the scuffl
e. Notice how the other carriages in the
now pregnant with Genji’s child (his son Yūgiri),
image have shafts that rest neatly on stands with
decides at the last minute to view one of the prelim-
red rope coiled around their ends. Without a stand,
inary events. She ventures out to see the customary
Rokujō’s men must rest the shafts on the wheel hub
procession of the newly appointed priestess of the
of a neighboring carriage, lest they lower them to
Kamo Shrines heading to her purifi cation ritual at
the ground and risk their Lady tumbling forward
the Kamo River. The Kamo Shrines (Kamigamo and
due to the resulting incline. The whole episode is
Shimogamo Shrines), located north of the imperial
unbearable for someone of Rokujō’s status; she is
palace along the banks of the Kamo River and near
the widow of an imperial prince, and the mother of
the sacred Tadasu Forest, housed deities who pro-
a princess, who at that very moment is preparing for
tected the capital city against malevolent forces. her role as Shrine Priestess at Ise, a counterpart to An unmarried princess, often a daughter of the the Kamo Priestess and an honor rarely bestowed.
58 | The Tale of Genji
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This humiliation at the hands of Aoi, her younger
niece by marriage, sets the subsequent events of
the chapter in motion. Rokujō’s longing for Genji
becomes obsessive, and her heart is thrown into so
much turmoil that her feelings take the form of a
wrathful spirit that torments her rival. The spirit
attacks when Aoi is most vulnerable — as she goes
into labor with Genji’s son — and it displays a tenac-
ity and ferocity that presents the exorcists and spirit
mediums with an unprecedented challenge. Rokujō
seems to be a victim of her own excessive passions
as she recollects in horror a dream in which she
violently attacks Genji’s wife. The identity of the
malignant spirit reveals itself to Genji while he sits
at the bedside of his wife, who lies with her belly
distended and in the throes of suff ering. He hears
the chilling voice of Rokujō emerging f rom Aoi’s
mouth, asking him to call off the exorcists. The full
force of the spirit-taming community is mobilized,
Rokujō has long worried that her aff air with the
and somehow Aoi survives to deliver a healthy
dashing young Genji, seven years her junior, with-
baby boy. Days later, when the family assumes Aoi
out the recognition of marriage, would destroy her
is recovering and all is well, they leave her unat-
reputation and leave her a laughingstock. The poem
tended, allowing the evil spirit to swoop in and deal
in the calligraphic excerpt paired with the painting
one fi nal, fatal blow to the young woman. Heart-
in the album gives voice to Rokujō’s despair as she
wrenching scenes of parental grief and spousal
sits in the carriage. She expresses her sadness that
mourning follow. The Minister of the Left and his
Genji is as inaccessible to her as the fl eeting refl ec-
wife Ōmiya must deal not only with the loss of their
tion across the waters of “the cleansing stream” of
only daughter but with the inevitable disappearance
the Kamo River, reminiscent of her own miserable
of Genji f rom their household as his visits become
fate ( mi no uki).
few and far between.
Chapter 9 | Leaves of Wild Ginger | 59
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The fence of the gods
On hearing this Genji replied:
Has no signpost cedar tree
When I remembered
Standing by its gate;
Here was where the maiden dwelt,
How then can you have strayed here
Drawn by my longing
To break this sakaki branch?
I sought and broke the sakaki
For the f ragrance of its leaves.
cranston, p. 741
60
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10
A Branch
of Sacred
Evergreen
Sakaki
Kamigaki wa
to kikoetamaeba,
Shirushi no sugi mo
Otomego ga
Naki mono o
Atari to omoeba
Ika ni magaete
Sakakiba no
Oreru sakaki zo
Ka o natsukashimi
Tomete koso ore
61
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Despite all that transpired in the previous chapter,
hair hinting at her presence. In response to Genji’s
Chapter Ten begins with the general assumption
gesture, she speaks the fi rst of two poems inscribed
that, given her status, Rokujō will be appointed on the album leaf, hers beginning with the word for Genji’s offi
cial wife, replacing the deceased Aoi. “deity” ( kami
) brushed at the highest point on the
Having encountered the chilling voice of his lover
green-colored sheet. The darkly brushed character
emerging f rom the possessed body of his wife, how-
appears on the same visual register as the shrine gate
ever, Genji makes no such overtures, and Rokujō
in the upper left corner of the painting and acts as its
decides that the only course open to her is to leave
graphic counterpart, establishing a sacred perimeter
the capital. She begins making plans to accompany
around the text-image pairing. The word sakaki ( )
her young daughter, newly appointed as the High
appears at the top of the third line, highly visible on
Priestess of Ise, to the faraway shrine, which is ded-
an undecorated portion of the paper just below the
icated to the goddess Amaterasu. Rokujō spends
decorative border. Its placement at the head of a col-
months at the “shrine in the fi elds” ( nonomiya), a
umn despite the lack of a natural break in the poetry
temporary lodging just west of the capital, where,
is the calligrapher’s way of announcing the word’s
according to custom, her daughter is to engage in
thematic importance. This particular logograph,
rites of purifi cation before her departure to Ise. The
which combines the radical for “tree” and the graph
stage is thus set amid this hushed, sacred precinct for
for “deity,” resona
tes with the fi rst character in the
a fi nal encounter between Genji and Rokujō, one of
excerpt. Another option for the calligrapher would
the most celebrated scenes in the tale, immortalized
have been to express the word sakaki phonetically, as
in Noh plays f rom the fi fteenth century onward.
it appears at the bottom of the fourth line in Genji’s
Genji crosses the plains of Sagano and basks in the
poem, through two separate kana and the character
austere scenery on that moonlit night — the withered
for “tree” (
). Instead, the visually dense logo-
autumn fl owers and thickets of satin-tail grass on
graph in the center of the sheet calls attention both
route, the chirping of crickets and the sparse strains of
a koto carried on the wind. The simple wooden struc-
tures of the shrine soon come into view surrounded
by low-lying brushwood fences and rough-hewn
shrine gates made of tree trunks with their bark still
intact. The main gate appears in the upper left corner
of the album painting, a pictorial motif that makes
this famous scene immediately identifi able. It stands
amid a dense fi eld of autumn wildfl owers — maiden
fl owers ( ominaeshi), bush clover ( hagi), and pampas
grass ( susuki). A delicate vine of green ivy winds
its way around the dark brown gateposts. Affi
xed
to the crossbeam is a branch of sakaki and a cluster
of white paper streamers used for purifi cation and
blessing. This is one of four representations of sakaki
in this pair of album leaves if both text and image are
taken into account. The most conspicuous extends
from Genji’s hand as he leans in toward Rokujō,
off ering her the evergreen and likening its unfading
color to his unchanging feelings for her. Rokujō sits
behind a brightly patterned red curtain, only the
edge of her white robe and a curling strand of black
62 | The Tale of Genji
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to the word’s sacrality and its “thingness,” triggering
dignity and to tame her angry spirit. As dawn breaks
the viewer to search for the object it signifi es in the
they exchange poems of parting, and Genji tenderly
image to the left. There, the painted sakaki branch
takes her hand, hesitating to leave, sensing this will
appears at the culmination of a descending diagonal
be the last time they see each other. The scene ends
that begins with the sloping tops of the calligraphy
with a touching image of Rokujō, her heart full of
and continues with the white borders of the tatami.
regret, staring at the empty place where her lover sat
Both the graphic and pictorial representations of the
just moments before.
sakaki branch function as centripetal presences in
Once Lady Rokujō and her daughter have
their respective leaves.
departed for Ise, Chapter Ten takes a dramatic
Genji’s foray into a hallowed precinct of the kami
turn, becoming one of the most politically conse-
and his off ering of a sacred branch in the opening
quential chapters in the book. Genji’s father, the
scene of this chapter functions as a kind of purifi ca-
retired Emperor, passes away and the political cen-
tion after the death and haunting spirit possession of
ter of gravity radically shifts in the direction of the
Chapter Nine, and specifi cally of the malignancies
faction of the Minister of the Right and his daugh-
associated with Lady Rokujō. By this point Rokujō
ter Kokiden, the mother of the reigning emperor.
has been rejected by her young lover, subjected to
The court becomes a hostile, even treacherous
public humiliation and gossip, and she has suff ered
place for Genji, and with his status in f ree-fall, he
viscerally while her tormented psyche took malevo-
acts up more recklessly than ever. He forces his
lent shape to lash out against Aoi. In a culminating
way into the quarters of Fujitsubo, the widowed
scene of the dramatic arc of her story in the last
Empress, risking the exposure of their previous
chapter, she fi nds herself reeking of the poppy seeds
aff air and thence the legitimacy of the imperial line.
characteristically burned at an exorcism, realizes in
Fujitsubo so fears that people will realize that the
horror what her wandering spirit has been up to,
Crown Prince is their son that she takes Buddhist
and tries but fails to wash the smoky smell f rom
vows. Meanwhile, Genji continues his aff air with
her hair and clothing. The representation of Rokujō
Kokiden’s sister, Oborozukiyo, who is promised to
in this painting by a small portion of a white robe
the reigning Emperor Suzaku, leading to a farcical
hints at her previous incarnation as a spirit, but also
scene in which the Minister of the Right discovers
communicates her general reserve, her contrition,
Genji sprawled out brazenly inside his daughter’s
and her hesitation to meet with Genji. At the same
curtained bed. At the same time, the tale’s master-
time, her decision to remove herself f rom the cap-
ful use of references to ancient Chinese history and
ital allows for a recasting of the pair’s relationship
classical fi gures lends weight to the court intrigue in
that puts Genji in the position of the rejected lover
while allowing Rokujō to recuperate a modicum of
and the events about to unfold.
Chapter 10 | A Branch of Sacred Evergreen | 63
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In nostalgia
For the scent of orange bloom
The cuckoo comes,
Visiting with its inquiries
The village where the fl owers fall.
cranston, p. 753
64
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11
The Lady
at the
Villa of
Scattering
Orange
Blossoms
Hanachirusato
Tachibana no
Ka o natsukashimi
Hototogisu
Hana chiru sato o
Tazunete zo tou
65
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In waka poetry, and in prose passages i
n The Tale of
covered in previous chapters even though no such
Genji, the invocation of the fragrance of the orange
liaisons were ever described. Likewise, the chapter
blossoms was often associated with a remembrance
refers in its fi rst lines to even more women from
of things past, especially of lost loved ones. As if
Genji’s past who were never fully introduced, a nar-
attempting to lure the viewer into a scent-triggered
rative shorthand implying that Genji’s aff airs have
state of wistfulness, the calligraphic excerpt for this
outpaced Murasaki Shikibu’s ability to record them.
chapter begins toward the edge of the paper on the
Rather than Genji’s romantic encounter with
lower right with the words, “the fragrance of the
Hanachirusato on this summer night, the album
orange” ( tachibana no ka
). The brushwork
painting focuses on his conversation with her older
of the poem gently lilts leftward and leads the eye
sister Reikeiden, placing the two of them directly in
directly to an image of an orange tree in the adja-
the center of the composition, their heads sympa-
cent painting, where green branches, punctuated by
thetically tilting toward each other. A soft gold cloud
delicate white blossoms, create a perfumed canopy
gently fl oats above the pair and leads our eye upward
over the couple below who converse about their to the night sky where a waning gibbous moon, once longing for the past. Genji sits in the center of the
silver and now blackened from oxidation, appears
room addressing a former consort of his father, a
between parted clouds. The fi fth-month moon rises
woman who occupied the Reikeiden quarters at the
late, in utter darkness, its small size providing only
palace, and who was thus on par with the Kokiden
faint illumination. Both poem and picture play with
Consort. The lady of the Reikeiden bore no children
the idea of darkness creating a heightened sense of
to succeed to the throne, however, and following the
smell and sound; the smell of the orange blossom
emperor’s abdication and his recent death, has been
wafts in through the blinds and is evoked in the cal-
living in relative isolation, her once grand life at court
ligraphy, while above, the hototogisu spreads its wings