Basho begins his diary with a philosophical statement about impermanence and the inevitability of change and thereby locates himself in the working of the cosmos. He also contrasts his situation with that of normal people of the world. He speaks too of his motivation and preparations for setting out on this arduous trip.

"Days and months are the travellers of eternity." This is an allusion to an essay by the Chinese poet Li P'o, a work which was popular in Japan in Basho's day. This particular passage seems to have struck a responsive chord in Japanese readers and we find it quoted by several of Basho's contemporaries including the novelist Ihara Saikaku and the poet Oyodo Michikaze. Li P'o's line says, "The heavens and the earth, all the cosmos, dwell in the realm of change. Light and darkness, the sun and the moon, likewise, are eternal travellers. This floating world is but a dream and all human pleasures are fleeting." This opening line with its allusion serves as a homily which will be illustrated in the rest of the account.

Having established the days, months and years as emblematic of universal, cosmic motion, Basho turns to commonplace examples of human endeavor which reflect the same cosmic process; the sailor on a freight ship and the teamster with his horse also spend their lives in travel. By choosing an example from the sea and balancing it with one from the land Basho maintains the universal scope of his statement. In the following sentence he again shifts, this time to speak of the ancients who died on the road. Here the reference is to the celebrated poets of the past; Tu Fu and Li P'o from the Chinese tradition, and Saigyo and Sogi from the Japanese tradition. All were great poets whose work Basho admired, and all died on the road. In typical fashion Basho has balanced the rustic freighter and teamster with the great poetic geniuses of the past, the rustic and the refined. The whole cosmos is in motion, ordinary people as well as ancient poets are subject to this same imperative, and so it is only natural that Basho, likewise, should be seduced by the drifting cloud and be "filled with a strong desire to wander." This is less a willful choice than an acceptance of the inevitable.

By likening himself to the ancient poets, Basho makes it clear that he will be willing to accept the very real possibility of death on the road. Basho says he is not sure when he became obsessed with the urge to travel, but his disciple Sokaku says that in 1682 when Basho was 39 years old a great fire swept Edo and the Bashoan was destroyed. According to Sokaku this event made Basho realize that his own dwelling was no different from the burning house of the Buddhist parable, and from that point he resolved to live without a fixed dwelling which is simply a worldly attachment.

When Basho speaks of returning from a ramble along the coast, he is referring to the trip he recounts in his sketch Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel. On that journey he walked along the beaches of Wakanoura, Suma, Akashi, and other places along the Inland Sea. In this work movement in space is always reflected by movement in time. When Basho speaks of the spring mist rising, he is using a kakekotoba, a pivot word, that reads both haru tateru, spring passes; and tateru kasumi, the mist rises. This passage in both its meanings is also linked to Basho's yearning to be at the barrier of Shirakawa when the spring mist lifts, and it is also linked with a later phrase, kokoro wo kuruwase, which means that he is being driven mad with the urge to travel when he sees the mist rise and the spring sky appear. The frozen inertia of winter has passed and the time for spring emergence is at hand. Again, Basho is being driven by cosmic forces rather than by exertions of willful choice.

Consistent with his main theme, Basho has very smoothly presented us with a succession of time statements: last fall, the end of the year, the passing of spring. The movement in time is, as always, connected with movement in space. Last fall it was a ramble on the Inland Sea shore, this spring it will be int the northern mountains to Shirakawa and beyond. When Basho says the spring mist makes him yearn to cross the barrier gate of Shirakawa, he is making an allusion to a poem by the itinerant priest-poet Noin who has a poem in the Goshuishu which says that he set out from the capital with the spring mist and arrived at Shirakawa with the autumn wind. Basho, too, is setting out from the capital and heading for Shirakawa.

Basho speaks paradoxically about how the gods have motivated his decision to travel. He refers to two types of gods. The first is Sozorogami. There is some uncertainty about this word which appears to be one Basho invented for appears nowhere else in Japanese literature. It seems to indicate a deity who bewitches one to aimless travel, a god who causes him to feel restless. On the other hand are the Dosojin, deities who protect travellers. Dosojin are customarily placed at the entrances to villages, at mountain passes, crossroads, or bridges to prevent evil influences or evil spirits from passing. They also guard the boundary between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Thus he presents one deity (Sozorogami) who infects people with the urge to travel despite the dangers involved, and another (Dosojin) who protects people who do travel.

Having presented a rationale for travelling and having detailed all his preparations, Basho finally tells us how he sold his house and freed himself from that tie to a specific place. Basho's hermitage, the Bashoan, had been given to him by his disciple and patron Sampu. Now, in preparation for this trip and not being certain whether he will return or not, Basho sold the house to a man named Hiraemon who had a wife, a daughter, and grandchildren. Basho used the money he received from the sale of the house plus additional money he raised by selling examples of his calligraphy and poetry to finance this trip.

Basho's poem again presents a set of contrasts. He tells us he wrote the first eight segments of a linked verse sequence. A hundred-poem sequence was conventionally written on two sheets of paper folded into fours. The front side of the first sheet contained the first eight verses of the sequence. The poem given here is the first of the eight. What the other verses were and whether a full 100 poem sequence was written, we do not know. In hanging up the poems, Basho refers to his dwelling as a hermitage buried in deep grass, the sort of place suitable for a priest or hermit. It may seem odd that Basho would leave behind these poems in a home he was vacating, but he was acquainted with the people who were moving in and he evidently wanted to share the poems with them.

In the poem itself Basho refers to the dwelling with its new tenants as hina no ie, a doll's house. There are several interpretations of this phrase. One argues that this was toward the end of the Second Month when many shops and stalls were selling dolls for the Doll Festival celebrated on the Third Day of the Third Month. Some have suggested that an entrepreneur rented Basho's house to use temporarily as a shop for selling festival dolls. Because it was filled with dolls as merchandise, Basho speaks of it as a doll's house. Another interpretation is that having a new family unpack and set up housekeeping here is like unpacking the dolls for the annual festival, hence the reference. A third interpretation suggests that the dwelling itself was so small it was no larger than a doll house. It seems most likely, however, that the new residents in making themselves at home, had unpacked their dolls and set them up on display giving the place a festive air quite different from the austere hermitage of the poet-recluse. Certainly Hiraemon, having a wife and family, was quite a different man than Basho. He had not abandoned the world or worldly things; he celebrates family and festival.

In the end we see a whole set of contrasts; the thatched hermitage in the deep grass and the gaudy doll's house, the home of the recluse becoming the home of a worldly man, and austerity (indicated by the thatched roof) contrasted to lavishness (indicated by the dolls). There is a gentle humor here as Basho considers his own condition in contrast to the situation of the man who has replaced him as master of the Bashoan. Even this austere dwelling can be made festive as all things are governed by change.