Japan’s rainy season is called “tsuyu” 梅雨. It occurs in June and July. Because the plum ripens at this time, the rainy season is also”meiyu” 梅雨. Basho is refering to the fact that sometimes the plums collect mildew and turn sour. The Ume fruit, or plum, is a popular summer fruit. and the riper it gets, the more sour.
Written in Kyoto, in the 7th year of the Kanbun era (1667), when the artist was 24 years old.
Ah, the sound of rain falling — to the ears, it sounds sour as it rains, the plum ripens
降る音や耳も酸うなる梅の雨 Furu oto ya mimi mo san unaru ume no ame — the poet who one day become Matsuo Basho, 1667
The poet, then known as Tosei 桃青, meaning green peach.
Matsuo Basho traveled extensively. And Bashō no yōna likes to travel, but why?
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, Chapter LXI (61)
Why do we travel? In the hopes to see others, As others see us.
The wife’s in London Like ants, tourists swarm the streets, — ‘Tis time to come home.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1690) did not invent the travelogue in Japan. He did, however, popularize it with the publication of Oku no Hosomichi, a Journey into Japan’s northern interior. His other journeys also became books weaving together observations about what he saw and haiku.
“Days and months are travelers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives traveling. There are a great number of ancients who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind — filled with a strong desire to wander.” Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, the summer of 1689
In other words, travel becomes a voyage of wonder and self-discovery.
What about Alice? Where March Hare says to Alice, “You should say what you mean.” To which she replies, “I do, at least I mean what I say, that’s the same thing you know.” The Mad Hatter counters,
“Why, you might just as well say, that I see what I eat, is the same thing as I eat what I see”!”.
Words matter, they do — and it’s fun playing with them, ’til meaning gets lost
Let’s be honest Let’s be real We are lucky just to be — Bashō no yōna, 2025
One who traveled as much as Matsuo Basho must have thought about the Tao de Ching, the Dao, the Way. The ways included the Nakasendo Way connecting Edo and Kyoto, the coastal route, called the Tokaido Way that would have taken Basho near his home. Then too there was the shorter Koshu Kaido, that was an alternative of the Nakasendo Way. Then too, Basho and a friend Sora made their own way through Japan’s northern interior and along both coasts. This was the famous Oku no Hosomichi, the book that made Basho famous.
Basho wrote the book, part travelogue, part haiku about his five month journey in the spring and summer of 1689. He spent the next five years editing it until his death in 1694. It was not published until 1702.
It is easier to write Than edit, Harder still to publish.
In the blink of an eye, from here to there and back again
In the blink of an eye, from here to there and back again
On May 27th, 1689, Matsuo Basho and his companion Kawai Sora set off on a journey north into Japan interior, then to the coast at Matsushima, and back again across the interior to Sakata, from there south and west along the coast to Osaka.
By July 13th, two months in, the pair had past Matsushima, and reached Yamadera (it translates simply to “mountain temple”) and its mountain Buddhist retreat Risshakuji. To reach the top, Basho must climb the 1,015 stone steps to Okunoin Temple. The noisy village was far behind. The mountain air was clear. His lungs were struggling to keep up. Then, as he gazed out on the valley …
Tranquility …, then, the cicada’s speaks deep within the rocks shizukasa ya . iwa ni shimiiru . semi no koe 閑けさや 岩にしみいる 蝉の声 — Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, July 1689
Tranquility
shizukasa (閑けさ), tranquility, a state of peace and tranquility. This is often translated as “silence.” Take a walk along a creek or on a trail that leads up a mountain side. Then, half way there, when it is utterly quiet, you decide.
It is strange, to think that no matter how hard one thinks, one will never know what the cicada thinks. And that, one supposes, is the point of it.
Don’t try so hard.
Risshakuji is known as a Zen Buddhist retreat. Zen focuses on meditation as the key to understanding nature, and awakening one’s inner wisdom. I would say stress, but stress has too many contradictory connotations. In Zen, one must stay calm, relax.
Matsuo Basho must have wondered what his legacy would be. I suppose...
I suppose I’ll fade as all flowers and poets do . as clouds that gather and dissipate in the summer heat . as thoughts that cross one’s mind from time to time . one forgets when one is done I suppose — Bashō no yōna, thinking about Matsuo Basho
sigh, this summer grass is all that remains — a mighty samurai’s dreams . natsukusa ya tsuwamono domo ga yume no ato. 夏草や兵共がゆめの跡
Hiraizumi, Iwate prefecture Summer 1689
Like swallows, like the stork, like the Monarch butterfly, in summer, man migrates from home to vacation and suffer the heat. Matsuo Basho did not invent summer travel in Japan, but he did popularize it. His travelogues, a combination of haiku and commentary on local scenes were published during and after his lifetime. Highways were built.* Way stations were maintained and rest-stops and inns were conveniently located at distances of 20 miles apart.
Along the Oku no Hosomichi, Basho’s journey into Japan’s northern interior in the summer of 1689.
At Hiraizumi, the northernmost point on Basho’s journey that one day would be called Oku no Hosomichi, Basho detoured to the land where the Oshu Fujiwara clan prospered for three generations in the late Heian period (Heian, meaning peace, 794 to 1185).
Here, Minamoto no Yoshitsune, the third generation of the powerful Minamoto clan, fled fleeing the fickle emperor for whom he had gallantly fought but now was condemned. Far to the north, surrounded by mountains, to Hiraizumi he fled. Given refuge, he lived in peace, until the death of his protector whose son betrayed vilely him. In a final battle, Yoshitsune met his end.
Standing on the hill, in the midst of the dying summer grass, there Yoshitsune’s forces fought to the last man.
What do you think?
Grass as a metaphor for a dead warrior
Basho’s thoughts: “Three generations of glory of the Fujiwara clan vanished like a dream; the hills and rivers remain unchanged, as they were in the past.” How Dao, death comes to us all, and Nature reclaims everything, in the passage of time, restoring what is to the way it once was.
“Cry out,” a voice said, And said I, “What shall I cry?” “Our flesh is like grass, its beauty like the flower of the field… The grass withers, the flower fades.” Isaiah, 40:6–8
“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.” Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855
Note. Five Routes established by the Tokugawa shogunate. The Nakasendo and Tokaido were the most popular. Both connected Edo and Kyoto, the Nakasendo through the mountains, Tokaido along the coast. The Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige immortalized the “55 Stations of the Tokaido” in print.
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