Yamagata City Designated Tangible Cultural Property: "Yo ni furu mo" Haiku and Prose on Kaishi Paper, by Matsuo Basho
Haiku: "Yo ni furu mo sara ni Sogi no yadori kana" (Basho)
To live in this world is truly fleeting, just as the priest Sogi recited, "like taking temporary shelter from a winter shower." Indeed, it is impermanent...
This haiku is an homage (a work showing respect) to a verse by Sogi (a 15th-century renga poet): "Yo ni furu mo sara ni shigure no yadori kana." Sogi's life was dedicated to traveling throughout the country. He was one of the poets Basho aimed to emulate.
Sogi's verse means, "Life is like taking temporary shelter from a shigure (a cold rain that falls briefly at the beginning of winter), lasting only a very short time." Basho replaced "shigure" with "Sogi" in that verse, meaning, "I too will journey with the same sentiment as Sogi."
In the preceding prose, he expresses his thoughts towards predecessors who deepened literature through travel, such as the 8th-century Chinese poet Du Fu and the 11th-century Su Dongpo, and also by making his own travel hat, following the example of the 12th-century Japanese poet Saigyo.
Yo ni furu mo (Life in this World),
haiku poem and ommentary
Matsuo Basho
yo ni furu mo / sara ni Sogi no / yadori kana
life in this world / just like a temporary shelter / of Sogi’s*