ISSA - susu harai soot

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

cleaning off soot, susu harai susuharai 煤払 (すすはらい)
..... susu haki 煤掃（すすはき）, susu oroshi 煤おろし（すすおろし）
day for cleaning, susu no hi 煤の日（すすのひ）

This was done not only at home but in temples and shrines too. With long bamboo poles and sakaki sacred branches the bad influences of the passing year, the vicious demons hiding somewhere in the corners and the roof beams, were cleared away, together with the real soot.



source :　tukitodora.exblog.jp

. WKD : susuharai 煤払 cleaning off soot .


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隅の蜘案じな煤はとらぬぞよ
sumi no kumo anji na susu wa toranu zo yo

corner spider
rest easy, my soot-broom
is idle
Tr. David Lanoue

. ISSA and his spider haiku 蜘蛛　 .

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庵の煤掃く真似をして置にけり
io no susu haku mane o shite okinikeri
(1817)

Making a gesture
of sweeping the cobwebs,
I leave it at that.
Tr. Max Bickerton


my hut's soot--
going through the motions
of sweeping it
Tr. David Lanoue


- - - an earlier version reads

庵のすすざっとはく真似したりけり
io no susu zatto haku mane shitari keri
(1813)

my hut's soot--
I go through the motion
of sweeping it
Tr. David Lanoue

- - - - -

I briefly pretend
to sweep soot --
enough is enough
Tr. Chris Drake


朝々にうぐひすも鳴けいこ哉
asa-asa ni uguisu mo naku keiko kana

singing practice
every morning
with the warbler

These two hokku appear in this order in Issa's diary for the 12th month (January) in 1814, a few months after he had finally been able to move into the half of the house left to him by his father in his hometown. It is the first time Issa has experienced various year-end activities in his own house, and he is honest about his lack of interest in housekeeping. In the middle of the 12th month almost everyone in the village is doing a big year-end cleaning -- washing everything and sweeping not only the floors but the soot-covered pillars, beams, rafters, and dark corners -- yet Issa feels no need to do anything but move his broom around for a short time, and he soon gets bored with his own pretense.

Bush warblers (Heronries diphone) have begun to sing again, though it's still a couple of weeks before the new year and lunar spring. In the 12th month not many people listen to them, but Issa hears one loud warbler outside singing morning after morning, and he feels the bird must be practicing its song so it will be perfect when the New Year comes and people strain to hear the "first warbler song" of the new year. Hearing it every morning, Issa seems to find himself repeating the warbler's call to himself and wonders if he, too, needs to improve his warbler singing technique.

It is also possible to read the second hokku as, "every morning it practices singing uguisu." However, if Issa intended uguisu to be the sound the bird makes, I think he would probably have used katakana syllabic letters. There is a folk etymology that takes the name bush warbler (uguisu) to be onomatopoetic, this theory is not widely accepted. Issa seems to have believed the bird's name originally meant "first appearing deep in the mountains" (oku ni izu). In Issa's time the main call of the warbler was usually described as hou-(hou-)hokekyo, a sound that suggested, when translated, Lo-Lotus Sutra or Lo-Lo-Lotus Sutra.

Here is a good recording of the call:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oftfpDAfLHE

By putting these two hokku next to each other, Issa might be suggesting that for him it's more important to learn about other voices and improve his singing/writing than to clean all the sooty beams in his house.

Chris Drake


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かつしかや煤の捨場も角田川
katsushika ya susu no suteba mo sumida-gawa


名月や松の天窓の煤もはく
meigetsu ya matsu no atama no susu mo haku


外は雪内は煤ふる栖かな
soto wa yuki uchi wa susufuru sumika kana


煤掃て松も洗て三ケの月
susu haite matsu mo araute mike no tsuki


煤けたる家向きあふて夕涼み
susuketaru ie mukiaute yûsuzumi

煤くさき畳も月の夜也けり
susu kusaki tatami mo tsuki no yo nari keri


行雁がつくづく見るや煤畳
yuku kari ga tsuku-zuku miru ya susu tatami


and many more - 76 haiku
- translations by David Lanoue -


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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .


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- quote -
Karei no Susuhaki 嘉例のすゝはき Seasonal Rite of Cleaning Up

- Utagawa Toyokuni III
This illustration shows the scene of Susuharai, the annual custom of indoor cleaning and the cleansing of shrines. In the Edo period, Susuharai was set to take place on December 13th and so this was a kind of Shinto event called such names as
'Jū san-nichi (13th) Sekku' 十三日節供（せっく）.
The tradition called "Susuharai", or the year-end cleanup, was enjoyable only when all the work was finished. As it can be seen in this painting, people enjoyed eating onigiri (rice balls) and nishime (simmered vegetables) contained in a lacquered box. This was called "osame no iwai" (celebration of finishing the cleanup) at which the food and wines were offered to the people who joined the cleaning.
During the occasion, some people were being tossed in the air in celebration and others made a special performance. Indeed, this ukiyo-e depicts not only the occasion of "susuharai" actually held at the end of each year, but represents another meaning.
This nishiki-e (colored wood-block prints) was published in November, 1855 (Ansei 2), which was one month after the Ansei Earthquake. It has been pointed out that this painting has a purpose to let the public know of the fact that these actors survived the earthquake, as it can be understood that this depicts the neighborhood of Saruwaka-cho, as the rooftop of Sensōji and the five-story tower are painted behind two people. These two people in this painting were supposedly popular kabuki actors such as Nakamura Kantarō and Iwai Kumesaburō, as Shibai-machi was still in chaos.
- source : Tokyo Metropolitan Library -

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- #susuharai -

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ISSA - kumo spider

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .





spiderweb in my garden, Gabi Greve 2005


. WKD : kumo 蜘蛛 spider, Spinne .
kigo for summer


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隅の蜘案じな煤はとらぬぞよ
sumi no kumo anji na susu wa toranu zo yo

Spiders in the corners,
Don't worry!
I'm not going to sweep them.
Tr. R. H. Blyth


Don't worry, spiders,
I keep house
casually.
Tr. Robert Hass


corner spider
rest easy, my soot-broom
is idle
Tr. David Lanoue


Spiders in the corner--
Don't you be anxious,
I won't break your webs.
Tr. Lewis MacKenzie


Spiders in the corrner
Don't worry!
I won't sweep your house
Tr. Nanao Sakaki


- quote
Recently, the Robert Hass 'version' of the subject Issa haiku was brought up in a mainstream poetry workshop I attend. One of the participants registered displeasure at the idea of people 'translating' poetry from languages they don't know.He didn't think such efforts should be called 'translations'. It was pointed out that Robert Lowell called his poetry translations 'imitations', and Hass calls his translations of haiku 'version', but that didn't mollify the participant.

So I sent a 'version' of the following as an email to the workshop leader, hopefully showing why a practicing, award-winning poet can be a better 'translator' of poetry even if the poet doesn't know the source language of the poetry being translated, than translators who do know the source language, but aren't poets themselves.

MORE
. Discussion of the translations - Larry Bole .


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蜘の子はみなちりじりの身すぎ哉
kumo no ko wa mina chirijiri no misugi kana

the spider's children
have all gone off
to earn a living
Tr. Addiss


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蜘の巣に月さしこんで夜のせみ
kumo no su ni tsuki sashikonde yoru no semi


むだにして蜘が下るや花御堂
muda ni shite kumo ga sagaru ya hanamidoo

- Translations by David Lanoue


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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .


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ISSA - Yoshino

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .

Yoshinoyama　吉野山, the Mountains of Yoshino, has been a spot famous for cherry trees since long ago. After it became the holy tree of Gongen Zao of a Buddhist mountain sect about 1,300 years ago, it continued to be planted as an offering.
The cherry trees of Yoshinoyama were loved by writers and artists from the days of old.

. WKD : Yoshinoyama - 吉野山 Mount Yoshino .



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うつるとも花見虱ぞよしの山
utsuru tomo hanami-jirami zo yoshino yama

they get on you, but hey,
they're blossom-viewing lice --
Mount Yoshino
Tr. Chris Drake

This humorous hokku is from the beginning of the 3rd month in 1811, at the end of March, when the cherry blossoms were at their peak. At this time Issa was living in Edo and doing a lot of renku sequences with Edo poets.

In middle to late spring, around the time cherry blossoms are in full bloom, lice also begin to show what they're made of and crawl in large numbers into and onto people's robes, bodies, and hair, so they are called "blossom-viewing lice" at this time of year. In the hokku Issa declares that fear of lice is no reason to stay home and not go out to view the cherry blossoms. Even lice feel the urge to go view the blossoms, and humans surely appreciate blossoms at least as deeply as lice. Issa suggests that fellowship with lice is an added feature that should make blossom-viewing even more moving, and he stresses his point by implying that viewing blossoms together with lice makes the experience the equal of viewing the cherry blossoms on Mount Yoshino, the most famous place for viewing blossoms in Japan and a symbol of cherry blossom beauty in general.

Mount Yoshino, a mountain sacred to Buddhists, Shinto believers, and Yamabushi mountain ascetics and written about from the days of ancient waka, was in Issa's time nearly covered by thousands of cherry trees, making it a natural wonder. Issa is in Edo, however, far from Mount Yoshino. By implication, he evokes the humans and lice who are now viewing the blossoms on the slopes of distant Mount Yoshino, but the main image in the hokku seems to be based on a comparison: even the blossoms in Edo are surely as beautiful in their own way as those on Mount Yoshino if viewed while close relationships are developing between Edo lice and their human hosts. Perhaps there is the further implication that, for the lice, the human bodies they crawl onto are something just as beautiful as the blossoms of Yoshino are for humans.

Chris Drake

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百尋の雨だれかぶる桜哉
momohiro no amadare kaburu sakura kana

a thousand gallons
shower from the eaves...
cherry blossoms
Tr. Chris Drake

This haiku has the prescript, "Yoshino."
Yoshino is a famous place for viewing the cherry blossoms. Literally, Issa says that the blossoms are "showered by 100 fathoms of eavesdrops," but since most English speakers think of a "fathom" as a unit of ocean depth, this term would be confusing. I substituted "a thousand gallons" for "a hundred fathoms" to express the idea of an enormous amount of water spilling from the eaves. To help me visualize this, Shinji Ogawa sent images of a temple's multi-tiered pagoda. An amadare is an eavesdrop, where water falls from a roof's overhang.

This hokku was written sometime between 1789 and 1809. The hiro unit was used when measuring length (especially of cloth, rope, and fishing line) or depth (of the ocean), and one hiro was of varying lengths in different contexts but was most commonly 5.97 feet, so the raindrops are literally falling about 600 feet, but the number 100 was frequently used to mean a vague large number, a meaning Issa seems to be using here. The most common term for the length Issa mentions was hyaku-hiro, and it was often used metaphorically for something perceived as being very long. Hyakuhiro (Hundred Hiro) Falls, just west of Edo/Tokyo, for instance, actually drops its water not 600 feet but 120 feet.

Issa, however, chooses an old word for a hundred, momo. The old word is even vaguer than hyaku-, a word that was often used to make exact calculations, and momo is appropriate to the hokku's setting, given by Issa in a headnote, since centuries earlier the emperor and Kyoto aristocrats, who normally used the word momo, often made trips to Mt. Yoshino, regarded as a holy mountain, in order to pray and view the many cherry blossoms there. In Issa's time almost the whole mountain was covered with cherry trees, and when they were in bloom the mountain was regarded to be one of the most beautiful places in Japan.

Amadare in the second line can mean rain dripping from the eaves down onto an eavesdrop (amadare-ochi), but it also means simply raindrops. For example, it is used to translate the "Raindrop" in the title of Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude into Japanese. Issa, too, seems to be talking about raindrops here. Since the length of the raindrops' fall is stressed, perhaps long sheets of slanting rain are falling on Mt. Yoshino just when its thousands of cherry trees are in full bloom. The hard-hitting raindrops will no doubt take most of petals with them to the ground, and the hokku implies that it is a very painful sight to behold.

Chris Drake


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唐の吉野もかくや小夜ぎぬた
morokoshi no yoshino mo kaku ya sayo-ginuta

is even the Yoshino
in China like this?
fulling cloth at night
Tr. Chris Drake

Chris Drake's Comments are here :
. WKD : fulling block .


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鮎迄もわか盛也吉の川
. ayu made mo waka-zakari nari yoshino kawa .


人に喰れし桜咲也みよしの山
hito ni kuwareshi sakura saku nari miyoshino yama

春立やよしのはおろか人の顔
haru tatsu ya yoshino wa oroka hito no kao

川は又山吹咲ぬよしの山
kawa wa mata yamabuki sakinu yoshino yama

小日和やよし野は人を呼子鳥
ko-biyori ya yoshino e hito wo yobu ko tori

衣打槌の下より吉の川
koromo utsu tsuchi no shita yori yoshino-gawa

みよしのへ遊びに行や庵の蜂
miyoshino e asobi ni iku ya io no hachi

みよしのの古き夜さりを砧哉
miyoshino no furuki yosai o kinuta kana

みよしのや寝起も花の雲の上
miyoshino ya neoki mo hana no kumo no ue

唐の吉野へいざと紙子哉
morokoshi no yoshino e iza to kamiko kana

長旅や花も痩せたるよしの山
nagatabi ya hana mo yasetaru yoshino yama

菜の花も一ッ夜明やよしの山
na no hana mo hitotsu yoake ya yoshino yama

菜の花のさし出て咲けりよしの山
na no hana no sashidete saki keri yoshino yama

三文が桜植けり吉野山
san mon ga sakura ue-keri yoshino yama

よしの山変桜もなかりけり
yoshino yama kawari sakura mo nakari keri

- source and translations : David Lanoue - Issa


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. WKD : Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 - Introduction .


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I Ching

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I Ching, I-Ging 易經 / 易经 The Book of Changes
"Buch der Wandlungen“ - „Klassiker der Wandlungen“

- quote
The I Ching (Wade-Giles) or "Yì Jīng" (pinyin),
also known as the Classic of Changes, Book of Changes or Zhouyi, is one of the oldest of the Chinese classic texts.
The book contains a divination system comparable to Western geomancy or the West African Ifá system; in Western cultures and modern East Asia, it is still widely used for this purpose.

Structure
The text of the I Ching is a set of oracular statements represented by 64 sets of six lines each called hexagrams (卦 guà). Each hexagram is a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo), each line is either Yang (an unbroken, or solid line), or Yin (broken, an open line with a gap in the center). With six such lines stacked from bottom to top there are 26 or 64 possible combinations, and thus 64 hexagrams represented.

The hexagram diagram is composed of two three-line arrangements called trigrams (卦 guà). There are 23, hence 8, possible trigrams. The traditional view was that the hexagrams were a later development and resulted from combining two trigrams. However, in the earliest relevant archaeological evidence, groups of numerical symbols on many Western Zhou bronzes and a very few Shang oracle bones, such groups already usually appear in sets of six. A few have been found in sets of three numbers, but these are somewhat later. Numerical sets greatly predate the groups of broken and unbroken lines, leading modern scholars to doubt the mythical early attributions of the hexagram system, (Shaugnessy 1993).

When a hexagram is cast using one of the traditional processes of divination with I Ching, each yin and yang line will be indicated as either moving (that is, changing), or fixed (unchanging). Sometimes called old lines, a second hexagram is created by changing moving lines to their opposite. These are referred to in the text by the numbers six through nine as follows:

Nine is old yang, an unbroken line (—θ—) changing into yin, a broken line (— —);
Eight is young yin, a broken line (— —) without change;
Seven is young yang, an unbroken line (———) without change;
Six is old yin, a broken line (—X—) changing into yang, an unbroken line (———).

Trigrams

The solid line represents yang, the creative principle. The open line represents yin, the receptive principle. These principles are also represented in a common circular symbol (☯), known as taijitu (太極圖), but more commonly known in the west as the yin-yang (陰陽) diagram, expressing the idea of complementarity of changes: when Yang is at top, Yin is increasing, and vice versa.

In the following lists, the trigrams and hexagrams are represented using a common textual convention, horizontally from left-to-right, using '|' for yang and '¦' for yin, rather than the traditional bottom-to-top. In a more modern usage, the numbers 0 and 1 can also be used to represent yin and yang, being read left-to-right. There are eight possible trigrams (八卦 bāguà):
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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I Ching - Nr. 24 Fu - Return (The Turning Point) -Wendezeit

. winter solstice -
the dark
growing darker .



Tao and Haiku
. Tao - About Non-doing (wu-wei) .


. Tao - Yin and Yang 陰陽 .





. Ezra Pound and the I Ching 易經 .


. Abe no Seimei 阿倍晴明 .
Onmyodo, onmyoodoo 陰陽道 The Way of Yin and Yang


. Chinese origin of Japanese kigo .


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

sanrai-i: mountain thunder; jaw or mouth

一人前菜も青けりけさの霜
ichinin-mae na mo aomi keri kesa no shimo

on a full tray
the food, too, pale --
frost this morning
Tr. Chris Drake

This hokku was written on 8/30 (Oct. 15) in 1803, when Issa was on a trip to a town just northeast of Edo. The hokku is written on the theme of the 27th hexagram, in Japanese sanrai-i (山雷頤), of the ancient Chinese Yi Jing (I-ching), or Book of Changes, which Issa had been studying, along with other Japanese and Chinese classics. The six-line hexagram is made up of two three-line elements representing "mountain" and "thunder," and together they suggest an open mouth or lowered jaw, yielding an image of eating or talking. As a divinatory sign, this hexagram contains contradictory elements and is usually taken as a warning against immediate or exaggerated expectations that nevertheless holds out the possibility of long-term success if changes leading to self-improvement are made. In terms of eating, it suggests there will be soon be serious eating and related disorders if the person does not realize the existence of the problem and change his (or her) poor eating habits.
For the Legge translation of the Chinese text of the Yi Jing explaining the 27th hexagram:


- source : www.sacred-texts.com - Legge


This hokku is one of a series in Issa's diary that try to capture in a single image an important aspect of a chapter or stanza in various Chinese classics, and much is implied rather than stated. Frost can have many meanings, but here it above all seems to be suggesting whitening or making things pale. It may also be warning of colder times ahead and the need for caution. The meaning of the frost influences how aomikeri or "[is] pale" in the second line is interpreted. The verb can mean 1) for plants to turn a vibrant green in early summer, 2) for the moon to look bluish and pale or plants to turn a pale, sickly green, or 3) for sick or exhausted people to look pale, literally "blue-greenish." The word ao refers to both blue and green, so in Japanese this wide range of meanings is natural.

Because winter has come and frost now whitens many plants, I take Issa to be using meaning 2 here and closely linking two areas of paleness -- the frost and the food -- by using the word "too." Since hexagram 27 is about changing one's awareness and taking action, there is probably the further suggestion that the man's face is also pale (meaning 3 above) because of his bad eating habits. The man having breakfast surely senses he's not completely healthy, and he realizes he's losing his appetite, since he feels the various kinds of food (na) on the small dishes on his tray look as pale as the frost outside. In Issa's time an ordinary commoner's breakfast usually consisted of brown rice, miso soybean soup, and several small dishes of pickled vegetables, beans, tofu, and/or seaweed. Since it's winter, it's unlikely there are many raw leafy greens on the man's tray, though leaves of mustard spinach (komatsuna), daikon radishes, and leeks were sometimes used in miso soup in winter. The overall paleness of the man's complexion, his food, and the frost outside will, if the man is wise, cause him to make basic changes in his eating habits.

Chris Drake


. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 Issa in Edo .


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naginata - halberd

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naginata 薙刀 / 長刀 / 眉尖刀 Japanese halberd
Hellebarde

- quote
one of several varieties of traditionally made Japanese blades (nihonto) in the form of a pole weapon. Naginata were originally used by the samurai class of feudal Japan, as well as by ashigaru (foot soldiers) and sōhei (warrior monks).



A naginata consists of a wooden shaft with a curved blade on the end; it is similar to the Chinese guan dao or the European glaive. Naginata often have a sword-like hand guard (tsuba) between the blade and shaft when mounted in a koshirae. The 30 cm to 60 cm long naginata blade is forged in the same manner as traditional Japanese swords. The blade has a long tang (nakago) which is inserted in the shaft (nagaye or ebu). The blade is removable and is secured by means of a wooden peg (mekugi) that passes through a hole (mekugi-ana) in both the nakago and the nagaye (ebu).

The nagaye (ebu) ranges from 120 cm to 240 cm in length and is oval shaped. The area of the nagaye (ebu) where the naginata nakago sits is the tachiuchi or tachiuke. The tachiuchi (tachiuke) would be reinforced with metal rings (naginata dogane or semegane), and/or metal sleeves (sakawa) and wrapped with cord (san-dan maki). The end of the nagaye (ebu) had a heavy metal end cap (ishizuki or hirumaki). When not in use the naginata blade would be covered with a wooden sheath (saya).

Naginata can be used to batter, stab or hook an opponent', but due to their relatively balanced center of mass, are often spun and turned to proscribe a large radius of reach. The curved blade makes for an effective tool for cutting due to the increased length of cutting surface.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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- quote
Women’s Weapons: The Naginata
Barbara Lazar

Between the 12th and approximately the 15th centuries women defended themselves, their families and their homes. They concealed daggers in their sleeves or sashes and delivered their deadly blades with great accuracy. Women also used the naginata, which is a pole having a long, curved sword at the top. For an ambush, women swung naginata in narrowed places, cutting the legs of horses to disable the enemy soldiers.



Sometimes women fought alongside their husbands in battle. And they were expected to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) if dishonored. There is a case of a woman using suicide to protest her husband’s abuse.

Even in modern times, Japanese girls learn the ancient art of naginatajutsu— wielding the naginata.
- source : barbaralazar.com


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. ashigaru 足軽 common foot soldier, "light legs" .

. soohei, sōhei 僧兵 monk-warrior, monk-soldier .


. WKD : naginata hoozuki 長刀ほおずき / 薙刀酸漿 whelk's egg capsules .
Rapana venosa - akanishi アカニシ


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

. Kumasaka Choohan 熊坂長範 Kumasaka Chohan .
a famous robber of the 12th century




by Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳


熊坂が大長刀を秋の風
kumasaka ga oonaginata o aki no kaze

blowing on Kumasaka's
great halberd ...
autumn wind
Tr. David Lanoue



熊坂が大長刀をあられ哉
kumasaka ga oonaginata o arare kana

hailstones
on the great halbeard
of Kumasaka . . .
Tr. Gabi Greve

The cut marker KANA is at the end of line 3.



熊坂が長刀にちる螢哉
kumasaka ga naginata ni chiru hotaru kana

fireflies
scattered by the halberd
of Kumasaka . . .
Tr. Gabi Greve

The cut marker KANA is at the end of line 3.

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The Six Realms ("Paths") of Karma-Bound Existence (rokudoo)
by Issa and Kakuro

4. Fierce, angry Ashura demigods

chiru hana ni tachi naginata mo kazarikeri
-- Kakuro

when blossoms fall
they get out their
swords and halberds

. rokudoo　六道 the six realms .
and the hungry ghosts


. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .


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長刀の影おぼろなり橋の月　
naginata no kage oboro nari hashi no tsuki

the shadow of a halberd
in the haze -
moon on the bridge　

. Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規 .
written in 1898


. WKD : oborozuki 朧月 hazy moon .





Benkei at the Gojo Bridge in Kyoto 京の五条の橋
. Benkei and Ushiwakamaru 牛若丸と弁慶 - 武蔵坊弁慶 .





Benkei with a halberd 長刀弁慶 - ema 絵馬　votive tablet

. Otsu-E 大津絵 paintings from Otsu .


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夕月や長刀鉾の静なる
yuuzuki ya naginataboko no shizuka naru

evening moon -
the halberd float
becomes quiet
Tr. Gabi Greve

Tsunoda Chikurei 角田竹冷




Gion Festival in Kyoto
. naginata boko 長刀鉾（なぎなたぼこ）halberd float .



長刀のもつとも揺れて鉾廻る
naginata o mottomo yurete hoko mawaru

the halberds
shake most when the float
is turned round

Inamatsu Kinkoo 稲松錦江 Inamatsu Kinko


turning around a festival float during the Gion festival

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Nihon - Japan

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nihon, nippon 　日本　Japan

- quote
Japan
(Japanese: 日本 Nippon or Nihon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally "[the] State of Japan")
is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku, which together comprise about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 126 million people. Honshū's Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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. waga kuni 我が国 / わがくに / 我国 my country, my province .
with more haiku by Issa

- - - - - Some synonyms to express JAPAN

日本(にっぽん)　日(にち)　ジャパン　日本国　大日本　大日本帝国　日東
皇国　Kookoku / 倭国(わこく) Wakoku / 　扶桑 Fusoo
大八洲(おおやしま) Ooyashima / 　瑞穂(みずほ)の国  Mizuho no kuni / 　豊葦原(とよあしはら) Toyoashihara / 　皇御国(すめらみくに)　Sumeramikuni
母国　祖国　国内　内地　

. Akitsushima 秋津島　"Island of the Dragonflies .



source :　web.kansya.jp.net/blog
Map of Japan in the Edo period 江戸時代の日本地図


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

The price of rice has fallen so low that lower-class people are experiencing many hardships.
This is a situation people in other countries must envy.

日本の外ケ浜迄おち穂哉
nippon no soto-ga-hama made ochibo kana

fallen rice grains
cover all of Japan
up to its northern tip
Tr. Chris Drake


This hokku is from the 12th lunar month (January) of 1819, the month before the beginning of the year evoked in Year of My Life. Issa's headnote, translated above, is found just before the hokku in the posthumous anthology of hokku published by Issa's followers in 1829, where the hokku is given precisely as it appears in Issa's diary. As the headnote makes clear, falling rice prices in recent years have been hurting rice farmers, who have to pay very high taxes and find it difficult to survive on the small amount of profit they get from selling the extra rice that they don't consume. The rice harvest of 1818 was particularly good, so at the time the hokku was written the market is glutted and rice prices are falling. Farmers have more rice than they can sell and store, and, according to Issa, even in the far north of Honshu -- Japan's northern border at the time, an area not known for its great harvests -- farmers don't bother to go out and collect all the stray grains of rice that have fallen to the ground during harvesting.

Normally farmers glean very carefully for all the grains of rice that fall to the ground at harvest time, since each one is precious, but this year fallen rice grains all over Japan just lie on the ground rotting. There may be some indirect criticism of the shogunate here for failing to take steps to stabilize the rice market and protect farmers from the year-to-year fluctuations in rice crops. There is also sadness and irony as Issa both praises Japan and criticizes it at the same time.

Some Japanese commentators have called this hokku ultra-nationalistic, but their criticism is surely beside the point. Issa says people in other countries probably envy Japan for its good rice crops, but he also implies that they, too, like Japan's ruling class, would like to see farmers exploited and unable to share in the bounty. Issa may think that the ships from various countries that have been landing in Japan in recent years and asking for trading rights envy Japan and want to exploit it. Only a few months before, in the summer of 1818, the British ship Brothers landed in Uraga, south of Edo/Tokyo, and strongly asked for trading rights, only to be rejected. Many Japanese, including no doubt Issa, had heard about the dangers of colonialism, and most did not believe that the foreigners who arrived in Japan had benign intentions. Issa does have several hokku praising peace in Japan, but the present hokku is not a simplistic assertion of Japan's superiority over all foreign nations.

Chris Drake


. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .



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. Japanese Architecture - cultural keywords used in haiku .


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ISSA - kiku chrysanthemum

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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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kaki, kakine - hedge, fence

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kakine 垣根 hedge, fence
kakoi 囲い, saku さく. hei 塀

The main word is KAKI, read ..GAKI in compound words.


ishigaki　石垣　stone wall, stone fence
ikegaki 生け垣 "living fence", hedge
shooen, shirogaki 城垣 castle "hedge", castle wall

. kamigaki 神垣 fence of a shrine .
"Fence of the Gods"
igaki 斎垣 / tamagaki 玉垣 / mizugaki 瑞垣





- quote
kaki　垣
Also read en; also called kakine 垣根.
A generic term for a fence, garden precinct wall, or partition. Some varieties of bamboo take 竹, Japanese bush clover hagi 萩, brush kanboku 潅木, or azalea tsutsuji 躑躅 are used for hedges *ikegaki 生垣. If the fencing material is cut and dried it is referred to as dead material shinigaki 死垣, and can include such things as embedded bamboo posts hottate-no-take 掘立の竹, posts with bark, or bamboo stake and bamboo reeds takeho 竹穂, as for example at Katsura Rikyuu 桂離宮 in Kyoto, specifically known as katsuragaki 桂垣.
Long fences are known as *oogaki 大垣 and short fences as *sodegaki 袖垣.
Light fences used to divide a garden are called shikirigaki 仕切垣.


ikegaki　生垣
Lit. living fence.

A type of hedge made of trees, bamboo or other living plants planted in a row and trimmed so as to form a fence. Ikegaki (called ikekigaki 生木垣 or living tree fence in Edo period) are different than itagaki 板垣 (board fences), *ishigaki 石垣 (stone fences), *takegaki 竹垣 (bamboo fences) and other types of shinigaki 死垣 (dead fences). When composed of thorn bushes they are called ibaragaki 茨垣, when made of bamboo, sasagaki 笹垣, and when created with several kinds of tree, called *mazegaki 交垣.
A large clipped hedge or ookarikomi 大刈込 may be used to block out unwanted views *dankei 断景. Ikegaki around houses often serve as windbreaks, while their use between different people's land serves as a property marker.
Because of the ancient belief that a god kami 神, resided in evergreen plants himorogi 神籬, ikegaki were often used in shrines and temples to divide space. Evergreens such as Japanese cypress hinoki 桧, Chinese black pine maki 槇 and sakaki 榊 are most frequently employed, although deciduous trees may be used.
For protective hedges, thorn bushes are effective, while the dense leaves of Japanese azaleas, satsuki さつき and tsutsuji 躑躅 make them effective when used to block unwanted views.


sodegaki　袖垣
Lit. sleeve fence.

A narrow fence which may serve to screen off some garden element or may be completely ornamental. Commonly found in tea gardens *roji 露路, sodegaki are attached at right angle to the edge of a building. They are generally about two meters high and a meter across. The fence is named for its proportions which resemble those of a kimono 着物 sleeve.
Varieties of sodegaki include *chasengaki 茶筅垣, *ensouhishi sodegaki 円窓菱袖垣, *teppoogaki 鉄砲垣, *nozokigaki 覗垣 and *yaegaki 八重垣 as well as yoroigaki 鎧垣 (armor-pattern fence), *uguisugaki 鶯垣, to name just a few of the many variations.
Sodegaki are contrasted with functional continuous fences, *oogaki 大垣.
- source : JAANUS


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- - - - - We have some kigo with fences and hedges:

kigo in spring

kaki tsukurou 垣繕う (かきつくろう) repairing the hedge
..... kaki teire 垣手入れ（かきていれ）

yukigaki toku 雪垣解く（ゆきがきとく）
taking down the snow guard hedges


konome gaki 木の芽垣（このめがき）
fence of budding trees


ukogigaki 五加垣（うこぎがき）hedge of aralia trees
the leaves can be picked and prepared for tea


kakidooshi 垣通 Glechoma hederacea subsp. grandis
a creeper plant of the mint family


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kigo in summer

bara no hanagaki 茨の花垣（ばらのはながき）
hedge of wild roses


kakoi bune 囲い船 (かこいぶね) fencing ships


unohana gaki 卯の花垣（うのはながき） hedge of deutzia blossoms


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kigo in autumn

shishigaki 鹿垣 (ししがき) fence against wild boars
and other animals


inagaki 稲垣（いながき）fence to protect the rice plants


mukuge gaki 木槿垣（むくげがき）
fence with the rose of Sharon


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kigo in winter



ishigaki ichigo 石垣苺（いしがきいちご）
strawberries grown on stone walls
They are grown in hot houses, to provide strawberries for the Japanese christmas cake.



kazegaki 風垣（かざがき） wind-protecting hedges
yukigaki 雪垣（ゆきがき）snow-protecting hedge


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topics

beech tree hedge

Robin-run-the-hedge / Galium aparine


. Katsuragaki かつらがき【桂垣】Katsura-Hedge
"takehoogaki" 竹穂垣, hoogaki 穂垣
made from the leaves of living bamboo.


. ukogi うこぎ　/ 五加木 kind of aralia tree .
The leaves have been used as food in the Yonezawa area since the Edo period, when the daimyo Naoe Kanetsugu 直江 兼続（なおえ かねつぐ 1560 - 1619） made them plant this trees for fences around the homes and have some food in times of need.




nerihei　練り塀　mud and tile wall or fence, topped with tiles
Stone-wall ("NERIHEI"), nerihei-wall, stonel-mud wall/fence

It helps protect the property from fire and is used in small fishing villages, especially in Iwaishima island in Yamaguchi.





紫陽花や練り塀長き国分寺
ajisai ya nerihei nagaki Kokubunji

hydrangeas -
the long stone-mud-wall
of temple Kokubunji

anonymous
source :　slownet

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. - Temple fences and walls - 塀　 　


. . Japanese Haiku with KAKINE hedge . .

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yaraigaki矢来垣, ootsugaki 大津垣 Otsugaki, Lit. Ootsu fence



- quote -
chousengaki 朝鮮垣, and chousen yarai 朝鮮矢来 (chosen yarai, Korean fence).
A type of simple wooden fence. In 1711 a Korean mission traveling from Ootsu 大津 to Edo attracted so much attention that the government ordered people to erect fences along the road on which the Koreans passed. These fences were made with pieces of uncut bamboo tied on intersecting diagonals between two or three cross bars of split bamboo. Often the projecting bamboo at the top is cut to create a sharp edge.
- source : JAANUS -

. Yaraicho 矢来町 - "Palisade quarter" in Edo .


More Types of hedges in Japan
建仁寺垣 Kenninjigaki / 光悦寺垣 Koetsujigaki / 竜安寺垣 Ryoanjigaki / 網代垣 ajirogaki / ななこ垣 nanakogaki
四つ目垣 Yotsumegaki / 金閣寺垣 Kinkakujigaki / 鉄砲垣 teppogaki / 篠垣 shinogaki / 清水垣 Kiyomizugaki
御簾垣 misugaki / 沼津垣 Numazugaki / 蓑垣 minogaki / 鎧垣 yoroigaki / 桂垣 katsuragaki
竹穂垣 takenohogaki / 時雨垣 shiguregaki / 長穂垣 nagahogaki / 大徳寺垣 Daitokujigaki
茶筅垣 chasengaki / 清水鉄砲 Kiyomizu teppo / 萩鉄砲 Hagi teppo / 松明垣 taimatsugaki
http://homepage3.nifty.com/fuj-takeya/takegaki.htm

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. WKD : Fences and Hedges in Kenya .


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

- - - - - Matsuo Basho - - - - -

蝶の羽のいくたび越ゆる塀の屋根
choo no ha no ikutabi koyuru hei no yane

butterfly's wings -
how many times do they flit
over the roofed wall?
Tr. Ueda

Written in 1690 元禄3年春. Basho stayed with his disciple from Iga, Saboku 乍木. The wall between the homes of Saboku and his neighbour might have been quite tall.

. - choo, chō 蝶 butterfly - and Basho .
butterfly - kigo for spring



桐の木に鶉鳴くなる塀の内　
. kiri no ki ni uzura naku naru hei no uchi .
quails inside the garden wall


. yoku mireba nazuna hana saku kakine kana .
(New Year) sheperd's purse. looking closely. hedge



. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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

冬鴬むかし王維が垣根哉
. fuyu uguisu mukashi Oi ga kakine kana .
the hedge of the Chinese Oi. - Wang Wei 王維 -(699 - 759)


白梅や誰が昔より垣の外　
. shiraume ya taga mukashi yori kaki no soto .
outside the fence

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妹が垣ね三味線草の花咲ぬ
imo ga kakine shamisengusa nohana sakinu

- quote
In the hedge of his girl's
He sees
Shepherd's purses in bloom.

'Kinshin o motte bijin ni idomu': 琴心挑美人
The prefatory note derives from a historical event in old China. In the Haiku the Poet replaces a 'koto' with a 'samisen'.

Prof. Tsutomu Ogata comments that 'he' may have walked by her house very often, hoping to see her; but probably in vain . Anyway, so much time has passed and shepherds' purses are now blooming in the hedge of her house. Little as they are, they look so fresh and vivid. For so much waste of dear time, the white flowers may give him a new hope and he will surely regain strength and try his best to win her heart.
Mr. Takahashi says that we associate a white little flower with a pretty beloved girl. 'He' in the Haiku is not necessarily the Poet himself. Here is clearly read a man's strong devoted love for the girl in his heart.
- source : Shoji Kumano -

- James Karkoski wrote:

Kinshin chō bijin 琴心挑美人
The mind to challenge a beautiful women with a stringed instrument

The women a hedge,
certainly the shepherd's purse flowers
have come in bloom!

This haiku is difficult to translate because the common name for shepherd's purse in Japanese is 'shamisen grass' which alludes to the three stringed instrument that is still popular in Japan today.
This ties in with the maegaki (forward) Kinshin chō bijin 琴心挑美人
that alludes to an episode in the life of the Chinese poet Sima Xiangru that is recorded 'Shiki' (Records of the Grand Historian), a book that has biographies of famous people during the Han Dynasty in China. Xiangru was introduced to the beautiful daughter of a wealthy family who was recently widowed, and he when played a song on a zither in admiration of her beautiful she fell in love with him and they later eloped against her father's wishes.
The reason why it is called 'shamisen grass' is because the way the way the stems of the flowers shake resembles the sound that a shamisen makes, and traditionally children will break off the flowery part of the plant and placing it in one hand will play shamisen by moving it like a plectrum. Commentators note that is recorded that Buson was remembering a lost love around the time he wrote this haiku.
The opening phrase 'Imo ga kakine' is very vague and I have kept to the literal translation of it, although you could play around with the articles if you want. Commentators tend to read it as meaning that the women is at the hedge, and that is plausible as well depending on how you want to read what verb is being implied here.
I think that the allusion to Xiangru's triumph naturally reads the haiku into being about Buson's childish attempts to win this women's heart.
There is another forward that is also attributed to this haiku that translates as 'First folded pocket paper' which no doubt is about Buson passing love poetry on his love, and, hopefully, he didn't use shepherd's purse as the central image to express his affections for this women.This counts as 18.
- source : James Karkoski facebook -


. shamisengusa 三味線草 "Shamisen plant" - sheperd's purse .
kigo for all spring

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垣越しにものうちかたる接木かな
kakigoshi ni mono uchikataru tsugiki kana
(1770)

over the hedge
they exchange stories
while grafting trees . . .

The cut marker KANA is at the end of line 3.

. WKD : tsugiki, tsugi-ki 接木 (つぎき / 接ぎ木) grafting .
kigo for mid-spring


筍や柑子をゝしむ垣の外
takenoko ya kooji o oshimu kaki no soto
(1775)

these bamboo shoots -
outside the hedge that guards
the sweet tangerines


. WKD : take no ko 筍　bamboo shoots .
kigo for summer

. WKD :
yabukooji 藪柑子 (やぶこうじ) Ardisia japonica .


. Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .


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- - - - - Kobayashi Issa - - - - -

笹鳴も手持ぶさたの垣根哉
. sasa naki mo temochi-busata no kakine kana .


来る蝶に鼻を明するかきね哉
kuru choo ni hana o akasuru kakine kana

a fence shows
an amazed butterfly
something very special
Tr. Chris Drake

This spring hokku was written toward the end of the 2nd month (late March or early April) of 1820, when Issa was in and around his hometown. The hokku seems to be about a bamboo (probably lattice) fence or a hedge used as a fence that is being visited by a butterfly (or butterflies) and how the fence wows or "knocks out" the visitor with its unexpected attractions for butterflies. The idiom in the second line is used mainly when a person who is normally in a weak position manages to outperform or beat or grab the attention of someone who is in a stronger position. I take this to mean that Issa is reversing common sense in this hokku and looking at the world from the fence's point of view.

During the winter and early spring the fence wasn't much to look at, and it had no flowers in bloom, but suddenly, at the end of March, the flowers that twine around the bamboo fence posts begin to unfold with attractive flowers and sweet nectar. If it is a hedge, then the hedge has suddenly put out its own flowers. Until now butterflies have been simply flying over the nondescript fence, ignoring it as if it didn't exist, but today a butterfly finally notices the flowers and can't help but stop and drink for a while. No doubt there will be more visitors from now on. Issa may be sharing in the joy he imagines the ignored fence must somehow be feeling at finally being able to impress and attract a beautiful butterfly. The hokku may also be about how humans, like butterflies, tend to overlook plain-looking things until suddenly something happens to stun them into recognition of how important these almost invisible things actually are.

Chris Drake


. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .


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source :　fuuknaag.exblog.jp

露葎より城垣の反り上がる
tsuyu muguro yori shirogaki no soriagaru

from dewy weeds
the castle wall curves
and rises
Tr. Gabi Greve

Kashiwabara Min-u 柏原眠雨


花木槿弓師が垣根夕日さす
内藤鳴雪

桃折れば牛の面出す垣根かな
梅本塵山

洪水名残り照らす垣根の螢かな
金尾梅の門


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. WKD : Fences and Hedges in Kenya .


. Japanese Architecture - cultural keywords used in haiku .


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