Yetgeul › Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) › Complete in one volume
The Pine of Shiokoshi汐越の松
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 pine of Shiokoshi
とりあへぬさまして越前の境吉崎の入江を掉さして汐ごしの松を尋ぬ よもすがら嵐に波をはこばせて 月をはれたる汐ごしの松
That verse had the look of something made on the spur of the moment. I poled out into the inlet of Yoshizaki on the border of Echizen and sought out the pine of Shiokoshi.
All night long / it made the storm carry the waves
and washed the moon clear — the pine of Shiokoshi
Interlinear notes 1
一本とりあへぬさまして九字ナシ
Another text does not have the nine characters とりあへぬさまして.
2This one poem has exhausted every scene
此一首にて數景盡したりもし一辨を加るものは無用の指を立るがごとし
This one poem has exhausted every scene. If anyone were to add a single word to it, it would be like adding a sixth finger to a hand.