Kaguya-hime was at a loss what to do. She said, “Before I go I shall write a letter for you. If ever you long for me, take out the letter and read it.” In tears she wrote these words: “Had I but been born in this world I should have stayed with you and never caused you any grief. To leave this world and part from you is quite contrary to my wishes. Please think of this cloak, that I leave with you, as a memento of me. On nights when the moon shines in the sky, gaze at it well. Now that I am about to forsake you, I feel as though I must fall from the sky, pulled back to this world by my longing for you.”
Some of the celestial beings had brought boxes with them. One contained a robe of feathers, another the elixir of immortality. “Please take some of the elixir in this jar,” said a celestial being to Kaguya-hime. “You must be feeling unwell after the things you have had to eat in this dirty place.” He offered her the elixir and Kaguya-hime tasted a little. Then, thinking she might leave a little as a remembrance of herself, she started to wrap some of the elixir in the cloak she had discarded, when a celestial being prevented her. He took the robe of feathers from its box and attempted to throw it over her shoulders, but Kaguya-hime cried out. “Wait just a moment! They say that once you put on this robe your heart changes, and there are still a few words I must say.” She wrote another letter.
The celestial beings called impatiently, “It’s late!”
“Don’t talk so unreasonably!” exclaimed Kaguya-hime. With perfect serenity she gave the letter to someone for delivery to the emperor. She showed no signs of agitation. The letter said: “Although you graciously deigned to send many people to detain me here, my escorts have come and will not be denied. Now they will take me with them, to my bitter regret and sorrow. I am sure you must find it quite incomprehensible, but it weighs heaviest on my heart that you may consider my stubborn refusal to obey your commands an act of disrespect.” To the above she added the verse: “Now that the moment has come to put on the robe of feathers, how longingly I recall my lord!” Kaguya-hime attached to the letter some elixir of immortality from the jar and, summoning the commander of the guards, directed him to offer it to the emperor. A celestial being took the gift from her hands and passed it to the commander. No sooner had the commander accepted the elixir than the celestial being put the robe of feathers on Kaguya-hime. At once she lost all recollection of the pity and grief she had felt for the old man. No cares afflict anyone who once puts on this robe, and Kaguya-hime, in all tranquillity, climbed into her chariot and ascended into the sky, accompanied by a retinue of a hundred celestial beings.
The old man and woman shed bitter tears, but to no avail. When her letter was read to them, they cried, “Why should we cling to our lives? For whose sake? All is useless now.” They refused to take medicine, and never left their sick-beds again.
The commander returned to the palace with his men. He reported in detail the reasons why he and his men had failed with their weapons to prevent Kaguya-hime from departing. He also presented the jar of elixir with the letter attached. The emperor felt much distressed when he opened the letter and read Kaguya-hime’s words. He refused all nourishment, and permitted no entertainments in his presence.
Later, the emperor summoned his ministers and great nobles and asked them which mountain was closest to Heaven. One man replied, “The mountain in the province of Suruga. It is near both to the capital and to Heaven.” The emperor thereupon wrote the poem: “What use is it, this elixir of immortality, to one who floats in tears because he cannot meet her again?”
He gave the poem and the jar containing the elixir to a messenger with the command that he take them to the summit of the mountain in Suruga. He directed that the letter and the jar be placed side by side, set on fire, and allowed to be consumed in the flames. The men, obeying this command, climbed the mountain, taking with them a great many soldiers. Ever since they burned the elixir of immortality on the summit, people have called the mountain by the name Fuji, meaning immortal. Even now the smoke is still said to rise into the clouds.
[Translated by Donald Keene]
THE TALES OF ISE (ISE MONOGATARI, CA. 947)
In its most familiar versions, The Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari) is a collection of 125 uta-gatari (or uta-monogatari, literally, “poem tale”) presented as episodes in the life of Ariwara no Narihira (825–880), a nobleman celebrated as the greatest male poet of his age. Within a decade or so of his death, Narihira had become the legendary hero of early Heian court society, idealized for sacrificing political favor, fortune, and propriety for love and poetry. The legend of Narihira flourished for centuries and ensured The Tales of Ise a place—equaled only by the Kokinshū, The Tale of Genji, and One Hundred Poets, One Hundred Poems (Hyakkunin-isshu)—among the most widely read and quoted classics of Japanese literature.
Classical Japanese poetry often was anthologized, either in large collections of works by many poets, like the Man’yōshū or the Kokinshū or, usually, in smaller personal collections of works by a single poet. These personal collections in turn gave rise to a variety of genres: (1) poetic travel diaries like the Tosa Diary by Ki no Tsurayuki; (2) confessional, semiautobiographical poetic diaries by women like the Kagerō Diary by Mother of Michitsuna and the Sarashina Diary by Daughter of Takasue; and (3) collections of poem tales focused on the life or work of a particular poet, the most famous example of which is The Tales of Ise. Its earliest versions are based on the poetry of Narihira, the implicit protagonist of The Tales of Ise. Because classical poems (waka) were short and often social in nature, they invited questions of when, where, and for whom or for what purposes they were composed. One consequence was the creation of stories about the poems. The combination of Narihira’s skill as a poet—he is known for his extensive use of parallelism and rhythm—and his fame as a lover made him the object of many poetic legends. Other poem tales appearing around this time were The Tales of Yamato (Yamato monogatari, ca. 951) and The Tales of Heichū (Heichū monogatari, ca. 965).
The original core of The Tales of Ise was most likely an early version of Narihira’s personal collection of waka. Later editors expanded it by adding poems from the Kokinshū ascribed to Narihira, many with long headnotes (kotobagaki). Later additions to The Tales of Ise included anonymous poems from the Kokinshū and the Gosenshū (951) attributed to the protagonist. (Fewer than one-quarter of the more than two hundred poems in the 125-section texts of The Tales of Ise are believed to have been written by Narihira himself.)
The prose, which has been reduced to the bare essentials, typically supplies a fictionalized historical context or dramatic circumstances, and the poetry reveals the thoughts and emotions of the characters and brings the narrative to a climax, a sophisticated narrative technique that foreshadows The Tale of Genji.
Even though each of the 125 sections of The Tales of Ise is essentially autonomous, they are arranged in a partially biographical sequence, beginning with the protagonist’s youth and progressing from his transgressions in the capital, his exile to the east (sec. 9), his return to the capital, and, finally, his death (sec. 125). Significantly, Narihira violates social convention, engaging in forbidden love in unexpected places and violating the prerogatives of the throne (sec. 69) or subtly mocking the fortunes of the dominant Fujiwara lineage (sec. 101). The inevitable consequences for himself and his lovers become the impetus for poetry of profound feeling and resignation to separation, disappointment, and sorrow, composed with an elegance of diction and rhetorical subtlety that seem to overcome every form of loss or defeat.
Among other things, The Tales of Ise demonstrated the proper protocols and occasions for the social uses of poetry, a necessary part of an aristocrat’s education and social training, and became a familiar source for poetic diction, themes, and allusive variation. By the late Heian period, it had become one of the three most influential texts in the kana tradition (along with the Kokinshū and The Tale of Genji), and it served as a handbook for waka poets throughout the rest of the medieval period. Th
e Tales of Ise also provided literary topoi and precedents for later writers—including Murasaki Shikibu, whose hero Genji shares many of the features of the fictionalized Narihira—as well as for painters and dramatists. The noted no play Sumida River is based on “Journey to the Eastern Provinces” (sec. 7, 8, 9, and after) in The Tales of Ise. After being canonized by Fujiwara no Teika and other poets in the thirteenth century, The Tales of Ise became the object of extensive commentary and, in certain early strains of this tradition, was either read as history (biography of Narihira) or allegorized as an esoteric religious text.
Journey to the Eastern Provinces (9)
In the past there was a man. Having made up his mind that his position was worthless, he thought that he should live in the east rather than in the capital, and he set out to find a province where he could reside. He went with an old friend or two. Since none of them knew the way, they wandered about. They arrived at a place called Eight Bridges in Mikawa Province. The place is called Eight Bridges because the rivers in which the water flows branch like a spider’s legs and were spanned by eight bridges. They dismounted in the shade of a tree at the edge of the marsh there and ate dried rice. In the marsh, irises [kakitsubata] were blooming beautifully. Seeing them, one of the party said, “Compose a poem on the subject of travel, using the five syllables ka-ki-tsu-ba-ta to begin each of its five phrases.”
karagoromo Since I have a wife
kitsutsu narenishi familiar to me as the hem
tsuma shi areba of a well-worn robe,
harubaru kinuru I think sadly of how far
tabi o shi zo omou I have traveled on this journey.100
When he composed this, all of them shed tears on their dried rice until it swelled with the moisture.
Moving on, they came to the province of Suruga. When they arrived at Mount Utsu, they were troubled to find that the road they planned to take was very dark and narrow, with dense growth of creepers and maples. As they were thinking what unexpected and difficult experiences they were having, they met with a pilgrim. “What are you doing on such a road as this?” he asked them, and the man recognized him as someone he knew. He wrote a letter and asked the pilgrim to take it to the lady he had left in the capital.
Suruga naru Near Mount Utsu
Utsu no yamabe ni in Suruga
utsutsu ni mo I can meet you
yume ni mo hito ni neither in reality
awanu narikeri nor in my dreams.101
The Eight Bridges in Mikawa Province. (From the Sagabon edition, early seventeenth century)
When they came to Mount Fuji, they saw that it was very white with falling snow even on the last day of the Fifth Month.102
toki shiranu The peak of Mount Fuji
yama wa Fuji no ne is oblivious to time.
itsu to te ka What season does it take this to be
ka no ko madara ni that the falling snow
yuki no fururamu should dapple it like a fawn?
If we compare this mountain with those here in the capital, it is twenty times the height of Mount Hiei, and its shape is like a cone of sand used for making salt.103
Continuing on as before, they came to a very large river between Musashi and Shimotsufusa provinces. It is called the Sumida River. As they stood in a group on the edge of the river and thought of home, lamenting together how very far they had come, the ferryman said, “Hurry up and get in the boat. It’s getting dark.” About to board the boat and cross the river, they all felt forlorn, for there was not one of them who did not have someone he loved in the capital. Just then they saw a white bird with a red bill and legs, about the size of a snipe, cavorting in the water and eating fish. Since this is not a bird one sees in the capital, none of them recognized it. When they asked the ferryman what it was, he said, “Why, that’s a capital bird.” Hearing this, the man composed a poem:
na ni shi owaba If you are true to your name
iza koto towamu then I shall ask:
miyakodori O capital bird,
waga omou hito no is the one I love
ari ya nashi ya to alive or dead?104
Everyone in the boat burst into tears.
The Imperial Huntsman (69)
In the past there was a man. When he was dispatched to Ise Province as an imperial huntsman,105 the mother of the high priestess of the Ise Shrine106 told her daughter to treat him better than she would the usual messengers. Since these were her mother’s instructions, she took very good care of him. In the morning she saw him off on his hunting, and when he returned in the evenings she had him stay in her own lodgings. In this way, she treated him well.
On the night of the second day, the man said quite passionately that he wanted to meet her privately. The woman, too, was not ill-disposed toward their meeting. However, since there were many prying eyes, they were unable to meet. Since the man was the chief huntsman, he was lodged not far from the woman’s own sleeping quarters. At the first hour of the rat,107 when everyone had gone to sleep, she came to him. For his part, he had been unable to sleep and was lying down looking out into the night when he saw her standing there in the dim moonlight with a little girl in front of her. The man was overjoyed and led her into his chamber. She stayed until the third hour of the ox,108 but they had hardly had time to do much at all when the woman returned to her rooms. The man, deeply saddened, could not sleep. In the morning he was impatient to hear from her, but it would not have been proper for him to send her a note, and he was waiting in distress when shortly after dawn, the following poem came from the woman, with no further message:
kimi ya koshi Did you come to me?
ware wa yukiken Did I go to you?
omōezu I cannot tell.
yume ka utsutsu ka A dream, or reality?
nete ka samete ka Was I asleep, or awake?
Weeping piteously, the man composed this:
kakikurasu I have wandered
kokoro no yami ni in the darkness
madoiniki of my heart.
yume utsutsu to wa Let us decide tonight:
koyoi sadame yo dream or reality.
After sending this to her, he went out hunting. He rode through the fields but was distracted by thoughts of meeting her that night, soon after the others went to sleep. But the governor of the province, who also oversaw affairs at the shrine, had heard that an imperial huntsman was visiting. He kept the man drinking through the night, and the pair was quite unable to meet. Since he had to move on to Owari Province the next day, the man wept tears of blood,109 unbeknownst to anyone, but still they could not meet. When dawn was breaking, a poem came from the woman, written on the saucer of a cup of parting. He took it up, and read:
kachibito no Since ours is a bond
wataredo nurenu shallow as waters that do not wet
e ni shi areba the hem of a traveler’s robes …
She had written this much, leaving the poem incomplete. Using charcoal from a pine torch, he wrote the last lines on the saucer:
mata Ausaka no again I will cross
seki wa koenamu the Gate of Meeting.
At daybreak he crossed into Owari Province.
The woman served as high priestess of Ise during the reign of Emperor Seiwa. She was the daughter of Emperor Montoku and the sister of Prince Koretaka.
Nagisa-no-in (82)
In the past, there was a prince known as Prince Koretaka. He had a palace at a place called Minase, on the far side of Yamazaki. Every year when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, he went to that palace. On those occasions he always took along a person who was the director of the right imperial stables.110 It was long ago and I have forgotten his name.
Not enthusiastic about hunting, they just drank saké continuously and turned to composing poems in Japanese. The cherry blossoms at the Nagisa residence in Katano, where they often hunted, were especially beautiful. They dismounted under the trees, and breaking off blossoms to decorate themselves, everyone, of high, middle, and low rank, composed poems. The director of the stable
s composed this:
yo no naka ni If only this world
taete sakura no were without cherry blossoms
nakariseba then would our hearts
haru no kokoro wa be at ease
nodokekaramashi in springtime.
Another person composed this:
chireba koso It is because they fall soon
itodo sakura wa that the cherry blossoms
medetakere are so admired.
ukiyo ni nani ka What can stay long
hisashikarubeki in this fleeting world?
When they left the trees to return to Minase, it already was dark. The prince’s attendants came from the fields with servants bringing the saké. Seeking out a good place to drink it, they came to a place called Amanokawa.111 The director of the stables gave the prince a cup of saké. The prince said, “When you hand me the cup, compose a poem on coming to the banks of Amanokawa after hunting at Katano.” The director of the stables eomposed this and handed it to him:
karikurashi I’ve spent the day hunting
tanabata tsume ni and now will seek lodging
yado karamu from the Weaver Maid
Ama no kawara ni for I have come
ware wa kinikeri to the River of Heaven.
The prince recited this over and over but could not come up with a response. Ki no Aritsune112 was attending the prince. He responded:
hitotose ni She who waits patiently
hitotabi kimasu for a lord who comes
kimi mateba but once a year
yado kasu hito mo will not, I am sure,
araji to zo omou lodge any other113
They went back to Minase, and the prince entered his palace. They drank and conversed until deep in the night, and then the prince prepared to sleep, somewhat drunk. As the moon of the eleventh day of the month114 began to sink behind the mountains, the director of the stables composed this:
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