The Tale of Genji

  23. The fiercely energetic deity Fudō (“The Unmoving”) sits or stands on a rock, surrounded by flames, and quells the demons of craving. Chanting his darani (“spell,” “invocation”) summons up his presence and power, as does forming the mudras (hand gestures) associated with his rites.

  24. Kashiwagi's.

  25. The blinds are down, but she is pressed up so close to them that they are bellying outward. Her posture is far from ladylike.

  26. Sugoroku, a board game long popular in Japan.

  27. She is rubbing her hands together in prayer that her opponent will get a low number from her roll of the dice.

  28. A great lord's escort uttered warning cries to clear his path even in the house.

  29. A joking reference to a poem (Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in 'yō waka 745 or 754) on the sorrows that lurk at the heart of stones, sorrows that “cannot get out.”

  30. A temple in Ōmi Province (now Shiga Prefecture), which is why the girl is known as Ōmi no Kimi, the Ōmi Daughter. The priest would have been called to the birth to pray for a safe delivery.

  31. Drawing water and collecting firewood, essential activities sanctioned in the scriptures as the basic work to perform in the service of a buddha.

  32. The turn of phrase she uses (mair-haberan-zuru) is condemned as low class by Sei Shōnagon in The Pillow Book.

  33. Utagatari, “talk about poems”: probably an account of an exchange of love poems, with the poems themselves sung in the customary manner.

  34. The letter is a dense mosaic of tedious and unrelated allusions to stock poems, hence a caricature of a reasonable letter.

  35. Kokinshū 506 laments that although the speaker is very near his beloved, he cannot meet her. The “fence of reeds” (ashigaki) in the poem is “closely woven” (ma chikakereba) as the lovers should be, yet it keeps them apart.

  36. Gosenshū 682, by Kohachijō no Miyasudokoro: “Although I am close enough to you to tread upon your shadow, who is it who erected the Nakoso [Come-Not-Hither] Barrier?” Nakoso, a place in northern Japan, was favored in poetry for this play on its name.

  37. Kokin rokujō 3507: “Although I have not been there, talk of Musashi Plain arouses my complaint; but ah, there is no remedy—the fault is the murasaki's.” “To speak of Musashi Plain” means to claim, via the poem's mention of murasaki, a blood relationship with the recipient.

  38. The letter ends ana kashiko, ana kashiko, and the second ana kashiko (a closing phrase in the range of “your humble servant”) is indicated simply with a series of dots that show repetition of the preceding phrase. One ana kashiko would have done.

  39. Gosenshū 608: “How strangely I grow fonder of you the more you dislike me! What could I ever do to make myself stop?”

  40. “If only you would forgive my poor handwriting.” Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka 199 begs the recipient to look (mi) indulgently on the writer's poor handwriting, making the point with a wordplay on the name of the Minase River.

  41. “I long to meet you.” The places have nothing to do with each other, Hitachi being in eastern Japan, Ikaga Saki (“Query Point”; the word ikaga means “how?”) on the Inland Sea, and Tago below Mount Fuji.

  42. “I long to meet you”: a dubious allusion to Kokinshū 699 about the “great river” at Yoshino.

  43. “At least” (sasuga ni) because however unladylike the letter itself may be, at least her treatment of it in this sentence is acceptable.

  44. A highly unsuitable messenger, even if in looks and manner she is in better harmony with her surroundings than the Ōmi Daughter.

  45. Because the Ōmi Daughter is the Consort's sister.

  46. These places, too, are outrageously unrelated to each other.

  47. Incense was sweetened with honey, but excessively sweet perfume was considered vulgar.

  27: KAGARIBI

  1. Kokinshū 171: “How it tosses and blows my true love's clothes about him, ah, so fresh and strong, the first wind of fall!”

  2. Of the seventh lunar month, the first of autumn.

  3. In poetry, wind rustling the reeds (ogi) may announce the coming of a lover.

  4. Mayumi no ki, a deciduous tree that bears small blue-green flowers and reddens nicely in autumn.

  5. Kokinshū 500: “Now that it is summer, a mosquito coil burns in my home, and ah, how long am I likewise to smolder underneath?” In Genji's poem, “smoke” is connected to “desire” by a play on kohi (“desire”), because the syllable hi by itself means “fire.” The motif of smoke rising from the lover's burning heart, to vanish (or not) into the vastness of the sky, is a common one.

  6. “Look! I have behaved myself after all!”

  7. Yūgiri's.

  8. Kashiwagi, who now holds the same office his father held in “The Broom Tree.”

  9. One delivered orally by messenger.

  10. His voice was sweet and pure.

  28: NOWAKI

  1. Rokujō's husband, the Heir Apparent, who died long ago.

  2. Gosenshū 64: “O that I had sleeve enough to cover the wide sky! No wind should then take the flowers that blossom in spring.”

  3. Kokinshū 694 evokes the languishing lover in terms of hagi fronds awaiting the wind. The hagi fronds are motoara (“bare toward the base of the stems,” hence “languishing”) because autumn (the season of separation) is advancing.

  4. Kosōji, a rigid, low panel (made of wood or the same material as sliding panels [shōji]) and mounted on a stand so that it could be moved about.

  5. The press of retainers, visitors, petitioners, and so on when her husband was alive.

  6. Hanachirusato.

  7. Into his carriage.

  8. A lover normally left at daybreak (akebono no wakare, a stock expression), but Genji and Murasaki were never normal lovers and lived together from the start.

  9. Various indispositions were attributed to a “wind” having entered the body. Genji is excusing himself for failing to visit Akikonomu in person.

  10. The meaning of this passage is contested. One puzzle is that asters have no smell.

  11. Gentlewomen attached to Akikonomu.

  12. The “dress gown” (kouchiki) was semiformal. An early commentary explains “dropped” by suggesting that one was hanging on a clothing rack nearby and that she simply pulled it down over her.

  13. The wind rustling the reeds is Genji's perfunctory visit.

  14. The paper-thin, orange fruit envelope of Physalis alkekengi, the Chinese lantern plant or Japanese bladder cherry.

  15. “If you would only give in to my secret desires…”

  16. Tsubo senzai, the garden space confined between the Emperor's residence (Seiryōden) and the Kōrōden, immediately to the west.

  17. He asked for the woman's own paper and inkstone, but what she gives him belongs instead to his half sister.

  18. He need not feel too awestruck, considering who the Akashi lady is.

  19. Karukaya, a type of tall grass with long awns, distantly related to rice. Kokin rokujō 3785: “Being so serious does me no good at all; ah, I would toss about with you like windblown beardgrass, in wild abandon!”

  20. He is being ironic. The women have not recognized the sexual significance of the beardgrass.

  21. Yūgiri's grandmother's senior gentlewomen would have taken vows with her.

  29: MIYUKI

  1. His secret pursuit of Tamakazura. Otonashi no Taki (“Otonashi Waterfall”) is properly a name, but oto nashi also means “no sound,” and this double meaning is exploited in poetry. Early commentaries cite two otherwise unknown poems to which this passage may allude (Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka 205, 1481).

  2. Murasaki.

  3. Ōharano, just west of the City, is the sloping area (no) below Mount Oshio and the site of the Ōharano Shrine, the Kyoto counterpart of the Kasuga Shrine in Nara, the tutelary shrine of the Fujiwara clan. Early commentaries suggest that this account was inspired by Emperor Daigo's visit to Ōharano on the f
ifth day of the twelfth month of 928.

  4. Between 5:00 and 7:00 A.M.

  5. Suzaku was the City's central north-south thoroughfare. Gojō (“Fifth Avenue”) ran east-west.

  6. Surigoromo, clothes on which patterns had been imprinted by rubbing on the juices of various dye plants.

  7. Ukihashi, a sort of temporary bridge (boards laid across boats or rafts) over the Katsura River.

  8. He is therefore known as Higekuro, “Blackbeard.” Perhaps he really has a beard, or perhaps heavy facial hair just gives him dark jowls.

  9. Since the Emperor was already surrounded by women (Akikonomu, the Kokiden Consort) who outranked her.

  10. It would be out of place for a woman to repeat what the Emperor said on a formal occasion.

  11. “A haunt where pheasants once rose” (tatsu kiji no furuki ato) alludes to a previous visit to Ōharano by a Chancellor, on the occasion of an imperial progress.

  12. Genji's poem, like the two that come after it, plays on miyuki, “imperial progress” and “snow.”

  13. “How could I have seen the Emperor properly?”

  14. Her surname. A very young woman remained so entirely within her family that she had no social identity at all. Being the daughter of Tō no Chūjō, Tamakazura is really a Fujiwara, not the Minamoto (Genji) that she appears to be.

  15. The Kasuga Shrine is the ancestral shrine of the Fujiwara, and the deity will be displeased if Tamakazura goes out into the world as a Minamoto. “Openly honoring her ancestral deity” refers to pilgrimage or to rites performed by the woman herself.

  16. To be adopted by someone of a different surname.

  17. To act as the koshiyui, the sponsor who tied the waist cord of the girl's train. Genji apparently means to tell Tō no Chūjō who the girl is after this event.

  18. Tamakazura. Mourning for a grandmother normally lasted five months.

  19. “Palace service” refers particularly to intimate relations with the Emperor, with all that such relations may mean to the woman and her family. The duties nominally attached to the office carry little weight in comparison.

  20. The garment is made of kara no ki, a light silk twill or patterned weave.

  21. To no Chūjō's father and Genji's former father-in-law; they are Tō no Chūjō's half brothers—probably the “Intendant of the Left Gate Guards” and the “Acting Middle Counselor” mentioned in “The Maidens.”

  22. This somewhat jocular description, in the language of poetry, relies on the expression amagoromo, “ama's robe.” Ama (“nun“) also means someone who lives from the sea, hence associated with brine-drenched (tear-drenched) clothing. This use of amagoromo therefore yields the incongruous image of a nun weeping over a past that, as a nun, she is supposed to have renounced.

  23. The day for Tamakazura's donning of the train.

  24. “Whether you are Genji's daughter or my son's…” This warm, grandmotherly poem is a tissue of wordplays associated with boxes, lids, and so on.

  25. Things to be used in the ceremony itself. The gowns mentioned are worn with the train (mo) and Chinese jacket (karaginu).

  26. Utsusemi and Suetsumuhana, at Nijō.

  27. Suetsumuhana's colors suggest mourning or some similarly sad occasion. “Fallen chestnut” (ochiguri) may be a deep reddish brown. The “hail” pattern (arare-ji) consisted of rows of little squares in alternating colors (“with purple checks”).

  28. A tissue of trite wordplays associated with karakoromo (“robe from far Cathay”), Suetsumuhana's favorite motif. Its complaining tone ill suits a happy occasion.

  29. Admitted to the room where the ceremony would take place at roughly 10:00 P.M.

  30. Tamakazura has her fan before her face, as propriety requires, and there is no prospect of her lowering it.

  31. A web of wordplays on seashore imagery. One of these is on mo (“train” or “seaweed”) and kazuku (“dive” or “don“), so that the other meaning of “until the time came at last when she was to don her train” (oki tsu tamamo o kazuku made) is “until the time came at last when she was to dive for seaweed.”

  32. Kashiwagi and Kōbai.

  33. Kashiwagi.

  34. As the Sun Goddess (Amaterasu) did when she confronted her brother, Susanoo, in a rage.

  35. In another episode of her quarrel with Susanoo, Amaterasu shut herself up in the Celestial Rock Cave (Ama no Iwato), thus plunging the world into darkness.

  36. To calm her own unhappy emotions.

  37. Nagauta (or chōka), a poem of indeterminate length, in the same meter as the short poems common in the tale. A petition of the kind mentioned by Tō no Chūjō would normally be written in Chinese and include a Chinese poem. He is recommending the “long poem” as a substitute, since women did not write Chinese.

  30: FUJIBAKAMA

  1. Genji and Tō no Chūjō urge Tamakazura, now no longer a “young” lady after her donning of the train.

  2. Yūgiri and Tamakazura are in mourning for Ōmiya, who died between chapters. Yūgiri's gray is a little darker because he was closer to her. The fact that the tail (ei, a long, narrow, springy appendage made of lacquered cloth) on his cap is rolled rather than straight is also a sign of mourning. This is the first reference to him as “the Consultant Captain” (Saishō no Chūjō).

  3. Yūgiri sits outside the blinds.

  4. For the purification to end her mourning, probably in the Kamo River. The month is the eighth.

  5. Because everyone would then know she was Tō no Chūjō's daughter and not Genji's.

  6. Because fujibakama flowers are light murasaki (purple) in color, and murasaki is the color of relatedness.

  7. “Have pity on me, you who suffer from the same grief [the loss of Ōmiya] as I…”

  8. “He must be making advances to me.” Tamakazura associates “if only just to be kind” (kagoto bakari ni) with the same expression in a riddling poem of amorous entreaty (Shinkokinshū 1052): “Sash-buckle of Hitachi at the road's end in the far-off East, if only out of kindness, please let me be with you!” The poem plays on kagoto, which also means the metal fastener for a belt or sash.

  9. “There is no such tie between you and me. If there were, the light murasaki of these flowers might promise you at least kindness, but it does not.”

  10. From Gosenshū 960, by Prince Motoyoshi: “I am so unhappy, nothing is left me now but to seek to meet her, at Naniwa, although it means giving my all.”

  11. In “The Fireflies” he acted as an intermediary between Kashiwagi (the Secretary Captain) and Tamakazura.

  12. The text here calls her “the Mistress of Staff,” which suggests that she may have already been appointed, but the matter is far from clear.

  13. A Mistress of Staff's real function as a quasi wife was unofficial, and she therefore ranked well below a Consort.

  14. Her father before marriage, her husband, and then her son.

  15. The ninth month (like the first and fifth) was ill omened for a marriage, which her “palace service” amounts to.

  16. Kokin rokujō 2233 proposes damming the Yoshino Waterfall as a simile for the impossible.

  17. The “back” of the house.

  18. “We who never knew each other as brother and sister instead lost touch with each other because of a courtship pursued only through letters.” The “Hills of Man and Maid” (Imoseyama) face each other across the Yoshino River and often stand for lovers, but here they clearly refer to brother and sister. The “Bridge of Odae,” the name of which (odae) suggests “rupture,” is in northern Japan, a long way from Yoshino; presumably this disjunction emphasizes the vast distance between the two kinds of relationship. A final wordplay in the poem involves fumi-madoikeru (“lose the way”), the fumi of which also means “letter.”

  19. “It is you who were confused. I, who knew all the time that we were brother and sister, was upset to receive courting letters from you.”

  20. Higekuro.

  21. Emperor Suzaku's Shōkyōden Consort, mentioned in “T
he Pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi.”

  22. One of Tamakazura's senior women.

  23. The Long Month (nagatsuki) is the ninth.

  24. “Though you enjoy the Emperor's favor, do not forget miserable me!” Sasa, a ground-cover plant related to bamboo, is ubiquitous in the Japanese mountains.

  25. Sahyōe no Kami, a suitor not mentioned before.

  31: MAKIBASHIRA

  1. The Commander (Higekuro), who has just married Tamakazura.

  2. To confirm the marriage.

  3. Presumably Tō no Chūjō and Genji.

  4. Without both parents to look after her interests.

  5. Between these two paragraphs Tamakazura has indeed taken up the duties of Mistress of Staff. The Hall of the Sacred Mirror was staffed by the members of the Office of Staff.

  6. Hotaru.

  7. “I never actually made love with you, but I still never meant that anyone else should carry you across the River of Death.” A woman's first man carried her across the river (Watari no Kawa, “River of the Fords,” or Sanzu no Kawa, “River of Three Fords”) between this world and the land of the dead.

  8. Neither of these women has appeared before.

  9. Gosenshū 481: “When lost in love I lie awake through a winter's night, the ice [frozen tears] does not even melt from my sleeves.”

  10. A reference to the misery of sleeping alone on a winter's night.

  11. A literal reading (required by the snow in the poem) of a usually figurative idiom that means “be out of oneself” or “beside oneself.”