歳時記

Shigure refers to winter rainshowers that fall briefly or intermittently and unpredictably, often between spells of clear sky. In autumn, especially late autumn, there are passing showers which have none of the driving force of summer's "evening showers" (夕立【ゆうだち】 yūdachi). These are the forerunners of winter showers and are distinguished from the latter by the season word "autumn showers" (秋時雨【あきしぐれ】 akishigure). The first such showers in winter (that is, after the 7th or 8th of November) are called "first showers" (初時雨【はつしぐれ】 hatsushigure). Of all the many kinds of rainfall of Japan's four seasons, winter showers are the most familiar as a topic for traditional poetry. One reason for this is that such showers are common among the hills around Kyoto, where it may rain on one side of a hill while it is clear on the other side. The somber sound of such showers may have suited the conservative poetic culture of Kyoto. Winter showers in the Kitayama area of Kyoto have been famous since ancient times. The origin of the word shigure may have to do with the verb suguru (過ぐる【すぐる】), meaning to pass over, or may refer to the erratic winds that accompany such rainfall. In China, rains that fall after the start of winter are called "soaking rain" (液雨【えきう】 eki-u), now a haikai season word that corresponds to the phenomenon of shigure, but the topic never seems to have become popular among traditional Chinese poets. Bashō placed a hokku with the season word "first showers" at the beginning of a collection which became an important model of his own work and that of his school. The verse lent its name to the title of that collection, Monkey's Straw Raincoat (『猿蓑』【さるみの】sarumino), and suggests Bashō's affinity for this topic. Such showers are frequent in the tenth month of the lunar calendar, so that month is sometimes called by the name "Showers Month" (時雨月【しぐれづき】 shigure-zuki). Other season words may be used for winter showers, depending on exactly when and where they fall--"nighttime showers" for sudden showers that fall at night, for example. In the 17th century, when the author of this verse was active, the word shokudo referred to the dining hall of a Zen temple (it now usually means a cafeteria). Strict silence was observed there during meals. The sounding of a wooden clapper to call the monks to dinner was the only exception. Blending with the patter of raindrops on the eaves, the cries of sparrows seeking shelter from the evening shower enhance the sense of somber quiet.

The sight of the ground covered with a thin coating of frost under a clear, windless sky at dawn is enough to make anyone feel a bracing sense of cold. Frost forms when water vapor in the air sublimes into needle-shaped or plate-like particles of ice. Though the basic conditions for the formation of frost are thus similar to those for autumn dew, moisture in the air turns to ice because the temperature of the ground is at or below the freezing point. On frosty mornings when the sky is clear and the sun is shining, one may hear the sound of droplets of melted frost falling from the eaves of houses or the tips of branches. The sight of a coat of frost on things left outdoors overnight is a familiar experience of winter mornings. Frost on the sprouts or leaves of agricultural crops often causes serious harm. Although not directly related to frost in fact, "frostbite" (霜焼【しもやき】 shimoyaki, literally, "frost-burn") is damage to the skin or extremities after prolonged exposure to cold. The phenomenon "ice-pillars" (霜柱【しもばしら】 shimobashira, literally "pillars of frost") is not caused by frost, but by water in the soil which freezes and pushes up small breaks in the crust of the ground. (Note: There seems to be no standard English expression for this phenomenon, sometimes translated "ice-needles"; the British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins used "ice-pillars" in his Journals.) After his morning meal, the poet drinks some boiled water from his empty rice bowl. The warmth of the water comes across as a sense of sweetness. The winter's first frost has fallen, and it will be a cold day, but the sun is shining and seems to promise comfort in spite of the cold.

Together with the moon and flowers, snow is considered one of the pre-eminent seasonal topics of the classical poetic tradition in Japan, as in China. Japanese lyricism is hardly imaginable without its diverse images of snow. Western Japan from the Hokuriku region north to Hokkaido, facing the Japan Sea, experiences more snow than any other area in the world, and the life of the inhabitants of this region (often called "Snow Country" yukiguni) is built to a great extent around the fact of heavy annual snowfall. The range of local words for falling and fallen snow in all its varieties is vast. The cause of snow is virtually the same as that of rain--evaporated moisture in the sky forms ice crystals when the temperature is low enough, and falls as snowflakes. The specific form of snow crystals varies; often a single snowflake is actually a clump of several crystals. When falling snow is compacted and loses its cyrstalline form it becomes "snow pellets" (yukiarare, see arare). Snowfall is usually measured by the depth of snow accumulated on the ground. As a rule, when temperatures are low, flakes are small and fall as "powdery snow", which is easily raised from the ground by wind, one cause of blizzards. At higher temperatures, snowflakes may be larger, and are sometimes called "peony snow". As snow piles on fallen snow and builds up, becoming compacted, it may sometimes become thick and heavy enough to bury houses. This is one haiku of a sequence under the preface "Snow During Illness" (病中雪【びょうちゅうゆき】 byōchū yuki). We may imagine a very heavy snowfall prompting the poet--confined to his sickbed--to ask repeatedly how much had accumulated. His reason for wanting to know must have been to help imagine, and perhaps take comfort in, the scene outside.