まん六の春と成りけり門の雪
manroku no haru to nari keri kado no yuki
David’s English
some "proper spring"
this is!
snow at the gate
by Issa 1822
This first haiku of the year has a prescript in which Issa claims that Gautama Buddha, waking up one morning and seeing the light of the stars, came to a realization that he had been living in sin for the previous forty-nine years. Issa, though he now has reached his own sixtieth year, declares that he is too set in his ways to change. He will remain a fool, he declares. See Makoto Ueda, Dew on the Grass: The Life and Poetry of Kobayashi Issa (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004) 140. Issa doesn't mention his age in the haiku itself. It is springtime, but winter's snow is still piled up at the gate, suggesting that Issa, like the weather, has not changed. Manroku is an old word that signifies propriety, justice, or fairness; Kogo dai jiten (Shogakukan 1983) 1547.
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sakuo translation
60 years old
my new spring
snow at my gate
Issa, 1822 age 60.
According Japanese custom, people celebrate the age of 60 years,
because animal calendar year is consisted by 12 kind of animals.
After 5 around, 60 years has passed. 60 years is believed lucky circle of long life.
People celebrate the 60 years old as happy being.
満六 manroku means [ full 60 years old ]. The celebration is called [kanreki 還暦]
