The Tale of Genji, Page 3

  Still, a lord or lady with no one but attendants or household staff nearby was alone in a way, because in an important sense such people did not count. Relations between people of standing were what mattered, and these were not necessarily conducted face-to-face. Good manners maintained proper distance, which amounted to upholding the accepted social order. A messenger could not deliver even an oral message to a great lord in person. His words had to be relayed in, sometimes in more than one stage. He might not see even the first intermediary, let alone hear the lord's voice. Domestic space, divided by screens, curtains, blinds, and so on—objects hardly more substantial than ways of speaking—similarly upheld distance and inviolate dignity.

  This is particularly striking in scenes of courtship. In many the man complains about having to talk to the woman through one of her gentlewomen. Of course, he cannot see her, and he may have no idea what she looks like. He will not normally see her even if she speaks to him in her own voice, since she will still be in another room, behind a blind and a curtain, and the curtain will remain even if she allows him into the room where she is. If he then takes it upon himself to brush her curtain aside and go straight to her, he will by that gesture alone have claimed something close to the final intimacy.

  Such fastidious manners do not suggest the atmosphere of blithe permissiveness that moralistic readers down the centuries, and quite close to our own time, have found in the tale. On the contrary, they are meant to defeat erotic spontaneity. The language is similarly reticent. Yume (“dream”), for example, is the stock literary word for sexual intercourse between lovers. Some readers have wondered whether the men and women in the tale ever actually do anything, since they seem to spend their nights merely chatting, but katarau, which ostensibly means that, actually refers to other intimacies as well. (The same euphemism exists in medieval French and probably in many other languages.) The verb “see” can also be stronger than expected. A man who “sees” or “is seeing” a woman (a standard expression) is at least to some extent sharing his life with her, and Genji's having “seen” Utsusemi in a pitch-dark room (chapter 2) means bluntly that he has possessed her. With all the conventions of architecture, furnishings, and manners designed precisely to prevent a suitor or visitor from seeing a woman, the effect of an accidental glimpse (through a crack in a fence, a hole in a sliding panel, a gap in a curtain) could be devastating. In fiction, where the plot may hang on such a moment, kaimami (“seeing through a crack”) is an understandably common motif. Of course, a man may also peer through a promising crack on purpose. Perhaps he should not, but at least in a tale the world might not go round so interestingly if he refrained.

  In the language of the tale, yo no naka (“our world,” “life,” “le monde”) also means the relationship between a particular man and woman. As often elsewhere, this aspect of life was especially absorbing for women because they so depended on men for their place in “the world.” A woman had only one refuge outside a stable relationship with a man: she could become a nun. This did not mean that she joined a convent, an established monastic community. Instead, she took a certain level of religious vows, had her hair cut short, wore plain, discreet colors, and stayed at home. This radical step was not taken lightly.

  A good many women in the tale become nuns this way. Among the men, Genji thinks constantly about leaving the world, and Kaoru after him, but neither one ever acts. The only man who becomes a monk roughly comparable to the kind of nun just described is the eccentric Akashi Novice, and the only one who has himself fully ordained is Retired Emperor Suzaku. Whatever their dreams of peace and piety, the men simply do not have the same incentive as the women.

  The Pattern of Hierarchy

  In an ideal image that Japan adopted from China, the Emperor faces south to survey his realm, flanked by his two Ministers: the Minister of the Left (the Emperor's left, the east) and the Minister of the Right. That is why in history, as in the world of the tale, the imperial palace compound is located in the north of the capital city, facing south, and why the residences of the nobility all face south as well. It also explains the government's bilateral symmetry. Many official organs had Left and Right components, and in the tale this division appears in the titles borne by their officers. The reader meets, for example, a Chief Left Equerry and an Aide of the Right Palace Guards. In the early chapters the same symmetry appears in the power struggle between the faction represented by the Minister of the Left and Genji, and that of the Minister of the Right and his daughter, the mother of the Heir Apparent. The City was also divided administratively into Left and Right. Court music and dance, too, were divided into Left and Right repertoires, and contests, from wrestling to poetry, were divided into “east” and “west” sides.

  All offices were associated with a numbered rank, from one down to nine. These ranks were divided into full (“third rank”) and junior (“junior third rank”) levels, and at the fourth rank and below, the full and junior levels were further subdivided into upper and lower grades (“junior fourth rank, upper grade” “junior sixth rank, lower grade”). Numbered ranks are not prominent in the text, but the characters are acutely aware of them.

  The Emperor stood above this numbered system. The narrator may call him “without rank,” or words to that effect, rather as something infinitely precious is “beyond price.” However, significant imperial offspring, both male and female, also had their place on the ladder of rank. An example is the Princess whom Genji marries. The degree to which Genji must honor her is soon a burden, and the burden becomes still heavier when she is promoted in rank.

  The Emperor was not obliged to recognize all his children, particularly those from socially or politically insignificant mothers, but most of the imperial children prominent in the tale are recognized. Except for Genji himself, they are Princes and Princesses. In this book, a Prince (His Highness) is therefore an Emperor's son whom that Emperor has formally acknowledged and appointed to a suitable rank. The same can be said of a Princess (Her Highness). However, “Princess” also covers an imperial granddaughter in the male (not the female) line. For example, Suetsumuhana is a Princess because she is the daughter of the Hitachi Prince, whereas Aoi is not a Princess although her mother is one, because Aoi's father (the Minister of the Left) is a commoner. The personally daunting Aoi is of very high standing, and her father is exceptionally powerful. Her weight in her world is incomparably greater than that of the pathetic Suetsumuhana, whose father is in any case dead. Nevertheless, Suetsumuhana carries an aura of imperial quality that has not come down to Aoi. So do other Princesses in the tale, even ones as disadvantaged as Ōigimi and Naka no Kimi. Most of these Princesses, whether first or second generation, inhabit a twilight zone between imperial prestige and what seems to have been regarded as sturdy commoner banality. A Princess can seldom marry without marrying down (to a commoner), and that is reason enough that in principle she should not marry at all; but as Retired Emperor Suzaku observes in “Spring Shoots I,” she may be dangerously vulnerable to scandal if she does not. Her position is often unhappy.

  An Emperor who does not appoint a son as a Prince, but who nonetheless prefers not to consign him to oblivion, can give him a surname, which makes him a commoner. This is what Genji's father does for Genji. In English, Genji is often called “Prince Genji,” but the usage of this translation forbids that. “Prince” is a title formally conferred by an Emperor on a son whom he wishes to recognize fully and to retain in the imperial family. Before Genji receives his surname he is an imperial son whose station in life remains to be determined, and afterward he is a commoner.

  The Buddhist hierarchy glimpsed in the tale also deserves a word. A ranking cleric is likely to be the brother of a distinguished official, a Prince or Princess, or even an Emperor. Examples are Murasaki's great-uncle, Suetsumuhana's brother, and probably the cleric who exorcises Ukifune. The upper levels of the Buddhist hierarchy were often staffed by sons of the highest aristocracy.

  Narration, Courtesy,
and Names

  The narrator of Genji is acutely aware of social rank and assumes the reader is, too. She seems to be a gentlewoman telling a tale to her mistress, and the way she refers to the characters is in most cases extremely discreet. The rare personal name she mentions is that of an intimate male subordinate to a great lord or an occasional page girl. Normally she refers to a character by official or customary title, if any. Those who have one include court officials, male or female, and Buddhist clerics. Officials move from title to title in the narration as their careers progress.

  A gentlewoman is designated by her meshina (“service name”), which, as in the case of the author herself, alludes to a government organ or post associated with a male relative. Several gentlewomen in the tale therefore have the same meshina—for example, Chūjō (literally, “Captain”) and Jijū (literally, “Adviser”). In this book these meshina are transliterated rather than translated, so that in practice they look like names. Princesses as well as several Princes are known by number—for example, First Princess (Onna Ichi no Miya), Second Princess (Onna Ni no Miya), Third Princess (Onna San no Miya), or Third Prince (San no Miya).

  Women without a title or a meshina may have no personal appellation at all in the narration. Aoi, Genji's first wife, is an example. Readers call her Aoi only for convenience. “Murasaki,” like “Aoi,” resembles a name, but the word actually starts out as a common noun alluding to Fujitsubo, and it does not refer regularly to Murasaki until much later in the book. A great lady (like, in historical practice, a great lord) may also be designated by the place where she lives. Fujitsubo, for example, lives in the Fujitsubo (“Wisteria Pavilion”), a pavilion in the palace compound; Rokujō lives on Rokujō (“Sixth Avenue”); and the normal designation for Murasaki in a large section of the work is Tai no Ue (approximately, “the mistress [ue] of Genji's household, who lives in the wing [tai] of his residence”). Other female characters are identified as daughters. Ōigimi, the traditional appellation of the elder Uji sister, simply means “elder daughter”; Naka no Kimi means “younger daughter.”

  Keeping track of the characters easily in the original requires an almost instinctive grasp of its world, supported by memory and by the discreet, context-dependent clues that the narration provides. That is why readers long ago assigned the characters consistent designations after all. Most of the women's (Yūgao, Oborozukiyo, Hanachirusato, Tamakazura, Ukifune, and so on) are words from poems by them or addressed to them. An outstanding example among the men, with their changing titles, is Genji's oldest friend and colleague, Tō no Chūjō. Tō no Chūjō first appears in the tale (chapter 1) as a Chamberlain Lieutenant (Kurōdo no Shōshō), an initial appointment, and rises in time to the lofty office of Chancellor (Ōkiotodo). However, the title by which readers know him for convenience means Secretary Captain; it is the one he has in chapter 2. Genji, too, goes by his changing titles. The word “Genji” hardly appears in the text.

  This translation follows the usage of the original in spirit, if not always in the letter. A character with an official or customary title (Captain, Commander, Minister, Mistress of Staff, and so on) keeps it, and all such titles are translated. A woman who lacks such a title appears as she does in the original, so that women distinguished only by the occasional “Princess” (Miya), “daughter” (himegimi), “his darling” (onnagimi), and so on remain unnamed. To assist the reader, each chapter begins with a list of characters (including designation in the translation, age, and customary appellation). Where necessary, a note provides a spot identification by customary appellation. Only these appellations appear in the notes.

  For the most exalted personages the translation also adopts certain forms of address that acknowledge the social tie between the fictional narrator and the character, or among the characters themselves. Examples are “His Excellency” for a Minister or Chancellor, “Her Highness” for a Princess, “Her Majesty” for an Empress, and “His Eminence” for a Retired Emperor. Since this usage conveys recognition of community (only someone in a Minister's own social world would call him “His Excellency”), use of the title proper may be exploited in English to convey distance. In the early chapters “the Minister” designates preferentially the Minister of the Right, the political enemy of “our” (Genji's) side, whereas “His Excellency” is Genji's father-in-law, the Minister of the Left.

  The only traditional name used throughout is that of Genji himself, although his current title appears in direct speech or interior monologue. The term of address reserved for him after his return from exile is “His Grace.” Strictly speaking, “His Grace” might correspond better to the title of Honorary Retired Emperor, which he receives only much later, but the unique prestige he comes immediately to enjoy justifies this liberty, which identifies him consistently to the reader while also acknowledging his supreme distinction.

  This feature of the original text has been retained to preserve the character and structure of the social world that the narrator brings to life. The fictional narrator speaks from within this structure, and for her, good manners require conventional discretion. As a gentlewoman to a great lady, she of course stands high in the overall population of her time, counting from peasants up, but peasants and so on do not belong to her world. Hers is that of the court, in which she has a modest place. Her language must acknowledge this place, and it must also convey the way her characters would think and talk about each other if they were real.

  To put it another way, the absence of personal names from the narration is another distancing device that screens a lord or lady's person from the outsider's gaze. The holder of an official title, man or woman, could properly be identified by that title or, sometimes, by residence, but a personal name, even if recorded in a genealogy, was too private to use in speech. The way the narrator refers to people affirms less their individuality than their position in a complex of communally acknowledged relations that was of absorbing interest to all. To give the characters invariant designations (in effect, personal names) would therefore be to shift the narrator's courtly stance toward a modern egalitarian one. Sometimes it would also be to confuse a character (who could not possibly know the traditional nickname of someone else in the book) with the reader; to make one character privy to another's intimate secrets; or even to make a character, or the narrator herself, speak with offensive familiarity.

  Poetry

  Happily, the strictures of formality still left room for another mode of communication, one outside the domain of hierarchically marked language. This was poetry, then considered the noblest of all the arts. In poetry people could address each other from the heart. Many early anecdotes tell how an eloquent poem by someone of very low rank, addressed to a superior, gained the person recognition as a fellow human being. All of Japan's early literature includes poems (prose fiction may have first crystallized around them), and The Tale of Genji contains 795. Readers down the centuries have often valued them even above the prose.

  In the world evoked by the tale it was possible to speak or write a poem for oneself, but poetry was first of all a matter of social necessity. Courting required an exchange of poems, as did many other moments in life, and someone distinctly inept at it was socially disadvantaged. People learned to write by copying poems, they acquired the language of poetry by memorizing a great many examples, and they confirmed what they knew by composing more themselves. Although many poems in the tale are spoken or written spontaneously, their spontaneity actually reflects a mastery of complex rules of diction, vocabulary, and form. Some poems achieved great heights of poignancy, passion, elegance, or wit. Among the characters in The Tale of Genji, the “best poet” is said to be the lady from Akashi.

  The poems in question are called tanka (“short song”), waka (“Japanese song”), or simply uta (“song”). Each consists of five subunits of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables, for a total of thirty-one. Tanka are usually written in one unbroken line. They have no rhyme, which would be too easy and too low in variety to be interesting,
and no meter, since the language does not lend itself to that either. Their character as poetry arises from a range of sophisticated devices, including wordplay, that make most of them extremely difficult to translate.

  The poems in this book follow the tanka's syllabic form and are divided into two centered lines, one of 5-7-5 syllables and the other of 7-7. Syllabic count is, of course, not natural as a form in English, but it sets the language of the poems off appropriately from that of the prose. Observing it often requires more words in translation than the polysyllabic original readily supplies, but the result suits poems integrated into a prose narrative. However, the poems quoted in the notes do not follow this form, being translated for basic meaning only. The ones without author attribution are anonymous.

  Readers and Reading in the Author's Time

  In Murasaki Shikibu's world, the men (apart from clerics) were all officials great or small. They studied philosophy, history, law, and so on in Chinese, learned to write the Chinese language, and also composed Chinese poetry—Chinese being the learned, written, formal language; its status was similar to that of Latin in medieval Europe. They of course composed poetry in Japanese as well, but fiction was in principle beneath their dignity, since it was classified as worthless fantasy—an idea hardly unique to early Japan. Still, some clearly knew about tales anyway, and once Genji came to be widely admired, it was men who most visibly championed its worth.

  Women were not supposed to study Chinese, but some did. Murasaki Shikibu wrote in her diary that she taught the Empress to read Chinese poetry, although she had to do it in secret. Chinese was considered unladylike. The tale describes a scholar's daughter who taught her lover to write Chinese poetry and gentlewomen who liked to fill their letters with Chinese characters, but such things were plainly not encouraged. A lady who could read Chinese advertised her knowledge at her peril.