Sophia University

Journal of My Father's Last Days. Issa's Chichi no Shen Nikki Author(s): Robert N. Huey Source: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 25-54 Published by: Sophia University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2384479 Accessed: 15/10/2008 08:23
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Journal

of

My

Father's

Last

Days

Issa's Chichino ShuienNikki

by ROBERT N. HUEY
I

SSA was born in 1763 in the village of Kashiwabara in Shinanoprovince,

present-dayNagano prefecture.His family name was Kobayashi bJJt,his given name Yataro B;JzP$.He did not adopt the pen name Issa -* until later in life, but for the sake of clarity we shall start using it here. Issa's father, Yagohei 1fi:fi%, and his mother, Kuni < z, were middle-level farmers, not poor, but not particularlywealthy either. Issa was the first born, but his mother died in 1765 when he was two years old. The sense of loss remained with Issa throughout his life, and surfaced again and again in his work. Perhaps the most famous example first appears in ShichibanNikki -L FlE ('The Seventh Journal'), a poetic diary that Issa kept from 1810 until 1818: Ware to kite Won't you come along Asobe ya oya no And play with me, Nai susume' Orphaned sparrow? After Kuni's death, the family's fortunes apparently declined somewhat. Issa recalled years later that his paternal grandmother, who helped raise him in his mother's place, sometimes begged food or medicine for him.2 Yagohei remarriedto a woman named Satsu z o when Issa was eight years old. Satsu bore him a son, Senroku {W,, whose formal name was Yahei Tg-J. Satsu and Senroku-Issa's stepmother and half-brother-figure prominently as Issa's antagonists in Chichi no Shu7en Nikki 'Q jI,g, HF C ('Journal of My Father's Last Days'). Even after they have grown up, children often resent a 'replacement' parent. And that new parent, in turn, is just as likely to favor his or her own flesh and
THE AUTHOR is a doctoral candidate in the 2 See Sobo Sanijsan Nenki *E-+-Li ('On the Thirty-Third Anniversary of My Grandmother's Death'), written in 1808. Teruoka Yasutaka OWR1 & Kawashima Tsuyu )IIfib- , ed., Buson-shu, Issa-shu _tt NKBT 58, Iwanami, 1959, p. 497. X

Department of Asian Languages, Stanford University. 1 Miyawaki Shojo 7,99-~ & Yabane Katsuyuki , ed., Issa Zenshu , Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, Nagano, 1973, ilI, p. 293.

26

Monumenta Nipponica,XXXIX:1

blood in any serious family dispute. So the enmity between Issa and Satsu is not surprising. As for the relationship between Issa and Senroku, Issa recalled its genesis years later and with some bitterness: Meiwa9, Fifth Month, 10thday [10 June 1772] My stepmother gave birthto a babyboy, Senroku.At thattime I was perhapsnine Eveninto I was! Fromthat day on, I was his 'nursemaid'. yearsold. How miserable And the late springeveningsmy clothesweresoakedwith his drool and excrement. Senrokugot into the earlyautumntwilightmy skinhad no chanceto dry.Whenever cranky,I was singledout andunfairlyblamedby my motherandfather.I wasbeaten timesa day, eightthousandtimesa month,and I criedevery with a sticka hundred day of the year.3 Issa goes on to say that his only consolation at this time was his grandmother. But four years later she also died and the tension in the Kobayashi household Nikki, Issa's father gives that tension as his reason for increased. In Chichino Shuien deciding to send Issa away to Edo, but it is equally likely that economics was a factor.4 Shinano's snowbound winter caused many of its inhabitants to try and find work in Edo, in spite of bakufu laws against such migration. Issa was one of these migrants, hired out, according to his father, as an apprentice. Thus in 1777 Issa went to Edo, at the age of fifteen, the year following his grandmother's death. Practically nothing is known about Issa's first ten years in Edo. But at some time during this period-exactly when is uncertain-Issa entered the world of haiku. And by the time he was twenty-five,in 1787, he had had some of his poems published. He allied himself with a haiku group known as the Katsushika-ha The Katsushika style, ASN, and studied under one of its members, Chikua t14fP. which in later years Issa was to call 'countrifiedhaikai', made ample use of colloquialisms and onomatopoeic repetition. And although the writers in this group pretended to an elevated, Basho-like, poetry, as often as not their verses were in the more playful Danrin 2W style. It was about this time that Issa took his pen name, and one of his poems from this period is as tiresome in the original Japanese as this translation would indicate: Ko ko ono ono Nanori idetaru Ko no bae kana Tree after tree Gives out its name In bud after bud.

Still, some of the elements of the Katsushika style-particularly the personification of animals, the repetition and frequent enjambment of onomatopoeia, and the use of local slang-became a comfortable part of Issa's own style as the years passed. In 1790 Chikua died in Osaka and Issa became the master of Chikua's

3 This passage is from a short memoir, D written in 1801, Oitachi no Ki I/tVX ('Memories of My Childhood'). NKBT 58,

pp. 485-86. 4 Maruyama Kazuhiko AU-%,; Kobayashi Issa ;I'1t-X, Ofusha, 1964, p. 16.

HUEY:

Journal of My Father's Last Days

27

Edo house, called the Nirokuan , He continued working with the Katsushikaha and having his poems published by the group.5 In 1791, when he was twenty-nine, Issa undertook a series of journeys, beginning with his first trip back to Kashiwabara since he had left fourteen years earlier. Then for six years, starting in 1792, he traveled throughout western Japan, returning to Edo in 1798. These journeys were a kind of poetic pilgrimage in the manner of such celebrated wandering poets as Saigyo -jj, 1118-1190, and Basho -Efi, 1644-1694. Issa visited temples and famous poetic spots, and stayed with other haiku poets, composing linked haikai with them. He earned money by teaching haiku composition along the way. During this period his own poetic style matured. An oft-quoted poem that Issa composed upon entering Kashiwabara in 1791 is much in the style of his later years: Kado no ki mo Under the tree by our gate Mazu tsutsuga nashi Nothing at all is amiss Yfisuzumi And they're enjoying the evening cool. During this pilgrimage Issa also developed a fervent interest in the Chinese and Japanese classics, and it cannot be said that he wore his newly acquired erudition especially lightly. Chichino Shuien Nikki is full of classical references, and they are not always smoothly integrated into the narration. Of course, classical allusion was a commonly used device-in fact, an essential feature-of Japanese literature long before Issa's time. But it is worth noting here that Issa's growing interest in the classics of both China and Japan soon found its way into his work with mixed results. In 1799 Issa made anotherjourney, this time to the coast of the Japan Sea. Then, in the third month of 1801, he returnedto Kashiwabara.In Chichino Shuien Nikki, he says that there was no particularreason for him to returnwhen he did, although Kobayashi Keiichiro suggests that he was probably interested in re-establishing himself in the community so that he might settle down there.6 Both Kobayashi and MaruyamaKazuhiko make the case that Issa had remainedat heart a 'country boy' throughout his years in Edo, and that as he moved further into middle age he increasingly longed for the farmer's life that he had known as a child. Yet Maruyama also points out that when Issa finally did settle on his land, years after the events describedin Chichino Shuien Nikki, he did not himself work it; rather,he hired others to farm his land and take care of his holdings.7 In any case, whatever Issa's specific motivations for returning to his native village in the spring of 1801, hindsight shows us that he was about to enter a new phase in his life. The journal translated below gives us about all we know of Issa's life during this period. The antagonism between Issa on the one hand and Satsu and Senroku
5 For a discussion of Issa's relationships with various members of the Katsushika-ha, see Maruyama, pp. 20-29. 6 Kobayashi Keiichiro 6 ;i-41N, Kobayashi Issa 'I'Th-X, Nihon Rekishi Gakkai,

1964, p. 86. 7 Maruyama, pp. 51-52. Perhaps this was because Issa was already into his fifties by then and was too old to take up farming himself.

28

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix :1

on the other is depicted frankly. And with Issa announcing his intention to get marriedand settle in Kashiwabara,the inheritancequestion was opened. Although Nikki ends with Issa apparentlybelievingthat he would receivepart Chichino Shuien of his father's estate, the matter was not in fact settled so easily. For the next twelve years Issa was back and forth between Edo and Kashiwabara, negotiating with his stepmother. From his writings of this time, it is clear that it was not an easy period for him. The villagers of Kashiwabara evidently took sides in the dispute, and many, if not most, opposed Issa. Two famous poems from this period reflect Issa's frustration: On this snowy day Yukino hi ya Even my fellow villagers Furusatobitomo Give me the cold shoulder. Buashirai Furusatoya Yorumo sawarumo Bara no hana In my native village All I draw near to, all I touch, Are thorny flowers.

Finally, in 1813, the inheritance problem was solved and Issa went to Kashiwabara for good. During the next few years his financial affairs improved and he was even able to increase his holdings, but his personal life was marked by sadness. Issa marriedthree times. His first wife, Kiku S K, bore him four children, all of whom died young; Kiku herself died in 1823. His second marriage, with a woman named Yuki W, was dissolved within a few months of the wedding in 1824. He married his third wife, Yao t &, in 1826. Issa died in 1827, not long after a fire had destroyed his home. He was sixtyfive years of age, and was survived by his wife and a daughter whom she was carrying at the time of his death.

Chichi no ShuienNikki
Nikki is difficultto classify in terms of genre. Although it is called Chichino Shu7en a nikki F "E,it bears little resemblanceto such poetic diaries as Ki no Tsurayuki's Tosa Nikki ?- Fil E ('Tosa Diary'), or Basho's Oku no Hosomichi A P,0 #dIE2L ('The Narrow Road to the North'), two classics of the nikki genre. As the dominant feature of the 'poetic diary', which is one type of nikki, Earl Miner posits 'a normative role for poetry and an awareness of time'.8 Certainly, with impending Nikki clearly death as its central topic and with its daily entries, Chichino Shuien shows an awareness of time. But there are only nine poems in the journal and they hardly play a normative role; they punctuate the narration, but are in no way its raison d'etre.9 As Miner points out, even for Japanese scholars through the centuries, the nikki genre has been hard to pin down. Miner introduces another division of the nikki form which may prove more useful in approaching Chichino
8 Earl Miner, Japanese Poetic Diaries, University of California Press, 1969, p. 18.

9 Miner, p. 54.

HUEY:

Journal of My Father's Last Days

29

ShuienNikki. He talks of 'natural diaries'-those which primarily seek to convey factual information about events-and 'art diaries'-those which occasionally distort facts to convey artistic truth.'0 In terms of this dichotomy, Chichino Shuien Nikki is still difficultto categorize. Much depends on Issa's intent in keeping the journal. The work is divided into daily entries (with two exceptions), and nearly every one begins with a reference to the weather. These are common features of the 'natural diary', although 'art diaries' may also have this structure. Furthermore, ordinary events such as spring planting, conversations, and the course of Yagohei's illness even down to the mucus in his throat, are written up in a realistic fashion. Yet starting about a quarter of the way into the journal, the objective descriptions become punctuated by wistful interior monologues, often quite poetic even if not actually in haiku form. And the literary illusions that Issa makes show that he is, to some degree, applying aesthetic considerations to his narrative. Unfortunately, since there is little corroboratingevidence, it is almost impossible to tell just how accurately Issa has described his father's last days. It can hardly escape the reader's notice that Issa comes off quite well in the journal, whereas Satsu and Senroku are consistently portrayed as heartless, insensitive, and greedy. It would be naive to take everything Issa says in the journal at face value. He has shaped the facts, either unconsciously because he genuinely mistrusts and resents his stepmother and half-brother, or-to take a more cynical view-consciously, because he wants a document that will help him in the inheritance dispute that is bound to follow his father's death. There is probably some truth in both of these propositions. But even if Issa's motivations were so prosaic, his poetic concerns are also evident throughout the journal. In addition to the aesthetic touches mentioned above, the few poems that he does include are carefully placed and are quite successful in their context, although most of them would not stand alone very well. Still, as beautiful as some passages of Chichi no ShuienNikki are, its importance is not primarily as an 'art diary'. Meiji and Taisho naturalists, such as Shimazaki Toson f*ft, looked at the journal from another perspective.11 Shu7enki (records of the deaths of famous people) were not unknown before Issa's time. Followers of Sogi g, Buson Ak4, and Basho, for example, had kept journals of the final days of these three great poetic masters. But these shu7enki were efforts to glorify their subjects, and make the process of their deaths somehow noble, poignant, and beautiful. In fact, one of Issa's followers, Bunko ZF, wrote just such an account of Issa's death. Chichino ShuenNikki, however, is another matter. There is little of the Romantic
10

Miner, p. 6.

" Toson wrote of Issa: 'Compared to

Riichi U3L- & Nakajima Takeo L,A ed., Yosa Buson Shu, Kobayashi Issa Shu
t8, Jj'b W-fit, KNBZ

Basho and Buson, Issa was a man closer to our own times.' From 'Issa no Shogai' -*0) 4L- ('Life of Issa'), reprinted in Kuriyama

32, Chikuma

Shobo, 1960, pp. 402-05.

30

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxx I:1

in Yagohei's final days. He gasps, coughs, becomes peevish, and worst of all, from the standpoint of the traditional shuienki, he dies without leaving a proper parting poem. Furthermore, we find at his bedside, not a coterie of faithful disciples, but a flock of bickering relatives. Only between Issa and his father do we detect a relationship suitable to a proper shfenki. In an exercise of hindsight, the Naturalists found in the journal their own aesthetic. Issa was, they felt, using realistic detail to portray psychological truths about the human condition. To be sure, the effect, or at least one of the effects, of the journal is as the Naturalists claim. But it seems unlikely that this was Issa's purpose and that his aesthetic was indeed a Naturalist one. While the journal is unquestionably realistic in a way uncharacteristicof other works in a similar vein, it would be an overstatement to attribute to Issa the aesthetic intentions of a literary movement that developed more than half a century after his death. In most of his writing, Issa was realistic in the way that most haiku poets were realistic. After all, Basho talks of a horse urinating while he sleeps nearby. The aesthetic purpose of this realism was to show that even the most ordinary was poetic because it participated in the dharma, the natural continuum. It appears doubtful that Chichino ShuenNikki, which was composed before Issa's true prime as a writer, and which does not fulfill this particular aesthetic purpose, was intended to represent a new literary viewpoint. Yet the Naturalist view of Issa did much to gain him posthumous prestige. For many years, Japanese critics had relegated Issa to the second rank, a provincial writer, even if they acknowledged him as the best of that breed. His concerns were thought to be too common, too local, too far outside the classical tradition. But as literarytastes changed, it came to be recognized that it was precisely Issa's concern with the ordinary, the low, that made his voice-universal. But however much Issa's reputation has risen, we should not take Chichi no Shu7en Nikki for something that it is not. Although there are many rich and resonant passages in it, particularlyin the last third, where Issa gives rein to his grief, there is also much that is prosaic and perfunctory. Many of the allusions are forced or didactic. The work is not shaped so carefully as, for example, his Ora ga Haru 3 6 V' . And for all its realism, the journal is not a carefully constructed Naturalist novel in disguise. At the same time, it is unfair to demand from Issa something that he probably did not intend. The relatively numerous spelling and grammatical errors seem to show that the work was written in haste and without much revision. Yet the tone of self-justification,the classical allusions, and the poetry would imply that he did expect the journal to be read by others. Thus the reader of the journal should appreciate what is there: biographical information, a realistic psychological portrait of an unhappy family faced with the death of its patriarch, some subtle religious comment on death and faith, all depicted in language that occasionally awards us with its beauty and poignancy.

HUEY:Journal of My Father's Last Days

31

This is why Chichino Shuen Nikki has endured and can still be read with interest and pleasure. In fact, modern concern with the process of death and dying probably makes the journal more interesting to the reader of the 1980s than it would have been only twenty years ago, for we read not only of the patient's struggle with death but of the survivors' reactions as well. On the part of the victim, dying is a constant struggle between accepting the unavoidable fact that one is no longer able to fully control one's life, and fighting to transcend mortality. This is clearly seen in Issa's father. The illness strikes Yagohei suddenly and the early entries reveal a great deal of suffering. The helplessness of being ill, of finally confronting the fact that he is no longer master of his own life, is briefly but movingly described in the entry for the Fifth Month, 1st day, as Yagohei sadly watches the other villagers go out to work the fields while he stays at home. Throughout the first week of the Fifth Month, he rallies somewhat, but as the bleak future in store for him becomes ever more certain, he is driven into a re-examination of his past. Yagohei is beset with regrets and apologizes to Issa for all the wrongs, real and imagined, that he has committed. He seeks Issa's reassurances,which are freely forthcoming, and the child becomes the parent. No one can escape death, the end of our all-important need to manipulate our environment, yet all seek to do so. We find Yagohei hoping to extend his influence beyond the grave as he gives Issa instructions as to what to do after he is gone. But he breaks down in tears when he realizes that the future will in fact be beyond his control. In the end, however, he takes comfort in Issa's promise that he will obey his father's wishes. As Yagohei begins to demand things, such as sake, that the doctor has forbidden, the reader is forced to conclude that the patient has either given up all hope of recovery, or else clings to the delusion that death can't happen to him. He displays an attitude common to many dying patients: 'The doctor must be wrong; I can't be dying.' Unfortunately Yagohei is the one who is wrong, and the end comes at last after much sufferingand further struggles against his inevitable fate. In the course of a journal no longer than a short story, Issa has painted a clear portrait of a man's fight with his illness and ultimately his death. We read of the whole range of the behavior of dying-regrets about the past, fear of a future that will not include oneself, the inability to accept one's own immortality-that is now the subject of popular interest and scientific study. Yet Issa's psychological insights are not limited to the one who is dying. His description of the patient's relatives is, if anything, even more telling. Relatives of a dying person often experience strong emotions, particularlythe guilty feeling that they have somehow caused the suffering and that, no matter how hard they try, they cannot relieve it now. They also feel anger at being robbed of a loved one, and like the victim himself, they often feel regret and guilt about their past relationship with the patient, which almost invariablyhas had its ups and downs.

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Monumenta Nipponica, xxxIx:1

These feelings manifest themselves in a wide range of behavior, much of which can Nikki. be found in Chichino Shu7en As Yagohei's condition worsens, the tensions generated in the family by his dying rise to the surface. Issa and Satsu react to the event in different ways, and each is resentful of the other's seemingly inappropriate behavior. Issa feels that Satsu is insensitive to her husband's suffering,and we can imagine that Satsu, for her part, is highly suspicious of Issa's solicitousness toward his father. She has, after all, been around Yagohei continuously for almost three decades, as far as we know, whereas Issa has only just come back after years of wandering. Further, we see in Issa and Satsu two fundamentally differentways of dealing with death. Issa denies the phenomenon as long as possible. He calls in doctors, he resents the group of nembutsu-chanters who would, he believes, hasten his father's demise, and he is angry at Senroku for suggesting that Yagohei could die now with no regrets, for Issa feels that such a statement is merely inviting misfortune. Satsu, on the other hand, and apparently Senroku as well, take a more pragmatic view. They seem to accept the end as inevitable, and view Issa's efforts as futile as well as tinged with hopes of self-gain. Since we have only Issa's view of things, it is impossible to tell what the motivations of Satsu and Senroku really are. But unless we are preparedto believe that they are the embodiment of evil and callousness, we can imagine that they too are upset by Yagohei's illness. To Issa, who wants to believe that his father can recover, it is heartless, even evil, for Satsu to try and 'poison' Yagohei by giving him cold water to drink. But to Satsu, who apparently sees no hope for her husband, it might well be considered as an act of compassion to make the patient's last days a little more comfortable. Likewise, Senroku's anger over the distribution of Yagohei's holdings may be an expression of grief over his father's death and a desire to retain something of tangible value from the relationship.After all, Senroku too has apparentlybeen living with Yagohei for many years. Of course, if we criticize the Naturalists for trying to impose their theories retroactively, we must be careful about applying twentieth-centurypsychological notions to an early-nineteenth-century event. Nevertheless, if the reader wishes to understand that event, some correctives should be suggested for Issa's one-sided account. When Yagohei finally dies, the family joins together in mourning. Although Issa continues to grumble a little about past resentments, it seems that no major incident occurs to mar the first seven-day mourning period. Not surprisingly,many of the most beautiful passages in the journal are to be found in this last section, as Issa writes of his grief, his memories, his dreams, all of which are painfully real and moving for any reader, but especially to anyone who has suffered a similar loss. Thus for all its weaknesses as a work of art-and this begs the question of whether Issa in fact intended it as that-there is much of value and beauty in Chichi no Shuen Nikki. Perhaps more than any of his other works, it bears Issa's mark-humanity.

HUEY: Journal of My Father's Last Days

33

Translation no ShuenNikki is based primarily on the text edited by The translation of Chichi Kawashima Tsuyu in NKBT 58.12 Since the original text was written and revised by Issa on the back of the New Year's poetry collection, there are a numberof unclear passages; I have discussed these in the footnotes to the translation, which owes much, incidentally,to Kawashima's annotations. For difficultpassages, I have also made occasional reference to the slightly different text edited by Ito Masao in NKZ 88.13 I have also cross-checked some interpretations with those of Nakajima Takeo in his modern Japanese version of the journal,'4 although I found myself more than once disagreeing with him. The dates that Issa gives for the entries are from the lunar calendar, which can differ from the Gregorian calendar by a month or more.

12 On pp. 404-30; full reference to this book is provided in n. 2, above. 13 It Masao Dt*iE, ed., Kobayashi Issa NKZ 88, Asahi Shimbunsha, Shui 'b>-Xi,

1957, pp. 237-63. 14 Full referenceto this book is given in n. 11, above.

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Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix:1

Chichino Shaen Nikki

Journal of My Father's Last Days

by ISSA
Fourth Month, 23rd day.'5 A clear, calm, cloudless day, filled with the first songs of the mountain cuckoos.... As Father stood there, sprinklingwater over the eggplant shoots, something came over him. He suddenly'6 hunched down, turning his back to the early summer sun. 'Why are you crouching down in such a place?' I asked as I helped him up. Later I realized that this was a portent of the flower about to fade. It must have been an inauspicious day for my father; he had just said, 'I'm feeling a little poorly,' when he was suddenly struck by a high fever. His body was as if on fire, and although I offered him some cooked rice, he could not swallow a single grain. I was alarmed and wondered what could be the matter. I was at my wits' end, and for lack of anything else to do, I just massaged him. Fourth Month, 24th day. Clear.... I received some medicine from my friend Chikuy. 17 I urged Father to take it. Fourth Month, 25th day. Cloudy, later clear.... Father's illness has grown more serious day by day. This morning he couldn't even swallow rice gruel. About the only hopeful sign was that he kept down the medicine administered a drop at a time. All day long he was writhingin pain and could only moan, 'Oh, the pain! I can't stand it anymore.' How sad it was to watch by his bedside! It was more painful for me that if I had been afflicted myself.

15 The date according to the Gregorian calendar would be 4 June 1801. Issa was thirty-nine years old by Western count. 16 The word translated as 'suddenly' here is hazen X4. The meaning of this term is

unknown, but 'suddenly' seems to fit the context. 17 Chikuyo 1i,, one of Issa's haiku pupils, lived in the neighboring town of Nojiri.

ISSA:

Chichi no Sh/en Nikki

35

Fourth Month, 26th day. Clear.... I called the doctor, Jinseki, in from Nojiri to have a look at Father.'8 His diagnosis was not promising. 'His pulse is weak and irregular. Since he has typhus,'9 the likelihood of recovery is only one in a thousand.' I was quite out of my mind, as if I was sailing in a boat without a helmsman. Still, since I couldn't just stand there helpless, I forced myself to administer his medicine. My aunt from Nojiri stayed the night. Fourth Month, 27th day. I was extremelydepressed, and the rain that kept falling only deepened this feeling. I felt unable to go on living. Thereupon, this came from my friend Chikuyo: Satsuki ame Ame tote sora o Kazasu kana Early summer rains; 'Ah, yet more rain,' I say, And gaze at the sky.

Fourth Month, 28th day. Clear.... As today was the anniversaryof the death of the founder of our sect,20 Father was up early in the morning, and had begun to perform ablutions. I thought that this would aggravate his fever and tried to stop him, but he would not be dissuaded. Turningto the household statue of the Buddha, he began to read a sutra, as was his usual custom. His voice was barely audible. I felt depressed as I gazed from behind at his ravaged form. Fourth Month, 29th day. As my father's illness grew worse, he must have begun to worry about my future as an orphan, for he set to dividinghis meagerholdings in two between his offspring. With painful breaths, he gave his instructions. He said that he would give the rice-fieldat Nakajima and the one at Kawara to my younger brother, but Senroku did not seem to take kindly to this and grew hostile toward Father and his wishes. Father and Senroku quarreled all day. It all started because greed, perversity, and guile had blinded Senroku and had driven him out of his senses. How sad it was to see him turning his back on his father and revealing this world of men as it is in these evil days of the Five Polluted Ages.2' This evening, Father's pulse was exceptionally weak and I felt anxious about his being left alone. Although Senroku might not be a son who measured up to his father's expectations, I felt that, since he was blood-related, he would regret it if he were not present at his father's deathbed. Concernedfor my brother'sfeelings,
18 Nojiri was about four kilometers north of Kashiwabara. 'negative 19 Insei no shokan A{IftOfi, typhus', a disease similar to today's typhus and characterized by a high fever but no other external symptoms.
20 Shinran V*, 1174-1268, founder of the sect, to which Issa's Jodo Shin-shu :g family belonged. 21 The Five Polluted Ages (gojoku Ei) mark the Latter Days of the Law (mappo jidai *&*R).

36

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix:1

I had him sleep next to Father. Turning toward Father's sleeping face in the lamplight, I lay there watching over his resting body. Throughout the night Father just gasped painful breaths, and it was hard to watch. I felt relieved when at last it became evident that the tide had turned and he seemed better. Father had said that he wanted to try the bear gall medicine that the doctor at Nojiri was said to have at his place.22Although it was barely two and a half miles down the road, I felt that were I to go and get the medicine, Father would not be properly taken care of in my absence since he and my stepmother had had a quarrel the day before. So, unknown to Father, I gave Senroku instructions and sent him off. The early summer rains had lifted over night, but water was washing over the grass, making people worry over flooding in the rice paddies. And then Father asked where Senroku had gone. I could hardly hide the truth any longer, so I answered him truthfully. Father's rage was unsurpassed. He fumed, 'Why do you send him out to pick up the bear gall without consulting me? Even you slight me!' From the bedroom, my stepmother seized the opportunity and, raising her voice, reviled me as though there was no one else around. She said things like, 'It was that lazy-bones Issa sent Senroku out without breakfast. Doesn't he care at all if his brother's stomach is empty?' There was no way to remedy the situation and so I suffered in silence. Pressing my head to the floor and wringing my hands, I repented tearfully of my error, promising, 'I'll be more careful in the future.' Father's rage abated somewhat. Because Father's admonitions, whether given gently or in anger, were all for my own benefit, how could I resent them? But how pitiful was his weakened voice raised in anger. After I had spent the previous night brooding about our pending, eternal separation, the joy of sufferingFather's scolding this morning could hardly be surpassed even by the joy of the blind tortoise finding a piece of driftwood.23 Thus did the sun slowly rise higher in the sky, and Senroku came dragging his feet home. Fifth Month, 1st day. The sky stretched on, clear. Fresh ears of grain rustled restlessly; the lilies also suddenly came forth with their reds and whites. All around us people thronged to gather up the rice seedlings and plant the fields. Usually robust, Father was now unable even to get up, and looked very impatient about it. The day was so long, and from around midday he was grumbling, 'Hasn't the sun gone down yet?' I could imagine how he felt. It was very moving.

Kumanoi MUM was considered a rare and efficacious medicine. 23 A Buddhist metaphor expressing the difficulty of being born as a human and thus having the chance to hear the Dharma; the

22

chances are as small as those of a blind tortoise finding a piece of driftwood to cling to in the open sea. Issa here extends the meaning of this metaphor to describe an extremely rare situation.

ISSA:

Chichino Shuien Nikki

37

Fifth Month, 2nd day. Father took a turn for the worse. Although he was in great pain, my stepmother took no notice and was contentious as usual. Ever since the business of the distribution of the land, relations between my brother and Father had not been good. And although Senroku and I were of different mothers, I couldn't help but think that the real reason for his unpleasant hostility was that we had been enemies in some previous life. Father felt bad about my not getting any sleep at night and kindly suggested, 'Why don't you take a nap and catch up on some sleep, or go outside and clear your head a bit?' Hearing this, my stepmother became as nasty as ever toward Father, criticizing his every little fault and forgetting the Three Obligations.24 I realized with regret that my stepmother made even Father suffer like this because I, whom she despised, was in close attendance at his bedside. But where else could I go were I to get up and leave? Fifth Month, 3rd day. Clear.... Jinseki sent word that he couldn't come up with any more remedies. We'd relied on this doctor as though he were a god or a Buddha, and at his giving up like this, I was ready to try secret Buddhistformulae and beg for the compassion of the gods, but Father would have none of it on religious grounds.25So my hands were tied, and there was nothing left for me to do but wait for the end to come. Still, since Father was not dead yet, I wanted to summon Doyud, the doctor from Zenk6ji,26 so I quickly sent a messenger to fetch him. While sitting there waiting for the doctor to come, I prayed that Father might become his old self again and live out his remaining years. The sun had gone down, and as we were setting out lamps at the gate, the doctor's palanquin at last came into view. I immediatelyhad him see the patient, but it was as Jinseki had said: Father did not have one chance in a thousand of staying much longer in this world. My last thread of hope was now cut, and I just waited out the night, comforted by the fact that Father was at least able to drink warm water. Fifth Month, 4th day. Father's condition took a definite turn for the better from yesterdayand he looked quite good. My joy was boundless when he said he wanted somethin.gto eat. He
24 The Three Obligations (sanjui EA) for a woman are as a daughter to her father, as a wife to her husband, and as a widow to her son. 25 Issa is referring to incantations and exorcisms, and recourse to the Shinto deities, in order to heal the sick. But his father forbids this activity as sacrilegious, for members of the Jodo Shin-shui believed in the exclusive

practice of the nembutsu ;NL, and any other practice would indicate a wavering of faith. That Issa, a devout Shin Buddhist, should entertain such notions as mentioned here is an indication of his desperation. 26 Doyua X was a doctor in the employ of Zenkoji *ty, a temple located in presentday Nagano city and one of the sacred centers for members of the Amida sects.

38

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix :1

seemed to have been revived by the medicine he had taken the night before, and when I fixed some katakurigruel for him,27 he sipped up three or four bowls of it. Even Doyuasaid that if this improvement continued, Father would soon recover; and keeping watch by his bedside, I began to feel somewhat relieved. When Doyua left, I saw him off as far as Furuma village.28 To the east and west, the rain clouds were clearing and the sky was exceptionally lovely. The cuckoo proudly announced the season with its first song. Actually, this bird must have been singing earlier, but because my mind had been occupied day and night with administering to Father ever since he had fallen ill, today was the first day I really noticed its song. Hototogisu Waremo kiai no Yoki hi nari Suzumeyoto no Yurushiidetari Kado no tsuki CuckooFor me, too, This day feels good. How refreshing ! The moon over the gate through which At last I'm free to pass.

Today was the day for planting the fields, and since it was the one day of the year for this activity,29 everyone was out-the neighbors helping each other, the
hired hands, those who owned their own homes.... I alone remained at home,

keeping vigil at Father's bedside. The light of the setting sun crept up the walls and presently it was about time for supper. Since people found Father's illness distasteful, we retiredto the bedroom. My stepbrothercould be heard saying things like, 'Father would be better off dying now.' He as much as said that if Father stayed alive any longer, he'd be living too long. Since we will never have a chance of seeing our parents again, we ought not grow weary even if we have to take care of them for a hundred years. They say that even the ferocious tiger does not devour its parents, and that even the detested crow takes care of its parents for fifty days. How then could a human being dare to say such a thing as Senroku did? I felt all the sorrier for Father, and I massaged his neck and legs for him. Fifth Month, 5th day Since the medicine was having an effect, I tried to give it to Father again and again. While fanning the coals of the fire, I studied his sleeping body and it looked more comfortable than before. His color was good, and when I checked his pulse,
27 Katakuriko MM the term employed here, was an edible starch derived from the dogtooth violet. 28 Furuma -$ was a neighboring town to the south of Kashiwabara. The name may also be taken as a pun meaning 'between' (ma r1) the 'falling' (furu *) rain, underscoring Issa's sense of respite as well as referring

to the actual weather conditions. 29 Rice planting in small communities was often a communal exercise, with everyone in the village working together on a different farmer's holdings every day. Possibly the text means that this is the day the village got together to work on the fields owned by Issa's family.

ISSA:

Nikki Chichino Shuien

39

it was quite regular. I rejoiced at the thought that he would almost certainly recover. As I look back on it now, I realize that this was mere wishful thinking. Ashimotoe Itsu kitarishiyo Katatsuburi A snail! And when did you come Crawling underfoot?

Fifth Month, 6th day. Since the sky was clear and I thought that Father must be bored just lying around, I folded up his bedclothes and helped him to prop himself up on them. Then he began to talk about old times. 'Well now, you've been without your real mother from the time you were three years old. And ever since you began to grow up, you haven't been on good terms with your stepmbther. Day after day there was fighting, night after night the fires of hatred burned. There wasn't a moment when my heart knew any peace. It struck me that as long as we were all together in one place, it would always be like that. So I sent you to far-off Edo in the spring of your fourteenth year, thinking that once you were away from home, we might all grow closer. Ah, if only I had been your father in different circumstances. I would have passed this house on to you after three or four years, making you settle down and leaving me free to enjoy my retirement. You must have thought me a cruel parent indeed to have hired you out as an apprentice while you were still just a young skinny-bones. I hope you'll accept all this as fate resulting from our previous lives. This year I had intended to make a pilgrimage to the sites of the Twenty-Four Disciples,30 and hoped that once in Edo I might meet up with you, so that even if I were to die from the rigors of the trip you would be there keeping vigil. But now, for you to have come all the way here and to have nursed me like this-surely the connections between us in our past lives could not have been weak ones. So even though I might die right now, what regrets should I have?' Tears were streaming down his face. I just sat there, looking down and unable to say anything. Because of his kindness, my debt to Father is deeper than the matchless snows of Mt Fuji, unmelted by the summer sun, and deeper than a twice-dyed crimson. Yet I hadn't stayed at home and taken care of him. Instead, I had drifted around just like a floating cloud; before I could wonder whether I had gone east, off I was to the west. The days and nights rolled on like a wheel going downhill, and twenty-fiveyears passed. To have stayed awayfrom my father's side till my hair was white as frost-I wondered whether even the Five Violations could be worse than this.3' In my heart, I prostrated myself and thanked Father. But if I were to openly shed tears, it would surely make him feel even worse. So I wiped my eyes and said
30 These were the twenty-four disciples of Shinran, who went out to preach throughout the land. Their 'sites' would be the places where they preached.
I' Anyone committing these violations (gogyakuzai i3Sg) will be denied entry in the Pure Land.

40

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix :1

with a smile, 'Now put things like that out of your mind. Just hurry up and get well.' I gave him some medicine and added, 'If you get better soon, I'll become the perfect son of a farmer, the Yataro you used to know. I'll cut the hay, plow the land, and really set your mind at rest. Please forgive me for what I've been until now.' When Father heard this, his joy was boundless. Fifth Month, 7th day. Clear.... Senroku went to Zenkoji to pick up some medicine. Since Father had been passing these summer days in idleness, I asked him if there was anything he wanted to eat. He heartily dislike grains, so I thought I'd give him a pear. But in our backwater village in bamboo-cutting Shinano province32there still remained pure white snow hiddenby the greenleaves and only a cold summer wind blew over the fields and mountains. Just then the call of a man selling plums was heard at the gate, and although Father fretted that he wanted some green plums, I wouldn't allow it, sure that they would be like poison to him. Alas! I wish that I could see him someday when he didn't have to watch so carefully what he ate. Yet no matter how I hoped with all my heart that he might get better with the wave of a hand, there, before my eyes, his head seemed so heavy for him and his condition appeared as hopeless as ever. Fifth Month, 8th day. Clear.... It was a day off from the fields, and a large number of people, relatives and others, having talked or heard about Father's illness, came to visit us. People came bringing buckwheat flour and sake, knowing that Father liked these things. He was overjoyed, and pressing his palms together he bowed formally. 'Better one cup of sake when you are alive than gold piled high enough to hold up the Big Dipper when you are dead.'33 Anyone, whether from China or Japan, can sympathize with this sentiment. To exhaust oneself in a grand memorial service for the deceased doesn't even come close to a kind word to someone while he is still alive. These days the world is in decline;34 people are quick to blame others who stray an inch, while they themselves stray a foot and don't notice it. They are so busy looking over their shoulders that they don't see that they themselves are unfilial.35 Ukegataki Hito to umarete Nayotake no Rare luck it is indeed To be born in human form. As supple bamboo grows,
half-brother here. There is a textual problem here and Ito (in NKZ 88, p. 245) gives the last word in the sentence as fuko 2F; ('unhappy, unfortunate'), but suggests that it was a mistake for fuko 71X ('unfilial'). Kawashima (in NKBT 58, p. 413) uses the latter term without comment, and it seems a reasonable assumption.

32 Issa uses the pillow word misuzukaru 09X!J in front of Shinano; because of its ancient associations, it serves to add a rustic note to the scene. 33 A quotation from a drinking poem by Bo Ju-yi OAX, 705-762. 34 A reference to the mappojidai. 35 Issa is referring to his stepmother and

ISSA:

Chichino Shuien Nikki

Straight is the road That all should follow.

41

Sugunarumichi ni Hairu yoshi mo kana

Since Father was unable to get back to sleep after midnight, the length of the night began to bother him. 'Hasn't it started to grow light yet? Hasn't the cock crowed?', he asked me three times, four times, seven times, nine times. But the only answer in the pale starlight was an owl moaning of the deep night from the shadows cast here and there by the fir and maple trees next to the eaves. Even though there was once a case of a man making them open the barrier gates by imitating a cock's crow,36 the passage of night is in fact the work of Heaven. And since I neither know the magical skill of putting fire into a bag,37 nor do I have the power to bring back the setting sun,38 all I could do was trim the wick of the lamp and keep vigil over his resting form. Fifth Month, 10th day. Clear.... Since Father was peevishly insisting that he wanted to eat pears, I wore myself out trying to find some for him. I inquired endlessly-at homes that looked as though they might have some, at wealthy houses, at the homes of friends and relatives, at the homes of anyone we were at all close to. But there was not a single soul who had saved even one pear from the previous year. What a desolate mountain village, even in summer.... Since we ran out of medicine today, I wanted to go to Zenkoji. At dawn I got my things together and left the house. The fifth-month sky was graduallybrightening. The deeper mountains still retained their white snow; spring lingered in the flowers hidden among the green leaves. The patterns of unmelted snow on the mountainside looked like a priest and reminded me of the early spring planting.39 A cuckoo sang out triumphantly two or three times. Yet my heart was somehow not put at ease by that dawn. At about seven in the morning I arrived at the post town called Mure.40 This was the town where my old father had seen me off on that day, long ago, when I set off for Edo. That was twenty-four years ago. On this day, I could still faintly recall the sound of the river, the shape of the slope, and these memories delighted me. But I didn't recognize anyone I met.
36 who was A reference to Tian Wen IHY:, arrested by the King of Qin but managed to escape at night. He reached the Barrier of Han-gu, which would remain closed until dawn, and there one of his aides imitated a cock's crow, thereby tricking the barrier guard into opening the gate, and so the party was able to reach safety. 37 These were the magical skills attributed to the Taoist sages Zhuang-zi U and Lie-zi NIJ+,among others. 38 A reference to a story in the Early Han work Huai Nan-zi M%+. When the sun set during a fierce battle, a warrior named Yang

Gong MH beckoned with the tip of his halberd, and the sun rose again so that the fighting could continue. 3 Zenkoji was some twenty-two kilometers through the mountains from Kashiwabara. Owing to the topography of this particular region, the snow on the mountainside would melt in such a way as to leave a shape like a robed priest. When the farmers saw this, they knew that it was time for planting beans, millet, and the like. Issa is reminded how late spring is, that is, how remote the area is. 40 A small post town about eight kilometers south of Kashiwabara.

42

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix:1

As I quickened my step to catch the doctor still at home, it was only about 8.00 a.m. when I arrived at Zenkoji. Apparently the doctor was still at breakfast and I could hear his voice from within the house. I immediately began to describe Father's condition, whereupon he finally took up a kogaespoon4' and prepared a medicine. Now since this Zenk6ji is the Buddha's Pure Land, people came on foot from far-off provinces to pray that they would attain buddhahood. The shopfronts stood shoulder to shoulder, their awnings flutteringin the breeze as people bustled in and out. But I had come there that day on my father's orders, partly to pick up his medicine, partly to find some pears, so I could worship the Buddha only from afar until I had completed those tasks. Even if I had to soar up into the heavens or descend into the earth, I wanted to find a pear. But although I went around in a daze to every grocer's and vegetable shop, sadly there wasn't a soul who could help me.42 True, there are the ancient examples of the man who dug bamboo shoots in the snow and of the other man who fished through the ice,43 but I was unable to get hold of even one pear. Was it because Heaven had rejected me? Or had the gods and Buddhas abandoned me? My unfilial behavior will not last only one lifetime.... Surely Father was sitting there waiting for his pears. And when I thought

how I'd have to try and comfort him when I returned home without them, my chest tightened up. As I wet the highway with silently falling tears, I was ashamed lest passersby might be laughing at me and thinking me a madman. Finally I folded my arms and lowered my head, and calmed down. I thought to myself, 'If this place doesn't have any pears, how can I find them anywhereelse? So I'll hurry back and at least give him his medicine.' And so I came, empty-handed, to the village called Yoshida.44 There, in a clump of trees, a flock of four or five crows cawed loudly when they caught sight of me. This made me unaccountably anxious about Father's condition,45and without even pausing to catch my breath, I hurried on and arrived home when the sunlight striking the mountains indicated it was about two o'clock. Father's face was brighter than usual and a smile played upon it. I thought that if I were to tell him about my not getting any pears, his mood might get worse again and so I hesitated, not knowing what to do. But when he asked about the pears, I told him the truth. I tried to soothe him by saying something as empty and baseless as the passing clouds: 'Tomorrow I will go to

h1 t5

h-N

Q,

a spoon

shaped

like the

pick used for removing wax from the ears. 42 The meaning of the phrase sakayuru hito mo nakariki z bJ t t )D9 9 is unclear, but the context seems to demand something like 'there wasn't a soul who could help me.' 43 References to Meng Zong X:4, who dug up bamboo shoots in the snow at his mother's

request, and Wang Yang TIE, who fished through the ice for his stepmother. These men are two of the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Virtue (Er shi si xiao, J. Nijashi-ko, zi+S). A small post town near Zenkoji. 4 4 The crow's caw was thought to be an omen of death.

ISSA:

Chichi no Shzuen Nikki

43

Takada,46 hunt up some pears for you, and bring them back.' What a depressing evening it was!" Fifth Month, 11th day. It was time to mind the field, and everyone took up his scythe and clod-breaker and went out. Father and I were left alone. He was sleeping peacefully, and while I boiled up his medicine, I sat there watching over him, repeatedly brushing flies away from his sleeping body. Later he began to speculate about the future.48 'As sick as I am, I am thinking a lot about what is going to happen after I die. Everyone in this house treats you and me like enemies. And they malign you. Only as long as I am alive to act as a buffer and protect you can you stay even a short time here. But after I die, what can you do against them? Day after day, night after night, the unbearable torments of hell will not cease. It is as clear as the reflection in a mirrorthat you will then ignore my last wishes and go wandering off to other places. Yet it is difficult for any living thing to escape the discomfort of sickness, the pain of death. And if you were to return to this village lame and bent with age, the people of this family would most certainly revile you and treat you worse than a cat or a dog, saying, "Didn't we tell you so ?" And at that, how sad and mortified would I be, even from beyond the grave!' And tears streamed down Father's face. At this, I too burst into tears of gratitude.49 Surely only a parent could take pity on such a good-for-nothing orphan as me. I couldn't stop my tears, but finally I looked up and said, 'Don't dwell on such matters.50 I'll get you better in next to no time, even if I have to take on your illness myself. Now hurry up and get well. I'll take a wife, just as you want me to. We'll serve you just as you wish.' At this, Father smiled with pleasure. Since it was now noon, people were returning one by one from the fields. Fifth Month, 12th day. More and more often the patient wanted cold water, but since the doctor had strictly proscribed it, I offered him only water which I'd boiled. He fretted that
46 Present-day Takada city, about forty kilometers north of Kashiwabara. 47 I have interpreted ho-i naki *4tV ! (read as ho-i by Kawashima, in NKBT 58, p. 415) as 'hopeless, despressing', but Nakajima, in NKBZ 32, p. 267, seems to believe that it refers to the sentence that Issa has just spoken to his father. Nakajima maintains that that sentence is 'without ho-i', that is, without real meaning, and extrapolates: '... but I was soon embarrassed to realize that what I had said was a lie.' 48 There are two illegible characters, or possibly syllables, here. From the context what is missing seems to be a particle of some

sort, with the general meaning of the modern ni tsuite, 'about, on the subject of'. 4 Issa describes his tears as kisui -k but both Ito and Kawashima suggest that this should be kizui '*, something like 'unfeigned, unconcealed joy'. 50 There is a short section here which Ito and Nakajima omit entirely, but which Kawashima places in brackets as follows:... tb-$C; ?A 5? [e < a <ooLArIi] . t 9 s z L,& . None of 9E JJ:V4 L the three editors makes any suggestion as to what this may mean, and I have left it untranslated.

44

Monumenta Nipponica, xxxix:1

the water was warm. It must have been the discomfort of his fever that made him want cold water. Nevertheless, how could I give him something that would be like poison for him? Referring to what the doctor had ordered, Father said, 'His advice is heartless indeed,' and he would have none of it. Until yesterday my stepmother had been fighting with Father, and now, ignoring the fact that it might be bad for him, she went ahead and offeredhim three or four cupfuls of well water in a Tenmoku bowl."' 'Now this is fresh water! The water I was getting before was fake. That's a hell of a thing for Issa to do, tricking me like that!', Father complained. Bi Gan remonstratedwith King Zhou and got his heart torn out."2 When scoundrels are rampant in the state, it is difficult to be humane and righteous. After that, Father enjoyed drinking water, and each day he had a gallon or so. There I was, in attendance at his bedside, yet unable to dissuade him from doing something harmful right before my eyes. There was just nothing I could do about it. Although they say that good medicine is bitter to the taste, it has a good effect on the patient. And although they say that admonitions are hard on the ears, only thus is a shaky home steadied. Father smiles with pleasure at the person who offers him poison, and thinks ill of the one who forces medicine on him. If his family really wished for his recovery with all their hearts, why should they be giving him things that aren't good for him? Well, one can't always have one's own way in this world.... Fifth Month, 13th day. 'I feel so good this morning that I want some sake,' Father said. But since sake was strictly forbidden by the doctor, I decided I couldn't give him even one drop until he recovered. But someone who'd come to visit him said, 'If you go this far in stopping him from doing what he likes, you may regret it later if he should die. Your regrets then will be to no avail. It would only be kind to give him one or two mouthfuls of whatever he wants, although only a little.' And those people who were just waiting for any chance to do their mischief pricked up their ears and sat there listening.53 They said, 'This morning, why don't you trust the patient's wishes? Give him some sake! Give him some sake!' So I did. Like a boat that had reached its mooring, Father drank as if a longdesired dream had been realized. Like a whale gulping in sea water, he downed five go during the morning.54 For a man who had not eaten solid food in more than twenty days to do such a thing like this-why, even a three-year-old child would frown if he heard about it. I alone wrung my hands, but it was difficult to stand up to the two of them and in the end I did not speak out. How it galled me
51 Strictly speaking, tenmoku X 1 is a shallow, black-glazed tea bowl, but in rural districts the term was often used as a generic word for tea bowls. 52 Bi Gan Jtf remonstrated with his king, who thereupon killed him and cut out his heart to verify the old saying, 'There are seven openings in the sage's heart.' 53 A reference to Satsu and Senroku. 54 A g5 -P is just over a third of a pint, so Issa's father must have drunk about a quart of the alcoholic drink.

ISSA:

Chichi no ShuienNikki

45

the way they outwardly pretended to be caring for Father, when in fact they were rejoicing in their hearts at his pending death. Fifth Month, 14th day. When I looked at his face this morning, I was not happy to see the swelling, which had not been there yesterday. Fearing that the effects of the alcohol had risen to his face, I checked his entire body, too. The swelling was all over. I wondered if there were a medicine for getting rid of alcohol poisoning, but out here in the backwater, we would never be able to get hold of it in time, and so I was left wondering what to do next. People always want to see what's hidden, to eat what's forbidden, and sure enough, Father declared, 'I want some more sake.' We fought over my deciding today to disobey his wishes and not give him any sake. With a peeved look and in a tight, uncharacteristicvoice, Father said angrily, 'You are not a doctor-what do you know about this? Yesterday I drank and drank without any harm. What could be so bad about it? Now stop putting me off and get out the sake right now!' I had quite run out of admonishments, so I said, 'Well, if that's the way it is, then just one more cup . . . ,' and brought him the sake. He smacked his lips as he drank it. Although he wanted another cup, I urged him to stop with just the one. But sake stoked Father's A visitor said, 'To cut your father off like that ...' fever like kindling stokes a fire, and I could not bring myself to do anything that would prolong his illness. Fifth Month, 15th day. Since I was worried about the way Father looked, I peered at his face as soon as it was daybreak. An ugly-looking darkish color had begun to show around the edges of his nose. I wanted to have a doctor see him immediately, but no one from the house would agree to go the five miles to get him.55 I alone was in anguish, and my request was as futile as a praying mantis trying to wield an axe. Night fell bleakly. From the day he'd taken to his bed, Father had been diligently reading over the sutras every morning and every evening, not once neglecting to do so. But now he could no longer sit up or lie down as before, and there was something so depressing about hearing how much his voice had changed as he just lay there chanting the nembutsuin the lamplight. Since I wished for nothing but his quick recovery, at night it seemed as though the dawn would never break, and duringthe day, that dusk would never fall. I prayed for an end to this night, and at last the first cock's crow sounded. The patient was glad, and I was relieved.
55 Kawashima, in NKBT 58, p. 419, suggests that cost, not distance, was the real issue here, since the expense of bringing the doctor in again and putting him up for the night would have been too great for a farming family.

Also, Senroku's remarks that it would be better if his father were to die now (Fifth Month, 4th day) must have indicated to Issa that the family was not especially concerned about the old man's recovery.

46

Monumenta Nipponica,XXXIX:1

Fifth Month, 16th day. Clear.... I was worried about the swelling in Father's face. However, among the visitors who had come to see him, there were those who claimed that if anyone were afflictedwith the plague yet made it through twenty days, there was no longer anything to worry about, and for Father to have come along like this meant that he was going to be all right. They said that we should keep up hope. But others drew close to his pillow and loudly recited the nembutsufor him, reminding him not to neglect his final salvation."6 However conventional their words, I was pleased by those people who were convinced that Father would surely recover and were lending a hand. But whether or not they were sincere, I was resentful toward those who would push Father on to his salvation. Some of the men of the household, starting with my brother, were whispering among themselves that if Father were to pass on now, it would be a fitting end to a good life. There was not one of them who hoped for his recovery. Indeed, as cruel and arrogant behavior, it called to mind the old tales about people abandoning their aged grandparents."7 Fifth Month, 17th day. Day after day, the swelling in Father's face continued, and I was also worried by the mucus rattling around in his throat. In the beginning of his illness there had been signs of a bit of mucus building up, but now the mucus and the swelling had become the main worry. Before, we had always managed to force the phlegm down with sugar,58 and until now it had been no great problem. But today I felt that it was too uncertainto be left to untrainedpeople, and so I sent a messengerhurrying off with the news to Jinseki in Nojiri. I waited, sure that even now it would be too late, but something must have held Jinseki up and he didn't come at all that day.59 It was the time of the short nights of the Fifth Month, yet there was not a night through which I did not anxiously await daybreak. But on this night in particular, because the doctor didn't come, the dawn was slow in breaking. Nonetheless, by breakfast Father had settled down somewhat. Fifth Month, 18th day. By daybreak Father seem to be feeling better, and I was pleased when he said he
56 There is a sentence here omitted in the translation because it lacks three characters, and none of the editors has any suggestions as to its meaning. It seems to say something

in order to avoid the expense of feeding and sheltering them. 58 Sugar was used in Issa's time as a medicine. 59 Kawashima, in NKBT 58, p. 420, suggests like: '. . . customs of a village which the Saint's [Shinran's] teachings had never that Jinseki, who had already examined Issa's reached.' father earlier (Fourth Month, 26th day) was A reference to the Obasute-yama WIA[h reluctant to come because the patient's case 5 legend about the mountain where aged parents was hopeless. or grandparents were carried and abandoned

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would like to sit up and lean on something. When I piled the bedclothes up as usual, he sat propped up on them for a short while; but then his breathing began to get difficult, and he said that he wanted to lie back down again. As this was going on, Jinseki arrived and immediately examined Father. He reported, 'His
pulse is fine, and but for the swelling and the mucus.... I'll give him some

medicine to reduce the swelling.' He took a spoon, quickly made up the medicine, boiled it, and gave it to Father. Perhaps as a result, Father urinated a number of times. His condition seemed to improve and he slept peacefully. While I was sitting there as usual, rubbing his feet, Father suddenly opened his eyes and said, 'You have been so good about taking care of me these long days and nights. It is because of the strong ties between father and son that you happened along at this time. I hope you don't consider that relationship a burden.' He spoke with much feeling. I replied, 'It is only because of the parents' kindness that anyone has a life at all. So even if someone's parents were sick like this for ten or twenty years, how could he be negligent? Just stop worrying about it and get better!' Father answered, 'I, too, would like to recover, but since this is the most serious illness I've had in my life, it's hard to tell whether or not this may be the end. Should I die, do just as I say: take a wife, and don't move far away from this area. Do not disobey me in this, even after I've gone.' 'Such kind words! As the gods are my witnesses, my heart is not wood or stone,60 so how could I let you down even after your death? Don't worry about it at all.' As I spoke soothingly to him, he began to sleep peacefully. Night fell, refreshing. It was still dark, about four in the morning, and as there was someone going to Zenkoji, Father said, 'While you're at it, I'd like some sugar.' At this, my stepmother grew visibly upset, and calculating the amount of sugar he'd had up till now, she said, 'So you think you want to have more sugar.... It's just wasted on someone who's about to die.' And she railed on about this and that. Since Father had told me also to eat the sugar which was used in preparing the medication for his mucus, she suspected that I was taking it, and she berated me about it. Anyway you look at it, it's a terribly greedy world.... We didn't get any sugar for Father after all. Earlier that night, after about midnight, his fever had risen quite high and Father had said that he wanted some cold water. As I was about to go out and draw the water from the wall, he cautioned me as though he thought I was his little boy again, saying, 'Don't fall into the well!' My stepmother had been sleeping, but she'd heard this. She suddenly said with
60 The text actually says, 'although my heart be stone or wood,' but Kawashima, in NKBT 58, p. 422, suggests that this is a mistake for 'since my heart is neither stone nor wood,' and I have followed this interpretation.

Ito, in NKZ 88, p. 254, on the other hand, interprets this as: 'Even if my heart were as unfeeling as stone or wood [I would not let you down].' Nakajima skirts the issue completely.

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..

harsh indignation, 'Your treasured son .

! So you love him as much as this?'

Her wrath was aroused and her hair stood on end like needles as she glared at us fiercely. Surely this must have been what the great serpent looked like.' Fifth Month, 19th day. Until now Father had been smiling and in good spirits in the mornings. But this morning he didn't even care for any warm water, and the dull coloring of his face did not give me much hope. After noon, his illness took a turn for the worse. He was no longer writhing, no longer saying, 'Rub this spot! Pat that spot!' He just fell into a peaceful sleep like a wooden Buddha that had been knocked over on its side. Someone remarked, 'They say that after the illness spirits have fled, the patient usually sleeps without eating for three or four days, so this is not a bad sign.' My only wish was for Father to recover quickly, and so it made me happy to hear that there had been cases like this before. I started feeling that all my nursing was paying off and so I could relax. About four in the morning, everyone was sleeping peacefully and things were quiet. I too was at last lying down, half asleep and half awake from the exhaustion
of these many days. Father opened his eyes and said, 'I'm ggggoing.... Please

walk along with me.' When I asked him where he was going, he chanted in a voice that rang out as though he were no longer sick, 'It goes without saying. "With unwavering,devoted heart, I long to be reborn in that land." '62 In my heart I thought that what he had said was inauspicious, but I calmed myself and decided that it must have just been delirious talk. He said over and over again, 'Hey, let's go! Let's go!', and so I made as if I was going to try and help him up. When he said, 'Hey, let's go!', I too said, 'Let's go!' After I had said this as many as nine times, he fell back into a peaceful sleep. When I thought about it afterward, I realized that these were the last words he spoke. They were his death poem.63 Fifth Month, 20th day. Father's fever was gradually rising. In the morning he ate only a little bit of
61 The legend of a woman turning into a serpent was very popular, and the noh and kabuki plays Do5j]i Jmi, are based on it. 62 'That land' is, of course, the Pure Land. Issa's father is quoting from the Daimuryf ukyo 4 one of the three great Amidist sutras. In fact, Issa has miscopied the quotation, but I have translated it as it should read, as has Ito in his text. 63 These words are obviously not really a poem and therein lies some of the pathos. In

a haikai titled Sankanjin -k ('Three Foreigners'), a work written late in his life, Issa quotes a poem that he says was his father's death poem, Osaraba zo / naka yoku itase / kadosuzumi: 'Well, this is it for me! / Try to get along together; / Go out, enjoy the evening cool.' Issa dates the poem Kyowa 1 [1801], Fifth Month, 21st day, but it is believed that the poem was actually written by Issa to describe his father's thoughts at the end.

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awako;64 from around noon, his face was ghastly pale, his eyes swollen and half-

shut, and he moved his lips as though he wanted to say something. With each inhalation and exhalation, his life was being sucked away in the rattling of the mucus. His breathing was getting progressively weaker. Through the window entered the light of the sun as it moved toward its end like a lamb to the slaughter. Father could no longer distinguishpeople's faces. There seemed to be no hope left. Oh, the pain of it! Would that I could have exchanged my life for his and just once more have seen him healthy again. When he'd said he wanted something to eat, I had prohibited it, telling him it would be bad for him. Now I felt that all the resources of Jivaka or Bian Que would not be enough,65 that the power of all the gods would not suffice, and that there was nothing else to do but recite the nembutsu. Nesugata no Hae ou mo kyj ga Kagiri kana His sleeping formI shoo away the flies today. There's nothing more to do.

As the day drew to a close, I vainly tried to wet his lips with water from a vessel at his bedside. The twentieth-nightmoon shone in through the window, and all the neighborhood was sleeping quietly. As a cock's crow could be heard in the distance announcing the dawn, Father's breathingbecame increasinglyshallow, and the mucus which I'd been concerned about from the very beginning was now time and again blocking his throat. If the thread of his life was to be cut anyway, I wanted at least to remove the mucus. But I was not Hua Tuo66 and so did not know any of his skillful techniques. Dejected, I threw up my hands in despair. The suffering, the grief in my heart as I could do nothing but wait for his final moments.... Even the gods showed no mercy. The night moved brightly into dawn, and about six o'clock, as though he had fallen into a deep sleep, Father breathed his last. I took hold of his empty, pitiful body. Would that this was all a dream from which I might soon awake! But dream or reality, I felt as though I was wandering in darkness without a lamp, on this cold dawn in this fleeting world. The impermanent spring flowers are seduced and scattered by the wind; this ignorant world's autumn moon is surrounded and hidden by clouds.67 The
64 I have rendered j3 as awako, although the pronunciation and meaning of this word are now unknown. Ito notes helpfully that it is 'not tobacco'. The character may be a mistake for A, 'millet', perhaps indicating some sort of gruel. The important point, in any case, is that Yagohei could no longer eat. 65 Giba *i (Sanskrit: Jivaka), one of the Buddha's disciples, was renowned for his medical skill. Bian Que Qffi was a famous doctor during the Warring States period; there was a Chinese saying, 'Even Bian Que

cannot raise the dead.' 66 Hua Tuo &trLwas a famous physician in the Latter Han period. 67 The parallelism is so striking that this sounds as though it may be a Chinese poem, or part of one, but its origin has yet to be traced. The ability to compose Chinese poetry was important to literati of the Edo period, to say nothing of earlier times, and it is possible that Issa wrote the poem himself, adapting it into Japanese in this journal.

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world knows-need I repeat it ?-, 'That which lives must perish; that which is joined together will certainly fall apart.'68And although this is the road that all must travel eventually, I was foolish enough not to believe that my own father could go as soon as yesterday or today.69 Those people who only the day before yesterday had defied Father and quarreled with him, were now clinging to his corpse, tears streaming down their faces. Amid the clouds of their repetitions of Amida's name, I realized that the eternal vows of husband and wife-to grow old together, to be buried togetherwere in fact ever-binding.70 [Fifth Month, 21st day]7' Since the nearest priest was in Shiozaki village,72 about eighteen miles away, it was decided that the funeralwould be held on the following day, the twenty-second. People close to Father had already gathered, making paper flowers and so on to assuage their grief for a while. The sunlight was climbing up the far wall, and a pheasant, announcing the evening, flew straight off toward the Western Hills.73 The evening temple bell, the voice of impermanence, rang out above our heads; the evening time is sad enough without all this. Since most of the people who'd gathered had now gone home, I felt that something seemed to be missing from among the things I gazed at by the light of the usual lamp. What a sad lot we had become. As I knew that tonight would be our final parting,74 I stretched out to sleep next to Father's remains. Between the clouds of incense smoke, I gazed for a long time at his resting form. Just two mornings ago he had been laughing and talking about the future. And now, tonight, he has turned into an empty, lifeless shell. Now I realize that the smiling face of the day before was my last look at Father. Before, when Father was still alive and suffering, he would feel a little better in the morning and so we used to wait out the nights-he trying to hold out to daybreak and I anticipating the pleasure of seeing his face again in the morning light. And even through these short summer nights, we would resent the lateness of the morning bell and curse the reluctant cock's crow.75
kyo A famous quotation from the Dainehan. 69 A reference to a well-known poem by Ariwara no Narihira iC1, Tsui ni yuku / michi to wa kanete / kikishikado / kino kyo to wa / omowazarishi o: 'Though I had already heard / That down this road eventually / Everyone would pass, / I never thought that it would be / As soon as yesterday, today.'
68

Kokinshlr
70

861.

This vow is found in the Book of Odes, III: vi: 4 & VI: ix: 3. 71 There is no date here in the original text. 72 The temple in question is Korakuji The Kobayashi temple, Myosenji *X+.

was located in Kashiwabara but had no resident priest at that time. 73 The pheasant is traditionally associated with loneliness since it is said to sleep alone. Reference to the Western Hills suggested the Western Paradise, Amida's Pure Land. 74 According to folk belief, the connection between parent and child lasts only one lifetime, so Issa is referring here to a truly eternal separation. 75 An interesting twist on classical waka themes. The morning bell and the cock's crow are usually resented in classical poetry because they mark the time for lovers to part. For Heian lovers the morning bell and cock's

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But this time, dawn would mean our final parting, and I felt depressed, my spirit broken, as I contemplated how I would get through the sadness the next day would bring. As there was no one else in the room, I cried without reserve, and tears of blood filled my eyes so that I could not sleep. I stayed in this way, watching over the remains. And the night, which before I had thought so long, this time moved swiftly into dawn. Fifth Month, 22nd day. People who had been close to Father gathered, and his pitiful remains were entrusted to the casket. What was now just a lifeless form was later to become the
object of controversy.76 What a wretched place the world had become.... I had

been born heir to this household, but sadly enough, through retribution from a previous life, I had not been permitted to serve my father in his home. It was not as if I'd taken up gambling or playing around, and had squandered my father's fortune. Perhaps Heaven had dealt me this bad hand as repayment for some slander I had committed in a previous life. When I did even the slightest thing for my father, I immediately had to pay the devil77 with interest for it. I was in charge of the household for a time as short as a young deer's antlers. Father must have thought it would be best to send me far away from my native village. When I dejectedly left home on that dawn in the spring of my fourteenth year, he saw me off as far as Mure village. 'Be careful about what you eat! Don't be ill-thought of by others! Hurry back so that I may once again see you looking healthy!' At his kind words, tears had unexpectedly welled up. I had feared that if my feelings of regret were to show, my companion would laugh at me. So I'd told myself not to let Father see how unsteady my steps were, and had forced myself to act cheerfully when we parted. Ever since then I had worked my way through the various provinces,78 from Matsushima and Kisagata in the east, where I wandered under the moon, to Yoshino and Ohatsuse in the west,79 where I had quietly recited poems among the blossoms; I was 'unsettled from moment to moment, like lightning.'80I spent my
crow sounded all too quickly, while for Issa and his father it seemed that the night would never end. Because Issa has reversed the significance of these images, the centuries-old poetic conceit takes on a true pathos. 76 As noted in the Introduction, most of the inhabitants of Kashiwabara ended up taking sides in the inheritance dispute. 77 That is, Issa's stepmother, Satsu. 78 Issa worked as a teacher of haikai. 79 Matsushima is a series of pine-covered islands off the coast near Sendai, while Kisagata (or Kisakata), famous for its view of 'eighty-eight lagoons and ninety-nine islands', is located in present-day Akita prefecture. Both places were visited by Basho and are celebrated in poetry, and Issa probably hoped that the parallels between him and Basho would not go unnoticed. Yoshino, in present day Wakayama prefecture, has long been famed for its cherry blossoms, and Ohatsuse (also known as Hatsuse-yama) is a mountain in Nara prefecture. All four places are utamakura 1tt, or place names with poetic associations, the first two being in the Eastern Frontier and the second pair in the Kinki region, Japan's traditional heartland. Issa is clearly conscious of his place in the poetic tradition. 80 'This body is like lightning, constantly moving, never at rest,' is found in the Yuimakyo500.

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days making my home on mountains and shores of every description until my hair had turned hoary. If I had stayed in mountains so deep that they were as unseen as the broom tree,8' and in villages along roads as unknown as the fossil tree,82 I wouldn't have known of my father's approaching end, even in a dream. But for some strange reason, I came wandering back just when I did. And that I was able to watch over him in his illness showed that the bond between parent and child had in fact never been cut. Perhaps it was the intervention of the awesome deity Suwa83that allowed me to attain at least this much merit in this life. At four o'clock this afternoon the showers at least cleared away from the dripping trees, and as the fading evening sun shone weakly through the raindrops on the grass, the priest who was to officiate at the funeral at last arrived from Shiozaki, and it was time to lay Father to rest. Father's female relatives all wore white shawls over their heads,84 and as they walked along the dewy path, their voices rang out like summer cicadas, giving vent to their grief. I tried to hide my sadness like a mountain rosebud's hidden color, but there was no way to conceal my tears. The road was not a long one, and soon they were placing the casket on top of a high pile of dried grass. Even the strength to hold the incense left me, and I felt that it was all a dream. When the priest prayed, 'Would that through this virtue ... ,85 the casket was put to the flame. Such are the twists and turns of fate. 86 Fifth month, 23rd day. Dawn.... It was time for us to gather up Father's ashes. Each of us picked up a pair of hollow chopsticks and walked to Adashi Moor.87 Even the last traces of smoke had disappeared this morning, and there was only the sound of the wind blowing uneasily in the pines. When I had come back on that night in the Third
81 The hahakigi N N t was a legendary tree which, like a mirage, was visible from a distance but disappeared when approached. Issa uses this word as a jo )Y, or poetic preface, for aru nimo aranuyama b 5 [z t b 6 41X, 'mountains which are there, then not there', that is, very deep mountains. 82 The mumoregi WL* is a tree that has been buried so long that is has become fossilized. Its existence goes undetected, and so the name is used as a pillow word for shiranu U 6 X, 'not known, not to know'. 83 Suwa MM was the tutelary deity of the roadside shrine close to the Kobayashi house. What I have translated as 'awesome' is the pillow word chihayaburuf a term used since Man'yoshua7YA times to introduce a god or the gods. A number of words found in this section have an archaic and somewhat supernatural connotation. As Issa describes his travels, he is perhaps harking back to the ancient tradition of the wandering poet, as well as giving this section an other-worldly air appropriate to the recent death of his father. 84 This custom of wearing a white katsugi /b-D 9, a kind of shawl covering the head and shoulders, at a funeral persists even today in some rural areas. 85 This prayer ends with the words, . .. that all may be saved.' It is similar in usage to the Western funeral prayer, 'Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' 86 Ui tempen teX:, a Buddhist term. Since everything in this world is dictated by karma (ui), everything is subject to constant flux (tempen). 87 Adashino was the traditional cremation site near Kyoto, but in time came to refer to any cremation site.

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Month, I had received the joyful cup of wine. At now, at this dawn, I was gathering up the sad white bones of parting. This world is like a rope, plaited with strands of joy and anger, pain and pleasure. All that meets will part. This present state of affairs should not surprise me, but until now I had always relied on Father whenever I returned to my village. But from now on, whose strength could I depend on? I have no wife or child to hold my affection. I haven't a thing to my name, and am drifting like foam on the water, blowing along with the wind like a speck of dust. Yet this string of beads which is my life is difficult to snap. Ikinokoru Ware ni kakaruya Kusa no tsuyu While I remain alive, On me as on the grass Fall teardrops of dew.

Around midday people gathered to lend a hand or to talk, and for a while I seemed to forget my sadness. But by evening nearly everyone had gone home, and by the light of the lamp the place where Father's sickbed had been filled me with sad longings. For a moment I had the sensation that I was waiting there again for Father to awaken from his sleep. I kept seeing his body wracked with suffering. The sound of his voice calling to me remained in my ears. When I dozed off, I saw him in my dreams. When I awoke, his image loomed before my eyes. Yoruyoru ni Kamakeraretaru Nomi ka kana Night after night, How he was plagued By fleas and mosquitos!

We cannot make water flow back again; we cannot return fire to the flint. No matter how many regrets we may have, they are all useless.88Each of the relatives on whom we think we could rely will pass on to decay. Ah, this lonely orphan Issa, abandoned like someone banished to an unknown land! How piteous I felt. Fifth Month, 28th day.89 It was the seventh day after Father's death.90 While he was still alive, he'd told people that he wanted me to get marriedand settle down here. He'd even given me those instructions directly. But there were some people among those to whom Father had spoken who pretended they'd never heard him say such a thing. They are so deeply mired in the Six Passions9l that they are not likely to obey Father's last wishes. And since I am not willing to face their red-faced anger, perhaps I
88 A reference to a poem by Kan'in FUR, Kokinsha 837, Sakidatanu / kui no yashitabi / kanashiki wa / nagaruru mizu no / kaerikonunari: 'Infinitely heavier than the regret / At not having passed away first / Is the sadness / That comes from knowing / Water will never flow back.' 89 There are no entries for the 24th-27th days. 90 Relatives of the deceased would visit the

grave every seven days for forty-nine days. According to Buddhist belief, the deceased is reborn into a different world every seventh day after death until the forty-ninth day, when his fate is decided. 91 Rokuyoku f;, a Buddhist term for the six kinds of human desires for order, form, graceful movement, voice, softness, and features.

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should go back to my old life as a wanderer92and hide myself away in some cramped cave or wooden shelter. As long as I am protected from the wind and sheltered from the rain, what shame is there in leading such a penniless existence? But to give up and go away without a word would be disobeying my father's wishes. Not even a rough stone can produce a spark unless it is struck; even a cracked bell will ring if you hit it. This is the natural way of Heaven and earth. I would be disobeying my dead father if I rashly left the village without waiting for a response.93 I consulted the others about my inheritance and found out that they intended to honor Father's last requests. Thereupon I decided to follow the instructions of the family and pursued the matter no further that day. Chichiarite If Father were here, Akebonomitashi We'd be looking out at dawn Aotahara Across these wide green hills.

92 Unsui TA, originally used in reference to Zen monks who strive to obtain spiritual freedom. The term was extended in time to describe wanderers, especially poets, who roamed as freely and easily as clouds (un) and

water (sui). 93 Issa is waiting for a response from Satsu and Senroku regarding his claims to his father's estate.