Dear Gabi,

Thanks for the info. I'd like to try some mulberry wine! *hiccup*

Here is my wordy version of what Basho may have meant:

mulberries in fruit--
for a flowerless butterfly,
"hermit's sake"


I swear that I wrote this before I found an essay online by Pei Pei Qiu, who has
written the interesting book, "Basho and the Dao." Unfortunately, this haiku
isn't discussed in that book, but she does discuss it in an online PDF-format
essay:

"Inventing the New Through the Old: The Essence of 'Haikai' and the 'Zhuangzi'
", by Pei Pei Qiu, Asian Studies, Vassar College; in the journal, "Early Modern
Japan," Vol. IX, no. 1, Spring, 2001.

In the essay, Qiu translates the haiku as:

The mulberries--
Without flowers, they are the butterfly's
Hermit wine.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=yosute-zake&aq=&aqi=&\
aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=703b5abce7f02c64&biw=869&bih=563

(in case this link doesn't work, I found the essay by googling "yosute-zake")

The discussion of this haiku (and the translation) are on pp. 15 & 16 of the
essay. Qiu agrees with Mariko-san that this haiku alludes to the butterfly in
Zhuang Zhou's dream. But she says that the 'haikai' of the poem is in making the
"novel" combination of butterfly with mulberries.

Qiu points out that:

"The image 'mulberries' has long been used in Chinese poetry to signify rustic
country life. Since the foremost Chinese recluse poet Tao Qian [T'ao Ch'ien or
Tao Yuanming] (365-427) uses the image in his famous poem "Returning to Gardens
and Fields to Dwell" (Gui yuantian ju'), the mulberry tree has been used as a
typical image to signify the life and taste of a recluse. ... In 'waka'
tradition, too, the image is always associated with pastoral scenes. Since
Basho's works often make direct quotations from Tao Qian's poetry, his depiction
of the mulberries as the hermit wine here is apparently a careful choice that
evokes the association between his immediate experience of the hut life and the
long recluse tradition."

And Qiu points out that 'yasutezake' is not a commonly used word.

I would love to know what Oseko says about this haiku.

Larry

P.S. "On Returning to Gardens and Fields to Dwell" apparently has five sections.
Here is the couplet that first mentions mulberry trees, from section 1:

Dogs bark somewhere in deep lanes,
Cocks crow atop the mulberry trees.

Tr. Wu-chi Liu, from the book "Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of
Chinese Poetry."