Pissing (shooben)

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Pissing (shooben)

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

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Explanation

Pissing, pee, urine ... excuse the naming, but it is used in Haiku !

shoben, shooben　（小便), the" small business", often pronouced shomben.
to pee, bari suru　ばり, 尿 ( ばり ) する

piss-pot, shibin 尿瓶
piss bucket, shooben oke 小便桶


If you do it standing, it is tachishoben, tachi shôben , 立小便.



Outside Dharmsala, public toilet

　©　Photo : Gabi Greve, Dharmsala 1979



. shoobengumi, shôben-gumi　小便組　Shobengumi, "the urine gang"　in Edo .
- Introduction –


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Worldwide use



The famous Manneken-Pis remains the emblem of the rebellious spirit of the City of Brussels.
... Manneken-Pis was at first a fountain that played an essential role in the former distribution of drinking water since the 15th century. The system was well-known in all of Europe.
source : www.brussels.be/artde


Manneken-Pis
a tourist fills
his water bottle --

Angelee Deodhar, India


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KENYA

Urine smell, smell of urine



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Things found on the way

. Legends from Japan　伝説 - Introduction .

tachishooben, tachi shôben 立小便 pissing, standing at the roadside



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Fukushima 福島県, 平田村 Hiratamura

A villager who was not devout to the 稲荷様 Inari-sama in the valley took a pee in the direction of the shrine while on his way home from a drunk evening. After that he could not find his way home any more and spent the whole night wandering lost in the forest.


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Nagano 長野県, 篠ノ井 Shinonoi

Once there lived a fox. Once a villager took a pee in the west of the village.
It hit just into the sake cup of a fox couple taking the wedding vows and he got bewitched by the fox. They killed the fox with a gunshot but the bewitchment did not stop, so he had to be kept safe in a prison. There they burned sulfur and the smoke finally got rid of the fox.

. kitsune no yomeiri　狐の嫁入り "the fox taking a bride" .

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Osaka 大阪府 - Tanuki 狸 badger

Once a man visited his friend, but the friend suddenly became quite strange and pissed on him and hit him with some stones. Then suddenly a badger run away. The Tanuki had shapeshifted into his onw features and the friend did not recognize him, but saw only the animal.


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Tottori 鳥取県

If you have to take a pee while standing in the 10th lunar month, you have to call out
「オタチ、オタチ」"I am standing here to pee!" twice.

In this month, the Japanese deities assemble in Izumo and need to be informed of the act, so they can evade being hit.

. Gods are absent (kami no rusu 神の留守) .
In the Izum region, this is the "gods-present month", month with the gods
kamiarizuki 神有月.

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Goizoo-iwa ごいぞう岩 the Goizo Rock

Goizo is a local Yokai monster. Once a carpenter peed on the rock dedicated to it. Then from below a priest came walking along and put the carpenter into the folds of his robe.
When Goizo showed up to take revenge, he could not see the carpenter and had to leave.
People say this priest was Jizo Bosatsu.


source :　cotton-candy/momomi

This monster comes from 伯州長田村 Shinshu, Nagatamura village.
He usually hides behind a rock, the ごいぞう岩 Goizo-iwa.
When a human approaches him, he shows his face with huge eyeballs and tries to eat the human.

. yookai, yōkai 妖怪 Yokai monsters - Introduction .

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- source : nichibun Yokai Database -


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HAIKU

蚤虱 ( のみしらみ ) 馬の 尿 ( ばり ) する枕もと
蚤虱馬の 尿 する枕もと
nomi shirami uma no bari suru makuramoto

fleas and lice
and a horse pissing
next to my pillow

Matsuo Basho
(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Written on the 17th day of the 5th lunar month, 1689
元禄2年5月17日
at the border station Shitomae no seki 尿前の関, Naruko, Miagi
Shitomae, lit "before pissing".


Read the discussion of this haiku
Fleas and Lice as Kigo

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Donald Richie about the translation of Jane Reichhold:

"nomi shirami / uma no shitosuru / makura moto."
This is romanized by Reichhold as, "fleas lice / horse's pissing / pillow close by" and is translated as,

"fleas and lice
now a horse pisses
by my pillow."

This lyric seems to communicate all that a haiku ought - a salient shift of observation, a seasonal sensibility, an open-ended experience. The translator is to communicate this as economically as did the poet. Here are some attempts.

Nobuyuki Yuasa translates it as:
"Bitten by fleas and lice, / I slept in a bed, / A horse urinating all the time / Close by my pillow."
Dorothy Britten gives it as:
"Fleas and lice did bite; / and I'd hear the horse pass water / Near my bed at night."
Donald Keene has versified it as:
"Plagued by fleas and lice I hear the horses staling -/ What a place to sleep!"
Toshiharu Oseki gives it as :
"Plagued by fleas and lice, / Still worse, hearing the horse urinating / Close by my pillow!" and
David Bamhill recently translates the haiku as:
"Fleas, lice, / a horse peeing / by my pillow."
©　(Japan Times, May 4, 2008)


Oku no Hosomichi - Dewagoe
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .

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Issa and his Pissing Haiku

船頭よ小便無用浪の月
sendô yo shôben muyô nami no tsuki

hey boatman
no pissing on the moon
in the waves!

. sendoo sendō 船頭 boatsman, ferryman .



芝栗や馬のばりしてうつくしき
shibaguri ya uma no bari shite utsukushiki

little chestnuts
pissed on by the horse...
shiny new



浅ましの尿瓶とやなくむら千鳥
asamashi no shibin toya naku mura chidori

"Shameful, that piss-pot!"
the flock of plovers
sing



杉で葺く小便桶や秋の暮
sugi de fuku shôben oke ya aki no kure

with cedars for a roof
the piss bucket...
autumn dusk



ちる霰立小便の見事さよ
chiru arare tachi shôben no migotosa yo

to stand pissing
while hailstones fall...
quite a feat!



両方に小便しながら御慶哉
ryoohoo ni shooben shi nagara gyokei kana

on both sides
while they and I piddle...
"Happy New Year!"


It would be hard to imagine another haiku poet of Japanese tradition depicting this scene of three neighbors relieving themselves on New Year's Day, standing in a row. The earthy humor and, deeper down, feeling of human connection make it recognizably the work of Issa.

Read more
Tr. David Lanoue

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massugu na shooben ana ya kado no yuki

The straight hole
Made by pissing
In the snow outside the door.
Tr. Blyth


Pissing in the snow
outside my door--
it makes a very straight hole.
Tr. Robert Hass


Just beyond the gate,
a neat yellow hole--
someone pissed in the snow
Tr. Sam Hamill


what a straight
piss hole!
snow at the gate
Tr. Lanoue

- - - Discussing this Haiku - - -

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. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 Issa in Edo .


はつ雪と呼る小便序哉
hatsu yuki to yobawaru shooben tsuide kana

First snow!
telling the whole village
while he pisses
Tr. Chris Drake

This winter hokku was written in the 10th month (November) of 1815, when Issa was back in Edo and the area just east of Edo on a trip. The verb is more commonly used in the third person, so I take this to be the voice, heard by Issa, of someone seeing snowflakes while standing in a field or outhouse nearby. The verb is an extension of the verb "to call," and the excited man or woman is probably trying to get the attention of the other villagers so they'll go outside and watch the first snowflakes of the winter. The flakes may not last long, so s/he can't wait even a moment to spread the news. Issa also enjoys the simultaneous triple naturalness of the snowing, the pissing, and the loud cry made by one person to share his/her joy with the others.

A few months earlier, in the 4th month (May) of the same year, while Issa was in his hometown, he'd heard a similar cry:

shimo oku to yobawaru shouben tsuide kana

Frost on the ground!
telling the whole village
while he pisses

It's rare to find frost in May, and the person wants to share his/her discovery with the other people in the village immediately.

Chris Drake


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From Robin D. Gill's "Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!":

namako ni shouben sonna guko mo shite mitaku

a dumb act
I'd like to do: pissing
on a sea slug

Takasawa Yoshikazu (2003),
trans. Robin Gill

An excerpt from Gill's comment:

"...to lecture someone who is thick-skinned is 'to pee on the face of a frog.' Perhaps for that reason, Issa has a good half dozen haiku combining frogs and pissing. Takasawa does not seem so interested in micturition as Issa, who, after all, did most of his al fresco, where there was more to describe. ..."

Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!":


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A senryu from an essay by Willaim Pinckard, titled
"Some Senryu About Go:"

shoben ni okite nyobo wa go o shikaru

Getting up
to piss, the housewife
scolds the go game.

http://www.kiseido.com/sen.htm

Compiled by Larry Bole





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Related words

. Toilet, Outhouse (benjo, no setchin, toire) .
Japanese God of the Toilet
kawaya no kami 厠の神

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***** shit, shitting (daiben　大便)

shimogoe tori　下肥取り collector of human manure, night soil collector
The ooya 大家 landlord representative of a nagaya long houses living quarters in Edo had to take care of the smooth transportation of the night soil and made a good extra money with it (糞尿代 funnyoo dai).



CLICK for more photos !

shooben kaishuu 小便回収 collecting urin -
- - - 立小便をする女 a woman doing it into a bucket



- source and more photos : sinyoken.sakura.ne.jp




Night soil was carted from Edo to the outlying agricultural land
(Illustration © Azby Brown).

Night soil is a term used for human excrement collected for fertilizer. Night soil collectors retrieved the waste during the night from city households and then transported it to outlying agricultural land.
. Recycling and Re-use in Edo .


- quote
. . . . . the rice people eat comes out of their bodies as excrement. A long time ago, when excrement was a precious fertilizer, it naturally belonged to the person who produced it. Farmers used to buy excrement for cash or trade it for a comparable amount of vegetables.

Fertilizer shortages were a chronic problem during the Edo period. As the standard of living in cities improved, surrounding villages needed an increasing amount of fertilizer. This resulted in further shortages, and thus fertilizer prices were continually rising.
- - - - - Living with Nature's Cycle - Ishikawa Eisuke
- source : www.japanfs.org/en/edo


肥取りへ尻が増えたと大家言い
koedori e shiri ga fueta to ooya ii

one more backside (asshole) -
says the landlord
to the night soil collector


koebishaku, koe-bishaku 肥柄杓 ladle for urin or night soil
When the farmer came to empty the toilet, it would smell all over the place!


source :　blog.goo.ne.jp/aboo-kai

koebishaku naminami to namu fuyu no asa

the night soil ladle
makes a lot of wi-wa-waves
on a morning in winter

naminami namu - is a pun with the polupar Amida prayer - namu Amida Butsu

. senryu, senryū 川柳　Senryu in Edo .


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tea break ...
we watch a buzzard shit
from the telephone pole


He sat there for a while on the only pole amongst the rice paddies, then lifted his tail feathers, took a deep breath (so to say) and squeezed a huge white load out elegantly, more than a meter behind himself ... where it then made its way toward the earth ...

Since this spring, we see him more often, trying to compete with the local tombi, the black milan.

Thus is my rural life here!
Gabi Greve, June 2008




holy shit !
the cow does it
in plain sunshine

Gabi Greve in India, 1997
with a photo !


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Issa and the Horse Shit Mountain - 馬糞山
with a lovely haiga by Nakamura Sakuo



. WKD : fun 糞　droppings of birds and other animals .


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