At dawn, while it was still dark, we departed. We found it difficult to get lodgings that night but finally asked to stay at a house on this side of the Nara slope. My attendants talked among themselves, “This seems to be a suspicious place. Don’t fall asleep at all. Something unexpected may happen. Whatever you do, do not look afraid or alarmed. Your Ladyship, please just lie here quietly.” Just hearing this, I was miserable and afraid. I felt as though it took a thousand years for dawn to break. Finally, just as it began to get light, one of my attendants said, “This is the home of thieves. The woman who is our host acted suspiciously, you know.”
On a day when the wind was blowing hard, we crossed the Uji River and rowed very close by the fish weirs.
oto ni nomi
Having only heard
kikiwatari koshi
of the sound of the waves
Uji kawa no
lapping against the
ajiro no nami mo
fish weirs of Uji River,
kyō zo kazouru
today, I can even count them.282
Since I have been writing consecutively in no particular order of events that were two, three or four years apart, it makes me look like a devout practitioner who was continually going on pilgrimages, but it was not like that; years and months separated these events.
The next section picks up the author’s life around the year 1057, more than a decade after the pilgrimages just described.
In my life, one way or another, I had expended my heart on worry. As for my court service, how might it have turned out if only I had been able to devote myself to it single-mindedly? But since I went to serve only sporadically, it seems one could not expect it to have amounted to anything. I had gradually passed my prime and couldn’t help feeling that it was unseemly for me to carry on as though I were still young. My body had become weak through illness, so I could no longer go on pilgrimages as I wanted. I had even stopped going out on rare occasions. While I hardly felt that I should live much longer, nonetheless, everyday, lying down, getting up, I was plagued with the thought, “How much I wish to live long enough in this world to see the young ones properly settled.”283 Meanwhile, I worried anxiously to hear news of a fortunate appointment for the one I relied on.284 Autumn arrived, and it seemed that what we were waiting for had come, but the appointment was not what we expected.285 It was a pity to be so disappointed. It did seem as though his post was a little closer than the eastern circuit my father had seen going to and fro on a number of occasions. Anyway, what could we do about it? We hurried with preparations for his imminent departure. He was to make his formal start a little after the tenth day of the Fifth Month from the residence to which his daughter had just moved.286 His departure was a lively affair with lots of people bustling around.
Our son accompanied him when he left for the provinces on the twenty-seventh day.287 Our son, with a sword at his side, wore purple trousers of a twill weave, with a hunting cloak of the bush clover color combination over a red robe that had been fulled to a glossy sheen. He walked behind his father, who wore dark blue trousers and a hunting coat. At the central gallery, they mounted their horses. After the lively procession had departed, I felt somehow at loose ends with nothing to do. Since I had heard that their destination was not so terribly far,288 I did not feel quite as bereft as I had on previous occasions. Those who had gone along to see the party off came back the next day and said, “They departed in great splendor.” And when they said, “This morning at dawn, a really large soul fire appeared and came toward the capital,”289 I thought surely it must be from one of his attendants. Did an inkling of this being a bad omen come to me?
Now all I could think about was how to raise the young children into adults. My husband came back to the capital in the Fourth Month;290 summer and autumn passed.
On the twenty-fifth day of the Ninth Month, my husband fell ill; on the fifth day of the Tenth Month, he died.291 I felt as though it was a bad dream; I could not imagine something like this happening. The image that had been seen in the mirror offered to Hatsuse Temple292 of a figure collapsed on the ground weeping; this was me now. The image of the joyous figure had never happened. Now, there was no hope of its ever happening. On the twenty-third day, the night when the evanescent clouds of smoke were to be kindled, the one whom I had watched go off with his father in such a magnificent costume now wore mourning white over a black robe and accompanied the funeral carriage crying and sobbing as he walked away. Seeing him off, remembering the other time—I had never felt like this before. I grieved as though lost in a dream; I wondered if my departed one could see me.
Long ago, rather than being infatuated with all those useless tales and poems, if I had only devoted myself to religious practice day and night, I wonder, would I have been spared seeing this nightmarish fate? The time that I went to Hatsuse Temple when someone in a dream threw something to me saying, “This is a sacred branch bestowed by the Inari Shrine,” if I had just gone right then and there on a pilgrimage to Inari, maybe this would not have happened. The dreams that I had had over the years in which I had been told, “Worship the god Amaterasu” had been divined as meaning that I should become a nurse to an imperial child, serving in the palace and receiving the protection of the imperial consort.293 But nothing like that had ever come to be. Only the sad image in the mirror had been fulfilled. Pitifully, I grieved. Since I had ended up as one without one thing going as I had wished, I drifted along without doing anything to accumulate merit.
Yet somehow it seemed that although life was sad, it would go on. I worried that perhaps even my hopes for the afterlife might not be granted. There was only one thing I could put my faith in. It was a dream I had had on the thirteenth day of the Tenth Month in the third year of Tenki.294 Amida Buddha appeared in the front garden of the house where I lived. He was not clearly visible but appeared through what seemed like a curtain of mist. When I strained to look through gaps in the mist, I could see a lotus dais about three to four feet above the ground; the holy Buddha was about six feet in height. He glowed with a golden light, and as for his hands, one was spread open, and with the other he was making a mudra.295 Other people could not see him; only I could see him. Unaccountably, I experienced a great sense of fear and was unable to move closer to the bamboo blinds to see. The Buddha deigned to speak, “If this is how it is, I will go back this time, but later I will return to welcome you.” Only my ears could hear his voice, the others could not. Such was the dream I saw when I woke up with a start. It was the fourteenth. Only this dream is my hope for the afterlife.
My nephews, whom I had seen morning and evening when we lived in the same place, had gone off to live in different places after this sad event had occurred, so I rarely saw anyone. On a very dark night, the sixth youngest nephew296 came for a visit; feeling this was unusual,
tsuki mo idede
Not even the moon
yami ni kuretaru
has come out in the dark shrouding
obasute ni
Abandoned Aunt, to which,
nani tote koyoi
with what on your mind this night,
tazune kitsuramu
might you have come visiting?297
was what came spontaneously to my lips.
And to a friend with whom I had corresponded warmly before, but from whom I had not heard since I had come to this pass,
ima wa yo ni
Is it that you think
araji mono to ya
I am one no longer living
omouramu
in this world of ours?
aware naku naku
Sadly I cry and cry,
nao koso wa fure
yet I do indeed live on.
At the time of the Tenth Month, crying as I gazed out at the exceeding brightness of the full moon,
hima mo naki
Even to a heart
namida ni kumoru
clouded by tears that fall
kokoro ni mo
with no respite,
akashi to miyuru
the light pouring from the moon
tsuki no kage kana
can appear so radiant.
The years and months change and pass by, but when I recall that dreamlike time, my mind wanders, and it is as though my eyes grow dark so that I cannot recall clearly the events of that time.
Everyone has moved to live elsewhere; only I am left at the old house. One time when I stayed up all night in gloomy contemplation feeling so bereft and sad, I sent this to someone I had not heard from for a long time.
shigeri yuku
The mugwort grows more
yomogi ga tsuyu ni
and more rank, the dew on it
sobachitsutsu
soaks through and through;
hito ni towarenu
not visited by anyone,
ne o nomi zo naku
my voice is only raised in sobs.
She was a nun and so replied,
yo no tsune no
Ah, yours is mugwort
yado no yomogi no
growing at an ordinary
omoiyare
dwelling in the world,
somuki hatetaru
imagine the clumps of weeds
niwa no kusa mura
in my garden of renunciation.
[Introduction by Itō Moriyuki and translation by Sonja Arntzen]
HEIAN LITERATI
In the Heian period, the ability to compose Chinese poetry and prose was a requirement for male officials. An earlier ideal (of which Sugawara no Michizane was perhaps the last major example) existed in which a person with literary ability was valued and rewarded in the world of bureaucracy and the court. This ideal was based on the belief that the ability to excel in belles lettres was linked to the ability to excel in government. But beginning in the tenth century with the dominance of the Fujiwara regency, this ideal existed only in name, and those officials who excelled in Chinese learning and belles lettres were not given an opportunity to rise in the bureaucracy or to be publicly rewarded for their talents. These men of letters, referred to here as literati (bunjin), tended to look at the sociopolitical hierarchy from the outside, with a critical eye. Among the literati leaders were Ōe no Asatsuna (886–957), Minamoto no Shitagō (911–983), Yoshishige no Yasutane (d. 1002), and Fujiwara no Akihira (989–1066), who appear in Literary Essence of Our Country (Honchō monzui).
LITERARY ESSENCE OF OUR COUNTRY (HONCHŌ MONZUI, MID-ELEVENTH CENTURY)
The Literary Essence of Our Country is an anthology of Chinese prose and poetry by Japanese writers. It was edited by Fujiwara no Akihira (989–1066), a noted literatus and the author of An Account of the New Monkey Music (Shinsarugakuki) and Akihira Letters (Meigō ōrai). Following the model of the noted Chinese literary anthology the Wen xuan (J. Monzen), the Honchō monzui is a collection of texts written in Chinese over a two-hundred-year span, from 810 to 1037, divided into various genres and categories.
YOSHISHIGE NO YASUTANE
Yoshishige no Yasutane was born into the Kamo family, which specialized in yin-yang, but he pursued Confucian studies and became a low-ranking official. Yasutane also was a key figure in forming the Kangaku-e, a group devoted to the study of Buddhism. When he came into contact with Genshin, the author of Ōjōyōshū, he was exposed to Jōdo (Pure Land) Buddhism and finally took holy vows in 986. (Yasutane’s Buddhist name is Jakushin.) Yasutane is representative of mid-Heian literati who, becoming disillusioned with the low position of the literati in the aristocratic sociopolitical hierarchy, turned to the alternative of reclusion and Pure Land Buddhism.
RECORD OF A POND PAVILION (CHITEIKI, 982)
“Record of a Pond Pavilion,” written in couplet-based, parallel-prose kanbun and one of the most famous texts in the Honchō monzui, anticipates Kamo no Chōmei’s An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut (Hōjōki) by two centuries.
… So, after five decades in the world, I’ve at last managed to acquire a little house, like a snail at peace in his shell, like a louse happy in the seam of a garment. The quail nests in the small branches and does not yearn for the great forest of Teng; the frog lives in his crooked well and knows nothing of the vastness of the sweeping seas. Though as master of the house I hold office at the foot of the pillar, in my heart it’s as though I dwelt among the mountains.298 Position and title I leave up to fate, for the workings of Heaven govern all things alike. Heaven and earth will decide if I live a long life or a short one—like Confucius, I’ve been praying for a long time now.299 I do not envy the man who soars like a phoenix on the wind, nor the man who hides like a leopard in the mists. I have no wish to bend my knee and crook my back in efforts to win favor with great lords and high officials, but neither do I wish to shun the words and faces of others and bury myself in some remote mountain or dark valley. During such time as I am at court, I apply myself to the business of the sovereign; once home, my thoughts turn always to the service of the Buddha. When I go abroad I don my grass-green official robe, and though my post is a minor one, I enjoy a certain measure of honor. At home I wear white hemp undergarments, warmer than spring, purer than the snow. After washing my hands and rinsing my mouth, I ascend the western hall, call on the Buddha Amida, and recite the Lotus Sutra. When my supper is done, I enter the eastern library, open my books, and find myself in the company of worthy men of the past, those such as Emperor Wen of the Han, a ruler of another era, who loved frugal ways and gave rest to his people; Bo Juyi of the Tang, a teacher of another time, who excelled in poetry and served the Buddhist Law; or the Seven Sages of the Chin, friends of another age, who lived at court but longed for the life of retirement.300 So I meet with a worthy ruler, I meet with a worthy teacher, and I meet with worthy friends, three meetings in one day, three delights to last a lifetime. As for the people and affairs of the contemporary world, they hold no attraction for me. If in becoming a teacher one thinks only of wealth and honor and is not concerned with the importance of literature, it would be better if we had no teachers. If in being a friend one thinks only of power and profit and cares nothing about frank exchange of opinions, it would be better if we had no friends. So I close my gate, shut my door, and hum poems and songs by myself. When I feel the desire for something more, I and my boys climb into the little boat, thump the gunwale and rattle the oars. If I have some free time left over, I call the groom and we go out to the vegetable garden to pour on water and spread manure. I love my house—other things I know nothing about.
Since the Ōwa era [961–964], people of the time have taken a fancy to building luxurious mansions and high-roofed halls, even going so far as to have the tops of the pillars carved in the shape of mountains and duckweed designs incised on the supports of the roof beam.301 But though the expenditure runs into many millions in cash, they manage to live there barely two or three years. People in old times used to say, “The builder doesn’t get to live in what he builds”—how right they were. Now that I am well along in years, I’ve finally managed to construct a little house, but when I consider it in light of my actual needs, even it seems somewhat too extravagant and grand. Above, I fear the anger of Heaven; below, I am ashamed in the eyes of men. I’m like a traveler who’s found an inn along the road, an old silkworm who’s made himself a solitary cocoon. How long will I be able to live here?
Ah, when the wise man builds a house, he causes no expense to the people, no trouble to the spirits. He uses benevolence and righteousness for his ridgepole and beam, ritual and law for his pillar and base stone, truth and virtue for a gate and door, mercy and love for a wall and hedge. Devotion to frugality is his family business, the piling up of goodness his family fortune. When one has such a house to live in, no fire can consume it, no wind topple it, no misfortune appear to threaten it, no disaster come its way. No god or spirit can peer within it, no thief or bandit can invade. The family who lives there will naturally grow rich, the master will enjoy a long life, and office and rank will be with it forever, to be
handed down to sons and grandsons. How can one fail, then, to exercise caution?
Composed and written in the hand of the master of the house, Yasutane, in the Tenth Month, the first month of winter, of the fifth year of Tengen (982).
[Translated by Burton Watson]
LATE HEIAN AND EARLY KAMAKURA MONOGATARI
The stories in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods are marked by their parodic and allusive nature, which makes them different from other short-story forms such as the sections (dan) found in poem tales like The Tales of Ise or the anecdotes. The contemporary aristocratic readers and writers of these monogatari shared their knowledge of earlier monogatari and their conventions, which become the source of variation, parody, and allusion. Significantly, The Tale of Genji was repeatedly mimicked and parodied, creating seemingly endless variations on this masterpiece. A noted characteristic of late Heian and early Kamakura monogatari is that at a time when the aristocracy was rapidly losing economic power and social status, the beleaguered aristocracy looked back to the Heian-court monogatari (and to a world that had become more ideal than reality) with detachment and irony as well as as a form of escape and fantasy.
Traditional Japanese Literature Page 34