I stopped at Akashi while sailing to Suma. I believe it was the middle of the fourth month.

        takotsubo ya    the octopuses in the pots
    hakanaki yume wo    dream fleeting dreams
        natsu no tsuki    under the summer moon

This work features a foreword followed by a haiku poem. The region of Akashi has long been famed for its delicious summer bounty of octopuses. The names Akashi and Suma also conjure up poetic allusions related to ancient court culture, as epitomized by The Tale of Genji. Furthermore, these places have stimulated the literary imaginations for generations through tales such as the legend of Matsukaze and Murasame, the inspiration for the Noh play Matsukaze. This haiku by Basho focuses on octopuses, a summer theme. It describes the creatures lightly closing their eyes and drifting off to sleep, all without a thought for what tomorrow may bring. Basho is probably using the octopuses as metaphors to shine a light on the human condition.

This visit to Suma occurred in the fourth month of Genroku 1 (1688), at the end of the journey described in Oi no kobumi (Knapsack Notebook). In this journal, in the preface to this haiku, Basho declares his intention to lodge in Akashi. However, in a letter to Soshichi (Ensui), Basho wrote of his plan to return from Akashi to stay in Suma. As such, it appears Basho actually stayed in Suma, not Akashi, with this reference to a stop-over in Akashi long understood as an act of poetic license. It seems Basho skillfully planned to implant a literary image in the mind of his readers by combining the image of octopus pots with that of a summer night in Akashi.

Haiku Poem with a Headnote was shown in 1944 at a large retrospective held in Iga-Ueno (Mie Prefecture; Basho’s hometown) to commemorate three hundred years since the poet’s birth. The exhibition also traveled to Tokyo and Osaka. A catalogue for Iga-Ueno was originally planned, with photos even taken for this purpose, but its publication was scrapped due to a scarcity of resources during the war. When these unused photos were rediscovered after the war, the haiku scholar Okada Rihei stated that “the images included invaluable photos of things that may have perished during the war, and we therefore decided to collect and publish them.” This volume was published under the title Sho-o iho (Legacy of Master Basho, Dohosha, 1979). Okada included the list of works from the Iga exhibition in 1944 at the end of Basho no sho to ga (Calligraphy and Painting by Basho), a complementary volume to Sho-o iho. From this list we know the hanging scroll at the time belonged to Wada Kyuzaemon, a prominent landowner from Osaka.

Matsuo Basho (haiku poet; 1644–1694)
A native of Iga Province (today Mie Prefecture), Basho initially served his local feudal lord but in 1666 abandoned his warrior status and moved to Edo. He first mastered the Teimon style and then the Danrin style of haikai poetry, but eventually left the urban poetry circles. Elevating the status of the hokku (starting verse of a linked verse session, now known as haiku), Basho established his own Shofu style. Many of his works reflect is his travels in rural or remote areas.