3/10/07

Station 7 - Kurobane


I arrived safely at the town of Kurobane, and visited my friend, Joboji, who was then looking after the mansion of his lord in his absence. He was overjoyed to see me so unexpectedly, and we talked for days and nights together. His brother, Tosui, seized every opportunity to talk with me, accompanied me to his home and introduced me to his relatives and friends. One day we took a walk to the suburbs. We saw the ruins of an ancient dog shooting ground, and pushed further out into the grass-moor to see the tomb of Lady Tamamo and the famous Hachiman Shrine, upon whose god the brave archer, Yoichi, is said to have called for aid when he was challenged to shoot a single fan suspended over a boat drifting offshore. We came home after dark.

I was invited out to the Komyoji Temple, to visit the hall in which was enshrined the founder of the Shugen sect. He is said to have travelled all over the country in wooden clogs, preaching his doctrines.


Amid mountains mountains of high summer,
I bowed respectfully before
The tall clogs of a statue,
Asking a blessing on my journey.

6 comments:

The Lone Beader® said...

I forgot to tell you that I'm enjoying all of the printed background fabrics you're using=:)

Miss*Laurence said...

This one is very mysterious. Good idea to add some notes as well. Please tell me if these are from "A Narrow Road to the Interior" or "The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches"? Thanks for looking at my work too.

beadbabe49 said...

thanks, lb!

yes, ml...that's exactly what they're from....I'm doing an interpretation of all 44 "stations" from this website, but the major translation is the sam hamill book (which isn't online)...

http://www.uoregon.edu/~kohl/basho/index.html

beadbabe49 said...

I started writing about this piece on my january 8 blog, if you're interested in how it started.

beadbabe49 said...

I'd like to comment on your typekey blog miss laurence, but it requires me to register and then tells me I'm already registered...sorry!

Miss*Laurence said...

Hello!
Thanks for these, I read your 1st post, I kow what you mean with translation, being a linguist myself - I'll have to be careful what version I buy.
I've disabled typekey regsitration for comments on my blog, hopefully it should help. I do not understand all these blogging systems either, they seem rather temperamental, sometimes I have to type the security word 3 times before they let me publish. Anyway I will carry on reading with you and enjoying your work.