Kyorai Mukai part 9

January 2014

SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE KEY-NOTE PUBLIC LECTURE

AT WORLD HAIKU FESTIVAL 2010 IN NAGASAKI

BY

SUSUMU TAKIGUCHI

CHAIRMAN, THE WORLD HAIKU CLUB

Kyorai Mukai (1651－1704):

PART NINE

To recapitulate, Kikaku came up to Kyoto in Jokyo 1(1684) and met Kyorai for the first time. The following Jokyo2 (1685) saw Kyorai’s ku appearing for the first time in the Ichiro-fu which was compiled by Edo haijin. In the following Jokyo3 (1686) Kyorai’s works appeared in Kikaku’s Saitan-cho: one his ku and the other his ku as daisan for themitsumono. In the autumn of the same year Kyorai made a trip to Ise and then onto Edo where he had a historic meeting with Basho.

Kyorai stayed on in Edo and welcomed the New Year Jokyo4 (1687) there with his old and newly acquired haikai friends. Thus he started his haikai activities in earnest right from the start of the year. Especially important was the Sangin-Kasen with the theme of “hisakata ya” (from the waka makura kotoba for ama=heaven, ame=rain, tsuki=moon, kumo=cloud, sora=sky, hikari=light, yoru=night, miyako=capital city etc.), which he performed with Basho, Ransetsu and Kikaku. In it, his own ku, hisakata ya konare konare to hatsu-hibari (after a long absence/come hither, come hither/invites the first sky lark song) , was chosen as tateku (special hokku), which was unusual because it was customary to choose tetekufrom among poems of past masters. This alone is a testimony to his advancement in haikai within a short period of time.

The same year saw the compilation of Zoku Minashi-Guri (Second Empty Chestnut) edited and completed by Kikaku in November. In this anthology as many as fifteen of Kyorai’s ku were included. Kyorai also sent to Kikaku tsuito-ku (poem of condolence) because the latter’s mother passed away on 8 April. This date indicates the possibility that Kyorai may have stayed in Edo as late as the summer of the same year. During this long stay Kyorai deepened his relationship not only with Basho but also with many followers of Basho in Edo . Zoku Minashi-Guri appeared when Shofu ( Basho Way ) reached maturity. The fact that so many of Kyorai’s poems were selected for it means that he had established his position as an important haijin of the Basho School . With this his advancement as a haijin began to accelerate. Let us see some of these fifteen ku.

fukeru yo wo tonari ni narau suzumi kana

night deepening…

following my neighbour, I too

try to cool myself outside

tabine shite ka waroki kusa no kayari kana

sleeping on a journey,

mosquito smoker, emitting ordor

of foul-smelling grass

yoroi kite tsukare tamesan doyo-boshi

wearing my armour

I’ll work out how tired I am…

summer airing

yujo tokiwa mimakari keru wo itamite hisasiku aishirerikeru hito ni moshi haberu (mourning the death of geisha Tokiwa, I talked to a person who had known her for a long time.)

tsuyu-keburi kono yo no hoka no miuke kana

dew mist…

redemption of a prostitute

outside this world

kumo yorimo saki ni koboruru shigure kana

winter rain…

beginning to fall

before the clouds

Jokyo4 (1687) thus became an important and fulfilling year for Kyorai. On 25 October of the same year Basho left Edo and set out west on the journey of Oi no Kobumi (The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel ). He reached Kyoto in April the following year and met Kyorai again. On 20 September, that year, Jokyo 5, turned into Genroku 1 (1688) because of the changeover of the Emperor from Emperor Reigen to Emperor Higashiyama. This ushered in the prosperous Genroku Era when Edo culture blossomed. Kyorai’s intercourse with Basho became ever closer and his relationship with the master’s fellow students also got deeper. Thus expanded the opportunities for Kyorai to prove himself as a haikai poet and as an important follower of Basho.

Records show that Basho went up on the Tokaido route, arriving at his hometown, Iga Ueno, towards the end of the year. There, he welcomed the New Year in. That was Jokyo 5 (1688). The first destination was Ise where he visited the Ise Shrine. When spring came he took Tokoku (one of his disciples) with him and went to Yoshino, enjoying the cherry viewing. He then visited Koya-san, through Waka-no-Ura, to arrive at Nara on 8 April. After that, he reached Osaka , making excursions to Suma and Akashi . Basho loved going on journeys, of course, but even so this itinerary seems pretty heavy. It is believed that Basho arrived in Kyoto late April and stayed there about twenty days. There are scholars who maintain that there is no definite proof that Basho actually met Kyorai during his stay in Kyoto . However, it is known that Basho was looking forward to meeting Kyorai in this journey and it is utterly unthinkable that he did not see him in the end.

In Tabine-Ron, Kyorai recorded an episode whereby Basho mentioned to him that he, Basho, was on the trip of Yoshino on foot, everyday reciting Kyorai’s ku, ototoi wa ano yama koetsu hana zakari (the day before yesterday/I was climbing over that mountain…/cherry blossom in full bloom). Kyorai must have felt very proud of himself when he heard such an agreeable thing directly from the mouth of his master. To read it in the original, “…One day I composed a ku, ototoi wa ano yama koetsu hana zakari (the day before yesterday/I was climbing over that mountain…/cherry blossom in full bloom), my master said that no one would select this ku as good at present and that it would take another two or three years before anyone would come around do it. Later on, my master dropped in on his way back from the trip to Yoshino and mentioned to me that every day he was reciting this ku during that trip…”

Let us look at the ku more closely. Firstly, Basho was not just praising Kyorai’s ku but also more importantly he was pointing out that the ku was ahead of the time and that therefore no one could appreciate its quality and worth yet, and that it would take another two or three years for people to catch up with it. One is reminded that Haydon said exactly the same thing to Mozart. To talk about “the day before yesterday” in the poem would sound rather odd to start with. However, this is a case of honka-dori (to base one’s poem on good poems of the past masters).

The poem for Kyorai’s honka-dori was the famous one written by Fujiwara Shunzei, which goes: omokage ni hana no sugata wo saki-datete ikue koe-kinu mine no shirakumo (regarding the clouds/over the distant mountains/as cherry blossom to show my way/I have climbed over many hills). Kyorai also “…stopped to look back (in my own trip) to find all those hills covered by cherry blossom which I climbed over the day before yesterday…”. He was emulating the sensibility of Shunzei’s poem. The expression of “the day before yesterday” gives the feeling of passing of time. It also suggests looking back the old time of Shunzei with nostalgia and the continuity of time. The expression of “that mountain” gives the sense of spatial expansion and the great size of vista. If it had not been for the honka-dori of Shunzei’s poem, Kyorai’s ku would have looked rather exaggerated and over the top.

(to be continued)