Letter to Yamagishi Hanzan

Matsuo Bashō, the renowned peripatetic poet of seventeenth-century Japan, did more than any other to elevate the esteem and spread the popularity of the seventeen-syllable seasonal verse form haikai—now called haiku. The opening verse of a string of linked verses (renga), was originally called a hokku, comprising three lines with five-seven-five syllables respectively. This poetic form, practiced by Bashō and his many pupils and an infinite number of followers of later generations, injected wit and humor into Japanese versifying and encouraged anyone with a literary disposition to try their hand at composing a verse when the opportunity arose.

This letter was brushed by Bashō and sent to Yamagishi Hanzan 山岸半残 (1654–1726), the master’s nephew who also became a close disciple. Hanzan, whose given name was Jūzaemon 十左衛門, was born of samurai stock in Iga, Ueno (present Mie prefecture), where the master himself was born. Hanzan achieved a certain renown as one of the principal poets of the Bashō school from Iga. A good number of Bashō personal missives survive, mostly addressed to disciples who had asked for comments or critiques of their poems, as is the case here (see below). As is usually the case with Bashō’s correspondence, it is inscribed in a relaxed, informal epistolary style, which can be characterized as sotsui 卒意 (without deliberation). Typically in missives to his pupils, he gives extra space on the paper to places where hokku are inscribed, as if to give them breathing space and visual prominence (here, just to the right of the middle of the letter), featuring the master’s comments on Hanzan’s poem:

禰宜独　人は桜の　まばら哉
Negi hitori/ hito wa sakura no/ mabara kana

A Shinto priest by himself—
since there are so few people
amid scattered cherry blossoms.

(Trans. John T. Carpenter)