Although the consciousness of death is in most cultures very much a part of life, this is perhaps nowhere more true than in Japan, where the approach of death has given rise to a centuries-old tradition of writing jisei, or “death poems.” Such poems are often written in the very last moments of the poet’s life.

Hundreds of Japanese death poems, many with a commentary describing the circumstances of the poet’s death, are translated into English here, the great majority of them for the first time.

The following poems are selected from the second section of the book which features poems written by haiku poets. Enjoy.

Death poems by zen monks (part 1)
Death poems by haiku poets (part2)

In the original, the image of a dream is combined with the cruder image of passing wind. The transition from one to the other is made by a play on words: sharakusashi means “boastfulness” or “vanity”; the latter part of the word alone, kusashi, means “stench.”

Kyutaro started working as a messenger boy for a commercial firm at the age of twelve. A year later, on Emperor’s Day (February 11) he went out to play in the snow. The head clerk considered such behavior an affront to the nation and scolded him. The thirteen-year-old Kyutaro wrote this poem:

In later years Kyutaro lived among workers and day laborers in Tokyo and became a radical anarchist. In 1923 he fired a gun at a government official and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He committed suicide in his cell, leaving his death poem behind him.

The snowman in this poem is not only a seasonal image, but also a symbol of transience.

Phrases such as “the eyes lie horizontally, the nose vertically” (given an alternate wording in the translation) and “the threshold is horizontal and vertical the pillar” appear in Zen writings as an expression of an enlightened point of view. Such remarks do not proceed from the understanding of any so-called truth, but from the reflection of the world in the consciousness that, like a clear mirror, has nothing in itself and neither adds to nor takes away from the thing it reflects.

Masahide, a doctor by profession, lived most of his life in the town of Zeze on Lake Biwa. He studied haiku under Basho, whom he very much admired. Around 1688 Masahide’s storehouse burned down, and he wrote the following poem, which was much praised by Basho.

It seems that Masahide became very poor after his storehouse burned down. His poet friend Jozen, who came to visit him in 1103, reported that Masahide had no blanket for his two children, and had to cover them with mosquito netting.

Mokudo apparently tries, with the strange image of piercing a dagger into an eggplant (nasubi), to blend the fighting spirit (he belonged to the samurai class) with the spirit of haiku. The eggplant is a seasonal image for summer, during which the poet died; with a dagger stuck into it, the eggplant symbolizes the enemy’s head.

We are incorrect in hoping that the poem was written in jest, for the warrior-poet prefaces it with an explanation:

In times of war the samurai were the first to stab their daggers into their enemies. We are familiar with many stories about these bold warriors. Today peace reigns in the world and warriors no longer go forth into battle. They continue, however, with military exercises, so that in time of need they will be ready to fight zealously, till word of their courage echoes throughout Japan and the entire world.

Namagusai Tazukuri, whose name means literally “peasant reeking of fish,” was born to a poor fishmonger. His parents died when he was young, and he was adopted by a fisherman. Namagusai Tazukuri was the fifth head of the senryū school.

Okano Kin’emon Kanehide was one of the forty-seven samurai who participated in one of the most exciting incidents in Japanese history. In 1701, a feudal lord named Asano Nagamori was ordered to hold a reception in honor of the emperor’s messenger. A high official by the name of Kira Yoshinaka, who was appointed by the shogun to be in charge of ceremony, was to instruct Asano in ceremonial etiquette.

Kira treated Asano with contempt. Asano, his pride wounded, drew his sword and struck Kira. Since the incident took place in the castle at Edo, in the grounds of which the drawing of weapons was strictly forbidden, Asano was ordered to take his own life by seppuku on that very day. He did so. Asano’s estate was confiscated by the government, and the shogun rejected the petition brought to him by Asano’s retainers to hand over the estate to the younger brother of the deceased.

Thus Asano’s warriors became ronin, samurai without a lord. Forty-seven of them swore to avenge their master by killing Kira. To keep from attracting attention to themselves, they scattered to different parts of the country and waited for the proper moment. It came two years later, when Kira began to relax the security measures he had taken to protect himself. On a snowy morning of the 2nd month, 1702, the samurai broke into Kira’s mansion and killed him. They then turned themselves over to the government.

In taking their revenge, the forty-seven samurai acted in accordance with the moral code that forbade them to “live under the same sky as the enemy of their lord.” They gained sympathy in many circles of society, and the shogun himself was inclined to pardon them. In the end, however, those who insisted on enforcing the law prevailed, and a year after the incident took place, all forty-seven warriors were ordered to kill themselves by seppuku. This event excited the imagination of the Japanese, and the forty-seven samurai gained an immortal place in the history and the literature of their country.

Raizan, a contemporary of Basho’s, learned to write haiku at the age of eight and was authorized to teach and criticize haiku at the age of eighteen. It was said of Raizan that he never put his wine glass down and that he never stayed sober for so much as a day at a time. Rumor had it that he loved a doll rather than a woman and for that reason did not get married. In fact, he was married twice.

Just before his death, Raizan wrote a humorous death poem in tanka form:

The tsuta is a clinging vine found on stones and trees throughout Japan. Its leaves turn red before falling. The evergreen mentioned in the poem is the pine (matsu).

The poem alludes to a Chinese folktale about a man who dreamed that he rose in importance and became the holder of a wealthy estate. He woke up to discover that the millet porridge he had put on the fire had not yet boiled. The moral of the story is that visions of grandeur are vain, but it is tinged perhaps with a Zen Buddhist flavor as well: the truth we search for is to be found in the simple things before our eyes.

A dango is a rice dumpling, sometimes filled with red-bean paste. One occasion for eating dango is during the cherry-blossom season in the spring. Hana no / wakare means literally “flower departure”; the expression can be taken to mean the parting between the onlooker and the blossoms. It is perhaps best, however, not to read the viewer into the poem at all, but to take it as the end of a scene in which only a half-eaten dumpling and falling blossoms are left on the stage.

Shiyo (Otaka Gengo Tadao) was one of the forty-seven samurai who, in the winter of 1703, avenged the death of their master and who were thus ordered to commit seppuku as punishment. In Shiyo’s death poem, shide no yama, “mountain of death,” is the mountain crossed, according to the belief, in the journey from life to death.

It is recorded that Shiyo left another death poem in his last letter to his mother:

Jūman’ōkudo is one of the names for paradise or the eternal; it means literally “the ten trillion land.” This might refer to the distance between paradise and this world, but it may also suggest infinite duration.

Although Shohi’s poem expresses a desire to abandon this world, it would seem that he was nevertheless quite interested in its phenomena. It is said that while Shohi was visiting the poet Rosen in the city of Nagoya during one of his journeys, he heard that an elephant was being shipped to the shogun in Edo. The fifty-seven-year-old poet became curious. He went forty miles out of his way, lodging overnight in a roadside inn and getting up at three in the morning, just to catch a glimpse of the animal.

Tadatomo committed suicide in the traditional Japanese manner. The reason for his suicide is not clear. Just before his death he wrote this death poem and added the words, “the vicissitudes of my life—how sad!”

Shimotsuki, “frost month,” is the name for the 11th month of the lunar calendar (by the solar calendar, approximately the month of January).

Tanko, one of Basho’s pupils, was a cake-seller and practitioner of acupuncture. Once a sack of grain was brought to Tanko as a present from one of his patients. Tanko was so delighted that he brought out a bottle of rice wine to celebrate the occasion. Just then a messenger came from the sender to inform him that a mistake had been made; the gift that was meant for Tanko was a sack of radishes, not of grain. Tanko was crestfallen. Later, however, when his poet-friend Etsujin came by, the two of them broke out laughing. On another occasion, during an acupuncture treatment, Tanko was unable to extract one of the needles from the body of his patient. Leaving the patient with the needle still in his flesh, he fled from the place.

We do not know when Tanko died. The poems were written a short time before his death, and the seasonal images belong to the time between autumn and winter. The “deer call” in the second poem refers to an instrument blown by hunters which imitates the mating call made by stags in autumn to attract does. Toribe-yama (fourth poem) is the name of a hill in Kyoto that has a cemetery on it.