Samidare wo
Atsumete hayashi
Mogami-gawa.
—Basho
Early summer rains
Gathering, form the rapid
Mogami River.
The Japanese word samidare translated “early summer rains ” is
literally “ fifth month rain,” and since the lunar calendar was in
use some three hundred years ago, when Basho lived, the fifth
month was what we now call June, the nyubai or rainy season,
when rain often falls incessantly for weeks. It is then that small
streams like the Mogami become raging rivers.