Furu-ike ya!
Kawazu tobikomu
Mizu no oto.
—Basho
Into the old pond
A frog suddenly plunges.
The sound of water.
This is perhaps Basho’s best-known haiku. The profound silence
in the ancient garden is suddenly broken by “the sound of
water,” a literal translation of the third line of the poem, as a frog
leaps into the pond. During the last ten years of his life, Basho
took up the study of Zen, the contemplative sect of Buddhism.
This is clearly reflected in the above haiku.