Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600–1900

by Shirane, Haruo, ed.

  Tears were streaming down his face. I just sat there, looking down and unable to say anything. Because of his kindness, my debt to Father is deeper than the matchless snows of Mount Fuji, unmelted by the summer sun, and deeper than a twice-dyed crimson. Yet I hadn’t stayed at home and taken care of him. Instead, I had drifted around like a floating cloud. Before I could wonder whether I had gone east, off I was to the west. The days and nights rolled on like a wheel going downhill, and twenty-five years had passed. To have stayed away from my father’s side until my hair was white as frost—I wondered whether even the Five Violations could be worse than this.6 In my heart, I prostrated myself and prayed for forgiveness.

  But if I were to shed tears openly, it would surely make him feel even worse. So I wiped my eyes and said with a smile, “Now put things like that out of your mind. Just hurry up and get well.” I gave him some medicine and added, “If you get better soon, I’ll become the perfect farmer’s son, the Yatarō you used to know. I’ll cut hay, plow the land, and really set your mind at rest. Please forgive me for what I’ve been until now.” When Father heard this, his joy was boundless. . . .

  Fifth Month, Thirteenth Day

  “I feel so good this morning that I want some saké,” Father said. But since saké was strictly forbidden by the doctor, I decided I couldn’t give him even a drop until he recovered. But someone who’d come to visit him said, “If you go this far in stopping him from doing what he likes, you may regret it later if he should die. Your regrets then will be to no avail. It would only be kind to give him a little of whatever he wants, just one or two mouthfuls.”

  And those people who were just waiting for any chance to do their mischief pricked up their ears and sat there listening.7 They said, “This morning why don’t you trust the patient’s wishes? Give him some saké! Give him some saké!”

  So I did. Like a boat that had reached its mooring, Father drank as if a long-desired dream had been realized. Like a whale gulping seawater, he downed about a quart during the morning. For a man who had not eaten solid food in twenty days to do such a thing—why, even a three-year-old would frown if he heard about it. I alone wrung my hands, but it was difficult to stand up to the two of them, and in the end I did not speak out. How it galled me the way they pretended to be outwardly caring for Father, when in fact they were rejoicing in their hearts at his impending death. . . .

  Fifth Month, Twentieth Day

  Father’s fever was gradually rising. In the morning he hardly ate anything; from around noon, his face was ghastly pale, his eyes swollen and half-shut, and he moved his lips as though he wanted to say something. With each inhalation and exhalation, his life was being sucked away in the rattling of the mucus. His breathing was getting progressively weaker. Through the window entered the light of the sun as it moved toward its end like a lamb to the slaughter. Father could no longer distinguish people’s faces. There seemed to be no hope left.

  Oh the pain of it! Would that I could have exchanged my life for his and just once more have seen him healthy again. When he had said he wanted something to eat, I had prohibited it, telling him it would be bad for him. Now I felt that all the resources of Jivaka or Bian Que would not be enough,8 that the power of all the gods would not suffice, and that there was nothing else to do but recite the nenbutsu.

  nesugata no His sleeping form—

  hae ou mo kyō I shoo away the flies today.

  ga kagiri kana There’s nothing more to do.

  As the day drew to a close, I vainly tried to wet his lips with water from a vessel by his bedside. The twentieth-night moon shone in through the window, and all the neighborhood was sleeping quietly. As a cock’s crow could be heard in the distance announcing the dawn, Father’s breathing became increasingly shallow, and the mucus that I’d been concerned about from the very beginning was now time and again blocking his throat. If the thread of his life was to be cut, I wanted at least to remove the mucus. But I was not Hua Tuo9 and so did not know any of his skillful techniques. Dejected, I threw up my hands in despair. The suffering, the grief in my heart as I could do nothing but wait for his final moments. . . . Even the gods showed no mercy. The night moved brightly into dawn, and about six o’clock, as though he had fallen into a deep sleep, Father breathed his last.

  I took hold of his empty, pitiful body. Would that this were all a dream from which I could awake! But dream or reality, I felt I was wandering in darkness without a lamp, on a cold dawn in this fleeting world.

  The impermanent spring flowers are seduced and scattered by the wind; this ignorant world’s autumn moon is surrounded and hidden by clouds. The world knows—need I repeat it?—“That which lives must perish; that which is joined together will certainly fall apart.”10 And although this is the road that all must travel, yesterday I was foolish enough not to believe that my own father could go as soon as today.11

  Those people who just two days before had defied my father and quarreled with him were now clinging to his body, tears streaming down their faces. Amid the clouds of their repetitions of Amida’s name, I realized that the eternal vows of husband and wife—to grow old together, to be buried together—were in fact ever binding.12

  [Buson shū, Issa shū, NKBT 58: 404–425, translated by Robert Huey]

  HOKKU

  kore ga maa This, I guess, is

  tsui no sumika ka my last resting place—

  yuki goshaku five feet of snow!13

  Shichiban nikki, Eleventh Month of 1812

  furusato ya My old home—

  yoru mo sawaru mo wherever I turn, whatever I touch

  ibara no hana thorned roses14

  Shichiban nikki

  umasō na Delicious looking!

  yuki ga fūwari the snow

  fūwari kana falling softly, softly—15

  Shichiban nikki, Eleventh Month of 1813

  yuki tokete Melting snow

  mura ippai no and the village overflowing

  kodomo kana with children!16

  Shichiban nikki, First Month of 1814

  suzukaze no Cool breeze—

  magarikunete twisting and turning

  kitarikeri it comes along17

  Shichiban nikki, Sixth Month of 1815

  yasegaeru Skinny frog,

  makeru na Issa don’t give up the fight!

  kore ni ari Issa is here!18

  Shichiban nikki, Fourth Month of 1816

  ari no michi The line of ants

  kumo ni mine yori seems to start

  tsuzukiken from the towering clouds19

  Ora ga haru, Sixth Month of 1819

  suzume no ko Little sparrows,

  sokonoke sokonoke step aside, step aside,

  ouma ga tōru Master Horse is coming through20

  Ora ga haru, Shichiban nikki, Second Month of 1819

  yare utsu na Hey, don’t swat the fly!

  hae ga te o suri he wrings his hands,

  ashi o suru wrings his feet21

  Hachiban nikki, Sixth Month of 1821

  [Buson shū, Issa shū, NKBT 58: 322–362, translated by Haruo Shirane]

  MY SPRING (ORA GA HARU,1819)

  Each year Issa collected in a single volume the poetry and prose that he had composed. The best example is My Spring (Ora ga haru), a collection of haibun in his mature style that he wrote in 1819, the year in which he finally settled down in Kashiwabara. The three recurring themes in My Spring are his life as an oppressed stepson; his love for his daughter Sato, born to him late in his life; and his belief in the power of the Buddha (Issa was a follower of the True Pure Land sect). The climax of the book is the section referred to as “A World of Dew” (Tsuyu no yo), which describes the death of his daughter.

  Orphan

  Despondent when the other children chant, “You can always tell an orphan: standing in a doorway, gnawing at his nails!”—never joining in with the others, spending the livelong day in the field out back, crouched in the shadow of a pile of thatching—what a forlorn figure I cut, even
to myself!

  ware to kite Come and

  asobe ya oya no play with me,

  nai suzume orphan sparrow!

  Yatarō, at age six22

  Giving the Breast

  Last summer, around bamboo-planting time, my daughter was born into this world of sorrow. In order that, though ignorant, she might come to comprehend the way of things, we named her Sato.23 Since celebrating her birthday this year, she has delighted in such little games as “Clappety, clappety, ah-wa-wa! Pat-a-pate, pat-a-pate, this-a-way, that-a-way!”24 Yet once when she saw another child her age with a windmill toy, she wanted it so badly that she put up a huge fuss. We immediately got her one, but in no time she had put it in her mouth, drooled all over it, and cast it aside, and with nary a dewdrop of attachment, straightaway shifted her attention to something else. Just when it seemed she was absorbed in smashing a rice bowl to bits, she quickly wearied of that and began tearing the thin paper off the sliding shōji door. When I praised her, saying, “Good job, good job!” she took me at my word and, squealing with laughter, began ripping away at it for all she was worth.

  She has not one speck of dust in her heart, which shines bright and pure as the harvest moon; she smoothes the furrows of my heart, just as if I were watching a performance by a peerless actor. When someone comes over and says to her, “Where’s the bow-wow?” she will point to a dog. When asked, “Where’s the caw-caw?” she will point to a crow. From her mouth down to the tips of her nails, she is sweet and overflowing with lovableness, and it seems to me she is gentler than a butterfly flitting among the first tender shoots of spring.

  This child must be under Buddha’s protection, for on the night before memorial services,25 as soon as we light the altar candles and sound the bell, no matter where she is, she quickly crawls over and folds her tiny fern-bud hands in prayer. Her voice as she chants “Nanmu, nanmu!”26 is so appealing, so beguiling, so irresistible, so angelic! Whereas I, who am at an age when numerous white hairs now frost my head and rippling waves furrow my brow, do not know how to entrust myself to Amida, and shilly-shally my days away, put to shame by a two-year-old.27 Yet the moment I leave the altar, I am sowing the seeds of hell: detesting the flies that swarm around my knee, cursing the mosquitoes that circle my table, and even drinking the saké forbidden by the Buddha.

  Just about the time when the moon slips through our gate and the air grows quite cool, from outside comes the sound of dancing children’s voices. She promptly throws down her little bowl and scoots out, half-crawling on one knee, calling out and gesticulating in her joy. Watching her like this, it occurs to me that one day soon I will see her grown to the age when she’ll wear her hair parted28 and I will see her dance—a performance surely far more beguiling than the music of the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas29—and I forget my waxing years, and all my cares evaporate.

  She never stops moving her arms and legs for a split second all day long; she plays herself into exhaustion and sleeps until the morning sun is high. Her mother takes that time as her only holiday: she boils the rice and sweeps and tidies up the place, and fans herself to cool the sweat. Then, taking the sound of crying from the bedroom as her signal that the baby has awakened, she deftly takes her up in her arms and brings her to the field out back to pee. After that she nurses her; and as the child avidly suckles, patting her mother’s chest and beaming, her mother, forgetting utterly the pain she suffered during the long months the baby was in the womb and the daily round of dirty diapers, strokes her as tenderly as if she had found a precious jewel in the lining of her robe.30 How extraordinarily happy she looks!

  nomi no ato Counting

  kazoenagara ni fleabites as she

  soeji ka na gives the breast31

  Issa

  A World of Dew

  At the height of our enjoyment comes anguish.32 This is indeed the way of this world of sorrow, but for this seedling thousand-year-old pine that had known not even half life’s joys—for this sprig of but two leaflets, at the peak of her young laughter, to be possessed, unexpectedly as water in a sleeper’s ear, by the savage god of pox! At the height of the eruption, she was like a budding first blossom that had no sooner bloomed than it was beaten down by muddy rains; just watching by her side was agony. Then two or three days passed and the pustules began to dry, and like mud sliding down a hillside when the snow thaws, the scabs came off; so we held a joyous celebration, wove a disk of rice straw, sprinkled it with saké and hot water, and sent the god on his way.33 Yet she grew weaker and weaker, and our hopes each day ebbed lower than the day before, and finally, on the twenty-first day of the Sixth Month, together with the morning glories, she faded from this world.34 Her mother clung to her dead face, sobbing and sobbing, and who could blame her? When things have reached this pass, one may put on a face of mature resignation, telling oneself that it does no good to wail, for “flowing water returns not to its source, nor the fallen blossom to the branch”35—but hard indeed to sever are the bonds of love.

  tsuyu no yo wa This world of dew’s

  tsuyu no yo nagara a world of dew, and yet—

  sarinagara and yet. . .

  Issa

  Come What May

  Those believers who proclaim their “faith in other-power, faith in other-power!” and pray with all their effort concentrated solely on other-power, end up bound by the rope of other-power and fall into the flames of the hell of self-power.36 Again, those who put in an order to Amida Buddha to “make this dirty worldling’s skin a gorgeous gold!”37 and then, just leaving their order on file, turn smug and act as though already steeped from head to toe in buddhahood—they, too, turn out to be self-power schemers.38

  But you may ask, “Then what approach must one adopt to conform to the teachings of your sect?” And I will answer: So far as I am aware, it involves no especially difficult complexities. You simply take all that garbage about “other-power” and “self-power” and let it drift out to sea. And as for the crucial issue of your next rebirth, just prostrate yourself before the Buddha, requesting only, “Whether I be bound for heaven or for hell, dispose of me as you see fit.”

  With this kind of doubtless resolution, never again will you find that no sooner have the words “Hail Amida Buddha!” left your lips than already you are stretching your web of greed across spring meadows like a grasping spider and hoodwinking others, nor will you ever again entertain, for even the merest moment, the thievish mentality of drawing off your neighbor’s water into your own field. Then you need not trouble yourself to solemnly intone the name of the Buddha—for even without your praying, the Buddha will protect you. This is what we call the resting-in-contentment of our sect. Oh, wondrous grace!39

  to mo kaku mo Come what may,

  anata makase no I leave it up to Him

  toshi no kure this year’s end40

  Issa, age fifty-seven

  Second year of Bunsei, Twelfth Month, twenty-ninth day41

  [Buson shū, Issa shū, NKBT 58: 432–476, translated by Herschel Miller]

  ________________________

  1. The Five Defilements (gojoku) mark the Latter Age of the Buddhist Law or Dharma (mappō).

  2. Bear-gall bladder (kumanoi) was considered a rare and efficacious medicine.

  3. Here Issa extends the meaning of this metaphor to describe an extremely rare situation. having the chance to hear the Buddhist dharma. Here Issa extends the meaning of this metaphor to describe an extremely rare situation.

  4. The Three Obligations (sanjū) for a woman are those of a daughter to her father, a wife to her husband, and a widow to her son.

  5. These were the twenty-four disciples of Shinran who went out to preach throughout the land.

  6. The Five Violations (gogyakuzai)—patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, upsetting the harmony of a Buddhist monastery, and causing a buddha to bleed—cause a person to be denied entry into the Pure Land.

  7. A reference to Satsu, the stepmother, and Senroku.

  8. Giba (Skt: Jiva
ka), one of the Buddha’s disciples, was renowned for his medical skill. Bian Que was a famous Chinese doctor during the Warring States period who became the subject of a Chinese saying: “Even Bian Que cannot raise the dead.”

  9. Hua Tuo was a famous physician in the Latter Han period.

  10. A well-known quotation from the Nirvana Sutra.

  11. A reference to a well-known poem by Ariwara no Narihira: “Although I had already heard that everyone must travel down this road, I never thought that it would be today” (Kokinshū, no. 861).