Haikai Poet Yosa Buson and the Bash Revival

Brills Japanese
Studies Library
Edited by

H. Bolitho
K.W. Radtke

VOLUME 27

Haikai Poet
Yosa Buson and
the Bash Revival
By

Cheryl A. Crowley

LEIDEN BOSTON
2007

On the cover : Have I run into Matabei? Haiga. Itsu Art Museum.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication data
Detailed Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data are available on the Internet at
http://catalog.loc.gov

ISSN:
0925-6512
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15709 5
ISBN-10: 90 04 15709 3
Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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printed in the netherlands

To my parents, Kathleen Jones Crowley and Barry Crowley

CONTENTS
List of illustrations...........................................................................................viii
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................ix
Introduction ........................................................................................................1
Chapter One
Buson, the Bunjin (Literati), and the Bash Revival...............................14
Chapter Two
Buson and His Audience: Anxiety And Transcendence.......................35
Chapter Three
Anxiety and the Formation of a Poet: Hokku 17401770....................52
Chapter Four
An Unarmed Blossom Guard: Hokku 17711783.................................93
Chapter Five
Resisting Communality: Linked Verse Sequences .............................. 130
Chapter Six
Buson and Haiga....................................................................................... 165
Epilogue .......................................................................................................... 244
Appendix ........................................................................................................ 249
Bibliography ................................................................................................... 292
Cited Buson Hokku....................................................................................... 301
Index................................................................................................................ 304

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Illustrations for this book are taken from Buson zensh, vol. 6, except for
Figures 3 and 4, which come from Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori
bunko tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series, edited by Zaidan Hjin
Kakimori Bunko (Itami: Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996); and
Figure 10, which comes from Buson ten, edited by Ibaraki Kenritsu
Rekishikan (Mito: Benrid, 1997). All works are by Buson and all are in
private collections unless otherwise noted.
1 Group portrait of haikai sages. Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko ..40
2 First dream of the year. Haiga by Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City
Museum ..................................................................................................... 193
3 Calling cry, cry! Haiga by Miura Chora .......................................... 196
4 At the convent. Illustration from Fourth month principles
(Uzuki teikin) ............................................................................................. 208
5 Ama-no-hashidate. Hanging scroll.................................................... 212
6 Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson............................................... 213
7 The manzai dancers. Haiga .................................................................. 218
8 Cause the madwoman of Iwakura. Haiga......................................... 221
9 Young bamboo! Haiga......................................................................... 224
10 That she walked beneath the blossoms. Haiga ................................ 228
11 Have I run into Matabei? Haiga. Itsu Art Museum...................... 231
12 Dancing! Haiga...................................................................................... 233
13 Willow leaves, fallen. Haiga. Itsu Art Museum ............................. 238
14 Narrow road to the interior scroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art 241

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful for the guidance and encouragement of my dissertation advisor, Haruo Shirane. Kawamoto Kji kindly supervised my
research in Japan, and I received generous grant assistance from the
Shinch Publishing Company. Kira Sueo permitted me to join his
seminar on Buson. I thank Ogata Tsutomu, Horikiri Minoru, and Hori
Nobuo, who offered a great deal of valuable help on this project. The
members of my dissertation committee, Paul Anderer, Lawrence
Marceau, Eri Yasuhara, and Shang Wei, gave me many useful suggestions
and comments. I would like to also acknowledge the help of friends and
colleagues, among them Inoue Yoshiko, Shimizu Tomoe, Kno Taeko,
Okada Akiko, Takeuchi Akiko, Sakaguchi Akiko, Shimizu Hisako,
Ogoshi Eiko, Azuma Shko, Junko Mackert, Kat Yukiko, and Kinugasa
Masaaki. I am also grateful to many teachers, among them David
Anthony, Linda Chance, William LaFleur, Phillip Yampolsky, Ryuichi
Abe, and Barbara Ruch. My colleagues Juliette Stapanian-Apkarian,
Elena Glazov-Corrigan, Corrine Kratz, Matthew Bernstein, Joachim
Kurtz, Patricia Graham, Suzanne OBrien, and Anne Commons have
given me much good advice.
Finally, I thank Kathleen and Kara Crowley and David Mold for
many years of wisdom, good humor, and patience.

INTRODUCTION
Poet and painter Yosa Buson died on the 24th day of the
Twelfth Month of 1783. He was sixty-eight. Buson had long impressed
his friends as being remarkably healthy and active for an aging man, and
in the last years of his life had undertaken frequent trips to places
renowned for their natural beauty, including a visit to Gich-ji at
mi, the gravesite of the great haikai poet Matsuo Bash
(16441694). However, towards the end of 1783 he became ill with
stomach pains, and after the remedies he tried brought no relief, he took
to his bed in considerable discomfort. Tomo, his wife, and Kuno, his
daughter, stayed with him, and his most trusted disciples visited and took
turns keeping watch.
Busons chief disciple Takai Kit (17411789) later described the events leading up to his teachers death in Account of Elder
Yahans Final Days (Yahan- shen ki ), the opening
section of the memorial anthology Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba
, 1784). According to Kit, at one point it seemed like Buson
would recover, and he struggled to complete a preface for an anthology
in memory of his friend, Kuroyanagi Shha (17271771).
However, he abruptly took a turn for the worse, and his disciples began
to quietly discuss what they would need to do after his death. Hearing
this, Buson rallied again, and chided them for giving up on him too
soon. Eventually, though, he began to sense that death was not far off,
and he called to Matsumura Gekkei (17521811, art name
Goshun ) to bring him a brush and paper so that he could compose
his death poem.1
The practice of writing death poems (jisei ) was fairly common in
pre-modern Japan. Such poems were thought to reflect the spiritual
condition of the writer and to indicate his or her readiness for the next
existence; typically, they express a tranquil resignation to the inevitability
of lifes end. However, Buson was not at peace as he contemplated his
death poem. Despite the severity of his physical suffering, a single

1 Maruyama Kazuhiko and Yamashita Kazumi, eds., Buson zensh, vol. 7, Hencho tsuizen
(Kdansha, 1995), pp. 316320. Henceforth Buson zensh is abbreviated as BZ in the
notes.

INTRODUCTION

thought consumed himhow to write a death poem that was good

enough to stand beside that of his poetic predecessor, Matsuo Bash:
tabi ni yande
yume wa kareno o
kakemeguru

taken ill on a journey

a dream wanders
on a withered moor2

Bash
First Buson composed two verses on the topic of the uguisu or bush
warbler:
fuyu uguisu
mukashi I ga
kakine kana

winter warbler
long ago, on Wang Weis3
brushwood fence4

uguisu ya
nani gosotsukasu
yabu no shimo

warbler
something is rustling
in the forest frost5

Neither of these satisfied him, however, and he finally settled on the

topic of white plum blossoms (shira ume):
shira ume ni
akuru yo bakari to
nari ni keri

it is now the moment

when white plum blossoms
lighten into dawn6

Both uguisu (bush warbler) and white plum blossoms are common early
spring topics, and as it was very close to the end of the year they are
appropriate to the season. The fact that Buson did not live long enough
to welcome the new year he anticipates in these verses gives them a
special poignance. However, even more compelling than the poems
themselves is the description in Account of Elder Yahans Final Days
of Busons state of mind as he composed them, a mood of profound

2 tani Tokuz and Nakamura Shunj, eds., Nihon koten bungaku taikei, vol. 45, Bash
kush (Iwanami Shoten, 1963), p. 216. Henceforth Nihon koten bungaku taikei is abbreviated as NKBT in the notes. Verses by poets other than Buson, like this one, are indicated
with the poets name.
3 Wang Wei (ca. 701761) was a Chinese poet and painter.
4 Ogata Tsutomu and Morita Ran, eds., BZ, vol. 1, Hokku (Kdansha, 1992), no.
2412.
5 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2413.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2414.

INTRODUCTION

disquiet as he labored to write something that could adequately represent

him to readers after his death.
Busons efforts to draft and revise not one but three verses suggest
something beyond mere artistic fastidiousness. In fact, Kits account
shows Buson to be distinctly troubled in his relationship with his
audience, that is to say, his readers both in the present and those he
imagined in the future. Even at the point of death, Buson was haunted
not only by the desire to uphold the standard represented by the work of
Matsuo Bash, but by uncertainty about the kind of reception he could
expect from his audience. Such uncertaintyindeed, anxietyhad
persisted throughout his life, and had a profound impact on his literary
practice, his approach to the profession of poetry, and the creation of his
poetic persona.

An Anxiety of Reception
Busons anxiety in regard to his relationship with readers was common
to the poets of the haikai community with whom he associated. These
poets believed that their genre was in a state of crisis. Haikais popularity
had steadily grown since the beginning of the Tokugawa period (1603
1868), but some of its most vocal proponents in the early- and mideighteenth century, who equated popularization with vulgarization,
viewed its very success as problematic, and they began to work to reverse
this trend.
An offshoot of the elite linked verse form renga, haikai of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries relied heavily on allusions to
works of classical and medieval literature, and it demanded of the poet a
mastery of complicated rules and structures. In its most basic form,
haikai was composed in a group. It typically consisted of a hokku
(starting verse) written in a 5-7-5 syllable pattern by one poet, to which
another poet linked a waki (side verse) of a 7-7 syllable pattern;
tsukeku (linking) verses alternating these 5-7-5 and 7-7 patterns
were added to make a chain poem usually 36 verses long. However,
the middle of the seventeenth century saw the rise of a kind of haikai
that placed more emphasis on wit than on knowledge of the literary
tradition. This was called point-scoring or tentori haikai. Tentori
haikai had simplified rules; this made it accessible to a less sophisticated
audience. The teachers who specialized in tentori haikai, known as tenja

INTRODUCTION

(verse markers), competed with one another to attract the most

students and thus maximize their profits. As a result, by the middle of
the eighteenth century haikai became a form of entertainment that was
practiced by enthusiasts from a broad segment of societyincluding
many with little literary educationwho ignored or viewed as irrelevant
the older, more established haikai schools.
However, a new group of poets began to emerge in the 1760s. These
poets aimed at resisting what they viewed as the negative effects of the
spread of tentori haikai: the rise of an unwelcome kind of haikai writerreader whose competence as well as good taste was suspect. Using a
strategy that was typical of premodern literary reformers, this group of
poets looked to the past for a standard to live up to. They found it in
Matsuo Bash, the late seventeenth century poet who had made his lifes
work the transformation of haikai into a literary genre that was equal to
the elite forms waka and renga. Thus, the eighteenth century reform
movement came to be called the Bash Revival.
The Bash Revival lasted for about thirty years, and Buson and his
Yahantei school were at its center. However, as Busons
discomfiture in the final moments of his life indicates, the Revival
movement was a source of unease as well as support for its members,
and their canonization of Bash as a haikai saint brought with it anxiety
as much as authority. This anxiety is different from Harold Blooms
famous formulation of the anxiety of influence, where strong poets
are said to be engaged in a struggle to overcome the legacy of their
poetic predecessors. Indeed, as Haruo Shirane has pointed out in his
study of Bashs complex relationship with the medieval poet Saigy
(11181190), this kind of Freudian approach would seem
antithetical to a culture that emphasizes filial piety and to such a communally-oriented literature as haikai.7 The passage from Account of
Elder Yahans Final Days bears this out, as it shows Busons concern to
be not with outperforming Bash, but with measuring up to his example.
In other words, Busons concern was not with replacing the poetic
predecessor. Indeed, Buson himself was instrumental in imparting to
Bash much of the reverence in which he was held. Rather, Busons
disquiet should be viewed as an anxiety of reception, Lucy Newlyns
term that describes the problematic relationship between writers and

7 Haruo Shirane, Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Bash
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 117.

INTRODUCTION

their readers in early modernity. She argues that in the eighteenth

century, as technological and social changes challenged previous notions
of literary authority and tradition, and groups previously excluded from
the work of producing and interpreting texts gained a greater sense of
entitlement to the process of creating meaning, writers were put on the
defensive. As she notes:
Anxieties experienced by writers center as much on the future as on the
pastnot just because an authors status, authority, and post-humous life
are dependent on readers, but because writing exists in a dialogue with
others whose sympathies it hopes to engage.8

Newlyns argument focuses on the English Romantic poets, but Japanese

haikai poets of the eighteenth century like Buson faced a comparable set
of conditions, which they confronted with similar strategies. Busons
struggle was not with his predecessors, but with his audience. Defined in
broad terms, Busons audience included the whole haikai community:
tentori poets, members of other groups such as those founded by haikais
pioneersi.e., the Teimon and Danrin schoolsand also his
colleagues in the Revival movement, who were rivals at the same time as
they were allies. In this context, Buson was careful to create and maintain
a public persona, and his haikai verse was one of the means he used to
accomplish this.
Recent studies have shown how economic and social developments in
eighteenth century Europe led to changes in the relationship between
writers and their audiences. These developments included advances in
publishing technology and a rise in literacy. The marketplace related to
the production and distribution of books also changed, leading to a
dramatic increase in booksellers, libraries, journals that included book
reviews, and public spaces where the discussion of literary works was a
central activity. As the number of literate people grew, there were more
readers whose interpretive competence was questionable, as many of
them had only the rudiments of education. Not only that, one growing
group of readers who could claim some expertisethat is, professional
criticsincluded people who were potentially hostile.
Such changes led to what has been termed a paranoia on the part of
authors, who perceived their autonomy in the creation of meaning to be
under threat, their writing vulnerable to misinterpretation and inadequate

8 Lucy Newlyn, Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), p. vii.

INTRODUCTION

appreciation, and their control over their work diminishing. This pattern
of development has been observed to precipitate a crisis of modernity
in which the writer no longer knows for whom he writes but is instead
the victim of economic networks that controlled the fate of published
works.9 Thus, a deep divide between writer and audience appeared. This
divide was based in an uncertainty about the future reception of texts
that was in turn related to authors contempt for a public that neglected
them and an audience of professional critics who attacked them.10
A similar phenomenon arose in Japan. The seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries in Japan saw a rise of a class of people who had the
money, leisure, education, and ambition to aspire to participation in
literary practice. It was an era of profound change that saw dramatic
increases in the population of cities (estimated at 1,000,000 in Edo, and
between 300,000 and 400,000 in Kyoto and Osaka in 1700),11 improvements in transportation and communication, and for significant numbers
of people, better education and more disposable income.12
These developments led to the emergence of one of the worlds first
examples of popular culture, or as Peter Nosco defines it, culture that
pays for itselfi.e., self-sustaining forms of culture that are financed
by [their] consumers.13 Increasing numbers of urban commoners (chnin
) and wealthy farmers gained access to arts that had previously been
restricted to elite classesranging from painting and tea ceremony to
flower arrangement and utai singingnot only as consumers, but as
producers as well. Central to this new popular culture was literature. The
literacy rate at the end of the early modern period has been estimated at
40 or 50 percent for men and around 25 percent for women,14 Reading
for pleasure as a pastime even for commoners was established by the end
of the seventeenth century,15 and the distribution of printed texts
equaled or even surpassed those that were made in Europe.

9 Jean-Francois Lyotard, cited in Andrew Bennett, Keats, Narrative, and Audience: The
Posthumous Life of Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 4.
10 Newlyn, p. xi.
11 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
p. 153.
12 Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and Nostalgia in Eighteenth-Century Japan
(Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990), pp. 1819.
13 Ibid., p. 16.
14 Ibid., p. 24.
15 Peter F. Kornicki, The Book in Japan: A Cultural History from the Beginnings to the
Nineteenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p. 262.

INTRODUCTION

These changes had a tremendous impact on haikai. The number of

people composing and reading haikai grew steadily from the sixteenth to
the end of the seventeenth century. Kyoto publishers alone released
300,000 volumes of haikai.16 Haikai teachers also proliferated: one
source, Blossom-viewing carriage (Hanamiguruma 1702), lists the
names of thirty-nine licensed verse markers in Kyoto, twenty-seven in
Osaka, twenty-nine in Edo, and thirty-one in the provinces; there were
large numbers of unlicensed teachers as well.17 As this suggests, the
growth in popularity was not limited to the rapidly developing urban
areas. Due to the itinerant habits of many practitioners, haikai schools
claimed many members in the provinces also. As roads improved and
restrictions on travel lost force, the haikai community expanded dramatically all over the country. One result of the genres rapid growth,
particularly among newly prosperous chnin and farmers, was increasing
friction in the relationship between its producers and its consumers.
The situation of Japanese haikai poets was in many respects different
from that of their early modern European counterparts. The very nature
of classical Japanese poetryparticularly renga and haikaimilitated
against the formation of the kind of gulf between writers and readers
that has been observed in European literary history. For premodern
Japanese poets, consciousness of the audience was always necessarily
high, as they commonly worked in groups, responding on the spot to
verses spontaneously composed by their companions. Verses were
typically subject to corrections of teachers or colleagues, and reflect a
powerful awareness of an environment exterior to the poem. This
environment might include the classical literary tradition, in cases where
the verse alludes to an earlier work; or the recipient, when the verse is
written for the benefit of a particular addressee. Furthermore, not only
was communality intrinsic to the production of haikai, it was integral to
the process of publication also. Verses usually circulated by being
published in anthologies that included the work of numerous poets.
Collections devoted to the work of individuals were relatively uncommon, and even when they were published they almost invariably featured
additional texts like prefaces or afterwords contributed by other poets.

16

Shirane, Traces of Dreams, p. 4.

uchi Hatsuo, Sakurai Takejir, and Kira Sueo, eds., Shin Nihon bungaku taikei, vol.
71, Genroku haikai sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1994), pp. 398401.
17

INTRODUCTION

However, in a genre where texts were necessarily provisional and

vulnerable to reinterpretation, competing claims to authority presented
an especially pressing problem. As the haikai community grew it became
more diverse, and the contestation over haikais norms and standards
intensified. The proliferation of gamelike forms of haikai in the early
eighteenth century brought this debate to a peak.
The rise of the Revival movement at this stage was a response by an
elite group of poets to a threat represented by the emergence of a
popular audience whose values were perceived as lower or lesser, who
were guilty of neglecting or ignoring them. Revival poets tried to
establish a claim to authority and a higher ideal to which haikai practitioners should aspire. They had two interrelated goals: one, to resist the
commercialization of haikai that they associated with the tentori poets;
and two, to reintroduce an emphasis on high literary ideals inherited
from the classical tradition, bringing it beyond the range of possibilities
to which the commercially-minded practitionerslike the tentori poets
limited themselves.
While the Revival movement gave its members a sense of shared
purpose, it was not without its own intrinsically threatening aspect. On
the one hand, Revival movement members were in competition with the
tentori poets who neglected or ignored them. At the same time, however,
Revival poets had another kind of conflict to concern them: while the
opposition to popular haikai was the reason for their alliance, Revival
poets were also in an adversarial relationship with each other, as they all
competed with one another for the students on whom their livelihoods
depended.

Buson in Japanese Literary History

A key member of the Revival movement, Buson was at the center of
early modern cultural development both chronologically and spatially.
He began his literary career some fifty years after the end of the Genroku era (16881704), the time that historians commonly describe as the
cultural height of the early modern period; the years after his death saw
the haikai genre enter into what literary scholars call a stage of stagnation
and decline. Busons life and work took him through Japans great
cultural centers: Osaka during his childhood, Edo during his young
adulthood, and Kyoto during the height of his career.

INTRODUCTION

The genres in which he specializedhaikai and nanga (Chinesestyle landscape painting, literally, southern-style painting)also placed
him at the center of early modern cultural development. While they built
on the traditions of Japan and Chinas elites, both genres reworked these
traditions in such a way as to be accessible to segments of society that
historically had been excluded from many forms of elite culture, i.e., the
lower classes. Both haikai and nanga blend and amalgamate disparate
cultural idiomshigh and low culture in the case of haikai, and indigenous and continental painting techniques in the case of nanga. For all of
these reasons, Busons work provides a useful vantage point from which
to begin consideration of the culture and society of early modern Japan.
Busons reputation as a haikai poet underwent several reversals in the
century following his death. During the last years of the eighteenth
century and through most of the nineteenth, Buson was better known as
a painter than as a haikai poet. His verse was largely ignored in the last
years of the Tokugawa period, despite the fact that the number of haikai
practitioners continued to grow. It remained relatively obscure in the
first decades of the Meiji period (18681912) as well. Haikai itself was
still popular as a form of recreation, but in the literary and intellectual
climate of these years it increasingly drew criticism, and there were even
calls to abandon it altogether.
Buson was rediscovered in the late Meiji period by the poet and
literary critic Masaoka Shiki (18671902). Shiki responded to
criticism of haikai by advocating the reformrather than the abandonmentof the genre. Shiki called modern haikai haiku, and eventually
settled on Buson as the best classical model for modern haiku poets.
Looking at Busons work as a painter, Shiki found in Buson the ideal
exemplar of shasei (realism) in literature, and called him a forerunner of modern Japanese poetry. While Shikis preference for Buson over
Bash was not shared by most other haiku poets, Busons work has
continued to be viewed as an important precursor to haiku: progressive,
presciently modern verse by a poet whose achievements were different
from those of the great Bash but which nevertheless suggested a
potential of haiku that Bashs had overlooked.
Shikis writing at the turn of the nineteenth century laid the foundations for the appraisal of Busons work for most of the twentieth
century. His image of Buson as a painter in words has been at the base
of much writing about Buson as a visual poet. More scholarly readings
of Busons work have also addressed the question of how Busons work

10

INTRODUCTION

as a painter made an impact on his verse, most notably by Ebara Taiz,

Shimizu Takayuki, Okada Rihei, Ogata Tsutomu, Haga Tru, and Kira
Sueo. While other aspects of his work have interested commentatorsespecially the strongly nostalgic tone of much of his later writingviews of Buson as a poet-painter and as a proto-modernist have
remained extremely influential.18
Busons painting has also interested scholars writing in English, and
for many years most of the work on Buson available in English was in
art history. Two major examples are The Poet Painters: Buson and his
Followers by Calvin French (1974), and Haiku Painting by Leon Zolbrod
(1982). More recent are James Cahills The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in
China and Japan (1996), which has a long and detailed chapter on Busons
nanga, and John Rosenfields Mynah Birds and Flying Rocks: Word and Image
in the Art of Yosa Buson (2003), which looks at two recurrent themes in
Busons painting and poetry.
Two book-length studies in English focus on Buson. Haiku Master
Buson (1978), by Yuki Sawa and Edith Schiffert, consists mainly of
translations, though it does include a short section on Busons biography. In 1998, the noted scholar Makoto Ueda published an insightful
monograph on Buson, called The Path of Flowering Thorn: The Life and
Poetry of Yosa Buson. This is a valuable resource for information in English
about Busons work and biography. It includes accurate and highly
readable translations of many Buson hokku and several of his linked
verse sequences, and contains brief introductions to some of Busons
most famous paintings.
My approach differs in a number of ways from that of Ueda and
other scholars in that its examines Busons work within the broad
framework of the historical and social developments of eighteenth
century Japan. My discussion centers on the haikai community in the
Kyh (17161736) through the Tenmei (17811789) periods, and
Busons position within that community. Rather than seeking biographical or psychological interpretations of Busons work, I consider it in the
context of the anthologies in which they were published to show how it

18 See Ebara Taiz, Buson, Osaka: Sgensha, 1943, and Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13,
Ch Kronsha, 1979; Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu, Shibund, 1977 and Yosa
Buson no kansh to hihy, Meiji Shoin, 1983; Haga Tru, Yosa Buson no chiisana sekai, Chk
Bunko Series, Ch Kronsha, [1986] 1995; Ogata Tsutomu, Bash, Buson, Kashinsha,
1978 and Buson no sekai, Iwanami Shoten, 1993; and Kira Sueo, Anei sannen Buson
shunkyj, Taihei Bunko 38, Insatsu Kyshinsha, 1996.

INTRODUCTION

11

was shaped by Busons efforts to negotiate his relationships with the

community of his colleagues and readers. Most hokku were published
numerous times, and in my discussion it is usually only possible to
consider each verse as it appeared in a single anthology. However, in
interpreting Busons work, it is important to consider of the goals and
concerns of a larger communitythose of editors like Kit, Miyake
Shzan (17181801), and sometimes Buson himselfand of
the audiences who read them.
Furthermore, earlier works on Buson in English tend to treat his work
as a poet and as a painter separately. While my study is mainly literary, I
also include an exploration on the ways that Buson combined verbal and
visual elements in his haikai, the best examples of which are his haiga
, or haikai painting. To this end, I use an approach that recognizes
the problematical aspects of Busons relationships with his contemporaries, and his concerns about the estimation his writing would receive
from readers in posterity. I argue that anxiety was central to Busons
relationships with his colleagues and competitors, and to his attitudes
about the reception his work would meet with from readers both in the
present and the past. For this reason my examination begins with an
overview of the social and cultural trends current in the intellectual
community within which Buson worked, and continues with close
readings of his hokku, linked verse, and haiga, to better understand the
effects of Busons interaction with his audience on his haikai.
My study of Busons work begins with an exploration of the Bash
Revival. Although they represented only a minority in the haikai community of the day, ultimately it is the Revival poets and their successors,
rather than their more popular rivals, who eventually came to be
regarded as the central figures of haikai history. How did this happen?
What was Busons role in this? To answer these questions, Chapter One
discusses haikais development from a form of recreation into a serious
literary genre. It starts with an overview of an important trend in the
intellectual climate of the day: the impact of Chinese learning on artistic
and literary communities of the early modern period and the emergence
of the literati (bunjin ) ideal. It then traces haikais history from its
origins to the gamelike forms that became popular in the generation after
Bashs death, concluding with the effort of Revival poets like Buson to
counter what they saw as the cheapening effect of popularization as a
defense not only of haikais prestige, but of their own as well. Chapter
Two focuses more closely on Buson and his audience. It includes a brief

12

INTRODUCTION

biography and introduces several key textsincluding letters, poetic

prefaces, and haikai prosethat illustrate the complexities of Busons
relationship with his audience. One of these, the preface to Shundei verse
anthology (Shundei kush no jo , 1777), the clearest expression of haikai theory that Buson wrote during his lifetime, argues that
there are close connections between haikai, Chinese poetry and painting.
It urges haikai poets to aspire to writing verse that expressed elegance at
the same time as it embraced the experiences of everyday life.
Chapters Three and Four offer close readings of Busons hokku, his
primary mode of literary self-expression. Rather than following a
biographical approach, these chapters present Busons hokku in a setting
closer to the way a reader of the time might have encountered them,
discussing them in the context of the anthologies in which they were
published. Chapter Three begins with an introduction to the poetics of
the hokku form, then analyzes verses from the first two stages of Busons
productive life: his period of apprenticeship in Edo (modern Tokyo) and
eastern Japan (17381750) and his early years in Kyoto, until 1770.
Chapter Four focuses on the hokku of the last stage of Busons career
(17711783), showing that while Busons position as the leader of the
Yahantei haikai school placed him at the forefront of the Bash Revival
movement, he remained ambivalent about his own abilities and preoccupied with constructing his own public image as an heir to Bashs legacy.
Chapter Five looks at Busons linked verse. Linked verse, composed
by two or more poets, was the earliest form of haikai, and Busons work
in this form is among the most masterful in the entire genre. The
popularity of linked verse was on the wane during his lifetime, but the
forms associations with the Bash school made it an important part in
the Revival poets efforts to return haikai to a higher ideal. This chapter
explains Busons role in preserving and promoting linked verse in this
era when easier, shorter forms competed with it. The chapter begins with
a short introduction to the complex procedure of linked verse composition, and then examines three of his kasen (thirty-six link sequences). Discussion of the first sequence, which dates from his early
years, focuses on an excerpt of the sequence; the two other sequences,
from the midpoint and last part of his career, are presented in full.
Chapter Six analyzes five of Busons haigapaintings that combine
haikai texts inscribed in elegant calligraphy with simple, evocative
sketches in ink and watercolor, explaining how their juxtapositions of
verbal and visual imagery combine to form a single, complete work. The

INTRODUCTION

13

images in these verses were not just illustrations; in haiga, text and image
interactively created meaning. The book concludes with a epilogue that
briefly discusses assesments of Buson by two modern poets, Masaoka
Shiki and Hagiwara Sakutar (1886-1942). Full translations
of important Buson texts mentioned in the discussion are given in the
appendix.
Yosa Buson was an extremely prolific poet. Over 2,800 of his hokku
are extant, as well as some 120 linked verse sequences, as well as
numerous examples of haiga, three haishi unconventional verses
which are a hybrid of haikai and Chinese poetry, and several kanshi
(poems in Chinese). In addition to compiling eleven anthologies himself,
he also wrote many prefaces for collections edited by poets both inside
and outside of his school. It is impossible to characterize such a prodigious set of works simply. However, a consideration of the effect that
Busons audience had on his haikai poetry will help to create a framework from which to understand it better. I will argue that Busons view
of his audience was shaped by anxiety, an anxiety related to his position
in the community. This position was one that he negotiated until the last
moments of his life.
In the next chapter, we will begin our examination of the community
of poets in which Buson worked, starting with an overview of the ideal
of the literatus, and continuing with a discussion of the historical
background of the Bash Revival.

CHAPTER ONE

BUSON, THE BUNJIN (LITERATI), AND THE BASH REVIVAL

Buson earned most of his income from painting rather than writing, so a
good way to start exploration of his work is with a brief consideration
his work as a painter. As a painter he was at the center of a development
that was to have a powerful impact on his haikai and the discourse of the
Bash Revival as a whole. This development was the rise of the ideal of
the cultivated amateur, or bunjin, which allowed artists to simultaneously
work as professionals yet appear to transcend the corrupting influences
of profit. In Busons case, the ideal of the cultivated amateur was useful
in his efforts to build a persona that would enable an outsider like
himself to gain support and patronage from wealthy patrons.
Indeed, Buson was an outsider, especially as an artist. He learned by
studying examples in the collections of his wealthy patrons in the
northeast, Tango, Kyoto, and Shikoku, rather than from teachers. In
other words, he was not a member of any of the established ateliers or
artistic lineages like the Tosa, Kan, and Rimpa schools that were
influential in the world of Japanese painting. Modern art historians place
him in the category of nanga or bunjin-ga (literati painting
artistswhich also includes painters like Sakaki Hyakusen
(16971752), Ike no Taiga (17231776), and Maruyama kyo
(17331795).
Busons dual identities as painter and poet were not contradictory.
Painting and poetry have always had close ties in Japan, and the contemporary demand for work that reflected the ideals of the Chinese literati
painters created an especially hospitable climate for someone like Buson,
who had competence in all the arts of the brush, i.e., painting, calligraphy, and poetry.
Both the words nanga and bunjin-ga indicate an affinity with the Chinese wenren (literati; Japanese: bunjin) artists that were active in the
Song (9601279) and Ming (13681644) dynasties. In its most idealized
form, the Chinese term wenren referred to scholar-officials whoeither
through misfortune or because of some political convictionwithdrew
from circles of power, and spent their time writing poetry, practicing

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

15

calligraphy and painting, and enjoying the company of like-minded

friends.1 Wenren did not sell their work, but used it as a means of
contemplation and self-cultivation.
This ideal was immensely appealing to the Japanese, and the word
bunjin that derived from it has a long history in Japan, as does the
emulation of the practices with which it is associated. While use of the
word itself dates back to the Nara period (710794), it has a more
specific meaning in Busons time; it describes a person whoaside from
being learned in poetry, Confucian philosophy, and the artslived an
eccentric, unconventional lifestyle removed from political and economic
striving. In its earliest forms, bunjin came from the upper classes, but by
the early modern period this ideal began to attract followers among
prosperous commoners as well.2
Several factors precipitated the rise of widespread fascination with the
bunjin in this period. First, the social restrictions imposed by the bakufu
(military government), particularly during the reign of the shogun
Tokugawa Yoshimune (16841751, r. 17161745), led to a
general mood of disillusionment among intellectuals. The response to
this disillusionment was withdrawal into intellectual reclusion, i.e., into
the kind of life practiced by the bunjin. Second, Chinese-style products
increasingly became available. Many of these came directly from China,
like ceramics, furniture, books, and paintings, despite the tight limits the
bakufu placed on imports; but there was also a thriving market for
Chinese-inspired goods produced domestically. People of means with an
interest in the bunjin ideal were able to furnish themselves with the
accoutrements that allowed them to create a setting they imagined was
conducive to this kind of lifestyle. Finally, eighteenth-century culture,
already saturated with Chinese influence due to the bakufus endorsement
of Confucian philosophy, experienced a blossoming of scholarly and
intellectual energy devoted to Chinese studies.3
Indeed, the bakufu took an active part in promoting such scholarship,
particularly among samurai. In this age of peace, many samurai were able
to devote themselves to the study and teaching of Chinese philosophy,

1 Alan Berkowitz, Patterns of Disengagement: The Practice of Reclusion in Early Medieval China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 45.
2 Ushiyama Yukio, Kinsei no bunjintachi: Bunjin seishin no shos (Kanrin Shob, 1995), pp.
814, 1618.
3 Yoshikawa Ch et al., eds., Genshoku Nihon no bijutsu, vol. 18, Nanga to shaseiga,
(Shgakukan, 1960), pp. 170171.

16

CHAPTER ONE

history, and poetry, and these highly trained people staffed bakufu and
domain schools. Demand for education was also rising among commoners. At the forefront of this trend were merchants and artisans who lived
in cities, where there was greater access to schools and more incentive to
educate children, but it also extended to the many rural people who
migrated to the cities because of economic pressures. Education
improved even in the countryside, as increasing numbers of farmers
embraced agricultural methods that required higher levels of learning.
Because Chinese studies was at the foundation of the early modern
curriculum, the spread of education increased interest in the ideal of the
literatus-scholar throughout the society as a whole.4
One of the many schools of Chinese studies that flourished was that
of Ogy Sorai (16661728). Whereas many other scholars
were primarily interested in Confucian philosophy and ethics, Sorai also
emphasized accomplishment in a wide range of artistic pursuits, including poetry and calligraphy. Sorai encouraged achieving a direct understanding of Confucian texts without the encumbrance of commentaries
or the special markings (kunten ) that enabled Japanese readers to
understand written Chinese. He taught his students to write in classical
Chinese and even to speak it, and to make the tradition present and
immediate, a part of everyday life.5 Members of the Sorai school believed
that the classical Chinese tradition was not something to be passively
memorized, but to be lived out in practice, and the bunjin represented a
model to which many of them could aspire.
There were close connections between the Bash Revival movement
and the sinophile groups that gave rise to the idealization of the bunjin. In
the first place, many haikai poets also had close affiliations with these
groups, particularly those who also wrote kanshi. To take the Yahantei
school as an example, as a young man Buson is thought to have studied
with Sorais successor, Hattori Nankaku  (1683-1759). His
close friend and disciple Kuroyanagi Shha was also Nankakus student,
and Shha continued his training in kanshi with Tatsu Sro
(17151792) in Osaka. Another colleague and mentor, Miyake Shzan,
was a prolific kanshi poet whose collected verse fills several volumes; his
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen , 1763), an important

4 Marius B. Jansen, Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press), pp. 191195.
5 R. P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1965), p. 23.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

17

Revival collection, was laid out according to the same principles as the
seminal Chinese work Tang shi xuan (Selected poems of the Tang period;
Japanese Tshisen ). Busons disciple Matsumura Gekkei became
one of the most famous and successful bunjin painters. Finally, there was
considerable overlap between Busons haikai acquaintances and the
clients who bought his Chinese-style paintings and therefore had an
affinity for bunjin tastes.
Ideologically, there were two main points of intersection between the
bunjin ideal and the Bash Revival. In the first place, its stress on the
value of poetrywriting it as well as reading itwas important to both.
For admirers of the bunjin, not only was poetry a pleasure to be enjoyed,
it also had a more exalted function: the cultivation of the spirit. Revival
poets, who worked to resist haikais reversion to a frivolous pastime,
were in considerable sympathy with the bunjin valorization of poetrys
higher purpose. The emphasis that the Sorai school in particular placed
on studying the writing of the ancient sages without depending on
centuries worth of interpretive accretions was also attractive to Revival
poets. They treated the works of Bash as their classics, and encouraged disciples to read and internalize their teachings. Busons comment
that, If for three days you do not recite the works of Bash, thorns will
grow in your mouth6 is a good indication of how much importance the
Revival poets placed on familiarity with Bashs writings.
The second point of intersection was the contempt for ambition and
profit that was common to both the bunjin ideal and Revival poets.
Amateurism was the hallmark of the Chinese wenren, who painted for the
sake of self-cultivation, unlike the professional court painters who
worked to please patrons. This had special resonance for wealthy
commoners attracted to the bunjin ideal and Revival haikai alike. Denied
access to real elites (i.e., aristocratic status, participation in government)
and contemptuous of the excesses of commoner culture, glorification of
the amateur was a way for non-elites to aspire to some kind of elite
status insofar as it gave them the moral ground on which to stand as they
castigated popular tenja for being venal and profit-driven.
Of course, Japanese bunjin painters like Buson were not actually amateurs; they exchanged their paintings for money. However, Buson was
able to maintain the pose of the bunjin amateur as a poet precisely

6 Ogata Tsutomu and Kazumi Yamashita, eds., BZ, vol. 4, Haishi haibun (Kdansha,
1994), p. 142.

18

CHAPTER ONE

because this other source of income allowed him to keep his haikai out
of the marketplacethat is to say, apart from the kind of commercialism
that he enthusiastically deplored in tentori haikai poets.

Haikai History and the Revival Movement

While many aspects of the Revival movement were particular to the
historical moment in which it arose, they also demonstrate continuities
with debates that have their beginnings in the earliest period of haikais
formation as a genre. Haikai was at once conservative, as it claimed
allegiance to the classical literary tradition, and progressive, as it encouraged poets to make the innovations that distinguished it from its parent
genres. To explain how the Revival movement came about, it is necessary to first outline the history of haikai, investigating how the tension
between opposing forcesi.e., tradition and innovation, high (ga ) and
low (zoku ) culture, and the aesthetic and the commercialinvigorated
the genre as it developed, and ultimately became the central issue of the
Revival movement.
Haikai history begins with waka, the genre of courtly poetry that was
typically thirty-one syllables long, written in a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. Waka
enjoyed enormous prestige because of its association with aristocrats and
the imperial court of the Nara and Heian periods (7101185). It was a
highly elegant form with a large body of treatises, commentaries, and
collections that formed its canon, and a well-developed system of
schools that jealously guarded its traditions. Renga, the linked verse
genre derived from waka that had its heyday in the medieval period
(11851600), observed the rules of elegance and propriety that had been
set down for waka and likewise developed a canon and an organizational
structure to regulate itself and preserve its standards.
By contrast, haikai no renga (literally, nonstandard renga),
i.e., haikai, owed its very identity as a genre to the fact that it deviated
from the rules of waka and standard renga. As a humorous form, haikai
was usually not included in official renga collections in the medieval
period. Written in moments of relaxation between strenuous bouts of
standard renga, it was viewed as frivolous and ephemeral. Also, the poets
that came to prefer this kind of renga were for the most part neither the
aristocratic protectors of the classical tradition who practiced waka nor
the members of the military ruling elite who aspired to the prestige

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

19

associated with the aristocratic tradition; rather, haikai had the most
appeal for commoners. Because haikai began as a lesser form of renga,
and because its practitioners usually belonged to people of low social
status, haikais position relative to other forms of poetry was an issue
from the beginning.
Another issue was the commercialization of the genre as it became
established in the seventeenth century. Some renga masters were able to
support themselves through teaching, and this was also true of many
people who practiced haikai. However, haikai was far less demanding in
terms of time and education, and as the population of well-off farmers
and working urban dwellers grew during the long period of peace and
stability in the early modern period, the market for haikai also grew. The
job of teaching haikai to students and evaluating their haikai eventually
became a professional occupation.
The professionalization of haikai in the seventeenth century is related
to the emergence of the iemoto or house system throughout the
artistic community, and its attendant concerns with lineages, authenticity,
and small exclusive communities. As was the case in many of the arts of
this period, haikai poets and their disciples organized themselves in a
structure modeled after a patriarchal family. In the iemoto system, the
schools teachings were passed on directly from master to disciple,
organization within the school was hierarchical, leadership was hereditary, and a permit system was set up whereby disciples eligibility to
become teachers was strictly controlled.7 The transformation of haikai
schools into an iemoto-like structure took decades, but from the genres
earliest beginnings its most serious practitioners were deeply sensitive to
matters of artistic lineage, and competition between factions was very
strong.
Haikai had attained the status of an independent genre around the
beginning of the seventeenth century, largely through the work of the
followers of Matsunaga Teitoku (15711653), the Teimon,
who formed the first haikai school. Teitoku was a master of both waka
and of standard renga, having studied with two of the most admired
poets of the day, Satomura Jha (ca. 15251602) and Hosokawa Ysai (15341610). Although as a commoner Teitoku
was unable to receive initiation into the esoteric tradition of waka, he

7 Patricia Graham, Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1998), p. 146.

20

CHAPTER ONE

nevertheless acquired a formidable knowledge of the classical tradition

and became well known for his lectures to commoners on literature.
Teitoku was a reluctant proselytizer, and indeed he had to be pressured
by colleagues into delivering his lectures, but eventually his efforts ended
up making accessible to commoners knowledge that had been previously
limited to the elite. He also experimented with haikai alongside his
composition and teaching of waka and renga, and some of his disciples
included his verse in what is regarded as the first haikai verse collection,
Puppy anthology (Enoko sh,1633).
While Teitoku did not take seriously his own forays into haikai, he
was instrumental in laying a foundation for the genre in a number of
ways. In the first place, his verses, particularly those in Puppy anthology,
served as a model for novice poets. In the second place, his treatises, Air
and water treatise (Tensuish , 1644) and Gosan (1651), later
became standard reference texts of haikai theory, thus making for haikai
the beginnings of a canon of authoritative documents similar to those
that existed for waka, renga and other elite forms of literature. Teitokus
influence lay in the fact that not only had he opened the literary community to a new form of poetry, but that his own background in the
classical tradition led him to begin creating similar institutional structures
in haikai to those that existed in waka and renga. From the beginning,
issues of legitimacy, lineage, and authenticity were of major importance
in the relationships between haikai practitioners.
Also important was the balance of ga and zoku. Teitoku acknowledged
that the fundamental distinction between renga and haikai was that the
latter allowed the use of zoku words, or, as he wrote in Gosan, In the
beginning there was no difference between haikai and renga. Among
them, the one that uses gentle language is called renga, and composing
verses without despising zoku language is called haikai.8 Though
Teitoku recognized the importance of zoku in haikai, he scrupulously
avoided vulgarity, and encouraged his followers to do the same. As a
result, Teitoku-school haikai observed high standards of decorum, and
while its verses are to an extent comic, the humor involved is subtle and
restrained.
While Teitoku was deeply ambivalent about haikai, and regarded
himself primarily as a waka poet, he did believe that it was something

8 Akabane Manabe, ed., Kch Haikai Gosan sakuin hen, vol. 1 (Fukutake Shoten, 1983),
pp. 24-25.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

21

more than just an amusing pastime. In Air and water treatise, he writes,
Haikai is of one body with waka. It is not a Way that should be taken
lightly, arguing that although haikai had been dismissed in the past as
being inferior to waka and renga, because it allowed the use of vernacular, non-literary language it was actually the most appropriate one for the
present day.9 Even more importantly, despite his own reluctance to
actively promote the genre, he attracted energetic disciples who would
make his school, the Teimon, a stable and influential force in haikai for
decades.
Almost as soon as the Teimon established canons and standards,
though, some poets set about breaking them. Most successful among
these were the members of the Danrin, founded by followers of
Nishiyama Sin (16051682). Danrin poetry emphasized
cleverness, word play, and speed of composition; their verses frequently
strayed into earthiness and vulgarity. Making an impression on an
audience, either through wit or speed, was a key value.10 For example,
Ihara Saikaku (16421693), a Danrin poet as well as a fiction
writer, is said to have composed 23,500 solo verses at a haikai event that
lasted just a day and a night.11
While poets of the Teimon might have found Danrin poetry tasteless
and crude, it had great mass appeal. The Teimons efforts to bring haikai
more in line with classical poetry by creating a tradition for it with the
compilation of rulebooks and collections of exemplary verses supported
haikais claims to legitimacy, and this attracted followers. However, the
Danrins use of the opposite tacticbreaking the rules and catering to
the tastes of lowbrow cultureenhanced haikais popularity even more.
The lively quarrels between the Danrin and Teimon and their fierce
competition for disciples demonstrate how vital and active a genre it had
become after the middle of the seventeenth century.
Around the time that the Teimon and Danrin poets were competing
for dominance in Kyoto and Edo, another phenomenon was unfolding
in Osaka that would play a crucial role in the development of haikaithe
rise of short form linked verse or maekuzuke . Teimon and
Danrin haikai tended to favor long verse sequences that were typically

Cited in Kuriyama Riichi, Haikaishi (Hanawa Shob, 1963), p. 75.

Kubota Jun, ed., Kenky shiry Nihon koten bungaku, vol. 7, Renga, haikai, kyka (Meiji
Shoin, 1984), pp. 8082.
11 Konishi Jinichi, Haiku no sekai (Kdansha, 1995), p. 77. This figure is probably
exaggerated; it would have entailed composing one verse every 3.7 seconds.
10

22

CHAPTER ONE

constructed of 36 but sometimes 100 or more links. Maekuzuke, by

contrast, was formed by linking just a maeku (previous verse) and
tsukeku. A tenja would set the verse, a go-between would distribute it to
students, and then the go-between would deliver the students links to
the tenja, who would grade them with points. Both the tenja and the gobetween collected fees for their services, and soon this point-scoring or
tentori haikai became a very lucrative trade. Tentori haikai attracted a large
number of devotees, and quickly spread to Edo, Kyoto, and the provinces.12
As we saw in the introduction, while tentori haikai offered a means for
people to make a living off their literary talents, other, more idealistic
poets despised it. Point-scoring in itself was not necessarily the problem.
The practice of grading students verses did not originate with the tentori
haikai poets; it actually began in the medieval period when renga teachers
would use this system to help students learn the subtleties of linking. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, also, even poets who had
higher ambitions for haikai used points as a pedagogical tool. However,
points soon became an end in themselves, as students competed with
one another to see who could score highest. Haikai of this kind eventually degenerated into an activity that was little more than a game. Indeed,
it actually became a form of gambling, and a law was passed against it in
1723. Also, the competitive side of tentori haikai meant that practitioners
were less concerned with the craft of their poetry than with writing
something impressive and witty, to dazzle others and win points from
the tenja.13 In this sense, tentori haikai strongly favored zoku over ga.
The other aspect of tentori haikai that dismayed more high-minded
poets was the fact that haikai itself was becoming a commodity, and tenja
were more interested in profit than literary quality and made little effort
to cultivate taste and sensitivity in their students. Eager to increase their
income and maximize the number of students, many were willing to
lower their standards in order to make themselves appealing to the
largest number of people possible. The growing sophistication of print
culture and the greater ease of communication and travel also contributed to the commercialization of haikai, as the accessibility of haikai texts
and the ease with which disciples could correspond with and meet even

12
13

Sat Katsuaki et al., Renku no sekai (Shintensha, 1997), pp. 8990.

Ibid., pp. 8990.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

23

distant tenja put the practice within reach of people in the provincial
towns and rural areas.

Bash and the Bash School

The most prominent seventeenth century opponent of tentori haikai was
Matsuo Bash. At the start of his career, Bash worked in the Teimon
and Danrin modes, and even found employment as a tenja. Around 1680
he gave up this work because he felt that it compromised his integrity,
and instead came to depend on the support of disciples and patrons. He
turned away from Danrin haikai, which he had come to consider
frivolous and vulgar, and began to try to push haikai beyond the limits
that poets of lesser imagination had imposed on it.
Bash explored a variety of styles during his lifetime, but two in particular were to have a major impact on the development of haikai in the
eighteenth century. The first was the style he embraced in the early part
of the Tenna period (16811684), the kanshibunch or Chinese
style: this was a literary, elevated style that drew on kanshi for its models.
The second, karumi (lightness), which emphasized simplicity and
ordinary language and situations, was one with which Bash experimented near the end of his life. As the claim to allegiance to one of these
two styles became the basis for factional divisions that arose among his
disciples, I will examine them in some detail.
Scholars regard the verse collection Empty chestnuts (Minashiguri ,
1683), edited by Takarai Kikaku (16611707), as the quintessential expression of Bashs kanshibunch period. The following Bash
verse, taken from this collection, represents this style well. It opens with
a headnote in Chinese, a quote from the Tang poet Li Bo (701
762), In times of sorrow, one learns reverence for wine. In times of
poverty, one realizes the sacredness of loose change:
hana ni ukiyo
waga sake shiroku
meshi kuroshi
Bash

14

NKBT, vol. 45, p. 52.

under the blossoms, the floating world

my sake is white
my rice is black14

24

CHAPTER ONE

The speaker describes his experience of viewing cherry blossoms, which

evokes joy tinged with sorrow. Uki means both floating and melancholy, so uki yo can refer either to a world buoyed up with the effervescence of pleasure, or an ephemeral world of suffering. The speaker is
poor, as his sake is milky with lees and his rice has not been adequately
milled. The awareness of his poverty causes him to have a keener
appreciation of cherry blossoms as emblematic of the sadness of life
even as he sits down to his meal. While the sentiment of the verse is not
unusual in Japanese poetry, its language is quite striking. Even without
the Chinese headnote, its parallel structure (white sake, black rice) recalls
kanshi. It is also far more blunt and intellectual than the oblique, highly
nuanced verse at which Bash excelled in his later years: the meaning of
the poem is expressed with little ambiguity, and it offers the reader the
challenge of figuring out the source of headnote and the delight of the
poets cleverness in reworking it into this context.
The other style that was to have a major impact on the development
of Bash-school haikai of the eighteenth century was something that
Bash arrived at during the last three years of his life, karumi. Verses in
this style create profound meaning out of apparent simplicity. It was an
ideal of great subtlety, which required poets to leave aside embellishments of language and artifice and express themselves in the plainest
terms possible. Karumi verses favor the ordinary and commonplacethe
material of everyday life.
Bashs last collections, especially Charcoal sack (Sumidawara ,
1694) are landmarks of the karumi style. The following, included in
Charcoal sack, is a typical Bash karumi verse:
Kannazuki hatsuka,
Fukagawa nite sokky

On the Twentieth of the Godless Month,

composed extemporaneously at Fukagawa:

furiuri no
gan aware nari
Ebisu k

hawking a wild goose in the streets

has poignance
festival of the Merchants God15

Bash
The words are restrained but evocative. The wild goose customarily
appears in classical poetry as a figure of splendor, a wanderer in the sky
returning home after traveling great distances. In Bashs verse it is

15

Ibid., p. 217.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

25

brought down to earth, carried dead through the streets by a poor

poultry seller hoping to earn a few coins. Poignance (aware) refers both
to the humbled bird and to the miserable man plying his trade in the
cold. This small, sad drama is played out with the lively Ebisu Festival as
its backdrop, an occasion for the merchants of the town to come forth
to pray for prosperity. The verse uses unadorned words to describe an
utterly ordinary scene of commoner life, yet it is full of suggestive
overtones that make it as evocative of the delicate emotion aware, so
often the focus of courtly poetry.
Bash also considered haikai a legitimate literary form, the equal of
waka or renga. More than any of his predecessors, Bash was noted for
writing verses that resonated with the high standards of refinement of
the most admired waka and renga, at the same time as it expressed the
emotions of ordinary people and everyday situations. He wrote in the
travel diary Rucksack notebook (Oi no kobumi , 1709), In
Saigys waka, in Sgis renga, in Sesshs painting, in Rikys
tea, there is one Way that runs through them,16 arguing that haikai
was heir to these medieval artists legacy.
Unlike the verse of the Danrin and tentori poets, which emphasized
zoku at the expense of ga, Bash tried to achieve a balance where both
elements complemented each other. The value of haikai is in rectifying
zokugo (ordinary language),17 he is quoted as saying in Three notebooks
(Sanzshi , 1705). In other words, haikai brought a dignity to nonpoetic language and indeed, transformed it into poetic language. However, he also embraced zoku; indeed, he affirmed its role as the foundation of good haikai. Three notebooks also quotes him as having said,
achieve an awareness of the high, but return to zoku.18 This statement,
emphasized that haikai should not just aim for the elegance of classical
and medieval poetry, but should be grounded in the realities of daily life.
Bash did not set out to defy the literary tradition; rather, he moved
haikai in a direction where it could absorb a broader range of language
and imagery but at the same time preserve its connection with classical
poetry. While acknowledging the importance of ga in bringing to haikai a

16 Sugiura Shchir et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 46, Bash bunsh (Iwanami Shoten, 1959),
p. 51. Sgi (14211502) was a renowned renga poet; Sessh (14201506) was famous for
his ink painting; Sen no Riky (15221591) was a founder of the tea ceremony.
17 Imoto Nichi and Kid Saiz, eds., NKBT, vol. 66, Rengaron sh, Haironsh (Iwanami Shoten, 1961), p. 437.
18 Ibid., p. 398.

26

CHAPTER ONE

necessary amount of gravity, he regarded the zoku element as equally

importantnot for the sake of surprise or amusement, as some of the
Danrin poets used it, but rather as a base to which poets should return
after having internalized the rich possibilities of the classical heritage.

Kyh Haikai: Factionalism and Reform

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the haikai community grew
increasingly fragmented. The number of its readers and writers continued to grow, and the schools that served them competed fiercely with
each other for a share of the profitable market that they represented.
Japanese scholars refer to this as Kyh haikai. The Kyh period is
strictly defined as the years 17161736, but the name is also used more
generally to refer to the early part of the eighteenth century, especially
the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune. Since it was primarily the developments of Kyh haikai that triggered the rise of the Revival movement,
events of this period deserve our close attention.
The Kyh period was a time of increased social controls, as the
shogunate tried to confront the economic problems that had been
mounting over decades. Samurai, officially the ruling class, became
poorer as inflation eroded the value of their hereditary fixed stipends.
Worse still from the shogunates point of view, many had lost sight of
the virtues of self-discipline and frugality that had been fundamental
principles of the samurai way of life since the beginning of the Tokugawa period over a century earlier.
Yoshimunes government implemented a number of measures, later
called the Kyh Reforms, to address these problems. The Kyh
Reforms included higher taxes for the farmers, stricter enforcement of
sumptuary laws that denied merchants luxuries, and various policies to
encourage samurai to cultivate their martial spirit.19 These changes were
seen by many as restrictive and even oppressive, but in spite of them, the
arts continued to flourish. One reason for this was the fact that while the
bakufus policies were supposed to shore up samurai economic power, it
was actually the commonersespecially urban merchants but also many
farmerswho grew more affluent. As commoners acquired economic

19 Conrad Totman, Early Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993),
pp. 296304.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

27

capital, they were eager to increase their stock of what Pierre Bourdieu
calls cultural capitalprestige that allowed them a stronger sense of
participating in the culture of the people in power.20 Thus they began to
demand access to arts that had previously belonged only to those of elite
status. Arts of all kinds found a growing, enthusiastic market in the
newly wealthy commoners of the Kyh period, and one of the most
successful of these arts was haikai.
Haikai appealed to a broad swath of commoner society. It could be
practiced as a hobby, as it had been made easy by willing tenja who
worked to simplify its rules as much as possible. On the other hand,
because of the efforts of poets like Bash, it also was seen as a worthy
pursuit for those who aspired to more refined aesthetic and literary
expression. And so, Kyh haikai poets were roughly divisible into two
categories: those who composed solely for pleasure, and those who were
motivated by a more purely aesthetic purpose. The poets of the second
category, who looked down on the first, were the forerunners of the
Revival movement.
Within these two broad categories, the community was further divided into numerous factions and lineages. The Teimon and Danrin, for
instance, continued to attract followers, and the tentori schools were
growing in both size and number. Most influential of all, though, was the
Shmon; that is to say, the schools that were founded by Bashs
disciples.
The Shmon itself was divided into two large factions, the urban and
the rural. This division was related to the stylistic changes Bashs haikai
underwent over the course of his life. The followers that he had attracted
earlier in his career remained loyal to him but continued to prefer his
older style, while those who joined him as he moved into new directions
tended to favor his newer styles. For this reason, while a large number of
disciples called themselves Bashs direct successors after his death, they
practiced very different kinds of haikai. The most ambitious among them
set up schools, claiming to preserve his authentic teachings, and they
vied with one another for leadership.
The urban Shmon flourished in Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. It was
centered around the activities of Bash disciples Kikaku and Hattori
Ransetsu (16541707), though Mizuma Sentoku

20 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), p. 303.

28

CHAPTER ONE

(16621726), who became acquainted with Bashs teachings indirectly

though Kikaku, also became a powerful leader in this faction. Urban
Shmon poets looked to the style of Bashs early years for their model,
most importantly the verse of the 1683 collection Empty chestnuts. Urban
haikai emphasized sophisticated wit, a taste for novelty, and intellectual
complexity and cleverness. Their verses were often obscure and cryptic,
more like puzzles than poems, and membership in its interpretive
community required a fair amount of knowledge of the literary tradition
on the one hand and of fashions and trends then current in the cities.
The rural Shmon included two main sub-factions, the Mino faction,
founded by Kagami Shik (16651731) and the Ise faction,
associated with Nakagawa Otsuy (16751739, also known as
Bakurin ). Shik had been a disciple of Bash during his later years,
when Bash was promoting the karumi style, and his followers considered the verse of Charcoal sack to be the epitome of good haikai. Shik
was very active in promoting Bashs teachings, which he condensed
into simplified versions and even modified for his own convenience.21
While Bashs karumi verses are among his most powerful, few rural
Shmon poets achieved the same combination of simplicity and
expressiveness, and their verse was vulnerable to accusations of being
bland and trite.
Despite its aesthetic shortcomings, the rural Shmon was very influential in the sense that it attracted a large number of followers throughout the country. It promoted verse that was plain, straightforward and
immediate, and did not require poets to appear witty and au courant like
urban haikai did. It was easily accessible even to people with minimal
education who were isolated from the fashions of the urban centers.
Almost anyone could write and understand rural Shmon haikai, and
with such a large number of followers embracing its teachings, it became
a powerful force in the haidan as a whole.
The Shmon was the major source of energy in resisting the commodification and negative influences of tentori haikai. Modern scholars
trace the beginning of the Revival movement to the 1731 publication of
Ink of five colors (Goshikizumi ) a verse collection of the works of
five poets, most prominent among whom was Sakuma Chsui

21 Two of Shiks most famous treatises were Haikai ten discussions (Haikai jron,
afterword dated 1719) and Twenty-five tenets (Nijk kaj, published 1736). In Nihon
bungakushi, Kinsei II, ed. Hisamatsu Senichi (Shibund, 1964), pp. 250251.

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

29

, who is better known by his later soubriquet Rykyo

(16861748).22 All five received their training with either Bash
disciples or the urban poet Sentoku. The Ink of five colors poets believed
that the commercialization associated with tentori haikai had a cheapening
effect on the haikai community as a wholetentori haikai, they complained, valued style over substance, and wittiness over profundity. They
advocated a return to the practice of composing long haikai sequences,
not just the shorter, truncated forms that were written solely for the
purpose of competing for points. The poets chose a quote from Kikaku
for its preface:
Haikai has become a matter of points; surely it is not haikais original intention to go around the group making judgments according to the evaluation system that this one is excellent, that one is good or outstanding, and so on, is it?....Composing verses in order to please your
teacher, and thus planning each verse so that it has outlandish poetic devices, and competing with others over maeku and so on is behavior that is
plainly to be regretted.23

A prose passage by Gik on the same topic is also included in the text:
In todays world there is no one who does not write haikai, but few are
those who really dedicate themselves to its Way. People think that as long
as they get good points in point-scoring, they are free to do what they
want; they think that they are accomplished after only two or three years,
they openly praise themselves without knowing the Four Ways (i.e. the
basics of verse linking). There are many who think that this is all there is
to it. It is for this reason that no respected poets have emerged.24

One possible impetus for the Ink of five colors poets interest in bringing
change to the haidan was related to their own backgrounds: they all came
from families with close ties to the shogun, either as gokenin
(high-ranking retainers) or merchants who supplied the bakufu. Reasserting the importance of elegance, Ink of five colors stood as a challenge to
tenja who were primarily interested in profit, and their disciples, who saw
haikai simply as a form of entertainment; it marked the start of a new
mood of change in the haikai community.

22 The other Five colors ink poets were Sogan (later, Bak ), Szui ,
Shijaku (later, Rywa ) and Renshi (later, Keirin ). Gik wrote
the preface.
23 Katsumine Shinp, ed., Fukyban haisho taikei, vol. 72, Chk haikai meika sh (Shunjsha, 1929), p. 35.
24 Ibid., p. 42.

30

CHAPTER ONE

As we have seen, the Kyh period was a time of reform and vibrant
development. However, in many respects the haikai of this period
became a victim of its own success, and the more followers it attracted
the more its quality degenerated. The greed of many tenja, the spread of
game-like forms, and the low literary standards that characterized much
of the verse being produced at the time caused some poets, Yosa Buson
among them, to aspire to greater things.

The Revival Movement and Buson

In the years following the publication of Ink of five colors, dissatisfaction
with the commercialization of haikai grew, particularly among Shmon
poets, and they looked to the past for models worth following. Bash
was an obvious choice for a number of reasons. More than any of his
predecessors, Bash was able to create haikai that had all of the dignity
and resonance of the best waka and renga. He was keenly insightful
about everyday life and meticulous in his craftsmanship; his verse was at
once reverent and playful, confident of the classical tradition yet boldly
innovative; this made it stand out from that of his peers.
Most important of all, perhaps, Bash was able to attract large numbers of extremely skilled and devoted students whose efforts to secure
their own position within the haikai community included energetic
promotion of their mentors teachings. During the Genroku period,
Bashs school was only one of many, and it did not have nearly as many
followers as did some others. However, because Bash formed networks
of devoted followers on his own extensive journeys through the countryside, and through the work of disciples after his death, the number of
people who knew of and admired Bash was quite large. As a result,
there were close links between efforts to curb the excesses of Kyh
haikai and the gradual establishment of the image of Bash as the central
figure of haikai history.
Bash died in 1694, and his disciples sporadically published collections of his verse and teachings for decades after his death. Among the
earliest were versions of Dohs Three notebooks and Kyorais treatise (Kyorai
sh , compiled 1704). However, interest in Bash began to pick
up in earnest around 1743, five decades later. Several poets published
memorial verse collections to mark this occasion, most notably Ink of five
colors poet Rykyos Fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the passing of Elder

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

31

Bash (Bash dk ki , 1746). Rykyo, who had converted

from the urban to the rural Bash style in the early 1730s, also made a
tremendous impact on the haikai community with his 1756 publication
Bash seven anthologies (Bash shichibu sh ). This was the
earliest collection of Bashs anthologies, and was a landmark in the
process of defining the Bash canon.25 As its editors proclivities favored
the Mino-Ise style, Bash seven anthologies had particular resonance with the
poets of this school, and the collection helped to promote the view that
rural style was the true, orthodox one.
As demand grew for collections of Bashs haikai, so did the fascination with Bash as a person. The first biography of Bash, Mendicants
satchel tales of Elder Bash (Bash zuda monogatari ), was
published in 1751 by Takebe Rytai (also known as Ayatari
, 17191774). Bash admirers frequently drew a connection
between Bashs lifestyle and the excellence of his work, and were eager
to learn more about his life. The idealized image of Bash as a saintly
traveler single-mindedly dedicated to following the Way of haikai was
promoted by Shmon poets, and it began to take root. As a consequence, other gestures aimed at honoring Bashs memory became
common around this time. For instance, the practice of retracing Bashs
path on the Narrow road to the interior journey, and of erecting memorial
steles (tsuka ) and verse-inscribed monuments (kuhi  marking
sites where Bash had visited, started to become popular.26
The reform movement began to reach its peak around the seventieth
anniversary of Bashs death. The poets who were active in the movement during this period still claimed allegiance to heirs of either the early
rural Shmon poets (Chmu [17321795], Kat Kytai
[17321792], Hori Bakusui [17181783], Miura Chora
[17291780]) or those of the urban Shmon (Buson, shima
Ryta [17181787], Tan Taigi [17091771], Kit,
Shzan). However, they frequently collaborated on projects centered on
Bash, and their rivalries remained relatively friendly.
In the 1760s, around the time of the seventieth anniversary, practices
related to the commemoration of Bashs life and work took many
forms. One of the most common ones was the compilation of haikai
anthologies that reflected some Bash-related theme. In 1776, Ryta and

25
26

Horikiri Minoru, Bash to haikaishi no tenkai (Perikansha, 2004), p. 336.

Fujita Shinichi, Buson (Iwanami Shoten, 2000), pp. 4045.

32

CHAPTER ONE

Buson separately published commentaries on Bashs linked verse, both

called Verse linking of Elder Bash (Bash tsukeai sh ).
Kytais collection Autumn day (Aki no hi , 1772), which was
modeled after the Bash schools Winter day (Fuyu no hi , 1684)
and Ranks Just as it is (Ari no mama , preface dated 1769) were
compiled to showcase verse collected from poets all over the country
who lived up to Bashs ideals. The construction of memorial steles
continued. In 1763, Ryta gathered donations from supporters and built
a Bash memorial stele in Edo. Kytai also built a Bash stele in this
year, and issued a memorial collection Frog call anthology (Atei sh )
to commemorate it. Also, groups and gatherings were organized with the
explicit purpose of following Bashs example or celebrating his life. In
1763, the seventieth anniversary of Bashs death, Chmu began a
custom of holding a series of annual events at Gich-ji temple, site of
Bashs grave. Sankasha , the haikai study group founded in 1766
by Buson and his associates, was also part of this trend, as its participants
sought to rediscover the traditions and practices of the past. The number
of biographies, verse collections of Bash and commentaries on his
works grew dramatically in the following years as well.
During the decade between the eightieth and ninetieth anniversaries
of Bashs death, the movement was at its zenith. The Shmon flourished, especially in the provinces. Activities related to the memorialization and even idolization of Bash continued and found more enthusiastic participants, as the number of celebrations, construction of memorial
sites, and Bash-inspired publications increased. One of the biggest
events was a series of gatherings Kytai and his disciples organized at
Gich-ji temple in 1783. Many of its participants, Buson among them,
doubted that they would live to see the real centenary of Bashs death,
so they decided to commemorate it ten years early. And indeed, their
guess proved correctby 1794, all of the major figures of the Revival
movement were dead.
Though the Revival poets were a highly disparate group, we can still
draw some conclusions about them. Most importantly, they viewed the
haikai of the day as being in a state of crisis. They criticized the popular
tentori haikai as unliterary, as it did not require the rigorous, disciplined
practice that was necessary to develop mastery in one of the elite literary
forms. Moreover, what should have provided an alternative, the Shmon
groups, were also in need of reform. Urban haikai placed too much
emphasis on word play and not enough on the serious expression of

BUSON, THE BUNJIN, AND THE BASH REVIVAL

33

emotion, but on the other hand, rural haikai was too often simplistic and
bland, and pandered to the limited abilities of unsophisticated poetasters
with literary pretensions.
Another reason that the Revival poets made tentori haikai practitioners
their target was that the latter focused on money and profit. Haikai was a
source of income for tentori tenja, and they treated it like that, lowering
their standards in order to attract students. Of course, the Revival poets
also worked as professional haikai teachers, and made a living from their
work as poets. However, they used a number of strategies to minimize
and deflect the appearance of being merely hacks out to make money,
not the least of which was scorning others who did so blatantly.
The Revival movement did not die with Buson, Kytai, and Kit, but
actually gained momentum as haikai fell in with the process of institutionalization that most of the arts underwent at this time. By the end of
the century, the Bash style came to be established as true haikai, and
Bash designated the genres saint.27 The prestigious Nij school of
waka poets conferred on Bash the title Hana no moto no ssh
(, literarily, master under the blossoms), their highest honor,
bringing haikai into line with long-established courtly poetic traditions of
organization and authority. In doing so they finally affirmed the claim
that haikai poets since Teitoku had been makingthat haikai was the
equal of waka and renga.28 Ironically, the Revival movement, which had
been sparked by a desire to resist commercialization and professionalism
in haikai, concluded with the institutionalization of the Shmon as the
orthodox school of haikai.
Despite its conservative rhetoric of returning to the ideals of Bash,
the Revival movement actually looked forward to new directions in the
development of Japanese poetry. As much as the leaders of the Revival
movement deplored the popularity of maekuzuke and similar forms that
were composed outside the highly-regulated, refereed, and communal
setting of a linked verse gathering, their own preference for the hokku
gave further emphasis to the development of a style of poetry that placed
more emphasis on an individual, rather than a collective, voice. By
arguing that language and allusions to ordinary experience had a place in
literaturethat zoku could exist comfortably and legitimately within the
confines of gathey gave support to the notion that commoners have

27
28

Horikiri, pp. 338341.

Sat, p. 97.

34

CHAPTER ONE

an equal share in the production of literature, something that for most of

Japanese history had been the exclusive privilege of members of social
elites.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by making a return to Bash
the centerpiece of their arguments for reform, the Revival poets created
the underpinnings of a view of haikai history that has remained basically
intact up to the present day, one which regards the work of Bash and
the Bash school as definitive of the entire genre. While in later decades
the prestige of haikai rose and fell, Bash retained his position of
primacy. This was true even despite the zealous efforts of the genres
most energetic modern reformer, Masaoka Shiki, to gainsay the reverence which his contemporaries showed to Bash: in the twenty-first
century, most readers continue to regard the work of Bash and the
Bash school as the supreme expression of haikai.
In the following chapter, we will take a closer look at the ways that
Busons efforts to create an identity for himself in the larger community
of literati poets and painters helped shape his haikai.

CHAPTER TWO

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE:

ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE
Yosa Busons role as a leader of the Revival movement makes him a
good subject for a study of the processes that fostered it. Buson found
the Revival movement both a source of support and unease, one that he
both depended on and resisted. I will start my investigation of Busons
position within the movement with a brief overview of the events of his
life, and then turn to a exploration of his relationship with his audience. I
conclude this discussion with an examination of an document that gives
insight into the ways that Buson managed his anxiety about this relationship: the preface to the Shundei verse anthology, a text that shows the close
linkages between Chinese poetic theory and the Revival movement.
Buson was born in 1716 in Kema, now a suburb of Osaka. Around
1735, when he was 20 years old, he moved to Edo. In Edo, he first took
up the study of haikai with Edo-school poet Uchida Senzan
(d. 1758) and soon afterward joining the school of Hayano Hajin
(16761742), a follower of Bash disciples Takarai Kikaku
and Hattori Ransetsu. Hajin called his school Yahantei After Hajin died
in 1742, Buson spent the next decade or so traveling around northeastern Japan. His base was the home of Yahantei disciple Isaoka Gant
(d. 1773) in Shimsa Province, modern Ibaraki Prefecture,
but he also made visits to other poets and art collectors all around the
northeast. He once undertook a longer trip to retrace the route of
Bashs 1689 journey that was the basis for the haikai travel journal
Narrow road to the interior (Oku no hosomichi ). He also made
occasional visits to Edo and probably attended lectures on Chinese
poetry at the school of Ogy Sorai disciple Hattori Nankaku. The main
focus of his activities during this period was to teach himself painting
and sell what work he could, and Hajins disciples provided him with a
ready-made set of contacts on whom he could rely.1

1 The information in this section comes from several sources: Tanaka Yoshinobu,
Yosa Buson (Yoshikawa Kbunkan, 1996); Yamashita Kazumi, Giy no haijin Yosa Buson;
(Shintensha, 1986); Fujita Shinichi, Buson; and Shimizu Takayuki, Buson no geijutsu.

36

CHAPTER TWO

Buson left Shimsa around 1751, and returned to western Japan. He

spent several years in Kyoto trying to establish his painting business.
Hajin had spent time in Kyoto and had many disciples there also, so
Buson was not without friends. He first took up with senior Yahantei
disciple Mochizuki Soku (16881766), a Kyoto poet who
counted among his other students Miyake Shzan and Chmu, both of
whom were to later play an important role in the Bash Revival movement. However, Buson was not able to find a secure foothold in Kyoto
immediately, and in 1754 he moved to Miyazu in Tango Province
(modern Hyg Prefecture) in search of more amenable client prospects.
He met with success as a painter here, but did not compose much haikai.
From 1757 onward Buson lived in Kyoto except for a three-year trip
to Sanuki, Shikoku (17661769). His painting business grew steadily and
he was very active as a haikai poet as well. He married a woman named
Tomo; as he took the surname Yosa around this time, scholars have
speculated that it may have been hers. Commissions began to grow in
number, and several patrons even clubbed together to help him secure
the materials to folding screens. (bybu-e ) for each of them. In
1766 Buson and several of his acquaintancesincluding painting clients
from this folding-screen club and friends such as Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi Shhaformed Sankasha, a haikai study group whose purpose was
to explore poetic topics that had fallen out of use in that time. Partly
because of the success of Sankasha, Buson reopened the Yahantei school
in 1770, formalizing his succession to his teacher Hajins title. The most
prominent member of Yahantei was Takai Kit, and together the two
poets cooperated at various levels to make this group one of the most
important centers of haikai activity in the Kamigata area.
Busons leadership of Yahantei was reluctant at best; he delayed its
opening until he was fifty-five years old, and even then he was never
particularly aggressive in promoting it. The Yahantei collections that he
edited tended to be small and limited to the circle of his own acquaintance. The best example is Blossoms and birds collection (Kach hen ,
1782) that includes not only the verses of Yahantei school members but
also kabuki actors and courtesans. Buson left to Kit the work of
compiling the groups major anthologies: Light of the snow (Sono yuki kage
, 1772), Dawn crow (Akegarasu , 1773) and Sequel to dawn
crow (Zoku akegarasu , 1776). In contrast to Busons, Kits
Yahantei collections were large, comprehensive affairs that included
works by large numbers of poets both inside and outside of Yahantei,

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

37

especially those identified with the Revival movement, including Kytai,

Chora, Bakusui, Chmu, Kaga no Chiyo (17031775) and
Ryta. Kit was an extremely able publicity manager, and his efforts
were instrumental in establishing Buson as his generations major haikai
poet.
Despite his pose of indifference to making a name for himself as a
professional poet, Buson was extremely active in the haikai community
from the 1770s until the end of his life. In addition to correcting his
disciples verses and taking part in regular gatherings that were a normal
part of any haikai school, he authored numerous prefaces to others
collections as well. He also composed highly original and unconventional
works such as the haishi Song of the spring wind on Kema Embankment (Shunp batei no kyoku ) and Yodo River songs
(Denga ka , both published 1777), and compiled the verse and
prose collection New flower gathering (Shin hanatsumi , 1777) and
the remarkable linked verse sequences of Peaches and plums (Momosumomo
, 1780).2
At the same time, Buson was also active in a broader context, taking
part in numerous events commemorating Bash, including painting
scrolls and screens on themes related to Bash, haikai gatherings at
Gich-ji temple (the site of Bashs grave), and the construction of the
Bash Hermitage (Bash-an) at Konpuku-ji temple. These reached a
climax in the years between 1780 and 1784, in anticipation of the 1794
centenary of Bashs death. Buson was an enthusiastic participant in
these activities right up until a few months before his own death in 1783,
and Bash and his example was very much on his mind as his life drew
to a close. As we have seen, even then, at the end of a long and impressive career, Buson remained concerned with creating a poetic legacy that
would outlive him, and living up to a standard that would impress his
audience in the present and in the future.

2 The appendix include full translations of Busons three haishi, the prose portion of
New flower gathering, and the Peaches and plums sequence that is not included in the main
text.

38

CHAPTER TWO

Buson and his Audience

Who, then, was Busons audience? Who were the readers he was
conscious of as he struggled to uphold Bashs ideals? Where did he
encounter his supporters and detractors, and how did he negotiate his
status within the haikai community? I will examine these issues in some
detail, first describing the nature of Busons audience, and then by
discussing several strategies that he used to manage the anxiety that
tinged his relationship with it.
Busons audience included an eclectic group of acquaintances, disciples, fellow poets, and others connected with the haikai industry. In the
first place, there were his patrons. These were usually wealthy commoners who provided him with shelter, money, or other compensation in
exchange for paintings or tuition. Also, there were close colleagues and
disciples with the haikai groups to which he belonged, such as Sankasha
and Yahantei. Although the distinction between patrons, disciples, and
friends were often blurry, there were some associates for whom Buson
had particular affection and a sense of common purpose who served as
his mentors and collaborators. Outside of this close group were other
poets with whom Busons relationships were somewhat more problematic, as they were allies in the Revival movement but rivals nonetheless.
Beyond them was a diverse population of publishers, booksellers, and
haikai poets from outside Busons area. Many of the publications that
featured Busons work were privately printed and circulated mostly
among the poets whose work it contained, but larger collections could
hope to attract the attention of readers who had no personal affiliation
with the editor or school that produced it.
With the exception of mentors and close friends like Hajin, Shha,
Taigi, and Kit, Busons views on his audience were generally ambivalent, and ranged from tolerance at one end of the spectrum to antagonism on the other. This ambivalence may account for a number of
behaviors that can be viewed as defensive strategies against the power of
his audience. First, he was careful to create and maintain a public
persona, one that both concealed the facts about his family background
at the same time as it established his connections to a literary lineage that
reached back to Bash. Second, he defended his position by robustly
criticizing other poetsprofessional verse markers, amateur haikai
aficionados, even poets who were his allies in the Back to Bash
movement. Finally, he was very elusive on the subject of his own poetic

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

39

principles, defending his flexibility and changeableness of style as

keeping in touch with the times, even as he sought to recreate within his
own verse lost worlds of the Chinese and Japanese literary past.
In the first place, Buson took pains to conceal the facts of his birth
and parentage. While most authors are concerned with their public
image, Busons efforts to control knowledge of his origins stand out
precisely because he has been so closely associated with a mood of
longing for a lost past, a reputation established in the early twentieth
century by Hagiwara Sakutars Poet of nostalgia: Yosa Buson (Kysh no
shijin Yosa Buson , 1936). References to Busons
birth and childhood are scant. Kits brief biography of Buson in
Account of Elder Yahans Final Days was notably circumspect and
seems to have been deliberately suppressed information. An early draft
states that Buson was born in the area near Naniwazu (i.e., Osaka) in the
house of a village elder (mura osa no ie ) but these words were
crossed out, the place name changed to Naniwa-e (Naniwa river mouth)
and elder amended to villager (gmin ). The final version omits
the reference altogether. Kits reasons for doing this are not clear, but it
seems likely that Busons family background lacked prestige. 3
Busons reluctance to advertise his family connections may have had a
specific cause: Tamiya Chsen (d. 1816) writes in the zuihitsu
(miscellany) Random lazy jottings (Okotari gusa  1806) that
Buson left home out of shame after he had squandered his inheritance:
(Yoshida) Kenk said, You may know a persons heart by the furnishings
he owns.4 Indeed, the paintings of this haikai poet Buson are greatly admired. I do not know what to say is the reason. When the ancients cherished paintings, first they spoke of the artists virtue, and then they praised
his ability. This Buson squandered the inheritance that his father left him,
and placed himself in a realm of frivolousness, distancing himself from the
gods, Buddhas, and sages, and became a dilettante who threw away his
name and dragged himself into vulgarity (zoku).5

Another theory is that Buson left the area because of natural disasters:
several floods and famines struck the area between 1721 and 1735.

Tanaka, pp. 45.

Yoshida Kenk was the author of Tsurezuregusa (ca. 1330). Chsen
refers to Section 10, Indeed, one can tell the character of a person from the house he
dwells in. Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenk, trans. Donald Keene (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 10.
5 Nihon Zuihitsu Taisei Henshbu, ed., Nihon zuihitsu taisei, vol. 10 (Nihon Zuihitsu
Taisei Kankkai, 19281929), p. 236.
4

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CHAPTER TWO

However, Buson himself said little about his upbringing and youth, so it
is not known whether or not this is true. In any case, he kept his past a
secret. His only direct reference to his early life survives in a letter he
wrote to two female disciples, Ryjo and Gazui , which states
that he spent his childhood in Kema, a village in Settsu Province, now a
suburb of Osaka. He noted this detail in order to provide a context for
his haishi Verse on the Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment.6 This
poem takes the voice of a young serving woman returning home from
Osaka to Kema, and some scholars have speculated that he based its
persona on memories of his own mother. Whatever his actual parentage
was, no documents exist where he acknowledges it.

Figure 1
Group portrait of haikai sages, detail. Hanging scroll. Kakimori Bunko.

6 tani Tokuz et al., eds., Buson shokan sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1992), pp. 188189.
Henceforth Buson shokan sh is abbreviated as BSS in the notes.

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

41

Buson was more keen to create evidence for his poetic ancestry than his
biological one. A striking statement of this kind is his earliest extant
painting, Group portrait of haikai sages, completed while he was in the
northeast (Figure 1). The painting depicts a group of fourteen haikai
poets from the genres beginnings. The earliest are Arakida Moritake
(14731549) and Yamazaki Skan (late fifteenthearly sixteenth centuries); Bash and his disciples Kikaku and
Ransetsu are also included. The most recent poet represented is Busons
own teacher, Hajin.7 Group portrait of haikai sages is a visual work of
genealogy, linking Busons teacher Hajin with a set of eminent poetic
ancestors. It is an important document in the Revival movement,
because it suggests that even at this point, many poets understood
haikais history as a narrative with Bash at its center, setting the stage
for a return to Bash. At the same time, the painting also serves to
establish a lineage for Buson himself. While Busons own image does not
appear, the painting implies that, as Hajins disciple, Buson also becomes
a successor to an illustrious line.
Busons statements in memorial volumes in honor of Hajin such as
Far in the west (Nishi no oku , 1742) and Make the past present
(Mukashi o ima , 1774) also reinforce the relationship between
Buson and Hajin. While it was customary for haikai poets to commemorate their teachers with such collections, Busons comments to these
works suggest a special intimacy with his teacher, and imply that Hajin
acknowledged Busons extraordinary promise:
Not long ago Hajin rescued me from my solitude, and lavished on me an elderly
mans compassion. Surely we had some connection in a previous existence. Now
there is nothing to do to ease my sorrow that he has gone away and will never return. My heart is full and I cannot think of anything to say.

waga namida
furuku wa aredo
izumi kana

my tears may be old

but they are still
a wellspring8

Aside from trying to conceal his past and create links to a prestigious
haikai lineage, Buson was also quite critical of other poets in response to
what he perceived as their hostile attitude toward him. For instance, in
later life he looked back on his youthful days in Edo and describes them

7
8

BZ, vol. 6, p.42.

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 8283. The hokku is in BZ, vol. 1, no. 9.

42

CHAPTER TWO

as troubled, as if his poetic style made him unwelcome in the environment in which he found himself. Kits unpublished manuscript related
to the composition of the Peaches and plums sequences quotes Buson as
saying:
Long ago, I was in Edo, and I searched for the inner teachings of the Master Bash, and the verse which I wrote was elegant and refined; mainly, I
aspired to the lofty style of Empty chestnuts and Winter day. However, the
people of the world did not know that kind of excellence. At that time, I
was around 27 years old, not yet past my youth, but because my verse style
had the quality of agedness the people of the world looked at me as if I
were an enemy. Once someone said to me by way of advice, Haikai is
humorous, its main attribute is to make harmony between people and be
amusing. The kind of eccentric thing youre doing deviates from that basic
essence. Why dont you abandon this and give into human feeling? I listened to these words, and, coming to a realization, I finally went to the
northeast and spent some time traveling around.9

My verse style had the quality of agedness (kuh no oitaru o mote

) suggests that Busons colleagues regard his
work as too mature for someone his age to be writing, and not appropriate for a young poet in the trend-conscious city of Edo. The passage
continues, saying that on his travels Buson learned to imitate whatever
style was fashionable with the locals, but this early bitter experience
seems to have lingered with him even after he became an established
poet.
Busons sense that other members of the community regarded him as
an enemy may explain why many of his early writings contain statements that take an antagonistic posture, attacking the verse of other
poets as inferior. A particularly damning statement is included in Busons
preface to Motsus (dates unknown) Ancient and modern poetry card
anthology (Kokon tanzaku sh , 1751), a collection of verses by
poets of the past and present, printed in the form of reproductions of
the poets original calligraphy:
Nowadays those who are prominent in haikai have different approaches to
the various styles, castigating this one and scorning that one, and they
thrust out their elbows and puff out their cheeks, proclaiming themselves
haikai masters. They will flatter the rich, and cause the small-minded [i.e.,
tentori poets] to run wild, and compile anthologies that list numerous unpolished verses. Those who really know haikai frown and throw them

BZ, vol. 7, p. 254.

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

43

away. Indeed, old priest Sainen-b uses their verses to patch his
paper coverlet at night, and old nun Myshin-ni uses them to label her jars of miso; is this not a disgrace?10

Motsus collection aimed to reinvigorate interest in the work of haikai

poets of the past, giving examples not only of their haikai but also of
their handwriting, which shows them to be superior to the common type
of haikai practitioner of the day. Buson heartily agrees with Motsu,
coming down in severe judgment of the currently popular haikai style
and of its purveyors, whom he characterizes as self-important, greedy,
and ignorant. Elsewhere he castigates traveling verse markers who go
from place to place peddling inferior teaching.
Buson did not limit his censure to professional haikai poets; he also
took a very unsympathetic view of the talentless amateurs around him.
For example, in a letter to Shzan sent from Tango, Buson declares that,
I havent written much haikai since Ive been here, because I cant find
anyone worth working with.11 Even the poets of Kyoto, for centuries
Japans capital of culture and refinement, did not escape Busons scorn:
In any event, the hearts of people in Kyoto are the worst in all Japan. For
a long time I did not think so, but after I started practicing haikai, more
and more I find this to be the case. I have traveled over half of Japan, and
the merits and faults of the human heart are as clear to me as if I could
point to them in the palm of my hand.12

Buson wrote this in a letter to Kit, who was the target of some unspecified criticism or blame from other Yahantei members soon after the
group formed in 1770. Whatever the circumstances, this letter and others
make it clear that Buson felt he had few equals in Kyoto, but that Kit
was one of them. These statements of superiority should be balanced
against the many in which Buson expresses the worry that his haikai is
not very good. Whatever his true feelings might have been about his own
abilities, there is ample evidence that shows that he regarded almost
everyone around him as his inferior.
Buson reserves some of his most hostile criticism for poets of rural
Bash schools; that is to say, the people who should have been his
closest allies. Generally speaking, he disapproved most strongly of the
poets of the Ise and Mino schools. The following passage appears in his

10 BZ, vol. 4, p. 90. Sainen-b and Myshin-ni are typical clerical names; they refer to
no one in particular.
11 BSS, pp. 2526.
12 BSS, pp. 5859.

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CHAPTER TWO

Rules for selection (Shukuh , 1771), a set of guidelines worked out

to direct procedure at Yahantei meetings:
There are those in the world who call themselves Shmon (the Bash
school). In particular they do not know the style of Master Bash. The
verses that they compose as well as what they theorize about do not get
beyond the level of Shibaku (Rural Bash school) commonness. There are
times when these are called Ise School or Mino School. How can we call
them Shmon? People in the know call them by the nickname Backwoods
Bash school. 13

The rural Bash poets came in for the most biting criticism in part
because they were vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy, as many poets
associated with these schools taught a watered-down version of Bashs
teachingssimplified so as to appeal to unsophisticated country people.
In essence what they were doing was little different from what tentori
haikai poets were doing, although as ostensible followers of Bash, they
should have known better. Another reason for Busons hostility was that
the rural Bash poets were also the rivals of the urban poets, to whose
lineage Busons teacher Hajin belonged. And though Buson acknowledges that the urban poets were not as good as Bash himself (in one
document he calls them half as good), he thought that the rural school
poets were vastly worseonly one tenth as good as Bash.
Busons letters also testify to a private ambivalence even towards
writers like Ueda Akinari (17341809), Chora and Kytai,
who were strongly supportive of his aims to bring back haikai to the high
standards set for it by Bash. While letters addressed directly to these
people praise them and express wishes for further cooperation, Buson
shows a different side in others. One letter alludes to a rumor going
around the community that Buson and Chora both looked down on each
others verse, and makes haste to deny it.14 Another uncompromisingly
refers to Kytai as narrow-minded.15
The third strategy Buson used to manage his public image was to
avoid definitive statements on the subject of his own poetic style. While
he did not hesitate to point out others mistakes, with one notable
exception, the preface to Shundei verse anthology, he was imprecise in his
prescriptions for good haikai to the point where it appears that he was
afraid of being pinned down by critics. One passage that offers insight

13

BZ, vol. 4, p. 113.

BSS, pp. 5960.
15 Ibid., p. 309.
14

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

45

into Busons attitude about the power of the audience to shape a poets
work through acts of interpretation is included in New flower gathering, in
which he warns his readers against being too hasty in setting out in print
a definitive edition of ones work:
I think it is better not to publish hokku collections. After a collection is
published, ones reputation always diminishes immediately. One cannot
help feeling that works like the Ransetsu anthology (Genbsh ) and
the Otsuy anthology (Bakurinsh ) did not serve the reputation of
their authors. Why should we even discuss those of mediocre poets?16

As this statement shows, Buson was acutely conscious of the power of

the reading public to pass judgment on a living author, anticipating that
even in the best of cases poets can expect their value to plummet as the
reality of their shortcomings is exposed in print. Haikai poets commonly
published work in group collections showcasing the work of poets of a
single school or compiled for another specific reason by an editor.
Individual verse collections were rarer. Buson did not publish an
individual verse collection during his lifetime; Buson verse anthology (Buson
kush , 1784), edited by Kit, came out after his death.
Other writings sound like a pre-emptive defense against a charge that
his poetic style was somehow inappropriate. He describes his verse as
being in step with the times or in response to the setting. One such
example is the inscription to a painting of the famous landscape of Amano-hashidate in Tango. He writes of his friendship with the painter
Sakaki Hyakusen, where he almost takes a stance on his own style, but
then defers:
We both amuse ourselves with haikai poetry, tracing our lineages back to
Bash. Hyakusen is a disciple of Renjis (i.e., Shiks) style, but is not
a member of the Renji faction. I studied Shinshis (i.e., Kikakus)
teachings but do not imitate Shinshi. Thus if we fall in the river let it be
so, lets take one step up from the top of the hundred-foot pole. We are
like that, neither of us has any interest in making a name for himself in the
haikai world.17

This kind of evasiveness is echoed in other passages. In the memorial

anthology Make the past present, Buson puts the words into the mouth of
his teacher, Changing with the times, transforming with the times in a

16 Ransetsu and Otsuy were prominent poets of the urban and rural Bash schools,
respectively. BZ, vol. 4, p. 59.
17 BZ, vol. 4, p. 95.

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CHAPTER TWO

spontaneous manner, disregarding what has existed before or what may

come into being later is the way it should be.18 Some years later, in the
preface to the linked verse collection Peaches and plums, he introduces an
unnamed interlocutor to speak for his anticipated critics:
At one time, this work consisted of four sequences, one for each of the
four seasons. Spring and Autumn were lost, leaving only Summer and
Winter. Someone suggested that I should get it carved in wood (i.e., published); someone else cautioned me, saying Its been a long time since
these sequences were composed, and no doubt they are out of date compared to what is now fashionable. I laughed and said, The greatness of
haikai is that in truth it has change, and in truth it is without change; for
example, it is similar to going around a racetrack, running after people. It
is like those running ahead are somehow chasing after those coming up
behind. How can one know the difference between ahead and behind
in change? I just express the things in my heart day by day; today it is the
haikai of today, tomorrow, the haikai of tomorrow.19

This preface was written at around the same time as Kits draft cited
above, where Buson is quoted as remembering Edo as full of enemies,
and so their similarity not surprising. However, all of these passages
indicate that Buson is wary of critics who might regard his verse as
antiquated, as insufficiently like his teachers, or unfashionable. He
argues that his verse is unlike most peoples because his ideals are higher
than other peopleshe is trying not to stay up to date with what others
are doing, but to create an authentic expression of his own experience.
Busons relationship with the Bash Revival was a complex one: he
was both apart from the movement and a part of it. On the one hand,
for Buson, the pose of returning to Bash was not just a matter of
slavishly imitating his predecessors poetic style. Rather, he responded to
Bashs example in a way that was informed by the cultural discourse of
the mid-eighteenth centuryone that was quite different from that of
the Genroku period in which Bash was active. Busons verse was
distinguished by a pervasive nostalgia for both an idealized Japanese past
and an imagined China, a sense of gloom and frustration with the social
and political conditions of the daywhich he, like many of his contemporaries, met with a desire for escapeand a playful delight in the
fantastic, the fictional, and the grotesque. On the other hand, Buson
shared with other Revival poets some key values: one, an uncompromis-

18
19

BZ, vol. 4, p. 140.

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 193194.

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

47

ing attitude towards haikai as a legitimate form of literary activity, the

equivalent of waka or renga; two, (at least nominally) the denial of desire
for profit and professional advancement; and three, a careful, scholarly
attitude towards creating and preserving a canon of textsin this case,
the works of Bash and members of his lineage.
The Revival movement had its origins in conflicting pressures that
had been central to haikai since its inception: the ongoing efforts of
haikai poets to claim legitimacy for their genre, and its steady growth in
popularity, which was accompanied by commercialization. These
pressures were related to a more aesthetic issue: the friction between ga
and zoku that was fundamental to haikai. The interplay between ga and
zoku also expressed itself on a social level, as the aspirations of haikai
poetsmost of whom were commonersto higher status, despite the
fact that their genre was inevitably grounded in the commonplace by
language and other generic characteristics.
The aspirations of haikai poets were linked to more general trends
within the society, particularly to the efforts of a variety of intellectuals
to reclaim an idealized past, to create canons of texts that could serve as
a source of authority, and to transcend the mundane world through a
deep engagement with the arts. This was particularly true of the large
numbers of sinophile scholars, artists, poets and connoisseurs who were
associated with what can broadly be termed as the culture of the bunjin,
or literatus. Despite the fact that haikai was a native Japanese poetic
genre, its was closely linked with the world of sinophile intellectuals that
flourished in this period, and the Bash Revival owed much to the ideas
and notions that circulated within it.

Transcending the Ordinary: Buson and the Revival Movement

A good way to get a closer look at the ideas behind the Revival movement is to examine one of its most representative texts, Busons preface
to the Shundei verse anthology that was published in 1777 when the movement was at its height. While Busons statements on poetics are numerous, they tend to take the form of short, focused comments on verses
that disciples sent to him for correction. He was not in the habit of
writing extensive works of abstract theory, nor did his disciples create
collections of his teachings like Bashs students did. Thus the Shundei

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CHAPTER TWO

verse anthology prefacethe closest Buson comes to writing a poetic

treatiseis an important document.
The Shundei verse anthology was a book of verses collected to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the death of Busons friend and
disciple Kuroyanagi Shha. Shhas son Korekoma edited the anthology,
and asked Buson to provide the preface. Of Busons disciples, Shha
was among those with the strongest ties to the literate, sinophilic culture
that engendered the ideal of the bunjin. Shhas grandfather had attended
the Kogid academy of Ogy Sorais mentor, It Jinsai; his father was a
waka poet. Shha himself was well educated in Chinese studies through
his training with Hattori Nankaku and Tatsu Sro. He developed an
interest in haikai later in life and started working with Buson in the
1760s. Shha was also a keen collector of Busons paintings, and
sometimes acted as a go-between in some of Busons business transactions. He died in 1771, soon after Buson established his Yahantei
school.20
Shundei verse anthology preface is styled as a series of conversations
Buson had with Shha in the manner of a mond , or Buddhist
dialogue. It shows that Busons views on haikai were heavily influenced
by the discourse of the bunjin ideal; it addresses the question of the haikai
communitys factionalization; and it argues that the essence of good
haikai is in separating oneself as much as possible from the realm of the
commonplace and commercial, valuing in their stead a striving for
elegance and transcendence. This last point is what has come to be called
Busons theory of distancing haikai from the mundane, or rizokuron
.
In the opening, Shha asks Buson about haikai, and Buson answers:
Haikai is that which has as its ideal the use of zokugo (ordinary language),
yet transcends zoku (the ordinary world). To transcend zoku yet make use
of zoku, the method of rizoku (transcending the ordinary), is most difficult.
It is the thing that So-and-So Zen master spoke of: Listen to the sound of
the Single Hand, in other words haikai Zen, the principle of rizoku .21

Buson argues that the essence of good haikai is in separating oneself

from and transcending the zoku realm, but retaining zoku language.
Because haikai is intrinsically zoku, Busons recommendation is paradoxi-

20 Ebara Taiz, Shha, in Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13 (Ch Kronsha, 1979),
pp. 294308.
21 BZ, vol. 4, p. 172.

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

49

cal. This is why he calls it haikai Zen, likening it to a kan or a riddle

that has no solution, a device often used in Rinzai (Chinese Linji) Zen
practice to help students get beyond their attachment to rational
thinking. In less mystical terms, Buson reminds Shha that while haikai
can never be without zoku language, that is no reason for haikai poets to
sink into vulgarity, either in their work or in their conduct as poets.
Shha pressed Buson for an explanation of this seemingly selfcontradictory statement, asking if there was not a more direct route to
improving his haikai. Busons response here, too, is surprising. Yes, he
answers, the study of Chinese poetry. You have been studying Chinese
poetry for years. Do not seek for another way. When Shha expressed
puzzlement, Buson elaborated, drawing on an example from his other
area of expertise, painting:
Painters have the theory of Avoiding zoku: To avoid the zoku in painting,
there is no other way but to read many texts, that is to say, both books
and scrolls, which causes the ki (Chinese qi, life energy) to rise, as
commercialism and vulgarity cause ki to fall. The student should be careful about this. To avoid zoku in painting as well, they caused their students to put down the brush and read books.22

Here Buson refers to the early Qing (16441911) Mustard seed garden
manual of painting (Japanese Keshien gaden, Chinese Jieziyuan
huazhuan), compiled by Wang Gai  (16451707). The Mustard seed
garden manual was first published in the late seventeenth century in Japan,
and proved so popular that it was reprinted in 1748. It was particularly
influential among nanga artists. The passage that Buson paraphrases,
Avoiding the banal () emphasizes the destructive influence of
commercialism on the ki of artists; reading literary classics, it argues, is
the best way to counteract this poisonous force:
In painting, it is better to be inexperienced (young in chi) than stupid. It is
better to be audacious than commonplace. If the brush is hesitant, it cannot be lively; if commonplace, it most likely will produce only banalities. If
one aims to avoid the banal, there is no other way but to study more assiduously both books and scrolls to encourage the spirit (chi) to rise, for
when the vulgar and the commonplace dominate, the chi subsides. The
beginner should be hopeful and careful to encourage the chi to rise. 23

22

Ibid., p. 172.
Mai-mai Sze, The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting: Chieh Tzu Yan Chuan,
16791701, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 34. Chi is the WadeGiles romanization of qi.
23

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CHAPTER TWO

Later, Shha asked which of the many haikai factions that were active at
the time was the best choice for achieving what he called the innermost
teaching. This would seem to have offered a self-serving person an
opening to promote his own method, but Buson shows much more
finesse:
In haikai there are no gates and doors... The various painting masters did
not divide into gates or build doors. Gates and doors exist in themselves.
Haikai is just like this too. Learn exhaustively each tradition, and keep
these in your mind, and you yourself will choose the best from among
them, and make use of it according to the occasion.24

By gates and doors, Buson refers to the different factions that were
active in the haikai community. The Chinese painting masters, he points
out, recognized that loyalty to the teachings and style of any single group
restricted an artists development. Rather than worrying about upholding
a specific literary orthodoxy, Buson says, good haikai poets learn what
they can from a variety of sources, and do not let their devotion to a
particular tradition cloud their judgment. The notion that one should
change ones style according to the occasion frequently occurs in
Busons description of his poetic goals. That is to say, he makes a virtue
of his unwillingness to commit to a particular style.
Furthermore, his mention of factions and the desirability of avoiding
entanglements with them testifies to the fact that there was a great deal
of competition in the haidan, and that poets did well to worry more
about their verse than their standing in any one of them. He goes on to
say, again referring to the world of Chinese art, that one can learn even
from bad examples, thus making clear the Yahantei schools antipathy
towards rural Bash poets at the same time as acknowledging that even
they provide opportunities for learning.
Buson also describes in detail the kind of life a haikai poet should
lead. Most importantly, he says, one must choose the right companions.
I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in Sod,
and accompanying Onitsura, naming three Bash disciples and the
idealistic Uejima Onitsura (16611738) as the best friends that
a poet could have. Of course, all four were long dead, and Buson is really
repeating the recommendation to read books and scrolls that he made
above, but here the classics are not those of Chinese literature, such as
the authors of the Mustard seed garden manual or their Japanese bunjin

24

BZ, vol. 4, p. 173.

BUSON AND HIS AUDIENCE: ANXIETY AND TRANSCENDENCE

51

followers would have imagined, but the work of exemplary haikai poets
of the past. What is notable here is that in designating these poets as
right companions, Buson is creating an orthodoxy for haikai, in which
the proper models are not poets of classical elite genres. It may seem
obvious that aspiring haikai poets should emulate other haikai poets.
However, this was a formative phase of the genres development, and
Busons words here are in line with the direction that later forces of
canonization would take: these four poets remain central figures in later
configurations of haikai history.
Afterwards, Buson continues his admonitions, stating that one
should separate oneself from the realm of fame and fortune, enjoy
nature, wine, and witty conversation, and let poems come into the mind
spontaneously, without trying to force them. The behavior that Buson
describes here is precisely the one that admirers of the bunjin sought for
formation themselves; only here he presents it as the most conducive
climate for producing haikai.
The Shundei verse anthology preface is a significant document because
despite its brevity, it touches on a number of issues that were important
to the Bash Revival movement and indeed to the literary discourse of
the late eighteenth century more generally. These issues relate to the
identity of the writer in an era when developments in education,
publishing, and political and economic structures conspired to create an
expanding market of readers whose values and expectations were
different from those of the educated elites of the past. Its central
message, that excellence in writing was a consequence of withdrawal
from competition for commercial success, was a direct response to the
popularization of haikai. It suggests that the efforts of Revival poets like
Buson to find a standard for their verse that neutralized the effects of
zokuthe ordinary, everyday worldwas related to a desire to define an
identity that transcended their lower social status. While few haikai
theorists after Buson were to so explicitly identify haikai and Chinese art
and literature as Buson does in the preface to Shundei verse anthology, the
close connection he makes between poetry and painting continued to be
one of haikais central tenets.
In the next chapter, I will begin discussing Busons hokku, or seventeen-syllable verse, exploring the ways in which the keen awareness that
Buson shows in Shundei verse anthology of pressures on haikai poets
affected his formation as a poet and his early forays into hokku.

CHAPTER THREE

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION

OF A POET: HOKKU 17401770
Busons hokku do not lend themselves well to interpretive approaches
that assume a close, transparent connection between the narrative
contexts they create and the events of his life. One of the reasons for
this is particular to Buson: his distrust of his audience and careful efforts
to create a public persona did not create the conditions that might have
led to autobiographical poetry. However, the distance between art and
life that we see in Busons verse is common to that of other haikai poets,
and is actually an intrinsic part of the genre as a whole.
A major reason that haikai is so poorly suited to biographical analysis
is its communality. In its most basic form, the linked verse sequence, it
was a collaboration where poets wrote spontaneous responses to others
compositions. Linked verse demanded a high degree of flexibility, as
those working in this form could not predict what kind of verse they
would be expected to contribute when their turn in the sequence came.
Hokkuoriginally the starting verse of a sequencewere also composed
in group settings, and typically they were written in response on dai or
topics that were chosen by the group leader either in advance of a
gathering or there on the spot. Consequently, even hokku that appear to
be expressions of some personal experience often turn out to have been
written as one of many on the same topic, in the company of other poets
who were all working on it too.
For this reason, the emotions expressed within a verse are not a reliable indication of what was going on in its authors life. Of course, to
argue that there is no connection between haikai and the inner life of the
people who wrote it would be overstating the case. Nevertheless, in
discussing the work of any haikai poet it is important to avoid the
assumption that it offers a direct means of access to his or her emotions
or psychological states.
Furthermore, while the communal and occasional nature of haikai
makes a biographical approach problematic in any case, Busons
deliberate elusiveness on the subject of his personal life makes him an
especially poor candidate for this sort of analysis. Because his writing

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

53

makes almost no reference to his natal family or his youth, it is very hard
to tease out the relationship between his verse and his experience in the
first part of his career. Even in his later years, after he established his
reputation as a painter and a poet, the connections between the world
created in his verse and the events of his life are indirect at best. Thus, it
is possible to view many aspects of Busons verse as part of a pattern of
deliberate efforts to construct a public identity and control information
that might influence the reception of his work.
Finally, Busons verse constructs an alternate world, in which the
everyday realities of life are transformed into a landscape drawn from
imagination and the literary tradition. As we shall see in this chapter, a
notable characteristic of many Buson hokku is their ability to create the
sense of an entire fictional narrative in the brief space of seventeen
syllables, transporting the scene to Heian or medieval Japan, or to a
setting derived from Chinese poetry or history. Alternatively, other hokku
describe landscapes with such remote detachment and apparent objectivity that interpreters of Buson in the Meiji era like Masaoka Shiki,
heralded him as a forerunner of objective realism in modern haiku. In
short, Busons verse demands that readers look beyond the details of its
authors life for possible clues to its interpretation.
At the same time, however, it is precisely haikais communal nature,
which makes it impossible to detach from the social context in which it
was written. Busons maturation as a poet was informed by the environment in which he worked, and so any discussion of his verse must be
mindful of the forces in the community that helped to shape it. Also,
while it is not possible to discern obvious shifts in stylistic development
over the course of Busons lifetime, certain general patterns can still be
observed. Thus there is merit to ordering a discussion of his verse
chronologically. With this in mind, I structure my exploration of Busons
hokku in two sections: those he wrote during his time in Edo northeastern Japan and places in and around Kyoto when he was learning the
haikai craft and developing a distinctive voice (17311770), and those
contained in anthologies compiled during the last part of his life (1770
1784) after he became the leader of the Yahantei school. By viewing
Busons hokku as part of a social context, it will be possible to discern
the effect that Busons highly ambivalent awareness of his audience has
on his verse.

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CHAPTER THREE

Conventions of the Hokku

Before beginning our examination of Busons hokku, it will help to
explain some of the basic conventions of the hokku form itself. Hokku
means starting verse; the word betrays the forms origins as the first
verse in a sequence. While haikai began as a linked form, over the years,
composition of the hokku on its own became more widespread. The
hokkus popularity was connected to its convenienceunlike a linked
verse sequence, a single poet working alone could compose it. As we
shall see, this aspect of the hokku does not exempt it from haikais basic
convention of communality, but because it could be worked over and
revised, it was used first as a pedagogical tool by teachers and eventually
became established as a form in its own right.
Hokku were seventeen syllables long, with a three-part structure of
five syllables in the first section, seven in the second, and five in the last.
The 5-7-5 pattern is common in all forms of classical Japanese poetry.
Occasionally haikai poets deviated from this convention by including
fewer (jitarazu ) or more (jiamari ) syllables in order to
achieve a particular effect, but this was exceptional. Also, the hokku is
expected to include a season worda kidai (seasonal topic or kigo
(seasonal word)and these were not chosen at random, but were
fixed by tradition. Consciousness of the season is another basic characteristic of classical Japanese poetry, and from the time of the earliest
imperial poetry anthologies words referring to plants, animals, meteorological phenomena, human activities such as festivals and other annual
observances were all given a place in the poetic calendar of seasonal
topics. Connotations of these words, or honi (original meaning)
were set by their appearance in early poems; later, dictionaries and
handbooks were compiled that listed the acceptable usage of these
words.
In the seventeenth century, however, the pioneers of haikai built
upon the tradition of waka and renga reference works to create a lexicon
of their own. Haikai poets learned classical usages as part of their
training, and the impact of a verse depended on their skillful balancing of
the conventional meaning, i.e., the honi, of a topic with whatever new
and startling insight they were able to add to it, typically creating a clash
between the worlds of ga and zoku. Whereas waka and renga poets were
expected to employ these seasonal topics in a way that demonstrated

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

55

their understanding of the honi, haikai poets were expected to create a

humorous or startling twist on this accepted meaning.
Let us look at an example of the way this works in practice. The following Buson hokku ostensibly describes a natural scene, although its
headnote immediately suggests that there is another level of meaning at
work:
So no ku o osoite

Inheriting one of our Ancestors verses:

furu ike no
kawazu oiyuku
ochiba kana

the old ponds

frog is growing elderly
fallen leaves1

As is typical of hokku, semantically this is made up of two parts. First, we

encounter an old pond, and alongside it, a frog. Kawazu (frog) is a poetic
word whose honi is suggestive of spring; it calls to mind lusty, energetic
frogs calling to their mates in the breeding season. However, its appearance here is somewhat puzzling, as it is described as growing old; that
is, the very opposite of what one might expect. The second part of the
verse introduces fallen leaves (ochiba) to the scene. Fallen leaves is a
winter topic that refers to leaves turned dry, brown, and brittle, long
after the green of spring and the deep colors of autumn have left them.
Thus the season is established as winter, and now everything makes
sense: the frog is silent, and time is passing it by, because it is in hibernation under leaf litter that covers the ice in a frozen-over pond.
As this example shows, the two parts of the hokku juxtapose seemingly disparate elements to create the effect of surprise. The division of
the two parts is usually marked with a kireji or cutting word.
Typical kireji include the particles ya and kana, both of which in other
contexts are used to mark phrases of high emotion. When no kireji is
present, the break is indicated by the syntax. In The old ponds (Furu
ike no), the kireji kana follows ochiba, indicating that it has strong emotional value, and sets it off from the phrase that precedes it. The first
part of the verse is similar to a question or riddle for which an answer is
expected. As kawazu is emblematic of spring, the reader is held in
suspense, wondering why an image that implies vigor and youth should
be described as growing old. The introduction of the kireji-marked ochiba
is like a revelation that solves the riddle, shifting the scene into a setting
where everything suddenly makes sense.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 2832.

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CHAPTER THREE

A second characteristic common to the hokku is its dialogical quality.

That is to say, the hokku was fundamentally a greeting to a person or a
place. This characteristic is related to the hokkus original function as the
starting verse of a sequence that was composed in the company of
several people on a single occasion. The most senior member of the
party was given the honor of composing the hokku, and he or she
returned the favor by phrasing it as a compliment or aisatsu
(salutation) to the host. Even after the hokku came to be composed
independently of verse sequences, this greeting-like quality persisted.
Aisatsu to places were also common. These might take the form of an
indirect acknowledgement of a host through praise of the locality in
which he or she lived, or an address to the spirit or genius loci of a spot
famous for its beauty, sacredness, or literary associations.
It was also common for hokku to take the form of greetings to
poetic predecessorsin effect, parodies that call to mind a source text
and rework an old theme in a new setting. This kind of parody occurs
frequently in all premodern Japanese poetry, which is highly allusive, in
part as a technique to open out a verses meaning beyond the thirty-one
or seventeen syllables to which poets were limited. Repeatedly incorporating the language of source texts in later poetry reinforced the association of topics with particular meanings, and in this way honi were
created. As a result, even an extremely short form like the hokku could
make a very profound, comic or moving statement by connecting up
with a network of associations that had been formed by centuries of
usage in literature of the past.2
Furu ike no is a good example of the greeting-like characteristic of
hokku. Even without the headnote that alludes to our Ancestor, i.e.,
Bash, it is clear that the verse is a parody of hokku that was deeply
admired by Bashs followers because it is thought to mark his achievement of his mature poetic style:
furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

the old pond

a frog jumps in
the sound of water3

Bash

2 Haruo Shirane, Aisatsu: The Poet as Guest, in New Leaves: Studies and Translations in
Honor of Edward Seidensticker, ed. Aileen Gatten et al. (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 89104.
3 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 37.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

57

In Bashs verse, the kireji ya follows furu ike (the old pond), cutting it
into two phrases, the old pond and a frog jumps in / sound of
water. The tension of the verse is created by the juxtaposition of these
two phrases: the contrast between the static image of an old pond,
evocative of stillness and silence, and the dynamic energy of a living
animal, which moves (tobikomu, to jump in) and creates a sound (mizu no
oto, the sound of water). Bash adds another layer of surprise by using
the word kawazu (frog, here acting as the kigo), which by virtue of its honi
suggests to the reader that the sound it will make will be that of its own
voice, calling out to its mate. Bash defies these traditional expectations
by focusing on the plop that it makes jumping into the water. This
creates a situation that is considerably less elegant than what one would
expect from classical waka, and for this reason the verse is gently
comicala parody of classical poetry that refer to kawazu as expressive
of romantic longing. On the surface it might appear to be nothing more
than a description of a natural scene that the poet actually observed, but
it has another layer of meaning that is accessible through an appreciation
of the way that the poet calls on the classical tradition.
Busons verse is in turn a parody of Bashs, adding its voice to the
long ongoing dialogue between Japanese poets and their predecessors.
While Busons verse perhaps could also be interpreted as an account of
something he observed directly, the parallels to Bashs verse are so
obvious it seems unlikely that they were not deliberate, and the addition
of the headnote makes the connection indisputable. Both share the
structure furu ike [particle] / kawazu [verb], which would almost certainly
cause the reader to recall the earlier verse, and in inviting this comparison Buson causes the differences between the two to become the focus
of the readers efforts to interpret his verses meaning. Replacing Bashs
kireji ya with the possessive marker no, and placing his kireji in the
last section of his verse, the old ponds / frog grows elderly is juxtaposed with fallen leaves. As a result, the readers experience is not so
much the amusement of an expectation comically redirected, as we saw
in Bashs hokku; rather, it is more like the relief of a puzzle solved. Read
with the knowledge that this verse is a parody of Bashs landmark The
old pond (Furu ike ya), Busons The old ponds (Furu ike no) can be
interpreted not as an account of the poets observation of a natural
scene, but as a form of address to his poetic predecessor. It then
becomes possible to read it as a comment on the state of the haikai genre
of the day, that is, a statement of frustration and dissatisfaction with the

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CHAPTER THREE

popular neglect of Bashs teachings. In other words, a once energetic

and youthful animalBashs poetic legacyis now dormant and aging
in the frozen barrenness of the contemporary haikai community.
Haikai poets dialogue with their predecessors was matched by a more
immediate form of dialogue in their practice, as their verses were usually
composed or at least presented in a communal setting. Haikai groups
frequently conducted monthly study meetings where members got
together and received instruction from their teachers, or held outings to
places famous for their natural beauty at which haikai composition was a
central activity. Typically, topics were assigned for these gatherings, and
everyone composed on the same ones; the resulting verses were then
shared and corrected by the teacher. Haikai was composed in a context
of cooperation and understanding between the participants in a given
session; as a record of a particular encounter, they have a strong sense of
immediacy. The group was a source of more than just instruction: it also
afforded a sense of identity and allegiance, and as well as becoming a
center of rivalry and competition.
Thus, the anxiety of reception was always at the heart of haikai practice, as the very nature of the genre meant that poets were keenly aware
of their position within a larger community of fellow writer-readers. This
is very true of all haikai poets, but something that we especially want to
keep in mind as we read the hokku of Buson.

Busons Early Hokku: The Edo Yahantei School

Buson arrived in Edo a few years after the publication of the pioneering
reform-minded anthology Ink of five colors, and his disdain for commercially minded forms of haikai was evident almost from the time that he
got there. Uchida Senzan, with whom he first began to study, was a
successor to the Edo-school poet Sentoku, and like him, favored witty
flamboyance in his verse. Not long afterward, however, Buson switched
to Yahantei, the school of Hayano Hajin, a proponent of a much simpler
and more straightforward style than was typical of urban poets. Hajin
had studied with Bash disciples Kikaku and Ransetsu, though his own
work was quite different from theirs.
In fact, Hajin was a very unconventional Edo-school poet. Although
his training had been with Ransetsu and Kikaku, leaders of Edo urban
haikai, he associated with many different poets, including Tantan in

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

59

Kyoto and Gik, whose verse was included in Ink of five colors. Hajin
spent about ten years in the Kyoto area, becoming acquainted with a
variety of haikai styles. He returned to Edo in 1737 at the urging of his
disciple Isaoka Gant, a rich merchant who lived in Yki, in present-day
Ibaraki Prefecture; later, Hajin established a haikai school in Nihonbashis Koku-ch, and called it Yahantei (Midnight studio).
Hajin was a forerunner of the kind of poet that would take an active
role in the Revival movement: his approach to haikai was eclectic, openminded, and focused on achieving authentic expression rather than
impressing others or copying his teacher. Busons description of Hajin in
the preface to the memorial volume Make the past present alludes to these
qualities:
One evening, he sat formally and said, The Way of haikai is not necessarily a matter of devoting yourself to your teachers rules. Change with the
times, transform with the times, in a spontaneous manner, disregarding
what has existed before or what may come into being later is the way it
should be. Struck by this meditation-masters rod I had a sudden insight,
and have some small understanding of the authentic freedom of haikai. 4

As this passage indicates, Hajin valued responsiveness to the times rather

than the imitation of one particular teacher. Buson made this a foundation of his approach to haikai, and he followed this principle until the
end of his life. Buson also remarks on Hajins indifference to gossip, that
is, talking about competitor haikai teachers. It was precisely these
valuescommitment to authenticity of expression, avoidance of slavish
imitation, and a seriousness of purpose that Hajin shared with Revival
poets.
Despite Hajins own relaxed attitude towards poetic lineage, his status
as a second-generation Bash disciple was an undeniable asset. Even at
this stage, Buson appears to have been very aware of the importance of
professional lineages in the haidan, and he chose one that connected him,
through Hajin, to the famous Kikaku and through him to the paragon of
haikai poets, Bash. Busons preference for the early Bash Empty
chestnuts style, i.e., one that favored complexity of language and allusions
to Chinese literaturerather than the later karumi style that was favored
by the rural poetswas one that Hajin shared.
A few verses survive that Buson wrote while he was a member of
Hajins school. They are not literary masterpieces, but they show the

BZ, vol. 4, p. 140.

60

CHAPTER THREE

point of origin of some issues that were common to Busons poetry all
of his life. Most importantly, it is possible to identify the genesis of a
spirit of resistance, that is to say a rejection of the kinds of frivolous
verse that were the mainstay of the tentori and commercially-minded
urban haikai poets. As we shall see, Buson starts his career with verses
that show a delight in the kind of superficial word play that was popular
with the urban school, but he also wrote some that suggest the beginning
of a desire to transcend the common, popular modes of haikai practice
of the day.
Indeed, from Busons earliest days as a haikai poet, it is possible to
discern three consistent themes: first, a stance critical of the haidan,
second, a strong tendency to create fictional worlds, and third, frequent
allusions to Bash and his work. These three themes intertwine, since the
desire for escape to an idealized world of the imagination and the
valorization of Bashs example are both linked to Busons anxiety and
rejection of what he saw as the vulgarity of the contemporary haidan.
The earliest verse that can be attributed to Buson was included in
Fourth month principles (Uzuki teikin ), an illustrated haikai
collection edited by Rogetsu (16671751) that was published in
1737. Buson also contributed a picturea line drawing of a young
woman reading a letter, seated alongside a small pile of plant stems:
amadera ya
jya ni todoku
bin kazura

at the convent
a cosmetic arrives
during the Ten Nights Ceremony5

Amadera (convent) here refers to Tkei-ji, the Kamakura divorce

temple where women could be released from their marriage vows after
three years of residence. Jya means the Ten Nights Ceremony, a
devotion practiced by Pure Land Buddhist temples from the fifth to the
fifteenth night of the Tenth Month. Bin kazura is another word for
sanekazura, a kind of vine belonging to the magnolia family. An extract
from this plant, a local specialty of Kamakura, was used in arranging the
hair.
In the classical tradition, sanekazura has elegant connotations that can
be traced back to its use in a waka by Sanj no Udaijin
(Fujiwara no Sadakata , 873932) that is included in One

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1. The illustration is in Chapter Six, Figure 4.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

61

hundred poets, one poem each (Hyakunin isshu ). In this verse, the
persona addresses the vine, asking it to draw his absent beloved to him:
na ni shi owaba
Osakayama no
sanekazura
hito ni shirarede
kuru yoshi mo gana

if you bear this name

vine of
Meeting Hill
without letting people know
could you draw her to me?6

Sanj no Udaijin
In keeping with the urban style, the hokku is humorous: though the
woman is in a convent, her mind is not on her devotions, but on the
lover who has sent her the letter. The verse was written on the topic of
things associated with Kamakura, and Buson chooses two of them
Tkei-ji temple and a beauty aidto make a comic juxtaposition.
Other Buson verses of this period also show a taste for light-hearted
word play, such as this one from Peaches and cherries (Momosakura ,
1739), Hajins memorial anthology honoring the thirty-third anniversary
of the death of his teacher, Kikaku:
suribachi no
misomi meguri ya
tera no shimo

the mill
grinds miso thirty-three times
frost at the temple7

Misomi means thirty-three, and it contains the word miso, soybean paste.
Meguri, turns, refers both to the action of the mill turning to grind the
soybeans, and the thirty-three times the year has turned since Kikakus
death. The mill (Suribachi no) is a fitting aisatsu to Kikaku, who was
fond of using word games in his hokku.
While these verses are consistent with the urban style, others suggest
that Buson was already developing a desire to avoid its excesses, and to
aspire for something a little more aesthetically ambitious. One example is
this verse from the Yahantei new years day booklet (saitanch ) of
1738:
Fuji o mite
tru hito ari
toshi no ichi

gazing at Mount Fuji

people pass by
year-end market8

6
7

Haruyama Yko, Hyakunin isshu, Koten shinshaku shiriizu 18 (Chdkan, 2003), p. 42.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 7.

62

CHAPTER THREE

Year-end market (toshi no ichi) is a market that sold goods for the new
year; it was open from the middle to the end of the Twelfth Month. In
the midst of the crowds at the market, the verses persona takes a
moment to appreciate the sight of Mount Fuji, clearly visible in the crisp
winter air. On one level it is a fairly typical new years hokku, bringing
together the lofty image of Mount Fuji with the more mundane but still
felicitous image of the year-end market. At the same time, as Shimizu
Takayuki has argued, it also conveys another meaning: Busons feelings
of loneliness and isolation within the Edo haidan, where poets were so
concerned with profiting financially from their verses that they failed to
notice its potential for elegance and grandeur.9
Other very early Buson verses, published under the name Saich
(or )which he used until around 1744, are similarly bland and
conventionalized, like these that were included in new years anthologies:
ume sageta
ware ni shiwasu no
hito tru

carrying a branch of plum

all around me people pass
in the year-end rush10

omonoshi no
yoake o neiru
shiwasu kana

the seamstress
still asleep at dawn
year-end rush11

Shiwasu (year-end rush) refers to the period just before New Years day,
when people hurried to pay off lingering debts, tidy the house, and
prepare themselves to start the new year with a clean slate. In Carrying a
branch of plum (Ume sageta) the speaker is surrounded by busy,
distracted people, and he alone takes the time to appreciate the beauty of
the signs of coming springin this case, plum blossoms. In The
seamstress (Omonoshi no) a young woman, having stayed up late working
on the sewing projects she needs to finish in time for new years day, is
too weary to wake up even though it is daylight.
This final very early Buson verse is also in celebration of the new year,
though it uses a slightly different strategy:

BZ, vol. 1, no. 3.

Shimizu, Yosa Buson no kansh to hihy, pp. 431432.
10 BZ, vol. 1, no. 4.
11 BZ, vol. 1, no. 5.
9

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

shirami toru
kojiki no tsuma ya
ume ga moto

63

searching for lice

the beggars wife
under a plum tree12

This is a good example of the way that haikais humor derives from its
combination of elements of literary elegance with images of ordinary life.
Shirami (lice) and kojiki (beggar) belong to the realm of zoku. Plum trees
in blossom (ume), on the other hand, are a classical poetic topic. Following the description of a lower-class person engaged in a base physical
activity with a reference to the graceful blossoms, which Buson frequently uses as an emblem of purity, creates a sense of dissonance that is
gently comic.

Buson in the Northeast

Many scholars refer to the years that Buson spent in the Thoku
(northeastern) area as his period of shgy , a word normally used to
refer to arduous religious training. Making his base in Yki in Shimsa
Province for nearly a decade, Buson took up temporary residence with
wealthy commoners throughout the northeast. In contrast to Edo,
where, as Buson later wrote, he felt surrounded by enemies, Shimsa was
a good place for a young, aspiring painter to begin his career. Hajin
disciples and friends provided him with contacts through which he was
able to find material support and permission to view paintings, as many
of them owned collections of art work that Buson could study to
improve his repertoire, and they could introduce him to other prosperous local townspeople and farmers who might potentially become
clients.
The following was written in 1740, soon after Buson first went to
Shimsa. Its headnote is Waiting for spring at the foot of Mount
Tsukuba:
yuku toshi ya
akuta nagaruru
Sakuragawa

12
13

BZ, vol. 1, no. 6.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 8.

years end
rubbish goes floating by
on the Sakura River13

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CHAPTER THREE

This hokku is another good example of the way that haikai brings
together the realms of the elegant and the everyday. The Sakura River
runs along the south of Mount Tsukuba (in modern Ibaraki Prefecture),
and was an utamakura (poetic place name) associated with cherry
blossoms. Mount Tsukuba was connected with renga because it is
mentioned in the poem exchange between the legendary figures Yamato
Takeru no Mikoto and Keeper of the Fires which is considered the earliest example of the genre:
nibari
tsukuba o sugite
iku yo ka netsuru

After passing
Niibari and Tsukuba
how many nights have I slept?

Yamato Takeru no Mikoto

kaganabete
yo ni wa kokonoyo
hi ni wa tka o

Counting them up
of nights there have been nine
and of days there have been ten14

Keeper of the Fires

The verse also makes another allusion to an altogether different genre:
medieval n plays. The word akuta (rubbish) in connection with this
river appears in the play Sakura River (Sakuragawa ). Because of its
associations in the classical tradition, one would expect to find a
reference to this river including cherry blossom petals carried along in
the waters, but here, we instead read of the rubbish people have dumped
in the river after the year-end cleanup.
More significantly, this verse can be read as a conventional aisatsu to
the Sakura River, and a prayer for the new year to bring with it fresh new
poetry. Like Gazing at Mount Fuji (Fuji o mite) that had been published
two years earlier, it is possible to view End of the year as another
statement of Busons dissatisfaction with the Edo haidan, and that the
river running past rengas sacred place of origin will cleanse and purify
his haikai of Edos negative influence.15
Shimsa was home to many prosperous merchants and farmers who
were able to indulge themselves by studying poetry and collecting books
and paintings. It was not uncommon for people from Shimsa to travel

14 Mack Horton, Song in an Age of Discord: The Journal of Sch and Poetic Life in Late
Medieval Japan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), pp. 196197.
15 BZ, vol. 1, p. 11.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

65

to Edo for business, and that way stay in touch with urban trends.
Intellectually, too, wealthy Shimsa merchants rivaled their urban
counterparts, and Busons circle of acquaintance included highly
educated and literate people. These affluent Shimsa commoners were
very comfortable in economic terms, and they were eager to acquire the
kind of prestige afforded by patronage of artists like Buson.
While in the northeast Buson depended on these patrons for financial
backing and access to paintings and books that he could study, but they
were useful to him in another way: they offered him a community where
he could practice his haikai. In return, Busons presence brought them
the prestige and social recognition associated with being sophisticated
supporters of the arts.

The Impact of Chinese Poetry: Busons Narrow road to the interior Journey
In addition to the financial help and companionship he received from his
patrons during this period, Buson also benefited from exposure to their
knowledge of Chinese poetry. As we have seen, the early part of the
eighteenth century saw a rise in interest in the Chinese classics and the
figure of the bunjin. Busons frequent allusions to Chinese poetry can be
understood as part of this phenomenon, as his patrons in the northeast
were interested in the bunjin ideal, and many of them composed kanshi as
well as haikai.
It is likely that one of his earliest encounters with Chinese poetry was
through the teachings of Hattori Nankaku, a disciple of Ogy Sorai,
whose academy of Chinese learning was not far from where he stayed
when he visited Edo after Hajins death. Though the evidence is slight,
most scholars agree that Buson either studied with Nankaku directly or
absorbed some of his teachings through his students. Also, Gant was
acquainted with Nankaku, and would have been able to introduce the
two.
Nankaku was one of his generations most prominent teachers and
writers of kanshi. He had originally been in the service of Yanagisawa
Yoshiyasu (16581714) advisor to shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (16461709) and the founder of the famous Tokyo
Rikugien garden. However, Nankaku eventually left his position
with Yoshiyasu to open his own private academy. Like his mentor Sorai,
Nankaku emphasized the connection between poetry and virtue and put

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CHAPTER THREE

his teachings into practice: living a lifestyle that was an embodiment of

the bunjin, transcending the mundane world with poetry and learning.
After Sorai died in 1728, Nankaku and his colleague Dazai Shundai took
over the leadership of the Sorai school, Shundai teaching the Confucian
classics (keigaku ) and Nankaku lecturing on poetry.16
In addition to the connection with Nankaku, the relationships Buson
forged while in northeastern Japan included people with an interest in
Chinese painting, and through them Buson became familiar with Chinese
art theories, literature and other aspects of Chinese learning.
One of the earliest verses that shows Busons interest in Chinese
poetry is also among his most famous. It is one of the few that can be
directly linked to his journey retracing Bashs Narrow road to the interior
route. It shows a complex interweaving of allusions to Chinese poetry,
medieval Japanese poetry, as well as to Bashs kanshibunch style:
yanagi chiri
shimizu kare ishi
tokoro dokoro

willow leaves, fallen

clear stream, dried out
stones, here and there17

Busons detached, apparently objective depiction of the scene has

interested commentators who consider him to be primarily a visual
poet18 And indeed, it does appear later in inscriptions on paintings that
are spare and simple, like sketches from life.
However, Buson contextualizes the verse with headnotes. The verse
was published several times, with differing headnotes. In its earliest
source, Wastepaper coverlet (Hogo busuma , 1752), it appears
with a headnote linking the poem to Saigy, the medieval poet, priest
and traveler who had a profound influence on Bash. Most later versions
of the hokku also make this reference. Some five centuries earlier, Saigy
wrote a waka on the theme of willows that later became famous:
michinobe ni
shimizu nagaruru
yanagi kana

by the side of the road

along a flowing stream of clear water
a willow

16 Yamamoto Kazuyoshi and Yokoyama Hiroshi, eds., Edo shijin sensh, vol. 3, Hattori
Nankaku, Gion Nankai (Iwanami Shoten, 1991), pp. 337344.
17 BZ, vol. 1, no. 12.
18 Masaoka Shiki, for instance, includes this verse as one example of Busons Objective beauty in Haijin Buson, Haikai taiy (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), p. 118.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

shibashi tote koso

tachi tomaretsure

67

I paused for what I thought

would just be a moment19

Saigy
While the willow about which Saigy wrote his verse was one he saw on
a painted screen, the waka became the basis of legend. Saigy and the
willow became the subject of the N play, The traveling priest and the willow
(Yugy yanagi ). A tree in Ashino, in modern Tochigi Prefecture,
came to be identified with Saigys willow. Bash, who admired Saigy,
visited it on his Narrow road to the interior journey. He composed this
verse:
ta ichimai
uete tachisaru
yanagi kana

a whole field
was planted before I left
a willow20

Bash
Bash himself went on many journeys to famous poetic sites, and
recontextualized them as haikai. Busons visit to the site of Saigys
willow some fifty years later was homage to Bash as well as Saigy and
the verse he wrote acknowledges and confirms haikais links to the
classical tradition. However, in the spirit of Bashs kanshibunch style,
Buson takes this process a step further, recasting the classical Japanese
literary tradition into the context of Chinese poetry, thus making a
familiar trope strange and new. Here orthography becomes a particularly
effective device. The early printed versions of this verse present it
entirely in Chinese characters, and even later versions minimize the use
of kana, so that the verse looks very much like a line of kanshi. Buson
also uses strict syntactic parallelism: a noun followed by a verb in yanagi
chiri (willow leaves, fallen) / shimizu kare (stream dried out)a characteristic of Chinese literary prose and poetry. Bashs hokku A whole
field (Ta ichimai) takes up the theme of the passage of time so sensitively
expressed in Saigys waka, and reworks it in a haikaiesque mode by
linking it with the ordinary work of farmers planting their fields. Buson
takes this reworking another step. Instead of using imagery from the
world of common experience to create a contrast with the elegant

19 Hisamatsu Senichi, ed., NKBT, vol. 28, Shin kokin waka sh (Iwanami Shoten,
1958), no. 262.
20 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 85.

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CHAPTER THREE

tradition evoked by the reference to the willowinstead he places it in

the realm of Chinese poetry, in effect making kanshi in haikai form.
As this verse indicates, Busons delight in working across generic
boundaries was something that began in the earliest period of his work.
This is consistent with other developments of the time, specifically the
popularizing of kanshi through the efforts of people like Nankaku and
the rise of the bunjin.
Aside from Willow leaves, fallen, two other verses survive that
Buson composed while he was traveling the route of Bashs Narrow road
to the interior journey. One is a direct reference to Bashs text:
Matsushima no
tsuki miru hito ya
utsuse kai

people are looking at

the moon over Matsushima
empty shells21

Although Matsushima had been one of Bashs most important destinations on his trip through northeastern Japan, when he finally saw it,
Bash declares that it was too beautiful to write a hokku about it. Buson
does not try to achieve more than his predecessor did. He compares his
own experience to an empty shell: hollow and inadequate to the task of
responding to the sublime vision of the moon over Matsushimas islanddotted bay.
Moonlight plays a major role in another verse written during this
journey. This one is not explicitly connected to the Narrow road to the
interior journey, but it is worth noting because of its great charm. The
verse is introduced with an extensive headnote:
Once I was on my way to Michinoku from Dewa, when it ended up that I was in
the mountains when night was falling, I barely managed to get to a place called
Yashiyabukuro, and I sought lodgings. All night there was a noise like the sound of
something thumping, but when, full of fear, I got up to look, in the garden of the
ancient temple there was an elderly custodian, pounding barley with a mortar and
pestle. When I went out there for a stroll, the moon shone on the lone peak, a
breeze blew through the thousand-bamboo thicket, and there are no words to describe the scenery of the clear night.

suzushisa ni
mugi o tsuku yo no
Uhei kana

21
22

BZ, vol. 1, no. 11.

BZ, vol. 4, p. 84.

in the cool
a moonlit night of pounding barley
oh, Uhei22

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

69

The interest of this verse hinges on its use of homonyms. Mugi o tsuku
refers to the practice of using a large mortar and pestle to grind barley.
Tsukuyo is a moonlit night. Therefore, tsuku is a pivot word, simultaneously referring to grind and to the moon. Also, Uhei is a male
personal name, and on the surface it refers to the elderly temple custodian, who has put off the sweaty work of grinding barley until after
nightfall, when it is cooler. However, Buson writes his name with the
character u , rabbit, which sets off another chain of associations.
According to popular belief, the shadows on the face of the moon form
an image of a rabbit using a mortar and pestle to make mochi. Seeing the
man pounding barley in the cool of the evening, the speaker draws a
connection to the legend of the rabbit in the moon.
In his later years, Buson painted two haiga versions of this poem and
its headnote. In these versions, he includes simple sketches of the rabbit
and his mortar and pestle. The figure of the rabbit is presented in a very
whimsical, endearing fashion, dressed in a mans jacket and standing on
two legs and using his front paws like hands to hold the pestle.
The practice of retracing Bashs steps on the many journeys that he
recorded in haikai travel diaries like Narrow road to the interior and Record of
a weather-beaten skeleton (Nozarashi kik , compiled 1685
1687) became more common as the popularity of Bash spread,
eventually turning into a kind of pilgrimage route for aspiring poets who
came to call Bash haisei , haikai saint. Busons journey in 1743 was
in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Bashs death, and the
fifty years that were to follow saw an increasing number of observances
and events like these that contributed to the positioning of Bash and
his school as the center of the haikai community. Even at this point,
Buson was not a mindless imitator of Bashs style. However, his teacher
had been the student of a Bash disciple. Furthermore, even fifty years
later haikai poets in the area northeast of Edo cherished the memory of
Bashs visits and had the highest respect for his travel diaries that
elevated their own hometownswhich historically had been viewed as
rustic and uncivilizedinto literary space. In short, it would have been
difficult for Buson to ignore Bashs legacy while he was in the northeast, and indeed, he was able to make use of his connections to it in
numerous ways throughout his life.

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CHAPTER THREE

Buson in Kyoto and Tango (1751-1757): Soku, Motsu and Shzan

Buson returned to the Kamigata (Kyoto-Osaka) area around 1750.
Having achieved some level of expertise in painting during his years of
practice and study in northeastern Japan, he was now better prepared to
try to gain entry into the more competitive Kyoto market. In the first
years after his return to Kamigata his primary activity was painting;
Kyoto was the site of many private collections there that he could hope
to study and emulate, and the relationships he was able to form through
haikai allowed him to meet many potential clients. The market for
Busons paintings in Kyoto was almost exclusively limited to the rich
shopkeepers, artisans, brothel owners, publishers, and other businesspeople who found Chinese-style painting more accessible than older
styles like the Tosa and Kan, which were associated with the ruling
elites.23
A verse that Buson composed soon after he arrived in Kyoto makes
reference to one of the paintings that he studied at the time:
Daitoku-ji nite

At Daitoku-ji

hototogisu
e ni nake higashi
shirojir

hototogisu
sing to the painting
the east is blanched white24

The picture in this verse is the painting of bulbuls by Kan Genshin

(or Motonobu, 14761559) owned by Kyotos Daitoku-ji
temple. Hototogisu (cuckoo) is a classical poetic wordits
rarely-heard call in summer evokes feelings of quiet melancholy and
romance, and it was conventional for poets to declare their eagerness to
hear it. The speaker in this poem calls on the hototogisu to out-sing the
bulbuls in Genshins picture. The verse employs a pun: Genshins
personal name was Shirojir, and thus shirojir refers both to the whitening of the sky at dawn and to the painter of the picture.25 But Hototogisu also does something unconventional: it matches the classical
association of the season word not with the word for bulbul, but with an
allusion to a picture of bulbuls, evoked by the reference to its painter,
Genshin/Shirojir. The verse is an early use of a device that Buson was

23 James Cahill, The Lyric Journey: Poetic Painting in China and Japan (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 162163.
24 BZ, vol. 1, no. 33.
25 Yamashita Kazumi, Buson no sekai (Yhikaku, 1982), p. 33.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

71

to use frequently in poetry of his mature period, linking a literary topos

with a visual image. Already Buson is experimenting with uses of imagery
that will later become the foundation of some of his most innovative
works, but at this stage he still has not let go of his youthful interest in
the Edo-school style completely.
However helpful Busons haikai contacts might have been, his early
days in Kyoto were not all that successful. Without an affiliation to an
established atelier he found it difficult to break into the Kyoto art world,
and in 1754 he left to try his luck in a place where the market was less
saturated, the Tango area northeast of Kyoto. He stayed there for three
years.
Since haikai was not Busons focus during this period, his productivity
was limited. Nonetheless, he established several important connections
right away. The first was with senior Yahantei disciple Mochizuki Soku,
the second was with haikai poet Motsu; both of them helped him get
settled in those first years in Kyoto The third and most influential was
with Miyake Shzan, whose prodigious literary output included haikai,
kanshi, and fiction in Chinese. Their friendship was to last until Busons
death, and was one of the most formative of his life.
Soku probably got to know Hayano Hajin around 1727 during the
latters visit to Kyoto. He was very active as a poet, tenja, and editor; his
memorial anthology for Hajin Far into the west contains verses by Buson.
Soku was a respected figure in the Kyoto haikai community and as he
had been Hajins most important disciple it would have been natural for
Buson to seek him out. The following hokku was the opening verse of a
sequence that Buson wrote with Soku and his colleagues, and is
included in the collection Walking-stick earth (Tsue no tsuchi 
attributed to Buson of Tbu (Edo):
aki mo haya
sono higurashi no
inochi kana

autumn already
this cicadas
brief life26

The headnote to this hokku is When I first met Fureib

(Soku) after coming to the capital. Higurashi no inochi means a cicadas
existence, something that was noted by classical poets for its sad
brevity. However, it is homophonous for the phrase managing to eke
out an existencethe sort of lifestyle that young and inexperienced

26

BZ, vol. 1, no. 27.

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CHAPTER THREE

painters like Buson might lead in Kyoto. This is a good example of the
hokkus function in a linked verse sequence: retooling an elegant poetic
phrase into something suitable for the occasion, Buson both praises his
host and amuses the other guests with its cleverness.
Motsu was another important early acquaintance in Kyoto. Motsu
was not the most important of Busons associates, and information
about him is sparse. However, the two texts that were created in the
context of their relationship demonstrate both poets commitment to
haikai reform, and the sense of solidarity that they felt in sharing this
goal. The first is Busons afterword to the collection Ancient and modern
poetry card anthology of 1751. As we saw in Chapter One, Buson uses the
opportunity to lambaste commercially minded poets like tentori aficionados and traveling tenja. Editors of haikai anthologies usually tried to find
a prominent poet to contribute introductory pieces for their anthologies,
and the fact that Motsu invited Busonwho was then an unknown
to write the afterword of Ancient and modern poetry card anthology suggests
that he felt some strong affinity with Buson; the fact that they had a
common view of the degenerate state of the haikai community clearly
influenced his choice.27
The Buson hokku that Motsu included in Ancient and modern poetry card
anthology is affecting and sweet, rather than critically charged:
Yamaga ni yadoru

On taking shelter in a mountain dwelling

sarudono no
yosamu toiyuku
usagi kana

stopping in on Mr. Monkey

in the cold of night
a rabbit!28

Buson frequently wrote verses anthropomorphizing animals. The verse

In the coolness, cited above, is an example, especially when it is read in
its haiga versions, where a rabbit is shown standing and working, dressed
like a human being. In this verse, the speaker describes an encounter
between a monkey and a rabbit in fairytale like terms. The monkey, who
is referred to with the respectful prefix dono (mister, sir) represents a
recluse living in the mountains, and the speaker identifies himself with a
rabbit. This kind of humorous and self-deprecating verse is consistent
with the aesthetic of fga (poetic elegance) or fky (poetic
madness) that a polite poet would use in a greeting to a like-minded host.

27
28

Tanaka, p. 53.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 24.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

73

The other text that is connected to Motsu is also amusing rather

than critical. Like the hokku Autumn already (Aki mo haya) above, it
makes use of a pun. Here, the reference to the exotic word quince
(marumero, from the Portuguese word marmelo) is homophonous with the
imperative form for shave the head in the Edo dialect:
marumero wa
atama ni kanete
Edo kotoba

quince
also means shave your head
Edo talk29

The verse is a comic aisatsu to Motsu, who like Buson, kept his head
shaved in the manner of a priest. The hokkus headnote is also lighthearted, but contains a suggestion that Buson and Motsu shared a sense
of idealism about their role in the haikai community:
The first thing I did when I arrived in Kyoto was visit Motsu. When
Motsu had traveled to Edo, he and I became harmonious friends. In
those days we promised to transform the haikai world together, to take the
tonsure, wear priests clothes, and extol the moon over the capital. He did
not go back on his promise in the least, and recently changed his status to
that of a priest, and took the name of Taimu . While we were talking
about the past, of matters such as how earnest had been our interest in
knowing to the utmost the dreams of the floating world, Kchiku
came along carrying quinces (marumero) in his sleeve as a pious offering,
and I made up this verse 30

The headnote untangles the meaning of this somewhat cryptic hokku, but
more importantly, it is a statement of Busons sense of common purpose
with Motsu in aiming to effect some change in the state of affairs in the
haikai world.
The most significant relationship that Buson formed during this period, however, was his friendship with Miyake Shzan. Shzan, a
pawnbroker by trade, was active in Kyoto and Edo literary circles for
decades. He was an extremely productive kanshi poet: his collected
kanshi, Shzan kanshi anthology (Shzan shish , preface dated
1789), fills ten volumes. Well-versed in other kinds of Chinese literature,
he also wrote tales that were modeled after Chinese vernacular fiction.
Shzan is also noted for having published several important haikai
anthologies, including Haikai selected old verses, Kyoto twenty kasen (Heian
nijikkasen , 1769) and Haikai selected modern verses (Haikai

29
30

BZ, vol. 1, no. 26.

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 8990.

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CHAPTER THREE

shinsen , 1773). Compiled in imitation of the famous Chinese

verse collection Tang shi xuan that was at the time a best seller in Japan;
Haikai selected old verses brought together exemplary hokku by poets of
earlier generations with those of the present day; it bridged the boundaries between Chinese and Japanese poetry, as well as the literary past and
present.
Shzans work both as a haikai poet and an editor offers some of the
best examples of the fruitful interchange between haikai and kanshi that
took place during the middle of the eighteenth century, particularly in the
impulse to organize and recapture the classics of the past that was a
fundamental part of the teachings of It Jinsai and Ogy Sorai. The
frequency with which Buson uses imagery related to Chinese literature
seems in part due to the influence of Shzan.31
Interestingly, his haikai verses do not reflect overt Chinese influence,
certainly not to the extent that many of Busons do. Here are two
examples:
kuragari no
karei ni yosamu no
hikari kana

faint darkness
a flounder glints
in the light of the lingering chill

Shzan
baku no
ren no karabi ya
fuyukodachi

at the baku temple

scrolls hang, withered
wintry woods

Shzan
Even the second verse, which alludes to the baku sect of Zenan
important source of Chinese learning in the early modern perioduses
the words baku and ren as decorative and distancing. In other
words, Shzans haikai verses are not kanshi written in Japanese. Despite
his familiarity with Chinese literature in other contexts, in Shzans
haikai China is a source of romance and exoticism.
In any case, Shzan was an important mentor for Buson during this
part of his career, and Buson was careful to maintain this relationship
even when he was working outside Kyoto. A letter Buson wrote to
Shzan from Tango around two years after he arrived explains one of
the reasons that he wrote few hokku while he was there. In this area,

31

Kiyoto Noriko, Miyake Shzan, in Kubota, Renga, haikai, kyka, p. 307.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

75

they have changed to the style of Tkab (Shik); it is the haikai

of Mino and Owari and the like, and not very interesting.32 Since haikai
poets depended so much on the input of members of their community,
isolation from worthy companions was a difficult hurdle to overcome. In
the same letter, Buson includes a rare attempt at kanshi, expressing his
frustration with and dislike of the Tango area and even the accent of the
people who lived there:
Sent as a Token to Taku Shzan and others in Heian (Kyoto)

As I gaze toward the capital from west of eyama, the distance is

vast
As I listen to the local dialect, it is hard to love this place.
But, like the spring clouds, I have a travelers spirit;
Last night Changan was filled with rain.

Busons disdain for the local accent is perhaps not surprising to hear
from someone who was trying to gain acceptance in the capital, which
was the center of culture and refinement. However, given the antipathy
for the area that he expresses here it is not clear why he chose to take
Yosa as his surname.
The letter to Shzan also includes a hokku:
Kenk wa
kinu mo itowaji
koromogae

Yoshida Kenk
surely did not disapprove of silk too
day of changing to summer clothes

In haikai koromogae (changing clothes) is an early summer kigo; it refers to

the time around the first day of the Fourth Month that was fixed by
custom as the day when people put off their winter garments and started
wearing summer ones. Like the other Buson hokku from this period that
we have discussed, Yoshida Kenk (Kenk wa) also uses homophony
for comic effect. Kenk written with the characters  would mean
silk-loving; the Kenk in the verse is written as , and refers to the

32

BSS, p. 26.

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CHAPTER THREE

renowned medieval poet and essayist Yoshida Kenk (1283

1352). Kenk lived the austere life of an aesthetic recluse, but even he
permitted himself a few luxuries. The speaker of the poem wishes for
some himself, as he is stuck in a remote country place with little to look
forward to. This is not one of Busons greatest verses, but it seems to be
an example of his efforts to adapt to the style that was current in
whatever place he happened to be, even though privately he may have
despised it.
In Miyazu Buson stayed at Kensh-ji temple as a guest of its
chief priest, Chikukei (17151779), for three years. While he
completed many fine paintings during this period, he was less active in
haikai. Years later Buson wrote a number of anecdotes about his
experiences in Tango in the prose section of New flower gathering, including a slightly ribald story about Chikukei and a badger. I will discuss this
story and its implications in greater detail in Chapter Six.
Although Buson respected Chikukeis verse enough to include one of
his hokku in the prose section to New flower gathering, the Tango poets he
met generally failed to impress him. One notable hokku from Busons
years in Tango is the following, which was written as an expression of
appreciation to a host:
natsugawa o
kosu ureshisa yo
te ni zri

oh, the joy

of crossing a summer stream
sandals in hand33

The juxtaposition of sandals in hand (te ni zri) with oh, the joy!
(ureshisa yo) makes a direct and visceral statement of the speakers delight.
As the headnote makes clear, Buson is praising the landscape around
Kaya not just as being visually appealing, but pleasant in a more tactile
way. On another level, the verse recasts the ordinary, unremarkable
Japanese setting into a more elegant and exotic Chinese one by alluding
to White Rock Shoal, a verse written by Pei Di (fl. 72050), as
part of an exchange with Wang Wei:
White Rock Shoal
On tiptoe, on a rock, again I face the water
I have not yet had enough of playing in the waves

33

BZ, vol. 1, no. 36.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

77

But the sun has set, and the river shoal runs cold
Clouds float in paleness, without color.

Pei Dis verse was part of a series of twenty quatrains that he wrote in
response to a series of quatrains written by Wang Wei on the subject of
the landscape on the Wang River estate. Buson deeply admired Wang
Wei, who was also a poet and a painter, and an exemplar of the bunjin
ideal. His reference to this famous exchange between friends in his hokku
was high praise to his addressee, as it put their friendship on the same
level as that of the famous Chinese poets. Whether this was the direct
result of his acquaintance with Shzan, or grew out of the exposure to
Chinese poetry Buson had in Edo and in Yki is impossible to establish.
However, it seems clear that there was a great deal of crossover between
the communities of haikai and kanshi poets.

Kyoto, Sanuki, and the Sankasha Group (17581769)

Though Buson was to make one other long journey away from Kyoto
(17661768) his ties to the city were permanent from this time onward,
and he began to establish himself as an artist and, more slowly and
tentatively, as a haikai poet. Busons principal interest remained painting
even after his return to Kyoto in 1757. Newly married, he was under
even more pressure to make a living, and from this point onward he
began to have moderate success as a painter. As a consequence, his work
as a poet continued to be intermittent in the earliest years of this period.
He did sometimes participate in haikai activities also: for example, verses
of his were included in Shzans Haikai selected old verses, and one of the
most powerful hokku he ever wrote was included in Companion (Hanashi
aite ), the 1758 collection of Yahantei school member
Takai Kikei:

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CHAPTER THREE

sararetaru
mi o funkonde
taue kana

though divorced,
she stamps down hard
planting rice34

In this psychologically penetrating verse, the persona is a woman whose

husband has left her. Nevertheless, in a village whose existence depends
on the success of the rice crop, everyone must cooperate in the labor of
transplanting rice seedlings. The abandoned wife works alongside her
husband, suppressing her feelings as she stoops to bury the roots of the
plants in the soil.
However, except for a few verses like this, Buson produced little
haikai during this period. Nevertheless, as was the case in his days in
northeastern Japan, his work as a visual artist actually ended up creating
an important opening for him as a poet: in Kyoto, too, most of the
clients who were interested in purchasing his paintings were also poets
themselves, and he developed a reputation among them for his skill in
haikai.
The year 1766 was an important turning point. It marked the formation of a new haikai study group, Sankasha. Sankasha brought together
some of Kyotos most accomplished amateur poets and art connoisseurs,
and was to be the prototype of the new Yahantei school that Buson
eventually opened some seven years later. Unlike most other haikai
groups, Sankasha was independent of established lineages and factions.
While the fact that Buson was then using the art name Sanka to
sign his paintings, and that the group suspended its meetings when he
left to spend two years in Sanuki might suggest that he was the Sankashas leader, Sankashas meetings were run in an egalitarian fashion and
equal participation from all its members was welcome. There was no tenja
or hierarchical organizational structure; the Sankasha poets came
together out of a shared interest in engaging in a refined, cultured
pastime.35
The Sankasha poets wrote hokku, rather than linked verse, maekuzuke
or the other more gamelike forms that had proliferated in the first half of
the century. The practice that they followed was called daiei ,
composing on set topics. In other words, rather than choosing the
subjects of their verses themselves in response to something that they
personally observed or experienced, they all worked on ones that had

34
35

BZ, vol. 1, no. 41.

Tanaka, p. 95.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

79

been assigned. Before each meeting, Sankasha members received five

topics (kendai ), and on the day of the meeting they brought along
the verses composed on these dai for discussion. Sometimes the members also wrote impromptu hokku on topics chosen at random (tandai
. Their intention was not to amuse themselves with competing
over points, but rather to seriously study dai and receive the comments
of the other members.
While many of the dai that Sankasha members worked on were not
unusual, they also were interested in experimenting with dai that had
fallen out of favor with contemporary poets. For example, the first
months choices were cicada (semi ) and morning glory (hirugao
) as well as the less common melon (makuwa ), bamboo
mat (takamushiro ), and Gion festival (Gion-e ). These
poets interest in archaic topics is related to the trend apparent in the
broader intellectual community of the time, that is, the desire to recapture an idealized past through investigation of old texts.36 The verses
they produced were not particularly innovative, but are nevertheless
interesting as evidence of the experiments of working poets:
hanjitsu no
kan o enoki ya
semi no koe

getting half a days rest

on a nettle tree
cicadas buzz37

waga sono no
makuwa mo nusumu
kokoro kana

though this melon

is in my own garden
even I feel like stealing it!38

yumitori no
obi no hirosa yo
takamushiro

narrowness of
the warriors belt
bamboo mat39

The topic of Getting a half-days rest (Hanjitsu no) is semi no koe, the
droning sound that cicadas make at the height of summer that seems to
make a hot day even hotter. Busons verse makes use of a pun that
would be recognized by someone familiar with the work of the Chinese

36 Tanaka, p. 92; Ogata Tsutomu, Yosa Buson: Kaiga to bungaku, roundtable discussion with Sasaki Jhei, Hirai Terutoshi, and Hayakawa Monta, Bungaku 52, 10 (1984):
23.
37 BZ, vol. 1, no. 57.
38 BZ, vol. 1, no. 59.
39 BZ, vol. 1, no. 61.

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CHAPTER THREE

poet Li She, whose poem speaks of getting a half-days rest. In

Japanese, this would be pronounced hanjitsu no kan o e. In Busons poem,
the e (obtain) is also the first sound in enoki, nettle tree. In this context,
the phrase a half-days rest illustrates very well the soporific effect of
the cicadas buzz. The second verse, Though this melon (Waga sono no)
is more straightforward: a gardener is so proud of the melon he has
produced he can put himself in the position of a thief, as hed steal it
himself if he didnt already own it. However, this verse too, foregrounds
the season word makuwa (melon) as something special and precious.
Finally, Narrowness of (Yumitori no) expresses the essence of takamushiro (bamboo mat); it emphasizes the cool relaxation that the mat
offers on a hot day in summer by describing a crisply attired samurai
stretched out across it.
As we have seen, the desire to recover the old meanings of words was
something that motivated scholars as diverse as the sinophile Ogy Sorai
and the nativist Motoori Norinaga, who together with their followers
sought to recover the virtues of the ancients by relearning their words; it
was also related to the work of other Revival poets, who looked to
rediscover and preserve the excellence of haikai poets of the past, the
supreme example of which was Matsuo Bash.
Originally there were eight members in Sankasha: Tan Taigi, Kuroyanagi Shha, Tess (17311786),40 Hyakuboku (d. 1815),41
Gabi , Innan , and Chikut . With the exception of Tan
Taigi, none of them were professional haikai poets:42 Shha was a retired
merchant, Tess was a doctor, Hyakuboku was a publisher; not much is
known about the others. Members of the community of Kyoto intelligentsia, they were brought together by their mutual interest in haikai.
After Buson returned from Sanuki, they were joined by others, including
Kit, Kakuei , and Denpuku , again, the majority of them
wealthy amateurs.
Of the original Sankasha members, two had a particularly marked
impact on his poetry: Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi Shha. Taigi was a
professional poet (tenja) who had a great deal of experience and knowl-

40

Tess was the haikai name of Amenomori Shteki . Tanaka, p. 93.

Hyakubokus given name was And Hachisaemon . He later changed his
haikai name to Jish . He was the third-generation proprietor of Hachimonji-ya
, the famous Kyoto printing house. Ibid., pp. 93-94.
42 The distinction between professional and amateur poet is not always easy to draw.
Taigi ran his own school and supported himself through his haikai.
41

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

81

edge of haikai; Shhas expertise in kanshi and of Chinese poetics helped

to shape the theoretical background of Busons work. Both of them were
eccentrics, and their example was powerful not just in terms of the
poetry they wrote but in the lives that they led, it also had some bearing
on Busons development of the ideal of transcending the commonplace
while remaining part of itthat is to say, the rizoku theory that he
outlined in the Shundei verse anthology preface.

Tan Taigi and Kuroyanagi Shha: Influential Eccentricity

Tan Taigi was a complex and gifted character who followed an unconventional lifestylea wanderer for most of his life, he rarely stayed in
the same place or stuck with the same haikai style for long. At the same
time, however, he was a brilliant poet, and Buson admired him a great
deal. For Buson, Taigi was a good example of someone who lived in a
zoku environment yet transcended it with the very high quality of the
verse that he wrote.
Taigi was a poet of formidable, if somewhat eccentric reputation. His
tastes were eclectic; his verses appear in the collections of a wide variety
of factions,43 and his own approach to haikai was as ambitious as
Busons. He came under the influence of Ink of five colors poet Gik, and
in 1748, following Giks example, he took the haikai name Taigi, which
included the character gi as an expression of his allegiance to the
medieval renga master Sgi. With the help of a brothel owner, Donshi,
he set up a studio in Kyotos Shimabara licensed district, Fuya-an
, and supported himself with work as a tenja. He joined Sankasha
in 1766.44
Taigi was a prominent supporter of the Bash Revival movement,
and was active in promoting a return to serious forms of haikai. A
collection that he helped to edit was very influential in this regard: Kyoto
twenty kasen. This collection, which he worked on together with Busons
friend Shzan and another colleague, Zuiko , was published in the
same year as the formation of Sankasha, and gives a good indication of
the passionate feelings towards Bash that had already developed by that

43
44

Yajima Nagisao, Buson no shhen (Kadokawa Shoten, 1988), p. 10.

Horikiri Minoru, Tan Taigi, in Kubota, Renga, haikai, kyka, pp. 299300.

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CHAPTER THREE

point. Busons preface to this collection is like a map to the way of

thinking of the Back to Bash poets:
One day, Taigi and Shzan went to visit Chshka (Zuiko), and
they opened this text45 and read it, and realizing how profoundly these ancients were involved in the haikai Way, they could not help but ponder on
the glorious past, and in the end came to write three-person verse sequences; they had twenty sittings, so created twenty kasen. Nevertheless,
theirs was neither an emulation of Kikakus style of singing to the moon,
nor an imitation of the form of Ransetsus longing for the blossoms.46
Neither was it the currently popular, self-styled Shmon (Bash school),
which puts emphasis on substance.47 It is better to simply value following
just what is in ones mind exactly, without stylistic manipulations.48

Busons description of the circumstances of the sequences in the

collection gives us some insight into what he viewed as important about
Taigi and his companions project. The three poets were moved to
compose the sequences by their discovery of a letter in Bashs handwriting, something that Bash Revival poets would view as a precious
document. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Busons admiration
for these poets work does not center on their imitation of Kikaku (i.e.,
urban haikai poets) nor Shmon (i.e., the rural Bash school). Rather, a
genuine way to honor Bash is to attend to ones own personal style.
Busons very critical judgment of currently popular haikai schools,
even of those who claimed to be following Bashs tradition is impossible to overlook here. He praises the work of these three poets because
they imitate the example of neither urban school poets, who are too
interested in style and form without paying attention to substance; nor
do they write like the rural school poets, who overemphasize substance
at the expense of style and form. The urban school poets produce
impressively clever verses that lack depth; the rural schools verse is
excessively plain and bland. The verses of Taigi and his colleagues, by
contrast, are free of both kinds of error; rather than trying to imitate
Bashs verses, they try to match his attitude and approach. Buson strove
to follow this practice in his own work, and Taigi was an influential
mentor and model for him in pursuing this goal.

45

A letter from Kyorai to Rka with some lines added by Bash.

The former suggests Kikakus robust style, and the latter, Ransetsus sensuous style.
47 That is, a simple, unadorned style.
48 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 103104.
46

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

83

These three Taigi hokku are especially good examples of his lucid,
untrammeled style:
hanetsuku ya
yo gokoro shiranu
matage

playing hanetsuki
unaware of the ways of the world
they run boisterously49

Taigi
furakoko no
eshaku koboruru ya
takami yori

bowing
in a swing
from a height50

Taigi
iro iro ni
tani no kotaeru
yukige kana

from other valleys

various echoes:
sound of melting snow51

Taigi
The first two verses are perceptive and wonderfully sympathetic
observations of children at play. In the first, Playing hanetsuki (Hanetsuki ya) Taigi describes the behavior of little girls engrossed in a New
Years Day game where a shuttlecock is batted back and forth with a
wooden paddle. The player who keeps the shuttlecock in the air longest
wins. The girls in Taigis verse are so intent on their play that they forget
to act like ladies, and instead shout and run around indecorously. In
Bowing (Furakoko no) a child seems to dip his or her head, as the swing
reaches the top of its arc, much as people do in nodding greetings to one
another. Finally, in From other valleys (Iro iro ni) the spring thaw
causes masses of snow to crack and shift noisily, and water trickles
loudly in mountain streams. Neighboring valleys ring with the many
sounds of lifes regeneration.
Despite the fact that Taigi lived in the licensed district under the
patronage of a brothel owner, his verse maintains a serene detachment
from vulgarity and worldly concerns. This was what most impressed

49 Abe Kimio and As Isoji, eds., NKBT, vol. 92, Kinsei haiku haibun sh (Iwanami
Shoten, 1964), p. 153.
50 Ibid., p. 153.
51 Kuriyama Riichi et al., eds., Nihon koten bungaku zensh, vol. 42, Kinsei haiku haibun
sh (Shgakukan, 1972), p. 236.

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CHAPTER THREE

Buson, who was aiming for a similar kind of high-mindedness in his own
verse.
The other member of the Sankasha group that was to have a profound impact on Busons work was Kuroyanagi Shha, in whose honor
Buson wrote the Shundei kush preface. Kuroyanagi Shha was of a more
conservative temperament than Taigi, but was still an eccentric; he
retired from his business at the age of 40 to pursue the arts. As we
discussed in Chapter Two, Shhas early training had been in Chinese
learning, and he was probably instrumental in informing Buson about
Chinese literature and thought. Shha began to take part in Sankasha
meetings in the last few years of the 1760s, and Buson considered him,
with Taigi, one of the two leading poets in the group. Often Sankasha
meetings were held at his studio, the Shhatei .52
Like Taigi, Shha led a life that was an embodiment of the ideals that
Buson was trying to achieve with his theories of rizoku or using the
mundane at the same time as keeping distant from it. As Buson tells us
in his preface to Five cartloads of wastepaper (Gosha hgu , 1783),
though he lived in the midst of the city, Shha typified the bunjin ideal of
detachment and transcendence. Buson describes Shhas son Korekomas experience of looking through a collection of his fathers papers
posthumously, and notes that it was full of kanshi, unfinished fragments
of hokku covered with corrections, and letters from companions inviting
him to go cherry blossom- or snow-viewingeverything one might
expect to find in a proper bunjin recluse:
When Korekoma was observing the thirteenth anniversary of his fathers
death, he made a collection and called it Five Cartloads of Wastepaper.
There was no profound reason for doing so, but naturally he gave it this
name because of his fathers verse, Holed up for the winter. Furthermore, when he untied the string of the overstuffed bag that was full of the
writings he had amassed, there were manuscripts of kanshi exchanges,
there were letters of invitation to go cherry-blossom viewing, and there
were letters from drinking companions that made invitations like, How
about going to look at the snow tonight? There were also dashed-off
verse sequences, still half-finished, marked here and there with corrections. On the backs of these were written the verses of many other people,
and also his own. 53

52
53

Yajima, p. 142.
BZ, vol. 4, pp. 225226.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

85

Another work, Kits New random chats anthology (Shin ztan sh

, 1785), notes that Shha retired from commerce early to take up
a life of reclusion, but this did not mean he isolated himself in some
lonely ascetic setting, but rather that he took great pleasure in wine and
haikai and was kept so busy with visitors that he was aware of neither
sunset nor dawn:
Shundeisha Shhas family name was Kuroyanagi. In the early part of his
old age, he retired from his family business, and lived as a recluse at the
outskirts of town, assiduously practicing haikai, and enjoying wine. He always had many guests visiting, and it was as if he was not aware of the setting of the sun in spring or the break of day in autumn. In this way, his
verses entered into the realm of rizoku, and had the lofty vividness of Ransetsus language. 54

Shhas hokku are varied, but especially compelling are those that are
informed by his bunjin ideals:
ganjitsu ya
kusa no to goshi no
mugibatake

New Years day!

beyond my thatched cottage
barley fields55

Shha
kaidan no
ushiro fuke yuku
yosamu kana

hearing ghost stories

behind me creeps
midnights chill56

Shha
The first verse mentions a thatched cottage, a bunjins typical dwelling
remote and evocative of genteel poverty. The speaker is spending a quiet,
constrained new year, with few material comforts with which to celebrate. However, the barley field across from his house has sprouted, and
its gentle green suggests hope for a bright new year. The speaker in the
second verse has been staying up late on a summer night sharing scary
stories with friends. Suddenly the hair stands up on the back of his
neckis it just a chilly breeze, or has he crossed paths with a ghost? An
appreciation for the grotesque is also a hallmark of Japanese bunjin, and

54 Takai Kit, Shin ztan sh, in Shimizu Takayuki, ed., Koten haibungaku taikei, vol.
14, Chk hairon haibun sh (Sheisha, 1971), p. 405.
55 NKBT, vol. 92, p. 174.
56 Ibid., p. 176.

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CHAPTER THREE

like Buson, Shha was fond of describing situations tinged with the
supernatural.
Two more Shha verses that illustrate his bunjin-inspired tastes are:
uki koto o
kurage ni kataru
namako kana

telling melancholy things

to the jellyfish
sea slug57

Shha
fuyu gomorite
gosha no hgu no
aruji kana

holed up for the winter

I am the master
of five cartloads of wastepaper!58

Shha
While humor is fundamental to all kinds of haikai, the strategy Shha
uses here is considerably different from the sort of ostentatious puns or
scatological jokes favored by many of his contemporaries. Here the
comedy is gentle, elevated, even a bit mad. An appreciation for small,
cute thingsfox cubs in some cases, sparrows, or as in the case of
Telling melancholy things (Uki koto o), conversational sea slugsis
connected to the bunjin ideal. Likewise, in Holed up for the winter
(Fuyu gomorite), the speakers insatiable mania for poetry has got him
almost buried in a flurry of drafts. Both verses are statements of a
refined sensibility that sets them apart from the popular, commercially
successful haikai of the day.

Sankashas Anthology: From Summer (Natsu yori)

Sankashas first meeting was in the Sixth Month of 1766, and it was held
at Tairai-d, a space that belonged to group member Tess. The group
met twice, and then its meetings were suspended for two years because
Buson left for Sanuki, Shikoku. They resumed their work after he
returned in 1769, and continued to meet on a fairly regular basis until the
group was disbanded in the Ninth Month of the following year and most
of its members joined Busons newly opened Yahantei school.

57
58

NKBT, vol. 92, p. 176.

NKBT, vol. 92, p. 177.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

87

In total, Sankasha met forty times between the Sixth Month of 1766
and the Ninth Month of 1770. Hokku composed at its meetings were
collected into an anthology called From summer (Natsu yori ). Even
though the groups professed purpose was to recapture the ideals of
haikai poets of the past, the From summer hokku bear little resemblance to
those of Bash and his contemporaries. Busons contributions are
outstanding, as are many of Taigis, and it appears that this is the period
when Buson begins to find some confidence in his work as a poet. In
general, Busons From Summer hokku show characteristics that were to
become the hallmarks of his mature style: the suggestion of narrative,
often based in classical or medieval Japanese literature, allusions to
Chinese poetry, and a facility for building into the restrictive seventeen
syllables of the hokku form a sense of vastness in time and space.
I will discuss four kinds of verses from Busons Sankasha period. The
first date from the sessions that met before Buson left for Sanuki, are
unambitious, even bland. The verses that Buson wrote after his return,
however, are quite different, and show that Buson was finding his own
poetic voice. The first type shows Busons fascination with classical
Japanese and Chinese literature; in the second, Buson describes a scene
that is metonymic of a larger narrative. In the third, Buson plays with
imagery related to time and space in another way that shows his efforts
to overcome the snapshot-like quality of hokku and to convey a sense of
nostalgia.
Sankasha only met twice in 1766 before Buson left for Sanuki. The
following are good examples of the somewhat plain and flat hokku of
these first two meetings:
hirugao ya
machi ni nariyuku
kui no kazu

convovulus
approaching the town
there are a number of signposts59

hatsuka ji no
senaka ni tatsu ya
kumo no mine

twenty days road60

rising at my back
a peak of cloud61

59

BZ, vol. 1, no. 62.

Twenty days road refers to the time it took to travel along the Tkaid highway
from Edo to Kyoto.
61 BZ, vol. 1, no. 64.
60

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CHAPTER THREE

Both Convolvulus (Hirugao ya) and Twenty days road (Hatsuka ji no)
describe the experience of travel, but they are entirely generalized and
imaginary. They were written not to celebrate a particular place, but to
come as close as possible to capture the honi (conventional meaning) of
the assigned topic, convolvulus (hirugao) and peak of cloud (kumo no
mine).
The following verses were written after Busons return from Sanuki,
and show a marked change. They are good examples of the type of
Buson verse that alludes to an imagined Chinese past:
aoume ni
mayu atsumetaru
bijin kana

under the green plum trees

drawing her brows together
a beautiful woman62

ayu kurete
yorade sugiyuku
yowa no kado

you brought some sweetfish

but left without stopping
midnight gate63

In the first verse, the seasonal topic is aoume (green plum), a fresh,
enlivening image of a plum tree in new leaf. Sitting underneath is a
beautiful woman, whose brows are knitted. The allusion is to the famous
Chinese beauty Xi Shi (Japanese Seishi), whose face was marked by
a perpetual frown owing to her sorrow at being sent to serve in a foreign
court. Busons beauty scowls not out of sadness: green plums are so sour
to the taste just looking at them makes her contort her face. Under the
green plum trees (Aoume ni) makes a humorous twist on a sad, romantic
story. Similarly, the second verse alludes to a Chinese setting, this time
imagining a relationship between two literati. The gift of sweetfish (ayu),
admired for its clean fragrance, would be appropriate when the recipient
is a person of discrimination and taste. The giver comes late on a
summer night, and leaves without waiting for thanks or praiseprecisely
the kind of gesture that one refined literatus would extend to another.
In the second type of verse, Buson creates the impression of a larger
story behind his words. The situations in these verses range from broad,
panoramic scenes that could have been taken from an epic telling of
history, such as the medieval war narrative Tale of the Heike (Heike
monogatari ), or they focus on small private scenesthe quiet

62
63

BZ, vol. 1, no. 96.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 114.

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

89

sufferings of anonymous individuals. All of them suggest backgrounds

and consequences much larger than the space allowed by the hokkus
seventeen syllable structure:
Toba dono e
gorokki isogu
nowaki kana

toward Toba palace

five or six riders gallop
autumn storm64

kogarashi ya
ika ni yo wataru
ie go ken

winter wind
however do they get through life
in these five houses?65

yado kasanu
hokage ya yuki no
ie tsuzuki

lights
where they refused me lodging
house after house66

Nowaki is an autumn typhoon, a storm with high winds that occurs in

early autumn, the Eighth Month by the lunar calendar, Toba Palace was
a residence of retired emperors in the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries.67 While this hokku does not allude to any particular text or historical
incident, it suggests gunki monogatari (war tales), a genre that
arose in the late Heian period and flourished in the medieval period.
Toward Toba Palace (Tobadono e) juxtaposes the image of the autumn
typhoon with that of the riders hurrying to the palace, evoking a scene of
chaos and impending violence. Buson often used numbers, as he does
here with five or six riders (gorokki) to add a sense of realism and
specificity. He employs a similar strategy in the second verse: reference
to a weather condition (kogarashi, winter wind), juxtaposed with a human
situation. Here, too, the use of numerals suggests that the speaker in the
poem is describing a scene he actually witnessed. Finally, Lights (Yado
kasanu) shows a marked detachment from the events described, as if it
were representing the experience of a third person. Buson chooses to
focus on the elegance of the lights against the snow, rather than the
bitterness of being without lodging on a cold night, idealizing the scene.

64

BZ, vol. 1, no. 196.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 298.
66 BZ, vol. 1, no. 324.
67 Retired Emperor Shirakawa (r. 10721086). It was also the residence of
Retired Emperors Toba (r. 11071123), Go-Shirakawa (r. 11551158), GoToba (r. 11831198), and Go-Saga (r. 12421246).
65

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CHAPTER THREE

It is not a hokku about the melancholy of a travelers hardships, but of

those hardships transformed by an experience of beauty.
These verses also create the sense of a larger narrative:
yuku haru ya
senja o uramu
uta no nushi

end of spring
the poet
resents the poetry judge68

maku majiki
sumai o nemono
gatari kana

making pillow talk

about a sumo match
I shouldnt have lost!69

Komabune no
yorade sugiyuku
kasumi kana

the Koguryo ship

passes on without stopping
hazy mist70

The first verse juxtaposes two examples of regret. Regret for the end of
spring was considered an elegant emotion, particularly appropriate for
sensitive poets. Senja mainly refers to an editor or compiler of a poetry
anthology. The poet in this hokku has his elegant regret for the end of
spring compounded by his more earthy resentment at having his work
passed over again by yet another unsympathetic editor. The second verse
presents a persona of a different social status, but one who is also
disappointed: a defeated sum wrestler chatting gloomily with his wife
before falling asleep. Many years later, in 1783, Buson used it as an
inscription for a painting that included verses by Ransetsu, Rykyo,
Taigi, and Kit, with the headnote, Feeling nostalgia for the past, but
in From summer, it appears in a series of verses written on the assigned
topic sum (sumai). Finally, in the third verse, the spring season word
hazy mist (kasumi) creates a mysterious, otherworldly atmosphere,
blurring the boundaries between the past and the present. Komabune
(Koguryo ship) refers to official ships that sailed from the continent to
Japan up until the Nara period, a practice that ended almost a thousand
years before Busons lifetime. The word lends the verse an archaic,
storybook quality.

68

BZ, vol. 1, no. 458.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 160.
70 BZ, vol. 1, no. 401.
69

ANXIETY AND THE FORMATION OF A POET

91

In the third type of verse, Buson represents time and its passing. One
way he does this is to show the progression of time by contrasting the
present with the past in a single location:
ikanobori
kin no sora no
aridokoro

paper kite
in the same place as it was
in yesterdays sky71

kin ini
ky ini kari no
naki yo kana

here yesterday
here today; tonight
the geese cry, flying72

hana chirite
konoma no tera to
nari ni keri

blossoms fallen
the space between
turned into a temple73

All of these verses share the same point of view: the speaker is looking
up at the sky, observing similar phenomena on separate occasions. In
Paper kite (Ikanobori) it is a kite that appears in the same place as it had
on the previous day. Kite flying was an activity for boys, especially
during the new year season; in this sense, the kite links the present not
only to the immediate past, but to the more distant past of the speakers
own childhood: it reminds him not only of the kite he saw yesterday, but
of those he played with himself as a child. Similarly, in Here yesterday
(Kin ini), the speakers observation is of something flying in the sky
abovethis time, geese flying back to their northern breeding grounds
after spending the winter in Japan. While most spring topics are hopeful
and convey a sense of optimism, geese (kari) is tinged with regret, and
filled with the same gentle melancholy as the geeses farewell calls. As in
Paper kite, the fact that the situation is identical yesterday, today, and
tonight only further serves to emphasize that time, like the geese
themselves, is passing by. Lastly, in Blossoms fallen (Hana chirite),
Buson focuses on a particular detail of the landscape to convey the sense
of times passing. When the cherry trees were in full bloom, the temple
was hidden behind masses of blossoms and the crowds of visitors who
had come to see them. Now that the blossoms have fallen, space has
opened up between the branches to reveal the temple. The visitors are all

71

BZ, vol. 1, no. 403.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 741.
73 BZ, vol. 1, no. 455.
72

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CHAPTER THREE

gone too, and the place has returned to its usual state of contemplation
and silence.
The From summer manuscript is the record of a dedicated, energetic
group of poets who met regularly once or twice a month for the better
part of two years. Their membership was also steady, and by the last
several sessions included thirteen or fourteen people. However, the
record trails off with the meeting on the sixth day of the ninth month of
1769spaces are left blank above the names of several of the poets, as if
waiting for verses that were yet to be composed. The end of Sankasha,
however, was really a beginning: the attendance roster of the Yahantei
school that Buson established the following year shows that at its start
the new group was basically Sankasha with a new name.
The hokku of Busons early years are few in number, but they still
demonstrate a certain amount stylistic development. His very earliest
hokku show a marked influence of urban school haikai and its delight in
impressive displays of word play and cleverness. This tendency becomes
muted as Buson begins to associate himself more closely with the rural
poets of the northeast. After he moved to Kyoto and began to work
towards establishing himself as a painter there, his verse starts to take on
many of the characteristics that were to make it distinctive, such as an
affinity for Chinese literary models and nostalgia for an idealized past.
Busons early hokku are most notable, though, for the way that they
offer insight into the close relationship that haikai composition had with
the community that produced it. The volume of Busons haikai fluctuates
greatly depending on where he traveledwhile his production was
relatively large when he was in the northeast, it slowed to almost nothing
during his years in Tangoa place where, by his own description, there
were few people worth working with. This is also the case when he visits
Sanuki. It is not until he begins to gain a foothold in Kyoto and find
himself in the company of other talented poets like Taigi and Shha that
the quality of his verse begins to improve markedly, and he starts to
attain a strong and confident voice. However, despite Busons growing
maturity as a poet, and the standing he gained in the haikai community,
he continued to avoid formal engagement with that community.
In the next chapter, I will take a closer look at Yahantei and the anthologies it produced, to consider the ways in which Buson negotiated
between his public status as a leader of the haikai community and
professional painter on the one hand, and his espousal of the bunjin
amateur recluse ideal on the other.

CHAPTER FOUR

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD:

HOKKU 17711783
In 1770, not long after he returned from Sanuki, Buson assumed the
leadership of Yahantei, the haikai school founded by his teacher Hayano
Hajin in 1742. Yahantei had been dormant since Hajins death, despite
the fact that other Hajin disciples could conceivably have reestablished it
at some point during the thirty-odd years that intervened. Ultimately, the
role finally fell to Buson, who, with considerable reluctance, stepped
forward to reopen the school.
The event itself took place without fanfare. Ordinarily bundai hiraki
(opening of a haikai school) were elaborate affairs, involving
formal visits to local haikai teachers, parties, and the composition of a
large number of versesofficially, 10,000. This formality simultaneously
allowed the newcomer to show respect to his already established
colleagues, and offered him the chance to advertise his name and that of
his new school. Buson, however, did none of this. His only reference to
the Yahantei bundai hiraki in his surviving correspondence was a laconic
statement in a letter to Shha, Also, the party I held to celebrate the
opening of my haikai school went off with no trouble, so please do not
worry about it. I hope that sometime you will come and join us.1
The hokku that Buson wrote to mark the occasion also gives us some
insight into the kind of event it was:
hana mori no
mi wa yumi ya naki
kagashi kana

the role of a blossom guard

a scarecrow
with neither bow nor arrows!2

The responsibility of a hana mori (blossom guard) was to protect cherry

blossoms from the predations of over-enthusiastic revelers. The guard in
this verse has a difficult job to do, not only has he no weapons to back
up his efforts: even worse, he is just a scarecrow. Composing this verse
in commemoration of his assumption of the Yahantei school leadership,
Buson draws a comparison between the scarecrow and himself, saying

1
2

BSS, p. 36.
BZ, vol. 1, no. 727.

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CHAPTER FOUR

that it is as absurd to expect him to do anything worthwhile in this role

as it would be to depend on a scarecrowand an unarmed one at that
to act as a guard. Modesty in a situation like this was a social convention,
but given that this is an occasion whose purpose is self promotion,
Busons pose of humility is an interesting one. On the one hand, it
implies that his sense of entitlement was so solid that he felt no need to
boast or preen. On the other, keeping in mind the fact that his succession to the Yahantei title was done quietly and without ostentation, we
may interpret the self-deprecation in this verse as sincere rather than
being simply a formality.
A number of factors contributed to Busons delay in reestablishing
Yahantei. In the first place, several of Hajins more senior disciples lived
on for many years after his teachers death, and Buson was reluctant to
put himself ahead of them. One member of Hajins Yahantei school with
a stronger claim to the position than Buson was Soku, a contemporary
of Gant and the manager of Yahantei in the Kansai area; also, there was
Kits father Kikei, superior to Buson in age and experience. The fact
that Buson waited until both of them were dead before reopening
Yahantei suggests that, given their seniority, doing otherwise was
inappropriate.3
In the second place, as his disdain for tentori masterswhose primary
purpose was earning moneyshows, Buson drew much of his sense of
authority from his amateur status. Keeping the marketplace at a distance,
treating his poetry as something other than a professional occupation,
was especially important for him because he depended on bunjin painting
for his livelihood. As Pierre Bourdieu has demonstrated, cultivating an
appearance of disdain for economic pressures is one way to enhance a
persons prestige in artistic and intellectual communities, but the cultural
notions surrounding the bunjin made such a withdrawal (or at least the
appearance of one) absolutely essential:
...[The] accumulation of a cultural capital (whether or not educationally
sanctioned) which can only be acquired by means of a sort of withdrawal
from economic necessity...To be able to play the games of culture with the
playful seriousness which Plato demanded, a seriousness without the
spirit of seriousness one has to belong to the ranks of those who have
been able, not necessarily to make their whole existence a sort of chil-

Tanaka, pp. 114115.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

95

drens game, as artists do, but at least to maintain for a long time, sometimes a whole lifetime, a childs relation to the world.4

Bunjin were expected to be above commerce, something that can be

linked to the suspicion of profit that was common to both the Confucianist and Taoist ethical systems that informed their ideal. As the thenpopular Mustard seed garden manual of painting puts it, grasping for profit
was vulgarizing, destructive to the ki. With this in mind, if Buson
openly professionalized his haikai persona, it would risk his claim to the
cultural capital enjoyed by the amateur. For this reason, Buson, a
commoner from a questionable family background who aspired to
compose poetry good enough to be called the equal of waka or renga,
had to go to some lengths to distinguish himself from what he called
puffed-up tenja whose chief concern was profit.
Busons anxieties about his own abilities also may have contributed to
the long delay in opening his own haikai school, as his hokku The role
of a blossom guard (Hana mori no) indicates. However, when he finally
did, it was with a very good motive: it gave him a platform from which
to launch his efforts to resist the proliferation of bad haikai. Within
the confines of his own group, Buson and his disciples could work
towards a common cause of achieving a return to the ideals of Bash.
Indeed, despite all of Busons reasons for avoiding the issue of becoming the head of a haikai school, when he finally came to do it, his
timing was good for the Bash Revival movement and for himself as
well. In 1770 Buson was relatively secure in his career. He had a strong
practice as a painter, having just returned from a successful trip to
Sanuki.5 Furthermore, he had reached a turning point in his work as a
poet alsohis participation in Sankasha brought about a change in his
approach to haikai. Shha, Taigi, and the other Sankasha members
generated a sense of confidence in Buson, and the experience working
with them encouraged him to the degree that he was finally ready to put
aside his reservations and take over leadership of his teachers old
school.

4
5

Bourdieu, p. 5354.
Cahill, p. 154161.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Yahantei Procedure
Yahanteis meetings, like those of Sankasha, were relatively egalitarian:
they were conducted in a discussion format where every member of the
group was encouraged to express his opinion. Those who were excessively critical or who flattered others were not invited back. This
indicates that even after he re-opened Yahantei, Busons ambivalence
about the work of a haikai master persisted. Although he was the head of
the group, he did not dominate it. Furthermore, much of the work of
organizing and editing anthologies for Yahantei he left up to his disciples, mainly Takai Kit.
We can gain some insight into Busons views on Yahantei from Rules
for selection, his statement on the schools procedure and standards of
excellence.6 They are particularly valuable given the fact that Buson
wrote so few articulations of his poetic theory.
1. All of these styles may be chosen: The powerful ones of Kikaku. The
highly-regarded verses of Ransetsu. The straightforward verses of Kyorai.
The lighthearted verses of Sod. Bakurin (Otsuy) and Shiks verse styles
are vulgar but both established his own school, and some of theirs may be
chosen.
2. What binds all of these poets is Master Bash. However, the ones
who come close to Bash, Kikaku and Ransetsu, are only half as good.
Bakurin and Shik are only one-tenth as good.
3. There are those in the world who call themselves Shmon (the
Bash school). In particular they do not know the style of Master Bash.
The verses that they compose as well as what they theorize about do not
get beyond the level of Shibaku7 commonness. There are times when
these are called Ise School or Mino School. How can we call them Shmon? People in the know call them by the nickname Backwoods Bash
school....
5. Knowing the Great Way of haikai is nothing other than this: extolling the moon and appreciating the blossoms, causing your mind to venture outside of the world of dust, always keeping as friends those who dip
into the stream of Master Bash, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. You should consider escape from the spirit of vulgarity to be the best way.

6 The text is preserved in two versions that were transcribed by his disciples, one,
Teramura Hyakuchis  (17491835) Posthumous Buson writings anthology (Buson
iboku sh ), and the other Kits Treatise on verse-marking (Tenin ron ,
1786). Written in kanbun (the Japanese form of classical Chinese) with Japanese glosses
added, the two versions are nearly identical in content. The text of paragraph 4 is quoted
in Chapter Two.
7 That is, they are similar to the styles of Bakurin and Shik.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

97

6. As for the way we select verses: we meet together in a group and all
of us speak of our intentions, mainly conducting discussions. We should
not pay deference to other schools. Neither will we permit those who
curry favor, become intimidated or ridicule others outside the circle to join
in subsequent meetings. 8

Having acknowledged that rural school tradition has something to offer,

however inferior it may be, Buson tells us that Yahantei poets reject
those who follow this style, dismissing them as adherents of a rusticated
Backwoods Bash-style. This reflects the Yahantei schools rootsits
founder, Hajin, was a disciple of Kikaku and Ransetsu and therefore an
heir to the urban school tradition. However, as Hajin himself might have
taught (judging from what Buson writes in his preface to the Hajin
memorial volume Far into the west), the main criterion was that verses
should avoid commonness and vulgarity, and aspire to the highest
possible standard.9 Also, Buson regarded civility and mutual respect of
members as requirements for being accepted into the group. Competition between participants, particularly for points, was not the purpose of
its gatherings.
Despite the definitiveness of its tone, the Yahantei house rules also
demonstrate Busons ambivalence about leadership. Verses were not
recognized for their excellence by a teachers unilateral fiat, but rather by
discussion and consensus. This provision suggests that Buson was
reluctant to show off his own talents and authority even at this point,
despite his long years of haikai practice and new status as the leader of a
haikai school with an estimable history.

8 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 113116. Both versions are given, A) Teramura Hyakuchis
Buson iboku sh , published in Ogata Tsutomu, Hairin shy in Bash, Buson,
Issa, Kuriyama Riichi, ed. (Yzankaku Shuppan, 1978); B) Kits Tenin ron , 1786.
Hyakuchi and Kit were instrumental in promoting Busons reputation after his death.
9 The regard the Yahantei school poets held for Bashs work is also indicated in
Busons choice of symbols in his schools system for scoring outstanding hokku.
Mediocre verses received no points, but better verses merited scores of seven, ten,
twenty, and twenty-five points depending on their quality. Buson used special seals to
mark the verses that used phrases that made allusions to famous Bash hokku. For
example, Rob no sumire (roadside mallow flower), that referred to Michinobe no
mukuge wa uma ni kuwari keri (Mallow flower / by the roadside / eaten by my horse!),
denoted seven points; a picture of a frog, referring to furu ike ya /kawazu tobikomu / mizu
no oto (the old pond! /a frog jumps in / sound of water), meant twenty points. Busons
written responses to disciples work also show that Bash represented the groups
standard. He comments on one verse, this is todays up-to-date Shmon style (ryktai
); on another, you dont find this in the Bash style. While the Yahantei school
was not a typical tentori haikai group, verse-scoring remained an important pedagogical
tool.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Yahanteis First Anthology: Spring in Meiwa 8 (Meiwa shinbo no haru)

The first publication of Busons Yahantei school was the new year
anthology Spring in Meiwa 8 (1771) (Meiwa shinb no haru ).
New year anthologies served a function similar to modern nengaj
or new year cards. They were issued to group members and
people of their acquaintance, and served to establish the groups identity.
New year anthologies typically took two forms, new years day booklets
(saitanch ) and spring felicitations booklets (shunkyj ).
The main difference between them was that new years day booklets
were published before, and spring felicitations booklets after, the first
day of the new year. Both included verses collected from members of
haikai schools, typically on celebratory themes. New year anthologies
frequently included pictures as well as verses; indeed a popular format
for this kind of collection was the surimono (commemorative prints,
literally, printed things) that combined poetry and graphics and were
printed on costly paper. New year anthologies had a very small distribution; they were mainly circulated among the members of the group
whose verses were included, and served as a way of reinforcing a sense
of collective identity.
Spring in Meiwa 8 was issued as a shunkyj, and as was typical of such
collections during this period, includes a series of mitsumono 
(three-link) sequences, two sequences including kasen, and hokku written
on topics related to the new year season. Spring in Meiwa 8 was also
noteworthy for the fact that Buson compiled and wrote it out himself, as
in later years he often left this kind of task up to his senior disciples.
Busons starting verse for the first mitsumono sequence is bold and
playful, and suggests a growing confidence in his role as leader of the
group:
Katsuragi no
kamiko nugabaya
ake no haru

if I could only take off

the Katsuragi gods paper robe
dawn of spring10

Katsuragi is a mountain in modern Nara Prefecture. Its tutelary god,

Katsuragi-hitokoto-nushi-no-kami , was ashamed of his
own ugliness, and would only come out at night. Kamiko is a robe made
of stiffened paper, and kami (paper) is homophonous with the word for

10

BZ, vol. 1, no. 840.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

99

god. Ake no haru is either early spring or a dawn in spring, and here
suggests the morning of the first day of the new year. The speaker of the
poem imagines the Katsuragi god taking off his paper garment after a
long night of hard work, expressing the wish that the new year will
similarly bring a new beginning. The paper garment may be emblematic
of unpleasant memories, but it also suggests an old, outmoded style that
the poet wishes to exchange for a new oneentirely appropriate for
inclusion in the first new year anthology of a new haikai school.
A verse on a similar theme is:
uguisu no
sos ga mashiki
hatsune kana

the warblers
inexperienced simplicity is better
years first song11

The song of the bush warbler, uguisu, was eagerly anticipated as a sign of
spring. While it was admired particularly for its distinctive call, the voice
of the young uguisu is not fully developed by the time of hatsune, the first
birdcall one hears in the new year. As this is the first Yahantei anthology,
Buson makes the effort to acknowledge the new groups lack of experience, but implies that this is actually what makes it most appealing.
Other Spring in Meiwa 8 verses rely on references to Chinese and classical Japanese literature, though in very distinct waysone, delicately
romantic, the other, comic:
usuginu ni
kimi ga oboro ya
Gabi no tsuki

in a gossamer robe
you are veiled in haziness
moon over Mount Gabi12

Enp no kuh

In the style of the Enp period

mochi kytai no

while shaving the old bog moss

whiskers
of mold off the rice cakes
breezes comb the hair of young
willows13

kabi o kezureba
kaze kry no kezuri kake

In In a gossamer robe Buson alludes to Chinese poet Li Bos verse

Song of the Moon over Mount Emei (Japanese Gabi), that is

11

BZ, vol. 1, no. 845.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 843.
13 BZ, vol. 1, no. 844.
12

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CHAPTER FOUR

included in Tang shi xuan.14 The mountains name is homophonous with

gabi (literally, moth brows, i.e., crescent-shaped brows), an attribute
of beautiful women. Gossamer robe (usuginu), a garment worn by
women in the summertime, is evocative of Heian romances, 15 haziness (oboro) is a spring kigo that refers to mist that forms on humid
spring nights, especially moonlit ones; it also recalls Heian literature.
Together these words suggest an elegant, mysteriously erotic scene that
conflates classical Chinese and Japanese literature, recasting the world of
Li Bo into a context drawn from Heian monogatari.
The second verse, While shaving the old bog moss whiskers takes
a completely different toneits extreme jiamari (excess of syllables) and
obstreperous alliteration underscores the humor of this verse which is a
parody of a poem in the 11th century Japanese and Chinese poems to sing
(Wakan reish, 1012) by Miyako no Yoshika :
the weather clears, breezes comb
the hair of the young willows;
the ice is melting, wavelets wash
the whiskers of old bog moss.16

Busons verse juxtaposes Yoshikas very elegant and refined imagery of

willows and moss in early spring with the unpretentious, everyday staple
of the new year seasonmochi (rice flour cakes). Mochi are prone to

14 J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, eds., Japanese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The
Wakan rei sh (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 31.
Song of the Moon over Mount Emei

A half-circle moon shines on Mount Emeis autumn

Its shadow enters the Pingqiang Rivers current.
At night, I board a boat at Qing Xi, headed for the Three Gorges.
I miss you, moonyou do not shine down on Yu Zhou.



Li Bo, in Maeno Naoaki, ed., Tshisen, vol. 3 (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), pp. 136137.
15 Yamamoto Kenkichi, Kihon kigo gohyaku sen (Kdansha, 1991), p. 404.
16 Rimer and Chaves, p. 31; Chinese text is in sone and Horiuchi, p. 15.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

101

attracting mold. In this verse Buson brings together the ordinary,

everyday experience of scraping mold off mochi and the elegant world of
Japanese and Chinese poems to sing, introducing a collision of ga and zoku
(elite and commoner culture) that is typical of haikai. The repetition of
k sounds in kabi o kezureba / kaze kry no kezuri kake also heightens
the verses comic effect. The headnote, In the style of the Enp period
points to the fact that Buson is imitating the verse of the Bash schools
Empty chestnuts.
The list of contributors to Spring in Meiwa 8 is almost identical with
that of From summer: it includes Shha, Tess, and Jish; Taigi also
contributed, as did his patron, the brothel owner Donshi. Buson invited
work from poets outside of Kyoto as well, including his old mentor Baba
Songi, as well as Denjoand her husband Rsen , all Edo poets.
There were also verses from people closer to home in Osaka and
Fukuhara. The prominent position in which the work of Takai Kit
appears indicates that from his first arrival on the scene he was a
powerful force in determining the direction that the Yahantei took.
Although the reopening of the Yahantei school moved Buson into a
more public phase of his work as a haikai poet, the optimism and
playfulness that we see in Spring in Meiwa 8 was dimmed a few months
later when the two mainstays of his haikai practice in the Sankasha
group, Shha and Taigi, died within a few months of each other.17 The
loss of Shha seems to have hit him particularly hard because he hoped
to be able to rely on Shha for support in his writing and in his leadership of Yahantei. The Shundei verse anthology passage where Buson
describes the moment of Shhas death gives some indication of how
traumatic it was to him:
Tragically, one day [Shha] fell gravely ill, and did not recover. As time
passed he grew thin and frail, and there was nothing medicine could do
for him. Realizing that the moment had come for him to die, he grasped
my hand and said, What I regret is that I will never be able to write poetry with you again. He died with tears in his eyes. I wept, saying three
times, My haikai has gone to the west. My haikai has gone to the west.18

Pure Land Buddhist belief teaches that the Amitabha Buddhas paradise
is in the west. By lamenting that his haikai has gone to the west, Buson
claims that his poetic skills have died with Shha. Shundei verse anthology

17
18

Taigi died in the Eighth Month, Shha in the Twelfth.

BZ, vol. 4, p. 174.

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was edited by Shhas son, so the fact that it contains expressions of

sorrow and regret is not surprising. However, Busons statements about
the connection between Shhas presence and his own will to write
haikai seem very genuine.
Another expression of Busons grief over the loss of Shha is this
1772 hokku and its headnote, which reveals Busons continued lack of
confidence in leading a haikai school:
I miss Layman Shha more today than I did yesterday. He appears in my
dreams, and it is as if he is real, and is speaking. This is because he has reason to do so. Given that there is something lacking in my work. Shha
would have been the main support for my haikai school, and a great help
to me, he would encourage me, believing that one day I would attain my
dream, forgetting how immature I yet am in the way of haikai. I repeat my
senile prattle. Here we have come to the first anniversary of his death:

naki fushite
koe koso shinobe
take no yuki

prostrate with weeping

my voice itself is stifled
bamboo in snow19

As we have seen, haikai poets downplayed their own abilities when

writing prefaces, headnotes to poems, and other public statements, and
his attestation of uncertainty may be no more than a polite convention.
Still, Buson and Shha had an extremely close bond of mutual admiration, and it seems credible that Buson depended on talented colleagues
like Shha and Taigi for guidance, so losing both of them just as he was
beginning his work as a leader of a haikai school was a heavy blow.

Kits Yahantei Anthologies

The passing of these two strong formative presences in Busons poetic
universe was a major landmark for Buson, perhaps even more meaningful than the opening of the Yahantei school. After their deaths, another
person came to have an even more marked impact on his development
as a poet, Takai Kit. Buson was acquainted with Kit well before the
death of Shha and Taigi, and in fact Shha was a disciple of Kits
father, Kikei. Furthermore, Shha and Taigi were instrumental in
Busons earliest formation of a poetic style, collaborating with him in
explorations of the free-wheeling, bunjin-inspired style of both haikai and

19

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 130131.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

103

of living that Buson incorporated into his professional persona as an

artist and later, as a poet. However it was Kit who was most responsible for establishing Buson as one of the most prominent and well-known
poets of his generation. This was less because of Kits abilities as a poet,
which to be sure were perfectly respectable; instead, Kit brought to
Buson and the Yahantei school something that they would have otherwise been missinga strong, even indefatigable facility for selfpromotion. Given Busons profound ambivalence about his own role as
leader of a haikai school, Kits involvement in this regard came at a
critical stage.
Kit was an ambitious and talented haikai poet. His father was the
prominent Hajin disciple Kikei, so he learned to practice haikai from a
very early age: he had his first hokku published at the age of eight, albeit
in his fathers collection Companion. He joined Yahantei soon after Buson
reopened it under the condition that he would eventually inherit the
groups leadership, and ran his school, Shunyar , at the same
time as he participated in Yahantei activities. Kit was even more
dedicated to the task of promoting Buson and Yahantei than Buson was
himself, which, given the condition of his membership, was also an
investment in his own future.
Nevertheless, he and Buson had a genuinely affectionate relationship.
A letter Buson wrote to Kit in the early days of Yahantei gives some
indication of the deep respect and trust that Buson had for him:
Hajin, for instance, even when he was making an anthology, would consult with me about completing all unfinished linked verse sequences, and
of course he would discuss each of his solo sequences with me. That was
when I was not yet twenty-five or twenty-six, and though I was immature,
Hajin thought of me as his right arm and discussed things with me. Your
understanding of haikai is even more splendid, and there is no one in
Kyoto aside from you with whom I would consult. But that should not
make you boastful or arrogant. I would very much like to hear about how
things are with you. And if there is something in Yahantei that you do not
agree with, I will understand. In any event, the hearts of people in Kyoto
are the worst in all Japan. For a long time I did not think so, but after I
started practicing haikai, more and more I find this to be the case. I have
traveled over half of Japan, and the merits and faults of the human heart
are as clear to me as if I could point to them in the palm of my hand.
Anyway, please come tonight. We will talk. Do not worry about the matter
of asking Banan (i.e., Yoshiwake Tairo [d. 1778]) to do a
rygin (a verse sequence composed by two people). I asked him because he is a person who knows haikai. Fry (i.e., haikai) comes first in

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matters like this. Why would I ask group members like Kaen or
Raisen ? I just dont understand the reason any members could be
angry with you. We will talk more of this when I see you. 20

As this letter suggests, not all of the Yahantei members had the same
high regard for Kit as Buson did. Despite this, the privileged relationship Buson had with Kit endured for the rest of Busons life. And, after
his death, Kit lived up to his responsibility as chief disciple by publishing commemorative works such as Withered cypress needles and Buson verse
anthology without delay, and he presided over Yahantei school activities
until his own early death in 1789 at the age of forty-nine.
Kits public relations abilities were immensely valuable to Buson. As
much as Buson was concerned about managing his identity as a poet, his
work as a painter kept him busy. While Buson did personally compile
and edit numerous anthologies for Yahantei, most of these were smallscale affairs in marking of some event, especially new year or memorial
anthologies that mainly contained verses by his acquaintances. By
contrast, Kits projects tended to be more elaborate collections that
showcased works of poets who were not affiliated with Yahantei as well
as those that were. Kit was the editor of three of the major Yahantei
collections: Light of the snow, Dawn crow, Sequel to dawn crow, and was closely
involved in the production of at least two others. Kit also compiled
Buson verse anthology, a collection of 869 hokku that was published as a
memorial the year after Busons death.
The first verse collection that Kit oversaw for Yahantei was Light of
the snow, a memorial anthology in honor of his father Kikei, who had
belonged to the original Yahantei school. It was supposed to commemorate the thirteenth anniversary of Kikeis death, although the actual date
was not until three years later. While the ostensible purpose of the
anthology was a solemn one, i.e., commemoration of Kikeis life and
work, in fact Light of the snow includes a variety of verses, many of them
irreverent and comic, especially in the second half of the collection.
Thus, in addition to memorializing the life and work of Kikei, Light of the
snow was also a promotional piece for the Yahantei school. Buson
explains Kits reasoning this way in his preface:
Nowadays, everyone composes haikai, from nobles and daimy to fishers
and woodcutters. Making a name for oneself among them as a haikai master is difficult in the extreme. In Kyoto and Osaka one can count them on

20

BSS, pp. 5859.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

105

no more than three or four fingers. Of those three or four, Kikei was the
main one.21 Kikei had originally practiced haikai with the Hajin studio.
However, he did not learn the straightforward style there, so on the side
he associated with the members of the Hanji studio (i.e., the school of Matsuki Tantan). Still, he was not converted to its complexity, but alone he
used common parlance and ordinary language, and skillfully expressed
form and feeling completely. To draw an analogy, his verses were like
Chinese novels, whose evocative use of language is more interesting than
the excellent prose of many historical records. []
On the thirteenth anniversary of his death his son Kit collected a volume of writings to honor his spirit. Unlike the usual memorial collection,
it does not contain a lot of pious verses; on the whole, they celebrate the
blossoms and extol the moon. It is like mixing fish and meat with herbs as
an offering to the deities. I said, this is what your father would have
wanted. The Chinese sage (Liu Yiqing )22 was in accord with precisely the man (Wang Rong ) who slept on a chicken-bone mat, with
his body growing emaciated and his eyes sunken, rather than the man (He
Jiao ) who stayed shut up in the prayer alcove, practicing assiduously,
rosary in hand, chanting the holy phrase conspicuously, giving alms to the
clergy and wearing strange padded-out clothes. Does not this work of
Kits come close to the former mans actions?23

Memorial anthologies usually contained laments for the deceased person

composed by his friends. There is only one such verse in Light of the snow;
the others are more playful and celebratory of Kikeis life, or actually
have little apparent connection. As justification, Buson points to the
example of Wang Rong and He Jiao in the fifth century Chinese
collection Shishuo xinyu (A new account of tales of the world)
who both grieved for their deceased relatives differently:
Wang Jung and Ho Chiao experienced the loss of a parent at the same
time, and both were praised for their filial devotion. Wang, reduced to a
skeleton kept to his bed; while Ho, wailing and weeping, performed all the
rites. Emperor Wu (Ssu-ma Yen, r. 265290), remarked to Liu I. Have
you ever observed Wang Jung and Ho Chiao? I hear that Hos grief and
suffering go on what is required by propriety, and it makes me worry
about him. Liu I replied, Ho Chiao, even though performing all the
rites, has suffered no loss in his spirit or health. Wang Jung, even though
not performing the rites, is nonetheless so emaciated with grief that his
bones stand out. Your servant is of the opinion that Ho Chiaos is the

21

Literally, the thumb.

Liu Yiqing was the compiler of Shishuo xinyu (A new account of tales of the world,
ca. 430).
23 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 122124.
22

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CHAPTER FOUR

filial devotion of life, while Wang Jungs is the filial devotion of death.
Your Majesty should not worry about Chiao, but rather about Jung.24

He Jiao punctiliously observed the appropriate ceremonies, but Wang

Rong did not. Nevertheless, the fact that Wang Rong grew thin and
haggard proved the sincerity of his feelings, and Shishuo xinyu author Liu
Yiqing (403444) admired Wang more. In other words, Buson argues
that even though Kit does not follow the standard memorial anthology
pattern, the emotion behind it is even more profound than those whose
editors make a conspicuous show of grief.
Buson contributed around ten hokku to the collection. Some are
somber and evocative, such as:
furu ido ya
ka ni tobu sakana
oto kurashi

old well
a fish jumps at a mosquito
the sound is dark25

haru no umi
hinemosu notari
notari kana

spring sea
all day, waves rise and fall
rise and fall26

Old well (Furu ido ya) recalls two Bash verses. One is the famous
Old pond / a frog jumps in / sound of water (Furu ike ya / kawazu
tobikomu / mizu no oto). Also similar is the Three notebooks verse In the
barn / mosquitos buzz is dark / lingering heat (Ushibeya ni / ka no koe
kuraki / zansh kana)27 that, like Busons verse, uses synesthesia, describing a sound in terms of darkness. In Spring sea (Haru no umi) Buson
relies on another technique, the repetition of the onomatopoeic word
notari (rise and fall) to create the impression of constant movement over
a vast expanse of spacethe gentle motion of waves on a calm spring
day. Buson composed Spring sea at least ten years before Light of the
snow, and it had already been included in several anthologies by this time.
Other Buson verses Kit included in Light of the snow are more humorous, like the following:

24 Wade-Giles romanization in original. Translators notes omitted. Liu I-ching, Shihshuo Hsin-yA New Account of Tales of the World, trans. Richard B. Mather (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1976), pp. 1011.
25 BZ, vol. 1, no. 429.
26 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.
27 BZ, vol. 1, note 109, p. 40.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

sensoku no
tarai mo morite
yuku haru ya

the footbath
tub is also leaking away
spring runs out28

gakumon wa
shiri kara nukeru
hotaru kana

scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly29

107

Both place an image that is associated with classical elegance in an

unpretentious, even vulgar context. The footbath (Sensoku no) takes up
the topic of departing spring (yuku haru) which, as we have seen,
implies a sensitive, refined regret for the passing of the season, comparing springs departure to the water running out of a bathtub. Scholarly
brilliance (Gakumon wa) does the same thing with hotaru (firefly), a
classical topic suggestive of romance and delicate feeling. Its comic twist
turns on the reference to a saying, shiri kara nukeru (comes out ones
bottom), similar to the English expression In one ear and out the
other. The scholar is diligent and studious, but he lacks the power of
retention.
Light of the snow also includes several illustrations by Buson. One
shows Bash, flanked by Kikaku and Ransetsu. The other shows Hajin
seated at a desk, gesturing with a fan, while Kikei reads a verse from a
poem-slip. These illustrations visually establish the connection between
the powerful authority Bash and the Yahantei school. Bash is shown
teaching Kikaku and Ransetsu, who are Hajins disciples. Hajin, the
founder of the Yahantei school, is shown teaching Kikei. Kikei was the
colleague of the present day leader of Yahantei, Buson, and the father of
its leading disciple, Kit. As we saw in the example of Busons painting
Group portrait of haikai sages, discussed in Chapter Two, the illustrations in Light of the snow are simultaneously a gesture of praisein this
case, of Kikeias well as an argument for the prestige of the Yahantei
lineage.
The second major Yahantei anthology that Kit oversaw was Dawn
crow. Dawn crow was more ambitious than Light of the snow and it was
created with a different purpose. Light of the snow was at least ostensibly a
memorial anthology for Takai Kikei, whereas Dawn Crow unreservedly
advanced a far more public agenda. As the title suggests, Kit aimed for

28
29

BZ, vol. 1, no. 459.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 906.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Dawn crow to be like the cry of a crow at daybreak, a compelling call to

the haikai world to wake up to the morning of a new era in which the
ideals of Bash would become its guiding principles.
In his preface to Dawn crow, Kit cites a comment by Buson calling
for haikai reform:
Nowadays the style of the age has gradually come to change, and in its
current form there is standing still, there is being ahead, and there is being
behind. However, they all come to a single pointrespect for Bash. Yahantei (i.e., Buson) always said, Now, in the far-off provinces, those
groups that only speak of the Shmon, praising it, merely study the surface aspects of Master Bashs teachings; they do not know its inner essence. For example, there are few who appreciate the meaning of a verse
link like this:

kataki yose kuru

mura matsu no koe

the enemy is coming

sound in the pine woods

ariake no
nashiuchieboshi
kitari keri

at dawn,
putting on
a hunting cap30

It looks like we have now arrived at an era of awakening to the eternal

Orthodox Style Already, Owari poets31 have striven for the light of Winter
day in five verse sequences. In Ise of the Divine Winds, though the school
of Bakurin claimed to follow the teachings of Bash the Elder, now many
people no longer believe it there either.32 In Kaga Province there is a haikai group that reminds me of the Tenna-Enp [1673-1681]. style. In
Heian (Kyoto) and Naniwa (Osaka) also, there are many who devotedly
follow the true Bash style. 33

Kits preface makes it clear that not only is Dawn crow intended to serve
as a wake-up call to the rest of the haikai community to return to the
lofty ideals of Bash, he also wants to distinguish what the Yahantei
school is doing from the more popular Bash schools, i.e., the rural
schools of Shik and Bakurin. He quotes Busons statement that many

30 Hattori Doh , Sanzshi, NKBT, vol. 66, p. 424. The link here is based
on the feeling of tension and urgency. The tsukeku introduces the scene of a hunter
quickly donning his cap at daybreak, with a sense of excitement similar to that in the
maeku, where the persona is unsure whether the sound he hears is that of the wind in the
pines, or of a fast-approaching enemy.
31 That is, members of the school of Kat Kytai in Nagoya.
32 Bakusui and his followers.
33 Takai Kit, Akegarasu, in Yamashita Kazumi et al., eds., Shin Nihon koten bungaku
taikei, vol. 73, Tenmei haikai sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1998), pp. 5557.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

109

who call themselves members of the Bash school are in fact frauds who
know the surface aspects (hiniku , literally, skin and flesh) of
Bashs teachings but fail to grasp their deeper essence (funkotsu ,
literally, powder bone). In including this quotation Kit points to the fact
that Dawn crow represents the work of poets from many parts of Japan
Nagoya, Ise, Kaga, Kyoto, and Osakaemphasizing that the ideal of
reclaiming Bashs teachings transcends barriers both of geography and
poetic lineage, and was in fact a unifying force in the haikai community.
Dawn crow includes both hokku and linked verse, with contributions by
116 poets in all. The highest number of verses belonged to Buson, Taigi,
Shha, Kikei, Kytai, Chora, Bakusui, Chmu, and Ryta; many less
well-known poets were represented only by a single verse. Yahantei
members, of course, were most prominent, but Dawn crow also includes
many verses by poets outside Yahantei. These other poets belonged to
groups that in one sense competed with Yahantei, but at the same time
they were allies with a common goal, the Bash Revival movement.
While the presence of Kytai, Chora, and Itton was understandable, as
Buson frequently collaborated with these poets in linked verse sequences
and hokku gatherings, the inclusion of Bakusui is a bit more surprising.
Bakusui belonged to the rural school tradition of Bakurin and Shik
the rural backwoods Bash school that Buson singled out for nearly as
much criticism as he did the tentori poets. However, Busons statement
suggests that Bakusui and his followers had corrected their mentors
errors, and were worthy colleagues in the task of bringing about haikai
reform.
Kit included both old and new Buson hokku in Dawn crow. As ostensible representatives of the orthodox Bash style, Busons Dawn crow
verses suggest that components of this style include at least two elements: powerful, evocative depictions of the natural world, especially
famous places; and the recasting of imagery derived from classical
Japanese literature into new contexts, such as imagined Chinese settings
or situations of daily life. However, despite his avowals of the importance of faithful observation of Busons teachings, Buson actually takes a
very different approach in his own work.
The following are examples of Busons landscape verses:

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CHAPTER FOUR

Fuji hitotsu
uzumi nokoshite
wakaba kana

Mount Fuji alone

is not engulfed
young leaves34

nawashiro ni
Kurama no sakura no
chiri ni keri

flooded fields
the cherry blossoms of Mount Kurama
have scattered35

Mount Fuji alone (Fuji hitotsu) was not a new poem. It had been
composed during Busons Sankasha era, though it does not appear in the
Sankasha collection From summer. Wakaba, a classical season word, means
leaves in early summer that still retain the vitality of spring. Lush and
irresistible, they almost drown the foreground in green, but in the
background Mount Fuji rises, silent and unperturbed. Flooded fields
(Nawashiro ni), another Sankasha-era hokku, describes squares of rice
fields filled with the pale green of new shoots in late spring. Scattered
cherry blossoms drift on the dark water that floods them. The lateblooming cherry trees on nearby Mount Kurama have already turned
from pink to green, so the speaker concludes that these petals must have
been carried down from the mountain on the wind.
These two verses point up some obvious differences between Busons
and Bashs techniques. Bash emphasized close personal observation of
geography and objects. Much of his life was spent traveling to view
famous places for himself, and one of his most often-quoted teachings
was learn about the pine from the pine, learn about bamboo from the
bamboo.36 Buson, by contrast, did not make travel the center of his
haikai practice. It is unlikely that either of these verses represent scenes
that Buson actually witnessed himself. Instead, he invented them from
memories of similar scenes and then juxtaposed them with place-names
that had conventional associations to the topic, fresh new leaves
(wakaba) in Mount Fuji alone and cherry blossoms (sakura) in
Flooded fields.
An example of the kind of verse that recontextualizes an allusion to
classical Japanese is the following, which matches a reference to a
Chinese poem in one of the most famous phrases in Heian literature:

34

BZ, vol. 1, no. 525.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 486.
36 Sanzshi, NKBT, vol. 66, p. 398.
35

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

111

Morokoshi no shikaku wa ikkoku

no yoi o oshimi, wagach no
utabito wa murasaki no
akebono o sh seri

A Chinese shi poet treasured so much as

a quarter-hour of twilight; in our own
country a waka poet praised the
purple dawn.

haru no yo ya
yoi akebono no
sono naka ni

night in spring
its between
twilight and dawn37

The Chinese shi poet is the Song poet and painter Su Dongpo
(10361101), the waka poet is the author of the Pillow book (Makura no
sshi ), Sei Shonagon (ca. 9661028). Su Dongpos
verse Spring Night contains the line, A quarter-hour of spring night is
worth one thousand gold pieces.38 The Pillow books opening line is, In
the spring, dawn (is best).39 Using a headnote to make his sources
unambiguous, Buson creates a humorous twist on the classical tradition:
juxtaposing the words yoi (evening) and akebono (dawn) with haru no yo
(night in spring), he notes that night literally comes between these times
so much admired by famous poets, and has an appeal that should also be
savored.40 Whereas Bash was famous for his ability in elevating the
events of everyday life to the level of classical poetry by his skill in
juxtaposing the ordinary with the elegant, here Buson blurs the distinction between classical literature and the imported Chinese tradition.
The third anthology that Kit was involved with was Sequel to dawn
crow, which was published three years after Dawn crow. Kit regarded it as
a continuation of his previous project. He included verses by most of the
poets whose work had appeared in Dawn crow, and added some new
ones: Rank, Much (Ueda Akinari), Yay, and Chiyo, and as such,
Dawn crow and Sequel to dawn crow represent almost all the major poets of
the period. Kit planned it as his generations answer to one of the
central works of the Bash school, Monkeys straw coat (Sarumino ,
1691). Although it was a product of Busons Yahantei, it was less
focused on showcasing Busons verse than it was about promoting
Kits image: for example, it includes almost twice as many Kit hokku

37

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1027.

Cited in BZ, vol. 1, p. 228, note 1027. In Chinese, xiao has the same meaning as
ye , unlike in Japanese, where yoi means twilight and yo , night. Thus Buson
misunderstood Su Dongpos poem: they both praise the same time of evening.
39 Ikeda Kikan et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 19, Makura no sshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki
(Iwanami Shoten, 1958), p. 43.
40 Shimizu, Yosa Buson no kansh to hihy, pp. 4344.
38

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CHAPTER FOUR

(45) than Buson hokku (17). Also, as the afterword by Akinari indicates,
Sequel to dawn crow was also intended to serve as a commemoration of the
seventeenth anniversary of the death of Kikei, Kits father. Furthermore, for a collection that is nominally a Yahantei school anthology, it
contains a very large proportion of verses by non-Yahantei poets. As a
consequence, rather than functioning as a defining statement of Yahantei
style as Monkeys straw coat did for the Bash school, Sequel to dawn crow
was more like an index to the major figures of the Revival movement.
Of the seventeen Buson verses that Kit chose for the collection,
only a few allude directly to those of Bash, such as:
uki ware ni
kinuta ute ima wa
mata yamine

as I am melancholy
beat the fulling block,41 but
stop now, its enough42

To my melancholy (uki ware o) refers to two Bash verses, to my

melancholy / add loneliness / cuckoo (uki ware o / sabishigaraseyo /
kankodori) and beat the fulling block / so I can hear it / priests wife
(kinuta uchite / ware ni kikaseyo ya / b ga tsuma). Bashs verses are
restrained and sensitive, redolent of the gentle sadness that is associated
with sabi, quiet austerity. They reflect the aesthetic of fky, something
that started to interest Bash around 1680. Fky is a state of being so
intoxicated by poetic or artistic sensibility that one is compelled to
commit spontaneous, apparently crazy acts. Busons hokku, As I am
melancholy (Uki ware ni), responds to Bashs refined and delicate
mood with self-deprecating humor. The speaker starts out with a noble
goal: he tries to imitate Bashs example by calling to an imagined
listener (i.e., the priests wife of Bashs verse) to strike the fulling block.
However, he lacks the deep poetic sensibility of someone like Bash, and
soon has had enough.
This verse also invites us to laugh at those who pursue high artistic
ideals:
waga zukin
uki yo no sama ni
nizu mogana

I hope my hood
doesnt make me look
like a mere playboy43

41 A kinuta (fulling block) was used to beat cloth in order to soften its texture. In
classical poetry it was associated with the melancholy and cold of long nights in autumn,
as poets wrote of hearing its lonely sound on a sleepless night on a journey, and thinking
of loved ones far away (Yamamoto Kenkichi, pp. 527529).
42 BZ, vol. 1, no. 1285.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

113

However here the context is clothes, not aesthetic refinement. A zukin

was a head covering similar to a hood; the verse refers to a kind of zukin
that was at this time a favorite of those who styled themselves bunjin. The
speaker here hopes that his zukin will make people think he is a person
of taste, and not just a vain dandy who is trying to show off.
Another Buson Sequel to dawn crow verse makes a direct allusion to a
waka by Saigy, one of the poets that Bash most deeply admired. It also
reflects the aesthetic of fky in the sense that it describes a situation in
which the speaker remains devoted to his artistic ideals, despite the fact
that he has no one to share them with:
Ryya to fukata mo naku ni
toikuru hito mo nakereba

On a moonlit night, since there is nowhere

to go visiting, and no one will come to visit.

nakanaka ni
hitori areba zo
tsuki o tomo

well now,
if I am to be alone
Ill take the moon as a friend44

Saigys verse is:

nagamuru ni
nagusamukoto wa
nakeredomo
tsuki o tomo nite
akasu koro kana

gazing idly
although
it brings no comfort
Ill take the moon as a friend
spending the night awake45

Saigy
Busons hokku lifts the line tsuki o tomo (Ill take the moon as a friend)
directly from Saigys waka. Even though the speaker has no one with
whom to enjoy the evening, it is too fine to ignore. Being solitary also,
the moon makes a perfect companion. In doing so, the speaker makes an
aisatsu to Saigy, including him in the circle that contains the night, the
moon, and himself, making the loneliness of the night a pleasant one.
The pose of regret that one is without a companion to appreciate
beautiful scenery is common to Chinese poetry also.46 Here Buson links
the worlds of Chinese poetry and waka to create a haikai verse that
expresses one of Bashs most important poetic principles, fky.

43

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1188.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1435.
45 Ibid, p. 320, note 1435.
46 Susan Bush, The Chinese Literati on Painting: Su Shih (10371101) to Tung Chi-chang
(15551636) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 78.
44

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CHAPTER FOUR

Busons Yahantei anthologies

While Kits work as editor played a large and important role in creating
a public image for Yahantei and also in furthering the cause of the Bash
Revival movement, Buson also was involved in the task of compiling
anthologies himself. Thus he was also taking an active role not only in
composing poetry, but also in setting a standard by using the medium of
publication to express allegiances and common purpose. Aside from
Kits large and inclusive anthologies, then, we will look at four in whose
production Buson was more closely involved: Make the past present,
Midnight music (Yahan raku , 1777), New flower gathering, and
Blossoms and birds collection.
Though it is very short and contains only one hokku by Buson, Make
the past present is worth some attention, as Buson compiled it for the
purpose of linking the new Yahantei to the old one, that is, the group
founded by Busons teacher Hayano Hajin in Edo some forty years
earlier. It was customary for second-generation haikai school leaders to
publish volumes memorializing their teachers. Doing so helped to invent
a tradition for the group, and created an environment in which the
original masters work and ideas are given the status of classics. In turn,
honor rebounded on his followers, who were then marked with a sign of
legitimacy and of partaking in an authorized version of the founders
teachings.
Buson contributed a verse in an earlier anthology commemorating
Hajins death, Sokus Far into the west, when he was still a novice haikai
poet, but Make the past present was his only editorial project of this kind.
Even so, it is unconventional as a memorial volume, and in the preface
Buson goes to some length to defend himself against the criticism he
expects to receive for it. The hokku by present-day Yahantei members
that it includes are conspicuously unlike those of Hajin. In fact, Buson
explains, though one would expect the leader of a group called Yahantei
to impart Hajins teachings to his disciples, in fact their verses are more a
reflection of the sabi and shiorior austerity and delicacycharacteristic
of the verse of Matsuo Bash.
Nowadays what I teach my haikai students it is not Hajins openhearted
tone, but chiefly aspire to Elder Bashs austerity and delicacy (sabi, shiori),
as I wish to return haikai to its past. This is a matter of turning away from
external illusions and responding to inner truths. This is called haikai Zen
, a dharma that is transmitted directly, from mind to mind. Those

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

115

who lack understanding of this criticize me, saying that turning ones back
on ones teacher is a terrible sin, and so forth. With this in mind, the two
sequences that follow depart from that sabi-shiori style, instead, they earnestly imitate Hajins style, and are humbly offered to him.47

He describes Hajins verse as having the quality of openheartedness;

admirable, perhaps, but not the equal of Bash. However, Buson s
justification for preferring sabi and shiorieven in a volume dedicated to
Hajins memoryis quite shrewd. Buson was no mystic, but here he
invokes Zen for persuasive effect, explaining that his stylistic preference
is in accord with the teaching he received directly, like spiritual insight,
from Hajin himself. Buson claims that the real essence of Hajins
teaching is that haikai has to change with the times, and since the times
call for a return to Bash, seeming to deviate from his masters teachings
is actually the best way to remain faithful to them. With this argument,
Buson simultaneously praises his teacher, defends himself from potential
detractors, and aligns the work of the present Yahantei school with the
agenda of the Bash Revival movement, whose primary goal is returning
haikai to its past.
The one Buson hokku that is included in the anthology is part of a
short series; it is the third of three verses, the first of which is by
Ransetsu, and the second by Hajin.
Fuke sarinu
nioi nokorite
hana no kumo

Fuke48 departed
but a fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms

Ransetsu
Genb kyoshi
nioi nokorite
hana no kumo

Layman Genbs
fragrance lingers
clouds of blossoms

Hajin

47

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 139140.

Fuke , Chinese, Puhua (d. 860), was a Buddhist monk and founder of the sect
that bears his name.
48

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CHAPTER FOUR

Sa kyoshi sanjsan
kaiki seit

Appropriate to the thirty-third

anniversary of Layman Sas (Hajins) death:

hana no kumo
mie ni kasanete
kumo no mine

clouds of blossoms
lay three times as deep
mountains of cloud49

Hajins verse expresses his grief for his mentor Ransetsu by reworking
one of his own verses: Genb is an alternate name for Ransetsu. Buson
takes up this chain of associations with his own verse. Clouds of
blossoms is a spring topic, and refers to cherry trees blooming in such
profusion they could be mistaken for clouds. Busons verse moves the
setting to summer by changing the topic to mountains of cloud, the
towers of clouds that form in a clear sky on a hot summers day. In
doing so, the scale of the verse becomes solemn and grand, underscoring
the seriousness of the emotion it depicts. Just as this is the third layer of
allusion, the speakers sentiment is three times as deep as that of an
ordinary verse, and this is appropriate for an anthology marking the
thirty-third anniversary of his teachers death.
It was three years before Buson tried his hand at another anthology;
and this one, Midnight music, was, like Make the past present, also small and
limited in scope. Midnight music was planned as a saitanch, a new year
anthology to be released at the beginning of the first month, but it was
not actually distributed until the end of the second month, more like a
shunkyj. More famous for its two haishi (haikai free verse), it is not a
particularly good example of Busons hokku, because it includes only
one: a starting verse to a kasen that was written by thirty-six of his
disciples, who each contributed one verse:
saitan o
shitari gao naru
haikaishi

the New Year taken care of

he has a smug look on his face
haikai teacher50

The other forty-three hokku Buson includes were written by his disciples
on the topic of the coming of spring, which makes it a good example of
the function of the new year anthology to document the membership of
the group.
Far more interesting for a study of Busons hokku is New flower gathering, an exceptional collection of verse and prose that he also completed

49
50

BZ, vol. 7, p. 76.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1488.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

117

in 1777. New flower gathering has an unusual history. Buson did not publish
it during his lifetime. In 1784 Matsumura Gekkei added illustrations and
an afterword explaining the circumstances under which it was written,
but it was not published until 1792.
Buson wrote the hokku section of New flower gathering first. In his afterword, Gekkei explains that it was intended as a summer devotion
(gegy ) in memory of Busons mother. Buson originally planned to
write ten hokku a day for one hundred days. As the title of the collection
indicates, Buson found inspiration for his project in the example of
Kikakus Flower gathering (Hanatsumi , 1792) a hokku collection also
written in honor of his mother. Unlike Kikaku, however, Buson gave up
a few weeks into the project, claiming illness. Later that year, however,
he returned to his notebook and decided to fill it with short essays on
various topics in the style of zuihitsu.
Most of Busons 2,800-odd hokku were composed in the context of
meetings or other social exchanges and were published in group
anthologies; in other words, they exemplify haikais typical collaborative,
public aspect. The New flower gathering hokku, however, were different.
These were written in a private setting where there was little pressure to
outshine rivals or impress students. As a result, they have a quiet,
contemplative quality, and occasionally come tantalizingly close to
promising a glimpse of Busons inner life. Whether or not they are
actually biographical, each is given a date and has a place in a sequence
that Buson determined, and so it is possible to observe a process taking
place that is distinct from what otherwise might be found in more
conventional anthologies.
In particular, the anthologys first six poemsthose composed on the
first day of the projectseem to have a non-fictional cast to them. They
are some of the most moving and heart wrenching verses Buson ever
wrote. The sequence begins on the eighth day of the fourth month,
traditionally observed as the Buddhas birthday:
Eighth day
1. kanbutsu ya
motoyori hara wa
kari no yado

Buddhas birthday
its a brief shelter,
the womb

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CHAPTER FOUR

2. uzuki yka
shinde umaruru
ko wa hotoke

Eighth day of the Fourth Month

born dead
the child is a Buddha

3. koromogae
mi ni shiratsuyu no
hajime kana

time for summer clothes

a first chance to know
the white dew of tears

4. koromogae
haha nan Fujiwara
uji nari keri

time for summer clothes

Mother was surely
a Fujiwara

5. hototogisu
uta yomi yjo
kikoyu naru

hototogisu
I hear a courtesan
composing poetry

6. mimi utoki
chichi nyd yo
hototogisu

Father has entered the Way,

but his hearing is still poor
hototogisu51

Given the poverty of information available about Busons family and

childhood, these six verses have attracted much attention from scholars
and other commentators. Speculation tends to center around Busons
relationship with his mother, since the title of the collection recalls Flower
gathering, which Kikaku compiled in memory of his mother. Also, not
only do the first six hokku have a nostalgic, grief-tinged mood to them,
but four of them describe the experiences of women. Some scholars take
Gekkeis afterword at face value, arguing that New flower gathering that
Busons 1,000-verse gegy was intended as a kuy (Buddhist
memorial ritual) for his mother, and that this year marked the fiftieth
anniversary of her deathmeaning that she died when Buson was
thirteen. According to these interpretations, the source for these verses
are Busons childhood memories: his mother was a tragic figure; perhaps
she suffered a miscarriage, or died young; she was a dignified person
reduced to straitened circumstances, she was as charming and melancholy as a courtesan, and so on.
Another set of interpretations associates the female figures in these
hokku with Kuno, Busons beloved daughter. Kunos marriage was an
unhappy one (it eventually ended in divorce); one of Busons letters
expresses his loathing for her father-in-law, who, he claimed, was a

51

BZ, vol. 7, p. 227.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

119

greedy man who only wanted her for the money she might bring to his
household. According to this interpretation, it is Kuno who lost a child
to miscarriage.
In any case, the emotion in these verses is so plain that it is hard not
to imagine that they directly describe some events in Busons life; at the
same time, they do not develop a consistent narrative. Instead, like a
linked verse sequence, the situations and personae change from verse to
verse. Read together, however, something that does remain constant is
an overtone of longing and sorrow. Each of the six hokku is like the
facets of a jewel that reflect the same complex mood from different
angles. Buson began his project on the eighth day of the Fourth Month,
which was observed as the Buddhas birthday, so it makes sense that the
verses he composed on that day were spiritual and contemplative. As the
second verse, Eighth day of the Fourth Month (Uzuki yoka), shows,
the word hotoke simultaneously means Buddha and dead person. A
birth implies a future death; the change of seasons marked in the
beginning of the fourth monthwhen one exchanges winter clothes for
those of summerreminds the speaker of the ephemerality of life, and
his thoughts turn to the Way of Buddhism.
As the days passed, however, Busons contemplative mood seems to
lift, and he steadily reels off witty and imaginative verses, many of which
return again and again to the same topic, such as this excerpt from a
series on sushi:
Seventeenth day
82. sushi o osu
ware sake kamosu
tonari ari

at my house we just ferment sushi

at my neighbors
they brew sake

83. sushi o osu

sekij ni shi o
dai subeku

I must inscribe a poem

on the stone
sushi press

84. sushi oke o

araeba asaki
ygyo kana

rinsing out the sushi tub

attracts fish
to the waters surface

85. mashirage no
yone issh ya
sushi no meshi

a peck of
pure silvery white
rice for sushi

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CHAPTER FOUR

86. takuj no
sushi ni me samushi
Kangyotei

the sushi on the table

has a chilling effect
Fish-Viewing Pavilion52

All of these verses are more or less self-explanatory, though it might help
to point out that the sushi Buson refers to here is not the fresh, Edostyle variety that is commonly eaten today, but funazushi or fermented
sushi, which was made by layering fish with salted (later, vinegared) rice
in a tub, covering it with a stone, and then leaving it for several months
to ripen. The impression verses like these create is one of restless
creativity, as Buson views his topic from different angles, finding new
and often comic insights every time.
New flower gathering is exceptional among the group of anthologies that
the Yahantei school poets produced. It was not part of Busons effort to
consolidate the groups image, or of his own, because the hokku within it
were written as a private exercise rather than as part of a public event or
communal project. Although a few New flower gathering hokku later appear
in other anthologies, Buson did not publish the collection himself; and in
fact it did not appear until after his death. So while Make the past present
can be included under the broad category of anthologies that were used
to promote Yahantei to a wider audience, the New flower gathering hokku
section deviates from this pattern, and gives us a glimpse of an introspective, less studied Buson.
Blossoms and birds collection was the last anthology that Buson edited. It
was published in 1782, the year before his death. Buson had originally
planned Blossoms and birds collection as a new year anthology, like Midnight
music; however, after a visit to Yoshino, famous for its cherry blossoms,
he ended up deciding to create a collection devoted to verses on the
topic of cherry blossoms and hototogisu. Blossoms and birds collection was a
small but exquisitely designed volume, with illustrations by Buson and
elegant calligraphy in his hand. It contains verses not only by Yahantei
members, but also Busons friends, including courtesans and kabuki
actors. While it includes verses by the usual Yahantei members and
patrons such as Kit, Korekoma, Donshi, Hyakuchi, and Dry, there
are none by Bash Revival poets like Kytai, Chora, or Chmu that are
featured in Kit-edited anthologies like Dawn crow. Buson organized
Blossoms and birds collection as a way to acknowledge his friends and

52

BZ, vol. 7, p. 232.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

121

patrons, rather than to reach out to a larger community of haikai poets.

Kits anthologies advertise Yahantei to a larger world, trying to extend
its reach, but Busons look inward, linking the members of his personal
circle to one another.
Aside from hokku on the topic of cherry blossoms by Buson and his
friends and supporters, Blossoms and birds collection also includes a fragment
of a linked verse sequence whose hokku was written by Umejo, the
talented and accomplished wife of his close disciple Gekkei, and finishes
with a sequence that starts with a hokku by Danrin school founder
Nishiyama Sin on the topic of hototogisu and a waki (second verse) by
Buson. Buson uses alternate haig (haikai names) for his hokku, a
practice that was not uncommon.
Two of them are light-hearted, celebratory of the beauty of the trees
and the fun that can be had when going to view them:
yuku haru no
shunjun toshite
osozakura

departing spring
seems to hesitate
late-blooming cherry trees53

tanomarete
sakura mi ni yuku
otoko kana

when asked
he goes to check on the cherry trees
what a guy54

Buson uses the haikai name Kink for Departing spring (Yuku
haru no). The verse describes an apparent pause in the process of
transition from spring to summer, as the blossoming of the lateblooming cherry trees seem to pull time back to the middle of spring,
when ordinary trees normally bloom. The beauty of the trees is so
magnificent that it almost arrests the passage of spring itself. Departing
spring is followed directly by When asked (Tanomarete) although
Buson uses a different haikai name here, Shunhan . This verse is
also bright and playful; having invited a friend to go cherry blossom
viewing, he impresses everyone by going to check on the trees to make
sure they will be ready for the party.
The third Buson verse is different. It is set off from the others by a
long headnote and an illustration, a stylized drawing of a kasa, or travel
hat. Buson uses the haikai name Yahan. The headnote and hokku are as
follows:

53
54

BZ, vol. 1, no. 2252.

BZ, vol. 7, p. 265.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Not following the aesthetic of rushing off on a journey to Yoshino saying,

I want to show the cherry blossoms my travel hat, I just stay in my home
worrying about the affairs of the mundane world, thinking, Ill do this, or,
why dont I do that, and the things that I plan never get done, until finally,
though the instances of turning away from the beauties of nature are numerous in this world, it is as if I were the only such idiot there is, and I
feel I cannot show my face to other people [...]

hana chirite
mi no shita yami ya
hinoki kasa

blossoms fallen
what darkness below
my cypress travel hat55

Blossoms fallen (Hana chirite) brings the focus to Bash, who was so
famous for his journeys that the image of the travel hat alone makes us
think of him. But more directly, the verse alludes to a famous poem
Bash wrote about cherry blossoms at Yoshino:
Yoshino nite
sakura mish zo
hinoki kasa

hey, I want to show it

the cherry blossoms at Yoshino
my cypress travel hat56

Bash
In contrast to Bashs verse, which is a playful expression of the
aesthetic of fky, or poetic madness, Busons verse is gloomy and selfabnegating. Busons poem places the speaker in a time and place after
the blossoms of Bashs poem have fallen, in later, darker days. Though
he has visited Yoshino, which so entranced Bash, the speaker in
Busons poem does not claim to be equal to the task of appreciating it,
and uses the hat to hide his face. Blossoms fallen is one of many
Buson verses which evoke a Bash source poem, only to express a sense
of inferiority or humility as a novice might in the presence of a master.
In this sense, it is a good example of an expression of Busons anxiety of
reception: though he is convinced of the rightness of following Bashs
lead, Buson is careful to preempt any criticism that might be provoked
by leaving himself open to comparison with his brilliant predecessor.

55
56

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 205-206.

NKBT, vol. 45, p. 49.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

123

Five Cartloads of Wastepaper

Blossoms and birds collection was the last anthology Buson edited, and almost
the last one he was involved with. Just before he died, he wrote the
preface for Kuroyanagi Korekomas memorial collection in honor of his
father, Shha, called Five cartloads of wastepaper. The title of the work is
taken from the Shha hokku cited in Chapter Three, holed up for the
winter / I am the master / of five cartloads of wastepaper! (fuyu gomorite
/ gosha no hgu no / aruji kana). Despite the fact that it was edited by
neither Buson nor Kit, Five cartloads of wastepaper is an important
collection for the study of Busons verse and the context in which it was
produced because it is the latest anthology produced within Busons
lifetime that brings together verses of Yahantei school members. It
includes fragmentary and complete linked verse sequences with hokku
whose kigo relate to each of the four seasons. Buson wrote over thirty of
these.
Five cartloads of wastepaper resembles Kits Light of the snow in that, while
it is a sons memorial anthology for his father, it is less of a tribute to
Shhas verse style than a collection of representative verses of the
Yahantei school as it defined itself in the early years of the Tenmei
period (17811789). Five cartloads of wastepaper brings together the work of
many poets who were supporters of the Revival movement, basically, the
major figures of the period when the Yahantei school was at its height
old members of the Yahantei school like Gant and Kikei, contemporaries of Shha like Ranzan and Taigi, non-Yahantei colleagues with whom
Buson felt a close affinity like Kytai, Chora, Rytai, even poets like
Chmu, Chiyo, Bakusui and Otsuni who had significant followings and
were important contributors to the haikai community of the period but
who were not necessarily close allies with the Yahantei schools aims. In
other words, it was a last reunion of the Yahantei school and its friends.
Most of the Buson verses included here were written in the ten years
before his death, and show him at his most romantic and nostalgic.
Significantly, the themes that dominate them are the same as those that
he returned to again and again ever since the days of Sankasha: nostalgia,
storytelling, and an imagined Chinese and Japanese past.
Nostalgia is the key theme of these verses:

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CHAPTER FOUR

hana ibara
koky no michi ni
nitaru kana

brambles in bloom
just like the ones on the road
to my hometown57

ureitsutsu
oka ni noboreba
hana ibara

lost in melancholy
when I climb the hill
brambles in bloom58

Hana ibara is a thorny vine that blooms in midsummer, with flowers

similar to roses; Buson tends to link it with a mood of longing for
childhood. The earliest version of this verse dates from 1774; in Five
cartloads of wastepaper, it appears with the headnote, Climbing up the
Eastern Hill. This headnote refers to a famous poem by Tao Yuanming (Tao Qian , 365427), also on a theme of nostalgia
for ones childhood, Return Home! Tao Yuanmings poem has the
lines: Climbing the eastern hill, I whistle softly to myself / Gazing at a
clear stream, I compose a poem.59 Lost in melancholy (Ureitsutsu) also
expresses a sense of nostalgia, and directly mentions the hill referred
to in the headnote to Brambles in bloom (Hana ibara). As we know,
Buson left home around the age of twenty, and there is no evidence to
suggest that he ever went back. Nevertheless, many of his verses explore
this theme.
Other Five cartloads of wastepaper hokku suggest that they are fragments
of a longer, larger story, such as:
tasa ni
tsuwamono bune ya
natsu no tsuki

in the shoals
a military ship
summer moon60

In the shoals (Tasa ni) is not a particularly remarkable verse, although

it stands out as an example of one of Busons favorite techniquesusing
the restricted scope of the hokku to focus in on a particular moment that
is metonymic of a broader narrative. Here, the word military ship
(tsuwamono bune) is juxtaposed with a placid image of the reflection of the

57

BZ, vol. 1, p. 1128.

BZ, vol. 1, p. 1129.
59 Tao Yuanmings lines are:
58

Cited in Teruoka Yasutaka and Kawashima Tsuyu, eds., NKBT, vol. 58, Buson sh, Issa
sh (Iwanami Shoten, 1959), note 541, p. 128.
60 BZ, vol. 1, no. 581.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

125

summer moon over a shallow sea; a threatening presence looms over

what should otherwise be a peaceful scene. The verse refers to no
particular historical event or literary work, and Buson did not witness
anything like this himself, but the reader is invited to imagine a context
to which this scene belongs. It is not surprising that In the shoals
recalls the much more famous hokku The Koguryo ship that we
looked at in Chapter Three; it was written in the same year, 1769.
Korekomas portrait of Buson in Five cartloads of wastepaper is one that is
constructed from verses that he wrote during Shhas lifetime.
Busons use of the hokku to create narrative effects can also take up
more ordinary, mundane topics:
kiji uchite
kaeru ieji no
hi wa takashi

he shot his pheasant

the sun is high
on the road home61

This was written in 1771, a few years after the previous verse, and has a
completely different aspect. Instead of a shadowy world of vague
foreboding and power, the setting here is sunlit and open. A hunter
heads for home, his days objective met. The pheasant is a common
topic in classical Japanese poetry; its brightly colored plumage made it a
spectacular image. Poets also admired the springtime mating calls of the
pheasants, the piercing cry of the male and the females gentler, plaintive
answer. Pheasants were associated with spring because this is the season
their haunting calls are most striking. Busons verse suggests the pheasants call in the repetition of i sounds; visually, it also invites the reader
to imagine its glossy, iridescent feathers shining in the sunlight as the
hunter carries it home on his back.
Busons Five cartloads of wastepaper verses also show another side of his
interest in telling stories: the fascination he had with eerie, supernatural
happenings:
suisen ni
kitsune asobu ya
yoi zuki yo

61
62

BZ, vol. 1, p. 1229.

BZ, vol. 1, p. 1324.

in the daffodils
a fox frolics
moonlit twilight62

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CHAPTER FOUR
Nishi no ky ni bakemono
no sumite, hisashiku
arehatetaru ie arikeri.
Ima wa sono sata nakute

West of the capital there

was a haunted house that for a
long time was totally decrepit.
Now, without warning:

harusame ya
hito sumite keburi
kabe ni moru

soft spring rain

smoke leaks from the walls
someone lives there63

Foxes were believed to have magical powers, especially to assume the

shape of attractive men or women in order to seduce the unwary. Buson
wrote many hokku on the subject of foxes, and a story of a fox-haunting
appears in the prose section of New flower gathering. Here, in In the
daffodils (Suisen ni) it is twilight, a time between the realms of day and
night. The moon, like the daffodils, is pale yellow; and in the dim light, a
fox appears. The verb is asobu, to play, and the season is spring, so it may
be that this is a fox cub. The scene is vague, almost ghostly, but it is not
frightening; Busons depictions of the supernatural like this tend to be
restrained, aestheticized, and even comical. Spring rain (Harusame ya) is
similar: in the season when drenching showers fall frequently but
unpredictably, a spooky, seemingly abandoned shack shows signs of life.
Like In the shoals, this verse was written in 1769.
A third characteristic shared by many Buson verses included in Five
cartloads of wastepaper is the debt they owe to Chinese poetry. Shha, of
course, was also a kanshi poet, so hokku that recall Chinese poetry are a
particularly appropriate choice for his memorial volume. One such
example is Under the green plum trees / drawing her brows together /
a beautiful woman, the From summer verse that we discussed in Chapter
Three. Another is:
yuku haru ya
omotaki biwa no
daki gokoro

departing spring
the heavy-hearted feeling of
embracing a lute64

In Departing spring (Yuku haru ya) the persona holds a biwa, or fivestringed lute. The biwa, similar to the Chinese pipa, was still played in
Busons day, but in mentioning it here Buson introduces a decidedly
archaic and romantic atmosphere. The end of spring (yuku haru) is cause
for regret, as we saw in Busons Light of the snow verse, the footbath /

63
64

BZ, vol. 1, p. 437.

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1106.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

127

tub is also leaking away / spring runs out (sensoku no / tarai mo morete /
yuku haru ya). Trying to dispel this mood, the persona picks up the lute to
play something cheerful, but it feels heavy in her arms. Busons verse
alludes to one by Chinese poet Wang Changling (c. 690c. 756),
Spring Melancholy at the Western Palace, and, given that the Chinese
poem is written in a womans voice, the persona in Busons hokku is
understood to be female:
In the quiet night of the Western Palace, a hundred flowers are
fragrant.
I thought to roll up the jeweled blinds, but I pass the spring night
in sorrow.
With a pipa leaning in my arms, I gaze at the moon.
Zhaoyang is hidden in trees that are colored in pale, pale light.

65
Departing spring also alludes to the Bash verse link:
kakaeshi kin no
hiza ya omotaki66

knees, across which I held a zither

how heavy it is

Later commentators have praised this verse for Busons use of a physical
sensationheavinessto describe a psychological state, and the skill
with which Buson used this device is probably the reason it was included
in Korekomas anthology.
Another Five cartloads of wastepaper verse that refers to Chinese poetry
is:
hironiwa no
botan ya ama no
ipp ni

a peony
in the open garden
a corner of heaven67

Buson was very fond of peonies. The word botan (peony) is Chinese in
origin, and has overtones of splendor and opulence. Here he matches the

65

Maeno, vol. 3, p. 154.

BZ, vol. 1, p. 246, note 1106.
67 BZ, vol. 1, no. 2692.
66

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CHAPTER FOUR

exotic peony with a phrase from a poem by Su Dongpos First Prose

Poem on the Red Cliff, I long for my loved one / In a corner of the
sky68implying a comparison between the flower the speaker sees and
a beautiful woman. Both are stately and elegant, and they bestow a
special grace on the places they occupy.
Over the course of his lifetime, Buson composed over 2,800 hokku, a
prodigious output for someone who cultivated the image of an amateur
haikai poet. By contrast, Bashs collected hokku number around 980. As
we have seen, a large number of hokku found their way into anthologies
of Sankasha, Yahantei, and other groups with which Buson had a close
affiliation. Others that have not been cited here were published in other,
less well-known anthologies. The largest collections of Buson verses,
however, are Buson hokku anthology and Buson self-selected hokku anthology
(Buson jihitsu kuch ).
Buson hokku anthology includes 868 verses that were chosen by Kit,
the preface was written by Ryta and the afterword by Denpuku.
Published in 1784, was simultaneously Kits memorial to his friend and
mentor, and a way to support the launch of Kits career as Yahantei III,
successor to Hajin and Buson. Sadly, Kit died only five years after
Buson, and the Yahantei school dispersed after his death. Still, looking at
the verses that he selected reveals much about his tastes, and gives some
indication of what he thought were the definitive expressions of the
Yahantei style.
Even more revealing is Buson self-selected anthology, a manuscript in
Busons handwriting that remained unpublished until the twentieth
century. Buson made a point of criticizing people who issued collections
of their own verses during their lifetimes, complaining that because they
invariably contained a large number of mediocre efforts, they always did
harm to their authors reputations. However, in his later years he put
together a selection of some 1,450 of what he considered to be his best
hokku. Kit probably drew on this when he was assembling Buson hokku
anthology, however, a number of verses that he left out were deemed by
Buson himself as being of some merit, and some that Kit chose were
verses that Buson passed over. Japanese scholars have extensively

68 Translation by Burton Watson, in Jonathan Chaves, The Chinese Painter as Poet (New
York: The China Institute Gallery, 2000), p. 138.

AN UNARMED BLOSSOM GUARD

129

analyzed the differences between these two texts, most notably Ogata
Tsutomu in Buson jihitsu kuch (1974).69
The next chapter explores Busons linked verse, or haikai no renga.
While Busons concerns about his place in the haikai community had a
profound effect on his hokku. This effect was even more pronounced in
his work in the linked verse form. While linked verse had lost some of its
popularity during the Kyh period, it was still extremely important, and
Busons linked verse is among the most masterful of the entire genre.

69

Ogata Tsutomu, ed., Buson jihitsu kuch, Chikuma Shob, 1974.

CHAPTER FIVE

RESISTING COMMUNALITY:
LINKED VERSE SEQUENCES
Linked verse is a particularly compelling subject of exploration as it
offers an intimate glimpse into the way that poets directly negotiated
with their colleagues at the site of their practice. Linked verse sequences
were usually composed by two or more people in a single session,
bringing together the creative energies of poets of diverse backgrounds,
training, and factional allegiances. While there were a large number of
complex rules governing the composition of linked verse, unpredictability was one of the forms greatest fascinations. Another was the knowledge that each session was a unique and unrepeatable occasion, contingent on the time, place, and the character of its participants.
The practice of linked verse composition was on the wane during
Busons lifetime. Bash had been one of the greatest exponents of the
kasen, or thirty-six link sequence, and the linked verse that he and his
disciples composed forms the core of the collections that his school
compiled. However, even in Bashs day linked verse had to compete
with single-verse forms such as the hokku or maekuzuke, and its decline
became even more precipitous in the Kyh period. One reason for this
was that the rules of linked verse were very demanding and took a great
deal of effort to master. Also, linked verse was extremely timeconsuming and required the participation of other poets. While haikais
social aspect was always one of its central attractions, as the ranks of
haikai practitioners swelled with the presence of less well-educated
merchants and farmers, its communality took different forms, and
eventually came to center on competition over individual verses rather
than collaboration on lengthy sequences.
Nevertheless, linked verse did not disappear entirely during the eighteenth century. The inheritors of Bashs legacy were among its most
enthusiastic proponents, particularly followers of the rural Shmon poet
Shik, haikai theorist and systemizer of Bashs teachings. While
maekuzuke and other competitive forms flourished in the urban areas,
members of Shiks Mino faction and its close ally, the Ise faction,
remained avid supporters of linked verse. Given Bashs strong interest

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

131

in linked verse, it is not surprising that Revival poets also connected the
form with the work of returning haikai to his ideals. As early as 1744,
poets who admired the Bash schools Twenty kasen of the Enp era (Enp
nijikkasen , 1680), published Edo twenty kasen (Edo
nijikkasen  Like its model, Edo twenty kasen was a
collection of solo thirty-six link sequences by twenty poets; its title and
format reflect its purpose as a tribute to Bash. The rediscovery of
Bash-related manuscripts was also an impetus to compile linked verse
collections. As I mentioned in Chapter Three, Kyoto twenty kasen, edited
by Shzan, Taigi, and Zuiko, was published after Zuiko found a letter in
Bashs handwriting; the collection includes the twenty kasen that the
three poets wrote in celebration of this occasion. Similarly, Kytai and
his disciples wrote four of the sequences included in Autumn day to
accompany a previously unpublished sequence with a hokku Bash wrote
while visiting Nagoya in 1688.
However, Revival poets viewed linked verse differently than Bash
and his disciples did. Despite their avowed interest in following Bashs
example, hokku was the mainstay of their practice. Also, as a result of the
simplifications introduced by Kyh-era theorists like Shik, rural Bash
school poets tended to favor sequences that reflected everyday experience rather than deep knowledge of the classical literary tradition, and
this trend came to influence the Revival poets more generally.

Buson and Linked Verse

Buson was an extremely accomplished linked verse poet. His verses
appear in sequences included in collections from the late 1730s, and
throughout his life his letters to friends and disciples contain comments
on linking technique. Like other poets in the Revival movement, Buson
regarded linked verse as a way to recover the lost grandeur of the Bash
style. Even more than that, he believed that constant exposure to
Bashs linked verse was important for cultivating a poetic voice. He
even compiled an anthology, Elder Bashs linking techniques anthology, in
order to provide his readers with an easy reference tool to consult. As he
remarks in its preface:
To learn about haikai verse links, you must first of all memorize the verses
of Bash, and know the relationship between the three kinds of verses involved in linking. If for three days you do not recite the Elders verses,

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thorns will grow in your mouth. However, the Elders verses exist in a
broad range of anthologies, and are not easy to find. Thus we have taken
excerpts, condensed them, and should there be people who are devoted to
the Way, we make them available.1

However, compared to the large number of hokku that Buson wrote, his
production of tsukeku is relatively smallaround 120 sequences in all,
many of which are incomplete. Looked at another way, while the
anthologies that he worked on throughout his life contain a fair number
of sequences, his contributions to them are remarkably sparse. His
tsukeku appear only occasionally in sequences published before 1750.
Sankasha and Yahantei gatherings focused almost exclusively on hokku,
and the Danrinkai , a Yahantei-affiliated group that formed in
1779 with the express purpose of composing linked verse, abandoned
the practice almost as soon as it started.
Busons ambivalence towards linked verse composition may derive
from the fact that it obligated poets to relinquish autonomy over their
work. After each poet composed a verse, his or her colleague stepped in,
considered the various possible meanings of what was deliberately
written to be a highly evocative and ambiguous verse, and finally chose
one meaning to the exclusion of others. Sensitivities about interpretation
of ones own writing were out of place in linked verse, as the ability to
write a tsukeku that made a surprising or unexpected connection was
highly valued.
Also, as the example of the small and elegant Yahantei anthologies
like Blossoms and birds collection shows, Buson was a meticulous craftsman,
and the improvisational nature of linked verse did not appeal to him very
much. He even resorted to unconventional methods to avoid the need
for spontaneous composition. For example, the Peaches and plums
sequencesoften called the finest example of linked verse of the
Yahantei school, and possibly the entire late eighteenth centurywere
composed by exchange of letters over the span of several months, which
allowed him time to carefully revise and rethink his tsukeku.
In short, while collaboration in some linked verse sequences was
inevitable for a Revival poet, Buson preferred to devote himself to
activities like painting and hokku composition where he had more power
over their outcomes. Nevertheless, the linked verse that Buson did write
is important, not only because of the admiration it attracted, but because

BZ, vol. 4, p. 142.

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133

it is a good example of the Revival-era linked verse in general. My

discussion focuses on kasen from three different stages of Busons career.
The first, Willow leaves, fallen (Yanagi chiri), from the anthology Scrap
paper coverlet dates from Busons years in the northeast. The second, On
the white chrysanthemums (Shiragiku ni) from Around here: Four kasen in
one night (Kono hotori: Ichiya shi kasen ), was composed during his early years as Yahantei school leader. The third, Peony
petals scatter (Botan chirite), from Peaches and plums, was written near the
end of his life.

Conventions of Linked Verse

I will begin my discussion of Busons linked verse with a brief look at
some of the conventions of the form. As a rule, linked verse sequences
were composed in a group, in one place, at a single sitting. While in some
cases poets wrote all the verses on their own (called dokugin ),
normally at least two persons worked together. Sequences might also be
made up of single-verse contributions from as many people as there
were verses. Sequences could be as long as 100, 1,000, or even 10,000
links, but the haikai poets tended to prefer the thirty-six link kasen.
The rules governing the composition of individual tsukeku within the
sequence were complex, but they originate in simple principles. Variety
and change were of utmost importance; at the same time, the rules
ensured the creation of a cohesive structure. The development of a
consistent line of narrative was to be avoided. Four of the thirty-six links
of the kasen have special status: the hokku (starting verse), the waki[ku]
[] (accompanying verse), the daisan (third verse), and the ageku
(uplifting verse). The hokku, waki, and daisan comprised the first
three verses of the sequence; the ageku came at the end. All of the other
verses were called hiraku or plain verses.
The honor of composing the hokku usually fell to the most senior
guest of the party. Just as was the case when it functioned as an independent form, the hokku was supposed to be a flattering greeting toward
the host; it mentioned the season and the place of composition, and was
light and positive in tone. A courteous, skillful poet would make his or
her hokku rich in implications and even ambiguity in order to allow the
host to respond with his own linkthe wakiwithout difficulty. The
waki picked up and expanded on the situation or setting depicted in the

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hokku. Typically, it referred to the same season as the hokku, and ended
in a non-declinable word, such as a noun.
The person next in rank to the senior guest composed the daisan. The
daisan had a special importance, as it indicated the likelihood of the
sequences success. Each verse link or tsukeku could only refer to the
verse immediately preceding it, i.e., the maeku; the tsukeku had to break
with the verse that came before the maeku, which was called the uchikoshi
or superseded verse. The daisan was the first point in the sequence
where this shift happened. If the poet writing the daisan failed to break
cleanly from the hokku, its uchikoshi, the sequence as a whole was unlikely
to turn out well.
The last verse in the sequence, the ageku, was similar to the hokku in
that it was expected to be light in tone. Like the daisan, it was also
something of a tricky verse to write, because a bad ageku would reflect
poorly on the sequence as a whole, no matter how fine were all the
verses that preceded it.
In addition to these four special verses, certain hiraku or plain verses
were assigned mandatory topics: the moon or cherry blossoms. In a
thirty-six link sequence, verses in positions 5, 14, and 29 were supposed
to refer to the moon; 17 and 35 to blossoms.2 As the moon was an
Autumn topic and blossoms a Spring topic, this requirement helped to
ensure variation in the sequence.
There were other rules. For example, after the introduction of a
Spring topic, the next three to five verses had to mention spring. The
same was true of Autumn verses. Summer and Winter were supposed to
be followed by one to three similar verses. It was common to separate
verses that referred to a season with one or more miscellaneous (z )
verses so that the transition between the seasons was not too abrupt.
Also, love was another important topic, and strict guidelines covered
its treatment in the sequence: it could not appear in the first six verses;
the topic had to continue for the next one to four verses, and so on.
Novice poets needed to put a lot of effort into training and practice in
order to master these rules. Reading sequences by acknowledged masters

2 Historically, the numbering of haikai verses took into account their place on the
sheets of paper used to transcribe them. Two sheets were used to write kasen. Sheet One
had six verses on the front and twelve on the back; Sheet Two had twelve on the front
and six on the back. Using this system, moon verses came at Number 5 on the front and
8 on the back of Sheet One, and 11 on the front of Sheet Two; blossom verses belonged
at Number 11 on the back of Sheet One and 5 on the back of Sheet Two. A detailed
discussion of the rules of haikai sequences is in Sat, pp. 921.

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

135

was one way to do this; studying one of the many handbooks of verse
linking technique (called yoriai or tsukeai ) that were available
was another.3 The best way to learn, however, was to take part in the
activities of a haikai school, where one had a setting in which to work
with others and a knowledgeable teacher from whom to receive instruction.
Not only was the makeup of the sequence prescribed in detail, the
participants behavior in the session was also precisely regulated. Formal
linked verse sessions involved three roles: the arbiter (ssh ), the
recorder (shuhitsu ), and the contributing poets (renju ). The
arbiter might be a groups teacher, though this was not necessarily the
case; the recorder had to be a highly competent poet and calligrapher.
Sessions were organized by a host, who provided the space, supplies, and
refreshments; they could last from six to eight hours in the case of a
kasen, eight to ten for a 100-link sequence, and longer ones continued for
several days.
On the day of the session the host prepared the room by setting up a
portable writing desk for the recorder, and placed it in front of the
alcove (tokonoma), which was hung with a painted scroll. The scroll was
often a portrait of the god of literature, Tenjin (Sugawara no
Michizane [845903]); or Manysh poet Kakinomoto no
Hitomaro . Alternatively, if the session commemorated the
anniversary of the death of a teacher or colleague, a sample of that
persons calligraphy might be displayed; and eventually portraits of
Teitoku and Bash also became common. Participants were seated
according to their rank and function: the most prestigiousthe arbiter,
the recorder, and the senior guestsat near the alcove, and persons of
lesser status filed out alongside the senior guest.4 Etiquette demanded
that participants arrived on time, sober, and in a tranquil frame of mind;
during the session they were not supposed to fall asleep or chatter; and
at all times they were expected to defer to the judgments of the arbiter
and recorder.
Before the other participants entered the room, the recorder first
organized the materials on the writing desk. When everyone came in and
took their places, the arbiter opened the proceedings with a word of

3 The most famous of these was Nij Yoshimotos Secret treatise on the principles of linking
(Renri hissh , 1349).
4 Inui Hiroyuki and Shiraishi Teiz, eds., Renku e no shtai (Yhikaku, 1980), pp. 108
116.

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greeting, and then the recorder dedicated the poetry about to be written
to the deity or honored person whose portrait was enshrined in the
alcove. The session began with the senior guests hokku. The rest of the
sequence proceeded in order, with the arbiter evaluating the quality of
the verses each participant composed, and the recorder simultaneously
making sure that all the rules were properly observed and writing down
the verses as they were approved. At the end of session the recorder
completed his transcription of the sequence and offered them before the
alcove. The session concluded with a party, organized by the host, where
all the participants could relax from the rigors of the days work.
Linked verse offered haikai poets a chance to reinforce connections
not only with their allies in the present day but also their counterparts in
history. It was not uncommon for poets to start their sequences with a
hokku that had been written years before by a long-dead predecessor,
whether as a gesture of remembrance to be included in a memorial
volume, or an expression of identification with an admired exemplar.
Gathering as a group to produce a long, complex work like a verse
sequence was also a powerful affirmation of solidarity and cooperation
with living colleagues, where participants either put aside their differencesor learned to appreciate themin order to bring the session to a
successful conclusion.
The protocols of linked verse sessions made them reenactments of a
practice whose origins extended back to the medieval period; in this
sense, linked verse composition was a ritual that let its participants
imagine that they were actually embodying the past. As such, it had
special meaning for the Revival poets who were trying to both establish a
community of their own in what they viewed as a decadent age, and to
reclaim the old elegance Bash represented.

An Early Linked Verse Sequence: Willow leaves, fallen (1752)

Scrap paper coverlet was published in Edo around the time that Buson left
for Kyoto. The collection was edited by Edo-area Hajin disciples Asui
and Gant, Busons patron and mentor. Baba Songi
(16031782), using the haikai name Risei , wrote the preface. After
Hajins death Songi had became a leading figure of Edo urban haikai.
Scrap paper coverlet features 129 hokku and five kasen, three of which
contain verses by Buson. In all three sequences Buson contributed the

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137

lowest number of verses of any of the participants (between two and five
to his colleagues thirteen, fourteen, or even seventeen verses); however,
Scrap paper coverlet is valuable because it offers insight into Busons poetic
development at a stage where relatively few of his verseshokku or
tsukekusurvive.
Buson contributed only two verses to Willow leaves, fallen (Yanagi
chiri), the first and the fourth. Keeping in mind that the privilege of
writing a sequences first verse was typically reserved for the groups
most honored guest, the fact that Buson starts this sequence, whose
other participants were far senior to him, testifies to the admiration that
his colleagues felt for his remarkable hokku.
1. Buson
Kannazuki hajime no koro hoi,
Shimotsuke no kuni ni shugy
shite Yugy Yanagi to ka ieru
furuki no kage ni, mokuzen
no keishiki o mshiide haberu:

At the beginning of the Tenth Month,

when I was on a study-trip in Shimotsuke,
this is the scene I saw before my eyes in
the shade of the old tree known as
Pilgrims Willow:

yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro

willow leaves, fallen

the clear stream, dry
stones, here and there5

As I mentioned in Chapter Two, this verse alludes to a waka by Saigy, a

hokku by Bash, and a verse by Chinese poet Su Dongpo to describe a
scene on Bashs Narrow road to the interior route; later critics have called it
the hokku that marks Busons awakening to his mature poetic style.
Given the information in the headnote, it is probable that Buson
composed this hokku long before the day of the session. While he claims
in the headnote to be depicting the scene before [his] eyes, his
description of the place is filtered through his readings of the works of
his literary ancestors, just as Saigys was when he wrote the original
waka.
2. Risei
baj no samusa
shi ni hoyuru tsuki

the cold of riding on horseback,

a moon to which one declaims Chinese
poems

5 Text of the complete sequence is in Maruyama Kazuhiko et al., eds., BZ, vol. 2,
Renku (Kdansha, 1992), pp. 5761.

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Risei makes Busons willow tree part of a nighttime landscape. Because

Busons verse uses the kanshibunch (Chinese-like style) popular with the
Edo school poets, Risei imagines that the rider is a poet, reciting Chinese
poetry (shi) to the moon. Specifying the place and the time of day was
one technique linked verse poets employed to connect their tsukeku with
the maekutaking in the situation that the maeku presents and amplifying
it with more detail.
3. Hyakuman
chabzu o
morte kaeru
oidashi ni

meeting up with the tea master

and heading home
at the send-off bell

As this is the daisan or third verse, the pressure is on Hyakuman to link

coherently with the second verse at the same time as it breaks with the
first. He accomplishes this by reestablishing the place of action. Busons
hokku describes a scene in the middle of the countryside; the setting of
Hyakumans daisan is an urban one. Hyakuman places Riseis rider in a
more familiar Japanese contexthe is a person of means and prestige. A
chabzu is a teacher of the tea ceremony, typically one who was in the
service of a high-ranking member of a military family. Send-off bell
(oidashi) marks the location as a licensed quarter: the bell rang early in the
morning to let lingering guests know it was time to go home. Here, the
tea master has been kept waiting all night by his powerful patron, and
they hurry home in the cold of dawn as the bell sounds.
4. Buson
zarari zarari to
naya no konoshiro

sliding over one another

shad in the fish sellers stall

At the same time as the send-off bell sounds, fish sellers are stacking up
the fresh catch to be sold that day. Busons verse uses the onomatopoeic
expression zarari zarari todescribing slipperinessto evoke the image
of glistening shad slipping over one another as they are handled. The
romance of Riseis verse that described an elegant rider uttering poems
to the moon has disappeared; instead, the setting is slightly seedythe
early light shows a less glamorous side of the licensed quarter as fish
sellers prepare for a day of work.

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5. Risei
shio ni
ashida torareshi
niwa no omo

wooden sandals
taken by the high tide
in front of the garden

Riseis verse picks up Busons maritime image, and establishing the place
as a yard in front of a house near the beach. It is so close to the sea that
during an exceptionally high tide, wooden sandals left outside are carried
off by the water.
6. Hyakuman
makura kaitsute
okosu Kantan

overturning his pillow

and awakening this Handan dreamer

Hyakuman accounts for the fact that the wooden sandals were washed
away by introducing the figure of the houses owner, asleep as the tide
came in. The verse refers to the Chinese story of Lusheng (Japanese Rosei), a traveler in Handan G (Japanese Kantan) who fell
asleep as he was waiting for breakfast in a teashop, and dreamed he had
lived an entire lifetime before waking to find that the millet for his meal
had not even finished cooking. This story was popular in Japan, and
even became the basis for the N play Kantan. In Hyakumans verse, the
sleeper also has a rude awakening: his sandals have been washed away by
the rising waves.
Willow leaves, fallen continues for another thirty verses, but Buson
added no more tsukeku.

Four Kasen in One Night

Buson compiled and published Around here: Four kasen in one night in
1773. Around heres four sequences brought together three poets: Buson,
Kit, Miura Chora and a mutual friend, Ranzan (d. 1773). Chora
was a prominent member of the Revival movement. Born in Shima
Province (modern Mie Prefecture), Chora traveled extensively in central
Honsh, including Ise and Edo, and also spent a great deal of time in
Nagoya and Kyoto. He had numerous disciples, and frequently collaborated with Revival poets like Kytai and Rank; he was a particularly
close friend of Kits. Ranzan had originally studied haikai with Ink of five

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colors poet Rykyo, but he eventually moved to Kyoto and took up haikai
with Buson disciple Rosen. In other words, neither Chora nor Ranzan
were regular Yahantei members, but that did not prevent them from
working together to compose linked verse.
The title Around here comes from the hokku Buson wrote for its first
kasen, a respectful compliment to Ranzan:
susuki mitsu
hagi nakaran ya
kono hotori

having seen miscanthus

surely there is also bush clover
around here6

Busons preface describes the circumstances that led to the publication

of the collection. Chora was visiting Kit, and they decided to drop in on
Ranzan, bringing Buson with them. Ranzan was seriously ill at the time
and confined to his bed. He lived in povertyhis small house in a back
street was shabby, and Ranzan himself was unable to care for himself
properly. His sickroom was cluttered with dirty dishes and his bedding
was tattered, but he welcomed the visit eagerly. The three visitors started
their evening by trying to amuse him with ghost stories. Rallying, he
suggested that they turn their energy to linked verse composition, and by
the end of the evening they had completed four sequences. Ranzan died
later the same month, and Around here was published in his memory.
As was typical of his hokku since Sankasha, Busons tsukeku strongly
reflect his preoccupation with Chinese poetry, Heian and medieval tales,
and the supernatural. They also allude to Bashs work, though not so
often as we might expect given the fact that all four poets were strong
supporters of the Revival movements ideals.
In contrast to Willow leaves, fallen, where the young Buson was
invited to contribute only two verses, Buson was a full participant in all
of the Around here sequences and was an influential presence in all of
them. We will look at the second sequence, On the white chrysanthemums.
1. Ranzan
shiragiku ni
okietari tsuyu
okietari

on the white chrysanthemums

it could gather
dew could gather!7

6 The hokku praises the neighborhood around Ranzans house, remarking that it is
home to plants associated with an elegant appreciation of autumn, which reflects well on
the good taste of his host. BZ, vol. 2, p. 244.

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

141

The connection between dew and chrysanthemums is a conventional

one. Both words are associated with autumn; dew collected from
chrysanthemums on the ninth day of the Ninth Month was thought to
prolong life. Ranzan takes this fairly pedestrian association and adds
interest to it by a device that is unusual in the compact haikai form:
repetitionin this case, okietari (it could gather).8 This creates a mood of
lightness and good humor: as this is the hokku, Ranzan expresses his
delight in the visit of Buson, Kit, and Chora, comparing the dew to
himself, and the elegant white chrysanthemums to his visitors.
2. Kit
nokori somenuru
kesa no tsukikage

this morning the moonlight

begins to linger

Nokori somenuru (beginning to linger) refers to the appearance of the

waning moon, which is visible in the sky after dawn. Kit picks up on
the hokkus reference to dew, and fixes the time as early morning. By
alluding to the moon in here, Kit deviates from the rule requiring a
moon topic in Verse 7, but since the sequence starts with an Autumn
verse, this is permitted.
Kits link is similar to Bashs famous exchange with Sonome, included in her verse collection Dust on the chrysanthemum (Kiku no chiri
, 1708):
shiragiku no
me ni tatetemiru
chiri mo nashi

gazing at the
white chrysanthemum
not a speck of dust

Bash
ky mizu ni
nagasu asatsuki

autumn leaves carried in the water

morning moon9

Sonome
While the sequence does not include a large number of allusions to
Bashs verse, this and the one that follows it make the connection.

7 The sequence is in BZ, vol. 2, pp. 249253. This translation also uses references
from NKBT, vol. 58, pp. 215222.
8 NKBT, vol. 58, p. 215.
9 BZ, vol. 2, p. 249, note 2.

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3. Chora
kari uma ni
aki o suzushiku
mata garite

on a borrowed horse
he rides out
into the chill of autumn

This is the daisan, which breaks with the scene depicted in the first two
verses. Chora does this by shifting the scene to a more active one,
describing a retainer or possibly a daimy (feudal lord) leaving an inn,
with the moon faintly visible in the pale light of a cold morning. Bashs
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton includes a similar verse:
uma ni nete
zanmu tsuki tshi
cha no keburi

sleeping on horseback
a lingering dream, a distant moon,
smoke from tea-fires10

Bash
Both Choras link and Bashs hokku juxtapose an early morning rider
with the pale, waning moon.
4. Buson
kokisake ari to
fu no mshi keri

Theres some good wine!

the woman calls out

Buson changes the focus from one in which the rider is visualized in the
context of natural surroundings, and changes it to an inn or drinking
establishment. As he is on the point of leaving, a waitress or landlady
reminds him that he can take along some wine; Buson imagines the
riders journey as one of pleasure, not business. Busons verse is humorous, and brings the mood of the sequence more down to earth with its
reference to a commonplace situation.
5. Kit
oguraki to
akaki to shoku no
futa tokoro

a dim one
and a bright one
lamps in two places

Picking up from Busons recontextualization of the scene as one at an

inn, Kit fixes the time of day as evening. It is a rustic setting, and the
lamps do not work very well, but the host is courteous in providing two.

10

NKBT, vol. 46, p. 37.

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143

6. Ranzan
tekone no kro
uchi mamoritsutsu

handling the homemade incense

burner
very carefully

Ranzans verse explains the two lamps by describing a scene in which the
artisan who made the incense burner needs extra light to examine his
work. It is a solid but unspectacular verse, which leaves a great deal of
room for the next poet in the sequence to make an interesting link.
7. Buson
kakute yo ni
shii to narubeki
mi narishio

what a world
I, who should have made it
to the Fourth Rank

Buson responds to the opening Ranzan gives him with a verse that is a
monogatari in microcosm. Using a device called kuraizuke , or making
a link based on the profession or status of the persona in the preceding
verse, Buson imagines the man examining the incense burner to be a
disappointed courtier, who laments being passed over for promotion to
the rank he believes he deserves.
8. Chora
Nogami no kimi ga
iro ni shizuminu

besotted with the charm

of a Nogami courtesan

Nogami refers to a post station on the Nakasend highwayan ancient

inland route that connected Kyoto with eastern Japan. In the Kamakura
period (11851333), Nogami was famous for its courtesans. Choras
verse changes the topic to love, proposing that the reason that the
persona in Busons verse failed to prosper was that he was distracted
from his duties by his infatuation with a courtesan. Like Buson does in
Verse 4, Chora interjects a little humor here.
9. Ranzan
nakagaki no
shji ni hae no
futatsu mitsu

on the partitioning
shji, two
or three flies

Ranzans verse depicts the interior of the teahouse where the courtesan
in the previous verse works. It is a quiet, hot afternoon; the guests have

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all gone home. A shji screen separates the rooms; on it, flies gather, but
no one shoos them away. The scene is squalid; the cheap glamour of the
evening has disappeared in the light of day.
10. Kit
chikaku mo kami no
todoro narikuru

very close by, thunder

approaches, rumbling

Kits verse picks up on Ranzans description of a rundown, decrepit

teahouse on a hot summer afternoon. The room is stuffy and close; not
even the flies move. Suddenly, the drowsy languor is broken by the
sound of approaching thunder, bringing with it a dark, ominous mood of
tense expectation.
11. Buson
yokis o
nosete sarinuru
Tsukushi bune

they take on board

an esteemed priest, and depart:
Tsukushi boat

Again Busons tsukeku adds the suggestion of a larger story, by specifying

the rank and occupation of his persona, and mentioning a specific place
name. Tsukushi is an alternate name for Kysh, and Tsukushi boats
(Tsukushi bune) carried passengers between Honsh and Kysh. The
passenger is a distinguished Buddhist priest. The calm dignity of his
appearance is in stark contrast to the thunderstorm brewing in Kits
maeku. The boat is in great danger from the storm.
12. Chora
Ebisu no midare
kiku mo kanashiki

barbarian unrest
even hearing about it is troubling

Chora picks up on Busons reference to the Tsukushi boat and introduces barbarian (Ebisu ) here a generic term referring to people in
the north and west of China. Of the main Japanese islands Kysh was
the closest to the continent, and was the place many travelers to China
would begin their journeys. Thus, he imagines that, after arriving in
Kysh, the priest on the boat could well be on his way to China.
However, rumors of war make the journey an anxious one.

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145

13. Ranzan
yuki ni nite
samuu wa aredo
mado no tsuki

cold enough
to seem like its snowed
moonlight in the window

In Ranzans verse, the speaker sees a gleam outside the window on an

autumn night. Its so cold he assumes that its snow, but when he looks
he realizes that the whiteness he sees on the ground is actually
moonlight.
14. Buson
sutebuchi morau
sue no aki kana

receiving alms
at autumns end

Buson picks up on the description of the cold autumn scene in the

previous verse by imagining the kind of person who might endure such
harsh circumstances. Sutebuchi (alms) took the form of small amounts of
rice given to warrior families which had fallen on hard times. Autumns
end (sue no aki) both intensifies the sense of cold and implies that the
person receiving this assistance is coming to the end of his life also.
15. Kit
omoi ide
ukare idetaru
ushimatsuri

I remember
happily going out
to the Cattle Festival

The maekus persona is fixed as someone who, having received the

benefit of financial assistance, can go out and enjoy a festival. The Cattle
Festival (Ushimatsuri) was held on the twelfth day of the Ninth Month at
Kry-ji Temple in Kyoto.
16. Ranzan
ato sarigenaki
dobyshi no oto

without a care
the clash of cymbals

Ranzan picks up on the maekus image of the lively festival, and describes
the moment of its climax. The hardship described in the uchikoshi, Verse
14, has disappeared; all that is present now is the sound, color and
energy of the festival.

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17. Chora
chiritsukusu
hana hito toki no
nagame nite

a brief glimpse
of blossoms
scattered completely

Chora takes up the implication of the maekus ato sarigenaki (without a

care) and matches it with the image of cherry blossoms. Viewing them
was the matter of an instant; like the cheerful sound of festival music,
they quickly fade, leaving behind no trace of their splendor.
18. Kit
ame harete yaya
kure osoki kana

the rain has cleared for the moment

dusk comes late

Rain caused the blossoms to scatter more quickly. The sky has cleared
late in the day; at this time of year, there are still a few hours left before
the sun sets.
19. Buson
haru no kaze
Gokoku no mitsugi
watari kinu

spring breeze
the splendors of Cathay
coming across the sea

Buson shows his fascination with China in this verse. The breezes of
spring, which carry with them the seasons warmth and fresh scents, are
compared to envoy ships bringing goods from the Wu kingdom of
China that in ancient times had a trading relationship with Japan. Buson
is not referring to any specific historical event, he simply refers to the
Wu to evoke an atmosphere of exotic riches.
20. Ranzan
hana e idetaru
shakur no chie

the wisdom of the old timer

whose nose is in the air

Shakur (old timer) refers to a local elder, well-versed in lore and

tradition. Ranzan playfully depicts his character a self-satisfied person,
who has developed an excess of pride in his own knowledge. Even news
of visiting ships from China fails to impress him.

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147

21. Kit
hitobito no
sata to narinuru
waga koi wa

its become
what people are talking about
my love affair

Kit changes the circumstances completely from a fairy-tale like scene to

one grounded in ordinary life. In his verse, the speakers secret love affair
has become common knowledge, thanks to the shrewd observation of
the local wise man.
This verse, and the one that follows it, are on the topic of love.
22. Chora
kosode uru to mo
yo o uramumaji

not even selling her clothes

causes her regret

Chora imagines that the man involved in the affair has become destitute,
probably in a dishonorable way. Nevertheless, his loyal lover stints at
nothing to help him, even to the point of selling her kimono. She is not
concerned by anyones disapproval.
23. Ranzan
shjin no
yurishi hotoke
wasurarezu

mourning
is over, but she will not forget
the departed one

The loyal woman in this verse becomes a grieving widow. She has
dutifully performed Buddhist austerities for forty-nine days after her
husbands death. Even though the prescribed period is over, her sorrow
continues.
24. Buson
ky ya kiru beki
botan futamoto

two peonies
that should be cut today

Busons verse refers to peonies, one of his favorite flowers. Cutting the
flowers, the speaker thinks of the deceased person mentioned in the
maeku.

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25. Chora
tekishin no
waka no kakimono o
nusumi kite

he returns after
stealing a poetry text
from the enemy encampment

Ideally, warriors were supposed to be as proficient at poetry as they were

in martial skills. Here, the warriors regard for a waka collection is so
great, he is willing to go behind enemy lines in order to capture it. While
this verse does not allude to a specific historical incident, it calls to mind
stories like that of the warrior-poet Hosokawa Ysai, famous both for
his association with renga luminary Satomura Jha and his role as advisor
to Toyotomi Hideyoshi. When Ysai was under bombardment in
Tanabe Castle, he so feared for his library that he asked a representative
of the imperial court to come and rescue it. Assured that it was safe, he
kept on fighting until forced to stop by an imperial edict.
26. Kit
hoshi no hikari no
ake chikaku miyu

by the look of the starlight

its close to dawn

The warrior in the maeku looks to the sky, and finds that the stars are
fading. He had better finish his mission: dawn is almost come.
27. Buson
ima wa tote
funa yrei ya
usenuran

the time has come

the ghost ship
will disappear

Buson again shows his penchant for the fantastic. Picking up on the
liminal time of day in Kits verse, he imagines a ghostly ship on the
edge of reality and imagination, sinking into the waves as the sun rises.
28. Buson
kokoro hisomite
tachi o itadaku

with reverence in his heart

he receives the sword

Buson writes a tsukeku to his own maeku, to ensure variety in the

sequence. Responding to the image of the threatening ship, he describes
a warrior carefully receiving a powerful sword that will help in defending
against the grotesque enemy.

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149

29. Kit
kono goro no
ame nochi ni hiru miru
tsuki nare ya

at last
the moon is visible in the daytime
now that the rains have stopped

The highly-refined steel of a fine sword is damaged by humidity. Kit

eliminates the otherworldliness of the uchikoshi, and describes the
weather of a day when the swords owner can safely take it out to
examine its condition.
This is the last moon verse.
30. Chora
shi no mo ni komoru
yama kage no aki

dressed in mourning for his master

autumn in the mountains shadow

Chora establishes the place from where the persona in the maeku is
viewing the moon, and also his station in life. He is a priest at a mountain temple, wearing mourning robes to mark the death of his spiritual
mentor. The season, autumn, makes one think of endings and melancholy.
31. Ranzan
kurawabaya
hyakuri todokishi
bushukan o

if I could taste it!

the Buddhas-hand citron
brought here from far away

Bushukan or Buddhas-hand citron (Citrus medica Sarcodactylis) is a yellow

citrus fruit with long, slender sections shaped like fingers. It is highly
aromatic. It contains very little juice, but its rind can be candied and
eaten.
Ranzans verse responds to the maekus description of a person in
mourning by introducing a fruit whose name associates it with the
Buddha.
32. Buson
sji shimaeba
uguisu no kuru

now that the cleanings done

a bush warbler has come

Busy with the cleaning, the persona in Busons verse had no time to
think about anything but work. Finally pausing to rest, he or she notices

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the call of the bush warbler, a welcome sign of spring. It is finally time to
try the Buddhas-hand citron preserves.
33. Chora
tr ni
hi no nokoritaru
asa kasumi

in the lantern
a flame still burns
morning fog

Through the light fog that shrouds the garden, the persona can still see
the faint light of a flame burning in a stone lantern. Chora imagines the
cleaning in the maeku to be that which follows an early morning tea
ceremony, for which the garden lanterns would be lit.
34. Kit
hana mono iwazu
haru fukaki kami

the blossoms are silent

as spring deepens in the place of the
gods

This verse alludes to one by Sugawara Funtoki (899981) in

Chinese and Japanese poems to sing:
The peach and plum trees say no word
how many nights in spring?
the mists and vapors show no trace
who perched here in the past?11


Recontextualizing the lantern in the maeku as one on the grounds of a

shrine, Kit describes the mysterious power of an ancient, sacred place,
where even the scintillating charm of cherry blossoms seems overcome
with a mood of quiet respect.
35. Buson
hito oinu
hito mata ware o
oi to yobu

people have grown old

on the other hand, people
call me old too

11

Rimer and Chaves, p. 166. Chinese text is in NKBT, vol. 58, p. 221.

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

151

Picking up on the maekus comment about deepening spring as a

reminder of the passage of time, Buson interjects a humorous comment
about the inevitability of human aging.
36. Chora
doro ni o o hiku
kame no yasusa yo

the ease of a tortoise

dragging his tail through the mud

Chora concludes the sequence with a reference to a famous passage in

Zhuangzi:
Once, when Chuang Tzu was fishing in the Pu River, the king of Chu
sent two officials to go and announce to him: I would like to trouble you
with the administration of my realm.
Chuang Tzu held on to the fishing pole and, without turning his head,
said, I have heard that there is a sacred tortoise in Chu that had been
dead for three thousand years. The king keeps it wrapped in cloth and
boxed, and stores it at the ancestral temple. Now would this tortoise
rather be dead and have its bones left behind and honored? Or would it
rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud?
It would rather be alive and dragging its tail in the mud, said the two
officials.
Chuang Tzu said, Go away! Ill drag my tail in the mud!12

Tortoises were associated with long life, and as such would be an

appropriate image for the sequences ageku. Chora picks up on Busons
reference to an old man in the maeku, and adds to it a final link that is
like a prayer for the longevity of all the sequences participants, but
particularly the ailing Ranzan.
The Around here kasen stand out as some of the best examples of Revival poets collaboration across factional lines. While Ranzans training
with Five colors of ink poet Rykyo and Choras eclectic background set
them apart from Buson and Kit, who shared a similar poetic lineage,
the four were united by their common interest in composing verse that
reflected a cultivated, disciplined literary sensibility.
Still, even in this harmonious company, Busons anxiety towards his
audience continued to plague him. He made this comment in a letter he
sent to Kytai, with which he included a copy of Around here:
In my haikai, I do not dare try to directly imitate the style of Elder Bash,
but only to follow my heart, taking pleasure in changing my tastes from

12 Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press,
1996), p. 109.

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day to day; in the same way as the physician Bianque,13 I change my manner to conform to the standards of each setting.

Here Buson tries to duck anticipated criticism that his verse is different
from Bashs, by saying that his style is as fluid and reactive as the
legendary Chinese physician who adjusted his specialty to suit his
patients needs. His claim to change his tastes from day to day is a
similar to one he makes in his preface to Make the past present, where he
defends himself from critics who complain that his verse is unlike that of
his teacher.

A Peaches and Plums Sequence: Peony Petals Scatter

As I mentioned in Chapter Two, Busons preface to Peaches and plums
takes a similarly defensive stance in response to an unnamed interlocutor
who suggested that the collections sequences were perhaps outdated.
Buson argues that following fashion is like running around in a circleit
is a constantly changing race where one never knows who is ahead and
who is behind. Buson chose the palindrome momosumomo for the title
of the work to emphasize its circularity. He also asserts that the two
sequences are all that remained of a total of four that he and Kit
composed long ago, but this is not very credible. Rather, it seems likely
that Buson invented the story to preempt accusations from his audience
that his style was out of step with the times.14

13 Bianque was a physician mentioned in the 8th century Chinese treatise Mengqiu
(Beginners guide, Japanese Mgy). When he was in an area that had a lot of children to
treat, he called himself a specialist in pediatrics, when he was in an area where there were
many elderly people, he changed his speciality to geriatrics.
14 Busons declaration about the timelessness of haikai were certainly sincere. However, his claims that the sequences of Peaches and plums were old, and that they represented
the only two surviving ones out of a group of four, are not to be believed. For one thing,
there is the evidence of the letters with which the composition of the sequence was
completed: in them we can see the Summer and Winter sequences taking shape, but no
letters making mention of any others exist. One letter makes reference to a summer
sequence beginning with the hokku on the topic of hana ibara (flowering brambles):
hana ibara
flowering brambles
koky no michi ni
the paths of my hometown
nitaru kana
were just like this
Busons letter reads:
botan chirite
a peony falls
uchikasanarin
piling up two,
u ni san pen
maybe three petals
(Buson)

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153

A letter which Kit wrote to his disciple Shunba several years later,
with which he bequeathed to Shunba the manuscript of Peaches and plums,
gives us insight into Busons motivation for initiating composition of
these verse sequences. One day in late spring, Kit came to visit Buson.
Buson said that up to that point he had tried a number of different haikai
styles while living in various places, but because he still was not satisfied
with what he had produced, he wanted to compose some haikai that he
could be proud of, together with Kit, who had practiced so assiduously.
Composing a hokku for winter and autumn, they started two sequences:
Long ago, in 1780 I think it was, one day I went to visit the Master at Yahantei. The time was spring, when the blossoms were falling, and the birds
were singing, an evening when even the traces of spring were indistinct.
The rain began to fall gently, and when there were no visitors to disturb
the quiet, the Master himself lit the lamps, and sitting up straight in his
seat said, [...] I have been amusing myself with haikai for some fifty years,
and by and by I am approaching my seventh decade. I still have yet to
produce haikai I can be proud of; these days, as I expected, you have already matured in haikai. As an experiment, we two should do a twoperson sequence. We composed two hokku for summer and winter, and
master and disciple we composed more than one hundred verses, and days
passed into months until we completed the kasen, making the sequences
correct, studying the variations in the sequences, and polishing individual
verses.15

The long process of drafting and revising the Peaches and plums sequences
over the course of several months sounds very different from the typical
procedure of composing all the verses at a single session, and Kits
description gives an indication of the intense perfectionism that he and
Buson brought to their work. Significantly, Kit manages to interject
some words of praise for his own abilities into this tale. Nevertheless, it

uzuki hatsuka no
on the twentieth of the fourth month
ariake no tsuki
the moon at dawn
(Kit)
The above waki is very good, so please think of a daisan. It has an unforced, vibrant
waki style, and also, I think that as it sounds so much smoother than hana ibara it is
best to go with botan.
The reference to a sequence beginning hana ibara may account for the claim that there
were originally four, but two had been lost; other than this, no trace of the lost
sequences remains. It is probable that Busons claim that this was a group of four
sequences so old that two had been lost was a way to dramatize his point that haikai was
ageless.
14 iso Yoshio, Yosa Buson (fsha, 1975), pp. 104105.
15 Ibid., pp. 104105.

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CHAPTER FIVE

does appear that there were only two sequences, and that these took
several months to complete.
Peony petals scatter was the first of the two sequences. Since its
hokku uses the summer season word peony (botan), it is called a
summer sequence; the collection also contains the winter sequence
Winter trees (Fuyu kodachi).
1. Buson
botan chirite
uchikasanarinu
ni san pen

peony petals scatter

and pile up
two, maybe three

Buson wrote many verses about peonies; the word botan comes from the
Chinese, and carries associations of exotic splendor. The hokku uses
specific numberstwo, maybe threein a way similar to what he
does in Toward Toba palace / five or six riders gallop / autumn storm
(Toba dono e / gorokki isogu / nowaki kana) and Winter wind / however
do they get through life / in these five houses (Kogarashi ya / ika ni yo
wataru / ie go ken). However, unlike those two hokku, which imply a larger
story, Peony petals scatter refers to nothing outside the scope of the
speakers gaze. The almost photograph-like neutrality of verses like this
has attracted much notice from commentators who look for evidence of
a special artists eye in Busons haikai. Indeed, compared to the allusive
complexity of Willow leaves, fallen / the clear stream, dry / stones, here
and there (Yanagi chiri / shimizu kare ishi / tokoro dokoro), which Buson
described as a representation of the scene before [his] eyes, Peony
petals scatter does appear to have a remarkable transparency.
2. Kit
uzuki hatsuka no
ariake no kage

on the twentieth of the Fourth Month

in the pale light of dawn

Picking up on the fact that an alternate name for peonies is hatsukagusa,

literally, twentieth-day plant, Kits waki fixes the date as the twentieth of
the Fourth Month. The moon was always visible in the sky in the
morning during the last ten days of the month reckoned by the lunar
calendar. Though this is only the second verse, Kit has already introduced an irregularity into the sequence: the character for tsuki in uzuki
means moon as well as month; thus this becomes a moon verse, five
verses early.

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155

3. Kit
suwabukite
okina ya kado o
hirakuramu

coughing,
an old man
seems to be opening the gate . . .

Although poets normally took turns when writing two-person sequences,

sometimes they composed two links in succession to avoid the possibility that one person composed only 17-syllable links and the other
composed only 14-syllable ones. Thus Kit adds another tsukeku,
envisioning an old man opening the gate to his house under the dim
dawn moon. Suwabukite (coughing) suggests that the old man is sick and
frail. As it should have, the opulence of the hokkus peony has disappeared in Kits daisan.
4. Buson
muko no erabi ni
kitsuru hengue

a ghost has come

to choose an adoptive son-in-law

Buson returns to the sequence with a verse on a topic of which he was

especially fond: the supernatural. Ordinarily references to dramatic topics
like this were prohibited in the first six verses of a kasen, but Buson
ignores this rule. The scene is mysteriously romantic rather than grotesque. Use of the archaic word hengue (ghost, monster) would remind
readers of medieval tales.
Adoptive son-in-law (muko) is a man who has been adopted by his
wifes parents in order to provide the family with a male heir.
5. Buson
toshi furishi
chimata no enoki
ono irete

at the crossroads
an old nettle tree
is hacked at with an ax

Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku, as Kit did in Verse 3. This
verse also is related to the supernatural world. Nettle trees (enoki) often
marked crossroads; it was believed that cutting one down would bring
on a curse. This would explain the creepy scene in the maeku.
6. Kit
hyakuri no kugaji
tomari sadamezu

a hundred-ri highway
without a fixed abode

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Picking up on the word crossroads (chimata) Kit envisions a territory

stretching out into the distance; the phrase perhaps somewhere in China.
Ri is a unit of distance that originated in China; in Japan, one ri is about
two and a half miles (3.9 kilometers). Kits traveler moves through the
landscape with no home or destination, passing through a crossroads
marked by a broken nettle tree.
7. Kit
utamakura
okori ochitaru
kin ky

visiting places famous in poetry

he took ill, and has fallen under a fever
yesterday and today

Utamakura (places famous in poetry) were place names that accumulated

associations from being repeatedly referred to in literary works. Over the
centuries, these associations became conventionalized, like the honi of
season words. Throughout most of Japanese history, travel was such a
risky and difficult business that very few people actually saw utamakura
sites for themselves, but those that did, like Nin, Saigy and eventually
Bash, were deeply admired.
Kits verse establishes the identity of the maekus traveler as a poet.
Mention of a fever (okori) resonates with troubling uncertainty suggested
by the maekus phrase without a fixed abode (tomari sadamezu).
8. Buson
yamada no oda no
wase o karukoro

in the mountain farms small fields

its time to harvest the early rice

Buson breaks another rule here: he follows Kits Summer verse with an
Autumn one, omitting the Miscellaneous verse that was supposed to
separate the two. He specifies the place and season of the poets illness
as a mountain village in early autumn.
9. Kit
yzuki
okurete wataru
shijkara

later
than the twilight moon
homing swallows fly

This is the second moon verse, again out of placeit should be Verse
14. The time is fixed as dusk. The human presence in the uchikoshi
disappears; Kits focus is entirely on the natural world: swallows swoop

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157

homeward in the gloom over a mountain village as the moon slowly

rises.
10. Buson
aki o ureite
hitori to ni yoru

filled with autumns melancholy

approaching the gate alone

Busons verse returns us to the human world. The mood of the persona
in Busons verse mirrors the dark, chill landscape of an autumn twilight.
Alone by a gate, he or she pauses to savor the moments delicate sadness.
11. Kit
me futaide
nigaki kusuri o
susurikeru

with eyes shut tight

he swallows down
the bitter medicine

Kit gives a reason for the discomfort of the persona in the maeku:
physical illness. While urei (melancholy) has elegant associations, Kit
deflates them by his description of the personas contorted face as he
forces himself to drink a foul-tasting potion.
12. Buson
Taima e modosu
furoshiki ni fumi

he sends back to Taima

a letter in a furoshiki

Interpreting the persona in the maeku as having left home for medical
treatment, Buson envisions him sending back the furoshiki (cloth parcelwrapper) his family used to pack him a parcel of supplies or gifts.
13. Kit
tonari nite
mada koe no suru
abura uri

next door
we can still hear the voice
of the oil peddler

Kit envisions the person who will deliver the maekus furoshiki and letter
as an oil peddler. Despite the impatience of the people expecting the
parcel, he will not stop talking to the neighbors and be on his way to
deliver it.

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14. Buson
sanjaku tsumoru
yuki no tasogare

three feet of snow

piled up in the twilight

Buson shifts the focus to landscape, specifying the setting and the time
of day. The snow falls deep here, and the winter night comes early. It
would be a good time to welcome an oil peddler, were he not so
annoying. His conversation is as long as the snow is deep.
15. Kit
e ni uyuru
kami uchi ni
shinoburan

a starving wolf
may be hiding
inside

A wolf has had difficulty finding food because of all the snow. Kit sets
a lonely house into the winter landscape of the maeku. The people who
live there are as hungry and desperate as the wolf.
16. Buson
iguchi no tsuma
tada naki ni naku

the housewife with the harelip

cries and cries

Buson picks up on the maekus reference to an animal, and matches it

with another, iguchi (harelip) which is written with the character i for
hare. Imagining the home of the hunter that will kill the wolf in the
maeku, Buson implies that womans sorrows are a sign of the karmic
misfortune that afflicts those who live by killing.
17. Kit
kanei aru
hana no mitera ni
kami kirite

at a flower-filled temple
where there was a bell-casting
she takes the tonsure

Kit puts the first blossom verse in the right place here. The maekus
persona has met with a happy end; to atone for her guilt by association,
she becomes a nun at a temple that is filled with blooming cherry trees.
18. Buson
haru no yukue no
nishi ni katabuku

spring departs
sinking in the west

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159

The end of spring brings with it a sense of regret. Buson associates the
temple in the maeku with west, the direction of the Amitabha Buddhas
paradise. As joyful as the cherry blossoms may seem at the moment,
they, like the spring, will not last long.
19. Buson
Noto dono no
tsuru oto kasumu
ochikata ni

the sound of Noritsunes bowstring

grows fainter
in the distance

Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. He reinterprets sinking in the

west (nishi ni katabuku) to mean the failure of fortune, introducing the
image of the general Noto-no-kami Taira no Noritsune
(d. 1185), who, along with the rest of his clan has been driven to the
edge of the Western Sea in their war with the Minamoto clan. Noritsunes great heroism is described in the Tale of the Heike. Busons
description of the sound of the bowstring becoming faint (kasumu)
suggests spring haze (kasumi).
20. Kit
hakase hisomite
toki o uranau

the fortune teller secretly

takes a reading of the hour

Kit takes Busons image of a plucked bowstring and associates it with a

fortuneteller. The sound of a plucked bowstring was thought to have
supernatural power; it was used to ward off demons or illness, particularly during childbirth.
Kit may also allude to another scene in the Tale of the Heike, in the
Distant Arrows chapter:
Furthermore, a school of one or two thousand dolphins surfaced and
swam from the Genji side towards the Heike. Minister of State Munemori
summoned the learned Harenobu. Dolphins always appear in schools,
but we have never seen such numbers as these. Use your divining arts to
find out what it means, he told him. The Genji will be destroyed if the
dolphins stay on the surface and turn back; we will be endangered if they
dive and pass us. No sooner had Harenobu spoken than the creatures
passed straight under the Heike vessels. This is the end for us, the diviner said.16

16 Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tale of the Heike (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1988), p. 376.

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21. Buson
awa oishi
uma taurenu to
tori nakite

carrying a bundle of millet

the horse stumbled, and just then
a bird called out

Buson picks up from Kits description of the fortuneteller, and

visualizes some bad omensa horse losing its balance at the same time a
mysterious bird calls.
22. Kit
chi saki chiru
nawate hatch

sandalwood trees bloom and fade,

along
the long pathway between the paddies

Kits verse fixes the season as summer, and the place where the
incident in the maeku happened as a farming community.
23. Buson
tachiaenu
niji ni Asama no
uchi keburi

a faintly visible
rainbow over Asamas
rising smoke

Buson adds a backdrop to the maekus rural close-up. The rainbow and
the smoke rising out of the volcano make a dramatic contrast of the
delicate and the grand.
Mount Asama, near Nagano, is one of the largest volcanoes in Japan.
Some three years after Buson and Kit wrote this sequence, it erupted
disastrously, killing around 2,000 people.
24. Kit
chokushi no oyado
msu ureshisa

the joy of receiving so grand a guest

as an imperial messenger

Kits link is based on mood: the majesty of the great mountain and
rainbow after a rainstorm is similar to that of the imperial messenger,
and the host receives this guest with great delight.
25. Buson
k ni etaru
ajika no uo no
hara akaki

taken from the river

the fish in the basket
are red-bellied

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

161

Buson imagines the feast that the maekus host puts on for the imperial
messenger. K ni etaru (taken from the river) has a stiff, formal feel, and
recalls Chinese poetry.
26. Kit
hi wa sashi nagara
mata arare furu

even though the sun is shining

hail falls again

Hail (arare) fixes the season for the maeku as winter. The weather is
uncertain: the sky seems to be clearing, but it starts hailing. Kit contrasts the intense red of the fish and the white hail that falls.
27. Buson
mishikoi no
chigo neri ideyo
dkuy

Come out,
beloved acolyte!
the temple festival

The topic here is love. Picking up on the maekus theme of uncertainty,

Busons verse describes the feeling of waiting for ones beloved to
emerge from the midst of the crowds at a temple festival. He uses direct
speech to emphasize the urgency of the emotion, chigo neri ideyo(come
out, acolyte!). Acolyte (chigo) suggests male homosexual lovethe love
of an older man and a younger one.
28. Kit
tsuburi ni sawaru
hito nikuki nari

how loathsome are people

who muss ones hair-style

Kit recasts the maekus lover as a girl, looking for the beautiful acolyte at
the temple festival but worried lest the jostling of the crowd should
dislodge the hairstyle she has put so much effort into perfecting.
29. Buson
izayoi no
kuraki hima sae
yo no isogi

even during the time

between sunset and moonrise on the
sixteenth day
everyone is busy

With the phrase everyone is busy (yo no isogi) Buson shifts the scene
from the bright realm of romance to the dull, ordinary round of chores
and obligations. The persona who does not want her hair to be mussed

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becomes an older woman, pressed with various responsibilities. From

the sixteenth day, the moon begins to wane, and likewise, the mood here
changes from light to dark.
30. Kit
shikoro utsu naru
Banba Matsumoto

the sound the mallet makes

from Banba to Matsumoto

Kit picks up on the maekus description of a busy scene and specifies

the work as cloth fulling. As we saw in Busons as I am melancholy /
beat the fulling block, but / stop now, its enough (uki ware ni / kinuta
ute ima wa / mata yamine) in Chapter Four, the sound of fulling cloth was
associated with loneliness. Both Banba and Matsumoto were place
names in tsu (modern Shiga Prefecture).
31. Kit
kago kaki no
bgumi taranu
aki no ame

there are not enough people

to carry a palanquin
in the autumn rain

Kit adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. He picks up on the maekus

melancholy scene, describing a place so desolate and lonely that there are
not even enough people to carry a palanquin.
32. Buson
tobi mo karasu
achira mukiiru

kites and crows

staring into space

With the phrase staring into space Buson anthropomorphizes the

birds, and interjects a bit of lightness after several dark and dreary verses.
33. Kit
tatari nasu
tanaka no hokora
kansabite

under a curse,
the small shrine in the fields
is forbidding

Kit takes Busons amusing scene and locates it in a more serious

situation: a small shrine out in the fields. It seems to have some mysterious power; no wonder the birds are acting strangely.

RESISTING COMMUNALITY

163

34. Buson
sude ni Genba ga
kuji mo make iro

it already looks like

Genba has lost the lawsuit

The name Genba has the connotations of someone strong and authoritative. Buson implies that the shrines curse has brought about the
lawsuits unfavorable outcome.
35. Buson
hana ni utoki
mi hatagoya no
meshi to shiru

a long way away from cherry blossoms

in the lodging house
there is rice and soup

A blossom verse. Buson adds a tsukeku to his own maeku. Despite the
fact that the cherry blossoms are blooming, it is hard to enjoy them in an
inn near the courthouse. The food at the inn is bad, but having lost the
lawsuit, the persona hardly has a mind to enjoy anything anyway.
36. Kit
mada kure yaranu
haru no tomoshibi

it is not completely dark yet

lanterns of spring

Cheerful lamps are glowing, though the sky is still light. It is time for the
evenings meal on a fine spring night with the cherry trees in bloom. This
is the ageku (uplifting verse). Appropriately enough, Kits verse is
positive in outlook, leaving behind the curses and sorrows of the
previous few verses and ending in a bright scene, full of promise.
Most commentators would acknowledge that the verse sequences that
Buson and his collaborators produced are not as impressive as the
greatest of those composed by the Bash school. However, Busons
sequences are generally acknowledged to be among the best of the late
period of the heyday of haikai linked verse. The waning of linked verses
popularity in itself did not end up eliminating the communal side of
haikai: poets still met to compose impromptu hokku and receive instruction from a teacher, and other kinds of verse gatherings continued to be
popular. However, in part because of the rise of tentori haikai, and in part
because of the preferences of the Revival poets community for hokku,
the practice of linked verse composition went into a decline in the years
after Busons death.

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CHAPTER FIVE

For this reason, collections like Around here: Four kasen in one night, and
those composed in unconventional circumstances like the sequences of
Peaches and plums are extremely valuable sources for the insights they offer
into the linked verse of the late eighteenth century, what was to be the
genres last great age.

CHAPTER SIX

BUSON AND HAIGA

Because Buson was also a painter, many commentators have tried to
characterize him as a visual poet. Some have assumed that his artistic
training preconditioned him to observe the world in a painterly fashion,
and have looked for ways in which his poems might prove analogous to
paintings. This assumption is related to the fact that the artistic genre in
which Buson primarily worked, nanga had its origin in Chinese traditions
that encouraged interaction between visual and literary expression.
Furthermore, haikai is often described as poetry that strives to reproduce
the experience of a single moment in the same way that a sketch would
do. This visual approach presents problems because, as we have seen,
Busons hokku are extremely diverse. While there are many that seem to
offer an immediate, unmediated description of a scene just as it appeared, most are in fact entirely fictional and imaginary, or written in
response to a set topic. Looked at as a whole, Busons hokku are no more
or less painterly than those of other haikai poets.
In one sense, Busons dual identity as both a painter and a poet was
not problematic. In the Japanese cultural tradition, painting, poetry, and
calligraphy were viewed as related arts; for instance, literary texts were
often inscribed on paintings, poets sometimes composed waka in
response to painted landscapes, and it was not uncommon for editors to
compile collections of poems illustrated with idealized portraits of the
poets who wrote them. However, Buson stood out even in this context.
Despite the long tradition of linking the literary and visual arts, few
people could rival Busons abilities in botheven in the eighteenth
century, when the ideal of the bunjin flourished. However, the way of
thinking that regards painting and poetry as fundamentally separate
categories of expression is a relatively modern idea, dating from the Meiji
period, when the Japanese modified their taxonomies of the arts to bring
them more in line with those of Europe.
Busons work as a painter did have an impact on his haikai, and this
chapter will explore some ways of thinking about how the two forms of
Busons practice intersected. To start with, because it is important to

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understand the origins of interpretations of Buson as a painterly poet

that arose during the modern period, the chapter begins with an overview of the most influential visual interpretation of Busons hokku,
Masaoka Shikis reading of Buson as representative of the ideal of shasei,
or realism, in haiku. Many of Shikis statements about Busons poetry are
polemical and somewhat extreme, but they are important to look at
because the assumption on which they are basedthat there is an
essential separation of painting and poetry that Buson somehow
managed to bridgeunderlies readings of Buson as an especially visual
poet.
In the second and third parts of the chapter, I examine two areas that
provide other meaningful contexts in which to consider the interaction
of painting and poetry in Busons haikai. The first area is Busons
relationships with his patrons, and the role that his haikai contacts played
in helping to secure supporters and customers for his paintings. Texts
associated with Busons early years in northeastern Japan and in the
province of Tango provide rich insight into the complexity of these
relationships, and reflect Busons careful efforts to manage them so as to
promote his professional ambitions. The second area I examine is the
intersection of painting and poetry in Busons haiga, a genre where
haikais techniques of juxtaposition, implication, and humor created
compositions which blurred the boundaries of verbal and visual expression to a degree that is striking, even in a cultural tradition where works
that combine images and texts were common.

Buson as a Visual Poet: Masaoka Shiki and Shasei (Sketch from Life )
The notion that there was a close relationship between Busons painting
and haikai was at the center of the theories of poet and literary critic
Masaoka Shiki, who was the first to call attention to Busons work in the
modern period. Shiki was a central figure in a movement to reform waka
and renga that led to the invention of the modern genres tanka and
haiku.
When Shiki began writing about Buson in the last decades of the
nineteenth century, Busons hokku were no longer well known. Busons
reputation as a poet had flagged after his death, in part due to his own
anxiety and ambivalence toward his role in the haikai community. As we
have seen, Buson postponed taking on the leadership of the Yahantei

BUSON AND HAIGA

167

school until late in life, and left most of the work of promoting that
school up to Kit. However, Kit died in 1789, only a few years after
Buson. Even the great energy with which Kit laid the foundation of
Busons reputation as a haikai poet did little to forestall the eclipse of the
Yahantei school in the years that followed. One reason for its decline
was that Kit did not have time to cultivate his own successor. Perhaps
more importantly, though, the cult of Bash, which Buson helped to
promote, took off dramatically in the 1790s, and the haikai orthodox
tradition (shf ) gradually became synonymous with the Bash
tradition (shf ). As so much attention was focused onto the work
and teachings of Bash, less was paid to that of other poets. In other
words, Busons haikai fell into relative obscurity after his death in part
because of the great success of his generations efforts to place Bash at
the center of haikai history.
However, even during the time when the audience for Busons haikai
diminished, he continued to be admired as a painter. Indeed, it was his
reputation as a painter that brought him back into focus a century after
his death, and it was the very fact that his verse was unlike Bashsa
difference which was attributed to his identity as a painterthat
attracted the attention of people in the Meiji period like Shiki.
Shiki was the most influential of the critics who made Buson a centerpiece of efforts to reshape haikai into a genre that was viable in the
modern world. Shiki saw that older genres of Japanese poetry, like haikai,
were under threat from imported European forms. Haikais use of
classical language, the stale and clichd expressions it had acquired from
many generations of unimaginative practitioners, and above all, the
elaborate and inflexible social structure of schools and lineages that had
developed around it, were all contributing to its fossilization.
As he worked to revitalize it and transform it into the modern genre
he called haiku, Shikis most immediate target was the cult of Bash.
Over the years the successors to Buson and his colleagues in the Bash
Revival had transformed the movement from an effort to set high
literary standards for the genre into a stifling system of orthodoxy that
enabled large numbers of people to write haikai but made the practice an
exercise in banality. For this reason, many innovative poets of the day
advocated abandoning it completely.
While Shiki acknowledged that Bashs had written many excellent
hokku, he argued that many examples by other poets were equally good.
One of these was Buson. Buson came to Shikis attention with the help

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of fellow poet Nait Meisetsu (18471926), who came across

a copy of Buson verse anthology and introduced it to Shikis study group.
Shiki found Busons hokku especially compelling because he was
developing a theory of haikai that treated it as a literary sketch, or shasei
(literally, copying life, the Japanese word used to translate the Western
art term sketch from life). Shiki argued that haiku functions in a way
that allows it to capture a scene as it appears in a single instant. In this
respect, it resembles a drawing or a photographrealistic, objective, free
of inessential information but able to recreate a moment of experience
and communicate it to a reader. Stripped of its connections to anything
outside the momentlike references to the literary traditionand free
of the distracting artifice of conspicuous word play, the haiku was well
suited to the task of expressing the unprecedented events and experiences of the modern world. Shiki saw the painter-poet Buson as an ideal
precursor to this view of haiku; Busons work was proof that even in its
earliest forms haikai had the necessary attribute that made it relevant to a
modernizing Japan: it emphasized objective representation of the
exterior world. This is because Shiki believed that the very thing that
Busons economic circumstances made his focushis work as a
painterwas what that marked him as a visionary and a model worth
following for modern haiku poets.
At the time, Shiki was very interested in exploring the potential that
classical Japanese poetic forms like waka and haikai had in the emerging
literature of a modernizing Japan. For Shiki, an important key to this
problem lay in figuring out ways that pre-modern literary forms were
especially good at realism. In the course of his studies on the subject, he
became acquainted with Western theories of art from his friend, the yga
(Western-style) painter Nakamura Fusetsu (18661943).
Fusetsu introduced Shiki to the Western technique of the sketch from
life (shasei). Shiki became convinced that haiku poems were like sketches;
poets should express with words the scene or object just as they saw it,
similar to the way painters would depict it in line.1
Shiki found his shasei ideal in the painter-poet Yosa Buson, whose
artists eye, Shiki reasoned, allowed him a special facility with making
sketches in words. He argued this in a number of articles, Otters den study
haikai talks (Dassai shooku haiwa , 1892), Master Bashs
surprise (Bash- no ikky , 1893), and Miscellaneous talks on

Hirai Terutoshi, Shiki to Buson, Bungaku 52, 10 (1984): 184.

BUSON AND HAIGA

169

Bash (Bash zdan , 1893) Eventually Shiki came to regard

Buson as a figure of major importancethe equivalent in his period to
the standard of excellence represented in the Genroku period by Bash.
Haikai history had two high points, he argues, and the best poet of each
is Bash and Buson.2 In his most detailed comparison of the poetry of
Bash and Buson, Haiku poet Buson (Haijin Buson , 1897),
Buson emerges as the opposite of everything Shiki found characteristic
of Bash. Where Bash wrote negative (shkyokuteki ), colorless,
and highly subjective poetry, Busons was positive (sekkyokuteki ),
vigorous, and objective. Bash was a poet of autumn and winter, Buson
of spring and summer. Most importantly, while Bashs aesthetic looked
back to the medieval period and East Asian tastes, Busons anticipated
modern and Western tastes. The biggest reason for this difference was
that Busons painterly eye predisposed him to a kind of objectivity that
was consistent with late nineteenth-century ideas about literary realism.
Shikis portrayal of Buson as a visual poet, however, overstates the
case. As we have seen, few of Busons verses were written in response to
a particular occasion or experience. Instead, he generally composed his
hokku on topics that had been set as a theme for a verse gathering or
similar occasion. Likewise, imagery that might seem to reflect the
conditions of a given moment turn out to have been chosen on the basis
of their usage in the classical tradition. It is true that some early modern
haikai poets, especially those who followed the teachings of the rural
Bash school, created a style that aspired tobut seldom achieved
karumi, the aesthetic of plainness and simplicity that Bash espoused in
his later years, and this in some respects resembled Shikis shasei.
However, Buson regarded the rural school style with nearly as much
contempt as he reserved for profit-conscious urban tenja who were
impressed with shallow verbal cleverness; his hokku are no more or less
objective than those of other haikai poets. It is possible to find some
examples of Buson hokku that support Shikis interpretation, but there
are many more that contradict it.

Shiki, Haijin Buson, in Haikai taiy (Iwanami Shoten, 1955), p. 170.

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Buson and his Painting Clients

While Shiki may have overemphasized the visual aspects of Busons
hokku, the question of how to understand the relationship between
Busons work as a painter and a poet remains valid. One answer to this
question focuses not on the content or style of his verse, but rather on
interactions that Buson had with his painting clients and the way these
intersected with his work as a haikai poet. Networking with other haikai
poets was one of the ways that Buson secured access to clients who
bought his paintings, supported his travels to view and study works by
Japanese and Chinese artists in various collections, and obtained places
to live and work. This was especially true during Busons early years, but
even after he established himself in Kyoto, haikai continued to provide a
context for him to meet visitors from rural areas who both acted as
informal brokers for his paintings and sought his instruction in poetry.
While an exhaustive examination of Busons relationships with his
patrons is beyond the scope of this study, I will discuss two periods
when haikai played a major role in Busons efforts to establish himself as
a painter: his ten years in the northeast of Japan after Hajins death, and
the three years he spent in Tango before settling permanently in Kyoto.
Busons writings from and about these two periods of his career give us
a glimpse into two apparently paradoxical aspects of his relationships
with the people who supported him in his work. One was respectful and
laudatory: Buson represents his patrons as people of good taste and
highly developed poetic sensitivity. Another side of this portrayal,
however, is less obviously flattering and for this reason merits more
attention: he describes several of his patrons in the context of mysterious
visits by supernatural creatures, or in quite undignified and even embarrassing circumstances. As we will see, both aspects were characteristic of
people who were especially gifted as poets and connoisseurs. In this
sense, by describing his patrons as both tasteful and eccentric, Buson
could offer them no higher praiseand no greater thanksfor their
generosity in hosting him and supporting his work.

Buson in Yki and Shimodate

Almost as soon as Buson arrived in Edo, he showed himself to be as
precociously skilled in social maneuvering as he was at haikai. He quickly

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171

achieved recognition in a haikai group that was well known both in Edo
and in Kyoto, and became the live-in student and secretary for his
teacher. Since Hajin had followers in rural and urban areas all over Japan,
the special consideration that he gave to Buson proved very helpful.
Hajins disciplesmost prominent among them Isaoka Gant in the east
and Mochizuki Soku in the west, shared Hajins high regard for Buson,
and for many years their help would prove indispensable to him.
Gant came from a well-respected family in Yki. His father, Gash
was a haikai poet who, like Hajin, had studied with both Ransetsu
and Kikaku; Gants brother, Shgo , also practiced haikai. The
haikai community in Yki and nearby Shimodate was extremely tightknit: Gashs sister (Gants aunt) married Hayami Shinga
(16701745), the haikai poet to whom Buson would dedicate his haishi
Mourning the Sage Hokuju (Hokuju rsen o itamu
).3 Shingas sons, Momohiko and Denk , both
practiced haikai. Two members of the Nakamura family of Shimodate
who later supported Buson also married into the haikai tradition:
Nakamura Fk (dates unknown) married Fujii Omitsu, who
was related to prominent Kikaku disciple Shinry (16801761), and
Nakamura Taisais wife was Gants sister. Sat Roky, with
whom Buson edited the Utsunomiya new years day booklet (Utsunomiya
saitanch , 1744), was Gants son-in-law.
The area around Yki and Shimodate was prosperousit produced
textiles, miso, and soy sauce; it outstripped its neighboring communities
in agricultural productivity. Although it was far from any urban center, it
boasted a relatively high level of education and cultural sophistication. At
the same time, to Buson, who had grown up in a farming village its rustic
character was probably much more inviting than was the busy environment of Edo.4
Buson used Gants home as his base. From late autumn 1742 until
the winter of 1743 he traveled, retracing Bashs Narrow road to the interior
route: in Shimodate he lived with Fk and Taisai; in Yki, besides
Gants house, he also lodged with J and stayed at Gugy-ji temple.
Only a few sources give us information about Buson during this
period, and one of the best is New flower gathering In the prose section of
this work, Buson describes the patrons he acquired during this period as

3
4

A full translation of this work is included in the appendix.

Segi Shinichi, Buson: Gahai nid (Bijutsu Kronsha, 1990), pp. 7879.

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being of extremely discerning and cultivated taste, people who were

dedicated to leading a life appropriate to the bunjin ideal. This is in spite
of the fact that they lived far from urban centers like Edo and Kyoto
where one might expect to find sophisticated people. Accordingly, in
several stories from New flower gathering, connoisseurship becomes the
focus of attention. The text opens with a justification for Busons
decision not to publish a collection of his own hokku because such
collections reveal their authors limitations too clearly; but after this and
two other short comments about haikai he shifts into some stories about
art objects and the risks to which people exposed themselves in valuing
them. Two of them place Tokiwa Tanpoku (dates unknown)medical doctor, theorist on education, haikai poet and art
collectorin the center of the narrative. The first starts out with an
anecdote to establish a general background, and then moves into a story
that concerns Busons own experience:
There was certain person who had a passion for the hand guard of a
short-sword that was said to have been made from a nail-cover taken from
the palace of Xianyang ;5 he always had it at his waist and cherished it. How much did this antique, inlaid with a bird-and-flower pattern
of precious metals, and evoke the splendor of a thousand years! However,
asking about what proof was there that this was indeed a nail-cover from
the Xianyang Palace is nonsensical talk. Somehow, if he had not claimed it
was a nail-cover from the Xianyang Palace, it would have been a wonderful thing, and it is regrettable that he did.
Even if it had been wood shavings from Nagara Bridge or the dried
frog of Ide, I am sure that the people of today would find it contemptible
and dubious.
Tokiwa Tanpokus Korean (Koguryo) tea bowl had been carefully preserved by the warrior taka Gengo ; it was handed down to
Tanpoku from that very Gengo, and Tanpoku bequeathed it to me. Indeed it had an eminent history of past possession, but what proof was
there? Lest it should become like the nail-cover of Xianyang palace, I
quickly gave it away.

The unnamed connoisseur in the first part of this anecdote overstepped

himself in admiring his artifact not for the sake of its beauty, but for its
putative history; because he did so, he exposed it to the contempt of
others because he could not prove that it actually had the illustrious
origin he said it did. Buson compares it to a story from the late Heian

5 The palace of the First Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang ), 259210 BCE, r.
221210 BCE.

BUSON AND HAIGA

173

waka treatise Pouch notebook (Fukuro zshi , compiled 1157), about

the first meeting between the great poet Nin (b. 998) and
Fujiwara Toshinobu (dates unknown), in which the two men
impressed each other with their good taste by showing off their most
prized possessions: Nin, wood shavings from the long-lost bridge at
Nagara and Toshinobu, a mummified frog from the Ide River. Both the
Nagara Bridge and Ide River frogs were long celebrated in waka poetry.6
This sets the context for Busons extraordinary act of giving away a
present from his patron Tanpoku, an item of great value. taka Gengo
was one of the forty-seven rnin who were required to commit suicide
after illegally avenging the death of their lord; he was also a practitioner
of the tea ceremony and a haikai poet of the Teimon school. Tanpokus
gift of this tea bowlwhich was not only beautiful in itself, but also had
such an illustrious historywas a generous one. Aside from being a
cautionary tale that reveals the great importance that proof (sh ) of
an art objects worth had acquired during this time, the emphasis Buson
places on his patron Tanpokus magnanimity and also his good taste
indicates that within Busons circle, both aesthetic refinement and a
generous character were markers of people worthy of admiration.
A longer story of Tanpokus discernment follows the buried tree
episode immediately. It starts out as a tale of an experience Buson had
while retracing Matsuo Bashs Narrow road to the interior journey;
Tanpoku accompanied him on the first part of this trip but not as far as
Matsushima, where the beginning of the story takes place:
Tenrin-in temple of Matsushima is alongside Zuigan-ji
and is a splendid Zen monastery. Once, when I was a guest there, the head
of the temple gave me an old plank that was more than a foot in length
and said, Lord So-and-So of Sendai was a waka poet without compare.
He hired a large number of workers, and had them dredge the bottom of
the Natori River and they managed to pull out a fossilized log (umoregi).
This log was used to make a writing-box, and together with some brushes
made from Miyagino bush clover-wood, it was presented to the head of
the Nij poetry school. This plank is what is left from the log, and is
something that should not be treated lightly. It had a distinct grain like
that of zelkova wood. Because it had spent a thousand years on the river
bottom, it was black, and as if it had turned to iron, when you tapped it, it
made a hollow sound. It weighed only about ten kin (thirteen pounds),
and even when I bundled it up in a cloth and put it on my back, I barely

6 Shimizu Takayuki, ed., Shinch Nihon koten shsei, vol. 32, Yosa Buson sh (Shinchsha,
1979), p. 47, note 141.

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managed to carry it to Shiroishi post station. Because I did not think

I could bear the fatigue of carrying it over a long distance, I left it under
the veranda of the guesthouse where I spent the night and continued on
my journey home.
Sometime later, when I mentioned this to Tanpoku at the home of
Gant of Yki, Tanpoku scolded me angrily, saying, What! You dirty
priest who throws away treasure! Ill have it for myself! Is someone around
that I can send? Go right away! and he contacted Shinry in Sukagawa. Shinry wrote a letter, and sent a servant with him to visit the lodging-place at Shiroishi. The servant said, A priest who once stayed here
left something or other behind, and I have come to look for it. The innkeeper fortunately looked around, and found it, and gave it to him, and
[Shinry] took it. Later, Gant received it [from Tanpoku], and it was
made into the ink stone-cover called Fishes and Cranes (Gyokaku,
). It is more than seventy ri7 from Yki to Shiroishi, and although
much time had passed, the object that we obtained and brought home was
an exceedingly precious one.

Like the dried frog of Ide and wood shavings of Nagara Bridge, umoregi
or wood from buried tree is an object that had great value because of
its associations in classical poetry. Thus, a piece of this wood had great
value for people of literary sensibility; the one that Buson received had
been a gift to the temple from someone who was not only a powerful
lord, but was also an excellent waka poet.8 Busons telling of the story
self-deprecatingly (and humorously) exposes his own failure to appreciate the importance of this extraordinary giftwhich perhaps he had
achieved in exchange for one of his paintingsand because of it
Tanpokus good taste appears all the more impressive by contrast. This is
not just an amusing account of something Buson experienced while he
was on the Narrow road to the interior trail. Rather, it is an aisatsu praising
both his benefactors Tanpoku and Gant for their highly cultivated
sensibility at the same time as establishing them as well-informed
connoisseurs of fine art, and as such it shows gratitude for their generosity.
Buson concludes New flower gathering with another story about the risk
attached to valuable objects that chrononologically precedes his experiences in the northeast. This one took place while Hajin was still alive. It
is also different because Buson is the hero of the pieceit is he who

About 170 miles (273 kilometers).

A detailed discussion of umoregi and its significance in this passage is included in
Edward Kamens, Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 1018.
8

BUSON AND HAIGA

175

gives help to a poet in need. Nevertheless, it provides another example

of the ways that haikai poets and their associates used precious objects as
the currency of social relationships:
The officer Umezu Hanuemon 9 was a trusted retainer in a
certain household, in his post in Naniwa also his service was excellent, and
he received a letter of commendation, and was a person of great fame.
Thus his stipend was worth some ten thousand koku, and was a senior retainer in the household. He had a liking for haikai, and as his duties permitted he participated in activities of Kikakus school, and took the name
Kiteki . He was a poet with many verses in Kikakus collections. This
person, having completed his work in Edo, was about return home to
Akita. Since he was very sad at having to leave Kikaku, he invited him to
come along. Kikaku could not go. Kikaku had another disciple by the
name of Shik . Because he was very skilled at haikai, at Kikakus
recommendation he went to attend Kiteki, and sent him off to Akita.
Therefore, Kiteki and Kikaku did not cease exchanging letters, so I heard.
Among these was a precious letter written in Kikakus own hand. Of
course it contained a conventional greeting. After that were included two
or three hokku, and in the following paragraph there was this:
On a certain day in a certain month, the forty-seven loyal retainers
launched a night attack on the enemy stronghold, avenging their
dead lord. They ended up Sengaku-ji temple 10 with nothing
to regret. Shiy , Shunban and the others performed
deeds that were completely without parallel. Both of those two were
practitioners of haikai in those days, they were young warriors of
poetic sensitivity, and above all, their resolve and emotional depth
was endless.
It was truly a document worthy of great respect, and Kiteki kept it hidden
away, like a treasure.
At that time there was a person called Fukami Shintar .11
He was a youth so beautiful he would put even He An and Dong
Xian to shame.12 Kiteki had a great affection for this young man,
and they formed a bond that was closer even than that of Su Wu
and Li Ling .13 Shintar was also interested in haikai, and went by the
name of Jsh . He felt that the letter from Kikaku was something

(16721721).
Their graves are at Sengakuji Temple, Tokyo.
11 Died 1692.
12 Chinese youths famous for their handsomeness.
13 Li Ling (d. 74 BCE) and Su Wu (ca. 14360 BCE) were both captured by the
Xiongnu , a Central Asian tribe that invaded Chinas northern frontier. Li Lings
poem to Su Wu was included in Wen xuan. Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature, vol.
1, trans. David R. Knechtges (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 35, 42.
10

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he wanted for himself, and even though he did not say anything about it,
Kiteki knew what was on his mind, and ended up giving it to him.
Among the disciples of Tantan there was a man named Bakuten
,14 and he came to Akita from Naniwa and stayed there for some
time. Jsh and Bakuten were both devoted to haikai, and Jsh gave the
letter to Bakuten. After that Bakuten moved on to Edo, and he lived in a
place called Yanagiwara, near Edo Castle,15 and sought out a shabby room
and lived there. He had always been poor, and now he had run out of
ways to pay for clothing and food; he had no acquaintances, and no relatives that he could rely on, so he was in real trouble. When I realized this,
I gave him a little something to help him out of his difficulty.16 I hosted
my own monthly haikai meetings, running all over the place making his
sales pitch. Because of this, when, starting with people like Hajin, Rit,
Rywa, and Gojaku , people of all kinds joined, eventually the meeting place became filled to bursting with participants, and he had splendid
haikai group.
Bakutens intentions were finally realized when Mokusai Seiga
became a member of the group. He (Bakuten) took the name
Ihoku , and effortlessly composed linked verse sequences of ten
thousand verses, and he safely completed the initiation as a haikai master.
His reputation grew naturally, and he participated in many groups, and
anyway was very successful. Because he felt great affection and gratitude
towards me, his old friend, he told me he would give me the aforementioned Kikaku letter. I replied, You have only this to treasure. There
wont be another one. How can I accept it? I have no need of it. I firmly
declined his offer.

Uk Ihoku (17031755) was an urban-school poet. After the

assistance he received from Buson, he became a successful haikai master
in Akita and Edo. He helped to edit the influential anthologies Edo twenty
verse sequences and Eastern haikai (Azuma buri , published 1756).
Busons story focuses on a letter in Kikakus handwriting. Like Tanpokus tea bowl, this object was important because it was connected to a
famous person. Letters and other documents in the handwriting of poets
were something to be treasured; in Chapter Three we saw how Shzan,
Taigi, and Zuikos discovery of a manuscript in Bashs handwriting was
an occasion to be celebrated with the compilation of a volume of poetry,
Kyoto twenty verse sequences. In this case, the letter not only was valuable
because of the person who wrote it, but because the contents were

14

That is, Ihoku.

In modern Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo.
16 Literally, helping the fish stuck in a puddle of water in a wheel-rut.
15

BUSON AND HAIGA

177

particularly interesting and because it had previously been owned by

interesting people.
Busons story about the letter is a way of explaining his relationship
with Ihoku. Unlike most of the New flowering gathering stories, however, in
this one Busons own role is almost self-congratulatoryhe admits that
he was extremely generous to this poet and takes the credit for launching
his career. This makes it an exception to most Buson stories about
himself. In the end, however, Ihoku emerges as a person of great
courtesyhis appreciation of Busons help is so great that he is willing
to give him his most prized possession. Buson, for his part, again turns
away from the opportunity to own something valuablethis time
because he recognizes its importance to his friend. The story does,
however, share a theme with Busons other tales: in his reminiscences
about the past, he is careful to present those who supported him as
embodiments of bunjin ideals, both in excellence of character and also
appreciation for things of great literary and artistic value.
However, New flower gathering also contains some other stories whose
approbative nature is a little more in doubt. One of these concerns J
:
J of Yki established a second house and had an old man stay there as
caretaker. Even though it was in the middle of the town, it was surrounded by trees and luxuriant with plants, and because it was a place
where one could escape the hustle and bustle of the world, I myself stayed
there for quite some time.

While he was there, Buson spends his time studying haikai and Chinese
poetry. As the story continues, however, things take a turn for the weird:
in the middle of the night Buson is visited by a badger, who disappears
every time he and the caretaker try to find it. Finally, when a hunter
shoots a badger in a nearby wood, Buson realizes that this must have
been the one that was troubling them, and he feels guilty at having
contributed to its death.
Another example is an incident that Buson describes as having happened at Nakamura Fks house. It is one of the longer tales in New
flower gathering:
There is a man called Nakamura Hyzaemon who lives
in Shimodate, in Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei
haikai school, and his haikai name was Fk . He was of unequalled
wealth, and lived in a fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens
were full of unusual stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let

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loose birds, and the scenery of the gardens artificial mountain surpassed
views of nature. He was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes
the provincial governor would come to call. His wifes name was Omitsu
. She was the daughter of a rich man called Fujii So-and-so, and was
skilled at waka and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began to
go into decline, many peculiar things happened.

Buson happened to visit Omitsu while Fk was away, and she tells him
that the household would wake to find that mochi (cakes made from rice
flour) were inexplicably disappearing from their storage containers.
Eventually, very late one night while she was diligently working at her
sewing, five or six foxes appeared in the room. They seemed to come
out of nowhere, and went away just as mysteriously. Buson was very
impressed with her response to this frightening experience: she reacted
with exemplary calm and stoicism.
While on the face of it these accounts seem to be little more than
mildly grotesque tales of haunting, they also have a serious purpose, and
can give us insight into a different aspect of Busons relationship with his
patrons. As in all the New flower gathering stories that describe people
whose homes are haunted by supernatural beings, J and the Nakamura
family are represented as people of good taste and refinement. This is
keeping with what we saw in Busons introduction to the Around here:
Four kasen in one night, an appreciation for tales of the supernatural was a
mark of a cultivated character. In both the story of J and that of
Omitsu, the location of the events is the residences of the people
concerned. Both places are described in terms of extremely high praise:
J lives like a recluse in the city, much as Busons great friend and
mentor Shha did. So does Fk; however, his home is even more
splendidits elaborate garden full of rare plants, stones, and even birds
would be appropriate for any Chinese scholar-recluse to live, study, and
to entertain friends. He was prominent enough to entertain provincial
officials, and even the relative poverty into which the house had declined
at the time of Busons visit is presented as a case of what a Confucian
would regard as honorable poverty. His wife, too, is a woman of industry
and dignity; she works late into the night at her sewing, and is stalwart
even in the face of a visit from otherworldly creatures. The environments these admirable people inhabit are isolated and run-down,
precisely because they have turned their back on striving for worldly

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179

measures of success and instead devote themselves art and poetry. At the
same time, lonely, dilapidated houses invite the attentions of foxes and
badgers the way that more fashionable, well-maintained ones would not.
Thus the supernatural visits so prominent in Busons accounts are
actually a form of emphasizing the dedication of his patrons to a life of
transcending ordinary, everyday concerns, making them embodiments of
rizoku.
Busons New flower gathering also introduces humor as a way of calling
attention to the excellence of his friends. Like the stories associating
excellence with the grotesque, his portrayal of patron Hayami Shinga
seems on the surface at least ambiguous, if not frankly unflattering. The
story begins with Shinga sleeping with the shutters open, the better to
hear the affecting sound of the crickets chirping in the night. So far,
Shingas attitude is suitably tasteful. Next, however, a series of events
happen that leave us with a much different impression:
At about the Fourth Hour, he suddenly sat up in bed and looked outside,
and it was as bright as day from the dazzling moonlight. Several foxes sat
in a row on the veranda, waving their bushy tails. They cast very distinct
shadows on the shoji, and there are no words to describe how frightening
it was. How could Shinga stand it at that moment? He ran toward the
kitchen in a panic, and going up to a room where he thought the host was
sleeping, he knocked at the fusuma. Hey, wake up! he hollered at the
top of his voice. This awakened the servants, who made a big commotion,
yelling, Burglars! There are burglars here! Hearing this, Shinga himself
calmed down, and, his eyes fully awake now, he looked at what he was doing. He realized he was knocking on the door of the toilet, shouting, Sir!
Wake up! Help quickly! Later he spoke of this, and said, I am a fool,
even if I do say so myself.

This is one of the best examples of how Buson brings together the
grotesque and the comic. However, as he does in his other stories, he
adds another element: the aesthetic. Buson admired Shinga deeply; when
Shinga died Buson wrote what is perhaps his most emotionally raw
poetic and powerful work, the haishi Mourning the Sage Hokuju.
Given that this is the case, and in the context of the other New flower
gathering stories, it appears that in Busons circle of poets and art collectors who embraced the ideal of literati eccentricity inherent in the bunjin
ideal, laughter was to be prized, and people who behaved in a way that
elicited laughter were not necessarily ridiculous, but were instead viewed
as embodiments of this ideal. The bunjin ideal valued seeing through the
meaningless pretensions of conventional society, and people who had

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such insight were to be admired. Shingas behavior here was not quite
poetic madness; however, he was able to laugh at himself, and this was
also something that marked him as someone with a highly developed
personal character.
However courteous Busons stance towards his early patrons and
supporters appears in works intended for public consumption like New
flower gathering, the private face of his relationships with them is of a
somewhat different character. Instead of diffidence and respect, his
letters show a side to these relationships that was more direct and
emotional. The following is from a letter Buson wrote during his early
months in Kyoto to Momohiko, the son of Hayami Shinga. Momohiko
was probably in Edo at the time he received this letter, as his familys
sake brewing business had concerns there; his brother Denk, the letter
suggests, remained in Yki. The text is corrupt in several places.
To: [...] Yohachi, [....] Sawaragi ch
Please deliver this to the address above. Kindly affix it to the wall.
Please do not forget to deliver it.
Please obtain a line of calligraphy by Mr. Hirabayashi, or two or three
hanging scroll dipytchs. I would like to hang the in my studio here. And
some other people of good taste also definitely would like some. I humbly
ask this great kindness of you. This is the favor of a lifetime. I will paint
you a picture of Daikoku in return.
Ive been visiting various places in Kyoto. Ive spent a very interesting
time here. Recently I went to Fushimi and stayed there for a while. When
I remember the time when [...] danced, I laughed to myself. From time to
time I also compose some haikai. Im still pretty busy and I havent much
going on. When I have a year or twos experience of the place Im looking
forward to enjoying myself much more. Above all, Im asking you for Mr.
Hirabayashis calligraphy without fail. I am waiting for it eagerly.
Oshimi

Viewing mandarin ducks

oshidori ni
bi o tsukushiteya
fuyukodachi

mandarin ducks
replete with beauty:
woods in winter

There are many more besides that one, but Ive omitted the others. How
is Denk in Yki? I feel very nostalgic.

Hirabayashi Seisai (16951753) was a famous Edo calligrapher. Busons letter implies that Momohiko knew him, or was in contact
with someone who was. Buson asks for an example of his calligraphy not
only to copy and learn from it, but also to display it in his own studio.

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181

Other people in KyotoBuson calls them fryka, people of fry, a

word he often used as a synonym for haikaiwere also interested in
Seisais work. Buson emphasizes the urgency of his request with the
hyperbolic this is the favor of a lifetime, and he repeats it in his last
lines. In exchange for the calligraphy, he offers a painting of Daikoku,
the god of wealth; this was an appropriate gift for a merchant like
Momohiko.
The letter conveys the impression of a close friendship between the
two men. Buson describes how his recollection of one of their acquaintances dancing causes him laugh out loud, and says that the memory of
his brother and of Yki makes him feel nostalgic. This is in contrast to
his experience in Kyoto, which he imagines will take him a year or two to
get used to. Buson also includes a hokku, despite admitting that he has
not had much time to write anything of consequence. All in all, the letter
gives us insight into a number of things, but most obvious is the warmth
and intimacy of the relationship Buson developed with his patron, and
the way that their relationship revolved around the exchange of calligraphy, painting, and poetry.
This letter also is evidence of the difficulty that Buson had in getting
himself established in Kyoto. Despite the connections he already could
depend on by virtue of the his position in Hajins Yahantei school, which
included many disciples in Kyoto area because Hajin had spent several
years there between 1725 and 1737, Buson was still not able to find a
secure professional foothold there right away. As a result, he went to
Miyazu in Tango Province in search of better prospects.

Busons Miyazu Patrons: Kensh-ji Temple

Miyazu is about 600 kilometers (366 miles) away from Kyoto. Although
it was not far in terms of distance, getting there from Kyoto involved a
rough journey over some very difficult mountain roads. However,
Miyazu was famous for its beauty, and tourism was one of its major
industries, in addition to the production of chirimen (silk crepe). Miyazus
prosperity and its proximity to Kyoto made it a good location to seek
painting clients because many of its inhabitants had some exposure to
the cultural life of the ancient capital, and had levels of education similar
to the people Buson knew in Yki and Shimodate.

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Busons comments about his life during this period are sparse. In
Chapter Three we saw the letter he wrote to Shzan while in Tango, in
which he described its dialect as unpleasant and the locally popular style
of haikai as unpalatable. Despite this avowed lack of affinity for the
place, for reasons that are not clear, Buson eventually took the name
Yosa for himself; Yosa is a district not far from Miyazu, so he may
have developed a deeper attachment to the place than this letter suggests.
Also, while not many of the hokku that he wrote during this time survive,
the number and quality of extant paintings from this period are testimony to the fact that his experience here was very good for the development of his artistic skills. Many of the works he completed during this
period are very large, including some six-panel screen paintings. Like the
paintings he did during his years in the northeast, these reflect the
influence of many different styles, but many of them display a level of
confidence and certainty evident in few of his earlier paintings.
During the three years he spent here, he lived mostly at the Pure Land
temple Kensh-ji, the guest of a priest there, Chikukei, who was a haikai
poet. Buson probably received an introduction to Chikukei from one of
the many Pure Land temples in Kyoto. Buson was not deeply religious,
though because for several years he sometimes signed himself Shaku
Buson (Priest Buson) scholars have speculated that he must
have received some kind of Buddhist training. However, as we have
seen, Buson frequently stayed at temples in places where he was without
a more permanent residence. Temples were usually prepared to give
lodging to visiting pilgrims, and in a time when inns and other facilities
for travelers were still relatively limited, it was not uncommon for people
to find accommodation in temples, even while on journeys whose
purpose was not actually religious.
One source of information about Busons time at Kensh-ji is the
story in New flower gathering, where he describes his experience of being
repeatedly awoken in the night by a mischievous badger. In this Chikukei, Busons host, is presented in rather undignified, even comic terms.
The story begins with Buson falling ill with a fever, and taking refuge in a
back room at the temple. One night, getting up to use the toilet, he
draws back the sliding door. Stepping into the next room, he is shocked
when his foot touches something small and furry. He is even more
disturbed to find that the mysterious object almost immediately disappeared. Though he calls for help from the resident monks, they resent

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183

having their sleep disturbed and complain that his fever is making him
hallucinate.
Feeling embarrassed because I had been given such a scolding, I too got
back into bed. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone
had been laid on my chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my
voice was within the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over
and said, How extraordinary! Whats the matter? and saved me by waking me up. When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had
experienced, he said, Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be
the work of that badger.
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like fallen
petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the walkway.
And so, even those people who before had said I was talking nonsense
and scolded me, said wonderingly, Hm, maybe it really was something.
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry to
wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying that
this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on his
testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi jo no
Kinkakuji

autumn passes, and looking back

eight j of camphor
in the Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Chikukei

As in the episodes Buson recounts from his journey to the northeast, the
focus of this story is the visit of a supernatural being. It is very similar to
the tale of Shingas experience, involving the invasion of his room by a
strange creature and a nocturnal visit to the toilet. The humorous side of
things is even more apparent in this story, with the very frank and earthy
description of his Chikukeis private parts. Busons story provides a
context for Chikukeis poemShukaku was a legendary monk of Morinji temple in Tatebayashi (modern Gunma Prefecture) who seemed to
have magical powers and was rumored to be a badger in disguise; an
eight j-sized room at Kinkaku-ji was built with camphor wood boards;
the testicles (kindama) of a badger were thought to be a prodigious size;
kaku means both pavilion and to scratch. Despite the fact that

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Chikukeis image is somewhat repellent here, Busons story provides a

backdrop that showcases his poetic artistry. Also, as we saw in the
Shinga story, Busons depictions of his friends in a comic light is actually
a form of praise, in that it speaks to their connection to the ideal of
convention-breaking eccentricity. While Chikukeis appearance is
laughable, he is the only one of his colleagues to understand the true
source of Busons trouble; likewise, even though the circumstances are
completely bizarre, he is ready with the perfect poetic quip. Thus, in
spite of its comic tone and earthy content, this story can be read as an
expression of gratitude for Chikukeis three years of hospitality.
A picture that Buson painted to commemorate his friendship with
Chikukei also exists. Called Three Haikai Immortal Priests it is a very
rough, almost cartoon-like depiction of Chikukei, Roj of Shinshji temple , and Ryha of Muen-ji temple . Both
Shinsh-ji and Muen-ji were Miyazu temples. Like Chikukei, Roj and
Ryha were also haikai poets. The inscription on the picture was badly
damaged by firewhat remains of it is enough to suggest that the text
was very light and playful in tone, written in informal, almost conversational language. The three priests are shown standing in conversation
with one anotherRyha and Roj on the right, wearing wooden clogs;
Chikukei is on the left, barefoot. To the left of the three men are sotoba,
grave markers made from wooden planks. Roj has a stern look on his
face, but Chikukei and Ryha are laughing. Although it is not a great
work of art, Three Haikai Immortal Priests is interesting for a number
of reasons. It represents the three men in a humorous way that is more
charming than disrespectful. As we saw in the case of New flower gatherings stories of Shinga and of Chikukei himself, a comic depiction actually
does honor to its subject by bringing it into the realm of aesthetic
eccentricity and humor that was fundamental to haikai. Even though he
does not directly praise the poetic skills of his friends, Busons portrait
shows them to be amusing and unconventional; we can assume that their
haikai is much the same.
Busons writings to and about his patrons are vivid and in many cases
highly imaginative and playful. However, his regard and affection was
matched by a corresponding degree of dependence. Without the good
will of his patrons, Buson would not have prospered: in his early life he
relied on them for room, board, and the access to resources he need to
equip himself as a painter, and even after he established himself in Kyoto
he still needed their constant support. Beneath the drama and charm of

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185

these texts, then, was anxietythe need to flatter, cajole, and ingratiate
himself with wealthy people enough to earn their patronage. Busons
career as a painter might have enabled him to shun aggressive selfpromotion as a haikai poet, however, the pressures he faced as a painter
remained strong nonetheless.

Haiga: An Introduction
These pressures had influence on another area of Busons work where
painting and poetry intersect: haiga. The majority of Busons haiga date
from the early 1770s and afterward, from around the time that his
position as a Kyoto painter was more secure and he took on the
leadership of the Yahantei school. As a form of art that could be
produced quickly and cheaply, haiga were a perfect tool for a painter like
Buson who was chronically short of funds, even during his most
productive years.
Haiga are works in which haikai text and image combine to form a
single, integrated whole. Haiga were quite different from the pictures that
professional artists like Buson typically painted. Most were on a very
small scale, often a single hokku paired with a simple sketch. Both
inscription and image were supposed to appear spontaneous and
immediatea direct expression of a single moment.
Haikai poets were not necessarily brilliant painters. However, regardless of its aesthetic qualities, the calligraphy or painting of a haikai poet
had its own value as a visible trace of a persons character, much as
autographs might be viewed today. It was not unusual for editors to
compile facsimile collections of poems inscribed in the handwriting of
the poets who composed them, like Motsus Ancient and modern poetry
collection, because the handwriting itself was an important object of study,
and contributed to the readers appreciation of a poem. In the same way,
the brushwork of a painting also value regardless of how technically
skillful it was.
Haiga were informal and dashed off in a hurry, giving the impression
of having been created impulsively. In this way they are similar to hokku,
which are supposed to seem fresh and spontaneous even though they
might have undergone numerous revisions, or verse links that were
composed on the spot in reaction to another persons maeku.

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Haiga resemble hokku and linked verse in other ways, too: most importantly, both create a sense of surprise by bringing together incongruous images. The connection between the images is close enough that
viewers can perceive it, but not so close that it seems tediously obvious.
Hokku and linked verse accomplish this using words alone. Ambiguity
and implicationleaving out information in order to cue their viewers to
supply itare extremely common. Hokku, for example, frequently create
multiple layers of meaning expressed through homophony, pivot words,
and the like. In linked verse, the writer of the tsukeku seizes on one of
several interpretations of a maeku and builds on it to form the next link.
Haiga also operate this way, but the inclusion of a visual element places
the focus even more on implication. The artist and writer choose exactly
the right image to pair with a text, and add no more detail than is
absolutely necessary to trigger recognition and insight. The pleasure the
reader-viewer has in haiga is that of guessing the connection between the
text and the image, and in the most interesting haiga, connections are
very subtle indeed.
Curator and art historian Okada Rihei calls haiga something that acts
as haikai, in the form of a picture.17 In Okadas view, haiga are different
from other similar-looking kinds of Japanese art, arguing that they bear
only a superficial resemblance to works such as the Frolicking birds and
beasts (Chj giga , early 12th c.) attributed to Toba Kakuy
(10531140), ink sketches by medieval monks, and cartoonlike drawings by tea masters. Likewise, not every picture painted by a
haikai poet is necessarily haiga. The essential distinguishing feature of a
haiga, Okada argues, is what he calls haikai spirit (haikai seishin
). While this is difficult to define, it is related to the fact that
the producers of these works were commoners rather than aristocrats,
and they tended to infuse their works with humor and a sense of fun.
Also, while references to the natural world were common in haiga verses
and images, the main focus was on depicting the realities of the daily life
of the lower classes. 18
The word haiga did not come into use until the Tenp period. Buson
did not use this word himself; he referred to his haikai pictures as haikai
rough sketches . The first use of haiga is attributed
to Watanabe Kazan (17931841):

17
18

Okada Rihei, Haiga no sekai (Tank Shinsha, 1966) p. 1.

Okada Rihei, Buson to haiga (Yagi Shoten, 1997), pp. 2829.

BUSON AND HAIGA

187

Haiga is that which takes aesthetic refinement (fry) as its first principle.
In the Genroku period there were people like Itch (Hanabusa
Itch, 16521724) and Kyoriku (Morikawa Kyoriku , 1656
1715); in terms of style, Shinsei (Ogata Kenzan , 1663
1743) was better. This aesthetically refined taste (fry no omomuki) is not
an ancient one; it probably started with people like Takimotob
(Shkad Shj , 15841639) and Krin (Ogata Krin
, 16581716). Among haikai poets Ryh was outstanding. In
recent years, Buson and his school have come to be thought interesting. It
is important to paint keeping all of these artists in mind. Making everything too perfect is not good; to a certain extent paint badly. To put it in
human terms as an example, being clever and shrewd in ones behavior or
a good talker is bad; knowing little of the world and stuttering navet is
seen as aesthetic refinement (fry), and one should try to achieve this and
introduce it into ones work. 19

Few modern commentators would share Kazans views in linking haiga

with Kenzan, Shkad, and Krin. Kenzan was a potter, Shj was a
calligrapher, and Krin was a painter; none of them wrote haikai.
However, Kazans point is that the origins of haiga are in a style that
rejects fussiness and perfectionism; if one wishes to paint this way, he or
she should first study and learn not only from the example of haikai
poets but also that of non-haikai poets who achieved this ideal.
The early twentieth-century scholar Ebara Taiz offers another definition of haiga, one that gives some insight into the way it creates a
relationship between visual and verbal components. Ebaras argument is
similar to Okadas; he argues that there are two essential qualities of
haiga: one, okashimi, or humor; and two, its emphasis on contexts derived
from ordinary life. While other kinds of paintings like those done by
monks or other painters with literary pretensions may resemble haiga in
their simplicity, haiga are marked by this special characteristic combination of both humor and a sense of connectedness to the daily life of
commoners. Another genre that also arose in the early modern period,
ukiyo-e (floating-world pictures) show a similar degree of connectedness with ordinary life; ukiyo-e might also depict its subjects in a humorous way. However, the third and most important aspect of haiga distinguishes it from ukiyo-e as well as other kinds of painting, and this is its
reliance on yoj overtones or implications. As he argues:

19

224.

Ebara Taiz, Haiga, Ebara Taiz chosaku sh, vol. 13 (Ch Kronsha, 1979), p.

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Though haiga are usually considered works with abbreviated or rough

brushwork, or works that manifest aesthetically refined taste, haiga are
nothing other than works that make their primary focus an aesthetic of
overtones (yojbi). There are various kinds of theories regarding the principle of overtones in waka, renga, and haikai, but basically, it is what expresses meaning by triggering an association or an intuition of the broadest possible time and space that lies behind or within direct expression.
Thus some of the many explanations say that it depicts the beauty of what
is not revealed in language or does not appear in scenery, or it is an expression of only the trace of the unsaid or unlooked-for (that which is not
described according to the logic of causality). The reason Essays in idleness
asks, Are we to look at the blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only
when it is cloudless?20 is because there are no overtones when things are
expressed completely.21

Yoj, then, can be understood as expression that conveys more than what
it literally says. Ebara associates overtones with a number of different
aesthetic terms: in waka, it is related to ygen (mystery and depth), in
renga, sabi (austerity), hie (chill), yase (slenderness) or fuke (profundity). In
the case of the 31-syllable waka, implication was an essential part of
expressing the poets message, because the shortness of the form itself
placed limits on what could be said directly. This became even more
important in renga and haikai, which gave poets only 17 or sometimes as
little as 14 syllables to work with. Thus, haikai poets had to devise ways
to give eloquence to what was left unsaid. This same habit of thought
and expression, Ebara argues, transferred itself to a form of painting in
which much of the picture space was left open and unpainted. Again,
while unpainted space is not uncommon in Chinese and Japanese
painting as a rule, haigas identifying characteristics remained its focus on
the daily life of commoners, and its liberal use humor.22
Ebaras explanation of yoj in haiga points to how completely integrated haiga was with poetry, especially linked verse and hokku. The
relationships between haigas visual and verbal images follow rules that
governed verse sequences. These rules were highly complex and
technical, and they varied depending on the historical period and school.
The earliest formulation of linked verse rules was that offered in waka

20 Episode 137, Are we to look at the blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only
when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds
and be unaware of the passing of the springthese are even more deeply moving.
Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 115.
21 Ebara, Haiga, p. 228.
22 Ibid., pp. 228229.

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189

and renga theorist Nij Yoshimotos (13201388) Hekirensh

(Bent links treatise, ca. 1345, the basis for Renri hissh), which
proposes fifteen different kinds of linking. His formulation was further
refined by renga luminary Sgi, and later, Sboku (d. 1545) came
up with four categories to classify links. Haikai poets also produced their
own treatises on the subject, those of Kitamura Kigin (1624
1705) and Sait Tokugen (15591647) being most widely
read. 23
In the early stages of haikais development, the most common ways of
creating links in verse sequences were monozuke , literally, object-link
(also called kotobazuke , literally, word-link) and kokorozuke ,
content-link (also called kuizuke , verse meaning-link). Monozuke
can be understood as links that draw connections based on the established associations of a word or phrase, especially those derived from the
classical literary tradition. For instance, Mount Fuji was associated with
smoke, partly because of the objective fact that, being a volcano,
smoke sometimes rose from its summit; but even more strongly because
for centuries writers had alluded to Mount Fujis smoke in literature.
Likewise, the verb yoru (to twine) was associated with the noun ito
(thread).24 By contrast, kokorozuke ignored the established associations of
specific words, and instead made a link based on the previous verses
meaning or content. The following two pairs of examples illustrate the
difference:
no wa yuki ni
karuredo karenu
shion kana

under snow, the fields

have withered, yet still unwithered
is the aster

Sengin
taka no egoi to
ne oba naki ato

trace of the crying

call of a hawk seeking sustenance25

Kigin
This pair of verses is taken from a sequence included in Memorial haikai
on the thirteenth anniversary of the passing of Elder Teitoku (Teitoku jsan kaiki

23 Higashi Akimasa, Renku nymon: Bash no haikai ni soku shite (Ch Kronsha, 1978),
p. 104.
24 A detailed discussion of different types of linking is in Higashi, pp. 104118.
25 Ibid., p. 20.

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CHAPTER SIX

tsuizen haikai ). In Under snow, the fields

(no wa yuki ni) Sengin conveys a sense of grief for Teitoku by making use
of the fact that aster (shion ) is homophonous with affection for
ones teacher (shion ). Thus the verse implies that, while the snow
has caused the plants in the surrounding fields to die, an asterand
likewise, the speakers feeling of gratitude towards Teitokustill blooms.
The relationship between this verse and the one that follows it is built on
the principle of monozuke. In the seminal verse-linking handbook
Companion boat (Ruisensh , 1676) that was widely used by the
Teimon and Danrin schools, yuki (snow) is associated with taka (falcon).
Thus Kigin matches Sengins verse about a snowy field with one that
refers to a falcon.
In this pair, the start of an early Bash-school sequence, the link relies
on kokorozuke:
ara nan tomo na ya
kin wa sugite
fukutojiru

nothing much happened

yesterday is gone:
puffer fish broth

Tsei (Bash)
samusashi satte
ashi no saki made

the chill has departed

even from my feet26

Shinsh (Yamaguchi Sod)

Bash (using the haikai name Tsei) starts off his extravagantly irregular
verse with a line from the N play The Reed cutter (Ashigari ), where
the title character laments the bitterness of his lonely life:
Yesterday was wasted
Today has come to an end;
Tomorrow will surely be the same.
I was merely trying to prolong
A life that counts for no more
Than a grain of sand on a wave-beaten shore;
Here among the stalks wet with soon-vanished dew
I have become a cutter of reeds.27

26

Ibid., p. 22
Donald Keene, Twenty Plays of the N Theater (New York: Columbia University Press,
1970), p. 153154.
27

BUSON AND HAIGA

191

Bash changes the phrases meaning slightly to give voice to a speaker

who is relieved to have lived to see another day after having eaten some
delicious but potentially poisonous soup made with puffer fish (fugu).
Shinsh (better known as Bash disciple Sod) responds with a tsukeku
where the speaker describes a sensation of warmth that has penetrated
right to his toesthat is, from eating the puffer fish broth mentioned in
the previous verse. This is a kokorozuke because the connection is entirely
based on the situation portrayed in the preceding verse; it does not rely
on the fixed association of one word with another, as does the first
example.
The Bash school poets went beyond monozuke and kokorozuke, and
developed a group of verse link categories that can be collectively
referred to as nioizuke, or scent links. As Haruo Shirane argues in his
detailed article Matsuo Bash and the Poetics of Scent, these are
verses in which the tsukeku is connected to the one that precedes it by
overtones or shared connotations, rather than by lexical associations (as
in monozuke) or content (as in kokorozuke). Shirane quotes Kyorais treatise
where it explains:
The Master [Bash] said, The hokku has changed repeatedly since the
distant past, but there have only been three changes in the haikai link. In
the distant past, poets valued lexical links. In the more recent past, poets
have stressed content links. Today, it is best to link by transference, reverberation, scent, or status.28

The historical development of linking described in this passage is an

oversimplification, but it does indicates that Bash and his students were
conscious of the fact that what they were doing was distinctly different
and better than the way that their predecessors wrote haikai. Above all,
they wanted to avoid making links that were too close or too obvious.
Instead, the kind of linking they preferred is that which opens a space for
the reader to step into and fill by recognizing the connection implied by
the overtones (yoj or yosei) of the maeku and the tsukeku. Bashs terms
transference (utsuri), reverberation (hibiki), scent (nioi), and status (kurai)
all refer to this kind of subtle technique. Shirane compares this with the
cinematic term montage, and quotes Sergei Eisensteins explanation
that calls montage an idea that arises from the collision of independent

28 Shirane, Matsuo Bash and the Poetics of Scent, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
52, 1 (1992): 78. The translation is by Shirane.

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CHAPTER SIX

shots29 in which the viewer appreciates the connection between

seemingly unrelated images by recognizing similarly subtle similarities
links between them.
It is not necessary to look as far as modern cinematic technique for a
visual version of nioizuke. This is precisely the kind of connection that we
typically see in haiga. The scent link, or more broadly cast, connections
based on overtones (yojzuke or yoseizuke ) were the basis for the
connections between language and text in haiga. In some cases, the
picture in a haiga acts like an illustration, providing a visual depiction of
an image alluded to by language in the inscription. This kind of haiga,
however, is the least impressive. Instead of inviting the viewers participation in creating the meaning of the text, it merely elaborates on
information already provided. Instead, the most effective haiga follow the
principles of nioizuke, juxtaposing images whose connections took some
intuition or calculation to uncover.
To get a better idea about how this relationship works, let us take a
look at two examples. The first is by Sakaki Hyakusen, a pioneer nanga
painter and Buson associate (Figure 2). This haiga is the first in a series of
small compositions, each on the topic of a different month of the year.
The compositions were pasted onto a mounting and made into a folding
screen (bybu). The painting for the First Month shows a sleeping
scholar, his head pillowed on crossed arms resting on the surface of his
writing desk. To his left on the desk is a closed book. In a few brushstrokes, Hyakusen indicates that the scholar is Chinese: his clothing
appears distinctly continental and the lines of his desk are more ornate
than is typical of Japanese furnishings. Otherwise, the picture space is
empty. Nothing else that might offer a clue appears in the upper part of
the painting: except for the artists signature, the only other element is
the hokku inscription. What does this scene depict? Reading the hokku
makes everything clear:
hatsu yume ya
ch to naritemo
mada samushi

first dream of the year

even though I become a butterfly
Im still cold30

Hyakusen

29

Ibid., p. 86.
Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, eds., Haiga no bi: Buson no jidai: Kakimori bunko
tokubetsu ten, Haiga no nagare II series (Itami: Zaidan Hjin Kakimori Bunko, 1996), p. 34.
30

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193

Figure 2
First dream of the year. Haiga by
Sakaki Hyakusen. Nagoya City Museum.

Now the context becomes intelligible, as if the unpainted background

was suddenly filled in. To start with, First dream of the year (hatsu
yume) refers to the Japanese custom of taking note of the dream one has
in the first three days of the First Monthfortunate ones were believed
to indicate good prospects for the rest of the year. Thus, first dream of
the year is appropriate for a verse or painting whose topic is the First
Month.
In the second place, the verse also makes reference to a butterfly.
Butterfly is a spring season word, but that is not its functionthe
season word here is first dream of the year. Instead, it serves to
associate this first dream with what is perhaps the most famous dream

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CHAPTER SIX

in the cultural traditions of East Asiathe one described in the Daoist

treatise Zhuangzi:
Once Chuang Chou [Zhuangzi] dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself, doing as he pleased. He
didnt know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was,
solid and unmistakable Chuang Chou. But he did not know if he was
Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming
he was Chuang Chou. Between Chuang Chou and a butterfly there must
be some distinction. This is called the Transformation of Things.31

With that reference, the meaning of the picture becomes clear. The
image of a sleeping Chinese scholar huddled over his desk resonates with
the reference to butterflies and dreams, and despite the brevity of the
verse and the extreme simplicity of the painting, there is enough
information here to solve the puzzle. First dream of the year (Hatsu
yume ya) works like a hokku in that it both presents a high-culture
referenceZhuangzis dreambut undercuts it by referring to the
earthy, visceral sensation of the cold, and it does this by the juxtaposition
of the picture with the words. Instead of lofty philosophical speculation
on the nature of reality, we are presented with the ordinary physical
experience of feeling the discomfort of the cold in very early spring. It is
so cold, the picture and verse imply, that even the greatest of sages lays
aside his studies and bundles up in the warmth of his robe for a nap. The
information the verse offers provides an intelligible context for the
picture, but it does this through association, rather than direct description.
A haiga by Busons contemporary and frequent collaborator, Miura
Chora, works in a slightly different way (Figure 3). As it shows, instead
of complementing the verse, visual images in haiga could also set up a
contrast, creating an interesting tension in the composition. In this haiga,
the text of Choras inscription reads:
mono no aware wa
aki koso masare

the sorrow of the things in the world

is only intensified by autumn

aki no aware wa y
koso are

the sorrow of autumn is something

one feels all the more at dusk

31

Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 45.

BUSON AND HAIGA

nake nake to
ware o semekeri
aki no kaze

195

calling cry! cry!

it assails me
autumn wind32

Chora
The headnote is derived from two different literary sources. The first is a
line from a waka by Henj in the mid-Heian imperial collection, Anthology of waka gleanings (Shi waka sh , 10057):
aki yama no
arashi no koe o
kiku toki wa
ko no ha naranedo
mono zo kanashiki

when I hear
the sound of a storm
in autumn mountains
though I am not a leaf on a tree
I still sense the sadness of things 33

Henj
and the second alludes to Sei Shnagons Pillow book. In this famous
quotation from its opening lines, Shnagons topic is the best time of
day:
In autumn, the evening. When the bright setting sun has sunk very close
to the mountaintops, it is moving even to see crows flying toward their
roosts in groups of three or four or two. Still more delightful is a file of
geese looking very tiny. Then, too, the wail of the wind and the plaints of
insects when the sun has quite disappeared.34

Choras verse refers to what by his time had become conventionalized

expressions of perceiving autumns melancholy when feeling the chill of
the wind. However, the picture he matches it with is anything but
delicate. Rather, it is a bold depiction of an endearing but still scary
demon, holding a menacing stave. Juxtaposed with this image of a
demon, the meaning of the words in Choras verse nake nake to (calling
cry! cry!) and semeru (to bear down on) invites the readers imagination to oscillate between recalling an experience of being overtaken by
the dreary cold of the wind in a fast-falling autumn dusk, and a childlike
thrill of being spooked by the fear of a demon that one knows is not real.

32

Haiga no bi, p. 48.

Masuda Shigeo, Kubota Jun, eds., Waka bungaku taikei, vol. 32, Shi waka sh (Meiji
Shoin, 2003), p. 38.
34 Helen Craig McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose: An Anthology (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1990), p. 158.
33

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CHAPTER SIX

Figure 3
Calling cry, cry! Haiga by
Miura Chora.

Both compositions achieve what Okada describes as creat[ing] haikai in

the form of a picture. They juxtapose references to the classical literary
tradition with those drawn from the more commonplace contexts of
everyday experience and folk tradition, leaving it up to the reader to
recognize and enjoy discovering the connection between them. The
inscriptions are not captions that explain the visual images, nor are the

BUSON AND HAIGA

197

visual images illustrations of the inscriptions. Rather, both painting and

inscription both are essential elements of the work, and together they
create a single, seamless whole.
Scholars usually date the beginnings of haiga appeared to the latter
half of the seventeenth century. The first haikai poets, like Arakida
Moritake, and Matsunaga Teitoku, did not accompany their verse with
paintings. The earliest haikai poet to experiment with what might be
called proto-haiga was Teitoku disciple Nonoguchi Ryh
(15951669). Ryh was accomplished at painting and calligraphy as well
as at haikai, so his compositions were particularly impressive. He is most
famous for Poetic immortals at rest (Kysoku kasen ; also called
Reclining poetic immortals [Ensoku kasen ])an illustrated hand
scroll that portrays famous waka poets accompanied by a representative
verse. This kind of pairing of imaginary portrait with waka poem was a
standard subject in Japanese art. However, Ryhs series anticipates
haiga because it depicts its subject in a casual, irreverent way: one is
sitting with his sleeve rolled up to the shoulder, another is stretching and
yawning, for example. The brushwork is spare, almost careless. Ryh,
who grew up in a family of artists, was capable of painting with far more
technical skill, but he valued a more amateurish approach; his Memorial
anthology (Tsuitsh , 1670) described his painting in these terms:
As for painting and calligraphy, it is as if he had no training, he dashed
off pictures in a free, individualistic manner.35
Danrin poets Nishiyama Sin and Ihara Saikaku also painted pictures
to accompany haikai inscriptions; however, the most significant haiga
before Busons day was by Matsuo Bash. Bash was not an outstandingly talented painter, but his haiga attract interest because of his renown
as a poet. Many of Bashs haiga survive, but those that are the most
visually interesting are collaborations with specialist painters. Nonetheless, Bash believed that there was a close connection between haikai
and painting, and had a syncretic view of the arts that led him to argue
that the same essential quality was common to all of them. As I mentioned in Chapter One, Bash declares in Rucksack notebook, In Saigys
waka, in Sgis renga, in Sesshs painting, in Rikys tea, there is one
Way that runs through them. Bash makes the explicit contention that
haikai and painting are linked in a discussion he records as having had
with Kyoriku, who was his painting teacher as well as his haikai disciple.

35

Okada Rihei, Haiga no sekai, pp. 1516.

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It was published as a short treatise variously called Grass-hut farewell

(Saimon no ji ) or Words at parting from Kyoriku (Kyoriku
ribetsu no shi ):
Last autumn, I happened to meet Kyoriku. In the beginning of the Fifth
Month of last year he was returning to his home province, and I felt the
sorrow of his departure keenly. When the day of his departure came, he
came to visit me at my grass hut, and we talked until sundown.
This was a person who liked painting. He loved haikai (fga). I asked
him questions, just to see how hed answer.
Why do you love painting?
Because I love haikai, he answered.
Why do you love haikai?
Because I love painting, he answered.
Although he studied these two arts, they come down to the same thing.
Truly, as it is said, it is an embarrassment for the cultivated person to
have too many accomplishments, surely treating two arts as if they both
come down to the same thing is something to be admired.
He was my teacher in painting, and my pupil in haikai. However, his
understanding of the spirit of painting went very deep, and he used his
brush with great skill. His insight was of such profundity it was beyond my
capacity to understand.
My haikai is like a brazier in the summer or a fan in the winter. Going against the crowd is pointless. However, in the case of Shunzei and
Saigys waka, even those that were just tossed off spontaneously and experimentally have many moving aspects. Did not even His Highness Emperor Go-Toba say this in his writings things like, their verse has emotive
power as well as truth? Therefore, if we were to draw conclusions from
His Highnesss words, we must follow this narrow path closely, and not
lose our way. Seek not after the ancients, seek what the ancients sought
is something we can see in the writings of Kkai 36 also. Haikai is the
same, I said, lighting the lantern, and then with only these words as farewell, I saw Kyoriku on his way out of my grass hut.37

This text was included in Kyorikus preface to Japanese Selections of fine

literature (Honch monzen , 1706). Bashs comments about the
best way to write haikai, culminating in Seek not after the ancients, seek
what the ancients sought are frequently cited by commentators.38
However, the first part of this text is equally compelling because it sheds
light on the way that haikai poets viewed the relationship between poetry

36 Kkai (774835), also called Kb Daishi , was one of the most influential
Buddhist priests in Japan; he founded the Shingon sect.
37 NKBT, vol. 46, pp. 205206.
38 A similar phrase appears in Kkais treatise Spirit anthology (Shrysh, also
called Seireish).

BUSON AND HAIGA

199

and painting. Bash portrays Kyoriku as someone who makes no

distinction between the two arts. While Yoshida Kenk, writing in Essays
in idleness (Tsurezuregusa , ca. 1330) criticized people who failed to
concentrate seriously on one art form; 39 Bashs view was that it was
inappropriate to call this dilettantism because both painting and haikai
were essentially the same thing.
Inspired by their teachers example Bashs disciples like Kikaku,
Hattori Ransetsu, Kagami Shik, and of course Kyoriku also made haiga
part of their haikai practice. Though, like Bash himself, none were
outstanding painters, the many haiga compositions that they and their
colleagues in other haikai schools continued to produce further served to
underscore the close connection between word and image in haikai.
In the generation before Buson, several of the better-known haikai
poets composed credible haiga, including Five colors of ink poet Sakuma
Rykyo, and Osaka urban-school leader Matsugi Tantan. But it was not
until Sakaki Hyakusen that an artist equally accomplished as a painter
and as a poet emerged in the haikai community.
Hyakusen came from a commoner background; his family is thought
to have originally been Chinese. His parents were Nagoya merchants,
and he taught himself to paint. He acquired some proficiency in Japanese
styles such as that of the Kan school. However, most of his effort was
devoted to learning how to work in Chinese styles by studying paintings
and woodblock print copies of paintings that were imported through
Nagasaki. Not only was Hyakusen a skilled painter, he also wrote haikai,
having studied the rural Bash school of Shik. Hyakusen was primarily
painted Chinese-inspired hanging scrolls and screen paintings, but
because of his interest in haikai, he also painted haiga.

Buson as an Artist: Haiga and Nanga

However, Busons skill in the haiga form outstripped that of all his
predecessors, in part because he was one of the few haiga artists who
could claim an equal facility in both writing and painting. While technical
sophistication was not essential in haiga, some poets were more adept
than others at painting. Bash, for example, was unquestionably brilliant

39 Episode 122. Too many accomplishments are an embarrassment to the gentleman. Keene, Essays in Idleness, p. 105.

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as a poet, but, his paintings are nowhere near as accomplished as is his

verse; Hyakusen was better as a painter than as a poet.
Haiga was very useful for Buson because it appealed to just the sort of
client that he relied on: haikai practitioners with an interest in art. Also,
haiga allowed Buson to showcase all the skills as an outstanding haikai
poet at the same time as show off his abilities as a painter. Finally, while
haiga was not the same as nanga, the two genres both valued amateurism
and literary sensibility, as well has having painting techniques in common. Because the market for haiga and nanga overlapped, Busons work
as a haiga artist contributed to, rather than detracted from, the image of a
literatus that he tried to project.
Haiga was not the center of Busons practice as a painter. His inclinations were mainly toward the style of the Chinese literati school, what in
Japan was called nanga, southern painting. We see a reference to the
distinction between northern and southern painting in a letter
written to his patron, Ashida Kafu (17491784), where he
asks Kafus help in selling some paintings. Kafu ran a distillery in Izushi,
Tajima province. Buson got to know Kafu sometime in the 1770s, and
the two kept up a lively correspondence. Kafu served as a middleman for
Buson in sales of paintings to people living in the Tajima area. Busons
letters to Kafu were alternately chatty about personal issues and blunt
about business. Even years after he settled permanently in Kyoto, the
effort Buson put into building a client base in the provinces continued to
work to his advantage. The letter starts out with detailed comments
about the state of Busons health before turning to work-related matters:
In this season of extreme heat, I am glad to hear that you are well and
prosperous. I would like to tell you that I have been all right, but my elderly body is like an old houseas soon as one thing gets fixed, another
falls apart, and I have been spending my days conscientiously trying various kinds of medicine. In particular, over the past thirty days my right
hand has been numb, and, worried that it was paralysis, I have been trying
one medicine after another. It still does not feel like my hand. The sensation of numbness is such that, even though I pick up my brush, it does
not feel good. However all the doctors have said that it is not paralysis, so
I am relieved.

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201

1. Thank you very much for taking care of the fees from Ykitsu
40 and the others the other day and sending them to me. I am much
obliged to you for your help with this. This time, about the previous orders of:
Hanging scroll triptych: middle: God of Longevity41 left and right:
pictures of deer
Bash portrait
I sent these as well as two landscape paintings. In the previous order, you
asked for a bird-and-flower painting in intense colors. I have not painted
this yet. The other three pieces are not done either. I will send them to
you after Bon Festival.
2. As for the two landscape paintings I sent you this time, I painted
them in the Northern School style. This is a style I previously had not
worked in. For this reason, they do not look the least bit elegant to me.
However, they are pieces that really achieve an air of having been painted
by a Chinese artist. Still, because this is a style I have not preferred in the
past, they lack flair. I will trust to your judgment, so please sell them to the
country yokels in your area and send me the proceeds. They took a lot
more effort than I thought they would. As for the above-mentioned fee,
please do not discuss it with other people; I trust to your discretion.

Buson frequently commented on his age and the state of his health in his
personal writingoften it was his stomach that troubled him; here it was
his painting hand. His contempt for ignorant provincial clients is very
obviousthese were the same sort of people that he described as being
not worthy enough to compose haikai with when he was living in
Miyazu. For them, apparently, distinguishing between the different
schools of Chinese painting that Buson tried to emulate was beyond
their capacity. As consumers, they were only interested in the paintings
resemblance to work by Chinese painters in general. That quality alone
made these northern school works adequate for the market, even
though Buson acknowledged that he was not very proficient at this kind
of painting. Though does not explicitly mention the term here, the style
he preferred was the southern.
Nanga was a style that came into its heyday around middle of the
eighteenth century, and Buson became one of its leading proponents.
Nanga developed from ideas of the linkage of painting, calligraphy, and
poetry that had a very long history in China. The expectation that

40
41

Kafus father.
Jurjin.

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educated people were should be reasonably proficient in all three arts

had existed for centuries. While certain artists like Wang Wei and Su
Dongpo were admired for their outstanding abilities in both painting and
poetry, even ordinary scholars were expected to be able to do a bit of
both. A persons skill with the brush was taken as evidence of the quality
of his or her character, and this was true whether the product was a
poem, a visual image, or a piece of calligraphy. Furthermore, poems and
other texts were often inscribed on paintings, enhancing the power of
the visual image through masterful calligraphy and appropriate literary
references. In short, the three arts were seen as inseparably intertwined.
As Su Dongpo described the artist Wen Tong (10191079),
Whatever remains unexpressed by his poetry spills out of him as
calligraphy, or is transformed into painting: these arts are just the
overflow of his poetry.42
Chinese literati painting got its start in the Song period (9601279), as
scholar-officials began to develop a style of painting that placed more
emphasis on skillful, calligraphic brushwork than on the precise realism
favored by court painters. The close relationship between calligraphy,
painting and poetry continued to be a centerpiece of the Chinese literati
tradition that was established during the Yuan (12711368) period, as
scholar-officials chose to live as recluses rather than serve a government
run by foreign conquerors. It flourished even after a new, native dynasty
took power during the Ming period. As they were amateurs whose
primary goal was self-improvement and individual expression, literati
painters saw themselves as distinct from academic artists, particularly
those who worked as professionals in the imperial court.
Literati painting is intended to appear simple and uncontrived. Volumes, textures and outlines are primarily built up out of ink; colors, if
they are used at all, are pale and transparent. Often large areas of the
picture space are left empty, creating room for the viewer to participate
in the work of completing the picture with his or her own imagination.
Like fine calligraphy, literati painting was supposed to record the
traces of a highly cultivated character. The state of the artists level of
spiritual achievement was thought to be evident in the paintings he or
she created, and practice with the brush was a means to selfimprovement. As explained by one of the most influential painting texts

42 Maggie Bickford, Ink Plum: The Making of a Chinese Scholar-Painting Genre (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 101.

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203

to reach Japan in the early modern period, the Mustard seed garden manual
of painting, for the Chinese literatus learning to paint well was not just a
matter of acquiring technical skill, but to enter into a process of resolving
an almost mystical paradox:
Lu Chai says:
Among those who study painting, some strive for an elaborate effect
and others prefer the simple. Neither complexity in itself nor simplicity is
enough.
Some aim to be deft, others to be laboriously careful. Neither dexterity
nor conscientiousness is enough.
Some set great value on method, while others pride themselves on dispensing with method. To be without method is deplorable, but to depend
entirely on method is worse.
You must learn first to observe the rules faithfully; afterwards, modify
them according to your intelligence and capacity. The end of all method is
to seem to have no method.43

The distinction between southern and northern originates with the

Chinese artist Dong Qichang (15551637). Dong Qichang
divided the Chinese painting world into two parts, and identified them
with the Northern and Southern schools of Chan (Japanese Zen)
Buddhism. He linked the Northern Schoolwhich taught a way of
achieving enlightenment through gradual stageswith the work of
professional court painters, whose work emphasized skill, precision,
intense coloration, and realism. By contrast, he compared the Southern
school of Chanwhich emphasized the sudden achievement of
enlightenmentwith literati painting, which was spontaneous and
intuitive. Professional court painters produced their work to please
patrons; literati painted to cultivate and express their own inner selves.
While the Japanese had admired Chinese painting for centuries, the
style called Southern painting (nanga) that drew on this distinction
emphasized by Dong Qichang began to have its biggest impact in Japan
during the eighteenth century. Nanga, also called bunjin-ga (bunjin painting), frequently combined visual images with poetic inscriptions to form
powerful artistic expression. Its popularity was part of the widespread
increase in interest in Chinese culture that occurred at this time. Many
scholars and dilettantes who aspired to the bunjin ideal wanted to
purchase Chinese and Chinese-inspired goods, and a consumer market
for imported and locally produced literati painting emerged. Nanga was

43

Sze, p. 17.

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the style Buson turned to as he matured as a painter, and he was able to

tap into the market for nanga when he eventually established himself in
Kyoto from the late 1760s onward.
Nanga offered an alternative to established schools of painting like the
powerful Kan school. However, is hard to completely separate nanga
from Kan influence, since many artists who later distinguished themselves in the nanga style began their careers as Kan school disciples.
Even Buson, who was largely self-taught, started out by painting naive
imitations of Kan style paintings. Because nanga was not identified with
any of the established ateliers of the day, it offered outsiders like Buson
the opportunity to create a niche for themselves. Furthermore, the
patrons of nanga painters were not necessarily members of the shogunal
bureaucracy, as Kan school patrons frequently were. Nanga painting
held its strongest appeal for newcomers to the status of cultural consumers, the well-to-do merchants and farmers; in other words, exactly the
group of people who were also drawn to haikai. In short, nanga was
aspirational: both its artists and their patrons tended come from social
groups outside those that had the highest status.
Nanga and haiga had several things in common. Both nanga and haiga
brought together visual imagery and poetic inscriptions. Furthermore,
many of the same principlesemphasis on simplicity, impressionistic
representation, and literary sensibilitywere features of both. For
instance, the Mustard seed garden manual of painting makes a comment on
the power of a few simple brushstrokes to imply great complexity, a
point which could apply equally well to haiga:
[The style called hsieh i (write idea) is] giving the swiftly drawn impression
of an idea. In this style, it is very important that the brush move with
speed and vitality. Such was the calligraphy of Chang the Madman, who
was expert in tsao shu (grass writing), which was more difficult than chn
shu (regular writing). That is the reason the ancients said: If you paint
hurriedly, you will not have the necessary relaxed approach to grass writing. Painting in the grass style (hsieh i) is more difficult than the copyingstroke-by-stroke-style (kai hua). That is the reason for the saying Drawing must be linked with the idea (i), for without meaning (i) the brush
cannot function properly. Figures, even though painted without eyes,
must seem to look; without ears, must seem to listen. This should be indicated in one or two touches of the brush. Eliminate details to achieve the
simplest expression and the effect will be most natural. Actually there are
things which ten hundred brushstrokes cannot depict but which can be

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205

captured by a few simple strokes if they are right. That is truly giving expression to the invisible.44

However, in other respects nanga and haiga were markedly different.

Larger scale, complexity of composition, and a taste for sublime grandeur tended to characterize nanga. Haiga, by contrast, was more playful
and lighthearted. It provoked laughter or surprise, rather than a contemplative mood. This is what Okada Rihei called haigas haikai spirit.
In fact, haikai spirit was the very quality that gave critics of Buson
reason to find fault with his paintingnot just his haikai painting, but
also even his nanga. Indeed, not all observers regarded the interdependent relationship between Busons work as a nanga painter and a haikai
poet as an asset. For example, Tanomura Chikuden (1777
1835), writing in A Mountain-dwellers talks (Sanchjin jzetsu, ),
called Busons nanga painting was seriously flawed. He compares Busons
work to that of his contemporary Ike no Taiga, who also painted in the
nanga style:
Taiga has a fluid brush style; Busons is choppy. Taiga possesses orthodoxy and is without falseness; Buson possesses falseness and is without
orthodoxy. However, the two competed with one another throughout
their lives; they were friendly rivals.45

Chikudens observation that Buson and Taiga were friendly rivals was
probably accurate. Busons letters give the impression that he admired
Taiga, and Buson mourned Taiga when he died in 1776. On one
occasion the two artists collaborated, albeit indirectly, by jointly produced a 20-page album of paintings based on the Poems on the ten
conveniences of Yi Yuan and Poems on the twelve
delights of Yi Yuan of Li Yu, the scholar and playwright who wrote the preface to the Mustard seed garden manual of painting.
The album was probably commissioned by its first owner, Nagoya
amateur artist and poet Shimozato Gakkai . However, Buson
and Taiga had very different painting styles, and Chikudens description
of the two painters brushwork clearly favors Taigas, which is not
surprising considering Taiga was greatly admired for his calligraphy.
Even more damning is Chikudens assertion that Busons approach was
heretical, in contrast to that of Taiga, which Chikuden calls orthodox:

44 Ibid., p. 250. Hsieh i (pinyin, xie yi): ; tsao shu (cao shu): ; chn shu (zhen shu):
; kai hua (kai hua): ; i (yi): . Cited in Ogata, p. 251.
45

Cited in Tanaka, p. 132.

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Taiga faithfully followed the principles of the Chinese literati painting

style. By contrast, he called Buson heretical: Chikuden uses the word
ketsu deceit or dishonesty, accusing Buson of pretending to be
something that he is not. While he does not elaborate on his charge,
since Chikuden was a Confucian scholar as well as a nanga painter, clearly
there was some characteristic in Busons painting that made it deviate
from the standards represented by its Chinese models.
Chikudens contemporary, the nanga painter and native studies (kokugaku) scholar Nakabayashi Chikut (17761853) also criticized Buson by comparing his work to that of Taiga. In his Way of
painting diamond mallet (Gad kongsho ), Chikud finds
Busons painting deficient too, but his argument is more explicit than
that of Chikuden. Chikud writes that Taigas painting distinguished
itselfby its atmosphere of noble-minded openness ().
Busons painting could not compare, because it was diminished by its
haikai spirit (). Again, given Chikuds background his critical
view of Buson is understandable, but it does suggest two things: one,
that there was clearly a distinct haikai spirit that could be identified in
paintings, and that by the beginning of the nineteenth century there was
an idea of nanga orthodoxy that was at odds with haikai.46

Origins of Busons Haiga

Busons unorthodox approach to painting may be due in part to his
education as a haikai poet. As we have seen, Hajin, his teacher, admonished him to find his own way after learning what he could from the
haidans different competing factions. Buson later gave his disciple Shha
similar advice in the Shundei verse anthology preface, advising his friend to
ignore the petty distinctions of gates and doors (i.e., haikai schools)
and learn from even the worst examples.
However, Busons lack of orthodoxy might also be related to the fact
that he trained with no particular painting school or teacher. Of the few
texts that refer to Busons childhood, only one hints at when he might
have started painting. This is a surimono by Busons disciple Denpuku
, that was written to mark the third anniversary of Busons death

46

Fujita, pp. 6970.

BUSON AND HAIGA

207

(1785). Denpuku lived in Ikeda, now a neighborhood in Osaka; it was

not all that far from Settsu, where Buson is believed to have grown up:
Master Yahan (Buson) came to visit at my lodgings in Ikeda. He was a devoted admirer of the landscape around Gok (Settsu); moreover, he
met with someone who might be called a student, Ishin , and swapping stories of childhood fun from forty years earlier, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves; also, that was more than twenty years in the past.47

Sixty years before the date the surimono was published Buson was about
eight or nine years old. Ishin was the painter Momoda Ishin
(d. 1765). Scholars interpret this passage differently. Okada Rihei
believes that Ishin was some twenty years older than Buson and served
as an early mentor. Tanaka Yoshinobu disagrees, arguing that childhood
fun refers to both Buson and Ishin, and that the two were about
the same age and that painting was one of their amusements.48 No other
documents that give evidence of Busons background as a painter exist.
The oldest surviving Buson paintings date from his period in northeastern Japan, when he was in his twenties and early thirties. They are
tentative and unsophisticated works that resemble Kan school paintings
or primitive versions of nanga.
The earliest Buson haikai-related picture predates his paintings; it is
the one included in the 1737 anthology Fourth month principles to accompany the hokku at the convent / a cosmetic arrives / during the Ten
Nights ceremony (amadera ya / jya ni todoku / bin kazura) (Figure 4).
This would prove the first of many pictures Buson published in anthologies, the most elaborate of which were those in Light of the snow (1771),
Anei 3 Buson spring anthology (Anei sannen Buson shunkyj
, 1774), and Blossoms and birds collection. Buson also
composed a number of surimono that matched haikai inscriptions with
pictures. Haiga, strictly defined, are paintings, but many of the picturetext combinations included in Busons printed works operate according
to the same logic used in haiga, and offer further evidence of the close
relationship between text and image in haikai.

47
48

Tanaka, p. 8.
Ibid., p. 9.

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Figure 4
At the convent. Illustration from Fourth month
principles (Uzuki teikin).

Early Haiga (17541757)

Collected works of Buson (Buson zensh ),49 the most comprehensive and authoritative source on Busons work labels 123 of Busons
paintings haiga. This is in contrast to nearly 600 more conventional
paintings (nanga-style landscapes, depictions of historical figures, etc.)
and 30-odd small sketches that Buson included in letters and similarly
informal settings. Buson often substituted drawings of things in place of
words: in one letter, a picture of a mallet replaces the phrase uchide no
kozuchi (lucky mallet),50 in a 1751 letter; in a letter from the
1780s, several diagonal lines of pale ink wash take the place of shigure
(winter rain) in a hokku, and in another paragraph, a cartoon of an

49 Ogata Tsutomu, Sasaki Jhei, and Okada Akiko, eds., BZ, vol. 6, Kaiga iboku (Kdansha, 1998).
50 Depictions of Daikoku, the god of wealth, show him holding this mallet, which
grants wishes when shaken.

BUSON AND HAIGA

209

umbrella is substituted for the word kasa (umbrella).51 The overall

impression is one of a person who took an almost childish delight in
code switching between the language of words and that of visual images.
The earliest work Buson zensh classifies as a haiga reveals a similar
sense of playfulness: called Monster scroll (Ykai emaki), it
dates from the early 1750s. Monster scroll is a series of short texts
illustrated with fantastic, even ridiculous pictures of weird happenings;
like the Chora haiga of a demon that we looked at earlier, the creatures
Buson depicts are too charming to really be frightening. In one section, a
samurai stares bemusedly at a small army of tiny, baby-like beings
massing outside the room where he is trying to sleep. Another depicts a
pair of warriors who have melons for heads. A third shows a large,
catlike nekomata whose face is twisted into an expression that is
half snarl, half deranged smileand a samurai aiming at it with a gun.
The text inscription for this section reads:
At the Nagoya mansion of Lord Sakakibara, a nekomata appeared for several nights, meowing, and because this came to vex people, House Retainer Inaba Rokur faced one down with a harquebus, and that nekomata,
without the least trace of fear, pounded on its belly, saying Shoot here!
and Inaba, spooked, fired off some fifty rounds randomly, but the bullets
bounced off the nekomatas belly, pretty much missing their target, it is
said.52

Alongside the picture of the nekomata, where we might expect to see a

speech balloon in a comic strip, are the creatures words to the samurai,
Try hitting the hide of my belly! Meow! Meow! This scroll was done
around the time Buson was staying at Kensh-ji in Miyazu; clearly, the
supernatural was very much on his mind at the time.
However, Busons haiga were more than just amusing depictions of
the creepy doings of monsters. An early example of his more sophisticated haiga is one that links him with Sakaki Hyakusen, a painting of the
famous Miyazu scenic site Ama-no-hashidate (Figure 5). The painting
dates from around the time that Buson first arrived in Miyazu, in 1754.
Buson knew about Hyakusen from his reputation as a nanga painter, and
it may be that he chose to travel to Miyazu in part because Hyakusen had
lived there. However, Hyakusen died in 1752 so their acquaintance
would have had to predate Busons visit to Miyazu.

51
52

BZ, vol. 6, nos. 1 and 10, pp. 461, 462.

Text and images in BZ, vol. 4, pp. 4756 and vol. 6, pp. 380383.

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Ama-no-hashidate is a long and narrow pine-studded sandbar that

reaches across Miyazu Bay, one of the three great views of Japan.
Busons haiga depicts Ama-no-hashidate with a few simple shapes
mainly just a broad lateral stroke across the width of the painting that
indicates the land bridge and some dark and light forms dotted across it
to suggest its pine trees. The upper portion of the picture is inscribed
with a long prose headnote done in highly cursive calligraphy, in which
Buson states his agreement with Hyakusens rejection of too-close
identification with any single school or teacher, and his indifference to
fame and success. A partial quotation is given in Chapter One, below is
the full text:
Hassenkan Hyakusen enjoyed painting and aspired to the
style of the Ming (minp ); I, Ndjin Buson, dabble in painting, emulating the Han style ( kanry).53 We both have been amusing
ourselves with haikai poetry, tracing our lineages back to Bash. Hyakusen
was a disciple of Renjis style, but was not a member of the Renji faction. I
studied Shinshis teachings but do not imitate Shinshi. Thus if we fall in
the river let it be so, lets take one step up from the top of the hundredfoot pole.54 We are like that, neither of us has any interest in making a
name for himself in the haikai world. A long time ago, when Hyakusen left
the place to return to the capital, he wrote:
Hashidate o
saki ni furasete
yuku aki zo

at Hashidate
tears of rain fall early
autumn is leaving!

The verse I wrote when I made my farewell was:

sekirei no
o ya Hashidate o
ato nimotsu

a wagtails
tailat Hashidate
left luggage

He, as an advance guard, returned to the west of Kyoto, shoulder to

shoulder with six ris (23 kilometers or 15 miles) worth of Ama-nohashidates pines; I went back home to the eastern part of the capital,

53 BZ glosses minp as meaning the nanga style of bunjin painters, and kanry as the
Kan school. Shimizu Takayuki interprets kanry as meaning Chinese painting in general,
as opposed to Japanese painting; Yosa Buson sh, p. 324. Tanaka Yoshinobu agrees with
Shimizu that the word refers Chinese painting in general, rather than to that the Kan
school; Tanaka, p. 71.
54 Thomas Cleary, trans., No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan: A New Translation of the Zen
Classic Wumenguan [Mumonkan] (London: The Aquarian Press, Harper Collins, New
York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 201.

BUSON AND HAIGA

211

Hashidates rear guardsman. Together, chief scoundrels of the Way, are

we not making splendid progress? 55

The painting is signed Ndjin Buson, at Kanund . This

refers to the studio of Roj of Shinsh-ji temple, one of the priests that
Buson met at Miyazu.
Buson describes Hyakusens style as that of the Ming, and his own as
that of the Han. While both of these terms refer to Chinese dynasties,
some scholars have argued that Han actually means the style of the
Kan school, so Buson is saying that Hyakusen espouses Japanese styles
of painting while he prefers Chinese styles. Hyakusen did teach himself a
form of the Kan style, but he was not formally affiliated with the Kan
school and the paintings for which he is best known are nanga, i.e., no
more or less Chinese than Busons own paintings. It might be more
useful to view Busons contrast of Han and Ming as terms of
convenience that form a parallel with Shiks rural school haikai and
Kikakus urban school. Buson is not really trying to make a definitive
statement about his colleagues painting lineage, but rather arguing that,
no matter what differences they might have had in their training, both
Buson and Hyakusen shared a sense of contempt for the gates and
doors of orthodoxy, and instead had the courage to invent their own.
His phrase, the hundred foot pole comes from a passage in the
thirteenth century Zen Buddhist classic The Gateless barrier (Chinese
Wumenguan; Japanese Mumonkan ):
Master Shishuang said, Atop a hundred-foot pole, how do you step forward?
Another ancient worthy said, One who sits atop a hundred-foot pole
may have gained initiation, but this is not yet reality. Atop a hundred-foot
pole, one should step forward to manifest the whole body through the
universe.

Unlike Bash, Buson was not a Zen disciple; his association with
Buddhism was more in line with the teachings of the Pure Land sect.
However, he sometimes used references to Zen in his writings in order
to make a point, as we see in the Shundei verse anthology preface. Here he
compares his friend and himself to people of spiritual accomplishment,
whose state of mastery was sufficient to warrant a break from the
bounds of scriptures and teachings, and take a step forward into a higher
state of practice.

55

Text BZ, vol. 4, pp. 9495; image BZ, vol. 6, p. 383.

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Figure 5
Ama-no-hashidate. Hanging scroll.

The connection between the text and the illustration becomes clearer in
the next passage, as Buson describes the circumstances of Hyakusens
and his departure, and their farewell hokku. Hyakusens compares the
tears of parting to the cold drops of shigure, the intermittent rains that fall
in late autumn and winter. Busons compares the memory of his sendoff
to the tail of a sekirei (wagtail), implying that both are long, and that his

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213

feelings for the place will follow him like luggage sent to him after his
departure. Hyakusens standing as an artist in Miyazu was better than his,
and they went home to different sides of the capital, but both of them
did well as mavericks on the path of haikai.
The inscription and the picture have a very close connection and in
that sense are almost too obvious for a haiga. On the other hand, the
depiction of Ama-no-hashidate is so abstract as to be barely recognizable, so the viewer is challenged to read more into this composition than
the text or the picture directly supply.

Figure 6
Tanabata haiga by Hyakusen and Buson.

Another early Buson haiga is also associated with Hyakusen (Figure 6).
The work is a diptych, one panel of which is by Hyakusen and the other
by Buson. The diptychs theme is Tanabata, the night of the seventh day

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of the seventh month, when a pair of celestial lovers, Orihime (the

Weaver, associated with the star Vega) and Kengy (also called Hikoboshi, the Cowherd, associated with the star Altair)were allowed to
meet. The story goes that the Weaver and the Cowherd fell in love and
became so engrossed in their affections for one another that they
neglected their duties, causing chaos in the cosmos. As a result, the other
celestial beings placed the Milky Way between them. Once a year, on the
seventh day of the seventh month, they are allowed to meet. If the sky is
clear, the boatman of the moon will ferry Orihime to meet her beloved.
If it is raining, a flock of magpies meets and the birds join their wings to
make a bridge for the two to cross.
Hyakusens scroll shows a magpie. The inscription reads:
kasasagi ya
hashi kara sugu
watari tori

magpie:
when it leaves the bridge it becomes
a migratory bird

Hyakusen
The speaker in the verse imagines that the magpie, once finished with its
responsibility in the heavens, flies back to Japan as an ordinary migratory
bird. Hyakusens magpie perches on a branch with its wings folded,
resting from its long flight home. The connection between the verse and
the picture is not all that complicated: the picture shows the magpie
mentioned in the verse.
Busons response, however, is much more complex, and is a good
example of the linked verse-like connections between word and image
that were so common in haiga. The painting shows five mulberry leaves,
cascading from top to bottom in the long, narrow space afforded by the
hanging-scroll format. Alongside, Buson wrote:
Hyakusen had a verse about a magpie that bridged the Milky Way. He
wanted to have another hanging scroll to match it. In response, I took up
my brush and wrote the following:

ichi jin wa
sakaki ni jin wa
kaji no fune

first in position is Sasaki

second is Kajiwara:
mulberry leaf boats56

56

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 53, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 385.

BUSON AND HAIGA

215

Together, the verse and image create multiple layers of verbal and visual
puns that not only internally unite the different elements of Busons
painting, but also connect its content to Hyakusens painting.
On one level, Busons hokku refers to two heroes of the Gempei War
(11801185) whose story is told in Tale of the Heike, Sasaki Takatsuna
(d. 1214) and Kajiwara Kagesue (11621200).
These men were warriors on the side of the Minamoto clan, who fought
in the Second Battle of the Uji River (1184). Challenged by Yoritomo,
leader of the Minamoto clan, with the gift of an excellent horse each,
they vied with one another to be the first to cross the Uji River to face
their opponents, the Taira:
The Commander in Chief, Yoshitsune, advanced to the rivers edge and
looked out over the water. Perhaps he wished to probe mens minds, for
he said, What shall we do? Would it be best to go around to Yodo and
Imoarai? Should we wait for the river to subside? [...]
Hatakeyama no Shji Jir Shigetada, who was only twenty-one years
old, came forward to speak.... Ill test it for you. Five hundred riders
surged forward to align their bridles...
Just then, two warriors galloped into sight from the tip of Tachibanano-kojima northeast of the Bydin. One was Kajiwara Genda Kagasue,
the other was Sasaki Shir Takatsuna. Although neither had let his intentions show, each had made a secret resolve to be first across the river.
Takatsuna hailed Kagesue, who was about thirty-five feet ahead of
him. This is the biggest river in the west. Your saddle girth looks loose;
tighten it.
Kagesue...tightened it. Meanwhile, Takatsuna galloped past him into
the river. Kagesue followed, perhaps feeling that he had been tricked.
Look out, Sasaki, Kagesue cried. Dont slip up just because you
want to be a hero. There must be ropes on the bottom.
Takatsuna drew his sword, cut the ropes one after another as they
touched his mounts legs, rode straight across the swift Uji River on Ikezuki, the best horse in the world, and ascended the opposite bank. Kagesues mount, Surusumi, landed far downstream, forced into a slanting
course at the halfway point.57

In Busons hokku, Sasaki refers not only to the victorious warrior, but
it also recalls the word for magpie used in Hyakusens, kasasagi. Kaji
has an even more elaborate chain of associations. On the one hand, it is
the first part of the name of the warrior Kajiwara. In their race across the
Uji River, Sasaki was first, hence: first in position is Sasaki / second is
Kaji(wara).

57

McCullough, Tale of the Heike, p. 287.

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But kaji has other implications as well. On Tanabata, it was customary

to write poems on mulberry leaves and float them down a stream. This
verse from the imperial anthology New ancient and modern waka collection
(Shin kokin waka sh ) refers to the practice:
Tanabata no
towataru fune no
kaji no ha ni
iku aki kakitsu
tsuyu no tamazusa

the rudder of the ferry boat

at Tanabata
how many autumns
have been written on mulberry leaves
in jewels of dew?58

Fujiwara no Shunzei (11141204)

Shunzeis verse uses the technique of allusive variation (honka dori
)drawing on a line from an earlier poem on the same topic:
amanogawa
towataru fune no
kaji no ha ni
omou koto o kaki
tsukuru kana

the rudder of the ferry boat

that crosses the river of heaven
I have written out
all my feelings
on mulberry leaves59

Kazusa no Meoto (Go shi waka sh )

In these waka, kaji has two meanings: one, rudder, and two, mulberry. In
the phrase fune no kaji it refers to the rudder of the boat which ferries
Orihime to meet her lover. In the phrase kaji no ha it refers to the
leaves used by those who celebrated the Star Festival to write poems.
Finally, since Tanabata falls on the seventh day of the seventh month, we
might expect to see seven mulberry leaves here, but there are only five.
The missing two stand for the impetuous warriors Kagesue and Takatsuna, who have already crossed the river.
This pair of paintings is a good example of how much haiga rely on
yojovertones, or nioizukescent links: the linkages between their
different elements that are very distant and require a great deal of cultural
competence to decode. Unlike the Ama-no-hashidate haiga, which by
comparison is very straightforward in its language if spare in terms of
pictorial realism, this pair of paintings uses both oblique imagery and

58
59

NKBT, vol. 28, no. 320.

Ibid., p. 94, note 320.

BUSON AND HAIGA

217

complicated word games, and is as much a puzzle as a work of expressive art or literature.

First Years in Kyoto (17701777)

Some of Busons most interesting haiga were painted between 1770 and
1777, after he settled permanently in Kyoto, started to develop a
reputation as a nanga painter, and reopened the Yahantei school. They
were done in many different formats, but the most common kind were
small paintings on paper that could be mounted as hanging scrolls. Most,
but not all of them, follow the principles of nioizuke in linking text and
image. Buson worked on them without a collaborator, although in some
cases he includes a text by another writer to which his painting and
inscription respond.
The first haiga from this period that we will look at mentions Sakaki
Hyakusen again, but the inscription does not quote from his work
(Figure 7). Instead, it alludes to the writing of Bash disciple Kikaku and,
and to Hattori Nankaku, the Edo-based scholar of Chinese studies who
was a successor to Ogy Sorai. The picture shows a pair of manzai
dancers: itinerant mendicant performers who wandered the streets
during the New Year season. They visited from house to house, dancing
and reciting prayers for the good fortune of those inside. Typically one
member of the pair carries a folding fan, and the other, a small hand
drum. Both wear comic masks. Buson shows these performers holding
their propsone is dancing, the other keeping time with his drum. The
mood of the picture is jolly and appealing, appropriate to the theme of
wishing for prosperity in the new year. The inscription reads:
Kikakus verse:
manzai ya
kado o nokosanu
tsuru no awa

manzai dancers!
leave no ones gate unvisited
millet for the crane

Teacher Nankakus verse:

To their east, a thousand, ten thousand years old
There is only the city of Heian

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CHAPTER SIX

manzai no
fumi katametaru
ky no tsuchi

the manzai dancers

harden it with their feet
earth of the capital60

Buson

Figure 7
The manzai dancers. Haiga.

Kikakus verse refers to the custom of giving money to the dancers

cranes are lucky birds, symbols of longevity, but their appetites are
insatiable, much as is the appetite of the dancers for donations. Both
cranes and manzai dances were a common sight during the new year
season, though in the case of the cranes it would probably be as a picture
or other seasonal decoration, where as the persistent manzai dancers
would be present in person.

60

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 847, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 391.

BUSON AND HAIGA

219

The quotation from Nankaku, written in Chinese, comes from a

quatrain included in Nankaku anthology (Nankaku sh ). The entire
poem reads:
The kingdom of Zhou is already reverted to millet;
In the capital of the Han, fragrant grasses grow.
To their east, a thousand, ten thousand years old;
There is only the city of Heian.61

Because Buson uses the title sensei (teacher) after Nankakus name
(Nankaku sensei) it may be that there had been a direct, personal
relationship between the two. Buson was living in Edo at the same time
that Nankaku was active as a teacher there, so it is not impossible that
Buson heard his lectures; however, nothing that Buson or his disciples
wrote confirms this. Buson certainly absorbed Nankakus teachings
through colleagues like Kuroyanagi Shha, who had attended his school
in Edo, and Nankakus ideas were generally well known in Busons circle.
This haiga does not have the complex layers of wordplay and cryptic
connections linking text and image that Buson uses in his Tanabata
painting. Instead, it is more of a straightforward illustration of the scene
to which the inscribed verses allude. Commentators often describe verse
links whose connection is very obvious as betazuke clingy or
sticky link. In contrast to nioizuke, which requires thought and a literary
education to unravel, betazuke is cloying or easily perceptible. Whereas
the Tanabata diptychs elements are held together with overtones as light
and subtle as a delicate fragrance, by contrast, the relationship between
text and image in the manzai haiga is as strong as if it were reinforced with
thick glue.
Still, without a doubt, the figures themselves possess great charm, and
the poems are all properly celebratory and pleasant-sounding. Kikakus
verse is good-natured, for all its cynicism. Nankakus verse attests to the
unshakeable security of the capital that still stands after the great powers
of Chinese history have long since fallen. Busons suggests that its firm
stability has something to do with the weight of the footfalls of the

61

Cited in Fujita, p. 83.

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CHAPTER SIX

manzai dancersubiquitous and somewhat aggressive, perhaps, but

welcome nonetheless. This haiga was painted about the same time that
Buson re-established the Yahantei school, and can be interpreted as a
wish for success in this city with its long history of cultural giants.
The haiga version of a Buson hokku from Light of the snow that we saw
in Chapter Four might also be accused of resorting to betazuke:
gakumon wa
shiri kara nukaru
hotaru kana

scholarly brilliance
issues forth from your bottom
firefly

This painting is in the shape of a fana format that lent itself easily to
haiga because it was well suited to small, intimate-sized compositions.
The picture shows a thatched hut under some pines, and the wistfullooking face of the huts inhabitant looking out of his only window. The
hut is typical of Busons portrayals of the dwelling-places of hermits and
literati recluses, particularly Chinese ones; his nanga landscapes are full of
them. In fact, it is precisely because this is a stereotypical scholar
recluses hut that we can easily make the connection between the verse
and the image. The headnote that is included also identifies the nature of
the hut: Savoring the pathos of a solitary scholars retreat (ichi shosei no
kans o awaremu).
While the connection between the verse and the image is very close in
the sense that the latter is an illustration of the former, the haiga still
leaves certain things up to the imagination. For instance, there is no
depiction of a firefly. Even more dramatic is the extreme simplicity and
abbreviation of the painting. The image of the hut takes up the right
third of the picture space; the lines of the poem and Busons signature
fill the middle. The left third, however, is completely empty. Despite this,
the composition does not seem at all unbalanced. The empty space in
this picture is active and productive, conveying the impression of a larger
landscape.
Other haiga from this period show a greater level of complexity,
though. One of these shows a hototogisu flying over two clusters of
hydrangea flowers (Figure 8). The birds wings are spread and its mouth
is open, to suggest it is calling out as it flies. The bird is flying towards
the hydrangea; the flowers seem to be looking up towards it in greeting.
As in Scholarly brilliance (Gakumon wa), Buson has stripped the scene
down to its absolute minimum, leaving a large area of the picture entirely
unpainted, though here he depicts his subject in greater detail. The

BUSON AND HAIGA

221

hydrangea is in the lower left hand corner, its leaves and numerous petals
carefully outlined. The hototogisu is in the upper right hand corner, given
volume and shape by brushstrokes that mark out each of its dark
feathers. The hokku is inscribed just below it, in three short lines:
Iwakura no
kyjo koiseyo
hototogisu

cause the madwoman at Iwakura

to fall more deeply in love
o hototogisu62

Figure 8
Cause the madwoman of Iwakura. Haiga.

The hokku was written on the fourth day of the fourth month in 1773; it
was recorded in Transcriptions (Mimi tamushi )Buson disciple
Teramura Hyakuchis (17491835) handwritten record of
hokku he and his associates wrote in the 1760s1780sas one of the
verses composed for the set topic hototogisu. It was also published in
Korekomas Five cartloads of wastepaper in 1783.
This verse is particularly hard to follow without information about its
context. In the first place, Iwakura is in Kyoto. During Busons lifetime,
a waterfall at a temple there, Daiun-ji , was believed to be
efficacious for curing mental illness, and consequently was often visited

62

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1052, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 396.

222

CHAPTER SIX

by patients seeking relief from this condition. Thus there was a close
connection between the place name Iwakura and the mentally insane.
Beyond this reference, though, are several more literary allusions
embedded in the hokku. One cluenot included in the Transcriptions
version or the haigais the headnote in Five cartloads of wastepaper: an
insignificant person like myself could never be privileged to hear it. This
is a quotation from the 107th episode of Essays in idleness, a story about
rivalry between men and women:
Few men can give a quick and apt response to a witticism from a woman,
they say. During the reign of the Cloistered Emperor Kameyama, some
mischievous court ladies made a practice of testing young men who came
to court by asking them if they had ever heard a nightingale sing. A certain
major counselor answered, An insignificant person the likes of myself
could never be so privileged. The Horikawa minister of the interior said,
I believe I have heard one at Iwakura. The women said, Thats a perfectly good answer. The major counselors calling himself insignificant was
unfortunate.63

The hototogisu, or cuckoo, is a shy, elusive bird whose rarely-heard call

inspires feelings of love, longing and melancholy. Poets often exhorted it
to sing, as in Busons early verse hototogisu / sing to the painting / the
east is blanched white (hototogisu / e ni nake / shirojir); and the Bash
verse to my melancholy / add loneliness / cuckoo (uki ware o /
sabishigaraseyo / kankodori). Since its call was so rarely heard but was so
evocative of delicate feelings, being able to boast of having had the
experience of having heard it gave a person claim to a superior degree of
poetic sensitivity.
The hototogisu was not emblematic of marital infidelity, as the cuckoo
is in the European context. More importantly for a discussion of this
verse, its name has none of the associations with madness suggested by
the English word cuckoo. Nor is the image of the madwoman here
used to evoke a suggestion of someone behaving violently or repugnantly. Rather, Busons Iwakura madwoman should be read as tragic and
romantic: she is someone who has been driven out of her mind by love
for a man who has abandoned her.

63 Keene, Essays in Idleness, pp. 8990. Keene notes that Emperor Kameyama reigned
from 12601272, and was called the Cloistered Emperor until his death in 1305. He also
notes that the Horikawa minister of the interior refers to Minamoto no Tomomori
(12491316). He translates hototogisu as nightingale.

BUSON AND HAIGA

223

This image of the madwoman is common in N plays such as The

Well-curb (Izutsu ), where the ghost of a woman haunts the site of a
well where she used to meet Ariwara no Narihira (825880),
the famous poet and lover associated with the Heian-era collection Tales
of Ise (Ise monogatari ), or the N play Komachi at Sekidera
(Sekidera Komachi ), where the great poet and beauty Ono no
Komachi lives out her days wracked by bittersweet memories
of lost love. In Busons verse, because of its powerful associations with
longing and love, the call of the hototogisu makes the madwomans
feelings of grief and sorrow more intense, thus adding to her romantic
fascination.
This information makes the meaning of the hokku more clear. However, the linkage between the hokku and the picture is less obvious. How
are Iwakura, a madwoman, and a hototogisu linked with an image of
hydrangeas? To understand their relationship, we can look to the
conventions of kotobazuke, which allow for connections between words
based on fixed associations. In this case, as the modern scholar Ogata
Tsutomu has pointed out, the flowers of this plant are associated with
romance in poems such as Fujiwara Ieyoshis evocative
Fuboku waka sh (Japan waka collection, compiled 1310) waka:
tobu hotaru
hikari mie yuku
ygure ni
nao iro nokoru
niwa no ajisai

watching the glow

of flickering fireflies
at twilight
love lingers all the more
in a garden colored by hydrangeas

Fujiwara Ieyoshi64
This verse presents an image of the hydrangea in a dreamlike context of
long, languid summer dusk and the dim, uncertain light of fireflies, thus
associating it with romance. Hydrangeas bloom during early summer, the
same season when it was customary for poets to wait to hear the elusive
cuckoos call. As the waka suggests, the sight of hydrangeas is fitting one
for just such a melancholy vigil. With this source poem and others like it
in mind, the connection that Buson draws between the different
elements of his haiga begin to make sense. Much as the unpainted space
in the painting is left for the readers imagination to fill in, Buson links

64

Ogata, Buson no sekai, p. 271.

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CHAPTER SIX

the imagery of the hokku with that of his picture in a way that requires
the active participation of a very well informed and well-educated reader.

Figure 9
Young bamboo! Haiga.

BUSON AND HAIGA

225

A similarly complex haiga also relies on the readers knowledge of the

classical literary tradition to bridge the gap between the image and the
words (Figure 9). On a long, narrow hanging scroll, leafy stalks of
bamboo rise from the bottom of the picture two thirds of the way to the
top. One or two vaguely sketched huts, not all that different from the
one in the Scholarly brilliance haiga, are barely visible behind them. In
the top right hand corner, in the unpainted space above the tallest of the
bamboo, is a hokku and signature written in calligraphy whose taut
linearity echoes the straightness of the bamboo:
waka take ya
Hashimoto no yjo
ari ya nashi

young bamboo!
the courtesan of Hashimoto
is she still there, or not?65

This hokku appeared in Sequel to dawn crow in 1776. Like Iwakura,

Hashimoto is a neighborhood in the Kyoto area. It was a stopover for
boats traveling down the Yodo River to Osaka, and as was frequently the
case during this period in places where travelers were numerous, it had
many brothels. It was also famous for its bamboo.
First, the hokku. Hashimoto calls to mind the image of attractive
women, something which resonates with the image of the slender
young bamboo!: seeing so much young bamboo about, the speaker
imagines that there must be similarly graceful women living in the houses
there also. Also, Hashimoto is thought to be near where Busons mother
grew up. Buson never makes this explicitly clear in any of his writings,
but hints in several sources point to the possibility that his mothers
hometown was near the Yodo River. Thus the poem and the picture
together create the suggestion of femininity, mystery and longing,
simultaneously nostalgic and erotic.
The verse does not make it clear whether the speaker is wondering
about one woman in particular, or the many courtesans of Hashimoto,
but the phrase ari ya nashi (literally, there or not) hints that he is
referring to just one. This is an allusion to the Tales of Ise, Episode 9. In
this passage, a group of aristocratic travelers are prompted to give voice
to their yearning for absent loved ones hearing the name for a bird,
called by the locals capital-bird:
As the travelers continued on their way, they came to a mighty river flowing between the provinces of Musashi and Shimsa. It was called the Su-

65

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1265, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 399.

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CHAPTER SIX

midagawa. They huddled together on the shore, saddened by involuntary

thoughts of home. Weve come such a long distance, they said.
The ferryman interrupted their lamentations. Hurry up and get in. Its
late.
They embarked in wretched spirits, for not a soul among them but had
left someone dear to him in the capital.
A white bird about as big as a snipe, with a red bill and red legs, was
idling on the water, eating a fish. Its like was not to be seen in the capital,
and nobody could say what it was. When they consulted the ferryman, he
answered, Why thats a capital-bird, of course. Someone composed this
poem:
If you are in truth
what your name would tell us,
let me ask you,
capital-bird, about the health
of the one for whom I yearn.

na ni shi owaba
iza koto towamu
miyakodori
wa ga omou hito wa
ari ya nashi ya to
Everyone in the boat shed tears.66

Because Buson draws the phrase ari ya nashi ya from this source, readers
would recognize that his verse implies a mood of romantic longing.
Juxtaposing the rarefied world of the Tales of Ise with the more prosaic
setting of the brothels of Hashimoto at once makes a comic parody of
the classical source text and elevates a place from the mundane present
into the elegant context of waka. Thus Young bamboo! (Waka take ya)
exists both in the plane of ga and that of zoku simultaneously.
To add to this, the picture of the thatched hut brings in another set of
associations from the classical tradition: in this case the famous conversation between the poet-priest Saigy and the courtesan of Eguchi.
Included in Saigys personal verse collection Poems of a mountain home
(Sankash ), the story of their encounterin which the courtesan
showed herself to be a more subtle interpreter of the Buddhist law than
Saigy was himselfwas admired for centuries and was the basis for a
famous N play, Eguchi .
On the way to the temple called Tenn-ji, I got caught in the rain. In the
area known as Eguchi I asked at one place for a nights lodging. When refused, I replied as follows:
yo no naka o
itou made koso
katakarame

It is hard, perhaps,
To hate and part with the world;
But you are stingy

66

McCullough, Classical Japanese Prose, p. 42.

BUSON AND HAIGA

kari no yado o
oshimu kimi kana

227

Even with the night I ask of you,

A place in your soon-left inn.

The response by a woman-of-play:

ie o izuru
hito to shi kikeba
kari no yado ni
kokoro tomuna to
omou bakari zo

It is because I heard
Youre no longer bound to life
As a householder
That Im loath to let you get attached
To this inn of brief, bought, stays67

The courtesan reminds Saigy of the basic Buddhist teaching that any
dwelling placewhether it be a room a traveler borrows for the night, a
human identity, or an entire lifetimeis temporary and illusory. The
irony of a woman who trades in physical desire teaching the Dharma to a
monk who is supposed to have abandoned attachments deeply impressed the generations of people who became familiar with this story.
In the N play, Eguchi, the courtesan actually reveals that her true
identity is that of the bodhisattva Fugen (Sanskrit: Samantabhadra),
making her great wisdom a little less surprising, but further serving to
underscore the point that the things of the world are illusions. Busons
hokku and picture pick up on this story, where low (the courtesan) is
actually the high (a teacher of the Dharma, a bodhisattva)a meeting of
zoku and ga that is fundamental to what Okada Rihei calls haikai spirit.
Buson is making a deliberate choice when in depicting the courtesans
house as more or less indistinguishable from the thatched huts of
scholar-recluses that are so common in his other paintings. It is nothing
like the contemporary ukiyo-e depictions of courtesans and brothels,
which were often dramatic or lurid. What he offers us here is not a
depiction of an actual brothel in Hashimoto. Instead, it is just a reference
to an imagined literary place: the setting of the N play Eguchi, overlaid
with references to the romantic Tales of Ise whose overtones are further
emphasized with the addition of graceful stalks of bamboo.
Nowhere near as complex, but nevertheless exquisite both for its
poetry and its visual imagery, are the many versions of the verse:
hana o fumishi
zri mo miete
asane kana

that she walked beneath the blossoms

is visible even on her sandals
sleeping late this morning68

67 William LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 7071.

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CHAPTER SIX

Figure 10
That she walked beneath the blossoms. Haiga.

The most striking are the two fan-shaped haiga that depict a woman,
probably a courtesan, seated on the floor with her back to the viewer
(Figure 10). In one, she holds a letter up to read. In the other, she just
stares into the distance, with the dark shape of her obi sash balancing out
the black mass of her upswept hair held in place with an elaborate comb.
Another version, in a more conventional painting format, shows nothing
but a single sandal, its brocade strap suggesting an elegant owner.69 Each
version has a slightly different headnote, a variation on: Heart taken by
the blossoms, one puts aside everything, even to the point of seeming
like a lazy person in all things, is this not something that is touching and
graceful?
Considered alone, the hokku can be read an aisatsu to a friend who has
displayed the proper attitude towards the beauty of the cherry blossoms.
When the speaker goes to visit her in the morning, he finds she is
sleeping late that day. The sandals left in the doorway explain the
reasonthey are littered with the pale pink petals of the blossoms that
had fallen on the streets she walked through the night before. The verse

68

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365; images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 400401.
In addition to the haiga versions of this poem, there is also a surimono that has a
longer inscription that adds The above verse is a little ditty I wrote when I went visiting
in Kayamachi near Shij, a place where the man from Naniwa is stayingat the time we
went from Umejos house and wrote out a hokku saying: how can you overlook the
spring scenery of the capital?
69

BUSON AND HAIGA

229

makes a reference to a number of Chinese poems, one by Bo Juyi,

included in Japanese and Chinese poems to sing:
Backs to the candle, together we cherish
the moon late in the night.
Treading on petals, we share lamentation
for the springtime of our youth.70

Another is by one of Busons favorite Chinese poets, Wang Wei:

The blossoms scattered, but the servants have not yet swept them
The warbler calls, but the mountain traveler still sleeps on.71

What might appear to be irresponsible, slovenly behavior in conventional society is actually to be admired: the speakers friend is so sensitive
to the fleeting beauty of the blossoms that she stays out all night to enjoy
them. Moreover, by alluding to Chinese poetry, Buson makes the point
that this was behavior that Chinese literati of the past also admired,
which further serves to underscore the sincerity of his praise.
The relationship between the text and images here are not that complicated. The reader can view the friend the speaker came to visit as a
man who enjoyed himself in the company of courtesans as graceful as
the one that he pictures. Alternatively, one might interpret the speakers
greeting as being to a woman herself.
Indeed, a surimono version of this hokku actually does associate it with
a woman: Umejo, a haikai poet who first made his acquaintance when
she was a courtesan. Umejo later married Busons disciple, the painter
and poet Matsumura Gekkei. Gekkei became famous as an artist in the
Shij school of painting, and Umejo also took up painting herself.
The surimono text also mentions Busons visit to a man from Naniwa,
whom scholars identify as Ueda Akinari. Akinari is most famous for
stories of the grotesque, like Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu monogatari
, 1776), but he also wrote haikai, and in 1774 he asked Buson

70 Rimer and Chaves, p. 27. Chinese text is in sone Shsuke and Horiuchi Hideaki,
eds., Shinch Nihon koten shsei, vol. 61, Wakan rei sh (Shinchsha, 1983), p. 20.
71 Cited in headnote to verse, BZ, vol. 1, no. 1365.

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to write the preface for a treatise he wrote on kireji, Treatise on ya and kana
(Ya yana sh ). The picture on the surimono is much different from
that on the haiga: it shows a mass of bundled firewood that takes up
nearly half the page; to its left is a plum tree, presumably in honor of
Umejo (the ume of her name means plum). The existence of multiple
versions of this hokku, including this surimono using an image completely
unrelated to those of the painted ones, is a good indication of the
ephemeral nature of haiga and the fact that poems, pictures, and combinations of both were commonly used as tokens of social exchange.
One of Busons most appealing paintings is a haiga that he did around
1777, showing a laughing, barefooted man in a jaunty red cap, dancing
(Figure 11). To his right, towards the bottom of the picture, rolls a
gourdone presumably once full of the sake that has made the man so
animated. The hokku and its headnote read:
Miyako no hana no chiri
kakaru wa, Mitsunobu ga
gofun no hakuraku shitaru
sama nare

The scattering of cherry blossoms in

the capital is similar to the appearance
of chalk white flaking off a painting
by Mitsunobu

Matabei ni
au ya Omuro no
hana zakari

have I run into Matabei?

blossoms at Omuro
at their height72

The chain of associations in this haiga is as complicated as what we saw

in Young bamboo! It starts with the headnote. Mitsunobu refers to
Tosa Mitsunobu (d. 1522), a member of an aristocratic family
of artists who is regarded as the founder of the Tosa School of painting.
The Tosa became the official school of the Ashikaga shoguns (1338
1573) and it remained a powerful force in the world of Japanese art until
the middle of the early modern period. The Tosa style involves the
liberal use of gold, extremely fine and delicate brushwork, and dazzling,
brilliant color. If paint were to peel off a Mitsunobu painting, as the
headnote describes, the scattered flakes would be luminous and exquisite, reminiscent of a past age of refined splendormuch like the fallen
cherry petals of the ancient capital city.

72

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 2633, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 404.

BUSON AND HAIGA

231

Figure 11
Have I run into Matabei? Haiga.
Itsu Art Museum.

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CHAPTER SIX

Matabei refers to a character in a jruri play by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, Courtesan of the spirit-revealing incense (Keisei hangon k ,
1708). Matabei had studied with Mitsunobu, but he had not been much
of a success. He was working as a painter of tsu-e , a kind of
folk art that originated in the area of tsu, near Kyoto. The tsu-e
repertoire originally consisted mainly of religious images, but later
expanded to include animals, heroes, and the like, typically painted on
wooden panels in strong, bright colors. Although tsu-e were popular,
particularly with travelers who visited the region where they were
produced, they were not fine art, and Matabei, for all his humble
origins, aspired to more in lifethe recognition of Mitsunobu of the
powerful Tosa school. Disappointed at being overlooked as Mitsunobu
favored other students, Matabei eventually decides to take his own life.
His wife persuades him to paint one last picturea self-portraiton the
side of a water container. Miraculously, as he does so, an exact copy of
his picture appears on the opposite side of the container. Suddenly,
Mitsunobu appears, reveals that he has been watching the whole time,
and declares that Matabei is indeed a painter worthy of recognition in the
Tosa school.73
Finally, Omuro is a place in Kyoto that is famous for its lateblooming cherry trees. A temple there, Ninna-ji , had once been
an imperial palace. The cherry trees there bloom just as they start to
come into leaf, and are in full bloom when other trees have already
dropped their petals. It was a popular place for hanamicherry blossom
viewing.
This haiga, then, brings together historical fact, a fictional character,
and the name of a famous place in Kyoto. Taken together, the reason for
the dancing figures inebriation becomes clear: not only has he been
drinking, but also he is buoyed along by the cheerful mood of the rest of
the revelers taking in the sight of the late cherry blossoms. The character
famous as an tsu-e painter has become an tsu-e himself, with bold
lines delineating his form and flat areas of colorthe red of his cap and
the black of the jacket that has slipped off his shouldersuggesting his
costume. But the picture is nowhere near as naive or mechanical looking
as a real tsu-e. Though the composition is simple and spare, the
inscription, figure, and gourd are skillfully shaped and perfectly placed.

73 Samuel L. Leiter, Kabuki Encyclopedia: An English-Language Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten

(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), p. 188.

BUSON AND HAIGA

233

The content of the text fills in the details missing from the picture, so
despite the fact that there is no suggestion of the background of the
scene, it is easy to imagine the crowded grounds of Ninna-ji, filled with
the splendid outfits of visitors boisterously celebrating the last blossoms
of the season, where all around petals scattered from the trees litter the
ground like shining flakes fallen from a magnificent old Tosa school
painting.

Figure 12
Dancing! Haiga.

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The last haiga from this period that we will look at exists in several
different versions, some long and narrow, another more square and
horizontal, two others on fan-shaped paper (Figure 12). They show two,
three, four, or five figures, dancing in a line. Some have fans, others have
their heads covered with hoods, hand towels, or hats. The undulating
shapes of their bodies suggest a mood of fun and abandon. Two of the
pictures are inscribed with this hokku:
nishikigi no
kado o megurite
odori kana

surrounding the gate

where he left the love token
dancing!74

One has just this one:

shigonin ni
tsuki ochi kakaru
odori kana

four or five left

as the moon sinks down
dancing!75

Another includes both. A fifth has four hokku in total, the two above,
and these two:
hoso koshi no
hshi suzuro ni
odori kana

the slim-waisted
priest, as if in a dream,
dancing!76

hita to inu no
naku machi ni koete
odori kana

a dogs incessant bark

the sound carries across the town
dancing!77

These five haiga are clearly linkedthe figures on them so similar they
almost seem to have stepped out of the same painting. Interestingly, the
Matabei figure from the previous haiga also looks like he belongs among
the dancers, as they too are done in a style that is at once severely
abbreviated yet energetic. Furthermore, while the hokku inscribed on
these haiga vary, all of them have the same last five syllables, dancing!
(odori kana).
Only first of these verses uses a word with a literary reference: nishigi,
literally, brocade tree. It was an ancient custom in parts of northern
Japan for a young man to signal his interest in a woman by leaving such a

74

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1810, images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 404406.
Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 137.
76 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1156.
77 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 136.
75

BUSON AND HAIGA

235

token at her gate. The token, called a brocade tree, was an elaborately
decorated stick. If the woman was also interested, she took the token
into the house. Brocade tree is also the title of a N play by Zeami, in
which a man who visited his beloveds house every night for three years,
eventually setting out a thousand of them. In the words of the play:
From ancient times it has been the custom here for a suitor to make brocade trees as go-betweens, and to stand them before the gate of his beloveds house. Because they are signs of his courtship, he adorns them
beautifully. The woman takes into her house only the brocade trees of the
man whom she would have; the others stand unheeded. And the rejected
suitor, though he comes for a hundred nights or for three years, leaving
the celebrated Thousand Love Charms, comes in vain. In the shade of this
mountain is the grave of such a man. Three years he kept his vigil, setting
out his love charm every night, and in the end he was buried with the tokens of his love.78

Uncharacteristically of the N theater, the play has a relatively happy

ending; after retelling his story in the presence of a wandering priest, the
man (really, his ghost) concludes his tale by declaring that he and his
lover have met and pledged our love / with the cup of mother-ofpearl, and the chorus invites him to dance. Thus, brocade tree in
Busons hokku evokes a romantic image, one associated with joy and
dancing.
The other three hokku make no such allusions; in Four or five left
(Shigonin ni) it is the time of the evening when the crowd that has come
out for Bon Festival danceswhich occur in the middle of the summer
as part of ceremonies to celebrate the annual homecoming of the spirits
of the deadstarts to thin out. Since Bon Festival is held from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth day of the month, the moon was full at
midnight, thus by the time it starts to sink its quite late in the evening.
The dancers in this hokku, however, are enjoying themselves too much
to go home.
The next two hokku also describe experiences one might have on Bon
festival night: a young, attractive priest is caught up in the hypnotic
rhythm and movement of the festival; and across town, in another
neighborhood, a dog catches the sound of the drums and flutes of the
crowd, and calls out to them.
Neither the hokku, the paintings, nor the interaction between them is
particularly striking in this group of compositions. However, they show

78

Keene, Twenty Plays of the N Theatre, p. 89.

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CHAPTER SIX

the relatively disposable, ephemeral quality of haiga. Completed quickly,

using inexpensive materials, and as this example indicates, following a
plan or design that could easily be repeated, haiga were ideal for the
purpose of making small, inexpensive works that might be sold without
much effort. This example bears out the implications of a letter Buson
wrote to Kit on the eleventh day of the eighth month of asking for his
help in selling some haiga, or as he referred to them, haikai sketches:
Hanging scrolls: 7
Pasted-paper folding screens: 10
All of the above are not the sort of thing I normally paint. They are haikai
sketches (), to which there is nothing similar in the
world, I think. It will be a problem for me if they go for too low a price.
This is something Ive told no one else about. I do not hide it from you.79

This letter dates from around the same time that Buson painted the haiga
of the dancing figures, and it shows us a number of things. In the first
place, Buson used Kit as a broker for his paintings. Not only were
Busons haikai acquaintances his painting clients, but his disciples also
served to help him market his paintings. We saw that this was true of
relatively distant acquaintances like Kafu, but Kit, too, was not only the
Yahantei schools most active promoter, he also assisted Buson as a gobetween in selling his paintings. Secondly, Buson regarded haiga as
something distinct from his usual kind of work. He tended to use
different art names to sign his haiga than he did in his nanga paintings; in
this letter he goes so far as to say that there is nothing similar in the
world to these paintings. Finally, no doubt related to the fact that these
paintings were so unlike what he normally produced, Buson was not too
sure of how they should be priced. At least he hoped that they would not
be sold off too cheaply; nonetheless, he was so underconfident about
what their value was that he left it up to Kit to determine.
Seen in the context of this letter, the five versions of the Bon Festival
haiga start to make sense. The fact that Buson painted so many haiga that
so closely resemble each other can only be a consequence of the fact that
these were not intended to stand as great masterpieces of originality and
seriousness, but were rather light, almost disposable works that he could
produce with a minimum of thought. Taking elements of a previous
composition and recycling it into another context was something that he

79

Letter to Kit, eleventh day of the Eighth Month, 1776; BSS, pp. 145146.

BUSON AND HAIGA

237

did frequently. In some cases it looks like he was trying to work out the
best way to present a particular hokku and image pair; in others, it
appears that he was producing something that could earn him money
without too much effort.

Late Haiga (17781783)

A large number of haiga from the last years of Busons career are extant.
They are extremely varied: some are comical, others are atmospheric.
One simply shows a broom, painted in thick, powerful brushstrokes. The
inscription reads, departing spring / sweeping off its backside / fallen
blossoms (yuku haru no / shiribeta harau / rakka kana).80 A picture of the
great medieval heroes, Benkei and Ushiwaka (the latter better known by
his adult name, Yoshitsune) accompanies the hokku the snow, the
moon, and the blossoms / in the end / a bond of three lifetimes (setsu
gekka / tsui ni sanzei no / chigiri kana).81 Other paintings show groups of
haikai immortals, three in one, eight in another, eleven in a third. In
two other haiga, a rabbit pounds mochi, accompanied by the inscription of
Busons travels through Dewa that we saw in Chapter Three, concluding
with the hokku in the cool / a moonlit night of pounding barley / oh,
Uhei (suzushisa ni / mugi o tsuku yo no / Uhei kana) .82 Two umbrellas
lashed together, accompanied by the verse, viewing autumn leaves /
how thoughtful your preparations are / two umbrellas (momiji mi ya / yi
kashikoki /kasa nihon).83 A pale silhouette of the peak of Mount Fuji
accompanies Mount Fuji alone / is not engulfed / young leaves (Fuji
hitotsu / uzumi nokoshite / wakaba kana) ,84 a verse that we saw in Chapter
Four. The variety and inventiveness of these late haiga show an artist and
poet at the height of his powers.
We will take a closer look at one. It incorporates willow leaves,
fallen (yanagi chirite), a very early hokku that he wrote during his journey
along Bashs Narrow road to the interior route (Figure 13):

80

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 81, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 409.

Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 1023, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 410.
82 Images BZ, vol. 6, p. 443.
83 Verse BZ, vol. 1, no. 2751, image BZ, vol. 6, p. 444.
84 Image BZ, vol. 6, p. 442.
81

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CHAPTER SIX

yanagi chiri
shimizu kare
ishi tokoro dokoro

willow leaves, fallen

clear stream, dried out
stones, here and there85

Figure 13
Willow leaves, fallen. Haiga. Itsu Art Museum.

85

Images BZ, vol. 6, p. 444.

BUSON AND HAIGA

239

As we saw in Chapter Four, this hokku was used as the opening verse of
the Scrap paper coverlet linked verse sequence that Buson took part in just
around the time that he left northeastern Japan for Kyoto. However, in
the last years of his career, he also used it as the basis for a haiga, with a
different headnote than the one that appeared in the linked verse
sequence. The older headnote identifies the willow as the one associated
with the Saigy legend. However, the later one cites a completely
different source, the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff by Su
Dongpo:
All of the Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff is superb, but these lines
struck me as particularly good:
The mountains were very high, the moon small
The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out.
They are like a single bird that breaks away from the flock. Once when I
was traveling in Michinoku, I composed this verse while standing below
Saigys willow tree.86

The Second Prose Poem on the Red Cliff tells the story of a man and
two friends who decide to enjoy the moonlight together. One friend
mentions that he had caught some fish earlier, and the speakers wife
reminds him that he had put away some wine for a special occasion.
Busons quotation comes from the passage that describes the scenery of
the Red Cliff and the river that ran below it:
So we took the wine and fish and went for another trip to the foot of the
Red Cliff. The river raced along noisily, its sheer banks rising a thousand
feet. The mountains were very high, the moon small. The level of the water had fallen, leaving boulders sticking out. How much time had passed
since my last visit? I couldnt recognize them as the same river and hills!87

Five rocks, painted in dark and light gray ink are scattered across the
lower part of the picture more or less horizontally. This creates tension
with the inscription, with its bold black calligraphy creating a powerful
vertical movement. The rocks are exactly as Busons hokku describe
them, here and there (tokoro dokoro). There is no indication of a willow.
However, this is not a depiction of the landscape at the actual site of the
willowfar from being a remote, sublime and wild place, such as Su
Dongpos words describe the scenery of the Red Cliff to be. In fact, the

86
87

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 8586.

Chaves, p. 139.

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CHAPTER SIX

willow was in the middle of rice fields, which are filled with water part of
the year; there is nothing nearby that resembles the large, imposinglooking boulders of Busons painting. Instead, the image is entirely
imaginary, and is based on other paintings and pages of The Mustard seed
garden manual of painting. This text shows the elements of landscapes:
trees, rocks, mountains, huts, and so forth, are presented separately,
isolated on the page, so that painting students could practice and master
their shapes and afterwards work them into fully developed compositions.
The boulders of this haiga are very similar to those printed in the
painting manuals. However, there is more to them than that. The
inscription is so evocative that it invites the viewer to fill in the empty
space of the painting with an entire landscape: a willow, a dry riverbed,
the season, the mood of appreciative discovery. It is a particularly good
example of the way that haikai uses absence to prompt associations.
Willow is a spring kigo, a harbinger of warmth and light that comes into
leaf very early in the season. Without its leaves, as Buson describes it in
the verse, it is without its most distinctive, identifying feature; also, it is
not in the picture at all. The stream, that Buson describes as clear or pure
water (shimizu) is completely dried up. Instead, Buson gives us a group of
rocks, connected neither to one another nor to the environment that
surrounds them. Nonetheless, seen as a whole there is a linkage between
the elements of the hokku, its headnote, and in the image; it brings
together both absent and present (willow, stream, rocks) and past and
present (the landscapes observed by Su Dongpo, Saigy, Bash, and
Buson himself).
Buson also completed a large number of works in the last decade of
his career that were more related to haikai than to the nanga that was the
mainstay of his painting practice. These were paintings related to Matsuo
Bashboth portraits and versions of two of his travel journals,
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton and Narrow road to the interior done as hand
scrolls and screen paintings (Figure 14). Busons Bash-related paintings
are exceptions among his haiga in the sense that they deal with texts that
Buson did not write himself. However, they belong to the haiga category
as they are haikai, in the form of a picture, and some of them, particularly the travel journal hand scrolls and screen paintings, are among the
finest works Buson produced in his entire career.88

88

Images BZ, vol. 6, pp. 415418, 420422, and 424430.

BUSON AND HAIGA

241

Figure 14
Narrow road to the interiorscroll, detail. Yamagata Museum of Art.

Buson painted these works to order; several of his letters mention

requests from patrons for portraits and other kinds of paintings connected with Bash. Judging from the dates he completed them, there was
a great demand for such paintings starting around the middle of the
1770s, twenty years before the centenary of Bashs death. As we have
seen, this was the period when the Bash Revival was at its highest. The
Yahantei school published Elder Bashs linking techniques anthology in 1776;
from that year, Busons acquaintance Dry began work restoring the
Bash Hermitage, a small thatched hut that restored in honor of Bash
that later served as a meeting place for Yahantei poets. The next few
years saw the publication of many collections that claimed to be following Bashs example, including Yahanteis Dawn crow and Sequel to dawn
crow, Ittons Sabi and shiori (Sabi shiori, 1776), Bakusuis New Empty chestnuts
(Shin Minashiguri , 1777). Gich-ji, the site of Bashs grave,
became the center of Bash Revival activities in western Japan, with
numerous verse parties and other events taking place there from around
1779. With all this interest in Bash developing, haikai poets who
admired him were eager to possess texts and other objects that were
related to him, and as a talented artist who was also a haikai poet, Buson
was in an ideal position to provide them.
Ten of the Bash portraits that Buson painted are extant. Bash
died some twenty years before Buson was born, so these were not
portraits in the literal sense as the two poets never met, but were rather
imaginary likenesses that were meant to embody some aspect of what
was believed at the time to characterize Bashs spirit. Certain markers

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CHAPTER SIX

make clear the identity of the paintings subject. Bash is shown with a
round cap and a priests robes; he wears a beard, and in some cases
carries a walking stick, in others, a satchel, or a sedge hat. He is often
smiling, or gazing back at the viewer with a look of good humor. The
inscriptions vary, but tend to be elaborate: examples of his hokku are the
most numerous, but one includes a long poem in Chinese as well.
Busons imaginary portraits of Bash focus on his persona as a rootless
traveler, a kind and benevolent figure. He has much in common with
Busons nanga paintings of Taoist immortals and various other kinds of
Chinese luminarieswise, gentle, transcending the vulgar but closely in
touch with simple humanity. They present Bash as the Bash Revival
poets viewed him, as an embodiment of the ideals of haikai as a literary
form that was more than just a frivolous amusement, who took up the
example of lofty-minded Chinese literati recluses and traveling poetsaints like Nin and Saigy.
The image of Bash as a saintly traveler is also the central theme of
Busons other major Bash-related haiga, the hand scrolls and folding
screens that he painted of the haikai prose texts Record of a weather-beaten
skeleton and Narrow road to the interior. Only one version of Record of a
weather-beaten skeleton exists today, as well as four of Narrow road to the
interior; sources suggest that Buson completed as many as ten versions of
the latter.89
Buson painted Record of a weather-beaten skeleton in 1778 in the form of a
hand scroll; it was later mounted onto a six-paneled folding screen. He
abridged the text somewhat, and added eleven illustrations. Most of the
pictures are of people that Bash passed by or met during his journey,
hard at work at various chores, but some of them are of Bash himself,
resting at an inn, chatting with a host, or moving down the road wearing
the distinctive broad, flat hat and straw raincoat of the traveler.
The four versions of Narrow road to the interior have many scenes in
common. He shows us Bashs farewell to disciples at Senj, the
children who try to follow him after he leaves for Kurobane, the blind
biwa-player of Shiogama, the wives of the Sat brothers who dressed up
in their dead husbands armor to pretend to their mother that her sons
were still alive, the courtesans at Ichiburithe most emotionally
powerful moments in the story. Most striking about the perspective
Buson brings to Bashs narrative is that he concentrates almost entirely

89

Tanaka, p. 207.

BUSON AND HAIGA

243

on human beings. While Narrow road to the interior is an account of its

authors visits to famous sites, and is full of descriptions of landscapes
and placesmany of which Buson actually saw during his own travels
around northeastern JapanBuson depicts it as a journey from relationship to relationship. This does not reflect any limitation of Busons skills:
he was a master of landscape painting, as nangas main focus was on the
depiction of the natural world. However, even Busons nanga are
distinguished by the conspicuous presence of peoplethey are far more
numerous, and big, than in the paintings of most other nanga artists. In
his versions of Record of a weather-beaten skeleton and Narrow road to the
interior, Buson lets Bashs verbal description of the environment stand
on its own; he puts his own energies into emphasizing the emotional and
personal aspects of the journey.
Busons haiga are notable examples of the interconnectedness of
verbal and visual modes of expression that has been commonplace in
Japanese cultural history. Despite their simplicity, haiga demonstrate a
very high degree of literary and artistic sophistication that rely on haikais
most basic technique, the juxtaposition of apparently disparate elements
to create a dynamic, compelling whole. While Busons artistic skills made
his haiga especially attractive as paintings, it was his sensitivity to implication (yoj)finely tuned from decades of writing hokku and linked
versethat enabled him to create compostions that were witty, amusing
and often hauntingly atmospheric.

EPILOGUE
Because it is the work of a poet-painter, Busons haikai promises to
shed light on a problem that has long intrigued scholarswhether poets
can write verse that is like paintings, or painters create visual works
that are like poems. As we have seen, eighteenth-century haikai poets
frequently denied there was a difference between verbal and visual
expression. The example Buson offers may have been exceptional: even
in his community, artists who possessed his degree of proficiency in both
poetry and painting were very few. Still, haikai poets continued to
produce haiga and other kinds of works that combined verse with visual
imagesmuch of it in a style that recalled Busonsuntil different views
on the nature of the visuality of haikai emerged during the beginning of
the modern period.
One of these views was that of the modern poet Masaoka Shikihis
claim that haiku are like pictures because they capture a single point in
space and time or depict a scene just as a witness experienced it. It is true
that not even the painter Buson was in the habit of writing hokku this
way: his verses were almost always composed on a set topic, and
frequently suggest a narrative rather than one focused moment.
Nevertheless, Shikis argument is compelling, albeit more because of
its motivation than its content. Shiki was looking for a way to legitimize
haiku as a modern form of Japanese poetry. Calling attention to haikus
potential for pictorial, photograph-like realism was a central pillar of his
defense against critics who condemned the genre as obsolete and out of
step with the changes brought by modernization. The practice of
sketching from life was a technique that became popular with many
visual artists of Shikis day, and its origins in a rational, scientific view of
the world linked it to other aspects of modernization; therefore, literary
forms that involved sketcheseven sketches in wordscould be viewed
as modern. Even if Shikis view of Buson as a painterly poet is somewhat
exaggerated, his characterization of Busons hokku as portentous of the
modern is not without merit.
In fact, the view of Buson as a classical poet who anticipated modernity was also held by Hagiwara Sakutar, a poet and critic who otherwise

EPILOGUE

245

had little in common with Shiki. Sakutar was deeply impressed with
Busons haishi Mourning the Sage Hokuju, which begins:
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
Thinking of you, I go wandering in the hills.
Why are the hills so sad?1

Sakutar commented, if you concealed the name of the author of this

poem, and said that it was the work of a young shintaishi (newstyle poem) poet of the Meiji period, surely no one at all would doubt
it.2 He added that the poem had much in common with Western
Romantic poetry, and reflected an aesthetic sensibility that did not
belong to the culture of the Edo period.
Sakutar was not a haiku poethe wrote shi (modern free verse).
He admitted that he disliked Bash, and that the majority of haiku held
little appeal for him. When reading classical Japanese poetry, he much
preferred the waka of the Collection of Ten thousand leaves and New ancient
and modern waka anthology eras. However, Busons haishi caught his
interest, and as he read more of Busons work he became even more
impressed. While most haiku is essentially dull and restrained, he writes,
Busons is bright and springlike, distinct from austere ink painting, close
to brightly-colored Western impressionist paintings.3
Sakutars interpretation of Buson has some things in common with
Shikis, but there are important differences. Like Shiki, he makes
reference to visual aspects of Busons verse, but his emphasis is more
metaphorical than pragmatic. Sakutars Buson is a wistfully lyrical
romantic, a poet of nostalgia whose verses were as plaintive as
lullabies. He writes that Busons verse was something that contemporary
young people could understand without the knowledge that would be
required to appreciate most early modern haiku, because it has more in
common with the work of Meiji-era poets than other haiku. Where Shiki
saw an objective observer of the external world, Sakutar saw an
emotional, even passionate storyteller, whose childhood memories and
longing for a lost, distant past engendered expressions of eitan
(admiration) and shkei (longing).

BZ, vol. 4, p. 27.

Hagiwara Sakutar, Kysh no shijin: Yosa Buson (Iwanami Shoten, [1936] 1995), p. 15.
3 Ibid., p. 19.
2

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EPILOGUE

In calling Busons haikai subjective, Sakutar was drawing on his

own views of the primacy of subjectivity in poetry. Sakutar emphasized
subjectivity in many of his works, perhaps most succinctly in the 1928
treatise Principles of poetry (Shi no genri ), in which he declared
Poetry and subjectivity are synonyms. Anything that is subjective is
poetry, and anything that is objective is not poetry.4 Principles of poetry
also mentions Buson, in the context of arguing that relative to the purely
subjective waka, haiku is basically objective, but even haiku achieved the
expression of emotion, and thus was poetic. Here Sakutar cites the
following Buson verse to argue that there can be no haiku poems that
are cold in feeling and of purely contemplative observation:5
haru no umi
hinemosu notari
notari kana

spring sea
all day long rising and falling
rising and falling6

In Principles of poetry, Sakutar uses the same kind of rhetoric that Shiki
does in Haiku poet Buson, positing clear, binary oppositions in attempting
to define the nature of poetry, like Japanese and Western, and
subjective and objective. However, where Shiki sees Busons
objectivity, Sakutar comes to the opposite conclusion: his Buson is a
poet of subjectivity and lyricism. While Sakutar allows that in one sense
haiku is aligned with the objective, he does not deny that it is poetry;
instead, it uses objective description to achieve the expression of
emotion, rather than the mimetic depiction of reality.
Sakutars reading of Buson, like Shikis, is useful for giving us a
starting point for thinking about the relationship between Busons haikai
and modern Japanese poetry. In the first place, Sakutar called attention
to Busons haishi, which resembled the results of modern Japanese poets
efforts to create forms of verse that did not adhere to the strict rules of
classical poetry regarding appropriate language, content, and syllable
count. Busons haishi draw on these rules at the same time as they break
them, in part by borrowing language and conventions from kanshi, and in
part by following the logic of haikai to an extreme. That is to say, while
the haishi do not conform to convention in terms of structure and
language, they do remain within haikais boundaries in that haikai

4 Hagiwara Sakutar, Principles of Poetry: Shi no genri, trans. Chester C. I. Wang and
Isamu P. Fukuchi (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 1998), p. 48.
5 Sakutar, Principles of Poetry, p. 129.
6 BZ, vol. 1, no. 46.

EPILOGUE

247

encourages experimentation, surprise, and eccentricity. However, while

the haishi are clearly products of their time, Sakutars reading opens a
place for Buson in the modern canon of Japanese literature, at least
insofar as he sees its similarities to modern poetry.
In the second place, while the nostalgia that so fascinates Sakutar
is very conventional in classical poetry, Sakutars reading of it links it
with it a sense of loss of connection to the past that had strong resonance with early twentieth century writers. In other words, Sakutars
reading more or less ignores the tropes and conceits of classical haikai;
instead, he reads Busons verse as being transparent and authentic as the
poetry he himself tried to write. While in some respects this results in
distorted interpretations, it is nevertheless a strong endorsement of the
emotive power of Busons work. Sakutar was concerned with redefining Japanese poetry rather than the defense of haiku, and justifies the
place of Busons work as poetry that transcends genre, introducing it to a
modern readership which may be completely unaware of the somewhat
arcane complexities of classical haikai.
Shiki and Sakutar shared a purposethe reform of Japanese poetryand they both looked to Japans literary past for precedents that
could help guide the formation of its future. Many of the pressures that
confronted modern Japanese writers were different than those faced by
the Bash Revival poets, and the results of their efforts to create a new
kind of Japanese poetry were far more radical than anything the Revival
poets devised. However, Shiki and Sakutar used a strategy that the
Revival poets would have recognized: they advocated renewal by calling
for a return to some aspect of its past.
It is not surprising that poets like Shiki and Sakutar were drawn to
Buson. If conditions for writerly anxiety existed in the eighteenth century
in Japan, they were even more urgently present in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. Commercialization and urbanization took place
in the Meiji and Taish periods on a far greater scale than it had in the
eighteenth century. New kinds of intellectual communities established
themselves, and literary criticism flourished as the number of newspapers, journals, and writers groups grew. Older genres and the standards
that governed them came under scrutiny, and new genres emerged. In
other words, while it was a period of great freedom and promise for
writers, it was one of anxiety as well.
In this book, I have not concentrated on the formal aspects of Busons haikai as did Shiki and Sakutar. Instead, I have examined it in the

248

EPILOGUE

context of the urban and rural communities of writers, artists and

scholars with which Buson interacted. Rather than reading his work a
direct expression of an individual poetic voice, I have viewed it as part of
a larger discourse that arose in reaction to the emergence of a new kind
of readership in the eighteenth century. While my reading of Busons
work has focused on different issues than those that interested Shiki and
Sakutar, it agrees with their views of Buson as a central figure in the
literature of the early modern period. Pressured to redefine the identity
of the artist by popular responses to economic, technological, and social
changes, Buson and his colleagues in the Bash Revival reinvented haikai
as a serious literary genre, laying the groundwork for its establishment as
one of the best-known forms of Japanese literature in the modern
period.

APPENDIX
Translations
Haikai free verse
Mourning the Sage Hokuju (Hokuju rsen o itamu)

250

Verses on the Topic Spring Wind on the Kema

Embankment (Shunp batei no kyoku)

252

Yodo River Songs: Three Verses (Denga ka)

256

Prose
Preface to Make the past now (Mukashi o ima)

257

Preface to Elder Bash Verse-linking Anthology

(Bash tsukeai sh )

258

Account of the Rebuilding of the Bash Hermitage

in Eastern Kyoto (Rakut Bash-an saik ki)

259

New flower gathering (Shinhanatsumi) Prose section

263

Preface to Shundei verse anthology (Shundei kush)

275

Linked verse
Rape-flowers (Na no hana ya)

278

250

APPENDIX

Mourning the Sage Hokuju

(Hokuju rsen o itamu)
kimi ashita ni sarinu ybe no kokoro chiji ni
nan zo haruka naru
kimi o omoute oka nobe ni yukitsu asobu
oka nobe nan zo kaku kanashiki
tanpopo no ki ni nazuna no shirou sakitaru
miru hito zo naki
kigisu no aru ka hitanaki ni naku o kikeba
tomo ariki kawa o hedatete suminiki
hege no keburi no ha to uchichireba nishi fuku kaze no
hageshikute ozasa hara masuge hara
nogaru beki kata zo naki
tomo ariki kawa o hedatete suminiki ky wa
hororo to mo nakanu
kimi ashita ni sarinu ybe no kokoro chiji ni
nan zo haruka naru
waga io no amida butsu tomoshibi mo mono sezu
hana mo mairasezu sugosugo to tatazumeru koyoi wa
koto ni ttoki

APPENDIX

251

You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards

wondering why you have gone so far away.
Thinking of you, I go wandering in the hills.
Why are the hills so sad?
Among the yellow dandelions, shepherds-purse blooms white.
No one else is here to see this.
I wonder, Are there pheasants? when I hear a mournful cry.
I had a friend. He lived on the other side of the stream.
An eerie smoke rises, the westerly wind blows
violently over moors of bamboo and sedge.
There is nowhere to hide.
I had a friend. He lived on the other side of the stream;
today there is not so much as a pheasants call.
You left in the morning. In the evening, my heart is in a thousand shards
wondering why you have gone so far away.
In my small hut, I offer Amida no candles,
no flowers. In this twilight, lingering in sorrow
I feel a special sense of awe.
Shaku Buson

252

APPENDIX

Verses on the Topic Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment

(Shunp batei no kyoku)
One day I went to visit an old man in my home village. Crossing the
Yodo River, I passed along on the Kema embankment. I encountered a
young woman on her way home. For several ri, sometimes I was ahead
of her, sometimes behind. We fell to chatting. Her figure was graceful.
Her appearance was charming. That is how I came to write these
eighteen verses, taking on the voice of a woman. I have entitled them
Verses on the topic Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment.
Verses on the topic Spring Wind on the Kema Embankment
Eighteen stanzas
yabuiri ya
Naniwa o idete
Nagaragawa

servants holiday
leaving Naniwa,
I am at the Nagara River

haru kaze ya
tsutsumi nagshite
ie tshi

spring wind
the embankment is long,
home is still so far away

tsutsumi yori orite hs o tsumeba

Coming down from the embankment

to gather fragrant herbs,
my path was blocked by briars and
brambles.
Is it that the briars and brambles envy
me,
so they tear my hem and scratch my
thighs?

kei to kyoku to michi o fusagu

keikyoku nanzo toj naru
kun o saki katsu ko o kizutsuku

keiry ishi tenten

ishi o funde kkin o toru
tasha-su suij no ishi
ware o shite kun o nurasazarashimu o

The stream is dotted with rocks.

Walking on the rocks, I gather wild
parsley.
I am grateful to the rocks that rise
above the water.
Thanks to them, my hem will not get
wet.

APPENDIX

253

ikken no
cha mise no yanagi
oi ni keri

the teahouses
willow tree
it has grown so old!

cha mise no rbasu ware o mite

ingin ni
buy o ga shi katsu waga shuni
o homu

The old woman in the teashop saw me,

and kindly
offered compliments on my health and
praise for my spring clothes.

ten ch ni kaku ari

There were two customers in the

teashop
talking in Naniwa1 dialect.
Throwing down three strings of coins
to pay their bill
they left, to make room for me to sit
down.

yoku kai su Knan no go

shusen sanbin o nageuchi
ware o mukae t o yuzutte saru

koeki sanryke
byji tsuma o yobu
tsuma kitarazu
hina o yobu rigai no tori
rigai kusa chi ni mitsu
hina tobite kaki o koen to hossu
kaki takshite otsuru koto sanshi

shuns michi
sansa naka ni shkei ari
ware o mukau

at the old post station there are two or

three houses
a cat calls to his mate,
but his mate does not come
Outside the fence, a hen calls her
chicks:
theres a lot of good grass outside the
fence.
The chicks all want to get over the
fence
but it is high, and they fail three or
four times.
spring grasses: the road splits into
three
the middle one is a shortcut:
it welcomes me home

Literally, the Jiangnan dialect .

254

APPENDIX

tanpopo hana sakeri sanzan gogo

gogo wa k ni
sanzan wa shiroshi kitoku su
kyonen kono michi yori su

Dandelions bloom, in threes, in fives:

five yellow ones here,
there, three white; I remember
I walked this path years ago.

awaremi toru tanpopo kuki

mijikshite chichi o amaseri

I pick some of these dandelions that

tug at my heart
their short stems are full of milk

mukashi mukashi shikiri

ni omou jibo no on

With a pang, I remember my

mothers kindness, long long ago.

jibo no kaih betsu ni haru ari

In her arms there was a special kind of

spring.

haru ari seich shite Naniwa ni ari

I grew up in that spring. Now I live in

Naniwa
in a rich mans house by Naniwa
Bridge where the plum blossoms are
white.

ume wa shiroshi Naniwaky hen

zaishu no ie

shunj manabi etari Naniwaburi

I learned the ways of Naniwas spring,

and took on its airs.

g o jishi tei ni somuku mi sanshun

moto o wasure sue o toru tsugiki
no ume

For three springs I neglected my home,

turned my back on my little brother.
I was a grafted branch of plum,
forgetting my roots.

koky haru fukashi yukiyukite

mata yukiyuku

Spring is deepening in my old village.

I hurry, and hurry more.

yry chtei michi yyaku

kudareri

The embankment road, as long as a

willow branch slopes downward at
last.

APPENDIX

255

kyshu hajimete miru koen no

ie kkon

Straining to see, I get my first glimpse

of home in the twilight

to ni yoru hakuhatsu no hito

otto o idaki ware o

Near the gate, someone with white hair

is holding my brother;

matsu haru mata haru

she has waited for me, spring after

spring.

kimi mizu ya kojin Taigi ga ku

Surely you know this verse by the late

Taigi:

yabuiri no
neru ya hitori no
oya no soba

on servants holiday
sleepingshe is by the side
of her widowed mother

Sha Buson

256

APPENDIX

Yodo River Songs: Three Verses

(Denga ka: Sanshu)2
shunsui baika o ukabe
nanry shite To wa Den ni gassu
kinran kimi toku koto nakare
kyrai fune den no gotoshi

tosui densui ni gassu

kry isshin no gotoshi
shch negawaku wa shin o
tomo ni shi
nagaku Naniwa no hito to naran

kimi wa suij no ume no gotoshi

hana mizu ni
ukabitesaru koto sumiyaka nari
sh wa kt no yanagi no gotoshi
kage mizu ni
shizumite shitagau koto atawazu

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 1115.

Plum blossoms drift on the waters of

spring.
The south-flowing Uji joins the Yodo
River.
Oh, love, do not cast off your brocade
line:
the boat will be carried away like
lightning in the rushing shoals.
The waters of the Uji join those of the
Yodo River.
They mingle, they become as one
body.
Please come on board, and lie with me.
We could become Naniwa people, and
live there for a long, long time.
Love, you are like a plum blossom on
the water
a flower floating on the water that
quickly disappears.
I am like the willow on the riverbank, a
shadow in the water
that sinks into the depths, and cannot
follow.

APPENDIX

257

Preface to Make the Past Present (Mukashi o ima), 1774

Our departed teacher Hajin learned the art of haikai from Setsuch-an
Ransetsu, and with Hyakuri and Kinp3 as the two other feet of the
tripod, together they caused a new style of haikai to flourish, and they
had an excellent reputation, and many people of the time were strongly
influenced by the style of these three, it is said. Each of them was a
leader of the current style, and they were geniuses that the average
person could not hope to imitate.
Sa used to live in Kokuch of Buk, in an area from which one
could see a bell-tower high in the distance; he lived in simplicity,
enjoying reclusion in the center of the town. Waking to the bell on frosty
nights, in the melancholic sleeplessness of old age, he discussed haikai
with me. If I would gossip of the things of the world he would pretend
he was deaf and dull-witted. What a splendid old gentleman he was. One
evening, he sat formally and said, The Way of haikai is not necessarily a
matter of devoting yourself to your teachers rules. Changing with the
times, transforming with the times in a spontaneous manner, disregarding what has existed before or what may come into being later is the way
it should be. Struck by this meditation-masters rod I had a sudden
insight, and have some small understanding of the thusness of haikai.
Nowadays what I teach my haikai students it is not Hajins unaffected
language, but chiefly aspire to Bashs sabi and shiori, as I wish to return
haikai to its past. This is a matter of turning away from external illusions
and responding to inner truths. This is called haikai zen, a dharma that is
transmitted directly, from mind to mind. Those who lack understanding
of this criticize me, saying that turning ones back on ones teacher is a
terrible sin, and so forth. With this in mind, the two kasen that follow
depart from that sabi-shiori style, instead, they earnestly imitate Sas
style, and are humbly offered to him. And now on the thirty-third
anniversary of his death we remember him with deep longing, and as if
he turns his eyes to us as he did while still living we feel profoundest
reverence, I and his other disciples present this.4
Yahantei Buson

3 Takano Hyakuri (16651727) was an Edo poet; Ikutama Kinp (16661726) was
born in Settsu but eventually moved to Edo. Hyakuri and Kinp were Ransetsus chief
disciples.
4 BZ, vol. 4, pp. 139140.

258

APPENDIX

Preface to Elder Bash Verse-linking Anthology

(Bash tsukeai sh), 1774
To learn about haikai verse links (tsugiku ), you must first of all
memorize the verses of Bash, and know the relationship between the
three verses involved in linking (i.e., the uchikoshi, maeku, and tsukeku). If
for three days you do not recite the Elders verses, thorns will grow in
your mouth. However, the Elders verses are to be found in a broad
range of anthologies, and are not easy to find. Thus we have taken
excerpts, condensed them, and should there be people who are devoted
to the Way, we present them. A disciple of my school had this printed,
saying that it would save the trouble of copying it by hand.5
Heian (Kyoto)
Shiko-an Buson

Ibid., p. 142.

APPENDIX

259

Account of the Rebuilding of the Bash Hermitage in Eastern Kyoto

(Rakut Bash-an saik-ki), 1776
There is a Zen temple at the southwest foot of Mount Hiei in Ichijjimura. It is called Konpuku-ji. The local people have given it a name; they
call it the Bash-an. If you walk twenty paces beyond a stone staircase
toward the green mountainside, there is a hill. This is where the ruins of
the Bash-an are, they say. Of course this is a quiet, secluded place,
where it is said that the green moss has buried the traces of human
beings for some hundred years, but the deep bamboo grove seems like it
is enveloped in the smoke of a tea-fire. Streams flow, clouds linger, the
trees are ancient, birds sleep, and the sense of the past is powerful. While
it could be said to be some distance from the realm of fame and profit in
the capital, it cannot be called altogether separate from the dust of the
ordinary world.6 Beyond its brushwood fence is the sound of crowing
roosters and barking dogs, cattle drivers and woodcutters go around the
path by its gate. It is near the house of a tofu seller, and not far from a
wine shop. As a result, it is frequently visited by kanshi and haikai poets,
and it is convenient for savoring half a days silence, and also offers
means for procuring a meal to stave off hunger.
First of all, for how long has this place been celebrated as the Bashan? If you ask the children who gather wild herbs or the women who
thresh barley where the Bash-an is, they always point to this place.
Indeed it has had this name since the distant past. However, nobody
knows the reason. I heard confidentially that long ago there was a priest
called Tessh [d. 1698], who lived at the temple, but he also kept
an outbuilding on this site, and he enjoyed living a simple life doing his
own washing and cooking, and he refused all visitors, guarding his
seclusion, but, hearing Bashs verses, wept, thinking Bash was
someone who has escaped the world of illusion and entered into the
realm of enlightened practice. The verses were always on his lips.
Around that time, Bash travelled east and west of Yamashiro on a
poetry-journey, cleansing himself of worldly impurities in the waves of
Kiyotaki waterfall, appreciating the change of seasons in the clouds over
Arashiyama,7 and extolling the pleasure of the fragrant wind blowing

6 An allusion to a sentence in Bashs Genj-an ki (Record of the Unreal

Hermitage, 1690), about having a fondness for silence and solitude.
7 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 68.
Rokugatsu ya
Sixth Month

260

APPENDIX

in from far away to reach Jzans summer robe.8 He visited

Chshs old tomb, and appreciated the sight of an itinerant priest
traveling alone on a cold night; 9 and also wrote, who honors us with his
presence, wearing rush matting;10 he emulated the poetic taste of Mount
Gu-shan in writing yesterday, was your crane stolen?11 He hiked with a
walking stick at the foot of hie (Mount Hiei),12 and brushed the
morning mist from the hem of his hemp robe, crossing over Shirakawa
Mountain,13 and he gazed over the lake water,14 opening his eyes wide

mine ni kumo oku

covering its peak in cloud
Arashiyama
Arashiyama
8 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 74.
Jzan no z:
Addressed to a Portrait of Jzan
kaze kaoru
fragrant breeze
haori wa eri mo
as for his jacket
tsukurowazu
even the collar is untidy
Ishikawa Jzan (15831672) was a kanshi poet and bunjin.
9 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 33.
chsh no
Chshshis tomb
haka mo meguru ka
do you travel here too,
hachi tatataki
itinerant priest?
Kinoshita Chshshi (15681649) was a waka poet, whose Kyohaku sh
 (Kyohaku anthology, published 1649) has the verse hachi tataki / akatsuki gata no
/ hito koe wa / fuyu no yo sae mo / naku hototogisu (itinerant priest / your lone voice towards
dawn / a hototogisu / that sings / even on a winters night).
10 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 19.
komo o kite
who honors us with his presence
tarebito imasu
wearing a straw mat
hana no haru
flowery spring
Imasu is an honorific verb, suggesting that the person addressed is worthy of great
respect. Even though he is so poor he wraps himself in a straw mat, the speaker wonders
if he is perhaps a saint.
11 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 39.
ume shiroshi
plum blossoms are white
kin ya tsuru o
were your cranes
nusumareshi
stolen yesterday?
The verse refers to Chinese poet and recluse Lin Heqing  (Lin Bu , 967
1028) who lived on Mount Gu-shan in Hangzhous West Lake . He remained
in seclusion for twenty years, with only his beloved plum trees and cranes for company.
Bashs hokku is an aisatsu, suggesting that his host is so much like Lin Heqing in poetic
refinement that the fact that he has no cranes about means that they could only have
been stolen.
12 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 25.
hie ya
Mount Hiei
shi no ji o hikite
tracing out a line
hito kasumi
one shred of mist
13 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 63.
yamaji kite
travelling a mountain road
nani yara yukashi
somehow so affecting
sumiire
a violet

APPENDIX

261

like Du Fu .15 In the haziness around the pine of Karasaki,16 it

seems he had a profound experience of sublime poetic insight. It is likely
that, because the place was such a pleasant stroll from the Kyoto, from
time to time he took a rest from his journeys here on the stony hill.
However, after he passed away, with a dream on a withered moor
as his death poem, this priest grieved deeply, and gave his hut the name
Bash Hermitage, no doubt because he admired the Elders poetic style,
in order that it should not be forgotten after his death. I have heard that
there are many examples of cases in China where people would name
their hermitages after their pleasure in the rain, and so on.
Nevertheless, it is not generally known that this place is called Bashan. This is not to mention the fact that there is nothing he wrote left
even as a relic of his brush, so I do not think it could be proved. The
chief priest of Konpuku-ji says, An extremely learned elderly man who
lived here until recently told me that the verse about the melancholy of
the lonely hototogisu, I am desolate, but make me even more so17 was
something he (Bash) wrote for amusement while he was at this
mountain temple. Therefore why is it not recorded in deep-colored ink
that will not fade like the dew and frost? Alas, Zen (literally, mukudoku
, not accumulating merit) practices are strict, and one achieves
enlightenment without reference to the written word, so that one
abandons and regards as worthless even the holy sutras. Because people
very lacking in sensitivity say Why should we keep things like this (i.e.,
Bashs writings)? they thoughtlessly rejected them, and let a place like
this fall into a state where it becomes home only to silverfish. It is a
shame. I listened to this kind of talk sadly.
In any case, there is no way to seek for such things. Still, because it
would be a sin to pointlessly abandon a place so picturesque, that has
such a splendid reputation, in the end I talked about it with like-minded
people, and we rebuilt the hut in form,18 and at the beginning of the

14

Lake Biwa.
Tang poet, 712770.
16 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 26.
Karasaki no
Karasakis pine
matsu wa hana yori
more hazy than
oboro nite
its cherry blossoms
17 NKBT, vol. 45, p. 99.
uki ware o
I am desolate,
sabishigarase yo
but make me even lonelier,
kankodori
hototogisu
18 The Bash Hermitage was actually rebuilt in 1781.
15

262

APPENDIX

Fourth Month, when one waits to hear the call of the hototogisu, and the
end of the Ninth Month, when the stag bellows, we meet at this temple
without fail, and try to emulate the poetic style of Bash. Dry was the
leader of the rebuilding project. Drys great-grandfather was Tan-an
with whom Bash had studied Chinese literature, it is said. That is
why Dry was left with the project nowmore than anyone else he
had a karmic connection to it.
The thirteenth day of the Fifth Month of 1776. Recorded by Yahantei
Buson of Kyoto 19

19

BZ, vol. 4, pp. 155158.

APPENDIX

263

New flower gathering (Shin hanatsumi) Prose section20

Five origins anthology (Gogensh )21 consists of Kikakus own
selections, and from the first he wrote it out in his own handwriting and
gave it to the publisher, intending it as a thing to be propagated among
many people, so naturally even his selection principles must have strict.
However, when you actually inspect this anthology, you find it for the
most part contains verses that are merely difficult to understand; verses
you would consider good are very few. The verses among these that are
popular are all light and easy to understand. Thus, even among verses
which the poet himself felt pride in, thinking these are well-written,
those which are very difficult and not easily comprehensible are like fine
brocade worn in the dark, and could be considered useless.
When you read the verse collections of various poets, for the most
part they are those that have been published posthumously. Only Five
origins anthology was compiled during the poets lifetime.
I think it is better not to publish hokku collections. After a collection
is published, ones reputation always diminishes immediately. One
cannot help feeling that works like Ransetsu anthology and Ransetsu anthology
did not serve the reputation of their authors. Why should we even
discuss those of mediocre poets? What one would call a good verse is
very difficult to achieve. Kikaku is called the Li Qinglian (i.e., Li
Bo) of haikai poets. But, out of the numerous verses that even he wrote,
one does not think to deem even twenty of the excellent. Still, though
there are a very large number of overly complex verses in Kikakus
anthology, every time I read it I feel intrigued. This is where Kikaku is a
superior poet. In general; one thinks that his uncluttered style is good.
In collections like Otsuy anthology there are some good verses but as
you keep reading you eventually find it tiresome.

20 Shimizu Takayuki shows that there are close connections between Shinhanatsumis
stories of the supernatural and those in Uji Collection tales  (Uji shi
monogatari); in particular, the tale of Chikukei and Busons encounter with a badger while
staying at Kensh-ji in Tango has many similarities with one in the Uji collection. He
points out that Busons tales are quite different from those of Ueda Akinari, who became
famous for his Tales of moonlight and rain, a collection of stories about ghosts and
monsters, in that Busons stories, unlike Akinaris, are presented as if he or one of his
friends had personally experienced the events described. Shimizu and Kuriyama, Buson,
Issa, pp. 225226.
21 Published 1749.

264

APPENDIX

Five origins anthology was something that Kikaku intended to publish

during his lifetime; he personally chose the verses, and then wrote them
out himself properly on fine-quality paper, but at last, when it was at the
point of being sent to the woodblock-carver he died without having his
intentions realized. A certain shrine cleric hid Kikakus manuscript and
would not circulate it, and it was only after a friend of mine called
Hyakuman-b Shigen paid a high price, went to a lot of
trouble and effort, and one way or another he somehow convinced him
to part with it. Right away he he discussed it with me, saying, Please
copy this out without changing anything. While I agreed to do this
without hesitation, even before I had started to work on it something
happened,22 and I left Edo, and went to stay with Gant of Yki as my
host in Shimsa, and day and night we practiced haikai; by chance, I met
Rykyo, who was on a pilgrimage to Tsukuba, and participated in haikai
meetings here and there; and I accompanied Tanpoku on a journey to
Kzuke, and we stayed at inns in various places; we travelled around the
bay at Matsushima and were swept away by the splendid scenery; we
stayed overnight at Soto-no-hama, and as in the story of the pearls of
Kappo, forgot to return home, and while I visited many other places,
more than three years went by. This being the case, how could Hyakuman wait for me to return to Edo? Eventually he had Kisei copy
the manuscripts, had it carved in wood [i.e., to have it published], and at
last it was published. That was what we now know as Five origins anthology.
If you compare it to the original, there is not the least difference, and it
has lost none of the distinct character of Kikakus own hand. Now, the
original is preserved by Umitomo Gyokuga .
The first object of training is to be able to distinguish between a hokku
and a hiraku. It is not something one can be careless about.
A verse that resembles a hiraku but is actually a hokku:23
nabe sagete
yodo no kobashi o
yuki no hito

carrying a cooking pot

over the Yodo River bridge
someone in the snow

This is a hiraku that resembles a hokku:24

22

That is, the death of Hayano Hajin in 1742.

Because it lacks a kireji. However, it is a fully developed verse that captures the
scene succinctly and completely, and so therefore is a good hokku.
23

APPENDIX

mi no ya
te no hira hodo na
kumo okoru

265

at mi
clouds come up
like they could fit in the palm of ones
hand

Setsud
Inscribed on a painting of Ezo (Ainu), by Maruyama Mondo :
kobu de fuku
noki no shizuku
ya sakki ame

on the eaves
thatched with seaweed
drops of Fifth Month rain

Mondo
There was certain person who had a passion for the handguard of a
short-sword that was said to have been made from a nail-cover taken
from the palace of Xianyang; he always had it at his waist and cherished
it. How much did this antique, inlaid with a bird-and-flower pattern of
precious metals, and evoke the splendor of a thousand years! However,
asking about what proof was there that this was indeed a nail-cover from
the Xianyang Palace is nonsensical talk. Somehow, if he had not claimed
it was a nail-cover from the Xianyang Palace, it would have been a
wonderful thing, and it is regrettable that he did.
Even if it had been woodshavings from Nagara Bridge or the dried
frog of Ide, I am sure that the people of today would find it contemptible and dubious.
Tokiwa Tanpokus Korean tea bowl had been carefully preserved by
the warrior taka Gengo; it was handed down to Tanpoku from that
very Gengo, and Tanpoku bequeathed it to me. Indeed it had an eminent
history of past possession, but what proof was there? Lest it should
become like the nail-cover of Xianyang palace, I quickly gave it away.
Tenrin-in temple of Matsushima is alongside Zuigan-ji and is a
splended Zen monastery. Once, when I was a guest there, the head of
the temple gave me an old plank which was more than a foot in length
and said, Lord So-and-So of Sendai was a waka poet without compare.
He hired a large number of workers, and had them dredge the bottom of
the Natori River and they managed to pull out a fossilized log. This log

24 Because it has a kireji. However, it does not have a kigo, it does not make reference
to mis conventional associations, and it lacks the suggestive overtones that characterize a good hokku.

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was used to make a writing-box, and together with some brushes made
from Miyagino bushclover-wood, it was presented to the head of the
Nij poetry school. This plank is what is left from the log, and is
something that should not be treated lightly. It had a distinct grain like
that of zelkova wood. Because it had spent a thousand years on the river
bottom, it was black, and as if it had turned to iron, when you tapped it,
it made a hollow sound. It weighed only about ten kin, and even when I
bundled it up in a cloth and put it on my back, I barely managed to carry
it to Shiroishi post station. Because I did not think I could bear the
fatigue of carrying it over a long distance, I left it under the veranda of
the guest-house where I spent the night and continued on my journey
home.
Sometime later, when I mentioned this to Tanpoku at the home of
Gant of Yki, Tanpoku scolded me angrily, saying, What! You dirty
priest who throws away treasure! Ill have it for myself! Is someone
around that I can send? Go right away! and he contacted Shinry in
Sukagawa. Shinry wrote a letter, and sent a servant with him to visit the
lodging-place at Shiroishi. The servant said, A priest who once stayed
here left something or other behind, and I have come to look for it.
The innkeeper fortunately looked around, and found it, and gave it to
him, and [Shinry] took it. Later, Gant received it [from Tanpoku], and
it was made into the inkstone-cover called Fishes and Cranes. It is
more than seventy ri from Yki to Shiroishi, and although much time
had passed, the object that we obtained and brought home was an
exceedingly precious one.
Matsuki Tantan did not belong to the company of frivolous poets. A
long time ago, I asked Tantan to add and inscription to a painting of
Bash, Kikaku, and Ransetsu. Tantan responded with:
momochidori
inasetori
yobukodori

plovers
rice-birds
and cuckoos25

Tantan

25 These were the three birds of the Ancient and modern poetry collection (Kokinsh) secret
tradition (momochidori, inaousedori, yobukodori). Tantan compares the three haikai poets to
these birds.

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267

This painting is now in the possession of Shumei of Nikk in

Shimsa.26
J of Yki established a second house and had an old man stay there as
caretaker. Even though it was in the middle of the town, it was surrounded by trees and luxuriant with plants, and because it was a place
where one could escape the hustle and bustle of the world, I myself
stayed there for quite some time.
The old man had nothing to do there other than keep the place clean.
One time he spent the long autumn night telling his beads in the light of
a single lamp, while I stayed in the back room, working on my haikai and
my Chinese poetry. Eventually I grew tired, and I spread out the blankets
and pulled them over my head. But just as I was drifting off to sleep,
there was a tapping sound on the shutters by the veranda. There must
have been some twenty or thirty taps. My heart beat faster, and I
thought, How strange! But when I got out of bed, and quietly slid
open the shutter to take a look, there was nothing out there. When I
went back to bed and pretended to be asleep, again there was the same
tapping sound. Once again I got out of bed and took a look, but there
was nothing there. How very eerie, I thought, and consulted the old
caretaker. I asked, What should we do? The caretaker said, Its that
badger again. The next time it starts tapping like that, quickly open the
shutter and chase after it. Ill come around from the back door, and it
will probably be hiding under the fence. I saw that he was holding a
switch.
I went back to bed and once more pretended to be asleep. Again
there was the sound of tapping. When I shouted, Aha! and opening
the shutter and running out, the old man came out too, yelling, Gotcha! But there was nothing there. So we both got very angry, but even
though we looked in every corner of the property, we still couldnt find a
thing.
This went on for some five nights running. Wearied by it all, I had
finally come to the conclusion that I could no longer stay there, but then
a servant of Js house came and said, You will not be disturbed
tonight, sir. This morning one of the villagers shot an old badger in a
place called Yabushita. I believe that there can be no doubt that all of
that fuss and trouble was the work of this badger. Rest well tonight.

26

Nikko is actually in what was Kzuke Province.

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APPENDIX

And indeed, from that night on all of the noises ceased. I began to
think sadly that this animal which I had thought of as a nuisance had
really offered my some comfort from the loneliness of a travelers night,
and I felt pity for the badgers soul, and that we had formed a karmic
bond. For that reason I called upon a cleric named Priest Zenk, made a
donation, and for one night chanted nembutsu in order that the badger
might eventually achieve Buddhahood.
aki no kure
hotoke ni bakeru
tanuki kana

late in autumn
transformed into a Buddha
the badger

A badger came to the door to visit, and it seems that people said he
made tapping sounds with his tail, but that was not the case. In fact, he
pressed his back against the door.
A long time ago, I stayed at a temple called Kensh-ji at Miyazu in
Tango Province for more than three years. In the beginning of autumn, I
suffered from fever for some fifty days. There was a reception room in
the rear of the temple that was very large, and because all the shoji were
shut tight, there was not a single crack left open for the wind to blow
through. The room next to it was turned into my sick-room, and the
fusuma sliding doors between the rooms were closed up tight. One
night, at about the time of the Fourth Hour,27 because there was a slight
break in my fever, thinking I might go to the toilet, I got out of bed and
staggered off. The toilet was down the veranda walkway alongside the
reception room in the northwest corner. The lamps had been extinguished by now and it was terribly dark, so I opened the fusuma that
closed off my room from the other, and when first I went to put my
right foot into the room, to my surprise I stepped on something furry. I
was terrified, so I instantly jerked back my foot, and though I listened
intently for some time, there was no sound at all. Although I was full
dread and shocked, I patted myself on the chest to calm my heart, and
this time with my left foot, thinking, This must be about the right
place, I made a sudden kick with my left foot. However, I felt absolutely nothing there. Now I was even more perplexed, and every hair on
me was standing on end. Trembling, I went toward the refectory kitchen,
and woke up some of the priests from sound sleep, and when I told

27

The Fourth Hour started at two a.m.

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269

them what had happened, they all got up and came with me. When we
went to look inside the reception room with lamps blazing, all the
fusuma and shoji were shut tight as usual, with no openings for anything
to escape, of course there was nothing unusual there. The priests said,
Mister, your fever has made you muddle-headed, and youre talking
nonsense. Furious, they all went back to bed. Feeling embarrassed
because I had been given such a scolding, I too got back into bed. Just as
I was drifting off to sleep, I felt as if a heavy stone had been laid on my
chest, and I started to moan loudly. The sound of my voice was within
the hearing of the Reverend Chikukei, who came over and said, How
extraordinary! Whats the matter? and saved me by waking me up.
When I finally returned to my senses, I told him what I had experienced,
he said, Things like this do sometimes happen. It must be the work of
that badger.
He opened the outer doors, and looked out. Dawn was just beginning
to break, and in the pale light one could clearly make out tracks, like
fallen petals of plum blossoms, leading from the veranda to under the
walkway. And so, even those people who before had said I was talking
nonsense and scolded me, said wonderingly, Hm, maybe it really was
something.
Perhaps it was because Reverend Chikukei had come in such a hurry
to wake me up, but his sash was undone, and the front of his robe hung
open. His plump testicles hung like rice-sacks, but since this area was
covered in profuse tufts of white hair, one could not see his penis. Saying
that this was a result of having had a rash during his youth, he pulled on
his testicles, twisting them and scratching them. I thought he looked very
strange, and, wondering if perhaps this was what Old Man Shukaku
looked like when he had grown tired of reading scriptures, I was shocked
and frightened, and drew back from him. Chikukei laughed very loudly,
and recited this verse.
aki furu ya
kusu hachi j no
Kinkakuji

autumn passes, and looking back

eight j of camphor
in the Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Chikukei
There is a man called Nakamura Hyzaemon who lives in Shimodate, in
Hitachi Province. He belonged to the former Yahantei haikai school, and
his haikai name was Fk. He was of unequalled wealth, and lived in a

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APPENDIX

fine house of some six acres in size, whose gardens were full of unusual
stones and rare plants. He kept a fountain and let loose birds, and the
scenery of the gardens artificial mountain surpassed views of nature. He
was such an incomparably fine man that sometimes the provincial
governor would come to call. His wifes name was Omitsu. She was the
daughter of a rich man called Fujii Somebody, and was skilled at waka
and music. She was also a woman of very fine character.
Even though this was such a splendid family, at some point the house
went into decline, and became extremely lonely, so that even people who
had formerly visited now began to avoid it. When the house first began
to go into decline, many peculiar things happened. Among them,
something that would make ones hair stand on end happened one year
during in the Twelfth Month, during preparations for the New Year,
when a great many mochi rice-cakes were set inside tubs to keep. When
mochi started disappearing in the middle of the night, they assumed that
a thief had been coming, and put a lid like the door of a gate over every
tub, and on top of the lids they lay heavy stones. The following morning,
when they fearfully looked inside the tubs, they found that although the
lids had been completely undisturbed, more than half the mochi were
missing out of each. At that point, Fk went to Edo on official
business. During this time Omitsu looked after the household very
carefully, and she treated everyone with great compassion; people pitied
her and wept sympathetic tears. One night, while she was sewing a fine
robe in preparation for the New Year, because she was going to stay up
late, she told all the servants to go to bed before her. She closed herself
up alone in a room, with all the doors and windows shut tight, where
there would have been no place for anything to hide. The lamps were
brightly lit, and she worked at her sewing with a tranquil mind. Just at the
time that the sound of a water clock made her think, it must be about the
Fourth Hour, suddenly five or six old, decrepit-looking foxes with
dragging tails walked right past where Omitsu was sitting. The fusuma
and the shoji where still closed tightly, and because there was not so
much as a crack left open, it was as if they had drilled their way in.
Thinking this was very strange, she did not take her eyes off them, but
they came and went just as if they were passing through a field with no
obstructions, and then they disappeared. Omitsu went right on sewing as
if she had not found anything particularly surprising about this.
The following day I went to the house to visit her. Hoping to offer
some words of comfort, I asked, How are you doing? You must have a

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271

lot on your mind, since your husband is so slow in returning. Omitsu

looked even more radiant than usual, and told me quite calmly, A
mysterious thing happened last night, and described what had happened. I listened, nodding, I moved closer to her, sliding on my knees,
and said, How amazing! When something that strange happened, why
didnt you wake the servants, why did you stay there all alone? You are
extraordinarily steadfast. She answered, Oh no, I just didnt think it
was all that frightening. For someone who says that sometimes even the
sound of the rain and the wind in the miscanthus grass is so scary she
covers her head, the fact that she was not afraid that night is something
that is truly unexplainable.
Also there was the old man called Shinga, a disciple of Kaiga. One night,
Shinga was spending the night at Fks house, and he was sleeping in
the library. It was the eighteenth night of the Ninth Month. The moon
was clear and dew was cool, and there was the sound of insects chirping
in the grass, and because it was so affecting, he slept with the shutters
open and only the shoji closed. At about the Fourth Hour, he suddenly
sat up in bed and looked outside, and it was as bright as day from the
dazzling moonlight. Several foxes sat in a row on the veranda, waving
their bushy tails. They cast very distinct shadows on the shoji, and there
are no words to describe how frightening it was. How could Shinga
stand it at that moment? He ran toward the kitchen in a panic, and going
up to a room where he thought the host was sleeping, he knocked at the
fusuma. Hey, wake up! he hollered at the top of his voice. This
awakened the servants, who made a big commotion, yelling, Burglars!
There are burglars here! Hearing this, Shinga himself calmed down, and,
his eyes fully awake now, he looked at what he was doing. He realized he
was knocking on the door of the toilet, shouting, Sir! Wake up! Help
quickly! Later he spoke of this, and said, I am a fool, even if I do say
so myself.
Then there was the case of the swordsman Akimoto Gohei
, who was a retainer for Matsudaira Yamato no Kami
, Lord of Shirakawa Castle. Having had some differences
with his master, he withdrew from service, moved out of the province,28
and changed his name to Suigetsu . He had a liking for haikai, and

28

Iwaki Province, now in Fukushima Prefecture.

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APPENDIX

travelled around Yas (i.e., the provinces of Kzuke, Shimotsuke,

Kazusa, and Shimsa) as a haikai poet, staying at the homes of the
wealthy here and there. Just like duckweed floating in a stream, or
mugwort blown about by the wind, he had no home of his own, but was
truly a poetic man (fry no okina ).
He tells this story. One time when this poet was spending the night in
Fks back guest room, he heard soft voices, like a group of three old
ladies were gathered underneath the veranda, talking into the night. He
wondered what they were saying, but though he listened closely he
couldnt make out a word. They just went on talking, and thinking that
this was very sad and touching, he was awake until dawn, he said.
It is good to get the things that you want even if you have to fight for
them. It is good to see the things that you want to see after making an
effort to do so. You must not be careless, thinking that there will surely
be an occasion when you can get or see this again. It is very difficult to
realize your intentions more than once.
The officer Umezu Hanuemon was a trusted retainer in a certain
household, in his post in Naniwa also his service was excellent, and he
received a letter of commendation, and was a person of great fame. Thus
his stipend was worth some ten thousand koku, and was a senior retainer
in the household. He had a liking for haikai, and as his duties permitted
he participated in activities of Kikakus school, and took the name
Kiteki. He was a poet with many verses in Kikakus collections. This
person, having completed his work in Edo, was about return home to
Akita. Since he was very sad at having to leave Kikaku, he invited him to
come along. Kikaku could not go. Kikaku had another disciple by the
name of Shik. Because he was very skilled at haikai, at Kikakus
recommendation he went to attend Kiteki, and sent him off to Akita.
Therefore, Kiteki and Kikaku did not cease exchanging letters, so Ieard.
Among these was a precious letter written in Kikakus own hand. Of
course it contained a conventional greeting. After that were included two
or three hokku, and in the following paragraph there was this:
On a certain day in a certain month, the forty-seven loyal retainers
launched a night attack on the enemy stronghold, avenging their dead
lord. They ended up Sengakuji temple with nothing to regret. Shiy,
Shunban and the others performed deeds that were completely without
parallel. Both of those two were practitioners of haikai in those days, they

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273

were young warriors of poetic sensitivity, and above all, their resolve and
emotional depth was endless.

It was truly a document worthy of great respect, and Kiteki kept it

hidden away, like a treasure.
At that time there was a person called Fukami Shintar. He was a
youth so beautiful he would put even He An and Dong Xian to shame.
Kiteki had a great affection for this young man, and they formed a bond
that was closer even than that of Su Wu and Li Ling. Shintar was also
interested in haikai, and went by the name of Jsh. He felt that the
letter from Kikaku was something he wanted for himself, and even
though he did not say anything about it, Kiteki knew what was on his
mind, and ended up giving it to him.
After that a few years passed. Among the disciples of Tantan there
was a man named Bakuten, and he came to Akita from Naniwa and
stayed there for some time. Jsh and Bakuten were both devoted to
haikai, and Jsh gave the letter to Bakuten. After that Bakuten moved
on to Edo, and he lived in a place called Yanagiwara, near Edo Castle,
and sought out a shabby room and lived there. He had always been poor,
and now he had run out of ways to pay for clothing and food; he had no
aquaintances, and no relatives that he could rely on, so he was in real
trouble. When I realized this, I gave him a little something to help him
out of his difficulty. I hosted my own monthly haikai meetings, running
all over the place making his sales pitch. Because of this, when, starting
with people like Hajin, Rit, Rywa, and Gojaku, people of all kinds
joined, eventually the meeting place became filled to bursting with
participants, and he had splendid haikai group.
Bakutens intentions were finally realized when Mokusai Seiga became
a member of the group. He (Bakuten) took the name Ihoku, and
effortlessly composed linked verse sequences of ten thousand verses, and
he safely completed the initiation as a haikai master. His reputation grew
naturally, and he participated in many groups, and anyway was very
successful. Because he felt great affection and gratitude towards me, his
old friend, he told me he would give me the aforementioned Kikaku
letter. I replied, You have only this to treasure. There wont be another
one. How can I accept it? I have no need of it. I firmly declined his
offer.
Afterwards I left Edo, and Ihoku became an old man. And as for the
letter, I am still troubled with wondering whose collection it ended up in.

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Afterword

The above was written by Master Yahantei himself. One summer, the
master decided he would like to write a series of hokku. He prepared a
draft notebook, and calling it Sequel to flower gathering (Zoku hanatsumi
), and planned to write ten verses each day. At the end of the
Fourth Month, he had to suspend the work, still unfinished, because of
illness. Around the middle of the Sixth Month, thinking that abandoning
writing something every day was not what he wanted, and after recovering from his illness, he took to recording his thoughts in an unstructured
way, and after that he neglected it for a long time, and finally gave up on
it altogether. After he passed away, I took apart the notebook, and made
its pages into a handscroll, adding some of my own illustrations of the
meaning of the texts. I testify that the handwriting is authentically that of
the master.
Fourth Month, 1784, The Buddhas Birthday29
Gekkei

29

The eighth day of the Fourth Month.

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275

Preface to Shundei verse anthology (Shundei kush)

Ry Korekoma edited the manuscript he had inherited from his father,
and asked me to write a preface for it. The preface is as follows.
I went to visit Shundei-sha Shha at his second house in the west of
Kyoto. Shha asked me a question about haikai. I answered, Haikai is
that which has as its ideal the use of zokugo, yet transcends zoku. To
transcend zoku yet make use of zoku, the principle of rizoku, is most
difficult. It is the thing that So-and-So Zen master spoke of: Listen to
the sound of the Single Hand, in other words haikai zen, the principle of
rizoku. Through this, Shha understood immediately.
He then continued his questions. Although the essence of your
teaching must be profound, is there not some method of thought that I
could put into use, by which one might seek this by oneself? Indeed, is
there not some shortcut, by which one might, without making a distinction between Other and Self, identify with nature and transcend zoku? I
answered, Yes, the study of Chinese poetry. You have been studying
Chinese poetry for years. Do not seek for another way. Doubtful,
Shha made so bold as to ask, But Chinese poetry and haikai are
different in tenor. Setting aside haikai, and studying Chinese poetry
instead, is that not more like a detour?
I answered, Painters have the theory of Avoiding zoku: To avoid
the zoku in painting, there is no other way but to read many texts, that is
to say, both books and scrolls, which causes the qi to rise, as commercialism and vulgarity cause qi to fall. The student should be careful about
this. To avoid zoku in painting as well, they caused their students to put
down the brush and read books. Less possible still is it to differentiate
Chinese poetry and haikai. With that, Shha understood.
Another time he asked, From ancient times, the many haikai poets
have divided, each to his own gates and doors, and their poetic styles
differ. From which of these gates may I enter into the inner teachings? I
answered, In haikai there are no gates and doors. Only what we call the
gate of haikai itself is what acts as the gate. Again, painting theory says,
The various painting masters did not divide into gates or build doors.
Gates and doors exist in themselves. Haikai is just like this too. Learn
exhaustively each tradition, and keep these in your mind, and you
yourself will choose the best from among them, and make use of it
according to the occasion. There is no other way but being introspective
about the state of your mind. However, do take care to always choose

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APPENDIX

those companions, because if you do not interact with those them, you
will not be able achieve this ideal.
Shha said, What do you mean by those companions? I answered,
I mean seeking after Kikaku, looking for Ransetsu, inviting in Sod,
accompanying Onitsura. Renewing acquaintance with these Four Elders
every single day. Above all, separating yourself from the realm of fame
and fortune a little; wandering in the garden, and holding your poetrygatherings in natures midst. Drinking wine, having witty conversations,
and when you write poems, just letting them come to you, without
forcing them. Doing this day after day, one day one meets the Four
Elders. Be always in quiet contemplation of the natural landscape with a
poets spirit. Close your eyes, and earnestly compose your poem, and
when you have done it, open them again. The Four Elders are gone.
Now alone, you wonder, where did they go? pausing, entranced. That is
when you smell the sweet fragrance of cherry blossoms, and see the
moonlight reflecting off the water. That is the answer to your question
about the method to haikai. Shha responded with a little grin.
He ended up becoming a member of my poetry circle and composed
thousands of verses. He had a particular contempt for the work of
Bakurin and Shik. I told him, Even though the tone of Bakurin and
Shik may be called vulgar, they are skillful at describing human emotions and ordinary situations. For this reason, imitating their work might
not be entirely unhelpful sometimes, if you treat it as a poetic technique.
It is the same for Chinese poetry: one has no objections to Li and Du
,30 but still, learn what one can from Yuan and Bo .31
Shha said, But, Master, do not confuse me with this phony zen.
Painters view Wu and Zhang 32 as the devils of painting. Bakurin
and Shik are like them, nothing but devils of haikai. He criticized
Bakurin and Shik more and more, went straight ahead without getting
distracted by trivial things, and attained the level of haikai excellence.
Tragically, one day he fell gravely ill, and did not recover. As time
passed he grew thin and frail, and there was nothing medicine could do
for him. Realizing that the moment had come to die, he called for me

30

Li Bo and Du Fu.
Yuan Zhen (779831) and Bo Juyi. They were mid-Tang poets credited with
bringing about a revival of yuefu (Music Bureau) poetry.
32 Wu Wei (14591508; hao , Xiaoxian ), and Zhang Lu (14641538,
hao, Pingshan ), were both Ming court painters. This alludes to the disdain that
literati felt for court painters.
31

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277

and grasped my hand, and said, What I regret is that I will not be able
to join you in the new style (ryk). He died with tears in his eyes. I
wept, saying over and over again, My haikai has gone to the West. My
haikai has gone to the West.
The above comes from a volume called Yahan chats over tea (Yahan meiwa
). Yahan chats over tea was a book that I myself edited, a record
of discussions between various people. And I do not use it here as the
introduction to this collection without a very good reason. This text
shows how pure and uncluttered Shhas work was, and I hope that by
knowing about his character readers will appreciate his verse as being
without artifice. That he was not to be compared to a sheep who drapes
itself in a tigers skin is what, I, Old Buson, aged sixty-two, write at the
Midnight Studio in the capital, 1777, the seventh day of the Twelfth
Month.

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Linked Verse Sequence Rape-flowers (Na no hana ya)

1. Buson
na no hana ya
tsuki wa higashi ni
hi wa nishi ni

rape-flowers
the moon in the east
the sun in the west

In a field of blossoming rapeseed plants that blankets the landscape in

yellow, the full moon rises in the east as the sun sinks into the west.
Scholars have pointed out the similarity between this verse and the
second of Tao Yuanmings Untitled Poems:
The white sun sinks into the western slopes,
the pale moon rises over the eastern peaks.
For ten thousand leagues the light shines,
Over a great distance the sky is bright33

It is also alludes to this verse by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro:

himugashi no
no ni kagiroi no
tatsu miete
kaerimisureba
tsuki katabukinu

I watch
the sky grow lighter
over the eastern fields;
turning around I see
the moon has dropped down low. 34

Manysh, vol. 1, no. 48

Na no hana ya inverts the scenery of the Tao Yuanming verse. The
Chinese verse presents a common-sense narrative of day giving way to
night, by mentioning the sun first and then the moon. Buson has
reversed the order, looking first to the east to describe the position of
the moon, and then to the west, where the sun is disappearing.

33 Cited in Teruoka Yasutaka, Za no bungei: Buson no renku (Shgakukan, 1978), p. 123.

For a complete English translation of the Tao Yuanming poem, see James Hightower,
The Poetry of Tao Chien (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), p. 187.
34 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 4, Manysh I (Iwanami Shoten, 1957), p.
35.

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279

Since the hokku merely names the elements of the scene without
adding much extra detail, many later commentators, especially those
writing about this hokku as a verse independent of the sequence, have
labeled this as being in the shasei style. Although Buson hokku anthology has
Spring scene and Iwama Otsunis (17561823) Busons
hokku explained (Buson hokku kai , 1833) includes the
headnote Scenery outside the capital, later critics have tended to ignore
these.35 However, others, like Teruoka Yasutaka, believe that the
headnote does indeed have real meaning, and was added to give a kanshilike overtone to the verse.36 In any case, when this verse was used as a
hokku to begin a sequence, there was no headnote.
As we saw above, this hokku was not composed specifically for this
sequence, and so it does not seem to be functioning as an aisatsu
complimenting the host or the location. However, it is properly hokkulike in being light in tone and sublime in scale.
2. Chora
yama moto tku
sagi kasumi yuku

at the foot of a mountain, distantly

herons grow misty

The waki, by Chora, continues the description of the scene begun by the
hokku. He adds to its wide panorama-like view some living creatures
herons, whose forms are growing indistinct in the mist as the light fails.
The hokkus brightly colored landscape starts to fade a bit.
Nomura Kazumi suggests that this verse alludes to one by Go-Toba:
miwataseba
yama moto kasumu
minasegawa
ybe wa aki to
nani omoi kemu

when I gaze out

to where mist covers the foot of the
mountain
at Minase River
why did I think
in autumn, it is the evening?37

35 In Lectures on Busons hokku (Buson kush kgi ), Nait Meisetsu

does not take into account the headnote, writing, This refers to no more than simple
spring scenery. Masaoka Shiki writes, [The headnote] was added to avoid a pedestrian
(tsukinami ) overly logical interpretation. Mizuhara Shshi (18921981)
comments, In this instance, it must not have any particular meaning. It is simply put
there as a means of adding weight to the verse. Cited in Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 123.
36 Ibid., p. 123.
37 NKBT, vol. 28, no. 36.

280

APPENDIX

3. Kit
watashibune
sakate mazushiku
haru kurete

ferry boat
his tip is a poor one
late in spring

Because this is the daisan, the situation it describes is supposed to be

different from that existing in the linked hokku and waki, and Kits
verse accomplishes this. From a panoramic scene of natural landscape,
inhabited only by herons, the focus pulls in on a human figurea ferry
captain in his boatand a very human emotion. The season is still
spring, but haru kurete makes it late spring, unlike the reference to na no
hana in the hokku, which bloom in early spring. The end of spring is
supposed to evoke an elegant pang of regret in the hearts of persons of
poetic sensibility. Here there is a feeling of regret at the end of spring,
but it is more pragmatic: the ferry captain is disgruntled over the
stinginess of his passengers.
This is the third spring verse. As is typical of a daisan, the verse ends
in a -te (continuative) form.
4. Buson
okuni gae to wa
aranu soragoto

Transferred to another province?

a baseless lie!

The quietly evocative landscape of the waki has disappeared, and now
the scene is completely concerned with human affairs. Buson offers an
explanation for the paucity of the tip: okunigaethe forcible transfer of a
daimy to another fief. Okunigae were one of the Tokugawa shogunates
strategies of keeping the daimy under control, preventing them
becoming too rich or powerful. Besides being disruptive, okunigae were
extremely expensive, and if it were the case that the samurai passenger
was serving a daimy under a transfer order, it would account for his
parsimoniousness. However, the ferry captain here does not believe the
explanation, as he has not heard about it before.
As it does not contain a kigo, this is classified as a miscellaneous verse.
5. Chora
wakizashi o
koshiraetareba
haya umishi

when he wore his sword

at his waist
he quickly lost interest

APPENDIX

281

The ferry boat and its captain have disappeared, and now the focus is on
an individual samurai. Having expected the transfer, he has put his sword
on, and readied himself for possible trouble. But, once he realized that
this was only a rumor, the sword seems like an inconvenient burden.
Normally this would be a moon verse, but since the hokku makes
reference to the moon, it is not necessary to do so here.
6. Kit
mino kite izuru
yuki no akebono

he goes out dressed in a straw cloak

a snowy dawn

This verse offers a different reason for the samurais disenchantment

with his sword: poetic intoxication. Waking at dawn and realizing that
snow has fallen in the night, he is seized with the elegant desire to see it.
A sword is just a nuisance to someone who is going snow-viewing in a
straw coat.
As Teruoka points out, a straw coat worn in the rain seems shabby
and sad, but when worn in the snow has a special elegance. A hokku by
Buson makes this clear:
ame no toki
mazushiki mino no
yuki ni tomeri

the straw coat,

poor when it rains
is rich in snow38

7. Buson
Ninnaji o
Komatsu no sato to
tare ka iu

Ninna-ji
some call it
Komatsu Village

Buson takes another view of the elegant person in the maeku, imagining
that his journey through the snow takes him through the area around
Ninna-ji, the temple near Kyoto, in Omuro that he alludes to in the
hokku have I run into Matabei? / blossoms at Omuro / at their height
(Matabei ni / au ya Omuro no / hana zakari). Emperor Kk (r. 884
887) was buried here, and as he was also called the Komatsu Emperor,
the land nearby got the name Komatsu-no-sato.

38

BZ, vol. 1, no. 1190.

282

APPENDIX

8. Chora
koishiki hito no
uma tsunagitari

the beloved one

walks leading a horse

Ninna-ji evoked associations with male homosexual lovethe love

between a chigo (page) and his older patron. In the 1676 dictionary
of haikai word associations, Companion boat (Ruisensh ), there is
the entry, chigoNinna-ji. So the link here is made by describing a man
who has gone to the temple on horseback and is met by his lover, a
young acolyte.
This verse may allude to the Tale of the Heike story of Taira Tsunemasa
, who as a child served Ninna-jis Imperial Abbot Kakush
Hoshinn . Just before he is to leave the capital, Tsunemasa
rides his horse to bid farewell to his former master. Tsunemasa presents
the Abbot with his biwa lute, named Seizan , and the two exchange
poems.39 The verse may also allude to another incident in the Tale of the
Heike, when Lord Komatsu (Taira Shigemori ) had a saddle put
on a good horse, and had it brought to Nakatsuna, saying, Indeed, you
actions the other day were excellent! This is a very fine horse. When
night falls, and you leave the barracks to visit your lady, please make use
of it.40
9. Kit
fuki watasu
ayame ga noki o
shinoburan

placed in the thatch

the irises
seem to languish over the eaves

This verse fixes the time of year as around the fifth day of the Fifth
Month. Leaves of iris were put into the thatched eaves of homes as far
back as the Heian period. They were thought to dispell evil spirits as well
as harmful insects. Shinobu has multiple meanings: to hide, to visit a lover
secretly, to long for or remember, to endure suffering. The identity of
beloved person in the maeku is changedit now seems to be a young
woman, for whom the person who decorates his thatch with irises is
longing.

39 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 33, Heike monogatari II (Iwanami Shoten,
195960), pp. 105106.
40 Takagi Ichinosuke et al., eds., NKBT, vol. 32, Heike monogatari I (Iwanami Shoten,
195960), p. 293.

APPENDIX

283

10. Buson
ame ni mo narazu
yagate hi tomosu

it has not rained

finally, they light the lamps

The Fifth Month is the beginning of the rainy season, and the maekus
reference to the Fifth Day of the Fifth Month Festival (Tango no sekku
, celebrated as Childrens Day in the modern period)
prepares us to imagine a day of rain. Toward the end of the day the rain
has stopped, and the lamps are lit.
Teruoka notes that the fifth day of the Fifth Month was also called
Medicine Day .
11. Chora
shakuhachi no
keiko kururi to
narabi ite

at shakuhachi practice
they are lined up
in a row

Chora imagines the quiet evening scene of the maeku as the setting for
shakuhachi practice. It seems likely, given the direction that the following
verse takes, that the shakuhachi students here are monks, possibly komus
monks of the Fuke sect.
12. Kit
zoku torae yo
to yake no fure

catch the criminals!

says the official notice

Kit recasts the scene as one in which an official government order has
come, urging those present to catch a criminal. Komus monks wore
large basket-shaped hats to cover their faces, and were frequently rnin,
or samurai who had committed criminal acts and joined the priesthood
to atone for them. Because their lifestyle meant that they could travel
around the country anonymously, they were sometimes used to track
down criminals.41
13. Buson
wase karite
okute mo etaru
kokoro nari

41

Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 127.

the early harvest gathered

and the feeling of
the late harvest in as well

284

APPENDIX

Buson takes the official notice as an announcement of the rate of the

annual tax. Here, the person who has received the notice, the village
leader perhaps, is relieved because the early crop of rice was a good one,
and the second crop is safely in as well.
The maekus injunction, to take (torae) the criminals has been realized in the tsukekus wase karite (the early rice brought in) and etaru
kokoroa feeling of having achieved something.
This is an autumn verse.
14. Chora
tenki no tsuzuku
mi-ji no aki

autumn on the mi Road

where the weather is holding

A light verse, which specifies the location of the maekus action, and
opens out into a description of landscape. The second autumn verse.
15. Kit
monzen no
fune toki idasu
tsuki no kure

untying the boat before the gate

and departing
the setting moon

The mi road runs near Lake Biwa, and this verse introduces a scene
that takes place at the lakeside. Monzen can mean, in front of the gate of
an ordinary house, though it also has the implication that the gate
belongs to a temple. Tsuki no kure, setting of the moon, can also mean a
moonlit evening.
This is the third autumn verse. It is also a moon verse, which would
ordinarily belong at Number 13.
16. Buson
deshi no szu wa
yoki koromo kite

the disciple priests

wearing fine robes

Buson imagines the boats passengers as a disciple priest

(deshi no szu) and his master. Szu is a relatively high priestly rank, so the
disciple priests master must be quite a grand personage. The implication
here is that master and disciple are travelling together.
There is an element of humor in the contrast between the priests fine
clothes and the rickety boat.

APPENDIX

285

17. Chora
hana no naka
kach-no-sh
ni yukiainu

amid the blossoms

he runs into
the daimys retainer

Chora expands on the suggestion of colorful finery in yoki koromo, and

adds a scene of a cherry-blossom viewing party. Someone, perhaps a
townsperson, runs into first the priests in their splendid vestments, then
a local samurai, out enjoying the beauty of the blooming cherry trees.
This, a blossom verse, is in its proper position.
18. Kit
kabuki no mane no
hayaru kono haru

this spring, with

kabuki imitation so popular

The priests have disappeared, and Kit now makes the scene into one in
which the crowds out for cherry-blossom viewing are gathered around a
small stage to watch amateur kabuki. The real performers all came from
professional kabuki families, but fans often learned their favorite parts
and performed them for their own amusement.42
In Kits Diary of a journey (Yado no nikki , 1776), the verse
ended in the words kono goro (at this time). However, since a spring verse
like the maeku was supposed to be followed by at least two more verses,
kono haru (this spring) is a stronger choice.
19. Buson
nagaki hi ya
makie no chdo
itowashiki

long spring day

the lacquered furnishings
are extremely hateful

One interpretation of this verse suggests that both the kabuki imitation
and ones richly decorated lacquer furnishings are distasteful on a long
spring day, which was assumed to be accompanied by a feeling of
tiredness.43 Another states that being stuck inside all day with ones fancy

42 Buson himself was very fond of kabuki. Tanomura Chikuden tells this story in
Toseki sasa roku (completed 1834): Once one of Busons painting disciples
went to visit him, and found his house dark. Hearing a strange noise coming from within,
the friend feared there was some catastrophe taking place. After forcing his way inside,
he found Buson alone, acting out the part of one of his favorite kabuki characters. Cited
in Tanaka, p. 236237.
43 Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 129.

286

APPENDIX

furnishings is hateful if one would really rather be outside enjoying the

kabuki performance on a long spring day.44
This is the third spring verse.
20. Chora
minori no michi ni
kokoro yosetsutsu

ones mind is drawing close

to the Way of the Sacred Law

Chora proposes that the reason the person in the previous verse has
come to find his lacquer furnishings distasteful is that he has awakened
to the truth of the Buddhist law. Buddhism teaches that all the things of
this world are illusions, and an enlightened person is indifferent to luxury
and glamor.
21. Kit
furusato no
tsuma ni fumi kaku
sayo fukete

spending the night

writing a letter
to his wife at home

Kit describes behavior that might be expected from someone who has
taken up Buddhist practice. Perhaps it is a pilgrim who is writing to his
wife, or a member of some devotional group, like the hachi tataki,
itinerant mendicants who wandered through the countryside beating on
gourds or bowls and asking for alms. Although an enlightened person is
supposed to be free of attachments, he still feels the need to stay in
touch with his wife.
22. Buson
waka daish ni
tanomareshi mi no

receiving orders
from a young general

The identity of the letter-writer is changed to that of a samurai, on whom

a young commander relies. He is writing the letter because he does not
know when he will be able to return home again. Or perhaps he wants
his wife to do something for the sake of his commander. Busons verse
is suggestive of some larger narrative, but does not appear to allude to
any particular literary work or historical event.

44

Nomura Kazumi, Buson renku zenchshaku (Kasama Shoin, 1975), p. 185.

APPENDIX

287

23. Chora
sake itto
botan no sono ni
sosogi keri

a barrel of wine
was poured out
in the garden of peonies

The solitary letter writer has disappeared, and now we are introduced to
a lively party in a peony garden. Peonies were greatly admired in China,
and mention of them evoked associations of rich, voluptous color and
an exotic atmosphere. Sake itto comes from a poem by Chinese poet Du
Fu, that said that Li Bo drank a gallon of wine () and wrote a
hundred poems ().45
24. Kit
hi wa kakuyaku
to yoki sumi o suru

when the sun is glittering

he grinds fine ink

The word kakuyaku (shining, glittering) has strong kanshi-like

overtones and continues the Chinese theme of the maeku. Here we are to
imagine the delicate scent of fine ink as it is being ground on the
inkstone on a brilliantly sunny day. The persona in the first might be an
actual historical figure like Kb Daishi, famous for his calligraphy, who
spent time in China studying Buddhism. Alternatively, it might be an
imaginary bunjin, readying himself for a painting or a poem.
25. Buson
asu wa haya
Fudaraku-sen o
tachiiden

tomorrow, early
I will leave
Mount Fudaraku

Fudaraku (Sanskrit, Potalaka) is the sacred realm of the bodhisattva Kannon (Sanskrit, Avalokiteshvara). It is also the name of a
Tendai sect temple in Kii. A holy man has gone to the sacred
realmor to the templeto practice austerities. Having completed his
work there, it is time to depart.
26. Chora
tfu ni akite
kuu mono mo naku

45

Teruoka, Za no bungei, p. 120.

except for this boring tofu

theres nothing to eat

288

APPENDIX

Chora suggests, humorously, what might be on the mind of the person

who realizes it is time to leave Fudaraku. Fudaraku represents a place a
pilgrimage to which a layperson has gone, and now wishes he or she
could leave. Buddhists were prohibited from taking life, and so tofu was
a major source of protein in temple meals. The persona here is probably
a layperson, whose commitment to Buddhism is not enough to make
monks cuisine palatable.
This is the last verse published in Sequel to dawn crow.
27. Kit
waga sode wa
sukoshi no zeni ni
omotakute

in my sleeves
a few small coins
are feeling heavy

Kit supplies another reason why the maekus persona has been eating
nothing but tofu: poverty. Here he describes someone who normally has
so little money that even a few zeni (very low-value coins) feel like a
lot to him. Kimono have no pockets, so people sometimes used their
sleeves to carry or conceal small items.
28. Buson
umi yaya chirite46
ishi o yuku kawa

the sea is even closer now

the river flowing over the stones

Buson reads the maekus persona as a traveler, who keeps his money in
his sleeves to conceal it from highwaymen. The link describes the
landscape he is travelling through. As a river approaches the sea, the
water-level drops, and rocks are visible jutting out from the riverbed.
29. Chora
tobu tsuru no
ha ni kage utsuru
asa no iro

the light reflects

from the flying cranes feathers
color of morning

Choras tsukeku continues the description of landscape, and just as he

does in the waki, he expands on it by adding an image of birds, this time
cranes.

46 Scholars believe that chirite (fallen) is a textual error; chikaku (close) makes more
sense here. BZ, vol. 2, p. 279. The translation follows the assumption that chikaku is
correct.

APPENDIX

289

This should be a moon verse, but this one does not explicitly mention
the moon. It is possible to read kage (light) as moonlight. However, the
verse is classified as miscellaneous, so it does seem that the verse violates
the rules.
30. Kit
kami ni tsukauru
oi no mi no aki

the weary lot

of a man grown old in the service
of the gods

Kit adds a person to the maekus early-morning scene, a shrine-keeper

who finds old age a bitter experience. Despite his years of devotion to
the gods, he has been forgotten by everyone. The phrase mi no aki can be
read either the autumn or the weariness of ones position. Autumns
chill was said to mi ni shimupenetrate ones being,47 just as this shrinekeepers feelings of forlornness have penetrated his. The Chora hokku
that we saw in Chapter Six, calling cry! cry! / it assails me / autumn
wind (nake nake to / ware o semekeri / aki no kaze) similarly refers to the
overpoweringly invasive quality of the autumn wind.
31. Buson
tsuyushimo no
furu karakasa o
sute kanetsu

hard to part with

an old umbrella
covered with frozen dew

A karagasa is a large paper-covered umbrella. Furu can be read two ways,

as part of the phrase furu karagasu: old umbrella, or as part of tsuyushimo
no furu: frozen dew falls. Busons verse contrasts the old shrinekeepers sense of abandonment with the sentimental attachment one
feels toward an object that has served one long and well.
Teruoka points out another example of this kind of link in Busons
verse sequences:
ware mo isoji no
haruaki o shiru

I, too, know
fifty springs and autumns

Kit

47

oka Makoto et al., Daisaijiki, vol. 2 (Sheisha, 1989), p. 51.

290

APPENDIX

nanji ni mo
zukin kish zo
furu hioke

I should wrap you, too

in a zukin hood!
old brazier

Buson
He was also very fond of umbrellas, and often painted them. Several of
his hokku mention umbrellas:
bakes na
kasa kasu tera no
shigure kana

the mysterious umbrella

I borrow
temple during winter rains48

furukasa no
basa to shigururu
tsuki yo kana

old umbrella
glistening in a winter shower
tonight the moon wears a halo49

harusame ya
monogatari yuku
mino to kasa

spring rain
chatting as they go along,
a straw coat and umbrella50

32. Chora
kane o kasuga no
sato e yado gae

to borrow money, a change in

dwelling-place
to Kasuga-no-sato

Chora builds on the image of the old umbrella in the maeku, adding the
figure of a man down on his luck. Kasuga is an ancient place-name with
many elegant associationsit is the site of Kasuga Shrine, for instance.
Here the poet plays off these overtones by making a pun. Kasu means to
lend. So the persona here has decided to move to Kasuga not because of
its rich tradition in poetry, but because he has rich friends there who
might lend him money.
33. Kit
oki idete
rakushu yomikudasu
okashisa yo

48

Dated 1771. BZ, vol. 1, no. 960.

Dated 1777. BZ, vol. 1, no. 1920.
50 Dated 1782. BZ, vol. 1, no. 2213.
49

how funny!
getting up and going to recite
rakusho satires

APPENDIX

291

A rakushu is a verse of rakusho, satirical poetry. Kit describes the

behavior of the neer-do-well of the maeku, who enjoys composing
satirical verse.
34. Buson
cha ni kumu mizu no
asakute ni sumu

the shallows of water drawn for tea

clear in the hand

Buson recasts the character of the maekus rakusho enthusiast as a man of

cultivation and taste. When he goes to the well to draw water for tea, he
finds it shallow but clear.
Nomura argues that there has been a transcription error here. Rather
than asaku te ni (shallowly in the hand) the verse should read asaku ni te
(in the shallows). He posits that the connection between the verses is
fluidity: that of the water is similar to the recitation of rakusho verse, its
fresh taste as bracing as the pointed satire.51
35. Chora
naka naka ni
kaze no naki hi o
chiru sakura

cherry trees
lose their blossoms faster on a day
when there is hardly any wind

The maekus actions are given a season and a backdrop. Cherry trees lose
their blossoms quickly, and this seems to happen faster when there is no
wind, although one might think otherwise.
This is a light verse, making the composition of the important final verse
less challenging. It is a blossom verse, as the fifth verse of the second
sheet is supposed to be.
36. Kit
kure ososhi to te
obashima ni tatsu

thinking, sunset comes late

standing by the railing

The ageku is suitably felicitous and light. In the setting sun of a late
spring day, the persona leans against the railing to watch it, and reflects
on how long the days last now, this late in spring.

51

Nomura, p. 186.

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CITED BUSON HOKKU

aki mo haya sono higurashi no inochi kana, 71
aki no kure hotoke ni bakeru tanuki kana, 268
amadera ya jya ni todoku bin kazura, 60, 207
aoume ni mayu atsumetaru bijin kana, 88
ayu kurete yorade sugiyuku yowa no kado, 88
bakes na kasa kasu tera no shigure kana, 290
botan chirite uchikasanarinu ni san pen, 154
Fuji hitotsu uzumi nokoshite wakaba kana, 110, 237
Fuji o mite tru hito ari toshi no ishi, 61
furu ido ya ka ni tobu sakana oto kurashi, 106
furu ike no kawazu oiyuku ochiba kana, 55
furukasa no basa to shigururu tsuki yo kana, 290
fuyu uguisu mukashi I ga kakine kana, 2
gakumon wa shiri kara nukeru hotaru kana, 107, 220
hana chirite konoma no tera to nari ni keri, 91
hana chirite mi no shita yami ya hinoki kasa, 122
hana ibara koky no michi ni nitaru kana, 124
hana mori no mi wa yumi ya naki kagashi kana, 93
hana no kumo mie ni kasanete kumo no mine, 116
hana o fumishi zri mo miete asane kana, 227
hanjitsu no kan o enoki ya semi no koe, 79
haru no umi hinemosu notari notari kana, 106
haru no yo ya yoi akebono no sono naka ni, 111
harusame ya hito sumite keburi kabe ni moru, 126
harusame ya monogatari yuku mino to kasa, 290
hatsuka ji no senaka ni tatsu ya kumo no mine, 87
hironiwa no botan ya ama no ipp ni, 127
hirugao ya machi ni nariyuku kui no kazu, 87
hita to inu no naku machi ni koete odori kana, 234
hoso koshi no hshi suzuro ni odori kana, 234
hototogisu e ni nake higashi shirojir, 70
hototogisu uta yomi yjo kikoyu naru, 118
ichi jin wa sakaki ni jin wa kaji no fune, 214

302

CITED HOKKU BY BUSON

ikanobori kin no sora no aridokoro, 91

Iwakura no kyjo koiseyo hototogisu, 221
kanbutsu ya motoyori hara wa kari no yado, 117
Katsuragi no kamiko nugabaya ake no haru, 98
Kenk wa kinu mo itowaji koromogae, 75
kiji uchite kaeru ieji no hi wa takashi, 125
kin ini ky ini kari no naki yo kana, 91
kogarashi ya ika ni yo wataru ie go ken, 89
komabune no yorade sugiyuki kasumi kana, 90
koromogae haha nan Fujiwara uji nari keri, 118
koromogae mi ni shiratsuyu no hajime kana, 118
maku majiki sumai o nemono gatari kana, 90
manzai no fumi katametaru ky no tsuchi, 218
marumero wa atama ni kanete Edo kotoba, 73
mashirage no yone issh ya sushi no meshi, 119
Matabei ni au ya Omuro no hana zakari, 230
Matsushima no tsuki miru hito ya utsuse kai, 68
mimi utoki chichi nyd yo hototogisu, 118
mochi kytai no kabi o kezureba kaze kry no kezuri kake, 99
na no hana ya tsuki wa higashi ni hi wa nishi ni, 278
nabe sagete yodo no kobashi o yuki no hito, 264
nakanaka ni hitori areba zo tsuki o tomo, 113
naki fushite koe koso shinobe take no yuki, 102
natsugawa o kosu ureshisa yo te ni zri, 76
nawashiro ni Kurama no sakura no chiri ni keri, 110
nishikigi no kado o megurite odori kana, 234
omonoshi no yoake o neiru shiwasu kana, 180
saitan o shitari gao naru haikaishi, 116
sararetaru mi o funkonde taue kana, 78
sarudono no yosamu toiyuku usagi, 72
sekirei no o ya Hashidate o ato nimotsu, 210
sensoku no tarai mo morite yuku haru ya, 107
shigonin ni tsuki ochi kakaru odori kana, 234
shira ume ni akuru yo bakari to nari ni keri, 2
shiramu toru kojiki no tsuma ya ume ga moto, 63
suisen ni kitsune asobu ya yoi zuki ya, 125
suribachi no misomi meguri ya tera no shimo, 61
sushi o osu sekij ni shi o dai subeku, 119
sushi o osu ware sake kamosu tonari ari, 119

CITED HOKKU BY BUSON

sushi oke o araeba asaki ygyo kana, 119

susuki mitsu hagi nakaran ya kono hotori, 140
suzushisa ni mugi o tsuku yo no Uhei kana, 68, 237
takuj no sushi ni me samushi Kangyotei, 120
tanomarete sakura mi ni yuku otoko kana, 121
tasa ni tsuwamono bune ya natsu no tsuki, 124
Toba dono e gorokki isogu nowaki kana, 89
uguisu no sos ga mashiki hatsune kana, 99
uguisu ya nani gosotsukasu yabu no shimo, 2
uki ware ni kinuta ute ima wa mata yamine, 112
ume sageta ware ni shiwasu no hito tru, 62
ureitsutsu oka ni noboreba hana ibara, 124
usuginu ni kimi ga oboro ya Gabi no tsuki, 99
uzuki yka shinde umaruru ko wa hotoke, 118
waga namida furuku wa aredo izumi kana, 41
waga sono no makuwa mo nusumu, 79
waga zukin uki yo no sama ni nizu mogana, 112
waka take ya Hashimoto no yjo ari ya nashi, 225
yado kasanu hokage ya yuki no ie tsuzuki, 89
yanagi chiri shimizu kare ishi tokoro dokoro, 66, 137, 238
yuki toshi ya akuta nagaruru Sakuragawa, 63
yuku haru no shunjun toshite osozakura, 121
yuku haru ya omotaki biwa no daki gokoro, 126
yuku haru ya senja o uramu uta no nushi, 90
yumitori no obi no hirosa yo takamushiro, 79

303

INDEX
Akinari. See Ueda Akinari
Ama-no-hashidate, 45, 209, 210, 212,
213, 216
Ancient and modern poetry card anthology
(Kokon tanzaku sh), 42
Arikida Moritake, 41, 197
Around here
Four kasen in one night (Kono hotori Ichiya shi kasen), 133, 139, 140,
151, 164, 178
Ashigari. See The reed cutter
Bash Revival, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 16
18, 26, 27, 28, 30, 3238, 41, 46, 47,
51, 59, 8082, 95, 109, 112, 114, 115,
120, 123, 131, 132, 136, 139, 140,
151, 163, 167, 241, 242, 247, 248
Bash school. See Shmon
Bash seven anthologies (Bash shichibu sh),
31
Bash shichibu sh. See Bash seven
anthologies (Bash shichibu sh)
Bash-an, 37, 249, 259, 261
Blossoms and birds collection (Kach hen),
36, 114, 120, 121, 123, 132, 207
bunjin (wenren), 11, 1417, 47, 48, 50,
51, 65, 66, 68, 77, 8486, 92, 94, 102,
113, 165, 172, 177, 179, 203, 210,
260, 287
bunjin-ga. See nanga
Buson jihitsu kuch. See Buson self-selected
anthology
Buson kush. See Buson verse anthology
Buson self-selected anthology (Buson jihitsu
kuch), 128, 129
Buson verse anthology (Buson kush), 45,
104, 168, 279
Charcoal sack (Sumidawara), 24, 28
Chikukei, 76, 182184, 263, 269
Chiyo-ni. See Kaga no Chiyo
Chmu, 31, 32, 36, 37, 109, 120, 123
Chora. See Miura Chora
Chsui. See Sakuma Rykyo

Chuang Tzu. See Zhuangzi

Danrin, 5, 21, 23, 2527, 121, 190, 197
Dawn crow (Akegarasu), 36, 104, 107
109, 111, 120, 241
Dazai Shundai, 66
Denga ka. See Yodo river songs
Doh. See Hattori Doh
Dong Qichang, 203
Du Fu, 261, 276, 287
Empty chestnuts (Minashiguri), 23, 28, 42,
59, 101, 241
Enoko sh. See Puppy anthology
Essays in idleness (Tsurezuregusa), 39, 188,
199, 222
Far into the west (Nishi no oku), 41, 71,
97, 114
Five cartloads of wastepaper (Gosha hgu),
84, 123127, 221, 222
Flower-viewing carriage (Hanamiguruma), 7
From summer (Natsu yori), 86, 87, 90, 92,
101, 110, 126
Fujiwara Shunzei, 198, 216
Fky (poetic madness), 72, 112, 113,
122
Fuyu no hi. See Winter day
Ga (elegance) and zoku (vulgarity), 18,
20, 22, 25, 26, 33, 39, 4749, 51, 54,
63, 81, 101, 226, 227, 275
Gant. See Isaoka Gant
Gekkei. See Matsumura Gekkei
Genbsh. See Ransetsu anthology
Genroku period, 30, 46, 169, 187
Gich-ji, 1, 32, 37, 241
Gik, 29, 59, 81
Gosan, 20
Gosha hgu. See Five cartloads of wastepaper
Goshikizumi. See Ink of five colors
Hagiwara Sakutar, 13, 39, 244, 245,
246
Haiga, 165, 185188, 192, 193, 195
197, 199, 200, 205208, 218, 221,
224, 228, 231, 233, 237, 238

INDEX
Haikai kosen. See Haikai selected old verses
Haikai selected old verses (Haikai kosen),
16, 73, 77
Hajin. See Hayano Hajin
Hanamiguruma. See Flower-viewing carriage
Hattori Doh, 30, 108
Hattori Nankaku, 16, 35, 48, 65, 66, 68,
217, 219
Hattori Ransetsu, 27, 35, 41, 45, 50, 58,
82, 85, 90, 96, 97, 107, 115, 116, 171,
199, 257, 263, 266, 276
Hayami Shinga, 171, 179, 180, 183,
184, 271
Hayano Hajin, 35, 36, 38, 41, 44, 58,
59, 61, 63, 65, 71, 93, 94, 97, 103,
105, 107, 114116, 128, 136, 170,
171, 174, 176, 181, 206, 257, 264,
273
Heike monogatari. See Tale of the Heike
Henj, 195
Hirabayashi Seisai, 180
Hogo busuma. See Scrap paper coverlet
Hokuju rsen o itamu. See Mourning the
sage Hokuju
Hori Bakusui, 31, 37, 108, 109, 123,
241
Hosokawa Ysai, 19, 148
Hyakusen. See Sakaki Hyakusen
Ihara Saikaku, 21, 197
Ike no Taiga, 14, 205, 206
Ink of five colors (Goshikizumi), 28, 29, 30,
58, 59, 81, 140
Isaoka Gant, 35, 59, 65, 94, 123, 136,
171, 174, 264, 266
It Jinsai, 48, 74
Japanese and Chinese poems to sing (Wakan
rei sh), 100, 101, 229
Jieziyuan huazhuan. See Mustard seed garden
Kach hen. See Blossoms and birds collection
Kaga no Chiyo (Chiyo-ni), 37
Kagami Shik, 28, 45, 75, 96, 108, 109,
130, 131, 175, 199, 211, 272, 276
kanshi (poetry in Chinese), 13, 16, 23,
24, 6568, 71, 7375, 77, 81, 84, 126,
246, 259, 260, 279, 287
kanshibunch (Chinese style haikai),
23, 66, 67, 138
Kara hiba. See Withered cypress needles
Karumi (lightness), 24
Kasen (Thirty-six link sequence), 139

305
Kat Kytai, 31, 32, 33, 37, 44, 108,
109, 120, 123, 131, 139, 151
Kema, 35, 37, 40, 249, 252
Kenk. See Yoshida Kenk
Kenzan. See Watanabe Kenzan
Keshien gaden. See Mustard seed garden
Kidai. See Kigo (seasonal word)
Kikaku. See Takarai Kikaku
Kikei. See Takai Kikei
Kb Daishi, 198, 287
Kokon tanzaku sh. See Ancient and
modern poetry card anthology
Konpuku-ji, 37, 259, 261
Korekoma. See Kuroyanagi Korekoma
Kuroyanagi Korekoma, 48, 84, 120,
123, 125, 127, 221, 275
Kuroyanagi Shha, 1, 16, 36, 38, 48
50, 80, 81, 8486, 92, 93, 95, 101,
102, 109, 123, 125, 126, 178, 206,
219, 275277
Kyh haikai, 26, 27, 30
Kyh period, 26, 27, 30, 129, 130
Kyorai, 82, 96, 191
Kyorai sh. See Kyorai's treatise
Kyorai's treatise (Kyorai sh), 30
Kyoriku, 187, 197, 198, 199
Li Bo, 23, 99, 100, 263, 276, 287
Light of the snow (Sono yuki kage), 36
Maekuzuke, 21, 22, 33, 78, 130
Make the past present (Mukashi o ima), 41,
45, 59, 114, 116, 120, 152, 249, 257
Makura no sshi. See Pillow book
Maruyama kyo, 14
Masaoka Shiki, 9, 13, 34, 53, 66, 166
170, 244247, 279
Matsumura Gekkei, 1, 17, 117, 118,
121, 229, 274
Matsunaga Teitoku, 19, 20, 33, 135,
189, 197
Matsuo Bash, 14, 912, 14, 16, 17,
2325, 2738, 4147, 50, 51, 5660,
6669, 8082, 87, 9597, 101, 106
115, 120, 122, 127, 128, 130, 131,
135137, 140142, 151, 152, 156,
167169, 171, 173, 176, 189191,
197199, 201, 210, 211, 217, 222,
237, 240242, 245, 247249, 257
262, 266
Meiwa shinb no haru. See Spring in Meiwa
8
Minashiguri. See Empty chestnuts

306
Mino faction, 28, 31, 43, 44, 75, 96,
130
Miura Chora, 31, 37, 44, 109, 120, 123,
139144, 146 151, 194196, 209,
279, 280, 282291
Miyake Shzan, 11, 16, 31, 36, 43, 70,
71, 7375, 77, 81, 82, 131, 176, 182
Miyako no Yoshika, 100
Miyazu, 36, 76, 181, 182, 184, 201, 209,
210, 211, 213, 268, 296
Mizuma Sentoku, 27, 29, 58
Mochizuki Soku, 36, 70, 71, 94, 114,
171
Momosumomo. See Peaches and plums
Motsu, 42, 43, 70, 71, 72, 73, 185
Moritake. See Arikida Moritake
Motoori Norinaga, 80
Mourning the sage Hokuju (Hokuju
rsen o itamu), 171, 249, 250
Much. See Ueda Akinari
Mukashi o ima. See Make the past present
Mustard seed garden (Jieziyuan huazhuan,
Keshien gaden), 49, 50, 95, 203, 204,
205, 240
Nakabayashi Chikut, 206
Nakagawa Otsuy (Bakurin), 28, 45,
96, 108, 109, 263, 276
nanga, 9, 10, 14, 49, 165, 192, 200,
203211, 217, 220, 236, 240, 242,
243
Nankaku. See Hattori Nankaku
Narrow road to the interior (Oku no
hosomichi), 31, 35, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69,
137, 171, 173, 174, 237, 240, 241,
242
Natsu yori. See From summer
New account of tales of the world (Shishuo
xinyu), 105
New flower gathering (Shinhanatsumi), 37,
45, 114, 116118, 120, 126, 171, 174,
177180, 184, 249, 263
Nij school, 33
Nishi no oku. See Far into the west
Nishiyama Sin, 21, 121, 197
Nin, 156, 173, 242
Nozarashi kik. See Record of a weatherbeaten skeleton
Ogy Sorai, 16, 17, 35, 48, 65, 74, 80,
217
Oi no kobumi. See Rucksack notebook
Okotari gusa. See Random lazy jottings

INDEX
kyo. See Maruyama kyo
Onitsura, 50, 276
shima Ryota, 31, 37, 109, 128
Otsuy. See Nakagawa Otsuy
(Bakurin)
Peaches and plums (Momosumomo), 37, 42,
46, 61, 132, 133, 152-164
Pei Di, 76, 77
Pillow book (Makura no sshi), 111, 195
Poetic madness. See Fky
Point-scoring. See Tentori haikai
Puppy anthology (Enoko sh), 20
Rakut Bash-an saik-ki. See Account of
the rebuilding of the Basho Hermitage in
eastern Kyoto
Random lazy jottings (Okotari gusa), 39
Ransetsu. See Hattori Ransetsu
Ransetsu anthology (Genbsh), 45
Ranzan, 123, 139141, 143147, 149,
151
Record of a weather-beaten skeleton
(Nozarashi kik), 69, 142, 240, 242,
243
Renga, 3, 18-22, 25, 64, 74, 81, 130136, 166, 188, 189
Revival. See Basho Revival
Rucksack notebook (Oi no kobumi), 25,
197
Ryta. See shima Ryta
Rykyo. See Sakuma Rykyo (Chsui)
Saich, 62
Saigy, 4, 25, 66, 67, 113, 137, 156,
197, 198, 226, 227, 239, 240, 242
Saikaku. See Ihara Saikaku
Sakaki Hyakusen, 14, 45, 192, 193, 199,
200, 209215, 217
Sakuma Rykyo (Chsui), 28, 30, 90,
140, 151, 199, 264
Sankasha, 32, 36, 38, 7781, 84, 86, 87,
92, 95, 96, 101, 110, 123, 128, 132,
140
Sanuki, 36, 77, 78, 80, 8688, 92, 93, 95
Sanzshi. See Three noteooks
Satomura Jha, 19, 148
Scrap paper coverlet (Hogo busuma), 66,
133, 136, 239
Sei Shnagon, 195
Sentoku. See Mizuma Sentoku
Senzan. See Uchida Senzan
Sequel to dawn crow (Zoku akegarasu), 36,
104, 111, 113, 225, 241, 288

INDEX
Sessh, 25, 197
Shasei (realism), 166
Shiki. See Masaoka Shiki, See Masaoka
Shiki
Shik. See Kagami Shik
Shimsa, 35, 36, 63, 64, 225, 264, 267,
272
Shinga. See Hayami Shinga
Shishuo xinyu. See New account of tales of
the world
Shha. See Kuroyanagi Shha
Shmon, 12, 27, 28, 3034, 4345, 82,
96, 97, 101, 108, 109, 111, 130, 131,
169, 191, 199
Shzan. See Miyake Shzan
Shundei kush, 12, 84, 249, 275
Shunp batei no kyoku. See Spring wind
on the Kema Embankment
Shunzei. See Fujiwara Shunzei
Sa. See Hayano Hajin
Sod, 50, 96, 190, 191, 276
Sin. See Nishiyama Sin
Sono yuki kage. See Light of the snow
Sonome, 141
Soku. See Mochizuki Soku
Sorai. See Ogy Sorai
Spring in Meiwa 8 (Meiwa shinb no haru),
98, 99, 101
Spring wind on the Kema
Embankment (Shunp batei no kyoku),
37, 249, 252
Su Dongpo (Su Shi), 111, 113, 128,
137, 202, 239, 240, 298
Su Shi. See Su Dongpo
Sumidawara. See Charcoal sack
Taiga. See Ike no Taiga
Taigi. See Tan Taigi
Taira no Noritsune, 159
Takai Kikei, 77, 94, 102105, 107, 109,
112, 123
Takai Kit, 1, 3, 11, 31, 33, 36, 38, 39,
42, 43, 45, 46, 80, 85, 90, 94, 96, 97,
101112, 114, 120, 123, 128, 139
142, 144163, 167, 236, 280291
Takarai Kikaku, 23, 27, 29, 35, 41, 45,
50, 58, 59, 61, 82, 96, 97, 107, 117,
118, 171, 175, 176, 199, 211, 217
219, 263, 264, 266, 272, 273, 276
Takebe Rytai (Takebe Ayatari), 31
Tale of the Heike (Heike monogatari), 88,
159, 215, 282

307
Tales of moonlight and rain (Ugetsu
monogatari), 229, 263
Tamiya Chsen, 39
Tan Taigi, 31, 36, 38, 8084, 87, 90, 92,
95, 101, 102, 109, 123, 131, 176, 255
Tang shi xuan, 17, 74, 100
Tango, 14, 36, 43, 45, 70, 71, 74, 76,
92, 166, 170, 181, 182, 263, 268, 283
Tanomura Chikuden, 205, 285
Tao Qian. See Tao Yuanming
Tao Yuanming, 124, 278
Tatsu Sro, 16, 48
Teimon, 5, 19, 21, 23, 27, 173, 190
Teitoku. See Matsunaga Teitoku
Tentori haikai (Point-scoring haikai), 3,
22
The reed cutter (Ashigari), 190
Three notebooks (Sanzshi), 25, 30, 106,
108, 110
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, 65
Tokugawa Yoshimune, 15, 26
Tomo, 1, 36
Tsunayoshi. See Tokugawa Tsunayoshi
Tsurezuregusa. See Essays in idleness
Uchida Senzan, 35, 58
Ueda Akinari, 44, 111, 229, 263
Umejo, 121, 228, 229
Urban Shmon, 28
Waka, 18, 195, 226
Wakan rei shu. See Japanese and Chinese
poems to sing
Wang Changling, 127
Wang Gai, 49
Wang Wei, 2, 76, 77, 202, 229
Watanabe Kenzan, 187
wenren. See bunjin
Winter day (Fuyu no hi), 32
Withered cypress needles (Kara hiba), 1, 104
Xi Shi (Seishi), 88
Yahantei, 4, 12, 16, 35, 36, 38, 43, 44,
48, 50, 53, 58, 59, 61, 71, 77, 78, 86,
9294, 9699, 101104, 107109,
111, 114, 115, 120, 123, 128, 132,
133, 140, 153, 166, 177, 181, 185,
217, 220, 236, 241, 257, 262, 274
Yamazaki Skan, 41
Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu, 65
Yodo river songs (Denga ka), 37, 249,
256
Yoj (overtones), 188
Yoshida Kenk, 39, 75, 199

308
Yoshimune. See Tokugawa Yoshimune,
See Tokugawa Yoshimune
Yki, 59, 63, 77, 170, 171, 174, 177,
180, 181, 264, 266, 267
Zhuangzi, 151, 194

INDEX
Zoku. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)
Zoku akegarasu. See Sequel to dawn crow
Zokugo. See Ga (elegance) and zoku
(vulgarity)

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