Yetgeul › Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) › Complete in one volume
Kasashima笠島
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.
1Where Is Kasashima?
このごろのさみだれに道いと惡しく身つかれ侍れはよそながら眺めやりて過ぐる蓑輪かさしまもさみだれの折にふれたりと 笠島はいづこさ月のぬかり道 岩沼にやどる
The rains of these days had left the road very bad and my body was worn out, so I gazed at it from a distance and passed on. Minowa, the straw raincoat, and Kasashima, the hat island, are names that suit the season of the rains, I thought.
Kasashima — / where is it? The muddy road of the fifth month
I lodged at Iwanuma.
Interlinear notes 1
イや
In another text 「は」 is written 「や」.