Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/386

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382 Tokugawa Period

When I asked the Mater what he thought of this verse, he pondered for a long time without saying whether it was good or bad. I mistakenly thought that, master though he was, he didn’t know how hunters wait at night for a boar to return to his lair at dawn, and I explained it all to him in great detail. Then he remarked, “The interest of that sight was familiar even to the poets of former times. That is why we have the waka:

Akenu to te
Nobe yori yama ni
Iru shika no
Ato fukiokuru
Hagi no uwakaze

Now that it has dawned
A wind from the clover
Wafts away the spoor
Of the deer returning
From the fields to their mountains.

When a subject can be treated even within the elegant framework of the waka, there does not seem to be much point in giving so prosy a description within the freer compass of the haiku. The reason why I stopped to think for a while was that the verse seemed somehow interesting, and I was wondering if something couldn’t be done with it. But I fear it’s hopeless.”

· ·

[Kyorai takes Bashō too literally.]

Yūsuzumi
Senki okoshite
Kaerikeri

The evening cool—
I got lumbago,
And went back home.

Kyorai

When I was first studying haiku I asked the Master how to write an opening verse. He replied, “It must be written firmly and clearly.” As a test of my abilities I composed the above verse. When I asked his opinion of it, he gave a great laugh and said, “You still haven’t got the idea!”