Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan: The Tale of Genji and Its Predecessors 9780824851545, 0824851544

Citation preview

Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan

This page intentionally left blank

Mapping Courtship and Kinship in Classical Japan The Tale of Genji and Its Pre­de­ces­sors

Doris G. Bargen

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

© 2015 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Ame­rica 20 ​19 ​18 ​17 ​16 ​15  

6 ​5 ​4 ​3 ​2 ​1

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Bargen, Doris G., author.   Mapping courtship and kinship in classical Japan : The Tale of Genji and its pre­de­ces­sors / Doris G. Bargen.    pages cm   Includes bibliographical references and index.   ISBN 978-0-8248-5154-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)  

1.  Japa­nese lit­erature—­Heian period, 794–1185—­History and

criticism.  2.  Courtship in lit­erature.  3.  Kinship in lit­erature.  4.  Murasaki Shikibu, 978?—­Genji monogatari.  I.  Title.  

  PL726.2.B37 2015 895.609'0014—­dc23 2015009226 University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-­free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc.

For Allen Guttmann

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

List of Illustrations  /  ix Preface / xi Ac­know­ledg­ments 



/  xvii

Introduction / 1 Part I. Mapping Courtship and Kinship  /  9

Chapter 1. Physical Space: The Sites of Courtship  /  11 Chapter 2. Conceptual Space: The Heian Marital System  /  48

Part II. The Gap in the Fence: Courtship before The Tale of Genji  /  55

Chapter 3. Narrating Courtship through a Gap  /  57 Chapter 4. Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings  /  64

Part III. The Genealogical Maze: Courtship in The Tale of Genji  /  89

Chapter 5. Entering the Maze  /  91 Chapter 6. Genji: Courtship as Play and Per­for­mance  /  105 Chapter 7. Murasaki: Kaimami through a ­Woman’s Eyes  /  146 Chapter 8. Exiting the Maze  /  196

Conclusion / 247

vii

viiiContents

List of Abbreviations  /  257 Notes / 259 Bibliography / 329 Glossary-Index / 347 Color plates follow page 76.

List of Illustrations

Plates Plate 1. “Akashi.” Painting on a square sheet of paper (shikishi). Sakai City Museum Plate 2. Tsuchimikado-­dono (model of Fujiwara no Michinaga’s residence) Plate 3. Model of a shinden interior Plate 4. Ox-­drawn carriages. Meiji-­period woodblock print. Author’s collection Plate 5. Ise monogatari emaki, scene 5. Tales of Ise, episode 1. Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi Plate 6. Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki. Handscroll scene (right). Kyoto National Museum Plate 7. Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki. Handscroll scene (left). Kyoto National Museum Plate 8. “Wakamurasaki.” Kano School. Indiana University Art Museum Plate 9. “Yadorigi.” Attributed to Kaihō Yūsetsu (1598–1677). The Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation Plate 10. “Ukifune.” Kano School. Indiana University Art Museum Plate 11. “Kagerō I.” Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613). Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi

ix

xIllustrations

Figures Figure 1. Chang’an, the Sui-­Tang capital  /  13 Figure 2. The Heian capital  /  14 Figure 3. The Greater Imperial Palace (daidairi) / 17 Figure 4. The Imperial Palace (dairi) / 19 Figure 5. The Heian capital and its environs  /  92 Figure 6. Residences in the northeastern part of the Heian capital  /  93 Figure 7. The first secret: Reizei  /  96 Figure 8. The second secret: Kaoru  /  98 Figure 9. The third secret: Ukifune  /  99 Figure 10. The Akashi connection  /  102 Figure 11. The imperial line in The Tale of Genji / 103 Figure 12. The Uji connection  /  209 Figure 13. Kaoru’s genealogical ambitions  /  233 Figure 14. The struggle for the imperial succession in The Tale of Genji / 245

Preface

In 1994, the city of Kyōto celebrated its twelve-­hundredth anniversary. One aspect of the cele­bration was the publication of a lavishly illustrated book intended to revive the memory of the Heian capital, Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Reviving the Heian Capital).1 Maps of the capital’s gridiron layout, models of its architecture, photographs of paintings and of surviving artifacts allow a glimpse into life a millennium ago. In 2005, two maps of historically or culturally im­por­tant ancient sites ­were published.2 Both have photographs of modern monuments marking the ancient sites. Two years l­ater, connoisseurs of lit­erature could unfold a two-­sided color-­coded map of Murasaki Shikibu’s eleventh-­ century literary masterpiece, The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari). This map locates the residences of the tale’s fictional and historical characters. One side shows the capital and the other its environs. The map is accompanied by a twenty-­nine-­page brochure explaining each landmark in Murasaki Shikibu’s world and how to get there ­today.3 These sophisticated maps built on forty years of research by eleven scholars, whose twenty-­one essays ­were collected and published in 1999 as Genji monogatari no chiri (The Geography of The Tale of Genji).4 In 2008, Nicolas Fiévé edited a spectacularly illustrated, weighty tome with numerous articles on the history of the material realities of Kyōto through the ages.5 Neither the maps nor the collection of essays on sites of importance in Genji would have been possi­ble without Murasaki Shikibu’s own detailed verbal mapping. She is quite specific in her accounts of her characters’ movements in the Heian capital and its environs. She is equally specific about her characters’ movements within the complex of residential buildings in shinden-­zukuri style.6 In his 1996 book on Architecture and Authority in Japan, William H. Coaldrake appealed for “further study of the relationship between the design of the interior of shinden-­zukuri mansions and palaces and the activities carried out within them.”7 Of these many activities, courtship figures prominently, prompting me to expand xi

xiiPreface

upon Coaldrake’s appeal for closer examination between elements of architecture and the activities within them. I shall be looking closely at the spatial dimensions of courtship outside as well as inside the residential complex. The literary treatment of the spatial dimensions of medieval Eu­ro­ pean courtship was strikingly ­different from that of Heian-­era Japan.8 Although medieval knights, troubadours, and Minnesänger had to surmount numerous barriers in the pursuit of courtship, these barriers were—in the precise meaning of the word—­immaterial. They ­were tests of physical prowess or moral virtue obtained through “aventiure.” Having proven himself worthy by surmounting these “barriers,” the courtier could reach his goal of courtly love. The trope for his quest was the meta­ phor of ascent.9 From a Western perspective, therefore, it is surprising to find Murasaki Shikibu and other Heian authors paying as much attention as they did to concrete architectural barriers—­and the spaces on ­either side—­that defined and questioned gendered interpersonal relationships. Much depended on the use of that space and its meaning for the courted ­woman as well as for the courting man. What sets Heian courtship apart is that the space in which it occurred was paradoxically indeterminate. Although the conventions of shinden-­zukuri architecture ­were well known and the space around and within the residence was clearly delineated, the meaning of that space for those who occupied it was ambiguous, fluid, and constantly shifting. Heian courtship is also set apart by the unique combination of the nobility’s marital and residential systems. The court noble had a principal wife in her residence and several secondary wives in theirs. This meant, as a generalization, that men moved about and ­women did not. Murasaki Shikibu’s Genji, however, departs from the gendered norm of movement versus stasis dictated by the polygynous marital-­residential system. Her characters are not neatly divided into the peripatetic courtier and the waiting ­woman. One reason for this deviation is that the author goes far beyond creating a story of forbidden love by extending her narrative into a multigenerational saga. ­Family genealogies that are already quite complex in polygynous socie­ties become much more complicated in the Genji, where we find acknowledged and unacknowledged illegitimate offspring with the potential to grow obscure branches from the most splendid of ­family trees. Characters affected by this adumbration are challenged to sort out the secret of their lives by retracing their roots in order to tell their true from their false lineages.

Prefacexiii

It is generally understood that literary texts require interpretation. What they “say” is seldom ­simple. And Heian texts, products of a culture vastly d ­ ifferent from our own, are notoriously difficult to decipher and interpret. The difficulty of interpreting The Tale of Genji is compounded by Murasaki Shikibu’s complicated narrative technique. In addition to the omniscient author, who appears rarely, readers encounter a number of non-­omniscient narrators, some of whom are the tale’s biased protagonists. Which of these, if any, should be considered authoritative? By accepting one of several voices expressed in these texts as authoritative, one risks, paradoxically perhaps, distorting the meaning of an episode. When the topic is itself secrecy and deviance, close adherence to the text may hide rather than uncover the complexities of the tale’s ­human interactions. The dynamics of kaimami and the narrative structure that this peculiar topos of courtship inspired render many of the multifaceted texts within the Genji unreliable sources of knowledge. Given these interpretive difficulties, a combination of close textual and contextual analy­sis, along with occasional readings between the lines, seems to be the best approach to Murasaki Shikibu’s elusive masterpiece. In this study, I examine three distinctly separate but interconnected fields of inquiry. Part I lays the foundation for mapping courtship and kinship in the writings of mid-­Heian Japan in terms of physical space (the sites in and around the Heian capital and its courtly residences) and conceptual space (the polygynous marital system). Part II examines the custom of courtship in writings before The Tale of Genji. All paths along the flowering of this early courtly lit­erature ultimately converged in Murasaki Shikibu’s unsurpassed classic, which is my focus in Part III. A Note to the Reader On dates, characters’ names and titles, chapter titles, textual references, plates and figures, genealogies and chronologies. For dates, I use a customary hybrid form of Western year followed by months and days based on the lunar calendar (e.g., 999.VI.14), or the ­fourteenth day of the sixth month of the year 999. For historical names, I give the surname followed by the genitive no customary in premodern times and the personal name; for example, Fujiwara no Michinaga (Michinaga of the Fujiwara ­family). Genji characters are referred to variously in Murasaki Shikibu’s text: by location, rank, office, nickname, or simply as “­woman” or “man.” In Japa­nese

xivPreface

scholarship, Genji “names” have been standardized for the Japa­nese reader’s ease of reference. Unfortunately, there is no such standardization elsewhere. Of the translations into many languages, there are six into En­glish alone (of which only the third, fifth, and sixth of the six translations into English are complete): Baron Suyematz Kenchio (Suematsu Kenchō) (1882), Arthur Waley (1933), Edward G. Seidensticker (1976), Helen Craig McCullough (1994), Royall Tyler (2001), and Dennis Washburn (2015).10 Translators have used a great variety of appellations—­ that is, more or less d ­ ifferent “names” for the same character. Readers of the Genji will encounter both traditional Japa­nese names and sobriquets according to the choices that individual translators have made. If readers of translations and scholarly studies are aware of these variations, they will be less likely to be confused. For example, I use “Rokujō miyasudokoro” (trad. Japa­nese) rather than “Rokujō Lady” (Seidensticker translation) or “the Rokujō Haven” (Tyler translation); the unnamed ­woman to whom Genji is attracted in Chapter 4 I refer to as Yūgao (trad. Japa­nese) rather than Eve­ning Faces (Seidensticker translation) or “the ­woman” (Tyler translation). Considering all these variations in referring to a single character now in circulation, it may seem futile to update the cross-­ referencing lists of Genji characters that Norma Field and Haruo Shirane provided in their ground-­breaking studies in En­glish in 1987.11 Assuming that Genji scholars will know the vari­ous names of the dramatis personae, I have chosen names that seem to me to pose the fewest problems for readers who have read or will be reading the Genji in one of its translations. Since Genji chapter titles have been variously translated, I give the chapter number with the traditional Japa­nese chapter title, which will allow readers of all translations to identify the Genji chapter being discussed. nese is in the modified Hepburn system Romanization of Japa­ (J. Hyōjun). ­After the first mention of a special Japa­nese term, I have used the En­glish equivalent as much as possi­ble. Some of these terms, however, are awkward to translate or are even untranslatable. For example, since there is no Western equivalent for the architectural space of the hisashi, I explain the nature of this space and refer to it in Japa­nese. The Index is designed to help the reader find the first mention with explanation. All the primary works discussed are available in translations from classical Japa­nese into modern Japa­nese and into many languages. Only rarely have I found it necessary to offer my own translation. Quotations from the Genji are identified in the text by the initial of the translator’s last name with page number(s), followed by the initial of selected other translators’ last names with page number(s), and, lastly, by the scholarly Japa­nese

Prefacexv

text with volume and page number(s).12 Waka from The Tale of Genji are identified by their standard GM number. Japa­nese terms are given with a translation and brief explanation in the combined index-­glossary. Illustrations are in two categories: Plates (color) include paintings and architectural models related to Heian courtship, and figures (black and white) include maps and genealogical charts.13 As im­por­tant as the genealogical charts (keizu) that accompany ­every scholarly edition of the Genji are chronologies (toshidate; also: nenpu), ­going back to the Kamakura period;14 among the earliest for The Tale of Genji is one included in Ichijō Kanera’s Kachō yojō (1472). Chronologies are particularly useful for understanding relationships in a polygynous society, where generations overlap. For example, a firm grasp on the sequence of events is necessary for understanding the politics of imperial appointments and promotions in the Genji. Since the characters’ ages are given using the Japa­nese method of counting, which does not give full years but the number of years in which one has lived, there are irregularities in age differences between characters and timing of events, as might be expected in a work spanning at least three generations. Genji time is mea­sured by the ages of Genji and Kaoru. A detailed chronology is provided in Tyler’s translation, The Tale of Genji (New York: Viking, 2001), 1125–1133.15

This page intentionally left blank

Ac­know­ledg­ments

Research for my pro­ject was inspired by the scholarly revival of the millennial history of Kyōto, particularly its evolution from early to mid-­Heian times (794 to the eleventh c­ entury). The research was launched just before the completion of A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), but was suspended for another pro­ject, Suicidal Honor: General Nogi and the Writings of Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006). I am indebted to many foundations, institutions, and individuals. First of all, I wish to acknowledge generous funding for this pro­ject from the Japan Foundation (1996). A Healey Endowment Grant (1999– 2000), a Research Support Grant (2010), a yearlong sabbatical (2010– 2011), and a book publication subvention (2015) from the University of Mas­sa­chu­setts Amherst helped me along my multidirectional journey. Even more importantly, the seed for my interest in Heian courtship began with my American mentor, William J. Tyler, without whom Sumie Jones and Earl Miner would never have known to invite me, a newcomer to the field of Japa­nese studies, to the International Tale of Genji Conference in Bloomington, Indiana (1982). Takahashi Tōru welcomed me, sixteen years ­later, to a conference in Kyōto (1998), at which Kawazoe Fusae asked me to contribute an essay to Genji kenkyū that Hiroaki Sato translated. My first Japa­nese mentor, Hirota Osamu of Dōshisha University in Kyōto, taught me early on that drawing not only maps but also genealogical charts was a prerequisite for understanding relationships and character motivation in the Genji. Since presenting a paper on “Kaimami in The Tale of Genji” in 1996, as a visiting scholar at Dōshisha ­Women’s College in Kyōto, I have benefited from the advice of Yoshikai Naoto. Closer to home, I first presented my views on Heian courtship (“Kaimami through a ­Woman’s Eyes”) at the Association for Asian xvii

xviii

Ac­know­ledg­ments

Studies (AAS) Conference held in Honolulu (1996). This led to correspondence with Watanabe Masako about her 1995 PhD dissertation on “Narrative Framing in Handscrolls and the Tale of Genji Scrolls.” I am grateful to Stephen Clingman, Leslie S. Katz, Robert Omar Khan, Thomas H. Rohlich, and Wendy Woodson for inviting me to pre­sent sections of my “work in progress.” When I presented a paper on “Mapping Courtship in The Tale of Genji” at the University of Wisconsin–­Madison in 2011, Charo D’Etcheverry and Adam L. Kern offered suggestions that led to a new direction for my entire manuscript. Tracing fictional characters on geographic maps is not unlike locating them on genealogical charts, and I am, therefore, grateful to Michael Dalby for compelling me to immerse myself in the newest computer technology for a more sophisticated grasp on genealogical charting. Carlin A. Barton, Stephen M. Forrest, Otilia Clara Milutin, and William J. Tyler read and commented insightfully on parts of the manuscript. Liza Dalby read the final draft and saw in a flash what I was trying to do with Genji kinship. For assistance with obtaining permissions for images in Japan, I thank Baba Tsukasa in Kyōto, Danno (Iida) Yōko in Kōbe, and Morikawa Saki in Amherst. I also thank Kate Blackmer for her insightful queries concerning two maps that she designed with the information provided, Sharon Domier for library assistance, and Shane Peters for technical support. I do not ­really know how to thank my ­family and the many friends who have—­without being Genji specialists—­aided, encouraged, and inspired me: Baba Minako, Kay Baker, Bettina and Herwig Friedl, Ursula and Hartmut Grandel, Higuchi Hideo and Higuchi Fusako, Higuchi Jō, Kodama Sanehide, Dietrich Kurz and Elke Kurz-­Leveringhaus, Kuzuhara Yuki, Astrid Lac, Colin Moran, Mo­rita Masanori, Mo­rita Asami, and Mo­rita Miki, Siegfried Neuweiler, L. Halliday Piel, Brian Sacawa, Sasaki Takashi and Sasaki Noriko, Hiroaki Sato and Nancy Rossiter, and Uda Yoshitada. Finally, I express my appreciation to the two readers for their critical thoughts and inspiring suggestions. Their care and interest led to the improvement of my manuscript. The mistakes that remain are mine. For finishing touches and editorial assistance, I am grateful to my copyeditor, Debra Soled, production editor, Michael Bohrer-­Clancy, and acquisitions editor, Stephanie Chun. The legendary executive editor, Patricia Crosby, was in on this pro­ject from the beginning and knows it as well

Ac­know­ledg­mentsxix

as her opera. I thank her for seeing through my third book with the University of Hawai‘i Press before her retirement. Allen Guttmann, my severest and most insightful critic, read ­every word of every draft of the entire manuscript. To him this book is dedicated.

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

P

atterns of courtship and kinship among the aristocracy of mid-­Heian Japan are strikingly unfamiliar to all but specialists. Courtship during this period took a variety of forms and covered the indeterminate period of time before a formal liaison or termination of courtship. It was, more often than not, conducted with a view ­toward sexual intercourse and reproduction. ­Accordingly, courtship became intertwined with kinship that was formalized in ­family lineages marked by a polygynous marital system. One’s place among kin and one’s alliances with other families determined one’s po­liti­cal ­future, which was directed ­toward life at court in the highest position possi­ble. Po­liti­cal ambition of this sort could lead to conflicts among lineages struggling to gain access to or enter the imperial ­house. Interpreting courtship in the light of genealogies is therefore essential for understanding the motivations of interpersonal be­hav­ior. In order to understand the genealogical ambitions embedded in Heian-­era courtship, it is im­por­tant to study a broad spectrum of texts: semimythic tales, poem tales, fictional tales, random notes, and literary diaries. In them lie the seeds for Murasaki Shikibu’s replanting—on a hitherto unpre­ce­dented grand scale—­the patterns of courtship and kinship in her Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). The sheer volume of her masterpiece matches its epic quality and surpasses in complexity the extant achievements of its literary pre­de­ces­sors. Although the Genji is ­entirely fictional, some of its characters are cast in a historical mold. Anthropologists and historians have used these texts, with the necessary caution, as a source for understanding the Heian culture. The centerpiece of my study, the Genji, contains myriad interpretive possibilities. As there is no holograph, there can be no certainty about the text, but the scholarly conventions that have evolved over time indicate a consensus on the Genji text. Scholars have focused on exploring this cultural icon in vari­ous ways, and for some it has been an 1

2Introduction

i­ nexhaustible store­house for understanding key aspects of courtly life in the mid-­Heian period. One way to approach the Genji is to see it as a mainly psychological narrative, which is the way I approached the tale (monogatari) in my study of the Genji’s cases of spirit possession.1 ­Another way to approach the Genji is to see it as a mainly po­liti­cal narrative of three or four generations seeking by means of courtship to recognize, strengthen, or renounce their genealogical lines and thereby to determine their children’s and grandchildren’s chances for success in the competition to ascend the imperial throne. In recent years, the scholarly focus has shifted away from interpreting the Genji itself2 to examining its canonization through the reception and replacement over centuries of Japa­nese history.3 The principal means by which courtship is conducted and the principal trope it takes in the Genji is the uniquely Japa­nese form of erotic hide-­and-­seek known to Murasaki Shikibu and her contemporaries as kaimami (lit., “looking through a gap in the fence”).4 In its simplest form, kaimami occurs whenever someone (usually a man) observes someone ­else (usually a ­woman) through some material obstruction (fence, hedge, wall, shutter, curtain, screen, fan, or kimono sleeve). Without wanting to trivialize kaimami or to imply that it is merely a game, one can say that there are as many variations of kaimami as there are ways for one p ­ erson to hide and another to seek. Mid-­Heian authors, and Murasaki Shikibu foremost among them, seem to have contemplated all of these possi­ble variations, some charmingly playful, some shockingly violent. This study endeavors to fill a gap that has resulted from insufficient scholarly attention to the interconnectedness between the place of courtship and the literal and figurative movements of its participants. With or without kaimami, or in a hybrid form combining parental guidance and kaimami, courtship requires movements motivated by the participants’ desire to recognize and enhance, obscure, or even terminate their genealogical lines. Through vari­ous intergenerational entanglements, the author of the Genji stages the imbrication of courtship and kinship as an intergenerational drama that preoccupies three or four generations of characters in their genealogical quests. Bearing constantly in mind the Genji’s psychological complexities, I aim in this study to explore anthropological and po­liti­cal approaches to the Genji. I can think of no better strategy than to begin by looking closely at a scene from Chapter 13 (“Akashi”) that features hybrid courtship combining parental arrangement with an individual courtship initiative without kaimami.5

Introduction3

The action of this im­mensely im­por­tant chapter is narrated so clearly, and the imagery is so powerfully vivid, that every reader of the Genji can recall its contents, but a second and a third encounter with the dynamics of “Akashi” propel the reader backward to Genji’s initial po­ liti­cal deprivation and its vindication through sexual transgression and forward to what can be seen as Genji’s diplomatic path to a dual insurance policy for his genealogical ambitions. In fact, this deceptively ­simple chapter brings together so many of the tale’s thematic threads that a distinctive pattern emerges, a pattern repeated in part or as a w ­ hole in many subsequent generations of characters. What happens during Genji’s sojourn in Akashi is well worth some very close attention. In the chapter’s central scene, the eponymous hero, a twenty-­seven-­ year-­old prince who has been demoted to commoner status and thereby removed from the imperial succession, sets out to court Akashi no kimi (see Plate 1). The young ­woman’s appellation refers to the isolated area where she resides, about 50 miles from the capital, Heian-­kyō (modern-­ day Kyōto). He had a carriage decked out most resplendently, and then, deciding that it might seem ostentatious, went on h ­ orse­back instead. The lady’s h ­ ouse was some distance back in the hills. The coast lay in full view below, the bay silver in the moonlight. He would have liked to show it to Murasaki. The temptation was strong to turn his ­horse’s head and gallop on to the city. “Race on through the moonlit sky, O roan-­colored ­horse, And let me be briefly with her for whom I long.” The ­house was a fine one, set in a grove of trees. Careful attention had gone into all the details. In contrast to the solid dignity of the ­house on the beach, this ­house in the hills had a certain fragility about it, and he could imagine the melancholy thoughts that must come to one who lived ­here. There was sadness in the sound of the ­temple bells borne in on pine breezes from a hall of meditation nearby. Even the pine trees seemed to be asking for something as they sent their roots out over the crags. All manner of autumn insects ­were singing in the garden. He looked about him and saw a pavilion finer than the ­others. The cypress door upon which the moonlight seemed to focus was slightly open. (S: 261–262; T: 268–269; 2: 244–246)6

There is much more to this romantic nocturnal episode than seems to be the case when one reads or views it for the first time.7 Like the

4Introduction

intermarried Eu­ro­pean royalty of the premodern era, the nobility of the Heian capital lived in a narrowly confined social world in which everyone was acutely aware of his or her genealogical relationship to everyone ­else. Even as he approaches the h ­ ouse of Akashi no kimi, Genji’s thoughts turn to his wife, Murasaki, who has for nearly three years been waiting in the capital for his return from self-­imposed exile in the remote coastal area of Suma, about 6 miles east of Akashi (near modern-­day Kōbe). As the autumnal light of a nearly full moon, a Buddhist signal of enlightenment, falls through a crack in the slightly open door, Genji reaches a turning point in his life. While still at Suma, he had a dream of reconciliation with his late ­father, the Kiritsubo emperor, whom he had cuckolded with his stepmother, Fujitsubo, ­after his ­father had demoted and removed him from the imperial line (in order to protect him from the anticipated trauma of a succession strug­gle that Genji, the son of a ­woman of relatively low rank, would surely have lost). The Kiritsubo emperor never knew that Fujitsubo’s son, who is, in the narrative pre­sent, about to become the Reizei emperor, was not his, but Genji has, nonetheless, suffered from a guilty sense that his grievance was not severe enough to justify his transgression. The importance of Genji’s dream of reconciliation was meta­ phor­ically emphasized by a storm that nearly swept him away along with his place of exile at Suma. Shortly ­after the tempest, the former governor of Harima, turned lay priest (nyūdō) at Akashi, arrived at Suma. He had had a dream of his own that he wished to impart to Genji. In the Akashi priest’s dream, a suitor comes to seek the hand of his beloved dau­gh­ter, ­ ouse built on a hill, safely away from high tides. who dwells nearby in a h Unsettled by the Akashi priest’s dream, Genji asked, “Could your shore offer me a quiet place to hide?” (T: 260; S: 251; 2: 223). The answer was yes. The Akashi priest provided Genji with one of his splendid ­houses on the beach. Now some five months ­after his arrival in Akashi, Genji is acting upon an allusive note from the Akashi priest: “This night that should not be wasted” (S: 261; T: 268; 2: 244). Intrigued by the Akashi priest’s earlier mention of his dau­gh­ter, Genji had sent her a poem and requested that she visit him. She had refused his request, but her ambitious ­father had written a reply poem for her. Quite taken aback, Genji had sent another poem, and Akashi no kimi had been moved to reply in her own words. The time for courtship has come. Genji has carefully chosen the mode of transportation to reach her. He is ­going up the hill on ­horse­back rather than in the ox-­drawn carriage that would have displayed his high rank and overshadowed her more

Introduction5

modest status (see Plate 1). He is, a­ fter all, a high-­ranking court noble, while she is merely the dau­gh­ter of a former provincial governor (zuryō). Genji has an uneasy suspicion that this status disparity probably explains why his first poem had gone unanswered. Ambivalently overcoming his desire to return to Murasaki in the capital, Genji seizes this opportunity for courtship, which beckons with more than the lure of romantic dalliance and promises much more than a mere secondary marriage. Genji has learned that the Akashi priest is actually the first cousin of his mo­ther, Kiritsubo, who was loved to excess by his ­father despite her lesser rank and who was consequently hounded to death by her rivals at court when Genji was still an infant. Akashi no kimi is, in fact, Genji’s second cousin. Like Kiritsubo, Akashi no kimi has been urged by her ­father into an affair above her station. When Genji responds to the lure of moonlight falling through Akashi no kimi’s slightly ajar cypress door,8 he is taking steps that will bring him into a marital alliance that will result in the birth of a dau­gh­ter who will eventually become empress. In this way, Genji is about to sow the seed of imperial accession in his mo­ther’s lineage. He is able to do so without the kind of transgression that gave birth to his unacknowledged son. And he is able to do this with the dream-­inspired blessings of both the late Kiritsubo emperor and the Akashi priest. It seems that Genji’s visit to Akashi no kimi’s moon pavilion will be genealogically quite momentous. This nocturnal visit to Akashi no kimi is a crucial move in one of several genealogically significant courtships dramatized in The Tale of Genji. Taken together, these courtships drive the narrative in ways that critics of the Genji have sometimes touched upon but never fully explored. They form the vital core of my attempt to map the phenomenon of courtship in the Genji and in a number of other tenth-­and early eleventh-­ century texts that shed light upon the courtship scenes in Murasaki Shikibu’s im­mensely complex masterpiece. Her goal is to weave the phenomenon of courtship into the larger fabric of genealogical quests depicted in three or four generations of fictional characters. For her, courtship is not primarily a ­matter of etiquette and social interaction, as it was in the works of her pre­de­ces­sors and contemporaries, but a m ­ atter of ­intergenerational conflict and reproduction, of knowledge, power, ambitions, and, ultimately, of transgression. I hope to demonstrate that courtship as depicted in the Genji is also an attempt to counteract transgressions, vindicate injustices, and renounce or relink dissociated genealogical lines.

6Introduction

In order to orient readers accompanying me on my mapping expedition, the main purpose of which is to establish points of intersection between courtship and kinship, a very brief outline may be helpful. Part I is concerned with physical and conceptual space. Physically, most of the many courtships dramatized in the Genji (and in Heian-­era texts that precede and shed light on the Genji) take place e­ ither in the environs of the Heian capital or in the residential areas around the imperial palace grounds or within the confines of the palace. ­After describing the city’s site and its grid-­shaped, Chinese-­derived urban design, I look closely at the greater imperial palace (daidairi), the imperial palace (dairi), and the ­women’s quarters (kōkyū) within the dairi. In par­tic­u­lar, I draw some comparisons between female sequestration in the Heian kōkyū and the harem cultures of Ottoman Turkey and Mughal India. In order to give the reader a sense of courtship within the dairi and in a temporary dairi located outside the daidairi, I discuss the ­actual experiences of the two most im­por­tant writers of the Heian period, Sei Shōnagon at the court of Empress Teishi and Murasaki Shikibu at the court of Empress Shōshi. I turn then to domestic architecture and provide a detailed description of the Heian aristocrat’s private residence (the shinden-­zukuri compound) with its courtyard and garden. ­Whether they lived at court or elsewhere, aristocratic men and ­women traveled from place to place in the movable space of ox-­drawn carriages (gissha). Then as now, travel was likely to provide fortuitous opportunities for extempore courtship. Accordingly, I conclude the description of literal space with a taxonomy of the ox-­drawn carriage. Conceptually, courtship took place within the pa­ram­e­ters of a marital system so ­different from ours that Part I includes an account of it. Part II begins with reflections on the analogy between the courtship practice of kaimami and the narration of a tale. These reflections establish criteria for mining the lit­erature before The Tale of Genji.9 ­After a brief discussion of the sole instance of a visual taboo in the fairytale world of Taketori monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), I proceed to analyze selected courtship scenes in mid-­Heian poem tales (uta monogatari), fabricated tales (tsukuri monogatari), random notes (zuihitsu), and diaries (nikki). My main focus is on the early tenth-­century Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise), the most inspiring literary precursor of the Genji, and on Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book), the fullest contemporary account of courtship at the height of the Heian period. Part II includes pictorial repre­sen­ta­tions of the kaimami that are courtship’s climactic moment, as does Part III.

Introduction7

Part III—­the vital center of my study—­investigates interrelated instances of courtship in Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji. What can the mapping of these episodes across the generations (time) and the capital and beyond (space) reveal about courtship as an exploration of the self, its genealogy, and its positioning in the social hierarchy of the court aristocracy? Genji’s amorous adventures pre­sent kaimami as a game and contest as well as a staged per­for­mance. I address the question of the ­woman’s perspective by examining the ways in which the male gaze ­affects Genji’s beloved wife Murasaki during liminal moments of her childhood, maturity, and death. Finally, I venture into the genealogical complexities generated by acts of courtship performed by two third-­generation characters, the highly self-­conscious Kaoru and his dashing friend and rival Niou. Through an analy­sis of their pursuit of vari­ous ­women, I map courtship literally, with geo­graph­i­cal charts, and figuratively, with genealogical diagrams. In the last ten chapters of the Genji, the Uji chapters, courtship takes place in a religious and po­liti­cal context that expresses the characters’ quests for enlightenment, their place in Genji genealogy, and their liberation from the social constraints of the Heian marital system.

This page intentionally left blank

Part I

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 1

Physical Space The Sites of Courtship

I

n the imaginary world of Heian courtship, space matters, which is why this study is conceptualized as mapping courtship. Indeed, space is so im­por­tant in the location of female characters in Genji monogatari that they are often known by their residential location. Rokujō miyasudokoro is an example of a high-­ranking ­woman whose residential name of Rokujō (Sixth Ave­nue) was modified by the informal designation of miyasudokoro (Lady of the Bedchamber), in her case referring to the consort of a crown prince. The spaces that ­matter, in increasing order of importance, are the city and its environs, the temples and shrines of the city’s periphery and center, the Imperial Palace (dairi) within the Greater Imperial Palace (daidairi), and the residence of the ­woman who is the desired object of courtship. What also matters is the road—­that is, the space in between the nobleman’s more or less temporary dwelling and the courted ­woman’s residence. In the normative pattern, the peripatetic courtier, unlike the aristocratic ­woman, cannot easily be fixed in space. The capital of the Heian period (794–1185) was known as Heian-­ kyō (capital of peace and tranquility) or simply miyako (imperial seat); ­later known as Kyōto, it was the imperial seat for a millennium.1 The city, which was built on an ancient cult site,2 was protected from evil influence by the sacred Mount Hiei to the northeast and by Funaoka, a hill directly north of the Greater Imperial Palace, which was “the designated abode of the god Gembu, ‘warrior of darkness.’ ”3 The dairi itself, residence of a divine ruler, was thought to provide an additional degree of protection. Noting Chinese analogues, William H. Coaldrake writes, “The confluence of ancient geomancy with formally articulated Confucian philosophy interposed the palace of the ruler between the malevolent forces of the north and the habitations of ­people in the south over whom benevolent rule was to be exercised.”4

11

12

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

Mapping Heian-­kyō In the Heian period (794–1185), the capital extended 4.5 kilometers (km) from east to west and 5.2 km from north to south. It was divided into the Left Capital (Sakyō) and the Right Capital (Ukyō). Each half of the capital had nine zones ( jō) ­running east-­west and a narrower zone ­running along the northern edge. North-­south avenues divided these zones into eight “quarters” (bō) of about 17 acres each, and each quarter was divided into sixteen “blocks” (machi or chō) mea­sur­ing 120 ­meters on a side. A block could be divided into thirty-­two rectangular “lots” (henushi), each mea­sur­ing 30 by 15 meters, eight lots north to south and four east to west. ­Until relatively recently, the received wisdom was that Heian-­kyō followed the checkerboard layout of ancient Chinese capitals, such as Chang’an,5 Luoyang, or Jiankang (Nanjing).6 More specifically, it was thought that Heian-­kyō followed the Chinese prototype of Chang’an (see Figure 1) during the Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) periods.7 The configuration of the city was also thought to have had Chinese origins. According to the Daoist geomantic principles elucidated by Coaldrake, Chinese capitals and palaces ­were oriented along a north-­south axis, a “spatial hierarchy” that reflected “the princi­ple of correspondence between the terrestrial and the celestial ­orders.”8 Construction of the earliest Japa­nese sovereigns’ palaces, such as the one at Oharida, built in 603, indicates that “the north-­south arrangement of imperial residence and official compound”9 may well have been indigenous rather than Chinese derived, but, in any event, Heian-­ kyō was indeed constructed on a grid,10 whose north-­south axis divided the city into a left and a right side (see Figure 2). The city’s grand Suzaku Ave­nue ran from Rashōmon (gate) at the capital’s southern entrance to Suzakumon (gate) at the southern entrance to the daidairi that extended to the northern border of the capital and enclosed the dairi and administrative buildings. The bisected capital had a large garden, Shinsen’en, on the southeast side of the daidairi. It was a pop­u­lar site for imperial poetry contests and Buddhist rainmaking ceremonies.11 There ­were two markets, one to the west of the north-­south axis and one to the east. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, Chang’an accommodated within its city walls numerous Daoist and Buddhist monasteries as well as Manichean, Nestorian, and Mazdaist churches,12 but Heian-­kyō accommodated only a pair of Buddhist temples: the western (Saiji) and eastern (Tōji). They guarded the south end of the capital, as if to balance the daidairi’s protective presence

Physical Space13

Figure 1. Ch’ang-an, the Sui-­T’ang capital. Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, trans. J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman, originally published in French as Le Monde Chinois in 1972 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, 2nd ed. 1996), 241.

at the extreme north end. Many more Buddhist temples w ­ ere nestled against the hills that surrounded the capital on three sides. Although it may come as a surprise to modern readers accustomed to Heian authors’ detailed accounts of their characters’ journeys inside and outside the capital, extant Heian-­era maps of the city are rare. ­Motivated by what might be called a cartographic imperative, modern urban historians have wondered about the apparent scarcity of visual repre­sen­ta­tions of the ancient capital before the first extant “Compendium

14

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

Figure 2. The Heian capital (imaginary bird’s-­eye view). Kyōto City, ed., ­Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, 1994), 68, fig. 90.

of Fragments” (Shūgaishō) by Tōin Kinkata (1291–1360).13 In the eleventh-­century Kujōke-­bon, designated as a National Trea­sure (kokuhō) as the earliest extant copy of the Engishiki (a compendium of administrative and ceremonial procedures completed in 927 and enacted in 967), there is a map that confirms written reports about the western half of the capital having been deserted in ­favor of the eastern half.14 Commenting on the “tantalizing” fact that cartographic history has “many lacunae,” Mary Elizabeth Berry explains the virtual absence of maps of Heian-­kyō by observing that residents of the city needed “no habitual recourse to maps for spatial understanding.”15 Her explanation makes sense. When cities grow organically, spreading irregularly across uneven terrain, without a preconceived plan, with streets and neighborhoods added as the population grows, the need for a map to facilitate orientation will be strong (and the map will require constant redrawing). However, when an entire city is planned on a grid, detailed mapping is less im­por­tant than carefully mea­sur­ing city blocks (perfectly square for the first time in Heian-­kyō)16 and ­running north-­south and east-­west streets at right ­angles. The inhabitants of such a planned city can easily orient themselves on the grid without consulting a map, ­until departures from the original grid compel a revision. Following imported Daoist rules of complex directional taboos, Heian Japa­nese ­were already skilled in orientation by direction, which was further facilitated by the coordinates

Physical Space15

of ave­nue and numbered street. As Genji and other characters in Genji monogatari travel about in Heian-­kyō, they consult their internalized ­mental maps. Politics and religion, however, suggest a more profound explanation for the Heian reluctance to depict the capital. The lack of extant maps may be rooted in a deep-­seated need to keep the sacred hidden. The off-­axis position of the dairi—­like the de-­centered position of the dai­ dairi in the capital—­may be a related effort to obscure the exact location of the emperor. Although ancient Japan’s capitals ­were not surrounded by walls, the imperial palace was. Since the sacred abodes of the deities outside the capital or on its periphery w ­ ere also set apart from mundane space by fences or walls, the “hidden” emperor is like the hidden or invisible kami.

The Greater Imperial Palace (daidairi) and the Imperial Palace (dairi) In the original plan, Heian-­kyō’s daidairi (see Figure 3) contained the dairi with the imperial residence and the w ­ omen’s quarters, or “rear” palace (kōkyū). The daidairi was surrounded by a moat and an embankment with fourteen gates, three each on the north and south sides, and four each on the east and west sides. It was figuratively referred to as the ninefold enclosure (kokonoe). Inside this vast area of about 400 acres, “nearly 7% of the total space”17 of the capital and almost twice the size of ­today’s Kyōto gyoen (imperial palace grounds), there w ­ ere gardens with streams, recreational areas, open spaces, and walled-in offices and residences. The daidairi can be divided into segments, with the ser­vice buildings (storage, headquarters for military guards and bodyguards, stables) and related offices lining the outer embankments, and with some im­por­ tant ministries and bureaus along the south and east side. The daidairi’s main government buildings ­were largely in the southern part. On the north-­south axis was the walled-in Chōdōin (Court of Government) with the Chinese-­style Daigokuden (Great Audience Hall) and Twelve Halls seating administrators.18 The Chōdōin, with its largely ceremonial function, had fallen into disuse by the tenth c­ entury, as Chinese models of government, ritual, and building style ­were replaced by indigenous equivalents.19 From inside the Burakuden (Banquet Hall) of the equally large, walled-in Burakuin (Court of Abundant Pleasures), just to the west of the Chōdōin, the emperor would participate in “seasonal feasts called

16

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

sechie” and watch sports contests in the “Court of Abundant Pleasures,” but in this location those events, too, w ­ ere rare by the time of the greatest Heian statesman, Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027).20 The smaller compound of the enclosed Daijōkan (Council of State) was located to the east of the Chōdōin and reflected the architecture of shinden-­zukuri.21 In their detailed description, William H. and Helen C. McCullough have warned of idealizing and simplifying this varied and changeable territory: The Palace by day was . . . ​a piquant blend of sophistication, elegance, and decorum on the one hand, and rusticity, shabbiness, and informality on the other. By night, however, a sinister atmosphere prevailed. One tends to imagine the Greater Palace grounds swarming with gallants on their way to and from romantic nocturnal trysts, but it is easy to exaggerate the scope of such wanderings. . . . ​By the beginning of the eleventh ­century, Yōmeimon Gate, east of the Dairi, appears to have been the only outer entrance that was still guarded at night. It was therefore an easy ­matter for desperadoes to penetrate the forbidden precincts ­under cover of darkness, and crimes of vio­lence became an increasing prob­lem as social conditions deteriorated in the surrounding city. . . . ​ The spacious grounds and lofty groves of the Imperial Palace, so pleasant ­under the noonday sun, w ­ ere no place for the fainthearted at night.22

Heian courtiers and their fictional c­ ounter­parts knew this. Timid lovers shied away from the danger, and bold lovers experienced it as an additional enticement. Courtship was influenced as much by the architectural design of Heian-­kyō’s palaces and domestic residences as it was by the spatial configuration of the city. In fact, the peculiarities of residential architecture may have played a greater role than the layout of the gradually transforming city. The lit­erature and visual art of Heian-­kyō made the physical positions of the courting man and the courted w ­ oman vis-­à-­vis their palaces and aristocratic residences figuratively and literally visible. The spatial context of Heian courtship was at least as im­por­tant as the time frame. All efforts not only to maintain imperial buildings but to elevate the imperial presence to astonishing heights ­were, ­until the mid-­Heian period, concentrated on the dairi (see Figure 4). Within this inner enclosure resided the emperor. The dairi was located to the east of the dai­ dairi’s central north-­south axis. This departure from symmetry divided

Figure 3. The Greater Imperial Palace (daidairi). William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2 vols. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 2: n.p., fig. B2.

18

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

official imperial functions performed in front of the Daigokuden of the Chōdōin from the de-­centered ceremonial and private imperial functions in the dairi. This is not to say that the dairi no longer showed its original symmetrical layout or that its central Shishinden (Hall of State) had become dysfunctional but, rather, that some rituals ­were displaced into the imperial residence of the Seiryōden to the northwest of the Shishinden. In other words, within the daidairi there was a clear differentiation between official governmental functions performed in the southern part and courtly ritual and play in the dairi.23 The dairi’s departure from a rigid axial scheme sacrificed magnetic focal power, but the departure was surely more than an expression of a Japa­nese aesthetic preference for a lifestyle associated with digressive or playful movement. It was a manifestation of imperial power, a statement of “a dramatic sense of hierarchy,”24 but—at the same time—an architectural expression of Japa­nese cultural self-­assertion against Chinese influence.25 The plausibility of this interpretation is increased by the fact that the buildings of the dairi ­were constructed from indigenous unpainted wood and shingled roofs, rather than the painted wood (bright red) and tiled roofs of Chinese temples. What­ever the reason, the dairi’s deviation from “perfect symmetry” in the daidairi was an im­por­tant ­factor that greatly influenced the Heian aristocrats’ seemingly erratic, sometimes devious, trajectory as they went about the serious plea­sure of courtship. Although the main building of the dairi was the impressive south-­facing Shishinden, with its spacious graveled South Court (nan’en or nantei), Heian emperors, with some exceptions, preferred the cooler, east-­facing Seiryōden as their private residence.26 As can be seen in Figure 4, the Seiryōden was to the west of the Jijūden, the building originally designed to ­house the emperor (just north of the Shishinden). The emperor received kugyō (se­nior nobles of the third rank and above) and selected tenjōbito of the fourth and fifth ranks in the courtiers’ hall (tenjō no ma) at the south side of the Seiryōden.27 He received his imperial consorts and concubines at the north side of the Seiryōden in the Kokiden and Fujitsubo rooms adjacent to the imperial bedchamber. An institution of supreme importance in the dairi was the ­women’s quarters (kōkyū), sometimes referred to as the “rear palace”28 because its twelve buildings (tsubone) housing imperial consorts and concubines along with their ladies-­in-­waiting ­were symmetrically arranged in the rear of the Jijūden.29 While the kōkyū took up the northern two-­fifths of the dairi, the men’s quarters w ­ ere in the southern three-­fifths, where, aside from the imperial residence, there ­were buildings for bodyguards and vis-

Figure 4. The Imperial Palace (dairi). William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2 vols. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 2: n.p., fig. B3.

20

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

iting nobles, buildings for ceremonies and official events, and a building with a replica of the mirror that was one of the three imperial regalia. The crown prince’s residence, like the emperor’s, changed places over time. Initially to the southeast of the dairi, the crown prince’s quarters came to be ­either within the dairi or in a residence outside the daidairi.30 As the architectural layout of the dairi shows, there was ­little room for gardens between the kōkyū’s twelve shinden-­style buildings. There ­were, however, carefully planned flowering trees, often tubbed, and murmuring brooks ­under the raised corridors that connected the buildings. The institution of the kōkyū, a principal site for courtship among the upper echelons of Heian society, requires close scrutiny. Writing in general about ­women at court, Haruo Shirane calls attention to the imperial consorts as “the cream of the aristocracy,” who “reflect[ed] the bureaucratic hierarchy,” as expressed in “the physical proximity of a consort’s residence to the . . . ​emperor’s living quarters.”31 A number of questions arise. What motivated this concentration of imperial ­women of varying high rank in the immediate vicinity of the emperor’s seat of power? That the emperor wanted the choicest ­women to be near and as exclusively his as possi­ble can be regarded as an imperial prerogative, an expression of his power and authority. The emperor, however, was not the only person to exploit the possibilities of the kōkyū. H. Richard Okada points to the po­liti­cal asset that the “Rear Palace” represented to the fathers of the ­women who populated it. When Fujiwara no Fuhito (659– 720) seized control of the pre-­Heian Yamato kōkyū, he established what was tantamount to “a Fujiwara mono­poly on children born to emperors.” Residence in the kōkyū, where they basked in the emperor’s r­eflected glory, was also desirable from the point of view of highly accomplished ­women. It was considered a great privilege to dwell in the kōkyū as a member of the emperor’s entourage. In addition to the s­ imple pleasures of female sociability, the probability that a w ­ oman might be courted by a man of high rank—or even form a relationship with the emperor himself—­ was an obvious advantage of residence in the kōkyū. Less obvious to those of us who live in what sometimes seems an aggressively unpoetic age is the advantage gained by membership in a highly literary culture. As Okada remarks, the kōkyū was a site of intense “interconnections among reciter, reader, writer, scribe, copier, and text.”32 Advantage was, in a sense, cumulative. Poetry, w ­ hether in the kōkyū or in some other site of intense literary activity, such as the “salon” of the Great Kamo Priestess Senshi north of the Heian capital, always carried the potential for courtship, as it did for Murasaki Shikibu’s brother

Physical Space21

Nobunori courting Lady Chūjō in Senshi’s “salon” and as it also does for the characters of Genji monogatari.33 These ­women’s separation from their families and their seclusion from the outside world also had disadvantages. Norma Field sees the kōkyū as a place of emotional stress: “what, ­after all, are the ­women’s quarters at the palace . . . ​if not the breeding ground of the most intense rivalry conceivable among ­women?”34 Similarly, while conceding that the kōkyū was, indeed, a place that many noblewomen aspired to enter, Charo D’Etcheverry wonders ­whether the reality of its politics, with intrigues accompanying the strug­gle for rank and competitions testing artistic tal­ omen fulfillment.35 In short, living conditions in the ents, brought these w kōkyū must have encouraged hopes and si­mul­ta­neously induced anxi­ eties not experienced by noblewomen who received or avoided male visitors on their own territory, which was usually their natal residence.36 Even the author of Genji monogatari, whom we might imagine as a blissfully productive resident of the kōkyū, had moments when the disadvantages seemed overwhelming. Arguing that the kōkyū’s atmosphere had become utterly conventionalized and regulated, Murasaki Shikibu incorporated herself in her critique as “a decrepit old fossil” responsible for the lack of competitive stimulus within her circle. Nor does she stop with the w ­ omen in her “moribund” kōkyū: “What is more, the nobles these days are spineless; while they are with us they all act with great seriousness, whereas if they w ­ ere somewhere [­else] they would naturally feel the urge to compose elegant poems in praise of the moon or the ­blossoms.”37

Female Sequestration in Heian Japan, Ottoman Turkey, and Mughal India The Heian court with its w ­ omen’s quarters has occasionally been likened to the imperial harem in the Ottoman and Mughal empires, not only because of dynastic politics within a specific architectural setting but because of the Muslim practice of sequestering and veiling, a comparison that can, with the appropriate caution, be illuminating. The sequestration of w ­ omen characteristic of aristocratic Heian culture was not unique. Similar practices w ­ ere found in ancient Athens, where respectable ­women seldom ventured from their homes except to participate in religious ceremonies. As an example of extreme sequestering of ­women, the Ottoman and Mughal harems may shed light on the Heian courtship and reproductive politics set within architectural barriers

22

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

and enclosures, w ­ hether in the dairi or the shinden. For Ottoman harem culture, my specific comparative focus is on the influence of architecture on modes of be­hav­ior that aimed to preserve the dynasty. In his chapter “The Capital and Its Society,” William H. McCullough defined the kōkyū as “the imperial harem u ­ nder the Fujiwara regents.” He carefully modified his harem analogy by noting, “Although the rear palace was by no means freely accessible to any noble, neither was it a sultan’s seraglio jealously guarded and disciplined by a corps of eunuchs. The consorts w ­ ere not prisoners of the palace, and even while there they w ­ ere not isolated from society.”38 Keeping this caveat in mind, it is useful to explore, if only briefly, the similarities and dissimilarities of sequestration in Heian Japan, Ottoman Turkey, and Mughal India. The term “harem” has, in Western usage, often been associated with carnal excesses. This pop­u­lar understanding (and usage) is a far cry from the original meaning of the term that itself points to a confluence of moral content and physical structure. According to Leslie P. Peirce, a historian of ­women in the Ottoman empire, the Arabic root of the term “harem” (ḥarīm) means “to be forbidden or unlawful, and to declare sacred, inviolable, or taboo.” At the same time, a harem is “a sanctuary or a sacred precinct.” It is also “a term of res­pect, redolent of religious purity and honor, and evocative of the requisite obeisance. It is gender-­specific only in its reference to the ­women of a ­family.”39 In Heian imperial court culture, specific spaces ­were similarly bounded and imbued with the sacred and the forbidden. The Ottoman Harem ­After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet II (the Conqueror; r. 1444–1446 and 1451–1481) built two palaces: the Old Palace and the New Palace (in modern times known as Topkapı Palace). The New Palace, which was more im­por­tant, had four courts, with the third court housing, among other structures, the imperial harem.40 This enormous architectural pro­ject, which required the participation of numerous architects, was overseen by Mehmet II himself. The Topkapı Palace was a walled-in city, within a city, spectacularly sited overlooking the Sea of Marmara, the Golden Horn, and the Bosporus. As the architectural historian Gülru Necipoğlu has noted, the generous “trapezoidal complex”41 with open spaces, lavishly decorated buildings, and hanging gardens was designed for imperial seclusion, “made necessary by the sacredness of the sultan, not for his safety.”42 Unlike the emperor in his dairi, the sultan was not divine, but he was considered

Physical Space23

“God’s shadow on Earth.”43 As military campaigns became less frequent, Ottoman rulers secluded themselves in the vicinity of their harems, acting on the princi­ple that the “degree of seclusion from the common gaze ­ oman of served as an index of the status of the man as well as the w means.”44 With the rapid growth of the Ottoman empire, sultans became increasingly aloof. Süleyman I (the Magnificent, r. 1520–1566) refused to speak to ambassadors and imposed a custom of silence in his presence. Henceforth communication required sign language, which greatly frustrated foreign ambassadors.45 Necipoğlu comments, “The princi­ple of silence prescribed by Süleyman had almost transformed the sultan into a mute idol. What had initially been conceived as a device to  enhance the monarch’s dignity began to turn into a binding straitjacket.”46 To avert the danger of the sultan’s complete invisibility, there ­were “carefully staged per­for­mances . . . ​that turned the iconic sultan, accompanied by thousands of richly dressed and hierarchically ordered courtiers, administrators, and slave soldiers, into a showpiece for the populace.”47 That degree of public exposure was strictly denied the w ­ omen of the harem. In contrast to noblewomen in Heian culture, who participated as concealed spectators in some public ceremonies and pro­ cessions, ­harem ­women ­were not to be heard or even to be studied according to Muslim propriety. An air of secrecy enveloped harem culture that spellbound many foreign observers as much as it frustrated them.48 During the sixteenth c­ entury, the harem expanded in size and importance. In order to accommodate his favorite Hürrem (also known as Roxelana, a Ruthenian [from modern-­day Ukraine]), who moved from the Old to the New Palace upon her unpre­ce­dented marriage to the sultan, Süleyman I rebuilt the preexisting harem that u ­ ntil then had ­housed only slave girls, servants, and black eunuchs. Luigi Bassano observed in about 1537 that “Hürrem lived in the harem with one hundred ladies-­ in-­waiting . . . ​she never let herself be seen, and only went out at night, in a covered coach.”49 When Hürrem’s son became sultan as Selim II (r. 1566–1574), he not only visited the harem but also slept there, unlike his ­father.50 The similarity of the kōkyū and harem became more pronounced with the incorporation of the sultan’s living quarters into the Third Court harem ­under Murad III (r. 1574–1595). There was clearly an architectural analogy between the harem and the dairi, where the emperor had his quarters in close proximity—­although not within—­his ­women’s inner or rear palace.

24

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

There w ­ ere, of course, major differences between the kōkyū and the harem. Unlike Heian noblemen, “Heian emperors and their male descendants married freely outside the clan,”51 but did not marry foreign ­women with d ­ ifferent religious beliefs. By contrast, Ottoman “sultans’ alliances ­were both ethnically and religiously exogamous,”52 and when the Ottoman empire had grown so large that “there ­were no rulers with whom the Ottoman ­family desired to be allied,” slave concubines provided offspring for the dynasty.53 The w ­ omen in the kōkyū ­were not remotely similar to slave concubines. They w ­ ere high-­ranking daughters of the nobility. They could move about freely. And there was certainly no rule of silence at the Heian court. Contrary to the pop­u­lar image, “the [Ottoman] imperial harem was more like a nunnery in its hierarchical or­ga­ni­za­tion and the enforced chastity of the great majority of its members.”54 The harem may well have been more sexually repressive than a nunnery. Old ­women ­were posted in regular intervals between each group of ten slave girls to prevent lesbian affairs.55 White eunuchs originally guarded the sultan’s male and female harems, but in the ­women’s harem they ­were replaced by black eunuchs in the reign of Murad III to ward off potential male intruders, especially ­after Ottoman princes ­were no longer sent to the provinces only to be strangled—­all but one—­upon their return. They ­were expected to live in the harem but ­were forbidden to ­father children. In short, as Necipoğlu observes, “Dynastic continuity and procreation took pre­ce­ dence over sexuality in defining w ­ omen’s roles in the harem of the Topkapı Palace, which gradually evolved from a small residence for slave girls to one headed by the sultan’s favorite wife, and finally to a spacious familial domain controlled by the Queen Mo­ther, followed by the royal wives and the chief matron.”56 With regard to the much rumored sexual promiscuity of the harem, the Heian court no doubt scored higher than the Ottoman harem. For one thing, the sultan was the sole recipient of sexual favors, whereas the Heian emperor in effect competed with high-­ranking noblemen with access to the kōkyū. The sultan was able to view the artistic per­for­mances of the most beautiful ­women available and make his se­lection according to his taste, whereas the emperor was presented with a number of (Fujiwara) noblemen’s daughters to eye as potential principal consort or, a­ fter the eleventh ­century, two empresses (kōgō and chūgū) and secondary consorts (nyōgo, kōi, miyasudokoro), not to mention casual visits from the hundreds57 of refined noblewomen in the kōkyū.

Physical Space25

The Mughal Harem In certain ways, the world of Akbar’s Mughal court was closer to the Heian ideal than was the Ottoman palace. Although Akbar (1542– 1605), the third Mughal emperor, did not see himself as divine, he saw himself as a descendant of the prophet Muhammed. Akbar chose to emulate “the sacredness of the Prophet’s f­ amily” by creating “the holy empire of Akbar” on the foundation of “the purity and sanctity attached to the notion of the familial.”58 He created a haram and assigned his imperial ­women “veiled status, and the carefully segregated allocation of ­women’s quarters [became] a vital hallmark of the grand empire.”59 The haram was more similar to the Heian kōkyū than the Ottoman harem in that it was overseen by “chaste ­women” (rather than eunuchs).60 The encyclopedic definition of Akbar’s haram includes not only “ ‘those ­behind the curtain, not to be seen,’ ” but “ ‘Mecca,’ ‘Medina,’ ‘the area around the Ka‛ba,’ and ‘the garden of the Prophet Muhammed.’ ”61 Ruby Lal notes that Akbar’s sequestered imperial ­women ­were made sacred by their “invisibility”62 and their association with Muhammed’s realm: “The or­ ga­ni­za­tion of an exclusive ­women’s zone and of ­women’s sacredness was in line with Akbar’s new regime. Despite the declared physical demarcation of the public/outer (court) and private/inner (haram) spaces for the first time, there was much movement, spatially, and in the carry­ing out of ­different public and private activities.”63 Just as movement for Heian noblewomen was not restricted to the inside of the daidairi, so Mughal court ­women, too, could leave the confined sacred spaces. Lal highlights a pilgrimage to Mecca (1575–1578) or­ga­nized by Akbar’s aunt as a stunning expedition by a group of ­women out of the haram—­with Akbar’s blessing.64 She concludes: “Although ­Akbar’s haram was secluded, sacred, and even inaccessible to most ­people, it was by no means closed off from the world, unconcerned with politics, or lacking power or interest in public affairs.”65 Heian noblewomen are also noted for their not infrequent excursions and pilgrimages, albeit less arduous ones.

Sei Shōnagon at Empress Teishi’s Court Insights into the relationships formed within the kōkyū can be garnered from historical rec­ords like A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari) and from literary works, such as diaries, poem tales, and ­monogatari, but no source surpasses Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book

26

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

(Makura no sōshi). Sei Shōnagon (966?–1017?) was the dau­gh­ter of ­Kiyohara no Motosuke (908–990), a scholar, a poet, and a compiler of an imperial poetry anthology known as Gosenshū (951). She entered the court of Emperor Ichijō some time between 990 and 99366 and served his empress (Teishi or Sadako) at court u ­ ntil she died in early 1001. Most of this time was spent in the dairi.67 The year 1000 is a pivotal year not only for po­liti­cal reasons but also for spatial changes concerning the kōkyū. ­After the death in 995 of his bro­th­ers, the regents (kanpaku) Michitaka and Michikane, Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027) managed to oust and exile Empress Teishi’s ambitious brother Korechika (974–1010). In 999, with the help of his sister Senshi, the mo­ther of Emperor Ichijō, Michinaga installed his dau­gh­ ter Shōshi (or Akiko, 988–1074) as imperial consort. On 1000.II.25, Senshi appointed Teishi as kōgō and Shōshi as chūgū (alternate terms for “empress,” chūgū referring to the more recently appointed), thereby creating a new system of two empresses ­under one emperor.68 When Teishi died in childbirth early in 1001, the kōkyū became Shōshi’s. Now effectively the most power­ful noble, Michinaga proceeded to bring the court ­under his control by providing imperial residences—­and sites for aristocratic courtship—­outside the dairi. How did the difference in location affect courtship? Scholarship on courtship in general and kaimami in par­tic­u­lar has hitherto focused on the parallel mechanisms of kaimami and narrating monogatari and on the relationships between the seer and the seen, often in terms of gender and the complex of the “male gaze.” ­Little attention has been paid to architecture and the spatial aspects of courtship. As a lady-­in-­waiting (nyōbō) to the empress, Sei Shōnagon normally resided with her majesty in the Gyōkasha or Umetsuboden (Plum Court), so named ­after the red and white flowering plum trees on the east and west side of the garden.69 Empress Teishi also frequented the Kokiden apartment in the emperor’s Seiryōden (see Figure 4).70 Yet Sei Shōnagon was not bound to stay constantly at her empress’s side. She occasionally went on excursions and pilgrimages and periodically returned home (wherever that was),71 but her movements took place mostly within the dairi and the daidairi. Sei Shōnagon’s unorthodox work about life at court during the last de­cade of the tenth ­century is the Pillow Book, perhaps begun as early as 994, but no ­later than 996, when, during Korechika’s exile, Sei Shōnagon consoled the empress by hinting that beautiful paper had once saved her from depression, upon which she received paper from the

Physical Space27

empress.72 Since good paper was in short supply, even at court, Sei Shōnagon must have been pleased to have a supply for her notebooks.73 Composed of “random notes” (zuihitsu; lit. “following the brush”), the Pillow Book constitutes a genre that influenced many subsequent writers. Its more than 300 sections of varying length and style, from crisp sketches and provocatively diverse lists to fully developed episodes, are a trea­sure trove of information and insight. As a writer, Sei Shōnagon was amazingly protean. She could be h ­ umble or haughty, flexible or stubborn. Always surprising, she could be mean-­spirited and ridiculing, unsparingly critical and self-­critical, ingratiatingly submissive to authority and rebellious, brilliantly creative and poetic. She could be as precise as an ethnographer and as inspiring as a romantic dreamer. She mercilessly lashed out at what­ever was ugly or distasteful to her, and she showed l­ittle compassion for common folk and their hardships.74 Yet it is in the face of just such unsparing, sometimes cruel outbursts that she astonishes all the more with her stunning descriptions of things, such as breathtakingly beautiful robes, dazzling snow, or a pretty child eating strawberries.75 The author may have been twenty-­seven years old when she started to serve the seventeen-­year-­old empress, who was four years the emperor’s se­nior. From the reverence that she had for the imperial ­couple, one would never suspect their youthfulness, but rank and status far outweighed mere temporal se­niority. Sei Shōnagon was privileged to give her advice to the young empress, who, judging from some of the episodes related in the Pillow Book, greatly admired Sei Shōnagon’s literary expertise. Their playful exchanges w ­ ere tantalizingly close to romantic courtship.76 The empress treated her lady-­in-­waiting like a close companion, even an intimate friend, while Sei Shōnagon spoke her mind forcefully (but with all due res­pect). Clearly, Empress Teishi’s court would not have become known as a forum for the composition and appreciation of poetry and lit­erature without the idiosyncratic presence of her talented writer-­in-­residence. Despite her proverbially sharp tongue and capacity for acerbic criticism, Sei Shōnagon was an enthusiast of life at court. For her, it was a vibrant cultural environment, confined in space but not so immured that it was impossible to venture outside the walls. There was constant motion as se­nior nobles and high-­ranking courtiers came and went, engaging in ­music and poetry and looking about with an eye to possi­ble love affairs with the ­women of the court. The Pillow Book should put to rest any notion that Heian noblewomen ­were immobilized victims of a carceral environment. In “The

28

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

­ omen’s Apartments along the Gallery,” Sei Shōnagon describes her livW ing space as “particularly pleasant.” What delights her most is the open-­ and-­shut flexibility of the architectural arrangement: “When one raises the upper part of the small half-­shutters, the wind blows in extremely hard; it is cool even in summer, and in winter snow and hail come along with the wind, which I find agreeable.” She notes, without lamenting the fact, that the presence of some naughty page boys makes it necessary to “stay hidden ­behind our screens and curtains.” She communicates a fine sense of the men’s and ­women’s positions and their activities in the compartmentalized architectural space within the hosodono that Ivan Morris generously translates as “apartments,” and Helen Craig McCullough sees more claustrophobically as “cubicles.”77 These compartments within the hosodono ­were part of an especially wide corridor used as ­women’s living quarters in the palace (NKBT, 19: 110: uchi no tsubone).78 Contrary to the impression that sequestering was unpleasant if not oppressive, Sei Shōnagon ­here claims that the concealment had considerable charms for w ­ omen, perhaps similar to the thrill experienced by children who hide from adults and screech with joy when they are discovered. “Of course we must always be on the alert when we are staying in these apartments,” she admits. “Even during the day we cannot be off our guard, and at night we have to be especially careful.” And then she adds, as if intending to jolt, provoke, or even horrify her contemporaries, “But I rather enjoy all this.” Or did she articulate emotions that other sequestered ­women felt but w ­ ere too timid to admit? Far from expressing anxiety about the intrusive “male gaze,” she welcomed the prospect of courtship—­whether by a man’s direct “tapping” on a door “with just a single fin­ger”79 or by kaimami. Sei Shōnagon seems, at such moments, to view courtship as a game played by two relatively equal players. It is tantalizingly impossible to know how many other aristocratic ­women shared her view. This boldness is also evident in “When I Make Myself Imagine,” in which Sei Shōnagon appears to overturn the received wisdom about ­sequestering at court. She implies that the imperial palace was a place where the deplorable requirement of female modesty valid elsewhere can be suspended with impunity, and she wishes for other w ­ omen to experience her way of court life. These sentiments seem to contradict the view expressed above about the necessity and the plea­sure of hiding ­behind screens. Yet what seems to be a contradiction is merely two ­different forms of be­hav­ior at ­different moments in d ­ ifferent social contexts, even within the imperial court. Sei Shōnagon’s portrayal of sequestered ­women

Physical Space29

is very ­different from the frozen tableau we encounter in more conventional depictions. She emphasizes the ­women’s freedom to move about and to indulge in what might properly be called “the female gaze.”80 I cannot bear men who believe that w ­ omen serving in the Palace are bound to be frivolous and wicked. Yet I suppose their prejudice is understandable. ­After all, w ­ omen at Court do not spend their time hiding modestly ­behind fans and screens, but walk about, looking openly at ­people they chance to meet. Yes, they see everyone face to face, not only ladies-­in-­waiting like themselves, but even Their Imperial Majesties (whose august names I hardly dare mention), High Court Nobles, se­ nior courtiers, and other gentlemen of high rank. In the presence of such exalted personages the ­women in the Palace are all equally brazen, ­whether they be the maids of ladies-­in-­waiting, or the relations of Court ladies who have come to visit them, or house-­keepers, or latrine-­cleaners, or ­women who are of no more value than a roof tile or a pebble. Small won­der that the young men regard them as immodest! Yet are the gentlemen themselves any less so? They are not exactly bashful when it comes to looking at the great p ­ eople in the Palace. No, everyone at Court is much the same in this res­pect.81

Sequestering within the confines of the palace was enough, paradoxically, to allow not only w ­ omen’s greater visibility than elsewhere but their liberty—­along with men’s—to look at everyone, from the emperor down. Edith Sarra has commented insightfully on this “radical” section portraying “the imperial palace as a kind of h ­ ouse of mirrors where neither gender nor any par­tic­u­lar class monopolizes the pleasures and risks of seeing and being seen.”82 In other words, Sei Shōnagon’s critique of men’s critique expresses her desire for equal rights of self-­expression. These men, she argues, with remarkable equanimity, had better grasp that the palace is an exceptional place, where be­hav­ior that is normally forbidden occurs with no punishment more severe than foolish disparagement. As Sarra notes, “Erotic desire between men and w ­ omen becomes a game for skilled players on both sides in The Pillow Book, with the ­woman playing as active a role as her male counterpart.”83 In this environment, kaimami was not the only way to begin or pursue a courtship. As privacy in the buildings at court was provided largely by movable partitions rather than solid walls, a unique courtly etiquette evolved. Neither secrecy on the part of the male observer nor pretense on the part of the observed female was required. Affairs took place with

30

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

the noblewoman’s female attendants just b ­ ehind her curtains, while her lover’s attendants waited on the veranda or the stairs to remind him to leave at dawn, so as not to be discovered. If there had to be secrecy, it was reserved for relatives and rivals. In “To Meet One’s Lover,” Sei Shōnagon paints a picture-­book idyllic summer courtship scene. Summer was the preferred season for her because of the open vista into “the garden in the cool morning air.”84 But not all trysts are as romantic, for in “A Lover’s Visit,” the man is interested only in chatting and bores his attendants impatiently waiting outside for their master.85 Sei Shōnagon makes it abundantly clear that place matters. The court was a privileged space where many of the conventional rules of etiquette ­were suspended. But what happened when w ­ omen left court once again to live at their natal residences? Such w ­ omen ­were considered “lacking in feminine grace” because of having “displayed their faces to all and sundry during their years at Court.”86 Even temporary departures from the privileged space of the court ­were problematic for Sei Shōnagon. In “When a Court Lady Is on Leave,” she explains that a leave of absence from court did not always mean staying with her ­family, which would have kept her out of danger. She sometimes stayed with someone ­else entirely, which opened up opportunities for men to approach her surreptitiously, or with her in-­laws, “the most awkward of all, since one is always worrying about what they are g­ oing to think.” She adds, “I imagine that it must also be difficult to stay with an elder brother.”87 An example of this laxer etiquette occurred in 996, when Fujiwara no Tadanobu (967–1035), a prominent court official admired for his ­expertise in ritual and excellence in poetry, announced a visit to Sei Shōnagon, but he arrived at her residence only to find her gone. Knowing full well that he wanted to see her, she had accepted an invitation to spend the night with the empress’s sister in the kōkyū’s Jōganden (see Figure 4). The next day, Tadanobu returns to complain about her treatment of him. In “On the Twenty-­Fifth of the Second Month,” Sei Shōnagon describes the scene in which she meets him ­behind her blinds in the Ume­ tsubo quarters (see Figure 4), with the plum blossoms “just beginning to scatter. . . . ​The sun brilliantly lit up the ­whole scene—­a scene that I should have liked everyone to view.” But, at age thirty, she feels old. Convinced that she “quite spoiled the beauty of the scene,” she refuses to allow her distressed suitor the proximity he seeks. Her account of the episode consists largely of insightful reflections on architectural space: “It occurred to me that ­people who had noticed him from the outside must have wondered what sort of delightful ­woman could be hidden by the screens,

Physical Space31

while those who ­were in the back of the room and could see me from ­behind would never have imagined that there was such a splendid gentleman on the veranda.”88 Their tête-­à-­tête, with screens separating them, is not unusual—at least not at court. What is unusual is that Sei Shōnagon subsequently meditated on the constraints on courtship even in the privileged heterocosm of the dairi. Meditation led her to indulge in a fantasy of freedom from all supervision. What I ­really like is a ­house where no one cares about the gate ­either in the ­middle of the night or at dawn, and where one is ­free to meet one’s visitor, ­whether he be an Imperial Prince or a gentleman from the Palace. In the winter one can stay awake together all night with the lattices wide open. When the time comes for him to leave, one has the plea­sure of watching him playing upon his flute as he goes; if a bright moon is still hanging in the sky, it is a par­tic­u­lar delight. ­After he has disappeared, one does not go to bed at once, but stays up, discussing the visitor with one’s companions, and exchanging poems; then gradually one falls asleep.89

Murasaki Shikibu at Empress Shōshi’s Court Murasaki Shikibu served Emperor Ichijō’s empress (Shōshi or Akiko) as a lady-­in-­waiting and learned tutor-­companion from 1005 or 1006 ­until at least 1014, if not 1025.90 The kōkyū that she knew was a place quite ­different from the one that Sei Shōnagon had known just a few years earlier. ­Until the disastrous fire of 999, the court was mainly in the dairi, but the imperial palace was moved on the many occasions when fire made the dairi uninhabitable. Emperor Ichijō’s court left the dairi temporarily ­after the fire of 999 and permanently ­after the fire of 1005. His “temporary” palace or “town palace” (sato dairi) was established at a residence south of Ichijō Ave­nue and east of Ōmiya Ave­nue that Empress Senshi, the emperor’s Fujiwara mo­ther, had inherited.91 The emperor ­became known by the location of this residence on Ichijō (First Ave­nue), called the Ichijō-in (Ichijō Palace). (­After Emperor Ichijō’s death in 1011, his court moved to the Biwa residence north of Konoe and east of Karasuma.)92 It is too s­ imple, however, to say that the court at which Murasaki Shikibu served was located at the Ichijō-in (see Figure 6). Sometimes it was elsewhere, as at the time of an imperial birth. This was the case, for example, when Empress Teishi moved to the Nijō-in to give birth there

32

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

to Princess Shūshi in 997.XII.16 or to the ­house of Taira no Narimasa to deliver Prince Atsuyasu in 999.XI.7 and Princess Bishi in 1001.XII.15.93 These moves by the pregnant empress and her entourage ­were very likely motivated by po­liti­cal as well as religious considerations. On the one hand, they preserved the palace from the pollution of childbirth; on the other, they removed the empress from the direct control of the emperor and enhanced the influence of the Fujiwara f­ amily, who seemed for a long period almost to monopolize the production of imperial consorts. Privileged to witness the delivery of Empress Shōshi’s first child, Prince Atsuhira (1008–1036; ­later Emperor Go-­Ichijō;  r. 1016–1036), Murasaki Shikibu wrote about the event in her Murasaki Shikibu nikki (Murasaki Shikibu Diary). Although it is uncertain ­whether she was commissioned by Fujiwara no Michinaga to rec­ord his dau­gh­ter’s delivery at the grand Tsuchimikado-­dono (south of Tsuchimikado and west of Kyōgyoku; see Figure 6),94 she was pre­sent at the childbirth and recorded in her diary the medley of emotions, ranging from hysteria to ecstasy, that she and the other ­women experienced. She hints that Michinaga exploited the move from the sato dairi and the occasion of childbirth in order to make amorous advances to her. She says ­little about this, but, ­after the many elaborate ceremonies associated with the birth, Murasaki Shikibu returned with the empress and her entourage to the Ichijō-in, where she was “privately employed by Michinaga to serve his dau­gh­ter.”95 Despite the backbiting, intrigues, drunken brawls, and pranks (e.g., stripping some court ladies of their robes),96 Murasaki Shikibu describes the kōkyū as a place of tremendous excitement, unparalleled beauty, and bold wit. It was also a place where one’s reputation could be jeopardized if proper etiquette was not observed. She makes this painfully clear when she reviews her life in the kōkyū from the perspective of a trip home: “While aware of my own insignificance, at least I had managed to avoid for the time being anything that might have been considered shameful or ­ ere I was, tasting the bitterness of life to the full.” unbecoming. And yet h Much as she is concerned about her reputation, she longs to be with the “constant companions at court for whom I felt a certain affection, those with whom I could exchange secrets, and those with whom I happened to be friendly at the pre­sent time.” She wonders if she has lost her ironic distance from the kōkyū: “Had I then indeed succumbed to life at court?”97 At the Ichijō-in, she appears to resent the fact that one major risk of falling from grace was to become fully visible to ­others. She describes the splendor of the Gosechi dancers and worries, as did Sei Shōnagon,98 about their exposure by torchlight. She worries still more about the even

Physical Space33

greater visibility of the younger dancing girls: “What with all the nobles among the spectators and the girls allowed not so much as a fan to hide ­behind in broad daylight, I was terribly concerned for them: they may have been quite able to deal with the situation both in terms of rank and intelligence, but I was convinced they must be daunted by the pressures of such constant rivalry. Rather old-­fashioned of me, perhaps.” But then, an attendant returns a fan by awkwardly throwing it, and her uncourtly act prompts Murasaki Shikibu “to fantasize” about becoming “inured to shamefulness” and brazen enough “to show myself openly to ­others.”99 Murasaki Shikibu puts her fin­ger ­here on a raw nerve. How much visibility is appropriate within the somewhat relaxed rules of the kōkyū? This was a pressing question when sensual, exuberant events such as the Gosechi dances charmed the audience and seduced them into forgetting themselves. Murasaki Shikibu’s fantasy of “shamefulness” underscores the dilemma faced by all ­women of the kōkyū. To become too visible is to risk dishonor and the loss of reputation. To retreat to complete invisibility ­behind partitions, screens, veils, and fans is to remove oneself not only from the perils of courtship but also from its enchanting possibilities. This thought may or may not have influenced Murasaki Shikibu’s own be­hav­ior at court, but it certainly seems to have motivated the courtship be­hav­ior of many of the princi­ple characters in her Genji monogatari.

Residential Architecture (shinden-­zukuri) One renowned Japa­nese architect has claimed that there was no such term as “architecture”100 in Japan ­until fairly recently because “no poetic of architecture had evolved out of a synthesis of craft and art.”101 This may be true in the sense that premodern Japa­nese did not consciously reflect on the symbolic significance of the design of their sacred and secular structures, but temples and palaces ­were obviously more than simply protection from the weather. Architectural design was, at the very least, an instinctive expression of what was felt to be culturally appropriate. ­After all, Heian Japa­nese had no equivalent to the modern ­so­cio­log­i­cal concept of “fashion,” but the elaborate dress of aristocratic men and w ­ omen was culturally significant to the point of being an ­obsession.102 Regardless of w ­ hether Heian Japa­nese had a term for architecture, they unquestionably gave thought to the design of their ­palaces, shrines, temples, and residences. We must, too, if we hope to understand Heian courtship.

34

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

More specifically, we must understand the shinden style of construction exemplified by Fujiwara no Michinaga’s Tsuchimikado-­dono built in 991 (see Plate 2).103 Murasaki Shikibu’s diary begins with her famously splendid description of this luxurious villa, the site of the birth of Michinaga’s first grandson: “As autumn deepens, the Tsuchimikado mansion looks indescribably beautiful. The trees by the lake and grasses by the stream take on their own individual colors which, intensifying in the eve­ ning light, make voices in ceaseless prayer sound all the more impressive. A cool breeze ­gently stirs, and throughout the night the endless murmur of the stream blends with the sonorous chanting.”104 The diarist subtly merges the sounds of the w ­ ater with the chanting of the Buddhist monks to ensure the safe delivery of Empress Shōshi’s first child. Murasaki Shikibu was not memorializing a unique event. The Tsuchimikado-­ dono often served Michinaga as a birthplace for his grandchildren. Coaldrake goes so far as to say that it was the de facto imperial palace, just as Michinaga was de facto emperor, adding: “Three emperors [Go-­Ichijō, Go-­Suzaku, and Go-­Reizei] ­were to be born at Tsuchimikado-­dono and it was within its precincts that Fujiwara daughters ­were betrothed to emperors.”105 It was also the birthplace of Michinaga and his wife Rinshi’s daughters Shōshi, Kenshi, and Ishi, all of whom became empresses. Since the Fujiwara had aspirations to the throne and practiced their marriage politics accordingly, they ­were motivated to conceive of their mansions as impressive replicas of the imperial palace. According to Coaldrake, “In the era of their dominance in the eleventh ­century, the Fujiwara ­were to be responsible for the building of some twenty new palaces and mansions. During the same years the imperial ­family built none.”106 If the Fujiwara needed an excuse for their architectural extravagance, they needed only to note that a Heian aristocrat’s residential complex had to accommodate the imperial presence during the frequent periods of rebuilding the imperial palace a­fter fires. Of course, its layout and buildings needed to reflect imperial taste and grandeur. Historians of architecture have hypothesized that Heian aristocratic residences ­were based on the religious architecture as well as on the layouts of residences within the Heian inner Imperial Palace (dairi). Shinden architecture was influenced by Shintō shrines and Buddhist temples.107 Considering this, Alexander Soper speculates that the Tsuchimikado-­ dono “could have belonged as well to a Buddhist hall of worship.”108 Small won­der. Since they believed themselves to be living in a degenerate age approaching the Buddhist Latter Days of the Law (mappō),

Physical Space35

they would presumably have wanted to enhance their chances of entry into the Pure Land of Amida by constructing their villas for l­ater conversion into Pure Land Temples. This was most famously demonstrated in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, when he transformed the Uji villa (see Figure 5) that he inherited from his ­father, Michinaga, into the Hōōdō (Phoenix Hall) of the Byōdō-in. In other words, the Tsuchimikado-­dono illustrates not merely the similarity but the virtual exchangeability of religious, imperial, and aristocratic residential architecture.109 This should not be surprising. Developments in the architectural layouts of the imperial palace, Shintō shrines, Buddhist temples, and the daidairi all contributed to the evolution of the nobility’s residential shinden style.110 Although the shinden style has its roots in the period of cultural borrowing from China, it did not flower u ­ ntil the mid-­Heian period, when a planned embassy to Tang-­period China was abruptly terminated in 894, and Chinese influence was replaced by indigenous aesthetic principles. Although the prototypical shinden complex can be said to be Chinese in layout in that it contains regular structures arranged symmetrically, it developed in an increasingly asymmetrical Japa­nese manner.111 Like the Ise Shrine, like Buddhist temples, like the residences of the daidairi, the aristocratic shinden was a post-­and-­beam structure surrounded by a wall. Typically, this outer wall contained and protected a courtyard, a garden, and a pond as well as the mansion and a number of connected or ancillary buildings. The buildings had wood-­plank floors and hip-­and-­gable roofs (iri-­moya) that ­were usually plank or, for the highest-­ranking court nobles, shingled with cypress bark (hiwadabuki). ­ ere endowed with deep eaves to shield the interior from The roofs w direct sunlight and from rain. In large estates on one-­block lots called machi or chō (ca. 120 by 120 meters or 14,400 square meters or 3.56 acres),112 the mansion was connected to matching wings (tai no ya) in the east and west, and sometimes in the north, by two covered corridors (watadono, watadonorō, or watarō) ­running parallel to each other. The southernmost corridors ­were covered but without walls between the pillars. Suggestively called transparent or “see-­through” corridors (sukiwatadono; also suiwatadono),113 they encouraged, or warned of, the practice of peeping (sukimi). Their northernmost ­counter­parts ­were not only covered but also walled, so that they could be used as very private living spaces. Corridors u ­ nder which ­water flowed from a spring in the north into the pond in the south garden ­were arched like a bridge (watadono no sorihashi). Residents reached the rivulet-­spring pavilion (izumidono) and the fishing pavilion (tsuridono)

36

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

via long narrow buildings (rō) incorporating an inner gate (chūmon). These chūmonrō flanked the garden and pond with its miniature island and bridge to the south of the shinden’s courtyard. The entire structure was elevated from the ground to allow the airflow to cool and dry its wood and paper. The garden and pond hindered access to the shinden from the south, and this had enormous consequences for the Heian courtier who sought to enter the interior of the shinden. Although the ideal of the shinden complex remained symmetrical ­until the medieval period,114 the complex became asymmetrical when the pond to the south of the courtyard was constructed to block access from the south. Acknowledging this, Arata Isozaki refers to “the asymmetrical arrangement of shinden-­zukuri structures surrounding their irregularly ­shaped ponds.”115 Asymmetry meant that formal entrance into the shinden complex was normally through the east or west gate (nikkamon; gekkamon), followed by passage through the inner gate (chūmon) of the corresponding east or west rō. The south steps (kizahashi) and the chūmon ­were rarely used to enter the shinden proper. Instead, the carriage entrance and the shinden wing provided the major route of entry. In residences receiving visitors from the east (tōrei), public (hare) space shifted from the center to the east; for west-­receiving (seirei) shinden, public space was in the west. ­Whether visitors arrived from the east or from the west, they passed through a roofed gallery or an attached wing of the shinden and from there to the open veranda (sunoko) that surrounded the shinden on all four sides. From the veranda, they had access to the hisashi, a one-­span or ken-­ wide116 corridor or gallery that also surrounded the shinden on all four sides (see Plate 3).117 The hisashi was separated from the veranda by latticed shutters (shitomi), e­ ither single panel from floor to ceiling (ichimai kōshi) or double panel (nimai kōshi), whose upper half, when lifted up for a fresh breeze, formed a ceiling over the veranda.118 These shutters resemble the Muslim world’s jali or jaali, marble or wooden screens elaborately carved in geometric patterns, but jali are fixed to the building and cannot be removed or raised. Their apertures do entice voyeurism and, in that sense, function like the holes and gaps in shitomi. In the visual arts as in lit­erature, scenes of Heian courtship frequently feature the nobleman e­ ither standing on the veranda or inside the hisashi peeking through an opening in the shutters, blinds, or sliding doors. The Indiana University Art Museum’s late seventeenth-­century six-­ panel folding screen (byōbu) by the Kano School depicting Prince Niou’s

Physical Space37

kaimami of Ukifune at Uji (see my discussion in Chapter 8 and Plate 10) is a classic visual example from Genji monogatari.119 Here the voyeur, having entered the compound through a reed fence on the west and moved up on the veranda, has become part of the architectural framework. Although one would not know it from the painting (but for the focal lamp), the hour is late, and, in order to see anything in the darkness, the prince had to move as close as possi­ble to the shitomi. Aside from these latticed shutters, there ­were also doors (tsumado) on the sides of the hisashi that could open in ­either direction: into the hisashi or out onto the veranda. Sometimes the division between the hisashi and the sunoko was marked by fine bamboo blinds (misu) or cloth hangings (kabeshiro). An elegant railing (kōran) ran along the sunoko and the five-­stepped staircase (kizahashi) on the south side. Except for members of the nobleman’s extended ­family, visitors ­were unlikely to be admitted to the area surrounded by the hisashi. This was the moya, the innermost and most private of the shinden’s many compartments. In a typical shinden, the moya was a large 5 by 2 span rectangular chamber divided into the 2 by 2 span sacred storeroom (nurigome), usually to the west, and the 3 by 2 span daytime chamber (moya no hi no omashi). Within the moya no hi no omashi w ­ ere one or more 3-­or 4-­shaku tall curtain stands (kichō).120 These ­were portable wooden T-­ shaped frames of variable width with opaque hangings (katabira) in strips with streamers (nosuji).121 While painted earthen walls surrounded the square nurigome to protect and enshrine ancestral trea­ sures and vari­ous religious implements, the moya no hi no omashi was relatively accessible through bamboo blinds (misu), curtain stands (kichō), and sliding doors (shōji; ­later: fusuma). Although some daylight entered the moya when its sliding doors, those of the hisashi (tsumado), and also the hisashi’s latticed shutters (shitomido) ­were open, it cannot have been brightly lit even during the summer months. A chorus of twentieth-­century writers has commented on the darkness of the shinden’s inner space. Novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichirō ­ omen of that period to be “sitting at the center supposedly pronounced w of a dark web.”122 Ivan Morris, while conceding that the interior of the Victorian-­era ­house was shrouded in a similar “murkiness,” wrote that the Heian noblewoman “lived in a state of almost perpetual twilight.”123 Art historian Penelope Mason has endorsed the views of literary scholars by noting “that custom required her to remain hidden from the eyes of all men except her ­father and her husband. Consequently,

38

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

she rarely went outdoors, and indoors she lived in the shaded world of the shinden, with its large overhanging eaves, its screens of state (portable cloth hangings), and the folding screens used to partition inner space.”124 Richard Bowring has gone further. In his eyes, sequestration was akin to imprisonment. Referring specifically to kaimami, he averred that Heian ­women ­were “condemned to live most of their sedentary lives hidden ­behind a wall of screens and blinds. Their world was highly formalized, their vision as restricted as the chinks through which they themselves ­were often spied upon.”125 But was it r­ eally that gloomy inside the residences?126 Did the shinden ­really function like Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon? It is difficult to accept the pop­u­lar belief that undetected suitors ­ omen who w ­ ere unaware of being observed. secretly observed helpless w In truth, the strong performative elements of courtship through kaimami often encouraged the actors on the courtship stage to play their roles so convincingly that monogatari readers are often carried away by the fiction ­under­lying the kaimami topos, which is based on the assumption that the ­woman was naively unaware that she might be observed. From a bird’s-­eye view, the moya—­like the Inner Sanctum of the Ise Shrine, like the butsuden at Tōdaiji, like the kōkyū within the dairi within Heian-­kyō’s daidairi—­is the innermost box in a set of nesting boxes (see Plate 3).127 That this image of containment is conventionally marked as feminine is quite significant. The etymology of the word moya is unknown,128 but the unusual characters (ateji) used for writing it consist of “mo­ther” and “house” or “roof.” And the side doors in the four corners of the outer frame of the hisashi are called tsumado (wife doors).129 It is, accordingly, not too far-­fetched to imagine the moya as a meta­phorical womb. The sexual associations of the verb “to penetrate,” often used casually in reference to the suitor’s approach to the sequestered w ­ oman, are entirely appropriate. Any doubts about the appropriateness of sexual associations should be dispelled by a glance at Pierre Bourdieu’s analy­sis of the Algerian Ka­ byle ­house. In the Muslim culture of the Kabyle, domestic interior space functions very much as it does in the Heian shinden. It was similarly characterized by dichotomies: interior, dark, and female versus exterior, light, and male. Bourdieu sees the Kabyle h ­ ouse as “the sanctuary of intimacy and the secrets of nature, the world of w ­ oman, who is consigned to the management of nature and excluded from public life. In contrast to man’s ­ oman’s work is essentially obscure work, which is performed outdoors, w 130 and hidden.” The womblike interior of the h ­ ouse is “ḥaram, that is to say, both sacred and illicit for any man who is not part of it.”131

Physical Space39

Sensitive to gendered differences in the perception of space, Bourdieu warns against the temptation to interpret the sequestration of Kabyle ­women as if it ­were a form of imprisonment imposed by men. “The ­woman can only be said to be shut up in the ­house if it is also pointed out that the man is kept out of it, at least in the daytime.” Indeed, a man who “spends too much time at home in the daytime is suspect or ridiculous: he is a ‘house-­man,’ who ‘broods at home like a hen at roost.’ ”132 The same thing might have been said of the Heian nobleman who lingered too long in the moya. Heian paint­ers employing the fukinuki yatai (blown-­off roof) technique133 help us to envision the moya within a multiplicity of enclosures, but references to this technique can lead us to underestimate the challenge faced by the earthbound courtier. He experiences the mansion’s tsukuri (layered) structure134 incrementally, wall by wall, partition by partition, screen by screen. The boundaries and barriers perceived by the man in his inwardly directed movement t­oward the mysteries of the moya are the w ­ oman’s protective shields. He must cross, penetrate, or remove these boundaries and barriers, while she must rely upon their integrity to protect her space. Unlike the man, she experiences layering from the inside out, from her naked flesh to her robes, fan, curtains, screens, blinds, walls, and, finally, the perimeter of the fence. For her, the shinden’s layered structure is what keeps visitors at bay. It must be immediately pointed out, however, that barriers and shields, despite their d ­ ifferent connotations and functions, refer to the same physical objects. The precise meaning and emotional impact of the generic fence thus depends on gendered perspectives. Moreover, the kaimami-­related architectural features of the Heian shinden have reversible qualities. Not only do the walls of the shinden function as ­either barriers or shields; each can have a dual purpose. For the man, a barrier is not only a frustrating hindrance to his purpose; it is also an intoxicating stimulant to his desires and a source of poetic inspiration. The challenge for the ­woman lies in similarly contradictory properties inherent in partitioning. Just as a cocoon both protects and imprisons the larva inside, so the Heian noblewoman is both protected and imprisoned in her twelve-­ layered robes (jūni hitoe) and the architectural armor surrounding her. It is impossible to know how many Heian ­women shared Sei Shōnagon’s feeling that courtship (and seduction) might go better, for men and for ­women, if it ­were less spatially constrained.

40

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

Courtyards and Gardens In light of the similarities in basic layout of Heian-­era religious, palatial, and residential architecture, it is no accident that the courtier ­pursued courtship in the shinden complex as if he ­were approaching the sacred interior of a shrine, a ­temple, or an imperial palace. Just as the sacred—in the form of kami, Buddhas, and the divine sovereign—­was hidden inside these structures, so was the noblewoman inside the shinden. The approach to the hidden was customarily through a wall and across a courtyard. In the typical shinden complex, the courtyard included a pond garden, the worldly counterpart of Amida’s paradise garden. In this sense, Fujiwara no Yorimichi’s 1053 conversion of his f­ ather Michinaga’s Uji villa (see Figure 5) into the Amida ­temple Byōdō-in constituted an uncannily perfect mirroring of secular and religious designs in architecture and landscape. In this sense, it can be said that the ritual significance of courtship from across the courtyard and garden of the shinden was transformed—­touched by the spirit of the sacred—by its association with similar spaces in shrines, temples, and palaces. If he had access to the garden, a man in search of a ­woman could spy on her from outdoors, most easily when she had carelessly—or intentionally—­exposed herself to the male gaze by venturing out onto the sunoko. In summer, when the shutters ­were raised for a welcome breeze, a well-­positioned man might catch a glimpse of a w ­ oman in the hisashi or even inside the moya. This was possi­ble because shinden architecture was “garden-­oriented,” providing not only “stages offering ­advantageous views of the garden,”135 but also positions that offered advantageous views from the garden. A striking example of this kind of kaimami from outside the phys­ ouses the ­woman is illustrated in the “Hashihime” ical structure that h fragment of the Genji monogatari emaki (The Tale of Genji Scroll).136 It shows Kaoru positioned b ­ ehind a green bamboo fence and gazing across an inner courtyard ­toward the Uji sisters, who are seated in the hisashi and playing biwa and koto while gazing out at the full moon from beneath the rolled-up blinds. The painting’s composition echoes that of the “Takegawa II” segment of the emaki, in which Yūgiri’s son looks across a courtyard at Tamakazura’s two daughters competing in a game of go. Such spectacular but relatively rare courtship scenes, in which men looking across a courtyard or an inner garden observe ­women at play, are inevitably enhanced atmospherically by references to the season and the time of day. In order to understand why they are relatively rare, we need

Physical Space41

to understand the place of courtyards and gardens in the “blueprint” of Heian architecture. A shinden-­style complex had three types of gardens. The southern court garden (nantei) consisted of a wide expanse of sand and was used for rituals, dances, and games. An essentially empty courtyard, the nantei served as a buffer zone between the shinden’s post-­and-­beam structures and a pond garden (shima). Sometimes used for boating, the pond garden (modern term: chisen shūyū tei’en) was landscaped to represent in reduced scale the mountains and ­water (sansui) found in nature. In addition to these two types, there ­were, between the shinden and its annexes, small sparsely planted gardens or inner courtyards (tsuboniwa) ­intended to be viewed and enjoyed from inside buildings or from the covered corridors connecting them. The garden south of the courtyard was meticulously landscaped with plants chosen to reflect the taste of the resident, who was often inspired by the aesthetics of the seasons as expressed in waka.137 Indeed, one might fairly say that the pond garden was the materialization of a poem. This spacious garden incorporated small islands and arched red bridges over a man-­made pond with ­water channeled in from a south-­ flowing brook.138 If the aristocratic owner of the residence was sufficiently affluent, he constructed a pond that was broad and deep enough to accommodate plea­sure boats carry­ing nobles who w ­ ere playing court m ­ usic. When religious rituals or secular entertainments w ­ ere performed on the nantei’s white sand, male spectators lined the veranda, and female spectators watched from ­behind bamboo blinds. Richard Stanley-­Baker has recently asserted in reference to the gardens in Genji monogatari that the “medieval Japa­nese enclosed garden was—in fiction and in fact—­a region associated with privileged sexual adventure.”139 This applies to tsuboniwa, but courtship did not typically take place in the nantei because it was a site for social activities140 rather than an intimate space shielded from public view. Indeed, although there are a few exceptions, the south was generally an unlikely direction from which to initiate courtship. The nantei was an especially inauspicious place from which to launch a kaimami because the nantei was completely exposed to shinden residents, for whom a favorite pastime was looking to the south to savor views of the nantei.141 Stanley-­Baker might, however, be correct in that there was an oblique kind of courtship in the nantei, in which the courtier took part in a per­for­mance while si­mul­ta­neously engaging in courtship, in secret

42

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

yet before everyone’s eyes. An example of this is Genji’s Dance of the Blue Waves (seigaiha). He knows quite well that his secret and forbidden love, his stepmother Fujitsubo, is watching him perform this bugaku piece from inside the shinden. Yet such instances of oblique courtship in public are rarely depicted in lit­erature. Some scenes of male display, however, metamorphose into courtship by accident rather than by design. In Genji monogatari, for example, the unusual glimpse that Kashiwagi catches of the Third Princess (Onna san no miya) during a court football (kemari) game in the courtyard comes about by accident and serendipity rather than a targeted maneuver.

Carriages In Heian lit­erature and the art it inspired, courtship scenes focus predominantly on the shinden residential complex rather than on the outdoor scenes favored by Western writers and artists.142 The lovers who stroll through Shakespeare’s forests and gardens or loll elegantly in those of the pre-­Raphaelite paint­ers have few Heian equivalents. This is no surprise. Heian noblewomen spent most of their time in their residences. They did, however, occasionally leave the shinden complex, venturing out for pilgrimages, visits to members of their extended ­family, or attendance at Heian-­kyō’s many religious and secular festivals. Unlike men, who w ­ ere ­free to move about on foot or on h ­ orse­back, ­women who walked ­anywhere other than the protected space of the dairi or shinden customarily wore large-­brimmed hats and veils (mushi no tareginu or kazuki) that ­were sometimes as voluminous and all-­enclosing as a Muslim burka. Like burkas, veils of this sort have often been criticized as a male device to control w ­ omen, but Lila Abu-­Lughod has argued, in her study of Bedouin society, that veiling can be seen positively as a way to avoid the ­reduction of ­women to mere “social ciphers.”143 From Abu-­Lughod’s perspective, the veil liberates w ­ omen from sequestration and gives them (limited) freedom of movement.144 Much greater freedom of movement was granted to Heian w ­ omen who traveled by ox-­drawn carriage. These carriages held as many as four passengers and ­were attended by young oxherds (ushikai warawa), escorts, and outriders.145 Although they w ­ ere sequestered even more tightly in their compact carriages than in the expansive shinden, the construction of the carriage allowed noblewomen figuratively to walk a line between reticence and enticement. It was possi­ble for a w ­ oman to see and

Physical Space43

be seen even while her carriage rumbled slowly through the city or the countryside. The mechanism that allowed this ­were the narrow sliding panels intriguingly named monomi (viewing things). These “lookouts”— or, more naughtily, “look-­ins”—­were on the sides of several types of ajiro (wickerwork) carriages: plain ones, those with an abstract circular design of a yellow eight-­petal flower on a green ground (hachiyō), and crest-­ decorated (mon) carriages. (The hajitomi carriages had monomi in the form of half shutters rather than sliding windows.) When the sliding panel was drawn from the front “sleeve” (sode) or wing all the way to the back “sleeve,” the activity of monomi was called naga-­monomi (widescreen viewing); if only halfway for informal—or secret—­viewing, then it was called kiri-­monomi (restricted viewing). In other words, the term monomi extended beyond the physical part of the carriage to the act of viewing and the more or less open spectatorship that it permitted. Of course, when the monomi was in widescreen position, it was obvious that the passenger was curious about what­ever was happening outside the carriage. For a ­woman, the danger of the widescreen posi­ oman tion was that she was now visible to those outside the carriage. A w who preferred kiri-­monomi and opened the win­dow just a crack signaled that she wanted to see and yet not be seen. It was rather like a balancing act. Even kiri-­monomi always contained an ele­ment of risk. As with palaces or residences, the design and size of the carriage and the size of the traveler’s entourage ­were im­por­tant indicators of status. The types of carriages and palanquins ­were indicators of who rode in them. Several kinds of ox-­drawn carriages, known by the generic term gissha, ­were available for the nobility (see Plate  4). The most elegant enclosed carriage was the Chinese-­roofed karabisashi no kuruma or kara no kuruma, reserved for the imperial f­ amily. The concealment it afforded was similar to that provided by the tools of sequestering devices inside the shinden. This was indicated linguistically by the second kanji (-­bisashi) in the word karabisashi, which also occurs in the names of other carriages, such as the wickerwork carriage (ajirobisashi) and the windowless palm-­leaf carriage (birōbisashi). (This kanji refers to an awning designed to protect passengers from exposure to the sun and rain. It is used, alternatively, with the kanji for hisashi, for the aisle that surrounds the inside of the shinden and functions as a buffer zone between the veranda and the moya.) Although ­women traveling in ox-­drawn carriages (and palanquins)146 ­ were protected from view by curtains and bamboo blinds

44

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

(sudare) as well as by the walls of the vehicle, they ­were relatively exposed to men’s gazes when, encumbered by their robes and their long, flowing hair, they awkwardly entered or exited their vehicles. No one has described these excruciating moments more frankly than Sei Shōnagon. Her Pillow Book, which gives readers an incomparably sensitive view of life in the dairi, also contains vivid accounts of courtship in and around ox-­drawn carriages. In “On about the Twentieth of the Second Month,”147 Sei Shōnagon describes the strain of the transition between residence and carriage among w ­ omen, who ­were required by their culture always to be acutely aware of appearances. The occasion is Regent Fujiwara no Michi­ taka’s dedication ceremony in early spring of 994 for the sacred canon of sūtras at Sakuzenji (or Shakuzenji) within the Hoko-in (Hōkō-in or Hōkon-in). Preparing to follow Empress Teishi from her residence at the Nijō-in, the empress’s female retinue first quibbled over who would r­ ide with whom and in which number carriage in the pro­cession. On top of these stressful rivalries ­were piled the anxi­eties related to ­running the specular gauntlet between residence and carriage. On this im­por­tant occasion, none other than the empress’s bro­th­ers supervised the ordeal of exposure: Lord Korechika and Lord Takaie . . . ​stood to the left and right of the carriages, raising the blinds and parting the inner curtains to help the ­women in. We might have been able to hide our faces if we had all been crushed together, but each name was called in order from a list so that we might enter in groups of four. It was miserably uncomfortable to step forward. To say that we ­were fully exposed would be putting it mildly. I could not bear the thought that the Empress might disapprove of my appearance as she watched with the o ­ thers ­behind the blinds. Perspiration started from my body,148 and I felt that my meticulously coiffed hair must be standing on end. Once I had managed to pass Her Majesty, it was like being in a dream to find myself undergoing an inspection by the two smiling gentlemen, who ­were dressed with intimidating splendor. I could not decide w ­ hether to be proud or ashamed of reaching the carriage without fainting.149

As the carriage slowly makes its way to Sakuzenji, Sei Shōnagon has time to recover her wits, but arrival in even broader daylight is a repetition of the departure’s ordeal.

Physical Space45

Lord Korechika and Lord Takaie w ­ ere waiting when we drew up near Her Majesty’s viewing stand. “Get out quickly,” they said. The experience of entering the carriages had been bad enough, but now we ­were even more devastatingly exposed. Dignified and handsome in an underjacket with a voluminous long train, Lord Korechika raised our blind and urged us to hurry. I thought that my hair, with its carefully inserted switch, had probably made an ugly bulge inside my jacket; also, the light was bright enough to show the difference in color between the black hair and the reddish switch. Feeling acutely self-­conscious, I cringed at the thought of getting out. “Let the ­people in the rear go first,” I said. . . . ​ “Someone seems to be embarrassed.” They moved away, laughing, but returned when I finally steeled myself to leave the carriage. “We are ­under instructions from Her Majesty to spirit you out without letting Munetaka [unidentified] see you. It would be inconsiderate of us to leave,” they said. They helped me down and took me to the Empress. It made me feel unworthy to think that she might truly have issued such a command.  . . . ​Her Majesty sat on a threshold beam about two feet high. “Here she is. I screened her with my body,” Major Counselor ­Korechika announced.150

Should we imagine that Korechika smiled slyly as he made this comment? Does Sei Shōnagon’s quoting Korechika’s comment that he interposed his body to screen her from the gaze of other men inject an ele­ment of erotic playfulness into the scene? That Sei Shōnagon had wavered between pride and shame during the earlier inspection by “two smiling gentlemen” does suggest that she was able to imagine courtship, h ­ ere as elsewhere, as a gendered game. It was a game that could entail losses as well as wins. In “When the Empress Moved,”151 Sei Shōnagon vividly describes the arrival of the carriages with herself and the other ladies-­in-­waiting at the north gate. Their palm-­leaf carriages ­were too grand to pass through the north gate, which meant that the carriages could not be pulled up directly to the veranda for the ­women’s easy exit: “we had to get out and walk. It was extremely annoying and we ­were all very cross; but what could we do about it? To make matters worse, there was a group of men, including se­nior courtiers and even some of lower rank, standing next to the guard-­house and staring at us in a most irritating fashion.”152 There is no undertone of

46

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

playful eroticism in this passage. Is it because she was exposed to the stares of men of lower rank or was it simply that she was now—in her early thirties rather than her late twenties—­a less patient player of the game of courtship? The risk of unwanted exposure was minimized by a paradoxical tactic known as idashiginu or uchiide no kinu (lit. “putting out robes”), elegantly translated by Liza Dalby as “faceless display.”153 The custom, usually practiced in the shinden, has been described as follows: “The ­ladies are advised to pull out one leg of their long trousers fairly fully, then align the front of the inner robes and the chemise, pull two or so of the inner robes well out, and arrange the ensemble right up to the edge of the base lintel.”154 Similarly, a carriage-­borne ­woman could use her vehicle as if it ­were a mobile shinden compartment. In idashiguruma, or idashiginu from the carriage, the concealed ­woman attracted notice by deliberately displaying a small part of her multilayered robes from ­under the carriage’s lowered blinds or hanging curtains.155 This socially sanctioned tantalizing display functioned not only as a signal of her desire to be admired for excellent taste in attire but also as a subtle indication that she was by no means averse to male attention.156 The tasteful display of colored robes (kasane no irome) became her looks. She had created a loophole in sequestration. Sei Shōnagon counts idashiginu as among the “Things That Give a Pleasant Feeling”: “The return journey from a festival, with a large number of escorts in attendance. The costumes of the ­women passengers spill out at the side of the carriage, and, thanks to the skill of the ox-­drivers, the carriages run smoothly along the road.”157 There is no doubt that male courtiers w ­ ere enticed by the splendor of a carriage and this form of “faceless display.” Sei Shōnagon witnessed several courtiers impatiently seeking to extract a poem from an unknown lady because of the striking color combination spilling from the back of her carriage.158 When noblemen and noblewomen rode in the same ox-­drawn carriage, stringent etiquette required that they be separated by curtains to provide ­women with protection from the male gaze. Breaches of etiquette did occur. In “On the Twenty-­Fourth of the Twelfth Month,” Sei Shōnagon describes a carriage r­ ide during which passengers returning in the snow from a late-­night Buddhist ceremony159 had no inner curtains separating them. The moonlight reached deep into the carriage to illuminate a noblewoman in her multilayered colorful robes and a nobleman made no less enticing by his loosened sash and one of his trousered legs daringly placed on the front carriage step to attract the admiring gaze of passers-by. Sei

Physical Space47

Shōnagon is thrilled to witness a romance unfold before her eyes: “The lady had slipped into the back of the carriage to avoid the brilliance of the moonlight, but much to her embarrassment the gentleman now pulled her forward.”160 The tone of this account is especially noteworthy. Sei Shōnagon, whom readers know as unusually self-­possessed and at ease with her social situation, seems almost giddy as she describes this violation of the rules of courtship.

Chapter 2

Conceptual Space The Heian Marital System

P

hysical space is relatively easy to visualize. Imagining conceptual space is much more difficult, but it is essential if we are to understand Heian courtship, especially as it relates to kinship, to make our way through the complexities of the Heian marital system. The famed structuralist anthropologist Claude-­ Lévi Strauss, who closely studied The Tale of Genji because it “offers a mass of precise anthropological data,”1 found that the Heian marital system was unlike any of the other systems that he, in his vast experience, had ever encountered. If the system was not unique, it was certainly highly unusual. That the challenge of mapping the Heian marital system was dauntingly difficult in Lévi-­Strauss’s day—­and for some time afterward—­has been acknowledged by the anthropologists and social historians who have subsequently surveyed the field. Fortunately, for my purposes, the daunting challenge has been accepted by Japa­nese scholars such as Takamure Itsue and Wakita Haruko and by Western authorities such as William  H. McCullough and Peter Nickerson.2 Their extensive spadework has made it much easier for me briefly to summarize the essential facts about Heian marriage. Heian marriage differed strikingly from most Western customs in several ways. Marriages among the aristocracy ­were polygynous (ippu tasai; lit., one man, many wives). They consisted of a primary marriage and as many secondary marriages as a nobleman wanted and could afford.

Primary and Secondary Marriages Primary marriages, which ­were often between cousins or other members of the same extended ­family, ­were usually arranged. They ­were, in effect, alliances between families. Examples of such marriages can be found in Heian chronicles. The pro­cess that culminated in a primary mar48

Conceptual Space49

riage is nowhere described with more zest than in the eleventh-­century Eiga monogatari (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japa­nese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period), a work of uncertain authorship attributed in part to Akazome Emon.3 One of the primary marriages ­described in this chronicle was that of Fujiwara no Michinaga’s son by his principal wife, Rinshi. In 1009, when Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992– 1074) was of marriageable age, he was widely perceived as a highly desirable son-­in-­law. Among the many parental petitioners who proposed a marital alliance with the Fujiwara clan, Michinaga was most impressed by Prince Tomohira, who was accomplished in the arts and had a distinguished pedigree. He was the seventh son of Emperor Murakami, and his principal wife was a dau­gh­ter of Prince Tamehira, the fourth son of Emperor Murakami, by a dau­gh­ter of Minamoto no Takaakira. Of Prince Tomohira’s dau­gh­ter Takahime, Michinaga concluded that her upbringing and her lineage on both sides w ­ ere impeccable: “That [Prince Tomohira] should condescend to think of Yorimichi was the greatest of honors, Michinaga declared, and he accepted the proposal with every mark of res­pect.” He conveyed the importance of this impeccable pedigree to his son: “A man’s c­ areer depends on his wife’s f­amily. . . . ​The standing of that ­house is very high indeed; I think you cannot do better than to marry into it.”4 Arranged as it was by Michinaga and Prince Tomohira, the marriage took place without a courtship initiated by Yorimichi. In fact, neither Yorimichi nor Takahime had any say in their marriage. The young ­couple, she fifteen or sixteen and he just a year or two her se­nior, ­were induced to embrace in the dark, carefully tended by numerous female attendants, and enveloped by an especially seductive incense. The two private nuptial nights ­were followed by a public wedding banquet (tokoroarawashi) with a distinguished retinue provided by Michinaga. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes hints that Yorimichi was lucky, indeed, since Prince Tomohira had contemplated presenting Takahime to none other than the emperor. ­ ere. Takahime’s genealogical The story does not, however, end h value was diminished ­later that year when her influential ­father died (1009.VII.29). Six years ­later, Takahime still had not given birth to a child. At that time, Emperor Sanjō, in failing health, broached to Michinaga his wish to bestow his favorite dau­gh­ter, Shishi, on Yorimichi. Michinaga, understanding the value of such a marital alliance, attempted to persuade Yorimichi to enter into an arranged secondary marriage: “Isn’t it a bit quixotic to think a man should restrict himself to one wife?” Thinking as much about himself as about his son, Michinaga confronted

50

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

Yorimichi with a genealogical necessity: “You have no children, so why not look on this as an opportunity to raise a ­family? Princess Shishi will probably make you a f­ather.”5 Yorimichi proved extremely reluctant to enter into the secondary marriage urged by his ­father. Despite the fact that their marriage was arranged, a very strong marital bond had developed between Yorimichi and Takahime. ­Under im­mense pressure from Michinaga, Yorimichi became possessed by a spirit thought to have been sent by Takahime’s nurse. Yorimichi fell into a coma that prompted an exorcism during which Michinaga was able to recognize the spirit angered by the imperial marriage plans as that of his dau­gh­ter-­in-­law’s ­father, the late prince Tomohira. Thus warned by Takahime’s ­father, Yori­ michi’s parents called off the secondary marriage, and Yorimichi became his old healthy self.6 The account of Yorimichi’s primary arranged marriage was—to the best of our knowledge—­historically factual. A fictional example of a primary arranged marriage is the endogamous match of young Genji and his sixteen-­year-­old first cousin Aoi. Its importance is such that it is worthwhile to describe it in some detail. In its purpose of benefitting both parties in the arrangement, with the female party making itself even more precious by giving up an even greater marital prospect, it resembles the historic example above. The match is negotiated between the Kiritsubo emperor and his power­ful Minister of the Left (Sadaijin), who is married to Ōmiya, the emperor’s full sister. Inclined to give his dau­gh­ter, Aoi, to Genji rather than to Genji’s older half-­brother, Suzaku, the Sadaijin approaches the emperor just before the twelve-­year-­old Genji’s coming-­of-­ age ceremony (genbuku), and the emperor agrees to the marriage. ­After the ritual cutting of Genji’s hair and bestowing of the court cap, the Minister of the Left gives just a hint to the uncomprehending child bridegroom of what has been arranged. An exchange of poetry between the two fathers and lavish gifts all around are followed by the departure of the Minister of the Left with Genji to Aoi’s Sanjō residence, where the nuptial rice cakes are served by “the bride’s mo­ther or some other se­nior ­family member.” The marital ritual culminates in the symbolic discovery of the bridegroom in the third night through tokoroarawashi.7 That there is a marital ritual is never in doubt but that it and the first-­cousin marriage that follows are discussed in po­liti­cal terms is symptomatic of the emotional emptiness of both. Genji visits Aoi so rarely that ten years pass before she becomes pregnant. She dies shortly ­after giving birth and leaves ­behind a boy who is kept from rising too easily and quickly in the world. The Kiritsubo emperor is ­here balancing, in Lévi-­Strauss’s terminology,

Conceptual Space51

his own “hypergamic” marriage to a ­woman of lesser rank (Genji’s ­mo­ther) and Aoi’s “hypogamic” marriage to a man of commoner status (Genji, ­after his demotion).8 Secondary marriages w ­ ere much more likely than primary marriages to be formed as a result of individual male volition and female consent or compliance. They ­were noncontractual but publicly recognized relationships based on mutual self-­interest. Although they, too, ­were often formalized through the marriage rituals of the three nuptial nights and tokoroarawashi, secondary marriages w ­ ere relatively loose alliances that recognized offspring but could be ended informally at any time. Since endogamous arranged primary marriages ­were rarely, if ever, the result of courtship and ­were mostly devoid of romantic interest and might even devolve into a state of mutual indifference, if not dislike, they tended not to be of much literary interest, except in chronicles, such as A Tale of Flowering Fortunes and Ōkagami (translated as The Great Mirror: Fujiwara Michinaga [966–1027] and His Times).9 Although the authors of Heian monogatari could not possibly have come upon Tolstoy’s observation that “happy families are all alike,” their tales suggest that they shared this view. Po­liti­cally arranged endogamous first marriages constitute an obvious difference between Heian marriages and those in modern Western countries. The fusion of patrilineal descent with matrilocality is a second difference, less obvious but equally im­por­tant for the study of mid-­Heian courtship and genealogy. Structurally similar to other Heian-­era institutions, such as the private-­estate (shōen) system of land administration and Fujiwara ­family rule, the bifurcated kinship and marriage system allowed the transmission of h ­ ouses and residential names through w ­ omen.10 ­Matrilocality and ­women’s right to inherit and pass down residential property was obviously a ­matter of great consequence for the marital system. Clan membership and po­liti­cal authority remained, with extremely rare exceptions, entirely in the hands of men.11 Noblemen ­were often referred to before their retirement or entrance into holy o ­ rders by their clan name and their place of residence.12 Since the male aristocrat was dependent on his principal wife’s ­parents for providing a residence, ­either within their residence (uxorilocality) or in a new location (neolocality), male clan members lived in scattered locations. The Fujiwara ­family tree ­until the end of the twelfth ­century shows that married sons never lived in the same place as their fathers or grandfathers.13 Men visited their secondary wives at the wives’ residences (duolocality).14 Only the emperor and the heir apparent w ­ ere

52

Mapping Courtship and Kinship

visited by their ­women in a virilocal arrangement.15 It is im­por­tant to note that an individual, regardless of gender, could have multiple residential arrangements over time.16 The combination of polygyny and uxorilocal residence meant that Heian courtship, in lit­erature as in life, required a great deal of physical relocation. Heian courtiers ­were in almost constant motion, not only as potential lovers during courtship but also as husbands of principal and secondary wives. To follow closely the courtiers’ amorous peregrinations, which make Romeo’s path from the palace of the Montagues to that of the Capulets seem simplicity itself, one needs, literally, maps of the Heian capital and its environs (see Figure 5). An im­por­tant literary consequence of matrilocality was that there is constant reference in Heian monogatari to a courtier’s moving to, in, or out of a ­woman’s residence and, more rarely, to a ­woman’s being moved from her residence to another by consent or by force. No work of Heian lit­erature devotes more attention than The Tale of Genji does to these movements among the varied sites of courtship. The intertwined ­family trees of three or four generations of characters grow in the enclosed space of the palace grounds, in the urban area that surrounded the Greater Imperial Palace, and in the relatively wild territory beyond the capital in such places as Akashi and Uji. None of the Genji’s characters engages in as many courtships in as many ­different places as Genji himself in the course of his two related quests: to vindicate the tragic death of his mo­ther, Kiritsubo, ­after her cruel treatment by her rivals at court and to recover the place in genealogy that he lost when his ­father demoted him to commoner status and excluded him from imperial succession. The intricacy of the marital system was such that monogatari authors ­were not content merely to map their characters’ engagement in courtship; they created scenes in which the characters themselves are intrigued by, reflect upon, and discuss the rituals of courtship. As the Genji’s three or four generations of characters do this, they are acutely aware of living at a time of changing courtship patterns and marital customs that would, of necessity, have a genealogical impact. That arranged first marriages ­were not preceded by the rituals appropriate to courtship as we understand it did not mean that courtship among the aristocrats of Heian Japan was a culturally trivial phenomenon. On the contrary, courtship was an im­por­tant activity vitally associated with extramarital dalliance and sexual adventure and with more serious ­ ere romantic affairs that could lead to secondary marriages (that w sometimes more genealogically im­por­tant than arranged first marriages).

Conceptual Space53

­Whether the motivation for courtship was dalliance, adventure, or a secondary marriage, courtship was likely to include the uniquely Japa­ nese cultural phenomenon known as kaimami, often preceded or accompanied by eavesdropping. The importance of kaimami in the lives of Heian aristocrats is hard to assess, but references in Sei Shōnagon and Heian diarists are frequent enough to warrant a belief that it was a widespread phenomenon. Of the extraordinary importance of the topos of kaimami in the lit­erature and the visual art of Heian Japan there can be no doubt whatsoever. In short, courtship as premarital romance was associated with secondary rather than primary marriages. Such courtship and its impact on the kinship structure are the focus of Parts II and III.

This page intentionally left blank

Part II

The Gap in the Fence Courtship before The Tale of Genji

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 3

Narrating Courtship through a Gap

C

ourtship as a literary topos is eminently suited to the structure of narrative. In the paradigmatic form of kaimami, a male character secretly observes a female character. In a first-­person narrative, what the character sees may or may not be “reality.” When an author chooses to tell his or her story through a fictional narrator, however, visual perception is further complicated by refraction through the narrator’s lens. This added narrative dimension underlines the subjective nature and the ambiguity of visual perceptions. What the male character sees or thinks he sees may not necessarily be what the narrator thinks the man sees. In other words, in scenes of kaimami the observed female character is perceived through the male character who sees her and also through the narrative voice that articulates his vision.

The Gendered Gap By recognizing the tensions between the d ­ ifferent perceivers, the reader becomes engaged in the complex construction of the act of perception itself. The Dutch literary theorist Mieke Bal calls this pro­cess ­“focalization,” by which she means the relationship between the perception, the perceiver, and the perceived.1 The dynamics of power become especially elusive when the power to focalize shifts from one character in the story to another, such as a lady-­in-­waiting narrator. These shifts are both so subtle and so conventionally familiar that they become ­imperceptible to readers preoccupied with other aspects of the narrative. The situation becomes more diffuse still when “an anonymous agent, situated outside the fabula,2 is functioning as focalizor.” If focalization is achieved largely through the latter, the narrative appears objective, when in fact the external focalizor’s bias is unclear.3 When the external and internal focalizors are differentiated in terms of gender, as in the case of 57

58

The Gap in the Fence

any female author who employs female narrators representing predominantly male voyeurs, attention is drawn to the pro­cess of gender-­specific focalization. When a female narrative voice articulates a male vision, the male observer comes u ­ nder scrutiny for his visual intrusion into female territory, and the female perspective is tested for its ability to accommodate or resist the male gaze. The reader, too, is forced to take a stand in the gender-­crossed lines of sight. The female character observed through this complex narrative technique thus appears to be utterly defined by the narrator, who may or may not be critical of the male viewer. Yet it must not be overlooked that the narrator—­controlled though not necessarily endorsed by the author—­traces not only the male observer’s line of vision but also that of the observed ­woman. As a result, the observed person is hardly ever at the complete mercy of the objectifying gaze of the observer. Although she is the ­human object of focalization, the observed person is also able to observe. Confronted with the ever-­pre­sent possibility of being spied upon, the Heian noblewoman was thoroughly socialized to being on constant alert. Instead of focusing narrowly, she needed to be especially ­adept at exercising her peripheral vision to monitor even the most unlikely peephole. Her comparatively diffuse glances ­were assisted in their watchful, oscillating movements by an acute auditory ability and a heightened sense of smell trained to recognize the incense used to perfume robes and mark their wearers’ identities. While scanning the physical barriers surrounding, concealing, and protecting her, the Heian noblewoman kept an eye on her own impeccable appearance. The eye observing her through the “gap in the fence” or the chink in a partition or screen might be that of an attractive, high-­ranking courtier on the lookout for a secondary wife. In the Genji, the literary strategy of focalization in kaimami episodes places a w ­ oman within the scope of the male gaze, monitored as it may be by the female author’s ghost gaze—to coin a phrase analogous to the familiar term “ghost writer.” Gendered power suggests that, in order for a ­woman to exist or be acknowledged as having a self, it is sufficient for her to be seen; w ­ hether it is also imperative for her to exercise visual power in order for her to confirm that sense of self bestowed upon her by another is a question that needs close scrutiny. Is her own ­different mode of visual perception ­really less power­ful than the man’s? Is her gendered combination of peripheral vision and a keen auditory sense condemned to an altogether defensive, reactive, application? Writing about

Narrating Courtship through a Gap 59

­ omen’s memoirs (rather than monogatari), Edith Sarra has suggested w that female Heian authors shifted the focus to the ­women’s gaze by “eliminating what is arguably one of the distinguishing structural features of fictional tales: the mediating figure of the male character as voyeur.”4 How much of this dynamic (of seeing and being seen) is conscious and how much is unconscious becomes clear only through the narrative and interpretative pro­cesses, ­shaped by the gendered consciousness that accompanies the reading of any text. In assessing the gap between men and ­women’s empowerment through the gaze, from the sequestered ­woman’s side of the fence in par­tic­u­lar, the remarkable fact of the Genji’s female authorship is crucial. Sarra has raised some pertinent questions about w ­ omen’s creating “fictions of femininity” through female narrators in her eponymous study: “How do we account critically for the fact that the gaze of the hero in the kaimami scene frequently depends on the mediation of feminine narrators and female authors? Who is looking at whom in these scenes?”5 Moreover, in order to gauge the female erotic dimension created by kaimami, it is imperative to take into consideration that Murasaki Shikibu wrote her Genji monogatari for a largely, though by no means exclusively, female audience.6 The paradigm of a man’s gazing at a ­woman in classical Japa­nese lit­erature is supplemented by vari­ous unorthodox forms of kaimami, often referred to with related terms, such as “peeping” (nozoki). In gender terms, the paradigmatic pattern occurs, although rarely, in reverse. When a ­woman is motivated by sexual desire to observe a man through a gap secretly, her action is a departure from the social norm and evokes ­different responses from the man and from the reader. There is an additional complexity in this already quite complex paradigm. The carnal drive to look is not restricted to heterosexuality in a culture that did not strictly discriminate between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Hence, the male gaze could also be directed at another man (or more than one) and the female gaze at another ­woman (or more than one). Examples for all imaginable constellations exist in Heian lit­erature and may well reflect historical reality.

The Erotic Gap The erotic appeal in kaimami was highly aestheticized. The Heian noblewoman’s splendid multilayered robes with their sophisticated color combinations ­were a feast for the eyes.7 The term for these color

60

The Gap in the Fence

combinations, kasane no irome, suggests an accumulation (kasane) of erotic power (iro; lit., color; symbolically, love) through visual effects (me; lit., eye). Yet this feast for the eyes, this erotic exhibition of colors, had to be contained within the provocative Heian aesthetics of concealed beauty. The aristocratic ­woman perfected her appearance ­until she became a virtual work of art, which, according to the code of Japa­nese aesthetics, is best appreciated when largely or at least partially hidden from view. In short, this orgy of color had to be kept from men’s eyes. Yet the greater the splendor, the more urgent the desire to see and the longing to be seen. Paradoxically, a court lady’s spectacular twelve-­ layered robes (jūni hitoe), like carriages and other forms of enclosure, si­mul­ta­neously signaled the wearer’s fear of and desire for discovery. ­After all, if a Heian ­woman ­were fenced in an unbroken impenetrable enclosure, with no gaps at all, she could relax in the com­pany of other ­women8 and feel safe from the furtive gaze of male intruders. Freedom from anxiety would come, however, at the cost of her keen awareness of her erotic attraction. In other words, the gap represented not only a threat but also a respite from the distinctly feminine ennui that resulted from meekly waiting for suitors. It was a release from the agony of waiting, from the languishing passivity, so often and so vividly described in Heian lit­erature. The gap in the fence provided an antidote to the atrophy of sexual urges in the midst of interminable waiting, an antidote to the death of desire itself. If we imagine the shinden’s protective barriers as a dike or a dam, the gap can be visualized as a break through which a gush of emotion might flow, creating a whirl­pool of sexual excitement. That visual penetration is a “win” for the man does not mean that it is a loss for the ­woman. Courtship is not a zero-­sum game. While some noblewomen may have experienced kaimami as “visual rape,” bolder ­women, of whom Sei Shōnagon is the most notable example, may have felt an erotic thrill that sent shivers down their spines. In short, for the gorgeously attired Heian noblewoman sequestered in the shinden, the moya was not at all like ­Virginia Woolf’s “room of her own.” In this, then, the sequestered Heian noblewoman is ­different from the hibutsu (hidden Buddhas).9 Buddhist doctrine requires the extinction of all desires in order to release humans from suffering and allow them to attain enlightenment. Not only did the ­woman represent the desire that impeded the man’s enlightenment, she herself was corrupted by it and thus emphatically excluded from enlightenment—­but not from courtship, marriage, and the pain (and plea­sure) of carnal existence.

Narrating Courtship through a Gap 61

The Transformative Gap Looking through a gap transforms the observer’s perception, sometimes to the point of seeing not the ­actual person but someone ­else, a “shadow.” What drove men to take such high risks to satisfy their curiosity and what caused ­women to guard their appearance for fear of having a man know their face? Were they afraid of being mistaken for someone ­else? Heian literary texts abound in instances where the man who catches only a faint glimpse of a ­woman will be reminded of someone whom he desires and for that reason desire the stranger as well. The male viewer’s superimposition of the imagined or recalled w ­ oman on the espied ­actual ­woman I call “shadowing.” Should the seen ­woman become aware of such shadowing, a “shadow ­woman” lurking in the background, her sense of self may be severely affected. However, she may find a lover when she had no such expectation. ­After she has been discovered through kaimami, she may be expected to play the role of the other, the “shadow ­woman,” meaning that the amorous relationship generated by kaimami is defined by per­for­mance. Both male and female actors become highly conscious of who they are and whom they are expected to embody. In terms of the modern concept of identity, kaimami had the capacity to ­either blur or sharpen the contours of the self. If the immediate goal of kaimami was to possess the seen ­woman, there was also an ulterior motive lurking in the shadows ­behind courting her. For both the man and the w ­ oman, the ambiguities of courtship had genealogical consequences. A comparison with the similarly structured phenomenon of Heian spirit possession is instructive. The mechanism of interaction among the agents in kaimami scenes is mirrored in scenes of spirit possession. The possessed person, who is usually an aggrieved ­woman, appears in the eyes of those who witness the possession, to be someone other than who she is. The identity of the possessing spirit (mono no ke) is misperceived by those witnessing the phenomenon because they are psychologically unable to confront the possessed person’s grievances directly. Their misperception is especially ironic when the witnesses to mono no ke include the ­ oman has unconvery person—­usually a man—­whom the possessed w sciously targeted as the source of her grievance. Unable to recognize spirit possession as what anthropologist Ioan M. Lewis calls an “oblique, aggressive strategy”10 or as what I call “a ­woman’s weapon,” the witnesses to spirit possession wrongly attribute the accusations of the possessed person to a super­natu­ral possessing spirit. By ­doing so, they fail to recognize the agency of the possessed person. They fail to understand her

62

The Gap in the Fence

as someone actively seeking to take on the charismatic persona of another in order to communicate her distress, anguish, or hostility obliquely to those who witness the possession.11 This, then, is the most challenging and confusing aspect of spirit possession—­the notion of the self becoming other in order to express emotions other­wise inexpressible. There is a similar dynamic at work in courtship at the moment of kaimami. The observer sees a ­woman through a gap but sometimes perceives her as someone e­ lse. Like the mono no ke in the drama of spirit possession, this someone e­ lse, whom I call the “shadow w ­ oman,” is a fig­ oman is produced by ment of the observer’s imagination. The shadow w a deep drive, the sexual desire to lose oneself in another person, anticipating the consummation of love. Thoroughly absorbed in seeing through the gap while remaining unseen makes it possi­ble for the man engaged in kaimami to lose sight of himself and to experience the illusion of becoming one with the observed ­woman or with her “shadow.” There is, however, a fundamental difference between the two phenomena. In spirit possession, agency resides in the possessed person, who creates an imagined other for herself. In kaimami, agency resides mainly— if not entirely—in the observer. Agency does not, however, necessarily guarantee consciousness of this formidable other, be it the mono no ke in cases of spirit possession or the “shadow ­woman” in kaimami. In both cases, the trance of possession or kaimami enables agency while disabling or impeding the recognition of the other. In spirit possession, gender conflict as well as po­liti­cal struggles may motivate the possessed person’s desperate urge to acquire the charisma of someone more im­por­tant and power­ful. In kaimami, the urge, while seldom desperate, is nonetheless power­ful, seeking as it does, often at considerable risk, to overcome the separation of the sexes by penetrating the fence. When the observer loses himself in his trance and identifies with the observed, he meta­phor­ically becomes other. One may interpret this pro­cess as an imaginary leap of gender. As in the performative role playing of spirit possession, kaimami is—­metaphorically—­theater. In both cases, the performative acts resemble those of an audience identifying with the characters. Kaimami serves not only to satisfy the observer’s curiosity. It inspires him to express love and satisfy desire through words (poetry) and physical acts. Such a sequence, triggered by mere looking, is ultimately motivated by the primal instinct for reproduction. This instinct, well disguised or sublimated in the form of a sophisticated courtship pro­cess, is a means of becoming other through one’s offspring. The otherness achieved through

Narrating Courtship through a Gap 63

kaimami is, therefore, a response to the normally repressed awareness of mortality. ­Whether consciously or not, not only the observer but also the observed transcends death by engaging in creative strategies of immortalization—­the art of poetry and the act of sexual reproduction, and, through poems and children, the desire to contribute to a genealogy that will survive beyond the lives of the observer and the observed.

Chapter 4

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings

I

n order to examine courtship at its richest in the undisputed classic of Genji monogatari, it is useful to explore its appearance in earlier as well as contemporary literary expressions. The anonymous early tenth-­century Taketori monogatari (Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) falls into the fairytale1 twilight zone ­between the worlds of myth and monogatari. No longer myth, the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a literary hybrid that Murasaki Shikibu called the “ancestor of all romances” (S: 311; 2: 370).2 The tale has a notable incident of kaimami that provides an im­por­tant insight into Heian-­era courtship. In this tale, a h ­ umble mortal, an unnamed bamboo cutter, finds Kaguyahime, a radiant moon maiden, in a bamboo stalk. He raises her and hopes to keep his beloved dau­gh­ter for himself by hiding her from view. He jealously confronts potential suitors with impossibly difficult tasks to accomplish as preconditions for courtship. The suitors create peepholes so that they can take a glimpse of her, but they fail to win her ­favor. Only the emperor is able to steal a glance of her, but even he cannot capture her celestial presence because she abruptly turns into a shadow (NKBZ, 8: 93: hito kage ni narinu). He addresses the shadow and engages the moon maiden’s attention. She gives him the elixir of life and also a letter, but neither proves to be of any use to him in his courtship. His frustration takes the form of a fire sacrifice, in which the elixir and her words are burned. In vain, courtship initiated by the imperial kaimami fails because the emperor’s world and that of the bamboo cutter’s heavenly “dau­gh­ter” are too far apart. The two geographic realms, the earth and the moon, are incompatible. There is no way that the moon maiden can become the emperor’s other,3 nor can the bamboo cutter enhance his ­family tree.

64

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 65

Poem Tales (uta monogatari) Among the genre of poem tales (uta monogatari), the tenth-­century Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) and Yamato monogatari (Tales of Yamato, ca. 951), both of uncertain authorship, are rightly celebrated as among the most im­por­tant pre-­Genji works of lit­erature. Both have significant episodes (dan) of courtship conducted by kaimami. Although there are hints of genealogical ambitions, the episodes remain largely focused on the pro­cess rather than on the motivation of courtship.

Ise monogatari and Yamato monogatari The Tales of Ise tells the story of a generic man of old (mukashi otoko). The opening episode, “Uikōburi” (Coming of Age), condensed to the moment of kaimami, has attained an almost iconic status within kaimami scholarship. Regardless of ­whether this man of old represents or is modeled on the courtier Ariwara no Narihira (825–880), as some scholars believe, he is the archetypal courtly lover. Hunting on his estate at Kasuga near the abandoned capital of Heijō (modern-­day Nara), he comes upon a dilapidated ­house. (Dilapidated ­houses are often the first thing that catches the eye of noblemen wandering about in search of amorous adventure.) Coming closer, he catches a glimpse of two sisters through a gap in the fence that surrounds the h ­ ouse: “kono otoko kaimamitekeri.”4 Although the scene suggests a raw approach to courtship—­the youth is, a­ fter all, hawking5 for prey—it turns into an elegant aristocratic example the instant the smitten hunter tears off a piece of his robe and writes upon it a spontaneous waka, which he sends to the sisters. That the poem is improvised based on a waka by Minamoto no Tōru (822–985) is only further testimony to the hunter’s superb taste. Several things stand out in this remarkable construction of courtship. The young court noble has just experienced the rite of passage to adulthood, administered some time between the ages of eleven and seventeen. The uikōburi (modern: genpuku) ritual of donning the cap marks him for a period of monoimi (ritual seclusion).6 Hawking for prey during temporal liminality symbolizes his sexual rite of passage to adulthood and his return from the new capital at Heian-­kyō to his Kasuga estate near the already ruined old capital of Heijō, where he had hunted as a boy, symbolizes his spatial liminality. This twofold liminality loosens cultural constraints and allows him to react with spontaneous compassion to female beauty in a once splendid but now crumbling setting. It also allows him to experience not only the boundaries between boyhood and

66

The Gap in the Fence

manhood but also, through the gap in the fence, the gendered boundary between his manhood and the womanhood represented by the two sisters on the other side of the fence. That he looks at them in secret is brilliantly conceptualized—by his absence—in the thirteenth-­century Ise monogatari emaki, the first extant color illustration of this poem tale (see Plate 5).7 Exploiting the “blown-­ off roof” (fuki nuki yatai) painting technique, the segment of the handscroll illustrating the episode gives a stark frontal view, as if from the perspective of the invisible observer, of the hanging curtains concealing the two ­women within the shinden’s post-­and-­beam structure. With her back against the curtains, a lady-­in-­waiting faces her mistresses. In the Ise text, the episode ends when the man makes his presence known through the waka. Readers of this dan are likely to be curious about the sisters’ reaction to the poem, but there is no definitive response from them, neither by word nor by gesture.8 The only evidence of the man’s rapture is a comment by the narrator, ­after which the episode abruptly ends.9 Much is left unsaid, as is often the case in the Ise monogatari. Is one to assume, for instance, that the narrator’s complimentary assessment of the man’s elegance (miyabi) is shared by the sisters? And what is the significance of their silence or, if medieval commentators are correct, their use of Minamoto no Tōru’s original poem as their reply to the man?10 What should one make of the fact that the w ­ omen are sisters, an obstacle to marriage even in polygynous Heian court society? Does textual ­silence disguise or disclose a courtship taboo on which the man is threatening to infringe? Answers to the last two of these four questions are suggested by an alternative reading of this puzzling episode. Although the usual assumption is that the man sees two sisters (onna harakara), it is possi­ble to read the phrase as referring to the man’s own singular (half-­)sister. The plausibility of this reading is increased by the fact that the young hunter has returned to the old ­family estate in the former capital. Although this reading, with its suggestion of incest, is discouraged by the commentators of the NKBZ edition (8: 133n6), Lone Takeuchi has defended it: “Seeing a female sibling—­perhaps for the first time or ­after a long separation—­ seems to have caused a jolt in wotoko’s [the man’s] cognition and brought about disorientation concerning the distinction between ‘own ­sister’ and ‘someone ­else’s sister.’ ” Takeuchi supports her argument by referring to dan 41, which, by contrast, opens unambiguously with “mukashi, onna harakara futari arikeri” (once there ­were two sisters).11 ­Whether readers conclude that the hunter sees two sisters or only his

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 67

(half-­)sister, they are left to won­der what might have happened next if the sequence of courtship phases had not been abruptly broken off. Was the young man not only hoping to reclaim ancestral territories but also to rejoin his lineage there? It is not only the men who move about in the Tales of Ise’s episodes of courtship. ­Women travel as well, and are, in their travels, more often accessible to suitors and would-be suitors than they would be if they remained in their residences in the Heian capital. This is most true when their ox-­drawn carriages are parked, which is the case in a comic incident in Episode 39. Minamoto no Itaru is in attendance at the funeral pro­cession of Princess Shūshi (or Sōshi; also Takaiko). While waiting for the arrival of her coffin, he has the audacity to disturb the somber mood by releasing a firefly into a w ­ oman’s parked carriage, hoping thereby to see the lady inside. What this gallant does not know is that the w ­ oman is not alone but in the com­pany of another man. While she tries to extinguish the firefly, the man with her recites a poem scolding Itaru about having caused the untimely extinction of the firefly. Having been caught at using a firefly as an aid for kaimami at an inappropriate moment, Itaru implies in his self-­defensive poem that neither the firefly nor the princess can be extinguished, for “nirvana is not extinction.”12 Still another parked-­carriage kaimami takes place in Ise Episode 99, “Hiori no hi” (The Day of the Archery Meet). While watching an archery contest, the ­middle captain, Ariwara no Narihira, glimpses a ­woman through the curtained blinds of her carriage (see KKS, 11: 476). The poem he sends to the ­woman expresses his anxiety about making his infatuation dependent on the degree of precision with which he dimly saw her: Mizu mo arazu Mi mo senu hito no Koishuku wa Ayanaku kyō ya Nagamekurasamu

If I fall in love With a face I cannot say I saw or did not see, Shall I pass the day in gazing, Lost in a strange bafflement?13

Narihira theatrically confronts the ­woman, perhaps in a calculated effort to win her compassion, with the maddening lack of a clear perception of her physical reality while si­mul­ta­neously making his impeded vision the agonizing source of his longing for someone whom he cannot ­really know. In effect, Narihira suggests h ­ ere that the ultimate attraction of kaimami lies—­paradoxically—in just such an imperfect visual perception of the other. In her reply poem, the ­woman impatiently insists that it

68

The Gap in the Fence

is love alone that counts, not what the man knows or does not know about her, thereby corroborating his sense of kaimami. A parked-­carriage kaimami also appears in Tales of Yamato (Yamato monogatari; ca. 951), like Tales of Ise a poem tale. In dan 166, “Onnaguruma no hito” (The Lover of a ­Woman’s Carriage), Zaigo Chūjō (Narihira) goes sightseeing (the event is not specified) and is able to see a ­woman very well through a gap in her carriage blinds. The two converse and the very next day engage in a poetry exchange in which he claims, in the same words as the man in Ise 99, to be in love with her, yet without having seen her clearly. Instead of being flattered, she quite bluntly questions his sincerity in her reply poem. Without having seen her, she argues, he cannot know her and thus not credibly be in love with her. It is unclear ­whether he pursued her ­after this snub. Occasionally, there are surprising patterns of reversal, ­either in the sequence of courtship and marriage or in the gendered kaimami paradigm. Ise 23 “Tsutsuizutsu” (At the Well Curb) involves a man and two ­women, one of whom is his wife, his childhood sweetheart, who had refused a marriage arranged by her ­father. ­After the death of his wife’s parents, her ­family fortune declined and her husband has become distressed by his dependence on her reduced means. While still living in a uxorilocal marital residence, he has taken a lover in distant Takayasu, Kawachi province.14 As the affair continues, he becomes puzzled by his wife’s dispassionate attitude ­toward his escapades. Her surprising lack of jealousy arouses his curiosity and his suspicions. Has his wife also taken a lover? In a reversal of the usual pattern of courtship and kaimami, he spies on the ­woman to whom he is already married. She sends him a waka (see also KKS, 994), in which she not only refrains from reproaching him but also accepts his unfaithfulness as if she deserved it. He is so moved by her apparent understanding of his frustration and by her innocent show of loyalty to him that he stops visiting his Kawachi lover ­until—in a twist worthy of kabuki—he becomes curious about what has happened to her. He watches her as she serves herself some rice and is thoroughly disgusted by her lack of elegance and by the way in which she has let herself go since his visits ceased. His wife, by contrast, has carefully maintained her dignified appearance even in the face of deprivation. While his distrustful and possessive Kawachi lover longs to secure him in order to ensure her own happiness, his faithful wife places his happiness ahead of her own. In the end, the man makes his choice between the two ­women on the basis of his unconventional kaimami, by means of which he was able to observe their diametrically opposed true colors.

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 69

A variation on Ise 23 appears in Yamato 149, “Okitsu shiranami” (White Waves out at Sea), the story of a man said to be an ōgimi (imperial prince). The man’s sole source of discontent with his wife is her loss of looks over time. He courts and marries another w ­ oman, who happens to be wealthy and in a position to spoil him with expensive robes. It is not so much that he loves her as that she satisfies his craving to be spoiled. His first wife does not seem to be jealous (but she actually is, unlike her counterpart in Ise 23), which prompts him to suspect that she has retaliated by taking a lover. The man hides in the shrubbery of his own home in hopes of catching his wife’s (non­ex­is­tent) lover, but he discovers instead evidence of longing for him, expressed, as in Ise 23, in the form of a waka. At this point, Yamato 149 radically departs from Ise 23. The prince’s first wife’s fiery jealousy shows, a­ fter all. When she holds a metal bowl with cold ­water to her breasts, the ­water begins to boil. Observing this, the prince, rather than being repelled by this hyperbole of “intense jealousy,”15 is deeply moved and decides to stay with this w ­ oman of whose love he can be certain. Indeed, the revelation of his first wife’s suffering makes him won­ der about his new wife’s sincerity. When he goes to peep through a gap in her fence (NKBZ, 8: 397: kaimameba), he sees the same sort of slovenly be­hav­ior witnessed by the protagonist of Ise 23: neglected robes and a self-­served meal. He is repelled to the point that he decides never to see her again. Wealth cannot compensate for vulgarity. In the curiously comic—­and touching—­episode of Ise 63, “Tsukumogami” (Unruly White Hair), Ariwara no Narihira is specifically named ­ oman’s as the gallant hunter who responds to the appeal of an aging w son that he—­Narihira—­satisfy her wishes for a lover. Skipping the formalities of courtship, Narihira makes his way to her h ­ ouse, spends the night with her, and then leaves without a parting poem and with no intention of returning. Disappointed by his failure to commit himself to more than a “one-­night stand,” she makes a highly unconventional move and pursues him to his residence, where, in a gender reversal of the kaimami paradigm, she peeps on him (NKBZ, 8: 184: kaimamikeru). He, in turn, catches sight of her and reveals his awareness of her presence by reciting an unflattering poem for her to overhear. Her pain at seeing her aging face reflected in the mirror of his poem is so great that she hurries home in a panic and injures herself along the way. She is followed by Narihira, who now, in turn, and since he was there, stealthily peeps on her (NKBZ, 8: 184: shinobite taterite mireba) as she recites her poem

70

The Gap in the Fence

of longing.16 His curiosity about her reaction to his cruel treatment allows him to pity her loneliness and spend a second night at her residence. (According to many commentators, Narihira obtained his great reputation as an amorous man in part because of his compassionate attitude ­toward this ­woman beyond her prime and yearning to be loved.)17 Considering the absurdity of this affair, originating in the prompt fulfillment of an outrageous request,18 it is interest­ing that elements of courtship resuscitate the affair and spin it nearly out of control. Although Narihira’s unflattering poem was clearly meant for the aged w ­ oman to hear, there is no indication that she knew he had followed her home or that she intended for him to hear her poem.19 If, however, her be­hav­ior can be said to imitate his in the expectation that he will do as she did, then Mitani Kuniaki’s point of “parody”20 can be applied to the two characters parodying each other’s be­hav­ior. As a result of this interplay, the encounter becomes a contest, in which both parties prove themselves to be equally clever at using kaimami and poetry to play the game of courtship. The ritual itself takes on such a force of its own that the man puts aside—or forgets—­conventional male attitudes t­ oward a w ­ oman’s age and looks. Yamato 173, “Gojō no onna” (The ­Woman on Fifth Ave­nue), links the topos of kaimami with that of the dilapidated ­house sheltering a beautiful ­woman. The minor captain, Yoshimine no Munesada, seeks shelter from a downpour and peeks into an apparently abandoned residence, where to his surprise he glimpses a beauty through bamboo blinds. She may or may not be aware of his presence as she recites a poem about the uguisu (sometimes rendered as “nightingale”) that was believed in Japa­nese folklore to announce the presence of a (prospective) lover. Since the poem is a lament to herself that she has no hope of any lover visiting her, she is shocked to hear a male voice recite a poem about an unexpected visit. Her reaction to having been unexpectedly exposed to a man’s gaze is the classical one: she is surprised, embarrassed, and speechless. Her initial nearly catatonic reaction allows him the opportunity to come nearer and to scold her for not offering him shelter from the rain. Although she cleverly argues that it is as wet inside her dilapidated ­house as it is outside, she grants him a cushion, with the frayed blinds still separating them. As the man observes the miserable conditions in which the ­woman lives, he decides ungallantly to take her by force. She continues to be tongue-­tied and makes efforts to escape, which moves him to have the traditional tokoroarawashi conducted by her parents, during which she remains intensely embarrassed. Pitying her and moved by her parents’ unpretentious

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 71

s­ imple serving of greens from the fields, he continues to visit her regularly ­until, eventually, he decides to become a priest. Even then, he thinks fondly of her and sends his robe to her to maintain in proper condition. Like dilapidated ­houses in other Heian works, the run-­down residence in Yamato 173 intrigues the courtier accustomed to the finest shinden style. The hidden beauty glimpsed through the ­house’s many gaps seems all the more beautiful because of the pitiful state of her home. The contrast between the unsightly architectural shell and the female beauty it imperfectly shelters evokes feelings of compassion and desire in the man. Interestingly, his romantic attraction to her allure and his charitable impulse ­toward her ­family dampen, rather set on fire, any genealogical ambition he might have had.

Fabricated Tales (tsukuri monogatari) Utsuho monogatari The tenth-­century Utsuho [or: Utsubo] monogatari (Tale of the Hollow Tree, translated as Tale of the Cavern),21 is Japan’s longest pre-­Genji fiction.22 Authorship remains uncertain, although Minamoto no Shitagō (911–983) is traditionally cited. Whoever the author was, he or she “has remained virtually ­free of any received design—­whether that of history or of another storyteller—­for how his narrative should progress, and has singlehandedly created an original story out of his own imagination.”23 The tale starts out in the fairytale vein of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, but the narration becomes increasingly realistic in descriptions of court rituals, customs, and intrigues. Some episodes of this loosely constructed tale from the second half of the tenth ­century, transmitted in many variants, may well have inspired Murasaki Shikibu in her construction of certain Genji episodes.24 She mentions it in her Chapter 17 ­(“Eawase”). In this tale, ­music becomes the primary catalyst for amorous interactions that are initially set in motion by visual recognition.25 Participating in a pro­cession to the Kamo Shrine northeast of the dairi, a scion of the Fujiwara, young Fujiwara no Kanemasa, is drawn into the late Kiyowara no Toshikage’s premises. There by the pampas grass swaying in the wind, he sees a beautiful girl walking in the autumnal garden.26 For the moment, he restrains himself and rejoins the pro­cession. However, upon his return from the Kamo Shrine, he leaves the pro­cession in order to catch a second glimpse of the girl. Since she has left the relatively unprotected space of her ­father’s garden, kaimami is the obvious

72

The Gap in the Fence

strategy. In this rather deliberate move, he secretly peers into the dark of Toshikage’s “desolate ­house,”27 where he can hear the girl playing the seven-­stringed koto (kin). Aware of his presence, she hides herself in the nurigome, a room closed to view on all sides (but not soundproof) right next to the moya. Undeterred, he begins a conversation with her that leads to his confession that he had accidentally caught a glimpse of her during the pro­cession to the Kamo Shrine. She, in turn, expresses her surprise at being found worthy of a visit in a residence much dilapidated since the death of Toshikage. Although she refuses to reveal her name, she does play the kin for him. The pace of courtship accelerates. Her ­music and his attentive listening lead to their lovemaking that very night. He departs and is unaware that a child was conceived during this first fortuitous encounter. In his absence, she bears his child, Nakatada. Lacking support and fearing shame because of gossip about her fatherless child, she flees into the mountains, where she and her son find shelter in a hollow tree (­after which the tale is named) and live with the animals of the forest. The sequence of sight and sound in Kanemasa’s courtship is reversed when he leaves a royal excursion into the countryside and risks his life to pursue a mysterious sound that takes him deep into the mountains. Standing in front of the cavern from which the sound is coming, Kanemasa sees the young boy of the cavern and engages him in conversation about his reason for living in such a cavern with his mo­ther, the koto player. Kanemasa soon recognizes the boy as his son and persuades him—­and his mo­ther—to leave the wilderness with him. He ensures a spectacular c­ areer at court for their talented son. That is not the end of the story. Like his f­ ather, Nakatada falls ­under the spell of a superb koto player, Atemiya, the dau­gh­ter of Minamoto no Masayori and Princess Ōmiya. Sight follows sound, and there is a kaimami during which Nakatada enjoys “fleeting glimpses of Atemiya through cracks in the blinds,”28 but sight and sound in this instance do not culminate in sexual ­union.29 More tragically, Nakatada’s close friend Nakazumi falls in love with his full sister and dies, pining away for her. The author of this long monogatari succeeds in spinning the web of his characters’ courtship across generational lines and features some complications arising from forbidden kin courtship.

Ochikubo monogatari Neither author nor date is certain for Ochikubo monogatari (The Tale of Ochikubo), but the likely time of composition is the late tenth

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 73

c­ entury. Its Cinderella plot is told in a generally straightforward realistic fashion, but the narration is enriched by the topoi of the evil stepmother tale (mamako-­tan) and the forbidden chamber tale (kinshitsukei monogatari), which combine to set the stage for several psychologically complex incidents of kaimami.30 Forbidden courtship leads to the restoration of the heroine’s rightful place in society and a fertile marital alliance. The female protagonist Onnagimi, sarcastically nicknamed Ochikubo no kimi a­ fter her underground “residence,” is the youn­gest dau­gh­ ter of a deceased imperial princess. She is controlled by the principal wife (kita no kata) of her f­ather, a ­middle counselor (chūnagon). Her stepmother makes sure, by assigning her charge a miserable “sunken room” (ochikubo) as living space, that she does not enjoy the same privileges as her biological daughters. Ironically, her extreme isolation provokes kaimami and generates sexual awakening through courtship, marriage, and reproduction. As Seki Keigo has argued, “this period of confinement [in the “sunken room”] represents an initiation into adulthood, a trial that tests the young girl’s strength and ability to survive in a hostile world and that prepares her for marriage and sexual ­union.”31 It is notable that, in terms of gender relationships, the heroine’s initiation, in contrast to that of the hunter-­hero in Ise 1 (“Uikōburi”), takes place in an interior space. Commenting on the Ochikubo heroine’s initiation, Norma Field has emphasized the tabooed state associated with menstruation and “becoming sexually available.” Girls’ sacred state of puberty is characterized by a distinct affliction: “The stigma is a sign of their special state, an emblem of the sacred cause of their pre­sent suffering and, being temporary, of their ­future redemption—or fall—in marriage.”32 Paradoxically, the practice of hiding girls undergoing the rite of passage to adulthood draws attention to the source of their attraction, their potential of reproduction. Needless to add, sequestering girls entering puberty whets men’s curiosity and sexual appetite. Field has also suggested that pubescent girls are transgressing against their oppressors, usually their stepmother and their chief rivals, their half-­sisters. Their transgression, from a position of confinement, is the counterpart of men’s transgression expressed in the topos of the noble exile.33 Virtual imprisonment as an initiation ordeal pre­sents an especially intriguing challenge to her suitors, but word of her beauty outweighs her social disadvantages. The link between Ochikubo and her potential suitors is her sole female attendant, the self-­assertive Akogi, who is sexually involved with a certain Tachihaki. Akogi takes pity on Ochikubo, who

74

The Gap in the Fence

has suicidal thoughts because of her gloomy marital prospects as a motherless child. Akogi and Tachihaki scheme to arrange for an amorous encounter between Ochikubo and the high-­ranking Michiyori. Despite their ­different ranks, the two men are intimately related not by blood but as “breast or milk bro­th­ers” (menotogo, that is, children suckled by the same wet nurse, one related to her by blood and the other not). Since Ochikubo lacks the proper social backing for an arranged marriage, Michiyori is compelled to approach her in an unorthodox manner that fits her unique situation. He refuses to commit himself blindly, emphasizing the importance of seeing her (SNKBT, 18: 9: mite koso wa sadamubekanare)34 before making a decision. Clearly, romantic courtship, that is, courtship based primarily on personal attraction, is ­here closely tied to the practice of kaimami. Curiously, the secret plan for a kaimami is accompanied by an astonishingly explicit epistolary overture in the form of a poem in which Michiyori declares to Ochikubo that he is consumed by desire for her, having heard about her but never having seen her (SNKBT, 18: 11: kimi ari to kiku ni kokoro o tsukubane no minedo koishiki nageki o zo suru). Michiyori’s revelation of his intentions is met, not surprisingly, by silence. According to Tachihaki, this silence is attributable to the girl’s fear of her evil stepmother. A secret meeting is arranged during Ochikubo’s f­ ather’s pilgrimage to Ishiyamadera. Akogi, pretending to have a sudden defilement, manages to remain ­behind to protect Ochikubo, who has been excluded from the pilgrimage. Meanwhile, Tachihaki restrains the impatient Michiyori by reminding him of an apparently disappointing glimpse the hero of a romance (now lost) had of a certain Princess Monoimi. Since love-­sick Michiyori is willing to take a risk in order to see Ochikubo, Tachihaki guides him to an opening between a latticed shutter and a pillar. Kaimami takes place in its prototypical form.35 In the flickering light, Michiyori first enjoys a frontal view of Akogi and then sees Ochikubo’s gorgeous hair and shabby robe. Since the light goes out before he can see Ochikubo’s face, Michiyori must be satisfied with this fleeting glimpse. He is, however, stirred by her beautiful voice commenting on the sudden darkness. We have, therefore, an example of sight-­sound courtship. In order to clear the way for Michiyori, Tachihaki persuades Akogi to lie down with him in another room, but Akogi is upset when she realizes that her mistress is now vulnerable to seduction by Michiyori. She questions her lover about his ruthless tactics, ignoring the fact of her own complicity in the men’s scheming. Tachihaki lies about his role in the plot, and Akogi frets over her unintended betrayal of Ochikubo.

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 75

Ochikubo, for her part, feels abandoned and betrayed by Akogi, but she is most aggrieved because she has been seen in shabby robes. Her shame is extreme. She hides u ­ nder layers of robes, falls s­ ilent, and suc­ ntil this moment, the tale’s first kaimami has more or cumbs to apathy. U less conformed to well-­established convention. Secrecy is to be expected in kaimami, although ­here secrecy is undermined by Michiyori’s epistolary warning to Ochikubo. Planning an act of kaimami involves a secondary set of characters—­Tachihaki and Akogi—­who assist or obstruct the viewing subject. Michiyori’s refusal to commit himself to Ochikubo without first seeing her, even when seeing her entails the risk of disappointment, is equally conventional, as is the double vision that allows Michiyori the opportunity to discriminate between Akogi and Ochikubo. At this point, something unexpected occurs. When Michiyori hears about Ochikubo’s reaction to having been seen in shabby robes, he smiles and cites the expectations of his culture that exposed ­women feel shame (SNKBT, 18:34: imijiku sarete mono yoku iubeki mono ka na. Muge ni hazukashi to omoitaritsuru ni, ke no noboritaran). While clearly recognizing that Ochikubo’s reaction is conventional, Michiyori is himself unconventional enough to think that Ochikubo should not feel shame.36 It is a remarkable moment. It is as if Cinderella’s prince had assured her that her rags do not diminish her attractiveness. In the aftermath of the kaimami, Akogi and Tachihaki do their best to advance the marriage of their superiors with an elaborate arrangement for three nuptial nights. Although unsanctioned by ­family members and constantly threatened with discovery by the kita no kata, the nuptial ritual confirms Michiyori’s marital commitment to Ochikubo. Increasingly suspicious, the kita no kata begins to vie with Michiyori in spying on Ochikubo, although for the stepmother’s spying the author does not use the word kaimami, which would be inappropriate, but nozokitamau (spying; see SNKBT, 18: 55). (For Michiyori’s reciprocal spying on the kita no kata, forms of miru [to see], are used (see SNKBT, 18: 56), as if to reduce the offensiveness of his action.) As in Shakespearean comedy, censorious snooping often gives rise to hilarity. An instance of this occurs when the kita no kata, observing Ochikubo with her hidden lover’s tell-­tale robe, mistakenly takes it to be just another garment that her mistreated stepdaughter was supposed to mend. (This scene contrasts tonally with true kaimami scenes because the latter are not occasions for levity.) Worried about losing control of  Ochikubo, the kita no kata spies again, this time to ensure that her

76

The Gap in the Fence

stepdaughter is ­doing her work instead of sleeping. She sees and is deeply disturbed by the impressive sight of Michiyori. Why is this high-­ranking man not courting one of her daughters? Becoming increasingly erratic and vengeful, she tells her husband a lie about Ochikubo’s having an affair with Tachihaki, which leads to Ochikubo’s incarceration in an even smaller place than before. If shinden had dungeons, the kita no kata would have put her there. The courtship of Ochikubo becomes increasingly complicated (but without episodes of kaimami). In response to the kita no kata’s machinations, an allegedly irresistible Katano no shōshō appears to court Ochikubo. Michiyori is jealous, but Ochikubo assures him that she will not fall for the newcomer. Michiyori and his allies decide to rescue Ochikubo by elopement. Although the kita no kata plots to foil the lovers by exposing Ochikubo to rape by an unmarried u ­ ncle, Michiyori succeeds in carry­ing Ochikubo off to his mo­ther’s Nijō residence. The lovers marry and successfully ward off the kita no kata’s efforts to seize the Sanjō ­house bequeathed to Ochikubo by her mo­ther. In The Tale of Ochikubo, courtship serves to resolve Ochikubo’s inheritance strug­gle. Not only can Ochikubo in the end claim her mo­ther’s Sanjō residence as hers, but she gracefully leaves it to her stepmother and stepsisters. The lovers’ good fortune continues with their many offspring. Assured that his dau­gh­ter’s maternal lineage has been publicly recognized, Ochikubo’s f­ ather leaves her all his possessions, and Michiyori prospers at court. It is among the happiest of happy endings.

Sumiyoshi monogatari The mid-­tenth-­century Sumiyoshi monogatari (The Sumiyoshi Tale) survived in numerous versions of the Kamakura and l­ater periods.37 A version no longer extant was known to Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shōnagon.38 This complicated tale of courtship and marriage is especially intriguing because kaimami occurs in several aty­pi­cal forms: a man hides ­behind a fan to peer at a ­woman in the open; a servant looks through a crack in the wall and observes her mistress’s suitor; a mo­ther peeks through a curtain and witnesses her f­ ather’s recognition of his grandchildren. While the first of these moments is definitely an au­then­tic kaimami, albeit one that involves gender reversal, the second is identified in the text as a kaimami, although it is not; and the third has been treated by one critic as a kaimami, although it may or may not fit the definition. Insofar as the plot involves a wicked stepmother, The Sumiyoshi Tale is thematically close to The Tale of Ochikubo. It features a female

Plate 1. Genji monogatari zu shikishi: “Akashi” (The Tale of Genji painting on a square sheet of paper: “Akashi”). Artist unknown. Early Edo period. From a set of twenty-­eight shikishi. Color, gold, and silver. Sakai City Museum.

Plate 2. Tsuchimikado-­dono: Model of Fujiwara no Michinaga’s Tsuchimikado Mansion. Kyōto City, ed., Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, 1994), 111, fig. 185.

Plate 3. Model of a shinden interior. Kyōto City, ed., Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, 1994), 125, fig. 212.

Plate 4. Ox-­drawn Carriages. Clockwise from top right: carriages of the mon, hachiyō, ajirobisashi, ajiro, birōhisashi, and amamayu type. “Gissha no zu 2: yosha kōfuzu shosai” (Maps of Carriages 2: reproductions of palanquins and carriages identified by name). Kokushi daijiten zufu (Pictorial Dictionary of the History of Japan). Woodblock print. Meiji period (1868–1912). Collection of the author.

Plate 5. Ise monogatari emaki (Tales of Ise Picture Scroll), Scene 5: Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise), Episode 1. Kamakura Period. Late thirteenth ­century. Handscroll. Color on paper. Im­por­tant Cultural Property. Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi.

Plate 6. Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki (The Sumiyoshi Tale Handscroll). Scene [right] from handscroll 1 (of 3). Color on paper. Edo Period. Seventeenth ­century. Kyoto National ­Museum.

Plate 7. Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki (The Sumiyoshi Tale Handscroll). Scene [left] from handscroll 1 (of 3). Color on paper. Edo Period. Seventeenth ­century. Kyoto National Museum.

Plate 8. “Wakamurasaki.” Kano School. Late seventeenth ­century. Right three panels, No. 66.12, from a pair of sixfold screens (byōbu). Ink, colored ink, gold leaf on paper. Indiana University Art Museum.

Plate 9. “Yadorigi.” Scene from one of two handscrolls. Attributed to Kaihō Yūsetsu (1598–1677). Ink, light color, and gold on paper. Edo period. Mid-­ seventeenth ­century. Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation.

Plate 10. “Ukifune.” Kano School. Late seventeenth ­century. Left three panels, No. 66.11, from a pair of sixfold screens (byōbu). Ink, colored ink, gold leaf on paper. Indiana University Art Museum.

Plate 11. “Kagerō I.” Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613). Genji monogatari tekagami. ­Album dated 1612. Color, with gold and silver, on paper. Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi.

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 77

protagonist who is the only dau­gh­ter of a deceased imperial princess and a chūnagon. Raised by her nurse in a ­humble dwelling, of uncertain location, the heroine, known as Himegimi, moves to the west wing of her ­father’s residence in the capital at the age of ten. When she is old enough to be married, she attracts the attention of a high-­ranking suitor, referred to by his rank of shōshō (minor captain of the inner Palace Guards [Konoe]). The shōshō, “clever and handsome beyond most men,” learns of Himegimi and her “youthful beauty”39 from a servant, whom he then entrusts to carry letters and poems to Himegimi. The messenger is incompetent, and the letters and poems never reach her. The failure allows Himegimi’s stepmother to trick the shōshō into marrying her own dau­gh­ ter, San no kimi. Before long, however, the shōshō becomes unhappily aware of the deception and of the shortcomings of his wife. One winter night, he is enchanted by the sound of the koto wafting over from the west wing of the kita no kata’s residence to the east wing. His wife, having as yet no cause for jealousy, identifies the koto for him as Himegimi’s. To sound, sight must be added. The unknown author of the tale describes in remarkable detail the shōshō’s path through the snow to Himegimi’s quarters. He wonders how he can see her (SNKBT, 18: 305: ika de ka mitatematsuran), but he is, initially, restricted to eavesdropping and an exchange with Jijū, the dau­gh­ter of Himegimi’s nurse and therefore her menotogo.40 Jijū, devoted to Himegimi, is e­ ager to advance the shōshō’s cause, but Himegimi fears for her reputation should word of her encouraging the shōshō get out. At this impasse, the shōshō hears of an outing to Saga in the northwestern outskirts of Heian-­kyō, miles away from the dairi, to celebrate the New Year’s pine saplings (ne no hi no asobi or komatsuhiki). He plans a kaimami that is quite unusual because everyone involved is outdoors. At first glance, the site is rather a prob­lem for him in that the relatively open space provides an embarrassment of riches. There are so many young ­women in sight, protected only by their robes. Of the attractive ­women, however, he has eyes only for Himegimi. One of her two half-­ sisters is his wife (San no kimi), and the other (Naka no kimi) is married to another man. For visual artists, the crowded scene unfolding before the shōshō’s eyes may well have inspired the illustrations the tale is known to have had from its inception.41 That an unusual number of w ­ omen ­were unusually visible may have been an artistic challenge. In an early Edo-­period Nara ehon illustration of the text, the shōshō’s entourage is greatly expanded and the ­women are accompanied by male attendants. Himegimi

78

The Gap in the Fence

is already seated among her half-­sisters in this crowded rendering.42 The seventeenth-­century handscroll segment in the Kyōto National Museum43 shows Himegimi as the last of the w ­ omen to alight from her carriage (see Plate 6). Her half-­sisters and their ladies-­in-­waiting have already positioned themselves in a half-­circle to face a young ­woman holding up a pine sapling in cele­bration of the New Year as the inspiration of a poetry exchange. Guarded by a retainer and a boy, the shōshō is standing ­behind a large pine on a hillock and holds a fan up to his eyes in a gesture usually associated with reticence, if not secretiveness (see Plate 7). The outdoor kaimami thus incongruously retains an indoor device more commonly used to hide a ­woman’s face than a man’s. Somewhat absurdly, the fan ­here reveals rather than conceals. Himegimi notices the shōshō while the ­others are preoccupied with admiring the landscape or themselves. They are so absorbed in looking all around them that they fail to see the man Himegimi sees—­and is attracted by—as soon as she has emerged from her carriage. The most unusual and ironic aspect of this episode is that the classical kaimami ­pattern is ­here reversed: it is the ­woman who is so thrilled to have glimpsed the man that she blushes when she feels herself falling in love. Once the ­women realize that they have been observed, all of them scurry to the shelter of their carriages.44 The shōshō then tries to initiate a poetry exchange, but Naka no kimi and Himegimi refuse to understand his intent, driving him to the extreme of approaching their carriage and accosting them reproachfully: “Why should you hide yourselves when that is altogether futile?” (SNKBT, 18: 308: nani kakuresasetamauran, kai mo haberaji). The shōshō is obviously smitten, but he suspends his courtship temporarily during the replay of Himegimi’s traumatic loss of her mo­ther that occurs when Jijū’s mo­ther dies. Himegimi seals the bond with her menotogo by sending to Jijū her mo­ther’s robe with a poem uniting the two mothers in death and their daughters in life. ­After respecting the forty-­nine-­day mourning period, the shōshō once again approaches Himegimi’s west wing. He is able to converse with Jijū and correspond with Himegimi, who cannot permit herself to follow her heart because she remains concerned about her reputation. There is some bantering between the shōshō and Jijū about taking religious vows and sitting on the same lotus. Himegimi’s ­father has grander plans. He wants to offer Himegimi to the emperor, but his jealous wife smears her stepdaughter’s reputation

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 79

by insinuating, with the help of a mukutsuke onna (wicked ­woman; ­here referring to the nurse of San no kimi),45 that Himegimi is sexually involved with a lecherous priest. Himegimi’s gullible f­ ather is deceived and decides to install her in her deceased mo­ther’s Sanjō-­Horikawa residence, where she can eventually receive a suitable husband, presumably one considerably less eminent than the emperor. At this point, the stepmother and her wicked ally intervene again and scheme to marry Himegimi to the latter’s old brother, recently widowed. Fortunately, faithful Jijū hears of the plot and flees with Himegimi to Sumiyoshi on the coast, where Himegimi’s mo­ther’s aged nurse resides as a nun. The shōshō is understandably distressed by Himegimi’s disappearance and is unable, at first, to discover her whereabouts. While the ­women live in self-­imposed exile at Sumiyoshi, the shōshō is promoted to chūjō (­middle captain). He prays for help and is miraculously led to the Sumiyoshi nun’s residence by a dream vision sent by the Hatsuse Kannon at Hasedera. His journey to Sumiyoshi is so arduous that he arrives on the Sumiyoshi shore with his feet bleeding (SNKBT, 18: 334). The sound of a koto reveals Himegimi’s presence; the chūjō’s presence is signaled more prosaically, by knocking on Himegimi’s door. Curiously, as Yoshikai has pointed out, it is Jijū who asks who is there while peeking at the visitor through a gap.46 Although the text refers to a kaimami, this is a misnomer (SNKBT, 18: 336: Jijū, suigaki no hima yori nozokeba): Jijū’s glimpse of the chūjō is in no way inspired by carnal desire. ­After all, she is but a menotogo serving Himegimi’s interests—­ which are, specifically, to remain hidden from the impetuous intruder.47 Although Himegimi had instructed Jijū not to reveal her presence, the chūjō insists that he be admitted. We may assume that his bleeding feet (see SNKBT, 18: 337) soften Jijū’s resolve. ­After consulting with the Sumiyoshi nun, she allows him to enter the dwelling. Perseverance pays, Himegimi relents, and the lovers are united. The chūjō takes Himegimi back to the capital on an autumn journey.48 His ­father, now kanpaku (chancellor), establishes a neolocal residence for them, and for seven years they keep her identity secret for fear of her stepmother’s scheming. During that time, the chūjō rises to his ­father’s rank of kanpaku, and Himegimi gives birth to a son and dau­gh­ ter. When the boy is seven and the girl five, Himegimi and Jijū peek through a split in the curtain-­stand (kichō) at Himegimi’s ­father, now an old man with hair as white as snow, as he is moved to tears by the donning of trousers (hakamagi) ceremony for the children (see 18: 343: kichō no hokorobi yori, nozokeba). Yoshikai h ­ ere stretches the concept of

80

The Gap in the Fence

kaimami by suggesting that this scene communicates the love between ­father and dau­gh­ter in a kaimami from the female perspective.49 It is clear, at any rate, that the scene involves recognition and reconciliation. Himegimi’s ­father sees the face of his dau­gh­ter in the l­ittle girl, and he recognizes that the robe he receives as a gift was once Himegimi’s. A happy reunion follows that confirms Himegimi’s genealogical prospects. Himegimi’s ­father moves into the Sanjō-­Horikawa residence of Himegimi’s mo­ther, the princess, leaving ­behind forever Himegimi’s evil stepmother. The Sumiyoshi Tale is especially noteworthy, not only for its unusual kaimami but also for the amazingly detailed descriptions of the characters’ movements in space, be it within residential complexes, in the countryside, or on journeys between the capital and Sumiyoshi on the sea, famed for a landscape with white sands and green pines (hakushaseishō). This emphasis on location is significant. A person’s identity is s­ haped, in large part, by place, ­whether the person is in situ or in transit. Himegimi is certainly a case in point. As a motherless child, she must pass vari­ous ordeals of dislocation before she can find her true home. She is meta­phor­ ically homeless in the west wing of her scheming stepmother’s residence. Her rightful place is in her late mo­ther’s Sanjō-­Horikawa residence—­ which is where The Sumiyoshi Tale’s convoluted plot aims to lead her. What propels her from place to place? Her flight from the prison of her stepmother’s quarters to her late mo­ther’s nurse’s residence in Sumi­ yoshi results from a combination of two intersecting plot lines: one concerns the death of her wet nurse, the mo­ther of Jijū. This death reactivates the trauma Himegimi experienced at the death of her own ­mo­ther. The other concerns her f­ ather’s gullibility in the face of Himegimi’s stepmother’s lies and his apparent acquiescence in her plot to marry Himegimi to an inappropriate el­derly widower. The el­derly Sumiyoshi nurse, now a nun, propels Himegimi out of this temporary place and into a permanent one, first by arranging Himegimi’s marriage to the chūjō and then by urging them to return to the capital to resolve the problems awaiting them there. As we have seen, the ­couple do just that, ­after which they can live happily in the residence ­established for them by Himegimi’s ­father-­in-­law. Perhaps the most interest­ing aspect of the entire complicated story is the fact that control over movement and the power to achieve genealogical status belong to Himegimi, rather than the suitor who follows her from place to place.

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 81

Random Notes (zuihitsu) Makura no sōshi (ca. 994 – 1000 ) Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (The Pillow Book) depicted gender roles at court as considerably less restrictive than outside the dairi. Given the relative openness and freedom of life at court, men and w ­ omen had less need of the clandestine courtship game of kaimami than was the case elsewhere in Heian-­kyō and its environs. But kaimami did occur, and Sei Shōnagon practiced as well as documented it. Theorist of courtship that she was, she made it abundantly clear that, contrary to the ste­reo­ typical perception, ­women could be avid voyeurs for whom men ­were on display, not simply the other way around. She more than once appropriated the “male gaze” and put herself in the position of voyeur. In “When the Lady of the Shigei Sha Entered the Crown Prince’s Palace,” she tells what it is like to be caught in the act: “The screen ­behind which I had been peeping was now pushed aside and I felt exactly like a demon who has been robbed of his straw coat [of invisibility].”50 Her curiosity is stronger than her embarrassment at her naked exposure, however, and she repositions herself: “I had not seen nearly enough and, rather annoyed by the interruption, I moved next to one of the pillars where I could go on watching the scene from between a bamboo blind and a curtain of state. However, my train and the skirts of my robe stuck out ­under the blind.” She is now censored by none other than the chancellor, Fujiwara no Michitaka (953–995), who jokingly pretends to be upset that Sei Shōnagon should have seen his “ugly” (ito nikusage) daughters, especially the one referred to as the Lady of the Shigei Sha, so referred to for the building where she lived, in the northeastern section of the dairi. This dau­gh­ter, Genshi, was about to enter Crown Prince ­Okisada’s palace in 995.51 Michitaka’s other dau­gh­ter is Empress Teishi (Sadako), who pointedly refers to the proclivities of her tutor, Sei Shōnagon: “She is very curious [mono yukashi] to see what is ­going on.”52 Her descriptions of public events, such as festivals and the religious ser­vice of the Hokke hakkō (the Eight Lectures on the Lotus Sutra), seem to bear out Edith Sarra’s assertions about male/female parity in erotic play. In “Smaller Shirakawa,” men turn into virtual exhibitionists before the female spectator: “As I looked at all the men gathered there with their fans, I had the impression that I was seeing a field of pinks in full bloom.”53 That Sei Shōnagon uses a floral meta­phor to describe men is in itself quite a turnabout. Yet such a reversal in the power politics of looking does not quite make a kaimami. In this and similar instances, the men are not espied

82

The Gap in the Fence

while hidden. They are openly targeted by female spectators in situations where they expect to be seen. ­Women, by contrast, are targeted by men in secret when they should be hidden from view. Although there is a sharp awareness of being on overt or covert display on e­ ither side, the w ­ oman must maintain a front of concealment whereas the man strives to be on display (except when performing kaimami). Or such is, at any rate, “the fiction of ­woman as passive object of voy­eur­is­tic desire”54 that Sarra convincingly claims Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book questions. In “It Is So Stifingly Hot,” the author moves from her personal enjoyment of looking at the moon on a hot summer night to a description of anonymous lovers and their attempts to cope with the heat. Her example of lovers’ parting at dawn has a sequel indicating that the man, as he stops for a kaimami at another w ­ oman’s residence, ironically becomes aware of following in the footsteps of a man who has already gone through the very same courtship procedure as he did. The episode comes to a pointed end when a messenger arrives with the “morning-­after” letter from the man’s pre­de­ces­sor, which ­under the circumstances cannot be delivered. The moral of this domino sequence is the man’s worrisome insight that he himself may have someone follow in his footsteps. Perhaps the most interest­ing and revelatory instance of the kaimami discussed in The Pillow Book occurs in “Once I Saw Yukinari.” In this intensely self-­referential dan, dated 998, Sei Shōnagon engages in an extensive discussion of the male gaze55 with Fujiwara no Yukinari (972– 1027), a court noble of the fourth rank, author of a po­liti­cal diary, Gonki, and one of the three great calligraphers known as sanseki (Three Pre­ce­ dents).56 Curiously, the banter between these two intellectuals precedes the kaimami itself and consequently renders it quite bereft of the mystery of male discovery and female shock that typically characterizes the topos in monogatari. In fact, this dan amounts to nothing less than a meta-­kaimami in the sense that the participants examine, debate, and review every move they will or will not make. Quite apart from this reversal in the ritual sequence, an openly conducted critique of kaimami and its mechanism by potential participants is highly unusual. Taking the position of both author and character, Sei Shōnagon initiates the extended discussion of gazes by challenging Yukinari’s gender-­ based assumptions and expectations. In par­tic­u­lar, she endorses the younger ­women’s intense dislike of Yukinari by objecting to his idiosyncratic aesthetic standards for female beauty. By d ­ oing so, Sei Shōnagon tries to protect the autonomy of the female self. Notwithstanding this proto-­feminist re­sis­tance to men’s determining ­women’s appearance, one

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 83

must conclude that there is an ­under­lying anxiety about the gaze per se having the power to alter or even steal the identity of the other. Is the purpose of observing the other to know or to possess? Such a question about the act of seeing in relation to knowledge and power indicates the force of Sei Shōnagon’s desire to control any gaze directed at her. Yukinari’s presumptuous demand that ­women conform to his criteria for feminine beauty, especially in light of his own refusal to enhance his appearance, which makes him seem “ugly” in the eyes of the young ­women,57 prompts Sei Shōnagon to request that he not look at her, that she is “ugly.” While their exchange might be called mere “banter,” it is clear that Sei Shōnagon desires to be perceived for character rather than looks. Since we have no reason to believe that she was unattractive, her claim to be “ugly” is most likely a ploy to entrap Yukinari in his own foolish remarks. Although he is somewhat suspicious, Yukinari takes her bait and promises to indulge her in her request, provided that she ensure that he cannot see her face. Sei Shōnagon takes delight in being able to hold Yukinari at bay by making him shield his gaze from her: “when it would have been easy for Yukinari to look at me in the normal course of things, he covered his face with a fan or turned aside. In fact he never once saw me. To think that he took what I said about my ugliness quite seriously!”58 Through the role-­play of “let’s pretend,” Sei Shōnagon achieves intentionally what Himegimi in The Sumiyoshi Tale achieves unwittingly: having the man adopt the coy pose normally required of a ­woman. She has not eliminated the necessity of shielding herself from him; it is just that she has maneuvered him into ­doing the shielding for her. Yet this is not the end of his amorous interest. Yukinari seems to believe that their “let’s pretend” kaimami entitles him to a genuine kaimami. In the chaotic aftermath of an early morning surprise visit by the imperial ­couple, through an opening in the blinds of their rooms, Sei Shōnagon and a female companion notice “a beaming face” that they mistakenly identify as Noritaka. When the man steps forward, Sei Shōnagon is annoyed to see that he is “none other than Yukinari; and he [has] seen me full-­face.” She challenges him, asking why he examined her so carefully ­after having said, in the past, that he would never look at her. He replies impudently, “I have been told . . . ​that a ­woman’s face is particularly attractive when she rises in the morning.”59 To this, she has no retort, and Yukinari feels entitled to enter, his impudence unchastened. Edith Sarra has discussed this episode as an example of “maguhai, the returned gaze,”60 explained by Hayashida Takakazu as an ancient

84

The Gap in the Fence

form of miai, the “meeting of the eyes” in modern marriage negotiations.61 Maguhai was expected to bring closure to courtship, and Sarra infers that the episode “closes on a mutually gratifying moment of reciprocal looking and self-­revelation.”62 But the episode does not end in a “mutually gratifying moment.” Although Sei Shōnagon and her companion are im­mensely gratified that they caught the voyeur in the act, and they are amused by the error they made in their identification, nevertheless, they must realize that they have exposed themselves to who knows whom. As soon as she realizes that Yukinari “had seen me full-­face,” Sei acknowledges that she has lost the gazing game she had played so smartly and that the loss is “extremely vexing.”63 It is the man rather than the ­woman who experiences embarrassment and annoyance when Sei Shōnagon exploits the relative freedom of an excursion. In “It Was during the Abstinence of the Fifth Month,”64 she goes on an outing with her ladies in a carriage to hear the hototogisu sing and to write poetry about the event to pre­sent to the empress. ­After all, this bird of summer, a member of the ­family Cuculidae, was already famous in the poetic tradition for its distinctive song. The purpose of the mission, a hototogisu poem, is never realized, neither in situ nor a­ fter the journey when the empress demands to hear it. It is not for lack of the hototogisu singing. There ­were so many of them singing in the countryside that it was deafening. The reason for this failure to produce a ­hototogisu poem is that rain cuts short the trip. As Sei Shōnagon is hurrying back to the dairi in a carriage richly decorated with u no hana, or Deutzia crenata, a deciduous shrub with showy white flowers, she is overcome by a desire to be seen. It seems that the thrill promised by kaimami takes pre­ce­dence over the ostensible purpose of the outing. Yet if there is any romance in this orchestrated courtship scene, it is comically parodic. Sei Shōnagon virtually commandeers Fujiwara no Kiminobu (976–1026), a first cousin of the empress, to run a­ fter their carriage, and she teases him further by making the carriage go faster u ­ ntil he finally is allowed to catch up, rain drenched and breathless. He demands in vain to see the ladies and to hear their poetry. Sei Shōnagon claims that their (non­ex­is­ tent) poetry must be shown to the empress first and sends him back, in the rain, apparently gratified by the sentiment of his retreat: “there was a melancholy expression on his face as he looked back at us over his shoulder. I was pleased that in his hand he carried nothing but a spray of u no hana.”65 In the end, it is this triumph over the courtier struggling to catch a glimpse of them in the raw weather that makes their outing stand out, for they tell this story ­later to amuse the ladies who had to stay home.

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 85

When the empress finally calls them to order by reminding them of the promised hototogisu poem, they admit—­but clearly do not regret—­ failure. The discomfiture of the would-be suitor more than compensates for the missing hototogisu poem. The hototogisu outing shows that the original purpose of traveling could all but be forgotten in the excitement of a w ­ hole multitude of impressions bombarding the travelers. At the same time, the author makes clear that, only a short distance from the capital, one could enter barbaric territory that, no m ­ atter how invigorating, made a return to the civilized court and its courtship something to look forward to.

Diaries (nikki) Diaries (nikki) in Heian times ­were not solely about personal mat­ ere often meant to be read by o ­ thers. Like historical ters and, indeed, w accounts (rekishi monogatari), they seldom contribute to the Heian reservoir of courtship-­related kaimami. Neither the Tosa nikki (Tosa Diary) of ca. 935 nor the Sadabumi nikki (Sadabumi Diary), also known as Heichū monogatari (The Tale of Heichū) of ca. 959–965, the Kagerō nikki (Kagerō Diary) of 974, nor the Izumi Shikibu nikki (Izumi Shikibu Diary), ­after 1004 (?) have instances of kaimami that warrant extensive discussion. Although Imai Gen’e begins his groundbreaking essay on kaimami citing the Izumi Shikibu Diary for Prince Atsumichi’s warning that curious p ­ eople in his ser­vice might try to catch a glimpse of Izumi Shikibu as a newcomer into his ­house­hold by “poking holes in the paper panels,”66 this warning has nothing to do with courtship. Even where diaries have instances of kaimami clearly related to courtship, they are minor episodes that do not reach the psychological depth of other Heian works.67

Sarashina nikki (ca. 1060 ) The Sarashina nikki (Sarashina Diary), ca. 1060, is an exception. A millennium ago in Heian Japan, the dau­gh­ter of Provincial Governor Suga­ wara no Takasue (b. 1008) recorded a number of courtship episodes. Her attitude ­toward kaimami was quite ­different from that of Sei Shōnagon. While in the relative safety of her residence, she could become virtually paralyzed by anxiety—­even paranoia—­about being seen by a man: “As I sat in my room musing vacantly, I had the impression that an eavesdropper was standing outside peeping on me, which made me most uncomfortable.”68 But she also acknowledged occasions when

86

The Gap in the Fence

she was able to put these worries aside. For her, traveling by ox-­drawn carriage provided a vehicle of escape, if a slow-­moving one, and release from her paranoia of possibly being seen. What for some noblewomen meant being exposed to an increased risk of being seen, especially when the carriage was parked for entering or exiting it, held for her some potential of exercising control. In one such rare moment of being in control, she unexpectedly ­became a participant in a poetry exchange with male strangers, whom she encountered when she was en route to the Buddhist Shingon ­temple Kōryūji, located in Uzumasa to the west of the capital. On this pilgrimage to pray for her f­ ather’s well-­being, the diarist observes two carriages parked along the roadside. The male occupants send her a flirtatious missive in the unconventional form of follow-up lines (tsuke-­ku): “on our way to see the flowers / we see you instead” (hanami ni yuku to / kimi o miru ka na). Although quite worried about her f­ather’s recent deployment to a distant eastern province as provincial governor (zuryō), and fearing that he might never return to the capital, she wittily responds by supplying preceding lines (mae-­ku), renga-­style: “True to feelings / t­ oward myriad flowers / of the autumn fields” (chigusa naru / kokoro narai ni / aki no no no).69 Her clever lines demonstrate her willingness to engage briefly in flirtation, her superiority as a poet, and her determination not to let the encounter go any further. Timidity dominates, initially, in a kaimami experienced in a dream. In this extraordinary kaimami scene, dreamed rather than dreamlike, the interchangeability of the religious and secular spheres evident in the architectural affinities of religious buildings and aristocratic shinden is strikingly apparent. In her famous 1055 dream of the Amida Buddha, it was not she, the hidden w ­ oman who assumes the role of a hidden beauty for the worshipping courtier, but Amida Buddha himself standing in a garden, whom she alone could see, as if in a kaimami scene, except that she was too awed fully to penetrate the barriers between them. Although she could see the deity in her dream through “a layer of mist,” she “did not dare move near my blinds to get a clearer view of Him.”70 In analogy to the courtship pattern of kaimami, she gathered up her courage and resolved to venerate the glimpsed hidden Buddha u ­ ntil his promised return for her some day.71 Can it have been accidental that Lady Sarashina, as she is often called, was ecstatic about having acquired a precious copy of The Tale of Genji?72

Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 87

Murasaki Shikibu nikki ( 1008 – 1010 ) Another exception to my generalization about the paucity of kaimami in Heian-­era diaries is, not surprisingly, the Murasaki Shikibu nikki (Murasaki Shikibu Diary). This diary was commissioned by Fujiwara no Michinaga to document the birth of his grandson, Prince Atsuhira (1008– 1036; Emperor Go-­Ichijō, r. 1016–1036). Having been called to court for her writing and tutorial skills, Murasaki Shikibu did not escape the notice of the courtiers and, most gossip stirring of all, the attention of His Excellency Michinaga himself. Her diary frequently notes the squeamishness of the ladies about being seen in inadequate attire or inappropriate situations. They felt especially vulnerable during excursions or festivities, when their attention was diverted from monitoring their appearance to paying attention to cumbersome travel in ox-­drawn carriages or to the many ritual and artistic occasions at court. At the same time, it is also quite clear that life at court required everyone, from the imperial ­family to the lowest rank of courtier, to participate in the social rituals of seeing and being seen. Flirtations often began with uncertainties about the degree of visual apprehension. In the famous episode (section 3) of Michinaga’s pass at Murasaki Shikibu, it is unclear ­whether he only tossed a maidenflower (ominaeshi) over her curtain-­stand (kichō) or also peeped over it, but in any case, his action triggered a poetry exchange that suggests a growing or beginning intimacy.73 One would think that flirting among the Heian aristocracy ceased when the life of the empress was at risk during the delivery of her first child. Flirting apparently continued, but it may have been motivated by such a high pitch of hysteria over the birth as “an event of unparalleled significance” that only a carnivalesque breach of etiquette could make the tensions bearable: “Whenever they felt like it, the men would look over the curtains. . . . ​We lost all sense of shame, letting them see us in such a state, our eyes swollen with weeping, rice falling on our heads like snow [to ward off evil], and our clothes dreadfully crumpled; it must have been a sorry sight. It had its amusing aspect, I suppose, but only in retrospect.”74 The strain of conforming to two contradictory courtly imperatives—­ always appearing at one’s best and, at the same time, participating in guarding against being seen in a less than perfect condition while conforming to the necessity of being seen in order to participate in the social life of the court led Murasaki Shikibu to imagine drastic be­hav­ior. “ ‘From now on,’ I told myself, ‘I shall become inured to shamefulness and find it no great hardship to show myself openly to ­others.’ My ­future ­rose up

88

The Gap in the Fence

before me like a dream and I began to fantasize, so much so that I ­became uneasy and could not watch the ceremony as I was wont.”75 ­Murasaki Shikibu’s flight of fancy is evidence of the enormous pressures associated with life at court. More remarkable still is the curiosity Murasaki Shikibu displays in her desire to emulate the unself-­conscious beauty of Lady Saishō, a ­woman who would have the honor of serving as Prince Atsuhira’s wet nurse. She happens to find Lady Saishō asleep. Enticed by the colorful robes that cover her, she removes the lady’s sleeve from her face, waking her and arousing her anger. Like the Genji’s male characters whom she depicts in similarly intrusive acts, she is “charmed by the delicate flush on [Lady Saishō’s] features”76 while the lady roused from her sleep realizes that she has been visually violated. This same-­sex scene shows clearly that visual erotic excitement follows the same pattern regardless of gender. What is most intriguing to the peeping subject is seeing the object of her gaze at the disruptive moment when she passes from a state of innocent sleep to one of guarded self-­consciousness, the moment when the not-­yet-­fully-­awakened sleeper attempts to recover control over her appearance—­only to discover that someone e­ lse has preempted her. Lady Saishō’s dazed state, her attempt to recover control, her realization that her identity has been, at least momentarily, preempted—­all this is a ­reminder that the psychic dynamics of kaimami have an uncanny resemblance to those of spirit possession, a phenomenon that no one understood better than Murasaki Shikibu.

Part III

The Genealogical Maze Courtship in The Tale of Genji

This page intentionally left blank

Chapter 5

Entering the Maze

E

ntering the maze of courtship and kinship in the Genji requires a compass that helps both to map the fictional characters’ movements in space and to ­locate their positions in the Genji’s genealogical charts. Except for the emperor, whose ­women lived with him in the dairi or the sato dairi (“town palaces” used during the rebuilding of the dairi ­after a fire), Murasaki Shikibu’s noblemen seem to be in constant motion. Visiting the residences of their principal and secondary wives and pursuing amorous adventures inside and outside the capital, they ­were required to undertake more or less arduous journeys by ox-­drawn carriage, by boat, on ­horse­back, or on foot. ­Women also left their residences—to go on pilgrimages, attend rituals, or participate in festivities—­but their travels ­were less frequent than men’s, and they ­were never for the purpose of ­ ere occasionally involuntary. Genji, for courtship. Men’s movements w instance, preempts being exiled by leaving the capital for Suma. In contrast, ­women’s movements ­were quite often coerced, sometimes to the point of abduction. To help the reader follow the protagonists’ movements as they pursue their genealogical aspirations, I have provided two maps. Figure 5 shows the Heian capital and its environs. Figure 6 narrows the focus to the characters’ residences in the northeastern part of the Heian capital. In her Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu puts to the test the resolve of three or four generations that, through courtship, seek to improve their genealogical lines and thereby to enhance their children’s and grandchildren’s chances for success in the competition to ascend the imperial throne as emperor or empress. Forbidden liaisons, however, can cause much confusion among the offspring about their identity. One mistaken identity in a genealogical line will lead to errors in determining kinship not only for this line’s descendants but for related lines. Characters affected in this way may therefore embark upon courtship to reconstruct or possibly even 91

# Buddhist Temple # Shinto Shrine # Villa/House

Ta k

an

o

Mountain

Kamigamo

mo

Lake Biwa

Shimogamo

Daikakuji

Ōi

Imperial Palace

Otagidera Kiyomizudera

HEIAN CAPITAL

Toribeno Cremation Grounds

Hosshōji

C 50 apita km l t /31 o S mi um iyo sh i

o m

ra

do

Ishiyamadera

Ka

tsu

2 miles

Otowa

Gokurakuji

Ka

Yo

Enryakuji

Ka

Kiritsubo Emperor’s Tomb

i ash Ak o t al i pit 0 m Ca km/5 a 80 um oSi t al 4 m pit /4 Ca70 km

Hiei

Capital to Ise Shrine 104 km/65 mi

Kohata

Uji no yamadera Uji Bridge

Ogura Pond Kiz

Uji

Tachibana Island

u

Fujiwara Michinaga’s Villa

4 kilometers

Capital to Hatsuse 62 km/39 mi

[Distances are geodesic]

G ENJI S ITES O UTSIDE THE C APITAL Kitayama Temple (Murasaki) Ono Mountain Nunnery (Ukifune) Yokawa (Bishop of Yokawa) Ono Mountain Villa (Yūgiri) Unrin-in (Genji) Murasakino Saiin (Asagao) Western Mountain Temple (Suzaku)

Figure 5. The Heian capital and its environs.

BLACKMER MAPS

Genji’s Saga Temple Nonomiya (Rokujō miyasudokoro) Akashi no kimi’s Ōi Villa Uji Mountain Temple (Azari) Hachi no miya’s Uji Mountain Villa Governor of Inaba’s Unfinished House Yūgiri’s Uji Villa

Ichijō

1st Ave

Daidairi

(Greater Imperial Palace)

Nijō

2nd Ave

½ mile 1 kilometer

Sanjō

3rd Ave

H ISTORIC L OCATIONS Chūwain Dairi Burakuin Chōdōin Ichijō Palace Reizei Palace Tsuchimikado Mansion

Shijō

4th Ave

Gojō

5th Ave

G ENJI L OCATIONS

The Governor of Kii’s Nakagawa Residence Suetsumuhana’s Residence The Minister of the Right’s Nijō Residence Fujitsubo’s Sanjō Palace Genji’s Nijō Residence Genji’s Nijō Higashi Residence The Third Princess’s Sanjō Palace The Azechi Dainagon’s Residence The Minister of the Left’s Sanjō Residence Yūgao’s House Deserted Riverside Villa Genji’s Rokujō Estate

Rokujō

6th Ave

1 chō (block) measures approximately 120 × 120 meters (14,400 square meters) 1 chō for 3rd rank and above ½ chō for 4th and 5th ranks ¼ chō for 6th, 7th, and 8th ranks 1/32 chō (henushi) for commoners

Figure 6. Residences in the northeastern part of the Heian Capital.

94

The Genealogical Maze

to terminate their lines. Clearly, if we are to follow the Genji’s narrative with an eye t­oward who someone is thought to be, as opposed to who that someone r­ eally is, we must be able to follow these genealogical lines. Obtaining genealogical clarity, however, is no easy task. The complicated ramifications of ­family trees in polygynous socie­ties make it dauntingly difficult to pre­sent a visually lucid and complete picture. The difficulty increases for the multiple generations of intertwining and gen­ er­a­tion­ally overlapping Genji characters, some of whom are themselves unaware of their genealogical status. Descent lines become blurred by unanswered questions about paternity. For Murasaki Shikibu’s contemporaries, the forest may not have obscured the trees, but—to change the metaphor—­modern readers are likely to need charts to guide them through the genealogical maze. Unlike Japa­nese Genji scholars’ chapter-­ by-­chapter genealogical charts, mine are tailored to the thematic links between courtship and kinship. Accordingly, I have provided genealogical charts that map the twists and turns of the narrative’s two tangled threads. One of two genealogical threads follows the imperial descent line through Genji’s ­father, the Kiritsubo emperor. This line is partially obscured by three great secrets. The other thread, which is somewhat less tangled, follows the imperial ascent line through Genji’s mo­ther and Akashi no kimi, whose courtship by Genji introduces this study.

The Kiritsubo Emperor’s Imperial Descent Line The tale’s first secret is the identity of the Reizei emperor. He is the child of an unnarrated tabooed liaison between Genji and his stepmother Fujitsubo. The root of this clandestine relationship, whose repercussions permeate the entire tale, lies buried in the generation preceding Genji’s. Eight years ­after the death of Genji’s mo­ther, Kiritsubo, the Kiritsubo emperor, who had loved this lower-­ranking consort (kōi) more than any of his other ­women, found a replacement for his lost love in Fujitsubo, the fourth dau­gh­ter of a “former emperor” (sendai), a w ­ oman only five years older than Genji. Fujitsubo’s genealogical line cannot be gleaned from the text with certainty. The Genji commentator Tamagami Takuya has speculated that her ­father may have been an older (half-­?) brother of the Kiritsubo emperor, which would make her Genji’s first cousin,1 but the “former emperor” is not acknowledged as a brother of the Kiritsubo emperor in the Genji genealogies. ­Whether or not Genji is Fujitsubo’s first cousin is not crucial. When he falls in love with, sleeps with, and impregnates his ­father’s wife, Genji violates a taboo.2 Since Murasaki Shikibu

Entering the Maze95

does not narrate the forbidden relationship, there is no way for the reader to know which of the two lovers made the first move. We cannot even conjecture who courted whom. The im­por­tant point is that Genji’s unnarrated, clandestine, forbidden relationship with Fujitsubo, which does more to drive the entire monogatari than any other relationship, derives its force, for the fictional lovers and for the initiated reader as well, from affinal incest. That both lovers realize that they are violating a taboo is indicated by the top secrecy with which they conduct their affair. My first genealogical chart (see Figure 7) maps the Kiritsubo emperor’s marriage to Fujitsubo, her affair with Genji, and the birth of the illicit son who became Reizei emperor. This chart also maps three of Genji’s other liaisons with the Kiritsubo emperor’s line. There is Genji’s childhood arranged marriage to his cousin Aoi, which results in Genji’s first and only officially recognized son, Yūgiri (born about three years a­ fter Reizei). There is also Genji’s affair with Rokujō miyasudokoro. As with the fateful affair with Fujitsubo, Murasaki Shikibu pre­sents this relationship as a fait accompli. The courtship leading to consummation is left unnarrated. Rokujō miyasudokoro, a highly accomplished and self-­ assertive ­woman, is the ­widow of Crown Prince Zenbō, who, had he not died of unknown causes, might well have become emperor instead of Fujitsubo’s ­father or the Kiritsubo emperor. As Crown Prince Zenbō’s ­widow, Rokujō miyasudokoro’s position vis-­à-­vis the imperial line bears some resemblance to Genji’s position as a prince demoted to commoner status. They are locked in a perpetual courtship position, even a­ fter the affair was first consummated. There is, in other words, an undercurrent of tension over frustrated imperial ambitions in their relationship. Finally, there is Genji’s unsuccessful courtship of his first cousin Asagao, the dau­gh­ ter of Prince Shikibukyō (Momozono). Asagao’s re­sis­tance to Genji’s courtship is initially motivated by her religious office as sai-­in, high priestess of the Kamo Shrine (see Figure 5), during the reign of the Suzaku emperor and subsequently by her devotion to Buddhism. Upon the death of her ­father, she is determined to avoid the fate of “fallen” princesses who marry a commoner. The second great secret of the Kiritsubo emperor’s descent line concerns the identity of Kaoru (see Figure 8), the putative son of Genji and Genji’s niece, the Third Princess (Onna san no miya). The childlike princess’s frequently provocative be­hav­ior is grounded in her spoiled upbringing by her f­ather, the Suzaku emperor (Genji’s older half-­brother), who favors her among his four daughters, perhaps because she is his only dau­gh­ter by Fujitsubo nyōgo, a half-­sister of Genji’s stepmother and of

?* ▲

Sendai (Former Emperor)

Ichi no in (First Retired Emperor)

Rokujō M I Y A S U D O K O R O

▲

F U J I T S U B O

Kiritsubo Emperor

Ōmiya

Crown Prince Zenbō

≠

G E N J I Reizei

Aoi Yūgiri

Prince Momozono

Asagao Akikonomu

▲

Deceased Male Marriage Affair / Liaison

≠

Misattributed Paternity Amorous Attempt

* There is uncertainty about the order of the imperial succession before the reign of the Kiritsubo emperor and about the kinship relations among Ichi no in, Sendai, and the Kiritsubo emperor. Figure 7. The first secret: Reizei.

Entering the Maze97

Prince Hyōbu. Her semiarranged marriage to Genji takes place ­after protracted negotiations between her ­father and a number of high-­ranking suitors. It is almost as if the recently retired Suzaku emperor, whose impulses ­toward Genji are remarkably conciliatory, wanted to elevate him by marrying him to a princess. For Genji, the Third Princess provides an affinal kinship link to Fujitsubo. Kaoru is born of an adulterous ­union between the Third Princess and Kashiwagi, the oldest son of Tō no Chūjō, Genji’s cousin and brother-­ in-­law. Although Genji has had anxiety about a possi­ble affair between the Third Princess and Kashiwagi ever since he noticed his rival catching a glimpse of her as she watched him playing a game of kemari (court kickball), it was not ­until six years ­later that Kashiwagi managed to seduce the Third Princess. She becomes pregnant, and Genji, discovering a love letter from Kashiwagi, realizes that the unborn child is not his. Genji never reveals to Kaoru the secret of his birth, and Kaoru does not discover it ­until ­after Genji’s death. Kaoru’s true parentage links him, via his paternal grandmother, Ōmiya, to the Kiritsubo emperor. The third great secret concerns the identity of Ukifune (see Figure 9). This last secret is generated by an affair that her ­father, Hachi no miya, has with his late wife’s niece, a ­woman of inferior status because she served in her aunt’s h ­ ouse­hold. Before he enters the tale, Hachi no miya, Genji’s much younger half-­brother, withdrew from the capital to the ­wilderness in Uji because his bid for the throne—­against Reizei—­was unsuccessful. That his residence burned down soon afterward signals to him the appropriateness of taking the religious path despite his guilty sense that withdrawal from the life of the imperial court jeopardizes his daughters’ marital chances. Ōigimi and Nakanokimi are Hachi no miya’s daughters by his only wife. Hachi no miya’s affair, like the one between Genji and Fujitsubo, is unnarrated. However, there is nothing forbidden about it except in the conscience of Hachi no miya, who is so tormented by his betrayal of his late wife’s memory that he refuses to acknowledge Ukifune, the dau­gh­ter born from this affair. As a result of these unfortunate circumstances, Ukifune is taken by her mo­ther to be raised in the distant province of Hitachi. Hachi no miya’s secretiveness leads to much confusion and distress among his three daughters. Ukifune is especially troubled by the uncertainty of her genealogical status. Eventually, the three great secrets of the Genji are all revealed. Reizei, Kaoru, and Ukifune make their way through the genealogical maze and discover their true identities. Reizei is told who he is by his mo­ther’s confidant, a high-­ranking cleric (sōzu), but his position as emperor

Empress

Sendai (Former Emperor)

Ōmiya

Hyōbu Kiritsubo Emperor

Kiritsubo

Murasaki

G E N J I

Fujitsubo

Oborozukiyo

Kokiden

Suzaku Emperor

Fujitsubo Consort

Tō no Chūjō

Onna san no miya (Third Princess)

Kashiwagi

≠

Ichijō no miyasudokoro

Onna ni no miya “Ochiba”

Kaoru

Female Marriage Affair / Liaison ≠ Figure 8. The second secret: Kaoru.

Misattributed Paternity

Kiritsubo Emperor Minister

kita no kata (principal wife) Jijū Kashiwagi’s nurse (Third Princess’s nurse) Bennokimi

Sachūben

Genji

Kojijū

Hachi no miya (Eighth Prince)

Ōigimi

kita no kata (principal wife) Chūjō no kimi

Nakanokimi

Ukifune

Sakon no Shōshō

×

Vice-Governor of Hitachi

Himegimi

Male Female Marriage × Figure 9. The third secret: Ukifune.

Affair / Liaison Broken Marriage Arrangement

100

The Genealogical Maze

prevents him from acknowledging his secret to Genji. He wants to recognize Genji as his biological ­father, but he feels that he cannot do so without undermining the legitimacy of the imperial line, a legitimacy ­secured by his marriage to Rokujō miyasudokoro’s dau­gh­ter Akikonomu (see Figure 7). When Genji and Fujitsubo schemed to arrange this marriage, they ­were, perhaps involuntarily, touching on the tabooed ­union between a (former) high priestess of the Ise Shrine (saigū) and an emperor. By making Akikonomu Reizei’s empress, Genji certainly intended to pacify the late Rokujō miyasudokoro’s spirit, which was restless because of having lost her own chance to become empress; he may also have wanted to vindicate Crown Prince Zenbō for having been deposed or simply for his premature death. Yet this u ­ nion between the children of a demoted prince (Genji) and his forbidden stepmother (Fujitsubo) and a deposed crown prince (Genji’s u ­ ncle Zenbō) and his deprived consort (Rokujō miyasudokoro), notably, has no offspring. The fate of Reizei’s somewhat obscure dau­gh­ter, the First Princess, by a lesser consort (Kokiden nyōgo), remains uncertain. Kaoru’s strug­gle to uncover the truth about his genealogical position is lengthy and leads to much wandering, even ­after he learns that Genji is not his ­father. His attempts at courtship are inhibited by fears of transgression and a reluctance to assume responsibility for his be­hav­ior. He eventually marries the Kinjō emperor’s Second Princess, but they have no offspring. The secret itself defines Kaoru. It drives his longing to take off the mask of his false identity, but it keeps him dangling between a true and a false ­family tree. Ukifune ends her genealogical quest in the Ono nunnery (see ­Figure 5) at the foot of Mount Hiei. Even as she brooded over her mo­ther’s threat to renounce her (just as her ­father had done), she is in a quandary about her ­future. She has several suitors, including Kaoru and Prince Niou, but she seems resolved never to marry. She turns, instead, to writing poetry and hoping for Buddhist salvation. She has no offspring. Only her poetic words ­matter in the end.

The Kiritsubo-­Akashi Line to Imperial Ascent Aside from the misty web of the tale’s three secrets spun in the dairi (see Figure 4), Genji’s Rokujō Estate (see Figure 6), and Uji (see Figure 5), there is a counterpointing tale developing in Akashi and finally settling in the dairi. Genji’s dream-­inspired Akashi relationship, which I discussed in the Introduction, is affected by a complicated genealogy. Genji repeat-

Entering the Maze101

edly senses a bond with Akashi no kimi, but he does not know what it is. The eccentric Akashi priest, at the same time, tries to persuade his skeptical wife, while Genji is still at Suma, that a match between their dau­gh­ter and Genji is desirable for reviving the Akashi line. He reminds her, the granddaughter of Prince Nakatsukasa, that his ­father is the brother of Kiritsubo’s f­ ather, which makes Genji and Akashi no kimi second cousins (see Figure  10). Other­wise carefully shrouded in mystic dreams and violent storms, their blood link, which may actually account for the subdued attraction between Genji and Akashi no kimi, has often gone unnoticed.3 It is noteworthy that Genji elides their kinship as second cousins and never fully acknowledges the maternal link to the imperial genealogy in his Akashi affair.4 His strategy to downplay his Akashi marriage may be apotropaic, a way not to attract the kind of attention that arouses the envy and intrigues of potential rivals. Nevertheless, it is this marriage with Akashi no kimi that reconciles Genji with his ­father and vindicates his mo­ther and allows his only ­dau­gh­ter to become the empress whose children ensure f­uture emperors in Genji’s line (see Figure 11). It is perhaps poetic justice that the longer-­lasting imperial ­house originating with Genji’s demotion stems from his mo­ther rather than his f­ ather. Yet in the end, the Kiritsubo emperor’s descent line might not have prevailed without joining forces with the Kiritsubo-­Akashi imperial ascent line. This conjunction left ­behind the third-­and fourth-­generation characters, fated to bear witness to the severity of the succession struggles experienced by members of the imperial line along the path to the center of the genealogical maze. In the Genji, the rich variety of courtship patterns described by ­Murasaki Shikibu’s pre­de­ces­sors and contemporaries becomes multigenerational. Complexities of epic proportions are engendered as second-, third-­, and fourth-­generation characters become linked to one another by kinship. Murasaki’s peculiar narrative technique is the sine qua non without which the thread leading through the genealogical maze cannot be followed. As she develops her complex narrative technique in Genji monogatari, she manipulates the distance in scenes of courtship between observing subject and observed object, sometimes appearing to abolish it ­entirely. As the author shifts from one character’s viewpoint or consciousness to another’s, the reader is sometimes left uncertain as to who sees what. The result is an “effective ambiguity.”5 Discussing the “tension” inherent in kaimami, Amanda Mayer Stinchecum writes, “The world of the observed object seems to have in­de­pen­dent existence, yet does not;

Prince Nakatsukasa

Daijin

Azechi Dainagon Ōmiya

Akashi Nun

Akashi Priest

Kiritsubo

Kiritsubo Emperor

Kokiden Suzaku Emperor

Akashi no kimi Genji’s second cousin

G E N J I

Aoi Genji’s first cousin

Onna san no miya (Third Princess) Genji’s niece

Male Female Marriage Figure 10. The Akashi connection.

Empress Azechi Dainagon

Daijin

Kiritsubo

Zenbō

Sendai (Former Emperor)

Rokujō Kokiden Ōmiya Empress Mother

Kiritsubo Emperor (1)*

Akashi Priest

F U J I T S U B O

≠ Akashi no kimi

G E N J I

Reizei Emperor (3)

E M P R E S S

Tō no Chūjō

Fujitsubo Consort Akikonomu Empress

Suzaku Emperor (2)

Jōkyōden Consort

Onna san no miya (Third Princess)

Kashiwagi

≠ A K A S H I

E M P R E S S

Kinjō Emperor (4)

Ni no miya (Second Prince) Niou

Fujitsubo Consort

Crown Prince

Onna ichi no miya (First Princess)

Kaoru

Onna ni no miya (Second Princess)

≠

Female Marriage Affair / Liaison ≠ * Sequence of imperial succession. Figure 11. The imperial line in The Tale of Genji.

Misattributed Paternity Amorous Attempt

104

The Genealogical Maze

the observing subject seems to disappear, become zero, and yet it is not a zero.”6 Stinchecum’s detailed analy­sis of the narrative structure and discourse analy­sis corroborates Sugiyama Yasuhiko’s thesis that kaimami forms “the paradigm of the narrative structure of the Genji as a ­whole.”7 The narrative theories proposed by Stinchecum and Sugiyama are useful guides for exploring the architectural, anthropological, and religious dimensions of courtship. There is something mysterious, perhaps even frightening, about the possibility of the perceptional distance between the observer and the observed shrinking to “zero” in kaimami. En route to his goal, which is to take possession through his gaze of the observed ­woman, the male observer becomes entranced by what he sees and loses consciousness of himself as a separate person, leading to the paradox, as formulated by Hirota Osamu, that the observer does and does not become zero, and the peeped world is and is not in­de­pen­dent of him.8 The desire to lose oneself in the other in an ecstatic moment signals reproductive urges that are stimulated by kaimami and only l­ater—­after due courtship—­realized in sexual intercourse, an act of l­ittle or no interest to Genji narrators. What r­ eally matters is how the genealogical thread is spun.

Chapter 6

Genji Courtship as Play and Per­for­mance

M

urasaki Shikibu’s Genji monogatari offers a supreme blueprint for the lovers’ path from courtship to marriage. Not only that, but courtship and marriage are often topics of discussion among the characters. We see this not only in the young courtiers’ famous “Rainy Night Discussion of ­Women’s Ranks” (ama yo no shinasadame) in Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”) but also in the deliberations of fathers in arranging marriages for their sons and daughters. An example of this is the Kinjō emperor’s arrangement of a true cross-­cousin marriage between his dau­gh­ter, the Second Princess (Onna ni no miya) and his “uterine nephew,” that is, his sister’s biological son (Kaoru) (see Figure 11).1 Unlike most of its literary pre­ de­ces­sors, the Genji charts in exquisite detail the sites of courtship and the prospects for marriage, providing fertile ground for the intertwined ­family trees of three or four generations of characters. It also stages colorful scenes of courtship, not only at the Heian court but also in the Heian capital and its environs. Some of the incidents that Murasaki Shikibu narrates concerning Genji’s early history as an amorous man are virtual expeditions. In Chapter 6, I demonstrate four d ­ ifferent stages in Genji’s use of the Heian courtship practice of kaimami, a secretive maneuver to disguise and thereby deflect attention from unnarrated tabooed affairs, such as Genji’s with Fujitsubo; transgressive affairs, such as his attempted adultery with Utsusemi, his incognito adultery with Yūgao, and his affair with his half-­brother Suzaku’s intended, Oborozukiyo, that mirrors Genji’s taboo violation with Fujitsubo; inappropriate or imaginary affairs that are playful versions of the above, such as the one with Suetsumuhana and Tamakazura. I also continue my exploration at the beginning of this book of Genji’s semiarranged courtship, without kaimami, of Akashi no kimi. Finally, Genji becomes the unintended target of his rival,

105

106

The Genealogical Maze

Kashiwagi, who catches a glimpse of Genji’s wife by accident, at a game of kemari that Genji or­ga­nized in the courtyard of Murasaki’s southeast quarters of the Rokujō Estate (see Figure 6) and witnessed as a spectator. The first narrated instance of kaimami occurs when Genji manages to spy upon two ­women, as if emulating the prototypical kaimami from Ise monogatari, Episode 1, in which a certain man of old (usually identified as the legendary ninth-­century lover Ariwara no Narihira) spies upon two sisters (or the man’s half-­sister). The courtship scene in the Genji is an imaginary game that is mirrored in the activity of a real game of go played by two w ­ omen, Utsusemi and her stepdaughter, Nokiba no ogi. In the second instance, Genji employs Koremitsu, his male attendant and menotogo, to spy on the ­woman who has aroused his interest because of her vine-­covered dwelling. In the third instance of kaimami, the pattern of the first is reversed. Instead of one man secretly observing two w ­ omen, a pair of male friends and rivals, Genji and Tō no Chūjō, vie in their spying upon one w ­ oman, Suetsumuhana. Courtship h ­ ere is a contest between the two men that seems to bind them to each other rather than to the ­woman, thus leaving the kinship ties between the bro­th­ers-­in-­law unchanged. The fourth example strikes a one-­on-­one balance, for the first time, between the male viewer and the ­woman being viewed. Here kaimami emerges as a passionate transgressive endeavor that results in the eventual downfall of both actors, Genji and Oborozukiyo, in the drama. In the fifth example, I elaborate on Genji’s paradigmatic courtship of Akashi no kimi, noticeably without kaimami. First introduced at the beginning of this book, the Akashi affair is his last major one. In the sixth example, Genji is no longer a primary actor in the per­for­mance of kaimami but has assumed the role of courtship choreographer, directing the kaimami he has arranged between the man (his half-­brother Hotaru) and the ­woman (his putative dau­gh­ter Tamakazura) by means of illuminating fireflies.

Courtship as Game and Contest Kaimami played no role in arranged marriages. The twelve-­year-­old Genji does not obtain his first and principal wife, Aoi, through the adventure of kaimami. ­Whether it is because the marriage was arranged or because Aoi was four years older than Genji or simply because of a clash of personalities, no erotic passion developed, and the ­couple remained childless for nearly a de­cade. There are also instances in the Genji where the narrative of courtship is elided. For example, a­ fter Genji’s coming-­

Genji107

of-­age ceremony, when he is no longer permitted ­behind his stepmother Fujitsubo’s curtains, there is no Genji-­Fujitsubo kaimami to serve as a prelude to transgressive sexual be­hav­ior (violation of the affinal incest taboo) because he has already seen her. Interactive Games of Courtship and Re­s is­t ance in “Utsusemi” The substitute for the missing Genji-­Fujitsubo courtship scene comes with Genji’s attempt to satisfy his forbidden desire for his stepmother by attempting to seduce someone ­else’s stepmother. That stepmother is Utsu­ ­­semi, who has married an el­derly widower, the provincial vice-­governor of Iyo, who is the ­father of Genji’s friend, the governor of Kii. This transference is possi­ble because Heian culture, more insistently than the culture of modern Japan, defined the self by rank and social status. Genji is attracted to Utsusemi primarily because her social position is analogous to that of the ­woman he covets most; she replaces a man’s deceased wife, and she is a stepmother. Although Genji in the end fails to seduce Utsusemi, failure leads to success not long afterward, when Genji consummates an—­unnarrated—­ incestuous act with Fujitsubo. In Chapter 3 (“Utsusemi”), Genji actually performs a double kaimami involving both the governor of Kii’s stepmother and his sister. This complicated situation involves Genji in ­numerous problems: potential adultery against the vice-­governor of Iyo, Utsusemi’s el­derly husband; betrayal of his friend, the governor of Kii; exploitation of Utsusemi’s younger brother, Kogimi, as a substitute lover and as a messenger to facilitate the affair with the resisting w ­ oman; and taking sexual advantage of Utsusemi’s stepdaughter without any intention of pursuing her afterward. Utsusemi was an unfortunate ­woman even before she unwittingly became entangled in Genji’s secret pursuit of Fujitsubo. She suffered greatly from having fallen from her deceased ­father’s rank as chūnagon. Instead of fulfilling his dream of her becoming an imperial consort, she entered the ­middle rank through marriage to the provincial vice-­governor of Iyo, who can hardly compare with Genji. Shamed by her loss of status, she is especially vulnerable to Genji’s stratagems. Genji’s forbidden courtship of Utsusemi develops over the course of two chapters, beginning at the end of Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”), when Genji wishes to see Utsusemi, the governor of Kii’s stepmother, “but [he] could find no opening large enough to see through.” Although frustrated about the impossibility of kaimami in the governor of Kii’s beautifully

108

The Genealogical Maze

landscaped Nakagawa residence (see Figure 6) located on the eastern edge of the Heian-­era capital (the northeastern corner of Konoe-­dōri and Teramachi), he is enticed by kaimaki—­listening through a gap in the ­ ere not at fence—of the seductive “swishing of silk and young voices that w all displeasing” (S: 40; 1: 170) to investigate.2 As he eavesdrops on Utsu­ ­­semi’s ­women discussing his unhappy marriage to Aoi, his desire for his stepmother Fujitsubo becomes even more intense, and he conceives of having an affair with Utsusemi as a test of his skills to achieve his ultimate goal of having Fujitsubo. At first merely curious about his friend’s stepmother as a desirable ­woman of the ­middle rank, as described in the preceding integral part of the chapter, known as the “Rainy Night Discussion of ­Women’s Ranks” (ama yo no shinasadame), Genji soon catches on to her attraction for his friend, the governor of Kii. He must defeat his rival and find a way to approach his stepmother in preparation to approaching his own in utmost secrecy. Genji’s first kaimaki of Utsusemi’s attendants is followed by an intoxicating second kaimaki in which he identifies Utsusemi and her younger brother, Kogimi, by their voices. Although Utsusemi is still invisible to him, her voice attracts him. When Kogimi hints that he has seen Genji in the hisashi and admired his good looks, his drowsy sister sighs wistfully, “ ‘If it ­were daylight I might have a look at him myself’ ” (S: 42; 1: 174: hiru naramashikaba, nozokite mitatematsuritemashi). (Murasaki Shikibu does not dwell upon Utsusemi’s longing, and this unambiguous admission of desire for greater intimacy, if not for sexual relations, has often escaped the notice of critics focused3 on the objectifying male gaze.) The siblings’ comments enflame Genji’s desire to see the ­woman and to see more of her younger brother, whom he has only glimpsed. What Genji and Utsusemi know of each other, at this point, comes from gossip and hearsay. Both need visual confirmation of their burgeoning amorous fantasies. ­After his failed attempt at kaimami and two episodes of eavesdropping, Genji might well have planned a kaimami before launching a relationship with Utsusemi, but he pauses neither for kaimami nor for the exchange of poems required by courtship etiquette. He tries, instead, to take her by force. Although the sequence of events—­from kamaki/kaimami to poetry exchange and finally to intimate encounter—­has long been the blueprint of Heian courtship in the secondary lit­ erature, its ­ actual practice—­and, even more so, its reflection in lit­erature—­was hardly written in stone. Genji’s courtship of Utsusemi constitutes a departure from the

Genji109

hypothetical normative sequence in that an intimate encounter is followed rather than preceded by kaimami. This reversal in the assumed proper sequence is accomplished by vio­lence. As a direct consequence of this ­ nder­lying kaimami, namely, that the w ­ oman anomaly, the chief premise u is unfamiliar to the man and unaware of being seen, becomes doubtful. In the Utsusemi case, the blueprint of courtship changes because opportunities arise accidentally and Genji seizes them. Thus, Utsusemi’s call for her lady-­in-­waiting Chūjō (an appellation derived from the rank of her ­father or husband) to protect her from unwanted visitors ironically provides Genji with a pretext for approaching her in the northern part of the moya. Since Genji’s current rank is chūjō, he can exploit the homonym and pretend that Utsusemi was calling him. No sooner has she protested his cunning misappropriation of her nyōbō’s name than he has forcibly transported her into the oku naru omashi (1: 176), which seems to be ­either the walled-in storeroom (nurigome)4 or the rear sleeping room in the east hisashi.5 Even the narrator seems to have lost track exactly where Genji has taken Utsusemi, ­whether to worship her in the semisacred space of the nurigome or to enjoy the sexual encounter in the greater privacy of the adjacent sleeping area. The choice of the nurigome would clearly be more provocative in that sexualization desacralizes the space. Genji has, in any case, easily warded off the perplexed nyōbō’s feeble effort to put up a h ­ uman barrier. As if a stolen identity (of Chūjō) and a forced relocation (of Utsusemi) w ­ ere not enough to raise eyebrows, Genji’s seduction is tantamount, in t­oday’s understanding of male-­female relations, to attempted rape.6 ­Whether Genji does actually have sexual intercourse or is merely intimate with Utsusemi despite her strong oral and physical re­sis­tance is not clear, at least not from the description of the scene.7 As they part at dawn, Genji takes her to the still-­closed “mouth of the sliding doors” (shōjiguchi) that looks to him like a barrier destined to part them forever once she has passed through it (1: 180: hedatsuru seki to mietari).8 Some fairly conclusive inferences can be drawn on the basis of the ­couple’s ­different reactions to the encounter and their subsequent be­hav­ ior. What is quite clear is that the conventional order of courtship—­ from kaimaki/kaimami to poetry exchange to intimate encounter)—­has been subverted.9 Genji has skipped from kaimaki to some degree of physical intimacy. At the end of this inconclusive affair, Genji and Utsusemi exchange farewell poems. Genji’s parting poem, the first of his poems recited in the tale,10 is thoroughly infused with a sense of unrequited love:11

110

The Genealogical Maze

The blank eyes of dawn / Find me uncompanioned yet / By your cold pride, Left rankled, rattled, confused / Why the cock must cry me away. (C: 2B, 1948) tsurenaki o urami mo hatenu shinonome ni toriaenu made odorokasuramu (GM 19; 1: 179)

Her poem in reply laments not that the night was too short but that it brought no end to the sorrow with which it began: Now the breaking day / Finds me still sighing in the dark / Of my misery, For those unresting cries are torn / Not just from the cockerel’s throat. (C: 2B, 1949) mi no usa o nageku ni akade akuru yo wa torikasanete zo ne mo nakarekeru (GM 20; 1: 180)

The only note of polite ambiguity may be the link between Utsusemi’s cries and the cocks’. Here the cocks’ cries at daybreak signal not so much the premature end of a joyful ­union as the risk of discovery. There is no morning-­after poem, indicating that Genji was ­either especially careful about keeping secret their forbidden encounter or that he wanted to refrain from lying about the consummation of the affair. Genji has a consultation with the governor of Kii about his stepmother, which only steels his resolve to pursue her further. ­After all, it is precisely his friend’s kinship relation to his stepmother that inspires Genji to violate the affinal incest taboo with Fujitsubo, who looms invisibly ­behind Utsusemi as a shadow ­woman. Genji learns not only that the governor’s stepmother has no children and is unhappy with her husband but also that her f­ ather had intended her for court, where she might, like Fujitsubo, actually have become Genji’s stepmother. The governor of Kii cannot confirm rumors that Utsusemi is a beauty because he is, as her stepson, forbidden to look at her. The mere notion that the resistant ­woman Genji encountered might have been Genji’s own stepmother if only his f­ather and hers had had their way brings on another wave of passionate desire, propelling him to send a letter and a poem that together

Genji111

do ­little to dispel the growing impression that their encounter was but a dream. Might there come a night / When meeting dreamt could meeting be? Thus have I sighed this while, / But time itself has fled away, And even my eyelids have not met. (C: 2B, 1950) mishi yume o au yo ari ya to nageku ma ni me sae awade zo koro mo henikeru (GM 21; 1: 182)

Utsusemi is, however, so distressed by her nocturnal encounter with Genji that she takes elaborate precautions to evade his advances. She is intent on not being caught in the act of adultery. (It should be noted, as if the plot ­were not complicated enough, that her stepson is also courting her and has made Kogimi his companion.) Genji, for his part, proceeds in his pursuit of Utsusemi by befriending Kogimi and dazzling him with promises of a ­career at court. Genji goes so far as to invent a most unlikely story. He tells Kogimi that he had known Utsusemi even before her mésalliance with the el­derly vice-­governor. Genji is successful in making Kogimi his messenger, his accomplice in his adulterous intentions, but when Genji dispatches him to find his resistant sister, Kogimi complies but fails to penetrate Utsusemi’s defenses. At the end of Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”), Genji returns to court for a few days. In order to avoid visiting Aoi, his principal wife, at her f­ ather’s, the Minister of the Left’s Sanjō mansion (see Figure 6), he uses the excuse of a directional taboo imposed by the yin-­yang deity Nakagami to take him back to the governor of Kii’s cool mansion. He is extremely frustrated that Utsusemi is spurning his advances. She has withdrawn to Chūjō’s covered corridor (1: 186: watadono) for a massage, resolved to remain firm despite the fact that she finds Genji more attractive than her el­derly husband. In a less psychologically probing tale than Murasaki Shikibu’s, Genji’s poem might express a ­simple desire for a clear view of the ­woman he has known only u ­ nder cover of darkness. Her answering poem might communicate an equally ­simple desire not to be exposed. In fact, the poetry exchange between Genji and Utsusemi is an almost ontological meditation on the nature of the self. The self is figured in their poems by the meta­phor of the legendary “broom tree” first captured by Sakanoue no Korenori (early tenth ­century) in a single poem that appeared in the 1201

112

The Genealogical Maze

poetry collection Shinkokinshū (SKKS, 11: 997) and as an anonymous variant in Kokinwaka rokujō (KKRJ, 5: 3019).12 In his poem, accompanied by a sigh, Genji admits his frustration about pinning down the self, particularly Utsusemi’s self, in space. He pictures her as the legendary elusive “broom tree” (hahakigi, the modern shrub hōkigi), a phantom that seems to fade to nothingness as one approaches it.13 Like a Fata Morgana, the broom tree is there one moment and not the next, a mirage in the atmosphere on the Sonohara moorlands of the old province of Shinano (modern-­day Nagano Prefecture). Sakanoue no Korenori’s broom tree is a meta­phor for the self that is ever-­changing, elusive, illusory. In my ignorance / Of the heart of the broom tree, / And all bewildered, On the Sonohara road, / Alas, I have gone astray. (C: 2B, 1951) Hahakigi no kokoro o shirade sonohara no michi ni ayanaku madoi­ nuru kana (GM 22; 1: 187)

Genji is disoriented. Attempting in vain to locate Utsusemi in physical space he seems to have lost his way in psychological space. In her reply, Utsusemi also takes the image of the broom tree as a meta­phor for the self that cannot be grasped. She contrasts the elusive tree with her mundane self enclosed in a fuseya (a lowly cottage): Pitiful its fame, / That by a worthless hovel/ It should have grown: Here for a moment, but no more, / The broom tree vanishes from sight. (C: 2B, 1952) Kazu naranu fuseya ni ouru na no usa ni aru ni mo arazu kiyuru hahakigi (GM 23; 1: 187–188)

Her initial reluctance to expose herself to Genji’s gaze has become a much more radical strategy, not mere relocation but, rather, a desire to vanish from view. This is not a rejection or denial of her self; it is, instead, an attempt to protect her self from the kind of visual pen-

Genji113

etration that would limit her control over the space she occupies, her being there or her not being there. Since she cannot render her physical space impenetrable to his gaze, she seeks to disappear. In the paradoxical fashion of the broom tree, she must cease to be herself in order to remain who she is. Utsusemi’s poem expresses her awareness that the continuity of the self is achieved through constant change rather than by static sameness. No longer able to see or touch Utsusemi, Genji consoles himself by taking Kogimi to bed as a pliant substitute for the ­woman whom Genji had selected as a substitute for his still-­inaccessible stepmother Fujitsubo. Genji’s physical encounter with Utsusemi in “Hahakigi” was apparently so unsuccessful that he feels increasing pressure to persevere and consummate the affair. He continues, in Chapter 3 (“Utsusemi”), to employ Kogimi, now his boy lover, as an accomplice in the plot to see Utsusemi. Coming as it does ­after a night of unspecified intimacy and two exchanges of poetry, the purpose of the kaimami in “Utsusemi” seems gratuitous, a pretext that is implausible even to the boy. Even though he may not have seen her clearly during their first nocturnal encounter, Genji cannot have been completely blinded by darkness. And yet he senses that he has not ­really seen her even while seeing her. Therefore, he not only wants to see her more clearly; he wants to see her in a totally ­different light. Since this is the first narrated instance of kaimami performed by Genji, he is still inexperienced and may not know quite what he wants to see, but he soon recognizes that what he most wants is to see Utsusemi in an unguarded state, that is, without fear of him. Kogimi paves the way for Genji’s kaimami. It must be noted that Genji is no longer the guest of the governor of Kii, who has returned to his province. Therefore, Genji depends on Kogimi to take him in the boy’s carriage to the governor’s mansion and past the guards to Utsusemi’s quarters. Leaving Genji ­behind at the tsumado (swinging doors) on the east side of the main hall, Kogimi opens the kōshi (shutters) on the south side to let in cooling breezes, making quite a racket. This diversion allows Genji to position himself undetected near the area where, he has been told, Utsusemi and her stepdaughter, Nokiba no ogi, are playing a game of go.14 To give the players relief from the summer heat, one panel of a folding screen (byōbu) has been folded and the curtains of the kichō draped over the top of the stand. These fine-­tuned seasonal adjustments in furniture open up an irresistible vista for Genji, who is e­ ither watching from ­behind the byōbu on the southeastern corner of the veranda or from within the far east side of the moya. Strangely, the narrator, normally

114

The Genealogical Maze

so precise about locations, leaves Genji’s vantage spot unclear, as if to include the reader in the pro­cess of orientation and discovery.15 It is remarkable that Genji, who set out to observe Utsusemi, now becomes thoroughly preoccupied with her stepdaughter, a stranger to him. Genji’s gaze is first drawn to the central pillar against which one of the ­women playing go is leaning (1: 194: nakabashira ni sobameru hito). Kawana Junko contends that this description of Utsusemi indicates that Genji does not know at whom he is looking and that his failure to recognize Utsusemi symbolizes the female condition of concealment.16 Plausible as this interpretation may be, it does not take into account Genji’s manipulation of his vision. One has to won­der why he appears amazingly detached or even incredulous. ­After all, he has already seen Utsusemi and has been scheming to see her again: “The one in silhouette with her back against the pillar—­would she be the one on whom his heart was set?” (S: 50; 1: 193–194).17 Is he trying to inject his consciously crafted kaimami with the spirit of artless spontaneous discovery? ­After having registered carefully the details of Utsusemi’s robes and her physical size and features,18 Genji notices that she “evidently wanted to conceal her face even from the girl opposite” (S: 50; 1: 194). Her extreme efforts at concealment should be a clue to him that she is not on her guard only vis-­à-­vis her opponent at the go board. He abruptly turns his gaze away from her. This is a curious thing to do. How can it be explained? Positing the observed person’s complete unawareness of being seen as a precondition for kaimami, Yoshikai Naoto has argued that ­Utsusemi, alerted to Genji’s approach by Kogimi’s noisy pounding on the shutters, is no longer relaxed enough to be a target for kaimami.19 Moreover, since Utsusemi now realizes that Kogimi became Genji’s go-­ between ­after Genji failed to seduce her only a few nights earlier, Kogimi’s appearance during the game of go should raise her level of alertness to new heights and make her quite self-­conscious.20 From the start, this has not been a typical kaimami of one hitherto-­unseen ­woman, but a kaimami of two ­women, only one of whom can be discovered through kaimami.21 In this scene, Murasaki Shikibu masterfully draws a parallel between the Heian courtship practice of kaimami and the strategic game of go.22 Although kaimami and go have both been analyzed as elements of courtship rituals, Genji scholars seem not to have explored their simultaneous presence in the Utsusemi episode.23 Matsui Kenji, for instance, has written an article on gender and go in the Genji, in which he mentions but does not explore the relationship between go and kaimami.24 Indeed,

Genji115

some scholars have written extensively about the joint kaimami of Utsusemi and her stepdaughter without even mentioning go.25 What is it about Utsusemi’s playing go that makes this kaimami especially significant? In The Pillow Book, Sei Shōnagon takes great delight in a secret code, using the terminology of go, that she and Imperial Advisor Tadanobu in­ven­ted to talk about ­people’s affairs.26 Prominent as a sharp observer of the Heian elite’s social customs and behaviors, Sei Shōnagon was not alone in noting an analogy between the nobility’s intriguing love affairs and the strategic placement of stones on the go board. But what exactly is go? It is played upon a board, the modern version of which has 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines that intersect at 361 points. With 181 black and 180 white stones, the two players have available a staggering number of possi­ble play sequences: 10750. The countless possibilities can slow down a high-­speed computer to the point where it becomes useless for advancing the game. (The ­human brain can eliminate improbable moves in less time than it takes a computer systematically to run through the astronomical number of theoretically possi­ble moves.)27 This highly intellectual game of strategic seizure of terrain originated about four thousand years ago in China (possibly from an Indian “hunt game”),28 where it was called weiqi. As in all games based on competition, go requires cooperation. Each person engaged in go depends on the existence of the other, a state of mutual dependence akin to that experienced in the pro­cess of courtship through kaimami. Go is conventionally classified as a siege (hōi) or war (sensō) game, thus making it a perfect training ground for ­women’s existential situation. It involves offensive and defensive moves whose goal is to surround an opponent’s “warriors” (symbolized by black and white stones) and to seize the opponent’s “territory.” Like courtship in general and kaimami in par­tic­u­lar, go places great importance on the involved persons’ control of their precise positioning in space. The enormous popularity of this game of meta­phorical space may well be related to the fact that Heian noblewomen had the right to inherit and bequeath land—­that is, to control ­actual space. Even more im­por­tant is the fact that the ­women in “Utsusemi” and other scenes in the Genji are deeply absorbed in a game that can readily be seen as an analogy to courtship in general and to kaimami in par­tic­u­lar. The language of go has many parallels to the language of kaimami. One par­tic­u­lar play is called an impasse (seki), a term frequently used in scenes of kaimami to describe the “barrier” between the observer and the

116

The Genealogical Maze

observed. If a go player can completely surround an opponent’s stone, that stone is captured. The point gained by the capture is called an “eye.” If, however, the surrounded stones themselves surround two empty points, they are safe from capture. The surrounded points are called “two eyes” (nimoku). In kaimami, an observer can take possession with one or two eyes, depending on the size of the hole that enables his viewing of the seen. In both go and kaimami (and in real life), two eyes are better than one. There is still another linguistic parallel. For the optimal capture of stones and territory, each go player first endeavors to gain a superior overview (taikyokukan).29 This, too, is analogous to the situation in kaimami. Playing go trained the Heian noblewoman to meet or c­ ounter the nobleman’s gaze as it penetrated her space in this or that corner. Perpetually ­under siege from Heian courtiers, w ­ omen played go to prepare themselves mentally to cope with the offensive and defensive moves of Heian courtship. Clearly, she had to defend the territory of her stones, just as a ­woman had to guard her territory in the game of kaimami. In kaimami as in go, a ­woman could frustrate the man’s moves if she was skillful enough at concealment. She could also reveal herself or turn the tables and observe the observer. In other words, in both go and kaimami, she could take the offensive, in ways that she was normally not expected to in conventional courtship rituals. Although Genji is at first preoccupied with the two ­women’s appearances, he cannot help noticing that Utsusemi is the superior go player, especially when she reminds Nokiba no ogi, her less-­experienced ­opponent, to hold off on what Nokiba no ogi believes to be her “final” triumphant move. The move cannot in fact be the equivalent of checkmate because Nokiba no ogi has overlooked a peculiar feature of go called kō, referring to a perpetual taking and retaking of stones that can be ended only by resuming play elsewhere on the field. This feature parallels Utsusemi’s hahakigi-­esque repositioning in space in response to Genji’s intrusion into her space and his displacement30 of her to his space (or to some neutral ground). Genji is struck by Nokiba no ogi’s nonchalant response to the stalemate of kō and by her difficulty in counting the score (which is another major intellectual challenge of go). He is not sure what to make of her broad, unguarded smile and her lascivious carelessness about her robes. In her slovenly jollity, Nokiba no ogi stands in sharp contrast to the other ­women at court, obsessed as they are with the fine points of etiquette.31 It seems, however, that Nokiba no ogi’s neglect of her appearance does not offend Genji. He is rather taken with it. “This was the first time

Genji117

he had seen one [a w ­ oman] so completely at her ease” (S: 51; 1: 196). Nokiba no ogi’s good looks, however, cannot ­really compensate for her lack of mystery, for her inferior social status, or for the obviating fact that she is not a stepmother. It is Utsusemi, not Nokiba no ogi, whom Genji wants to see in her unguarded state. The fact that he saw the younger ­woman instead only increases his curiosity to approach Utsusemi again. When the game of go is over, Kogimi approaches Genji, who quickly retreats from his kaimami position, realizing that he cannot act upon his amorous impulses in the presence of another ­woman. Genji now voices a fickle desire to see the governor of Kii’s sister—as if he had not just seen her playing go with Utsusemi. Kogimi, realizing that his mission has failed, is ­eager to redeem himself by serving Genji more effectively, but Genji’s frivolous request seems blatantly to interfere with his original desire. Kogimi, feeling overwhelmed, rejects that idea as impossible. He proposes a new tactic. Since he is too young to have ­under­gone the coming-­of-­age ceremony (genbuku), he is still allowed to sleep in the w ­ omen’s room. He will let Genji in when all is quiet. It is almost as if Kogimi wanted Genji to go astray and take the wrong ­woman. Entering the ­women’s chamber, Genji does not notice at first that Utsusemi is not alone. Nokiba no ogi is also pre­sent, just as she had been during the game of go. Utsusemi, sensing the presence of an intruder from the rustling of his perfumed robe, panics and flees. Relieved to find only one ­woman, Genji begins to make love to her. When Genji realizes his foolish error, the awkward situation becomes a fiasco, a comic contrast to the earlier case of mistaken identity in which Genji opportunistically exploited the Chūjō/chūjō homonym. Despite her partnership at the go board and her affinal kinship tie, Nokiba no ogi does not arouse feelings of jealousy in Utsusemi. Inferior at go and outrageously negligent of, if not oblivious to, her role, Nokiba no ogi may have provided Genji with a moment of purely physical satisfaction, but she cannot have lasting appeal for him. Her complete lack of re­sis­tance dulls what­ever allure she may have had when Genji glimpsed her playing go. She does not inspire Genji to invite a poetry exchange. As a ­woman discovered through kaimami, she is an anomaly.32 As Genji leaves the darkened room, he comes upon the outer robe ­ ehind as the intriguing remnant of that Utsusemi had cast off and left b her elusive self. Departing with the discarded robe, he is saved from detection only because Kogimi is able to escort him to safety. An el­derly ­woman discovering Kogimi leaving in the ­middle of the night with someone quite tall (i.e., Genji) adds to the string of mistaken identities by

118

The Genealogical Maze

assuming that Kogimi’s companion is an uncommonly tall lady-­ in-­ waiting. It is a close call. “Genji made his escape. He saw more than ever how dangerous these adventures can be” (S: 55; 1: 202). Genji and Kogimi take Utsusemi’s summer robe to Genji’s Nijō residence (see Figure  6), where Genji will preserve it as a keepsake or fetish. The symbolic robe, which Utsusemi shed in order to facilitate her flight, appears ­later in a poem by Genji as a “locust’s empty shell” ­(utsusemi). This phrase is conventionally used to name the other­wise anonymous wife of the vice-­governor of Iyo. Genji’s poem, dejectedly scribbled on pocket notepaper (tatōgami, kaishi), is, meta­phor­ically, an act of possession: Empty cicada, / Molting, you have left your shell / At the foot of the tree; Still, I shall recall how sweet / Was the self within the husk. (C: 2B, 1953) utsusemi no mi o kaetekeru ko no moto ni nao hitogara no natsukashiki kana (GM 24; 1: 203)

Despite the meta­phorical possession, the poem expresses resignation rather than triumph. Genji has failed physically to consummate his desire for Utsusemi. In that sense, he has been defeated by her. Not only has she escaped physical possession but she has left him with two alternatives to herself, neither of which can possibly satisfy him. Genji realizes, as is apparent from his double entendre on kara that he cannot have her—­that is, her spiritual self or personality (hitogara) ­either, but only her ­human husk (hitokara). Her robe can evoke her bodily self through its scent; nothing can represent her spirit better than an empty shell. ­Although he goes to bed with both her brother and her robe, it is unequivocally the latter—­representing her re­sis­tance to and her evasion of him—­that is paramount. Thus, at the end of “Utsusemi,” Genji owns only the part of ­Utsusemi that she had to give up in order to escape capture through kaimami. The discarded robe is a sad physical memento of both her physical and her spiritual selves, a memento of presence and absence. The robe remains significant for Utsusemi as well. Upon being severely scolded for his role in the failed kaimami, Kogimi shows her Genji’s poem. Utsusemi

Genji119

is embarrassed by the realization that Genji’s own­ership of her spontaneously discarded robe includes physical evidence of her self—­the sweat and tears that bear witness to their one intimate but presumably unconsummated sexual encounter. Intent now on effacing herself entirely, she uses the margin next to Genji’s poem to quote in full a poem by Lady Ise (877?–940?) from her poetry collection, Ise shū (442): Empty cicada—­/ On her wings beneath the tree / Hidden droplets fall; Secretly, oh, secretly / These sleeves grow damp with dew. (C: 2B, 1954) utsusemi no ha ni oku tsuyu no kogakurete shinobi shinobi ni nururu sode kana (GM 25; 1: 205)

Genji’s poem and the poem by Lady Ise that Utsusemi quotes as her reply do not constitute a poetry exchange, but the poems in tandem represent the transformative image of the locust shell and reenact the psychic dynamics of their relationship. Genji’s poem is an analogue to the shell—in the form of the robe that he now owns—­while Utsusemi’s mediated, unsent reply signifies her absence or nonexistence to him. Having earlier replaced her physical self with her stepdaughter, she now replaces her spiritual self with the words of another poet. Having withdrawn from Genji’s grasp the intellectual self she exhibited at the go board, Utsusemi now demonstrates the detachment of her emotional self by allowing it to transmigrate into that of another ­woman poet.33 Utsusemi constructs her self as a poetic husk, ­here in the form of quotation marks framing another poet’s waka. Genji returns to the subject of the fetishized robe, the disembodied self of Utsusemi, on the occasion of her return, with her husband, to his vice-­governor’s seat in the province of Iyo on Shikoku (at the end of Chapter 4, “Yūgao”).34 Remarkably, the seventeen-­year-­old Genji, resigned now to Utsusemi’s geographic separation, returns the worn-­out robe to Utsusemi. Concerning the poetry exchange on the topic of this parting gift, Edwin A. Cranston has commented that “the psy­chol­ogy of this lady, who wishes for the forbidden amour she rejected and always would reject, is particularly interest­ing” and drawn this conclusion: “Those who cannot have at least want to be wanted.”35 Genji’s return of Utsusemi’s robe concedes his inability to keep wanting her without having

120

The Genealogical Maze

her. Facing the departure of Utsusemi, Genji is overwhelmed. He confesses that he cannot retain his memories sharply intact, that he has worn himself out, just like the robe ­under the eroding effect of his tears. Till we meet again / They would serve for remembrance, / So I thought, gazing, But beneath my constant tears / These sleeves have rotted away. (C: 2B, 1971) au made no katami bakari to mishi hodo ni hitasura sode no kuchinikeru kana (GM 42; 1: 268)

Utsusemi accepts his efforts to restore the robe, but no m ­ atter how changed it is, it still recalls the insect inside, its wings wet with the tears of parting. The cicada’s wing / You have cut and stitched anew: / This summer garment, Altered like your heart, returns / To tear from an insect cries. (C: 2B, 1972) semi no ha mo tachikaetekeru natsugoromo kaesu o mite mo ne wa nakarekeri (GM 43; 1: 269)

As winter has begun, she recognizes that the robe’s season has long passed. At the same time, the robe that had been a pars pro toto memento (katami) of her for Genji is now a katami of the moment when she sacrificed a part of herself to him in order to avoid giving him all of herself. Genji’s willingness to sacrifice her outer shell will now be a constant reminder to her of his undiminished desire and her unhappy refusal of it. Twelve eventful years pass before the two meet again at the gate­ house of Ausaka barrier just north of Otowa Mountain (see Figure 5). Chapter 16 (“Sekiya”) is dedicated to their chance reunion at the ­Ausaka barrier that has to be passed by everyone leaving or returning to Heian-­kyō. Genji is on a pilgrimage to Ishiyamadera in order to give thanks for his return from self-­imposed exile to atone for his tabooed affair with his stepmother Fujitsubo. (In the long interval of Genji’s sep-

Genji121

aration from Utsusemi, he manages to consummate the relationship with the ­woman for whom Utsusemi was to have been the substitute.) Utsusemi is returning with her husband to the city from the province of Hitachi, to which he was transferred from the province of Iyo. This autumnal meeting at the barrier is, like Genji’s previous encounters with Utsusemi, marked by poetry. Although Kogimi is now fully grown, Genji calls upon him once again, thus opening the floodgates of memories. Utsusemi’s tears also return as if time had stood still, and she composes a waka to herself about the inevitability of crossing paths, geo­ graph­i­cally, in opposite directions, which can be taken as symbolizing their continuing cross purposes: ­ oing and coming, / There has been no barrier / For these my tears G Do ­others look upon them / As ­water from flowing wells? (C: 2B, 2200) yuku to ku to sekitomegataki namida o ya taenu shimizu to hito wa miruramu (GM 271; 2: 351)

This poem does not reach Genji, but it expresses Utsusemi’s undiminished attraction to him. It also expresses the chief reason for Utsusemi’s re­sis­tance to his advances: her honorable determination to preserve her marriage without betraying the man she disdains for the sake of the man she adores. Her resignation and lingering concern about her reputation are no less intense than a samurai’s concern about his name in the imagined cultural community (seken) of his time. No poems are exchanged at the gate­house of Ausaka barrier, but subsequently Genji ­initiates communication through Kogimi. His waka points to the contradiction between his plea­sure at their chance meeting and his regretful realization that Utsusemi will once again elude his grasp. By the merest chance / We met along the Ōmi Road, / And I grasped at that, But again, / What kind of cockle / Shall I find by the saltless sea? (C: 2B, 2201) wakuraba ni yukiau michi o tanomishi mo nao kai nashi ya shio naranu umi (GM 272; 2: 352)

122

The Genealogical Maze

Utsusemi is so touched by his understanding of the frustration ­ nder­lying her existential situation that she articulates her regret for what u cannot be. What sort of gate­house / Is the gate of Meeting Hill / That it should separate Two dense groves of sighing trees, / A barrier between old sorrows? (C: 2B, 2202) ausaka no seki ya ika naru seki nareba shigeki nageki no naka o wakuran (GM 273; 2: 353)

This poignant moment is not quite the end of the drama. Just as Fujitsubo could not be safe with Genji, so Utsusemi could not trust her stepson. Upon her husband’s death, she foiled her stepson’s incestuous advances by taking the tonsure. Finally, in Chapter 23 (“Hatsune”), we find her living as a nun in Genji’s Nijō Higashi residence (Nijō Higashi no in; see Figure 6). In his prime at age thirty-­six, Genji has made many ­women his own but not Utsusemi. He provides shelter and protection for her and now cherishes her reasons for having been invisible to him. Utsusemi’s case establishes a pattern in which carnal desire is sacrificed for the sake of ethical purity, which ­here takes the form of Utsusemi’s resolve not to commit adultery. Such situations are surprisingly few in the Genji, and those few that do start out with a man courting a forbidden married ­woman (Genji and Fujitsubo, Genji and Yūgao, Kashiwagi and the Third Princess) end with consummation of the affair, ­whether the ­woman wants it or not. Utsusemi’s ability to resist Genji and remain pure is all the more remarkable because she is courted by a man whom other ­women find literally irresistible, a man to whom she feels strongly attracted. She wrestles with her emotions and does not give in to them. That she does not fall for him is even more surprising in light of the fact that her husband is much older than she and of lower social rank than her ­father and Genji. Yet it is this marital bond with a man whom she dislikes that compels her to resist Genji. In a courtly culture like that of Provençal troubadours, in which the poetic courtship of married ­women was almost a religion, Utsusemi’s self-­denial for the sake of preserving her and her husband’s reputation seems almost aberrational. Ironically, her sense of honor and her moral resolve36 actually increase Genji’s esteem and (frustrated) desire for her. She seems to fit Margaret H. Childs’s

Genji123

paradigm of the “erotic potential of powerlessness”37 only for the brief moment when Genji seizes her by force. In the long run, Utsusemi affirms a princi­ple rarely valorized in the lit­erature of her time: she physically resists but does not emotionally reject her suitor.38 She achieves a form of selfhood and agency figured by two pairs of related images, the first pair consisting of the broom tree (hahakigi [elusiveness]) and the lowly hut (fuseya [selflessness]); the second pair consisting of two related images of presence through absence (the abandoned robe and the empty locust shell). These are poignant images,39 and it is no won­der that Genji is profoundly impressed. Mediated Courtship: Incognito Lovers in “Yūgao” Courtship among the Heian aristocracy often required mediators and substitutes. If contact mediated through messages (letters or poems) was preceded by kaimami, the male observer typically relied upon a mediator, ­either from his own entourage or that of the desired w ­ oman, to ensure his invisibility to her and her visibility to him. The mediator could, for example, be the male viewer’s or the observed ­woman’s companion, relative, or “sibling” (menotogo) linked not by blood but by breast milk. The mediator could sometimes become a substitute for e­ ither party. At the end of Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”), as we have seen, Genji takes Kogimi to bed as a substitute for Utsusemi. In Chapter  4 (“Yūgao”), ­Genji’s menotogo Koremitsu, taking the initiative to investigate, is commissioned to do the gazing for Genji. In these two episodes, mediated courtship is conducted e­ ither through kin in the former (Kogimi is Utsusemi’s younger brother) or through quasi-­kin in the latter (Koremitsu is Genji’s “milk” brother rather than a blood brother). In the anomalous case of Utsusemi, kaimami as a courtship mechanism follows, rather than precedes, an intimate encounter. Courtiers who wished to travel incognito sometimes exploited the fact that ­different carriage types ­were associated with ­different courtly ranks. If a courtier was en route to a secret tryst, he might evade detection by using a carriage below his station. The dramatic beginning of the “Yūgao” episode in Genji monogatari is an example of this tactic. When Genji is serendipitously drawn to a dwelling on Gojō (see Figure 6) covered by an unfamiliar gourd flower (the yūgao ­after whom the resident lady is nicknamed), he uses an unescorted wickerwork carriage with bamboo or reed latticework (ajiro). The Genji text headnote explains that he does this for disguise (1: 209: yatsushi). Confident that he will not be recognized, Genji peeks through his carriage’s side windows or blinds

124

The Genealogical Maze

to catch a glimpse (1:210: sukoshi sashi no nozokitamaereba) of the modest dwelling’s occupants (who, in turn, are trying to catch a glimpse of him).40 Over the course of the “Yūgao” chapter, Genji and Yūgao’s incognito is continued ad absurdum. In “Yūgao,” courtship evolves from the moment when Genji, from within his carriage, notices a fence because it is rather on the plain side. Clearly, it suits the Gojō neighborhood so foreign to his taste, just as the rustic fence in the next chapter, “Wakamurasaki,” suits the mountain setting. Genji’s fascination in each case arises not so much from the aesthetic qualities of the fence itself as from the alien territory that the fence marks off from more familiar grounds. Next, he notices a flowering vine on the walls of an unfamiliar and rather rundown residence. This vine, which cannot be found within the dairi, entices Genji, as do the female beauties glimpsed through the shutters. Although trapped in his carriage to ensure his invisibility, Genji leans out for a closer look at the dwelling. A young girl emerges from the h ­ ouse carry­ing a scented white fan, upon which she instructs Genji’s attendant to place the flower he has just picked at Genji’s behest. When Genji ­later examines the fan, he finds a poem “in a disguised cursive hand that suggested breeding and taste” (S: 59; 1: 214). I think I need not ask whose face it is, So bright, this eve­ning face, in the shining dew. (S: 59) Kokoroate ni / sore ka to zo miru / shiratsuyu no / hikari soetaru / yūgao no hana (GM 26; 1: 214)

Referred to in the poem as “this eve­ning face,” Genji decides to send his friend Koremitsu to inquire about the identity of the poetess. Intrigued by Koremitsu’s initial report, Genji disguises his writing and matches the poem by the still unseen ­woman with his: Come a bit nearer, please. Then might you know Whose was the eve­ning face so dim in the twilight. (S: 61) Yorite koso / sore ka to mo mime / tasogare ni / honobono mitsuru / hana no yūgao (GM 27; 1: 215)

Genji125

There is no response, but Genji is now too emotionally involved merely to let the ­matter drop. He sends Koremitsu to probe more deeply into the ­woman’s background. Koremitsu’s spying, which might be termed vicarious kaimami, is successful. He reports that the faithless lover for whom Yūgao and her ­women are on constant lookout is Tō no Chūjō, Genji’s friend, brother-­in-­law, and cousin. (They had apparently mistaken Genji for him when Genji first appeared.) Wishfully thinking that Tō no Chūjō must be looking for her, Yūgao had boldly taken the initiative and had her fan sent with the poem inscribed on it. Although this revelation should be the end of the budding affair for Genji, its forbidden nature in fact tempts him even more, placing him ­under obligation of incognito. Once Genji suspects that the ­woman is Tō no Chūjō’s lost “Tokonatsu,” his amorous approach takes on the transgressive note of adultery. That Tokonatsu has assumed the status of a secondary wife is suggested by the aggression directed against her by Tō no Chūjō’s principal wife, who is still childless. Genji knows that Tō no Chūjō not only regrets having neglected Tokonatsu but is hoping to find her again; she is, a­ fter all, the mo­ther of his dau­gh­ter (Tamakazura). Putting aside the thought that he is betraying his friend, Genji lets his amorous urges get the better of him, and he goes on foot to visit Yūgao, whom he discovers to be young and childlike. He visits often but does not allow her to see his face. Indeed, instead of the “mutual kaimami” (sōgo kaimami) that Yoshikai has postulated,41 there is an almost hysterical mutual avoidance not only of kaimami but even of seeing the other, in the midst of intimate sexual embrace. Genji becomes obsessed with his childlike beloved, and courtship devolves into abduction. He carries Yūgao off to a deserted riverside villa (see Figure 6), where the only way that she can cope with her terror is through the “oblique aggressive strategy”42 of spirit possession, as a result of which she dies. Genji is stricken with grief and remorse. To Koremitsu he says, “­Everything is fated. . . . ​But it is terrible to think that I have sent a lady to her death” (S: 75; 1: 250). Grief and remorse are not, however, enough to attenuate Genji’s inveterate amorous nature (irogonomi) or to persuade him to change his errant ways. From this secretive affair with its tragic outcome for the w ­ oman, Genji walks away with an unlawful prize: Yūgao’s infant dau­gh­ter, ­later known as Tamakazura. Since the ­father of this girl is Genji’s best friend, brother-­in-­law, and first cousin, his stealthy appropriation has the feel of a kidnapping. Genji tries to repress the multifaceted relationship to Tō no Chūjō by minimizing his proximity in kinship terms. It must be

126

The Genealogical Maze

acknowledged, as Murasaki Shikibu does at the end of the chapter, that for all his bad conscience Genji’s be­hav­ior is morally flawed. It can be explained only by his instinctive drive to seize offspring from a competing genealogical line related to his through Ōmiya, who is Genji’s aunt and Tō no Chūjō’s mo­ther. Genji and Tō no Chūjō in “Suetsumuhana” The thrill of highly secretive courtship is doubled by the expected or unexpected presence of a male rival. Such a configuration has “an additional scopic layer,” as in the mid-­thirteenth-­century monogatari Asajigatsuyu (Dew on the Bamboo Grass), where an internal observer looks over the shoulder of his male rival. In this case, the Second Captain watches a lecherous priest watch his niece, the Takakura Princess. This domino kaimami has a lethal effect on the overexposed princess.43 In Genji monogatari, the first hint of such a double kaimami occurs in “Hahakigi” (S: 31; 1: 154–155), the “Rainy Night” tale of the guards officer and his friend. The guards officer has been seeing a refined ­woman who, it turns out, is unreliable. He makes this unpleasant discovery when his companion wishes to stop on their way home from court to peek on this “refined” w ­ oman. Performing a kaimami of a kaimami, the guards officer looks through the gaps in a neglected wall on a moonlit pond and the ­woman’s ­house where his friend is exchanging musical tunes and poetry with the ­woman. It must be noted at once that this super­ vision, as it w ­ ere, of a kaimami lacks the ele­ment of mutually recognized male rivalry, as the amorous friend is unaware of the guards officer’s prior claim on the ­woman. The Genji’s most interest­ing instance of double kaimami occurs in Chapter  6 (“Suetsumuhana”), when Genji and Tō no Chūjō court a “fallen princess,” an imperial prince’s dau­gh­ter whose reduced social circumstances would permit her, at best, to marry commoners—­that is, down the social ladder. The episode is set in motion by Genji’s longing ­ oman who will compensate for the disappearance of Utsusemi and for a w the loss of Yūgao, the former having substituted for Fujitsubo in Genji’s perception of her as a stepmother and the latter having involuntarily provided him with offspring from his cousin’s line. The w ­ oman whom Genji pursues is the orphaned dau­gh­ter of Prince Hitachi. In order to approach her, Genji employs Taifu no Myōbu, the dau­ gh­ter of his second-­favorite nurse, Saemon, just as he had employed ­Koremitsu, the son of his favorite nurse, Daini, to court Yūgao. Genji’s female menotogo is known as Taifu, ­after her ­father’s title of se­nior assis-

Genji127

tant minister (taifu; or tayū) of war. Linked in all likelihood by imperial descent to the Hitachi prince, Taifu’s ­father had stayed at the Hitachi Estate ­until he took a new wife. Rather than move in with her stepmother, Taifu preferred to stay with the Hitachi princess. Lacking parental support, the princess depends on her brother, who is a priest, and Taifu’s ­father, who still visits occasionally,44 but they have not been able to prevent her residence from falling apart. Although the Heian elite’s courtship was usually a quest for someone of higher social status, the orphaned ­woman’s pitiful circumstances attract Genji, rather than stir any ambition on his part as a commoner to win her as a “social prize.”45 He is intrigued by her emotional suffering and economic hardship. How can someone of her high rank cope with the melancholy that follows from such a decline in fortunes? As in the anomalous sequence of events in Genji’s affair with Utsu­ semi, ­here, too, a kaimaki and a night together are followed by a kaimami, in a reversal of what is commonly perceived as typical. Genji and Taifu carefully plot a kaimaki of a koto concert that is to take place on a moonlit spring night. Genji is impressed that Prince Hitachi’s legacy should be so well preserved in his dau­gh­ter’s musical talent, but he also registers the sad fact that times have changed, and she has not. He is very aware of the romantic setting and theatrical potential. Norma Field refuses to take Genji’s feelings at face value and charges him with “deliberate misinterpretation: he chooses to be lured by the romantic fiction of the princess-­in-­the-­ruins and engages in sexual play with an inappropriate ­woman.”46 It remains to be seen just what his feelings are at the end of the affair. Genji makes his way to the princess’s dilapidated dwelling, but Taifu persuades him to hold back for now from revealing his presence. (The princess’s high rank might inhibit her from responding favorably to his courtship.) When another visitor, who turns out to be his cousin and brother-­in-­law, Tō no Chūjō,47 approaches, Genji recedes even farther into the shadows of a ramshackle bamboo fence (1: 345: suigai) near the shinden. Although in disguise, Genji is quickly recognized by his rival, who had followed him on his adventure and now must abandon hope of proceeding where Genji left off. They have accidentally caught each other. In his study of male friendship in Japa­nese lit­erature, Paul Schalow sees Genji’s friendship with Tō no Chūjō as a model. Schalow interprets the encounter at the fence as “a deflected kaimami in which Genji, seeking a glimpse of the Princess, spies a rival suitor instead.”48 There are some errors in this interpretation of the scene. First, Genji is not “seeking

128

The Genealogical Maze

a glimpse” of the princess that moonlit spring night. As he is leaving the compound, he lingers at the fence only to hear her (see 1: 345). (It is not ­until winter, ­after he has spent a night with her, that he becomes curious enough about her appearance to arrange for a kaimami during which he manages to see only her female attendants. Genji finally sees the princess with the safflower-­colored nose [Suetsumuhana, her sobriquet] only before departing that early winter morning.) Second, pointing to a “deflected kaimami” on the same side of the fence, Schalow attributes the spying to Genji, but the spying, at this moment, is done by Tō no Chūjō. The threat of discovery makes Genji behave like a ­woman sensing an unwelcome kaimami. He withdraws still farther into the shadows of the fence and tries to slip away. The evasive maneuver fails. Tō no Chūjō recognizes and faces Genji. The potentially explosive moment is dispelled when jealousy is rechanneled into a poetry exchange between the men. (Genji is lucky that Tō no Chūjō still has not uncovered his secret appropriation of Tamakazura, Tō no Chūjō’s dau­gh­ter by Yūgao.) The two young men leave in one carriage,49 suggestively playing their flutes all the way to the palace, where they engage in further musical per­for­mance. It is an erotic scene, in which the two men seem to move from confronting to comforting each other before resuming their temporarily suspended courtships of Suetsumuhana, the Hitachi princess. How can the supposed rivalry at the fence so quickly change to harmonious friendship, if not homoerotic play? Where is the men’s erotic focus? Schalow contends that Tō no Chūjō fuels Genji’s courtship of the ­woman: “The effect of Genji’s deflected kaimami that leads to the encounter with Tō no Chūjō is to increase the urgency of his desire for the Princess.”50 According to the text, however, Tō no Chūjō is “more upset” than Genji about not receiving replies to his letters to the princess. Being irked rather than urgently desirous seems to characterize Genji, who “was not in fact very interested in her, though he too found her silence annoying” (S: 117; 1: 349). Genji displays po­liti­cal ambition rather than carnal desire. Schalow is, however, correct in stating that Tō no Chūjō “must preempt” Genji in this triangular courtship (as opposed to his being replaced by Genji in the Yūgao triangle).51 Necessity is not equivalent to possibility. The encounter at the fence suggests Genji’s superiority over Tō no Chūjō. Genji can toy playfully with his rival, who soon quietly yields the stage to Genji. In fact, the intimate post-­kaimami ­ride in one carriage could have been the end of the story, for neither of the men feels especially compelled

Genji129

to pursue the lady, but both of them continue to write letters, all of which go unanswered. Ironically, the princess’s silence has the unintended effect of transforming the men’s epistolary efforts into a contest, in which each suspects the other of having received an answer. At the same time, it does not seem to bother or even to occur to them that they are both courting a ­woman whom neither of them has seen! In this episode of triangular courtship, is the ­woman anything more than an empty cipher? Does Genji desire the princess only because Tō no Chūjō wants her, as proposed by Schalow?52 This cannot be so if Genji was already attempting kaimami at the fence when he was discovered by Tō no Chūjō. Are Genji and Tō no Chūjō in love with each other instead of the ­woman, as in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s influential paradigm of male homosocial desire?53 According to Brian T. Sacawa’s sophisticated application of Sedgwick’s paradigm in combination with René Girard’s theory of triangular desire,54 Genji fills the role of mediator that Tō no Chūjō occupies in the Yūgao rivalry. The reason for this is that the subject in a rivalry triangle covets what the mediator already possesses or desires . . . ​in the Suetsumuhana rivalry sequence, Tō no Chūjō covets the lady Genji possesses, elevating Genji to mediator status. Despite the exchange of roles between Genji and Tō no Chūjō, the homoerotic product of their rivalry remains consistent.55

In any event, the remarkably long lull in their courtship of the ­ rincess must be accounted for. Is it the satisfaction derived from their p homoerotic bond or is it ­different distractions (e.g., Genji’s unnarrated affair with his stepmother Fujitsubo and his abduction of her niece Murasaki) that cause spring and summer to pass without any progress in courtship of this princess? Genji’s initial courtship of Suetsumuhana in the spring of his eigh­ teenth year coincides with the onset of his feverish illness, sometimes translated as “malaria” (S: 84, 118; 1: 350 and n11: warawayami), which causes him to seek a cure in the mountains north of the capital (Kitayama). This convergence of courtship and fever points to Genji’s practicing his courtship of a “fallen” princess while mustering his courage for the affair with Fujitsubo. Around the time of the anniversary of Yūgao’s death, Genji makes a new move t­ oward the Hitachi princess, not because of any news of Tō no Chūjō’s advances but possibly to distract himself from the feared

130

The Genealogical Maze

discovery of his taboo-­breaking (unnarrated) affair with Fujitsubo and his discovery and appropriation of young Murasaki. As Norma Field has elegantly put it, “Yet, even though these stories [of Utsusemi, Yūgao, and Suetsumuhana] are open where Fujitsubo’s is closed, they are not without elements of transgression or guilt, almost as if they w ­ ere the intaglio versions of the Fujitsubo story.”56 Badly in need of escaping from his uncommunicable worries about his taboo violations, Genji is drawn to the princess’s unfamiliar space as he had once been drawn to Yūgao’s.57 This high-­ranking ­woman’s extreme shyness poses a challenge that surpasses even the ­middle-­ranking Yūgao’s reticence. Moreover, time has stood still for Suetsumuhana, allowing Genji glimpses into the past that might further relieve his anxi­eties about the pre­sent. As a mediator, Taifu experiences a moral dilemma: should she re­­­ spect her mistress’s apparent wish to keep things as they are, or should she become Genji’s accomplice, allowing him to disturb the princess’s equanimity in the short run in order to improve her lot (and that of her entourage) in the long run? She decides in f­ avor of the latter. Despite lingering scruples, Taifu arranges another kaimaki, one that unfolds without interference from Tō no Chūjō. “There was no one to challenge Genji as he made his way inside” (S: 119; 1: 354). This time, Genji is not content with simply listening to the koto. He recites a poem to her but can get a return poem only from Suetsumuhana’s menotogo, Jijū, who impersonates her lady.58 He spends the night, but there is no hint of sexual intercourse. Genji expresses his dissatisfaction with Suetsumuhana by sending his kinuginu no fumi (morning-­after note) very late. He is then appalled by her old-­fashioned reply poem, actually composed by Jijū and written on faded paper by Suetsumuhana herself. At any other time in Genji’s ­career as a youthful sower of wild oats, this aesthetic disappointment would have been the end of the affair, but at this sensitive time, when Fujitsubo is pregnant with their illicit child, he is inclined to have scruples about abandoning her. Perhaps taking responsibility for his rather casual involvement with this unfortunate “fallen princess” will atone for his taboo-­violating be­hav­ior with his imperial ­father’s wife. Rivalry with Tō no Chūjō recedes from the forefront of consciousness, and the two men can comfortably ­ride in the same carriage to the palace to help arrange an imperial outing. During musical rehearsals for the outing, Genji seizes the opportunity to embark on a kaimami of the princess: “He must have a look at her face—­and at the same time he rather dreaded trimming the lamp” (S: 123; 1: 363). On this occasion, he does not see her, but he is strongly affected by the sight of her entou-

Genji131

rage, miserably unprepared for winter and shivering in the cold. He sees not mere poverty, but poverty where once there was splendor. Genji spends another night with the princess, ­after which, saddened by an early morning snow scene, he is able to bring himself to steal an oblique glance at her. She is no beauty. Her nose is comically long, pendulous, and as red as the eponymous suetsumuhana (safflower; carthamus tinctorius; benibana). Her long lustrous hair is her only redeeming physical feature. Since Genji characters are not usually described in such physiognomic detail, why is she? The point seems to be that Genji, while deploring the princess’s unattractiveness in the manner of someone raised with the aesthetic standards of the old romances, is nonetheless drawn to her for reasons more im­por­tant than her looks. She fascinates him because she personifies, like Utsusemi, an ethical beauty, a refusal to surrender to adversity. It may also be that he is attracted to her for the same reason that he was attracted by the sight of her decayed home evoking a sense of deep emotion (mono no aware). If this is indeed the case, it is also true that Genji has not yet developed the kind of sensitivity to her plight that might enable him fully to recognize Suetsumuhana’s potential as a romantic figure. As he absorbs the depressed looks of the princess’s residence in broad daylight, he imagines the therapeutic effects of having someone more attractive than Suetsumuhana hidden there. “He might even be able to forget his impossible, forbidden love [Fujitsubo]. But the princess was completely wrong for such a romantic ­house” (S: 125; 1: 369). The high point of the Suetsumuhana episode in its early phase of courtship is epitomized in the unforgettable imagery, deeply engraved in Genji iconography,59 of the tachibana (orange tree) and the pine tree in the snow.60 An ominous—or enlightening—­note is struck when Genji, as he is leaving Suetsumuhana’s premises, has an attendant brush the snow off a small orange tree. The unexpected consequence of this heartwarming action arouses the pine tree’s “envious face” (1: 369: urayami gao) and produces a second snow shower. For Genji, this anthropomorphized arboreal moment of mono no aware provides insight into the way in which one action can trigger another. Why is Genji so moved by this? Since the entire episode is narrated in lieu of another (Genji’s affair with Fujitsubo and his appropriation of young Murasaki), with a w ­ oman courted and pursued in lieu of another (Fujitsubo), and accompanied by a suppressed male rivalry that is disguised as friendship (with Tō no Chūjō), Genji has reason to be extremely mindful of envious faces. ­Almost as if to absolve himself of any responsibility for his own transgressive

132

The Genealogical Maze

actions, he expresses a sense that he has been led to court the princess by something other than his own volition: “The thought came to him that the spirit [1: 369: tamashii] of the departed prince, worried about the dau­gh­ter he had left ­behind, had brought him to her” (S: 125; 1: 369). The analogy of the Kiritsubo emperor’s guiding Genji to Fujitsubo, though certainly not for sexual intercourse, is lurking in the shadow of the affair that Genji pursues, reluctantly but responsibly, with Suetsumuhana. Compelled to repress the tabooed affair with his stepmother, who is about to give birth to their child, Genji draws elaborate comparisons between Utsusemi and Suetsumuhana in a balancing act of rank and beauty. “Suetsumuhana” ends with Genji’s parody of Suetsumuhana’s looks in front of Murasaki. This seems callous, but it is also possi­ble that his comic impersonation expresses empathy for a lady as unfortunate in her appearance as in her material circumstances. ­ ntil a de­cade ­later that Genji resumes relations with Sue­ It is not u tsumuhana (in Chapter 15, “Yomogiu”). When he was in self-­imposed exile to atone for his forbidden affair with his stepmother, Suetsumuhana felt for him even while suffering her own humiliations and the exodus of her female entourage, including her menotogo, Jijū. Against the foil of her maternal aunt, whose biting sarcasm is her revenge for having been deemed inferior in the past, the increasingly lonely and destitute Suetsumuhana emerges as a noble figure. She bravely refuses to sell off her ­father’s property, even though she no longer has the means to care for it properly. Hers is an “elegant and orderly dust” (S: 292; 2: 320). When Jijū abandons her in order to accompany Suetsumuhana’s venomous aunt to Kyūshū, Suetsumuhana offers as a parting gift her one truly splendid physical attribute, her collected fallen hair, referred to in her poem as “jeweled strands” (S: 297; 2: 331: tamakazura), “an emblem of sisterhood on the very eve of its loss.”61 At this point of total desolation and choking in the weeds, she is rediscovered by Genji, who, on his way to another w ­ oman (Hanachirusato), is struck by the dismal sight of the wilderness that has taken over her diminished estate and signals her abandonment. Genji’s expedition through the weeds that choke the garden, with Koremitsu holding a very large umbrella to provide shelter from the rain, is indelibly—­and uniquely—­ impressed upon the mind of Genji readers by the artists of the twelfth-­ century Genji monogatari emaki. It hardly matters that a rain-­soaked Genji enters Suetsumuhana’s quarters without following etiquette; his disregard only testifies to his romantic resolve to come to her rescue. Having suffered in exile, Genji can now empathize with Suetsumuhana and appreciate her determination to defend her values against all

Genji133

odds. He takes pride in having her residence repaired and is rewarded with anthropomorphic thanks: “The wormwood patch now seemed to choke with gratitude” (S: 302; 2: 343). Two years ­later, Genji moves Suetsumuhana to his newly built Nijō Higashi residence (Nijō Higashi no in; see Figure 6).62 There she remains, and when Genji makes his New Year’s rounds with gifts of robes to his ­women (in Chapter 22 “Tamakazura”), he is moved by his memories of her as a principled ­woman of the highest rank. It is difficult to agree with Field that he regards her as “a scandalous disappointment.”63 In the next chapter, “Hatsune,” Genji makes a journey expressly to see her, realizing that her once beautiful hair has become “a white trickle” (S: 413; 3: 147). Nevertheless, she is what she is, and he feels true to himself in her presence. He still cares. That Genji once had a male rival for Suetsumuhana has long since been forgotten.

Courtship as Staged Per­for­mance The word “map” should be taken literally as well as meta­phor­ically. Courtship sends Genji far and wide in and around Heian-­kyō (see ­Figures  5 and  6). Specific places are thematically significant. A Heian courtier’s constant movement on the grid of Heian-­kyō, with its “go board layout,”64 requires close scrutiny. His movement resembles the moves on a go board in that a courtier is intent on capturing the property of o ­ thers in the form of w ­ omen, just as a female go player might have wanted to capture her opponent’s stones. There are general and special rules for playing go, but in the courtship pro­cess, rules become interest­ ing only when they are broken. Taking unexpected turns that lead to sexual adventures is sometimes triggered or justified by kata-­tagae, directional taboos following the yin-­yang practice of divination (onmyōdō). When the deity Nakagami periodically descended to earth and blocked ­others from ­going in the same—­that is, his—­direction for forty-­four days (­after which he returned to the heavens for sixteen days), apotropaic detours ­were required as concessions to divinities.65 Genji was foremost, at least in lit­erature, among those who exploited ritually mandated evasive maneuvers as an excuse for amorous adventure. A prime example of this is his visiting the governor of Kii’s Nakagawa residence instead of spending the night with his woefully neglected principal wife, Aoi, at her ­father’s Sanjō residence (Sadaijin no Sanjō-­tei, at Ōmiya/ Horikawa Sanjō; see Figure 6). The nature of the barriers that Genji must penetrate to hear or see a ­woman is vitally im­por­tant. Equally im­por­tant are the sites of kaimaki

134

The Genealogical Maze

and kaimami on the larger map of Genji’s quest for recognition and power. The eighteen-­year-­old Genji’s kaimaki of Suetsumuhana and his kaimami of her female entourage take place at the Hitachi Prince’s residence (see Suetsumuhana’s residence, Figure 6),66 which lies about halfway between the governor of Kii’s Nakagawa residence and Genji’s own Nijō residence. This affair evolves during Fujitsubo’s pregnancy, which is the result of a taboo violation within the dairi. At around that time, seeking refuge even farther away from the palace, Genji journeys to Kitayama, where he has his kaimami of Murasaki, whom he subsequently abducts to his Nijō-in (see Figure 6). These marginal settings for these early kaimami suggest that Genji, at the height of his youthful erotic potential, set out to test the limits of his charm by courting ­women in places located on the eastern edge of the Heian capital or deep in the northern mountains. He overreaches. Swept away by the floodtide of his concurrent affairs and terrified over the possi­ble discovery of his taboo violation, he plunges directly into the vortex of his ­father’s imperial quarters. There, in the spring of the year in which his son by Fujitsubo is born (in the ­middle of the second month) and Fujitsubo becomes empress (in the seventh month), the nineteen-­year-­ old Genji has a reckless fling with Gen no naishi, who is in her late fifties and in attendance upon the Kiritsubo emperor. Since this affair (without prior kaimami) is conducted within the imperial quarters of the dairi, it is not surprising that the emperor notices it. He mocks his son for pursuing a ­woman rather well advanced in years by Heian standards. For Genji, it is better that his f­ather be amused by this foolish affair than that he learn of being cuckolded by his own son. Clearly, this unusual affair, which incidentally revives—or parodies—­Genji’s friendly rivalry over Suetsumuhana with Tō no Chūjō, might be seen as a subconscious strategy to divert the emperor from discovering the incestuous affair with Fujitsubo. This association between Fujitsubo and Gen no naishi is made explicit when Genji mourns the death of the former thirteen years ­later, noting then the tragic injustice of finding the latter still alive. Transgressive Stage Sets: The Open Door in “Hana no en” Genji’s kaimami of Oborozukiyo also occurs in this most dangerous of all places, in the dairi. The Inner Imperial Palace was located, in Murasaki Shikibu’s time, almost as far west as the pre­sent-­day Senbon-­ dōri. On II.20, the twenty-­year-­old Genji encounters Oborozukiyo in the west hisashi of the Kokiden, the residence of the eponymous mo­ther of

Genji135

Crown Prince Suzaku. The Kokiden was one of the twelve buildings of the kōkyū (­women’s quarters) at the back of the Jijūden, originally the official imperial residence, but ­later replaced by the Seiryōden as the emperor’s private living quarters (see Figure 4).67 Genji’s scandalous affair with Oborozukiyo directly leads to his decision to escape gossip and retaliation by withdrawing to faraway Suma, followed by Akashi, where he courts Akashi no kimi. Genji’s kaimami of Oborozukiyo, the sixth dau­gh­ter of the Minister of the Right, leads to a more immediate and unmediated affair than his labored efforts to catch a glimpse of ­women like Utsusemi and Sue­ tsumuhana, ironically or paradoxically, ­after having spent nights with them. What greatly complicates this affair is the po­liti­cal implication of Genji’s seducing a younger sister of Kokiden (Genji’s ­father’s nyōgo [high consort] and the mo­ther of the crown prince). Genji suspects early on that he is entering into a forbidden liaison that may have serious po­liti­ cal consequences, even though he does not know at first that Oborozukiyo has been promised to his half-­brother Suzaku, the crown prince. Genji has his first encounter with Oborozukiyo at a dangerous moment just ­after his ­father has passed over Kokiden and named Fujitsubo empress. During a splendid cherry blossom festival, Genji has a chance to show off his superior per­for­mance skills in front of his f­ather, Fujitsubo, the crown prince, and the resentful Kokiden. In a daring mood, the intoxicated Genji craves another encounter with Fujitsubo and prowls around the kōkyū in the vicinity of her residence, the Higyōsha (the Fuji­­­ tsubo, or Wisteria Court; see Figure 4). He abandons the idea since the door of his intermediary (Fujitsubo’s Ōmyōbu) is closed. He veers just east onto the west hisashi (also: hosodono) of Kokiden’s eponymous residence and stops at the third entrance from the north, where the yarido (sliding door) is open, to his great surprise.68 Indeed, he is, quite frankly, appalled at the carelessness implied by the open door and is ready to blame any ­woman who has let herself become so easily observable: “It was thus, he thought, that a lady invited her downfall” (S: 151; 1: 426). Hiding at the third door of the hosodono, he sees another open door, the kururudo (the door of the nurigome that faces the hosodono).69 Inside the moya all are asleep, but one ­woman unexpectedly emerges from the kururudo, reciting a poem about the misty moon (oborozukiyo, her sobriquet).70 Genji is understandably surprised. “She came (could he believe it?) to the door” (S: 152; 1: 426: konatazama ni wa kuru mono ka). He seizes her sleeve, recites a poem, and quickly lifts her into the hosodono.71 There they consummate their affair and

136

The Genealogical Maze

famously exchange fans at parting. Genji is clear-­headed enough to close the kururudo in order to escape being noticed by the other w ­ omen in the moya. (It is notable that we are informed about the exact location of each move in this affair.) Although this affair is simpler, quicker, and more straightforward, it is also a departure from the normative pattern in the sense that it is the ­woman who bursts upon the courtier in search of sexual adventure. Genji, already a bit frustrated that Fujitsubo’s door was closed to him, especially ­after his fabulous poetry and dance per­for­mance that delighted her so at the cherry tree cele­bration in the south garden (nan’en or nantei) of the Shishinden (see Figure 4), is looking for a reward ­after displaying all his per­for­mance skills. When Oborozukiyo comes upon him, he takes her as a virtual replacement for Fujitsubo, albeit one that does not embody the same challenge of inaccessibility. One transgression ­behind him, he half-­involuntarily embarks on another with Oborozukiyo, who is intended as Suzaku’s ­future imperial ju­nior consort.72 In the larger scheme of the Genji, the Oborozukiyo affair is a minor transgression virtually designed to satisfy Genji’s unconscious craving for vicarious punishment in the Fujitsubo affair. Genji’s reciprocal courtship with Oborozukiyo is prominently featured in the visual arts, best known perhaps in the splendid but architecturally anachronistic residential shoin (lit. writing hall) style73 rendering by Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613) and Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674).74 This image depicts Genji’s enjoyment of a rear view of this seductive w ­ oman as she walks down the aisle and elegantly turns, while holding up her fan, ­toward the misty moon of early spring. It is clearly a breach of the code of courtship for Genji to move so quickly to physical consummation, but it was also a breach of the code, or a violation of the rules of the game, for Oborozukiyo to take the initiative by emerging suddenly from the open kururudo, or pivotal door, that is ­here the kaimami equivalent of a hole in the fence. About two months ­later, Genji reluctantly attends a wisteria banquet at the Minister of the Right’s residence (see Figure 6). There, he spies on the princesses and, pretending to be drunk, alludes to his fan exchange, wondering ­whether Oborozukiyo will identify herself. She does not, but she, now Suzaku’s quasi-­junior consort (naishi no kami), nonetheless continues taking an amorous initiative by secretly exchanging letters with Genji and sending him notes and poems. In her e­ ager forwardness, she resembles Gen no naishi or Nokiba no ogi more than any of Genji’s other ­women—­Utsusemi, Yūgao, and Suetsumuhana, not to mention Fujitsubo.

Genji137

Meanwhile, in Chapter 10 (“Sakaki”), Genji most grotesquely pursues Fujitsubo, who has retreated into the nurigome (2: 100). She is so mortified that she resolves to become a nun. On a downward spiral as an amorous man, Genji next risks all by visiting Oborozukiyo during a thunderstorm and, almost as if he had been asking for it, is promptly caught in flagrante by her ­father. It is then that he realizes the time has come for self-­imposed exile at Suma. Genji’s oscillation between the periphery and the center of Heian-­ kyō has a definite but unstated purpose. He is a peripatetic in the ancient Greek sense of someone who moves from place to place, carry­ing “the wisdom or cultural power of a tradition from one place to another.”75 As a peripatetic, Genji has carnal relationships inside the palace (with Fujitsubo, Gen no Naishi, Oborozukiyo) and in strategic locations in the city (with Utsusemi and Suetsumuhana) as well as farther and farther outside it (with Akashi no kimi and Murasaki, on whom more ­later). He proves himself a true imperial heir, someone who surveys the realm like an emperor of old and seizes it vicariously, through fathering children who have a chance at the imperial throne that is denied to Genji himself. Genealogy ­b ehind the Scenes: The Moonlit Door of “Akashi” As indicated in the introduction to Part III, Genji monogatari is driven by genealogical complications that call for resolution. The drive is as strong as the quest for imperial succession. Genji h ­ ere stands out in terms of the superlative degree to which he was, for his own benefit and through no fault of his own, excluded from taking the throne. Short of  that, he is successful vicariously. His biological son Reizei rises to imperial heights, alternating with the line of Kokiden, now empress dowager (kōtaigō; ōkisaki). Yet we must turn to another line to complete the genealogical chart of imperial ascent, rather than descent, in the Genji. Murasaki Shikibu portrays relationships in subtleties rarely achieved in the lit­erature that came before or ­after. Her cross-­cutting plots of imperial descent and ascent account for a genealogical maze of go game proportions. Genji’s courtship of Akashi no kimi, analyzed at the beginning of this book, fits the rubric of a carefully “crafted” marriage in adulthood, but it turns out to be far more than that. Its promise of kingship ensures Genji’s imperial hopes beyond his lifetime. The genesis of this affair is special in its near-­mythic dimension. Although Genji’s marriage to Akashi no kimi is not arranged directly by their fathers, paternal influence exerts itself through dreams

138

The Genealogical Maze

and “boat” diplomacy, as already hinted at in the Introduction. While languishing in self-­imposed exile at Suma ­after the scandalous affair with Oborozukiyo, the suicidal Genji has a dream of his late ­father, who sympathizes with his distress over an unspecified offense, urges him at the behest of the god of Sumiyoshi to leave Suma, and promises to arrange a ­pardon with the Suzaku emperor, Genji’s older half-­brother. No sooner has Genji’s dream vision of his late ­father vanished than another man with a Sumiyoshi-­inspired dream vision emerges from the storm in his boat. This is the Akashi priest, who has rejected all suitors of his only dau­gh­ter and even warned her that, if the right man did not appear before his death, she would have to throw herself from a cliff to avoid an unsuitable marriage. Swept away by the force of his and the priest’s dream visions, Genji sails to Akashi, where he fulfills this f­ ather’s ambitious plan for his dau­gh­ter. It is hardly a coincidence that Genji had first heard about this beauty ten years earlier, just ­after his untold illicit affair with Fujitsubo required him to seek a cure in the northern mountains (Kitayama) of the capital and just before he discovered the then-­ten-­year-­old Murasaki at a ­temple in Kitayama (see Figure 5). Yet unlike Genji’s pursuit of Murasaki, Fuji­ tsubo’s niece, his relationship with Akashi no kimi, carefully prefaced at Kitayama and pursued only a de­cade ­later with the aid of the super­natu­ ral force of tempests and dream apparitions,76 does not suffer from the spinelessness of an arranged marriage, but neither can it be said to soar to the romantic heights inspired by marital taboo. The “contrived character of their ­union” (T: 270; 2: 247: kō anagachi narikeru chigiri) has to do with their courtship, which is mediated—­ staged—to a significant degree by the Akashi priest, who not only prepares Genji’s path to Akashi no kimi’s residence on the hill but also writes a reply poem for her. (The scene of courtship in Akashi is described in my Introduction.) Despite the high degree of paternal guidance or even manipulation of courtship, the marriage is nevertheless a happy one. It is the existence of the Akashi dau­gh­ter that keeps the marriage alive through Genji’s use of daughters (biological or appropriated from ­others) as po­ liti­cal capital to advance his genealogy. To activate that capital, this daugh­ ­­­ter must leave the provinces and be raised in the capital. Although Akashi no kimi had insisted from the beginning on her own place by resisting any move from her ­house on the hill to Genji’s on the beach and does so again when Genji offers her and their dau­gh­ter the east wing of the newly built Nijō Higashi residence in the capital (see Figure 6), she is willing to leave the Akashi coast and move, for the dau­gh­ter’s sake, first

Genji139

to her maternal great-­great-­grand­father’s Ōi villa (see Figure  5) near Arashiyama in the northwest of the capital, where she parts with her dau­gh­­ter, who is to be raised by Murasaki in Genji’s mo­ther’s Nijō-in (it will be remembered that Kiritsubo and the Akashi priest are first cousins). Finally, mo­ther and dau­gh­ter are re­united in Genji’s unorthodox creation of the palatial Rokujō Estate (see Figure 6), from which the Akashi dau­gh­ter departs to become an imperial consort, the mo­ther of the ­future emperor, and empress. Is it an accident that she comes to reside in the Kiritsubo Court at the imperial palace?77 Genji’s imperial hopes for his dau­gh­ter cannot disguise his ambition to vindicate the fate that his mo­ther suffered when she took up residence there. Yet he downplays these joyful hopes, having learned the lesson from his f­ ather’s excessive love for his mo­ther that it is wise not to wear one’s emotions on one’s sleeve. The journey of raising his mo­ther’s line to imperial heights is literally a long one. It is only by increments that Genji is able to detach Akashi no kimi from her Akashi lineage’s residences to move her ever closer to his sphere of influence. In his justification to Murasaki for having taken a new wife at Akashi, Genji cites his fascination with the place itself (S: 276: “the setting;” 2: 282: tokorogara), thereby eliding the palimpsest of relating their genealogical lines (her paternal Akashi line and his maternal Kiritsubo line) with movements in space. Genji’s semiarranged Akashi marriage is neither without drama nor without the kind of romantic dangers that characterize secondary marriages involving choices made by the partners. Illuminating Stage Effects: A Bag of Fireflies in “Hotaru” Although there must always be at least some intention to look, kaimami can range from being haphazard or accidental to being more or less consciously planned to being an obsessively pursued hunt. Intent in kaimami is most consciously expressed in performativity. The theatrical ele­ment in kaimami may well be at its most prominent in the famous “Fireflies” episode of Chapter 25. Here, Genji becomes a choreographer who places his half-­brother Hotaru in a position to glimpse Tamakazura, whom Hotaru believes to be Genji’s long-­lost dau­gh­ter—­that is, his niece—in the suggestive light of fireflies. Earlier in the scene, Genji had carefully collected fireflies in thin raw silk (katabira) to create special stage effects and pre­sent Tamakazura as the star of the per­for­mance. This is theater in the true sense of the word (Gk. theatron, theasthai, to view; thea, the act of seeing; akin to Gk. thauma, miracle).

140

The Genealogical Maze

The fireflies scene is a more controlled or manipulative version of the “Rainy Night” tale of the guards officer who watches his friend perform a kaimami. The most im­por­tant difference ­here is that Genji has left nothing to chance. As Field, who has other spy-­related fireflies episodes in mind, puts it, “The Genji scene complicates the voyeurism, for the object is no longer a ­woman but a ­woman as she is being seen by another man.”78 Field’s word “voyeurism,” with its connotation of perversion, is appropriate to describe the vicarious plea­sure that Genji derives from another man’s viewing experience without taking the risk of discovery associated with kaimami. Discussing “Hotaru,” Haruo Shirane is even more judgmental, concluding that Genji’s role as a hero is deteriorating: “In stark contrast to the reckless youth of the early chapters, the Genji who appears in the Tamakazura sequence is a calculating and somewhat devious—if not decadent—­middle-­aged man who depends heavily on his skill as a stage ­manager.”79 Genji prepares the kaimami scene well in advance of his strategic release of fireflies. For example, since Tamakazura has refused to reply to her suitors, Genji assigns the task to Saishō, who is the gifted dau­gh­ ter of a con­sul­tant (saishō) and a cousin of Tamakazura’s mo­ther, Yūgao. Moreover, Genji has, during Hotaru’s visit just prior to the release of fireflies, prepared seductive incense for Tamakazura to attract him, mixing in a l­ittle of his own just to confuse Hotaru by insinuating that he had preceded him. In Field’s view, “Genji has made himself part of the object, an extension of ­woman-­as-­target-­of-­vision.”80 This “extension” is analogous to the woman that I have posited as frequently lurking ­ behind the shadow ­ ­woman physically perceived by a man engaged in kaimami. If Genji can be considered such a figure, Hotaru’s perception of his invisible but sensual shadow might spoil or undermine his plea­sure in courting Tamakazura—­ unless it can be argued that, in truth, Hotaru desires Genji in the way it has been argued that Tō no Chūjō desires Genji rather than Suetsumuhana. Genji has, ­after all, been shown to have considerable homoerotic attraction for Tō no Chūjō, his closest friend, brother-­in-­law, and first cousin, for the other young men wishing Genji w ­ ere a ­woman in the “Rainy Night Discussion” in Chapter 2 (“Hahakigi”), for Prince Hyōbu, Murasaki’s ­father, and for the Minister of the Left, Aoi’s ­father. Homoeroticism is not the only ­factor that comes into play in the fireflies kaimami. Genji suspects that Hotaru desired Tamakazura only for her kinship to him and not because of her beauty. If so, Genji plays the fireflies trick because he wants to give Hotaru a reason for appreciat-

Genji141

ing Tamakazura’s beauty rather than seeing her merely as a genealogical appendix or as a substitute for homoerotic desire. Genji’s strategy of distracting Hotaru from his genealogical attraction is an appropriate action, given that Tamakazura is not, in fact, Genji’s dau­gh­ter—­she is Genji’s first cousin once removed. Since Genji himself desires Tamakazura, however, he must continue to control Tamakazura’s lineage. By presenting her as his dau­gh­ter, he adds a fictive illicit thrill to his desire, a thrill that is intensified when Genji inserts his scent into the fireflies scene, both attracting and warning Hotaru. Although Genji had already made advances to Tamakazura that ­were perfectly legitimate because he is not her ­father, his calculated genealogical confusion creates problems on numerous fronts. Since her lineage is not what he has made it out to be, she is left to her own devices to resolve the prob­lem that Genji has fabricated for her. As Hotaru peers “through an opening in the rich gossamer curtains,” there is “a flash of light—­and such beauty as was revealed in it!” (S: 432; 3: 193). Genji’s fireflies trick of exposing her with a flash is a violation of her autonomy no less than is his manipulation of her lineage. For Hotaru, the flash is both illuminating and blinding, in that he can clearly see the ­woman’s beauty but not her true identity. The narrator pointedly concludes that “Genji would not have gone to such trou­ble if she had in fact been his dau­gh­ter” and that his be­hav­ior was “rather perverse” (S: 432; 1: 192). ­Under Genji’s direction, role playing has become so obtrusive and compulsory that Tamakazura is beginning to balk. Having submerged her identity into that of an actor in a role, she senses the danger of becoming a mere stage prop, on display for the plea­sure not only of her suitor, Hotaru, but for the stage ­manager, Genji. Her refusal to follow Genji’s stage directions takes the form of meandering in the relatively restrictive space of the west wing of the Rokujō-­in’s northeast residence. She declines to sit in her assigned seat. Not only does Genji have to “pinch” Saishō to act like a prompter for Tamakazura, but he also has to fetch Tamakazura from the east hisashi to resume her role in the fireflies kaimami. Meanwhile, Hotaru’s declarations of love have dissipated unheard into thin air. He is a man who, instead of approaching a ­woman through kaimami, has already corresponded with her through Saishō and is now attempting to speak with her through a curtain when he is forced into the role of man performing a kaimami. If the ideal situation for a kaimami from the man’s point of view is the w ­ oman’s complete unawareness of being watched, this par­tic­u­lar kaimami merely pre­sents a staged

142

The Genealogical Maze

illusion of the ideal. What is most peculiar is that Hotaru does not immediately observe the ­ woman he is courting. Genji does it for him through the staged medium of the fireflies. Instead of seeing Tamakazura with his own eyes, Hotaru sees her only as Genji wishes him to. By making ­Tamakazura visible through fireflies, Genji completely controls Hotaru’s vision. Although Tamakazura is fully aware of being involved in a courtship situation with a man whose identity she knows, she is taken very much by surprise when she is illuminated by Genji’s fireflies. It is, incidentally, a twice-­told flash. The first time in the narrative that the fireflies are released, she is the center of perception. Wondering how to answer the prince’s outpourings, she suddenly sees a flash of light as from a shisoku (hand torch) and is stunned (3: 192: akiretari). With Genji so near, she realizes who has played this outrageous prank. She quickly hides ­behind a fan so that Hotaru cannot see her face (Genji sees it in profile). Satisfied, Genji leaves. The second time that the fireflies flash is narrated, the perceiving consciousness is Prince Hotaru’s. ­After calculating where she must be, he finds a gap in the very fine, thin silk curtain and is immediately struck, as if by lightning, by the fireflies illuminating Tamakazura. The encounter ends with a poetry exchange in which Hotaru claims the passion embodied by fireflies and Tamakazura claims their silence. Genji does not make it easy for Tamakazura to resolve her prob­ lem of identity, and only ­after the fireflies drama does he allow her to tackle the issue of her origins indirectly. In their famous discussion one rainy night, the question arises as to ­whether there is truth in monogatari or the chronicles. Tamakazura vehemently curbs Genji’s denunciation of monogatari authors as liars by arguing that such an accusation can come only from someone with expertise at lying. Her role in the “fireflies” theater has taught her that the line between fiction and reality can be awfully thin. Certainly, her relationship with Genji is itself such a borderline case. When he proposes to her, “Suppose the two of us set down our story and give the world a r­ eally interest­ing one” (S: 438; 3: 205), she sardonically remarks, “I think it very likely that the world will take notice of our curious story even if we do not go to the trou­ble” (S: 438; 3: 205). Tamakazura protests the type of monogatari envisioned by Genji, in which the heroine must pretend that she is who the hero made her out to be ­until he deems it proper to reveal her true origins. Tamakazura’s critique of Genji in their debate about truth in fiction demonstrates that she wants to escape her dilemma of being caught in the limbo between a fabricated genealogy as Genji’s dau­gh­ter and her true descent from Tō no Chūjō and Yūgao.

Genji143

Genji continues to pine for Tamakazura and sets up kagaribi (flares) to illustrate his frustrated passion. This subdued afterflash occurs a­ fter Tō no Chūjō has made a fool of himself by his discovery, no doubt inspired by Genji’s (fabricated) discovery of a long-­lost dau­gh­ter in Tamakazura, of his own long-­lost dau­gh­ter, the Lady of Ōmi. She turns out to be an embarrassment to her f­ather, unlike Tamakazura, whom Genji has trained through his ordeal of fireflies to remain dignified even in the most trying of circumstances. Genji wins Tamakazura’s recognition by letting her know how much his heart is burning with the flares on the pond in Chapter 27 (“Kagaribi”). He finally reveals Tamakazura’s true identity to Tō no Chūjō in Chapter 29 (“Miyuki”). Genji as Spectator of Courtship at a Game of Kemari (Court Kickball) In Chapter 34 (“Wakana 1”), Genji, in the spring of his forty-­first year, calls a team of young kemari (court football) players over to Murasaki’s southeast quarter of the Rokujō-in for a game.81 Among them is Kashiwagi, the son of Genji’s cousin and brother-­in-­law Tō no Chūjō, and one of Genji’s defeated young rivals for the hand of the Third Princess. His spontaneous courtship occurs by accident, when he and Yūgiri, Genji’s son, are playing the game.82 Taking a break from play together with Yūgiri, Kashiwagi, only now aware of the rapidly falling cherry blossoms, glances in the direction of the Third Princess’s quarters. He is alerted by the abundant display of robes (idashiginu) to the ­women’s dangerously careless removal of the furniture meant to shield them from men’s eyes. The Third Princess, who is now married to Genji, has been observing the “young gentlemen heedless of how they scattered the blossoms” (S: 583; 4: 133) and has become so enthralled by the game that she ceases “to worry about blinds and concealment” (S: 583–584; 4: 133). In her excitement over kemari, she loses control of her two cats, the larger of which chases a smaller Chinese cat “not yet . . . ​fully tamed” (S: 583; 4: 132) and therefore still on a leash. The leash becomes entangled in the curtains and raises them, which allows Kashiwagi and Yūgiri to see her standing, presumably to see the game better, near a curtain stand (kichō) rather than sitting b ­ ehind it. Yūgiri feels ashamed for his stepmother (who is about five years younger than he), but the entranced Kashiwagi eagerly calls her Chinese cat. “Mewing prettily,” the cat in his arms carries the fragrance of the princess and brings her “image . . . ​back to him (for he had been ready to fall in love)” (S: 584; 4: 134). Having watched the game of kemari that he had staged from Murasaki’s veranda, Genji must have intuited the budding of love as

144

The Genealogical Maze

the cherry blossoms came down softly, like snow, on the young men observing his wife. Genji cannot have missed the Third Princess’s cat dashing on the veranda, nor can he have failed to notice Kashiwagi embracing the cat with Yūgiri looking on. That Genji was on the alert is evident from his quick move to call the two young men away from the Third Princess’s steps and to Murasaki’s east wing, where, he calculates, no occasion for such trespassing will arise. Swept away by the reckless self-­exposure of the Third Princess, Kashiwagi sends her a love letter. To his allusive poem about longing for the cherry blossoms in the eve­ning shadows (4: 140: koishiki hana no yūkage), she responds by blushing a deep red, which reveals as much about her emotional engagement with this best of all the kemari players as about her guilty awareness of having ignored Genji’s warnings about letting herself be seen. (Ironically, Genji feared the advances of his son Yūgiri rather than those of Kashiwagi, who lost to Genji in the negotiations over the princess’s hand.) In his pining for Genji’s princess, Kashiwagi approaches her half-­brother (then crown prince) in order to borrow the cat that had brought back to life vivid images of the princess. For him, the cat serves as a fetish. He never returns the cat, upon which he not only lavishes all his affection but with which he also speaks and which he addresses with a waka, using purring sounds in hopes of a deeper understanding.83 ­After six years during which Kashiwagi courts the princess through her cat, he finally marries her half-­sister (Ochiba), who is clearly a ­human substitute for the princess whom he could not have. Yet shortly there­ after, on the eve of the lustration for the Kamo Festival, Kashiwagi manages to gain access to the Third Princess’s quarters. It is im­por­tant to recognize that Kashiwagi’s romantic drive is rooted not only in the kemari sighting but also in his earlier ambition for a genealogically motivated arranged marriage. Although initially terrified, breaking out into a cold sweat of panic at his advances, she hears of his frustrated ambition to marry her, a princess above his station, and of his passion. When the Third Princess realizes who the strange intruder is, she is horrified and loses her power of speech. He promises to restrain himself, but he finds her irresistible and unresisting and loses control. He then dozes off and dreams of returning the cat to the princess. Upon awakening, he wonders about the dream’s meaning. Having identified the cat with the princess’s persona—­small, pretty, and untamed—he has now restored her original unorthodox character by reversing the changes that Genji wrought in her a­ fter the

Genji145

­ emari incident. Some Genji commentaries have suggested that in ank cient Japan there was a folk belief that such dreams presaged conception (4: 217n17). It turns out that in this episode the cat in Kashiwagi’s dream is, indeed, a premonition of the child that the princess will bear. Shocked by what has so unexpectedly transpired, she tries to make sense of it. Kashiwagi tells her about the exposure during the game of kemari brought about by the unruly cat. Did negligence in reining in her cat signal complicity in Kashiwagi’s obsessive love? The more he explains, the more upset she becomes. It seems that her marital tie to Genji and the change he effected in her over the years have gradually eroded her ability simply to be herself. At just this moment, when Genji thought that he had his child-­wife completely in his grasp, Kashiwagi’s sudden intrusion enables the Third Princess to recover her true nature. The Third Princess’s reaction to the nocturnal encounter has generally been interpreted as fear of Kashiwagi, but the text can also be read to suggest that the source of her terror might well have been her guilty fear of Genji, the man most injured by the adultery, or even a sense of shame as she wonders, immediately a­ fter the act of cat-­inspired sexual intercourse, how she can face Genji. She may have wanted to reprimand Kashiwagi for his be­hav­ior, but she could not because he appears sincere in his passion, and she blames herself for having attracted him in the first place. Her speechlessness has been interpreted merely as a symptom of a catatonic state induced by Kashiwagi’s lovemaking, but it can also be interpreted as a rational refusal to make matters worse by professing her reciprocal love of a man obsessed by his love of her. Before parting at dawn, Kashiwagi manages to break her silence by enticing her into a poetry exchange, which bears testimony to mutual mortifying guilt over their transgressive love.84 Now that he has realized his dream of making love to the Third Princess—­“This was all I had lived for” (T: 651), Kashiwagi wants to die. Similarly, the Third Princess wants her wretched self to be extinguished in the dawning sky (4: 220: akegure no sora ni ukimi wa kienanan). He dies of self-­starvation soon ­after she gives birth to their child; she insists on taking religious vows to detach herself from the world of men that has died for her with Kashiwagi. Kaoru, the child fathered by Kashiwagi, is assumed to be Genji’s son. Although Genji, discovering a love letter from Kashiwagi to the Third Princess, realizes before the birth that he is not the ­father of the child his wife is carry­ing, he never reveals to Kaoru the secret of his conception. Kaoru does not discover it u ­ ntil ­after Genji’s death.

Chapter 7

Murasaki Kaimami through a ­Woman’s Eyes

N

ow ­ oman depicted in the Genji monogatari epitomizes the stages of a female character’s evolving attitude ­toward the predominantly male practice of kaimami better than the character ­after whom Murasaki Shikibu was nicknamed: Murasaki. It is in the Kitayama mountains (see Figure  5) where the cherry blossoms have just peaked that Genji first espies her as a child of about age ten, in Chapter 5 (“Wakamurasaki”). In Chapter 28 (“Nowaki”), she is a grown ­woman, married to Genji, when a typhoon sweeps aside the protective curtains to allow Genji’s son Yūgiri a forbidden glimpse of his stepmother. Fifteen years l­ ater, Murasaki is dead at age forty-­four, and Yūgiri catches another glimpse, but this anomalous kaimami of her dead body is almost totally emptied of nature’s colorful ­intervention. Although the continuum of indoor and outdoor space defining the “Wakamurasaki” and “Nowaki” scenes still dominates Murasaki’s ­dying moment, once she has breathed her last and, meta­phor­ically, vanished like the dew burned off the bush clover (hagi) by the first rays of the sun, this continuous space contracts dramatically into interior space filled with wailing voices and morning twilight dimmed by curtains.

Meeting the Male Gaze: “Wakamurasaki” The impact of the seasons on the practice of kaimami can hardly be overlooked in the sighting of Murasaki. Corresponding to the progression from Murasaki’s “birth” as a character to her death are the seasons of spring (the end of the third month for the Kitayama episode) and autumn (the eighth month for both Yūgiri’s kaimami of her during the typhoon and immediately ­after her death). Just as seasonal presence ­literally and meta­phor­ically infuses the atmosphere, seasonal absence provokes us to raise the question of fulfillment in Murasaki’s life. Murasaki’s entry into the monogatari and her exit from it are both constructed 146

Murasaki147

through men’s possessive vision of her. None of the other ­women of the monogatari is seen first as innocent children and finally as beautiful corpses. Although she is not the only childless w ­ oman in the tale, her condition stands out all the more because of Genji’s depth of love for her, second only to Fujitsubo, her aunt. Afflicted by a chronic fever, the eighteen-­year-­old Genji is seeking relief in the Kitayama mountains north of the city (see Figure 5) when he comes upon a scene that changes his life. Through the spring haze Genji sees a “wattled fence” (S: 97; 1: 279: koshibagaki). His curiosity is aroused, and he approaches the fence ­under the cover of a hazy twilight. Once he finds and peers through a gap in the fence, he becomes so fascinated by what he sees that he loses himself, as if in trance,1 and literarily disappears. As an observer, Genji can step outside himself by becoming part—­through fantasy—of the scene he is watching. Thus he forgets himself and his ­actual position. Instead, he replaces himself with an imaginary self that is absorbed in what he sees. Finally, he must come out of hiding and put his imagined self to the test (see Plate 8). Genji sees a group of several w ­ omen, the first of whom is a ­middle-­aged nun. She is trying to concentrate on reading the sūtra in front of her, but her effort is frustrated by a swarm of female creatures buzzing around her. The cause of this buzz is her granddaughter Murasaki, then about ten years old. She is throwing quite a tantrum, complaining angrily to the adult w ­ omen that her playmate Inuki2 has released her baby sparrow(s) from a basket, thereby ruining the plea­sure she felt in mothering her pet(s). The vibrations of her passionate outburst of emotion are transferred to everyone pre­sent, including the voyeur. At a greater ­distance from the drama than the w ­ omen, Genji can more freely observe the girl’s imaginary projection of herself into the role of an adult ­woman. Her defeat in this per­for­mance creates an erotic momentum in the liminal figure of the child-­woman, an extraordinary blending of self and role. Motherless, she can identify with the sparrow while at the same time stepping outside herself to mo­ther it. Within the dynamics of kaimami, awareness of the gap in the fence typically fascinates both the male observer and the female whom he observes. While Genji’s fascination is self-­evident, Murasaki is too young to be aware of the fascination that the gap in the fence holds for adult ­women. The text of the “Wakamurasaki” kaimami is clearly written from Genji’s perspective. Although the scene has been painted from numerous vantage points, only rarely does the painter stand ­behind Murasaki to paint the scene from her perspective, severely limited as that perspective

148

The Genealogical Maze

may be by the fence. One such rare perspective is provided by a young female painter, Keifukuin Gyokuei, whose ink-­outline handscroll3 shows young Murasaki and her grandmother huddling together and faced by a female attendant, presumably a­ fter the two adult w ­ omen have a waka exchange about the dew on the young grass, just at the moment when Murasaki’s great-­uncle, the bishop (sōzu), appears to scold them for being so scandalously visible on the veranda. Not knowing Murasaki’s identity, Genji first sees a resemblance between the nun and the girl, leading him to speculate that they might be mo­ther and dau­gh­ter. Yoshikai Naoto has observed Genji’s strange, if not inappropriate, attraction to this older w ­ oman, a nun no less.4 However, her age of forty does not exactly put her in the category of being el­derly even by Heian standards, and her nun’s shoulder-­length hairstyle in par­ tic­u­lar may even enhance her youthfulness, while her somber garb may permit Genji to associate her with the forbidden. Indeed, Genji’s initial mysterious attraction to the nun may be rooted in his forbidden obsession with Fujitsubo. What additional factors compel Genji to shift his perception from a resemblance between the nun and the girl to a resemblance between Fujitsubo and the girl? It is im­por­tant to acknowledge that Genji bases this new link in sheer intuition, not in genealogical fact. In this pro­cess of substitution through resemblance, the function of that substitution becomes apparent: it is to avoid breaking a taboo or to divert attention from it ­toward a lesser offense. Not surprisingly, therefore, the standard explanation for Genji’s attraction to the child is that he sees her as resembling her aunt Fujitsubo. (Murasaki’s ­father, Prince Hyōbu, is Fuji­ tsubo’s brother.) It is more correct to say that he sees her as resembling his stepmother Fujitsubo. It is only a­ fter those first moments of Murasaki’s childish tantrum that Genji is inspired by Murasaki’s acting out her bird drama to abandon his first association (with the nun) for a new connection (with Fujitsubo). His secret thoughts of his ideal lady surface directly from make-­believe in which the child Murasaki pretends to be a  grown ­woman and a mo­ther—­when she is neither. The discrepancy between what Murasaki ­really is and what she pretends and wishes to be parallels and intuitively evokes, for Genji, the discrepancy between Fujitsubo’s social identity as his stepmother and her tabooed role as his secret lover. The scene teems with issues of female sexuality. Murasaki is frightened, angered, terrorized by her loss of the baby bird, a loss symbolic of her lack of control over her own maturing body and its presumed repro-

Murasaki149

ductive destiny. That she has practiced the socially assigned role of mo­ther with special urgency has to do with her unfortunate social status as a motherless child, which is aggravated by the fact that her ­father has allowed her stepmother to exile Murasaki from their ­house­hold. The open veranda at the Kitayama refuge becomes a stage for Murasaki’s rehearsal of adult femininity. The nun’s apprehension about her imminent death and Murasaki’s uncertain ­future triggers a waka exchange with a female attendant. As the nun worries about her granddaughter’s loss of childhood innocence, she is confirmed by her attendant’s poetic expression of Heian ­women’s anxiety about the Buddhist Five Obstructions (goshō) that ­women must overcome when attempting to attain enlightenment. (­Women’s inherently defiled physicality and irrepressible carnal desire prevent them from ­attaining buddhahood u ­ nless they first become men.) These gloomy thoughts are clothed in the poetic image of dew. Dew (tsuyu) will in­ evitably ­settle on the “tender grasses” (S: 89; 1: 282: wakakusa) and taint them even while nourishing them. Although the standard interpretation of this scene links tsuyu to the nun and wakakusa to Murasaki, the imagery of dew and young grasses also vibrates with sexual connotations, as transmitted by the poetic tradition.5 Combined as it is with the obvious sexual connotations of the gap in the wattled fence, the image of the dew on tender grass is surely a reference to Murasaki’s coming of age. (­Later, ­after the nun’s death, Genji will appropriate the imagery of dew for himself and imagine it as a fresh layer nourishing the grasses associated with Murasaki and, by extension, Fujitsubo, and protecting it from wilting.) In short, Murasaki Shikibu h ­ ere pre­sents us with the liminal moment that draws the curtain on childhood innocence, security, and abandon and opens the door to adult sexuality. For the baby sparrow, this liminal moment has already passed. At first glance, its fate seems ­different from that of the girl who has been mothering it. The bird leaves its artificial nest and wings its way from confinement and protection to ­free flight and danger. Murasaki must go in a ­different direction. She will no longer be able to charge across the open veranda with her hair uncombed. Unlike baby birds programmed by instinct to fly from their nest to freedom, she is being socialized to retreat indoors, to hide ­behind screens and curtains, a fan at hand to ­provide a last protective shield against male sexual advances. By committing the “sin” (S: 88; 1: 281: tsumi) of confining the baby sparrow, Murasaki had aimed to prolong its immaturity and her control over it as its surrogate mo­ther. But someone inevitably came along to unblock

150

The Genealogical Maze

the natu­ral pro­cess of growing up and learning to escape predators. This person was, for the bird, the allegedly foolish Inuki; for Murasaki herself, it will be Genji. But, while Inuki’s release of the bird into the open air not only brings it freedom but exposes it to danger, Genji’s unnoticed spying sends Murasaki into socially prescribed hiding in a secluded space all her own but vulnerable to intrusion by men. Ultimately, the female enclosure is as ambiguous as the bird’s skies. In the Kitayama mountains, Genji is clearly experiencing something other than a typical kaimami in which a grown man looks at a grown ­woman as a prelude to poetic composition, lovemaking, Heian-­style marriage, and reproduction. Instead, this par­tic­u­lar kaimami dramatizes the moment that a Heian girl first becomes aware of the aesthetic, social, and moral implications of womanhood. Murasaki and her playmate Inuki’s be­hav­ior shows that they are grappling with the issue of freedom and constraint, not unlike girls between the ages of five and puberty in classical Greece: “As ­Little Bears, the girls acted out the role of untamed animals that would be domesticated and socialized through marriage.”6 In this scene, young Murasaki demonstrates the characteristic features of the Greek parthenos, a physically mature but still unmarried young w ­ oman between the ages of eleven and fourteen. Parthenoi ­were “exuberant, spirited, and independent-­minded to the point of being uncontrollable.”7 Murasaki certainly matches that description, but she has not yet reached puberty, which is exactly why the w ­ omen in her grandmother’s entourage severely condemn Genji’s courtship as a form of child molestation. Although the nun faults herself for having let Genji overhear the waka exchange about the young grass, as is evident from the waka that Genji offers as his plea to see Murasaki, she cannot withhold her criticism from the ­women: “ ‘How very forward of him. He must think the child older than she is’ ” (S: 91; 1: 290–291). When Genji continues to press his case, “to the nun and the o ­ thers this suit for the hand of a mere child continued to seem merely capricious” (S: 98; 1: 304). A Pseudo-­K aimami and a Pseudo-­K idnapping The nun’s worries are justified. In the Kitayama retreat, distant from the center of power in Heian-­kyō, Murasaki’s social backing is not strong enough to protect her from the negative consequences of courtship.8 Her ­father, Prince Hyōbu, had originally intended to hide her there from the ill will of his principal wife (kita no kata), who had tormented Murasaki’s late mo­ther, but he neglected his paternal obligation to look ­after his dau­gh­ter. He had meant well, just as Genji’s ­father had meant well. Both

Murasaki151

fathers ­were unintentionally cruel to their motherless children only because they wanted to spare them the stress of exposure to intrigues by their principal wives. In this sense, Genji and Murasaki have a virtual sibling relationship. Recognizing the similarity of their situations, Genji asks to become Murasaki’s guardian, but he is rebuffed. When Murasaki’s grandmother’s health declines, she moves her ­house­hold to the h ­ ouse (see Figure 6) of her late husband, a major counselor (azechi dainagon).9 Genji visits her there and renews his request to become young Murasaki’s guardian in vain. When the nun’s health begins again to decline, she returns with her ­women and Murasaki to the Kitayama ­temple, where she dies. ­After twenty days of intense mourning for her grandmother, Murasaki returns to the ­house of the late azechi dainagon. Genji learns that Prince Hyōbu is willing to bring his dau­gh­ ter back into his ­house­hold ­after the forty-­nine-­day memorial rites on the ninth day of the eleventh month.10 Genji decides to preempt him. The forward manner in which Genji approaches Murasaki’s h ­ ouse­hold, now deprived of the nun’s authority, is notable. On his first visit at the azechi dainagon’s h ­ ouse, when the nun was still alive, Genji had been pleased to hear Murasaki’s young voice, but Murasaki had not related herself to Genji in any way; instead, she had expressed her awareness that the sight of the Kitayama visitor cheered up her grandmother. By contrast, the second encounter at the azechi dainagon’s ­house forces Murasaki to respond directly to the visitor’s presence. Murasaki’s nurse (menoto), Shōnagon, arranges for Genji and Murasaki to confront each other as if in a kaimami, artificially set up with curtains or blinds separating them. Accordingly, their contact consists of mutually experienced oral and tactile rather than visual sensations. It is now Murasaki who confuses identities by assuming the unseen visitor to be her ­father. Thus Genji sees someone in Murasaki that she is not (his stepmother Fujitsubo) and Murasaki hears someone in Genji that he is not (her ­father, Hyōbu). In this supervised pseudo-­kaimami, both parties make substitutions for each other. Oddly, the two figures of substitution (Fujitsubo and Hyōbu) are siblings. As Norma Field has observed, the “mechanism of substitution . . . ​is central to the workings of the novel. Every major character is in a sense a surrogate figure, the b ­ earer of a false identity.”11 Although the notion of an individual in­de­pen­dent self is constantly evoked, it is constantly challenged by the notion of a self resembling that of someone ­else, frequently a blood relative. In this sense, the self is si­mul­ta­neously resisting and longing to merge into a genealogically constructed chain of selves.

152

The Genealogical Maze

The same stormy day of Genji’s second visit at Murasaki’s maternal grandparents’ h ­ ouse, Prince Hyōbu also visits his dau­gh­ter. He so deplores the dire conditions in which he finds her that he promises to move her to his residence the very next day. Genji does not react immediately when he learns of Hyōbu’s accelerated schedule, but his unhappy restlessness at his wife Aoi’s Sanjō residence of her ­father, the Minister of the Left (see Figure 6), incites him to act swiftly. He carries Murasaki to his Nijō-in residence (see Figure 6). It is no accident that Fujitsubo is then at the end of her pregnancy and Genji is consumed with worry that his transgression with his stepmother will be discovered. Just as his beginning an illicit affair with Fujitsubo had led to his kaimami of Murasaki, Genji now tries to distract himself from the dangerous consequences of his forbidden u ­ nion by committing this new violent offense. Genji has begun to identify his fate with Murasaki’s to the point that he can now displace the vio­lence directed against his own f­ather (by “stealing” his ­father’s wife) against Murasaki’s ­father (by stealing his dau­gh­ter). If Genji had abducted Murasaki ­after Hyōbu had brought his ­dau­gh­ter home, he would doubtless have been castigated as a kidnapper, but, by anticipating her ­father’s move, he can cleverly evade such condemnation. Although his conscience should be heavy, he thus rationalizes his abduction of Murasaki to the west wing of his Nijō-in (see Figure 6). Some critics, however, are willing to overlook Genji’s moral transgressions and ruthlessly selfish usurpation of power and authority because of his love of Murasaki, a child on the verge of womanhood and in transit between f­amily residences. Royall Tyler, for example, blames Hyōbu rather than Genji since “Genji could not have abducted Murasaki if she had been her ­father’s recognized dau­gh­ter.”12 It might have been legitimate to exonerate Genji on the grounds of Hyōbu’s failure to recognize his dau­gh­ter, but Hyōbu does not fail to recognize Murasaki, at least not in the sense that the Eighth Prince (Hachi no miya) refuses to acknowledge Ukifune in the last chapters of the Genji. In fact, Hyōbu recognizes Murasaki as much as the Kiritsubo emperor recognizes Genji, and each ­father wants to protect his favorite child and to obviate as much as possi­ ble the intrigues and tensions endemic in polygynous ­house­holds. Prince Hyōbu believed he had found a good, although not a perfect, solution to the prob­lem of mistreatment by stepmothers. Genji knows not only the sad circumstances of Hyōbu’s placement of Murasaki in her grand­ mother’s care but also that Hyōbu is prepared to take Murasaki home as fast as the wheels of the ox-­drawn carriage could take her. Not having been granted authorization to decide Murasaki’s ­future, Genji clearly

Murasaki153

usurps Hyōbu’s paternal rights when he abducts her, but it might be debated ­whether he is liberating Murasaki or tearing her from her genealogical chain. One might also won­der why Hyōbu does not react more forcefully when he discovers that his dau­gh­ter is no longer there for him to take home. It is proof of his affection that he is extremely distraught by Murasaki’s disappearance. Indeed, he is reduced to tears and to interrogating Murasaki’s ­women, who frustrate him by vaguely remarking that her nurse, Shōnagon, has “spirited the girl away” (S: 110; 1: 334). Hyōbu goes so far as to make inquiries of the sōzu in Kitayama before resigning himself to the impenetrable mystery of his dau­gh­ter’s disappearance. Finally, he acquiesces in the fait accompli because expressions of anger would be counterproductive in Heian courtly society. Murasaki is initially terrified that a man who is not her ­father has come for her, but, ­after the first shock has passed, she adjusts to Genji, who showers her with attention and gifts and paternal love. Her adaptability is hardly surprising in light of her alienation from her biological ­father. She can hardly miss what she never had. “She thought l­ ittle of her ­father. They had lived apart and she scarcely knew him. She was by now extremely fond of her new ­father” (S: 111; 1: 336). That Genji has moved the motherless Murasaki to his late mo­ther’s residence, the Nijō-in (see Figure 6), demonstrates his understanding of her need to be nurtured in a symbolic maternal space. At the same time, he feels a vague unease about the situation. This has less to do with the unconventionality or reprehensibility of the arrangement than with a selfish fear “that if he w ­ ere to bring the girl to Nijō he would be disappointed in her” (S: 102; 1: 313–314). How could the copy (Murasaki) possibly be as precious as the twinned original (Kiritsubo/Fujitsubo)? Murasaki is too young to be fully aware that she is perceived and valued as other. Since the Kitayama incident with her sparrow(s), however, she has sensed a form of identity deprivation that mirrors Genji’s. For Murasaki, Genji’s Nijō-in residence has the same ambiguity of shelter and trap as the symbolic Kitayama birdcage. That cage, constructed from a large bamboo censer (fusego)13 used to scent and thus to eroticize robes, also functions as a power­ful emblem of Murasaki’s budding sexuality. As among the ancient Greeks, the “basket was a highly charged image that referred to the mature female’s ability both to generate new life and to assure the perpetuation of the entire cycle of death and renewal. . . . ​A young maiden, viewed as blossoming in puberty was the ideal ­bearer of such a symbol.”14

154

The Genealogical Maze

Even before she was brought to the Nijō-in, Murasaki had compared Genji’s looks favorably to her ­father’s and named her favorite doll “Genji.” At the Nijō-in, she keeps all her dolls, presumably including the one named Genji, in her dollhouses, as if firmly in control of containing Genji as “Genji.” As she is approaching womanhood, rumors of her presence at the Nijō-in reach the Sanjō residence of the Minister of the Left (see Figure 6), where Genji’s principal wife, Aoi, is still without child. Three months ­after her grandmother’s death, when Murasaki can take off her mourning weeds, Genji begins to monitor her closely for physical signs of maturity, and Shōnagon admonishes her to display a more “wifely” be­hav­ior instead of continuing to play with dolls. Continued play with “Genji” is essential because it permits Murasaki to become more attached to her new ­father figure while exercising a mea­sure of control through doll manipulation. Unfortunately, the sense of control ­obtained through play is less profound than Murasaki’s sense of abandonment when Genji is away, which is most of the time. (He is busy courting Fujitsubo, Rokujō miyasudokoro, Suetsumuhana, Gen no Naishi, Oborozukiyo, Asagao, and ­others.) Feeling guilty, Genji asks Murasaki, “Do you miss me when I am away?” Her reply is “a quick, emphatic nod” (S: 142; 1: 404–405). And so it is that Murasaki spends her four prenuptial years as Genji’s protégée and captive. Instead of living on edge like an ancient Greek parthenos experiencing “the time in a w ­ oman’s life when she is most capable of daring action,”15 Murasaki is soothed and tamed and discouraged from the bold be­hav­ior that might have facilitated the rite of passage to marriage and motherhood. Not surprisingly, therefore, Genji’s sudden metamorphosis from f­ather figure to husband-­lover—­ more than three years ­after the Kitayama kaimami—­comes as a shock to Murasaki, who feels utterly betrayed at the end of Chapter 9 (“Aoi”). Although Murasaki’s ­women had often hinted that her destiny was to become Genji’s wife, she was too young to understand oracular remarks and ambiguous allusion. The only thing that might have provided a clue to Murasaki that her role would soon change radically from daugh­ter to wife was that Genji had trimmed her long, lustrous hair in preparation for the Aoi matsuri, but Murasaki was still too young to interpret the haircut and the festival as a rite of passage. Genji, then preoccupied with the pregnancy of his principal wife, Aoi, does not explain to Murasaki the symbolism of the event. Genji’s attention becomes totally absorbed by Aoi’s difficult delivery and tragic death late in the eighth month. It is not u ­ ntil ­after the forty-­

Murasaki155

nine-­day mourning period for Aoi is over that Genji, age twenty-­two, returns to the Nijō-in. Although he attempts to communicate to Murasaki that their relationship is about to change radically, he does so by promising to be with her always and by spending the night apart from rather than next to her, signals that are hardly unambiguous. What might have signaled to Murasaki the fact that Genji considered her mature enough for marriage is misinterpreted by her as a grieving husband’s ­piety ­toward his late wife. It is therefore a shock to Murasaki when Genji spends the night with her as a lover. She is numb with rage primarily at this betrayal of her trust in him as a ­father. Genji’s symbolically incestuous be­hav­ior forces her to interpret physical consummation as an unforgivable sexual violation. Scholars such as Norma Field have quite reasonably used the term “rape” to characterize Genji’s nonconsensual intercourse with Murasaki,16 but Murasaki seems to be hurt less by the loss of volition, which she has never had, than by the fact that she is betrayed by the man whom she considers her ­father. The same scholar who had blamed Hyōbu rather than Genji for Murasaki’s abduction now blames Murasaki for her plight. Citing the broad spectrum of views by critics, writers, and translators, Royall Tyler portrays Genji as acting in Murasaki’s best interest.17 While noting that Murasaki, “not even aware of sex,” is “furious” about Genji’s be­hav­ior, Tyler provocatively claims that the “original audience had no reason to condemn Genji for making love to Murasaki, even though they must have commiserated with her. His be­hav­ior was honorable and she fortunate.”18 Tyler’s view is debatable. While it is probable that the male minority of Murasaki Shikibu’s “original audience” applauded Genji’s actions, the female majority may well have condemned Genji’s actions and ­sympathized with Murasaki. But where can one find reliable clues for the response of the original audience? Specific comments about this ­matter by the author and her contemporaries have not survived. Comments by fictional characters, even in “realistic” fiction, are unreliable indicators of readers’ responses because they are emotionally involved in the action and cannot be unbiased. Koremitsu has a stake in seeing Genji happy and Murasaki’s nurse and ladies-­in-­waiting have a self-­interested desire to see their lady married to Genji. Menoto and nyōbō must be practical. They are not, however, without moral sensibilities. From the outset, contrary to their self-­interest, they warn Murasaki about Genji’s inappropriate ­be­hav­ior and beseech him to leave Murasaki alone. ­After the death of Murasaki’s grandmother, they had to submit to Genji’s wishes, even

156

The Genealogical Maze

allowing themselves to become accomplices in the kidnapping. Now that Genji has made Murasaki his wife, they may appreciate their higher social status and improved material situation, but they need not condone the deceptive, unethical, and insulting manner in which their prestige and prosperity ­were achieved. Although less extreme in his defense of Genji than Royall Tyler, Haruo Shirane deemphasizes the hero’s offensive actions by stating that “poetry is critical to the social romance.”19 Claiming that he understands this episode “as Heian readers did,” Shirane argues, “By conveying desire through understatement and veiled allusion, poetry transforms the hero’s carnal pursuit into an elegant episode. If we view Genji’s pursuit of the young Murasaki simply on the referential level, it becomes a gross kidnapping of a young girl.” Shirane implies that poetry has the capacity to cleanse or exonerate the poet of his offensive be­hav­ior. It is, rather, the other way round: the hero’s transgressions generate poetry and the stuff of romance. To say that poetry makes kidnapping “elegant” downplays the devastating effect of the hero’s actions on the heroine. Shirane takes his Genji-­centric argument further: “when we consider the poetic allusions to the Ise monogatari, the poetry exchanges, and the elaborate weave of poetic associations, all of which serve to bridge the gap that lies between Genji and the girl, the hero’s possession of the ‘young lavender’ forms a fitting climax to the chapter.”20 To interpret the kidnapping in strictly structural and poetic terms may at best do limited justice to the literary aspect of the tale; however, it does not solve the prob­lem of the ethical dimension. A Pseudo-­M arriage Murasaki’s hastily arranged ceremony of three nuptial nights adds insult to injury. Genji conducts this travesty of marriage without so much as notifying Murasaki’s f­ ather, much less asking his consent. (Hyōbu, who adores Genji, might even have forgiven him for his inappropriate be­hav­ ior and agreed to the match.) Murasaki’s ­women are not informed in advance. Instead, they are deceived by incense boxes that actually hold the marriage cakes prepared not by a close female relative, as was customary, but by Koremitsu, Genji’s menotogo. Secrecy and deception, together with bawdy wordplay, make a mockery of what should be a dignified ritual. Genji may believe that mourning for Aoi justifies marrying Murasaki in such a hastily contrived ceremony, but he disgraces the memory of his dead wife at the same time that he casts a pall over his new bride.

Murasaki157

Unlike Field, who notes that the “wedding is so casual as to scar Murasaki for life” and that “her wedding night is the occasion of a betrayal both horrifying and humiliating,”21 Tyler continues his apologia for Genji’s sexual initiation of Murasaki and their makeshift marriage, claiming that “not a word in the tale suggests that she holds it against him ­later on, nor does it upset anyone ­else at the time.”22 Tyler’s view is not persuasive. That Murasaki does not resort to recrimination is no proof that she is not hurt and resentful. Would she ever want to refer back to something so traumatic at a happier or a simply peaceful time? Recrimination would open an old wound at the best of times, and at the worst it would inflict a fresh one. To argue, as Tyler does, that at the time of the incident nobody ­else cared woefully ignores Prince Hyōbu’s frantic search for his dau­gh­ter. Tyler sees approval of Genji’s mock marriage in Murasaki’s wet nurse, Shōnagon, who—in Tyler’s words—­“weeps with happiness, since ­under the circumstances nothing obliged Genji to go through a marriage ceremony at all.”23 True enough, but are Shōnagon’s tears of happiness shed for Murasaki or for herself as she contemplates ser­vice in Genji’s ­house­hold, surely a pleasanter one than Hyōbu’s? Genji’s courtship of Murasaki begins with a kaimami that she was too young to understand and it concludes in a marriage to which she was never asked to consent.

In the Eye of the Storm: “Nowaki” In Chapter  28 (“Nowaki”), Murasaki is observed by Aoi and ­Genji’s son, Yūgiri, born not long before Genji’s marriage to Murasaki. Mitani Kuniaki describes “Nowaki” not as a chapter with a kaimami, like Chapter 5 (“Wakamurasaki”) or Chapter 40 (“Minori”) but, rather, as one long extended kaimami. His characterization means not simply that “Nowaki” contains a series of kaimami. It implies that the kaimami, performed in rapid succession, take on a momentum of their own and sweep the reader along the path of voyeurism. Mitani points out that Yūgiri, at age fifteen, consistently compares Murasaki, his twenty-­eight-­ year-­old stepmother, to spring flowers—­even though the season is autumn.24 By ignoring the ­actual season and instead associating her with her favorite season of spring, Yūgiri implicitly denies Murasaki’s maturity and prepares the ground for his memorializing her fifteen years ­later, in “Minori,” as a beautiful w ­ oman who died just the day before, vanishing together with the dew at the break of dawn.

158

The Genealogical Maze

Oddly, the chapter dominated by Yūgiri’s consciousness and largely controlled by his perspective begins without him. Instead, it is we, the readers, who command a grand view of an autumnal garden in the Rokujō-in (see Figure  6). This idyllic garden belongs to Akikonomu, the dau­gh­ter of Rokujō miyasudokoro and Crown Prince Zenbō,25 the foster dau­gh­ter of Genji, and the consort of the Reizei emperor. The garden’s perfection makes the ­women of the Rokujō-in think of Murasaki’s garden, with only the bushclover (hagi) worth noting and worrying about, as barren compared to Akikonomu’s bright flowers, but autumn is a season that signals not only abundance but also the beginning of decay. It brings mono no aware, the heightened sense of melancholic beauty and mournful loss. Just as the choice of flora mirrors the garden designers’ personalities, so do their very ­different reactions to a raging typhoon. Akikonomu barricades herself inside the moya, with the shutters safely down, shielding herself not only against the force of the tempest but also against men’s lustful gaze. Murasaki displays no such prudence. She ventures into the liminal zone of the wide corridor-­like hisashi between the interior (moya and nurigome) and the veranda (sunoko), exposing herself to the storm that ravages her own spring garden. Yūgiri’s Kaimami of Murasaki It is in this liminal zone that Yūgiri first happens to see his most beautiful stepmother. His viewpoint takes over from an unidentified narrative perspective that might, judging from the honorifics used in verbal and adjectival forms, belong to a lady-­in-­waiting. Just as in Genji’s kaimami of Murasaki in Chapter 5 (“Wakamurasaki),”26 the honorific markers disappear, indicating that the male voyeur has become the sole ­observer. This is, of course, a narrative illusion in ­either scene, since it is difficult to imagine, first, Genji and now Yūgiri wanting to articulate, much less communicate, their spying. To render the forbidden means ­either to have a witnessing narrator or to reveal the secret through the consciousness of the transgressor. To remove the witnessing narrator, or spy of spies, enhances the intimate nature of the act of kaimami. Distance between readers and the character engaged in kaimami is radically reduced. As the readers assume the intermediary’s position, they themselves become involved in the pro­cess of kaimami to the point of identifying with the male voyeur. Readers become voyeurs of the voyeur. Leaving aside the readers’ implied role and concentrating instead on character ­development, Haruo Shirane interprets the shift in perspective from fic-

Murasaki159

tional narrator to narrating character as corresponding “to a more fundamental change in the position of the hero,” referring specifically to the “Nowaki” transfer of the transgressing hero’s role from Genji to Yūgiri.27 In the aftermath of the storm, Yūgiri is able to have a good look at Murasaki’s ­women, but his eyes quickly focus on the ­woman he assumes to be Murasaki herself, sitting this time not on the sunoko, which is where Genji observed her in “Wakamurasaki,” but in the hisashi. Whereas Genji had superimposed the image of Fujitsubo on the girl then still unknown to him, Yūgiri’s first sight of Murasaki makes him think of a wild “birch” cherry (3: 257: kabazakura)28 blossoming. Associating her with her preferred season of spring rather than with the ­actual season of autumn, Yūgiri feels as if a fragrant breeze came to and swept over him. In the logic of meta­phor, the “gentle flow” of the breeze contrasts with the violent typhoon that just passed through the capital and ruined Akikonomu’s garden. What does the mismatch of imagery with the ­actual season and Murasaki’s place in the life cycle mean? Is Yūgiri’s view of Murasaki subversive, a construction of her self’s timelessness, of perpetual spring or youth? Murasaki appears to claim immortality by defying time and the corruption of self by time. Clearly, the typhoon has blown away the barriers of ordinary ­social restraint. The anomalous situation created by the storm permits ­ omen strug­gle with Murasaki to act without inhibition. While her w the blinds, she bursts into unrestrained laughter (see S: 458; 3: 257: uchiwaraitamaeru), which seems to mean ridicule of her w ­ omen and indifference to the storm’s destruction. But Murasaki’s laughter signals ­neither ridicule nor indifference. It is a bold defiance of nature’s destructiveness. Murasaki’s wonderfully incongruous laughter overwhelms Yūgiri, dominates the scene, and captures her adult personality more succinctly than words could. Similarly, at the moment of the Kitayama kaimami, Genji was struck more deeply by young Murasaki’s show of anger (see S: 87; 1: 280: ito kuchioshi) than by her very few words. In ­either case, aggressive anger and defiant laughter have an equally power­ful erotic impact on the men. These intensely expressive emotions, rarely displayed in the highly ceremonial, etiquette-­ridden Heian culture, characterize Murasaki as a child then, for Genji, and as a mature w ­ oman now, for Yūgiri. Yūgiri’s sole vision of Murasaki is one of uninhibited womanhood, an erotic indulgence in physical exhibition on the hisashi, that liminal space between the refined courtly interior and the equally refined courtyard and garden. Like the typhoon rushing through the blinds, a normally

160

The Genealogical Maze

denied and hidden female physicality counterpointedly breaks through the multiple enclosures surrounding Heian noblewomen. Small won­der that Yūgiri’s dramatic kaimami of Murasaki has been a favorite topos for paint­ers. It was among the scenes recommended in the sixteenth-­century Ōsaka manual for paint­ers (Genji monogatari ekotoba). (This manual provided brief synopses for paint­ers who ­were ­unable or unwilling to read the original text.) An ink-­line drawing (hakubyō) ­album leaf by Tosa Mitsunori (1583–1638),29 gives the external viewer a bird’s eye perspective of the typhoon-­wrecked scene. In accordance with narrative as well as with paint­erly convention, the roof is blown off (fukinuki yatai) the part of the Rokujō-in in which Murasaki resides. Yūgiri, seen in full-­body profile, is looking through the blinds of an open door. The external viewer sees directly through the blown-­off roof into the hisashi, where two w ­ omen are struggling to keep the blinds u ­ nder control. They are shown from the back, their long hair cascading down to the floor. Murasaki is sitting there amid the chaos, facing Yūgiri, unaware of his presence. Another ­album leaf, in spectacular colors, has been attributed to the same Tosa painter, Mitsunori.30 The external viewer enters the square painting on golden cloud bands that line its bottom and intrude on the top right side, where grasses and autumn flowers are bent, as reminders of the storm. At the bottom right, Yūgiri peers through the open door, and the external viewer sees him from the side through the door’s very fine bamboo blinds. Diagonally across the picture, the ­women are struggling with the curtains (instead of the “blinds” mentioned in the text [S: 458; 3:257: misu]). Murasaki sits serenely unconcerned about all the fluttering fabric to her left, looking instead ­toward the open door. The female attendant who faces her seems more distracted than Murasaki is. In the Aftermath of Yūgiri’s Kaimami Just as Yūgiri, only now fully aware of his f­ather’s taboo against seeing his favorite wife, is about to withdraw, Genji enters upon the scene and warns Murasaki about the risk of being seen. The situational parallel to Genji’s “Wakamurasaki” kaimami is evident: Yūgiri has taken his ­father’s place in the kaimami, while Genji, in a reversal of roles, has taken the place of the sōzu who had scolded the w ­ omen at Kitayama about their visibility. In his pre­sent position as moral judge rather than as spy, Genji seriously considers the effect of kaimami on Murasaki, whom he warns about the open shutters and the danger of her exposure to men’s eyes. He uses a form of arawa, a nari-­type pseudo-­adjective, meaning “be

Murasaki161

exposed to full view, be naked.” Ironically, the word is also used to describe Yūgiri’s feelings in response to Genji’s warning. In his role as spy, Yūgiri suddenly becomes aware of his own visual exposure through the wind-­blown shutters. Yet, as a man, he has an option that Murasaki does not have, namely, to make this exposure so obvious that it becomes harmless and innocent. He simply announces himself. Confirmed in his fears, Genji instantly turns his initial warning to Murasaki into a sharp reprimand about her having “been quite naked” (S: 459; 3: 258: arawanaritsuramu).31 In “Wakamurasaki,” the sōzu had responded to the ­women’s concern over possibly having been seen by Genji with the healthy but irrelevant suggestion that they should want to see the Shining Genji, reflecting his own wishes. It is only ­later, in his “Nowaki” conversation with Murasaki, that Genji resorts to the sōzu’s peculiar recommendation of female kaimami, perhaps as a form of therapy for the visual violation of an intimate sphere. Yūgiri’s kaimami has two unusually interest­ing features. The first is his fear that he might be caught in the act of spying. Since Yūgiri’s kaimami is an accidental byproduct of the storm and his protective shield against detection is as unstable as the w ­ omen’s shutters, he feels “rather exposed” (S: 459; 3: 258: arawani). Genji, by contrast, hardly knows such a concern, perhaps because his “Wakamurasaki” kaimami had been so much more carefully planned and executed. To obviate the danger of exposure, Yūgiri announces his presence with a discreet cough. The second feature is Yūgiri’s immediate prevarication upon withdrawal. To escape suspicion that he has been spying, he pretends that he, like the men who have come to repair the storm damage, has just arrived. Yūgiri reports to Genji that he is braving the inclement weather and making the rounds to see ­whether his grandmother Ōmiya and his foster mo­ther, Hanachirusato, have survived the storm unharmed. In another reversal of ethical modeling, the son is setting a good example for the ­father, who makes amends by dispatching Yūgiri with a dutiful message of concern for Ōmiya. She is most appreciative, especially in light of her own son Tō no Chūjō’s apparent neglect of her. Yet, ironically, Yūgiri’s heart is not ­really dedicated to caring for his grandmother. He is daydreaming about his stepmother Murasaki, and harboring thoughts of committing affinal incest with her. On his way to Hanachirusato’s northeast quarters at the Rokujō-in, Yūgiri enters an altered state of consciousness that simulates the ­intemperate weather, making him feel “as if his spirit had flown off with the winds” (S: 460; 3: 262: sora no keshiki mo sugoki ni, ayashiku

162

The Genealogical Maze

akugaretaru kokochi shite). He feels an ecstasy that approaches “insanity” (S: 460; 3: 262: monokuruhoshi). Murasaki’s beauty has wiped out his romantic feelings for his cousin Kumoinokari (Tō no Chūjō’s dau­gh­ter) and comparison of Murasaki with Hanachirusato (elder sister of Reikeiden, a consort of the Kiritsubo emperor) seems intended only to highlight Murasaki’s radiance. ­After having taken care of his foster mo­ther, Hanachirusato, in a perfectly acceptable but perfunctory manner, Yūgiri is drawn back by the power of his infatuation to Murasaki’s southeast quarters. (He pretends to himself that he needs to report to his ­father.) Yūgiri’s First Kaimami   /   K aimaki of Genji and Murasaki In Yūgiri’s second and third encounters with Murasaki, he cannot actually see her nor is it clear that he can hear her. He can only infer her presence. In the second encounter, Genji is unmistakably talking to her, but it is unclear ­whether Yūgiri hears Murasaki’s voice (without making out her words) or w ­ hether he does not hear her at all (concluding from Genji’s words that she must have spoken). In the third encounter, Yūgiri sees a sleeve that he assumes belongs to Murasaki because Genji is again addressing her. Yūgiri’s imagination intensifies the erotic effect of both encounters. The second time that Yūgiri approaches Murasaki’s southeast quarters, he coughs to announce his presence as soon as he comes within earshot. Murasaki is with Genji, who says to her, “Yūgiri is with us already. . . . ​And ­here it is not yet daylight. . . . ​Not even in our earliest days together did you know the parting at dawn [3: 263: akatsuki no wakare] so familiar to other ladies” (S: 460). Genji’s “bedroom talk” disturbs Yūgiri, who withdraws a few steps. Genji goes to him and queries him about his grandmother and then sends him off to Akikonomu’s quarters with a message for her. “Nowaki” began with the reader’s view of Akikonomu’s garden. Now, on his way to give his ­father’s message to his grandmother, in Akikonomu’s southwest quarters of the Rokujō-in, Yūgiri observes ­women standing on the veranda and watching l­ittle girls gathering insects into cages and salvaging flowers from the chaos of the storm. Motivated now by his unrequited longing for Murasaki, Yūgiri is ­intensely curious about the identity of these ­women dimly seen in the dawn twilight. He seeks a new kaimami in order to re-­experience the thrill of his first forbidden glimpse of Murasaki. Yet this strategy fails. A kaimami does not occur. Although Yūgiri has been familiar to Akikonomu’s ­women from childhood, Akikonomu calmly gives him a message for his ­father in

Murasaki163

which she admonishes Genji for his neglect. Although this sort of familiarity had also been true for Genji in relation to Fujitsubo, the difference between the two cases is that the taboo of incest, pre­sent in Genji’s ­relationship with his stepmother, is weak, if not altogether absent, in Yūgiri’s relationship with his foster sister. The fact that Akikonomu is Reizei’s empress (chūgū) may have been an additional reason to maintain a merely fraternal relationship. Still another reason for Yūgiri’s lesser drive ­toward sexual transgression is that he, unlike Genji, is not motivated by po­liti­cal demotion from imperial son to high-­ranking nobleman. Yūgiri’s unrealized kaimami is a special favorite of Genji-­e artists. Akikonomu and her girl attendants setting out insect cages in the drenched garden appears, for example, in a Genji a­ lbum leaf by Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613). The scene is conceived through the eyes of Yūgiri, who is not shown. (He is hidden in the conventional golden “fingers” of clouds.)32 Yūgiri is also absent from a picture scroll of the four seasons by Sumiyoshi Hirozumi (priestly name: Gukei) (1631–1705).33 The scroll emphasizes the expanse of Akikonomu’s fall garden. Three ­little girls with their insect cages are quite lost in it. Three ladies-­in-­waiting are watching over their charges from the veranda while Akikonomu herself is presiding over the entire scene from the hisashi.34 The visit to Akikonomu’s seems to dispirit Yūgiri. When he returns to the southeast quarters to make a report of his rounds, he is quite subdued. Murasaki’s shutters are raised to permit the occupants a full view of the garden, but her response to the storm’s devastation contrasts sharply with Akikonomu’s cheerful attempts at restoring order. Here there is indulgence in the aware of nearly total floral destruction. Fully visible to anyone who might be looking, Yūgiri approaches the main hall to deliver the message from Akikonomu to Genji, who has resumed his intimate conversation with Murasaki. Yūgiri spots “sleeves ­under a low curtain” and recognizes them as Murasaki’s.35 His “heart raced. Ashamed of himself, he looked away” (S: 462; 3: 267). Yūgiri’s response of intense passion mixed with shame is understandable; Genji’s be­hav­ior is less so. Sitting in front of a mirror, Genji cannot but compare, with some unease, his own mature looks at age thirty-­six to his son’s fresh beauty.36 To Murasaki, he exclaims, “See how handsome he is in the morning light.” This invitingly provocative comment is immediately undercut by Genji’s dismissive remark, “He is still a boy, of course” (S: 462; 3: 267). Does he proudly see himself in his son or does he fear replacement by him? Is he vainly pleased to see himself reflected in his son’s good looks or is he jealous? Does he mean

164

The Genealogical Maze

to thwart the potential for Yūgiri’s visual possessiveness by urging Murasaki to look for the same kind of aesthetically inspired erotic appeal in Yūgiri that the man engaged in kaimami traditionally seeks in the ­woman? However we interpret Genji’s comment, he seems determined to encourage an incestuous affair between his son and his wife. Overhearing ­Genji’s comments to Murasaki, Yūgiri becomes distressed. The choreographed transgression that his f­ather seems to be sponsoring articulates Yūgiri’s wildest fantasies about Murasaki while at the same time firmly controlling them. Genji’s apparent insight into his son’s erotically enflamed state has a dampening effect that renders Yūgiri all but impotent. Only the reader is in a position to know that Genji is ­here recasting his son and wife in the forbidden roles that he and his stepmother Fuji­ tsubo once played. Puzzled by Genji’s mystifying words, Yūgiri’s tantalized imagination is left to roam the storm-­blackened skies. Yūgiri recognizes in despair that he cannot insert himself “into a ­union so close and so perfect that no wedge could enter” (S: 460; 3: 263–264), but his unstated but implied desire to take his f­ather’s place has a decidedly Oedipal flair. The scene is rare in extant Genji painting, but it appears in the ink-­ outline handscroll Genji monogatari hakubyō emaki (1554) by Keifukuin Gyokuei, the artist whose drawing seems uniquely to sketch the “Wakamurasaki” kaimami at Kitayama from Murasaki’s perspective.37 As one unrolls the scroll, one first sees, through the blown-­off roof technique, Genji and Murasaki in intimate conversation. At a respectable distance stands Yūgiri, looking over a patch of Murasaki’s ruined garden. Dividing barriers take the form of strongly outlined diagonals. In this continuing narrative artistic form, the painter has Yūgiri standing against a door, ­behind which the next kaimami adventure (with Akikonomu and her ­women) awaits him. Repetition is a prominent feature in “Nowaki.” ­After Genji has raised the shutters and Yūgiri cannot but come forward, the conversation reverts once again to the ailing Ōmiya and her neglectful son, Tō no Chūjō. This allows Genji implicitly to fault Yūgiri for his violation of filial piety. To exemplify proper be­hav­ior, Genji includes an apology in the message he asks Yūgiri to deliver to Ōmiya. Genji’s demonstration of his moral superiority may impress his son, but it must seem hypocritical to readers who have followed Genji through his sexual escapades. Nonetheless, Genji is able to exercise control by generating and manipulating and thus maintaining his knowledge, though limited, of the “secret” desires of men like Kashiwagi, Hotaru, and Yūgiri.

Murasaki165

Murasaki Shikibu’s suggestive narrative indirection leaves a vast blank canvas on which readers can draw their own pictures of female interiority. In this sense, it is an unusual narrative technique, successful only if the world in which men are dominant has been depicted so skillfully that questions about ­women’s place in that world become inevitable. In other words, readers asked to see things from the male viewpoint may be vexed to the point that they begin to won­der about the female viewpoint. Yet modern readers—if the critical lit­erature is any guide to their response—­ have shown extreme caution in making inferences about a female character whose views have not been made explicit. This caution seems excessive if we consider that even what is stated is often ambiguous and therefore subject to interpretation and debate. It is a ­mistake to deal only with the men’s position on the grounds that so ­little is said about the ­women’s. What, then, might Murasaki think about Genji’s suggestion that she take a good look at his handsome son, at the same time telling her what to see, namely, Yūgiri’s youthful attractiveness, and how to respond to it, namely, not at all? Murasaki can hardly avoid feeling coerced and manipulated. She is, in other words, exposed to a temptation that is also a test of loyalty. Contradictory impulses can result only in a painful rift in Murasaki’s feelings. To make matters worse, Genji refers to Akikonomu’s gentle outer composure and inner firmness as a model. His be­hav­ ior is certainly insensitive and heedless of Murasaki’s conflicted feelings— if not out-­and-­out aggressive. Then comes another turn of the screw for Murasaki. Genji asks her about Yūgiri’s kaimami in words that can be heard as an accusation: “Do you suppose he might have seen you in the confusion last night? The corner door was open, you know” (S: 463; 3: 268: kinō, kaze no magire ni, Chūjō wa mitatematsuri yashiteken. Kano to no akitarishini yo). To this sly hint that she committed the first step t­oward transgression by letting Yūgiri see her, Murasaki replies defensively, “I am very sure that there was no one outside” (S: 463; 3: 268). Genji thinks this is “questionable” (3: 268: ayashi).38 Murasaki is forced to consider the possibility of having been seen, because of her neglect rather than Yūgiri’s importunity. Her culture’s assumption that the w ­ oman is to be blamed for neglecting to screen herself from the male gaze puts her on the spot. And yet, Genji’s speculation, following his emphasis on Yūgiri’s physical attractiveness, causes her to blush (see S: 463; 3: 268: omote uchiakamite). Having been urged by him to appreciate Yūgiri’s good looks (in both senses of the term), she now feels her blood rushing to the surface of her skin, exposing emotions she cannot hide.

166

The Genealogical Maze

Murasaki’s flushing is the culmination of the tensions that have been building up—­like ominous clouds announcing a typhoon—­between her and Genji and her stepson, who is privy neither to the sight of her blushing nor to the words that accompany it. But what does the blush mean? When someone blushes while making a statement, only precise knowledge of the irrational sign’s context can determine w ­ hether the blush confirms an unseemly truth or signals innocence embarrassed by an unjust accusation. Genji is uneasy if not distrustful. How should we take Murasaki’s unconvincing claim that nobody could have seen? Her ambiguous position within the w ­ omen’s assigned space—­whether she was at or in the hisashi—­had made her extremely vulnerable to the male gaze, especially ­under the unusual circumstances of the typhoon, and she had to have known it. Genji had exaggerated when he says that she was, in a meta­phoric sense, “quite naked” (S: 459; 3: 258: arawanaritsuramu), but her gaze was directed first at the ­women who ­were fighting with the unruly blinds and then at her ruined garden. In other words, she was looking everywhere but where a man might be catching much more than just a fleeting glimpse of her. Consciously or not, Murasaki threw all prescribed precautions against kaimami quite literally to the wind. Pressed to confess her negligence, she is reluctant to take the blame upon herself alone, but unaware that Yūgiri should share it. It is not ­until Genji articulates his imaginative reconstruction of the scene that Murasaki and Yūgiri both begin to see themselves in the role of transgressors, not against each other but against Genji. Whereas, in the past, Genji was repeatedly the transgressor, now he seems to be provoking, if not actively stage-­managing, transgression against himself. In the role of transgressor, he tried to obtain greater power; in the position of a victim, he wants to feel the consequences of the power he obtained. He wants to be so im­por­tant that he is the target of transgression, much like his imperial ­father. But does he play the role as well as his f­ather, who was, ­after all, protected from the knowledge of Genji’s transgression against him? Does Genji appear merely as a victim? Unlike his ­father, who was shielded by ignorance, Genji has schemed to be violated for his own aggrandizement. Genji fails to impress in the role of victim. Whereas betrayed w ­ omen in the Genji use spirit possession as a strategy to regain res­pect, Genji’s strategy in dealing with the threat of betrayal through kaimami is to instill guilt in the transgressors through insinuating comments. Although he may succeed in preventing adulterous and incestuous offenses against

Murasaki167

him in the case of Yūgiri and Murasaki, he cannot control or eliminate the romantic feelings that exist, consciously or not, between the two.39 Genji has reached a turning point. As the autumn of his life approaches, he is about to experience drastic change, symbolized not only by the storm ravaging his Rokujō-in and threatening his ­women but also by the figure of his son, the first of many male rivals who are younger than he is. Sadly, it is Genji who is now one with the season while Yūgiri, his genealogically closest rival, can run c­ ounter to it by imagining spring and a blossoming relationship with Murasaki. For the moment, however, Genji still seems his former self. He pays his dutiful respects to Akikonomu while Yūgiri displays unusual restraint in conversation with Akikonomu’s ­women. Genji’s next visit is to Akashi no kimi, whose current residence is in the northwest quarter of the Rokujō-in, where garden reconstruction is well ­under way. Akashi no kimi has taken her koto to the veranda to repair the damage from the storm with the healing power of m ­ usic. Genji carefully registers her attention to the “proprieties” (S: 463; 3: 269: kejime) as she modestly adds an extra, presumably protective, cloak to her layers of robes. This gesture, so small yet so significant in Heian culture, restores Genji’s sense of attractive manhood. His fleeting visit moves Akashi no kimi to compose a waka expressing acute loneliness and longing for him. Yūgiri’s Kaimami of Tamakazura and Genji His self-­confidence once again on the rise because of the visit to ­ ifferent sort of Akashi no kimi, Genji cautiously approaches quite a d ­woman, Tamakazura, whose identity he has most outrageously falsified but who resists playing the dual role of long-­lost dau­gh­ter and lover that he has designed for her. Presented to the world as his dau­gh­ter, she is in reality the dau­gh­ter of Yūgao and Tō no Chūjō. As long as Genji indulges in the pseudo-­incestuous thrill of courting her, he cannot tell his old friend and rival, who is also his brother-­in-­law and first cousin, that he is appropriating his dau­gh­ter, thus depriving him of an im­por­tant ­human asset, as it ­were, to continue his ­family line. In the aftermath of the typhoon, Tamakazura’s place remains a mess. ­After having experienced the terror of the night, she is more attractive than ever. When Genji initiates sexual bantering, disguised as pious concern for her welfare, she abruptly cuts him off. “This awful obsession of yours is exactly why I wished last night that the wind would just take me away!” (T: 492; 3: 270). Genji’s

168

The Genealogical Maze

witty response, implying that she might have liked the wind to carry her to him, charms her into displaying a broad smile (which Genji assesses as only a small flaw in her beauty). At this point, Yūgiri reenters the narrative. The prevailing disarray allows him, unnoticed, to lift a curtain for a clear view of his f­ ather and the ­woman whom he wrongly believes to be his half-­sister. Shocked and “spellbound,” he freezes at the sight of them in erotic play. What Genji and Tamakazura are up to can hardly be ascertained from Yūgiri’s overreaction. He can think only that Tamakazura’s long absence from court had allowed his f­ather’s paternal instincts to be replaced by sexual desires. No ­matter how hard he tries in his mind to excuse his ­father’s be­hav­ior, he feels “somehow ashamed” (S: 464; 3: 271: kokoro mo hazukashi) for him. Despite his “revulsion and fascination,” he is intrigued enough by the thought of the forbidden to feel the attraction of this half-­sister of a ­different womb (see S: 464; 3: 272: kotohara). His passions aroused, he turns, much in the manner of his f­ather, to a comparison between this glimpsed beauty and the one glimpsed earlier, who is forbidden by a combination of the affinal incest taboo and the prohibition against adultery. Although not comparable to Murasaki, Tamakazura, too, enters deep into Yūgiri’s fantasy, and floral imagery comes quickly to mind. Earlier in the day, he had compared Murasaki with the mountain cherry, or yamazakura. Now he likens Tamakazura to the kerria (yamabuki), a spring rather than an autumn flower, a wild, even uncouth one. Yūgiri is emboldened to envision this yamabuki doused with dew in the eve­ning twilight. The imagery of glistening dew on the yamabuki’s “ragged edges and untidy stamens” (S: 464; 3: 272: sosoketaru shibe nado mo majiru kashi) is highly erotic. By knowingly flaunting in front of Yūgiri’s eyes an apparently incestuous liaison, Genji can impress his son with his male prowess and suppress his fears of displacement. His strategy is a desperate one, motivated perhaps by his suspicion that Yūgiri was aroused by the accidental ­ ere, indeed, Genji’s dau­gh­ter, Genji sight of Murasaki. If Tamakazura w would be violating a taboo even more serious than Yūgiri’s transgression with Murasaki. Since Yūgiri, like everyone ­else, has been thoroughly misled by Genji’s claim to be Tamakazura’s f­ather, the reader realizes that Yūgiri’s sudden desire for Tamakazura is transgressive in intent but not in fact. Here as elsewhere, Murasaki Shikibu has positioned the reader, like the external viewer of a visually represented kaimami, to know more than any of the characters.

Murasaki169

Where does this ­father-­son strug­gle leave the ­women who are the stakes in the game of power? To what degree are they merely passive? Do they become “collateral damage” of the competition between Genji and his son? Murasaki’s ambivalence about her position emerges only ­after Genji suggests that she must have known that someone was observing her. Although Genji seems to have made her feel guilty, he has also provoked in her a blushing awareness that she is wanted by a man other than Genji—­and by his own youthful image, no less. He has, incidentally, also made her aware of his jealousy and vulnerability. Tamakazura’s position is no less ambiguous. Already quite familiar with Genji’s amorous propensities (irogonomi; lit., loving love), she does not spare him her criticism of his unseemly be­hav­ior. It should be noted, however, that her insistence on prudent be­hav­ior is an adaptation to the false public persona that he has created for her. Considering her remarkably sharp tongue, one suspects that, had she wanted to, she might have easily dropped the mask of dutiful dau­gh­ter and mobilized other defenses against Genji’s “improper” sexual advances. Her apparent outrage at his be­hav­ior is in fact erotic play that endorses while it subverts his fiction of her identity. She has more agency than critics have given her credit for. She is consciously complicit in his elaborate design. She plays along by hiding and speaking in whispers to heighten the erotic thrill. Since she knows that she is not actually committing incest, all she has to worry about, or would have to worry about if she ­were aware of Yūgiri’s looking, is Yūgiri’s shocked misinterpretation of her actions. Readers who share Yūgiri’s shock, as they are unthinkingly subscribing to the viewpoint of the man engaged in kaimami, have forgotten that Tamakazura is actually Tō no Chūjō’s dau­gh­ter. Yūgiri’s perceptions up to this point have been largely visual. Still shocked by the apparently incestuous scene spread out before his eyes, he next receives an aural shock. He overhears the lovers’ poetry exchange. Yūgiri’s misinterpretation of their waka correctly confirms that his ­father is engaged in an affair and incorrectly convinces him that the affair is consensual and incestuous. It is interest­ing to note that Murasaki Shikibu has chosen to reveal Tamakazura’s poem about the “maiden flower” (S: 464; 3: 272: ominaeshi) not through her own soft-­spoken recitation but vicariously through Genji, who pointedly stands up to deliver his repetition of it. This unusual device makes clear, if it was not already transparent enough, Genji’s assumption that Yūgiri is watching. Genji wants him to hear in order to be repelled and awed—as, indeed, Yūgiri is. It is probable that Tamakazura, unaware of

170

The Genealogical Maze

Yūgiri’s presence, takes Genji’s recitation simply to be a part of his habitual theatrical pose, for if she w ­ ere aware of his son’s presence, she would surely have wanted to protect her public persona by ostentatiously rejecting Genji’s advances. The imagery of Tamakazura’s waka focuses on the maidenflower (ominaeshi; Patrinia scabiosaefolia), one of the seven traditional flowers of autumn (aki no nanakusa). The poets of the Kokinshū (comp. 905) gave this flower a poetic persona that is at odds with the season. Just as Yūgiri has been associating spring flowers with the w ­ omen he spies upon in autumn, the counterintuitive link of the autumn season and the ominaeshi, a flower whose name indicates virginity, suggests the vulnerability of the flower to the elements and of maidens to men. In Mibu no ­Tadamine’s (fl. 898–920) waka 235, composed and presented at Retired Emperor Uda’s maidenflower contest at the Suzaku-in, the ominaeshi is associated with female anxiety about being seen by men, which is, of course, what happens in kaimami: hito no miru kotoya kurushiki ominaeshi akigiri no nomi tachikakururamu

Those maidenflowers constantly hiding within the mists of autumn—­ might they perhaps feel concern lest men catch a glimpse of them?40

Tadamine’s male perspective tentatively attributes the maiden­ flower’s need to hide to her fear of kaimami. Representing the female perspective, Tamakazura’s waka speculates about a situation in which the strategy of hiding from men’s kaimami is frustrated by a tempest that blows away concealing mists. She bluntly addresses the lethal consequences of attempting to resist climatic forces and seasonal patterns. In the face of fears, she appears resigned to the tempest’s destructive force: The tempest blows, the maiden flower has fears That the time has come for it to fade and die. fukimidaru kaze no keshiki ni ominaeshi shiore shinubeki kokochi koso sure. (S: 464; GM 387; 3: 272)

In his reply, Genji identifies with the force ­behind the tempest and acknowledges that Tamakazura is the fearful ominaeshi. All her fears will

Murasaki171

vanish, Genji promises, if only she will surrender herself to him, to the dew ­under the tree: If it gives itself up to the dew beneath the tree, It need not fear, the maiden flower, the winds. Shita tsuyu ni nabikamashikaba ominaeshi araki kaze ni wa shiorezaramashi (S: 464; GM 388; 3: 273)

Loving and soothing as Genji’s waka must be to Tamakazura, it cannot fail to increase Yūgiri’s distress. The waka exchange is followed by Genji’s instruction that Tamakazura should follow the example of “the pliant bamboo” (S: 464; 3: 273: nayotake). The reference is to the impossible relationship described in the Taketori monogatari between the heavenly maiden Kaguyahime and her adoptive earthly f­ ather, the bamboo cutter. Genji’s words are once again directed at two ­different audi­ ifferent messages. For Tamakazura, the ences and intended to carry two d message seems to be that she should respond to her adoptive ­father’s love, not fall for her inferior suitors’ schemes to win her hand, and trust the heavenly forces eventually to return her to her true home. Yūgiri might have caught the literary allusion that the apparently incestuous father-­ dau­gh­ter relationship is not quite as reprehensible as it seems to be, but he is too upset to take the hint. The scene of Yūgiri’s kaimami of Genji and Tamakazura has often been looked at from Yūgiri’s perspective, with distaste and discomfort. Paint­ers have been drawn to its risqué treatment of what looks like (but is not) an infraction of the ­father-­dau­gh­ter incest taboo. ­Actual taboo ­violations are treated neither in the author’s words nor by the paint­ers’ brushwork. In an ­album leaf by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691)41 the external spectator hovers in golden clouds surrounding the picture and enjoys a perfect view of Yūgiri peeking through the curtains at Genji lurching ­after Tamakazura hiding coyly ­behind a pillar. Genji disappears from the scene and does not return for the rest of the chapter. Yūgiri is f­ree to pursue his half-­sister, the Akashi dau­gh­ter, who is younger than he, and his cousin Kumoinokari, his former childhood playmate. The age difference between the Akashi dau­gh­ter and Yūgiri (seven or eight years) is similar to that between Murasaki and Genji. Yūgiri’s age at the time of his interest in this half-­sister of a d ­ ifferent womb is the same as Genji’s at the time of his “Wakamurasaki” kaimami at Kitayama.

172

The Genealogical Maze

Of course, in his kaimami of a child made attractive by her kinship link, Yūgiri is following in Genji’s footsteps. While Genji’s kaimami was occasioned by Murasaki’s loss of her pet sparrow(s), the context for Yūgiri’s kaimami is the typhoon that had jeopardized the Akashi dau­gh­ ter’s doll­house. As Yūgiri impatiently waits for her appearance, he composes an awkward poem-­letter. Lacking Genji’s poise, he seems to have an unattractive calculating air. He wonders, even before he has had a glimpse of her, what floral image the Akashi dau­gh­ter might evoke. “He had likened the other two ladies [Murasaki and Tamakazura] to the cherry and the yamabuki—­and might he liken his sister to the wisteria?” (S: 466; 3: 276). His choice of flower seems contrived, as if neatly to link the Akashi dau­gh­ter to both Fujitsubo, whose first name includes the character for “wisteria” and Murasaki, whose name, “purple,” evokes the wisteria’s color. Yūgiri’s floral choice displays his grasp of Genji’s genealogical politics of continuing his mo­ther’s line with Akashi no kimi and his ­father’s with Murasaki (in reality with Fujitsubo). He is annoyed that Genji seems determined to keep him away from both the Akashi dau­gh­ ter and Murasaki. Like his ­father, he is attracted by forbidden fruit, but, unlike Genji, he lacks the ability to reach for it. Murasaki Shikibu seems to imply that heroic stature and taboo violation are the result not only of primal trauma, such as the loss of a parent at a very young age, but also of po­liti­cal demotion, which occurred in Genji’s but not in Yūgiri’s ­career. Consequently, the psychic energy that Yūgiri needs in order to reclaim lost status is less than Genji’s had been. The last station in Yūgiri’s coming-­of-­age odyssey is the Sanjō residence (see Figure 6) of his grandmother Ōmiya and the Minister of the Left. There, his ­uncle Tō no Chūjō is making vague promises to Ōmiya about sending her his dau­gh­ter Kumoinokari, whom Yūgiri has long wanted to court if for no compelling reason other than that she has been kept away from him. He now seems uninterested in her. ­After all, his attentions have shifted to the three w ­ omen he has glimpsed in this one eventful—­one might almost say tempest-­tossed—­day: Murasaki, Tama­ kazura, and the Akashi dau­gh­ter. Thus Yūgiri is shown subconsciously to follow in his ­father’s footsteps, especially through his infatuation with his stepmother. “Nowaki” echoes “Wakamurasaki” in that Yūgiri is seeking substitutes for the ­woman forbidden to him because she is his ­father’s wife. Where Genji had discovered Fujitsubo’s niece Murasaki, Yūgiri glimpses Murasaki (his stepmother), the Akashi dau­gh­ter (his half-­sister), and Tamakazura (his presumed half-­sister), whom he finds engaged in an incestuous embrace with

Murasaki173

her f­ather, or so Yūgiri believes. The great difference between f­ather and son is that Genji acts, for better or worse, and Yūgiri does not. He remains caught in Genji’s tight web; he is thwarted in his pursuit of Murasaki, too disturbed by Genji’s involvement with Tamakazura, and too decent or exhausted to pursue the Akashi ­child.

Re-­visioning Murasaki in “Minori” In The Tale of Genji, kaimami is a mostly secular phenomenon. Yūgiri’s kaimami of the dead Murasaki, however, does not occur in the usual secular milieu of courtship but in an unfamiliar religious context of death and mortuary ritual. In the following, I examine the anomalous nature of kinship-­driven courtship in Chapter 40 (“Minori”) and explore points of intersection between its secular and religious aspects. How does the religious dimension transform kaimami? How does this par­tic­u­lar kaimami relate to the Buddhist conceptualization of the self, or no-­self (muga), in Murasaki Shikibu’s rendering? Clearly, death adds some rather somber weeds to the colorful flowering of the Heian courtier’s “loving love” (irogonomi), the mood typically associated with the pursuit of courtship. Death interferes in this tabooed kaimami, denying sexual reproduction and terminating the creation and exchange of poetic texts. The conditions that define Yūgiri’s “Minori” kaimami challenge him to redirect his poetic creativity to the search for a keepsake (katami) incorporating his dead beloved’s charisma. As “Minori” dramatizes the strug­ gle of the character Murasaki and those closest to her to come to grips with the nature of the mortal self and its inevitable vanishing, it raises epistemological questions about death and its repre­sen­ta­tion that collapse the distinction between fiction and reality by involving author and readers in re-­visioning the dead. The “Minori” kaimami is preceded by Murasaki’s memorial rites in anticipation of her own death and by her ­actual death scene. It is followed by the voyeur’s and the chief mourner’s frequently contradictory emotions and conflicting be­hav­ior as they view her corpse, perform the cremation rites, and write commemorative waka. Murasaki’s death creates paradoxical situations that seem si­mul­ta­neously to increase and diminish the potential for visual taboo violations. In the prototypical kaimami, the perspectives of observer and observed are diametrically opposed. Since death radicalizes the irreconcilability of these two positions, each perspective requires special scrutiny to reveal the complex motivations ­behind the male viewing of the female

174

The Genealogical Maze

corpse. Yūgiri’s extraordinary kaimami is further complicated by the presence of his ­father and by Murasaki’s history as the object of both men’s courtship. It is only in Chapter 41 (“Maboroshi”) that Genji finally eliminates Yūgiri as a threat to his exclusive right to Murasaki—by burning her literary legacy. The Anomaly of the “Minori” Kaimami Most fictional episodes of kaimami begin with the hidden male viewer’s clandestine love for the w ­ oman whom he holds in his gaze as a prelude to holding her in his arms. She is frequently forbidden by a variety of taboos. Typically, kaimami triggers a courtship pro­cess in which poetic texts smooth the way to the consummation of love and the physical reproduction of the lovers in their offspring. Obviously, the “Minori” episode cannot conform to the prototypical courtship pattern. That it nonetheless qualifies as a variation of kaimami must be attributed to Murasaki Shikibu’s ability to adumbrate the metaphysical by means of the mundane. Thus, although this kaimami’s “wedding” between a living man (Yūgiri) and a dead ­woman (Murasaki) cannot generate offspring, Murasaki’s lifeless body is a poetic icon, a muse who inspires Yūgiri to create poetry. Ironically, the body that bears no child generates poetry that has no reader—­except outside the fiction in which it appears. In Yūgiri’s literary excesses, readers of the monogatari can witness the building of a bridge—­ over Murasaki’s dead body—­ between irreconcilable realms. His necrophilic longing for his forbidden stepmother blurs the boundaries between life and death, the real and the imaginary, the profane and the sacred. The strange “flower” of the “Minori” kaimami has its seed in the two earlier kaimami of Murasaki in Chapter 5 (“Wakamurasaki”) by Genji and Chapter 28 (“Nowaki”) by Yūgiri. They set the pattern in which not only is reproduction frustrated (Murasaki does not bear Genji any children) but courtship as well (she initially rejects Genji’s advances as inappropriate for a ­father figure, and she takes pains not to acknowledge her stepson’s tabooed glimpse of her). Murasaki Shikibu’s frustration of the predominantly male strategy of kaimami culminates not in the mere arrest of the male gaze in “Minori” but, rather, in what Elisabeth Bronfen refers to as its “killing” by the female corpse. In such a reversal of the typical kaimami’s vectors, what narrative and thematic function can kaimami still have? What happens when the voyeur becomes a mourner rather than a lover? And finally, why is Murasaki’s death the

Murasaki175

only one dramatized through kaimami? Questions like these arise from the peculiar problematic of representing death, an essentially unrepresentable experience that is confined to the realm of the imaginary and can therefore find expression only in fictional texts or mystic experience recorded in religious writings. Murasaki Shikibu and Murasaki That Murasaki stands out as a ­woman of sustained romantic interest for Genji is something of a paradox since she has been his from childhood and she does not become engaged in illicit love affairs. Two facts preserve her image as a desirable w ­ oman for Genji. One is the elusiveness inherent in her infertility—­her quin­tes­sen­tial physical inability to be “fulfilled” by a man. The other is the fortuitous absence of anyone who might provide Genji with a satisfactory substitute. Unable to f­ather a child by Murasaki or to find her virtual image in a substitute, Genji and Yūgiri are forced, ­after Murasaki’s death, to search for a memento (katami) of her. In “Maboroshi,” Genji identifies this katami as Murasaki’s writings, but he then destroys her writings in a ritual fire sacrifice, thereby forcing Yūgiri to rely on his own memories of Murasaki in order to reinvent her without the use—or abuse—of a h ­ uman substitute or a katami. The author’s conceptual twist on the “Minori” kaimami, which paralyzes the living observer and empowers the deceased observed, subverts conventional sexual power relations. Why does this intriguing subversion occur with Murasaki rather than with one of the other female characters? A definite answer is impossible, but the chief reason may lie in the termination of her line because of her infertility. She is not by any means the only barren ­woman in the tale, but she is the first of those ­women whose potential for a nongenealogical path to immortality is blocked. Another clue may lie in Murasaki Shikibu’s piecemeal pre­sen­ta­tion of her writings to the Heian court. By the time “Minori” was written, Heian readers had already begun to identify the author with her character and refer to her by her character’s name. What was her reaction to this identification? In her diary, Murasaki Shikibu reported that she replied sharply when Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041) teasingly tied her to the fictional Murasaki.42 (Her rebuke may also indicate a generalized impatience with historic models [omokage] for fictional characters.) If she was testy with those who identified her with her character, it may be that she was annoyed to have been found out.

176

The Genealogical Maze

Gendered Vision, Gendered Death The Genji recognizes virtually no death other than female death. With the exception of Kashiwagi, whose protracted, languishing death and role as a possessing spirit feminizes him,43 men in the Genji are reported dead in a narrative ellipsis, often leaving the reader to won­der when, where, and how their deaths occurred. Some simply vanish, their obituaries elided. ­Women, by contrast, die elaborately, and their deaths completely spellbind male protagonists. Wearing cosmetics to cover the first symptoms of disease, they dress for death. They are on display as they die seasonal, poetic deaths. In his staring at a dead ­woman, Yūgiri does not feel ­different from other men. What makes his morbid gazing unique is its occurrence within the structural framework of kaimami, which, in its basic format, requires both a stealthy gaze at and the erotic desire for a ­woman who has not yet revealed susceptibility to the man’s courtship. Once a man has taken physical or spiritual possession of the ­woman, his gazing at her is normalized, domesticated, and socially sanctioned. Yet Yūgiri in “Minori” is no closer to this kind of possession than he was in his “Nowaki” kaimami. The earlier kaimami inspired hope for another glimpse, but the ­later one is doomed to be the last. This finality calls ­everything into question. Murasaki’s presence ­after death forecasts Genji’s long posthumous shadow. Indeed, her lingering presence may be seen as the equivalent of Genji’s tenacious hold on the memory of o ­ thers. This equivalence is, however, marked by gender difference. Her death is visible and readable, while his is shrouded from view—­inverting the Heian aristocrats’ norm of the hidden ­woman and the public man. By leaving Genji’s death a mystifying blank in the narrative, the author continues to evoke the hero’s lingering presence.44 The ac­know­ledg­ment of death is thus permanently deferred, postponed, denied, and presented as a narrative Leerstelle.45 In Murasaki’s case, death is actually represented, albeit obliquely, through the experience of o ­ thers. Although as a fact her death is meticulously documented, Yūgiri’s perception renders it illusory and mysterious. In its anomaly, the “Minori” kaimami appears to challenge the obvious assumption that the eyes of a dead w ­ oman are powerless because she can no longer be conscious of receiving or emitting a gaze. Yet this par­tic­u­lar literary construction, which seems to revoke Murasaki’s disappearance of self, compels us to won­der about the power of an unseeing gaze. By having her mortality exposed through the specific artifice of kaimami, Murasaki paradoxically leaves b ­ ehind an indelible impression of immor-

Murasaki177

tality. Murasaki Shikibu has Yūgiri view Murasaki’s dead body in a transgressive act that creates the literary—or Buddhist—­illusion of Murasaki’s transcendence of death. By removing the paternal prohibition on Yūgiri’s gaze, Genji si­mul­ ta­neously sanctions and diminishes it. He encourages courtship when it is an impossibility. He lifts the taboo of affinal incest at the precise moment when the taboo of necrophilia replaces it. Paradoxically, however, the lifeless Murasaki’s full exposure to the male gaze and her absolute inability to escape it protects her from the a­ ctual violation of her body. While fully realizing that Murasaki has eluded him, Yūgiri seems entranced by her corpse. What propels him obsessively to desire a ­woman who is within reach but untouchable?46 What pre­ce­dents and parallels are there for this strange fixation? The Female Corpse in East and West The erotic association of mortality and female beauty in the allegoric duo of Death and the Maiden was a power­ful motif in Eu­ro­pean culture from the sixteenth to the mid-­nineteenth ­century.47 The romantic imagination was captivated by the dark liaison between eros and thanatos. This theme has been explored by many distinguished cultural historians, the first of whom was probably Mario Praz, whose Romantic ­Agony appeared in 1933. More recently, Elisabeth Bronfen has noted a remarkably erotic emphasis on female corpses in Western lit­erature and art.48 Similarly, in his monumental study L’homme devant la mort (1977; The Hour of Our Death), Philippe Ariès analyzed the “Death of the Other” and subdivided this category into the discreetly melodramatic “beautiful and edifying death of the pious models of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” and “the overblown rhe­toric of neo-­baroque romanticism.”49 Although Japan’s indigenous myths reveal male curiosity about the female corpse, there is no equivalent to Eu­rope’s romantic eroticization of dead w ­ omen. Quite the contrary, the Kojiki (comp. 712) is grimly realistic about physical decay. Izanagi journeys to the underworld of Yomi in the hope of retrieving his dead sister-­wife Izanami, who died giving birth to the fire god Kagu-­tsuchi-­no-­kami, but his longing turns into horror when he breaks a visual taboo and sees her festering corpse. True to indigenous Shintō, the male deity recoils from the pollution of death and flees this monstrous vision in order to devote himself to his purification rituals and the procreation of the supreme sun goddess Amaterasu Ōmikami.50

178

The Genealogical Maze

Where Shintō averts its gaze, Buddhism takes a hard look. Buddhist meditative practice on the pro­cess of death and corruption encouraged the hitherto-­reluctant Japa­nese to visualize these horrors—­especially poignant when they afflicted the dead body of a young ­woman. Religious masters of kuzō provided striking exercises for this form of male enlightenment.51 James H. Sanford has applied some of these provocative ideas about the eroticization of death to pop­u­lar Heian illustrated poem cycles. One such cycle was Su Dongpo’s Kuzō-­shi, which, Sanford argues, was falsely attributed to the Chinese poet but is actually of Japa­nese provenance. The erotic imagery of this Kuzō-­shi can be traced back to the earliest Indian eroticizations of kuzō, or the “Nine Stages of Death” ­motif in texts such as the Satipatthana-­sutta and the Visuddhimagga.52 The tendency in Japa­nese poem-­paintings to eroticize the female corpse must be attributed, Gail Chin argues, to the peculiar association of impermanence with beauty, an aesthetic concept brought to its greatest flowering in the Heian period and epitomized by the only female member of the Six Poetic Geniuses (rokkasen), Ono no Komachi (fl. ninth ­century).53 Buddhist strategy confronts impermanence directly by meditating on death as “an essential prerequisite for liberation.”54 More specifically, Buddhist tradition requires male contemplation of the festering female corpse. In reference to the “charming cadavers” in Indian Buddhist ­hagiographic lit­erature, Liz Wilson explains that a Buddhist ­woman can escape the active but negative role of a temptress . . . ​only when she is at her most passive. When, through death or serious illness, she has lost all control over her bodily functions, her charms will at last be revealed for what they ­really are. No longer a potential temptress, she will be transformed into a redemptress capable of liberating male observers from the bonds of saṃsāra.55

In short, a w ­ oman performs her salvific and apotropaic function best when she becomes “a flyblown corpse.”56 That the ­dying ­women and female corpses of Genji monogatari are described—­ contrary to Buddhist tradition—as impossibly beautiful has troubled some scholars. According to Aileen Gatten, Murasaki Shikibu depicted the “beauty of the moribund” in order “to exalt the character by a good death, as exemplified in the Buddhist accounts of rebirth in the Pure Land.”57 Gatten detects parallels between death scenes in the Genji and in tales of religious salvation (ōjōden), but the two have crucial differences. Whereas the de-

Murasaki179

tached narrators of ōjōden control the depiction of the death scene, the male characters in the Genji are emotionally involved in the history of the dead or ­dying ­women whom we see through their eyes. Gatten is right to point out that Murasaki Shikibu ignores the ōjōden convention of male salvation and characterizes ­women as if they, too, might be exalted “by a good death,” but her focus in these scenes is not on the possibility of ­women’s enlightenment. It is on the obvious delusion of men who perceive dead or ­dying ­women as ravishing beauties rather than as repulsive reminders of impermanence. The “good death” that exalts them is an obstacle to male enlightenment. In this sense, Murasaki Shikibu seems to affirm rather than contravene the Buddhist tradition of ­woman as temptress. Or does she? It is clear that Yūgiri completely ignores the horrific Buddhist lesson to be learned by viewing the female corpse. He appears oblivious to the implicit blasphemy of finding Murasaki even more beautiful in death than she was in life. The fact that her death has only just occurred might be seen to mitigate the perversity of his response w ­ ere Yūgiri not comparing Murasaki’s dead body to her living body glimpsed some fifteen years earlier. What, then, is the meaning of Yūgiri’s love-­ struck aesthetic of Murasaki’s corpse if it is not an indirect authorial statement about men’s utterly delusory efforts at Buddhist enlightenment because of their hopeless entanglement in the nets of sensuality? Viewing the Corpse In “Minori,” the actors in the scopophilic drama are related in an especially poignant way that anticipate the mythic configurations of Sigmund Freud’s theories of sexuality and the unconscious.58 Like his f­ ather, Yūgiri suffered a traumatic severance of the mo­ther-­child dyad. The normal narcissistic development, nourished by the mo­ther’s gaze, was therefore severely disturbed from the start, inducing a search for a mo­ther substitute. Like his ­father, Yūgiri sought that substitute in the form of an erotic relationship with his stepmother, but Yūgiri encountered an obstacle that Genji never had to surmount. Although Genji seemed at times to abet Yūgiri in his pursuit of Murasaki, he felt, in the end, compelled to prevent his son from violating the taboo of sleeping with his stepmother as he had slept with his. Murasaki’s death offers Yūgiri at least a chance to heal his narcissistic wound even if that meant inflicting a mortal psychic wound on Genji, whose grief over Murasaki’s passing weakens his paternal control. As the grief-­stricken Genji struggles to keep a psychic stranglehold on Yūgiri, the “Minori” kaimami is the ultimate test of Yūgiri’s effort to break his ­father’s grip.

180

The Genealogical Maze

This kaimami may also be interpreted as Yūgiri’s first attempt to come to terms with mortality. As Bronfen has pointed out in Lacanian terms, the male preoccupation with beautiful female corpses “functions like a screen memory [that] si­mul­ta­neously represses and represents . . . ​ the castrative threat of death.”59 Yūgiri must prove himself in this sense. His first challenge to paternal authority concerns the delicate ­matter of Murasaki’s posthumous tonsure, her last wish. In his grief and confusion, just ­after Murasaki has vanished like the dew, Genji decides that it is still possi­ble to grant Murasaki the wish he had so often denied her. Concessions now seem possi­ble, if not imperative, to appease his bad conscience and to prevent the depredations of a resentful spirit. Turning to Yūgiri, he instructs someone to give her the tonsure. At this point, Yūgiri, who wants Murasaki to be exactly as she was when he first glimpsed her during the typhoon, disagrees. By adopting the position that his ­father has abandoned, Yūgiri can pursue his desire to possess Murasaki through the male gaze. He defers responsibility for the decision about the tonsure to the priests and determines to see Murasaki, for if not now, then never. Hoping guiltily to see Murasaki again with her voluptuous beauty intact, Yūgiri is ­under extreme time pressure to exploit the fleeting moment immediately a­ fter the living beauty he desires has submitted to death’s embrace.60 The imminence of physical decay triggers a panic that impels him to do the forbidden, to raise the curtains, and to leave nothing to chance. Remarkably, the first thing Yūgiri sees is not Murasaki but, rather, Genji in the act of looking. Yūgiri’s kaimami is unique, not because Genji is pre­sent (he was also pre­sent with Murasaki and with Tamakazura during the “Nowaki” kaimami sequence), but because Genji is on his son’s side of the kichō and fully aware of his looking. ­After Yūgiri has lifted the curtain, the dazed Genji’s “gazing gaze” falls on his peeking son (4: 495: kono kimi no kaku nozokitamau o miru miru mo). Although Genji must know that Yūgiri’s viewing is improper, if not a violation of taboo, he allows it to happen. Genji, despite his grief, remains in control. Yūgiri, even when he transgresses, is unable to ­free himself from his dependence on Genji. Not only must Yūgiri’s gaze pass through Genji’s, but the f­ ather also tells the son what to see. ­Whether intentionally or not, Genji encourages his son to idealize Murasaki’s corpse. While confirming the fact of death, Genji certifies that there has been no change in Murasaki’s beauty. She is, he whispers, “ ‘Exactly as she was’ ” (S: 718; 4: 495). But fifteen years have passed since Yūgiri last saw Murasaki, then in her prime. Since Genji’s words now challenge him to see the pre­sent

Murasaki181

Murasaki as unchanged in appearance, Yūgiri is lost between what he is told and, indeed, wishes to see and what he r­ eally sees. A more sinister meaning may be buried in Genji’s assertion that Murasaki’s appearance is unchanged. Driven by lingering, gnawing doubts about ­whether his son had already experienced Murasaki’s splendor through the “Nowaki” kaimami, Genji may use the wistful words that introduce Murasaki’s dead form as a strategy of prohibition more power­ful than all his previous prohibitions combined. If Yūgiri can be induced to overlay memories of Murasaki’s living image with the stiff looks of her corpse, Yūgiri will experience something like the revulsion of the Buddhist monk at the sight of an erstwhile beauty’s “flyblown corpse.”61 His ideal will be shattered. Cruel as this dark undercurrent of Genji’s message may seem, it also holds, as suggested above, the ascetic promise of Buddhist enlightenment.62 If the horror of death shocks Yūgiri into acknowledging his ­tabooed desire, then this ac­know­ledg­ment can function as a form of closure. In fact, Yūgiri seems to be confused, wavering between an aestheticized ideal and a deadly reality, between the desire to look and the fear of looking. In a profound emotional reaction, stronger even than Genji’s, he sees the dead Murasaki through a veil of tears. He desperately tries to clear his clouded vision by pressing his eyelids together, but whenever he opens his eyes wide for a clinical look, his sight is blurred again by another flood of tears. Thus he oscillates between the irrational and the rational, between a protective blurred vision and an inquisitive hard stare. In Yūgiri’s tearful eyes, Murasaki is even more beautiful in death than she was in life. Close to losing consciousness, Yūgiri crosses the line into a world dominated by the subjunctive. In this altered state, the conditions of the living man and the dead ­woman approximate each other. As his entranced self threatens to vanish, Murasaki’s body becomes a power­ful presence. Put differently, to the extent that the living Yūgiri loses himself in the sight of the dead Murasaki, his presence is absorbed into hers—­except that hers must be defined as an absence. The encounter with death leads ­here to an almost hallucinatory degree of misperception. At the very least, death requires cosmetic masking, a flagrant reversal or a willed blurring of distinctly separate categories. Language becomes so inadequate that words helplessly run along the indeterminate edge of what can and cannot be expressed. Finally, when Genji hides his weeping eyes in his sleeves, Yūgiri’s gaze is liberated. This liberation comes at Genji’s expense, for Yūgiri

182

The Genealogical Maze

“sees through” Genji in order symbolically to ravish his stepmother. Meta­phor­ically, Yūgiri has at last displaced his ­father. Since it is impossible to represent the experience of death authentically, it is hardly surprising that the visual arts seem to have no repre­sen­ ta­tion of the “Minori” kaimami. The erotic depiction of the dead was almost an obsession in nineteenth-­century Victorian ­England, in par­tic­ u­lar within the painter-­poet circle of the Pre-­Raphaelites,63 but this obsession never gripped Japa­nese visual artists working with Genji motifs.64 In the extant Genji iconography, the “Minori” kaimami appears to be taboo, presentable only as a mourning scene. The woodblock print from Yamamoto Shunshō’s Illustrated Genji (Eiri Genji monogatari; 1650) shows a lifeless, lamp-­lit, and prostrate Murasaki ­under raised and neatly rolled up curtains with a courtier sitting next to her pillow.65 At a respectful distance, several ladies-­in-­waiting are weeping into their sleeves. No second man is in sight. Viewers of the woodcut illustration who are familiar with the written text can infer that the male courtier is Genji because it was he who placed an oil lamp near Murasaki.66 They can only imagine what the artist has not depicted, namely, that Yūgiri might be gazing rapturously while wrapped in fingers of cloud. Genji’s “gazing gaze” may be on his son, but the artist has left this as a ­matter of conjecture. Although the artist’s rendering of the deathbed scene seems void of eroticism, the paint­erly convention of fingers of cloud invites the external viewer to join in the fantasy of an implied male voyeur. The transgression of the monogatari’s boundaries no less than the paint­er’s frame is built into the structure of kaimami as inevitably as the gap in the fence. Rites of Death: Cremation Death glimpsed through kaimami, like mono no ke perceived in the throes of spirit possession, has a trace of ghoulishness. Normality must be restored by the rituals of burial, mourning, and memorialization of the dead. As chief mourner, Genji takes on the difficult task of overseeing Murasaki’s funeral, at least u ­ ntil the pyre is ignited. The author of the Genji omits tedious details about the treatment of the corpse between the time of death and cremation.67 For readers unfamiliar with Heian burial practices, however, the omitted information must be supplied because it is essential for understanding this liminal period, in which the dead leave a gap that must be filled and the living vie with one another in their efforts to appropriate the charisma of the dead. Recovering something of his paternal and marital authority, Genji acts decisively. Knowing well from the example of Yūgiri’s mo­ther, Aoi,

Murasaki183

the signs of horror that death inscribes upon the corpse, he hastens to arrange the funeral to forestall the disfiguring signs. The ravages of death are avoided by cremation, a religious rite in which fire purifies the incipiently putrifying corpse. Murasaki’s remains ascend “to the heavens as the frailest wreath of smoke” (S: 719; 4: 496–497). Murasaki’s faint trail of smoke suggests the purification of the deceased, and the mourners can take comfort from this. Yet the elusive image of smoke ascending cannot fully distract from the ashes and bones left b ­ ehind.68 Death’s traces still require full ac­know­ledg­ment. In his study of Hindu cremation rites, Jonathan Parry concludes that cremation becomes sacrifice, a “ritual slaughter which makes of the chief mourner a hom­i­cide, parricide or even slayer of the gods.”69 While it may be excessive to liken Genji to a hom­ i­cide, parricide, or deicide, he does play the role of a sacrificer. What ­else can explain his haste to have his beloved Murasaki cremated? Rites of Death: Gyakushu That Genji does, indeed, act as sacrificer at Murasaki’s cremation becomes clear when we consider that the sacrificial ritual is one for which she had long prepared. She had, in fact, performed a gyakushu,70 a ritual in which the celebrant rehearses her own death in a form of religiously sanctioned ceremonial suicide. The Hokke Hakkō (Eight Lotus Sūtra Lectures) combined lectures and discussions with artistic per­for­mances, one of which was the Ryō-­ō (Dragon Dance). This remarkable ceremony, which Norma Field calls “staging her own death,”71 came about ­after several of Murasaki’s requests for the tonsure had been denied. She succeeded—­four years before her death—in extracting a token tonsure from a resistant Genji by pledging adherence to the five commandments honored by Buddhist priests and nuns.72 For this to happen, she first had to “die,” thus undergoing “initiatory death [as] the sine qua non for all spiritual regeneration.”73 Murasaki’s gyakushu takes the form of a lavishly expensive and spectacular Buddhist ritual known as Hokke Hakkō.74 This ritual is intended to accrue merit for the dead ­toward their salvation and si­mul­ta­ neously to exhibit the sponsor’s social prestige.75 It is a ritual repetition of cremation, intended to purge the dead of lingering attachments and to help them attain enlightenment in the Pure Land of Amida. The Hokke Hakkō also serves as a way for the living to come to terms with their dead. The spirits of the dead must be pacified and ultimately laid to rest. This is achieved by per­for­mance of the Hokke Hakkō, the primary responsibility for which rests with the descendants of the deceased. Those

184

The Genealogical Maze

who have no descendants to perform such rituals or pray for them ­after death are called muenbotoke. Since Murasaki is such a childless muenbotoke, she arranges a Hokke Hakkō for herself and for those whom she expects to survive her. In Willa Jane Tanabe’s felicitous formulation, this special variant of Hokke Hakkō, called gyakushu, was “ingenious for its capacity to preempt any threat to the due per­for­mance of a memorial service—­loss of financial resources, lack of children, or absence of f­ amily members.”76 For Murasaki, the gyakushu was especially pertinent because she is among those “petitioners [who] did not have children to conduct ser­vices for them ­after they died.”77 Like an a­ ctual cremation, the Hokke Hakkō can also be understood as constituting an ac­cep­tance of the “irreversibility” of death, which is, in Walter Burkert’s words, “both acknowledged and overcome by ceremonial killing.”78 In that sense, the Buddhist rites of Hokke Hakkō are as much concerned with benefiting the living as the dead. They are a way to reconcile the living with the dead and to honor the ties between them. Over the course of several years, Murasaki had prepared herself spiritually for a gyakushu by commissioning seven priests to make a thousand copies of the Lotus Sūtra (4: 481: Hokkekyō senbu), an extraordinarily time-­consuming undertaking. When the time approached for her grandiose offering of these thousand sets, she deci­ded to hold the solemn rites at Genji’s Nijō-in (see Figure  6), her favorite residence. Her ­delicate physical condition required that the splendid event, which normally took five days, be shortened to a single day.79 Genji should have been alarmed that Murasaki used the Hokke Hakkō to conduct her own death rites, but he may have concluded that it was wiser to praise her sponsorship of these spectacular rites than to turn down, yet again, her request for the tonsure. The First Waka Exchange During and immediately following the gyakushu ser­vice, Murasaki exchanges waka with two ­women in positions similar to hers. One might won­der why the Hakkōe includes waka. William Edward Deal has argued that “reciting Lotus Sutra poetry is parallel to reciting the Lotus ­Sutra itself. . . . ​The incorporation of poetry into the expositions marks a particularly aristocratic interpretation of what comprises the pa­ram­e­ters of religious practice.”80 The first waka exchange in “Minori” is with Akashi no kimi, the ­woman whose dau­gh­ter by Genji Murasaki had been adopted and then returned. Through this temporary borrowing of Akashi no kimi’s womb, Murasaki had experienced a fictive “motherhood”

Murasaki185

that held hopes for the continuation of her line through the Akashi daugh­ ter. The poetry exchange is triggered by the profound silence following the reading of the climactic fifth fascicle (normally performed on the morning of the third day, or itsumaki no hi). The priests have just finished chanting the opening passage from the twelfth chapter, “Devadatta” ( J. Daibadatta), thereby symbolically reenacting the pro­cession in which the historic Buddha Śākyamuni carried ­water and gathered firewood and herbs in order to obtain the wisdom of the Lotus Sūtra.81 Thus it is hardly a coincidence that Murasaki initiates a shakkyōka-­ style82 poetry exchange on the topic of firewood.83 As Helen Craig ­McCullough points out, Murasaki likens herself to the Buddha “Sun-­and-­ Moon Glow” (Candrasūryapradîpa), who entered nirvāna “without residue”:84 no regrets for this body—­fruit come to nothing— yet sadness for firewood about to burn to the limit oshikaranu kono mi nagara mo kagiri tote takigi tsukinan koto no kanashisa (my translation; GM 552; 4: 483)85

Most revealing and intriguing about the allusive waka that Murasaki sends to Akashi no kimi is what is left unspoken. Murasaki and the Buddha “Sun-­and-­Moon Glow” have an implied parallel. The latter does not enter nirvāna without first prophesying that the “bo­dhi­sattva named Womb of Excellence”86 will become “a Buddha named Pure Body.” Akashi no kimi plays the role of this bo­dhi­sattva. Not only does Murasaki see Akashi no kimi as a surrogate self, whose womb she had borrowed, but she also regards the Akashi dau­gh­ter, the fruit of Akashi no kimi’s fertile womb and her (Murasaki’s) mentorship, as her assurance of the pacification of her spirit a­ fter death. In other words, Murasaki relies on Akashi no kimi’s continued goodwill to ensure the Akashi dau­gh­ter’s mindfulness of Murasaki.87 In her reply, Akashi no kimi discreetly redirects Murasaki’s recognition of her impending death by alluding to another “firewood” passage in the Lotus Sūtra: cutting firewood—­the never-­ending quest for the Law begins ­today takigi koru omoi wa kyō o hajime nite kono yo ni negau nori zo harukeki (my translation; GM 553; 4: 483)88

186

The Genealogical Maze

When the historical Buddha was still a king in search of enlightenment, he humbly served an ascetic in possession of the Lotus Sūtra. “Gathering his firewood, his fruits and melons,”89 he obtained the seer’s Lotus teachings. In such modest beginnings, rather than in extinguishing one’s life “without residue,” lies the hope for salvation. The Ryō-­ō Dance ­ fter a night of sacred chanting and ceaseless drumbeats, dawn A breaks the trancelike daze of the assembled Hakkōe audience and shifts attention from monotonous droning to spellbinding sights. The ser­vices have created a mood of revelatory ecstasy and sharpness of perception like that experienced on the verge of enlightenment. The air, vibrant with the colorful sights and sounds of spring, announces Murasaki’s seasonal identity through the same gaps in the haze (3: 257; 4: 483: kasumi no ma yori) that had long ago revealed her to Yūgiri as a wild spring cherry (3: 257: kabazakura). Once again, the mood associated with the seasons is ironically reversed: then, although it was autumn, Yūgiri had sensed spring in what he saw; now it is spring, but Murasaki is absorbed in an autumnal melancholy as she feels the approach of her death and transformation. At this point, a “Ryō-­ō” (Dragon-­Prince) dance is arranged by none other than Yūgiri.90 It is hardly a coincidence that, of all the bugaku roles, an esoteric solo piece91 should have been chosen uncannily to suggest, through the figure of the Dragon Prince, the sudden transformative gender change that the dragon king’s dau­gh­ter undergoes in order to attain buddhahood.92 It is a symbolic enactment of the Lotus Sūtra’s “Devadatta” chapter, which contains the rare Buddhist promise of salvation for ­women by evoking the Nāga King’s dau­gh­ter’s miraculous enlightenment. The exotic costume and double mask of the Ryō-­ō dancer not only fascinates but intoxicates viewers.93 When the musicians approach the finale, the dancer quickens his movements ­toward a climax, at which the viewers impulsively rip off their own robes and shower them upon the dancer.94 There is no doubt that the Dragon Prince possesses transformative power and unearthly charisma. If understood as a religious icon in the context of the Hakkōe, the Ryō-­ō dancer substitutes not only for the enlightened Nāga dau­gh­ter but also for “the officiant who performs rituals before it and by extension all those who worship it.”95 Like the seven priests’ copying of the sūtra for Murasaki (implicitly making her, as sponsor, one of the original eight priests), the dancing and the donning of robes are also done at

Murasaki187

Murasaki’s behest and on her behalf. Men copy the sūtra and dance the dance, but their acts are a technique of body substitution (migawari) designed by Murasaki to realize her transformation ­toward Buddhist enlightenment. The Second Waka Exchange ­After all the participants in the ser­vices have scattered, Murasaki initiates a second waka exchange, this time with Hanachirusato, whose childlessness enables her to empathize with Murasaki. Murasaki can appeal to her for a ­different sort of tie than the one she shares with Akashi no kimi: with these rites my life must end but not our mutual pledges for generations taenubeki minori nagara zo tanomaruru yoyo ni to musubu naka no chigiri o (my translation; GM 554; 4: 485)96

Murasaki’s desire to establish, through biological reproduction, a blood tie97 lasting for generations is defeated by her infertility. The same is true for Hanachirusato, who is ­eager to join Murasaki’s pledge about the generations (yoyo) as both the ­future and posterity. She extols their bond, made insoluble by their shared childlessness: our ties won’t break though extraordinary rites and life alike must end musubioku chigiri wa taeji ōkata no nokori sukunaki minori nari to mo (my translation; GM 555; 4: 485)98

Thus these two ­women defy the law of nature through the language of lovers’ vows (chigiri). The knowledge that neither had borne a child inspires an intimacy that resembles courtship.99 What may well have brought them together at these rites is Yūgiri, the child whom they share between them insofar as he is Murasaki’s stepson and Hanachirusato’s foster son. It is ironic, therefore, that Yūgiri will ­later search for Murasaki’s katami, not realizing that he himself qualifies as such. Murasaki’s grand rehearsal for death is performed in the spring, as if her favorite season entitled her to depart, all alone, to the unknown (4: 485: mazu waga hitori yukue shirazu). In the remaining five months of her life—­a suspended death—­she perceives ­others talking to her as if

188

The Genealogical Maze

she ­were already dead. Appropriating techniques of the male ascetic tradition, she is relinquishing her body voluntarily and in a premeditated manner. Thus she finds an alternate, female path t­ oward enlightenment, for which she needs no male permission. ­After her spirit possession, Genji had granted Murasaki merely a token tonsure; now, through her orchestration of the last rites of spring, she can be said to have achieved a female equivalent of the tonsure. Since Genji is not prepared to acknowledge Murasaki’s triumph over his ­denial, hers is a muted sort of detachment. Death is but a question of time, and the ­matter of the tonsure must run its full course. As the tonsure is a form of sexual death, ritual death is a symbolic tonsure and a­ ctual death its most radical realization. Although Murasaki’s gyakushu was a public statement of her intentions, Genji refused to comprehend. ­After her literal death, he must come to terms with her escape from his grasp. And he and Yūgiri must grapple with the notion of death as sacrifice, which usually implies regeneration, and with the pro­cess of cremation as a signal of cosmic renewal. In the case of Murasaki, voluntary sacrifice replaces infertility in life with the regeneration promised by the pyre’s smoke.100 The Revenant Murasaki’s sacrificial purpose in “Minori” remained opaque to Genji and Yūgiri, each blinded by his own hidden secular agenda. Yet Murasaki’s magnificent passing at the break of dawn on the ­fourteenth of the eighth month inspired them to move beyond individual desires to a purpose larger than their own. The full moon links Genji’s past to his pre­sent deprivation, his self-­control having vanished during Murasaki’s cremation, which was finished in the early morning of the fifteenth. Genji associates the Harvest Moon of this funeral night with the melancholy quarter moon in the eighth month visible during the cremation of his first principal wife, Aoi, at Toribeno (see Figure 5), twenty-­nine years earlier. (Curiously, Genji does not recall Yūgao’s death, although it occurred only one night ­after the Harvest Moon, followed by his last viewing of her corpse the next moonlit night and her cremation at Toribeno.) In­de­pen­ dently of Genji, Tō no Chūjō is also reminded by Murasaki’s death of his sister Aoi’s death. He even initiates a waka exchange with Genji about this association. By contrast, Yūgiri remains fixed on Murasaki. His stepmother’s death is so visually power­ful for Yūgiri that it blocks recognition of his birth trauma. Whereas he experiences Murasaki’s death consciously, the

Murasaki189

death of his mo­ther, Aoi, does not even exist as a recollection but as a memory blank filled only by the recollections of ­others. Since Yūgiri has glimpsed the dead body of not just any ­woman for whom he had developed a desire but his stepmother’s, the link to the experienced but unrecalled loss of his mo­ther remains repressed by the incest taboo. The death of the mo­ther is nonetheless repeated in that of the stepmother, a copy of the original loss. As every repetition echoes an earlier instance, each new one will always retain a remnant of the original loss. Since Aoi resides as a revenant in Murasaki, Yūgiri can at once relive and lay to rest the trauma of Aoi’s death through Murasaki’s. Yūgiri remains torn between dream and reality. Since cremation ­si­mul­ta­neously removes the body from sight and preserves it in the mourner’s memory, Yūgiri’s thinking runs in circles of paradox. At first, the only solution is total abandonment to tears, which are seen as scattered jewels among the beads of a rosary designed to dispel earthly ­attachment. Then, as he intones the name of the Amida Buddha, a waka forms in Yūgiri’s mind. Nostalgia coupled with frustration triggers poetic inspiration. The transformation of the beloved’s dead body into smoke, ashes, and bones provokes a renewed effort to recapture the past. The waka remains unwritten, unrecited, for it is based on the premise that its intended recipient is dead: I long for the autumn eve­ning long ago—­now a dream fading in shades of dawn inishie no aki no yūbe no koishiki ni ima wa to mieshi akegure no yume (my translation; GM 559; 4: 498)

Assuming that Murasaki did not catch sight of him during the “Nowaki” kaimami, Yūgiri ­here expresses nostalgia for the moment despite the fact that it lacked the culminating thrill of linked gazes. In Yūgiri’s poetic vision, Murasaki’s image is recalled as it was in the autumnal twilight at dawn, difficult to make out, reconstruct, or retain—­just as dreams are lost to rapidly fading memory upon waking. “Traumatic material,” Bronfen notes, “can never be fixed completely into an image. A part mercilessly recedes from repre­sen­ta­tion.”101 Evoking the liminalities of the season (autumn) and of the time of day (then dusk, now dawn), Yūgiri struggles to come to terms with the loss of what he never ­really possessed.

190

The Genealogical Maze

The poem seems to quicken rather than to halt the tears that “lose themselves among the beads of his rosary” (S: 720; 4: 498). They are precious as jewels enshrining his love of Murasaki. To divert o ­ thers, he effectively blinds them to his tears by fingering the jeweled beads on his rosary and intoning Amida’s name with each bead. Knowing as we do that Yūgiri tends to fuse memories of Murasaki with memories of his mo­ther, Aoi, we might won­der ­whether that is what occurs ­here as his tears fall upon the rosary’s “mo­ther bead” (boju).102 Is Yūgiri’s repetition of Amida’s name an expedient device (hōben) or a pretext for following his memorial trajectory from the living to the dead Murasaki and then beyond his conscious ken to Aoi as revenant?103 From Killing Gazes to Katami Interpreting the scopophilic drama in Eu­ro­pean lit­erature and art, Bronfen maintains that the corpse’s imagined gaze is transformed into a “killing gaze.”104 This seems to be exactly what happens in the “Minori” kaimami. Having spent his gaze on her (as on no other w ­ oman), Yūgiri is the dead Murasaki’s obvious target, which explains why he “dies” as a character and ceases to hold the reader’s interest soon a­ fter the ­“Minori” kaimami. Yūgiri’s spectacular kaimami of his coveted stepmother’s corpse allows him vicariously to resolve the primal trauma of the loss of his ­mo­ther at birth. He “kills” the paternal gaze by passing through it with impunity. Thus he can “claim” Murasaki’s feminine corpse and “reanimate” it through his poetic vision. As my distancing quotation marks indicate, however, Yūgiri’s psychic achievements, his defeat of his ­father and his resolution of this primal trauma, are devalued if not nullified by the dead Murasaki, who seems to come alive through Yūgiri’s gaze and to destroy his vitality. His last provocative gesture is to translate his possessive necrophilic gaze into a solitary, nostalgic, incommunicable waka that he can neither speak aloud nor transcribe to written form. ­After composing this poem, which intensifies rather than alleviates his sorrow, he retreats into mediocrity. Genji urges him to seek satisfaction in making their ­house grow and prosper (4: 527: soko ni koso wa, kado wa hirogetamawame). Yūgiri fulfills this traditional male role by marrying and having children, but it is hardly a heroic one. Genji is similarly incapacitated. Without Murasaki, his life has become meaningless. She alone, of all his many ­women, is truly irreplaceable. Genji’s loss of his mo­ther was repeated in the loss of her substitute, Fujitsubo. Now, through the loss of the ultimate substitute, Murasaki, the

Murasaki191

only way for Genji to resolve his primal trauma is his quiet ac­cep­tance of death: Murasaki’s and his own. If Genji still remains among the living, it is as a fading shadow. He exchanges visibility in a man’s world for invisibility in a w ­ oman’s realm, having “all but become a w ­ oman himself.”105 He, too, falls prey to the “killing gaze.” Diminished by the irrevocable loss of Murasaki, Genji worries about Yūgiri’s potential for appropriating Murasaki through katami. His worry is justified. Even before the first anniversary of Murasaki’s death, Yūgiri laments to Genji that she left b ­ ehind no katami in the form of children (4: 526–527: katami to iu bakari todomekikoetamaeru hito dani mono shitamawanu koso, kuchioshū haberikere). For the moment, however, preparations for the commemoration of the first anniversary distract Yūgiri from pursuing the idea of katami. For his part, when pressed about the specifics concerning the memorial ser­vice, Genji can think only of using her own efforts at salvation—­copies of the Paradise Mandala (goku­ raku mandara) and other sūtras—as a comforting rite (kuyō). As with her gyakushu, Murasaki planned ahead, h ­ ere filling her absence with the written materials for her own kuyō. Thus Murasaki’s religious charisma continues to grow posthumously. The Second Burning The first anniversary of Murasaki’s death is followed by the pre­ sen­ta­tion of the Gosechi dances, to which Yūgiri brings two of his sons. Genji responds to Yūgiri’s splendid pre­sen­ta­tion of himself and his sons by composing a waka: Our lads go off to have their Day of Light. For me it is as if there ­were no sun. miyahito wa toyo no akari ni isogu kyō hikage mo shirade kurashi­ tsuru ka na (S: 733; GM 584; 4: 531)

Genji pre­sents himself ­here as the quasi-­retired sovereign ( jun daijō tennō) who will soon be eclipsed. Yet in his designation of a successor, he pointedly bypasses Yūgiri. ­After the First Fruits Festival and other festivities, such as the Gosechi dances and the feast Toyo no akari no sechie, the po­liti­cal undercurrent of Genji’s waka becomes even clearer. As if inspired by the fire sacrifice of the daijō-­sai rituals, the imperial accession rites that signal the transference of po­liti­cal power and a return to normality,106 Genji

192

The Genealogical Maze

contemplates burning his private papers. Then, suddenly, he finds ­Murasaki’s letters, which recall her spirit in shocking vividness. Having redirected Yūgiri’s pursuit of katami to domestic duties, he does not want to rekindle his son’s passion by permitting him to see this power­ful reminder of Murasaki and of their love. Her letters, together with Genji’s, document their most intimate bond, a bond that produced, instead of offspring, words of passion in poetry and prose, the very stuff of which the Genji itself is made. Significantly, the Genji text refers to Murasaki’s writings as katami (4: 532), indicating clearly that the childless Murasaki can live on only through her writings, her meta­phorical “children.” Yet, with a bold stroke of the brush, the author has Genji decide to burn Murasaki’s literary katami. The identification of Murasaki’s writings as children conceals another identification: Murasaki’s text represents herself. Thus Murasaki’s text assumes a pivotal position between the dead Murasaki and her unborn children. In the sense that ritual sacrifice involves what René Girard calls a “surrogate victim,”107 Murasaki’s text is just that in Genji’s ritual sacrifice. Genji’s fire sacrifice, an examplar of what Walter Burkert describes as “a continuous chain that must never be broken,”108 is something special. It does not burn food or wood but words on paper. Moreover, its ethereal addressee is not any kami or buddha but the deceased author of the words. Thus, the sacrificer can be seen to return to the author what rightfully belongs to her, in the only way he can, by abandoning his claims and turning her words into smoke, thereby placing them beyond the use or abuse of the living. In the smoke from this fire sacrifice of her writings, as earlier from the cremation smoke of her body, Genji can see Murasaki’s “breath” or spirit once more.109 Yet Genji is honest enough to recognize that his fire sacrifice lacks the purity of total abandonment. Not only do his tears absorb her words through the ink. In the margin of her writing, he adds his words to hers, as if to re­unite with her: pointless is collecting leaves for re-­viewing in the clouds join the smoke of sea grasses kakitsumete miru mo kai nashi moshiogusa onaji kumoi no keburi to o nare (my translation; GM 586; 4: 534)110

The consecration of Murasaki’s texts signifies to Genji what the gyakushu signified to Murasaki: a suspended death. The sacrificer has fi-

Murasaki193

nally placed himself in the position of becoming one with the sacrificial victim. His sacrifice of Murasaki’s katami, now also a surrogate victim for Genji himself, becomes a self-­sacrifice. Genji might have transformed Murasaki’s secular text into a religious text by using the paper for copying the Lotus Sūtra (shōsokukyō). Or Genji might have preserved their letters, as Kashiwagi preserved his correspondence with the Third Princess, for the sake of their son, but Genji’s priority is neither a religious offering in Murasaki’s memory nor a secular gift of an open book to be read some day by Yūgiri. Genji’s primary motive for this second burning of “Murasaki” points to reaffirming his possession and to keeping Yūgiri at bay while promoting Niou, Murasaki’s favorite among Genji’s grandsons. Genji allowed his son and rival to see Murasaki’s lifeless physical shell, but he may not want to allow him access to her spirit through a literary dialogue with her literary remains. All that is left of Murasaki’s writings is smoke and ashes. Beyond that, her spiritual signature will live on in Genji’s mind as long as he remembers her. It will finally die with him. In this way, Genji will take a repre­sen­ta­tion of the living Murasaki with him into the smoke-­ filled clouds. With the departure of the Genji’s two major protagonists, it is ­appropriate to consider their goals and accomplishments in terms of courtship and kinship. As discussed above, Genji and his publicly acknowledged son Yūgiri courted Murasaki at liminal stages in her life. She was physically intimate with no man other than Genji, and she had no offspring with him. Her childlessness does not put her in a highly anomalous position as far as female protagonists of the Genji are concerned. On the contrary, a surprising number of w ­ omen, among them Utsusemi, Suetsumuhana, Hanachirusato, Asagao, Oborozukiyo, Akikonomu, and Ochiba, remain childless for vari­ous reasons, such as infertility and voluntary or involuntary abstention from sexuality, but each plays a specific role in the main protagonists’ genealogical pursuits. (In the last ten chapters of the Genji, discussed below, this trend t­oward childlessness grows to alarming proportions.) Of these childless ­women, Murasaki and Hanachirusato take on surrogate mothering, of the Akashi dau­gh­ter and Yūgiri, respectively. It is largely through Murasaki’s feel­ oman’s strategies of coping with childlessness ings and actions that a w are revealed. Not only does she raise her adopted dau­gh­ter but she also returns her to her biological mo­ther at the time of her eligibility for marriage. Long ­ after Murasaki’s death, her adopted dau­ gh­ ter, now the Akashi empress, adopts her, as it ­were, by performing Hokke Hakkō rites

194

The Genealogical Maze

for her and for Genji. Genji appears to have supported this conventional desire to be cared for and remembered through one’s descendants in that he arranged for Murasaki to adopt the Akashi dau­gh­ter, thereby paving the way for her to become a part of the Akashi lineage. By contrast, he took radical mea­sures to keep Yūgiri from seizing any part of Murasaki’s memory by burning all there was of her. Postscripted Prophecies Genji’s courtships know no boundaries. Directly or indirectly, his affairs serve to promote his genealogy. His efforts to forge his lineage ­were influenced by the circumstances of his birth as the son of an emperor by a ­woman not of the highest rank. Curious about his seven-­year-­ old son’s ­future, the Kiritsubo emperor had examined him in accordance with Japa­nese belief in physiognomy and concluded that it was imprudent to confer on the boy the rank of an imperial prince. Realizing, however, that he was hardly an unbiased observer, the Kiritsubo emperor arranged for the Major Controller of the Right (udaiben) to take the boy to the Kōrokan in the south of the capital to be examined there by a Korean emissary knowledgeable in physiognomy. Not knowing that the boy was the son of the emperor, the Korean spoke without reserve. The boy, he prophesized, might well soar to imperial heights but only at the cost of much discord and confusion in the realm. Considering the immediate consequences of Genji’s becoming crown prince, the Kiritsubo emperor deci­ded to demote Genji to the status of a commoner (tadabito) with the surname Minamoto (or Genji). The prophecy gave the emperor a po­liti­cal excuse for alleviating his anxi­eties about his favorite son’s fate. He demoted him to commoner rank for two reasons: to avoid the chaos foretold by the Korean’s prophecy and to appease his Consort Kokiden and thereby to divert her ire from being directed to Genji. Word of the prophecy spread and created intense suspense. Would the prophecy come true despite the emperor’s attempt to counteract it by demoting Genji? Would it scare the boy or bring forth the stamina needed for difficult t­rials ahead? It certainly placed great responsibility on Genji to ­either fulfill or resist his predicted f­ uture. The Korean’s prophecy, once Genji understood it, provided him with ends that seemed to justify his frequently transgressive means. It is ironic that the very prophecy that resulted in his status deprivation compelled him to fulfill it, no ­matter which transgressions ­were necessary. Ultimately, the vectors of Genji’s many courtships converged on one overarching goal: emperorhood for his descendants.

Murasaki195

It is im­por­tant to note that the original Korean prophecy was quite vague. It did not promise Genji emperorhood but its equivalence. Its only immediate effect was that the Kiritsubo emperor was confirmed in his decision to remove his favorite son from the line of succession and thus allow him to flourish as a Minamoto and be spared the worst court intrigues. It is, therefore, hardly an accident that, at the very time that Genji’s illicit son by Fujitsubo was to become the Reizei emperor, Genji turned to creating imperial offspring far away from court through his mo­ther’s line. Nor does it seem accidental that it was only when Genji’s Akashi dau­gh­ter was born in Chapter 14 (“Miotsukushi”) that Genji learns of a second prophecy, this one from a Japa­nese astrologer, according to which one of Genji’s three children would become emperor (2: 275: mikado) and another empress (2: 275: kisaki). Even the least successful of the three children would attain the high office of chancellor. Knowing, as the world did not, that the first part of the prophecy had come true with Reizei’s accession to the throne, Genji turned to the promise of an imperial dau­gh­ter. He could now understand his f­ather’s decision to remove him from the imperial succession. To raise Akashi no kimi’s daugh­ ter to the throne, Genji vowed to rely on the god of Sumiyoshi, most intimately and most appropriately associated with his self-­imposed exile in Suma and his stay at Akashi. The vow was eventually fulfilled, and Akashi no kimi’s dau­gh­ter became empress. Although Genji himself never achieved imperial status, his son, the Reizei emperor, knowing full well at the time that Genji was his f­ ather, conferred upon Genji the status of honorary retired emperor (jun daijō tennō), a fictive position in­ven­ted by Murasaki Shikibu in Chapter 33 (“Fuji no uraba”). Thus the author reserved for herself the power to fulfill the original prophecy. Although Genji’s literal death is elided in Murasaki Shikibu’s narrative, he lives on in his descendants—or in those who think of themselves as such.

Chapter 8

Exiting the Maze

T

he last ten chapters of the Genji, the Uji chapters . . . ​ religious devotion.

From Uji to the Capital: Ōigimi and Nakanokimi The Plectrum and the Baton in “Hashihime” In Chapter 45 (“Hashihime”), Kaoru’s interest in Uji is prompted by stories he hears about Hachi no miya, the eighth son of the Kiritsubo emperor and a high-­ranking nyōgo. After the Kiritsubo emperor abdicated in favor of his first son, Suzaku, the Kokiden empress mother plotted unsuccessfully to depose the newly appointed Crown Prince Reizei, believed to be the Kiritsubo emperor’s tenth son but in reality Genji’s (see Figure 14), and to replace him with Hachi no miya. When his residence burned down Hachi no miya became a lay ascetic (zoku hijiri) and exiled himself to Uji. During a period of “three years,”2 Kaoru visits Hachi no miya several times, becoming more intimately drawn to him with each visit. The many journeys to Uji are described painstakingly. They assume the characteristics of a mythic pilgrimage and create the impression that Kaoru’s visits to Uji are part of a religious quest. Initially, Kaoru shows l­ittle curiosity about Hachi no miya’s two sequestered daughters, whom the ­local abbot (azari or ajari) had mentioned, but thoughts of them do cross his mind. On his first visit to Hachi no miya’s Uji Mountain Villa (see Figure  5), Kaoru reflects that the desolate environment is hardly suitable for young princesses. Uji is isolated from the capital and inhospitably ­located on a roaring river. Kaoru finds the h ­ ouse itself, which he likens to a “grass hut” (S: 782; T: 834; 5: 124: kusa no iori), more fitting for an ascetic recluse than for a princess. He wonders how the

196

Exiting the Maze197

harsh environment affects these highborn ­women and realizes that other men in his situation might be tempted to pursue them. Yet, unlike less religious youths, Kaoru considers re­sis­tance to frivolous amorous feelings a mea­sure of his devotion to the Buddhist path. One late fall, Kaoru, now age twenty-­two, sets out on h ­ orse­back for Uji. Although Murasaki Shikibu has many depictions of Kaoru braving the elements in order to see Hachi no miya, this journey is especially significant and is described in greater detail. As he came into the mountains the mist was so heavy and the underbrush so thick that he could hardly make out the path; and as he pushed his way through thickets the rough wind would throw showers of dew upon him from a turmoil of falling leaves. He was very cold, and, though he had no one to blame but himself, he had to admit that he was also very wet. This was not the sort of journey he was accustomed to. It was sobering and at the same time exciting. (S: 783; T: 836; 5: 128)

One notices at once that Kaoru has great difficulty seeing what lies on the path ahead of him as he strains to penetrate the mist with his gaze. He has been jolted out of his comfortable life in the capital, where pampered suitors, walking a few steps from their ox-­drawn carriages, ­complain about wet sleeves. As he makes his way through the thickening fog, he is moved to compose a waka about dew falling from the leaves as tears fall from his eyes. By the time Kaoru arrives at his destination, he is thoroughly drenched, physically drained to the point of tears, but with his senses sharpened and his spirit alert. He is in a heightened state and receptive to some epiphany. Approaching Hachi no miya’s villa, he hears the sound of ­music. He listens to the biwa and the thirteen-­stringed koto (sō no koto) as if for the first time. He assumes that the prince is practicing with his daughters, but he quickly learns from a watchman that Hachi no miya is at the abbot’s mountain t­emple. Clearly, to the extent that the prince spends time on the mountain, where he is absorbed by his religious ­duties, he neglects his daughters and opens the door to potential suitors like Kaoru. A significant break now occurs in the pattern of Kaoru’s visits. The ­music stirs memories of stories he had heard from the Uji azari (5: 130n3), and he is determined to hear more of these intriguing tales. Calling back

198

The Genealogical Maze

the watchman who was about to inform Hachi no miya of his arrival, Kaoru positions himself, with the watchman’s help, to listen to the ­music undetected. His kaimaki becomes the aural prelude to his kaimami. As he listens to the biwa and the koto, Kaoru discusses with the watchman the prince’s efforts to hide the very existence of his daughters. Kaoru concludes that Hachi no miya has “an odd sort of secret” (S: 784; T: 837; 5: 130), namely, one widely known. Having heard enough to be intrigued, Kaoru, with the help of the same watchman, conceals himself ­behind a wattled bamboo fence (5: 131: suigai), opens its gate a crack, and peers, across a garden to the east side of the shinden, where the prince’s daughters live (see Genji monogatari emaki, “Hashihime”). A sliding door (shōji; modern: fusuma) separates their rooms from the Buddha’s and the prince’s own quarters, which are probably in the west hisashi. The watchman takes Kaoru’s attendants to the west gallery (5: 131: nishi no rō), as far away as possi­ble from the kaimami. Kaoru’s eye falls first on a young girl and on an older ­woman. The Uji sisters—­Ōigimi and Nakanokimi—­are farther inside. Nakanokimi is sitting ­behind a pillar. As a brilliant moon bursts forth from the clouds, Nakanokimi, who has been toying with her biwa plectrum, comments wittily that one can summon forth the moon with a plectrum just as well as with a fan.3 She is alluding to a poem from Mohe zhiguan (The Great Cessation and Insight), a contemplative treatise, containing the teachings of Zhiyi (538–597): The moon is hidden by layered mountains, ah! we lift a fan to show it; the wind blows through the great void, ah! by swaying trees we teach it. (Wakan rōei shū 587)4

It is probably no accident that the allusion is to a Chinese Tiantai (J. Tendai) Buddhist text dedicated to “the serenity achieved by practicing a combination of physical and spiritual teachings, including vari­ous forms of meditation.”5 The first two lines of the poem are pertinent to Nakanokimi’s witty remark. The moon, hidden by mountains, refers to the truth, which can be revealed by a fan. Nakanokimi’s older sister, Ōigimi, teasingly joins her flight of fancy and comments that the plectrum has also been used to summon the sun.

Exiting the Maze199

Hers is an allusion to the Ryō-­ō6 dancer who represents a sixth-­century warrior prince of Lanling in Shandong province, China. Gao Changgong (formally named Gao Su) was so handsome that he had to wear a fierce mask to avoid enticing his own troops and to frighten his enemies on the battlefield (see S: 634n*; W: 801n3; T: 837n14). With his baton he turned back the setting sun in order to gain time for b ­ attle. Ōigimi is playing with the word for plectrum (5: 131: bachi), which also means “baton” when written with a ­different kanji. It is Nakanokimi who has the final word by insisting that her biwa plectrum has a more direct connection with the moon because the plectrum is stored inside the biwa in a sound hole called ingetsu (hidden moon).7 At this point, Japa­nese readers may also recall another meaning of the word bachi, one that is presumably not intended by Ōigimi: “divine punishment.” It is remarkable that this kaimami, inspired by m ­ usic, is dominated by wordplay and conversation. Although Kaoru is captivated by the sisters’ dignified and graceful beauty, he is most fascinated by their exchange of witty remarks. Just as he had been drawn to hearing and seeing them because of the stories he had heard about them, they themselves evoke the old tales (5: 132: mukashi monogatari) that he had often heard young nyōbo read aloud.8 Norma Field uses the elegant expression of “visual quotation,” not only for Kaoru’s association of the scene before him with monogatari but also for the readers’ sense of déjà vu from earlier kaimami in the Genji.9 The allusive conversation among the sisters evokes images associated with Buddhist enlightenment (Nakanokimi’s reference to her plectrum making visible the full moon) and with the secular super­natu­ral (Ōigimi’s reference to the masked warrior prince’s baton returning the setting sun to its zenith). Although Kaoru had always thought that scenes from old romances w ­ ere unreliable if not worthless, he is now impressed by the sisters’ nimble exercise of the imagination. It occurs to him that ­women do have intellectual qualities in addition to religious and secular ambitions. Nakanokimi’s identification with someone who achieves enlightenment by raising the plectrum to make visible the full moon is especially bold, since ­women ­were so very rarely believed capable of attaining Buddhist enlightenment. Ōigimi’s secular military example anticipates her need to ward off, by order of her ­father, the men who court her. At first, the “Hashihime” kaimami seems to pre­sent a picture-­book romantic scene, with the man having exerted himself by journeying to a place where he finds two sisters engaged in making delightful m ­ usic and

200

The Genealogical Maze

witty conversation in the light of the full moon. Yet when the sisters are informed of Kaoru’s presence, ­everything seems to go awry. They seem no longer capable of the verbal virtuosity that Kaoru had overheard and admired. Consequently, he plunges into awkward verbosity, and they fall ­silent. At this point, Bennokimi, the sisters’ attendant, takes charge of the situation. She is anything but reticent. The princesses are shy in front of ­others, she explains, because the prince has made them so. He has imposed his otherworldliness on ­others and sequestered his daughters in an ascetic environment designed to make them resemble goddesses. As a first cousin of the prince’s late wife, Bennokimi criticizes Hachi no miya ­directly: “ ‘His Highness has deci­ded to live as if he did not belong to the ­human race’ ” (S: 788; T: 838–839; 5: 135–136). Her criticism dispels the religious aura that had drawn Kaoru to Uji in the first place. As the sole survivor of the second generation of Genji characters, Bennokimi is a key figure in the Uji chapters. As the dau­gh­ter of Kashiwagi’s wet nurse, she can enlighten Kaoru about his origins. In her late fifties and preoccupied by thinking about ­dying, she feels compelled to recount the first installment of her story of the secret of his birth. She begins to do this with a series of hints and veiled references to an unnamed guards captain and his unnamed brother, who is now a grand councilor. Since it would be difficult for Kaoru to turn around abruptly in his devotion to the prince, Bennokimi withholds the final point of her tale (that Tō no Chūjō’s son, Kashiwagi, not Genji, is Kaoru’s biological ­father). Perhaps the presence of the princesses is an additional reason for not revealing more. Overwhelmed by the possibility of gaining a new ­vision of his life, Kaoru announces his departure, ironically to the bell of the Uji monastery, where Hachi no miya is in retreat. However, he does not leave quite yet. Although Hachi no miya is still very much on his mind, Kaoru now includes the prince’s daughters in his parting thoughts, which are, as always, inspired by heavy mists. His heart goes out to them in a waka about parting at dawn, unable to see Mount Oyama and its Chinese black pines through the mists. Ōigimi replies with a waka, in which she emphasizes the pain of parting aggravated by the thickening autumn mists. There is also a suggestion that these mists obscure the Buddhist path of enlightenment to the peak of the mountain. This exchange stops Kaoru in his tracks. Before he leaves the princesses’ east side of the ­house, he laments at some length that he had said

Exiting the Maze201

so l­ittle. He then goes to the west veranda to contemplate the Uji river, where boatmen toil incessantly to eke out a living. He wonders just how safe he is in his jeweled tower (5: 141: tama no utena). Is he like one of those struggling boatmen? He likens himself to them in a self-­pitying waka in which he claims to know the “Princess of the Bridge” (hashihime), an allusion to an anonymous poem about the Uji Bridge. The hashihime is presumably Ōigimi. He imagines that her sleeves are as drenched as his, not by the river, but by her tears. Kaoru’s waka expresses his shifting sense of self as he appears to want to strip himself of his high social rank and his religious ambitions in order to experience ordinary men’s lives, in order to submit to hardship and loneliness. The identity of hashihime, which he poetically ascribes to Ōigimi, is similarly radical in that it transports her out of her ­father’s ascetic confinement and into the realm of myth and romance. The hashihime legend, which began with nightly visits to the princess from a male river deity, evolved into the story of an “angry wife” who lost her husband to a sea deity. In its final version, the legend concerned an entirely secular princess of the Uji Bridge who spreads out her robe while vainly waiting for her lover (see KKS 689). As Norma Field notes, the story moves “from satisfaction through defiance to a frozen ac­cep­tance of permanent absence.”10 The second set of waka therefore hardly propels the romance-­in-­the-­making forward. ­After his return to the capital, Kaoru is preoccupied with thoughts of Bennokimi’s tale and the princesses’ beauty. Bemused by the possibility of connecting with the genealogical line of his presumed u ­ ncle, Hachi no miya, Kaoru believes, wrongly, that the Uji sisters are his first cousins. Although he realizes that he is departing from his religious path, he is not yet ready to strike out ­wholeheartedly in a new direction. In a letter to the Uji sisters, he refrains from making romantic commitments. He also sends gifts and writes to Hachi no miya, who reveals to his daughters that he has discussed with Kaoru the possibility of guardianship. He ­ istake Kaoru’s letters for love letters. warns them that they should not m In the eyes of the prince, Kaoru is still a seeker of enlightenment rather than one of “the triflers the world seems to produce these days” (S: 792; 5: 144). Kaoru may not be a trifler, but he is definitely a plotter. His kaimami of two sisters carries with it the potential for violating the incest taboo (as in Ise 1). Relations with full sisters ­were forbidden in Heian times,11 because such a relationship could cause conflict within the ­family and

202

The Genealogical Maze

discord between the sisters, as one of the two would have to be abandoned. Although he has spoken only with the older of the two Uji sisters, Kaoru has become emotionally involved with the younger one as well. She, too, has charmed him. But which of the two sisters does he ­really want? In earlier Genji kaimami, it is the shadow w ­ oman who is the true aim of the man’s longing. In the “Hashihime” kaimami, however, there appears to be no such shadow w ­ oman. Kaoru does not recall the Akashi empress’s First Princess (Onna ichi no miya), whom he had glimpsed when both of them ­were children, nor does he recall at the time of the kaimami proper the retired Reizei emperor’s First Princess, who had quite intrigued him long before he came upon the Uji sisters. Usually, such a projection of a shadow ­woman upon the actually seen ­woman ­ oman evokes another on the basis of resemoccurs because the seen w blance. Kaoru has no compelling image of another w ­ oman to pro­ject upon the seen ­women. Instead, Kaoru sees two sisters who, by virtue of their blood relationship, resemble or mirror each other. For the moment, no shadow ­woman is needed, but one of the two sisters must eventually become the shadow of the other if the incest taboo is to remain inviolate. But which is to be courted and which is to become the shadow w ­ oman? Kaoru deals with the dilemma of which of the two sisters to court by telling his friend Niou about them and urging him to make the difficult journey to Uji to see for himself the prizes there. Such a generous offer is credible to Niou because he thinks of Kaoru as monklike in his single-­minded quest for religious enlightenment. Kaoru, however, does not wait ­until Niou can ­free himself of his princely obligations in order to undertake the trip to Uji. Driven by his desire to hear the rest of Bennokimi’s tale, Kaoru returns to Uji early in the tenth month. During this visit, Hachi no miya urges his daughters to display their musical skills, but they refuse to perform on command. The prince is somewhat more successful when he presses Kaoru to take on the guardianship of his daughters. Although refusing any “firm commitment,” Kaoru promises “to be true to every syllable I have spoken” (S: 795; 5: 151). Kaoru’s encounter with Bennokimi is more decisive and rewarding because it enables him to discover his true identity as the son of Kashiwagi, the grandson of Tō no Chūjō, and the great-­grandson of Ōmiya, the Kiritsubo emperor’s full sister. He is, in short, part of a genealogical line with whose members Genji was in open competition. Bennokimi’s motives are not stated, but, as Kashiwagi’s menotogo, she might be seen to represent Kashiwagi’s intentions for Kaoru and even play a maternal role. In her very first conversation with Kaoru, she questioned Hachi

Exiting the Maze203

no miya’s asceticism as if to encourage Kaoru to become romantically interested in the prince’s daughters rather than making a religious commitment to the prince. Is she now divulging the secret of Kaoru’s birth in order to divert his attention from the rustic Uji princesses and to revive his early aspirations to marry an imperial princess? That possibility cannot be altogether ruled out because Bennokimi lets Kaoru know that she herself passed up the chance—­because of “those old complications,” meaning Kashiwagi’s illicit affair—to serve “the sister [Kokiden nyōgo] of my young master [Kashiwagi], the lady who is a consort of the Reizei emperor” (S: 796; T: 845; OB2: 482), that is, the mo­ther of Reizei’s First Princess. What­ever Bennokimi’s motives, Kaoru tells Hachi no miya that he must leave to pay a sick visit to the retired Reizei emperor’s First Princess. Now knowing his true parentage, Kaoru sets out to pursue his aunt Kokiden nyōgo’s dau­gh­ter. In the eyes of the world, the First Princess would be his ­uncle Reizei’s dau­gh­ter. ­Whether as Genji’s son or Kashiwagi’s, Kaoru is related to this First Princess through her ­father, Reizei (who is believed to be Genji’s half-­brother), or through her mo­ther, Kokiden nyōgo (who is Kashiwagi’s sister). ­Later Kaoru will set out to court another First Princess, the dau­gh­ter of the Kinjō emperor and the Akashi empress, hence Kaoru’s maternal ­uncle’s dau­gh­ter and his putative half-­sister’s dau­gh­ter (see Figure  13). As is increasingly obvious from these intricate kinship relations, the Uji characters are part of true and false genealogies rooted in their ancestors’ forbidden affairs and secret offspring. A Blind Date and a Second Look in “Shii ga moto” Inspired by Kaoru’s account of his “Hashihime” kaimami, Niou, the First Princess’s brother, becomes acquainted with Ōigimi and Nakanokimi ­toward the end of the second month of the following year. On his return from a pilgrimage to Hasedera (Hatsuse), Niou stops in Uji and is met there by Kaoru. For Niou, the religious journey is merely a pretext for taking Kaoru up on his invitation to look in on hidden beauty at Uji. Together with their retinue, the two friends repair to Yūgiri’s villa (see Figure 5), which is located across the river from Hachi no miya’s villa. There they enjoy ­music and games. While Kaoru pays a visit to Hachi no miya, Niou, who feels that his rank forbids frivolous escapades, remains in Yūgiri’s villa. He does not, however, hesitate to write a poem for Kaoru to deliver to the prince. While Kaoru is entertained, Niou frets and then sends another poem. This one, which is accompanied by a branch of cherry blossoms, is meant for Kaoru’s hidden beauties rather than for

204

The Genealogical Maze

their ascetic f­ ather. The sisters are receptive, and they send a poetic reply, noting the fleeting nature of their visitors. ­After his return to the capital, Niou sends many letters without ­Kaoru’s mediation. Nakanokimi is instructed by her f­ather to answer but not to excite Niou. In the seventh month, Kaoru visits Uji again, this time mostly to learn of Hachi no miya’s last will and his hopes for his daughters. At the end of the eighth month, Hachi no miya dies in the mountain monastery, prevented from having taken full religious vows by his lingering attachment to his daughters. Kaoru does what he can to provide for Ōigimi and Nakanokimi. Although Niou is still reluctant to risk his reputation by visiting the sisters, he dares send his condolences by letter. His mournful waka about their loss is answered by Ōigimi. Niou’s romantic feelings leave him tapping in the dark. Unlike Kaoru, he has never had a good look at the sisters. He therefore cannot distinguish between them by their physical features, and their words seem interchangeable. Niou is left to won­der, “Which princess would be which?” (S: 810; 5: 186). If Kaoru, typically irresolute, wants Niou to choose one of the sisters and to leave him the other by default, he must do something to bring this about. On a visit in the snow before the new year, Kaoru tells the sisters about Niou, virtually endorsing his rival’s worth as a suitor. This rival, Kaoru’s nephew through his mo­ther’s line, is enticed to reach out to Uji to link his own successful Akashi line with Hachi no miya’s frustrated line. Proposing nothing less than to act as go-­between, Kaoru asks Ōigimi which of the two sisters has answered Niou’s letters. Caught in a situation that might lead to false conclusions about her involvement in correspondence with Niou, Ōigimi denies having answered any but Kaoru’s letters. Kaoru offers, for the first time, to move the sisters to the capital, an idea that Nakanokimi resists. The sisters’ reaction reflects their profound disturbance over the possibility of disobeying their ­father’s last will. It is, therefore, only appropriate that Kaoru’s visit ends by his paying homage to Hachi no miya in his chapel, which presumably earns him some credit in the orphaned sisters’ eyes. During the visit, Kaoru is painfully aware of the prince’s absence and of his own failure to follow his mentor on the Buddhist path. To the chapel he retires. At the end of Chapter 46 (“Shii ga moto”), Kaoru repeats his “Hashihime” kaimami of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi—­ but with a difference. This time the sisters are not looking at the full moon but worshipping in the Buddha chapel that forms a buffer zone between

Exiting the Maze205

the late prince’s west hisashi and the princesses’ room on the east side of the moya (see 5: 206n26). This time, it is not their ­music but their apparent devotion to the memory of the prince that fascinates Kaoru as he looks again, not through an outer fence but through a small hole in the indoor sliding panel. A sudden gust of wind requires the w ­ omen to move a curtain-­stand (kichō) to prevent kaimami from outside—­ which ironically clears away the only obstacle to Kaoru’s kaimami from within the interior. Nakanokimi is the first to step into his field of vision. Holding a rosary, she is dressed like a pilgrim, but her profile stirs amorous thoughts as Kaoru associates her looks with those of the First Princess, Niou’s sister. In the “Shii ga moto” kaimami, this dau­gh­ter of the Kinjō emperor ­ oman that Kaoru did not and the Akashi empress becomes the shadow w have in the “Hashihime” kaimami. Next, Kaoru sees Ōigimi. She seems to sense her vulnerability and complains that the fusuma is not protected by a byōbu. Although a lady-­ in-­waiting reassures her that there is a screen on the other side of the fusuma, she remains ner­vous about a potential voyeur. Kaoru is attracted to her melancholy air and emaciated looks, more so than to Nakanokimi’s beauty and resemblance to the First Princess.12 Kaoru’s final glimpse is of Nakanokimi boldly smiling in his direction. Like Nokiba no ogi in “Utsusemi” and like Murasaki and Tamakazura in “Nowaki,” Nakanokimi seems to welcome rather than fear a male gaze. She seems readier to see courtship as a game. Although Kaoru’s first kaimami progressed through the vari­ous phases of courtship, it did not culminate in sexual intercourse. What, then, does this second kaimami achieve? There is the familiar pattern of substitution (Nakanokimi for the Akashi empress’s First Princess), but nothing comes of it. Nakanokimi is eventually taken by Niou rather than by Kaoru, which clears the way for him to concentrate on Ōigimi, but Ōigimi, who feels that she has violated her f­ather’s last wishes, reacts coldly to Kaoru’s advances, choosing rather to starve herself to death. And the Akashi empress’s First Princess is of such exalted status that she is not likely ever to marry. This leaves Kaoru, who has been interested in three ­women, with no one. An Incestuous Peek in “Agemaki” On the anniversary of Hachi no miya’s death, Kaoru spends an uneventful night with Ōigimi in Hachi no miya’s chapel—­hardly a place conducive to courtship. ­After this night, Ōigimi feels pressure from those

206

The Genealogical Maze

around her to marry Kaoru, but she is quite unwilling to do so. Using Bennokimi as a go-­between, she asks Kaoru to take Nakanokimi as a substitute. Although Bennokimi harshly criticizes Ōigimi for the otherworldly Buddhist commitments she inherited from her ascetic f­ ather, she does as Ōigimi asks and tries vainly to convince Kaoru to transfer his affections to Nakanokimi. The result is a fiasco. Seeking Ōigimi, Kaoru enters the sisters’ room, but Ōigimi, in consternation, slips away and spends the night “huddled in the cramped space between a screen and a shabby wall” (S: 834; 5: 242). Finding himself with Nakanokimi rather than with Ōigimi, Kaoru decides that she is fresh, winsome, and, superficially, more appealing than her older sister. He can imagine marrying her. But nothing happens. He passes the night with her chastely, as earlier with Ōigimi. (The scene in Chapter 47 [“Agemaki”] has often been compared to Genji’s pursuit of Utsusemi, her escape, and his vicarious lovemaking to her stepdaughter Nokiba no ogi.) In the aftermath of his night with Nakanokimi, Kaoru is confused, wondering if he has betrayed Hachi no miya’s trust. Both sisters are now quite miserable, and Kaoru is suicidal (5: 246: mi mo nagetsubeki kokochi suru).13 Unable to substitute Nakanokimi for Ōigimi, Kaoru entices Niou to seek her out. In contrast to the indecisive Kaoru, who spends another wordy but uneventful night with Ōigimi, Niou has his way with ­Nakanokimi without the niceties of courtship by kaimami or any other ado. Accepting her sister’s marriage as inevitable, Ōigimi, with heavy heart, prepares the nuptial nights for Nakanokimi and Niou. Not unexpectedly, Ōigimi falls ill as she broods over having broken her ­father’s will by allowing her younger sister to marry an unreliable prince. Niou’s courtly airs endear him to Nakanokimi’s ­women at Uji, who are hopeful that they will soon be able to abandon isolated Uji and become part of their mistress’s urban entourage, but his own status is as much in limbo as theirs. Since the first son of the Kinjō emperor and the Akashi empress was named crown prince when his ­father ascended the throne, a single misstep on Niou’s part might ruin his chances to become the next crown prince. Niou’s f­ather has deci­ded whom Niou should marry: Yūgiri’s dau­gh­ter, Rokunokimi. Niou’s mo­ther, the Akashi empress, agrees to link Murasaki’s favorite “grandson” to Genji’s line. Since taking Nakanokimi for a wife is certain to anger Niou’s parents, Kaoru shields his friend from parental scrutiny. As Niou rides off, Uji bound, Kaoru, while worrying that covering for Niou may have fateful consequences, becomes aware of the youthfulness of the Akashi empress, who is thought to be his half-­sister but is, in reality, his maternal ­uncle’s

Exiting the Maze207

consort and also his f­ ather’s second cousin. He wonders if her dau­gh­ter, the First Princess, resembles her. She would be Kaoru’s third cousin through his ­father’s line and his maternal ­uncle’s dau­gh­ter. At court, Niou is punished for his lack of interest in Yūgiri’s sixth dau­gh­ter, Rokunokimi. His cousin is simply bestowed upon him. Niou’s response to this arranged marriage is to run wild. Although he has been ordered to resume residence in the palace, he still manages to intrude upon his full sister, the First Princess, who recalls, in his eyes, both Reizei’s inaccessible First Princess and the more physically accessible but now geo­ graph­i­cally distant Nakanokimi. Longing for the latter, he plans to woo her with some of the pictures that his sister keeps in her residence, the east wing of the southeast quarter of the Rokujō-in. In order to obtain an especially romantic picture from Episode 49 in Ise monogatari, Niou consults his sister. When she wonders which of the pictures scattered around he is referring to, he slips one u ­ nder her blinds and steals a glimpse of her, which transforms consultation into courtship. He whispers a seductive waka. Although most scholars have denied the transgressive nature of the episode because of the Ise 49 context,14 the scene depicted loses its provocative complexity ­unless it is understood as Niou’s desire for an incestuous embrace. The First Princess’s response is silence. As rumors about Niou’s imminent marriage to Rokunokimi reach the Uji sisters, Ōigimi, who is already ailing, goes into a steep decline, worrying about her sister and their broken promise to their ­father. A compassionate and reassuring letter from Niou helps Nakanokimi to focus her longing on him, but Ōigimi, morbidly attached to her memory of Hachi no miya, refuses food and fades away. Kaoru is at her bedside in her final moments. He gazes at her beauty, which he sees as undiminished by her death. It is a scene that powerfully evokes Yūgiri’s forbidden glimpse of the dead Murasaki.

In Mists of Midair: Ukifune A Living Icon in “Yadorigi” Ever since Ōigimi’s death in the eleventh month, Kaoru has been searching for ways to replace and commemorate her. He is instrumental in moving Nakanokimi to the capital to be installed as Niou’s wife in his Nijō-in. Kaoru’s double loss, of Ōigimi to death and of Nakanokimi to marriage, compels him to repeat the act that led him to his spectacular sight in “Hashihime.” In Chapter 48 (“Sawarabi”), he finds the very hole in the fusuma through which he had first seen the two beautiful Uji sisters.

208

The Genealogical Maze

Knowing full well of the futility of his attempt to repeat his kaimami, he looks and, predictably, sees nothing. As a tactful way to rid herself of unwelcome advances, Nakanokimi decides to reveal a secret in Chapter 49 (“Yadorigi”): Hachi no miya had a third dau­gh­ter, Ukifune (see Figure 12). As her sobriquet of “a boat upon the ­water” implies, Ukifune has been adrift all her life. She embodies the existential condition of wandering (sasurai). That we cannot be sure where she was born is indicative of her fate. Presumably conceived in the Uji villa by Hachi no miya and Chūjō no kimi, his late wife’s niece, Ukifune is taken by her mo­ther to the distant province of Hitachi, allowing the prince to retain his image as a saintly figure. There she was raised by her mo­ther and an unloving boorish stepfather. Sadly she also underwent a traumatic experience when her marriage to a lieutenant (Sakon no Shōshō) is arranged and then called off at the last moment. In embarrassment over Ukifune’s treatment, her mo­ther asks her surviving unofficial stepdaughter, Nakanokimi, to provide shelter in the capital for her troubled dau­gh­ter. Nakanokimi, who has thus discovered the secret of Ukifune’s birth, hesitates, torn between compassion and loyalty to the memory of her ­father, who had fathered Ukifune but never recognized her. Nakanokimi’s lady-­in-­waiting Taifu appeals successfully to her kindness, and Ukifune is placed, we are told in meticulous detail, in the north part of the west hisashi in Nakanokimi’s west wing of the Nijō-in, earlier known as Genji’s Nijō residence, inherited from Kiritsubo and passed on to Niou (see Figure 6). Nakanokimi suggests to Kaoru that the newly discovered Ukifune might become the longed-­for substitute (5: 437: hitogata) for Ōigimi.15 By pointing to Ukifune, Nakanokimi diverts attention from herself as a potential ­human substitute. Unaware of her motivation, Kaoru is fascinated by the news. Even as he professes his absolute devotion to Ōigimi, he tells Nakanokimi that Ukifune, like the main Buddha statue in the mountain village (5: 439: yamazato no honzon), might serve as Ōigimi’s living hitogata. She could become the equivalent of a statue (hitogata) or a painting (e) before which worshippers set offerings. It is clear that, for Kaoru, Ukifune is assuming a religious aura before she even makes an appearance in the flesh. Nakanokimi is not at all pleased by such ruminations. The idea of a work of art as a hitogata for Ōigimi arouses ­Nakanokimi’s sense of the betrayal always inherent in substitution of any kind. Kaoru’s idea reminds her of the Shintō misogi purification rites of floating dolls down the river, Mitarashigawa, to carry away evil. She recoils from the notion of turning a live h ­ uman being like Ukifune

Kiritsubo Emperor

Ōmiya Minister Tō no Chūjō

Genji Hachi no miya

kita no kata (principal wife)

Akashi Empress

Chūjō no kimi

Vice-Governor of Hitachi Kashiwagi

Ōigimi N I O U

K A O R U

Nakanokimi Ukifune

Male Female Marriage Affair / Liaison Amorous Attempt Figure 12. The Uji connection.

210

The Genealogical Maze

into a Shintō purification sacrifice or a Buddhist statue, for in such a scheme, the replica is elevated to divine status while the original is betrayed or abused. To her, Kaoru’s idea seems more like getting rid of Ōigimi rather than preserving her memory. ­After the revelation of Ukifune’s existence, Kaoru decides, at the end of the ninth month, to launch a major architectural enterprise. With the Uji abbot, he discusses his plan to move Hachi no miya’s Uji villa to the abbot’s mountain t­ emple (5: 443: yamadera; see Figure 5) and convert it into a sacred hall (5: 443: dō). The dismantled and reconstructed villa will become a ­temple to enshrine the spirits of Hachi no miya and Ōigimi. He justifies his plan to the abbot by pointing out that the original site of Hachi no miya’s villa cannot become a ­temple (5: 444: tera) because it will eventually pass from Nakanokimi to Niou. He merely hints that his elaborate plan includes not only transforming Hachi no miya’s residence into a religious worship hall by relocating it but also having “something ­else put up in its place” (S: 919; 5: 444). That something e­ lse is a new villa to ­house Ukifune (whom he has not yet seen). (Kaoru does not mention Ukifune to the abbot who, ironically, has long known about Hachi no miya’s secret and Ukifune’s existence.) During the phase of reconstruction, Kaoru’s confidante Bennokimi reveals another bit of information about Kaoru’s biological ­father. On his deathbed, Kashiwagi had expressed his desire to see his newborn son. This revelation increases Kaoru’s longing to meet Ukifune, who has been similarly deprived of a chance to know her f­ather. Kaoru also becomes aware of the contrast between his own f­ ather, who wanted to see—­and perhaps to acknowledge—­his illegitimate offspring, and Ukifune’s ­father, who wanted neither. Telling Kaoru of Ukifune’s desire to visit Hachi no miya’s grave, Bennokimi encourages him in his plan to transform the villa into a ­temple, thereby accruing merit ­toward the salvation of Hachi no miya and Ōigimi. Kaoru and Bennokimi part by exchanging poetry in which the image of a “rotting, ivy-­covered tree” (S: 921; see 5: 450: kuchiki) is prominent, referring perhaps to Hachi no miya’s secret, to which Bennokimi, like the Uji abbot, is privy.16 ­After dutifully informing Nakanokimi of his architectural changes to the Uji landscape and receiving her blessing, Kaoru prepares himself for some major changes. Nakanokimi is pregnant with Niou’s child, and he is engaged to marry the Kinjō emperor’s dau­gh­ter by the Fujitsubo nyōgo, the Second Princess (Onna ni no miya [see Figure 11]). Still fascinated by the Uji sisters, he does not seem e­ ager for his wife to bear a child.

Exiting the Maze211

Instead, he longs to see Nakanokimi’s child, wishing, it seems, that it ­were his instead of Niou’s. At the end of the fourth month, ­after the Kamo Festival, Kaoru inspects the sacred hall (midō), within the Uji abbot’s mountain t­emple complex, which he has had constructed from the main hall of Hachi no miya’s Uji villa (see Figure 5). He is on his way to pay another visit to Bennokimi, who is living in a section of the prince’s villa that has not been removed,17 when he sees a pro­cession coming across the Uji Bridge and heading ­toward the villa (5: 475: kono miya) that he is building for Ukifune (see Plate 9).18 His curiosity aroused, he sends messengers to ­offer the travelers a place to spend the night, cautioning them only that a guest is staying on the north side of the villa (5: 475: kita omote).19 As the carriage approaches the west end of Bennokimi’s gallery (5: 475: rō no nishi no tsuma), Kaoru scrambles to shield himself from view. He watches as a w ­ oman alights from the carriage. Although her face is hidden by a fan, Kaoru immediately recognizes the late Ōigimi in this ­woman’s movements and posture. He cannot know that Ukifune is returning to the capital from a pilgrimage to Hatsuse (Hasedera), but he is confident that the w ­ oman must be Hachi no miya’s unacknowledged dau­gh­ter. Remarkably, Ukifune senses Kaoru’s presence even before she steps from the carriage into the building and feels disgracefully exposed (5: 476: ayashiku arawanaru ­kokochi koso sure). The spatial relationships of this momentous kaimami are unusual. In the kaimami prototype, the man, who is outside, approaches the ­woman, who is hidden inside. Yet despite a reversal of space and motion in Kaoru’s “Yadorigi” kaimami, the gender relationship is the usual one in terms of visual targeting. The hidden, motionless man looks in secret at the ­woman, ­here in motion. Most remarkable about this kaimami are the high degree of awareness on the part of the ­woman observed and the observer’s knowledge of that awareness. This heightened consciousness increases both the observer’s ner­vous­ness about being discovered and the ­woman’s need to protect herself from being seen. The notion that she must be concealing her true self also gives Kaoru license to pro­ject ­others onto her freely. As the unforgettable tableau of Ukifune’s carriage on the Uji Bridge illustrates (see Plate 9), riding a carriage from one place to another evokes remembrances of things past. With the carriage’s capacity to bridge places comes its capacity to link points in time. Carriages allow ­women to move

212

The Genealogical Maze

in space, literally widening their horizon into territories ordinarily more easily accessible to men. Although there is a difference between living in the shinden and riding in a carriage, one is like the other in terms of physical constraints and faceless display. Yet the uniquely unsettling advantage of a carriage r­ ide is that traversing space and time has the ­potential to become a volatile, jolting, creative, and even enlightening experience. Ukifune, by voicing her anxiety about being seen, even if she does not know by whom, is expressing her heightened awareness that someone might recognize her. Like Kaoru, she is ambivalent about recognizing herself as a person with a history because her history, like his, was painfully denied by her parents. Like Kaoru, she was stripped of her legitimate place in the genealogical line. Uncertain about who they are and where they are ­going, the characters of the Uji chapters seem to wander in a per­sis­ tent genealogical mist, always aware of possi­ble collisions with wanderers like themselves. There is, in fact, a good deal of uncertainty and instability as Ukifune and her ­women prepare to retire for the night. Ukifune’s party has been misled about the location of the “guest” and left in the dark about his identity. Although Kaoru may have put up some of his men in the north hisashi, there is no “guest.” Kaoru has deceived the ­women in order to allay their fears while he stations himself in the interior of the newly constructed shinden, which still lacks protective blinds. Kaoru is in a futama20 room with lowered shutters. Through a chink in the fusuma that divides his hideout from Ukifune’s room (which may be the east hisashi or the first room to the east),21 Kaoru has his first look at Ukifune. As a precaution, a four-­shaku-­[foot-­]high byōbu has been set up in her room, but Kaoru’s chink is even higher than her screen. Unfortunately for Kaoru, Ukifune—­still suspicious—­has turned her face away from the fusuma. Kaoru turns his face away when Ukifune’s rustic attendants begin to crunch some chestnuts. He overcomes his revulsion and watches intently as Ukifune, who had dozed off, is awakened to receive a visit from Bennokimi. Kaoru has his first clear view of Ukifune’s face when she turns away shyly from her inquisitive visitor. Kaoru’s initial reaction is to liken her looks to Ōigimi and her voice to Nakanokimi, but the visual impression overwhelms the aural one. The sight of Ukifune moves Kaoru to tears as he recognizes in her not only her half-­sister Ōigimi but also her ­father, Hachi no miya. In great emotional turmoil, Kaoru feels himself linked to her through a vow (5: 481: chigiri). The term chigiri is usually interpreted in a Buddhist con-

Exiting the Maze213

text, but it can also allude to lovers’ vows.22 The ambiguity of the term allows us to understand it as referring to his bonds to Hachi no miya (religious) and to Ōigimi (romantic). Clearly, Ukifune has become a living icon. Kaoru and Ukifune are in constant movement; one might even say, on the run. Theirs is a long and painful quest that involves relating the past to the pre­sent and rediscovering and reclaiming their spot on the genealogical map. Kaoru engages in kaimami from a position of uncertain lineage, and the weight of complicated genealogical circumstance greatly affects his motivation for and his execution of kaimami. What nonetheless draws him to Ukifune again and again is her similar quest for genealogical placement. Although they recognize their affinity to each other in this res­pect, it is for this same reason that they must also realize their inability to provide stability to each other. Anomalous Courtship in “Azumaya” Kaoru’s kaimami of Ukifune in “Yadorigi” in the spring of his twenty-­seventh year is followed by Niou’s kaimami of her in Chapter 50 (“Azumaya”) in the autumn.23 Although only a few months pass between the two kaimami, Ukifune is not the same person for Niou that she was for Kaoru. Niou’s Opportunistic Kaimami of Ukifune.  Returning at dawn from the palace where he had visited his ailing mo­ther, Niou meets a carriage leaving his Nijō-in. He suspects that the carriage holds a male lover parting at dawn, as was the custom of courtship. The discovery of a ­woman causes much laughter among Niou’s escorts24 but fails to dispel his suspicion. He questions Nakanokimi, who explains that the visitor was a long-­time friend of her lady-­in-­waiting. ­After spending the day in the shinden, he returns in the eve­ning to Nakanokimi’s west wing (6: 53n14: nishi no tai). There he is rebuffed because Nakanokimi, not having expected him to call upon her, has seized an auspicious ­opportunity to wash her hair. Niou is left to wander. He comes across Ukifune, who has been assigned the north end of the west hisashi, where she is, presumably, safely out of sight. She is seated, looking out upon the garden. Peering through the opening in a sliding door, he sees a byōbu only a foot or so away. The byōbu is partially folded up, which allows him to see a kichō set against the blinds at a right angle to the byōbu. Ukifune’s robes are visible

214

The Genealogical Maze

because one of the curtain’s strips (6: 54: katabira hitoe) is folded over the crossbeam.25 Since Niou proceeds to open the fusuma and to step into the hisashi, he must be coming from inside the moya. Considering the typical layout of the shinden complex, one can only be startled by so many spatial impossibilities in one scene.26 According to geomantic rules, a garden brook should originate in a spring in the northeast of the property and be channeled between the shinden and the east wing, flowing through gardens ­under the connecting galleries to the eastern edge of the graveled south courtyard, where it should turn westward to flow out from the southwest of the estate.27 To see what she is said to be seeing, Ukifune should be in the east rather than the west wing. There are other problems. If the kichō runs parallel to the blinds (6: 54: kichō, su ni soete tatetari) and the byōbu at a right angle to it, then Niou must already be inside the hisashi when he sees Ukifune. But the hisashi is not normally partitioned by fusuma.28 Furthermore, if Ukifune’s robes are spilling out from ­behind the kichō situated parallel to the blinds, she must have her back to the garden that she is supposed to be contemplating. Still more puzzling is the fact that the garden is enclosed by a gallery, which would be very uncommon for the northwest corner of a shinden-­style complex.29 It seems unlikely that Murasaki Shikibu had forgotten the architectural details of the shinden complex with which she was very familiar from childhood. It seems probable that her concern for architectural accuracy was overridden by the need to picture Ukifune in an irresistible pose. Rather than having Niou’s kaimami take place while she is reading or writing or taking a nap, it may have seemed more poetic to pose ­Ukifune looking out at a brook (6: 54: yarimizu) meandering through colorful flowers and tall rocks in an intimately enclosed garden space. Niou’s exact spot and the oddity in the placement of the byōbu and the kichō may have bothered Heian readers as ­little as the missing roof in a paint­er’s depiction of kaimami. It may also be that the spatial confusion was intended to reflect the unpredictability of location caused by Niou’s aimless wandering and Ukifune’s surprise when he reveals his presence. The kaimami proper is extremely brief. In most kaimami, the moment of suspense is drawn out to intensify longing before the man’s ­discreet withdrawal in preparation for further activity. While it may be exciting to have Niou accelerate the move to obtain his desire before he is discovered by Ukifune’s attendants, there is something unseemly about his rush for immediate gratification. Ukifune’s poetic pose seems wasted on him. As he opens the fusuma to see her better, she realizes that some-

Exiting the Maze215

one is near but does not suspect who it is. Still partially hidden by the screen and increasingly enveloped by dusk, Niou touches her robes and then seizes the fan-­holding hand that is her last defense. She is shocked, wondering if this impetuous intruder is the man she had heard was interested in her, a man particularly well known for his fragrance (Kaoru). Before ­either of the two has time to sort out the other’s identity, they are interrupted. Ukifune’s wet nurse (menoto) barges in from b ­ ehind the screen opposite the one that Niou had used as his momentary cover. Her intrusion seems only to increase Niou’s determination to lie down boldly next to Ukifune, who now seems ready to welcome him. As if the scene ­were not crowded enough already, Taifu’s dau­gh­ter Ukon30 comes by to close the shutters and prepare for nightfall. Finding no lamps lit and the shutters already closed, she raises the shutters again to see just where she is ­going and what needs to be done. To the dismay of Ukifune and Niou, Ukon realizes what is happening. While she and the nurse won­der aloud how to break the bad news to Nakanokimi, Niou wonders to himself who his beautiful young find might be. In their eagerness to proclaim Niou as the romantic hero of the Uji chapters, critics have overlooked the absurdity of this kaimami. Watching Niou rush from gazing to grabbing is rather like watching a video at accelerated speed. The grotesque, neck-­breaking succession of the intrusion of Ukifune’s nurse and Ukon adds to the confusion. Niou and Ukifune are still absorbed in wondering who’s who when Niou is told that his mo­ther has taken a turn for the worse. His first reaction is to stay with Ukifune. It seems that he is weary of rushing to his mo­ther’s bedside and ­eager to make the most of this romantic (if somewhat chaotic) opportunity. Niou’s transgression is d ­ ifferent from and less grave than Kaoru’s. Niou’s most serious potential taboo violation in the “Azumaya” kaimami concerns incestuous relations with his wife’s half-­sister (of ­different wombs). In his defense, one might argue that he does not know that he has encountered one of his wife’s blood relatives. Indeed, his first assumption—­that she must be some new maidservant—is not unreasonable. ­After all, he, unlike Kaoru, does not yet know that Nakanokimi has a half-­sister. Even if he had received a hint, he had no reason to suspect that this unknown beauty in his residence is his sister-­in-­law. Normally, only unmarried full sisters, not half-­sisters, ­were domiciled ­under the same roof. Adulterous betrayals of his principal and secondary wives are not likely to bother Niou for very long. More serious is the risk that dalliance with maidservants could jeopardize Niou’s ­future. His mo­ther,

216

The Genealogical Maze

the Akashi empress, seems to f­ avor him, her third son, to become crown prince ­after her first son, because he was the favorite “grandchild” of her foster mo­ther, Murasaki. In his restless search for romantic adventure, however, Niou repeatedly risks this chance, as if he wanted to defy her pressure to rise to the highest office. What distinguishes Niou from Kaoru is his quickness, motivated by the constraints imposed upon him by his princely status. He must act quickly because his mo­ther, the Akashi empress, continually threatens to restrain him by cutting short his experiences. By contrast, Kaoru feels no such need to rush. Impetuosity is slowed in his actions by his continued efforts to come to terms with the secret of his birth. The uncertainty of their social position and the nature of the psychological weights placed on these two men jointly determine their disposition in courtship. For Niou in the capital, there is no leisurely poetic contemplation of the scene before him, and there is no waka exchange with Ukifune in this kaimami. Ukifune’s ­women make the heroine aware of the identity of the perfumed intruder. She realizes just how close she came to offending her benefactor and half-­sister Nakanokimi, who, ­after she was informed of what happened (or, more importantly, what did not happen), is very understanding. Nonetheless, an unbearable tension arises that is poignantly captured in the Genji monogatari emaki. Although “Azumaya I” does not focus on the kaimami itself, the depiction of Ukifune’s confrontation with Nakanokimi during a monogatari reading evokes the half-­sisters’ awkward relationship in the aftermath of the incident. Watanabe Masako argues that an especially interest­ing feature in the illustration is the depiction of a half-­open door next to Ukifune. This obliquely hints at Prince Niou’s intrusion into Ukifune’s room, an episode not included in the text section of the emaki. . . . ​The depiction of a half-­open door stimulates the viewer’s memory of what happened just before the illustrated moment. . . . ​The uneasy feeling expressed by the peculiar diagonal of a standing screen at the center of the composition effectively reinforces that memory and makes it permeate the entire illustration.31

This emaki scene highlights the ­under­lying sibling conflict, whose origin was, as we have seen, Kaoru’s “Hashihime” and “Shii ga moto” kaimami at Uji. In the aftermath of those kaimami, tensions developed between Ōigimi and Nakanokimi because Kaoru felt that he must, if possi­ble, commit himself to one without abandoning the other. Kaoru’s

Exiting the Maze217

plan—to have Niou choose one sister and leave him the other by default—­ was concocted without consulting the ­women concerned. Ōigimi, in par­tic­u­lar, resisted manipulation and seemed in charge of her fate. Her ultimate form of re­sis­tance was to sacrifice herself, by starvation, at the (figurative) altar of the only man whom she wholly trusted: her f­ather. (She had been unaware of her ­father’s moral failings.) ­After Ōigimi’s death, Nakanokimi deflected Kaoru’s search for a substitute to Ukifune, who has no choice in the ­matter. And this provokes a new round of competition and sacrifice. While the earlier conflict between Ōigimi and Nakanokimi had involved Kaoru and Niou, the current conflict between Nakanokimi and Ukifune involves not only these two men (Niou in par­tic­u­lar), but also the sisters’ ­father. ­Until she learned of Ukifune, Nakanokimi had, like Ōigimi, blissfully believed in the saintliness of her ­father, but now she must see Ukifune as living evidence of Hachi no miya’s betrayal of her mo­ther with another ­woman. Unlike Ōigimi, who was spared such knowledge about her ­father, Nakanokimi is a survivor, not someone ready for self-­sacrifice. In addition, she has a child to compensate for the love wasted on her philandering husband. Her mellower disposition allows her to sympathize with Ukifune’s plight. The thematic focus of the Uji chapters is upon parental authority in matters matrimonial. In these dramatic chapters, Niou is pressured by his parents to marry Rokunokimi, when he much preferred Nakanokimi. Niou is shackled by his mo­ther and her expectations of his eventual ­ascent to her husband’s throne. Her bouts of illness have an uncanny ability to disrupt his courtship. Kaoru, for his part, has to juggle in his mind no fewer than three “fathers”—­ascribed (Genji), chosen (Hachi no miya), and biological (Kashiwagi)—­not to mention a mo­ther (the Third Princess) who behaves as if she ­were his sister. The Uji princesses, having lost their mo­ther at an early age (Ōigimi) and at birth (Nakanokimi), are dominated by their possessive ­father. Fortunate to have maternal backing, although dubious at times, Ukifune suffers from a boorish stepfather and, more importantly, from her biological ­father’s refusal of recognition. In short, the five main Uji characters are genealogically conflicted even before they become intricately intertwined. When Ukifune’s nurse tells Chūjō no kimi about her dau­gh­ter Ukifune’s scandalous involvement with her half-­sister’s husband, Chūjō no kimi is overwhelmed with shame. She hurries to remove Ukifune from Nakanokimi’s sight to the rustic “Eastern Cottage” (azumaya) in the Sanjō area, not far from Kaoru and the Third Princess’s Sanjō-in (see

218

The Genealogical Maze

Figure 6). Chūjō no kimi then returns to her nearby Hitachi h ­ ouse­hold in the city to supervise her husband’s beloved dau­gh­ter, Himegimi, married now to Sakon no Shōshō, the same lieutenant of the guards who had jilted Ukifune. Kaoru’s Arranged Kaimami of Ukifune.  The “Azumaya” chapter leads to Kaoru’s liaison with Ukifune. That same autumn, he goes to Uji to inspect the midō that has replaced the old one that was moved from the villa of Hachi no miya to the abbot’s monastery in the Uji hills (see Figure 5). Invigorated by a sense of renewal, he goes to the garden brook (6: 78: yarimizu), wondering ­whether reflections of Hachi no miya and Ōigimi are contained in its clear waters. Is he losing his attachment to the dead? He keeps wiping away his tears, now flowing freely, as if the dam that had held all his grief had broken. It is a cathartic moment, depicted in highly unusual iconography by an anonymous Edo painter in an ­album leaf with ink and gold on paper in the collection of the Shingon Buddhist ­temple of Ishiyama (Ishiyamadera)32 on Lake Biwa (see Figure 5).33 Suddenly, surprisingly, Kaoru acts like a man from whom a great burden has been lifted. He asks Bennokimi, now a nun, to become his go-­between and lead him to Ukifune in her Eastern Cottage.34 Compelled by his new energy, with tears still flowing, he beseeches Bennokimi to set aside her vows in order to help him: “­After all, even the hermits on Atago went to the city occasionally. And you know it is a good thing to break the most solemn vow if it means making someone ­else happy” (S: 964; T: 999; 6: 79–80). Bennokimi, who is surprised to hear him press her so forcefully, is quite puzzled. As another sign of his euphoric mood, he sends autumn flowers to his principal wife, the Second Princess. The encounter between Kaoru and Ukifune at the end of “Azumaya” stands in sharp contrast to Niou’s “Azumaya” kaimami of Ukifune. There is no bungling ­here, no exhortations by anyone. Bennokimi has prepared the way carefully, and Ukifune and her w ­ omen are roused from their drab routines by a delicious fragrance that identifies the visitor as Kaoru. There is poetry in the air, filled with late autumn rain. In his courtship of ­Ukifune, Kaoru is determined but not hasty or chaotic. Aware of the full intent ­behind this visit, Bennokimi dissuades Ukifune’s ­women from informing her mo­ther of Kaoru’s arrival. Sitting at the edge of the veranda, Kaoru feels his longing increasing with the rain. His impatience is channeled into a poem echoing Naga no Okimaro’s poem (Man’yōshū 267/265)35 alluding to a similar situation. Ukifune’s ­women come and

Exiting the Maze219

prepare a seat for him in the south hisashi, leaving only a rustic wooden door (6: 84n12: yarido), opened just a crack, to be penetrated. Finally, ­after many an uncompleted kaimami, something has inspired him, at long last, to act. Denouncing the carpenter for blocking his way with a door where none should have been, Kaoru boldly enters Ukifune’s room. It hardly seems possi­ble, but Kaoru makes love to Ukifune, apparently taking her for who she is, rather than for her older half-­sister. He assures Ukifune that she and she alone entranced him from the moment of the “Yadorigi” kaimami, thereby concealing his original motive for pursuing Ukifune as a substitute (6: 85: hitogata). “You will not have been aware of it, I am sure, but I once had a glimpse of you through a crack in the door. You have been very much on my mind ever since. I suppose it was meant to be, but you have been so much on my mind that I find it a ­little odd.” (S: 967; T: 1001; OB2: 760; 6: 85).

Yet it is possi­ble that Kaoru’s architectural remodeling of the Uji villa, which represents those whom he had loved there in the past, has allowed him to put aside the original in order to pursue a replica for its own sake. In a scene reminiscent of Genji’s boldly romantic removal of Yūgao from her temporary residence in an irritating plebeian milieu, Kaoru abducts Ukifune from the Eastern Cottage36 to his new Uji villa on the thirteenth day of the ninth month, which is considered inauspicious for marriage. He does so by having his carriage move up to the double swinging doors (tsumado) in order to lift Ukifune swiftly into it. Nobody ever expected him to commit such a violent, ritually inauspicious act. Although greatly alarmed, Bennokimi and Ukifune’s closest lady-­in-­waiting, Jijū, perceive something beneficial for themselves in this forced move. They ­ride in the same carriage with Kaoru and Ukifune to Uji. This extraordinary romance seems too good to last. Kaoru cannot, ­after all, forget the past, which includes his longing for the Uji dead. Now that he is making yet another difficult journey there, memories of past longing come rushing back. Seidensticker’s translation points all too specifically to Ōigimi: “Something about the sky and the day brought back all of his longing for Ōigimi” (S: 968; 6: 88).37 Tyler, more accurately, offers us a Kaoru steeped in a general sense of loss associated with Uji (see T: 1002). Kaoru’s melancholy is intensified by the match between the autumnal landscape and the colors of his robes. In a waka that attributes the dampness of his sleeves to tears rather than to the mist of the

220

The Genealogical Maze

Uji River, he implies that Ukifune is a mere memento (6: 88: katami) of his lost love—­and not at all an adequate one. He seems at this point to revert (or regress) to the moment when he hoped to make Ukifune into Ōigimi’s living hitogata. (He is tactful enough to murmur the waka so that only Bennokimi, who shares his sentiments, can hear it.) Kaoru sends word to his mo­ther and his wife that he has gone into ritual seclusion (6: 90: monoimi) at Uji because he feels unwell. He compares Ukifune’s robes to Ōigimi’s (unfavorably) and her hair to the Second Princess’s (favorably).38 She proves herself witty in conversation. If given proper training, Kaoru concludes, Ukifune might, a­ fter all, make a good replacement (6: 92: katashiro). Bennokimi, however, sends in a meal with a waka that seems to imply that the memory of Ōigimi remains “bright as of old,” despite the arrival of Ukifune: Autumn has come, the leaves of the ivy change; And bright as of old, the moon of memories. Yadoriki wa / iro kawarinuru / aki naredo / mukashi oboete / sumeru tsuki ka na (S: 971; T: 1005; 6: 94; GM 732)

Kaoru disagrees. In his waka he puns on Uji and ushi (sad, gloomy) but concludes, “The moon streams in upon another face” (S: 971; T: 1005; 6: 94; GM 733). Unlike Bennokimi, Kaoru leans ­toward acknowledging Ukifune for who she is, rather than for whom she represents. That he has not entirely abandoned his desire to see her as a substitute or double (katashiro) is evident from his plan to train her to attain the Uji ­family’s musical accomplishments. Hachi no miya had excelled on the seven-­ stringed koto (kin); the thirteen-­stringed koto (sō no koto) was Ōigimi’s instrument in “Hashihime.” Now the koto is to become Ukifune’s instrument. “He must give her m ­ usic lessons and other­wise make her a lady for whom he need not apologize” (S: 970; T: 1004; 6: 92–93). Rebellious Courtship in “Ukifune” Not surprisingly, Niou wishes to see again the attractive ­woman whom he had encountered in his own Nijō-in in “Azumaya.” Nakanokimi, however, is intent on protecting Ukifune—­and herself—­from the danger of an illicit liaison. She will not reveal Ukifune’s whereabouts to her untrustworthy husband nor will she tell him that Ukifune is her half-­ sister. Having encouraged Kaoru to pursue Ukifune, she also remains ­silent out of her obligation to him.

Exiting the Maze221

It is just a­ fter the new year when Niou observes the delivery of a package to Nakanokimi in Chapter 51 (“Ukifune”). Although he is told that the package was intended for Taifu, Nakanokimi’s lady-­in-­waiting, Niou’s jealousy is aroused. Suspecting that the package contains messages from Kaoru he demands to see them. He finds that the package contains a letter and a poem and some small gifts. Nakanokimi blushes, which Niou takes as an admission that the letter and poem are from a lover, when in fact blushing in this instance signals her fear that Niou might discover the secret of Ukifune’s identity. To his astonishment, Niou realizes that neither the poem nor the letter is from a man. The waka is attached to an elegant gift for Nakanokimi’s son and comes from someone quite close to Nakanokimi (Ukifune). The letter is from Ukifune’s menotogo Ukon. In it, Ukon describes her efforts to encourage her melancholy lady to leave her mountain dwelling and to visit Nakanokimi in the capital. More importantly, in explaining her lady’s timidity about visiting Nakanokimi, Ukon refers to “that awful thing” (S: 974; 6: 103: tsutsumashiku osoroshiki mono). These ominous words catch Niou’s attention. When he asks who wrote this inauspicious letter, Nakanokimi explains that it is from someone who had been in ser­vice with her and then returned to her mountain village. Niou is skeptical. The sophisticated language of the letter tells him that the unknown sender is no ordinary servant. The letter is accompanied by a waka and an elegant gift for his ­little son. The poem and gift hint at a close relationship to Nakanokimi. He suspects, correctly, that mention of “that awful thing” refers to his twilight encounter with a ­woman in his wife’s ­house­hold (Ukifune), whose identity still eludes him. Noting his wife’s unhappiness, Niou takes his leave, now quite convinced that the mysterious beauty must be hiding in some mountain village. Uji comes to mind, and to Uji he is drawn, for it is the site of his rival Kaoru’s great love and loss. He begins his investigation into the ­matter by sounding out a man of learning (dainaiki) with connections to Kaoru. This dainaiki comments on the impressive new t­emple buildings constructed from materials taken from the original Uji villa. He seems at first to indicate that a ­woman is hidden in the ­temple, but it soon becomes clear that the hidden beauty resides in Kaoru’s reconstructed villa. The deliberate blurring between the original villa of Hachi no miya, the worship hall built from that original, and the reconstruction of the villa seems designed to distract from a similar fusion of ­human original and substitute. Niou now knows two things for certain: that there is a refined ­woman writing to Nakanokimi from a mountain village and that Kaoru

222

The Genealogical Maze

has hidden away a beauty somewhere at Uji. He still has no clue that Nakanokimi’s intimate female epistolatory friend is her half-­sister (assisted by Ukon, her menotogo) nor does he have any hard evidence that would allow him to identify Kaoru’s hidden beauty with the letter writer, but he comes to that conclusion and goes one step farther. He tries to insert himself into the equation by identifying this mysterious ­woman with the beauty he had encountered in the west hisashi of his Nijō-in. It was “quite evident” that “Kaoru and Nakanokimi had spirited the girl away” (S: 976; T: 1013; 6: 107–108). The situation—­a man’s search for a missing lover who has been abducted by a male friend—­repeats the situation in Chapter 4 (“Yūgao”), where Tō no Chūjō’s efforts to find his lost mistress are forestalled by Genji abducting Yūgao to a deserted villa, where she died in his arms. This tragic pre­ce­dent does not bode well for Ukifune. Niou decides to ­ hether his suspicions are justified. Oddly, he go to Uji to see for himself w is afflicted by a guilty conscience: “It bothered him a ­little to think what he was now ­doing to his good friend” (S: 977; T: 1014; 6: 110). It is odd that Niou should feel wronged by Kaoru, who has apparently “spirited away” an attractive girl whom he, Niou, discovered in his own Nijō-in. There is no reason for Niou to feel guilty vis-­à-­vis Kaoru. Despite all the care that went into the reconstruction of the Uji villa, many cracks remain. No one bothered to fill them because there seems to be no danger—or hope—of any visitor now that Hachi no miya’s ­family has officially disappeared from the site, but for someone nonetheless intent on nocturnal kaimami, this dwelling is an easy target. Niou first penetrates the outer reed fence, then goes up the south stairs, looks through a crack in the shutters, and has an unobstructed view of the interior (see Plate 10). The kichō has been folded up. A light illuminates several ­women sewing inside, but he, enveloped by darkness, is invisible to them. He sees a girl spinning thread and wonders w ­ hether he has seen her before at his Nijō-in. Then, beyond the hisashi, in the moya, he sees a ­woman who reminds him of the one he had seen at his Nijō-in. Niou’s shadow ­woman is not someone forbidden by the incest taboo. It is the ­actual observed ­woman who is taboo because she is Niou’s wife’s half-­sister.39 He resists making a kinship connection. Since there w ­ ere large ­ ere numbers of half-­siblings in polygynous Heian society, and since they w not raised and did not normally live ­under the same roof, there seems to have been l­ittle objection to a man’s relations with half-­sisters, provided they ­were of d ­ ifferent wombs. This is the case h ­ ere, which explains why

Exiting the Maze223

Niou can be si­mul­ta­neously curious about the ­woman’s identity and apprehensive that he might learn something unpleasant. The conversation he overhears is cryptic. The intriguing young ­woman seems to be preparing to set forth on a pilgrimage to Ishiyamadera and is advised to inform Kaoru of it so that he does not come to visit her in Uji in vain. A w ­ oman offering contrary advice suggests that the pilgrimage take place a­ fter Kaoru’s visit.40 No decision is made about this, but it appears that the plan for a pilgrimage is motivated by the young ­woman’s longing for her mo­ther in the capital. To Niou, it all seems like a dream (6: 113: yume no kokochi). One wonders why, but the text gives no clue. Is Niou so alienated from his own mo­ther that he can hardly imagine that this young ­woman is willing to undertake a pilgrimage to visit hers? Or does he see himself, as in a repetitive dream, competing with Kaoru for a ­woman hidden at Uji? The conversation shifts from pilgrimage plans to the splendor that Nakanokimi enjoys as the favored wife of an imperial prince, especially ­after giving birth to a son. The ­women speak suggestively about their own lady’s prospects for being similarly favored by his lordship. Ukifune vehemently disavows the notion of competing with Nakanokimi for his lordship’s ­favor. “You know I don’t want you comparing me with the lady at Nijō. What if she ­were to hear?” The ­women’s comparisons induce Niou, finally, to notice “an unmistakable resemblance” (S: 979; T: 1015; 6:114) between this ­woman and Nakanokimi and to realize that this hid­ oman he saw at his Nijō-in. den Uji beauty must be the mysterious w Understanding this much, he should be able to guess that she is one of Nakanokimi’s blood relatives, but Niou seems determined not to recognize unpleasant facts. Niou’s “Ukifune” kaimami evokes neither the kind of elegant poetic atmosphere that embued Kaoru’s “Hashihime” kaimami of Nakanokimi and Ōigimi nor does it repeat the raw, uninhibited, even aggressive approach of Niou’s own truncated “Azumaya” kaimami of a single ­woman. In “Ukifune,” the espied ­women are not gazing at the moon or a beautiful garden. Neither are they given to erotic abandon as they are when they play with words, musical instruments, or games like go. Instead, they are engaged in a domestic scene, debating practical matters. While several of them are sewing, Ukifune sits apart, made uneasy by the ­women’s discussion of her pilgrimage and her relations with Nakanokimi. Niou tries ner­vously to reconcile this uneventful scene with his romantic memory of his “Azumaya” kaimami.

224

The Genealogical Maze

Niou senses, even more urgently than was the case in his “Azumaya” kaimami, that he must act. Where earlier he was implicitly ­under time pressure due to his mo­ther’s periodic bouts of illness, h ­ ere his opportu­ oman’s nity to form an amorous liaison falls in the brief time between the w planned pilgrimage and Kaoru’s visit. A textual variant of this kaimami that is not always included in scholarly Genji editions or translations reads, in Waley’s translation, “It was in all probability a case of to­night or never.”41 Aileen Gatten has plausibly argued that, without this variant, readers “do not feel Niou’s desperation, and are less prepared for the rash be­hav­ior still to come.” Despite the narrow win­dow—or shutter crack—of opportunity, Niou’s fear of losing Ukifune motivates him “to remain at Uji with Ukifune for another day and night.”42 Niou behaves now as if this day could be his last. When all are asleep, Niou wakes Ukon by tapping on the shutter and gains entrance by disguising his voice and pretending to be Kaoru. Here as elsewhere in the Uji chapters, the desire to act upon kaimami leads the man to appropriate another man’s charisma, much as a w ­ oman perceived to be possessed by mono no ke appropriates the possessor’s charisma. Since Ukon does not expect anyone at all, she is surprised—­but not enough to suspect that the unexpected caller is anyone other than Kaoru. Ukifune, ­however, realizes as soon as Niou lies down with her that the intruder is not Kaoru. A moment ­later, she realizes that he must be Niou. The transgression against the half-­sister who had given her refuge leaves Ukifune ever more shamed (6: 117: iyoiyo hazukashiku). Niou lets her know where they first met. He is in tears as well, not for having betrayed his wife, much less for having betrayed his wife with her half-­sister (for he still does not know or does not permit himself to recognize the relationship), and least of all for having betrayed Kaoru,43 but because he may not meet Ukifune again. He continues to be obsessed with time. Niou’s “Ukifune” kaimami is characterized by three unusual aspects: the observer is ­under im­mense time pressure to accomplish his goal of sexual intercourse; he approaches the observed ­woman in the guise of a man already familiar to her (Kaoru); and he has been with the ­woman before without knowing her identity. In the aftermath of this unusual kaimami, Niou’s be­hav­ior violates the norms of courtship by breaking with the traditional pattern of parting at dawn. In the tempest of his passion, he defies convention by staying with Ukifune: “He would not go back t­oday. One loved while one lived. Why go back and die of longing?” (S: 981; T: 1017; 6: 118). Unusual also is Niou’s cavalier treatment of his potential mo­ther-­in-­law.

Exiting the Maze225

Hearing that Ukifune’s mo­ther may be coming to Uji to take her dau­gh­ ter on the Ishiyamadera pilgrimage Ukifune’s ­women had discussed the night before, Niou instructs Ukon to send her back to the city as soon as she arrives. Ukon finds herself caught in the web of transgression spun by Niou. She does all she can to assist his subterfuge. She provides alibis for the lovers. As an excuse for Ukifune’s inability to participate in her mo­ther’s ­ omen’s ritual seclusion planned pilgrimage to Ishiyamadera, Ukon cites w (monoimi) during her monthly defilement (menstruation).44 She has a second excuse. Ukon claims that Ukifune has had an ominous dream. Since dreams ­were believed to have “oracular qualities,”45 it would be unwise for Ukifune to make the planned pilgrimage. At this point, the pilgrimage to Ishiyamadera, a t­ emple founded by Rōben (689–773) on a site sacred to Kannon, the bo­dhi­sattva of mercy, seems ill fated. The explicit motivation for such a pilgrimage is Ukifune’s longing to be re­united with her mo­ther, and Ishiyamadera is famed as a ­temple where separated worshippers appeal to Kannon to bring them together.46 This is, of course, paradoxical because pilgrimages to Ishiyamadera are meant to promote, strengthen, or confirm precisely those bonds between parent and child that Buddhist doctrine considers obstacles to enlightenment.47 In this case, the bond between mo­ther and dau­gh­ter needs to be restored because it was sundered by “that unfortunate incident” mentioned in the conversation that Niou overheard during his “Ukifune” kaimami. The incident was, of course, Ukifune’s nocturnal encounter with Niou at the Nijō-in. As a consequence of that encounter, Chūjō no kimi had moved Ukifune to the Eastern Cottage near Sanjō, where Kaoru subsequently found her and slept with her before abducting her to Uji. Niou, who can thus be considered the cause of the planned pilgrimage, now makes it impossible. He is driven not only to resist his mo­ther, the Akashi empress, who is seeking to control his marital alliances; he also tries to prevent the reconciliation between Ukifune and her mo­ther in order to eliminate the control that Ukifune’s mo­ther has over her dau­gh­ ter. The interference of kin in courtship is anathema to him. There can be no pilgrimage now because the rules of ritual purification and sexual abstinence have been broken. Ukon puts her best spin on this violation by posting signs announcing a “ritual seclusion” (6: 121: monoimi). She brings the lovers w ­ ater for their ablutions and offers it first to Niou, who politely asks Ukifune to be the first to wash. The gesture thrills Ukifune because it stands in sharp contrast to the be­hav­ior of

226

The Genealogical Maze

the other men in her life. Neither her ­father nor the lieutenant of the guards (sakon no shōshō) nor Kaoru had treated her with such deference. At the same time, she feels guilty. Does she deserve to be treated as well or even better than her half-­sister, the wife whom Niou has just betrayed? While Ukifune must repress her guilt, Niou tries to seize the romantic moment to wrest from her the still undisclosed facts of her identity. “Her thoughts went first to [Nakanokimi]; but he, who knew nothing of what was passing through her mind, insisted, ‘You are so cruel—­please, please just tell me who you are! Never mind if you are a complete ­nobody—­I shall only love you better for it!’ ” (T: 1018; S: 982; 6: 122). What is ­going on ­here? Having narrowly escaped a potential scandal at the Nijō-in, Ukifune must now ­tremble about her complicity in this affair at Uji. She cannot be unaware of Nakanokimi’s knowledge of Niou’s earlier advances, and she must feel grateful for her half-­sister’s continuing kindness, but she can no longer claim the kind of innocence that exculpated her from blame the first time Niou approached her. In addition, the affair at Uji jeopardizes her mo­ther’s attempts to avoid scandal and to entrust her to Kaoru. Not that Ukifune has much choice. Like “a boat drifting upon the waters,” in the poetic image that inspired her melancholy sobriquet, she can only let things happen to her. Niou’s difficulties are less obvious but equally severe. He seems finally to have accomplished what he set out to do, but what exactly has he done? Like Genji in his game of incognito with Yūgao, Niou hardly seems credible when he continues to claim ignorance of Ukifune’s identity. Does he ­really need her confession to understand who she is? Or is he still repressing what he would rather not know? Has he merely stolen the lover of his best friend, who is also his cousin and putative ­uncle (see Figure 11), or has he committed a more serious taboo violation that undermines his mo­ther’s and his wife’s status? He seems aware only of the former, seemingly minor transgression, but one that carries genealogical ramifications. Having in the past obeyed the wishes of ­others in the ­matter of his ­women, having married Rokunokimi by order of his parents and Nakanokimi because Kaoru did not want her, Niou is now in a state of rebellion against restrictive conventions imposed on him by kin. The “Ukifune” kaimami and its aftermath constitute a desperate search for an in­de­pen­dent conquest that does not serve purposes dictated by ­others. Niou’s be­hav­ior is unconventional on several counts. First, Heian aristocrats ­were expected to form ­family alliances through marriage. ­Niou’s affair with his wife’s half-­sister threatens to unravel rather than to knit the bonds between their families. At Uji, Niou finds the same

Exiting the Maze227

­ oman who had earlier aroused his romantic interest precisely because w of the forbidden atmosphere. Second, Ukifune is not only outside the domain of ­women eligible as secondary wives, but she is physically out of place. In a society where uxorilocal or duolocal marriages are the norm, Ukifune is in an anomalous position because of her unfavorably unstable ­family circumstances. She is courted by men in vari­ous locations over which she has no control: her stepfather’s residence in the capital and Hitachi, Nakanokimi’s Nijō residence, her mo­ther’s temporary “Eastern Cottage” in the capital, and Kaoru’s reconstruction of her late f­ather’s villa in Uji. She is truly at sea with no harbor in sight. However, a possi­ble solution exists to the prob­lem posed by Ukifune’s lack of place suitable as her residence in a uxorilocal secondary marriage. The norm of uxorilocal, duolocal, or neolocal marriages has an exception. Virilocality is the norm for emperors or heirs apparent. Niou and Kaoru, in their ­different ways, have ambitions to the imperial throne. Niou’s ascent, however, is threatened by his unwitting taboo violation. While it is true that emperors derive their power and authority from a capacity for taboo violation that must be transformed and tamed through “expurgatory ­trials,”48 Niou’s reckless be­hav­ior puts his potential for ruling to the test. In this, too, his departure from convention heightens the romantic tension. For the moment, however, Niou and Ukifune compare each other’s ­counter­parts (Kaoru and Nakanokimi) and conclude that there is something unique about their own romantic u ­ nion. Since Niou is still uncertain who Ukifune is, he tries to extract from her the details about Kaoru’s installing her at Uji, but she refuses to answer and is s­ilent about her betrayals of Nakanokimi and Kaoru. Niou regrets the constraints that his high station and his mo­ther’s ambitions impose on him and expresses his worry that Kaoru might blame Ukifune for the affair. Finally, as he departs, he promises to take her elsewhere at some ­later time, thus leaving her with new unsettling uncertainties. This time, following convention, he leaves at dawn. En route ­toward the capital, the “very crackle of ice beneath the ­horses’ hooves along the river evoked solitude and desolation” (T: 1021; S: 985; 6: 128). He seems “to have lost his soul among her sleeves” (T: 1020; S: 985; 6: 127). ­Toward the end of the second month, ­after revealing his jealousy of Kaoru to Nakanokimi, Niou visits Ukifune again—in the wake of Kaoru. His retainer Tokikata is told to prepare the unfinished ­house of his ­uncle, the governor of Inaba (see Figure 5), on the far bank of the Uji River, so that when Niou arrives, he need only seize Ukifune and carry

228

The Genealogical Maze

her by boat across the river, a more unusual mode of travel than crossing the Uji Bridge in an ox-­drawn carriage or on ­horse­back. Although the boat is frail, the river is ­free of fog and the journey acquires symbolic weight, as if to suggest that all the lovers’ burdens might be lifted if only they can reach the other shore. Arriving at the Islet of Oranges (Tachibana no kojima) breaks their journey and gives them pause. What exactly is the symbolic significance of their brief landing? For Niou, the evergreen trees symbolize his everlasting bond with Ukifune. A thousand years may pass, it will not waver, This vow I make in the lee of the Islet of Oranges. toshi fu to mo / kawaramu mono ka / Tachibana no/ Kojima ga saki ni / chigiru kokoro wa (S: 991; T: 1026; 6: 142; GM 741)

For Ukifune, the unknowability of the boat’s drifting constitutes a counterpoint to the stable color of the tachibana. The colors remain, ­here on the Islet of Oranges. But where go I, a boat upon the waters? Tachibana no / Kojima wa iro mo / kawaraji o / kono ukifune zo / yukue shirarenu (S: 991; T: 1026; 6: 142; GM 742)

This violent courtship scene recalls Genji’s abduction of Yūgao from Gojō to the deserted riverside villa and Kaoru’s abduction of Ukifune from azumaya to Uji. In the two Uji abductions, Ukifune’s ladies-­in-­ waiting severely criticize the abductor’s be­hav­ior, although it is no secret to them that the c­ ouple had already consummated their affair. Ukifune’s ­women are hysterical because they have no clue as to their destination, and they are understandably fearful of sexual vio­lence. Just as Ukifune had earlier warned Kaoru about the gaps in the Uji Bridge that might threaten their love, so she now warns Niou that she feels suspended in “midair” (S: 993; T: 1027, 6: 146: nakazora). She dangles while both men seek to move her to the capital, and both write to her. Just as Kaoru had promised, ­after abducting her to Uji, to install her in a new ­house near Sanjō, so Niou is now thinking of placing her in the ser­vice of his older sister, the First Princess, at the Rokujō-in. While Kaoru might see Ukifune as a happy distraction from his obligations to his

Exiting the Maze229

wife, Niou’s thoughts can be taken as an intuition that Ukifune is a displaced object of his incestuous desire for his sister (the First Princess). While Kaoru obtains permission from his wife, the Second Princess, to bring a ­woman he claims to be of no great consequence to a nearby ­house on the tenth day of the fourth month, Niou hurriedly plans to move Ukifune to the ­house of his old nurse (who is departing with her husband to a distant province assigned to him as governor). These plans are never realized. Niou is stymied by parental constraint, which he likens to the prison of a cocoon. Then Ukifune’s mo­ther appears at Uji, and her allusions to the scandalous incident at the Nijō-in throw her dau­gh­ ter into a fit of abysmal depression. Ukifune begs to accompany her ­mo­ther back to her ­house in the capital, but her request is denied. For her, the security of matrilocality does not exist. She is condemned to be moved and to wander continually. Ukifune wants to die.

The Clue to the Maze: The First Princess “Crushed Ice and Rustling Silk” in “Kagerō” In the erroneous belief that Ukifune committed suicide in the Uji River, Kaoru is mourning her as he did Hachi no miya and Ōigimi. His search for a genealogical foundation through architectural maneuvering has been frustrated by his difficulties with both courtship and marriage. He had agreed to marry the Kinjō emperor’s Second Princess because he could not have one or the other of the Uji princesses, but at age twenty-­ seven he still has no offspring. In his loveless marriage to the dau­gh­ter of the Kinjō emperor and Fujitsubo nyōgo he emulates his biological f­ ather, Kashiwagi, who married the Suzaku emperor’s Second Princess (Ochiba) ­ oman he ­really wanted (the only because she was the half-­sister of the w Suzaku emperor’s Third Princess) and whom Genji had snatched away from him. If Kashiwagi paid the ultimate price of his life, by self-­starvation, for his accidental sighting of the Third Princess during a game of court football (kemari), he was at least able to ­father a son who might some day care for his wandering soul. Kaoru fulfills his filial duties because he feels obliged to keep the secret of his birth. He seems destined to pay the price of having no descendants and suffering the dreaded fate of those who are uncared for ­after their death (muenbotoke). Siting Genealogy. His kaimami in Chapter 52 (“Kagerō”), however, provides Kaoru with an extraordinary opportunity to forge an imperial lineage by linking his maternal lineage to Genji’s maternal lineage via the

230

The Genealogical Maze

Akashi connection. He desires the First Princess, the dau­gh­ter of the Akashi empress and the Kinjō emperor. The First Princess, his putative half-­sister’s dau­gh­ter (niece) is, in reality, his ­uncle’s dau­gh­ter (cousin). The key to understanding Kaoru’s courtship of the First Princess as not simply a foolish distraction but as a power­ful drive to achieve kingship through kinship is found, once again, in the site of courtship. Suffering from psychic deracination, Kaoru seeks his roots in the Rokujō-in (see Figure 5), a site of enormous symbolic importance. Genji originally built this residence for his w ­ omen when he was thirty-­four. It was named for Rokujō miyasudokoro, the ­widow of Crown Prince Zenbō, who acquired her power­ful charisma in part because she felt deprived of the chance to ascend the throne. But the archaeological layers run deeper still, revealing not only a po­liti­cal but also a genealogical context. The site of the Rokujō-in has its ghosts. According to speculations circulating since Yotsutsuji Yoshinari’s Genji commentary Kakaishō (1364), Murasaki Shikibu situated the villa (nanigashi no in) at which Genji’s mistress Yūgao died on the same ground as the historic Kawarain, where Minamoto Tōru’s angry spirit (onryō) came to haunt retired Emperor Uda in 926. Genji rebuilt this villa as the Rokujō-­in49 on lands formerly owned by Rokujō miyasudokoro.50 Since Minamoto no Tōru’s grievance was rooted in his failure to become emperor, he has often been seen as a historic model for Genji, whose ambition to reclaim power is architecturally manifested in this Rokujō-in, a building complex so grand that Hirota Osamu has aptly likened it to the imperial palace’s inner residential complex for imperial consorts.51 The significance of the relationship between genealogical origins and architectural sites can hardly be overemphasized. Kaoru was born in the Rokujō-in, to be precise, in the Third Princess’s southeast shinden,52 which is the very shinden where the “Kagerō” Hokke Hakkō would take place, with Kaoru’s kaimami nearby. Kaoru’s birth was celebrated as if he ­were a prince born at the imperial palace, yet Genji was so uneasy about acknowledging and embracing Kaoru that he could not bear to enliven the splendid ceremonies with m ­ usic. The normally celebratory moment was filled, instead, with the mono no aware that is often depicted in Genji-­e.53 ­Until Genji’s death about twelve years ­later, Kaoru seems to have lived with his mo­ther in the Rokujō-­in’s southeast quarters. He was raised together with his putative nephew, Niou (who lived at Murasaki’s Nijō-in), in close proximity to his putative niece, the First Princess. (In reality, Niou and the First Princess are Kaoru’s first cousins through his mo­ther’s line and his third cousins through his ­father’s line.)

Exiting the Maze231

­After Genji’s death, the Third Princess moved from the southeast quarters of the Rokujō-in to her ­father’s Sanjō-in (see Figure 6), where Kaoru seems to have stayed ­until his initiation ceremonies at age fourteen, held at the Reizei-in (see Figure 6), where his guardian, the retired Reizei emperor, assigned him rooms.54 ­After the accidental burning of the Sanjō-in in the spring following Hachi no miya’s death, Kaoru, then age twenty-­four, moved with his mo­ther into his putative ­father’s Rokujō-in. The next spring, mo­ther and son returned to the rebuilt Sanjō-in (where Kaoru would have installed Ōigimi, had she not died before the Sanjō-in was ready to be occupied).55 The following spring, Kaoru, now age twenty-­six, married the Second Princess, his first cousin (the dau­gh­ter of his maternal ­uncle, the Kinjō emperor, by the Fujitsubo consort, not to be confused with the Third Princess’s mo­ther, who is the half-­sister of Fujitsubo). He commuted to her ­ ntil his mo­ther, usually so withdrawn and inacresidence in the palace u tive, relieved him of the need to commute by yielding the Sanjō-­in’s shinden to him and his wife while she retreated to her chapel.56 Installing the Second Princess in the Sanjō-in was an unconventional move that opposed the princi­ple of Heian uxorilocal or duolocal marital residence and greatly upset Kaoru’s imperial ­father-­in-­law, the Kinjō emperor.57 In “Kagerō,” the twenty-­seven-­year-­old Kaoru returns to the space of his childhood in the Rokujō-in. ­After a relatively brief three-­month mourning period for Prince Shikibu (one of Genji’s younger bro­th­ers), the Akashi empress decides to sponsor a Hokke Hakkō for her ­father, Genji, and adoptive mo­ther, Murasaki,58 and invites Kaoru to this grand memorial. Kaoru penetrates the outermost barriers between him and the First Princess, who is his putative niece, his cousin, and, incidentally, his sister-­in-­law. She is his ideal beauty in comparison to whom all other beauties seem inferior. The force of his obsession with the First Princess was demonstrated when he, at age twenty-­four, engaged in a kaimami of the two Uji princesses in Chapter 46 (“Shii ga moto”).59 The younger of them, Nakanokimi, reminded him of the First Princess.60 In “Kagerō,” Kaoru traces his obsession with the First Princess to the fact that he had seen her as a child. It is certainly true that this ideal formed in childhood seems to overshadow all his relationships with ­women. The pattern recalls Genji’s ideal of Fujitsubo, born of his childhood desire to fill the void left by his mo­ther. What void the Akashi ­empress’s First Princess is supposed to fill for Kaoru is less clear, but Kaoru’s childlike mo­ther comes to mind as an analogy. The explanation, that he is attracted to the First Princess simply because of a single

232

The Genealogical Maze

glimpse he had of her when both of them ­were children, does not seem to be very persuasive, not even to Kaoru, who is perplexed enough to won­der, “Why have I always wanted to see her again?” (T: 1064; S: 1032; 6: 240). Clearly, Kaoru’s obsession with the First Princess has its roots in a childhood trauma comparable to Genji’s. She is his mo­ther’s niece and might resemble her (as Murasaki resembled Fujitsubo in Genji’s mind). Kaoru knows, as the public does not, that the First Princess is his first cousin, which might lessen rather enhance her attraction for him. (If he ­were Genji’s son, she would, as his half-­sister’s dau­gh­ter, also be his niece.) However, this cousin might intrigue rather than bore him because her brother, Niou, incestuously desires her (his full sister). Kaoru’s troubled knowledge that he is not, in fact, Genji’s son may incite him to forge a blood tie with Genji’s line, thereby legitimizing who he is falsely believed to be in the public eye. When he agreed earlier to marry the Second Princess, the dau­gh­ter of the Kinjō emperor (his mo­ther’s brother), he had done so half-­heartedly. Between his first and his second glimpse of his “ideal beauty,”61 ­Kaoru, at fourteen, was attracted to another First Princess, the only daugh­ ­ter of his guardian, the retired Reizei emperor, by the Kokiden nyōgo, a dau­gh­ter of Tō no Chūjō. Kaoru understands only half the truth about the First Princess, namely, that she is his paternal aunt’s dau­gh­ter, or his first cousin. Unaware of the secret of Reizei’s birth, Kaoru cannot realize that this First Princess is Genji’s granddaughter. The world thinks that the First Princess is Kaoru’s paternal ­uncle’s dau­gh­ter, that is, his cousin. She is notably not the dau­gh­ter of Akikonomu, Reizei’s empress. In fact, Akikonomu has no children, which makes this First Princess of special importance to Reizei, who jealously guarded her from potential suitors. Although she seemed a “very unusual” (S: 740; T: 789; 5: 24) princess, Kaoru felt that he should not pursue her. Since Reizei’s empress, Akikonomu chūgū, had not borne any children and Reizei’s First Princess was of “inferior” womb (otoribara), the latter was as useless to young Kaoru’s nascent ambitions as the Kinjō emperor’s consolation prize of the Second Princess was. That genealogical politics played a role in Kaoru’s loss of interest in Reizei’s First Princess seems quite plausible in light of the fact that his obsession in “Kagerō” with the First Princess, his cousin as well as his sister-­in-­law, is quite clearly related to his po­liti­cal ambitions to claim Genji’s genealogical line.62 Kojima Naoko has emphasized the importance of the concept of “imperial womb” (5: 369: kisakibara),63 a term used in relation to

Kiritsubo Emperor (1)*

Suzaku Emperor (2)

G E N J I

G E ≠ N J I

Tō no Chūjō

Onna san no miya (Third Princess)

Kashiwagi

Kokiden Consort Akashi Empress

Kinjō Emperor (4)

Fujitsubo Consort

Onna ni no miya (Second Princess) Niou

Reizei Emperor (3)

Onna ichi no miya (First Princess)

K A O R U

Reizei’s First Princess

Marriage Affair / Liaison ≠

Misattributed Paternity Amorous Intention

* Sequence of imperial succession. Figure 13. Kaoru’s genealogical ambitions.

Amorous Fantasy

234

The Genealogical Maze

Kaoru’s marriage to the Kinjō emperor’s Second Princess and in relation to his First Princess at the time of the “Kagerō” kaimami. At that time, it becomes clear that Kaoru’s concern over “inferior” wombs is related to genealogical rather than po­liti­cal ambitions. Kaoru compares the Akashi empress’s First Princess with his mo­ther. While the First Princess’s mo­ther had succeeded in becoming empress, his own mo­ther’s mo­ther (Fujitsubo nyōgo, a half-­sister of Fujitsubo) had not. Again, the term kisakibara (6: 261) is crucial in defining that difference. It is as if Kaoru could elevate his mo­ther through this association with the Akashi empress’s First Princess and thereby make up for his mo­ther’s diminished status because of her marriage to Genji, a prince demoted to commoner status. Kaoru’s dream of creating an unassailable genealogical line thus propelled him to turn from Reizei’s First Princess to the Kinjō emperor and Akashi empress’s First Princess. When Kaoru returned from an early journey to Uji and saw the Akashi empress, he thought, “No doubt her oldest dau­gh­ter, the First Princess, was very much like her. He thought it a great pity that the occasion had been denied him to approach the dau­gh­ter, if only to hear her voice, as he was now approaching the mo­ther” (S: 845; 5: 268).64 Is it possi­ble that Kaoru’s longing for the First Princess derives from forbidden thoughts of violating the empress herself? ­After all, Kaoru sees Akashi, the fabulous place (S: 1040; 6: 261: kokoro nikukarikeru tokoro ka na) where the Akashi empress’s mo­ther was born, as a ­humble place from which Genji’s Akashi no kimi had emerged and risen from the provincial-­ governor (zuryō) class to the heights of imperial power.65 Is he aware that Genji saw in the Akashi marriage a way to resuscitate and vindicate his mo­ther’s line? Through his pursuit of the First Princess, does he similarly want to vindicate his mo­ther for his biological ­father’s excessive love of her? For Kaoru, the imperial ascent line Genji created at Akashi may well serve as an inspiration to keep searching for some such place where a new lineage can be created. The Hokke Hakkō.  The fateful “Kagerō” kaimami, in which ­ aoru finally lays eyes upon his long-­cherished ideal ­woman, takes place K at the Rokujō-in immediately ­after the ceremony of the Hokke Hakkō sponsored by the Akashi empress. (This is the last of the Genji’s four or five Hokke Hakkō ceremonies, the first of which occurred in “Minori” in the form of Murasaki’s anomalous Hokke Hakkō as gyakushu.) Place matters. To the extent that the Hokke Hakkō creates an atmosphere of the Amida Buddha’s Pure Land, the site chosen for the

Exiting the Maze235

ceremony itself becomes a symbolic Pure Land.66 ­After all, the site is far from an arbitrary choice; it is loaded with remembrances of things past, involving much genealogical drama. Thus the site functions as a mnemonic store­house preserving the emotional lives of its past and pres­ ­ent inhabitants. The Site and the Rite.  The Hokke Hakkō for Genji and Murasaki is almost certainly performed in the shinden of the southeast quarters of the Rokujō-in. These are the “spring” quarters where Genji and Murasaki spent many years together u ­ ntil she moved to his late mo­ther’s Nijō-in (where her Hokke Hakkō as gyakushu was performed).67 It was also in these quarters in the Rokujō-in that the Akashi empress, who had initially been raised by Murasaki in the Nijō-­in’s west wing, spent much of her youth, oscillating between her adoptive mo­ther’s southeast quarters and her birth mo­ther’s northwest quarters. Now that she is sponsoring her ­father and adoptive mo­ther’s Hokke Hakkō, she resides in the palace’s Kiritsubo court (Shigeisha [see Figure 4]), where she reigns as Akashi empress (Akashi chūgū). ­After Murasaki’s death, her favorite grandchildren, Niou and the First Princess, ­inherited the east wing (higashi no tai) of the Rokujō-­in’s southeast quarters. Niou moves back and forth between his preferred Nijō-in residence, where he installed Nakanokimi, and the Rokujō-in, where he is incestuously drawn to his older sister, the First Princess. The history of the Rokujō-in reveals a seldom noticed feature of Heian spatial mobility, namely, that it is not only the noblemen but also the noblewomen, at least in Murasaki Shikibu’s construction of her tale, who had multiple residences and moved around within Heian-­kyō and its environs. The ritual per­for­mance of this Hokke Hakkō is as elaborate as it is tiring. The spectacular climax occurs on the third day with a lecture on the fifth of the eight books of the Lotus Sūtra; the ceremony concludes with the last lecture on the morning of the fifth day. The climactic discourse on the fifth book draws the largest crowd since it is accompanied by a grand pro­cession around the pond that was ritually transformed into the pond of the Amida Buddha’s western paradise. ­After the termination of these exhausting five-­day long Buddhist memorial rites, Kaoru leaves the shinden in search of one of the priests, with whom he hopes to consult. He wanders about the grounds of the Rokujō-in as eve­ning falls and heads ­toward the fishing pavilion (tsuridono). Upon finding that the priest had already gone home, he strolls ­toward the pond for the eve­ning cool that it affords. At this point, he

236

The Genealogical Maze

hears the rustling of ­women’s garments. Where exactly is he?68 Murasaki Shikibu places the First Princess and her attendants in the nishi no watadono (6: 237), but that designation seems to refer to two d ­ ifferent bridgeways: one linking the west wing to the shinden and one linking ­ omen’s the west wing to the tsuridono. If Kaoru hears the rustling of the w garments from his place near the fishing pavilion, the w ­ omen must be in the second bridgeway, which Waley ingeniously refers to as the “western cross wing” (W: 1071).69 (The first bridgeway is out of sight and sound.) But why is the First Princess in the “western cross wing” rather than in her usual shinden quarters? It is likely that she was temporarily dislodged while the shinden served as the crowded site for the five-­day-­long Hokke Hakkō ceremonies.70 This means that Kaoru catches sight of her at a liminal time (immediately ­after the Hokke Hakkō) and in a liminal place (away from her usual domicile). Kaoru’s Kaimami.  Kaoru recognizes immediately that he may now be able to see the “ideal beauty” he has not seen since their childhood. If it had not been for her temporary displacement from the shinden in order to make room for the Buddhist memorial rites, the princess would have been in surroundings more familiar and secure. Imagining the lack of protective barriers allows Kaoru, cued to the w ­ omen’s presence by the rustling of silk, to anticipate a feast for his eyes (see Plate 11). “A sliding door above a board walk (medō no hō no shōji)71 happened to be open a crack. Looking in, he saw that, for such secluded precincts, it offered a remarkably bright and unobstructed view. The curtains w ­ ere somewhat disordered, permitting him to see far inside” (S: 1031; T: 1063; 6: 237). Through these disordered makeshift curtains he is able to observe the princess and her retinue “chipping busily at a large block of ice on a tray of some description” (S: 1031; T: 1063; 6: 237). Kaoru is not simply entranced. He is awed. The First Princess is indescribably lovely; in comparison, the ­others look like “dirt” (T: 1063; S: 1031: untranslated; 6: 238: tsuchi nado). In Tosa Mitsuyoshi’s painting, the once silvery cool ice cubes in the box in front of the First Princess oxidized and appear black.72 Kaoru is also understandably confused. ­Women of the highest rank, especially princesses, are usually careful not to gather in places that offer so ­little protection, and they certainly avoid exposing themselves in such a wild state, their skin glowing with sweat, their attire loose and dripping with bits of the ice that they have chipped away from the block. What Kaoru sees ­here is, in its sheer animistic force, quin­tes­sen­tial, undis-

Exiting the Maze237

guised femininity, not unlike that symbolized by the escaped cat that captivated his ­father Kashiwagi’s attention and led him eventually to his fateful affair with the Third Princess. In other words, the First Princess and her ­women provide an erotic scene equivalent to the one that inspired Kaoru’s conception, his very existence. The loosely dressed ­women apply chunks of ice “indiscriminately to [their] foreheads and bosoms” (S: 1031; T: 1064; 6: 238). The voluptuous force of their cooling off reaches a climax when the First Princess is ­offered some ice wrapped in paper. Kaoru recognizes the voice of Kosaishō, one of the princess’s ladies-­in-­waiting, to whom he has been attracted. And then, hearing the First Princess reject the ice because she is “dripping already,” Kaoru matches her voice with his childhood memory of her looks and becomes very excited. It is unmistakably an epiphanic moment that poses a momentous question: Will crushed ice and ­rustling silk do for Kaoru what kemari and the cat did for Kashiwagi? The unambiguous answer is “no.” Unlike his more impetuous f­ather, ­Kaoru fails to act on his impulses, triggered by both sound and sight.73 His ardor may have been dampened by the religious mood of the Hokke Hakkō, still hanging heavy in the air, not unlike the incense, burned in memory of Hachi no miya, that had inhibited his amorous approach to Ōigimi in Chapter 47 (“Agemaki”). Another hindrance for Kaoru is his lack of focus. He is, ­after all, torn, as Kashiwagi was not, between his putative, biological, and chosen f­ ather figures. It is this diffusion of his paternal line that causes his inhibition to initiate an affair. His genealogical perplexity is displaced by his wonderment about the possi­ble role of the “super­natu­ral” in this kaimami. natu­ ral powers,” Kaoru The Divine in Kaimami.  “What super­ wonders, have arranged for this kaimami occasion, this “secret audience” (S: 1031; T: 1064: “this sight;” 6: 239: ori)? “Super­natu­ral powers” is Edward G. Seidensticker’s translation of kami and butsu, words more accurately rendered by Royall Tyler as “god or buddha” (T: 1064).74 Norma Field is similarly euphemistic; she has Kaoru attribute “the ­vision to the work of a spirit.”75 The difference between “super­natu­ral powers” and “god or buddha” may seem trivial, but it is not. The reason for my emphasis on literal translation is that the response of Kaoru and other characters to the ­women whom they observe in acts of kaimami has an uncanny similarity to the response of Heian worshippers to the sacred sequestered in the interior of shrines and temples. This connection is especially obvious in

238

The Genealogical Maze

this kaimami. When Kaoru attributes the epiphanic sight of the First Princess to divine intervention, he comes close to perceiving her as imbued with or at least touched by the divine. It is doubtless for this reason that Shinohara Shōji has repeatedly used the term megami-­zō (lit., goddess image or statue) for Kaoru’s perception of the First Princess in this kaimami.76 Although Shinohara draws no analogy to religious practice, it is apparent that Kaoru’s awe resembles the experience of a worshipper recognizing divinity in the form of a statue or an icon. What the treatment of kaimami in lit­erature reveals, then, is an ­inherent contradiction similar to the one embedded in the religious architecture upon which shinden-­zukuri architecture is based. In shinden-­ zukuri architecture, Heian society created a secular analogue to religious architecture, the imbrication of secular and sacred architectural forms and the practices associated with them. Kami and buddha resided in the hidden recesses of their sacred space and Heian noblewomen, to the extent that they ­were sequestered in their mansions, hidden from those who courted them, seem also to have assumed an aura of the sacred. Like the sacred space of the gods, the sequestered noblewoman’s space may sometimes be treated as inviolate and at other times be invaded. Alternately approaching and “keeping his distance” from the abode of divinity, the male worshipper is bound to reveal the extent of his reverence, or conversely if not perversely, the extent of his transgression. Similarly, as the Heian courtier approached the w ­ oman he desired, he exhibited deference and awe, perhaps even fear of her mysterious female powers.77 The Moment of Discovery.  Ironically, the moment of Kaoru’s epiphany is also the moment of detection and the end of his kaimami. Just as propriety is about to be breached by one person (Kaoru), it is remembered by another (a female servant) and thus protected. It is not unusual, in the Genji, for an intruder to appear on the scene casually and threaten to expose the voyeur. Indeed, the threat of detection enhances the pleasures of kaimami. Just as Kaoru is wondering about the divinities who arranged his kaimami, he is discovered by a startled servant who suddenly recalls that she has neglected to close the protective fusuma.78 ­Running down the veranda and unwittingly exposing herself, she realizes that a stranger has “penetrated . . . ​forbidden corners” (S: 1031; T: 1064; 6: 240). Caught—or catching themselves—in untenable positions, the servant and Kaoru pretend that neither sees the other. With its reversed gender roles, this sideshow is ironic if not parodic of kaimami proper. What is immediately im­por­tant for the servant is not who the man is or even w ­ hether he heard (and saw) the noblewomen

Exiting the Maze239

but ­whether they heard him and ­whether he can blame her for having carelessly exposed them to a kaimami that they should have anticipated. The servant calms herself by concluding that the stranger’s robe and trousers ­were made of “raw silk” (S: 1031; T: 1064; 6: 240: suzuji), which does not rustle as audibly as finished silk. But silk was the fabric that betrayed the ­women. If he heard their silk rustling, why did they not hear his? Or did they? One thing seems certain. ­After having witnessed a Hokke Hakkō performed for Genji and Murasaki in his birthplace, Kaoru cannot but won­der who will perform such ser­vices for him one day. In other words, the religious ritual of the Hokke Hakkō functions as a trigger for Kaoru to think about himself as a muenbotoke and to won­der not only about his own desire to venerate his parents but about the care given to his spirit ­after death. Kaoru must continue to assert himself by battling the lingering control exerted long ­after their deaths by parental figures, real or ascribed or chosen. In the aftermath of his kaimami, Kaoru seems unable to sort out the tumult of his feelings, but he realizes that they now include despair as well as longing for the First Princess. His unease has a great deal to do with his secret genealogy, with his frustration over being involved in honoring the wrong ­father, and with his abandoned ambition to become a lay priest (hijiri) like Hachi no miya. He regrets having fallen once again into the trap of worldliness, the endless cycles of desire and suffering. Pondering the vision inspired by the First Princess, he asks himself ­whether he desires her all the more, now that his ineradicable childhood memories have resurfaced. Or is he merely scolding himself when he wonders, “Why have I always wanted to see her again?” (T: 1064; S: 1032; 6: 240)? The clue may lie in what he does next. The Second Princess’s Dress Rehearsal.  When he sees his wife the next morning, Kaoru wants somehow to transfer the First Princess’s charisma to her. The Second Princess seems, at least for the moment, so ­appealing that she appears worthy of a comparison with her half-­sister. Kaoru is consciously trying to do what possessed w ­ omen in the Genji accomplished only in trance, namely, to borrow the charisma of another person, generally identified as the possessing spirit (mono no ke). In other words, Kaoru is trying to induce something akin to an artificial spirit possession, in which he projects the persona of one person onto another. Unable to continue gazing at the First Princess, he seeks to see her in her half-­sister. In order to recapture the mood that had led him to be entranced by the beauty of the First Princess, he first performs his morning Buddhist

240

The Genealogical Maze

prayers and then enacts a belittling travesty of marital love. He dresses his wife in the same type of silk that her half-­sister had worn. Since his fabrication is, by definition, an imperfect imitation, he tries to complete his parody of mimesis by bringing in some ice for the Second Princess to chip. That too fails to achieve the desired effect and he begins to feel “secretly amused with himself” (T: 1065; S: 1032: untranslated; 6: 241: kokoro no uchi mo okashi). Artifice seems unable to recapture what seemed so charming and so natu­ral the eve­ning before. Can the failure be blamed on the Second Princess, who is not told whom she is supposed to impersonate? Her re­sis­tance, conscious or unconscious, emerges a moment ­later when Kaoru asks ­whether she has been corresponding with the First Princess. She admits that she has not and Kaoru, revealing once again his resentment at the frustration of his po­liti­cal ambitions, threatens to write to the Akashi empress and accuse the First Princess of treating her half-­sister like an inferior because she—­the Second Princess—is married to him, a commoner. The Second Princess resists his bullying. In her words as in her actions, she refuses to yield her identity and to be replaced by another ­woman. Kaoru’s argument with his wife about her lapsed correspondence with her half-­sister reveals his per­sis­tent sense of social inferiority. The  First Princess outranks his wife because the latter’s mo­ther never became empress, but this is not of great importance to the Second Princess. That Kaoru threatens to write to the First Princess and accuse her of arrogance and disdain demonstrates that he is much more sensitive to questions of rank than his wife is. (He may also feel that his kinship position as the husband of the Second Princess unfairly disqualifies him ­ omen are from openly pursuing the First Princess, even though the two w born of ­different wombs.) Kaoru has not fared well in the estimation of Genji scholars, and this scene provides ammunition for critical disdain. Mincing no words, Lewis Cook has described him as “a defective hero.”79 Norma Field’s view is even more devastating: “The old imperial longing, so grandly expressed by his real and adoptive fathers, has shriveled into a fetish with Kaoru. As for his vulgar, literal-­minded gesture of dressing his wife in the hopes of making her into the real thing—is it not ­here . . . ​that we sense the ­irremediable shattering of a world?”80 While it is easier to condemn than to appreciate Kaoru’s reprehensible be­hav­ior in this scene, it is necessary to examine all its causes in order to understand this troubled, complex character within the Genji’s intergenerational drama. Is it surprising that he should be confused about

Exiting the Maze241

who he is and where he belongs? His mo­ther has never told him the truth about his parentage, and he refrained from shaming her when he learned the secret of his birth from Bennokimi. He must pay public homage to the man who pretended to be his ­father. His devotion to Hachi no miya and his ­family is a sincere passion constantly frustrated. He has been rejected by Ōigimi and Nakanokimi and is currently mourning Ukifune as his vanished last hope. He had few prospects for lifting the dark clouds hanging over his life. Is it any won­der that he is entranced by the sight of the First Princess chipping ice, a sight that awakens dormant memories of a presumably happier time of childhood innocence? Is it not a mea­ sure of the complex emotions engulfing him that he wastes himself in grotesque reenactments of the scene that so captivated him? He may not be a daring transgressor like Genji or Kashiwagi or Niou, but he—­like Ukifune—is a profoundly moving tragic figure. Bearing the heavy load of their parents’ transgressions, they wander cluelessly through the genealogical maze. Letters and Pictures.  Kaoru complains to the Akashi empress despite his wife’s having begged him not to. The occasion for this comes when Niou—­who bears an uncanny resemblance to his sister—­has just left his mo­ther to see how the First Princess likes some pictures he has sent to her. Kaoru, referring to pictures left ­behind by Niou, tells the Akashi empress that his wife feels dejected because of the First Princess’s neglect of her. The pictures might provide some solace. Kaoru’s ploy, ­misrepresenting his own discontent about the First Princess as his wife’s, fails. The Akashi empress takes her dau­gh­ter’s side, defending her against the charges of arrogance and neglect. She pointedly remarks that Kaoru’s wife can resume correspondence any time she pleases. This sharpness leads Kaoru to lash out at the empress for her hostility. The extent and purpose of his rudeness has been underestimated. In order to get closer to the First Princess, born of the “imperial womb,” he does not hesitate to criticize her mo­ther the empress. But his transgressive “vio­lence” is expressed almost exclusively in words. The Akashi empress does not see Kaoru’s own designs ­behind his per­sis­tent efforts to bring the two princesses into closer contact. It is only ­later, when Kaoru is reported to have revisited the west-­wing gallery in hopes of meeting Kosaishō or another of the First Princess’s ladies-­in-­ waiting that the Akashi empress begins to understand Kaoru’s obsession. She seems not to hold his be­hav­ior against him, forgiving him ­perhaps because he is her half-­brother (or so she thinks). She decides to

242

The Genealogical Maze

send pictures to the Second Princess a­ fter all and to urge her dau­gh­ter to resume her correspondence with her half-­sister.81 This is what Kaoru wanted: to feed upon his wife’s contacts with the “ideal beauty” of his fantasies. He seems content with second-­hand experience; his kaimami triggers not direct but displaced action. Unlike his pre­de­ces­sors engaged in courtship, he lives in the realm of art and prefers dream to reality. When the First Princess writes, as she was encouraged to, Kaoru admires her calligraphy, and he uses the opportunity to send her suggestive pictures (presumably in the name of his wife). He is tempted to add his own poetic hand to one of these pictures. The picture alludes to the Serikawa no Taishō monogatari, a lost work that ­apparently featured another, kinder First Princess courted by one Tōgimi. Typically, Kaoru’s resolve to leave his poetic mark on the picture comes to nothing as he concludes that he must keep his feelings to himself. The attempt to turn his fantasies into reality withers in the face of his still more power­ful memories of the Uji sisters, whom he mourns one by one, as if all three ­were dead (only Ōigimi is). In the Aftermath of the “Kagerō” kaimami.  Several months l­ ater, the twenty-­eight-­year-­old Kaoru learns that Ukifune is alive. While he was courting the First Princess, Ukifune returned as if from the dead. What happened to the suicidal Uji princess is all the more tragic in brief retelling. Abducted to Uji by Kaoru, who is too indecisive to bring her to the capital as his wife, abducted by Niou, who plans to bring her to the capital but never does, rejected by her mo­ther because of her involvement with Kaoru and Niou, Ukifune resolves to die in the Uji River but wanders, instead, to find shelter ­under a tree in the back of the late Suzaku emperor’s villa (location unknown). There, she is found by the bishop of Yokawa (Yokawa no sōzu; hereafter: sōzu), and a nun, his mo­ther. Suffering from amnesia and wanting only to die, Ukifune is kept alive and made into a substitute for the deceased dau­gh­ter of the sōzu’s sister, who is also a nun. She is taken from Uji to the Ono nunnery (see Figure 5) at the foot of Mount Hiei in the capital, where she lingers between life and death, insisting all the while that she remembers nothing of her earlier life. She is courted by a widowed captain of the guards who has accidentally caught a glimpse of her when the wind blew aside a blind. He thinks that she can serve as a substitute for his late wife. Despite his per­ sis­tent efforts, Ukifune remains unresponsive. In a moment that seems, perhaps unwittingly, comic, the sōzu’s sister says to the hapless suitor (her

Exiting the Maze243

son-­in-­law), “If you are looking for someone who is not very talkative, I suspect that you have come to the right place” (S: 1058; T: 1090; 6: 303). ­After much pleading, Ukifune persuades the sōzu to allow her to become a nun. The captain of the guards ceases to importune her and Ukifune, relieved, sends him a poem offering consolation of a sort: My soul may have left the shores of this gloomy word. But on driftwood it floats, who knows to what far shore? kokoro koso / ukiyo no kishi o / hanaruredo / yukue mo shiranu / ama no ukiki o (S: 1070; T: 1101; 6: 330; GM 785)

­After Ukifune’s disappearance, Kaoru asked his wife, the Second Princess, to act the part of her half-­sister, the First Princess, in a re-­ enactment of the kaimami of the First Princess chipping ice. Pursued by both Niou and Kaoru, the First Princess and Ukifune become, in­de­pen­ dently of each other, possessed by mono no ke to signal their similarly unbearable conflict. When the sōzu comes to the palace to exorcize the spirits that have possessed the First Princess, he tells her mo­ther about the successful exorcism he performed for a poor foundling to whom he has reluctantly given the tonsure. Kaoru is so impressed by the sōzu’s effective exorcism of the First Princess that he visits him at Yokawa (see Figure 5) on Mount Hiei and learns of Ukifune’s whereabouts. He then dispatches one of Ukifune’s young half-­bro­th­ers with a letter. She refuses to respond, and Kaoru concludes that someone is trying to hide Ukifune from him as he—­Kaoru—­sought to hide Ukifune from Niou. And, with that, Genji monogatari comes to its inconclusive end. That the end is inconclusive is itself the point. In the Genji, ­Murasaki Shikibu dramatized the lives of three innocent characters (Reizei, Kaoru, and Ukifune) whose secret identities are attributable to the transgressions of their parents. The genealogical charts (see Figures 7, 8, and 9) show at a glance that their efforts to protect their parents’ secret and to continue their lines are thwarted. Reizei has no offspring with Akikonomu, whose parents died with their hopes for imperial succession unfulfilled. He has only one dau­gh­ter, ­here referred to as Reizei’s First Princess, whom Kaoru is not particularly interested in courting (see Figure  13). Kaoru’s quest for knowledge about his true identity turns into a search for purity far away from the ambitions of the nobility in the capital. Although all is not pure and s­ imple at Uji e­ ither, he does at last find a kindred spirit in Ukifune, a w ­ oman who is similarly troubled

244

The Genealogical Maze

by betrayals and lack of parental recognition. Neither Kaoru nor Ukifune is willing to continue their lines. As for her half-­sisters, the two Uji princesses who ­were recognized by their parents, Ōigimi refuses marriage and virtually follows her f­ather into death by starvation. Nakanokimi breaks her ­father’s will by marrying Niou and bearing him a son. ­Whether Niou or his son ascends the throne following the oldest son of the Kinjō emperor and the Akashi empress is an unanswered question. Kaoru’s ultimate fate is also undetermined. Rebuffed by Ukifune and dissatisfied with his wife, a princess of inferior womb, he may in the end pursue her half-­sister, the First Princess, in order truly to become a part of Genji’s lineage. There is hope, therefore, that Genji’s line might continue in one way or another, but it is not clear by whom and with whom. The f­uture of the imperial succession in the Genji is clouded by uncertainty and anxiety. The imperial succession goes from ­father to son (from the Kiritsubo emperor to Suzaku and from Suzaku to Kinjō) and from brother to brother (Suzaku to Reizei) and from ­uncle to nephew (Reizei to Kinjō) (see Figure  11). It must be emphasized, however, that the transitions ­between reigns ­were sometimes accompanied by succession struggles involving depositions, demotions, and tabooed affairs. Excluded from the succession ­were Genji, Crown Prince Zenbō, and Hachi no miya (see Figure 14), with all the consequences of their deprivations shown above. It seems almost as if the main characters in the Uji chapters ­were unconcerned about the succession or even hoping to evade any such responsibility. Although the last emperor of the tale (Kinjō) named his eldest son crown prince, this candidate for the throne hardly made a name for himself. All we know is that he married the eldest dau­gh­ter of Yūgiri and that the next in line, the Second Prince, married another of Yūgiri’s daughters. The limelight is rather on the Akashi empress, who is putting great pressure on Niou to behave in such a way that she can be proud to support him as a candidate for crown prince. Might she even be scheming to demote her eldest son and skip over her second son so that Genji’s favorite grandson can ascend the throne? ­After all, Niou may not merely be the philanderer that he is often made out to be but also be a potential taboo violator. He is in love with his full sister, the First Princess. Moreover, the Akashi empress seems intent on promoting both Niou and the First Princess, the two favorite grandchildren of her adoptive mo­ther, ­Murasaki. Niou’s forbidden attraction to the First Princess may well be grounded in their strong emotional bonding due to their grandparents’ love for them, even if it seems like an anachronism recalling the

Ichi no in (First Retired Emperor)

Sendai (Former Emperor) ? G4

Kiritsubo Emperor G4*

Crown Prince Zenbō

G8

(d. G12)

GENJI

Crown Prince Suzaku (age 7)

G19 G21

Crown Prince Reizei (age 4)

G21

Kokiden Empress Mother

Fujitsubo Empress

G21

Pate

rnity

G29

Suzaku Emperor (age 25–32) G29

Reizei Emperor (age 11–28)

Crown Prince Kinjō (age 3)

G33

Akikonomu Empress

G46

Crown Prince (oldest son of Kinjō’s Akashi Empress)

rn Pa te

G46

ity

Kinjō Emperor (age 20–?) G51

Akashi Empress

Appointed Demoted Deposed

* The time of an event is given by Genji’s approximate age.

Failed Deposition

Figure 14. The struggle for the imperial succession in The Tale of Genji.

246

The Genealogical Maze

brother-­sister (himehiko) rule of archaic Japan. Will the siblings break the incest taboo and assert their capacity for imperial power, as did another pair of forbidden lovers, Genji and Fujitsubo? More likely, will Niou’s son by Nakanokimi succeed in Niou’s place? When this son was born, the Akashi empress sponsored the grand seventh-­night festivities (ubuyashinai), and the Kinjō emperor appeared resigned to pre­sent a ceremonial sword (mihakashi)82 to his grandson (S: 926; T: 963; 5: 461). As an auspicious gift carry­ing imperial promise, the mihakashi recalls Genji’s gift to his newborn Akashi dau­gh­ter (S: 275; T: 284; 2: 279). Could it even be hers that is now passed on to her grandson? Is it the Akashi empress’s turn to influence the imperial succession? Although the imperial succession seemed all set with the Kinjō emperor’s naming of an uncharismatic crown prince, it may be contested, a­ fter all. All one can say for certain is that the wheel has come full circle, for the Genji began with uncertainty about the imperial succession, and so it ends, too.

Conclusion

W

hen the im­por­tant mid-­Heian statesman Fujiwara no Michinaga encouraged his son Yorimichi to agree to an arranged marriage, he pointed to its great ­career potential: “A man’s ­career depends on his wife’s f­amily.”1 Michinaga’s words ­were not limited to arranged marriages but also elucidate much of what drove mid-­Heian courtship and kinship. The great writers of that period, however, tended to complicate matters by showing what could go wrong with courtship. It is difficult to generalize about the extant pre-­Genji lit­erature, because it is so diverse in genre and thematic purpose, but the works that include the theme of courtship and kinship map it differently from The Tale of Genji, keeping the joys and travails of courtship limited to one generation of characters. The consequences of such limitations are im­por­tant to consider. In pre-­Genji texts, the deprivations hampering the characters’ ambitions for genealogical success have to do with rank and status and with sometimes mistaken or abused identities. The deprivations inhibiting the courtship of characters are not the result of parents who concealed their identity from their children, thus obscuring ­whole lineages, as is the case in the Genji. The deprivation caused by mistaken identity is temporary and reversible, because there is a secret that can be revealed. In the Genji, by contrast, the secrets of illegitimate births are so deeply grounded in taboo that the affair that produced them cannot be narrated, and the ­paternity of an affair’s offspring cannot be revealed to the public. The Genji characters thus face a task not encountered in pre-­Genji texts. Whereas deprivation experiences earlier could be corrected, in the Genji they can be corrected only by further transgression or by unorthodox be­ hav­ior such as self-­destruction, withdrawal into religion, or entering the lonely path of solitary poetry. There is another im­por­tant difference between the courtships in pre-­ Genji texts and those in Murasaki Shikibu’s masterpiece. The motivations 247

248Conclusion

for courtship in the pre-­Genji texts are myriad. The motivation for courtship in The Tale of Genji is a multigenerational quest for po­liti­cal power. The po­liti­cally ambitious aristocrats who embark on this quest explore vari­ous strategies to accomplish their goal. Their po­liti­cal ambitions ­were directed not merely at promotions to some higher rank and office but at obtaining the highest possi­ble position at court. The highest of all positions was, of course, the imperial throne. Although a courtier could be appointed to higher office by virtue of his achievements or by cultivating good relations with his superiors in rank, he had to be versed in the strategies of courtship and in the intricacies of kinship in order to become part of the imperial line or to place his children or grandchildren in that line. The Genji begins with a warning about excessive love. The opening lines of the Genji refer to the disastrous Chinese pre­ce­dent that led to the An Lushan or Anshi Rebellion of 755–763, in which the Xuanzong (Hsüan Tsung) emperor let his own troops strangle his beloved ­consort Yang Guifei (Yang Kuei-­fei) in 756 for her suspected role in the rebellion started by her adopted son An Lushan. Like the Xuanzong emperor, like Shakespeare’s Othello, who “loved not wisely but too well,” the Kiritsubo emperor loved to excess Kiritsubo, whose rank of kōi put her just below that of nyōgo, from which empresses ­were appointed. Since Kokiden was, at the time, the imperial consort (nyōgo), Kiritsubo was considered an inappropriate recipient of the emperor’s undivided attention. Kiritsubo bore Genji and died only about two years l­ater. The predictable outcome of the emperor’s excessive love of Kiritsubo was Kokiden’s jealousy and fear that the emperor might f­ avor Kiritsubo’s son over her son, Suzaku. To allay Kokiden’s anxiety over her son’s succession and to save Genji from the harm he would certainly have suffered from intrigues at court, the emperor demoted Genji to commoner status. This demotion was, in fact, the equivalent of a “blood sacrifice” to ensure a peaceful succession to the throne. Having already lost what was dearest to him, Kiritsubo, the emperor went against his deepest feelings and proceeded to give up the next most precious person. Genji, however, remained alive to his imperial potential. Although his older half-­brother Suzaku succeeded his ­father as emperor, Genji waited secretly to take his turn in succession politics, without openly transgressing his f­ather’s ­order. The demotion launched Genji on his quest to have his children and grandchildren rise to imperial status or the prospect of it. Even though the Kiritsubo emperor meant only to protect Genji from Kokiden’s intrigues aimed at furthering her own son’s ­career at

Conclusion249

court, the emperor had involuntarily hurt his favorite son. Genji at first felt deprived of the chance ever to become emperor. It was only ­after the birth of his third child that Genji came to appreciate his ­father’s radical step to save him from anticipated intrigues. Although Genji would never be able to undo his demotion, there was something he could do to make up for lost status, prestige, and pride. If he could not become emperor himself, he could f­ ather offspring who might rise to imperial heights. In this vicariousness lies a clue to the way in which all three generations in Murasaki Shikibu’s drama are connected in their strug­gle to reach their greatest genealogical potential. Murasaki Shikibu took the Kiritsubo emperor’s excessive love for Kiritsubo as a basis for constructing a complex genealogical maze at the center of which is the prize of imperial rule. Like Daedalus, the tale’s author constructed this maze for the courtiers of successive generations to “kill” and replace its symbolic Minotaur: kingship. The potential occupants of this most power­ful spot are severely tested for their capacity to both transgress and sacrifice. The descent line of male characters consists of Genji’s ­father, Genji himself, Genji’s son Yūgiri, Genji’s putative son Kaoru, and Genji’s grandson Niou. Each deprives one or more of the o ­ thers of some vital aspect of his potential in the strug­gle to gain power. What can Genji do vicariously to attain imperial status? When his ­father finds a replacement for Genji’s deceased mo­ther in Fujitsubo, young Genji looks to her for maternal love. When his arranged marriage at age twelve to his cousin Aoi, four years his se­nior, turns out to be unsatisfactory, Genji begins to harbor forbidden amorous thoughts of Fujitsubo, who is only one year older than Aoi. He begins to daydream about committing affinal incest by betraying his imperial f­ ather and ravishing his young stepmother, but Murasaki Shikibu carefully avoids narrating the unspeakable taboo ­violation. She gives us, instead, many other episodes of courtship as Genji practices the fine and useful art of seduction in order to obtain his goal of claiming the throne vicariously. These are the almost mythical circumstances that Murasaki Shikibu used to construct a genealogical maze within which, in one way or another, almost all the Genji’s major characters wander. Readers must find their way through this maze designed to contain and protect the genealogical interests of the eponymous hero. Readers can do this by consulting the vari­ous threads provided in the genealogical charts that have been created by generations of Genji scholars. These charts, often coordinated with chronological charts, comprise a field of specialty known as nenpu

250Conclusion

and keizu. What makes a Genji chart such a challenge is that it must represent in a single chart two kinds of ­family trees, one that is known to the world of the fictional characters’ contemporaries and one that is not. The first is false in significant part, and the second, which includes ­women whom Genji and Kashiwagi and Hachi no miya made their own, is true. Readers attentive to the importance of genealogical issues hold the key to both. Beginning with Genji, the existing genealogical tree acquires a shadow tree that only those privy to the secret can see, as in a mirror. The shadow tree grows from the sexual transgressions of varying degrees that lead to illegitimate offspring and secret genealogies that falsify publicly recognized genealogical lines. It is no accident that, on the basis of the Kiritsubo emperor’s excessive love for Kiritsubo, Murasaki Shikibu conceived of the chief transgressors of the three generations, beginning with Genji’s, as the originators of the tale’s three great secrets, each one the result of an inappropriate affair and a distortion of the ­genealogical line: through affinal incest, Genji fathers Reizei with his stepmother, Fujitsubo (the consort of the Kiritsubo emperor); through adultery, Kashiwagi fathers Kaoru with the Third Princess (Genji’s principal wife in his mature years); by betrayal of the memory of his wife, Hachi no miya fathers Ukifune with Chūjō no kimi (his late wife’s niece). One cannot fail to notice that the taboo violations required to generate these secrets lessen in severity over the generations, but that does not mean that the illicit or unrecognized offspring suffer any less; quite the contrary. All three—­ Reizei, Kaoru, and Ukifune—­ eventually become aware of the secrets that determine their lives, but the impact of their secrets’ revelations stands in inverse relation to the degree of their fathers’ transgressions. It seems that the chain of transgressive events and their accumulative effects on generational links weigh most heavily on the Uji characters. Their response is hesitancy ­toward, if not eventually aversion to, sexual desire and reproduction. The ability to marry and have children is now the exception rather than the rule. Of the main third-­generation characters, only Niou and Nakanokimi lead lives that do not doom their genealogies. Mapping the genealogical maze is essential to understanding the Genji. Mapping the physical movements of the characters is equally im­ por­tant, which is why Genji scholars supply maps of the Greater Imperial Palace, the emperor’s residential compound, and the Heian capital and its environs. In polygynous society, the nobleman was required to move around from one ­woman’s place to another, while she represented stability of place—­provided there was no crisis that precipitated a move

Conclusion251

on her part, ­either voluntary or forced. In ­either case, mapping courtship movements is quin­tes­sen­tial and constitutes, together with mapping residences, the two most im­por­tant coordinates for charting genealogies. Men’s movements ­were built into the Heian marital system just as was the ­women’s rootedness. Genji’s principal wife, Aoi, lives at the Sanjō ­residence of her ­father, the Minister of the Left (see Figure  6), where Genji (rarely) visits her, just as he visits his many other w ­ omen in their vari­ous locations from his own base at Nijō (his mo­ther’s 1-­chō residence) and his 1-­chō expansion to the east, the Nijō Higashi residence (see Figure 6). But Genji would not be Genji if he adhered to the norms of be­hav­ior expected of the court nobility. When Genji builds his unorthodox palatial four-­chō residence, the Rokujō-in (see Figure  6), in order to ­house many of his ­women, he must first uproot them and then expect them to live in haremlike proximity to each other.2 The chaotic journeys in the Genji’s last ten Uji chapters and the fact that residences are frequently ­under construction, burned down, temporary, or restructured reflect the increasing elusiveness of genealogical security. Thematically, the Genji begins with Genji’s demotion at age eight, but Murasaki Shikibu’s narrative does not put his taboo affair with his stepmother, Fujitsubo, at the beginning. Instead of the unnarrated taboo affair that leads to the core of the Genji’s genealogical maze, the author gives us a series of romantic kaimami experienced by the dashing young hero as he prepares for his transgressive affair with Fujitsubo and her confinement during the pregnancy that resulted from the affair. Within this relatively short period, he approaches a great variety of w ­ omen who are not at all suitable candidates for producing heirs for the throne. (The exception, Murasaki, turns out to be barren.) Although Genji’s pursuits of these other w ­ omen are, strictly speaking, nongenealogical in that he does not see them as the mothers of emperors, they serve a genealogical end in the sense that romantic courtship of these w ­ omen is a kind of dress (or undress) rehearsal for the forbidden courtship of Genji’s ideal w ­ oman, Fujitsubo. When Genji practices the art of amorous conquest with these other ­women, he makes some very painful discoveries. Do the sometimes grotesque difficulties he encounters in the course of these early affairs suggest that he may not be ready to undergo the ordeals necessary to establish a man’s legitimacy for assuming imperial powers or for passing them to his children and grandchildren? One of his lovers, Utsusemi, rejects him, and he makes do with her half-­brother and her stepdaughter; Yūgao expires in his arms; Suetsumuhana upholds the ethics of a princess fallen on hard times by not marrying beneath her station; and Murasaki, Fujitsubo’s

252Conclusion

niece, is still too young for lovemaking. There is still another w ­ oman with whom Genji has been engaged in a difficult affair whose beginnings are unnarrated. Rokujō miyasudokoro is, like Genji, irreversibly frustrated in her hopes of ascending the throne because of the premature and unnarrated death of her husband, Crown Prince Zenbō. In genealogical terms, the ­union between Genji and Rokujō miyasudokoro is unproductive since it cannot realize their imperial ambition but is, instead, a constant reminder of something irretrievably lost. (­After Rokujō miyasudokoro’s death, Genji schemes with Fujitsubo to make Rokujō’s dau­gh­ter Akikonomu their illicit son Reizei’s high consort, ­later to become empress [chūgū], albeit without offspring.) Genji courts these resistant, difficult, and inappropriate ­women in short sequence because he needs to become as experienced as possi­ble in the ways of seduction in order to gain self-­confidence. He needs these skills because he cannot afford to fail with Fujitsubo. He can fail with all the ­women he is courting, but he must win Fujitsubo to reach his ­ultimate goal of putting an heir on the throne in lieu of himself. He succeeds in making her pregnant, and the illicit lovers vow to keep the secret of their forbidden love and its fruit so that Genji can have an heir on the throne without offending his ­father. The Tale of Genji might have ended with Genji, but it does not. Charting the forest of genealogical trees becomes ever more challenging as the lines of the second and third generations intertwine and overlap. Genji’s duplicity in crafting his genealogy engenders many complications in the lives of his descendants (or characters who think they are his descendants). Genji readers, who know more than the fictional characters do, cannot help but won­der how the sins of the fathers might affect the generations to come. Genji’s son Yūgiri, the sole and belated offspring of Genji’s arranged childhood marriage to his cousin Aoi, leads a model courtier’s life, fathering a dozen children by two main wives. He is tempted to betray his ­father by committing affinal incest when he glimpses his stepmother Murasaki, accidentally during a tempest and less accidentally upon her death, but he is, in the end, controlled by his f­ ather. Yet even he can, ­after arranging the marriages of no fewer than three of his daughters to the princes born of the Kinjō emperor and the Akashi empress, entertain some hope for ­future imperial succession. By contrast, Genji’s putative son Kaoru is profoundly troubled by uncertainties about his identity. Kaoru wanders in search of his true place on the ­family tree and a princess who will satisfy his longing for a normal life, a quest symbolically expressed in his wandering in perpetual mists—­symptomatic of his

Conclusion253

confusion—­between the capital and the wilderness of Uji. In Uji, he finds a soulmate in Ōigimi, the older of two daughters of Genji’s younger half-­ brother Hachi no miya. Both Kaoru and Ōigimi are confused enough about their relationship to each other to abstain from consummating it. In her refusal to marry Kaoru, Ōigimi follows her ­father’s last wish; more tragically, Ōigimi decides to take her filial devotion to the extreme by following Hachi no miya into death. She perishes by starving herself. Kaoru seems to find an even closer match to his own search for genealogical certainty in Ukifune, the unrecognized dau­gh­ter of the same Hachi no miya, but this relationship also proves to be abortive. As shown in the Introduction, Murasaki Shikibu has provided an alternative to Genji’s taboo affair with Fujitsubo. She designed a nontransgressive way for Genji to ­father offspring destined for the imperial throne. Genji does so through a dream-­inspired conciliatory approach to courtship. One stormy night during Genji’s self-­imposed exile to Suma (where he attempts to atone for being caught in flagrante with his half-­ brother Suzaku’s intended), he has a dream in which his late f­ather forgives him. Not long before this dream of reconciliation, the Akashi priest had dreamed that his dau­gh­ter is destined for Genji. So it comes to pass that Genji fathers Akashi no kimi’s dau­gh­ter, who becomes empress while her parents and her adoptive mo­ther, Murasaki, are still alive. ­After Genji’s death, the Akashi empress has her hands full trying to rein in her third son, Prince Niou, so that he may not ruin his chances—or his son’s by Nakanokimi—to become crown prince and emperor some day. The fateful chain of events resulting from the Kiritsubo emperor’s excessive love might be compared to the relentless cycle of blood revenge. Since vio­lence in the Genji takes a bloodless form, transgressive courtship—in the form of cuckolding—­becomes the weapon of vengeance. For depriving him of the possibility of becoming emperor, Genji cuckolds his ­father and thus, unknown to the world, gives birth to the ­future emperor Reizei. Genji in turn is cuckolded, as if in retribution for what he had done to his ­father, by Kashiwagi, the son of Genji’s cousin and brother-­in-­law Tō no Chūjō. Avenging this wrong, Genji taunts Kashiwagi, who is so mortified that he starves himself to death. Kashiwagi’s death seems to stop the cycle of vengeance. Further acts of violent retribution take less obviously aggressive forms. When Genji holds in his arms Kaoru, the newborn son of the Third Princess, he knows that he is not the boy’s ­father. Not wanting to arouse suspicion, he rears Kaoru as if he ­were his son. It seems, however, that Genji’s resentment does not go undetected, for Kaoru grows up sensing that his parents are

254Conclusion

hiding something from him. He goes wandering through the mists to Uji in search of genealogical certainty. When he does learn, at age twenty-­ two, the secret of his conception, the discovery does not move him to seek retribution for Genji’s taunting of his biological ­father. Quite the contrary. Since it is unthinkable for Kaoru to reveal to the world that Kashiwagi is his ­father, he must continue to play the part of being Genji’s son. He will not even tell his mo­ther that he now knows who he is. Kaoru’s divided genealogical allegiances show in his counterproductive courtships. He courts Nakanokimi, but when he realizes that Genji’s favorite grandson, Niou, is his rival in courting her, he spends a night with her during which he neither reveals his secret nor consummates his love, effectively ceding her to Niou. When Nakanokimi bears Niou’s son, Kaoru is regretful about not having fathered the child himself. Nevertheless, he brings some carefully selected precious gifts to the fifth-­night cele­bration of the child’s birth. Kaoru is presumably pre­sent at the seventh-­night ceremony sponsored by the Akashi empress, at which the symbolic sword, that might actually have been the sword that Genji had given to the Akashi empress at her birth, is passed on to Niou’s son. Increasingly resigned to playing the role of Genji’s son, Kaoru must repress the urge to avenge his ­father, Kashiwagi, and to continue his line. As long as Kaoru cannot admit to the world that he is not of the same line as his cousin Niou, he cannot be effective as his rival. It seems that he craves to be mortified. Instead of pursuing the Akashi empress’s First Princess of imperial womb (5: 369: kisakibara), which is what he ­really wants, he agrees to a wager proposed by the Kinjō emperor at a game of go that commits him as the winner to marry the Second Princess by the emperor’s late Fujitsubo consort (see Figure 13). Suspended between two genealogical lines, Kaoru is clearly in a bind, not knowing ­whether to resent Genji for having driven Kashiwagi to suicide or to welcome blows from Genji’s side in atonement for Kashiwagi’s cuckolding of Genji. While in search of the secret of his conception—­before his discovery of the First Princess—­Kaoru had come across the daughters of Hachi no miya, one of Genji’s younger half-­bro­th­ers. Ōigimi, the older of the two daughters Hachi no miya recognized, finally rejects Kaoru and dies. Kaoru now imagines that Ukifune, the unacknowledged half-­ sister of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi, might be the solution to his dilemma. Ukifune had lived briefly in Nakanokimi’s ­house­hold but was taken to the Eastern Cottage a­ fter Niou’s advances made her life with Nakanokimi insupportable. Kaoru then abducts Ukifune from the Eastern Cot-

Conclusion255

tage and sequesters her in Uji. Niou follows Kaoru to Uji and unwittingly becomes his rival for Ukifune. Kaoru seems determined to deny himself the chance to fulfill his potential. He abjures revealing his secret to Ukifune. Having fallen for Niou but reluctant to betray Nakanokimi and Kaoru, her first lover, Ukifune decides to end it all. She disappears. When she reappears, Kaoru persists in his hopeless courtship of Ukifune. Keeping a secret about one’s parentage to oneself prevents an unambiguous placement in the proper lineage that is the prerequisite for decisiveness in the pursuit of courtship. Reizei was fortunate in that he could cope with learning of this secret by discreetly communicating his res­pect to Genji, his biological ­father. (Reizei’s intimate moment with Genji is poignantly depicted in the Genji monogatari emaki [The Tale of Genji Scroll] scene “Suzumushi II.”) Never having known their fathers, Kaoru and Ukifune are deprived of this intimate moment that allowed Reizei to be at peace with his secret. Without feeling firmly rooted, Ukifune is determined to end her line, and Kaoru keeps wandering unable to decide with whom to continue his true or false line. The imperial power at the center of the genealogical maze seems to be fading with Genji’s male descendants’ memory of Genji, the tale’s unsurpassed transgressor. As progenitor, his accomplishments are uneven. The world remains unaware of Genji’s illicit son, the Reizei emperor, who has only one dau­gh­ter, by the Kokiden consort, with l­ittle prospect of a suitable match. The world is aware of two of Genji’s children, a son, Yūgiri, by Aoi, his first principal wife, and a dau­gh­ter by Akashi no kimi. Yūgiri has many children, and he is successful in marrying three of his daughters to the sons of the Kinjō emperor and the Akashi empress: his oldest dau­gh­ter by Kumoinokari to the crown prince, his second dau­gh­ ter by the same ­woman to the Second Prince (Ni no miya) and a sixth dau­gh­ter (Rokunokimi), by Koremitsu’s dau­gh­ter, to the Third Prince (Niou). While Yūgiri studiously labors in pursuit of his marriage politics, it is the Akashi dau­gh­ter who fulfills Genji’s dream by becoming ­empress. For the succession of her first son, she favors not the second son, although he is next in line to be named crown prince, but her third son, Niou. She also promotes her dau­gh­ter, the First Princess, who is Genji’s granddaughter and one of Murasaki’s two favorite grandchildren (the other being Niou). This First Princess, presumed to be Kaoru’s niece, had been his ideal princess, and he had gone to great extremes to court her in secret. His fervor had not gone unnoticed, but his seriousness of purpose had been, perhaps because of the farcical trial run of wooing his own wife, the Second Princess (the Kinjō emperor’s dau­gh­ter

256Conclusion

by his Fujitsubo consort), in her place. Although the shining Genji had practiced much the same courtship substitution as a trial for his conquest of Fujitsubo, his moments of bungling w ­ ere made up by his ­actual transgression. Kaoru’s ­future is still undetermined, but if his courtship ­were to succeed outside the boundaries of the monogatari, he just might, through offspring with this princess, gain a chance for his descendants on the imperial throne. It is more difficult to imagine that Ukifune might have children or grandchildren who could succeed to the throne. At the end of the tale, Ukifune is ensconced at the foot of Mount Hiei in the Ono nunnery. There, she is practicing her hand at poetry, while rejecting all suitors, i­ncluding the devoted Kaoru. Like Genji, Ukifune, too, is vindicating a parent, Hachi no miya (in a gender reversal to Genji’s mo­ther), who was ostracized for trying to replace Reizei as crown prince. Unlike the Kiritsubo emperor, though, Hachi no miya did not act from a noble motive, and Ukifune’s realization about the ­father she never knew in the flesh leads her to refuse the continuation of his genealogical line. Murasaki Shikibu leaves her audience with Ukifune at tenarai, practicing her hand at calligraphy as poetry on paper.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the notes and bibliography.

GMH KGMS

NBKSS

NKBT NKBZ SNKBT

Tamagami Takuya, ed. Genji monogatari hyōshaku. 12 vols. Kadokawa shoten, 1964–1968. Akiyama Ken, Kimura Masanori, and Shimizu Yoshiko, eds. Kōza Genji monogatari no sekai. 9 vols. Yūhikaku, 1980–1984. Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō kankōkai, ed. Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho. 50 vols. Yūseidō, 1969– 1974. Nihon koten bungaku taikei. 102 vols. Iwanami shoten, 1957–1968. Nihon koten bungaku zenshū. 51 vols. Shōgakukan, 1970–1976. Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei. 82 vols. Iwanami shoten, 1989–2005.

257

This page intentionally left blank

Notes

Preface 1. Kyōto City, ed., Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, ­1994). 2. Kyōto-­shi maizō bunkazai kenkyūjo, kōkoshiryōkan, ed., Heian-­kyō zue (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi shōgai gakushū shinkō zaidan, 2005). 3. Shadan hōjin Murasaki Shikibu kenshōkai, ed., Kyōto Genji monogatari chizu (Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2007). 4. Tsunoda Bun’ei and Kanō Shigefumi, eds., Genji monogatari no chiri (Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 1999). 5. Nicolas Fiévé, ed., L’atlas historique de Kyōto: Analyse spatiale des systèmes de mémoire d’une ville, de son architecture et de son ­paysage urbain (Paris: UNESCO, Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2008). The segment on the capital during the Heian period (794–1185) includes a chapter by Nicolas Fiévé on “Les jardins aristocratiques,” 98–93. 6. William H. Coaldrake explains that the term zukuri is “a contraction of tsukuri-­kata” and was added to the term shinden in the Edo period to refer to a “way of building.” Coaldrake further notes: “It is only since the Meiji period that architectural historians have translated the term [zukuri] as ‘style’ as a result of the influence of Western architectural theory” (Architecture and Authority in Japan [London: Routledge, 1996], 295–296n4). 7. Ibid., 297n23. 8. The location of lovers can often be inferred from the medieval Eu­ro­ pean primary lit­erature, yet it is seldom very precisely identified in terms of architectural elements, at least not u ­ ntil modern times. I am grateful to Liza Dalby for mentioning the novels of Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) as an example of mid-­nineteenth-­century detailed description of fictional characters’ locations. 9. I am grateful to Howell D. Chickering Jr. for information on courtship in medieval Eu­rope. 259

260











Notes to Pages xiv–xv

10. Baron Suyematz Kenchio (Suematsu Kenchō), trans., Genji Monogatari: The Most Celebrated of the Classical Japa­nese Romances (London: Trubner, 1882); Arthur Waley, trans., The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts by Lady Murasaki (New York: Modern Library, 1960); Edward G. Seidensticker, trans., The Tale of Genji (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976); Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994); Royall Tyler, trans., The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu (New York: Penguin Books, 2003). Dennis Washburn’s translation is forthcoming in 2015 with W. W. Norton. It was not available to me for quotation. 11. For a comprehensive list of “Principal Characters in the Genji,” giving the traditional Japa­nese names and those used by Edward G. Seidensticker and Arthur Waley in their translations, see Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), Appendix A, 205–213. See also Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in The Tale of Genji (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987), xiii–­xviii. Readers of the paperback edition of Royall Tyler’s translation of the Genji are provided with his specific list of characters to trace a single character through his or her vari­ous shifting appellations by kinship, sobriquet, titles, ranks (The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu [New York: Penguin Books, 2003], 1173–1179). 12. Quotations marked S refer to Edward G. Seidensticker’s translation of The Tale of Genji (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976). The page numbers of the translation are, when relevant, followed by the page nese text. All numbers of other translations and, finally, the Japa­ ­textual references to the Genji monogatari are to the Nihon Koten ­ nless Bungaku Zenshū series (NKBZ, numbered by Genji volume) u other­wise noted. 13. Most Western scholars have been content with giving lists of principal characters describing basic kinship relations in the Genji. I have provided elaborate genealogical charts in A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), Appendix B (8 charts), and in “The Prob­lem of Incest in The Tale of Genji,” in Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, ed. Edward Kamens (New York: MLA, 1993), 117, fig. 1; 119, fig. 2; 122, fig. 3. 14. Haruo Shirane credits Murasaki Shikibu with crafting “her ever-­ expanding narrative on a precise time grid that uses temporal paral-

Notes to Pages xv–2



261

lelism to reveal d ­ ifferent sides of the hero’s life” (The Bridge of Dreams, 61). 15. Suzuki Hideo has an elaborate toshidate in Genji monogatari hikkei, ed. Akiyama Ken, Bessatsu kokubungaku, no. 1 (Gakutōsha, 1978), 127–137. There is a combination of genealogical charts and toshidate by Suzuki Kazuo in Genji monogatari jiten, ed. Akiyama Ken, Bessatsu kokubungaku, no. 36 (Gakutōsha, 1989), 376–394. A newer version appeared in Akiyama Ken, Murofushi Shinsuke, Suzuki ­Hiroko, Harimoto Masayuki, and Muroki Hideyuki, eds., Genji monogatari hikkei jiten (Kadokawa shoten, 1998), 227–236.

Introduction 1. Doris G. Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997). 2. See Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in The Tale of Genji (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987); H. Richard Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991); Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987). 3. See Michael Emmerich, The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Lit­erature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); Haruo Shirane, ed., Envisioning The Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). 4. Literary critics have come to the topic of kaimami surprisingly late for sustained analy­sis. The seminal 1948 article by Imai Gen’e has become the starting point for discussion in interpretations of the phenomenon. Imai’s long article was preceded in 1927 by a very short piece by Aketa Yonesaku, as noted by Yoshikai Naoto (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru [Kasama shoin, 2008], 296–303), who lists 77 Japanese-­language secondary works specifically focused on kaimami. In his book, Yoshikai emphasizes eavesdropping and its effect on kaimami. Early Japa­nese scholars themselves did not necessarily embrace the topic, as is evident from influential scholar-­poet Hosokawa Yūsai’s 1597 response to kaimami in the first episode of Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari, tenth ­century): “Kaimami is to peep through the space in the fence. But h ­ ere, [since] peeping is not elegant (yūgen), the expression must mean ‘to see from a distance, or through something’ ” (Joshua  S. Mostow and Royall

262

Notes to Page 2

Tyler, trans., The Ise Stories: Ise monogatari [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010], 8). Mitani Kuniaki (“Monogatari bungaku no ‘shisen’ miru koto no kinki aruiwa ‘katari’ no kyōen,” in Monogatari kenkyū 2: 89–108 [Shinjidaisha, 1988]; Monogatari bungaku no hōhō II [Yūseidō, 1989]; Monogatari bungaku no gensetsu [Yūseidō, 1992; Kanrin shobō, 2002]; Genji monogatari no ‘katari’ to ‘gensetsu’ [Yūseidō, 1994]) and Takahashi Tōru (“Shisen, manazashi, mami,” in Monogatari kenkyū 2: 200–201 [Shinjidaisha, 1988]); “Monogatari bungaku no manazashi to kūkan,” Nihon no bigaku 16 [March 1991]) have examined kaimami as a mechanism to propel the narrative forward and to increase awareness of perspective among the actors involved. Shinohara Yoshihiko (Genji monogatari no sekai [Kindai bungeisha 1993]) and Kayaba Yasuo (“Genji monogatari no kaimami,” Gakuen 541: 81–94 [January 1985]) list incidents of kaimami from the ancient chronicles to The Tale of Genji. Hirota Osamu (Genji monogatari keifu to kōzō [Kasama shoin, 2007]) has focused on the literary construction of kaimami as reflected in architectural space. Scholars like Mitamura Masako (Genji monogatari kankaku no ronri [Yūseidō, 1996]; Genji monogatari: monogatari kūkan o yomu [Chikuma shinsho, 1997]), Kawazoe Fusae (Sei to bunka no Genji monogatari [Chikuma shobō, 1998]), Norma Field (The Splendor of Longing), and Otilia C. Milutin (“Panic Attacks: Violent Female Displacement in The Tale of Genji,” (master’s thesis, University of Mas­sa­chu­setts ­Amherst, 2008), to name only a few, have infused Genji studies with a feminist perspective on space and raised gender-­related questions about the body and sexuality. Yoshikai has asserted that Western scholars have associated kaimami with vio­ lence (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 9–10). The first two monographs on The Tale of Genji in En­glish define kaimami as “voyeurism” (Field, The Splendor of Longing) or as “a view through the fence” (Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 46), but neither focuses on the topos. Examining Taketori, Ise, and Genji monogatari, Okada (Figures of Re­sis­tance) uses postmodern theories of re­sis­tance and sexual politics to focus on discourse and genealogy and, sporadically, on the role of peeping. Bargen’s monograph on spirit possession in the Genji (A ­Woman’s Weapon) rarely mentions kaimami. The most sustained consideration of kaimami to date in the West is Edith Sarra’s monograph (Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japa­nese Court ­Women’s Memoirs [Stanford, CA: Stanford University

Notes to Pages 2–11











263

Press, 1999]) on feminist and narrative aspects of pre-­Genji diaries and Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book. 5. According to legend, Murasaki Shikibu’s first Genji chapter was Chapter  12 (“Suma”), which dramatized the hero’s exile and urgently called for both an explanation and a solution, the latter provided in Chapter 13 (“Akashi”). 6. Translations from Genji monogatari are identified by the translators’ initials, for example, S for Seidensticker, T for Tyler, W for Waley, or noted as my own. Occasional reference will be made to the German and French translations; OB for Oscar Benl and RS for René Sieffert. Quotations from the Japa­nese text are from Genji volumes 1–6 in the series Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (NKBZ). For bibliographic ­details, see the Bibliography. 7. The same motif of Genji’s moonlit journey on h ­ orse­back to Akashi no kimi’s ­house is shown in the right six-­panel folding screen (byōbu) with scattered fan paintings in the Collection of Jōdoji and in a six-­ panel folding screen from the early Edo period in the Tōkyō National Museum (Kyōto Bunka Hakubutsukan, ed., Genji onna monogatari ten [Ōsaka: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1998], 66–67, fig.  52; 86–87, fig. 60). 8. The poetic image of moonlight falling through the cedar door left slightly ajar (2: 246: tsuki iretaru maki no toguchi keshiki bakari ­oshiaketari) was, according to Ichijō Kanera’s Genji commentary, Kachō yosei (1472), greatly admired by the poet and Genji scholar Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). See NKBZ, 2: 245n1. The open door looms large in the round fan painting of the “Akashi” chapter from the early Edo-­period Genji monogatari uchiwa gajō in the Collection of the Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan, 99.12 (Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan, ed., Genji monogatari—­Sennen no kagayaki [Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2008], 36). 9. Since the Heian marital-­residential system rapidly evolved in the mid-­ Heian era, the topic of courtship and kinship in works composed ­after Genji monogatari is beyond the scope of this study.

Chapter 1. Physical Space 1. William H. McCullough mentions an alternate name, “Rakuyō,” referring to “Luoyang, the name of the Eastern Capital of the T’ang dynasty as paired with the Western Capital at Ch’ang-an” (“The Capital and Its Society”) in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 2:

264











Notes to Pages 11–12

­ eian Japan, ed. Donald  H. Shively and William  H. McCullough H (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 101. 2. Nicolas Fiévé, “The Urban Evolution of the City of Heiankyō: A Study of the Iconographic Sources—1,” Japan Forum 4, no. 1 (April 1992): 106n12. 3. Ibid., 94. The symbolism of Genbu may be derived from the Dark Warrior Gate to the north of the Palace City of Sui-­Tang Chang’an, a gate enforced by “the elevation of Longshou Mountain, symbolic of the Dark Warrior, to the north” (Victor Cunrui Xiong, Sui-­Tang Chang’an: A Study in the Urban History of Medieval China [Ann ­Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 2000], 51). For a geomantic map of Heian-­kyō with “the four protective gods (shijin)—­Black Turtle (genbu) in the north, Blue Dragon (shōryū) to the East, Crimson Phoenix (suzaku) to the south, and White Tiger (byakko) to the west,” see Marc  P. Keane, Japa­nese Garden Design (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1996), 29. 4. William H. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), 61. 5. For a detailed study of Chang’an and a critical revision, on the basis of documentary sources, of the 1957–1962 archaeological findings of this monumental city’s “highly irregular layout,” see Saehyang P. Chung, “Symmetry and Balance in the Layout of the Sui-­Tang Palace-­ City of Chang’an,” Artibus Asiae 56 (1996); and idem, “The Sui-­Tang Eastern Palace in Chang’an: ­Toward a Reconstruction of Its Plan,” Artibus Asiae 58 (1998). 6. In 1999, William  H. McCullough wrote, “Heian was modeled on neither Chang’an nor Luoyang, as often erroneously supposed, but on the earlier Japa­nese capital at Fujiwara—­which seems to have taken its inspiration from the capital of the southern Chinese dynasties at Jiankang (Nanking)” (“The Capital and Its Society,” 101). However, archaeologists have recently located the Greater Imperial Palace of Fujiwara-­kyō in the city center, which makes this capital quite unique among ancient Japa­nese capitals. 7. See, for example, Laurence Sickman and Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of China (1956; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), 376. However, the degree of Chinese influence on Japa­nese urban planning has been challenged by recent archaeological finds, because of the placement of the Greater Imperial Palace in the center, rather than the north end, of Fujiwara-­kyō. Since Heian-­kyō has been buried for more than a millennium ­under many layers of rebuilding, serious

Notes to Page 12





265

archaeological digging in the modern metropolis of Kyōto, with its population of 1.5 million, could begin only about thirty years ago. See William Wayne Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Trea­sures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998), 187, 188. 8. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 60, 61. During the ­ ere two major deviations from the symmetrical Tang dynasty, there w design of Chang’an’s rectangular grid. In 662 the Gaozong emperor (r. 649–683) built the Daming Palace, as a “trapezoidal accretion at the northeast corner of the urban grid” (Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 60). It was said that the original motivation for this move was “to avoid the summer heat of the Palace City.” In 774, the Xuangzong emperor (r. 712–756) built a palace called the Xing­ qing in the eastern section of Chang’an. It may have been that this palace southeast of the Gongcheng was “geomantically inspired” by a Dragon Pond (Xiong, Sui-­Tang Chang’an, 80, 105; see chap. 4, “The Daming and Xingqing Palaces,” 79–105). On the Daming Palace, see Chung, “A Study of the Daming Palace,” 23–72. The Gongcheng remained the seat of the Tang government throughout. See Chung, “Symmetry and Balance in the Layout of the Sui-­Tang Palace-­City of Chang’an,” 5. Regardless of the mid-­Tang disturbances of the ideal symmetry of the Chinese palace city, Chung has interpreted the “perfect symmetry in the palace-­city layout [of Sui-­Tang Chang’an as helping] to create a dramatic sense of hierarchy. The great temporal power of the emperor, manifested in the centrality and prominence of the Taijigong [the residence of emperor, empress, and royal concubines in the center of the Palace City, just north of the administrative city], first dominates the Donggong [the crown prince’s residence to the east] and the Yitinggong [the ­women’s quarters to the northwest; with the Neishisheng, the eunuchs’ quarters, to the southwest], then the administrative-­city to its south and finally the rest of Chang’an.” Chung concludes that “the Sui-­Tang palace-­city plan may be envisioned as an ultimate symbol of the imperial role through its orderly design and imposing, monumental architectural structures” (ibid., 16). 9. Farris, Sacred Texts and Buried Trea­sures, 197. 10. It is beyond the scope of this study to examine why rational grid-­ based city planning occurred relatively rarely in the ancient world and in places as remote from each other as the Nara and Heian capitals and “Ionian Miletus, Nineveh in Mesopotamia and the Tang

266















Notes to Pages 12–15

capital of Chang’an” (Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in ­Japan, 55). The Greek Hippodamos of Milet (498–408 BCE) created a “diamond” grid–­like layout that became the model for Roman ­cities. 11. The ritual activities had dwindled by the end of the ninth c­ entury. See  McCullough, “The Capital and Its Society,” 176; Marian Ury, “Chinese Learning and Intellectual Life,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 2, 357, 376. 12. See map 14 in Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, 2nd ed., trans. J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 241. 13. Fiévé, “The Urban Evolution of the City of Heiankyō,” 91–92. According to Fiévé, the Heian reluctance “to portray in composite views the microcosms represented by Heiankyō” extended to “the imperial palace, or the residences of court nobles” (ibid., 94). This reluctance is all the more baffling since Japa­nese artists had acquired great skills at producing religiously inspired geometric repre­sen­ta­tions of the universe known as mandalas, pure geometric maps of the universe derived from Tibetan esoteric Buddhism. Builders of religious institutions, such as Tōdaiji, produced pictorial maps and ground plans. See, for example, the oldest extant map of Tōdaiji, dated 756, and a layout of the lecture hall and monks’ quarters with refectory, eighth c­ entury, both in the Shōsōin; see Adele Schlombs, ed., Im Licht des Großen Buddha: Schätze des Tōdaiji-­Tempels, Nara (Cologne: Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln, 1999), 82, fig. 49; and 83, fig. 50. 14. For a reproduction of this map from the Kujōke-­bon of the Engishiki in the Tokyo National Museum, see Kyōto City, ed., Yomigaeru Heian-­ kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, 1994), 17, fig. 5; Matthew Stavros, Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014), 45–47; fig. 3.1. 15. Mary Elizabeth Berry, Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 56. 16. Ellen Van Goethem, Nagaoka: Japan’s Forgotten Capital (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 181. Van Goethem notes the superb rational planning of “the Heian capital, where the size of all roads in a certain row or column was taken into consideration before any grid was created, thereby assuring that all residential blocks ­were uniform in size” (ibid., 188). 17. McCullough, “The Capital and Its Society,” 120.

Notes to Pages 15–16



267

18. For a map of the Chōdōin and a reconstruction of the Daigokuden (on which the modern Heian jingū in Kyōto is based), see Kyōto City, ed., Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō (Kyōto: Kyōto-­ shi, 1994), 50, figs.  47 and 48. 19. William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japa­nese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 2: ­837. 20. Ibid. 21. Shinden-­zukuri was so named by Sawada Nadari (1775–1845); see Rose Hempel, Japan zur Heian-­Zeit: Kunst und Kultur (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1983), 72. Sawada produced the first “hypothetical reconstruction” of a shinden-­zukuri compound in his Kaoku zakkō of 1842 (Günter Nitschke, Japa­nese Gardens: Right Angle and Natu­ral Form [Cologne: Taschen, 1999], 39; for a reproduction “in reversed form,” see ibid., 38). L ­ ater notable reconstructions in diagram w ­ ere by Mori Osamu (1945), Saitō Katsuo (1966), and Nishi Kazuo and Hozumi Kazuo (1983). 22. McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 849, 850. Such degeneration may well have been due in part to the epidemics periodically raging in the Heian capital, which killed more than half its population, estimated at a maximum of 130,000 “at the time of its greatest prosperity” (Paul Waley and Nicolas Fiévé, “Introduction: Kyoto and Edo-­Tokyo: Urban Histories in Parallels and Tangents,” in Japa­nese Capitals in Historical Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo, ed. Paul Waley and Nicolas Fiévé [London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003], 6). For the period between 947 and 1025, McCullough and McCullough list epidemics in 947, 974, 993, 994–995, 998, 1020, and 1025. Concerning the most devastating epidemic, in 994–995, they conclude that “the streets degenerated into a nightmare of stinking corpses, preyed on by dogs and crows. More than half the inhabitants of the capital, including sixty-­ seven persons of Fifth, or higher rank, are said to have perished between the Fourth and Seventh Months of 994 alone.” These epidemics may have been smallpox and dysentery in 947, smallpox in 974, gaigyaku (a contagious cough?) and smallpox in 993, smallpox (?) after a twenty-­ two-­ year-­ long in 994–995, measles in 998, and, ­ break, smallpox in 1020 and measles in 1025 (McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 414, t­able 15; 413– 414). The high number of casualties among the nobility meant that approximately 20–30 se­ nior much of the nonroyal ruling elite—­

268

Notes to Pages 18–20

nobles (kugyō) and maximally 100 “courtiers” (tenjōbito)—­was temporarily gone. For the categories and numbers of rank and office holders at the Heian court, as specified by the Yōrō Code of 718, see ibid., 2: 791. 23. This difference is also reflected in the dairi’s building materials that conformed to indigenous taste by using unpainted rather than painted wood and shingled rather than tiled roofs. Coaldrake has pointed to the contradiction between law and practice in cultural borrowing from China dating back to the Nara Palace: “Despite the official pronouncements and the enthusiastic application of Tang principles to buildings . . . ​, the archaeological rec­ord tells a very ­different story about the authority of foreign models . . . ​the emperor continued to live in a building of the very style that the government [in 724] was proscribing as unsuited to the dignity of the imperial capital” (Architecture and Authority in Japan, 69). 24. Chung, “Symmetry and Balance in the Layout of the Sui-­ Tang ­Palace-­City of Chang-an,” 16. 25. See Robert Treat Paine and Alexander Soper, The Art and Architecture of Japan, 3rd ed. (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1981), 329. 26. For a detailed description of the Seiryōden, see McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 841–845; for a floor plan, see ibid., 842, fig. B.4. 27. On courts’ ranks, see ibid., 2: 790–794. 28. Kōkyū or “rear court.” An alternate kanji combination combines “imperial consort” (kisaki) and “womb” or “prince” (miya). 29. The Jijūden was the original imperial residence. 30. That the kōkyū was far from a permanent enclave is evident in the ­ omen but also of the emperor frequent dislocations not only of its w from the dairi proper—­often on account of natu­ral or man-­made disasters. As the Heian Imperial Palace buildings ­were consumed by fire many times during the heyday of the Fujiwara regency, emperors had no choice but to seek refuge, during the periods of rebuilding, in the replicas of the imperial residence mostly owned by their Fujiwara maternal relatives. For a list of disasters (risai) causing the relocation of the dairi, see Ōta Seiroku, Shinden-­zukuri no kenkyū (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1987), 184. There ­were dairi fires during the reigns of Emperors Murakami, Reizei, En’yū, Kazan, Ichijō, Sanjō, and Go-­Ichijō, in 960, 976, 980, 982, 999, 1001, 1005, 1014, and 1015. Amazingly, before the blaze of 960, there ­were only robberies at the Imperial

Notes to Pages 20–21







269

Palace, which has led scholars to suspect arson in at least some cases, attributable perhaps to the increasingly dire economic conditions in a city periodically ravaged by epidemics. Only Emperors Reizei and Kazan experienced no absences from the dairi during their short reigns. The emperors most frequently on the move for the longest periods of absence due to fires, three each, w ­ ere Emperors En’yū (r. 969–984) and Ichijō (r. 986–1011). The information about fires is derived from the list of “Absences of Emperors from the Dairi, Murakami—­Go-­Ichijō,” in McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 851–852; see also the information on “town palaces” (sato dairi), in ibid., 2: 850, 853. As a result of these many fires, one might speak of peripatetic emperors, the one most affected being Emperor Ichijō, who was even forced out of his Ichijō-in ­toward the end of his reign because of the fire there in 1009. The costly efforts to rebuild the Imperial Palace ended ­after the sixteenth fire, which led to “the final demise of the Daidairi” in 1227 (ibid., 2: 853). 31. Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), 43, 44. 32. H. Richard Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 59, 164, 180. 33. Charo D’Etcheverry compares the very high level of artistic accomplishments required of the kōkyū’s inhabitants to that of the French salon (Love ­After The Tale of Genji: Rewriting the World of the Shining Prince [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007], 30– 35). Yet there are significant differences. Although the French salon may have grown out of a court culture, its historical importance lies in its creation of a “public sphere” of discourse; see Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). 34. Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987), 57. 35. D’Etcheverry, Love ­After The Tale of Genji, 55–57. 36. The nyōbo did not always perform their duty as directed; they sometimes acted to facilitate a courtship that promised to promote not only their lady’s but also their own station in life. See H. Mack Horton, “They Also Serve: Ladies-­in-­Waiting in The Tale of Genji,”

270











Notes to Pages 21–23

in Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, ed. Edward Kamens (New York: Modern Language Association of Ame­rica, 1993), 103. 37. Richard Bowring, trans., Murasaki Shikibu: Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs (1982; rev. paperback ed. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1985), 125, 127, 129. 38. William H. McCullough, “The Capital and Its Society,” in The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 2: Heian Japan, ed. Donald  H. Shively and William  H. McCullough (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 126, 127. 39. Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: ­Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 4, 5. 40. The founding sultan did not reside in the New Palace, but only visited his male harem and, possibly, his female harem. Gülru Necipoğlu notes the scarcity of sources confirming the existence of a female ­harem in Mehmet II’s time; see Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (New York: Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991), 159–160. 41. Ibid., 10. Necipoğlu also notes: “The deliberate asymmetry of compositional schemes and the nonaxial or­ga­ni­za­tion of buildings in the Topkapı Palace exemplify a kind of ‘picturesque’ planning that is neither informal nor formal, but a sensitive interpretation of architecture with nature” (ibid., 244). 42. Ibid., 16. 43. Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 5. 44. Ibid., 8. 45. Ibid., 11. 46. Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 29. 47. Ibid., ­30. 48. Jean-­Baptiste Tavernier wrote in his Nouvelle relation de l’intérieur du serrail de Grand Seigneur in 1675, “I include a chapter on the quarters of the ­women only to demonstrate to the reader the impossibility of knowing it well. . . . ​Entrance is forbidden to men with greater vigilance than in any Christian convent” (quoted in Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 113). In the same vein, modern historians Peirce and Necipoğlu deplore the paucity of Ottoman sources and the unreliability of contemporary Western accounts hampered not only by their authors’ ethnocentric approach but by the barriers erected by Otto-

Notes to Pages 23–26







271

man guardians of harem culture. See ibid., 115; Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 177. 49. Ibid., 163. 50. See ibid. 51. McCullough, “The Capital and Its Society,” 125. 52. Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 37. 53. Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 161. 54. Peirce, The Imperial Harem, 6. See also Necipoğlu, Architecture, ­Ceremonial, and Power, 180. 55. See Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 179. Ruby Lal also refers to “homosocial communities in the haram” (Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005]), 46; see also 104–105. Lal also makes a point of the homosocial disposition of Babur, the grand­father of Akbar, who came to regard male-­male relations as transgressive; see ibid., 115– 116, 154. For ­women’s homosocial activities, see ibid., 138. 56. Necipoğlu, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 180. 57. William H. McCullough voices uncertainty about the estimated number of noblewomen who might have been in the kōkyū: “The total female population of the rear palace in the Heian period has been estimated at one thousand, but that seems high for the available space. Those living and employed there may have numbered that many, but it seems unlikely that all would have been pre­sent at one time, since the rather small buildings would other­wise have been v­ irtually wall-­to-­wall with ­people” (“The Capital and Its Society,” 127). 58. Lal, “Mughal Palace ­Women,” in Walthall, ed., Servants of the Dynasty, 98, 99. 59. Ibid., 97. Imperial ­women ­were called “pardeh-­giyan, the veiled ones” (Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World, 176). 60. Eunuchs guarded the “outside enclosure” (Lal, “Mughal Palace ­Women,” 97, 98). 61. Ibid., 99. 62. Lal, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World, 177; see also 182–183. 63. Ibid., 166. 64. See Lal, “Mughal Palace ­Women,” 108–111. 65. Ibid., 97. 66. Scholars disagree about the date Sei Shōnagon entered court ser­vice. Ivan Morris makes a case for 990 on the basis of section 43, “Birds”;

272











Notes to Pages 26–27

see Ivan Morris, trans., The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 2: 141n802. 67. Sei Shōnagon was not in the dairi for a few months in 1000 and for the empress’s lying-in. See Morris, section 28, “The Smaller Palace of the First Ward,” in The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2: 30. Due to a fire in the Seiryōden, the emperor had left the daidairi and moved to the Ko Ichijō-in, a temporary imperial residence referred to as “the Palace of ­Today” (ima dairi) in Morris’s translation. (It was southeast of the larger Ichijō-in.) 68. Fukutō Sanae, with Takeshi Watanabe, points out that Emperor Ichijō’s head chamberlain, Fujiwara no Yukinari (972–1027), was instrumental in creating “the princi­ple of two principal consorts for every emperor henceforth.” Yukinari had argued that, since all Fujiwara-­born consorts, including Teishi, had already taken the tonsure, another empress (Shōshi) was needed who “could be devoted to the Fujiwara kami” (Fukutō Sanae, with Takeshi Watanabe, “From Female Sovereign to Mo­ther of the Nation: ­Women and Government in the Heian Period,” in Heian Japan: Centers and Peripheries, ed. Mikael Adolphson, Edward Kamens, and Stacie Matsumoto [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007], 30). 69. In 998 Fujiwara no Yoshiko, one of Ichijō’s consorts, resided in the Kokiden; see Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2: 74n378. 70. See ibid., section 22, “The Sliding Screen in the Back of the Hall,” 1: 15; 2: 20n73. 71. Not much is known about Sei Shōnagon other than what she tells us. Ivan Morris puts it laconically: “we have no idea where or how she lived when not at Court, nor when or where she died” (ibid., 1: xiii). 72. Empress Teishi in turn had received the notebooks from Korechika. See ibid., section 326, “It Is Getting So Dark,” 1: 267–268. 73. See ibid., section 255, “One Day, When Her Majesty Was Surrounded by Several Ladies,” 1: 217–218. 74. See ibid., section 292, “One Day I Was in the Apartment,” 1: ­252–253. 75. For court robes, see ibid., sections 203, 236, 259–262, 298–302; for snow, see, e.g., ibid., section 174, “It Is Delightful When There Has Been a Thin Fall of Snow,” 1: 176–177, and section 278, “One Day, When the Snow Lay Thick on the Ground,” 1: 243; for the child eating strawberries, see section 44, “Elegant Things,” 1: 49. 76. Morris found it necessary to warn against taking “romantic poetry” exchanged between ladies at court as “evidence of Lesbian attach-

Notes to Pages 28–31













273

ments” (ibid., section 280, “Once in the Third Month,” 1: 244–245; 2: 181n1070). 77. Ibid., section  71, “The ­Women’s Apartments along the Gallery,” 1: 65–66; NKBT, section  76, 19: 110; “Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book,” section  78, in Classical Japa­nese Prose: An Anthology, ed. Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 168. In her translation, Meredith McKinney has “Our apartments in the Long Room,” (section  72, in Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book [London: Penguin, 2006], 62). 78. See McCullough, Classical Japa­nese Prose, 168n7. The wide hisashi (hirobisashi) in this instance was the west corridor of the Tōkaden (assigned to Empress Teishi). 79. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 71, “The ­Women’s Apartments along the Gallery,” 1: 65–66; NKBT, section 76, 19: 110. 80. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 23, “When I Make Myself Imagine,” 1: 20. See also section 21, “­Women without prospect,” in Meredith McKinney, trans., Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, 22; Ikeda Kikan, Kishigami Shinji, Akiyama Ken, eds., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki (1958; Iwanami shoten, 25th printing, 1983), section 24, NKBT 19: 63–64. 81. Although Ivan Morris’s translation is quite ­free, it captures vividly the most ambiguous phrase, “minu hito wa sukunaku koso arame” (dan 24 in NKBT, 19: 64), given in more literal translation by Edith Sarra as “There are very few ­people indeed who do not look [at her] / [whom she] does not see” (Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japa­nese Court ­Women’s Memoirs [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999], 225). 82. Sarra, Fictions of Femininity, 226. 83. Ibid., 245, 257. 84. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 68, “To Meet One’s Lover,” 1: 63. 85. Ibid., section 69, “A Lover’s Visit,” 1: 64. 86. Ibid., section 23, “When I Make Myself Imagine,” 1: 20. See also section 21, “­Women without prospect,” in McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, 22–23; Ikeda et al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 24, NKBT 19: 64. 87. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section  173, “When a Court Lady Is on Leave,” 1: 175. 88. Ibid., section  79, “On the Twenty-­Fifth of the Second Month,” 1: 76, 77.

274











Notes to Pages 31–34

89. Ibid., section 173, “When a Court Lady Is on Leave,” 1: 176. 90. For a detailed discussion of the uncertain years of Murasaki Shikibu’s ser­vice at court, see Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 10–15. 91. The grand Ichijō residence was owned by the Fujiwara: Morosuke, Koremasa, Tamemitsu and his dau­gh­ter, Senshi, and Michinaga; a­ fter Emperor Ichijō, the Ichijō-in was used by Emperors Go-­Ichijō, Go-­ Suzaku, and Go-­Reizei. See McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 378 supplementary note 19; Shadan hōjin Murasaki Shikibu kenshōkai, ed., Kyōto: Genji monogatari chizu (Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2007), 9, item 5 and map 1, #5 (for the location of the Ichijō-­in); Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 98n to section 43. 92. For the location of the Biwa-­dono, see Shadan hōjin Murasaki Shikibu kenshōkai, Kyōto: Genji monogatari chizu, 10, item 10 and map 1, #10 (the Biwa-­dono site is just to the west of the Shirakumo Shrine in the Kyōto gyoen). Expressing some uncertainty, the McCulloughs locate the Biwa Mansion “south of Konoe and east of Muromachi” (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 388 supplementary note 27). 93. The lunar dates are Morris’s (The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2: appendix  4: Chronology); I have adjusted the Gregorian calendar year for the years of Teishi’s children’s birth (see McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 417 supplementary note 63; ­table 19 for a list of Emperor Ichijō’s children by Teishi). 94. The Tsuchimikado-­dono was owned by Michinaga’s wife. For a map of “Tsuchimikado-­dono,” see item 12, in Kyōto: Genji monogatari chizu, 11. See also my Figure 6. The current location is the Kyōto gyoen’s northern part of the Ōmiya gosho. 95. Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 12. 96. See ibid., 115. 97. Ibid., 95, 97. 98. See Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 86, “For the Gosechi Celebrations,” 2: 95. 99. Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 107. 100. According to Kōjien, the term kenchiku came into usage only in the late Edo period. 101. See Arata Isozaki, Japan-­ness in Architecture, trans. Sabu Kohso and ed. David B. Stewart (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 293. 102. See Liza Crihfield Dalby, Kimono: Fashioning Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). 103. The Tsuchimidako-­dono, variously known as (the expanded) Tsuchimikado Higashi no Tōin-­dono, Kyōgoku Mansion, and Jōtōmon’in, cov-

Notes to Pages 34–35







275

ered an area of two full chō (ca. 120 [east-­west] by 240 [north-­south] meters or almost 29,000 square meters). See Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 296n14; Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Ōkagami: The Great Mirror—­Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1027) and His Times (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1980), 288–289. 104. Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 43. 105. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 91. Helen Craig dono was “the McCullough also notes that the Tsuchimikado-­ birthplace of three Empresses (Shōshi, Kenshi, and Ishi)” (Ōkagami, 288). 106. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 90. 107. See Inoue Mitsuo, Space in Japa­ nese Architecture, trans. Hiroshi Watanabe (New York: Weatherhill, 1985), 77–81. 108. Paine and Soper, The Art and Architecture of Japan, 344. 109. This exchangeability is demonstrated in another Fujiwara complex of buildings, constructed by Tamemitsu (942–992) as a Fujiwara residence in the shinden style and converted ­after the death of his dau­gh­ ter Kishi in 985 into the Buddhist ­temple Hōjūji (no longer extant; in the vicinity of Sanjūsangendō). See Kazuo Nishi and Kazuo Hozumi, What Is Japa­nese Architecture? A Survey of Traditional Japa­nese Architecture, trans.  H. Mack Horton (New York: Kodansha International, 1985), 65; see also ibid., 64, fig. 19; and 64–65, fig. 20. Another example is Fujiwara no Michinaga’s 1020 construction of the Hōjōji, dedicated to the Buddha Amida, just east of his wife Rinshi’s Tsuchimikado-­dono. 110. Modern reconstructions of the shinden in diagram or plastic model are based in part on archaeological evidence, such as the early eighth-­ century Denpōdō, which was rebuilt, altered, and moved to Hōryūji. The manor of “Lady Tachibana” or the mo­ther of Empress Kōmyō (701–760), much rebuilt and altered, was moved, as the Denpōdō, to Hōryūji, where now it “looks ­little like a residential building” (Nishi and Hozumi, What Is Japa­nese Architecture?, 60). Unlike temples of the period, Lady Tachibana’s mansion had a wood-­plank floor and a cypress-­bark roof, with a wide veranda in front; the two bays in the ­ ere open, except on one side, and only the three front of the building w rear bays enclosed (see ibid.). In addition, a mansion with garden at Amagatsuji in Nara City foreshadows the great shinden-­zukuri ­complexes. A mansion with “no fixed interior partitions,” no longer extant, was built by Fujiwara no Toyonari (704?–765) near the Shigaraki Palace in Ōmi Province and gives us some clues about the “use of both

276









Notes to Pages 35–36

open and closed spaces” (ibid., 61). In 1979, a ninth-­century multibuilding shinden complex was unearthed in Kyōto. See Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan, 296n11. Shinden-­zukuri reconstructions have also been derived from Heian paintings, such as the celebrated Genji monogatari emaki or The Tale of Genji Scroll (from the first half of the twelfth ­century) and the Nenjū gyōji emaki (extant as a seventeenth-­century copy of the twelfth-­century original). Heian lit­ erature is still another source of information. 111. See Inoue, Space in Japa­nese Architecture, 58. 112. Akiyama Ken, Komachiya Teruhiko, and Sugai Minoru, eds., Genji monogatari zuten (Shōgakkan, 1997), 10. 113. Jirō Takei and Marc  P. Keane prefer to translate suiwatadono as “breezeways.” See Takei and Keane, trans., Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japa­nese Garden: A Modern Translation of Japan’s Gardening Classic (Boston: Tuttle, 2001), 11 and n17. 114. In residential architecture, this preference for asymmetry led to irregularities in the symmetrical ideal shinden layout by omitting a wing on one side and adding a wing on the other, eventually replacing the shinden style with the shoin (lit. “writing hall”) style preferred by the rising warrior class ­after the Heian period and also adopted in Zen ­temple architecture. One characteristic feature of shoin-­zukuri is the omission of connecting corridors and galleries between buildings, which “made possi­ble the autonomous development of interior spaces in residences” and removed all “restriction on the overall shape of the plan or on the exterior building form” (Inoue, Space in Japa­nese ­Architecture, 128–129). While the shoin interior became more specific in terms of function its exterior became more amorphous, reversing the shinden pattern of spatial usage and arrangement. 115. Isozaki, Japan-­ness in Architecture, 193. See also Nishi and Hozumi, What Is Japa­nese Architecture?, 65. 116. The span (ken) is an inconstant architectural module; the varying length of a tatami or the distance between two adjacent pillars (hashira), about 6 feet or between 1.82 and 1.95 meters; see Herschel Webb, Research in Japa­nese Sources (1963; rpt. Ann Arbor: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1994), 34. 117. Although Ivan Morris concedes that the term hisashi “is particularly intractable to smooth translation,” he suggests that “ ‘Ante-­room’ is probably the best equivalent, but it must be remembered that the hisashi was not a separate room” (The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2: 8–9n38). Other terms used for hisashi ­were “gallery” (Bowring, Mu-

Notes to Pages 36–38

277

rasaki Shikibu, 50) or “eavechambers” (McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 149n61); “an aisle; a pent­house one bay deep added to the side(s) of a moya (inner building)” (Inoue, Space in Japa­nese Architecture, 176). Edward  G. Seidensticker refers to the hisashi as “pent­house” (S: 431). H. Mack Horton describes the hisashi as a “peripheral chamber”; see Nishi and Hozumi, What Is Japa­nese Architecture?, 66. 118. Takei and Keane point out that the hisashi in modern parlance has “come to mean the eaves of a roof” (Sakuteiki, 15n19). 119. Yoshiaki Shimizu and Susan E. Nelson, Genji: The World of a Prince (Bloomington: Indiana University Art Museum, 1982), 38. 120. A shaku is a unit of length, about 30.3 cm (about 1 foot). 121. Akiyama et al., Genji monogatari zuten, 43; Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari to Kyōto: Rokujō-in e dekakeyō (Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2005), 50–51. 122. Quoted in Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 6. Bowring gives no source. 123. Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (Harmondsworth, UK: Peregrine, 1985), 49n17 and 50. 124. Penelope Mason, History of Japa­nese Art (New York: Harry  N. Abrams, 1993), 118. 125. Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu, 6. 126. Basil  H. Chamberlain, writing in 1905, observed that there was “darkness whenever heavy rain makes it necessary to shut up one or more sides of the ­house,” but he implies that ­under normal weather conditions daylight penetrated the interior of these residences through their flexible and entirely removable walls (Things Japa­nese [1890; 5th rev. ed., London: J. Murray, 1905], 36–37). 127. Takei and Keane also refer to the shinden as “a set of boxes within boxes” (Sakuteiki, 15). 128. Akiyama Ken, ed., Genji monogatari jiten (Gakutōsha, 1989), 92. Jirō Takei and Marc P. Keane note: “In ­later years moya, ‘mo­ther ­house,’ would be pronounced omoya and would refer to the main building of a residence in deference to subbuildings, which ­were called hanare” (Sakuteiki, 15n19). 129. Tsuma is also homonymous with hata (edge) and otto (husband, spouse). For an illustration, see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari: Rokujō-in no seikatsu (Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1999), 69. 130. Pierre Bourdieu, “The Kabyle House or the World Reversed,” trans. Richard Nice, in Algeria 1960: Essays by Pierre Bourdieu (Cambridge:

278

















Notes to Pages 38–42

Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1979), 142. 131. Ibid., 141. 132. Ibid. 133. For the beginnings of fukinuki yatai as a paint­erly technique, see ­Masako Watanabe, “Narrative Framing in the Tale of Genji Scroll: Interior Space in the Compartmentalized Emaki,” Artibus Asiae 58, no. 1/2 (1998): especially 130–131. 134. It is probably no accident that paint­ers and architects use the same term, tsukuri, when they describe their technique: tsukuri-­e and shinden-­zukuri. 135. Takei and Keane, Sakuteiki, 17. 136. Ivan Morris, trans., The Tale of Genji Scroll (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971). 137. Wybe Kuitert has argued that, as depicted in Heian lit­erature, Heian aristocrats saw aspects of the garden, such as flowers and trees and elements of famous scenic places, in the canonic terms of poetic imagery (Themes in the History of Japa­nese Garden Art [Honolulu: ­University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002], 45–48). 138. For a map of Heian-­kyō showing two canals, the Kamo and Takano rivers, aquifers, and ponds, see Kuitert, Themes in the History of Japa­nese Garden Art, 39, fig.  15. Geomancy and the topography of natu­ral waterways ­were ­either in harmony or made to conform to it. See ibid., 40. 139. Richard Stanley-­Baker, “Genji and the Gardens of Medieval Romance,” in Reading The Tale of Genji: Its Picture-­Scrolls, Texts and Romance, ed. Richard Stanley-­Baker, Murakami Fuminobu, and Jeremy Tambling (Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2009), 138. 140. See Karl Hennig, Japanische Gartenkunst: Form, Geschichte, Geisteswelt (Cologne: DuMont, 1980), 18–27. 141. Yasuhara Morihiko’s architectural drawing of a shinden elevation or section view that includes the outdoor space of the garden cross-­ shows that even from inside the moya a person in the sitting position could see far into the garden (Genji monogatari kūkan dokkai ­[Kajima shuppankai, 2000], 14, fig. 5). 142. Perhaps it was the paint­erly “blown-­off roof” technique (fukinuki-­ yatai) that facilitated and favored the portrayal of shinden courtship in a private rather than a public setting. 143. The term is used in Ursula M. Sharma, “­Women and Their Affines: The Veil as a Symbol of Separation,” Man (n.s.) 13 (1978): 227.

Notes to Pages 42–43







279

144. Bedouin society is predominantly, though not exclusively, Muslim. In the Bedouin culture of Awlad ‘Ali that Lila Abu-­Lughod has studied, veiling occurs to avoid exposure to men and is emotionally driven by shame (ḥasham): “protective self-­masking . . . ​occurs when exposure to the more power­ ful is unavoidable.” Bedouin w ­ omen’s ḥasham maintained honor and “reinforce[d] the hierarchy by fusing ­ omen who resort to provirtue with deference.” What is at stake for w tective veiling mea­sures? According to Abu-­Lughod’s Bedouin paradigm, weak ­women fear that “an encounter with someone more power­ful will show one to be controlled—­a state contrary to the ideals of autonomy and equality.” Accordingly, a Bedouin ­ woman’s ḥasham maintains honor and “reinforces the hierarchy by fusing virtue with deference.” Her motivation is similar to that of the sequestered Heian noblewoman who feared detection by and confrontation with a stranger who might be socially impermissible if not actually threatening. Abu-­ Lughod notes about Bedouin ­ women: “As with forced obedience, the modesty of w ­ omen coerced into seclusion or into veiling would be worthless, both to the ­women and to those whose status is validated by the deference they receive from their dependents” (Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986], 112, 117, 165). 145. When noblewomen did venture out on foot to walk (from the carriage) to the markets in the southern part of the city, they wore tsubo shōzoku, a cocoon of a fine semitransparent cloth (mushi no tareginu) serving as a mosquito net hanging from a wide-­rimmed lacquered straw hat (ichimegasa) to shield themselves against the sun and the male gaze. In addition, there was the kazuki, which was the closest to a burqa that Heian veiling ever came. The ­woman would drape her outer robe over her head in such a way that the garment’s collar became a visor. A sash, tied in the back, was used to hold the garment together just below the shoulders. For illustrations of mushi no tareginu and kazuki, see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari to Kyōto: Rokujō-in e dekakeyō (Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2005), 158–159. 146. There ­were also vari­ous kinds of palanquins (koshi), vehicles without wheels and carried rather than drawn by men. The most august of these was the hōren; it was used by the emperor on formal occasions, such as imperial accession and purification ceremonies. The hōren, so named for the gilded phoenix (hōō) adorning its roof, was shoulder-­ carried by numerous men on a grid of lacquered beams. The informal

280











Notes to Pages 44–45

version of the “phoenix” litter was the imperial sōkaren, also covered by curtains on all sides. For illustrations of the vari­ous types of palanquins, see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, Genji monogatari to Kyōto, 156– 157; see also Akiyama et  al., Genji monogatari zuten, 76–77. The sōkaren was named for its gilded onion finial; the onion, known for its long-­lasting blossoms and a noxious smell, was meant to clear the air. Aside from the emperor and empress, the vestal virgins (saiō) also used it for their pro­cessions to and from the capital. See Saigū rekishi hakubutsukan, ed., Maboroshi no miya: Ise saigū—­ōchō no inori to kōjotachi (Asahi shinbun, 1999), 54, figs.  40 and  41. When palanquins ­were carried at hip height, they ­were also called yōyo. Among the numerous types of palanquins, the ajirogoshi had a mini monomi. The small palanquin kogoshi had no shell but consisted only of an open-­air seat with an umbrella attached to the railing. It was used for religious ceremonies. For longer trips, the shihōgoshi with blinds on all four sides was used. The plain itagoshi was used for informal travel. For illustrations of the palanquins classified as ­either “board palanquins” (itagoshi) or “four-­sided palanquins” (shihōgoshi), see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, Genji monogatari to Kyōto, 157. 147. For this section (numbered differently, according to the textual variants), see Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 256, 1: 219–233; McCullough, Classical Japa­nese Prose, section 256, 185– 198; McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 259, 214– 230; Ikeda et  al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 278, NKBT 19: 284–300. 148. In The Tale of Genji, there are numerous occasions in which a ­woman’s fear of a man approaching her sexually is released through perspiration. In Chapter 35 (“Wakana ge”), for example, the Third Princess reacts to the approaching Kashiwagi: “with perspiration ­running from her like ­water” (T: 651). 149. McCullough, Classical Japa­nese Prose, 192–193. See Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 256, “On about the Twentieth of the Second Month,” 1: 226–227. See Ikeda et al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 278, NKBT 19: 293. 150. McCullough, Classical Japa­nese Prose, 194–195. See Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 256, “On about the Twentieth of the Second Month,” 1: 229–230. See Ikeda et al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 278, NKBT 19: 295–296. 151. When Empress Teishi was pregnant in 999 and was considered ritually unclean, she moved on VIII.9 with her ­house­hold to Taira no

Notes to Pages 45–46







281

Narimasa’s rather inadequate residence at Sanjō, because her own palace at Nijō had burned down (the court had moved to the ­Ko-­Ichijōin because the dairi had burned down in 999.VI.14). See Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 1: 6 and n33. This misery liti­ cal circumstances that Sei was compounded by painful po­ Shōnagon diplomatically leaves unsaid. Teishi had, by this time, competition from her ­uncle Michinaga’s dau­gh­ter Shōshi, who was about to be ushered in as new imperial consort. 152. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 8, “When the Empress Moved,” 1: 6. 153. Dalby, Kimono, 222. 154. Ibid. The passage quoted is Dalby’s translation from Masasuke shōzokushō, in Maeda Ujo, Iro, vol. 38 of Mono to ningen no bungakushi (Hosei Daigaku, 1980), n.p. 155. In conjunction with idashiguruma, a peculiar fashion was developed. One of the sleeves was enlarged in order for it to hang from underneath the carriage’s fine bamboo blinds (misu). Complaining about this custom of enlarging one of the kimono sleeves for the sole purpose of allowing it to dangle, Sei Shōnagon wrote, in “I Cannot Stand a ­Woman Who Wears Sleeves of Unequal Width,” “The fashion of ­ omen, since unequal sleeves is just as unattractive for men as for w it produces the same lop-­sided effect.” See Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 304, “I Cannot Stand a ­Woman Who Wears Sleeves of Unequal Width,” 1: 255. 156. Men advertised their splendor on at least one festive occasion by displaying the trains of their formal underrobes (shitagasane no kyo) from the railing of the shinden veranda. For an illustration of men’s robes, see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, Genji monogatari: Rokujō-in no seikatsu, 40–41, 102–103; for an illustration of ichinichibare no kyo, see ibid., 98–99, 101. This festival was called, appropriately, ichinichibare no kyo (day of the displayed hems). See Fūzoku hakubutsukan, Genji monogatari to Kyōto, 32. On that special day men displayed their fabrics in designs and colors appropriate to their age and rank. The noblemen ­were usually lined up on the veranda facing the latticed shutters of the hisashi so that their trains could be appreciated from the nantei. During ichinibare no kyo they could flirt in a kind of gender reversal. Idashiginu and ichinichibare no kyo are depicted in the colorful handscroll Koma kurabe gyōkō emaki, dating from the thirteenth ­century. See Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, ed., shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, Zōkei: Zōhin senshū (Izumi: Izumi-­

282









Notes to Pages 46–48

1990), 12–13, figs. 3 and 3 (detail). For a description of this scroll in En­glish, see idem, The Selected Collections of Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi, trans. John Tadao Teramoto (Izumi-­shi: Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1995), 2–3. Emperor Go-­Ichijō and his mo­ther, Se­ nior Grand Empress (Taikōtaigō, since 1018) Shōshi, and the crown prince ­were greeted by dazzling textile displays when they gathered for a ­horse racing event in 1024 at the magnificent Kaya­ no-in of the chancellor (kanpaku), Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992– 1074), described in chapter 23 of Eiga monogatari. For a descrip­ orse races at Fujiwara no Yorimichi’s Kayano-in, see tion of the h chapter 23, “An Imperial Visit to the Horse Races,” in McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 631–643, especially 631–633. 157. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 31, 1: 32. For a drawing, see ibid., 245, appendix  8c. Vehicles, 4: idashiginu. See McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 28, “Things that make you feel cheerful,” 30. 158. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section  37, “Smaller ­Shirakawa,” 1: 39; McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 32, “The place known as Koshirakawa,” 37; Ikeda et al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 35, NKBT 19: 79. 159. The year-­end “Buddhist Names Ser­vice” (butsumyōe) required the recitation of the names of 3,000 buddhas to expiate sins accumulated over the course of the year. For a detailed description of this three-­ night event, see McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 148 and n57. 160. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section  282, “On the Twenty-­Fourth of the Twelfth Month,” 1: 246. See also McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 282, “On the twenty-­fourth day of the twelfth month,” 241; Ikeda et al., Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki, section 302, NKBT 19: 313.

Chapter 2. Conceptual Space 1. Claude Lévi-­Strauss, “Cross-­Readings,” in The View from Afar, trans. Joachim Neugroschel and Phoebe Hoss (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 73. 2. For the pioneering Japa­ nese studies, see Takamure Itsue, Nihon kon’inshi (Shibundō, 1963), and Shōseikon no kenkyū, in Takamure Itsue zenshū, vols. 2–3, ed. Hashimoto Kenzō (Rironsha, 1966); Wakita Haruko, “Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan from

Notes to Pages 49–51

283

the Perspective of ­Women’s History,” Journal of Japa­nese Studies 10, no. 1 (Winter 1984): 73–99. For the seminal study in En­glish, see William  H. McCullough, “Japa­ nese Marriage Institutions in the ­Heian Period,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 27 (1967): 103– 167. McCullough’s study was elaborated upon and expanded by Peter Nickerson, “The Meaning of Matrilocality: Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-­Heian,” Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 429–467. For comparative insights, see Claude Lévi-­Strauss, “Cross-­Readings” and “On Marriage between Close Kin,” in The View from Afar. 3. Rekishi monogatari (historical accounts) rarely elaborate on the drama of courtship. The Eiga monogatari (completed ca. 1092) chronicles the eiga (flowering fortunes) from Emperor Uda (r. 887– 897) to Emperor Horikawa (r. 1086–1107) in an unbroken string of arranged marriages, pregnancies, childbirths, illnesses, and deaths, forging ahead through times marked by reign change and natu­ral disasters, mostly epidemics and fires. The main author or compiler of this rekishi monogatari is believed to be Akazome Emon (956–1041), a renowned waka poet serving, like the famous writers of her day, in the entourage of Empress Shōshi. She does not describe rituals of courtship and their psychological complexities. Scenes of courtship through kaimami are strikingly absent from these annals, largely designed to celebrate the Fujiwara, and Michinaga (966–1027) in par­ tic­u­lar. The same is true for the anonymous, probably male-­authored Ōkagami, a rekishi monogatari covering the period 850–1025, also of the court ­under the Fujiwara, again with special focus on the great statesman Michinaga. For translations of Eiga monogatari, see William  H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japa­nese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period, 2 vols. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980); and of Ōkagami, see Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Ōkagami: The Great Mirror—­ Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1027) and His Times (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ ton University Press, 1980). 4. McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 1: 296. 5. Ibid., 2: 434. 6. Ibid., 2: 437. 7. For a detailed description of a tokoroarawashi, see ibid., 1: 297n158. 8. For a similar discussion of Kaoru’s marriage to the Second Princess in these terms, see Lévi-­Strauss, “Cross-­Readings,” 75. 9. McCullough, Ōkagami: The Great Mirror.

284





Notes to Pages 51–59

10. Nickerson, “The Meaning of Matrilocality,” 430. 11. Ibid., 443. 12. See McCullough, “Japa­nese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period,” 122. 13. See ibid., 123 (chart). 14. Wakita Haruko prefers the strikingly ­different terms used by Japa­ nese scholars: “boshokon, in which the mo­ther’s/wife’s residence is central; tsumadoikon, the husband visiting the wife; mukotorikon, adopting a son-­in-­law; shōseikon, inviting the husband into the wife’s residence—­basically the same as boshokon; yometorikon, the husfamily; and dōkyo, living together” band taking the wife into his ­ (“Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan,” 83). 15. For the classic article on Heian marriage, see McCullough, “Japa­nese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period,” 103–167. 16. Ibid., 106.

Chapter 3: Narrating Courtship through a Gap 1. Mieke Bal, Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, trans. Christine van Boheemen (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 104. 2. Bal defines the story or “fabula” as “a series of logically and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by actors” (ibid., 5). 3. The terms and concepts are Bal’s (ibid., 104–106). 4. Edith Sarra, Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japa­nese Court ­Women’s Memoirs (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 24. 5. Ibid., 26. 6. This may be obvious, but it is all too often overlooked by a scholarly tradition that has given The Tale of Genji a predominantly Genji-­ centric reading. In addition, there is a tacit understanding that at the level of world classics the question of gendered authorship is immaterial since the author—­the authority—is presumed to transcend the limitations of gender. Yet again, what is meant ­here is his gender, since all the canonical world classics are by men—­except Murasaki Shikibu’s. 7. Despite their veiling function, these colorful Heian robes do not carry the same psychic burden as do Muslim veils. As Lila Abu-­Lughod observes about Muslim ­women’s black veils, “Veils literally blacken the face; thus, they symbolize shame, particularly sexual shame”

Notes to Pages 60–65









285

(Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986], 138). 8. It should be noted that, to a degree unimaginable in Western culture, Heian noblewomen lived in close contact with their female relatives and ladies-­in-­waiting (nyōbō). At the same time, this intimacy could easily be undermined by jealousy over a man’s favors. Since ­women had such close physical contact and frequently shared the same space, they also lived in fierce rivalry that necessitated competing from behind separate screens and curtains. 9. At a symposium on “Japa­nese Buddhist Art and Ritual,” held at Amherst College on March 1, 1996, Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan delivered a lecture on “Heavenly Ropeways, or Some Altar Ornaments of Heian Buddhist Worship and the House of Gold.” She focused on the “jeweled net” (ramō) suspended like a veil over the Amida triad at Fujiwara Kiyohira’s private Golden Hall or Konjikidō (1124) in the Chūsonji ­temple and shrine complex at Hiraizumi. 10. Ioan Myrrdin Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1971), 32; 2nd ed., 27. 11. The misperceptions of mono no ke are often compounded by the distracting intervention of the medium and the ritual control of the phenomenon by exorcists.

Chapter 4. Courtship in Mid-­Heian Writings 1. The Märchen it most closely resembles is “Der Däumling,” collected by the Gebrüder Grimm. 2. See Chapter 17 (“Eawase”) of The Tale of Genji. 3. H. Richard Okada has elucidated the tale and stressed the anonymous author’s sophisticated insight into the role of narration in amorous pursuit of the resistant otherworldly other. See Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 74–75 and passim. The point about courtship restricted to—or flourishing in—­the world of the imagination inspires the unrequited longing associated with romance, as Murasaki Shikibu noted as well. 4. Katagiri Yōichi, Fukui Teisuke, Takahashi Shōji, and Shimizu ­Yoshiko, eds., Taketori monogatari, Ise monogatari, Yamato monogatari, Heichū monogatari (Shōgakukan, 1972), 133. Frits Vos notes that “it is not impossible . . . ​that kaimamiru . . . ​had at the time already

286











Notes to Pages 65–68

lost its original meaning [of looking through a gap in the fence] and may be translated as ‘to peep stealthily’ ” (A Study of the Ise Monogatari with the Text According to the Den-­Teika Hippon and an Annotated Translation [The Hague: Mouton, 1957], 2: 66n8). Joshua  S. Mostow and Royall Tyler point out in the introduction to their translation of Ise that Hosokawa Yūsai, in his Ketsugi shō of 1597, rejected the meaning of “peeping through a gap in the fence” for kaimamitekeri on the grounds that “peeping is not elegant (yūgen), [and that therefore] the expression must mean ‘to see from a distance, or through something’ ” (The Ise Stories: Ise monogatari [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010], 8). 5. See Vos, A Study of the Ise Monogatari with the Text, 2: 66n6: “all modern commentators agree that kari stands for takagari . . . ​, ‘hawking.’ ” 6. Kobayashi Shigemi, ed., Ise monogatari (Shintensha, 1975), 6n2. 7. A generic version of Ise 1 appears as the fifth painting of the Ise monogatari emaki; see Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, ed., Ise ­monogatari emaki kenkyū (Izumi-­shi: Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1986), 17, reproduced ­here in Plate 5. 8. Mostow and Tyler point out: “While medieval commentators recognized the poem as written by Minamoto no Tōru (822–895), they could not believe that the sisters would not reply to the man’s poem and so read the second poem as their response, quoting Tōru’s poem for their own purposes.” For this quotation and for the delivery of the sisters’ reply poem in the Saga-­bon woodblock print of Ise monogatari; see Mostow and Tyler, The Ise Stories, 16, 17. 9. For an extensive discussion of “Sexual/ Textual Politics” in Ise monogatari, see Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance, chap. 5, especially 135–139. 10. See the commentary on the second poem of dan 1 by Mostow and Tyler, The Ise Stories, 16. 11. Lone Takeuchi, “Zhuangzi and the Search for Coherence in Ise monogatari,” Bulletin of SOAS, 72, no. 2 (2009): 368–369 and n42. 12. See the explanation in Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from Tenth-­Century Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), 218n4. For a ­different reading, see Mostow and Tyler, The Ise Stories, 94–95. 13. Edwin A. Cranston, trans., A Waka Anthology: Volume Two: Grasses of Remembrance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 20. 14. Vos has suggested that the man may at this critical time have chosen to take up “the peddler’s business of his (deceased?) ­father” (A Study

Notes to Pages 69–70











287

of the Ise Monogatari with the Text, 2: 88n12). For a discussion of the uncertain ­family background of the ­couple, see Mostow and ­Tyler, The Ise Stories, 68. 15. Mildred Tahara attributes the imagery to “the waka tradition in for example, jealousy which fire represented heightened emotions—­ and passion—­felt in the ­human heart” (Tales of Yamato: A Tenth-­ Century Poem-­Tale [Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980], 259n4). 16. Takeuchi claims that Narihira’s peeping was only implied, “neither deliberated nor truly intentional, but rather spontaneous, yet hesitant, happening only because he happened to be standing where he was (taterite mireba)” (“Zhuangzi and the Search for Coherence in Ise monogatari,” 365). However, any action done in secret, even if prompted by the occasion, is by definition deliberate. 17. See McCullough, Tales of Ise, 227n3. 18. In the end, Narihira did not merely fulfill the request of the old ­woman’s third son. In their translation with commentary of Ise monogatari, Mostow and Tyler point to the Reizei Ise monogatari shō’s Muromachi-­period hypothesis of the third son being Prince Koretaka (844–897). Although favored by Emperor Montoku to become crown prince, Koretaka, the son of Ki no Seishi, was passed over for the imperial succession. Instead, the young son of Emperor Montoku and Fujiwara no Yoshifusa’s dau­gh­ter, Meishi, succeeded to the throne as Emperor Seiwa (The Ise Stories, 136). For the strug­gle of the Ariwara and Ki families against the increasing control of the imperial succession by the Fujiwara, see Michele Marra, The Aesthetics of Discontent: Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japa­nese Lit­erature (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1991), 37–48. If this kind of historic modeling is appropriate, Narihira can be said to comply in loyal support with the unhappily secluded Prince Koretaka’s request by comforting his widowed mo­ther. It might also be noted that Seishi is the sister of Aritsune, whose dau­gh­ter was married to Narihira. In other words, Narihira agreed amorously to pursue his wife’s aunt to relieve her of loneliness in her old age. 19. Yoshikai Naoto has emphasized the importance of the sense of hearing (chōkaku; tachikiki; kaimakiki) in kaimami episodes, and Ise 63 in par­tic­u­lar (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru [Kasama shoin, 2008], 90). 20. See Mitani Kuniaki, “ ‘Katari’ to ‘gensetsu’: kaimami no bungakushi aruiwa konton o zōshoku suru gensetsu bunseki no kanōsei,” in

288













Notes to Pages 71–72

Genji monogatari no gensetsu (Kanrin shobō, 2002), 56; quoted in Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 89. 21. See Ziro Uraki, trans., The Tale of the Cavern (Utsuho Monogatari) (Tokyo: Shinozaki shorin, 1984). 22. For a partial translation, see Edwin A. Cranston, “Atemiya: A Translation from the Utsubo monogatari,” Monumenta Nipponica 24, no. 3 (1969): 289. 23. Wayne P. Lammers, “The Succession: Kuniyuzuri: A Translation from Utsuho Monogatari,” Monumenta Nipponica 37, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 148. 24. On the question of authorship and influence, see ibid., 139–178. The brief episode about the Buddhist priest Tadakoso, who sees Princess Atemiya because a sudden gust of wind lifts up her curtains, might have influenced Genji Chapter 28 (“Nowaki”). See Uraki, The Tale of the Cavern, 123. When Emperor Suzaku wants to see Nakatada’s beautiful mo­ ther (Toshikage’s dau­ gh­ ter), he has Nakatada catch some fireflies, which he then releases to illuminate her face. See ibid., 246. This episode is reflected in Genji, Chapter 25 (“Hotaru”), when Genji uses fireflies in a similar trick to help his half-­brother get a good glimpse of Tamakazura. 25. For Utsuho monogatari, Shinohara Yoshihiko lists twenty-­five incidents (a number second only to Genji monogatari) of what he calls shiken (peeping); Genji monogatari no sekai (Kindai bungeisha, 1993), 192–194; for his explanation of terms, see p. 189. 26. Yoshikai Naoto emphasizes that, in contrast to Ochikubo monogatari, Fujiwara no Kanemasa discovers Toshikage’s dau­gh­ter accidentally, within the context of a pilgrimage (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 56). While there is an accidental public sighting of the girl, the ­actual kaimami is deliberately planned (ibid., 42). It is one of those kaimami, where secretive private viewing comes last, ­after an inspiring public glimpse and secretive eavesdropping. 27. Uraki, The Tale of the Cavern, 17. 28. Lammers, “The Succession,” 140. 29. Some of the kaimami are accidental, as when Tadakoso sees her when a sudden gust of wind lifts the curtains meant to shield her from view. See Uraki, The Tale of the Cavern, 123. For a ­table on kaimami in Utsuho monogatari and other works, see Shinohara, Genji monogatari no sekai, 190–198 (25 incidents of kaimami in Utsuho monogatari, 192–194). The incident referred to ­here anticipates Yūgiri’s view of Murasaki in Genji, Chapter 28 (“Nowaki”).

Notes to Pages 73–77















289

30. Shinohara lists eight incidents of kaimami, six in Chapter 1 and two in Chapter 2 of Ochikubo monogatari (Genji monogatari no sekai, 194). 31. Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), 90, citing Seki Keigo, Minwa (Iwanami shoten, 1955), 166–167. 32. Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987), 98. 33. See ibid., 98–99; Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 90. 34. All references to the Ochikubo mongatari are to the edition by Fujii Sadakazu and Inaga Keiji, eds., Ochikubo monogatari, Sumiyoshi monogatari (Iwanami shoten, 1989). 35. See SNKBT, 18: 22n9 by Fujii Sadakazu. 36. The German translators give a most nuanced translation concerning Ochikubo’s inner turmoil that she believes requires her to feel ashamed: “Die Onnagimi ist wohl schrecklich verstört, weil sie glaubt, sie müsse sich schämen” (Christoph Langemann and Verena Werner, trans., Die Geschichte der ehrenwerten Ochikubo: Ochikubo monogatari [Zürich: Manesse, 1994], 37). The En­glish translation reads: “As for the Lady, she seems to be distracted because she feels so ashamed” (Wilfred White­house and Eizo Yanagisawa, trans., The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo: A Tenth ­Century Japa­nese Novel [Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1971], 27). 37. For a translation, see Harold Parlett, trans., “The Sumiyoshi Monogatari,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 29 (1901). All translations from Sumiyoshi monogatari are mine. For the text of Sumiyoshi monogatari in Japa­nese, see Fujii Sadakazu and Inaga Keiji, eds., Ochikubo monogatari, Sumiyoshi monogatari (Iwanami shoten, 1989): 293–349. The secondary lit­erature in Japa­nese on this monogatari is voluminous; see Yoshikai Naoto’s bibliography in SNKBT, 18: 489–498. 38. See Chapter 25 (“Hotaru”) of The Tale of Genji (S: 437). The Sumiyoshi monogatari also appears in one of Sei Shōnagon’s lists; see Ivan Morris, trans., The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), section 190, “Tales,” 1: 188; NKBT, section 212, 19: 249. 39. Parlett, “The Sumiyoshi Monogatari,” 42, 43. 40. For a comparison of wet nurses (menoto or uba) and the children they nourished at their breast (menotogo) in Sumiyoshi monogatari and Ochikubo monogatari, see Yoshikai Naoto, Heianchō no

290













Notes to Pages 77–79

­ enototachi: Genji monogatari e no kaitei (Kyōto: Sekai shisōsha, m 1995), 270–299. 41. Extant are illustrations in vari­ous forms, such as woodblock prints, Nara ehon, and emakimono. For a black and white illustration of the Sagano outing, “Sumiyoshi monogatari Sagano shōyō,” see Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 63. 42. See the Nara ehon illustration of Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki, vol. 1 (NIJL image 23); see http://­world​.­nijl​.­ac​.­jp​/­%7Ekiban​-­s​/­database​ /­naraehongazou​/­html​/­thumbnails​/­sumiyosithum​/­images​/­sumiyosi%20 (23)​_­jpg​.­jpg. 43. For a colorful painting of this open-­air kaimami on paper, see the seventeenth-­century handscroll 1 (of 3) of the Sumiyoshi monogatari ­ ere as Plates 6 emaki in the Kyōto National Museum, reproduced h and 7; see also the cata­logue of a special exhibition at the Kyōto National Museum, Dai emakiten/Emaki Unrolled: Masterworks of Illustrated Narrative Handscrolls (Kyōto kokuritsu hakubutsukan, Yomiuri shinbunsha, NHK, 2006), 66–67, fig.  16. There is also a ­fourteenth-­century Kamakura emaki in two handscrolls (fragments), color on paper, in the Seikadō bunko bijutsukan, Tōkyō; this relatively early Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki has been rated as Im­por­tant Cultural Property; see two sections from scroll 2 about Himegimi’s attendance at her nurse’s sickbed and Shōshō’s visit ­after the nurse’s death (ibid., 64–65, fig. 14). The earliest extant Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki, an Im­por­tant Cultural Property in the Tōkyō National Museum, dates back to the late thirteenth ­century; see Miyeko Murase, Emaki: Narrative Scrolls from Japan (New York: Asia Society, 1983), 76–80. 44. Yoshikai Naoto has called attention to an unusual feature of this daytime kaimami that has the w ­ omen retreat into their carriages once they realize that they have been seen, thereby terminating the kaimami themselves rather than having it interrupted by a third party accidentally intruding upon the scene (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 65). 45. For “mukutsuke onna,” see Yoshikai, Heianchō no menototachi, 277– 280. Yoshikai lists eight instances of this expression in the text (ibid., 278). In a diagram, Yoshikai shows that Himegimi and her stepmother have one good and one bad character on their side; the Sumiyoshi nun and Chikuzen for Himegimi and mukutsuke onna and kokoroyose no Shikibu for the stepmother (ibid., 279). 46. See Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 68.

Notes to Pages 79–82













291

47. The Nara ehon illustration of Sumiyoshi monogatari has the chūjō standing below the veranda, complaining to Jijū that he can only hear Himegimi. Nara ehon illustration of Sumiyoshi monogatari, vol. 3 (NIJL image 67); see http://­world​.­nijl​.­ac​.­jp​/­%7Ekiban​-­s​/­database​ /­naraehongazou​/­html​/­thumbnails​/­sumiyosithum​/­images​/­sumiyosi%20 (23)​_­jpg​.­jpg. 48. The scene is illustrated in the oldest extant Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki of the Kamakura period, a fragment in the Burke Collection. See Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japa­nese Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), 104 (detail on 105), fig. 37. 49. See Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 70. 50. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 100, “When the Lady of the Shigei Sha Entered the Crown Prince’s Palace,” 1: 117. Morris gives a “finding list” in his Appendix 5 for the sometimes differently numbered sections in three modern editions (ibid., 2: 217– 227). For the Japa­nese text, I cite from NKBT, section 104, 19: 162. It must be noted that Morris translates kaimami no hito (a person looking through a gap in the fence) as “demon,” presumably because the voyeur feels as though stripped of the kakuremino (straw raincoat)—­ which made demons invisible, according to folk belief. Meredith McKinney based her new translation on the Sankanbon text (earliest extant version of 1228), edited by Matsuo Satoshi and Nagai Kazuko, NKBZ, 11 (Shōgakukan, 1997). She translates the kakuremino comment as follows: “I felt as if I was being stripped of a magic cloak of invisibility” (Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 99, 110). 51. In earlier passages, the author had glimpsed the incomparable beauty of the Lady of the Shigei Sha and was frowned upon for ­doing so (Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 100, “When the Lady of the Shigei Sha Entered the Crown Prince’s Palace,” 1: 116; NKBT, section 104, 19: 160–161). 52. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 100, “When the Lady of the Shigei Sha Entered the Crown Prince’s Palace,” 1: 117; NKBT, section 104, 19: 162. 53. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 37, “Smaller Shirakawa,” 1: 37; NKBT, section 35, 19: 76. 54. Edith Sarra, Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japa­nese Court ­Women’s Memoirs (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 230.

292













Notes to Pages 82–85

55. Imai Gen’e discusses this dan (49 by his numbering) in his 1948 groundbreaking article on kaimami (“Kodai shōsetsu sōsakujō no itte hō: kaimami ni tsuite,” Kokugo to Kokubungaku 25, no. 3 [March 1948]). 56. The appellation “Three Pre­ce­dents” is used by Thomas Lamarre, Uncovering Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 85. Yukinari’s style became the model for the prominent Sesonji school of calligraphy. 57. Aesthetic judgments about the face are not an exclusively male prerogative, as is clear also from Yamato monogatari 65. Having conversed with but repeatedly refused Nan-in no Gorō, Lady Iyo finally peeks at her suitor and seems so greatly disappointed that one has to assume that her interest collapsed entirely: “He was skillful at composing poetry and spoke with such feeling that, wondering what I should do, I peeked out at him [NKBZ, 8: 312: nozokite mireba]. I then discovered that he was extremely ugly” (Tahara, Tales of Yamato, 38). 58. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 51, “Once I Saw Yukinari,” 1: 54; NKBT, section 49, 19: 97. 59. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 51, 1: 55; NKBT, section 49, 19: 98. 60. Sarra, Fictions of Femininity, 244, 252. 61. Hayashida Takakazu, “Kaimami no bungei,” in Genji monogatari no hassō (Ōfūsha, 1980), 247–248. 62. Sarra, Fictions of Femininity, 252. 63. Emphasis added. If anything, Morris’s translation of ito kuchioshi may trivialize the ­woman’s sense of mortification in this expression (The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 51, 1: 55; NKBT, section 49, 19: 98). McKinney’s translation is only a trifle more serious: “I was most chagrined” (Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 46, 51). 64. For this section (numbered differently, according to the textual variants), see Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, section 95, 1: 104–111; McKinney, Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book, section 94, 97– 104; NKBT, section 99, 19: 148–155. 65. Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 1: 108. 66. Edwin A. Cranston, trans., The Izumi Shikibu Diary: A Romance of the Heian Court (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 189; Suzuki Tomotarō, Kawaguchi Hisao, Endō Yoshimoto, and Nishishita Kyōichi, eds., Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki (Iwanami shoten, 1957), NKBT, 20: 444 and n7; Imai Gen’e, “Kodai shōsetsu sōsakujō no itte hō,” 30.

Notes to Pages 85–94













293

67. See, for example, episodes 36 and 38 of the Heichū [uta]monogatari (Susan Downing Videen, trans., Tales of Heichū [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989], 81–89). 68. Ivan Morris, trans., As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections Woman in Eleventh-­ Century Japan (New York: Dial Press, of a ­ 1971), 84; Suzuki et  al., Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki, 20: 511. The phrase that Morris has rendered in an understated way as “most uncomfortable” is ito imijiku mono tsutsumashi (most frightfully embarrassing). Such a ner­vous reaction is caused by a man poised to listen and peek through a gap in a fence or other partition, tachigiki, kaimamu hito. 69. The translation by Sonja Arntzen and Itō Moriyuki reads, first in the men’s lines and then the author’s: “We ­were on our way to see flowers; / how wonderful to see you instead. / With hearts as always / pulled by myriad attractions, / in the autumn moors” (The Sarashina Diary: A ­Woman’s Life in Eleventh-­Century Japan [New York: Columbia University Press, 2014], 148). See also Morris, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, 74. The Japa­nese text is from Suzuki et  al., Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki, 20: 505–506. 70. Morris, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, 121; Suzuki et al., Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki, 20: 533. 71. For an interpretation of this “kaimami motif with a characteristic twist,” see Sarra, Fictions of Femininity, 159–160. 72. Morris, As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams, 55; Suzuki et  al., Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki, 20: 492– 493. 73. Richard Bowring, trans., Murasaki Shikibu: Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs (1982; rev. paperback ed. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1985), 44n3 and 45 (episode 3). 74. Ibid., 55. 75. Ibid., 107. 76. Ibid., 49.

Chapter 5. Entering the Maze 1. H. Richard Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 341n32. 2. Fujii Sadakazu has asserted that it was not taboo to marry one’s stepmother—if she was a ­ widow; see Fujii, Monogatari no kekkon (Sōjusha, 1985), 56–57.

294







Notes to Pages 101–109

3. A notable exception is Okada, who devotes an entire section on “The Akashi Intertexts” in his Figures of Re­sis­tance. He emphasizes the maternal link: “The Akashi ­family’s ultimate success reconfigures the ­trials that Genji’s mo­ther endured so that the latter’s death becomes only a temporary setback” (ibid., 285). 4. Norma Field has pointed out that “Genji’s kinship to the Akashi ­family [is] a ­matter that is never made explicit by Genji himself” (The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji [Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987], 69). 5. Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, Narrative Voice in The Tale of Genji (Urbana, IL: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 1985), 38. 6. Ibid., 40, 41. The phenomenon is also noted by Japa­nese Genji scholars such as Hirota Osamu and Sugiyama Yasuhiko. 7. Ibid., 41. 8. See Hirota Osamu, “Genji monogatari ni okeru yōshiki to shite no kaimami,” in Kodai bungaku no yōshiki to kinō, ed. Tsuchihashi Yutaka and Hirokawa Katsumi (Ōfūsha, 1988), 173.

Chapter 6. Genji 1. For a discussion of this cross-­cousin marriage, see Claude Lévi-­Strauss, “Cross-­Readings,” in The View from Afar, trans. Joachim Neugroschel and Phoebe Hoss (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 75. 2. Quotations marked S refer to Edward G. Seidensticker’s translation of The Tale of Genji (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976). The page numbers of the translation are sometimes followed by the page numbers of other translations and, finally, the Japa­nese text. All textual references to the Genji monogatari are to the Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū series (NKBZ, numbered by Genji volume) ­unless other­wise noted. 3. Tsukahara Akihiro, however, has pointed to the provocative nature of Utsusemi’s desire to gaze at Genji; see “Hikaru Genji no kaimami: monogatari tenkai o megutte,” Kokugakuin zasshi C.5 (April 1999): 24. 4. There is a diagram of the “Hahakigi” seduction scene in Ishida Jōji and Shimizu Yoshiko, eds., Genji monogatari, Shinchō Nihon koten shūsei, 8 vols. (Shinchōsha, 1976), 1: 86. See also Royall Tyler’s speculation that the seduction scene occurred in the nurigome, in his The Tale of Genji, Murasaki ­Shikibu (New York: Viking, 2003), 40n65. 5. For this speculation about the location, see Yanai Shigeshi, Murofushi Shinsuke, Ōasa Yūji, Suzuki Hideo, Fujii Sadakazu, Imanishi Yūichirō, eds., Genji monogatari (Iwanami shoten, 1993), 1: 67n30.

Notes to Pages 109–112













295

6. Scholars are debating the applicability of the term “rape” to incidents of sexual vio­lence in Heian lit­erature. Norma Field has tentatively applied the term “visual rape” to the voyeur engaging in the courtship convention of kaimami. Concerning the examples of the Genji monogatari, she notes that “Utsusemi [like Suetsumuhana] escapes being seen in advance. Perhaps this strategy developed in the Genji for the sake of the unlovely” (The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji [Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987], 123). 7. Japa­nese commentators assume that Genji had sexual intercourse with Utsusemi; see NKBZ, 1:178n3. Among Western scholars, Tyler in his Genji translation, 40, and Paul Gordon Schalow, A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007), 151, claim that Genji did have sexual intercourse with Utsusemi; by contrast, the argument that Genji did not have sexual intercourse with Utsusemi is made by Margaret  H. Childs, in “The Value of Vulnerability: Sexual Coercion and the ­Nature of Love in Japa­nese Court Lit­erature,” Journal of Asian Studies 58, no. 4 (1999): 1065 and passim; Field, in The Splendor of Longing, 122; and Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), 65. 8. The NKBZ editors of Genji monogatari note a likely allusion to Ise monogatari 95 (1: 180n5). In this episode, the man appeals to the ­woman, who keeps a curtain between them to shield herself from his gaze to give up the barrier separating them (hedatsuru seki); Katagiri Yōichi, Fukui Teisuke, Takahashi Shōji, and Shimizu Yoshiko, eds., Taketori monogatari, Ise monogatari, Yamato monogatari, Heichū monogatari (Shōgakukan, 1972), 215. 9. See Tsukahara, “Hikaru Genji no kaimami,” 23. 10. Edwin  A. Cranston has pointed out that this poem is “Genji’s first recorded poetic utterance”; see Cranston, trans., A Waka Anthology: Volume Two: Grasses of Remembrance, Part B (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 698. 11. The poetry quoted in En­glish refers to the translation by Cranston in ibid. The Japa­nese text in transcription refers to the waka number in Genji monogatari and to the volume and page number in the NKBZ edition of Genji monogatari. 12. Sakanoue no Korenori belonged to the poetry circle of Murasaki ­Shikibu’s great-­grand­father, Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877–933). Eight of his poems w ­ ere included in the Kokinshū (905); his poem about

296



Notes to Pages 112–114

hahakigi appeared in the Shinkokinshū (1201), 11: 997: sonohara ya fuseya ni ouru hahakigi no ari to wa miete awanu kimi ka na. The anonymous Kokinwaka rokujō variant has ari tote yukedo for ari to wa miete. See Cranston, A Waka Anthology, 2B: 698; Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 64. 13. Utsusemi’s hahakigi self closely matches Kaoru’s kagerō self in the Uji chapters of the Genji, as expressed in his solitary poem about elusive drake flies: There—­you can see them, / But not catch them in your hand, / And when you look again / They have vanished, who knows where, These ephemerids at dusk. (C: 2B, 2695; GM 766) Ari to mite / te ni wa torarezu / mireba mata / yukue mo shirazu / kieshi kagerō (6: 264)



14. Yoshikai Naoto, “ ‘Kaimami’ saikentō: Utsusemi maki no ‘kaimami’ gigi,” Kaishaku 43.6 (June 1997): 6–8. See also the chapter on the Utsusemi kaimami in idem, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru (Kasama shoin, 2008), 99–112. 15. Genji commentators cannot agree on the strategic position that Genji has assumed for his “Utsusemi” kaimami; see the diagrams in Ishida and Shimizu, Genji monogatari, 1: 107; Kawana Junko, “Utsusemi maki no kaimami: ‘nakabashira ni sobameru hito,’ ” Tōō Kokubungaku 27 (March 1995): 4. See also Seidensticker, The Tale of Genji, 50n*. 16. Kawana, “Utsusemi maki no kaimami,” 12. 17. According to Tyler’s translation, Genji instantly identifies Utsusemi, with hardly a doubt, despite the rear view: “His first thought was that the one by the central pillar, facing away from him, must be she” (T: 48). Arthur Waley expresses similar certainty; see Waley, trans., The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts by Lady Murasaki (New York: Modern Library, 1960), 48. By contrast, Oscar Benl has Genji won­ der in the form of a straightforward question: “Ob die eine, überlegte er, die abgewandten Gesichtes am mittleren Pfosten des Hauptraumes lehnt, die ist, die ich liebe?” (Genji-­Monogatari: Die Geschichte vom Prinzen Genji [Zürich: Manesse, 1966], 79). Benl’s rendition seems most closely to follow the original: moya no nakabashira ni sobameru hito ya waga kokoro kakuru to (1: 193–194).

Notes to Page 114









297

18. Niinuma Sanwa has found four characteristics that accompany descriptions of kaimami: clothing, appearance, mood, and be­hav­ior. All four are pre­sent in Genji’s perception of Utsusemi, but “mood” is missing from his sense of Nokiba no ogi (“Genji monogatari no joseikan: kaimami bamen o chūshin to shite,” Girei bunka 18 [ January 1993]: 28 [chart], 33–34 [re fun’iki]). 19. Yoshikai, “ ‘Kaimami’ saikentō,” 8–9. 20. According to the sixteenth-­century Ōsaka manual for paint­ers (Genji monogatari ekotoba), Kogimi “should be shown near the ­women.” See Miyeko Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji: Genji monogatari ekotoba (New York: Weatherhill, 1983), 49; for the “Utsusemi” hakubyō ­album leaf pasted on the Genji screen in the Tokyo National Museum, fig.  3–1, see ibid., 326. For another example, see the seventeenth-­century Genji ­album, in the Mary Griggs Burke Collection, reproduced on the cover of Colin Mackenzie and Irving Finkel, eds., Asian Games: The Art of Contest (New York: Asia Society, 2004) and on p. 207. Kogimi is absent, however, showing shelves with neatly compiled manuscripts instead, in the color Genji ­Album by Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613) in the Kyōto National Museum, reproduced in Akiyama Ken and Taguchi Ei’ichi, eds., Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai: Genji monogatari (Gakken, 1988), 36. 21. Tsukahara Akihiro points out that the term kaimami appears only five times in the Genji (“Hikaru Genji no kaimami,” 26). 22. There are no extant pre­ce­dents showing the w ­ omen engaged in a game of go before the “Utsusemi” chapter of Genji monogatari. See Imai Gen’e’s “Monogatari kōseijō no itte hō: kaimami ni tsuite,” in Ōchō bunkagu no kenkyū (Kadokawa shoten, 1970), 46. In chapter 7 of the Utsuho monogatari, Fujiwara no Nakatada secretly spies on Princess Atemiya and Princess Imamiya playing the koto and ­ omen’s traditional aesthetic pastime is provocabiwa. However, the w ­ oman and a man tively linked to an intellectual pastime involving a w when Nakatada complains about Atemiya’s silence to his earlier correspondence and is told by the lady-­in-­waiting at his side during the kaimami that “she [Atemiya] was playing ‘go’ with Chamberlain Nakazumi at that time” (Uraki Ziro, trans., The Tale of the Cavern [Utsuho Monogatari] [Tokyo: Shinozaki shorin, 1984], 163). 23. It is no accident that scenes of kaimami and go are prominently fused in the Genji. In Chapter  44 (“Takegawa”), one of Yūgiri’s sons watches Tamakazura’s daughters playing go. In Tosa Mitsunobu’s Genji ­album leaf in the Harvard University Art Museums, the voyeur

298





Notes to Pages 114–115

is not represented. According to Estelle Leggeri-­Bauer, the painter preferred to depart from convention in order to focus on the ­women, the go board, and the flowering cherry trees; see René Sieffert, trans., Murasaki-­shikibu, Le dit du Genji: Genji monogatari (Paris: Diane de Selliers, 2007), 3: 100. The only men featured in The Tale of Genji at the game of go are the Kinjō emperor and Kaoru, in Chapter 49 (“Yadorigi”). In Chapter 53 (“Tenarai”), Ukifune and the nun Shōshō play the game unobserved, but with the captain’s imminent courtship already oppressing Ukifune. 24. Matsui Kenji, “Go o utsu onnatachi: Genji monogatari no seisa to asobiwaza,” Kokugo to kokubungaku 75.11 (November 1998). Matsui examines the notion of equality, or the strug­gle for it, between same-­ sex contestants. In cross-­gender games of go, equality can only be approximated, as in Genji’s training of Murasaki in order to promote and gauge her level of maturity for sexual initiation; see the end of Chapter 9 (“Aoi”). To elaborate on Matsui’s point about Genji’s go games with Murasaki, I might add that male control of female maturity achieved through go is dramatized in the scene of Murasaki’s hair trimming on the day of the “Aoi” festival, when she is standing on the go board to be on equal footing, as it ­were, for his application of his scissors to her hair. It is an auspicious hair trimming that is meant to encourage sexual maturity through controlled hair growth, which is a far cry from the haircutting associated with taking religious vows. It should be noted, however, that there is no mention in the Genji text of a go board in this hair-­trimming scene. It appears that pictorial repre­sen­ta­tions of Murasaki standing on the go board follow the instructions for Scene 2 of the “Aoi” chapter in the sixteenth-­century Ōsaka manual for paint­ers (Genji monogatari ekotoba); see Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 83. Murase shows the hair trimming on the go board from the sixteenth-­century ­woman painter Keifukuin Gyokuei’s hyakubyō (ink drawing) handscroll in the Spencer Collection, New York Public Library. There is another spectacular painting of this scene, preserved as a fragment from a Genji mono­­ gatari folding screen by the Sōtatsu School in the Idemitsu Museum; see Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 62, fig. 39. 25. See, for example, Schalow, A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship, 153. It is likely her attempt to determine the exact nature of Genji’s intimate encounter with Utsusemi that leads Childs to ignore the postencounter kaimami and go scene altogether, allowing her to assert that Genji “is clearly more motivated by the challenge that [Utsusemi] repre-

Notes to Pages 115–116







299

sents than real affection. Perhaps that is why his efforts lapse before long” (“The Value of Vulnerability,” 1067). In Japa­nese scholarship on the “Utsusemi” kaimami, cursory reference is frequently made to the ­women at the go board, but even that is sometimes missing; see Tsukahara, “Hikaru Genji no kaimami,” 16–29. Japa­nese critics interested in visual repre­sen­ta­tions have more often noticed the prominence of go in some kaimami scenes; see Kuge Hirotoshi, “Monogatari-­e o yomu: sono san, kaimami,” Gakuen 613 (November 1990): 45–48. However, in the section on “Go o utsu bamen,” Kuge stresses, without further reference to go, that Utsusemi and Nokiba no ogi are like the pairs of ­women, sisters in par­tic­u­lar, who are featured in kaimami scenes (ibid., 47–49). 26. Ivan Morris, trans., The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 1: 168, 2: 133–134n758. 27. “It is significant that weiqi has become a favorite game of mathematicians in the West. At pre­sent, no computer has been able to defeat the top weiqi players, which suggests that the game requires a type of predictive ability that is not purely mathematical” (Andrew Lo and Tzi-­ Cheng Wang, “Spider Threads Roaming the Empyrean: The Game of Weiqi,” in Asian Games: The Art of Contest, ed. Colin Mackenzie and Irving Finkel [New York: Asia Society, 2004], 187). 28. Masukawa Koichi, “Go: Japan’s Seige [sic] Game,” in Mackenzie and Finkel, Asian Games, 212n3. 29. Ibid., 203. 30. On the use of this term for a variety of men’s forced moves of w ­ omen, see Otilia C. Milutin, “Panic Attacks: Violent Female Displacements in The Tale of Genji” (master’s thesis, University of Mas­sa­chu­setts ­Amherst, May 2008). 31. There is a parodic version of game playing and spying in Chapter 26 (“Tokonatsu”), in which Genji’s rival, Tō no Chūjō, observes his newfound dau­gh­ter, Ōmi no kimi. This biological dau­gh­ter by an unknown minor mistress was raised in the provinces and displays all her deficiencies in Heian courtly culture while playing a board game with her equally unsophisticated companion. Tō no Chūjō is as ­appalled by Ōmi no kimi as Genji was by Nokiba no ogi. It is sig­ nificant that the board game in “Tokonatsu” is not the extremely complicated (and therefore very prestigious) strategic war game of go but, rather, the far less complex game of suguroku (Ch. shuanglu; backgammon), which sometimes casts the players in a shady light. Suguroku is less complex not only because it has fewer stones and

300







Notes to Pages 117–123

places to put them but also because some outcomes are determined by casting dice, which introduces an ele­ment of chance absent from go. The game was frequently banned “because (in the eyes of government officials) the game fostered gambling and caused those hooked on it to forget their work and filial duties” (Masukawa Koichi, “Ban-­ Suguroku: Japan’s Game of Double Sixes,” in Mackenzie and Finkel, Asian Games, 105). 32. Kayaba Yasuo, “Genji monogatari no kaimami,” Gakuen 541 (January 1985): 88. See also Tsukahara, “Hikaru Genji no kaimami,” 26. 33. I am grateful to Stephen  M. Forrest for alerting me to Lady Ise’s screen poem (byōbu-­uta). Lady Ise was historically acclaimed as a poet who wrote byōbu uta, or waka, into pictorial narratives on folding screens (byōbu-­e). As  H. Richard Okada has pointed out, composing screen poems meant that “the poet recited a poem standing in the place of the figure on the screen.” Such “screen poems . . . ​ often represented the utterances of the figures in the picture.” Okada calls Lady Ise “An Early Figure of Re­sis­tance,” in a chapter devoted to her (Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991], 114). It seems that Murasaki Shikibu appropriated this technique through Utsusemi’s use of a poem by the poet most famous for this technique, Lady Ise. 34. When Utsusemi’s husband appeared to fetch her for their return journey to the province, Genji, feeling guilty about his adulterous feelings, abandoned any attempt to resume contact with Utsusemi (see S: 62). 35. Cranston, A Waka Anthology 2B: 707. 36. Doris G. Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 69. 37. Childs, “The Value of Vulnerability,” 1060. 38. Not surprisingly, the case of Utsusemi has engendered critical controversy. Did she or did she not have sexual intercourse with Genji? Although Utsusemi is a ­woman who resisted Genji, and who has had an enormous impact on him for that reason, she has more often than not been perceived as “plain and modest” (Field, The Splendor of Longing, 244). She is described as elusive; see Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 63. I have argued for Utsusemi’s remarkable capacity for “forceful re­sis­tance” to male sexual advances in Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon, 306n51. Field has also pointed out that Utsusemi “successfully resisted Genji’s advances ­after a first accidental meeting” (The Splendor of Longing, 122). She seems so insignificant to Okada that

Notes to Pages 123–127











301

he does not bother to discuss her in Figures of Re­sis­tance. Other scholars have mentioned her as a minor heroine, and some have attributed to her much more agency than is implied by Okada’s omission of her in his study of re­sis­tance. She is named in the same breath as Oborozukiyo and Fujitsubo by the scholar Motoori Norinaga in his Genji monogatari tama no ogushi (1793–1796) as a ­woman who found in “love that is impermissible yet inevitable aware that is even more profound than usual” (“Genji monogatari tama no ogushi,” in Motoori Norinaga zenshū, ed. Ōno Susumu [Chikuma shobō, 1969], 4: 217; quoted in Field, The Splendor of Longing, 299). 39. Utsusemi is also the subject of two Nō plays, Utsusemi and Go; for En­glish translations and analyses of these plays, see Janet Goff, “Plays about Utsusemi,” in her Noh Drama and The Tale of Genji (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1991), 87–101. There are also many spectacular paintings of the scene in which Genji spies on her and her stepdaughter at a game of go. In other words, for a “minor” heroine she looms large in the imagination of writers, playwrights, and paint­ers if not in public consciousness. 40. See headnotes in NBBZ GM 1: 209n18 and 210n1. 41. Yoshikai Naoto has devoted an entire chapter to “mutual kaimami” in “Yūgao,” pointing to ancillary characters for e­ither Genji or Yūgao, such as the attendant who overhears and responds to Genji’s ­ ouse on Gojō with curiosity about the inhabitant of the rundown h its white fence and shutters, and ancillary senses, such as hearing and smell, all of which seem designed to propel the kaimami courtship pro­cess forward. Most originally, Yoshikai argues that Koremitsu’s investigation of Yūgao is based on what he heard as much as what he was able to see. See Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari, 113–131. 42. This definition of spirit possession is by Ioan M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession (London: Routledge, 1989), 27; 1971 ed., 32. 43. See Matthew Fraleigh, “On the Inside Looking Out: Kaimami and Self-­Presentation in Asajigatsuyu” (paper presented at the annual con­ ference of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, March  24, 2001), 6–7. 44. Tyler (T: 114n8) suggests that Taifu’s ­father may be an elder brother. 45. Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 135. 46. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 90. 47. The scene as depicted in the Genji monogatari emaki at Ishiyamadera, attributed to Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691), shows Suetsumuhana with

302















Notes to Pages 127–131

her koto and ladies-­in-­waiting in a rundown building and a dilapidated fence with the two men confronting each other (Kyōto Bunka Hakubutsukan, ed., Genji onna monogatari ten [Ōsaka: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1998], 44–45, fig. 34). 48. Schalow, A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship, 138. 49. For a paint­erly rendering of Genji and Tō no Chūjō playing their flutes in one carriage, see Sumiyoshi Gukei (1631–1705), Genji ­monogatari emaki, in Genji monogatari, ed. Enchi Fumiko et  al. (Gakken, 1986), 35. 50. Schalow, A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship, 138. 51. Ibid., 139. Schalow’s argument that the male rivalry between Genji and Tō no Chūjō draws its excitement from “Yūgao’s death” and “the Hitachi Princess’ plainness” is not convincing (ibid.). 52. Ibid. 53. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: En­glish Lit­erature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). 54. René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, trans. Yvonne Freccero (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965). 55. Brian Theodore Sacawa, “The Triangle as an Instrument of Male Love in the Genji monogatari” (se­nior honors thesis, University of Mas­sa­ chu­setts Amherst, 1999), 82–83. 56. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 31. 57. See also ibid., 90. 58. Yoshikai Naoto has contrasted Suetsumuhana’s disloyal Jijū to Yūgao’s devoted Ukon. Yoshikai, Heianchō no menototachi: Genji monogatari e no kaitei (Kyōto: Sekai shisōsha, 1995), 215–217. 59. For a standard pictorial repre­sen­ta­tion of this scene, see Tosa Mitsu­ yoshi (1539–1613), Genji monogatari tekagami, in Genji monogatari shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan (Izumi: tekagami kenkyū, ed. Izumi-­ Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1992), 13, fig.  10. The snow-­ covered branches of the orange and pine trees are intertwined in a splendid painting by Tosa Mitsunori (1583–1638); see Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 53, fig. 29. 60. For a detailed discussion of this passage through translations into modern Japa­nese and En­glish, see Sonja Arntzen, “Getting at the Language of The Tale of Genji through the Mirror of Translation,” in Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, ed. Edward Kamens (New York: Modern Language Association of Ame­rica, 1993), 31–40.

Notes to Pages 132–136



















303

61. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 93. 62. Genji installs Suetsumuhana in the north wing of the Higashi no in at Nijō (see Figure 6), together with Utsusemi. Hanachirusato resides in the west and Akashi no kimi in the east wing (­until they are moved to the northeast quarters and the northwest quarters of the Rokujō-in). 63. Ibid., 118. 64. Sonoda Hidehiro, The Transfiguration of Miyako and the Emergence of Urbanity in Japan (Kyoto: Nichibunken International Research Center for Japa­nese Studies, 2003), 174. 65. For kata-­tagae, see Ōtō Tokihiko, “Katatagae,” in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1983), 4: 166. See also Morris, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, 2: 26–27n103. 66. Suetsumuhana’s residence was located in the southeastern corner of the pre­sent-­day Kyōto Imperial Palace grounds, abutting Marutamachi and Teramachi streets (see Figure 6). 67. William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 2: 845. The Shishinden was used largely for ceremonial occasions. The Kokiden was “ordinarily reserved for a Ju­nior Consort or Empress with power­ful ­family backing” (ibid.). 68. For a diagram of Genji’s kaimami of Oborozukiyo, see Ike Kōzō, Genji monogatari: sono sumai no sekai (Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 1989), 78, map 3–13. 69. Ibid., 79. 70. In its springtime haziness, this kaimami most resembles the one of Murasaki, who is not only a substitute for Fujitsubo (like Oborozukiyo) but also her niece. In matching atmosphere, Genji sees Murasaki in the eve­ning spring haze, while he sees Oborozukiyo in the morning spring haze, as his Lover at Dawn (1: 433: ariake no kimi), his Moon at Dawn (1: 430: ariake no tsuki). 71. This scenario implies that paint­ers who depict Oborozukiyo as walking along the hosodono when she recites her “misty moon” poem have misrepresented her position; she must be coming to the kururudo when she recites her poem about the “misty moon,” which she can see from the door looking across the hosodono. Genji, who is hiding by the same door, grabs her and lifts her across the threshold to the hosodono. 72. ­After Genji’s first encounter, Oborozukiyo soon advanced from the position of Mikushigedono no bettō (Mistress of the Wardrobe) in the Jōganden to Naishi no kami (Principal Handmaid) in the Kokiden;

304

















Notes to Pages 136–144

see Chapter 10 (“Sakaki”), S: 193. For these roles, see McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 2: 821. 73. Ike, Genji monogatari: sono sumai no sekai, 79, fig. 3–14. 74. This famous scene from Chapter 8 (“Hana no en”) is included among the Genji scenes on Kano Tan’yū’s six-­panel seventeenth-­century byōbu (folding screen) in the Imperial House­ hold Collection; see Genji monogatari sennen kikinen tokushū, “Tennō ni narenakatta ōji no monogatari,” Geijutsu shinchō, vol. 59, no. 2 (February 2008): 78. 75. Davíd Carrasco and Scott Sessions, “­Middle Place, Labyrinth, and Circumambulation: Cholula’s Peripatetic Role in the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2,” in their Cave, City, and Ea­gle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2007), 451n1. 76. For a convincing analogy between Genji’s courtship at Akashi and the Nihongi myth of Yamasachihiko and Toyotamahime, see Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 78–79. 77. Field has noted this residential coincidence and has argued that Genji’s “cornerstone for [the Akashi dau­gh­ter] is the suppression of her background, which is partly a denial of his own past” (The Splendor of Longing, 79). 78. Ibid., 127. Field refers to the “Naishi no kami” chapter from Utsuho monogatari and Ise monogatari 39. Shirane also mentions Ise 39 for the release of fireflies as a “plot convention” (The Bridge of Dreams, 97). However, the Ise episode is inspired by religious funereal context rather than secular courtship. 79. Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 97. 80. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 127. 81. For two detailed diagrams of the southeast quarters of the Rokujō-in with models showing the progression of the kemari game played that fateful spring day, see Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari to Kyōto: Rokujō-in e dekakeyō (Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2005), 188–189. 82. For an analy­sis of pictorializations of the kemari scene involving the Third Princess, see Doris Croissant, “Visions of the Third Princess: Gendering Spaces in The Tale of Genji Illustrations,” Arts Asiatiques, sis of the anomalous kaimami involving 60 (2005). For an analy­ Kashiwagi and the Third Princess, see Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon, 156–159. 83. Bargen’s paper is entirely devoted to the cat: “Feles ex machina: Is There Romantic Love in The Tale of Genji?” (paper presented at the

Notes to Pages 145–149



305

New ­England Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Harvard University, October 19, 1980). Field pays more attention to the “bizarre” relationship with the cat than most other Western Genji scholars; see The Splendor of Longing, 168–169. While making a point about Buddhist warnings against excessive attachment as an impediment to enlightenment, Shirane sees Kashiwagi’s substitution of the Third Princess with the cat and with Ochiba as “reflect[ing] the ludicrous degree to which he is ruled by his attachment to Genji’s wife” (The Bridge of Dreams, 178). Childs completely ignores the cat. She refers instead to a “gap in the narrative [that] implies the consummation of [Kashiwagi’s] desire, and [the Third Princess] becomes pregnant” (“The Value of Vulnerability,” 1074). 84. Shirane argues that Kashiwagi and the Third Princess’s “momentary physical ­union . . . ​does not result in love [and that the princess] bears only contempt for Kashiwagi” (The Bridge of Dreams, 178).

Chapter 7. Murasaki 1. Hirota Osamu refers to a theory by Sugiyama Yasuhiko about the birth of trance (kōkotsu no jōtai) at the moment the observer becomes a zero subject by losing himself in the peeped world; see “Genji monogatari ni okeru yōshiki to shite no kaimami,” in Kodai bungaku no yōshiki to kinō, ed. Tsuchihashi Yutaka and Hirokawa Katsumi (Ōfūsha, 1988), 173. See also Sugiyama Yasuhiko, “Genji monogatari no katari no shutai (jō): sono kyokō no kōzō ni tsuite,” Bungaku 41 (April 1973). 2. Yoshikai Naoto has noted the curious nature of Inuki as a character who is known only through hearsay. He further speculates that she may be Murasaki’s menotogo (“Genji monogatari Wakamurasaki maki no ‘kaimami’ saikentō,” Kokugakuin zasshi 100, no. 7 [ July 1999]: 9). 3. See Keifukuin Gyokuei, dau­ gh­ ter of Konoe Taneie (1503–1566), Genji monogatari hakubyō emaki (1554), in the Spencer Collection, New York Public Library. 4. Yoshikai, “Genji monogatari Wakamurasaki maki no ‘kaimami’ saikentō,” 3. 5. See, e.g., Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from Tenth-­Century Japan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), Episode 6, p. 72; Episode 49, p. 103. For a detailed discussion of the poetic tradition referred to, see Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton

306











Notes to Pages 150–156

University Press, 1987), 161–165; Haruo Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), 45–47; H. Richard Okada, Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other ­Mid-­Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 255. 6. Ellen D. Reeder, “­Women and Men in Classical Greece,” in Pandora: ­Women in Classical Greece, ed. Reeder (Baltimore, MD: Walters Art Gallery in association with Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1995), 22. 7. Reeder, “Preface,” in Reeder, Pandora, 7. 8. Literally, “kidnapping” refers to stealing a child for the purpose of extracting a ransom from the parents. Since Genji makes no such demand, his action can best be described as an abduction or a “pseudo-­ kidnapping.” 9. Murasaki’s maternal grand­father held the elite rank of dainagon (major counselor) in the Daijōkan (Council of State), with the additional nominal post of azechi (inspector); see William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japa­ nese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 1: 74n27. 10. ­After this first visit of Murasaki at the azechi dainagon’s h ­ ouse, Genji stops at the ­house of an unidentified ­woman and has a waka exchange. 11. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 168. 12. Royall Tyler, “ ‘I Am I’: Genji and Murasaki,” Monumenta Nipponica 54, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 442. 13. See NKBZ Genji monogatari, 1: 280 and n11. 14. Reeder, “­Women and Men in Classical Greece,” in Reeder, Pandora, 22. 15. Mary  R. Lefkowitz, “The Last Hours of the Parthenos,” in Reeder, Pandora, 35. 16. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 141. 17. Tyler, “ ‘I Am I,’ ” 442–444. 18. Royall Tyler, “Lady Murasaki’s Erotic Entertainment: The Early Chapters of the Genji” (paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, HI, April 1996), 13, and n23. Tyler repeats the gist of this argument: “While some might condemn [Genji] for depriving [Murasaki] of her autonomy, and so on, she ­really has none to lose, and no hope other­wise of anywhere near so good a marriage” (“ ‘I Am I,’ ” 442). 19. Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 50. Shirane does not mention the scene of Genji’s first sexual intercourse with Murasaki.

Notes to Pages 156–163















307

20. Ibid., 50–51. 21. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 172, 174. 22. Tyler, “ ‘I Am I,’ ” 443. 23. Ibid. 24. Mitani Kuniaki, “Yūgiri kaimami,” in KGMS (1981), 5: 233. 25. Field has linked the earlier event of Crown Prince Zenbō’s deposition and premature death to Akikonomu’s “unsettling” victory in the spring-­autumn poetry contest (The Splendor of Longing, 141). 26. Okada has noted about the description of Genji’s kaimami in “Wakamurasaki” that the “narrating enforces, through the use of keri, an atmosphere of discovery and merges with Genji’s position. . . . ​The narrator’s gaze is Genji’s gaze; verbals are governed by aspectuals; ‘motion’ is halted” (Figures of Re­sis­tance, 254, 255). 27. Shirane, The Bridge of Dreams, 101. 28. John R. Wallace has pointed to the imaginary cherry blossoms’ “fragrance” as “a messenger from Murasaki no Ue to Yugiri delivering to him and onto him . . . ​her disorienting, profuse, and peerless beauty.” Moreover, it is this beauty, Wallace argues, that triggers the anxiety nese poetic tradition with cherry blossoms; see associated in Japa­ “Anxiety of Erotic Longing and Murasaki Shikibu’s Aesthetic ­Vision,” Japan Review 10 (1998): 12. 29. Mary Griggs Burke Collection, New York. See Miyeko Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji: Genji monogatari ekotoba (New York: Weatherhill, 1983), 162, fig. 28-1. 30. Nezu Art Museum. See Akiyama Ken and Taguchi Ei’ichi, eds., Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai: Genji monogatari (Gakken, 1988), 138, fig. 106. 31. The bishop in the Kitayama retreat had used a form of the same word, arawa, a nari-­type pseudo-­adjective, meaning “be exposed to full view, be naked” (see 1: 283). 32. See Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, n.p., fig. 28-3 (color section). In color and design the painting in the Kyōto National ­Museum is similar to the equally exquisite version by the same painter in the Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art at Izumi. About the latter, see the comments by Kawada Masayuki, in Izumi-­shi Kubosō Kinen Bijutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari tekagami kenkyū (Izumi: Kubosō Kinen Bijutsukan, 1992), 40, fig. 37. 33. Private collection. See Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 138–139, fig. 107. 34. The two right-­hand panels on the left screen of a pair of sixfold screens by the Tosa School, early Edo period, omit Akikonomu.

308

Notes to Pages 163–170

Leighton  R. Longhi Eastern Fine Art Collection. See Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 158. The Jōdo-ji scattered-­fan (senmen chirashi) pair of sixfold screens of the late Muromachi period, on the other hand, manages, despite the relatively small format, to depict all the ­women and squeezes Yūgiri in at the lower right edge of the fan painting. See ibid., 251, foldout. It has also been possi­ble for visual artists to dispense with all ­human actors. Like the bamboo censer in “Wakamurasaki,” the insect cages in “Nowaki” form an century patterned short-­ sleeve evocative motif for an eighteenth-­ robe (mon’yō kosode), dyed and embroidered on blue silk crepe. The robe is in the Collection of the Marubeni Corporation, Kyōto. See Kyōto National Museum, ed., Special Exhibition: The Tale of Genji in Art. Tokubetsu Tenrankai: Genji monogatari no bijutsu (Kyōto: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1975), fig. 94. 35. The episode of Genji’s exposure of Murasaki’s sleeves to his son’s gaze does not appear in the Ōsaka manual (Genji monogatari ekotoba) and seems not to have attracted artistic attention. 36. On Genji’s self-­ reflections in the mirror, see Tateishi Kazuhiro, ­“Kagami no naka no Hikaru Genji: Hikaru Genji no jikozō to kyōzō to shite no Yūgiri,” Genji Kenkyū 2 (1997): 78. 37. Spencer Collection. See Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 162–163, fig. 28-2. 38. Ayashi (3: 268) has been blandly translated as “strange” (S: 463) and “étrange” (RS 1: 539) and “odd” (T: 491), somewhat less blandly as “merkwürdig” (OB 1: 767). “Questionable” seems truer to the word’s negative connotations in classical Japa­nese. 39. When an older Genji is cuckolded by Tō no Chūjō’s son Kashiwagi and the Third Princess, he fails entirely to control the situation and merely manages to produce guilt and discomfort so great that the young lovers resort to suicide by starvation (Kashiwagi) and to symbolic suicide by taking the tonsure (the Third Princess). See Doris G. Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 163–168, color plates 2.7–9. 40. Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japa­nese Poetry (with Tosa Nikki and Shinsen Waka) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985), 59. I am indebted to Paul G. Schalow for bringing Kokinshū 235 by Tadamine to my attention. For a discussion of Emperor Uda’s “obsession” with the topos of ominaeshi at two poetry matches at the Suzaku-in and one at the

Notes to Pages 171–177















309

Uda-in, see Gustav Heldt, The Pursuit of Harmony: Poetry and Power in Early Heian Japan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2008), 100. 41. Private collection. See Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 141, fig. 108. For a virtually identical composition by an anonymous painter, in the Tokugawa Reimeikai Foundation, Tokyo, with a respectable distance between Genji and Tamakazura, see Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 165, fig. 28-4. 42. The incident occurred on the first of the eleventh month of Kankō (1008), on the occasion of the fiftieth-­day celebrations for Prince Atsuhira (1008–1036), the first son of Empress Shōshi (Akiko, 988– 1074). See NKBT, 19: 470: ana kashiko, kono watari ni wakamurasaki ya saburau. 43. As a possessing spirit, Kashiwagi inherits female charismatic power from Rokujō miyasudokoro; see Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon, 176–178. 44. According to Norma Field (The Splendor of Longing, 9), Enchi Fumiko assumed translator’s license when she described Genji’s death in her translation of the Genji into modern Japa­nese (Shinchōsha, 1972–1973); the five-­volume Shinchō bunko edition of 1980 includes only the chapter title of “Kumogakure,” with a sentence explaining that this chapter title is all that remains to hint at the death of the Shining Genji (4: 235). The French novelist Marguerite Yourcenar tried her imagination at the scene Murasaki Shikibu left untold in her “Le dernier amour du Prince Genghi,” Nouvelles Orientales (Paris: Gallimard, 1981). 45. On the German term Leerstelle (empty place), see Wolfgang Iser, Der Akt des Lesens [The Act of Reading] (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1976), 284–301. For the notion that death can never be accurately represented through immediate experience, see Kenneth Burke, “Thanatopsis for Critics: A Brief Thesaurus of Deaths and Dyings,” Essays in Criticism 2, no. 4 (1952): 369. 46. According to Julia Kristeva’s theory of “jouissance as nostalgia,” the “dead ­woman [is] at hand but lost forever, impossible.” See Tales of Love, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 356. 47. See, for example, Gert Kaiser, Der Tod und die schönen Frauen: Ein elementares Motiv der europäischen Kultur [Death and Beautiful ­Women: An Elementary Motif in Eu­ro­pean Culture] (Frankfurt: Campus, 1995). See also Franz Schubert, String Quartet in D minor, Op.

310







Notes to Pages 177–178

posth., D 810, Der Tod und das Mädchen [Death and the Maiden], composed 1824–1826, including variations on his Lied “Der Tod und das Mädchen,” Op. 7, No. 3, D 531 (1817), based on a poem by Matthias Claudius (1740–1815). 48. See Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (New York: Routledge, 1992). 49. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), 312; see also chap. 10, “The Age of the Beautiful Death,” 409–474. 50. The Greek myth of the fabulous musician Orpheus dramatizes a similar journey to the underworld. Endeavoring to bring back his lost Euridice, Orpheus succeeds, according to Euripides’ Alkestis (357– 362) and Diodorus Siculus (4.25.4), and fails, according to Virgil’s Georgics 4.453–503 and Ovid’s Metamorphoses; see Carol Benson, “Orpheus and the Thracian ­Women,” in Reeder, Pandora, 393n1. The earliest transmission of the legend also has a happy ending, but only because Orpheus fulfills Hades and Persephone’s condition of not glancing back at Euridice. Not surprisingly, many of the l­ater romantic writers shuddered at Orpheus’ forbidden glance but nonetheless gave the myth a happy end. Among the sixty-­five known operas based on the legend, some end happily and some do not. Of the most famous operas, Orpheus and Euridice are re­united in the first opera, Jacopo Peri’s L’Euridice (1600), in Claudio Monteverdi’s La Favola d’Orfeo (1607), in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; Orphée et Eurydice (1762; 1774), and in Hector Berlioz’s Gluck revision (1859). Tragic endings occur in Georg Philipp Telemann’s recently discovered opera Orpheus oder Die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe (1726; rev. 1736) and Joseph Haydn’s L’anima del filosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice (published, first performed 1950). 51. For instance, attributed to Kūkai (744–835) are ten poems in classical Chinese on the kuzō topos in his Seirei-­shū [also Shōryō-­shū]; see Watanabe Shōkō and Miyasaka Yūshō, eds., Sangō shiiki; Seirei-­ shū, in NKBT 71: 460–468. Genshin (942–1017) spread the notion of enlightenment based on contemplating the decomposing cadaver in his Ōjōyōshū, which itself was influenced by Zhiyi’s (or Chih-­i;  J. Chigi, 538–597) Mohe zhiguan (or Mo-ho chih-­kuan; J. Maka shikan, The Great Cessation and Insight), the Tendai meditation manual ­promoting the “perfect and sudden” (endon) method. See Neal Donner and Daniel B. Stevenson, trans., The Great Calming and Contemplation: A Study and Annotated Translation of the First Chapter of

Notes to Pages 178–179









311

Chih-­i’s Mo-ho chih-­ kuan (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993). From the end of the Heian period, Japa­nese Tendai doctrine on original enlightenment (hongaku) drew upon the Chinese Tiantai belief that passion is enlightenment (bonnō soku bodai). Tendai hongaku belief further influenced Nō playwrights and inspired Sonshun (1451–1514), in his commentary Hokke monku ryakutaikō shikenmon (The Great String of Abbreviated Personal Expressions and Questions about the Lotus Sūtra), to relate “the themes of the decaying corpse and enlightenment.” See Gail Chin, “The Gender of Buddhist Truth: The Female Corpse in a Group of Japa­nese Paintings,” Japa­nese Journal of Religious Studies 25.3–4 (Fall 1998): 304–305. I am indebted to this article for some of the Buddhist sources mentioned. 52. See James H. Sanford, “The Nine Faces of Death: ‘Su Tung-­po’s’ Kuzō-­ shi,” Eastern Buddhist, n.s. 21.2 (Autumn 1988): 57–59. Su Dongpo (or Tung-­p’o) is the literary name of Su Shi (1037–1101), an im­por­ tant official, but best known as a poet and essayist; see also Ronald Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994). For a detailed description of Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga, see George  D. Bond, “Theravada Buddhism’s Meditations on Death and the Symbolism of Initiatory Death,” History of Religions 19, no. 3 (February 1980): 242–248. 53. Chin, “The Gender of Buddhist Truth,” 296–303. 54. Liz Wilson, Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Lit­erature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 44. In ancient India, impermanence, even in its most challenging form of the dead body, was not instinctively rejected. For the Buddhist sangha (as well as Hindu believers) revulsion ­toward things impermanent had to be taught, especially through cremation-­ground meditation. 55. Ibid., 4–5. 56. Ibid., 86. 57. See Aileen Gatten, “Death and Salvation in Genji Monogatari,” in New Leaves: Studies and Translations of Japa­nese Lit­erature in Honor of Edward Seidensticker, ed. Aileen Gatten and Anthony Hood Chambers (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1993), 17, 22. 58. For scopophilia, see David W. Allen, The Fear of Looking or Scopophilic-­ Exhibitionistic Conflicts (Charlottesville: University Press of ­Virginia, 1974); Otto Fenichel, “The Scopophilic Instinct and Identification,” International Journal of Psycho-­Analy­sis 18 (1937); Sigmund Freud,

312













Notes to Pages 180–182

“Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie,” in Werkausgabe in Zwei Bänden, ed. Anna Freud and Ilse Grubrich-­Simitis (Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1978), 235–317; esp.  255, 262–263, 280–281, 287; see also “Triebe und Triebschicksale,” in ibid., 167–183, esp. 174–178, 182. 59. Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body, 120. 60. Sanford reveals “the erotic possibilities” inherent in “the concretely organic images of the decay motif” in the Kuzō-­shi; see “The Nine Faces of Death,” 59. 61. Wilson, Charming Cadavers, 86. 62. Writing about “Cremation-­Ground Meditation,” Liz Wilson refers to “aversion therapy:” “The progression from aversion to passionlessness to liberation suggests that aversion is an attitude that conduces to liberation but is not necessarily an end in itself. As an antidote to passion, aversion is a necessary preliminary, a prerequisite for liberation” (ibid., 44, 86). 63. See Carol Christ, “Painting the Dead: Portraiture and Necrophilia in Victorian Art and Poetry,” in Death and Repre­sen­ta­tion, ed. Sarah Webster Goodwin and Elisabeth Bronfen (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 133–151. 64. For a discussion of the ninth-­century poetess Ono no Komachi as an alluring subject in Nō drama, and for her role as the archetypal H ­ eian noblewoman erotically transformed through the paint­erly tradition of kuzō-­zu, see Chin, “The Gender of Buddhist Truth,” 280–283, 296–297, 300–311; figs. 9, 12. 65. Yamamoto Shunshō’s Eiri Genji monogatari (1650) is reproduced in Edward G. Seidensticker’s En­glish translation, The Tale of Genji (New York: Knopf, 1976). An anonymous artist of the Edo period (early eigh­teenth ­century) depicts the same scene in colorful miniature style called nara-­e. See Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 237, fig. 40-3 (Spencer 129, New York Public Library). 66. It is possi­ble that paint­ers relying only on the Genji monogatari ekotoba did not realize that they had to paint a corpse, and they also may have seated Yūgiri, and not Genji, next to the lamp. The ekotoba for this scene reads: “It is in the autumn. Murasaki is fading away and is made to rest ­behind the curtains. Genji is in tears, and her ­women go around weeping and lamenting. Yūgiri, who is also weeping, tries to calm them down. Lifting the curtains, he looks at Murasaki’s face. There should be a lamp nearby. There may be a dim morning twilight” (Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 237).

Notes to Pages 182–184















313

67. The first recorded instance of cremation was that of the monk Dōshō in 700. 68. Cremation was followed by the scattering or interment of the remains of the dead. No details are given in Murasaki’s case. Poetic convention aestheticized “ashes and bone fragments” by making them “disappear readily into the long grass, blending like flowers among the wildflowers” (Edwin A. Cranston, trans., A Waka Anthology. Volume One: The Gem-­Glistening Cup (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 664; in reference to poem no. 1319 [MYS 7:1420/1416]). 69. Jonathan Parry, “Sacrificial Death and the Necrophagous Ascetic,” in Death and the Regeneration of Life, ed. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 80. 70. Willa Jane Tanabe explains that the character gyaku has the meaning of “arakajime, or ‘beforehand’, and thus refers to a memorial ser­vice that ­people or­ga­nized for themselves well before their deaths” (“The Lotus Lectures: Hokke Hakkō in the Heian Period,” Monumenta Nipponica 39.4 [Winter 1984]: 404). 71. See Field’s section title, “The Staging of Death,” in The Splendor of Longing, 188. 72. The five commandments included not killing, not stealing, not committing adultery, not lying, and not drinking alcohol. 73. Mircea Eliade, Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in ­Human Culture, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper and Bros., 1958), 131. 74. See Tanabe, “The Lotus Lectures,” 406; Field, The Splendor of Longing, 192 and 336n20, for Nakanoin Michikatsu’s Mingō Nisso (1598) as a source for Murasaki’s Hokke Hakkō as a gyakushu. For another identification of Murasaki’s Lotus Lectures as a gyakushu, see Edward Kamens, The Three Jewels: A Study and Translation of Minamoto Tamenori’s Sanbōe (Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988), 239n11 and n13. 75. See William Edward Deal, “Ascetics, Aristocrats, and the Lotus Sutra: The Construction of the Buddhist Universe in Eleventh ­Century Japan” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1988), 253–260; Tanabe, “The Lotus Lectures,” 393–407. 76. Tanabe, “The Lotus Lectures,” 405. 77. Ibid. 78. According to the cultural historian Walter Burkert, the mourner’s confrontation with the “irreversibility” of death can be “both acknowledged and overcome by ceremonial killing” (“The Prob­lem of

314













Notes to Pages 184–185

Ritual Killing,” in Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan  Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, ed. Robert  G. Hammerton-­ Kelly (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987, 171). 79. The Lotus Lectures—­ whether eight (hakkō), ten (jikkō), or thirty (sanjikkō)—­were usually performed as lavish memorial ser­vices for ­others; see Deal, “Ascetics, Aristocrats, and the Lotus Sutra,” 253– 260; Tanabe, “The Lotus Lectures,” 393–407. 80. Deal, “Ascetics, Aristocrats, and the Lotus Sutra,” 260, 259. 81. See Leon Hurvitz, trans., Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 195–196. 82. The passage on brushwood gathering in the Devadatta chapter had gained popularity through the prototypical forerunner of a well-­ known sūtra poem (kyōshika or shakkyōka) by Priest Gyōgi or Gyōki (668–749). The poetry exchange between Murasaki and Akashi no kimi reflects Shūishū 1346, a famous sūtra poem attributed to Priest Gyōgi or Gyōki (668–749). For the groundbreaking significance of this poem for the development of sūtra poetry, see Yamada Shōzen, “Poetry and Meaning: Medieval Poets and the Lotus Sutra,” trans. Willa Jane Tanabe, in The Lotus Sutra in Japa­nese Culture, ed. George J. Tanabe, Jr. and Willa Jane Tanabe (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989), 98. 83. See Edward Kamens, The Buddhist Poetry of the Great Kamo Priestess; Daisaiin Senshi and Hosshin Wakashū (Ann Arbor: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1990), 39n46. 84. The allusion is to the Lotus Sūtra, Roll 1, Chapter 1, “Introduction” ( J. Jo) (Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, 15). For the reference to the Buddha named Sun-­and-­Moon Glow, I am indebted to Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 233n4. 85. Other translations read: “I have no regrets as I bid farewell to this life. / Yet the ­dying away of the fire is always sad” (S: 714). “A trifling thing / is my life; / yet so sad / the firewood, nearly gone, / announcing the end” (Field, Splendor, 193). “­Little as I mind / bidding farewell to life, / it is sad to feel / that now the time has arrived / when the firewood must burn out” (McCullough, Genji & Heike, 233). “As I am, by now I care ­little for my life, yet withal I grieve / that the firewood runs low and will very soon be gone” (T: 756). 86. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, 15.

Notes to Pages 185–186







315

87. Murasaki’s intent follows that of the Hakkōe’s founder. In the apocryphal story of the origin of the Hakkōe, one monk, Eikō of Daian-ji, dies suddenly and relies on another, Gonzō (753?–827), to be his ­substitute and to supply his mo­ther with her daily bowl of rice. When Gonzō lapses just once, due to intoxicating liquor, the daily rice portion is not delivered and the secret of Eikō’s death comes out, which causes Eikō’s mo­ther to die from shock. Gonzō seeks to expiate his sin by burying Eikō’s mo­ther with the help of seven other monks. He further resolves to hold an annual memorial ser­vice, beginning in 796, with lectures on the eight fascicles of the Lotus Sūtra read by eight monks to provide Eikō’s mo­ther with “guidance to the world beyond.” The monks’ readings demonstrate that the Hokke Hakkō ­ omen who was designed from the beginning to pacify the spirits of w have no children to perform memorial rites for them. What Gonzō was to Eikō’s mo­ther, the Akashi dau­gh­ter is to be (and will be in “Kagerō”) to Murasaki (Kamens, The Three Jewels, 236). The date of origin for the first Hakkōe at Iwabuchidera varies with the source, see ibid., 238n7, as does the authorship of the firewood hymn, attributed to Gyōki or Emperor Shōmu’s (701–756) consort and successor, Empress Kōmyō (701–760), see ibid., 236 and 239n13. 88. Seidensticker’s translation of Akashi no kimi’s reply refers to a community of brushwood bearers jointly striving for the wisdom of the Lotus Sūtra: “Our prayers, the first of them borne in on brushwood, / Shall last the thousand years of the Blessed One’s toils” (S: 714). Field’s translation can be read as both a general comment and as one specifically referring to Murasaki’s magnificent ritual enterprise: “Cutting firewood—­/ a long life of devotion / to the Law eternal / begins ­today” (The Splendor of Longing, 193). In McCullough’s translation, Akashi no kimi addresses Murasaki as the chief brushwood ­bearer: “Long will be the ­future / of your quest for the doctrine / in this world—­/ the quest that begins ­today / with the cutting of firewood” (Genji & Heike, 233). “Burning as you do with zeal to cut firewood, you have just begun / in this life to seek the Law and will yet for years to come” (T: 756). 89. Hurvitz, Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, 196. 90. See S: 713–714, 4: 484. Murasaki Shikibu may ­here recall the historic event, on the Ninth of the Tenth Month of 1001, of Senshi’s longevity celebrations at the Tsuchimikado Mansion, where Michinaga and Rinshi’s son Tazugimi danced “Ryō-­ō.” It is interest­ing to note that these autumnal celebrations followed a Hakkōe on the ­Fourteenth of

316













Notes to Pages 186–187

the Ninth Month of 1001. See McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering ­Fortunes, 239–241; for a woodblock print of this scene, without mask, see 242–243; from a seventeenth-­century Eiga text in the John Weatherhill collection, East Asiatic Library of the University of California–­Berkeley. 91. Properly speaking, the Ryō-­ō dance features “one General Ling, who was so handsome that he went masked into ­battle to avoid disconcerting his own troops” (S: 634n*). The Ryō-­ō dance is normally associated with “the bravery of a sixth-­ century Chinese king, Kao Ch’ang-­kung, who hid his mild features ­behind an imposing mask and led 500 men to victory against a hostile army” (McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 240n37). 92. That the Ryō-­ō dance epitomized this par­tic­u­lar Hakkōe is indicated by the Genji monogatari ekotoba, which describes the dance as the first of three scenes recommended as subject ­matter for paint­ers of “Minori.” See Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji, 234–235. 93. Although in fact unrelated to the Genji scene, a painting by Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. 1643?) on a pair of twofold screens at Daigo-ji, Kyōto, shows a most impressive Ryō-­ō dancer. He brandishes a golden ­baton and wears a golden mask that seems to have displaced the dragon now protruding from the top of his head. For a reproduction of this painting, see Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Courtly Splendor: Twelve Centuries of Trea­sures from Japan (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1990), exhibition cat. 34; detail: back cover and p. 98. 94. At the longevity cele­bration for Rinshi on the Thirteenth of the Tenth Month of 1023, a Ryō-­ō dance is performed that earns the dancer garments from all the im­por­tant guests. In this event it is the following Nassori dancer, however, who succeeds in causing a riot among spectators frantically competing to strip off their robes to offer to the dancer, “not so much a ­human figure as a bird poised for flight, or a manifestation of a divinity” (McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes, 606). 95. James H. Foard paraphrases a point about “icons as substitute bodies” from an article by Bernard Frank, “Vacuité et corps actualisé: Le problème de la présence des ‘personnages vénérés’ dans leurs images selon la tradition du bouddhisme japonais,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 11.2 (1989); see James H. Foard, “The Tale of the Burned-­Cheek Amida and the Motif of Body Substitution,” Japan Foundation Newsletter 26, no. 3 (November 1998): 6. 96. “Although these holy rites must be my last, / The bond will endure for all the lives to come” (S: 715). “These rites, like my life / must come

Notes to Pages 187–190











317

to an end. / I count on our pledges / to each other / for worlds and worlds / to come” (Field, The Splendor of Longing, 193–194). “The merit of these rites, / the last to be held by one / who is soon to die, / safeguards the tie that binds us / through past, pre­sent, and ­future lives” (McCullough, Genji & Heike, 234). “This is the last time rites of mine will serve the Law, yet I have great faith/ they shall be to you and me a bond that lasts many lives” (T: 757). 97. Murasaki’s leaning on other ­women for support of her salvific efforts was not unusual. At the time, for commoners who could not afford to  sponsor Hokke Hakkō as individuals, group-­sponsored kechien hakkō had become a pop­u­lar means of establishing a link with the Buddha and assuring one’s salvation. The commoners’ kechien hakkō uses the character for musubu, to tie, to bond, which is prominent in this second waka set as it links the terms minori and chigiri, or religious and secular terms of bonding. Kechi in kechien, however, can also be written with the character chi or ketsu, for blood, kechien thus referring literally to a blood tie or blood relationship or, meta­ phor­ically, to a most profound relationship. 98. “For all of us the time of rites is brief. / More durable by far the bond between us” (S: 715). “The pledges we make / will never be broken; / though all rites / and lives / must near their end” (Field, The Splendor of Longing, 194). “Were these splendid rites / merely the usual thing, / yet would the bond they forge / forever link Your Ladyship / to this insignificant self” (McCullough, Genji & Heike, 234). “They shall be a tie that endures for ages yet, though it is too true / few will ever see again such pious magnificence” (T: 757). 99. Field has pointed out that the second waka exchange refers to “a ­ omen: chigiri (‘pledges’) commonly refers to lovbond between two w ers’ vows” (The Splendor of Longing, 194). 100. See Parry, “Sacrificial Death and the Necrophagous Ascetic,” 81, 86. 101. Elisabeth Bronfen, “Killing Gazes, Killing in the Gaze: On Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom,” in Gaze and Voice as Love Objects, ed. Renata Salecl and Slavoj Zizek (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), 72. 102. For the function of the mo­ther bead, as noted in the Sutra on the Yoga Rosaries of the Diamond Peak (J. Kongōchō yuga nenju kyō; Ch. Jingangding yuqie nianzhu qing), see Tanabe: “the string ­running through the beads is Kannon, and the mo­ther bead represents infinite life and the dharma. To go past the mo­ther bead is to commit the sin of transgressing the dharma” (“Telling Beads: The Forms and Functions of the

318









Notes to Pages 190–198

Buddhist Rosary in Japan” [paper presented at a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art on “Object as Insight: Japa­nese Buddhist Art and Ritual,” Amherst College, March 1–2, 1996], 22). 103. Seidensticker’s translation does not make clear, as does Tyler’s (T: 761) that Murasaki Shikibu has her character Yūgiri literally transgress waka boundaries into the prosaic (ji no bun). This device allows Yūgiri’s poetic vision to contain a hint at re-­visioning Murasaki, the stepmother, as mo­ther. 104. Bronfen, “Killing Gazes, Killing in the Gaze,” 72 and passim. 105. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 201. 106. See Robert S. Ellwood, The Feast of Kingship: Accession Ceremonies in Ancient Japan (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1973), 148, citing the Engi-­shiki (927 CE). 107. See René Girard, Vio­lence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977). 108. Burkert, “The Prob­lem of Ritual Killing,” 171. 109. For the association of smoke from fire sacrifices and breath or spirit and soul, see  J.  C. Heesterman, The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 19. 110. “I gather sea grasses no more, nor look upon them. / Now they are smoke, to join her in distant heavens” (S: 734). “There is no point / in gathering them together / just to look at—­/ turn into smoke, O sea grasses / and join her / in the sky” (Field, The Splendor of Longing, 210). “I shall have no joy from gathering sea-­tangle traces of her brush: / let them rise above the clouds as she also ­rose, in smoke” (T: 778).

Chapter 8. Exiting the Maze 1. The Kinjō emperor is the son of Genji’s half-­brother, the Suzaku emperor. He is the fourth emperor of The Tale of Genji, following the Kiritsubo emperor, the Suzaku emperor, and the Reizei emperor. 2. Royall Tyler notes in his Genji translation that “three years” refers to an unspecified amount of time within three calendar years, see T: 835n11. 3. Tokugawa bijutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari emaki (Nagoya: Tokugawa bijutsukan, 1995), 112, 113. In both text and drawing, the ­woman holding up the biwa plectrum is identified as Ōigimi. 4. J. Thomas Rimer and Jonathan Chaves, trans., with contributions by Jin’ichi Konishi, Stephen Addiss, and Ann Yonemura, Japa­nese

Notes to Pages 198–208

319

and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan rōei shū (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 175. It is interest­ing to note that Murasaki Shikibu’s contemporary, Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041), was the compiler of this bilingual anthology of poems to be sung to musical accompaniment. 5. Ibid. 6. See also my discussion in chapter 7, on Chapter 40 “Minori,” of this dance in the context of Murasaki’s gyakushu. 7. There are two other sound holes in the biwa, called half-­moons (hangetsu; see S: 785n‡). 8. The Tale of the Cavern and The Sumiyoshi Tale are two monogatari featuring episodes with the sound of the koto attracting a suitor; see 5: 132n5. 9. Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji (Prince­ ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987), 230. 10. Ibid., 221. I am indebted to Field’s description of the hashihime legend; see ibid., 220. 11. See William H. McCullough, “Japa­nese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 27 (1967): 135. 12. Sukegawa Kōichirō, “Shii ga moto kanmatsu no kaimami bamen o megutte: ‘Onna ichi no miya’ to no kakawari o jiku ni,” Chūko bungaku ronkō 17 (December 1996): 80. 13. Edward G. Seidensticker claims in his Genji translation that Kaoru feels as if he “should jump in the river” (S: 835). 14. For a summary of selected commentaries on Ise 49, see Joshua  S. ­Mostow and Royall Tyler, trans. and with commentary, The Ise Stories: Ise monogatari (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010), ­ hether the siblings in Ise 49 are full or half-­ 111. The ambiguity of w siblings allows for the suggestion of taboo violation, for it was only among half-­siblings that courtship and marriage ­were possi­ble “as late as the beginning of the tenth ­century” (Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from Tenth-­Century Japan [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968], 223n). 15. In this par­tic­u­lar context, what is the difference between hitogata, katashiro, nademono, and katami? All but the last of these terms of substitution are much discussed between Kaoru and Nakanokimi, mostly in reference to Ukifune. As Field has pointed out, “With the one exception of hitogata appearing in ‘Suma,’ all these words are used only in the Uji chapters and moreover are introduced by Kaoru” (The Splendor of Longing, 262).

320









Notes to Pages 210–213

16. That the secret of Ukifune’s birth was known to Ukifune’s wet nurse’s brother, the Uji abbot, and Bennokimi (whose aunt was the mo­ther of Hachi no miya’s kita no kata) recalls the safeguarding of Reizei’s ­secret by Fujitsubo’s sōzu and Fujitsubo’s menotogo, Ōmyōbu. Bennokimi, as Kashiwagi’s menotogo, also holds the key to Kaoru’s birth secret; however, no cleric is initiated into this second secret. Instead, Genji discovers and keeps it. 17. Bennokimi lives in the gallery (5:445: kano rō; 5:445n23: watadono), apparently connecting the shinden and the reception area or gate. 18. Miyeko Murase, Japa­nese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975), no. 57. See also Miyeko Murase, Iconography of The Tale of Genji: Genji monogatari ekotoba (New York: Weatherhill, 1983), 280, fig. 49-15. 19. The editors of the NKBZ Genji edition speculate that the kita omote may be the north hisashi (5: 476n23: kitabisashi) of the shinden. 20. ­Either a two-­bay/beam-­wide room or the second room to the east, see S: 932n*; 5: 476. 21. If Ukifune is put up in the east hisashi, then Kaoru is looking at her from the former room of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi. If Ukifune is in the easternmost room of the moya, then Kaoru is in the Buddha room that divided Hachi no miya’s west room and his daughters’ east room. 22. See my discussion in Chapter 7 of the waka exchange between Murasaki and Hanachirusato, following Murasaki’s gyakushu. 23. Between these kaimami there are three scenes that some readers have mistakenly categorized as kaimami. Like other ­women throughout the Genji who have been looking in secret at men, Ukifune’s mo­ther (Chūjō no kimi) spies on all the im­por­tant men she can lay her eyes on in order to procure a husband for her mistreated dau­gh­ter. Chūjō no kimi spies on Niou in two consecutive episodes: one with his entourage, Nakanokimi, and their child (see S: 946–947; T: 983–984); another the next morning with his son and Sakon no Shōshō (see S: 947; T: 983–984), who, in the environment of the capital, seems provincial in comparison to the imperial prince.The third scene involves Kaoru. Together with ­others, Chūjō no kimi also obtains a good look at him when he stops at the Nijo-in (formerly Kiritsubo and Genji’s residence; see Figure 6) on his way home from the palace where he had paid a visit to the ailing Akashi empress. Chūjō no kimi scrutinizes Kaoru as she did Niou, although with greater consideration of what he might mean to Ukifune. She watches as Kaoru and Nakanokimi, con-

Notes to Pages 213–214









321

tinuing their earlier conversation in Chapter 49 (“Yadorigi”), discuss Ukifune as a lustration sacrifice (nademono) or substitute (katashiro). Their plans for Ukifune, together with Bennokimi’s earlier hints about Kaoru as a prospective son-­in-­law, now raise Chūjō no kimi’s hopes of uniting Kaoru and Ukifune (see S: 950–951; T: 987; 6: 47). These spying scenes, two of which are listed as kaimami by Kayaba Yasuo and Shinohara Yoshihiko, lack many im­por­tant elements of kaimami. The female observer does not peek through a hole for the purpose of courtship (although one might argue that Chūjō no kimi acts as a matchmaker, on behalf of her dau­gh­ter). The observed person is neither sequestered nor concealed. There is no waka exchange afterwards between observer and observed. The only im­por­tant kaimami elements pre­sent are that the viewer is concealed and the observed person is unaware of being seen. 24. In his translation, Oscar Benl chose to have a man from Hitachi depart from Niou’s Nijō-in at dawn, thus eliminating the scene’s humor together with Chūjō no kimi’s humiliation. Nakanokimi consequently identifies the visitor as a man whom Taifu had known quite well in her younger days and whom she does not find very appealing (see OB2: 737). The original refers to tomodachi nite arikeru hito wa (6: 52). 25. She is near the threshold between the hisashi and the veranda, looking out into a garden “enclosed by a gallery” (S: 954; T: 990; 6: 54: konata no rō no naka no tsubosenzai). 26. Seidensticker has noted the impossibility of the arrangement (see S: 953n†). A “white-­line” drawing (hakubyō) by Tosa Mitsunori (1583– 1638) in the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection shows the scene at a disorienting angle (not uncommon in Genji illustrations) that does not reflect the north-­south axis of the usual shinden-­zukuri layout. See Akiyama Ken and Taguchi Ei’ichi, eds., Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai: Genji monogatari (Gakken, 1988), 228, fig. 186, and 263, fig. “Azumaya.” Tosa Mitsuoki’s (1617–1691) Genji ­album leaf from a private collection for the “Azumaya” chapter invites the viewer to look across the garden at Niou and Ukifune with raised fan and her back to the garden; see ibid., 272, fig. “Azumaya.” 27. For a definition of yarimizu, see Jirō Takei and Marc P. Keane, trans., Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japa­nese Garden: A Modern Translation of Japan’s Gardening Classic (Boston: Tuttle, 2001), 226. According to the most recent research, the author of the Sakuteiki is Tachibana no Toshitsuna (1028–1094), a son of Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992–1074),

322













Notes to Pages 214–218

who inherited a villa in Uji from his ­father, Michinaga, and converted it into the Byōdō-in in the year of the mappō (1052). See ibid., 6–7. Toshitsuna follows geomantic principles when he writes about yarimizu: “According to the scriptures the proper route for ­water to flow is from east to south and then t­oward the west. Flowing from west to east is considered a reverse flow, thus a flow from east to west is standard practice. In addition, bringing ­water out from the east, causing it to flow ­under one of the residence halls, and then sending it off to the southwest is considered the most felicitous” (ibid., 175). Ike’s reconstruction of Genji’s Nijō-in places the yarimizu in the geomantically correct position (it flows into the garden pond); see Ike Kōzō, Genji monogatari: sono sumai no sekai (Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 1989), 12, fig. 2. 28. For fusuma partitioning, see ibid., 206–208. 29. See the reconstruction of the Genji Nijō-in by Ike in ibid., 12, fig. 2. There is no garden enclosed by galleries in the vicinity of Ukifune’s guest room. 30. This Ukon (Taifu’s dau­gh­ter), in Nakanokimi’s ser­vice, is not to be confused with the more full-­fledged character Ukon who appears ­later in Ukifune’s ser­vice. For a fine discussion of these two characters known as Ukon, see Aileen Gatten, “Three Problems in the Text of ‘Ukifune’,” in Ukifune: Love in The Tale of Genji, ed. Andrew Pekarik (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 102–108. 31. Masako Watanabe, “Narrative Framing in the Tale of Genji Scroll: Interior Space in the Compartmentalized Emaki,” Artibus Asiae 58, no. 1/2 (1998): 120. 32. Ishiyamadera was the most pop­u­lar Kannon ­temple (Shingon since 925) for Heian noblewomen. See Barbara Ambros, “Liminal Journeys: Pilgrimages of Noblewomen in Mid-­Heian Japan,” Japa­nese Journal of Religious Studies 24, nos. 3–4 (Fall 1997): 304. 33. Estelle Leggeri-­Bauer comments that this unique illustration’s “dimension poétique” stands out from a fundamentally narrative pre­sen­ta­ tion; René Sieffert, trans., Murasaki-­shikibu, Le dit du Genji: Genji monogatari (Paris: Diane de Selliers, 2007), 3: 286. 34. The remarkable connection between Ukifune and Bennokimi was formed because of Ukifune’s stopovers at Uji during her pilgrimages to Hasedera [Hatsuse]. Thus not only Kaoru but also Ukifune became bonded to Bennokimi because of her connection to the biological fathers they had never known.

Notes to Pages 218–224













323

35. See Edwin A. Cranston, trans. with a commentary and notes, A Waka Anthology: Volume One: The Gem-­Glistening Cup (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 279, #490 (MYS 3: 267/265). 36. A portion of Sumiyoshi Gukei’s (1631–1705) emaki (Chadō bunka kenkyū shozō) features Kaoru and Ukifune inside the eastern cottage and a rustic outdoor scene with a guard opening the gate and the ­laborers looking like demons as they are hawking their wares; see ­Akiyama and Taguchi, Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai, 232–233, fig. 189. 37. The German translation also points to Ōigimi as the person Kaoru most associates with Uji; see OB2: 762 and 6: 88n3. 38. Kaoru is planning ahead to move Ukifune to his Sanjō-in (see Figure 6). 39. According to William  H. McCullough, only the closest blood relationships ­were considered incestuous: “Except for parent-­child and sibling marriages . . . ​there seem to have been no restrictions placed upon ­unions between relatives” (“Japa­nese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period,” 136). Sexual relations with w ­ omen who ­were half-­ sisters of the same womb ­were taboo. Sexual relations between a man and his wife’s half-­sister, ­whether of the same or ­different wombs, would have been extremely harmful if the half-­sisters knew each other well. Such relations constituted a scandal u ­ nder the anomalous circumstances devised by Murasaki Shikibu in Niou’s “Azumaya” encounter with Ukifune in his own and his wife’s residence. One has to won­der how unusual such occurrences ­were and ­whether Murasaki Shikibu was pointing a fin­ger at painful situations not covered by customary law. 40. Niou is beginning to identify the w ­ oman so sharply criticized by some of the ­others with the obnoxious w ­ oman, called Ukon, who had disturbed his “Azumaya” romance. As Aileen Gatten has argued, “Ukon is the dau­gh­ter of Ukifune’s nurse, and has no connection with the Ukon in Nakanokimi’s ser­vice” (Gatten, “Three Problems in the Text of ‘Ukifune,’ ” 105). 41. For an interest­ing discussion of the textual history and acceptability of this variant, see Gatten, “Three Problems in the Text of ‘Ukifune,’ ” 85–94. The translations of Waley (W: 1004), Seidensticker (S: 979), and Benl (OB2: 780) include this variant, but Tyler’s does not. 42. Gatten, “Three Problems in the Text of ‘Ukifune,’ ” 94. 43. Gatten defines the “climax in the chapter” differently: “not only has Niou deci­ded to violate his friend Kaoru’s trust; he will violate it with

324















Notes to Pages 225–230

great plea­sure and without regret, because this may be his only chance to see Ukifune” (ibid., 93). 44. Menstruation was considered temporary pollution (6: 123: kegare). See Ambros, “Liminal Journeys,” 306. 45. Ibid. 46. Hasedera [Hatsuse] was the other t­emple famous for reuniting relatives. According to tradition, Hasedera was founded in the seventh ­century by the monk Dōmyō and originally belonged to the Hossō sect. The Jūichimen Kannon was consecrated by Gyōgi in 747. 47. Other im­por­tant goals ­were “bestowal of wealth and success, granting the desired birth of a child, cure of illness, and gaining salvation” (Ambros, “Liminal Journeys,” 328). 48. Peter Nickerson, “The Meaning of Matrilocality: Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-­Heian,” Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 463. 49. All Rokujō-in maps rely on the Enchi Genji of 1973. According to Tamagami Takuya’s authoritative 1987 map of the Rokujō-in (revised from his 1985 map), there are fishing pavilions in both southeast and southwest quarters of the Rokujō-­in; see Tamagami, “Genji monogatari no Rokujō-in,” in Heian-­kyō no teidai, ed. Oboroya Hisashi et al. (Kyōto: Bōryōsha, 1987), 52; see also Ike, Genji monogatari: sono sumai no sekai, 147. See Ike’s own map in Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari: Rokujō-in no seikatsu (Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1999), 131. For a discussion of the vari­ ous maps and revisions, see Takahashi Kazuo, “Rokujō-in no zōei,” Kokubungaku 32.13 (November 1987). For the most recent map published in Kikan dairin no. 341991, see Mitamura Masako, Genji monogatari: monogatari kūkan o yomu (Chikuma shinsho, 1997), 109. 50. See Doris  G. Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997), 72–73. 51. See Hirota Osamu, “Rokujō-in no kōzō: Hikaru Genji monogatari no keisei to tenkan,” in Shinwa, kinki, hyōhaku: monogatari to setsuwa no sekai, ed. Hirokawa Katsumi (Ōfūsha, 1976), 121. 52. The Third Princess made her entry into the Rokujō-in by way of the nishi no hanachi’ide (S: 553–554; 4: 55), where Genji had just three weeks or so earlier received fresh herbs to celebrate long life in general and his fortieth jubilee in par­tic­u­lar. 53. For the “Kashiwagi III” scene of Genji holding baby Kaoru in his arms, see the twelfth-­century Genji monogatari emaki (Tale of Genji Scroll).

Notes to Pages 231–234















325

54. Kaoru stayed at the Reizei Palace (see Figure  6) ­until his early twenties. 55. Kaoru also considered his mo­ ther’s Sanjō-in as a place to bring Ōigimi’s ­human substitute (hitogata), her younger half-­sister Ukifune. 56. The shinden’s west side (nishi omote) was extended via a gallery (5: 464: rō) to her prayer hall (S: 927: “chapel”; 5: 464: mi-­nenzudō). 57. See Bargen, A ­Woman’s Weapon, 327n46. The Kinjō emperor was reluctant to consent to his dau­gh­ter living ­under the roof and control of Kaoru’s mo­ther. 58. Kojima Naoko speculates that the Akashi empress may also be performing the Hokke Hakkō for her Akashi f­ amily; “Onna ichi no miya monogatari no kanata e: Genji monogatari no jikan,” Kokugo to kokubungaku 58 (August 1981): 30. 59. See Sukegawa Kōichirō, “Shii ga moto kanmatsu no kaimami bamen o megutte: Onna ichi no miya to no kakawari o jiku ni,” Chūko bungaku ronkō 17 (December 1996). 60. Field links the scene to the “Wakamurasaki” kaimami, in which Genji “superimposed Fujitsubo’s form upon the child Murasaki.” Not only that, Field stretches her analogy farther: “Kaoru’s vision places Nakanokimi in Murasaki’s line (though it is no longer a question of blood tie); does it crown him as Genji’s successor?” (The Splendor of Longing, 233). 61. It is possi­ble that Kaoru first saw the First Princess in the Rokujō-in, when Genji was still alive but perhaps away, at the Saga t­emple (see Figure  5) where he may have died. The unnumbered Chapter “Kumogakure” is a blank that covers an eight-­year period—­between the end of Chapter 41 (“Maboroshi”) and Chapter 42 (“Niou miya”)— in which Kaoru was between six and fourteen years old. ­After this time gap, the reader learns of a princess raised not at the Rokujō-in but at the imperial palace. 62. Kojima claims that Kaoru’s longing for Reizei’s First Princess constitutes an “a priori” taboo concerning imperial control (ōtō). See Kojima, “Onna ichi no miya monogatari no kanata e,” 25. 63. See ibid., 27, 33. 64. See ibid., 24. 65. H. Richard Okada notes, “The Akashi f­ amily narratings represent the ultimate ‘victory’ of a zuryō ­family lineage in sociopo­liti­cal and aesthetic as well as ‘narrative’ terms” (Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991], 266).

326















Notes to Pages 235–236

66. For example, the dedication ceremonies for the Kondō (Golden Hall) of Fujiwara Michinaga’s ­temple, the Hōjōji, ­were so impressive that they symbolically transformed Michinaga’s t­emple into a Pure Land. See William Edward Deal, “Ascetics, Aristocrats, and the Lotus Sutra: ­ entury The Construction of the Buddhist Universe in Eleventh C ­Japan” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1988), 230–234. 67. ­After Murasaki’s death, Genji retreated, except for occasional visits and participation in ceremonies, deep into the “­women’s quarters” (S: 722). (­Whether he took up residence in the Nijō-in or the Rokujō-in is as unclear as the site of Murasaki’s death). See Field, The Splendor of Longing, 201; see also Mitamura, Genji monogatari, 217. 68. Waley positions Kaoru in the vicinity of the “fishing-­bower,” where, ­after failing to meet the priest, he “stayed for a while to enjoy the cool air that r­ ose from the moat” (W: 1067). According to Seidensticker, “Kaoru strolled down to the angling pavilion” but then “went on to take the eve­ning cool by the lake” (S: 1030). Tyler has Kaoru go to the fishing pavilion and then “out over the lake, enjoying the cool” (T: 1063). Benl implies that Kaoru went to the tsuridono and “so ruhte er sich, dem Teich zugewandt, ein wenig in der Kühle aus” (OB2: 869). 69. Indeed, the NKBT (5: 313n27) interprets the First Princess to be in the west corridor between the west wing and the fishing pavilion, which Yosano Akiko in her translation unambiguously calls the west corridor (nishi no rō) (Genji monogatari [Kadokawa bunko, 1971– 1972], 3: 517). 70. If she did not return, ­after the Hokke Hakkō, to the east wing of the southeast quarters where she was earlier said to have had her domicile, it is because she had apparently moved into the southeast shinden itself, ­after its former occupants had moved: the Third Princess (Kaoru’s mo­ther) had returned to her Sanjō-in upon its rebuilding ­after a fire and the Second Prince (Ni no miya, or Niou’s older brother) had taken the office of Shikibu kyō ­after the death in the spring of Genji’s brother Shikibukyō no miya, also known as Prince Kagerō, f­ather of Miyanokimi. 71. Seidensticker’s “board walk” for medō is cleverly rendered as “bridle-­ path” in Ivan Morris’s translation of Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi; see The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 2: ­161n913. 72. Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, ed., Genji monogatari tekagami kenkyū (Izumi: Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1992), “Kagerō I,” 78, fig. 75. See Plate 11.

Notes to Pages 237–240











327

73. Yoshikai Naoto finds the emphasis on sound, especially the sound of robes, con­spic­u­ous in this kaimami; Yoshikai, Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru (Kasama shoin, 2008), 219. 74. See Oscar Benl, trans., Genji-­Monogatari: Die Geschichte vom Prinzen Genji (Zürich: Manesse, 1966), 2: 870: welcher Buddha oder Gott hat mir nun heute ihren Anblick beschert? Sieffert, Murasaki Shikibu, 2: 608: quel dieu, quel bouddha pouvait-il lui avoir ménagé pareille occasion? 75. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 294. 76. Shinohara Shōji, “Miyako no Kaoru: Kaoru ron (5),” in KGMS (1984), 9: 159, 160, 161. 77. In the West, this combination of sequestration and veneration, con­ iddle-­class Victorian ventionally caricatured as the domesticated m ­woman at her hearth, has been associated with the denial of po­liti­cal and economic and even personal rights. Heian ­women ­were considerably more fortunate in res­pect to marital and property rights than their “adored” ­counter­parts in the West. See Wakita Haruko, “Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan from the Perspective of ­Women’s History,” Journal of Japa­nese Studies 10, no. 1 (Winter 1984). It may be for this reason that kaimami is characterized by less in­e­qual­ ity than was common in Western courtships. As Stinchecum has observed about the paradigm of kaimami, “The gap between the observing subject and the observed object has been violated; the two interact and each maintains its own subjectivity” (Amanda Mayer Stinchecum, Narrative Voice in The Tale of Genji [Urbana, IL: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 1985], 41). 78. It was this open sliding panel that had first betrayed the ­women’s presence through their rustling of silk. Now the telling question of Kaoru’s rustling silk becomes crucial for the servant. She risks being seen herself in an unbecoming upright posture by approaching him close enough to make, first of all, a rough guess at his rank and his ­ omen. When the servant herself enacts relation to the espied w the  male observer and takes a peek into the ­women’s temporary quarters, she is horrified by their carelessness and manages to put her bad conscience to rest by displacing the blame entirely from herself on those who failed to set up their curtains properly. So, no won­der! 79. Lewis Cook, “Uji no kaimami ni tsuite: The ‘Kaimami’ Scenes of the Uji Chapters,” in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference

328





Notes to Pages 240–251

on Japa­nese Lit­erature in Japan (1980) (Tōkyō: National Institute of Japa­nese Lit­erature, 1981), 43. 80. Field, The Splendor of Longing, 294–295. 81. There is another reason. The Akashi empress is on high alert because Niou is also said to have dallied with Kosaishō. More scandalous still is his alleged involvement in Kaoru’s affair with the Uji princess (Ukifune) who recently disappeared ­under tragic circumstances. 82. The headnotes of Genji editions indicate that the mihakashi was ­believed to have protective powers, see NKBZ, 2: 279n16 and  5: 461n34; NKBT, 2: 109n12 and  5: 110n1. According to the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, the emperor would bestow this ceremonial sword on an imperial child.

Conclusion 1. William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans., A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980), 1: 296. 2. Before constructing his Rokujō-in, Genji had installed some of his wives at his 1-­chō Nijō-in, to which he had appended, just to the east on Nijō, the 1-­chō Nijō Higashi residence (see Figure  6). For a detailed account of Genji’s residences, see Ōta Seiroku, Shinden-­zukuri no kenkyū (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1987), 220–234; Ike Kōzō, Genji monogatari: Sono sumai no sekai (Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 1989), 143–154. For the debate of size and location, see Kanō Shigefumi, “Genji monogatari no chiri II,” in Genji monogatari no chiri, ed. Tsunoda Bun’ei and Kanō Shigefumi (Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 1999), 74–100.

Bibliography

The place of publication of all items in Japa­nese is Tōkyō ­unless noted other­wise. Authors of articles published in collections are cited in the Notes and listed in the Glossary-Index, but not in this Bibliography. Abe Akio, Akiyama Ken, and Imai Gen’e, eds. Genji monogatari. Vols. 1–6 of NKBZ, nos. 12–17. Shōgakukan, 1970–1976. Abu-­Lughod, Lila. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Adolphson, Mikael, Edward Kamens, and Stacie Matsumoto, eds. Heian Japan: Centers and Peripheries. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007. Aketa Yonesaku. “Genji monogatari no kaimami.” Nihon oyobi Nihonjin ­(October 1927): 198–202. Akiyama Ken, ed. Genji monogatari jiten. Bessatsu Kokubungaku, no. 36. Gakutōsha, 1989. Akiyama Ken, Kimura Masanori, and Shimizu Yoshiko, eds. Kōza Genji monogatari no sekai. 9 vols. Yūhikaku, 1980–1984. Akiyama Ken, Komachiya Teruhiko, and Sugai Minoru, eds. Genji monogatari zuten. Shōgakukan, 1997. Akiyama Ken, Murofushi Shinsuke, Suzuki Hiroko, Harimoto Masayuki, and Muroki Hideyuki, eds. Genji monogatari hikkei jiten. Kadokawa shoten, 1998. Akiyama Ken, and Taguchi Ei’ichi, eds. Gōka “Genji-­e” no sekai: Genji monogatari. Gakken, 1988. Akiyama Terukazu, ed. Genji-­e. Nihon no bijutsu, no. 119. Shibundō, 1976. Allen, David W. The Fear of Looking or Scopophilic-­Exhibitionistic Conflicts. Charlottesville: University Press of ­Virginia, 1974. Ambros, Barbara. “Liminal Journeys: Pilgrimages of Noblewomen in Mid-­ Heian Japan.” Japa­nese Journal of Religious Studies 24, nos. 3–4 (Fall 1997): 301–345.

329

330Bibliography

Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death. Translated by Helen Weaver. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981. Originally published as L’Homme devant la mort. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1977. Arntzen, Sonja, and Itō Moriyuki, trans. The Sarashina Diary: A W ­ oman’s Life in Eleventh-­Century Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014. Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Translated by Christine van Boheemen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Originally published as De theorie van vertellen en verhalen (2nd ed. 1980). Bargen, Doris G. “Feles ex machina: Is There Romantic Love in The Tale of ­ ngland Conference of the AssociaGenji?” Paper presented at the New E tion of Asian Studies, Harvard University, October 19, 1980. —­—­—. “The Search for Things Past in the Genji monogatari.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 51, no. 1 (June 1991): 199–232. —­—­—. “Spirit Possession in the Context of Dramatic Expressions of Gender Conflict: The Aoi Episode of the Genji monogatari.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48, no. 1 (June 1988): 95–130. —­—­—. A ­Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997. Benl, Oscar, trans. Genji-­Monogatari: Die Geschichte vom Prinzen Genji. 2 vols. Zürich: Manesse, 1966. Berry, Mary Elizabeth. Japan in Print: Information and Nation in the Early Modern Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Bloch, Maurice, and Jonathan Parry, eds. Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Bond, George D. “Theravada Buddhism’s Meditations on Death and the Symbolism of Initiatory Death.” History of Religions 19, no. 3 (February 1980): 237–258. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Kabyle House or the World Reversed.” Translated by Richard Nice. In Algeria 1960: Essays by Pierre Bourdieu. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1979. Bowring, Richard, trans. Murasaki Shikibu: Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs. 1982; rev. paperback ed. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1985. Bronfen, Elisabeth. Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic. New York: Routledge, 1992. Bryson, Norman. Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983. Burke, Kenneth. “Thanatopsis for Critics: A Brief Thesaurus of Deaths and Dyings.” Essays in Criticism 2, no. 4 (1952): 369–375.

Bibliography331

Carrasco, Davíd, and Scott Sessions, eds. Cave, City, and Ea­gle’s Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007. Chamberlain, Basil H. Things Japa­nese. 1890. 5th rev. ed. London: J. Murray, 1905. Childs, Margaret  H. “The Value of Vulnerability: Sexual Coercion and the Nature of Love in Japa­nese Court Lit­erature.” Journal of Asian Studies 58, no. 4 (1999): 1059–1079. Chin, Gail. “The Gender of Buddhist Truth: The Female Corpse in a Group of Japa­nese Paintings.” Japa­nese Journal of Religious Studies 25, nos. 3–4 (Fall 1998): 277–317. Chino Kaori. “Emaki no jikan no hyōgen.” Nihon no bigaku 1–2 (Summer 1984): 74–90. —­—­—. Emaki: Ise monogatari-­ e. Nihon no bijutsu, No. 301. Shibundō, 1991. Chino Kaori, and Nishi Kazuo. Fikushon to shite no kaiga. Perikansha, 1991. Chung, Saehyang P. “A Study of the Daming Palace: Documentary Sources and Recent Excavations.” Artibus Asiae 50, no. 1/2 (1990): 23–72. —­—­—. “The Sui-­Tang Eastern Palace in Chang’an: ­Toward a Reconstruction of Its Plan.” Artibus Asiae 58 (1998): 5–29. —­—­—. “Symmetry and Balance in the Layout of the Sui-­Tang Palace-­City of Chang’an.” Artibus Asiae 56 (1996): 5–17. Coaldrake, William H. Architecture and Authority in Japan. London: Routledge, 1996. Cook, Lewis. “Uji no kaimami ni tsuite: The ‘Kaimami’ Scenes of the Uji Chapters.” In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Japa­nese Lit­erature in Japan (1980), 43–50. Tōkyō: National Institute of Japa­nese Lit­erature, 1981. Cranston, Edwin  A., “Atemiya: A Translation from the Utsubo monogatari.” Monumenta Nipponica 24, no. 3 (1969): 289–314. —­—­—, trans. The Izumi Shikibu Diary: A Romance of the Heian Court. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969. —­—­—­, trans. A Waka Anthology: Volume One: The Gem-­Glistening Cup. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993. —­—­—­, trans. A Waka Anthology: Volume Two: Grasses of Remembrance. Parts A and B. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Croissant, Doris. “Visions of the Third Princess: Gendering Spaces in The Tale of Genji Illustrations.” Arts Asiatiques 60 (2005): 103–120. Dalby, Liza Crihfield. Kimono: Fashioning Culture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993.

332Bibliography

Deal, William Edward. “Ascetics, Aristocrats, and the Lotus Sutra: The Construction of the Buddhist Universe in Eleventh ­Century Japan.” PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1988. D’Etcheverry, Charo B. Love ­After The Tale of Genji: Rewriting the World of the Shining Prince. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007. Donner, Neal, and Daniel B. Stevenson, trans. The Great Calming and Contemplation: A Study and Annotated Translation of the First Chapter of Chih-­ i’s Mo-ho chih-­kuan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993. Egan, Ronald. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. Eliade, Mircea. Birth and Rebirth: The Religious Meanings of Initiation in ­Human Culture. Translated by Willard  R. Trask. New York: Harper and Bros., 1958. Translated from the French and subsequently published as Naissances mystiques in 1959. Ellwood, Robert  S. The Feast of Kingship: Accession Ceremonies in Ancient ­Japan. Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1973. Emmerich, Michael. The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World ­Lit­erature. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Enchi Fumiko, trans. Genji monogatari. 5 vols. Shinchōsha, 1980. Enchi Fumiko et al. Genji monogatari. Gakken, 1986. Farris, William Wayne. Sacred Texts and Buried Trea­sures: Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1998. Fenichel, Otto. “The Scopophilic Instinct and Identification.” International ­Journal of Psycho-­Analy­sis 18 (1937): 6–34. Field, Norma. The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1987. Fiévé, Nicolas. “The Urban Evolution of the City of Heiankyō: A Study of the Iconographic Sources—1.” Japan Forum 4, no. 1 (April 1992): 91–107. Fiévé, Nicolas, ed. L’atlas historique de Kyōto: Analyse spatiale des systèmes de mémoire d’une ville, de son architecture et de son paysage urbain. Paris: UNESCO, Les Éditions de l’Amateur, 2008. Fiévé, Nicolas, and Paul Waley, eds. Japa­nese Capitals in Historical Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Foard, James H. “The Tale of the Burned-­Cheek Amida and the Motif of Body Substitution.” Japan Foundation Newsletter 26, no. 3 (November 1998): 6–8. Fraleigh, Matthew. “On the Inside Looking Out: Kaimami and Self-­Presentation in Asajigatsuyu.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, March 24, 2001.

Bibliography333

Frank, Bernard. “Vacuité et corps actualisé: Le problème de la présence des ‘personnages vénérés’ dans leurs images selon la tradition du bouddhisme ­japonais.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 11, no. 2 (1989): 53–86. Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Translated by James Strachey et al. 24 vols. London: Hogarth Press, 1953–1974. —­—­—. Werkausgabe in zwei Bänden. Edited by Anna Freud and Ilse Grubrich-­ Simitis. Vol. 1: Elemente der Psychoanalyse. Frankfurt: S. Fischer, 1978; 2. Auflage, 1979. Fujii Sadakazu. Genji monogatari no shigen to genzai. Tōjusha, 1980. —­—­—. Monogatari no kekkon. Sōjusha, 1985. —­—­—. “Suetsumuhana maki no hōhō.” In KGMS (1980), 2: 132–148. Fujii Sadakazu and Inaga Keiji, eds. Ochikubo monogatari, Sumiyoshi monogatari. SNKBT 18. Iwanami shoten, 1989. Fujimoto Katsuyoshi. Genji monogatari no sōzōryoku: shijitsu to kyokō. Kasama shoin, 1994. Fujimura Kiyoshi. “Onna ichi no miya.” In KGMS 9 (1984): 167–176. Fukuta Kazuhiko. Enshoku Genji-­e. Meikōsha, 1991. Fūzoku hakubutsukan, ed. Genji monogatari: Rokujō-in no seikatsu. Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 1999. —­—­—. Genji monogatari to Kyōto: Rokujō-in e dekakeyō. Kyōto: Shūkyō Bunka Kenkyūjo, 2005. Gatten, Aileen, and Anthony Hood Chambers, eds. New Leaves: Studies and Translations of Japa­nese Lit­erature in Honor of Edward Seidensticker. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1993. “Genji Monogatari sennen kikinen tokushū: Tennō ni narenakatta ōji no monogatari.” Geijutsu shinchō 59, no. 2 (February 2008): 76–85. Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. 2nd ed. Translated from the French by J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman. 1972; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Girard, René. Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure. Translated by Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965. Originally published as Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque. Paris: Grasset, 1961. —­—­—. Vio­lence and the Sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. Originally published as La vio­lence et le sacré. Paris: Grasset, 1972. Goff, Janet. Noh Drama and The Tale of Genji. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1991.

334Bibliography

Goodwin, Sarah Webster, and Elisabeth Bronfen, eds. Death and Repre­sen­ta­tion. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Grapard, Allan G. “Visions of Excess and Excesses of Vision—­Women and Transgression in Japa­nese Myth.” Japa­nese Journal of Religious Studies 18, no. 1 (March 1991): 3–22. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Translated by Thomas Burger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ­1989. Hammerton-­Kelly, Robert G., ed. Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987. Haraoka Fumiko. Genji monogatari ryōgi no ito: jinbutsu, hyōgen o megutte. Yūseidō, 1991. Hase Miyuki. Genji monogatari emaki no sekai. Ōsaka: Izumi shoin, 1990. Hashimoto Kenzō, ed. Takamure Itsue zenshū. Vols. 2–3. Rironsha, 1966. Hashimoto Masayo. “Kaimami to yukari: Genji monogatari no isshiten.” Dōshisha Kokubungaku 18 (March 1981): 44–53. Hayashida Takakazu. Genji monogatari no hassō. Ōfūsha, 1980. —­—­—. Genji monogatari no seishinshi kenkyū. Ōfūsha, 1993. Heesterman, J. C. The Broken World of Sacrifice: An Essay in Ancient Indian Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Heldt, Gustav. The Pursuit of Harmony: Poetry and Power in Early Heian Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University East Asia Program, 2008. Hempel, Rose. Japan zur Heian-­Zeit: Kunst und Kultur. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1983. Hennig, Karl. Japanische Gartenkunst: Form, Geschichte, Geisteswelt. Cologne: DuMont, 1980. Hirokawa Katsumi, ed. Shinwa, kinki, hyōhaku: monogatari to setsuwa no sekai. Ōfūsha, 1976. Hirota Osamu. Genji monogatari keifu to kōzō. Kasama shoin, 2007. Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976. Igarashi Masataka. “Ukifune-­maki ni okeru Niou no miya no ‘kaimami’ ni tsuite.” Chūō Daigaku daigakuin ronkyū 29.1 (March 1997): 21–25. Ike Kōzō. Genji monogatari: sono sumai no sekai. Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 1989. Ikeda Kikan, Kishigami Shinji, and Akiyama Ken, eds. Makura no sōshi, Murasaki Shikibu nikki. NKBT 19. 1958; Iwanami shoten, 25th printing, 1983. Imai Gen’e. “Kodai shōsetsu sōsakujō no itte hō: kaimami ni tsuite.” Kokugo to Kokubungaku 25.3 (March 1948): 26–43. Reprinted in Ōchō bungaku no

Bibliography335

kenkyū, Kadokawa shoten, 1970, as “Monogatari kōseijō no itte hō: kaimami ni tsuite,” pp. 30–54. Inoue Mitsuo. Space in Japa­nese Architecture. Translated by Hiroshi Watanabe. New York: John Weatherhill, 1985. Iser, Wolfgang. Der Akt des Lesens [The Act of Reading]. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1976. Ishida Jōji, and Shimizu Yoshiko, eds. Genji monogatari. Shinchō Nihon koten shūsei. 8 vols. Shinchōsha, 1976–1985. Ishikawa Tōru. “Ise monogatari no hatten to shite no Genji monogatari no shusō, Kagayakuhi no miya to Hikaru kimi to.” In NBKSS (1982), 4: 207–220. Ishiyamadera, ed. Murasaki Shikibu to Ishiyamadera. Kyōto: Bijutsu shuppan, 1996. Isozaki Arata. Japan-­ness in Architecture. Translated by Sabu Kohso and edited by David B. Stewart. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006. Itoh Teiji. The Roots of Japa­nese Architecture: A Photographic Quest by Futagawa Yukio. Translated by Paul Konya. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Originally published as Nihon kenchiku no ne. Bijutsu no shuppansha, ­1962. Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, ed. Genji monogatari tekagami kenkyū. Izumi: Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen ­bijutsukan, 1992. —­—­—. Ise monogatari emaki kenkyū. Izumi-­shi: Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1986. —­—­—. The Selected Collections of Kuboso Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi. Translated by John Tadao Teramoto. Izumi: Izumi-­ shi Kubosō kinen ­bijutsukan, 1995. —­—­—. Zōkei: Zōhin senshū. Izumi: Izumi-­shi Kubosō kinen bijutsukan, 1990. Kaiser, Gert. Der Tod und die schönen Frauen: Ein elementares Motiv der ­europäischen Kultur. Frankfurt: Campus, 1995. Kamens, Edward. The Buddhist Poetry of the Great Kamo Priestess; Daisaiin Senshi and Hosshin Wakashū. Ann Arbor: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1990. —­—­—. The Three Jewels: A Study and Translation of Minamoto Tamenori’s Sanbōe. Ann Arbor: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988. —­—­—­, ed. Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji. New York: Modern Language Association of Ame­rica, 1993. Katagiri Yōichi, Fukui Teisuke, Takahashi Shōji, Shimizu Yoshiko, eds. Taketori monogatari, Ise monogatari, Yamato monogatari, Heichū monogatari. NKBZ 8. Shōgakukan, 1972. Kawakami Noriko. “Genji monogatari ni okeru kaimami no kenkyū.” Tōkyō Joshi Daigaku: Nihon Bungaku 46 (September 1976): 12–24.

336Bibliography

Kawamoto Shigeo. Shinden-­zukuri no kūkan to gishiki. Chūō kōron bijutsu shuppan, 2005. Kawana Junko. “Utsusemi no maki no kaimami: nakabashira ni sobameru hito.” Tōō Kokubungaku 27 (March 1995): 1–18. —­—­—. “Utsusemi no maki no kaimami (zoku): monogatari-­e to no kanren kara.” Tōō Kokubungaku 28 (March 1996): 19–39. Kawazoe Fusae. “Genji monogatari no uchi naru Taketori monogatari: ‘Minori,’ ‘Maboroshi’ o kiten to shite.” Kokugo to Kokubungaku 61 (July 1984): 1–15. —­—­—. Sei to bunka no Genji monogatari. Chikuma shobō, 1998. Kayaba Yasuo. “Genji monogatari no kaimami.” Gakuen 541 (January 1985): 81–94. Keane, Marc P. Japa­nese Garden Design. Tokyo: Tuttle, 1996. Kitagawara Heizō. “Kaimami no kūkan.” Ueda Joshi Tanki Daigaku Kiyō 10 (March 1987): 35–43. Kobayashi Shigemi, ed. Ise monogatari. Ei’in kōchū koten sōsho 6. Shintensha, 1975. Kojima Naoko. “Onna ichi no miya monogatari no kanata e: Genji monogatari no jikan.” Kokugo to kokubungaku 58 (August 1981): 23–37. Kokubungaku kenkyū shiryōkan, ed. Genji monogatari—­Sennen no kagayaki. Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2008. “Kōkyū no subete.” Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 25, no. 13 (October 1980). Komachiya Teruhiko. “Hikaru Genji to Tamakazura (3).” In KGMS (1981), 5: 304–322. —­—­—. “Murasaki no ue aibetsu.” In KGMS (1982), 7: 177–189. Komaki Satoshi, ed. Shin’yō, shinwa, monogatari: denshō to girei. Ōfūsha, 1987. Kristeva, Julia. Tales of Love. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Originally published as Histoires d’amour. Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1983. Kuge Hirotoshi. “Monogatari-­e o yomu: sono san, kaimami.” Gakuen 613 (November 1990): 33–51. Kuitert, Wybe. Themes in the History of Japa­nese Garden Art. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2002. Originally published as Themes, Scenes, and Taste in the History of Japa­nese Garden Art. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988. Kuwabara Hiroshi. “Gengo biron: kaimami no butaiteki shukō.” In Kotoba no hayashi, edited by Hayashi Shirō, 158–172. Ōyō gengogaku kōza 6. Meiji shoin, 1986. Kyōto Bunka Hakubutsukan, ed. Genji-­kō no sekai. Kyōto: Shōeidō shōju bunko, 2008.

Bibliography337

—­—­—. Genji onna monogatari ten. Ōsaka: Nihon keizai shinbunsha, 1998. Kyōto City, ed. Yomigaeru Heian-­kyō. Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi, 1994. Kyōto National Museum, ed. Dai emakiten/Emaki Unrolled: Masterworks of Illustrated Narrative Handscrolls. Kyōto: Yomiuri shinbunsha, NHK, ­2006. —­—­—. Special Exhibition: The Blossoming of Japa­nese Art in the Heian Era of Elegance and Refinement. Tokubetsu tenrankai: Ōchō no bi. Kyōto: ­Nihon Tele­vi­sion Network Corporation, Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation, 1994. —­—­—. Special Exhibition: Emaki. Tokubetsu tenrankai: emaki. Kyōto: Benridō, 1987. —­—­—. Special Exhibition: The Tale of Genji in Art. Tokubetsu tenrankai: Genji monogatari no bijutsu. Kyōto: Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1975. Kyōto-­shi maizō bunkazai kenkyūjo, kōkoshiryōkan, ed., Heian-­kyō zue. Kyōto: Kyōto-­shi shōgai gakushū shinkō zaidan, 2005. Laiou, Angeliki E., ed. Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Socie­ ties. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research ­Library and Collection, 1993. Lal, Ruby. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. ———. “Mughal Palace Women.” In Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History. Edited by Anne Walthall, 96–114. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Lamarre, Thomas. Uncovering Japan: An Archaeology of Sensation and Inscription. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. Lammers, Wayne P. “The Succession: Kuniyuzuri: A Translation from Utsuho Monogatari.” Monumenta Nipponica 37, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 139–178. Langemann, Christoph, and Verena Werner, trans. Die Geschichte der ehren­ werten Ochikubo: Ochikubo monogatari. Zürich: Manesse, ­1994. Lévi-­Strauss, Claude. The View from Afar. Translated by Joachim Neugroschel and Phoebe Hoss. New York: Basic Books, 1985. Originally published as Le regard éloigné. Paris: Plon, 1983. Lewis, Ioan Myrrdin. Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971. Lillehoj, Elizabeth, ed. Critical Perspectives on Classicism in Japa­nese Painting, 1600–1700. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004. Mackenzie, Colin, and Irving Finkel, eds. Asian Games: The Art of Contest. New York: Asia Society, 2004. Marra, Michele. The Aesthetics of Discontent: Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japa­nese Lit­erature. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1991. Mason, Penelope. History of Japa­nese Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993.

338Bibliography

Matsui Kenji. “Go o utsu onnatachi: Genji monogatari no seisa to asobiwaza.” Kokugo to kokubungaku 75, no. 11 (November 1998): 23–38. Matsuo Satoshi, and Nagai Kazuko, eds. Makura no sōshi. NKBZ 11. Shōgakukan, 1997. McCullough, Helen Craig. Genji & Heike: Selections from The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. —­—­—. Kokin Wakashū: The First Imperial Anthology of Japa­nese Poetry (with Tosa Nikki and Shinsen Waka). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985. —­—­—. Ōkagami: The Great Mirror—­Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1027) and His Times. Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 1980. —­—­—, trans. Tales of Ise: Lyrical Episodes from Tenth-­Century Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968. —­—­—­, ed. Classical Japa­nese Prose: An Anthology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990. McCullough, William H. “Japa­nese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 27 (1967): 103–167. ———. “The Capital and its Society,” pp. 97–182. In The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 2: Heian Japan. Eds. Donald H. Shively and William H. McCullough. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. McCullough, William H., and Helen Craig, trans. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period. 2 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980. McKinney, Meredith, trans. Sei Shōnagon: The Pillow Book. London: Penguin, 2006. Milutin, Otilia C. “Panic Attacks: Violent Female Displacement in The Tale of Genji.” M.A. thesis, University of Mas­sa­chu­setts ­Amherst, May 2008. Mitamura Masako. Genji monogatari kankaku no ronri. Yūseidō, 1996. —­—­—. Genji monogatari: monogatari kūkan o yomu. Chikuma shinsho, 1997. —­—­—. “Kurogami no Genji monogatari: manazashi to tezawari kara.” Genji Kenkyū 1 (1996): 444–463. Mitani Ei’ichi. Monogatarishi no kenkyū. Yūseidō, 1967. Mitani Kuniaki. “ ‘Kaimami’ no bungakushi aruiwa konton o zōshoku suru gensetsu bunseki no kanōsei,” In Genji monogatari no “katari” to “gensetsu,” edited by Mitani Kuniaki, 9–76. Yūseidō, 1994. —­—­—. Monogatari bungaku no gensetsu. Yūseidō, 1992. —­—­—. Monogatari bungaku no hōhō II. Yūseidō, 1989. —­—­—. “Yūgiri kaimami.” In KGMS (1981), 5: 221–234. Monogatari kyūkai, ed. Monogatari kenkyū 2: Tokushū shisen. Shinjidaisha, 1988. Morris, Ivan. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a ­Woman in Eleventh-­Century Japan. New York: Dial Press, 1971.

Bibliography339

—­—­—. The Tale of Genji Scroll. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971. —­—­—. The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. Harmondsworth, UK: Peregrine, 1985. Originally published in 1964 by Oxford University Press (Oxford) and Alfred A. Knopf (New York). —­—­—­, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Mostow, Joshua S. “E no Gotoshi: The Picture Simile and the Feminine Re-­Guard in Japa­nese Illustrated Romances.” Word & Image 11, no. 1 (January–­ March 1995): 37–54. —­—­—. “Painted Poems, Forgotten Words: Poem-­Pictures and Classical Japa­ nese Lit­erature.” Monumenta Nipponica 47, no. 3 (Autumn 1992): 323–346. Mostow, Joshua S., and Royall Tyler, trans. The Ise Stories: Ise monogatari. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010. Motoori Norinaga. Genji monogatari tama no ogushi. In Motoori Norinaga zenshū, edited by Ōno Susumu, 4: 171–523. Chikuma shobō, 1969. Mukai Katsutane. “Genji monogatari ni okeru kaimami byōsha no shiten: Wakamurasaki no maki—­Kitayama sansō ni okeru.” Kokubungaku 10, no. 13 (November 1965): 166–168. Murai Nobuhiko. “Kaimami ron: shikaku ron 1.” Enpō 8 (April 1981): 30–49. Murase, Miyeko. Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japa­ nese Art. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. —­—­—. Emaki: Narrative Scrolls from Japan. New York: Asia Society, 1983. —­—­—. Iconography of The Tale of Genji: Genji monogatari ekotoba. New York: Weatherhill, 1983. —­—­—. Japa­nese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke ­Collection. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975. Murofushi Shinsuke. “Kaimami.” Kokubungaku 28, no. 6 (December 1983): 102–105. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Courtly Splendor: Twelve Centuries of Trea­sures from Japan. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1990. Nakada Takeshi. “Wakamurasaki no maki to Ise monogatari.” In KGMS (1980), 2: 21–34. Nakanishi Susumu. “Miru: kodaiteki chikaku.” Bungaku 43, no. 4 (April 1975): 123–133. Nanba Hiroshi. “Murasaki no ue no hakken: Murasaki no ue ron (1).” In KGMS (1980), 2: 45–64. Necipoğlu, Gülru. Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. New York: Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.

340Bibliography

Nickerson, Peter. “The Meaning of Matrilocality: Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-­Heian.” Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 429–467. Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō kankōkai, ed. Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho. Yūseidō, 1969–. Niinuma Sanwa. “Genji monogatari no joseikan: kaimami bamen o chūshin to shite.” Girei bunka 18 (January 1993): 24–39. Nishi Kazuo, and Kazuo Hozumi. What Is Japa­nese Architecture? A Survey of Traditional Japa­nese Architecture. Translated by H. Mack Horton. New York: Kodansha International, 1985. Nishishita Kyōichi, ed., Sarashina nikki. In NKBT (1957), 20: 461–540. Nitschke, Günter. Japa­nese Gardens: Right Angle and Natu­ral Form. Cologne: Taschen, 1999. Ōasa Yūji. “Ise monogatari shodan no ‘kaimami’ to Genji monogatari.” Chūko bungaku 35 (May 1985): 1–10. Oboroya Hisashi et al., eds. Heian-­kyō no teidai. Kyōto: Bōryōsha, 1987. Ōchō bungaku no kenkyū. Kadokawa shoten, 1970. Okada, H. Richard. Figures of Re­sis­tance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-­Heian Texts. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. Ōta Seiroku. Shinden-­zukuri no kenkyū. 1987. Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2010. Ōtō Tokihiko. “Katatagae.” In Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, edited by Gen Itasaka 4: 166. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1983. Paine, Robert Treat, and Alexander Soper. The Art and Architecture of Japan. 1955; 3rd rev. ed. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1981. Parlett, Harold, trans. “The Sumiyoshi Monogatari.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan 29 (1901): 35–123. Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: ­Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Pekarik, Andrew, ed. Ukifune: Love in The Tale of Genji. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Reeder, Ellen D., ed. Pandora: ­Women in Classical Greece. Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1995. Rimer, J. Thomas, and Jonathan Chaves, trans., with contributions by Jin’ichi Konishi, Stephen Addiss, and Ann Yonemura. Japa­nese and Chinese Poems to Sing: The Wakan rōei shū. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Sacawa, Brian Theodore. “The Triangle as an Instrument of Male Love in the Genji monogatari.” Se­nior honor thesis, University of Mas­sa­chu­setts ­Amherst, May 1999. Saigū rekishi hakubutsukan, ed. Maboroshi no miya: Ise saigū—­ōchō no inori to kōjotachi. Asahi shinbun, 1999.

Bibliography341

Saitō Shin’ichi, Sugiyama Hideaki, and Tomita Akira, eds. Meiga de yomu Genji monogatari: Kajita Hanko. Taishūkan shoten, 1996. Sakai City Museum, ed. Genji monogatari no kaiga: Paintings of The Tale of Genji. Sakai: Sakai City Museum, Hatsushiba bunko, 1986. Sakamoto Noboru. “Onna ichi no miya: Kagerō.” Kokubungaku 32, no. 13 (November 1987): 135–137. Salecl, Renata, and Slavoj Zizek, eds. Gaze and Voice as Love Objects. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996. Sanford, James H. “The Nine Faces of Death: ‘Su Tung-­po’s’ Kuzō-­shi.” Eastern Buddhist n.s. 21, no. 2 (Autumn 1988): 54–77. Sarra, Edith. Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japa­nese Court ­Women’s Memoirs. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Schalow, Paul Gordon. A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007. Schlombs, Adele, ed. Im Licht des Großen Buddha: Schätze des Tōdaiji-­Tempels, Nara. Cologne: Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst Köln, 1999. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: En­glish Lit­erature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. Seidensticker, Edward G., trans. The Tale of Genji. 2 vols. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Seki Keigo. Minwa. Iwanami shoten, 1955. Sekine, Eiji, ed. The Desire for Monogatari: Proceedings of the Second Midwest Research/Pedagogy Seminar on Japa­nese Lit­erature. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1994. Shadan hōjin Murasaki Shikibu kenshōkai, ed. Kyōto: Genji monogatari chizu. Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2007. Sharma, Ursula M. “­Women and Their Affines: The Veil as a Symbol of Separation.” Man n.s. 13 (1978): 218–233. Shibunkaku Bijutsukan, ed. Ishiyamadera zō: Genji monogatari-­e ten. Kyōto: Shibunkaku Bijutsukan, 1987. Shibuya Takashi. “Yūgiri, Minori.” In Genji monogatari kōza, edited by Yama­ gishi Tokuhei and Oka Kazuo, 4: 54–70. Yūseidō, 1971. Shimizu, Yoshiaki, and Susan E. Nelson. Genji: The World of a Prince. Bloomington: Indiana University Art Museum, 1982. Shinohara Shōji. “Miyako no Kaoru: Kaoru ron (5).” In KGMS (1984), 9: 147– 166. Shinohara Yoshihiko. “Genji monogatari ni itaru nozokimi no keifu.” Bungaku Gogaku 68 (August 1973): 56–67. —­—­—. “Genji monogatari no sekai (sono ichi): Kitayama no kaimami o ­megutte.” Nihon Bungaku Kenkyū 22 (December 1984).

342Bibliography

—­—­—. “Genji monogatari no sekai (sono san): ‘Hashihime’ no maki no ­kaimami.” Nihon Bungaku Kenkyū 25 (December 1987). —­—­—. Genji monogatari no sekai. Kindai bungeisha, 1993. Shirane, Haruo. The Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of ‘The Tale of Genji.’ Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987. —­—­—­, ed. Envisioning The Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Shively, Donald H., and William H. McCullough, eds. The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 2: Heian Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Sickman, Laurence, and Alexander Soper. The Art and Architecture of China. 1956; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981. Sieffert, René, trans. Le dit du Genji. 2 vols. Paris: Publications Orientalistes de France, 1988. —­—­—­, trans. Murasaki-­shikibu, Le dit du Genji: Genji monogatari. Illustré par la peinture traditionelle japonaise du XIIe au XVIIe siècle. Direction scientifique de l’iconographie et commentaires des oeuvres de Estelle Leggeri-­ Bauer. 3 vols. Paris: Diane de Selliers, 2007. Smith, R. Spencer. “Voyeurism: A Review of the Lit­erature.” Archives of Sexual Be­hav­ior 5 (1976): 585–608. Sone Sei’ichi. “Hashihime maki ni okeru kaimami no saikentō: Kaoru no kōdō genri to shite no ‘ushiromi’ ishiki no shihatsu ni tsuite.” Kodai bungaku kenkyū 2, no. 1 (October 1992): 32–45. Sonoda Hidehiro. The Transfiguration of Miyako and the Emergence of Urbanity in Japan. Kyoto: Nichibunken International Research Center for Japa­nese Studies, ­2003. Stanley-­Baker, Richard, Murakami Fuminobu, and Jeremy Tambling, eds. Reading The Tale of Genji: Its Picture-­Scrolls, Texts and Romance. Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2009. Stavros, Matthew. Kyoto: An Urban History of Japan’s Premodern Capital. ­Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2014. Stinchecum, Amanda Mayer. Narrative Voice in The Tale of Genji. Urbana, IL: Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, 1985. Sugiyama Yasuhiko. “Genji monogatari no katari no shutai (jō): sono kyokō no kōzō ni tsuite.” Bungaku 41 (April 1973): 48–61. Sukegawa Kōichirō. “Shii ga moto kanmatsu no kaimami bamen o megutte: ‘Onna ichi no miya’ to no kakawari o jiku ni.” Chūko bungaku ronkō 17 (December 1996): 77–87. Suyematz Kenchio [Suematsu Kenchō], trans. Genji Monogatari: The Most Celebrated of the Classical Japa­nese Romances. London: Trubner, 1882. Boston: Tuttle, 1974.

Bibliography343

Suzuki Hideo. “Murasaki no ue no zetsubō: ‘Minori’ no maki no hōhō.” Bungaku Gogaku 49 (1968): 61–64. ———. “Toshidate.” In Genji monogatari hikkei. Bessatsu kokubungaku, no. 1. Gakutōsha, edited by Akiyama Ken, 127–137. 1978. Suzuki Keizō, and Ike Kōzō, eds. Ōchō emaki: kizoku no sekai. Asahi shinbunsha, 1990. Suzuki Tomotarō, Kawaguchi Hisao, Endō Yoshimoto, and Nishishita Kyōichi, eds. Tosa nikki, Kagerō nikki, Izumi Shikibu nikki, Sarashina nikki. NKBT 20. Iwanami shoten, 1957. Tahara, Mildred, trans. Tales of Yamato: A Tenth-­Century Poem-­Tale. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1980. Takahashi Kazuo. “Rokujō-in no zōei.” Kokubungaku 32, no. 13 (November 1987): 72–75. Takahashi Tōru. “Monogatari bungaku no manazashi to kūkan.” Nihon no bigaku 16 (March 1991). —­—­—­Monogatari to e no enkinhō. Perikansha, 1991. Takamure Itsue. Nihon kon’inshi. Shibundō, 1963. Takei, Jirō, and Marc P. Keane, trans. Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japa­nese Garden: A Modern Translation of Japan’s Gardening Classic. Boston: Tuttle, 2001. Takeuchi, Lone. “Zhuangzi and the Search for Coherence in Ise monogatari.” Bulletin of SOAS, 72.2 (2009): 357–388. Tamagami Takuya. “Wakamurasaki no maki ni tsuite.” In Genji monogatari nyūmon, edited by Tamagami Takuya, 146–168. Shinchōsha, 1972. Tanabe, George J., Jr., and Willa Jane Tanabe, eds. The Lotus Sutra in Japa­nese Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1989. —­—­—. “Telling Beads: The Forms and Functions of the Buddhist Rosary in Japan.” Paper presented at a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art on “Object as Insight: Japa­nese Buddhist Art and Ritual,” Amherst College, March 1–2, 1996. Tanabe Seiko, and Okada Yoshio. Ezōshi Genji monogatari. Kadokawa bunko, 1984. Tanabe, Willa Jane. “The Lotus Lectures: Hokke Hakkō in the Heian Period.” Monumenta Nipponica 39, no. 4 (Winter 1984): 393–407. Tateishi Kazuhiro. “Kagami no naka no Hikaru Genji: Hikaru Genji no jikozō to kyōzō to shite no Yūgiri.” Genji Kenkyū 2 (1997): 72–87. Tokugawa bijutsukan, ed. Genji monogatari emaki. Nagoya: Tokugawa bijutsu­ kan, 1995. Tsuchihashi Yutaka, and Hirokawa Katsumi, eds. Kodai bungaku no yōshiki to kinō. Ōfūsha, 1988.

344Bibliography

Tsukahara Akihiro. “Hikaru Genji no kaimami: monogatari tenkai o megutte.” Kokugakuin zasshi C.5 (April 1999): 16–29. Tsunoda Bun’ei, and Kanō Shigefumi, eds. Geni monogatari no chiri. Kyōto: ­Shibunkaku, 1999. Tsunoda Bun’ei, and Shadan hōjin Murasaki Shikibu kenshōkai, eds. Kyōto: Genji monogatari chizu. Kyōto: Shibunkaku, 2007. Tyler, Royall. “ ‘I Am I’: Genji and Murasaki.” Monumenta Nipponica 54, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 435–480. —­ —­ —. “Lady Murasaki’s Erotic Entertainment: The Early Chapters of the Genji.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, April 1996. —­—­—­, trans. The Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibu. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Originally published in 2 volumes. New York: Viking, ­2001. Uji-­shi rekishi shiryōkan, ed. Genji monogatari no sekai: Ōchō bunka e no dōkei [or: shōkei]. Uji: Uji-­shi rekishi shiryōkan, 1991. Uraki Ziro, trans. The Tale of the Cavern (Utsuho Monogatari). Shinozaki ­shorin, 1984. Van Goethem, Ellen. Nagaoka: Japan’s Forgotten Capital. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Videen, Susan Downing, trans. Tales of Heichū. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Vos, Frits. A Study of the Ise Monogatari with the Text According to the Den-­ Teika Hippon and an Annotated Translation. 2 vols. The Hague: Mouton, 1957. Wakita Haruko. “Marriage and Property in Premodern Japan from the Perspective of ­Women’s History.” Journal of Japa­nese Studies 10, no. 1 (Winter 1984): 73–99. Waley, Arthur, trans. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts by Lady Murasaki. New York: Modern Library, 1960. Originally published in 6 volumes, 1921–1933. Waley, Paul, and Nicolas Fiévé, eds. Japa­nese Capitals in Historical Perspective: Place, Power and Memory in Kyoto, Edo and Tokyo. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Wallace, John R. “Anxiety of Erotic Longing and Murasaki Shikibu’s Aesthetic Vision.” Japan Review 10 (1998): 3–16. —­—­—. “Henry Staten’s ‘Anxiety of Erotic Longing’ and Murasaki Shikibu’s Aesthetic Vision in Genji monogatari.” Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Honolulu, HI, March 1996. Walthall, Anne, ed. Servants of the Dynasty: Palace ­Women in World History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.

Bibliography345

Washburn, Dennis, trans. Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015. Watanabe, Masako. “Narrative Framing in Handscrolls and the ‘Tale of Genji Scrolls.’ ” PhD dissertation, Columbia University, 1995. —­—­—. “Narrative Framing in the Tale of Genji Scroll: Interior Space in the Compartmentalized Emaki.” Artibus Asiae 58, no. 1/2 (1998): 115–145. Watanabe Minoru, ed. Makura no sōshi. SNKBT 25. Iwanami shoten, 1991. Watanabe Shōkō, and Miyasaka Yūshō, eds. Sangō shiiki; Seirei-­shū. NKBT 71 (1965): 460–468. Webb, Herschel. Research in Japa­nese Sources. 1963; rpt. Ann Arbor: Center for Japa­nese Studies, University of Michigan, 1994. Wheatley, Paul. The Pivot of the Four Quarters: a Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City. Chicago: Aldine, 1971. White­house, Wilfred, and Eizo Yanagisawa, trans. The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo: A Tenth ­Century Japa­nese Novel. Garden City, NY: Doubleday ­Anchor, 1971. Wilson, Liz. Charming Cadavers: Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic Lit­erature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Xiong, Victor Cunrui. Sui-­Tang Chang’an: A Study in the Urban History of Medieval China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 2000. Yamaguchi Itarō. Genji monogatari nishiki-­ori emaki ten: Yamaguchi Itarō Nishiki-­ori sakuhin shū. Kyōto: Shikō Kabushiki Kaisha, 1992. Yanai Shigeshi, Murofushi Shinsuke, Ōasa Yūji, Suzuki Hideo, Fujii Sadakazu, and Imanishi Yūichirō, eds. Genji monogatari. Vol. 1. SNKBT 19. Iwanami shoten, 1993. Yasuhara Morihiko. Genji monogatari kūkan dokkai. Kajima shuppankai, 2000. Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. “Heavenly Ropeways, or Some Altar Ornaments of Heian Buddhist ­Worship and the House of Gold.” Lecture delivered at a symposium on “Japa­nese Buddhist Art and Ritual,” Amherst College, March 1, 1996. —­—­—. “What’s in a Name? Fujiwara Fixation in Japa­nese Cultural History.” Monumenta Nipponica 49, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 423–453. Yosano Akiko, trans. Genji monogatari. 3 vols. Kadokawa bunko, 1971–1972. First translated as Shin’yaku Genji monogatari. 4 vols. Kanao Bun’endō, 1912–1913. Rpt. Shinkōsha, 1935. Yoshikai Naoto. “Genji monogatari makibetsu kenkyū bunken mokuroku (Momiji no ga no maki–­Akashi no maki).” Dōshisha joshi daigaku gakujutsu kenkyū nenpō 47, no. 4 (1996): 53–120.

346Bibliography

—­—­—. “Genji monogatari Wakamurasaki maki no ‘kaimami’ saikentō.” Kokugakuin zasshi 100, no. 7 (July 1999): 1–13. —­—­—. Heianchō no menototachi: Genji monogatari e no kaitei. Kyōto: Sekai shisōsha, 1995. —­—­—. “  ‘Kaimami’ saikentō: Utsusemi maki no ‘kaimami’ gigi.” Kaishaku 43, no. 6 ( June 1997): 5–10. —­—­—. Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru. Kasama shoin, 2008. Yourcenar, Marguerite. Nouvelles Orientales. 1938; Paris: Gallimard, 1981.

Glossary-Index

Page numbers in boldface type refer to illustrations. Unless otherwise noted, fictional characters are from The Tale of Genji. abduction, 91, 306n. 8; of Murasaki, 129, 152, 155; of Ukifune, 219, 228; of Yūgao, 125, 228 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 42, 279n. 144, 284n. 7 adultery, 105, 107, 111, 122, 125, 145, 168, 250, 313n. 72 ajari. See azari ajiro (wickerwork), 43, 123 ajirobisashi (wickerwork carriage), Plate 4, 43 Akashi (near Kōbe), 3–4, 52, 92, 100, 135, 138–139, 195, 234, 304n. 76 Akashi daughter (daughter of Genji and Akashi no kimi), 103, 138–139, 171–173, 185, 193–195, 246, 255, 304n. 77, 315n. 87. See also Akashi empress Akashi empress (daughter of Genji and Akashi no kimi), 103, 193, 202–203, 205–206, 209, 216, 225, 230–231, 233, 240–241, 244, 245, 246, 252–255, 320n. 23, 328n. 81; defends Second Princess against Kaoru’s accusations, 241; sponsors Hokke Hakkō for Genji and Murasaki, 234–235, 325n. 58. See also Akashi daughter Akashi no Chūgū. See Akashi empress Akashi no kimi (daughter of the Akashi Priest and the Akashi Nun), Plate 1, 102–103, 138, 167, 172, 195,

253, 255; courted and married by Genji, 3–5, 94, 101, 105–106, 135, 137–139, 263n. 7; at Ōi villa, 92; poetry exchange with Murasaki, 184–185, 187, 314n. 82, 315n. 88; residing in the Rokujō-in, 167; rise in status, 234 Akashi priest (first cousin of Kiritsubo), 4–5, 101, 102–103, 138–139, 253 Akazome Emon (fl. 976–1041), 49, 283n. 3 Akbar (1542–1605), 25, 271n. 55 Akiko. See Shōshi Akikonomu (daughter of Crown Prince Zenbō and Rokujō miyasudokoro; Reizei’s empress), 96, 100, 103, 158–159, 162–165, 167, 193, 232, 243, 245, 252, 307nn. 25, 34 Aki no nanakusa (the seven traditional flowers of autumn), 170. See also ominaeshi Akogi (Ochikubo’s female attendant, Tale of Ochikubo), 73–75 Amaterasu Ōmikami (sun goddess), 177 Amida Buddha, 86, 189–190, 275n. 109, 285n. 9, 316n. 95; Pure Land of Amida, 35, 40, 183, 234–235, 326n. 66 An Lushan (c. 703–757, adopted son of Yang Guifei), 248 An Lushan or Anshi Rebellion (755–763), 248

347

348Glossary-Index

Aoi (daughter of Princess Ōmiya and the Minister of the Left; Genji’s first cousin and first principal wife): Aoi’s father, 140; Aoi’s pregnancy, delivery, death, 154–157, 182–183, 188–190; Aoi’s (Minister of the Left’s) Sanjō residence, 93, 152; marriage to Genji, 50–51, 95, 96, 102, 106, 108, 111, 133, 249, 251–252, 255 architecture, xi–xii, 6, 22, 26, 33–41, 103, 238, 270n. 41. See also shinden-zukuri; temple architecture Ariès, Philippe, 177, 310n. 49 Ariwara no Narihira (825–880) (Tales of Ise), 65, 67, 68–70, 106, 287nn. 16, 18 Arntzen, Sonja, 293n. 69, 302n. 60 Asagao (daughter of Prince Momozono), 95, 96, 154, 193; Asagao’s Murasakino Saiin (place), 92 Asajigatsuyu (mid-thirteenth-century tale), 126, 310n. 43 Atemiya (daughter of Minamoto no Masayori, Tale of the Hollow Tree), 72, 288n. 24, 297n. 22 Atsuhira (prince, son of Emperor Ichijō and Shōshi, later Emperor GoIchijō) (1008–1036; r. 1016–1036), 32, 87–88, 309n. 42 Atsumichi (prince, Izumi Shikibu Diary), 85 Atsuyasu (prince, son of Emperor Ichijō and Teishi) (999–1019), 32 azari (Uji abbot), 196, 197, 210, 320n. 16. See also Uji mountain temple azechi dainagon (Azechi major counselor, Kiritsubo’s father), 102–103, 151 azechi dainagon (Azechi major counselor, Murasaki’s grandmother’s husband), 151; residence, 93, 151, 306n. 10 azumaya. See Eastern Cottage bachi. See plectrum Bal, Mieke, 57, 284nn. 1–3

Bargen, Doris G., 36, 38, 260n. 13, 261n. 1, 4, 300nn. 38, 304nn. 82, 83, 308n. 39, 309n. 43, 324n. 50, 325n. 57 Bassano, Luigi, 23 Bennokimi (daughter of Kashiwagi’s wet nurse), 200–203, 206, 210–212, 218–220, 320nn. 16–17, 23, 322n. 34; assists Kaoru in kaimami and abduction of Ukifune, 218–219; exchanges poetry with Kaoru, 210; reveals secret of Kaoru’s birth, 200–202, 210, 241, 320n. 16 Benson, Carol, 310n. 50 Berry, Mary Elizabeth, 14, 266n. 15 birōbisashi (windowless palm-leaf carriage), Plate 4, 43 Bishi (princess, daughter of Emperor Ichijō and Teishi) (1001–1008), 32 Bishop of Yokawa. See sōzu, Yokawa no biwa (stringed musical instrument), 40, 197–199, 297n. 22, 318n. 3, 319n. 7 blinds, bamboo. See sudare “blown-off roof” painterly technique. See fukinuki yatai bodhisattva, 185, 225 boju (“mother bead”), 190 Bourdieu, Pierre, 38–39, 277n. 130 Bowring, Richard, 38, 270n. 37, 274nn. 90, 91, 94, 99, 270n. 37, 274nn. 90–91, 95–97, 99, 275n. 104, 276n. 117, 277nn. 122, 125, 293n. 73 Bronfen, Elizabeth, 174, 177, 180, 189–190, 310n. 48, 312nn. 59, 63, 317n. 101, 318n. 104 broom tree. See hahakigi Buddha. See Buddhism Buddhism, 95, 178, 196–197; Amida Buddha, 35, 40, 86, 178, 183, 189–90, 234; attitude toward death, 177–179, 181; Buddha, 40, 60, 185–186, 192, 198, 204, 208, 234–235, 237–238; chigiri (vow), 212; doctrine, 60, 225; enlightenment, 4, 60, 149, 178–179,

Glossary-Index349

181, 187, 199–200, 225, 304n. 83; goshō (Five Obstructions), 149; gyakushu (rehearsal of one’s own death), 183–184 passim; hibutsu (hidden Buddha), 60; Hokke Hakkō (also Hakkōe; Eight Lotus Sūtra Lectures), 81, 183, 186, 193, 230–231, 234–237, 239; in Indian hagiography, 178; Lotus Sūtra, 81, 183–186, 193, 235, 310n. 51, 313n. 75, 314nn. 79, 80, 82, 314n. 84, 315nn. 87, 88, 326n. 66, 331, 343; mappō (Buddhist Latter Days of the Law), 34; muga (no-self), 173; prayers, 239, 282n. 159; religious salvation in, 100, 178–179, 186; rituals, 12, 34, 46, 178; sangha (monastic community), 311n. 54; Tibetan, 266n. 13; and women, 179 bugaku (dance performed to gagaku), 42, 186 Burakuin (Court of Abundant Pleasures, in the daidairi), 15–16, 17, 93 Burkert, Walter (1931–2015), 314n. 78, 318n. 108 byōbu (folding screen), 36, 113, 205, 212–214, 263n. 7, 304n. 74 byōbu-e (pictorial narratives on folding screens), 300n. 33 byōbu-uta (folding-screen poem), 300n. 33 Byōdō-in (Amida temple in Uji; before 1052, Fujiwara no Michinaga and Yorimichi’s villa), 35, 92, 321n. 27 Candrasūryapradîpa (Buddha “Sunand-Moon Glow”), 185 carriage, ox-drawn, ix, Plate 4, 3–4, 6, 42–47, 60, 67–68, 78, 84, 86–87, 91, 113, 123–124, 128, 130, 152, 197, 211–213, 219, 228, 279n. 145, 281n. 155, 290n. 44, 302n. 49 cat, 237, 304n. 83; Chinese, 143–145; as fetish, 144 Chang’an (Sui-Tang capital), x, 1, 12, 13, 264nn. 3, 5–6, 265nn. 8, 10

Childs, Margaret, 122, 295n. 7, 298n. 25, 300n. 37, 304n. 83 Chin, Gail, 178, 310n. 51, 311n. 53, 312n. 64 China, influence of: on architecture, 35; on city layout, 12 chirigi (lovers’ vows), 138, 187, 212–213, 317nn. 97, 99 chisen shūyū tei’en. See pond garden chō. See machi Chōdōin (Court of Government, in the daidairi), 15–16, 17, 18, 93, 267n. 18 Christ, Carol, 312n. 63 chūgū (empress), 24, 26, 163, 232, 235, 252 chūjō (middle captain), 79, 109, 117 Chūjō (Utsusemi’s lady-in-waiting), 109, 111, 117 Chūjō no kimi (Ukifune’s mother), 99, 208, 209, 217–218, 225, 250, 320n. 23, 321n. 24 chūmon (inner gate), 36 chūnagon (middle counselor), 73, 77, 107 Coaldrake, William H. xi–xii, 11–12, 34, 259n. 6, 264n. 4, 265n. 8, 265n. 10, 268n. 23, 274n. 104, 275nn. 105–106, 275n. 110 Constantinople, 22 Cook, Lewis, 240, 327n. 79 corpse, 147, 173–174, 183, 190, 267n. 22, 312n. 62; female, 177–182, 188, 190, 310n. 51 courtship. See names of characters; kaimaki; kaimami Cranston, Edwin A., 119, 286n. 13, 288n. 22, 292n. 66, 295nn. 10–12, 300n. 35, 313n. 68, 323n. 35 cremation, 173, 182–184, 188–189, 192, 311n. 54, 312n. 62, 313nn. 67–68; cremation grounds (at Toribeno), 92 daidairi (greater imperial palace), x, 6, 11–12, 14, 15–16, 17, 18, 20, 25–26, 35, 38, 92, 93, 268n. 30, 272n. 67

350Glossary-Index

Daigokuden (Great Audience Hall, in the daidairi), 15, 17, 18, 267n. 18 daijin (minister), 102–103. See also Sadaijin Daijōkan (Council of State, in the daidairi), 16, 17, 306n. 9 daijō-sai (imperial accession rites), 191 dainaiki (scholar), 221 Daini (Genji’s favorite nurse), 126 dairi (imperial palace), x, 6, 11–12, 15–20, 19, 22–23, 26, 31–32, 34–35, 38, 42, 44, 71, 77, 81, 84, 91, 93, 100, 124, 134; absence from, 272n. 67; building materials, 268n. 23; fires, 268n. 30, 280n. 151; ima dairi (temporary palace), 6, 272n. 67; sato dairi (“town palace”), 6, 268n. 30 Dalby, Liza, 46, 259n. 8, 274n. 102, 281nn. 153–154 dan (episode), 65–66, 82 dance, 33, 41–42, 136, 187, 191; Ryō-ō (Dragon Dance), 183, 186, 199, 315n. 90, 316n. 91–94; seigaha (Dance of the Blue Waves), 42 Deal, William Edward, 184, 313n. 75, 314n. 79–80, 326n. 66, 331, 309n. 47 Death and the Maiden, 177 D’Etcheverry, Charo, 21, 269n. 33 Devadatta (J. Daibadatta) (twelfth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra), 185–186, 314n. 82 Dew on the Bamboo Grass. See Asajigatsuyu Diaries (nikki), 1, 6, 25, 32–33, 53, 85, 262n. 4; Gonki, 82; Izumi Shikibu nikki, 85, 292n. 66, 331; Kagerō nikki, 85, 292n. 66; Murasaki Shikibu nikki, 32, 34, 87, 175, 270n. 37, 293n. 73, 330; Sadabumi nikki, 85; Sarashina nikki, 85–87, 292n. 66, 293n. 69, 330; Tosa nikki, 85, 292n. 66 Dragon Prince. See Ryō-ō duolocal marriage, 51–52, 68, 227, 231

Eastern Cottage (“azumaya”), 213, 215, 217–220, 223–225, 227–228, 254, 323nn. 39–40; in paintings, 321n. 26, 323n. 36, 328n. 1 Eiga monogatari (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes) (ca. 1030, completed after 1092), 17, 19, 25, 49, 267nn. 19, 22, 268nn. 26, 30, 274nn. 91–93, 276n. 117, 281n. 156, 282n. 159, 283nn. 3–7, 303nn. 67, 72, 306n. 9, 315nn. 90–91, 94. See also Akazome Emon Eighth Prince. See Hachi no miya Eiri Genji monogatari (Illustrated Genji) (1650), 182, 312n. 65. See also Yamamoto Shunshō endogamy, 50–51 Engishiki (compendium of administrative and ceremonial procedures, completed 927), 14, 266n. 14 exile: Genji’s return from, 120; Genji’s self-imposed exile at Suma, 4, 91, 132, 137–138, 195, 253, 263n. 5; Hachi no miya’s self-imposed exile at Uji, 196; Korechika’s in Kyūshū, 26; Murasaki’s at Kitayama, 149; in Sumiyoshi monogatari, 79; topos of noble exile, 73 fan, 2, 5, 29, 33, 39, 76, 78, 81, 83, 124–125, 136, 142, 149, 198–199, 211, 215; fan-painting, 263nn. 7–8, 307n. 34, 321n. 26 fantasy, of a Fata Morgana, 112; Genji’s, 108, 147; implied viewer’s, 182; Kaoru’s, 242; Murasaki Shikibu’s, 33, 88; Sei Shōnagon’s, 31; Utsusemi’s, 108; Yūgiri’s, 164, 168 female gaze. See gaze Field, Norma, xiv, 21, 73, 127, 130, 151, 155, 183, 199, 201, 237, 240, 260n. 11, 261nn. 2, 4, 269n. 34, 289n. 32, 294n. 4, 295nn. 6–7, 300n. 38, 301n. 46, 302n. 56–57, 303n. 61, 304nn. 77–78, 80, 83,

Glossary-Index351

305n. 5, 306nn. 11, 16, 307nn. 21, 25, 309n. 44, 313nn. 71, 74, 314n. 85, 315n. 88, 316n. 96, 317nn. 98–99, 318nn. 105, 110, 319nn. 9–10, 15, 325n. 60, 326n. 67, 327n. 75, 328n. 80 Fiévé, Nicolas, xi, 259n. 5, 264n. 2, 266n. 13, 267n. 22 fireflies, 139–140, 142–143. See also Hotaru First Princess (Kinjō emperor’s daughter by the Akashi empress), 103, 202–203, 205, 207, 231–232, 233; Akashi empress and, 244, 255; exorcism of, 243; kaimami of by Kaoru, Plate 11, 234–238, 241, 243, 326n. 69; Kaoru’s obsession with, 230–232, 239, 240–242, 254–255, 325n. 61; Kaoru’s projection on the Second Princess, 239, 243, 244; Niou’s forbidden desire for, 228–229, 235, 241, 244; rank of, 240–241 First Princess (Reizei emperor’s daughter by Kokiden nyōgo), 100, 203, 207, 232, 233, 234, 243–244, 325nn. 61–62 fishing pavilion. See tsuridono focalization, 57–58 Forrest, Stephen M., 300n. 33 Fujitsubo (fourth daughter of Sendai [Former Emperor] and his Empress), 132, 135; adultery, 122; affinal incest with Genji, 4, 42, 94–97, 100, 105, 107–108, 110, 113, 120, 126, 129–131, 134, 136–138, 148, 152, 154, 163–164, 195–196, 231, 246, 249–254, 256; empress, 134–135, 245; and Gen no naishi, 134; lineage of, 94, 96, 97, 98, 103; as mother of Reizei, 4, 100, 134, 195; and Murasaki, 147–149, 151, 159, 172, 232, 303n. 70, 325n. 60; Oborozukiyo as substitute for, 136, 303n. 70; and Ōmyōbu (menotogo), 135, 320n. 16; pregnancy, 130, 134, 152;

residence of, 93; secret of Reizei, 320n. 16; as shadow woman for Utsusemi, 110, 113, 126, 300n. 38; substitute for Kiritsubo, 94, 107, 153, 190, 231, 249; wisteria (fuji) color, 172 Fujitsubo consort (Fujitsubo’s halfsister, Suzaku emperor’s nyōgo), 95, 98, 103, 231, 234 Fujitsubo consort (Kinjō emperor’s nyōgo), 103, 210, 229, 231, 233, 234, 254, 256 Fujiwara no Fuhito (659–720), 20 Fujiwara no Kanemasa (Tale of the Hollow Tree), 71–72, 288n. 26 Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877–933), 295n. 12 Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041), 175, 318n. 4 Fujiwara no Korechika (974–1010), 26, 44–45, 272n. 72 Fujiwara no Michikane (961–995), 26 Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027), ix, xiii, 16, 26, 32, 34–35, 40, 49–51, 87, 92, 247, 274nn. 91, 94, 275n. 109, 283n. 3, 315n. 90, 321n. 27, 326n. 66 Fujiwara no Michitaka (953–995), 26, 44, 81 Fujiwara no Nakatada (Utsuho monogatari), 72, 288n. 24, 297n. 22 Fujiwara no Sadako. See Teishi Fujiwara no Tadanobu (967–1035), 30, 115 Fujiwara no Takaie (979–1044), 44–45 Fujiwara no Tamemitsu (942–992), 274n. 91, 275n. 109 Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), 263n. 8 Fujiwara no Toyonari (704?–765), 275n. 110 Fujiwara no Yorimichi (992–1074), 35, 40, 49–50, 247, 281n. 156, 321n. 27 Fujiwara no Yukinari (972–1027), 82–84, 272n. 68, 292nn. 56, 58. See also Gonki

352Glossary-Index

fukinuki yatai (“blown-off roof” painterly technique), 39, 160, 164, 278nn. 133, 142 fusego (bamboo censer), 147, 153 fuseya (lowly cottage), 112, 123, 295n. 12 fusuma. See shōji Gao Changgong (legendary Chinese dancer, formally, warrior prince Gao Su), 199 garden, Akashi no kimi’s, 3, 167; Akbar’s, 25; Akikonomu’s, 158–159, 162–163; Amida’s paradise, 40, 86; in daidairi, 15; Fujiwara no Kanemasa’s, 71; in kōkyū, 20, 26; Murasaki’s, 158–159, 163–164, 166; Ōigimi and Nakanokimi’s, 198; Ottoman, 22; Sei Shōnagon’s, 30; of shinden, 6, 35–36, 40–42, 275n. 110, 278nn. 137–138, 141; Shinsen’en, 12; of Shishinden, 136; Suetsumuhana’s, 132; Ukifune’s, 213–214, 321nn. 25–26, 322n. 29. See also nantei; pond garden; tsuboniwa; yarimizu Gatten, Aileen, 178–179, 224, 311n. 57, 322n. 30, 323nn. 40–43 gaze: female gaze, 29, 59; male gaze, 7, 26, 28, 40, 46, 58–59, 81–82, 108, 146, 165–166, 174, 177, 180, 205, 279n. 145 gekkamon (west gate of shinden residences), 36 genbuku (or: genpuku, coming-of-age ceremony), 50, 65, 117 genealogy, 7, 51–52, 63, 100–101, 137–138, 142, 194, 229, 239, 252, 261n. 4 Genji: abduction of Murasaki, 152–153; affair with Fujitsubo, 4, 42, 94–97, 105, 107–108, 110, 113, 120, 126, 129–130, 134, 136–138, 148, 152, 164, 195–196, 231, 249–253; affair with Kogimi (Utsusemi’s younger brother), 113; affair with Nokiba no ogi, 117; affair with

Oborozukiyo, 134–137; affair with Suetsumuhana, 130–133; affair with Yūgao, 122–126; attempt to seduce Utsusemi, 117; burns Murasaki’s letters, 192–194; coming-of-age ceremony, 50; courts Akashi no kimi, Plate 1, 3–5; courts Gen no naishi, 134; demotion of, 194–195; exile at Suma, 4, 91, 101, 135, 137–138, 195; last encounter with Utsusemi, 120–123; marriage to Aoi, 50; pictorial representation of affair with Oborozukiyo, 136; poetry exchange with Suetsumuhana, 130; poetry exchange with Tamakazura, 169–171; poetry exchange with Utsusemi, 118–123; poetry exchange with Yūgao, 123–124; prophecy of imperial status or equivalency, 194–195; pseudomarriage to Murasaki, 155–157; and Utsusemi’s robe, 118–120; warns Murasaki about Yūgiri, 163–167. See also abduction; exile; kaimaki; kaimami Genji monogatari ekotoba (Ōsaka manual for painters) (sixteenth century),160, 297n. 20, 298n. 24, 307n. 29, 308n. 35, 312n. 66, 316n. 92, 320n. 18 Genji monogatari emaki (The Tale of Genji Scroll, first half of the twelfth century), 40, 132, 198, 216, 255, 275n. 110, 278n. 133, 301n. 47, 318n. 3, 322n. 31, 324n. 53 Genji monogatari hakubyō emaki (1554), 164, 305n. 3 Genji monogatari no chiri (The Geography of The Tale of Genji, 1999), xi, 259n. 4, 328n. 2 Gen no naishi (no suke) (assistant handmaid), 16, 134, 136–137, 154 Girard, René, 129, 302n. 54, 313n. 78, 318n. 107

Glossary-Index353

gissha (ox-drawn carriage), ix, Plate 4, 6, 42–47, 86–87, 91, 152, 197, 228 go (board game), 40, 106, 113–114, 119, 133, 254, 297nn. 23–24, 298n. 25; explained, 115–117, 133, 299n. 31; precedents before Genji, 297n. 22 Go-Ichijō (emperor) (1008–1036, r. 1016–1036), 32, 34, 87, 268n. 30, 274n. 91, 281n. 156 Gojō (Fifth Avenue in Heian-kyō), 93, 123–124, 128 Gonki (Fujiwara no Yukinari’s political diary, 991–1011), 82 Go-Reizei (emperor) (1026–1068, r. 1045–1068), 34, 274n. 91 Gosechi dances (during the harvest festival in the Eleventh Month), 32–33, 191, 274n. 98. See also Toyo no akari no sechie Gosenshū (second imperial poetry anthology, compiled by Fujiwara no Koremasa et al., 951), 26 goshō (Buddhist “Five Obstructions”), 149 Go-Suzaku (emperor) (1009–1045, r. 1036–1045), 34, 274n. 91 Governor of Inaba (Tokikata’s uncle), 227; unfinished residence of, 92 Great Mirror, The. See Ōkagami gyakushu (ritual rehearsal of one’s own death), 183–184, 188, 191–192, 234–235, 313n. 74, 319n. 6, 320n. 22 Hachi no miya (Eighth Prince), 99, 245, 320nn. 16, 21; asks Kaoru to become guardian of sequestered daughters, 201–202; his burning house, 196; criticized by Bennokimi, 200, 203; death and last will, 204; excluded from the imperial succession, 244; followed into death by Ōigimi, 207, 253; Kaoru’s bond to, 213, 217; Kaoru’s disillusionment with, 239, 241; plays the kin (seven-stringed koto),

220; plots with Kokiden to depose Crown Prince Reizei, 196; refusal to recognize Ukifune, 152, 217, 253; his secret, 210; secret affair with Chūjō no kimi, 97, 198, 250; self-exile in Uji, 97, 196, 200; sequestered daughters of, 196–198; Uji mountain villa, 92, 196, 211; worship of, 204–205 hachiyō (eight-petal flower decorative carriage design), Plate 4, 43 hagi (bush clover), 146, 158 hahakigi (modern: hōkigi, broom tree), 112, 116, 123, 295n. 12, 296n. 13 hajitomi (carriage type with halfshutters), 43 hakamagi (donning-of-trousers ceremony), 79 Hakkōe (service of eight lectures), 184, 186, 315nn. 87, 90, 316n. 92. See also Hokke Hakkō hakubyō (“white-line” drawing), 160, 321n. 26 Hanachirusato (Yūgiri’s foster mother), 132, 161–162, 193, 303n. 62; poetry exchange with Murasaki, 187, 320n. 22 ḥaram (sacred and forbidden space), 38. See also harem hare (public space for receiving visitors in the shinden), 36 harem, 6, 21–25, 38, 270nn. 39–40, 43–45, 48, 271nn. 52, 54–55, 340; haremlike proximity, 251 Hasedera (Kannon temple in Hatsuse), 79, 92, 203, 211, 322n. 34, 324n. 46. See also Hatsuse hashihime (“Princess of the Bridge,” legend), 201, 319n. 10 Hatsuse (location of Hasedera), 92. See also Hasedera Hayashida Takakazu, 83–84, 292n. 61 Heian-kyō (capital, 794–1185), xi, 3, 12, 14, 15–16, 38, 42, 65, 77, 81, 92, 120, 133, 150, 235, 259nn. 1–2, 264n. 7; layout of, 12–21; map of, 264n. 3, 278n. 138

354Glossary-Index

Heichū monogatari (The Tale of Heichū; also: Sadabumi nikki) (ca. 959–965), 85, 293n. 67 hibutsu (hidden Buddha), 60, 86 hidden beauty, 71, 86, 203, 221–222 Higyōsha (Fujitsubo or Wisteria Court in the dairi), 19, 135 hijiri (lay priest), 239. See also zoku hijiri Himegimi (daughter of the ViceGovernor of Hitachi, stepsister of Ukifune), 218 Himegimi (The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–80, 83, 290nn. 43, 45, 291n. 47 Hinduism, 183, 311n. 54 Hirota Osamu, 104, 230, 261n. 4, 294nn. 6, 8, 305n. 1, 324n. 51 Hirozumi. See Sumiyoshi Gukei hisashi (aisle between veranda and the moya), xiv, Plate 3, 36, 43, 108–109, 134–135, 158, 160, 163, 166, 198, 205, 208, 212–214, 219, 222, 273n. 78, 276n. 117, 277n. 118, 281n. 156, 320nn. 19, 21, 321n. 25. See also hosodono Hitachi (old province in northeastern Japan), 97, 121, 126–128, 208, 218, 227, 321 Hitachi (prince; Suetsumuhana’s father), 126–127, 134 Hitachi (princess). See Suetsumuhana Hitachi, Vice-Governor of (Ukifune’s stepfather), 99, 209, 218 hitogara (“human character,” spiritual self), 118 hitogara (spiritual self), 118 hitogata (substitute), 208, 219–220, 319n. 15, 325n. 55 hitokara (“human husk,” physical self), 118 hiwadabuki (shingled cypress bark roof of shinden), 35 hōben (expedient device), 190 Hokke Hakkō (Eight Lotus Sūtra Lectures), 81, 183–184, 193, 230–231, 237, 313nn. 70, 74, 315n. 87, 317n. 97, 326n. 70, 343;

for the Akashi family, 325n. 58; sponsored by Akashi empress for Genji and Murasaki, 231, 234–236, 239. See also Hakkōe Hoko-in (or Hōkō-in or Hōkōn-in), 44 homoeroticism, 128–129, 140–141 homosexuality, 59 homosocial: communities, 271n. 55; desire, 129, 271n. 55, 302n. 53, 341 Hōōdō (Phoenix Hall of Byōdō-in). See Byōdō-in Horton, H. Mack, 269n. 36, 275n. 109, 276n. 117 hosodono, 28, 135, 303n. 71. See also hisashi Hosokawa Yūsai (1534–1610), 261n. 4, 285n. 4 Hotaru (Genji’s half-brother), 106, 139–142, 164, 288n. 24 Hürrem Sultan (also: Roxelana, favorite consort of Süleyman I), 23 Hyōbu (prince, Fujitsubo’s brother, Murasaki’s father), 97, 98, 140, 148, 150–153, 155–157 Ichijō (emperor, 980–1011, r. 986–1011), 26, 31, 268n. 30; his children by Empress Teishi, 274n. 93; his Empress Shōshi or Akiko, 31; Fujiwara no Yoshiko, one of his consorts, 272n. 69 Ichijō-in (Ichijō Palace), 31–32, 93, 268n. 30, 272n. 67, 274n. 91 Ichijō Kanera (or: Kaneyoshi, 1402– 1481), xv, 263n. 8 Ichijō no miyasudokoro (mother of “Ochiba”), 98 ichimai kōshi (single-panel latticed shutters), 36 idashiginu (or uchiide no kinu) (display of robes), 46, 143, 281n. 156, 282n. 157 idashiguruma (display of robes from the carriage), 46, 281n. 155 Imai Gen’e, 85, 261n. 4, 292nn. 55, 66, 297n. 22

Glossary-Index355

imperial succession, x, 3–4, 52, 101, 103, 137, 195, 243–244, 245, 246, 248, 252, 287n. 18 incest, 260n. 13, 323n. 39; attempted, Niou and the First Princess (full sister), 207, 229, 232, 235, 246; avoided, Utsusemi and Governor of Ki (stepson), 122; committed affinal, Genji and Fujitsubo (stepmother), 95, 107, 110, 134, 249–250, 252; committed affinal, Niou and Ukifune (wife’s halfsister), 215, 222, 229; desired, Yūgiri and Murasaki (stepmother), 161, 164, 166, 168–169, 177, 189, 252; in Ise monogatari, 66; Kaoru and the Uji sisters (two women of the same womb), 201–202, 205; pseudo-attempt, Genji and Tamakazura (proclaimed daughter), 167–172; symbolic, Genji and Murasaki (adopted daughter), 155; Yūgiri and Akashi daughter (half-sister), 172; Yūgiri and Akikonomu (foster sister), 163; Yūgiri and Tamakazura (purported half-sister), 168. See also taboo Indiana University Art Museum, ix, Plate 8, Plate 10, 36–37 Inuki (Murasaki’s playmate), 147, 150, 305n. 2 ippu tasai (polygyny), 48. See also polygyny iri-moya (hip-and-gable roof of shinden), 35 irogonomi (“loving love”), 169, 173, 125 Ise, Lady, (877?–940?), 119, 300n. 33 Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) (tenthcentury poem tale). See Plate 5, 6, 65–70, 106, 156, 207, 261n. 4, 285n. 4, 286nn. 7–12, 287nn. 16–18, 295n. 8, 304n. 78, 305n. 5, 319n. 14 Ise monogatari emaki, ix, Plate 5, 66, 286n. 7 Ise Shrine, 35, 38, 92, 100

Ishi (empress of Go-Ichijō, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga and Rinshi) (999–1036), 34 Ishiyamadera (temple), 74, 92, 120, 218, 223, 225, 301n. 47, 322n. 32 itsumaki no hi (third day of Hokke Hakkō Lotus Sūtra reading), 185 Iyo (old province in Kyūshū), vicegovernor of, 107, 111, 118–119 izumidono (spring pavilion), 35. See also tsuridono Izumi Shikibu (974?–1030?), 85. See also Izumi Shikibu nikki Izumi Shikibu nikki (Izumi Shikibu Diary) (after 1004?), 85 jali (or jaali) (marble or wooden screens), 36 Jiankang (Nanjing), 12, 264n. 6 Jijū (Himegimi’s menotogo; The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–80, 291n. 47 Jijū (Suetsumuhana’s menotogo), 130, 132, 302n. 58 Jijū (Ukifune’s lady-in-waiting), 219 jun daijō tennō (fictive position of quasi-retired sovereign), 191, 195 jūni-hitoe (twelve-layered robes), 39, 60 kabazakura (wild “birch” cherry tree), 159, 186 kabeshiro (cloth hangings), 37 Kabyle house, 38, 277n. 130 kagaribi, flares, 143 Kagerō, Prince (also, Shikibukyō no miya, father of Miyanokimi), 326n. 70 “Kagerō I” (painting by Tosa Mitsuyoshi), ix, 326n. 72, Plate 11 Kagerō nikki (Kagerō Diary, by Michitsuna no haha) (974), 85 Kagu-tsuchi-no-kami (fire god, Kojiki), 177 Kaguyahime (heavenly maiden, Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), 64, 171 kaimaki (“eavesdropping”), 53, 162, 169, 198, 223, 287n. 19; Genji’s

356Glossary-Index

kaimaki (cont.) kaimaki of Utsusemi’s attendants; and of Utsusemi, 108–109, 127; Genji’s kaimaki of Suetsumuhana, 127, 130, 133–134; Kaoru’s of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi, 198 kaimami (“looking through a gap in the fence”), xiii, 2–3, 6–7, 26, 37–41, 53, 101, 104, 251; agency in, 62; and architecture, 39–41; in art, 6, 160, 164, 290nn. 41–43, 297nn. 20, 23, 304n. 82; in Asajigatsuyu, 126, 301n. 43; defined, 57–63, 320n. 23; double kaimami, 126; Genji’s discussion with Murasaki, 165–167; Genji’s of Murasaki, 134, 146–150, 161, Plate 8; Genji’s of Oborozukiyo, 134–137; Genji’s pseudo-kaimami of Murasaki, 151; Genji’s of Suetsumuhana, 126–130; Genji’s of Suetsumuhana’s entourage, 134; Genji’s of Utsusemi and Nokiba no ogi playing go, 107–109, 113–118; Hotaru’s of Tamakazura, 139–141; and identity, 61–63; in Ise monogatari, 65–70, Plate 5; Kaoru’s of the First Princess, 231–240, 243, Plate 11; Kaoru’s of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi, 40, 198–199, 201–202, 204–205, 223; Kaoru’s of Ukifune, 210–213, 218–219, 242, 253, 255, Plate 9; Kashiwagi’s of the Third Princess, 143–144; Koremitsu’s (for Genji’s) of Yūgao, 123; literature review of, 261n. 4, 283n. 3; in Makura no sōshi, 81–85; in Murasaki Shikibu nikki, 87–88; and narration, xiii, 6, 26, 57–59, 101, 104, 142, 158–159, 165, 174, 176, 251, 262n. 4, 307n. 26; Niou’s of Ukifune, 37, 213– 216, 220–229, 242–243, Plate 10; in Ochikubo monogatari, 72–76; peeping (nozoki), 59; as performance, 38, 61–62; possessiveness, 61; in Sarashina

nikki, 85–86; Sei Shōnagon and, 28–29; in Sumiyoshi monogatari, 76–80, Plate 6, Plate 7; in Taketori monogatari, 64; topos, 38, 53, 57; in Utsuho monogatari, 71–72; as “visual rape,” 60; in Yamato monogatari, 68–71; Yūgiri’s of the Akashi daughter, 172–173; Yūgiri’s of Murasaki, 146, 157–161, 189; Yūgiri’s of Murasaki’s corpse, 173–174, 176–182, 190; Yūgiri’s of Murasaki and Genji, 164, 179–182; Yūgiri’s of Tamakazura and Genji, 167–173; Yūgiri’s of the Third Princess, 143–144. See also go kaishi (pocket notepaper), 118 Kakaishō (Genji commentary by Minamoto no Yoshinari, 1364), 230 kami (gods), 15, 40, 192, 237–238, 272n. 68 Kamo Festival, 71–72, 144, 211 Kamo Shrine, 71–72, 92, 95 Kannon (bodhisattva of mercy), 79, 225, 317n. 102, 322n. 32, 324n. 46 Kano School (of painting), ix, Plate 8, Plate 10, 36–37 Kanō Shigefumi, 328n. 2 Kano Tan’yū (1602–1674), 136, 304n. 74 kanpaku (regent), 26, 79, 281n. 156 Kaoru (Kashiwagi’s son by the Third Princess), x, Figure 8, Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, xv, 7, 40, 95, 98, 103, 209, 233; affinity with Utsusemi, 296n. 13; in art, 323n. 36, 324n. 53; attraction to Reizei’s First Princess, 232; and Bennokimi, 322n. 34; Chūjō no kimi’s kaimami of, 320n. 23; Chūjō no kimi’s matchmaking, 320n. 23; correspondence with Eighth Prince, 201; courtship of Nakanokimi, 206; courtship of Ōigimi, 205–206; go with Kinjō emperor, 297n. 23; kaimami of Ōigimi and Nakanokimi, 198, 201–202,

Glossary-Index357

204–205, 320n. 21; kaimami of the First Princess (cousin and sister in law, daughter of Akashi empress), 230–240, 242, 325n. 62; kaimami of Ukifune, 208, 210–213, 218–220, 242, 253, 255; marriage to Second Princess, 229, 231, 233, 283n. 8; quarrels with Second Princess, 240–241; religious impulses, 196–198, 204–210, 220, 250, 252–256; secret of his conception, 97, 98, 100, 103, 105, 145, 196–206, 210–213, 215–244, 256, 320n. 16; seeking the First Princess in the Second Princess, 239; suicidal, 319n. 13; visits to Uji, 196–200, 202–204. See also kaimami; Kaoru karabisashi no kuruma (enclosed Chinese-roofed carriage), 43 kara no kuruma. See karabisashi kasane no irome (layering of colored robes), 46, 60 Kashiwagi (son of Tō no Chūjō by Shi no kimi [daughter of the Minister of the Right]), 98, 103, 122, 164, 200, 202–203, 209, 217, 233, 241; adultery, 97, 250; cat, 143–145, 237, 304n. 83; courtship and seduction of the Third Princess, 97, 144–145; cuckolds Genji, 253–254, 308n. 39; death of, 176, 210, 253; kaimami of the Third Princess, 143–144; and Kaoru, 203, 210; at kemari (court football), 42, 106, 143–145, 229, 304n. 82; letters to the Third Princess, 144–145, 193; marriage to Suzaku emperor’s Second Princess, 144, 229; poetry exchange with the Third Princess, 145; as possessing spirit, 176, 309n. 43; self-starvation, 229, 253–254, 308n. 39 katabira (thin raw silk), 37, 139, 214 katami (memento), 120, 173, 175, 187, 190–193, 220, 319n. 15

Katano no shōshō (The Tale of Ochikubo), courts Ochikubo, 76 katashiro (substitute), 220, 319n. 15, 320n. 23 kata-tagae (directional taboo), 133, 303n. 65 Kawada Masayuki, 307n. 32 Kawana Junko, 114, 296nn. 15–16 Kawara-in (retired emperor Uda’s villa, in the Genji rebuilt as Rokujō-in), 93, 230 kazuki. See mushi no tareginu Keifukuin Gyokuei (fl. sixteenth century, daughter of Konoe Tane’ie, 1502–1566), 148, 164 kemari (court kickball), 42, 97, 106, 143–145, 229, 237, 304nn. 81–82 ken (distance between two pillars; ca. 6 feet), 36; defined, 276n. 116 Kenshi (empress of Sanjō, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga by Rinshi) (994–1027), 34 kerria. See yamabuki kichō (curtain stand). See Plate 3, 37, 79, 87, 113, 143, 180, 205, 213–214, 222 kidnapping, 125, 152, 156, 306n. 8. See also abduction Kii, governor of (Utsusemi’s stepson), 107–108. 110–111, 113, 133–134; Nakagawa residence of, 93 Kinjō (emperor, son of Suzaku by the Jōkyōden consort), 103, 203, 205–206, 229–234, 244–46, 252, 254–255, 298n. 23, 318n. 1, 325n. 57; and Kaoru at go, 297n. 23; and his Second Princess’s arranged marriage, 100, 105, 210, 229, 231–232, 233, 234, 254–255, 297n. 23, 325n. 57; and the succession, 244, 245, 246 kinshitsukei monogatari (“forbidden chamber tale”), 73 kinuginu no fumi (“morning-after note”), 130; morning-after letter, 82; morning-after poem, 110 kiri-monomi (restricted viewing), 43

358Glossary-Index

Kiritsubo (emperor, father of Genji), 92, 94–97, 98–99, 99–101, 102–103, 132–136, 152, 162, 196, 202, 209, 233, 245, 250, 256; and ancestors, 94; arranges Genji’s marriage, 50–51; cuckolded by Genji, 4; demotes Genji, 4, 51–52, 101, 172, 194, 248–249; and Gen no naishi, 134; and Korean’s prophecy of Genji’s fate, 194–195; love for Kiritsubo, 94, 248–250, 253; and succession, 244; unaware of Reizei’s paternity, 4 Kiritsubo (Genji’s mother), 5, 51–52, 94–97, 98, 102–103, 139, 153, 248–250, 253; Nijō-in residence of, 208 Kiritsubo court (Shigeisha, in the kōkyū), 19, 139, 235 kisaki (empress), 195; ōkisaki (empress mother), 137 kisakibara (“imperial womb”), 232, 234, 254 kita no kata (principal wife) (The Tale of Ochikubo), 73–76; Hachi no miya’s, 99, 209, 320n. 16; Prince Hyōbu’s, 150; (The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–80 Kitayama (Northern Mountains), 92, 129, 134, 138, 146–147, 149, 150–151, 153, 164 Kiyohara no Motosuke (father of Sei Shōnagon) (908–990), 26 Kiyowara no Toshikage (Tale of the Hollow Tree), 71–72 kizahashi (“five-stepped south staircase”), 36–37 Kogimi (Utsusemi’s younger brother), 107–108, 111, 113–114, 117–118, 121, 123, 297n. 20 kōgō (empress), 24, 26 kōi (secondary consort, ranked below nyōgo), 24, 94, 248 Kojiki (comp. 712), 177 Kojima Naoko, 232, 325n. 58 Kokiden (Kiritsubo emperor’s consort; empress mother), 98, 102, 103,

194, 203, 232–233, 255; as empress mother, 137; fails to depose Crown Prince Reizei, 196; jealous of Kiritsubo, 248; resentful of Fujitsubo, 135 Kokiden (residence in the kōkyū), 18, 19, 26, 134–135, 272n. 69, 303nn. 67, 72 Kokiden consort (Reizei emperor’s nyōgo), 100, 203, 233, 255 Kokinshū (comp. 905), 170, 295n. 12, 308n. 40 kokonoe (“ninefold enclosure,” of the daidairi), 15 kōkyū (women’s quarters or rear palace within the dairi), 6, 15, 18, 19, 20–26, 30–33, 38, 135, 268nn. 28, 30, 269n. 33, 271n. 57 Koma kurabe gyōkō emaki (thirteenthcentury handscroll), 281n. 156 Kōmyō (empress of Shōmu) (701–760), 275n. 110, 315n. 87 kōran (railing), 37 Koremitsu (Genji’s menotogo), 106, 123–126, 132, 155–156, 255, 301n. 41 Kōrokan (mansion in the southern part of the capital), 194 Kōryūji (temple), 86 Kosaishō (lady-in-waiting to the Akashi empress’s First Princess), 237, 241, 328n. 81 koshi (palanquins), 279n. 146 kōshi (shutters), 36, 113 kōtaigō (grand empress), 137. koto (stringed musical instrument), 40, 72, 77, 79, 127, 130, 167, 197–198, 220, 297n. 22, 301n. 47, 319n. 8 kotohara (half sibling of different womb), 168 Kubosō Memorial Museum of Art, Izumi, ix, Plate 5, Plate 11, 281n. 156, 286n. 7, 302n. 59, 307n. 32. See also Kawada Masayuki Kumoinokari (daughter of Tō no Chūjō), 162, 171–172, 255

Glossary-Index359

kururudo, (the door of the nurigome that faces the hosodono), 135–136, 303n. 71 kuyō (comforting rite), 191 kuzō (“Nine Stages of Death”), 178, 310n. 51 Kuzō-shi (by Su Dongpo, or Su Si, 1037–1101), 178, 311n. 52, 312n. 60 Kyōto National Museum, ix, Plate 6, Plate 7, 78, 290n. 43, 297n. 20, 307n. 32, 307n. 34 Kyūshū (southernmost of the four major islands), 132 Lal, Ruby, 25, 271nn. 55, 58–65 Lefkowitz, Mary R., 306n. 15 Leggeri-Bauer, Estelle, 297n. 23, 322n. 33 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 48, 50, 282nn. 1–2, 283n. 8, 294n. 1 Lewis, Ioan M., 61, 285n. 10, 301n. 42 L’homme devant la mort (The Hour of Our Death) (1977), 177 Lo, Andrew, 299n. 27 Lotus Sūtra, 81, 183–186, 310n. 51, 313n. 75, 314nn. 79–82, 84, 86, 315nn. 87–89, 326n. 66 Luoyang (eastern capital of the Tang dynasty), 12, 263n. 1, 264n. 6 machi (city block of 3.56 acres), 12, 35 maguhai (“returned gaze”), 83–84 Makura no sōshi (Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book) (ca. 994–1000), 6, 25–29, 44, 81–85, 115 male gaze. See gaze mamako-tan (evil-stepmother topos), 73 Man’yōshū (earliest extant anthology of Japanese-style poetry; compiled late eighth century), 218 mappō (Buddhist Latter Days of the Law), 34, 321n. 27 maps, xi, xv, xvii–xviii, 11–15, 13, 14, 47, 52, 91, 92, 93, 95, 133, 213, 250–251, 264n. 3, 266nn. 12–14, 267n. 18, 274nn. 91–92, 94, 278n. 138, 303n. 68, 324n. 49

marriage, arranged, 48–52, 68, 74, 95, 106, 138, 144, 207–208, 247, 249, 252, 283n. 3; semiarranged, 2, 97, 105, 137, 139 marriages, primary and secondary. See marital system marital system, xiii, 1, 6–7, 48–53, 251 Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, The, ix, Plate 9, 321n. 26 Mason, Penelope, 37 Masukawa Koichi, 299nn. 28, 31 matrilocality, 51–52, 229 Matsui Kenji, 114, 298n. 24 McCullough, Helen C., trans.: Classical Japanese Prose, 28, 185, 273n. 78; Genji & Heike, xiv, 314nn. 84–85, 315n. 88, 316n. 96, 317n. 98; Ōkagami, 275n. 105; Tales of Ise, 286n. 12, 319n. 14 McCullough, William H.: capitals, 263n. 1, 264n. 6, 271n. 57, 266n. 11; institutions, 48, 282n. 2, 323n. 39; kōkyū, 22; marriage McCullough, William H., and Helen Craig: Eiga monogatari (A Tale of Flowering Fortunes), 16, 17, 19, 267n. 22, 268nn. 26, 30, 274nn. 91–93, 276n. 117, 281n. 156, 282n. 159, 283n. 3, 303nn. 67, 72, 306n. 9, 315n. 90, 316nn. 91, 94 megami-zō (goddess image, statue), 238 Mehmet II (r. 1444–1446 and 1451– 1458), 22, 270n. 40 menoto (wet nurse), 151, 215; Murasaki’s, 151, 155; Ukifune’s, 215, 289n. 40 menotogo (children of same wet nurse, related or unrelated by blood), 289n. 40; definition of, 74; Fujitsubo and Ōmyōbu, 320n. 16; Genji and Koremitsu, 106, 123, 126, 156; Genji and Taifu, 130; Himegimi and Jijū (Sumiyoshi monogatari), 77–79; Kashiwagi and Bennokimi, 202, 320n. 16; Michiyori and Tachihaki (Tale of Ochikubo), 74; Murasaki and Inuki

360Glossary-Index

menotogo (cont.) (according to Yoshikai Naoto’s theory), 305n. 2; Suetsumuhana and Jijū, 130, 132, 302n. 58; Ukifune and Ukon, 221–222 Mibu no Tadamine (waka poet, fl. 898–920), 170 Michiyori (Tale of Ochikubo), 74–76 mido (sacred hall), 211, 218 migawari (body substitution), 187 mihakashi (ceremonial sword), 246, 328n. 82 mikado (emperor), 195 Milutin, Otilia Clara, 261n. 4, 299n. 30 Minamoto no Itaru (grandson of Emperor Saga, r. 809–823; Ise monogatari), 67 Minamoto no Masayori (father of Atemiya, Utsuho monogatari), 72 Minamoto no Rinshi (principal wife of Fujiwara no Michinaga) (964–1053), 34, 49, 275n. 109, 315n. 90, 316n. 94 Minamoto no Shitagō (presumed author of Utsuho monogatari) (911–983), 71 Minamoto no Takaakira (son of Emperor Daigo, 885–930, r. 897–930) (914–982), 49 Minamoto no Tōru (son of Emperor Saga, 786–842, r, 809–823) (822–895), 65–66, 230, 286n. 8 Minister of the Left (sadaijin, Aoi’s father), 50, 111, 140, 152, 154, 172, 251; Sanjō residence of, 93 Minister of the Right (udaijin, Oborozukiyo’s father), residence of, 93, 135–136 misogi (Shintō purification rite), 208 mistaken identities, 117, Genji finds himself with Nokiba no ogi instead of Utsusemi, 206; Kaoru spends the night with Nakanokimi instead of Ōigimi, 206; Ukifune takes Niou for Kaoru, 224 misu (fine bamboo blinds), 37, 160, 281n. 155. See also sudare

Mitani Kuniaki, 70, 157, 261n. 4, 287n. 20 Mitarashigawa (Shintō river purification rite), 208, 210 miyasudokoro (“Lady of the Bedchamber,” informal title for an imperial consort below the rank of empress), 11, 24 Mohe zhiguan (J. Maka shikan, sixth-century treatise by Zhiyi, 538–597), 198, 310n. 51 monogatari (literary genre of the tale), 2, 25–26, 38, 42, 51–52, 59, 64–65, 72, 82, 95, 242; boundaries of, 182, 256; kinshitsukei monogatari (forbidden chamber tales), 73; mukashi monogatari (tales of old), 199; readers of, 174, 216; rekishi monogatari (historical tales), 85, 283n. 3; truth in, 142; tsukuri monogatari (fabricated tales), 6, 71; uta monogatari (poem tales), 6, 65 monoimi (ritual seclusion), 65, 220, 225; Prince Monoimi (Ochikubo monogatari), 74 monokuruhoshi (“ecstasy approaching insanity”), 161 monomi (“lookout” sliding panels of a carriage), Plate 4, 43, 279n. 146 mono no aware (heightened sense of melancholic beauty and mournful loss), 131, 158, 163, 230–231 mono no ke (possessing spirit), 61–62, 176, 182, 224, 239, 243, 285n. 11, 309n. 43. See also spirit possession Morris, Ivan (1925–1976), 28, 37, 271n. 66, 272nn. 67, 69, 71, 76, 273n. 81, 274n. 93, 276n. 117, 280n. 151, 291nn. 50–51, 292n. 63, 293n. 68, 326n. 71 Motoori Norinaga (1730–1801), 300n. 38 Mount Hiei (northeast of Heian-kyō), 11, 92, 100, 242–243, 256 moya (innermost space of the shinden), 37–40, 43, 60, 72, 93, 109, 113,

Glossary-Index361

135–136, 158, 205, 214, 222, 276n. 117, 278n. 141, 320n. 21; change in meaning, 277n. 128; definition of, 37; etymology of, 38. See also moya no hi no omashi moya no hi no omashi (daytime chamber within the moya), 37, 60, 72, 109, 222. See also moya muenbotoke (those lacking descendants to perform rituals or pray for them), 184, 229, 239 muga (no-self), 173 mukashi monogatari. See monogatari mukutsuke onna (“wicked woman”), 79, 290n. 45 Murad III (r. 1574–1595), 23–24 Murakami (emperor, 926–967, r. 946–967), 49 Murasaki (Prince Hyōbu’s daughter by a lesser wife; Fujitsubo’s niece), 3–7, 92, 98, 129–134, 137–140, 143–144, 146–169, 171–187; abducted by Genji, 129, 134, 152–153, 155; adopts Genji’s Akashi daughter, 139; in art, 147–148; blushing, 165–166, 169; childlessness, of, 174–175, 251; cremation of, 182–183, 188; death of, 146, 175–177; Genji’s discovery of, 130–131, 138; Genji’s guardianship of, 151; Genji’s kaimami of, Plate 8, 134, 146–150; Genji’s pseudo-kaimami of, 151; gyakushu performed by, 173, 183–184, 234; Hokke Hakkō for, 231, 235, 239; intimate conversation with Genji, 163–167; and Inuki, 150; in Nijō-in, 153–155; poetry exchange with Akashi no kimi, 184–186; poetry exchange with Hanachirusato, 187; posthumous tonsure, 180; pseudo-marriage to Genji, 155– 157; in southeast quarters in the Rokujō-in, 106, 143, 158, 160; writings of, 175, 192–193; Yūgiri’s kaimami of, 157–161; Yūgiri’s

kaimami of the dead Murasaki, 179–182 Murasaki Shikibu (973?–1014?), xi–xii, 64, 111, 126, 253; and architecture, xii, 214, 235–236; audience of, 59, 155, 175; author and character Murasaki, 146, 175; brother Nobunori, 20–21; and Buddhism, 177–179; at court, 31–34; and courtship, 1–2, 5, 88, 168, 174, 247; narrative construct, xiii, 71, 91, 94–95, 105, 108, 114, 137, 165, 169, 173, 175, 195, 235, 249–251, 256. See also Murasaki Shikibu nikki Murasaki Shikibu nikki (Murasaki Shikibu Diary) (1008–1010), 32–33, 87–88 mushi no tareginu (semitransparent cloth hanging from wide-rimmed hats; also: kazuki), 42, 279n. 145 naga-monomi (widescreen viewing), 43. See also monomi Naga no Imiki Okimaro (Man’yōshū poet, active late seventh to eighth centuries), 218 naishi no kami (high-ranking principal handmaid; quasi-junior consort), 136, 303n. 72. See also Oborozukiyo Nakagami, yin-yang deity, 111, 133 Nakagawa (Governor of Kii’s residence in the capital), 93, 108, 133–134 Nakanokimi (Hachi no miya’s second daughter by his principal wife), 97, 99, 209, 319n. 15, 320nn. 21, 23, 321n. 24, 322n. 30, 323n. 40, 325n. 60; chaste night with Kaoru, 206; conceals Ukifune’s identity from Niou, 220–222; conflict with Ukifune, 216–218; courted by and married to Niou, 203–204, 206–208, 210–213, 221; courted by Kaoru, 198–199, 205–213, 215–217, 225–227, 231, 235, 241,

362Glossary-Index

Nakanokimi (cont.) 244, 246, 250, 253–255; as mother of Niou’s son, 223, 244, 246, 253–254; move to the capital, 204, 207; pregnant with Niou’s child, 210; resemblance to the First Princess (Niou’s sister), 205, 207, 231; resilience of, 217; shelters Ukifune in the west wing of the Nijō-in, 208; tells Kaoru about Ukifune, 208, 210; tensions with Ōigimi, 216–217 Naka no kimi (The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–78 Nakatada (Tale of the Hollow Tree, son of Toshikage’s daughter), 72, 288n. 24, 297n. 22 Nakatsukasa (prince, grandfather of the Akashi Nun), 101, 102 nakazora (“midair”), 228 Nakazumi (Tale of the Hollow Tree, Nakatada’s friend), 72, 297n. 22 nantei (south garden in shinden residences), Plate 2, 18, 41, 136, 281n. 156. Narihira. See Ariwara no Narihira nayotake (pliant bamboo), 171 Necipoğlu, Gülru, 22–23, 270nn. 40–41, 48 neolocality, 51, 79, 227 Nickerson, Peter, 48, 339 Nijō Higashi no in. See Nijō Higashi residence Nijō Higashi residence, 93, 133, 138 Nijō-in (Nijō Palace), 31, 134, 93, 139, 152–155, 184, 207–208, 213, 220–223, 225–226, 229, 230, 235 Nijō-in (Nijō residence), 93; Empress Teishi’s, 31, 44; Genji’s, 118, 133–134, 138–139, 152–155, 184, 208; Kiritsubo’s residence, 139, 153, 208; Niou’s residence, 207–208, 213, 220–223, 225–226, 229, 230, 235. Nijō residence (The Tale of Ochikubo), 76

nikkamon (east gate of shinden), 36 nikki. See Diaries nimai kōshi (double-panel latticed shutters), 36 nimoku (‘two eyes,” go term), 116 Niou (Kinjō emperor’s third son by the Akashi empress), 103, 209, 233, 249–250; abduction of Ukifune, 227–228, 242; affair with Ukifune, 224–226, 323nn. 39, 43; in art, 36, 216, 321n. 26; correspondence with Ōigimi and Nakanokimi, 203–204; courtship of and marriage to Nakanokimi, 205–208, 210–213, 221, 246; fathers a son, 210, 254; incited by Kaoru to visit Uji, 202–203; inherits the Nijō-in, 208; intercepts letter from Ukon to Nakanokimi, 221; kaimami at Nijō-in of Ukifune, 213–216, 220–229, 242–243; kaimami at Uji of Ukifune, 222–224; and Kaoru, 7, 100; marriage to Rokunokimi, 206–207, 217, 226, 244, 255; as Murasaki and Genji’s favorite grandson, 193, 235, 254–255; pilgrimage to Hatsuse, 203; pressured to assume imperial responsibilities, 227, 244, 246, 253; sexual interest in his sister (First Princess), 207, 230, 232, 241, 244 nirvāna, 67, 185 nishi no rō (west gallery), 198, 326n. 69 Nokiba no ogi (Utsusemi’s stepdaughter), 136, 297n. 18, 298n. 25, 299n. 31; Genji’s affair with, 205–206; Genji’s kaimami of, 116–117; at go, 106, 113, 116–117 nosuji (curtain strip), 37 nozoki (“peeping”), 59, 75, 108, 124, 180, 292n. 57 nurigome (walled-in sacred storeroom), 37, 72, 109, 135, 137, 158, 294n. 4 nyōbō (lady-in-waiting), 26, 109, 155, 199, 269n. 36, 285n. 8 nyōgo (consort), 24; Fujitsubo (Kinjō emperor’s consort), 103, 210, 229;

Glossary-Index363

Fujitsubo (Suzaku emperor’s consort), 95, 98, 103, 234; Hachi no miya’s mother, 196; Kokiden (Kiritsubo emperor’s high consort), 135, 248; Kokiden (Reizei emperor’s lesser consort), 100, 203, 232, 233 Oborozukiyo (younger sister of the Kiritsubo emperor’s Kokiden consort), 98, 154, 193, 300n. 38, 303nn. 68, 70–72; in art, 136; childlessness, 193; Genji’s kaimami of and brief affair with, 106, 134–137; as naishi no kami, 136; pictorial representations, 136; sobriquet oborozukiyo (“misty moon”), 135; as Suzaku emperor’s intended, 105 “Ochiba” (Onna ni no miya, half-sister of the Third Princess), 98, 144, 193, 229, 304n. 83 Ochikubo monogatari (The Tale of Ochikubo) (late tenth century), 72–76 “Ochikubo no kimi.” See Onnagimi Oharida (palace) (603), 12 Ōigimi (Hachi no miya’s first daughter by his principal wife), 97, 99, 196, 209, 223–229, 231, 323n. 37; in art, 318n. 3; conflict with Nakanokimi, 216–217; death by self-starvation of, 207, 254; enshrined by Kaoru, 210; evades Kaoru, 205; and Hachi no miya, 206–207, 217–218, 237, 253; Kaoru’s kaimami of, 198–199, 202, 204–205, 223; Kaoru’s uneventful night with, 205–206; and legendary “Princess of the Bridge,” 201; loss of mother, 217; Niou’s kaimami of, 213–216; refusal to marry, 205– 206, 241, 244, 253; Ukifune as Kaoru’s substitute for, 208, 210–212, 217, 219–220, 325n. 55 Ōi villa (Akashi no kimi’s maternal great-great-grandfather’s mountain villa near Arashiyama), 92, 139

ōjōden (tales of religious salvation), 178–179 Okada, H. Richard, 20, 261n. 4, 285n. 3, 286n. 9, 294n. 3, 300n. 33, 300n. 38, 307n. 26, 325n. 65 Ōkagami (The Great Mirror) (anon., late eleventh or early twelfth century), 51, 274n. 103, 275n. 105, 283n. 3 ōkisaki. See kōtaigō ominaeshi (maidenflower), 87, 169–171, 308n. 40 Ōmiya (sister of the Kiritsubo emperor, mother of Aoi and Tō no Chūjō), 50, 96, 97, 98, 102–103, 126; controls marriage of Yūgiri and Kumoinokari, 172; Kaoru’s genealogical link to, 202, 209; Yūgiri’s concern for his ailing grandmother, 161, 164 omokage (historical model for fictional character), 175 onmyōdō (yin-yang divination), 133. See also Nakagami Onnagimi (The Tale of Ochikubo), 73–76, 289n. 36. Onna ichi no miya. See First Princess Onna ni no miya. See “Ochiba” Onna san no miya. See Third Princess Ono no Komachi (one of the six poetic sages [rokkasen], fl. ca. 833–857), 178, 312n. 64 Ono nunnery (at the foot of Mount Hiei), 92, 100, 242, 256 Ōsaka manual for painters. See Genji monogatari ekotoba Otowa Mountain, 92, 120 ox-drawn carriage. See gissha paintings, ix, Plate 1, Plates 5–11, xi, xv, 37, 40, 66, 160, 164, 178, 208, 236, 263nn. 7–8, 275n. 110, 286n. 7, 290n. 43, 298n. 24, 301n. 39, 302n. 59, 307nn. 32, 34, 316n. 93, 330–331, 337, 340. See also fukinuki yatai; Genji monogatari ekotoba; Genji monogatari emaki

364Glossary-Index

Paradise Mandala (gokuraku mandara), 191 Parry, Jonathan, 183, 313n. 69, 317n. 100 parthenos (Greek, maiden), 150, 154, 306n. 15 patrilinearity, 51 Peirce, Leslie P., 22, 270n. 48 physiognomy, 131, 194 pilgrimages, 26, 42, 91; to Hasedera (Hatsuse), 203, 211, 322n. 34, 288n. 26, 322nn. 32, 34; to Ishiyamadera, 74, 120, 223–225, 322n. 32; to Kōryūji, 86; to Mecca, 25; to Uji, 196, 329 Pillow Book, The. See Makura no sōshi plectrum, 196, 198–199, 318n. 3 poetry exchange, 156, 272n. 76; as courtship etiquette, 108–109, 142; Genji’s with Suetsumuhana, 130; Genji’s with Tamakazura, 169–171; Genji’s with Tō no Chūjō, 128; Genji’s with Utsusemi, 110–112, 120–123; Genji’s with Utsusemi quasi-exchange, 118–119; Genji’s with Yūgao, 123–124; Hotaru’s with Tamakazura, 142; Kaoru’s with Bennokimi, 220; Kashiwagi’s with the Third Princess, 145; Lady Sarashina’s with male strangers, 86; Murasaki’s with Akashi no kimi, 184–186, 314n. 82; Murasaki Shikibu’s with Fujiwara no Michinaga, 87; Murasaki’s with Hanachirusato, 187; Narihira with a woman, 68; Niou’s with Ukifune, 228; pine sapling as inspiration for, 78 polygyny, xii–xiii, xv, 1, 48, 52, 66, 94, 152, 222, 250. See also ippu tasai pond garden (shima; modern: chisen shūyū tei’en), Plate 2, 36, 40–41, 321n. 27 Praz, Mario (1896–1982), 177 Prophecy concerning Genji, 194–195 Pure Land of Amida. See Amida Buddha

Reizei (emperor, Genji’s son by Fujitsubo), 96, 103, 233, 245, 320n. 16; in art, 255; becomes emperor, 137; failed deposition of, 97, 196, 256; the First Princess (his only daughter, by the Kokiden consort), 100, 202–203, 207, 232, 234, 243, 325n. 62; learns of his true paternity, 97, 100, 250, 255; marriage to Akikonomu, 100, 158, 163, 252; misattributed paternity, 4, 94–95, 255; prophecy of his accession, 195 Reizei-in (palace), 93, 325n. 54 religious vows. See tonsure Rinshi. See Minamoto no Rinshi rō (long narrow corridor), 36 robe, Utsusemi’s, 114, 117–119, 123 Rōben (founder of Ishiyamadera) (689–773), 225. See also Ishiyamadera rokkasen (“Six Poetic Geniuses”), 178 Rokujō-in (Genji’s Rokujō estate), 14–143, 93, 100, 106, 139, 141, 143, 158, 160–162, 167, 207, 228, 230–231, 234–235, 251, 303n. 62, 304n. 81, 324nn. 49, 52, 325n. 61, 326n. 67, 328n. 2 Rokujō miyasudokoro (widow of the deposed Crown Prince Zenbō, mother of Akikonomu), xiv, 11; daughter Akikonomu, 158; frustrated imperial ambitions, 95, 100, 230, 252; Genji’s affair with, 95, 96; at Nonomiya, 92; owned land of Genji’s Rokujō-in, 230; pacifying the spirit of, 100, 103, 309n. 43 Ryō-ō (Dragon-Prince Dance), 183, 186–187, 199, 315n. 90, 316nn. 91–94 Sacawa, Brian T., 129 sacrifice: blood sacrifice, 248; cremation as, 183; death as, 188; of desire, 122; fire sacrifice, 64, 175, 191–192;

Glossary-Index365

lustration sacrifice, 320n. 23; purification sacrifice, 210; robe sacrifice, 120; sacrificial victim, 192–193; self-sacrifice, 120, 188, 193, 217; transgression and, 249, 313n. 69, 317n. 100, 318n. 109. See also gyakushu Sadabumi nikki (Sadabumi Diary). See Heichū monogatari Sadaijin (Minister of the Left, Aoi’s father), 50 Sadako. See Teishi Saemon (Genji’s second-favorite nurse), 126 Saga (northwest of Heian-kyō), 77, 92, 290n. 41, 325n. 61 sai-in (high priestess at the Kamo Shrine), 95 Saiji (temple in Heian-kyō), 12 Saishō, Lady (Prince Atsuhira’s wet nurse), 88 Saishō (Yūgao’s cousin), 140–141 Sakai City Museum, ix, Plate 1 Sakanoue no Korenori (early tenth century), 111–112, 295n. 12 Sakon no Shōshō (lieutenant courting Ukifune), 208, 218, 226, 320n. 23 Sakuzenji (or Shakuzenji, temple), 44. See also Hoko-in Śākyamuni (the historic Buddha), 185 Sanae Fukutō, 272n. 68 Sanford, James H., 178, 312n. 60 Sanjō (emperor) (976–1017, r. 1011– 1016), 49, 268n. 30 Sanjō-Horikawa residence (Himegimi’s mother’s, The Sumiyoshi Tale), 79–80 Sanjō-in (residence of Kaoru’s mother), 93, 217, 228, 231, 323n. 38, 325n. 55, 326n. 70 Sanjō-in (residence of Minister of the Left), 50, 93, 111, 133, 152, 154, 172, 251 Sanjō residence (Ochikubo’s mother’s, The Tale of Ochikubo), 76 San no kimi (The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–79 sanseki (“Three Precedents”), 82

sansui (“mountain-and-water” landscaping), 41 Sarashina, Lady. See Sugawara no Takasue’s daughter Sarashina nikki (Sarashina Diary) (ca. 1060), 85–86, 293n. 69 Sarra, Edith, 29, 59, 81–84, 261n. 4, 273n. 81, 293n. 71 Satipatthana-sutta (“Discourse on Establishing Mindfulness,” Theravada Buddhist treatise), 178 sato dairi (town palace), 31–32, 91, 268n. 30 Schalow, Paul Gordon, 127–129, 295n. 7, 302n. 51, 308n. 40 scopophilia, 179, 190 sechie (seasonal feast), 16. See also Toyo no akari no sechie Second Captain (Asajigatsuyu), 126 Second Princess (Onna ni no miya, daughter of the Kinjō emperor), 103, 218, 220, 233, 283n. 8; marriage to Kaoru, 100, 105, 210, 229, 231–232, 234, 254; resists playing the role of the First Princess for Kaoru, 239–243, 255 Second Princess (Onna ni no miya, daughter of the Suzaku emperor). See “Ochiba” Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 129 Seidensticker, Edward G., xiv, 219, 237, 260n. 11, 263n. 6, 276n. 117, 294n. 1, 296n. 15, 315n. 88, 318nn. 103, 318n. 103, 319n. 13, 321n. 26, 326nn. 68, 71 seigaiha (“Dance of the Blue Waves”), 42 seirei (west-receiving shinden entrance), 36. See also tōrei Seiryōden (imperial residence in the dairi), 18, 19, 26, 135, 268n. 26, 272n. 67 Sei Shōnagon (966?–1021?), 6, 25–32, 39, 44–47, 53, 60, 76, 81–85, 115, 262n. 4, 271n. 66, 272nn. 67, 71, 280n. 151, 281n. 155, 289n. 38, 291n. 51. See also Makura no sōshi

366Glossary-Index

seki (“impasse” in go), 115 Seki Keigo, 73 Senshi (daughter of Fujiwara no Kane’ie and mother of Emperor Ichijō) (961–1001), 26, 31, 274n. 91, 315n. 90 Senshi (Great Kamo Priestess) (964– 1035), 20 sequestration, 6; in Bedouin culture, 279n. 144; in Heian court culture, 28–29, 38–39, 42–43, 46, 59–60, 73, 200, 237–238, 255, 320n. 23; in the Mughal harem, 25; in the Ottoman harem, 21–24; in the West, 327n. 77 Serikawa no Taishō monogatari (a lost tale), 242 “shadow figure” in kaimami, 61–62; for Genji, Fujitsubo behind Suetsumuhana, 132; for Genji, Fujitsubo behind Utsusemi, 110; for Genji, Fujitsubo behind young Murasaki, 148; for Hotaru, Genji behind Tamakazura, 140; for Kaoru in “Hashihime,” absence of, 202; for Kaoru, Nakanokimi behind the First Princess (Akashi empress’s daughter), 205; for Niou, the unidentified woman (Ukifune) he saw before in his Nijō-in behind an unidentified woman at Uji (Ukifune), 222, 226; for Tō no Chūjō, Genji behind Suetsumuhana, 140; for Yūgao, Tō no Chūjō behind Genji, 125. See also kaimami shakkyōka (Buddhist poetry), 185, 314n. 82 shaku (30.3 cm), 37, 212, 277n. 120 Shigeisha. See Kiritsubo court Shigei Sha, Lady of the (daughter of Fujiwara no Michitaka, 953–995) (The Pillow Book), 81, 291n. 51 Shikibukyō, Prince (Momozono, younger brother of the Kiritsubo emperor), 95, 96, 326n. 70 shima (pond garden), 41

Shinano (old province, modern-day Nagano Prefecture), 112 shinden-zukuri (shinden-style residential architecture), ix, Plate 2, Plate 3, xi–xii, 6, 16, 33–42, 277n. 127, 278n. 141, 335, 340; affinity to religious architecture, 86, 238, 275n. 109; changes in and departures from traditional layout, 276n. 114, 321n. 26; geomantic layout, 214; history of, 275n. 110; in the kōkyū, 20; layered barriers, as in robes, 60; layering, as in painting, 278n. 134; in painting, 278n. 142; reflected in terminology and usage of carriages, 43, 46, 212; terminology of, 259n. 6, 267n. 21. See also garden Shinkokinshū (eighth imperial poetry collection, comp. by Fujiwara no Teika et al., early thirteenth century), 112, 295n. 12 Shinohara Shōji, 238 Shinsen’en (garden, southeast of the daidairi), 12 Shintō: aversion to death, 177–178; purification rituals, 208, 210, 225, 279n. 146; shrines, 34–35, 92. See also misogi Shirane, Haruo, xiv, 20, 140, 156, 158, 260nn. 11, 14, 262n. 4, 300n. 38, 304n. 78, 305n. 84, 306n. 19 Shishi (daughter of Emperor Sanjō, 976–1017, r. 1011–1016), 49–50 Shishinden (main building of the dairi), 18, 19, 136, 303n. 67 shisoku (hand torch), 142 shitomi (latticed shinden shutters), 36–37 shitomido. See shitomi shōen (private estates), 51 shōji (sliding doors; modern fusuma), 37, 198, 205, 207, 212, 214, 236, 238, 322n. 28; shōjiguchi (“mouth of sliding door”), 109 Shōmu (emperor, 701–756, r. 724–749), 315n. 87

Glossary-Index367

Shōnagon (Murasaki’s nurse), 151,153, 154, 157 Shōshi (or Akiko, 988–1074, Ichijō’s empress, daughter of Fujiwara no Michinaga), 6, 26, 31–32, 34, 272n. 68, 275n. 105, 279n. 105, 280n. 151, 281n. 156, 283n. 3, 309n. 42 shōshō (captain of the guards) (The Sumiyoshi Tale), 77–80. See also Katano no shōshō; Sakon no Shōshō Shūgaishō (“Compendium of Fragments,” ca. 1300) (attributed to Tōin Kinkata, 1291–1360 and Tōin Sanehiro, 1409–?), 13–14 Shūshi (princess, b. 997), 32 Shūshi (princess, d. 848), 67 sode (“sleeve” of carriage sliding panel), 43 Sonohara moorlands (in old Shinano province), 112 sō no koto (thirteen-stringed koto), 197, 220 Soper, Alexander, 34 Sōshi. See Shūshi sōzu (cleric; Murasaki’s great-uncle), 148, 153, 160–161 sōzu (“yoi no sōzu,” a cleric “in night attendance” to Fujitsubo), 97, 320n. 16 sōzu (Yokawa no sōzu, bishop of Yokawa): agrees to give Ukifune the tonsure, 243; exorcizes the First Princess, 243; finds Ukifune, 242–243; Yokawa monastery of, 92 sōzu’s (Yokawa no) sister, 242; her deceased daughter, 242 space: conceptual, 48–53; physical, 11–47 spirit possession, 2, 61–62, 88, 125, 166, 182, 188, 239. See also mono no ke Stanley-Barker, Richard, 41, 278n. 139 Stinchecum, Amanda Mayer, 101, 104, 327n. 77 substitute, 107, 113, 121, 123, 126, 141, 144, 172, 175, 179, 186, 190, 206, 208, 217, 219–221, 242, 303n. 70,

315n. 87, 316n. 95, 320n. 23, 325n. 55. See also hitogata sudare (bamboo blinds), 30, 36–41, 43–44, 123, 143, 151, 159–160, 166, 207, 212–214, 279n. 146, 281n. 155. See also misu Su Dongpo (Su Shi, 1037–1101), 178, 311n. 52 Suetsumuhana (daughter of Prince Hitachi), 93, 105–106, 126, 128–137, 140, 154, 193, 251, 302n. 51; in art, 301n. 47; courted by Genji and Tō no Chūjō, 126–133; installed in Genji’s Nijō Higashi no in (93), 303n. 62; Jijū’s disloyalty to, 302n. 58; residence of, 303n. 66 (93) suetsumuhana (safflower), 131 Sugawara no Takasue’s daughter (“Lady Sarashina,” 1008–?), 85–86 Sugiyama Yasuhiko, 104, 294n. 6, 305n. 1 suigai (wattled bamboo fence), 127, 198 suiwatadono (“see-through” shinden corridor), 35, 276n. 113 sukiwatadono. See suiwatadono Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566), 23 Suma (near Kōbe), 4, 79, 91, 92, 101, 135, 137–138, 195, 253, 302n. 49 Sumiyoshi Gukei (1631–1705), 163, 302n. 49, 323 n. 36 Sumiyoshi monogatari (The Sumiyoshi Tale, mid-tenth century). See Plate 6, Plate 7, 76–80, 83, 289nn. 37–38, 40, 290n. 41 Sumiyoshi monogatari emaki (handscroll, seventeenth century), ix, Plate 6, Plate 7, 78, 290n. 42–43, 291n. 48 Sumiyoshi monogatari Nara ehon (early Edo period), 290nn. 41–42, 291n. 47 sunoko (veranda), 30–31, 36–37, 40–41, 43, 45, 113, 143, 148–149, 158–159, 162–163, 167, 201, 218, 238, 275n. 110, 281n. 156, 291n. 47, 321n. 25

368Glossary-Index

suzaku (“Crimson Phoenix,” one of the four protective deities), 264n. 3 Suzaku (emperor, Genji’s half-brother), 50, 92, 95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 105, 135–136, 138, 196, 233, 244, 245, 248, 253, 318n. 1; Suzaku emperor’s villa (Uji, exact location unknown), 242 Suzaku (emperor, Utsuho monogatari) (923–952, r. 930–946), 288n. 24 Suzaku Avenue, 12 Suzaku-in (palace south of Sanjō and west of Suzaku Avenue, used by retired emperors), 170, 308n. 40 suzuji (raw silk), 239 Suzuki Hideo, 261n. 15 Suzuki Kazuo, 261n. 15 taboo: affinal incest, 94–95, 107, 110, 134, 163, 168, 177, 179, 189, 201–202, 215, 222, 226, 293n. 2; alternative to, 148, 253; Arabic root of harem, 22; atonement for violation of, 120, 130; avoidance of and directional, 14, 111, 133; death and, 173–174, 181; degrees of, 250; fear of discovery of, 134; of full sibling incest, 246, 319n. 14; of imperial control, 325n. 62; marital, 138; of necrophilia, 177; in painting, 182; potential violation of, 244; religious, 100; repression of, 132, 189; sexual, 73; of sexual relations with half-sisters of the same womb, 323n. 39; unnarrated, 66, 94, 105, 130, 247, 249, 251; unwitting violation of, 226–227; violation as performance, 171; visual, 6, 160, 173, 177, 180. See also incest tachibana (orange tree), 131, 228 Tachibana Islet of Oranges (Uji, tachibana no kojima), 92, 228 Tachibana no Toshitsuna (1028–1094), 321n. 27 Tachihaki (menotogo of Michiyori, Tale of Ochikubo), 73–76

tadabito (commoner), 194 Tadanobu. See Fujiwara no Tadanobu Taifu (Nakanokimi’s lady-in-waiting), 208, 215, 322n. 30 Taifu no Myōbu (daughter of Genji’s nurse Saemon), 126–127, 130, 301n. 44 taikyokukan (“overview,” go term), 116 tai no ya (wings of the shinden), 35 Taira no Narimasa (provincial governor and Chinese scholar, b. ca. 950), 32, 280n. 151 Takahime (daughter of Prince Tomohira, 964–1009), 49–50 Takaie. See Fujiwara no Takaie Takaiko. See Shūshi Takakura (princess, Asajigatsuyu), 126 Takamure Itsue, 48 Taketori monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) (early tenthcentury), 6, 64, 71, 171, 261n. 4 Takeuchi, Lone, 66, 287n. 16 Tale of Flowering Fortunes, A. See Eiga monogatari Tale of Ochikubo, The. See Ochikubo monogatari Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, The. See Taketori monogatari Tamagami Takuya, 94, 324n. 49 Tamakazura (Tō no Chūjō’s daughter by Yūgao), appropriated by Genji, 125, 128, 167; in art, 171, 309n. 41; daughters of, 40, 297n. 23; fabricated genealogy of, 142, 167; on fiction, 142; fictive relations with Genji, 105; Genji’s desire for, 141, 143, 168; Genji’s poetry exchange with, 169–171; Hotaru’s courtship of, 106, 139–143, 288n. 24; lineage of, 141, 142, 167; resistance to Genji, 141, 169; Tō no Chūjō’s search and substitute for, 125, 143; uninhibited character of, 205; as yamabuki (kerria), 168; Yūgiri’s kaimami of, 168–171, 173, 180

Glossary-Index369

tamashii (spirit), 132 Tamehira (prince, fourth son of Emperor Murakami by Fujiwara no Anshi) (952–1010), 49 Tanabe, Willa Jane, 184, 313n. 70, 314n. 82 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965), 37 tatōgami. See kaishi Teishi (or: Sadako, empress of Ichijō) (976–1001), 6, 272n. 68, 273n. 78, 274n. 93; assesses Sei Shōnagon, 81; gives notebooks to Sei Shōnagon, 272n. 72; leaves the dairi for childbirth, 31–32, 280n. 151; salon of, 25–27; Sei Shōnagon’s exposure to the gaze of, 44–45 Third Princess (Onna san no miya; mother of Kaoru), 93, 98, 102– 103, 233, adultery with Kashiwagi, 97, 122, 144–145, 250; in art, 304n. 82; cat of, 144–145, 237, 304n. 83; childlike nature of, 95, 145, 217; courted by Kashiwagi, 144–145; Genji’s affinal kinship link to Fujitsubo with, 97; Genji’s marriage to, 143; guilty conscience of, 145; Kaoru’s view of, 254; Kashiwagi’s alternative to, 229; Kashiwagi’s love letters to, 144–145, 193; Kashiwagi’s view of, 305n. 84; Kashiwagi and Yūgiri’s kaimami of, 42, 143–144, 229; perspiration of, 280n. 148; religious vows of, 145, 308n. 39; residences of, 217, 230–231, 324n. 52, 326n. 70 Tiantai (J. Tendai) (Buddhist sect), 198, 310n. 51 Tōin Kinkata (1291–1360), 14 Tōji (temple), 12 Tokikata (Niou’s retainer), 227 Tokonatsu. See Yūgao tokoroarawashi (public wedding banquet), 49–51, 70 Tomohira (prince, seventh son of Emperor Murakami) (964–1009), 49–50

Tō no Chūjō (Genji’s cousin and brother-in-law), 98, 103, 209, 233, in art, 302n. 49; finds Ōmi no kimi, a long-lost daughter, 143, 299n. 31; friendship and rivalry with Genji, 130–131, 134, 302n. 51; Genji competes for offspring with, 126, 167, 202; Genji returns Tamakazura to, 143; as Genji’s rival for Suetsumuhana, 106, 126–129, 134; homosocial desire of, 129–130, 140; marriage politics of, 172; neglects Ōmiya, his mother, 161, 164; searches for Yūgao and Tamakazura, 125, 222; unaware of Genji’s daughter theft, 128, 142 tonsure (religious vows), 78,122, 145, 180, 183–184, 188, 204, 243, 272n. 68, 298n. 24, 308n. 39 Topkapi Palace, 22, 24, 270nn. 40–41 tōrei (east-receiving shinden entrance), 36 Toribeno (cremation grounds), 92, 188 Tosa Mitsunobu (1434–1525), 297n. 23 Tosa Mitsunori (1583–1638), 160, 302n. 59, 321n. 26 Tosa Mitsuoki (1617–1691), 171, 301n. 47, 321n. 26 Tosa Mitsuyoshi (1539–1613), Plate 11, 136, 163, 236, 297n. 20, 302n. 59 Tosa nikki (Tosa Diary) (ca. 935), 85 Toyo no akari no sechie (great drinking banquet in the Eleventh Month), 191. See also Gosechi dances tsuboniwa (courtyard or sparsely planted garden), 40–41 Tsuchimikado-dono (residence of Fujiwara no Michinaga; owned by Rinshi, his principal wife), Plate 2, 32, 34–35, 93, 274nn. 94, 103, 275nn. 105, 109, 315n. 90 tsukuri monogatari (fabricated tales), 6, 71–80 tsumado (“wife doors,” double swinging doors), 37, 113, 219

370Glossary-Index

tsuridono (fishing pavilion), 35–36, 235–236, 326n. 68. See also izumidono tsuyu (dew), 149 Tyler, Royall, xiv–xv, 152, 155–157, 219, 237, 260n. 11, 261n. 4, 323n. 41, 261n. 4, 263n. 6, 285n. 4, 286nn. 10, 12, 14, 287n. 18, 294n. 4, 295n. 7, 296n. 17, 301n. 44, 306n. 18, 318nn. 103, 2, 319n. 14, 323n. 41, 326n. 68 typhoon, 146, 158–160, 166–167, 172, 180 Uda (emperor, 867–931, r. 887–897), 170, 230, 283n. 3, 308n. 40 udaiben (Major Controller of the Right), 194 uikōburi. See genbuku Uji (mountain village southeast of Heian-kyō), 92, 196–229, 221, 253–254, 322n. 34 uji (sad, gloomy), 220 Uji abbot (azari) (the brother of Ukifune’s nurse), 196, 197, 210, 320n. 16 Uji Bridge, 92, 201, 211, 227–228 Uji mountain temple (yamadera), 92, 197, 210–211, 218 Uji mountain villa, (Michinaga’s, later Yorimichi’s), 92, 321n. 27; (Hachi no miya’s), 5, 203, 208, 210–211, 218–219, 221, 222; (Yūgiri’s), 92, 203 Uji River, 92, 196, 201, 203, 220, 227–228, 229, 242, 319n. 13 Ukifune (daughter of Hachi no miya by Chūjō no kimi), ix–x, 92, 99, 209; aborted engagement to Sakon no Shōshō, 208; affinal incest, 323n. 39; in art, 321n. 26, 323n. 36; Bennokimi and, 322n. 34; birth and birth secret of, 208, 320n. 16; conflict with Chūjō no kimi, 229, 242; conflict with Nakonokimi, 216–218; crosses Uji Bridge, Plate 9, 211; courted by captain of

the guards, 242–243; at go, 297n. 23; as hitogata, 319n. 15, 325n. 55; Kaoru’s abduction to Uji of, 219, 228; Kaoru’s kaimami and affair with, 218–220, 242, 253, 255; Kaoru’s kaimami in Uji of, 210–213; as Kaoru’s substitute for Ōigimi and Hachi no miya, 208, 212–213, 217, 220; Nakanokimi gives shelter to, 208; Nakanokimi reveals secret of, 208, 210; Niou’s abduction by boat of, 227–229; Niou’s affair at Uji with, 225–226; Niou’s kaimami of, 37, 213–216, Plate 10, 221–224; as Niou’s substitute for the First Princess, 228; at the Ono nunnery, 100, 243; pilgrimage to Hatsuse (Hasedera), 211; pilgrimage (unrealized) to Ishiyamadera, 225; possessed by mono no ke, 243; quest for genealogical status, 97, 213, 253, 256; raised by her mother and the Governor of Hitachi, 208; suicidal thoughts and misattributed suicide of, 229, 242, 255; taken by her mother to the “Eastern Cottage,” 217; as threat to Niou’s imperial prospects, 227; unrecognized existence of, 97; and Yokawa no sōzu, 242, 243 Ukon (Taifu’s daughter, Ukifune’s menotogo), 215, 221–222, 224–225, 323n. 40 Ury, Marian, 266n. 11 ushikai warawa (oxherd), 42 uta monogatari (poem tales), 6, 65, 293n. 67 Utsuho (or Utsubo) monogatari (Tale of the Hollow Tree, translated as Tale of the Cavern, tenth century), 71–72, 288n. 25 Utsusemi (second wife of the ViceGovernor of Iyo), 92, 108–123; in art, 297n. 20, 300n. 33; attraction to Genji, 121; childlessness of, 193; compared to Suetsumuhana,

Glossary-Index371

131–132, 135; encounter with Genji at Ausaka barrier, 120–123; gazes at Genji, 294n. 3; Genji’s attempted adultery with, 105; Genji’s kaimaki of, 108; Genji’s kaimami of while playing go with Nokiba no ogi, 106, 113–117; Genji’s subversion of courtship order, 109, 295n. 6, 123, 127; Kogimi as substitute for, 107, 111, 113, 123, 251; in Nō, 301n. 39; as nun, 122; poetry exchanges with Genji, 110–112, 118–122; resists Genji, 109, 295n. 7, 300n. 38; robe of, 117–120; sheds robe in flight from Genji, 117, 206 uxorilocality. See duolocal marriage Uzumasa (west of Heian-kyō), 86 veiling, 21, 25, 33, 42, 181, 271n. 59, 279nn. 144–145, 284n. 7, 285n. 9 veranda. See sunoko virilocality, 52, 227 Visuddhimagga (“Path of Purification,” Buddhaghosa’s treatise on Theravada Buddhist doctrine, ca. 430), 178, 311n. 52 voyeurism, 36–37, 58–59, 81, 84, 140, 147, 157–158, 173–174, 182, 205, 238, 261n. 4, 291n. 50, 295n. 6, 297n. 23 waka (Japanese poem), xv, 41; Akashi no kimi’s, 167, 185; Ariwara no Narihira’s, 65–66; Bennokimi’s, 220; Genji’s, 110, 111, 112, 118, 120, 121, 124, 150, 170–171, 173, 191, 192; Hanachirusato’s, 187; Ise 23, 68–69; Ise 39, 67; Ise 63, 69–70; Kaoru’s, 200–201, 219– 220; Kashiwagi’s, 144; Mibu no Tadamine’s, 170; Murasaki’s, 184–185, 187; Niou’s, 204, 207, 228; Ōigimi’s, 200; Tamakazura’s, 169–170; Tō no Chūjō’s, 188; Ukifune’s, 221, 228, 243;

Utsusemi’s, 110, 112, 120, 121, 122; Utsusemi quoting Lady Ise’s, 119; Yamato 149, 69; Yamato 166, 68; Yamato 173, 70–71; Yūgao’s, 124; Yūgiri’s, 189–190 Wakita Haruko, 48, 284n. 14, 327n. 77 Waley, Arthur, xiv, 224, 236, 260nn. 10, 11, 263n. 6, 296n. 17, 323n. 41, 326n. 68 Waley, Paul, 267n. 22 Wang, Tzi-Cheng, 299n. 27 watadono (covered shinden corridor), 35, 111, 320n. 17 watadono no sorihashi (arched shinden corridor), 35 watadonorō. See watadono Watanabe Masako, 216, 278n. 133, 322n. 31 Watanabe Takeshi, 272n. 68 watarō. See watadono weiqi (Chinese board game), 115, 299n. 27 Wilson, Liz, 178, 311n. 54 Xuanzong (Chinese emperor) (685–762, r. 712–756), 248 yamabuki (kerria), 168, 172 Yamada Shōzen, 314n. 82 Yamamoto Shunshō (1610–1682), 182, 312n. 65. See also Eiri Genji monogatari Yamato monogatari (Tales of Yamato) (poem tale, ca. 951), 65, 68–71, 292n. 57, 295n. 8 Yang Guifei (Yang Kuei-fei, consort of Xuanzong) (719–756), 248 yarido (sliding door), 135, 219 yarimizu (garden brook), 214, 218, 321n. 27 yatsushi (disguise), 123 Yokawa no sōzu. See sōzu (Yokawa no sōzu, bishop of Yokawa) Yomi (mythical underworld), 177 Yomigaeru Heian-kyō (Reviving the Heian Capital) (1994), xi, 14, 266n. 14, 267n. 18, 337

372Glossary-Index

Yoshikai Naoto, 79, 114, 125, 148, 261n. 4, 287n. 19, 288n. 26, 289nn. 37, 40, 290nn. 41, 44, 45, 302n. 58, 305n. 2, 327n. 73 Yotsutsuji Yoshinari (1326–1402), 230 yoyo (generation), 187 yūgao (gourd flower), 123–124 Yūgao, xiv, 93, 136, 140, 142; abduction of, 125, 219, 222, 228; adultery with Genji, 105; death in nanigashi no in (deserted riverside villa, 93), 125, 188, 230, 251, 302n. 51; discovered, courted, and abducted by Genji, 122–126; Gojō house, 123; incognito, 123–124, 226; mediated courtship of, 123–125, 301n. 41; poetry exchange with Genji, 123–124; spirit possession of, 125; and Tamakazura, 125, 128; and Tō no Chūjō, 125–126; triangle with Genji and Tō no Chūjō, 128–129; Ukon’s devotion to, 302n. 58 Yūgiri (Genji’s son by Aoi), 92, 96; arranges Ryō-ō dance, 186; in art,

40; children of, 40, 206–207, 244, 252, 255; in genealogy, 95, 157, 249, 252; kaimami of Genji and Tamakazura, 167–171; kaimami of Murasaki, 146, 157–161, 173–182, 186–194; kaimami of Murasaki’s corpse, 146, 179–182, 190; kaimami of the Third Princess, 143–144; at kemari with Kashiwagi, 143; reaction to Murasaki’s death, 188–193; Uji villa of, 203 Zaigo Chūjō. See Ariwara no Narihira Zenbō (crown prince, deposed), 95, 96, 100, 103, 158, 230, 244, 245, 252, 307n. 25 Zhiyi (J. Chigi) (538–597), 198, 310n. 51 zoku hijiri (Buddhist lay ascetic), 196. See also hijiri zuihitsu (literary genre of “random notes”), 6, 27, 81 zuryō (middle-ranking provincial governor), 5, 86, 234, 325n. 65