涼しさやほの三日月の羽黒山 suzushisa ya / hono mikazuki no / Haguro-yama “Such coolness — a faint crescent moon over Mount Haguro.”
Bashō had climbed dressed as the ascetics do, a yūshime cord at the neck and a hōkan wrapping the head, so the 涼しさ (coolness) is at once the literal relief of mountain air against the lowland summer and the felt sanctity of the place; ほの三日月 (the faint third-night crescent) gives the thin, understated brightness suited to that purity, set against the dark mass implied by 羽黒 (“black-wing”). An editorial reading takes the three verses together as praising the pure bearing of the three mountains as they shift through morning, noon, and evening. KyoushhuMie
雲の峰幾つ崩れて月の山 kumo no mine / ikutsu kuzurete / tsuki no yama “How many cloud-peaks have crumbled away — the moon mountain.”
The towering summer thunderheads (雲の峰) break apart to leave the serene bulk of Gassan, “the moon mountain,” standing; the crescent of the Haguro verse and the moon-mountain here knit the two by the lunar motif.
語られぬ湯殿にぬらす袂かな katararenu / Yudono ni nurasu / tamoto kana “Of Yudono, not to be spoken — and so my sleeves are wet.”
Pilgrims were forbidden to speak of what passed at Yudono, and Bashō, ascending that solemn place, wet his sleeves with tears of awe. Sora added his own Yudono verse — Yudonosan / zeni fumu michi no / namida kana — and the set is preceded by the Minamidani verse, arigata ya / yuki o kaorasu / Minamidani.
Descending from Gassan toward Yudono, Bashō passes the smiths’ hut and writes: the smiths of this province select sacred water, purify themselves there, forge their blades, and finally cut the signature “Gassan,” and so are esteemed by the world; it is said they quench their swords in the Ryūsen spring, revering the old example of Kanshō and Bakuya, and one sees their devotion to the Way runs deep.
The reach for Ryūsen (the Longquan spring) and for Kanshō and Bakuya — the legendary Chinese smith husband and wife who presented a sword to the king of Wu — is itself notable for your purposes: even Bashō frames the Dewa smiths through a Chinese sword-legend, the same gravitational pull toward Chinese provenance we saw in the Denrinbō material, here purely as poetic homage rather than a lineage claim.
