Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉 and cicadas 蝉
The year 2024 will go down in history as the first major outbreak of periodic cicadas in USA in 221 years owing to simultaneous emerge of 13-year and 17-year broods (#素数 蝉):
And the last time these two broods emerged together, it was 1803 when Thomas Jefferson was the president of USA.
In 23rd century, future entomologists will not need to say "the last time these two broods emerged together, it was 2024 when a convicted felon whose name is unspeakable (with lots of F-bombs in 23rd century) was the president of USA by inexplicable mistakes".
The two primes 13 and 17, which are the two factors of 221, have the following properties in common:
of 4k+1 form prime
NOT Heegner number (Class number of Q(√-13)) & Q(√-17) are 2, 4 respectively)
Supersingular prime
Emirp, i.e. both 31 and 71 are prime
While being a numberphile, I admit that I am averse to insects...so let me change a perspective...
Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694), the most famous Japanese poet of the Edo period, arrived at Risshakuji temple #立石寺 in Dewa Province 出羽國, the modern-day Yamagata Prefecture on 13rd July 1689, using the present calendar. So it was exactly 335 years ago.
(Incidentally, in the same year, 1689, the Treaty of Nerchinsk was signed between the two empires which form the contemporary Mordor, which is an inappropriate topic for this article.)
At Risshakuji, he composed the following famous poem #俳句 , which is known as 秀吟, an excellent poem, among poems in "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" #奥の細道 .
How still it is here――
Stinging into the stones.
The locust's trill
This translation is by Donald Keene (1922-2019), American-born Japanese scholar.
Some photos of Risshakuji temple in Yamagata Prefecture (all taken from Pinterest):
I visited Risshakuji with my wife in August 2014, but it was cloudy. The next day we climbed Mt. Zao #蔵王 , but it was completely whiteout due to fog.
Back to the subject, there was a literary controversy about the type of cicada in this poem, as explained in Wikipedia relative to this particular poem:
Mokichi Saitō (斎藤茂吉 1882-1953), a Japanese poet and a psychiatrist, concluded it had been Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata (アブラゼミ) while Toyotaka Komiya (小宮豊隆 1884-1966), a German literary scholar, presented rebuttal statement that it must have been Platypleura kaempferi (ニイニイゼミ) as follows:
The words "quietness" (still) and "seep into the rock" (sting into the stones) are not appropriate for Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata.
The Graptopsaltria nigrofuscata are not yet singing at this time of year (in July).
6 years later Mokichi Saitō concluded that the cicada had been Platypleura kaempferi based on his site survey.
The most common response one can think of to this brief article would be "WHO CARES!"😉
I would like to make a remark, however, that the records of flora, fauna, and weather left by people in the past are very useful for future generations.
In closing let me share the following document:
Description of the periodicity of cosmic variation patterns and people's reactions discovered in descriptions of 赤気 (aurora borealis) in classical Japanese texts (by National Institute of Polar Research):
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