We often give ourselves small rewards after an accomplishment — both as a way to mark the moment and motivate ourselves for the future. Shiki did the same, and captured it perfectly in this haiku.
三千の俳句を閲し柿二つ
sanzen no haiku o kemishi kaki futatsu[1]
having reviewed
three thousand haiku—
two persimmons
—Shiki[2]
This is a haiku for autumn, which we are well past according to the traditional Japanese reckoning of the seasons that haiku follows, but I found myself thinking of this haiku the other day when giving myself a reward for work well done, so I decided to post about it.
Shiki edited haiku for a newspaper at one point. It was here that he would make a name for himself with his criticism of Bashō and pieces on the poem form itself. His articles on haiku became so influential that he was responsible for renaming the short verse from their previous name hokku to haiku and transforming them into a completely independent form instead of the first verse of a renga.
Here he is with a promised reward for a job well done. Shiki loved persimmons, making it a good reward indeed. I suppose for most of us today that reward might be chocolate instead.
The kigo (season word) here is kaki, “persimmon”. It is a kigo for late autumn, which is around Oct 8th to Nov 7th.
The verb is in the past tense, but many translators choose to use the present simple or the present continuous. There is a bit of added tension if we make that change, as we might wonder if he actually finished reviewing all the haiku before he ate his reward. Borrowing that idea, I might also render this as:
three thousand
haiku to look through—
two persimmons
I’m not sure I like that as much, but it is an option. As the great Robin Gill says, having multiple translations can help us see the haiku from all angles which can help us understand it better.