The Tale of Genji

  45: HASHIHIME

  1. As a Prince, he cannot decently do many things natural to a lesser man.

  2. To leave the world.

  3. Shinobu, a fern that grows readily in neglected bark or thatch roofs. As a verb, shinobu also means “to dwell in memory on the past,” and the wordplay is intended here.

  4. Marry again.

  5. This poem plays on the syllables mizutori no kari no ko (“the children of the goose, the waterbird”) and kari no kono yo (“this fleeting world”).

  6. Sōga. Here, singing out the notes of the score the girls are to play.

  7. The Kokiden Consort of the early chapters.

  8. “Range on range of hills” just above and “morning fog on the hills” are from Kokin rokujō 2841 and Kokinshū 935, respectively. Fog is indeed common at Uji.

  9. Buddhism as distinguished from the “Outer Teaching” of Confucianism.

  10. The main wordplay in this poem recurs in the succeeding chapters: yo o uji (“find the world hateful”) leads into ujiyama (“the Uji hills”). Its canonical source is the famous but practically untranslatable Kokinshū 983, by Kisen Hōshi: “My hut is southeast of the City: I live with the deer in the Uji hills, where, they say, I reject the world.”

  11. Not three twelve-month years but perhaps, in this way of counting, as little as eighteen months or so, starting in one year and ending in the second calendar year after it.

  12. “A perfume they did not know” (nushi shiranu ka) is from Kokinshū 241, by Sosei.

  13. The speaker is Naka no Kimi, the younger sister; or so scholars now believe. Older readings of the tale identify her as Ōigimi, the elder. A line of Chinese verse (Wakan rōei shū 587) suggests the idea that one can call the moon out from behind clouds with a fan.

  14. A variant of the bugaku dance “Ryōō” (“The Warrior King”) is said to have included a passage in which the dancer lifts his baton toward the sun. The baton in “Ryōō” and the plectrum of a biwa are both bachi, although in each case the word is written with a different character.

  15. Because the biwa plectrum when not in use may be slipped between the upper face of the instrument and the fukuju, the wooden piece to which the strings are secured. In the face of biwa, under the fukuju, there is an elliptical sound hole called the ingetsu (“hidden moon”).

  16. This older woman refers to herself a few paragraphs later as Ben. The appellation suggests a connection (perhaps brother or husband) with a man who had been a Controller.

  17. The residence of Kaoru's mother, Onna San no Miya. Kojijū is the gentlewoman through whom Kashiwagi gained access to her.

  18. Kaoru likens Ōigimi to the mysterious Maiden of Uji Bridge (Uji no Hashihime), mentioned canonically in Kokinshū 689: “Lonely sleeves spread on her narrow mat, tonight again does she await me, the Maiden of Uji Bridge?”

  19. Genji monogatari kochūshakusho in yō waka 321: “I am so wet with drops from the boatman's oar that I am all but floating.” The sleeves of the ferryman are Ōigimi's own.

  20. Practitioner monks and scholar monks belonged to different categories and played different roles in a temple community. On his retreat Hachi no Miya would have had more to do with the practitioner side.

  21. A figurative expression.

  22. Niou.

  23. Kaoru plays on hio, the fish that the weir is built to catch, and hiomushi, a kind of mayfly that lives only a day. Since the hio are caught when they “approach” the weir, Kaoru suggests that approaching the weir could mean the end of his life as well. Hio are the nearly transparent juveniles, about an inch long, of the ayu (sweetfish), a delicacy of Japan's rivers and lakes.

  24. Shūishū 451 (also Wakan rōei shū 469), by Saigū no Nyōgo, established the poetic link between the music of the kin and the sound of wind in the pines: “The sound of the pines on the mountain wind mingles with the music of the kin, and, for this concert, which string was tuned to which?”

  25. Kashiwagi, who was awarded this promotion shortly before his death. I have retained the title here and below, rather than substitute the more familiar “Intendant,” because Kashiwagi's last promotion clearly means a great deal to Ben.

  26. Kyushu.

  27. From Kokinshū 875, by Kengei: “In form I am a withered tree, hidden in the mountains, but my heart will blossom if you wish.”

  28. The sin resulting from not honoring his real father.

  29. To Onna San no Miya.

  30. Reizei's daughter by his Kokiden Consort.

  31. In other words, soon. The day is roughly the sixth of the tenth lunar month, and the leaves will not be on the trees much longer.

  32. Kaoru, here referred to as a futaba (“seedling”).

  46: SHIIGAMOTO

  1. Kokinshū 983, by Kisen Hōshi (“My hut is southeast of the city: I live with the deer in the Uji hills, where they say, I reject the world”), plays so effectively on the place name of Uji and on ushi (“vexing,” “hateful”) that “Uji” was associated forever after with sentiments such as ushi or, as here, urameshi (“detestable”).

  2. Tō no Chūjō. Hachi no Miya hears the musical heritage of Tō no Chūjō and Kashiwagi in Kaoru's playing, even though he does not know that Kaoru is Kashiwagi's son.

  3. Whereas a spring night is conventionally described as short.

  4. An image from Kokin rokujō 4155, attributed in Nihon shoki to Emperor Kenzō.

  5. “I come seeking your friendship as a fellow member of the imperial lineage.” Gosenshū 809, by Ise: “If you come to Yoshino, where I make my home, do so with a spray of the same flowers in your hair.”

  6. Varied from Man'yōshū 1428 (also Kokin rokujō 3916), by Yamabe no Akahito: “I, who came to pick violets in a springtime meadow, for love of the meadow slept there that night.” Niou hints that he wants to stay.

  7. Kōbai, Kashiwagi's younger brother.

  8. Without Kaoru's help.

  9. To Amida's paradise.

  10. Constrained by all the strictures that make her so different from a son, one being her subjection to her eventual husband.

  11. Kashō, a prominent disciple of the Buddha, could not help dancing when the divinities of music played.

  12. The poem plays on hitokoto, “one passage of koto music” and “your single word” (your promise to look after my daughters); and on kare, “neglect” (to come) and “die” (speaking of grass).

  13. The poem plays on musuberu, “make” (a promise) and “bundle” (together the grass for a simple hut).

  14. The wrestling tournament (sumai no sechi) was held toward the end of the seventh month. Wrestlers gathered from all the provinces to compete in the Emperor's presence, and a banquet followed.

  15. Those in the room can apparently see him through the blinds, picked out in the moonlight.

  16. Naka no Kimi, the younger.

  17. Kokinshū, by Ariwara no Narihira, said to be Narihira's death poem: “This is a path, so I had heard, that all must walk, but never thought yesterday or today.”

  18. As well as at the temple.

  19. “When I myself am in tears.”

  20. Sbinsenzaishū 526, by Prince Tomohira: “Sadder to me than the withering of the lower hagi fronds, on the hilltop haunted by the stag, is the withering of the moors.”

  21. Kohata was reputed to be a wild and deserted area, and possibly the haunt of bandits.

  22. Gosenshū 372, by Ki no Tomonori: “I might well lift my voice to cry aloud into the autumn mists, though I am no stag who has lost his mate.”

  23. When in mourning for a close relative, one occupied in principle a room from which the floorboards had been removed, making it a tsuchidono (“earth house”).

  24. To relay his messages to the sisters.

  25. The “reeds” are asaji (chigaya), a reedlike plant common on fields and moors and often mentioned in poetry for the way it changes color in autumn.

  26. Kokinshū 841, by Mibu no Tadamine, on mourning his fathers death: “On the tangled threads of m
y robe of mourning I thread my tears for the life of him I have lost.”

  27. The poem plays on kari, “goose” and “impermanent.”

  28. Kokinshū 727, by Ono no Komachi: “I am no guide to the village where the seafolk dwell, that he should always be saying how displeased he is with me.” The poem depends on a wordplay on uramin, “be angry (with someone)” and “wish to see the shore.”

  29. Kokinshū 389, by Takamuka no Kusaharu: “Surely the bank below the sacred mountain is beginning to crumble for the Tatsuta River is running turbid.”

  30. The poem plays on fumikayou, “tread back and forth” and “letters go back and forth.”

  31. Man'yōshū 3289 (also in the Japanese preface to the Kokinshū), spoken in ancient times by a young palace lady to a visiting lord whose ill humor instantly vanished: “Mount Asaka! Reflecting you, the rocky pool is shallow, but not this heart of mine in desire.”

  32. The house at Sanjō where he lives with his mother.

  33. Kokinshū 292, by Henjō: “The tree one turned to in distress for shelter offered none, for its leaves changed color with autumn.”

  34. He had presumably promised Hachi no Miya that if he acted on his desire to enter religion, he would come to Uji and live with Hachi no Miya as his disciple.

  35. Utsuho monogatari 212, which includes the words shii ga moto (“beneath the oak”) and toko (“eternal” in the Utsuho poem but “floor” [of a room] in Kaoru's), speaks also of a “mountain where a lay devotee performs his practices” (ubasoku ga okonau yama).

  36. Yūgiri's daughter, Roku no Kimi, whose mother is the daughter of Koremitsu.

  37. Onna San no Miya.

  38. As so often elsewhere, the text specifies neither elder nor younger, singular nor plural.

  39. The younger sister, Naka no Kimi.

  40. Obi, more properly kakeobi: red silk cords that passed over each shoulder and were tied together in the back, worn by a woman on pilgrimage or when performing religious devotions.

  41. Niou's elder sister, the daughter of the present Emperor and of Akashi no Chūgū.

  47: AGEMAKI

  1. Ornamental, five-colored threads adorned both a wrapped package of incense and the stand on which the incense rested.

  2. Kokinshū 806: “Though my life is a burden to me I still linger, and I follow even in this guise the thread of the days.” The poem plays on henuru, “pass (time)” and “comb (thread).”

  3. Ise shū 483: “O that, twisting thread together, I might upon these weeping voices thread the gleaming beads of my own tears.” The poem was composed while the poetess Ise (died circa 939) was making thread to be used in the funeral observances for an Empress.

  4. Varied from Kokinshū 415 (also Tsurayuki shū 764): “No, it is nothing one might twist into thread, yet how slender is my courage as the road leads me away!” Ki no Tsurayuki lived 868–945.

  5. “Trefoil knots” are agemaki, three-lobed knots used to decorate an object for formal presentation; these no doubt have to do with the packages of incense that the sisters have been preparing. However, agemaki is also a hairstyle (hair parted down the middle and done up in two round masses on either side) typical of boys and girls in ancient times, and the word in this sense occurs in a saibara song (“Trefoil Knots”) to which Kaoru no doubt also alludes. The song is quite suggestive: “Ah, agemaki, tra-la tra-la, a mere arm's length, tra-a tra-la, the gap between us as we lie, and see how we roll together, tra-la tra-la, how we've come together!”

  6. Kokinshū 483: “So we twist together your strand and mine, and on what, if they do not meet, am I to thread my life?”

  7. Grammatically, this speech appears to be addressed to Ōigimi alone, but Niou's correspondence was with Naka no Kimi. Kaoru must therefore want Ōigimi to agree to accept him and to have Naka no Kimi accept Niou.

  8. Because the sisters are Princesses (granddaughters of an Emperor in the male line), whereas Kaoru (whether as Genji's son or as Kashiwagi's) is a commoner's son.

  9. Who is supposed to be Kaoru's half sister.

  10. Not only his mother but a nun.

  11. Although embarrassed to have been seen in mourning gray, she may be even more so that he saw her face—a humiliation perhaps too great to mention directly.

  12. An allusion to Wakan rōei shū 701 (in Chinese), by Ōe no Asatsuna.

  13. An ordinary lover would go straight home, but since all the observers (her gentlewomen, his men) assume he has married her, they might think something was wrong if he did so.

  14. Between the room where they are and the part of the house where the sisters live.

  15. Instead of a “morning after” (kinuginu) poem full of love and the sorrow of parting.

  16. The anniversary of Hachi no Miya's death.

  17. Of incense, presumably.

  18. Kaoru arrives in the eighth month because the almanac discouraged consummating a marriage in the fifth or ninth month.

  19. Of her parents.

  20. Gosenshū 938, by Ise: “I can say neither yes nor no, for alas, in this world one can never please oneself.”

  21. Kokin rokujō 4268: “Though you reject the world, where will you go to hide, yamanashi blossom?” Yamanashi (“mountain nashi”) is a wild relative of the cultivated fruit, and yama nashi means “there is no mountain (for you to hide behind).”

  22. Like the immortal sages alleged to inhabit high and distant peaks.

  23. Kaoru has his dress cloak and his trousers off. He is in his dressing gown or pajamas, so to speak.

  24. Popular belief had it that a woman past the normal marriage age might be possessed by a “god” (kami), or power, that made her behave strangely.

  25. Kokinshū 636, by Ōshikōchi no Mitsune: “To me no autumn night is long, for that always depends on the one you spend it with.”

  26. Ōigimi, from where she had been cowering between the screen and the wall.

  27. The branch is the two sisters, the twig with the red leaves is Kaoru's attachment to Ōigimi; and the “Goddess of the hills” (yamabime) is Ōigimi. “Which one of you do I love more? Judge for yourself: it is you.”

  28. Tsutsumi (“concealed”) also suggests that Kaoru has sent a tsutsumi-bumi, or “wrapped letter,” rather than a knotted musubi-bumi, or love note.

  29. A reply from either might suggest that Kaoru has indeed consummated a marriage with her, but this risk is obviously most acute in the case of Naka no Kimi.

  30. “You now prefer Naka no Kimi.”

  31. Kokinshū 732: “Like the little boat that rows out Horie Channel but turns back, I return every time to loving the same woman.”

  32. Niou and Ōigimi.

  33. Yūgiri's villa, across the river.

  34. For Kaoru.

  35. Gosenshü 1333, by Minamoto no Wataru, when leaving his province to return to the City: “What is so sad about tears of ignorance of what lies ahead is that they keep falling straight before one's eyes.”

  36. The male and female of a pheasant pair were said to spend the night on separate slopes.

  37. Shūshū 736, by Minamoto no Shitagō, “on returning in the dark from being with a lady”: “Lost among the shadows of dawn, my heart that loves you would not leave you at all.”

  38. Kokin rokujō 2749: “Now my new wife and I have shared a single pillow, shall I miss a single night with her, when I love her so?”

  39. Adjoining the middle gate of Niou's residence.

  40. Because they had had the carriage blinds lowered.

  41. A general word for several species of ground-cover plants related to bamboo. Sasa is very common in Japan.

  42. The messenger's reward is especially elaborate, in keeping with the felicitous character of the occasion: a marriage.

  43. Normally, the clothes would have been laid across his shoulders, and he would have displayed them proudly.

  44. Man'yōshū 2429 or Shūishū 1243 (a later variant): “For love of you I have crossed on foot the hills of Kohata in Yamashina, even though I
have a horse!”

  45. Niou should not ride. His dignity requires him to travel by carriage.

  46. Kokinshū 689: “Will she again tonight spread lonely sleeves on her narrow mat and await my coming, the Maiden of Uji Bridge?”

  47. The bridge over the Uji River, first built in 646, was famous for being so long (roughly 160 yards).

  48. Kokinshū 509: “Am I the float on the fisherman's line, on the sea of Ise, that I should not be able to make up my mind?”

  49. Shinsenzaishū 599: “What must it be like for them at Furu, in that mountain village, in the first, cold rains; surely even she who lives there has wet sleeves.” The mention of Furu, a place in the hills a good way south of Uji, plays on furu (“fall,” speaking of rain).

  50. As Naka no Kimi's husband, Niou has probably been admitted to the chamber, while Kaoru languishes in the aisle.

  51. Kokinshū 1025: “I test myself to see whether I can bear it, and her absence makes me miss her so much, it is no joke at all.”

  52. The Emperor intends to make Niou Heir Apparent when the current one (his eldest son) accedes to the throne.

  53. The change to winter clothing and drapery on the first day of the tenth month.

  54. In “Bamboo River” this son of Yūgiri was a Chamberlain Lieutenant who courted Tamakazura's elder daughter.