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YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

January 14, 2009

Amid snowy Japan

Snow is a seasonal feature in most local areas of this country. While hastily travelling on a bullet train I happened to come across with an impressive writing by Mr. Minoru Ozawa in printed materials for passengers. I don’t remember exactly when, but I wrote in this column of my humble experience about haiku (seventeen syllables verse), “So quiet around, soaking into rocks, droning of cicadas”, of which haiku poet Basho has been my good teaching materials to polish my sense of life ever since I learned of his haiku for the first time in a classroom of national language at the middle school.

According to what Mr. Ozawa says, there once existed a secondhand bookstore called “Shorin-Fugetsudo” near the present Chunichi Hospital in Nagoya city. When Basho paid a visit to the owner of the shop, Magosuke Hasegawa (haiku poet name: Sekido), it started snowing. The smell of antique books mingled with that of snow stimulated the spirits of haiku poet. He made a haiku on the spot.

“Iza idemu yukimini korobu tokoro made”

“Let’s go out now until tumble over the snow”

This haiku seemed to have been composed during the journey of “Oi no Kobumi”. When this poem was later compiled in the haiku collection of “Oi no Kobumi”, the first five letters of “ i za i de mu” were changed to “i za yu ka mu” (any time ready to go): “Iza yukamu yukimini korobu tokoro made”.

How about comparison? It’s only a minor change from “idemu” to “yukamu” but the change gives the poem a little brighter touch. I gave it a thought and came to know that the tone senses of the two words, “yukamu” and “yukimi” are resonating in harmony with the common sound of “yu”. And I had my impression that the contrast of “iku” (go) and “korobu” (tumble) made the poem a little more dynamic.

Basho’s change of the verse did not finish there. When he later compiled another haiku collection called “Hanatsumi” (picking flowers), he changed it to “Iza saraba” from “Iza yukamu”: “Iza saraba yukimini korobu tokoro made”.

“Saraba” is an old style of saying good-bye but is not the case here. It probably means “sa-araba” (and then). If so, the haiku may imply to say, “We now have snow and then why not we go out?” This makes the poem more powerful.

The first poem was just a comicality to contrast “go out” with “tumble”, the second was made more polished as a phrase and the third is to express going out joyfully into snow with friends without the sense of momentary thought or haiku technique, which was sublimated in a pure human way. And in there we can feel a beautiful process of artistic creation to consummate Basho’s world of art by looking into within himself.

Human struggles to steadily improve oneself by accumulating experiences piece by piece teach us many valuable lessons. I hope we can live in the same way as Basho did.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp

(Translated by The Planetary Society of Japan)