan, and
even became the basis for the N play Kantan. In Hyakumans verse, the
sleeper also has a rude awakening: his sandals have been washed away by
the rising waves.
Willow leaves, fallen continues for another thirty verses, but Buson
added no more tsukeku.
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colors poet Rykyo, but he eventually moved to Kyoto and took up haikai
with Buson disciple Rosen. In other words, neither Chora nor Ranzan
were regular Yahantei members, but that did not prevent them from
working together to compose linked verse.
The title Around here comes from the hokku Buson wrote for its first
kasen, a respectful compliment to Ranzan:
susuki mitsu
hagi nakaran ya
kono hotori
6 The hokku praises the neighborhood around Ranzans house, remarking that it is
home to plants associated with an elegant appreciation of autumn, which reflects well on
the good taste of his host. BZ, vol. 2, p. 244.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
141
gazing at the
white chrysanthemum
not a speck of dust
Bash
ky mizu ni
nagasu asatsuki
Sonome
While the sequence does not include a large number of allusions to
Bashs verse, this and the one that follows it make the connection.
7 The sequence is in BZ, vol. 2, pp. 249253. This translation also uses references
from NKBT, vol. 58, pp. 215222.
8 NKBT, vol. 58, p. 215.
9 BZ, vol. 2, p. 249, note 2.
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3. Chora
kari uma ni
aki o suzushiku
mata garite
on a borrowed horse
he rides out
into the chill of autumn
This is the daisan, which breaks with the scene depicted in the first two
verses. Chora does this by shifting the scene to a more active one,
describing a retainer or possibly a daimy (feudal lord) leaving an inn,
with the moon faintly visible in the pale light of a cold morning. Bashs
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton includes a similar verse:
uma ni nete
zanmu tsuki tshi
cha no keburi
sleeping on horseback
a lingering dream, a distant moon,
smoke from tea-fires10
Bash
Both Choras link and Bashs hokku juxtapose an early morning rider
with the pale, waning moon.
4. Buson
kokisake ari to
fu no mshi keri
Buson changes the focus from one in which the rider is visualized in the
context of natural surroundings, and changes it to an inn or drinking
establishment. As he is on the point of leaving, a waitress or landlady
reminds him that he can take along some wine; Buson imagines the
riders journey as one of pleasure, not business. Busons verse is humorous, and brings the mood of the sequence more down to earth with its
reference to a commonplace situation.
5. Kit
oguraki to
akaki to shoku no
futa tokoro
a dim one
and a bright one
lamps in two places
10
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
143
6. Ranzan
tekone no kro
uchi mamoritsutsu
Ranzans verse explains the two lamps by describing a scene in which the
artisan who made the incense burner needs extra light to examine his
work. It is a solid but unspectacular verse, which leaves a great deal of
room for the next poet in the sequence to make an interesting link.
7. Buson
kakute yo ni
shii to narubeki
mi narishio
what a world
I, who should have made it
to the Fourth Rank
Buson responds to the opening Ranzan gives him with a verse that is a
monogatari in microcosm. Using a device called kuraizuke , or making
a link based on the profession or status of the persona in the preceding
verse, Buson imagines the man examining the incense burner to be a
disappointed courtier, who laments being passed over for promotion to
the rank he believes he deserves.
8. Chora
Nogami no kimi ga
iro ni shizuminu
on the partitioning
shji, two
or three flies
Ranzans verse depicts the interior of the teahouse where the courtesan
in the previous verse works. It is a quiet, hot afternoon; the guests have
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CHAPTER FIVE
all gone home. A shji screen separates the rooms; on it, flies gather, but
no one shoos them away. The scene is squalid; the cheap glamour of the
evening has disappeared in the light of day.
10. Kit
chikaku mo kami no
todoro narikuru
barbarian unrest
even hearing about it is troubling
Chora picks up on Busons reference to the Tsukushi boat and introduces barbarian (Ebisu ) here a generic term referring to people in
the north and west of China. Of the main Japanese islands Kysh was
the closest to the continent, and was the place many travelers to China
would begin their journeys. Thus, he imagines that, after arriving in
Kysh, the priest on the boat could well be on his way to China.
However, rumors of war make the journey an anxious one.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
145
13. Ranzan
yuki ni nite
samuu wa aredo
mado no tsuki
cold enough
to seem like its snowed
moonlight in the window
receiving alms
at autumns end
I remember
happily going out
to the Cattle Festival
without a care
the clash of cymbals
Ranzan picks up on the maekus image of the lively festival, and describes
the moment of its climax. The hardship described in the uchikoshi, Verse
14, has disappeared; all that is present now is the sound, color and
energy of the festival.
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17. Chora
chiritsukusu
hana hito toki no
nagame nite
a brief glimpse
of blossoms
scattered completely
Rain caused the blossoms to scatter more quickly. The sky has cleared
late in the day; at this time of year, there are still a few hours left before
the sun sets.
19. Buson
haru no kaze
Gokoku no mitsugi
watari kinu
spring breeze
the splendors of Cathay
coming across the sea
Buson shows his fascination with China in this verse. The breezes of
spring, which carry with them the seasons warmth and fresh scents, are
compared to envoy ships bringing goods from the Wu kingdom of
China that in ancient times had a trading relationship with Japan. Buson
is not referring to any specific historical event, he simply refers to the
Wu to evoke an atmosphere of exotic riches.
20. Ranzan
hana e idetaru
shakur no chie
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
147
21. Kit
hitobito no
sata to narinuru
waga koi wa
its become
what people are talking about
my love affair
Chora imagines that the man involved in the affair has become destitute,
probably in a dishonorable way. Nevertheless, his loyal lover stints at
nothing to help him, even to the point of selling her kimono. She is not
concerned by anyones disapproval.
23. Ranzan
shjin no
yurishi hotoke
wasurarezu
mourning
is over, but she will not forget
the departed one
The loyal woman in this verse becomes a grieving widow. She has
dutifully performed Buddhist austerities for forty-nine days after her
husbands death. Even though the prescribed period is over, her sorrow
continues.
24. Buson
ky ya kiru beki
botan futamoto
two peonies
that should be cut today
Busons verse refers to peonies, one of his favorite flowers. Cutting the
flowers, the speaker thinks of the deceased person mentioned in the
maeku.
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25. Chora
tekishin no
waka no kakimono o
nusumi kite
he returns after
stealing a poetry text
from the enemy encampment
The warrior in the maeku looks to the sky, and finds that the stars are
fading. He had better finish his mission: dawn is almost come.
27. Buson
ima wa tote
funa yrei ya
usenuran
Buson again shows his penchant for the fantastic. Picking up on the
liminal time of day in Kits verse, he imagines a ghostly ship on the
edge of reality and imagination, sinking into the waves as the sun rises.
28. Buson
kokoro hisomite
tachi o itadaku
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
149
29. Kit
kono goro no
ame nochi ni hiru miru
tsuki nare ya
at last
the moon is visible in the daytime
now that the rains have stopped
Chora establishes the place from where the persona in the maeku is
viewing the moon, and also his station in life. He is a priest at a mountain temple, wearing mourning robes to mark the death of his spiritual
mentor. The season, autumn, makes one think of endings and melancholy.
31. Ranzan
kurawabaya
hyakuri todokishi
bushukan o
Busy with the cleaning, the persona in Busons verse had no time to
think about anything but work. Finally pausing to rest, he or she notices
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the call of the bush warbler, a welcome sign of spring. It is finally time to
try the Buddhas-hand citron preserves.
33. Chora
tr ni
hi no nokoritaru
asa kasumi
in the lantern
a flame still burns
morning fog
Through the light fog that shrouds the garden, the persona can still see
the faint light of a flame burning in a stone lantern. Chora imagines the
cleaning in the maeku to be that which follows an early morning tea
ceremony, for which the garden lanterns would be lit.
34. Kit
hana mono iwazu
haru fukaki kami
11
Rimer and Chaves, p. 166. Chinese text is in NKBT, vol. 58, p. 221.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
151
12 Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press,
1996), p. 109.
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day to day; in the same way as the physician Bianque,13 I change my manner to conform to the standards of each setting.
Here Buson tries to duck anticipated criticism that his verse is different
from Bashs, by saying that his style is as fluid and reactive as the
legendary Chinese physician who adjusted his specialty to suit his
patients needs. His claim to change his tastes from day to day is a
similar to one he makes in his preface to Make the past present, where he
defends himself from critics who complain that his verse is unlike that of
his teacher.
13 Bianque was a physician mentioned in the 8th century Chinese treatise Mengqiu
(Beginners guide, Japanese Mgy). When he was in an area that had a lot of children to
treat, he called himself a specialist in pediatrics, when he was in an area where there were
many elderly people, he changed his speciality to geriatrics.
14 Busons declaration about the timelessness of haikai were certainly sincere. However, his claims that the sequences of Peaches and plums were old, and that they represented
the only two surviving ones out of a group of four, are not to be believed. For one thing,
there is the evidence of the letters with which the composition of the sequence was
completed: in them we can see the Summer and Winter sequences taking shape, but no
letters making mention of any others exist. One letter makes reference to a summer
sequence beginning with the hokku on the topic of hana ibara (flowering brambles):
hana ibara
flowering brambles
koky no michi ni
the paths of my hometown
nitaru kana
were just like this
Busons letter reads:
botan chirite
a peony falls
uchikasanarin
piling up two,
u ni san pen
maybe three petals
(Buson)
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
153
A letter which Kit wrote to his disciple Shunba several years later,
with which he bequeathed to Shunba the manuscript of Peaches and plums,
gives us insight into Busons motivation for initiating composition of
these verse sequences. One day in late spring, Kit came to visit Buson.
Buson said that up to that point he had tried a number of different haikai
styles while living in various places, but because he still was not satisfied
with what he had produced, he wanted to compose some haikai that he
could be proud of, together with Kit, who had practiced so assiduously.
Composing a hokku for winter and autumn, they started two sequences:
Long ago, in 1780 I think it was, one day I went to visit the Master at Yahantei. The time was spring, when the blossoms were falling, and the birds
were singing, an evening when even the traces of spring were indistinct.
The rain began to fall gently, and when there were no visitors to disturb
the quiet, the Master himself lit the lamps, and sitting up straight in his
seat said, [...] I have been amusing myself with haikai for some fifty years,
and by and by I am approaching my seventh decade. I still have yet to
produce haikai I can be proud of; these days, as I expected, you have already matured in haikai. As an experiment, we two should do a twoperson sequence. We composed two hokku for summer and winter, and
master and disciple we composed more than one hundred verses, and days
passed into months until we completed the kasen, making the sequences
correct, studying the variations in the sequences, and polishing individual
verses.15
The long process of drafting and revising the Peaches and plums sequences
over the course of several months sounds very different from the typical
procedure of composing all the verses at a single session, and Kits
description gives an indication of the intense perfectionism that he and
Buson brought to their work. Significantly, Kit manages to interject
some words of praise for his own abilities into this tale. Nevertheless, it
uzuki hatsuka no
on the twentieth of the fourth month
ariake no tsuki
the moon at dawn
(Kit)
The above waki is very good, so please think of a daisan. It has an unforced, vibrant
waki style, and also, I think that as it sounds so much smoother than hana ibara it is
best to go with botan.
The reference to a sequence beginning hana ibara may account for the claim that there
were originally four, but two had been lost; other than this, no trace of the lost
sequences remains. It is probable that Busons claim that this was a group of four
sequences so old that two had been lost was a way to dramatize his point that haikai was
ageless.
14 iso Yoshio, Yosa Buson (fsha, 1975), pp. 104105.
15 Ibid., pp. 104105.
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CHAPTER FIVE
does appear that there were only two sequences, and that these took
several months to complete.
Peony petals scatter was the first of the two sequences. Since its
hokku uses the summer season word peony (botan), it is called a
summer sequence; the collection also contains the winter sequence
Winter trees (Fuyu kodachi).
1. Buson
botan chirite
uchikasanarinu
ni san pen
Buson wrote many verses about peonies; the word botan comes from the
Chinese, and carries associations of exotic splendor. The hokku uses
specific numberstwo, maybe threein a way similar to what he
does in Toward Toba palace / five or six riders gallop / autumn storm
(Toba dono e / gorokki isogu / nowaki kana) and Winter wind / however
do they get through life / in these five houses (Kogarashi ya / ika ni yo
wataru / ie go ken). However, unlike those two hokku, which imply a larger
story, Peony petals scatter refers to nothing outside the scope of the
speakers gaze. The almost photograph-like neutrality of verses like this
has attracted much notice from commentators who look for evidence of
a special artists eye in Busons haikai. Indeed, compared to the allusive
complexity of Willow leaves, fallen / the clear stream, dry / stones, here
and there (Yanagi chiri / shimizu kare ishi / tokoro dokoro), which Buson
described as a representation of the scene before [his] eyes, Peony
petals scatter does appear to have a remarkable transparency.
2. Kit
uzuki hatsuka no
ariake no kage
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
155
3. Kit
suwabukite
okina ya kado o
hirakuramu
coughing,
an old man
seems to be opening the gate . . .
at the crossroads
an old nettle tree
is hacked at with an ax
Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku, as Kit did in Verse 3. This
verse also is related to the supernatural world. Nettle trees (enoki) often
marked crossroads; it was believed that cutting one down would bring
on a curse. This would explain the creepy scene in the maeku.
6. Kit
hyakuri no kugaji
tomari sadamezu
a hundred-ri highway
without a fixed abode
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CHAPTER FIVE
Buson breaks another rule here: he follows Kits Summer verse with an
Autumn one, omitting the Miscellaneous verse that was supposed to
separate the two. He specifies the place and season of the poets illness
as a mountain village in early autumn.
9. Kit
yzuki
okurete wataru
shijkara
later
than the twilight moon
homing swallows fly
This is the second moon verse, again out of placeit should be Verse
14. The time is fixed as dusk. The human presence in the uchikoshi
disappears; Kits focus is entirely on the natural world: swallows swoop
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
157
Busons verse returns us to the human world. The mood of the persona
in Busons verse mirrors the dark, chill landscape of an autumn twilight.
Alone by a gate, he or she pauses to savor the moments delicate sadness.
11. Kit
me futaide
nigaki kusuri o
susurikeru
Kit gives a reason for the discomfort of the persona in the maeku:
physical illness. While urei (melancholy) has elegant associations, Kit
deflates them by his description of the personas contorted face as he
forces himself to drink a foul-tasting potion.
12. Buson
Taima e modosu
furoshiki ni fumi
Interpreting the persona in the maeku as having left home for medical
treatment, Buson envisions him sending back the furoshiki (cloth parcelwrapper) his family used to pack him a parcel of supplies or gifts.
13. Kit
tonari nite
mada koe no suru
abura uri
next door
we can still hear the voice
of the oil peddler
Kit envisions the person who will deliver the maekus furoshiki and letter
as an oil peddler. Despite the impatience of the people expecting the
parcel, he will not stop talking to the neighbors and be on his way to
deliver it.
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14. Buson
sanjaku tsumoru
yuki no tasogare
Buson shifts the focus to landscape, specifying the setting and the time
of day. The snow falls deep here, and the winter night comes early. It
would be a good time to welcome an oil peddler, were he not so
annoying. His conversation is as long as the snow is deep.
15. Kit
e ni uyuru
kami uchi ni
shinoburan
a starving wolf
may be hiding
inside
A wolf has had difficulty finding food because of all the snow. Kit sets
a lonely house into the winter landscape of the maeku. The people who
live there are as hungry and desperate as the wolf.
16. Buson
iguchi no tsuma
tada naki ni naku
at a flower-filled temple
where there was a bell-casting
she takes the tonsure
Kit puts the first blossom verse in the right place here. The maekus
persona has met with a happy end; to atone for her guilt by association,
she becomes a nun at a temple that is filled with blooming cherry trees.
18. Buson
haru no yukue no
nishi ni katabuku
spring departs
sinking in the west
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
159
The end of spring brings with it a sense of regret. Buson associates the
temple in the maeku with west, the direction of the Amitabha Buddhas
paradise. As joyful as the cherry blossoms may seem at the moment,
they, like the spring, will not last long.
19. Buson
Noto dono no
tsuru oto kasumu
ochikata ni
16 Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tale of the Heike (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988), p. 376.
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21. Buson
awa oishi
uma taurenu to
tori nakite
Kits verse fixes the season as summer, and the place where the
incident in the maeku happened as a farming community.
23. Buson
tachiaenu
niji ni Asama no
uchi keburi
a faintly visible
rainbow over Asamas
rising smoke
Buson adds a backdrop to the maekus rural close-up. The rainbow and
the smoke rising out of the volcano make a dramatic contrast of the
delicate and the grand.
Mount Asama, near Nagano, is one of the largest volcanoes in Japan.
Some three years after Buson and Kit wrote this sequence, it erupted
disastrously, killing around 2,000 people.
24. Kit
chokushi no oyado
msu ureshisa
Kits link is based on mood: the majesty of the great mountain and
rainbow after a rainstorm is similar to that of the imperial messenger,
and the host receives this guest with great delight.
25. Buson
k ni etaru
ajika no uo no
hara akaki
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
161
Buson imagines the feast that the maekus host puts on for the imperial
messenger. K ni etaru (taken from the river) has a stiff, formal feel, and
recalls Chinese poetry.
26. Kit
hi wa sashi nagara
mata arare furu
Hail (arare) fixes the season for the maeku as winter. The weather is
uncertain: the sky seems to be clearing, but it starts hailing. Kit contrasts the intense red of the fish and the white hail that falls.
27. Buson
mishikoi no
chigo neri ideyo
dkuy
Come out,
beloved acolyte!
the temple festival
Kit recasts the maekus lover as a girl, looking for the beautiful acolyte at
the temple festival but worried lest the jostling of the crowd should
dislodge the hairstyle she has put so much effort into perfecting.
29. Buson
izayoi no
kuraki hima sae
yo no isogi
With the phrase everyone is busy (yo no isogi) Buson shifts the scene
from the bright realm of romance to the dull, ordinary round of chores
and obligations. The persona who does not want her hair to be mussed
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under a curse,
the small shrine in the fields
is forbidding
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
163
34. Buson
sude ni Genba ga
kuji mo make iro
The name Genba has the connotations of someone strong and authoritative. Buson implies that the shrines curse has brought about the
lawsuits unfavorable outcome.
35. Buson
hana ni utoki
mi hatagoya no
meshi to shiru
A blossom verse. Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. Despite the
fact that the cherry blossoms are blooming, it is hard to enjoy them in an
inn near the courthouse. The food at the inn is bad, but having lost the
lawsuit, the persona hardly has a mind to enjoy anything anyway.
36. Kit
mada kure yaranu
haru no tomoshibi
Cheerful lamps are glowing, though the sky is still light. It is time for the
evenings meal on a fine spring night with the cherry trees in bloom. This
is the ageku (uplifting verse). Appropriately enough, Kits verse is
positive in outlook, leaving behind the curses and sorrows of the
previous few verses and ending in a bright scene, full of promise.
Most commentators would acknowledge that the verse sequences that
Buson and his collaborators produced are not as impressive as the
greatest of those composed by the Bash school. However, Busons
sequences are generally acknowledged to be among the best of the late
period of the heyday of haikai linked verse. The waning of linked verses
popularity in itself did not end up eliminating the communal side of
haikai: poets still met to compose impromptu hokku and receive instruction from a teacher, and other kinds of verse gatherings continued to be
popular. However, in part because of the rise of tentori haikai, and in part
because of the preferences of the Revival poets community for hokku,
the practice of linked verse composition went into a decline in the years
after Busons death.
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For this reason, collections like Around here: Four kasen in one night, and
those composed in unconventional circumstances like the sequences of
Peaches and plums are extremely valuable sources for the insights they offer
into the linked verse of the late eighteenth century, what was to be the
genres last great age.
CHAPTER SIX
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CHAPTER SIX
Buson as a Visual Poet: Masaoka Shiki and Shasei (Sketch from Life )
The notion that there was a close relationship between Busons painting
and haikai was at the center of the theories of poet and literary critic
Masaoka Shiki, who was the first to call attention to Busons work in the
modern period. Shiki was a central figure in a movement to reform waka
and renga that led to the invention of the modern genres tanka and
haiku.
When Shiki began writing about Buson in the last decades of the
nineteenth century, Busons hokku were no longer well known. Busons
reputation as a poet had flagged after his death, in part due to his own
anxiety and ambivalence toward his role in the haikai community. As we
have seen, Buson postponed taking on the leadership of the Yahantei
167
school until late in life, and left most of the work of promoting that
school up to Kit. However, Kit died in 1789, only a few years after
Buson. Even the great energy with which Kit laid the foundation of
Busons reputation as a haikai poet did little to forestall the eclipse of the
Yahantei school in the years that followed. One reason for its decline
was that Kit did not have time to cultivate his own successor. Perhaps
more importantly, though, the cult of Bash, which Buson helped to
promote, took off dramatically in the 1790s, and the haikai orthodox
tradition (shf ) gradually became synonymous with the Bash
tradition (shf ). As so much attention was focused onto the work
and teachings of Bash, less was paid to that of other poets. In other
words, Busons haikai fell into relative obscurity after his death in part
because of the great success of his generations efforts to place Bash at
the center of haikai history.
However, even during the time when the audience for Busons haikai
diminished, he continued to be admired as a painter. Indeed, it was his
reputation as a painter that brought him back into focus a century after
his death, and it was the very fact that his verse was unlike Bashsa
difference which was attributed to his identity as a painterthat
attracted the attention of people in the Meiji period like Shiki.
Shiki was the most influential of the critics who made Buson a centerpiece of efforts to reshape haikai into a genre that was viable in the
modern world. Shiki saw that older genres of Japanese poetry, like haikai,
were under threat from imported European forms. Haikais use of
classical language, the stale and clichd expressions it had acquired from
many generations of unimaginative practitioners, and above all, the
elaborate and inflexible social structure of schools and lineages that had
developed around it, were all contributing to its fossilization.
As he worked to revitalize it and transform it into the modern genre
he called haiku, Shikis most immediate target was the cult of Bash.
Over the years the successors to Buson and his colleagues in the Bash
Revival had transformed the movement from an effort to set high
literary standards for the genre into a stifling system of orthodoxy that
enabled large numbers of people to write haikai but made the practice an
exercise in banality. For this reason, many innovative poets of the day
advocated abandoning it completely.
While Shiki acknowledged that Bashs had written many excellent
hokku, he argued that many examples by other poets were equally good.
One of these was Buson. Buson came to Shikis attention with the help
168
CHAPTER SIX
169
170
CHAPTER SIX
171
achieved recognition in a haikai group that was well known both in Edo
and in Kyoto, and became the live-in student and secretary for his
teacher. Since Hajin had followers in rural and urban areas all over Japan,
the special consideration that he gave to Buson proved very helpful.
Hajins disciplesmost prominent among them Isaoka Gant in the east
and Mochizuki Soku in the west, shared Hajins high regard for Buson,
and for many years their help would prove indispensable to him.
Gant came from a well-respected family in Yki. His father, Gash
was a haikai poet who, like Hajin, had studied with both Ransetsu
and Kikaku; Gants brother, Shgo , also practiced haikai. The
haikai community in Yki and nearby Shimodate was extremely tightknit: Gashs sister (Gants aunt) married Hayami Shinga
(16701745), the haikai poet to whom Buson would dedicate his haishi
Mourning the Sage Hokuju (Hokuju rsen o itamu
).3 Shingas sons, Momohiko and Denk , both
practiced haikai. Two members of the Nakamura family of Shimodate
who later supported Buson also married into the haikai tradition:
Nakamura Fk (dates unknown) married Fujii Omitsu, who
was related to prominent Kikaku disciple Shinry (16801761), and
Nakamura Taisais wife was Gants sister. Sat Roky, with
whom Buson edited the Utsunomiya new years day booklet (Utsunomiya
saitanch , 1744), was Gants son-in-law.
The area around Yki and Shimodate was prosperousit produced
textiles, miso, and soy sauce; it outstripped its neighboring communities
in agricultural productivity. Although it was far from any urban center, it
boasted a relatively high level of education and cultural sophistication. At
the same time, to Buson, who had grown up in a farming village its rustic
character was probably much more inviting than was the busy environment of Edo.4
Buson used Gants home as his base. From late autumn 1742 until
the winter of 1743 he traveled, retracing Bashs Narrow road to the interior
route: in Shimodate he lived with Fk and Taisai; in Yki, besides
Gants house, he also lodged with J and stayed at Gugy-ji temple.
Only a few sources give us information about Buson during this
period, and one of the best is New flower gathering In the prose section of
this work, Buson describes the patrons he acquired during this period as
3
4
172
CHAPTER SIX
5 The palace of the First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang ), 259210 BCE, r.
221210 BCE.
173
6 Shimizu Takayuki, ed., Shinch Nihon koten shsei, vol. 32, Yosa Buson sh (Shinchsha,
1979), p. 47, note 141.
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Like the dried frog of Ide and wood shavings of Nagara Bridge, umoregi
or wood from buried tree is an object that had great value because of
its associations in classical poetry. Thus, a piece of this wood had great
value for people of literary sensibility; the one that Buson received had
been a gift to the temple from someone who was not only a powerful
lord, but was also an excellent waka poet.8 Busons telling of the story
self-deprecatingly (and humorously) exposes his own failure to appreciate the importance of this extraordinary giftwhich perhaps he had
achieved in exchange for one of his paintingsand because of it
Tanpokus good taste appears all the more impressive by contrast. This is
not just an amusing account of something Buson experienced while he
was on the Narrow road to the interior trail. Rather, it is an aisatsu praising
both his benefactors Tanpoku and Gant for their highly cultivated
sensibility at the same time as establishing them as well-informed
connoisseurs of fine art, and as such it shows gratitude for their generosity.
Buson concludes New flower gathering with another story about the risk
attached to valuable objects that chrononologically precedes his experiences in the northeast. This one took place while Hajin was still alive. It
is also different because Buson is the hero of the pieceit is he who
175
(16721721).
Their graves are at Sengakuji Temple, Tokyo.
11 Died 1692.
12 Chinese youths famous for their handsomeness.
13 Li Ling (d. 74 BCE) and Su Wu (ca. 14360 BCE) were both captured by the
Xiongnu , a Central Asian tribe that invaded Chinas northern frontier. Li Lings
poem to Su Wu was included in Wen xuan. Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol.
1, trans. David R. Knechtges (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 35, 42.
10
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he wanted for himself, and even though he did not say anything about it,
Kiteki knew what was on his mind, and ended up giving it to him.
Among the disciples of Tantan there was a man named Bakuten
,14 and he came to Akita from Naniwa and stayed there for some
time. Jsh and Bakuten were both devoted to haikai, and Jsh gave the
letter to Bakuten. After that Bakuten moved on to Edo, and he lived in a
place called Yanagiwara, near Edo Castle,15 and sought out a shabby room
and lived there. He had always been poor, and now he had run out of
ways to pay for clothing and food; he had no acquaintances, and no relatives that he could rely on, so he was in real trouble. When I realized this,
I gave him a little something to help him out of his difficulty.16 I hosted
my own monthly haikai meetings, running all over the place making his
sales pitch. Because of this, when, starting with people like Hajin, Rit,
Rywa, and Gojaku , people of all kinds joined, eventually the meeting place became filled to bursting with participants, and he had splendid
haikai group.
Bakutens intentions were finally realized when Mokusai Seiga
became a member of the group. He (Bakuten) took the name
Ihoku , and effortlessly composed linked verse sequences of ten
thousand verses, and he safely completed the initiation as a haikai master.
His reputation grew naturally, and he participated in many groups, and
anyway was very successful. Because he felt great affection and gratitude
towards me, his old friend, he told me he would give me the aforementioned Kikaku letter. I replied, You have only this to treasure. There
wont be another one. How can I accept it? I have no need of it. I firmly
declined his offer.
14
177
While he was there, Buson spends his time studying haikai and Chinese
poetry. As the story continues, however, things take a turn for the weird:
in the middle of the night Buson is visited by a badger, who disappears
every time he and the caretaker try to find it. Finally, when a hunter
shoots a badger in a nearby wood, Buson realizes that this must have
been the one that was troubling them, and he feels guilty at having
contributed to its death.
Another example is an incident that Buson describes as having happened at Nakamura Fks house. It is one of the longer tales in New
flower gathering:
There is a man called Nakamura Hyzaemon who lives
in Shimodate, in Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei
haikai school, and his haikai name was Fk . He was of unequalled
wealth, and lived in a fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens
were full of unusual stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let
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CHAPTER SIX
loose birds, and the scenery of the gardens artificial mountain surpassed
views of nature. He was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes
the provincial governor would come to call. His wifes name was Omitsu
. She was the daughter of a rich man called Fujii So-and-so, and was
skilled at waka and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began to
go into decline, many peculiar things happened.
Buson happened to visit Omitsu while Fk was away, and she tells him
that the household would wake to find that mochi (cakes made from rice
flour) were inexplicably disappearing from their storage containers.
Eventually, very late one night while she was diligently working at her
sewing, five or six foxes appeared in the room. They seemed to come
out of nowhere, and went away just as mysteriously. Buson was very
impressed with her response to this frightening experience: she reacted
with exemplary calm and stoicism.
While on the face of it these accounts seem to be little more than
mildly grotesque tales of haunting, they also have a serious purpose, and
can give us insight into a different aspect of Busons relationship with his
patrons. As in all the New flower gathering stories that describe people
whose homes are haunted by supernatural beings, J and the Nakamura
family are represented as people of good taste and refinement. This is
keeping with what we saw in Busons introduction to the Around here:
Four kasen in one night, an appreciation for tales of the supernatural was a
mark of a cultivated character. In both the story of J and that of
Omitsu, the location of the events is the residences of the people
concerned. Both places are described in terms of extremely high praise:
J lives like a recluse in the city, much as Busons great friend and
mentor Shha did. So does Fk; however, his home is even more
splendidits elaborate garden full of rare plants, stones, and even birds
would be appropriate for any Chinese scholar-recluse to live, study, and
to entertain friends. He was prominent enough to entertain provincial
officials, and even the relative poverty into which the house had declined
at the time of Busons visit is presented as a case of what a Confucian
would regard as honorable poverty. His wife, too, is a woman of industry
and dignity; she works late into the night at her sewing, and is stalwart
even in the face of a visit from otherworldly creatures. The environments these admirable people inhabit are isolated and run-down,
precisely because they have turned their back on striving for worldly
179
measures of success and instead devote themselves art and poetry. At the
same time, lonely, dilapidated houses invite the attentions of foxes and
badgers the way that more fashionable, well-maintained ones would not.
Thus the supernatural visits so prominent in Busons accounts are
actually a form of emphasizing the dedication of his patrons to a life of
transcending ordinary, everyday concerns, making them embodiments of
rizoku.
Busons New flower gathering also introduces humor as a way of calling
attention to the excellence of his friends. Like the stories associating
excellence with the grotesque, his portrayal of patron Hayami Shinga
seems on the surface at least ambiguous, if not frankly unflattering. The
story begins with Shinga sleeping with the shutters open, the better to
hear the affecting sound of the crickets chirping in the night. So far,
Shingas attitude is suitably tasteful. Next, however, a series of events
happen that leave us with a much different impression:
At about the Fourth Hour, he suddenly sat up in bed and looked outside,
and it was as bright as day from the dazzling moonlight. Several foxes sat
in a row on the veranda, waving their bushy tails. They cast very distinct
shadows on the shoji, and there are no words to describe how frightening
it was. How could Shinga stand it at that moment? He ran toward the
kitchen in a panic, and going up to a room where he thought the host was
sleeping, he knocked at the fusuma. Hey, wake up! he hollered at the
top of his voice. This awakened the servants, who made a big commotion,
yelling, Burglars! There are burglars here! Hearing this, Shinga himself
calmed down, and, his eyes fully awake now, he looked at what he was doing. He realized he was knocking on the door of the toilet, shouting, Sir!
Wake up! Help quickly! Later he spoke of this, and said, I am a fool,
even if I do say so myself.
This is one of the best examples of how Buson brings together the
grotesque and the comic. However, as he does in his other stories, he
adds another element: the aesthetic. Buson admired Shinga deeply; when
Shinga died Buson wrote what is perhaps his most emotionally raw
poetic and powerful work, the haishi Mourning the Sage Hokuju.
Given that this is the case, and in the context of the other New flower
gathering stories, it appears that in Busons circle of poets and art collectors who embraced the ideal of literati eccentricity inherent in the bunjin
ideal, laughter was to be prized, and people who behaved in a way that
elicited laughter were not necessarily ridiculous, but were instead viewed
as embodiments of this ideal. The bunjin ideal valued seeing through the
meaningless pretensions of conventional society, and people who had
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CHAPTER SIX
such insight were to be admired. Shingas behavior here was not quite
poetic madness; however, he was able to laugh at himself, and this was
also something that marked him as someone with a highly developed
personal character.
However courteous Busons stance towards his early patrons and
supporters appears in works intended for public consumption like New
flower gathering, the private face of his relationships with them is of a
somewhat different character. Instead of diffidence and respect, his
letters show a side to these relationships that was more direct and
emotional. The following is from a letter Buson wrote during his early
months in Kyoto to Momohiko, the son of Hayami Shinga. Momohiko
was probably in Edo at the time he received this letter, as his familys
sake brewing business had concerns there; his brother Denk, the letter
suggests, remained in Yki. The text is corrupt in several places.
To: [...] Yohachi, [....] Sawaragi ch
Please deliver this to the address above. Kindly affix it to the wall.
Please do not forget to deliver it.
Please obtain a line of calligraphy by Mr. Hirabayashi, or two or three
hanging scroll dipytchs. I would like to hang the in my studio here. And
some other people of good taste also definitely would like some. I humbly
ask this great kindness of you. This is the favor of a lifetime. I will paint
you a picture of Daikoku in return.
Ive been visiting various places in Kyoto. Ive spent a very interesting
time here. Recently I went to Fushimi and stayed there for a while. When
I remember the time when [...] danced, I laughed to myself. From time to
time I also compose some haikai. Im still pretty busy and I havent much
going on. When I have a year or twos experience of the place Im looking
forward to enjoying myself much more. Above all, Im asking you for Mr.
Hirabayashis calligraphy without fail. I am waiting for it eagerly.
Oshimi
oshidori ni
bi o tsukushiteya
fuyukodachi
mandarin ducks
replete with beauty:
woods in winter
There are many more besides that one, but Ive omitted the others. How
is Denk in Yki? I feel very nostalgic.
Hirabayashi Seisai (16951753) was a famous Edo calligrapher. Busons letter implies that Momohiko knew him, or was in contact
with someone who was. Buson asks for an example of his calligraphy not
only to copy and learn from it, but also to display it in his own studio.
181
182
CHAPTER SIX
Busons comments about his life during this period are sparse. In
Chapter Three we saw the letter he wrote to Shzan while in Tango, in
which he described its dialect as unpleasant and the locally popular style
of haikai as unpalatable. Despite this avowed lack of affinity for the
place, for reasons that are not clear, Buson eventually took the name
Yosa for himself; Yosa is a district not far from Miyazu, so he may
have developed a deeper attachment to the place than this letter suggests.
Also, while not many of the hokku that he wrote during this time survive,
the number and quality of extant paintings from this period are testimony to the fact that his experience here was very good for the development of his artistic skills. Many of the works he completed during this
period are very large, including some six-panel screen paintings. Like the
paintings he did during his years in the northeast, these reflect the
influence of many different styles, but many of them display a level of
confidence and certainty evident in few of his earlier paintings.
During the three years he spent here, he lived mostly at the Pure Land
temple Kensh-ji, the guest of a priest there, Chikukei, who was a haikai
poet. Buson probably received an introduction to Chikukei from one of
the many Pure Land temples in Kyoto. Buson was not deeply religious,
though because for several years he sometimes signed himself Shaku
Buson (Priest Buson) scholars have speculated that he must
have received some kind of Buddhist training. However, as we have
seen, Buson frequently stayed at temples in places where he was without
a more permanent residence. Temples were usually prepared to give
lodging to visiting pilgrims, and in a time when inns and other facilities
for travelers were still relatively limited, it was not uncommon for people
to find accommodation in temples, even while on journeys whose
purpose was not actually religious.
One source of information about Busons time at Kensh-ji is the
story in New flower gathering, where he describes his experience of being
repeatedly awoken in the night by a mischievous badger. In this Chikukei, Busons host, is presented in rather undignified, even comic terms.
The story begins with Buson falling ill with a fever, and taking refuge in a
back room at the temple. One night, getting up to use the toilet, he
draws back the sliding door. Stepping into the next room, he is shocked
when his foot touches something small and furry. He is even more
disturbed to find that the mysterious object almost immediately disappeared. Though he calls for help from the resident monks, they resent
183
having their sleep disturbed and complain that his fever is making him
hallucinate.
Feeling embarrassed because I had been given such a scolding, I too got
back into bed. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone
had been laid on my chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my
voice was within the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over
and said, How extraordinary! Whats the matter? and saved me by waking me up. When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had
experienced, he said, Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be
the work of that badger.
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like fallen
petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the walkway.
And so, even those people who before had said I was talking nonsense
and scolded me, said wonderingly, Hm, maybe it really was something.
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry to
wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying that
this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on his
testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi jo no
Kinkakuji
Chikukei
As in the episodes Buson recounts from his journey to the northeast, the
focus of this story is the visit of a supernatural being. It is very similar to
the tale of Shingas experience, involving the invasion of his room by a
strange creature and a nocturnal visit to the toilet. The humorous side of
things is even more apparent in this story, with the very frank and earthy
description of his Chikukeis private parts. Busons story provides a
context for Chikukeis poemShukaku was a legendary monk of Morinji temple in Tatebayashi (modern Gunma Prefecture) who seemed to
have magical powers and was rumored to be a badger in disguise; an
eight j-sized room at Kinkaku-ji was built with camphor wood boards;
the testicles (kindama) of a badger were thought to be a prodigious size;
kaku means both pavilion and to scratch. Despite the fact that
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185
these texts, then, was anxietythe need to flatter, cajole, and ingratiate
himself with wealthy people enough to earn their patronage. Busons
career as a painter might have enabled him to shun aggressive selfpromotion as a haikai poet, however, the pressures he faced as a painter
remained strong nonetheless.
Haiga: An Introduction
These pressures had influence on another area of Busons work where
painting and poetry intersect: haiga. The majority of Busons haiga date
from the early 1770s and afterward, from around the time that his
position as a Kyoto painter was more secure and he took on the
leadership of the Yahantei school. As a form of art that could be
produced quickly and cheaply, haiga were a perfect tool for a painter like
Buson who was chronically short of funds, even during his most
productive years.
Haiga are works in which haikai text and image combine to form a
single, integrated whole. Haiga were quite different from the pictures that
professional artists like Buson typically painted. Most were on a very
small scale, often a single hokku paired with a simple sketch. Both
inscription and image were supposed to appear spontaneous and
immediatea direct expression of a single moment.
Haikai poets were not necessarily brilliant painters. However, regardless of its aesthetic qualities, the calligraphy or painting of a haikai poet
had its own value as a visible trace of a persons character, much as
autographs might be viewed today. It was not unusual for editors to
compile facsimile collections of poems inscribed in the handwriting of
the poets who composed them, like Motsus Ancient and modern poetry
collection, because the handwriting itself was an important object of study,
and contributed to the readers appreciation of a poem. In the same way,
the brushwork of a painting also value regardless of how technically
skillful it was.
Haiga were informal and dashed off in a hurry, giving the impression
of having been created impulsively. In this way they are similar to hokku,
which are supposed to seem fresh and spontaneous even though they
might have undergone numerous revisions, or verse links that were
composed on the spot in reaction to another persons maeku.
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CHAPTER SIX
Haiga resemble hokku and linked verse in other ways, too: most importantly, both create a sense of surprise by bringing together incongruous images. The connection between the images is close enough that
viewers can perceive it, but not so close that it seems tediously obvious.
Hokku and linked verse accomplish this using words alone. Ambiguity
and implicationleaving out information in order to cue their viewers to
supply itare extremely common. Hokku, for example, frequently create
multiple layers of meaning expressed through homophony, pivot words,
and the like. In linked verse, the writer of the tsukeku seizes on one of
several interpretations of a maeku and builds on it to form the next link.
Haiga also operate this way, but the inclusion of a visual element places
the focus even more on implication. The artist and writer choose exactly
the right image to pair with a text, and add no more detail than is
absolutely necessary to trigger recognition and insight. The pleasure the
reader-viewer has in haiga is that of guessing the connection between the
text and the image, and in the most interesting haiga, connections are
very subtle indeed.
Curator and art historian Okada Rihei calls haiga something that acts
as haikai, in the form of a picture.17 In Okadas view, haiga are different
from other similar-looking kinds of Japanese art, arguing that they bear
only a superficial resemblance to works such as the Frolicking birds and
beasts (Chj giga , early 12th c.) attributed to Toba Kakuy
(10531140), ink sketches by medieval monks, and cartoonlike drawings by tea masters. Likewise, not every picture painted by a
haikai poet is necessarily haiga. The essential distinguishing feature of a
haiga, Okada argues, is what he calls haikai spirit (haikai seishin
). While this is difficult to define, it is related to the fact that
the producers of these works were commoners rather than aristocrats,
and they tended to infuse their works with humor and a sense of fun.
Also, while references to the natural world were common in haiga verses
and images, the main focus was on depicting the realities of the daily life
of the lower classes. 18
The word haiga did not come into use until the Tenp period. Buson
did not use this word himself; he referred to his haikai pictures as haikai
rough sketches . The first use of haiga is attributed
to Watanabe Kazan (17931841):
17
18
187
Haiga is that which takes aesthetic refinement (fry) as its first principle.
In the Genroku period there were people like Itch (Hanabusa
Itch, 16521724) and Kyoriku (Morikawa Kyoriku , 1656
1715); in terms of style, Shinsei (Ogata Kenzan , 1663
1743) was better. This aesthetically refined taste (fry no omomuki) is not
an ancient one; it probably started with people like Takimotob
(Shkad Shj , 15841639) and Krin (Ogata Krin
, 16581716). Among haikai poets Ryh was outstanding. In
recent years, Buson and his school have come to be thought interesting. It
is important to paint keeping all of these artists in mind. Making everything too perfect is not good; to a certain extent paint badly. To put it in
human terms as an example, being clever and shrewd in ones behavior or
a good talker is bad; knowing little of the world and stuttering navet is
seen as aesthetic refinement (fry), and one should try to achieve this and
introduce it into ones work. 19
19
224.
Ebara Taiz, Haiga, Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13 (Ch Kronsha, 1979), p.
188
CHAPTER SIX
Yoj, then, can be understood as expression that conveys more than what
it literally says. Ebara associates overtones with a number of different
aesthetic terms: in waka, it is related to ygen (mystery and depth), in
renga, sabi (austerity), hie (chill), yase (slenderness) or fuke (profundity). In
the case of the 31-syllable waka, implication was an essential part of
expressing the poets message, because the shortness of the form itself
placed limits on what could be said directly. This became even more
important in renga and haikai, which gave poets only 17 or sometimes as
little as 14 syllables to work with. Thus, haikai poets had to devise ways
to give eloquence to what was left unsaid. This same habit of thought
and expression, Ebara argues, transferred itself to a form of painting in
which much of the picture space was left open and unpainted. Again,
while unpainted space is not uncommon in Chinese and Japanese
painting as a rule, haigas identifying characteristics remained its focus on
the daily life of commoners, and its liberal use humor.22
Ebaras explanation of yoj in haiga points to how completely integrated haiga was with poetry, especially linked verse and hokku. The
relationships between haigas visual and verbal images follow rules that
governed verse sequences. These rules were highly complex and
technical, and they varied depending on the historical period and school.
The earliest formulation of linked verse rules was that offered in waka
20 Episode 137, Are we to look at the blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only
when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds
and be unaware of the passing of the springthese are even more deeply moving.
Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 115.
21 Ebara, Haiga, p. 228.
22 Ibid., pp. 228229.
189
Sengin
taka no egoi to
ne oba naki ato
Kigin
This pair of verses is taken from a sequence included in Memorial haikai
on the thirteenth anniversary of the passing of Elder Teitoku (Teitoku jsan kaiki
23 Higashi Akimasa, Renku nymon: Bash no haikai ni soku shite (Ch Kronsha, 1978),
p. 104.
24 A detailed discussion of different types of linking is in Higashi, pp. 104118.
25 Ibid., p. 20.
190
CHAPTER SIX
Tsei (Bash)
samusashi satte
ashi no saki made
26
Ibid., p. 22
Donald Keene, Twenty Plays of the N Theater (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970), p. 153154.
27
191
28 Shirane, Matsuo Bash and the Poetics of Scent, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
52, 1 (1992): 78. The translation is by Shirane.
192
CHAPTER SIX
Hyakusen
29
Ibid., p. 86.
Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, eds., Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori bunko
tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series (Itami: Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996), p. 34.
30
193
Figure 2
First dream of the year. Haiga by
Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City Museum.
194
CHAPTER SIX
With that reference, the meaning of the picture becomes clear. The
image of a sleeping Chinese scholar huddled over his desk resonates with
the reference to butterflies and dreams, and despite the brevity of the
verse and the extreme simplicity of the painting, there is enough
information here to solve the puzzle. First dream of the year (Hatsu
yume ya) works like a hokku in that it both presents a high-culture
referenceZhuangzis dreambut undercuts it by referring to the
earthy, visceral sensation of the cold, and it does this by the juxtaposition
of the picture with the words. Instead of lofty philosophical speculation
on the nature of reality, we are presented with the ordinary physical
experience of feeling the discomfort of the cold in very early spring. It is
so cold, the picture and verse imply, that even the greatest of sages lays
aside his studies and bundles up in the warmth of his robe for a nap. The
information the verse offers provides an intelligible context for the
picture, but it does this through association, rather than direct description.
A haiga by Busons contemporary and frequent collaborator, Miura
Chora, works in a slightly different way (Figure 3). As it shows, instead
of complementing the verse, visual images in haiga could also set up a
contrast, creating an interesting tension in the composition. In this haiga,
the text of Choras inscription reads:
mono no aware wa
aki koso masare
aki no aware wa y
koso are
31
nake nake to
ware o semekeri
aki no kaze
195
Chora
The headnote is derived from two different literary sources. The first is a
line from a waka by Henj in the mid-Heian imperial collection, Anthology of waka gleanings (Shi waka sh , 10057):
aki yama no
arashi no koe o
kiku toki wa
ko no ha naranedo
mono zo kanashiki
when I hear
the sound of a storm
in autumn mountains
though I am not a leaf on a tree
I still sense the sadness of things 33
Henj
and the second alludes to Sei Shnagons Pillow book. In this famous
quotation from its opening lines, Shnagons topic is the best time of
day:
In autumn, the evening. When the bright setting sun has sunk very close
to the mountaintops, it is moving even to see crows flying toward their
roosts in groups of three or four or two. Still more delightful is a file of
geese looking very tiny. Then, too, the wail of the wind and the plaints of
insects when the sun has quite disappeared.34
32
196
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 3
Calling cry, cry! Haiga by
Miura Chora.
197
35
198
CHAPTER SIX
36 Kkai (774835), also called Kb Daishi , was one of the most influential
Buddhist priests in Japan; he founded the Shingon sect.
37 NKBT, vol. 46, pp. 205206.
38 A similar phrase appears in Kkais treatise Spirit anthology (Shrysh, also
called Seireish).
199
39 Episode 122. Too many accomplishments are an embarrassment to the gentleman. Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 105.
200
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201
1. Thank you very much for taking care of the fees from Ykitsu
40 and the others the other day and sending them to me. I am much
obliged to you for your help with this. This time, about the previous orders of:
Hanging scroll triptych: middle: God of Longevity41 left and right:
pictures of deer
Bash portrait
I sent these as well as two landscape paintings. In the previous order, you
asked for a bird-and-flower painting in intense colors. I have not painted
this yet. The other three pieces are not done either. I will send them to
you after Bon Festival.
2. As for the two landscape paintings I sent you this time, I painted
them in the Northern School style. This is a style I previously had not
worked in. For this reason, they do not look the least bit elegant to me.
However, they are pieces that really achieve an air of having been painted
by a Chinese artist. Still, because this is a style I have not preferred in the
past, they lack flair. I will trust to your judgment, so please sell them to the
country yokels in your area and send me the proceeds. They took a lot
more effort than I thought they would. As for the above-mentioned fee,
please do not discuss it with other people; I trust to your discretion.
Buson frequently commented on his age and the state of his health in his
personal writingoften it was his stomach that troubled him; here it was
his painting hand. His contempt for ignorant provincial clients is very
obviousthese were the same sort of people that he described as being
not worthy enough to compose haikai with when he was living in
Miyazu. For them, apparently, distinguishing between the different
schools of Chinese painting that Buson tried to emulate was beyond
their capacity. As consumers, they were only interested in the paintings
resemblance to work by Chinese painters in general. That quality alone
made these northern school works adequate for the market, even
though Buson acknowledged that he was not very proficient at this kind
of painting. Though does not explicitly mention the term here, the style
he preferred was the southern.
Nanga was a style that came into its heyday around middle of the
eighteenth century, and Buson became one of its leading proponents.
Nanga developed from ideas of the linkage of painting, calligraphy, and
poetry that had a very long history in China. The expectation that
40
41
Kafus father.
Jurjin.
202
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42 Maggie Bickford, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 101.
203
to reach Japan in the early modern period, the Mustard seed garden manual
of painting, for the Chinese literatus learning to paint well was not just a
matter of acquiring technical skill, but to enter into a process of resolving
an almost mystical paradox:
Lu Chai says:
Among those who study painting, some strive for an elaborate effect
and others prefer the simple. Neither complexity in itself nor simplicity is
enough.
Some aim to be deft, others to be laboriously careful. Neither dexterity
nor conscientiousness is enough.
Some set great value on method, while others pride themselves on dispensing with method. To be without method is deplorable, but to depend
entirely on method is worse.
You must learn first to observe the rules faithfully; afterwards, modify
them according to your intelligence and capacity. The end of all method is
to seem to have no method.43
43
Sze, p. 17.
204
CHAPTER SIX
205
captured by a few simple strokes if they are right. That is truly giving expression to the invisible.44
Chikudens observation that Buson and Taiga were friendly rivals was
probably accurate. Busons letters give the impression that he admired
Taiga, and Buson mourned Taiga when he died in 1776. On one
occasion the two artists collaborated, albeit indirectly, by jointly produced a 20-page album of paintings based on the Poems on the ten
conveniences of Yi Yuan and Poems on the twelve
delights of Yi Yuan of Li Yu, the scholar and playwright who wrote the preface to the Mustard seed garden manual of painting.
The album was probably commissioned by its first owner, Nagoya
amateur artist and poet Shimozato Gakkai . However, Buson
and Taiga had very different painting styles, and Chikudens description
of the two painters brushwork clearly favors Taigas, which is not
surprising considering Taiga was greatly admired for his calligraphy.
Even more damning is Chikudens assertion that Busons approach was
heretical, in contrast to that of Taiga, which Chikuden calls orthodox:
44 Ibid., p. 250. Hsieh i (pinyin, xie yi): ; tsao shu (cao shu): ; chn shu (zhen shu):
; kai hua (kai hua): ; i (yi): . Cited in Ogata, p. 251.
45
206
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46
207
Sixty years before the date the surimono was published Buson was about
eight or nine years old. Ishin was the painter Momoda Ishin
(d. 1765). Scholars interpret this passage differently. Okada Rihei
believes that Ishin was some twenty years older than Buson and served
as an early mentor. Tanaka Yoshinobu disagrees, arguing that childhood
fun refers to both Buson and Ishin, and that the two were about
the same age and that painting was one of their amusements.48 No other
documents that give evidence of Busons background as a painter exist.
The oldest surviving Buson paintings date from his period in northeastern Japan, when he was in his twenties and early thirties. They are
tentative and unsophisticated works that resemble Kan school paintings
or primitive versions of nanga.
The earliest Buson haikai-related picture predates his paintings; it is
the one included in the 1737 anthology Fourth month principles to accompany the hokku at the convent / a cosmetic arrives / during the Ten
Nights ceremony (amadera ya / jya ni todoku / bin kazura) (Figure 4).
This would prove the first of many pictures Buson published in anthologies, the most elaborate of which were those in Light of the snow (1771),
Anei 3 Buson spring anthology (Anei sannen Buson shunkyj
, 1774), and Blossoms and birds collection. Buson also
composed a number of surimono that matched haikai inscriptions with
pictures. Haiga, strictly defined, are paintings, but many of the picturetext combinations included in Busons printed works operate according
to the same logic used in haiga, and offer further evidence of the close
relationship between text and image in haikai.
47
48
Tanaka, p. 8.
Ibid., p. 9.
208
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Figure 4
At the convent. Illustration from Fourth month
principles (Uzuki teikin).
49 Ogata Tsutomu, Sasaki Jhei, and Okada Akiko, eds., BZ, vol. 6, Kaiga iboku (Kdansha, 1998).
50 Depictions of Daikoku, the god of wealth, show him holding this mallet, which
grants wishes when shaken.
209
51
52
210
CHAPTER SIX
at Hashidate
tears of rain fall early
autumn is leaving!
a wagtails
tailat Hashidate
left luggage
53 BZ glosses minp as meaning the nanga style of bunjin painters, and kanry as the
Kan school. Shimizu Takayuki interprets kanry as meaning Chinese painting in general,
as opposed to Japanese painting; Yosa Buson sh, p. 324. Tanaka Yoshinobu agrees with
Shimizu that the word refers Chinese painting in general, rather than to that the Kan
school; Tanaka, p. 71.
54 Thomas Cleary, trans., No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan: A New Translation of the Zen
Classic Wumenguan [Mumonkan] (London: The Aquarian Press, Harper Collins, New
York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 201.
211
Unlike Bash, Buson was not a Zen disciple; his association with
Buddhism was more in line with the teachings of the Pure Land sect.
However, he sometimes used references to Zen in his writings in order
to make a point, as we see in the Shundei verse anthology preface. Here he
compares his friend and himself to people of spiritual accomplishment,
whose state of mastery was sufficient to warrant a break from the
bounds of scriptures and teachings, and take a step forward into a higher
state of practice.
55
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Figure 5
Ama-no-hashidate. Hanging scroll.
The connection between the text and the illustration becomes clearer in
the next passage, as Buson describes the circumstances of Hyakusens
and his departure, and their farewell hokku. Hyakusens compares the
tears of parting to the cold drops of shigure, the intermittent rains that fall
in late autumn and winter. Busons compares the memory of his sendoff
to the tail of a sekirei (wagtail), implying that both are long, and that his
213
feelings for the place will follow him like luggage sent to him after his
departure. Hyakusens standing as an artist in Miyazu was better than his,
and they went home to different sides of the capital, but both of them
did well as mavericks on the path of haikai.
The inscription and the picture have a very close connection and in
that sense are almost too obvious for a haiga. On the other hand, the
depiction of Ama-no-hashidate is so abstract as to be barely recognizable, so the viewer is challenged to read more into this composition than
the text or the picture directly supply.
Figure 6
Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson.
Another early Buson haiga is also associated with Hyakusen (Figure 6).
The work is a diptych, one panel of which is by Hyakusen and the other
by Buson. The diptychs theme is Tanabata, the night of the seventh day
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CHAPTER SIX
magpie:
when it leaves the bridge it becomes
a migratory bird
Hyakusen
The speaker in the verse imagines that the magpie, once finished with its
responsibility in the heavens, flies back to Japan as an ordinary migratory
bird. Hyakusens magpie perches on a branch with its wings folded,
resting from its long flight home. The connection between the verse and
the picture is not all that complicated: the picture shows the magpie
mentioned in the verse.
Busons response, however, is much more complex, and is a good
example of the linked verse-like connections between word and image
that were so common in haiga. The painting shows five mulberry leaves,
cascading from top to bottom in the long, narrow space afforded by the
hanging-scroll format. Alongside, Buson wrote:
Hyakusen had a verse about a magpie that bridged the Milky Way. He
wanted to have another hanging scroll to match it. In response, I took up
my brush and wrote the following:
ichi jin wa
sakaki ni jin wa
kaji no fune
56
215
Together, the verse and image create multiple layers of verbal and visual
puns that not only internally unite the different elements of Busons
painting, but also connect its content to Hyakusens painting.
On one level, Busons hokku refers to two heroes of the Gempei War
(11801185) whose story is told in Tale of the Heike, Sasaki Takatsuna
(d. 1214) and Kajiwara Kagesue (11621200).
These men were warriors on the side of the Minamoto clan, who fought
in the Second Battle of the Uji River (1184). Challenged by Yoritomo,
leader of the Minamoto clan, with the gift of an excellent horse each,
they vied with one another to be the first to cross the Uji River to face
their opponents, the Taira:
The Commander in Chief, Yoshitsune, advanced to the rivers edge and
looked out over the water. Perhaps he wished to probe mens minds, for
he said, What shall we do? Would it be best to go around to Yodo and
Imoarai? Should we wait for the river to subside? [...]
Hatakeyama no Shji Jir Shigetada, who was only twenty-one years
old, came forward to speak.... Ill test it for you. Five hundred riders
surged forward to align their bridles...
Just then, two warriors galloped into sight from the tip of Tachibanano-kojima northeast of the Bydin. One was Kajiwara Genda Kagasue,
the other was Sasaki Shir Takatsuna. Although neither had let his intentions show, each had made a secret resolve to be first across the river.
Takatsuna hailed Kagesue, who was about thirty-five feet ahead of
him. This is the biggest river in the west. Your saddle girth looks loose;
tighten it.
Kagesue...tightened it. Meanwhile, Takatsuna galloped past him into
the river. Kagesue followed, perhaps feeling that he had been tricked.
Look out, Sasaki, Kagesue cried. Dont slip up just because you
want to be a hero. There must be ropes on the bottom.
Takatsuna drew his sword, cut the ropes one after another as they
touched his mounts legs, rode straight across the swift Uji River on Ikezuki, the best horse in the world, and ascended the opposite bank. Kagesues mount, Surusumi, landed far downstream, forced into a slanting
course at the halfway point.57
In Busons hokku, Sasaki refers not only to the victorious warrior, but
it also recalls the word for magpie used in Hyakusens, kasasagi. Kaji
has an even more elaborate chain of associations. On the one hand, it is
the first part of the name of the warrior Kajiwara. In their race across the
Uji River, Sasaki was first, hence: first in position is Sasaki / second is
Kaji(wara).
57
216
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58
59
217
complicated word games, and is as much a puzzle as a work of expressive art or literature.
manzai dancers!
leave no ones gate unvisited
millet for the crane
218
CHAPTER SIX
manzai no
fumi katametaru
ky no tsuchi
Buson
Figure 7
The manzai dancers. Haiga.
60
219
Because Buson uses the title sensei (teacher) after Nankakus name
(Nankaku sensei) it may be that there had been a direct, personal
relationship between the two. Buson was living in Edo at the same time
that Nankaku was active as a teacher there, so it is not impossible that
Buson heard his lectures; however, nothing that Buson or his disciples
wrote confirms this. Buson certainly absorbed Nankakus teachings
through colleagues like Kuroyanagi Shha, who had attended his school
in Edo, and Nankakus ideas were generally well known in Busons circle.
This haiga does not have the complex layers of wordplay and cryptic
connections linking text and image that Buson uses in his Tanabata
painting. Instead, it is more of a straightforward illustration of the scene
to which the inscribed verses allude. Commentators often describe verse
links whose connection is very obvious as betazuke clingy or
sticky link. In contrast to nioizuke, which requires thought and a literary
education to unravel, betazuke is cloying or easily perceptible. Whereas
the Tanabata diptychs elements are held together with overtones as light
and subtle as a delicate fragrance, by contrast, the relationship between
text and image in the manzai haiga is as strong as if it were reinforced with
thick glue.
Still, without a doubt, the figures themselves possess great charm, and
the poems are all properly celebratory and pleasant-sounding. Kikakus
verse is good-natured, for all its cynicism. Nankakus verse attests to the
unshakeable security of the capital that still stands after the great powers
of Chinese history have long since fallen. Busons suggests that its firm
stability has something to do with the weight of the footfalls of the
61
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CHAPTER SIX
scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly
This painting is in the shape of a fana format that lent itself easily to
haiga because it was well suited to small, intimate-sized compositions.
The picture shows a thatched hut under some pines, and the wistfullooking face of the huts inhabitant looking out of his only window. The
hut is typical of Busons portrayals of the dwelling-places of hermits and
literati recluses, particularly Chinese ones; his nanga landscapes are full of
them. In fact, it is precisely because this is a stereotypical scholar
recluses hut that we can easily make the connection between the verse
and the image. The headnote that is included also identifies the nature of
the hut: Savoring the pathos of a solitary scholars retreat (ichi shosei no
kans o awaremu).
While the connection between the verse and the image is very close in
the sense that the latter is an illustration of the former, the haiga still
leaves certain things up to the imagination. For instance, there is no
depiction of a firefly. Even more dramatic is the extreme simplicity and
abbreviation of the painting. The image of the hut takes up the right
third of the picture space; the lines of the poem and Busons signature
fill the middle. The left third, however, is completely empty. Despite this,
the composition does not seem at all unbalanced. The empty space in
this picture is active and productive, conveying the impression of a larger
landscape.
Other haiga from this period show a greater level of complexity,
though. One of these shows a hototogisu flying over two clusters of
hydrangea flowers (Figure 8). The birds wings are spread and its mouth
is open, to suggest it is calling out as it flies. The bird is flying towards
the hydrangea; the flowers seem to be looking up towards it in greeting.
As in Scholarly brilliance (Gakumon wa), Buson has stripped the scene
down to its absolute minimum, leaving a large area of the picture entirely
unpainted, though here he depicts his subject in greater detail. The
221
hydrangea is in the lower left hand corner, its leaves and numerous petals
carefully outlined. The hototogisu is in the upper right hand corner, given
volume and shape by brushstrokes that mark out each of its dark
feathers. The hokku is inscribed just below it, in three short lines:
Iwakura no
kyjo koiseyo
hototogisu
Figure 8
Cause the madwoman of Iwakura. Haiga.
The hokku was written on the fourth day of the fourth month in 1773; it
was recorded in Transcriptions (Mimi tamushi )Buson disciple
Teramura Hyakuchis (17491835) handwritten record of
hokku he and his associates wrote in the 1760s1780sas one of the
verses composed for the set topic hototogisu. It was also published in
Korekomas Five cartloads of wastepaper in 1783.
This verse is particularly hard to follow without information about its
context. In the first place, Iwakura is in Kyoto. During Busons lifetime,
a waterfall at a temple there, Daiun-ji , was believed to be
efficacious for curing mental illness, and consequently was often visited
62
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CHAPTER SIX
by patients seeking relief from this condition. Thus there was a close
connection between the place name Iwakura and the mentally insane.
Beyond this reference, though, are several more literary allusions
embedded in the hokku. One cluenot included in the Transcriptions
version or the haigais the headnote in Five cartloads of wastepaper: an
insignificant person like myself could never be privileged to hear it. This
is a quotation from the 107th episode of Essays in idleness, a story about
rivalry between men and women:
Few men can give a quick and apt response to a witticism from a woman,
they say. During the reign of the Cloistered Emperor Kameyama, some
mischievous court ladies made a practice of testing young men who came
to court by asking them if they had ever heard a nightingale sing. A certain
major counselor answered, An insignificant person the likes of myself
could never be so privileged. The Horikawa minister of the interior said,
I believe I have heard one at Iwakura. The women said, Thats a perfectly good answer. The major counselors calling himself insignificant was
unfortunate.63
63 Keene, Essays in Idleness, pp. 8990. Keene notes that Emperor Kameyama reigned
from 12601272, and was called the Cloistered Emperor until his death in 1305. He also
notes that the Horikawa minister of the interior refers to Minamoto no Tomomori
(12491316). He translates hototogisu as nightingale.
223
Fujiwara Ieyoshi64
This verse presents an image of the hydrangea in a dreamlike context of
long, languid summer dusk and the dim, uncertain light of fireflies, thus
associating it with romance. Hydrangeas bloom during early summer, the
same season when it was customary for poets to wait to hear the elusive
cuckoos call. As the waka suggests, the sight of hydrangeas is fitting one
for just such a melancholy vigil. With this source poem and others like it
in mind, the connection that Buson draws between the different
elements of his haiga begin to make sense. Much as the unpainted space
in the painting is left for the readers imagination to fill in, Buson links
64
224
CHAPTER SIX
the imagery of the hokku with that of his picture in a way that requires
the active participation of a very well informed and well-educated reader.
Figure 9
Young bamboo! Haiga.
225
young bamboo!
the courtesan of Hashimoto
is she still there, or not?65
65
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CHAPTER SIX
na ni shi owaba
iza koto towamu
miyakodori
wa ga omou hito wa
ari ya nashi ya to
Everyone in the boat shed tears.66
Because Buson draws the phrase ari ya nashi ya from this source, readers
would recognize that his verse implies a mood of romantic longing.
Juxtaposing the rarefied world of the Tales of Ise with the more prosaic
setting of the brothels of Hashimoto at once makes a comic parody of
the classical source text and elevates a place from the mundane present
into the elegant context of waka. Thus Young bamboo! (Waka take ya)
exists both in the plane of ga and that of zoku simultaneously.
To add to this, the picture of the thatched hut brings in another set of
associations from the classical tradition: in this case the famous conversation between the poet-priest Saigy and the courtesan of Eguchi.
Included in Saigys personal verse collection Poems of a mountain home
(Sankash ), the story of their encounterin which the courtesan
showed herself to be a more subtle interpreter of the Buddhist law than
Saigy was himselfwas admired for centuries and was the basis for a
famous N play, Eguchi .
On the way to the temple called Tenn-ji, I got caught in the rain. In the
area known as Eguchi I asked at one place for a nights lodging. When refused, I replied as follows:
yo no naka o
itou made koso
katakarame
It is hard, perhaps,
To hate and part with the world;
But you are stingy
66
kari no yado o
oshimu kimi kana
227
It is because I heard
Youre no longer bound to life
As a householder
That Im loath to let you get attached
To this inn of brief, bought, stays67
The courtesan reminds Saigy of the basic Buddhist teaching that any
dwelling placewhether it be a room a traveler borrows for the night, a
human identity, or an entire lifetimeis temporary and illusory. The
irony of a woman who trades in physical desire teaching the Dharma to a
monk who is supposed to have abandoned attachments deeply impressed the generations of people who became familiar with this story.
In the N play, Eguchi, the courtesan actually reveals that her true
identity is that of the bodhisattva Fugen (Sanskrit: Samantabhadra),
making her great wisdom a little less surprising, but further serving to
underscore the point that the things of the world are illusions. Busons
hokku and picture pick up on this story, where low (the courtesan) is
actually the high (a teacher of the Dharma, a bodhisattva)a meeting of
zoku and ga that is fundamental to what Okada Rihei calls haikai spirit.
Buson is making a deliberate choice when in depicting the courtesans
house as more or less indistinguishable from the thatched huts of
scholar-recluses that are so common in his other paintings. It is nothing
like the contemporary ukiyo-e depictions of courtesans and brothels,
which were often dramatic or lurid. What he offers us here is not a
depiction of an actual brothel in Hashimoto. Instead, it is just a reference
to an imagined literary place: the setting of the N play Eguchi, overlaid
with references to the romantic Tales of Ise whose overtones are further
emphasized with the addition of graceful stalks of bamboo.
Nowhere near as complex, but nevertheless exquisite both for its
poetry and its visual imagery, are the many versions of the verse:
hana o fumishi
zri mo miete
asane kana
67 William LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 7071.
228
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 10
That she walked beneath the blossoms. Haiga.
The most striking are the two fan-shaped haiga that depict a woman,
probably a courtesan, seated on the floor with her back to the viewer
(Figure 10). In one, she holds a letter up to read. In the other, she just
stares into the distance, with the dark shape of her obi sash balancing out
the black mass of her upswept hair held in place with an elaborate comb.
Another version, in a more conventional painting format, shows nothing
but a single sandal, its brocade strap suggesting an elegant owner.69 Each
version has a slightly different headnote, a variation on: Heart taken by
the blossoms, one puts aside everything, even to the point of seeming
like a lazy person in all things, is this not something that is touching and
graceful?
Considered alone, the hokku can be read an aisatsu to a friend who has
displayed the proper attitude towards the beauty of the cherry blossoms.
When the speaker goes to visit her in the morning, he finds she is
sleeping late that day. The sandals left in the doorway explain the
reasonthey are littered with the pale pink petals of the blossoms that
had fallen on the streets she walked through the night before. The verse
68
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365; images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 400401.
In addition to the haiga versions of this poem, there is also a surimono that has a
longer inscription that adds The above verse is a little ditty I wrote when I went visiting
in Kayamachi near Shij, a place where the man from Naniwa is stayingat the time we
went from Umejos house and wrote out a hokku saying: how can you overlook the
spring scenery of the capital?
69
229
What might appear to be irresponsible, slovenly behavior in conventional society is actually to be admired: the speakers friend is so sensitive
to the fleeting beauty of the blossoms that she stays out all night to enjoy
them. Moreover, by alluding to Chinese poetry, Buson makes the point
that this was behavior that Chinese literati of the past also admired,
which further serves to underscore the sincerity of his praise.
The relationship between the text and images here are not that complicated. The reader can view the friend the speaker came to visit as a
man who enjoyed himself in the company of courtesans as graceful as
the one that he pictures. Alternatively, one might interpret the speakers
greeting as being to a woman herself.
Indeed, a surimono version of this hokku actually does associate it with
a woman: Umejo, a haikai poet who first made his acquaintance when
she was a courtesan. Umejo later married Busons disciple, the painter
and poet Matsumura Gekkei. Gekkei became famous as an artist in the
Shij school of painting, and Umejo also took up painting herself.
The surimono text also mentions Busons visit to a man from Naniwa,
whom scholars identify as Ueda Akinari. Akinari is most famous for
stories of the grotesque, like Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu monogatari
, 1776), but he also wrote haikai, and in 1774 he asked Buson
70 Rimer and Chaves, p. 27. Chinese text is in sone Shsuke and Horiuchi Hideaki,
eds., Shinch Nihon koten shsei, vol. 61, Wakan rei sh (Shinchsha, 1983), p. 20.
71 Cited in headnote to verse, BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365.
230
CHAPTER SIX
to write the preface for a treatise he wrote on kireji, Treatise on ya and kana
(Ya yana sh ). The picture on the surimono is much different from
that on the haiga: it shows a mass of bundled firewood that takes up
nearly half the page; to its left is a plum tree, presumably in honor of
Umejo (the ume of her name means plum). The existence of multiple
versions of this hokku, including this surimono using an image completely
unrelated to those of the painted ones, is a good indication of the
ephemeral nature of haiga and the fact that poems, pictures, and combinations of both were commonly used as tokens of social exchange.
One of Busons most appealing paintings is a haiga that he did around
1777, showing a laughing, barefooted man in a jaunty red cap, dancing
(Figure 11). To his right, towards the bottom of the picture, rolls a
gourdone presumably once full of the sake that has made the man so
animated. The hokku and its headnote read:
Miyako no hana no chiri
kakaru wa, Mitsunobu ga
gofun no hakuraku shitaru
sama nare
Matabei ni
au ya Omuro no
hana zakari
72
231
Figure 11
Have I run into Matabei? Haiga.
Itsu Art Museum.
232
CHAPTER SIX
Matabei refers to a character in a jruri play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Courtesan of the spirit-revealing incense (Keisei hangon k ,
1708). Matabei had studied with Mitsunobu, but he had not been much
of a success. He was working as a painter of tsu-e , a kind of
folk art that originated in the area of tsu, near Kyoto. The tsu-e
repertoire originally consisted mainly of religious images, but later
expanded to include animals, heroes, and the like, typically painted on
wooden panels in strong, bright colors. Although tsu-e were popular,
particularly with travelers who visited the region where they were
produced, they were not fine art, and Matabei, for all his humble
origins, aspired to more in lifethe recognition of Mitsunobu of the
powerful Tosa school. Disappointed at being overlooked as Mitsunobu
favored other students, Matabei eventually decides to take his own life.
His wife persuades him to paint one last picturea self-portraiton the
side of a water container. Miraculously, as he does so, an exact copy of
his picture appears on the opposite side of the container. Suddenly,
Mitsunobu appears, reveals that he has been watching the whole time,
and declares that Matabei is indeed a painter worthy of recognition in the
Tosa school.73
Finally, Omuro is a place in Kyoto that is famous for its lateblooming cherry trees. A temple there, Ninna-ji , had once been
an imperial palace. The cherry trees there bloom just as they start to
come into leaf, and are in full bloom when other trees have already
dropped their petals. It was a popular place for hanamicherry blossom
viewing.
This haiga, then, brings together historical fact, a fictional character,
and the name of a famous place in Kyoto. Taken together, the reason for
the dancing figures inebriation becomes clear: not only has he been
drinking, but also he is buoyed along by the cheerful mood of the rest of
the revelers taking in the sight of the late cherry blossoms. The character
famous as an tsu-e painter has become an tsu-e himself, with bold
lines delineating his form and flat areas of colorthe red of his cap and
the black of the jacket that has slipped off his shouldersuggesting his
costume. But the picture is nowhere near as naive or mechanical looking
as a real tsu-e. Though the composition is simple and spare, the
inscription, figure, and gourd are skillfully shaped and perfectly placed.
233
The content of the text fills in the details missing from the picture, so
despite the fact that there is no suggestion of the background of the
scene, it is easy to imagine the crowded grounds of Ninna-ji, filled with
the splendid outfits of visitors boisterously celebrating the last blossoms
of the season, where all around petals scattered from the trees litter the
ground like shining flakes fallen from a magnificent old Tosa school
painting.
Figure 12
Dancing! Haiga.
234
CHAPTER SIX
The last haiga from this period that we will look at exists in several
different versions, some long and narrow, another more square and
horizontal, two others on fan-shaped paper (Figure 12). They show two,
three, four, or five figures, dancing in a line. Some have fans, others have
their heads covered with hoods, hand towels, or hats. The undulating
shapes of their bodies suggest a mood of fun and abandon. Two of the
pictures are inscribed with this hokku:
nishikigi no
kado o megurite
odori kana
Another includes both. A fifth has four hokku in total, the two above,
and these two:
hoso koshi no
hshi suzuro ni
odori kana
the slim-waisted
priest, as if in a dream,
dancing!76
hita to inu no
naku machi ni koete
odori kana
These five haiga are clearly linkedthe figures on them so similar they
almost seem to have stepped out of the same painting. Interestingly, the
Matabei figure from the previous haiga also looks like he belongs among
the dancers, as they too are done in a style that is at once severely
abbreviated yet energetic. Furthermore, while the hokku inscribed on
these haiga vary, all of them have the same last five syllables, dancing!
(odori kana).
Only first of these verses uses a word with a literary reference: nishigi,
literally, brocade tree. It was an ancient custom in parts of northern
Japan for a young man to signal his interest in a woman by leaving such a
74
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1810, images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 404406.
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 137.
76 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1156.
77 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 136.
75
235
token at her gate. The token, called a brocade tree, was an elaborately
decorated stick. If the woman was also interested, she took the token
into the house. Brocade tree is also the title of a N play by Zeami, in
which a man who visited his beloveds house every night for three years,
eventually setting out a thousand of them. In the words of the play:
From ancient times it has been the custom here for a suitor to make brocade trees as go-betweens, and to stand them before the gate of his beloveds house. Because they are signs of his courtship, he adorns them
beautifully. The woman takes into her house only the brocade trees of the
man whom she would have; the others stand unheeded. And the rejected
suitor, though he comes for a hundred nights or for three years, leaving
the celebrated Thousand Love Charms, comes in vain. In the shade of this
mountain is the grave of such a man. Three years he kept his vigil, setting
out his love charm every night, and in the end he was buried with the tokens of his love.78
78
236
CHAPTER SIX
This letter dates from around the same time that Buson painted the haiga
of the dancing figures, and it shows us a number of things. In the first
place, Buson used Kit as a broker for his paintings. Not only were
Busons haikai acquaintances his painting clients, but his disciples also
served to help him market his paintings. We saw that this was true of
relatively distant acquaintances like Kafu, but Kit, too, was not only the
Yahantei schools most active promoter, he also assisted Buson as a gobetween in selling his paintings. Secondly, Buson regarded haiga as
something distinct from his usual kind of work. He tended to use
different art names to sign his haiga than he did in his nanga paintings; in
this letter he goes so far as to say that there is nothing similar in the
world to these paintings. Finally, no doubt related to the fact that these
paintings were so unlike what he normally produced, Buson was not too
sure of how they should be priced. At least he hoped that they would not
be sold off too cheaply; nonetheless, he was so underconfident about
what their value was that he left it up to Kit to determine.
Seen in the context of this letter, the five versions of the Bon Festival
haiga start to make sense. The fact that Buson painted so many haiga that
so closely resemble each other can only be a consequence of the fact that
these were not intended to stand as great masterpieces of originality and
seriousness, but were rather light, almost disposable works that he could
produce with a minimum of thought. Taking elements of a previous
composition and recycling it into another context was something that he
79
Letter to Kit, eleventh day of the Eighth Month, 1776; BSS, pp. 145146.
237
did frequently. In some cases it looks like he was trying to work out the
best way to present a particular hokku and image pair; in others, it
appears that he was producing something that could earn him money
without too much effort.
80
238
CHAPTER SIX
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro
Figure 13
Willow leaves, fallen. Haiga. Itsu Art Museum.
85
239
As we saw in Chapter Four, this hokku was used as the opening verse of
the Scrap paper coverlet linked verse sequence that Buson took part in just
around the time that he left northeastern Japan for Kyoto. However, in
the last years of his career, he also used it as the basis for a haiga, with a
different headnote than the one that appeared in the linked verse
sequence. The older headnote identifies the willow as the one associated
with the Saigy legend. However, the later one cites a completely
different source, the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff by Su
Dongpo:
All of the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff is superb, but these lines
struck me as particularly good:
The mountains were very high, the moon small
The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out.
They are like a single bird that breaks away from the flock. Once when I
was traveling in Michinoku, I composed this verse while standing below
Saigys willow tree.86
The Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff tells the story of a man and
two friends who decide to enjoy the moonlight together. One friend
mentions that he had caught some fish earlier, and the speakers wife
reminds him that he had put away some wine for a special occasion.
Busons quotation comes from the passage that describes the scenery of
the Red Cliff and the river that ran below it:
So we took the wine and fish and went for another trip to the foot of the
Red Cliff. The river raced along noisily, its sheer banks rising a thousand
feet. The mountains were very high, the moon small. The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out. How much time had passed
since my last visit? I couldnt recognize them as the same river and hills!87
Five rocks, painted in dark and light gray ink are scattered across the
lower part of the picture more or less horizontally. This creates tension
with the inscription, with its bold black calligraphy creating a powerful
vertical movement. The rocks are exactly as Busons hokku describe
them, here and there (tokoro dokoro). There is no indication of a willow.
However, this is not a depiction of the landscape at the actual site of the
willowfar from being a remote, sublime and wild place, such as Su
Dongpos words describe the scenery of the Red Cliff to be. In fact, the
86
87
240
CHAPTER SIX
willow was in the middle of rice fields, which are filled with water part of
the year; there is nothing nearby that resembles the large, imposinglooking boulders of Busons painting. Instead, the image is entirely
imaginary, and is based on other paintings and pages of The Mustard seed
garden manual of painting. This text shows the elements of landscapes:
trees, rocks, mountains, huts, and so forth, are presented separately,
isolated on the page, so that painting students could practice and master
their shapes and afterwards work them into fully developed compositions.
The boulders of this haiga are very similar to those printed in the
painting manuals. However, there is more to them than that. The
inscription is so evocative that it invites the viewer to fill in the empty
space of the painting with an entire landscape: a willow, a dry riverbed,
the season, the mood of appreciative discovery. It is a particularly good
example of the way that haikai uses absence to prompt associations.
Willow is a spring kigo, a harbinger of warmth and light that comes into
leaf very early in the season. Without its leaves, as Buson describes it in
the verse, it is without its most distinctive, identifying feature; also, it is
not in the picture at all. The stream, that Buson describes as clear or pure
water (shimizu) is completely dried up. Instead, Buson gives us a group of
rocks, connected neither to one another nor to the environment that
surrounds them. Nonetheless, seen as a whole there is a linkage between
the elements of the hokku, its headnote, and in the image; it brings
together both absent and present (willow, stream, rocks) and past and
present (the landscapes observed by Su Dongpo, Saigy, Bash, and
Buson himself).
Buson also completed a large number of works in the last decade of
his career that were more related to haikai than to the nanga that was the
mainstay of his painting practice. These were paintings related to Matsuo
Bashboth portraits and versions of two of his travel journals,
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton and Narrow road to the interior done as hand
scrolls and screen paintings (Figure 14). Busons Bash-related paintings
are exceptions among his haiga in the sense that they deal with texts that
Buson did not write himself. However, they belong to the haiga category
as they are haikai, in the form of a picture, and some of them, particularly the travel journal hand scrolls and screen paintings, are among the
finest works Buson produced in his entire career.88
88
241
Figure 14
Narrow road to the interiorscroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art.
242
CHAPTER SIX
make clear the identity of the paintings subject. Bash is shown with a
round cap and a priests robes; he wears a beard, and in some cases
carries a walking stick, in others, a satchel, or a sedge hat. He is often
smiling, or gazing back at the viewer with a look of good humor. The
inscriptions vary, but tend to be elaborate: examples of his hokku are the
most numerous, but one includes a long poem in Chinese as well.
Busons imaginary portraits of Bash focus on his persona as a rootless
traveler, a kind and benevolent figure. He has much in common with
Busons nanga paintings of Taoist immortals and various other kinds of
Chinese luminarieswise, gentle, transcending the vulgar but closely in
touch with simple humanity. They present Bash as the Bash Revival
poets viewed him, as an embodiment of the ideals of haikai as a literary
form that was more than just a frivolous amusement, who took up the
example of lofty-minded Chinese literati recluses and traveling poetsaints like Nin and Saigy.
The image of Bash as a saintly traveler is also the central theme of
Busons other major Bash-related haiga, the hand scrolls and folding
screens that he painted of the haikai prose texts Record of a weather-beaten
skeleton and Narrow road to the interior. Only one version of Record of a
weather-beaten skeleton exists today, as well as four of Narrow road to the
interior; sources suggest that Buson completed as many as ten versions of
the latter.89
Buson painted Record of a weather-beaten skeleton in 1778 in the form of a
hand scroll; it was later mounted onto a six-paneled folding screen. He
abridged the text somewhat, and added eleven illustrations. Most of the
pictures are of people that Bash passed by or met during his journey,
hard at work at various chores, but some of them are of Bash himself,
resting at an inn, chatting with a host, or moving down the road wearing
the distinctive broad, flat hat and straw raincoat of the traveler.
The four versions of Narrow road to the interior have many scenes in
common. He shows us Bashs farewell to disciples at Senj, the
children who try to follow him after he leaves for Kurobane, the blind
biwa-player of Shiogama, the wives of the Sat brothers who dressed up
in their dead husbands armor to pretend to their mother that her sons
were still alive, the courtesans at Ichiburithe most emotionally
powerful moments in the story. Most striking about the perspective
Buson brings to Bashs narrative is that he concentrates almost entirely
89
Tanaka, p. 207.
243
EPILOGUE
Because it is the work of a poet-painter, Busons haikai promises to
shed light on a problem that has long intrigued scholarswhether poets
can write verse that is like paintings, or painters create visual works
that are like poems. As we have seen, eighteenth-century haikai poets
frequently denied there was a difference between verbal and visual
expression. The example Buson offers may have been exceptional: even
in his community, artists who possessed his degree of proficiency in both
poetry and painting were very few. Still, haikai poets continued to
produce haiga and other kinds of works that combined verse with visual
imagesmuch of it in a style that recalled Busonsuntil different views
on the nature of the visuality of haikai emerged during the beginning of
the modern period.
One of these views was that of the modern poet Masaoka Shikihis
claim that haiku are like pictures because they capture a single point in
space and time or depict a scene just as a witness experienced it. It is true
that not even the painter Buson was in the habit of writing hokku this
way: his verses were almost always composed on a set topic, and
frequently suggest a narrative rather than one focused moment.
Nevertheless, Shikis argument is compelling, albeit more because of
its motivation than its content. Shiki was looking for a way to legitimize
haiku as a modern form of Japanese poetry. Calling attention to haikus
potential for pictorial, photograph-like realism was a central pillar of his
defense against critics who condemned the genre as obsolete and out of
step with the changes brought by modernization. The practice of
sketching from life was a technique that became popular with many
visual artists of Shikis day, and its origins in a rational, scientific view of
the world linked it to other aspects of modernization; therefore, literary
forms that involved sketcheseven sketches in wordscould be viewed
as modern. Even if Shikis view of Buson as a painterly poet is somewhat
exaggerated, his characterization of Busons hokku as portentous of the
modern is not without merit.
In fact, the view of Buson as a classical poet who anticipated modernity was also held by Hagiwara Sakutar, a poet and critic who otherwise
EPILOGUE
245
had little in common with Shiki. Sakutar was deeply impressed with
Busons haishi Mourning the Sage Hokuju, which begins:
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
Thinking of you, I go wandering in the hills.
Why are the hills so sad?1
246
EPILOGUE
spring sea
all day long rising and falling
rising and falling6
In Principles of poetry, Sakutar uses the same kind of rhetoric that Shiki
does in Haiku poet Buson, positing clear, binary oppositions in attempting
to define the nature of poetry, like Japanese and Western, and
subjective and objective. However, where Shiki sees Busons
objectivity, Sakutar comes to the opposite conclusion: his Buson is a
poet of subjectivity and lyricism. While Sakutar allows that in one sense
haiku is aligned with the objective, he does not deny that it is poetry;
instead, it uses objective description to achieve the expression of
emotion, rather than the mimetic depiction of reality.
Sakutars reading of Buson, like Shikis, is useful for giving us a
starting point for thinking about the relationship between Busons haikai
and modern Japanese poetry. In the first place, Sakutar called attention
to Busons haishi, which resembled the results of modern Japanese poets
efforts to create forms of verse that did not adhere to the strict rules of
classical poetry regarding appropriate language, content, and syllable
count. Busons haishi draw on these rules at the same time as they break
them, in part by borrowing language and conventions from kanshi, and in
part by following the logic of haikai to an extreme. That is to say, while
the haishi do not conform to convention in terms of structure and
language, they do remain within haikais boundaries in that haikai
4 Hagiwara Sakutar, Principles of Poetry: Shi no genri, trans. Chester C. I. Wang and
Isamu P. Fukuchi (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1998), p. 48.
5 Sakutar, Principles of Poetry, p. 129.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.
EPILOGUE
247
248
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX
Translations
Haikai free verse
Mourning the Sage Hokuju (Hokuju rsen o itamu)
250
252
256
Prose
Preface to Make the past now (Mukashi o ima)
257
258
259
263
275
Linked verse
Rape-flowers (Na no hana ya)
278
250
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
251
252
APPENDIX
servants holiday
leaving Naniwa,
I am at the Nagara River
haru kaze ya
tsutsumi nagshite
ie tshi
spring wind
the embankment is long,
home is still so far away
APPENDIX
253
ikken no
cha mise no yanagi
oi ni keri
the teahouses
willow tree
it has grown so old!
koeki sanryke
byji tsuma o yobu
tsuma kitarazu
hina o yobu rigai no tori
rigai kusa chi ni mitsu
hina tobite kaki o koen to hossu
kaki takshite otsuru koto sanshi
shuns michi
sansa naka ni shkei ari
ware o mukau
254
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
255
yabuiri no
neru ya hitori no
oya no soba
on servants holiday
sleepingshe is by the side
of her widowed mother
Sha Buson
256
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
257
3 Takano Hyakuri (16651727) was an Edo poet; Ikutama Kinp (16661726) was
born in Settsu but eventually moved to Edo. Hyakuri and Kinp were Ransetsus chief
disciples.
4 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 139140.
258
APPENDIX
Ibid., p. 142.
APPENDIX
259
260
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
261
14
Lake Biwa.
Tang poet, 712770.
16 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 26.
Karasaki no
Karasakis pine
matsu wa hana yori
more hazy than
oboro nite
its cherry blossoms
17 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 99.
uki ware o
I am desolate,
sabishigarase yo
but make me even lonelier,
kankodori
hototogisu
18 The Bash Hermitage was actually rebuilt in 1781.
15
262
APPENDIX
Fourth Month, when one waits to hear the call of the hototogisu, and the
end of the Ninth Month, when the stag bellows, we meet at this temple
without fail, and try to emulate the poetic style of Bash. Dry was the
leader of the rebuilding project. Drys great-grandfather was Tan-an
with whom Bash had studied Chinese literature, it is said. That is
why Dry was left with the project nowmore than anyone else he
had a karmic connection to it.
The thirteenth day of the Fifth Month of 1776. Recorded by Yahantei
Buson of Kyoto 19
19
APPENDIX
263
20 Shimizu Takayuki shows that there are close connections between Shinhanatsumis
stories of the supernatural and those in Uji Collection tales (Uji shi
monogatari); in particular, the tale of Chikukei and Busons encounter with a badger while
staying at Kensh-ji in Tango has many similarities with one in the Uji collection. He
points out that Busons tales are quite different from those of Ueda Akinari, who became
famous for his Tales of moonlight and rain, a collection of stories about ghosts and
monsters, in that Busons stories, unlike Akinaris, are presented as if he or one of his
friends had personally experienced the events described. Shimizu and Kuriyama, Buson,
Issa, pp. 225226.
21 Published 1749.
264
APPENDIX
22
APPENDIX
mi no ya
te no hira hodo na
kumo okoru
265
at mi
clouds come up
like they could fit in the palm of ones
hand
Setsud
Inscribed on a painting of Ezo (Ainu), by Maruyama Mondo :
kobu de fuku
noki no shizuku
ya sakki ame
on the eaves
thatched with seaweed
drops of Fifth Month rain
Mondo
There was certain person who had a passion for the handguard of a
short-sword that was said to have been made from a nail-cover taken
from the palace of Xianyang; he always had it at his waist and cherished
it. How much did this antique, inlaid with a bird-and-flower pattern of
precious metals, and evoke the splendor of a thousand years! However,
asking about what proof was there that this was indeed a nail-cover from
the Xianyang Palace is nonsensical talk. Somehow, if he had not claimed
it was a nail-cover from the Xianyang Palace, it would have been a
wonderful thing, and it is regrettable that he did.
Even if it had been woodshavings from Nagara Bridge or the dried
frog of Ide, I am sure that the people of today would find it contemptible and dubious.
Tokiwa Tanpokus Korean tea bowl had been carefully preserved by
the warrior taka Gengo; it was handed down to Tanpoku from that
very Gengo, and Tanpoku bequeathed it to me. Indeed it had an eminent
history of past possession, but what proof was there? Lest it should
become like the nail-cover of Xianyang palace, I quickly gave it away.
Tenrin-in temple of Matsushima is alongside Zuigan-ji and is a
splended Zen monastery. Once, when I was a guest there, the head of
the temple gave me an old plank which was more than a foot in length
and said, Lord So-and-So of Sendai was a waka poet without compare.
He hired a large number of workers, and had them dredge the bottom of
the Natori River and they managed to pull out a fossilized log. This log
24 Because it has a kireji. However, it does not have a kigo, it does not make reference
to mis conventional associations, and it lacks the suggestive overtones that characterize a good hokku.
266
APPENDIX
was used to make a writing-box, and together with some brushes made
from Miyagino bushclover-wood, it was presented to the head of the
Nij poetry school. This plank is what is left from the log, and is
something that should not be treated lightly. It had a distinct grain like
that of zelkova wood. Because it had spent a thousand years on the river
bottom, it was black, and as if it had turned to iron, when you tapped it,
it made a hollow sound. It weighed only about ten kin, and even when I
bundled it up in a cloth and put it on my back, I barely managed to carry
it to Shiroishi post station. Because I did not think I could bear the
fatigue of carrying it over a long distance, I left it under the veranda of
the guest-house where I spent the night and continued on my journey
home.
Sometime later, when I mentioned this to Tanpoku at the home of
Gant of Yki, Tanpoku scolded me angrily, saying, What! You dirty
priest who throws away treasure! Ill have it for myself! Is someone
around that I can send? Go right away! and he contacted Shinry in
Sukagawa. Shinry wrote a letter, and sent a servant with him to visit the
lodging-place at Shiroishi. The servant said, A priest who once stayed
here left something or other behind, and I have come to look for it.
The innkeeper fortunately looked around, and found it, and gave it to
him, and [Shinry] took it. Later, Gant received it [from Tanpoku], and
it was made into the inkstone-cover called Fishes and Cranes. It is
more than seventy ri from Yki to Shiroishi, and although much time
had passed, the object that we obtained and brought home was an
exceedingly precious one.
Matsuki Tantan did not belong to the company of frivolous poets. A
long time ago, I asked Tantan to add and inscription to a painting of
Bash, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. Tantan responded with:
momochidori
inasetori
yobukodori
plovers
rice-birds
and cuckoos25
Tantan
25 These were the three birds of the Ancient and modern poetry collection (Kokinsh) secret
tradition (momochidori, inaousedori, yobukodori). Tantan compares the three haikai poets to
these birds.
APPENDIX
267
26
268
APPENDIX
And indeed, from that night on all of the noises ceased. I began to
think sadly that this animal which I had thought of as a nuisance had
really offered my some comfort from the loneliness of a travelers night,
and I felt pity for the badgers soul, and that we had formed a karmic
bond. For that reason I called upon a cleric named Priest Zenk, made a
donation, and for one night chanted nembutsu in order that the badger
might eventually achieve Buddhahood.
aki no kure
hotoke ni bakeru
tanuki kana
late in autumn
transformed into a Buddha
the badger
A badger came to the door to visit, and it seems that people said he
made tapping sounds with his tail, but that was not the case. In fact, he
pressed his back against the door.
A long time ago, I stayed at a temple called Kensh-ji at Miyazu in
Tango Province for more than three years. In the beginning of autumn, I
suffered from fever for some fifty days. There was a reception room in
the rear of the temple that was very large, and because all the shoji were
shut tight, there was not a single crack left open for the wind to blow
through. The room next to it was turned into my sick-room, and the
fusuma sliding doors between the rooms were closed up tight. One
night, at about the time of the Fourth Hour,27 because there was a slight
break in my fever, thinking I might go to the toilet, I got out of bed and
staggered off. The toilet was down the veranda walkway alongside the
reception room in the northwest corner. The lamps had been extinguished by now and it was terribly dark, so I opened the fusuma that
closed off my room from the other, and when first I went to put my
right foot into the room, to my surprise I stepped on something furry. I
was terrified, so I instantly jerked back my foot, and though I listened
intently for some time, there was no sound at all. Although I was full
dread and shocked, I patted myself on the chest to calm my heart, and
this time with my left foot, thinking, This must be about the right
place, I made a sudden kick with my left foot. However, I felt absolutely nothing there. Now I was even more perplexed, and every hair on
me was standing on end. Trembling, I went toward the refectory kitchen,
and woke up some of the priests from sound sleep, and when I told
27
APPENDIX
269
them what had happened, they all got up and came with me. When we
went to look inside the reception room with lamps blazing, all the
fusuma and shoji were shut tight as usual, with no openings for anything
to escape, of course there was nothing unusual there. The priests said,
Mister, your fever has made you muddle-headed, and youre talking
nonsense. Furious, they all went back to bed. Feeling embarrassed
because I had been given such a scolding, I too got back into bed. Just as
I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone had been laid on my
chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my voice was within
the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over and said, How
extraordinary! Whats the matter? and saved me by waking me up.
When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had experienced,
he said, Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be the work of
that badger.
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like
fallen petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the
walkway. And so, even those people who before had said I was talking
nonsense and scolded me, said wonderingly, Hm, maybe it really was
something.
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry
to wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was
covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying
that this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on
his testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi j no
Kinkakuji
Chikukei
There is a man called Nakamura Hyzaemon who lives in Shimodate, in
Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei haikai school, and
his haikai name was Fk. He was of unequalled wealth, and lived in a
270
APPENDIX
fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens were full of unusual
stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let loose birds, and the
scenery of the gardens artificial mountain surpassed views of nature. He
was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes the provincial
governor would come to call. His wifes name was Omitsu. She was the
daughter of a rich man called Fujii Somebody, and was skilled at waka
and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began
to go into decline, many peculiar things happened. Among them,
something that would make ones hair stand on end happened one year
during in the Twelfth Month, during preparations for the New Year,
when a great many mochi rice-cakes were set inside tubs to keep. When
mochi started disappearing in the middle of the night, they assumed that
a thief had been coming, and put a lid like the door of a gate over every
tub, and on top of the lids they lay heavy stones. The following morning,
when they fearfully looked inside the tubs, they found that although the
lids had been completely undisturbed, more than half the mochi were
missing out of each. At that point, Fk went to Edo on official
business. During this time Omitsu looked after the household very
carefully, and she treated everyone with great compassion; people pitied
her and wept sympathetic tears. One night, while she was sewing a fine
robe in preparation for the New Year, because she was going to stay up
late, she told all the servants to go to bed before her. She closed herself
up alone in a room, with all the doors and windows shut tight, where
there would have been no place for anything to hide. The lamps were
brightly lit, and she worked at her sewing with a tranquil mind. Just at the
time that the sound of a water clock made her think, it must be about the
Fourth Hour, suddenly five or six old, decrepit-looking foxes with
dragging tails walked right past where Omitsu was sitting. The fusuma
and the shoji where still closed tightly, and because there was not so
much as a crack left open, it was as if they had drilled their way in.
Thinking this was very strange, she did not take her eyes off them, but
they came and went just as if they were passing through a field with no
obstructions, and then they disappeared. Omitsu went right on sewing as
if she had not found anything particularly surprising about this.
The following day I went to the house to visit her. Hoping to offer
some words of comfort, I asked, How are you doing? You must have a
APPENDIX
271
28
272
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
273
were young warriors of poetic sensitivity, and above all, their resolve and
emotional depth was endless.
274
APPENDIX
Afterword
The above was written by Master Yahantei himself. One summer, the
master decided he would like to write a series of hokku. He prepared a
draft notebook, and calling it Sequel to flower gathering (Zoku hanatsumi
), and planned to write ten verses each day. At the end of the
Fourth Month, he had to suspend the work, still unfinished, because of
illness. Around the middle of the Sixth Month, thinking that abandoning
writing something every day was not what he wanted, and after recovering from his illness, he took to recording his thoughts in an unstructured
way, and after that he neglected it for a long time, and finally gave up on
it altogether. After he passed away, I took apart the notebook, and made
its pages into a handscroll, adding some of my own illustrations of the
meaning of the texts. I testify that the handwriting is authentically that of
the master.
Fourth Month, 1784, The Buddhas Birthday29
Gekkei
29
APPENDIX
275
276
APPENDIX
those companions, because if you do not interact with those them, you
will not be able achieve this ideal.
Shha said, What do you mean by those companions? I answered,
I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in Sod,
accompanying Onitsura. Renewing acquaintance with these Four Elders
every single day. Above all, separating yourself from the realm of fame
and fortune a little; wandering in the garden, and holding your poetrygatherings in natures midst. Drinking wine, having witty conversations,
and when you write poems, just letting them come to you, without
forcing them. Doing this day after day, one day one meets the Four
Elders. Be always in quiet contemplation of the natural landscape with a
poets spirit. Close your eyes, and earnestly compose your poem, and
when you have done it, open them again. The Four Elders are gone.
Now alone, you wonder, where did they go? pausing, entranced. That is
when you smell the sweet fragrance of cherry blossoms, and see the
moonlight reflecting off the water. That is the answer to your question
about the method to haikai. Shha responded with a little grin.
He ended up becoming a member of my poetry circle and composed
thousands of verses. He had a particular contempt for the work of
Bakurin and Shik. I told him, Even though the tone of Bakurin and
Shik may be called vulgar, they are skillful at describing human emotions and ordinary situations. For this reason, imitating their work might
not be entirely unhelpful sometimes, if you treat it as a poetic technique.
It is the same for Chinese poetry: one has no objections to Li and Du
,30 but still, learn what one can from Yuan and Bo .31
Shha said, But, Master, do not confuse me with this phony zen.
Painters view Wu and Zhang 32 as the devils of painting. Bakurin
and Shik are like them, nothing but devils of haikai. He criticized
Bakurin and Shik more and more, went straight ahead without getting
distracted by trivial things, and attained the level of haikai excellence.
Tragically, one day he fell gravely ill, and did not recover. As time
passed he grew thin and frail, and there was nothing medicine could do
for him. Realizing that the moment had come to die, he called for me
30
Li Bo and Du Fu.
Yuan Zhen (779831) and Bo Juyi. They were mid-Tang poets credited with
bringing about a revival of yuefu (Music Bureau) poetry.
32 Wu Wei (14591508; hao , Xiaoxian ), and Zhang Lu (14641538,
hao, Pingshan ), were both Ming court painters. This alludes to the disdain that
literati felt for court painters.
31
APPENDIX
277
and grasped my hand, and said, What I regret is that I will not be able
to join you in the new style (ryk). He died with tears in his eyes. I
wept, saying over and over again, My haikai has gone to the West. My
haikai has gone to the West.
The above comes from a volume called Yahan chats over tea (Yahan meiwa
). Yahan chats over tea was a book that I myself edited, a record
of discussions between various people. And I do not use it here as the
introduction to this collection without a very good reason. This text
shows how pure and uncluttered Shhas work was, and I hope that by
knowing about his character readers will appreciate his verse as being
without artifice. That he was not to be compared to a sheep who drapes
itself in a tigers skin is what, I, Old Buson, aged sixty-two, write at the
Midnight Studio in the capital, 1777, the seventh day of the Twelfth
Month.
278
APPENDIX
rape-flowers
the moon in the east
the sun in the west
I watch
the sky grow lighter
over the eastern fields;
turning around I see
the moon has dropped down low. 34
APPENDIX
279
Since the hokku merely names the elements of the scene without
adding much extra detail, many later commentators, especially those
writing about this hokku as a verse independent of the sequence, have
labeled this as being in the shasei style. Although Buson hokku anthology has
Spring scene and Iwama Otsunis (17561823) Busons
hokku explained (Buson hokku kai , 1833) includes the
headnote Scenery outside the capital, later critics have tended to ignore
these.35 However, others, like Teruoka Yasutaka, believe that the
headnote does indeed have real meaning, and was added to give a kanshilike overtone to the verse.36 In any case, when this verse was used as a
hokku to begin a sequence, there was no headnote.
As we saw above, this hokku was not composed specifically for this
sequence, and so it does not seem to be functioning as an aisatsu
complimenting the host or the location. However, it is properly hokkulike in being light in tone and sublime in scale.
2. Chora
yama moto tku
sagi kasumi yuku
The waki, by Chora, continues the description of the scene begun by the
hokku. He adds to its wide panorama-like view some living creatures
herons, whose forms are growing indistinct in the mist as the light fails.
The hokkus brightly colored landscape starts to fade a bit.
Nomura Kazumi suggests that this verse alludes to one by Go-Toba:
miwataseba
yama moto kasumu
minasegawa
ybe wa aki to
nani omoi kemu
280
APPENDIX
3. Kit
watashibune
sakate mazushiku
haru kurete
ferry boat
his tip is a poor one
late in spring
The quietly evocative landscape of the waki has disappeared, and now
the scene is completely concerned with human affairs. Buson offers an
explanation for the paucity of the tip: okunigaethe forcible transfer of a
daimy to another fief. Okunigae were one of the Tokugawa shogunates
strategies of keeping the daimy under control, preventing them
becoming too rich or powerful. Besides being disruptive, okunigae were
extremely expensive, and if it were the case that the samurai passenger
was serving a daimy under a transfer order, it would account for his
parsimoniousness. However, the ferry captain here does not believe the
explanation, as he has not heard about it before.
As it does not contain a kigo, this is classified as a miscellaneous verse.
5. Chora
wakizashi o
koshiraetareba
haya umishi
APPENDIX
281
The ferry boat and its captain have disappeared, and now the focus is on
an individual samurai. Having expected the transfer, he has put his sword
on, and readied himself for possible trouble. But, once he realized that
this was only a rumor, the sword seems like an inconvenient burden.
Normally this would be a moon verse, but since the hokku makes
reference to the moon, it is not necessary to do so here.
6. Kit
mino kite izuru
yuki no akebono
7. Buson
Ninnaji o
Komatsu no sato to
tare ka iu
Ninna-ji
some call it
Komatsu Village
Buson takes another view of the elegant person in the maeku, imagining
that his journey through the snow takes him through the area around
Ninna-ji, the temple near Kyoto, in Omuro that he alludes to in the
hokku have I run into Matabei? / blossoms at Omuro / at their height
(Matabei ni / au ya Omuro no / hana zakari). Emperor Kk (r. 884
887) was buried here, and as he was also called the Komatsu Emperor,
the land nearby got the name Komatsu-no-sato.
38
282
APPENDIX
8. Chora
koishiki hito no
uma tsunagitari
This verse fixes the time of year as around the fifth day of the Fifth
Month. Leaves of iris were put into the thatched eaves of homes as far
back as the Heian period. They were thought to dispell evil spirits as well
as harmful insects. Shinobu has multiple meanings: to hide, to visit a lover
secretly, to long for or remember, to endure suffering. The identity of
beloved person in the maeku is changedit now seems to be a young
woman, for whom the person who decorates his thatch with irises is
longing.
39 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 33, Heike monogatari II (Iwanami Shoten,
195960), pp. 105106.
40 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 32, Heike monogatari I (Iwanami Shoten,
195960), p. 293.
APPENDIX
283
10. Buson
ame ni mo narazu
yagate hi tomosu
The Fifth Month is the beginning of the rainy season, and the maekus
reference to the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month Festival (Tango no sekku
, celebrated as Childrens Day in the modern period)
prepares us to imagine a day of rain. Toward the end of the day the rain
has stopped, and the lamps are lit.
Teruoka notes that the fifth day of the Fifth Month was also called
Medicine Day .
11. Chora
shakuhachi no
keiko kururi to
narabi ite
at shakuhachi practice
they are lined up
in a row
Chora imagines the quiet evening scene of the maeku as the setting for
shakuhachi practice. It seems likely, given the direction that the following
verse takes, that the shakuhachi students here are monks, possibly komus
monks of the Fuke sect.
12. Kit
zoku torae yo
to yake no fure
Kit recasts the scene as one in which an official government order has
come, urging those present to catch a criminal. Komus monks wore
large basket-shaped hats to cover their faces, and were frequently rnin,
or samurai who had committed criminal acts and joined the priesthood
to atone for them. Because their lifestyle meant that they could travel
around the country anonymously, they were sometimes used to track
down criminals.41
13. Buson
wase karite
okute mo etaru
kokoro nari
41
284
APPENDIX
A light verse, which specifies the location of the maekus action, and
opens out into a description of landscape. The second autumn verse.
15. Kit
monzen no
fune toki idasu
tsuki no kure
The mi road runs near Lake Biwa, and this verse introduces a scene
that takes place at the lakeside. Monzen can mean, in front of the gate of
an ordinary house, though it also has the implication that the gate
belongs to a temple. Tsuki no kure, setting of the moon, can also mean a
moonlit evening.
This is the third autumn verse. It is also a moon verse, which would
ordinarily belong at Number 13.
16. Buson
deshi no szu wa
yoki koromo kite
APPENDIX
285
17. Chora
hana no naka
kach-no-sh
ni yukiainu
The priests have disappeared, and Kit now makes the scene into one in
which the crowds out for cherry-blossom viewing are gathered around a
small stage to watch amateur kabuki. The real performers all came from
professional kabuki families, but fans often learned their favorite parts
and performed them for their own amusement.42
In Kits Diary of a journey (Yado no nikki , 1776), the verse
ended in the words kono goro (at this time). However, since a spring verse
like the maeku was supposed to be followed by at least two more verses,
kono haru (this spring) is a stronger choice.
19. Buson
nagaki hi ya
makie no chdo
itowashiki
One interpretation of this verse suggests that both the kabuki imitation
and ones richly decorated lacquer furnishings are distasteful on a long
spring day, which was assumed to be accompanied by a feeling of
tiredness.43 Another states that being stuck inside all day with ones fancy
42 Buson himself was very fond of kabuki. Tanomura Chikuden tells this story in
Toseki sasa roku (completed 1834): Once one of Busons painting disciples
went to visit him, and found his house dark. Hearing a strange noise coming from within,
the friend feared there was some catastrophe taking place. After forcing his way inside,
he found Buson alone, acting out the part of one of his favorite kabuki characters. Cited
in Tanaka, p. 236237.
43 Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 129.
286
APPENDIX
Chora proposes that the reason the person in the previous verse has
come to find his lacquer furnishings distasteful is that he has awakened
to the truth of the Buddhist law. Buddhism teaches that all the things of
this world are illusions, and an enlightened person is indifferent to luxury
and glamor.
21. Kit
furusato no
tsuma ni fumi kaku
sayo fukete
Kit describes behavior that might be expected from someone who has
taken up Buddhist practice. Perhaps it is a pilgrim who is writing to his
wife, or a member of some devotional group, like the hachi tataki,
itinerant mendicants who wandered through the countryside beating on
gourds or bowls and asking for alms. Although an enlightened person is
supposed to be free of attachments, he still feels the need to stay in
touch with his wife.
22. Buson
waka daish ni
tanomareshi mi no
receiving orders
from a young general
44
APPENDIX
287
23. Chora
sake itto
botan no sono ni
sosogi keri
a barrel of wine
was poured out
in the garden of peonies
The solitary letter writer has disappeared, and now we are introduced to
a lively party in a peony garden. Peonies were greatly admired in China,
and mention of them evoked associations of rich, voluptous color and
an exotic atmosphere. Sake itto comes from a poem by Chinese poet Du
Fu, that said that Li Bo drank a gallon of wine () and wrote a
hundred poems ().45
24. Kit
hi wa kakuyaku
to yoki sumi o suru
tomorrow, early
I will leave
Mount Fudaraku
Fudaraku (Sanskrit, Potalaka) is the sacred realm of the bodhisattva Kannon (Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara). It is also the name of a
Tendai sect temple in Kii. A holy man has gone to the sacred
realmor to the templeto practice austerities. Having completed his
work there, it is time to depart.
26. Chora
tfu ni akite
kuu mono mo naku
45
288
APPENDIX
in my sleeves
a few small coins
are feeling heavy
Kit supplies another reason why the maekus persona has been eating
nothing but tofu: poverty. Here he describes someone who normally has
so little money that even a few zeni (very low-value coins) feel like a
lot to him. Kimono have no pockets, so people sometimes used their
sleeves to carry or conceal small items.
28. Buson
umi yaya chirite46
ishi o yuku kawa
Buson reads the maekus persona as a traveler, who keeps his money in
his sleeves to conceal it from highwaymen. The link describes the
landscape he is travelling through. As a river approaches the sea, the
water-level drops, and rocks are visible jutting out from the riverbed.
29. Chora
tobu tsuru no
ha ni kage utsuru
asa no iro
46 Scholars believe that chirite (fallen) is a textual error; chikaku (close) makes more
sense here. BZ, vol. 2, p. 279. The translation follows the assumption that chikaku is
correct.
APPENDIX
289
This should be a moon verse, but this one does not explicitly mention
the moon. It is possible to read kage (light) as moonlight. However, the
verse is classified as miscellaneous, so it does seem that the verse violates
the rules.
30. Kit
kami ni tsukauru
oi no mi no aki
I, too, know
fifty springs and autumns
Kit
47
290
APPENDIX
nanji ni mo
zukin kish zo
furu hioke
Buson
He was also very fond of umbrellas, and often painted them. Several of
his hokku mention umbrellas:
bakes na
kasa kasu tera no
shigure kana
furukasa no
basa to shigururu
tsuki yo kana
old umbrella
glistening in a winter shower
tonight the moon wears a halo49
harusame ya
monogatari yuku
mino to kasa
spring rain
chatting as they go along,
a straw coat and umbrella50
32. Chora
kane o kasuga no
sato e yado gae
Chora builds on the image of the old umbrella in the maeku, adding the
figure of a man down on his luck. Kasuga is an ancient place-name with
many elegant associationsit is the site of Kasuga Shrine, for instance.
Here the poet plays off these overtones by making a pun. Kasu means to
lend. So the persona here has decided to move to Kasuga not because of
its rich tradition in poetry, but because he has rich friends there who
might lend him money.
33. Kit
oki idete
rakushu yomikudasu
okashisa yo
48
how funny!
getting up and going to recite
rakusho satires
APPENDIX
291
cherry trees
lose their blossoms faster on a day
when there is hardly any wind
The maekus actions are given a season and a backdrop. Cherry trees lose
their blossoms quickly, and this seems to happen faster when there is no
wind, although one might think otherwise.
This is a light verse, making the composition of the important final verse
less challenging. It is a blossom verse, as the fifth verse of the second
sheet is supposed to be.
36. Kit
kure ososhi to te
obashima ni tatsu
The ageku is suitably felicitous and light. In the setting sun of a late
spring day, the persona leans against the railing to watch it, and reflects
on how long the days last now, this late in spring.
51
Nomura, p. 186.
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302
303
INDEX
Akinari. See Ueda Akinari
Ama-no-hashidate, 45, 209, 210, 212,
213, 216
Ancient and modern poetry card anthology
(Kokon tanzaku sh), 42
Arikida Moritake, 41, 197
Around here
Four kasen in one night (Kono hotori Ichiya shi kasen), 133, 139, 140,
151, 164, 178
Ashigari. See The reed cutter
Bash Revival, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16
18, 26, 27, 28, 30, 3238, 41, 46, 47,
51, 59, 8082, 95, 109, 112, 114, 115,
120, 123, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140,
151, 163, 167, 241, 242, 247, 248
Bash school. See Shmon
Bash seven anthologies (Bash shichibu sh),
31
Bash shichibu sh. See Bash seven
anthologies (Bash shichibu sh)
Bash-an, 37, 249, 259, 261
Blossoms and birds collection (Kach hen),
36, 114, 120, 121, 123, 132, 207
bunjin (wenren), 11, 1417, 47, 48, 50,
51, 65, 66, 68, 77, 8486, 92, 94, 102,
113, 165, 172, 177, 179, 203, 210,
260, 287
bunjin-ga. See nanga
Buson jihitsu kuch. See Buson self-selected
anthology
Buson kush. See Buson verse anthology
Buson self-selected anthology (Buson jihitsu
kuch), 128, 129
Buson verse anthology (Buson kush), 45,
104, 168, 279
Charcoal sack (Sumidawara), 24, 28
Chikukei, 76, 182184, 263, 269
Chiyo-ni. See Kaga no Chiyo
Chmu, 31, 32, 36, 37, 109, 120, 123
Chora. See Miura Chora
Chsui. See Sakuma Rykyo
INDEX
Haikai kosen. See Haikai selected old verses
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen),
16, 73, 77
Hajin. See Hayano Hajin
Hanamiguruma. See Flower-viewing carriage
Hattori Doh, 30, 108
Hattori Nankaku, 16, 35, 48, 65, 66, 68,
217, 219
Hattori Ransetsu, 27, 35, 41, 45, 50, 58,
82, 85, 90, 96, 97, 107, 115, 116, 171,
199, 257, 263, 266, 276
Hayami Shinga, 171, 179, 180, 183,
184, 271
Hayano Hajin, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 58,
59, 61, 63, 65, 71, 93, 94, 97, 103,
105, 107, 114116, 128, 136, 170,
171, 174, 176, 181, 206, 257, 264,
273
Heike monogatari. See Tale of the Heike
Henj, 195
Hirabayashi Seisai, 180
Hogo busuma. See Scrap paper coverlet
Hokuju rsen o itamu. See Mourning the
sage Hokuju
Hori Bakusui, 31, 37, 108, 109, 123,
241
Hosokawa Ysai, 19, 148
Hyakusen. See Sakaki Hyakusen
Ihara Saikaku, 21, 197
Ike no Taiga, 14, 205, 206
Ink of five colors (Goshikizumi), 28, 29, 30,
58, 59, 81, 140
Isaoka Gant, 35, 59, 65, 94, 123, 136,
171, 174, 264, 266
It Jinsai, 48, 74
Japanese and Chinese poems to sing (Wakan
rei sh), 100, 101, 229
Jieziyuan huazhuan. See Mustard seed garden
Kach hen. See Blossoms and birds collection
Kaga no Chiyo (Chiyo-ni), 37
Kagami Shik, 28, 45, 75, 96, 108, 109,
130, 131, 175, 199, 211, 272, 276
kanshi (poetry in Chinese), 13, 16, 23,
24, 6568, 71, 7375, 77, 81, 84, 126,
246, 259, 260, 279, 287
kanshibunch (Chinese style haikai),
23, 66, 67, 138
Kara hiba. See Withered cypress needles
Karumi (lightness), 24
Kasen (Thirty-six link sequence), 139
305
Kat Kytai, 31, 32, 33, 37, 44, 108,
109, 120, 123, 131, 139, 151
Kema, 35, 37, 40, 249, 252
Kenk. See Yoshida Kenk
Kenzan. See Watanabe Kenzan
Keshien gaden. See Mustard seed garden
Kidai. See Kigo (seasonal word)
Kikaku. See Takarai Kikaku
Kikei. See Takai Kikei
Kb Daishi, 198, 287
Kokon tanzaku sh. See Ancient and
modern poetry card anthology
Konpuku-ji, 37, 259, 261
Korekoma. See Kuroyanagi Korekoma
Kuroyanagi Korekoma, 48, 84, 120,
123, 125, 127, 221, 275
Kuroyanagi Shha, 1, 16, 36, 38, 48
50, 80, 81, 8486, 92, 93, 95, 101,
102, 109, 123, 125, 126, 178, 206,
219, 275277
Kyh haikai, 26, 27, 30
Kyh period, 26, 27, 30, 129, 130
Kyorai, 82, 96, 191
Kyorai sh. See Kyorai's treatise
Kyorai's treatise (Kyorai sh), 30
Kyoriku, 187, 197, 198, 199
Li Bo, 23, 99, 100, 263, 276, 287
Light of the snow (Sono yuki kage), 36
Maekuzuke, 21, 22, 33, 78, 130
Make the past present (Mukashi o ima), 41,
45, 59, 114, 116, 120, 152, 249, 257
Makura no sshi. See Pillow book
Maruyama kyo, 14
Masaoka Shiki, 9, 13, 34, 53, 66, 166
170, 244247, 279
Matsumura Gekkei, 1, 17, 117, 118,
121, 229, 274
Matsunaga Teitoku, 19, 20, 33, 135,
189, 197
Matsuo Bash, 14, 912, 14, 16, 17,
2325, 2738, 4147, 50, 51, 5660,
6669, 8082, 87, 9597, 101, 106
115, 120, 122, 127, 128, 130, 131,
135137, 140142, 151, 152, 156,
167169, 171, 173, 176, 189191,
197199, 201, 210, 211, 217, 222,
237, 240242, 245, 247249, 257
262, 266
Meiwa shinb no haru. See Spring in Meiwa
8
Minashiguri. See Empty chestnuts
306
Mino faction, 28, 31, 43, 44, 75, 96,
130
Miura Chora, 31, 37, 44, 109, 120, 123,
139144, 146 151, 194196, 209,
279, 280, 282291
Miyake Shzan, 11, 16, 31, 36, 43, 70,
71, 7375, 77, 81, 82, 131, 176, 182
Miyako no Yoshika, 100
Miyazu, 36, 76, 181, 182, 184, 201, 209,
210, 211, 213, 268, 296
Mizuma Sentoku, 27, 29, 58
Mochizuki Soku, 36, 70, 71, 94, 114,
171
Momosumomo. See Peaches and plums
Motsu, 42, 43, 70, 71, 72, 73, 185
Moritake. See Arikida Moritake
Motoori Norinaga, 80
Mourning the sage Hokuju (Hokuju
rsen o itamu), 171, 249, 250
Much. See Ueda Akinari
Mukashi o ima. See Make the past present
Mustard seed garden (Jieziyuan huazhuan,
Keshien gaden), 49, 50, 95, 203, 204,
205, 240
Nakabayashi Chikut, 206
Nakagawa Otsuy (Bakurin), 28, 45,
96, 108, 109, 263, 276
nanga, 9, 10, 14, 49, 165, 192, 200,
203211, 217, 220, 236, 240, 242,
243
Nankaku. See Hattori Nankaku
Narrow road to the interior (Oku no
hosomichi), 31, 35, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69,
137, 171, 173, 174, 237, 240, 241,
242
Natsu yori. See From summer
New account of tales of the world (Shishuo
xinyu), 105
New flower gathering (Shinhanatsumi), 37,
45, 114, 116118, 120, 126, 171, 174,
177180, 184, 249, 263
Nij school, 33
Nishi no oku. See Far into the west
Nishiyama Sin, 21, 121, 197
Nin, 156, 173, 242
Nozarashi kik. See Record of a weatherbeaten skeleton
Ogy Sorai, 16, 17, 35, 48, 65, 74, 80,
217
Oi no kobumi. See Rucksack notebook
Okotari gusa. See Random lazy jottings
INDEX
kyo. See Maruyama kyo
Onitsura, 50, 276
shima Ryota, 31, 37, 109, 128
Otsuy. See Nakagawa Otsuy
(Bakurin)
Peaches and plums (Momosumomo), 37, 42,
46, 61, 132, 133, 152-164
Pei Di, 76, 77
Pillow book (Makura no sshi), 111, 195
Poetic madness. See Fky
Point-scoring. See Tentori haikai
Puppy anthology (Enoko sh), 20
Rakut Bash-an saik-ki. See Account of
the rebuilding of the Basho Hermitage in
eastern Kyoto
Random lazy jottings (Okotari gusa), 39
Ransetsu. See Hattori Ransetsu
Ransetsu anthology (Genbsh), 45
Ranzan, 123, 139141, 143147, 149,
151
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton
(Nozarashi kik), 69, 142, 240, 242,
243
Renga, 3, 18-22, 25, 64, 74, 81, 130136, 166, 188, 189
Revival. See Basho Revival
Rucksack notebook (Oi no kobumi), 25,
197
Ryta. See shima Ryta
Rykyo. See Sakuma Rykyo (Chsui)
Saich, 62
Saigy, 4, 25, 66, 67, 113, 137, 156,
197, 198, 226, 227, 239, 240, 242
Saikaku. See Ihara Saikaku
Sakaki Hyakusen, 14, 45, 192, 193, 199,
200, 209215, 217
Sakuma Rykyo (Chsui), 28, 30, 90,
140, 151, 199, 264
Sankasha, 32, 36, 38, 7781, 84, 86, 87,
92, 95, 96, 101, 110, 123, 128, 132,
140
Sanuki, 36, 77, 78, 80, 8688, 92, 93, 95
Sanzshi. See Three noteooks
Satomura Jha, 19, 148
Scrap paper coverlet (Hogo busuma), 66,
133, 136, 239
Sei Shnagon, 195
Sentoku. See Mizuma Sentoku
Senzan. See Uchida Senzan
Sequel to dawn crow (Zoku akegarasu), 36,
104, 111, 113, 225, 241, 288
INDEX
Sessh, 25, 197
Shasei (realism), 166
Shiki. See Masaoka Shiki, See Masaoka
Shiki
Shik. See Kagami Shik
Shimsa, 35, 36, 63, 64, 225, 264, 267,
272
Shinga. See Hayami Shinga
Shishuo xinyu. See New account of tales of
the world
Shha. See Kuroyanagi Shha
Shmon, 12, 27, 28, 3034, 4345, 82,
96, 97, 101, 108, 109, 111, 130, 131,
169, 191, 199
Shzan. See Miyake Shzan
Shundei kush, 12, 84, 249, 275
Shunp batei no kyoku. See Spring wind
on the Kema Embankment
Shunzei. See Fujiwara Shunzei
Sa. See Hayano Hajin
Sod, 50, 96, 190, 191, 276
Sin. See Nishiyama Sin
Sono yuki kage. See Light of the snow
Sonome, 141
Soku. See Mochizuki Soku
Sorai. See Ogy Sorai
Spring in Meiwa 8 (Meiwa shinb no haru),
98, 99, 101
Spring wind on the Kema
Embankment (Shunp batei no kyoku),
37, 249, 252
Su Dongpo (Su Shi), 111, 113, 128,
137, 202, 239, 240, 298
Su Shi. See Su Dongpo
Sumidawara. See Charcoal sack
Taiga. See Ike no Taiga
Taigi. See Tan Taigi
Taira no Noritsune, 159
Takai Kikei, 77, 94, 102105, 107, 109,
112, 123
Takai Kit, 1, 3, 11, 31, 33, 36, 38, 39,
42, 43, 45, 46, 80, 85, 90, 94, 96, 97,
101112, 114, 120, 123, 128, 139
142, 144163, 167, 236, 280291
Takarai Kikaku, 23, 27, 29, 35, 41, 45,
50, 58, 59, 61, 82, 96, 97, 107, 117,
118, 171, 175, 176, 199, 211, 217
219, 263, 264, 266, 272, 273, 276
Takebe Rytai (Takebe Ayatari), 31
Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), 88,
159, 215, 282
307
Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu
monogatari), 229, 263
Tamiya Chsen, 39
Tan Taigi, 31, 36, 38, 8084, 87, 90, 92,
95, 101, 102, 109, 123, 131, 176, 255
Tang shi xuan, 17, 74, 100
Tango, 14, 36, 43, 45, 70, 71, 74, 76,
92, 166, 170, 181, 182, 263, 268, 283
Tanomura Chikuden, 205, 285
Tao Qian. See Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming, 124, 278
Tatsu Sro, 16, 48
Teimon, 5, 19, 21, 23, 27, 173, 190
Teitoku. See Matsunaga Teitoku
Tentori haikai (Point-scoring haikai), 3,
22
The reed cutter (Ashigari), 190
Three notebooks (Sanzshi), 25, 30, 106,
108, 110
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, 65
Tokugawa Yoshimune, 15, 26
Tomo, 1, 36
Tsunayoshi. See Tokugawa Tsunayoshi
Tsurezuregusa. See Essays in idleness
Uchida Senzan, 35, 58
Ueda Akinari, 44, 111, 229, 263
Umejo, 121, 228, 229
Urban Shmon, 28
Waka, 18, 195, 226
Wakan rei shu. See Japanese and Chinese
poems to sing
Wang Changling, 127
Wang Gai, 49
Wang Wei, 2, 76, 77, 202, 229
Watanabe Kenzan, 187
wenren. See bunjin
Winter day (Fuyu no hi), 32
Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba), 1, 104
Xi Shi (Seishi), 88
Yahantei, 4, 12, 16, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44,
48, 50, 53, 58, 59, 61, 71, 77, 78, 86,
9294, 9699, 101104, 107109,
111, 114, 115, 120, 123, 128, 132,
133, 140, 153, 166, 177, 181, 185,
217, 220, 236, 241, 257, 262, 274
Yamazaki Skan, 41
Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, 65
Yodo river songs (Denga ka), 37, 249,
256
Yoj (overtones), 188
Yoshida Kenk, 39, 75, 199
308
Yoshimune. See Tokugawa Yoshimune,
See Tokugawa Yoshimune
Yki, 59, 63, 77, 170, 171, 174, 177,
180, 181, 264, 266, 267
Zhuangzi, 151, 194
INDEX
Zoku. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)
Zoku akegarasu. See Sequel to dawn crow
Zokugo. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)
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