Kobayashi Issa - Life

Life

Issa was born and registered as Kobayashi Nobuyuki (小林 信之), with a childhood name of Kobayashi Yatarō (小林 弥太郎), the first son of a farmer family of Kashiwabara, now part of Shinano-machi, Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture). Issa endured the loss of his mother, who died when he was three. Her death was the first of numerous difficulties young Issa suffered. He was cared for by his grandmother, who doted on him, but his life changed again when his father remarried five years later. Issa's half-brother was born two years later, and when his grandmother died when he was 14, Issa felt estranged in his own house, a lonely, moody child who preferred to wander the fields. His attitude did not please his stepmother, who, according to Lewis Mackenzie, was a "tough-fibred 'managing' woman of hard-working peasant stock." He was sent to Edo (present-day Tokyo) to eke out a living by his father one year later. Nothing of the next ten years of his life is known for certain. His name was associated with Kobayashi Chikua (小林 竹阿) of the Nirokuan (二六庵) haiku school, but their relationship is not clear. During the following years, he wandered through Japan and fought over his inheritance with his stepmother (his father died in 1801). He wrote a diary, now called Last Days of Issa's Father. After years of legal wrangles, Issa managed to secure rights to half of the property his father left. He returned to his native village at the age of 49 and soon took a wife, Kiku. After a brief period of bliss, tragedy returned. The couple's first-born child died shortly after his birth. A daughter died less than two-and-a-half years later, inspiring Issa to write this haiku (translated by Lewis Mackenzie):

露の世は露の世ながらさりながら

Tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara

The world of dew --

A world of dew it is indeed,

And yet, and yet . . .

A third child died in 1820 and then Kiku fell ill and died in 1823. '"Ikinokori ikinokoritaru samusa kana Outliving them,/Outliving them all,-/Ah, the cold!" This was written when Issa's wife died, he being 61'.

Issa married twice more late in his life, and through it all he produced a huge body of work.

As a big fire swept the post station of Kashiwabara on July 24, 1827, according to the Western Calendar, Issa lost his house and had to live in his storehouse, which is still kept in the town. '"The fleas have fled from the burning house, and have taken refuge with me here", says Issa. Of this same fire, he wrote also: Hotarabu mo amaseba iya haya kore wa haya If you leave so much/As a firefly's glimmer, -/Good Lord! Good Heavens!'.

He died on November 19, 1827, in his native village. According to the old Japanese calendar, he died on the 19th day of Eleventh Month, Tenth Year of the Bunsei era. Since the Tenth Year of Bunsei roughly corresponds with 1827, many sources list this as his year of death.