--- In translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com, "simple_sigh_man"
<dennis443@...> wrote:
>
> --- In translatinghaiku@yahoogroups.com, "Greve Gabi"
> <gokurakuatworldkigo@> wrote:
> >
> > > > > > Toribe Field--
> > > > > > ugly cuckoo!
> > > > > > ugly crow!
> > > > > >
> > > > > > toribe[no] ya shiko hototogisu shiko karasu
> > > > > >
> > > > > > by Issa, 1824
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Another haiku of the same year is similar:
> > > > > > kuru na kuru na shiko hototogisu shiko karasu
> > > > > > don't come! don't come! ugly cuckoo ugly crow
> > > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Tr. David Lanoue
> > > > > > http://cat.xula.edu/issa/
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > >
> > ..................................................................
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm curious about why Issa says "shiko hototogisu" (ugly
> cuckoo).
> > > > > Generally, haijin usually want to hear the hototogisu,
since
> it's a harbinger of summer.
> > > > >
> > > > > snip
> > > > > Larry
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for your great information about the cuckoo and death!
> > > > It is all here
> > > > http://darumamuseumgallery.blogspot.com/2008/01/toribeno-
> > > grounds.html
> > > >
> > > > I will keep my eyes open for more on the Japanese side.
> > > > The one link you quoted did not work for me.
> > > > Ohotomo no Yakamochi
> > >
> > > Sorry about the url. One can't copy & paste from "google book"
> > > facsimile pages, but when I checked the url, I found a feature
> that replaces the facsimile with "plain text," which one can c &
p.
> I believe the poem is a Chooka (with an envoy) by Ootomo no
> Yakamochi from the Man'yooshu:
> > >
> > > Natsu no shitashimi uta.
> > >
> > > 101
> > >
> > > Ohotomo no Yakamochi ga tachibana wo yojite
> > > Sakanohe no Oho-Iratsume ni okureru uta.
> > >
> > > Itsushika to 1
> >
> > > uretaki ya
> >
> > > SHIKO HOTOTOGISU [emphasis added]
> >
> > > akatoki no
> > snip
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/translatinghaiku/message/2238
> > >
> > > Larry
> > >
> >
> > Well researched, Larry san,
> > I found the Japanese kanji to go with it
> > (but that does not help me much in understandig the full text)
> >
> >
> > Original kanji »Öµöð¹¸øÄ»
> > changed to ½¹ð¹¸øÄ» ... ¤·¤³¤Û¤È¤È¤®¤¹
> >
> > The whole text is here, half way in the top part, with original
> and hiragana
> > http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/Man8Yos.html
> >
> >
> > maybe it is not UGLY but unpleasant ... since he is the harbinger
> of bad news ?
> >
> > ½¹ ... shiko
> >
> > here are some more meanings
> > http://ejje.weblio.jp/content_find/%E9%86%9C
> >
> > unsightly; ugly; hideous; disgusting; horrible; ...
> >
> >
> > So much for now
> > GABI
> >
>
> As I have read the discussions so far, a feeling came to mind that
> Issa sama was showing that he was perhaps a bit jaded and that the
> cuckoo and crow were ubiquious every year during that season or
time
> or situation. He was simply tired of these harbingers of the
> season?! I know that the songs/sounds of both birds are rather
loud.
>
> As with all masterful poems... the reader is left with something
not
> quite completely resolved.
>
> ciao... chibi


Well, I guess it depends on whether you think Issa, in mentioning
Toribe field, is referring to some pretty landscaping at Edo, or a
famous burial ground at Kyoto.

If the former, it seems to me a somewhat arbitrary pairing of
hototogisu and crow. Adult crows are not a kigo for any season.

As Gabi points out, Issa has written a similar haiku (as he often
does with his haiku):

kuru na kuru na shiko hototogisu shiko karasu
don't come! don't come! ugly cuckoo ugly crow

Without a reference to a place name, what does this mean?

What is going on in Issa's life in 1824, when both haiku were
apparently written? He was sixty years old and his health was
declining in some old-age ways. In relation to his brief marriage to
Yuki that year, Ueda, in his biography of Issa, speculating on
reasons for the divorce, says that "she must have been shocked to
find him showing some unmistakable signs of senility, such as wetting
the bed at night on occasion. He was not only infirm but suffering
the aftereffects of a stroke [his second]."

Ueda mentions that toward the end of the year, Issa wrote the
following haiku:

wazurawanu
hi wo kazoekeri
furugoyomi

how many days
of good health? I count them
on the old calendar

Issa, trans. Ueda

Ueda's comment:

"[The hokku] implies he had been ill so frequently during the year
that it was easier to count the days when he was healthy."

So maybe when Issa says "don't come! don't come! ugly cuckoo ugly
crow" he is saying he is feeling his mortality, but doens't want to
die just yet.

I suspect that death may have been on Issa's mind when he wrote:

Toribe field--
ugly cuckoo!
ugly crow!


So, is Issa, as Lanoue suggests, seeing ugly birds (comically) in an
ideal location? Even comic haiku can have depth; however in the case
of this haiku, this interpretation makes the haiku seem rather
insipid to me. And, although the crow has a reputation for making a
disagreeable noise, I don't have the impression that the hototogisu
has a similar reputation in the same way, if Issa is simply focusing
on the noise the hototogisu is making. The hearing of the
hototogisu's song is generally valued by haijin. And I haven't come
across any references to the hototogisu being considered ugly in
appearance.

But the haiku takes on emotional depth for me if Issa is associating
the crow and hototogisu with a famous burial ground.

Larry