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Kotatsu, a warm table コタツ 炬燵 こたつ, おこた
***** Location: Japan
***** Season: All Winter
***** Category: Humanity
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Explanation
You can not live in Japan without a kotatsu in winter. It is fondly called "O-Kotta" and the best friend of all family members. You sit aound this table, munching mandarins and drinking tea for hours.
It is a table with low legs, standing on the tatami floor, with a warm quilt under it and a huge quilt and blanket over it. Inside is a heater, nowadays an electric infrared one, in olden times it was charcoal burning. You strech the legs inside to keep them warm and toasty, and the CATS just love it.
This year we opened the Kotatsu-Season in October and it well be so until May next year.
A person sitting in the kotatsu all winter is called
Kotatsu Benkei 炬燵弁慶, a kotatsu warrior
Yoshitsune and Benkei, the brave warriours
Here is my cat Haiku kun sleeping happily with warm feet:
And slowly edgeing his way out to keep the nose cool.
. kotatsu neko 炬燵猫（こたつねこ）cat in the kotatsu
animal kigo for all winter
. . . . .
kirigotatsu 切炬燵（きりごたつ）heated table with opening in the floor for the feet
okigotatsu 置炬燵（おきごたつ) kotatsu table to put on the floor
This can be put anywhere in the room.
kotatsu yagura 炬燵櫓（こたつやぐら）wooden frame for the kotatsu
It holds the top plate and the blanket cover.
. . . CLICK here for Photos !
kotatsubuton 炬燵蒲団（こたつぶとん）futon quilt for the kotatsu
..... shikigotatsu 敷炬燵（しきごたつ） quilt "Spreading over the kotatsu table"
kotatsu ita 炬燵板（こたついた) board, plate for the kotatsu
can be square or rectangular
Tischplatte eines Kotatsu
denkigotatsu 電気炬燵（でんきごたつ）electrically heated kotatsu
kotatsu haru 炬燵張る（こたつはる）covering the kotatsu table
kotatsu hiraku 炬燵開く（こたつひらく）opening the kotatsu season
kotatsu kiru 燵切る to install a deep box for the legs under the table.
MORE
things to keep your home warm in winter
Fußwärmer
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. Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国芳 .
つじうらをきく Tsujiura no Kiku
Keeping warm in an Edo home
. hibachi 火鉢 brazier .
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HAIKU
rainy morning -
the cats deep
in the kotatsu
........................... Regenmorgen -
........................... die Katzen tief
........................... im Kotatsu
..... Gabi Greve, 2004
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思う人のそばへわりこむ炬燵かな
Omou hito no soba e warikomu kotatsu kana
Trying to sit
right next to the person you love,
at the warm fireplace.
Issa
Comment by Gabi:
To sit near a person you love in a kotatsu is quite a different thing than sitting beside a fireplace. Nobody can see what you do with your legs in the dark under the blankets and we often call it "to play footsies".
But I agree, it is difficult to translate this word without giving a long explanation or show a picture, to explain what a kotatsu is.
Issa has now the following translation by David Lanoue, the Issa expert:
squeezing in next
to my lover...
quilt-covered brazier
Art and calligraphy from Sankanjin, a haiku book of 1814 that includes some of Issa's work.
Issa and two comrades warm their feet with a brazier.
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mamori-iru kotatsu o io no honzon kana
The 'kotatsu'
That guards my hermitage,
Is my principal image.
Joso
Tr. Blyth
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. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .
きりぎりす忘れ音に啼く火燵哉
kirigirisu wasurene ni naku kotatsu kana
The cricket chirps
In a forgetful way;
This 'kotatsu!'
Tr. Blyth
a cricket
crying forgetfullly:
the brazier
Tr. Barnhill
住みつかぬ旅の心や置火燵
sumitsukanu tabi no kokoro ya okigotatsu
no fix place to live
in my traveler's mind -
this little kotatsu
or
no place to live
with my mind set on travelling -
this little kotatsu / stove / heater
Written in December of 1690 元禄3年 in Kyoto. Basho age 50
He was sitting there alone in his room, wondering what the New Year would bring this lonely traveller. Maybe he feels a bit like such a "personal kotatsu" which can be moved freely and has to hold its place where it is put.
MORE about Travelling with
. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .
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宿替にすぽりとはまる火燵哉
yadogae ni supori to hamaru kotatsu kana
moving to a new home
it really fits perfectly,
my old kotatsu . . .
The cut marker KANA is at the end of line 3.
supori, suppori すっぽり "completely"
Buson feels joy that his old kotatsu heater frame fits the now house so perfectly.
. WKD : Yosa Buson 与謝蕪村 in Edo .
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三寒を残して寝間の炬燵かな
sankan wo nokoshite nema no kotatsu kana
for remaining spring
the leg warmer
still in bed
Terippo Ishy, Seattle
(Facebook)
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Related Words
kotatsu fusagu 炬燵塞ぐ to pack away the kotatsu
kigo for spring
Usually, you wash the quilts and blankets and put them back in the coupboard until the next season.
The table, whose top can be lifted, can then be used as a normal table on the tatami mats.
haru-gotatsu 春炬燵 Spring-kotatsu
kigo for spring
A wellcome item on cool spring days. In mountain areas such as mine, people keep the kotatsu until after the rainy season. Since most farmhouses are difficult to heat, this in the best way to keep body and soul warm.
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yutanpo 湯たんぽ / tanpo 湯婆 hot-water bottle
kiachuu yutanpo 懐中湯婆（かいちゅうたんぽ）small hot water bottle to carry in your breast pocket of the kimono
kigo for winter
ただ頼む湯婆一つの寒さかな
tada tanomu yuba hitotsu no samusa kana
All I ask of the world,
a hot water bottle -
I'm cold!
MEISETSU (1847-1926)
http://terebess.hu/english/haiku/stryk.html
My only hope against
the cold--
one hot-water bottle.
Tr. Yoel Hoffman
All I ask of you,--
A hot-water bottle:
The cold!
Tr. Blyth
. . . . . . . . . .
I miss my duvet
The hot water bottle blues
Get me (eider)down.
http://orbyn.com/misc/haiku/kev.php
. Naito Meisetsu 内藤鳴雪 .
kairo 懐炉 (かいろ) pocket heater
kairobai 懐炉灰（かいろばい）ashes from the pocket heater
kairo yake 懐炉焼（かいろやけ）burn from the pocket heater
They used to be small coal sticks in a metal case, nowadays they are pads which you can stick to your cloths, to keep sholders or the back warm.
. . . CLICK here for Photos !
Taschenwärmer
onjaku 温石 おんじゃく hot stone
An old device, big ones for the footside of your bed, smaller ones to put in the breast pocket of a kimono.
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denki moofu 電気毛布 electric blanket
kigo for winter
One of these itmes you need in an unheated Japanese home.
Electric blanket
No more ice-cold toes for me
New-found sleeptime bliss.
http://www.rabidmonkey.com/mt/archives/2004_11.html
spread-eagle
with an electric blanket
winter?
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=11490
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jiko (both stove and brazier), Kenya
kigo for the cold season in the tropics
see Kenya Saijiki
Jiko (brazier)
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***** Ash, ashes (hai) and related kigo
and sumi-temae carcoal layout of the tea ceremony
MORE
things to keep your home warm in winter
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. - - - Welcome to Edo 江戸 ! - - - .
CLICK for more ukiyo-e about the Kotatsu in Edo !
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7 comments:
何と楽しい炬燵でしょう。
出来る事なら
今夜はここに泊めて下さい。
sakuo
hot jiko
with roasting chapatis --
delicious smell
Isabelle Prondzynski, 2006
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kenyasaijiki/message/385
taking a nap
in the warmth of today ...
dreaming HAIKU
My cat Haiku Kun with new kotatsu photo
click on my name
kotatsu Benkei
Kobayashi Issa
雀来よ炬燵弁慶是に有
suzume ko yo kotatsu-benkei kore ni ari
sparrows, come closer,
I'm Commander Blowhard,
feared by no one!
This hokku is from the tenth month (November) of 1813, the year Issa received his half of his father's house in his hometown. In November he was traveling around meeting many local haijin and students and establishing himself within the Shinano province haikai network. In this first-person hokku, Issa seems to be outside trying to communicate with some sparrows, who appear to hesitate to come near him. To appeal to the birds, Issa uses humor, creating a fictional name for himself -- a common idiom that literally means, "While he's sitting warming his feet under his foot warmer at home, he's like the strong, fierce medieval warrior-monk Benkei, but when he goes outside he's quiet and gentle." The idiom is used metaphorically to describe someone who blusters and swaggers when he's at home but suddenly becomes timid and harmless as soon as he goes outside.
Issa parodies the language of medieval warriors as they appeared in plays and long oral narratives in his time and speaks as if he were a high-ranking samurai leader and the idiom (the second line of the hokku) were his name, which he announces in the midst of a battle. By using this humorous name, Issa actually says the opposite of what medieval warriors were saying: outdoors like this I'm gentle and harmless and want to be friends with you sparrows. Issa's new name is a travesty if taken literally, but luckily there don't seem to be any outraged warriors standing nearby, only birds. Issa seems to hope his parodic name, or perhaps his body language as he announces his name, will make the sparrows forget their hesitation and come closer to him. The tone of the hokku suggests that Issa believes he and the shy sparrows have much in common to communicate. The hokku may also contain a self-allusion to what Issa claimed was his very first hokku, one written as a boy in his hometown which asks a young orphaned sparrow to come play with him.
The last line of the hokku appears again in 1816 in Issa's famous hokku about the thin, weak frog:
skinny frog,
don't give up --
Issa's here!
yase-gaeru makeru na issa kore ni ari
In this case Issa parodically uses his own name as if he were a medieval warrior announcing his arrival at the site of a battle. The battle is between male frogs, probably fighting for the right to mate with female frogs. The scrawny frog is losing out to bigger frogs, so Issa enters the battle on his side and assures him he will win out and find a good mate in the end, just like Issa did. However, as in the first hokku above, Issa is also making fun of himself, since as a fighter he is inept, and as a poor, rambling poet he wasn't able to get married until he was fifty-two. The scrawny frog presumably doesn't want to wait that long, but Issa obviously hopes he's been able to encourage the frog at least a little. He himself may have been encouraged to give encouragement to the frog by the fact that his first son Sentaro had recently been born.
Chris Drake
.
. okigotatsu 置炬燵 kotatsu table to put on the floor .
お茶の間は女ばかりや置ごたつ
ochanoma wa onna bakari ya okigotatsu
in the living room
there are only the womenfolk -
this tabel to get warm
竹田小時 Takeda Kotoki
.
chanoma, cha no ma, cha-no-ma 茶の間 private family living room
Kobayashi Issa
我恋は夜ごと/\の湯婆哉
waga koi wa yogoto-yogoto no tampo kana
my true love
night after night --
my hot water bottle
This hokku is from the tenth lunar month (November) in 1822, when Issa was mostly at home in his hometown. Unfortunately his wife Kiku, who was nursing their infant fourth child, a boy named Konzaburo, had come down with gout in July. That year it began to snow in October, and November was already wintry. Luckily Issa could spend part of December at a hot springs owned by one of his students. In Issa's time hot water bottles were most commonly ceramic and shaped like horizontal cylinders, with a small mouth that could be plugged. People would put a bottle under the covers to warm their futon before they went to bed, and once you were under your futon covers you could place the bottle against any part of your body that felt cold. Since nights were very cold, Issa probably woke up from time to time and repositioned the bottle. Did Issa like to fall asleep holding his bottle in his arms?
Chris Drake
.
Kotatsu and the day of
inoko 亥の子 / イノコ / 亥子 the "young wild boar"
in October
and
legends to explore in the Yokai Database
.
https://japanshrinestemples.blogspot.jp/2017/10/tanokami-inoko-legends.html
.
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