Anthropomorphism personification

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Anthropomorphism - Pro and Con

Anthropomorphism (personification, gijinka　擬人化)
is usually avoided in traditional Japanese haiku, since it collides with the idea of "shasei", but of course, there are exceptions when a very special effect is aimed at.

Personally, I try to avoid it and only make use of it when the haiku situation really calls for it. Within the tradition of shasei, sketching from nature, it is better just to observe and not interpret your experiences.


I will try and find some material here.

Please add your findings in the comments.

Gabi Greve

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Kigo using personification

The use of a certain kigo out of the large stock of availble words gives the haiku its special flavor and makes it unnecessary to use more plain personifications. That is why the study of kigo is so important to understand Japanese haiku, it contains the essence and the soul of it.

But there are also kigo that use personification directly:

frogs borrowing human eyes (kawazu no me karidoki)


..... mountains smile/laugh (yama warau) SPRING
..... mountains dripping (yama shitataru) SUMMER
..... mountains put on make-up (yama yosou) AUTUMN
Mountains sleep (yama nemuru) WINTER


Wind shining (kaze hikaru)


and the use of metaphors

silk worm, "mulberry child", kuwago



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Personification and translations

船と岸と話してゐる日永かな
fune to kishi to hanashite iru hinaga kana

a boat and the shore
are talking together . . .
days getting longer

Masaoka Shiki　
Tr. Gabi Greve

a boat and the shore ... Japanese haiku-shorthand for
(a person on) the boat and (a person on) the shore.
This is not a personification of the boat and shore doing the talking.

The scene could well be in the evening, when it is still light. Husband on board and the wife on the shore, discussing his homecoming. A lot of fishing is done from a small boat close to the shore to get seewead out of the water, for example, or uni (sea urchin) or abalones. Sometimes the men are out fishing and the whole family is on the shore to process the sea urchins for shipping (they get spoiled easily). They are well withing talking distance, this is a family scene, talking back and forth, once a year enjoyed by small fishing communities in Japan.


Sometimes translations look as if the Japanese poet had used personification, but the problem lies within the haiku-shorthand of the language.
This is a hard one for translators to cover the meaning without a footnote.


This could also be seen as Metonymy

Metonymyis a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name, rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept.
..... Metonymy and related figures of speech are common in everyday talk and writing. Synecdoche and metalepsis are considered specific types of metonymy.
Polysemy, multiple meanings of a single word or phrase, sometimes results from relations of metonymy. Both metonymy and metaphor involve the substitution of one term for another.
In metaphor, this substitution is based on some specific analogy between two things, whereas in metonymy the substitution is based on some understood association or contiguity.
... Metaphor and metonymy ...
- - - More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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One more example by Yosa Buson

春雨やものかたりゆく蓑と笠
harusame ya mono katariyuku mino to kasa

spring rain -
a mino-raincoat and a rain-hat
talk to each other

. Spring Rain .


Again, no personification, but the people who use the coat and hat.

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かすむ日の咄するやらのべの馬
kasumu hi no hanashi suru yara nobe no uma

on a misty day
they chat...
horses in the field

by Issa, 1812

R. H. Blyth reads the kanji verb in the middle phrase as uwasu: "gossip"; A History of Haiku (Tokyo: Hokuseido, 1964) 1.369-70. The editors of Issa zenshu^ read it, hanashi ("talk"); (Nagano: Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1976-79) 1.84.
Either way, Issa imputes "human" action to the horses. Or, is he challenging our preconceptions that would draw such a hard, clear line between "human" and "animal?" I suspect that the latter is true.
Tr. and Comment, David Lanoue


I suspect this is not a true "personification", but Issa hears the humans tending to the horses and puts it this way, just with the boats and the shore.



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Some Thoughts by Jane Reichhold

Rosa Clement:
Many times I have heard from reviewers and publishers that anthropomorphism and personification are not good in haiku. However, Basho, Issa, Buson and others wrote haiku using anthropomorphism...

Jane Reichhold:

FOR THE USE OF PERSONIFICATION:

1. The personification of inanimate things is a basic part of our language. We so easily speak of the head, feet or legs of the beds, tables and chairs; rivers run, and we even allow that 'time flies.' Thus, it becomes very hard to determine when the author has broken the rule by personifying something which shouldn't be.

AGAINST THE USE OF PERSONIFICATION:

1. English language haiku rules have been handed down to use requiring that we avoid personification. This could have come about from the idea that haiku were not poetry and should not use poetical techniques (such as metaphor and simile). When the pioneers were introducing haiku to English writers they were reacting against the prevailing poetry fashions and wished to present haiku as something very new and different - non-poetry poetry.

Therefore, Spiess and others made rules hoping that if they were followed our haiku would be more like the Japanese examples and much less like the poetry being written in English at the current time. Not using personification does separate the haiku from lyrical poetry - which many people see as a definite plus.

Read the full discussion HERE
© Jane Reichhold /　Rosa Clement


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The traditional subject matter of haiku is the world of nature of which humans are an integral part. Basho (1644-94) advised haiku writers to "enter into the object, perceiving its delicate life and feeling its feelings, whereupon a poem forms itself" (tr. Makoto Ueda).

We try to avoid projecting human viewpoints into natural things. So as not to humanise (and so patronise) the things of Nature, the English haiku poet is wary of personification and anthropomorphism, even though their use is tolerated in ancient and even modern Japanese poetry.

Japanese poets, benefiting from a long cultural tradition, usually include a 'season word' (known as kigo) or a 'seasonal activity' (kidai) which creates an ambience for the poem. For the Japanese reader, the season word releases a whole schema of more or less predictable associations. This homogeneity of response is not generally available to the western haiku poet to play upon.

Nevertheless, haiku in English often do include an image which enables us to see the chosen season in depth as well as detail. This said, the 'seasonless' haiku is also common in English.

Read more here
© British Haiku Society


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The number of people who are aware that haiku is not simply a form has risen dramatically, but it sometimes seems that the number of people who are not has risen even faster.
Giroux notes three kinds of faults in beginners’ haiku:
a strained attempt to be profoundly philosophical;
anthropomorphism that makes things speak instead of allowing them to speak;
and the use of trite season words and the use of self-consciously Japanese subject matter (Giroux, 154–56).

Read more here
© Lee Gurga


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Personification: A Taboo In English Language Haiku?
Writes Art Durkee:

"Issa's body of work is full of 'rule-breaking' haiku. He often breaks away from purely imagistic haiku, and uses personification and anthropomorphisms in his famous animal and insect haiku, ascribing to them the same emotions humans have; some of his haiku are forthrightly humorous rather than contemplative; others are purely philosophical, and contain only one image, not the two contrasting images often required by the 'rules'; still others are one-sentence haiku, rather than two fragments with a turn, or hinge."
art durkee.blogspot.com

Exciting as Issa's openly animistic haiku are, he knew the dangers of overuse, and relied on multiple aesthetic tools and a variance in subject matter.

To be fair to Dr. Speiss, there’s validity to the segment of his statement regarding the necessity of using these tools, unless necessary. No tool should be overused. There is more than one tool in the toolbox.
Read more here
© Robert Wilson, Simply Haiku

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Initial exploration of HAIKU by non-Japanese was like gunmo taizo wo naderu (a lot of blind men feeling a great elephant) whereby one says that the elephant is a tree trunk and another says that it is a giant fan, and so on. The loud voices saying that HAIKU was Zen, or HAIKU was not poetry, or HAIKU was Here and Now, or HAIKU was the product of the HAIKU moment, or HAIKU was nature poetry, or HAIKU was a verse in present tense, or HAIKU was devoid of ego, or HAIKU was an extremely serious and sacred business, or HAIKU reached some mysterious and profound truths captured in a few words,
or HAIKU was not anthropomorphism,
and all other hundreds of things rang out across the world and muffled any other voices saying things to the contrary.

©　Susumu Takiguchi, WHR 2008


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Issa's body of work is full of "rule-breaking" haiku.

He often breaks away from purely imagistic haiku, and uses personification and anthropomorphisms in his famous animal and insect haiku, ascribing to them the same emotions humans have; some of his haiku are forthrightly humorous rather than contemplative; others are purely philosophical, and contain only one image, not the two contrasting images often required by the "rules"; still others are one-sentence haiku, rather than two fragments with a turn, or hinge.

©　art durkee . blogspot.com

.....

chirr-chirr! insects also
work their looms...
stars of Tanabata

shan-shan to mushi mo hata orite hoshi mukae
しゃんしゃんと虫もはたおりて星迎

Kobayashi Issa, 1818
Tr. David Lanoue

.....

Gijinka (personification or pathetic fallacy)
Gabi Greve



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candlenight -
is the beetle looking for
enlightenment ?


Dear Gabi,
I like this very much, and have a question.
We get drilled into us so much not to use personification and I know you're very experienced in haiku. When do you decide to make an exception (you personally)?


Dear Friend,
I try to avoid personifications and anthropomorphism as much as I can, since I believe haiku should state the objective observance, not the subjective judgement about it. I only use it when the situation really calls for it.

Here is the story to the above haiku.


It is candlenight in Japan.
A few good friends have gathered around the old pond, with the odd frog jumping in once in a while too for good measure.
In the darkness, we enjoy the conversation, then the silence, then talk again.

Plop, another frog. Silence deepens.

A firefly zips by and I tell my friends about this haiku, written a few days ago in some haiku forum after a discussion on the subject

temporary enlightenment -
just a bunch of
fireflies

Everybody chuckles ... yea, yea, the follies of us human beings ...
And silence again in the darkness.

Staring toward the white calla lily, a small spider makes its way toward the innermost flower parts. Slowly, stopping, sensing what ?

Everyone gets focussed on the spider and then another little beetle on the white flower next to it. Candlelight makes this scene especially unworldly. Like under a giant spotlight, all we see now is the spider.

And then someone asks:

Is the spider looking for
enlightenment ?

...

So my particular haiku is not really a personification, but a report about a situation during that candlenight.


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a house with eyes
to watch
as autumn deepens

Gabi Greve
Discussion of this haiku


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Reference

***** My Haiku Theory Archives
Especially the "Haiku Rules"!


Shasei .. 写生 sketching from nature
..... Camera snapshots versus oil paintings

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Misery pity aware

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Human Misery and Pity

***** Location: Worldwide
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

fuuga 風雅 elegance - see below

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Explanation




Matsuo Basho

"Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field"
(translation by David Barnhill)

"I was walking along the Fuji River when I saw an abandoned child, barely two, weeping pitifully. Had his parents been unable to endure this floating world which is as wave-tossed as these rapids, and so left him here to wait out a life brief as dew? He seemed like a bush clover in autumn's wind that might scatter in the evening or wither in the morning. I tossed him some food from my sleeve and said in passing,

猿を聞く人捨子に秋の風いかに
saru o kiku hito sutego ni aki no kaze ika ni

those who listen for the monkeys:
what of this child
in the autumn wind?

Why did this happen? Were you hated by your father or neglected by your mother? Your father did not hate you, your mother did not neglect you. This simply is from heaven, and you can only grieve over your fate."


According to the Japanese commentator Yamamoto
(from "Basho and His Interpreters," by Ueda):

"... [Basho] contrasted his genuine pity for the deserted child with the imaginary grief that Japanese poets put into their poems about the monkey's cry. It also meant that he became aware of a conflict within himself, a conflict between the spirit of 'fuuga', which he had hitherto cherished, and the humane feeling of pity aroused by the sight of an abandoned child."

Compiled by Larry Bole


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you listening to a monkey—
to an abandoned child in the autumn
wind, what . . . ?

I have rendered the English a bit more closely to the original than most translators, who usually do not reflect the contrast between the poem’s longish opening phrases and abruptly ending rhythm (7–7–5) or the awkward mid-phrase break, and often fill in some blanks, making it obvious that the first line refers to a sound traditionally felt as sad, that presumably the child is crying, and that the last line might be expanded to “What would you say to (or do about) this dying child?” In other words, they like to tell us what the poem (supposedly) means in an expanded paraphrase, rather than letting us wrestle with it a bit ourselves.

As Makoto Ueda has pointed out, the Chinese conceit of sadness as the characteristic emotion of a monkey’s cry was well known to Bashô and shows up in Japanese poems as well (103–04). It appears in many Tang Dynasty poems, including, for English readers, Ezra Pound’s famous rendition of a Li Po poem entitled “The River Merchant’s Wife.” In the prose passage of the diary where Bashô’s poem appears, he tells of tossing some food to the child as he goes by. While some Western commentators on Bashô’s poem have decried the Master’s indifference, Japanese writers note that leaving a young child out to die was not unheard of in those difficult times, and that Bashô’s poem directly challenges the polite sadness of the Sino-Japanese tradition with this real-life example of a truly sad event.

William J. Higginson
source : www.modernhaiku.org


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the monkey’s cry
a child abandoned
autumn wind
Tr. Michael Haldane




The people mentioned the monkey' sad cries,
What would they say about this child
Deserted in the autumn wind?
Tr. Oseko


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source :　itoyo/basho
River Fujigawa today 富士川


. Nozarashi Kiko 　野ざらし紀行 .


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quote
An inscription on the painting of the three masters - Sanseizu no san

When a person fastens his mind on refinement and follows the [changes of] the four seasons, he will probably gaze at [something like] the inexhaustible grains of sand on a beach.
People who expressed such feelings, and became deeply affected by such things, were the masters of classical poetry. However, it would be difficult for people today to pursue the words of the masters whose art was flourishing in the era of Bunmai, as if they were the rules of today, as if embodying the truth.
The ever-changing of art [haikai] moves on with heaven and earth, and we should only value its never-ending . . . (Jonsson, p. 126-7)
(note: The following translation is more familiar and constantly quoted in the articles:
"The ever-changing nature of poetic art [fuga] changes together with heaven and earth. One respects the fact that the changes are never exhausted... ,"
source : Haruo Shirane



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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

roadside picnic -
all the hungry kids
in Africa

Gabi Greve, February 2007


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Related words

***** MORE hokku by Basho about

. - aware 哀れ touching, pityful,
to feel commpassion - .
mono no aware ものの哀れ　the pity / pathos of things

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fuuga, fūga 風雅 elegance
fuuga no makoto 風雅の誠


quote
"Fuga-no-makoto"

When Basho talks about fuga no makoto, this is normally interpreted as poetic sincerity. However, makoto also means truths, or true words, or true things. . . . In terms of poets, makoto is that which springs from their magokoro (true heart, or soul). Haiku is certainly capable of (local, particular) truths. Sometimes it is capable of universal truths and that is when great haiku poems are born.

Poetic truths, then, must be a criterion against which inferior and dubious haiku poems can be weeded out. Haiku is part of the haiku poet’s way of life. Haiku is partly what he or she is. If he or she is not truthful his or her haiku cannot be good poetry. In today’s climate where haiku values are confused, it is important for us to go back to such stringent criterion as poetic truths.

. . . probably the most important of all issues of haiku, fuga-no-makoto (poetic sincerity, honesty and truth).

This is the most important of all teachings of Basho.
Sadly, it is also the one value which is either missing or neglected in many haiku poems written today. One cannot stress the importance of it too much, or repeat it too often. Criticism of haiku against this value is always, yes always, justified. The problem is that it is no easy task for us to get to the true understanding of what was or is meant by fuga-no-makoto. It is even more difficult for us to explore what Basho would have taught us by this value in the 21st century context, or how much we can search for the 21st century solution to the problems posed by this value.

Some members might have thought that __ has gone on and on and on for too long in his inquisition. However, what he has really been doing was posing this most important of all questions, fuga-no-makoto. __ is a seeker of answers to fundamental issues of contemporary haiku, practised both in Japan and outside Japan, and is in a very rare position as a Westerner living in Japan and having access to the first-line materials but looking at them both through the Japanese eyes and Western background, giving the feedback to the Western haijin.

There is this fundamentally difficult question: be true to the facts but facts are not automatically and/or empirically the same thing as truth; be true to your imagination but imaginations are by definition not facts but that does not mean that imaginations are not truths. Basho used both facts and imaginations.
Not only there is nothing wrong with human imaginations but they are one of our best additions to whatever has been designed for nature. Fuga-no-makoto is the key. The Westerners are no less qualified to try to search for the true meaning of this aesthetic canon, particularly in the WHC context, i.e. the world-wide relevance.
source : Susumu Takiguchi, WHR

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. yo ga fuuga wa karo toosen no gotoshi .
(winter) handfan in winter. my elegance. fireplace in summer



節季候の来れば風雅も師走哉
. sekizoro no kureba fuuga mo shiwasu kana .
December Singers (sekizoro) in Edo


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fuuryuu, fûryû　風流　Furyu, elegant, tasteful, refined

quote
Fûryû is an important aesthetic concept in traditional Japanese culture, but the precise meaning of the term has been a complicated issue. It derives from the Chinese word fengliu. Literally meaning “wind flowing (blowing),” fengliu in Chinese texts has multiple implications.

It has been used as a metaphor for the unpredictability of human existence, a word for the popular customs and mores of a society, a term for exceptional literary styles, and a description of elegant but unconventional behavior and aesthetic taste inspired by Daoist teaching and Buddhist thought. In some texts it also is used to mean the heightened appreciation and expression of sensual-aesthetic experiences and sensibilities, or to imply an amorous, flamboyant quality.

By the Song dynasty (960– 1279), all the meanings associated with fengliu already were being commonly used in Chinese texts. Along with the introduction of Chinese texts into Japan over the centuries, the multiple meanings of fengliu/fûryû blended with native Japanese thoughts and the definition of the term in Japanese became even more difficult to pinpoint.

According to Okazaki Yoshie’s comprehensive survey of its multiple usages in Japanese texts, the earliest Japanese text that contains the word fûryû is Manyôshû, in which the term is given phonetic transcriptions in a native Japanese reading, miyabi, meaning “elegant” or “unworldly re¤nement.”

However, other early Japanese texts, particularly Buddhist didactic literature such as Nihon ryôiki (Record of spirits and miracles in Japan, ca. 823), give fûryû a different reading, misao, which means “virtuousness” or “integrity.” In the later Heian texts, such as Bunkyô hifuron (Mirrors of literature: Treatises of the secret treasury, 819–820), Honchô monzui (The best writings of Japan, ca. 1058–1064), and the prefaces of imperial poetic anthologies, fûryû is written mostly in Chinese. Therefore it is hard to tell how the term is read in Japanese. But the contexts in which fûryû appears suggest that the term in these works primarily refers to bunga (C. wenya), the elegance of letters, and sometimes also to the wonder of scenic beauty.

. . . . . Fûryû in haikai often has been discussed in conjunction with fûga (elegance of literature). It has been noted that in haikai poetics, fûga is used to refer to the art of haikai specifically, whereas fûryû has a much broader meaning and refers to something more fundamental.
Okazaki observes that in Bashô’s works fûga refers to literature, especially haikai and the haikai spirit, while fûryû gives fûga its poetic quality.
Fûryû in Edo period popular fiction often implies an amorous, even erotic, quality, but this contemporary trend shows no influence in Bashô’s concept of fûryû.

MORE -
source : Basho-and-the-Dao - Peipei-Qiu



In Oku no hosomichi, for example, Bashô writes about his visit to a painter at Sendai.
He tells us that when the time came for him to leave, the painter gave him some drawings and two pairs of straw sandals with their laces dyed deep blue. Bashô comments on the sandals:
“It was with the last gifts that he demonstrated most clearly his character as a connoisseur of fûryû.”
Peipei-Qiu

. WKD - Oku no Hosomichi - Station 18 - Sendai 仙台 -

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fuukyoo, fûkyô 　風狂 poetic eccentricity
the Shômon poetry also enthusiastically celebrates deliberate eccentricity and unconventionality as fûryû.

kyôsha eccentric

This passage reveals the criteria of the Shômon School that valued fûkyô and fûryû.


sekibaku (tranquility and solitude)
Haikai has three elements.
Sekibaku is its mood. While having fine dishes and beautiful women, one finds true joy in humble solitude.
Fûryû is its quality. While dressed in brocaded silks and satins, one does not forget those who are wrapped in woven straw.
Fûkyô is its language. One’s language should stem from emptiness and represent the substance of things.
It is very difficult to stay with the substance of things while joining in emptiness. These three elements don’t imply that a person who is “low” aspires to the high, but rather that a person who has attained the high perceives through the low.

MORE -
source : Basho-and-the-Dao - Peipei-Qiu


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fuugetsu, fūgetsu 風月 to enjoy the beauty of nature
lit, "wind and moon"






"ka cho - fuei" (kachoo fuuei 花鳥諷詠) 　

haiku must center on the nature itself.
( kacho: ka = flower, cho = butterfly : representatives of the nature )
The poet should write about things
"ari no mama ありのまま", as it is.

kachoo fuugetsu 花鳥風月 flowers, birds, wind, moon
kacho fugetsu, the traditional themes of natural beauty in Japanese aesthetics, representing the beauty of nature.

. Takahama Kyoshi 高浜 虚子 .




風月の財も離れよ深見艸
fuugetsu no sai mo hanareyo fukami-gusa
fūgetsu no zai mo hanareyo fukamigusa

going beyond even
the art of wind and moon:
peony blossoms
Tr. Barnhill

Written in summer of 1693 元禄6年

zai, sai 財 refers to sainoo 才能 talent, gift for, ability to do well
fukamigusa 深見艸 is another name for botan, peony.



MORE - Cultural Keywords used by
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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Monkeys enjoying a hot spring in winter

. WKD : monkey, saru 猿 .


Mono no aware: subtleties of understanding
C.B. Liddell
. . . . . the appreciation of things in the shadow of their future absence.
. Mono no aware: subtleties of understanding - essay .

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- - - - - Japanese aesthetics
1 Shinto-Buddhism
2 Wabi-sabi
3 Miyabi
4 Shibui
5 Iki
6 Jo-ha-kyū
7 Yūgen
8 Geidō
9 Ensō
- - -Fukinsei: asymmetry, irregularity; Kanso: simplicity; Koko: basic, weathered; Shizen: without pretense, natural; Yugen: subtly profound grace, not obvious; Datsuzoku: unbounded by convention, free; Seijaku: tranquility.
©　More in the WIKIPEDIA !

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Morning star Evening star

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Morning star (myoojoo)

***** Location: Japan, worldwide
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Heavens

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Explanation

morning star, myoojoo　明星　みょうじょう
evening star, venus


We also have deities for this star in Japan.

Myooken Bosatsu 妙見菩薩

Star shrines and star cults in Japan
By Gabi Greve


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kigo for winter


fuyu no taihaku 冬の太白 Venus in Winter


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QUOTE

. . . . . . . . . Evening and Morning Star



The earth is shown at the bottom of the illustration, and for ourpurposes, consider it to be at rest. So let's look at Venus at different places in the orbit. It is orbiting around the sun counterclockwise in this illustration, and the earth is rotating on its axis in that same direction, causing night and day. When Venus is on the left side of the illustration between positions 3 and 5, it appears as an evening star, when it is on the right side between positions 6 and 2, it is a morning star.

In the other positions on the near and far side of the orbits, it is too near the sun to be seen. The periods as evening and morning star each average about 263 days, the disappearance on the near side of the sun is about 8 days, and on the far side is about 50days, for a total of 584 days for the entire cycle.


The Feathered Serpent

Native Americans of Central America had a legend about Venus which is still useful to help remember where Venus is in its orbit. The equated Venus, which they called the Dawn Star, with their god Quetzalcoatl, the "Feathered Serpent." They believe he came to earth and lived as a man and that the evening star represented his life.

Thus, point 3 in the orbit when Venus first rises in the west as an evening star would represent the "birth" of Venus. It is then on the far side of its orbit, and so it is at about its faintest at birth. It then grows a little brighter every day as an evening star in the west, like a child growing up, until it gets to point 4 in the orbit.

That point is called the greatest eastern elongation because it is as far east of the sun as it can get. By this time, Venus is in its "prime" of life, and is very bright. It then continues to get even brighter for about another month until it is so bright it can cast a shadow on a moonless night and is often the cause of flying saucer reports from someone who looked at the sky for the first time. Because it is at this time so near the earth, it seems to plunge surprisingly quickly into the earth and "die" at point 5 in the illustration.

It is about the death of Venus that the Native Americans have best preserved their legends for us. A good reference on this is Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico by Anthony Aveni (Austin, Texas: U.of Texas, 1980). He quotes (p. 187) the legend from the Anales de Quauhtitlán (Seler, 1904, pp.364-365):

"at the time when the planet was visible in the sky (as evening star) Quetzalcoatl died. And when Quetzalcoatl was dead he was not seen for 4 days; they say that he dwelt in the underworld, and for 4 more days he was bone (that is, he was emaciated, he was weak); not until 8 days had passed did the great star appear; that is, as the morning star. They said that then Quetzalcoatl ascended the throne as god"

©1998 by John P. Pratt. All rights Reserved.

Read more here:
http://www.johnpratt.com/items/astronomy/eve_morn.html

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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

明星や 桜定めぬ 山かづら
myoojoo ya sakura sadamenu yamakazura

Kikaku 其角

morning star -
I can barely make out the cherry blossoms
among the morning clouds
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

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明星や庵の鬼門の梅の花
myôjô ya io no kimon no ume no hana

morning star--
on my hut's unlucky side
plum blossoms

Issa
Tr. David Lanoue

The tree is located in the unlucky quarter (the northeast), yet it deigns to bloom. The morning star is the planet Venus.

Sakuo Nakamura sees the morning star as a symbol of "hope for the future." The second phrase of the haiku alludes to the fact that Issa and his family has been unlucky, but the plum blossoms portend "good fortune" to come.


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after August sets
out west the evening
star

When the sun sets on the last day in August, Venus, the Evening Star, will appear above the western horizon.
I was also thinking of autumn sunsets where Venus is visible to the west.

- Shared by Jimmy ThePeach -





morning star --
the murmur of golden leaves
on my doorstep

- Shared by Sandip Sital Chauhan -
Joys of Japan, August 2012



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Related words

***** Leonid Meteor Shower ... Geminid Meteor Shower

***** . WKD : Stars in various kigo .



. Astronomical Saijiki .

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Love (aijoo)

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Love (aijoo)

***** Location: Japan, worldwide
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Here are some Japanese words dealing with all sorts of love.

Quote from Kanji Clinic

"Hearts smolder in rabu rabu (hot love) kanji"

Last Wednesday was Valentine's Day, and as usual Japanese women of all ages filled the coffers of confectionary companies by purchasing mountains of boxed chocolates. Coworkers, schoolmates, and even the boss at the office were the recipients of comparatively inexpensive 義理チョコ(giri choko, obligation chocolate), while the object of a female’s true affection got the pricey 本命チョコ (honmei choko, literally, “most likely candidate chocolate,” i.e., chocolate for the man most likely to win the woman’s heart).

In honor of Cupid’s day, let’s take a look at three kanji representing “love” and some of the compound words (jukugo) they comprise. (Onyomi readings are in upper case).

“Ai,” (愛) is a term roughly equivalent to the English word “love.” Some jukugo containing 愛 deal with love between the sexes, while others, such as 母性愛, (boseiai, maternal love), 博愛(hakuai, philanthropy), and 愛犬家 (aikenka, dog lover), do not. Look for the kanji component 心 (kokoro, heart) at the center of 愛.

A husband who really loves his wife is called 愛妻家 (aisaika, love-wife-performer of an action), and if his affection is reciprocated the couple is said to be in the enviable position of 相思相愛 (soushi souai, mutual-thinking-mutual-love, , "being in love with each other").

熱愛 (netsuai, hot love) means “passionate love,” but these days 熱愛 is more commonly referred to as ラブラブ (raburabu), the “l”- and-“v”-deprived Japanese phonetical approximation of “love, love.”愛人 (aijin, love-person) means “lover,” but 恋人(koibito, romantic love-person) is the more colloquial term for one’s main squeeze.

Many other compound words dealing with romance feature the love-kanji 恋 (REN, koi, romantic love). You will find 心 (heart) in this character as well, at the bottom, along with what looks like a variation of 赤 (red) burning with ardor at the top.

“One’s first love” is 初恋 (hatsukoi). And in describing the lovelorn, 失恋 (shitsuren, lost love), 片恋 (katakoi, one-sided love), and 恋煩い (koiwazurai, lovesickness) are indispensible.

愛 joined to 恋 yields 恋愛 (renai, a love affair). Married people in Japan are often asked if their union resulted from 恋愛 or whether it was arranged. My 70-year-old mother recently had a love affair and remarried, as do many widows and widowers her age in the United States. In Japan, romance among seniors is so uncommon it has a name of its own: 老いらくの恋 (oiraku no koi, elderly romance).

In addition to 愛 and 恋, both general-use kanji, the less commonly used 惚 (ho-reru) means “to fall in love with.”　The heart component (心) lies at the bottom right-hand side of 惚. Perhaps it was 一目惚れ (hitomebore, one-eye-fall in love, “love at first sight”) for you and your true love. Be careful not to boast to friends or coworkers about the great thing you have going, though, or you will be accused of spewing お惚気 (onoroke, boasts about a lover/spouse) and chastised with the sarcastic rejoinder: “Gochisousama” (Thanks a lot for treating me to that).

So which of these kanji do the Japanese use in conveying the sentiment “I love you” to their 恋人 (koibito, lover)? In this, the land of understatement, the phrase most commonly used is not the literal 愛している (ai shite iru, I love you) but a heartfelt 好きだよ (suki da yo, I like you). Those who felt especially amorous on Valentine’s Day last week may have taken it to the limit with an effusive 大好きだよ (daisuki da yo, I REALLY like you).

QUIZ
Match each of the following love-related compounds (followed by a key word for each of its comprising characters) with its English meaning and Japanese pronunciation. Example: 純愛 (pure/love). Answer: platonic love, junai　

1. 惚薬 (fall in love/medicine)
2. 同性愛 (same/sex/love)
3. 横恋慕 (side/romantic love/adore)
4. 恋恋とする (fall in love/fall in love)
5. 愛国心 (love/country/heart)
6. 悲恋 (sad/romantic love)
7. 愛車 (love/car)
8. 恋焦がれる (romantic love/scorch)

a. homosexuality, douseiai
b. burn with passion, koikogareru
c. illicit love, yokorenbo
d. patriotism, aikokushin
e. one’s own car, aisha
f. be heavily involved romantically, renren to suru
g. disappointed love, hiren
h. love potion, horegusuri
Answers: 1.h 2.a 3.c 4.f 5.d 6.g 7.e 8.b
© Mary Sisk Noguchi
http://www.kanjiclinic.com/kc84final.htm

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WHAT KIGO DOES TO MY LOVE.....
by Gabi Greve

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Things found on the way


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HAIKU



your life and mine
united in love -
mimosa branches

dein Leben und mein Leben
in Liebe vereint -
Mimosenzweige

Gabi Greve
Happy Haiku Gallery
with a discussion
What KIGO does to my love !!


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Related words

***** Valentine's Day

***** Eros

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Polishing Haiku - Tensaku

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Polishing Haiku -　添削 tensaku




Tensaku by Kaneko Tohta sensei


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Dear Gabi san and all,
I have just spent three beautiful days in Chennai, in Tamil Nadu, southern India.

Chennai traffic --
every vehicle has
its own voice

Some of the impressions were jotted down in haiku form.
Here is a selection :
Chennai Haiku


Marina Beach --
little fish passes
from crow to crow

These haiku are still in note form.
Now my question : what do other haijin do at times like this?

Do you leave them unfinished, in their raw form, and rework them later, when contributing them to some group or publication?

Do you polish them immediately, so that they are ready, while memories are still fresh?

My question right now is, when do other haijin find is the best moment for doing this act of polishing?

Any advice gratefully received!

Isabelle.

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Dear Isabelle,

Chennai is my hometown . . . I was born there - grew up there and my parents still live there.

mango blossoms-
here there everywhere
childhood memories

Well - I do edit my poems and do change them even after they get published - if I feel the altered version reads better!
I think editing [ or polishing ] is so important - for sometimes a word change can make a world of a different to a haiku - for each word in a haiku is of great importance.

Kala Ramesh, India

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I have revised haiku written more than twenty years ago. This usually comes from re-reading them after years have gone by. Sometimes a haiku from that long ago will just pop into my head unbidden, with the revision following right on its heels. It's often a slap-the-forehead moment: why didn't I think of that before?

When I'm on a trip, I both revise during the trip, and revise after the trip is over. During the trip, the haiku sometimes are like what are called "earworms," which is a slang expression for when a song pops into your head, and you can't get it out! LOL

So if a haiku is like an "earworm," I keep mulling it over in my head, even while continuing going through the motions of being a tourist. But I would say most of the haiku are jotted down in my ever-present notebook, and revised after the trip is over.

Larry Bole
More of his advise is HERE !

Isabelle continues HERE !

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How to process a haiku ???

Usually when I find the leisure time to go through my memories again, hopefully very soon after the original trip, I polish my haiku. It is a matter of finding the time.

I usually publish them in my own forum just as they are .. first cut ... unpolished ... and hope for some time later (usually that does not come) since the next trip comes much too soon after this ... hahaha
Since I never send anything for publication in a magazine or contest, I do not mind sooooo much about the final touch. I know, I should, ...

polishing haiku
polishing my soul
day by day

Gabi Greve

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Matsuo Basho 芭蕉 teaches us:

settoo senten 舌頭千転
mumble the haiku 1000 times

Speak it out loud and get the feel if it reads smooth or not.
If not, rewrite it ... again and again, mumble it again and so on
until it feels smooth!


. learn from the pine - BUT - .


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Some more advise for my friends

get back to that moment again, tell what you really experienced there, with your five senses ...
What exactly did you see ? feel ? hear ? sense ?

say it in plain words first, try not to think POETRY !
Then work again on the image you got ...



But never forget to be your own best critic:

One of the things that my parents have taught me is
never listen to other people's expectations.
You should live your own life
and live up to your own expectations,
and those are the only things I really care about.

Tiger Woods


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Advice from Josh "pottygok"

Here is a list of questions that you could ask yourself about each of your haiku before you consider it finished:

Am I telling instead of showing my moment?
Am I presenting abstract ideas instead of concrete images?
Is this haiku so crowded with images that it could be distracting or confusing for readers?
Is this a "snapshot" haiku?
Does this haiku contain a dangling participle?
Does the action I describe take more than a moment to observe?
Is this verse an example of cause and effect?
Is this an uncut poem?
Is this verse written as a complete sentence, with no break between setting and main action?
Have I left out articles or modifiers that are needed for clarity and smooth flow?

MORE
source : EssentialElementsofHaiku


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quote
The Practical Poet: Creating a Haiku Checklist
... By asking some of these questions or applying some of these ideas to your haiku, you can improve the quality of your work. And with your own haiku checklist, you can be your own editor first before sending your haiku out for publication.
source : graceguts : Michael Dylan Welch


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When your haiku is finished:

Ask yourself:
Can any reader, who has not experienced this situation understand it? Did I get the meaning right and expressed what I wanted to say clear enough?
Is it not toooo cryptic and ambiguous to be understood properly? (In case it is tooo cryptic, keep it in your private haiku diary for a later re-write.)

Do NOT ask yourself:
Will the reader say WHOW? or rather SO WHAT?
After all, you thought it worth to be a haiku and wrote it in an understandable way. You know, the tastes of readers are manifold. Some like cats and others like dogs.
I often get varying comments, one saying, what a dumb haiku, the next saying: How great!

Do NOT ask yourself:
Will this be good enough to be published at "XYZ Haiku Magazin"?
Read my advise about
NOT writing haiku to get good points ! (tentori haiku)

Gabi Greve

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Related words

***** Basic Haiku Theories


See also

Guidelines for editing your own haiku, by Lee Gurga
in the WKD Library


. Teaching Children .
good advise for haiku beginners


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Advise from a Haiku Teacher
Tensaku 俳句添削教室

If you are lucky to study with a Japanese haiku teacher (nowadays many work online too), you can send your haiku for a TENSAKU, discussion and improvement by a teacher.
The teacher usually gives a resume of his opinions and why he thinks this or that should be changed. Then he re-writes the haiku in a way that it keeps most of the original but makes it a better haiku. In Japanese, a lot concerns the formal aspect of a haiku and the language choosen.
A haiku including tensaku is then often published as such, not as the original of the poet and can thus help others to learn from his/her mistakes.

In many English-language haiku workshop forums, anyone can give advise or state his opinion and it is hard for the student to figure out which is useful and qualified and which to better drop.
Sometimes I find in more confusing than helpful. In the end often a democratic quote for xyz version usually ends a discussion ... leaving a good starter haiku shredded down to .. well, sometimes it is really interesting just to read that.

If you do give advice online, try to keep it in the spirit of the poet.
Try not to impost your opinions of "what a haiku should be", but use the words and ideas of the poet and try to improve them. And with so many non-native speakers, try to help them improve the English language.

When giving advise as a "haiku master" or "hokku master" in a special forum, try to stand in the shoes of the other poet, not try to slam your own hat on the other's vision.
Do not spoonfeed him your ideas, but encourage him to find his own improvement.
It is not about being right or wrong, but about bringing out the best of the other poet.
If you feel strongly that you have to show your superiority as a "master", you might just as well consider stepping down from the post and grow a little more yourself.

In the end, it is hard to decide which version to send off for publishing, if it is not your own but a "workshopped" one.

Do you really feel proud of yourself if you get good credits for a workshopped haiku?
Or just use the experience gained in the process and write a new one for a contest or publishing?

Discussing Tensaku / Gabi Greve

. 先生　Sensei, a haiku teacher .




Kuroda Momoko and Teaching Haiku
See also the comments below of this entry.

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Read some tensaku of Susumu Takiguchi sensei

first shrine visit -
only the sound of
snow melting

yuki no yo mo
suwari tsuzuku ya
ishibotoke


Some more examples
Gabi Greve / Susumu Takiguchi
TENSAKU KYOOSHITSU - WHCjapan




There are many Kensaku Kyoshitsu online now.
Try to find a suitable one if you want to improve your writing skills.


about 16,300 hits for ”添削教室”
even on Facebook ! 俳句添削教室





- - - Books 添削教室 - - -


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Gambling (bakuchi)

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Gambling (bakuchi 博打)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Gambling was quite popular during the Edo period. Although officially forbidden, it florished in the backyards of the villas of regional lords and also at the street corners.

People uses mostly two dice (sai 賽, saikoro) to wager for CHO or HAN, even or odd numbers.
Flower trump was also used (see below).

I have a set of small gambling tools to be carried around whilst travelling, with flower trump, dice and a set of chips looking like six small Daruma figures!

Gabi Greve

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gambling, bakuchi　博打　博ち　ばくち
short for a gambler
bakuchi uchi　博打打　ばくちうち

gambling, tobaku 賭博 とばく

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Quote:
Cho-Han Bakuchi (or Cho Ka Han Ka, or simply Cho-Han) is a traditional Japanese gambling game using dice.

The game uses two standard six-sided dice, which are shaken in a bamboo cup or bowl by a dealer (usually a pretty lady). The cup is then overturned onto the floor. Players then place their wagers on whether the sum total of numbers showing on the two dice will be "Cho" (even) or "Han" (odd). The dealer then removes the cup, displaying the dice. The winners collect their money.

Depending on the situation, the dealer will sometimes act as the house, collecting all losing bets. But more often, the players will bet against each other (this requires an equal number of players betting on odd and even) and the house will collect a set percentage off winning bets.

The game was a mainstay of the bakuto, itinerant gamblers in old Japan, and is still played by the modern yakuza. In a traditional Cho-Han setting, players sit on a tatami floor. The dealer sits in the formal seiza position and is often shirtless (to prevent accusations of cheating), exposing his elaborate tattoos.

Many Japanese films, especially chambara and yakuza movies, have Cho-Han scenes. The character Zatoichi is a noted fan of the game.
© http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Cho-han_bakuchi

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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way



遊びの語源と博物誌
小林祥次郎　
- about bakuchi in chapter 7 :
7　賭博
博打／胴元／出鱈目／出たとこ勝負／一か八か／四の五の／丁稚／付け目／思う壺／ぼんくら／裏目／一点張り／はったり／カルタ／ピンからキリまで／先斗町／すべた／やくざ／オイチョカブ／ぴか一／麻雀


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tsubakuro ya koya no bakuchi o becha-kucha to

Kobayashi Issa

becha-kucha (pecha-kucha)
This is an interesting haiku in some ways to me, and not so interesting in other ways. Issa did seem to find the subject "gambling shack" (koya no bakuchi) interesting.
Do the Japanese of today, or did the Japanese of his era, find it interesting? I haven't read Ueda's biography of Issa, but I don't recall "the usual translators" (other than Lanoue) translating "gambling shack" haiku of Issa. As with many of Issa's haiku, it seems to be walking a fine line between haiku and senryu.

I agree with Gabi's making the swallows plural. I wonder if they aren't meant to be a metaphor for the gamblers at the gambling shack.
What makes me think of this is the fact that "country bumpkins" such as Issa were called "(gray) starlings" (mukudori) by sophisticated Edo-ites. Might not a bird analogy be in play here too?

Certainly 'twitter' is the best description of a swallow's song. No less an authority than Roger Tory Peterson's "A Field Guide to the Birds" (THE bible for USAnian birders) describes the Barn Swallow's song as "a long musical twitter interspersed with gutterals." And it describes the Tree Swallow's song as "a liquid twitter."

But what exactly does "becha-kucha" mean? Was Lanoue justified in translating it as "prattles" (a more 'manmade' sound than 'twitter')?

In an online essay, "On the Relation between Sound, Word Structure and Meaning in Japanese Mimetic Words," by Gergana Ivanova, Utsunomiya University, Japan, there is the following:

"becha-becha neutrally depicts a noisy way of talking, and in contrast becha-kucha evokes annoyance and anger of those around. Here, again, the partially reduplicated word has a negative connotation."
http://www.trismegistos.com/IconicityInLanguage/Articles/Ivanova.html

In an online Romaji-English dictionary, "All Romanized English-Japanese Dictionary," by Hyojun Romaji Kai, Tuttle Books, 2004, I find under the definition for the English word 'rattle': n. 'beta-kucha' (among other Japanese words for 'rattle' both as noun and verb). How would the gamblers be gambling? With dice, or some sort of marked sticks? Something that would make a rattling sound?
All Romanized Dictionary


. Issa and the mukudori of Edo .


Anyway, what about Issa's "gambling shack" haiku? Here are some of the others which Lanoue translates:

hana saku ya sakura ga shita no bakuchi-goya

under the cherry tree
in bloom
a little gambling shack


uguisu no ku ni mo senu nari bakuchi goya

the nightingale
not at all concerned...
little gambling shack

(Lanoue's comment: "Human vice doesn't bother the nightingale, singing above it all.")

According to Lanoue, Issa rewrote the one above (written in 1813) as (date unknown):

uguisu no ku ni mo senu nari tsuji bakuchi

the nightingale
not at all concerned...
gambling at the crossroads


bakuchi goya furitsubushi keri higan ame

the little gambling shack
is pounded...
spring equinox rain

Are these average haiku for Issa, or better-than-average?

I find the following haiku interesting, which to me relates in some way to the "little gambling shack under the cherry tree in bloom" haiku at the beginning of the above list of haiku:

日本はばくちの銭もさくら哉
nippon wa bakuchi no zeni mo sakura kana

it's gambling money
here in Japan...
cherry blossoms

What does this mean?
Is it that the cherry blossom petals are falling onto the gamblers' money, so that it appears that they are gambling with cherry blossoms?

Is this a more 'lowbrow' (vulgar, coarser?) version of Matsuo Basho's:

木の下は汁もなますもさくらかな
ki no moto ni shiru mo namasu mo sakura kana

beneath a tree,
both soup and fish salad:
cherry blossoms!
Tr. Barnhill


Under the tree
the soup and the fish salad,
or cherry blossoms?
Tr. Peipei-Qiu


under the trees
soup and pickles
cherry blossoms
Tr. Reichhold

under the tree
soup, fish salad, and all--
cherry blossoms
tr. Ueda


quote
. . . a hokku by Basho that is about cherry blossoms but not about true blossoms/flowers and is therefore incapable of serving as a blossom-site verse.
It's from the "Below the Trees" kasen in the Hisago collection:

below the trees
even the soup and salad
cherry blossoms

A note says this is about blossom-viewing, so sakura or cherry tree in the third line refers by implication to botanical cherry blossom petals. The petals are everywhere, scattered on both people and their picnic food, making them look like cherry blossoms as well. But in this hokku Basho feel the physical trees and their great volume of petal-production more than their spiritual power or more general energy, so he uses "cherry" instead of a true-blossom word. Those words will not appear until the two blossom-site verses later in the sequence.

. Full Comment by Chris Drake .


Written on the second day of the third lunar month
Genroku 3 元禄3年3月2日
Basho stayed at the home of his disciple Ogawa Fuubaku 小川風麦 Fubaku in Iga Ueno, where they enjoyed a cherry-blossom viewing party with good food. The cherry petals fell on all their pots and plates.

under the trees
we have soup and pickled fish
and cherry blossoms . . .
Tr. Gabi Greve


This hokku has the cut marker KANA at the end of line 3.


source :　itoyo/basho
memorial stone at Otsu town, Kairin-An 大津市戒琳庵



MORE hokku about food by
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


. WKD : 膾 namasu vinegar dressing .


Compiled by Larry Bole -Translating Haiku Forum


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HAIKU

tsubakuro ya koya no bakuchi o becha-kucha to

swallows -
at the gambling shack
twitter twitter twitter

Issa
(Tr. Gabi Greve)
Discussing this translation

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春雨や ばくち崩と 夜談義と
harusame ya bakuchi kuzure to yo dangi to

spring rain -
backsliding gamblers
and a night sermon

Issa

Tr. David Lanoue
Haiga by Nakamura Sakuo

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貝殻でばくちもす也梅の花
kaigara de bakuchi mosu nari ume no hana

betting seashells
gamblers in a frenzy...
plum blossoms

Issa

In my translation I assume that Issa's mosu ("burn" or "kindle") is being used metaphorically to describe the heatedness of the gambling. In this and in a similar, undated haiku, the gamblers are blind to the beauty that surrounds them:

koe-goe ni hana no kokage no bakuchi kana

fussing, fussing
in the blossom shade...
gamblers
Tr. David Lanoue


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をく山もばくちの世也春の雨
okuyama mo bakuchi no yo nari haru no ame

gamblers rule
even deep in the mountains --
New Year's rain
Tr. Chris Draka

This ironic New Year's hokku was probably written on lunar New Year's Day in 1820, since it is placed very near the beginning of the 1st month among other New Year's hokku in Issa's diary. The diary also shows it rained on New Year's Day, a rather unusual occurrence in the mountainous Shinano Snow Country where Issa's hometown was located.

Issa's hometown was a station town on the main road connecting the east side of Honshu island and the northern part of the west side of Honshu, and he several times writes about travelers discreetly gambling when they stopped at one of the inns in town. In this hokku, however, it is New Year's Day, when people are supposed to politely greet each other, pray to ancestors, gods, and Buddhas, and celebrate the coming year. Gambling was illegal, and violations were strictly punished in Basho's time, but gambling became more and more tacitly accepted as the shogunate gradually lost prestige and authority, and now travelers are gambling in broad daylight on the most felicitous day of the year. Since it's raining outside, the gangsters and other travelers are presumably gambling right in the inns, since no officials are around on New Year's Day. In Issa's time "gambler" was the most common name for what are now called yakuza, and these gangsters had considerable power in the underworld of Edo and in other cities, but now the underworld and the "real" world of politics and economics seem to Issa to be gradually becoming indistinguishable.

At New Year's people often wrote hokku praising the emperor's realm (yo) or the peaceful world (yo) under the rule of the shogunate, but to Issa's eyes it is gangsters and the people who work with them who are the rising ruling class who will surely have a subtle but significant influence on what happens in 1820, even deep in the mountains -- and, by implication, all over Japan. Usually rain at New Year's in low-lying areas was an auspicious sign of fertility in the coming year, but in the high, snowy mountains of central Honshu it was rare. Perhaps Issa is suggesting that there is a connection between the strange weather and the strange, ominous audacity of the gangsters in his mountain hometown.

Chris Drake

. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 in Edo .


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Related words

***** Flower Trump (hanafuda) Japan

***** Lottery, lottery tickets (takarakuji) Japan


donkorogoma どんころ独楽 Donkoro spinning top for gambling
with Daruma san on one side

. Bakuchi 博打 Gambling Daruma Dice Holder


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. Legends and Tales from Japan　伝説 - Introduction .


- reference : nichibun yokai database -
19 to explore bakuchi
賭博 tobaku 4 to explore

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[ . BACK to DARUMA　MUSEUM　TOP . ]
[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO . TOP . ]
- #bakuchigambling #gamblingbakuchi #tobaku -
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Warrior (tsuwamono)

[ . BACK to WORLDKIGO TOP . ]
. Minamoto no Yoshitsune 源の義経 (1159 - 1189) .
Musashibo Benkei, see below
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Brave Warrior (tsuwamono)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Please read the general discussion about SAMURAI here

Samurai, a Haiku Topic

強者 tsuwamono, a person, who is trained in the use of weapons and makes use of them. A brave and strong warrior.
yuukan na hito, 勇敢な人 (used in the Heian period)
strong warrior, mosa 猛者(もさ)

One of the most famous tsuwamono (Hercules) is maybe super-strong Benkei 弁慶, the monk-soldier who accompanied Yoshitsune during his whole life. See below.

The word SAMURAI the way we use it nowadays as also meaning a whole class of society became more popular in the Edo period.



Yoshitsune crossing a river by means of a bamboo
Toyohara Chikanobu 豊原周延 (1838-1912)


. Minamoto no Yoshitsune 源の義経 (1159 - 1189) .
- Introduction -
Shanaoo, Shanaō 遮那王　Shanao (his boyhood name at Kurama)
牛若丸　Ushiwakamaru
Hoogan 判官 Hogan (his court title)

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. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .
- - - Station 23 - Hiraizumi 平泉　 - Oku no Hosomichi


夏草や兵どもが夢の跡
natsukusa ya tsuwamono-domo ga yume no ato



source :　itoyo/basho


This famous haiku gave rise to many discussions.

Here are some aspects, compiled by Larry Bole
Happy Haiku Forum

Basho uses a striking word for warriors:

"Tsuwamono (兵) - An old term for a soldier popularized by Matsuo Basho in his famous haiku. Literally meaning a strong person."
http://www.jref.com/glossary/samurai.shtml


Here is something from online (written by Ad G. Blankestijn) comparing different translations of this haiku
(from Basho's Hosomichi "The Narrow Road...") :

Comparison - Five: Warrior's Dreams
Next we will look at one of the most famous haiku in the Narrow Road, written in Hiraizumi at the site where the destroyed capital of the Northern Fujiwara once stood. Nothing is left of all that splendor, but Basho may have been even more moved by the fact that this is where his favorite hero Yoshitsune was treacherously killed by the last Fujiwara lord. So the "warrior's dream" can both refer to the Fujiwara and Yoshitsune.

natsukusa ya tsuwamano-domo ga yume no ato

summer grass
of warrior's dreams
the aftermath

"ATO" in the last line is difficult to translate: it means "ruin," "trace" or "aftermath."

Yuasa again uses too many words:
"A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams and ambitions / Of ancient warriors."

Britton rhymes again:
"A mound of summer grass: / Are warrior's heroic deeds / Only dreams that pass?"

Keene has
"The summer grasses- / Of brave soldier's dreams / The aftermath," and

Sato translates
"Summer grass: where the warriors used to dream." McCullough is a bit weak here: "A dream of warriors, / and after dreaming is done, / the summer grasses."

Hamill has:
"Summer grasses: / all that remains of great soldier's / imperial dreams."
The "imperial" is not in the original and unjustified.

Important in the above is the connection between the dream and the grass, and the fact who is the dreamer. I think Sato is correct: the grass is the spot where the warrior's once used to dream ("used to" is also a nice solution for the awkward "aftermath").

Yuasa dramatizes too much by making the grass "all that remains" of the warrior's dreams, as does Hamill, and Britton is pure fantasy by making the heroic deeds, which are not in the original, into dreams.
Also McCullough writes about "a dream of warriors," and even repeats the dream in "after dreaming is done," which is not very beautiful.
source : daikoku/hyoron/shoseki


summer grasses--
traces of dreams
of ancient warriors
Tr. Shirane

He uses the line, "traces of dreams," as the title of his book on Basho.
He writes extensively about this haiku, of which I will only quote a little:

"The four successive heavy "o" syllables in 'tsuwamonodomo' (plural for warriors) suggest the ponderous march of warriors or the thunder of battle. As with most of Basho's noted poems, this hokku depends on polysemous key words: 'ato', which can mean "site," "aftermath," "trace," or "track," and 'yume', which can mean "dream," "ambition," or "glory." ...

"... The emphemerality, the dream-like nature of such "ambitions" (yume), is foreshadowed in the opening phrase of the prose passage ("in the space of a dream," 'issui no yume'), a reference to the Noh play 'Kantan', about a man (Rosei) who napped and dreamed a lifetime of glory and defeat while waiting for dinner. ..."
source and more : books.google.co.jp


Fuji no yuki Rosei ga yume o tsukasetari
. WKD : The Dream of Rosei 廬生 in Kantan 邯鄲.


Shirane then goes on to say that Basho "transfigured Hiraizumi into a warrior landscape, which other haikai poets such as Toorin and Gikuu (1663-1733) followed.

gunsen no chikara mo miezu tobu hotaru

the power of armies
no longer visible--
fireflies in the air

--Toorin


eiyuu no ato uenokose yuusanae

leave behind
the traces of the heroes!
planting rice seedlings at dusk

--Gikuu

* * *

summer grass:
all that remains
of warriors' dreams
Tr. Barnhill

Here is how he translates the poem by Du Fu, from which Basho quotes the first two lines in "The Narrow Road," immediately preceding the haiku:

A Spring View

The nation broken, mountains and rivers remain;
spring at the old castle, the grasses are deep.
Lamenting the times, flowers bring forth tears;
resenting separation, birds startle the heart.

* * *

summer grass
old soldiers'
dream ruins
Tr. Nakamura Sakuo

I like your translation. It is one of the better ones I've read. It is similar to the translation by Cid Corman & Kamaike Susumu, (in your use of the word 'ruins') which goes:

summer grass
warriors
dreams' ruins

Sakuo san, your use of the phrase "old soldiers" reminds me of the ending of Douglas MacArthur's farewell speech he gave to the United States Congress when he retired:

"The world has turned over many times since I took the oath at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have all since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barracks ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that old soldiers never die;
they just fade away. And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good bye."

Compiled by Larry Bole.
natsugusa ya natsu-gusa ya


summer grasses
where stalwart soldiers
once dreamed a dream
Tr. Makoto Ueda

- - - - -

natsukusa なつくさ【夏草】 summer grass
- - - - -yahoo dictionary

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quote
Basho and His Translators by John Carley

natsugusa | ya || tsuwamonodomo | ga || yume | no | ato

A thicket of summer grass
Is all that remains
Of the dreams and ambitions
Of ancient warriors
Tr. - Yuasa 1966

To their eternal shame some commentators have sought to vilify Yuasa simply for using a quatrain to translate Basho's hokku. As we have already noted, the source text is written as a single undifferentiated column, and the assumption that the 5/7/5 metrical structure of the original must necessarily equate to three lines in English is questionable at best. Unless one is colossally ignorant, in which case it is self-evident.

Perhaps more reasonable is the objection that the quatrain tends to a more extended treatment, and that this might induce some padding of the text. In this case one might question whence that thicket of grass, or whether yume needs two words to convey it. And are those warriors really ancient?

In the case of thicket we know from the prose context (the Narrow Road ‘travelogue') that the poem is not set in some huge area of grassland. There are after all few steppes in Japan. However the word itself is not in the source text. As for yume: most translations do indeed use the single word dream, but it can also hold secondary associations of ambition or aspiration. And, while no direct word for ancient appears in the original, the word tsuwamonodomo is a high register and rather archaic term that implies a historic setting - a factor confirmed by the prose context.

So has Yuasa given us pure embellishment? Are his choices distortions? Or do they simply allow the English-language reader to experience something similar to the harmony and dignity of the source text?

A mound of summer grass:
Are warrior's heroic deeds
Only dreams that pass?
Tr. - Britton 1974

Let's all laugh at Lady Bouchier (aka Dorothy Britton) for her blatant versification. It is after all far more rational to render highly structured poetry as free verse. Isn't it?

Unlike Yuasa, Britton phrases her translation as a question, albeit rhetorical. This duality is possible because of the nature of the word ya which may convey both surprise and doubt - it indicates a response to a circumstance which ‘gives one pause'. Here we are in the presence of a fabled ‘cutting word' - a kireji, and Britton duly end-stops line one in order to generate outright juxtaposition between two phrases which, were it not for the colon, would be unrelated.

The thicket has now become a mound - although any such word is still absent from the source text - and it would seem that those ambitions have been realised, for we now have deeds. While this latter transformation may be a little problematic, the seemingly extraneous heroic is in fact rather better grounded: the possessive particle ga which applies to the departed protagonists is a literary usage which functions as an honorific. These were men worthy of respect.


summer grasses
where stalwart soldiers
once dreamed a dream
Tr. - Ueda 1992

Ueda's text looks like a haiku is supposed to: three lines; no indents; no capitalisation; no punctuation. In short - no frills.

Surprisingly, given the conventions which had begun to concretise around this time, there is no em dash or similar at the end of line one. Like Yuasa before him, Ueda chooses to voice his translation as a single phrase and the cutting word, which sets off one phrase from the other in the source text, is not directly emulated. Here Ueda supplies the conjunction where although it might be objected that this would more readily suggest that Basho had used the post-positional particle ni rather than the exclamatory ya.

The warriors have become mere soldiers, though fortified by a reasonable, if not directly attributable, adjective. Stalwart they might be, but this alone does little to explain why they should be involved in that most unprepossessing of contemporary activities - dreaming the dream. There is no verb in the source text: past, present or future.

a trace of the dreams
of warriors past
ah, the summer grass
Tr. - Carley 2010

Carley give us warriors past to convey the compound effect of the archaic tsuwamonodomo and the honorific ga.

As with all the translations we have seen so far there is a strong sense of an epoch almost forgotten. In the source text this derives in part from the word ato - an elusive noun which combines elements of mark, remainder, and location-of-past-occurrence. Carley uses the word trace and places it in a chain of dependencies which directly mirrors that of the original. Mirrors and inverts. For while the source text delivers summer-grass/warrior/dream/trace, the translation offers us trace/dream/warrior/summer-grass.

This translation presents us with a ‘soft' juxtaposition pivoting on the utterance ah which, along with the comma, seeks to emulate the location, form and effect of the cutting word ya. As with Britton, the translation offers an element of rhyme, albeit, in this case, partial.

* * * *

For all their variety of approach one thing which unites these four English texts is that they all give the word natsugusa as summer grass. This is a reasonable, but partial, translation. In fact kusa (here gusa, which forms the latter part of the compound with natsu (summer), describes grasses and wildflowers that flourish together. One might imagine the English word meadow stripped of its connotations of pasture.

Similarly, while three of the translations content themselves with dream, and the other adds ambition, the word yume carries strong connotations of illusion - a factor that surely adds to the bittersweet tone of the original poem, and which, perhaps, the English texts cannot quite so readily regenerate by word choice alone. The question is: how tightly does the English word dream connote illusion? Or rather: are these connotations identical in nature and degree to those intended by the poet?

In the case of angels and pin heads one might sooner join the angels than live long enough to count them. So with translations: it is easier to learn the language and read the poem in the original than it is to advance a watertight argument for the unassailability of a particular approach. The general reader must simply accept that a poem in translation is a second-hand coat: it has been worn before. But the poet forgets at his peril that it may have been substantially altered in order to fit its new owner. Or to suit prevailing fashion.

Let us return briefly to the fabulous kireji. Almost all contemporary definitions of the haiku form in English refer to a bipartite structure which pivots or turns on a syntactic disjuncture at the end of line one or two, frequently reinforced by an em dash, or similar. Oddly though, as we have seen above, though Basho duly uses the classic cutting word ya in the expected place, only two of the translations seek to emulate it directly. And while Britton locates it at the end of line one, in the form of a colon, Carley gives it at the head of line three thanks to an exclamation and comma.
source : John Carley


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This hokku was written in memory of the famous poem by Du Fu (Tu Fu)
“Gazing at Spring” (Chun wang),

The state is smashed; rivers and hills remain.
The city turns to spring; grass and trees grow thick.
Moved by the times, flowers shed tears.
Resenting parting, birds stir the heart.
Beacon fires have stretched on for three months,
And a letter from home is worth ten thousand in gold.
I have made my hair even sparser from scratching -
Until it won't even support a hatpin.

As Bashō sees the inevitable working of time and the seasons on these old glories, covering them over with a carpet of summer grass, he is haunted by a couplet by the Chinese poet Du Fu. What has always intrigued me by this passage is the use Bashō makes of him. This is a spectacularly famous moment in a famous piece, in which the greatest of Japanese poets quotes the greatest of Chinese poets. Bashō’s remembrance of Du Fu’s lines here has guaranteed them a special place in the Japanese consciousness. Du Fu’s poem was already well-known, but it became even better known after this, until every Japanese high school student knows it: it has become one of the oldest clichés of the East Asian tradition.

With more about Basho and Du Fu

A Dream of Ruined Walls
source : Paul Rouzer


- - - - -

natsukusa ya tsuwamono-domo ga yume no ato
The cut marker YA is at the end of line 1.

In normal Japanese, this would read as one sentence:

natsukusa ga tsuwamano-domo no yume no ato

summer grass -
that's all that remains of
brave warriors' dreams
Tr. Gabi Greve

(I leave the particle OF dangling at the end of line 2, with respect to the Japanese GA,
natsukusa ya tsuwamano-domo ga
yume no ato

but use an inversion of the words in lines 2 and 3, since they belong together and it seems more natural in English:

natsukusa ya
tsuwamano-domo no yume no ato)


Going through all the translations and paraphrasing of this hokku by Basho,
I can only conclude that there is no right or wrong.
Each translator has his/her own vision about the hokku.

. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .

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Yoshitsune and Benkei viewing Cherry Blossoms
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)


Yoshitsune and Shizuka Gozen at Yoshino
. Futari Shizuka 二人静 .

- - - - -

. Ushiwakamaru and Joruri Gozen 浄瑠璃御前 .
Yoruri Hime 浄瑠璃姫 Princess Joruri in Aichi

. Ushiwakamaru and Minatsuru-hime 皆鶴姫 .
at the temple 観音寺 Kannon-Ji in Kesennuma, Miyagi

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quote
Hiraizumi was the setting in which, centuries earlier, one of the great heroic tragedies of Japanese history had its bitter end. Centuries before the battle at Sekigahara, a prior, equally brutal civil war was fought between the forces led by the Taira and the Minamoto clans.

The stories of this time were collected in the epic "Heike Monogatari" (The Tale of the Heike), and include many of Japan's most famous samurai legends. And among the great warriors on both sides, Minamoto Yoshitsune源の義経 was regarded as one of the most brilliant and brave.

At the height of the battle of Ichi-no-Tani Yoshitsune and his cavalry charged like a storm straight down a previously-thought impassable cliff and broke the enemy; at the battle of Yashima, Yoshitsune led his men in a daring headlong assault across a sea-channel at low tide to drive his enemy literally into the ocean; and at the final sea battle at Dan no Ura, Yoshitsune crushed the Taira utterly, the last lords of the Taira throwing themselves into the sea to avoid capture. Yoshitsune's bravery and skill won the civil war for the Minamoto. Yoshitsune's reward was betrayal.

Yoshitsune's lord and brother, Yoritomo, had become increasingly paranoid that Yoshitsune's prowess constituted a threat to Yoritomo's own rule. Yoshitsune protested his loyalty to the Minamoto family and to Yoritomo himself in the famous "Koshigoe Letter". But treason and slander won the day, and the brave Yoshitsune was forced to flee for his life. Pursued and hounded, Yoshitsune was finally cornered.

Even Yoshitsune's death was legendary: Yoshitsune calmly committed seppuku (samurai ritual suicide) in an interior room while his oldest friend, the giant warrior-monk Benkei (Japan's "Little John") single-handedly held the door against vastly outnumbering enemy troops. The place where Benkei and Yoshitsune made their final stand was Hiraizumi, and it was in this context that Basho composed a number of haiku, including the one above.

Basho is believed to have chosen the Japanese word 'natsukusa', in reference to the muggy, slimy, rank muck that summer's oppressive humidity and heat turn the grasses of spring into, an appropriate vision, perhaps, of the chaos and treachery of war.

By the time Basho visited Hiraizumi centuries later, those dank overgrown weeds were all that remained of the fortress in which Yoshitsune made his final stand. As Basho himself comments in the "Oku no Hosomichi:

"The select band of loyal retainers who entrenched themselves here in this High Fort and fought so desperately - their glorious deeds lasted but a moment, and now this spot is overgrown with grass...
We sat down upon our straw hats and wept, oblivious of the passing time."


The sentiments Basho expresses in the Haiku have deep meaning, even (especially!) today. But for me, there is a deeper truth contained in the haiku and the greater story it is a part of. Yoshitsune's betrayal was only made possible by the cowardice, greed, or perfidy of many petty lords and scheming officals who turned on Yoshitsune in order to benefit or protect their own positions. They are all forgotten.

But even as the poets and storytellers --like Basho-- mourned Yoshitsune's death, in doing so they kept his memory alive, such that today almost all Japanese know Benkei and Yoshitsune as Europeans know Leonidas at Thermopylae; and in that sense, Benkei and Yoshitsune have become immortal. The dreams of the brave live on.

© Jeff
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1259.html


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Takadachi Gikei-Do Hall 高館・義経堂 in honor of Yoshitsune

source : www.motsuji.or.jp/gikeido


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Worldwide use

Germany

Recken, maybe Helden.

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Things found on the way


. WASHOKU
Benkei no chikaramochi 弁慶の力餅
Mochi rice cakes in memory of Benkei
Benkei gani 弁慶蟹（べんけいがに）"Benkei" crabs



A person sitting in the kotatsu all winter is called*
Kotatsu Benkei 炬燵弁慶, a kotatsu warrior


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- ebay -

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HAIKU

kigo for mid-summer

Yoshitsune ki 義経忌 Yoshitsune Memorial Day
(1159 – June 15, 1189)


kigo for early autumn

Benkeisoo 弁慶草 べんけいそう "Benkei plant", frosty morn
Sedum erythrostictum. Japanische Fetthenne
tsukikusa つきくさ、ikikusa いきくさ
chidomesoo 血止草（ちどめそう）"styptic plant"
nenashigusa 根無草（ねなしぐさ）"groundless rumour plant"
hachimansoo はちまん草（はちまんそう）
fukuresoo ふくれ草（ふくれそう）. hamarenge はまれんげ
Fam. Crassulaceae
. . . CLICK here for Photos !


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. Legends about Musashibo Benkei .
Benkeigoshi 弁慶格子 Benkei Grid Pattern
Musashiboo Benkei 武蔵坊弁慶 (? - 1189)


© Photo www.1059do.com/sa-4-105.html

Click HERE for some more photos !


闘鶏や兵ものどもの夢は今
tookei ya tsuwamonodomo no yume wa ima

this cockfight -
the dreams of ancient warriors
still alive

Gabi Greve, Autumn 2010

. Benkei Festival (Benkei matsuri ) 　
at Shrine Tokei Jinja, the Cockfight Shrine, in Tanabe, Kumano.




. otogibanashi dorei おとぎ話の土鈴
clay bells with motives of legends .


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Some information compiled by Larry Bole:

"Haiku Painting," by Leon M. Zolbrod (Kodansha, 1982).

On the cover is part of a haiga by Buson of Benkai and Yoshitsune ['Benkei and Young Bull' ('Ushiwaka Benkei jigasan')], which is reproduced inside on a full page, a 12" by 7 1/2" reproduction.

The original is 48.7 cm by 25.9 cm, and is in the Itsuoo Art Museum, in Ikeda.

On the haiga is Buson's haiku:

setsu-gekka tsui-ni sanze-no chigiri kana

Snow, moon, and blossoms--
And then a pledge for three lives,
Faith and loyalty.

[Signed] By Mr. Purple-Fox Hut [two seals]


According to the notes in the book:
"In particular, it recalls the Noh play 'Benkei at the Bridge' ('Hashi Benkei'), which tells the story of how Yoshitsune, the future Minamoto military leader who was to be brilliant but ill-fated, met and defeated the warrior-monk Benkei in a hand-to-hand fight resembling that between Robin Hood and Little John, and this when Yoshitsune was only a boy of twelve or thirteen. The encounter forged a bond between the two, and Benkei went on loyally to serve Yoshitsune in good times and bad, till the moment of death in battle.

"Buson's Benkei has a grotesquely funny face, vaguely like that of the Beshimi mask in Noh, which on rare occasions may be used by an actor playing Benkei. He wears armor, carries a halberd, and moves in a lumbering gait. Slight and boyish and in a plain robe, Young Bull (Ushiwaka, Yoshitsune's boyhood name) walks in front.

Benkei's head is like a melon, Young Bull's like a pea. Benkei carries a paper lantern and a pair of wooden clogs tied to the staff of his halberd, as if spoofing military preparedness. The sheath of Young Bull's sword sticks out behind him like a fox's tail [actually furry in the painting], as though this mischievous animal had transformed itself into the form of the hero.

"The verse is partly derived from the Noh play and partly from a line of Chinese poetry by Po Chuu-i (772-846), 'In the season of snow, moon, and blossoms I think mostly of you. ..."

Oi mo tachi mo satsuki ni kazare kami-nobori
Altar [too] sword [too] May in decorate-[with] paper- streamers

Altar of Benkei,
Yoshitsune's sword! ... Oh, fly
the carp in May!
Tr. Henderson


This appears in "The Narrow Road ..." a little bit before "summer grass."

It's funny, but the rhyme has made this haiku of Basho's stick in my memory in a way that the other, more prosaic translations haven't.

David Barnhill translates this haiku as:

satchel and sword, too,
displayed for Fifth Month:
carp streamers


As Barnhill says about his "Translation Style and Philosophy" in his Introduction to "Basho's Haiku,"
"...my style of translation tends toward the literal. This is not because I am striving for a correct scholarly translation, although accuracy in this sense is certainly a virtue. Rather, I believe the distinctive power of the original poem is usually captured most fully by staying close to what the original poem says and how it says it."


As a reader, especially when encountering this haiku outside of "The Narrow Road...," I prefer Henderson's translating style of including the names of the two warriors, although they are not found in the original, rather than depending totally on a footnote, although a footnote, or some sort of explanation, is clearly required anyway.

One more translation, this one by Cid Corman & Kamaike Susumu:

chest too and sword
in May hoist high as
paper standards

They go on to offer a definition for 'oi': "wickerwork chest for Buddhist gear."


This translation suggests hoisting the chest and sword high as if they were equivalent to the carp streamers hoisted on poles to celebrate the Boys' Festival. In my opinion, an interesting idea not hinted at in the other translations I've read. Is it justifed by the original?

Happy Haiku Forum - Compiled by Larry Bole

Gabi:
The actual chest and sword are not hoisted, but flags with images of Benkei and his equipment.


© Akanezumiya
Boy's Day banner of Yoshitsune and Benkei, c. 1880

........................................ Quote from Akanezumiya

Ushiwaka-maru and Benkei

Many of the myths about Yoshitsune concern the battle of Ushiwaka-maru (the childhood name of Yoshitsune) and Saito Musashibo Benkei at the Gojo Bridge. This is one of the most popular tales in all Japanese history and figured largely in the oral history that sprung up after the Minamoto/ Taira conflict.

It was the subject of some of the earliest of the 14th century Noh performances and is still a popular Noh theme. Karakuri-ningyô, a form of mechanical puppet first introduced from China in the 7th century, were used in a Benkei and Ushiwaka-maru play before the Emperor Go-Hanazono in 1436. According to the Kanmon Gyoki the emperor was so impressed that he ordered public performances to entertain the people.

In 1620 the first of the Daishi karakuri chariots were developed and included a rendition of Ushiwaka-maru and Benkei at the Gojo Bridge. In the Boy's Day decorations, Ushiwaka-maru and Benkei made their appearance early. A pictorial book about Tango no Sekku celebrations in 1688 shows a kazari kabuto depicting the battle at Gojo Bridge.

The story is simple but its simplicity and the almost mythical stature of its two protagonists, Ushiwaka-maru (the child ox) and Benkei (a warrior-monk of gargantuan stature and ferocity), allowed for many adaptations and subtle shifts of focus which ensured its popularity and freshness for generations. Legend has it that it had been prophesied that if Benkei, a masterless fighter, captured 1,000 swords in combat, he would find his ultimate master; alternative readings say that he was collecting swords from which he would forge a blade of his own.

Having stationed himself on the Gojo Bridge on the outskirts of Kyoto, Benkei terrorized travellers on the bridge at night and was fast on his way to garnering 1,000 swords. One moonlit night, Ushiwaka-maru, then serving as a page at nearby Kurama Temple, crossed the bridge, apparently unconcerned by the looming threat of Benkei. A fight ensued in which the young and nimble Ushiwakamaru easily out-maneuvered the hulking Benkei with his arsenal of weapons strapped to his back and his swinging halberd. With only a fan and cloak, Ushiwaka-maru defeated the mighty Benkei who swore fealty to Ushiwaka-maru for the remainder of his days. Thus began the adventures of Benkei and Yoshitsune which led them through the heart of the Minamoto/Taira conflicts to Yoshitsune's suicide.

Boy's Day dolls often captured this scene at its climax; Ushiwaka-maru, fan in hand, springs from a bridge stanchion, deftly dodging the deadly halberd of Benkei. Young and lithe, Ushiwaka-maru is usually depicted with the tombo or "dragon-fly" hairstyle of court and temple pages. He has two false eyebrows marking his nobility. His robes are fine and under his coat can be seen the corselet Shikitae given to him by the abbot of Kurama Temple. At his hip he sports his un-drawn sword. Benkei, by contrast, is usually darker, reflecting his common birth. His features are exaggerated and fierce as he labors to corner the fleet-footed youth. Heavy black armor covers his chest and legs. Halberd is poised. The fight is on!

© Akanezumiya
Reference on Musha Ningyo Dolls !!!!!


. WKD : Kurama Festivals 鞍馬山 　




Benkei at the Gojo Bridge in Kyoto 京の五条の橋

. naginata 薙刀 / 長刀 / 眉尖刀 Japanese halberd .


長刀の影おぼろなり橋の月　
naginata no kage oboro nari hashi no tsuki
- Masaoka Shiki

.......................................................................


. Oniwakamaru 鬼若丸 and the carp .

Musashibo Benkei was called Oniwakamaru - "demon child, ogre child" in his youth.
His mother was pregnant for 18 months with him and when the baby was born, it has already hair and teeth.
He was so strong he could fight against 200 men and win.
Since he was such a problem, he was given to Western Part of the mountain monestery at Hieizan 比叡山西塔. At that time he was called 西塔鬼若丸 "Saito Oniwakamaru".


about 26 cm high
. Ichihara tsuchi ningyoo 市原土人形 clay dolls .
Ichihara, Gifu


. Shitakawara tsuchiningyoo　下川原土人形 Aomori.
Oniwakamaru 鬼若丸 and the carp

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The Teeth and Claws of Buddhism
Warrior Monks, Benkei and others
by Mikael Adolphson
History of the Monk soldiers of Old Japan

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about 30 cm high
made by 榊原庄松 Sakakibara Shoma, a disciple of the 禰宜田家 Negita family.

. Aichi 碧南大浜土人形　 Ohama Clay Dolls .


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Related words

***** . Hiraizumi Fujiwara Festival
平泉藤原祭 (ひらいずみふじわらまつり)


***** Samurai, a Haiku Topic

***** SETSUGEKKA, by Isamu Kurita, MOA

***** Carp Streamers (koinobori, Japan)

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Benkei Namazu Dogu
弁慶なまづ道具 Benkei (as a namazu catfish)
with his seven tools (nanatsu dogu)

「七つ道具」ならぬ「なまづ道具」と称して背負っている．
- source : rekihaku.ac.jp -


. Legends about Musashibo Benkei .
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