■1 I I * The Monkey's Straw Raincoat AND OTHER POETRY OF-THE BASHO SCHOOL INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED BY Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri PRINCETON LIBRARY OF ASIAN TRANSLATIONS This is the first English translation of The Monkey's Straw Raincoat in its en­ tirety along with other major works of Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) and his school that represent a peak in the evolution of premodem Japanese po­ etry. Basho is Japan's most loved poet, and his haikai was one of the two kinds—with renga—of linked poetry in Japan. The present work offers both an extension of Earl Miner's earlier book, Japanese Linked Poetry (Princeton), and a new inter­ pretation of The Monkey's Straw Rain­ coat as an anthology modeled in various ways on the canons of linked- verse sequences. Three earlier sequences and one later one are included with the whole of The Monkey's Straw Raincoat to demonstrate the variety and the ide­ als of the Basho school. An introduc­ tion and detailed commentary eluci­ date the nature of the art of haikai. Also provided, in addition to maps and other illustrative material, are an index of critical terms and a bio­ graphical index of poets, bringing to­ gether for the first time in any lan­ guage information about all the poets involved. 6 - Quoting the title poem: The first winter drizzle the monkey too seems to desire a little straw raincoat the authors write that it "excellently shows Basho's metaphysical relation of nature and humanity, or of hu­ manity in nature. It is not only that monkeys resemble us in longing for protection, since everyone knows them to be imitators. It is rather that (Continued on back flap) : : : fj : S : Xi : i: 1 I i THE MONKEY'S STRAW RAINCOAT ; ■ ! f ! j : ; I s Hi•• PRINCETON LIBRARY OF ASIAN TRANSLATIONS Advisory Committee for Japan: Marius Jansen, Earl Miner, James Morley, J. Thomas Rimer For Other Books in the Series See Page 395 : r . : : ■j The Monkey's Straw Raincoat AND OTHER POETRY OF THE BASHO SCHOOL INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED BY Earl Miner and Hiroko Odagiri PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS :• : : ■ ; Copyright © 1981 by Princeton University Press ; Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey : In the United Kingdom . Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey 3■; All Rights Reserved Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability v Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey ■ : 11 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data H Main entry under title: The monkey's straw raincoat and other poetry of the Basho school. n (Princeton library of Asian translations) I ! Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Sarumino. 2. Haikai—History and criticism. 3. Japanese poetry—Edo period, 1600-1868—History and criticism. 4. Haikai—Translations into English. 5. English poetry—Translations from Japanese. I. Matsuo, Basho, 1644-1694. II. Miner, Earl Roy. III. Odagiri, Hiroko, 1934- IV. Series. PL732.H3M6 895.6'13'08 80-28811 ISBN 0-691-06460-1 \ ■ nl iii U % For Tsurumi Kazuko, Mushakoji Noriko, and Sasabuchi Tomoichi as also Marius B. Jansen and Marion J. Levy, Jr. ■ g I I " 8 I in r»::: ::: ? J s: ;; Iii; i a 1 : 31 Si? : : ; i 3. | 1 CONTENTS PREFACE XI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XVII ABBREVIATED REFERENCES XIX INTRODUCTION 3 1. Three Earlier Sequences 37 Poetry Is What I Sell (from The Hollowed Chestnuts, 1683) 49 In the Month of Frosts (from A Winter Day, 1684) 65 Beneath the Boughs (from The Gourd, 1691) 81 2. The Monkey's Straw Raincoat (1693) 97 "My Preface." By Kikaku 101 Part One: Winter (Stanzas 1-94) 105 Part Two: Summer (Stanzas 95-188) 135 Part Three: Autumn (Stanzas 189-264) 165 Part Four: Spring (Stanzas 265-382) 189 Part Five: Four Kasen by Basho and His Followers 227 Even the Kite's Feathers 233 Throughout the Town 249 At the Tub of Ashes 267 Plum Blossoms and Fresh Shoots 287 Part Six. Various Compositions 307 "A Record of the Unreal Hermitage." By Basho 309 Shinken's Essay 313 The Diary by His Side 315 Joso's "Postscript" 326 3. A Later Sequence 329 If Fine while Still Green (from Fukagawa, 1693) 335 viii — CONTENTS : BIBLIOGRAPHY 351 INDEXES 357 ii Index of Critical Terms 359 Index of Poets in Kasen 365 Biographical Index of Poets 367 ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece. Matsuo Basho. Portrait by Ogawa Haryu, courtesy of Ko- nishi Jin'ichi and the University of California Press, p. 2 FOLLOWING PAGE xvi 1. The Morning Moon at Oigawa. Painting and calligraphy by Basho, from The Poetic Journey of 1684. Reproduced from Zusetsu Basho (1972), edited by Okada Rihee. Courtesy of Kadokawa Shoten 2. Near Odawara. Painting and calligraphy by Basho, from The Poetic Journey of 1684. Reproduced from Zusetsu Basho, edited by Okada Rihee. Courtesy of Kadokawa Shoten 3. East and Central Japan (map) 4. The Omi area associated with The Monkey's Straw Raincoat (map) 5. The Saga-Arashiyama area northwest of Kyoto (map) 6. The opening of The Monkey's Straw Raincoat with winter stanzas 7. The first side of Throughout the Town PREFACE During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the poetic genius of Japan found its most popular expression in various kinds of writing going under the name of haikai. One symptom of such flowering is the fact that the favorite poet of Japanese is Matsuo Basho (1644-94), who is of course familiar to many Western readers. Among the several collections of poetry by Basho and his school, the most esteemed is The Monkey's Straw Rain­ coat (Sarumino), the chief constituent of this book. To it we have added a goodly sample of poetry from earlier years and a smaller sample from later. We have been guided in our selections, and interpretation of them, by recent Japanese criticism, and have advanced some interpretations of our own. In these prefatory remarks we aim to describe our subject, explain certain features of reading, account for various details, and say a bit about our method. Something of the history of the emergence and development of haikai is given in the general Introduction to this book. (Those seeking more detailed information can consult Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho, cited at the head of the Bibliography.) It has been common in the West, as it has been in Japan until recently, to speak of Basho as a haiku poet. “Haiku" is, however, a word he never used. To be sure, he wrote many opening stanzas, or hokku, that might stand independent like haiku. But he identified haikai with sequence composition, what is now called renku. He made this very clear in many remarks, including this: “Among my followers, there are many who are at least as gifted as I in composing hokku. But this aged man knows the true spirit of haikai." Since the “marrow" or “true spirit" is not found in hokku, Basho can only be thought to imply that he under­ stood the essence of haikai to lie, not in hokku, or other isolated stanzas, which others wrote no less brilliantly than he, but in sequences. He may have been a compulsive reviser of his hokku, but he always regarded the basis of his art to be sequential composition. Once this is recognized, the way is clear to recognizing a whole range of features—and problems— associated with his mature art, which is to say the sequences and collections thought canonical for his style of haikai. xii — PREFACE We have sought to supply the minimal information, and somewhat more, necessary for understanding Basho and his style of haikai. Readers inter­ ested in pursuing matters beyond what is offered here may be referred again to Makoto Ueda's Matsuo Basho for biography, career, and numerous details of poetic practice. Readers who wish to have more information about the ideals and canons of haikai, along with discussion of its development, may consult Miner's Japanese Linked Poetry. (Both works are cited in full i in the Bibliography.) ; Following usual Japanese practice, we have referred to our poets by their usual pen names or styles (go). The Biographical Index gives the surnames : of the poets (when known) along with some alternative pen names. In other s words, we speak of Basho rather than of Matsuo Basho. We omit his proper given names, and we sometimes mention alternative "styles" or pen 5 names—Tosei, Okina. But we refer to him as Basho, as Japanese do. We have extended the normalizing to the romamzed texts of the poetry. i We give as "ume" what may be either "mume" or "ume" in a given text. i The romanizations give verbal inflections as parts of one word but particles as separate words. We present dates in terms of numbered months and days according to the lunar calendar which, by the seventeenth century, had fallen behind ■ ■: our solar equivalents by about a month and a half. We have altered Japanese : calculations of age to the extent of deducting one year from those given a in standard reference works. I Readers who know haikai well will understand that it is very difficult : to find a full text with modern commentary for all six parts of The Monkey's Straw Raincoat, and that the texts of the parts other than the fifth are not ill only rare but by no means fully agreed upon as to reading. From time to time in our discussion or notes we point to problematical matters. Such instances are to be taken as representative rather than exhaustive, but anything further would have been pedantic for what is after all a translation and discussion.