The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Oku no Hosomichi)

Matsuo Basho · Published 1702 (journey of 1689)

Overview

At the end of the third month of 1689, Matsuo Basho left Fukagawa in Edo with his disciple Kawai Sora. They visited Nikko, the Shirakawa Barrier, Matsushima, Hiraizumi, Risshakuji, the Mogami River, the three mountains of Dewa and Kisakata, then followed the Japan Sea coast through Echigo, Etchu, Kaga and Echizen, reaching Ogaki in Mino in the eighth month. This travel journal records the journey of about 150 days and 2,400 kilometers in spare prose woven with haiku. Basho revised it for several years after the journey, and it was published in 1702, after his death.

Background

In the early Edo period, with the Five Highways and their post stations in place, more and more people traveled. Basho treated travel as training in poetry and set out to visit in person the utamakura, the places famous in poetry, that poets of old such as Saigyo and Noin had visited. The northeast had been a treasure house of utamakura since the Heian period. Compared with the travel diary kept by his companion Sora, the work contains rearranged dates and inventions, showing that Basho shaped the journal as a work of literature.

Highlights

  1. Setting out"The months and days are travelers of a hundred ages, and the years that come and go are travelers too." His resolve to give up his house and take to the road.Read “Fukagawa, Saitoan” →
  2. Hiraizumi"Summer grasses: all that remains of warriors' dreams." In one verse he layers the glory of the Oshu Fujiwara and the end of Yoshitsune.Read “Hiraizumi” →
  3. Risshakuji"Such stillness: the cicadas' cry soaks into the rocks." The rocks and silence of the mountain temple.Read “Risshakuji” →
  4. IchiburiA night with courtesans staying at the same inn. "Under one roof, courtesans too were sleeping: bush clover and moon." A scene that lends the journal the color of a story.Read “Ichiburi” →