Tetsunori Koizumi, Director

In contrast to the sense of exhilaration with which its arrival is greeted, the cherry blossom season, when it comes to an end, is an occasion for the Japanese to express the sense of sadness, as they are made aware of the impermanence of things in the world. Going as far back as the eighth century when Manyoshu, an oldest anthology of wakas, was compiled, generation after generation of poets—from emperors and aristocrats to farmers and artisans—have been composing wakas to express their sense of sadness as the season of bright color and cheerful exuberance comes to an end. Emperor Sutoku (1119-1164), who is known for his passion for wakas, expresses the sense of sadness he felt with spring coming to an end in the following waka: “hana wa neni (Flowers to the roots)/ tori wa furusu ni (Birds to their familiar nest)/ kaeru nari (Return as spring ends)/ haru no tomari wo (But whither does spring return?)/ shiru hito zo naki (I wonder if anybody knows)”.

It was Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) who would later elevate the sense of sadness Emperor Sutoku had expressed in this waka as an esthetic ideal called mono no aware, or “the sadness of things”, that captures the essence of Japanese sensibility. In fact, Motoori Norinaga went as far as characterizing the whole of The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu (c.978~c.1014), as a work expressing mono no aware, though it was popularly accepted as a novel about romantic adventures of Hikaru Genji, an aristocrat in the Heian court who, despite his status as the second son of an emperor, had to endure hardship as his mother was a low rank consort. Mumyo Soshi, written in the early years of Kamakura period, points to many places in The Tale of Genji where aware, or sadness, is expressed: “The chapter Yugao is permeated with a moving sadness (aware). … The scene when, after the death of the Emperor, Fujitsubo takes vows as a nun is moving (aware). … The description of Genji leaving the capital for Suma and of his life in distant exile is extremely moving (aware).”¹

Taking a vow to become a nun and leading a life of exile are cited here as examples of aware. Most of us today would not disagree that these are examples of the sense of sadness we humans experience in our lives. What about seasons? Do seasons experience the sense of sadness as well? Nobody knows where spring returns, as Emperor Sutoku writes. But it is the sense of sadness, mono no aware, that he is trying to convey with his waka. Wherever spring is headed, the end of the cherry blossom season is, to a poet like Emperor Sutoku, is just like Hikaru Genji leaving the capital of Heian-kyo for Suma, a remote village then away from the capital, to begin his life in exile.

The sadness of leaving the capital is the theme Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) takes up in one of the haikus collected in his The Narrow Road to Oku: “yuku haru ya (With spring departing)/ tori naki uo no (Birds weep and fishes shed tears)/ meni namida (In despondency)”. In fact, this was the first haiku that Basho composed on the occasion of his departure from Edo, the capital of the Edo period, to Tohoku, or the East-North region of Japan, which was regarded as a remote region then. It was the spring of 1689 when Basho left Edo to embark on this trip, which was his first trip to the Tohoku region. At age 45, Basho was no longer a young and vigorous traveler unlike in his previous trips. Considering the difficulties in those days of traveling on foot in the remote regions of Japan, it was indeed natural that Basho was compelled to express the sense of sadness when he came to realize that he was leaving the familiar living environment of Edo, bidding farewell to his disciples and friends who came out to see him off. All those who were at his departure, Basho writes, wept and shed tears. What about birds and fishes, then? Did birds weep, did fishes shed tears, as Basho writes? Not in the same way we humans weep and shed tears. It was Basho’s artistic sensibility to employ birds and fishes to express the sense of sadness he felt on the occasion of his departure from his familiar world.

The opening line of Basho’s haiku, “With spring departing”, suggests that spring is treated, just as Emperor Sudoku did, like a person who is departing. Where does spring go, then? Unlike the Chinese nightingale in a poem composed by an American poet, Vachel Lindsay, that keeps saying: “spring came on forever, spring came on forever”², we are well aware that spring does not last forever and must come to an end. Where is spring headed when it departs? Basho offers no answer to this question. Where does spring return? Emperor Sutoku wonders if anybody knows an answer to this question. Spring does not go anywhere, or does not return to anywhere, scientists might say. Yet, there is something to be said about the personification of seasons that poets employ in their works. By personifying seasons, we are expressing the sense of affinity we feel towards all beings and things in nature with whom we share this precious planet called Earth, whose sustainability holds a key to the continued existence of humans as a species.

1. As quoted in: Sources of Japanese Tradition, compiled by Ryusaku Tsunoda, William Theodore de Bury and Donald Keene, Columbia University Press, 1956, p. 177.
2. Vachel Lindsay, The Chinese Nightingale, 1917.