Crossing Unohanayama and the Kurikara valley, we reached Kanazawa in the middle of the seventh month. A merchant called Kasho, who traveled back and forth from Osaka, was staying at the same inn.
There was a man named Issho, whose devotion to this path of haikai was quietly known, and some in the world knew of him, but he had died young last winter, and when his elder brother held a memorial gathering for him, I wrote:
"Tsuka mo ugoke / waga naku koe wa / aki no kaze" (Move, O grave mound: my voice weeping for him is the autumn wind.)
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Invited to a certain hut:
"Aki suzushi / tegoto ni muke ya / uri nasubi" (The coolness of autumn: let each of us peel with our own hands melons and eggplants.)
Composed on the road:
"Akaaka to / hi wa tsurenaku mo / aki no kaze" (Red, red, the sun beats down without mercy, yet the wind is autumn's.)
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Kosugi Issho was a Kanazawa haikai poet who deeply admired Basho and longed for his visit. But by the time Basho reached Kanazawa, Issho had died the winter before, at only thirty-six. Basho learned of it only on arriving in Kanazawa and was struck with deep grief.
The fierce cry "Move, O grave mound" is the closest of all Basho's verses to open lament. For the death of a disciple he had never met, Basho raised a weeping voice like the autumn wind. At Gannenji in Kanazawa, Issho's family temple, a stone carved with the verse stands.
Kanazawa was the castle town of the Kaga domain of a million koku. Basho stayed here about ten days and met many haikai poets. Later haikai flourished greatly in Kaga, producing many poets such as Hokushi and Chiyojo.