Benkei ni

弁慶に/五条の月の/寒さかな
(夏目漱石 1867-1916)

benkei ni / gojo no tsuki no / samusa kana
(Natsume Soseki 1867-1916)

cold enough
even for Benkei
on Gojo under the moon


There's a story behind this one. Benkei was a warrior monk, and he set himself the task of collecting 1000 swords by duelling with passing warriors on Gojo Bridge in Kyoto. He got to 999, but the next warrior he met was Minamoto no Yoshitsune who defeated him, and Benkei subsequently became Yoshitsune's loyal follower. There's more than a hint of Robin Hood and Little John about this part of the story. I'm not sure whether the episode is part of the literary classic The Tale of the Heike, but many of Yoshitsune and Benkei's later adventures were, cementing the two men's place in Japanese culture. You can read about Benkei at Wikipedia, and there have also been several pictures of their duel, for example this one.

I've found it a little difficult to translate the poem (reasonably!) elegantly. The sentiment seems to be something along the lines of 'It's cold tonight. I bet even Benkei (who was such a tough guy), when he was on Gojo Bridge at night (waiting for passing warriors), would have felt this kind of cold.' Incidentally, there is a Japanese interpretation here, which helped me. This would be a good haiku to memorise and use when you're next in Japan and someone talks about how cold it is, 'samui, ne'. Casually repeat the haiku and you'll sound really clever (or possibly really smug and annoying).

Alternate searches:

'gojou no tsuki no'