手に取らば消えん涙ぞ熱き秋の霜
te ni toraba kien namida zo atsuki aki no shimo

should I take it in my hand,
it would melt from my hot tears—
like autumn frost
—Bashō

(trans. David LaSpina^[1])

^{"Urashima Taro"}

This is for this week's Blockchain Poets theme, Mama.

Bashō has returned to his family home. His brother showed him white hairs from his recently deceased mother. He was overwhelmed with emotion, wept, and wrote the above haiku.

In the headnote for this haiku, Bashō writes that his brother commented on his white eyebrows (as he hadn't been back home in a very long time) and compared the box holding their mother's white hair to the treasure box from Urashima Taro.

Urashima Taro is a folktale about a boy who saves a turtle's life and as a reward is taken to a palace under the ocean where he lives for sometime. Eventually he grows worried about his mother and asks to return home. Before he leaves he is given a treasure box and warned to not open it. When he returns home, he soon discovers that hundreds of years have passed and his mother is long dead. With nothing else left, he decides to open the box and is instantly changed to an old man with white hair.

You can perhaps see the similarities to Bashō's situation and Urashima's and understand his brother's comparison.

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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1. That is, me! If you like this translation, feel free to use it. Just credit me. Also link here if you can. ↩