What i love about this verse is the sense of imminent disaster …
Susan, I never thought of that reading! A chuckle.
The background to the verse has generally been focused on a static, balanced, view of Buson as artist. Away from the ‘haiga’ context, and considered in vacuo as a free-standing verse, it doesn’t seem at all crazy to read this as the butterfly raiding the peony and the cat stalking the butterfly. And the poet stalking all three. An action-based haiku, except frozen in the moment; and in a way almost recursive.
牡丹や しろがねの猫 こがねの蝶 蕪村 botan ya shirogane no neko kogane no chō — Buson (this text taken from Blyth)
牡丹 botan peony — tree peony, a classy bloom in Edo prized among other flowers (and by haiku poets) for its beauty や ya kireji or cutting-word marking a definite exclamatory pause しろがね shirogane silver — lit. “white-metal”; old poetical word の no (possessive particle) of 猫 neko cat こがね kogane gold — literally “yellow-metal”; again an old poetical word の no of 蝶 chō butterfly
the peony ! / the silver of a cat / the gold of a butterfly
or: The peony; A silver cat; A golden butterfly. — tr. Blyth
A pink peony, a silver cat, a golden butterfly — Addiss
peony — a cat of silver a butterfly of gold — Shiffert & Sawa
peony silver cat golden butterfly — Hass
In brief: three separated noun elements again, this time the peony bloom (plant kingdom) cut by the exclamatory “ya” from the two items in the animal kingdom.
The three elements are written on a painting: a haiga by Buson (which I can’t find on the internet). It has prompted lengthy discussion of how its text can be considered as a haiku.
Other reasons to prompt debate are that to some the elements seem entirely disparate, without generating inner meaning; to others this is the artist Buson abstracting three dabs of colour from silk to words on parchment.
Critic Yamamoto Kenkichi argues that Buson is consciously breaking with a dictum of Bashō that a haiku should contain an occurrence or experience of some sort (koto). And that this verse works like a painting.
Makoto Ueda goes for the colour wash view. He warns not to add verbs: that the Japanese text deliberately withholds them, forcing the reader into simultaneous and not sequential perception.
This thought also occurs to the critic Konishi Jin’ichi: “the rhetoric of meaningless beauty,” without a meaning that can be paraphrased.
Shirane argues for a different axis. Peony might represent wealth and rank; silver cat an imported luxury pet prized in Edo; gold butterfly the (borrowed) soul of Chinese poetry. Is the verse an implied critique of, or satire on, the then high society?
Blyth writes: “This world of luxury is in some way alien to the world of haiku, but it exists in nature and exists in art, and cannot be entirely omitted. The blood-red peony in the garden, a pure white cat, and a yellow butterfly, —that these were actually seen together by Buson is hard to believe. Nevertheless, he saw these three things together in his mind’s eye.”
Or might it be all of the above? We might note Buson’s choice of old words for silver and gold, which could go with the Shirane take on it. The verse produces a feeling of harmony. In this haiku, beautiful colours and being alive are common features. There is a cut marked in the verse that indicates significance. Perhaps some juxtaposed comparison of the peony with the cat and the butterfly that Buson is hinting at, singling out, beyond their taxonomy. Is it that the peony reigns above all in his perception of beauty? The flower apart from “the birds and the beasts….”
Bashõ: “…to not have a flower in your mind is to be like the birds and beasts. So, I say, go out from among the barbarians, separate yourself from the birds and beasts…”
What do you think? How do you find this intriguing verse of Buson’s?
What i love about this verse is the sense of imminent disaster …
Susan, I never thought of that reading! A chuckle.
The background to the verse has generally been focused on a static, balanced, view of Buson as artist. Away from the ‘haiga’ context, and considered in vacuo as a free-standing verse, it doesn’t seem at all crazy to read this as the butterfly raiding the peony and the cat stalking the butterfly. And the poet stalking all three. An action-based haiku, except frozen in the moment; and in a way almost recursive.
牡丹や しろがねの猫 こがねの蝶 蕪村
botan ya shirogane no neko kogane no chō
— Buson (this text taken from Blyth)
牡丹 botan peony — tree peony, a classy bloom in Edo prized among other flowers (and by haiku poets) for its beauty
や ya kireji or cutting-word marking a definite exclamatory pause
しろがね shirogane silver — lit. “white-metal”; old poetical word
の no (possessive particle) of
猫 neko cat
こがね kogane gold — literally “yellow-metal”; again an old poetical word
の no of
蝶 chō butterfly
the peony ! / the silver of a cat / the gold of a butterfly
or:
The peony;
A silver cat;
A golden butterfly.
— tr. Blyth
A pink peony,
a silver cat,
a golden butterfly
— Addiss
peony —
a cat of silver
a butterfly of gold
— Shiffert & Sawa
peony
silver cat
golden butterfly
— Hass
In brief: three separated noun elements again, this time the peony bloom (plant kingdom) cut by the exclamatory “ya” from the two items in the animal kingdom.
The three elements are written on a painting: a haiga by Buson (which I can’t find on the internet). It has prompted lengthy discussion of how its text can be considered as a haiku.
Other reasons to prompt debate are that to some the elements seem entirely disparate, without generating inner meaning; to others this is the artist Buson abstracting three dabs of colour from silk to words on parchment.
Critic Yamamoto Kenkichi argues that Buson is consciously breaking with a dictum of Bashō that a haiku should contain an occurrence or experience of some sort (koto). And that this verse works like a painting.
Makoto Ueda goes for the colour wash view. He warns not to add verbs: that the Japanese text deliberately withholds them, forcing the reader into simultaneous and not sequential perception.
This thought also occurs to the critic Konishi Jin’ichi: “the rhetoric of meaningless beauty,” without a meaning that can be paraphrased.
Shirane argues for a different axis. Peony might represent wealth and rank; silver cat an imported luxury pet prized in Edo; gold butterfly the (borrowed) soul of Chinese poetry. Is the verse an implied critique of, or satire on, the then high society?
Blyth writes: “This world of luxury is in some way alien to the world of haiku, but it exists in nature and exists in art, and cannot be entirely omitted. The blood-red peony in the garden, a pure white cat, and a yellow butterfly, —that these were actually seen together by Buson is hard to believe. Nevertheless, he saw these three things together in his mind’s eye.”
Or might it be all of the above? We might note Buson’s choice of old words for silver and gold, which could go with the Shirane take on it. The verse produces a feeling of harmony. In this haiku, beautiful colours and being alive are common features. There is a cut marked in the verse that indicates significance. Perhaps some juxtaposed comparison of the peony with the cat and the butterfly that Buson is hinting at, singling out, beyond their taxonomy. Is it that the peony reigns above all in his perception of beauty? The flower apart from “the birds and the beasts….”
Bashõ: “…to not have a flower in your mind is to be like the birds and beasts. So, I say, go out from among the barbarians, separate yourself from the birds and beasts…”
What do you think? How do you find this intriguing verse of Buson’s?