Page:Japanese Literature (Keene).pdf/24

12 impressions and perceptions. These are the diary, the travel account, and the book of random thoughts, works which are relatively formless, although certainly not artless. The charm and refinement of such works may be illustrated by one of the travel accounts, The Narrow Road of Oku, by the seventeenth-century poet Bashō. This work begins:

“The months and days are the travellers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers. Those who float away their lives on boats or who grow old leading horses are forever journeying, and their home is wherever their travels take them. Many of the men of old died on the road, and I too for years past have been stirred by the sight 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. At last the year drew to its close. When spring came and there was mist in the air, I thought of crossing the barrier of Shirakawa into Oku. Everything I saw suggested travel, and I was so possessed by the gods that there was no controlling my mind. The spirits of the road beckoned, and I found I could do no work at all.

“I patched up my torn trousers and changed the cords on my bamboo hat. To strengthen my legs for the journey I had moxa burned on my shins. Then the thought of the moon at Matsushima began to occupy my thoughts. When I sold my cottage and moved to Sampū’s villa, to stay there until I started on my journey, I hung this poem on a post in my hut.