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In the following pages, the poems of the famous haijin Matsuo Bashō, translated in Italian, that I copied many many years ago from an ancient book.
Quelle che seguono sono poesie del famoso haijin Matsuo Basho, che ho ricopiato tanti anni fa da un antico libro.
When he was a youth he was an attendant of the young noble Yoshitada, the eldest son of his Lord: they were very close to each other. They studied togheter haikai under Senjin. When Yoshitada died, Basho, 23 years old, suffered deeply from the loss; he left the service of his master and, later, went to Edo (the actual Tokyo).
He spent much of his life traveling and teaching poetry (haikai renga) to many disciples. Famous are his travel diaries, a kind of intermixed prose and poetry that did constitute a new literary genre.
Basho's poems and diaries are at the same time the record of his travels and of his spiritual life. Deeply filled with natural piety, he perceives the essential beauty of a blade of grass, of the cry of a wild goose, the expression of a traveler, and of the eternal progress of seasons. He dives into Nature and becames one with Her.
The name Basho means "banana tree," and was adopted by the poet when he moved into a hut located next to a banana tree.
Wikipedia entry on Matsuo Bashō