by Dr Tim Chilcott

TRANSLATIONS OF  MATSUO BASHO: OKU NO HOSOMICHI (THE NARROW ROAD TO  THE DEEP NORTH)

Part III

<白川の関>

心許なき日かず重るまゝに、白川の関にかゝりて旅心定りぬ。いかで都へと便求しも断也。中にも此関は三関の一にして、風騒の人心をとゞむ。秋風を耳に残し、紅葉を俤にして、青葉の梢猶あはれ也。卯の花の白妙に茨の花の咲そひて、雪にもこゆる心地ぞする。古人冠を正し、衣装を改し事など、清輔の筆にもとゞめ置れしとぞ。

卯の花をかざしに関の晴着かな   曾良

Day after day had passed in vague uneasiness; but now we approached the Barrier at Shirakawa, and, for the first time, I felt that our journey had truly begun. I could understand why the poet¹ had felt at this spot that he wanted to send word to the people in the capital that he had crossed the  Barrier.

      As one of the Three Barriers tothe north, Shirakawa has always appealed to poets and writers. Yet even as I delighted in the green leaves of the trees, an autumn wind seemed to sound in my ears, and crimson leaves danced in my mind’s eye. The whiteness of deutzia, the white rambling roses, made us feel as if we were crossing the Barrier in snow. According to Kiyosuke,² people of long ago straightened their hats as they crossed, and changed their clothes. Sora wrote:

                        sprigs of deutzia  

                                    adorn our hats – formal dress

                                                for the barrier

<須賀川>

とかくして越行まゝにあぶくま川を渡る。左に会津根高く、右に岩城相馬三春の庄、常陸下野の地をさかひて山つらなる。かげ沼と云所を行に、今日は空曇て物影うつらず。

すが川の駅に等窮といふものを尋て、四五日とゞめらる。先白河の関いかにこえつるやと問。長途のくるしみ身心つかれ、且は風景に魂うばゝれ、懐旧に腸を断てはか％＼しう思ひめぐらさず。

風流の初やおくの田植うた

無下にこえんもさすがにと語れば、脇第三とつゞけて、三巻となしぬ。

此宿の傍に、大なる栗の木陰をたのみて、世をいとふ僧有。橡ひろふ太山もかくやとしづかに覚られてものに書付侍る。其詞、

栗といふ文字は西の木と書て西方浄土に便ありと、行基菩薩の一生杖にも柱にも此木を用給ふとかや。

世の人の見付ぬ花や軒の栗

We passed the Barrier and crossed the Abukuma River. On our left, the peak of Aizu soared up high; on our right, the districts of Iwaki, Sōma and Miharu stretched out; behind us, the range of hills that separated the provinces of  Hitachi and Shimotsuke. We passed Kagenuma [Shadow Pond], but the sky was overcast that day, and so there were no reflections.

      At the post town of Sukagawa, we visited a poet called Tōkyū, who put us up for four or five days. The first thing he asked was, ‘How did you feel as you crossed the Barrier at Shirakawa?’ I replied that the hardships of our long journey had exhausted me in body and spirit. Enchanted by the beauty of the landscape, and so much moved by the memories of the past that it awakened, I had not been able to compose a decent poem. Yet it would be a shame to let the crossing go unrecorded. So I wrote:

                        imagination’s 

                                    birth! a song for planting rice

                                                in the deep far north

From this opening, we added a second verse and then a third, until we had completed three sequences.

      On the outskirts of the town, in the shade of a huge chestnut tree, there lived a monk who had turned his back upon the world. The lonely quietness of his hermitage reminded me of another place deep in the mountains, where horse chestnuts had been gathered. I jotted down a few words:

The character for ‘chestnut’ means ‘west tree’, indicating its connection with the Paradise to the West. It’s said that the priest Gyōgi used the wood all his life for his walking-sticks and the pillars of his house:

            people in the world    

                        hardly notice these blossoms –

                                    chestnuts by the eaves

<あさか山>

等窮が宅を出て、五里計桧皮の宿を離れてあさか山有。路より近し。此あたり沼多し。かつみ刈比もやゝ近うなれば、いづれの草を花かつみとは云ぞと人々に尋侍れども、更知人なし。沼を尋、人にとひ、かつみ／＼と尋ありきて日は山の端にかゝりぬ。二本松より右にきれて、黒塚の岩屋一見し、福嶋に宿る。

Some twelve miles or sofrom Tōkyū’s house, just beyond Hiwada, is Mount Asaka. It rises up close to the road, and there are many marshes round about. It was almost the season for picking katsumi iris. We kept on asking, ‘Which plant is the flowering katsumi?’ But no-one knew. We wandered about the marshes, asking everyone the same question, till the sun sank behind the rim of the hills.

      We turned off to the right at Nihonmatsu, paid a hasty visit to the cave at Kurozuka, and stopped for the night at Fukushima.

<忍ぶの里>

あくれば、しのぶもぢ摺の石を尋て忍ぶのさとに行。遥山陰の小里に石半土に埋てあり。里の童部の来りて教ける。昔は此山の上に侍しを往来の人の麦草をあらして此石を試侍をにくみて此谷につき落せば、石の面下ざまにふしたりと云。さもあるべき事にや。

早苗とる手もとや昔しのぶ摺

The following morning, we set off to Shinobu in search of the Fern-print Rock. We found it half buried in the soil of a remote hamlet over-shadowed by a mountain. Some village children came up and told us that, in the old days, the stone had stood on top of the mountain. But the people who went up there to rub the cloth on the stone with ferns had torn off leaves of barley too. The farmers had become so annoyed, they had pushed the stone down into the valley – which was why it was now lying upside down. The story was not impossible:

                        hands planting seedlings

                                    were hands once rubbing patterns

                                                with ferns, long ago

<佐藤庄司旧跡>

月の輪のわたしを越て、瀬の上と云宿に出づ。佐藤庄司が旧跡は左の山際一里半計に有。飯塚の里鯖野と聞て尋／＼行に、丸山と云に尋あたる。是庄司の旧館なり。梺に大手の跡など人の教ゆるにまかせて泪を落し、又かたはらの古寺に一家の石碑を残す。中にも二人の嫁がしるし先哀也。女なれどもかひ％＼しき名の世に聞えつる物かなと袂をぬらしぬ。堕涙の石碑も遠きにあらず。寺に入て茶を乞へば、爰に義経の太刀弁慶が笈をとゞめて什物とす。

笈も太刀も五月にかざれ帋幟

五月朔日の事也。

We crossed the river by the ferry at Tsukinowa [Moon Halo] and arrived at a post-town called Senoue [Rapid’s Head]. The ruined mansion where Satō Shōji had once lived was about four miles away on the left, close to the mountains. We were told it was at Sabano, in the village of Iizuka. We asked directions as we went along, until we came to a place called Maruyama. This was where the warrior’s house had stood. They told us that the Great Gate had been down at the foot of the mountain, and my eyes glazed with tears. Still standing at an old temple nearby were the tombstones of the family. The most moving were the memorials to the two young wives.³ Women though they were, they left behind them such a name for courage. My sleeve was wet with tears. You do not have to go so very far away to find a tombstone that makes you weep.⁴

      We went inside the temple to ask for tea, and saw that, among its treasures, were the sword of Yoshitsune and the satchel-basket that Benkei carried:

                        both sword and satchel

                                    shown for Boys’ Festive Day, when

                                                paper banners fly

It was the first day of the fifth month [18 June].

¹why the poet:  an allusion to a poem by Taira no Kanemori (d. 990), in which he expresses the wish to tell the people in the capital that he had crossed the Barrier. For him, as for Bashō, the Shirakawa Barrier clearly represented an emotional and psychological crossing-point, as well as a simple geographical frontier. 

²Kiyosuke:  a writer (1104-77), whose book on poetics records the tradition of changing clothes upon crossing the Shirakawa Barrier.  

³the two young wives:  a reference to the widows of two warrior brothers, Satō Tsugunobu (1158-85) and Tadanobu (1161-86). After their deaths, to console their mother, the two widows are said to have donned soldiers’ armour to pretend they were her sons returning in triumph. 

⁴atombstone that makes you weep: the tombstone in question was built by local people in honour of Yang-hu (221-78), an especially respected governor. All who saw it could not help weeping there.  

Reprinted from Tim Chilcott LITERARY TRANSLATIONS (www.tclt.org.uk).

Until his retirement, Tim Chilcott was Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of Chichester, England. He has maintained a lifelong interest in English Romantic literature, particularly the work of John Clare, about whom he has written extensively. His other major research interest is literary translation, and his website devoted to translation can be accessed at www.tclt.org.uk. This currently comprises some forty major works of world literature, by over twenty different writers.