THAT SEA CHANGE IN ATTITUDES toward The Tale of Genji that we sum up under the convenient rubric of “canonization” is in fact a shifting amalgam of forces, some in concert, some in conflict, never quite coalescing in total consensus, yet yielding ultimately what one scholar aptly describes as the transformation of Genji from “a women’s romance into a men’s classic.”1 Very little documentation of this process, which spanned at least two centuries, survives, but the scattering of sources that we do have allows us at least roughly to chart its progress. We can assume, first of all, that the sense of wonder at the tale’s greatness, as expressed by the Ichijō Emperor, was shared by most of Murasaki’s readers and was the initial and indispensable impetus of the canonization process. Certainly it was what drove the Sarashina diarist when she “lay down behind her screens” and read Genji “all day and as far into the night as I could keep my eyes open.” In contrast, however, we have seen how the reading of fictions of any sort may have been dismissed—even by Genji himself—as mere “amusement for women” or, more severely, as the “very root of sin,” the creation of which could condemn an author to hell. To make a classic out of a work against which such objections could be leveled would prove to be a formidable task, far more difficult than the canonization of, say, a doctrinal or historical or philosophical text.
The documents collected here, describing events toward the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, reveal not only what a sense of awe still prevailed among those most directly responsible for the canonization of Genji, but also a key element in the process of canonization: the association of The Tale of Genji with the composition of waka, poetry in Japanese. Waka was the premier genre of all the literary arts practiced in Japan, rivaled only by the composition of poetry in Chinese. When it became permissible to draw the diction and conception of poems from Genji and to allude in poetry to scenes and events in Genji—and when the many poems “composed” by characters in Genji were themselves admitted into the canon of waka—the way then opened for all the other forms of attention normally reserved for literary classics to be applied to Genji: the collation, recension, and verification of texts; the compilation of commentaries; the construction of genealogies; the rendition of pivotal scenes in paintings. This process is sometimes described as dragging Genji into the canon as the handmaiden of waka, but the documents collected here suggest that what in fact happened was that Genji overwhelmed and subsumed the canon. This, as Harold Bloom has noted, is “the strongest test for canonicity…. One breaks into the canon only by aesthetic strength.”2 This is not to say, however, that the old objections simply vanished. Some readers still clung to them and periodically had to be refuted. As Inaga Keiji put it, “Though the Genji’s status as a classic had become unshakable, there lingered, throughout the medieval era, an unsteadiness in its stance.”3
T. HARPER
Fujiwara no Shunzei (1114–1204) may not have been the first person to draw on The Tale of Genji when composing poetry. He was, however, the first to accord poems based on Genji the distinction of being included in an imperially commissioned anthology of Japanese poetry (chokusenshū). The seventh imperial anthology, the Senzaishū, edited principally by Shunzei, contains two anonymous love poems that take both their conception and their diction from Genji and are explicitly labeled as Genji poems. The commentary that follows each poem, explaining the use its author made of The Tale of Genji and the resultant poetic effects, is by the Genroku-era (1688–1704) scholar Kitamura Kigin (1624–1705), in his edition of the first eight imperial anthologies, Hachidaishū shō (1682).4
T. HARPER
Two Poems on the Topic of Love, Based upon The Tale of Genji
misebaya na tsuyu no yukari no tamakazura / kokoro ni kakete shinobu keshiki o
Would that I might show the love hidden in my heart, like a diadem
bejeweled with tears shed for her who vanished like the dew. [869]
In the “Tamakazura” chapter of Genji, Ukon, in telling Genji about Tamakazura, says, “I have discovered someone related to the lady who vanished like the dew on the moonflower” [14:114]. In employing these words in this poem, the author uses tamakazura [diadem] to refer to women in general. As there is also an implicit association with the verb “to wear,” the poem thus means “I wish to show my hidden love that I wear like a diadem in my heart.”
ausaka no na o wasurenishi naka naredo / sekiyararenu wa namida narikeri
Though I’ve forgotten the very name Ausaka, barrier where lovers meet,
no barrier can ever stop these tears of mine. [870]
In the “Sekiya” chapter of Genji, when Genji makes his pilgrimage to Ishiyama, the Utsusemi lady, returning from Hitachi, by chance encounters him at Ausaka Mountain. She composes the poem:
yuku to ku to sekitomegataki namida o ya / taenu shimizu to hito wa miruramu
These tears I could not stop, as I both left and return to this barrier:
will people think them but the ceaseless spring of Meeting Slope?
[13:351]
The poem ausaka no…thus means “My feelings are like Utsusemi’s. She did not requite Genji’s love, and after that night when the direction of his own home was inauspicious, she would never meet him again. She had, so to speak, forgotten the name Ausaka, the barrier where lovers meet. But like her, my longing for you has not ceased, and so I find it difficult to stop my tears.” A “love poem based on The Tale of Genji” can be simply a poem about love that includes the name of a chapter in the tale, or the entire conception [kokoro] may be taken from the tale. There are numerous examples of such poems in subsequent anthologies.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(Roppyakuban utaawase)
The Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds is the locus classicus of Fujiwara no Shunzei’s often quoted and extremely influential pronouncement that “to compose poetry without having read Genji is simply inexcusable.” The full significance of his judgment emerges with greater clarity, however, when we compare it with an earlier round of the same contest in which Shunzei recognizes an allusion to Genji but criticizes the poet for executing it ineptly, considering only the source and ignoring its context.
T. HARPER
Summer II, “Evening Faces,” Round 18
| Left |
Draw |
Ariie Ason (Fujiwara no Ariie, 1155–1216) |
mugura hau shizu ga kakine mo iro haete / hikari kotonaru yūgao no hana
The fence around the hovel, too, overgrown with weeds, glows with color;
its gleam a thing apart is the flower of the evening face.
| Right |
Takanobu Ason (Fujiwara no Takanobu, 1142–1205) |
tasogare ni magaite sakeru hana no na o / ochikatabito ya towaba kotaemu
The name of that flower blooming there, indistinct in the gathering dusk:
I say, yonder person, should I ask, would you answer me?
The Right comments: I wonder if one can speak of a “fence glowing with color.”
The Left comments: The poem that goes “I would ask you, yonder person” [Kokinshū 1007] would not seem to be about evening faces.
The Judgment: However colorful the fence, aren’t the words “glows with color” rather repetitive? As for the poem of the Right: The poem composed in reply to “yonder person” reads “when spring comes” [Kokinshū 1008]. It cannot be about evening faces. In Genji, he [Genji] sees a white flower that is in bloom just then, and says “…of yonder person,” which his guardsman hears, understands, and says, “That is called an ‘evening face.’” This poem is not exactly in error, but it is composed with Genji alone in mind. This is unacceptable.5 It does a disservice to Genji as well. But one can hardly settle on the Left’s “glows with color” as the winner. A draw, shall we say?
The round in which Shunzei’s pronouncement appears reads as follows:
Winter I, “Sear Fields,” Round 13
| Left |
Win |
A lady of the court (Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, 1169–1206) |
mishi aki o nani ni nokosan kusa no hara / hitotsu ni kawaru nobe no keshiki ni
Is there naught wherewith I might capture this autumnal scene I have known,
this grassy moor transformed to a totally withered plain?
shimogare no nobe no aware o minu hito ya / aki no iro ni wa kokoro someken
Can there be one who sees not the touching beauty of frost-withered fields
once his heart has been tinged by the brilliant tints of autumn?
The Right objects: “Grassy moor” [kusa no hara] has an unpleasant ring to it.
The Left comments: The poem of the Right is old-fashioned.
The Judgment: The words of the poem of the Left, “Is there naught wherewith I might capture…transformed to a totally withered plain,” are lovely indeed. The Right’s objection to “grassy moor” seems quite inadmissible. Although Murasaki Shikibu is more accomplished as a writer of prose than as a poet, [the poems in] “Hana no en” are particularly lovely. To compose poetry without having read Genji is simply inexcusable. The poem of the Right does not appear flawed in either concept or diction, but its style is rather ordinary. The poem of the Left is superior and should be declared the winner.6
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
What seems to have aroused Shunzei’s ire is the objection of the poet of the Right that “‘grassy moor’ has an unpleasant ring to it.” The objection was not groundless. “Grassy moor” was often used as a euphemism for “graveyard,” and at the time of this competition, it still lacked the imprimatur of use in an imperially commissioned anthology. Shunzei, however, seems to take it for granted that anyone who has read Genji would immediately recognize these words as alluding to a poem in the “Hana no en” chapter. After seducing Oborozukiyo, the somewhat careless daughter of the Minister of the Right, Genji says to her, “Do tell me your name, else how shall I write to you? Surely you cannot think we shall never meet again?” Oborozukiyo replies coquettishly with this poem:
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?
(12:426–28)
For Shunzei, this precedent from Genji was sufficient sanction for the use of “grassy moor” in a poetry contest. Even so, his criticism of the Right is not entirely fair. As we have seen, Takanobu himself alludes to Genji, however ineptly, in an earlier round. Shunzei knows very well that he does not “compose poetry without having read Genji.” But only “reading” it is not enough. One must be sufficiently steeped in the tale to allude to it with a knowledge of its sources as well as its events, and to recognize the faintest allusions to it in the poems of those who are thoroughly versed in it. Shunzei might better have said that to compose poetry without studying Genji was simply unforgivable. It is interesting to note, too, that in both rounds, the object of Shunzei’s anger was Fujiwara no Takanobu, the son of his own wife by a previous marriage.7 It is tempting to wonder whether this relationship may have had something to do with Shunzei’s uncharacteristic display of emotion. Whatever his motives, however, they in no way diminished the influence of his pronouncement in the eyes of later poets. It is quoted repeatedly in the commentaries on Genji of later centuries.
(Shōji ninen Shunzei Kyō waji sōjō)
FUJIWARA NO SHUNZEI
When Fujiwara no Shunzei learned that his rivals in the Rokujō school of poets had connived to have his son Teika excluded from participating in a hundred-poem sequence (hyakushu) to be sponsored by the GoToba Retired Emperor (1180–1239; r. 1183–1198), he composed a memorial in protest against this injustice.8 In this document, he argues both for Teika’s merits and against the ignorance and incompetence of the leader of the Rokujō school, Fujiwara no Kiyosuke, and his associate Fujiwara no Norinaga. As the following excerpt illustrates, Shunzei was particularly derisive of their lack of knowledge of Genji, which he considered indispensable to the composition of poetry. The fact that he writes in Japanese rather than Sino-Japanese (kanbun) indicates that he intends the document not as an official memorial but as a communication to be submitted informally through gentlewomen in the service of the retired emperor. His protest was successful, and in the end both Shunzei and Teika were named to take part in the project.
T. HARPER
As a rule, it is strictly by virtue of their vast knowledge of poetry that the “authorities,” as they style themselves, judge contests and compile anthologies. If their judgments of what is good and what is bad should be entirely in error, they do damage to the entire Way of Poetry. I happened to hear that this person called Norinaga had compiled an anthology, which he entitled Shūi kokin [Gleanings Old and New].9 On that occasion, Kiyosuke assisted him, and they produced the work in close collaboration. It is truly dreadful. In the first place, the poem “Of a spring night, neither shining brightly nor yet completely clouded…”10 they took to be on the subject of “summer nights” and placed it in the summer section. In the “Hana no en” chapter of The Tale of Genji, which takes place in the Second Month, it is this poem that the Chief Palace Attendant [Oborozukiyo] is depicted as quoting when she speaks of “the light of a misty moon” [12:426]. But Norinaga and Kiyosuke have not read Genji, and certainly have not read [Hakushi] monjū. In one of his poems Haku Kyoi writes, “Neither bright nor dark, the misty moon; neither warm nor chill, the gentle breeze.” This is the Chinese poem upon which the Japanese poem is based. Knowing neither of them, they describe it as a poem on “summer nights” and place it in the summer section. Both Norinaga and Kiyosuke are a disgrace.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(Shimeishō)
There is no reason whatever to doubt the veracity of the following account by Sojaku (active 1289–1293) of the cooperation between Minamoto no Mitsuyuki and Fujiwara no Shunzei.11 Several sources attest to their close and continued collaboration in the collation and recension of their family texts of Genji. Chronological constraints, however, make it all but impossible to date this particular episode with any precision. Obviously it could not have taken place later than 1204, the year of Shunzei’s death. Yet it is known for certain that in that year, Mitsuyuki and his son Chikayuki were living in Kamakura and probably had lived there for the previous six years. Were Shunzei and Mitsuyuki the only persons involved, it could at least be dated confidently sometime before 1198. In that year, however, Mitsuyuki’s son Chikayuki, the intermediary between the two older scholars, was, at most, eleven, hardly an age at which he might be entrusted with such a mission. Ikeda Kikan dates their collaboration with Shunzei to around 120112 but offers no evidence to support his surmise. It is possible that circumstances, unrecorded in the few sources that survive from those tumultuous times, brought the three protagonists together before Shunzei’s death. But with no documentation, we can only speculate how the events described here might have come about.13 Whatever the timing, however, the story illustrates vividly the seriousness and meticulousness with which the two houses approached the task of establishing an authoritative text of Genji.
T. HARPER
Of those many works called The Tale of Genji, the one with the title The Tale of the Shining Genji is the work of Murasaki Shikibu. The text that had been handed down in this house, however, was fraught with mistaken readings perpetuated from the past. Thus my late father, Superintendent of Accounts [dai kenmotsu] Mitsuyuki, in order to assist those who might find it confusing and to set right the errors it contained, punctuated and added ideographic glosses [reiji o tsuku] to the text. Even so, these amendments were based only upon personal judgment, and he wished to seek the advice of someone of greater learning. With this in mind, he went to the mansion of His Lordship, Third Rank, of the Fifth Ward [Shunzei], and discussed the matter with him. [Shunzei] said he would be delighted to help, that indeed this was something he himself had been wanting to do for years. And what he accomplished in the end proved to be the major achievement of the final years of his life. Of those who attended my father throughout this process, I, Chikayuki, was the only one who never missed a day.
Now, when we opened Lord Shunzei’s copy of the “Kiritsubo” chapter and examined it, we noted that in the passage in which it is written “The figure of Yang Guifei in the paintings lacked the radiance of life. For there are limits to the powers of even the most gifted artist, while the lady herself was said to resemble the lilies of the royal pond, the willows of the Weiyang Palace…” [12:111], the phrase “willows of the Weiyang” had been marked for deletion.14 At this point he sent me, Chikayuki, as a messenger, to inquire why. “Yang Guifei,” I [Chikayuki] said, “is always likened to the lily and the willow and Kiritsubo, to the maidenflower [ominaeshi] and the pink [nadeshiko]. Two phrases for each is what one usually hears. But in Your Lordship’s [Shunzei’s] text, ‘willows of the Weiyang’ is deleted. What might be the reason for this?”
Shunzei replied, “How could you imagine that I have done this of my own accord [jiyū ni]? This phrase was marked for deletion in a manuscript written entirely in the hand of Imperial Attendant Grand Counselor [jijū dainagon] Yukinari. His being a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu, I assume that this was done in consultation with her, and so I have marked this text accordingly. Though I did have my doubts, in the course of several readings, I came upon a passage in ‘Wakana’ that made me realize why the deletion makes the passage more interesting.” I returned and reported this [to my father Mitsuyuki], whereupon he asked, “Where in ‘Wakana’ is the passage His Lordship says he associates with this one?” When I said I had not asked him about that, he said, “Your sole mission as my messenger was to discuss what was needed to dispel these doubts. You’ve been utterly negligent and bereft of reason. So be quick about it now; you must study that text until you can clear up this question.”
He was absolutely right, so I shut myself away and read “Wakana” at least sixty times over until finally I understood. When the Fiftieth-Year Festivities for the Suzaku Cloistered Emperor are being arranged at the command of Rokujō-in [Genji], and a practice session is held for the women’s concert, the ladies of the mansion are compared to various things. Here it is written: “When he peered in at the [Third] Princess, she looked lovely, but so much smaller than the others that she gave the impression of being naught but a pile of robes. Her charms were not yet fully developed, yet her bearing was most graceful—like green willow fronds in the middle of the Second Month when they have just begun to sprout, still so delicate that they seem they might be blown into disarray by the breeze of a warbler’s wings. While over a long gown of cherry blossom pink, her hair cascaded, both left and right, quite like willow fronds” [15:183]. I realized then that “willows of the Weiyang” at the beginning of the book was superfluous. Immediately, I told my father, and he said, “There are many men of great cultural accomplishment here in the capital, but quite apart from His Lordship’s superior learning in all things Japanese, there is no one who can equal the acuity of his grasp of this tale. As a result, he’s hit on something extremely interesting.” Since he [Shunzei] had marked this phrase for deletion, we too, in our humble text, shall mark it for deletion.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
Two versions of this narrative survive, one in Genchū saihishō, compiled principally by Mitsuyuki and Chikayuki, and the other in Shimeishō, compiled by Chikayuki’s younger brother Sojaku. The latter version is translated here because it is more complete. The former version, however, ends with an interesting passage not included in the latter, in which Chikayuki notes: “As I recall, however, ‘willows of the Weiyang’ was written into the family manuscript of the lay monk and Kyōgoku Middle Counselor [Teika]. I inquired further about this from the daughter of Lord Shunzei [ca. 1171–1254],15 who said, ‘It is probably a scribal error that has been handed down over the years and thus was copied into this text as well. The phrase must have been deleted because it smacks too much of parallelism.’” Modern scholars, however, tend to think that the retention of “willows of the Weiyang” in the Aobyōshi-bon is the result of a conscious aesthetic choice by Teika rather than an overlooked scribal error.16
(Juntoku-in gyoki)
The Juntoku Emperor (1197–1242; r. 1210–1241) was a son of and successor to the GoToba Emperor, and like his father, he was banished to the remote island of Sado for his part in the Jōkyū Rebellion. Only fragments of his diary survive, in the form of quotations like the following comment on The Tale of Genji, quoted in the introductory section of Kachō yosei, compiled by Ichijō Kanera.17 The emperor’s remarks are somewhat repetitive, with frequent references to the Buddhist concept of “inexplicable” wonder and mystery, usually associated with the scriptures. But there is no mistaking his fondness for The Tale of Genji.
T. HARPER
Of tales, there are, all told, a great many, some based on actual events, some fictional. The language of The Tales of Ise is nothing extraordinary, though those parts that are well written are splendid. The Tales of Yamato is far inferior. These aside, you will find nothing, even should you exhaust the lot of them, for they all are quite worthless. The Tale of Genji, however, is something inexplicable. It could hardly be the work of an ordinary person. When Murasaki Shikibu began writing, the Ichijō Emperor read it and remarked that she must be very well versed in the Annals of Japan. The imperial pronouncement struck jealousy in the heart of Lady Saemon no Naishi, and she dubbed Murasaki “Lady Annals.” Yet truly, all the arts, all the Ways, are epitomized in this one volume. This is inexplicable and unprecedented. There are some, it is rumored, who maintain that the poems of Genji are inferior and that the poems of Sagoromo are superior. How pitifully ridiculous. The two are hardly to be discussed on the same day. To be sure, there are some poems in Sagoromo that are not to be despised, but they do not approach the poems in Genji. The two are as different as clouds and mud. In the Way of Poetry, those who know and those who know not are as water is to fire. In the first place, the flow of the phrases [kotobatsuzuki] in Genji could not be the work of any mortal. This is something inexplicable. Second, the poems are superb. Who could approach them? Third, there is the way it is constructed [tsukurizama]. Nothing has ever surpassed the beauties she has created out of her own imagination, nor indeed has their like ever been seen. The poems, too, are inexplicable, indeed the finest in this realm of mine. Neither is the prose at all the work of any mortal. But those who fail to comprehend such fine points can hardly be expected to distinguish good from bad.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(Meigetsuki)
The following entry from Full Moon Diary, the diary of Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), is thought to describe the completion of his carefully collated “Text in Blue Covers” (Aobyōshi-bon).18 Taken at face value, this would suggest that for about thirty years, Teika did not have a copy of Genji. Yet his collection of poems from Genji and the compilation of Monogatari nihyakuban utaawase would have required access to a copy of the text, causing scholars to speculate that he may have been able to use another text that he considered less than authoritative. In any case, this entry from his diary is an invaluable record of the high regard in which Teika held Genji.
T. HARPER
[1225, Second Month,] Sixteenth Day. Skies again cloudy. In the evening, rainfall. Since the Eleventh Month of last year, I have had the women and girls of the household copying the fifty-four chapters of Genji monogatari. Yesterday we finished the covers. Today we write the chapter titles. For several years, I have neglected this, and we have not had a copy of the work in the household. [It was stolen in the Kenkyū era (1190–1198).]19 Having no authoritative text, I inquired about in an attempt to obtain one. Yet though I compared various texts, all were in the worst state of disorder and did nothing to resolve any points of doubt. “Wild words and fancy phrases,”20 though it may be, this is a work of extraordinary genius. “The more I look up to it, the higher it seems; the more I probe into it, the more solid it seems.”21 How dare anyone discuss it thoughtlessly?
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(GoToba no In gokuden)
Shunzei’s dictum, once voiced, was accepted, in a general way, without challenge by the poetic community. Some, however, wished to attach certain provisos. One of these is the following by the GoToba Retired Emperor (1180–1239; r. 1183–1198).22
T. HARPER
Item. Shakua [Shunzei], Jakuren, and others have said that when composing poems for a poetry contest, one is by no means free to compose just as one pleases. Still, such poems are not fundamentally different in nature. “Consider carefully the sense of the topic, and avoid the poetic ills,” they said. “One need not avoid using diction [kotoba] from Genji and other romances so long as one does not derive poetic conceptions [kokoro] from such works.” As a rule, it has likewise been unacceptable in hundred-poem sequences to draw the conceptions of poems from tales, but in recent times the practice has not been objected to.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(Kyōgoku Chūnagon sōgo)
Conversations with the Kyōgoku Middle Counselor, compiled by Fujiwara no Nagatsuna (dates unknown) sometime after the Eighth Month of 1229, purports to record the sayings of Fujiwara no Teika and Fujiwara no Ietaka (1158–1237), a claim generally accepted as authentic.23 The following comment by Teika, in addition to noting some forms of attention that we have seen evidence of elsewhere, suggests another, more abstract, benefit of reading Genji to the would-be composer of poetry, that of calming the mind, thus putting the poet in a proper mood to compose elegantly.
T. HARPER
The manner in which people read The Tale of Genji has changed of late. They will take a poem from it and use it as the source of an allusion in a poem of their own. Or they will pose as experts on precedent, argue over whose child Lady Murasaki was, and construct genealogies, or whatever it is they call them. In times past, there was none of this. Their most deeply felt concern was not disputing Murasaki’s ancestry, or searching out poems to which they themselves might allude, it was the inexpressible beauty of the language. When one reads Murasaki Shikibu’s writing, one’s mind clears, and then one can compose poems of graceful style and diction.
TRANSLATED BY T. HARPER
(Fu Hikaru Genji monogatari shi)
The Sino-Japanese Poems were composed in 1291 by an anonymous author. The text consists of a Sino-Japanese (kanbun) preface,24 followed by fifty-four Sino-Japanese poems (kanshi), one on each of the chapters of The Tale of Genji, and concludes with a biographical poem on Murasaki Shikibu. The Sino-Japanese Poems are both unique and puzzling. As Sino-Japanese texts on a vernacular tale, they transpose the romantic Tale of Genji into the academic world of canonical scholarship, replacing the vernacular with the more prestigious kanbun and switching from a courtly, elegant, and amorous space to an academic, antiquated, and official male world.
The most fascinating aspect of this text is its elusive form and argument. Formally, it resembles kanshi poems introduced by prefaces, like those composed on canonical Chinese works such as the Analects, the Book of Filial Piety, and the Three Histories on special occasions. At times, the preface calls for elevating The Tale of Genji to canonical status on a par with the Chinese curriculum: Genji’s son Yūgiri is given disproportionate attention because he can be presented as a paragon of Confucian virtue based on his formal training at the Academy. By the same token, the Sino-Japanese Poems present an early formulation of later mainstream interpretive wisdom, which claims for Genji the status of history (as seen in the “Hotaru” chapter) and points to the tale’s value as moral instruction through the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shinto. At the same time, the Sino-Japanese Poems seem to parody the world of the Academy, picking up on Murasaki Shikibu’s entertaining invectives against the dull and dusty doctors in the “Otome” chapter. To make things even more complex, the vernacular tradition, too, is sometimes treated with deprecation. Although the indeterminacy of their genre and their agenda has deterred scholars from studying the Sino-Japanese Poems, this makes them even more significant in the context of the early reception of The Tale of Genji.
WIEBKE DENECKE
The Tale of the Shining Genji is a profound text of our nation. If you skim it and know little about it, you may consider it a playful toy, but if you ponder it and study it well, you will take it as the foundation of devoted learning. It records events since the divine age and describes those of the human age, just as the illustrious volumes [the Nihon shoki] by our courtiers and princes do. In assembling hundreds of texts into one book, it is like Sima Qian’s [ca. 145–86 B.C.E.] Records of the Historian. Who would ever call it “a go-between of flowers and birds”?25 In short, it sums up all of Japanese and Chinese writing.
This is the gist of The Tale of Genji: As four generations of benevolent sovereigns succeed one another, their magnificent abundant virtue spreads everywhere, and their bond with the Three Dukes and the Hundred Officials, who admire [their ruler’s] transformative moral power, is like a fish in water.26 At one time [Genji] enters the flowery curtains of the female palace quarters and ties the knot in secret [with Fujitsubo], just as Colonel Ariwara [no Narihira] abandoned himself to beautiful ladies. At another time, [the Akashi] lady from humble origins becomes his consort, just as [Major] Katano’s lady rises to prosperity. Now, the way the Crown Prince brought glory to his Eastern Palace, the way the high officials conducted palace affairs, [and] the ways of the silkclad beauties of the inner quarters and of the heirs of the aristocracy—the battlement, the bulwark [to their ruler]—all this is in keeping with the laws of the sage governance of sage eras and absolutely had to be recorded by the Left and Right Historians.27
What is more, when discussing principles of government, [The Tale of Genji] reveres the Confucian way of the “Three Relations” and the “Five Constants.”28 With the procession to Ōharano at Mount Oshio [in the “Miyuki” chapter], it describes hunting outings. In discussing the divinations for the High Priestess of Ise, it pays its respects to the kami [gods], and when showing the deep tenets of the manifest and secret teachings, it turns to the Buddha.29 It is not just about the lifting of brocade curtains to host banquets under moon-drenched blossoms in the courtyards of the Orchid Bureau [Secretariat] and the Emperor’s Pear Garden [theater], or about how to make merry by rushing the imperial chariot over the gateways of waters and rocks in detached palaces and estates. No, it reaches moments like these: That Genji sighs [in exile] on the shores of Suma and Akashi, yet later reaches the exalted station of Honorary Retired Emperor or that with Aoi’s and Murasaki’s descent to the underworld of the Yellow Springs, he alone has to face the law of destiny, showing that worldly fortunes are unstable, that heavenly destiny is in the hands of [Zhuangzi’s] dream world of Southern Blossoms, that people’s pleasures and sorrows change easily, and that our evanescent life succumbs to the autumn at [Luoyang’s cemetery] Beimang Hill!
How great that there is the beloved heir of the Genji clan [Yūgiri], a disciple of the Apricot Terrace30 in Locust Tree District.31 Tirelessly he studied at night, the snow substituting for a cantilevered lamp. He reviewed unremittingly while fireflies shed their light on his five-colored bamboo mat.32 When they finally had him take the exam for the “Literary Scholar” degree, his talent ascended unencumbered like a scaly [dragon] at Dragon Gate.33 In his position as Adviser, he showed the utmost loyalty, and his reputation spread far as he was “taking wing” in the “Phoenix Palace.”34 To love learning and to serve one’s father is the beginning of filial piety. He fastened his purple sash35 and ascended to the position of the three highest ministers. Meanwhile, because he helped with “affairs” at the morning court, he was called “Yūgiri,” meaning “Evening Affairs/Mist.” Meeting with enlightened times, he exercised ministerial powers on behalf of the realm. This is the significance of the saying that “he governed the world through wen”36 and is a good part of the [tale’s] essential meaning.
Alas, texts that illuminate reality through fiction are [tales of the] marvelous, like that about the prince from the eastern state of Wu and the lord from the western state of Shu,37 and parables like the one [in the Lotus Sutra] about the old man’s destitute house or about the people lost in the Phantom City are wonderful for instructing the people. They are not written in elegant Confucian wording but do rely on the Lotus Sutra that the World-Honored Buddha pronounced at Eagle Peak. The [tale’s] meaning pervades the esoteric and exoteric, and its words adumbrate past and present; isn’t that precisely the appeal of this literary work?
In my idleness, I opened a copy [of the tale], and stirred by a thousand feelings, I have composed [poems] about its principal appeal. Not a single one is missing from its fifty-four chapters, and I’ve not left out a single one of the thirty-two rhyme categories. Moreover, at the end I added a short biographical composition on the author. Although the tale violates the “Six Poetic Principles,”38 I could not resist singing its high praises.
Unfortunately, my “Luish” dullness39 is incorrigible; I am worlds apart from Bo Juyi’s ancient style; and since it’s hard for me to get used to the “Hymns of Zhou” [from the Classic of Poetry], I am ashamed to play around with the evanescent words of Murasaki Shikibu. That is what [Zhuangzi] means when he says that the wisdom of a frog in the well knows nothing about the turtle in the ocean and that the happy quail on the fence does not envy the giant peng bird in the clouds. Natural principle makes it thus.40
In the fourth year of Shōō [1291] of our imperial calendar. Drawn up in the crisp coolness of the Eighth Month.
TRANSLATED BY WIEBKE DENECKE
Notes
teri mo sezu kumori mo hatenu haru no yo no / oborozukiyo ni shiku mono zo naki
Of a spring night, neither shining brightly nor yet completely clouded;
naught is there to compare with the light of a misty moon.
of King Wen’s name has a broad spectrum of meanings, ranging from “pattern” and “ornament” to “cultivation,” “sophistication,” and “literature.”
lu (J. ro). It both means “dull” and is the name of Confucius’s home state of Lu.