The Tale of Genji

  Have you come hither with your wings wet with showers, O mountain cuckoo,

  from so many memories this evening of one now gone?”

  His gaze was more than ever on the heavens.

  “Hear me, O cuckoo, and take this message to her: You have gone away,

  but at home your orange tree now blooms in perfect glory,”

  the Commander replied.

  The gentlewomen added many more of their own, but I have left them out. The Commander stayed on to keep his father company for the night, as he had done at other times in the past, out of pity for all the nights that his father spent alone; and it brought back many memories to be so often like this in a room always forbidden to him while she was alive.

  At the height of the summer heat Genji gazed out from a somewhat cooler spot and noticed that the lotuses on the lake were all in flower. “There are so many!”30—that was his first thought, and he remained absorbed in melancholy contemplation until at last the sun sank low. The cicadas were singing shrilly, but yes, it was sad to be all alone, admiring the garden pinks aglow in the light of the setting sun.31

  “How their voices cry, as though all reproaching me on a summer's day

  for spending my idleness on sighs and on ceaseless tears.”

  Countless fireflies were crisscrossing before him, and he murmured as so often an old line that matched his mood, “Fireflies roam before the evening pavilion.”32 Then he went on,

  “Fireflies rule the night, and it is sad to see them when at every hour

  one burns with the searing flame of love now forever lost.”33

  On the seventh night of the seventh month34 very little resembled earlier years, for Genji had no music and spent the day in blank monotony. No one watched the meeting of the stars. Very late that night he got up by himself and opened the double doors. The near garden was thick with dew. He glanced through the door and along the bridgeway35 and then went out.

  “Far above the clouds the Tanabata stars meet in another world,

  while below, gathering dews water the garden she left.”

  The sound of the wind was growing more mournful day by day, but the memorial services early in the month36 provided him with some distraction. He could hardly believe how many months had passed. On the anniversary the whole household fasted, high and low, and he had the Paradise Mandala dedicated.

  Chūjō, who brought him washing water before his regular evening devotions, had written on her fan,

  “When there is no end to the tears I shed for you after all this time,

  who could ever call today the day when we cease to mourn?”37

  He read her words and wrote beside them,

  “I, who mourn her so, soon enough will find my life reaching its own term,

  but I still have even now many tears as yet unshed.”

  The ninth month came, and on the ninth day he contemplated chrysanthemums wrapped in cotton.38

  “Chrysanthemum dew from the mornings we both knew in life together

  moistens for me this autumn sleeves that I must wear alone.”

  In the tenth month, with its cold rains, his melancholy grew, and he murmured in the unspeakable anguish of dusk, “Yes, they always fall.”39 Gazing up at the wild geese passing aloft, he envied them their wings.

  “O seer who roams the vastness of the heavens, go and find for me

  a soul I now seek in vain even when I chance to dream.”40

  The months and days continued to slip by, and soon nothing could distract him from his grief.

  When the time came for everyone gaily to prepare the Gosechi Festival,41 the Commander's sons went to serve as privy pages and came to call on His Grace. They were close in age and very attractive. Their uncles—the Secretary Captain, the Chamberlain Lieutenant, and the others—were all festival officials, and they came, too, to mind them, looking very handsome in their green printed robes.42 The sight of their carefree figures must have brought back to him after all his mischief that day with the sunshade band.43

  “Those of the palace hasten there today to join in the Warmth of Wine

  while I let the day drift by, now a stranger to the sun.”44

  Having suffered patiently through the year, Genji knew that he would leave the world before long, even though his sorrow remained unassuaged. At last he gave thought to all that needed doing and bestowed a gift, according to rank, on each member of his household. He did not do so ostentatiously, as though to suggest that they would not see him again, but his manner showed that he would soon be taking the step he had considered so long, and for them the year closed in boundless loneliness and sorrow.

  There were many letters that he could not decently leave behind, but he did after all spare a few from each writer, perhaps feeling that “I cannot destroy them,”45 and while examining them for disposal he found some in her writing, in a neat packet among those from his Suma years. He had made the packet himself, but it seemed so long ago; yet the writing looked perfectly fresh. Yes, he reflected, with these I could keep her memory alive a thousand years, but I would no longer be there to read them. There was only one thing to do. He had two or three gentle-women he knew well destroy them in his presence.

  One always feels a pang upon recognizing the handwriting of someone who has died, even someone of less moment than she, and Genji's sight therefore naturally went dark. Blinding tears might have streamed down to flow away with the brushstrokes on the page, were it not that he recoiled in shame from betraying his weakness to the women. He pushed the letters away.

  “Swept on by longing to follow her now she has crossed the Mountain of Death,

  I looked on the signs she left, and still I strayed from the path. ”46

  The women waiting on him were never able actually to open them and read them, but they caught glimpses here and there, and these were quite upsetting enough. The words describing the depth of her despair over their separation—not that he had really been that far away—called forth sorrow sharper than it had ever been, and tears, too, in a stream not to be stemmed. He knew with dismay that any greater shock would reveal an unseemly, womanish weakness, so he did not go over them carefully; he only wrote in the margin of a long one,

  “I shall have no joy from gathering sea-tangle traces of her brush:

  let them rise above the clouds as she also rose, in smoke.”

  He had them all burned.

  He knew that this year's Assembly of the Holy Names47 would be his last, and perhaps that is what made the ringing of the monks' staffs48 so especially moving. He wondered apprehensively how the buddhas would receive these prayers that he live long. It was snowing hard, and a good deal already lay on the ground. He summoned the officiant when he withdrew, treated him to more wine and so on than custom required, and gave him a markedly generous gift. The monk had been coming to Rokujō for a long time and had also served at the palace, and Genji therefore knew him well. Genji was touched to note that his hair was now white. As always a great many Princes and senior nobles were present. The plum blossoms were just beginning to open, and there should have been music, but Genji felt that at least this year it would still unman him, and he only had poems sung in consonance with the occasion.

  Monk with his staff

  Oh, yes, he said when he gave the officiant the cup,

  “We who may not live until spring comes round again: here amid our snows

  let us sport for all to see the hue of new-budding plum!”

  The officiant replied,

  “My own prayer shall be that you may watch these blossoms for a thousand springs,

  for I am the one, not you, crowned with all the snows of age.”

  Many others added theirs, but I have left them out.

  On that day Genji at last appeared in company. The light of his face far surpassed even his radiance of long ago; he was such a marvel to behold that for no reason the old monk wept on and on.

  He was feeling desolate because the year was over when the yo
ung Prince ran in, crying, “What makes the most noise when you want to chase out devils?”49 Genji could hardly bear the thought of losing the delightful little boy.

  “Lost in my sorrows I never knew months and days were still passing by—

  is the year really over, and my time, too, in the world?”

  He decreed that everything on the first day of the year should be done exceptionally well. They say that he prepared superb gifts for the Princes and Ministers and equally generous rewards, according to rank, for those below them.

  KUMOGAKURE

  Vanished into the Clouds

  This chapter is blank. The title evokes Genji's death.

  42

  NIOU MIYA

  The Perfumed Prince

  “The Perfumed Prince” refers to the young Prince known as Niou. This chapter introduces as a pair the two gentlemen who will dominate the tale hereafter: Niou and Kaoru, “the Fragrant Captain.”

  RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS

  An eight-year gap separates “The Perfumed Prince” from “The Seer.” One gathers (in “The Ivy”) that Genji died after two or three years spent in seclusion at his Saga temple. Retired Emperor Suzaku, Hotaru, Tō no Chūjō, and Higekuro all have died.

  PERSONS

  The Consultant Captain, age 14 to 20 (Kaoru)

  Her Majesty, the Empress, 33 to 39 (Akashi no Chūgū)

  His Majesty, the Emperor, 35 to 41

  The Third Prince, His Highness of War, 15 to 21 (Niou)

  The First Prince, the Heir Apparent, married to Yūgiri's first daughter

  The First Princess

  The Second Prince, married to Yūgiri's second daughter

  His Excellency, the Minister of the Right, Commander of the Left Palace Guards, 40 to 46 (Yūgiri)

  The Empress Mother, the former Shōkyōden Consort

  His Excellency's Sixth Daughter, 10 or 11 to midteens (Roku no Kimi)

  Her Cloistered Highness, mid-30s to early 40s (Onna San no Miya)

  Her Highness of Ichijō (Ochiba no Miya)

  His Eminence Reizei, son of Genji and Fujitsubo, 43 to 49

  His First Princess, daughter of the Kokiden Consort

  His Empress, 52 to 58 (Akikonomu)

  His light was gone, and none among his many descendants could compare to what he had been. To cite His Eminence Reizei would be impertinent. His Majesty's Third Prince and Her Cloistered Highness's son, who had grown up with him,1 were both known to be handsome in their way, and they certainly stood out, but they seem not to have been especially dazzling. For quite ordinary young men they were graceful and distinguished, and the honor and esteem they owed to their connection to him gave them fame somewhat beyond his own in his early years; and they were indeed extremely attractive. The Third Prince lived at Nijō, thanks to Lady Murasaki's special fondness for him.2 Their Majesties, who loved and cherished him, installed him in the palace once they had seen the Heir Apparent3 safely appointed, but he still preferred his more comfortable life at home. When of age, he was known as His Highness of the Bureau of War.

  The First Princess lived in the east wing of the southeast quarter at Rokujō. She had kept its furnishings as her predecessor had left them, and she remembered her fondly both day and night. The Second Prince had the main house when away from the palace, where he occupied the Umetsubo. He had married the second daughter of His Excellency of the Right,4 and he carried great weight as the next candidate for Heir Apparent. His manner displayed a commensurate gravity.

  His Excellency had a large number of daughters.5 The eldest had gone to the Heir Apparent, in whose service she had no rival. The Empress Mother said plainly that, as everyone assumed, the others would all go in a like manner when their turn came, but His Highness of War had no wish to vindicate this prediction, and he seems to have made it perfectly clear that he would frown on anyone not chosen by himself.

  Why should it matter? It is all one to me, His Excellency assured himself. Bother these proprieties!6 However, he let it be known that he would not refuse an eventual approach, and he continued meanwhile to groom his daughters with great care. At the time his sixth daughter was the one to whose hand every self-respecting Prince or senior noble ardently aspired.

  The ladies gathered around His Grace had dispersed, weeping, to what thenceforth were to be their homes, and the one known as the lady of Falling Flowers had moved to the east pavilion at Nijō, which now was hers. Her Cloistered Highness resided at Sanjō. Rokujō was lonely and all but deserted, for Her Majesty spent her time in waiting at the palace. His Excellency of the Right observed, “Other examples I have noted from the past show how the house that a man may build with care during his life is then left to crumble away, as though to demonstrate that nothing lasts, and this makes too sad a lesson on the passing of all things. While I live, I will not have his estate go to rack and ruin or allow those who people the avenue nearby to move away.”7 He moved Her Highness of Ichijō to the northeast quarter and then punctiliously divided his nights, fifteen each every month, between her house and Sanjō.8

  The Nijō residence that Genji had made so splendid, and the spring quarter of Rokujō so widely and extravagantly praised, seemed destined for the descendants of a single lady: the one from Akashi, who looked after all the young Princes and Princesses and kept them company. His Excellency did nothing to change the lives of those whom His Grace had favored away from what His Grace himself had wished them to be, and he reflected with filial zeal how eagerly he would have served the mistress of the east wing if she had lived. He always remembered with regret that she had passed on before he had found the moment to let her know how much she was in his thoughts.

  Everyone in the realm mourned His Grace, lamenting on every occasion that there was no life in anything anymore, as though the flame of it all had burned out. His household staff, his ladies, and Their Majesties and Highnesses9 were of course even more deeply affected, and they also cherished at heart the image of Murasaki, whose memory remained ever present to them. It is true, as they say, that the blossoms of spring are all the more precious because they bloom so briefly.

  His Eminence Reizei gave Her Cloistered Highness's young son special attention, as His Grace had asked him to do, and his Empress, who regretted having no children of her own, was pleased to see to all his needs. His coming-of-age was held at the Reizei Palace, and in the second month of his fourteenth year he became an Adviser. That autumn he was appointed a Right Palace Guards Captain. So it was that His Eminence, moved by who knows what anxiety, used the promotions he had in his special gift to make him quickly a man. He saw personally to furnishing a room for him in the wing near his own residence; selected for him only the best young gentlewomen, page girls, and even servants, and arranged everything even more brilliantly than for a girl. Both Their Majesties moved the prettiest, noblest, and most pleasing of their women to the young lord's household and did all they could to make him feel welcome, for they dearly wanted him to be happy and comfortable there. His Eminence cherished him no less than his First Princess, his beloved only daughter by the late Chancellor's Consort.10 This may have been because he valued his Empress more with every passing year, but even so, one still wonders why.

  Her Cloistered Highness, the young gentleman's mother, now confined herself to quiet devotions, monthly callings of the Name, twice-a-year Rites of the Eight Discourses, and other such holy offices as the calendar brought round. Otherwise she had so little to do that she looked up to him in his comings and goings as though to a father, which affected him considerably. On top of that, His Majesty and His Eminence were always calling for him, and the Heir Apparent and the other Princes loved to include him in their amusements, so that he unfortunately had no time at all and wished that there were more than one of him.

  He often fretted and worried boyishly over rumors that chanced to come his way, but he had no one to question about them. The matter was always on his mind, although his mother would have been horrified to know that he susp
ected anything at all. What did happen? he often wondered. Why was I born to such constant anxiety? If only I were enlightened like Prince Zengyō, when he asked himself the same sort of thing!11

  “What can it all mean, and whom have I to question? What is my secret,

  when I myself do not know whence I come or where I go?”

  But there was no one to give him an answer.

  Sometimes he felt as though there must be something wrong with him, and that thought, too, started anguished reflections. What pious resolve could have suddenly made Her Highness renounce her finery at the height of her youth? Yes, she must have had a shock. How could no one else have known? I suppose no one will tell me because it is all supposed still to be a secret. She does her devotions day and night, as far as I can tell, but I do not see how a woman's vague, weak grasp of things will ever enable her to polish lotus dew into a jewel.12 Those five—whatever you call them13—are a worry, and I want at least to help her toward the life to come. And that gentleman they talk about, the one who died: did he die in torment? The idea made him long to speak to the man, in the next life if not in this one, until he lost all interest in his coming-of-age, although he did not actually decline to go through with it. The world of course made much of him, and he went about in dazzling finery, but he remained meanwhile calm and aloof from it all.