Basho's thoughts on...

• Woman Central
• Introduction to this site
• The Human Story:
• Praise for Women
• Love and Sex in Basho
• Children and Teens
• Humanity and Friendship
• On Translating Basho
• Basho Himself
• Poetry and Music
• The Physical Body
• Food, Drink, and Fire
• Animals in Basho
• Space and Time
• Letters Year by Year
• Bilingual Basho 日本語も
• 芭蕉について日本語の論文
• Basho Tsukeku 芭蕉付句
• BAMHAY (Basho Amazes Me! How About You?)
• New Articles


Matsuo Basho 1644~1694

The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.

The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems

Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.

These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.

Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.


“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”


"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"


Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.

Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.

I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.

Quotations from Basho Prose


The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.



The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.


All the more joyful,
all the more caring


Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.




basho4humanity
@gmail.com




Plea for Affiliation

 

Plea For Affiliation

 

I pray for your help

in finding someone
individual, university,

or foundation - 
to take over my

3000 pages of material,   
to cooperate with me 

to edit the material,
to receive all royalties 

from sales, to spread

Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for

future generations.


basho4humanity

@gmail.com

 



Home  >  Topics  >  BAMHAY (Basho Amazes Me! How About You?)  >  M-30


Love in One Basho Renku

for many more see https://www.basho4humanity.com/topic-category.php?Cat=4

A single renku stanza, without the baggage of the previous stanza or the very different baggage of the following stanza, can apply to a wide range of circumstances: For instance, this stanza by Basho:


Easing in
her slender forearm
for his pillow

 

手枕に / ほそき腕を /さし入れて
Ta-makura ni / hosoki kaina o / sashi-irete

 

Lying in bed beside him, carefully maneuvering her arm under his head without waking him, gazing at his face attentive to any signs of waking, such is her delicacy, her devotion to touching him and being around him with fineness and sensitivity. EASING IN, by itself, can portray a woman with her lover, but

we can also see a mother lying with her beloved child – and the verse is especially poignant if the child is sick or injured. We can use Basho’s words as tools to reach inside our own hearts.


Higashi Akimasa in his book 芭蕉の愛句, Basho no Aiku, “The Love Poetry of Basho,” notes the sensuality in this stanza comes not from the words about the body – “her slender forearm” – but rather from the unspoken suggestion of “the form of woman’s body in the bedroom.” Higashi says


This is a truly sensual love-stanza. Looking back over the history of Japanese tanka and renku,

so daring a love verse is unusual, however should we not be a little surprised that the author

was Basho said to be a paragon of wabi and sabi?”


Higashi does not answer his rhetorical question, however I will. The notion that Basho is a “paragon of wabi and sabi” (desolate loneliness) is an illusion, based on a narrow selection of impersonal and lonely haiku. Once we broaden our selection to include his linked verses, we find him to be a paragon of romance, passion, and physical sensuality.

 

Basho’s stanza together with the stanza by Sora which came before has more limited and specific meanings. 


Summonned to the palace
ashamed by the gossip

Easing in
her slender forearm
for his pillow

 

宮にめされし/ うき名はずかし
手枕に / ほそき腕を / さし入れて
Miya ni mesareshi / Uki na hazukashi
Ta-makura ni / hosoki kaina o / sashi-irete

 

Sora portrays the rivalries among court ladies at the Imperial Palace – as in The Tale of Genji where

a young woman, Kiritusbo, “summoned” by the Emperor, becomes his favorite and bears him a son, the “Shining Prince” Genji. Other court ladies, led by his senior consort, spread rumors about Kiritsubo; being women themselves, they know exactly how to shame a young woman, and she eventually sickens and dies.

 

Basho, however, aims for life, not death. In spite of the gossip about her and the shame it brings her,

the woman in EASING IN manages to love the Emperor with all the gentleness in her heart. Basho’s stanza coming from Sora’s empowers  women to overcome bullying and shame by concentrating on their feminine

power both delicate and sensual.  

 

Even though we know Sora's stanza, we can "ride the Energy" of Basho's stanza to a place that has nothing to do with the Tale of Genji.  This is the freedom of renku.  We can take Basho's stanza wherever we want. 

 

To explore my 17 favorite Basho poems of Love and Sex click here

or to go for 33 poems on Lovers in Love click here 

 

basho4humanity@gmail.com 

 

 

 

 






<< Cat Sex (M-29) (M-31) Are You Stoned? >>


The Three Thirds of Basho

 

 

I plead for your help in finding a person or group to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material, to edit and improve the presentation, to receive all royalties from sales, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide and preserve for future generations.

 

basho4humanity@gmail.com
Basho's thoughts on...

• Woman Central
• Introduction to this site
• The Human Story:
• Praise for Women
• Love and Sex in Basho
• Children and Teens
• Humanity and Friendship
• On Translating Basho
• Basho Himself
• Poetry and Music
• The Physical Body
• Food, Drink, and Fire
• Animals in Basho
• Space and Time
• Letters Year by Year
• Bilingual Basho 日本語も
• 芭蕉について日本語の論文
• Basho Tsukeku 芭蕉付句
• BAMHAY (Basho Amazes Me! How About You?)
• New Articles


Matsuo Basho 1644~1694

The only substantial
collection in English
of Basho's renku, tanka,
letters and spoken word
along with his haiku, travel
journals, and essays.

The only poet in old-time
literature who paid attention with praise
to ordinary women, children, and teenagers
in hundreds of poems

Hundreds upon hundreds of Basho works
(mostly renku)about women, children,
teenagers, friendship, compassion, love.

These are resources we can use to better
understand ourselves and humanity.

Interesting and heartfelt
(not scholarly and boring)
for anyone concerned with
humanity.


“An astonishing range of
social subject matter and
compassionate intuition”


"The primordial power
of the feminine emanating
from Basho's poetry"


Hopeful, life-affirming
messages from one of
the greatest minds ever.

Through his letters,
we travel through his mind
and discover Basho's
gentleness and humanity.

I plead for your help in
finding a person or group
to take over my 3000 pages of Basho material,
to edit and improve the material, to receive 100%
of royalties, to spread Basho’s wisdom worldwide
and preserve for future generations.

Quotations from Basho Prose


The days and months are
guests passing through eternity.
The years that go by
also are travelers.



The mountains in silence
nurture the spirit;
the water with movement
calms the emotions.


All the more joyful,
all the more caring


Seek not the traces
of the ancients;
seek rather the
places they sought.




basho4humanity
@gmail.com




Plea for Affiliation

 

Plea For Affiliation

 

I pray for your help

in finding someone
individual, university,

or foundation - 
to take over my

3000 pages of material,   
to cooperate with me 

to edit the material,
to receive all royalties 

from sales, to spread

Basho’s wisdom worldwide,
and preserve for

future generations.


basho4humanity

@gmail.com