Japanese and Western Literature. Armando Martins Janeira

parallel with Madame de Sévigné comes naturally: both wrote of court life, both were passionately interested in people. Both were attracted by the amazing variations or human nature and had the gift of explaining them; both were intelligent women with a lucid sense of their superiority over most men, but Sei Shonagon is natural where de Sévigné is conventional. The latter excels in a sharper, constant acumen for analysis, while the former has a much deeper and more delicate poetic sense for the beautiful things of life.

      THE NOTEBOOKS OF KAMO NO CHOMEI AND KENKO YOSHIDA

      With these diaries we should mention other writings of random impressions and personal judgements of the world: Hojoki (The Ten-feet-square Hut) by Kamo no Chomei, and Tsurezuregusa (Idle Thoughts) by Kenko Yoshida. These are moral books which could be compared to numerous excellent ascetic writings in European languages inspired by primitive Christian feeling, or even with the subtle writings of Arabic ascetics. The transience of wordly things, the vanity of earthly life, the comforting feeling of solitude and contemplation are dominant characteristics of this type of book.

      What distinguishes these two remarkable books of soshi (impressions) from the books of the moralists and ascetics of the West is their interest in living things. Being apart from other men, living a solitary life, having broken all ties with the "wicked and impure world," they praise the pleasures of enjoying the beauty of the seasons, and do so with liberty and freedom in their hermitage.

      Kamo no Chomei (1154-1216), after having seen wars, earthquakes, plague, famine, and immense human suffering, retired to the depths of Mount Hino and lived on the fruits of the mountain so that he could follow the law of the Buddha." In the poverty of his ten-feet-square hut, he found the peace of heart he praised so much.

      Kenko Yoshida (1283-1350) shows a less pessimistic wisdom and greater disposition for enjoying the pleasures of his solitude, the perfume of flowers, and "the strange fascination of the withered leaves of winter. "Who can remember grief, when he sits absorbed in the beauty of the moon?" And evoking the gaiety of his souvenirs: "How charming is the Tanabata festival!" He is happy in his poverty in the mountain: "Solitude is never wearisome and it drives away the clouds from the thoughts, leaving them clear and serene." In the solitude of his life "devoted to Lord Buddha," away from the world, Kenko thinks still of men and reflects upon the amazing ways of human nature. He can see deep into the heart of men, and observe with a kind scepticism. As he said, "Why waste your time in reforming what is not worth reforming?"⁴

      His mysticism and solitude never made him lose the perspective of what is really human: "A man who does not cherish love's pleasures, however excellent he may be in thousands of other things, is extremely unstable. He is like a wine-cup which is made of precious stones but without bottom."⁵

      Kenko belongs more to a former age than to his own time. He has been compared to Montaigne, but they are of very different natures. Kenko has the serenity and detachment of a man who lives in solitude, without contact with other men, despising the ordinary pleasures of life. He never tries to pursue the power of analysis with the accuracy and pleasure so typical of French moralists, and does not show the same capacity for construction and discourse. While Montaigne retires to his rich castle in the Perigord "tired of the servitude of official duties" to "enjoy his liberty, his tranquillity and his leisures," Kenko is contented with a poor monk's hermitage, for he believes that "all that is essential can be summed up in a book, a lamp and one's own company."⁶ Indeed, he asserts, "The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty."⁷

      THE POETIC DIARIES OF BASHO AND ISSA

      A follower in the footsteps of Kenko three centuries later is Basho (1644-94). At a mature age, after the death of his mother, he put on priestly robes and went travelling as a poor pilgrim in the southwest and north of Japan, both on foot and on horse.

      The travelling of Basho should not be taken superficially for mere tourist curiosity. Travels at that time were made under precarious conditions. Basho was certainly influenced by the examples of ancient Chinese poets like Li Po and Tu Fu, who wrote poetry while roaming on visits to famous places of natural beauty. Basho refers in his third diary to the "immemorial art of keeping diaries while on the road," and mentions Ki no Tsurayuki and Kamo no Chomei. The fact that Basho wrote five travel diaries, though some of them are very short, shows that the literary value of travelling was important to him. But Japanese critics have seen a much deeper meaning in Basho's wish to roam. They interpret it as a way of casting away the self after having cast away earthly attachments, to attain the complete liberation of selflessness. After going through agonizing stages of self-scrutiny, says Nobuyuki Yuasa, he left his home convinced that there was no other alternative before him, "caring not for his provisions, in the state of pure ecstacy," as Basho himself wrote. The title of his first diary is in itself a note of humility and selflessness: Nozarashi Kiko (Record of a Weather-Exposed Skeleton). He went away, his spirit completely free: "I bent my steps in whatever direction I wished, having no itinerary to follow." He dragged his "sore heels," and carried all he needed: "a paper raincoat, the cotton-stuffed mantle, the hat, straw sandals, an inkstone, a brush, writing paper, medicine and a lunch basket." His only mundane concerns were "whether I would be able to find a suitable place to sleep at night and whether the straw sandals were the right size for my feet."⁸

      In several of his diaries Basho wrote some thoughts on the philosophical pleasures of travelling. Here there is meditation as well as description of natural beauty. In Oi no Kobumi (Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel) he promises the reader a random collection of the views of the road which have remained in his heart. He does not mention all the things of interest because he feels bound not to betray the secrets that he must keep "in accordance with the rules I must obey as a pilgrim."

      There is great enchantment and sheer poetry in these random thoughts and descriptions. Sometimes, like in the brief description of Mount Gassan, we feel the greatness of the descriptions of some famous Chinese poets. Other passages of Basho show a strange impressionist touch:

      Matsushima is a cheerful laughing beauty, while the charm of Kisagata is in the beauty of its weeping countenance. It is not only lonely but also penitent, as it were, for some unknown evil. Indeed it has a striking resemblance to the expression of a troubled mind.

      The diaries of Basho are written in the particular Japanese form of haibun (a mixture of prose and haiku poems), which we saw in Tsurayuki's Diary of Tosa and in Izayoi Nikki (Diary of the Waning Moon), both notebooks of journey, the first made in 935 and the second in 1277. It is thought that in his last and longest diary, Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North), Basho attained the perfection of balance between prose and poetry. Here he unveiled the fountainhead of his longing to travel.

      This book of travel, the best of his five travel diaries, is full of poetic thoughts which he had during his progress on the remote road:

      Months and days are the travellers of eternity. And so are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea or drive a horse over the earth, spend every minute of their lives travelling. From ancient times many died on the road. I myself have been tempted by a strong desire to wander.

      The transient joy of the present and the sorrow of time past is given profound accent:

      Mountains crumble and rivers dry, new roads replace the old, stones are buried and disappear in the earth, trees grow old and give way to saplings. Time passes and the world changes. The remains of the past are shrouded in uncertainty. And yet, here before my eyes was a moment which none would deny had lasted a thousand years.

      The life and work of Basho present the Westerner with one of the most baffling literary cases of all literature. Basho preached poetry as the apostles preached religion. The "everlasting self which is poetry" filled his life, and the disciples who followed him showed deep reverence only accorded to saints and prophets in the West. In small remote villages where he passed, poetry lovers would compose poems with Basho in deep concentration, or would accompany him in contemplating the moon. This is not only due to Basho's exceptional gifts; it must also be due to a particular quality of the Japanese soul. This quality is present today in modern writers such as Soseki Natsume. Soseki speaks with the same kind of religious reverence for pure poetry and of the artist, the sole privileged dweller in