This passage begins with a problem. Basho says they spent the night of the Thirtieth of the Third Month at the hostel of Honest Gozaemon, but the fact is that there were only twenty-nine days in that month. Many efforts have been made to explain this discrepancy. Some have suggested that in Japanese script it would be easy to confuse "Misoka," the thirtieth with "Kono hi," today. Others have suggested that in rewriting his notes, Basho simply forgot how many days there were in the Third Month that year. Sora's diary says they spent the night of the 29th at Kanuma and that on the First Day of the Fourth Month they arrived at Nikko where they stayed at the lodging of a man named Gozaemon. In Basho's version of events they stayed the night with Gozaemon and visited the Toshogu Shrine the following day, but actually it was the other way around: they passed through Nikko visiting the shrine on the way to Gozaemon's hostel. What is clear is that Basho was deeply impressed by the character of the man Gozaemon. He not only accepts his sobriquet of Hotoke Gozaemon, Gozaemon the Buddha, but he also refers to him as an honest, "shojiki" person. This is the same term Basho uses later to describe the painter Kaemon in Sendai and it was clearly a quality Basho highly esteemed. It is also clear that Basho was deeply impressed by the magnificience of the Toshogu Shrine. He may have felt that the effect of his account would be lessened if he described both experiences on the same day. By the same token, to have the visit to the holy site at Muro no Yashima followed directly by a visit to another impressive religious site would seem repetitive and uninteresting. Basho may have altered the order of events to maintain the level of interest in his account.

The scriptures tell us that Bodhisattvas are liable to be reincarnated in this world in all sorts of manifestations and Basho ironically wonders just what sort of self-proclaimed Buddha this man really is. Basho is delighted to overcome his skepticism when he realizes that the man really is scrupulously honest. One of Basho's purposes in making this trip was to have the opportunity to encounter simple, unsophisticated people in remote places; this provides a necessary balance to his own social and artistic sophistication. On this trip Basho's first encounter with this sort of simple, rustic person was here on the approaches to Mount Nikko. The hostel itself was extremely rude with very simply food and accomodations, but Basho did not mind so much about those things; he was more interested in the character of the master of the house. One of the reasons Basho had chosen to live in Fukagawa in Edo was that he liked the simple, honest people he found there who made their livelihood by hauling water and chopping firewood. In this passage we can see Basho's reaffirmation of these basic human values.

One thing that distinguishes this work is that it is not simply a travel account of places visited on certain dates; from time to time we see the appearance of individuals who have made a powerful impression on Basho, and this is one of them. In contrast, Sora's diary simply relates the facts: On the First Day of the Fourth Month they left Kanuma and went to Nikko. Sometime after three in the afternoon they visited the Toshogu Shrine. They spent that night at the lodging of a man named Gozaemon. That is all. Basho, on the other hand, focuses on Gozaemon's character and his own response to it. He lifts the encounter out of its sequential place and creates a special situation of its own where there is nothing to distract from it. Basho also takes the trouble to describe himself as a mendicant pilgrim, the same sort of person as Gozaemon.

Basho prefaces his visit to Nikko with a complicated story about the origins of the name and how it came to be changed from Niko to Nikko. Originally the mountain was called Futarayama. Although there is some disagreement about the orgins of this name, it eventually came to be written with two Chinese characters meaning "two storms." According to one story there was an opening in the rocks on the side of the mountain which erupted twice a year in the spring and the autumn. The blast levelled forests and houses and could be felt throughout the country until the great saint Kukai or Kobo Daishi climbed the mountain and gave it the more benevolent name of Nikko meaning "sun's brightness." Since that time there have been no eruptions. Actually Mount Nikko was first established as a holy site by the priest Katsudo Shonin, a native of Haga in Shimotsuke. In 767 he climbed the mountain and named it Fudarakusan after the home of Kannon, Goddess of Mercy. This name Fudaraku was later corrupted to Futarayama. Katsudo built a hermitage on top of the mountain and eventually the Emperor Kammu heard of this saintly man and sent him to a high position in the country of Ueno. There is no historical evidence to show that Kukai changed the name. By the late Heian period there are documents using the present Chinese characters for the name, but earlier than that we cannot be sure what it was called.

It often happens that the poems Basho includes in his diary are revisions of poems he wrote on the spot and by looking at the changes he made to put them into final form we can get some idea about Basho's poetic technique and style. There are several versions of the Ara touto poem. The earliest version goes:

Aratouto/ ko no shita yami mo/ hi no hikari.
"It is with awe/ That I beheld/ Even in the darkness beneath the trees/ Bright rays of the sun."

We know from Sora's diary that the day they spent at Nikko was one of overcast and intermittent rain. Why, then, does Basho use this image of brilliant sunlight in his poem? For one thing, of course, the name Nikko inspired it; the last line, hi no hikari is a Japanized way of spelling out the name Nikko. The following day when they visited Urami no taki falls was clear and sunny and since, as we have seen, Basho revised the poem later, he may have chosen to incorporate his impression of fresh, green leaves that he experienced later. In any case, as always, Basho wants to create a mood and share a feeling rather than state a fact.

One reading of the poem sees it as an expression of respect for the Tokugawa family and their august rule. It may seem odd for a person in Basho's position of such self-conscious social aloofness to be singing the praises of the political authority of the age. We should keep in mind, however, that prior to Basho's time there had been centuries of civil war and turmoil, but under the Tokugawa rule there was universal peace and order. As a man of his age, Basho was appreciative of this and did not seem to have felt any doubts or contraditions in his stance and his poem. Also, he had been born to the samurai class and did not necessarily feel resistance toward the military government. This sets Basho quite apart from his contemporaries Ihara Saikaku and Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Basho did not feel compelled to resist secular authority, he was aloof from it.

Mount Kurokami is another name for Nantaisan which rises above Nikko. The slopes are covered with ancient trees which makes it appear black when seen from a distance, hence the name. The snow on its peak is one of the eight famous views of Nikko, but the image as Basho uses it also sets up a contrast between the black mountain and the white snow. But the contrast is both maintained and resolved in the sense that both Sora and the mountain have changed their garb and yet they are different in the sense that one has hair

When Basho says that on the morning of their departure Sora took the tonsure and changed his name to characters with a religious significance, we have only Basho's word for this. One wonders why Basho made no mention of it at the time; perhaps he felt that an account of Sora's situation at that time would detract from the tension and sadness of their leavetaking. But when Basho draws our attention to the final lines of Sora's poem he is emphasizing the totality of his companion's transformation; he has changed his name, changed his hair, changed his clothes, he is a new person!

The season word in Sora's poem is the last line, "clean summer clothes," and indicates summer. This changing from spring to summer clothes traditionally takes place on the First Day of the Fourth Month, so the change is a seasonal matter, but adding to this the change from secular to religious garb with its implications of leaving the world behind, makes the event even sadder. The sense of change here is complex: Sora cut off his own black hair when he took the tonsure, changing also into the black garb of a priest, and leaving the world behind by setting out on this trip. On this day he has reached the foot of Mount Kurokami which reminds him of his own former hair (and status in the world), and because it is the first day of summer, he changes from spring to summer clothing, just as he had changed from secular to religious garb. Add to this the image of the black mountain topped with snow which has not made the transition from spring to summer as Sora has done.

Since this poem does not appear in any of Sora's personal poetry collections and because it is so central to Basho's narrative purpose, some commentators have suggested that Basho wrote it and merely attributed it to Sora, although the poem does appear in some collections attributed to Sora.

Urami no taki Falls is one of the three famous sights of Nikko. On a cliff behind the waterfall is an outcropping with a space hollowed out behind it. By following a narrow path along the face of the cliff, one could reach this space and view the turbulent water fall from behind. In typical fashion, Basho's description of the power of the falls uses an allusion to a poem by Li Po. He also uses a contrast of numbers involving hundreds and thousands; the water falls undreds of feet and breaks upon thousands of rocks below. This whole dscription of the falls uses many words read with their Sinified pronunciations which is thought to create an onomatapoetic effect which replicates the sound of the falling water.

Basho's poem not only celebrates the waterfall, it deals with the matter of new perspectives and with religious austerities. The practice he refers to here is a religious austerity where one takes a vow of not setting foot outside one's room during the summer. During that time one does not eat meat, and devotes oneself to reading and copying the sutras. This practice typically begins on the 16th of the Fourth Month and lasts until the 16th of the Seventh Month, hence the last line, "the beginning of summer austerities."

The middle line of the poem, "taki ni komoru" means "to be surrounded by the waterfall." This usually refers to the practice of standing beneath the waterfall to have one's impurities washed away. Here, however, Basho seems to use the phrase in the sense of feeling surrounded by the falling water. According to a local legend, one must be purified before entering the grotto behind the waterfall, otherwise, one would be ripped to pieces by the Tengu demon who lived there.

So, as he stands in the grotto looking at the waterfall from behind, Basho feels he is surrounded and enclosed by the water. He regards this as a symbolic form of summer seclusion that purifies him and it also changes his perspective.

One of Basho's purposes for making his journey was to get away from what was familiar so that he could gain a fresh perspective on the world. Here, in a very literal sense, he has a new perspective: seeing the waterfall from behind.