The Tale of Genji

  13. “It is your daughter whose playing would truly convey his touch.” As in “Akashi,” the image evokes the loyalty of lover to lover.

  14. Yūgiri's wife, Kumoi no Kari.

  15. The opening words of a saibara song.

  16. To purify the room and drive away any evil spirits that may have been tormenting the baby.

  17. A flute was properly passed from father to son. Since women did not play the flute, receiving it from a woman could be seen as a break in the line of proper transmission.

  18. Yūgiri has gone first to the east wing, where Genji is most likely to be. The little boy is Niou.

  19. He uses for himself the same honorific language that he hears others use toward him.

  20. Murasaki's, presumably. For some reason Murasaki must have earlier stopped Niou from going to his mother's, and Yūgiri now hesitates to give in to the little boy and take him anyway.

  21. Kaoru.

  22. The veranda at the southeast corner of the main house.

  23. Lived 868–949, reigned 877–84.

  24. In the tale perhaps the father of Asagao, and in history perhaps Prince Sadayasu, a younger brother of Emperor Yōzei.

  38: SUZUMUSHI

  1. Jibutsu, the images that she will always have with her and that will be the object of her daily devotions.

  2. Hata, hangings that surround the altar and decorate the pillars of the hall.

  3. Onna San no Miya's curtained bed is serving provisionally as her chapel.

  4. A painting either of the Buddha preaching the Lotus Sutra on Vulture Peak or of scenes illustrating key passages of the text.

  5. The Buddha Amida is flanked by the bodhisattvas Kannon and Seishi.

  6. “Lotus petal” (kayō) is a summer incense. Honey, the binding material, has been reduced in order to avoid making the incense too sweet.

  7. Heaven, the human realm, the realm of the ashuras (warring demons), and the realms of beasts, hungry ghosts, and hell.

  8. The Shōmuryōju-kyō (Lesser Sutra of Eternal Life), a short text considered the most sacred of the three sutras devoted to Amida.

  9. Koji, the officiating priest, whose function was to expound the sutra.

  10. During a rite in honor of the Lotus Sutra incense was distributed to the participating priests, in this case probably by privy gentlemen.

  11. Each of whom performed a distinct function in the rite. Only a major ceremony used all seven.

  12. The bridgeway connects the main house to the west wing. The fence (naka no hei) appears to stand between the house and the wing and to screen the two from each other.

  13. Especially matsumushi (“pine crickets”) and suzumushi (“bell crickets”), which sing prettily in autumn.

  14. Akikonomu.

  15. Since the pine is an emblem of longevity.

  16. “You may want to leave, but for me you remain as charming and desirable as ever.”

  17. A younger brother of Kashiwagi.

  18. Otherwise unknown.

  19. “Moonlight comes to visit me, but you do not.”

  20. Gosenshū 103, by Minamoto no Saneakira: “Alas for the moon tonight, and the blossoms—Oh, that I might only show them to someone who would appreciate them!”

  21. “Your glory remains undimmed, but not so mine, and that is why I have not come.”

  22. The last two are probably both younger brothers of Kashiwagi.

  23. The woman narrator could not decently record the Chinese ones anyway.

  24. Although nominally an Honorary Retired Emperor, Genji has never reigned, and yet he is not exactly a commoner either. His standing is ambiguous. If he visited Reizei as a Retired Emperor, he might be thought to impose, while as a commoner he might seem to presume.

  25. Either to death (Kashiwagi) or to the religious life (Asagao, Oborozukiyo, Onna San no Miya).

  26. English requires a choice between singular and plural. The plural acknowledges the possession involving Onna San no Miya in “The Oak Tree.”

  27. Clerics, who speak the Buddha's word.

  28. Mokuren learned, thanks to his supernormal powers, that his mother was suffering in the realm of hungry ghosts or of hell (versions differ), but he was able to save her, thanks to the Buddha's teaching.

  39: YŪGIRI

  1. In the hills northeast of Kyoto, probably the general area of the present Shugakuin imperial villa.

  2. Rishi (Risshi), the lowest on the ladder of ecclesiastical ranks accessible to elite, fully ordained clerics; “discipline” refers to the body of Buddhist monastic discipline.

  3. Kashiwagi's brothers.

  4. Kōbai.

  5. Jōe, robes to be worn by the monks during the rite. They could be blue-black, yellow, red, white, gray, or brown, depending on the deity to whom the rite was addressed.

  6. Perhaps a poem written in a single line rather than in a freer, more ornamental manner.

  7. Probably Akikonomu's autumn garden at Rokujō.

  8. Dan, an altar that included an earthen hearth for the sacred goma fire.

  9. Yūgiri seems to be seated in the west aisle.

  10. A gentlewoman already encountered in “The Oak Tree.” A later passage suggests that she is a niece of Princess Ochiba's mother and a cousin of Ochiba herself.

  11. Kokinshū 204: “A cicada sang, and I thought the sun had set; but I had just come under the shadow of the mountain.” Thanks to a wordplay, higurashi, the name of this species of cicada, suggests the image of sunset.

  12. Kokinshū 685 evokes a similar mood: “Ah, I miss them so, and how I long to see them, the pinks abloom in that rustic fence!”

  13. The man has apparently been promoted from Aide (Zō, sixth rank) to Commissioner (Taifu, fifth).

  14. “Must I who have lost my husband now have my reputation ruined as well by rumors of a new affair?” “Wet sleeves,” or the “wet robes” of Yūgiri's answer, have to do with betraying a love affair and making it a subject of gossip.

  15. The unclear original may suggest that Yūgiri caught only the gist of her poem and made up a similar one from what he overheard.

  16. “Though I have no wish to hold you up to scandal because of any involvement with me, you are already the subject of gossip because of your unfortunate marriage to Kashiwagi, and there is nothing you can do about that. So would yielding to me really make that much difference?”

  17. You will not escape notoriety for this either.”

  18. Kō no ōn karabitsu, a chest either containing incense wood, to perfume its contents, or actually made of incense wood.

  19. Kokinshū 992, by Michinoku: “Perhaps my soul went in among the sleeves I still desire, for I feel as though it is gone from me.”

  20. Kokinshū 977, by Oshikōchi no Mitsune: “It must have left me and gone away, for since I first loved you, my heart has been elsewhere.” Kokinshū 488: “My love must have filled the boundless heavens, for though I would escape it, I find it everywhere.”

  21. Dainichi Nyorai, the cosmic buddha of the Esoteric Buddhist (Shingon) pantheon.

  22. Gōshō, the Buddhist term for all karmic factors that impede progress toward enlightenment. Chief among them are greed, anger, and stupidity.

  23. “How long is it since he married your daughter?”

  24. Ōmiya, Yūgiri's grandmother.

  25. These “vapors” (ke) are baneful influences that because of cold, heat, damp, and so on may rise from the earth into the feet and thence, in serious cases, to the upper part of the body.

  26. Her marriage to Kashiwagi.

  27. Perhaps because she wished to avoid being seen. A partition has been put up between the north and west aisles, and she cannot go round on the veranda.

  28. People brought together again in another life by karma do not recognize each other.

  29. “It is useless to thwart me, as you should know, because everyone already knows what happened.”

  30. Like his treatment of the Princess the previous evening.

  31. His
failure to come in person. If he really meant to marry her, he should have come for three nights in a row.

  32. The “meadow” (nobe) is her villa and the “maidenflower” (ominaeshi) her daughter. Ominaeshi contains the word omina (more commonly onna), “woman”; and shioruru (“weeps”) also means “wilts.” The poem is based on Kokin rokujō 1201, by Ki no Tsurayuki: “Maidenflower I find after a day hunting on the autumn moors, will you have me to stay just tonight?”

  33. The letter is rolled, and the ends are then twisted to seal it.

  34. His home.

  35. A female hawk is larger and more aggressive than her mate.

  36. The allusion has not been identified.

  37. The light blue of the sixth rank, of which Yügiri was so ashamed in “The Maidens.”

  38. Ochiba no Miya.

  39. Taifu is presumably the culprit. In “The Maidens” she is not named.

  40. From their curtained bed.

  41. They may lie down together.

  42. Kannichi, a day defined by the yin-yang (onmyōdō) almanac as one on which all enterprises were destined to fail. There was one per month.

  43. “I visited your daughter, but I did not sleep with her.”

  44. As a monk did when healing rites had failed. The altar, or hearth, is built of earth.

  45. Her poem let Yūgiri know that she would not oppose his marrying her daughter.

  46. Cling to the body.

  47. To conduct funeral rites and call the name of Amida.

  48. The post of Governor of Yamato commanded only the fifth rank, junior grade. The Haven's origins were quite modest.

  49. Presumably, the placing of the body in the coffin.

  50. According to the almanac.

  51. Wooden clappers, moved by cords, strung across rice fields to frighten away birds, deer, and so on.

  52. The Otowa waterfall, often mentioned in poetry.

  53. She is the Haven's niece and the Princess's cousin.

  54. Kashiwagi.

  55. Kokinshū 582: “Autumn has come, and the mountains ring with the belling of the stag: shall I do less, on nights I spend alone?”

  56. The poem plays on shika (“stag” and “thus” [like the stag]). The “wastes of bamboo grass” are shinohara, expanses of sasa, a low, ground-cover bamboo.

  57. Two nights before full.

  58. A literary flourish. “Dark Mountain” is Ogura no Yama, the name of which (ogura) can be read to mean “dim.” However, Mount Ogura is far away on the other (the west) side of northern Kyoto from where Yūgiri is now, and he could not possibly have passed it. It appears here only for the sake of the wordplay.

  59. In the original, “Spilling from on high.” Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in'yō waka 1481: “What am I to do, and how, O silent cascade spilling from the heights of the hills of Ono?” The “silent cascade” (otonashi no taki) is presumably Ochiba, who never responds; but it is also the Otonashi Cascade, famous in poetry and situated near Ono. The water slips soundlessly over a smooth rockface.

  60. Probably Ochiba and Kumoi no Kari, although perhaps Ochiba and Yūgiri.

  61. According to a sutra known in Japan as Taishi Bohaku-kyō, Prince Bohaku of the kingdom of Harana (in India) so feared the karmic perils of speech that for the first thirteen years of his life he remained mute. His father, the King, then ordered that he be buried alive. The order was about to be executed when the Prince spoke at last and succeeded to the throne. The monks' “trials” are presumably the times when they are required to observe a vow of silence.

  62. A proverbial expression. Some manuscripts have “three years,” to make this a reference to Kashiwagi's death.

  63. Yūgiri is pointedly and publicly claiming to have married Ochiba already.

  64. He is accusing them of passing on objectionable letters to their mistress.

  65. So as to be able to change robes.

  66. A highborn girl received a dagger (mihakashi) at birth, and it remained a highly personal possession.

  67. Suitable for mourning.

  68. Master Urashima, a fisherman, drifted to the island of the immortals and married a beautiful maiden there. Three years later he became homesick and returned to his village carrying a box that his wife had given him with the warning never to open it. He found that three hundred years had passed and that everything had changed. When he opened the box in despair, his wife's wraith floated out of it and into the sky, and he instantly aged three hundred years. The earliest occurrence of the story is among the surviving fragments of the early-eighth-century Tango fudoki.

  69. Ochiba's mourning restricted the meal and made it disappointing for the start of a marriage.

  70. Literary tradition had it that the male and female of the mountain pheasant (or copper pheasant, ya-madori) roosted in separate valleys.

  71. Murasaki.

  72. “Do you think it is right to have me known as a man whose wife had enough of him and went off to become a nun?”

  73. Literally, “had a look at her,” but the expression is unambiguous. The next sentence corresponds to the one that follows Genji's first, between-the-lines intercourse in “Akashi.”

  74. Because she is still in mourning.

  75. Presumably the chamber proper.

  76. The curtains and so on were all mourning gray.

  77. In the aisle, probably to hide paraphernalia related to mourning.

  78. Cloves yield a buff dye. The color was suitable for any occasion, happy or sad.

  79. A layering of cloth woven of leaf green warp and yellow weft threads over leaf green cloth.

  80. Kumoi no Kari's elder sister and the Kokiden Consort of Retired Emperor Reizei.

  81. In the room customarily reserved for her when she was at her father's.

  82. He presumably sends someone to Kumoi no Kari with this message.

  83. One of his sons.

  84. The daughter of Koremitsu, Genji's confidant in earlier days, whom Yūgiri first met in “The Maidens.”

  40: MINORI

  1. Children.

  2. Literally “Isonokami ages ago.” Isonokami (south of Nara) is the site of the venerable shrine to the Furu deity, and the name therefore implies a play on furu, “old.”

  3. The “Devadatta” chapter of the Lotus Sutra describes how the Buddha served his teacher by picking fruit, drawing water, and gathering firewood until he was taught the sutra. The assembly sang the hymn “I have the Lotus Sutra, thanks to humbly cutting firewood, picking fruit, and drawing water, and in this way I obtained it.”

  4. The future Niou, grandson of Genji and Akashi.

  5. To reward the dancers.

  6. (Hokke) Senbō, a rite that combined chanting the Lotus Sutra with confession of sins, for the purpose of erasing the sins of the beneficiary.

  7. The nobles who had accompanied the Empress called out their names (nadaimen).

  8. Perhaps the formal reading of the Daihannya-kyō that the Empress sponsored at set moments of the year.

  9. Particularly on the anniversary of her own death.

  10. Izumi Shikibu shū 132 (also Shikashū 109): “What kind of wind is the one that blows in autumn, that it should pierce me through and through with sorrow?”

  11. “I will not be up for long; soon I will be gone like dew.” The poem plays on two verbs pronounced oku: “be up” or “get up,” and “settle,” speaking of dew.

  12. She addresses the Empress.

  13. “Dark road,” an expression from the Lotus Sutra, occurs in Izumi Shikibu shū 150 (Shūishū 1342), by Izumi Shikibu: “From darkness a dark road is now mine to follow: shine on me from afar, O moon at the mountains' rim!”

  14. According to the Kanmuryōju-kyō, an essential sutra on Amida, a single day and night spent observing the Precepts proper to one's station (those proper to a layman if one is a layman, etc.) can lead to birth in paradise.

  15. Kokinshū 831, by Shōen (a lament on the death of Fujiwara no Mototsune): “As to the cicada, one finds
consolation in gazing on its cast-off shell, but O that smoke at least might rise from Mount Fukakusa!”

  16. In a poem in “Heart-to-Heart.” His now-darker shade means deeper mourning.

  17. Akikonomu.

  41: MABOROSHI

  1. For their formal New Year visits. Genji is at Rokujō.

  2. “Spring” in Genji's poem suggests Hotaru, and “scent” (the essence) in Hotaru's suggests Genji. Hotaru takes Genji's poem as a rebuff.

  3. Both have appeared before (assuming they are the same women) as particular favorites of Genji; they are probably “those who had sometimes caught his eye, although without any great feeling of attachment on his part.”

  4. Literally, “the weir of their sleeves could not contain [their tears]”; probably from Shūishū 876, by Ki no Tsurayuki: “O river of tears, your waters flow so swiftly from their source that the weir of my sleeves cannot contain them.”

  5. This may mean that she reminded him of Murasaki. The meaning of the original expression (unai matsu) is uncertain. Since unai means the short hair worn by a child, an unai matsu may be a young, growing pine; but an early commentary refers to a line of Chinese verse to suggest that an unai matsu grows on a grave mound—presumably Murasaki's in this case.

  6. Akashi or Hanachirusato.

  7. At Murasaki's Nijō residence.

  8. The scene seems now to be Rokujō.

  9. Kokinshū 535: “Would that she understood the depth of my love, deep as a mountain fastness where no birds sing.”