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Chapter 2
Genji Gossip (Plus a Bit of Good Advice)
“CRITICISM,” ONE EMINENT CRITIC WRITES, “is in effect—or should be—what happens when people get excited about works of art and want to share that excitement with others.”1 The texts in this chapter are the earliest known discussions of The Tale of Genji. They are also, in the most literal sense, exactly the sort of “criticism as conversation” described here as ideal. They are the record of people (probably women) who are excited about The Tale of Genji and are sharing their excitement with one another.
We already have glimpsed the scenes of some of this discourse: the Bureau of Romances at the court of the Great Kamo Priestess; Sei Shōnagon happening upon the empress’s gentlewomen “absorbed in an argument over which of the romances were good and which bad”; and the “picture contest” in which “this sort of women’s talk” raged back and forth as they disputed the merits and demerits of the Tales of Ise and the Tale of Jōsanmi. The appearance of The Tale of Genji could only have made the conversation livelier.
Yet because it was nothing but “women’s talk” (onna-goto)—mere “gossip” as we have termed it here—very little of what was said about Genji survives. The earliest record of any discussion of The Tale of Genji is in a work of fiction entitled A Nameless Notebook (Mumyōzōshi), which dates from about 1200. Thereafter come a few cryptic enumerations of favorite scenes, chapters, characters, and the like, some in the form of lists and others presented as “matches” (awase). Then nothing. The texts collected here are the last gasp of a once lively critical colloquy. With them, the genre died.
For the years that produced this meager record of Genji gossip were also the years in which began a great flood of scholarship that was to produce the first (and still) “definitive” texts of Genji; a sea of commentary (the favored metaphors are of droplets, brooks, rivers, and seas) whose full extent is still unknown; and myriad other tokens of veneration, from allusive poems and apocryphal supplements to learned treatises and reference works. In all, it constitutes the world’s richest record of the reception of a work of fiction. For this we can only be grateful, as we may owe the very survival of The Tale of Genji to it. Yet for all its beneficence, this flood also did some damage. It overwhelmed, and probably drowned, another sort of voice that was beginning to be recorded at about the same time. This was the voice of gossip, which must have been the principal form of attention paid to Genji in the first two centuries of its existence. The canonization of Genji was not achieved without cost.
Genji gossip apparently still has detractors. One modern scholar, whose taste runs to abstraction and theory, denigrates his colleagues who practice “chapter-by-chapter analysis” and “character analysis” of Genji as “repeating the same old tricks,” as do the women in A Nameless Notebook gossiping about “wonderful chapters” and “adorable people.”2 Yet as the critic from whom we borrowed the concept of “criticism as conversation” says, “That is as much a part of what we are as is the making of works of art.”3
T. HARPER
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A NAMELESS NOTEBOOK, CA. 1200
(Mumyōzōshi)
The earliest surviving record of any discussion of The Tale of Genji is found in A Nameless Notebook.4 Although clearly a work of imaginative literature, its portrayal of the tone and matter of this night of animated gossip and good-natured debate is so true to those described in works that do purport to record reality that there seems no reason to doubt its authenticity. This sort of activity must have gone on all the time, and Genji must have been—as it certainly was to this group of women—one of their favorite subjects about which to gossip the night away.
Most of the other works translated in this chapter are irretrievably anonymous and impossible to date, even roughly. In A Nameless Notebook, however, mentions of the names and titles of persons, poetic anthologies, and era designations enable us to date the text with reasonable certainty to 1200/1201 and to identify the author as someone closely associated with the Mikohidari house of Fujiwara no Shunzei and his son Teika. Although Shunzei himself has been suspected to be the author, the most likely candidate is the woman known as the “daughter of Lord Shunzei” (1171–1253?). She actually was Shunzei’s granddaughter. But because her real father had been implicated in the infamous “Shishigatani plot” against the Heike and her mother had returned to service in the household of Princess Hachijōin (1137–1211), their child was raised in her grandparents’ home and thus came to be known as their “daughter.”
The discussion of Genji constitutes about a third of A Nameless Notebook.5
T. HARPER
Some three and eighty years I have passed in vain pursuits, the mere thought of which fills me with grief—that I happened to be born a human in this life and yet have ended up with nothing to show for it in the next.6 In my grief, I shaved my head and donned these dark-dyed robes. In appearance at least, I have entered upon the Way of the Buddha, though in my heart I remain unchanged from of yore. As the months and years mount up, I find it ever more difficult to forget the past and long even more for loved ones from of old; and so often do I break down, secretly weeping silent tears, that these dark sleeves never dry. In search of solace, I set out every morning, basket on my elbow, brushing away the dew as I wend my way through the tussocks in the fields, picking flowers to proffer to the Buddha. Such has been my sole pursuit for so many years that my hair has grown as white as snow and my face has become a sea of wrinkles. Even I myself care less and less to look at the reflection in my mirror, and if the sight is repellent to me, how much the more am I reluctant to be seen by others. Thus it was that as I ambled through the Eastern Hills, following one path and another, picking flowers as I went, the sun setting lower and lower, I realized that I had wandered too far from home to return; I would have to find some place to spend the night.
She finds a charmingly dilapidated villa with a courtyard overgrown with wormwood, “such as the Shining Genji made his way through, brushing away the dew.” She detects the scent of fine incense coming from a chapel and the strains of a koto from inside the main house and then overhears the voices of three or four young ladies who have caught sight of her and are comparing her, quite favorably, with Ono no Komachi and Prince Siddhartha. A moment later, they appear before her and urge her to tell them the story of her life. The old woman begins with a rambling account of her service at court, lapses into a lament about her own current shabbiness and ugliness, recites a bit of the Lotus Sutra, and finally lies down. “Let’s stay up all night and you tell us stories,” the girls say, but the old woman pretends to go to sleep. By this time a few more mature women have joined the group, and they begin to discuss the things they would find the most difficult to do without. For one it is the moon, for another letters, for yet another dreams, and still others tears, the Buddha Amida, and ultimately the Lotus Sutra.7
“Of all things meritorious and efficacious, none of which I could ever describe in indifferent terms, I can think of nothing more magnificent than the Lotus Sutra. After two or three readings, one tires of even the most fascinating and magnificent of illustrated romances. But this [the Lotus] one could listen to in its entirety a thousand times over and every time find it as wondrous as ever, every word as fresh as the first time one heard it—in short, utterly magnificent. For it is not merely that it is, as proclaimed, ‘without equal, without parallel,’ but that ‘the Lotus is first and foremost.’ I shouldn’t have to remind you of this anew, but it can happen that even something as wondrous as this, handed down from ages past, may not be valued all that highly. And yet, when I think how our encounter with it [the Lotus] should call to mind our good fortune in having chanced to be born as humans, I cannot but wonder why, in so magnificent a work as Genji, there appears not a word from a single verse or a single phrase of this scripture. For what else has she failed to write not a single word about? This, it seems to me, is its greatest, and indeed its only, flaw.”
When she said this, the voice of a very young lady spoke up from within the group: “Could it be that Murasaki Shikibu never composed any poems on the Lotus Sutra?”
“Oh come now,” the woman replied, “it seems a pity anyone should think such a thing. Why, even in my own graceless compositions, I make a point of showing that I’ve read the Lotus—not merely for the sake of lives to come, but also lest anyone happening to hear them should think me lacking in sensibility. Yet a person of her stature—how could she possibly have failed to do so? For she appears, after all, to have been a deeply devout woman, fearful of her fate in lives to come, diligent in the performance of her devotions, both morning and evening, and not at all attached to the things of this world.” And thus she began.
“Even so, just to have written Genji! I’ve thought and thought about this, and I find it so amazing that I just don’t see how the karma of a single lifetime could account for it. Indeed, I suspect it is the answer to her prayers to the Buddha. Those tales that came after Genji, I should think, must have been quite easy to write. And one day, someone, following her example, may manage to produce something that surpasses Genji. But with only the likes of Utsuho, Taketori, and Sumiyoshi as examples of what a tale might be, and then to produce something as great as Genji—I just don’t see how it could be the work of a mere mortal.”
And again, the same young voice: “It’s such a pity I haven’t read it yet. Do tell us the story. We’re ever so eager to listen.”
“But how could I tell you such a long story just from memory?” the woman said. “Let me tell it to you when I have a text to consult.” Then they all chimed in:
“Oh, but tell us tonight!”
“Yes, it would be just the thing to dispel the tedium of an evening like this.”
The Chapters of Genji8
“Of all the chapters,” one woman asked, “which do you find the most poignant?” Whereupon, one after another, all the others spoke up.
“Could any chapter possibly surpass ‘Kiritsubo’? From those opening words, ‘In a certain reign (whose can it have been?)…’ on through to Genji’s coming-of-age ceremony—really, what with the beauty of the writing and the matter of the story alone, this chapter is just packed with touchingly poignant moments.”
“The rainy night ranking in ‘Hahakigi’ is fascinating in so many ways.”
“‘Yūgao’ seems to me a totally touching and heartrending chapter.”
“‘Momiji no ga’ and ‘Hana no en,’ each in its own way, are ineffably alluring and lovely chapters.”
“‘Aoi’ is a most touchingly beautiful chapter.”
“‘Sakaki,’ when she [the Rokujō Consort] is about to leave for Ise, is exquisitely beautiful.”
“And after the old Emperor [Kiritsubo no In] passes away and the Fujitsubo Empress becomes a nun—this is particularly moving.”
“‘Suma’ is an exquisitely moving chapter. When he [Genji] is about to leave the capital, and then his life far from home—these are such moving scenes.”
“And in ‘Akashi,’ when he moves from the one shore to the other. Then when he leaves that shore to return to the capital and says:
miyako ideshi haru no nageki ni otorame ya / toshi furu ura o wakarenuru aki
‘Do I lament any less than that spring when I left the capital,
this autumn as I part from this shore of so many years?’
[“Akashi,” 13:259]
When he left the capital, he must have realized that this was not the end of everything, that he would one day return, and in this he must have found much to console himself. But this shore—why would he ever come here again? He must have felt that this was the very last he would ever see of it, so it was only natural that everything should so capture his attention.”
“‘Yomogiu’ is such a charming chapter.”
“In ‘Asagao,’ when Lady Murasaki is in such distress, it is so piteous.”
“In the seventeenth series,9 ‘Hatsune,’ ‘Kochō,’ and some of the others are both beauteous and magnificent.”
“And that morning after the typhoon there were so many alluringly beautiful moments.”
“‘Fuji no uraba’ is a very satisfying and joyous chapter.”
“The ‘Wakana’ chapters, both of them, are full of troubling incidents but fascinating nonetheless.”
“In ‘Kashiwagi,’ the death of the Commander of the Right Gate Guards is very moving.”
“‘Minori’ and ‘Maboroshi’ are replete with deeply moving moments.”
“The other ‘Uji’ chapters are rather different from ‘Kojima.’10 There is the language, and indeed everything else about them…. But the death of the elder Princess as well as the story of the younger Princess are really quite….”
The Women in Genji
The young lady said, “Who are the most wonderful women?”
“The Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe and the Fujitsubo Empress.”
“Lady Aoi has such self-control.”
“And of course, Lady Murasaki.”
“Akashi, too, is so exquisitely refined.”
“As for impressive women, the Oborozukiyo Chief Palace Attendant. When you stop to think that it was on her account that Genji was banished, that is impressive.”
“Impressive, too, when the Emperor says, ‘For which of us do these tears of yours fall?’”11
“The Asagao Princess seems to be a very strong-willed woman. [Genji] is so very persistent, and yet her will remains firm to the end. That I find most impressive.”
“Utsusemi, too! But in her it’s just disgusting. And the way she goes on mingling in society after she becomes a nun; that, too, is distasteful.”
Then someone said, “Why is it that some people say Utsusemi didn’t really give in to Genji, and some say she did?”
“Well, in ‘Hahakigi’ she herself plainly says, ‘Why didn’t I give in to him?’ But sometimes, it seems, people misread this and say she did.”12
“The elder Princess in Uji, now she is really impressive! And Chūjō, in the service of the Rokujō Consort, is impressive for a lady-in-waiting.”
“Now an attractive woman—that would be Hanachirusato. She isn’t at all good looking or imposing, but she holds her own among the finest and is held in no lower regard than any of them. It is she who cares for that earnest young man, the Commandant [Yūgiri], as her own son, which is impressively attractive” [“Otome,” 14:61].
“So yes, she adopts the earnest young man as her ward. But why must a child born to someone as lovely as Lady Aoi have such an ugly foster mother?” She seemed so angry when she said this that everyone burst out laughing.
Again: “You won’t like me for saying this, but I’d call Suetsumuhana attractive. Even when the Deputy Viceroy invited her,13 she firmly refused and would not move from her old home, even though the hardships she endured there might well have killed her. Then, after waiting and waiting, when she sees him [Genji] making his way [through the weeds], murmuring, ‘Does her heart remain as it was before, here in this patch of wormwood?’ [“Yomogiu,” 13:338], she seems to me more magnificent than anyone else. For a woman who was good looking and in every other way exceptional, this would be nothing special. But for a woman of her sort, isn’t this a stroke of fate more miraculous than becoming a buddha?”
“It’s frightening the way the Rokujō Consort so often ventures forth as a malign spirit, but as a person, she is wonderfully refined and attractive.”
“And her daughter, the Empress [Akikonomu no Chūgū], behaves with such superb self-control that she really must be counted among the most refined of women, yet for some reason I just can’t bear her. It’s quite off-putting the way the Genji Minister is so excessively solicitous of her.”
“The young lady Tamakazura I’d certainly describe as attractive. Her looks, her features, her character, her good nature—everything about her is quite what one would expect of a fine lady. Further, to her great good fortune, her fathers, both natural and adoptive, are Ministers of State, each in his own way held in no mean regard at court. As well connected as she was, even as a mere Chief Palace Attendant, she might have inspired the affection of the Reizei Emperor. Or if that was not to be, she should at least have become the wife of the [Hotaru] Prince Minister of War, who had so deeply adored her for so many years. But instead she becomes the wife of that perfectly horrid Commandant Higekuro, who keeps her under such constant close watch that she goes through life unable ever to see that fine man, her adoptive father [Genji]. How very depressing and distressing.”
“Yet it hardly seems she could be kin to so hapless a creature as Yūgao; she is so excessively self-assured and so knowing. It seems to me quite out of place for someone of her sort to tell [Genji] there is ‘no parent in the whole world with feelings the likes of yours.’14 I expect, though, that those years in Kyushu must have been terribly degrading. Even so, for the most part, her demeanor is attractive.”
“A pitiable person—that’s Lady Murasaki. I feel such sympathy for her; she is so to be pitied, and all the people around her are so terribly ill natured. Everyone, from her father, the Prince, to her great-uncle, the Prelate, they’re all so unpleasant. Her stepmother’s attitude is only to be expected in such a relationship, but did she really have to be so mean to someone who was to rise so high in the world?”
“Now Yūgao, she’s just too terribly pathetic. It really doesn’t seem fair that someone like her should have such a shocking daughter, so unlike her mother. Someone of her sort we might remember more fondly had she just passed away, leaving no trace behind her.”
“The wife of that earnest fellow the Commandant [Yūgiri], the ‘New Wisteria Leaves’ lady [Kumoinokari], seems not to have been a woman of any great elegance or beauty, but somehow, from the time he was a boy, he always had a soft spot in his heart for her.”
“And the younger Princess in Uji, she’s just so pathetic. At first she didn’t seem so, but when the Prince Minister of War [Niou] becomes the son-in-law of that earnest young fellow [Yūgiri] and she becomes so despondent, that’s really pitiful. And most of all, every time I read that passage in which she says, ‘For just this touch of scent, are we to be driven apart?’ I feel like my tears will never, ever stop.”15
“The Third Princess we really must describe as pathetic. But then there is that passage when she recites, ‘“Soak your sleeves with evening dew,” do you tell me, as at day’s end…?’ and then says, ‘But as I recall, she tells him to “Await the moon.”’16 Heartrending though this is, it’s somehow offensive when someone so hopelessly ineffectual turns out to have a lascivious side to her. People of her sort are charming only when they are totally childlike and guileless. His Lordship’s discovery of that shocking letter, too, was entirely the result of her own wrongheadedness. Had she given any thought to the situation she was in, the slightest hint that he [Genji] might stay over should have impelled her to urge him on his way. But instead, clever girl that she imagines herself, she puts on her heartbroken act and convinces him to stay—thus giving rise to that dreadful disaster.”17
“The lady at writing practice [Ukifune]—now, she would have to be described as despicable. But being in so many ways extraordinarily troubled, she recites:
kane no oto no tayuru hibiki ni ne o soete / waga yo tsukinu to kimi ni tsutaeyo
‘To the fading echo of the bell pray add the sound of my weeping,
to carry the word to her that my life draws to an end.’ [“Ukifune,” 17:187]
Whereupon she casts herself away, and that is pitiful indeed. When Commandant Kaoru heard of her affair with the Prince Minister of War [Niou], he wrote:
nami koyuru koro to mo shirazu sue no matsu / matsuramu to nomi omoikeru kana
‘Unaware that a time had come when waves would rise above Mount Sue,
I thought only that you must pine for me, true to the end.’
[“Ukifune,” 17:168]
So firm was her resolve that she returned [his letter] to him unopened, saying, ‘You must have the wrong address.’”
The Men in Genji
Again, it was the same young lady who asked, “Who are there among the men?”
“I’m very reluctant to try all over again to assess the merits and demerits of the Genji Minister, but there are so many things about him that one might wish were otherwise. First of all, the Ōuchiyama Minister [Tō no Chūjō].18 From the time they were young, they were inseparable, the closest and most intimate of friends. There’s the rainy night discussion. And then [the time when] he says:
morotomo ni ōuchiyama o idetsuredo / yuku kata misenu isayoi no tsuki
‘Though together we left the palace, the moon above Ōuchiyama,
this sixteenth night, gives no hint where it might now be bound.’
[“Suetsumuhana,” 12:346]
And again when he draws his sword and threatens Genji in the quarters of Gen no Naishi no Suke [“Momiji no ga,” 12:414]. I couldn’t begin to describe all the episodes of this sort. But above all, when [Genji] was living in exile in Suma, [Tō no Chūjō] went there to visit him, undeterred by the trouble it would cause him in that scheming world of the court. Could one ever forget such deep compassion, no matter how many years might pass? And yet [Genji], heedless of this, takes an adopted daughter [Akikonomu], with whom he has no blood relationship, and sets her up in competition with the Minister’s [daughter, the Kokiden] Dame of Honor, a terribly mean-spirited deed [“Eawase,” 13:363–64]. At the picture competition, he produces two scrolls of his own pictures from Suma, which bring about the defeat of the Dame of Honor [“Eawase,” 13:377–78]. That is just too deplorable. And when [Genji] goes to Suma, he does not take Murasaki, who is utterly heartbroken, with him. Then, when you might expect he’d at least be cleansing his mind in the constant performance of devotions, he becomes the son-in-law of the Akashi Novice and spends whole days with this would-be minstrel, playing the koto to his heart’s content as if he hadn’t another care in the world. And later in life, when everything had settled down and you might think he had finished with such things, he starts all over again and takes up with the Third Princess, like a man rejuvenated. As if this weren’t unseemly enough, when he discovers her affair with the Commander of the Right Gate Guards, even though the [young] man is too frightened even to appear in public, he forcibly summons him, teases and toys with him, and finally kills him with his withering gaze. That was a positively malevolent deed. This side of him, it seems to me, is utterly lacking in serene dignity.”
“The [Hotaru] Prince Minister of War strikes me as a man of no outstanding merits or faults. Of all his many brothers, Genji is particularly close to him, and it’s rather charming that he is the first person he consults on any matter whatever. But his failure to persuade Tamakazura is perfectly pathetic.”
“The Ōuchiyama Minister [Tō no Chūjō] is a very fine man. Above all, when he goes to visit Genji in Suma, he is simply magnificent. To be sure, it was cruel of him to cause that earnest fellow [Yūgiri] such pain and distress, yet he does have his reasons. When he relents, giving them his consent without a trace of enmity, he apparently handles the matter very graciously.”
“That earnest fellow the Commandant, though his airs of propriety—so excessive that he hardly seems a youth—are rather chilling, his gravitas surpasses even that of the [Genji] Minister.19 It’s extraordinary the way he is unswayed by the several proposals that come his way and waits patiently until ‘the new wisteria leaves yield.’20 I wonder if even a woman could manage that. But what a shock, years later, when he at last is living with the woman he longed for, he takes up with that unremarkable Princess Ochiba, ruins his reputation for earnestness, and emerges a man transformed.”
“At the outset, the Kashiwagi Commander of the Right Gate Guards is a fine young man. From the time he was known as the ‘Rocky Spring Colonel’21 until ‘the new wisteria leaves yield,’ he is quite quick-witted.22 But how irritating that he should become so infatuated with the Third Princess that he would give his life for her. Both of them [Kashiwagi and Yūgiri] caught sight of her, but the earnest fellow was upset by it, thinking, ‘Oh, no!’ How very disappointing that [Kashiwagi] should be so transfixed by her [“Wakana, jō,” 15:132–35]. When that earnest gentleman caught a glimpse of Lady Murasaki and seemed lost in reverie that morning after the typhoon, he was just splendid [“Nowaki,” 14:268]. When [Kashiwagi] is dying, it is indeed touchingly pitiful, and yet, one wonders, isn’t it rather unseemly that he should feel so sorry for himself? Was it really as bad as all that?”
“His younger brother the Kōbai Grand Counselor at the rhyme-guessing contest when he sings ‘Takasago’ [“Sakaki,” 13:133–34], and in ‘Fuji no uraba,’ when he was called Ben no Shōshō and sang ‘Fence of Rushes’ [“Sakaki,” 14:431], was a wonderfully talented person. In later years, after Genji dies, he behaves quite distastefully, going around grumbling enviously when Commandant Kaoru becomes the son-in-law of the Emperor, rather like the proverbial bat on an island where there are no birds.”23
“Even leaving aside his dallying as a young man (as they say we must), Prince Minister of War Niou is lustful and lascivious to a scandalous degree, all of which is quite unbecoming. It’s rather touching, though, that, having been a favorite of Lady Murasaki, he lives in the Nijō mansion.”
“Commandant Kaoru seems like a totally magnificent man; from beginning to end, there’s not a single thing about him that one would wish otherwise. Even if he were actually the son of the Shining Genji, you’d never expect him to be so when you consider what a hopeless creature his mother the Princess was, as surely you would had Lady Murasaki given birth to him. Rare indeed are the likes of him, whether in stories or, even more so, among people in the real world, whether past or present.”
Then another woman said, “True enough, but isn’t the man somewhat lacking in warmth and passion? It’s a pity, really, that Ukifune and the younger Sumori lady find him less attractive than the Prince Minister of War.”
“That’s not the Commandant’s fault!” another said. “That’s because those women are so horrid; they’re just obsessed with lust. But the Sumori Lady, who is a woman of great refinement, speaks of ‘Niou the cherry and Kaoru the plum,’ which seems to suggest that she finds him [Kaoru] far and away more attractive.”24
Moving Scenes (aware naru koto)
Again it was the same young lady who said, “Well, that gives me a rough idea of what the people are like. So tell me some of the stories that you found moving or magnificent and that made a deep impression on you.”
“Aren’t you a greedy little pest,” someone said, and they all laughed and laughed.
“One touching passage is that in which the Emperor laments the death of the Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe:
The imagination, after all, has its limits, and thus the brush could hardly have done justice even to the lady in the “Song of Everlasting Sorrow.” [This lady’s] looks, more graceful than plume grass bending with the wind, more exquisitely appealing than a little pink wet with dew, could never be adequately described in terms of the beauty of flowers or the song of birds.
tazuneyuku maboroshi mogana tsute nite mo / tama no arika o soko to shirubeku
‘Would there were a wizard to go and seek her out, so that I might know,
if only by report, the place where her spirit resides’ [“Kiritsubo,” 12:111],
His Majesty said, and even after the wicks of the lamps had burned down, he remained lost in reverie, unable to sleep.25
From which you can imagine what the remaining sixty chapters are like.”
“And then there’s the scene of Yūgao’s death: The sky is clouded, the wind is cold, and, sunk in reverie, he murmurs:
mishi hito no keburi o kumo to nagamureba / yūbe no sora mo mutsumashiki kana
‘Gazing at these clouds, thinking them to be smoke from the pyre of my love,
the sky, even on an evening like this, seems dear to me.’ [“Yūgao,” 12:262]
Then he hums ‘Long indeed are these nights.’”26
“When Lady Aoi dies, that too is touching. On the night of the funeral, her father the Minister is distraught, which of course is deeply moving. When [Genji] is about to change into gray mourning, he thinks that if he had died first, she would have worn mourning dyed an even deeper shade, and he chants:
kagiri areba usuzumigoromo asakeredo / namida zo sode o fuchi to nashikeru
‘Bound as I am, these mourning robes are dyed but a shallow shade of gray,
yet my tears plunge these sleeves into a pool of deep purple.’” [“Aoi,” 13:42]
“And then there is the passage: ‘A wild wind blew, the autumn rain poured down while his tears, he felt, raced to outdo the storm. To himself, he murmured, “Has she become rain, or has she become cloud? There is no knowing now.”’27 Whereupon, the First Secretary Colonel [her brother Tō no Chūjō] arrived.
mishi hito no ame to narinishi kumoi sae / itodo shigure ni kakikurasu kana
‘Even the clouded skies above, where she whom I loved has turned to rain,
now darken only the more in this autumnal downpour.’” [“Aoi,” 13:49]
“Another very moving scene is the one in which the little girl, wearing a formal gown dyed a deeper shade of mourning than was usual, is in attendance, looking dreadfully downcast. Quite touched by her, because she is so exceptionally lovely, [Genji] comforts her saying, ‘You may think of me now [as you did of her],’ and she breaks down weeping right there in his presence.”
“And it is poignantly moving when his mourning comes to an end and Genji is to leave. All the ladies, too, who have waited on him these several days, are about to go their separate ways, and each of them laments her parting with him.”
“And when the Minister sees the scraps of paper that Genji has been practicing on and he weeps—everything in this chapter is moving.”
“When Genji departs for Suma, too! The scene in which he goes to Lady Aoi’s old home to take his leave and says,
toribeyama moeshi keburi mo magau ya to / ama no shio yaku urami ni zo yuku
‘Might one mistake them for the smoke that rose from Toribeyama,
the salt maker’s fires on that shore I’m so loath to go and see?’”
[“Suma,” 13:160]
“And when he looks in the mirror to comb his sidelocks and, in spite of himself, is touched by the beauty of his own face, now grown so thin. ‘Am I really as thin as I look in this mirror?’ he says [to Murasaki]:
mi wa kakute sasuraenutomo kimi ga atari / saranu kagami no kage wa hanareji
‘Though my body may wander afar, here by your side, in this mirror
that never leaves you, the image of me shall not depart.’ [“Suma,”13:165]
When he says this, Lady Murasaki’s eyes fill with tears as she looks up at him.
wakarutomo kage dani tomaru mono naraba / kagami o mitemo nagusaminamashi
‘Were it so that even though we part, your image at least remains,
then might I indeed be consoled just looking into the mirror.’”28
[“Suma,” 13:165]
“And at the Lower Kamo Shrine, when he takes leave of the deity:
uki yo oba ima zo wakaruru todomaramu / na oba tadasu no kami ni makasete
‘Now, as I remove myself from this world of sorrows, I commend
to thee, god of Tadasu, the good name I would leave behind.’” [“Suma,” 13:173]
“And at dawn on the day he departs, when Lady Murasaki says:
oshikaranu inochi ni kaete me no mae no / wakare o shibashi todometeshikana
‘How I wish, in exchange for my life, which I would give with no regrets,
I might delay but a moment this parting we now face’
[“Suma,” 13:178];
that was just appalling.29 Even as insignificant a woman as Hanachirusato would seem to have said:
tsukikage no yadoreru sode wa sebakutomo / tometemo mibaya akanu hikari o
‘Narrow though they be, these sleeves of mine wherein dwells the light of the moon,
how I wish they might stay its glow, of which I never tire.’”
[“Suma,” 13:167]
“And when he arrives at that shore, he watches the waves roll in and return to the sea and chants ‘how I envy them…’30 and then, ‘Might these skies that I now gaze on be the same as for her?’”31
“And ‘Mournful autumn winds blew, and though the sea was somewhat distant, the waves that it raised as it “blew down from beyond the barrier,”32 as Viceroy Yukihira had put it, sounded very close indeed.’33 He recites:
koiwabite naku ne ni magau uranami wa / omou kata yori kaze ya fukuramu
‘Waves on this shore, sounding so like my own wailing as I languish here:
does this wind blow from the quarter of those for whom I yearn?’”
[“Suma,” 13:191]
“Then there is the passage in which ‘On the night of the fifteenth of the Eighth Month, he longed to hear the music in the duty room at the palace, and as he recalled times past and thought how they all must be gazing at the moon, he fixed his eyes on the face of the moon and sang, “Two thousand leagues away, the heart of a friend…” ’ ” [“Suma,” 13:194].34
“And the passage, ‘Yes,’ he recalled, ‘the cherry blossoms before the South Hall would be in in full bloom. Only a year ago at the Blossom Festival, how fine the Emperor looked, and the Crown Prince….’ He recited:
itsu to naku ōmiyabito no koishiki ni / sakura kazashishi kyō wa kinikeri
‘Ever and always do I yearn for those people of the great court,
and the more so this day when once I adorned my cap with blooms.’”
[“Suma,” 13:204]
“And then the time when Ōuchiyama [Tō no Chūjō] comes and they compose nostalgic poems for each other and exchange poems in Chinese” [“Suma,” 13:204–8].
“In Akashi, in a letter to [Murasaki at] the Nijō mansion that was even more detailed than usual, he writes:
shioshio to mazu zo nakaruru karisome ni / miru me wa ama no susami naredomo
‘I now break down in a briny flood of tears, for only on a whim
did this fisherman seek his pleasure while gathering seaweed.’
[“Akashi,” 13:249]
Her reply:
uranaku mo tanomikeru kana chigirishi o / matsu yori nami wa koeji mono zo to
‘And to think that in all innocence, I trusted you, for you’d promised:
never would waves wash over the pine-clad hill where I wait.’
[“Akashi,” 13:249]
This is most moving.”
“And all that happens around the time of the death of Kashiwagi, Commander of the Right Gate Guards, is moving. He wants to send a letter to the Third Princess, ‘but his hand trembles so that he gives up trying to write all that he feels.
ima wa tote moemu keburi mo musubōre / taenu omoi no nao ya nokosamu
“Even then when the end is come and smoke rises from my burning pyre,
these unquenchable flames of yearning surely shall remain.
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:281]
Pray tell me at least that you pity me,” he says, “that I may have something to light the dark path I choose to wander.”’ To which she replies:
tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o / omoikogaruru keburikurabe ni
‘How I wish I too might die, that my smoke might rise together with yours;
then could we compare whose flames of sorrow burn the brighter.
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:286]
Do you suppose I shall be far behind you?’ She’s nasty, that Princess!”
“And when his [Kashiwagi’s] father the Minister is rambling on about one thing and another, ‘he looks up at the sky and gazes into the distance. The evening clouds are misted the gray of mourning, and then he notices that the blossoms have fallen from the branches, just today.
ko no shita no shizuku ni nurete sakasama ni / kasumi no koromo kitaru haru kana
“Drenched with tears for the loss of a child, a topsy-turvy spring is this,
that I should be the one to wear the mist-gray of mourning.”’
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:325]
This passage is very moving.”
“As is, I need hardly say, all that happens around the time of the death of Lady Murasaki. The earnest gentleman [Yūgiri] catches a brief glimpse of her lying there after all life had left her.
inishie no aki no yūbe no koishiki ni / ima wa to mieshi akegure no yume
‘Lost in fond memories of that autumn evening so long ago,
and now I see her, departed, as in a dream at dawn.’ [“Minori,” 15:498]
He must be recalling the time he saw her in the confusion after the typhoon.”
“In ‘Maboroshi,’ when he [Genji] hears the gentlewoman say, ‘What a lot of snow has fallen!’ the memory of that excruciating snowy night, as vivid as if it were happening that very moment, fills him with remorse and sadness.35 He recites:
ukiyo ni wa yukikienamu to omoedomo / omoi no hoka ni ware zo hodo furu
‘Though I wish only to vanish, as shall this snow, from the world of pain,
yet as unforeseen as was this flurry, I linger on.’”36 [“Maboroshi,” 15:510]
“And then there’s the passage in which even the room and its furnishings make him feel lonely, and just to look around leaves him forlorn.
ima wa tote arashi ya hatemu nakihito no / kokoro todomeshi haru no kakine o
‘My time is come, I say, yet can I simply let it run to ruin,
this spring garden that she, now gone, cared for so lovingly?’”
[“Maboroshi,” 15:516]
“And when he tears up her letters, to have them made into sutra paper:
kakitsumete miru mo kanashiki moshiogusa / onaji kumoi no keburi to mo nare
‘Naught to be gained gathering up these, like sea grasses, and reading them;
let your smoke join that from her pyre in that same cloud on high.’
[“Maboroshi,” 15:534]
Everything about ‘Maboroshi’ is perfectly poignant.”
“And when the elder Princess in Uji dies, this is touchingly sorrowful. Since there were restrictions, Commandant Kaoru himself did not change into clothes of a different color, but seeing that those women who were particularly close to her had changed into the darkest shades, [he wrote]:
kurenai ni otsuru namida no kai naki wa / katami no iro o somenu narikeri
‘To no avail do I shed these tears, blood-red like my robe though they be,
for never may I dye it the dark hue of remembrance.’ [“Agemaki,” 16:321]
The bell of the temple across the way sounds, moving him to turn his headrest on end and think, ‘So another day has come to an end.’37 And then ‘he sits down on a rock by the garden brook and for a time remains there.’38 He says:
taehatenu shimizu ni nado ka naki hito no / omokage o dani todomezarikemu
‘How is it that these pure waters, which flow on forever, yet retain
no faint reflection of the face of the departed one?’ [“Azumaya,” 17:78]
This is so wonderfully touching; I really do envy her. To have had such a man as this, even if she did have to die, must have been just magnificent. That’s what I think.”
Magnificent Moments (imijiki koto)
“And speaking of things magnificent: At dawn, on one of his secret visits to Rokujō, her gentlewoman Chūjō escorts him out. ‘He draws her aside and sits her down for a moment by the base of the rail outside the corner room….
saku hana ni utsuru chō na wa tsutsumedomo / orade sugiuki kesa no asagao
“Though loath to be known as one who flits to whatever flower is in bloom,
what a shame to pass by without plucking this morning face.
So what shall we do?” he says, taking her hand in his…’ [“Yūgao,” 12:222]
asagiri no harema mo matanu keshiki nite / hana ni kokoro o tomenu to zo miru
‘So you are not inclined even to wait for the morning mists to clear;
I take it then that our flower has no hold on your heart.’
[“Yūgao,” 12:222]
The way her answer deflects his advances seems to me just magnificent.”
“And when he passes the gate of a place he has been visiting secretly, he has one of his guardsmen, who has a good voice, chant:
asaborake kiri tatsu sora no mayoi ni mo / sugiukarikeru imo ga kadokana
‘Lost though I am in the mists that rise in the dim first light of day,
I am loath to pass it by, this gate of my beloved.’ [“Wakamurasaki,”12:321]
After he chants the poem twice, a serving woman of some sensibility comes out.
tachitomari kiri no magaki no sugiuku wa / kusa no tozashi ni sawari shimo seji
‘If indeed you are loath to pass by this rustic fence, shrouded in mist,
then surely this flimsy gate of grass should not deter you.’”
[“Wakamurasaki,” 12:321]
“And ‘Hana no en’ is quite magnificent. Right from the start, when she says, ‘Naught can compare with a night lit by a misty moon,’ everything that happens is most magnificent. And after [the Suzaku] Retired Emperor secludes himself in the mountains, he [Genji] goes back to her again, but it has been a very long time, and he is ill at ease.
shizumishi mo wasurenu mono o korizuma ni / mi mo nagetsubeki yado no fujinami
‘Not that I forget being sunk in Suma, yet neither have I learned:
I’d cast myself again into your wisteria waves.’ [“Wakana, jō,” 15:77]
This, too, seems to me quite magnificent.”
“And all that happens when the High Priestess is about to depart [for Ise] is somehow awe inspiring and impressive.
akatsuki no wakare wa itsumo tsuyukeki o / ko wa yo ni shiranu aki no sora kana
‘Partings at break of day are always dew drenched with tears, and yet this time
the autumn sky is like nothing I have ever known.’ [“Sakaki,” 13:81]
Likewise, when ‘the pine crickets chirp to one another as if they understand the occasion.’”39
“And when she asks, ‘Who, when I am far off in Ise?’40 That, too, is magnificent.”
“As I mentioned briefly before, everything at the time he is banished is utterly magnificent.”
“And when he passes the palace of the Hitachi Princess, he recalls that ‘this is a grove I’ve seen before’ [“Yomogiu,” 13:334], whereupon he alights from his carriage and sends Koremitsu ahead to clear the way. When he says, ‘This wormwood certainly is dewy,’ he [Genji] thinks, sorrowfully,
tazunetemo ware koso towame michi mo naku / fukaki yomogiu no moto no kokoro o
‘Search though I must, I shall find out for myself whether in these trackless
depths of wormwood, her heart remains as once it was of yore.’
[“Yomogiu,” 13:338]
So saying, he proceeds further, with Koremitsu leading the way, brushing the dew from the wormwood, guiding him in. Say what I may, no words can describe how splendid this is.”
“The morning after the typhoon, when Genji and that earnest young man the Commandant [Yūgiri] go around looking in on his several women, is just splendid. The quarters of the [Akikonomu] Empress are particularly lovely. In the [Akashi] Princess’s quarters, it is most impressive when he requests an inkstone and paper and writes a letter. He feels a bit awkward when he takes the inkstone and begins to write, but then he decides that needn’t trouble him.41 His [Yūgiri’s] feelings [for Kumoinokari] must have been quite intense.
kaze sawagi murakumo mayou yūbe ni mo / wasururu ma naku wasurarenu kimi
‘Even on this evening when the wind rages and thick clouds roam the sky,
not for a moment do I, can I, forget you, my love.’ [“Nowaki,” 14:275]
Then he ties [the letter] with a piece of autumnal grass, whispers something, and sends it off. Just superb! There are also a great many superb scenes involving the sisters at Uji, but it would tiresome of me to go on like this.”
Pitiful Scenes (itōshiki koto)
“Lady Murasaki when he [Genji] departs for Suma.”
“In ‘Otome’ when she [Kumoinokari] is berated as being destined to marry a man of the sixth rank, she murmurs to herself, ‘The wild geese high above in the clouds; do they, too, feel as I do?’42 The earnest young man, standing outside, hears this and says, ‘Is Jijū with you? Pray do open up!’ [“Otome,” 14:42]. This passage is quite pitiful.”
“In ‘Wakana,’ Lady Murasaki is sleeping alone, her sleeves soaked with tears and frozen stiff, lying there in a state of desolation. At daybreak he comes back and knocks; she pretends to be asleep and her people don’t open the door” [“Wakana, jō,” 15:62–63].
“The morning after the younger of the Uji Princesses [receives] Commandant Kaoru for the first time [since her marriage], he sends to her:
itazura ni waketsuru michi no tsuyu shigemi / mukashi oboyuru aki no sora kana
‘So thick is the dew on this path down which I’ve made my way, all in vain,
that the autumnal sky calls to mind those days long ago.’ [“Yadorigi,” 16:419]
When [her husband] the Prince Minister of War [Niou] arrives, he takes her to task for the scent [of Kaoru] that permeates her robes. She doesn’t even bother to answer him, which irritates him, and he says,
mata hito mo narekeru sode no utsuriga o / waga mi ni shimete uramitsuru kana
‘This scent on your sleeve, so intimate has it become with someone else,
pierces my very being, arouses me to anger.’ [“Yadorigi,” 16:424]
The lady,
minarenuru naka no koromo to tanomeshi o / kabakari nite yakakehanarenamu
‘This robe, this intimacy we share, in which I have placed all my trust:
is it to be cast aside for such a trifle as this?’ [“Yadorigi,” 16:424]
And so saying, she breaks down crying. This episode is truly pitiful.”
Disappointments (kokoroyamashiki koto)43
“He does not take Lady Murasaki with him to Suma, and yet he writes, unbidden, to tell her that he has taken up with the Akashi lady [“Akashi,” 13:248–49]. ‘The boat that rows seaward from the shore…,’44 she says resentfully, but he shows her only the cover sheet of the letter [“Miotsukushi,” 13:286]. The two scrolls of pictures from Suma, which usually he kept hidden away, he takes out for the picture competition. She says:
hitori ite nagameshi yori wa ama no sumu / kata o kakute zo miru bekarikeru45
‘Rather than stay here, all alone, passing the days in fretful worry,
I should have seen these pictures of the place where fishers dwell.
[“Eawase,” 13:368]
I might then have found some comfort in my anxiety.’ This could just as well have been placed with the ‘pitiful things.’”
“He takes up with the Third Princess and causes Lady Murasaki such anguish. On the first day of the New Year he makes the rounds of his various ladies’ quarters, thinking diffidently, ‘It would be a shame if she [Murasaki] were to be upset so soon,’ despite which he spends the night with the Akashi lady [“Hatsune,” 14:144]. Even the Ōuchiyama Minister has a falling out with Genji, and their relationship is strained. Tamakazura becomes the wife of Commandant Higekuro. In ‘Yūgiri,’ when the Consort [Ochiba no Miya’s mother], is about to die, she writes a letter to him [Yūgiri]:
ominaeshi shioruru nobe o izuko tote / hitoyo bakari no yado o karikemu
‘Where do you think this is, this moor where the maidenflower withers away,
that you should take but a single night’s lodging here with her?’
[“Yūgiri,” 15:412]
This very earnest gentleman, the Commandant [Yūgiri], takes in the Ochiba Princess, and keeps her along with his first wife.”
Shocking Things (asamashiki koto)
“Yūgao is possessed by a tree spirit. Genji, on the night of the downpour, stays late with the Oborozukiyo Palace Attendant and is discovered by her father the Minister. Genji discovers the letter from the Commander of the Right Gate Guards to the Third Princess. The lady at writing practice [Ukifune] disappears. If she had just done away with herself, that would be all very well; but she is possessed by something and then is discovered by people on a pilgrimage to Hatsuse, all of which is terribly spooky,” she said. “But you can remember all these splendid things and touching things only when you have the book there in front of you. It’s difficult to talk about them from memory. I’ll read through it at leisure and tell you about it another time. This is only small part of it; I’ve hardly done it justice at all.”
Following this discussion of Genji is an even longer section discussing several later tales, starting with Sagoromo monogatari and Yoru no nezame and moving on to several other lesser works, most of which no longer survive. Toward the end, “this same young lady” raises yet another objection.
“You know, though, that all these are fictions and falsehoods. Tell us about some that describe things that actually happened. I’ve heard that Tales of Ise and Tales of Yamato are about things that really happened, which, I think, is very, very impressive. Tell us a bit about those, too.”
“This Tales of Ise, as they call it, was written simply to depict the amorous exploits of Narihira. Is there anyone in all the world, whether of high station or low—anyone with a bit of brain, at least—who hasn’t read Ise and Yamato and knows nothing about them? There’s no need for us to discuss them in any detail. And [Narihira’s] wanderings beyond the region of the capital—when he questions the miyako [capital] bird by the banks of the Sumida River, when he yearns for his lady love at Yatsuhashi [Eight Bridges]46—show only that there apparently was nowhere he wouldn’t go in the course of his quest. Tales of Yamato is just more of the same and needn’t detain us. Everyone’s read it and knows all about it. If you’re curious about the merits of the poems in these books, just look them up in the Kokinshū. All the good ones are in there.”
That matter disposed of, the talk then turns to anthologies of Japanese poetry, the content of which elicits surprisingly little comment. What does concern them, however, is the fact that no woman has ever been commissioned to compile one. As one woman says at the beginning of this passage, “Ah, how I wish that I might have the chance, like the third-rank novice [Shunzei], to compile an anthology.”
“There is no creature more unfortunate than woman. Since ages past, many women of refined sensibility have been well versed in the Way [of Poetry], but never has one of them compiled an anthology of any sort. Now that’s a great pity.”
“Oh, but compiling an anthology isn’t necessarily such a great accomplishment. Murasaki Shikibu wrote Genji; Sei Shōnagon composed The Pillow Book; and all those tales we’ve just been talking about—aren’t most of them the work of women? Though I say so myself, these are not to be dismissed.”
“Then why is it that I can’t seem to write anything that will last through the ages? Never mind those pampered daughters and high-ranking wives who seem to live in such seclusion. For someone like me, who serves at court, goes about with her face in full view, and is known to almost everyone, it seems a dreadful shame that no one ever says, ‘Now theres someone! One of these days she will….’ I’ll probably end up never writing anything that lasts through ages to come.”
“But how often does that ever happen? Just to write one worthless cripple of a poem and get it into an anthology, for a woman at least, seems to be very difficult, much less finding words that will keep her name alive through ages to come. We don’t hear of many who’ve done that. They’re few and far between, it seems to me.”
“But who are the ones who did?” the same young lady asked. “I’d like to be able to call to mind all those women, past or present, [who are] known for their refinement and then imitate the ones who seem even just a little better than the rest.”
“Well, you know what they say: imitating people is something you must never do. It can get you in deep trouble,” someone said, laughing.
From here the discussion moves on easily to those few women who did achieve fame for their literary talents: Ono no Komachi, Sei Shōnagon, Izumi Shikibu, and, finally, Murasaki Shikibu. The fascination of this subject is sufficient to rouse from slumber the old woman whose unintended visit initiated this long evening’s conversation. “There were many things I was just dying to say in response,” she says. “But there was no point in that, so I pretended to be still asleep, not even moving my body.”
“But such things [as musical talent] last only as long as one lives,” someone said. “It’s too bad that that it can’t be passed on for later generations to hear. There have been any number of men and women who, in their time, were superbly talented musicians, but who among them has left behind a single note for posterity? When someone composes a poem, in Japanese or Chinese, and signs one’s name to it, a hundred or even a thousand, years may pass, yet it still feels, here and now, as if one were face to face with the author. This is such a moving experience, which is why I wish I could write even one word to leave behind for later generations. I know I’ll sound like I’m repeating myself, but what makes me so envious and seems so wonderful is how the Great Kamo Priestess sent to inquire whether the Jōtōmon’in Empress had any stories with which they might while away the tedium. The Empress summoned Murasaki Shikibu and asked, ‘What shall we offer her? What do we have that’s at all remarkable?’ Murasaki replied. ‘We had better make something new for her.’ ‘Then you write it,’ the Empress said. And how magnificent: in response to the command, she wrote The Tale of Genji.”
“But they also say she hadn’t yet entered service at court, that she was still at home when she wrote it. And that’s why she was summoned to serve at court and why they called her Murasaki Shikibu. I wonder which is correct? In the book that they call her diary, it does say, ‘When I first came to court, everyone thought I must be so grand and refined a lady that they would feel uncomfortable in my company; but then to their surprise, it appeared I was actually rather absentminded and inexperienced and couldn’t even write the number “one,” so my colleagues came to feel I wasn’t at all that sort.’”
“And how splendid that although she thinks His Lordship [Michinaga] so magnificent, she never speaks of him with the least hint of intimacy or familiarity. Yet even though she describes the Empress Mother [Shōshi] as incomparably magnificent, it somehow seems out of character that she should reveal how adoringly and fondly she waited upon her and how wonderfully friendly His Lordship was. I suppose, though, that’s just the sort of people they were.”
From here, the talk moves on to the subject of empresses, with which the colloquy winds down to an end. The old woman continues to ponder whether she herself might say something when the “same young lady” again speaks up.
“At this rate we’ll spend the whole night talking about nothing but women. We haven’t even mentioned a single man; that’s just scandalous.”
“Right you are, and that’s a subject well worth attending to, be they men of the past or the present. There must be any number of marvelous stories. So if it’s all the same to you, shall we start with Emperors?”
“What you really should do, you know, is read Yotsugi’s The Great Mirror and the like. What can we say that would top them? And so saying…”
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
The Lists
The four texts translated under this rubric constitute one small subgenre of Genji gossip: lists of superlatives.47 Almost nothing is known of their provenance, and none survives in its original form. They are customarily assigned to the Kamakura or the early Muromachi period mainly because they seem out of place in the company of later, more tendentious works. There is speculation, based on traces of feminine insight that some scholars claim to detect, that one or more lists may have been written by a woman. Affinities have been noted with Sei Shōnagon’s lists and, more interestingly, with digest versions of Genji. But in the end, no one has much more to say about them than did the anonymous copyist of A Key to Genji, who in 1650 said the most important thing: that they are a delight to read.
The order in which the lists are arranged here is an attempt to represent what may well have been a genetic relationship among them.48 A Key to Genji appears to be a riposte to Forty-Eight Exemplars from Genji.49 They share twenty-nine categories, many of which appear in the same order in both texts; and where Forty-Eight Exemplars states the obvious (Man: Genji, Pretty Face: Fujitsubo), Key tends to offer less conventional choices (Kaoru, Akikonomu). Exemplars from Genji seems to be even more closely related to Forty-Eight Exemplars.50 Thirty-six categories are shared, and more than half appear in identical order. The fourth and last list, which has no title because the only surviving copy of it bears no title, appears to be related to all of the previous three. It shares thirty-seven categories with the list that precedes it, and only two of its total of forty-seven categories are new. In contrast, almost all its responses are original, not only in the “answers” they offer to the questions implied, but also in the extreme allusiveness of those answers. Although we know nothing about when or by whom these lists were written, they at least afford us glimpses of the critical colloquy from which they grew.
A transliteration of each entry’s original heading follows its translation. When necessary, brief expository comments and quotations immediately follow the entry rather than in the notes.
T. HARPER
image
FORTY-EIGHT EXEMPLARS FROM GENJI
(Genji shijū-hachi monotatoe no koto)
Man [otoko]. It need hardly be said again that the Shining Genji is the very foundation of this tale. And of course, Commandant Kaoru’s very genuine thoughtfulness is without parallel.
Woman [onna]. Who but Lady Murasaki?
Pretty Face, Good Looks [mime katachi]. Fujitsubo.
Character [kokorobase]. The elder of the Uji sisters.
Good Karma [kahō]. The Akashi lady.
Chapter [maki]. “Suma.”
Poem [uta].
furusato o izure no haru ka yukite mimu / urayamashiki wa kaeru karigane
My old home village: in what spring shall I ever go see it again?
How I envy the wild geese returning whither they came. [“Suma,”13:206–7]
Prose Passage [kotoba].
The drop of dew that will fall if the sprig of hagi [bush clover] is plucked, the crystal of frost that will melt away if lifted from the bamboo leaf.51 [“Hahakigi,” 12:156]
Extraordinary Scene [koto naru tokoro]. [Tō no Chūjō’s dance] “Garden of Willows and Flowers,” which was thought rare even for the past four illustrious reigns and which would surely be regarded as a model for ages to come [“Hana no en,” 12:432].52
Wondrous Event [medetaki koto]. The appointment of the Akashi Empress.53
Moment of Joy [ureshiki koto]. One can well imagine how Kumoinokari felt when [her father] the Minister relented and accepted [Yūgiri] as his son-in-law [“Fuji no uraba,” 14:428].
Sight to Be Seen [miru koto]. The dance “Waves of the Blue Ocean” at the palace rehearsal [“Momiji no ga,” 12:383].
Hopeful Moment [tanomoshiki koto]. When the Akashi lady says “…today let her hear the first song of the little warbler.” [“Hatsune,” 14:140:
toshitsuki o matsu ni hikarete furu hito ni / kyō uguisu no hatsune kikaseyo
For the sake of the one who has pined away these many months and years,
today let her hear the first song of the little warbler.]
Desolate Place [wabishiki koto]. The mansion of the Hitachi Princess [Suetsumuhana].
Heartbreaking Scene [itōshiki koto]. When Kashiwagi, on the verge of death, is visited by Yūgiri and tries to talk to him [“Kashiwagi,” 15:30].
Disgusting Deed [nikuki koto]. When the Right Bodyguards Major learns that Ukifune is not the daughter of the Governor of Hitachi [and] marries her younger sister instead [“Azumaya,” 17:16].
Marvelous Moment [mezurashiki koto]. When Rokujō-in [Genji] first sees the newborn First Prince, son of the Akashi Empress and the Emperor [“Wakana, jō,” 15:102–3].54
Perfection [aramahoshiki koto]. When Genji, at the firming-of-the-teeth celebration, “shows Murasaki the mirror” [“Hatsune,” 14:138–39].55
Ineptitude [kokoro okuretaru koto]. Taifu no Myōbu produces the garment box [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:371].
Magnificent Thing [imijiki koto]. Commandant Kaoru supersedes all the Princes to become the Emperor’s son-in-law [“Yadorigi,” 16:462–63].
Unpleasant Moment [muzukashiki koto]. When the ashes from the censer are dumped on Commandant Higekuro [“Makibashira,” 14:357].
Grief [kanashiki koto]. Nakanokimi’s feelings when the elder Uji sister dies and she is left behind [“Agemaki,” 16:320–21].
Devastation [mune tsubururu koto]. Kojijū’s feelings when she realizes that Genji has seen Kashiwagi’s letter [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240–41].
Longing [koishiki koto]. Lady Murasaki’s feelings when Genji leaves for Suma and she must remain behind in the capital [“Suma,” 13:182].
Heartless Deed [kokoronaki koto]. The musicale in the Kokiden, held just after the Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe has died and the Emperor is sunk in grief [“Kiritsubo,” 12:111–12].
Amusing Thing [okashiki koto]. The Ōmi lady aspires to become Chief Palace Attendant and composes a petition requesting that she be appointed to the post [“Miyuki,” 14:315–16].
Affecting Scene [aware naru koto]. When the Emperor dispatches Yugei no Myōbu to call on the mother of the Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe, who has survived her daughter [“Kiritsubo,” 12:102–13].
Moment of Shame [hazukashiki koto]. When Genji says to the Third Princess, “What shall he answer…growing from the rock?” [“Kashiwagi,” 15:314:
ta ga yo ni ka tane wa makishi to hito towaba / ikaga iwane no matsu wa kotaen
Should anyone ever ask him who planted the seed, and in what reign,
what shall he answer, this little pine growing from the rock?]
Thing of Beauty [omoshiroki koto]. The music played by the ladies of the Rokujō mansion, each on her individual instrument [“Wakana, ge,” 15:177].
Unfortunate Thing [hoi naki koto]. That Lady Murasaki never had children.
Irritating Thing [modokashiki koto]. That Ukifune, finding it impossible to choose between the love of Commandant Kaoru and the Prince Minister of War [Niou], simply abandons them both and tries to do away with herself.
Wretched Situation [kokoro uki koto]. The Oborozukiyo Chief Palace Attendant, with Genji secreted behind her curtains, is discovered by her father the Minister [“Sakaki,” 14:135–38].
Deplorable Thing [urameshiki koto]. That “earnest young man” [Yūgiri] spends alternate nights with Kumoinokari, who has loved him since long past when he was wearing the green sleeves [of the sixth rank], and with Princess Ochiba—fifteen days each per month [“Niou Miya,” 16:14].
Astonishing Event [asamashiki koto]. When Yūgao, at that “certain estate,” is possessed by a spirit.
Absolutely Perfect Response [tsukizukishiki koto]. When Koremitsu asks, “How many Rat-Day sweets am I to provide” [“Aoi,” 13:66]?
Surprising Thing [omowazu naru koto]. Kogimi fails to accompany Genji to Suma [“Sekiya,” 13:351].
Mortification [kuyashiki koto]. The Rokujō Consort, fearful lest she become a laughingstock, departs for Ise [“Sakaki,” 13:75].
Desperation [kokorozukushi naru koto]. Genji’s feelings as he laments [to Fujitsubo] “rare will be the nights we can meet again.” [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:306:
mitemo mata au yo mare naru yume no uchi ni / yagate magiruru waga mi to mogana
Though with you now, yet rare will be the nights we can meet again; would that
I myself might be swirled away with this dream we now live.]
Regrettable Thing [ushirometaki koto]. That Kojijū revealed Kashiwagi’s feelings [“Wakana, ge,” 15:208–24].
Unsettling Event [kokoromotonaki koto]. When the Third Princess joins the company at the Rokujō mansion, and Murasaki—who is so unaccustomed to sleeping alone and who now so often must—conceals her sleeves, which are soaked from crying the whole night through [“Wakana, jō,” 15:63].
Disgraceful Behavior [hitowaroki koto]. When Genji stops to inquire after Suetsumuhana, her ladies complain of their lot [“Yomogiu,” 13:336–37].
Timorousness [kokoro yowaki koto]. Commander of the Right Gate Guards Kashiwagi calls at the Rokujō mansion, senses that he is not welcome, and immediately falls into a decline [“Wakana, ge,” 15:268–71].
Rare Event [arigataki koto]. Ukifune, in Ono, watches and listens while robes are prepared to be offered in her memory by those she left behind, all of whom think her dead [“Tenarai,” 17:348].
Anguish [kokorogurushiki koto]. The feelings of the elder sister in Uji, who, in a state of anguish at the thought of what might become of her younger sister, dies [“Agemaki,” 16:317].
Fearsome Thing [osoroshiki koto]. The amorous designs of the Kyushu First Secretary on Chief Palace Attendant Tamakazura, as in his poem, “Should my feelings ever change; by the god in Matsura…” [“Tamakazura,” 14:91:
kimi ni moshi kokoro tagawaba Matsura naru / kagami no kami o kakete chikawamu
If ever my feelings for you, my love, should change—then this I swear
before the God of the Mirror Shrine in Matsura…]56
Enviable Thing [urayamashiki koto]. The splendor in which the Akashi lady went, in place of Lady Murasaki, to serve [as her daughter’s guardian] in the Shigeisha [“Fuji no uraba,” 14:440–41].
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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A KEY TO GENJI
(Genji kai)
I have no idea who compiled this list of high points in The Tale of Genji. As I leaf through it, I find any number of passages at which I nod in perfect agreement. If some seem to me to miss the mark, well, not all people think alike. In any case, this work has afforded me so many moments of mirth that for the sheer delight of it, I have made a copy. Should more points strike my fancy, I may see fit to add them.57
The Very Best in Genji
Man [otoko]. Commandant Kaoru.
Woman [onna]. Lady Aoi.
Nun [ama]. The Novice [Third] Princess.
Monk [sō]. The Prelate of Yokawa.
Good Looks [sugata]. The Palace Attendant Oborozukiyo.
Pretty Face [mime]. The Akikonomu Empress.
Hair [kami]. Suetsumuhana’s. It says it was longer than her height and lay in thick waves on the hem of her robes [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:367].
Disposition [kokoro]. The Akashi lady.
Beautiful Voice [koe yoki hito]. The Kōbai Minister of the Right; as a boy, it was he who sang “Takasago” [“Sakaki,” 12:133–34].
Good Karma [kahō]. The Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe.
Best Chapter [suguretaru maki]. “Wakana.”
Extraordinary Scene [koto naru tokoro]. The Ōmi lady playing go while [her father] the Minister watches [“Tokonatsu,” 14:234–35; in fact, she is playing backgammon].
Poem [uta].
yogatari ni hito ya tsutaen taguinaki / ukimi o samenu yume ni nashitemo
Shan’t we become the stuff of gossip even so, even though I make
of my wretched life a dream from which there is no waking?
[“Wakamurasaki,” 12:306]
Sight to Be Seen [miru koto]. The picture contest.
Sounds to Be Heard [kiku koto]. The ladies’ musicale [“Wakana, ge,” 15:177–86].
Joyful Event [ureshiki koto]. Suetsumuhana is taken into Genji’s household [“Yomogiu,” 13:344].
Heartbreaking Thing [itōshiki koto]. The Suzaku Emperor, in a letter to the Third Princess, writes, “Though you follow far behind on this Way of escape from the world…” [“Yokobue,” 15:335:
yo o nogareirinamu michi wa okurutomo / onaji tokoro o kimi mo tazuneyo58
Though you follow far behind upon this Way of escape from the world,
do seek out your old father at our common journey’s end.]
Vulgar Thing [nikuki koto]. The Yūgao lady writes her “I would venture” poem on a fan and sends it out to him. [“Yūgao,” 12:214:
kokoroate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no / hikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light upon the face of the moonflower.]
Forlorn Moment [kokorobosoki koto]. When Rokujō-in [Genji] ponders the possibility that this might be the last year he will hear the Invocation of the Holy Names [“Maboroshi,” 15:534].
Moment of Astonishment [mezurashiki koto]. When the Reizei Emperor hears the secret of his birth revealed to him [“Usugumo,” 13:439–42].
Unacceptable Behavior [ukerarenu koto]. Utsusemi continues to mix in society after she has become a nun [“Hatsune,” 14:149–51].
Perfection [aramahoshiki koto]. Lady Murasaki’s dwelling.
Ineptitude [kokoro okuretaru koto]. Suetsumuhana’s behavior, no matter what she does.
Obsessive Behavior [setsu naru koto]. Genji’s visits to Fujitsubo’s gentlewoman [Ōmyōbu] [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:305–6].
Splendid Thing [imijiki koto]. Hanachirusato becomes Yūgiri’s guardian [“Otome,” 14:61].
Place of Elegance [yū naru koto]. Among those of all the ladies Genji called upon that New Year’s Day, the apartments of the Akashi lady [“Hatsune,” 14:143–45].
Deplorable Deed [wabishiki koto]. Genji forces himself on the [Fujitsubo] Empress while she is visiting her home [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:305–6].
Devastating Scene [mune tsubururu59 koto]. After Lady Murasaki dies, Yūgiri sees her and recites the poem “…now this, as in a dream dreamt in the darkness before dawn.” [“Minori,” 15:498:
inishie no aki no yūbe no koishiki ni / ima wa to mieshi akegure no yume
Even while still yearning after that autumn evening so long ago,
now this, as in a dream dreamt in the darkness before dawn.]
Thing of Beauty [omoshiroki koto]. The Festival of Cherry Blossoms.
Matter of Anxiety [obotsukanaki koto]. As the time of the birth of the Akashi Princess draws near, Genji worries, “Surely by now…” [“Miotsukushi,” 13:275].
Time of Anguish [urewashiki koto]. When the Kashiwagi Commander of the Right Gate Guards lay helpless in his yearning for the Third Princess [“Wakana, jō/ge,” 15:139–41, 208–13].
Grief [kanashiki koto]. Ukon’s feelings when she realizes that Yūgao is dead [“Yūgao,” 12:240–43].
Amusing Thing [okashiki koto]. The wording of the Ōmi lady’s letter [“Tokonatsu,” 14:240–41].
Shame [hazukashiki koto]. Ukifune’s feelings on reading his “engulfed in waves” poem. [“Ukifune,” 17:168; the poem in which Kaoru lets her know that he knows about her affair with Niou:
nami koyuru koro to mo shirazu sue no matsu / matsuramu to nomi omoikeru kana
Never did I imagine that even now they were engulfed in waves
but thought only they must be waiting, the pines of Sue.]60
Affecting Scene [aware naru koto]. Just before he is to leave for Suma, Genji sets out to pay his respects at the grave of the late Emperor and, on the way, visits the [Fujitsubo] Empress, now a nun [“Suma,” 13:170–72].
Irritating Incident [modokashiki koto]. The battle of the carriages when the [Rokujō] Consort goes to view the procession [“Aoi,” 13:16–18].
Wretched Situation [kokoro uki koto]. The Retired Minister [Tō no Chūjō] writes to the Ochiba Princess, “I think fondly of you, yet hear such hateful things of you.” [“Yūgiri,” 15:471:
chigiri are ya kimi o kokoro ni todomeokite / aware to omou urameshi to kiku
Perhaps for some karmic bond between us? You are ever in my thoughts.
I think fondly of you yet hear such hateful things of you.]
Wondrous Occasion [medetaki koto]. When Genji makes his pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi to give thanks for prayers answered, he takes the Akashi lady back to the capital [“Miotsukushi,” 13:292–98; not until the following chapter, “Matsukaze,” does she actually come to the capital].
Deplorable Deed [urameshiki koto]. Genji allows Murasaki to see only the outside of the letter from Akashi [“Miotsukushi,” 13:286–87].
Shocking Behavior [asamashiki koto]. The Minister of the Right walks straight into her chamber when Genji is with the Oborozukiyo Chief Palace Attendant [“Sakaki,” 13:136–38].
Absolutely Perfect Response [tsukizukishiki koto].61 When the guardsman says, “That flower is called the ‘Evening Face’” [“Yūgao,” 12:210].
Embarrassing Thing [katawaraitaki koto]. Suetsumuhana composes her “Chinese robe” poem. [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:372:
karakoromo kimi ga kokoro no tsurakereba / tamoto wa kaku zo tobochitsutsu nomi
This Chinese robe of mine: because your heart, my love, is so very cold,
its sleeves are forever soaked, like this, with my tears.]
Fretful Time [omoiwazurau koto]. When Nakanokimi moves from Uji to the Prince Minister of War’s [Niou’s] mansion [“Sawarabi,” 16:342–55].
Fright [osoroshiki koto]. The Yūgao lady’s feelings at that “certain estate” [“Yūgao,” 12:233–44].
Surprising Thing [omowazu naru koto]. When Genji goes to Suma, he does not take Murasaki with him.
Satisfying Occasion [kokoro yuku koto]. When the Akashi nun moves to the capital [“Matsukaze,” 13:391–97. The old woman herself is very sad; the satisfaction must be that of the writer].
Anguish [kokorogurushiki koto]. Nakanokimi’s feelings when the Prince Minister of War [Niou] becomes Yūgiri’s son-in-law [“Yadorigi,” 16:373–402].
Deplorable Thing [urameshiki koto]. The Akikonomu Empress wins the picture contest [“Eawase,” 13:375–78].
(COPIED) KEIAN 3 (1650), ELEVENTH MONTH,
SIXTEENTH DAY
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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EXEMPLARS FROM GENJI
(Genji monotatoe)
Man [otoko]. “‘Only the name itself is so very grand,’ they protest, but…” Genji [“Hahakigi,” 1:129; the quotation is not precise].
Woman [onna]. The Akikonomu Empress.
Pretty Face [mime]. The Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe.
Disposition [kokoro]. Lady Murasaki.
Good Karma [hō]. The Akashi lady.
Chapter [maki]. “Kashiwagi.”
Poem [uta].
ima wa tote moemu keburi ni mo musubōre / taenu omoi no nao ya nokosan62
Even then when the end is come and smoke rises from my burning pyre,
these unquenchable flames of yearning surely shall remain.
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:281]
Prose Passage [kotoba].
Suma ni wa kokorozukushi no akikaze63 ni umi wa sukoshi tōkeredo Yukihira no Chūnagon no seki fukikoyuru to iiken uranami no yoru yoru wa ito chikō kikoete…[“Suma,” 13:190: In Suma, though the sea was a bit distant, the waves raised by the mournful autumn winds that “blew in past the barrier,” as Middle Counselor Yukihira described them, sounded very close as they rolled in, night after night.]
Extraordinary Event [koto naru tokoro]. When construction of the Rokujō mansion, with its gardens of the four seasons, is completed and Genji’s household moves in [“Otome,” 14:72–77].
Wondrous Event [medetaki koto]. When the Akashi Princess goes to court as a Dame of Honor, she is permitted to ride in Lady Murasaki’s handdrawn carriage [“Fuji no uraba,” 14:442].
Moment of Joy [ureshiki koto]. At Hatsuse, after years of anxiety, Ukon finds Tamakazura [“Tamakazura,” 14:98–104].
Sight to Be Seen [miru koto]. That evening when [the dance] “Waves of the Blue Ocean” puts to shame even the tints of the autumn leaves [“Momiji no ga,” 12:387].
Heartening Feeling [tanomoshiki koto]. Genji’s feelings when the late Emperor appears to him in a dream and commands him, “Be gone from this shore” [“Akashi,” 13:219].
Desolate Feeling [wabishiki koto]. Gate Guards Commander Kashiwagi’s feelings on the day of the rehearsal for the celebration of the Retired Emperor’s birthday, when he is summoned to the Rokujō mansion and “forced to take the cup and drink, time and again” [“Wakana, ge,” 15:262–71].
Heartbreaking Scene [itōshiki koto]. When the Akashi Princess is about to board the carriage to go to Lady Murasaki, she clutches her mother’s sleeve and says, “You too, mother” [“Usugumo,” 2:423–24].
Disgusting Thing [nikuki koto]. [Kumoinokari’s] nursemaid “mutters” about [Yūgiri] being “fated to the sixth rank” [“Otome,” 14:51].
Moment of Gloom [kokorobosoki koto]. When at dawn Genji sets out to pay his respects at the late Emperor’s grave, the moon goes behind a cloud [“Suma,” 13:173–74].
Incredible Thing [mezurashiki koto]. Ōmyōbu somehow contrives to arrange [Genji’s] dreamlike meeting with the Usugumo Empress Mother [Fujitsubo] [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:305].
Perfection [aramahoshiki koto]. If only Chief Palace Attendant Tamakazura could have been married to the Hotaru Prince Minister of War.
Unacceptable Behavior [ukerarenu koto]. Gen no Naishi’s “‘mother’s mother’ he used to call me” poem. [“Asagao,” 13:474:
toshi furedo kono chigiri koso wasurarene / oya no oya64 to ka iishi hitokoto
Though years pass and I grow old, this bond with the child I cannot forget,
though it was “mother’s mother” his father used to call me.
The old woman’s poem flirtatiously reminds Genji both of their own previous “affair” (“Momiji no ga,” 12:407–18) and that his father the late Emperor used to call her oba otodo (Dame Granny).]
Difficult Matter [muzukashiki koto]. Commandant Kaoru’s advances toward Nakanokimi after she has become the wife of the Prince Minister of War [Niou] [“Yadorigi,” 16:412–18].
Ineptitude [kokoro okuretaru koto]. Taifu no Myōbu produces the garment box [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:371–76].
Magnificent Thing [imijiki koto]. Commandant Kaoru, in preference to all the princes, is granted the cup of betrothal as the Emperor’s son-in-law [“Yadorigi,” 16:462–63].
Grief [kanashiki koto]. Genji’s feelings at that “certain estate” when Yūgao is possessed by a tree spirit and he waits for Koremitsu to respond to his summons [“Yūgao,” 12:242–44].
Longing [koishiki koto]. On that moonlit night in Suma, [Genji recalls past evenings of] music at court [“Suma,” 12:194].
Shock [mune tsubururu koto]. The first time Genji goes to court to see the [future] Renzei [sic] Emperor, his father remarks how much the child resembles him [“Momiji no ga,” 12:401].
Heartless Words [kokoronaki koto]. When [Genji] says, “How touching that [the yamabuki] blooms more brilliantly than ever, as if it had no idea that this spring she who planted it is no longer with us,”65 [the Third Princess] replies, “‘Spring is a stranger to this dark valley’” [“Maboroshi,” 15:518].66
Disheartening Situation [ajikinaki koto]. The [Rokujō] Consort’s distress at her own “weakness in waiting for the procession of the man who had caused her such unhappiness,” even though “he passed her by as if she were not so much as a ‘clump of bamboo’” [“Aoi,” 13:17].67
Deep Emotion [aware naru koto]. Genji’s feelings as he takes out the heart-rending letters that Murasaki wrote while he was away in Suma, writes in the margin of one of them, “…let your smoke join that from her pyre in that same cloud on high” and burns them. [“Maboroshi,” 15:533–34:
kakitsumete miru mo kai nashi moshiogusa / onaji kumoi no keburi to mo nare68
Naught to be gained gathering up these, like sea grasses, and reading them;
let your smoke join that from her pyre in that same cloud on high.]
Moment of Shame [hazukashiki koto]. “‘How distressing that my [the Suzaku Emperor’s] death might trouble you less than this separation from someone [Genji] still so close by.’…Tears were streaming from her [Oborozukiyo’s] eyes. ‘See there?’ he said, now smiling at her. ‘For whom are those shed’” [“Suma,” 2:189–90; in extant texts, the Emperor does not smile]?
Moment of Terror [osoroshiki koto]. At that “certain estate,” in the “dim, flickering light of the lamp…there comes the creak of footsteps approaching from behind” [“Yūgao,” 12:243].
Depressing Thing [hoi naki koto]. Whatever it was that possessed the Commandant [Yūgiri]. The [Suzaku] Retired Emperor had dropped pointed hints concerning the Third Princess, yet he coldly passed her by, only to “pick up the fallen leaf” that the Gate Guards Commander [Kashiwagi] never loved. [“Wakana, jō/ge,” 4:18–19, 185; the quotation is from Kashiwagi’s poem lamenting the fact that he had married the Second Princess (Ochiba) rather than the Third Princess:
morokazura ochiba o nani ni hiroikemu / na wa mutsumashiki kazashi naredomo
From that crown of vines intertwined, why did I pick up the fallen leaf?
Though in name she would seem a harmonious adornment.
(“Wakana, ge,” 15:224)]
Wretched Situation [kokoro uki koto]. [Genji’s] note is discovered by the Chief Palace Attendant’s [Oborozukiyo’s] father the Minister [“Sakaki,” 13:137–39].
Deplorable Deed [urameshiki koto]. When Murasaki, as if to herself, speaks of him as being “far out at sea,” Genji pretends his sighs are but for the scenery [in Akashi] and lets her see only the outer wrapping of his letter [from the Akashi lady]. [“Miotsukushi,” 13:286–87; Murasaki quotes a phrase from Kokin rokujō 1888:
Mikumano no ura yori ochi ni kogu fune no / ware oba yoso ni hedatetsuru kana
The boat rowing far out to sea from these lovely shores of Kumano
travels farther and farther away, leaving me behind.]
Moment of Panic [asamashiki koto]. The thoughts that must have passed through Kojijū’s mind when she realized that, yes, His Lordship [Genji] sees that pale green letter [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240–41].
Absolutely Perfect Response [tsukizukishiki koto].69 When [Genji] stops and speaks of her as a flower that he would be “loath to pass without plucking,” Chūjō replies less directly, [as if he were referring to her mistress]. [“Yūgao,” 12:222:
Genji: saku hana ni utsuru chō na wa tsutsumedomo / orade sugiuki kesa no asagao
Though loath to be known as one who flits to whatever flower is in bloom,
what a shame to pass by without plucking this morning face.
Chūjō: asagiri no harema mo matanu keshiki nite / hana ni kokoro o tomenu to zo miru
So you are inclined not to wait even for the morning mists to clear;
I take it then that our flower has no hold upon your heart.]
Surprise [omowazu naru koto]. The Palace Attendant Tamakazura rejects the elegant and handsome Prince Hotaru, whose “love for her burned as brightly as that of the insect whose cry cannot be heard” [“Hotaru,” 14:193], and becomes the wife of Commandant Higekuro, though she claims to feel no affection for him [“Makibashira,” 14:341–44].
Mortification [kuyashiki koto]. Commandant [Kaoru’s] feelings when, with his heart set on the elder Princess, he relinquishes the younger Princess to Prince Niou, soon after which [the elder sister] dies [“Agemaki”].
Desperation [kokorozukushi naru koto]. “All through the day…he [Genji] would sit gazing off into space, and once the sun had set, he would go to Ōmyōbu and press her [to intercede on his behalf with Fujitsubo]” [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:305].
Lamentable Thing [ushirometaki koto]. [Niou’s] bitter resentment of that unmistakable “scent on your [Nakanokimi’s] sleeve that pierces my body.” [“Yadorigi,” 16:424:
matahito ni narekeru sode no utsuriga o / waga mi ni shimete uramitsuru ka na
This scent on your sleeve, so intimate has it become with someone else,
pierces my very being, arouses me to anger.]
Time of Anxiety [kokoromotonaki koto]. In Suma, when [Genji] awaits replies to letters he has sent by messenger to the capital [“Suma,” 13:180].
Rare Persons [arigataki koto]. Tō no Chūjō, who went to Suma with no thought for the problems it might create for him at court [“Suma,” 13:204–5]. The lady at writing practice [Ukifune], who was actually distressed that she was loved by two men [“Ukifune,” esp. 17:176–78].
Thing of Beauty [omoshiroki koto]. Tō no Chūjō’s dance, “Garden of Willows and Flowers,” which he had practiced with more than the usual care [“Hana no en,” 12:424].
Humiliation [kuchioshiki koto]. The Rokujō Consort’s feelings when she is pushed out of the way in the battle of the carriages [“Aoi,” 13:16–18].
Curiosity [yukashiki koto]. What the Imperial Adviser Colonel [Yūgiri] must have imagined that morning after the typhoon when he went [to Rokujō], found the shutters not yet raised, and heard indistinct voices, first that of a woman and then His Lordship [Genji] laughing in response [“Nowaki,” 14:262–64].
Embarrassing Scene [katawaraitaki koto]. The Ōmi lady confronts that “very proper young man” [Yūgiri] with her “just tell me which port is yours” poem. [“Makibashira,” 14:390:
okitsufune yorube namiji ni tadayowaba / sao sashiyoramu tomari oshieyo
Little boat all at sea; if you’re wandering the waves with no place to go,
then I’ll pole on out to you; just tell me which port is yours.]
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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[UNTITLED]
The one surviving manuscript of this text remained unknown to Genji scholars until a transcript of it was published by Morikawa Akira in 1974.70 It is now in the possession of Mrs. Suzuki Myō of the village of Nijō near the southern tip of the Izu Peninsula, whose ancestors were the custodians of Nakanoin Nakako (1591?–1671) from 1609 to 1623. Nakako was the daughter of the great Genji scholar Nakanoin Michikatsu (1556–1610) and was banished from the imperial court for her involvement in the so-called dragon-scale scandal (gekirin jiken, 1609). Fortunately, her ship, though bound for the desolate island of Niijima, was wrecked on the tip of the Izu Peninsula, and she was able to spend her years of exile rather comfortably with the Suzuki family. When she was pardoned and returned to Kyoto, she left behind the manuscripts she had brought with her. It is tempting to identify the allusiveness and accuracy of the quotations in this text as marks of the involvement of her father, Michikatsu, but of course nothing can be proved.
Man [otoko]. Kaoru.
Woman [onna]. The older [Uji] Princess.
Nun [ama]. [She (Ukifune), who said,] “Is that not his scent?” [“Tenarai,” 17:344:
sode fureshi hito koso miene hana no ka no / sore ka to niou haru no akebono
He who brushed my sleeve is himself nowhere in sight, and yet is that not
his scent on the blossoms, so radiant this spring dawn?]
Monk [hōshi]. The holy man of Uji.
Looks [mime]. “Even compared to the bloom of the cherry, her [Murasaki’s] beauty surpassed that of the real thing” [“Wakana, ge,” 15:184].
Disposition [kokoro]. The Akashi Novice.
Good Karma [hō]. The Akashi lady.
Best Chapter [suguretaru maki]. “Sakaki.”
Extraordinary Scene [koto naru tokoro]. “When he raised his head from his pillow and listened to the tempest that raged all around him, he felt as if the waves might overwhelm him even where he lay. Though unaware that he wept, his tears were enough to set his pillow afloat” [“Suma,” 13:190].
Poem [uta].
ōkata no uki ni tsukete wa nagekutomo / itsu ka kono yo wa somukihatsubeki
Deplore though I may this world, so utterly dismal in every way,
when shall I ever be able to turn my back on it? [“Sakaki,” 13:125]
Spectacle [miru koto]. The tumult he creates as it culminates in the “Suma” chapter.
Sounds to Be Heard [kiku koto]. The music played by the assembled ladies [“Wakana, ge,” 15:177–82].
Joyful Moment [ureshiki koto]. When Tamakazura encounters Ukon [“Tamakazura,” 14:98–104].
Desolation [wabishiki koto]. The feelings of the Chief Palace Attendant [Oborozukiyo] when she is discovered by her father the Minister, with a man secreted in her chamber [“Sakaki,” 13:135–38].
Pathetic Scene [itōshiki koto]. “They told her she must ‘make obeisance in the direction of her parents,’ but having no idea what direction that might be, she [Ukifune] could not restrain herself [and broke down weeping]” [“Tenarai,” 17:326].
Disgusting Thing [nikuki koto]. “The wicks in the lamps had been trimmed and the oil exhausted, and still he [the Kiritsubo Emperor] remained awake”—while in the Kokiden there was music [“Kiritsubo,” 12:112].
Moment of Melancholy [kokorobosoki koto]. When she [Ukifune] wrote, “to the fading toll of the bell…” [“Ukifune,” 17:187:
kane no oto no tayuru hibiki ni ne o soete / waga yo tsukinu to kimi ni tsutaeyo
To the fading echo of the bell pray add the sound of my sobs,
to carry the word to her that my life has run its course.]
Wondrous Thing [mezurashiki koto]. Tō no Chūjō seeks him [Genji] out in Akashi [“Suma,” 13:204–8].
Unacceptable Behavior [ukerarenu koto]. “Only to find you crowned with the garland of another,” [writes Gen no Naishi], still youthfully refusing to grow old. [“Aoi,” 13:23:
hakanashi ya hito no kazaseru aoi yue / kami no yurushi no kyō o machikeru
All for naught! I awaited this day, ordained by the gods for our tryst,
only to find you crowned with the garland of another.]
Perfection [aramahoshiki koto]. The dwelling at Unrin’in [“Sakaki,” 13:108–13].71
Negligence [kokoro okuretaru koto]. The letter beneath the cushion [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240].
Magnificent Thing [imijiki koto]. “‘I am the son of King Wen, the younger brother of King Wu,’ he [Genji] chanted, and splendid it was just to hear him proclaim the names” [“Sakaki,” 13:135].
Discomfort [muzukashiki koto]. His feelings when the “new leaves of wisteria” yield. [“Fuji no uraba,” 14:430; when Tō no Chūjō, quoting this phrase from Gosenshū 100, finally yields his daughter Kumoinokari to Yūgiri:
haru hi sasu fuji no uraba no uratokete / kimi shi omowaba ware mo tanomamu
These new leaves of wisteria, bathed in spring sunlight, now yield to you;
if you shall but love me, then will I place my trust in you.]
Shock [mune tsubururu koto]. Jijū’s feelings when [Genji] spies the pale green wrap of the letter from Yokobue [Kashiwagi] [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240–41].72
Poignant Longing [koishiki koto]. When the [Fujitsubo] Former Empress, now a nun, said, “Do mists rise to part us?” [“Sakaki,” 13:118:
kokonoe ni kiri ya hedatsuru kumo no ue ni / tsuki wo haruka ni omoiyaru ka na
Do ninefold mists rise to part me from him in the palace? For now I
can but imagine from afar the moon above the clouds.]
Heartless Deed [kokoronaki koto]. When the Prince Minister of War [Niou], wishing to see the fish weirs, as well as to view the autumn leaves, journeys to Uji, the Gate Guards Commander and the Chamberlain of the Empress, with a whole train of Privy Gentlemen in tow, arrive on the scene [“Agemaki,” 16:282–84].
Sorrow [kanashiki koto]. He appends the words “Let your smoke join that from her pyre in that same cloud on high.” [“Maboroshi,” 15:534:
kakitsumete miru mo kai nashi moshiogusa / onaji kumoi no keburi to mo nare73
Naught to be gained gathering up these, like sea grasses, and reading them;
let your smoke join that from her pyre in that same cloud on high.]
Amusing Scene [okashiki koto]. The burst seam in the Unmeiden [“Momiji no ga,” 12:415].
Deep Emotion [aware naru koto]. He dreamed that [his father said to him,] “I plunged into the sea and made my way along this shore…” [“Akashi,” 13:219].
Moment of Shame [hazukashiki koto]. When he [Genji] said, “What shall he answer, the little pine growing from the rock?” [“Kashiwagi,” 15:314:
ta ga yo ni ka tane wa makishi to hito towaba / ikaga iwane no matsu wa kotaen
Should anyone ever ask him who planted the seed, and in what reign,
what shall he answer, this little pine growing from the rock?]
Rare Thing [arigataki koto]. His [Genji’s] kindness in trudging through the deep growth of wormwood [“Yomogiu,” 13:337–38].
Heartrending Scene [setsu naru koto]. “This ‘smoke’ shall itself be my keepsake of the world I once lived in,” he said, weeping ever more uncontrollably. [“Kashiwagi,” 15:286; Kashiwagi refers to the “smoke” in the Third Princess’s poem:
tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o / omoimidaruru keburi kurabe ni
How I wish I too might die, that my smoke might rise together with yours;
then could we compare whose flames of sorrow burn the brighter.]
Beautiful Moment [omoshiroki koto]. “The Crown Prince urges him to ‘adorn your cap with this’ [sprig of blossoms]. Unable to decline, he [Genji dances the passage in which he] gently flips his sleeve over his arm…” [“Hana no en,” 12:424].
Bitterness [netaki koto]. The feelings of the Sanjō lady [Kumoinokari] in saying “rather than resent the lot…” [“Yūgiri,” 15:461:
naruru mi wo uramuru yori wa matsushima no / ama no koromo ni tachi ya kaemashi
Rather than resent the lot of one grown too close and then cast aside,
might I not better exchange it for the robes of a nun?]
Exasperating Thing [modokashiki koto]. She [the Third Princess] detains him [Genji], saying, “‘Let your sleeves be moist,’ do you tell me?” And then he sees the letter. [“Wakana, ge,” 15:239:
yūtsuyu ni sode nurase to ya higurashi no / naku wo kiku kiku okite yukuramu
“Let your sleeves be moist with evening dew,” do you tell me?
You hearken to the cry of the evening cicada, yet rise up to leave.]
Awe-Inspiring Scene [tōtoki koto]. The dedication of the Paradise Mandala that Lady Murasaki had made before she died [“Maboroshi,” 15:526, 529].
Splendid Thing [medetaki koto]. That the Akashi Empress bears so many princes.
Miserable Situation [kokoro uki koto]. For someone [Ukifune] who must have felt that she had once brushed sleeves with the brilliance of the sun and moon [Kaoru and Niou] to be forced to converse with the Major, the former son-in-law of the Ono nun [“Tenarai,” 17:315–16].
Resentment [urameshiki koto]. Her [Murasaki’s] feelings when finally she can say only, “…last for ever and ever.” [“Wakana, jō,” 15:58:
me ni chikaku utsureba kawaru yo no naka o / yukusue tōku tanomikeru kana
Before my very eyes it shifts and then changes, this bond between us,
and I had trusted it to last for ever and ever.]
Agony [kokorogurushiki koto]. The feelings of the Ono Consort74 when, convinced that it had been only a one-night affair, she died [“Yūgiri,” 15:423–24].
Uncertainty [obotsukanaki koto]. “Whom might I ask, and why is it so,” he [Kaoru] said. [“Niou Miya,” 16:18:
obotsukana tare ni towamashi ikani shite / hajime mo hate mo shiranu waga mi zo
This uncertainty: Whom might I ask, and why must it be my fate that
I know nothing of whence I come or whither I shall go?]
Absolutely Perfect Response [tsukizukishiki koto]. The guardsman says, “A very human sort of name” [“Yūgao,” 12:210].
Shock [asamashiki koto]. Their feelings when having taken everyone to the conference on promotions, they [Genji, the Minister of the Left, and so on] hear that Lady Aoi has suddenly expired [“Aoi,” 13:39].
Pitiful Thing [katawaraitaki koto]. When he [Genji] wrote, “Though it appeared to be a flower of the deepest shade…” and straightaway sent it to the lady [Suetsumuhana]. [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:373–74; the source of this allusion does not survive in any extant anthology. Most medieval commentators suggest that Genji is quoting from some version of the following poem:
kurenai no iro koki hana to mishikadomo / hito o aku dani utsuroinikeri
Though it appeared to be a flower of the deepest shade of crimson,
your love for me, like a garment washed in lye, has faded.75
In fact, Genji never sends the note to the Princess.]
Mortification [kuyashiki koto]. After Lady Murasaki dies, he [Genji] recalls how insensitive he had been [“Maboroshi,” 15:508–9].
Unexpected Thing [omowazu naru koto]. When, in reply to the [Suzaku] Emperor in the mountain temple, Lady Murasaki writes, “Do not force yourself…” [“Wakana, jō” 15:69:
somuku yo no ushirometaku wa sarigataki / hodashi wo shiite kake na hanare so
If concerns of the world you have left behind still weigh upon your mind,
then you mustn’t force yourself to break the ties that bind you.]
Fearsome Thing [osoroshiki koto]. The god of Suma [“Suma,” 13:210].
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
The Matches
Isn’t it a delight to win a matching contest?
Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book
The next four texts constitute another subgenre of Genji gossip. Whereas the lists of the previous section resemble concise sets of minutes taken at gossip sessions such as that depicted in A Nameless Notebook, the matches in this section cast the same sort of material in the format of a formal poetry contest (utaawase). Here the emphasis is almost entirely on characters in Genji and their feelings, rather than on scenes, chapters, and such. And rather than simply state (or suggest) which is the superlative exemplar in each category, two alternatives are offered for judgment, and then a case is made for the side deemed the winner. In the first text, The Feelings of People in Genji: A Match,76 both the comparisons and the final judgments are expressed in prose. However, in the next two texts, Genji: A Contest77 and The Feelings of People in Genji: A Match,78 the judgments are rendered in the form of poems. In the last text, by far the most discursive of the four, a selection of women in Genji are matched against similarly situated women in the Tales of Ise, ostensibly for the entertainment of an emperor. Again, the most that can be said of the provenance of any of these texts is that they probably were written by women connected to the imperial court, sometime after the appearance of A Nameless Notebook.79
T. HARPER
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THE FEELINGS OF PEOPLE IN GENJI: A MATCH
(Genji hitobito kokoro kurabe [Awa no Kuni Bunko text])
Item. Which would have been the more painful [kokorogurushi]: the Emperor’s grief when the Wisteria Court Mistress of the Wardrobe, sensing that the end was near, left the palace [“Kiritsubo,” 12:97–98], or Genji’s grief when Lady Murasaki, knowing that her time had come, took the Five Vows? [“Wakana, ge,” 15:232]
It was upsetting indeed when the Consort,80 sensing that the end was nigh, left the palace, yet there was still some hope that she might live. How must Genji have felt when Murasaki, with whom he had lived from the time she wore her hair in tails, knowing that her time had come, took the final step and cut short her hair?
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Item. Which is the more forward [hashijika nari]: the Chief Palace Attendant [Oborozukiyo] gazing out at the misty moon [“Hana no en,” 12:426], or the Yūgao lady’s “shed your light…” poem? [“Yūgao,” 12:212]
For someone to come peeping just when she expected it least—when she found the late night moon irresistible and she was gazing out at it thinking that no one would be listening—that was frightening. But for that shadow behind the gate to send out her “shed your light…” poem was most forward.
[kokoroate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no /hikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light upon the face of the moonflower.]
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Item. Whose shame [hazukashisa] and fright [osoroshisa] would have been greater: the Oborozukiyo Palace Attendant’s when her father the Minister, found Genji hiding in her chamber [“Sakaki,” 13:137–38], or the Third Princess’s when Genji picked up the letter from the Commander of the Gate Guards [Kashiwagi]? [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240]
One can well imagine her shame and fright in that chamber; even so, her father the Minister must have lacked any sense of shame [hazukashiki ke]. He seems even to have had other people compose his poems for him. But the fright and shame when Genji discovered the letter must simply have devastated her. Surely this was the more wretched.
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Item. Whose distress [migokoro, omoi] would be the greater: Lady Murasaki’s when Genji departed for Suma, leaving her behind in the capital, when she would have “given her life” to detain him [“Suma,” 13:178], or the Akashi lady’s when Genji was recalled? [“Akashi,” 13:253–61]
That [Murasaki] should so grieve that she would “give her life” demonstrates how far from shallow her feelings were. But the Akashi lady was of mean rank, added to which was the loneliness of life amid the “huts of crude mountain folk” [“Suma,” 13:199]. And with her parents in such a state of agitation, how much more distressed must she have been?
[Murasaki’s poem; “Suma,” 13:178:
oshikaranu inochi ni kaete me no mae no / wakare o shibashi todometeshikana
How I wish, in exchange for my life, which I would give with no regrets,
I might delay but a moment this parting we now face.
Genji’s poem; “Suma,” 13:199:
yamagatsu no iori ni takeru shibashiba mo / koto toikonan kouru satobito
As often as crude mountain folk kindle fires of brushwood in their huts,
would that you should inquire after me, my loved ones at home.]
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Item. Who is the more quick-witted [kokorotoshi]: Genji when he read the letter he found under the Third Princess’s cushion and knew that it was from [Kashiwagi] the Commander of the Gate Guards [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240], or Koremitsu, who understood immediately what was meant when Genji told him to “bring the Boar’s Day cakes tomorrow evening”? [“Aoi,” 13:65–66]
When she leaves the letter under her cushion, allowing it to be seen, anyone would be bound to suspect something of this sort. When “the waters of the mountain spring well forth,” he is certain to know it. Koremitsu’s “Baby Rat Day” is indeed “quick-witted.”
[The “mountain spring” is perhaps that of a poem in Shokusenzaishū (1071) by the Kameyama Retired Emperor on the subject of “secret love” (shinobu koi o):
shirasebaya iwa moru mizu no tayori ni mo / taezu kokoro no shita ni seku to wa
Would that I might let her know: what the message hidden in my heart
might tell her were those waters to well forth from the rocks.
Koremitsu’s quick-witted phrase ne no ko means “baby rat” but also suggests, homophonically, Genji’s intention to “sleep with the child,” Murasaki.]
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Item. Which was the more repellent [utomashi]: the Rokujō Consort’s several apparitions as a malign spirit, or Higekuro’s wife dumping the ashes from the censer on him?
It was not merely that the Consort’s resentment manifested itself as a disconsolate shade. That her obsession should be so great that even after death her spirit took flight and censured the most intimate converse between Genji and Murasaki, which no one else could have heard—this surely was the more repellent. The frenzy with which Higekuro’s wife dumped the ashes from the censer on him was shocking, but the lady was not in her right mind; surely she can be forgiven.81
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Item. Which would have been the more deeply touching [aware fukashi]: when, just before Ukifune disappeared, the Prince [Niou] himself went to her, but she was under heavy guard and he heard of her pitiful plight [from Jijū; “Ukifune,” 17:182–83], or the feelings of the Commander of the Right Gate Guards [Kashiwagi] when he was near death as a consequence of [his affair with] the Third Princess, yet was unable to be with her and could talk about their relationship only with [Ko]jijū? [“Kashiwagi,” 15:279–88]
It must have been sorrowful indeed when at about the time [Ukifune] was thinking of ending her life, the Prince Minister of War [Niou] went [to Uji], only to be kept apart from her and learn of her piteous condition from another. Yet it must have been even worse [for the young lady], despairing as she did of choosing between them, only to have the Commandant [Kaoru] learn what was going on, thus deciding her to end it all. Near death on account of the Third Princess and yet unable to be with her, the Commander of the Right Gate Guards could talk only with [Ko] jijū, and merely hearing of her plight made him apprehensive of the future of the “pine that grows from the rock” [“Kashiwagi,” 15:314]. What, then, must have been his “darkness of heart” as he perished?
[ta ga yo ni ka tane wa makishi to hito towaba / ikaga iwane no matsu wa kotaen
Should anyone ever ask him who planted the seed, and in what reign,
what shall he answer, this little pine growing from the rock?]
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Item. Which would have been slightly the more sorrowful [sukoshi kanashi]: Genji’s feelings when he saw Yūgao perish before his very eyes [“Yūgao,” 12:238–44], or the Prince Minister of War’s [Niou’s] bewilderment when Ukifune vanished without a trace? [“Kagerō,” 17:193–98]
When Yūgao passed away, [Genji] could take some solace in the thought that the span of her life may well have been predestined [“Yūgao,” 12:253]. One can imagine the commotion when Ukifune was nowhere to be found; yet it was in the Prince’s nature that he could divert himself with whatever else chance might offer. But the grief [of seeing] Yūgao’s lifeless body, perished like a drop of dew—or even just hearing someone tell the story—surely [Genji’s] lamentations were the greater.
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Item. Whose joy would have been the greater [nao ureshi]: Lady Murasaki’s when she first saw Genji on his return from Akashi [“Akashi,” 13:261–62], or Ukon’s when she discovered Tamakazura, the Chief Palace Attendant, at Hatsuse? [“Tamakazura,” 14:101–12]
When [Genji] departed for Akashi, he did not travel so far away that [Murasaki] need feel as desolate as she might have had they been separated by the seas; there still was hope that they might be together again. But what must have been Ukon’s joy when, after all those years of longing for her lost one [Tamakazura], pleading to the gods and buddhas, the two should chance to meet, and she found the girl even lovelier than she had been as a child?
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Item. Which is more the painful to contemplate [katawaraitashi]: when the Hitachi Princess [Suetsumuhana] presented Genji with the garment box [“Suetsumuhana,” 12:372–73], or the Ōmi lady when she met her father the Minister and spoke so presumptuously to him? [“Tokonatsu,” 14:234–39]
The Ōmi lady’s presumptuous replies were painfully ridiculous, but her father could not help but see how devoted to him she was and forgive her. When the Hitachi Princess produced that old-fashioned garment box, it was distressing even to the feelings of an onlooker.
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Item. Which transgression was slightly the more forgivable [sukoshi tsumi yurusaru]: Fujitsubo’s affair with Genji, or the Third Princess’s affair with [Kashiwagi,] the Commander of the Right Gate Guards?
For the Emperor’s sake, Fujitsubo did ultimately turn her back on the world with unflinching resolve, yet her replies [to Genji] invariably seem far too peevish. But one does feel sorry for the Commander of the Right Gate Guards when, having had no sympathy from the Third Princess, he sends her his “smoke from my burning pyre” poem [“Kashiwagi,” 15:281], thinking the end had come and he might perish without ever receiving a reply.
[ima wa tote moen keburi mo musubōre / taenu omoi no nao ya nokoramu
Even then when the end is come and smoke rises from my burning pyre,
these unquenchable flames of yearning surely shall remain.]
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Item. Which is the more shocking [omowazu nari]: Tamakazura, the Chief Palace Attendant, ignoring the proposals of the Reizei Emperor and the [Hotaru] Prince Minister of War, only to become the wife of Commandant Higekuro [between “Fujibakama” and “Makibashira”], despite saying she cares nothing for him; or Utsusemi, whom we would pity and recall how lovely she had once been, if only she had gone into seclusion in some mountain retreat after turning her back on the world [“Sekiya,” 13:354]? But just when the woman should have been devoting herself to tranquil reflection and repentance, she allowed herself to be brought back and live with [Genji’s] other women [“Hatsune,” 14:149–51].
It is indeed unseemly that Utsusemi went to live among all those other ladies after she had become a nun. Still, once she turns her back on the world, her resolve is firm, and never does she entertain any thoughts that might transgress the Buddha’s precepts. It is a pity that after Tamakazura had been so firm with the Reizei Emperor and the Prince Minister of War, Commandant Higekuro should force himself on her. She was always fretting about one thing or another, though, and most likely she found some peace of mind in settling once for all on this rather coarse gentleman. But then—the deed done—she has the gall to take her “little pines” [sons] with her and refer [to Genji] as her “great rock” [“Wakana, jō,” 15:51]—now that was shocking.
[wakaba sasu nobe no komatsu o hikitsurete / moto no iwane o inoru kyō kana
I bring with me today these little pines, plucked from freshly sprouting fields,
as I pray that the great rock whence I sprang may long endure.]
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Item. Which would have been slightly more heart-rending [ima sukoshi kokorozukushi]: the parting at the shrine in the fields when [Genji] laments that “dawn partings will always be drenched with dew, but…” [“Sakaki,” 13:81], or that winter’s evening, “trudging along icy shores” by the ferry crossing at the Uji River? [“Ukifune,” 17:146]
The setting, the touching beauty of the scene before his eyes when they parted at the shrine in the fields, would indeed have left their mark on the man’s feelings. But surely one’s heart must go out to the spectacle of [Niou’s] distress, so “lost to her” that he would “trudge through the snow.”
[Genji’s poem to the Rokujō Consort; “Sakaki,” 13:81:
akatsuki no wakare wa itsumo tsuyukeki o / ko wa yo ni shiranu aki no sora kana
Though partings at dawn will always be dewy and drenched with tears,
never before have I seen such autumnal skies as this.
Niou’s poem to Ukifune; “Ukifune,” 6:146:
mine no yuki migiwa no kōri fumiwakete / kimi ni zo madou michi wa madowazu
I trudge across snowbound mountain peaks, along ice-lined shores,
never losing my way as I have lost myself to you.]
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Item. Who is the more resolute [kokorozuyoshi]: the Asagao High Priestess, or the elder Uji sister?
The Asagao High Priestess is past her prime; she is of lesser rank than the most exalted ladies, and she would have been well aware what the [Rokujō] Consort had been through [“Aoi,” 13:13]. Although the elder Uji sister realized that his [Kaoru’s] devotion to her was of many years standing, she managed to elude him until her death. That is incomparable.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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GENJI: A CONTEST
(Genji monoarasoi)
Which is the more profound [fukashi]: the Emperor’s feelings that autumn when the Mistress of the Wardrobe in the Paulownia Court sensed that her time was come, and he found it so maddeningly difficult to give her leave to depart the palace [“Kiritsubo,” 12:97–98], or Genji’s grief when Lady Murasaki passed away? [“Minori,” “Maboroshi”]
tsuki mo senu kokoro no yami no fukaki yo ni / kumogakurenishi aki zo kanashiki
In the limitless depths of that night of ceaseless darkness in his heart,
that autumn when she was hidden in cloud, that was sorrow.
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Which is slightly the more forward [ima sukoshi hashijika nari]: the Yūgao lady when she sent out her “it seems that you might just be he, the glistening dew…” poem [“Yūgao,” 12:211], or the Third Princess, in pursuit of her cat, being seen by Kashiwagi? [“Wakana, jō,” 15:132–33]
te ni naraishi neko no kagoto mo arinubeshi / amari zo kakeshi yūgao no hana
At least she could blame it on her pet kitten, tamed by her own hand,
but the girl with the moonflower face has gone just too far.
[Yūgao’s poem; “Yūgao,” 12:214:
kokoroate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no / hikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light on the face of the moonflower.]
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Who are closer friends: Genji and Tō no Chūjō in earlier days, or the Prince Minister of War [Niou] and Commandant Kaoru during their Uji period?
iro mo ka mo tagui wa onaji tazunekoshi / suma no tabine ni shiku mono zo naki
In both substance and essence, they are of quite the same order, but naught
can equal that journey to visit his friend in Suma. [“Suma,” 13:304–8]
Genji, who gleamed as with a bright light, or Commandant Kaoru, who radiated fragrance? [“Niou Miya,” 16:19–22]
minamoto o musubishi mizu wa kiyokeredo / nagare no sue ya sumimasaruran
Though the waters be pure where they rise from the Minamoto wellspring,
can they possibly be clearer yet further down the stream?
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Who feels himself to be the greater fool [nao oroka nari]: Genji when he discovered the letter from the Kashiwagi Commander of the Gate Guards beneath her cushion [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240], or Commandant Kaoru when he first heard of the Prince Minister of War’s [Niou’s] dalliance with the lady at writing practice [Ukifune]? [“Ukifune,” 17:161–63]
tamafuda no kayoishi naka wa tsurakeredo / shitone no shita ni shiku mono wa naki
Their bond, linked by those lovely letters, was painful to him,
but naught can equal what lay beneath that cushion of hers.
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Which would be the more difficult to conceal [shinobigatashi]: Genji’s feelings after the Yūgao lady passed away [“Yūgao,” 12:247–49], or the Prince Minister of War’s [Niou’s] feelings after the young lady at writing practice [Ukifune] vanished without a trace? [“Kagerō,” 17:206–12]
ukifune no ato no namida wa kawakanedo / kiku dani kanashi yūgao no tsuyu
The wake of that small boat adrift, those tears of his, never do they dry;
yet the dew on the moonflower, sad even to hear of it.
The terrible grief felt [kokoro no monoganashisa] by the Rokujō Consort when she left the capital, saying, “Whose [thoughts are likely to follow me] as far as Ise?” [“Sakaki,” 13:87], or by Hanachirusato when [Genji] left for Suma and she spoke of her “sleeves, narrow though they be,” while in those dark-hued sleeves “dwelled the face of the moon, itself wet with tears”? [“Suma,” 13:167]
tachibana no hana chiru sato no kayoiji ni / yasose no nami ya tachimasaruran
More so than upon the path to the village where orange blossoms fall
shall there be tears as the waves of myriad rapids rise.
[Genji’s poem; “Sakaki,” 13:86:
furisutete kyō wa yukutomo suzukagawa / yasose no nami ni sode wa nureji ya
Though today you abandon me and leave, at the Suzukagawa
will not the waves of its myriad rapids soak your sleeves?
The Rokujō Consort’s reply; “Sakaki,” 13:87:
suzukagawa yasose no nami ni nurenurezu / ise made tare ka omoiokosemu
Whether wet or not by waves in the myriad rapids of the Suzukagawa,
whose thoughts are likely to follow me as far as Ise?
Hanachirusato’s poem; “Suma,” 13:167:
tsukikage no yadoreru sode wa sebakutomo / tometemo mibaya akanu hikari o
Narrow though they be, these sleeves of mine wherein dwells the light of the moon,
how I wish they might stay its glow, of which I never tire.
Both the Genji narrator and Hanachirusato allude to a poem by Ise; Kokinshū 756:
ai ni aite monoomou koro no waga sode ni / yadoreru tsuki sae nururu kao naru
How appropriate that now, in my despair, even the face of the moon
that dwells in my sleeves should itself be wet with tears.]
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Which is the more distressing [kokorogurushi]: the enormity of her dumping the ashes in the censer on Commandant Higekuro [“Makibashira,” 14:357–58], or the spirit of the Rokujō Consort venturing forth to possess Lady Aoi? [“Aoi”]
takimono no hitori no hai ya musebiken / kuyuru omoi wa iro ni izutomo
The ashes in the brazier of the perfume censer must have been stifling,
though they did give vent to the smoke of her smoldering feelings.
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Whose profound prudence [kokoro fukasa] is rarer [arigatashi]: the Asagao Princess, who died stubbornly firm in her determination that she should never be rumored to be frivolous [“Asagao,” “Otome”], or the elder Princess in Uji, who strongly urges him [Kaoru] to transfer his affections [to Nakanokimi]? [“Agemaki”]
utsurowade yaminishi hana no tsuyu bakari / fukaki iro aru uji no kawanami
Deep is the hue of the river waves at Uji, but not so much so
as the dew on that blossom, withered yet not faded.
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Which, finally, is the more frivolous [kokoro karoshi]: the Third Princess allowing herself to be seen by Kashiwagi [“Wakana, jō,” 15:132–33], or the lady at writing practice [Ukifune] giving herself up to the Prince Minister of War [Niou]? [“Ukifune,” 17:115–17]
iroiro ni utsurou hana wa ada naredo / nao kashiwagi no mori no shita tsuyu
Fickle indeed is the fading flower as it shifts from shade to shade,
yet even more so is the dew beneath the grove of oak.
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Genji’s devotion [kokorozashi] in having advanced the career of the Akikonomu Empress and treated her so wonderfully out of pity for [her mother] the Rokujō Consort, who had died in the depths of despair, or his having cared so solicitously for Tamakazura, the Chief Palace Attendant, as a keepsake of [her mother Yūgao, whose life had been as ephemeral as] the dew on the moonflower?
tamakazura kokoro ni kakete shinobedomo / nao mi ni shimu wa aki no yūgure
Tamakazura he cherishes with a particular fondness;
yet even more poignant is that evening in autumn.
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Which would have been the more bewildering [magiretarikemu]: Genji’s feelings when he could learn nothing about the identity of Yūgao [“Yūgao”], or his anxiety [obotsukanasa] when, despite running hither and yon, he could not work out where Oborozukiyo, the Chief Palace Attendant, lived? [“Hana no en”]
[The puzzle of] Yūgao’s identity originates in the contemptible circumstances in which she lived; but he is calmed by her manner, so much less pretentious than that of the others, and ultimately he comes to trust her. Oborozukiyo’s quarters, at the Third Door, lay in an awesome location. He had no idea of her whereabouts and was utterly at a loss for any means of finding her. In addition, the contrary manner of her “grassy moor” poem weighed so heavily on his mind that this would have seemed to him far the more bewildering.
hikari sou tasogaredoki no hana yori mo / oboroge naranu fukaki yo no tsuki
More so than that flower upon which he casts his glow in the twilight
was the full moon, shining clear and unmisted, late that night.
[Oborozukiyo’s poem; “Hana no en,” 12:427:
ukimi yo ni yagate kienaba tazunetemo / kusa no hara oba towaji to ya omou
Were I, poor thing, suddenly to vanish from this world, you might inquire,
do you mean, but not seek out my grave on the grassy moor?
The judgment poem draws its diction from two poems:
Yūgao to Genji; “Yūgao,” 12:214:
kokoroate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no / hikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light on the face of the moonflower.
Genji to Oborozukiyo; “Hana no en,” 12:426:
fukaki yo no aware o shiru mo iru tsuki no / oboroge naranu chigiri to zo omou
One who appreciates the beauty of this late night as the moon sets
feels our bond to be every bit as clear and unmisted.]
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The Imperial Adviser Colonel [Tō no Chūjō] makes his way to Suma, and as they talk of the capital, their “drunken sorrow” grows deeper and they recall how “tears fill the wine cups of spring” [“Suma,” 13:204–8; quoting Hakushi monjū, 1107]. This seems a noble and exemplary deed [arigataki tameshi]. Neither does the deep devotion of Commandant Kaoru ever diminish, resolved as he is to look after the Prince Novice [the Eighth Prince], even into the next life. He undertakes, too, the guardianship of the Princesses, discreetly yet unceasingly [“Hashihime,” 16:150–51; “Shiigamoto,” 16:171]. This, too, surely, is noble [arigataki].
When the Imperial Adviser Colonel pointedly ignores the troublesome political consequences and goes openly to that wave-beaten shore, that is truly noble [makoto ni arigataki]; and yet, given the intimacy of their familial relationship, and even more so their friendship, like birds who fly wing to wing, it is only natural that he should show such affection. Yet the Commandant’s noble behavior [arigatasa] surely is without precedent. In admiration of the principles that made [the prince] an “ascetic, though yet of this world,” he seeks him out deep in the mountains [“Hashihime,” 16:124–27], never flags from beginning to end, even making his way through snows that block out the heavens [“Shiigamoto,” 16:197], and then rebuilds his “straw-thatched hermitage” as a temple [“Yadorigi,” 16:443–45].
nochi no yo mo kono yo mo fukaki kokoro ni wa / tachiokurekeri suma no uranami
Whether in worlds to come or in this present world, to such deep feeling
they are inferior—those waves that beat on Suma’s shore.
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At the festivities beneath the cherry blossoms before the Southern Hall [“Hana no en,” 12:423–24], “the poems were so superb and the dances and the music in such perfect harmony” that [the Minister of the Left] thought their magnificence unequaled in “these past four reigns of enlightened sovereigns” and, moreover, that they “must stand as a model for reigns yet to come.” Particularly memorable, too, in so many ways, [Genji thought], was [Tō no Chūjō’s dance] “Garden of Willows and Flowers” [“Hana no en,” 12:432]. In the women’s concert at the Rokujō mansion [“Wakana, ge” 15:175–76], of the countless tunes of one sort and another that come to mind, one can imagine how superb the sound of that Azuma koto [“Wakana, ge,” 15:192] must have been—which was the instrument, was it not, to which the Commandant [Yūgiri] had listened so intently? [“Wakana, ge,” 15:181]
Of the many different beauties at the women’s concert, one calls to mind, too, the appearance [katachi] of each of the ladies, at which time images of an unseen world form in one’s mind. And when [Genji] hears the Third Princess playing her kin, looking [as frail and delicate as new strands of willow that might] “tangle even in the breeze from a warbler’s wings” [“Wakana, ge,” 15:183], and deems her touch superior even to the sound of [Murasaki’s] Azuma koto [“Wakana, ge,” 15:192–93], that is unforgettable [sutegataki]. But how memorable must have been the “Spring Warbler” that the Genji Colonel casually danced “just a hint of” and then retired [“Hana no en,” 12:424]. The somewhat more conscientiously prepared “‘Garden of Willows and Flowers,’ which truly must stand as a model for reigns yet to come,” is likewise exceptional.
momochidori saezuru haru no kai arite / yanagi no hana no itodo yukashiki
Following upon the beauties of spring, flights of plovers chirping,
one longs only the more for the willows and the flowers.
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The quick wit [kokorotosa] of Koremitsu when he asks, “How many Baby Rat Day sweets?” [“Aoi,” 13:65–66], or the quick wit of Commandant Kaoru’s guardsman when he detects the letter from Prince [Niou] at Uji? [“Ukifune,” 17:161–63]
It was quick-witted of Commandant Kaoru’s guardsman to realize that this was a letter from the Prince and to go as far as to send someone to follow [the messenger] and find out where he came from; but then, Tokitaka82 was of common origins. Anyone seeing someone at the door delivering a letter attached to a branch of cherry could have guessed what was going on. If you really place a higher value on sharpness [kadokadoshiki] in such matters, then Koremitsu’s hinting at “Baby Rat Day” is the more impressive.
tamazusa no kayou yukue o tazunetemo / ne no ko no kazu wa nao zo masareru
Though the one identifies the source of this traffic in love letters,
“How many for Baby Rat Day” is by far the better.
[Koremitsu’s quick wit consists of not only his recognition of Genji’s meaning but also the words with which he expresses his perception: ne no ko means “baby rat” but also suggests that Genji intends to “sleep with the child.”]
Despite Genji’s circumspection, on account of the cruel things that are being said about him, just as he is leaving Fujitsubo’s quarters, [Tō no Ben] chants, “A white rainbow crosses the sun; the Crown Prince falls to the earth [sic]” [“Sakaki,” 13:117]. How must Genji have felt to hear such effrontery? And how cruel Genji is when the saké cup comes around to [Kashiwagi,] the Commander of the Gate Guards: although he appears to be in high spirits, he decides to feign drunkenness and persists in forcing him to drink [“Wakana, ge,” 15:270–71].
When [Tō no Ben] chants, “A white rainbow crosses the sun,” that was something said simply because, as a rule, people of a particular faction are swayed by the way things go in their own world and act accordingly. What can anyone do about that? When [Kashiwagi,] the Commander of the Gate Guards, declines to come because he is so terribly frightened [“Wakana, ge,” 15:259–63] and [Genji] decides to summon him forcefully and then torments him, that is quite shocking.
shizariki [sic] tada naozari no koto no ha mo / moemu kemuri ni musebu beshi to wa83
…even the words of the simplest careless utterance
may cause one to choke on the smoke of a smoldering pyre.
[The writer misquotes the second clause of the passage from Records of the Historian chanted by Tō no Ben: taishi chi ni ochitariken (the Crown Prince has fallen to the earth). The version in the Genji text reads taishi ojitari (the Crown Prince trembles). Tō no Ben is the nephew of the Kokiden Consort and the grandson of the Minister of the Right. His effrontery lies in the suggestion that Genji, like the Crown Prince in the Records, harbors treasonous designs against the emperor.]
Which was the occasion of greater mental anguish [kokorogurushisa]? On a spring morning at the Rokujō mansion, around the time Genji is visiting the Third Princess, he goes to the quarters of Lady Murasaki, humming to himself, “The snows that yet remain.” The lady retracts and conceals the sleeve of her robe, which is wet with tears, and greets him warmly [“Wakana, jō,” 15:62]. Or the evening when the Prince Minister of War [Niou] is to become Yūgiri’s son-in-law, he makes all manner of promises [to Nakanokimi], telling her that “you are not to look at the late night moon alone” and trying in various ways to comfort her? She thinks neither one thing nor another but feels only that her pillow might float away [“Yadorigi,” 16:390–91].
Murasaki, who for years had been accustomed to having no rival, now must have felt overcome with grief. Yet she could still count on [Genji] to deem her superior to his many others. They had been together since he had fallen in love with her long ago as a little girl, so she could take heart in the knowledge that he was not likely to lose all interest in her. The Prince Minister of War [Niou] was of an innately amorous disposition, and his affections had shifted. This was the end, she realized: a wretched state. Her inconsequential rank had left her humiliated, forlorn, and so anguished that she could hardly believe she had really left home and made her way down that mountain path. The Princess’s feelings as she pondered that “piercing autumn [wind]” were of quite another order.
tsuyu wakuru kusa no yukari wa ada naraji / mi ni shimu aki no kaze zo kanashiki
So her kin, from whom she’d parted brushing aside the dew, had not been wrong;
sorrowfully blows that autumn wind, piercing to the bone.
[“Autumn wind” alludes to Nakanokimi’s own poem (“Yadorigi,” 16:393):
yamazato no matsu no kage ni mo kaku bakari / mi ni shimu aki no kaze wa nakariki
Even there in the shade of the pines in my old home in the mountains,
never did the autumn wind blow so piercingly as this.]
COPIED THIS TWENTIETH YEAR OF ŌEI (1413), SEVENTH MONTH, FIRST DAY
KAMEWAKAMARU84
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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THE FEELINGS OF PEOPLE IN GENJI: A MATCH
(Genji hitobito kokoro kurabe [Suzuki manuscript])
Which is the more profound [fukashi]: the Emperor’s feelings when the Mistress of the Wardrobe in the Paulownia Court sensed that her time was come, and he found it so painfully difficult to give her leave to depart the palace [“Kiritsubo,” 12:97–98], or Genji’s feelings when Lady Murasaki passed away?85 [“Minori,” “Maboroshi”]
tsuki mo senu kokoro no yami no fukaki yo ni / kumogakurenishi ato zo kanashiki
In the limitless depths of that night of ceaseless darkness in his heart,
it was after she was hidden in cloud; that was sorrow.
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Which is the more forward [hashijika nari]: the Yūgao lady when she sent out her “it seems that you might just be he, the glistening dew…” poem [“Yūgao,” 12:212], or the Third Princess, in pursuit of her cat, being seen for the first time by Kashiwagi? [“Wakana, jō,” 15:132–33]
tenarekoshi neko no kagoto mo arinubeshi / amari zo nageshi yūgao no hana
At least she could blame it on her pet kitten, tamed by her own hand;
but the girl with the moonflower face is just too forward.
[Yūgao’s poem; “Yūgao,” 1:214:
kokoro ate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no / hikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light on the face of the moonflower.]
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Who are closer friends: the Prince Minister of War [Niou] and Commandant Kaoru during their Uji period, or Genji and Tō no Chūjō in their earlier days?
iro mo ka mo tagui wa onaji tazunekoshi / suma no tabine ni shiku mono zo naki
In both substance and essence, they are of the same order, but nothing
can equal that journey to visit his friend in Suma. [“Suma,” 13:304–8]
Genji, who gleams as with a bright light, and Commandant Kaoru, who radiates a pervasive fragrance? [“Niou Miya,” 16:19–22]
minamoto o musubishi mizu wa kiyokeredo / nagare no sue ya sumimasaruran
Though the waters be pure where they rise from the Minamoto wellspring,
can they possibly be clearer yet further down the stream?
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Who feels himself to be the greater fool [nao oroka naru]: Genji when he discovered the letter from the Kashiwagi Commander of the Gate Guards beneath her cushion [“Wakana, ge,” 15:240], or Kaoru when he first heard of the letter that Prince Niou sent to Miyanokimi? [“Ukifune,” 17:161–63]
tamazusa no kayoishi naka wa tsurakeredo / shitone no shita ni shiku mono zo naki
Their bond, linked by those lovely letters, was a painful one,
but naught can equal what lay underneath that cushion of hers.
[The writer apparently confuses Ukifune with her cousin Miyanokimi. In extant Genji texts, Niou does not send a letter to Miyanokimi.]
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Which would be the more hurtful [urameshi]: Lady Murasaki’s anguish when the Lord of Rokujō [Genji] welcomed the Third Princess as his wife and treated her so solicitously [“Wakana, jō”], or the Sanjō lady’s [Kumoinokari’s] grief when Commandant Yūgiri took the Ochiba Princess to wife? [“Yūgiri”]
murasaki no yukari mo tsurashi yūgiri no / ochiba iro tsuku enishi aritomo
Painful it was for her of affinities with purple [Murasaki], fated though
the fallen leaves [Ochiba] were to be tinged by the evening mists [Yūgiri].
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Which would be the more difficult to lament openly [wabigatashi]: Genji’s feelings after the Yūgao lady passed away [“Yūgao,” 12:247–49], or the Minister of War’s [Niou’s] feelings when the lady at writing practice [Ukifune] vanished without a trace? [“Kagerō,” 17:206–12]
ukifune no ato no namida mo kawaranedo / kiku dani kanashi yūgao no tsuyu
The wake of that small boat adrift, those tears of his, never will they change;
yet the dew on the moonflower, sad even to hear of it.
The mental anguish felt [kokoro no monoomowashisa] by the Rokujō Consort when she left the capital, saying, “Whose thoughts are likely to follow me to Ise?” [“Sakaki,” 13:87], or Hanachirusato, when [Genji] left for Suma and she spoke of her “sleeves, narrow though they be,” while in those dark-hued sleeves “dwelled the face of the moon, itself wet with tears”? [“Suma,” 13:167]
tachibana no hana chiru sato no kayoiji ni / yasose no nami ya tachimasaruran
More so than upon the path to the village where orange blossoms fall
shall there be tears as the waves of myriad rapids rise.
[Genji’s poem; “Sakaki,” 13:86:
furisutete kyō wa yukutomo suzukagawa / yasose no nami ni sode wa nureji ya
Though today you abandon me and leave, at the Suzukagawa
shall not the waves of its myriad rapids soak your sleeves?
The Rokujō Consort’s reply; “Sakaki,” 13:87:
suzukagawa yasose no nami ni nurenurezu / Ise made tare ka omoiokosemu
Wet or not wet by waves in the myriad rapids of Suzukagawa,
whose thoughts are likely to follow me as far as Ise?
Hanachirusato’s poem; “Suma,” 13:167:
tsukikage no yadoreru sode wa sebakutomo / tometemo mibaya akanu hikari o
Narrow though they be, these sleeves wherein dwells the light of the moon,
how I wish they might stay its glow, of which I never tire.]86
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Which is the more frightful [osoroshi]: the enormity of her [Higekuro’s wife] dumping the ashes on Commandant Higekuro [“Makibashira,” 14:357–58], or the spirit of the Rokujō Consort venturing forth to possess Lady Aoi? [“Aoi”]
takimono no hitori no hai ya musebiken / kuyuru keburi no iro ni izutomo
The ashes in the brazier of the perfume censer must have been stifling,
though they did give vent to the smoke of her smoldering anguish.
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Whose profound prudence [kokoro fukasa] is the rarer [arigatashi]: the Asagao Princess, who died quite stubbornly firm in her determination that she should never hear herself called frivolous [“Asagao,” “Otome”], or the elder Princess in Uji, who strongly urges him [Kaoru] to transfer his affections [to Nakanokimi]? [“Agemaki”]
utsurowade yaminishi hana no iro bakari / fukaki iro aru uji no kawanami
Deep is the hue of the river waves at Uji, but not so much so
as the hue of that blossom, withered yet never faded.
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Which, finally, is the more frivolous [kokoro karoshi]: the Third Princess allowing herself to be seen by Kashiwagi, the Commander of the Gate Guards [“Wakana, jō,” 15:132–33], or the lady at writing practice [Ukifune] giving herself up to the Prince Minister of War [Niou]? [“Ukifune,” 17:115–17]
iroiro ni kokoro no hana wa ada naredo / nao kashiwagi no mori no shita tsuyu
Fickle indeed is the flower of the heart, shifting from shade to shade;
yet even more so is the dew beneath the grove of oak.
Genji’s devotion [kokorozashi] in having advanced the career of the Akikonomu Empress and treating her so wonderfully out of pity for [her mother] the Rokujō Consort, who had died in the depths of despair for her reputation; or his having cared so solicitously for Tamakazura, the Chief Palace Attendant, as a keepsake of [her mother Yūgao, whose life had been as ephemeral as] the dew on the moonflower?
tamakazura kokoro ni kakete omoedomo / nao mi ni shimu wa aki no yūkaze
For Tamakazura he feels a most particular affection,
yet even more poignant is that evening breeze in autumn.
[Genji’s] beauty at the autumn leaves festivities when he danced the Blue Waves in the glow of the setting sun [“Momiji no ga,” 12:383], or Yūgiri’s beauty under the blossoms at the musicale in the “Wakana” chapter? [“Wakana, ge,” 15:180]
tachimayou hana no nioi wa fukakeredo / yūhi kagayaku aki no momijiba
Rich indeed was the fragrance wafting about the radiant blossoms,
yet those autumn leaves all aglow in the evening sun….
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Which is the more touching [aware] instance of parental love for a child: the letter the Retired Minister [Tō no Chūjō] sent to the Ochiba Princess in which he vented his resentment, saying, “I hold you ever in my heart…” [“Yūgiri,” 15:471], or the one that the Prince Minister of War [Niou], in a state of desperation, wrote to Commandant Higekuro, in which he spoke of the “bird that flits about and roosts”? [“Makibashira,” 14:376]
izure to mo waki zo kanetaru katagata ni / ko o omou michi no michishiba no tsuyu
Which is the more so? One hesitates to distinguish one from the other;
parental love is a path fraught on both sides with perils.
[Tō no Chūjō’s poem; “Yūgiri,” 15:471:
chigiri are ya kimi o kokoro ni todomeokite / aware to omou urameshi to kiku
Perhaps some karmic bond between us? I hold you ever in my heart;
I think fondly of you yet hear such hateful things of you.
The author seems to confuse Hotaru Hyōbukyō no Miya, a former suitor of Tamakazura, with Shikibukyō no Miya, the father of Higekuro’s rejected wife. Moreover, Hotaru’s note is sent not to Higekuro but to Tamakazura herself. It is thus no expression of parental love at all but the complaint of a rejected lover (“Makibashira,” 14:376):
miyamagi ni hane uchikawashi iru tori no / mata naku netaki haru ni mo aru kana
So you mean to flit about and roost in such a gnarled old mountain tree?
Well, this new song of yours proclaims a spring of great rancor.]
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Which more nearly approaches perfection [aramahoshi]: that auspicious scene when [Tamakazura] expresses her [congratulations on Genji’s fortieth birthday] in terms of the pines that sprout from the rock, tinted so deeply with the green of spring [“Wakana, jō,” 15:51], or that autumn evening when their converse was so intimate that even the slightest glance conveyed affection? [“Kagaribi,” 14:246–50]
iro kaenu iwane no matsu no shitaogi ni / tsuyu okimasaru aki no yūgure
On the reeds that grow, shaded beneath the ever unfading green pine,
dewdrops form yet more profusely of an autumn evening.
[The author’s memory of Tamakazura’s poem is slightly skewed, as the pines in this episode spring not from the rocks but from the fields:
wakaba sasu nobe no komatsu o hikitsurete / moto no iwane o inoru kyō kana
I bring with me today these little pines, plucked from freshly sprouting fields,
as I pray that the great rock whence I sprang may long endure.]
When Commandant Yūgiri catches sight of Lady Murasaki from a far corner on the morning after the typhoon [“Nowaki,” 14:256–59], or when the Commandant [Yūgiri] glimpses the scene in which the Akashi Empress appears even more imposing than before in her robes? [“Nowaki,” 14:274–77]
morotomo ni fukaki ko no ma o yuku tsuki no / honoka ni mieshi kage zo wasurenu
Both are as unforgettable as the light of the moon faintly glimpsed
from deep in a grove as it passes a gap in the trees.
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Which is the more touching [aware]: when his attendant monk told the Renzei [sic] Emperor about that “dream they had lived, in which the nights they [Genji and Fujitsubo] met were so rare” [“Usugumo,” 13:439], or [Kaoru’s] joy when the nun Ben produced the brocade bag and showed it to him? [“Hashihime,” 16:154–55]
mukashi mishi au yo mare naru yumeji ni mo / fukaki namida no tsuyu no tamazusa
Even on that path of dreams, where long ago on nights so rare they met,
the dew of tears lies deep, from those few little letters.
[The quotation is from Genji’s poem to Fujitsubo (“Wakamurasaki,” 12:306):
mitemo mata au yo mare naru yume no uchi ni / yagate magiruru waga mi to mogana
Though with you now, yet rare will be the nights we can meet again; would that
I myself might be swirled away with this dream we now live.]
After the Princess Second Rank [the Third Princess] moved to the Rokujō mansion, [Murasaki], in an excess of unbearable insecurity, gazed out at “green leaves on the hills” and thought, “so autumn is come” [“Wakana, jō,” 15:82], or when the Prince Minister of War [Niou] proceeded to the mansion of the Minister of the Left [Yūgiri, actually the Minister of the Right], [Nakanokimi], bereft of all consolation, gazed out at the moon as it rose bright and clear, as it had above Mount Abandoned Crone, and mused that her life was more miserable now than it had been even in the wretched “shade of the pines”? [“Yadorigi,” 16:392–93]
mizutori no aoba no yama o nagametemo / mi ni shimu hodo no aki wa nakariki
Gaze though she may at the hills green with new leaves where waterfowl sport,
her autumn was not so sharp as a lover’s indifference.
[The reference to the moon shining on Obasuteyama alludes to Kokinshū 878:
waga kokoro nagusamekanetsu sarashina ya / obasute yama ni teru tsuki o mite
O Sarashina! My heart is inconsolable even as I gaze
at the moon that shines down on Mount Abandoned Crone.
The “shade of the pines” is from Nakanokimi’s own poem (“Yadorigi,” 16:393):
yamazato no matsu no kage ni mo kaku bakari / mi ni shimu aki no kaze wa nakariki
Even there in the shade of the pines in my old home in the mountains
never did the autumn wind blow so piercingly as this.]
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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THE WOMEN IN ISE AND GENJI: A MATCH IN TWELVE ROUNDS
(Ise Genji jūniban onna awase)
Most attempts to date The Women in Ise and Genji, based principally on comparison with Ise monogatari texts of known provenance, have proved inconclusive, and thus in most reference works Onna awase is described as dating from the Kamakura period.87 More recently, however, a study based on close comparison of the Onna awase text with a number of Genji digests has revealed correspondences with fifteenth-century digests that are so numerous and so close that we can now confidently assume that Onna awase must have been composed sometime after Genji monogatari teiyō was completed in 1432.88 Even more significantly, these correspondences reveal a great deal about the way the text was composed. As Oda Keiko, the author of this study, points out, by the later Muromachi period, “common readers” (ippan dokusha) could no longer read the raw text of The Tale of Genji. Whatever knowledge of Genji they possessed came more from digest versions than from the original. Onna awase is a fascinating illustration of such an understanding. Readers of this translation will no doubt notice many discrepancies between the Genji described by the author of Onna awase and the Genji written by Murasaki Shikibu. Story lines are garbled, characters and chronology confused, and poems misquoted. One at first suspects an understandable imprecision of memory. The Tale of Genji is a vast work; no one could memorize it perfectly, and it would not have been easy to check every detail with the resources available at the time. But in fact, many of these discrepancies can be traced to the text of one or another of the Genji digests. They are not imprecise versions of the Genji text; rather, they are “correctly” cited or quoted from inaccurate digests. Some of the more conspicuous inaccuracies are pointed out in the notes. Unfortunately, however, no evidence has yet been discovered that would support even a guess at the identity of the author of Onna awase.89
T. HARPER
It was in a recent reign, I believe, toward the middle of the Second Month, when the cherry blossoms before the South Hall were at their peak, on a tranquil day when even the breeze, cognizant perhaps of the occasion, blew but softly. As the Emperor himself was to grace the day, not one of his ladies failed to attend him: the Empress, of course, and every Dame of Honor, every Mistress of the Wardrobe was there. Musicians were summoned, each painstakingly selected for the perfection of his particular art, so that the strains of woodwinds and strings resonated throughout this dwelling in the clouds, while dancers, likewise, performed with consummate brilliance. “Though these sleeves flutter not in the shade of autumn leaves,”90 said the Emperor, beaming, “who would not be touched by the sights we have seen today?” His gentlewomen, one and all, appeared loath even to venture a reply. As the saké cups made their rounds, all strove to do their best by the topic, “Blossoms Blooming with Smiles of Joy.” And thus they passed the entire day absorbed in the pleasures of composition, in both Chinese and Japanese. When it was agreed that [they should meet] again the next day, though blooms of hagi [bush clover] these were not, the face of the moon did indeed smile upon them.91
The Empress summoned a lady called Dainagon. “Since His Majesty would view [the blossoms] again tomorrow, to complement the fine music already requested, you must put together a few pairs of women who appear in the old romances. Now, if you discuss them only in terms of their office and rank, what sort of contest would that be? So present them to His Majesty, judging them only on the basis of their gentility and character as exhibited in the particular circumstances of one passage and another.” So saying, the Empress herself called for her inkstone and was pleased to draw up a list of people, in twelve pairs, just as they happened to occur to her, those from Tales of Ise on the Left and those from The Shining Genji on the Right. As she accepted [the list], Lady Dainagon said, “There do seem to be numerous instances of matching objects, be they poems, pictures, perfumes, fans, or whatever else might suit the occasion—but those sorts of things one can compare on the basis of particulars and thus judge which are the winners and losers. How, though, is one to judge the feelings of people of the distant past well enough to compare them?” Thus did the deluded darkness of a dim mind find its way into even such an endeavor as this. If only there were some precedent, she thought, that would permit her to escape the august imperial command. For should she state her judgments, item by item, the distress of it, as with an old jewel left too long unpolished, could not help but arouse in her an unsettling sense of trepidation.
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Round 1
Left The Empress Mother of the Fifth Ward Win
Right The Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe
On the Left is the Empress Mother of the Montoku Emperor.92 During His Majesty’s august reign, she did no little bit to nurture the realm and benefit her subjects, while to His Majesty, too, she was a source of sound counsel. In the Zhou dynasty, the Consort of King Wen, desiring to perpetuate the reign, understood that keeping peace in the realm was a matter of winning the allegiance of people and that to win the allegiance of people, nothing could equal familial relationship. And so she sought out daughters from each of her subjects of good family and presented them to His Royal Highness. Might even the example of this woman be something this lady has taken to heart? In nobility of character and appearance it is hard to say [who else] she might be compared with. In Yotsugi’s Tale, this lady is likened to the cherry blossoms. Her father, too, merely for expatiating on his own old age, attained unwarranted repute.93 Having given birth to a child who becomes Emperor, she caused her entire line to achieve rank. Quite magnificent!
On the Right, the Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe. Her father was a Grand Counselor, or some such, but he seems to have died. Having no means of support, she enters service in the palace and there finds favor with the Emperor, who persists in spending day and night with her. Not one of those around her fails to take umbrage at this. This sort of thing has happened in foreign lands, they say—there could well be trouble here, too—and the realm grows more and more distressed by it. Before long, she gives birth to a Prince. It must have been when the child was in his third year that his mother, the Mistress of the Wardrobe, fell ill. She shows no sign of recovery, and in the summer of that year she is in such agony that she wishes to return to her home. The Emperor is utterly inconsolable. He has long wished at least to raise her to the rank of Empress,94 but what then of the censure of the court? No, he says, that would be going too far, and so he decrees that she be granted the privilege of a hand carriage. The Mistress of the Wardrobe:
kagiri tote wakaruru michi no kanashiki ni / ikamahoshiki wa inochi narikeri
In my grief, now that the end has come and I tread this path that parts us,
far more do I wish that my destination should be life. [“Kiritsubo,” 12:99]
And thus in the end she passes away. In the palace, His Highness, sunk in grief, longs for a wizard so that he might know whither her spirit has gone [“Kiritsubo,” 12:111]. During the period of mourning, the young Prince’s grandmother, now an old nun,95 takes him in. In her rustic thatched retreat, a desolate place buffeted by stormy winds, it is an even more dew-drenched autumn than usual. In the palace, His Highness, concerned in addition to all else about the Prince, deigned to send Lady Myōbu to the nun.
miyagino no tsuyu fukimusubu kaze no oto ni / kohagi ga moto o omoi koso yare
At the sound of the winds that bring dew down on the moors of Miyagi,
my heart goes out to that place where the young hagi grows.
[“Kiritsubo,” 12:105]
Her reply:
araki kaze fusegishi kage no kareshi yori / kohagi ga ue zo shizugokoro naki
Since the withering of the tree in whose shade he sheltered from the rough winds,
my heart can’t but tremble for the fate of the young hagi.
[“Kiritsubo,” 12:110]
No sooner has the period of mourning passed than the Prince returns to the palace where he grows up as if he were the ward of the Kokiden Empress.96 In the spring of his seventh year, he embarks on the study of reading. When a physiognomist from Korea arrives, he is taken to the Kōrōkan to meet him. This man foretells his future triumphs, and, because his appearance is so radiant, dubs him the “Shining Lord.” In keeping with the precedent of the sage kings, he dons the court cap of an adult for the first time in his twelfth year and is granted the name Minamoto. In the reign of the Reizei Emperor, he is made Honorary Emperor in Retirement, after which, I believe, he was addressed as Lord of the Rokujō Estate. As the mother of this extraordinary man who so astonished the world, for both his talents and his virtues, this Mistress of the Wardrobe suffers considerable humiliation at court in her own day. Reticent though I am to presume, having been selected to judge this entertainment today, how dare I not at least pay homage to the shade of this wise and noble Prince?
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Round 2
Left The Nijō Empress Draw
Right The Usugumo Empress Mother
On the Right, the Empress Mother. After the death of the Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe, His Majesty was so utterly despondent that he could hardly even distinguish morning from evening. “Yet with whom else…?” he would sigh, grasping her pillow. As he grew ever more lax in the performance of his duties at court, there arose a flurry of alarm in which some expressed doubts over the very future of the reign. In the hope that something might be done, they sought out this lady, and from time to time he would take comfort in her company. She was aged fourteen or fifteen, and perhaps for her natural radiance, so they say, she was dubbed “Princess Radiant Sun.” She was given quarters in the Wisteria Court, and in looks she came more and more to resemble her of the past. To the Shining Lord she looks like his real mother, and he becomes her close companion, waiting upon her morning and night. For her part, in her childish way, she treats him as her playmate, and thus it was that they come to hold frightfully inappropriate feelings for each other. Never would Her Highness be able to reveal this, but then, to her particular distress, she gave birth to a Prince. As the child matures, he comes to resemble Genji most remarkably, so that in the larger world, at least among those of discernment, some feel distinctly uneasy about what they see. Her Highness the mother, caught as she is in this impossible state of affairs, can but bear her anguish in silence, wondering all the while whether it can really be so, which in itself seems, at least slightly, to assuage her sense of guilt. But Genji, lamenting the shock of her total change of heart:
yosoetsutsu miru ni kokoro wa nagusamade / tsuyukesa souru nadeshiko no hana
Though I liken him to this pink, it brings my heart no satisfaction,
this little flower upon which the dew of my tears fall. [“Momiji no ga,” 12:402]
Before long, this boy succeeded to the throne, and Genji came to determine the course of worldly affairs. From this we realize that, indeed, the rank, even of the children of Emperors, appears to derive from the mother’s side. The Empress of the Left was betrothed to the Crown Prince when she was very young and had been raised with great care. However, a man, who held the rank of Colonel, made reckless advances toward her and persisted in courting her. When his parents and brothers forcefully restrained him, he turned away from the world in disgust and went into hiding outside the capital. Nonetheless, by night he would go to her, and probably because this proved to no avail, he intoned:
itazura ni yukite wa kinuru mono yue ni / mimakuhoshisa ni izanawaretsutsu
Though to no avail I go to you, only to return once again;
even so I go on, drawn by my desire to see you. [Ise 65; Kokinshū 620]
With nothing else, apparently, that he could do, he even prayed to the buddhas and gods that he might forget her. Exorcisms of various sorts were performed, but he longed for her still more than before.
koi seji to mitarashigawa ni seshi misogi / kami wa ukezu mo narinikeru kana
To those many lustrations performed at the river Mitarashi
that I might love no more, the gods, alas, have paid no heed.
[Ise 65; Kokinshū 501]
Back in the palace, His Majesty’s love for her is anything but shallow, and her cousin the Empress Mother looks after her with the utmost devotion. Thus the light of the world seems to have shone upon her, for toward the end of the Jōgan era [858–876] she gives birth to a Prince, and in the following year, I believe, rises to the rank of Empress.
Both these ladies, though of the most exalted lineage, were also tainted by a tinge of shadow in their lives, and since their personal qualities, too, are much the same, this match is a perfect draw.
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Round 3
Left The daughter of Aritsune
Right Lady Murasaki Win
On the Left: Inasmuch as the Colonel’s father, the Prince, lived not far from the home of Ki no Aritsune, the boy and the girl played together throughout their childhood. And with the blooming of the blossoms in spring and the tinting of the leaves in autumn, they vowed passionately to love each other forever. As they grew up, the girl’s parents were not inclined to be as permissive as they had been in the past. From time to time, however, her mother may have shown signs of sympathy, for she intoned:
miyoshino no tanomo no kari mo hitaburu ni / kimi ga kata ni zo yoru to naku naru
I seem to hear the goose that alights on the fields of Miyoshino
crying that it is in your direction she would fly. [Ise 10]
Delighted, the man replies:
waga kata ni yoru to naku naru miyoshino no / tanomo no kari o itsu ka wasuremu
The goose in the fields of Miyoshino that seems to you to cry
that she would come my way: when could I ever forget her?
[Ise 10]
On what occasion might it have been? The woman:
amagumo no yoso ni mo hito no nariyuki ka / sasuga ni me ni wa miyuru mono kara
Like the clouds far above, you fade ever further into the distance,
though to the eye you still remain so clearly visible. [Ise 19; Kokinshū 784]
The man replies:
amagumo no yoso ni nomi shite furu koto wa / waga iru yama no kaze hayami nari
That the clouds above remain so far distant can only be because
the winds around the mountain where they dwell blow so harshly.
[Ise 19; Kokinshū 785]
It is written that he says this because she has another man. According to this account, apparently, he himself found another lover elsewhere, and whenever he visited her, the [first] woman would see him off as if nothing had changed. The man was suspicious of this and, pretending to leave, lingered in the shadows and watched her. She makes herself up immaculately and, until late at night, plays her koto. Then, swallowing her resentment, she retires, saying:
kaze fukeba okitsu shiranami tatsutayama / yowa ni ya kimi ga hitori koyuran
Tatsutayama, higher than the white waves that rise when the winds blow:
in the middle of the night my love must cross all alone. [Ise 23]
Even when the man was on his deathbed, this woman wailed, “I’ve been counting on you to light my way along the path of darkness, and now you’re going to abandon me and go on ahead?” The man:
shiru ya sa wa ware ni chigireru yo no hito no / kuraki ni yukanu tayori ari to wa
Know’st thou? That any woman in this world who has pledged her love to me
thereby forms a bond such that she’ll never walk in darkness?97
Some cheek, that!
On the Right: This lady loses her mother when she is very young, and her nursemaid, a nun, brings her up. Genji, for reasons of his own, pays a visit to the retreat of the Prelate of the Northern Hills. This nursemaid, as it happens, is related to the Prelate and comes regularly to the Northern Hills, where she would stay in order to perform her devotions. Of course, she also brings the little lady with her. With so much idle time on his hands, Genji finds life in this mountain abode, whose sights were so unfamiliar to him, both strange and fascinating. He would look in here and look in there, leaving no corner of the place unexplored in his wanderings. What is this, and what is that? he would ask his retainers. During this time, he catches sight of a hermitage that, though enclosed by a brushwood fence like all the others, has a garden grove of particular elegance and beauty. He summons Koremitsu and sends him to investigate, whereupon he reports that the younger sister of the Prelate seems to have once been the wife of someone called the Inspector Grand Counselor. Although she lives in the capital, from time to time she comes up here for the merit that these visits will bring her in the afterlife. And the young and very pretty little girl there is the daughter of the Prince Minister of War and a granddaughter of the nun. Well then, His Lordship thinks, he will look into this more closely, and peering in on her, he could see that she was indeed no ordinary creature. It was obvious to him what [a beauty] she would grow up to be, and right away, as seems to have been his wont, reckless thoughts ruled his heart. He drops delicate hints to both the Prelate and the nun.
hatsukusa no wakaba no ue o mitsuru yori / tabine no sode mo tsuyu zo kawakanu
From the moment I first caught sight of the new leaves of this young slip,
the dew-drenched sleeves of this weary traveler have yet to dry.
[“Wakamurasaki,” 12:290]
The nun’s reply:
makura yū koyoi bakari no tsuyukesa o / miyama no koke ni kurabezaranan
The dewfall of but a single night on a makeshift pillow:
compare it not with that on the moss deep in these mountains.
[“Wakamurasaki,” 12:291]
His Lordship pleads most fervently for the little lady, and it is with no little regret that he brings himself to leave the mountain village and return home.
yūmagure honoka ni hana no iro o mite / kesa wa kasumi no tachi zo wazurau
Having glimpsed indistinctly in the dusk the beauty of this flower,
I am loath now to leave with the rising mists of morning.
[“Wakamurasaki,” 12:296]
What with the First Secretary Colonel, the Controller of the Left,98 and several other lesser courtiers having come to meet him, as well as [the Emperor’s] inquiries from the palace and various other matters demanding his attention, he returns home. From the following morning, he sends a steady stream of messengers, though without revealing the full extent of his apprehension, which is as deep as those mountains. Months went by, during which the old nursemaid passed away, and the nursemaid Shōnagon, with two or three other ladies, had gone back to the mansion in the capital. The girl’s father, the Prince, he heard, was about to move her to his home as a keepsake [of her mother], but [Genji] has his contacts, through whom he brings her to the Nijō mansion as a matter of urgency, where he is most solicitous of her. Before long, he becomes as close to her as if she were his own daughter, teaching her the koto and calligraphy.99
te ni tsumite itsushika mo min murasaki no / ne ni kayoikeru nobe no wakakusa
How I long to pluck, and eventually make mine, this wildflower
sprung from the root of murasaki she so resembles. [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:314]
It was from about the time of this poem that he began to feel amorously inclined toward her. Even at the time of his setback in Suma, it is written, it was, above all, concern for this lady that troubled him night and day [“Suma,” 13:153–54]. Because she had no children, she was drawn to the Way of the Buddha from a very early age. Of her own volition, she has a thousand magnificent sets of the Lotus Sutra made and dedicates them with great splendor and ceremony [“Minori,” 15:481–84].
Of this pair, the lady of the Left likewise enjoys unparalleled renown for her allure, of both appearance and person. Yet [the man] had his reasons, however slight, for mentioning “the mountain where they dwell.” This practice of matching things is, after all, just a quest for trifling flaws, as in the raillery of old women.100 Despite how difficult it is to avoid going astray, has the lady of the Right ever done anything amiss in matters conjugal? Am I not right, then, I wonder, in deeming her the winner?
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Round 4
Left The lady who died of love
Right Lady Aoi Win
The lady of the Right, the only daughter of the Minister [of the Left] and his wife the Princess, was raised with the greatest affection and care. On the day that the Shining Lord was granted the surname Genji, it was arranged, through the good offices of the Emperor himself, that he become her husband. They then take up residence together, and a very fine match it is. Her elder brother, the First Secretary Colonel, having grown up in like manner, was the envy of all the spectators at the autumn leaves festivities when he danced to the music of both Left and Right. Though they were born humans, just like the rest of us, people would say, apparently their sins of the past were lighter and their progress on the path to Buddhahood greater for them to have been blessed with such exceptionally fine looks and character. In such terms were the two of them praised as models of their age. The lady is of a very dignified character and, even after longer acquaintance, is frightfully reticent and shy of people. Even when spoken to, she will not readily respond. She averts her gaze and her face turns bright red. Such is the great charm of her character. Even when Genji came down with malaria, went off to the Northern Hills [to be cured], and then returned home again,101 she slipped out, as was her wont, and hid, quite unwilling to come out [and receive her husband]. Only after the Minister [her father] spoke firmly to her did she, after an interval, make an appearance. And there she sat, precisely where she was placed, as stiff and proper as a princess in a painting. How satisfying it would be, Genji thinks, if I could chat with her about things that are on my mind or tell her about that place in the mountains, in return for which she would say something interesting in reply. Never, though, does she relent; she regards him as a nuisance, to be kept at a distance. Painful though it is, with the passing years, they grew only further apart. “I do wish that once in a while you could behave normally with me,” he says. “Even when I was suffering so unbearably, you never asked how I felt. That isn’t unusual, of course, but it does hurt.” She slowly turned away and replied, “So you, too, find it painful, not being asked after?” There was a haughty beauty in the sharp glance she shot back at him. Even so, she gave birth to a child, and not long thereafter she suddenly fell ill. The court is thrown into a frenzy, and several rites are performed, but the possessing spirit is tenacious, and finally she passes away. From the Rokujō Consort:
hito no yo o aware to kiku mo tsuyukeki ni / okururu sode o omoi koso yare
Hearing, with grief, of what this life can hold for us brings the dew of tears,
but above all my heart goes out to the sleeves of him left behind.
[“Aoi,” 13:44]
In reply, Genji:
tomaru mi mo kieshi mo onaji tsuyu no yo ni / kokoro okuran hodo zo hakanaki
For those of us who stay, as for those who go, it’s the same world of dew:
too insubstantial ever to set one’s hopes upon it. [“Aoi,” 13:46]
Regarding the infant lord as a keepsake of her:
shimogare no magaki ni nokoru nadeshiko o / wakareshi aki no katami to zo miru
This little pink that lingers on at the base of my frost-withered hedge
I look upon as a keepsake of an autumn now past. [“Aoi,” 13:50]
And again, his lamentations having calmed him:
naki tama zo itodo kanashiki neshi toko no / akugaregataki kokoro narai ni
Even greater must be the sorrow of the departed one’s spirit,
when I find it so hard to forsake this bed where we slept. [“Aoi,” 13:58]
On the Left: His Lordship her father is fonder of this lady than any of the others, and he raises her with great affection and care. Suddenly, however, she falls ill. He stays constantly by her side, offering vows and the like, but all to no avail. When she is near death, she tells him that she had fallen in love with this man and that as time passed she has grown only weaker and weaker. When her parents sent word of this, the man, in a frenzy, came to her [but it was too late]. Lamenting the bond that has ended in her death, he went into seclusion for several days. It was in the Sixth Month, and only late at night did it grow at all cool. Watching the fireflies flit back and forth high above him:
tobu hotaru kumo no ue made inubeku wa / akikaze fuku to kari ni tsugekose
Fireflies, if, as you flit to and fro, you can fly above the clouds,
pray go and tell the wild goose the autumn winds now blow. [Ise 45]
It is very difficult to decide the winner of this round. When we examine poetry competitions of the past that match “Requited Love” and “Unrequited Love,” are there any in which Requited Love is deemed the winner? I find the depth of devotion in the lady of the Left, who died of love, exceptionally touching. But lacking any precedent, I declare the Right the winner. Still, I can hardly hold back my tears when I think how difficult it will be ever to dispel the blind attachment of the lady of the Left.
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Round 5
Left The lady who told of her dream
Right The Oborozukiyo Chief Palace Attendant Win
On the Right: The Chief Palace Attendant [Oborozukiyo] is the younger sister of Kokiden, mother of the Crown Prince. She goes to view today’s cherry blossom festivities, which take place around the twentieth of the Second Month. In the dusky beauty of early evening, as Genji lurks near the third portal of the Kokiden, there comes from within a youthful voice of exceptional beauty, chanting, “Naught is there to equal a night lit by a misty moon.” Genji goes to her, takes her in his arms, and gently conceals her. The girl murmurs her discomfort, but to no avail. As dawn approaches, still feeling as if she were dreaming:
uki mi yo ni yagate kienaba tazunetemo / kusa no hara oba towaji to ya omou
Were I, poor thing, suddenly to vanish from this world, you might inquire,
do you mean, but not seek out, my grave on the grassy moor?
[“Hana no en,” 12:427]
Thus he begins, in great secrecy, to visit her. This lady had been destined for the Crown Prince. But when this blot upon her reputation is revealed, the Empress Mother bursts into tears of rage. After the old Emperor dies, she tells the Crown Prince, and Genji is sent off to Suma. To him on that shore:
namidagawa minawa mo ukite kienubeshi / nagarete nochi no yo o mo matazu shite
This froth, anguished, floating on a river of tears, soon shall vanish,
flowing away without awaiting a world yet to come. [“Suma,” 13:170]
And from Suma, ostensibly to her nursemaid Chūjō:
korizuma no ura no mirume mo yukashiki ni / shio yaku ama yo ikaga omowan
Unrepentant, here on Suma’s weed-strewn shore, I yet long for our trysts;
and you, seaside maid, how bright burns the fire in your salt kiln?
[“Suma,” 13:181]
On the Left: The lady who told the story of her dream [Ise 63] may at first have been the wife of some ordinary man. Later a gentleman of rank may have taken a fancy to her, and she had children. Then this, too, in the inevitable vicissitudes of life, came to an end. How about the Colonel? she wonders. But there would have been no way she could say such a thing, so she tells the story of a false dream. We see this same word [yumegatari] when Genji broaches the subject of Murasaki to the Prelate [“Wakamurasaki,” 12:286]. It was of no consequence to the Colonel whether or not he loved her, so he came and slept with her. But, then, what was the occasion this next time?
momotose ni hitotose taranu tsukumogami / ware o kou rashi omokage ni miyu
An old grayhead, but one year short of a hundred, seems to fancy me,
for her visage, an apparition, arises before me. [Ise 63]
On the Right, Genji’s chance encounter with the Chief Palace Attendant, with whom he trysts for the first time at the Cherry Blossom Festival, is quite exceptional and exciting. On the Left, this lady seems to me just a bit past her prime; I am inclined, therefore, as the old song says, to “scorn the dotard’s head, white as frost,”102 and declare the Right the winner.
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Round 6
Left Ono no Komachi Win
Right The Third Princess
On the Right: Because the cares that weigh on his mind grow heavier with every passing day, the Suzaku Emperor relinquishes his reign to the Crown Prince. He has two Princesses for whom his love knows no bounds and for whom he is deeply concerned what might become of them [after his death].103 The Kashiwagi Commander of the Right Gate Guards undertakes to care for the Second Princess, as does the Lord of the Rokujō mansion [Genji] for the Third Princess. The Third Princess, in particular, is a girl whose looks were of exceptional allure. One imagines her beauty might be something on the order of all that one hears about the distinguishing marks of the Buddha. For indeed, what sort of flower could ever surpass the sight of a green willow swaying in the wind, its strands strung with drops of early morning dew? Its beauty, one feels, fairly bursts forth before one’s very eyes. Though His Lordship was very deeply enamored of her, the Kashiwagi Commander of the Right Gate Guards by chance caught a glimpse of her and thereafter yearned distractedly for her. He must have persuaded her nursemaid Jijū to pass his letters to her from time to time. At the time, Lady Murasaki was ill and His Lordship was spending all his time with her. Once she is feeling a bit better, he goes to the Princess. His arrival appears to have taken her by surprise, and the clutter had not been straightened up. She hastily tucked Kashiwagi’s letter under her cushion. But His Lordship found it, and what was written there clearly revealed the affair. He took it and returned home, after which he was unable to feel any genuine affection for her. And when it went so far that she bore a child, [Genji] could do nothing but lament that even he should suffer such mortification. He went several times to the birthing room, just as if it were his own child, and at the fiftieth-day celebration, he took the infant in his arms and drew near the Princess’s ear:
ta ga yo ni ka tane o makishi to hito towaba / ikaga iwane no matsu wa kotaen
Should anyone ever ask him who planted the seed, and in what reign,
what should he answer, this little pine growing from the rock?
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:314]
The Princess collapses in a faint. When he makes similar insinuations to the Commander [Kashiwagi], he falls ill and eventually dies. When near death, he sent to Jijū:
ima wa tote moen keburi mo musubōre / taenu omoi no nao ya nokosan
Even then when the end is come and smoke rises from my burning pyre,
these unquenchable flames of yearning surely shall remain.
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:281]
The Princess, when she sees it:
tachisoite kie ya shinamashi uki koto o / omoikogaruru keburikurabe ni
How I wish that I too might die, that my smoke might rise together with yours;
then could we compare whose flames of sorrow burn brighter.
[“Kashiwagi,” 15:286]
The Princess, unable even to take proper leave of her father the Emperor, cut her hair short,104 after which they called her the Cloistered Princess.
The lady of the Left is a great lover. Even so, none of her liaisons can compare with those of the lady of the Right, whose looks and character are quite superior. In addition, her repute in the Way of Japanese Poetry is anything but commonplace. This is an art that began in the far-off age of the gods; nonetheless, the texts of antiquity mention but one or two persons knowledgeable in both the lore of the past and the essence of poetry—and in this number they include Komachi. In other lands, too, women apparently renowned for superior looks and character are as numerous as grains of sand on a beach. Yet in the arts, though one finds painters and calligraphers, those renowned for their Chinese poetry are few. In antiquity, Izanami no Mikoto composed her “Ah, splendid!”105 and Shitateru Hime her “Weaver Maid high in the heavens,”106 while in more recent times Sotoori Hime wrote “movements of the spider,”107 and Uneme her “Asakayama,”108 all of them poems by no means shallow in feeling. The names of women who appear in the several imperial anthologies are too numerous to mention. Inclusion in the Kokinshū, however, would be utterly impossible without Tsurayuki’s approval. As we amble through the Kokinshū itself, even the women included there, though their compositions are by no means undistinguished, must all yield pride of place to Komachi.
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Round 7
Left The Dame of Honor and former High Priestess of Ise
Right The Asagao High Priestess of Kamo Win
On the Right: From the time she was serving as the High Priestess of Kamo, Genji persisted in importuning her, even within those sacred precincts, but she coolly pays no heed to his advances. When her father the Prince [Momozono] dies, he [Genji] inquires after her:
hito shirezu kami no yurushi o machishi ma ni / kokora tsune naki yo o sugusu kana
All the while I’ve been waiting, in secrecy, for sanction from your god,
many are the years of uncertainty I have endured. [“Asagao,” 13:464]
Her reply:
nabete yo no aware bakari o tou kara ni / chikaishi koto wa kami ya isamemu
Were I to ask, even in the most ordinary way, how you feel,
surely my god would forbid it as a breach of my vows.
[“Asagao,” 13:464]
And again, Genji:
mishi ori no tsuyu wasurarenu asagao no / hana no sakari wa sugi ya shinuramu
That bluebell that once I knew and shall never, even slightly, forget:
has its beauty at the peak of bloom perhaps now faded?
[“Asagao,” 13:466]
Thus even though he does his utmost to persuade her, she seems to treat this gentleman with the utmost coolness. From her late father she inherits the Momozono Palace, and there she spends her days in devotional practices, so it is said.
On the Left: The Colonel goes to Ise as an emissary from the palace. Because word had come down from [her mother] the Empress that he should be received with greater consideration than the usual, she [the priestess] could not, it seems, lodge him at any great distance from her own sleeping chamber. Thus, around the first quarter of the Hour of the Rat, the woman goes to him, and they remained in intimate converse until the third quarter of the Hour of the Ox.109 Then, at daybreak, from the woman:
kimi ya koshi ware ya yukikemu omohoezu / yume ka utsutsu ka nete ka samete ka
Was it you who came to me or did I go to you; I cannot tell;
was it a dream; was it real; was I sleeping or awake? [Ise 69; Kokinshū 645]
In reply, the Colonel:
kakikurasu kokoro no yami ni madoiniki / yume utsutsu to wa yohito sadameyo
In the pitch-black darkness of the human heart I wandered bewildered:
whether that was a dream or real, let someone else decide.110
[Ise 69; Kokinshū 646]
It is said that because this was forbidden by the gods as improper, the unwanted [child] was given to the Takahashi house and that even now [his descendants] are not permitted to enter the presence of the deity.111
On the Right: Even after relinquishing her position, this lady still retains her reverential respect, saying, “My god forbids it.” On the Left: Even so, inasmuch as she is present in the actual precinct of the gods, it is hard to believe that this lady lacked such scruples. What am I to make of this? Quite baffling!
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Round 8
Left Ise Draw
Right The Akashi lady
On the Left: She seems always to have been in the service of the Shichijō Empress Dowager. The Kanpyō [Uda] Emperor often looked upon her with favor, and she bore him a Prince. In the Way of Japanese Poetry, she is said to have gained considerable repute. This Way, being the very quintessence of this ancient land of ours, her accomplishment does her no little credit. Because of the work’s title, some say that it was she who wrote and compiled the Tales of Ise and presented it to the Uda Emperor, for which reason it was so entitled. This is high praise indeed.
On the Right: Her father, the Governor of Harima, even after his term of office had ended, for whatever reasons was unable to assuage his disappointment and remained behind, devoting himself to observances for the next life; yet he had a daughter. So lovingly and carefully had he raised her that even in the capital many had heard of her and yearned secretly that somehow they might have her for their own. But he had counseled her that even if he himself should end his days there on the seashore, she, rather than accept some ordinary husband, should instead throw herself into the sea. And then he hears of Genji being sent to Suma, which makes him hope that by some means he might entice him to move to his own shore. He could well imagine what would have befallen the traveler’s lodging place in the recent tidal wave, so he set out in a small boat to fetch him away. Genji, no doubt seeing in this the fulfillment of the portent of his dream, moves down the coast. The Novice does his utmost to make the dwelling, in keeping with its surroundings, a place of great beauty. In dreary hours, when time hangs heavy on his [Genji’s] hands, the strains of his koto would make those moments only the more poignant. On one occasion, the Novice comes and plays beautifully one or two pieces on his lute. Then, pressing Genji to play the koto, he at long last hints at the subject of his daughter, remarking awkwardly that in her hands the music of this instrument has the power to calm his troubled mind. Before long, a letter arrives at the daughter’s place:
ochikochi o shiranu kumoi o nagamewabi / kasumuru yado no kozue o zo tou
Gazing, downcast, at the skies, I know not whether it be near or far;
I ask of the misted treetops, where lies that lodging he hinted at?
[“Akashi,” 13:238]
No doubt because this was so sudden, she seemed loath to reply, so the Novice, in her stead:
nagamuran onaji kumoi o nagamuru wa / omoi mo onaji omoi naruran
To one who is gazing at those same skies that you must be gazing at,
her feelings must be those same feelings that you now feel.
[“Akashi,” 13:238]
And again, Genji:
ibuseku mo kokoro ni mono o nayamu kana / yayo ya ikani to tou hito mo nami
How I suffer from it, this nagging doubt that I harbor in my heart,
for I’ve no one to ask of me, “I say, now, how are you?” [“Akashi,”13:239]
Told, “Well this time…,” the daughter herself replies:
omouran kokoro no hodo yo yayo ikani / mada minu hito o kiki ka nayamamu
I say now, then, what sort of feelings might these be that you seem to feel?
Do you suffer having heard of someone you’ve never known?
[“Akashi,” 13:239]
Fearing a tidal wave, he [the Novice] seems to have moved his daughter away to a house by the hill. Then Genji comes, and when he plays the koto, his thoughts more likely turn to her than to people in the capital. In the Eighth Month of the following year, he is summoned to return. The lady was in a delicate condition, and seeing him this last time was deeply painful to her. As a keepsake, he asks her to play for him and, leaving behind his own koto:
naozari ni tanomeokikeru hitokoto o / tsuki senu oto ni ya kakete shinoban
This halfhearted promise, this koto that you leave me; to its music,
blended with my ceaseless weeping, shall I entrust my hopes.
[“Akashi,” 13:239]
She gives birth in Akashi, and he sends a nursemaid to rear the child. Later she moves to the capital, and Murasaki raises her child, who is betrothed to the Crown Prince and becomes the mother of the nation. Glorious indeed was her lot in life!
Of this pair, I cannot decide who is the lovelier. The Right is described as a lady far from commonplace, who can depend on her child to rise to the heights and prosper throughout her life. The Left, too, is a lady of no mean talent. Attracted as one is to those of such high repute, these two seem to me equals; and thus, perhaps, this round must be deemed a draw.
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Round 9
Left The elder sister of the daughter of Aritsune Win
Right The Utsusemi lady
The lady of the Left: I have tried to trace where she fits into the Tales as a whole. In the first section, she appears fleetingly, and farther on it says, “There were two sisters. One of them had a husband of mean station who was poor, and the other a husband of high rank” [Ise 41]. Then it seems to say that “the one who had the husband of mean station, at the end of the Twelfth Month, washes his overcloak.” This must be an old expression meaning something like when we [now] say, “I wash myself,” “I wash my clothes,” or whatever. The substance of this section seems to me rather shallow, does it not? It sounds as if they considered a woman’s caring for her husband as something noble, so I suppose this is just a case of ideas current at the time being reflected in the words of an old text. The “robe of green” would indicate the sixth rank. This may be why they call him a man of mean station.
murasaki no iro koki toki wa me mo haru ni / no naru kusaki zo wakarezarikeru
When the purple color of affinity is deep, the plants on the moor,
as far as the eye can see, are all as one to me.112 [Ise 41; Kokinshū 868]
On the Right: Utsusemi lived near the Nakagawa, and [Genji’s visits there, ostensibly to avoid] directional taboos are not without ulterior motives. He seems to claim the coolness of the garden stream as his pretext. When he arrived, guided by Kogimi, he was lodged very close to the women’s bedchamber. So he peered in, and there she was playing go with her step-daughter. When they were finished and the girl crooked her fingers counting the score, “ten, thirty,” and so on, her hostess laughed and asked, “Are you counting all the bathtubs in Iyo?” This woman is always very restrained and prone to caution. “Let yourself go, just once,” I feel like telling her. And that’s the story.
When the girl called Ōmi no Kimi, or something, was playing backgammon, she must have thought she was going to lose, so she picked up the dice, lightly rubbed them together, raised her face and prayed, her tongue flying at frightful rate, “Make it low! Make it low!” This so embarrassed her father the Minister, who was watching from a place of concealment, that he exclaimed, “Horrid!” snapped his fingers in disgust, and fled. That’s reasonable enough, isn’t it?
Anyhow, that night Utsusemi must have slipped out, and since only the stepdaughter [Nokiba no Ogi] remained behind, he unwittingly slept with her. Genji:
honoka ni mo nokiba no ogi no musubazuba / tsuyu no kagoto o nani ni kakemashi
Had I never, even briefly, tied a knot with that reed ’neath the eaves
what excuse would I have to voice my dewdrop of complaint?
[“Yūgao,” 12:264]
The daughter:
honomekasu kaze ni tsuketemo shitaogi no / nakaba wa shimo ni musubōretsutsu
Even this faint whisper of wind touches the lowly leaves of this reed
as with frost, leaving it but little less chilled than before.
[“Yūgao,” 12:265]
He takes the gown [that Utsusemi] slipped off and left behind and, in the morning, when he returns home, sends it back to her:
utsusemi no mi o kaetekeru ko no moto ni / nao hitogara no natsukashiki kana
Here beneath the tree where the cicada has shed its shell for another,
I yet go on longing for her as she was before. [“Utsusemi,” 12:203]
In reply:
utsusemi no ha ni oku tsuyu no kogakurete / shinobi shinobi ni nururu sode kana
As when dew forms on the cicada’s wings, hidden within the tree,
secretly, ever so secretly, are my sleeves dampened.113 [“Utsusemi,” 12:205]
After [her husband] Iyo no Suke dies, [Genji] takes her in and places her among his many other attendants [“Hatsune,” 14:149–51].
She of the Right, although apparently spoken of as fickle, is not the sort of person who deserved to be married to someone like Iyo no Suke. But her parents are gone and she has lost all means of support, so this was the life to which she is doomed. And he [Genji] being no ordinary person, she would have found it difficult to raise her voice and call out when he burst in on her so unexpectedly. On the Left, given as I am to understand that this is a lady of incomparable virtue, I award to her the character “Win.”
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Round 10
Left The daughter of the Middle Counselor
Right The Yūgao lady Win
On the Right: In the story the First Secretary Colonel tells on that rainy night [“Hahakigi,” 12:157–60], he was seeing a certain woman to the exclusion of all others, and she even bore him a child. They are exceptionally attached to each other, but then he hears that his wife has said some nasty things to her. Of her own accord, she steals away and goes into hiding, and he has no idea where she has gone. The name she gave the child, he tells them, is “the pink.” Thinking that perhaps it might find its way to him, she wrote this poem and left it behind:
yamagatsu no kakiho arutomo oriori wa / aware o kakeyo nadeshiko no tsuyu
Ruined the hedge about this mountain hut may be; yet from time to time,
pray let the dew of your kindness touch the pink that grows there.
[“Hahakigi,” 12:158]
When the Consort of the late Crown Prince was living in the vicinity of Rokujō, Genji visits her in the greatest secrecy. His old nursemaid, Daini no Menoto, is ill. Her home is in Gojō, and, not without ulterior motives, he decides to pay her a visit. As he departs, he summons one of his men and commands him to pick one of the white flowers blooming in profusion by a small house behind a board fence of some sort. “What flower is that?” Koremitsu asks, and from inside [the house] someone says, “It is called an evening face. Its stems are rather pitiful, but present it to him on this.” She held out a fan. He takes it and sees written on it:
kokoroate ni sore ka to zo miru shiratsuyu no / ikari soetaru yūgao no hana
It seems, I would venture, that you might just be he, the glistening dew
come to shed your light on the face of the moonflower. [“Yūgao,” 12:214]
In reply:
yorite koso sore ka to mo mime tasogare ni / honobono mieshi hana no yūgao
Come a bit closer then, won’t you, and see for yourself who it might be,
evening face flower, whom I glimpsed but faintly in the dusk.
[“Yūgao,” 12:215]
He halts his carriage and has Koremitsu ask the name of the master of the house. It is the home of Yōmei no Suke, he tells him; they said he is away in the country. And so [Genji] stays that evening. This would have been the night of the fifteenth of the Eighth Month. From neighboring houses comes the noise of something called a treadle mortar, and then the sounds of someone performing austerities preparatory to a pilgrimage to Mitake, chanting all the while, “Hail to him who shall lead us in lives to come!” [Genji’s] ears are offended in the extreme. This place will be most unpleasant, he thinks, and in a single carriage, he escorts her to a certain estate. When he says that he has never experienced anything like this, she replies:
yama no ha no kokoro mo shirade yuku tsuki wa / uwa no sora nite kage ya kienan
All unknowing how the mountain feels, might the moon that moves toward it,
in its apprehension, disappear from the skies above? [“Yūgao,” 12:215]
The place is an utter ruin. Owls shriek in the trees. The rampant chrysanthemums have the look of a lair of foxes. Late at night, a tree spirit or something comes and possesses the girl. Genji is aghast and dazed. He draws his sword and tries to find it, but it is nowhere to be seen. The lamps, too, had burned low, and there was only the sound of footsteps. He called for Koremitsu, but his words were in vain. When the lamps were lit again, there was only her dead body, and naught was there he could do. Later he was chagrined to learn that this was the place where the Uda Emperor [867–931; r. 887–897] is said to have brought one of his consorts, and that this same sort of thing happened while he was disporting himself with her.114 In a single carriage, he takes her to a place just opposite Higashiyama Rokudō,115 and when she rose in smoke from the pyre, he feels as if he were dreaming. Returning to his home:
mishi hito no kemuri o kumo to nagamureba / yūbe no sora mo natsukashiki kana
Gazing at these clouds, thinking them to be smoke from the pyre of my love,
the sky, even of an evening like this, seems dear to me. [“Yūgao,” 12:262]
Her nursemaid, a woman called Ukon, Genji takes into his service as a reminder of her.
As for the lady on the Left: Long ago, in the [Ariwara] clan, a Prince was born. At the grandfather’s, the Colonel:
waga kado ni chihiro aru kage o uetsureba / natsu fuyu tare ka kakurezarubeki
Now that within our gates is planted this tree whose shade shall be so vast,
be it summer or winter, who shall not find shelter here? [Ise 79]
For the Ariwara, descended from Princes, yet in so few generations having fallen so low, gloom had become a way of life. Taking his brothers to see the Nunohiki Waterfall, the Commander of Guards [Narihira]:
waga yo oba kyō ka asu ka to matsu kai no / namida no taki to izure takakemu
These tears I shed, hoping my day might come, whether today or tomorrow:
which is higher, the stream they form or this waterfall? [Ise 79]
And their host [Yukihira]:
nukimidaru hito koso arurashi shiratama no / ma nakumo chiru ka sode no sebaki ni
Someone would seem to have undone them, for these pearls, these tears of mine,
scatter ceaselessly, though my sleeves be too small to catch them.
[Ise 79]
To those in straits they find as lamentable as this, the birth of a Prince must open up a truly bright and promising future.
What, then, of Left versus Right? The lady of the Right enjoys an unequaled reputation for the cheerful charm of her disposition. And the Left is famous for the way she seems to have risen to the occasion, for this [child] was Prince Sadakazu,116 and it is clear that people of the time said he was the son of the Colonel [Narihira]. Yet one is reluctant to set at naught the writings of those of the past, so I cannot but declare the Right to be the winner.
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Round 11
Left The Somedono Palace Attendant Draw
Right The Yomogiu lady
On the Right: Faithful to her father’s dying wishes, she lives on in the old palace. Genji becomes fond of her and begins writing to her. Her looks and such, he is told, are not those of an ordinary person, though there does seem to be something a bit backward about her. She seems unable to adjust to anything out of the ordinary, such as his [Genji’s] banishment to Harima or the [dwindling] number of her attendants, which may well be why he looks down on her, both her character and her person, and only very rarely comes to call on her. Even after his return, neither is able to make immediate contact with the other. Her palace is rank with wormwood and weeds, the galleries leaking and rotting from exposure, while the Princess continues to inhabit this corner and that of what remains. She seems unwilling to part with any of her father’s treasures, a veritable mountain of which he had accumulated, all of them now rotting away. Her servants, too, one by one drift away, and only one or two of those who were closest to her remain. When even Jijū, who was like a nursemaid to her, is offered a place with the man who was to go down to Kyushu as the Assistant Viceroy, the lady:
tayumajiki suji to tanomishi tamakatsura / omoi no hoka ni kakehanarenuru
Never would they part, I had always trusted, these long glistening strands,
when to my surprise they depart, for someplace far away. [“Yomogiu,” 13:331]
Jijū replies:
tamakatsura taete wa yamaji yuku michi no / tamuke no kami mo kakete chikawan
Part they may, these long glistening strands, but never shall there be an end;
that I swear by the gods of all the roads I shall travel. [“Yomogiu,” 13:332]
In another year, when Genji recalled their relationship and paid her a visit, groping his way through the murky forest of wormwood:
tazunetemo ware koso towame michi mo naku / fukaki yomogi ga moto no kokoro o
Though I search her out, still I must see for myself if her feelings remain
as they were before, in this trackless waste of wormwood.
[“Yomogiu,” 13:338]
It distresses him to see how she is living, as does also his own failure to visit her of late. He summons people from his estates, makes all the necessary repairs, and restores the place to its past glories before her very eyes. He also summons a number of people, high, middling, and low in rank, and places them in her service. Later he moves her to his Rokujō mansion,117 where he treates her with particular care, so they say.
On the Left: She was reputed to be a woman of great distinction, and the Colonel’s affair with her was by no means a casual one. They had a child together; but life in this world being what it is, they grew apart, and then he hears that another man is seeing her.
aki no yo wa haruhi wasururu mono nare ya / kasumi ni kiri ya chie masaruran
On this autumn evening, are those days of springtime something you forget?
Is autumn mist better by a thousand times than spring haze?
[Ise 94]
The woman’s reply:
chiji no aki hitotsu no haru ni mukawame ya / momiji mo hana mo tomo ni koso chire
How could thousands upon thousands of autumns compare with one spring day?
Even so, both crimson leaves and blossoms flutter and fall. [Ise 94]
Of this pair, which am I to decide is the one? On the Right, her devotion, never ceasing to see him while she lived in that house in the wormwood, I find touching and noble. The Left, too, is a woman of exceptional charm, who exhibits no shortcomings, and thus can in no way be faulted. This is a draw.
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Round 12
Left The Hatsukusa lady Draw
Right The Tamakazura Palace Attendant
On the Left: Seeing how beautiful his younger sister is:
urawakami neyoge ni miyuru wakakusa o / hito no musuban koto o shi zo omou
This young sprout, looking so fresh and youthful, so inviting to sleep with,
I fear may be bound in attachment to another man.
The girl’s reply:
hatsukusa no nado mezurashiki koto no ha zo / ura naku mono o omoikeru kana
Why ever should you say such strange things to me, to this first sprout of spring,
when in all innocence, my thoughts have been only for you? [Ise 49]
I expect there are those who have made love to a woman with words of this sort. In addition, relations between brother and sister seem not to be all that unusual; such a thing may well have happened. It appears, though, that he was deeply enamored of his sister, does it not? In a later section, a man named Fujiwara no Toshiyuki was courting a woman. Because she was still young, she was unskilled at letter writing; and not even knowing how to write prose, she could hardly compose poems. And so, it says, the man of the house wrote out a draft for her. [Her suitor writes]:
tsurezure no nagame ni masaru namidakawa / sode nomi hijite au yoshi mo nashi
In the long rains of my languor, this river of tears goes on rising;
my sleeves are soaked through, for no way is there that we can meet.
The reply, composed by the man [Toshiyuki] on the woman’s behalf:
asami koso sode wa hitsurame namidakawa / mi sae nagaru to kikaba tanomamu
So shallow this river of tears that surely only your sleeves are soaked;
when I hear that you are washed away, then shall I trust you.
[Ise 107]
The Palace Attendant on the Right, when she is very young, travels to a faraway place in the company of her nursemaid and there vanishes from sight. As time passes and she grows to adulthood, many men yearn to have her for their own. Her nursemaid is always saying that she will never let the girl end up sunk in such a shocking situation, that she must somehow get her back to the capital and entrust her to the care of her father the Minister, but then she [the nursemaid] dies. It is her daughter who, in compliance with her [mother’s] wish, takes the girl back to the capital. As they passed Thunder Bay:
uki koto no mune nomi sawagu hibiki ni wa / hibiki no nada mo sawarazarikeri
What with the thunderous tumult these miseries arouse in my breast;
Thunder Bay and its pirates hardly trouble me at all. [“Tamakazura,” 14:95]
Even in the capital, they know of no particular person to whom they can turn for help, so first of all, they make a pilgrimage to Hatsuse, where they pray that she might be reunited with her father. Whereupon Ukon, who happens to be there on a pilgrimage herself, guides them back, and she is placed in Genji’s care. Says Ukon:
futamoto no sugi no tachido o tazunezu wa / furukawa nobe ni kimi o mimashi ya
Had I never come and sought out this place where the twin cedars stand,
would I ever have encountered you here by this Old River?
[“Tamakazura,” 14:110]
Genji assiduously teaches her the koto and the biwa and suchlike. To [Kashiwagi], the girl’s elder brother, he hints that he has acquired a lovely daughter. At some point, the brother becomes interested in her. He recites:
omoutomo kimi wa shiraji na wakikaeri / iwa moru mizu no iro shi mieneba
Long though I may, I expect you are unaware of it, for waters
that well from the rocky spring have no color to be seen.
[“Kochō,” 14:169]
Later he talks to her about this, and she is amused.118 Genji, too, from time to time hints at his own interest in her, but she ignores him, pretending she does not understand.
omoikane mukashi no ato o tazunuredo / oya ni somukeru ko zo tagui naki
Overcome with longing, I have searched through the records of the past, yet
nowhere do I find a child so heedless of her father. [“Hotaru,” 14:206]
The woman’s reply:
furuki ato tazunuredo ge ni nakarikeri / kono yo ni kakaru oya no kokoro wa
Search the annals of antiquity though you may, indeed there are none:
no parents in all the world who harbor such thoughts as this.
[“Hotaru,” 14:206]
This much there was, but I somehow doubt that after such a cold response, he would have gone all the way. But I just don’t know!119 She becomes the wife of Commandant Higekuro, bears him several children, and prospers immensely.
In regard to this pair: Coming back to the Left, even though this is phrased in amorous terms, there is no evidence to suggest that she gives in, at least to her real elder brother. Nor is it at all illogical that this should be so. As for the Right, since obviously she is not his real daughter, even if she were to acquiesce, it would by no means be a sin. Thus I deem them evenly matched, indeed a perfect draw.
Contestants of the Left
The Empress Mother of the Fifth Ward, daughter of Chūjinkō Yoshifusa120
The Grand Empress Mother of the Second Ward, daughter of the Chancellor (appointed posthumously) Lord Nagara (802–856), her mother the daughter of Fusatsugu
The daughter of Aritsune, her mother the daughter of Yoshikado
The lady who died of love, daughter of the Third Ward Minister of the Left, Lord Yoshimi (813–867)
The lady who told of her dream, daughter of the Commander of the Right Palace Guards, Ki no Natora
Ono no Komachi, daughter of the Dewa District Magistrate, Ono no Tsunetaka
The Dame of Honor and former High Priestess of Ise, honored daughter of the Montoku Emperor
Ise, daughter of the Governor of Ise, Tsugikage
The elder sister of the daughter of Aritsune
The daughter of the Middle Counselor, her mother the daughter of Natora
The Somedono Palace Attendant, daughter of Yoshimi
The Hatsukusa lady, daughter of Prince Abo, honored granddaughter of the Nara Emperor
Contestants of the Right
The Kiritsubo Mistress of the Wardrobe, daughter of a Grand Counselor
The Usugumo Empress Mother, honored daughter of a previous Emperor
Lady Murasaki, daughter of the Prince Minister of Ceremonial
Lady Aoi, daughter of his [Genji’s] sponsoring Minister
The Oborozukiyo Chief Palace Attendant, honored younger sister of Kokiden
The Third Princess, honored daughter of the Suzaku Retired Emperor
The Asagao High Priestess of Kamo, daughter of the Prince Minister of Ceremonial
The Akashi lady, daughter of the former Governor of Harima
The Utsusemi lady, daughter of a Middle Counselor
The Yūgao lady, daughter of a Colonel, Third Rank
The Yomogiu lady, daughter of Prince Hitachi
The Tamakazura Palace Attendant, daughter of the Retired Chancellor
THE FOREGOING COPIED FROM THE AUTHORITATIVE TEXT IN THE HAND OF LORD YANAGIWARA SUKESADA (1495–1578) TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
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THE NURSEMAID’S LETTER, CA. 1264
(Menoto no fumi)
ABUTSU
The nun Abutsu (d. 1283) was known for her accomplishments as a waka poet and her travel record, The Diary of the Sixteenth-Night Moon (Izayoi nikki, ca. 1283). During her lifetime, she was renowned as a teacher of poetry and an expert on The Tale of Genji. Works from the medieval period to the 1930s hail Abutsu as the founder of the Reizei line of the Mikohidari literary house and praise her as a paragon of motherly virtue. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Abutsu’s rival poets in the medieval period, as well as some modern scholars, portray her as a conniving widow who mined the literary fortunes of her husband, Fujiwara Tameie (1198–1275), heir to the Mikohidari lineage of Shunzei (1114–1204) and Teika (1162–1241). Allies and rivals alike, however, recognized Abutsu as one of the leading Genji experts of her time, who sparred with the likes of Minamoto no Chikayuki (fl. ca. 1265) and his younger brother Sojaku (fl. ca. 1294), and whose reading of the tale left an indelible impression on the young Asukai Masaari (1241–1301).
Masaari’s diary, Visits to Saga (Saga no kayoi, 1269), describes an encounter with Abutsu during the Ninth Month of Bun’ei 6 (1269), when Tameie was tutoring him in reading Genji. He noted: “On the seventeenth day, I went [to see Tameie] in the afternoon. We began Genji, and the mistress of the house was called to act as the reader.121 She read from behind her blinds. It was truly fascinating and differed from others’ ways of reading.122 She appeared to follow a particular tradition.”123 Masaari’s comments demonstrate the respect that Abutsu had garnered from her peers as a scholar and teacher of Genji and the pride that she placed in the Mikohidari lineage.
The Genji commentary Shimeishō (ca. 1294) notes an altercation between Abutsu and its author, Sojaku, concerning the interpretation of a section of the “Yūgao” chapter. After hearing that Abutsu had criticized his brother Chikayuki’s reading as mistaken, Sojaku went to her residence to debate this. The Shimeishō ardently defends Chikayuki’s views against Abutsu’s and argues that such interpretive discrepancies arose from Abutsu’s not possessing an authoritative copy of Genji transcribed by the “daughter of Shunzei.” While there are few extant sources documenting Abutsu’s interpretations of Genji, her writings draw heavily from the work, and her recorded advice shows that a successful court lady was expected to have a scholarly understanding of the text.
Abutsu was also known by the appellation Ankamon’in no Shijō, and most of her forty-eight poems in imperial anthologies appear under this name. At fifteen, like her sisters, she entered the court of Ankamon’in, a salon that fostered various other successful female poets. Study of The Tale of Genji was an important aspect of Abutsu’s education, and her mastery of the work is what brought her to the attention of her future husband, Tameie, who commissioned her to produce a copy of the tale for his daughter. Abutsu’s memoir Fitful Slumbers (Utatane, ca. 1265)124 weaves numerous references to Genji into its depiction of a failed love affair, reclusion, and tonsure, events thought to have taken place soon after she became an attendant to Ankamon’in. One of the reasons she may have closely imitated the tale in her memoir was to prove her capabilities as a Genji expert to Tameie as their relationship progressed.
Abutsu’s marriage to Tameie provided her with a vast repository of literary sources that had been passed down in the Mikohidari family, from Tameie’s grandfather Shunzei and father, Teika. During the ten years leading up to Tameie’s death in 1275, Abutsu secured for her children important literary manuscripts and a landed estate, all of which became objects of legal disputes, as described in The Diary of the Sixteenth-Night Moon. Tameie moved with Abutsu to the Saga region of Kyoto, where they lived close to Mount Ogura in a villa he had inherited from his father.
Around 1264, Abutsu produced The Nursemaid’s Letter, a work that became the most widely circulated didactic text among women of the medieval period.125 It was originally designed as a lengthy response to a letter from her daughter Ki no Naishi (b. ca. 1251), who had entered the court service of Retired Emperor GoFukakusa (1243–1304; r. 1246–1259) at the age of six and who was approximately thirteen years old when the text was sent to her. Abutsu had probably just moved to Saga to reside with Tameie, which made it more difficult to see her daughter, born of a previous marriage while Abutsu lived in Matsuo. Concerned about her daughter’s future at court, Abutsu drew from her own experience serving Ankamon’in to produce a letter of advice for success as an attendant. The advice must have proved useful, for it was later abridged and circulated as a didactic manual for women, Teachings of the Courtyard (Niwa no oshie), a forerunner of the women’s educational texts that became popular during the early modern period. The content of The Nursemaid’s Letter describes the necessary skills, practices, and comportment needed for a woman serving at court, including how to interact well with all levels of courtiers, appropriate musical and literary arts to learn, and the merits of Buddhist practice.
The title of the work, which was likely provided by a later reader, implies that Abutsu was Ki no Naishi’s wet nurse (menoto) rather than her birth mother. In the letter, Abutsu intentionally distances herself, as both a gesture of humility and a means of supporting her daughter’s position at Emperor GoFukakusa’s court. With her stepfather Tameie’s support, Ki no Naishi had the opportunity to rise within the ranks, and later she indeed gave birth to a child of the retired emperor.
The letter that Abutsu composed for her daughter had greater influence than she likely anticipated. The handbooks for women that followed, such as The Nursemaid’s Book (Menoto no sōshi, late fourteenth century), drew heavily from The Nursemaid’s Letter in title and content. Even Lady Nijō, author of The Unrequested Tale (Towazugatari, ca. 1306), appears to have heeded Abutsu’s advice.126
The following sections show that for a woman to have a successful career at court, she needed a reading knowledge and an ample understanding of Genji, which meant not only memorizing the work but also being able to analyze it in a scholarly manner with the aid of various textual guides.127 The extant sources that refer to Abutsu’s expertise, and the advice she provides to Ki no Naishi in The Nursemaid’s Letter, suggest a network of Genji transmission among women serving in imperial salons during the Kamakura period and a tradition of interpretation and debate that was at least somewhat open to women’s participation.
CHRISTINA LAFFIN
As in trying to part the reeds at the Bay of Naniwa, until you are able to discern the good from the bad in all things, you will endure various hardships. I have thought to protect you faithfully, but now we must lead lives apart,128 and I constantly lament this fate.129 When I read your letter, I was particularly moved to see that you asked about “teachings.” It pains me to think that you must, no doubt, be concerned about such things. Recently, others no longer even think of me, and I receive no news from the capital bird, so I envy the waves that are certain to return, and [I] resent the name of Yatsuhashi, with its spider-legged bridges, forever pulled in all directions, like my thoughts.130 Among the feelings that prevent me from departing, I feel sadder still when I dwell on the despair that you must surely feel.
Most people do not begin to comprehend things properly until after [they reach] thirty. While in their twenties, their views are even less settled. As someone who has not yet reached twenty, even though you may feel troubled, you appear more mature than people several years older than you. Accordingly, I have set down all [my instructions] in detail, with hopes that you will understand everything and have various opportunities to examine them.
Even though it may be difficult to follow in the footsteps of Hitomaro and Akahito, or Murasaki Shikibu—who gazed at the reflection of the moon on the waves at Ishiyama Temple and composed The Tale of Genji through to the meeting of Ukifune with the Master of the Law131—rather than feeling melancholy and discouraged, concentrate on the hue of the moon and the scent of the flowers, and gather your thoughts and write poems.
Nothing is more unfortunate than failing to memorize Genji and other important tales. In particular, consider the texts that I have copied and gathered for you to be a memento of me and read them carefully. In the case of Genji, make sure that you can discuss even the guides to difficult passages and the various catalogs. Read [them] thoroughly so that all is clear and nothing is left uncertain. To help you do so, I will leave handbooks on the difficult passages [nangi] and catalogs [mokuroku] in a wooden chest for you.132
You should be able to recite by heart all of the upper and lower hemistichs of poems from the Kokinshū and Shinkokinshū. It would truly be regrettable to think that you were memorizing the poems and yet, despite my urgent request, were finding it tedious and failed to apply yourself.
What I have written down may be clumsy and my thoughts scattered. Though it may seem unsightly, I have written this in response to your strong wish and the uncertainty of life after I depart. Perhaps you can think of this as the beginning of my farewell. As I set off toward an unknown realm, remember my words, even though I may have let my brush flow foolishly and said I know not what, feeling as though I were drowning in bitter tears. I have left out much and have included many awkward things. Even so, I hope you will feel sympathy for me each time you read this.
Although I believe I have produced only useless words, even among the grains of sands there is sure to be a jewel swaying in the waves. If anything in this letter should catch your attention, then it will surely serve you well.
With great respect for Ki no Naishi from someone dwelling beneath the clouds.
TRANSLATED BY CHRISTINA LAFFIN
Notes
1. Gabriel Josipovici, “The Magician’s Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction,” Times Literary Supplement, August 26, 1994.
2. Fujii Sadakazu, “Kodai-chūsei dokusha ron,” Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kanshō 45, no. 10 (1980): 49.
3. Josipovici, “Magician’s Doubts.”
4. Translated from Mumyōzōshi, ed. Kuboki Tetsuo, SNKBZ 40; and Mumyōzōshi, ed. Kuwabara Hiroshi, SNKS.
5. For a complete translation, see Michele Marra, “Mumyōzōshi: Introduction and Translation,” Monumenta Nipponica 39, no. 2 (1984): 115–46; 39, no. 3 (1984): 281–306; 39, no. 4 (1984): 409–34. Readers are warned, however, that this translation contains many errors and should be used only with great caution.
6. Opinion is divided whether the old woman is saying that she is in her eighty-third year at the present moment in the narrative or that she was eighty-three when she entered religious orders. This translation follows the former interpretation, but the verb inflections are indefinite, and the ambiguity cannot be resolved grammatically.
7. Mumyōzōshi has more than its share of the problems that plague so many texts of this vintage, in which the dialogue is unmarked and the speakers are only rarely identified. Although the text consists almost entirely of dialogue, only two of the seven or eight speakers, the old woman and the youngest girl, are ever identified. Since no two editors punctuate the text in the same way, the translator is often forced to decide unilaterally where one speech ends and another begins and is almost never able to say who the speaker might be. This problem becomes worse in the latter part of the discussion of Genji, when the narrative becomes less a conversation than a series of lists that seem to foreshadow the lists translated in the next section of this chapter.
8. This and all subsequent section titles for which no Japanese equivalents are given do not appear in the original text but have been added by the editors of the texts consulted. They are retained in the translation as an aid to readers. Those titles for which Japanese equivalents are given are, of course, listed in this text.
9. The so-called ten Tamakazura chapters.
10. An alternative title for “Ukifune.”
11. Ika naru kata ni otsuru namida ni ka. Extant texts of Genji read: Sari ya. Izure ni otsuru ni ka (“Suma,” 13:190).
12. The quotation from “Hahakigi” is nowhere to be found in extant texts of Genji, and ambiguities in the sentence in which it is embedded further complicate the problems of this passage. This translation follows the version suggested by Kuwabara, which reads “‘Hahakigi’ ni iu, ‘Nani tote uchitokezarikeri’” (Mumyōzōshi, 29), rather than “‘Hahakigi’ to iu na nite…,” and takes miete to be unvoiced and affirmative, rather than voiced and therefore negative.
13. “Yomogiu,” 13:323. Suetsumuhana is invited to join the household of the newly appointed deputy viceroy of Dazaifu and to move with them to his post in Kyushu. It is not the deputy himself who issues the invitation, however, but his wife, an aunt of Suetsumuhana who has married beneath her station.
14. “Hotaru,” 14:206. This scene is translated in chapter 1 of this volume. Commentators interpret Mumyōzōshi’s criticism of Tamakazura as follows: Genji once loved Tamakazura’s mother, Yūgao, and it is Tamakazura’s resemblance to her mother that now arouses Genji’s untoward amorous urges. For the daughter to rebuff his advances, inspired as they are by her own mother, is rude.
15. “Yadorigi,” 16:424. When Niou returns home, he detects Kaoru’s scent in the room and berates Nakanokimi for what he assumes to be her infidelity:
mata hito ni narekeru sode no utsurika o / waga mi ni shimete uramitsuru kana
This scent on your sleeve, so intimate has it become with someone else,
pierces my very being, arouses me to anger.
Nakanokimi replies:
minarenuru naka no koromo to tanomishi o / kabakari nite ya kakehanarenan
This robe, this intimacy we share, in which I have placed all my trust:
is it to be cast aside for such a trifle as this?
16. “Wakana, ge,” 15:239. The passage in question describes one of Genji’s infrequent visits to the Third Princess. After staying for two or three days, he announces his impending departure with the words, “Well, before the way grows hard to find…,” an allusion to the poem (Man’yōshū 709 and/or Kokin rokujō 371):
yūyami wa michi tadotadoshi tsuki machite / kaere waga seko sono ma ni mo mimu
In the dusk the way will be hard to find, so await the moon, my love,
before you return; and in the meantime let us make love.
The Third Princess recognizes the poem he alludes to and reminds him that it ends with the lady urging the man not to leave but to linger. From this, Genji draws his own conclusions as to what she wishes to do “in the meantime.” The princess then follows up her allusion with a poem describing her own hurt feelings:
yūtsuyu ni sode nurase to ya higurashi no / naku o kiku kiku okite yukuramu
“Soak your sleeves with evening dew,” do you tell me, as at day’s end you rise
to leave, listening all the while to the shrilling cicadas?
Genji takes this at face value and decides to stay the night. The next morning, while searching for his fan, he discovers the incriminating letter from Kashiwagi that the princess had slipped carelessly under her cushion.
17. The death of her lover Kashiwagi.
18. So nicknamed for his poem quoted in the text.
19. Tō no Chūjō describes him in similar terms in “Fuji no uraba,” 14:428.
20. “Fuji no uraba,” 14:430, the scene in which Tō no Chūjō finally offers his daughter Kumoinokari to Yūgiri, chanting the phrase “new wisteria leaves” in an allusion to Goshūishū 100:
haru hi sasu fuji no uraba no uratokete / kimi shi omowaba ware mo omowamu
These new leaves of wisteria, bathed in spring sunlight, now yield to you;
if you will but love me, then shall I place my trust in you.
21. After a poem he sends to Tamakazura in “Kochō,” 14:169:
omoutomo kimi wa shiraji na wakikaeri / iwa moru mizu ni iro ni mieneba
Long though I may, you are not likely aware of it, for the waters
that well from the rocky spring have no color to be seen.
22. “Fuji no uraba,” 14:430. When Tō no Chūjō, feigning drunkenness, finally signals his approval of the union between Yūgiri and his daughter Kumoinokari, it falls to Kashiwagi to handle the logistics of getting the two into the same room, which, given Yūgiri’s somewhat dull “earnestness,” requires a good bit of “quick wit” on Kashiwagi’s part.
23. A bat that has no opportunity to compare itself with birds is apt to think itself a superior creature.
24. Most commentators assume that both Sumori no Nakanokimi (the younger Sumori lady) and Sumori no Kimi (the “Sumori” lady) mentioned here refer to the younger daughter of Hachi no Miya and that she is so called for her poem, written as a child and addressed to her widowed father (“Hashihime,” 16:115):
naku naku mo hane uchiki suru kimi nakuba / ware zo sumori ni narubekarikeru
Were it not for you, sheltering us under your wings, weeping all the while,
I should surely have been left in the nest, the unhatched egg.
The same commentators also note, however, that the opinions of Niou and Kaoru that this lady is reported to hold seem to contradict each other. This translation, therefore, follows an interpretation suggested by Inaga Keiji, in which he takes “Sumori no Nakanokimi” and “Sumori no Kimi” as references not to a single person but to two separate persons, the daughters of Hotaru Hyōbukyō no Miya who are courted by both Niou and Kaoru in the no longer extant chapter “Sumori.” We know from the “old Genji genealogies” (translated in chapter 5 of this volume) that Sumori no Nakanokimi is having an affair with Niou and that as soon as he drops her, she takes up with his brother, the Second Prince. We know, too, that her elder sister, Sumori no Sanmi, much prefers Kaoru to Niou. Inaga’s reading assumes, of course, that the Genji text in the possession of the Mumyōzōshi author included “Sumori” and that she regarded this chapter as authentic. But his interpretation also resolves all the incongruities and provides good reason for describing Ukifune and Sumori no Nakanokimi as “horrid” and “lustful.” The phrase “Niou the cherry and Kaoru the plum” is not found in extant texts of Genji but may have been used in “Sumori.” See Inaga Keiji, Genji monogatari no kenkyū: seiritsu to denryū (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1967), 486–88.
25. This “quotation” from Genji agrees only patchily with texts based on the Aobyōshi-bon. It is closer to, but still not identical with, the Kawachi-bon texts. The two lines of texts are compared in Murasaki Shikibu, Taikō Genji monogatari shinshaku, ed. Yoshizawa Yoshinori and Kinoshita Masao (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankōkai, 1971), 1:17–18.
26. He is alluding to “Bright the moon, fierce the wind, sad the sound of the fulling block; long indeed are these nights in the Eighth Month, the Ninth Month” (Hakushi monjū, 19).
27. From a poem by Liu Mengde (772–842).
28. Extant texts of Genji read wakaretemo and nagusametemashi, rather than wakarutomo and nagusaminamashi.
29. Presumably because the degree of passion expressed in Murasaki’s poem is deemed unseemly? In support of this interpretation, on which all commentators agree, Kuwabara notes that in an earlier passage of Mumyōzōshi, the speaker says, “When you’re upset with someone, when life in this world seems painful, when something seems just too dreadful or wonderful, at any time whatever, when strong feelings threaten to overcome you, if you just recite ‘Namu Amida Butsu,’ whatever may be troubling you will vanish and you will feel relief” (Mumyōzōshi, 45n.8, 20n.5).
30. “Suma,” 13:178, alluding to Ise monogatari 7:
itodoshiku sugiyuku kata no koishiki ni / urayamashiku mo kaeru nami kana
Only the more do they make me long for the place whence I have just come;
how I envy them, these waves that return whither they came.
31. “Suma,” 13:179:
furusato o mine no kasumi wa hedatsuredo / nagamuru sora wa onaji kumoi ka
Though mountain peaks shrouded in mist now stand between me and our old home,
might these skies that I now gaze upon be the same for her?
32. Shokukokinshū 868:
tabibito wa tamoto suzushiku narinikeri / seki fukikoyuru suma no urakaze
The traveler’s sleeves, by now soaked through with tears, have grown chill
as the wind that buffets Suma’s shore blows down from beyond the barrier.
33. Extant texts of Genji describe Yukihira as a Middle Counselor (chūnagon) rather than a viceroy (sochi) and differ in other minor ways from this quotation.
34. Extant texts of Genji differ slightly. The allusion is to Hakushi monjū, 724.
35. “Wakana, jō,” 15:62–63. While sleeping with the Third Princess, Genji dreams of Murasaki and leaves before dawn to return to her. Her women make him wait, gazing at the snowy garden, for some time before letting him in.
36. Extant texts of Genji read omoitsutsu.
37. The allusion is to Shūishū 1329:
yamadera no iriai no kane no koe goto ni / kyō mo kurenu to kiku zo kanashiki
With every toll of the evening bell from the temple in the mountains,
how sad to think, “Yet another day has come to an end.”
38. Extant texts of Genji read itamaite, rather than shiri kakete.
39. “Sakaki,” 13:81. Extant texts of Genji read nakikarashitaru koe mo (chirp in rasping voices), rather than nakikawashitaru (chirp to one another).
40. “Sakaki,” 13:87:
Suzukagawa yasose no nami ni nurenurezu / Ise made tareka omoiokosemu
Whether I am soaked or not in the ripples of Suzukagawa,
who is likely to care when I am far off in Ise?
41. Yūgiri at first feels “a bit awkward” because the inkstone the waiting lady brings him is not her own but the Akashi Princess’s; yet when he considers the low regard in which this lady’s mother is held, he “decides that needn’t trouble him” (“Nowaki,” 14:274–75nn.18–20).
42. Teika, in Okuiri, cites:
kiri fukaki kumoi no kari mo waga goto ya / hare sezu mono no kanashikaruramu
The wild geese high above in misty clouds, do they too feel as I do,
full of sorrow, beset by cares that cannot be dispelled?
The poem is otherwise unknown.
43. Here, as noted previously, the narrative becomes more a series of lists than a conversation. In this translation, these lists—each consisting of a subject heading followed by a series of events the description of which ends in koto—are treated as the words of the woman who ends the discussion, probably the same woman who at the outset expresses her reluctance to embark on the subject without a text of Genji to refer to.
44. From Ise shū, 380:
mikumano no ura yori ochi no kogu fune no / ware oba yoso ni hedatetsuru kana
The boat that rows seaward from the shore of beautiful Kumano
leaves me behind as it travels ever further away.
45. Extant texts of Genji read nagekishi, rather than nagameshi.
46. Described in Ise monogatari 9.
47. For a comprehensive discussion of the art of the list in Japanese literature, see Jacqueline Pigeot, “La list éclatée: Tradition de la liste hétérogène dans la littérature japonaise ancienne,” Extrême-orient–extrême-occident 12 (1990): 109–38.
48. The text of Forty-Eight Exemplars from Genji is in Shigematsu Nobuhiro, Shinkō Genji monogatari kenkyū shi (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1961), 142–45; and Abe Akio, Oka Kazuo, and Yamagishi Tokuhei, eds., Genji monogatari, Kokugo kokubungaku kenkyū shi taisei 3 (Tokyo: Sanseidō, 1960), 112–14; only forty-six “exemplars” survive. The text of A Key to Genji is in Shigematsu, Shinkō Genji monogatari kenkyū shi, 145–47; and Abe, Oka, and Yamagishi, eds., Genji monogatari, 115–17. The text and a brief discussion of Exemplars from Genji, the third “list” translated here, are in Inaga Keiji, “Meiō ninen okugaki mugedai Genji shō shoshūGenji monotatoe (kadai)’ kaisetsu, honkoku,” Kokubungaku kō 33 (1964): 35–39; the text alone is in Inaga, Genji monogatari no kenkyū, 601–13. This printing of the text is collated with twenty-eight fragments of what appears to be another copy of the same text, which are appended to a copy of Genji kokagami owned by Professor Katagiri Yōichi. These fragments are extremely useful in resolving some of the textual difficulties in Inaga’s text. The entire Genji shō is reproduced in Teramoto Naohiko, Genji monogatari juyō shi ronkō, zoku hen (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, l982), 769–98. As the title of Inaga’s article indicates, the list itself has no title. The title attached to the translation is Inaga’s provisional title.
49. Shigematsu, Shinkō Genji monogatari kenkyū shi, 134–35.
50. Inaga, “‘Genji monotatoe (kadai),’ ” 35–37. This article contains a useful list displaying the correlation of categories in the three texts.
51. The dewdrop may allude to Kokinshū 223. The source of the frost crystal is uncertain. Here both are metaphors for willing women.
52. In fact, the Minister of the Left praises Genji’s arrangement of the festivities as the finest that he has seen in four reigns. Genji returns the compliment by insisting that the contribution of the minister’s son, rather than his own, would be the one remembered by history.
53. There is mention here of dissatisfaction in certain quarters that a member of Genji’s faction would probably be appointed empress, but the appointment itself is never described. In “Minori,” she is referred to as kisaki (empress).
54. At this point, “the Emperor” is still the crown prince and does not accede to the throne until the following chapter. Genji’s daughter is also not yet the empress.
55…. ue ni wa ware [mochiikagami o] misetatematsuramu (let me offer my lady New Year’s felicitations).
56. The poem, composed by a country bumpkin, is a non sequitur. What the first secretary intends to swear is never stated.
57. Someone indeed added the two entries entitled urameshiki koto.
58. Extant texts of Genji read wakareirinamu.
59. Abe, Oka, and Yamagishi’s text reads tsuburu; the -ru is emended from Shigematsu.
60. Kaoru here employs the metaphor for absolute fidelity made famous by Kokinshū 1093:
kimi o okite adashigokoro o waga motaba / sue no matsuyama nami mo koenan
Should ever I neglect you, my love, and even think to be faithless,
then shall the pine-clad Sue mountains be engulfed in waves.
61. Abe, Oka, and Yamagishi’s text reads tsukizukishi; the -ki is emended from Shigematsu.
62. Extant texts of Genji read nokoran, rather than nokosan.
63. The allusion is to Kokinshū 184.
64. Compare Shūishū 545.
65. He is alluding to Kokinshū 851.
66. She is quoting Kokinshū 967.
67. Compare Kokinshū 1080.
68. Extant texts of Genji read o, rather than mo.
69. The text here reads tsurezure naru. The emendation follows Inaga’s suggestion in Genji monogatari kenkyū, 609.
70. Morikawa Akira, “Genji hitobito kokoro kurabe,” Seikei kokubun 7 (1974): 34–41.
71. Urin’in is the currently preferred reading.
72. The text reads yofuhe, which I take to be a scribal error for yokobue. Kashiwagi is never called Yokobue in Genji, but he is admired for his prowess on this instrument, and the letter is indeed from him. The Yokobue no Kimi in “Wakana, ge,” 15:193, seems to be Yūgiri’s son.
73. This transcription follows the version of the poem given in this text, in which the final syllables read to mo nare. Extant texts of Genji read to o nare.
74. The mother of Ochiba no Miya, although she is never called by this name in Genji.
75. Ii Haruki, Genji monogatari hikiuta sakuin (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 1977), 59.
76. Translated from Abe, Oka, and Yamagishi, eds., Genji monogatari, 108–12.
77. Translated from Ichiko Teiji, “Shiryō shōkai: Genji monoarasoi,” Chūsei bungaku 5 (1960): 12–13.
78. Translated from Morikawa, “Genji hitobito kokoro kurabe,” 37–39. The manuscript is untitled. The title given here is that appended by Morikawa to his transcription of the Suzuki-ke text, probably because of its clear genetic relationship to the Awa no kuni bunko text, which has this title. Actually, however, it has much more in common with Genji monoarasoi than with Kokoro kurabe. Ten of the first eleven entries are identical (or nearly so) with those of Genji monoarasoi.
79. Hirata Sakura, “Kichōsho shōkai: Genji monoarasoi,” Toshi no fu: Meiji Daigaku Toshokan kiyō 3 (1999): 146–61.
80. She is here referred to as Miyasudokoro, although she is never called that in Genji.
81. “Intimate converse” (mutsugoto) probably refers to Genji’s conversation with Murasaki in which he expatiates on the subject of other women he has known, during which he describes the Rokujō Consort in most unflattering terms (“Wakana, ge,” 15:200–201). Shortly thereafter, Murasaki is taken ill, and the cause of her affliction turns out to be the wayward spirit of the maligned lady (15:224–28).
82. The author of this text has inadvertently reversed the last two syllables of this name, which should read Tokikata. Tokikata is the son of Niou’s nursemaid. He thus grows up with the prince, becomes his closest retainer, and handles all the practical details of such transactions.
83. The lower hemistich of this poem is a speculative reconstruction of a corrupt original that reads moen [sic] ni kemuri ni musubu [sic] beshi to wa.
84. The identity of the copyist is unknown, but the same name appears on a manuscript of Izumi Shikibu zoku shū.
85. Perhaps a scribal error here? The latter part of the sentence reads, redundantly, Murasaki no Ue usetamaishi Genji no on-omoi ni kumogakuretamaishi Genji no mi-gokoro…. The translation follows the otherwise identical Genji monoarasoi text.
86. Both the Genji narrator and Hanachirusato are alluding to a poem by Ise, Kokinshū 756:
ai ni aite monoomou koro no waga sode ni / yadoreru tsuki sae nururu kao naru
How appropriate that now, in my despair, even the face of the moon
that dwells in my sleeves should itself be wet with tears.
87. These attempts and the evidence against them are summarized in Ōtsu Yūichi, Gunsho kaidai, ed. Zoku Gunsho Ruijū Kanseikai (Tokyo: Zoku Gunsho Ruijū Kanseikai, 1961), 12:80–81.
88. Oda Keiko, “Ise-Genji jūniban onna awase no seiritsu kiban,” Kokugo kokubun 54, no. 11 (1985): 1–21.
89. Surviving manuscripts of Ise Genji jūniban onna awase differ very little from one another and usually only in ways that help the reader make better sense of the text. None has been annotated or even edited more than minimally. Readers who wish to consult the original should be warned, however, of one major defect that has found its way into some printed editions of the text. Two of the surviving texts lack a large section of round 12, which seems to have been omitted by a copyist who inadvertently turned two pages instead of one, thus missing the reverse of one fold and the obverse of the following fold. The texts consulted in making this translation are in Abe, Oka, and Yamagishi, eds., Genji monogatari, 117–32; Katagiri Yōichi, ed., Ise monogatari no kenkyū, shiryō hen (Tokyo: Meiji Shoin, 1969), 73–94; and Nakashima Shōji, “Fukui Shiritsu Toshokan zō Ise Genji jūniban onna awase honkoku,” Mita kokubun 21 (1994): 18–31, and “Honokuni Bunko zō Ise Genji jūniban onna awase,” in Yakaku gunpō: kodai chūsei kokubungaku ronshū, ed. Ikeda Toshio (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2002), 375–400. The first two of these texts contain the defective round 12, but the last two are complete. The textual history of this work has been very little studied to date, but a report on research in progress is given in Nakashima Shōji, “Fukui Shiritsu Toshikan zō Ise Genji jūniban onna awase ni tsuite,” Kyūko 26 (1994): 24–26.
90. As when Genji dances in “Momiji no ga.”
91. Moonlight reflected (yadoru) in dewdrops on the leaves of hagi (bush clover) was traditionally a harbinger of autumn, as in Teika’s poem, Shūi gusō 226:
aki no iro o shirasesomu to ya mikazuki no/hikari o migaku hagi no shitatsuyu
Might we then call them the first sign that autumn is come—these dewdrops on
the hagi that so heighten the glow of the crescent moon?
92. Junshi (809–871). See Ise monogatari 4, 5, 65.
93. Junshi’s father was Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu (775–826). It is not she, however, but her niece Akirakeiko/Meishi (829–900) who is so described (Ōkagami, vol. 2) in a poem composed by her father, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804–872), “when he saw a vase of cherry blossoms standing before the Somedono Empress”:
toshi fureba yowai wa oinu shika wa aredo / hana o shi mireba monoomoi mo nashi
The years pass and I have grown old; yet even so, when I gaze upon
these cherry blossoms I haven’t a care in the world.
Perhaps the “unwarranted repute” (aranu na) that accrues to Yoshifusa is the honor of having this poem included in Kokinshū 52?
94. Kisaki no kurai ; actually, he wishes only that he had named her a Dame of Honor (nyōgo) (“Kiritsubo,” 12:101).
95. She is nowhere described as a nun in Genji.
96. This may be based on the brief passage in which Kokiden is so charmed by Genji that she allows him inside her blinds immediately after seeing him (“Kiritsubo,” 12:114), but there are no further grounds for saying that she raised the boy. She does not, of course, hold the rank of empress in this chapter, nor does the appellation Kokiden no Miya, as she is called here, appear anywhere in Genji. Only much later, in “Sakaki,” is she referred to as Ōkisai no Miya (Empress Mother).
97. This poem appears neither in Ise monogatari nor in any of the prose works or imperial anthologies indexed in Kokka taikan. A variant version of it can be found in Genji ichibu no nukigaki narabi ni Ise monogatari, as Oda points out in “Ise-Genji jūniban onna awase no seiritsu kiban,” 16 (manuscript in Hōsa Bunko):
shirurame ya ware ni narenishi yo no hito / kuraki ni yukanu tayori ari to wa
Yet another variant occurs in Aro monogatari, SNKBT 52:92:
shirurame ya ware ni au mi no yo no hito no/kuraki ni yukanu tayori ari to wa
98. Brothers of Genji’s wife.
99. The text is corrupt here. I am grateful to Professor Miyakawa Yōko for pointing out that hodokurau may be a mistake for hodo nau, as the kana orthography of both phrases can be very similar in some hands. The translation is based on this possibility.
100. The text is corrupt here; the translation is based in part on speculation.
101. The passage that follows, up to and including the description of her “sharp glance,” follows almost verbatim the text of “Wakamurasaki,” 12:300–301.
102. Wakan rōei shū 279, by Minamoto no Shitagō (911–981): “Ominaeshi. The color of this flower resembles that of steamed millet. It is commonly called ‘maiden flower’ [jorō hana]. Hearing that name, I wished I might propose in jest that we be married, but surely she would scorn this dotard’s head, white as frost” (Wakan rōei shū, ed. Sugano Hiroyuki, SNKBT 19:153–54).
103. Actually he has four daughters, but only the second and third are depicted as characters in Genji. The first and fourth are mentioned only once in passing.
104. The chronology of events is reversed here. Only after describing her tonsure does the Genji text mention that she is too weak to bid her father farewell.
105. Not a poem at all, but the deity’s exclamation of delight on encountering her male counterpart, Izanagi no Mikoto. See Kojiki, NKBT 1:55.
106. Kojiki, NKBT 1:119. The singer of the song is here designated by her alternative name, Takahime no Mikoto.
107. Kokinshū 1110:
waga seko ga kubeki yoi nari sasagani no / kumo no furumai kanete shirushi mo
Tonight is the night that my love shall come to me; for in the crab-like
movements of the spider, I saw a sign that told me so.
108. Man’yōshū 3807:
asakayama kage sae miyuru yama no i no / asaki kokoro o waga omowanaku ni
Shallow like this mountain spring in which I see reflected Mount Shallow;
that shallow I know they are not, the feelings of my love.
109. Either 11:00–11:30 P.M. to 2:00–2:30 A.M. or midnight to 3:00 A.M., depending on the system of reckoning time that the author of Ise monogatari is using.
110. Most texts of Ise monogatari read koyoi, rather than yohito.
111. This judgment draws on a tradition that a child was born of the liaison, described in Ise monogatari 69, between Ariwara no Narihira and Princess Yasuko (d. 913), a daughter of the Montoku Emperor who served for eighteen years as the High Priestess of Ise. It was arranged by the then acting governor of Ise, Takashina Mineo, that the unwanted child be adopted by his son Takashina Shigenori and be given the name Takashina Morohisa (b. 866). Later, when Shigenori’s own son unexpectedly took vows, Morohisa became the heir to the Takashina line. Because his true parentage was by then an open secret, members of the Takashina house there-after discreetly refrained from worshipping at the Ise shrine. See Sonpi bunmyaku, 4:111. All texts of Onna awase give the name of this house as Takahashi, some glossing the characters image as Takahashi. Current opinion seems not to accept this pronunciation.
112. In the Kokinshū, this poem is attributed to Narihira, with the headnote, “Composed upon sending an overcloak to the man who was married to his wife’s younger sister.”
113. Not exactly a reply, but a poem written in the margin of Genji’s letter. The poem is not Utsusemi’s own; she quotes from the Ise shū 442 (Nishi Honganji-bon).
114. The “certain estate” is thought to have been modeled on the Kawara no In, built by Minamoto no Tōru (822–895) and inherited after his death by the Uda Emperor (867–931; r. 887–897). Among many stories of the haunting of this mansion by its former owner, one recorded in Gōdanshō (GR 21:309) tells how the emperor takes one of his ladies, the Kyōgoku Consort, there and is attacked by the ghost of Tōru while engaged with Her Ladyship in some “bedroom business” (bōnai no koto). The ghost demands the consort for himself; the emperor is enraged by the ghost’s insubordination; and the lady ends up “half dead.” No mention of this incident is found in any extant text of Genji, but medieval commentaries from Kakaishō onward regard Genji’s recollection that “one hears of such things in the old tales” (“Yūgao,” 12:241) as a reference to the Gōdanshō story. One wonders, too, whether the upper hemistich of Genji’s poem addressed to Yūgao, the reply to which is quoted in Onna awase, might have seemed to a knowing reader to be a portent of things to come:
inishie mo kaku ya wa hito no madoiken / waga mada shiranu shinonome no michi
Might others long ago have gone astray in much the same manner?
To me this dawn road we travel is something I’ve never known.
115. A popular designation of the temple Chinkōji, which stood opposite the entrance to the Toribeno cremation ground.
116. 875–916. Current reference works describe him as the son of the Seiwa Emperor (850–878; r. 858–876) and the daughter of Ariwara no Yukihira.
117. Actually he moves her to the Nijō mansion.
118. “Fujibakama,” 14:331–34. Actually it is Tamakazura’s intermediary, Saishō, who is amused.
119. The reader whose knowledge of Genji derives principally from digest versions has good reason to wonder whether Genji slept with Tamakazura, as Oda points out in “Ise-Genji jūniban onna awase no seiritsu kiban,” 15–16. Some digests say he did not; others say he did.
120. The genealogical confusion mentioned earlier is apparent here as well. The Fifth Ward Empress was the daughter of Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu, not Yoshifusa.
121. Abutsu is referred to as onna aruji. The term translated as “reader” is kōji.
122. Masaari may have found Abutsu’s reading unusual because he was not used to hearing Genji read by a woman, but this could also refer to Abutsu’s rhythm, her enunciation, or her following a Mikohidari style of reading. See Tabuchi Kumiko, Abutsu-ni to sono jidai: Utatane ga kataru chūsei (Kyoto: Rinsen Shoten, 1999), 160.
123. The implications of this phrase are unclear. The original reads narai abekameri and implies that Abutsu’s particular style of narration follows a tradition she has learned from her own family or Tameie’s. See Asukai Masaari nikki zenshaku, ed. Mizukawa Yoshio (Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1985), 61.
124. For a recent annotated text, see Abutsu, Utatane, ed. Fukuda Hideichi, in SNKBT 51.
125. Until recently, Menoto no fumi was thought to have been written right before Abutsu set out for Kamakura to defend a court case in 1279, because it described Abutsu’s being far away from her daughter. For a summary of the various theories and a reexamination of the dating of this work, see Iwasa Miyoko, “Menoto no fumi kō,” Kokubun tsurumi 26 (1991): 1–11.
126. Nijō’s advice from her father on taking the tonsure should she lose the affections of her patron, GoFukakusa, is from a section of Menoto no fumi suggesting a similar course of action.
127. Translated from the Gunsho ruijū-bon version of the unabridged (kōhon) Niwa no oshie, in Abutsu-ni zenshū, ed. Yanase Kazuo, expanded ed. (1958; Tokyo: Kazama Shobō, 1981).
128. The phrase onoga yoyo ni, translated here as “lead lives apart,” is found in Ise monogatari 21, which describes a couple who eventually part. The phrase also appears in The Tale of Genji in a poem composed by Genji for Tamakazura, which Abutsu seems to be citing here:
mase no uchi ni ne fukaku ueshi take no ko no / ore ga yoyo ni ya oiwakaru beki
Must that dear bamboo, so young when I planted her deep in my garden,
grow up with the passing years to a life apart from mine?
Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji, trans. Royall Tyler (New York: Viking, 2001), 1:448.
129. “This fate” or, more literally, “was this sort of promise made?” refers to Shūishū 992:
Sent to a woman’s residence:
au koto wa kokoro ni mo arade hodo fu tomo / saya wa chigirishi wasure hatene to
Time may have passed without any expectation of meeting with you,
yet was a promise made for you to forget about me completely?
130. Abutsu uses three images from Ise monogatari to emphasize her and her daughter’s sadness at separating. The “capital bird” appears in episode 9, in which one of the travelers composes this poem:
na ni shi owaba iza koto towamu miyakodori / waga omou hito wa ari ya nashi ya to
If you be true to the name you bear, Capital Bird,
then let me ask: does the one I love live, or does she not?
Abutsu’s envy of “the waves that are certain to return” refers to episode 7, in which the protagonist looks out to sea and composes this poem:
itodoshiku sugiyuku kata no koishiki ni/urayamashiku mo kaeru nami kana
The direction from which I came seems dearer still as we proceed;
how enviable are the waves that return.
Finally, the “spider-legged” Yatsuhashi Bridge is the famous scene of the Eight Bridges (Yatsuhashi) of Mikawa Province, found in episode 9. Abutsu takes the phrase “spider-legged bridges, forever pulled in all directions, like my thoughts” (kumode ni omou koto taenu) from Gosenshū 570:
uchiwatashi nagaki kokoro wa yatsuhashi no / kumode ni omou koto wa taeseji
The lengths to which my patient heart extends, my thoughts forever pulled
in all directions, like the spider-legged eight bridges of Yatsuhashi.
131. Abutsu refers to the penultimate chapter of The Tale of Genji, in which Ukifune is taken in by the prelate of Yokawa (called here the nori no shi [master of the law]). By the medieval period, popular legend held that Murasaki Shikibu composed the “Suma” and “Akashi” chapters while in retreat at Ishiyama Temple, inspired by the moon reflected on the waters of Lake Biwa.
132. The “chest” is a kokarabitsu, a wooden box with legs, used to hold clothing and items of daily use. The “catalogs” (mokuroku) likely included information like lists of the chapter titles.