12/03/2007

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.


Click for more Photos of my Asian Travelogue!
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

Menneken Piss ... photos

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


CLICK for more photos


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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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20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks Gabi!

.
forty-six years
writing my name
yellow in snow

Gene
H. Gene Murtha
Temps Libre '02

PS: I had to teach my son something (grins)

Gillena Cox said...

On Ash Wednesdays--
after Carnival clean streets
with a pissy stench

Anonymous said...


flitting to the oil lamp
of the pissing place...
powdery snow


shoobenjo no abura-bi ni chiru kona yuki kana

.小便所の油火にちる粉雪哉

by Issa, 1821

Tr. David Lanoue
http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

Anonymous said...

.
piss also
turns to pearls...
field of yams


shooben mo tama to nari keri imo-batake

.小便も玉と成りけり芋畠

by Issa, 1823

Taro or Chinese yams (imo) are growing in the field. The drops of piddle join the pearls of dewdrops on the leaves.

Tr. David Lanoue
http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

Anonymous said...

David,

How about adding four more by issa: the one where he shows his waterfall to the frog and the one where he shakes it off to the quivering voice of the cricket or the somewhat hysterical voice of the higurashi (i forget which), the one where he worries about his attentiveness (in The Fifth Season)on the morning of the New Year, and the one where he identifies Irises with the Goddess of Spring's micturation? Then you will have pretty much covered the bases on his diverse pissku.

Anonymous said...

酒臭し小便くさし菊の花
sake kusashi shooben kusashi kiku no hana

smelling like sake
smelling like piss
chrysanthemums

Issa 1818

Evidently, some visitor to the chrysanthemum garden has relieved himself there. Or perhaps a dog is to blame, as in this earlier haiku (1807): sato inu no bari wo kake keri kiku no hana watered by the village dog... chrysanthemum

Tr. David Lanoue

Anonymous said...

菊さくや馬糞山も一けしき
kiku saku ya ma-guso yama mo hito keshiki

chrysanthemum blooming
horse-shit mountain...
one scene

Kobayashi Issa
(Tr. David Lanoue)
.

MORE : said...

at gate after gate
green hills
of silkworm poop

kado-gado ni aoshi kaiko no kuso no yama
.門々に青し蚕の屎の山

by Issa, 1824
Tr. David Lanoue

MORE : said...

kasugano ya dagashi ni majiru shika no kuso

Kasuga Field--
penny candy mingles
with deer poop

Kobayashi Issa
(Tr. David Lanoue)

MORE : said...

狼の糞を見てより草寒し
ookami no kuso o mite yori kusa samushi

seeing wolf shit
these weeds feel
even more cold

Kobayashi Issa

Gabi Greve - Basho archives said...

Matsuo Basho

行く雲や犬の駈け尿村時雨
yuku kumo ya inu no kakebari mura shigure

Passing clouds —
Like a stray dog relieving himself,
Scattered showers.

(Tr. Blyth)

MORE
about shigure

Gabi Greve said...

Masaoka Shiki

草枯や狼の糞熊の糞

withered plants -
the poop of a wolf
the poop of a bear
.

Gabi Greve - Buson said...

Yosa Buson

大徳(だいとこ)の糞ひりおはす枯野哉
daitoko no kuso hiri-owasu kareno kana

His Holiness the Abbot
is shitting
in the withered fields.

Tr. Hass

MORE

facebook said...

collecting night soil - -

Jun Itabashi wrote

Tobu Tojo rail line was built to take soy sauce from Kikoman in Saitama to Tokyo and hauled human manure from Tokyo back to Saitama to be distributed to farmers for a hefty sum. Till four years ago, Tobu Tojo Line station attendants etc wore a uniform the color of manure. Obviously to cover any spilt stuff from the caboodle trains.
.

Gabi Greve - Darumapedia said...

菜の花の中に糞ひる飛脚哉
nanohana no naka ni fun hiru hikyaku kana

the fast messenger
shits in the middle
of a rapeseed field

夏目漱石 Natsume Soseki
.
more about the hikyaku messengers
.

Gabi Greve said...

Kobayashi Issa

小便の滝を見せうぞ鳴蛙
shooben no taki wo mishoo zo naku kawazu

get ready to see
my piss waterfall!
croaking frog


Part of Issa's genius is his ability to imagine the perspective of fellow creatures.
(Tr. David Lanoue)

Gabi Greve said...

- shibin -

Kobayashi Issa

かくれ家や尿瓶も添て衣配
kakurega ya shibin mo soete kinu kubari

secluded house--
even for the piss-pot
a gift of new clothes


This haiku alludes to the Twelfth Month custom of providing gifts of new clothes, usually for one's relatives. Here, Issa comically includes the piss-pot in the celebration, giving it a new piece of "clothing" to cover or hide it.
David Lanoue

Gabi Greve said...

Kobayashi Issa

里犬の尿をかけけり菊の花
sato inu no bari o kake keri kiku no hana

watered by
the village dog...
chrysanthemum


The haiku is funny--and another example of Issa's openness to everything in Nature, including piddle. For humans, the chrysanthemum is a thing of beauty; for the dog, it's no more significant than a fire hydrant ... a convenient target.
David Lanoue
.

Gabi Greve said...

Legend from Yamagata
https://japanshrinestemples.blogspot.com/2019/03/yamanokami-regional-31-yamagata.html
.

Gabi Greve said...

Legend from Niigata
Another legend about the "demon dusk" is from Niigata, Nagaoka city.

An old woman of more than 70 years did not like the "demon dusk" and never went to the outhouse during that time.
They sat during this time the deities of the outhouse come to meet.
One evening the husband of the woman went out for an urgent pee at that time anyway and made the gods very angry. He fell down and died soon after.
.
. oomagadoki オーマガドキ, Ōmagatoki 逢魔時 / 大禍時 "demon dusk" .
. kawaya no kami 厠の神 deity of the outhouse toilet .
.
https://heianperiodjapan.blogspot.com/2019/10/chikuma-river-legends.html
.