Matsuo Bashō

Matsuo Basho (left) in Morikawa Kyoriku "Okuno-hoso-michi Angya no Zu" in 1692. Kyoriku, a Basho disciple depicted his master Basho en route of his Okuno-hoso-michi tour in 1689, accompanied with another disciple Kawai Sora (right). This drawing is a rare contemporary representation of Basho.

Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉, 1644 – 28 November 1694) was a major Japanese poet, primarily known for his achievements in the haikai no renga and haiku (as it would become known later) forms, and his poetic diaries.

Quotes

Oku no Hosomichi (1702)

• Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
  • Matsuo Bashō, Narrow Road to the Interior and other writings, Boston, 2000, p. 3 (Translation: Sam Hamill)
• 行く春や
  鳥啼き魚の
  目は泪
  • yuku haru ya
    tori naki uo no
    me wa namida
  • Spring passes
    and the birds cry out—tears
    in the eyes of fishes
    • Matsuo Bashō, Narrow Road to the Interior and other writings, Boston, 2000, p. 4 (Translation: Sam Hamill)
  • Spring is passing by!
    Birds are weeping and the eyes
    Of fish fill with tears.
    • Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku, Tokyo, 1996, p. 23 (Translation: Donald Keene)
  • The passing;
    The birds weep and in the eyes
    Of fish there are tears.
    • Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 310 (Translation: Donald Keene)
• 夏草や
  兵どもが
  夢の跡
  • natsukusa ya
    tsuwamonodomo ga
    yume no ato
  • The summer grasses—
    For many brave warriors
    The aftermath of dreams.
    • Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 316 (Translation: Donald Keene)
  • The summer grasses—
    Of brave soldiers' dreams
    The aftermath.
    • Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to Oku, Tokyo, 1996, p. 87 (Translation: Donald Keene)
    • Also: Classical Japanese Database, Translation #222
• 静けさや
  岩に滲み入る
  蝉の声
  • shizukesaya
    iwa ni shimiiru
    semi no koe
  • How still it is!
    Stinging into the stones,
    The locusts' trill.
    • Donald Keene, World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era, 1600-1867, New York, 1999, p. 89 (Translation: Donald Keene)

Individual poems

• 朝顔に
  我は飯食ふ
  男かな
  • asagao ni
    ware wa meshi kû
    otoko kana
  • I am that one person
    Who eats his breakfast,
    Gazing at morning nothing.
    • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #174 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)

• 京にても
  京なつかしや
  時鳥
  • kyou nitemo
    kyou natsukashi ya
    hototogisu
  • Even in Kyōto—
    hearing the cuckoo's cry—
    I long for Kyōto
    • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #55 (Translation: Robert Hass)
  • Bird of time –
    in Kyoto, pining
    for Kyoto.
    • Basho, On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, London, 1985, p. 43 (Translation: Lucien Stryk)

• 古池や
  蛙飛び込む
  水の音
  • furu ike ya
    kawazu tobikomu
    mizu no oto
  • The old pond:
    A frog jumps in,—
    The sound of the water.
    • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #64 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)
  • At the ancient pond
    the frog plunges into
    the sound of water
    
    • (Translation: Sam Hamill)
  • Old pond,
    leap-splash –
    a frog.
    • Basho, On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, London, 1985, p. 58 (Translation: Lucien Stryk)
  • Breaking the silence
    Of an ancient pond,
    A frog jumped into water –
    A deep resonance.
    • Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, London, 1966, p. 9 (Translation: Nobuyuki Yuasa)

• やがて死ぬ
  けしきは見えず
  蝉の声
  • yagate shinu
    keshiki wa miezu
    semi no koe
  • Soon to die
    yet showing no sign
    the cicada's voice
    • [1] [2]

• 旅に病で
  夢は枯野を
  かけ廻る
  • tabi ni yande
    yume wa kareno wo
    kake-meguru
  • Sick on a journey,
    my dreams wander
    the withered fields.
    • Bashō's last poem, written while he was dying of a stomach illness. (Translation: Robert Hass)
  • Sick on a journey –
    over parched fields
    dreams wander on.
    • Basho, On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho, London, 1985, p. 81 (Translation: Lucien Stryk)
  • Travelling, sick
    My dreams roam
    On a withered moor.
    • (Unknown translator)
  • Reported as Basho's death poem.

Statements

• 見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、
  思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。
  • Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi,
    omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi
  • There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
    There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
    • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth)

• 古人の跡を求めず、
  古人の求めたるの所を求めよ。
  • kojin no ato wo motomezu,
    kojin no motometaru no tokoro wo motome yo
  • Seek not the paths of the ancients;
    Seek that which the ancients sought.
    • from 「柴門の辞」"Words by a Brushwood Gate" (also translated as "The Rustic Gate") (Unknown translator)

• さびは句の色なり。閑寂なる句をいふにあらず。たとへば、老人の甲冑をたいし戦場に働き、錦繍をかざり御宴に侍りても、老の姿有るがごとし。
  • sabi wa ku no iro nari. kanjaku naru ku wo iu ni arazu. tatoeba, roujin no katchuu wo taishi senjou ni hataraki, kinshuu wo kazari goen ni haberitemo, oi no sugata aru ga gotoshi.
  • Sabi is the color of the poem. It does not necessarily refer to the poem that describes a lonely scene. If a man goes to war wearing stout armor or to a party dressed up in gay clothes, and if this man happens to be an old man, there is something lonely about him. Sabi is something like that.
    • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #42 (Translation: Robert Hass)

• It rains during the morning. No visitors today. I feel lonely and amuse myself by writing at random. These are the words:
  Who mourns makes grief his master.
  Who drinks makes pleasure his master.
  • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #41 of a Saga Diary excerpt (Translation: Robert Hass)

• The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master.
  • Classical Japanese Database, Translation #41 of a Saga Diary excerpt (Translation: Robert Hass)

• My body, now close to fifty years of age, has become an old tree that bears bitter peaches, a snail which has lost its shell, a bagworm separated from its bag; it drifts with the winds and clouds that know no destination. Morning and night I have eaten traveler's fare, and have held out for alms a pilgrim's wallet.
  • Genjūan no Fu ("Prose Poem on the Unreal Dwelling") in Donald Keene, Anthology of Japanese Literature, p. 374 (Translation: Donald Keene)

• The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
  • Matsuo Bashō, Collected Haiku Theory, eds. T. Komiya & S. Yokozawa, Iwanami, 1951 (Unknown translator)

• He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.
  • Matsuo Bashō, Collected Haiku Theory, eds. T. Komiya & S. Yokozawa, Iwanami, 1951 (Unknown translator)

External links

• Classical Japanese Database, featuring various poems by Bashō in original and translation
• "Matsuo Bashô: Frog Haiku", featuring 31 translations and one commentary of the haiku