TRAVELS WITH… MATSUO BASHO

與松尾芭蕉去旅行

Philosopher JULIAN BAGGINI on the pilgrimage of Japan’s greatest haiku poet

與松尾芭蕉去旅行

哲學家朱立安巴吉尼暢談日本俳聖的行腳之旅

This is a new series where we travel with great historical figures. Journey one: philosopher JULIAN BAGGINI experiences Japan with its greatest haiku poet 在個這 全新系列裡，我們將與偉大的歷史人物同遊。哲學家朱立安巴吉尼選擇與日本最偉大的俳句詩人同行，展開一場東瀛深度遊，踏出旅程第一步

IN 1689, JAPAN’S greatest haiku poet, Matsuo Basho, set off on a five-month, 2,000 kilometre journey from Edo (now Tokyo) into the northern interior and back down the opposite coast to Ogaki, in Gifu prefecture. This, the last of many long walks, resulted in a short haibun, a mixture of poetry and prose, called Oku no Hosomichi, or The Narrow Road to the Interior, a Japanese literature classic.

Today, tour companies offer trips that follow Basho’s route – but to truly follow in his footsteps, you need to walk as he did. Basho’s pilgrimage, like those of many Japanese, is more about the journey than the destination. He walks to reflect and to pay more attention to the people, the nature and the culture he encounters.

The Narrow Road to the Interior is not a guide to northern Japan. It is a universal guidebook to every kind of journey we make through life. As one of the first sentences puts it: ‘Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.’ In travel, we are reminded that the stability of a home is an illusion and that nothing is permanent. ‘ With every pilgrimage, one encounters the temporality of life,’ writes Basho.

This is evident in the way that Basho responds to the various monuments and ruins he encounters. For instance, on finding how little remained at the ancient ruins of a samurai castle, Basho writes a haiku:

Summer grasses: all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.

Powers that seem mighty, armies that are thought undefeatable, all are destined to end up fertilising the grass. This, however, should not breed cold-hearted indifference to the dreams and aspirations of the living. Basho’s eyes became glazed with tears at Maru Hill, when he saw a castle in ruins and abandoned family graves. The lesson? We should come to terms with our mortality without losing our sense of sadness at the passing of life.

Visiting ancient sites connects us with those before us. Basho captures this beautifully at a hard-to-find monument, Tsubo-no-ishibumi in northern Honshu’s Miyagi prefecture, built in 724. ‘ The past remains hidden in clouds of memory,’ he writes. ‘Still it returned us to memories from 1,000 years before. Such a moment is the reason for a pilgrimage: infirmities forgotten, the ancients remembered, joyous tears trembled in my eyes.’ We stand on the same ground as people long gone: so near and yet so far from them.

Basho’s writing is filled with a deep humanity. Near the beginning of his journey at Soka, in present-day Saitama prefecture, he observes that his pack is ‘made heavier by farewell gifts from

1689年，日本最偉大的句俳 詩人松尾芭蕉由江戶（現今的東京）出發，展開歷時五個月的2,000公里長征，深入日本北陸，折再 返西岸，南下至岐阜縣的。大垣 這段旅程為芭蕉多次徒步長途旅行劃上休止符，並催生出薈萃詩歌和散的文 短篇「俳文」集《奧之細道》，成為日本文學經典。

現在，不少旅行社提也 供按照松尾芭蕉的行腳路線為藍本的行程，但要真正跟隨詩人的，足跡 就得跟他一樣，腳踏實地前行。與許多日本人一樣，芭蕉的朝聖之旅重點是旅程本，身 而非目的。地 他在路上進行反思，並細心留意沿途遇見的、人 大自然環境和當地文化。

《奧之細道》並非介紹日本的北部 旅遊天書，而是一本引導我們走過人生各種旅程的用通 指南。如序言所述：「日日行役而以旅次為家」，旅行令我們記起安穩園家不過幻夢一場，沒有事物能夠亙古不變，芭蕉說道：羈「然 旅邊地之行腳、捨身無常之觀念。」

這種思緒明顯見於芭蕉目睹眾多遺蹟和廢墟後抒的發 感嘆，例如當他眼見屯堡舊跡只餘頹垣敗瓦時，就寫下俳句：

夏草萋萋將士用求命 仁夢幻一場

威風一時的強權，攻無不克的，軍隊 終將淪為滋養的。，夏草 泥土 然而 這並不表示我們應該對生者的夢想和抱負漠不關心。當芭蕉來到丸山，目睹寂寞淒清的古城和無