Tuesday, April 19, 2011
About Basho
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) is recognized as one of the great Japanese masters of the haiku (short verse form with set numbers of syllables in each line.) During his lifetime he won considerable fame and his books found some commercial success.
I have been reading "Narrow Road to the Interior," a title which seems to carry a double meaning. This book describes one of his very long "wanderings" (on foot and horseback), this to his native home, where he is reunited with his family. Curiously, the "interior" is (as I understand it) the area north of Sendai, the city much in the news lately.
He writes in a charming, descriptive style--telling of the various temples and villages and rural folk he encounters along the way. At one Shinto temple he was denied entrance because they thought he was a Buddhist priest (because of his shaved head.) However, he was not.
Here are some of my favorite verses:
Along the roadside,
blossoming wild roses
in my horse's mouth.
------------------------
I would like to use
that scarecrow's tattered clothes
in this midnight frost.
------------------------
Old pond
and a frog-jump-in
water-sound
(Above poem translated by Harold G. Henderson)
(This frog haiku is his most famous poem.)
Although Basho was not specifically a "spiritual" poet, his poetry does much to reveal his own inner nature and the world he lived in, one of greater simplicity and purity than our own, although it too contained its own dangers and threats, especially for someone traveling the countryside. In fact, Basho likely thought he would be killed by robbers along the way, but fortunately he lived to write his account of his journey.
(Image found on google)
