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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .
by Tsuchiya Koitsu
hatsugiku 初菊（はつぎく）first chrysanthemum
white chrysanthemum, shiragiku 白菊
yellow chrysanthemum, kigiku 黄菊
Many Japanese kigo in connection with chrysanthemums:
. WKD : kiku 菊 chrysanthemum .
kigo for autumn and other seasons
酒臭き黄昏ごろや菊の花
sake kusaki tasogare goro ya kiku no hana
the smell of sake
around about dusk...
chrysanthemum
The Chrysanthemum had special importance to Issa, especially after his 1814 marriage to Kiku, who was named after this flower.
David Lanoue has more than 44 haiku about the Chrysanthemum.
隠居菊, 菊の花, 痩菊, 大菊, 小菊, 野菊, 祭り菊, 夏菊
芭蕉忌に先つつがなし菊の花
bashooki ni mazu tsutsuganashi kiku no hana
safe and sound
on Basho's Death-Day...
chrysanthemum
斯う通れ通れとや門の菊
kô tôre tôre to ya kado no kiku
"This way, pass through
pass through!"
the gate's chrysanthemum
- source : haikuguy.com David Lanoue
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- - - - - Translations and comments by Chris Drake
大名を味方にもつやきくの花
daimyoo o mikata ni motsu ya kiku no hana
a chrysanthemum
backed by
a domain lord
This hokku is from a group about chrysanthemum shows/contests (kiku-awase, kiku-kurabe), probably in Edo, in the Ninth Month (about October) in 1817. Issa was in Edo earlier in the year, but by the Ninth Month he'd returned to his hometown area, so this must be a hokku based on a rumor he'd just heard or perhaps a memory. A daimyo is a domain lord and rather different from a warlord. Warlords had ravaged the country in the 16th c. and earlier, but in the 17th c. the Tokugawa shogunate gained the upper hand and enforced a kind of Pax Romana, establishing a nationwide system of domains (han), each overseen by a daimyo lord who had pledged his allegiance to the shogunate in Edo. (Daimyo has become an English word, so perhaps it's better to use it than "domain lord.") One way a daimyo was prevented from rebelling and making war was his duty to leave his wife and heir as de facto hostages in his mansion in Edo, while he himself spent alternate years in Edo and his local domain.
While they were living in Edo, the mostly very rich daimyo concentrated mainly on ceremonial work and their hobbies. Chrysanthemums were considered to be a noble flower in samurai culture, and some daimyo liked to raise and train large, elaborate chrysanthemums. Commoners also loved raising and creating new strains of chrysanthemums, and in the late Edo period the craze for training and sculpting chrysanthemums almost reached the proportions of the tulip craze in Europe. Issa's hokku was written during one of the high points in the craze, and he has a rather low opinion of chrysanthemum training and chrysanthemum shows/competitions for various reasons.
The chrysanthemum (or group of chrysanthemums) in this hokku has been placed in a show, at which various prizes have been given or soon will be. It's unlikely a daimyo would submit a chrysanthemum under his own name. Instead he would probably use a proxy, either a retainer or a rich commoner, who would be able and willing to mix with lowly commoners. In the hokku before this one Issa evokes a contest loser finding out that the chrysanthemum that beat his was submitted for a daimyo. So it appears that contest judgments were -- as art and other contests are reputed to be even today -- heavily influenced by money and social position. Probably the winning judgment on the chrysanthemum has been made already and the creator or at least submitter revealed. Since Issa says "supported/backed /favored by," I interpret this to mean either that the name of the daimyo's proxy has been revealed or that the submitter has been revealed to be a proxy for a daimyo.
There is surely irony and satire in the fact that a great daimyo is revealed to be indulging in such materialistic competitions, and by implication spending a lot on bribes, thus showing that in this respect he is basically no different from commoners, except in the degree of his corruption. Because of the great wealth and social influence daimyo and some merchants possessed, the world of sculpted chrysanthemum shows/contests is clearly regarded by Issa to be just as corrupt as the society in which it developed.
The first hokku in this series:
人間がなくば曲らじ菊の花
ningen ga nakuba magaraji kiku no hana
if there were no humans
there would be no
crooked chrysanthemums
Here "crooked" suggests not only "misshapen" (by sculpting) but also the ethical judgment that resides in the Japanese magar-.
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薮原や何の因果で残る菊
yabuhara ya nan no inga de nokoru kiku
overgrown meadow --
what karma, chrysanthemums,
keeps you alive?
bushes, grass, trees
and these chrysanthemums --
what's kept you alive?
This hokku is from the 10th month (November) of 1815, when Issa was traveling in the area just east of Edo. The hokku before and after this hokku in Issa's diary give a good idea of its context.
The previous hokku:
kigi no ha ya kiku no mijime ni sakinikeri
tree leaves --
what miserable
chrysanthemum petals
The flowers are unable to grow well in the shade and among all the bushes and wild grass around them, and Issa is amazed they've survived this long. Wild chrysanthemums usually resemble daisies and bloom in clusters, so I use the plural for them.
Then, following the first hokku above, is this one:
akagiku no akahaji kaku na mata shigure
red chrysanthemums,
don't blush so from shame --
cold rain again
Issa asks some red wild chrysanthemums with scraggly blossoms not to feel ashamed of being seen in their pitiful condition, and he assures them that cold early winter rain, which is beginning to fall again, will soon cool off their hot, blushing faces.
The hokku following these three are about the Ten Nights services in which Pure Land (Honen) sect monks chant Amida's name for ten days and nights, beginning on 10/6, so Issa seems to be thinking about the buddha-nature of the chrysanthemums and marveling at how they manage to survive even in a very difficult environment.
The Japanese word for karma is gou ( 業 ), and the word Issa uses in the first hokku above is inga (因果), literally 'cause and effect,' which is short for dependent co-origination, the Buddhist notion that cause and effect are never simple but dependent on and interlinked with a wide network of other relationships and actions. In Japanese the word 'cause and effect' was also sometimes used in a secular way by people speaking about causation in general, while 'karma' in English doesn't commonly refer to ordinary cause and effect, so there is some slippage in translation here.
I doubt that Issa is asking in a simple linear way about what kind of deeds the chrysanthemums did in previous lives. He is probably talking, I assume, about the other-power behind the amazing ability of the flowers to bloom in a very hard place, and he also seems to be talking about more than the individual flowers. I think his notion of karma is a kind of ecosystemic one, with many different factors involved, factors that ripple outward, perhaps infinitely, and overlap with Amida. Issa seems to be wondering what all the various factors might be. He may be wondering, for example, whether the chrysanthemums are themselves silent versions of Amida's name.
Finally, inga (cause and effect; karma) seems to have several meanings in this hokku by Issa:
chiru arare hato ga inga o kataru sama
hail falling --
pigeons seem to be
discussing karma
and/or: its/their karma
and/or: what's happening
and/or: what's causing it
Chris Drake
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縁の猫勿体顔や菊の花
en no neko mottaigao ya kiku no hana
porch cat's face sez
chrysanthemum-viewing
by invitation only
This autumn hokku is from the 9th month (October) of 1820, when Issa was living in his hometown. Some probably potted chrysanthemums (or perhaps only one) stand on or near the low, narrow wooden porch just outside a room. The wall between the room and the porch consists mainly of sliding doors, which seem to be open now. The cat has positioned itself just right to be the viewer in chief.
Chris Drake
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幸に遅々さくややたら菊
saiwai ni oso-oso saku ya yatara kiku
plain chrysanthemum,
you're lucky
you've bloomed late
This hokku is from the fall of 1819, the year evoked in Issa's Year of My Life. It is from a copy by Issa's follower Baijin of Issa's Eighth Diary and doesn't indicate the month. In Issa's own diary, in the section for the 9th month, a slightly different version appears:
saiwai ni raku-raku saku ya yakuza-giku
"failed" chrysanthemum,
you're lucky you've bloomed
at your own chosen pace
The plain, ordinary chrysanthemum in Baijin's copy (or scribal variation) is ambiguous. It could be a plain-looking cultivated chrysanthemum, or it could be a wild field chrysanthemum. I take it to be a failed fancy chrysanthemum, because Issa could have used the word for field chrysanthemum if he had wanted to and because Issa's own calligraphic version seems to evoke a failed cultivated chrysanthemum. In the second hokku, Issa's own version, the meaning is pretty clear. In Issa's time chrysanthemums had begun to be grown as a cash crop, partly for export to Edo and other cities and partly for local people, who had begun to follow the Edo-centered craze for big, fancy chrysanthemums. The flower in Issa's own calligraphic version has been grown and trained by a grower, but despite 4-5 months of effort, the chrysanthemum never developed into the fancy shape the grower had hoped to sculpt it into.
To Issa the flower seems to be a dropout more interested in taking things easy and enjoying itself than in being stretched and tweaked into fashionable abstract shapes loved by humans. Issa feels the easygoing chrysanthemum, considered a failure by the grower and his customers, is lucky to have followed its natural inclinations. In Baijin's copy of the hokku, an ordinary-looking cultivated chrysanthemum seems to have bloomed later than the chrysanthemums which responded to the grower's fancifying techniques and therefore received more care and nutrition. In both versions the important things for Issa are the feelings and the health of the flower itself and not how the flower looks to humans. Issa also seems impressed by the way dropout chrysanthemums that are rejected as lacking beauty or vigor actually end up as beautiful flowers. They are the lucky ones, because they have a natural beauty and health the fragile fancy flowers will probably never experience. The musical play of vowels and consonants in Issa's own diary version also suggests the chrysanthemum's delight at being itself.
Chris Drake
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大菊のさんだらぼしやけさの雪
. oo-giku no sandara-boshi ya kesa no yuki .
big chrysanthemum under a round straw cover
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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .
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