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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .
. WKD : Cherry Blossoms (sakura 桜) .
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江戸桜花も銭だけ光る哉
edo sakura hana mo zeni dake hikaru kana
Edo Cherries --
glittering coins outshine
their blossoms
Tr. Chris Drake
This hokku is from the second month (March) in 1820, when Issa was in and around his hometown. "Edo Cherries" (edo-zakura) in the first line is one name for "Somei-Yoshino Cherries," a type of cherry tree artificially created by gardeners in Somei, a village on the edge of Edo, who crossed two traditional types of cherry trees. The Somei nurseries also produced other kinds of new flowers and trees and actively marketed them. Some of these creations became very popular with samurai lords, who generally had very large gardens, and with Edo's merchants, most of whom sought to imitate the warrior class. In Issa's time various nurseries competed to see which could create the most striking or unusual new varieties of flowers and trees. Flower contests became common in the city, and Issa has several hokku about the unnatural shapes of the artificially large and fancy chrysanthemums that became popular in Edo, where the flowers could be amazingly expensive.
Edo Cherries became a choice commodity not long before Issa was sent by his father to Edo to find a job, so he has no doubt seen them in bloom and has compared them with other, more traditional types, such as the wild mountain cherries growing in profusion at Mt. Yoshino. Edo Cherries have bowl-like blossoms that are a strong red at the center when they first bloom, though they gradually turn to a very light pink before they fall, and the blossoms grow fairly close together, covering the whole tree and giving it a rather ostentatious look that many Edoites preferred.
Issa, however, isn't overly impressed by either the blossoms or the tree. He says "even" (mo) the blossoms, so he may refer to the fact that the tree is mainly for show: only very sour cherries or no cherries at all grow on it. And he may feel the overall shape of the tree is a bit unbalanced, since the blossoms bloom before the leaves appear. The tree's main value is commercial, he feels, and in a narrow sense he seems to have been right, since this ornamental type of cherry became even more popular during the period when Japan was modernizing and today is regarded as "traditional," at least in urban areas. It is also popular around the world.
Chris Drake
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「江戸桜ルネッサンス＆夜桜うたげ」の魅力
Edo Sakura Renaissance
- source : /mery.jp/15729
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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .
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