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- kodomo 子供 child, children -
ko 子 child
sutego 捨子 abandoned child
warabe 童部 child
. WKD : kodomo 子供 child, children .
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猿を聞人捨子に秋の風いかに
saru o kiku hito sutego ni aki no kaze ika ni
those who have heard a monkey's cry:
how about this abandoned child
in the autumn wind?
(Tr. Makoto Ueda)
a monkey shriek—
for this abandoned child,
what is the autumn wind like?
or
You who hear the monkey’s cries:
what of an abandoned child
in the autumn wind?
Reference : translations of this haiku
those who listen for the monkeys:
what of this child
in the autumn wind?
Tr. Barnhill
with further discussion of "mono no aware" .
. Nozarashi Kiko 野ざらし紀行 . "Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field"
The story of a mother monkey ready to give her life for her baby is told in a Chinese classic, 世説新語.
Shi-shuo Xin-yu.
The book tells the story of a mother monkey who runs along a riverbank following a boat carrying her captured baby. When she reaches the boat she is so exhausted that she dies with her strong emotions of love and longing.
The Japanese proverb
danchoo no omoi 断腸の思い , a "bowls-rending thought", is based on this.
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霜を着て風を敷き寝の捨子哉
shimo o kite kaze o shikine no sutego kana
it wears frost
and has the wind for a blanket,
this abandoned child . . .
Written in 延宝5年, Basho age 34.
Basho did not see an abandoned child.
But he presents the situation as if he was heartbroken (danchoo no omoi 断腸の思い )lit. "a bowles-rending thought".
The cut marker KANA is at the end of line 3.
This is a parody of a waka poem by Fujiwara Ryookei 良経 Ryokei (1169-1206) .
きりぎりす鳴くや霜夜のさむしろに - 衣かたしきひとりかもねむ
The crickets are singing and the mist is rising on this cool night.
Am I to sleep alone on the sleeve of my kimono on this rough straw mat?
source for waka : www.shigureden.or.jp
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いざ子供走りありかん玉霰
. iza kodomo hashiri arikan tamaarare (tama-arare) .
At a Haikai meeting in Iga Ueno, at the home of 良品 Ryobon.
Maybe Basho is seeing his haikai friends as the "children" and wants to go out with them playing.
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子ども等よ昼顔咲きぬ瓜むかん
. kodomora yo hiragao sakinu uri mukan .
come on, children, I'll peel a melon !
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子に飽くと申す人には花もなし
ko ni aku to moosu hito ni wa hana mo nashi
For one who says,
"I am tired of children,"
there are no blossoms.
When love is absent, cherry blossoms go unappreciated ...
Robert Aitken ... more
source : books.google.co.jp
MORE
. Matsuo Basho - Family Ties .
His Wife ? Jutei-Ni 寿貞尼
His Son ? Jirobei 二郎兵衛
His nephew Tooin 桃印 Toin
The above hokku is (most probably) for the three children of his wife.
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里の子よ梅折り残せ牛の鞭
sato no ko yo ume orinokose ushi no muchi
hey village kids,
leave some plum branches:
ox whips
Tr. Barnhill
Written in 1687 貞亨4年春, while Basho was living in Edo.
The image might be of a boy leading an ox or a cow, using a branch as a whip.
There is also an earlier version
里の子よ鞭折り残せ梅の花
sato no ko yo muchi ori-nokose ume no hana
. WKD : ume 梅 (うめ) plum (blossom) .
kigo for spring
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賎の子や稲摺りかけて月を見る
. shizu no ko ya ine surikakete tsuki o miru .
children of low folks, farmer's children, peasant children . . .
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月十四日今宵三十九の童部
tsuki juuyokka koyoi sanjuu ku no warabe
moon on day fourteen -
tonight I am still thirty-nine
and a child
Written in 天和2年, Basho age 39.
Written at a haikai meeting in the village Kuniyamura in Kaii 甲斐國谷村 at the home of Takayama Biji 高山麋塒.
The full moon was on day fifteen of each lunar month. So on day 14 it is still incomplete.
A man was considered a "full man" at age 40. Since Basho was just 39 years of age, he considers himself still a "child".
. 高山繁文 Takayama Shigefumi - Biji 麋塒 .
There is also a famous children's song about the moon:
お月さま幾つ、十三七つ、まだ年ア若い / お月さまなんぼ十三、七つ そりゃまんだ若いな . . .
O-tsuki sama ikutsu sanjuu nanatsu
Mister Moon, how old are you? Thirty-seven? That is still so young. . .
Listen to the song here:
source : www.youtube.com
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mago 孫 grandchildren
祖父親孫の栄えや柿蜜柑
. ooji oya mago no sakae ya kaki mikan .
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- Matsuo Basho - Blessings unto Kasane -
source : unizaru.blog.ocn.ne.jp - cat
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .
Oku no Hosomichi - Station 6 - Nasu 那須 -
So I mounted the horse and started off, when two small children came running after me. One of them was a girl named kasane, which means manifold. I thought her name was somewhat strange but exceptionally beautiful.
If your name, Kasane,
Means manifold,
How befitting it is also
For a double-flowered pink.
Tr. Yuasa
Sora 曽良
かさねとは八重撫子の名成べし
kasane to wa yae nadeshiko no naru beshi
"Double"
must be another name
for "Eightfold Pink"
. WKD - Nadeshiko - Comment by Ad Blankenstijn .
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quote
- Matsuo Basho - Blessings unto Kasane -
Translations and Commentary by Jeff Robbins
With Assistance from Sakata Shoko
Introduction
In his world famous travel journal Oku no Hosomichi, Basho tells of being lost among the fields of Tochigi in the summer of 1689 and finding a kind, considerate farmer who loans them his horse as a guide – ―When the horse will go no further, just let it return‖. As Basho rides and his traveling companion Sora walks away, the farmer‘s two small children, fascinated to see the strange, funny man riding their daddy‘s workhorse:
(From
A Narrow Path in the Heartlands)
Two small persons
come running after the horse,
one a little girl
who says her name is
“Kasane”.
Chisaki mono futari ちいさきものふたり
Uma no ato shitaite hashiru 馬の跡したひてはしる
Hitori wa ko-hime nite ひとりは小娘にて
Na o Kasane to iu 名を「かさね」と云
This is ordinarily not a name, but rather a word for - "to pile up in layers, one on top of another".
Furthermore, in the dimension of time, Kasane means - "to reoccur, again and again, in succession"
snip the drawing
The travelers went north, then west, then south; summer passed, then autumn and winter. Now with the cherry blossoms of 1690 in bloom, Basho is in Zeze (Otsu City) near the southern tip of Lake Biwa. (Here Basho requested he be buried, so in Gichuji Temple he remains.)
Someone has asked Basho to choose a name for a newborn baby girl. Basho remembers the Kasane in the Deep North, and passes her name on to the newborn. The following haibun (haiku-like essay) ending in a tanka (the classical form for Japanese poetry) is his prayer for the child‘s happiness and longevity.
(Basho‘s haibun
Blessings Unto Kasane)
During my pilgrimage to the Deep North, in one of the villages was a little girl who looked no more than five years old.
She was so small and indescribably charming that I asked her name, and she said “Kasane”.
What an interesting name! In Kyoto rarely is it heard so I wonder how has it has passed down
and what is that “layers, again and again”?
The farmer and his wife wanted a special name for their daughter, not just a name fashionable in Kyoto. What were they thinking of when they linked her heritage and destiny to this lovely multi-faceted word?
“If I had a child this name she would receive,”
I remember saying in jest to my traveling companion and now, unexpectedly, through an acquaintance I have been called on to be Name-giving Parent.
Without being biological parent, Basho gets the magical opportunity to give life through a name and through a poem.
Blessings unto Kasane
Spring passes by
Again and again in layers
Of blossom-kimono
May you see wrinkles
Come with old age
Basho
The words of the
tanka may seem simple, however the double and triple meanings:
・the springs shall pass by again and again…
・the layers of kimono, lining and under kimono…
・as the years of your life pile up, the succession of your blossom kimono from bright to sedate…
・each kimono passing onto your daughter,the next layer of yourself…
・wrinkles in the kimono and wrinkles on your face…
weave together to form a web of Blessing and Hope for Kasane and all female children.
- Kasane o gasu
Iku haru o kasane gasane no hana-goromo
shiwa yoru made no oi mo miru beku
Basho
- 賀重
いく春をかさねがさねの花ごろも
しはよるまでの老もみるべく
ばせを
A formal kimono is a two-layer silk robe worn over an under robe, meticulously folded and tucked around the body in flat, even layers. The colors and pattern are chosen in harmony with the woman‘s age. A "blossom-kimono" for a girl entering womanhood might be a soft pink with bold cherry blossom design on the lower portion. A thick brocade sash of a darker contrasting color encircles her waist. The red inner robe shows at the neckline, and where the left side of the skirt covers the right, margins of the kimono lining appear and disappear as she walks.
Kasane, now your time begins, stretching to infinity before unfocused eyes. Soon you‘ll be laughing and playing in the sunshine – that is if no wars come and natural disasters, fatal illness, and financial ruin stay away too. One spring in youth, you shall be given your first "blossom-kimono", an exquisite robe to be worn just once a year to view cherry blossoms, then folded up and stored away until the next time to celebrate Spring under cherry blossoms.
The springs shall come and go with clouds of pink blossoms filling the treetops to fall in a shower of petals as you blossom into a young lady elegant in your impeccably layered kimono. Each year you sit with legs folded under you on the straw mat at a blossom viewing party, creases shall form in the fabric. Carefully, as your mother shows you restore its silky smoothness for another year. I pray the day comes for you to pass this youthful kimono onto your daughter, while you wear one more moderate in color and pattern – and this too passes onto her, and you to the dark and sedate colors of an older woman.
So Kasane, may our nation remain at Peace and the happiness in your family pile up layer upon layer until wrinkles in the fabric no longer smooth out, and you see wrinkles of old age cross your face. Do not despair, my child, for you live again and again as spring passes by and your granddaughters laugh and chatter in their blossom kimono.
The haibun
Blessings Unto Kasane and the tanka
SPRING PASSES BY offer hope to the smallest females—hope for a childhood without misfortune, hope that she will grow into womanhood and see grandchildren—yet this Message of Hope has been swept under the rug.
A few comprehensive Basho anthologies do give the tanka (e.g. Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshu volume 71, page 284-85) buried among six hundred pages where nobody notices it. Since I discovered
Blessings Unto Kasane thirty years ago I have searched through hundreds of books on haiku, Basho,, or Japanese literature, both English and Japanese, and found no mention of this work. The few male scholars who know of it find it trivial, not worth discussing.
Women, when they know of this work, may see it differently. In the few simple light words of the Tanaka, Basho speaks of what concerns women the succession of life, the happiness of children—the conditions of Peace, both social and family peace, in which little girls can dress up and party with relatives and friends, and life goes on generation after generation. The poem encapsulates the entire life of one woman from newborn to wrinkles in five lines. Has any poet ever reached so deeply into the heart of life.
snip
If you wish to help spread the awareness of Basho‘s poem, - - feel free to download this essay from our home page.
Email: basho4women2youth@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.basho4women2youth.join-us.jp
Basho on women and children 芭蕉：女性と子ども
The warm affectionate Basho 暖かく、感情込った芭蕉
- - - - - Manuscripts
① Blessings Unto Kasane
② かさねを賀す
③ Icons of the Feminine
④ 芭蕉における女性像
Women and Girls: The Feminine Works of Matsuo Basho
By Jeff Robbins – Basho Researcher
Assisted by Sakata Shoko – Certified Japanese Language Instructor
- - - - - source : www.basho4women2youth.
. yanagi gasane 柳重 Kasane willow robes for spring .
. Matsuo Basho Archives - His Life and Works .
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. Cultural Keywords used by Basho .
. - KIGO used by Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - .
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