Matsuo Bashō seated on a stone step outside a Japanese mountain temple

Where the cicadas’ voices enter the rock

Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694), a Japanese poet, tells the story of a journey through the north of Japan in Oku no hosomichi. Near Yamagata he hears of a mountain temple well worth visiting. He retraces part of his route and finds a place to stay at the foot of the mountain before he begins to climb. By the time readers reach the poem, the prose has given them a sense of distance, of the steep ascent and of the hour of day.

The ascent to the temple

Bashō climbs between rocks and old trees. Earth and stone seem ancient, and the moss covering the rocks is smooth. The doors of the small buildings are shut. After all the things that have caught the traveller’s eye on the way up, his attention comes to rest on a single sound.

Such stillness! Into the rocks sinks the voice of the cicadas.

– Matsuo Bashō, Oku no hosomichi, o. J., fol. 31.[1]

The opening evokes stillness. Then a voice is heard that ought, one would think, to break it. The verse follows that sound to a point beyond which no ear could follow. It seems to enter the rock. There is no need to see a single cicada to feel how thoroughly its call occupies the place.

Listening to a mountain

An echo would return the sound to the traveller. Bashō gives it another direction. It moves inwards, finding a depth that seems capable of receiving it. For a moment the rock acquires something of the listener’s own capacity. Someone else’s recommendation brought the traveller here. What he takes away comes from pausing to listen for himself.