And here is your daily almanac for Monday the twenty-eighty of November 2022.
Today, in 1694, Bashō died. He is usually considered the greatest haiku poet.
That makes today Bashō Memorial Day (basho-ki, 芭蕉忌). Besides the name of the day, it is also a season word for early winter. There are actually a few different names for the day. One of the others is Green Peach Day (tōsei ki, 桃青忌). Tōsei (green peach) was his pen name before he choose the name Bashō. It refers to his favorite Chinese Poet, Li Bai (李白, Plum White).
Towards the end of his life his fame grew and he was constantly visited. He was greatly disturbed by this, complaining that he had no peace of mind. He shut the doors to his house for a month, during which time he developed his final haiku philosophy, that of karumi.
Shortly after this, he left on his final walking trip, in 1694, leaving his home in Edo and traveling towards Osaka. He fell sick on his journey and died surrounded by his students in Osaka. Towards the end he scolded himself for being so obsessed with poetry, yet he still wrote his death poem and also edited several of his others.
His final poem:
旅に病んで夢は枯野をかけ廻る
tabi ni yande yume wa kareno o kake meguru
ill on a journey
my dreams wander over
withered fields
He was 51.
Today is Senbu (先負), one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. Today features bad luck in the morning and good luck in the afternoon. (Read more about the rokuyō here)
On the old calendar, today would have been the fifth day of the eleventh month. It is Rainbows Hide (niji kakurete miezu), the first microseason of Shōsetsu, so named because it was thought that rainbows are the result of a balanced amount of yin and yang; winter is dominated by yin with very little yang and therefore rainbows couldn't form. This is the time of the first snowfalls.
Here's a haiku from Issa, written on another Bashō Memorial Day many years ago:
ばせを忌やことしもまめで旅虱
bashōki ya kotoshi mo mame de tabi-jirami
bashō memorial day—
another year with good health
my journey's lice
Issa makes light of everything, even Bashō day. A slightly more serious one, from Shiki:
芭蕉忌や我俳諧の奈良茶飯
bashōki ya waga haikai no nara chameshi
bashō memorial day—
at our haikai meeting
nara rice gruel
Nara rice gruel was one of Bashō's favorites. Seems like Shiki's haiku group was eating it in his honor.
Have a good day, y'all!
❦
| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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