The Narrow Road to Oku

The travel journal The Narrow Road to Oku (Oku no hosomichi) consists of a series of impressionistic sketches, interspersed with brief poems, that describes Basho’s five-month journey around the remote northern part of Japan’s main island (Honshu), which he made with his disciple Sora in 1689. Its apparent simplicity conceals great artfulness, as evidenced by the fact that after his return Basho spent the next four years or more continuing to refine the text, which was only published after his death in 1694 at the age of 50.

The style that Basho was distilling as he worked on The Narrow Road to Oku is known as haibun. Basho was a haikai poet—the word “haiku,” which we now use to designate the seventeen-syllable poems he wrote, was only coined in the late 19th century—and the term haibun refers to the combination of haikai poetry and prose that we find in this work. Presenting a poem together with a brief prose passage to give it context had been common for many centuries before Basho began to evolve his haibun style, but he developed it into a unique art form. We tend to read Basho’s haibun as prose interspersed with poems that serve to illustrate the narrative, but for Basho and his predecessors, the poems themselves were the natural core of the writing.

Basho started experimenting with this form years before he came to compose Oku no hosomichi, writing short, quirky prose passages that presented a situation (someone cooks him a dish of water parsley; a friend visits on a snowy night; he makes himself a clumsy rain hat), that culminate in one or sometimes two haikai poems. In the four travel journals he wrote before The Narrow Road to Oku, he began combining small pieces into a loosely continuous work that presented highlights of the journey, haikai style, in little intense glimpses with a poem or two that crystallized the moment’s experience. The evolution of his haibun had begun, though he didn’t use the term until he was working on The Narrow Road to Oku; by then, he was at last beginning to understand the form’s full potential.

It’s easy to see the evidence of this evolution in The Narrow Road to Oku. Although sometimes translated into continuous prose, it is essentially a collection of separate episodes of varying length, almost all culminating with a poem or two. Each one is its own little world, and no two are alike. The only sense of continuity comes from the progress of the journey: Each episode can and should be savored on its own rather than simply read as part of a continuous narrative. The text asks the reader to slow down, to pause and focus, just as a haiku does. Its constant shifts of style, tone, and mood, and the contrast between dark and light, playfulness and solemnity, mundane and spiritual, keep surprising the reader from one section to the next.

The publication in 1943 of the recently discovered diary of Basho’s traveling companion Sora revealed just how much Basho had adjusted the facts when he compiled The Narrow Road to Oku. Dates, places, weather, the order and details of events, and above all the poems composed on their journey—so much had been altered or invented that many people were shocked. Scholars were prompted to look more closely at what lay behind this artifice, for example, the echoes of the complex rules of linked verse (renku), the communal poetic composition that Basho and his followers practiced. (The poems included in The Narrow Road to Oku are actually hokku, the initial seventeen-syllable verse that launches a session of linked verse composition.) Simple though it seems, this brief travel journal consists of layer upon layer of delicate craft.

–Meredith McKinney

***

The days and months are time’s eternal travelers, and travelers too are the years that come and go. Those who float their lives away on boats, or greet old age walking before a horse, spend their days in travel and travel is their home. Many men of old died on the road, and for years now I too have felt the lure of drifting wind-torn clouds. Driven by the urge to wander, I roamed along the seacoast; then in the autumn of last year I cleared the cobwebs from my ramshackle hut by the river, and as the year drew to its end, a yearning grew in me to cross the northern Barrier of Shirakawa as the spring mists lifted. Possessed and restless, the wayside gods beckoning me on, I patched my tattered leggings, replaced the cord of my traveler’s hat, and burned moxa to give my legs new strength, while Matsushima’s famous moon hung in my heart. Then, leaving my home in the care of a young family, I moved nearby to Sanpu’s house to prepare for the journey.

On the pillar of my hut I hung the first sheet of a hundred-link set.

Time for my hermit’s hut
     to change too—
now a home for dolls

***

It was now toward the third month’s end, the early dawn sky hazy, the moon grown pale, Mount Fuji a vague shape in the distance. When will I see again the famous blossoms of Ueno and Yanaka? I thought wistfully. Friends had gathered the evening before and now came on board to see us on our way. When we left the boat again at Senju, thoughts of the countless miles ahead overwhelmed me. Each moment is a parting of ways in this phantom world of ours, yet I wept salty tears now to say goodbye.

Spring passes—
    birds cry, fishes’
eyes swim with tears

This was the first poem I recorded for the journey, my spirits still reluctant to set out. People lined the road as we went, surely watching until our departing figures disappeared.

***

On the thirtieth we stayed the night at the foot of Mount Nikko.

The inn-keeper here told us that his name was Buddha Gozaemon. “Honesty is my policy in all things,” he explained, “which is why people gave me this name. You can relax and feel perfectly safe to spend the night here.”

What manner of buddha was this, to manifest in our wicked world and aid poor pilgrim monks such as ourselves? I wondered. I watched him curiously, and found him to be indeed a simple, guileless fellow, unwaveringly honest. This was a man such as Confucius spoke of, “near to virtue in his unaffected integrity,” someone to be revered for his innate purity of heart.

***

At close to noon, we borrowed a boat and set out to see famous Matsushima. About five miles away, we arrived on the shore of the little island of Ojima.

Now it has long been said but is none the less true that the scene of the islands of Matsushima is the finest in Japan, rivaling the famous Chinese landscapes of Dongting Lake and West Lake. The sea’s entrance lies in the south east, opening into a sheltered bay about seven miles wide, whose brimming waters call to mind China’s great Zhejiang River. There are countless little islands, some that point heavenward, others that crouch low upon the waves. Layer upon layer of island, now doubled, now trebled, here separate and there linked together; islands that seem to bear another on their back, others embracing, as a loving parent would enfold a child; the pines a rich dark green, their branches twisted by the playful sea breeze as by some craftsman’s hand. The scene is deeply enchanting, as captivating as a beauty’s painted face. Perhaps it is the work of the mountain gods of old. What artist or poet’s brush could ever do justice to this marvel of divine creation?

We landed at Ojima, which reaches out from the mainland to form an island jutting seawards. The remains of Zen Master Ungo’s hut and the rock on which he meditated are to be found there. A few hermits were living quietly in little brushwood huts beneath the shady pines, smoke rising from their fires of dry pine needles and cones, and though there was no telling what manner of people they might be, I felt drawn to approach them, when suddenly the moon spread its light over the sea, transforming the daylight scene.

Returning to the shore we sought out lodgings. There on the upper floor, with the windows open, we seemed to sleep among the wind and clouds, a strange and marvelous sensation.

Sora composed:

Ah, Matsushima!
    Cuckoo you must borrow
the crane’s elegance here

As for myself, awe sealed my lips. I tried to sleep, but could not. When I left my old home on this journey, Sodo had composed a Chinese poem on the topic of Matsushima as a parting gift, and Hara Anteki presented me with a Japanese poem on the same subject. Now I undid my traveler’s sack to make them my companions for this evening, along with hokku given to me by Sanpu and Jokushi.

On the eleventh we paid our respects at Zuigan-ji Temple. Thirty-two generations ago, Makabe no Heishiro founded this temple upon returning from China where he took Buddhist vows, having gone there to deepen his practice. Its seven buildings have since been splendidly rebuilt thanks to the virtuous influence of Zen Master Ungo. The walls of gold leaf and the inner sanctum’s ornaments all glitter brilliantly, making it seem that Buddha’s paradise is embodied here in this grand hall. Where now is the temple of the long-ago hermit Kenbutsu? I wondered.

***

In the land of Yamagata there is a mountain temple by the name of Ryushaku-ji, a beautiful, serene place founded by the high prelate Jikaku. People assured us that it deserved to be seen, so we went back about seventeen miles from Obanazawa to visit it.

We arrived when it was still daylight. After finding pilgrims’ lodgings at the foot of the hill, we climbed up to the temple. It was perched high on a mountain of boulders, set among ancient pines and cypresses that grew from yet more ancient earth and rocks velvety with moss. High up on the boulders, the temple doors were all closed, and the place was utterly silent. We circled it, clambering over the boulders, and prayed at the Buddha Hall. The whole splendid scene awed me with its hushed sanctity.

Stillness—
    the cicada’s voice
pierces deep into rock

***

On the third day of the sixth month we climbed sacred Mount Haguro.

We first called on a man called Zushi Sakichi who introduced us to Egaku, the mountain sect’s Acting Abbot, and stayed in the temple’s Minamidani lodgings, where the master took wonderful care of us.

A haikai gathering was held at the Abbot’s quarters on the fourth.

Deep thanks
    for this pure waft of snow
at Minamidani

On the fifth we prayed at the holy Gongen shrine on Haguro’s summit.

I don’t know when the founder of this mountain temple, Saint Nojo, may have lived, but the early Engishiki mentions a shrine called Satoyama in this area, and perhaps this “sato” is a mistranscription of a similar character in the name Haguro. Dewa, the area’s name, is written with characters meaning “feathers come from it,” and the ancient records apparently state that this originates in the feathers once sent by this region as tribute taxes.

Haguro and the nearby mountains of Gassan and Yudono are together known as The Three Sacred Mountains. Haguro’s temple is affiliated with the Edo Toeizan sect; here the moon of the Tendai meditation teachings shines bright, and the lamp of instant and complete enlightenment burns unwavering. The mountain is crowded with monastic buildings, the monks are fervent in their ascetic practice, and all worship with wonder and awe the divine power of this sacred place. The glory of this marvelous mountain will surely last through all eternity.

On the eighth day we climbed Gassan, or Moon Mountain. Decked in the mountain pilgrim’s sacred white paper garlands, heads wrapped in white cloth, we climbed with our guide, a rugged mountain porter, for twenty miles through mountain cloud and mist, treading over snow and ice, until it seemed we were entering the very cloud gates to the circling sun and moon. When, frozen and gasping, we arrived at the summit, the sun was setting as the bright moon rose. Spreading rough bamboo grass for bedding and pillows, we lay and waited for the morning light.

The sun rose, the clouds vanished, and we made our way down to Yudono.

In the valley as you descend is an old swordsmith’s hut. This swordsmith sought out the sacred mountain water to purify himself and forge his fine swords, which he inscribed with the name “Gassan,” swords that have been renowned throughout the land. He harks back to those famous Chinese swordsmiths of old, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, who forged their swords in the waters of the Dragon Springs. Such achievement brings home to us the power of deep dedication to a calling.

As I sat resting on a rock, I noticed a little late-flowering cherry tree about three feet high whose blossoms were barely open. Admirable flowers, waiting here buried deep in snow, remembering the spring for so long. It was as if the fabled plum blossoms flowering in the mid-summer heat were perfuming the air around me, and I was yet more moved when I recalled the monk Gyoson, who was so touched to find the flowering cherry among the peaks of sacred Omine.

The rules of this mountain forbid any detailed account of it to others, so I will write no more.

When we returned to our temple lodgings the Acting Abbot asked us to compose some poems on our Three Mountains pilgrimage. On poem cards we wrote:

Summer coolness—
    a faint crescent moon
over Mount Haguro

*

Towering clouds
    dissolving over and over—
Moon Mountain

*

Yudono—
    there is no telling
these tears

♦

Excerpts from The Narrow Road of Oku by Basho, translated by Meredith McKinney, copyright © 2026 by Meredith McKinney. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.