Edo - the EDOPEDIA -: - - - ISSA - Kobayashi Issa in Edo

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10/12/2013

ISSA - kojiki beggars

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- Translations and comments by Chris Drake -

kojiki no yo 乞食の世　 "A Beggar's world"

I am a madman with no permanent address who wanders around in the east and roams the west. In the morning I ask for a meal in Kazusa Province, and that night I beg for a place to rest in Musashi Province. I am a whitecapped ocean wave that moves always but never reaches any shore, and I am as fragile as the foam that rises from the water only to vanish a moment later. Therefore I call myself Issa-boo ....
Today, on the 26th day of the Third month in the Third year of Kansei [April 28, 1791], I left Edo and set out with more than a little anxiety on a journey. The frogs in the rice paddies proudly sang out their songs praising spring, however, and the dawn moon, caught in the limbs of trees, grew fainter in a light mist. As soon as I took my first step, my heart was filled with nothing but thoughts of travel.

.雉鳴て梅に乞食の世也けり
kiji naite ume ni kojiki no yo nari keri

pheasants cry out
in a world with beggars
under plum trees

The hokku is from the opening section of a haibun travelog entitled A Trip in the Third Year of Kansei (Kansei sannen kikoo 寛政三年紀行), probably Issa's first such haibun travelog, although he may have kept a record of his haikai trip to the north in 1789 that was subsequently lost. The journey in 1791 was made to visit his father after saying goodbye to many Katsushika-school haikai poets and supporters, who would also give him contributions to help pay for his journey. He got a further contribution from Somaru, the head of the Katsushika haikai school, for whom he was working as an assistant and scribe after the death of his first haikai master Chiku-a, who had named him as his successor as a master in the Katsushika school. In order to become a true master, however, Issa needed to publish more, gain more experience, and get to know Chiku-a's many colleagues and students in the Kyoto-Osaka area. Issa hoped to make a whole series of trips, but he told Somaru he would be gone only a month to see his father for the first time in fifteen years, so perhaps he gained confidence from this trip and only then decided to set off for western Japan. After returning to Edo, he continued to prepare for his long trip and receive contributions, and at the end of the Third Month (April) in 1792 he set out on a series of journeys that ended up continuing for seven years.

The first section of the travelog, partially translated above, is quite humble and presents Issa as a fairly weak and frail ordinary person who is setting out to try to reconnect with his father and to learn more about haikai and the world. The suffix -bou in the haikai name Issa was using then, Issa-boo (一茶坊), can mean either a Buddhist monk or a devout person who isn't a monk but who has dedicated himself to Buddhism. I would translate the name as "Secular Mendicant Issa," since Issa feels haikai is the best way he can contribute to the world and that it is a spiritual medium for him. He wears traveling robes that are fairly similar to those of an actual mendicant monk, but he obviously does not think of himself as a monk who has taken vows and entered an order. In fact, in a later section of the travelog, Issa writes about how ashamed he felt when the woman at one house where he was able to stay the night, believing him to be a monk, asked him to pray for her dead son (see my post of 5/6/2013). Issa's first master Chiku-a, also not a monk, nevertheless traveled widely around Japan and was devoted to Amida Buddha, and Issa seems to be following Chiku-a's example. At this stage in his life, the humble name "Issa" seems to have meant either a single cup of tea or perhaps the bubbles or froth on the surface of tea when hot water is poured on the tea leaves in a pot (or when green tea is poured into the large cup used in the tea ceremony).

Issa is obviously conscious of Basho, since he starts his journey one day before Basho set out for northern regions, and the last part of the haibun translated above is a clear reference to passages in the first part of Oku no hosomichi (Narrow Road to the North). The tone of the earlier part of the opening section, however, is closer to Basho's anxiety about dying on the road expressed at the beginning of Records of a Roadside Skeleton. Issa has even less travel money than Basho, and the contributions he receives aren't enough for his journey, so he feels he's somewhere between a mendicant monk and an ordinary beggar. When he sees other beggars, he no doubt wonders how different he actually is. He leaves at the end of April, just before the beginning of lunar summer, and beggars are no doubt staying outdoors a lot more now, so Issa probably passes some as he begins his journey.

The hokku can be translated in various ways, but I follow Kaneko Tota in seeing a fair amount of humility in it as well as sympathy for and kinship with the beggars who now sit beside the road under trees and other forms of shelter. Perhaps many of them also sleep under trees in the warmer weather. For this reason, I don't take the plum tree to be covered with blossoms. There are many varieties of plum trees. In the Edo-Tokyo area, some bloom in January and others in February and March or even a few in early April, but by the end of April the plums are mostly putting out green leaves, though perhaps some blossoms remain here and there. I take the tree in the hokku to be almost finished blooming and no longer a tree people come to view. The "world" of the tree has changed. This would actually be in the spirit of the Oku no hosomichi passage Issa alludes to in the haibun. There, Basho wonders when he will again see the blossoming cherry trees in Ueno and Yanaka, even though these trees finished blossoming several weeks earlier and Basho is alluding to a waka by the monk-poet Saigyo and will soon write about the new green leaves at Nikko. Issa doesn't mention either blossoms or leaves, so I simply take the plum trees near Edo to be mostly green now and no longer visited by admirers. Their place is now taken by beggars, with whom Issa feels uncannily close.

Undoubtedly some local people look with disrespect on the beggars, and Issa may be trying to capture their coldness and emotional distance with the image of male pheasants crying their sharp, almost screeching cries. The males' metallic yet strong cry is assertive and hardly seems friendly to most humans, though no specific meaning can be attributed to it. Are the pheasants crying because a beggar has invaded their territory around a plum tree? Are they just inspecting a new part of the environment? Does their cry remind Issa of the indifference toward him shown by many leading Edo haijin and of other difficulties he must overcome if he truly wants to become a haikai master? How can he go beyond begging and become a self-supporting haikai master while still retaining the free, outsider spirit possessed by beggars, such as the one he sees under that plum tree? This fairly realistic hokku seems to be a large question mark that is to be placed after each of the many sharp (pheasant-like?) questions Issa will ask himself in this psychologically searching travelog.

Many apologies. Unfortunately I didn't have time to translate the whole travelog!

Chris Drake

Oku no Hosomichi - 奥の細道
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .

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hatsu-yuki ya asa-ebisu suru kado kojiki

first snow --
a beggar at the door early
calls me "God Ebisu"

This hokku is from the end of the 10th month (early December) in 1810, when Issa was traveling around to several shrines and festivals and meeting haikai poets just east of Edo.
The 10th month was very important for the god Ebisu, one of only a very few gods who did not leave and spend the 10th month at the ancient Izumo Shrine at the southwestern end of Honshu. Since most gods were away, the 10th month was called the Godless Month. Ebisu, meanwhile, was very popular then, and merchants, fishermen, and farmers all had festivals to Ebisu, a god of good fortune and fertility. Perhaps the biggest festival was the Ebisu-kou festival at which merchants thanked Ebisu, the god of wealth, for their profits and begged forgiveness for their secret cheating and lies to their customers. It was held on 10/20, about a week before this hokku was written.

The phrase asa-ebisu or "morning Ebisu" is not a synonym for early in the morning but a short way of referring to making early-morning pilgrimages to a local shrine to the god Ebisu in order to pray for business success. From this basic meaning developed two others: a) businesspeople and fishermen would pray to Ebisu in their shop or warehouse or boat the first thing in the morning and ask him for good luck during the day; and b) businesspeople would euphemistically call early-morning customers "Ebisu," as if the customers were the god Ebisu rewarding the merchant or wholesaler with money.

Issa makes his own riff on this phrase. The first snow of the winter has fallen, and while Issa is looking at things in wonderment a beggar arrives at the front door or possibly at the gate of the place where he is staying. After Issa gives him or her a coin, the beggar thanks him by calling him Ebisu, as if he were a god. Evidently the beggar, like a merchant, calls patrons Ebisu, since they are the source of his/her wealth. Issa was already a bit disoriented by the sudden sight of snow, so the beggar' s polite thanks seems to have an uncanny ring of truth to it, as if both of them were momentarily in another time and space.

Chris Drake

. WKD : Ebisu and Ebisu koo 夷講 .

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this peaceful realm --
even at beggar houses
Children's Day banners

kimi ga yo wa kojiki no ie mo nobori kana

This hokku, scribbled in a margin of Issa's Record of a Journey to the Western Provinces (Saigoku kikō 1795), was probably written on or around lunar 5/5. The Record ends on 5/1, when Issa is in Taka-ishi, a town near the city of Sakai on the Inland Sea just south of Osaka, so the hokku may have been written in the Osaka area. During Issa's many travels to western Japan in the 1790s he wrote several hokku that mention "the reign of the present ruler [i.e., the shogun or the emperor]" (kimi ga yo). The phrase has a temporal orientation, and when kimi ('lord, ruler, you') is mentioned in worldly contexts it usually refers to the current age under the present regime (the shogunate), though in ritual contexts, such as at New Year's, it often refers to the emperor (or imperial rule). Literally it means "during the life or reign of the sovereign/ruler," and yo means 'the distance between two joints on a bamboo; life, lifetime, year(s), reign, season, society, human relations, human world.' In Edo the phrase usually referred to the shogun in almost all contexts, while in Kyoto it usually referred to the emperor, so location also governed the meaning of the word.

Before the Tokugawa shogunate enforced peace on the country, it had been ravaged by terrible wars for several centuries, and although Issa was not fond of the samurai class, he appreciated the fact that the shogunate had ended the many civil wars that afflicted medieval Japan and that it had maintained peace for two centuries. Peace also meant gradual economic development, and Issa's hokku seems to be about a village of semi-outcast beggars (hinin), as opposed to hereditary outcasts (eta). Even these semi-outcast beggars, who are required to live in a separate ghetto-like village, receive enough these days to have small houses, and they obviously love their children just as much as everyone else. It is the time of the Children's Festival on the fifth of the fifth month (early June), and the beggars, too, raise long, colored wind-sock-like streamers (nobori), many in the shape of carp that flutter in the wind as if the carp were vigorously leaping up over a small waterfall, an image they hope will inspire their children to have big dreams and aspirations. The children of beggars were able to leave the class into which they were born, and no doubt the beggar parents in the village are praying their children will have a better future, even if the children have to go away to a city to find work. Issa no doubt sympathizes with the prayers of these parents.

The hokku seems to be mainly about the beggars' humanity and their hopes for their children under the Tokugawa shogun's dictatorial but peaceful reign, and it does not seem to be nationalistic or express jingoistic pride. The phrase kimi ga yo ("under the present ruler") began a new career after Issa's death, however, so a brief look at history may be useful. The word kimi appears often in ancient waka, where it means 1) "you" when referring to a lover or respected person, 2) a powerful person or local lord, or 3) the emperor. The most famous use of the phrase is in Kokinshu waka 343, which is a poem praying for the very long life (yo) of an esteemed person. Later, during the medieval period, the waka's first line was changed slightly to kimi ga yo, and its words became a popular song sung at parties and ceremonies, such as weddings, where kimi, 'you,' referred to the newly married couple or the person being feted. In Issa's time, as he surely knew, it was even sung as a kouta song in urban amusement districts as an auspicious blessing song for an esteemed "you," often a lover. Although kimi ga yo could be taken to mean 'the reign of the current emperor,' it more commonly meant 'the reign of the current shogun.' The shogun was regularly referred to as kimi both by members of the samurai class and by commoners around the country, except in the Kyoto area, and 'the current shogun's reign' usually included the sense of "in which the realm is at peace and prosperous." The period of rule of a local daimyo domain lord was also referred to by local people as kimi ga yo. Therefore it seems likely that in this hokku Issa is following the most common usage of his age and referring to the so-called "Tokugawa peace" under the shogunate, the actual rulers of Japan. Since kimi could be singular or plural, it might be possible to read Issa as referring to "the reign of the present shogun and emperor," but it was only under the shoguns and their warrior regime that Japan achieved long-term peace and increasing prosperity, so the shogun seems more likely here.

The once-common usage of kimi that referred to the shogun is rarely mentioned in contemporary Japanese schools or small-sized dictionaries, since forces opposing the shogunate overthrew it in 1868 and made the emperor the sovereign, an active imperial role that lasted until the end of WWII. The emperor is still a "symbol" of Japan, although some popular revisionist histories still claim kimi has always referred solely to the emperor. Only in large dictionaries such as Suzuki Katsutada's Zappai Dictionary (Zappai-go Jiten Tokyo-do 1968) will you find kimi ga yo defined as 'in the present shogun's reign.' You can also find many examples of the phrase referring to the shogun in haikai, including in renku by Saikaku, who lived in Osaka. It is therefore doubtful that Issa is here connecting kimi ga yo either with Japan as a nation in relation to other nations (he would probably have used 'Nippon,' 'Dai ['great'] Nippon,' or perhaps 'Kami-guni' ['divine country'] instead, as he sometimes does) or with Japan's national anthem, since Japan had no national anthem until 1888. The anthem was created then based on -- but transforming -- a popular Edo-period blessing song version of kimi ga yo sung at ceremonies and auspicious occasions. The new Meiji government declared that kimi referred not to "you" or to the shogun but only to the emperor. Japan's first national anthem thus became primarily a song praying for the emperor's long life, and its nationalistic overtones became very strong in the first half of the twentieth century. The meaning of the phrase, however, is still contested, and contemporary Japanese politicians continue to debate whether the national anthem refers to "you, the emperor" or "you, the Japanese people"! Issa himself surely could not have guessed kimi ga yo would later go through these rapid, radical changes in meaning, and it is doubtful that he uses the phrase with nationalistic overtones. Instead, he seems to be praising the aspirations of contemporary beggars while also praising the progress being made during the long period of peace that is continuing under the present regime.

- - - Addition :
I did use the current name of the 5/5 festival, Children's Day.
I realize it's not perfect, but I used it because I thought things would get too complicated if I mentioned all the various customs related to the Tango no Sekku festival complex. I also wanted to avoid the misleading term Boy's Festival, which is commonly encountered, since the Tango festival was traditionally not just for boys, except perhaps within the warrior class. Among commoners, especially in rural areas, the village young men's and young women's associations usually held celebrations, 5/5 was often considered "women's house day," and the placement of sweet flag leaves on roofs and sweet-flag baths were both for girls as well as boys. This is presumably why the Japanese government now uses the term Children's Day -- since in the Edo period the 3/3 Doll festival was held for purification and not just for girls and the 5/5 Tango festival was mainly for maintaining good health and protection against summer diseases and not just for boys. Therefore I was using Children's Day descriptively, not as a name used in Issa's time. I agree that Children's Day is a little confusing, just as the historical reality is a bit confusing.

Chirs Drake

. Children's day and Carp Streamers (nobori) .

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ほのぼのと乞食の小菜も咲にけり
hono-bono to kojiki no ona mo saki ni keri

if you look hard
even the beggar's
canolas are blooming

This hokku is from the second month (March) of 1812, when Issa was mostly traveling around in the area just northeast of the city of Edo. Many of the fields he sees are now covered with the brilliant yellow of endless-seeming canola plants, whose seeds were a major source of lamp oil. There is so much bright yellow now that it's easy to overlook the canolas blooming in one small patch planted by a beggar using found seeds -- an out-of-the-way patch perhaps located on a riverbank at one end of the bridge on which the beggar sits. Issa doesn't mention the Pure Land here, but judging from his use of canola images in other hokku it seems possible he is implying that the beggar, too, will surely go to the Pure Land, if he is not there already in his heart. In Issa's time most beggars and outcast-class people were believers in the True Pure Land school of Buddhism to which Issa belonged, so Issa may take it for granted that beggars can find the Pure Land even in this life.

In the hokku Issa refers to canola plants with the word ona, a nonstandard word from the dialect used in his hometown and the surrounding area. Since there were a great many poor migrants in the Edo area who were from his home province of Shinano, it's possible Issa is recording the word the beggar himself used to refer to his small patch of blossoming canolas.

The hokku after this one in Issa's diary may also have cosmic implications. Although Amida, the Buddha of Boundless Light, isn't mentioned directly in either hokku, the beggar's small plot and the endless wide fields of canola around Issa seem to have the same boundless value:

na no hana no toppazure nari fuji no yama

canola fields
spreading out as far
as Mount Fuji

When seen from the area northeast of Edo, Mount Fuji is in the far distance, so the yellow fields here seem to gradually pass into a zone beyond measurement.

Chris Drake

source :　google

. na no hana 菜の花 rapeseed flower .

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七夕やよい子持たる乞食村
tanabata ya yoi ko mottaru kojiki-mura

star festival --
in the beggar village
they're all good kids

Read the discussion by Chris Drake and more about the Eta
HERE
. WKD : Eta 穢多 and Burakumin 部落民 .
the "untouchables" of the Edo period

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Latest updates about Issa on facebook - CLICK to join !

. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .

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9/27/2013

oyabun - boss

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oyabun 親分　boss, gang leader, godfather

oyabun 親分 "surrogate parent / father", leader
kobun 子分　"surrogate child", gang member, "children of the oyabun"
anikibun　兄貴分 "surrogate elder brother", elder member of a gang/group
- - - - - anibun 兄分

source :　www.raizofan.net

- Two famous oyabun of the Edo period:

. Zenigata Heiji Oyabun　銭型平次親分 .
Fiction caracter

. Shimizu no Jirocho 清水次郎長 and his kobun Ishimatsu 石松 .
(1820 - 1893)

. kyookaku 侠客 Kyokaku, "chivalrous Yakuza" .
. Banzuiin Chōbei 幡随院長兵衛 Banzuin Chobei . (1622–1657)
. Kunisada Chuuji 国定忠治 Kunisada Chuji . (1810-1851)
. Shinmon Tatsugoro 新門辰五郎 . (?1792 / ?1800 - 1875)

. oyakata 親方 boss, foreman, master craftsman leader .

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- quote
Yakuza
Despite uncertainty about the single origin of yakuza organizations, most modern yakuza derive from two classifications which emerged in the mid-Edo Period (1603–1868): tekiya, those who primarily peddled illicit, stolen or shoddy goods; and bakuto, those who were involved in or participated in gambling.

Tekiya (peddlers) were considered one of the lowest social groups in Edo. As they began to form organizations of their own, they took over some administrative duties relating to commerce, such as stall allocation and protection of their commercial activities. During Shinto festivals, these peddlers opened stalls and some members were hired to act as security. Each peddler paid rent in exchange for a stall assignment and protection during the fair.

The Edo government eventually formally recognized such tekiya organizations and granted the oyabun (leaders) of tekiya a surname as well as permission to carry a sword — the nagawakizashi, or short samurai sword (the right to carry the katana, or full-sized samurai swords, remained the exclusive right of the nobility and samurai castes). This was a major step forward for the traders, as formerly only samurai and noblemen were allowed to carry swords.

Bakuto (gamblers) had a much lower social standing even than traders, as gambling was illegal.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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- - - - - H A I K U - - - - -

. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

On 10/27 (Dec. 10) in 1803, when Issa was staying with his friend and patron Natsume Seibi in Edo, he wrote a group of winter hokku on one topic. The following three hokku from this group seem to form a loose series that comment on each other. More research needs to be done on the historical context of these three hokku, but I offer the following provisional translations :

across the street
a godfather's house --
blowfish chowder

oyabun to ie muki-oute fukuto-jiru
親分と家向あふて鰒と汁

how much
does your boss eat?
blowfish chowder

nanjira ga oyabun ikura fukuto-jiru
汝等が親分いくら鰒と汁

even in Kyoto,
they say, he has followers --
blowfish chowder

miyako ni mo kobun ari to ya fukuto-jiru
京にも子分ありとや鰒と汁

In the first hokku, Issa says that across the street facing the house he is in -- presumably Seibi's house -- stands the house of an oyabun. The word literally means "surrogate parent" and was traditionally used by the head of a work group who took the role of father or parent to his hired workers, who were called kobun, or surrogate children. This paternalistic relationship meant that the employer paid his workers very little but was required to take care of their needs, as if he were taking care of his children.

In Edo in Issa's time, however, the term oyabun or surrogate father usually had a more specific meaning, one similar to the role of a godfather in the Sicilian mafia. Although the early Edo shoguns outlawed gangs that made money by gambling or selling stolen or low quality goods, by Issa's time such gangs operated semi-openly and were a growing force in the economy.

In contemporary Japan they are referred to as yakuza, though in Issa's time they were generally known by more romantic names and presented themselves as chivalrous do-gooder groups. The house mentioned in Issa's hokku must be a fairly expensive one to rent, since his friend Seibi was a very rich merchant and must have lived in an upscale part of Edo. This Edo godfather must be quite wealthy, and he may have a front business to disguise his gambling or other activities, which were generally permitted if kept out of sight.

Not surprisingly, the godfather likes to eat blowfish, which was not only an expensive delicacy but also a required dish for macho males wanting to symbolically prove their manhood. Blowfish livers and some other parts are extremely toxic and can even cause death, so the toxic parts of the blowfish were carefully cut out before they were cooked. Detoxing techniques weren't perfect, however, and casualties sometimes occurred, so eating blowfish, often in a soup or chowder, must have been a good way for the gang leader in Issa's verse to prove his manliness and bravery to his followers -- and to his opponents. Perhaps the smell of blowfish soup several times drifts across the street to where Issa is staying, and this suggests to Issa that the owner may be a godfather.

In the second hokku someone, presumably Issa, is speaking with some of the godfather's followers or underlings ("children"). It contains colloquial language and is probably for that reason vague. It's not clear what "How much?" refers to, but I take it to refer to blowfish soup. It could refer to many other things, however.

The third hokku seems to take for granted at least one conversation with some of the men working for the gang boss. Or perhaps this is something Issa heard from Seibi or from many people in the neighborhood, though it seems a bit amazing to Issa. The boss or godfather is obviously influential and wealthy, since he is said to have followers or underlings even in the old capital, that is, in Kyoto, the titular capital of Japan, which is far from Edo, the actual center of power. The scale of the godfather's activities seems to transcend the traditional parent/child relationships in ordinary work groups and suggests a wide network of lucrative activities.

Issa seems to regard blowfish as a symbol of the man's power and influence, and perhaps there is a hint that the boss is as puffed up as a blowfish.

Chris Drake

. fugu 河豚 "the pig of the sea". blowfish, pufferfish .
Spheroides and Tetraodontiformes family. Kugelfisch

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兄分の門とむきあふ夜寒哉
anibun no kado to mukiau yozamu kana

cold night --
he stands facing
the older man's door
Tr. Chris Drake

This autumn hokku was written on 8/6 (Sept. 9) of 1804, when Issa was in Edo.
The word ani-bun was not used by siblings. It literally means "surrogate older brother; a man who plays the role (bun) of one's older brother," and in Issa's time it referred primarily to the older man in a same-sex male relationship in which one man was older than the other. In Issa's time same-sex relationships were common and not illegal, and even shoguns and daimyo lords openly had affairs with male pages and advisors. Generally, male love was suppressed only among the samurai and only in cases in which a relationship disrupted the semi-feudalistic chain of command in a particular castle or domain. Among the other classes, including Buddhist monks and Shinto priests, there was no moral or legal stigma attached to same-sex love. The word ani-bun also meant brother-in-law and could be used by younger males to address older males in an organization or tightly structured group.

Issa's hokku, about an open, unhidden night visit, clearly seems to be about a younger man visiting his older male lover's house. Presumably the younger man has dressed well in order to please his older lover, and in the light thrown by a street or house lamp Issa can tell from the man's clothes and hair style that he is involved with the older man living in the house. The fact that the young man stands facing the door for some time suggests complications, which Issa invites the reader to imagine. Has the older lover refused to open the door because he has told the younger man he doesn't want to go on meeting him any longer? Has the younger man heard the voice of another man inside with his lover? Has the older lover closed the door on the younger one and asked him to leave? Is the younger man planning to say something important to his lover that he rehearses in his mind before he knocks on the door? The possibilities go on and on, but by stressing that the fall night feels cold, Issa seems to be suggesting that the two men's relationship has reached a difficult or at least delicate point.

Yosamu or "night coldness" is a word not for bitter cold but for the feeling of coldness felt in autumn when the disparity between daylight and night temperatures is enough to make the night air feel even colder than it is. The word seems to fit very well the emotional coldness the young man feels.

Chris Drake

. nanshoku、danshoku 男色 homosexuality .

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文旦は親分柚子はその子分
buntan wa oyabun yuzu wa sono kobun

buntan
is the great boss, yuzu
is his gang member
Tr. Gabi Greve

Takazawa Ryooichi 高澤良一 Takazawa Ryoichi

. WKD : Citrus fruits (kankitsu rui 柑橘類) .

buntan ブンタン　/ 文旦 Shaddock, Citrus grandis
yuzu 柚子ゆず　yuzu citrus fruit, Citrus junos

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9/26/2013

tarai tub

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tagaya 箍屋 - see below

tarai 盥 -　たらい　tub, basin, washing bowl, wash tub

A wooden tub, used for washing and cleaning.
Some could be very elaborate with laquer decorations.

source :　bunka.nii.ac.jp
badarai, umadarai 馬盥 basin for washing a horse
ashitsuki tarai 足付盥 basin with legs, about 30 cm diameter

badarai no mitsuhide 馬盥の光秀
a famous Kabuki play about Akechi Mitsuhide and Oda Nobunaga
source : www.kabuki21.com

. Mitsuhide - toki wa IMA .

In a Hatago lodging
When entering a hatago, travellers could wash their feet in a wooden basin (tarai たらい) and sometimes a woman servant would carry their luggage up to a room.

. Hatago (旅籠, 旅篭) Lodging in Edo .

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sushi tarai 寿司たらい basin, barrel for making sushi

. sushi oke 鮓桶（すしおけ）barrel for making sushi .
kigo for summer

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taraibune たらい舟 "tub boat"

used for fishing in shallow coastal regions or rivers.
Sado island is especially famous for its taraibune, used to harvest wakame and other treasures from the sea.
Now taraibune are also used to ship tourists on rivers.

. taraibune たらい舟 "barrel boat" and Matsuo Basho .

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- - - - - H A I K U - - - - -

A frail hut with a leaking roof in a remote place, dwelling of a man of letters, was also a favorite of the Chinese hermits and Heian poets.
Matsuo Basho phrased it this way:

芭蕉野分して盥に雨を聞夜哉
bashoo nowaki shite tarai ni ame o kiku yo kana

banana tree in a storm
the dripping sound of rain in a tub
all night long . . .
Tr. Gabi Greve

. Matsuo Basho and the Banana plant .

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- - - - - Yosa Buson - - - - -

うぐいすや梅踏みこぼす糊盥
uguisu ya ume fumikobosu nori darai

this bush warbler -
it scatters plum petals
around the glue tub
Tr. Gabi Greve

source :　www.rakanneko.jp

nori 糊, natural glue was used when changing paper for the sliding doors, for example.

. kan nori 寒糊 (かんのり) glue made in the cold .
from the root of the Tororo aoi plant.
kigo for winter

. WKD : Nightingale, bush warbler (uguisu 鴬（うぐいす）) .

春の夜や盥を捨る町はづれ
haru no yo ya tarai o hirou machi hazure

this spring night -
I pick up a washing tub
at the outskirts of town

洗足の盥も漏りてゆく春や
senzoku no tarai mo morite yuku haru ya

the tub for washing my feet
also has a leak
and spring is coming to an end . . .

The cut marker YA is at the end of line 3. The use of MO is quite interesting here.

. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .

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芦火たく盥の中もちどり哉
ashibi taku tarai no naka mo chidori kana

even in the tub
where reeds are burning ...
a plover!
Tr. David Lanoue

たらいからたらいに移るちんぷんかん
. tarai kara tarai ni utsuru chimpunkan .

. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

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tagaya 箍屋 hoop repairman, clamp repairman

taga 箍 is a hoop or clamp, a ring around a wooden barrel or bucket. In the Edo period the hoop was usually made of bamboo or metal.

The tagaya walked around in Edo, calling out for his service.

oke yui　桶ゆい / 桶結い　repairing buckets, barrels and tubs
wagae, wa-gae わがえ /　輪替え "changing rings" (hoops) of buckets, barrels and tubs

Some took the buckets home to repair them, others carried their tools and did the repair work right away at the roadside.

taga o kakeru 「―をかける / 掛ける」 / taga o shimeru 「―をはめる / 締める」
ゆるんだたがを元のように締め直したり、新しいたがに交換して、桶などを再生して歩いた職人さん。

- source : ginjo.fc2web.com

たが掛けはのの字しの字て日を暮し　
tagakake wa no no ji shi no ji te hi o kurashi
たが掛ケはのゝ字しの字て日を暮シ

to repair a hoop
he spends his day bending
and stretching it

This is a visual pun with the hiragana letter NO　の。

たがかけに四五間先キて犬かじやれ
tagakake ni shi-go ken saki ni inu ga jare

when the hoop repairman works
dogs is playing and biting at it
four, five meters away

The repairman had to stretch and fold the long bamboo string many times before applying it around the bucket. During that time the animals would play with one end.

尾州不二見原 Bishu Fujimihara by Hokusai 葛飾北斎

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. Japanese Architecture - cultural keywords used in haiku .

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7/06/2013

ISSA - chiri no mi

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

chiri no mi　塵の身 this body of dust

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塵の身のちりより軽き小てふ哉
chiri no mi no chiri yori karuki kochou kana

small butterfly
lighter than the dust
of your dust body
Tr. Chris Drake

This hokku is from the 4th month (May) of 1824.
In Japanese mi in line 1 means both body and social status, and "dust body" was a standard metaphorical expression meaning 1) to have a social status or position (mi) so low no one pays any attention to you or cares about you, making you socially invisible, and 2) to live in the midst of the dusty, dirty world of ordinary affairs and become dusty and dirty yourself.

Issa seems to be using both the literal meaning of chiri as dust or small trash and the first metaphorical meaning of "dust body": being worthless, insignificant, or tiny. On the one hand, the small butterfly (and others like it) is usually marginalized and overlooked if not looked down on by humans and presumably by larger butterflies as well.

On the other hand, the small butterfly's incredibly light movements through the air show it to be even more mobile and less earthbound than motes of dust. It is so graceful and seemingly unbound by gravity that its small size and light weight are its greatest assets, and it leaves the dust of the world behind as it flies here and there very rapidly and seemingly at will. Issa thus turns the normal meaning of "dust body" on its head and uses it to praise the small butterfly.

And, since "dust body" is an expression used mostly with regard to humans, the lightness and flying ability of the small butterfly here may be suggesting that the people often referred to as the "dust" or "trash" of the society, people without wealth, power, or visibility, have the potential to transcend or leave their dust bodies in the normal, discriminatory sense behind as they fly around socially in unthinkable ways.

Chris Drake

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蝶とんで我身も塵のたぐひ哉
choo tonde waga mi mo chiri no tagui kana

butterfly flitting--
I too am made
of dust
Tr. David Lanoue

塵の身もともにふはふは紙帳哉
chiri no mi mo tomo ni fuwa-fuwa shichoo kana

this body of dust
suits this wispy-soft
paper mosquito net
Tr. David Lanoue

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poems using CHIRI but in the more real sense of DUST:

塵塚にあんな小蝶が生れけり
chirizuka ni anna ko chô ga umare keri

in the trash heap
that little butterfly
is born!
Tr. David Lanoue

老僧が塵拾ひけり苔の花
roosoo ga chiri hiroi keri koke no hana

the old priest
picks off the dust...
moss blossoms
Tr. David Lanoue

塵の身も拾ふ神あり花の春
chiri no mi mo hirou kami ari hana no haru

even for this body of dust
a guardian god!
blossoming spring

Shinji Ogawa explains that the phrase hirou kami ("the god who picks you up") is part of a longer expression:

捨てる神あれば拾う神あり
suteru kami areba hirou kami ari

"If a god discards you,
there must be another god who may pick you up".

Tr. and comment David Lanoue

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春風や柱の穴も花の塵
haru kaze ya hashira no ana mo hana no chiri

spring wind -
even in the pillar's hole
petals of cherry blossoms
Tr. Gabi Greve

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7/01/2013

ISSA - ishizue

source :　panoramio.com
ishizue from Hitachi Kokubunji Pagoda

soseki　礎石 Lit. foundation stone.
A base stone which receives the dead load of a pillar. The upper side of the base stone was made roughly level. Natural and processed stones both have a mortise *hozoana ほぞ穴, into which a tenon *hozo ほぞ, is inserted that extends from the bottom of the pillar. A tenon sometimes is cut into the base stone to be inserted into a corresponding mortise on the bottom of the pillar. Some base stones have an extension which serves as a sill or a ground plate, jifukuza 地覆座.

During the 7-8c a porous limestone called tufa *gyoukaigan 凝灰岩, was used and the developed of stone progressed. From the latter part of the 8c after floored buildings became common, stone processing declined. Many natural base stones were cut from andesite, anzangan 安山岩, a type of volcanic rock and granite, kakougan 花崗岩. A firmly packed bed of golfball-sized stones underlay base stones in the ancient period. The use of natural stones for base stones was common until the premodern age when carefully cut stones were used.
source : JAANUS

大寺の礎殘る野菊かな
ootera no ishizue nokoru nogiku kana

the foundation stones
of the big temple remain
amid wild chrysanthemums . . .
Tr. Gabi Greve

Masaoka Shiki　正岡子規 visiting Large Temples：
. Daiji, ootera, oodera 大寺 large temple .

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薄月の礎しめる柳哉
usu-zuki no ishizue shimeru yanagi kana

a willow
makes possible
this cloud-streaked moon
Tr. Chris Drake

This spring hokku was published in a New Year's collection in 1802. A faint moon seen through thin clouds is usually an autumn image, but the hokku is placed among spring hokku, so it seems to be about thin spring clouds, mist, or haze, with willows being the main seasonal image. The moon is dimly visible through thin clouds or mist, and its vague outline appears as a pale circle of light in the sky above a willow tree. If the clouds are moving, the moon may appear to be undulating or floating. The new leaves on the willow below are still small and give the whole tree a diffuse, swelling, cloudlike appearance, so the image does not seem to be about the thin, drooping limbs of the willow literally supporting the moon but about a tender balance and mutual dependence between sky and earth in which the moon on this night seems to find its basic shape in the even more diffuse, looming shape of the dimly moonlit willow below it. Somehow taught or visually supported by the willow, the cloud-streaked moon seems to be trying to realize one of its most basic forms. As for humans, without the support of the willow, we wouldn't be able to make out this very basic form of the moon: the moon couldn't exist this way for us without the willow down below.

Issa uses ishizue, 'foundation, basis, ground, support, foundation stone,' in a similar way in another early spring hokku from 1792:

harukaze ya ishizue shimeru asana-asana

spring wind --
the basic foundation
morning after morning

The days of spring seem to be defined by the early-morning strong wind. It blows hard to begin each day and sets the tone for the whole day, forming the basis for the way people experience and live through the spring.

Chris Drake

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礎や元日しまの巣なし鳥
ishizue ya ganjitsu shima no su nashi tori

cornerstone--
on New Year's morning
a bird without a nest
Tr. Lanoue

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6/18/2013

ISSA - kasen - pine shade

celebrating peace in the land --

松蔭に寝てくふ六十よ州かな
matsukage ni nete kuu rokujuu yo shuu kana

sleeping and eating
in pine shade -- more than
sixty provinces

Issa

tsuru to asoban kame to asoban

let's be friends with the cranes
let's be friends with the turtles

Kakuroo

tsukikage no dandan hosoki haru nare ya

the moon
grows thinner
along with spring

Issa

yaeyamabuki no kakusu andon

a portable lamp hidden
by wild yellow roses

Issa

These are the first four verses of a 36-verse renku kasen sequence Issa composed with the Tendai-school priest Kakuroo ( 鶴老), or Old Man Crane in the 2nd month (March) of 1812, when Issa visited Kakurou's temple in the area east of Edo. Issa attached a headnote to characterize the mood of the sequence, especially the hokku. It is a phrase that means the hokku celebrates the fact that Japan has been at peace under the rule of the Tokugawa shoguns for more than two centuries. The Tokugawa shoguns came from the Matsudaira (Pine Level) clan, so long-lived, always green pine trees were a widely used symbol for the "eternal" rule of the shogunate. Referring directly to this image of the shogunate, Issa uses an old ritual phrase and writes that all of the more than 60 provinces of Japan were at peace, and people can eat and have a place to sleep thanks to ("in the shadow of") the peace brought by the Matsudaira shogunate. Of course Issa is not praising the shogunate unconditionally, but he does thank the regime for bringing peace to Japan after centuries of civil war. Issa surely knows many farmers and even many people in Edo are homeless or starving or close to starving, but his hokku is a ritualistic semi-prayer more than a pure description or observation.

In Issa's diary the hokku is placed in the 2nd month section among a group of celebratory hokku using pines, bamboo, cranes, and turtles to praise the new year and pray for health, prosperity, and long life. The season of this hokku isn't clear, and strictly speaking the hokku is seasonless, but since it is a celebratory hokku, Issa seems to be using it as a designated or makeshift New Year's hokku in the wider sense, with the Matsudaira ruling clan serving in place of the New Year's pine decorations. It is also therefore implicitly a prayer for continued peace or perhaps even for true peace and prosperity for everyone in Japan in the future. Although the pine shade in the hokku was later interpreted by some as referring to Basho, Issa's headnote indicates that this was not his main intent at the time he composed the hokku with Kakurou. If the pine shade refers to anyone specific beyond the shoguns, then it would be to Issa's host Kakurou.

A hokku, normally written by the guest, contains a greeting to the host of the renku sequence, and by referring to New Year's pines and their association with longevity, Issa is wishing the host Kakurou a long, healthy life. Since Kakurou's name contains the word crane, Issa is also referring to the fact that cranes often nest or rest in pines and are linked with them as symbols of longevity and good health.

In the wakiku, verse 2, the host Kakurou also takes Issa's hokku to be a half-mythic semi-prayer for peace in Japan as well as a greeting to him, so it, too, seems to be a makeshift New Year's verse responding to Issa's makeshift New Year's verse. In this kasen, Kakurou replies to Issa, suggesting that they become friends with with felicitous cranes and turtles and have a good time with them. Most immediately, it means that Kakurou, as a crane, wants to have a pleasant, friendly time with Issa as they write the kasen sequence. Since cranes were said to live a thousand years and turtles ten thousand years, he is also wishing Issa a long, healthy life in return, thus establishing a positive, festive mood for the sequence. Kakurou also seems to be comparing Japan to one of the decorations brought out at New Year's and at weddings: a small table with an island shape on it representing the Daoist island of eternal youth, known as Horai in Japan. On the small bonsai island are one or more pines and bamboos as well as cranes and turtles. The whole of Japan, Kakurou suggests, continuing the celebratory mood, is like Horai Island, where everyone can live a long life in peace and harmony and be friends with cranes and turtles.

However, the third verse, the daisan, swerves away from the hokku's mythical, utopian language and returns to the world of time and change. The spring moon -- since New Year's must be left behind, I take this to be the third-month moon -- is getting thinner and thinner as spring comes to an end. It would be nice to play around with idealized cranes and turtles all the time, but in the real world the cranes are taking to the sky and flying north, leaving Japan behind. At the same time, a crescent moon hangs softly in the warming sky. The late spring nights are becoming dark, with only a sliver of moon remaining, and someone has carried a portable frame lamp outside to do something, perhaps finish some work.

The lamp has been left on the far side a bush of yellow mountain roses (Japanese kerria plena), and the bush is now heavy with the blooming flowers. The color of the roses may be just visible in the mostly hidden light of the lamp, and there is a curious symmetry between heaven and earth: between the narrow, mostly hidden moon and the light of the lamp mostly hidden by the mountain rose bush. Issa has followed a spring moon with another spring verse -- something he couldn't do if the first two verses were spring verses and not designated New Year's verses -- but the next verse, no. 5, is a summer verse directly following only two spring verses, something a bit different from classic Basho-style renku, a placement which, along with the loose definition of semi-New Year's status for the first two verses, shows the interesting flexibility of renku composition in Issa's age. Would Basho have raised his eyebrows?

The above is only a brief sketch of what seems to be going on in the first four verses of this interesting sequence and is intended only to put the hokku in context.

Chris Drake

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6/15/2013

ISSA - robes

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

In the Heian period, seasonal cloths were quite important.
robes for spring, haru goromo 春衣
. yanagi gasane 柳重 willow robes .

. kimono robes and haiku 着物 .

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No Clothes

明ぼのの春早々に借着哉
akebono no haru haya-baya ni karigi kana

they try to lend me
fancy New Year's clothes
to show off at dawn
Tr. Chris Drake

This humorous hokku was written on the first of the 9th month (October) of 1803, four months before New Year's, so Issa is apparently talking about the future and what he'll do or won't do at dawn on the first day of the coming new year. There is no tense in the hokku, so in English it could be either in the present or the future tense. The hokku as a whole is a reply to an ancient Chinese poem, and my translation is of the whole reply.

The headnote of the hokku is the title of poem 133 (see translation below) in the ancient Chinese Book of Poems or Book of Odes (詩経), which Issa began studying five months before he wrote this hokku. If you read the Chinese poem, it's clear that "clothes" means the proper clothes, that is, military or fighting clothes and equipment. The poem is written from the point of view of the king of the aggressive Qin (or Ch'in) kingdom, which later gained control of China for a short time. Putting aside possible allegorical layers of meaning and reading the poem straightforwardly, as Issa probably did, one of the Qin king's officials is trying to persuade former war heroes ("you") to once again put on fighting clothes and equipment and help the king carry out a new military campaign. Many of the former warriors seem to be resisting the idea of going back to war, however, claiming they no longer have any fighting clothes or equipment and therefore can't join in. Not having the proper clothes is of course an indirect expression that allows the warriors to avoid going to war without having to say so.

By placing the title of the ironic Chinese poem next to his hokku, Issa puts himself in the position of the former warriors in the poem who want to avoid going to war again. The Qin king's point of view is represented by people around Issa who want him to get the proper nice robes to wear at New Year's so he can go around saying formal New Year's greetings to all sorts of people. When Issa was the assistant and scribe for the haikai master of the Katsushika school while he was in his twenties, he surely borrowed nice robes from the master to wear at formal meetings and on holidays, especially at New Year's, but after that Issa traveled like a vagabond around western Japan for several years, and even after his return to the Edo area he has barely been able to support himself.

Buying a samurai-style formal thick robe together with a two-part kami-shimo outer vest and trousers to wear at New Year's would have been out of the question at the time Issa wrote this hokku, and his friends may have been kidding him about his informal clothing, asking him how he intends to become an established haikai master. Many merchants imitated samurai fashions and had at least one set of nice robes, and some of Issa's merchant students may also have suggested he "level up" his wardrobe.

Issa's hokku is apparently a humorous reply to his fashion critics. Thanks but no thanks, the hokku suggests. Issa no doubt likes formal duds about as much as he likes samurai armor and war, and, following the strategy of the resisting former warriors addressed in the Chinese poem, the hokku seems to be a roundabout way of saying there's no possible way anyone's going to get him to wear stiff, formal robes at New Year's. And in fact Issa's one hokku written on the next New Year's Day, four months after this hokku, says he's been lying around inside.

No Clothes

How shall it be said that you have no clothes ?
I will share my long robes with you.
The king is raising his forces ;
I will prepare my lance and spear,
And will be your comrade.

How shall it be said that you have no clothes ?
I will share my under clothes with you.
The king is raising his forces ;
I will prepare my spear and lance,
And will take the field with you.

How shall it be said that you have no clothes ?
I will share my lower garments with you.
The king is raising his forces ;
I will prepare my buffcoat and sharp weapons,
And will march along with you.
Tr. James Legge

Chris Drake

Shi Jing - The Book of Odes -

source : www.sacred-texts.com

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6/02/2013

ISSA - tetsuki

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention.

Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to words when they speak.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

. How to count on your fingers - in Japanese .

. Daruma Mudra and dharma-cakra-pravartana.

. Kuhonbutsu 九品仏 the Nine Mudras of Amida .

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蜻蛉もおがむ手つきや稲の花
tonboo mo ogamu tetsuki ya ine no hana

rice ripening --
dragonfly, too, hands
in prayer position
Tr. Chris Drake

This autumn hokku was written in the 9th month (October) 1819, the year evoked by Issa in Year of My Life, and the rice heads are ripe and bending over just before harvest. Perhaps the dragonfly is now on one head of ripe rice, and two of its six legs are touching at their tips as if they were palms placed together in prayer or thanks for the good harvest. Or perhaps the dragonfly holds its front two legs around a husk of rice in a way that suggests folded hands. Issa was a realistic and knowledgeable person, however, and it's unclear whether he actually believes dragonflies express thanks by imitating the hands of humans. It's impossible to know from the language of this hokku whether Issa thinks the dragonfly is literally praying or not, so each reader must make her or his own interpretation.

The word tetsuki, "shape, appearance of the hands" suggests to me that Issa knows the dragonfly isn't intentionally folding its front two legs together as if they were hands. My guess is Issa is suggesting that it's a miracle simply that the dragonfly has made a shape that humans can interpret as being an expression of prayer, even though he knows that the shape of two of the dragonfly's "hands" in itself isn't a prayer. Surely Issa realizes the dragonfly must be expressing its thanks in its own complex dragonfly-like way to the rice for providing it with a watery paddy home, yet he's glad that the dragonfly's "hand shape" happens to provide humans with a wonderful utopian "what if" moment.

In another hokku Issa clearly uses "hand shape" to contrast the shape with the reality. In 1825 he mentions the Buddha's hand shape in a hokku about Shakyamuni's birthday, traditionally celebrated on lunar 4/8. The ceremonies include pouring sweet tea over a small statue of Shakyamuni Buddha as a baby in order to symbolically bathe it. The statue is of the baby Buddha standing with his right arm raised and his left arm hanging down, since it is believed that soon after being born the Buddha pointed to heaven with one finger on his right hand and pointed at earth with one finger on his left hand. Thus the right hand of the statue of the baby Buddha usually points heavenward with one finger or sometimes two fingers, a shape that reminds Issa of the hand shape of a child making a strict promise by sticking up its little finger and then hooking it around the little finger of the person to whom the promise is made (see the picture of a baby Buddha below).
Here is Issa's hokku:

kanbutsu wa yubi-kiri o suru tetsuki kana

bathing baby Buddha --
his hand shape a finger-promise
to the other kids

Issa does not of course think the statue of the baby Buddha is actually making a finger-promise, but the thought of the baby Buddha making a child's promise is inspirational and mind-opening and is a real contribution to our way of thinking about the Buddha and his compassion toward children. In the same way, the thought that the dragonfly looks as if it were actually praying is inspirational and delightful -- as is Issa's somewhat similar request in another hokku to some melons to become frogs.

Issa likely knows from observation or from farm lore that dragonflies are not passive. Rather, they are active protectors of the rice plants. They are carnivores who eat smaller insects, so the dragonfly in this hokku must be vigilantly waiting as it tries to spot smaller, harmful insects flying by. Traditionally the presence of dragonflies was believed to be a sign of good luck for a rice paddy, and probably the main reason was because dragonflies were known to eat harmful insects and thus significantly reduce crop damage. Surely Issa was aware of this traditional relationship, and he may regard the presence of the protector dragonfly to be part of a wordless mutual expression of thanks exchanged between the rice and the dragonfly, each of which is indebted to the other.

Issa often expresses his personal dislike for working in rice paddies and admits feelings of guilt for usually staying inside while tenant farmers and sometimes his wife did the actual rice farming on the land he received as an inheritance from his father. But he no doubt sometimes looked closely at the rice, especially at harvest time, and he must have been fascinated by the small occurrences going on in the paddies, so I take the mo, "too," in this hokku to include Issa's point of view as well as the view of his wife and the farmers renting his fields.

Here's a photo of people at Sensoji temple in Asakusa in Edo/Tokyo, a temple often visited by Issa. The visitors pray and pour sweet tea over the statue of the baby Buddha on his traditional birthday. The Buddha's right forefinger is in a shape that to Issa resembles the way a child sticks up a finger in order to make a promise:

source :　www.asakusa.gr.jp

Chris Drake

. WKD : Busshoo-e 仏生会 Buddha's Birthday Celebrations .

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法談の手つきもかすむ御堂かな
hoodan no tetsuki mo kasumu midoo kana

the preacher's
hand gestures too ...
lost in temple mist
Tr. David Lanoue

Read the comment of Chris Drake here :
. WKD : Preaching the Sutras お経　o-kyoo　 .

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