The moon and sun are travelers of a hundred generations. The years, coming and going, are wanderers too. Spending a lifetime adrift on boat decks, greeting old age while holding a horse by the mouth—for such a person, each day is a journey, and the journey itself becomes home.

Do not follow the ancient masters, seek what they sought

Traveler’s heart
Never settled long in one place
Like a portable fire.

On the twenty-seventh of the third month, the daybreak sky was suffused with haze; even though the moon at dawn loses much of its light, the peak of Fuji was faintly visible, and I was uncertain when again I might see the flowering treetops of Ueno and Yanaka.

This year, the second year of Genroku it must be, I casually though of making a pilgrimage over a long road to Oshu and, even while realizing that I could end up regretting my hair turning white under the sky of Wu, I gambled on the slim, uncertain chance of returning alive from a place of which I had heard but hadn’t seen with my own eyes.

The months and days are wayfarers of a hundred generations, and the years that come and go are also travelers. Those who float all their lives on a boat or reach their old age leading a horse by the bit make travel out of each day and inhabit travel. Many in the past also died while traveling. In which year it was I do not recall, but I, too, began to be lured by the wind like a fragmentary cloud and have since been unable to resist wanderlust, roaming out to the seashores. Last fall, I swept aside old cobwebs in my dilapidated hut in Fukugawa, and soon the year came to a close; as spring began and haze rose in the sky, I longed to walk beyond Shirakawa Barrier and, possessed and deranged by the distracting deity and enticed by the guardian deity of the road, I was unable to concentrate on anything. In the end I mended the rips in my pants, replace hat strings, and, the moment I gave a moxa treatment to my kneecaps, I though of the moon over Matsushima. I gave my living quarters to someone and moved into Sampu’s villa.

On the twenty-seventh of the third month, the daybreak sky was suffused with haze; even though the moon at dawn loses much of its light, the peak of Fuji was faintly visible, and I was uncertain when again I might see the flowering treetops of Ueno and Yanaka.

The months and days are wayfarers of a hundred generations, and the years that come and go are also travelers. Those who float all their lives on a boat or reach their old age leading a horse by the bit make travel out of each day and inhabit travel. Many in the past also died while traveling. In which year it was I do not recall, but I, too, began to be lured by the wind like a fragmentary cloud and have since been unable to resist wanderlust, roaming out to the seashores. Last fall, I swept aside old cobwebs in my dilapidated hut in Fukagawa, and soon the year came to a close; as spring began and haze rose in the sky, I longed to walk beyond Shirekawa Barrier and, possessed and deranged by the distracting deity and enticed by the guardian deity of the road, I was unable to concentrate on anything. In the end I mended the rips in my pants, replaced hat strings, and, the moment I gave a moxa treatment to my kneecaps, I thought of the moon over Matsushima. I gave up my living quarters to someone and moved into Sampu’s villa.

This year, the second year of the Genroku it must be, I casually thought of making a pilgrimage over a long road to Oshu and, even while realizing that I could end up regretting my hair turning white under the sky of Wu [a far away place], I gambled on the slim, uncertain chance of returning alive from a place of which I had heard but hadn’t seen with my own eyes.