34 haiku out of 9486
year unknown
.霞とや朝からさはぐ馬鹿烏
kasumu to ya asa kara sawagu baka karasu
in spring mist
from morning on a ruckus...
foolish crow
Or: "foolish crows."
1803
.ばか長き夜と申したる夜永哉
baka nagaki yo to môshitaru yonaga kana
"It's a foolishly long
night!" I say
in the long night
1803
.天の川都のうつけ泣やらん
ama [no] kawa miyako no utsuke naku yaran
Milky Way--
maybe the fools of Kyoto
are crying
Issa's phrase, "Heaven's River" (ama no kawa) refers to the Milky Way. The word utsuke can mean emptiness in general but also, more particularly, empty-headed people. Why is Issa poking fun at the people of the capital? Is it raining this night? The "capital" (miyako) was Kyoto in Issa's day. This is where the emperor and his court lived. Political and military power was centered in the Shogun's city of Edo, today's Tokyo.
Shinji Ogawa notes that yaran makes the verb ("cry") conjectural ("may be weeping"). He is also puzzled by this haiku.
Jean Cholley believes that Issa is alluding to the fact that refined poets of the court followed a tradition of composing repetitive and cliché poems about the Milky Way; En village de miséreux: Choix de poèmes de Kobayashi Issa (Paris: Gallimard, 1996) 235, note 19.
1804
.春立やよしのはおろか人の顔
haru tatsu ya yoshino wa oroka hito no kao
spring begins--
in Yoshino the faces
of fools
Yoshino is a famous place for viewing the cherry blossoms.
1806
.もろもろの愚者も月見る十夜哉
moro-moro no gusha mo tsuki miru jûya kana
all sorts of fools
moon-gaze too...
winter prayers
"Winter prayers" refer to the Ten Nights Festival, a Tenth Month event during which people gathered at Pure Land temples to recite the nembutsu, a prayer of thanksgiving for, and praise of, Amida Buddha's saving grace. Eons ago, Amida promised that all who rely on his saving power will be reborn in the Pure Land (the Western Paradise).
Shinji Ogawa notes that moro-moro no means "all sorts of." In this comic haiku, Issa is observing not just a single type of fool but a diverse collection of them at the Ten Nights Festival.
1809
.愚さを松にかづけて夕がすみ
orokasa wo matsu ni kazukete yûgasumi
accusing the pine
of foolishness...
evening mist
Kathleen Davis observes, "Pines and mist go together. They have conversations all the time."
1811
.鶯も愚に返るかよだまってる
uguisu mo gu ni kaeru ka yo damatteru
are you a fool, too
nightingale?
singing no more
The seasonal reference is to nightingales (uguisu) that are still singing in summertime. In this case, the nightingale has finally stopped singing. Issa compares the bird to himself: at this point in his life he was still unmarried. He feels kinship with the bird that has pointlessly sung for a mate who never answered.
1813
.さりとてはばか長き日よかきつばた
saritote wa baka naga[ki] hi yo kakitsubata
well, well
the day is foolishly long...
irises
The opening phrase, saritote wa, means, "Then, in that case," or "Being that as it is," or "Well..."; Kogo dai jiten (Shogakukan 1983) 726.
1813
.安房猫おのがふとんは知にけり
ahô neko ono ga futon wa shiri ni keri
fool cat--
yet he knows which futon
is his
1813
.鳴な鳴な春が来るぞよばか千鳥
naku na naku na haru ga kuru zoyo baka chidori
stop crying!
spring's on its way
foolish plover
Or: "foolish plovers." The plover is a winter bird in haiku.
Shinji Ogawa explains, "The phrase hare ga kuru zoyo means "spring will come" or "spring is coming." He paraphrases, "Stop crying! Spring will come (or is coming), you silly plovers."
1814
.門の木のあはう烏もはつ音哉
kado no ki no ahô karasu mo hatsu koe zo
tree by the gate
the year's first bird song
a foolish crow
1814
.ばか烏我はつ雪と思ふかや
baka-garasu waga hatsu yuki to omou ka ya
foolish crow
do you think this first snow
is my fault?
Issa asks the crow if he thinks that the first snow is "mine." I have added the word "fault," because I picture the crow scolding Issa. The haiku is his reply.
1815
.あはう草花も苦はなかりけり
ahô kusa-bana mo nigami wa nakari keri
foolish wildflower
without a trace
of bitterness
Is Issa being ironic, or is he seriously calling the flower "foolish" for harboring no bitterness in this short, hard life?
1816
.ばか蛙すこたん云な夕涼
baka kawazu sukotan iu na yûsuzumi
foolish frog
don't talk nonsense!
evening cool
Sukotan (also pronounced sukatan) signifies a blunder or "missing the mark"--and a person who makes such blunders: a dunce, an ass, a fool; Kogo dai jiten (Shogakukan 1983) 877. In this case, according to Issa, a frog.
1817
.ばか猫や身体ぎりのうかれ声
baka neko ya shintai-giri no ukare koe
fool cat--
putting his whole body
into his yowl
The cat is calling for a mate. Using poetic license, Lewis Mackenzie refers to this cat as a "Broken beggar." See The Autumn Wind: A Selection from the Poems of Issa (London: John Murray, 1957; rpt. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1984), 86.
1817
.ばか咄嗅出したる夜寒哉
baka-banashi kagi-idashitaru yozamu kana
the blabbering fool
pokes out his nose to sniff...
a cold night
A comic self-portrait?
1818
.ばか長い日やと口明く烏哉
baka nagai hi ya to kuchi aku karasu kana
"It's a foolishly long
day!"...the crow opens
his mouth
1818
.ばか猫や縛れながら恋を鳴く
baka neko ya shibarare nagara koi wo naku
fool cat
though tethered still crying
for love
Hope springs eternal.
This haiku is one of the "essential" 188 picked by the translator. back next
1819
.暑き日や庇をほじるばか烏
atsuki hi ya hisashi wo hojiru baka-garasu
hot day--
the foolish crow picks
at the eaves
1820
.ばか鳥よ羽ぬけてから何しあん
baka tori yo ha nukete kara nan shian
foolish bird--
after molting
what are you thinking?
According to Shinji Ogawa, Issa is punning here with two meanings of ha: "feather" and "tooth." The bird that has shed its feathers is really Issa who has lost his teeth.
1820
.蛇の穴阿房鼠が入にけり
hebi no ana ahô nezumi ga iri ni keri
into the snake's hole
O foolish
mouse
Snakes entering their holes is an autumn season word. Here, Issa swtiches things around by having a mouse entering the hole instead. In my unpublished novel Dewdrop World, I write:
It seems just a tongue-in-cheek observation. The mouse, in the moment, is foolish, and on a superficial level, the joke is entirely on it. But Issa's art is subtle. If we laugh at a mouse that has mistaken a snake's hole for a cozy refuge, we had better think again. As a visual aid to understanding, we might hold up a mirror to our own faces, for we are all foolish mice scrambling for cover, whether physical or psychological. Our knowledge of the big picture, ultimately, is no better than that of Issa's hapless rodent. It's ridiculously easy for us to dive into the wrong hole, in this life, and meet the Snake.
This haiku is one of the "essential" 188 picked by the translator. back next
1821
.頭巾きた阿房阿房とや夕水鶏
zukin kita ahô ahô to ya yû kuina
"You're a lot of fools
wearing skullcaps!"
evening moorhen
Is Issa (through the moorhen) making fun of human fashion?
1821
.ばか猫や逃たいが栗見にもどる
baka neko ya nigeta iga kuri mi ni modoru
fool cat--
eyes returning to where
the chestnut was
1821
.度々にばか念入てしぐれ哉
tabi-tabi ni baka nen irete shigure kana
time and again
foolishly persistent...
the winter rain
1822
.鶯のぐな鳥さへも窓の春
uguisu no gu na tori sae mo mado no haru
there's even a foolish
nightingale...
spring window
This haiku has the prescript, "Mountain house."
1822
.安房霜いつが仕廻ぞ仕廻ぞよ
ahô shimo itsu ga shimai zo shimai zoyo
oh foolish frost
when will you be gone?
be gone!
The season is spring, but winter conditions persist--much to Issa's frustration!
1822
.短夜や草もばか花利口花
mijika yo ya kusa mo baka hana rikô hana
short summer night--
foolish flowers, clever flowers
bloom
What is it about some flowers, exactly, that makes them appear intelligent, and what is it about others that makes them appear like fools? My hunch is that Issa is writing allegorically about certain people ("flowers"), sitting outside in the summer night, perhaps cooling themselves. Some are clever; some are fools. This symbolic meaning, whether intentionally infused by the poet or the pure invention of a reader (in this case, me), is secondary. The haiku, like most others, focuses primarily on a palpable experience--real flowers blooming in the real night.
1823
.春立や愚の上に又愚にかへる
haru tatsu ya gu no ue ni mata gu ni kaeru
spring begins--
more foolishness
for this fool
This first haiku of the year is preceded by a prose passage in which Issa, paraphrasing Bashô, comments that his lack of talents, in Makoto Ueda's translation, "seems to have worked as medicine for my longevity." Ueda believes that Issa's self-mockery is really a subtle self-compliment. He has come to embrace his uselessness as a positive thing. Like the gnarled "useless" tree cited by the Chinese Taoist Chuang-tzu--with its wood so twisted no carpenter would want to cut it down--Issa the Fool has lived a long life; Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004) 144-45.
1823
.初声はあはう烏でなかりけり
hatsu koe wa awau karasu de nakari keri
year's first birdsong--
and not a foolish
crow!
Awau is an old word that means orokana: "foolish"; Kogo dai jiten (Shogakukan 1983) 50.
1823
.はつ雪やなどとて内に居る安房
hatsu yuki ya nado tote uchi ni iru ahô
"First snowfall, blah-blah"
they stay indoors
the fools
1824
.正月や目につく下司の一寸戸
shôgatsu ya me ni tsuku gesu no issun to
First Month--
the fool's half door
an eyesore
My translation underwent major surgery after Shinji Ogawa explained that gesu is not referring to a petty official or a person of humble status, but rather to "a fool." Issunto or "one inch door" is a sliding "half door" that derives its name from the fact that it is often left one-inch open due to bad handling. Finally, Shinji glosses me ni tsuku as "getting obvious." On New Year痴 Day, everything is clean, neat, and nicely decorated, and so the "fool's half door" (Issa's door?) stands out as an eyesore.
1824
.ばか猫や年玉入れの箕に眠る
baka neko ya toshidama ire no mi ni nemuru
fool cat
on the New Year's gift winnow
sound asleep
1824
.時鳥待もあはうの一ッかな
hototogisu matsu mo ahô no hitotsu kana
also waiting
for the cuckoo...
a fool
Shinji Ogawa translates ahô no hitotsu as "a sort of fool." While this is more literal, I feel that ending my translation with an unqualified "fool" makes for a more direct and effective haiku. Is this fool, perhaps, Issa?
1825
.霜がれや貧乏村のばか長さ
shimogare ya bimbô mura no baka nagasa
frost-killed grass--
the poor town stretches
foolishly long
Makoto Ueda believes that Issa is referring to his hometown of Kashiwabara; Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004) 165.