Care “A brilliant book. These clear-water poems and their accompanying insightful commentaries enlighten both scholar and poet. Reading them, I am transport- ed back across centuries to repeatedly savor the hokku’s capacity to capture and t illuminate the ongoing and inevitable fusion of our lives with the natural world.” R Penny HARteR, coauthor of the The Haiku Handbook and author of Recycling Starlight and The Night Marsh Haiku Before Haiku WI H le tHe RIse of tHe cHARmIngly sImPle, brilliantly evocative haiku is From the Renga Masters often associated with the seventeenth-century Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō, the form Haiku had already flourished for more than four hundred years before Bashō even began to write. These early poems, known as hokku, are identical to haiku in syllable count and structure but function differently as a genre. Whereas each haiku is its own constella- tion of image and meaning, hokku opens a series of linked, collaborative stanzas in a sequence called renga. Under the mastery of Bashō, hokku first gained its modern independence. His tal- to Basho- ents evolved the style into the haiku beloved by so many poets around the world From the Renga Masters to Basho Before today—Richard Wright, Jack Kerouac, and Billy Collins being notable devotees. This anthology reproduces three hundred and twenty Japanese hokku poems composed between the thirteenth and early eighteenth centuries, from the work of the courtier Nijo Yoshimoto to the genre’s first “professional” master, Sogi, and his subsequent disciples. It also features twenty masterpieces by Bashō himself. Steven D. Carter, a renowned scholar of Japanese poetry and prominent translator, includes an introduc- tion covering the history of haiku and its aesthetics, classifying these poems accord- ing to style and context. His rich commentary and notes on composition and setting Haiku illuminates each work, and he adds romanized versions and brief descriptions of the poets and the times in which they wrote. “A tour de force. Because they were often written for social occasions, many hok- ku disappeared like ‘blossoms on the wind.’ to communicate each poem to its fullest, steven D. carter names the season and provides a short commentary on its poetic and cultural allusions. enjoy these blossoms that have been gathered, some for the first time, in this landmark collection.” mARgARet cHulA, president, Tanka Society of America s teven D. cARteR is Yamato Ichihashi Chair in Japanese History and Civiliza- - tion at Stanford University. His numerous books include Just Living: Poems by the Medieval Monk Tonna and Unforgotten Dreams: Poems by the Zen Monk Shotetsu. c a olumbi Tra NSLATIoNS fRoM THe ASIAN CLASSICS Printed in the U.S.A. Cover image: Cover design: Martin Hinze ISBN: 978-0-231-15647-9 columbia university Press / new york Translated by www.cup.columbia.edu 9 780231 156479 Steven D. Carter haiku before haiku translations from the asian classics translations from the asian classics Editorial Board Wm. Theodore de Bary, Chair Paul Anderer Donald Keene George A. Saliba Wei Shang Haruo Shirane Burton Watson fromHaiku the renga masters Beforeto basho- Haiku Translated, with an introduction, by steven d. carter columbia university press new york columbia university press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2011 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haiku before haiku: from the Renga masters to Bashō / translated, with an introduction, by Steven D. Carter p. cm. — (Translations from the Asian classics) Includes bibliographical references. isbn 978-0-231-15648-6 (cloth : acid-free paper)— isbn 978-0-231-15647-9 (pbk. : acid-free paper)— isbn 978-0-231-52706-4 (e-book) 1. Haiku—Translations into English. 2. Japanese poetry—1185–1600— Translations into English. 3. Japanese poetry—Edo period, 1600–1868— Translations into English. 4. Renga—Translations into English. I. Carter, Steven D. pl782.e3h24 2011 895.6'1008—dc22 2010037030 Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c0 1 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p0 1 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. book design by vin dang To Benjamin Contents ix Acknowledgments 1 Introduction the poems 20 The unN Abutsu 20 Mushō 22 Zenna 22 Reizei Tamesuke 24 Musō Soseki 24 Junkaku 26 Gusai 28 Nijō Yoshimoto 30 Shūa 30 Sōa 32 Asayama Bontō 34 Mitsuhiro 34 Fushiminomiya Sadafusa 36 Chiun 40 Takayama Sōzei 44 Gyōjo 46 Nōa 48 Shinkei 54 Senjun 56 Sugiwara Sōi 58 Sōgi 66 Hino Tomiko 68 Emperor Go-Tsuchimikado 70 Ōuchi Masahiro 70 Inkō 72 Shōhaku 78 Sakurai Motosuke 80 Sōchō 84 Inawashiro Kensai 90 Sanjōnishi Sanetaka 94 Sōseki 98 Reizei Tamekazu 98 Tani Sōboku 102 Shūkei 102 Sōyō 104 Arakida Moritake 106 Shōkyū 108 Ikkadō Jōa 110 Sanjōnishi Kin’eda 112 Miyoshi Chōkei 114 Satomura Jōha 118 Satomura Shōshitsu 120 Oka Kōsetsu 122 Hosokawa Yūsai 126 Satomura Genjō 128 Matsudaira Ietada 130 Shōtaku 130 Nishinotō’in Tokiyoshi 132 Matsunaga Teitoku 134 Wife of Mitsusada 136 Miura Tamenori 136 Nishiyama Sōin 142 Nōjun 142 Konishi Raizan 144 Matsuo Bashō 155 Bibliography viii • [contents] Acknowledgments as always, I thank my wife, Mary, for her support in all my endeav- ors. My son Benjamin, to whom this book is dedicated, helped me with proofreading at many stages along the way. Also of great assistance in that regard was Jeffrey Knott, a doctoral student in Japanese literature at Stan- ford University. Two anonymous readers for Columbia University Press made a number of very helpful suggestions, for which I am duly grateful. Irene Pavitt and Jennifer Crewe of Columbia University Press provided valuable assistance in guiding the project to completion. haiku before haiku Introduction abroad or in japan, mention of the word haiku brings to mind Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), the greatest master of that genre. However, the truth is that the haiku form—in an earlier incarnation—was already 500 years old when Bashō began his career in the mid-seventeenth cen- tury. During those early times, the genre was referred to not as haiku but as hokku (initiating verse), reflecting its role as the first verse of a linked- verse sequence. One of our first glimpses into the origins of the genre comes in Fu- kuro zōshi (Commonplace Book, 1157), a compendium of comments on Japanese poetic conventions, practices, and lore produced by the poet- scholar Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–1177). At that time, the 31-syllable uta form (following the syllabic pattern 5-7-5-7-7) was unchallenged in its dominance of Japanese poetic culture. But Kiyosuke made mention of other genres as well, including a newer form called renga (linked verse). What he had in mind, however, was not the full linked-verse sequence of 100 verses (hyakuin), which would later gain its own place of promi- nence in the Japanese canon; instead, he was speaking specifically of kusari renga—“strings of verses” of indeterminate length, composed as a verse-capping game. One of the things that Kiyosuke stipulated about the composition of kusari renga was that such a sequence should begin not with the last two lines of a conventional uta but with the first three lines—in other words, not with the shimo no ku (7-7) but with the kami no ku (5-7-5).1 His statement—which was probably a reflection of current practices, as far as we can know about them—provided a beginning for a tradition that is still thriving. Kiyosuke made two other indisputably foundational statements when he recommended that the first verse of a sequence not be dashed off too quickly, thus singling out the composition of the hokku as an art that demanded special attention and care, and noted that the initiating verse should be a complete, independent scene or statement.2 About fifty years later, Emperor Juntoku (1197–1242), another prominent poet, made these points more explicit by insisting that the hokku “should be composed by the most appropriate person in the group” and then add- ing that “a first verse should be a complete statement” hokku( wa iikiru beshi).3 In this way, two of the most fundamental “rules” of hokku (and later haiku) came into being: the beginning verse should be assigned to poets of skill and experience who could produce verses of true excel- lence, and it should express not a fragment but a complete thought. Many poets of Emperor Juntoku’s generation left hokku in the his- torical record. Examples like the following by Fujiwara no Tameie (1198– 1275), however, suggest that first verses of that time were often strictly occasional in nature—that is, valedictions or declamations at social gatherings rather than independent “works of art.” As such, they could memorialize a host of different events—everything from births to deaths to political successes to even impending battles, not to mention renga gatherings themselves: Composed as hokku for all ten 100-verse sequences of a 1000-verse se- quence held at his Chū’in Estate in Saga A brocade? That is the look of Saga in autumn.4 By this time, the standard 100-verse sequence had been established as the formal vehicle of the genre. That only Tameie’s hokku and not the rest of the sequence was preserved is therefore evidence that full texts were con- 2 • [introduction] sidered ephemera at that time and that even hokku were valued primarily as mementos of important social occasions—as something “to be noted for later generations,” as Tameie is reported to have said.5 This pattern was true for the entire thirteenth century, from which no complete text of a hyakuin has survived.