Everything has its beginning and end.
The same is true of the Japanese master of haiku in the Edo period that spanned over two hundred and fifty years from early 1600.
A haiku in Japanese, written in five-seven-five form, is composed of 17 syllables. Today, it is increasingly popular around the world. A classical Japanese haiku should include a seasonal term.
Matsuo Basho had set out northward on a hundred-fifty-day long journey from Fukagawa in 1689, according to published records by his and others. He was 46 at the time.
After selling his humble reed-thatched cottage near the Sumida River, the great haiku poet temporarily stayed at the villa owned by Sugiyama Sanpu, one of his disciples in the city of Edo (present Tokyo).
Sanpu, a wealthy fish wholesaler and one of the talented disciples, supported financially his master who had lived in Fukagawa for 14 years.
At present, a bronze statue of Basho in travel attire in those days stands at the site called “Saito-an, the place where Basho had departed from.
After wrapping up the 2,400-kilometers’ (1,500 miles) travels, it took five years for the haiku master to finish off “Oku no Hosomichi” (The Narrow Road to Oku). Some scholars say that Oku in this context means deep north, but others state that the traveling by the great poet was intended to go deeply into the world of haiku, or both.
In 1694、Basho passed away at age of fifty-one in Osaka.
The Saito-an is five minutes’ walk from the A-1 exit of Kiyosumi-Shirakawa subway station in the capital’s Koto City. Elsewhere nearby, there are several interesting spots to visit connected with the haiku poet.
Go to the Basho Museum website at; https://www.kcf.or.jp/basho/
by kozo
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