Shakespeare famously asked, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, drawing a parallel between the beauty of a woman and the image of a typical summer. But what if we compare a woman to moonflowers?
夕顔や女子の肌の見ゆる時
yūgao ya onago no hada no miyuru toki[1]
the moonflowers…
a woman’s skin, like the blossoms
is revealed
—Chiyo-ni[2]
Moonflowers bloom at night in the autumn. They suggest an ephemeral beauty as we transition from the heat of summer to the cooler weather of autumn.
There is some speculation that Chiyo-ni is referencing a very famous scene in The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari) where Prince Genji observes the silhouette of a woman through her blinds at night, framed by moonflowers at the gate of her residence. The moonflowers in the story suggest a secret love affair.
Others, however, suggest that this is reading too much into things, proposing instead that Chiyo-ni was making a more general observation: women typically do not undress until late at night, when everyone else is asleep, except for the moonflowers. Especially at the time, women were very busy with keeping the house and didn’t have time to undress and bathe until late at night. In many traditional houses, it is still this way.
Ultimately, the beauty of haiku lies in its openness to interpretation. Both readings of this poem provide rich imagery and emotional depth, allowing the reader to engage with the text based on their own perspectives, truly marking this as a masterful haiku.