Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) 奥の細道 · Matsuo Bashō · 1702 (printed, Genroku 15) · the journey of 1689 · 1 passages · 137 Chinese characters · reading time 0.3 min
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.
The forty-eight rapids of Kurobe, they call them. I crossed rivers past counting and came out at a bay called Nago. "The waves of wisteria at Tako — even if it is not spring, they are worth asking after for the sadness of autumn," I said, and I asked a man about it. He said, "From here you go about five ri along the rocky shore and then into the shadow of the mountain opposite. The thatched huts of the fishermen are few and far between, and there will be no one to lend you even a night's bed of reeds." He frightened me with this, and so I went on into the province of Kaga.
The scent of early rice — / and the road I push into, the Ariso Sea
Interlinear notes 1
一本五里磯づたひトアリ此ノ方正シカルベシ
Another text has 「五里磯づたひ」, and this reading is likely the correct one.