And here is your daily almanac for Monday the fifth of December 2022.
On another December fifth in 1537 Ashikaga Yoshiaki was born. He would go on to be the fifteenth and final Ashikaga shogun.
The Ashikaga shogunate had been more or less powerless since the beginning of the Ōnin war. Their authority was no longer recognized and most of the country was in fact at war with each other as various warlords fought to become the next shogun, replacing the toothless Ashikaga family.
So if the Ashikaga had no real power, how did Yoshiaki come into the story?
Well, in 1568 Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto and installed Yoshiaki as a puppet shogun. Historians are divided on why Nobunaga didn't seek direct power himself or even become shogun himself. Some say he was offered the title but refused it. He was certainly offered many other titles that he refused. Most agree that he was trying to create a new government structure outside of the shogunate and was therefore unwilling to join the existing structure. A few historians even say he was planning on killing the emperor and starting a new dynasty. Whatever the case may be, he put Yoshiaki in power solely to use him.
It was a marriage that wouldn't last. Yoshiaki did not agree with just being a frontman to Nobunaga and soon a rivalry developed between them. Yoshiaki resented the limits to his power and tried to find ways to get rid of him. These efforts failed and in 1573, Nobunaga deposed Yoshiaki and drove him from Kyoto. Yoshiaki shaved his head and became a monk, but he never relinquished the title of shogun, and in fact he drew anti-Nobunaga forces to himself and raised armies to send against Nobunaga. Even when Nobunaga died, Yoshiaki continued to resist against Hideyoshi, but by that point Hideyoshi had firm control of the entire country so Yoshiaki's efforts were in vain and he offically resigned his title of shogun in 1588.
Yoshiaki is generally thought well of. That he managed to survive for so long when assassination was the rule of the day speaks to his skills. He died in 1597 at age 59.
Today is Butsumetsu 仏滅, one of the rokuyō, the Buddhist horoscope. As if Mondays weren't bad enough... this is the most unlucky day of the week. Weddings are to be avoided, many shrines are closed, and if possible you are advised to just stay in bed. (Read more about the rokuyō here)
On the old calendar, today would have been the twelfth day of the eleventh month. It is Tachibana hajimete kibamu, the third and last microseason of Shōsetsu, which is itself the second miniseason of winter.
The fruit of immortality, Tachibana, begins to yellow about this time. It is called that due to any old myth. Emperor Suinin commanded Tajima-mori to go get him a magical fruit from the eternal land. After ten long years he returned bearing a branch of a Tachibana tree. Emperor Suinin was already dead by that point and Tajima-mori died of sadness, so I guess either the fruit didn't work very well or Tajima-mori didn't eat any himself.
Here's a haiku from Taigi:
kangetsu ya ware hitori yuku hashi no oto
as I walk over it
the sound of the bridge
—Taigi
In the Edo period, the main footwear was geta, wooden cogs. You can imagine how wooden cogs walking over a wooden bridge on a quiet night would make quite a noise. It's a not unpleasant sound.
Taigi was a drinking buddy of Buson’s, so maybe that’s where he was going on this cold night.
Kangetsu means “cold moon” or “winter moon”; in other words, the moon on a cold night in winter. The image given would be with the full moon or very nearly full. It is a kigo for winter.
Have a good day everyone!
❦
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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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