Taneda Santoka 種田山頭火
1926 · Taisho–Showa Japan · Setting out as a wandering beggar monk, carrying a heart he could not untangle
Pushing in, and pushing further in: still green mountains.
分け入つても分け入つても青い山Free-verse haiku, in the collection Somokuto
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In the same thread
Ibn Battuta ابن بطوطة
June 1325 (dictated 1355) · Tangier, Morocco
I was alone, with no companion whose company might cheer me and no caravan to join, moved by a firm resolve in my soul and a longing for those noble sanctuaries hidden deep in my breast. So I made up my mind to leave my dear ones, women and men, and I left my homeland as birds leave their nests. My parents were still living, and it weighed on me sorely to part from them; I, like them, was afflicted by the separation. I was then twenty-two years old.
منفردا عن رفيق آنس بصحبته، وراكب أكون في جملته، لباعث على النفس شديد العزائم، وشوق إلى تلك المعاهد الشريفة كامن في الحيازم. فحزمت أمرى على هجر الأحباب من الإناث والذكور، وفارقت وطني مفارقة الطيور للوكور. وكان والداي بقيد الحياة فتحملت لبعدهما وصبا، ولقيت كما لقيا من الفراق نصبا وسني يومئذ اثنتان وعشرون سنةThe Travels (Rihla) of Ibn Battuta, the opening
Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉
1689 · Edo Japan
The months and days are travellers of eternity, and the years that come and go are voyagers too.
月日は百代の過客にして、行き交ふ年もまた旅人なり。Oku no hosomichi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), the first sentence
Seneca Lucius Annaeus Seneca
c. AD 63 · Roman Empire · To a friend whose gloom would not lift however far he travelled
It is your mind you must change, not the sky above you.
Animum debes mutare, non caelum.Letters to Lucilius 28
Ibn Fadlan ابن فضلان
winter 922 · Abbasid Baghdad · On the way to the Volga, wintering in Khwarazm
I would come out of the bathhouse, and when I got into the house I would look at my beard and it was one solid lump of ice, so that I had to hold it close to the fire.
ولقد كنت أخرج من الحمام فإذا دخلت إلى البيت نظرت إلى لحيتي وهي قطعة واحدة من الثلج حتى كنت أدنيها إلى النارThe Travel Account (Risala) of Ibn Fadlan
Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉
October 1694 · Edo Japan · At an inn in Osaka, four days before he died
Sick on a journey, my dreams go wandering over withered fields.
旅に病んで夢は枯れ野をかけめぐるHis last haiku
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