This alone the world has left unblemished...

This alone, this world
 has left unblemished, unstained,
 an old bowl from pestle-and-mortar.

Bashō wrote this haiku about a bowl that stayed 7 years in Osaka before making its way back to Rotsu, one of his students.

Hey friends and supporters of Japanese Complete

I recently got a book of Matsuo Bashō’s works in Haiku. He more-or-less invented the medium of Haiku.

Hokku was an introductory statement to set the mood of a Renga and the hokku typically has 5-7-5 syllables as it was an “intro-line;” Bashō elevated this singular intro line into its own art form and it gained traction as “Haiku.”

Haiku must have a season term (kigo) and an emotional or contemplative-reflectional quallity fuu-butsu-shi 風物詩　[emblems of a poetic quality for the season].

Haiku can, however, vary in their number of syllables, depending on context. Some are replies and can be 7-7-5 while most of them if not all of the modern ones are 5-7-5. That is, five mora the first line, 7 in the middle line, and 5 mora in the final line. But, that doesn’t mean the sentences start with each line and end with each line, often a sentence in Japanese can span all three lines, or start in the middle of one of the first two.

Poem number 605 in this book is from Winter, 1689.
…that’s three-hundred and thirty-five (335) years ago.

これや世の
煤に染まらぬ
古ごおし

kore ya! yo no
susu ni somaranu
furu gōshi

Andrew Fitzsimmons translated this one with “unbegrimed” which I think is a really fitting term for susu-ni-somaranu literally unstained, unblemished, untarnished, untouched by the “soots” or “susu” of the world. I don’t think his translation nailed it as well, so I omit it for reasons of pride and arrogance here. Instead,

I prefer my own translation:

This alone, this world
 has left unblemished, unstained,
 an old bowl from pestle and mortar.

You might be interested to read the footnote from this haiku:

“Winter, 1689. The poem refers to a wooden bowl Bashō’s disciple Rotsū had left in Osaka, and which was returned seven years later undamaged.

I’ll send more haiku out as I translate them :)