Oku no Hosomichi

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Statue of Bashō at Chūson-ji, Hiraizumi, Iwate
Statue of Bashō at Chūson-ji, Hiraizumi, Iwate

Oku no Hosomichi (奥の細道/おくの細道?) meaning "Narrow road to/of the interior", translated alternately as The Narrow Road to the Deep North and The Narrow Road to the Interior) is a major work by the Japanese poet, Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694).

The text is written in the form of a travel diary, and it was penned as he made an epic and dangerous journey on foot through feudal Japan. While the poetic work became seminal of its own account, the poet's travels in the text have since inspired many people to follow in his footsteps and trace his journey for themselves. In one of its most memorable passages, Bashō suggests that "every day is a journey, and the journey itself home."[1]

Of Oku no Hosomichi, Miyazawa Kenji once suggested, "It was as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it".[1]

This poem was the inspiration for the song by the same title by Japanese New Age group Himekami.

Contents

[edit] The text

[edit] Opening sentences

Basho's introductory sentences are the most quoted words of the text of Oku no Hosomichi:

Japanese English
月日は百代の過客にして、行かふ年も又旅人也。
舟の上に生涯をうかべ馬の口とらえて老をむかふる物は、
日々旅にして、旅を栖とす。古人も多く旅に死せるあり。
予もいづれの年よりか、片雲の風にさそはれて、漂泊の思ひやまず、
海浜にさすらへ、去年の秋江上の破屋に蜘の古巣をはらひて、
やゝ年も暮、春立る霞の空に、白川の関こえんと、
そヾろ神の物につきて心をくるはせ、
道祖神のまねきにあひて取もの手につかず、
もゝ引の破をつヾり、笠の緒付かえて、
三里に灸すゆるより、松島の月先心にかゝりて、
住る方は人に譲り、杉風が別墅に移るに、
草の戸も住替る代ぞひなの家
面八句を庵の柱に懸置。
Many of the men of old died on their travels, and I, too, for years past have been stirred by the sigh of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming.
Last year I spent wandering along the seacoast.
In autumn I returned to my cottage on the river and swept away the cobwebs.
Gradually, the year drew to a close.
When spring came and there was mist in the air, I thought of crossing the Barrier of Shirakawa into Oku.
Everything about me was bewitched by the travel gods, and my thoughts were no longer mine to control. The spirits of the road beckoned, and I could do no work at all.[2]

[edit] Plot

Oku no Hosomichi was written based on a journey taken by Bashō in the late spring of 1689. He and his traveling companion Sora departed from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) for the northerly interior region known as Oku, propelled mostly by a desire to see the places about which the old poets wrote. Specifically, he was emulating Saigyō, whom Bashō praised as the greatest waka poet;[3] Bashō made a point of visiting all the sites mentioned in Saigyo's verse.[4] Travel in those days was very dangerous, but Bashō was committed to a kind of poetic ideal of wandering. He traveled for about 156 days altogether, covering thousands of miles mostly on foot. Of all of Bashō's works, this is the best known.

The text is a mixture of prose and verse, with many references to Confucius, Saigyō, ancient Chinese poetry, and even the Tale of the Heike. It manages to strike a delicate balance between all the elements to produce a powerful account. It is primarily a travel account, and Bashō vividly relates the unique poetic essence of each stop in his travels. Stops on his journey include the Tokugawa shrine at Nikkō, the Shirakawa barrier, the islands of Matsushima, Hiraizumi, Sakata, Kisakata, and Etchū. He and Sora parted at Yamanaka, but at Ōgaki he briefly met up with a few of his other disciples before departing again to the Ise Shrine and closing the account.

After his journey, he spent five years working and reworking the poems and prose of Oku no Hosomichi before publishing it. Based on differences between draft versions of the account, Sora's diary, and the final version, it is clear that Bashō took a number of artistic liberties in the writing. An example of this is that in the Senjūshu ("Selection of Tales") attributed to Saigyo, the narrator is passing through Eguchi when he is driven by a storm to seek shelter in the nearby cottage of a prostitute; this leads to an exchange of poems, after which he spends the night there. Basho similarly includes in Oku no Hosomichi a tale of him having an exchange with prostitutes staying in the same inn, but Sora mentions nothing.[5]

[edit] English translations

  • Britton, Dorothy, trans. Haiku Journey: Basho's Narrow Road to a Far Province. Kodansha, 1974.
  • Corman, Cid, and Kamaike Susumu, trans. Back Roads to Far Towns. Grossman, 1968.
  • Hamill, Sam, trans. The Narrow Road to the Interior.
  • Keene, Donald, trans. The Narrow Road to Oku.
  • McCullough, Helen Craig, trans. The Narrow Road to the Interior.
  • Miner, Earl, trans. In Japanese Poetic Diaries. University of California Press, 1976.
  • Yuasa, Nobuyuki, trans. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Norman, Howard. On the Trail of a Ghost. National Geographic.
  2. ^ pg 309 of Donald Keene's Travelers of a Hundred Ages.
  3. ^ In his Oi no Kobumi, "Manuscript in My Knapsack".
  4. ^ pg 681 of Seeds in the Heart
  5. ^ pg 772 of Seeds in the Heart

[edit] External links