The Itinerary

“It was early on the morning of the 27th day of the 3rd lunar month (March 27th) that I took to the road.“

Traveling by foot, by boat, by horse, Matsuo Basho and his traveling companion Sora made and epic journey along Japan’s “narrow roads into the back country” (奥の細道, Oku no hosomichi). Along the way, they visited shrines, saw historical battle sites, watched the moon and sun, observing, seeing friends, and making new acquaintances. The trip lasted five months, about 156 days and nights, a journey of almost 1,500 miles, ending at Ogaki where Basho’s friends rejoiced at seeing him again.

[Basho used the ancient Japanese lunar calendar as an occasional reference. In terms of the Gregorian calendar, Basho began in May, dates vary according to scholars from the 6th to the 27th. Let us split the difference and choose May 14th.]

Start	Edo, Adachi Bridge
End	Ogaki,
Start date	27th day of the 3rd lunar month, ca. May 14th
End date	ca. 6th day of the 9th lunar month, ca. October 17th
Average daily distance	10 miles
Distance	approx. 1,500 miles
Days and Nights	ca. 156 days and nights

The Beginning

So begins Matsuo Basho’s departure on his journey that was to be called, “Oku no Hosomichi.” Translated into English, the Journey into (Japan’s) Northern Interior. It was interior in name only, as, for most of the trip, Basho skirted the eastern and western shores of Japan’s Honsho island. The trip lasted some five months, beginning in March, according to the ancient Japanese calendar, and therefore ending in late July or August.

Prologue

Departure, Adachi Bridge. On the twenty-seventh day of the Third Month (May 14th, 1689).
Soka, from Adachi Bridge to the fish market at Soka was all Basho went. Five miles is all one can go, one gets used to walking, to carrying a backpack with needed things, and things given as gifts, things one hates to throw away, but should.
Muro no yashima, a Shinto shrine (now Ōmiwa Shrine) in Tochigi. Basho and Sora have traveled 60 miles in three days. The route takes them on a gentle incline.
Nikko, On the 30th day (May 17th), Climbed Mt. Nikko. At the inn where he stays, his host Honest Gozaemon (whose name means both “doorway” and “to protect”) told Basho “to sleep in perfect peace on his grass pillow.”
Nasu, Basho had intended to arrive in Kurobane where a friend lived, but on entering Togichi Prefecture (then still a province) and the district of Nasu, he and Sora found the way blocked by a an extensive grass field, and rain began to fall. They put up for the night at a farmhouse.
Kurobane, Basho’s friend was Joboji who looked after a large mansion. Basho and Sora lingered there several days, taking in the Hachiman Shrine, the tomb of Lady Tomano, and the Komyoji Temple.
Unganji
Sesshoseki

At the Barrier Gate
Shirakawa, at the Barrier Gate, the high point on the first leg of the trip at 900 meters. There is an 800 year old cedar tree here that dates to Basho’s trip.
Sukagawa, crossing the River Abukuma, Fukashima Prefecture.
Asaka, passing through Hiwada, staying at Fukashima. Roughly 160 miles from Edo (Tokyo). A steady climb the first half of the trip to roughly 900 meters high before
Shinobu
Satoshoji
Iizuka
Kasajima Province, stopping at Iwanuma.
Takekuma no Matsu, and its famous pine tree, cut down before Noin Hoshi (988 – c. 1051) visited, then regrown.

The Eastern Coast
Sendai, crossing the River Natori. Basho has reached the eastern shore.
Tsubo no Ishibumi, a stone monument erected in 762 to commemorate the site of the ancient Taga castle in the village of Ichikawa. An inscription gives the distance to the ancient capital of Nara.
Shiogama, along the coast, north of Sendai. Basho is a little more than one month into his trip. He notes that it is May and the curfew bells are ringing as he enters the town.
Matsushima, from Shiogama, Basho has gone only 6 miles to Matsushima, famous for its pine trees that dot the shore line and cover many small islands.
Ishinomaki, Basho notes that he left on the 12th of May, heading back into the interior in the direction of Hiraizumi, but he lost his way and arrived instead at Ishinomaki. He stayed in a miserable house and suffered an uneasy night.
Hiraizumi, some 50 miles north and west from Matsushima, where three generations of of the Fujiwara clan passed away, snatched away, and now an empty dream.
Dewa Province (Dewagoe), Basho stayed at the village of Iwate. Basho now turns west.
Obanazawa, Basho stayed with a good friend and rested.
Ryushakuji, Yamagata Province. Basho detours to a temple south of Obanazawa.

The River Mogami and Detours
Oishida, Basho goes back north to Oishida on the River Mogami.
Mogamigawa, an exciting ride down the River Mogami heading west.
Hagurosan, it is the 3rd day of June, two months into the journey.
Gassan, Basho climbed Mt. Gassan on the 8th of June. Though it is summer, Basho must walk through the cold air and snow, “nearly frozen to death” he exclaims, but greeted by the sight of a cherry tree about to blossom. Nearby is Mt. Yudono.

The Western Coast
Sakata, leaving Gassan on the 9th of June, Basho proceeded to Tsuruoka. His route follows first the Bonji River and then the larger Aka River. The downhill distance is roughly 30 miles which one can easily cover in a day. [Note. Basho says that he boarded a boat and went down the Mogami River, arriving in Sakata.]
Kisagata, north of Sakata on Japan’s western shore. It is similar to Matsushima with its pine tree covered islands.

Heading South, Towards Home — July (August)
Echigo, it was a long walk of a hundred and thirty miles to the capital of the province of Kaga. Basho was by now ready to get home.
Ichiburi, another Barrier Gate.
Kanazawa, on July 15 (August 29th by the Western calendar), Basho and Sora walked into the city of Kanazawa. Here Basho and Sora are joined by Hoishi, a disciple of Basho’s.
Komatsu, it is less than 20 miles from Kanazawa to Komatsu. The walk is flat, along the coast, and in the afternoon one walks almost into the sun. Basho observed this in a haiku, “red, red is the sun, careless of time, the wind carries the hope of autumn’s cold wind.”
Natadera Temple, six miles, a two hour walk takes Basho to the Natadera Temple, a Buddhist temple built, it was said, to enshrine the goddess of Mercy, Kannon. She gives happiness but that happiness comes at a high price. The stop is brief, it is only another two hour walk to the hot springs of Yamanaka. Here Basho bathes in the mercy of the healing hot springs.

Parting is sweet sorrow. [August 5th (mid-September), according to Sora’s Diary.] Sora, however, is seized with a stomach ailment. He parts with Basho to Nagashima in Ise Province to seek help from relatives.

Not Quite Alone
Daishoji, the spirit is willing, the body is weak, loneliness his only companion. It is only a two hour stretch downhill from Yamanaka to Daishoji and its Zenshoji Temple. Sora had preceded Basho here and left a note saying, “All night long, I listened to the autumn wind, as it howled on the hill.”
Maruoka, an old friend makes for good company at the the Tenryuji Temple in Matsuoka. Another friend (Hokushi) met on the way at Kanazawa departs. Then a short walk to Eiheiji Temple, the Temple of Eternal Peace standing among the tall cedars on the mountainside. The temple was founded by Zen Master Dōgen in 1244.
Fukui, Basho chose not to stay at Eiheiji, but after supper walk on three miles in the darkening evening to Fukui. There he found Tosai’s humble cottage on a back street, met his wife, a sad looking woman, and eventually, in town, found Tosai. Two nights with Tosai, then back on the road to Tsuruga, accompanied by Tosai.
Tsuruga, imposing Mt. Hina, crossing the bridge of Asamuza, among the famous reeds of Tamae, through the Barrier Gate of Uguisu, over pass of Yuno, are all along the way.

The 14th of July. It rained the night of the 15th.

After dinner with wine at an inn, Basho and his host went to the Myojin Shrine of Kei, built to honor the soul of the Emperor Chuai. Ironohama, on the 16th the weather was fine and as it was his last day in Tsuruga, Basho went by boat to the beach far out on the bay to pick up colored seashells at Ironohama (Irohama 色浜).
Ogaki, it is less than 50 miles to Ogaki from Tsuruga. It was near the beginning of the 9th lunar month (October by the Gregorian calendar, somewhere near the first week).

Basho is now back on familiar ground, as he is skirting the north shore of Lake Biwa. Moreover, Basho is joined by Rotsu, and the two make a triumphal march by horseback into the city of Ogaki. Sora, too returns. And “Etsujin, came on horseback, and we all went to the house of Joko, where I enjoyed reunion with Zensen, Keiko, and his sons and many other old friends of mine who came to see me day and night.”

[Sora’s Diary says the date was September 3.]
Three days later, on September the 6th (late-October), Basho left Ogaki for home, but what is home to a traveler? Is it Edo, Kyoto, or Ueno? Basho went to see the Ise Shrine. A boat would take him there.

Postscript

Basho would not complete his book. By early summer of the seventh year of Genroku (1694), Basho’s health was failing and he asked Soryu, a scholarly Buddhist priest, to complete the task. Basho had but a few more months to live, as he died in November, on his way back to Ueno, to Kyoto, near Lake Biwa, to his final home.

Oku no Hosomichi, as the book would become known was published in 1702.

Dates

Departure — 彌生も末の七日 Yayoi mo sue no nanoka, In the last seven days (last week) of Yaoyi (the third lunar month) BAsho and Sora departed from Adachi Bridge. This is equivalent to May 16th in the Gregorian calendar. The cherry blossoms are over, the high temperature is in the 70s, it is sunny and fair.

First stop, Soka. Basho and Sora covered a little more than seven miles the first day. Basho indicates the year: “In the second year of Genroku” (元禄二, Genroku ni), the period, meaning “original happiness,” spanned the years 1688 to 1704.

At Mt. Nikko, on the 30th day of the month (卅日). Basho stayed with an innkeeper with the unusual name of Buddha Gozaemon, 仏五左衛門.

Sources:

Japanese and English text side by side. http://www.tclt.org.uk/basho/Oku_2011.pdf

An in depth discussion of each chapter heading. https://matsuobasho-wkd.blogspot.com/2012/11/oku-station-3-soka.html

And many others.

I am sure that this itinerary is not entirely accurate. I shall update as needed.

Do Butterflies Dream?

You were a butterfly,
And I Zhuangzi,
— In my dream-like state

君や蝶我や荘子が夢心
kimi ya chō ware ya Sōji ga yume-gokoro
— Matsuo Basho

[literal translation. kimi (you) ya (exclamation, wonder) chō (butterfly) ware (I or we) ya Sōji (Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, Japanese Soichi) ga (still) yume-gokoro (dreamy-state, lit., in the heart of one’s dream)]

The Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (4th c. BC, Japanese Soichi) once dreamed he was a butterfly, flitting and fluttering around, happy as could be. Then he awoke, but was he Zhuangzi and was it still a dream.

Men think. Men dream. Dogs think and dream. Butterflies go about their work happy as can be. But butterflies don’t sleep they say, but do they daydream?

Do butterflies dream,
Of kale
in Spring?
— Bashō no yōna

Matsuo Basho does not strike me as much of a gardener. The plant he is most associated with is the banana (basho), but even this was the housewarming gift of a friend. Last fall I planted kale. By May it rises on tall stalks with tiny yellow flowers surrounded by white butterflies in the morning.

Wildflowers

Random flowers along the way:

The Dao …

the more I look
the more I see
the face of God in a flower
猶みたし花に明行神の顔
nao mitashi hana ni ake yuku kami no kao
— Matsuo Basho

Do flowers speak, I wonder …

where wildflowers grow
man’s soul is fed
and poets grow
— Henry David Thoreau

Love like wildflowers
is found
in unlikely places
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love need not be a a daisy or a rose …

Love
is a flower
you’ve got to let grow
— John Lennon

Walking in the woods, spotting a tiny blue violet, under a log amid brown leaves …

the tiniest blue violet
Nature’s answer
to just a single mystery

A deeper, darker thought …

I wonder …
As we gaze at flowers
are we walking
on the roof of hell
世の中は地獄の上の花見哉
yo no naka wa jigoku no ue no hanami kana
— Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶 (1763-1828)

A sad thought, I wonder …

after they have fallen
will I remember a peony’s petals
as a flower
ちりて後おもかげにたつぼたんかな
chirite nochi omokage ni tatsu botan kana
— Yosa no Buson 与謝蕪村 (1716-1784)

the mundane and the last word …

Along the roadside
my horse has eaten
a hibiscus
道のべの木槿は馬にくはれけり
michi no be no mukuge wa uma ni kuware keri
— Matsuo Basho

Basho’s My Name

Fukagawa, south of the Sumida River
Spring, 1681

My name is Matsuo Basho. I am thirty-six years old, and I live in a cottage by the river, south of the Edo, with a clear view of Mt. Fuji. I wasn’t always called Basho. Indeed, most of my life, I have been called Tosei, a peach, its flower having fallen, is now, waiting to ripen. Last winter, a friend came by. Humbly presenting me a housewarming gift, a banana plant. Like me, it survived the winter.

In growing a banana
the first thing to hate
the two leaves of the plant

ばしょう植ゑてまづ憎む荻の二葉哉
Bashō uete mazu nikumu ogi no futaba kana
— Matsuo Basho, Spring 1681

Basho’s haiku indicates that it took a while for our thirty-six year old poet to get used to the idea of becoming a banana plant. This was, as he later explains, it is useless, producing no fruit. Later, he appreciated it for the shade it provided from the sun, and its resilience in a storm.

Moving On

Daybreak,
While the purple haze lingers on,
Comes the call of the cuckoo

曙はまだ紫にほととぎす
akebono wa / mada murasaki ni / hototogisu

Matsuo Basho, Otsu, Spring, 1680

April 1, Genroku, year 3, (1680)
Otsu, on the southern shore of Lake Biwa,
Age 36, Moving on

“For all of us, in Spring, to be thirty-something is a time to move on.”
— Bashō no yōna, Spring, 2025

Basho explains. “I visited the “Genji no Ma” room at Ishiyama-dera Temple, (in Otsu), where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have written “The Tale of Genji.”

Akebono, meaning daybreak, or the dawn of a new era. The Tale of the Genji was just that, Japan’s and the world’s first novel. Written in the 11th century by the Imperial lady-in-waiting, Murasaki Shikibu. It is a tale of the emperor’s outcast son, Genji, and his romances.

The call of the cuckoo.

Hotogisu, cuckoo, appears as the subject in several of Basho’s haiku. In Japan, the cuckoo symbolizes the coming of summer. Life is moving on, Basho thought, and so must he.

1680, The Awakening.

The year 1680 for Matsuo Basho was monumental. He was still living in Edo and going by the pen name, Tosei, meaning “unripe peach.” But Basho had decided to leave the hectic city for the rural life, moving out of Edo, and going south of the Sumida River to a simple cottage where he might work in relative peace and quiet. It was here that he would find his name — Basho, the fortuitous result of a gift, a banana tree (basho), given by a disciple, and planted next to the cottage. The banana, symbolizing for the poet, something that produced no fruit, but weathered the storms, and gave some shade to the weary.

daybreak

On the First of April, 1680, Basho visited the Ishiyama-dera Temple, in Otsu, at the southern end of Lake Biwa. This is where Murasaki Shikibu is said to have written the tragic Tale of Genji.

Who has not risen at dawn to watch the sunrise. In the lingering lavender just before the sun rises, to hear the winsome cry of a lone bird telling a tragic tale.

it is not yet dawn,
in the lingering lavender sky,
— a cuckoo calls

曙はまだ紫にほととぎす
akebono wa mada murasaki ni hototogisu
— Matsuo Basho, April 1, 1860

はまだ (wa mada), it is not yet

紫 (murasaki), purple, and its many shades, including lavender.

Matsuo Basho would hurry back to Edo where he prepared to move across the Sumida River to the rural Fukagawa District. This move would foretell the poet’s renaming as Basho when a disciple gave him a banana plant as a housewarming gift.

politics

Bashō no yōna violates Basho’s rule, which is to never speak of politics. A conversation full of sound and fury, where nothing really changes.

In poetry
there is no place
for politics

In Japan
the LDP is slipping
but not yet fallen

In America
Trump says
America is back

Where am I going
With this?
Nowhere

How Dao!

What can one say about politics? People have their minds made up and so they rarely listen. Why we can’t get along is an enduring question that has no answer. How Dao.

Matsuo Basho spoke not of politics. The closest he comes is in the following haiku where he implies that both the Tokugawa Shogun and the Dutch Capitain must pay homage to the spirits on sacred Mt. Tsukuba. Mount Tsukuba was the home of the Shinto gods It is located northeast of Tokyo, Edo which, in Basho’s day, was the seat of political power.

In the following haiku we have a play on words. “Kabitan” or “Kapitan” refers to the captain of the Dutch ships that arrive at trading post on Dejima Island in Nagasaki. In Basho’s time, each year on the first day of March, the Dutch captain “crawled” or made his way in a long procession beating gifts to the Shogun at his castle in Edo near Mt. Tsukuba. Tsukubaru (つくばる) is also an old poetic form meaning to crawl. To “obsequiously come” if one wants to pontificate. Submissive is clearer. Ah, but the shogun too makes his homage to Mt. Tsukuba.

Basho was 35 when this was written. He too had come to Edo a few years earlier, seeking fame if not fortune.

the Dutch Captain,
must come to Mt. Tsukuba
each Spring

the Dutch Captain
comes crawling (to the Shogun)
in Spring

甲比丹も. つくばはせけり . 君が春
kapitan mo . tsukuba wa sekeri . kimi ga haru

— Tosei (Matsuo Basho), Spring 1678

the Dutch captain also	甲比丹も.	kabitan mo
to Mt. Tsukuba must come	もつくばはせけり	Tsukuba wa sekeri
each Spring	君が春	kimi ga haru

Pi Day

endless numbers flow,
a circle’s secret message,
Pi enough for all
— Bashō no yōna, Pi Day

Pi (π) is a mathematical representation, approximately 3.14159, of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The sequence of digits do not repeat in any predictable pattern. Thus, Pi is an irrational number, meaning the numbers go on and on to the end of time without ending.

How Dao!

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 …

Interesting facts:

The frequency of numbers will average out the more decimals that appear. Numbers will occasionally repeat consecutively, numbers will appear consecutively. Since the sequence is infinite, every possible combination will appear. Thus, one will see a Fibonacci sequence (“12321” at position 3,632) or a palindrome (“2002” at position 12,563). See the monkey paradox.

Basho was no mathematician. Basho did not focus on numbers. But Basho’s fame comes from his mastery of the haiku. The form is characterized by its 5-7-5 syllable structure.

Basho on numbers. This was written in 1678, the 5th year of the Enpo era, when Basho was 33 or 34 years old. Basho had not yet taken on the name Basho. Rather, his pen name was Tosei meaning “unripe peach.” To support himself he was working for the waterworks department in Edo. His haiku appeared in a work called 江戸吟三 Edo Sangin, literally meaning Three Hundred Verses from Edo. It is a collection of 300 verses edited by 信徳 (Shintoku) including haiku by Tosei (Basho) and Shinsho (Sodo). It was written in Edo and published in Kyoto.

Kadomatsu —
The New Year’s pine —
To think,
One night feels like thirty years.

門松やおもへは一夜三十年
kadomatsu ya omoeba hitoyo sanjuunen
— Tosei (Matsuo Basho) New Years, 1678

Note. Kadomatsu (門松), literally gate (門) and pine tree (松). It is a New Year’s decoration made of pine, bamboo, and occasionally flowering plum branches. It is placed at the entrance (gate) of the home to welcome the toshigami (年神), the New Year deity, who brings good fortune. What’s in a name? Notice Basho’s family name was Matsuo 松尾.

omoeba (おもへは), I think, to think, in my thoughts. I like to think Basho’s thoughts had something to do with René Descartes (1596 – 1650) or maybe Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662) and his Pensées, but that is highly unlikely.

What was Basho thinking?

“The past is prologue,” as Shakespeare said. And what’s to come, one might ask. Basho would literally write the future.

Will this be the year
this unripe peach ripens
in the sun of summer?
Bashō no yōna, 2025

No Bells

The End of March, 2nd year of Genroku, 1689
Kanuma City, Tochigi Prefecture,
Oku no Hosomichi

鐘撞かぬ.里は何をか.春の暮
kane tsukanu . sato wa nani o ka . haru no kure
When no bell rings
What do the villagers do,
— Spring Nightfall
Matsuo Basho, Oku no Hosomichi, late Spring 1689

What do you do when no bell rings to tell you its sunset?

After leaving Edo, this was Matsuo Basho’s fifth or sixth stop on his five month long journey, Oku no Hosomichi. Bell ringing at dusk is symbolic in the Buddhist religion. The ringing of the bells (or bell,m depending on the wealth of a village and its temple) is to purify the heart of its 108 earthly desires. Each stop, each village bell, on Basho’s journey, one supposes was shedding one earthly desire. At the very least, the bell told the farmers it was time for rest and relaxation.

Basho had not yet gotten to Nikko. Desiring to see Urami Falls, he took a detour. Indeed, he would take many detours along the way.