Winter Butterfly : itechoo

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Winter butterfly, freezing butterfly (fuyu no choo)

***** Location: Japan, other areas
***** Season: All Winter
***** Category: Animal

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Explanation

winter butterfly, winter's butterfly, fuyu no choo　冬の蝶
..... fuyuchoo 冬蝶

freezing butterfly, frozen butterfly, itechoo 凍蝶
...... choo izuru 蝶凍つる

"butterfly hibernating till next year", otsunen choo, otsunenchoo　越年蝶, オツネンチョウ
This is one of the first butterflies to show up after the New Year, but it does not hibernate as a butterfly, as the Japanese name would suggest.It comes out of its pupa.


http://cms.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/etc/modules/tinyd1/index.php?id=21

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The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore


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This entry is mainly concerned with the translation of a famous haiku by Kyoshi.
See below.

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Worldwide use

India


an old butterfly
the last refuge from cold
a solitary twig

Charan Gill
Joys of Japan, January 2012


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Ireland

In Ireland too, winter butterflies are common. They find nooks and crannies in our old farmhouse, and occasionally flutter about when they feel some warmth. Then, in springtime, they reappear, revived, and we let them fly out into the garden.

My mother was as intrigued about their habits as I was. She found that this was a particular butterfly (by far the most common one here), called Nymphalis urticae or Small Tortoiseshell (in German, Kleiner Fuchs). This seems to be one of very few species that can hibernate as butterflies and continue into another year when spring arrives.
http://www.schmetterling-raupe.de/monate/winter.htm


I often carry them in my cupped hands from a heated room to a cold corridor in our old house :



winter butterfly --
the tickling sensation
in my hand

Isabelle Prondzynski, Ireland


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Things found on the way

Translating the famous haiku by Kyoshi.

itechoo no onore ga tamashi oote tobu

[ A freezing butterfly’own self, pursuing its soul, flies.]

A butterfly's self -
it flies, freezing, pursuing
its own soul.

Hugh Bygott,June 16 2006, including a discussion

A butterfly's self,
body freezing, it flies pursuing
its own soul.

Hugh Bygott, June 21 2006


itechoo no onore ga tamashi oote tobu

......................................rendered in everyday Japanese

itechoo ga onore no tamashi o oote tobu

onore no tamashi, jibun no tamashi ... his/her/its soul

ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo

凍蝶の己が魂追うて飛ぶ

凍蝶（いてちょう）すなわち死ぬ間際の蝶が自分の魂を追って飛んでいる、というのである。

私はこの句からの連想で芭蕉の最後の句「旅に病んで夢は枯野をかけめぐる」を想った。蝶である芭蕉が自分の魂を追って枯野をさ迷っている、という幻想である。生涯を詩に賭けて美しく生きた芭蕉の最後の有り様を表現する幻想として美しい。
こういう幻想を喚起するこの虚子の句も美しい。
http://nagano.cool.ne.jp/kuuon/KYOSI/KYOSI.81.html


Thoughts on Haiku, by Paul MacNeil

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the Soul, Spirit, tamashii　魂　

mahoo no yuuki
jiyuu no tamashii o
oimotomeru

magics of bravery/courage
a free/unfettered soul
is what I long for

© Sylvia T. Leung

... ... ... ... ... ...


俳句魂の十年 Haiku-damashii, the soul of haiku
http://www.ea.ejnet.ne.jp/~manuke/zatsu/haiku/10years.html


Kyoshi's "Freezing Butterfly", Metaphor in Haiku
Discussion by Hugh Bygott

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Three SOUL-haiku by Issa, translated by David Lanoue


身一つも同じ世話也花の春
mi hitotsu mo onaji sewa nari hana no haru

for my soul too
help arrives...
spring blossoms


ふがいない身となおぼしそ人は春
fugainai mi tona oboshiso hito wa haru

I'm called
a poor-spirited soul...
mankind's spring



まけぬきに栗の皮むく入歯哉
make[nu] ki ni kuri no kawa muku ireba kana

an indomitable soul--
a chestnut husk
a false tooth


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HAIKU

ついついと常正月ややもめ蝶
tsui-tsui to tsune shoogatsu ya yamome choo

widow butterfly --
how quickly she celebrates
a normal New Year's
Tr. Chris Drake

This hokku is from lunar 3/29 (May 2) in 1810, when Issa was in the area just east of the great city of Edo. The hokku may be a memory from what he saw at lunar New Year's in early February, or perhaps Issa is thinking in terms of butterfly time and butterfly New Year's. In any case, Issa has apparently been watching and keeping track of a pair of butterflies with distinctive wing colors and designs as they mate and fly around, and the male has suddenly disappeared, so he refers to the female as a widow. Among humans in Issa's age, it was normal for a widow who had just lost her husband to stay inside her house for fifty days without eating any fish or meat or drinking any alcohol or engaging in any lively or festive activities.

In addition, she was expected to wear dark-colored robes for thirteen or more months and in some cases to cut her hair short. During this period of mourning she could not play or listen to music, join in any festivals or celebrations (such as weddings), or make any pilgrimages to Shinto shrines, especially a joyous trip to a shrine at New Year's. Even today most Japanese who are in mourning do not send ordinary New Year's cards or celebrate New Year's in a festive way. Unlike human widows, however, the butterfly widow does not go into mourning and recovers rapidly from the disappearance of the male. She has no interest in staying inside, and in gorgeous colors she flies here and there outside in a vigorous and graceful way as if to celebrate the coming of the new year and a new stage in her life.

Chris Drake


. Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 Issa in Edo .

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凍蝶の己が魂追うて飛ぶ
itechoo no onore ga tamashi oote tobu

Takahama Kyoshi 高浜 虚子 （1874～1959）


pursuing its soul,
the freezing butterfly
flies and flies
(Tr. Gabi Greve)



freezing butterfly
the soul itself
with arms wide open flies
"chibi" (pen-name for Dennis M. Holmes) 　　　　　　　　　　


Through the freezing air
a butterfly, fluttering,
seeking its lost soul

Kroz ledni vazduh
leprša leptir tražeći
izgubljenu dušu

Translated by * Saša Važić
http://www.geocities.com/ana_vazic/izabranihaiku.htm

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itecho o tsuranuku gotoku shimobashira

Masaoka Shiki

needles of frost -
piercing to the winter
butterfly

literal translation is

frozen butterfly/through/piercing/as if/frost needles

frost needles... as if piercing through the frozen butterfly

Dhugal J. Lindsay.
Read a discussion in the SHIKI archives


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Dream of a winter butterfly.
A drop of melted snow
In the Karakorams.

Kakio Tomizawa (1902 ~ 1962)
http://www.big.or.jp/~loupe/links/ehisto/ekakio.shtml

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winter butterfly
leads me -
a shiny path

Etsuko Yanagibori, published in Simply Haiku
http://www.poetrylives.com/SimplyHaiku/SHv2n2/haiku/Etsuko_Yanagibori.html

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winter butterfly—
my first marriage
in the jewelry box

—Fay Aoyagi
http://nc-haiku.org/hna/hna-07.htm

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dreaming to be
reborn in paradise ...
winter butterflies



　 © Gabi Greve, 2007 With more photos.


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Related words

***** World Kigo Database: Butterfly (choochoo)

Kigo for SPRING

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Butterfly at O-Bon in Japan (August)

his soul is back -
a huge butterfly sips
grandfather's sake

I poored a small cup for the former owner of our home, and it seems he accepted the gift !

Gabi Greve, August 2006



***** Hibernating dragonfly, otsunen tonbo
越年蜻蛉,「おつねんとんぼ」
WKD : Dragonfly (tonbo, tombo)

Kigo for All AUTUMN


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