Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North) 奥の細道 · Matsuo Bashō · 1702 (printed, Genroku 15) · the journey of 1689 · 2 passages · 147 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 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 elder of Tenryūji at Maruoka was an old connection of mine, and so I called on him. A man of Kanazawa called Hokushi, who had meant to see me off only a little way, had followed me as far as this place. He let no scene of any place go by, but thought each one through, and now and then he told me the conceits he had shaped, and some of them were moving. Now, when the parting had come —
I write on it / and tear the fan apart — what regret
I went fifty chō into the mountains and made my bows at Eiheiji. It is the temple of Zen Master Dōgen. That he should have shunned the splendor of the capital by a thousand ri and left his traces in such a mountain shade — there is a noble reason for it, they say.