Background:
“Hiraizumi” is one of about 40 prose passages in Matsuo Bashō’s classic travel journal, Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Some, like “Hiarizumi” are accompanied by haiku, others not.
Basho was weeks into a journey into Japan’s northern interior. He arrived at Hiraizumi, once home of the Fujiwara clan. Fujiwara no Hidehira c. 1122-1187) was the third ruler of the Fujiwara clan. He sheltered the samurai Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who fell out of favor with his brother Minamoto no Yoritomo. In 1187, the ruler Hidehira died, but not before exacting a promise from his son to continue to shelter Yoshitsune. 1189, Yoshitsune’s brother Yoritiomo surrounded the Fujiwara castle with his troops. Yoshitsune committed seppuku and Yoritomo destroyed the castle, killing Hidehira’s son, ending, as Basho says, “three glorious generations” of brave warriors.
Hiraizumi: A Haibun by Matsuo Basho
It was here that the glory of three generations of the Fujiwara family passed away like a snatch of empty dream. The ruins of the main gate greeted my eyes a mile before I came upon Lord Hidehira’s mansion, which had been utterly reduced to rice-paddies. Mount Kinkei alone retained its original shape. As I climbed one of the foothills called Takadate, where Lord Yoshitsune met his death, I saw the River Kitakami running through the plains of Nambu in its full force, and its tributary, Koromogawa, winding along the site of the Izumigashiro castle and pouring into the big river directly below my eyes. The ruined house of Lord Yasuhira was located to the north of the barrier-gate of Koromogaseki, thus blocking the entrance from the Nambu area and forming a protection against barbarous intruders from the north. Indeed, many a feat of chivalrous valor was repeated here during the short span of the three generations, but both the actors and the deeds have long been dead and passed into oblivion. When a country is defeated, there remain only mountains and rivers, and on a ruined castle in spring only grasses thrive. I sat down on my hat and wept bitterly till I almost forgot time.
summer grasses
all that remains
of soldiers’ dreams
Notes:
Visit the Terebess Asia Online (TAO) website to see a full text of Oku no Hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North).
Hiraizumi Prose translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa, Haiku translated by L. Stryk.
Background information taken from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a Matsuo Basho Blog.
Ray Rasmussen: All Things Haibun Blog 