Winter Rain / Shigure

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Basho Haiku about Shigure

yo ni furu mo/ sara ni shigure no/ yadori kana
よにふるも さらにそうぎの やどりかな
Sogi

yo ni furu mo/ sara ni Sōgi no/ yadori kana
世にふるも さらに宗祇の やどり哉
Basho



Compiled by Larry Bole

This is part of a haibun, the title of which is translated by David Barnhill as either, "Under a Rainhat," or "Constructing a Hat".

Here is Imoto's comment found in Udea's "Basho and His Interpreters:"

"Basho amused himself by trying his hand at hat making, caring little about the quality of the end product, and showing a poet's carefree spirit. This hokku and its accompanying prose show such a spirit--a whimsical man smiling at himself. That is haikai. No such spirit can be found anywhere in Sogi's renga."

In Basho's haibun, he starts out (from Barnhill's translation):

"Living a desolate life alone behind the door of my grass hut, feeling the loneliness whenever autumn's wind would blow...I chop bamboo and bend them, and proclaim myself, 'Old Man Maker of Hats.' But lacking any skill, I can spend a whole day at this work and fail to finish a hat. ... Now after twenty days have passed it is done.

The rim of the hat slants inward and then outward, just like a half-opened leaf of a lotus. The peculiar shape is more appealing than one that is perfectly crafted. [He then asks himself if it is Saigyo's hat or Su Tung-p'o's, and imagines himself wandering where they wandered.] Hurrying through hail or waiting for winter showers, I cherish this hat that gives me such delight. Suddenly a certain feeling comes over me: to be drenched once again in Sogi's showers.
So I pick up my brush and jot this down inside my hat:

in a world of rain
life is like Sogi's
temporary shelter

trans. Barnhill


I think Basho is fusing together the feeling of desolation and loneliness at the beginning of his haibun, with a kind of "merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream" lightness of spirit by the end of the haibun, and although his haiku recalls Sogi's feelings, Basho at the same time tweaks them a little with haikai humor.


Haruo Shirane's interpretation of this Basho haiku (in "Traces of Dreams").
Shirane translates the haibun, "Crafting a Hat" ("Kasu hari"), and says that "Basho parodies
Sogi's verse."

Shirane uses this hokku as an example of Basho's "notion of poetic madness ('fuukyoo')" which Basho exhibited during the early 1680s.
Another example Shirane gives is:

samidare ni nio o ukisu o mi ni yukan

in the summer rain
I'll go and see the floating nests
of the grebe!

trans. Shirane

Shirane says this "poetic madness" is "embodied in the seemingly eccentric desire of the speaker to travel to Lake Biwa during the wet season to see the grebe's floating nest... ." This is obviously similar to Basho saying, in his haibun "Construcing a Hat," "Suddenly a certain feeling comes over me: to be drenched once again in Sogi's showers." (trans. Barnhill)

Shirane says, "In a haikai twist, the winter showers , which traditionally deepen the feeling of sorrow and transience, enable Basho to be like Sogi, a literary experience, that brings him joy and pleasure. 'Shigure,' in other words, becomes the medium through which the poet, in seemingly mad fashion, travels across time to join the 'ancients.'"

Shirane goes on to mention the most famous 'shigure' haiku:

hatsushigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari

first winter shower--
the monkey too seems to desire
a small straw coat

trans. Shirane


Shirane suggests the similarity in attitude between this haiku and Basho's "Sogi" haiku: "Like the 'kasa' (hat), the straw coat ('mino'), protects the traveler from the rain and snow even as it
serves as a mean of poetic communion with the winter showers, which, while unpleasant and cold in the classical tradition, becomes an object of 'fuukyoo' desire." Shirane concludes by suggesting that Basho has created "a poem that is at once light and dark, humorous and sorrowful."



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Sleet, rain mixed with snow, cold rain, wy drizzle (shigure) 　

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