In the 29th year of the Meiji era, 1896, at around this time of year, Shiki wrote a haiku.
釣鐘にとまりて光る蛍かな
tsurigane ni tomarite hikaru hotaru kana
on the temple bell
settled and glowing
a firefly
—Shiki
(trans. David LaSpina[1])
This haiku is an interesting one. This is Shiki calling back to Buson, spinning his own version of Buson's more famous haiku. Shiki's haiku are always picturesque in keeping with his philosophy of shasei, "sketch from life", which is painting the scene with words just as a painter would do with paint. It is, in fact, almost identical to Buson's with the exception of just a few words changed. Buson uses a butterfly that is sleeping instead of glowing.
釣鐘に止まりてねむる胡蝶かな
tsurigane ni tomarite nemuru kochō kana
on the temple bell
sleeping
a butterfly
—Buson
Buson's haiku is much more profound. Although Buson made his living as a painter and directly inspired Shiki, Buson's haiku were usually layered with meaning and allusion, with references to ancient Chinese poems, history, and other philosophic ideas.
In his original, Buson's butterfly sleeping is a pointer to Chuang-tzu's philosophic musing upon waking from a dream in which he was a butterfly.
不知周之夢為胡蝶與，胡蝶之夢為周與
“Am I a Man”, he thought,
“who dreamed that I was a butterfly?
Or am I butterfly, dreaming that I am a man?”
(trans. Richard Zipoli)
Chuang Tzu's Butterfly episode is extremely famous in China and highly influenced many of the Tang poets. All the Tang poets influenced Buson, especially Li Po. This influence is felt in the entire haiku world, in fact, where any mention of a butterfly is often a reference to this.
It doesn't end there. The temple bell calls to mind the first line of the Heike Monogatari, "The tale of the Heike", which is perhaps Japan's most famous epic and is about the most famous war in Japanese history, the Genpei War. That story begins:
祇園精舎の鐘の聲、
諸行無常の響あり。
娑羅雙樹の花の色、
盛者必衰のことわりをあらはす。
おごれる人も久しからず、
唯春の夜の夢のごとし。
たけき者も遂にほろびぬ、
偏に風の前の塵に同じ。
The ring of the bells at Gion temple
echoes the impermanence of all things.
The color of the sala flowers
reveals the truth that to flourish is to fall.
The proud do not endure long
like a passing dream on a spring night.
The mighty fall at last,
like dust in the wind
You can see how these two images and references go together and give Buson's haiku a very deep and profound meaning while at the same time presenting us with a very simple and peaceful image of daily life.
Although Shiki held Buson in very high regard, at the same time he didn't like this kind of allusion in haiku. He thought that haiku should be simple and direct, painting a picture in very simple language of what we are seeing when we write the haiku, and this is what led to him creating his shasei haiku philosophy.
In playing off Buson's haiku, Shiki is stripping out all allusion and instead giving us a simple verbal painting.
Fireflies can have a meaning of studying hard, a meaning that is very strong in Japan and refers to an old Chinese tale where Che Yin was too poor to buy candles for studying at night so he instead captured fireflies and held them in a cloth bag, using their light to study.
They can also sometimes be thought of as reincarnated warriors, particular those who followed Yorimasa in the Genpei War. Hmm... which curiously leads us back to the Heike Monogatari.
I think, however, we can safely rule out Shiki making any of these references due to what we know of his thoughts on how haiku should be written. I think Shiki's intention is to show us that Buson's haiku is so good that it works even without the allusion. He might be right. Although even in Shiki's day students would have a good knowledge of the classics and could probably follow the allusions, I'm not sure if that is so true today.
In Japan, the idea of copying, slightly altering, or playing off old haiku (riffing off, if you will) is common and is known as honkadori. In the West I think this kind of thing would be met with cries of plagiarism, but in the Japanese poetry world it is not considered bad at all and is quite common. The intended purpose is much what I've been doing in this post. Audiences were expected to know the original, and so by copying it and changing it slightly, the poet is inviting readers to recall the original and compare them. Sometimes this is used to build on the original, sometimes to make a point as I think Shiki was doing here, or sometimes just to make a response, as Santōka did when he did the same to Hōsai's haiku:
咳をしても一人
Seki o shite mo hitori
even coughing,
I am alone
—Hōsai
鴉啼いてわたしも一人
karasu naite watashi mo hitori
the caw of a crow
I am also alone
—Santōka
What do you think? Which is better: Shiki's version or the original? Can you make your own honkadori spinning from Buson?
near the temple bell
deep in thought—
a haiku poet
| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
That is, me! If you like this translation, feel free to use it. Just credit me. Also link here if you can. ↩
