The Tale of Genji

  29. Sad presumably because in the capital Yoshikiyo never had to speak to anyone as lowly as an estate official. One of Genji's men, he is the son of the Governor of the neighboring province of Harima, in which Akashi was located.

  30. Settsu, where Suma was.

  31. Ama (“nun“) also means someone who lives from the sea; and Matsushima, like Suma, is poetically famous for its saltmakers. This wordplay therefore assimilates Fujitsubo's condition to Genji's own as a “man of Suma Shore.”

  32. The flood of my tears. Kokin rokujō 2345: “Because you are gone, my tears fall and fall, and the river will soon overflow its banks.”

  33. “I should have learned my lesson, even now I want to see you—would you want that, too?” The marine wordplays in the poem include even the hidden name of Suma. The chief play is on mirume, a kind of seaweed, but also “lovers’ meeting.” Genji likens Oborozukiyo, too, to a saltmaker.

  34. She fears that the Heir Apparent's position may suffer in Genji's absence.

  35. The Rokujō Haven.

  36. The (Buddhist) night of subjection to the passions.

  37. The sin of doing no Buddhist devotions. At Ise, as at the Shrine on the Moor, contact with Buddhism was taboo.

  38. When a change of reign occurs and the Ise Priestess returns to the City.

  39. Ukime (“gathering sorrows”) also means “harvesting seaweed.”

  40. The poem plays on kai, “shellfish” and “reward.”

  41. A partial variation on a folk song: “The people of Ise are odd ones, and why? In little boats they row over the waves, row over the waves.”

  42. “Disconcerted” because of the strangeness of reading such letters in a place like Suma.

  43. The “ferns” are shinohu, a fernlike plant the name of which is also the verb for “remember fondly.” Shinobu grows easily in the thatch of a neglected roof. Nagame (“gaze”) means also “long rain” (of the rainy season).

  44. Shūishū 685, by Otomo no Momoyo: “What do I care for the future once I have died for love? My longing to see you is for while I am still alive.”

  45. A somewhat confused reference to Kokinshū 184 (“mournful autumn wind”), Shoku Kokinshū 868, by Ariwara no Yukihira (“wind blowing on the pass”) and Shin Kokinshū 1599, by Mibu no Tadami (the waves along the shore joining the sighing of the wind).

  46. A wooden or ceramic pillow that Genji has turned so that it keeps his head higher than normal.

  47. Kokin rokujō 3241: “With all the tears that fall upon the bed of one who sleeps alone, even a pillow of stone might well float away.”

  48. A painter named Tsunenori lived in the time of Emperor Murakami (reigned 946–67), and perhaps a Chieda did, too. Genji's paintings (in ink only) would serve these artists as shitagaki (design sketches) for finished paintings in color.

  49. He seems to have on a shift of white silk twill (aya) and gathered trousers of shion color.

  50. Words likely to begin a Buddhist prayer or the chanting of a sacred text.

  51. Apparently Koremitsu.

  52. The Iyo Deputy.

  53. The fifteenth of the eighth lunar month, the great full moon night of the year.

  54. A line from a poem by Bai Juyi (Hakushi monjū 0724), also written on the fifteenth night of the eighth month.

  55. The imperial city was poetically associated with the moon.

  56. A line from a poem in Chinese by Sugawara no Michizane, written in exile. Michizane had received the gift of a robe from Emperor Daigo.

  57. The robe is probably his father's, although it could also be his brother's.

  58. “I am angry with the Emperor, but I also miss him: hence bitter tears on one side, tears of love on the other.”

  59. Genji's former title.

  60. Kokinshū 508: “Oh, do not reproach me, for I am these days like the towrope of a ship, now slack, now taut!”

  61. Kokinshū 961, by Ono no Takamura: “I never thought to fall so low, banished to the wilds, as to haul a fisherman's line and take fish from the sea!”

  62. When Sugawara no Michizane stopped at Akashi, on his way into exile in Kyushu, he consoled the stablemaster there with a Chinese verse.

  63. The Shiji tells of an evil official who tested his men's loyalty by seeing whether they would agree with him in public that a deer was a horse.

  64. The poem is built on a play on shiba (“brush”) and shibashiba (“often”).

  65. A Han Emperor was persuaded by a ruse to present the concubine he loved to a Hun ruler.

  66. From Wakan rōei shū 703, a Chinese poem on the same theme by Oe no Asatsuna. According to an early gloss, “a dream after frost” means the lady's dream of home, from which she wakes after a night of frost.

  67. Probably because from there one could look up past the eaves. From Wakan rōei shū 536, a Chinese poem by Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki.

  68. A line of Chinese verse written by Sugawara no Michizane as he went into exile (the speaker is the moon): “I merely travel westward: no banishment is this.” The sentiment in Genji's poem also echoes Michizane.

  69. About five miles away, across the border between Settsu and Harima Provinces.

  70. A “Novice” (Nyūdō) has taken preliminary vows and pursues a life of Buddhist devotion at home. He is not fully ordained and is not subject to collective monastic discipline.

  71. Not “his wife” because he is now a monk.

  72. On the coast near Naniwa; the present shrine is surrounded by the city of Ōaka.

  73. Suzaku's.

  74. In “Under the Cherry Blossoms,” when the Heir Apparent “gave [Genji] his own blossom headdress.” The language of Genji's poem alludes to Wakan roei shū 25: “The denizens of His Majesty's palace must be at leisure, for all day long they have worn cherry blossoms in their hair.”

  75. Tō no Chūjō.

  76. His father, the former Minister of the Left, is out of power, but he is also a son-in-law of the Minister of the Right.

  77. This description is derived from the poetry of Bai Juyi (Hakushi monjū 0975).

  78. Yurushi-iro no ki-gachi: a color in the range of light pink.

  79. Go and backgammon (sugoroku) are board games. Tagi seems to have involved skipping stones, rather as in tiddlywinks.

  80. Saezuru, used for the song of the spring warbler, refers also to incomprehensibly foreign speech.

  81. The robes are a reward for the shellfish. This sentence plays on the word for shellfish (kai) and the business of diving for them (kazuku).

  82. A saibara song: “You must stop at the Asukai spring, for you will have shade, the water is cool, the grazing is of the best…”

  83. A line from a poem by Bai Juyi (Hakushi monjū 1107), written when a friend came to visit him in exile.

  84.The motif of the departing geese (the departing friend) is from a poem in Chinese by Sugawara no Michizane.

  85. The wild goose is Tō no Chūjō, who likens Genji to the “eternal home” of the geese.

  86. Since it is from someone in disgrace.

  87. Genji's present of a black horse alludes to a story told in the Han shu, and the horse's neighing (whenever the wind blows from the direction of the capital) to a poem in the Chinese anthology Wenxuan. The customary gift to a departing visitor was called uma no hanamuke, a gift to “turn the horse's nose toward home.”

  88. Because too lavish for someone in exile to give or to receive.

  89. “You who have the privilege of frequenting the palace…” The “clouds” allude to the palace (kumoi, the “cloud dwelling”).

  90. This kind of purification (harae) involved transferring disruptive influences into a doll that was then sent floating down a river or out to sea.

  91. The poem plays on hitokata (“doll”) and hitokata naku (“completely”).

  92. Early commentaries observe that the Dragon King, whose daughter is famous in myth, desires a beautiful son-in-law.

  13: AKASHI

  1. Ninnō-e, a solemn Buddhist rite
performed in the palace for the protection of the realm.

  2. Strips (mitegura) of paper or cloth in the five colors (green, yellow, red, white, black).

  3. The Sumiyoshi cult was strong all along this coast. A patron of seafaring and of poetry, Sumiyoshi had a strong link with the imperial house.

  4. A noble name for Japan.

  5. Of Sumiyoshi.

  6. Emperor Daigo (to whom Genji's father corresponds) was reputed to have suffered in hell for his misdeeds, which included exiling Sugawara no Michizane in 901. The monk Nichizō saw him there, “squatting on glowing coals,” in a famous vision that Nichizō recorded in 941.

  7. Yoshikiyo.

  8. The source of this Chinese sentiment is unclear.

  9. Gosenshū 1224, by Ki no Tsurayuki: “To one ever wet from the waves, a fishing boat offers a welcome refuge.”

  10. Shinkokinshū 1515, by Ōshikochi no Mitsune: “The moon that on Awaji seemed, alas, so far away, tonight—it must be the setting—seems very near.” The “setting” is the City, which was associated with the moon.

  11. Genji's poem alludes to Mitsune's (above) and repeats three times the syllables awa of “Awaji.”

  12. Biwa hōshi: a strolling musician in Buddhist robes, who sang to his own biwa accompaniment.

  13. The cry of the kuina (a kind of moorhen or water rail) sounds like someone knocking lightly on a gate, and the hearer may think of a young man secretly visiting his love. For this phrase early commentaries cite an otherwise unknown poem (Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka 120).

  14. A sō no koto, the one the Novice has just been playing.

  15. Emperor Daigo, whose reign (897–930) included the Engi era (901–23). The Novice would therefore have learned from one of Daigo's sons.

  16. With “unless my poor ears have simply misheard…” the Novice apparently alludes to a poem cited in an early commentary (not included in Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka): “He whose ears, because he lives in the mountains, are accustomed to hearing the wind in the pines, does not even recognize [the music of] a koto as [the music of] a koto.” The Novice is modestly calling himself a hopeless rustic. Genji, with equally ceremonious modesty, takes him to have said that the sound of a koto means nothing to him because he is accustomed to the higher music of nature.

  17. Reigned 809–23.

  18. The exiled Bai Juyi described in a poem (Hakushi monjū 0603) hearing a woman play the biwa one night on a boat moored along a river. A former courtesan of the capital, she had then married a provincial merchant.

  19. Reminiscent of the continent. The biwa came ultimately from Persia.

  20. From “Sea of Ise” (“Ise no umi”), a saibara song.

  21. In paradise.

  22. The poem plays on akashi, the place name and “be awake through the night.”

  23. This poem plays on akashi and also on words associated with clothing. The “pillow of grass” is a stock image for travel, while “dream” hints at sexual union.

  24. Kokinshū 503: “My longing heart at last has bested me, though I had sworn never to show my love.”

  25. Decrees composed by a secretary at the Emperor's direction, hence answers written by someone else.

  26. From a poem cited in an early commentary, attributed to Emperor Ichijō: “I am sick at heart, for the words will not come, to tell one whom I have never seen that I am in love.”

  27. The seki (“pass,” “barrier”) mentioned in Yukihira's poem on the wind, hence poetically associated with Suma and its region. Nothing is known about it.

  28. Kokinshū 1025: “When I do not go to see her, just to find out whether it is true, I so long for her that it is no joke.”

  29. The previous Minister of the Right, the Emperor's grandfather.

  30. Karma that would in principle determine her marriage partner.

  31. The moon of the twelfth or thirteenth night, two or three nights before the full.

  32. Gosenshū 103, by Minamoto no Saneakira: “On so lovely a night, how gladly I would share the moon and the flowers with one who knows their beauty as I do.”

  33. Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in' yō waka 126: “Come, then, O lovers of beauty, to see the moon in the depths of the waters at Tamatsushima!”

  34. A “moon-colored horse” (tsukige no koma) was rose gray roan.

  35. This partly opened door that has already admitted the moonlight and that will in a moment admit Genji himself was praised as sublime by Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), the great poet and scholar who edited the Genji text fundamental to most later editions.

  36. Contrived because he and she were brought together only by a highly unusual set of influences. Normally they would never have met.

  37. Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka 475: “If my promise never to forget you should lapse, may the judgment of the God of Mount Mikasa be upon me.”

  38. “That you would never be unfaithful.” Kokinshū 1093: “Should I ever prove fickle and leave you, may waves wash over the pine-clad hill of Sue.”

  39. He wrote poems on the paintings, leaving room for Murasaki to add poems of her own.

  40. To displace the Heir Apparent.

  41. With morning sickness.

  42. The poem plays on hitokoto (“one word” and “a koto” [Genji's kin]) and ne (“music” and “sound of weeping”).

  43. It is unclear what the “middle string [or strings]” of the instrument is, but metaphorically it both links the lovers and confirms their separation.

  44. “I would willingly drown myself in the sea” or “I would willingly follow you to the City.” The common people on the shore lived in tomaya, houses thatched with rushes.

  45. Each must have got a hunting cloak and gathered trousers.

  46. The “robe to be between us” (naka no koromo) parallels the “middle string” (naka no o) of an earlier exchange.

  47. The “shore” is both Akashi and “this shore” (i.e., “this world”) as opposed to “the other shore,” paradise.

  48. The darkness that engulfs the heart of a father worried about his child. The border is the one between Harima Province and Settsu.

  49. “I hope that she may expect a letter from you.”

  50. At the time of the storm.

  51. Shūishū 870, by Ukon: “I care not for myself, who am forgotten, but I grieve for the life of him who made me those vows.”

  52. Of the eighth month. Genji saw this moon at Suma just two years ago.

  53. Genji likens himself to the first, defective offspring of Izanagi and Izanami, the primordial pair in the Japanese creation myth. The Leech Child had no bones and was therefore sent drifting out to sea. Nihon shoki 66, by Ōe no Asatsuna: “Do his parents not pity him? The Leech Child has reached his third year and still cannot stand.”

  54. The Leech Child was defective because after Izanagi and Izanami circled in opposite directions around a sacred pole, Izanami (the female) spoke first to invite Izanagi to intercourse. When they repeated the circling and Izanagi (the male) spoke first, the resulting children were sound.

  55. With the Akashi men who had escorted him to the City and were now returning.

  14: MIOTSUKUSHI

  1. The posts provided for by the law codes were those of Minister of the Left and of the Right. The posts of Palace Minister (Naidaijin, Uchi no Otodo), and Chancellor (Daijōdaijin, Ōkiotodo) were therefore in a sense unofficial, although they were recognized by custom and normally filled. Genji is now expected to act as Regent for the young Emperor.

  2. China.

  3. The Shiji provides the example of four wise and ancient men who returned from retirement to serve Empress Lu of Han in her effort to secure her son's succession to the throne.

  4. The future Kōbai.

  5. To be his daughter's wet nurse.

  6. He knows that his daughter is a future Empress, and he is anxious to have the nurse start out on a day auspicious enough to be worthy of the baby's future.

  7. A
girl of high rank received a dagger (mihakashi) at birth.

  8. Buddhist lore defines a “minor kalpa” (an aeon) as the time it takes a rock brushed once every three years by an angel's wing to wear away.

  9. Gosenshū 64: “O for sleeves wide enough to cover the whole sky, that I might keep from the winds the blossoms of spring!” The poem also plays on matsu, “pine” and “wait.”

  10. “I wish you had a child.”

  11. “I wish I were dead.”

  12. With wordplays made explicit here, Genji's poem laments his daughter's remote birth. “Sea pine” (umimatsu) is actually a kind of seaweed more often called miru.

  13. Genji. This will be his designation hereafter in this translation.

  14. The “crane” is the little girl, the “islet” her mother.

  15. Kokin rokujō 1888: “The boat that rows seaward from the shore at Kumano is leaving me and drawing ever farther away.”

  16. This sort of letter would have been wrapped, first, in a formal envelope (raishi) and then in an outer cover (uwazutsumi) that bore the name of the person addressed.

  17. During his farewell visit to her in “Suma.”

  18. Of marrying.

  19. Suzaku, who recently ceded the throne to Reizei.

  20. Immediately south of the Kiritsubo.

  21. Being a nun, Fujitsubo cannot assume the rank and title of Empress Mother. She had previously enjoyed income from the produce and labor of fifteen hundred households; this number has now risen to two thousand.