Issa's Lilies
lilies blooming! giving his all to his song the skylarkIssa, 1810__________________________________________________________David (G. Lanoue), at his excellent Haiku of Kobayashi Issa archive, tells us (who subscribe to Daily Issa emails) that :"Literally, the lark is singing with "bone-breaking" effort." I responded with a suggestion. . . "Perhaps it's too obvious to mention that the "lilies blooming" are Issa's quirky way of graphically illustrating the lark's tough guy and good catch for the ladies, territorial song? Issa's kindly satire in this ku certainly tickles my funny bone! ◠‿◠ "Later I modified and extended. . .Syllableº17 [a pen name, or haigo, of jp] writes "Issa humorously uses the lily blossoms as a graphic symbol to express, by their trumpet-like appearance, the vigorous song of the male skylark. (Visualize an animated cartoon.) These delightful birds prove their masculinity by the strength of their singing. This serves to secure territory from competing males and impress possible mates. Issa has used the lily blooms as a visual joke to emphasise Mr. Lark's tuneful gusto ('bone-breaking', even); as well as fielding the flowering Lilium as a kigo to signify early summer."
And this is how my comment appears over at Haiku of Kobayashi Issa.
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MORE. . .
The idea of a trumpet shape for expressing sound emission (centrifugal expansion) is universal. I use the term 'trumpet' for brevity's sake to image that. Issa probably didn't have a trumpet per se in mind (but he may well may have connoted it subliminally as a Buddhist instrument, or whatever).
Expansion from a point is the physics. The sonic equivalence of a water splash, or exploding bomb, type thing.
For Issa, I feel, it would be purely a visual experience, at least in the first instance. Bursts of song seen as blossoms.
Look at a lily blossom and witness the objective correlative. Only after the initial sensory event do we magnetize metaphorical associations (according to our cultural mind set).
So, Issa was seeing a universal graphic (lily blossoms) that segued nicely into the skylark's maximally stressed sound system. A visual pun. I believe he was doing this directly from flower to bird, you know, without a mediating external object (such as a musical instrument) being in the mix.
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By the way, I'd say that the vulva connection was not his primary intent, if intended at all. It's all about the sound up front. However, considering that Issa was a country boy, he'd probably be well aware of the courtship rituals of this common bird. This might allow us to imagine that the plurality of blossoms also equated (in the vulva sense) to a plurality of interested ladies. The plot deepens!
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NOTE
David explains : "The closest thing to a trumpet that Japanese people in Issa's time would have had known were seashell horns, horagai."_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This entire site is a living document and as such will be developing - be sure to return regularly to the pages. Not just to see the changes, but also to review the material in the light of your own changes.
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http://is.gd/Issa_Lilies