Before Departure
May 16, 1689
Departing Edo
[Basho and Sora are about to depart on a journey into Japan’s northern interior. Basho is a little apprehensive. Is he up for the trip?
Spring was nearing its end.
On the 27th day of the third lunar month, he and Sora, his neighbor in Fukagawa, left Edo. In the Gregorian calendar, this was May 16, 1689. Basho would make notes along the way in his diary. After his death in November 1694, friends compiled the notes and published them as Oku no Hosomichi.
May 16, 1689, was a 甲子日 kinoe-ne or kasshi, the very first day in the traditional Chinese 60-day cycle of heavenly stems and earthly branches. It was used to record years, months, days, and even hours. This system of recording dates back to the Shang dynasty (1600 BCE).
Was it coincidence?
The Preface to Oku no Hosomichi
by Matsuo Basho
“Just as the months and days are wayfarers of a hundred generations, so too are the passing years. We too are travelers.
For those who drift through life aboard a boat or meet old age leading a horse by the bridle, every day is a journey, the journey itself is home. Many men in the past have died upon the road. I, too, for some time, have been beckoned by the wind — like a solitary drifting cloud — unable to shake my urge to wander.
I have already roamed the seashores.
Last autumn, as the year drew to a close, I swept away old spiderwebs from my dilapidated hut by the river. It was then that a restless spirit then took hold of me — a spirit that unsettles the heart — then as the spring mists rose, I longed to cross the Shirakawa Barrier.
Drawn by the beckoning of the road gods, I could settle to no other task.
I mended the tears in my traveling trousers, replaced the cord on my sedge hat, and—after burning dried mugwort near my legs for the journey — I found my thoughts already fixed on the moon at Matsushima.
So, I handed over my dwelling to another and moved to the home of my friend Sūpū…
[This is likely Sampū (杉山杉風, Sugiyama Sampū), a wealthy fish merchant in Edo. He had provided Basho the simple hut in Fukagawa for his personal use far from the madding crowds.]
Now this humble cottage changes hands — it becomes a home for dolls.”
[Basho lived simply, in a hut of grass, pursuing poetry, traveling occasionally. Now his hut will become a home for a family, one with children and their dolls.]
I hung eight verses on the pillar of my home.
[Basho wrote the first verse out, but the remaining seven are unknown, a gift to the new owners or a message to odl friends.]
出発まで
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、漂白の思ひやまず、海濱にさすらへ、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、そゞ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。もゝ引の破をつゞり、笠の緒付かえて、三里に灸すゆるより、松嶋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。
Source. Oku no Hosomichi – Japanese Text Initiative, University of Virginia
