Introduction

'The months and days are travellers of a hundred ages, and the years that come and go are wanderers too.' In the spring of 1689, at forty-six, Bashō sold his hut and set out from Edo on foot with his disciple Sora for the far north of Japan and the Hokuriku coast, a journey of some hundred and fifty days and two thousand four hundred kilometres. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is his account of it, prose interwoven with haiku: at the old battlefield of Hiraizumi he wrote 'Summer grass: all that remains of warriors' dreams'; at the Ryūshaku temple, 'Stillness: the cicada's cry soaks into the rocks.' It is a summit of classical Japanese literature, regarded as the spiritual homeland of the Japanese, and countless travellers still follow Bashō's footsteps today.