Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the BashÙ Revival
Brill’s Japanese
Studies Library
Edited by
H. Bolitho
K.W. Radtke
VOLUME 27
Haikai Poet
Yosa Buson and
the BashÙ Revival
By
Cheryl A. Crowley
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2007
On the cover : “Have I run into Matabei?” Haiga. ItsuÙ Art Museum.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication data
Detailed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the Internet at
http://catalog.loc.gov
ISSN:
0925-6512
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15709 5
ISBN-10: 90 04 15709 3
Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints BRILL, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
To my parents, Kathleen Jones Crowley and Barry Crowley
CONTENTS
List of illustrations...........................................................................................viii
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................ix
Introduction ........................................................................................................1
Chapter One
Buson, the Bunjin (Literati), and the BashŇ Revival...............................14
Chapter Two
Buson and His Audience: Anxiety And Transcendence.......................35
Chapter Three
Anxiety and the Formation of a Poet: Hokku 1740–1770....................52
Chapter Four
An Unarmed Blossom Guard: Hokku 1771–1783.................................93
Chapter Five
Resisting Communality: Linked Verse Sequences .............................. 130
Chapter Six
Buson and Haiga....................................................................................... 165
Epilogue .......................................................................................................... 244
Appendix ........................................................................................................ 249
Bibliography ................................................................................................... 292
Cited Buson Hokku....................................................................................... 301
Index................................................................................................................ 304
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations for this book are taken from Buson zenshş, vol. 6, except for
Figures 3 and 4, which come from Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori
bunko tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series, edited by Zaidan HŇjin
Kakimori Bunko (Itami: Zaidan HŇjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996); and
Figure 10, which comes from Buson ten, edited by Ibaraki Kenritsu
Rekishikan (Mito: BenridŇ, 1997). All works are by Buson and all are in
private collections unless otherwise noted.
1 “Group portrait of haikai sages.” Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko ..40
2 “First dream of the year.” Haiga by Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City
Museum ..................................................................................................... 193
3 “Calling ‘cry, cry!’ ” Haiga by Miura Chora .......................................... 196
4 “At the convent.” Illustration from Fourth month principles
(Uzuki teikin) ............................................................................................. 208
5 “Ama-no-hashidate.” Hanging scroll.................................................... 212
6 Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson............................................... 213
7 “The manzai dancers.” Haiga .................................................................. 218
8 “Cause the madwoman of Iwakura.” Haiga......................................... 221
9 “Young bamboo!” Haiga......................................................................... 224
10 “That she walked beneath the blossoms.” Haiga ................................ 228
11 “Have I run into Matabei?” Haiga. ItsuŇ Art Museum...................... 231
12 “Dancing!” Haiga...................................................................................... 233
13 “Willow leaves, fallen.” Haiga. ItsuŇ Art Museum ............................. 238
14 “Narrow road to the interior” scroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art 241
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful for the guidance and encouragement of my dissertation advisor, Haruo Shirane. Kawamoto KŇji kindly supervised my
research in Japan, and I received generous grant assistance from the
ShinchŇ Publishing Company. Kira Sueo permitted me to join his
seminar on Buson. I thank Ogata Tsutomu, Horikiri Minoru, and Hori
Nobuo, who offered a great deal of valuable help on this project. The
members of my dissertation committee, Paul Anderer, Lawrence
Marceau, Eri Yasuhara, and Shang Wei, gave me many useful suggestions
and comments. I would like to also acknowledge the help of friends and
colleagues, among them Inoue Yoshiko, Shimizu Tomoe, KŇno Taeko,
Okada Akiko, Takeuchi Akiko, Sakaguchi Akiko, Shimizu Hisako,
Ogoshi Eiko, Azuma ShŇko, Junko Mackert, KatŇ Yukiko, and Kinugasa
Masaaki. I am also grateful to many teachers, among them David
Anthony, Linda Chance, William LaFleur, Phillip Yampolsky, Ryuichi
Abe, and Barbara Ruch. My colleagues Juliette Stapanian-Apkarian,
Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Corrine Kratz, Matthew Bernstein, Joachim
Kurtz, Patricia Graham, Suzanne O’Brien, and Anne Commons have
given me much good advice.
Finally, I thank Kathleen and Kara Crowley and David Mold for
many years of wisdom, good humor, and patience.
INTRODUCTION
Poet and painter Yosa Buson ਈ⻢⭢᧛ died on the 24th day of the
Twelfth Month of 1783. He was sixty-eight. Buson had long impressed
his friends as being remarkably healthy and active for an aging man, and
in the last years of his life had undertaken frequent trips to places
renowned for their natural beauty, including a visit to Gichş-ji ⟵ખኹ at
ņmi, the gravesite of the great haikai poet Matsuo BashŇ ᧻የ⧊⭈
(1644–1694). However, towards the end of 1783 he became ill with
stomach pains, and after the remedies he tried brought no relief, he took
to his bed in considerable discomfort. Tomo, his wife, and Kuno, his
daughter, stayed with him, and his most trusted disciples visited and took
turns keeping watch.
Buson’s chief disciple Takai KitŇ 㜞੗౔⫃ (1741–1789) later described the events leading up to his teacher’s death in “Account of Elder
Yahan’s Final Days” (Yahan-Ň shşen ki ᄛඨ⠃⚳Ὣ⸥), the opening
section of the memorial anthology Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba
߆ࠄᯫ⪲, 1784). According to KitŇ, at one point it seemed like Buson
would recover, and he struggled to complete a preface for an anthology
in memory of his friend, Kuroyanagi ShŇha 㤥ᩉถᵄ (1727–1771).
However, he abruptly took a turn for the worse, and his disciples began
to quietly discuss what they would need to do after his death. Hearing
this, Buson rallied again, and chided them for giving up on him too
soon. Eventually, though, he began to sense that death was not far off,
and he called to Matsumura Gekkei ᧻᧛᦬ᷧ (1752–1811, art name
Goshun ๓ᤐ) to bring him a brush and paper so that he could compose
his death poem.1
The practice of writing death poems (jisei ㄉ਎) was fairly common in
pre-modern Japan. Such poems were thought to reflect the spiritual
condition of the writer and to indicate his or her readiness for the next
existence; typically, they express a tranquil resignation to the inevitability
of life’s end. However, Buson was not at peace as he contemplated his
death poem. Despite the severity of his physical suffering, a single
———
1 Maruyama Kazuhiko and Yamashita Kazumi, eds., Buson zenshş, vol. 7, Hencho tsuizen
(KŇdansha, 1995), pp. 316–320. Henceforth Buson zenshş is abbreviated as BZ in the
notes.
2
INTRODUCTION
thought consumed him—how to write a death poem that was good
enough to stand beside that of his poetic predecessor, Matsuo BashŇ:
tabi ni yande
yume wa kareno o
kakemeguru
taken ill on a journey
a dream wanders
on a withered moor2
BashŇ
First Buson composed two verses on the topic of the uguisu or bush
warbler:
fuyu uguisu
mukashi Ň I ga
kakine kana
winter warbler
long ago, on Wang Wei’s3
brushwood fence4
uguisu ya
nani gosotsukasu
yabu no shimo
warbler
something is rustling
in the forest frost5
Neither of these satisfied him, however, and he finally settled on the
topic of white plum blossoms (shira ume):
shira ume ni
akuru yo bakari to
nari ni keri
it is now the moment
when white plum blossoms
lighten into dawn6
Both uguisu (bush warbler) and white plum blossoms are common early
spring topics, and as it was very close to the end of the year they are
appropriate to the season. The fact that Buson did not live long enough
to welcome the new year he anticipates in these verses gives them a
special poignance. However, even more compelling than the poems
themselves is the description in “Account of Elder Yahan’s Final Days”
of Buson’s state of mind as he composed them, a mood of profound
———
2 ņtani TokuzŇ and Nakamura ShunjŇ, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei, vol. 45, BashŇ
kushş (Iwanami Shoten, 1963), p. 216. Henceforth Nihon koten bungaku taikei is abbreviated as NKBT in the notes. Verses by poets other than Buson, like this one, are indicated
with the poet’s name.
3 Wang Wei ₺⛽ (ca. 701–761) was a Chinese poet and painter.
4 Ogata Tsutomu and Morita Ran, eds., BZ, vol. 1, Hokku (KŇdansha, 1992), no.
2412.
5 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2413.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2414.
INTRODUCTION
3
disquiet as he labored to write something that could adequately represent
him to readers after his death.
Buson’s efforts to draft and revise not one but three verses suggest
something beyond mere artistic fastidiousness. In fact, KitŇ’s account
shows Buson to be distinctly troubled in his relationship with his
audience, that is to say, his readers both in the present and those he
imagined in the future. Even at the point of death, Buson was haunted
not only by the desire to uphold the standard represented by the work of
Matsuo BashŇ, but by uncertainty about the kind of reception he could
expect from his audience. Such uncertainty—indeed, anxiety—had
persisted throughout his life, and had a profound impact on his literary
practice, his approach to the profession of poetry, and the creation of his
poetic persona.
An Anxiety of Reception
Buson’s anxiety in regard to his relationship with readers was common
to the poets of the haikai community with whom he associated. These
poets believed that their genre was in a state of crisis. Haikai’s popularity
had steadily grown since the beginning of the Tokugawa period (1603–
1868), but some of its most vocal proponents in the early- and mideighteenth century, who equated popularization with vulgarization,
viewed its very success as problematic, and they began to work to reverse
this trend.
An offshoot of the elite linked verse form renga, haikai of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries relied heavily on allusions to
works of classical and medieval literature, and it demanded of the poet a
mastery of complicated rules and structures. In its most basic form,
haikai was composed in a group. It typically consisted of a hokku ⊒ฏ
(starting verse) written in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern by one poet, to which
another poet linked a waki ⣁ (“side” verse) of a 7-7 syllable pattern;
tsukeku ઃฏ (linking) verses alternating these 5-7-5 and 7-7 patterns
were added to make a “chain” poem usually 36 verses long. However,
the middle of the seventeenth century saw the rise of a kind of haikai
that placed more emphasis on wit than on knowledge of the literary
tradition. This was called “point-scoring” or tentori ὐข haikai. Tentori
haikai had simplified rules; this made it accessible to a less sophisticated
audience. The teachers who specialized in tentori haikai, known as tenja
4
INTRODUCTION
ὐ⠪ (verse markers), competed with one another to attract the most
students and thus maximize their profits. As a result, by the middle of
the eighteenth century haikai became a form of entertainment that was
practiced by enthusiasts from a broad segment of society—including
many with little literary education—who ignored or viewed as irrelevant
the older, more established haikai schools.
However, a new group of poets began to emerge in the 1760s. These
poets aimed at resisting what they viewed as the negative effects of the
spread of tentori haikai: the rise of an unwelcome kind of haikai writerreader whose competence as well as good taste was suspect. Using a
strategy that was typical of premodern literary reformers, this group of
poets looked to the past for a standard to live up to. They found it in
Matsuo BashŇ, the late seventeenth century poet who had made his life’s
work the transformation of haikai into a literary genre that was equal to
the elite forms waka and renga. Thus, the eighteenth century reform
movement came to be called the BashŇ Revival.
The BashŇ Revival lasted for about thirty years, and Buson and his
Yahantei school ᄛඨ੪ were at its center. However, as Buson’s
discomfiture in the final moments of his life indicates, the Revival
movement was a source of unease as well as support for its members,
and their canonization of BashŇ as a haikai saint brought with it anxiety
as much as authority. This anxiety is different from Harold Bloom’s
famous formulation of the “anxiety of influence,” where “strong” poets
are said to be engaged in a struggle to overcome the legacy of their
poetic predecessors. Indeed, as Haruo Shirane has pointed out in his
study of BashŇ’s complex relationship with the medieval poet SaigyŇ
⷏ⴕ (1118–1190), “this kind of Freudian approach would seem
antithetical to a culture that emphasizes filial piety and to such a communally-oriented literature as haikai.”7 The passage from “Account of
Elder Yahan’s Final Days” bears this out, as it shows Buson’s concern to
be not with outperforming BashŇ, but with measuring up to his example.
In other words, Buson’s concern was not with replacing the poetic
predecessor. Indeed, Buson himself was instrumental in imparting to
BashŇ much of the reverence in which he was held. Rather, Buson’s
disquiet should be viewed as an “anxiety of reception,” Lucy Newlyn’s
term that describes the problematic relationship between writers and
———
7 Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of BashŇ
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 117.
INTRODUCTION
5
their readers in early modernity. She argues that in the eighteenth
century, as technological and social changes challenged previous notions
of literary authority and tradition, and groups previously excluded from
the work of producing and interpreting texts gained a greater sense of
entitlement to the process of creating meaning, writers were put on the
defensive. As she notes:
Anxieties experienced by writers center as much on the future as on the
past—not just because an author’s status, authority, and post-humous life
are dependent on readers, but because writing exists in a dialogue with
others whose sympathies it hopes to engage.8
Newlyn’s argument focuses on the English Romantic poets, but Japanese
haikai poets of the eighteenth century like Buson faced a comparable set
of conditions, which they confronted with similar strategies. Buson’s
struggle was not with his predecessors, but with his audience. Defined in
broad terms, Buson’s audience included the whole haikai community:
tentori poets, members of other groups such as those founded by haikai’s
pioneers—i.e., the Teimon⽵㐷 and Danrin ⺣ᨋ schools—and also his
colleagues in the Revival movement, who were rivals at the same time as
they were allies. In this context, Buson was careful to create and maintain
a public persona, and his haikai verse was one of the means he used to
accomplish this.
Recent studies have shown how economic and social developments in
eighteenth century Europe led to changes in the relationship between
writers and their audiences. These developments included advances in
publishing technology and a rise in literacy. The marketplace related to
the production and distribution of books also changed, leading to a
dramatic increase in booksellers, libraries, journals that included book
reviews, and public spaces where the discussion of literary works was a
central activity. As the number of literate people grew, there were more
readers whose interpretive competence was questionable, as many of
them had only the rudiments of education. Not only that, one growing
group of readers who could claim some expertise—that is, professional
critics—included people who were potentially hostile.
Such changes led to what has been termed a “paranoia” on the part of
authors, who perceived their autonomy in the creation of meaning to be
under threat, their writing vulnerable to misinterpretation and inadequate
———
8 Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), p. vii.
6
INTRODUCTION
appreciation, and their control over their work diminishing. This pattern
of development has been observed to precipitate a “crisis of modernity”
in which the writer “no longer knows for whom he writes” but is instead
the victim of economic networks that controlled the fate of published
works.9 Thus, a deep divide between writer and audience appeared. This
divide was based in an uncertainty about the future reception of texts
that was in turn related to authors’ contempt for a public that neglected
them and an audience of professional critics who attacked them.10
A similar phenomenon arose in Japan. The seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries in Japan saw a rise of a class of people who had the
money, leisure, education, and ambition to aspire to participation in
literary practice. It was an era of profound change that saw dramatic
increases in the population of cities (estimated at 1,000,000 in Edo, and
between 300,000 and 400,000 in Kyoto and Osaka in 1700),11 improvements in transportation and communication, and for significant numbers
of people, better education and more disposable income.12
These developments led to the emergence of one of the world’s first
examples of popular culture, or as Peter Nosco defines it, “culture that
pays for itself”i.e., self-sustaining forms of culture that are “financed
by [their] consumers.”13 Increasing numbers of urban commoners (chŇnin
↸ੱ) and wealthy farmers gained access to arts that had previously been
restricted to elite classesranging from painting and tea ceremony to
flower arrangement and utai singingnot only as consumers, but as
producers as well. Central to this new popular culture was literature. The
literacy rate at the end of the early modern period has been estimated at
40 or 50 percent for men and around 25 percent for women,14 Reading
for pleasure as a pastime even for commoners was established by the end
of the seventeenth century,15 and the distribution of printed texts
equaled or even surpassed those that were made in Europe.
———
9 Jean-Francois Lyotard, cited in Andrew Bennett, Keats, Narrative, and Audience: The
Posthumous Life of Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 4.
10 Newlyn, p. xi.
11 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
p. 153.
12 Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan
(Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990), pp. 18–19.
13 Ibid., p. 16.
14 Ibid., p. 24.
15 Peter F. Kornicki, The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the
Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 262.
INTRODUCTION
7
These changes had a tremendous impact on haikai. The number of
people composing and reading haikai grew steadily from the sixteenth to
the end of the seventeenth century. Kyoto publishers alone released
300,000 volumes of haikai.16 Haikai teachers also proliferated: one
source, Blossom-viewing carriage (Hanamiguruma ⧎⷗ゞ 1702), lists the
names of thirty-nine licensed verse markers in Kyoto, twenty-seven in
Osaka, twenty-nine in Edo, and thirty-one in the provinces; there were
large numbers of unlicensed teachers as well.17 As this suggests, the
growth in popularity was not limited to the rapidly developing urban
areas. Due to the itinerant habits of many practitioners, haikai schools
claimed many members in the provinces also. As roads improved and
restrictions on travel lost force, the haikai community expanded dramatically all over the country. One result of the genre’s rapid growth,
particularly among newly prosperous chŇnin and farmers, was increasing
friction in the relationship between its producers and its consumers.
The situation of Japanese haikai poets was in many respects different
from that of their early modern European counterparts. The very nature
of classical Japanese poetry—particularly renga and haikai—militated
against the formation of the kind of gulf between writers and readers
that has been observed in European literary history. For premodern
Japanese poets, consciousness of the audience was always necessarily
high, as they commonly worked in groups, responding on the spot to
verses spontaneously composed by their companions. Verses were
typically subject to corrections of teachers or colleagues, and reflect a
powerful awareness of an environment exterior to the poem. This
environment might include the classical literary tradition, in cases where
the verse alludes to an earlier work; or the recipient, when the verse is
written for the benefit of a particular addressee. Furthermore, not only
was communality intrinsic to the production of haikai, it was integral to
the process of publication also. Verses usually circulated by being
published in anthologies that included the work of numerous poets.
Collections devoted to the work of individuals were relatively uncommon, and even when they were published they almost invariably featured
additional texts like prefaces or afterwords contributed by other poets.
———
16
Shirane, Traces of Dreams, p. 4.
ņuchi Hatsuo, Sakurai TakejirŇ, and Kira Sueo, eds., Shin Nihon bungaku taikei, vol.
71, Genroku haikai shş (Iwanami Shoten, 1994), pp. 398–401.
17
8
INTRODUCTION
However, in a genre where texts were necessarily provisional and
vulnerable to reinterpretation, competing claims to authority presented
an especially pressing problem. As the haikai community grew it became
more diverse, and the contestation over haikai’s norms and standards
intensified. The proliferation of gamelike forms of haikai in the early
eighteenth century brought this debate to a peak.
The rise of the Revival movement at this stage was a response by an
elite group of poets to a threat represented by the emergence of a
popular audience whose values were perceived as lower or lesser, who
were guilty of neglecting or ignoring them. Revival poets tried to
establish a claim to authority and a higher ideal to which haikai practitioners should aspire. They had two interrelated goals: one, to resist the
commercialization of haikai that they associated with the tentori poets;
and two, to reintroduce an emphasis on high literary ideals inherited
from the classical tradition, bringing it beyond the range of possibilities
to which the commercially-minded practitioners—like the tentori poets—
limited themselves.
While the Revival movement gave its members a sense of shared
purpose, it was not without its own intrinsically threatening aspect. On
the one hand, Revival movement members were in competition with the
tentori poets who neglected or ignored them. At the same time, however,
Revival poets had another kind of conflict to concern them: while the
opposition to popular haikai was the reason for their alliance, Revival
poets were also in an adversarial relationship with each other, as they all
competed with one another for the students on whom their livelihoods
depended.
Buson in Japanese Literary History
A key member of the Revival movement, Buson was at the center of
early modern cultural development both chronologically and spatially.
He began his literary career some fifty years after the end of the Genroku era (1688–1704), the time that historians commonly describe as the
cultural height of the early modern period; the years after his death saw
the haikai genre enter into what literary scholars call a stage of stagnation
and decline. Buson’s life and work took him through Japan’s great
cultural centers: Osaka during his childhood, Edo during his young
adulthood, and Kyoto during the height of his career.
INTRODUCTION
9
The genres in which he specializedhaikai and nanga ධ↹ (Chinesestyle landscape painting, literally, “southern”-style painting)also placed
him at the center of early modern cultural development. While they built
on the traditions of Japan and China’s elites, both genres reworked these
traditions in such a way as to be accessible to segments of society that
historically had been excluded from many forms of elite culture, i.e., the
lower classes. Both haikai and nanga blend and amalgamate disparate
cultural idiomshigh and low culture in the case of haikai, and indigenous and continental painting techniques in the case of nanga. For all of
these reasons, Buson’s work provides a useful vantage point from which
to begin consideration of the culture and society of early modern Japan.
Buson’s reputation as a haikai poet underwent several reversals in the
century following his death. During the last years of the eighteenth
century and through most of the nineteenth, Buson was better known as
a painter than as a haikai poet. His verse was largely ignored in the last
years of the Tokugawa period, despite the fact that the number of haikai
practitioners continued to grow. It remained relatively obscure in the
first decades of the Meiji period (1868–1912) as well. Haikai itself was
still popular as a form of recreation, but in the literary and intellectual
climate of these years it increasingly drew criticism, and there were even
calls to abandon it altogether.
Buson was “rediscovered” in the late Meiji period by the poet and
literary critic Masaoka Shiki ᱜጟሶⷙ (1867–1902). Shiki responded to
criticism of haikai by advocating the reformrather than the abandonmentof the genre. Shiki called modern haikai “haiku,” and eventually
settled on Buson as the best classical model for modern haiku poets.
Looking at Buson’s work as a painter, Shiki found in Buson the ideal
exemplar of shasei ౮↢ (realism) in literature, and called him a forerunner of modern Japanese poetry. While Shiki’s preference for Buson over
BashŇ was not shared by most other haiku poets, Buson’s work has
continued to be viewed as an important precursor to haiku: progressive,
presciently “modern” verse by a poet whose achievements were different
from those of the great BashŇ but which nevertheless suggested a
potential of haiku that BashŇ’s had overlooked.
Shiki’s writing at the turn of the nineteenth century laid the foundations for the appraisal of Buson’s work for most of the twentieth
century. His image of Buson as a painter in words has been at the base
of much writing about Buson as a “visual” poet. More scholarly readings
of Buson’s work have also addressed the question of how Buson’s work
10
INTRODUCTION
as a painter made an impact on his verse, most notably by Ebara TaizŇ,
Shimizu Takayuki, Okada Rihei, Ogata Tsutomu, Haga TŇru, and Kira
Sueo. While other aspects of his work have interested commentatorsespecially the strongly nostalgic tone of much of his later writingviews of Buson as a “poet-painter” and as a proto-modernist have
remained extremely influential.18
Buson’s painting has also interested scholars writing in English, and
for many years most of the work on Buson available in English was in
art history. Two major examples are The Poet Painters: Buson and his
Followers by Calvin French (1974), and Haiku Painting by Leon Zolbrod
(1982). More recent are James Cahill’s The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in
China and Japan (1996), which has a long and detailed chapter on Buson’s
nanga, and John Rosenfield’s Mynah Birds and Flying Rocks: Word and Image
in the Art of Yosa Buson (2003), which looks at two recurrent themes in
Buson’s painting and poetry.
Two book-length studies in English focus on Buson. Haiku Master
Buson (1978), by Yuki Sawa and Edith Schiffert, consists mainly of
translations, though it does include a short section on Buson’s biography. In 1998, the noted scholar Makoto Ueda published an insightful
monograph on Buson, called The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and
Poetry of Yosa Buson. This is a valuable resource for information in English
about Buson’s work and biography. It includes accurate and highly
readable translations of many Buson hokku and several of his linked
verse sequences, and contains brief introductions to some of Buson’s
most famous paintings.
My approach differs in a number of ways from that of Ueda and
other scholars in that its examines Buson’s work within the broad
framework of the historical and social developments of eighteenth
century Japan. My discussion centers on the haikai community in the
KyŇhŇ (1716–1736) through the Tenmei (1781–1789) periods, and
Buson’s position within that community. Rather than seeking biographical or psychological interpretations of Buson’s work, I consider it in the
context of the anthologies in which they were published to show how it
———
18 See Ebara TaizŇ, Buson, Osaka: SŇgensha, 1943, and Ebara TaizŇ chosaku shş, vol. 13,
ChşŇ KŇronsha, 1979; Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu, ShibundŇ, 1977 and Yosa
Buson no kanshŇ to hihyŇ, Meiji Shoin, 1983; Haga TŇru, Yosa Buson no chiisana sekai, ChşkŇ
Bunko Series, ChşŇ KŇronsha, [1986] 1995; Ogata Tsutomu, BashŇ, Buson, Kashinsha,
1978 and Buson no sekai, Iwanami Shoten, 1993; and Kira Sueo, An’ei sannen Buson
shunkyŇjŇ, Taihei Bunko 38, Insatsu KyŇshinsha, 1996.
INTRODUCTION
11
was shaped by Buson’s efforts to negotiate his relationships with the
community of his colleagues and readers. Most hokku were published
numerous times, and in my discussion it is usually only possible to
consider each verse as it appeared in a single anthology. However, in
interpreting Buson’s work, it is important to consider of the goals and
concerns of a larger community—those of editors like KitŇ, Miyake
ShŇzan ਃቛཕጊ (1718–1801), and sometimes Buson himself—and of
the audiences who read them.
Furthermore, earlier works on Buson in English tend to treat his work
as a poet and as a painter separately. While my study is mainly literary, I
also include an exploration on the ways that Buson combined verbal and
visual elements in his haikai, the best examples of which are his haiga
େ↹, or haikai painting. To this end, I use an approach that recognizes
the problematical aspects of Buson’s relationships with his contemporaries, and his concerns about the estimation his writing would receive
from readers in posterity. I argue that anxiety was central to Buson’s
relationships with his colleagues and competitors, and to his attitudes
about the reception his work would meet with from readers both in the
present and the past. For this reason my examination begins with an
overview of the social and cultural trends current in the intellectual
community within which Buson worked, and continues with close
readings of his hokku, linked verse, and haiga, to better understand the
effects of Buson’s interaction with his audience on his haikai.
My study of Buson’s work begins with an exploration of the BashŇ
Revival. Although they represented only a minority in the haikai community of the day, ultimately it is the Revival poets and their successors,
rather than their more popular rivals, who eventually came to be
regarded as the central figures of haikai history. How did this happen?
What was Buson’s role in this? To answer these questions, Chapter One
discusses haikai’s development from a form of recreation into a serious
literary genre. It starts with an overview of an important trend in the
intellectual climate of the day: the impact of Chinese learning on artistic
and literary communities of the early modern period and the emergence
of the literati (bunjin ᢥੱ) ideal. It then traces haikai’s history from its
origins to the gamelike forms that became popular in the generation after
BashŇ’s death, concluding with the effort of Revival poets like Buson to
counter what they saw as the cheapening effect of popularization as a
defense not only of haikai’s prestige, but of their own as well. Chapter
Two focuses more closely on Buson and his audience. It includes a brief
12
INTRODUCTION
biography and introduces several key texts—including letters, poetic
prefaces, and haikai prose—that illustrate the complexities of Buson’s
relationship with his audience. One of these, the preface to Shundei verse
anthology (Shundei kushş no jo ᤐᵆฏ㓸ߩᐨ, 1777), the clearest expression of haikai theory that Buson wrote during his lifetime, argues that
there are close connections between haikai, Chinese poetry and painting.
It urges haikai poets to aspire to writing verse that expressed elegance at
the same time as it embraced the experiences of everyday life.
Chapters Three and Four offer close readings of Buson’s hokku, his
primary mode of literary self-expression. Rather than following a
biographical approach, these chapters present Buson’s hokku in a setting
closer to the way a reader of the time might have encountered them,
discussing them in the context of the anthologies in which they were
published. Chapter Three begins with an introduction to the poetics of
the hokku form, then analyzes verses from the first two stages of Buson’s
productive life: his period of apprenticeship in Edo (modern Tokyo) and
eastern Japan (1738–1750) and his early years in Kyoto, until 1770.
Chapter Four focuses on the hokku of the last stage of Buson’s career
(1771–1783), showing that while Buson’s position as the leader of the
Yahantei haikai school placed him at the forefront of the BashŇ Revival
movement, he remained ambivalent about his own abilities and preoccupied with constructing his own public image as an heir to BashŇ’s legacy.
Chapter Five looks at Buson’s linked verse. Linked verse, composed
by two or more poets, was the earliest form of haikai, and Buson’s work
in this form is among the most masterful in the entire genre. The
popularity of linked verse was on the wane during his lifetime, but the
form’s associations with the BashŇ school made it an important part in
the Revival poets’ efforts to return haikai to a higher ideal. This chapter
explains Buson’s role in preserving and promoting linked verse in this
era when easier, shorter forms competed with it. The chapter begins with
a short introduction to the complex procedure of linked verse composition, and then examines three of his kasen ᱌઄ (thirty-six link sequences). Discussion of the first sequence, which dates from his early
years, focuses on an excerpt of the sequence; the two other sequences,
from the midpoint and last part of his career, are presented in full.
Chapter Six analyzes five of Buson’s haiga—paintings that combine
haikai texts inscribed in elegant calligraphy with simple, evocative
sketches in ink and watercolor, explaining how their juxtapositions of
verbal and visual imagery combine to form a single, complete work. The
INTRODUCTION
13
images in these verses were not just illustrations; in haiga, text and image
interactively created meaning. The book concludes with a epilogue that
briefly discusses assesments of Buson by two modern poets, Masaoka
Shiki and Hagiwara SakutarŇ ⪤ේᦳᄥ㇢ (1886-1942). Full translations
of important Buson texts mentioned in the discussion are given in the
appendix.
Yosa Buson was an extremely prolific poet. Over 2,800 of his hokku
are extant, as well as some 120 linked verse sequences, as well as
numerous examples of haiga, three haishi େ⹞—unconventional verses
which are a hybrid of haikai and Chinese poetry, and several kanshi ṽ⹞
(poems in Chinese). In addition to compiling eleven anthologies himself,
he also wrote many prefaces for collections edited by poets both inside
and outside of his school. It is impossible to characterize such a prodigious set of works simply. However, a consideration of the effect that
Buson’s audience had on his haikai poetry will help to create a framework from which to understand it better. I will argue that Buson’s view
of his audience was shaped by anxiety, an anxiety related to his position
in the community. This position was one that he negotiated until the last
moments of his life.
In the next chapter, we will begin our examination of the community
of poets in which Buson worked, starting with an overview of the ideal
of the literatus, and continuing with a discussion of the historical
background of the BashŇ Revival.
CHAPTER ONE
BUSON, THE BUNJIN (LITERATI), AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
Buson earned most of his income from painting rather than writing, so a
good way to start exploration of his work is with a brief consideration
his work as a painter. As a painter he was at the center of a development
that was to have a powerful impact on his haikai and the discourse of the
BashŇ Revival as a whole. This development was the rise of the ideal of
the cultivated amateur, or bunjin, which allowed artists to simultaneously
work as professionals yet appear to transcend the corrupting influences
of profit. In Buson’s case, the ideal of the cultivated amateur was useful
in his efforts to build a persona that would enable an outsider like
himself to gain support and patronage from wealthy patrons.
Indeed, Buson was an outsider, especially as an artist. He learned by
studying examples in the collections of his wealthy patrons in the
northeast, Tango, Kyoto, and Shikoku, rather than from teachers. In
other words, he was not a member of any of the established ateliers or
artistic lineages like the Tosa, KanŇ, and Rimpa schools that were
influential in the world of Japanese painting. Modern art historians place
him in the category of nanga or bunjin-ga ᢥੱ↹(literati painting
artists—which also includes painters like Sakaki Hyakusen ᓄၔ⊖Ꮉ
(1697–1752), Ike no Taiga ᳰᄢ㓷 (1723–1776), and Maruyama ņkyo
౞ጊᔕ᜼ (1733–1795).
Buson’s dual identities as painter and poet were not contradictory.
Painting and poetry have always had close ties in Japan, and the contemporary demand for work that reflected the ideals of the Chinese literati
painters created an especially hospitable climate for someone like Buson,
who had competence in all the arts of the brush, i.e., painting, calligraphy, and poetry.
Both the words nanga and bunjin-ga indicate an affinity with the Chinese wenren ᢥੱ (literati; Japanese: bunjin) artists that were active in the
Song (960–1279) and Ming (1368–1644) dynasties. In its most idealized
form, the Chinese term wenren referred to scholar-officials who—either
through misfortune or because of some political conviction—withdrew
from circles of power, and spent their time writing poetry, practicing
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
15
calligraphy and painting, and enjoying the company of like-minded
friends.1 Wenren did not sell their work, but used it as a means of
contemplation and self-cultivation.
This ideal was immensely appealing to the Japanese, and the word
bunjin that derived from it has a long history in Japan, as does the
emulation of the practices with which it is associated. While use of the
word itself dates back to the Nara period (710–794), it has a more
specific meaning in Buson’s time; it describes a person who—aside from
being learned in poetry, Confucian philosophy, and the arts—lived an
eccentric, unconventional lifestyle removed from political and economic
striving. In its earliest forms, bunjin came from the upper classes, but by
the early modern period this ideal began to attract followers among
prosperous commoners as well.2
Several factors precipitated the rise of widespread fascination with the
bunjin in this period. First, the social restrictions imposed by the bakufu
᐀ᐭ (military government), particularly during the reign of the shogun
Tokugawa Yoshimune ᓼᎹศቬ (1684–1751, r. 1716–1745), led to a
general mood of disillusionment among intellectuals. The response to
this disillusionment was withdrawal into intellectual reclusion, i.e., into
the kind of life practiced by the bunjin. Second, Chinese-style products
increasingly became available. Many of these came directly from China,
like ceramics, furniture, books, and paintings, despite the tight limits the
bakufu placed on imports; but there was also a thriving market for
Chinese-inspired goods produced domestically. People of means with an
interest in the bunjin ideal were able to furnish themselves with the
accoutrements that allowed them to create a setting they imagined was
conducive to this kind of lifestyle. Finally, eighteenth-century culture,
already saturated with Chinese influence due to the bakufu’s endorsement
of Confucian philosophy, experienced a blossoming of scholarly and
intellectual energy devoted to Chinese studies.3
Indeed, the bakufu took an active part in promoting such scholarship,
particularly among samurai. In this age of peace, many samurai were able
to devote themselves to the study and teaching of Chinese philosophy,
———
1 Alan Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice of Reclusion in Early Medieval China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 4–5.
2 Ushiyama Yukio, Kinsei no bunjintachi: Bunjin seishin no shosŇ (Kanrin ShobŇ, 1995), pp.
8–14, 16–18.
3 Yoshikawa Chş et al., eds., Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu, vol. 18, Nanga to shaseiga,
(ShŇgakukan, 1960), pp. 170–171.
16
CHAPTER ONE
history, and poetry, and these highly trained people staffed bakufu and
domain schools. Demand for education was also rising among commoners. At the forefront of this trend were merchants and artisans who lived
in cities, where there was greater access to schools and more incentive to
educate children, but it also extended to the many rural people who
migrated to the cities because of economic pressures. Education
improved even in the countryside, as increasing numbers of farmers
embraced agricultural methods that required higher levels of learning.
Because Chinese studies was at the foundation of the early modern
curriculum, the spread of education increased interest in the ideal of the
literatus-scholar throughout the society as a whole.4
One of the many schools of Chinese studies that flourished was that
of Ogyş Sorai ⩆↢ᓖᓭ (1666–1728). Whereas many other scholars
were primarily interested in Confucian philosophy and ethics, Sorai also
emphasized accomplishment in a wide range of artistic pursuits, including poetry and calligraphy. Sorai encouraged achieving a direct understanding of Confucian texts without the encumbrance of commentaries
or the special markings (kunten ⸠ὐ) that enabled Japanese readers to
understand written Chinese. He taught his students to write in classical
Chinese and even to speak it, and to make the tradition present and
immediate, a part of everyday life.5 Members of the Sorai school believed
that the classical Chinese tradition was not something to be passively
memorized, but to be lived out in practice, and the bunjin represented a
model to which many of them could aspire.
There were close connections between the BashŇ Revival movement
and the sinophile groups that gave rise to the idealization of the bunjin. In
the first place, many haikai poets also had close affiliations with these
groups, particularly those who also wrote kanshi. To take the Yahantei
school as an example, as a young man Buson is thought to have studied
with Sorai’s successor, Hattori Nankaku ᦯ㇱධㇳ (1683-1759). His
close friend and disciple Kuroyanagi ShŇha was also Nankaku’s student,
and ShŇha continued his training in kanshi with Tatsu SŇro ┥⨲ᑢ
(1715–1792) in Osaka. Another colleague and mentor, Miyake ShŇzan,
was a prolific kanshi poet whose collected verse fills several volumes; his
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen େ⺽ฎㆬ, 1763), an important
———
4 Marius B. Jansen, Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press), pp. 191–195.
5 R. P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1965), p. 23.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
17
Revival collection, was laid out according to the same principles as the
seminal Chinese work Tang shi xuan (Selected poems of the Tang period;
Japanese TŇshisen ໊⹞ㆬ). Buson’s disciple Matsumura Gekkei became
one of the most famous and successful bunjin painters. Finally, there was
considerable overlap between Buson’s haikai acquaintances and the
clients who bought his Chinese-style paintings and therefore had an
affinity for bunjin tastes.
Ideologically, there were two main points of intersection between the
bunjin ideal and the BashŇ Revival. In the first place, its stress on the
value of poetry—writing it as well as reading it—was important to both.
For admirers of the bunjin, not only was poetry a pleasure to be enjoyed,
it also had a more exalted function: the cultivation of the spirit. Revival
poets, who worked to resist haikai’s reversion to a frivolous pastime,
were in considerable sympathy with the bunjin valorization of poetry’s
higher purpose. The emphasis that the Sorai school in particular placed
on studying the writing of the ancient sages without depending on
centuries’ worth of interpretive accretions was also attractive to Revival
poets. They treated the works of BashŇ as their “classics,” and encouraged disciples to read and internalize their teachings. Buson’s comment
that, “If for three days you do not recite the works of BashŇ, thorns will
grow in your mouth”6 is a good indication of how much importance the
Revival poets placed on familiarity with BashŇ’s writings.
The second point of intersection was the contempt for ambition and
profit that was common to both the bunjin ideal and Revival poets.
Amateurism was the hallmark of the Chinese wenren, who painted for the
sake of self-cultivation, unlike the professional court painters who
worked to please patrons. This had special resonance for wealthy
commoners attracted to the bunjin ideal and Revival haikai alike. Denied
access to real elites (i.e., aristocratic status, participation in government)
and contemptuous of the excesses of commoner culture, glorification of
the amateur was a way for non-elites to aspire to some kind of elite
status insofar as it gave them the moral ground on which to stand as they
castigated popular tenja for being venal and profit-driven.
Of course, Japanese bunjin painters like Buson were not actually amateurs; they exchanged their paintings for money. However, Buson was
able to maintain the pose of the bunjin amateur as a poet precisely
———
6 Ogata Tsutomu and Kazumi Yamashita, eds., BZ, vol. 4, Haishi haibun (KŇdansha,
1994), p. 142.
18
CHAPTER ONE
because this other source of income allowed him to keep his haikai out
of the marketplace—that is to say, apart from the kind of commercialism
that he enthusiastically deplored in tentori haikai poets.
Haikai History and the Revival Movement
While many aspects of the Revival movement were particular to the
historical moment in which it arose, they also demonstrate continuities
with debates that have their beginnings in the earliest period of haikai’s
formation as a genre. Haikai was at once conservative, as it claimed
allegiance to the classical literary tradition, and progressive, as it encouraged poets to make the innovations that distinguished it from its parent
genres. To explain how the Revival movement came about, it is necessary to first outline the history of haikai, investigating how the tension
between opposing forces—i.e., tradition and innovation, high (ga 㓷) and
low (zoku ଶ) culture, and the aesthetic and the commercial—invigorated
the genre as it developed, and ultimately became the central issue of the
Revival movement.
Haikai history begins with waka, the genre of courtly poetry that was
typically thirty-one syllables long, written in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. Waka
enjoyed enormous prestige because of its association with aristocrats and
the imperial court of the Nara and Heian periods (710–1185). It was a
highly elegant form with a large body of treatises, commentaries, and
collections that formed its canon, and a well-developed system of
schools that jealously guarded its traditions. Renga, the linked verse
genre derived from waka that had its heyday in the medieval period
(1185–1600), observed the rules of elegance and propriety that had been
set down for waka and likewise developed a canon and an organizational
structure to regulate itself and preserve its standards.
By contrast, haikai no renga େ⺽ߩㅪ᱌ (literally, nonstandard renga),
i.e., haikai, owed its very identity as a genre to the fact that it deviated
from the rules of waka and standard renga. As a humorous form, haikai
was usually not included in official renga collections in the medieval
period. Written in moments of relaxation between strenuous bouts of
standard renga, it was viewed as frivolous and ephemeral. Also, the poets
that came to prefer this kind of renga were for the most part neither the
aristocratic protectors of the classical tradition who practiced waka nor
the members of the military ruling elite who aspired to the prestige
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
19
associated with the aristocratic tradition; rather, haikai had the most
appeal for commoners. Because haikai began as a lesser form of renga,
and because its practitioners usually belonged to people of low social
status, haikai’s position relative to other forms of poetry was an issue
from the beginning.
Another issue was the commercialization of the genre as it became
established in the seventeenth century. Some renga masters were able to
support themselves through teaching, and this was also true of many
people who practiced haikai. However, haikai was far less demanding in
terms of time and education, and as the population of well-off farmers
and working urban dwellers grew during the long period of peace and
stability in the early modern period, the market for haikai also grew. The
job of teaching haikai to students and evaluating their haikai eventually
became a professional occupation.
The professionalization of haikai in the seventeenth century is related
to the emergence of the iemoto ኅర or “house” system throughout the
artistic community, and its attendant concerns with lineages, authenticity,
and small exclusive communities. As was the case in many of the arts of
this period, haikai poets and their disciples organized themselves in a
structure modeled after a patriarchal family. In the iemoto system, the
school’s teachings were passed on directly from master to disciple,
organization within the school was hierarchical, leadership was hereditary, and a permit system was set up whereby disciples’ eligibility to
become teachers was strictly controlled.7 The transformation of haikai
schools into an iemoto-like structure took decades, but from the genre’s
earliest beginnings its most serious practitioners were deeply sensitive to
matters of artistic lineage, and competition between factions was very
strong.
Haikai had attained the status of an independent genre around the
beginning of the seventeenth century, largely through the work of the
followers of Matsunaga Teitoku ᧻᳗⽵ᓼ (1571–1653), the Teimon,
who formed the first haikai school. Teitoku was a master of both waka
and of standard renga, having studied with two of the most admired
poets of the day, Satomura JŇha ㉿᧛⚫Ꮙ (ca. 1525–1602) and Hosokawa Yşsai ⚦Ꮉᐝᢪ (1534–1610). Although as a commoner Teitoku
was unable to receive initiation into the esoteric tradition of waka, he
———
7 Patricia Graham, Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1998), p. 146.
20
CHAPTER ONE
nevertheless acquired a formidable knowledge of the classical tradition
and became well known for his lectures to commoners on literature.
Teitoku was a reluctant proselytizer, and indeed he had to be pressured
by colleagues into delivering his lectures, but eventually his efforts ended
up making accessible to commoners knowledge that had been previously
limited to the elite. He also experimented with haikai alongside his
composition and teaching of waka and renga, and some of his disciples
included his verse in what is regarded as the first haikai verse collection,
Puppy anthology (Enoko shş›ሶ㓸,1633).
While Teitoku did not take seriously his own forays into haikai, he
was instrumental in laying a foundation for the genre in a number of
ways. In the first place, his verses, particularly those in Puppy anthology,
served as a model for novice poets. In the second place, his treatises, Air
and water treatise (TensuishŇ ᄤ᳓ᛞ, 1644) and Gosan ᓮ஺ (1651), later
became standard reference texts of haikai theory, thus making for haikai
the beginnings of a canon of authoritative documents similar to those
that existed for waka, renga and other elite forms of literature. Teitoku’s
influence lay in the fact that not only had he opened the literary community to a new form of poetry, but that his own background in the
classical tradition led him to begin creating similar institutional structures
in haikai to those that existed in waka and renga. From the beginning,
issues of legitimacy, lineage, and authenticity were of major importance
in the relationships between haikai practitioners.
Also important was the balance of ga and zoku. Teitoku acknowledged
that the fundamental distinction between renga and haikai was that the
latter allowed the use of zoku words, or, as he wrote in Gosan, “In the
beginning there was no difference between haikai and renga. Among
them, the one that uses gentle language is called renga, and composing
verses without despising zoku language is called haikai.”8 Though
Teitoku recognized the importance of zoku in haikai, he scrupulously
avoided vulgarity, and encouraged his followers to do the same. As a
result, Teitoku-school haikai observed high standards of decorum, and
while its verses are to an extent comic, the humor involved is subtle and
restrained.
While Teitoku was deeply ambivalent about haikai, and regarded
himself primarily as a waka poet, he did believe that it was something
———
8 Akabane Manabe, ed., KŇchş Haikai Gosan sakuin hen, vol. 1 (Fukutake Shoten, 1983),
pp. 24-25.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
21
more than just an amusing pastime. In Air and water treatise, he writes,
“Haikai is of one body with waka. It is not a Way that should be taken
lightly,” arguing that although haikai had been dismissed in the past as
being inferior to waka and renga, because it allowed the use of vernacular, non-literary language it was actually the most appropriate one for the
present day.9 Even more importantly, despite his own reluctance to
actively promote the genre, he attracted energetic disciples who would
make his school, the Teimon, a stable and influential force in haikai for
decades.
Almost as soon as the Teimon established canons and standards,
though, some poets set about breaking them. Most successful among
these were the members of the Danrin, founded by followers of
Nishiyama SŇin ⷏ጊቬ࿃ (1605–1682). Danrin poetry emphasized
cleverness, word play, and speed of composition; their verses frequently
strayed into earthiness and vulgarity. Making an impression on an
audience, either through wit or speed, was a key value.10 For example,
Ihara Saikaku ੗ේ⷏㢬 (1642–1693), a Danrin poet as well as a fiction
writer, is said to have composed 23,500 solo verses at a haikai event that
lasted just a day and a night.11
While poets of the Teimon might have found Danrin poetry tasteless
and crude, it had great mass appeal. The Teimon’s efforts to bring haikai
more in line with classical poetry by creating a “tradition” for it with the
compilation of rulebooks and collections of exemplary verses supported
haikai’s claims to legitimacy, and this attracted followers. However, the
Danrin’s use of the opposite tactic—breaking the rules and catering to
the tastes of lowbrow culture—enhanced haikai’s popularity even more.
The lively quarrels between the Danrin and Teimon and their fierce
competition for disciples demonstrate how vital and active a genre it had
become after the middle of the seventeenth century.
Around the time that the Teimon and Danrin poets were competing
for dominance in Kyoto and Edo, another phenomenon was unfolding
in Osaka that would play a crucial role in the development of haikai—the
rise of short form linked verse or maekuzuke ೨ฏઃ. Teimon and
Danrin haikai tended to favor long verse sequences that were typically
———
9
Cited in Kuriyama Ri’ichi, Haikaishi (Hanawa ShobŇ, 1963), p. 75.
Kubota Jun, ed., Kenkyş shiryŇ Nihon koten bungaku, vol. 7, Renga, haikai, kyŇka (Meiji
Shoin, 1984), pp. 80–82.
11 Konishi Jin’ichi, Haiku no sekai (KŇdansha, 1995), p. 77. This figure is probably
exaggerated; it would have entailed composing one verse every 3.7 seconds.
10
22
CHAPTER ONE
constructed of 36 but sometimes 100 or more links. Maekuzuke, by
contrast, was formed by linking just a maeku ೨ฏ (previous verse) and
tsukeku. A tenja would set the verse, a go-between would distribute it to
students, and then the go-between would deliver the student’s links to
the tenja, who would grade them with points. Both the tenja and the gobetween collected fees for their services, and soon this point-scoring or
tentori haikai became a very lucrative trade. Tentori haikai attracted a large
number of devotees, and quickly spread to Edo, Kyoto, and the provinces.12
As we saw in the introduction, while tentori haikai offered a means for
people to make a living off their literary talents, other, more idealistic
poets despised it. Point-scoring in itself was not necessarily the problem.
The practice of grading students’ verses did not originate with the tentori
haikai poets; it actually began in the medieval period when renga teachers
would use this system to help students learn the subtleties of linking. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, also, even poets who had
higher ambitions for haikai used points as a pedagogical tool. However,
points soon became an end in themselves, as students competed with
one another to see who could score highest. Haikai of this kind eventually degenerated into an activity that was little more than a game. Indeed,
it actually became a form of gambling, and a law was passed against it in
1723. Also, the competitive side of tentori haikai meant that practitioners
were less concerned with the craft of their poetry than with writing
something impressive and witty, to dazzle others and win points from
the tenja.13 In this sense, tentori haikai strongly favored zoku over ga.
The other aspect of tentori haikai that dismayed more high-minded
poets was the fact that haikai itself was becoming a commodity, and tenja
were more interested in profit than literary quality and made little effort
to cultivate taste and sensitivity in their students. Eager to increase their
income and maximize the number of students, many were willing to
lower their standards in order to make themselves appealing to the
largest number of people possible. The growing sophistication of print
culture and the greater ease of communication and travel also contributed to the commercialization of haikai, as the accessibility of haikai texts
and the ease with which disciples could correspond with and meet even
———
12
13
SatŇ Katsuaki et al., Renku no sekai (Shintensha, 1997), pp. 89–90.
Ibid., pp. 89–90.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
23
distant tenja put the practice within reach of people in the provincial
towns and rural areas.
BashŇ and the BashŇ School
The most prominent seventeenth century opponent of tentori haikai was
Matsuo BashŇ. At the start of his career, BashŇ worked in the Teimon
and Danrin modes, and even found employment as a tenja. Around 1680
he gave up this work because he felt that it compromised his integrity,
and instead came to depend on the support of disciples and patrons. He
turned away from Danrin haikai, which he had come to consider
frivolous and vulgar, and began to try to push haikai beyond the limits
that poets of lesser imagination had imposed on it.
BashŇ explored a variety of styles during his lifetime, but two in particular were to have a major impact on the development of haikai in the
eighteenth century. The first was the style he embraced in the early part
of the Tenna period (1681–1684), the kanshibunchŇ ṽ⹞ᢥ⺞ or Chinese
style: this was a literary, elevated style that drew on kanshi for its models.
The second, karumi シߺ (lightness), which emphasized simplicity and
ordinary language and situations, was one with which BashŇ experimented near the end of his life. As the claim to allegiance to one of these
two styles became the basis for factional divisions that arose among his
disciples, I will examine them in some detail.
Scholars regard the verse collection Empty chestnuts (Minashiguri ⯯ᩙ,
1683), edited by Takarai Kikaku ቲ੗౔ⷺ (1661–1707), as the quintessential expression of BashŇ’s kanshibunchŇ period. The following BashŇ
verse, taken from this collection, represents this style well. It opens with
a headnote in Chinese, a quote from the Tang poet Li Bo ᧘⊕ (701–
762), “In times of sorrow, one learns reverence for wine. In times of
poverty, one realizes the sacredness of loose change:”
hana ni ukiyo
waga sake shiroku
meshi kuroshi
BashŇ
———
14
NKBT, vol. 45, p. 52.
under the blossoms, the floating world
my sake is white
my rice is black14
24
CHAPTER ONE
The speaker describes his experience of viewing cherry blossoms, which
evokes joy tinged with sorrow. Uki means both “floating” and “melancholy,” so uki yo can refer either to a world buoyed up with the effervescence of pleasure, or an ephemeral world of suffering. The speaker is
poor, as his sake is milky with lees and his rice has not been adequately
milled. The awareness of his poverty causes him to have a keener
appreciation of cherry blossoms as emblematic of the sadness of life
even as he sits down to his meal. While the sentiment of the verse is not
unusual in Japanese poetry, its language is quite striking. Even without
the Chinese headnote, its parallel structure (white sake, black rice) recalls
kanshi. It is also far more blunt and intellectual than the oblique, highly
nuanced verse at which BashŇ excelled in his later years: the meaning of
the poem is expressed with little ambiguity, and it offers the reader the
challenge of figuring out the source of headnote and the delight of the
poet’s cleverness in reworking it into this context.
The other style that was to have a major impact on the development
of BashŇ-school haikai of the eighteenth century was something that
BashŇ arrived at during the last three years of his life, karumi. Verses in
this style create profound meaning out of apparent simplicity. It was an
ideal of great subtlety, which required poets to leave aside embellishments of language and artifice and express themselves in the plainest
terms possible. Karumi verses favor the ordinary and commonplace—the
material of everyday life.
BashŇ’s last collections, especially Charcoal sack (Sumidawara ὇ୈ,
1694) are landmarks of the karumi style. The following, included in
Charcoal sack, is a typical BashŇ karumi verse:
Kannazuki hatsuka,
Fukagawa nite sokkyŇ
On the Twentieth of the “Godless Month,”
composed extemporaneously at Fukagawa:
furiuri no
gan aware nari
Ebisu kŇ
hawking a wild goose in the streets
has poignance
festival of the Merchants’ God15
BashŇ
The words are restrained but evocative. The wild goose customarily
appears in classical poetry as a figure of splendor, a wanderer in the sky
returning home after traveling great distances. In BashŇ’s verse it is
———
15
Ibid., p. 217.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
25
brought down to earth, carried dead through the streets by a poor
poultry seller hoping to earn a few coins. “Poignance” (aware) refers both
to the humbled bird and to the miserable man plying his trade in the
cold. This small, sad drama is played out with the lively Ebisu Festival as
its backdrop, an occasion for the merchants of the town to come forth
to pray for prosperity. The verse uses unadorned words to describe an
utterly ordinary scene of commoner life, yet it is full of suggestive
overtones that make it as evocative of the delicate emotion aware, so
often the focus of courtly poetry.
BashŇ also considered haikai a legitimate literary form, the equal of
waka or renga. More than any of his predecessors, BashŇ was noted for
writing verses that resonated with the high standards of refinement of
the most admired waka and renga, at the same time as it expressed the
emotions of ordinary people and everyday situations. He wrote in the
travel diary Rucksack notebook (Oi no kobumi ╅ߩዊᢥ, 1709), “In
SaigyŇ’s waka, in SŇgi’s ቬ␧ renga, in Sesshş’s 㔐⥱ painting, in Rikyş’s
೑ભ tea, there is one Way that runs through them,”16 arguing that haikai
was heir to these medieval artists’ legacy.
Unlike the verse of the Danrin and tentori poets, which emphasized
zoku at the expense of ga, BashŇ tried to achieve a balance where both
elements complemented each other. “The value of haikai is in rectifying
zokugo (ordinary language),”17 he is quoted as saying in Three notebooks
(SanzŇshi ਃౠሶ, 1705). In other words, haikai brought a dignity to nonpoetic language and indeed, transformed it into poetic language. However, he also embraced zoku; indeed, he affirmed its role as the foundation of good haikai. Three notebooks also quotes him as having said,
“achieve an awareness of the high, but return to zoku.”18 This statement,
emphasized that haikai should not just aim for the elegance of classical
and medieval poetry, but should be grounded in the realities of daily life.
BashŇ did not set out to defy the literary tradition; rather, he moved
haikai in a direction where it could absorb a broader range of language
and imagery but at the same time preserve its connection with classical
poetry. While acknowledging the importance of ga in bringing to haikai a
———
16 Sugiura ShŇchirŇ et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 46, BashŇ bunshş (Iwanami Shoten, 1959),
p. 51. SŇgi (1421–1502) was a renowned renga poet; Sesshş (1420–1506) was famous for
his ink painting; Sen no Rikyş (1522–1591) was a founder of the tea ceremony.
17 Imoto NŇichi and KidŇ SaizŇ, eds., NKBT, vol. 66, Rengaron shş, Haironshş (Iwanami Shoten, 1961), p. 437.
18 Ibid., p. 398.
26
CHAPTER ONE
necessary amount of gravity, he regarded the zoku element as equally
important—not for the sake of surprise or amusement, as some of the
Danrin poets used it, but rather as a base to which poets should return
after having internalized the rich possibilities of the classical heritage.
KyŇhŇ Haikai: Factionalism and Reform
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the haikai community grew
increasingly fragmented. The number of its readers and writers continued to grow, and the schools that served them competed fiercely with
each other for a share of the profitable market that they represented.
Japanese scholars refer to this as KyŇhŇ haikai. The KyŇhŇ period is
strictly defined as the years 1716–1736, but the name is also used more
generally to refer to the early part of the eighteenth century, especially
the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune. Since it was primarily the developments of KyŇhŇ haikai that triggered the rise of the Revival movement,
events of this period deserve our close attention.
The KyŇhŇ period was a time of increased social controls, as the
shogunate tried to confront the economic problems that had been
mounting over decades. Samurai, officially the ruling class, became
poorer as inflation eroded the value of their hereditary fixed stipends.
Worse still from the shogunate’s point of view, many had lost sight of
the virtues of self-discipline and frugality that had been fundamental
principles of the samurai way of life since the beginning of the Tokugawa period over a century earlier.
Yoshimune’s government implemented a number of measures, later
called the KyŇhŇ Reforms, to address these problems. The KyŇhŇ
Reforms included higher taxes for the farmers, stricter enforcement of
sumptuary laws that denied merchants luxuries, and various policies to
encourage samurai to cultivate their martial spirit.19 These changes were
seen by many as restrictive and even oppressive, but in spite of them, the
arts continued to flourish. One reason for this was the fact that while the
bakufu’s policies were supposed to shore up samurai economic power, it
was actually the commoners—especially urban merchants but also many
farmers—who grew more affluent. As commoners acquired economic
———
19 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
pp. 296–304.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
27
capital, they were eager to increase their stock of what Pierre Bourdieu
calls cultural capital—prestige that allowed them a stronger sense of
participating in the culture of the people in power.20 Thus they began to
demand access to arts that had previously belonged only to those of elite
status. Arts of all kinds found a growing, enthusiastic market in the
newly wealthy commoners of the KyŇhŇ period, and one of the most
successful of these arts was haikai.
Haikai appealed to a broad swath of commoner society. It could be
practiced as a hobby, as it had been made easy by willing tenja who
worked to simplify its rules as much as possible. On the other hand,
because of the efforts of poets like BashŇ, it also was seen as a worthy
pursuit for those who aspired to more refined aesthetic and literary
expression. And so, KyŇhŇ haikai poets were roughly divisible into two
categories: those who composed solely for pleasure, and those who were
motivated by a more purely aesthetic purpose. The poets of the second
category, who looked down on the first, were the forerunners of the
Revival movement.
Within these two broad categories, the community was further divided into numerous factions and lineages. The Teimon and Danrin, for
instance, continued to attract followers, and the tentori schools were
growing in both size and number. Most influential of all, though, was the
ShŇmon; that is to say, the schools that were founded by BashŇ’s
disciples.
The ShŇmon itself was divided into two large factions, the urban and
the rural. This division was related to the stylistic changes BashŇ’s haikai
underwent over the course of his life. The followers that he had attracted
earlier in his career remained loyal to him but continued to prefer his
older style, while those who joined him as he moved into new directions
tended to favor his newer styles. For this reason, while a large number of
disciples called themselves BashŇ’s direct successors after his death, they
practiced very different kinds of haikai. The most ambitious among them
set up schools, claiming to preserve his authentic teachings, and they
vied with one another for leadership.
The urban ShŇmon flourished in Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. It was
centered around the activities of BashŇ disciples Kikaku and Hattori
Ransetsu ᦯ㇱ፲㔐 (1654–1707), though Mizuma Sentoku ᳓㑆ᴩᓼ
———
20 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 303.
28
CHAPTER ONE
(1662–1726), who became acquainted with BashŇ’s teachings indirectly
though Kikaku, also became a powerful leader in this faction. Urban
ShŇmon poets looked to the style of BashŇ’s early years for their model,
most importantly the verse of the 1683 collection Empty chestnuts. Urban
haikai emphasized sophisticated wit, a taste for novelty, and intellectual
complexity and cleverness. Their verses were often obscure and cryptic,
more like puzzles than poems, and membership in its interpretive
community required a fair amount of knowledge of the literary tradition
on the one hand and of fashions and trends then current in the cities.
The rural ShŇmon included two main sub-factions, the Mino faction,
founded by Kagami ShikŇ ฦോᡰ⠨ (1665–1731) and the Ise faction,
associated with Nakagawa Otsuyş ਛᎹਸ↱ (1675–1739, also known as
Bakurin 㤈ᨋ). ShikŇ had been a disciple of BashŇ during his later years,
when BashŇ was promoting the karumi style, and his followers considered the verse of Charcoal sack to be the epitome of good haikai. ShikŇ
was very active in promoting BashŇ’s teachings, which he condensed
into simplified versions and even modified for his own convenience.21
While BashŇ’s karumi verses are among his most powerful, few rural
ShŇmon poets achieved the same combination of simplicity and
expressiveness, and their verse was vulnerable to accusations of being
bland and trite.
Despite its aesthetic shortcomings, the rural ShŇmon was very influential in the sense that it attracted a large number of followers throughout the country. It promoted verse that was plain, straightforward and
immediate, and did not require poets to appear witty and au courant like
urban haikai did. It was easily accessible even to people with minimal
education who were isolated from the fashions of the urban centers.
Almost anyone could write and understand rural ShŇmon haikai, and
with such a large number of followers embracing its teachings, it became
a powerful force in the haidan as a whole.
The ShŇmon was the major source of energy in resisting the commodification and negative influences of tentori haikai. Modern scholars
trace the beginning of the Revival movement to the 1731 publication of
Ink of five colors (Goshikizumi ੖⦡ა) a verse collection of the works of
five poets, most prominent among whom was Sakuma ChŇsui
———
21 Two of ShikŇ’s most famous treatises were Haikai ten discussions (Haikai jşron,
afterword dated 1719) and Twenty-five tenets (NijşkŇ kajŇ, published 1736). In Nihon
bungakushi, Kinsei II, ed. Hisamatsu Sen’ichi (ShibundŇ, 1964), pp. 250–251.
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
29
૒ਭ㑆㐳᳓, who is better known by his later soubriquet Ryşkyo
ᩉዬ(1686–1748).22 All five received their training with either BashŇ
disciples or the urban poet Sentoku. The Ink of five colors poets believed
that the commercialization associated with tentori haikai had a cheapening
effect on the haikai community as a whole—tentori haikai, they complained, valued style over substance, and wittiness over profundity. They
advocated a return to the practice of composing long haikai sequences,
not just the shorter, truncated forms that were written solely for the
purpose of competing for points. The poets chose a quote from Kikaku
for its preface:
Haikai has become a matter of points; surely it is not haikai’s original intention to go around the group making judgments according to the evaluation system that this one is “excellent,” that one is “good” or “outstanding,” and so on, is it?....Composing verses in order to please your
teacher, and thus planning each verse so that it has outlandish poetic devices, and competing with others over maeku and so on is behavior that is
plainly to be regretted.23
A prose passage by Gikş on the same topic is also included in the text:
In today’s world there is no one who does not write haikai, but few are
those who really dedicate themselves to its Way. People think that as long
as they get good points in point-scoring, they are free to do what they
want; they think that they are accomplished after only two or three years,
they openly praise themselves without knowing the “Four Ways” (i.e. the
basics of verse linking). There are many who think that this is all there is
to it. It is for this reason that no respected poets have emerged.24
One possible impetus for the Ink of five colors poets’ interest in bringing
change to the haidan was related to their own backgrounds: they all came
from families with close ties to the shogun, either as gokenin ᓮኅੱ
(high-ranking retainers) or merchants who supplied the bakufu. Reasserting the importance of elegance, Ink of five colors stood as a challenge to
tenja who were primarily interested in profit, and their disciples, who saw
haikai simply as a form of entertainment; it marked the start of a new
mood of change in the haikai community.
———
22 The other Five colors ink poets were Sogan ⚛ਣ (later, BakŇ 㚍శ), SŇzui ቬℰ,
Shijaku ຎዤ (later, RyŇwa ኩ๺) and Renshi ⬒ਯ (later, Keirin ⃯℘). Gikş ␧ⓨ wrote
the preface.
23 Katsumine Shinpş, ed., Fukyşban haisho taikei, vol. 72, ChşkŇ haikai meika shş (Shunjşsha, 1929), p. 35.
24 Ibid., p. 42.
30
CHAPTER ONE
As we have seen, the KyŇhŇ period was a time of reform and vibrant
development. However, in many respects the haikai of this period
became a victim of its own success, and the more followers it attracted
the more its quality degenerated. The greed of many tenja, the spread of
game-like forms, and the low literary standards that characterized much
of the verse being produced at the time caused some poets, Yosa Buson
among them, to aspire to greater things.
The Revival Movement and Buson
In the years following the publication of Ink of five colors, dissatisfaction
with the commercialization of haikai grew, particularly among ShŇmon
poets, and they looked to the past for models worth following. BashŇ
was an obvious choice for a number of reasons. More than any of his
predecessors, BashŇ was able to create haikai that had all of the dignity
and resonance of the best waka and renga. He was keenly insightful
about everyday life and meticulous in his craftsmanship; his verse was at
once reverent and playful, confident of the classical tradition yet boldly
innovative; this made it stand out from that of his peers.
Most important of all, perhaps, BashŇ was able to attract large numbers of extremely skilled and devoted students whose efforts to secure
their own position within the haikai community included energetic
promotion of their mentor’s teachings. During the Genroku period,
BashŇ’s school was only one of many, and it did not have nearly as many
followers as did some others. However, because BashŇ formed networks
of devoted followers on his own extensive journeys through the countryside, and through the work of disciples after his death, the number of
people who knew of and admired BashŇ was quite large. As a result,
there were close links between efforts to curb the excesses of KyŇhŇ
haikai and the gradual establishment of the image of BashŇ as the central
figure of haikai history.
BashŇ died in 1694, and his disciples sporadically published collections of his verse and teachings for decades after his death. Among the
earliest were versions of DohŇ’s Three notebooks and Kyorai’s treatise (Kyorai
shŇ ෰᧪ᛞ, compiled 1704). However, interest in BashŇ began to pick
up in earnest around 1743, five decades later. Several poets published
memorial verse collections to mark this occasion, most notably Ink of five
colors poet Ryşkyo’s Fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the passing of Elder
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
31
BashŇ (BashŇ Ň dŇkŇ ki ⧊⭈⠃หశᔊ, 1746). Ryşkyo, who had converted
from the urban to the rural BashŇ style in the early 1730s, also made a
tremendous impact on the haikai community with his 1756 publication
BashŇ seven anthologies (BashŇ shichibu shş ⧊⭈৾ㇱ㓸). This was the
earliest collection of BashŇ’s anthologies, and was a landmark in the
process of defining the BashŇ canon.25 As its editor’s proclivities favored
the Mino-Ise style, BashŇ seven anthologies had particular resonance with the
poets of this school, and the collection helped to promote the view that
rural style was the true, orthodox one.
As demand grew for collections of BashŇ’s haikai, so did the fascination with BashŇ as a person. The first biography of BashŇ, Mendicant’s
satchel tales of Elder BashŇ (BashŇ Ň zuda monogatari ⧊⭈⠃㗡㒚‛⺆), was
published in 1751 by Takebe RyŇtai ᱞㇱᶭⴼ (also known as Ayatari
✍⿷, 1719–1774). BashŇ admirers frequently drew a connection
between BashŇ’s lifestyle and the excellence of his work, and were eager
to learn more about his life. The idealized image of BashŇ as a saintly
traveler single-mindedly dedicated to following the Way of haikai was
promoted by ShŇmon poets, and it began to take root. As a consequence, other gestures aimed at honoring BashŇ’s memory became
common around this time. For instance, the practice of retracing BashŇ’s
path on the Narrow road to the interior journey, and of erecting memorial
steles (tsuka Ⴆ) and verse-inscribed monuments (kuhi ฏ⎼ marking
sites where BashŇ had visited, started to become popular.26
The reform movement began to reach its peak around the seventieth
anniversary of BashŇ’s death. The poets who were active in the movement during this period still claimed allegiance to heirs of either the early
rural ShŇmon poets (ChŇmu Ⲕᄞ [1732–1795], KatŇ KyŇtai ട⮮ᥙบ
[1732–1792], Hori Bakusui ၳ㤈᳓ [1718–1783], Miura Chora
ਃᶆᮠ⦟ [1729–1780]) or those of the urban ShŇmon (Buson, ņshima
RyŇta ᄢፉኩᄥ [1718–1787], Tan Taigi ὇ᄥ␧ [1709–1771], KitŇ,
ShŇzan). However, they frequently collaborated on projects centered on
BashŇ, and their rivalries remained relatively friendly.
In the 1760s, around the time of the seventieth anniversary, practices
related to the commemoration of BashŇ’s life and work took many
forms. One of the most common ones was the compilation of haikai
anthologies that reflected some BashŇ-related theme. In 1776, RyŇta and
———
25
26
Horikiri Minoru, BashŇ to haikaishi no tenkai (Perikansha, 2004), p. 336.
Fujita Shinichi, Buson (Iwanami Shoten, 2000), pp. 40–45.
32
CHAPTER ONE
Buson separately published commentaries on BashŇ’s linked verse, both
called Verse linking of Elder BashŇ (BashŇ Ň tsukeai shş ⧊⭈⠃㒝ว㓸).
KyŇtai’s collection Autumn day (Aki no hi ⑺ߩᣣ, 1772), which was
modeled after the BashŇ school’s Winter day (Fuyu no hi ౻ߩᣣ, 1684)
and RankŇ’s Just as it is (Ari no mama ᦭ߩ఑, preface dated 1769) were
compiled to showcase verse collected from poets all over the country
who lived up to BashŇ’s ideals. The construction of memorial steles
continued. In 1763, RyŇta gathered donations from supporters and built
a BashŇ memorial stele in Edo. KyŇtai also built a BashŇ stele in this
year, and issued a memorial collection Frog call anthology (Atei shş ⰶ໹㓸)
to commemorate it. Also, groups and gatherings were organized with the
explicit purpose of following BashŇ’s example or celebrating his life. In
1763, the seventieth anniversary of BashŇ’s death, ChŇmu began a
custom of holding a series of annual events at Gichş-ji temple, site of
BashŇ’s grave. Sankasha ਃ⩻␠, the haikai study group founded in 1766
by Buson and his associates, was also part of this trend, as its participants
sought to rediscover the traditions and practices of the past. The number
of biographies, verse collections of BashŇ and commentaries on his
works grew dramatically in the following years as well.
During the decade between the eightieth and ninetieth anniversaries
of BashŇ’s death, the movement was at its zenith. The ShŇmon flourished, especially in the provinces. Activities related to the memorialization and even idolization of BashŇ continued and found more enthusiastic participants, as the number of celebrations, construction of memorial
sites, and BashŇ-inspired publications increased. One of the biggest
events was a series of gatherings KyŇtai and his disciples organized at
Gichş-ji temple in 1783. Many of its participants, Buson among them,
doubted that they would live to see the real centenary of BashŇ’s death,
so they decided to commemorate it ten years early. And indeed, their
guess proved correct—by 1794, all of the major figures of the Revival
movement were dead.
Though the Revival poets were a highly disparate group, we can still
draw some conclusions about them. Most importantly, they viewed the
haikai of the day as being in a state of crisis. They criticized the popular
tentori haikai as unliterary, as it did not require the rigorous, disciplined
practice that was necessary to develop mastery in one of the elite literary
forms. Moreover, what should have provided an alternative, the ShŇmon
groups, were also in need of reform. Urban haikai placed too much
emphasis on word play and not enough on the serious expression of
BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASHņ REVIVAL
33
emotion, but on the other hand, rural haikai was too often simplistic and
bland, and pandered to the limited abilities of unsophisticated poetasters
with literary pretensions.
Another reason that the Revival poets made tentori haikai practitioners
their target was that the latter focused on money and profit. Haikai was a
source of income for tentori tenja, and they treated it like that, lowering
their standards in order to attract students. Of course, the Revival poets
also worked as professional haikai teachers, and made a living from their
work as poets. However, they used a number of strategies to minimize
and deflect the appearance of being merely hacks out to make money,
not the least of which was scorning others who did so blatantly.
The Revival movement did not die with Buson, KyŇtai, and KitŇ, but
actually gained momentum as haikai fell in with the process of institutionalization that most of the arts underwent at this time. By the end of
the century, the BashŇ style came to be established as “true” haikai, and
BashŇ designated the genre’s “saint.”27 The prestigious NijŇ school of
waka poets conferred on BashŇ the title Hana no moto no sŇshŇ
(⧎ߩਅቬඅ, literarily, master under the blossoms), their highest honor,
bringing haikai into line with long-established courtly poetic traditions of
organization and authority. In doing so they finally affirmed the claim
that haikai poets since Teitoku had been making—that haikai was the
equal of waka and renga.28 Ironically, the Revival movement, which had
been sparked by a desire to resist commercialization and professionalism
in haikai, concluded with the institutionalization of the ShŇmon as the
orthodox school of haikai.
Despite its conservative rhetoric of “returning” to the ideals of BashŇ,
the Revival movement actually looked forward to new directions in the
development of Japanese poetry. As much as the leaders of the Revival
movement deplored the popularity of maekuzuke and similar forms that
were composed outside the highly-regulated, refereed, and communal
setting of a linked verse gathering, their own preference for the hokku
gave further emphasis to the development of a style of poetry that placed
more emphasis on an individual, rather than a collective, voice. By
arguing that language and allusions to ordinary experience had a place in
literaturethat zoku could exist comfortably and legitimately within the
confines of gathey gave support to the notion that commoners have
———
27
28
Horikiri, pp. 338–341.
SatŇ, p. 97.
34
CHAPTER ONE
an equal share in the production of literature, something that for most of
Japanese history had been the exclusive privilege of members of social
elites.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by making a “return to BashŇ”
the centerpiece of their arguments for reform, the Revival poets created
the underpinnings of a view of haikai history that has remained basically
intact up to the present day, one which regards the work of BashŇ and
the BashŇ school as definitive of the entire genre. While in later decades
the prestige of haikai rose and fell, BashŇ retained his position of
primacy. This was true even despite the zealous efforts of the genre’s
most energetic modern reformer, Masaoka Shiki, to gainsay the reverence which his contemporaries showed to BashŇ: in the twenty-first
century, most readers continue to regard the work of BashŇ and the
BashŇ school as the supreme expression of haikai.
In the following chapter, we will take a closer look at the ways that
Buson’s efforts to create an identity for himself in the larger community
of literati poets and painters helped shape his haikai.
CHAPTER TWO
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE:
ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
Yosa Buson’s role as a leader of the Revival movement makes him a
good subject for a study of the processes that fostered it. Buson found
the Revival movement both a source of support and unease, one that he
both depended on and resisted. I will start my investigation of Buson’s
position within the movement with a brief overview of the events of his
life, and then turn to a exploration of his relationship with his audience. I
conclude this discussion with an examination of an document that gives
insight into the ways that Buson managed his anxiety about this relationship: the preface to the Shundei verse anthology, a text that shows the close
linkages between Chinese poetic theory and the Revival movement.
Buson was born in 1716 in Kema, now a suburb of Osaka. Around
1735, when he was 20 years old, he moved to Edo. In Edo, he first took
up the study of haikai with Edo-school poet Uchida Senzan ౝ↰ᴩጊ
(d. 1758) and soon afterward joining the school of Hayano Hajin
ᣧ㊁Ꮙੱ (1676–1742), a follower of BashŇ disciples Takarai Kikaku
and Hattori Ransetsu. Hajin called his school Yahantei After Hajin died
in 1742, Buson spent the next decade or so traveling around northeastern Japan. His base was the home of Yahantei disciple Isaoka GantŇ
⍾ጟ㓵ቪ (d. 1773) in ShimŇsa Province, modern Ibaraki Prefecture,
but he also made visits to other poets and art collectors all around the
northeast. He once undertook a longer trip to retrace the route of
BashŇ’s 1689 journey that was the basis for the haikai travel journal
Narrow road to the interior (Oku no hosomichi ᅏߩ⚦㆏). He also made
occasional visits to Edo and probably attended lectures on Chinese
poetry at the school of Ogyş Sorai disciple Hattori Nankaku. The main
focus of his activities during this period was to teach himself painting
and sell what work he could, and Hajin’s disciples provided him with a
ready-made set of contacts on whom he could rely.1
———
1 The information in this section comes from several sources: Tanaka Yoshinobu,
Yosa Buson (Yoshikawa KŇbunkan, 1996); Yamashita Kazumi, Giyş no haijin Yosa Buson;
(Shintensha, 1986); Fujita Shinichi, Buson; and Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu.
36
CHAPTER TWO
Buson left ShimŇsa around 1751, and returned to western Japan. He
spent several years in Kyoto trying to establish his painting business.
Hajin had spent time in Kyoto and had many disciples there also, so
Buson was not without friends. He first took up with senior Yahantei
disciple Mochizuki SŇoku ᦸ᦬ቡደ (1688–1766), a Kyoto poet who
counted among his other students Miyake ShŇzan and ChŇmu, both of
whom were to later play an important role in the BashŇ Revival movement. However, Buson was not able to find a secure foothold in Kyoto
immediately, and in 1754 he moved to Miyazu in Tango Province
(modern HyŇgŇ Prefecture) in search of more amenable client prospects.
He met with success as a painter here, but did not compose much haikai.
From 1757 onward Buson lived in Kyoto except for a three-year trip
to Sanuki, Shikoku (1766–1769). His painting business grew steadily and
he was very active as a haikai poet as well. He married a woman named
Tomo; as he took the surname Yosa around this time, scholars have
speculated that it may have been hers. Commissions began to grow in
number, and several patrons even clubbed together to help him secure
the materials to folding screens. (byŇbu-e ዳ㘑⛗) for each of them. In
1766 Buson and several of his acquaintances—including painting clients
from this folding-screen club and friends such as Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi ShŇha—formed Sankasha, a haikai study group whose purpose was
to explore poetic topics that had fallen out of use in that time. Partly
because of the success of Sankasha, Buson reopened the Yahantei school
in 1770, formalizing his succession to his teacher Hajin’s title. The most
prominent member of Yahantei was Takai KitŇ, and together the two
poets cooperated at various levels to make this group one of the most
important centers of haikai activity in the Kamigata area.
Buson’s leadership of Yahantei was reluctant at best; he delayed its
opening until he was fifty-five years old, and even then he was never
particularly aggressive in promoting it. The Yahantei collections that he
edited tended to be small and limited to the circle of his own acquaintance. The best example is Blossoms and birds collection (KachŇ hen ⧎㠽▻,
1782) that includes not only the verses of Yahantei school members but
also kabuki actors and courtesans. Buson left to KitŇ the work of
compiling the group’s major anthologies: Light of the snow (Sono yuki kage
౔㔐ᓇ, 1772), Dawn crow (Akegarasu ޽ߌὖ, 1773) and Sequel to dawn
crow (Zoku akegarasu ⛯᣿ὖ, 1776). In contrast to Buson’s, KitŇ’s
Yahantei collections were large, comprehensive affairs that included
works by large numbers of poets both inside and outside of Yahantei,
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
37
especially those identified with the Revival movement, including KyŇtai,
Chora, Bakusui, ChŇmu, Kaga no Chiyo ട⾐ජઍ (1703–1775) and
RyŇta. KitŇ was an extremely able publicity manager, and his efforts
were instrumental in establishing Buson as his generation’s major haikai
poet.
Despite his pose of indifference to making a name for himself as a
professional poet, Buson was extremely active in the haikai community
from the 1770s until the end of his life. In addition to correcting his
disciples’ verses and taking part in regular gatherings that were a normal
part of any haikai school, he authored numerous prefaces to others’
collections as well. He also composed highly original and unconventional
works such as the haishi “Song of the spring wind on Kema Embankment” (Shunpş batei no kyoku ᤐ㘑㚍ႇᦛ) and “Yodo River songs”
(Denga ka ᶰᎹ᱌, both published 1777), and compiled the verse and
prose collection New flower gathering (Shin hanatsumi ᣂ⧎ߟߺ, 1777) and
the remarkable linked verse sequences of Peaches and plums (Momosumomo
߽߽ߔ߽߽, 1780).2
At the same time, Buson was also active in a broader context, taking
part in numerous events commemorating BashŇ, including painting
scrolls and screens on themes related to BashŇ, haikai gatherings at
Gichş-ji temple (the site of BashŇ’s grave), and the construction of the
BashŇ Hermitage (BashŇ-an) at Konpuku-ji temple. These reached a
climax in the years between 1780 and 1784, in anticipation of the 1794
centenary of BashŇ’s death. Buson was an enthusiastic participant in
these activities right up until a few months before his own death in 1783,
and BashŇ and his example was very much on his mind as his life drew
to a close. As we have seen, even then, at the end of a long and impressive career, Buson remained concerned with creating a poetic legacy that
would outlive him, and living up to a standard that would impress his
audience in the present and in the future.
———
2 The appendix include full translations of Buson’s three haishi, the prose portion of
New flower gathering, and the Peaches and plums sequence that is not included in the main
text.
38
CHAPTER TWO
Buson and his Audience
Who, then, was Buson’s audience? Who were the readers he was
conscious of as he struggled to uphold BashŇ’s ideals? Where did he
encounter his supporters and detractors, and how did he negotiate his
status within the haikai community? I will examine these issues in some
detail, first describing the nature of Buson’s audience, and then by
discussing several strategies that he used to manage the anxiety that
tinged his relationship with it.
Buson’s audience included an eclectic group of acquaintances, disciples, fellow poets, and others connected with the haikai industry. In the
first place, there were his patrons. These were usually wealthy commoners who provided him with shelter, money, or other compensation in
exchange for paintings or tuition. Also, there were close colleagues and
disciples with the haikai groups to which he belonged, such as Sankasha
and Yahantei. Although the distinction between patrons, disciples, and
friends were often blurry, there were some associates for whom Buson
had particular affection and a sense of common purpose who served as
his mentors and collaborators. Outside of this close group were other
poets with whom Buson’s relationships were somewhat more problematic, as they were allies in the Revival movement but rivals nonetheless.
Beyond them was a diverse population of publishers, booksellers, and
haikai poets from outside Buson’s area. Many of the publications that
featured Buson’s work were privately printed and circulated mostly
among the poets whose work it contained, but larger collections could
hope to attract the attention of readers who had no personal affiliation
with the editor or school that produced it.
With the exception of mentors and close friends like Hajin, ShŇha,
Taigi, and KitŇ, Buson’s views on his audience were generally ambivalent, and ranged from tolerance at one end of the spectrum to antagonism on the other. This ambivalence may account for a number of
behaviors that can be viewed as defensive strategies against the power of
his audience. First, he was careful to create and maintain a public
persona, one that both concealed the facts about his family background
at the same time as it established his connections to a literary lineage that
reached back to BashŇ. Second, he defended his position by robustly
criticizing other poets—professional verse markers, amateur haikai
aficionados, even poets who were his allies in the Back to BashŇ
movement. Finally, he was very elusive on the subject of his own poetic
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
39
principles, defending his flexibility and changeableness of style as
keeping in touch with the times, even as he sought to recreate within his
own verse lost worlds of the Chinese and Japanese literary past.
In the first place, Buson took pains to conceal the facts of his birth
and parentage. While most authors are concerned with their public
image, Buson’s efforts to control knowledge of his origins stand out
precisely because he has been so closely associated with a mood of
longing for a lost past, a reputation established in the early twentieth
century by Hagiwara SakutarŇ’s Poet of nostalgia: Yosa Buson (KyŇshş no
shijin Yosa Buson ㇹᗜߩ⹞ੱਈ⻢⭢᧛, 1936). References to Buson’s
birth and childhood are scant. KitŇ’s brief biography of Buson in
“Account of Elder Yahan’s Final Days” was notably circumspect and
seems to have been deliberately suppressed information. An early draft
states that Buson was born in the area near Naniwazu (i.e., Osaka) in the
house of a village elder (mura osa no ie ᧛㐳ߩኅ) but these words were
crossed out, the place name changed to Naniwa-e (Naniwa river mouth)
and “elder” amended to “villager” (gŇmin ㇹ᳃). The final version omits
the reference altogether. KitŇ’s reasons for doing this are not clear, but it
seems likely that Buson’s family background lacked prestige. 3
Buson’s reluctance to advertise his family connections may have had a
specific cause: Tamiya Chşsen ↰ችખት (d. 1816) writes in the zuihitsu
㓐╩ (miscellany) Random lazy jottings (Okotari gusa 㡆๭⍬⨲ 1806) that
Buson left home out of shame after he had squandered his inheritance:
(Yoshida) KenkŇ said, “You may know a person’s heart by the furnishings
he owns.”4 Indeed, the paintings of this haikai poet Buson are greatly admired. I do not know what to say is the reason. When the ancients cherished paintings, first they spoke of the artist’s virtue, and then they praised
his ability. This Buson squandered the inheritance that his father left him,
and placed himself in a realm of frivolousness, distancing himself from the
gods, Buddhas, and sages, and became a dilettante who threw away his
name and dragged himself into vulgarity (zoku).5
Another theory is that Buson left the area because of natural disasters:
several floods and famines struck the area between 1721 and 1735.
———
3
Tanaka, pp. 4–5.
Yoshida KenkŇ ศ↰౗ᅢ was the author of Tsurezuregusa ᓤὼ⨲ (ca. 1330). Chşsen
refers to Section 10, “Indeed, one can tell the character of a person from the house he
dwells in.” Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of KenkŇ, trans. Donald Keene (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 10.
5 Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei Henshşbu, ed., Nihon zuihitsu taisei, vol. 10 (Nihon Zuihitsu
Taisei KankŇkai, 1928–1929), p. 236.
4
40
CHAPTER TWO
However, Buson himself said little about his upbringing and youth, so it
is not known whether or not this is true. In any case, he kept his past a
secret. His only direct reference to his early life survives in a letter he
wrote to two female disciples, Ryşjo ᩉᅚ and Gazui ⾐ℰ, which states
that he spent his childhood in Kema, a village in Settsu Province, now a
suburb of Osaka. He noted this detail in order to provide a context for
his haishi “Verse on the Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment.”6 This
poem takes the voice of a young serving woman returning home from
Osaka to Kema, and some scholars have speculated that he based its
persona on memories of his own mother. Whatever his actual parentage
was, no documents exist where he acknowledges it.
Figure 1
“Group portrait of haikai sages,” detail. Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko.
———
6 ņtani TokuzŇ et al., eds., Buson shokan shş (Iwanami Shoten, 1992), pp. 188–189.
Henceforth Buson shokan shş is abbreviated as BSS in the notes.
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
41
Buson was more keen to create evidence for his poetic ancestry than his
biological one. A striking statement of this kind is his earliest extant
painting, “Group portrait of haikai sages,” completed while he was in the
northeast (Figure 1). The painting depicts a group of fourteen haikai
poets from the genre’s beginnings. The earliest are Arakida Moritake
⨹ᧁ↰቞ᱞ (1473–1549) and Yamazaki SŇkan ጊፒቬ㐓 (late fifteenth–early sixteenth centuries); BashŇ and his disciples Kikaku and
Ransetsu are also included. The most recent poet represented is Buson’s
own teacher, Hajin.7 “Group portrait of haikai sages” is a visual work of
genealogy, linking Buson’s teacher Hajin with a set of eminent poetic
ancestors. It is an important document in the Revival movement,
because it suggests that even at this point, many poets understood
haikai’s history as a narrative with BashŇ at its center, setting the stage
for a “return to BashŇ.” At the same time, the painting also serves to
establish a lineage for Buson himself. While Buson’s own image does not
appear, the painting implies that, as Hajin’s disciple, Buson also becomes
a successor to an illustrious line.
Buson’s statements in memorial volumes in honor of Hajin such as
Far in the west (Nishi no oku ⷏ߩᅏ, 1742) and Make the past present
(Mukashi o ima ᤄࠍ੹, 1774) also reinforce the relationship between
Buson and Hajin. While it was customary for haikai poets to commemorate their teachers with such collections, Buson’s comments to these
works suggest a special intimacy with his teacher, and imply that Hajin
acknowledged Buson’s extraordinary promise:
Not long ago Hajin rescued me from my solitude, and lavished on me an elderly
man’s compassion. Surely we had some connection in a previous existence. Now
there is nothing to do to ease my sorrow that he has gone away and will never return. My heart is full and I cannot think of anything to say.
waga namida
furuku wa aredo
izumi kana
my tears may be old
but they are still
a wellspring8
Aside from trying to conceal his past and create links to a prestigious
haikai lineage, Buson was also quite critical of other poets in response to
what he perceived as their hostile attitude toward him. For instance, in
later life he looked back on his youthful days in Edo and describes them
———
7
8
BZ, vol. 6, p.42.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 82–83. The hokku is in BZ, vol. 1, no. 9.
42
CHAPTER TWO
as troubled, as if his poetic style made him unwelcome in the environment in which he found himself. KitŇ’s unpublished manuscript related
to the composition of the Peaches and plums sequences quotes Buson as
saying:
Long ago, I was in Edo, and I searched for the inner teachings of the Master BashŇ, and the verse which I wrote was elegant and refined; mainly, I
aspired to the lofty style of Empty chestnuts and Winter day. However, the
people of the world did not know that kind of excellence. At that time, I
was around 27 years old, not yet past my youth, but because my verse style
had the quality of agedness the people of the world looked at me as if I
were an enemy. Once someone said to me by way of advice, ‘Haikai is
humorous, its main attribute is to make harmony between people and be
amusing. The kind of eccentric thing you’re doing deviates from that basic
essence. Why don’t you abandon this and give into human feeling?’ I listened to these words, and, coming to a realization, I finally went to the
northeast and spent some time traveling around.9
“My verse style had the quality of agedness” (kuhŇ no oitaru o mote
ฏᴺߩ⠧޿ߚࠆࠍ߽ߡ) suggests that Buson’s colleagues regard his
work as too mature for someone his age to be writing, and not appropriate for a young poet in the trend-conscious city of Edo. The passage
continues, saying that on his travels Buson learned to imitate whatever
style was fashionable with the locals, but this early bitter experience
seems to have lingered with him even after he became an established
poet.
Buson’s sense that other members of the community regarded him as
an “enemy” may explain why many of his early writings contain statements that take an antagonistic posture, attacking the verse of other
poets as inferior. A particularly damning statement is included in Buson’s
preface to MŇotsu’s Ძ⿧ (dates unknown) Ancient and modern poetry card
anthology (Kokon tanzaku shş ฎ੹⍴ౠ㓸, 1751), a collection of verses by
poets of the past and present, printed in the form of reproductions of
the poets’ original calligraphy:
Nowadays those who are prominent in haikai have different approaches to
the various styles, castigating this one and scorning that one, and they
thrust out their elbows and puff out their cheeks, proclaiming themselves
haikai masters. They will flatter the rich, and cause the small-minded [i.e.,
tentori poets] to run wild, and compile anthologies that list numerous unpolished verses. Those who really know haikai frown and throw them
———
9
BZ, vol. 7, p. 254.
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
43
away. Indeed, old priest Sainen-bŇ ⷏ᔨဌ uses their verses to patch his
paper coverlet at night, and old nun MyŇshin-ni ᅱᔃዦ uses them to label her jars of miso; is this not a disgrace?10
MŇotsu’s collection aimed to reinvigorate interest in the work of haikai
poets of the past, giving examples not only of their haikai but also of
their handwriting, which shows them to be superior to the common type
of haikai practitioner of the day. Buson heartily agrees with MŇotsu,
coming down in severe judgment of the currently popular haikai style
and of its purveyors, whom he characterizes as self-important, greedy,
and ignorant. Elsewhere he castigates traveling verse markers who go
from place to place peddling inferior teaching.
Buson did not limit his censure to professional haikai poets; he also
took a very unsympathetic view of the talentless amateurs around him.
For example, in a letter to ShŇzan sent from Tango, Buson declares that,
“I haven’t written much haikai since I’ve been here, because I can’t find
anyone worth working with.”11 Even the poets of Kyoto, for centuries
Japan’s capital of culture and refinement, did not escape Buson’s scorn:
In any event, the hearts of people in Kyoto are the worst in all Japan. For
a long time I did not think so, but after I started practicing haikai, more
and more I find this to be the case. I have traveled over half of Japan, and
the merits and faults of the human heart are as clear to me as if I could
point to them in the palm of my hand.12
Buson wrote this in a letter to KitŇ, who was the target of some unspecified criticism or blame from other Yahantei members soon after the
group formed in 1770. Whatever the circumstances, this letter and others
make it clear that Buson felt he had few equals in Kyoto, but that KitŇ
was one of them. These statements of superiority should be balanced
against the many in which Buson expresses the worry that his haikai is
not very good. Whatever his true feelings might have been about his own
abilities, there is ample evidence that shows that he regarded almost
everyone around him as his inferior.
Buson reserves some of his most hostile criticism for poets of rural
BashŇ schools; that is to say, the people who should have been his
closest allies. Generally speaking, he disapproved most strongly of the
poets of the Ise and Mino schools. The following passage appears in his
———
10 BZ, vol. 4, p. 90. Sainen-bŇ and MyŇshin-ni are typical clerical names; they refer to
no one in particular.
11 BSS, pp. 25–26.
12 BSS, pp. 58–59.
44
CHAPTER TWO
Rules for selection (ShukuhŇ ขฏᴺ, 1771), a set of guidelines worked out
to direct procedure at Yahantei meetings:
There are those in the world who call themselves ShŇmon (the BashŇ
school). In particular they do not know the style of Master BashŇ. The
verses that they compose as well as what they theorize about do not get
beyond the level of Shibaku (Rural BashŇ school) commonness. There are
times when these are called Ise School or Mino School. How can we call
them ShŇmon? People in the know call them by the nickname Backwoods
BashŇ school. 13
The rural BashŇ poets came in for the most biting criticism in part
because they were vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy, as many poets
associated with these schools taught a watered-down version of BashŇ’s
teachings—simplified so as to appeal to unsophisticated country people.
In essence what they were doing was little different from what tentori
haikai poets were doing, although as ostensible followers of BashŇ, they
should have known better. Another reason for Buson’s hostility was that
the rural BashŇ poets were also the rivals of the urban poets, to whose
lineage Buson’s teacher Hajin belonged. And though Buson acknowledges that the urban poets were not as good as BashŇ himself (in one
document he calls them “half as good”), he thought that the rural school
poets were vastly worse—”only one tenth as good” as BashŇ.
Buson’s letters also testify to a private ambivalence even towards
writers like Ueda Akinari ਄↰⑺ᚑ (1734–1809), Chora and KyŇtai,
who were strongly supportive of his aims to bring back haikai to the high
standards set for it by BashŇ. While letters addressed directly to these
people praise them and express wishes for further cooperation, Buson
shows a different side in others. One letter alludes to a rumor going
around the community that Buson and Chora both looked down on each
other’s verse, and makes haste to deny it.14 Another uncompromisingly
refers to KyŇtai as “narrow-minded.”15
The third strategy Buson used to manage his public image was to
avoid definitive statements on the subject of his own poetic style. While
he did not hesitate to point out others’ mistakes, with one notable
exception, the preface to Shundei verse anthology, he was imprecise in his
prescriptions for good haikai to the point where it appears that he was
afraid of being pinned down by critics. One passage that offers insight
———
13
BZ, vol. 4, p. 113.
BSS, pp. 59–60.
15 Ibid., p. 309.
14
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
45
into Buson’s attitude about the power of the audience to shape a poet’s
work through acts of interpretation is included in New flower gathering, in
which he warns his readers against being too hasty in setting out in print
a definitive edition of one’s work:
I think it is better not to publish hokku collections. After a collection is
published, one’s reputation always diminishes immediately. One cannot
help feeling that works like the Ransetsu anthology (GenbŇshş ₵ፄ㓸) and
the Otsuyş anthology (Bakurinshş 㤈ᨋ㓸) did not serve the reputation of
their authors. Why should we even discuss those of mediocre poets?16
As this statement shows, Buson was acutely conscious of the power of
the reading public to pass judgment on a living author, anticipating that
even in the best of cases poets can expect their value to plummet as the
reality of their shortcomings is exposed in print. Haikai poets commonly
published work in group collections showcasing the work of poets of a
single school or compiled for another specific reason by an editor.
Individual verse collections were rarer. Buson did not publish an
individual verse collection during his lifetime; Buson verse anthology (Buson
kushş ⭢᧛ฏ㓸, 1784), edited by KitŇ, came out after his death.
Other writings sound like a pre-emptive defense against a charge that
his poetic style was somehow inappropriate. He describes his verse as
being “in step with the times” or “in response to the setting.” One such
example is the inscription to a painting of the famous landscape of Amano-hashidate in Tango. He writes of his friendship with the painter
Sakaki Hyakusen, where he almost takes a stance on his own style, but
then defers:
We both amuse ourselves with haikai poetry, tracing our lineages back to
BashŇ. Hyakusen is a disciple of Renji’s ⬒ੑ (i.e., ShikŇ’s) style, but is not
a member of the Renji faction. I studied Shinshi’s ᤯ሶ (i.e., Kikaku’s)
teachings but do not imitate Shinshi. Thus if we fall in the river let it be
so, let’s take one step up from the top of the hundred-foot pole. We are
like that, neither of us has any interest in making a name for himself in the
haikai world.17
This kind of evasiveness is echoed in other passages. In the memorial
anthology Make the past present, Buson puts the words into the mouth of
his teacher, “Changing with the times, transforming with the times in a
———
16 Ransetsu and Otsuyş were prominent poets of the urban and rural BashŇ schools,
respectively. BZ, vol. 4, p. 59.
17 BZ, vol. 4, p. 95.
46
CHAPTER TWO
spontaneous manner, disregarding what has existed before or what may
come into being later is the way it should be.”18 Some years later, in the
preface to the linked verse collection Peaches and plums, he introduces an
unnamed interlocutor to speak for his anticipated critics:
At one time, this work consisted of four sequences, one for each of the
four seasons. Spring and Autumn were lost, leaving only Summer and
Winter. Someone suggested that I should get it carved in wood (i.e., published); someone else cautioned me, saying “It’s been a long time since
these sequences were composed, and no doubt they are out of date compared to what is now fashionable.” I laughed and said, “The greatness of
haikai is that in truth it has change, and in truth it is without change; for
example, it is similar to going around a racetrack, running after people. It
is like those running ahead are somehow chasing after those coming up
behind. How can one know the difference between “ahead” and “behind”
in change? I just express the things in my heart day by day; today it is the
haikai of today, tomorrow, the haikai of tomorrow.19
This preface was written at around the same time as KitŇ’s draft cited
above, where Buson is quoted as remembering Edo as full of enemies,
and so their similarity not surprising. However, all of these passages
indicate that Buson is wary of critics who might regard his verse as
antiquated, as insufficiently like his teacher’s, or unfashionable. He
argues that his verse is unlike most people’s because his ideals are higher
than other people’s—he is trying not to stay up to date with what others
are doing, but to create an authentic expression of his own experience.
Buson’s relationship with the BashŇ Revival was a complex one: he
was both apart from the movement and a part of it. On the one hand,
for Buson, the pose of returning to BashŇ was not just a matter of
slavishly imitating his predecessor’s poetic style. Rather, he responded to
BashŇ’s example in a way that was informed by the cultural discourse of
the mid-eighteenth century—one that was quite different from that of
the Genroku period in which BashŇ was active. Buson’s verse was
distinguished by a pervasive nostalgia for both an idealized Japanese past
and an imagined China, a sense of gloom and frustration with the social
and political conditions of the day—which he, like many of his contemporaries, met with a desire for escape—and a playful delight in the
fantastic, the fictional, and the grotesque. On the other hand, Buson
shared with other Revival poets some key values: one, an uncompromis-
———
18
19
BZ, vol. 4, p. 140.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 193–194.
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
47
ing attitude towards haikai as a legitimate form of literary activity, the
equivalent of waka or renga; two, (at least nominally) the denial of desire
for profit and professional advancement; and three, a careful, scholarly
attitude towards creating and preserving a canon of texts—in this case,
the works of BashŇ and members of his lineage.
The Revival movement had its origins in conflicting pressures that
had been central to haikai since its inception: the ongoing efforts of
haikai poets to claim legitimacy for their genre, and its steady growth in
popularity, which was accompanied by commercialization. These
pressures were related to a more aesthetic issue: the friction between ga
and zoku that was fundamental to haikai. The interplay between ga and
zoku also expressed itself on a social level, as the aspirations of haikai
poets—most of whom were commoners—to higher status, despite the
fact that their genre was inevitably grounded in the commonplace by
language and other generic characteristics.
The aspirations of haikai poets were linked to more general trends
within the society, particularly to the efforts of a variety of intellectuals
to reclaim an idealized past, to create canons of texts that could serve as
a source of authority, and to transcend the mundane world through a
deep engagement with the arts. This was particularly true of the large
numbers of sinophile scholars, artists, poets and connoisseurs who were
associated with what can broadly be termed as the culture of the bunjin,
or literatus. Despite the fact that haikai was a native Japanese poetic
genre, its was closely linked with the world of sinophile intellectuals that
flourished in this period, and the BashŇ Revival owed much to the ideas
and notions that circulated within it.
Transcending the Ordinary: Buson and the Revival Movement
A good way to get a closer look at the ideas behind the Revival movement is to examine one of its most representative texts, Buson’s preface
to the Shundei verse anthology that was published in 1777 when the movement was at its height. While Buson’s statements on poetics are numerous, they tend to take the form of short, focused comments on verses
that disciples sent to him for correction. He was not in the habit of
writing extensive works of abstract theory, nor did his disciples create
collections of his teachings like BashŇ’s students did. Thus the Shundei
48
CHAPTER TWO
verse anthology preface—the closest Buson comes to writing a poetic
treatise—is an important document.
The Shundei verse anthology was a book of verses collected to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the death of Buson’s friend and
disciple Kuroyanagi ShŇha. ShŇha’s son Korekoma edited the anthology,
and asked Buson to provide the preface. Of Buson’s disciples, ShŇha
was among those with the strongest ties to the literate, sinophilic culture
that engendered the ideal of the bunjin. ShŇha’s grandfather had attended
the KogidŇ academy of Ogyş Sorai’s mentor, ItŇ Jinsai; his father was a
waka poet. ShŇha himself was well educated in Chinese studies through
his training with Hattori Nankaku and Tatsu SŇro. He developed an
interest in haikai later in life and started working with Buson in the
1760s. ShŇha was also a keen collector of Buson’s paintings, and
sometimes acted as a go-between in some of Buson’s business transactions. He died in 1771, soon after Buson established his Yahantei
school.20
Shundei verse anthology preface is styled as a series of conversations
Buson had with ShŇha in the manner of a mondŇ ໧╵, or Buddhist
dialogue. It shows that Buson’s views on haikai were heavily influenced
by the discourse of the bunjin ideal; it addresses the question of the haikai
community’s factionalization; and it argues that the essence of good
haikai is in separating oneself as much as possible from the realm of the
commonplace and commercial, valuing in their stead a striving for
elegance and transcendence. This last point is what has come to be called
Buson’s theory of distancing haikai from the mundane, or rizokuron
㔌ଶ⺰.
In the opening, ShŇha asks Buson about haikai, and Buson answers:
Haikai is that which has as its ideal the use of zokugo (ordinary language),
yet transcends zoku (the ordinary world). To transcend zoku yet make use
of zoku, the method of rizoku (transcending the ordinary), is most difficult.
It is the thing that So-and-So Zen master spoke of: ‘Listen to the sound of
the Single Hand,’ in other words haikai Zen, the principle of rizoku 㔌ଶ.21
Buson argues that the essence of good haikai is in separating oneself
from and transcending the zoku realm, but retaining zoku language.
Because haikai is intrinsically zoku, Buson’s recommendation is paradoxi-
———
20 Ebara TaizŇ, “ShŇha,” in Ebara TaizŇ chosaku shş, vol. 13 (ChşŇ KŇronsha, 1979),
pp. 294–308.
21 BZ, vol. 4, p. 172.
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
49
cal. This is why he calls it “haikai Zen,” likening it to a kŇan or a riddle
that has no solution, a device often used in Rinzai (Chinese Linji) Zen
practice to help students get beyond their attachment to rational
thinking. In less mystical terms, Buson reminds ShŇha that while haikai
can never be without zoku language, that is no reason for haikai poets to
sink into vulgarity, either in their work or in their conduct as poets.
ShŇha pressed Buson for an explanation of this seemingly selfcontradictory statement, asking if there was not a more direct route to
improving his haikai. Buson’s response here, too, is surprising. “Yes,” he
answers, “the study of Chinese poetry. You have been studying Chinese
poetry for years. Do not seek for another way.” When ShŇha expressed
puzzlement, Buson elaborated, drawing on an example from his other
area of expertise, painting:
Painters have the theory of ‘Avoiding zoku:’ ‘To avoid the zoku in painting,
there is no other way but to read many texts, that is to say, both books
and scrolls, which causes the ki ᳇ (Chinese qi, life energy) to rise, as
commercialism and vulgarity cause ki to fall. The student should be careful about this.’ To avoid zoku in painting as well, they caused their students to put down the brush and read books.22
Here Buson refers to the early Qing (1644–1911) Mustard seed garden
manual of painting ⧂ሶ࿦↹વ (Japanese Keshien gaden, Chinese Jieziyuan
huazhuan), compiled by Wang Gai ₺᭎ (1645–1707). The Mustard seed
garden manual was first published in the late seventeenth century in Japan,
and proved so popular that it was reprinted in 1748. It was particularly
influential among nanga artists. The passage that Buson paraphrases,
“Avoiding the banal” (෰ଶ) emphasizes the destructive influence of
commercialism on the ki of artists; reading literary classics, it argues, is
the best way to counteract this poisonous force:
In painting, it is better to be inexperienced (young in ch’i) than stupid. It is
better to be audacious than commonplace. If the brush is hesitant, it cannot be lively; if commonplace, it most likely will produce only banalities. If
one aims to avoid the banal, there is no other way but to study more assiduously both books and scrolls to encourage the spirit (ch’i) to rise, for
when the vulgar and the commonplace dominate, the ch’i subsides. The
beginner should be hopeful and careful to encourage the ch’i to rise. 23
———
22
Ibid., p. 172.
Mai-mai Sze, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: Chieh Tzu Yüan Chuan,
1679–1701, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 34. Ch’i is the WadeGiles romanization of qi.
23
50
CHAPTER TWO
Later, ShŇha asked which of the many haikai factions that were active at
the time was the best choice for achieving what he called the “innermost
teaching.” This would seem to have offered a self-serving person an
opening to promote his own method, but Buson shows much more
finesse:
In haikai there are no gates and doors... ‘The various painting masters did
not divide into gates or build doors. Gates and doors exist in themselves.’
Haikai is just like this too. Learn exhaustively each tradition, and keep
these in your mind, and you yourself will choose the best from among
them, and make use of it according to the occasion.24
By “gates and doors,” Buson refers to the different factions that were
active in the haikai community. The Chinese painting masters, he points
out, recognized that loyalty to the teachings and style of any single group
restricted an artist’s development. Rather than worrying about upholding
a specific literary orthodoxy, Buson says, good haikai poets learn what
they can from a variety of sources, and do not let their devotion to a
particular tradition cloud their judgment. The notion that one should
change one’s style “according to the occasion” frequently occurs in
Buson’s description of his poetic goals. That is to say, he makes a virtue
of his unwillingness to commit to a particular style.
Furthermore, his mention of factions and the desirability of avoiding
entanglements with them testifies to the fact that there was a great deal
of competition in the haidan, and that poets did well to worry more
about their verse than their standing in any one of them. He goes on to
say, again referring to the world of Chinese art, that one can learn even
from bad examples, thus making clear the Yahantei school’s antipathy
towards rural BashŇ poets at the same time as acknowledging that even
they provide opportunities for learning.
Buson also describes in detail the kind of life a haikai poet should
lead. Most importantly, he says, one must choose the right companions.
“I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in SodŇ,
and accompanying Onitsura,” naming three BashŇ disciples and the
idealistic Uejima Onitsura ਄ፉ㝩⽾(1661–1738) as the best friends that
a poet could have. Of course, all four were long dead, and Buson is really
repeating the recommendation to “read books and scrolls” that he made
above, but here the classics are not those of Chinese literature, such as
the authors of the Mustard seed garden manual or their Japanese bunjin
———
24
BZ, vol. 4, p. 173.
BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
51
followers would have imagined, but the work of exemplary haikai poets
of the past. What is notable here is that in designating these poets as
“right companions,” Buson is creating an orthodoxy for haikai, in which
the proper models are not poets of classical elite genres. It may seem
obvious that aspiring haikai poets should emulate other haikai poets.
However, this was a formative phase of the genre’s development, and
Buson’s words here are in line with the direction that later forces of
canonization would take: these four poets remain central figures in later
configurations of haikai history.
Afterwards, Buson continues his admonitions, stating that one
“should separate oneself from the realm of fame and fortune,” enjoy
nature, wine, and witty conversation, and let poems come into the mind
spontaneously, without trying to force them. The behavior that Buson
describes here is precisely the one that admirers of the bunjin sought for
formation themselves; only here he presents it as the most conducive
climate for producing haikai.
The Shundei verse anthology preface is a significant document because
despite its brevity, it touches on a number of issues that were important
to the BashŇ Revival movement and indeed to the literary discourse of
the late eighteenth century more generally. These issues relate to the
identity of the writer in an era when developments in education,
publishing, and political and economic structures conspired to create an
expanding market of readers whose values and expectations were
different from those of the educated elites of the past. Its central
message, that excellence in writing was a consequence of withdrawal
from competition for commercial success, was a direct response to the
popularization of haikai. It suggests that the efforts of Revival poets like
Buson to find a standard for their verse that neutralized the effects of
zokuthe ordinary, everyday worldwas related to a desire to define an
identity that transcended their lower social status. While few haikai
theorists after Buson were to so explicitly identify haikai and Chinese art
and literature as Buson does in the preface to Shundei verse anthology, the
close connection he makes between poetry and painting continued to be
one of haikai’s central tenets.
In the next chapter, I will begin discussing Buson’s hokku, or seventeen-syllable verse, exploring the ways in which the keen awareness that
Buson shows in Shundei verse anthology of pressures on haikai poets
affected his formation as a poet and his early forays into hokku.
CHAPTER THREE
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION
OF A POET: HOKKU 1740–1770
Buson’s hokku do not lend themselves well to interpretive approaches
that assume a close, transparent connection between the narrative
contexts they create and the events of his life. One of the reasons for
this is particular to Buson: his distrust of his audience and careful efforts
to create a public persona did not create the conditions that might have
led to autobiographical poetry. However, the distance between art and
life that we see in Buson’s verse is common to that of other haikai poets,
and is actually an intrinsic part of the genre as a whole.
A major reason that haikai is so poorly suited to biographical analysis
is its communality. In its most basic form, the linked verse sequence, it
was a collaboration where poets wrote spontaneous responses to others’
compositions. Linked verse demanded a high degree of flexibility, as
those working in this form could not predict what kind of verse they
would be expected to contribute when their turn in the sequence came.
Hokku—originally the starting verse of a sequence—were also composed
in group settings, and typically they were written in response on dai 㗴 or
topics that were chosen by the group leader either in advance of a
gathering or there on the spot. Consequently, even hokku that appear to
be expressions of some personal experience often turn out to have been
written as one of many on the same topic, in the company of other poets
who were all working on it too.
For this reason, the emotions expressed within a verse are not a reliable indication of what was going on in its author’s life. Of course, to
argue that there is no connection between haikai and the inner life of the
people who wrote it would be overstating the case. Nevertheless, in
discussing the work of any haikai poet it is important to avoid the
assumption that it offers a direct means of access to his or her emotions
or psychological states.
Furthermore, while the communal and occasional nature of haikai
makes a biographical approach problematic in any case, Buson’s
deliberate elusiveness on the subject of his personal life makes him an
especially poor candidate for this sort of analysis. Because his writing
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
53
makes almost no reference to his natal family or his youth, it is very hard
to tease out the relationship between his verse and his experience in the
first part of his career. Even in his later years, after he established his
reputation as a painter and a poet, the connections between the world
created in his verse and the events of his life are indirect at best. Thus, it
is possible to view many aspects of Buson’s verse as part of a pattern of
deliberate efforts to construct a public identity and control information
that might influence the reception of his work.
Finally, Buson’s verse constructs an alternate world, in which the
everyday realities of life are transformed into a landscape drawn from
imagination and the literary tradition. As we shall see in this chapter, a
notable characteristic of many Buson hokku is their ability to create the
sense of an entire fictional narrative in the brief space of seventeen
syllables, transporting the scene to Heian or medieval Japan, or to a
setting derived from Chinese poetry or history. Alternatively, other hokku
describe landscapes with such remote detachment and apparent objectivity that interpreters of Buson in the Meiji era like Masaoka Shiki,
heralded him as a forerunner of objective realism in modern haiku. In
short, Buson’s verse demands that readers look beyond the details of its
author’s life for possible clues to its interpretation.
At the same time, however, it is precisely haikai’s communal nature,
which makes it impossible to detach from the social context in which it
was written. Buson’s maturation as a poet was informed by the environment in which he worked, and so any discussion of his verse must be
mindful of the forces in the community that helped to shape it. Also,
while it is not possible to discern obvious shifts in stylistic development
over the course of Buson’s lifetime, certain general patterns can still be
observed. Thus there is merit to ordering a discussion of his verse
chronologically. With this in mind, I structure my exploration of Buson’s
hokku in two sections: those he wrote during his time in Edo northeastern Japan and places in and around Kyoto when he was learning the
haikai craft and developing a distinctive voice (1731–1770), and those
contained in anthologies compiled during the last part of his life (1770–
1784) after he became the leader of the Yahantei school. By viewing
Buson’s hokku as part of a social context, it will be possible to discern
the effect that Buson’s highly ambivalent awareness of his audience has
on his verse.
54
CHAPTER THREE
Conventions of the Hokku
Before beginning our examination of Buson’s hokku, it will help to
explain some of the basic conventions of the hokku form itself. “Hokku”
means “starting verse;” the word betrays the form’s origins as the first
verse in a sequence. While haikai began as a linked form, over the years,
composition of the hokku on its own became more widespread. The
hokku’s popularity was connected to its convenience—unlike a linked
verse sequence, a single poet working alone could compose it. As we
shall see, this aspect of the hokku does not exempt it from haikai’s basic
convention of communality, but because it could be worked over and
revised, it was used first as a pedagogical tool by teachers and eventually
became established as a form in its own right.
Hokku were seventeen syllables long, with a three-part structure of
five syllables in the first section, seven in the second, and five in the last.
The 5-7-5 pattern is common in all forms of classical Japanese poetry.
Occasionally haikai poets deviated from this convention by including
fewer (jitarazu ሼ⿷ࠄߕ) or more (jiamari ሼ૛ࠅ) syllables in order to
achieve a particular effect, but this was exceptional. Also, the hokku is
expected to include a season word—a kidai ቄ㗴 (seasonal topic or kigo
ቄ⺆ (seasonal word)—and these were not chosen at random, but were
fixed by tradition. Consciousness of the season is another basic characteristic of classical Japanese poetry, and from the time of the earliest
imperial poetry anthologies words referring to plants, animals, meteorological phenomena, human activities such as festivals and other annual
observances were all given a place in the poetic calendar of seasonal
topics. Connotations of these words, or hon’i ᧄᗧ (original meaning)
were set by their appearance in early poems; later, dictionaries and
handbooks were compiled that listed the acceptable usage of these
words.
In the seventeenth century, however, the pioneers of haikai built
upon the tradition of waka and renga reference works to create a lexicon
of their own. Haikai poets learned classical usages as part of their
training, and the impact of a verse depended on their skillful balancing of
the conventional meaning, i.e., the hon’i, of a topic with whatever new
and startling insight they were able to add to it, typically creating a clash
between the worlds of ga and zoku. Whereas waka and renga poets were
expected to employ these seasonal topics in a way that demonstrated
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
55
their understanding of the hon’i, haikai poets were expected to create a
humorous or startling twist on this accepted meaning.
Let us look at an example of the way this works in practice. The following Buson hokku ostensibly describes a natural scene, although its
headnote immediately suggests that there is another level of meaning at
work:
SoŇ no ku o osoite
Inheriting one of our Ancestor’s verses:
furu ike no
kawazu oiyuku
ochiba kana
the old pond’s
frog is growing elderly
fallen leaves1
As is typical of hokku, semantically this is made up of two parts. First, we
encounter an old pond, and alongside it, a frog. Kawazu (frog) is a poetic
word whose hon’i is suggestive of spring; it calls to mind lusty, energetic
frogs calling to their mates in the breeding season. However, its appearance here is somewhat puzzling, as it is described as “growing old;” that
is, the very opposite of what one might expect. The second part of the
verse introduces “fallen leaves” (ochiba) to the scene. “Fallen leaves” is a
winter topic that refers to leaves turned dry, brown, and brittle, long
after the green of spring and the deep colors of autumn have left them.
Thus the season is established as winter, and now everything makes
sense: the frog is silent, and time is passing it by, because it is in hibernation under leaf litter that covers the ice in a frozen-over pond.
As this example shows, the two parts of the hokku juxtapose seemingly disparate elements to create the effect of surprise. The division of
the two parts is usually marked with a kireji ಾࠇሼ or cutting word.
Typical kireji include the particles ya and kana, both of which in other
contexts are used to mark phrases of high emotion. When no kireji is
present, the break is indicated by the syntax. In “The old pond’s” (Furu
ike no), the kireji kana follows ochiba, indicating that it has strong emotional value, and sets it off from the phrase that precedes it. The first
part of the verse is similar to a question or riddle for which an answer is
expected. As kawazu is emblematic of spring, the reader is held in
suspense, wondering why an image that implies vigor and youth should
be described as growing old. The introduction of the kireji-marked ochiba
is like a revelation that solves the riddle, shifting the scene into a setting
where everything suddenly makes sense.
———
1
BZ, vol. 1, no. 2832.
56
CHAPTER THREE
A second characteristic common to the hokku is its dialogical quality.
That is to say, the hokku was fundamentally a greeting to a person or a
place. This characteristic is related to the hokku’s original function as the
starting verse of a sequence that was composed in the company of
several people on a single occasion. The most senior member of the
party was given the honor of composing the hokku, and he or she
returned the favor by phrasing it as a compliment or aisatsu ᜿ᜦ
(salutation) to the host. Even after the hokku came to be composed
independently of verse sequences, this “greeting-like” quality persisted.
Aisatsu to places were also common. These might take the form of an
indirect acknowledgement of a host through praise of the locality in
which he or she lived, or an address to the spirit or genius loci of a spot
famous for its beauty, sacredness, or literary associations.
It was also common for hokku to take the form of “greetings” to
poetic predecessors—in effect, parodies that call to mind a source text
and rework an old theme in a new setting. This kind of parody occurs
frequently in all premodern Japanese poetry, which is highly allusive, in
part as a technique to open out a verse’s meaning beyond the thirty-one
or seventeen syllables to which poets were limited. Repeatedly incorporating the language of source texts in later poetry reinforced the association of topics with particular meanings, and in this way hon’i were
created. As a result, even an extremely short form like the hokku could
make a very profound, comic or moving statement by connecting up
with a network of associations that had been formed by centuries of
usage in literature of the past.2
Furu ike no is a good example of the “greeting-like” characteristic of
hokku. Even without the headnote that alludes to “our Ancestor,” i.e.,
BashŇ, it is clear that the verse is a parody of hokku that was deeply
admired by BashŇ’s followers because it is thought to mark his achievement of his mature poetic style:
furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
the old pond
a frog jumps in
the sound of water3
BashŇ
———
2 Haruo Shirane, “Aisatsu: The Poet as Guest,” in New Leaves: Studies and Translations in
Honor of Edward Seidensticker, ed. Aileen Gatten et al. (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 89–104.
3 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 37.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
57
In BashŇ’s verse, the kireji “ya” follows furu ike (the old pond), cutting it
into two phrases, “the old pond” and “a frog jumps in / sound of
water.” The tension of the verse is created by the juxtaposition of these
two phrases: the contrast between the static image of an old pond,
evocative of stillness and silence, and the dynamic energy of a living
animal, which moves (tobikomu, to jump in) and creates a sound (mizu no
oto, the sound of water). BashŇ adds another layer of surprise by using
the word kawazu (frog, here acting as the kigo), which by virtue of its hon’i
suggests to the reader that the sound it will make will be that of its own
voice, calling out to its mate. BashŇ defies these traditional expectations
by focusing on the “plop” that it makes jumping into the water. This
creates a situation that is considerably less elegant than what one would
expect from classical waka, and for this reason the verse is gently
comical—a parody of classical poetry that refer to kawazu as expressive
of romantic longing. On the surface it might appear to be nothing more
than a description of a natural scene that the poet actually observed, but
it has another layer of meaning that is accessible through an appreciation
of the way that the poet calls on the classical tradition.
Buson’s verse is in turn a parody of BashŇ’s, adding its voice to the
long ongoing dialogue between Japanese poets and their predecessors.
While Buson’s verse perhaps could also be interpreted as an account of
something he observed directly, the parallels to BashŇ’s verse are so
obvious it seems unlikely that they were not deliberate, and the addition
of the headnote makes the connection indisputable. Both share the
structure furu ike [particle] / kawazu [verb], which would almost certainly
cause the reader to recall the earlier verse, and in inviting this comparison Buson causes the differences between the two to become the focus
of the reader’s efforts to interpret his verse’s meaning. Replacing BashŇ’s
kireji “ya” with the possessive marker “no,” and placing his kireji in the
last section of his verse, “the old pond’s / frog grows elderly” is juxtaposed with “fallen leaves.” As a result, the reader’s experience is not so
much the amusement of an expectation comically redirected, as we saw
in BashŇ’s hokku; rather, it is more like the relief of a puzzle solved. Read
with the knowledge that this verse is a parody of BashŇ’s landmark “The
old pond” (Furu ike ya), Buson’s “The old pond’s” (Furu ike no) can be
interpreted not as an account of the poet’s observation of a natural
scene, but as a form of address to his poetic predecessor. It then
becomes possible to read it as a comment on the state of the haikai genre
of the day, that is, a statement of frustration and dissatisfaction with the
58
CHAPTER THREE
popular neglect of BashŇ’s teachings. In other words, a once energetic
and youthful animal—BashŇ’s poetic legacy—is now dormant and aging
in the frozen barrenness of the contemporary haikai community.
Haikai poets’ dialogue with their predecessors was matched by a more
immediate form of dialogue in their practice, as their verses were usually
composed or at least presented in a communal setting. Haikai groups
frequently conducted monthly study meetings where members got
together and received instruction from their teachers, or held outings to
places famous for their natural beauty at which haikai composition was a
central activity. Typically, topics were assigned for these gatherings, and
everyone composed on the same ones; the resulting verses were then
shared and corrected by the teacher. Haikai was composed in a context
of cooperation and understanding between the participants in a given
session; as a record of a particular encounter, they have a strong sense of
immediacy. The group was a source of more than just instruction: it also
afforded a sense of identity and allegiance, and as well as becoming a
center of rivalry and competition.
Thus, the anxiety of reception was always at the heart of haikai practice, as the very nature of the genre meant that poets were keenly aware
of their position within a larger community of fellow writer-readers. This
is very true of all haikai poets, but something that we especially want to
keep in mind as we read the hokku of Buson.
Buson’s Early Hokku: The Edo Yahantei School
Buson arrived in Edo a few years after the publication of the pioneering
reform-minded anthology Ink of five colors, and his disdain for commercially minded forms of haikai was evident almost from the time that he
got there. Uchida Senzan, with whom he first began to study, was a
successor to the Edo-school poet Sentoku, and like him, favored witty
flamboyance in his verse. Not long afterward, however, Buson switched
to Yahantei, the school of Hayano Hajin, a proponent of a much simpler
and more straightforward style than was typical of urban poets. Hajin
had studied with BashŇ disciples Kikaku and Ransetsu, though his own
work was quite different from theirs.
In fact, Hajin was a very unconventional Edo-school poet. Although
his training had been with Ransetsu and Kikaku, leaders of Edo urban
haikai, he associated with many different poets, including Tantan in
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
59
Kyoto and Gikş, whose verse was included in Ink of five colors. Hajin
spent about ten years in the Kyoto area, becoming acquainted with a
variety of haikai styles. He returned to Edo in 1737 at the urging of his
disciple Isaoka GantŇ, a rich merchant who lived in Yşki, in present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture; later, Hajin established a haikai school in Nihonbashi’s Koku-chŇ, and called it Yahantei (Midnight studio).
Hajin was a forerunner of the kind of poet that would take an active
role in the Revival movement: his approach to haikai was eclectic, openminded, and focused on achieving authentic expression rather than
impressing others or copying his teacher. Buson’s description of Hajin in
the preface to the memorial volume Make the past present alludes to these
qualities:
One evening, he sat formally and said, “The Way of haikai is not necessarily a matter of devoting yourself to your teacher’s rules. Change with the
times, transform with the times, in a spontaneous manner, disregarding
what has existed before or what may come into being later is the way it
should be.” Struck by this meditation-master’s rod I had a sudden insight,
and have some small understanding of the authentic freedom of haikai. 4
As this passage indicates, Hajin valued responsiveness to the times rather
than the imitation of one particular teacher. Buson made this a foundation of his approach to haikai, and he followed this principle until the
end of his life. Buson also remarks on Hajin’s indifference to gossip, that
is, talking about competitor haikai teachers. It was precisely these
values—commitment to authenticity of expression, avoidance of slavish
imitation, and a seriousness of purpose that Hajin shared with Revival
poets.
Despite Hajin’s own relaxed attitude towards poetic lineage, his status
as a second-generation BashŇ disciple was an undeniable asset. Even at
this stage, Buson appears to have been very aware of the importance of
professional lineages in the haidan, and he chose one that connected him,
through Hajin, to the famous Kikaku and through him to the paragon of
haikai poets, BashŇ. Buson’s preference for the early BashŇ Empty
chestnuts style, i.e., one that favored complexity of language and allusions
to Chinese literature—rather than the later karumi style that was favored
by the rural poets—was one that Hajin shared.
A few verses survive that Buson wrote while he was a member of
Hajin’s school. They are not literary masterpieces, but they show the
———
4
BZ, vol. 4, p. 140.
60
CHAPTER THREE
point of origin of some issues that were common to Buson’s poetry all
of his life. Most importantly, it is possible to identify the genesis of a
spirit of resistance, that is to say a rejection of the kinds of frivolous
verse that were the mainstay of the tentori and commercially-minded
urban haikai poets. As we shall see, Buson starts his career with verses
that show a delight in the kind of superficial word play that was popular
with the urban school, but he also wrote some that suggest the beginning
of a desire to transcend the common, popular modes of haikai practice
of the day.
Indeed, from Buson’s earliest days as a haikai poet, it is possible to
discern three consistent themes: first, a stance critical of the haidan,
second, a strong tendency to create fictional worlds, and third, frequent
allusions to BashŇ and his work. These three themes intertwine, since the
desire for escape to an idealized world of the imagination and the
valorization of BashŇ’s example are both linked to Buson’s anxiety and
rejection of what he saw as the vulgarity of the contemporary haidan.
The earliest verse that can be attributed to Buson was included in
Fourth month principles (Uzuki teikin ව᦬ᐸ⸠), an illustrated haikai
collection edited by Rogetsu 㔺᦬ (1667–1751) that was published in
1737. Buson also contributed a picture—a line drawing of a young
woman reading a letter, seated alongside a small pile of plant stems:
amadera ya
jşya ni todoku
bin kazura
at the convent
a cosmetic arrives
during the Ten Nights’ Ceremony5
Amadera (convent) here refers to TŇkei-ji, the Kamakura “divorce
temple” where women could be released from their marriage vows after
three years of residence. Jşya means the Ten Nights’ Ceremony, a
devotion practiced by Pure Land Buddhist temples from the fifth to the
fifteenth night of the Tenth Month. Bin kazura is another word for
sanekazura, a kind of vine belonging to the magnolia family. An extract
from this plant, a local specialty of Kamakura, was used in arranging the
hair.
In the classical tradition, sanekazura has elegant connotations that can
be traced back to its use in a waka by SanjŇ no Udaijin ਃ᧦ฝᄢ⤿
(Fujiwara no Sadakata ⮮ේቯᣇ, 873–932) that is included in One
———
5
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1. The illustration is in Chapter Six, Figure 4.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
61
hundred poets, one poem each (Hyakunin isshu ⊖ੱ৻㚂). In this verse, the
persona addresses the vine, asking it to draw his absent beloved to him:
na ni shi owaba
Osakayama no
sanekazura
hito ni shirarede
kuru yoshi mo gana
if you bear this name
vine of
Meeting Hill
without letting people know
could you draw her to me?6
SanjŇ no Udaijin
In keeping with the urban style, the hokku is humorous: though the
woman is in a convent, her mind is not on her devotions, but on the
lover who has sent her the letter. The verse was written on the topic of
things associated with Kamakura, and Buson chooses two of them—
TŇkei-ji temple and a beauty aid—to make a comic juxtaposition.
Other Buson verses of this period also show a taste for light-hearted
word play, such as this one from Peaches and cherries (Momosakura ᩶᪉,
1739), Hajin’s memorial anthology honoring the thirty-third anniversary
of the death of his teacher, Kikaku:
suribachi no
misomi meguri ya
tera no shimo
the mill
grinds miso thirty-three times
frost at the temple7
Misomi means thirty-three, and it contains the word miso, soybean paste.
Meguri, turns, refers both to the action of the mill turning to grind the
soybeans, and the thirty-three times the year has turned since Kikaku’s
death. “The mill” (Suribachi no) is a fitting aisatsu to Kikaku, who was
fond of using word games in his hokku.
While these verses are consistent with the urban style, others suggest
that Buson was already developing a desire to avoid its excesses, and to
aspire for something a little more aesthetically ambitious. One example is
this verse from the Yahantei new year’s day booklet (saitanchŇ ᱦᣤᏭ) of
1738:
Fuji o mite
tŇru hito ari
toshi no ichi
gazing at Mount Fuji
people pass by
year-end market8
———
6
7
Haruyama YŇko, Hyakunin isshu, Koten shinshaku shiriizu 18 (ChşdŇkan, 2003), p. 42.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 7.
62
CHAPTER THREE
“Year-end market” (toshi no ichi) is a market that sold goods for the new
year; it was open from the middle to the end of the Twelfth Month. In
the midst of the crowds at the market, the verse’s persona takes a
moment to appreciate the sight of Mount Fuji, clearly visible in the crisp
winter air. On one level it is a fairly typical new year’s hokku, bringing
together the lofty image of Mount Fuji with the more mundane but still
felicitous image of the year-end market. At the same time, as Shimizu
Takayuki has argued, it also conveys another meaning: Buson’s feelings
of loneliness and isolation within the Edo haidan, where poets were so
concerned with profiting financially from their verses that they failed to
notice its potential for elegance and grandeur.9
Other very early Buson verses, published under the name SaichŇ
ቿ↸ (or ቿ㠽)which he used until around 1744, are similarly bland and
conventionalized, like these that were included in new year’s anthologies:
ume sageta
ware ni shiwasu no
hito tŇru
carrying a branch of plum
all around me people pass
in the year-end rush10
omonoshi no
yoake o neiru
shiwasu kana
the seamstress
still asleep at dawn
year-end rush11
Shiwasu (year-end rush) refers to the period just before New Year’s day,
when people hurried to pay off lingering debts, tidy the house, and
prepare themselves to start the new year with a clean slate. In “Carrying a
branch of plum” (Ume sageta) the speaker is surrounded by busy,
distracted people, and he alone takes the time to appreciate the beauty of
the signs of coming spring—in this case, plum blossoms. In “The
seamstress” (Omonoshi no) a young woman, having stayed up late working
on the sewing projects she needs to finish in time for new year’s day, is
too weary to wake up even though it is daylight.
This final very early Buson verse is also in celebration of the new year,
though it uses a slightly different strategy:
———
8
BZ, vol. 1, no. 3.
Shimizu, Yosa Buson no kanshŇ to hihyŇ, pp. 431–432.
10 BZ, vol. 1, no. 4.
11 BZ, vol. 1, no. 5.
9
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
shirami toru
kojiki no tsuma ya
ume ga moto
63
searching for lice
the beggar’s wife
under a plum tree12
This is a good example of the way that haikai’s humor derives from its
combination of elements of literary elegance with images of ordinary life.
Shirami (lice) and kojiki (beggar) belong to the realm of zoku. Plum trees
in blossom (ume), on the other hand, are a classical poetic topic. Following the description of a lower-class person engaged in a base physical
activity with a reference to the graceful blossoms, which Buson frequently uses as an emblem of purity, creates a sense of dissonance that is
gently comic.
Buson in the Northeast
Many scholars refer to the years that Buson spent in the TŇhoku
(northeastern) area as his period of shşgyŇ ୃᬺ, a word normally used to
refer to arduous religious training. Making his base in Yşki in ShimŇsa
Province for nearly a decade, Buson took up temporary residence with
wealthy commoners throughout the northeast. In contrast to Edo,
where, as Buson later wrote, he felt surrounded by enemies, ShimŇsa was
a good place for a young, aspiring painter to begin his career. Hajin
disciples and friends provided him with contacts through which he was
able to find material support and permission to view paintings, as many
of them owned collections of art work that Buson could study to
improve his repertoire, and they could introduce him to other prosperous local townspeople and farmers who might potentially become
clients.
The following was written in 1740, soon after Buson first went to
ShimŇsa. Its headnote is “Waiting for spring at the foot of Mount
Tsukuba:”
yuku toshi ya
akuta nagaruru
Sakuragawa
———
12
13
BZ, vol. 1, no. 6.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 8.
year’s end
rubbish goes floating by
on the Sakura River13
64
CHAPTER THREE
This hokku is another good example of the way that haikai brings
together the realms of the elegant and the everyday. The Sakura River
runs along the south of Mount Tsukuba (in modern Ibaraki Prefecture),
and was an utamakura (poetic place name) associated with cherry
blossoms. Mount Tsukuba was connected with renga because it is
mentioned in the poem exchange between the legendary figures Yamato
Takeru no Mikoto ᣣᧄᱞዅ and Keeper of the Fires which is considered the earliest example of the genre:
nibari
tsukuba o sugite
iku yo ka netsuru
After passing
Niibari and Tsukuba
how many nights have I slept?
Yamato Takeru no Mikoto
kaganabete
yo ni wa kokonoyo
hi ni wa tŇka o
Counting them up
of nights there have been nine
and of days there have been ten14
Keeper of the Fires
The verse also makes another allusion to an altogether different genre:
medieval nŇ plays. The word akuta (rubbish) in connection with this
river appears in the play Sakura River (Sakuragawa ᪉Ꮉ). Because of its
associations in the classical tradition, one would expect to find a
reference to this river including cherry blossom petals carried along in
the waters, but here, we instead read of the rubbish people have dumped
in the river after the year-end cleanup.
More significantly, this verse can be read as a conventional aisatsu to
the Sakura River, and a prayer for the new year to bring with it fresh new
poetry. Like “Gazing at Mount Fuji” (Fuji o mite) that had been published
two years earlier, it is possible to view “End of the year” as another
statement of Buson’s dissatisfaction with the Edo haidan, and that the
river running past renga’s sacred place of origin will cleanse and purify
his haikai of Edo’s negative influence.15
ShimŇsa was home to many prosperous merchants and farmers who
were able to indulge themselves by studying poetry and collecting books
and paintings. It was not uncommon for people from ShimŇsa to travel
———
14 Mack Horton, Song in an Age of Discord: ‘The Journal of SŇchŇ’ and Poetic Life in Late
Medieval Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 196–197.
15 BZ, vol. 1, p. 11.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
65
to Edo for business, and that way stay in touch with urban trends.
Intellectually, too, wealthy ShimŇsa merchants rivaled their urban
counterparts, and Buson’s circle of acquaintance included highly
educated and literate people. These affluent ShimŇsa commoners were
very comfortable in economic terms, and they were eager to acquire the
kind of prestige afforded by patronage of artists like Buson.
While in the northeast Buson depended on these patrons for financial
backing and access to paintings and books that he could study, but they
were useful to him in another way: they offered him a community where
he could practice his haikai. In return, Buson’s presence brought them
the prestige and social recognition associated with being sophisticated
supporters of the arts.
The Impact of Chinese Poetry: Buson’s Narrow road to the interior Journey
In addition to the financial help and companionship he received from his
patrons during this period, Buson also benefited from exposure to their
knowledge of Chinese poetry. As we have seen, the early part of the
eighteenth century saw a rise in interest in the Chinese classics and the
figure of the bunjin. Buson’s frequent allusions to Chinese poetry can be
understood as part of this phenomenon, as his patrons in the northeast
were interested in the bunjin ideal, and many of them composed kanshi as
well as haikai.
It is likely that one of his earliest encounters with Chinese poetry was
through the teachings of Hattori Nankaku, a disciple of Ogyş Sorai,
whose academy of Chinese learning was not far from where he stayed
when he visited Edo after Hajin’s death. Though the evidence is slight,
most scholars agree that Buson either studied with Nankaku directly or
absorbed some of his teachings through his students. Also, GantŇ was
acquainted with Nankaku, and would have been able to introduce the
two.
Nankaku was one of his generation’s most prominent teachers and
writers of kanshi. He had originally been in the service of Yanagisawa
Yoshiyasu ᩉᴛศ଻ (1658–1714) advisor to shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi ᓼᎹ✁ศ (1646–1709) and the founder of the famous Tokyo
Rikugien ౐⟵࿦ garden. However, Nankaku eventually left his position
with Yoshiyasu to open his own private academy. Like his mentor Sorai,
Nankaku emphasized the connection between poetry and virtue and put
66
CHAPTER THREE
his teachings into practice: living a lifestyle that was an embodiment of
the bunjin, transcending the mundane world with poetry and learning.
After Sorai died in 1728, Nankaku and his colleague Dazai Shundai took
over the leadership of the Sorai school, Shundai teaching the Confucian
classics (keigaku ⚻ቇ) and Nankaku lecturing on poetry.16
In addition to the connection with Nankaku, the relationships Buson
forged while in northeastern Japan included people with an interest in
Chinese painting, and through them Buson became familiar with Chinese
art theories, literature and other aspects of Chinese learning.
One of the earliest verses that shows Buson’s interest in Chinese
poetry is also among his most famous. It is one of the few that can be
directly linked to his journey retracing BashŇ’s Narrow road to the interior
route. It shows a complex interweaving of allusions to Chinese poetry,
medieval Japanese poetry, as well as to BashŇ’s kanshibunchŇ style:
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare ishi
tokoro dokoro
willow leaves, fallen
clear stream, dried out
stones, here and there17
Buson’s detached, apparently objective depiction of the scene has
interested commentators who consider him to be primarily a visual
poet18 And indeed, it does appear later in inscriptions on paintings that
are spare and simple, like sketches from life.
However, Buson contextualizes the verse with headnotes. The verse
was published several times, with differing headnotes. In its earliest
source, Wastepaper coverlet (Hogo busuma ෻ฎ߱ߔ߹, 1752), it appears
with a headnote linking the poem to SaigyŇ, the medieval poet, priest
and traveler who had a profound influence on BashŇ. Most later versions
of the hokku also make this reference. Some five centuries earlier, SaigyŇ
wrote a waka on the theme of willows that later became famous:
michinobe ni
shimizu nagaruru
yanagi kana
by the side of the road
along a flowing stream of clear water
a willow
———
16 Yamamoto Kazuyoshi and Yokoyama Hiroshi, eds., Edo shijin senshş, vol. 3, Hattori
Nankaku, Gion Nankai (Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 337–344.
17 BZ, vol. 1, no. 12.
18 Masaoka Shiki, for instance, includes this verse as one example of Buson’s “Objective beauty” ቴⷰ⊛⟤ in Haijin Buson, Haikai taiyŇ (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), p. 118.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
shibashi tote koso
tachi tomaretsure
67
I paused for what I thought
would just be a moment19
SaigyŇ
While the willow about which SaigyŇ wrote his verse was one he saw on
a painted screen, the waka became the basis of legend. SaigyŇ and the
willow became the subject of the NŇ play, The traveling priest and the willow
(YugyŇ yanagi ㆆⴕᩉ). A tree in Ashino, in modern Tochigi Prefecture,
came to be identified with SaigyŇ’s willow. BashŇ, who admired SaigyŇ,
visited it on his Narrow road to the interior journey. He composed this
verse:
ta ichimai
uete tachisaru
yanagi kana
a whole field
was planted before I left
a willow20
BashŇ
BashŇ himself went on many journeys to famous poetic sites, and
recontextualized them as haikai. Buson’s visit to the site of SaigyŇ’s
willow some fifty years later was homage to BashŇ as well as SaigyŇ and
the verse he wrote acknowledges and confirms haikai’s links to the
classical tradition. However, in the spirit of BashŇ’s kanshibunchŇ style,
Buson takes this process a step further, recasting the classical Japanese
literary tradition into the context of Chinese poetry, thus making a
familiar trope strange and new. Here orthography becomes a particularly
effective device. The early printed versions of this verse present it
entirely in Chinese characters, and even later versions minimize the use
of kana, so that the verse looks very much like a line of kanshi. Buson
also uses strict syntactic parallelism: a noun followed by a verb in “yanagi
chiri (willow leaves, fallen) / shimizu kare (stream dried out)”—a characteristic of Chinese literary prose and poetry. BashŇ’s hokku “A whole
field” (Ta ichimai) takes up the theme of the passage of time so sensitively
expressed in SaigyŇ’s waka, and reworks it in a haikaiesque mode by
linking it with the ordinary work of farmers planting their fields. Buson
takes this reworking another step. Instead of using imagery from the
world of common experience to create a contrast with the elegant
———
19 Hisamatsu Sen’ichi, ed., NKBT, vol. 28, Shin kokin waka shş (Iwanami Shoten,
1958), no. 262.
20 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 85.
68
CHAPTER THREE
tradition evoked by the reference to the willow—instead he places it in
the realm of Chinese poetry, in effect making kanshi in haikai form.
As this verse indicates, Buson’s delight in working across generic
boundaries was something that began in the earliest period of his work.
This is consistent with other developments of the time, specifically the
popularizing of kanshi through the efforts of people like Nankaku and
the rise of the bunjin.
Aside from “Willow leaves, fallen,” two other verses survive that
Buson composed while he was traveling the route of BashŇ’s Narrow road
to the interior journey. One is a direct reference to BashŇ’s text:
Matsushima no
tsuki miru hito ya
utsuse kai
people are looking at
the moon over Matsushima
empty shells21
Although Matsushima had been one of BashŇ’s most important destinations on his trip through northeastern Japan, when he finally saw it,
BashŇ declares that it was too beautiful to write a hokku about it. Buson
does not try to achieve more than his predecessor did. He compares his
own experience to an empty shell: hollow and inadequate to the task of
responding to the sublime vision of the moon over Matsushima’s islanddotted bay.
Moonlight plays a major role in another verse written during this
journey. This one is not explicitly connected to the Narrow road to the
interior journey, but it is worth noting because of its great charm. The
verse is introduced with an extensive headnote:
Once I was on my way to Michinoku from Dewa, when it ended up that I was in
the mountains when night was falling, I barely managed to get to a place called
Yashiyabukuro, and I sought lodgings. All night there was a noise like the sound of
something thumping, but when, full of fear, I got up to look, in the garden of the
ancient temple there was an elderly custodian, pounding barley with a mortar and
pestle. When I went out there for a stroll, the moon shone on the lone peak, a
breeze blew through the thousand-bamboo thicket, and there are no words to describe the scenery of the clear night.
suzushisa ni
mugi o tsuku yo no
Uhei kana
———
21
22
BZ, vol. 1, no. 11.
BZ, vol. 4, p. 84.
in the cool
a moonlit night of pounding barley
oh, Uhei22
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
69
The interest of this verse hinges on its use of homonyms. Mugi o tsuku
refers to the practice of using a large mortar and pestle to grind barley.
Tsukuyo is a moonlit night. Therefore, tsuku is a pivot word, simultaneously referring to “grind” and to the moon. Also, “Uhei” is a male
personal name, and on the surface it refers to the elderly temple custodian, who has put off the sweaty work of grinding barley until after
nightfall, when it is cooler. However, Buson writes his name with the
character u ව, rabbit, which sets off another chain of associations.
According to popular belief, the shadows on the face of the moon form
an image of a rabbit using a mortar and pestle to make mochi. Seeing the
man pounding barley in the cool of the evening, the speaker draws a
connection to the legend of the rabbit in the moon.
In his later years, Buson painted two haiga versions of this poem and
its headnote. In these versions, he includes simple sketches of the rabbit
and his mortar and pestle. The figure of the rabbit is presented in a very
whimsical, endearing fashion, dressed in a man’s jacket and standing on
two legs and using his front paws like hands to hold the pestle.
The practice of retracing BashŇ’s steps on the many journeys that he
recorded in haikai travel diaries like Narrow road to the interior and Record of
a weather-beaten skeleton (Nozarashi kikŇ ㊁ߑࠄߒ♿ⴕ, compiled 1685–
1687) became more common as the popularity of BashŇ spread,
eventually turning into a kind of pilgrimage route for aspiring poets who
came to call BashŇ haisei େ⡛, haikai saint. Buson’s journey in 1743 was
in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of BashŇ’s death, and the
fifty years that were to follow saw an increasing number of observances
and events like these that contributed to the positioning of BashŇ and
his school as the center of the haikai community. Even at this point,
Buson was not a mindless imitator of BashŇ’s style. However, his teacher
had been the student of a BashŇ disciple. Furthermore, even fifty years
later haikai poets in the area northeast of Edo cherished the memory of
BashŇ’s visits and had the highest respect for his travel diaries that
elevated their own hometowns—which historically had been viewed as
rustic and uncivilized—into literary space. In short, it would have been
difficult for Buson to ignore BashŇ’s legacy while he was in the northeast, and indeed, he was able to make use of his connections to it in
numerous ways throughout his life.
70
CHAPTER THREE
Buson in Kyoto and Tango (1751-1757): SŇoku, MŇotsu and ShŇzan
Buson returned to the Kamigata (Kyoto-Osaka) area around 1750.
Having achieved some level of expertise in painting during his years of
practice and study in northeastern Japan, he was now better prepared to
try to gain entry into the more competitive Kyoto market. In the first
years after his return to Kamigata his primary activity was painting;
Kyoto was the site of many private collections there that he could hope
to study and emulate, and the relationships he was able to form through
haikai allowed him to meet many potential clients. The market for
Buson’s paintings in Kyoto was almost exclusively limited to the rich
shopkeepers, artisans, brothel owners, publishers, and other businesspeople who found Chinese-style painting more accessible than older
styles like the Tosa and KanŇ, which were associated with the ruling
elites.23
A verse that Buson composed soon after he arrived in Kyoto makes
reference to one of the paintings that he studied at the time:
Daitoku-ji nite
At Daitoku-ji
hototogisu
e ni nake higashi
shirojirŇ
hototogisu
sing to the painting
the east is blanched white24
The “picture” in this verse is the painting of bulbuls by KanŇ Genshin
⁚㊁రା (or Motonobu, 1476–1559) owned by Kyoto’s Daitoku-ji
ᄢᓼኹ temple. “Hototogisu” (cuckoo) is a classical poetic word—its
rarely-heard call in summer evokes feelings of quiet melancholy and
romance, and it was conventional for poets to declare their eagerness to
hear it. The speaker in this poem calls on the hototogisu to out-sing the
bulbuls in Genshin’s picture. The verse employs a pun: Genshin’s
personal name was ShirojirŇ, and thus shirojirŇ refers both to the whitening of the sky at dawn and to the painter of the picture.25 But “Hototogisu” also does something unconventional: it matches the classical
association of the season word not with the word for bulbul, but with an
allusion to a picture of bulbuls, evoked by the reference to its painter,
Genshin/ShirojirŇ. The verse is an early use of a device that Buson was
———
23 James Cahill, The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 162–163.
24 BZ, vol. 1, no. 33.
25 Yamashita Kazumi, Buson no sekai (Yşhikaku, 1982), p. 33.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
71
to use frequently in poetry of his mature period, linking a literary topos
with a visual image. Already Buson is experimenting with uses of imagery
that will later become the foundation of some of his most innovative
works, but at this stage he still has not let go of his youthful interest in
the Edo-school style completely.
However helpful Buson’s haikai contacts might have been, his early
days in Kyoto were not all that successful. Without an affiliation to an
established atelier he found it difficult to break into the Kyoto art world,
and in 1754 he left to try his luck in a place where the market was less
saturated, the Tango area northeast of Kyoto. He stayed there for three
years.
Since haikai was not Buson’s focus during this period, his productivity
was limited. Nonetheless, he established several important connections
right away. The first was with senior Yahantei disciple Mochizuki SŇoku,
the second was with haikai poet MŇotsu; both of them helped him get
settled in those first years in Kyoto The third and most influential was
with Miyake ShŇzan, whose prodigious literary output included haikai,
kanshi, and fiction in Chinese. Their friendship was to last until Buson’s
death, and was one of the most formative of his life.
SŇoku probably got to know Hayano Hajin around 1727 during the
latter’s visit to Kyoto. He was very active as a poet, tenja, and editor; his
memorial anthology for Hajin Far into the west contains verses by Buson.
SŇoku was a respected figure in the Kyoto haikai community and as he
had been Hajin’s most important disciple it would have been natural for
Buson to seek him out. The following hokku was the opening verse of a
sequence that Buson wrote with SŇoku and his colleagues, and is
included in the collection Walking-stick earth (Tsue no tsuchi ᧟ߩ࿯
attributed to “Buson of TŇbu (Edo):”
aki mo haya
sono higurashi no
inochi kana
autumn already
this cicada’s
brief life26
The headnote to this hokku is “When I first met FureibŇ ን㋈ᚱ
(SŇoku) after coming to the capital.” Higurashi no inochi means “a cicada’s
existence,” something that was noted by classical poets for its sad
brevity. However, it is homophonous for the phrase “managing to eke
out an existence”—the sort of lifestyle that young and inexperienced
———
26
BZ, vol. 1, no. 27.
72
CHAPTER THREE
painters like Buson might lead in Kyoto. This is a good example of the
hokku’s function in a linked verse sequence: retooling an elegant poetic
phrase into something suitable for the occasion, Buson both praises his
host and amuses the other guests with its cleverness.
MŇotsu was another important early acquaintance in Kyoto. MŇotsu
was not the most important of Buson’s associates, and information
about him is sparse. However, the two texts that were created in the
context of their relationship demonstrate both poets’ commitment to
haikai reform, and the sense of solidarity that they felt in sharing this
goal. The first is Buson’s afterword to the collection Ancient and modern
poetry card anthology of 1751. As we saw in Chapter One, Buson uses the
opportunity to lambaste commercially minded poets like tentori aficionados and traveling tenja. Editors of haikai anthologies usually tried to find
a prominent poet to contribute introductory pieces for their anthologies,
and the fact that MŇotsu invited Buson—who was then an unknown—
to write the afterword of Ancient and modern poetry card anthology suggests
that he felt some strong affinity with Buson; the fact that they had a
common view of the degenerate state of the haikai community clearly
influenced his choice.27
The Buson hokku that MŇotsu included in Ancient and modern poetry card
anthology is affecting and sweet, rather than critically charged:
Yamaga ni yadoru
On taking shelter in a mountain dwelling
sarudono no
yosamu toiyuku
usagi kana
stopping in on Mr. Monkey
in the cold of night
a rabbit!28
Buson frequently wrote verses anthropomorphizing animals. The verse
“In the coolness,” cited above, is an example, especially when it is read in
its haiga versions, where a rabbit is shown standing and working, dressed
like a human being. In this verse, the speaker describes an encounter
between a monkey and a rabbit in fairytale like terms. The monkey, who
is referred to with the respectful prefix dono (mister, sir) represents a
recluse living in the mountains, and the speaker identifies himself with a
rabbit. This kind of humorous and self-deprecating verse is consistent
with the aesthetic of fşga 㘑㓷 (poetic elegance) or fşkyŇ 㘑⁅ (poetic
madness) that a polite poet would use in a greeting to a like-minded host.
———
27
28
Tanaka, p. 53.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 24.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
73
The other text that is connected to MŇotsu is also amusing rather
than critical. Like the hokku “Autumn already” (Aki mo haya) above, it
makes use of a pun. Here, the reference to the exotic word “quince”
(marumero, from the Portuguese word marmelo) is homophonous with the
imperative form for “shave the head” in the Edo dialect:
marumero wa
atama ni kanete
Edo kotoba
“quince”
also means “shave your head”
Edo talk29
The verse is a comic aisatsu to MŇotsu, who like Buson, kept his head
shaved in the manner of a priest. The hokku’s headnote is also lighthearted, but contains a suggestion that Buson and MŇotsu shared a sense
of idealism about their role in the haikai community:
The first thing I did when I arrived in Kyoto was visit MŇotsu. When
MŇotsu had traveled to Edo, he and I became harmonious friends. In
those days we promised to transform the haikai world together, to take the
tonsure, wear priests’ clothes, and extol the moon over the capital. He did
not go back on his promise in the least, and recently changed his status to
that of a priest, and took the name of Taimu ᄢᄞ. While we were talking
about the past, of matters such as how earnest had been our interest in
knowing to the utmost the dreams of the floating world, KŇchiku Ⰲ┻
came along carrying quinces (marumero) in his sleeve as a pious offering,
and I made up this verse 30
The headnote untangles the meaning of this somewhat cryptic hokku, but
more importantly, it is a statement of Buson’s sense of common purpose
with MŇotsu in aiming to effect some change in the state of affairs in the
haikai world.
The most significant relationship that Buson formed during this period, however, was his friendship with Miyake ShŇzan. ShŇzan, a
pawnbroker by trade, was active in Kyoto and Edo literary circles for
decades. He was an extremely productive kanshi poet: his collected
kanshi, ShŇzan kanshi anthology (ShŇzan shishş ཕጊ⹞㓸, preface dated
1789), fills ten volumes. Well-versed in other kinds of Chinese literature,
he also wrote tales that were modeled after Chinese vernacular fiction.
ShŇzan is also noted for having published several important haikai
anthologies, including Haikai selected old verses, Kyoto twenty kasen (Heian
nijikkasen ᐔ቟ੑච᱌઄, 1769) and Haikai selected modern verses (Haikai
———
29
30
BZ, vol. 1, no. 26.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 89–90.
74
CHAPTER THREE
shinsen େ⺽ᣂㆬ, 1773). Compiled in imitation of the famous Chinese
verse collection Tang shi xuan that was at the time a best seller in Japan;
Haikai selected old verses brought together exemplary hokku by poets of
earlier generations with those of the present day; it bridged the boundaries between Chinese and Japanese poetry, as well as the literary past and
present.
ShŇzan’s work both as a haikai poet and an editor offers some of the
best examples of the fruitful interchange between haikai and kanshi that
took place during the middle of the eighteenth century, particularly in the
impulse to organize and recapture the classics of the past that was a
fundamental part of the teachings of ItŇ Jinsai and Ogyş Sorai. The
frequency with which Buson uses imagery related to Chinese literature
seems in part due to the influence of ShŇzan.31
Interestingly, his haikai verses do not reflect overt Chinese influence,
certainly not to the extent that many of Buson’s do. Here are two
examples:
kuragari no
karei ni yosamu no
hikari kana
faint darkness
a flounder glints
in the light of the lingering chill
ShŇzan
ņbaku no
ren no karabi ya
fuyukodachi
at the ņbaku temple
scrolls hang, withered
wintry woods
ShŇzan
Even the second verse, which alludes to the ņbaku sect of Zenan
important source of Chinese learning in the early modern perioduses
the words “ņbaku” and “ren” as decorative and distancing. In other
words, ShŇzan’s haikai verses are not kanshi written in Japanese. Despite
his familiarity with Chinese literature in other contexts, in ShŇzan’s
haikai China is a source of romance and exoticism.
In any case, ShŇzan was an important mentor for Buson during this
part of his career, and Buson was careful to maintain this relationship
even when he was working outside Kyoto. A letter Buson wrote to
ShŇzan from Tango around two years after he arrived explains one of
the reasons that he wrote few hokku while he was there. “In this area,
———
31
Kiyoto Noriko, “Miyake ShŇzan,” in Kubota, Renga, haikai, kyŇka, p. 307.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
75
they have changed to the style of TŇkabŇ ᧲⧎ဌ (ShikŇ); it is the haikai
of Mino and Owari and the like, and not very interesting.”32 Since haikai
poets depended so much on the input of members of their community,
isolation from worthy companions was a difficult hurdle to overcome. In
the same letter, Buson includes a rare attempt at kanshi, expressing his
frustration with and dislike of the Tango area and even the accent of the
people who lived there:
Sent as a Token to Taku ShŇzan and others in Heian (Kyoto)
As I gaze toward the capital from west of ņeyama, the distance is
vast
As I listen to the local dialect, it is hard to love this place.
But, like the spring clouds, I have a traveler’s spirit;
Last night Chang’an was filled with rain.
ነቛཕጊ౗ᩃᐔ቟⻉ሶ
ᳯጊ⷏ᦸᵡẂ‫ޘ‬G
⡞ㄝ㖸ᗲᱝ࿾㔍
ด᦭ᤐ㔕ૃቴᗧ
ᄛ᧪ὑ㔎ḩ㐳቟
Buson’s disdain for the local accent is perhaps not surprising to hear
from someone who was trying to gain acceptance in the capital, which
was the center of culture and refinement. However, given the antipathy
for the area that he expresses here it is not clear why he chose to take
Yosa as his surname.
The letter to ShŇzan also includes a hokku:
KenkŇ wa
kinu mo itowaji
koromogae
Yoshida KenkŇ
surely did not disapprove of silk too
day of changing to summer clothes
In haikai koromogae (changing clothes) is an early summer kigo; it refers to
the time around the first day of the Fourth Month that was fixed by
custom as the day when people put off their winter garments and started
wearing summer ones. Like the other Buson hokku from this period that
we have discussed, “Yoshida KenkŇ” (KenkŇ wa) also uses homophony
for comic effect. KenkŇ written with the characters ⛚ᅢ would mean
“silk-loving;” the KenkŇ in the verse is written as ౗ᅢ, and refers to the
———
32
BSS, p. 26.
76
CHAPTER THREE
renowned medieval poet and essayist Yoshida KenkŇ ศ↰౗ᅢ (1283–
1352). KenkŇ lived the austere life of an aesthetic recluse, but even he
permitted himself a few luxuries. The speaker of the poem wishes for
some himself, as he is stuck in a remote country place with little to look
forward to. This is not one of Buson’s greatest verses, but it seems to be
an example of his efforts to adapt to the style that was current in
whatever place he happened to be, even though privately he may have
despised it.
In Miyazu Buson stayed at KenshŇ-ji ⷗ᕈኹ temple as a guest of its
chief priest, Chikukei ┻ᷧ (1715–1779), for three years. While he
completed many fine paintings during this period, he was less active in
haikai. Years later Buson wrote a number of anecdotes about his
experiences in Tango in the prose section of New flower gathering, including a slightly ribald story about Chikukei and a badger. I will discuss this
story and its implications in greater detail in Chapter Six.
Although Buson respected Chikukei’s verse enough to include one of
his hokku in the prose section to New flower gathering, the Tango poets he
met generally failed to impress him. One notable hokku from Buson’s
years in Tango is the following, which was written as an expression of
appreciation to a host:
natsugawa o
kosu ureshisa yo
te ni zŇri
oh, the joy
of crossing a summer stream
sandals in hand33
The juxtaposition of “sandals in hand” (te ni zŇri) with “oh, the joy!”
(ureshisa yo) makes a direct and visceral statement of the speaker’s delight.
As the headnote makes clear, Buson is praising the landscape around
Kaya not just as being visually appealing, but pleasant in a more tactile
way. On another level, the verse recasts the ordinary, unremarkable
Japanese setting into a more elegant and exotic Chinese one by alluding
to “White Rock Shoal,” a verse written by Pei Di ⵸ㄻ (fl. 720–50), as
part of an exchange with Wang Wei:
White Rock Shoal
On tiptoe, on a rock, again I face the water
I have not yet had enough of playing in the waves
———
33
BZ, vol. 1, no. 36.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
77
But the sun has set, and the river shoal runs cold
Clouds float in paleness, without color.
⊕⍹ἥ
⍹ᓳ⥃᳓
ᑲᵄᖱᧂᭂ
ᣣਅᎹ਄ኙ
ᶋ㔕ổή⦡
Pei Di’s verse was part of a series of twenty quatrains that he wrote in
response to a series of quatrains written by Wang Wei on the subject of
the landscape on the Wang River estate. Buson deeply admired Wang
Wei, who was also a poet and a painter, and an exemplar of the bunjin
ideal. His reference to this famous exchange between friends in his hokku
was high praise to his addressee, as it put their friendship on the same
level as that of the famous Chinese poets. Whether this was the direct
result of his acquaintance with ShŇzan, or grew out of the exposure to
Chinese poetry Buson had in Edo and in Yşki is impossible to establish.
However, it seems clear that there was a great deal of crossover between
the communities of haikai and kanshi poets.
Kyoto, Sanuki, and the Sankasha Group (1758–1769)
Though Buson was to make one other long journey away from Kyoto
(1766–1768) his ties to the city were permanent from this time onward,
and he began to establish himself as an artist and, more slowly and
tentatively, as a haikai poet. Buson’s principal interest remained painting
even after his return to Kyoto in 1757. Newly married, he was under
even more pressure to make a living, and from this point onward he
began to have moderate success as a painter. As a consequence, his work
as a poet continued to be intermittent in the earliest years of this period.
He did sometimes participate in haikai activities also: for example, verses
of his were included in ShŇzan’s Haikai selected old verses, and one of the
most powerful hokku he ever wrote was included in Companion (Hanashi
aite ߪߥߒ޽޿ߡ), the 1758 collection of Yahantei school member
Takai Kikei:
78
CHAPTER THREE
sararetaru
mi o funkonde
taue kana
though divorced,
she stamps down hard
planting rice34
In this psychologically penetrating verse, the persona is a woman whose
husband has left her. Nevertheless, in a village whose existence depends
on the success of the rice crop, everyone must cooperate in the labor of
transplanting rice seedlings. The abandoned wife works alongside her
husband, suppressing her feelings as she stoops to bury the roots of the
plants in the soil.
However, except for a few verses like this, Buson produced little
haikai during this period. Nevertheless, as was the case in his days in
northeastern Japan, his work as a visual artist actually ended up creating
an important opening for him as a poet: in Kyoto, too, most of the
clients who were interested in purchasing his paintings were also poets
themselves, and he developed a reputation among them for his skill in
haikai.
The year 1766 was an important turning point. It marked the formation of a new haikai study group, Sankasha. Sankasha brought together
some of Kyoto’s most accomplished amateur poets and art connoisseurs,
and was to be the prototype of the new Yahantei school that Buson
eventually opened some seven years later. Unlike most other haikai
groups, Sankasha was independent of established lineages and factions.
While the fact that Buson was then using the art name Sanka ਃ⩻ to
sign his paintings, and that the group suspended its meetings when he
left to spend two years in Sanuki might suggest that he was the Sankasha’s leader, Sankasha’s meetings were run in an egalitarian fashion and
equal participation from all its members was welcome. There was no tenja
or hierarchical organizational structure; the Sankasha poets came
together out of a shared interest in engaging in a refined, cultured
pastime.35
The Sankasha poets wrote hokku, rather than linked verse, maekuzuke
or the other more gamelike forms that had proliferated in the first half of
the century. The practice that they followed was called daiei 㗴⹗,
composing on set topics. In other words, rather than choosing the
subjects of their verses themselves in response to something that they
personally observed or experienced, they all worked on ones that had
———
34
35
BZ, vol. 1, no. 41.
Tanaka, p. 95.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
79
been assigned. Before each meeting, Sankasha members received five
topics (kendai ౗㗴), and on the day of the meeting they brought along
the verses composed on these dai for discussion. Sometimes the members also wrote impromptu hokku on topics chosen at random (tandai
ត㗴. Their intention was not to amuse themselves with competing
over points, but rather to seriously study dai and receive the comments
of the other members.
While many of the dai that Sankasha members worked on were not
unusual, they also were interested in experimenting with dai that had
fallen out of favor with contemporary poets. For example, the first
month’s choices were “cicada” (semi ⱻ) and “morning glory” (hirugao
ᤤ㗻) as well as the less common “melon” (makuwa ⌀᪀), “bamboo
mat” (takamushiro ◰), and “Gion festival” (Gion-e ␧࿦ળ). These
poets’ interest in archaic topics is related to the trend apparent in the
broader intellectual community of the time, that is, the desire to recapture an idealized past through investigation of old texts.36 The verses
they produced were not particularly innovative, but are nevertheless
interesting as evidence of the experiments of working poets:
hanjitsu no
kan o enoki ya
semi no koe
getting half a day’s rest
on a nettle tree
cicadas’ buzz37
waga sono no
makuwa mo nusumu
kokoro kana
though this melon
is in my own garden
even I feel like stealing it!38
yumitori no
obi no hirosa yo
takamushiro
narrowness of
the warrior’s belt
bamboo mat39
The topic of “Getting a half-day’s rest” (Hanjitsu no) is semi no koe, the
droning sound that cicadas make at the height of summer that seems to
make a hot day even hotter. Buson’s verse makes use of a pun that
would be recognized by someone familiar with the work of the Chinese
———
36 Tanaka, p. 92; Ogata Tsutomu, “Yosa Buson: Kaiga to bungaku,” roundtable discussion with Sasaki JŇhei, Hirai Terutoshi, and Hayakawa Monta, Bungaku 52, 10 (1984):
23.
37 BZ, vol. 1, no. 57.
38 BZ, vol. 1, no. 59.
39 BZ, vol. 1, no. 61.
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CHAPTER THREE
poet Li She, whose poem speaks of “getting a half-day’s rest.” In
Japanese, this would be pronounced hanjitsu no kan o e. In Buson’s poem,
the e (obtain) is also the first sound in enoki, nettle tree. In this context,
the phrase “a half-day’s rest” illustrates very well the soporific effect of
the cicadas’ buzz. The second verse, “Though this melon” (Waga sono no)
is more straightforward: a gardener is so proud of the melon he has
produced he can put himself in the position of a thief, as he’d steal it
himself if he didn’t already own it. However, this verse too, foregrounds
the season word makuwa (melon) as something special and precious.
Finally, “Narrowness of” (Yumitori no) expresses the essence of takamushiro (bamboo mat); it emphasizes the cool relaxation that the mat
offers on a hot day in summer by describing a crisply attired samurai
stretched out across it.
As we have seen, the desire to recover the old meanings of words was
something that motivated scholars as diverse as the sinophile Ogyş Sorai
and the nativist Motoori Norinaga, who together with their followers
sought to recover the virtues of the ancients by relearning their words; it
was also related to the work of other Revival poets, who looked to
rediscover and preserve the excellence of haikai poets of the past, the
supreme example of which was Matsuo BashŇ.
Originally there were eight members in Sankasha: Tan Taigi, Kuroyanagi ShŇha, TessŇ ㋕௯ (1731–1786),40 Hyakuboku ⊖ა (d. 1815),41
Gabi ጾ⋲, Innan ශධ, and ChikutŇ ┻ᵢ. With the exception of Tan
Taigi, none of them were professional haikai poets:42 ShŇha was a retired
merchant, TessŇ was a doctor, Hyakuboku was a publisher; not much is
known about the others. Members of the community of Kyoto intelligentsia, they were brought together by their mutual interest in haikai.
After Buson returned from Sanuki, they were joined by others, including
KitŇ, Kakuei 㢬⧷, and Denpuku ↰⑔, again, the majority of them
wealthy amateurs.
Of the original Sankasha members, two had a particularly marked
impact on his poetry: Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi ShŇha. Taigi was a
professional poet (tenja) who had a great deal of experience and knowl-
———
40
TessŇ was the haikai name of Amenomori ShŇteki 㔎᫪┨ᑩ. Tanaka, p. 93.
Hyakuboku’s given name was AndŇ Hachisaemon ౎Ꮐⴡ㐷. He later changed his
haikai name to JishŇ ⥄╉. He was the third-generation proprietor of Hachimonji-ya
౎ᢥሼደ, the famous Kyoto printing house. Ibid., pp. 93-94.
42 The distinction between professional and amateur poet is not always easy to draw.
Taigi ran his own school and supported himself through his haikai.
41
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
81
edge of haikai; ShŇha’s expertise in kanshi and of Chinese poetics helped
to shape the theoretical background of Buson’s work. Both of them were
eccentrics, and their example was powerful not just in terms of the
poetry they wrote but in the lives that they led, it also had some bearing
on Buson’s development of the ideal of transcending the commonplace
while remaining part of it—that is to say, the rizoku theory that he
outlined in the Shundei verse anthology preface.
Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi ShŇha: Influential Eccentricity
Tan Taigi was a complex and gifted character who followed an unconventional lifestyle—a wanderer for most of his life, he rarely stayed in
the same place or stuck with the same haikai style for long. At the same
time, however, he was a brilliant poet, and Buson admired him a great
deal. For Buson, Taigi was a good example of someone who lived in a
zoku environment yet transcended it with the very high quality of the
verse that he wrote.
Taigi was a poet of formidable, if somewhat eccentric reputation. His
tastes were eclectic; his verses appear in the collections of a wide variety
of factions,43 and his own approach to haikai was as ambitious as
Buson’s. He came under the influence of Ink of five colors poet Gikş, and
in 1748, following Gikş’s example, he took the haikai name Taigi, which
included the character gi ␧ as an expression of his allegiance to the
medieval renga master SŇgi. With the help of a brothel owner, Donshi,
he set up a studio in Kyoto’s Shimabara licensed district, Fuya-an
ਇᄛᐻ, and supported himself with work as a tenja. He joined Sankasha
in 1766.44
Taigi was a prominent supporter of the BashŇ Revival movement,
and was active in promoting a return to serious forms of haikai. A
collection that he helped to edit was very influential in this regard: Kyoto
twenty kasen. This collection, which he worked on together with Buson’s
friend ShŇzan and another colleague, Zuiko 㓐ฎ, was published in the
same year as the formation of Sankasha, and gives a good indication of
the passionate feelings towards BashŇ that had already developed by that
———
43
44
Yajima Nagisao, Buson no shşhen (Kadokawa Shoten, 1988), p. 10.
Horikiri Minoru, “Tan Taigi,” in Kubota, Renga, haikai, kyŇka, pp. 299–300.
82
CHAPTER THREE
point. Buson’s preface to this collection is like a map to the way of
thinking of the Back to BashŇ poets:
One day, Taigi and ShŇzan went to visit ChŇshŇka 㐳᧻ਅ (Zuiko), and
they opened this text45 and read it, and realizing how profoundly these ancients were involved in the haikai Way, they could not help but ponder on
the glorious past, and in the end came to write three-person verse sequences; they had twenty sittings, so created twenty kasen. Nevertheless,
theirs was neither an emulation of Kikaku’s style of singing to the moon,
nor an imitation of the form of Ransetsu’s longing for the blossoms.46
Neither was it the currently popular, self-styled ShŇmon (BashŇ school),
which puts emphasis on substance.47 It is better to simply value following
just what is in one’s mind exactly, without stylistic manipulations.48
Buson’s description of the circumstances of the sequences in the
collection gives us some insight into what he viewed as important about
Taigi and his companions’ project. The three poets were moved to
compose the sequences by their discovery of a letter in BashŇ’s handwriting, something that BashŇ Revival poets would view as a precious
document. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Buson’s admiration
for these poets’ work does not center on their imitation of Kikaku (i.e.,
urban haikai poets) nor ShŇmon (i.e., the rural BashŇ school). Rather, a
genuine way to honor BashŇ is to attend to one’s own personal style.
Buson’s very critical judgment of currently popular haikai schools,
even of those who claimed to be following BashŇ’s tradition is impossible to overlook here. He praises the work of these three poets because
they imitate the example of neither urban school poets, who are too
interested in style and form without paying attention to substance; nor
do they write like the rural school poets, who overemphasize substance
at the expense of style and form. The urban school poets produce
impressively clever verses that lack depth; the rural school’s verse is
excessively plain and bland. The verses of Taigi and his colleagues, by
contrast, are free of both kinds of error; rather than trying to imitate
BashŇ’s verses, they try to match his attitude and approach. Buson strove
to follow this practice in his own work, and Taigi was an influential
mentor and model for him in pursuing this goal.
———
45
A letter from Kyorai to RŇka ᶉൻ with some lines added by BashŇ.
The former suggests Kikaku’s robust style, and the latter, Ransetsu’s sensuous style.
47 That is, a simple, unadorned style.
48 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 103–104.
46
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
83
These three Taigi hokku are especially good examples of his lucid,
untrammeled style:
hanetsuku ya
yo gokoro shiranu
Ňmatage
playing hanetsuki
unaware of the ways of the world
they run boisterously49
Taigi
furakoko no
eshaku koboruru ya
takami yori
bowing
in a swing
from a height50
Taigi
iro iro ni
tani no kotaeru
yukige kana
from other valleys
various echoes:
sound of melting snow51
Taigi
The first two verses are perceptive and wonderfully sympathetic
observations of children at play. In the first, “Playing hanetsuki” (Hanetsuki ya) Taigi describes the behavior of little girls engrossed in a New
Year’s Day game where a shuttlecock is batted back and forth with a
wooden paddle. The player who keeps the shuttlecock in the air longest
wins. The girls in Taigi’s verse are so intent on their play that they forget
to act like ladies, and instead shout and run around indecorously. In
“Bowing” (Furakoko no) a child seems to dip his or her head, as the swing
reaches the top of its arc, much as people do in nodding greetings to one
another. Finally, in “From other valleys” (Iro iro ni) the spring thaw
causes masses of snow to crack and shift noisily, and water trickles
loudly in mountain streams. Neighboring valleys ring with the many
sounds of life’s regeneration.
Despite the fact that Taigi lived in the licensed district under the
patronage of a brothel owner, his verse maintains a serene detachment
from vulgarity and worldly concerns. This was what most impressed
———
49 Abe Kimio and AsŇ Isoji, eds., NKBT, vol. 92, Kinsei haiku haibun shş (Iwanami
Shoten, 1964), p. 153.
50 Ibid., p. 153.
51 Kuriyama Ri’ichi et al., eds., Nihon koten bungaku zenshş, vol. 42, Kinsei haiku haibun
shş (ShŇgakukan, 1972), p. 236.
84
CHAPTER THREE
Buson, who was aiming for a similar kind of high-mindedness in his own
verse.
The other member of the Sankasha group that was to have a profound impact on Buson’s work was Kuroyanagi ShŇha, in whose honor
Buson wrote the Shundei kushş preface. Kuroyanagi ShŇha was of a more
conservative temperament than Taigi, but was still an eccentric; he
retired from his business at the age of 40 to pursue the arts. As we
discussed in Chapter Two, ShŇha’s early training had been in Chinese
learning, and he was probably instrumental in informing Buson about
Chinese literature and thought. ShŇha began to take part in Sankasha
meetings in the last few years of the 1760s, and Buson considered him,
with Taigi, one of the two leading poets in the group. Often Sankasha
meetings were held at his studio, the ShŇhatei ถᵄ੪.52
Like Taigi, ShŇha led a life that was an embodiment of the ideals that
Buson was trying to achieve with his theories of rizoku or using the
mundane at the same time as keeping distant from it. As Buson tells us
in his preface to Five cartloads of wastepaper (Gosha hŇgu ੖ゞ෻᡿, 1783),
though he lived in the midst of the city, ShŇha typified the bunjin ideal of
detachment and transcendence. Buson describes ShŇha’s son Korekoma’s experience of looking through a collection of his father’s papers
posthumously, and notes that it was full of kanshi, unfinished fragments
of hokku covered with corrections, and letters from companions inviting
him to go cherry blossom- or snow-viewing—everything one might
expect to find in a proper bunjin recluse:
When Korekoma was observing the thirteenth anniversary of his father’s
death, he made a collection and called it “Five Cartloads of Wastepaper.”
There was no profound reason for doing so, but naturally he gave it this
name because of his father’s verse, “Holed up for the winter.” Furthermore, when he untied the string of the overstuffed bag that was full of the
writings he had amassed, there were manuscripts of kanshi exchanges,
there were letters of invitation to go cherry-blossom viewing, and there
were letters from drinking companions that made invitations like, ‘How
about going to look at the snow tonight?’ There were also dashed-off
verse sequences, still half-finished, marked here and there with corrections. On the backs of these were written the verses of many other people,
and also his own. 53
———
52
53
Yajima, p. 142.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 225–226.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
85
Another work, KitŇ’s New random chats anthology (Shin zŇtan shş ᣂ
㔀⺣㓸, 1785), notes that ShŇha retired from commerce early to take up
a life of reclusion, but this did not mean he isolated himself in some
lonely ascetic setting, but rather that he took great pleasure in wine and
haikai and was kept so busy with visitors that he was aware of neither
sunset nor dawn:
Shundeisha ShŇha’s family name was Kuroyanagi. In the early part of his
old age, he retired from his family business, and lived as a recluse at the
outskirts of town, assiduously practicing haikai, and enjoying wine. He always had many guests visiting, and it was as if he was not aware of the setting of the sun in spring or the break of day in autumn. In this way, his
verses entered into the realm of rizoku, and had the lofty vividness of Ransetsu’s language.” 54
ShŇha’s hokku are varied, but especially compelling are those that are
informed by his bunjin ideals:
ganjitsu ya
kusa no to goshi no
mugibatake
New Year’s day!
beyond my thatched cottage
barley fields55
ShŇha
kaidan no
ushiro fuke yuku
yosamu kana
hearing ghost stories
behind me creeps
midnight’s chill56
ShŇha
The first verse mentions a thatched cottage, a bunjin’s typical dwelling—
remote and evocative of genteel poverty. The speaker is spending a quiet,
constrained new year, with few material comforts with which to celebrate. However, the barley field across from his house has sprouted, and
its gentle green suggests hope for a bright new year. The speaker in the
second verse has been staying up late on a summer night sharing scary
stories with friends. Suddenly the hair stands up on the back of his
neck—is it just a chilly breeze, or has he crossed paths with a ghost? An
appreciation for the grotesque is also a hallmark of Japanese bunjin, and
———
54 Takai KitŇ, “Shin zŇtan shş,” in Shimizu Takayuki, ed., Koten haibungaku taikei, vol.
14, ChşkŇ hairon haibun shş (Shşeisha, 1971), p. 405.
55 NKBT, vol. 92, p. 174.
56 Ibid., p. 176.
86
CHAPTER THREE
like Buson, ShŇha was fond of describing situations tinged with the
supernatural.
Two more ShŇha verses that illustrate his bunjin-inspired tastes are:
uki koto o
kurage ni kataru
namako kana
telling melancholy things
to the jellyfish
sea slug57
ShŇha
fuyu gomorite
gosha no hŇgu no
aruji kana
holed up for the winter
I am the master
of five cartloads of wastepaper!58
ShŇha
While humor is fundamental to all kinds of haikai, the strategy ShŇha
uses here is considerably different from the sort of ostentatious puns or
scatological jokes favored by many of his contemporaries. Here the
comedy is gentle, elevated, even a bit mad. An appreciation for small,
cute things—fox cubs in some cases, sparrows, or as in the case of
“Telling melancholy things” (Uki koto o), conversational sea slugs—is
connected to the bunjin ideal. Likewise, in “Holed up for the winter”
(Fuyu gomorite), the speaker’s insatiable mania for poetry has got him
almost buried in a flurry of drafts. Both verses are statements of a
refined sensibility that sets them apart from the popular, commercially
successful haikai of the day.
Sankasha’s Anthology: From Summer (Natsu yori)
Sankasha’s first meeting was in the Sixth Month of 1766, and it was held
at Tairai-dŇ, a space that belonged to group member TessŇ. The group
met twice, and then its meetings were suspended for two years because
Buson left for Sanuki, Shikoku. They resumed their work after he
returned in 1769, and continued to meet on a fairly regular basis until the
group was disbanded in the Ninth Month of the following year and most
of its members joined Buson’s newly opened Yahantei school.
———
57
58
NKBT, vol. 92, p. 176.
NKBT, vol. 92, p. 177.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
87
In total, Sankasha met forty times between the Sixth Month of 1766
and the Ninth Month of 1770. Hokku composed at its meetings were
collected into an anthology called From summer (Natsu yori ᄐࠃࠅ). Even
though the group’s professed purpose was to recapture the ideals of
haikai poets of the past, the From summer hokku bear little resemblance to
those of BashŇ and his contemporaries. Buson’s contributions are
outstanding, as are many of Taigi’s, and it appears that this is the period
when Buson begins to find some confidence in his work as a poet. In
general, Buson’s From Summer hokku show characteristics that were to
become the hallmarks of his mature style: the suggestion of narrative,
often based in classical or medieval Japanese literature, allusions to
Chinese poetry, and a facility for building into the restrictive seventeen
syllables of the hokku form a sense of vastness in time and space.
I will discuss four kinds of verses from Buson’s Sankasha period. The
first date from the sessions that met before Buson left for Sanuki, are
unambitious, even bland. The verses that Buson wrote after his return,
however, are quite different, and show that Buson was finding his own
poetic voice. The first type shows Buson’s fascination with classical
Japanese and Chinese literature; in the second, Buson describes a scene
that is metonymic of a larger narrative. In the third, Buson plays with
imagery related to time and space in another way that shows his efforts
to overcome the snapshot-like quality of hokku and to convey a sense of
nostalgia.
Sankasha only met twice in 1766 before Buson left for Sanuki. The
following are good examples of the somewhat plain and flat hokku of
these first two meetings:
hirugao ya
machi ni nariyuku
kui no kazu
convovulus
approaching the town
there are a number of signposts59
hatsuka ji no
senaka ni tatsu ya
kumo no mine
twenty days’ road60
rising at my back
a peak of cloud61
———
59
BZ, vol. 1, no. 62.
“Twenty days’ road” refers to the time it took to travel along the TŇkaidŇ highway
from Edo to Kyoto.
61 BZ, vol. 1, no. 64.
60
88
CHAPTER THREE
Both “Convolvulus” (Hirugao ya) and “Twenty days’ road” (Hatsuka ji no)
describe the experience of travel, but they are entirely generalized and
imaginary. They were written not to celebrate a particular place, but to
come as close as possible to capture the hon’i (conventional meaning) of
the assigned topic, “convolvulus” (hirugao) and “peak of cloud” (kumo no
mine).
The following verses were written after Buson’s return from Sanuki,
and show a marked change. They are good examples of the type of
Buson verse that alludes to an imagined Chinese past:
aoume ni
mayu atsumetaru
bijin kana
under the green plum trees
drawing her brows together
a beautiful woman62
ayu kurete
yorade sugiyuku
yowa no kado
you brought some sweetfish
but left without stopping
midnight gate63
In the first verse, the seasonal topic is aoume (green plum), a fresh,
enlivening image of a plum tree in new leaf. Sitting underneath is a
beautiful woman, whose brows are knitted. The allusion is to the famous
Chinese beauty Xi Shi ⷏ᣉ (Japanese Seishi), whose face was marked by
a perpetual frown owing to her sorrow at being sent to serve in a foreign
court. Buson’s beauty scowls not out of sadness: green plums are so sour
to the taste just looking at them makes her contort her face. “Under the
green plum trees” (Aoume ni) makes a humorous twist on a sad, romantic
story. Similarly, the second verse alludes to a Chinese setting, this time
imagining a relationship between two literati. The gift of sweetfish (ayu),
admired for its clean fragrance, would be appropriate when the recipient
is a person of discrimination and taste. The giver comes late on a
summer night, and leaves without waiting for thanks or praise—precisely
the kind of gesture that one refined literatus would extend to another.
In the second type of verse, Buson creates the impression of a larger
story behind his words. The situations in these verses range from broad,
panoramic scenes that could have been taken from an epic telling of
history, such as the medieval war narrative Tale of the Heike (Heike
monogatari ᐔኅ‛⺆), or they focus on small private scenesthe quiet
———
62
63
BZ, vol. 1, no. 96.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 114.
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
89
sufferings of anonymous individuals. All of them suggest backgrounds
and consequences much larger than the space allowed by the hokku’s
seventeen syllable structure:
Toba dono e
gorokki isogu
nowaki kana
toward Toba palace
five or six riders gallop
autumn storm64
kogarashi ya
ika ni yo wataru
ie go ken
winter wind
however do they get through life
in these five houses?65
yado kasanu
hokage ya yuki no
ie tsuzuki
lights
where they refused me lodging
house after house66
Nowaki is an autumn typhoon, a storm with high winds that occurs in
early autumn, the Eighth Month by the lunar calendar, Toba Palace was
a residence of retired emperors in the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries.67 While this hokku does not allude to any particular text or historical
incident, it suggests gunki monogatari ァ⸥‛⺆ (war tales), a genre that
arose in the late Heian period and flourished in the medieval period.
“Toward Toba Palace” (Tobadono e) juxtaposes the image of the autumn
typhoon with that of the riders hurrying to the palace, evoking a scene of
chaos and impending violence. Buson often used numbers, as he does
here with “five or six riders” (gorokki) to add a sense of realism and
specificity. He employs a similar strategy in the second verse: reference
to a weather condition (kogarashi, winter wind), juxtaposed with a human
situation. Here, too, the use of numerals suggests that the speaker in the
poem is describing a scene he actually witnessed. Finally, “Lights” (Yado
kasanu) shows a marked detachment from the events described, as if it
were representing the experience of a third person. Buson chooses to
focus on the elegance of the lights against the snow, rather than the
bitterness of being without lodging on a cold night, idealizing the scene.
———
64
BZ, vol. 1, no. 196.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 298.
66 BZ, vol. 1, no. 324.
67 Retired Emperor Shirakawa ⊕ᴡ (r. 1072–1086). It was also the residence of
Retired Emperors Toba 㠽⠀ (r. 1107–1123), Go-Shirakawa ᓟ⊕ᴡ (r. 1155–1158), GoToba ᓟ㠽⠀ (r. 1183–1198), and Go-Saga ᓟᎂጾ (r. 1242–1246).
65
90
CHAPTER THREE
It is not a hokku about the melancholy of a traveler’s hardships, but of
those hardships transformed by an experience of beauty.
These verses also create the sense of a larger narrative:
yuku haru ya
senja o uramu
uta no nushi
end of spring
the poet
resents the poetry judge68
maku majiki
sumai o nemono
gatari kana
making pillow talk
about a sumo match
“I shouldn’t have lost!”69
Komabune no
yorade sugiyuku
kasumi kana
the Koguryo ship
passes on without stopping
hazy mist70
The first verse juxtaposes two examples of regret. Regret for the end of
spring was considered an elegant emotion, particularly appropriate for
sensitive poets. Senja mainly refers to an editor or compiler of a poetry
anthology. The poet in this hokku has his elegant regret for the end of
spring compounded by his more earthy resentment at having his work
passed over again by yet another unsympathetic editor. The second verse
presents a persona of a different social status, but one who is also
disappointed: a defeated sumŇ wrestler chatting gloomily with his wife
before falling asleep. Many years later, in 1783, Buson used it as an
inscription for a painting that included verses by Ransetsu, Ryşkyo,
Taigi, and KitŇ, with the headnote, “Feeling nostalgia for the past,” but
in From summer, it appears in a series of verses written on the assigned
topic “sumŇ” (sumai). Finally, in the third verse, the spring season word
“hazy mist” (kasumi) creates a mysterious, otherworldly atmosphere,
blurring the boundaries between the past and the present. Komabune
(Koguryo ship) refers to official ships that sailed from the continent to
Japan up until the Nara period, a practice that ended almost a thousand
years before Buson’s lifetime. The word lends the verse an archaic,
storybook quality.
———
68
BZ, vol. 1, no. 458.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 160.
70 BZ, vol. 1, no. 401.
69
ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET
91
In the third type of verse, Buson represents time and its passing. One
way he does this is to show the progression of time by contrasting the
present with the past in a single location:
ikanobori
kinŇ no sora no
aridokoro
paper kite
in the same place as it was
in yesterday’s sky71
kinŇ ini
kyŇ ini kari no
naki yo kana
here yesterday
here today; tonight
the geese cry, flying72
hana chirite
konoma no tera to
nari ni keri
blossoms fallen
the space between
turned into a temple73
All of these verses share the same point of view: the speaker is looking
up at the sky, observing similar phenomena on separate occasions. In
“Paper kite” (Ikanobori) it is a kite that appears in the same place as it had
on the previous day. Kite flying was an activity for boys, especially
during the new year season; in this sense, the kite links the present not
only to the immediate past, but to the more distant past of the speaker’s
own childhood: it reminds him not only of the kite he saw yesterday, but
of those he played with himself as a child. Similarly, in “Here yesterday”
(KinŇ ini), the speaker’s observation is of something flying in the sky
above—this time, geese flying back to their northern breeding grounds
after spending the winter in Japan. While most spring topics are hopeful
and convey a sense of optimism, “geese” (kari) is tinged with regret, and
filled with the same gentle melancholy as the geese’s farewell calls. As in
“Paper kite,” the fact that the situation is identical yesterday, today, and
tonight only further serves to emphasize that time, like the geese
themselves, is passing by. Lastly, in “Blossoms fallen” (Hana chirite),
Buson focuses on a particular detail of the landscape to convey the sense
of time’s passing. When the cherry trees were in full bloom, the temple
was hidden behind masses of blossoms and the crowds of visitors who
had come to see them. Now that the blossoms have fallen, space has
opened up between the branches to reveal the temple. The visitors are all
———
71
BZ, vol. 1, no. 403.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 741.
73 BZ, vol. 1, no. 455.
72
92
CHAPTER THREE
gone too, and the place has returned to its usual state of contemplation
and silence.
The From summer manuscript is the record of a dedicated, energetic
group of poets who met regularly once or twice a month for the better
part of two years. Their membership was also steady, and by the last
several sessions included thirteen or fourteen people. However, the
record trails off with the meeting on the sixth day of the ninth month of
1769—spaces are left blank above the names of several of the poets, as if
waiting for verses that were yet to be composed. The end of Sankasha,
however, was really a beginning: the attendance roster of the Yahantei
school that Buson established the following year shows that at its start
the new group was basically Sankasha with a new name.
The hokku of Buson’s early years are few in number, but they still
demonstrate a certain amount stylistic development. His very earliest
hokku show a marked influence of urban school haikai and its delight in
impressive displays of word play and cleverness. This tendency becomes
muted as Buson begins to associate himself more closely with the rural
poets of the northeast. After he moved to Kyoto and began to work
towards establishing himself as a painter there, his verse starts to take on
many of the characteristics that were to make it distinctive, such as an
affinity for Chinese literary models and nostalgia for an idealized past.
Buson’s early hokku are most notable, though, for the way that they
offer insight into the close relationship that haikai composition had with
the community that produced it. The volume of Buson’s haikai fluctuates
greatly depending on where he traveled—while his production was
relatively large when he was in the northeast, it slowed to almost nothing
during his years in Tango—a place where, by his own description, there
were few people worth working with. This is also the case when he visits
Sanuki. It is not until he begins to gain a foothold in Kyoto and find
himself in the company of other talented poets like Taigi and ShŇha that
the quality of his verse begins to improve markedly, and he starts to
attain a strong and confident voice. However, despite Buson’s growing
maturity as a poet, and the standing he gained in the haikai community,
he continued to avoid formal engagement with that community.
In the next chapter, I will take a closer look at Yahantei and the anthologies it produced, to consider the ways in which Buson negotiated
between his public status as a leader of the haikai community and
professional painter on the one hand, and his espousal of the bunjin
amateur recluse ideal on the other.
CHAPTER FOUR
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD:
HOKKU 1771–1783
In 1770, not long after he returned from Sanuki, Buson assumed the
leadership of Yahantei, the haikai school founded by his teacher Hayano
Hajin in 1742. Yahantei had been dormant since Hajin’s death, despite
the fact that other Hajin disciples could conceivably have reestablished it
at some point during the thirty-odd years that intervened. Ultimately, the
role finally fell to Buson, who, with considerable reluctance, stepped
forward to reopen the school.
The event itself took place without fanfare. Ordinarily bundai hiraki
ᢥบ㐿 (opening of a haikai school) were elaborate affairs, involving
formal visits to local haikai teachers, parties, and the composition of a
large number of verses—officially, 10,000. This formality simultaneously
allowed the newcomer to show respect to his already established
colleagues, and offered him the chance to advertise his name and that of
his new school. Buson, however, did none of this. His only reference to
the Yahantei bundai hiraki in his surviving correspondence was a laconic
statement in a letter to ShŇha, “Also, the party I held to celebrate the
opening of my haikai school went off with no trouble, so please do not
worry about it. I hope that sometime you will come and join us.”1
The hokku that Buson wrote to mark the occasion also gives us some
insight into the kind of event it was:
hana mori no
mi wa yumi ya naki
kagashi kana
the role of a blossom guard
a scarecrow
with neither bow nor arrows!2
The responsibility of a hana mori (blossom guard) was to protect cherry
blossoms from the predations of over-enthusiastic revelers. The guard in
this verse has a difficult job to do, not only has he no weapons to back
up his efforts: even worse, he is just a scarecrow. Composing this verse
in commemoration of his assumption of the Yahantei school leadership,
Buson draws a comparison between the scarecrow and himself, saying
———
1
2
BSS, p. 36.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 727.
94
CHAPTER FOUR
that it is as absurd to expect him to do anything worthwhile in this role
as it would be to depend on a scarecrow—and an unarmed one at that—
to act as a guard. Modesty in a situation like this was a social convention,
but given that this is an occasion whose purpose is self promotion,
Buson’s pose of humility is an interesting one. On the one hand, it
implies that his sense of entitlement was so solid that he felt no need to
boast or preen. On the other, keeping in mind the fact that his succession to the Yahantei title was done quietly and without ostentation, we
may interpret the self-deprecation in this verse as sincere rather than
being simply a formality.
A number of factors contributed to Buson’s delay in reestablishing
Yahantei. In the first place, several of Hajin’s more senior disciples lived
on for many years after his teacher’s death, and Buson was reluctant to
put himself ahead of them. One member of Hajin’s Yahantei school with
a stronger claim to the position than Buson was SŇoku, a contemporary
of GantŇ and the manager of Yahantei in the Kansai area; also, there was
KitŇ’s father Kikei, superior to Buson in age and experience. The fact
that Buson waited until both of them were dead before reopening
Yahantei suggests that, given their seniority, doing otherwise was
inappropriate.3
In the second place, as his disdain for tentori masters—whose primary
purpose was earning money—shows, Buson drew much of his sense of
authority from his amateur status. Keeping the marketplace at a distance,
treating his poetry as something other than a professional occupation,
was especially important for him because he depended on bunjin painting
for his livelihood. As Pierre Bourdieu has demonstrated, cultivating an
appearance of disdain for economic pressures is one way to enhance a
person’s prestige in artistic and intellectual communities, but the cultural
notions surrounding the bunjin made such a withdrawal (or at least the
appearance of one) absolutely essential:
“...[The] accumulation of a cultural capital (whether or not educationally
sanctioned) which can only be acquired by means of a sort of withdrawal
from economic necessity...To be able to play the games of culture with the
playful seriousness which Plato demanded, a seriousness without the
‘spirit of seriousness’ one has to belong to the ranks of those who have
been able, not necessarily to make their whole existence a sort of chil-
———
3
Tanaka, pp. 114–115.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
95
dren’s game, as artists do, but at least to maintain for a long time, sometimes a whole lifetime, a child’s relation to the world.4
Bunjin were expected to be above commerce, something that can be
linked to the suspicion of profit that was common to both the Confucianist and Taoist ethical systems that informed their ideal. As the thenpopular Mustard seed garden manual of painting puts it, grasping for profit
was “vulgarizing, destructive to the ki.” With this in mind, if Buson
openly professionalized his haikai persona, it would risk his claim to the
cultural capital enjoyed by the amateur. For this reason, Buson, a
commoner from a questionable family background who aspired to
compose poetry good enough to be called the equal of waka or renga,
had to go to some lengths to distinguish himself from what he called
“puffed-up tenja” whose chief concern was profit.
Buson’s anxieties about his own abilities also may have contributed to
the long delay in opening his own haikai school, as his hokku “The role
of a blossom guard” (Hana mori no) indicates. However, when he finally
did, it was with a very good motive: it gave him a platform from which
to launch his efforts to resist the proliferation of “bad” haikai. Within
the confines of his own group, Buson and his disciples could work
towards a common cause of achieving a return to the ideals of BashŇ.
Indeed, despite all of Buson’s reasons for avoiding the issue of becoming the head of a haikai school, when he finally came to do it, his
timing was good for the BashŇ Revival movement and for himself as
well. In 1770 Buson was relatively secure in his career. He had a strong
practice as a painter, having just returned from a successful trip to
Sanuki.5 Furthermore, he had reached a turning point in his work as a
poet also—his participation in Sankasha brought about a change in his
approach to haikai. ShŇha, Taigi, and the other Sankasha members
generated a sense of confidence in Buson, and the experience working
with them encouraged him to the degree that he was finally ready to put
aside his reservations and take over leadership of his teacher’s old
school.
———
4
5
Bourdieu, p. 53–54.
Cahill, p. 154–161.
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Yahantei Procedure
Yahantei’s meetings, like those of Sankasha, were relatively egalitarian:
they were conducted in a discussion format where every member of the
group was encouraged to express his opinion. Those who were excessively critical or who flattered others were not invited back. This
indicates that even after he re-opened Yahantei, Buson’s ambivalence
about the work of a haikai master persisted. Although he was the head of
the group, he did not dominate it. Furthermore, much of the work of
organizing and editing anthologies for Yahantei he left up to his disciples, mainly Takai KitŇ.
We can gain some insight into Buson’s views on Yahantei from Rules
for selection, his statement on the school’s procedure and standards of
excellence.6 They are particularly valuable given the fact that Buson
wrote so few articulations of his poetic theory.
1. All of these styles may be chosen: The powerful ones of Kikaku. The
highly-regarded verses of Ransetsu. The straightforward verses of Kyorai.
The lighthearted verses of SodŇ. Bakurin (Otsuyş) and ShikŇ’s verse styles
are vulgar but both established his own school, and some of theirs may be
chosen.
2. What binds all of these poets is Master BashŇ. However, the ones
who come close to BashŇ, Kikaku and Ransetsu, are only half as good.
Bakurin and ShikŇ are only one-tenth as good.
3. There are those in the world who call themselves ShŇmon (the
BashŇ school). In particular they do not know the style of Master BashŇ.
The verses that they compose as well as what they theorize about do not
get beyond the level of Shibaku7 commonness. There are times when
these are called Ise School or Mino School. How can we call them ShŇmon? People in the know call them by the nickname Backwoods BashŇ
school....
5. Knowing the Great Way of haikai is nothing other than this: extolling the moon and appreciating the blossoms, causing your mind to venture outside of the world of dust, always keeping as friends those who dip
into the stream of Master BashŇ, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. You should consider escape from the spirit of vulgarity to be the best way.
———
6 The text is preserved in two versions that were transcribed by his disciples, one,
Teramura Hyakuchi’s ኹ᧛⊖ᳰ (1749–1835) Posthumous Buson writings anthology (Buson
iboku shş ⭢᧛ㆮა㓸), and the other KitŇ’s Treatise on verse-marking (Ten’in ron ὐශ⺰,
1786). Written in kanbun (the Japanese form of classical Chinese) with Japanese glosses
added, the two versions are nearly identical in content. The text of paragraph 4 is quoted
in Chapter Two.
7 That is, they are similar to the styles of Bakurin and ShikŇ.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
97
6. As for the way we select verses: we meet together in a group and all
of us speak of our intentions, mainly conducting discussions. We should
not pay deference to other schools. Neither will we permit those who
curry favor, become intimidated or ridicule others outside the circle to join
in subsequent meetings. 8
Having acknowledged that rural school tradition has something to offer,
however inferior it may be, Buson tells us that Yahantei poets reject
those who follow this style, dismissing them as adherents of a rusticated
“Backwoods BashŇ-style.” This reflects the Yahantei school’s roots—its
founder, Hajin, was a disciple of Kikaku and Ransetsu and therefore an
heir to the urban school tradition. However, as Hajin himself might have
taught (judging from what Buson writes in his preface to the Hajin
memorial volume Far into the west), the main criterion was that verses
should avoid commonness and vulgarity, and aspire to the highest
possible standard.9 Also, Buson regarded civility and mutual respect of
members as requirements for being accepted into the group. Competition between participants, particularly for points, was not the purpose of
its gatherings.
Despite the definitiveness of its tone, the Yahantei house rules also
demonstrate Buson’s ambivalence about leadership. Verses were not
recognized for their excellence by a teacher’s unilateral fiat, but rather by
discussion and consensus. This provision suggests that Buson was
reluctant to show off his own talents and authority even at this point,
despite his long years of haikai practice and new status as the leader of a
haikai school with an estimable history.
———
8 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 113–116. Both versions are given, A) Teramura Hyakuchi’s ኹ᧛⊖ᳰ
Buson iboku shş ⭢᧛ㆮა㓸, published in Ogata Tsutomu, “Hairin shŇyş” in BashŇ, Buson,
Issa, Kuriyama Ri’ichi, ed. (Yşzankaku Shuppan, 1978); B) KitŇ’s Ten’in ron ὐශ⺰, 1786.
Hyakuchi and KitŇ were instrumental in promoting Buson’s reputation after his death.
9 The regard the Yahantei school poets held for BashŇ’s work is also indicated in
Buson’s choice of symbols in his school’s system for scoring outstanding hokku.
Mediocre verses received no points, but better verses merited scores of seven, ten,
twenty, and twenty-five points depending on their quality. Buson used special seals to
mark the verses that used phrases that made allusions to famous BashŇ hokku. For
example, RobŇ no sumire 〝றᮑ (roadside mallow flower), that referred to Michinobe no
mukuge wa uma ni kuwari keri (Mallow flower / by the roadside / eaten by my horse!),
denoted seven points; a picture of a frog, referring to furu ike ya /kawazu tobikomu / mizu
no oto (the old pond—! /a frog jumps in / sound of water), meant twenty points. Buson’s
written responses to disciples work also show that BashŇ represented the group’s
standard. He comments on one verse, “this is today’s up-to-date ShŇmon style (ryşkŇtai
ᵹⴕ૕);” on another, “you don’t find this in the BashŇ style.” While the Yahantei school
was not a typical tentori haikai group, verse-scoring remained an important pedagogical
tool.
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Yahantei’s First Anthology: Spring in Meiwa 8 (Meiwa shinbo no haru)
The first publication of Buson’s Yahantei school was the new year
anthology Spring in Meiwa 8 (1771) (Meiwa shinbŇ no haru ᣿๺ㄆවᤐ).
New year anthologies served a function similar to modern nengajŇ
ᐕ⾐⁁ or new year cards. They were issued to group members and
people of their acquaintance, and served to establish the group’s identity.
New year anthologies typically took two forms, new year’s day booklets
(saitanchŇ ᱦᣤᏭ) and spring felicitations booklets (shunkyŇjŇ ᤐ⥝Ꮭ).
The main difference between them was that new year’s day booklets
were published before, and spring felicitations booklets after, the first
day of the new year. Both included verses collected from members of
haikai schools, typically on celebratory themes. New year anthologies
frequently included pictures as well as verses; indeed a popular format
for this kind of collection was the surimono ᠁‛ (commemorative prints,
literally, “printed things”) that combined poetry and graphics and were
printed on costly paper. New year anthologies had a very small distribution; they were mainly circulated among the members of the group
whose verses were included, and served as a way of reinforcing a sense
of collective identity.
Spring in Meiwa 8 was issued as a shunkyŇjŇ, and as was typical of such
collections during this period, includes a series of mitsumono ਃߟ‛
(three-link) sequences, two sequences including kasen, and hokku written
on topics related to the new year season. Spring in Meiwa 8 was also
noteworthy for the fact that Buson compiled and wrote it out himself, as
in later years he often left this kind of task up to his senior disciples.
Buson’s starting verse for the first mitsumono sequence is bold and
playful, and suggests a growing confidence in his role as leader of the
group:
Katsuragi no
kamiko nugabaya
ake no haru
if I could only take off
the Katsuragi god’s paper robe
dawn of spring10
Katsuragi is a mountain in modern Nara Prefecture. Its tutelary god,
Katsuragi-hitokoto-nushi-no-kami ⪾ၔ৻⸒ਥ␹, was ashamed of his
own ugliness, and would only come out at night. Kamiko is a robe made
of stiffened paper, and kami (paper) is homophonous with the word for
———
10
BZ, vol. 1, no. 840.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
99
god. Ake no haru is either early spring or a dawn in spring, and here
suggests the morning of the first day of the new year. The speaker of the
poem imagines the Katsuragi god taking off his paper garment after a
long night of hard work, expressing the wish that the new year will
similarly bring a new beginning. The paper garment may be emblematic
of unpleasant memories, but it also suggests an old, outmoded style that
the poet wishes to exchange for a new one—entirely appropriate for
inclusion in the first new year anthology of a new haikai school.
A verse on a similar theme is:
uguisu no
sosŇ ga mashiki
hatsune kana
the warbler’s
inexperienced simplicity is better
year’s first song11
The song of the bush warbler, uguisu, was eagerly anticipated as a sign of
spring. While it was admired particularly for its distinctive call, the voice
of the young uguisu is not fully developed by the time of hatsune, the first
birdcall one hears in the new year. As this is the first Yahantei anthology,
Buson makes the effort to acknowledge the new group’s lack of experience, but implies that this is actually what makes it most appealing.
Other Spring in Meiwa 8 verses rely on references to Chinese and classical Japanese literature, though in very distinct ways—one, delicately
romantic, the other, comic:
usuginu ni
kimi ga oboro ya
Gabi no tsuki
in a gossamer robe
you are veiled in haziness
moon over Mount Gabi12
EnpŇ no kuhŇ
In the style of the EnpŇ period
mochi kyştai no
while shaving the “old bog moss
whiskers”
of mold off the rice cakes
“breezes comb the hair of young
willows”13
kabi o kezureba
kaze kŇryş no kezuri kake
In “In a gossamer robe” Buson alludes to Chinese poet Li Bo’s verse
“Song of the Moon over Mount Emei ጾ⋲ጊ (Japanese Gabi),” that is
———
11
BZ, vol. 1, no. 845.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 843.
13 BZ, vol. 1, no. 844.
12
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included in Tang shi xuan.14 The mountain’s name is homophonous with
gabi ⱌ⋲ (literally, moth brows, i.e., crescent-shaped brows), an attribute
of beautiful women. “Gossamer robe” (usuginu), a garment worn by
women in the summertime, is evocative of Heian romances, 15 “haziness” (oboro) is a spring kigo that refers to mist that forms on humid
spring nights, especially moonlit ones; it also recalls Heian literature.
Together these words suggest an elegant, mysteriously erotic scene that
conflates classical Chinese and Japanese literature, recasting the world of
Li Bo into a context drawn from Heian monogatari.
The second verse, “While shaving the ‘old bog moss whiskers’” takes
a completely different tone—its extreme jiamari (excess of syllables) and
obstreperous alliteration underscores the humor of this verse which is a
parody of a poem in the 11th century Japanese and Chinese poems to sing
(Wakan rŇeishş๺ṽᦶ⹗㓸, 1012) by Miyako no Yoshika ㇺ⦟㚅:
the weather clears, breezes comb
the hair of the young willows;
the ice is melting, wavelets wash
the whiskers of old bog moss.16
᳇㔿㘑᫁ᣂᩉ㜬
᳖ᶖᶉᵞᣥ⧡㝏
Buson’s verse juxtaposes Yoshika’s very elegant and refined imagery of
willows and moss in early spring with the unpretentious, everyday staple
of the new year season—mochi (rice flour cakes). Mochi are prone to
———
14 J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, eds., Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The
Wakan rŇei shş (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 31.
Song of the Moon over Mount Emei
A half-circle moon shines on Mount Emei’s autumn
Its shadow enters the Pingqiang River’s current.
At night, I board a boat at Qing Xi, headed for the Three Gorges.
I miss you, moon—you do not shine down on Yu Zhou.
ጾ⋲ጊ᦬᱌
ጾ⋲ጊ᦬ඨベ⑺
ᓇ౉ᐔ⟢ᳯ᳓ᵹ
ᄛ⊓ᷡᷧะਃ⁜
ᕁำਇ⷗ਅᷬᎺ
Li Bo, in Maeno Naoaki, ed., TŇshisen, vol. 3 (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), pp. 136–137.
15 Yamamoto Kenkichi, Kihon kigo gohyaku sen (KŇdansha, 1991), p. 404.
16 Rimer and Chaves, p. 31; Chinese text is in ņsone and Horiuchi, p. 15.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
101
attracting mold. In this verse Buson brings together the ordinary,
everyday experience of scraping mold off mochi and the elegant world of
Japanese and Chinese poems to sing, introducing a collision of ga and zoku
(elite and commoner culture) that is typical of haikai. The repetition of
“k” sounds in “kabi o kezureba / kaze kŇryş no kezuri kake” also heightens
the verse’s comic effect. The headnote, “In the style of the EnpŇ period”
points to the fact that Buson is imitating the verse of the BashŇ school’s
Empty chestnuts.
The list of contributors to Spring in Meiwa 8 is almost identical with
that of From summer: it includes ShŇha, TessŇ, and JishŇ; Taigi also
contributed, as did his patron, the brothel owner Donshi. Buson invited
work from poets outside of Kyoto as well, including his old mentor Baba
Songi, as well as Denjo↰ᅚand her husband RŇsen ᭈᎹ, all Edo poets.
There were also verses from people closer to home in Osaka and
Fukuhara. The prominent position in which the work of Takai KitŇ
appears indicates that from his first arrival on the scene he was a
powerful force in determining the direction that the Yahantei took.
Although the reopening of the Yahantei school moved Buson into a
more public phase of his work as a haikai poet, the optimism and
playfulness that we see in Spring in Meiwa 8 was dimmed a few months
later when the two mainstays of his haikai practice in the Sankasha
group, ShŇha and Taigi, died within a few months of each other.17 The
loss of ShŇha seems to have hit him particularly hard because he hoped
to be able to rely on ShŇha for support in his writing and in his leadership of Yahantei. The Shundei verse anthology passage where Buson
describes the moment of ShŇha’s death gives some indication of how
traumatic it was to him:
Tragically, one day [ShŇha] fell gravely ill, and did not recover. As time
passed he grew thin and frail, and there was nothing medicine could do
for him. Realizing that the moment had come for him to die, he grasped
my hand and said, “What I regret is that I will never be able to write poetry with you again.” He died with tears in his eyes. I wept, saying three
times, “My haikai has gone to the west. My haikai has gone to the west.”18
Pure Land Buddhist belief teaches that the Amitabha Buddha’s paradise
is in the west. By lamenting that his haikai has gone to the west, Buson
claims that his poetic skills have died with ShŇha. Shundei verse anthology
———
17
18
Taigi died in the Eighth Month, ShŇha in the Twelfth.
BZ, vol. 4, p. 174.
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was edited by ShŇha’s son, so the fact that it contains expressions of
sorrow and regret is not surprising. However, Buson’s statements about
the connection between ShŇha’s presence and his own will to write
haikai seem very genuine.
Another expression of Buson’s grief over the loss of ShŇha is this
1772 hokku and its headnote, which reveals Buson’s continued lack of
confidence in leading a haikai school:
I miss Layman ShŇha more today than I did yesterday. He appears in my
dreams, and it is as if he is real, and is speaking. This is because he has reason to do so. Given that there is something lacking in my work. ShŇha
would have been the main support for my haikai school, and a great help
to me, he would encourage me, believing that one day I would attain my
dream, forgetting how immature I yet am in the way of haikai. I repeat my
senile prattle. Here we have come to the first anniversary of his death:
naki fushite
koe koso shinobe
take no yuki
prostrate with weeping
my voice itself is stifled
bamboo in snow19
As we have seen, haikai poets downplayed their own abilities when
writing prefaces, headnotes to poems, and other public statements, and
his attestation of uncertainty may be no more than a polite convention.
Still, Buson and ShŇha had an extremely close bond of mutual admiration, and it seems credible that Buson depended on talented colleagues
like ShŇha and Taigi for guidance, so losing both of them just as he was
beginning his work as a leader of a haikai school was a heavy blow.
KitŇ’s Yahantei Anthologies
The passing of these two strong formative presences in Buson’s poetic
universe was a major landmark for Buson, perhaps even more meaningful than the opening of the Yahantei school. After their deaths, another
person came to have an even more marked impact on his development
as a poet, Takai KitŇ. Buson was acquainted with KitŇ well before the
death of ShŇha and Taigi, and in fact ShŇha was a disciple of KitŇ’s
father, Kikei. Furthermore, ShŇha and Taigi were instrumental in
Buson’s earliest formation of a poetic style, collaborating with him in
explorations of the free-wheeling, bunjin-inspired style of both haikai and
———
19
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 130–131.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
103
of living that Buson incorporated into his professional persona as an
artist and later, as a poet. However it was KitŇ who was most responsible for establishing Buson as one of the most prominent and well-known
poets of his generation. This was less because of KitŇ’s abilities as a poet,
which to be sure were perfectly respectable; instead, KitŇ brought to
Buson and the Yahantei school something that they would have otherwise been missing—a strong, even indefatigable facility for selfpromotion. Given Buson’s profound ambivalence about his own role as
leader of a haikai school, KitŇ’s involvement in this regard came at a
critical stage.
KitŇ was an ambitious and talented haikai poet. His father was the
prominent Hajin disciple Kikei, so he learned to practice haikai from a
very early age: he had his first hokku published at the age of eight, albeit
in his father’s collection Companion. He joined Yahantei soon after Buson
reopened it under the condition that he would eventually inherit the
group’s leadership, and ran his school, ShunyarŇ ᤐᄛᭈ, at the same
time as he participated in Yahantei activities. KitŇ was even more
dedicated to the task of promoting Buson and Yahantei than Buson was
himself, which, given the condition of his membership, was also an
investment in his own future.
Nevertheless, he and Buson had a genuinely affectionate relationship.
A letter Buson wrote to KitŇ in the early days of Yahantei gives some
indication of the deep respect and trust that Buson had for him:
Hajin, for instance, even when he was making an anthology, would consult with me about completing all unfinished linked verse sequences, and
of course he would discuss each of his solo sequences with me. That was
when I was not yet twenty-five or twenty-six, and though I was immature,
Hajin thought of me as his right arm and discussed things with me. Your
understanding of haikai is even more splendid, and there is no one in
Kyoto aside from you with whom I would consult. But that should not
make you boastful or arrogant. I would very much like to hear about how
things are with you. And if there is something in Yahantei that you do not
agree with, I will understand. In any event, the hearts of people in Kyoto
are the worst in all Japan. For a long time I did not think so, but after I
started practicing haikai, more and more I find this to be the case. I have
traveled over half of Japan, and the merits and faults of the human heart
are as clear to me as if I could point to them in the palm of my hand.
Anyway, please come tonight. We will talk. Do not worry about the matter
of asking Ba’nan 㚍ධ (i.e., Yoshiwake Tairo ศಽᄢ㞉 [d. 1778]) to do a
ryŇgin ਔี (a verse sequence composed by two people). I asked him because he is a person who knows haikai. Fşryş (i.e., haikai) comes first in
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matters like this. Why would I ask group members like Ka’en นὫ or
Raisen ᧪Ꮉ? I just don’t understand the reason any members could be
angry with you. We will talk more of this when I see you. 20
As this letter suggests, not all of the Yahantei members had the same
high regard for KitŇ as Buson did. Despite this, the privileged relationship Buson had with KitŇ endured for the rest of Buson’s life. And, after
his death, KitŇ lived up to his responsibility as chief disciple by publishing commemorative works such as Withered cypress needles and Buson verse
anthology without delay, and he presided over Yahantei school activities
until his own early death in 1789 at the age of forty-nine.
KitŇ’s public relations abilities were immensely valuable to Buson. As
much as Buson was concerned about managing his identity as a poet, his
work as a painter kept him busy. While Buson did personally compile
and edit numerous anthologies for Yahantei, most of these were smallscale affairs in marking of some event, especially new year or memorial
anthologies that mainly contained verses by his acquaintances. By
contrast, KitŇ’s projects tended to be more elaborate collections that
showcased works of poets who were not affiliated with Yahantei as well
as those that were. KitŇ was the editor of three of the major Yahantei
collections: Light of the snow, Dawn crow, Sequel to dawn crow, and was closely
involved in the production of at least two others. KitŇ also compiled
Buson verse anthology, a collection of 869 hokku that was published as a
memorial the year after Buson’s death.
The first verse collection that KitŇ oversaw for Yahantei was Light of
the snow, a memorial anthology in honor of his father Kikei, who had
belonged to the original Yahantei school. It was supposed to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Kikei’s death, although the actual date
was not until three years later. While the ostensible purpose of the
anthology was a solemn one, i.e., commemoration of Kikei’s life and
work, in fact Light of the snow includes a variety of verses, many of them
irreverent and comic, especially in the second half of the collection.
Thus, in addition to memorializing the life and work of Kikei, Light of the
snow was also a promotional piece for the Yahantei school. Buson
explains KitŇ’s reasoning this way in his preface:
Nowadays, everyone composes haikai, from nobles and daimyŇ to fishers
and woodcutters. Making a name for oneself among them as a haikai master is difficult in the extreme. In Kyoto and Osaka one can count them on
———
20
BSS, pp. 58–59.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
105
no more than three or four fingers. Of those three or four, Kikei was the
main one.21 Kikei had originally practiced haikai with the Hajin studio.
However, he did not learn the straightforward style there, so on the side
he associated with the members of the Hanji studio (i.e., the school of Matsuki Tantan). Still, he was not converted to its complexity, but alone he
used common parlance and ordinary language, and skillfully expressed
form and feeling completely. To draw an analogy, his verses were like
Chinese novels, whose evocative use of language is more interesting than
the excellent prose of many historical records. […]
On the thirteenth anniversary of his death his son KitŇ collected a volume of writings to honor his spirit. Unlike the usual memorial collection,
it does not contain a lot of pious verses; on the whole, they celebrate the
blossoms and extol the moon. It is like mixing fish and meat with herbs as
an offering to the deities. I said, this is what your father would have
wanted. The Chinese sage (Liu Yiqing ഏખ㓶)22 was in accord with precisely the man (Wang Rong ₺ᚐ) who slept on a chicken-bone mat, with
his body growing emaciated and his eyes sunken, rather than the man (He
Jiao ࡉ⮙) who stayed shut up in the prayer alcove, practicing assiduously,
rosary in hand, chanting the holy phrase conspicuously, giving alms to the
clergy and wearing strange padded-out clothes. Does not this work of
KitŇ’s come close to the former man’s actions?23
Memorial anthologies usually contained laments for the deceased person
composed by his friends. There is only one such verse in Light of the snow;
the others are more playful and celebratory of Kikei’s life, or actually
have little apparent connection. As justification, Buson points to the
example of Wang Rong and He Jiao in the fifth century Chinese
collection Shishuo xinyu ਎⺑ᣂ⺆(A new account of tales of the world)
who both grieved for their deceased relatives differently:
Wang Jung and Ho Ch’iao experienced the loss of a parent at the same
time, and both were praised for their filial devotion. Wang, reduced to a
skeleton kept to his bed; while Ho, wailing and weeping, performed all the
rites. Emperor Wu (Ssu-ma Yen, r. 265–290), remarked to Liu I. “Have
you ever observed Wang Jung and Ho Ch’iao? I hear that Ho’s grief and
suffering go on what is required by propriety, and it makes me worry
about him.” Liu I replied, “Ho Ch’iao, even though performing all the
rites, has suffered no loss in his spirit or health. Wang Jung, even though
not performing the rites, is nonetheless so emaciated with grief that his
bones stand out. Your servant is of the opinion that Ho Ch’iao’s is the
———
21
Literally, “the thumb.”
Liu Yiqing was the compiler of Shishuo xinyu (A new account of tales of the world,
ca. 430).
23 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 122–124.
22
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filial devotion of life, while Wang Jung’s is the filial devotion of death.
Your Majesty should not worry about Ch’iao, but rather about Jung.”24
He Jiao punctiliously observed the appropriate ceremonies, but Wang
Rong did not. Nevertheless, the fact that Wang Rong grew thin and
haggard proved the sincerity of his feelings, and Shishuo xinyu author Liu
Yiqing (403–444) admired Wang more. In other words, Buson argues
that even though KitŇ does not follow the standard memorial anthology
pattern, the emotion behind it is even more profound than those whose
editors make a conspicuous show of grief.
Buson contributed around ten hokku to the collection. Some are
somber and evocative, such as:
furu ido ya
ka ni tobu sakana
oto kurashi
old well
a fish jumps at a mosquito
the sound is dark25
haru no umi
hinemosu notari
notari kana
spring sea
all day, waves rise and fall
rise and fall26
“Old well” (Furu ido ya) recalls two BashŇ verses. One is the famous
“Old pond / a frog jumps in / sound of water” (Furu ike ya / kawazu
tobikomu / mizu no oto). Also similar is the Three notebooks verse “In the
barn / mosquito’s buzz is dark / lingering heat” (Ushibeya ni / ka no koe
kuraki / zanshŇ kana)27 that, like Buson’s verse, uses synesthesia, describing a sound in terms of darkness. In “Spring sea” (Haru no umi) Buson
relies on another technique, the repetition of the onomatopoeic word
notari (rise and fall) to create the impression of constant movement over
a vast expanse of space—the gentle motion of waves on a calm spring
day. Buson composed “Spring sea” at least ten years before Light of the
snow, and it had already been included in several anthologies by this time.
Other Buson verses KitŇ included in Light of the snow are more humorous, like the following:
———
24 Wade-Giles romanization in original. Translator’s notes omitted. Liu I-ch’ing, Shihshuo Hsin-yü—A New Account of Tales of the World, trans. Richard B. Mather (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1976), pp. 10–11.
25 BZ, vol. 1, no. 429.
26 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.
27 BZ, vol. 1, note 109, p. 40.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
sensoku no
tarai mo morite
yuku haru ya
the footbath
tub is also leaking away
spring runs out28
gakumon wa
shiri kara nukeru
hotaru kana
scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly29
107
Both place an image that is associated with classical elegance in an
unpretentious, even vulgar context. “The footbath” (Sensoku no) takes up
the topic of “departing spring” (yuku haru) which, as we have seen,
implies a sensitive, refined regret for the passing of the season, comparing spring’s departure to the water running out of a bathtub. “Scholarly
brilliance” (Gakumon wa) does the same thing with hotaru (firefly), a
classical topic suggestive of romance and delicate feeling. Its comic twist
turns on the reference to a saying, shiri kara nukeru (comes out one’s
bottom), similar to the English expression “In one ear and out the
other.” The scholar is diligent and studious, but he lacks the power of
retention.
Light of the snow also includes several illustrations by Buson. One
shows BashŇ, flanked by Kikaku and Ransetsu. The other shows Hajin
seated at a desk, gesturing with a fan, while Kikei reads a verse from a
poem-slip. These illustrations visually establish the connection between
the powerful authority BashŇ and the Yahantei school. BashŇ is shown
teaching Kikaku and Ransetsu, who are Hajin’s disciples. Hajin, the
founder of the Yahantei school, is shown teaching Kikei. Kikei was the
colleague of the present day leader of Yahantei, Buson, and the father of
its leading disciple, KitŇ. As we saw in the example of Buson’s painting
“Group portrait of haikai sages,” discussed in Chapter Two, the illustrations in Light of the snow are simultaneously a gesture of praise—in this
case, of Kikei—as well as an argument for the prestige of the Yahantei
lineage.
The second major Yahantei anthology that KitŇ oversaw was Dawn
crow. Dawn crow was more ambitious than Light of the snow and it was
created with a different purpose. Light of the snow was at least ostensibly a
memorial anthology for Takai Kikei, whereas Dawn Crow unreservedly
advanced a far more public agenda. As the title suggests, KitŇ aimed for
———
28
29
BZ, vol. 1, no. 459.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 906.
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CHAPTER FOUR
Dawn crow to be like the cry of a crow at daybreak, a compelling call to
the haikai world to wake up to the morning of a new era in which the
ideals of BashŇ would become its guiding principles.
In his preface to Dawn crow, KitŇ cites a comment by Buson calling
for haikai reform:
Nowadays the style of the age has gradually come to change, and in its
current form there is standing still, there is being ahead, and there is being
behind. However, they all come to a single point—respect for BashŇ. Yahantei (i.e., Buson) always said, “Now, in the far-off provinces, those
groups that only speak of the ShŇmon, praising it, merely study the surface aspects of Master BashŇ’s teachings; they do not know its inner essence. For example, there are few who appreciate the meaning of a verse
link like this:
kataki yose kuru
mura matsu no koe
‘the enemy is coming’
sound in the pine woods
ariake no
nashiuchieboshi
kitari keri
at dawn,
putting on
a hunting cap30
“It looks like we have now arrived at an era of awakening to the eternal
Orthodox Style Already, Owari poets31 have striven for the light of Winter
day in five verse sequences. In Ise of the Divine Winds, though the school
of Bakurin claimed to follow the teachings of BashŇ the Elder, now many
people no longer believe it there either.32 In Kaga Province there is a haikai group that reminds me of the Tenna-EnpŇ [1673-1681]. style. In
Heian (Kyoto) and Naniwa (Osaka) also, there are many who devotedly
follow the true BashŇ style.” 33
KitŇ’s preface makes it clear that not only is Dawn crow intended to serve
as a wake-up call to the rest of the haikai community to return to the
lofty ideals of BashŇ, he also wants to distinguish what the Yahantei
school is doing from the more popular BashŇ schools, i.e., the rural
schools of ShikŇ and Bakurin. He quotes Buson’s statement that many
———
30 Hattori DohŇ ᦯ㇱ࿯⧐, “SanzŇshi,” NKBT, vol. 66, p. 424. The link here is based
on the feeling of tension and urgency. The tsukeku introduces the scene of a hunter
quickly donning his cap at daybreak, with a sense of excitement similar to that in the
maeku, where the persona is unsure whether the sound he hears is that of the wind in the
pines, or of a fast-approaching enemy.
31 That is, members of the school of KatŇ KyŇtai in Nagoya.
32 Bakusui and his followers.
33 Takai KitŇ, “Akegarasu,” in Yamashita Kazumi et al., eds., Shin Nihon koten bungaku
taikei, vol. 73, Tenmei haikai shş (Iwanami Shoten, 1998), pp. 55–57.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
109
who call themselves members of the BashŇ school are in fact frauds who
know the surface aspects (hiniku ⊹⡺, literally, skin and flesh) of
BashŇ’s teachings but fail to grasp their deeper essence (funkotsu ☳㛽,
literally, powder bone). In including this quotation KitŇ points to the fact
that Dawn crow represents the work of poets from many parts of Japan—
Nagoya, Ise, Kaga, Kyoto, and Osaka—emphasizing that the ideal of
reclaiming BashŇ’s teachings transcends barriers both of geography and
poetic lineage, and was in fact a unifying force in the haikai community.
Dawn crow includes both hokku and linked verse, with contributions by
116 poets in all. The highest number of verses belonged to Buson, Taigi,
ShŇha, Kikei, KyŇtai, Chora, Bakusui, ChŇmu, and RyŇta; many less
well-known poets were represented only by a single verse. Yahantei
members, of course, were most prominent, but Dawn crow also includes
many verses by poets outside Yahantei. These other poets belonged to
groups that in one sense competed with Yahantei, but at the same time
they were allies with a common goal, the BashŇ Revival movement.
While the presence of KyŇtai, Chora, and Itton was understandable, as
Buson frequently collaborated with these poets in linked verse sequences
and hokku gatherings, the inclusion of Bakusui is a bit more surprising.
Bakusui belonged to the rural school tradition of Bakurin and ShikŇ—
the rural “backwoods BashŇ school” that Buson singled out for nearly as
much criticism as he did the tentori poets. However, Buson’s statement
suggests that Bakusui and his followers had corrected their mentors’
errors, and were worthy colleagues in the task of bringing about haikai
reform.
KitŇ included both old and new Buson hokku in Dawn crow. As ostensible representatives of the “orthodox BashŇ style,” Buson’s Dawn crow
verses suggest that components of this style include at least two elements: powerful, evocative depictions of the natural world, especially
famous places; and the recasting of imagery derived from classical
Japanese literature into new contexts, such as imagined Chinese settings
or situations of daily life. However, despite his avowals of the importance of faithful observation of Buson’s teachings, Buson actually takes a
very different approach in his own work.
The following are examples of Buson’s landscape verses:
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Fuji hitotsu
uzumi nokoshite
wakaba kana
Mount Fuji alone
is not engulfed
young leaves34
nawashiro ni
Kurama no sakura no
chiri ni keri
flooded fields
the cherry blossoms of Mount Kurama
have scattered35
“Mount Fuji alone” (Fuji hitotsu) was not a new poem. It had been
composed during Buson’s Sankasha era, though it does not appear in the
Sankasha collection From summer. Wakaba, a classical season word, means
leaves in early summer that still retain the vitality of spring. Lush and
irresistible, they almost drown the foreground in green, but in the
background Mount Fuji rises, silent and unperturbed. “Flooded fields”
(Nawashiro ni), another Sankasha-era hokku, describes squares of rice
fields filled with the pale green of new shoots in late spring. Scattered
cherry blossoms drift on the dark water that floods them. The lateblooming cherry trees on nearby Mount Kurama have already turned
from pink to green, so the speaker concludes that these petals must have
been carried down from the mountain on the wind.
These two verses point up some obvious differences between Buson’s
and BashŇ’s techniques. BashŇ emphasized close personal observation of
geography and objects. Much of his life was spent traveling to view
famous places for himself, and one of his most often-quoted teachings
was “learn about the pine from the pine, learn about bamboo from the
bamboo.”36 Buson, by contrast, did not make travel the center of his
haikai practice. It is unlikely that either of these verses represent scenes
that Buson actually witnessed himself. Instead, he invented them from
memories of similar scenes and then juxtaposed them with place-names
that had conventional associations to the topic, “fresh new leaves”
(wakaba) in “Mount Fuji alone” and “cherry blossoms” (sakura) in
“Flooded fields.”
An example of the kind of verse that recontextualizes an allusion to
classical Japanese is the following, which matches a reference to a
Chinese poem in one of the most famous phrases in Heian literature:
———
34
BZ, vol. 1, no. 525.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 486.
36 SanzŇshi, NKBT, vol. 66, p. 398.
35
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
111
Morokoshi no shikaku wa ikkoku
no yoi o oshimi, wagachŇ no
utabito wa murasaki no
akebono o shŇ seri
A Chinese shi poet treasured so much as
a quarter-hour of twilight; in our own
country a waka poet praised the
purple dawn.
haru no yo ya
yoi akebono no
sono naka ni
night in spring
it’s between
twilight and dawn37
The “Chinese shi poet” is the Song poet and painter Su Dongpo ⯃᧲ပ
(1036–1101), the “waka poet” is the author of the Pillow book (Makura no
sŇshi ᨉ⨲ሶ), Sei Shonagon ᷡዋ⚊⸒ (ca. 966–1028). Su Dongpo’s
verse “Spring Night” contains the line, “A quarter-hour of spring night is
worth one thousand gold pieces.”38 The Pillow book’s opening line is, “In
the spring, dawn (is best).”39 Using a headnote to make his sources
unambiguous, Buson creates a humorous twist on the classical tradition:
juxtaposing the words yoi (evening) and akebono (dawn) with haru no yo
(night in spring), he notes that night literally comes between these times
so much admired by famous poets, and has an appeal that should also be
savored.40 Whereas BashŇ was famous for his ability in elevating the
events of everyday life to the level of classical poetry by his skill in
juxtaposing the ordinary with the elegant, here Buson blurs the distinction between classical literature and the imported Chinese tradition.
The third anthology that KitŇ was involved with was Sequel to dawn
crow, which was published three years after Dawn crow. KitŇ regarded it as
a continuation of his previous project. He included verses by most of the
poets whose work had appeared in Dawn crow, and added some new
ones: RankŇ, MuchŇ (Ueda Akinari), Yayş, and Chiyo, and as such,
Dawn crow and Sequel to dawn crow represent almost all the major poets of
the period. KitŇ planned it as his generation’s answer to one of the
central works of the BashŇ school, Monkey’s straw coat (Sarumino ₎⬉,
1691). Although it was a product of Buson’s Yahantei, it was less
focused on showcasing Buson’s verse than it was about promoting
KitŇ’s image: for example, it includes almost twice as many KitŇ hokku
———
37
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1027.
Cited in BZ, vol. 1, p. 228, note 1027. In Chinese, xiao ኄ has the same meaning as
ye ᄛ, unlike in Japanese, where yoi ኄ means twilight and yo ᄛ, night. Thus Buson
misunderstood Su Dongpo’s poem: they both praise the same time of evening.
39 Ikeda Kikan et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 19, Makura no sŇshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki
(Iwanami Shoten, 1958), p. 43.
40 Shimizu, Yosa Buson no kanshŇ to hihyŇ, pp. 43–44.
38
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CHAPTER FOUR
(45) than Buson hokku (17). Also, as the afterword by Akinari indicates,
Sequel to dawn crow was also intended to serve as a commemoration of the
seventeenth anniversary of the death of Kikei, KitŇ’s father. Furthermore, for a collection that is nominally a Yahantei school anthology, it
contains a very large proportion of verses by non-Yahantei poets. As a
consequence, rather than functioning as a defining statement of Yahantei
style as Monkey’s straw coat did for the BashŇ school, Sequel to dawn crow
was more like an index to the major figures of the Revival movement.
Of the seventeen Buson verses that KitŇ chose for the collection,
only a few allude directly to those of BashŇ, such as:
uki ware ni
kinuta ute ima wa
mata yamine
as I am melancholy
beat the fulling block,41 but
stop now, it’s enough42
“To my melancholy” (uki ware o) refers to two BashŇ verses, “to my
melancholy / add loneliness / cuckoo” (uki ware o / sabishigaraseyo /
kankodori) and “beat the fulling block / so I can hear it / priest’s wife”
(kinuta uchite / ware ni kikaseyo ya / bŇ ga tsuma). BashŇ’s verses are
restrained and sensitive, redolent of the gentle sadness that is associated
with sabi, quiet austerity. They reflect the aesthetic of fşkyŇ, something
that started to interest BashŇ around 1680. FşkyŇ is a state of being so
intoxicated by poetic or artistic sensibility that one is compelled to
commit spontaneous, apparently crazy acts. Buson’s hokku, “As I am
melancholy” (Uki ware ni), responds to BashŇ’s refined and delicate
mood with self-deprecating humor. The speaker starts out with a noble
goal: he tries to imitate BashŇ’s example by calling to an imagined
listener (i.e., the priest’s wife of BashŇ’s verse) to strike the fulling block.
However, he lacks the deep poetic sensibility of someone like BashŇ, and
soon has had enough.
This verse also invites us to laugh at those who pursue high artistic
ideals:
waga zukin
uki yo no sama ni
nizu mogana
I hope my hood
doesn’t make me look
like a mere playboy43
———
41 A kinuta (fulling block) was used to beat cloth in order to soften its texture. In
classical poetry it was associated with the melancholy and cold of long nights in autumn,
as poets wrote of hearing its lonely sound on a sleepless night on a journey, and thinking
of loved ones far away (Yamamoto Kenkichi, pp. 527–529).
42 BZ, vol. 1, no. 1285.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
113
However here the context is clothes, not aesthetic refinement. A zukin
was a head covering similar to a hood; the verse refers to a kind of zukin
that was at this time a favorite of those who styled themselves bunjin. The
speaker here hopes that his zukin will make people think he is a person
of taste, and not just a vain dandy who is trying to show off.
Another Buson Sequel to dawn crow verse makes a direct allusion to a
waka by SaigyŇ, one of the poets that BashŇ most deeply admired. It also
reflects the aesthetic of fşkyŇ in the sense that it describes a situation in
which the speaker remains devoted to his artistic ideals, despite the fact
that he has no one to share them with:
RyŇya to fukata mo naku ni
toikuru hito mo nakereba
On a moonlit night, since there is nowhere
to go visiting, and no one will come to visit.
nakanaka ni
hitori areba zo
tsuki o tomo
well now,
if I am to be alone
I’ll take the moon as a friend44
SaigyŇ’s verse is:
nagamuru ni
nagusamukoto wa
nakeredomo
tsuki o tomo nite
akasu koro kana
gazing idly
although
it brings no comfort
I’ll take the moon as a friend
spending the night awake45
SaigyŇ
Buson’s hokku lifts the line tsuki o tomo (I’ll take the moon as a friend)
directly from SaigyŇ’s waka. Even though the speaker has no one with
whom to enjoy the evening, it is too fine to ignore. Being solitary also,
the moon makes a perfect companion. In doing so, the speaker makes an
aisatsu to SaigyŇ, including him in the circle that contains the night, the
moon, and himself, making the loneliness of the night a pleasant one.
The pose of regret that one is without a companion to appreciate
beautiful scenery is common to Chinese poetry also.46 Here Buson links
the worlds of Chinese poetry and waka to create a haikai verse that
expresses one of BashŇ’s most important poetic principles, fşkyŇ.
———
43
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1188.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1435.
45 Ibid, p. 320, note 1435.
46 Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (1037–1101) to Tung Ch’i-ch’ang
(1555–1636) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 7–8.
44
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CHAPTER FOUR
Buson’s Yahantei anthologies
While KitŇ’s work as editor played a large and important role in creating
a public image for Yahantei and also in furthering the cause of the BashŇ
Revival movement, Buson also was involved in the task of compiling
anthologies himself. Thus he was also taking an active role not only in
composing poetry, but also in setting a standard by using the medium of
publication to express allegiances and common purpose. Aside from
KitŇ’s large and inclusive anthologies, then, we will look at four in whose
production Buson was more closely involved: Make the past present,
Midnight music (Yahan raku ᄛඨᭉ, 1777), New flower gathering, and
Blossoms and birds collection.
Though it is very short and contains only one hokku by Buson, Make
the past present is worth some attention, as Buson compiled it for the
purpose of linking the new Yahantei to the old one, that is, the group
founded by Buson’s teacher Hayano Hajin in Edo some forty years
earlier. It was customary for second-generation haikai school leaders to
publish volumes memorializing their teachers. Doing so helped to invent
a tradition for the group, and created an environment in which the
original master’s work and ideas are given the status of classics. In turn,
honor rebounded on his followers, who were then marked with a sign of
legitimacy and of partaking in an authorized version of the founder’s
teachings.
Buson contributed a verse in an earlier anthology commemorating
Hajin’s death, SŇoku’s Far into the west, when he was still a novice haikai
poet, but Make the past present was his only editorial project of this kind.
Even so, it is unconventional as a memorial volume, and in the preface
Buson goes to some length to defend himself against the criticism he
expects to receive for it. The hokku by present-day Yahantei members
that it includes are conspicuously unlike those of Hajin. In fact, Buson
explains, though one would expect the leader of a group called Yahantei
to impart Hajin’s teachings to his disciples, in fact their verses are more a
reflection of the sabi and shiori—or austerity and delicacy—characteristic
of the verse of Matsuo BashŇ.
Nowadays what I teach my haikai students it is not Hajin’s openhearted
tone, but chiefly aspire to Elder BashŇ’s austerity and delicacy (sabi, shiori),
as I wish to return haikai to its past. This is a matter of turning away from
external illusions and responding to inner truths. This is called haikai Zen
େ⺽⑎, a dharma that is transmitted directly, from mind to mind. Those
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
115
who lack understanding of this criticize me, saying that turning one’s back
on one’s teacher is a terrible sin, and so forth. With this in mind, the two
sequences that follow depart from that sabi-shiori style, instead, they earnestly imitate Hajin’s style, and are humbly offered to him.47
He describes Hajin’s verse as having the quality of openheartedness;
admirable, perhaps, but not the equal of BashŇ. However, Buson ‘s
justification for preferring sabi and shiori—even in a volume dedicated to
Hajin’s memory—is quite shrewd. Buson was no mystic, but here he
invokes Zen for persuasive effect, explaining that his stylistic preference
is in accord with the teaching he received directly, like spiritual insight,
from Hajin himself. Buson claims that the real essence of Hajin’s
teaching is that haikai has to change with the times, and since the times
call for a return to BashŇ, seeming to deviate from his master’s teachings
is actually the best way to remain faithful to them. With this argument,
Buson simultaneously praises his teacher, defends himself from potential
detractors, and aligns the work of the present Yahantei school with the
agenda of the BashŇ Revival movement, whose primary goal is returning
haikai to its past.
The one Buson hokku that is included in the anthology is part of a
short series; it is the third of three verses, the first of which is by
Ransetsu, and the second by Hajin.
Fuke sarinu
nioi nokorite
hana no kumo
Fuke48 departed
but a fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms
Ransetsu
GenbŇ kyoshi
nioi nokorite
hana no kumo
Layman GenbŇ’s
fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms
Hajin
———
47
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 139–140.
Fuke ᥉ൻ, Chinese, Puhua (d. 860), was a Buddhist monk and founder of the sect
that bears his name.
48
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CHAPTER FOUR
SŇa kyoshi sanjşsan
kaiki seitŇ
Appropriate to the thirty-third
anniversary of Layman SŇa’s (Hajin’s) death:
hana no kumo
mie ni kasanete
kumo no mine
clouds of blossoms
lay three times as deep
mountains of cloud49
Hajin’s verse expresses his grief for his mentor Ransetsu by reworking
one of his own verses: GenbŇ is an alternate name for Ransetsu. Buson
takes up this chain of associations with his own verse. “Clouds of
blossoms” is a spring topic, and refers to cherry trees blooming in such
profusion they could be mistaken for clouds. Buson’s verse moves the
setting to summer by changing the topic to “mountains of cloud,” the
towers of clouds that form in a clear sky on a hot summer’s day. In
doing so, the scale of the verse becomes solemn and grand, underscoring
the seriousness of the emotion it depicts. Just as this is the third layer of
allusion, the speaker’s sentiment is three times as deep as that of an
ordinary verse, and this is appropriate for an anthology marking the
thirty-third anniversary of his teacher’s death.
It was three years before Buson tried his hand at another anthology;
and this one, Midnight music, was, like Make the past present, also small and
limited in scope. Midnight music was planned as a saitanchŇ, a new year
anthology to be released at the beginning of the first month, but it was
not actually distributed until the end of the second month, more like a
shunkyŇjŇ. More famous for its two haishi (haikai free verse), it is not a
particularly good example of Buson’s hokku, because it includes only
one: a starting verse to a kasen that was written by thirty-six of his
disciples, who each contributed one verse:
saitan o
shitari gao naru
haikaishi
the New Year taken care of
he has a smug look on his face
haikai teacher50
The other forty-three hokku Buson includes were written by his disciples
on the topic of the coming of spring, which makes it a good example of
the function of the new year anthology to document the membership of
the group.
Far more interesting for a study of Buson’s hokku is New flower gathering, an exceptional collection of verse and prose that he also completed
———
49
50
BZ, vol. 7, p. 76.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1488.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
117
in 1777. New flower gathering has an unusual history. Buson did not publish
it during his lifetime. In 1784 Matsumura Gekkei added illustrations and
an afterword explaining the circumstances under which it was written,
but it was not published until 1792.
Buson wrote the hokku section of New flower gathering first. In his afterword, Gekkei explains that it was intended as a summer devotion
(gegyŇ ᄐⴕ) in memory of Buson’s mother. Buson originally planned to
write ten hokku a day for one hundred days. As the title of the collection
indicates, Buson found inspiration for his project in the example of
Kikaku’s Flower gathering (Hanatsumi ⧎៰, 1792) a hokku collection also
written in honor of his mother. Unlike Kikaku, however, Buson gave up
a few weeks into the project, claiming illness. Later that year, however,
he returned to his notebook and decided to fill it with short essays on
various topics in the style of zuihitsu.
Most of Buson’s 2,800-odd hokku were composed in the context of
meetings or other social exchanges and were published in group
anthologies; in other words, they exemplify haikai’s typical collaborative,
public aspect. The New flower gathering hokku, however, were different.
These were written in a private setting where there was little pressure to
outshine rivals or impress students. As a result, they have a quiet,
contemplative quality, and occasionally come tantalizingly close to
promising a glimpse of Buson’s inner life. Whether or not they are
actually biographical, each is given a date and has a place in a sequence
that Buson determined, and so it is possible to observe a process taking
place that is distinct from what otherwise might be found in more
conventional anthologies.
In particular, the anthology’s first six poems—those composed on the
first day of the project—seem to have a non-fictional cast to them. They
are some of the most moving and heart wrenching verses Buson ever
wrote. The sequence begins on the eighth day of the fourth month,
traditionally observed as the Buddha’s birthday:
Eighth day
1. kanbutsu ya
motoyori hara wa
kari no yado
Buddha’s birthday
it’s a brief shelter,
the womb
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2. uzuki yŇka
shinde umaruru
ko wa hotoke
Eighth day of the Fourth Month
born dead
the child is a Buddha
3. koromogae
mi ni shiratsuyu no
hajime kana
time for summer clothes
a first chance to know
the white dew of tears
4. koromogae
haha nan Fujiwara
uji nari keri
time for summer clothes
Mother was surely
a Fujiwara
5. hototogisu
uta yomi yşjo
kikoyu naru
hototogisu
I hear a courtesan
composing poetry
6. mimi utoki
chichi nyşdŇ yo
hototogisu
Father has entered the Way,
but his hearing is still poor
hototogisu51
Given the poverty of information available about Buson’s family and
childhood, these six verses have attracted much attention from scholars
and other commentators. Speculation tends to center around Buson’s
relationship with his mother, since the title of the collection recalls Flower
gathering, which Kikaku compiled in memory of his mother. Also, not
only do the first six hokku have a nostalgic, grief-tinged mood to them,
but four of them describe the experiences of women. Some scholars take
Gekkei’s afterword at face value, arguing that New flower gathering that
Buson’s 1,000-verse gegyŇ was intended as a kuyŇ ଏ㙃 (Buddhist
memorial ritual) for his mother, and that this year marked the fiftieth
anniversary of her death—meaning that she died when Buson was
thirteen. According to these interpretations, the source for these verses
are Buson’s childhood memories: his mother was a tragic figure; perhaps
she suffered a miscarriage, or died young; she was a dignified person
reduced to straitened circumstances, she was as charming and melancholy as a courtesan, and so on.
Another set of interpretations associates the female figures in these
hokku with Kuno, Buson’s beloved daughter. Kuno’s marriage was an
unhappy one (it eventually ended in divorce); one of Buson’s letters
expresses his loathing for her father-in-law, who, he claimed, was a
———
51
BZ, vol. 7, p. 227.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
119
greedy man who only wanted her for the money she might bring to his
household. According to this interpretation, it is Kuno who lost a child
to miscarriage.
In any case, the emotion in these verses is so plain that it is hard not
to imagine that they directly describe some events in Buson’s life; at the
same time, they do not develop a consistent narrative. Instead, like a
linked verse sequence, the situations and personae change from verse to
verse. Read together, however, something that does remain constant is
an overtone of longing and sorrow. Each of the six hokku is like the
facets of a jewel that reflect the same complex mood from different
angles. Buson began his project on the eighth day of the Fourth Month,
which was observed as the Buddha’s birthday, so it makes sense that the
verses he composed on that day were spiritual and contemplative. As the
second verse, “Eighth day of the Fourth Month” (Uzuki yoka), shows,
the word hotoke simultaneously means “Buddha” and “dead person.” A
birth implies a future death; the change of seasons marked in the
beginning of the fourth month—when one exchanges winter clothes for
those of summer—reminds the speaker of the ephemerality of life, and
his thoughts turn to the Way of Buddhism.
As the days passed, however, Buson’s contemplative mood seems to
lift, and he steadily reels off witty and imaginative verses, many of which
return again and again to the same topic, such as this excerpt from a
series on sushi:
Seventeenth day
82. sushi o osu
ware sake kamosu
tonari ari
at my house we just ferment sushi
at my neighbor’s
they brew sake
83. sushi o osu
sekijŇ ni shi o
dai subeku
I must inscribe a poem
on the stone
sushi press
84. sushi oke o
araeba asaki
yşgyo kana
rinsing out the sushi tub
attracts fish
to the water’s surface
85. mashirage no
yone isshŇ ya
sushi no meshi
a peck of
pure silvery white
rice for sushi
120
CHAPTER FOUR
86. takujŇ no
sushi ni me samushi
Kangyotei
the sushi on the table
has a chilling effect
Fish-Viewing Pavilion52
All of these verses are more or less self-explanatory, though it might help
to point out that the sushi Buson refers to here is not the fresh, Edostyle variety that is commonly eaten today, but funazushi or fermented
sushi, which was made by layering fish with salted (later, vinegared) rice
in a tub, covering it with a stone, and then leaving it for several months
to ripen. The impression verses like these create is one of restless
creativity, as Buson views his topic from different angles, finding new
and often comic insights every time.
New flower gathering is exceptional among the group of anthologies that
the Yahantei school poets produced. It was not part of Buson’s effort to
consolidate the group’s image, or of his own, because the hokku within it
were written as a private exercise rather than as part of a public event or
communal project. Although a few New flower gathering hokku later appear
in other anthologies, Buson did not publish the collection himself; and in
fact it did not appear until after his death. So while Make the past present
can be included under the broad category of anthologies that were used
to promote Yahantei to a wider audience, the New flower gathering hokku
section deviates from this pattern, and gives us a glimpse of an introspective, less studied Buson.
Blossoms and birds collection was the last anthology that Buson edited. It
was published in 1782, the year before his death. Buson had originally
planned Blossoms and birds collection as a new year anthology, like Midnight
music; however, after a visit to Yoshino, famous for its cherry blossoms,
he ended up deciding to create a collection devoted to verses on the
topic of cherry blossoms and hototogisu. Blossoms and birds collection was a
small but exquisitely designed volume, with illustrations by Buson and
elegant calligraphy in his hand. It contains verses not only by Yahantei
members, but also Buson’s friends, including courtesans and kabuki
actors. While it includes verses by the usual Yahantei members and
patrons such as KitŇ, Korekoma, Donshi, Hyakuchi, and DŇryş, there
are none by BashŇ Revival poets like KyŇtai, Chora, or ChŇmu that are
featured in KitŇ-edited anthologies like Dawn crow. Buson organized
Blossoms and birds collection as a way to acknowledge his friends and
———
52
BZ, vol. 7, p. 232.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
121
patrons, rather than to reach out to a larger community of haikai poets.
KitŇ’s anthologies advertise Yahantei to a larger world, trying to extend
its reach, but Buson’s look inward, linking the members of his personal
circle to one another.
Aside from hokku on the topic of cherry blossoms by Buson and his
friends and supporters, Blossoms and birds collection also includes a fragment
of a linked verse sequence whose hokku was written by Umejo, the
talented and accomplished wife of his close disciple Gekkei, and finishes
with a sequence that starts with a hokku by Danrin school founder
Nishiyama SŇin on the topic of hototogisu and a waki (second verse) by
Buson. Buson uses alternate haigŇ େภ (haikai names) for his hokku, a
practice that was not uncommon.
Two of them are light-hearted, celebratory of the beauty of the trees
and the fun that can be had when going to view them:
yuku haru no
shunjun toshite
osozakura
departing spring
seems to hesitate
late-blooming cherry trees53
tanomarete
sakura mi ni yuku
otoko kana
when asked
he goes to check on the cherry trees
what a guy54
Buson uses the haikai name KinkŇ ㊄▶ for “Departing spring” (Yuku
haru no). The verse describes an apparent pause in the process of
transition from spring to summer, as the blossoming of the lateblooming cherry trees seem to pull time back to the middle of spring,
when ordinary trees normally bloom. The beauty of the trees is so
magnificent that it almost arrests the passage of spring itself. “Departing
spring” is followed directly by “When asked” (Tanomarete) although
Buson uses a different haikai name here, Shunhan ᤐဈ. This verse is
also bright and playful; having invited a friend to go cherry blossom
viewing, he impresses everyone by going to check on the trees to make
sure they will be ready for the party.
The third Buson verse is different. It is set off from the others by a
long headnote and an illustration, a stylized drawing of a kasa, or travel
hat. Buson uses the haikai name Yahan. The headnote and hokku are as
follows:
———
53
54
BZ, vol. 1, no. 2252.
BZ, vol. 7, p. 265.
122
CHAPTER FOUR
Not following the aesthetic of rushing off on a journey to Yoshino saying,
‘I want to show the cherry blossoms my travel hat,’ I just stay in my home
worrying about the affairs of the mundane world, thinking, I’ll do this, or,
why don’t I do that, and the things that I plan never get done, until finally,
though the instances of turning away from the beauties of nature are numerous in this world, it is as if I were the only such idiot there is, and I
feel I cannot show my face to other people [...]
hana chirite
mi no shita yami ya
hinoki kasa
blossoms fallen
what darkness below
my cypress travel hat55
“Blossoms fallen” (Hana chirite) brings the focus to BashŇ, who was so
famous for his journeys that the image of the travel hat alone makes us
think of him. But more directly, the verse alludes to a famous poem
BashŇ wrote about cherry blossoms at Yoshino:
Yoshino nite
sakura mishŇ zo
hinoki kasa
hey, I want to show it
the cherry blossoms at Yoshino
my cypress travel hat56
BashŇ
In contrast to BashŇ’s verse, which is a playful expression of the
aesthetic of fşkyŇ, or poetic madness, Buson’s verse is gloomy and selfabnegating. Buson’s poem places the speaker in a time and place after
the blossoms of BashŇ’s poem have fallen, in later, darker days. Though
he has visited Yoshino, which so entranced BashŇ, the speaker in
Buson’s poem does not claim to be equal to the task of appreciating it,
and uses the hat to hide his face. “Blossoms fallen” is one of many
Buson verses which evoke a BashŇ source poem, only to express a sense
of inferiority or humility as a novice might in the presence of a master.
In this sense, it is a good example of an expression of Buson’s anxiety of
reception: though he is convinced of the rightness of following BashŇ’s
lead, Buson is careful to preempt any criticism that might be provoked
by leaving himself open to comparison with his brilliant predecessor.
———
55
56
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 205-206.
NKBT, vol. 45, p. 49.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
123
Five Cartloads of Wastepaper
Blossoms and birds collection was the last anthology Buson edited, and almost
the last one he was involved with. Just before he died, he wrote the
preface for Kuroyanagi Korekoma’s memorial collection in honor of his
father, ShŇha, called Five cartloads of wastepaper. The title of the work is
taken from the ShŇha hokku cited in Chapter Three, “holed up for the
winter / I am the master / of five cartloads of wastepaper!” (fuyu gomorite
/ gosha no hŇgu no / aruji kana). Despite the fact that it was edited by
neither Buson nor KitŇ, Five cartloads of wastepaper is an important
collection for the study of Buson’s verse and the context in which it was
produced because it is the latest anthology produced within Buson’s
lifetime that brings together verses of Yahantei school members. It
includes fragmentary and complete linked verse sequences with hokku
whose kigo relate to each of the four seasons. Buson wrote over thirty of
these.
Five cartloads of wastepaper resembles KitŇ’s Light of the snow in that, while
it is a son’s memorial anthology for his father, it is less of a tribute to
ShŇha’s verse style than a collection of representative verses of the
Yahantei school as it defined itself in the early years of the Tenmei
period (1781–1789). Five cartloads of wastepaper brings together the work of
many poets who were supporters of the Revival movement, basically, the
major figures of the period when the Yahantei school was at its height—
old members of the Yahantei school like GantŇ and Kikei, contemporaries of ShŇha like Ranzan and Taigi, non-Yahantei colleagues with whom
Buson felt a close affinity like KyŇtai, Chora, RyŇtai, even poets like
ChŇmu, Chiyo, Bakusui and Otsuni who had significant followings and
were important contributors to the haikai community of the period but
who were not necessarily close allies with the Yahantei school’s aims. In
other words, it was a last reunion of the Yahantei school and its friends.
Most of the Buson verses included here were written in the ten years
before his death, and show him at his most romantic and nostalgic.
Significantly, the themes that dominate them are the same as those that
he returned to again and again ever since the days of Sankasha: nostalgia,
storytelling, and an imagined Chinese and Japanese past.
Nostalgia is the key theme of these verses:
124
CHAPTER FOUR
hana ibara
kokyŇ no michi ni
nitaru kana
brambles in bloom
just like the ones on the road
to my hometown57
ureitsutsu
oka ni noboreba
hana ibara
lost in melancholy
when I climb the hill
brambles in bloom58
Hana ibara is a thorny vine that blooms in midsummer, with flowers
similar to roses; Buson tends to link it with a mood of longing for
childhood. The earliest version of this verse dates from 1774; in Five
cartloads of wastepaper, it appears with the headnote, “Climbing up the
“Eastern Hill.” This headnote refers to a famous poem by Tao Yuanming 㒻ᷗ᣿ (Tao Qian 㒻ẜ, 365–427), also on a theme of nostalgia
for one’s childhood, “Return Home!” Tao Yuanming’s poem has the
lines: “Climbing the eastern hill, I whistle softly to myself / Gazing at a
clear stream, I compose a poem.”59 “Lost in melancholy” (Ureitsutsu) also
expresses a sense of nostalgia, and directly mentions the “hill” referred
to in the headnote to “Brambles in bloom” (Hana ibara). As we know,
Buson left home around the age of twenty, and there is no evidence to
suggest that he ever went back. Nevertheless, many of his verses explore
this theme.
Other Five cartloads of wastepaper hokku suggest that they are fragments
of a longer, larger story, such as:
tŇasa ni
tsuwamono bune ya
natsu no tsuki
in the shoals
a military ship
summer moon60
“In the shoals” (TŇasa ni) is not a particularly remarkable verse, although
it stands out as an example of one of Buson’s favorite techniques—using
the restricted scope of the hokku to focus in on a particular moment that
is metonymic of a broader narrative. Here, the word “military ship”
(tsuwamono bune) is juxtaposed with a placid image of the reflection of the
———
57
BZ, vol. 1, p. 1128.
BZ, vol. 1, p. 1129.
59 Tao Yuanming’s lines are:
58
⊓᧲⊤એ⥥ཕ
⥃ᷡᵹ⠰⾮⹞
Cited in Teruoka Yasutaka and Kawashima Tsuyu, eds., NKBT, vol. 58, Buson shş, Issa
shş (Iwanami Shoten, 1959), note 541, p. 128.
60 BZ, vol. 1, no. 581.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
125
summer moon over a shallow sea; a threatening presence looms over
what should otherwise be a peaceful scene. The verse refers to no
particular historical event or literary work, and Buson did not witness
anything like this himself, but the reader is invited to imagine a context
to which this scene belongs. It is not surprising that “In the shoals”
recalls the much more famous hokku “The Koguryo ship” that we
looked at in Chapter Three; it was written in the same year, 1769.
Korekoma’s portrait of Buson in Five cartloads of wastepaper is one that is
constructed from verses that he wrote during ShŇha’s lifetime.
Buson’s use of the hokku to create narrative effects can also take up
more ordinary, mundane topics:
kiji uchite
kaeru ieji no
hi wa takashi
he shot his pheasant
the sun is high
on the road home61
This was written in 1771, a few years after the previous verse, and has a
completely different aspect. Instead of a shadowy world of vague
foreboding and power, the setting here is sunlit and open. A hunter
heads for home, his day’s objective met. The pheasant is a common
topic in classical Japanese poetry; its brightly colored plumage made it a
spectacular image. Poets also admired the springtime mating calls of the
pheasants, the piercing cry of the male and the female’s gentler, plaintive
answer. Pheasants were associated with spring because this is the season
their haunting calls are most striking. Buson’s verse suggests the pheasant’s call in the repetition of “i” sounds; visually, it also invites the reader
to imagine its glossy, iridescent feathers shining in the sunlight as the
hunter carries it home on his back.
Buson’s Five cartloads of wastepaper verses also show another side of his
interest in telling stories: the fascination he had with eerie, supernatural
happenings:
suisen ni
kitsune asobu ya
yoi zuki yo
———
61
62
BZ, vol. 1, p. 1229.
BZ, vol. 1, p. 1324.
in the daffodils
a fox frolics
moonlit twilight62
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CHAPTER FOUR
Nishi no kyŇ ni bakemono
no sumite, hisashiku
arehatetaru ie arikeri.
Ima wa sono sata nakute
West of the capital there
was a haunted house that for a
long time was totally decrepit.
Now, without warning:
harusame ya
hito sumite keburi
kabe ni moru
soft spring rain
smoke leaks from the walls
someone lives there63
Foxes were believed to have magical powers, especially to assume the
shape of attractive men or women in order to seduce the unwary. Buson
wrote many hokku on the subject of foxes, and a story of a fox-haunting
appears in the prose section of New flower gathering. Here, in “In the
daffodils” (Suisen ni) it is twilight, a time between the realms of day and
night. The moon, like the daffodils, is pale yellow; and in the dim light, a
fox appears. The verb is asobu, to play, and the season is spring, so it may
be that this is a fox cub. The scene is vague, almost ghostly, but it is not
frightening; Buson’s depictions of the supernatural like this tend to be
restrained, aestheticized, and even comical. “Spring rain” (Harusame ya) is
similar: in the season when drenching showers fall frequently but
unpredictably, a spooky, seemingly abandoned shack shows signs of life.
Like “In the shoals,” this verse was written in 1769.
A third characteristic shared by many Buson verses included in Five
cartloads of wastepaper is the debt they owe to Chinese poetry. ShŇha, of
course, was also a kanshi poet, so hokku that recall Chinese poetry are a
particularly appropriate choice for his memorial volume. One such
example is “Under the green plum trees / drawing her brows together /
a beautiful woman,” the From summer verse that we discussed in Chapter
Three. Another is:
yuku haru ya
omotaki biwa no
daki gokoro
departing spring
the heavy-hearted feeling of
embracing a lute64
In “Departing spring” (Yuku haru ya) the persona holds a biwa, or fivestringed lute. The biwa, similar to the Chinese pipa, was still played in
Buson’s day, but in mentioning it here Buson introduces a decidedly
archaic and romantic atmosphere. The end of spring (yuku haru) is cause
for regret, as we saw in Buson’s Light of the snow verse, “the footbath /
———
63
64
BZ, vol. 1, p. 437.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1106.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
127
tub is also leaking away / spring runs out” (sensoku no / tarai mo morete /
yuku haru ya). Trying to dispel this mood, the persona picks up the lute to
play something cheerful, but it feels heavy in her arms. Buson’s verse
alludes to one by Chinese poet Wang Changling ₺᣽㦂 (c. 690–c. 756),
“Spring Melancholy at the Western Palace,” and, given that the Chinese
poem is written in a woman’s voice, the persona in Buson’s hokku is
understood to be female:
In the quiet night of the Western Palace, a hundred flowers are
fragrant.
I thought to roll up the jeweled blinds, but I pass the spring night
in sorrow.
With a pipa leaning in my arms, I gaze at the moon.
Zhaoyang is hidden in trees that are colored in pale, pale light.
⷏ችᤐᕉ
⷏ችᄛ㕒⊖⧎㚅
᰼ᝬ⃨☄ᤐᕱ㐳
ᢳᛴ㔕๺ᷓ⷗᦬
ᧀᧀ᮸⦡㓝ᤘ㓁 65
“Departing spring” also alludes to the BashŇ verse link:
kakaeshi kin no
hiza ya omotaki66
knees, across which I held a zither—
how heavy it is
Later commentators have praised this verse for Buson’s use of a physical
sensation—heaviness—to describe a psychological state, and the skill
with which Buson used this device is probably the reason it was included
in Korekoma’s anthology.
Another Five cartloads of wastepaper verse that refers to Chinese poetry
is:
hironiwa no
botan ya ama no
ippŇ ni
a peony
in the open garden
a corner of heaven67
Buson was very fond of peonies. The word botan (peony) is Chinese in
origin, and has overtones of splendor and opulence. Here he matches the
———
65
Maeno, vol. 3, p. 154.
BZ, vol. 1, p. 246, note 1106.
67 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2692.
66
128
CHAPTER FOUR
exotic peony with a phrase from a poem by Su Dongpo’s “First Prose
Poem on the Red Cliff,” “I long for my loved one / In a corner of the
sky”68—implying a comparison between the flower the speaker sees and
a beautiful woman. Both are stately and elegant, and they bestow a
special grace on the places they occupy.
Over the course of his lifetime, Buson composed over 2,800 hokku, a
prodigious output for someone who cultivated the image of an amateur
haikai poet. By contrast, BashŇ’s collected hokku number around 980. As
we have seen, a large number of hokku found their way into anthologies
of Sankasha, Yahantei, and other groups with which Buson had a close
affiliation. Others that have not been cited here were published in other,
less well-known anthologies. The largest collections of Buson verses,
however, are Buson hokku anthology and Buson self-selected hokku anthology
(Buson jihitsu kuchŇ ⭢᧛⥄╩Ꮽ).
Buson hokku anthology includes 868 verses that were chosen by KitŇ,
the preface was written by RyŇta and the afterword by Denpuku.
Published in 1784, was simultaneously KitŇ’s memorial to his friend and
mentor, and a way to support the launch of KitŇ’s career as Yahantei III,
successor to Hajin and Buson. Sadly, KitŇ died only five years after
Buson, and the Yahantei school dispersed after his death. Still, looking at
the verses that he selected reveals much about his tastes, and gives some
indication of what he thought were the definitive expressions of the
Yahantei style.
Even more revealing is Buson self-selected anthology, a manuscript in
Buson’s handwriting that remained unpublished until the twentieth
century. Buson made a point of criticizing people who issued collections
of their own verses during their lifetimes, complaining that because they
invariably contained a large number of mediocre efforts, they always did
harm to their authors’ reputations. However, in his later years he put
together a selection of some 1,450 of what he considered to be his best
hokku. KitŇ probably drew on this when he was assembling Buson hokku
anthology, however, a number of verses that he left out were deemed by
Buson himself as being of some merit, and some that KitŇ chose were
verses that Buson passed over. Japanese scholars have extensively
———
68 Translation by Burton Watson, in Jonathan Chaves, The Chinese Painter as Poet (New
York: The China Institute Gallery, 2000), p. 138.
AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD
129
analyzed the differences between these two texts, most notably Ogata
Tsutomu in Buson jihitsu kuchŇ (1974).69
The next chapter explores Buson’s linked verse, or haikai no renga.
While Buson’s concerns about his place in the haikai community had a
profound effect on his hokku. This effect was even more pronounced in
his work in the linked verse form. While linked verse had lost some of its
popularity during the KyŇhŇ period, it was still extremely important, and
Buson’s linked verse is among the most masterful of the entire genre.
———
69
Ogata Tsutomu, ed., Buson jihitsu kuchŇ, Chikuma ShobŇ, 1974.
CHAPTER FIVE
RESISTING COMMUNALITY:
LINKED VERSE SEQUENCES
Linked verse is a particularly compelling subject of exploration as it
offers an intimate glimpse into the way that poets directly negotiated
with their colleagues at the site of their practice. Linked verse sequences
were usually composed by two or more people in a single session,
bringing together the creative energies of poets of diverse backgrounds,
training, and factional allegiances. While there were a large number of
complex rules governing the composition of linked verse, unpredictability was one of the form’s greatest fascinations. Another was the knowledge that each session was a unique and unrepeatable occasion, contingent on the time, place, and the character of its participants.
The practice of linked verse composition was on the wane during
Buson’s lifetime. BashŇ had been one of the greatest exponents of the
kasen, or thirty-six link sequence, and the linked verse that he and his
disciples composed forms the core of the collections that his school
compiled. However, even in BashŇ’s day linked verse had to compete
with single-verse forms such as the hokku or maekuzuke, and its decline
became even more precipitous in the KyŇhŇ period. One reason for this
was that the rules of linked verse were very demanding and took a great
deal of effort to master. Also, linked verse was extremely timeconsuming and required the participation of other poets. While haikai’s
social aspect was always one of its central attractions, as the ranks of
haikai practitioners swelled with the presence of less well-educated
merchants and farmers, its communality took different forms, and
eventually came to center on competition over individual verses rather
than collaboration on lengthy sequences.
Nevertheless, linked verse did not disappear entirely during the eighteenth century. The inheritors of BashŇ’s legacy were among its most
enthusiastic proponents, particularly followers of the rural ShŇmon poet
ShikŇ, haikai theorist and systemizer of BashŇ’s teachings. While
maekuzuke and other competitive forms flourished in the urban areas,
members of ShikŇ’s Mino faction and its close ally, the Ise faction,
remained avid supporters of linked verse. Given BashŇ’s strong interest
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
131
in linked verse, it is not surprising that Revival poets also connected the
form with the work of returning haikai to his ideals. As early as 1744,
poets who admired the BashŇ school’s Twenty kasen of the EnpŇ era (EnpŇ
nijikkasen ᑧቲੑච᱌઄, 1680), published Edo twenty kasen (Edo
nijikkasen ᳯᚭੑච᱌઄ Like its model, Edo twenty kasen was a
collection of solo thirty-six link sequences by twenty poets; its title and
format reflect its purpose as a tribute to BashŇ. The rediscovery of
BashŇ-related manuscripts was also an impetus to compile linked verse
collections. As I mentioned in Chapter Three, Kyoto twenty kasen, edited
by ShŇzan, Taigi, and Zuiko, was published after Zuiko found a letter in
BashŇ’s handwriting; the collection includes the twenty kasen that the
three poets wrote in celebration of this occasion. Similarly, KyŇtai and
his disciples wrote four of the sequences included in Autumn day to
accompany a previously unpublished sequence with a hokku BashŇ wrote
while visiting Nagoya in 1688.
However, Revival poets viewed linked verse differently than BashŇ
and his disciples did. Despite their avowed interest in following BashŇ’s
example, hokku was the mainstay of their practice. Also, as a result of the
simplifications introduced by KyŇhŇ-era theorists like ShikŇ, rural BashŇ
school poets tended to favor sequences that reflected everyday experience rather than deep knowledge of the classical literary tradition, and
this trend came to influence the Revival poets more generally.
Buson and Linked Verse
Buson was an extremely accomplished linked verse poet. His verses
appear in sequences included in collections from the late 1730s, and
throughout his life his letters to friends and disciples contain comments
on linking technique. Like other poets in the Revival movement, Buson
regarded linked verse as a way to recover the lost grandeur of the BashŇ
style. Even more than that, he believed that constant exposure to
BashŇ’s linked verse was important for cultivating a poetic voice. He
even compiled an anthology, Elder BashŇ’s linking techniques anthology, in
order to provide his readers with an easy reference tool to consult. As he
remarks in its preface:
To learn about haikai verse links, you must first of all memorize the verses
of BashŇ, and know the relationship between the three kinds of verses involved in linking. If for three days you do not recite the Elder’s verses,
132
CHAPTER FIVE
thorns will grow in your mouth. However, the Elder’s verses exist in a
broad range of anthologies, and are not easy to find. Thus we have taken
excerpts, condensed them, and should there be people who are devoted to
the Way, we make them available.1
However, compared to the large number of hokku that Buson wrote, his
production of tsukeku is relatively small—around 120 sequences in all,
many of which are incomplete. Looked at another way, while the
anthologies that he worked on throughout his life contain a fair number
of sequences, his contributions to them are remarkably sparse. His
tsukeku appear only occasionally in sequences published before 1750.
Sankasha and Yahantei gatherings focused almost exclusively on hokku,
and the Danrinkai სᨋળ, a Yahantei-affiliated group that formed in
1779 with the express purpose of composing linked verse, abandoned
the practice almost as soon as it started.
Buson’s ambivalence towards linked verse composition may derive
from the fact that it obligated poets to relinquish autonomy over their
work. After each poet composed a verse, his or her colleague stepped in,
considered the various possible meanings of what was deliberately
written to be a highly evocative and ambiguous verse, and finally chose
one meaning to the exclusion of others. Sensitivities about interpretation
of one’s own writing were out of place in linked verse, as the ability to
write a tsukeku that made a surprising or unexpected connection was
highly valued.
Also, as the example of the small and elegant Yahantei anthologies
like Blossoms and birds collection shows, Buson was a meticulous craftsman,
and the improvisational nature of linked verse did not appeal to him very
much. He even resorted to unconventional methods to avoid the need
for spontaneous composition. For example, the Peaches and plums
sequences—often called the finest example of linked verse of the
Yahantei school, and possibly the entire late eighteenth century—were
composed by exchange of letters over the span of several months, which
allowed him time to carefully revise and rethink his tsukeku.
In short, while collaboration in some linked verse sequences was
inevitable for a Revival poet, Buson preferred to devote himself to
activities like painting and hokku composition where he had more power
over their outcomes. Nevertheless, the linked verse that Buson did write
is important, not only because of the admiration it attracted, but because
———
1
BZ, vol. 4, p. 142.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
133
it is a good example of the Revival-era linked verse in general. My
discussion focuses on kasen from three different stages of Buson’s career.
The first, “Willow leaves, fallen” (Yanagi chiri), from the anthology Scrap
paper coverlet dates from Buson’s years in the northeast. The second, “On
the white chrysanthemums” (Shiragiku ni) from Around here: Four kasen in
one night (Kono hotori: Ichiya shi kasen ᱝ߶ߣࠅ৻ᄛ྾᱌઄), was composed during his early years as Yahantei school leader. The third, “Peony
petals scatter” (Botan chirite), from Peaches and plums, was written near the
end of his life.
Conventions of Linked Verse
I will begin my discussion of Buson’s linked verse with a brief look at
some of the conventions of the form. As a rule, linked verse sequences
were composed in a group, in one place, at a single sitting. While in some
cases poets wrote all the verses on their own (called dokugin ⁛ี),
normally at least two persons worked together. Sequences might also be
made up of single-verse contributions from as many people as there
were verses. Sequences could be as long as 100, 1,000, or even 10,000
links, but the haikai poets tended to prefer the thirty-six link kasen.
The rules governing the composition of individual tsukeku within the
sequence were complex, but they originate in simple principles. Variety
and change were of utmost importance; at the same time, the rules
ensured the creation of a cohesive structure. The development of a
consistent line of narrative was to be avoided. Four of the thirty-six links
of the kasen have special status: the hokku (starting verse), the waki[ku]
⣁[ฏ] (accompanying verse), the daisan ╙ਃ(third verse), and the ageku
᜼ฏ (uplifting verse). The hokku, waki, and daisan comprised the first
three verses of the sequence; the ageku came at the end. All of the other
verses were called hiraku ᐔฏ or plain verses.
The honor of composing the hokku usually fell to the most senior
guest of the party. Just as was the case when it functioned as an independent form, the hokku was supposed to be a flattering greeting toward
the host; it mentioned the season and the place of composition, and was
light and positive in tone. A courteous, skillful poet would make his or
her hokku rich in implications and even ambiguity in order to allow the
host to respond with his own link—the waki—without difficulty. The
waki picked up and expanded on the situation or setting depicted in the
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hokku. Typically, it referred to the same season as the hokku, and ended
in a non-declinable word, such as a noun.
The person next in rank to the senior guest composed the daisan. The
daisan had a special importance, as it indicated the likelihood of the
sequence’s success. Each verse link or tsukeku could only refer to the
verse immediately preceding it, i.e., the maeku; the tsukeku had to break
with the verse that came before the maeku, which was called the uchikoshi
ᛂ⿧or superseded verse. The daisan was the first point in the sequence
where this shift happened. If the poet writing the daisan failed to break
cleanly from the hokku, its uchikoshi, the sequence as a whole was unlikely
to turn out well.
The last verse in the sequence, the ageku, was similar to the hokku in
that it was expected to be light in tone. Like the daisan, it was also
something of a tricky verse to write, because a bad ageku would reflect
poorly on the sequence as a whole, no matter how fine were all the
verses that preceded it.
In addition to these four special verses, certain hiraku or plain verses
were assigned mandatory topics: the moon or cherry blossoms. In a
thirty-six link sequence, verses in positions 5, 14, and 29 were supposed
to refer to the moon; 17 and 35 to blossoms.2 As the moon was an
Autumn topic and blossoms a Spring topic, this requirement helped to
ensure variation in the sequence.
There were other rules. For example, after the introduction of a
Spring topic, the next three to five verses had to mention spring. The
same was true of Autumn verses. Summer and Winter were supposed to
be followed by one to three similar verses. It was common to separate
verses that referred to a season with one or more “miscellaneous” (zŇ 㔀)
verses so that the transition between the seasons was not too abrupt.
Also, “love” was another important topic, and strict guidelines covered
its treatment in the sequence: it could not appear in the first six verses;
the topic had to continue for the next one to four verses, and so on.
Novice poets needed to put a lot of effort into training and practice in
order to master these rules. Reading sequences by acknowledged masters
———
2 Historically, the numbering of haikai verses took into account their place on the
sheets of paper used to transcribe them. Two sheets were used to write kasen. Sheet One
had six verses on the front and twelve on the back; Sheet Two had twelve on the front
and six on the back. Using this system, moon verses came at Number 5 on the front and
8 on the back of Sheet One, and 11 on the front of Sheet Two; blossom verses belonged
at Number 11 on the back of Sheet One and 5 on the back of Sheet Two. A detailed
discussion of the rules of haikai sequences is in SatŇ, pp. 9–21.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
135
was one way to do this; studying one of the many handbooks of verse
linking technique (called yoriai ነว or tsukeai ઃว) that were available
was another.3 The best way to learn, however, was to take part in the
activities of a haikai school, where one had a setting in which to work
with others and a knowledgeable teacher from whom to receive instruction.
Not only was the makeup of the sequence prescribed in detail, the
participants’ behavior in the session was also precisely regulated. Formal
linked verse sessions involved three roles: the arbiter (sŇshŇ ቬඅ), the
recorder (shuhitsu ၫ╩), and the contributing poets (renju ㅪⴐ). The
arbiter might be a group’s teacher, though this was not necessarily the
case; the recorder had to be a highly competent poet and calligrapher.
Sessions were organized by a host, who provided the space, supplies, and
refreshments; they could last from six to eight hours in the case of a
kasen, eight to ten for a 100-link sequence, and longer ones continued for
several days.
On the day of the session the host prepared the room by setting up a
portable writing desk for the recorder, and placed it in front of the
alcove (tokonoma), which was hung with a painted scroll. The scroll was
often a portrait of the god of literature, Tenjin ᄤ␹ (Sugawara no
Michizane ⩲ේ㆏⌀ [845–903]); or ManyŇshş poet Kakinomoto no
Hitomaro ᩑᧄੱ㤗ํ. Alternatively, if the session commemorated the
anniversary of the death of a teacher or colleague, a sample of that
person’s calligraphy might be displayed; and eventually portraits of
Teitoku and BashŇ also became common. Participants were seated
according to their rank and function: the most prestigious—the arbiter,
the recorder, and the senior guest—sat near the alcove, and persons of
lesser status filed out alongside the senior guest.4 Etiquette demanded
that participants arrived on time, sober, and in a tranquil frame of mind;
during the session they were not supposed to fall asleep or chatter; and
at all times they were expected to defer to the judgments of the arbiter
and recorder.
Before the other participants entered the room, the recorder first
organized the materials on the writing desk. When everyone came in and
took their places, the arbiter opened the proceedings with a word of
———
3 The most famous of these was NijŇ Yoshimoto’s Secret treatise on the principles of linking
(Renri hisshŇ ㅪℂ⒁ᛞ, 1349).
4 Inui Hiroyuki and Shiraishi TeizŇ, eds., Renku e no shŇtai (Yşhikaku, 1980), pp. 108–
116.
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CHAPTER FIVE
greeting, and then the recorder dedicated the poetry about to be written
to the deity or honored person whose portrait was enshrined in the
alcove. The session began with the senior guest’s hokku. The rest of the
sequence proceeded in order, with the arbiter evaluating the quality of
the verses each participant composed, and the recorder simultaneously
making sure that all the rules were properly observed and writing down
the verses as they were approved. At the end of session the recorder
completed his transcription of the sequence and offered them before the
alcove. The session concluded with a party, organized by the host, where
all the participants could relax from the rigors of the day’s work.
Linked verse offered haikai poets a chance to reinforce connections
not only with their allies in the present day but also their counterparts in
history. It was not uncommon for poets to start their sequences with a
hokku that had been written years before by a long-dead predecessor,
whether as a gesture of remembrance to be included in a memorial
volume, or an expression of identification with an admired exemplar.
Gathering as a group to produce a long, complex work like a verse
sequence was also a powerful affirmation of solidarity and cooperation
with living colleagues, where participants either put aside their differences—or learned to appreciate them—in order to bring the session to a
successful conclusion.
The protocols of linked verse sessions made them reenactments of a
practice whose origins extended back to the medieval period; in this
sense, linked verse composition was a ritual that let its participants
imagine that they were actually embodying the past. As such, it had
special meaning for the Revival poets who were trying to both establish a
community of their own in what they viewed as a decadent age, and to
reclaim the old elegance BashŇ represented.
An Early Linked Verse Sequence: “Willow leaves, fallen” (1752)
Scrap paper coverlet was published in Edo around the time that Buson left
for Kyoto. The collection was edited by Edo-area Hajin disciples Asui
㒙⺕ and GantŇ, Buson’s patron and mentor. Baba Songi 㚍႐ሽ⟵
(1603–1782), using the haikai name Risei ᧘੗, wrote the preface. After
Hajin’s death Songi had became a leading figure of Edo urban haikai.
Scrap paper coverlet features 129 hokku and five kasen, three of which
contain verses by Buson. In all three sequences Buson contributed the
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
137
lowest number of verses of any of the participants (between two and five
to his colleagues thirteen, fourteen, or even seventeen verses); however,
Scrap paper coverlet is valuable because it offers insight into Buson’s poetic
development at a stage where relatively few of his verses—hokku or
tsukeku—survive.
Buson contributed only two verses to “Willow leaves, fallen” (Yanagi
chiri), the first and the fourth. Keeping in mind that the privilege of
writing a sequence’s first verse was typically reserved for the group’s
most honored guest, the fact that Buson starts this sequence, whose
other participants were far senior to him, testifies to the admiration that
his colleagues felt for his remarkable hokku.
1. Buson
Kannazuki hajime no koro hoi,
Shimotsuke no kuni ni shugyŇ
shite YugyŇ Yanagi to ka ieru
furuki no kage ni, mokuzen
no keishiki o mŇshiide haberu:
At the beginning of the Tenth Month,
when I was on a study-trip in Shimotsuke,
this is the scene I saw before my eyes in
the shade of the old tree known as
Pilgrim’s Willow:
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro
willow leaves, fallen
the clear stream, dry
stones, here and there5
As I mentioned in Chapter Two, this verse alludes to a waka by SaigyŇ, a
hokku by BashŇ, and a verse by Chinese poet Su Dongpo to describe a
scene on BashŇ’s Narrow road to the interior route; later critics have called it
the hokku that marks Buson’s awakening to his mature poetic style.
Given the information in the headnote, it is probable that Buson
composed this hokku long before the day of the session. While he claims
in the headnote to be depicting the scene “before [his] eyes,” his
description of the place is filtered through his readings of the works of
his literary ancestors, just as SaigyŇ’s was when he wrote the original
waka.
2. Risei
bajŇ no samusa
shi ni hoyuru tsuki
the cold of riding on horseback,
a moon to which one declaims Chinese
poems
———
5 Text of the complete sequence is in Maruyama Kazuhiko et al., eds., BZ, vol. 2,
Renku (KŇdansha, 1992), pp. 57–61.
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Risei makes Buson’s willow tree part of a nighttime landscape. Because
Buson’s verse uses the kanshibunchŇ (Chinese-like style) popular with the
Edo school poets, Risei imagines that the rider is a poet, reciting Chinese
poetry (shi) to the moon. Specifying the place and the time of day was
one technique linked verse poets employed to connect their tsukeku with
the maeku—taking in the situation that the maeku presents and amplifying
it with more detail.
3. Hyakuman
chabŇzu o
morŇte kaeru
oidashi ni
meeting up with the tea master
and heading home
at the send-off bell
As this is the daisan or third verse, the pressure is on Hyakuman to link
coherently with the second verse at the same time as it breaks with the
first. He accomplishes this by reestablishing the place of action. Buson’s
hokku describes a scene in the middle of the countryside; the setting of
Hyakuman’s daisan is an urban one. Hyakuman places Risei’s rider in a
more familiar Japanese context—he is a person of means and prestige. A
chabŇzu is a teacher of the tea ceremony, typically one who was in the
service of a high-ranking member of a military family. “Send-off bell”
(oidashi) marks the location as a licensed quarter: the bell rang early in the
morning to let lingering guests know it was time to go home. Here, the
tea master has been kept waiting all night by his powerful patron, and
they hurry home in the cold of dawn as the bell sounds.
4. Buson
zarari zarari to
naya no konoshiro
sliding over one another
shad in the fish seller’s stall
At the same time as the send-off bell sounds, fish sellers are stacking up
the fresh catch to be sold that day. Buson’s verse uses the onomatopoeic
expression zarari zarari to—describing slipperiness—to evoke the image
of glistening shad slipping over one another as they are handled. The
romance of Risei’s verse that described an elegant rider uttering poems
to the moon has disappeared; instead, the setting is slightly seedy—the
early light shows a less glamorous side of the licensed quarter as fish
sellers prepare for a day of work.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
139
5. Risei
Ňshio ni
ashida torareshi
niwa no omo
wooden sandals
taken by the high tide
in front of the garden
Risei’s verse picks up Buson’s maritime image, and establishing the place
as a yard in front of a house near the beach. It is so close to the sea that
during an exceptionally high tide, wooden sandals left outside are carried
off by the water.
6. Hyakuman
makura kaitsute
okosu Kantan
overturning his pillow
and awakening this Handan dreamer
Hyakuman accounts for the fact that the wooden sandals were washed
away by introducing the figure of the house’s owner, asleep as the tide
came in. The verse refers to the Chinese story of Lusheng ⋝↢ (Japanese Rosei), a traveler in Handan ㇏㈚G (Japanese Kantan) who fell
asleep as he was waiting for breakfast in a teashop, and dreamed he had
lived an entire lifetime before waking to find that the millet for his meal
had not even finished cooking. This story was popular in Japan, and
even became the basis for the NŇ play Kantan. In Hyakuman’s verse, the
sleeper also has a rude awakening: his sandals have been washed away by
the rising waves.
“Willow leaves, fallen” continues for another thirty verses, but Buson
added no more tsukeku.
Four Kasen in One Night
Buson compiled and published Around here: Four kasen in one night in
1773. Around here’s four sequences brought together three poets: Buson,
KitŇ, Miura Chora and a mutual friend, Ranzan ፲ጊ (d. 1773). Chora
was a prominent member of the Revival movement. Born in Shima
Province (modern Mie Prefecture), Chora traveled extensively in central
Honshş, including Ise and Edo, and also spent a great deal of time in
Nagoya and Kyoto. He had numerous disciples, and frequently collaborated with Revival poets like KyŇtai and RankŇ; he was a particularly
close friend of KitŇ’s. Ranzan had originally studied haikai with Ink of five
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CHAPTER FIVE
colors poet Ryşkyo, but he eventually moved to Kyoto and took up haikai
with Buson disciple Rosen. In other words, neither Chora nor Ranzan
were regular Yahantei members, but that did not prevent them from
working together to compose linked verse.
The title Around here comes from the hokku Buson wrote for its first
kasen, a respectful compliment to Ranzan:
susuki mitsu
hagi nakaran ya
kono hotori
having seen miscanthus
surely there is also bush clover
around here6
Buson’s preface describes the circumstances that led to the publication
of the collection. Chora was visiting KitŇ, and they decided to drop in on
Ranzan, bringing Buson with them. Ranzan was seriously ill at the time
and confined to his bed. He lived in poverty—his small house in a back
street was shabby, and Ranzan himself was unable to care for himself
properly. His sickroom was cluttered with dirty dishes and his bedding
was tattered, but he welcomed the visit eagerly. The three visitors started
their evening by trying to amuse him with ghost stories. Rallying, he
suggested that they turn their energy to linked verse composition, and by
the end of the evening they had completed four sequences. Ranzan died
later the same month, and Around here was published in his memory.
As was typical of his hokku since Sankasha, Buson’s tsukeku strongly
reflect his preoccupation with Chinese poetry, Heian and medieval tales,
and the supernatural. They also allude to BashŇ’s work, though not so
often as we might expect given the fact that all four poets were strong
supporters of the Revival movement’s ideals.
In contrast to “Willow leaves, fallen,” where the young Buson was
invited to contribute only two verses, Buson was a full participant in all
of the Around here sequences and was an influential presence in all of
them. We will look at the second sequence, “On the white chrysanthemums.”
1. Ranzan
shiragiku ni
okietari tsuyu
okietari
on the white chrysanthemums
it could gather
dew could gather!7
———
6 The hokku praises the neighborhood around Ranzan’s house, remarking that it is
home to plants associated with an elegant appreciation of autumn, which reflects well on
the good taste of his host. BZ, vol. 2, p. 244.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
141
The connection between dew and chrysanthemums is a conventional
one. Both words are associated with autumn; dew collected from
chrysanthemums on the ninth day of the Ninth Month was thought to
prolong life. Ranzan takes this fairly pedestrian association and adds
interest to it by a device that is unusual in the compact haikai form:
repetition—in this case, okietari (it could gather).8 This creates a mood of
lightness and good humor: as this is the hokku, Ranzan expresses his
delight in the visit of Buson, KitŇ, and Chora, comparing the dew to
himself, and the elegant white chrysanthemums to his visitors.
2. KitŇ
nokori somenuru
kesa no tsukikage
this morning the moonlight
begins to linger
Nokori somenuru (beginning to linger) refers to the appearance of the
waning moon, which is visible in the sky after dawn. KitŇ picks up on
the hokku’s reference to dew, and fixes the time as early morning. By
alluding to the moon in here, KitŇ deviates from the rule requiring a
moon topic in Verse 7, but since the sequence starts with an Autumn
verse, this is permitted.
KitŇ’s link is similar to BashŇ’s famous exchange with Sonome, included in her verse collection Dust on the chrysanthemum (Kiku no chiri
⩵ߩߜࠅ, 1708):
shiragiku no
me ni tatetemiru
chiri mo nashi
gazing at the
white chrysanthemum
not a speck of dust
BashŇ
kŇyŇ mizu ni
nagasu asatsuki
autumn leaves carried in the water
morning moon9
Sonome
While the sequence does not include a large number of allusions to
BashŇ’s verse, this and the one that follows it make the connection.
———
7 The sequence is in BZ, vol. 2, pp. 249–253. This translation also uses references
from NKBT, vol. 58, pp. 215–222.
8 NKBT, vol. 58, p. 215.
9 BZ, vol. 2, p. 249, note 2.
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3. Chora
kari uma ni
aki o suzushiku
mata garite
on a borrowed horse
he rides out
into the chill of autumn
This is the daisan, which breaks with the scene depicted in the first two
verses. Chora does this by shifting the scene to a more active one,
describing a retainer or possibly a daimyŇ (feudal lord) leaving an inn,
with the moon faintly visible in the pale light of a cold morning. BashŇ’s
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton includes a similar verse:
uma ni nete
zanmu tsuki tŇshi
cha no keburi
sleeping on horseback
a lingering dream, a distant moon,
smoke from tea-fires10
BashŇ
Both Chora’s link and BashŇ’s hokku juxtapose an early morning rider
with the pale, waning moon.
4. Buson
kokisake ari to
fu no mŇshi keri
“There’s some good wine!”
the woman calls out
Buson changes the focus from one in which the rider is visualized in the
context of natural surroundings, and changes it to an inn or drinking
establishment. As he is on the point of leaving, a waitress or landlady
reminds him that he can take along some wine; Buson imagines the
rider’s journey as one of pleasure, not business. Buson’s verse is humorous, and brings the mood of the sequence more down to earth with its
reference to a commonplace situation.
5. KitŇ
oguraki to
akaki to shoku no
futa tokoro
a dim one
and a bright one
lamps in two places
Picking up from Buson’s recontextualization of the scene as one at an
inn, KitŇ fixes the time of day as evening. It is a rustic setting, and the
lamps do not work very well, but the host is courteous in providing two.
———
10
NKBT, vol. 46, p. 37.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
143
6. Ranzan
tekone no kŇro
uchi mamoritsutsu
handling the homemade incense
burner
very carefully
Ranzan’s verse explains the two lamps by describing a scene in which the
artisan who made the incense burner needs extra light to examine his
work. It is a solid but unspectacular verse, which leaves a great deal of
room for the next poet in the sequence to make an interesting link.
7. Buson
kakute yo ni
shii to narubeki
mi narishio
what a world
I, who should have made it
to the Fourth Rank
Buson responds to the opening Ranzan gives him with a verse that is a
monogatari in microcosm. Using a device called kuraizuke ૏ઃ, or making
a link based on the profession or status of the persona in the preceding
verse, Buson imagines the man examining the incense burner to be a
disappointed courtier, who laments being passed over for promotion to
the rank he believes he deserves.
8. Chora
Nogami no kimi ga
iro ni shizuminu
besotted with the charm
of a Nogami courtesan
Nogami refers to a post station on the NakasendŇ highway—an ancient
inland route that connected Kyoto with eastern Japan. In the Kamakura
period (1185–1333), Nogami was famous for its courtesans. Chora’s
verse changes the topic to “love,” proposing that the reason that the
persona in Buson’s verse failed to prosper was that he was distracted
from his duties by his infatuation with a courtesan. Like Buson does in
Verse 4, Chora interjects a little humor here.
9. Ranzan
nakagaki no
shŇji ni hae no
futatsu mitsu
on the partitioning
shŇji, two
or three flies
Ranzan’s verse depicts the interior of the teahouse where the courtesan
in the previous verse works. It is a quiet, hot afternoon; the guests have
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CHAPTER FIVE
all gone home. A shŇji screen separates the rooms; on it, flies gather, but
no one shoos them away. The scene is squalid; the cheap glamour of the
evening has disappeared in the light of day.
10. KitŇ
chikaku mo kami no
todoro narikuru
very close by, thunder
approaches, rumbling
KitŇ’s verse picks up on Ranzan’s description of a rundown, decrepit
teahouse on a hot summer afternoon. The room is stuffy and close; not
even the flies move. Suddenly, the drowsy languor is broken by the
sound of approaching thunder, bringing with it a dark, ominous mood of
tense expectation.
11. Buson
yokisŇ o
nosete sarinuru
Tsukushi bune
they take on board
an esteemed priest, and depart:
Tsukushi boat
Again Buson’s tsukeku adds the suggestion of a larger story, by specifying
the rank and occupation of his persona, and mentioning a specific place
name. Tsukushi is an alternate name for Kyşshş, and Tsukushi boats
(Tsukushi bune) carried passengers between Honshş and Kyşshş. The
passenger is a distinguished Buddhist priest. The calm dignity of his
appearance is in stark contrast to the thunderstorm brewing in KitŇ’s
maeku. The boat is in great danger from the storm.
12. Chora
Ebisu no midare
kiku mo kanashiki
barbarian unrest
even hearing about it is troubling
Chora picks up on Buson’s reference to the Tsukushi boat and introduces “barbarian” (Ebisu ᚐ) here a generic term referring to people in
the north and west of China. Of the main Japanese islands Kyşshş was
the closest to the continent, and was the place many travelers to China
would begin their journeys. Thus, he imagines that, after arriving in
Kyşshş, the priest on the boat could well be on his way to China.
However, rumors of war make the journey an anxious one.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
145
13. Ranzan
yuki ni nite
samuu wa aredo
mado no tsuki
cold enough
to seem like it’s snowed
moonlight in the window
In Ranzan’s verse, the speaker sees a gleam outside the window on an
autumn night. It’s so cold he assumes that it’s snow, but when he looks
he realizes that the whiteness he sees on the ground is actually
moonlight.
14. Buson
sutebuchi morau
sue no aki kana
receiving alms
at autumn’s end
Buson picks up on the description of the cold autumn scene in the
previous verse by imagining the kind of person who might endure such
harsh circumstances. Sutebuchi (alms) took the form of small amounts of
rice given to warrior families which had fallen on hard times. Autumn’s
end (sue no aki) both intensifies the sense of cold and implies that the
person receiving this assistance is coming to the end of his life also.
15. KitŇ
omoi ide
ukare idetaru
ushimatsuri
I remember
happily going out
to the Cattle Festival
The maeku’s persona is fixed as someone who, having received the
benefit of financial assistance, can go out and enjoy a festival. The Cattle
Festival (Ushimatsuri) was held on the twelfth day of the Ninth Month at
KŇryş-ji Temple ᐢ㓉ኹ in Kyoto.
16. Ranzan
ato sarigenaki
dobyŇshi no oto
without a care
the clash of cymbals
Ranzan picks up on the maeku’s image of the lively festival, and describes
the moment of its climax. The hardship described in the uchikoshi, Verse
14, has disappeared; all that is present now is the sound, color and
energy of the festival.
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17. Chora
chiritsukusu
hana hito toki no
nagame nite
a brief glimpse
of blossoms
scattered completely
Chora takes up the implication of the maeku’s ato sarigenaki (without a
care) and matches it with the image of cherry blossoms. Viewing them
was the matter of an instant; like the cheerful sound of festival music,
they quickly fade, leaving behind no trace of their splendor.
18. KitŇ
ame harete yaya
kure osoki kana
the rain has cleared for the moment
dusk comes late
Rain caused the blossoms to scatter more quickly. The sky has cleared
late in the day; at this time of year, there are still a few hours left before
the sun sets.
19. Buson
haru no kaze
Gokoku no mitsugi
watari kinu
spring breeze
the splendors of Cathay
coming across the sea
Buson shows his fascination with China in this verse. The breezes of
spring, which carry with them the season’s warmth and fresh scents, are
compared to envoy ships bringing goods from the Wu kingdom of
China that in ancient times had a trading relationship with Japan. Buson
is not referring to any specific historical event, he simply refers to the
Wu to evoke an atmosphere of exotic riches.
20. Ranzan
hana e idetaru
shakurŇ no chie
the wisdom of the old timer
whose nose is in the air
ShakurŇ (old timer) refers to a local elder, well-versed in lore and
tradition. Ranzan playfully depicts his character a self-satisfied person,
who has developed an excess of pride in his own knowledge. Even news
of visiting ships from China fails to impress him.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
147
21. KitŇ
hitobito no
sata to narinuru
waga koi wa
it’s become
what people are talking about—
my love affair
KitŇ changes the circumstances completely from a fairy-tale like scene to
one grounded in ordinary life. In his verse, the speaker’s secret love affair
has become common knowledge, thanks to the shrewd observation of
the local wise man.
This verse, and the one that follows it, are on the topic of love.
22. Chora
kosode uru to mo
yo o uramumaji
not even selling her clothes
causes her regret
Chora imagines that the man involved in the affair has become destitute,
probably in a dishonorable way. Nevertheless, his loyal lover stints at
nothing to help him, even to the point of selling her kimono. She is not
concerned by anyone’s disapproval.
23. Ranzan
shŇjin no
yurishi hotoke
wasurarezu
mourning
is over, but she will not forget
the departed one
The loyal woman in this verse becomes a grieving widow. She has
dutifully performed Buddhist austerities for forty-nine days after her
husband’s death. Even though the prescribed period is over, her sorrow
continues.
24. Buson
kyŇ ya kiru beki
botan futamoto
two peonies
that should be cut today
Buson’s verse refers to peonies, one of his favorite flowers. Cutting the
flowers, the speaker thinks of the deceased person mentioned in the
maeku.
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25. Chora
tekishin no
waka no kakimono o
nusumi kite
he returns after
stealing a poetry text
from the enemy encampment
Ideally, warriors were supposed to be as proficient at poetry as they were
in martial skills. Here, the warrior’s regard for a waka collection is so
great, he is willing to go behind enemy lines in order to capture it. While
this verse does not allude to a specific historical incident, it calls to mind
stories like that of the warrior-poet Hosokawa Yşsai, famous both for
his association with renga luminary Satomura JŇha and his role as advisor
to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When Yşsai was under bombardment in
Tanabe Castle, he so feared for his library that he asked a representative
of the imperial court to come and rescue it. Assured that it was safe, he
kept on fighting until forced to stop by an imperial edict.
26. KitŇ
hoshi no hikari no
ake chikaku miyu
by the look of the starlight
it’s close to dawn
The warrior in the maeku looks to the sky, and finds that the stars are
fading. He had better finish his mission: dawn is almost come.
27. Buson
ima wa tote
funa yşrei ya
usenuran
the time has come
the ghost ship
will disappear
Buson again shows his penchant for the fantastic. Picking up on the
liminal time of day in KitŇ’s verse, he imagines a ghostly ship on the
edge of reality and imagination, sinking into the waves as the sun rises.
28. Buson
kokoro hisomite
tachi o itadaku
with reverence in his heart
he receives the sword
Buson writes a tsukeku to his own maeku, to ensure variety in the
sequence. Responding to the image of the threatening ship, he describes
a warrior carefully receiving a powerful sword that will help in defending
against the grotesque enemy.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
149
29. KitŇ
kono goro no
ame nochi ni hiru miru
tsuki nare ya
at last
the moon is visible in the daytime
now that the rains have stopped
The highly-refined steel of a fine sword is damaged by humidity. KitŇ
eliminates the otherworldliness of the uchikoshi, and describes the
weather of a day when the sword’s owner can safely take it out to
examine its condition.
This is the last moon verse.
30. Chora
shi no mo ni komoru
yama kage no aki
dressed in mourning for his master
autumn in the mountain’s shadow
Chora establishes the place from where the persona in the maeku is
viewing the moon, and also his station in life. He is a priest at a mountain temple, wearing mourning robes to mark the death of his spiritual
mentor. The season, autumn, makes one think of endings and melancholy.
31. Ranzan
kurawabaya
hyakuri todokishi
bushukan o
if I could taste it!
the Buddha’s-hand citron
brought here from far away
Bushukan or Buddha’s-hand citron (Citrus medica “Sarcodactylis”) is a yellow
citrus fruit with long, slender sections shaped like fingers. It is highly
aromatic. It contains very little juice, but its rind can be candied and
eaten.
Ranzan’s verse responds to the maeku’s description of a person in
mourning by introducing a fruit whose name associates it with the
Buddha.
32. Buson
sŇji shimaeba
uguisu no kuru
now that the cleaning’s done
a bush warbler has come
Busy with the cleaning, the persona in Buson’s verse had no time to
think about anything but work. Finally pausing to rest, he or she notices
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the call of the bush warbler, a welcome sign of spring. It is finally time to
try the Buddha’s-hand citron preserves.
33. Chora
tŇrŇ ni
hi no nokoritaru
asa kasumi
in the lantern
a flame still burns
morning fog
Through the light fog that shrouds the garden, the persona can still see
the faint light of a flame burning in a stone lantern. Chora imagines the
“cleaning” in the maeku to be that which follows an early morning tea
ceremony, for which the garden lanterns would be lit.
34. KitŇ
hana mono iwazu
haru fukaki kami
the blossoms are silent
as spring deepens in the place of the
gods
This verse alludes to one by Sugawara Funtoki ⩲ේᢥᤨ (899–981) in
Chinese and Japanese poems to sing:
The peach and plum trees say no word
how many nights in spring?
the mists and vapors show no trace
who perched here in the past?11
᩶᧘ਇ⸒ᤐᐞ᥵
ᾍ㔰ή〔ᤄ⺕ᭈ
Recontextualizing the lantern in the maeku as one on the grounds of a
shrine, KitŇ describes the mysterious power of an ancient, sacred place,
where even the scintillating charm of cherry blossoms seems overcome
with a mood of quiet respect.
35. Buson
hito oinu
hito mata ware o
oi to yobu
people have grown old
on the other hand, people
call me old too
———
11
Rimer and Chaves, p. 166. Chinese text is in NKBT, vol. 58, p. 221.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
151
Picking up on the maeku’s comment about “deepening spring” as a
reminder of the passage of time, Buson interjects a humorous comment
about the inevitability of human aging.
36. Chora
doro ni o o hiku
kame no yasusa yo
the ease of a tortoise
dragging his tail through the mud
Chora concludes the sequence with a reference to a famous passage in
Zhuangzi:
Once, when Chuang Tzu was fishing in the P’u River, the king of Ch’u
sent two officials to go and announce to him: “I would like to trouble you
with the administration of my realm.”
Chuang Tzu held on to the fishing pole and, without turning his head,
said, “I have heard that there is a sacred tortoise in Ch’u that had been
dead for three thousand years. The king keeps it wrapped in cloth and
boxed, and stores it at the ancestral temple. Now would this tortoise
rather be dead and have its bones left behind and honored? Or would it
rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?”
“It would rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud,” said the two
officials.
Chuang Tzu said, “Go away! I’ll drag my tail in the mud!”12
Tortoises were associated with long life, and as such would be an
appropriate image for the sequence’s ageku. Chora picks up on Buson’s
reference to an old man in the maeku, and adds to it a final link that is
like a prayer for the longevity of all the sequence’s participants, but
particularly the ailing Ranzan.
The Around here kasen stand out as some of the best examples of Revival poets’ collaboration across factional lines. While Ranzan’s training
with Five colors of ink poet Ryşkyo and Chora’s eclectic background set
them apart from Buson and KitŇ, who shared a similar poetic lineage,
the four were united by their common interest in composing verse that
reflected a cultivated, disciplined literary sensibility.
Still, even in this harmonious company, Buson’s anxiety towards his
audience continued to plague him. He made this comment in a letter he
sent to KyŇtai, with which he included a copy of Around here:
In my haikai, I do not dare try to directly imitate the style of Elder BashŇ,
but only to follow my heart, taking pleasure in changing my tastes from
———
12 Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press,
1996), p. 109.
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day to day; in the same way as the physician Bianque,13 I change my manner to conform to the standards of each setting.
Here Buson tries to duck anticipated criticism that his verse is different
from BashŇ’s, by saying that his style is as fluid and reactive as the
legendary Chinese physician who adjusted his specialty to suit his
patients’ needs. His claim to change his tastes “from day to day” is a
similar to one he makes in his preface to Make the past present, where he
defends himself from critics who complain that his verse is unlike that of
his teacher.
A Peaches and Plums Sequence: “Peony Petals Scatter”
As I mentioned in Chapter Two, Buson’s preface to Peaches and plums
takes a similarly defensive stance in response to an unnamed interlocutor
who suggested that the collection’s sequences were perhaps outdated.
Buson argues that following fashion is like running around in a circle—it
is a constantly changing race where one never knows who is ahead and
who is behind. Buson chose the palindrome “momosumomo” for the title
of the work to emphasize its circularity. He also asserts that the two
sequences are all that remained of a total of four that he and KitŇ
composed long ago, but this is not very credible. Rather, it seems likely
that Buson invented the story to preempt accusations from his audience
that his style was out of step with the times.14
———
13 Bianque was a physician mentioned in the 8th century Chinese treatise Mengqiu ⫥᳞
(Beginner’s guide, Japanese MŇgyş). When he was in an area that had a lot of children to
treat, he called himself a specialist in pediatrics, when he was in an area where there were
many elderly people, he changed his speciality to geriatrics.
14 Buson’s declaration about the timelessness of haikai were certainly sincere. However, his claims that the sequences of Peaches and plums were old, and that they represented
the only two surviving ones out of a group of four, are not to be believed. For one thing,
there is the evidence of the letters with which the composition of the sequence was
completed: in them we can see the Summer and Winter sequences taking shape, but no
letters making mention of any others exist. One letter makes reference to a summer
sequence beginning with the hokku on the topic of hana ibara (flowering brambles):
hana ibara
flowering brambles
kokyŇ no michi ni
the paths of my hometown
nitaru kana
were just like this
Buson’s letter reads:
botan chirite
a peony falls
uchikasanarin
piling up two,
u ni san pen
maybe three petals
(Buson)
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
153
A letter which KitŇ wrote to his disciple Shunba several years later,
with which he bequeathed to Shunba the manuscript of Peaches and plums,
gives us insight into Buson’s motivation for initiating composition of
these verse sequences. One day in late spring, KitŇ came to visit Buson.
Buson said that up to that point he had tried a number of different haikai
styles while living in various places, but because he still was not satisfied
with what he had produced, he wanted to compose some haikai that he
could be proud of, together with KitŇ, who had practiced so assiduously.
Composing a hokku for winter and autumn, they started two sequences:
Long ago, in 1780 I think it was, one day I went to visit the Master at Yahantei. The time was spring, when the blossoms were falling, and the birds
were singing, an evening when even the traces of spring were indistinct.
The rain began to fall gently, and when there were no visitors to disturb
the quiet, the Master himself lit the lamps, and sitting up straight in his
seat said, “[...] I have been amusing myself with haikai for some fifty years,
and by and by I am approaching my seventh decade. I still have yet to
produce haikai I can be proud of; these days, as I expected, you have already matured in haikai. As an experiment, we two should do a twoperson sequence.” We composed two hokku for summer and winter, and
master and disciple we composed more than one hundred verses, and days
passed into months until we completed the kasen, making the sequences
correct, studying the variations in the sequences, and polishing individual
verses.15
The long process of drafting and revising the Peaches and plums sequences
over the course of several months sounds very different from the typical
procedure of composing all the verses at a single session, and KitŇ’s
description gives an indication of the intense perfectionism that he and
Buson brought to their work. Significantly, KitŇ manages to interject
some words of praise for his own abilities into this tale. Nevertheless, it
———
uzuki hatsuka no
on the twentieth of the fourth month
ariake no tsuki
the moon at dawn
(KitŇ)
The above waki is very good, so please think of a daisan. It has an unforced, vibrant
waki style, and also, I think that as it sounds so much smoother than “hana ibara” it is
best to go with “botan.”
The reference to a sequence beginning hana ibara may account for the claim that there
were originally four, but two had been lost; other than this, no trace of the “lost”
sequences remains. It is probable that Buson’s claim that this was a group of four
sequences so old that two had been lost was a way to dramatize his point that haikai was
ageless.
14 ņiso Yoshio, Yosa Buson (ņfşsha, 1975), pp. 104–105.
15 Ibid., pp. 104–105.
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does appear that there were only two sequences, and that these took
several months to complete.
“Peony petals scatter” was the first of the two sequences. Since its
hokku uses the summer season word “peony” (botan), it is called a
summer sequence; the collection also contains the winter sequence
“Winter trees” (Fuyu kodachi).
1. Buson
botan chirite
uchikasanarinu
ni san pen
peony petals scatter
and pile up
two, maybe three
Buson wrote many verses about peonies; the word botan comes from the
Chinese, and carries associations of exotic splendor. The hokku uses
specific numbers—”two, maybe three”—in a way similar to what he
does in “Toward Toba palace / five or six riders gallop / autumn storm”
(Toba dono e / gorokki isogu / nowaki kana) and “Winter wind / however
do they get through life / in these five houses” (Kogarashi ya / ika ni yo
wataru / ie go ken). However, unlike those two hokku, which imply a larger
story, “Peony petals scatter” refers to nothing outside the scope of the
speaker’s gaze. The almost photograph-like neutrality of verses like this
has attracted much notice from commentators who look for evidence of
a special “artist’s eye” in Buson’s haikai. Indeed, compared to the allusive
complexity of “Willow leaves, fallen / the clear stream, dry / stones, here
and there” (Yanagi chiri / shimizu kare ishi / tokoro dokoro), which Buson
described as a representation of the scene “before [his] eyes,” “Peony
petals scatter” does appear to have a remarkable transparency.
2. KitŇ
uzuki hatsuka no
ariake no kage
on the twentieth of the Fourth Month
in the pale light of dawn
Picking up on the fact that an alternate name for peonies is hatsukagusa,
literally, twentieth-day plant, KitŇ’s waki fixes the date as the twentieth of
the Fourth Month. The moon was always visible in the sky in the
morning during the last ten days of the month reckoned by the lunar
calendar. Though this is only the second verse, KitŇ has already introduced an irregularity into the sequence: the character for tsuki in uzuki
means moon as well as month; thus this becomes a moon verse, five
verses early.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
155
3. KitŇ
suwabukite
okina ya kado o
hirakuramu
coughing,
an old man
seems to be opening the gate . . .
Although poets normally took turns when writing two-person sequences,
sometimes they composed two links in succession to avoid the possibility that one person composed only 17-syllable links and the other
composed only 14-syllable ones. Thus KitŇ adds another tsukeku,
envisioning an old man opening the gate to his house under the dim
dawn moon. Suwabukite (coughing) suggests that the old man is sick and
frail. As it should have, the opulence of the hokku’s peony has disappeared in KitŇ’s daisan.
4. Buson
muko no erabi ni
kitsuru hengue
a ghost has come
to choose an adoptive son-in-law
Buson returns to the sequence with a verse on a topic of which he was
especially fond: the supernatural. Ordinarily references to dramatic topics
like this were prohibited in the first six verses of a kasen, but Buson
ignores this rule. The scene is mysteriously romantic rather than grotesque. Use of the archaic word hengue (ghost, monster) would remind
readers of medieval tales.
“Adoptive son-in-law” (muko) is a man who has been adopted by his
wife’s parents in order to provide the family with a male heir.
5. Buson
toshi furishi
chimata no enoki
ono irete
at the crossroads
an old nettle tree
is hacked at with an ax
Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku, as KitŇ did in Verse 3. This
verse also is related to the supernatural world. Nettle trees (enoki) often
marked crossroads; it was believed that cutting one down would bring
on a curse. This would explain the creepy scene in the maeku.
6. KitŇ
hyakuri no kugaji
tomari sadamezu
a hundred-ri highway
without a fixed abode
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Picking up on the word “crossroads” (chimata) KitŇ envisions a territory
stretching out into the distance; the phrase perhaps somewhere in China.
Ri is a unit of distance that originated in China; in Japan, one ri is about
two and a half miles (3.9 kilometers). KitŇ’s traveler moves through the
landscape with no home or destination, passing through a crossroads
marked by a broken nettle tree.
7. KitŇ
utamakura
okori ochitaru
kinŇ kyŇ
visiting places famous in poetry
he took ill, and has fallen under a fever
yesterday and today
Utamakura (places famous in poetry) were place names that accumulated
associations from being repeatedly referred to in literary works. Over the
centuries, these associations became conventionalized, like the hon’i of
season words. Throughout most of Japanese history, travel was such a
risky and difficult business that very few people actually saw utamakura
sites for themselves, but those that did, like NŇin, SaigyŇ and eventually
BashŇ, were deeply admired.
KitŇ’s verse establishes the identity of the maeku’s traveler as a poet.
Mention of a fever (okori) resonates with troubling uncertainty suggested
by the maeku’s phrase “without a fixed abode” (tomari sadamezu).
8. Buson
yamada no oda no
wase o karukoro
in the mountain farms’ small fields
it’s time to harvest the early rice
Buson breaks another rule here: he follows KitŇ’s Summer verse with an
Autumn one, omitting the Miscellaneous verse that was supposed to
separate the two. He specifies the place and season of the poet’s illness
as a mountain village in early autumn.
9. KitŇ
yşzuki
okurete wataru
shijşkara
later
than the twilight moon
homing swallows fly
This is the second moon verse, again out of place—it should be Verse
14. The time is fixed as dusk. The human presence in the uchikoshi
disappears; KitŇ’s focus is entirely on the natural world: swallows swoop
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
157
homeward in the gloom over a mountain village as the moon slowly
rises.
10. Buson
aki o ureite
hitori to ni yoru
filled with autumn’s melancholy
approaching the gate alone
Buson’s verse returns us to the human world. The mood of the persona
in Buson’s verse mirrors the dark, chill landscape of an autumn twilight.
Alone by a gate, he or she pauses to savor the moment’s delicate sadness.
11. KitŇ
me futaide
nigaki kusuri o
susurikeru
with eyes shut tight
he swallows down
the bitter medicine
KitŇ gives a reason for the discomfort of the persona in the maeku:
physical illness. While urei (melancholy) has elegant associations, KitŇ
deflates them by his description of the persona’s contorted face as he
forces himself to drink a foul-tasting potion.
12. Buson
Taima e modosu
furoshiki ni fumi
he sends back to Taima
a letter in a furoshiki
Interpreting the persona in the maeku as having left home for medical
treatment, Buson envisions him sending back the furoshiki (cloth parcelwrapper) his family used to pack him a parcel of supplies or gifts.
13. KitŇ
tonari nite
mada koe no suru
abura uri
next door
we can still hear the voice
of the oil peddler
KitŇ envisions the person who will deliver the maeku’s furoshiki and letter
as an oil peddler. Despite the impatience of the people expecting the
parcel, he will not stop talking to the neighbors and be on his way to
deliver it.
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14. Buson
sanjaku tsumoru
yuki no tasogare
three feet of snow
piled up in the twilight
Buson shifts the focus to landscape, specifying the setting and the time
of day. The snow falls deep here, and the winter night comes early. It
would be a good time to welcome an oil peddler, were he not so
annoying. His conversation is as long as the snow is deep.
15. KitŇ
e ni uyuru
Ňkami uchi ni
shinoburan
a starving wolf
may be hiding
inside
A wolf has had difficulty finding food because of all the snow. KitŇ sets
a lonely house into the winter landscape of the maeku. The people who
live there are as hungry and desperate as the wolf.
16. Buson
iguchi no tsuma
tada naki ni naku
the housewife with the harelip
cries and cries
Buson picks up on the maeku’s reference to an animal, and matches it
with another, iguchi (harelip) which is written with the character i ఻ for
hare. Imagining the home of the hunter that will kill the wolf in the
maeku, Buson implies that woman’s sorrows are a sign of the karmic
misfortune that afflicts those who live by killing.
17. KitŇ
kanei aru
hana no mitera ni
kami kirite
at a flower-filled temple
where there was a bell-casting
she takes the tonsure
KitŇ puts the first blossom verse in the right place here. The maeku’s
persona has met with a happy end; to atone for her guilt by association,
she becomes a nun at a temple that is filled with blooming cherry trees.
18. Buson
haru no yukue no
nishi ni katabuku
spring departs
sinking in the west
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
159
The end of spring brings with it a sense of regret. Buson associates the
temple in the maeku with west, the direction of the Amitabha Buddha’s
paradise. As joyful as the cherry blossoms may seem at the moment,
they, like the spring, will not last long.
19. Buson
Noto dono no
tsuru oto kasumu
ochikata ni
the sound of Noritsune’s bowstring
grows fainter
in the distance
Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. He reinterprets “sinking in the
west” (nishi ni katabuku) to mean the failure of fortune, introducing the
image of the general Noto-no-kami Taira no Noritsune ⢻⊓቞ᐔᢎ⚻
(d. 1185), who, along with the rest of his clan has been driven to the
edge of the Western Sea in their war with the Minamoto clan. Noritsune’s great heroism is described in the Tale of the Heike. Buson’s
description of the sound of the bowstring becoming faint (kasumu)
suggests spring haze (kasumi).
20. KitŇ
hakase hisomite
toki o uranau
the fortune teller secretly
takes a reading of the hour
KitŇ takes Buson’s image of a plucked bowstring and associates it with a
fortuneteller. The sound of a plucked bowstring was thought to have
supernatural power; it was used to ward off demons or illness, particularly during childbirth.
KitŇ may also allude to another scene in the Tale of the Heike, in the
“Distant Arrows” chapter:
Furthermore, a school of one or two thousand dolphins surfaced and
swam from the Genji side towards the Heike. Minister of State Munemori
summoned the learned Harenobu. “Dolphins always appear in schools,
but we have never seen such numbers as these. Use your divining arts to
find out what it means,” he told him. “The Genji will be destroyed if the
dolphins stay on the surface and turn back; we will be endangered if they
dive and pass us.” No sooner had Harenobu spoken than the creatures
passed straight under the Heike vessels. “This is the end for us,” the diviner said.16
———
16 Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tale of the Heike (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988), p. 376.
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21. Buson
awa oishi
uma taurenu to
tori nakite
carrying a bundle of millet
the horse stumbled, and just then
a bird called out
Buson picks up from KitŇ’s description of the fortuneteller, and
visualizes some bad omens—a horse losing its balance at the same time a
mysterious bird calls.
22. KitŇ
Ňchi saki chiru
nawate hatchŇ
sandalwood trees bloom and fade,
along
the long pathway between the paddies
KitŇ’s verse fixes the season as summer, and the place where the
incident in the maeku happened as a farming community.
23. Buson
tachiaenu
niji ni Asama no
uchi keburi
a faintly visible
rainbow over Asama’s
rising smoke
Buson adds a backdrop to the maeku’s rural close-up. The rainbow and
the smoke rising out of the volcano make a dramatic contrast of the
delicate and the grand.
Mount Asama, near Nagano, is one of the largest volcanoes in Japan.
Some three years after Buson and KitŇ wrote this sequence, it erupted
disastrously, killing around 2,000 people.
24. KitŇ
chokushi no oyado
mŇsu ureshisa
the joy of receiving so grand a guest
as an imperial messenger
KitŇ’s link is based on mood: the majesty of the great mountain and
rainbow after a rainstorm is similar to that of the imperial messenger,
and the host receives this guest with great delight.
25. Buson
kŇ ni etaru
ajika no uo no
hara akaki
taken from the river
the fish in the basket
are red-bellied
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
161
Buson imagines the feast that the maeku’s host puts on for the imperial
messenger. KŇ ni etaru (taken from the river) has a stiff, formal feel, and
recalls Chinese poetry.
26. KitŇ
hi wa sashi nagara
mata arare furu
even though the sun is shining
hail falls again
“Hail” (arare) fixes the season for the maeku as winter. The weather is
uncertain: the sky seems to be clearing, but it starts hailing. KitŇ contrasts the intense red of the fish and the white hail that falls.
27. Buson
mishikoi no
chigo neri ideyo
dŇkuyŇ
“Come out,
beloved acolyte!”
the temple festival
The topic here is “love.” Picking up on the maeku’s theme of uncertainty,
Buson’s verse describes the feeling of waiting for one’s beloved to
emerge from the midst of the crowds at a temple festival. He uses direct
speech to emphasize the urgency of the emotion, “chigo neri ideyo”(come
out, acolyte!). “Acolyte” (chigo) suggests male homosexual love—the love
of an older man and a younger one.
28. KitŇ
tsuburi ni sawaru
hito nikuki nari
how loathsome are people
who muss one’s hair-style
KitŇ recasts the maeku’s lover as a girl, looking for the beautiful acolyte at
the temple festival but worried lest the jostling of the crowd should
dislodge the hairstyle she has put so much effort into perfecting.
29. Buson
izayoi no
kuraki hima sae
yo no isogi
even during the time
between sunset and moonrise on the
sixteenth day
everyone is busy
With the phrase “everyone is busy” (yo no isogi) Buson shifts the scene
from the bright realm of romance to the dull, ordinary round of chores
and obligations. The persona who does not want her hair to be mussed
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becomes an older woman, pressed with various responsibilities. From
the sixteenth day, the moon begins to wane, and likewise, the mood here
changes from light to dark.
30. KitŇ
shikoro utsu naru
Banba Matsumoto
the sound the mallet makes
from Banba to Matsumoto
KitŇ picks up on the maeku’s description of a busy scene and specifies
the work as cloth fulling. As we saw in Buson’s “as I am melancholy /
beat the fulling block, but / stop now, it’s enough” (uki ware ni / kinuta
ute ima wa / mata yamine) in Chapter Four, the sound of fulling cloth was
associated with loneliness. Both Banba and Matsumoto were place
names in ņtsu (modern Shiga Prefecture).
31. KitŇ
kago kaki no
bŇgumi taranu
aki no ame
there are not enough people
to carry a palanquin
in the autumn rain
KitŇ adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. He picks up on the maeku’s
melancholy scene, describing a place so desolate and lonely that there are
not even enough people to carry a palanquin.
32. Buson
tobi mo karasu
achira mukiiru
kites and crows
staring into space
With the phrase “staring into space” Buson anthropomorphizes the
birds, and interjects a bit of lightness after several dark and dreary verses.
33. KitŇ
tatari nasu
tanaka no hokora
kansabite
under a curse,
the small shrine in the fields
is forbidding
KitŇ takes Buson’s amusing scene and locates it in a more serious
situation: a small shrine out in the fields. It seems to have some mysterious power; no wonder the birds are acting strangely.
RESISTING COMMUNALITY
163
34. Buson
sude ni Genba ga
kuji mo make iro
it already looks like
Genba has lost the lawsuit
The name Genba has the connotations of someone strong and authoritative. Buson implies that the shrine’s curse has brought about the
lawsuit’s unfavorable outcome.
35. Buson
hana ni utoki
mi hatagoya no
meshi to shiru
a long way away from cherry blossoms
in the lodging house
there is rice and soup
A blossom verse. Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. Despite the
fact that the cherry blossoms are blooming, it is hard to enjoy them in an
inn near the courthouse. The food at the inn is bad, but having lost the
lawsuit, the persona hardly has a mind to enjoy anything anyway.
36. KitŇ
mada kure yaranu
haru no tomoshibi
it is not completely dark yet—
lanterns of spring
Cheerful lamps are glowing, though the sky is still light. It is time for the
evening’s meal on a fine spring night with the cherry trees in bloom. This
is the ageku (uplifting verse). Appropriately enough, KitŇ’s verse is
positive in outlook, leaving behind the curses and sorrows of the
previous few verses and ending in a bright scene, full of promise.
Most commentators would acknowledge that the verse sequences that
Buson and his collaborators produced are not as impressive as the
greatest of those composed by the BashŇ school. However, Buson’s
sequences are generally acknowledged to be among the best of the late
period of the heyday of haikai linked verse. The waning of linked verse’s
popularity in itself did not end up eliminating the communal side of
haikai: poets still met to compose impromptu hokku and receive instruction from a teacher, and other kinds of verse gatherings continued to be
popular. However, in part because of the rise of tentori haikai, and in part
because of the preferences of the Revival poets’ community for hokku,
the practice of linked verse composition went into a decline in the years
after Buson’s death.
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CHAPTER FIVE
For this reason, collections like Around here: Four kasen in one night, and
those composed in unconventional circumstances like the sequences of
Peaches and plums are extremely valuable sources for the insights they offer
into the linked verse of the late eighteenth century, what was to be the
genre’s last great age.
CHAPTER SIX
BUSON AND HAIGA
Because Buson was also a painter, many commentators have tried to
characterize him as a “visual” poet. Some have assumed that his artistic
training preconditioned him to observe the world in a painterly fashion,
and have looked for ways in which his poems might prove analogous to
paintings. This assumption is related to the fact that the artistic genre in
which Buson primarily worked, nanga had its origin in Chinese traditions
that encouraged interaction between visual and literary expression.
Furthermore, haikai is often described as poetry that strives to reproduce
the experience of a single moment in the same way that a sketch would
do. This “visual” approach presents problems because, as we have seen,
Buson’s hokku are extremely diverse. While there are many that seem to
offer an immediate, unmediated description of a scene just as it appeared, most are in fact entirely fictional and imaginary, or written in
response to a set topic. Looked at as a whole, Buson’s hokku are no more
or less painterly than those of other haikai poets.
In one sense, Buson’s dual identity as both a painter and a poet was
not problematic. In the Japanese cultural tradition, painting, poetry, and
calligraphy were viewed as related arts; for instance, literary texts were
often inscribed on paintings, poets sometimes composed waka in
response to painted landscapes, and it was not uncommon for editors to
compile collections of poems illustrated with idealized “portraits” of the
poets who wrote them. However, Buson stood out even in this context.
Despite the long tradition of linking the literary and visual arts, few
people could rival Buson’s abilities in both—even in the eighteenth
century, when the ideal of the bunjin flourished. However, the way of
thinking that regards painting and poetry as fundamentally separate
categories of expression is a relatively modern idea, dating from the Meiji
period, when the Japanese modified their taxonomies of the arts to bring
them more in line with those of Europe.
Buson’s work as a painter did have an impact on his haikai, and this
chapter will explore some ways of thinking about how the two forms of
Buson’s practice intersected. To start with, because it is important to
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understand the origins of interpretations of Buson as a “painterly” poet
that arose during the modern period, the chapter begins with an overview of the most influential visual interpretation of Buson’s hokku,
Masaoka Shiki’s reading of Buson as representative of the ideal of shasei,
or realism, in haiku. Many of Shiki’s statements about Buson’s poetry are
polemical and somewhat extreme, but they are important to look at
because the assumption on which they are based—that there is an
essential separation of painting and poetry that Buson somehow
managed to bridge—underlies readings of Buson as an especially visual
poet.
In the second and third parts of the chapter, I examine two areas that
provide other meaningful contexts in which to consider the interaction
of painting and poetry in Buson’s haikai. The first area is Buson’s
relationships with his patrons, and the role that his haikai contacts played
in helping to secure supporters and customers for his paintings. Texts
associated with Buson’s early years in northeastern Japan and in the
province of Tango provide rich insight into the complexity of these
relationships, and reflect Buson’s careful efforts to manage them so as to
promote his professional ambitions. The second area I examine is the
intersection of painting and poetry in Buson’s haiga, a genre where
haikai’s techniques of juxtaposition, implication, and humor created
compositions which blurred the boundaries of verbal and visual expression to a degree that is striking, even in a cultural tradition where works
that combine images and texts were common.
Buson as a Visual Poet: Masaoka Shiki and Shasei (Sketch from Life )
The notion that there was a close relationship between Buson’s painting
and haikai was at the center of the theories of poet and literary critic
Masaoka Shiki, who was the first to call attention to Buson’s work in the
modern period. Shiki was a central figure in a movement to reform waka
and renga that led to the invention of the modern genres tanka and
haiku.
When Shiki began writing about Buson in the last decades of the
nineteenth century, Buson’s hokku were no longer well known. Buson’s
reputation as a poet had flagged after his death, in part due to his own
anxiety and ambivalence toward his role in the haikai community. As we
have seen, Buson postponed taking on the leadership of the Yahantei
BUSON AND HAIGA
167
school until late in life, and left most of the work of promoting that
school up to KitŇ. However, KitŇ died in 1789, only a few years after
Buson. Even the great energy with which KitŇ laid the foundation of
Buson’s reputation as a haikai poet did little to forestall the eclipse of the
Yahantei school in the years that followed. One reason for its decline
was that KitŇ did not have time to cultivate his own successor. Perhaps
more importantly, though, the cult of BashŇ, which Buson helped to
promote, took off dramatically in the 1790s, and the haikai “orthodox”
tradition (shŇfş ᱜ㘑) gradually became synonymous with the BashŇ
tradition (shŇfş ⭈㘑). As so much attention was focused onto the work
and teachings of BashŇ, less was paid to that of other poets. In other
words, Buson’s haikai fell into relative obscurity after his death in part
because of the great success of his generation’s efforts to place BashŇ at
the center of haikai history.
However, even during the time when the audience for Buson’s haikai
diminished, he continued to be admired as a painter. Indeed, it was his
reputation as a painter that brought him back into focus a century after
his death, and it was the very fact that his verse was unlike BashŇ’s—a
difference which was attributed to his identity as a painter—that
attracted the attention of people in the Meiji period like Shiki.
Shiki was the most influential of the critics who made Buson a centerpiece of efforts to reshape haikai into a genre that was viable in the
modern world. Shiki saw that older genres of Japanese poetry, like haikai,
were under threat from imported European forms. Haikai’s use of
classical language, the stale and clichéd expressions it had acquired from
many generations of unimaginative practitioners, and above all, the
elaborate and inflexible social structure of schools and lineages that had
developed around it, were all contributing to its fossilization.
As he worked to revitalize it and transform it into the modern genre
he called “haiku,” Shiki’s most immediate target was the cult of BashŇ.
Over the years the successors to Buson and his colleagues in the BashŇ
Revival had transformed the movement from an effort to set high
literary standards for the genre into a stifling system of orthodoxy that
enabled large numbers of people to write haikai but made the practice an
exercise in banality. For this reason, many innovative poets of the day
advocated abandoning it completely.
While Shiki acknowledged that BashŇ’s had written many excellent
hokku, he argued that many examples by other poets were equally good.
One of these was Buson. Buson came to Shiki’s attention with the help
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of fellow poet NaitŇ Meisetsu ౝ⮮㡆㔐 (1847–1926), who came across
a copy of Buson verse anthology and introduced it to Shiki’s study group.
Shiki found Buson’s hokku especially compelling because he was
developing a theory of haikai that treated it as a literary sketch, or shasei
(literally, copying life, the Japanese word used to translate the Western
art term “sketch from life”). Shiki argued that haiku functions in a way
that allows it to capture a scene as it appears in a single instant. In this
respect, it resembles a drawing or a photograph—realistic, objective, free
of inessential information but able to recreate a moment of experience
and communicate it to a reader. Stripped of its connections to anything
outside the moment—like references to the literary tradition—and free
of the distracting artifice of conspicuous word play, the haiku was well
suited to the task of expressing the unprecedented events and experiences of the modern world. Shiki saw the painter-poet Buson as an ideal
precursor to this view of haiku; Buson’s work was proof that even in its
earliest forms haikai had the necessary attribute that made it relevant to a
modernizing Japan: it emphasized objective representation of the
exterior world. This is because Shiki believed that the very thing that
Buson’s economic circumstances made his focus—his work as a
painter—was what that marked him as a visionary and a model worth
following for modern haiku poets.
At the time, Shiki was very interested in exploring the potential that
classical Japanese poetic forms like waka and haikai had in the emerging
literature of a modernizing Japan. For Shiki, an important key to this
problem lay in figuring out ways that pre-modern literary forms were
especially good at realism. In the course of his studies on the subject, he
became acquainted with Western theories of art from his friend, the yŇga
ᵗ↹ (Western-style) painter Nakamura Fusetsu ਛ᧛ਇ᛬ (1866–1943).
Fusetsu introduced Shiki to the Western technique of the sketch from
life (shasei). Shiki became convinced that haiku poems were like sketches;
poets should express with words the scene or object just as they saw it,
similar to the way painters would depict it in line.1
Shiki found his shasei ideal in the painter-poet Yosa Buson, whose
artist’s eye, Shiki reasoned, allowed him a special facility with making
sketches in words. He argued this in a number of articles, Otter’s den study
haikai talks (Dassai shooku haiwa ₯⑂ᦠቶେ⹤, 1892), Master BashŇ’s
surprise (BashŇ-Ň no ikkyŇ ⧊⭈⠃৻㛳, 1893), and Miscellaneous talks on
———
1
Hirai Terutoshi, “Shiki to Buson,” Bungaku 52, 10 (1984): 184.
BUSON AND HAIGA
169
BashŇ (BashŇ zŇdan ⧊⭈㔀⺣, 1893) Eventually Shiki came to regard
Buson as a figure of major importance—the equivalent in his period to
the standard of excellence represented in the Genroku period by BashŇ.
Haikai history had two high points, he argues, and the best poet of each
is BashŇ and Buson.2 In his most detailed comparison of the poetry of
BashŇ and Buson, Haiku poet Buson (Haijin Buson େੱ⭢᧛, 1897),
Buson emerges as the opposite of everything Shiki found characteristic
of BashŇ. Where BashŇ wrote negative (shŇkyokuteki ᶖᭂ⊛), colorless,
and highly subjective poetry, Buson’s was positive (sekkyokuteki Ⓧᭂ⊛),
vigorous, and objective. BashŇ was a poet of autumn and winter, Buson
of spring and summer. Most importantly, while BashŇ’s aesthetic looked
back to the medieval period and East Asian tastes, Buson’s anticipated
modern and Western tastes. The biggest reason for this difference was
that Buson’s painterly eye predisposed him to a kind of objectivity that
was consistent with late nineteenth-century ideas about literary realism.
Shiki’s portrayal of Buson as a visual poet, however, overstates the
case. As we have seen, few of Buson’s verses were written in response to
a particular occasion or experience. Instead, he generally composed his
hokku on topics that had been set as a theme for a verse gathering or
similar occasion. Likewise, imagery that might seem to reflect the
conditions of a given moment turn out to have been chosen on the basis
of their usage in the classical tradition. It is true that some early modern
haikai poets, especially those who followed the teachings of the rural
BashŇ school, created a style that aspired to—but seldom achieved—
karumi, the aesthetic of plainness and simplicity that BashŇ espoused in
his later years, and this in some respects resembled Shiki’s shasei.
However, Buson regarded the rural school style with nearly as much
contempt as he reserved for profit-conscious urban tenja who were
impressed with shallow verbal cleverness; his hokku are no more or less
“objective” than those of other haikai poets. It is possible to find some
examples of Buson hokku that support Shiki’s interpretation, but there
are many more that contradict it.
———
2
Shiki, Haijin Buson, in Haikai taiyŇ (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), p. 170.
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Buson and his Painting Clients
While Shiki may have overemphasized the visual aspects of Buson’s
hokku, the question of how to understand the relationship between
Buson’s work as a painter and a poet remains valid. One answer to this
question focuses not on the content or style of his verse, but rather on
interactions that Buson had with his painting clients and the way these
intersected with his work as a haikai poet. Networking with other haikai
poets was one of the ways that Buson secured access to clients who
bought his paintings, supported his travels to view and study works by
Japanese and Chinese artists in various collections, and obtained places
to live and work. This was especially true during Buson’s early years, but
even after he established himself in Kyoto, haikai continued to provide a
context for him to meet visitors from rural areas who both acted as
informal brokers for his paintings and sought his instruction in poetry.
While an exhaustive examination of Buson’s relationships with his
patrons is beyond the scope of this study, I will discuss two periods
when haikai played a major role in Buson’s efforts to establish himself as
a painter: his ten years in the northeast of Japan after Hajin’s death, and
the three years he spent in Tango before settling permanently in Kyoto.
Buson’s writings from and about these two periods of his career give us
a glimpse into two apparently paradoxical aspects of his relationships
with the people who supported him in his work. One was respectful and
laudatory: Buson represents his patrons as people of good taste and
highly developed poetic sensitivity. Another side of this portrayal,
however, is less obviously flattering and for this reason merits more
attention: he describes several of his patrons in the context of mysterious
visits by supernatural creatures, or in quite undignified and even embarrassing circumstances. As we will see, both aspects were characteristic of
people who were especially gifted as poets and connoisseurs. In this
sense, by describing his patrons as both tasteful and eccentric, Buson
could offer them no higher praise—and no greater thanks—for their
generosity in hosting him and supporting his work.
Buson in Yşki and Shimodate
Almost as soon as Buson arrived in Edo, he showed himself to be as
precociously skilled in social maneuvering as he was at haikai. He quickly
BUSON AND HAIGA
171
achieved recognition in a haikai group that was well known both in Edo
and in Kyoto, and became the live-in student and secretary for his
teacher. Since Hajin had followers in rural and urban areas all over Japan,
the special consideration that he gave to Buson proved very helpful.
Hajin’s disciples—most prominent among them Isaoka GantŇ in the east
and Mochizuki SŇoku in the west, shared Hajin’s high regard for Buson,
and for many years their help would prove indispensable to him.
GantŇ came from a well-respected family in Yşki. His father, GashŇ
ᚒዏ was a haikai poet who, like Hajin, had studied with both Ransetsu
and Kikaku; GantŇ’s brother, Shşgo ๟ඦ, also practiced haikai. The
haikai community in Yşki and nearby Shimodate was extremely tightknit: GashŇ’s sister (GantŇ’s aunt) married Hayami Shinga ᤯ᚒᣧ⷗
(1670–1745), the haikai poet to whom Buson would dedicate his haishi
“Mourning the Sage Hokuju” (Hokuju rŇsen o itamu ർኼ⠧઄ࠍ
޿ߚ߻).3 Shinga’s sons, Momohiko ᩶ᒾ and DenkŇ ↰ᵩ, both
practiced haikai. Two members of the Nakamura family of Shimodate
who later supported Buson also married into the haikai tradition:
Nakamura FşkŇ ਛ᧛㘑▶ (dates unknown) married Fujii Omitsu, who
was related to prominent Kikaku disciple Shinryş ᤯ᵹ (1680–1761), and
Nakamura Taisai’s ਛ᧛ᄢᷣ wife was GantŇ’s sister. SatŇ Rokyş, with
whom Buson edited the Utsunomiya new year’s day booklet (Utsunomiya
saitanchŇ ቝㇺችᱦᣤᏭ, 1744), was GantŇ’s son-in-law.
The area around Yşki and Shimodate was prosperous—it produced
textiles, miso, and soy sauce; it outstripped its neighboring communities
in agricultural productivity. Although it was far from any urban center, it
boasted a relatively high level of education and cultural sophistication. At
the same time, to Buson, who had grown up in a farming village its rustic
character was probably much more inviting than was the busy environment of Edo.4
Buson used GantŇ’s home as his base. From late autumn 1742 until
the winter of 1743 he traveled, retracing BashŇ’s Narrow road to the interior
route: in Shimodate he lived with FşkŇ and Taisai; in Yşki, besides
GantŇ’s house, he also lodged with JŇş and stayed at GugyŇ-ji temple.
Only a few sources give us information about Buson during this
period, and one of the best is New flower gathering In the prose section of
this work, Buson describes the patrons he acquired during this period as
———
3
4
A full translation of this work is included in the appendix.
Segi Shin’ichi, Buson: Gahai nidŇ (Bijutsu KŇronsha, 1990), pp. 78–79.
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being of extremely discerning and cultivated taste, people who were
dedicated to leading a life appropriate to the bunjin ideal. This is in spite
of the fact that they lived far from urban centers like Edo and Kyoto
where one might expect to find sophisticated people. Accordingly, in
several stories from New flower gathering, connoisseurship becomes the
focus of attention. The text opens with a justification for Buson’s
decision not to publish a collection of his own hokku because such
collections reveal their authors’ limitations too clearly; but after this and
two other short comments about haikai he shifts into some stories about
art objects and the risks to which people exposed themselves in valuing
them. Two of them place Tokiwa Tanpoku Ᏹ⋚Ầർ (dates unknown)—medical doctor, theorist on education, haikai poet and art
collector—in the center of the narrative. The first starts out with an
anecdote to establish a general background, and then moves into a story
that concerns Buson’s own experience:
There was certain person who had a passion for the hand guard of a
short-sword that was said to have been made from a nail-cover taken from
the palace of Xianyang ທ㓁ች;5 he always had it at his waist and cherished it. How much did this antique, inlaid with a bird-and-flower pattern
of precious metals, and evoke the splendor of a thousand years! However,
asking about what proof was there that this was indeed a nail-cover from
the Xianyang Palace is nonsensical talk. Somehow, if he had not claimed it
was a nail-cover from the Xianyang Palace, it would have been a wonderful thing, and it is regrettable that he did.
Even if it had been wood shavings from Nagara Bridge or the dried
frog of Ide, I am sure that the people of today would find it contemptible
and dubious.
Tokiwa Tanpoku’s Korean (Koguryo) tea bowl had been carefully preserved by the warrior ņtaka Gengo ᄢ㜞Ḯ๋; it was handed down to
Tanpoku from that very Gengo, and Tanpoku bequeathed it to me. Indeed it had an eminent history of past possession, but what proof was
there? Lest it should become like the nail-cover of Xianyang palace, I
quickly gave it away.
The unnamed connoisseur in the first part of this anecdote overstepped
himself in admiring his artifact not for the sake of its beauty, but for its
putative history; because he did so, he exposed it to the contempt of
others because he could not prove that it actually had the illustrious
origin he said it did. Buson compares it to a story from the late Heian
———
5 The palace of the First Emperor of Qin ⒌ (Qin Shihuang ⒌ᆎ⊞), 259–210 BCE, r.
221–210 BCE.
BUSON AND HAIGA
173
waka treatise Pouch notebook (Fukuro zŇshi ⴼ⨲ሶ, compiled 1157), about
the first meeting between the great poet NŇin ⢻࿃ (b. 998) and
Fujiwara Toshinobu ⮮ේ▵ା (dates unknown), in which the two men
impressed each other with their good taste by showing off their most
prized possessions: NŇin, wood shavings from the long-lost bridge at
Nagara and Toshinobu, a mummified frog from the Ide River. Both the
Nagara Bridge and Ide River frogs were long celebrated in waka poetry.6
This sets the context for Buson’s extraordinary act of giving away a
present from his patron Tanpoku, an item of great value. ņtaka Gengo
was one of the forty-seven rŇnin who were required to commit suicide
after illegally avenging the death of their lord; he was also a practitioner
of the tea ceremony and a haikai poet of the Teimon school. Tanpoku’s
gift of this tea bowl—which was not only beautiful in itself, but also had
such an illustrious history—was a generous one. Aside from being a
cautionary tale that reveals the great importance that “proof” (shŇ ⸽) of
an art object’s worth had acquired during this time, the emphasis Buson
places on his patron Tanpoku’s magnanimity and also his good taste
indicates that within Buson’s circle, both aesthetic refinement and a
generous character were markers of people worthy of admiration.
A longer story of Tanpoku’s discernment follows the “buried tree”
episode immediately. It starts out as a tale of an experience Buson had
while retracing Matsuo BashŇ’s Narrow road to the interior journey;
Tanpoku accompanied him on the first part of this trip but not as far as
Matsushima, where the beginning of the story takes place:
Tenrin-in temple ᄤ㤅㒮 of Matsushima is alongside Zuigan-ji ℰጤኹ
and is a splendid Zen monastery. Once, when I was a guest there, the head
of the temple gave me an old plank that was more than a foot in length
and said, “Lord So-and-So of Sendai was a waka poet without compare.
He hired a large number of workers, and had them dredge the bottom of
the Natori River and they managed to pull out a fossilized log (umoregi).
This log was used to make a writing-box, and together with some brushes
made from Miyagino bush clover-wood, it was presented to the head of
the NijŇ poetry school. This plank is what is left from the log, and is
something that should not be treated lightly.” It had a distinct grain like
that of zelkova wood. Because it had spent a thousand years on the river
bottom, it was black, and as if it had turned to iron, when you tapped it, it
made a hollow sound. It weighed only about ten kin ᢹ (thirteen pounds),
and even when I bundled it up in a cloth and put it on my back, I barely
———
6 Shimizu Takayuki, ed., ShinchŇ Nihon koten shşsei, vol. 32, Yosa Buson shş (ShinchŇsha,
1979), p. 47, note 141.
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managed to carry it to Shiroishi ⊕⍹ post station. Because I did not think
I could bear the fatigue of carrying it over a long distance, I left it under
the veranda of the guesthouse where I spent the night and continued on
my journey home.
Sometime later, when I mentioned this to Tanpoku at the home of
GantŇ of Yşki, Tanpoku scolded me angrily, saying, “What! You dirty
priest who throws away treasure! I’ll have it for myself! Is someone around
that I can send? Go right away!” and he contacted Shinryş ᤯ᵹ in Sukagawa. Shinryş wrote a letter, and sent a servant with him to visit the lodging-place at Shiroishi. The servant said, “A priest who once stayed here
left something or other behind, and I have come to look for it.” The innkeeper fortunately looked around, and found it, and gave it to him, and
[Shinryş] took it. Later, GantŇ received it [from Tanpoku], and it was
made into the ink stone-cover called “Fishes and Cranes” (Gyokaku,
㝼㢬). It is more than seventy ri7 from Yşki to Shiroishi, and although
much time had passed, the object that we obtained and brought home was
an exceedingly precious one.
Like the dried frog of Ide and wood shavings of Nagara Bridge, umoregi
or wood from “buried tree” is an object that had great value because of
its associations in classical poetry. Thus, a piece of this wood had great
value for people of literary sensibility; the one that Buson received had
been a gift to the temple from someone who was not only a powerful
lord, but was also an excellent waka poet.8 Buson’s telling of the story
self-deprecatingly (and humorously) exposes his own failure to appreciate the importance of this extraordinary gift—which perhaps he had
achieved in exchange for one of his paintings—and because of it
Tanpoku’s good taste appears all the more impressive by contrast. This is
not just an amusing account of something Buson experienced while he
was on the Narrow road to the interior trail. Rather, it is an aisatsu praising
both his benefactors Tanpoku and GantŇ for their highly cultivated
sensibility at the same time as establishing them as well-informed
connoisseurs of fine art, and as such it shows gratitude for their generosity.
Buson concludes New flower gathering with another story about the risk
attached to valuable objects that chrononologically precedes his experiences in the northeast. This one took place while Hajin was still alive. It
is also different because Buson is the hero of the piece—it is he who
———
7
About 170 miles (273 kilometers).
A detailed discussion of umoregi and its significance in this passage is included in
Edward Kamens, Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 10–18.
8
BUSON AND HAIGA
175
gives help to a poet in need. Nevertheless, it provides another example
of the ways that haikai poets and their associates used precious objects as
the currency of social relationships:
The officer Umezu Hanuemon ᪢ᵤඨฝⴡ㐷9 was a trusted retainer in a
certain household, in his post in Naniwa also his service was excellent, and
he received a letter of commendation, and was a person of great fame.
Thus his stipend was worth some ten thousand koku, and was a senior retainer in the household. He had a liking for haikai, and as his duties permitted he participated in activities of Kikaku’s school, and took the name
Kiteki ౔㔑. He was a poet with many verses in Kikaku’s collections. This
person, having completed his work in Edo, was about return home to
Akita. Since he was very sad at having to leave Kikaku, he invited him to
come along. Kikaku could not go. Kikaku had another disciple by the
name of ShikŇ ⚡⚃. Because he was very skilled at haikai, at Kikaku’s
recommendation he went to attend Kiteki, and sent him off to Akita.
Therefore, Kiteki and Kikaku did not cease exchanging letters, so I heard.
Among these was a precious letter written in Kikaku’s own hand. Of
course it contained a conventional greeting. After that were included two
or three hokku, and in the following paragraph there was this:
On a certain day in a certain month, the forty-seven loyal retainers
launched a night attack on the enemy stronghold, avenging their
dead lord. They ended up Sengaku-ji temple ᴰጪኹ10 with nothing
to regret. ShiyŇ ሶ⪲, Shunban ᤐᏔ and the others performed
deeds that were completely without parallel. Both of those two were
practitioners of haikai in those days, they were young warriors of
poetic sensitivity, and above all, their resolve and emotional depth
was endless.
It was truly a document worthy of great respect, and Kiteki kept it hidden
away, like a treasure.
At that time there was a person called Fukami ShintarŇ ᷓ⷗ᣂᄥ㇢.11
He was a youth so beautiful he would put even He An ૗ᤲ and Dong
Xian ⫃⾫ to shame.12 Kiteki had a great affection for this young man,
and they formed a bond that was closer even than that of Su Wu ⯃ᱞ
and Li Ling ᧘㒺.13 ShintarŇ was also interested in haikai, and went by the
name of JŇshŇ ਂ⩽. He felt that the letter from Kikaku was something
———
9
(1672–1721).
Their graves are at Sengakuji Temple, Tokyo.
11 Died 1692.
12 Chinese youths famous for their handsomeness.
13 Li Ling (d. 74 BCE) and Su Wu (ca. 143–60 BCE) were both captured by the
Xiongnu ൱ᅛ, a Central Asian tribe that invaded China’s northern frontier. Li Ling’s
poem to Su Wu was included in Wen xuan. Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol.
1, trans. David R. Knechtges (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 35, 42.
10
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he wanted for himself, and even though he did not say anything about it,
Kiteki knew what was on his mind, and ended up giving it to him.
Among the disciples of Tantan there was a man named Bakuten
㤈ᄤ,14 and he came to Akita from Naniwa and stayed there for some
time. JŇshŇ and Bakuten were both devoted to haikai, and JŇshŇ gave the
letter to Bakuten. After that Bakuten moved on to Edo, and he lived in a
place called Yanagiwara, near Edo Castle,15 and sought out a shabby room
and lived there. He had always been poor, and now he had run out of
ways to pay for clothing and food; he had no acquaintances, and no relatives that he could rely on, so he was in real trouble. When I realized this,
I gave him a little something to help him out of his difficulty.16 I hosted
my own monthly haikai meetings, running all over the place making his
sales pitch. Because of this, when, starting with people like Hajin, RitŇ,
RyŇwa, and Gojaku ඦ኎, people of all kinds joined, eventually the meeting place became filled to bursting with participants, and he had splendid
haikai group.
Bakuten’s intentions were finally realized when Mokusai Seiga
㤩ᢪ㕍ᚒ became a member of the group. He (Bakuten) took the name
Ihoku ᷺ർ, and effortlessly composed linked verse sequences of ten
thousand verses, and he safely completed the initiation as a haikai master.
His reputation grew naturally, and he participated in many groups, and
anyway was very successful. Because he felt great affection and gratitude
towards me, his old friend, he told me he would give me the aforementioned Kikaku letter. I replied, “You have only this to treasure. There
won’t be another one. How can I accept it? I have no need of it.” I firmly
declined his offer.
UkŇ Ihoku ฝᳯ᷺ർ (1703–1755) was an urban-school poet. After the
assistance he received from Buson, he became a successful haikai master
in Akita and Edo. He helped to edit the influential anthologies Edo twenty
verse sequences and Eastern haikai (Azuma buri ᧲㘑ᵹ, published 1756).
Buson’s story focuses on a letter in Kikaku’s handwriting. Like Tanpoku’s tea bowl, this object was important because it was connected to a
famous person. Letters and other documents in the handwriting of poets
were something to be treasured; in Chapter Three we saw how ShŇzan,
Taigi, and Zuiko’s discovery of a manuscript in BashŇ’s handwriting was
an occasion to be celebrated with the compilation of a volume of poetry,
Kyoto twenty verse sequences. In this case, the letter not only was valuable
because of the person who wrote it, but because the contents were
———
14
That is, Ihoku.
In modern Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.
16 Literally, helping the fish stuck in a puddle of water in a wheel-rut.
15
BUSON AND HAIGA
177
particularly interesting and because it had previously been owned by
interesting people.
Buson’s story about the letter is a way of explaining his relationship
with Ihoku. Unlike most of the New flowering gathering stories, however, in
this one Buson’s own role is almost self-congratulatory—he admits that
he was extremely generous to this poet and takes the credit for launching
his career. This makes it an exception to most Buson stories about
himself. In the end, however, Ihoku emerges as a person of great
courtesy—his appreciation of Buson’s help is so great that he is willing
to give him his most prized possession. Buson, for his part, again turns
away from the opportunity to own something valuable—this time
because he recognizes its importance to his friend. The story does,
however, share a theme with Buson’s other tales: in his reminiscences
about the past, he is careful to present those who supported him as
embodiments of bunjin ideals, both in excellence of character and also
appreciation for things of great literary and artistic value.
However, New flower gathering also contains some other stories whose
approbative nature is a little more in doubt. One of these concerns JŇş
ਂ⠀:
JŇş of Yşki established a second house and had an old man stay there as
caretaker. Even though it was in the middle of the town, it was surrounded by trees and luxuriant with plants, and because it was a place
where one could escape the hustle and bustle of the world, I myself stayed
there for quite some time.
While he was there, Buson spends his time studying haikai and Chinese
poetry. As the story continues, however, things take a turn for the weird:
in the middle of the night Buson is visited by a badger, who disappears
every time he and the caretaker try to find it. Finally, when a hunter
shoots a badger in a nearby wood, Buson realizes that this must have
been the one that was troubling them, and he feels guilty at having
contributed to its death.
Another example is an incident that Buson describes as having happened at Nakamura FşkŇ’s house. It is one of the longer tales in New
flower gathering:
There is a man called Nakamura HyŇzaemon ਛ߻ࠄ౓Ꮐⴡ㐷 who lives
in Shimodate, in Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei
haikai school, and his haikai name was FşkŇ 㘑▶. He was of unequalled
wealth, and lived in a fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens
were full of unusual stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let
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loose birds, and the scenery of the garden’s artificial mountain surpassed
views of nature. He was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes
the provincial governor would come to call. His wife’s name was Omitsu
㒙ḩ. She was the daughter of a rich man called Fujii So-and-so, and was
skilled at waka and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began to
go into decline, many peculiar things happened.
Buson happened to visit Omitsu while FşkŇ was away, and she tells him
that the household would wake to find that mochi (cakes made from rice
flour) were inexplicably disappearing from their storage containers.
Eventually, very late one night while she was diligently working at her
sewing, five or six foxes appeared in the room. They seemed to come
out of nowhere, and went away just as mysteriously. Buson was very
impressed with her response to this frightening experience: she reacted
with exemplary calm and stoicism.
While on the face of it these accounts seem to be little more than
mildly grotesque tales of haunting, they also have a serious purpose, and
can give us insight into a different aspect of Buson’s relationship with his
patrons. As in all the New flower gathering stories that describe people
whose homes are haunted by supernatural beings, JŇş and the Nakamura
family are represented as people of good taste and refinement. This is
keeping with what we saw in Buson’s introduction to the Around here:
Four kasen in one night, an appreciation for tales of the supernatural was a
mark of a cultivated character. In both the story of JŇş and that of
Omitsu, the location of the events is the residences of the people
concerned. Both places are described in terms of extremely high praise:
JŇş lives like a recluse in the city, much as Buson’s great friend and
mentor ShŇha did. So does FşkŇ; however, his home is even more
splendid—its elaborate garden full of rare plants, stones, and even birds
would be appropriate for any Chinese scholar-recluse to live, study, and
to entertain friends. He was prominent enough to entertain provincial
officials, and even the relative poverty into which the house had declined
at the time of Buson’s visit is presented as a case of what a Confucian
would regard as honorable poverty. His wife, too, is a woman of industry
and dignity; she works late into the night at her sewing, and is stalwart
even in the face of a visit from otherworldly creatures. The environments these admirable people inhabit are isolated and run-down,
precisely because they have turned their back on striving for worldly
BUSON AND HAIGA
179
measures of success and instead devote themselves art and poetry. At the
same time, lonely, dilapidated houses invite the attentions of foxes and
badgers the way that more fashionable, well-maintained ones would not.
Thus the supernatural visits so prominent in Buson’s accounts are
actually a form of emphasizing the dedication of his patrons to a life of
transcending ordinary, everyday concerns, making them embodiments of
rizoku.
Buson’s New flower gathering also introduces humor as a way of calling
attention to the excellence of his friends. Like the stories associating
excellence with the grotesque, his portrayal of patron Hayami Shinga
seems on the surface at least ambiguous, if not frankly unflattering. The
story begins with Shinga sleeping with the shutters open, the better to
hear the affecting sound of the crickets chirping in the night. So far,
Shinga’s attitude is suitably tasteful. Next, however, a series of events
happen that leave us with a much different impression:
At about the Fourth Hour, he suddenly sat up in bed and looked outside,
and it was as bright as day from the dazzling moonlight. Several foxes sat
in a row on the veranda, waving their bushy tails. They cast very distinct
shadows on the shoji, and there are no words to describe how frightening
it was. How could Shinga stand it at that moment? He ran toward the
kitchen in a panic, and going up to a room where he thought the host was
sleeping, he knocked at the fusuma. “Hey, wake up!” he hollered at the
top of his voice. This awakened the servants, who made a big commotion,
yelling, “Burglars! There are burglars here!” Hearing this, Shinga himself
calmed down, and, his eyes fully awake now, he looked at what he was doing. He realized he was knocking on the door of the toilet, shouting, “Sir!
Wake up! Help quickly!” Later he spoke of this, and said, “I am a fool,
even if I do say so myself.”
This is one of the best examples of how Buson brings together the
grotesque and the comic. However, as he does in his other stories, he
adds another element: the aesthetic. Buson admired Shinga deeply; when
Shinga died Buson wrote what is perhaps his most emotionally raw
poetic and powerful work, the haishi “Mourning the Sage Hokuju.”
Given that this is the case, and in the context of the other New flower
gathering stories, it appears that in Buson’s circle of poets and art collectors who embraced the ideal of literati eccentricity inherent in the bunjin
ideal, laughter was to be prized, and people who behaved in a way that
elicited laughter were not necessarily ridiculous, but were instead viewed
as embodiments of this ideal. The bunjin ideal valued seeing through the
meaningless pretensions of conventional society, and people who had
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such insight were to be admired. Shinga’s behavior here was not quite
poetic madness; however, he was able to laugh at himself, and this was
also something that marked him as someone with a highly developed
personal character.
However courteous Buson’s stance towards his early patrons and
supporters appears in works intended for public consumption like New
flower gathering, the private face of his relationships with them is of a
somewhat different character. Instead of diffidence and respect, his
letters show a side to these relationships that was more direct and
emotional. The following is from a letter Buson wrote during his early
months in Kyoto to Momohiko, the son of Hayami Shinga. Momohiko
was probably in Edo at the time he received this letter, as his family’s
sake brewing business had concerns there; his brother DenkŇ, the letter
suggests, remained in Yşki. The text is corrupt in several places.
To: [...] Yohachi, [....] Sawaragi chŇ
Please deliver this to the address above. Kindly affix it to the wall.
Please do not forget to deliver it.
Please obtain a line of calligraphy by Mr. Hirabayashi, or two or three
hanging scroll dipytchs. I would like to hang the in my studio here. And
some other people of good taste also definitely would like some. I humbly
ask this great kindness of you. This is the favor of a lifetime. I will paint
you a picture of Daikoku in return.
I’ve been visiting various places in Kyoto. I’ve spent a very interesting
time here. Recently I went to Fushimi and stayed there for a while. When
I remember the time when [...] danced, I laughed to myself. From time to
time I also compose some haikai. I’m still pretty busy and I haven’t much
going on. When I have a year or two’s experience of the place I’m looking
forward to enjoying myself much more. Above all, I’m asking you for Mr.
Hirabayashi’s calligraphy without fail. I am waiting for it eagerly.
Oshimi
Viewing mandarin ducks
oshidori ni
bi o tsukushiteya
fuyukodachi
mandarin ducks
replete with beauty:
woods in winter
There are many more besides that one, but I’ve omitted the others. How
is DenkŇ in Yşki? I feel very nostalgic.
Hirabayashi Seisai ᐔᨋ㕒ᢪ (1695–1753) was a famous Edo calligrapher. Buson’s letter implies that Momohiko knew him, or was in contact
with someone who was. Buson asks for an example of his calligraphy not
only to copy and learn from it, but also to display it in his own studio.
BUSON AND HAIGA
181
Other people in Kyoto—Buson calls them “fşryşka,” people of fşryş, a
word he often used as a synonym for haikai—were also interested in
Seisai’s work. Buson emphasizes the urgency of his request with the
hyperbolic “this is the favor of a lifetime,” and he repeats it in his last
lines. In exchange for the calligraphy, he offers a painting of Daikoku,
the god of wealth; this was an appropriate gift for a merchant like
Momohiko.
The letter conveys the impression of a close friendship between the
two men. Buson describes how his recollection of one of their acquaintances dancing causes him laugh out loud, and says that the memory of
his brother and of Yşki makes him feel nostalgic. This is in contrast to
his experience in Kyoto, which he imagines will take him a year or two to
get used to. Buson also includes a hokku, despite admitting that he has
not had much time to write anything of consequence. All in all, the letter
gives us insight into a number of things, but most obvious is the warmth
and intimacy of the relationship Buson developed with his patron, and
the way that their relationship revolved around the exchange of calligraphy, painting, and poetry.
This letter also is evidence of the difficulty that Buson had in getting
himself established in Kyoto. Despite the connections he already could
depend on by virtue of the his position in Hajin’s Yahantei school, which
included many disciples in Kyoto area because Hajin had spent several
years there between 1725 and 1737, Buson was still not able to find a
secure professional foothold there right away. As a result, he went to
Miyazu in Tango Province in search of better prospects.
Buson’s Miyazu Patrons: KenshŇ-ji Temple
Miyazu is about 600 kilometers (366 miles) away from Kyoto. Although
it was not far in terms of distance, getting there from Kyoto involved a
rough journey over some very difficult mountain roads. However,
Miyazu was famous for its beauty, and tourism was one of its major
industries, in addition to the production of chirimen (silk crepe). Miyazu’s
prosperity and its proximity to Kyoto made it a good location to seek
painting clients because many of its inhabitants had some exposure to
the cultural life of the ancient capital, and had levels of education similar
to the people Buson knew in Yşki and Shimodate.
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Buson’s comments about his life during this period are sparse. In
Chapter Three we saw the letter he wrote to ShŇzan while in Tango, in
which he described its dialect as unpleasant and the locally popular style
of haikai as unpalatable. Despite this avowed lack of affinity for the
place, for reasons that are not clear, Buson eventually took the name
“Yosa” for himself; Yosa is a district not far from Miyazu, so he may
have developed a deeper attachment to the place than this letter suggests.
Also, while not many of the hokku that he wrote during this time survive,
the number and quality of extant paintings from this period are testimony to the fact that his experience here was very good for the development of his artistic skills. Many of the works he completed during this
period are very large, including some six-panel screen paintings. Like the
paintings he did during his years in the northeast, these reflect the
influence of many different styles, but many of them display a level of
confidence and certainty evident in few of his earlier paintings.
During the three years he spent here, he lived mostly at the Pure Land
temple KenshŇ-ji, the guest of a priest there, Chikukei, who was a haikai
poet. Buson probably received an introduction to Chikukei from one of
the many Pure Land temples in Kyoto. Buson was not deeply religious,
though because for several years he sometimes signed himself Shaku
Buson ㉼⭢᧛ (Priest Buson) scholars have speculated that he must
have received some kind of Buddhist training. However, as we have
seen, Buson frequently stayed at temples in places where he was without
a more permanent residence. Temples were usually prepared to give
lodging to visiting pilgrims, and in a time when inns and other facilities
for travelers were still relatively limited, it was not uncommon for people
to find accommodation in temples, even while on journeys whose
purpose was not actually religious.
One source of information about Buson’s time at KenshŇ-ji is the
story in New flower gathering, where he describes his experience of being
repeatedly awoken in the night by a mischievous badger. In this Chikukei, Buson’s host, is presented in rather undignified, even comic terms.
The story begins with Buson falling ill with a fever, and taking refuge in a
back room at the temple. One night, getting up to use the toilet, he
draws back the sliding door. Stepping into the next room, he is shocked
when his foot touches something small and furry. He is even more
disturbed to find that the mysterious object almost immediately disappeared. Though he calls for help from the resident monks, they resent
BUSON AND HAIGA
183
having their sleep disturbed and complain that his fever is making him
hallucinate.
Feeling embarrassed because I had been given such a scolding, I too got
back into bed. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone
had been laid on my chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my
voice was within the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over
and said, “How extraordinary! What’s the matter?” and saved me by waking me up. When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had
experienced, he said, “Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be
the work of that badger.”
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like fallen
petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the walkway.
And so, even those people who before had said I was talking nonsense
and scolded me, said wonderingly, “Hm, maybe it really was something.”
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry to
wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying that
this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on his
testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi jo no
Kinkakuji
autumn passes, and looking back
eight jŇ of camphor
in the Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Chikukei
As in the episodes Buson recounts from his journey to the northeast, the
focus of this story is the visit of a supernatural being. It is very similar to
the tale of Shinga’s experience, involving the invasion of his room by a
strange creature and a nocturnal visit to the toilet. The humorous side of
things is even more apparent in this story, with the very frank and earthy
description of his Chikukei’s private parts. Buson’s story provides a
context for Chikukei’s poem—Shukaku was a legendary monk of Morinji temple in Tatebayashi (modern Gunma Prefecture) who seemed to
have magical powers and was rumored to be a badger in disguise; an
eight jŇ-sized room at Kinkaku-ji was built with camphor wood boards;
the testicles (kindama) of a badger were thought to be a prodigious size;
kaku means both “pavilion” and “to scratch.” Despite the fact that
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Chikukei’s image is somewhat repellent here, Buson’s story provides a
backdrop that showcases his poetic artistry. Also, as we saw in the
Shinga story, Buson’s depictions of his friends in a comic light is actually
a form of praise, in that it speaks to their connection to the ideal of
convention-breaking eccentricity. While Chikukei’s appearance is
laughable, he is the only one of his colleagues to understand the true
source of Buson’s trouble; likewise, even though the circumstances are
completely bizarre, he is ready with the perfect poetic quip. Thus, in
spite of its comic tone and earthy content, this story can be read as an
expression of gratitude for Chikukei’s three years of hospitality.
A picture that Buson painted to commemorate his friendship with
Chikukei also exists. Called “Three Haikai Immortal Priests” it is a very
rough, almost cartoon-like depiction of Chikukei, Rojş 㔺ච of ShinshŇji temple ⌀ᾖኹ, and RyŇha ਔᏉ of Muen-ji temple ή✼ኹ. Both
ShinshŇ-ji and Muen-ji were Miyazu temples. Like Chikukei, Rojş and
RyŇha were also haikai poets. The inscription on the picture was badly
damaged by fire—what remains of it is enough to suggest that the text
was very light and playful in tone, written in informal, almost conversational language. The three priests are shown standing in conversation
with one another—RyŇha and Rojş on the right, wearing wooden clogs;
Chikukei is on the left, barefoot. To the left of the three men are sotoba,
grave markers made from wooden planks. Rojş has a stern look on his
face, but Chikukei and RyŇha are laughing. Although it is not a great
work of art, “Three Haikai Immortal Priests” is interesting for a number
of reasons. It represents the three men in a humorous way that is more
charming than disrespectful. As we saw in the case of New flower gathering’s stories of Shinga and of Chikukei himself, a comic depiction actually
does honor to its subject by bringing it into the realm of aesthetic
eccentricity and humor that was fundamental to haikai. Even though he
does not directly praise the poetic skills of his friends, Buson’s portrait
shows them to be amusing and unconventional; we can assume that their
haikai is much the same.
Buson’s writings to and about his patrons are vivid and in many cases
highly imaginative and playful. However, his regard and affection was
matched by a corresponding degree of dependence. Without the good
will of his patrons, Buson would not have prospered: in his early life he
relied on them for room, board, and the access to resources he need to
equip himself as a painter, and even after he established himself in Kyoto
he still needed their constant support. Beneath the drama and charm of
BUSON AND HAIGA
185
these texts, then, was anxiety—the need to flatter, cajole, and ingratiate
himself with wealthy people enough to earn their patronage. Buson’s
career as a painter might have enabled him to shun aggressive selfpromotion as a haikai poet, however, the pressures he faced as a painter
remained strong nonetheless.
Haiga: An Introduction
These pressures had influence on another area of Buson’s work where
painting and poetry intersect: haiga. The majority of Buson’s haiga date
from the early 1770s and afterward, from around the time that his
position as a Kyoto painter was more secure and he took on the
leadership of the Yahantei school. As a form of art that could be
produced quickly and cheaply, haiga were a perfect tool for a painter like
Buson who was chronically short of funds, even during his most
productive years.
Haiga are works in which haikai text and image combine to form a
single, integrated whole. Haiga were quite different from the pictures that
professional artists like Buson typically painted. Most were on a very
small scale, often a single hokku paired with a simple sketch. Both
inscription and image were supposed to appear spontaneous and
immediate—a direct expression of a single moment.
Haikai poets were not necessarily brilliant painters. However, regardless of its aesthetic qualities, the calligraphy or painting of a haikai poet
had its own value as a visible trace of a person’s character, much as
autographs might be viewed today. It was not unusual for editors to
compile facsimile collections of poems inscribed in the handwriting of
the poets who composed them, like MŇotsu’s Ancient and modern poetry
collection, because the handwriting itself was an important object of study,
and contributed to the reader’s appreciation of a poem. In the same way,
the brushwork of a painting also value regardless of how technically
skillful it was.
Haiga were informal and dashed off in a hurry, giving the impression
of having been created impulsively. In this way they are similar to hokku,
which are supposed to seem fresh and spontaneous even though they
might have undergone numerous revisions, or verse links that were
composed on the spot in reaction to another person’s maeku.
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CHAPTER SIX
Haiga resemble hokku and linked verse in other ways, too: most importantly, both create a sense of surprise by bringing together incongruous images. The connection between the images is close enough that
viewers can perceive it, but not so close that it seems tediously obvious.
Hokku and linked verse accomplish this using words alone. Ambiguity
and implication—leaving out information in order to cue their viewers to
supply it—are extremely common. Hokku, for example, frequently create
multiple layers of meaning expressed through homophony, pivot words,
and the like. In linked verse, the writer of the tsukeku seizes on one of
several interpretations of a maeku and builds on it to form the next link.
Haiga also operate this way, but the inclusion of a visual element places
the focus even more on implication. The artist and writer choose exactly
the right image to pair with a text, and add no more detail than is
absolutely necessary to trigger recognition and insight. The pleasure the
reader-viewer has in haiga is that of guessing the connection between the
text and the image, and in the most interesting haiga, connections are
very subtle indeed.
Curator and art historian Okada Rihei calls haiga “something that acts
as haikai, in the form of a picture.”17 In Okada’s view, haiga are different
from other similar-looking kinds of Japanese art, arguing that they bear
only a superficial resemblance to works such as the “Frolicking birds and
beasts” (ChŇjş giga 㠽₞ᚨ↹, early 12th c.) attributed to Toba Kakuyş
㠽⠀ⷡ₉ (1053–1140), ink sketches by medieval monks, and cartoonlike drawings by tea masters. Likewise, not every picture painted by a
haikai poet is necessarily haiga. The essential distinguishing feature of a
haiga, Okada argues, is what he calls “haikai spirit” (haikai seishin
େ⺽♖␹). While this is difficult to define, it is related to the fact that
the producers of these works were commoners rather than aristocrats,
and they tended to infuse their works with humor and a sense of fun.
Also, while references to the natural world were common in haiga verses
and images, the main focus was on depicting the realities of the daily life
of the lower classes. 18
The word haiga did not come into use until the TenpŇ period. Buson
did not use this word himself; he referred to his haikai pictures as “haikai
rough sketches” ߪ޿߆޿ߩ⨲↹. The first use of “haiga” is attributed
to Watanabe Kazan ᷰㄝ⪇ጊ (1793–1841):
———
17
18
Okada Rihei, Haiga no sekai (TankŇ Shinsha, 1966) p. 1.
Okada Rihei, Buson to haiga (Yagi Shoten, 1997), pp. 28–29.
BUSON AND HAIGA
187
Haiga is that which takes aesthetic refinement (fşryş) as its first principle.
In the Genroku period there were people like ItchŇ ৻Ⲕ (Hanabusa
ItchŇ, 1652–1724) and Kyoriku (Morikawa Kyoriku ᫪Ꮉ⸵౐, 1656–
1715); in terms of style, Shinsei ᷓ⋭ (Ogata Kenzan የᒻੇጊ, 1663–
1743) was better. This aesthetically refined taste (fşryş no omomuki) is not
an ancient one; it probably started with people like TakimotobŇ Ṛᧄဌ
(ShŇkadŇ ShŇjŇ ᧻⧎ၴᤘਸ਼, 1584–1639) and KŇrin (Ogata KŇrin
የᒻశ℘, 1658–1716). Among haikai poets RyşhŇ was outstanding. In
recent years, Buson and his school have come to be thought interesting. It
is important to paint keeping all of these artists in mind. Making everything too perfect is not good; to a certain extent paint badly. To put it in
human terms as an example, being clever and shrewd in one’s behavior or
a good talker is bad; knowing little of the world and stuttering naïveté is
seen as aesthetic refinement (fşryş), and one should try to achieve this and
introduce it into one’s work. 19
Few modern commentators would share Kazan’s views in linking haiga
with Kenzan, ShŇkadŇ, and KŇrin. Kenzan was a potter, ShŇjŇ was a
calligrapher, and KŇrin was a painter; none of them wrote haikai.
However, Kazan’s point is that the origins of haiga are in a style that
rejects fussiness and perfectionism; if one wishes to paint this way, he or
she should first study and learn not only from the example of haikai
poets but also that of non-haikai poets who achieved this ideal.
The early twentieth-century scholar Ebara TaizŇ offers another definition of haiga, one that gives some insight into the way it creates a
relationship between visual and verbal components. Ebara’s argument is
similar to Okada’s; he argues that there are two essential qualities of
haiga: one, okashimi, or humor; and two, its emphasis on contexts derived
from ordinary life. While other kinds of paintings like those done by
monks or other painters with literary pretensions may resemble haiga in
their simplicity, haiga are marked by this special characteristic combination of both humor and a sense of connectedness to the daily life of
commoners. Another genre that also arose in the early modern period,
ukiyo-e (“floating-world” pictures) show a similar degree of connectedness with ordinary life; ukiyo-e might also depict its subjects in a humorous way. However, the third and most important aspect of haiga distinguishes it from ukiyo-e as well as other kinds of painting, and this is its
reliance on yojŇ ૛ᖱ—overtones or implications. As he argues:
———
19
224.
Ebara TaizŇ, “Haiga,” Ebara TaizŇ chosaku shş, vol. 13 (ChşŇ KŇronsha, 1979), p.
188
CHAPTER SIX
Though haiga are usually considered works with abbreviated or rough
brushwork, or works that manifest aesthetically refined taste, haiga are
nothing other than works that make their primary focus an aesthetic of
overtones (yojŇbi). There are various kinds of theories regarding the principle of overtones in waka, renga, and haikai, but basically, it is what expresses meaning by triggering an association or an intuition of the broadest possible time and space that lies behind or within direct expression.
Thus some of the many explanations say that it depicts the beauty of what
is not revealed in language or does not appear in scenery, or it is an expression of only the trace of the unsaid or unlooked-for (that which is not
described according to the logic of causality). The reason Essays in idleness
asks, “Are we to look at the blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only
when it is cloudless?”20 is because there are no overtones when things are
expressed completely.21
YojŇ, then, can be understood as expression that conveys more than what
it literally says. Ebara associates overtones with a number of different
aesthetic terms: in waka, it is related to yşgen (mystery and depth), in
renga, sabi (austerity), hie (chill), yase (slenderness) or fuke (profundity). In
the case of the 31-syllable waka, implication was an essential part of
expressing the poet’s message, because the shortness of the form itself
placed limits on what could be said directly. This became even more
important in renga and haikai, which gave poets only 17 or sometimes as
little as 14 syllables to work with. Thus, haikai poets had to devise ways
to give eloquence to what was left unsaid. This same habit of thought
and expression, Ebara argues, transferred itself to a form of painting in
which much of the picture space was left open and unpainted. Again,
while unpainted space is not uncommon in Chinese and Japanese
painting as a rule, haiga’s identifying characteristics remained its focus on
the daily life of commoners, and its liberal use humor.22
Ebara’s explanation of yojŇ in haiga points to how completely integrated haiga was with poetry, especially linked verse and hokku. The
relationships between haiga’s visual and verbal images follow rules that
governed verse sequences. These rules were highly complex and
technical, and they varied depending on the historical period and school.
The earliest formulation of linked verse rules was that offered in waka
———
20 Episode 137, “Are we to look at the blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only
when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds
and be unaware of the passing of the spring—these are even more deeply moving.”
Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 115.
21 Ebara, “Haiga,” p. 228.
22 Ibid., pp. 228–229.
BUSON AND HAIGA
189
and renga theorist NijŇ Yoshimoto’s ੑ᧦⦟ၮ (1320–1388) HekirenshŇ
௼ㅪᛞ (Bent links treatise, ca. 1345, the basis for Renri hisshŇ), which
proposes fifteen different kinds of linking. His formulation was further
refined by renga luminary SŇgi, and later, SŇboku ቬ’ (d. 1545) came
up with four categories to classify links. Haikai poets also produced their
own treatises on the subject, those of Kitamura Kigin ർ᧛ቄี (1624–
1705) and SaitŇ Tokugen ᢧ⮮ᓼర (1559–1647) being most widely
read. 23
In the early stages of haikai’s development, the most common ways of
creating links in verse sequences were monozuke ‛ઃ, literally, object-link
(also called kotobazuke ⹖ઃ, literally, word-link) and kokorozuke ᔃઃ,
content-link (also called kuizuke ฏᗧઃ, verse meaning-link). Monozuke
can be understood as links that draw connections based on the established associations of a word or phrase, especially those derived from the
classical literary tradition. For instance, “Mount Fuji” was associated with
“smoke,” partly because of the objective fact that, being a volcano,
smoke sometimes rose from its summit; but even more strongly because
for centuries writers had alluded to Mount Fuji’s smoke in literature.
Likewise, the verb yoru (to twine) was associated with the noun ito
(thread).24 By contrast, kokorozuke ignored the established associations of
specific words, and instead made a link based on the previous verse’s
meaning or content. The following two pairs of examples illustrate the
difference:
no wa yuki ni
karuredo karenu
shion kana
under snow, the fields
have withered, yet still unwithered
is the aster
Sengin
taka no egoi to
ne oba naki ato
trace of the crying
call of a hawk seeking sustenance25
Kigin
This pair of verses is taken from a sequence included in Memorial haikai
on the thirteenth anniversary of the passing of Elder Teitoku (Teitoku Ň jşsan kaiki
———
23 Higashi Akimasa, Renku nyşmon: BashŇ no haikai ni soku shite (ChşŇ KŇronsha, 1978),
p. 104.
24 A detailed discussion of different types of linking is in Higashi, pp. 104–118.
25 Ibid., p. 20.
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CHAPTER SIX
tsuizen haikai ⽵ᓼ⠃චਃ࿁ᔊㅊༀେ⺽). In “Under snow, the fields”
(no wa yuki ni) Sengin conveys a sense of grief for Teitoku by making use
of the fact that “aster” (shion ⚡⧞) is homophonous with “affection for
one’s teacher” (shion Ꮷᕲ). Thus the verse implies that, while the snow
has caused the plants in the surrounding fields to die, an aster—and
likewise, the speaker’s feeling of gratitude towards Teitoku—still blooms.
The relationship between this verse and the one that follows it is built on
the principle of monozuke. In the seminal verse-linking handbook
Companion boat (Ruisenshş 㘃⦁㓸, 1676) that was widely used by the
Teimon and Danrin schools, yuki (snow) is associated with taka (falcon).
Thus Kigin matches Sengin’s verse about a snowy field with one that
refers to a falcon.
In this pair, the start of an early BashŇ-school sequence, the link relies
on kokorozuke:
ara nan tomo na ya
kinŇ wa sugite
fukutojiru
nothing much happened
yesterday is gone:
puffer fish broth
TŇsei (BashŇ)
samusashi satte
ashi no saki made
the chill has departed
even from my feet26
ShinshŇ (Yamaguchi SodŇ)
BashŇ (using the haikai name TŇsei) starts off his extravagantly irregular
verse with a line from the NŇ play The Reed cutter (Ashigari ⧃⧛), where
the title character laments the bitterness of his lonely life:
Yesterday was wasted
Today has come to an end;
Tomorrow will surely be the same.
I was merely trying to prolong
A life that counts for no more
Than a grain of sand on a wave-beaten shore;
Here among the stalks wet with soon-vanished dew
I have become a cutter of reeds.27
———
26
Ibid., p. 22
Donald Keene, Twenty Plays of the NŇ Theater (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970), p. 153–154.
27
BUSON AND HAIGA
191
BashŇ changes the phrase’s meaning slightly to give voice to a speaker
who is relieved to have lived to see another day after having eaten some
delicious but potentially poisonous soup made with puffer fish (fugu).
ShinshŇ (better known as BashŇ disciple SodŇ) responds with a tsukeku
where the speaker describes a sensation of warmth that has penetrated
right to his toes—that is, from eating the puffer fish broth mentioned in
the previous verse. This is a kokorozuke because the connection is entirely
based on the situation portrayed in the preceding verse; it does not rely
on the fixed association of one word with another, as does the first
example.
The BashŇ school poets went beyond monozuke and kokorozuke, and
developed a group of verse link categories that can be collectively
referred to as nioizuke, or “scent links.” As Haruo Shirane argues in his
detailed article “Matsuo BashŇ and the Poetics of Scent,” these are
verses in which the tsukeku is connected to the one that precedes it by
overtones or shared connotations, rather than by lexical associations (as
in monozuke) or content (as in kokorozuke). Shirane quotes Kyorai’s treatise
where it explains:
The Master [BashŇ] said, “The hokku has changed repeatedly since the
distant past, but there have only been three changes in the haikai link. In
the distant past, poets valued lexical links. In the more recent past, poets
have stressed content links. Today, it is best to link by transference, reverberation, scent, or status.28
The historical development of linking described in this passage is an
oversimplification, but it does indicates that BashŇ and his students were
conscious of the fact that what they were doing was distinctly different
and better than the way that their predecessors wrote haikai. Above all,
they wanted to avoid making links that were too close or too obvious.
Instead, the kind of linking they preferred is that which opens a space for
the reader to step into and fill by recognizing the connection implied by
the overtones (yojŇ or yosei) of the maeku and the tsukeku. BashŇ’s terms
transference (utsuri), reverberation (hibiki), scent (nioi), and status (kurai)
all refer to this kind of subtle technique. Shirane compares this with the
cinematic term “montage,” and quotes Sergei Eisenstein’s explanation
that calls montage “an idea that arises from the collision of independent
———
28 Shirane, “Matsuo BashŇ and the Poetics of Scent,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
52, 1 (1992): 78. The translation is by Shirane.
192
CHAPTER SIX
shots”29 in which the viewer appreciates the connection between
seemingly unrelated images by recognizing similarly subtle similarities
links between them.
It is not necessary to look as far as modern cinematic technique for a
visual version of nioizuke. This is precisely the kind of connection that we
typically see in haiga. The “scent link,” or more broadly cast, connections
based on overtones (yojŇzuke or yoseizuke ૛ᖱઃ) were the basis for the
connections between language and text in haiga. In some cases, the
picture in a haiga acts like an illustration, providing a visual depiction of
an image alluded to by language in the inscription. This kind of haiga,
however, is the least impressive. Instead of inviting the viewer’s participation in creating the meaning of the text, it merely elaborates on
information already provided. Instead, the most effective haiga follow the
principles of nioizuke, juxtaposing images whose connections took some
intuition or calculation to uncover.
To get a better idea about how this relationship works, let us take a
look at two examples. The first is by Sakaki Hyakusen, a pioneer nanga
painter and Buson associate (Figure 2). This haiga is the first in a series of
small compositions, each on the topic of a different month of the year.
The compositions were pasted onto a mounting and made into a folding
screen (byŇbu). The painting for the First Month shows a sleeping
scholar, his head pillowed on crossed arms resting on the surface of his
writing desk. To his left on the desk is a closed book. In a few brushstrokes, Hyakusen indicates that the scholar is Chinese: his clothing
appears distinctly continental and the lines of his desk are more ornate
than is typical of Japanese furnishings. Otherwise, the picture space is
empty. Nothing else that might offer a clue appears in the upper part of
the painting: except for the artist’s signature, the only other element is
the hokku inscription. What does this scene depict? Reading the hokku
makes everything clear:
hatsu yume ya
chŇ to naritemo
mada samushi
first dream of the year
even though I become a butterfly
I’m still cold30
Hyakusen
———
29
Ibid., p. 86.
Zaidan HŇjin Kakimori Bunko, eds., Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori bunko
tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series (Itami: Zaidan HŇjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996), p. 34.
30
BUSON AND HAIGA
193
Figure 2
“First dream of the year.” Haiga by
Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City Museum.
Now the context becomes intelligible, as if the unpainted background
was suddenly filled in. To start with, “First dream of the year” (hatsu
yume) refers to the Japanese custom of taking note of the dream one has
in the first three days of the First Month—fortunate ones were believed
to indicate good prospects for the rest of the year. Thus, “first dream of
the year” is appropriate for a verse or painting whose topic is the First
Month.
In the second place, the verse also makes reference to a “butterfly.”
“Butterfly” is a spring season word, but that is not its function—the
season word here is “first dream of the year.” Instead, it serves to
associate this “first dream” with what is perhaps the most famous dream
194
CHAPTER SIX
in the cultural traditions of East Asia—the one described in the Daoist
treatise Zhuangzi:
Once Chuang Chou [Zhuangzi] dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself, doing as he pleased. He
didn’t know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was,
solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he did not know if he was
Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming
he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must
be some distinction. This is called the Transformation of Things.31
With that reference, the meaning of the picture becomes clear. The
image of a sleeping Chinese scholar huddled over his desk resonates with
the reference to butterflies and dreams, and despite the brevity of the
verse and the extreme simplicity of the painting, there is enough
information here to solve the puzzle. “First dream of the year—” (Hatsu
yume ya) works like a hokku in that it both presents a high-culture
reference—Zhuangzi’s dream—but undercuts it by referring to the
earthy, visceral sensation of the cold, and it does this by the juxtaposition
of the picture with the words. Instead of lofty philosophical speculation
on the nature of reality, we are presented with the ordinary physical
experience of feeling the discomfort of the cold in very early spring. It is
so cold, the picture and verse imply, that even the greatest of sages lays
aside his studies and bundles up in the warmth of his robe for a nap. The
information the verse offers provides an intelligible context for the
picture, but it does this through association, rather than direct description.
A haiga by Buson’s contemporary and frequent collaborator, Miura
Chora, works in a slightly different way (Figure 3). As it shows, instead
of complementing the verse, visual images in haiga could also set up a
contrast, creating an interesting tension in the composition. In this haiga,
the text of Chora’s inscription reads:
mono no aware wa
aki koso masare
the sorrow of the things in the world
is only intensified by autumn
aki no aware wa yş
koso are
the sorrow of autumn is something
one feels all the more at dusk
———
31
Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 45.
BUSON AND HAIGA
nake nake to
ware o semekeri
aki no kaze
195
calling “cry! cry!”
it assails me
autumn wind32
Chora
The headnote is derived from two different literary sources. The first is a
line from a waka by HenjŇ in the mid-Heian imperial collection, Anthology of waka gleanings (Shşi waka shş ᜪㆮ๺᱌㓸, 1005–7):
aki yama no
arashi no koe o
kiku toki wa
ko no ha naranedo
mono zo kanashiki
when I hear
the sound of a storm
in autumn mountains
though I am not a leaf on a tree
I still sense the sadness of things 33
HenjŇ
and the second alludes to Sei ShŇnagon’s Pillow book. In this famous
quotation from its opening lines, ShŇnagon’s topic is “the best time of
day”:
In autumn, the evening. When the bright setting sun has sunk very close
to the mountaintops, it is moving even to see crows flying toward their
roosts in groups of three or four or two. Still more delightful is a file of
geese looking very tiny. Then, too, the wail of the wind and the plaints of
insects when the sun has quite disappeared.34
Chora’s verse refers to what by his time had become conventionalized
expressions of perceiving autumn’s melancholy when feeling the chill of
the wind. However, the picture he matches it with is anything but
delicate. Rather, it is a bold depiction of an endearing but still scary
demon, holding a menacing stave. Juxtaposed with this image of a
demon, the meaning of the words in Chora’s verse “nake nake to” (calling
“cry! cry!”) and “semeru” (to bear down on) invites the reader’s imagination to oscillate between recalling an experience of being overtaken by
the dreary cold of the wind in a fast-falling autumn dusk, and a childlike
thrill of being spooked by the fear of a demon that one knows is not real.
———
32
Haiga no bi, p. 48.
Masuda Shigeo, Kubota Jun, eds., Waka bungaku taikei, vol. 32, Shşi waka shş (Meiji
Shoin, 2003), p. 38.
34 Helen Craig McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1990), p. 158.
33
196
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 3
“Calling ‘cry, cry!’ ” Haiga by
Miura Chora.
Both compositions achieve what Okada describes as “creat[ing] haikai in
the form of a picture.” They juxtapose references to the classical literary
tradition with those drawn from the more commonplace contexts of
everyday experience and folk tradition, leaving it up to the reader to
recognize and enjoy discovering the connection between them. The
inscriptions are not captions that explain the visual images, nor are the
BUSON AND HAIGA
197
visual images illustrations of the inscriptions. Rather, both painting and
inscription both are essential elements of the work, and together they
create a single, seamless whole.
Scholars usually date the beginnings of haiga appeared to the latter
half of the seventeenth century. The first haikai poets, like Arakida
Moritake, and Matsunaga Teitoku, did not accompany their verse with
paintings. The earliest haikai poet to experiment with what might be
called proto-haiga was Teitoku disciple Nonoguchi RyşhŇ ㊁‫ޘ‬ญ┙࿛
(1595–1669). RyşhŇ was accomplished at painting and calligraphy as well
as at haikai, so his compositions were particularly impressive. He is most
famous for Poetic immortals at rest (Kyşsoku kasen ભ⿷᱌઄; also called
Reclining poetic immortals [Ensoku kasen ஄ᕷ᱌઄])—an illustrated hand
scroll that portrays famous waka poets accompanied by a representative
verse. This kind of pairing of imaginary portrait with waka poem was a
standard subject in Japanese art. However, RyşhŇ’s series anticipates
haiga because it depicts its subject in a casual, irreverent way: one is
sitting with his sleeve rolled up to the shoulder, another is stretching and
yawning, for example. The brushwork is spare, almost careless. RyşhŇ,
who grew up in a family of artists, was capable of painting with far more
technical skill, but he valued a more amateurish approach; his Memorial
anthology (TsuitŇshş ㅊᖬ㓸, 1670) described his painting in these terms:
“As for painting and calligraphy, it is as if he had no training, he dashed
off pictures in a free, individualistic manner.”35
Danrin poets Nishiyama SŇin and Ihara Saikaku also painted pictures
to accompany haikai inscriptions; however, the most significant haiga
before Buson’s day was by Matsuo BashŇ. BashŇ was not an outstandingly talented painter, but his haiga attract interest because of his renown
as a poet. Many of BashŇ’s haiga survive, but those that are the most
visually interesting are collaborations with specialist painters. Nonetheless, BashŇ believed that there was a close connection between haikai
and painting, and had a syncretic view of the arts that led him to argue
that the same essential quality was common to all of them. As I mentioned in Chapter One, BashŇ declares in Rucksack notebook, “In SaigyŇ’s
waka, in SŇgi’s renga, in Sesshş’s painting, in Rikyş’s tea, there is one
Way that runs through them.” BashŇ makes the explicit contention that
haikai and painting are linked in a discussion he records as having had
with Kyoriku, who was his painting teacher as well as his haikai disciple.
———
35
Okada Rihei, Haiga no sekai, pp. 15–16.
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It was published as a short treatise variously called “Grass-hut farewell”
(Saimon no ji ᩊ㐷ߩㄉ) or “Words at parting from Kyoriku” (Kyoriku
ribetsu no shi ⸵౐㔌೎ߩ⹖):
Last autumn, I happened to meet Kyoriku. In the beginning of the Fifth
Month of last year he was returning to his home province, and I felt the
sorrow of his departure keenly. When the day of his departure came, he
came to visit me at my grass hut, and we talked until sundown.
This was a person who liked painting. He loved haikai (fşga). I asked
him questions, just to see how he’d answer.
“Why do you love painting?”
“Because I love haikai,” he answered.
“Why do you love haikai?”
“Because I love painting,” he answered.
Although he studied these two arts, they come down to the same thing.
Truly, as it is said, “it is an embarrassment for the cultivated person to
have too many accomplishments,” surely treating two arts as if they both
come down to the same thing is something to be admired.
He was my teacher in painting, and my pupil in haikai. However, his
understanding of the spirit of painting went very deep, and he used his
brush with great skill. His insight was of such profundity it was beyond my
capacity to understand.
My haikai is like “a brazier in the summer or a fan in the winter.” Going against the crowd is pointless. However, in the case of Shunzei and
SaigyŇ’s waka, even those that were just tossed off spontaneously and experimentally have many moving aspects. Did not even His Highness Emperor Go-Toba say this in his writings things like, “their verse has emotive
power as well as truth”? Therefore, if we were to draw conclusions from
His Highness’s words, we must follow this narrow path closely, and not
lose our way. “Seek not after the ancients, seek what the ancients sought”
is something we can see in the writings of Kşkai ⓨᶏ36 also. Haikai is the
same, I said, lighting the lantern, and then with only these words as farewell, I saw Kyoriku on his way out of my grass hut.37
This text was included in Kyoriku’s preface to Japanese ‘Selections of fine
literature’ (HonchŇ monzen ᧄᦺᢥㆬ, 1706). BashŇ’s comments about the
best way to write haikai, culminating in “Seek not after the ancients, seek
what the ancients sought” are frequently cited by commentators.38
However, the first part of this text is equally compelling because it sheds
light on the way that haikai poets viewed the relationship between poetry
———
36 Kşkai (774–835), also called KŇbŇ Daishi ᒄᴺᄢᏧ, was one of the most influential
Buddhist priests in Japan; he founded the Shingon sect.
37 NKBT, vol. 46, pp. 205–206.
38 A similar phrase appears in Kşkai’s treatise Spirit anthology ᕈ㔤㓸 (ShŇryŇshş, also
called Seireishş).
BUSON AND HAIGA
199
and painting. BashŇ portrays Kyoriku as someone who makes no
distinction between the two arts. While Yoshida KenkŇ, writing in Essays
in idleness (Tsurezuregusa ᓤὼ⨲, ca. 1330) criticized people who failed to
concentrate seriously on one art form; 39 BashŇ’s view was that it was
inappropriate to call this dilettantism because both painting and haikai
were essentially the same thing.
Inspired by their teacher’s example BashŇ’s disciples like Kikaku,
Hattori Ransetsu, Kagami ShikŇ, and of course Kyoriku also made haiga
part of their haikai practice. Though, like BashŇ himself, none were
outstanding painters, the many haiga compositions that they and their
colleagues in other haikai schools continued to produce further served to
underscore the close connection between word and image in haikai.
In the generation before Buson, several of the better-known haikai
poets composed credible haiga, including Five colors of ink poet Sakuma
Ryşkyo, and Osaka urban-school leader Matsugi Tantan. But it was not
until Sakaki Hyakusen that an artist equally accomplished as a painter
and as a poet emerged in the haikai community.
Hyakusen came from a commoner background; his family is thought
to have originally been Chinese. His parents were Nagoya merchants,
and he taught himself to paint. He acquired some proficiency in Japanese
styles such as that of the KanŇ school. However, most of his effort was
devoted to learning how to work in Chinese styles by studying paintings
and woodblock print copies of paintings that were imported through
Nagasaki. Not only was Hyakusen a skilled painter, he also wrote haikai,
having studied the rural BashŇ school of ShikŇ. Hyakusen was primarily
painted Chinese-inspired hanging scrolls and screen paintings, but
because of his interest in haikai, he also painted haiga.
Buson as an Artist: Haiga and Nanga
However, Buson’s skill in the haiga form outstripped that of all his
predecessors, in part because he was one of the few haiga artists who
could claim an equal facility in both writing and painting. While technical
sophistication was not essential in haiga, some poets were more adept
than others at painting. BashŇ, for example, was unquestionably brilliant
———
39 Episode 122. “Too many accomplishments are an embarrassment to the gentleman.” Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 105.
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as a poet, but, his paintings are nowhere near as accomplished as is his
verse; Hyakusen was better as a painter than as a poet.
Haiga was very useful for Buson because it appealed to just the sort of
client that he relied on: haikai practitioners with an interest in art. Also,
haiga allowed Buson to showcase all the skills as an outstanding haikai
poet at the same time as show off his abilities as a painter. Finally, while
haiga was not the same as nanga, the two genres both valued amateurism
and literary sensibility, as well has having painting techniques in common. Because the market for haiga and nanga overlapped, Buson’s work
as a haiga artist contributed to, rather than detracted from, the image of a
literatus that he tried to project.
Haiga was not the center of Buson’s practice as a painter. His inclinations were mainly toward the style of the Chinese literati school, what in
Japan was called nanga, southern painting. We see a reference to the
distinction between “northern” and “southern painting” in a letter
written to his patron, Ashida Kafu ⧃↰㔰ᄦ (1749–1784), where he
asks Kafu’s help in selling some paintings. Kafu ran a distillery in Izushi,
Tajima province. Buson got to know Kafu sometime in the 1770s, and
the two kept up a lively correspondence. Kafu served as a middleman for
Buson in sales of paintings to people living in the Tajima area. Buson’s
letters to Kafu were alternately chatty about personal issues and blunt
about business. Even years after he settled permanently in Kyoto, the
effort Buson put into building a client base in the provinces continued to
work to his advantage. The letter starts out with detailed comments
about the state of Buson’s health before turning to work-related matters:
In this season of extreme heat, I am glad to hear that you are well and
prosperous. I would like to tell you that I have been all right, but my elderly body is like an old house—as soon as one thing gets fixed, another
falls apart, and I have been spending my days conscientiously trying various kinds of medicine. In particular, over the past thirty days my right
hand has been numb, and, worried that it was paralysis, I have been trying
one medicine after another. It still does not feel like my hand. The sensation of numbness is such that, even though I pick up my brush, it does
not feel good. However all the doctors have said that it is not paralysis, so
I am relieved.
BUSON AND HAIGA
201
1. Thank you very much for taking care of the fees from Yşkitsu
᦭ᯌ40 and the others the other day and sending them to me. I am much
obliged to you for your help with this. This time, about the previous orders of:
Hanging scroll triptych: middle: God of Longevity41 left and right:
pictures of deer
BashŇ portrait
I sent these as well as two landscape paintings. In the previous order, you
asked for a bird-and-flower painting in intense colors. I have not painted
this yet. The other three pieces are not done either. I will send them to
you after Bon Festival.
2. As for the two landscape paintings I sent you this time, I painted
them in the Northern School style. This is a style I previously had not
worked in. For this reason, they do not look the least bit elegant to me.
However, they are pieces that really achieve an air of having been painted
by a Chinese artist. Still, because this is a style I have not preferred in the
past, they lack flair. I will trust to your judgment, so please sell them to the
country yokels in your area and send me the proceeds. They took a lot
more effort than I thought they would. As for the above-mentioned fee,
please do not discuss it with other people; I trust to your discretion.
Buson frequently commented on his age and the state of his health in his
personal writing—often it was his stomach that troubled him; here it was
his painting hand. His contempt for ignorant provincial clients is very
obvious—these were the same sort of people that he described as being
not worthy enough to compose haikai with when he was living in
Miyazu. For them, apparently, distinguishing between the different
schools of Chinese painting that Buson tried to emulate was beyond
their capacity. As consumers, they were only interested in the painting’s
resemblance to work by Chinese painters in general. That quality alone
made these “northern school” works adequate for the market, even
though Buson acknowledged that he was not very proficient at this kind
of painting. Though does not explicitly mention the term here, the style
he preferred was the “southern.”
Nanga was a style that came into its heyday around middle of the
eighteenth century, and Buson became one of its leading proponents.
Nanga developed from ideas of the linkage of painting, calligraphy, and
poetry that had a very long history in China. The expectation that
———
40
41
Kafu’s father.
JurŇjin.
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educated people were should be reasonably proficient in all three arts
had existed for centuries. While certain artists like Wang Wei and Su
Dongpo were admired for their outstanding abilities in both painting and
poetry, even ordinary scholars were expected to be able to do a bit of
both. A person’s skill with the brush was taken as evidence of the quality
of his or her character, and this was true whether the product was a
poem, a visual image, or a piece of calligraphy. Furthermore, poems and
other texts were often inscribed on paintings, enhancing the power of
the visual image through masterful calligraphy and appropriate literary
references. In short, the three arts were seen as inseparably intertwined.
As Su Dongpo described the artist Wen Tong ᢥห (1019–1079),
“Whatever remains unexpressed by his poetry spills out of him as
calligraphy, or is transformed into painting: these arts are just the
overflow of his poetry.”42
Chinese literati painting got its start in the Song period (960–1279), as
scholar-officials began to develop a style of painting that placed more
emphasis on skillful, calligraphic brushwork than on the precise realism
favored by court painters. The close relationship between calligraphy,
painting and poetry continued to be a centerpiece of the Chinese literati
tradition that was established during the Yuan (1271–1368) period, as
scholar-officials chose to live as recluses rather than serve a government
run by foreign conquerors. It flourished even after a new, native dynasty
took power during the Ming period. As they were amateurs whose
primary goal was self-improvement and individual expression, literati
painters saw themselves as distinct from academic artists, particularly
those who worked as professionals in the imperial court.
Literati painting is intended to appear simple and uncontrived. Volumes, textures and outlines are primarily built up out of ink; colors, if
they are used at all, are pale and transparent. Often large areas of the
picture space are left empty, creating room for the viewer to participate
in the work of completing the picture with his or her own imagination.
Like fine calligraphy, literati painting was supposed to record the
traces of a highly cultivated character. The state of the artist’s level of
spiritual achievement was thought to be evident in the paintings he or
she created, and practice with the brush was a means to selfimprovement. As explained by one of the most influential painting texts
———
42 Maggie Bickford, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 101.
BUSON AND HAIGA
203
to reach Japan in the early modern period, the Mustard seed garden manual
of painting, for the Chinese literatus learning to paint well was not just a
matter of acquiring technical skill, but to enter into a process of resolving
an almost mystical paradox:
Lu Ch’ai says:
Among those who study painting, some strive for an elaborate effect
and others prefer the simple. Neither complexity in itself nor simplicity is
enough.
Some aim to be deft, others to be laboriously careful. Neither dexterity
nor conscientiousness is enough.
Some set great value on method, while others pride themselves on dispensing with method. To be without method is deplorable, but to depend
entirely on method is worse.
You must learn first to observe the rules faithfully; afterwards, modify
them according to your intelligence and capacity. The end of all method is
to seem to have no method.43
The distinction between “southern” and “northern” originates with the
Chinese artist Dong Qichang ⫃౔᣽ (1555–1637). Dong Qichang
divided the Chinese painting world into two parts, and identified them
with the “Northern” and “Southern” schools of Chan (Japanese Zen)
Buddhism. He linked the Northern School—which taught a way of
achieving enlightenment through gradual stages—with the work of
professional court painters, whose work emphasized skill, precision,
intense coloration, and realism. By contrast, he compared the Southern
school of Chan—which emphasized the sudden achievement of
enlightenment—with literati painting, which was spontaneous and
intuitive. Professional court painters produced their work to please
patrons; literati painted to cultivate and express their own inner selves.
While the Japanese had admired Chinese painting for centuries, the
style called “Southern painting” (nanga) that drew on this distinction
emphasized by Dong Qichang began to have its biggest impact in Japan
during the eighteenth century. Nanga, also called bunjin-ga (bunjin painting), frequently combined visual images with poetic inscriptions to form
powerful artistic expression. Its popularity was part of the widespread
increase in interest in Chinese culture that occurred at this time. Many
scholars and dilettantes who aspired to the bunjin ideal wanted to
purchase Chinese and Chinese-inspired goods, and a consumer market
for imported and locally produced literati painting emerged. Nanga was
———
43
Sze, p. 17.
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the style Buson turned to as he matured as a painter, and he was able to
tap into the market for nanga when he eventually established himself in
Kyoto from the late 1760s onward.
Nanga offered an alternative to established schools of painting like the
powerful KanŇ school. However, is hard to completely separate nanga
from KanŇ influence, since many artists who later distinguished themselves in the nanga style began their careers as KanŇ school disciples.
Even Buson, who was largely self-taught, started out by painting naive
imitations of KanŇ style paintings. Because nanga was not identified with
any of the established ateliers of the day, it offered outsiders like Buson
the opportunity to create a niche for themselves. Furthermore, the
patrons of nanga painters were not necessarily members of the shogunal
bureaucracy, as KanŇ school patrons frequently were. Nanga painting
held its strongest appeal for newcomers to the status of cultural consumers, the well-to-do merchants and farmers; in other words, exactly the
group of people who were also drawn to haikai. In short, nanga was
aspirational: both its artists and their patrons tended come from social
groups outside those that had the highest status.
Nanga and haiga had several things in common. Both nanga and haiga
brought together visual imagery and poetic inscriptions. Furthermore,
many of the same principles—emphasis on simplicity, impressionistic
representation, and literary sensibility—were features of both. For
instance, the Mustard seed garden manual of painting makes a comment on
the power of a few simple brushstrokes to imply great complexity, a
point which could apply equally well to haiga:
[The style called hsieh i (write idea) is] giving the swiftly drawn impression
of an idea. In this style, it is very important that the brush move with
speed and vitality. Such was the calligraphy of Chang the Madman, who
was expert in ts’ao shu (grass writing), which was more difficult than chên
shu (regular writing). That is the reason the ancients said: “If you paint
hurriedly, you will not have the necessary relaxed approach to grass writing.” Painting in the grass style (hsieh i) is more difficult than the copyingstroke-by-stroke-style (k’ai hua). That is the reason for the saying “Drawing must be linked with the idea (i), for without meaning (i) the brush
cannot function properly.” Figures, even though painted without eyes,
must seem to look; without ears, must seem to listen. This should be indicated in one or two touches of the brush. Eliminate details to achieve the
simplest expression and the effect will be most natural. Actually there are
things which ten hundred brushstrokes cannot depict but which can be
BUSON AND HAIGA
205
captured by a few simple strokes if they are right. That is truly giving expression to the invisible.44
However, in other respects nanga and haiga were markedly different.
Larger scale, complexity of composition, and a taste for sublime grandeur tended to characterize nanga. Haiga, by contrast, was more playful
and lighthearted. It provoked laughter or surprise, rather than a contemplative mood. This is what Okada Rihei called haiga’s “haikai spirit.”
In fact, “haikai spirit” was the very quality that gave critics of Buson
reason to find fault with his painting—not just his haikai painting, but
also even his nanga. Indeed, not all observers regarded the interdependent relationship between Buson’s work as a nanga painter and a haikai
poet as an asset. For example, Tanomura Chikuden ↰⢻᧛┻↰ (1777–
1835), writing in A Mountain-dweller’s talks (Sanchşjin jŇzetsu, ጊਛੱ㙷⥠),
called Buson’s nanga painting was seriously flawed. He compares Buson’s
work to that of his contemporary Ike no Taiga, who also painted in the
nanga style:
Taiga has a fluid brush style; Buson’s is choppy. Taiga possesses orthodoxy and is without falseness; Buson possesses falseness and is without
orthodoxy. However, the two competed with one another throughout
their lives; they were friendly rivals.45
Chikuden’s observation that Buson and Taiga were “friendly rivals” was
probably accurate. Buson’s letters give the impression that he admired
Taiga, and Buson mourned Taiga when he died in 1776. On one
occasion the two artists collaborated, albeit indirectly, by jointly produced a 20-page album of paintings based on the “Poems on the ten
conveniences of Yi Yuan” દ࿦චଢ⹞ and “Poems on the twelve
delights of Yi Yuan” દ࿦චੑቱ⹞ of Li Yu, the scholar and playwright who wrote the preface to the Mustard seed garden manual of painting.
The album was probably commissioned by its first owner, Nagoya
amateur artist and poet Shimozato Gakkai ਅㇹቇᶏ. However, Buson
and Taiga had very different painting styles, and Chikuden’s description
of the two painters’ brushwork clearly favors Taiga’s, which is not
surprising considering Taiga was greatly admired for his calligraphy.
Even more damning is Chikuden’s assertion that Buson’s approach was
heretical, in contrast to that of Taiga, which Chikuden calls orthodox:
———
44 Ibid., p. 250. Hsieh i (pinyin, xie yi): ౮ᗧ; ts’ao shu (cao shu): ⨲ᦠ; chên shu (zhen shu):
⌀ᦠ; k’ai hua (kai hua): ᭃ↹; i (yi): ᗧ. Cited in Ogata, p. 251.
45
Cited in Tanaka, p. 132.
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Taiga faithfully followed the principles of the Chinese literati painting
style. By contrast, he called Buson heretical: Chikuden uses the word
ketsu ⻼—deceit or dishonesty, accusing Buson of pretending to be
something that he is not. While he does not elaborate on his charge,
since Chikuden was a Confucian scholar as well as a nanga painter, clearly
there was some characteristic in Buson’s painting that made it deviate
from the standards represented by its Chinese models.
Chikuden’s contemporary, the nanga painter and native studies (kokugaku) scholar Nakabayashi ChikutŇ ਛᨋ┻ᵢ (1776–1853) also criticized Buson by comparing his work to that of Taiga. In his Way of
painting diamond mallet (GadŇ kongŇsho ↹㆏㊄೰᧶), ChikudŇ finds
Buson’s painting deficient too, but his argument is more explicit than
that of Chikuden. ChikudŇ writes that Taiga’s painting distinguished
itselfby its “atmosphere of noble-minded openness” (㜞㆙⼸㆐ߩ⿰).
Buson’s painting could not compare, because it was diminished by its
“haikai spirit” (⺚᳇). Again, given ChikudŇ’s background his critical
view of Buson is understandable, but it does suggest two things: one,
that there was clearly a distinct “haikai spirit” that could be identified in
paintings, and that by the beginning of the nineteenth century there was
an idea of nanga “orthodoxy” that was at odds with haikai.46
Origins of Buson’s Haiga
Buson’s unorthodox approach to painting may be due in part to his
education as a haikai poet. As we have seen, Hajin, his teacher, admonished him to find his own way after learning what he could from the
haidan’s different competing factions. Buson later gave his disciple ShŇha
similar advice in the Shundei verse anthology preface, advising his friend to
ignore the petty distinctions of “gates and doors” (i.e., haikai schools)
and learn from even the worst examples.
However, Buson’s lack of orthodoxy might also be related to the fact
that he trained with no particular painting school or teacher. Of the few
texts that refer to Buson’s childhood, only one hints at when he might
have started painting. This is a surimono by Buson’s disciple Denpuku
↰⑔, that was written to mark the third anniversary of Buson’s death
———
46
Fujita, pp. 69–70.
BUSON AND HAIGA
207
(1785). Denpuku lived in Ikeda, now a neighborhood in Osaka; it was
not all that far from Settsu, where Buson is believed to have grown up:
Master Yahan (Buson) came to visit at my lodgings in Ikeda. He was a devoted admirer of the landscape around GokŇ ๓ᳯ (Settsu); moreover, he
met with someone who might be called a student, Ishin દା, and swapping stories of childhood fun from forty years earlier, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves; also, that was more than twenty years in the past.47
Sixty years before the date the surimono was published Buson was about
eight or nine years old. “Ishin” was the painter Momoda Ishin ᩶↰
દା (d. 1765). Scholars interpret this passage differently. Okada Rihei
believes that Ishin was some twenty years older than Buson and served
as an early mentor. Tanaka Yoshinobu disagrees, arguing that “childhood
fun” ┬ㆆ refers to both Buson and Ishin, and that the two were about
the same age and that painting was one of their amusements.48 No other
documents that give evidence of Buson’s background as a painter exist.
The oldest surviving Buson paintings date from his period in northeastern Japan, when he was in his twenties and early thirties. They are
tentative and unsophisticated works that resemble KanŇ school paintings
or primitive versions of nanga.
The earliest Buson haikai-related picture predates his paintings; it is
the one included in the 1737 anthology Fourth month principles to accompany the hokku “at the convent / a cosmetic arrives / during the Ten
Nights’ ceremony” (amadera ya / jşya ni todoku / bin kazura) (Figure 4).
This would prove the first of many pictures Buson published in anthologies, the most elaborate of which were those in Light of the snow (1771),
Anei 3 Buson spring anthology (Anei sannen Buson shunkyŇjŇ ቟᳗
ਃᐕ⭢᧛ᤐ⥝Ꮭ, 1774), and Blossoms and birds collection. Buson also
composed a number of surimono that matched haikai inscriptions with
pictures. Haiga, strictly defined, are paintings, but many of the picturetext combinations included in Buson’s printed works operate according
to the same logic used in haiga, and offer further evidence of the close
relationship between text and image in haikai.
———
47
48
Tanaka, p. 8.
Ibid., p. 9.
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Figure 4
“At the convent.” Illustration from Fourth month
principles (Uzuki teikin).
Early Haiga (1754–1757)
Collected works of Buson (Buson zenshş ⭢᧛ో㓸),49 the most comprehensive and authoritative source on Buson’s work labels 123 of Buson’s
paintings haiga. This is in contrast to nearly 600 more conventional
paintings (nanga-style landscapes, depictions of historical figures, etc.)
and 30-odd small sketches that Buson included in letters and similarly
informal settings. Buson often substituted drawings of things in place of
words: in one letter, a picture of a mallet replaces the phrase “uchide no
kozuchi” ᛂ಴ߩዊ᭵ (lucky mallet),50 in a 1751 letter; in a letter from the
1780s, several diagonal lines of pale ink wash take the place of shigure
(winter rain) in a hokku, and in another paragraph, a cartoon of an
———
49 Ogata Tsutomu, Sasaki JŇhei, and Okada Akiko, eds., BZ, vol. 6, Kaiga iboku (KŇdansha, 1998).
50 Depictions of Daikoku, the god of wealth, show him holding this mallet, which
grants wishes when shaken.
BUSON AND HAIGA
209
umbrella is substituted for the word kasa (umbrella).51 The overall
impression is one of a person who took an almost childish delight in
code switching between the language of words and that of visual images.
The earliest work Buson zenshş classifies as a haiga reveals a similar
sense of playfulness: called “Monster scroll” ᅯᕋ⛗Ꮞ (YŇkai emaki), it
dates from the early 1750s. “Monster scroll” is a series of short texts
illustrated with fantastic, even ridiculous pictures of weird happenings;
like the Chora haiga of a demon that we looked at earlier, the creatures
Buson depicts are too charming to really be frightening. In one section, a
samurai stares bemusedly at a small army of tiny, baby-like beings
massing outside the room where he is trying to sleep. Another depicts a
pair of warriors who have melons for heads. A third shows a large,
catlike nekomata ₀෶—whose face is twisted into an expression that is
half snarl, half deranged smile—and a samurai aiming at it with a gun.
The text inscription for this section reads:
At the Nagoya mansion of Lord Sakakibara, a nekomata appeared for several nights, meowing, and because this came to vex people, House Retainer Inaba RokurŇ faced one down with a harquebus, and that nekomata,
without the least trace of fear, pounded on its belly, saying “Shoot here!”
and Inaba, spooked, fired off some fifty rounds randomly, but the bullets
bounced off the nekomata’s belly, pretty much missing their target, it is
said.52
Alongside the picture of the nekomata, where we might expect to see a
speech balloon in a comic strip, are the creature’s words to the samurai,
“Try hitting the hide of my belly! Meow! Meow!” This scroll was done
around the time Buson was staying at KenshŇ-ji in Miyazu; clearly, the
supernatural was very much on his mind at the time.
However, Buson’s haiga were more than just amusing depictions of
the creepy doings of monsters. An early example of his more sophisticated haiga is one that links him with Sakaki Hyakusen, a painting of the
famous Miyazu scenic site Ama-no-hashidate (Figure 5). The painting
dates from around the time that Buson first arrived in Miyazu, in 1754.
Buson knew about Hyakusen from his reputation as a nanga painter, and
it may be that he chose to travel to Miyazu in part because Hyakusen had
lived there. However, Hyakusen died in 1752 so their acquaintance
would have had to predate Buson’s visit to Miyazu.
———
51
52
BZ, vol. 6, nos. 1 and 10, pp. 461, 462.
Text and images in BZ, vol. 4, pp. 47–56 and vol. 6, pp. 380–383.
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Ama-no-hashidate is a long and narrow pine-studded sandbar that
reaches across Miyazu Bay, one of the “three great views” of Japan.
Buson’s haiga depicts Ama-no-hashidate with a few simple shapes—
mainly just a broad lateral stroke across the width of the painting that
indicates the land bridge and some dark and light forms dotted across it
to suggest its pine trees. The upper portion of the picture is inscribed
with a long prose headnote done in highly cursive calligraphy, in which
Buson states his agreement with Hyakusen’s rejection of too-close
identification with any single school or teacher, and his indifference to
fame and success. A partial quotation is given in Chapter One, below is
the full text:
Hassenkan Hyakusen ౎ㆫⷰ⊖Ꮉ enjoyed painting and aspired to the
style of the Ming (minpş ᣿㘑); I, NŇdŇjin ྙ㆏ੱ Buson, dabble in painting, emulating the Han style (ṽᵹ kanryş).53 We both have been amusing
ourselves with haikai poetry, tracing our lineages back to BashŇ. Hyakusen
was a disciple of Renji’s style, but was not a member of the Renji faction. I
studied Shinshi’s teachings but do not imitate Shinshi. Thus if we fall in
the river let it be so, let’s take one step up from the top of the hundredfoot pole.54 We are like that, neither of us has any interest in making a
name for himself in the haikai world. A long time ago, when Hyakusen left
the place to return to the capital, he wrote:
Hashidate o
saki ni furasete
yuku aki zo
at Hashidate
tears of rain fall early
autumn is leaving!
The verse I wrote when I made my farewell was:
sekirei no
o ya Hashidate o
ato nimotsu
a wagtail’s
tail—at Hashidate
left luggage
He, as an advance guard, returned to the west of Kyoto, shoulder to
shoulder with six ri’s (23 kilometers’ or 15 miles’) worth of Ama-nohashidate’s pines; I went back home to the eastern part of the capital,
———
53 BZ glosses minpş as meaning “the nanga style of bunjin painters,” and kanryş as the
KanŇ school. Shimizu Takayuki interprets kanryş as meaning Chinese painting in general,
as opposed to Japanese painting; Yosa Buson shş, p. 324. Tanaka Yoshinobu agrees with
Shimizu that the word refers Chinese painting in general, rather than to that the KanŇ
school; Tanaka, p. 71.
54 Thomas Cleary, trans., No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan: A New Translation of the Zen
Classic Wumenguan [Mumonkan] (London: The Aquarian Press, Harper Collins, New
York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 201.
BUSON AND HAIGA
211
Hashidate’s rear guardsman. Together, chief scoundrels of the Way, are
we not making splendid progress? 55
The painting is signed “NŇdŇjin Buson, at KanundŇ 㑐㔕ᵢ.” This
refers to the studio of Rojş of ShinshŇ-ji temple, one of the priests that
Buson met at Miyazu.
Buson describes Hyakusen’s style as that of the Ming, and his own as
that of the Han. While both of these terms refer to Chinese dynasties,
some scholars have argued that “Han” actually means the style of the
KanŇ school, so Buson is saying that Hyakusen espouses Japanese styles
of painting while he prefers Chinese styles. Hyakusen did teach himself a
form of the KanŇ style, but he was not formally affiliated with the KanŇ
school and the paintings for which he is best known are nanga, i.e., no
more or less “Chinese” than Buson’s own paintings. It might be more
useful to view Buson’s contrast of “Han” and “Ming” as terms of
convenience that form a parallel with ShikŇ’s rural school haikai and
Kikaku’s urban school. Buson is not really trying to make a definitive
statement about his colleague’s painting lineage, but rather arguing that,
no matter what differences they might have had in their training, both
Buson and Hyakusen shared a sense of contempt for the “gates and
doors” of orthodoxy, and instead had the courage to invent their own.
His phrase, “the hundred foot pole” comes from a passage in the
thirteenth century Zen Buddhist classic The Gateless barrier (Chinese
Wumenguan; Japanese Mumonkan ή㐷㑐):
Master Shishuang said, “Atop a hundred-foot pole, how do you step forward?”
Another ancient worthy said, “One who sits atop a hundred-foot pole
may have gained initiation, but this is not yet reality. Atop a hundred-foot
pole, one should step forward to manifest the whole body through the
universe.”
Unlike BashŇ, Buson was not a Zen disciple; his association with
Buddhism was more in line with the teachings of the Pure Land sect.
However, he sometimes used references to Zen in his writings in order
to make a point, as we see in the Shundei verse anthology preface. Here he
compares his friend and himself to people of spiritual accomplishment,
whose state of mastery was sufficient to warrant a break from the
bounds of scriptures and teachings, and take a step forward into a higher
state of practice.
———
55
Text BZ, vol. 4, pp. 94–95; image BZ, vol. 6, p. 383.
212
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 5
“Ama-no-hashidate.” Hanging scroll.
The connection between the text and the illustration becomes clearer in
the next passage, as Buson describes the circumstances of Hyakusen’s
and his departure, and their farewell hokku. Hyakusen’s compares the
tears of parting to the cold drops of shigure, the intermittent rains that fall
in late autumn and winter. Buson’s compares the memory of his sendoff
to the tail of a sekirei (wagtail), implying that both are long, and that his
BUSON AND HAIGA
213
feelings for the place will follow him like luggage sent to him after his
departure. Hyakusen’s standing as an artist in Miyazu was better than his,
and they went home to different sides of the capital, but both of them
did well as mavericks on the path of haikai.
The inscription and the picture have a very close connection and in
that sense are almost too obvious for a haiga. On the other hand, the
depiction of Ama-no-hashidate is so abstract as to be barely recognizable, so the viewer is challenged to read more into this composition than
the text or the picture directly supply.
Figure 6
Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson.
Another early Buson haiga is also associated with Hyakusen (Figure 6).
The work is a diptych, one panel of which is by Hyakusen and the other
by Buson. The diptych’s theme is Tanabata, the night of the seventh day
214
CHAPTER SIX
of the seventh month, when a pair of celestial lovers, Orihime (the
Weaver, associated with the star Vega) and Kengyş (also called Hikoboshi, the Cowherd, associated with the star Altair)—were allowed to
meet. The story goes that the Weaver and the Cowherd fell in love and
became so engrossed in their affections for one another that they
neglected their duties, causing chaos in the cosmos. As a result, the other
celestial beings placed the Milky Way between them. Once a year, on the
seventh day of the seventh month, they are allowed to meet. If the sky is
clear, the boatman of the moon will ferry Orihime to meet her beloved.
If it is raining, a flock of magpies meets and the birds join their wings to
make a bridge for the two to cross.
Hyakusen’s scroll shows a magpie. The inscription reads:
kasasagi ya
hashi kara sugu
watari tori
magpie:
when it leaves the bridge it becomes
a migratory bird
Hyakusen
The speaker in the verse imagines that the magpie, once finished with its
responsibility in the heavens, flies back to Japan as an ordinary migratory
bird. Hyakusen’s magpie perches on a branch with its wings folded,
resting from its long flight home. The connection between the verse and
the picture is not all that complicated: the picture shows the magpie
mentioned in the verse.
Buson’s response, however, is much more complex, and is a good
example of the linked verse-like connections between word and image
that were so common in haiga. The painting shows five mulberry leaves,
cascading from top to bottom in the long, narrow space afforded by the
hanging-scroll format. Alongside, Buson wrote:
Hyakusen had a verse about a magpie that bridged the Milky Way. He
wanted to have another hanging scroll to match it. In response, I took up
my brush and wrote the following:
ichi jin wa
sakaki ni jin wa
kaji no fune
first in position is Sasaki
second is Kajiwara:
mulberry leaf boats56
———
56
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 53, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 385.
BUSON AND HAIGA
215
Together, the verse and image create multiple layers of verbal and visual
puns that not only internally unite the different elements of Buson’s
painting, but also connect its content to Hyakusen’s painting.
On one level, Buson’s hokku refers to two heroes of the Gempei War
(1180–1185) whose story is told in Tale of the Heike, Sasaki Takatsuna
૒‫ᧁޘ‬㜞✁ (d. 1214) and Kajiwara Kagesue ᫃ේ᥊ቄ (1162–1200).
These men were warriors on the side of the Minamoto clan, who fought
in the Second Battle of the Uji River (1184). Challenged by Yoritomo,
leader of the Minamoto clan, with the gift of an excellent horse each,
they vied with one another to be the first to cross the Uji River to face
their opponents, the Taira:
The Commander in Chief, Yoshitsune, advanced to the river’s edge and
looked out over the water. Perhaps he wished to probe men’s minds, for
he said, “What shall we do? Would it be best to go around to Yodo and
Imoarai? Should we wait for the river to subside?” [...]
Hatakeyama no ShŇji JirŇ Shigetada, who was only twenty-one years
old, came forward to speak.... “I’ll test it for you.” Five hundred riders
surged forward to align their bridles...
Just then, two warriors galloped into sight from the tip of Tachibanano-kojima northeast of the ByŇdŇin. One was Kajiwara Genda Kagasue,
the other was Sasaki ShirŇ Takatsuna. Although neither had let his intentions show, each had made a secret resolve to be first across the river.
Takatsuna hailed Kagesue, who was about thirty-five feet ahead of
him. “This is the biggest river in the west. Your saddle girth looks loose;
tighten it.”
Kagesue...tightened it. Meanwhile, Takatsuna galloped past him into
the river. Kagesue followed, perhaps feeling that he had been tricked.
“Look out, Sasaki,” Kagesue cried. “Don’t slip up just because you
want to be a hero. There must be ropes on the bottom.”
Takatsuna drew his sword, cut the ropes one after another as they
touched his mount’s legs, rode straight across the swift Uji River on Ikezuki, the best horse in the world, and ascended the opposite bank. Kagesue’s mount, Surusumi, landed far downstream, forced into a slanting
course at the halfway point.57
In Buson’s hokku, “Sasaki” refers not only to the victorious warrior, but
it also recalls the word for magpie used in Hyakusen’s, “kasasagi.” “Kaji”
has an even more elaborate chain of associations. On the one hand, it is
the first part of the name of the warrior Kajiwara. In their race across the
Uji River, Sasaki was first, hence: “first in position is Sasaki / second is
Kaji(wara).”
———
57
McCullough, Tale of the Heike, p. 287.
216
CHAPTER SIX
But kaji has other implications as well. On Tanabata, it was customary
to write poems on mulberry leaves and float them down a stream. This
verse from the imperial anthology New ancient and modern waka collection
(Shin kokin waka shş ᣂฎ੹๺᱌㓸) refers to the practice:
Tanabata no
towataru fune no
kaji no ha ni
iku aki kakitsu
tsuyu no tamazusa
the rudder of the ferry boat
at Tanabata—
how many autumns
have been written on mulberry leaves
in jewels of dew?58
Fujiwara no Shunzei ⮮ේବᚑ (1114–1204)
Shunzei’s verse uses the technique of allusive variation (honka dori
ᧄ᱌ข)—drawing on a line from an earlier poem on the same topic:
amanogawa
towataru fune no
kaji no ha ni
omou koto o kaki
tsukuru kana
the rudder of the ferry boat
that crosses the river of heaven—
I have written out
all my feelings
on mulberry leaves59
Kazusa no Meoto ਄✚੃Უ (Go shşi waka shş ᓟᜪㆮ๺᱌㓸)
In these waka, kaji has two meanings: one, rudder, and two, mulberry. In
the phrase “fune no kaji” it refers to the rudder of the boat which ferries
Orihime to meet her lover. In the phrase “kaji no ha” it refers to the
leaves used by those who celebrated the Star Festival to write poems.
Finally, since Tanabata falls on the seventh day of the seventh month, we
might expect to see seven mulberry leaves here, but there are only five.
The missing two stand for the impetuous warriors Kagesue and Takatsuna, who have already crossed the river.
This pair of paintings is a good example of how much haiga rely on
yojŇ—overtones, or nioizuke—“scent” links: the linkages between their
different elements that are very distant and require a great deal of cultural
competence to decode. Unlike the Ama-no-hashidate haiga, which by
comparison is very straightforward in its language if spare in terms of
pictorial realism, this pair of paintings uses both oblique imagery and
———
58
59
NKBT, vol. 28, no. 320.
Ibid., p. 94, note 320.
BUSON AND HAIGA
217
complicated word games, and is as much a puzzle as a work of expressive art or literature.
First Years in Kyoto (1770–1777)
Some of Buson’s most interesting haiga were painted between 1770 and
1777, after he settled permanently in Kyoto, started to develop a
reputation as a nanga painter, and reopened the Yahantei school. They
were done in many different formats, but the most common kind were
small paintings on paper that could be mounted as hanging scrolls. Most,
but not all of them, follow the principles of nioizuke in linking text and
image. Buson worked on them without a collaborator, although in some
cases he includes a text by another writer to which his painting and
inscription respond.
The first haiga from this period that we will look at mentions Sakaki
Hyakusen again, but the inscription does not quote from his work
(Figure 7). Instead, it alludes to the writing of BashŇ disciple Kikaku and,
and to Hattori Nankaku, the Edo-based scholar of Chinese studies who
was a successor to Ogyş Sorai. The picture shows a pair of manzai ਁᱦ
dancers: itinerant mendicant performers who wandered the streets
during the New Year season. They visited from house to house, dancing
and reciting prayers for the good fortune of those inside. Typically one
member of the pair carries a folding fan, and the other, a small hand
drum. Both wear comic masks. Buson shows these performers holding
their props—one is dancing, the other keeping time with his drum. The
mood of the picture is jolly and appealing, appropriate to the theme of
wishing for prosperity in the new year. The inscription reads:
Kikaku’s verse:
manzai ya
kado o nokosanu
tsuru no awa
manzai dancers!
leave no one’s gate unvisited
millet for the crane
Teacher Nankaku’s verse:
To their east, a thousand, ten thousand years old
There is only the city of Heian
218
CHAPTER SIX
manzai no
fumi katametaru
kyŇ no tsuchi
the manzai dancers
harden it with their feet
earth of the capital60
Buson
Figure 7
“The manzai dancers.” Haiga.
Kikaku’s verse refers to the custom of giving money to the dancers—
cranes are lucky birds, symbols of longevity, but their appetites are
insatiable, much as is the appetite of the dancers for donations. Both
cranes and manzai dances were a common sight during the new year
season, though in the case of the cranes it would probably be as a picture
or other seasonal decoration, where as the persistent manzai dancers
would be present in person.
———
60
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 847, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 391.
BUSON AND HAIGA
219
The quotation from Nankaku, written in Chinese, comes from a
quatrain included in Nankaku anthology (Nankaku shş ධㇳ㓸). The entire
poem reads:
The kingdom of Zhou is already reverted to millet;
In the capital of the Han, fragrant grasses grow.
To their east, a thousand, ten thousand years old;
There is only the city of Heian.61
๟࿖Ꮗ⑰᪛
ṽ੩⧐⨲↢
᧲ᣇජਁฎ
ด᦭ᐔ቟ၔ
Because Buson uses the title sensei వ↢ (teacher) after Nankaku’s name
(“Nankaku sensei”) it may be that there had been a direct, personal
relationship between the two. Buson was living in Edo at the same time
that Nankaku was active as a teacher there, so it is not impossible that
Buson heard his lectures; however, nothing that Buson or his disciples
wrote confirms this. Buson certainly absorbed Nankaku’s teachings
through colleagues like Kuroyanagi ShŇha, who had attended his school
in Edo, and Nankaku’s ideas were generally well known in Buson’s circle.
This haiga does not have the complex layers of wordplay and cryptic
connections linking text and image that Buson uses in his Tanabata
painting. Instead, it is more of a straightforward illustration of the scene
to which the inscribed verses allude. Commentators often describe verse
links whose connection is very obvious as betazuke ߴߚઃߌ—clingy or
sticky link. In contrast to nioizuke, which requires thought and a literary
education to unravel, betazuke is cloying or easily perceptible. Whereas
the Tanabata diptych’s elements are held together with overtones as light
and subtle as a delicate fragrance, by contrast, the relationship between
text and image in the manzai haiga is as strong as if it were reinforced with
thick glue.
Still, without a doubt, the figures themselves possess great charm, and
the poems are all properly celebratory and pleasant-sounding. Kikaku’s
verse is good-natured, for all its cynicism. Nankaku’s verse attests to the
unshakeable security of the capital that still stands after the great powers
of Chinese history have long since fallen. Buson’s suggests that its firm
stability has something to do with the weight of the footfalls of the
———
61
Cited in Fujita, p. 83.
220
CHAPTER SIX
manzai dancers—ubiquitous and somewhat aggressive, perhaps, but
welcome nonetheless. This haiga was painted about the same time that
Buson re-established the Yahantei school, and can be interpreted as a
wish for success in this city with its long history of cultural giants.
The haiga version of a Buson hokku from Light of the snow that we saw
in Chapter Four might also be accused of resorting to betazuke:
gakumon wa
shiri kara nukaru
hotaru kana
scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly
This painting is in the shape of a fan—a format that lent itself easily to
haiga because it was well suited to small, intimate-sized compositions.
The picture shows a thatched hut under some pines, and the wistfullooking face of the hut’s inhabitant looking out of his only window. The
hut is typical of Buson’s portrayals of the dwelling-places of hermits and
literati recluses, particularly Chinese ones; his nanga landscapes are full of
them. In fact, it is precisely because this is a stereotypical scholar
recluse’s hut that we can easily make the connection between the verse
and the image. The headnote that is included also identifies the nature of
the hut: “Savoring the pathos of a solitary scholar’s retreat” (ichi shosei no
kansŇ o awaremu).
While the connection between the verse and the image is very close in
the sense that the latter is an illustration of the former, the haiga still
leaves certain things up to the imagination. For instance, there is no
depiction of a firefly. Even more dramatic is the extreme simplicity and
abbreviation of the painting. The image of the hut takes up the right
third of the picture space; the lines of the poem and Buson’s signature
fill the middle. The left third, however, is completely empty. Despite this,
the composition does not seem at all unbalanced. The “empty space” in
this picture is active and productive, conveying the impression of a larger
landscape.
Other haiga from this period show a greater level of complexity,
though. One of these shows a hototogisu flying over two clusters of
hydrangea flowers (Figure 8). The bird’s wings are spread and its mouth
is open, to suggest it is calling out as it flies. The bird is flying towards
the hydrangea; the flowers seem to be looking up towards it in greeting.
As in “Scholarly brilliance” (Gakumon wa), Buson has stripped the scene
down to its absolute minimum, leaving a large area of the picture entirely
unpainted, though here he depicts his subject in greater detail. The
BUSON AND HAIGA
221
hydrangea is in the lower left hand corner, its leaves and numerous petals
carefully outlined. The hototogisu is in the upper right hand corner, given
volume and shape by brushstrokes that mark out each of its dark
feathers. The hokku is inscribed just below it, in three short lines:
Iwakura no
kyŇjo koiseyo
hototogisu
cause the madwoman at Iwakura
to fall more deeply in love
o hototogisu62
Figure 8
“Cause the madwoman of Iwakura.” Haiga.
The hokku was written on the fourth day of the fourth month in 1773; it
was recorded in Transcriptions (Mimi tamushi ⡊ߚ߻ߒ)—Buson disciple
Teramura Hyakuchi’s ኹ᧛⊖ᳰ (1749–1835) handwritten record of
hokku he and his associates wrote in the 1760s–1780s—as one of the
verses composed for the set topic “hototogisu.” It was also published in
Korekoma’s Five cartloads of wastepaper in 1783.
This verse is particularly hard to follow without information about its
context. In the first place, Iwakura is in Kyoto. During Buson’s lifetime,
a waterfall at a temple there, Daiun-ji ᄢ㔕ኹ, was believed to be
efficacious for curing mental illness, and consequently was often visited
———
62
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1052, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 396.
222
CHAPTER SIX
by patients seeking relief from this condition. Thus there was a close
connection between the place name Iwakura and the mentally insane.
Beyond this reference, though, are several more literary allusions
embedded in the hokku. One clue—not included in the Transcriptions
version or the haiga—is the headnote in Five cartloads of wastepaper: “an
insignificant person like myself could never be privileged to hear it.” This
is a quotation from the 107th episode of Essays in idleness, a story about
rivalry between men and women:
Few men can give a quick and apt response to a witticism from a woman,
they say. During the reign of the Cloistered Emperor Kameyama, some
mischievous court ladies made a practice of testing young men who came
to court by asking them if they had ever heard a nightingale sing. A certain
major counselor answered, “An insignificant person the likes of myself
could never be so privileged.” The Horikawa minister of the interior said,
“I believe I have heard one at Iwakura.” The women said, “That’s a perfectly good answer. The major counselor’s calling himself insignificant was
unfortunate.”63
The hototogisu, or cuckoo, is a shy, elusive bird whose rarely-heard call
inspires feelings of love, longing and melancholy. Poets often exhorted it
to sing, as in Buson’s early verse “hototogisu / sing to the painting / the
east is blanched white” (hototogisu / e ni nake / shirojirŇ); and the BashŇ
verse “to my melancholy / add loneliness / cuckoo” (uki ware o /
sabishigaraseyo / kankodori). Since its call was so rarely heard but was so
evocative of delicate feelings, being able to boast of having had the
experience of having heard it gave a person claim to a superior degree of
poetic sensitivity.
The hototogisu was not emblematic of marital infidelity, as the cuckoo
is in the European context. More importantly for a discussion of this
verse, its name has none of the associations with madness suggested by
the English word “cuckoo.” Nor is the image of the “madwoman” here
used to evoke a suggestion of someone behaving violently or repugnantly. Rather, Buson’s Iwakura madwoman should be read as tragic and
romantic: she is someone who has been driven out of her mind by love
for a man who has abandoned her.
———
63 Keene, Essays in Idleness, pp. 89–90. Keene notes that Emperor Kameyama reigned
from 1260–1272, and was called the Cloistered Emperor until his death in 1305. He also
notes that the “Horikawa minister of the interior” refers to Minamoto no Tomomori
(1249–1316). He translates hototogisu as “nightingale.”
BUSON AND HAIGA
223
This image of the madwoman is common in NŇ plays such as The
Well-curb (Izutsu ੗╴), where the ghost of a woman haunts the site of a
well where she used to meet Ariwara no Narihira ࿷ේᬺᐔ (825–880),
the famous poet and lover associated with the Heian-era collection Tales
of Ise (Ise monogatari દ൓‛⺆), or the NŇ play Komachi at Sekidera
(Sekidera Komachi 㑐ኹዊ↸), where the great poet and beauty Ono no
Komachi ዊ㊁ዊ↸ lives out her days wracked by bittersweet memories
of lost love. In Buson’s verse, because of its powerful associations with
longing and love, the call of the hototogisu makes the madwoman’s
feelings of grief and sorrow more intense, thus adding to her romantic
fascination.
This information makes the meaning of the hokku more clear. However, the linkage between the hokku and the picture is less obvious. How
are Iwakura, a madwoman, and a hototogisu linked with an image of
hydrangeas? To understand their relationship, we can look to the
conventions of kotobazuke, which allow for connections between words
based on fixed associations. In this case, as the modern scholar Ogata
Tsutomu has pointed out, the flowers of this plant are associated with
romance in poems such as Fujiwara Ieyoshi’s ⮮ේኅ⦟ evocative
Fuboku waka shŇ ᄦᧁ๺᱌ᛞ (Japan waka collection, compiled 1310) waka:
tobu hotaru
hikari mie yuku
yşgure ni
nao iro nokoru
niwa no ajisai
watching the glow
of flickering fireflies
at twilight
love lingers all the more
in a garden colored by hydrangeas
Fujiwara Ieyoshi64
This verse presents an image of the hydrangea in a dreamlike context of
long, languid summer dusk and the dim, uncertain light of fireflies, thus
associating it with romance. Hydrangeas bloom during early summer, the
same season when it was customary for poets to wait to hear the elusive
cuckoo’s call. As the waka suggests, the sight of hydrangeas is fitting one
for just such a melancholy vigil. With this source poem and others like it
in mind, the connection that Buson draws between the different
elements of his haiga begin to make sense. Much as the unpainted space
in the painting is left for the reader’s imagination to fill in, Buson links
———
64
Ogata, Buson no sekai, p. 271.
224
CHAPTER SIX
the imagery of the hokku with that of his picture in a way that requires
the active participation of a very well informed and well-educated reader.
Figure 9
“Young bamboo!” Haiga.
BUSON AND HAIGA
225
A similarly complex haiga also relies on the reader’s knowledge of the
classical literary tradition to bridge the gap between the image and the
words (Figure 9). On a long, narrow hanging scroll, leafy stalks of
bamboo rise from the bottom of the picture two thirds of the way to the
top. One or two vaguely sketched huts, not all that different from the
one in the “Scholarly brilliance” haiga, are barely visible behind them. In
the top right hand corner, in the unpainted space above the tallest of the
bamboo, is a hokku and signature written in calligraphy whose taut
linearity echoes the straightness of the bamboo:
waka take ya
Hashimoto no yşjo
ari ya nashi
young bamboo!
the courtesan of Hashimoto
is she still there, or not?65
This hokku appeared in Sequel to dawn crow in 1776. Like Iwakura,
Hashimoto is a neighborhood in the Kyoto area. It was a stopover for
boats traveling down the Yodo River to Osaka, and as was frequently the
case during this period in places where travelers were numerous, it had
many brothels. It was also famous for its bamboo.
First, the hokku. Hashimoto calls to mind the image of attractive
women, something which resonates with the image of the slender
“young bamboo!”: seeing so much young bamboo about, the speaker
imagines that there must be similarly graceful women living in the houses
there also. Also, Hashimoto is thought to be near where Buson’s mother
grew up. Buson never makes this explicitly clear in any of his writings,
but hints in several sources point to the possibility that his mother’s
hometown was near the Yodo River. Thus the poem and the picture
together create the suggestion of femininity, mystery and longing,
simultaneously nostalgic and erotic.
The verse does not make it clear whether the speaker is wondering
about one woman in particular, or the many courtesans of Hashimoto,
but the phrase ari ya nashi (literally, “there or not”) hints that he is
referring to just one. This is an allusion to the Tales of Ise, Episode 9. In
this passage, a group of aristocratic travelers are prompted to give voice
to their yearning for absent loved ones hearing the name for a bird,
called by the locals “capital-bird”:
As the travelers continued on their way, they came to a mighty river flowing between the provinces of Musashi and ShimŇsa. It was called the Su-
———
65
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1265, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 399.
226
CHAPTER SIX
midagawa. They huddled together on the shore, saddened by involuntary
thoughts of home. “We’ve come such a long distance,” they said.
The ferryman interrupted their lamentations. “Hurry up and get in. It’s
late.”
They embarked in wretched spirits, for not a soul among them but had
left someone dear to him in the capital.
A white bird about as big as a snipe, with a red bill and red legs, was
idling on the water, eating a fish. Its like was not to be seen in the capital,
and nobody could say what it was. When they consulted the ferryman, he
answered, “Why that’s a capital-bird, of course.” Someone composed this
poem:
If you are in truth
what your name would tell us,
let me ask you,
capital-bird, about the health
of the one for whom I yearn.
na ni shi owaba
iza koto towamu
miyakodori
wa ga omou hito wa
ari ya nashi ya to
Everyone in the boat shed tears.66
Because Buson draws the phrase ari ya nashi ya from this source, readers
would recognize that his verse implies a mood of romantic longing.
Juxtaposing the rarefied world of the Tales of Ise with the more prosaic
setting of the brothels of Hashimoto at once makes a comic parody of
the classical source text and elevates a place from the mundane present
into the elegant context of waka. Thus “Young bamboo!” (Waka take ya)
exists both in the plane of ga and that of zoku simultaneously.
To add to this, the picture of the thatched hut brings in another set of
associations from the classical tradition: in this case the famous conversation between the poet-priest SaigyŇ and the courtesan of Eguchi.
Included in SaigyŇ’s personal verse collection Poems of a mountain home
(Sankashş ጊኅ㓸), the story of their encounter—in which the courtesan
showed herself to be a more subtle interpreter of the Buddhist law than
SaigyŇ was himself—was admired for centuries and was the basis for a
famous NŇ play, Eguchi ᳯญ.
On the way to the temple called TennŇ-ji, I got caught in the rain. In the
area known as Eguchi I asked at one place for a night’s lodging. When refused, I replied as follows:
yo no naka o
itou made koso
katakarame
It is hard, perhaps,
To hate and part with the world;
But you are stingy
———
66
McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose, p. 42.
BUSON AND HAIGA
kari no yado o
oshimu kimi kana
227
Even with the night I ask of you,
A place in your soon-left inn.
The response by a “woman-of-play”:
ie o izuru
hito to shi kikeba
kari no yado ni
kokoro tomuna to
omou bakari zo
It is because I heard
You’re no longer bound to life
As a householder
That I’m loath to let you get attached
To this inn of brief, bought, stays67
The courtesan reminds SaigyŇ of the basic Buddhist teaching that any
dwelling place—whether it be a room a traveler borrows for the night, a
human identity, or an entire lifetime—is temporary and illusory. The
irony of a woman who trades in physical desire teaching the Dharma to a
monk who is supposed to have abandoned attachments deeply impressed the generations of people who became familiar with this story.
In the NŇ play, Eguchi, the courtesan actually reveals that her true
identity is that of the bodhisattva Fugen ᥉⾫ (Sanskrit: Samantabhadra),
making her great wisdom a little less surprising, but further serving to
underscore the point that the things of the world are illusions. Buson’s
hokku and picture pick up on this story, where low (the courtesan) is
actually the high (a teacher of the Dharma, a bodhisattva)—a meeting of
zoku and ga that is fundamental to what Okada Rihei calls “haikai spirit.”
Buson is making a deliberate choice when in depicting the courtesan’s
house as more or less indistinguishable from the thatched huts of
scholar-recluses that are so common in his other paintings. It is nothing
like the contemporary ukiyo-e depictions of courtesans and brothels,
which were often dramatic or lurid. What he offers us here is not a
depiction of an actual brothel in Hashimoto. Instead, it is just a reference
to an imagined literary place: the setting of the NŇ play Eguchi, overlaid
with references to the romantic Tales of Ise whose overtones are further
emphasized with the addition of graceful stalks of bamboo.
Nowhere near as complex, but nevertheless exquisite both for its
poetry and its visual imagery, are the many versions of the verse:
hana o fumishi
zŇri mo miete
asane kana
that she walked beneath the blossoms
is visible even on her sandals—
sleeping late this morning68
———
67 William LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 70–71.
228
CHAPTER SIX
Figure 10
“That she walked beneath the blossoms.” Haiga.
The most striking are the two fan-shaped haiga that depict a woman,
probably a courtesan, seated on the floor with her back to the viewer
(Figure 10). In one, she holds a letter up to read. In the other, she just
stares into the distance, with the dark shape of her obi sash balancing out
the black mass of her upswept hair held in place with an elaborate comb.
Another version, in a more conventional painting format, shows nothing
but a single sandal, its brocade strap suggesting an elegant owner.69 Each
version has a slightly different headnote, a variation on: “Heart taken by
the blossoms, one puts aside everything, even to the point of seeming
like a lazy person in all things, is this not something that is touching and
graceful?”
Considered alone, the hokku can be read an aisatsu to a friend who has
displayed the proper attitude towards the beauty of the cherry blossoms.
When the speaker goes to visit her in the morning, he finds she is
sleeping late that day. The sandals left in the doorway explain the
reason—they are littered with the pale pink petals of the blossoms that
had fallen on the streets she walked through the night before. The verse
———
68
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365; images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 400–401.
In addition to the haiga versions of this poem, there is also a surimono that has a
longer inscription that adds “The above verse is a little ditty I wrote when I went visiting
in Kayamachi near ShijŇ, a place where the man from Naniwa is staying…at the time we
went from Umejo’s house and wrote out a hokku saying: how can you overlook the
spring scenery of the capital?”
69
BUSON AND HAIGA
229
makes a reference to a number of Chinese poems, one by Bo Juyi,
included in Japanese and Chinese poems to sing:
Backs to the candle, together we cherish
the moon late in the night.
Treading on petals, we share lamentation
for the springtime of our youth.70
⢛ῒ౒ᘿᷓᄛ᦬
〯⧎หᗂዋᐕᤐ
Another is by one of Buson’s favorite Chinese poets, Wang Wei:
The blossoms scattered, but the servants have not yet swept them
The warbler calls, but the mountain traveler still sleeps on.71
⧎⪭ኅ௳ᧂ᝹
㢩໹ጊቴ₈⌁
What might appear to be irresponsible, slovenly behavior in conventional society is actually to be admired: the speaker’s friend is so sensitive
to the fleeting beauty of the blossoms that she stays out all night to enjoy
them. Moreover, by alluding to Chinese poetry, Buson makes the point
that this was behavior that Chinese literati of the past also admired,
which further serves to underscore the sincerity of his praise.
The relationship between the text and images here are not that complicated. The reader can view the friend the speaker came to visit as a
man who enjoyed himself in the company of courtesans as graceful as
the one that he pictures. Alternatively, one might interpret the speaker’s
greeting as being to a woman herself.
Indeed, a surimono version of this hokku actually does associate it with
a woman: Umejo, a haikai poet who first made his acquaintance when
she was a courtesan. Umejo later married Buson’s disciple, the painter
and poet Matsumura Gekkei. Gekkei became famous as an artist in the
ShijŇ ྾᧦ school of painting, and Umejo also took up painting herself.
The surimono text also mentions Buson’s visit to a “man from Naniwa,”
whom scholars identify as Ueda Akinari. Akinari is most famous for
stories of the grotesque, like Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu monogatari
㔎᦬‛⺆, 1776), but he also wrote haikai, and in 1774 he asked Buson
———
70 Rimer and Chaves, p. 27. Chinese text is in ņsone ShŇsuke and Horiuchi Hideaki,
eds., ShinchŇ Nihon koten shşsei, vol. 61, Wakan rŇei shş (ShinchŇsha, 1983), p. 20.
71 Cited in headnote to verse, BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365.
230
CHAPTER SIX
to write the preface for a treatise he wrote on kireji, Treatise on ya and kana
(Ya yana shŇ ਽຦ᛞ). The picture on the surimono is much different from
that on the haiga: it shows a mass of bundled firewood that takes up
nearly half the page; to its left is a plum tree, presumably in honor of
Umejo (the ume of her name means “plum”). The existence of multiple
versions of this hokku, including this surimono using an image completely
unrelated to those of the painted ones, is a good indication of the
ephemeral nature of haiga and the fact that poems, pictures, and combinations of both were commonly used as tokens of social exchange.
One of Buson’s most appealing paintings is a haiga that he did around
1777, showing a laughing, barefooted man in a jaunty red cap, dancing
(Figure 11). To his right, towards the bottom of the picture, rolls a
gourd—one presumably once full of the sake that has made the man so
animated. The hokku and its headnote read:
Miyako no hana no chiri
kakaru wa, Mitsunobu ga
gofun no hakuraku shitaru
sama nare
The scattering of cherry blossoms in
the capital is similar to the appearance
of chalk white flaking off a painting
by Mitsunobu
Matabei ni
au ya Omuro no
hana zakari
have I run into Matabei?
blossoms at Omuro
at their height72
The chain of associations in this haiga is as complicated as what we saw
in “Young bamboo!” It starts with the headnote. “Mitsunobu” refers to
Tosa Mitsunobu ࿯૒శା (d. 1522), a member of an aristocratic family
of artists who is regarded as the founder of the Tosa School of painting.
The Tosa became the official school of the Ashikaga shoguns (1338–
1573) and it remained a powerful force in the world of Japanese art until
the middle of the early modern period. The Tosa style involves the
liberal use of gold, extremely fine and delicate brushwork, and dazzling,
brilliant color. If paint were to peel off a Mitsunobu painting, as the
headnote describes, the scattered flakes would be luminous and exquisite, reminiscent of a past age of refined splendor—much like the fallen
cherry petals of the ancient capital city.
———
72
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 2633, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 404.
BUSON AND HAIGA
231
Figure 11
“Have I run into Matabei?” Haiga.
ItsuŇ Art Museum.
232
CHAPTER SIX
“Matabei” refers to a character in a jŇruri play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Courtesan of the spirit-revealing incense (Keisei hangon kŇ ௑ၔ෻㝬㚅,
1708). Matabei had studied with Mitsunobu, but he had not been much
of a success. He was working as a painter of ņtsu-e ᄢᵤ⛗, a kind of
folk art that originated in the area of ņtsu, near Kyoto. The ņtsu-e
repertoire originally consisted mainly of religious images, but later
expanded to include animals, heroes, and the like, typically painted on
wooden panels in strong, bright colors. Although ņtsu-e were popular,
particularly with travelers who visited the region where they were
produced, they were not “fine” art, and Matabei, for all his humble
origins, aspired to more in life—the recognition of Mitsunobu of the
powerful Tosa school. Disappointed at being overlooked as Mitsunobu
favored other students, Matabei eventually decides to take his own life.
His wife persuades him to paint one last picture—a self-portrait—on the
side of a water container. Miraculously, as he does so, an exact copy of
his picture appears on the opposite side of the container. Suddenly,
Mitsunobu appears, reveals that he has been watching the whole time,
and declares that Matabei is indeed a painter worthy of recognition in the
Tosa school.73
Finally, Omuro is a place in Kyoto that is famous for its lateblooming cherry trees. A temple there, Ninna-ji ੳ๺ኹ, had once been
an imperial palace. The cherry trees there bloom just as they start to
come into leaf, and are in full bloom when other trees have already
dropped their petals. It was a popular place for hanami—cherry blossom
viewing.
This haiga, then, brings together historical fact, a fictional character,
and the name of a famous place in Kyoto. Taken together, the reason for
the dancing figure’s inebriation becomes clear: not only has he been
drinking, but also he is buoyed along by the cheerful mood of the rest of
the revelers taking in the sight of the late cherry blossoms. The character
famous as an ņtsu-e painter has become an ņtsu-e himself, with bold
lines delineating his form and flat areas of color—the red of his cap and
the black of the jacket that has slipped off his shoulder—suggesting his
costume. But the picture is nowhere near as naive or mechanical looking
as a real ņtsu-e. Though the composition is simple and spare, the
inscription, figure, and gourd are skillfully shaped and perfectly placed.
———
73 Samuel L. Leiter, Kabuki Encyclopedia: An English-Language Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), p. 188.
BUSON AND HAIGA
233
The content of the text fills in the details missing from the picture, so
despite the fact that there is no suggestion of the background of the
scene, it is easy to imagine the crowded grounds of Ninna-ji, filled with
the splendid outfits of visitors boisterously celebrating the last blossoms
of the season, where all around petals scattered from the trees litter the
ground like shining flakes fallen from a magnificent old Tosa school
painting.
Figure 12
“Dancing!” Haiga.
234
CHAPTER SIX
The last haiga from this period that we will look at exists in several
different versions, some long and narrow, another more square and
horizontal, two others on fan-shaped paper (Figure 12). They show two,
three, four, or five figures, dancing in a line. Some have fans, others have
their heads covered with hoods, hand towels, or hats. The undulating
shapes of their bodies suggest a mood of fun and abandon. Two of the
pictures are inscribed with this hokku:
nishikigi no
kado o megurite
odori kana
surrounding the gate
where he left the love token
dancing!74
One has just this one:
shigonin ni
tsuki ochi kakaru
odori kana
four or five left
as the moon sinks down
dancing!75
Another includes both. A fifth has four hokku in total, the two above,
and these two:
hoso koshi no
hŇshi suzuro ni
odori kana
the slim-waisted
priest, as if in a dream,
dancing!76
hita to inu no
naku machi ni koete
odori kana
a dog’s incessant bark
the sound carries across the town
dancing!77
These five haiga are clearly linked—the figures on them so similar they
almost seem to have stepped out of the same painting. Interestingly, the
Matabei figure from the previous haiga also looks like he belongs among
the dancers, as they too are done in a style that is at once severely
abbreviated yet energetic. Furthermore, while the hokku inscribed on
these haiga vary, all of them have the same last five syllables, “dancing!”
(odori kana).
Only first of these verses uses a word with a literary reference: nishigi,
literally, “brocade tree.” It was an ancient custom in parts of northern
Japan for a young man to signal his interest in a woman by leaving such a
———
74
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1810, images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 404–406.
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 137.
76 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1156.
77 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 136.
75
BUSON AND HAIGA
235
token at her gate. The token, called a “brocade tree,” was an elaborately
decorated stick. If the woman was also interested, she took the token
into the house. “Brocade tree” is also the title of a NŇ play by Zeami, in
which a man who visited his beloved’s house every night for three years,
eventually setting out a thousand of them. In the words of the play:
From ancient times it has been the custom here for a suitor to make brocade trees as go-betweens, and to stand them before the gate of his beloved’s house. Because they are signs of his courtship, he adorns them
beautifully. The woman takes into her house only the brocade trees of the
man whom she would have; the others stand unheeded. And the rejected
suitor, though he comes for a hundred nights or for three years, leaving
the celebrated Thousand Love Charms, comes in vain. In the shade of this
mountain is the grave of such a man. Three years he kept his vigil, setting
out his love charm every night, and in the end he was buried with the tokens of his love.78
Uncharacteristically of the NŇ theater, the play has a relatively happy
ending; after retelling his story in the presence of a wandering priest, the
man (really, his ghost) concludes his tale by declaring that he and his
lover “have met and pledged our love / with the cup of mother-ofpearl,” and the chorus invites him to dance. Thus, “brocade tree” in
Buson’s hokku evokes a romantic image, one associated with joy and
dancing.
The other three hokku make no such allusions; in “Four or five left”
(Shigonin ni) it is the time of the evening when the crowd that has come
out for Bon Festival dances—which occur in the middle of the summer
as part of ceremonies to celebrate the annual homecoming of the spirits
of the dead—starts to thin out. Since Bon Festival is held from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth day of the month, the moon was full at
midnight, thus by the time it starts to sink its quite late in the evening.
The dancers in this hokku, however, are enjoying themselves too much
to go home.
The next two hokku also describe experiences one might have on Bon
festival night: a young, attractive priest is caught up in the hypnotic
rhythm and movement of the festival; and across town, in another
neighborhood, a dog catches the sound of the drums and flutes of the
crowd, and calls out to them.
Neither the hokku, the paintings, nor the interaction between them is
particularly striking in this group of compositions. However, they show
———
78
Keene, Twenty Plays of the NŇ Theatre, p. 89.
236
CHAPTER SIX
the relatively disposable, ephemeral quality of haiga. Completed quickly,
using inexpensive materials, and as this example indicates, following a
plan or design that could easily be repeated, haiga were ideal for the
purpose of making small, inexpensive works that might be sold without
much effort. This example bears out the implications of a letter Buson
wrote to KitŇ on the eleventh day of the eighth month of asking for his
help in selling some haiga, or as he referred to them, “haikai sketches:”
Hanging scrolls: 7
Pasted-paper folding screens: 10
All of the above are not the sort of thing I normally paint. They are haikai
sketches (ߪ޿߆޿ߩ⨲↹), to which there is nothing similar in the
world, I think. It will be a problem for me if they go for too low a price.
This is something I’ve told no one else about. I do not hide it from you.79
This letter dates from around the same time that Buson painted the haiga
of the dancing figures, and it shows us a number of things. In the first
place, Buson used KitŇ as a broker for his paintings. Not only were
Buson’s haikai acquaintances his painting clients, but his disciples also
served to help him market his paintings. We saw that this was true of
relatively distant acquaintances like Kafu, but KitŇ, too, was not only the
Yahantei school’s most active promoter, he also assisted Buson as a gobetween in selling his paintings. Secondly, Buson regarded haiga as
something distinct from his usual kind of work. He tended to use
different art names to sign his haiga than he did in his nanga paintings; in
this letter he goes so far as to say that there is “nothing similar in the
world” to these paintings. Finally, no doubt related to the fact that these
paintings were so unlike what he normally produced, Buson was not too
sure of how they should be priced. At least he hoped that they would not
be sold off too cheaply; nonetheless, he was so underconfident about
what their value was that he left it up to KitŇ to determine.
Seen in the context of this letter, the five versions of the Bon Festival
haiga start to make sense. The fact that Buson painted so many haiga that
so closely resemble each other can only be a consequence of the fact that
these were not intended to stand as great masterpieces of originality and
seriousness, but were rather light, almost disposable works that he could
produce with a minimum of thought. Taking elements of a previous
composition and recycling it into another context was something that he
———
79
Letter to KitŇ, eleventh day of the Eighth Month, 1776; BSS, pp. 145–146.
BUSON AND HAIGA
237
did frequently. In some cases it looks like he was trying to work out the
best way to present a particular hokku and image pair; in others, it
appears that he was producing something that could earn him money
without too much effort.
Late Haiga (1778–1783)
A large number of haiga from the last years of Buson’s career are extant.
They are extremely varied: some are comical, others are atmospheric.
One simply shows a broom, painted in thick, powerful brushstrokes. The
inscription reads, “departing spring / sweeping off its backside / fallen
blossoms” (yuku haru no / shiribeta harau / rakka kana).80 A picture of the
great medieval heroes, Benkei and Ushiwaka (the latter better known by
his adult name, Yoshitsune) accompanies the hokku “the snow, the
moon, and the blossoms / in the end / a bond of three lifetimes” (setsu
gekka / tsui ni sanzei no / chigiri kana).81 Other paintings show groups of
“haikai immortals,” three in one, eight in another, eleven in a third. In
two other haiga, a rabbit pounds mochi, accompanied by the inscription of
Buson’s travels through Dewa that we saw in Chapter Three, concluding
with the hokku “in the cool / a moonlit night of pounding barley / oh,
Uhei” (suzushisa ni / mugi o tsuku yo no / Uhei kana) .82 Two umbrellas
lashed together, accompanied by the verse, “viewing autumn leaves /
how thoughtful your preparations are / two umbrellas” (momiji mi ya / yŇi
kashikoki /kasa nihon).83 A pale silhouette of the peak of Mount Fuji
accompanies “Mount Fuji alone / is not engulfed / young leaves” (Fuji
hitotsu / uzumi nokoshite / wakaba kana) ,84 a verse that we saw in Chapter
Four. The variety and inventiveness of these late haiga show an artist and
poet at the height of his powers.
We will take a closer look at one. It incorporates “willow leaves,
fallen” (yanagi chirite), a very early hokku that he wrote during his journey
along BashŇ’s Narrow road to the interior route (Figure 13):
———
80
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 81, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 409.
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1023, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 410.
82 Images BZ, vol. 6, p. 443.
83 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 2751, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 444.
84 Image BZ, vol. 6, p. 442.
81
238
CHAPTER SIX
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro
willow leaves, fallen
clear stream, dried out
stones, here and there85
Figure 13
“Willow leaves, fallen.” Haiga. ItsuŇ Art Museum.
———
85
Images BZ, vol. 6, p. 444.
BUSON AND HAIGA
239
As we saw in Chapter Four, this hokku was used as the opening verse of
the Scrap paper coverlet linked verse sequence that Buson took part in just
around the time that he left northeastern Japan for Kyoto. However, in
the last years of his career, he also used it as the basis for a haiga, with a
different headnote than the one that appeared in the linked verse
sequence. The older headnote identifies the willow as the one associated
with the SaigyŇ legend. However, the later one cites a completely
different source, the “Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff” by Su
Dongpo:
All of the “Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff” is superb, but these lines
struck me as particularly good:
“The mountains were very high, the moon small
The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out.”
They are like a single bird that breaks away from the flock. Once when I
was traveling in Michinoku, I composed this verse while standing below
SaigyŇ’s willow tree.86
The “Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff” tells the story of a man and
two friends who decide to enjoy the moonlight together. One friend
mentions that he had caught some fish earlier, and the speaker’s wife
reminds him that he had put away some wine for a special occasion.
Buson’s quotation comes from the passage that describes the scenery of
the Red Cliff and the river that ran below it:
So we took the wine and fish and went for another trip to the foot of the
Red Cliff. The river raced along noisily, its sheer banks rising a thousand
feet. The mountains were very high, the moon small. The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out. How much time had passed
since my last visit? I couldn’t recognize them as the same river and hills!87
Five rocks, painted in dark and light gray ink are scattered across the
lower part of the picture more or less horizontally. This creates tension
with the inscription, with its bold black calligraphy creating a powerful
vertical movement. The rocks are exactly as Buson’s hokku describe
them, “here and there” (tokoro dokoro). There is no indication of a willow.
However, this is not a depiction of the landscape at the actual site of the
willow—far from being a remote, sublime and wild place, such as Su
Dongpo’s words describe the scenery of the Red Cliff to be. In fact, the
———
86
87
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 85–86.
Chaves, p. 139.
240
CHAPTER SIX
willow was in the middle of rice fields, which are filled with water part of
the year; there is nothing nearby that resembles the large, imposinglooking boulders of Buson’s painting. Instead, the image is entirely
imaginary, and is based on other paintings and pages of The Mustard seed
garden manual of painting. This text shows the elements of landscapes:
trees, rocks, mountains, huts, and so forth, are presented separately,
isolated on the page, so that painting students could practice and master
their shapes and afterwards work them into fully developed compositions.
The boulders of this haiga are very similar to those printed in the
painting manuals. However, there is more to them than that. The
inscription is so evocative that it invites the viewer to fill in the empty
space of the painting with an entire landscape: a willow, a dry riverbed,
the season, the mood of appreciative discovery. It is a particularly good
example of the way that haikai uses absence to prompt associations.
Willow is a spring kigo, a harbinger of warmth and light that comes into
leaf very early in the season. Without its leaves, as Buson describes it in
the verse, it is without its most distinctive, identifying feature; also, it is
not in the picture at all. The stream, that Buson describes as clear or pure
water (shimizu) is completely dried up. Instead, Buson gives us a group of
rocks, connected neither to one another nor to the environment that
surrounds them. Nonetheless, seen as a whole there is a linkage between
the elements of the hokku, its headnote, and in the image; it brings
together both absent and present (willow, stream, rocks) and past and
present (the landscapes observed by Su Dongpo, SaigyŇ, BashŇ, and
Buson himself).
Buson also completed a large number of works in the last decade of
his career that were more related to haikai than to the nanga that was the
mainstay of his painting practice. These were paintings related to Matsuo
BashŇ—both “portraits” and versions of two of his travel journals,
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton and Narrow road to the interior done as hand
scrolls and screen paintings (Figure 14). Buson’s BashŇ-related paintings
are exceptions among his haiga in the sense that they deal with texts that
Buson did not write himself. However, they belong to the haiga category
as they are “haikai, in the form of a picture,” and some of them, particularly the travel journal hand scrolls and screen paintings, are among the
finest works Buson produced in his entire career.88
———
88
Images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 415–418, 420–422, and 424–430.
BUSON AND HAIGA
241
Figure 14
“Narrow road to the interior”scroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art.
Buson painted these works to order; several of his letters mention
requests from patrons for portraits and other kinds of paintings connected with BashŇ. Judging from the dates he completed them, there was
a great demand for such paintings starting around the middle of the
1770s, twenty years before the centenary of BashŇ’s death. As we have
seen, this was the period when the BashŇ Revival was at its highest. The
Yahantei school published Elder BashŇ’s linking techniques anthology in 1776;
from that year, Buson’s acquaintance DŇryş began work restoring the
BashŇ Hermitage, a small thatched hut that restored in honor of BashŇ
that later served as a meeting place for Yahantei poets. The next few
years saw the publication of many collections that claimed to be following BashŇ’s example, including Yahantei’s Dawn crow and Sequel to dawn
crow, Itton’s Sabi and shiori (Sabi shiori, 1776), Bakusui’s New Empty chestnuts
(Shin Minashiguri ᣂ⯯ᩙ, 1777). Gichş-ji, the site of BashŇ’s grave,
became the center of BashŇ Revival activities in western Japan, with
numerous verse parties and other events taking place there from around
1779. With all this interest in BashŇ developing, haikai poets who
admired him were eager to possess texts and other objects that were
related to him, and as a talented artist who was also a haikai poet, Buson
was in an ideal position to provide them.
Ten of the BashŇ “portraits” that Buson painted are extant. BashŇ
died some twenty years before Buson was born, so these were not
portraits in the literal sense as the two poets never met, but were rather
imaginary likenesses that were meant to embody some aspect of what
was believed at the time to characterize BashŇ’s “spirit.” Certain markers
242
CHAPTER SIX
make clear the identity of the paintings’ subject. BashŇ is shown with a
round cap and a priest’s robes; he wears a beard, and in some cases
carries a walking stick, in others, a satchel, or a sedge hat. He is often
smiling, or gazing back at the viewer with a look of good humor. The
inscriptions vary, but tend to be elaborate: examples of his hokku are the
most numerous, but one includes a long poem in Chinese as well.
Buson’s imaginary portraits of BashŇ focus on his persona as a rootless
traveler, a kind and benevolent figure. He has much in common with
Buson’s nanga paintings of Taoist immortals and various other kinds of
Chinese luminaries—wise, gentle, transcending the vulgar but closely in
touch with simple humanity. They present BashŇ as the BashŇ Revival
poets viewed him, as an embodiment of the ideals of haikai as a literary
form that was more than just a frivolous amusement, who took up the
example of lofty-minded Chinese literati recluses and traveling poetsaints like NŇin and SaigyŇ.
The image of BashŇ as a saintly traveler is also the central theme of
Buson’s other major BashŇ-related haiga, the hand scrolls and folding
screens that he painted of the haikai prose texts Record of a weather-beaten
skeleton and Narrow road to the interior. Only one version of Record of a
weather-beaten skeleton exists today, as well as four of Narrow road to the
interior; sources suggest that Buson completed as many as ten versions of
the latter.89
Buson painted Record of a weather-beaten skeleton in 1778 in the form of a
hand scroll; it was later mounted onto a six-paneled folding screen. He
abridged the text somewhat, and added eleven illustrations. Most of the
pictures are of people that BashŇ passed by or met during his journey,
hard at work at various chores, but some of them are of BashŇ himself,
resting at an inn, chatting with a host, or moving down the road wearing
the distinctive broad, flat hat and straw raincoat of the traveler.
The four versions of Narrow road to the interior have many scenes in
common. He shows us BashŇ’s farewell to disciples at Senjş, the
children who try to follow him after he leaves for Kurobane, the blind
biwa-player of Shiogama, the wives of the SatŇ brothers who dressed up
in their dead husbands’ armor to pretend to their mother that her sons
were still alive, the courtesans at Ichiburi—the most emotionally
powerful moments in the story. Most striking about the perspective
Buson brings to BashŇ’s narrative is that he concentrates almost entirely
———
89
Tanaka, p. 207.
BUSON AND HAIGA
243
on human beings. While Narrow road to the interior is an account of its
author’s visits to famous sites, and is full of descriptions of landscapes
and places—many of which Buson actually saw during his own travels
around northeastern Japan—Buson depicts it as a journey from relationship to relationship. This does not reflect any limitation of Buson’s skills:
he was a master of landscape painting, as nanga’s main focus was on the
depiction of the natural world. However, even Buson’s nanga are
distinguished by the conspicuous presence of people—they are far more
numerous, and big, than in the paintings of most other nanga artists. In
his versions of Record of a weather-beaten skeleton and Narrow road to the
interior, Buson lets BashŇ’s verbal description of the environment stand
on its own; he puts his own energies into emphasizing the emotional and
personal aspects of the journey.
Buson’s haiga are notable examples of the interconnectedness of
verbal and visual modes of expression that has been commonplace in
Japanese cultural history. Despite their simplicity, haiga demonstrate a
very high degree of literary and artistic sophistication that rely on haikai’s
most basic technique, the juxtaposition of apparently disparate elements
to create a dynamic, compelling whole. While Buson’s artistic skills made
his haiga especially attractive as paintings, it was his sensitivity to implication (yojŇ)—finely tuned from decades of writing hokku and linked
verse—that enabled him to create compostions that were witty, amusing
and often hauntingly atmospheric.
EPILOGUE
Because it is the work of a “poet-painter,” Buson’s haikai promises to
shed light on a problem that has long intrigued scholars—whether poets
can write verse that is “like paintings,” or painters create visual works
that are “like poems.” As we have seen, eighteenth-century haikai poets
frequently denied there was a difference between verbal and visual
expression. The example Buson offers may have been exceptional: even
in his community, artists who possessed his degree of proficiency in both
poetry and painting were very few. Still, haikai poets continued to
produce haiga and other kinds of works that combined verse with visual
images—much of it in a style that recalled Buson’s—until different views
on the nature of the visuality of haikai emerged during the beginning of
the modern period.
One of these views was that of the modern poet Masaoka Shiki—his
claim that haiku are like pictures because they capture a single point in
space and time or depict a scene just as a witness experienced it. It is true
that not even the painter Buson was in the habit of writing hokku this
way: his verses were almost always composed on a set topic, and
frequently suggest a narrative rather than one focused moment.
Nevertheless, Shiki’s argument is compelling, albeit more because of
its motivation than its content. Shiki was looking for a way to legitimize
haiku as a modern form of Japanese poetry. Calling attention to haiku’s
potential for pictorial, photograph-like realism was a central pillar of his
defense against critics who condemned the genre as obsolete and out of
step with the changes brought by modernization. The practice of
sketching from life was a technique that became popular with many
visual artists of Shiki’s day, and its origins in a rational, scientific view of
the world linked it to other aspects of modernization; therefore, literary
forms that involved sketches—even sketches in words—could be viewed
as modern. Even if Shiki’s view of Buson as a painterly poet is somewhat
exaggerated, his characterization of Buson’s hokku as portentous of the
modern is not without merit.
In fact, the view of Buson as a classical poet who anticipated modernity was also held by Hagiwara SakutarŇ, a poet and critic who otherwise
EPILOGUE
245
had little in common with Shiki. SakutarŇ was deeply impressed with
Buson’s haishi “Mourning the Sage Hokuju,” which begins:
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
Thinking of you, I go wandering in the hills.
Why are the hills so sad?1
SakutarŇ commented, “if you concealed the name of the author of this
poem, and said that it was the work of a young shintaishi ᣂ૕⹞ (newstyle poem) poet of the Meiji period, surely no one at all would doubt
it.”2 He added that the poem had much in common with Western
Romantic poetry, and reflected an aesthetic sensibility that did not
belong to the culture of the Edo period.
SakutarŇ was not a haiku poet—he wrote shi ⹞ (modern free verse).
He admitted that he disliked BashŇ, and that the majority of haiku held
little appeal for him. When reading classical Japanese poetry, he much
preferred the waka of the Collection of Ten thousand leaves and New ancient
and modern waka anthology eras. However, Buson’s haishi caught his
interest, and as he read more of Buson’s work he became even more
impressed. While most haiku is essentially dull and restrained, he writes,
Buson’s is bright and springlike, “distinct from austere ink painting, close
to brightly-colored Western impressionist paintings.”3
SakutarŇ’s interpretation of Buson has some things in common with
Shiki’s, but there are important differences. Like Shiki, he makes
reference to visual aspects of Buson’s verse, but his emphasis is more
metaphorical than pragmatic. SakutarŇ’s Buson is a wistfully lyrical
romantic, a “poet of nostalgia” whose verses were as plaintive as
lullabies. He writes that Buson’s verse was something that contemporary
young people could understand without the knowledge that would be
required to appreciate most early modern haiku, because it has more in
common with the work of Meiji-era poets than other haiku. Where Shiki
saw an objective observer of the external world, SakutarŇ saw an
emotional, even passionate storyteller, whose childhood memories and
longing for a lost, distant past engendered expressions of eitan ⹗གྷ
(admiration) and shŇkei ᙏᙔ (longing).
———
1
BZ, vol. 4, p. 27.
Hagiwara SakutarŇ, KyŇshş no shijin: Yosa Buson (Iwanami Shoten, [1936] 1995), p. 15.
3 Ibid., p. 19.
2
246
EPILOGUE
In calling Buson’s haikai “subjective,” SakutarŇ was drawing on his
own views of the primacy of subjectivity in poetry. SakutarŇ emphasized
subjectivity in many of his works, perhaps most succinctly in the 1928
treatise Principles of poetry (Shi no genri ⹞ߩේℂ), in which he declared
“‘Poetry’ and ‘subjectivity’ are synonyms. Anything that is subjective is
poetry, and anything that is objective is not poetry.”4 Principles of poetry
also mentions Buson, in the context of arguing that relative to the purely
subjective waka, haiku is basically objective, but even haiku achieved the
expression of emotion, and thus was poetic. Here SakutarŇ cites the
following Buson verse to argue that “there can be no haiku poems that
are cold in feeling and of purely contemplative observation:”5
haru no umi
hinemosu notari
notari kana
spring sea
all day long rising and falling
rising and falling6
In Principles of poetry, SakutarŇ uses the same kind of rhetoric that Shiki
does in Haiku poet Buson, positing clear, binary oppositions in attempting
to define the nature of poetry, like “Japanese” and “Western,” and
“subjective” and “objective.” However, where Shiki sees Buson’s
objectivity, SakutarŇ comes to the opposite conclusion: his Buson is a
poet of subjectivity and lyricism. While SakutarŇ allows that in one sense
haiku is aligned with the objective, he does not deny that it is poetry;
instead, it uses objective description to achieve the expression of
emotion, rather than the mimetic depiction of reality.
SakutarŇ’s reading of Buson, like Shiki’s, is useful for giving us a
starting point for thinking about the relationship between Buson’s haikai
and modern Japanese poetry. In the first place, SakutarŇ called attention
to Buson’s haishi, which resembled the results of modern Japanese poets’
efforts to create forms of verse that did not adhere to the strict rules of
classical poetry regarding appropriate language, content, and syllable
count. Buson’s haishi draw on these rules at the same time as they break
them, in part by borrowing language and conventions from kanshi, and in
part by following the logic of haikai to an extreme. That is to say, while
the haishi do not conform to convention in terms of structure and
language, they do remain within haikai’s boundaries in that haikai
———
4 Hagiwara SakutarŇ, Principles of Poetry: Shi no genri, trans. Chester C. I. Wang and
Isamu P. Fukuchi (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1998), p. 48.
5 SakutarŇ, Principles of Poetry, p. 129.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.
EPILOGUE
247
encourages experimentation, surprise, and eccentricity. However, while
the haishi are clearly products of their time, SakutarŇ’s reading opens a
place for Buson in the modern canon of Japanese literature, at least
insofar as he sees its similarities to modern poetry.
In the second place, while the “nostalgia” that so fascinates SakutarŇ
is very conventional in classical poetry, SakutarŇ’s reading of it links it
with it a sense of loss of connection to the past that had strong resonance with early twentieth century writers. In other words, SakutarŇ’s
reading more or less ignores the tropes and conceits of classical haikai;
instead, he reads Buson’s verse as being transparent and authentic as the
poetry he himself tried to write. While in some respects this results in
distorted interpretations, it is nevertheless a strong endorsement of the
emotive power of Buson’s work. SakutarŇ was concerned with redefining Japanese poetry rather than the defense of haiku, and justifies the
place of Buson’s work as poetry that transcends genre, introducing it to a
modern readership which may be completely unaware of the somewhat
arcane complexities of classical haikai.
Shiki and SakutarŇ shared a purpose—the reform of Japanese poetry—and they both looked to Japan’s literary past for precedents that
could help guide the formation of its future. Many of the pressures that
confronted modern Japanese writers were different than those faced by
the BashŇ Revival poets, and the results of their efforts to create a new
kind of Japanese poetry were far more radical than anything the Revival
poets devised. However, Shiki and SakutarŇ used a strategy that the
Revival poets would have recognized: they advocated renewal by calling
for a return to some aspect of its past.
It is not surprising that poets like Shiki and SakutarŇ were drawn to
Buson. If conditions for writerly anxiety existed in the eighteenth century
in Japan, they were even more urgently present in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Commercialization and urbanization took place
in the Meiji and TaishŇ periods on a far greater scale than it had in the
eighteenth century. New kinds of intellectual communities established
themselves, and literary criticism flourished as the number of newspapers, journals, and writers groups grew. Older genres and the standards
that governed them came under scrutiny, and new genres emerged. In
other words, while it was a period of great freedom and promise for
writers, it was one of anxiety as well.
In this book, I have not concentrated on the formal aspects of Buson’s haikai as did Shiki and SakutarŇ. Instead, I have examined it in the
248
EPILOGUE
context of the urban and rural communities of writers, artists and
scholars with which Buson interacted. Rather than reading his work a
direct expression of an individual poetic voice, I have viewed it as part of
a larger discourse that arose in reaction to the emergence of a new kind
of readership in the eighteenth century. While my reading of Buson’s
work has focused on different issues than those that interested Shiki and
SakutarŇ, it agrees with their views of Buson as a central figure in the
literature of the early modern period. Pressured to redefine the identity
of the artist by popular responses to economic, technological, and social
changes, Buson and his colleagues in the BashŇ Revival reinvented haikai
as a serious literary genre, laying the groundwork for its establishment as
one of the best-known forms of Japanese literature in the modern
period.
APPENDIX
Translations
Haikai free verse
Mourning the Sage Hokuju (Hokuju rŇsen o itamu)
250
Verses on the Topic ‘Spring Wind on the Kema
Embankment’ (Shunpş batei no kyoku)
252
Yodo River Songs: Three Verses (Denga ka)
256
Prose
Preface to Make the past now (Mukashi o ima)
257
Preface to Elder BashŇ Verse-linking Anthology
(BashŇ Ň tsukeai shş )
258
Account of the Rebuilding of the BashŇ Hermitage
in Eastern Kyoto (RakutŇ BashŇ-an saikŇ ki)
259
New flower gathering (Shinhanatsumi) Prose section
263
Preface to Shundei verse anthology (Shundei kushş)
275
Linked verse
“Rape-flowers—” (Na no hana ya)
278
250
APPENDIX
Mourning the Sage Hokuju
(Hokuju rŇsen o itamu)
kimi ashita ni sarinu yşbe no kokoro chiji ni
nan zo haruka naru
kimi o omoute oka nobe ni yukitsu asobu
oka nobe nan zo kaku kanashiki
tanpopo no ki ni nazuna no shirou sakitaru
miru hito zo naki
kigisu no aru ka hitanaki ni naku o kikeba
tomo ariki kawa o hedatete suminiki
hege no keburi no ha to uchichireba nishi fuku kaze no
hageshikute ozasa hara masuge hara
nogaru beki kata zo naki
tomo ariki kawa o hedatete suminiki kyŇ wa
hororo to mo nakanu
kimi ashita ni sarinu yşbe no kokoro chiji ni
nan zo haruka naru
waga io no amida butsu tomoshibi mo mono sezu
hana mo mairasezu sugosugo to tatazumeru koyoi wa
koto ni tŇtoki
APPENDIX
251
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
Thinking of you, I go wandering in the hills.
Why are the hills so sad?
Among the yellow dandelions, shepherds-purse blooms white.
No one else is here to see this.
I wonder, “Are there pheasants?” when I hear a mournful cry.
I had a friend. He lived on the other side of the stream.
An eerie smoke rises, the westerly wind blows
violently over moors of bamboo and sedge.
There is nowhere to hide.
I had a friend. He lived on the other side of the stream;
today there is not so much as a pheasant’s call.
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
In my small hut, I offer Amida no candles,
no flowers. In this twilight, lingering in sorrow
I feel a special sense of awe.
Shaku Buson
252
APPENDIX
Verses on the Topic ‘Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment’
(Shunpş batei no kyoku)
One day I went to visit an old man in my home village. Crossing the
Yodo River, I passed along on the Kema embankment. I encountered a
young woman on her way home. For several ri, sometimes I was ahead
of her, sometimes behind. We fell to chatting. Her figure was graceful.
Her appearance was charming. That is how I came to write these
eighteen verses, taking on the voice of a woman. I have entitled them
“Verses on the topic ‘Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment.’”
Verses on the topic “Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment”
Eighteen stanzas
yabuiri ya
Naniwa o idete
Nagaragawa
servants’ holiday—
leaving Naniwa,
I am at the Nagara River
haru kaze ya
tsutsumi nagŇshite
ie tŇshi
spring wind—
the embankment is long,
home is still so far away
tsutsumi yori orite hŇsŇ o tsumeba
Coming down from the embankment
to gather fragrant herbs,
my path was blocked by briars and
brambles.
Is it that the briars and brambles envy
me,
so they tear my hem and scratch my
thighs?
kei to kyoku to michi o fusagu
keikyoku nanzo tojŇ naru
kun o saki katsu ko o kizutsuku
keiryş ishi tenten
ishi o funde kŇkin o toru
tasha-su suijŇ no ishi
ware o shite kun o nurasazarashimu o
The stream is dotted with rocks.
Walking on the rocks, I gather wild
parsley.
I am grateful to the rocks that rise
above the water.
Thanks to them, my hem will not get
wet.
APPENDIX
253
ikken no
cha mise no yanagi
oi ni keri
the teahouse’s
willow tree
—it has grown so old!
cha mise no rŇbasu ware o mite
ingin ni
buyŇ o ga shi katsu waga shun’i
o homu
The old woman in the teashop saw me,
and kindly
offered compliments on my health and
praise for my spring clothes.
ten chş ni kaku ari
There were two customers in the
teashop
talking in Naniwa1 dialect.
Throwing down three strings of coins
to pay their bill
they left, to make room for me to sit
down.
yoku kai su KŇnan no go
shusen sanbin o nageuchi
ware o mukae tŇ o yuzutte saru
koeki sanryŇke
byŇji tsuma o yobu
tsuma kitarazu
hina o yobu rigai no tori
rigai kusa chi ni mitsu
hina tobite kaki o koen to hossu
kaki takŇshite otsuru koto sanshi
shunsŇ michi
sansa naka ni shŇkei ari
ware o mukau
at the old post station there are two or
three houses—
a cat calls to his mate,
but his mate does not come
Outside the fence, a hen calls her
chicks:
there’s a lot of good grass outside the
fence.
The chicks all want to get over the
fence
but it is high, and they fail three or
four times.
spring grasses: the road splits into
three—
the middle one is a shortcut:
it welcomes me home
———
1
Literally, the Jiangnan dialect ᳯධ⺆.
254
APPENDIX
tanpopo hana sakeri sanzan gogo
gogo wa kŇ ni
sanzan wa shiroshi kitoku su
kyonen kono michi yori su
Dandelions bloom, in threes, in fives:
five yellow ones here,
there, three white; I remember
I walked this path years ago.
awaremi toru tanpopo kuki
mijikŇshite chichi o amaseri
I pick some of these dandelions that
tug at my heart—
their short stems are full of milk
mukashi mukashi shikiri
ni omou jibo no on
With a pang, I remember my
mother’s kindness, long long ago.
jibo no kaihŇ betsu ni haru ari
In her arms there was a special kind of
spring.
haru ari seichŇ shite Naniwa ni ari
I grew up in that spring. Now I live in
Naniwa
in a rich man’s house by Naniwa
Bridge where the plum blossoms are
white.
ume wa shiroshi NaniwakyŇ hen
zaishu no ie
shunjŇ manabi etari Naniwaburi
I learned the ways of Naniwa’s spring,
and took on its airs.
gŇ o jishi tei ni somuku mi sanshun
moto o wasure sue o toru tsugiki
no ume
For three springs I neglected my home,
turned my back on my little brother.
I was a grafted branch of plum,
forgetting my roots.
kokyŇ haru fukashi yukiyukite
mata yukiyuku
Spring is deepening in my old village.
I hurry, and hurry more.
yŇryş chŇtei michi yŇyaku
kudareri
The embankment road, as long as a
willow branch slopes downward at
last.
APPENDIX
255
kyŇshu hajimete miru koen no
ie kŇkon
Straining to see, I get my first glimpse
of home in the twilight
to ni yoru hakuhatsu no hito
otŇto o idaki ware o
Near the gate, someone with white hair
is holding my brother;
matsu haru mata haru
she has waited for me, spring after
spring.
kimi mizu ya kojin Taigi ga ku
Surely you know this verse by the late
Taigi:
yabuiri no
neru ya hitori no
oya no soba
on servants’ holiday
sleeping—she is by the side
of her widowed mother
Sha Buson
256
APPENDIX
Yodo River Songs: Three Verses
(Denga ka: Sanshu)2
shunsui baika o ukabe
nanryş shite To wa Den ni gassu
kinran kimi toku koto nakare
kyşrai fune den no gotoshi
tosui densui ni gassu
kŇryş isshin no gotoshi
shşchş negawaku wa shin o
tomo ni shi
nagaku Naniwa no hito to naran
kimi wa suijŇ no ume no gotoshi
hana mizu ni
ukabitesaru koto sumiyaka nari
shŇ wa kŇtŇ no yanagi no gotoshi
kage mizu ni
shizumite shitagau koto atawazu
———
2
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 11–15.
Plum blossoms drift on the waters of
spring.
The south-flowing Uji joins the Yodo
River.
Oh, love, do not cast off your brocade
line:
the boat will be carried away like
lightning in the rushing shoals.
The waters of the Uji join those of the
Yodo River.
They mingle, they become as one
body.
Please come on board, and lie with me.
We could become Naniwa people, and
live there for a long, long time.
Love, you are like a plum blossom on
the water
a flower floating on the water that
quickly disappears.
I am like the willow on the riverbank, a
shadow in the water
that sinks into the depths, and cannot
follow.
APPENDIX
257
Preface to Make the Past Present (Mukashi o ima), 1774
Our departed teacher Hajin learned the art of haikai from Setsuchş-an
Ransetsu, and with Hyakuri and Kinpş3 as the two other feet of the
tripod, together they caused a new style of haikai to flourish, and they
had an excellent reputation, and many people of the time were strongly
influenced by the style of these three, it is said. Each of them was a
leader of the current style, and they were geniuses that the average
person could not hope to imitate.
SŇa used to live in KokuchŇ of BukŇ, in an area from which one
could see a bell-tower high in the distance; he lived in simplicity,
enjoying reclusion in the center of the town. Waking to the bell on frosty
nights, in the melancholic sleeplessness of old age, he discussed haikai
with me. If I would gossip of the things of the world he would pretend
he was deaf and dull-witted. What a splendid old gentleman he was. One
evening, he sat formally and said, “The Way of haikai is not necessarily a
matter of devoting yourself to your teacher’s rules. Changing with the
times, transforming with the times in a spontaneous manner, disregarding what has existed before or what may come into being later is the way
it should be.” Struck by this meditation-master’s rod I had a sudden
insight, and have some small understanding of the thusness of haikai.
Nowadays what I teach my haikai students it is not Hajin’s unaffected
language, but chiefly aspire to BashŇ’s sabi and shiori, as I wish to return
haikai to its past. This is a matter of turning away from external illusions
and responding to inner truths. This is called haikai zen, a dharma that is
transmitted directly, from mind to mind. Those who lack understanding
of this criticize me, saying that turning one’s back on one’s teacher is a
terrible sin, and so forth. With this in mind, the two kasen that follow
depart from that sabi-shiori style, instead, they earnestly imitate SŇa’s
style, and are humbly offered to him. And now on the thirty-third
anniversary of his death we remember him with deep longing, and as if
he turns his eyes to us as he did while still living we feel profoundest
reverence, I and his other disciples present this.4
Yahantei Buson
———
3 Takano Hyakuri (1665–1727) was an Edo poet; Ikutama Kinpş (1666–1726) was
born in Settsu but eventually moved to Edo. Hyakuri and Kinpş were Ransetsu’s chief
disciples.
4 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 139–140.
258
APPENDIX
Preface to Elder BashŇ Verse-linking Anthology
(BashŇ Ň tsukeai shş), 1774
To learn about haikai verse links (tsugiku ⛮ฏ), you must first of all
memorize the verses of BashŇ, and know the relationship between the
three verses involved in linking (i.e., the uchikoshi, maeku, and tsukeku). If
for three days you do not recite the Elder’s verses, thorns will grow in
your mouth. However, the Elder’s verses are to be found in a broad
range of anthologies, and are not easy to find. Thus we have taken
excerpts, condensed them, and should there be people who are devoted
to the Way, we present them. A disciple of my school had this printed,
saying that it would save the trouble of copying it by hand.5
Heian (Kyoto)
Shiko-an Buson
———
5
Ibid., p. 142.
APPENDIX
259
“Account of the Rebuilding of the BashŇ Hermitage in Eastern Kyoto”
(RakutŇ BashŇ-an saikŇ-ki), 1776
There is a Zen temple at the southwest foot of Mount Hiei in IchijŇjimura. It is called Konpuku-ji. The local people have given it a name; they
call it the BashŇ-an. If you walk twenty paces beyond a stone staircase
toward the green mountainside, there is a hill. This is where the ruins of
the BashŇ-an are, they say. Of course this is a quiet, secluded place,
where it is said that the green moss has buried the traces of human
beings for some hundred years, but the deep bamboo grove seems like it
is enveloped in the smoke of a tea-fire. Streams flow, clouds linger, the
trees are ancient, birds sleep, and the sense of the past is powerful. While
it could be said to be some distance from the realm of fame and profit in
the capital, it cannot be called altogether separate from the dust of the
ordinary world.6 Beyond its brushwood fence is the sound of crowing
roosters and barking dogs, cattle drivers and woodcutters go around the
path by its gate. It is near the house of a tofu seller, and not far from a
wine shop. As a result, it is frequently visited by kanshi and haikai poets,
and it is convenient for savoring half a day’s silence, and also offers
means for procuring a meal to stave off hunger.
First of all, for how long has this place been celebrated as the BashŇan? If you ask the children who gather wild herbs or the women who
thresh barley where the BashŇ-an is, they always point to this place.
Indeed it has had this name since the distant past. However, nobody
knows the reason. I heard confidentially that long ago there was a priest
called Tesshş ㋕⥱ [d. 1698], who lived at the temple, but he also kept
an outbuilding on this site, and he enjoyed living a simple life doing his
own washing and cooking, and he refused all visitors, guarding his
seclusion, but, hearing BashŇ’s verses, wept, thinking BashŇ was
someone who has escaped the world of illusion and entered into the
realm of enlightened practice. The verses were always on his lips.
Around that time, BashŇ travelled east and west of Yamashiro on a
poetry-journey, cleansing himself of worldly impurities in the waves of
Kiyotaki waterfall, appreciating the change of seasons in the clouds over
Arashiyama,7 and extolling the pleasure of the “fragrant wind” blowing
———
6 An allusion to a sentence in BashŇ’s Genjş-an ki ᐛ૑ᐻ⸥ (Record of the Unreal
Hermitage, 1690), about having a fondness for silence and solitude.
7 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 68.
Rokugatsu ya
Sixth Month—
260
APPENDIX
in from far away to reach JŇzan’s ਂጊ summer robe.8 He visited
ChŇshŇ’s 㐳ཕ old tomb, and appreciated the sight of an itinerant priest
traveling alone on a cold night; 9 and also wrote, “who honors us with his
presence, wearing rush matting;”10 he emulated the poetic taste of Mount
Gu-shan in writing “yesterday, was your crane stolen?”11 He hiked with a
walking stick at the foot of ņhie (Mount Hiei),12 and brushed the
morning mist from the hem of his hemp robe, crossing over Shirakawa
Mountain,13 and he gazed over the lake water,14 opening his eyes wide
———
mine ni kumo oku
covering its peak in cloud
Arashiyama
Arashiyama
8 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 74.
JŇzan no zŇ:
Addressed to a Portrait of JŇzan
kaze kaoru
fragrant breeze—
haori wa eri mo
as for his jacket
tsukurowazu
even the collar is untidy
Ishikawa JŇzan ⍹Ꮉਂጊ (1583–1672) was a kanshi poet and bunjin.
9 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 33.
chŇshŇ no
ChŇshŇshi’s tomb—
haka mo meguru ka
do you travel here too,
hachi tatataki
itinerant priest?
Kinoshita ChŇshŇshi ᧁਅ㐳ཕሶ (1568–1649) was a waka poet, whose Kyohaku shş
᜼⊕㓸 (Kyohaku anthology, published 1649) has the verse hachi tataki / akatsuki gata no
/ hito koe wa / fuyu no yo sae mo / naku hototogisu (itinerant priest / your lone voice towards
dawn— / a hototogisu / that sings / even on a winter’s night).
10 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 19.
komo o kite
who honors us with his presence
tarebito imasu
wearing a straw mat—
hana no haru
flowery spring
Imasu is an honorific verb, suggesting that the person addressed is worthy of great
respect. Even though he is so poor he wraps himself in a straw mat, the speaker wonders
if he is perhaps a saint.
11 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 39.
ume shiroshi
plum blossoms are white
kinŇ ya tsuru o
were your cranes
nusumareshi
stolen yesterday?
The verse refers to Chinese poet and recluse Lin Heqing ᨋ๺㕏 (Lin Bu ᨋㅔ, 967–
1028) who lived on Mount Gu-shan in Hangzhou’s ᧮Ꮊ West Lake ⷏ḓ. He remained
in seclusion for twenty years, with only his beloved plum trees and cranes for company.
BashŇ’s hokku is an aisatsu, suggesting that his host is so much like Lin Heqing in poetic
refinement that the fact that he has no cranes about means that they could only have
been stolen.
12 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 25.
ņhie ya
Mount Hiei—
shi no ji o hikite
tracing out a line
hito kasumi
one shred of mist
13 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 63.
yamaji kite
travelling a mountain road
nani yara yukashi
somehow so affecting—
sumiire
a violet
APPENDIX
261
like Du Fu ᧡↭.15 In the haziness around the pine of Karasaki,16 it
seems he had a profound experience of sublime poetic insight. It is likely
that, because the place was such a pleasant stroll from the Kyoto, from
time to time he took a rest from his journeys here on the stony hill.
However, after he passed away, with “a dream on a withered moor”
as his death poem, this priest grieved deeply, and gave his hut the name
BashŇ Hermitage, no doubt because he admired the Elder’s poetic style,
in order that it should not be forgotten after his death. I have heard that
there are many examples of cases in China where people would name
their hermitages after their pleasure in the rain, and so on.
Nevertheless, it is not generally known that this place is called BashŇan. This is not to mention the fact that there is nothing he wrote left
even as a relic of his brush, so I do not think it could be proved. The
chief priest of Konpuku-ji says, “An extremely learned elderly man who
lived here until recently told me that the verse about the melancholy of
the lonely hototogisu, ‘I am desolate, but make me even more so’17 was
something he (BashŇ) wrote for amusement while he was at this
mountain temple. Therefore why is it not recorded in deep-colored ink
that will not fade like the dew and frost? Alas, Zen (literally, mukudoku
ήഞᓼ, not accumulating merit) practices are strict, and one achieves
enlightenment without reference to the written word, so that one
abandons and regards as worthless even the holy sutras. Because people
very lacking in sensitivity say ‘Why should we keep things like this (i.e.,
BashŇ’s writings)?’ they thoughtlessly rejected them, and let a place like
this fall into a state where it becomes home only to silverfish. It is a
shame.” I listened to this kind of talk sadly.
In any case, there is no way to seek for such things. Still, because it
would be a sin to pointlessly abandon a place so picturesque, that has
such a splendid reputation, in the end I talked about it with like-minded
people, and we rebuilt the hut in form,18 and at the beginning of the
———
14
Lake Biwa.
Tang poet, 712–770.
16 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 26.
Karasaki no
Karasaki’s pine
matsu wa hana yori
more hazy than
oboro nite
its cherry blossoms
17 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 99.
uki ware o
I am desolate,
sabishigarase yo
but make me even lonelier,
kankodori
hototogisu
18 The BashŇ Hermitage was actually rebuilt in 1781.
15
262
APPENDIX
Fourth Month, when one waits to hear the call of the hototogisu, and the
end of the Ninth Month, when the stag bellows, we meet at this temple
without fail, and try to emulate the poetic style of BashŇ. DŇryş was the
leader of the rebuilding project. DŇryş’s great-grandfather was Tan-an
မᐻ with whom BashŇ had studied Chinese literature, it is said. That is
why DŇryş was left with the project now—more than anyone else he
had a karmic connection to it.
The thirteenth day of the Fifth Month of 1776. Recorded by Yahantei
Buson of Kyoto 19
———
19
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 155–158.
APPENDIX
263
New flower gathering (Shin hanatsumi) Prose section20
Five origins anthology (Gogenshş ੖ర㓸)21 consists of Kikaku’s own
selections, and from the first he wrote it out in his own handwriting and
gave it to the publisher, intending it as a thing to be propagated among
many people, so naturally even his selection principles must have strict.
However, when you actually inspect this anthology, you find it for the
most part contains verses that are merely difficult to understand; verses
you would consider good are very few. The verses among these that are
popular are all light and easy to understand. Thus, even among verses
which the poet himself felt pride in, thinking “these are well-written,”
those which are very difficult and not easily comprehensible are like fine
brocade worn in the dark, and could be considered useless.
When you read the verse collections of various poets, for the most
part they are those that have been published posthumously. Only Five
origins anthology was compiled during the poet’s lifetime.
I think it is better not to publish hokku collections. After a collection
is published, one’s reputation always diminishes immediately. One
cannot help feeling that works like Ransetsu anthology and Ransetsu anthology
did not serve the reputation of their authors. Why should we even
discuss those of mediocre poets? What one would call a good verse is
very difficult to achieve. Kikaku is called the Li Qinglian ቄ㕍⬒ (i.e., Li
Bo) of haikai poets. But, out of the numerous verses that even he wrote,
one does not think to deem even twenty of the excellent. Still, though
there are a very large number of overly complex verses in Kikaku’s
anthology, every time I read it I feel intrigued. This is where Kikaku is a
superior poet. In general; one thinks that his uncluttered style is good.
In collections like Otsuyş anthology there are some good verses but as
you keep reading you eventually find it tiresome.
———
20 Shimizu Takayuki shows that there are close connections between Shinhanatsumi’s
stories of the supernatural and those in Uji Collection tales ቝᴦᜪㆮ‛⺆ (Uji shşi
monogatari); in particular, the tale of Chikukei and Buson’s encounter with a badger while
staying at KenshŇ-ji in Tango has many similarities with one in the Uji collection. He
points out that Buson’s tales are quite different from those of Ueda Akinari, who became
famous for his Tales of moonlight and rain, a collection of stories about ghosts and
monsters, in that Buson’s stories, unlike Akinari’s, are presented as if he or one of his
friends had personally experienced the events described. Shimizu and Kuriyama, Buson,
Issa, pp. 225–226.
21 Published 1749.
264
APPENDIX
Five origins anthology was something that Kikaku intended to publish
during his lifetime; he personally chose the verses, and then wrote them
out himself properly on fine-quality paper, but at last, when it was at the
point of being sent to the woodblock-carver he died without having his
intentions realized. A certain shrine cleric hid Kikaku’s manuscript and
would not circulate it, and it was only after a friend of mine called
Hyakuman-bŇ Shigen ⊖ਁဌᣦේ paid a high price, went to a lot of
trouble and effort, and one way or another he somehow convinced him
to part with it. Right away he he discussed it with me, saying, “Please
copy this out without changing anything.” While I agreed to do this
without hesitation, even before I had started to work on it something
happened,22 and I left Edo, and went to stay with GantŇ of Yşki as my
host in ShimŇsa, and day and night we practiced haikai; by chance, I met
Ryşkyo, who was on a pilgrimage to Tsukuba, and participated in haikai
meetings here and there; and I accompanied Tanpoku on a journey to
KŇzuke, and we stayed at inns in various places; we travelled around the
bay at Matsushima and were swept away by the splendid scenery; we
stayed overnight at Soto-no-hama, and as in the story of the pearls of
Kappo, forgot to return home, and while I visited many other places,
more than three years went by. This being the case, how could Hyakuman wait for me to return to Edo? Eventually he had Kisei ੉ᚑ copy
the manuscripts, had it carved in wood [i.e., to have it published], and at
last it was published. That was what we now know as Five origins anthology.
If you compare it to the original, there is not the least difference, and it
has lost none of the distinct character of Kikaku’s own hand. Now, the
original is preserved by Umitomo Gyokuga ᶏ෹₹ጾ.
The first object of training is to be able to distinguish between a hokku
and a hiraku. It is not something one can be careless about.
A verse that resembles a hiraku but is actually a hokku:23
nabe sagete
yodo no kobashi o
yuki no hito
carrying a cooking pot
over the Yodo River bridge
someone in the snow
This is a hiraku that resembles a hokku:24
———
22
That is, the death of Hayano Hajin in 1742.
Because it lacks a kireji. However, it is a fully developed verse that captures the
scene succinctly and completely, and so therefore is a good hokku.
23
APPENDIX
ņmi no ya
te no hira hodo na
kumo okoru
265
at ņmi
clouds come up
like they could fit in the palm of one’s
hand
SetsudŇ 㔐ၴ
Inscribed on a painting of Ezo (Ainu), by Maruyama Mondo ਣጊਥ᳓:
kobu de fuku
noki no shizuku
ya sakki ame
on the eaves
thatched with seaweed
drops of Fifth Month rain
Mondo
There was certain person who had a passion for the handguard of a
short-sword that was said to have been made from a nail-cover taken
from the palace of Xianyang; he always had it at his waist and cherished
it. How much did this antique, inlaid with a bird-and-flower pattern of
precious metals, and evoke the splendor of a thousand years! However,
asking about what proof was there that this was indeed a nail-cover from
the Xianyang Palace is nonsensical talk. Somehow, if he had not claimed
it was a nail-cover from the Xianyang Palace, it would have been a
wonderful thing, and it is regrettable that he did.
Even if it had been woodshavings from Nagara Bridge or the dried
frog of Ide, I am sure that the people of today would find it contemptible and dubious.
Tokiwa Tanpoku’s Korean tea bowl had been carefully preserved by
the warrior ņtaka Gengo; it was handed down to Tanpoku from that
very Gengo, and Tanpoku bequeathed it to me. Indeed it had an eminent
history of past possession, but what proof was there? Lest it should
become like the nail-cover of Xianyang palace, I quickly gave it away.
Tenrin-in temple of Matsushima is alongside Zuigan-ji and is a
splended Zen monastery. Once, when I was a guest there, the head of
the temple gave me an old plank which was more than a foot in length
and said, “Lord So-and-So of Sendai was a waka poet without compare.
He hired a large number of workers, and had them dredge the bottom of
the Natori River and they managed to pull out a fossilized log. This log
———
24 Because it has a kireji. However, it does not have a kigo, it does not make reference
to ņmi’s conventional associations, and it lacks the suggestive overtones that characterize a good hokku.
266
APPENDIX
was used to make a writing-box, and together with some brushes made
from Miyagino bushclover-wood, it was presented to the head of the
NijŇ poetry school. This plank is what is left from the log, and is
something that should not be treated lightly.” It had a distinct grain like
that of zelkova wood. Because it had spent a thousand years on the river
bottom, it was black, and as if it had turned to iron, when you tapped it,
it made a hollow sound. It weighed only about ten kin, and even when I
bundled it up in a cloth and put it on my back, I barely managed to carry
it to Shiroishi post station. Because I did not think I could bear the
fatigue of carrying it over a long distance, I left it under the veranda of
the guest-house where I spent the night and continued on my journey
home.
Sometime later, when I mentioned this to Tanpoku at the home of
GantŇ of Yşki, Tanpoku scolded me angrily, saying, “What! You dirty
priest who throws away treasure! I’ll have it for myself! Is someone
around that I can send? Go right away!” and he contacted Shinryş in
Sukagawa. Shinryş wrote a letter, and sent a servant with him to visit the
lodging-place at Shiroishi. The servant said, “A priest who once stayed
here left something or other behind, and I have come to look for it.”
The innkeeper fortunately looked around, and found it, and gave it to
him, and [Shinryş] took it. Later, GantŇ received it [from Tanpoku], and
it was made into the inkstone-cover called “Fishes and Cranes.” It is
more than seventy ri from Yşki to Shiroishi, and although much time
had passed, the object that we obtained and brought home was an
exceedingly precious one.
Matsuki Tantan did not belong to the company of frivolous poets. A
long time ago, I asked Tantan to add and inscription to a painting of
BashŇ, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. Tantan responded with:
momochidori
inaŇsetori
yobukodori
plovers
rice-birds
and cuckoos25
Tantan
———
25 These were the three birds of the Ancient and modern poetry collection (Kokinshş) secret
tradition (momochidori, inaousedori, yobukodori). Tantan compares the three haikai poets to
these birds.
APPENDIX
267
This painting is now in the possession of Shumei ⃨᣿ of NikkŇ in
ShimŇsa.26
JŇş of Yşki established a second house and had an old man stay there as
caretaker. Even though it was in the middle of the town, it was surrounded by trees and luxuriant with plants, and because it was a place
where one could escape the hustle and bustle of the world, I myself
stayed there for quite some time.
The old man had nothing to do there other than keep the place clean.
One time he spent the long autumn night telling his beads in the light of
a single lamp, while I stayed in the back room, working on my haikai and
my Chinese poetry. Eventually I grew tired, and I spread out the blankets
and pulled them over my head. But just as I was drifting off to sleep,
there was a tapping sound on the shutters by the veranda. There must
have been some twenty or thirty taps. My heart beat faster, and I
thought, “How strange!” But when I got out of bed, and quietly slid
open the shutter to take a look, there was nothing out there. When I
went back to bed and pretended to be asleep, again there was the same
tapping sound. Once again I got out of bed and took a look, but there
was nothing there. “How very eerie,” I thought, and consulted the old
caretaker. I asked, “What should we do?” The caretaker said, “It’s that
badger again. The next time it starts tapping like that, quickly open the
shutter and chase after it. I’ll come around from the back door, and it
will probably be hiding under the fence.” I saw that he was holding a
switch.
I went back to bed and once more pretended to be asleep. Again
there was the sound of tapping. When I shouted, “Aha!” and opening
the shutter and running out, the old man came out too, yelling, “Gotcha!” But there was nothing there. So we both got very angry, but even
though we looked in every corner of the property, we still couldn’t find a
thing.
This went on for some five nights running. Wearied by it all, I had
finally come to the conclusion that I could no longer stay there, but then
a servant of JŇş’s house came and said, “You will not be disturbed
tonight, sir. This morning one of the villagers shot an old badger in a
place called Yabushita. I believe that there can be no doubt that all of
that fuss and trouble was the work of this badger. Rest well tonight.”
———
26
Nikko is actually in what was KŇzuke Province.
268
APPENDIX
And indeed, from that night on all of the noises ceased. I began to
think sadly that this animal which I had thought of as a nuisance had
really offered my some comfort from the loneliness of a traveler’s night,
and I felt pity for the badger’s soul, and that we had formed a karmic
bond. For that reason I called upon a cleric named Priest Zenkş, made a
donation, and for one night chanted nembutsu in order that the badger
might eventually achieve Buddhahood.
aki no kure
hotoke ni bakeru
tanuki kana
late in autumn
transformed into a Buddha
—the badger
A badger came to the door to visit, and it seems that people said he
made tapping sounds with his tail, but that was not the case. In fact, he
pressed his back against the door.
A long time ago, I stayed at a temple called KenshŇ-ji at Miyazu in
Tango Province for more than three years. In the beginning of autumn, I
suffered from fever for some fifty days. There was a reception room in
the rear of the temple that was very large, and because all the shoji were
shut tight, there was not a single crack left open for the wind to blow
through. The room next to it was turned into my sick-room, and the
fusuma sliding doors between the rooms were closed up tight. One
night, at about the time of the Fourth Hour,27 because there was a slight
break in my fever, thinking I might go to the toilet, I got out of bed and
staggered off. The toilet was down the veranda walkway alongside the
reception room in the northwest corner. The lamps had been extinguished by now and it was terribly dark, so I opened the fusuma that
closed off my room from the other, and when first I went to put my
right foot into the room, to my surprise I stepped on something furry. I
was terrified, so I instantly jerked back my foot, and though I listened
intently for some time, there was no sound at all. Although I was full
dread and shocked, I patted myself on the chest to calm my heart, and
this time with my left foot, thinking, “This must be about the right
place,” I made a sudden kick with my left foot. However, I felt absolutely nothing there. Now I was even more perplexed, and every hair on
me was standing on end. Trembling, I went toward the refectory kitchen,
and woke up some of the priests from sound sleep, and when I told
———
27
The Fourth Hour started at two a.m.
APPENDIX
269
them what had happened, they all got up and came with me. When we
went to look inside the reception room with lamps blazing, all the
fusuma and shoji were shut tight as usual, with no openings for anything
to escape, of course there was nothing unusual there. The priests said,
“Mister, your fever has made you muddle-headed, and you’re talking
nonsense.” Furious, they all went back to bed. Feeling embarrassed
because I had been given such a scolding, I too got back into bed. Just as
I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone had been laid on my
chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my voice was within
the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over and said, “How
extraordinary! What’s the matter?” and saved me by waking me up.
When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had experienced,
he said, “Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be the work of
that badger.”
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like
fallen petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the
walkway. And so, even those people who before had said I was talking
nonsense and scolded me, said wonderingly, “Hm, maybe it really was
something.”
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry
to wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was
covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying
that this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on
his testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi jŇ no
Kinkakuji
autumn passes, and looking back—
eight jŇ of camphor
in the Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Chikukei
There is a man called Nakamura HyŇzaemon who lives in Shimodate, in
Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei haikai school, and
his haikai name was FşkŇ. He was of unequalled wealth, and lived in a
270
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fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens were full of unusual
stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let loose birds, and the
scenery of the garden’s artificial mountain surpassed views of nature. He
was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes the provincial
governor would come to call. His wife’s name was Omitsu. She was the
daughter of a rich man called Fujii Somebody, and was skilled at waka
and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began
to go into decline, many peculiar things happened. Among them,
something that would make one’s hair stand on end happened one year
during in the Twelfth Month, during preparations for the New Year,
when a great many mochi rice-cakes were set inside tubs to keep. When
mochi started disappearing in the middle of the night, they assumed that
a thief had been coming, and put a lid like the door of a gate over every
tub, and on top of the lids they lay heavy stones. The following morning,
when they fearfully looked inside the tubs, they found that although the
lids had been completely undisturbed, more than half the mochi were
missing out of each. At that point, FşkŇ went to Edo on official
business. During this time Omitsu looked after the household very
carefully, and she treated everyone with great compassion; people pitied
her and wept sympathetic tears. One night, while she was sewing a fine
robe in preparation for the New Year, because she was going to stay up
late, she told all the servants to go to bed before her. She closed herself
up alone in a room, with all the doors and windows shut tight, where
there would have been no place for anything to hide. The lamps were
brightly lit, and she worked at her sewing with a tranquil mind. Just at the
time that the sound of a water clock made her think, it must be about the
Fourth Hour, suddenly five or six old, decrepit-looking foxes with
dragging tails walked right past where Omitsu was sitting. The fusuma
and the shoji where still closed tightly, and because there was not so
much as a crack left open, it was as if they had drilled their way in.
Thinking this was very strange, she did not take her eyes off them, but
they came and went just as if they were passing through a field with no
obstructions, and then they disappeared. Omitsu went right on sewing as
if she had not found anything particularly surprising about this.
The following day I went to the house to visit her. Hoping to offer
some words of comfort, I asked, “How are you doing? You must have a
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271
lot on your mind, since your husband is so slow in returning.” Omitsu
looked even more radiant than usual, and told me quite calmly, “A
mysterious thing happened last night,” and described what had happened. I listened, nodding, I moved closer to her, sliding on my knees,
and said, “How amazing! When something that strange happened, why
didn’t you wake the servants, why did you stay there all alone? You are
extraordinarily steadfast.” She answered, “Oh no, I just didn’t think it
was all that frightening.” For someone who says that sometimes even the
sound of the rain and the wind in the miscanthus grass is so scary she
covers her head, the fact that she was not afraid that night is something
that is truly unexplainable.
Also there was the old man called Shinga, a disciple of Kaiga. One night,
Shinga was spending the night at FşkŇ’s house, and he was sleeping in
the library. It was the eighteenth night of the Ninth Month. The moon
was clear and dew was cool, and there was the sound of insects chirping
in the grass, and because it was so affecting, he slept with the shutters
open and only the shoji closed. At about the Fourth Hour, he suddenly
sat up in bed and looked outside, and it was as bright as day from the
dazzling moonlight. Several foxes sat in a row on the veranda, waving
their bushy tails. They cast very distinct shadows on the shoji, and there
are no words to describe how frightening it was. How could Shinga
stand it at that moment? He ran toward the kitchen in a panic, and going
up to a room where he thought the host was sleeping, he knocked at the
fusuma. “Hey, wake up!” he hollered at the top of his voice. This
awakened the servants, who made a big commotion, yelling, “Burglars!
There are burglars here!” Hearing this, Shinga himself calmed down, and,
his eyes fully awake now, he looked at what he was doing. He realized he
was knocking on the door of the toilet, shouting, “Sir! Wake up! Help
quickly!” Later he spoke of this, and said, “I am a fool, even if I do say
so myself.”
Then there was the case of the swordsman Akimoto Gohei
⑺ᧄ੖౓ⴡ, who was a retainer for Matsudaira Yamato no Kami
᧻ᐔᄢ๺቞, Lord of Shirakawa Castle. Having had some differences
with his master, he withdrew from service, moved out of the province,28
and changed his name to Suigetsu ㈮᦬. He had a liking for haikai, and
———
28
Iwaki Province, now in Fukushima Prefecture.
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APPENDIX
travelled around YasŇ (i.e., the provinces of KŇzuke, Shimotsuke,
Kazusa, and ShimŇsa) as a haikai poet, staying at the homes of the
wealthy here and there. Just like duckweed floating in a stream, or
mugwort blown about by the wind, he had no home of his own, but was
truly a poetic man (fşryş no okina 㘑ᵹߩ⠃).
He tells this story. One time when this poet was spending the night in
FşkŇ’s back guest room, he heard soft voices, like a group of three old
ladies were gathered underneath the veranda, talking into the night. He
wondered what they were saying, but though he listened closely he
couldn’t make out a word. They just went on talking, and thinking that
this was very sad and touching, he was awake until dawn, he said.
It is good to get the things that you want even if you have to fight for
them. It is good to see the things that you want to see after making an
effort to do so. You must not be careless, thinking that there will surely
be an occasion when you can get or see this again. It is very difficult to
realize your intentions more than once.
The officer Umezu Hanuemon was a trusted retainer in a certain
household, in his post in Naniwa also his service was excellent, and he
received a letter of commendation, and was a person of great fame. Thus
his stipend was worth some ten thousand koku, and was a senior retainer
in the household. He had a liking for haikai, and as his duties permitted
he participated in activities of Kikaku’s school, and took the name
Kiteki. He was a poet with many verses in Kikaku’s collections. This
person, having completed his work in Edo, was about return home to
Akita. Since he was very sad at having to leave Kikaku, he invited him to
come along. Kikaku could not go. Kikaku had another disciple by the
name of ShikŇ. Because he was very skilled at haikai, at Kikaku’s
recommendation he went to attend Kiteki, and sent him off to Akita.
Therefore, Kiteki and Kikaku did not cease exchanging letters, so Ieard.
Among these was a precious letter written in Kikaku’s own hand. Of
course it contained a conventional greeting. After that were included two
or three hokku, and in the following paragraph there was this:
On a certain day in a certain month, the forty-seven loyal retainers
launched a night attack on the enemy stronghold, avenging their dead
lord. They ended up Sengakuji temple with nothing to regret. ShiyŇ,
Shunban and the others performed deeds that were completely without
parallel. Both of those two were practitioners of haikai in those days, they
APPENDIX
273
were young warriors of poetic sensitivity, and above all, their resolve and
emotional depth was endless.
It was truly a document worthy of great respect, and Kiteki kept it
hidden away, like a treasure.
At that time there was a person called Fukami ShintarŇ. He was a
youth so beautiful he would put even He An and Dong Xian to shame.
Kiteki had a great affection for this young man, and they formed a bond
that was closer even than that of Su Wu and Li Ling. ShintarŇ was also
interested in haikai, and went by the name of JŇshŇ. He felt that the
letter from Kikaku was something he wanted for himself, and even
though he did not say anything about it, Kiteki knew what was on his
mind, and ended up giving it to him.
After that a few years passed. Among the disciples of Tantan there
was a man named Bakuten, and he came to Akita from Naniwa and
stayed there for some time. JŇshŇ and Bakuten were both devoted to
haikai, and JŇshŇ gave the letter to Bakuten. After that Bakuten moved
on to Edo, and he lived in a place called Yanagiwara, near Edo Castle,
and sought out a shabby room and lived there. He had always been poor,
and now he had run out of ways to pay for clothing and food; he had no
aquaintances, and no relatives that he could rely on, so he was in real
trouble. When I realized this, I gave him a little something to help him
out of his difficulty. I hosted my own monthly haikai meetings, running
all over the place making his sales pitch. Because of this, when, starting
with people like Hajin, RitŇ, RyŇwa, and Gojaku, people of all kinds
joined, eventually the meeting place became filled to bursting with
participants, and he had splendid haikai group.
Bakuten’s intentions were finally realized when Mokusai Seiga became
a member of the group. He (Bakuten) took the name Ihoku, and
effortlessly composed linked verse sequences of ten thousand verses, and
he safely completed the initiation as a haikai master. His reputation grew
naturally, and he participated in many groups, and anyway was very
successful. Because he felt great affection and gratitude towards me, his
old friend, he told me he would give me the aforementioned Kikaku
letter. I replied, “You have only this to treasure. There won’t be another
one. How can I accept it? I have no need of it.” I firmly declined his
offer.
Afterwards I left Edo, and Ihoku became an old man. And as for the
letter, I am still troubled with wondering whose collection it ended up in.
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Afterword
The above was written by Master Yahantei himself. One summer, the
master decided he would like to write a series of hokku. He prepared a
draft notebook, and calling it Sequel to flower gathering (Zoku hanatsumi
⛯⧎៰), and planned to write ten verses each day. At the end of the
Fourth Month, he had to suspend the work, still unfinished, because of
illness. Around the middle of the Sixth Month, thinking that abandoning
writing something every day was not what he wanted, and after recovering from his illness, he took to recording his thoughts in an unstructured
way, and after that he neglected it for a long time, and finally gave up on
it altogether. After he passed away, I took apart the notebook, and made
its pages into a handscroll, adding some of my own illustrations of the
meaning of the texts. I testify that the handwriting is authentically that of
the master.
Fourth Month, 1784, The Buddha’s Birthday29
Gekkei
———
29
The eighth day of the Fourth Month.
APPENDIX
275
Preface to Shundei verse anthology (Shundei kushş)
Ryş Korekoma edited the manuscript he had inherited from his father,
and asked me to write a preface for it. The preface is as follows.
I went to visit Shundei-sha ShŇha at his second house in the west of
Kyoto. ShŇha asked me a question about haikai. I answered, “Haikai is
that which has as its ideal the use of zokugo, yet transcends zoku. To
transcend zoku yet make use of zoku, the principle of rizoku, is most
difficult. It is the thing that So-and-So Zen master spoke of: ‘Listen to
the sound of the Single Hand,’ in other words haikai zen, the principle of
rizoku.” Through this, ShŇha understood immediately.
He then continued his questions. “Although the essence of your
teaching must be profound, is there not some method of thought that I
could put into use, by which one might seek this by oneself? Indeed, is
there not some shortcut, by which one might, without making a distinction between Other and Self, identify with nature and transcend zoku?” I
answered, “Yes, the study of Chinese poetry. You have been studying
Chinese poetry for years. Do not seek for another way.” Doubtful,
ShŇha made so bold as to ask, “But Chinese poetry and haikai are
different in tenor. Setting aside haikai, and studying Chinese poetry
instead, is that not more like a detour?”
I answered, “Painters have the theory of ‘Avoiding zoku:’ ‘To avoid
the zoku in painting, there is no other way but to read many texts, that is
to say, both books and scrolls, which causes the qi to rise, as commercialism and vulgarity cause qi to fall. The student should be careful about
this.’ To avoid zoku in painting as well, they caused their students to put
down the brush and read books. Less possible still is it to differentiate
Chinese poetry and haikai.” With that, ShŇha understood.
Another time he asked, “From ancient times, the many haikai poets
have divided, each to his own gates and doors, and their poetic styles
differ. From which of these gates may I enter into the inner teachings?” I
answered, “In haikai there are no gates and doors. Only what we call the
gate of haikai itself is what acts as the gate. Again, painting theory says,
‘The various painting masters did not divide into gates or build doors.
Gates and doors exist in themselves.’ Haikai is just like this too. Learn
exhaustively each tradition, and keep these in your mind, and you
yourself will choose the best from among them, and make use of it
according to the occasion. There is no other way but being introspective
about the state of your mind. However, do take care to always choose
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APPENDIX
those companions, because if you do not interact with those them, you
will not be able achieve this ideal.”
ShŇha said, “What do you mean by ‘those companions’?” I answered,
“I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in SodŇ,
accompanying Onitsura. Renewing acquaintance with these Four Elders
every single day. Above all, separating yourself from the realm of fame
and fortune a little; wandering in the garden, and holding your poetrygatherings in nature’s midst. Drinking wine, having witty conversations,
and when you write poems, just letting them come to you, without
forcing them. Doing this day after day, one day one meets the Four
Elders. Be always in quiet contemplation of the natural landscape with a
poet’s spirit. Close your eyes, and earnestly compose your poem, and
when you have done it, open them again. The Four Elders are gone.
Now alone, you wonder, ‘where did they go?’ pausing, entranced. That is
when you smell the sweet fragrance of cherry blossoms, and see the
moonlight reflecting off the water. That is the answer to your question
about the method to haikai.” ShŇha responded with a little grin.
He ended up becoming a member of my poetry circle and composed
thousands of verses. He had a particular contempt for the work of
Bakurin and ShikŇ. I told him, “Even though the tone of Bakurin and
ShikŇ may be called vulgar, they are skillful at describing human emotions and ordinary situations. For this reason, imitating their work might
not be entirely unhelpful sometimes, if you treat it as a poetic technique.
It is the same for Chinese poetry: one has no objections to Li ᧘ and Du
᧡,30 but still, learn what one can from Yuan ర and Bo ⊕.”31
ShŇha said, “But, Master, do not confuse me with this phony zen.
Painters view Wu ๓ and Zhang ᒛ32 as the devils of painting. Bakurin
and ShikŇ are like them, nothing but devils of haikai.” He criticized
Bakurin and ShikŇ more and more, went straight ahead without getting
distracted by trivial things, and attained the level of haikai excellence.
Tragically, one day he fell gravely ill, and did not recover. As time
passed he grew thin and frail, and there was nothing medicine could do
for him. Realizing that the moment had come to die, he called for me
———
30
Li Bo and Du Fu.
Yuan Zhen రᘅ (779–831) and Bo Juyi. They were mid-Tang poets credited with
bringing about a revival of yuefu (Music Bureau) poetry.
32 Wu Wei ๓உ (1459–1508; hao ภ, Xiaoxian ዊ઄), and Zhang Lu ᒛ〝 (1464–1538,
hao, Pingshan ᐔጊ), were both Ming court painters. This alludes to the disdain that
literati felt for court painters.
31
APPENDIX
277
and grasped my hand, and said, “What I regret is that I will not be able
to join you in the new style (ryşkŇ).” He died with tears in his eyes. I
wept, saying over and over again, “My haikai has gone to the West. My
haikai has gone to the West.”
The above comes from a volume called Yahan chats over tea (Yahan meiwa
ᄛඨ⨏⹤). Yahan chats over tea was a book that I myself edited, a record
of discussions between various people. And I do not use it here as the
introduction to this collection without a very good reason. This text
shows how pure and uncluttered ShŇha’s work was, and I hope that by
knowing about his character readers will appreciate his verse as being
without artifice. That he was not to be compared to a sheep who drapes
itself in a tiger’s skin is what, I, Old Buson, aged sixty-two, write at the
Midnight Studio in the capital, 1777, the seventh day of the Twelfth
Month.
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APPENDIX
Linked Verse Sequence “Rape-flowers—” (Na no hana ya)
1. Buson
na no hana ya
tsuki wa higashi ni
hi wa nishi ni
rape-flowers—
the moon in the east
the sun in the west
In a field of blossoming rapeseed plants that blankets the landscape in
yellow, the full moon rises in the east as the sun sinks into the west.
Scholars have pointed out the similarity between this verse and the
second of Tao Yuanming’s “Untitled Poems:”
The white sun sinks into the western slopes,
the pale moon rises over the eastern peaks.
For ten thousand leagues the light shines,
Over a great distance the sky is bright33
⊕ᣣ᷍⷏㒙
⚛᦬಴᧲Ꭸ
㆔㆔ਁ㉿ノ
⭡⭡ⓨਛ᥊
It is also alludes to this verse by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro:
himugashi no
no ni kagiroi no
tatsu miete
kaerimisureba
tsuki katabukinu
I watch
the sky grow lighter
over the eastern fields;
turning around I see
the moon has dropped down low. 34
Man’yŇshş, vol. 1, no. 48
Na no hana ya inverts the scenery of the Tao Yuanming verse. The
Chinese verse presents a common-sense narrative of day giving way to
night, by mentioning the sun first and then the moon. Buson has
reversed the order, looking first to the east to describe the position of
the moon, and then to the west, where the sun is disappearing.
———
33 Cited in Teruoka Yasutaka, Za no bungei: Buson no renku (ShŇgakukan, 1978), p. 123.
For a complete English translation of the Tao Yuanming poem, see James Hightower,
The Poetry of T’ao Ch’ien (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), p. 187.
34 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 4, Man’yŇshş I (Iwanami Shoten, 1957), p.
35.
APPENDIX
279
Since the hokku merely names the elements of the scene without
adding much extra detail, many later commentators, especially those
writing about this hokku as a verse independent of the sequence, have
labeled this as being in the shasei style. Although Buson hokku anthology has
“Spring scene” and Iwama Otsuni’s ጤ㑆ਸੑ (1756–1823) Buson’s
hokku explained (Buson hokku kai ⭢᧛⊒ฏ⸃, 1833) includes the
headnote “Scenery outside the capital,” later critics have tended to ignore
these.35 However, others, like Teruoka Yasutaka, believe that the
headnote does indeed have real meaning, and was added to give a kanshilike overtone to the verse.36 In any case, when this verse was used as a
hokku to begin a sequence, there was no headnote.
As we saw above, this hokku was not composed specifically for this
sequence, and so it does not seem to be functioning as an aisatsu
complimenting the host or the location. However, it is properly hokkulike in being light in tone and sublime in scale.
2. Chora
yama moto tŇku
sagi kasumi yuku
at the foot of a mountain, distantly
herons grow misty
The waki, by Chora, continues the description of the scene begun by the
hokku. He adds to its wide panorama-like view some living creatures—
herons, whose forms are growing indistinct in the mist as the light fails.
The hokku’s brightly colored landscape starts to fade a bit.
Nomura Kazumi suggests that this verse alludes to one by Go-Toba:
miwataseba
yama moto kasumu
minasegawa
yşbe wa aki to
nani omoi kemu
when I gaze out
to where mist covers the foot of the
mountain
at Minase River
why did I think
“in autumn, it is the evening”?37
———
35 In Lectures on Buson’s hokku (Buson kushş kŇgi ⭢᧛ฏ㓸⻠), NaitŇ Meisetsu ౝ⮮㡆㔐
does not take into account the headnote, writing, “This refers to no more than simple
spring scenery.” Masaoka Shiki writes, “[The headnote] was added to avoid a pedestrian
(tsukinami ᦬ਗ) overly logical interpretation.” Mizuhara ShşŇshi ᳓ේ⑺᪉ሶ (1892–1981)
comments, “In this instance, it must not have any particular meaning. It is simply put
there as a means of adding weight to the verse.” Cited in Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 123.
36 Ibid., p. 123.
37 NKBT, vol. 28, no. 36.
280
APPENDIX
3. KitŇ
watashibune
sakate mazushiku
haru kurete
ferry boat—
his tip is a poor one
late in spring
Because this is the daisan, the situation it describes is supposed to be
different from that existing in the linked hokku and waki, and KitŇ’s
verse accomplishes this. From a panoramic scene of natural landscape,
inhabited only by herons, the focus pulls in on a human figure—a ferry
captain in his boat—and a very human emotion. The season is still
spring, but haru kurete makes it late spring, unlike the reference to na no
hana in the hokku, which bloom in early spring. The end of spring is
supposed to evoke an elegant pang of regret in the hearts of persons of
poetic sensibility. Here there is a feeling of regret at the end of spring,
but it is more pragmatic: the ferry captain is disgruntled over the
stinginess of his passengers.
This is the third spring verse. As is typical of a daisan, the verse ends
in a -te (continuative) form.
4. Buson
okuni gae to wa
aranu soragoto
“Transferred to another province?”
a baseless lie!
The quietly evocative landscape of the waki has disappeared, and now
the scene is completely concerned with human affairs. Buson offers an
explanation for the paucity of the tip: okunigae—the forcible transfer of a
daimyŇ to another fief. Okunigae were one of the Tokugawa shogunate’s
strategies of keeping the daimyŇ under control, preventing them
becoming too rich or powerful. Besides being disruptive, okunigae were
extremely expensive, and if it were the case that the samurai passenger
was serving a daimyŇ under a transfer order, it would account for his
parsimoniousness. However, the ferry captain here does not believe the
explanation, as he has not heard about it before.
As it does not contain a kigo, this is classified as a miscellaneous verse.
5. Chora
wakizashi o
koshiraetareba
haya umishi
when he wore his sword
at his waist
he quickly lost interest
APPENDIX
281
The ferry boat and its captain have disappeared, and now the focus is on
an individual samurai. Having expected the transfer, he has put his sword
on, and readied himself for possible trouble. But, once he realized that
this was only a rumor, the sword seems like an inconvenient burden.
Normally this would be a moon verse, but since the hokku makes
reference to the moon, it is not necessary to do so here.
6. KitŇ
mino kite izuru
yuki no akebono
he goes out dressed in a straw cloak—
a snowy dawn
This verse offers a different reason for the samurai’s disenchantment
with his sword: poetic intoxication. Waking at dawn and realizing that
snow has fallen in the night, he is seized with the elegant desire to see it.
A sword is just a nuisance to someone who is going snow-viewing in a
straw coat.
As Teruoka points out, a straw coat worn in the rain seems shabby
and sad, but when worn in the snow has a special elegance. A hokku by
Buson makes this clear:
ame no toki
mazushiki mino no
yuki ni tomeri
the straw coat,
poor when it rains
is rich in snow38
7. Buson
Ninnaji o
Komatsu no sato to
tare ka iu
Ninna-ji—
some call it
Komatsu Village
Buson takes another view of the elegant person in the maeku, imagining
that his journey through the snow takes him through the area around
Ninna-ji, the temple near Kyoto, in Omuro that he alludes to in the
hokku “have I run into Matabei? / blossoms at Omuro / at their height
(Matabei ni / au ya Omuro no / hana zakari). Emperor KŇkŇ శቁ (r. 884–
887) was buried here, and as he was also called the Komatsu Emperor,
the land nearby got the name Komatsu-no-sato.
———
38
BZ, vol. 1, no. 1190.
282
APPENDIX
8. Chora
koishiki hito no
uma tsunagitari
the beloved one
walks leading a horse
Ninna-ji evoked associations with male homosexual love—the love
between a chigo ⒩ఽ (page) and his older patron. In the 1676 dictionary
of haikai word associations, Companion boat (Ruisenshş 㘃⦁㓸), there is
the entry, “chigo—Ninna-ji.” So the link here is made by describing a man
who has gone to the temple on horseback and is met by his lover, a
young acolyte.
This verse may allude to the Tale of the Heike story of Taira Tsunemasa
ᐔ⚻᡽, who as a child served Ninna-ji’s Imperial Abbot KakushŇ
HoshinnŇ ⷡᕈᴺⷫ₺. Just before he is to leave the capital, Tsunemasa
rides his horse to bid farewell to his former master. Tsunemasa presents
the Abbot with his biwa lute, named Seizan 㕍ጊ, and the two exchange
poems.39 The verse may also allude to another incident in the Tale of the
Heike, when “Lord Komatsu (Taira Shigemori ᐔ㊀⋓) had a saddle put
on a good horse, and had it brought to Nakatsuna, saying, “Indeed, you
actions the other day were excellent! This is a very fine horse. When
night falls, and you leave the barracks to visit your lady, please make use
of it.”40
9. KitŇ
fuki watasu
ayame ga noki o
shinoburan
placed in the thatch
the irises
seem to languish over the eaves
This verse fixes the time of year as around the fifth day of the Fifth
Month. Leaves of iris were put into the thatched eaves of homes as far
back as the Heian period. They were thought to dispell evil spirits as well
as harmful insects. Shinobu has multiple meanings: to hide, to visit a lover
secretly, to long for or remember, to endure suffering. The identity of
“beloved” person in the maeku is changed—it now seems to be a young
woman, for whom the person who decorates his thatch with irises is
longing.
———
39 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 33, Heike monogatari II (Iwanami Shoten,
1959–60), pp. 105–106.
40 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 32, Heike monogatari I (Iwanami Shoten,
1959–60), p. 293.
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283
10. Buson
ame ni mo narazu
yagate hi tomosu
it has not rained—
finally, they light the lamps
The Fifth Month is the beginning of the rainy season, and the maeku’s
reference to the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month Festival (Tango no sekku
┵ඦߩ▵ฏ, celebrated as Children’s Day in the modern period)
prepares us to imagine a day of rain. Toward the end of the day the rain
has stopped, and the lamps are lit.
Teruoka notes that the fifth day of the Fifth Month was also called
“Medicine Day” ⮎ᣣ.
11. Chora
shakuhachi no
keiko kururi to
narabi ite
at shakuhachi practice
they are lined up
in a row
Chora imagines the quiet evening scene of the maeku as the setting for
shakuhachi practice. It seems likely, given the direction that the following
verse takes, that the shakuhachi students here are monks, possibly komusŇ
⯯ή௯ monks of the Fuke ᥉ൻ sect.
12. KitŇ
zoku torae yo
to Ňyake no fure
“catch the criminals!”
says the official notice
KitŇ recasts the scene as one in which an official government order has
come, urging those present to catch a criminal. KomusŇ monks wore
large basket-shaped hats to cover their faces, and were frequently rŇnin,
or samurai who had committed criminal acts and joined the priesthood
to atone for them. Because their lifestyle meant that they could travel
around the country anonymously, they were sometimes used to track
down criminals.41
13. Buson
wase karite
okute mo etaru
kokoro nari
———
41
Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 127.
the early harvest gathered
and the feeling of
the late harvest in as well
284
APPENDIX
Buson takes the “official notice” as an announcement of the rate of the
annual tax. Here, the person who has received the notice, the village
leader perhaps, is relieved because the early crop of rice was a good one,
and the second crop is safely in as well.
The maeku’s injunction, to “take” (torae) the criminals has been realized in the tsukeku’s wase karite (the early rice brought in) and etaru
kokoro—a feeling of having achieved something.
This is an autumn verse.
14. Chora
tenki no tsuzuku
Ňmi-ji no aki
autumn on the Ňmi Road
where the weather is holding
A light verse, which specifies the location of the maeku’s action, and
opens out into a description of landscape. The second autumn verse.
15. KitŇ
monzen no
fune toki idasu
tsuki no kure
untying the boat before the gate
and departing—
the setting moon
The ņmi road runs near Lake Biwa, and this verse introduces a scene
that takes place at the lakeside. Monzen can mean, “in front of the gate of
an ordinary house,” though it also has the implication that the gate
belongs to a temple. Tsuki no kure, setting of the moon, can also mean “a
moonlit evening.”
This is the third autumn verse. It is also a moon verse, which would
ordinarily belong at Number 13.
16. Buson
deshi no sŇzu wa
yoki koromo kite
the disciple priests
wearing fine robes
Buson imagines the boat’s passengers as a disciple priest ᒉሶߩ௯ㇺ
(deshi no sŇzu) and his master. SŇzu is a relatively high priestly rank, so the
disciple priest’s master must be quite a grand personage. The implication
here is that master and disciple are travelling together.
There is an element of humor in the contrast between the priests’ fine
clothes and the rickety boat.
APPENDIX
285
17. Chora
hana no naka
kachş-no-shş
ni yukiainu
amid the blossoms
he runs into
the daimyŇ’s retainer
Chora expands on the suggestion of colorful finery in yoki koromo, and
adds a scene of a cherry-blossom viewing party. Someone, perhaps a
townsperson, runs into first the priests in their splendid vestments, then
a local samurai, out enjoying the beauty of the blooming cherry trees.
This, a blossom verse, is in its proper position.
18. KitŇ
kabuki no mane no
hayaru kono haru
this spring, with
kabuki imitation so popular
The priests have disappeared, and KitŇ now makes the scene into one in
which the crowds out for cherry-blossom viewing are gathered around a
small stage to watch amateur kabuki. The real performers all came from
professional kabuki families, but fans often learned their favorite parts
and performed them for their own amusement.42
In KitŇ’s Diary of a journey (Yado no nikki ኋߩᣣ⸥, 1776), the verse
ended in the words kono goro (at this time). However, since a spring verse
like the maeku was supposed to be followed by at least two more verses,
kono haru (this spring) is a stronger choice.
19. Buson
nagaki hi ya
makie no chŇdo
itowashiki
long spring day—
the lacquered furnishings
are extremely hateful
One interpretation of this verse suggests that both the kabuki imitation
and one’s richly decorated lacquer furnishings are distasteful on a long
spring day, which was assumed to be accompanied by a feeling of
tiredness.43 Another states that being stuck inside all day with one’s fancy
———
42 Buson himself was very fond of kabuki. Tanomura Chikuden tells this story in
Toseki sasa roku ዼ⿒ℴ‫ޘ‬㍳ (completed 1834): Once one of Buson’s painting disciples
went to visit him, and found his house dark. Hearing a strange noise coming from within,
the friend feared there was some catastrophe taking place. After forcing his way inside,
he found Buson alone, acting out the part of one of his favorite kabuki characters. Cited
in Tanaka, p. 236–237.
43 Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 129.
286
APPENDIX
furnishings is hateful if one would really rather be outside enjoying the
kabuki performance on a long spring day.44
This is the third spring verse.
20. Chora
minori no michi ni
kokoro yosetsutsu
one’s mind is drawing close
to the Way of the Sacred Law
Chora proposes that the reason the person in the previous verse has
come to find his lacquer furnishings distasteful is that he has awakened
to the truth of the Buddhist law. Buddhism teaches that all the things of
this world are illusions, and an enlightened person is indifferent to luxury
and glamor.
21. KitŇ
furusato no
tsuma ni fumi kaku
sayo fukete
spending the night
writing a letter
to his wife at home
KitŇ describes behavior that might be expected from someone who has
taken up Buddhist practice. Perhaps it is a pilgrim who is writing to his
wife, or a member of some devotional group, like the hachi tataki,
itinerant mendicants who wandered through the countryside beating on
gourds or bowls and asking for alms. Although an enlightened person is
supposed to be free of attachments, he still feels the need to stay in
touch with his wife.
22. Buson
waka daishŇ ni
tanomareshi mi no
receiving orders
from a young general
The identity of the letter-writer is changed to that of a samurai, on whom
a young commander relies. He is writing the letter because he does not
know when he will be able to return home again. Or perhaps he wants
his wife to do something for the sake of his commander. Buson’s verse
is suggestive of some larger narrative, but does not appear to allude to
any particular literary work or historical event.
———
44
Nomura Kazumi, Buson renku zenchşshaku (Kasama Shoin, 1975), p. 185.
APPENDIX
287
23. Chora
sake itto
botan no sono ni
sosogi keri
a barrel of wine
was poured out
in the garden of peonies
The solitary letter writer has disappeared, and now we are introduced to
a lively party in a peony garden. Peonies were greatly admired in China,
and mention of them evoked associations of rich, voluptous color and
an exotic atmosphere. Sake itto comes from a poem by Chinese poet Du
Fu, that said that Li Bo drank a gallon of wine (㈬৻᢯) and wrote a
hundred poems (⹞⊖▻).45
24. KitŇ
hi wa kakuyaku
to yoki sumi o suru
when the sun is glittering
he grinds fine ink
The word kakuyaku ⿗ᅂ (shining, glittering) has strong kanshi-like
overtones and continues the Chinese theme of the maeku. Here we are to
imagine the delicate scent of fine ink as it is being ground on the
inkstone on a brilliantly sunny day. The persona in the first might be an
actual historical figure like KŇbŇ Daishi, famous for his calligraphy, who
spent time in China studying Buddhism. Alternatively, it might be an
imaginary bunjin, readying himself for a painting or a poem.
25. Buson
asu wa haya
Fudaraku-sen o
tachiiden
tomorrow, early
I will leave
Mount Fudaraku
Fudaraku ᥉㒚⪭ (Sanskrit, Potalaka) is the sacred realm of the bodhisattva Kannon ⷰ㖸 (Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara). It is also the name of a
Tendai sect ᄤบቬ temple in Kii. A holy man has gone to the sacred
realm—or to the temple—to practice austerities. Having completed his
work there, it is time to depart.
26. Chora
tŇfu ni akite
kuu mono mo naku
———
45
Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 120.
except for this boring tofu
there’s nothing to eat
288
APPENDIX
Chora suggests, humorously, what might be on the mind of the person
who realizes it is time to leave Fudaraku. Fudaraku represents a place a
pilgrimage to which a layperson has gone, and now wishes he or she
could leave. Buddhists were prohibited from taking life, and so tofu was
a major source of protein in temple meals. The persona here is probably
a layperson, whose commitment to Buddhism is not enough to make
monks’ cuisine palatable.
This is the last verse published in Sequel to dawn crow.
27. KitŇ
waga sode wa
sukoshi no zeni ni
omotakute
in my sleeves
a few small coins
are feeling heavy
KitŇ supplies another reason why the maeku’s persona has been eating
nothing but tofu: poverty. Here he describes someone who normally has
so little money that even a few zeni ㌛ (very low-value coins) feel like a
lot to him. Kimono have no pockets, so people sometimes used their
sleeves to carry or conceal small items.
28. Buson
umi yaya chirite46
ishi o yuku kawa
the sea is even closer now
the river flowing over the stones
Buson reads the maeku’s persona as a traveler, who keeps his money in
his sleeves to conceal it from highwaymen. The link describes the
landscape he is travelling through. As a river approaches the sea, the
water-level drops, and rocks are visible jutting out from the riverbed.
29. Chora
tobu tsuru no
ha ni kage utsuru
asa no iro
the light reflects
from the flying cranes’ feathers—
color of morning
Chora’s tsukeku continues the description of landscape, and just as he
does in the waki, he expands on it by adding an image of birds, this time
cranes.
———
46 Scholars believe that “chirite” (fallen) is a textual error; “chikaku” (close) makes more
sense here. BZ, vol. 2, p. 279. The translation follows the assumption that “chikaku” is
correct.
APPENDIX
289
This should be a moon verse, but this one does not explicitly mention
the moon. It is possible to read kage (light) as moonlight. However, the
verse is classified as miscellaneous, so it does seem that the verse violates
the rules.
30. KitŇ
kami ni tsukauru
oi no mi no aki
the weary lot
of a man grown old in the service
of the gods
KitŇ adds a person to the maeku’s early-morning scene, a shrine-keeper
who finds old age a bitter experience. Despite his years of devotion to
the gods, he has been forgotten by everyone. The phrase mi no aki can be
read either “the autumn” or “the weariness” of one’s position. Autumn’s
chill was said to mi ni shimu—penetrate one’s being,47 just as this shrinekeeper’s feelings of forlornness have penetrated his. The Chora hokku
that we saw in Chapter Six, “calling ‘cry! cry!’ / it assails me / autumn
wind” (nake nake to / ware o semekeri / aki no kaze) similarly refers to the
overpoweringly invasive quality of the autumn wind.
31. Buson
tsuyushimo no
furu karakasa o
sute kanetsu
hard to part with
an old umbrella
covered with frozen dew
A karagasa is a large paper-covered umbrella. Furu can be read two ways,
as part of the phrase furu karagasu: “old umbrella,” or as part of tsuyushimo
no furu: “frozen dew falls.” Buson’s verse contrasts the old shrinekeeper’s sense of abandonment with the sentimental attachment one
feels toward an object that has served one long and well.
Teruoka points out another example of this kind of link in Buson’s
verse sequences:
ware mo isoji no
haruaki o shiru
I, too, know
fifty springs and autumns
KitŇ
———
47
ņoka Makoto et al., Daisaijiki, vol. 2 (Shşeisha, 1989), p. 51.
290
APPENDIX
nanji ni mo
zukin kishŇ zo
furu hioke
I should wrap you, too
in a zukin hood!
—old brazier
Buson
He was also very fond of umbrellas, and often painted them. Several of
his hokku mention umbrellas:
bakesŇ na
kasa kasu tera no
shigure kana
the mysterious umbrella
I borrow—
temple during winter rains48
furukasa no
basa to shigururu
tsuki yo kana
old umbrella
glistening in a winter shower
tonight the moon wears a halo—49
harusame ya
monogatari yuku
mino to kasa
spring rain—
chatting as they go along,
a straw coat and umbrella50
32. Chora
kane o kasuga no
sato e yado gae
to borrow money, a change in
dwelling-place
to Kasuga-no-sato
Chora builds on the image of the old umbrella in the maeku, adding the
figure of a man down on his luck. Kasuga is an ancient place-name with
many elegant associations—it is the site of Kasuga Shrine, for instance.
Here the poet plays off these overtones by making a pun. Kasu means to
lend. So the persona here has decided to move to Kasuga not because of
its rich tradition in poetry, but because he has rich friends there who
might lend him money.
33. KitŇ
oki idete
rakushu yomikudasu
okashisa yo
———
48
Dated 1771. BZ, vol. 1, no. 960.
Dated 1777. BZ, vol. 1, no. 1920.
50 Dated 1782. BZ, vol. 1, no. 2213.
49
how funny!
getting up and going to recite
rakusho satires
APPENDIX
291
A rakushu is a verse of rakusho, satirical poetry. KitŇ describes the
behavior of the ne’er-do-well of the maeku, who enjoys composing
satirical verse.
34. Buson
cha ni kumu mizu no
asakute ni sumu
the shallows of water drawn for tea
clear in the hand
Buson recasts the character of the maeku’s rakusho enthusiast as a man of
cultivation and taste. When he goes to the well to draw water for tea, he
finds it shallow but clear.
Nomura argues that there has been a transcription error here. Rather
than asaku te ni (shallowly in the hand) the verse should read asaku ni te
(in the shallows). He posits that the connection between the verses is
fluidity: that of the water is similar to the recitation of rakusho verse, its
fresh taste as bracing as the pointed satire.51
35. Chora
naka naka ni
kaze no naki hi o
chiru sakura
cherry trees
lose their blossoms faster on a day
when there is hardly any wind
The maeku’s actions are given a season and a backdrop. Cherry trees lose
their blossoms quickly, and this seems to happen faster when there is no
wind, although one might think otherwise.
This is a light verse, making the composition of the important final verse
less challenging. It is a blossom verse, as the fifth verse of the second
sheet is supposed to be.
36. KitŇ
kure ososhi to te
obashima ni tatsu
thinking, sunset comes late
standing by the railing
The ageku is suitably felicitous and light. In the setting sun of a late
spring day, the persona leans against the railing to watch it, and reflects
on how long the days last now, this late in spring.
———
51
Nomura, p. 186.
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CITED BUSON HOKKU
aki mo haya sono higurashi no inochi kana, 71
aki no kure hotoke ni bakeru tanuki kana, 268
amadera ya jşya ni todoku bin kazura, 60, 207
aoume ni mayu atsumetaru bijin kana, 88
ayu kurete yorade sugiyuku yowa no kado, 88
bakesŇ na kasa kasu tera no shigure kana, 290
botan chirite uchikasanarinu ni san pen, 154
Fuji hitotsu uzumi nokoshite wakaba kana, 110, 237
Fuji o mite tŇru hito ari toshi no ishi, 61
furu ido ya ka ni tobu sakana oto kurashi, 106
furu ike no kawazu oiyuku ochiba kana, 55
furukasa no basa to shigururu tsuki yo kana, 290
fuyu uguisu mukashi ņ I ga kakine kana, 2
gakumon wa shiri kara nukeru hotaru kana, 107, 220
hana chirite konoma no tera to nari ni keri, 91
hana chirite mi no shita yami ya hinoki kasa, 122
hana ibara kokyŇ no michi ni nitaru kana, 124
hana mori no mi wa yumi ya naki kagashi kana, 93
hana no kumo mie ni kasanete kumo no mine, 116
hana o fumishi zŇri mo miete asane kana, 227
hanjitsu no kan o enoki ya semi no koe, 79
haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana, 106
haru no yo ya yoi akebono no sono naka ni, 111
harusame ya hito sumite keburi kabe ni moru, 126
harusame ya monogatari yuku mino to kasa, 290
hatsuka ji no senaka ni tatsu ya kumo no mine, 87
hironiwa no botan ya ama no ippŇ ni, 127
hirugao ya machi ni nariyuku kui no kazu, 87
hita to inu no naku machi ni koete odori kana, 234
hoso koshi no hŇshi suzuro ni odori kana, 234
hototogisu e ni nake higashi shirojirŇ, 70
hototogisu uta yomi yşjo kikoyu naru, 118
ichi jin wa sakaki ni jin wa kaji no fune, 214
302
CITED HOKKU BY BUSON
ikanobori kinŇ no sora no aridokoro, 91
Iwakura no kyŇjo koiseyo hototogisu, 221
kanbutsu ya motoyori hara wa kari no yado, 117
Katsuragi no kamiko nugabaya ake no haru, 98
KenkŇ wa kinu mo itowaji koromogae, 75
kiji uchite kaeru ieji no hi wa takashi, 125
kinŇ ini kyŇ ini kari no naki yo kana, 91
kogarashi ya ika ni yo wataru ie go ken, 89
komabune no yorade sugiyuki kasumi kana, 90
koromogae haha nan Fujiwara uji nari keri, 118
koromogae mi ni shiratsuyu no hajime kana, 118
maku majiki sumai o nemono gatari kana, 90
manzai no fumi katametaru kyŇ no tsuchi, 218
marumero wa atama ni kanete Edo kotoba, 73
mashirage no yone isshŇ ya sushi no meshi, 119
Matabei ni au ya Omuro no hana zakari, 230
Matsushima no tsuki miru hito ya utsuse kai, 68
mimi utoki chichi nyşdŇ yo hototogisu, 118
mochi kyştai no kabi o kezureba kaze kŇryş no kezuri kake, 99
na no hana ya tsuki wa higashi ni hi wa nishi ni, 278
nabe sagete yodo no kobashi o yuki no hito, 264
nakanaka ni hitori areba zo tsuki o tomo, 113
naki fushite koe koso shinobe take no yuki, 102
natsugawa o kosu ureshisa yo te ni zŇri, 76
nawashiro ni Kurama no sakura no chiri ni keri, 110
nishikigi no kado o megurite odori kana, 234
omonoshi no yoake o neiru shiwasu kana, 180
saitan o shitari gao naru haikaishi, 116
sararetaru mi o funkonde taue kana, 78
sarudono no yosamu toiyuku usagi, 72
sekirei no o ya Hashidate o ato nimotsu, 210
sensoku no tarai mo morite yuku haru ya, 107
shigonin ni tsuki ochi kakaru odori kana, 234
shira ume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri, 2
shiramu toru kojiki no tsuma ya ume ga moto, 63
suisen ni kitsune asobu ya yoi zuki ya, 125
suribachi no misomi meguri ya tera no shimo, 61
sushi o osu sekijŇ ni shi o dai subeku, 119
sushi o osu ware sake kamosu tonari ari, 119
CITED HOKKU BY BUSON
sushi oke o araeba asaki yşgyo kana, 119
susuki mitsu hagi nakaran ya kono hotori, 140
suzushisa ni mugi o tsuku yo no Uhei kana, 68, 237
takujŇ no sushi ni me samushi Kangyotei, 120
tanomarete sakura mi ni yuku otoko kana, 121
tŇasa ni tsuwamono bune ya natsu no tsuki, 124
Toba dono e gorokki isogu nowaki kana, 89
uguisu no sosŇ ga mashiki hatsune kana, 99
uguisu ya nani gosotsukasu yabu no shimo, 2
uki ware ni kinuta ute ima wa mata yamine, 112
ume sageta ware ni shiwasu no hito tŇru, 62
ureitsutsu oka ni noboreba hana ibara, 124
usuginu ni kimi ga oboro ya Gabi no tsuki, 99
uzuki yŇka shinde umaruru ko wa hotoke, 118
waga namida furuku wa aredo izumi kana, 41
waga sono no makuwa mo nusumu, 79
waga zukin uki yo no sama ni nizu mogana, 112
waka take ya Hashimoto no yşjo ari ya nashi, 225
yado kasanu hokage ya yuki no ie tsuzuki, 89
yanagi chiri shimizu kare ishi tokoro dokoro, 66, 137, 238
yuki toshi ya akuta nagaruru Sakuragawa, 63
yuku haru no shunjun toshite osozakura, 121
yuku haru ya omotaki biwa no daki gokoro, 126
yuku haru ya senja o uramu uta no nushi, 90
yumitori no obi no hirosa yo takamushiro, 79
303
INDEX
Akinari. See Ueda Akinari
Ama-no-hashidate, 45, 209, 210, 212,
213, 216
Ancient and modern poetry card anthology
(Kokon tanzaku shş), 42
Arikida Moritake, 41, 197
Around here
Four kasen in one night (Kono hotori Ichiya shi kasen), 133, 139, 140,
151, 164, 178
Ashigari. See The reed cutter
BashŇ Revival, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16–
18, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32–38, 41, 46, 47,
51, 59, 80–82, 95, 109, 112, 114, 115,
120, 123, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140,
151, 163, 167, 241, 242, 247, 248
BashŇ school. See ShŇmon
BashŇ seven anthologies (BashŇ shichibu shş),
31
BashŇ shichibu shş. See BashŇ seven
anthologies (BashŇ shichibu shş)
BashŇ-an, 37, 249, 259, 261
Blossoms and birds collection (KachŇ hen),
36, 114, 120, 121, 123, 132, 207
bunjin (wenren), 11, 14–17, 47, 48, 50,
51, 65, 66, 68, 77, 84–86, 92, 94, 102,
113, 165, 172, 177, 179, 203, 210,
260, 287
bunjin-ga. See nanga
Buson jihitsu kuchŇ. See Buson self-selected
anthology
Buson kushş. See Buson verse anthology
Buson self-selected anthology (Buson jihitsu
kuchŇ), 128, 129
Buson verse anthology (Buson kushş), 45,
104, 168, 279
Charcoal sack (Sumidawara), 24, 28
Chikukei, 76, 182–184, 263, 269
Chiyo-ni. See Kaga no Chiyo
ChŇmu, 31, 32, 36, 37, 109, 120, 123
Chora. See Miura Chora
ChŇsui. See Sakuma Ryşkyo
Chuang Tzu. See Zhuangzi
Danrin, 5, 21, 23, 25–27, 121, 190, 197
Dawn crow (Akegarasu), 36, 104, 107–
109, 111, 120, 241
Dazai Shundai, 66
Denga ka. See Yodo river songs
DohŇ. See Hattori DohŇ
Dong Qichang, 203
Du Fu, 261, 276, 287
Empty chestnuts (Minashiguri), 23, 28, 42,
59, 101, 241
Enoko shş. See Puppy anthology
Essays in idleness (Tsurezuregusa), 39, 188,
199, 222
Far into the west (Nishi no oku), 41, 71,
97, 114
Five cartloads of wastepaper (Gosha hŇgu),
84, 123–127, 221, 222
Flower-viewing carriage (Hanamiguruma), 7
From summer (Natsu yori), 86, 87, 90, 92,
101, 110, 126
Fujiwara Shunzei, 198, 216
FşkyŇ (poetic madness), 72, 112, 113,
122
Fuyu no hi. See Winter day
Ga (elegance) and zoku (vulgarity), 18,
20, 22, 25, 26, 33, 39, 47–49, 51, 54,
63, 81, 101, 226, 227, 275
GantŇ. See Isaoka GantŇ
Gekkei. See Matsumura Gekkei
GenbŇshş. See Ransetsu anthology
Genroku period, 30, 46, 169, 187
Gichş-ji, 1, 32, 37, 241
Gikş, 29, 59, 81
Gosan, 20
Gosha hŇgu. See Five cartloads of wastepaper
Goshikizumi. See Ink of five colors
Hagiwara SakutarŇ, 13, 39, 244, 245,
246
Haiga, 165, 185–188, 192, 193, 195–
197, 199, 200, 205–208, 218, 221,
224, 228, 231, 233, 237, 238
INDEX
Haikai kosen. See Haikai selected old verses
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen),
16, 73, 77
Hajin. See Hayano Hajin
Hanamiguruma. See Flower-viewing carriage
Hattori DohŇ, 30, 108
Hattori Nankaku, 16, 35, 48, 65, 66, 68,
217, 219
Hattori Ransetsu, 27, 35, 41, 45, 50, 58,
82, 85, 90, 96, 97, 107, 115, 116, 171,
199, 257, 263, 266, 276
Hayami Shinga, 171, 179, 180, 183,
184, 271
Hayano Hajin, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 58,
59, 61, 63, 65, 71, 93, 94, 97, 103,
105, 107, 114–116, 128, 136, 170,
171, 174, 176, 181, 206, 257, 264,
273
Heike monogatari. See Tale of the Heike
HenjŇ, 195
Hirabayashi Seisai, 180
Hogo busuma. See Scrap paper coverlet
Hokuju rŇsen o itamu. See Mourning the
sage Hokuju
Hori Bakusui, 31, 37, 108, 109, 123,
241
Hosokawa Yşsai, 19, 148
Hyakusen. See Sakaki Hyakusen
Ihara Saikaku, 21, 197
Ike no Taiga, 14, 205, 206
Ink of five colors (Goshikizumi), 28, 29, 30,
58, 59, 81, 140
Isaoka GantŇ, 35, 59, 65, 94, 123, 136,
171, 174, 264, 266
ItŇ Jinsai, 48, 74
Japanese and Chinese poems to sing (Wakan
rŇei shş), 100, 101, 229
Jieziyuan huazhuan. See Mustard seed garden
KachŇ hen. See Blossoms and birds collection
Kaga no Chiyo (Chiyo-ni), 37
Kagami ShikŇ, 28, 45, 75, 96, 108, 109,
130, 131, 175, 199, 211, 272, 276
kanshi (poetry in Chinese), 13, 16, 23,
24, 65–68, 71, 73–75, 77, 81, 84, 126,
246, 259, 260, 279, 287
kanshibunchŇ (Chinese style haikai),
23, 66, 67, 138
Kara hiba. See Withered cypress needles
Karumi (lightness), 24
Kasen (Thirty-six link sequence), 139
305
KatŇ KyŇtai, 31, 32, 33, 37, 44, 108,
109, 120, 123, 131, 139, 151
Kema, 35, 37, 40, 249, 252
KenkŇ. See Yoshida KenkŇ
Kenzan. See Watanabe Kenzan
Keshien gaden. See Mustard seed garden
Kidai. See Kigo (seasonal word)
Kikaku. See Takarai Kikaku
Kikei. See Takai Kikei
KŇbŇ Daishi, 198, 287
Kokon tanzaku shş. See Ancient and
modern poetry card anthology
Konpuku-ji, 37, 259, 261
Korekoma. See Kuroyanagi Korekoma
Kuroyanagi Korekoma, 48, 84, 120,
123, 125, 127, 221, 275
Kuroyanagi ShŇha, 1, 16, 36, 38, 48–
50, 80, 81, 84–86, 92, 93, 95, 101,
102, 109, 123, 125, 126, 178, 206,
219, 275–277
KyŇhŇ haikai, 26, 27, 30
KyŇhŇ period, 26, 27, 30, 129, 130
Kyorai, 82, 96, 191
Kyorai shŇ. See Kyorai's treatise
Kyorai's treatise (Kyorai shŇ), 30
Kyoriku, 187, 197, 198, 199
Li Bo, 23, 99, 100, 263, 276, 287
Light of the snow (Sono yuki kage), 36
Maekuzuke, 21, 22, 33, 78, 130
Make the past present (Mukashi o ima), 41,
45, 59, 114, 116, 120, 152, 249, 257
Makura no sŇshi. See Pillow book
Maruyama ņkyo, 14
Masaoka Shiki, 9, 13, 34, 53, 66, 166–
170, 244–247, 279
Matsumura Gekkei, 1, 17, 117, 118,
121, 229, 274
Matsunaga Teitoku, 19, 20, 33, 135,
189, 197
Matsuo BashŇ, 1–4, 9–12, 14, 16, 17,
23–25, 27–38, 41–47, 50, 51, 56–60,
66–69, 80–82, 87, 95–97, 101, 106–
115, 120, 122, 127, 128, 130, 131,
135–137, 140–142, 151, 152, 156,
167–169, 171, 173, 176, 189–191,
197–199, 201, 210, 211, 217, 222,
237, 240–242, 245, 247–249, 257–
262, 266
Meiwa shinbŇ no haru. See Spring in Meiwa
8
Minashiguri. See Empty chestnuts
306
Mino faction, 28, 31, 43, 44, 75, 96,
130
Miura Chora, 31, 37, 44, 109, 120, 123,
139–144, 146– 151, 194–196, 209,
279, 280, 282–291
Miyake ShŇzan, 11, 16, 31, 36, 43, 70,
71, 73–75, 77, 81, 82, 131, 176, 182
Miyako no Yoshika, 100
Miyazu, 36, 76, 181, 182, 184, 201, 209,
210, 211, 213, 268, 296
Mizuma Sentoku, 27, 29, 58
Mochizuki SŇoku, 36, 70, 71, 94, 114,
171
Momosumomo. See Peaches and plums
MŇotsu, 42, 43, 70, 71, 72, 73, 185
Moritake. See Arikida Moritake
Motoori Norinaga, 80
Mourning the sage Hokuju (Hokuju
rŇsen o itamu), 171, 249, 250
MuchŇ. See Ueda Akinari
Mukashi o ima. See Make the past present
Mustard seed garden (Jieziyuan huazhuan,
Keshien gaden), 49, 50, 95, 203, 204,
205, 240
Nakabayashi ChikutŇ, 206
Nakagawa Otsuyş (Bakurin), 28, 45,
96, 108, 109, 263, 276
nanga, 9, 10, 14, 49, 165, 192, 200,
203–211, 217, 220, 236, 240, 242,
243
Nankaku. See Hattori Nankaku
Narrow road to the interior (Oku no
hosomichi), 31, 35, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69,
137, 171, 173, 174, 237, 240, 241,
242
Natsu yori. See From summer
New account of tales of the world (Shishuo
xinyu), 105
New flower gathering (Shinhanatsumi), 37,
45, 114, 116–118, 120, 126, 171, 174,
177–180, 184, 249, 263
NijŇ school, 33
Nishi no oku. See Far into the west
Nishiyama SŇin, 21, 121, 197
NŇin, 156, 173, 242
Nozarashi kikŇ. See Record of a weatherbeaten skeleton
Ogyş Sorai, 16, 17, 35, 48, 65, 74, 80,
217
Oi no kobumi. See Rucksack notebook
Okotari gusa. See Random lazy jottings
INDEX
ņkyo. See Maruyama ņkyo
Onitsura, 50, 276
ņshima Ryota, 31, 37, 109, 128
Otsuyş. See Nakagawa Otsuyş
(Bakurin)
Peaches and plums (Momosumomo), 37, 42,
46, 61, 132, 133, 152-164
Pei Di, 76, 77
Pillow book (Makura no sŇshi), 111, 195
Poetic madness. See FşkyŇ
Point-scoring. See Tentori haikai
Puppy anthology (Enoko shş), 20
RakutŇ BashŇ-an saikŇ-ki. See Account of
the rebuilding of the Basho Hermitage in
eastern Kyoto
Random lazy jottings (Okotari gusa), 39
Ransetsu. See Hattori Ransetsu
Ransetsu anthology (GenbŇshş), 45
Ranzan, 123, 139–141, 143–147, 149,
151
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton
(Nozarashi kikŇ), 69, 142, 240, 242,
243
Renga, 3, 18-22, 25, 64, 74, 81, 130136, 166, 188, 189
Revival. See Basho Revival
Rucksack notebook (Oi no kobumi), 25,
197
RyŇta. See ņshima RyŇta
Ryşkyo. See Sakuma Ryşkyo (ChŇsui)
SaichŇ, 62
SaigyŇ, 4, 25, 66, 67, 113, 137, 156,
197, 198, 226, 227, 239, 240, 242
Saikaku. See Ihara Saikaku
Sakaki Hyakusen, 14, 45, 192, 193, 199,
200, 209–215, 217
Sakuma Ryşkyo (ChŇsui), 28, 30, 90,
140, 151, 199, 264
Sankasha, 32, 36, 38, 77–81, 84, 86, 87,
92, 95, 96, 101, 110, 123, 128, 132,
140
Sanuki, 36, 77, 78, 80, 86–88, 92, 93, 95
SanzŇshi. See Three noteooks
Satomura JŇha, 19, 148
Scrap paper coverlet (Hogo busuma), 66,
133, 136, 239
Sei ShŇnagon, 195
Sentoku. See Mizuma Sentoku
Senzan. See Uchida Senzan
Sequel to dawn crow (Zoku akegarasu), 36,
104, 111, 113, 225, 241, 288
INDEX
Sesshş, 25, 197
Shasei (realism), 166
Shiki. See Masaoka Shiki, See Masaoka
Shiki
ShikŇ. See Kagami ShikŇ
ShimŇsa, 35, 36, 63, 64, 225, 264, 267,
272
Shinga. See Hayami Shinga
Shishuo xinyu. See New account of tales of
the world
ShŇha. See Kuroyanagi ShŇha
ShŇmon, 12, 27, 28, 30–34, 43–45, 82,
96, 97, 101, 108, 109, 111, 130, 131,
169, 191, 199
ShŇzan. See Miyake ShŇzan
Shundei kushş, 12, 84, 249, 275
Shunpş batei no kyoku. See Spring wind
on the Kema Embankment
Shunzei. See Fujiwara Shunzei
SŇa. See Hayano Hajin
SodŇ, 50, 96, 190, 191, 276
SŇin. See Nishiyama SŇin
Sono yuki kage. See Light of the snow
Sonome, 141
SŇoku. See Mochizuki SŇoku
Sorai. See Ogyş Sorai
Spring in Meiwa 8 (Meiwa shinbŇ no haru),
98, 99, 101
Spring wind on the Kema
Embankment (Shunpş batei no kyoku),
37, 249, 252
Su Dongpo (Su Shi), 111, 113, 128,
137, 202, 239, 240, 298
Su Shi. See Su Dongpo
Sumidawara. See Charcoal sack
Taiga. See Ike no Taiga
Taigi. See Tan Taigi
Taira no Noritsune, 159
Takai Kikei, 77, 94, 102–105, 107, 109,
112, 123
Takai KitŇ, 1, 3, 11, 31, 33, 36, 38, 39,
42, 43, 45, 46, 80, 85, 90, 94, 96, 97,
101–112, 114, 120, 123, 128, 139–
142, 144–163, 167, 236, 280–291
Takarai Kikaku, 23, 27, 29, 35, 41, 45,
50, 58, 59, 61, 82, 96, 97, 107, 117,
118, 171, 175, 176, 199, 211, 217–
219, 263, 264, 266, 272, 273, 276
Takebe RyŇtai (Takebe Ayatari), 31
Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), 88,
159, 215, 282
307
Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu
monogatari), 229, 263
Tamiya Chşsen, 39
Tan Taigi, 31, 36, 38, 80–84, 87, 90, 92,
95, 101, 102, 109, 123, 131, 176, 255
Tang shi xuan, 17, 74, 100
Tango, 14, 36, 43, 45, 70, 71, 74, 76,
92, 166, 170, 181, 182, 263, 268, 283
Tanomura Chikuden, 205, 285
Tao Qian. See Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming, 124, 278
Tatsu SŇro, 16, 48
Teimon, 5, 19, 21, 23, 27, 173, 190
Teitoku. See Matsunaga Teitoku
Tentori haikai (Point-scoring haikai), 3,
22
The reed cutter (Ashigari), 190
Three notebooks (SanzŇshi), 25, 30, 106,
108, 110
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, 65
Tokugawa Yoshimune, 15, 26
Tomo, 1, 36
Tsunayoshi. See Tokugawa Tsunayoshi
Tsurezuregusa. See Essays in idleness
Uchida Senzan, 35, 58
Ueda Akinari, 44, 111, 229, 263
Umejo, 121, 228, 229
Urban ShŇmon, 28
Waka, 18, 195, 226
Wakan rŇei shu. See Japanese and Chinese
poems to sing
Wang Changling, 127
Wang Gai, 49
Wang Wei, 2, 76, 77, 202, 229
Watanabe Kenzan, 187
wenren. See bunjin
Winter day (Fuyu no hi), 32
Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba), 1, 104
Xi Shi (Seishi), 88
Yahantei, 4, 12, 16, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44,
48, 50, 53, 58, 59, 61, 71, 77, 78, 86,
92–94, 96–99, 101–104, 107–109,
111, 114, 115, 120, 123, 128, 132,
133, 140, 153, 166, 177, 181, 185,
217, 220, 236, 241, 257, 262, 274
Yamazaki SŇkan, 41
Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, 65
Yodo river songs (Denga ka), 37, 249,
256
YojŇ (overtones), 188
Yoshida KenkŇ, 39, 75, 199
308
Yoshimune. See Tokugawa Yoshimune,
See Tokugawa Yoshimune
Yşki, 59, 63, 77, 170, 171, 174, 177,
180, 181, 264, 266, 267
Zhuangzi, 151, 194
INDEX
Zoku. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)
Zoku akegarasu. See Sequel to dawn crow
Zokugo. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)
BRILL’S JAPANESE
STUDIES LIBRARY
ISSN 0925-6512
1. Plutschow, H.E., Chaos and Cosmos. Ritual in Early and Medieval Japanese
Literature. 1990. ISBN 90 04 08628 5
2. Leims, Th.F. Die Entstehung des Kabuki. Transkulturation Europa-Japan im 16.
und 17. Jahrhundert. 1990. ISBN 90 04 08988 8
3. Seeley, Chr. A History of Writing in Japan. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09081 9
4. Vovin, A. A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09905 0
5. Yoda, Y. The Foundations of Japan’s Modernization. A Comparison with China’s
Path Towards Modernization. Transl. by K.W. Radtke. 1996.
ISBN 90 04 09999 9
6. Hardacre, H. and A.L. Kern (eds.) New Directions in the Study of Meiji Japan.
1997. ISBN 90 04 10735 5
7. Tucker, J.A. Ito Jinsai’s Gomo- Jigi and the Philosophical Definition of Early Modern
Japan. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10992 7
8. Hardacre, H. (ed.) The Postwar Development of Japanese Studies in the United States. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10981 1
9. Hanashiro, R.S. Thomas William Kinder and the Japanese Imperial Mint, 18681875. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11345 2
10. Teitler, G. and K.W. Radtke (eds.) A Dutch Spy in China. Reports on the First
Phase of the Sino-Japanese War (1937 – 1939). 1999.
ISBN 90 04 11487 4
11. Mortimer, M. Meeting the Sensei. The Role of the Master in Shirakaba Writers. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11655 9
12. Scholz-Cionca, S. and S.L. Leiter (eds.) Japanese Theatre and the International
Stage. 2000. ISBN 90 04 12011 4
13. Saltzman-Li, K. Creating Kabuki Plays. Context for Kezairoku, “Valuable Notes
on Playwriting”. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12115 3
14. Ozaki, M. Individuum, Society, Humankind. The Triadic Logic of Species According to Hajime Tanabe. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12118 8
15. Bentley, J.R. A Descriptive Grammar of Early Old Japanese Prose. 2001.
ISBN 90 04 12308 3
16. Higashibaba, I. Christianity in Early Modern Japan. Kirishitan Belief and Practice. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12290 7
17. Schmidt, P. Capital Punishment in Japan. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12421 7
18. Foljanty-Jost, G. Juvenile Delinquency in Japan. Reconsidering the “Crisis”.
2003. ISBN 90 04 13253 8
19. Tomida, H. Hiratsuka RaichÙ and Early Japanese Feminism. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 13298 8
20. Ueda, M. Dew on the Grass. The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 13723 8
21. Beckwith, C.I. Koguryo: The Language of Japan’s Continental Relatives. 2004.
ISBN 90 04 13949 4
22. Parker, H.S.E. Progressive Traditions. An Illustrated Study of Plot Repetition in
Traditional Japanese Theatre. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14534 6
23. Eckersall, P. Theorizing the Angura Space. Avant-garde Performance and Politics
in Japan, 1960-2000. 2006. ISBN-10: 90 04 15199 0,
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15199 4
24. Gramlich-Oka, B. Thinking Like a Man. Tadano Makuzu (1763-1825). 2006.
ISBN-10: 90 04 15208 3, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15208 3
25. Bentley, J.R. The Authenticity of Sendai Kuji Hongi. A New Examination of
Texts, with a Translation and Commentary. 2006. ISBN-10: 90 04 15225 3,
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15225 0
26. Orbaugh, S. Japanese Fiction of the Allied Occupation. Vision, Embodiment,
Identity. 2007. ISBN-10: 90 04 15546 5, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15546 6
27. Crowley, C.A. Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the BashÙ Revival. 2007.
ISBN-10: 90 04 15709 3, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15709 5