Kyorai Mukai, part 12

January 2015

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 TWELVE

A Portrait of Mukai Kyorai with his famhouse haiku

應々といへとたたくや雪乃門

yes, yes.../voices inside say, but i still bang/snow-clad gate

As we have seen, Kyorai’s first encounter with Basho took place in Genroku 2 (1689). They soon became closer to each other with increasing rapidity. This is an interesting and important story but allow me to omit it because the pressure of time compels me to stick to the main subject of today’s talk.

We therefore move straight to Genroku 11 (1698) when Kyorai went back to his hometown, Nagasaki, for the second time. He was already 48 years old then and nine years had passed since his first visit there. This first visit lasted only 3 months whereas the second was for over one year and two months. The reason is held to be that Kyorai had a lot of things he planned to achieve in Nagasaki. He had been under the weather since the autumn of the previous year and it is understandable if he wanted to do a good work in Nagasaki while his health still allowed him to do so. After the second visit he never returned to Nagasaki ever again.

The trip took place four years after Basho had died on 12 October of Genroku 7 (1694) in Osaka in the midst of his journey to the western regions. From the point of view of haikai history Kyorai’s second and last journey back to his hometown played a significant role not only in the development of the Shofu (Basho School) but also in disseminating Shofu within the haiku community of Nagasaki. I would like to remind each and every haijin living in Nagasaki Prefecture of the fact that he or she is actually enjoying and benefitting from the legacy of Kyorai’s efforts and scholarship of over 300 years ago.

It is known that Kyorai left Kyoto during the latter half of June. The date of his arriving in Nagasaki is 11 July. No sooner did he do so than he had a meeting with Shiko at Sonen-Tei, the following day to be exact. He thus wasted no time by, for instance, having a leisurely rest after the long journey. On the contrary, he is known to have had a busy and active time during the first two months. His activity included writing haibun such as Iri-Nagasaki-Ki andSenzai-Tei-Ki.

When winter came Kyorai met Yaba, another important student of the Shomon (Basho school), who came to visit Nagasaki. In the spring of the following year of Genroku 12 (1699) Kyorai received a haikai book, Hentotsu, written jointly by Riyu and Kyoriku, which was sent to him from Kyoto. He used it for discussing various haikai topics with local poets in Nagasaki such as Ushichi and Rocho. These poets were keen to ask various questions to Kyorai who answered them conscientiously. The conversation was recorded and compiled by Kyorai, which was later to become published as the famous Tabine-Ron, one of the most importanthairon books in the history of haikai.

For Kyorai, writing this book was the greatest achievement of his second visit to Nagasaki. His aunt Tagami-Ni had a second house in Nagasaki called Senzai-Tei and it seems that he used it as his base while staying there. They had a cherry blossom viewing together.

There is an anthology called Wataridori-Shu which was to be published later in Hoei 1 (1704) under Ushichi’s name. Kyorai had scribed the text and taken part in its editorial work during his stay in Nagasaki. It can be said to be a commemorative anthology to mark the return of Kyorai to his hometown (observation made by Prof. Taizo Ebara). Also, the questions and answers between Kyorai and Ushichi, Rocho and others, which appear in Kyorai-Sho, were largely done during his second visit to Nagasaki (Prof. Taizo Ebara). After such busy days, Kyorai left Nagasaki in late September and retuned to Kyoto at the beginning of October.

(to be continued)