Yetgeul › Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) › Complete in one volume
Urami Falls裏見の瀧
Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) Complete in one volume "The months and days are the travelers of a hundred generations, and the years that come and go are travelers too" — the travel record of Bashō, who left Edo at forty-six and walked Ōshū and Hokuriku for five months. In the summer grass he sees the dreams of warriors, in the rock he hears the voice of the cicadas soaking in, and under one roof he likens the sleeping women of pleasure to bush clover and the moon. Wherever the prose comes to rest, a haiku is set down. Beside the pilgrim records of Faxian, Xuanzang, and Hyecho, this is one more road in this library.
1The Waterfall Seen from Behind
廿餘町山を登て瀧あり岩洞の頂より飛流して百尺千巖の碧潭におちたり岩窟に身をひそめて瀧のうらよりみれはうらみの瀧と申傳へ侍る也 しばらくは瀧に籠るや夏の初
I climbed the mountain some twenty chō and more, and there was a waterfall. From the top of a rocky cave it flies down and falls a hundred feet into a green pool among a thousand layers of rock. One hides oneself in the cave and sees the waterfall from its back, and so, they say, it has been handed down as Urami Falls, the falls seen from behind.
For a while I shut myself away in the waterfall / the beginning of summer