May 17, 2012

Haiga 824 - Matsuo Basho haiku

Haiku by Matsuo Basho. Artwork by myself.

This is one of my earliest haiga work. I redid it this time. I found the English version of this Basho haiku first on the web. I tried to find the original Japanese version, but could not. If anyone know it, please let me know.

I am a bread and coffee person for breakfast. Usually, I have a piece of toasted bread with cheese and olive oil on it, and a cup of hot coffee in a big mug. Only once or twice a month, when I am away from home, I have rice and miso soup, the kind of traditional Japanese breakfast you see in the haiga. Of couse, there are other plates, like for pickles, egg, fish, and such. But to show the humbleness in this haiku, I stucked to the basic offering, rice and soup, and I am sure that was what Basho had then.

Morning glory was one of the sought-after plants in Edo period when Basho lived. People competed making hybrid flowers, and there were many many morning glories of different looks, which we can only see now in the old woodblock-printed books.

3 comments:

Vida said...

Kuni san, I found this in "Basho and his interpreters"/ Makoto Ueda/:
asagao ni ware wa meshi ku otoko kana.
The translation in the book is,
with morning glories/ a man eats breakfast/-that is what I am.
(I, personally, do not know a word of Japanese :))

Best,
Tzetzka

kuni_san said...

Thanks, Vida-san. This Bashohaiku is good. It could be written at the same morning as the haiku in this haiga.Very interesting.

Area 17 said...

I love your own breakfast habit, although I'd be tempted between olive bread (as in olives embedded in the bread) or croissant. :-)

Fine haiga as usual.

Alan