And here is your daily almanac for Friday the 23rd of June, 2023.
Today, in 1534, warlord Oda Nobunaga was born. He was the second son of the head of the Oda family which controlled Owari domain. He was known for his very bizarre behavior and for associating with people of different social rank than himself, both things which gained him the nickname "The Fool of Owari". That nickname would change over the course of his life to one you may know better: The Demon King.
A copy of Oda Nobunaga's portrait from the Italian painter Giovanni Nicolao, commissioned by Nobunaga.
If you watch anime or play video games you may know the name Nobunaga. He is very often the bad guy in games and stories where he does all kind of extremely gruesome things to people. In reality he wasn't much worse than any of the warlords of the Waring States period (sengoku jidai), which lasted from 1467 to 1603, but he gained the image of being even more bloodthirsty than the rest over the years, probably primarily for his siege against the warrior monks at Mount Hiei. Such was his anger at them that he killed everyone—monks, laymen, women, and children—and burned every building to the ground. His nickname "Demon King" came from that mass slaughter.
His biggest claim to fame, beyond being bloodthirsty and killing everyone he didn't like, was that he conquered most of Japan before he was betrayed and murdered by one of his own men. During his life he refused the title of shogun and most other titles offered to him by the court. No one knows the reason for sure, but some historians suggest he intended to kill the emperor and start his own dynasty. Historic fiction has gone crazy with that idea, but as far as I know there is no real evidence that he intended it. He was killed, at any rate, before he could complete his conquest of Japan, so we'll never know what he intended for sure.
He is primarily remembered today as the first unifier of Japan and for his habit of killing pretty much everyone.
Today is butsumetsu, one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. This is the most unlucky day, so might want to avoid doing anything important. (Read more about the rokuyō here)
On the old calendar, today would have been the sixth day of the fifth month. It is natsukarekusa karuru (乃東枯), "The Self-Heal Withers ", the first microseason of geshi (夏至). The common self-heal (utsubogusa) is a fairly common herb found thought out Asia, North America, and Europe. It's interesting because it sprouts around the winter solstice but then dries up and withers around now when everything else is blooming. It's used in Chinese medicine and some people drink it in tea. I don't really know much about the herb, but maybe 
The Common Self-heal, from Wikipedia
Here's a haiku from Hino Sojo:
寝白粉香にたちにけり虎が雨
ne shiroi ko ni tachi ni keri tora ga ame
the fragrance
her white night powder—
rain of the lady tora
This is a great haiku. I may do a separate post on it later because not only is it so good but the background of it is also quite interesting. In brief, the rains that take place near the end of June are said to be the tears of the Lady Tora as she laments the death of her lover Juro Sukenari from the afterlife, one of the tragic heroes of Soga Monogatari, who by tradition died on May 28th on the old calendar which is around the end of June on the modern calendar.
Shinagawa by Kawase Hasui
Have a good day, everyone!
❦
| 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. |