II
toshidoshi ya saru ni kisetaru saru no men
New Year 1693
It all looks so simple, yet in this hokku Basho-
is at the edge of brilliance. Perhaps this could
have been his greatest poem. Did Basho- actually
see a monkey wearing a mask? I very much doubt
it. Seeing a monkey in the rain and wishing it
had a raincoat was a very different matter. The
poet was quite familiar with monkeys. The opening
poem in "The Monkey's Straw Raincoat Collection"
was concerned with this.
There seem to be a number of possibilities:
(a) a monkey wearing a monkey-faced mask,
(b) a monkey wearing a human-faced mask,
(c) an actor mimicking a monkey with such masks,
(d) a formal play requiring a monkey mask.
I am inclined to think that whatever Basho- was
looking at, he was writing about something else.
Every year,
the monkey dressed to wear
a monkey's mask.
What was Basho- really saying? One popular view
was that Basho- had become bitter and dispirited.
I dispute this view. I approach the problem by
looking at So-gi's hyakuin;
So-gi Dokugin Nanibito Hyakuin
"A Hundred Stanzas Related to 'Person' by
So-gi Alone."
38 hiraku kane zo naru
kyo- mo munashiku
sugi ya sen
The temple bell rings [zo an emphasis particle]
today also vainly (uselessly)
passes by the most important thing.
Earl Miner has an elegant translation:
The temple bell
sounds on another day that passes
empty of insight.
[ISBN 0-69-063-9, p 249]
Even though So-gi was instructed in Buddhist Law
he still failed to fulfil that law. Now at age
80, he laments his failure. Operating within the
form of ushin no renga, So-gi has greater
freedom to express his view compared to Basho-
operating within the haiku framework. I believe
both poets are expressing the same idea.
Now a problem arises for haiku theorists. Was the
monkey's mask a metaphor? Some theorists deny
the use of metaphors in haiku. Was the whole poem
a metaphor? I believe that this was Basho-'s
intention. If this is true, a lot of modern haiku
theory must be challenged.
Hugh Bygott
[The first posting in this series was:
Basho-'s Sewer Rat: A Reply to my Critics.]
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