Traditional Japanese Literature

by Haruo Shirane

  Amida Buddha and bodhisattvas arrive on a lavender cloud to meet the dying retired empress. (A 1656 Meireki woodblock edition, by permission of Shogakukan)

  And all of this came about because the lay priest and prime minister Taira no Kiyomori, holding the entire realm within the four seas in the palm of his hand, showed no respect for the ruler above or the slightest concern for the masses of common people below. He dealt out sentences of death or exile in any fashion that suited him, took no heed of how the world or those in it might view his actions—and this is what happened! There can be no room for doubt—it was the evil deeds of the father, the patriarch, that caused the heirs and offspring to suffer this retribution!

  After some time had gone by, Kenreimon’in fell ill. Grasping the five-color cord attached to the hand of Amida Buddha, the central figure in the sacred triad, she repeatedly invoked his name: “Hail to the Thus Come One Amida, lord of teachings of the Western Paradise—may you guide me there without fail!” The nuns Dainagon-no-suke and Awa-no-naishi attended her on her left and right, their voices raised in unrestrained weeping, for they sensed in their grief that her end was now at hand. As the sound of the dying woman’s recitations grew fainter and fainter, a purple cloud appeared from the west, the room became filled with a strange fragrance, and the strains of music could be heard in the sky. Human life has its limits, and that of the imperial lady ended in the middle days of the Second Month in the second year of the Kenkyū era [1191].

  Her two female attendants, who from the time she became imperial consort had never once been parted from her, were beside themselves with grief at her passing, helpless though they were to avert it. The support on which they had depended from times past had now been snatched from them, and they were left destitute, yet even in that pitiable state they managed to hold memorial services each year on the anniversary of her death. And in due time they, too, we are told, imitating the example of the dragon king’s daughter in her attainment of enlightenment and following in the footsteps of Queen Vaidehi, fulfilled their long-cherished hopes for rebirth in the Pure Land.

  [Translated by Burton Watson]

  TRAVEL DIARIES

  From the late twelfth century through the end of the sixteenth century, legislative and judicial power gradually came to rest in the hands of the warrior class, even though the courtier class continued to exert political influence well into the Muromachi period (1392–1573). This dual-polity system, with the bakufu headquarters in Kamakura and the court capital in Kyoto, required constant travel between Kamakura and Kyoto. A system of highways, checkpoints, and inns developed to facilitate, monitor, and house the increase in traffic. There also was a renewed interest in pilgrimages to major shrines and temples. Following the lead of the itinerant poet Saigyō (1118–1190) and the ascetic Ippen (1239–1289), travel itself came to be regarded as a form of religious practice (yugyō). The growing interest in travel extended to medieval poets (peripatetic waka and renga poets) and diarists who followed the tracks of legendary poets and wrote travel diaries.

  From the early thirteenth into the fourteenth century, the production of travel literature (kikōbun) developed to an unprecedented degree. From the Jōkyū rebellion of 1221 until the early fourteenth century, a large number of Japanese literary works refer to journeys both actual and imagined. Travel appears as a literary topic in every major genre of the time, from military chronicles to anecdotes, diaries, classical poetry, linked verse, and nō drama. Among these literary travelers were a growing number of female writers. Two literary examples that exemplify this new trend are The Diary of the Sixteenth Night Moon (Izayoi nikki, 1283), a travel diary describing Nun Abutsu’s (1225–1283) trip to Kamakura, and The Confessions of Lady Nijō (Towazugatari, 1306?), which describes the author’s travels after being banished from the imperial palace.

  In the poetic maps charted by medieval poets and writers, the capital forms the central axis from which all other locations were measured. Authors who recorded their journeys viewed themselves within a history of travel poetry, which included The Tales of Ise, The Tale of Genji, and the poetry of Saigyō, which served as inspiration for their journeys. In other words, medieval travelers perceived their journeys through the double lens of their own experience and that of their predecessors whose journeys they retraced through visits to poetic sites. This tradition continued in the Muromachi period with texts like Sōgi’s Journey to Shirakawa (Shirakawa kikō, 1468).

  LADY NIJŌ

  Lady Nijō (1258–1329?) was the daughter of a mid-Kamakura-period aristocrat, the senior counselor (dainagon) Koga Masatada, who raised her as a child and to whom she was very close. Her mother, who died when Nijō was only two, was the daughter of the senior counselor Shijō Takachika. Both the Koga and the Shijō families were noted poets. Nijō (literally, Second Avenue) was the name she was given as a lady-in-waiting (nyōbō) at court. After her mother’s death, Nijō was raised in the imperial palace, at the imperial residence of the retired emperor GoFukakusa (r. 1246–1259, 1243–1304), who referred to her as “my child” (agako).

  In 1271, at the age of fourteen, Nijō became intimate with GoFukakusa, whom her mother had earlier served and apparently initiated into the ways of love. (The memoirs imply that the mother’s death wish was that Nijō be given to GoFukakusa, making Nijō a kind of surrogate for the lost lover-mother.) A year later, in 1272, Nijō’s father passed away. According to her memoirs, Nijō became romantically or sexually involved with various men while remaining GoFukakusa’s lover and bore children to at least three of the men, including GoFukakusa. Although Nijō’s position among GoFukakusa’s women remained secondary to that of his principal consort (Empress Higashi-Nijō), she apparently was given privileges, such as riding in GoFukakusa’s carriage, that were allowed only to women of the highest status.

  According to her memoirs, Nijō had a secret affair with Yuki no Akebono (Snow Dawn), or Akebono, who is thought to be Saionji Sanekane (1249–1322), a powerful politician who was close to GoFukakusa and a noted man of letters, with fifty-seven poems in the imperial waka anthology the Gyokuyōshū (1312). In 1275, at the age of eighteen, Nijō began another secret affair with a priest nicknamed Ariake no Tsuki (Dawn Moon), or Ariake. Ariake is assumed to be Shōjo (1247–1282), a prince and a Shingon priest at Ninna Temple. In 1283, after altercations with Higashi-Nijō and with GoFukakusa’s dwindling interest in her, Nijō was forced out of the imperial court, and around 1288 she took holy vows. She then traveled to the eastern provinces, the first of many journeys, some of which were directly inspired by the priest Saigyō. GoFukakusa died in 1304, and the last recorded date in Nijō’s memoirs is 1306, the third anniversary of the retired emperor’s death.

  THE CONFESSIONS OF LADY NIJŌ (TOWAZUGATARI, 1306?)

  The Confessions of Lady Nijō was discovered in 1938, but because the content would have been considered scandalous by the wartime government, it was ignored until 1950, when it was first printed. It was not until the 1960s that Confessions was considered a significant part of the history of Japanese literature, particularly as a major contribution by a woman writer. Confessions appears to have remained an unread or a secret text throughout the medieval period, and only The Clear Mirror (Masukagami, 1338–1376), a historical tale describing the history of imperial succession in the Kamakura period, alludes to it.

  Towazugatari (literally, “narrated without being asked”) consists of five books, which describe the life of the author from the age of fourteen to forty-nine. The text takes the form of a memoir of a woman of an advanced age looking back on the last thirty-five years of her life. The first three volumes (until the age of twenty-eight) focus on her love life at the imperial court: her relationships with five different men, beginning with the retired emperor GoFukakusa, Akebono, and Ariake, and her bearing children to each of them. The last two volumes, or the second half, describe her life after she becomes a nun and depict her travels throughout the country, with the text often taking the form of a travel diar
y. In these last two volumes, Nijō periodically traces the footsteps of Saigyō, the late Heian poet-priest traveler, traveling between Kyoto and Kamakura as well as going to Zenkō-ji temple, Nara, Kōchi, Itsukushima, Shikoku, and other places. She prays for the spirits of her dead children, for the deceased Ariake, for her father, and, most of all, for the spirit of GoFukakusa, who dies in volume 5. Shortly before his death, Nijō’s father tells Nijō that even if things do not go well with GoFukakusa, she must never serve two masters and that if the relationship sours, she should take holy vows and dedicate herself to her own salvation as well as that of her parents—a last testament that has a profound effect on her later life.

  At the beginning of Towazugatari, the reigning emperor is Kameyama (r. 1259–1274), and the retired emperor is GoFukakusa (r. 1246–1259). GoFukakusa (b. 1243), fifteen years older than Nijō, was the son of Emperor GoSaga (r. 1242–1246) and became emperor in 1246, at the age of four. But in 1259, he was forced by the retired emperor GoSaga to cede the throne to his younger brother Kameyama, which set off a bitter rivalry between two imperial lines. Towazugatari begins in 1271, twelve years after GoFukakusa was forced to abdicate the throne.

  At the beginning of the diary, Nijō’s father and the retired emperor GoFukakusa arrange to give Nijō, fourteen at the time, to GoFukakusa. Her father considers this an honor, but apparently his daughter is not informed of the details and is shocked when the relationship is consummated. After Nijō has been reintroduced at court, Empress Higashi-Nijō, GoFukakusa’s principal consort, becomes jealous and makes life difficult for Nijō. While serving GoFukakusa, Nijō has a secret relationship with Akebono, a politician in the service of GoFukakusa. Later, seemingly with GoFukakusa’s implicit approval, she also begins a relationship with Ariake, a priest who is assumed to be GoFukakusa’s half brother.

  Book 1 (1271)

  As the mist rose among the spring bamboo heralding the dawn of the new year, the ladies of GoFukakusa’s court,147 who had so eagerly awaited this morning, made their appearances in gorgeous costumes, each trying to surpass the others in beauty. I too took my place among them. I recall wearing a layered gown shaded from light pink to dark red, with outer gowns of deep purple and light green and a red formal jacket. My undergown was a two-layered small-sleeved brocade patterned with plum blossoms and vines, and embroidered with bamboo fences and plum trees.

  My father, a senior counselor, served today’s medicinal saké.148 After the formal ceremonies everyone was invited in, the ladies were summoned from the tray room, and a drinking party began. Earlier Father had proposed the customary three rounds of saké with three cups each time, which meant that the participants in the formal ceremonies had already had nine cups. Now he proposed the same again, but His Majesty revised the suggestion: “This time we’ll make it three rounds of nine cups each.” As a result, everyone was quite drunk when GoFukakusa passed his saké cup to my father and said, “Let ‘the wild goose of the fields’ come to me this spring.”149 Accepting this proposal with great deference, my father drank the cups of saké offered to him and retired. What did it all mean? I had seen them speaking confidentially, but I had no way of knowing what was afoot.

  After the services had ended, I returned to my room and found a letter:150 “Snowbound yesterday, today spring opens new paths to the future. I shall write you often.” With the letter was a cloth-wrapped package containing an eight-layered gown shaded from deep red to white, a deep maroon undergown, a light green outer gown, a formal jacket, pleated trousers, and two small-sleeved gowns of two and three layers. This unexpected gift upset me, and I was preparing to return it when I noticed a piece of thin paper on one of the sleeves. It contained this poem:

  Unlike the wings of love birds, our sleeves may never touch,

  yet wear this plumage that you may feel my love.

  It seemed cruel to reject a gift prepared and sent with such feeling, yet I returned it with this note:

  Were I to wear these gowns in your absence, I fear

  the sleeves would rot away from muffling my sobs.

  If only your love does not vanish.

  Late that night, while I was out on duty,151 someone came and knocked on the back door to my room. The young serving girl who rashly opened the door told me later that a messenger had thrust something inside and immediately vanished. It was the same package with another poem:

  Our hearts were pledged. If yours remains unchanged,

  spread out these gowns and sleep on them alone.

  I did not feel I could return the present a second time.

  On the third of the month, when the cloistered emperor GoSaga came to visit GoFukakusa, I wore those gowns. My father noticed them and said, “The colors and sheen are especially fine. Did you receive them from His Majesty?”

  My heart throbbed, but somehow I replied calmly, “They are from Her Highness, Lady Kitayama.”

  On the evening of the fifteenth, a messenger arrived from my father’s house in Kawasaki saying he was to escort me home.152 I was annoyed by this urgent summons, but saw no way to decline it. When I arrived at my home I could tell that something was about to happen—though I did not know what—for the furnishings were much more elaborate than usual. Folding screens, bordered mats, portable curtains, and even hanging curtains had been arranged with special care. “Is all this just for New Year’s?” I wondered as I retired for the night.

  At dawn there was much talk about what should be served and how the courtiers’ horses and the nobles’ oxen should be cared for, and even my grandmother, a nun, came and joined in the bustle. I finally asked what all the fuss was about. My father smiled at me: “His Majesty has announced that he will come here this evening because of a directional taboo, and since it’s the first of the year, we’d like everything to be exactly right.153 I summoned you expressly to serve him.”

  “But it’s not the eve of a seasonal change. What directional taboo brings him out here?”

  “What a naïve child you are,” he replied amid the general laughter. How was I to understand?

  They were setting up folding screens and small portable curtains in my bedroom. “Such preparations! Is my room going to be used too?” But my questions were met with smiles instead of answers. No one would tell me a thing.

  That evening a three-layered white gown and deep maroon pleated trousers were laid out for me to wear, and elaborate care was taken in scenting the house and placing the incense burners where they would be unnoticed. After the lamps had been lit, my stepmother brought me a gay small-sleeved gown and told me to put it on. Later my father came in, hung several gowns about the room for their decorative effect, and said to me, “Don’t fall asleep before His Majesty arrives. Serve him well. A lady-in-waiting should never be stubborn, but should do exactly as she’s told.” Without the least idea what these instructions were all about and feeling bewildered by all the commotion, I leaned against the brazier and fell asleep.

  What happened after that I am not sure. His Majesty GoFukakusa arrived without my knowing it, and there must have been great excitement when my father welcomed him and refreshments were served, but I was innocently sleeping. When GoFukakusa overheard the flustered cries of “Wake her up!” he said, “It’s all right, let her sleep,” so no one disturbed me.

  I don’t know how long I had slept leaning against the brazier just inside the sliding door, my outer gown thrown up over my head, but I suddenly awakened to find the lights dim, the curtains lowered, and inside the sliding door, right beside me, a man who had made himself comfortable and fallen fast asleep.

  “What is this?” I cried. No sooner did I get up to leave, than His Majesty wakened. Without rising he began to tell me how he had loved me ever since I was a child, how he had been waiting until now when I was fourteen, and so many other things that I have not words enough to record them all. But I was not listening; I could only weep until even his sleeves were dampened with my tears as he tried to comfort me. He did not attempt to force me, but
he said, “You have been indifferent to me for so long that I thought on this occasion perhaps … How can you continue to be so cold, especially now that everyone knows about this?”

  So that’s how it was. This was not even a secret dream, everyone knew about it, and no doubt as soon as I woke my troubles would begin. My worries were sad proof that I had not completely lost my senses at least, but I was wretched. If this was what was in store for me, why hadn’t I been told beforehand? Why didn’t he give me a chance to discuss it with my father? How could I face anyone now? I moaned and wept so much that he must have thought me very childish, but I could not help myself, for his very presence caused me pain.

  The night passed without my offering him even a single word of response. When at dawn we heard someone say, “His Majesty will be returning today, won’t he?” GoFukakusa muttered, “Now to go back pretending something happened!” and prepared to leave. “Your unexpected coldness has made me feel that the pledge I made long ago—when you still wore your hair parted in the middle—was all in vain.154 You might at least behave in a way that other people won’t find too strange. What will people think if you seclude yourself?” He tried both scolding and comforting me, but I refused to answer. “Oh, what’s the use!” he said at last; then he got up, put on his robe, and ordered his carriage. When I heard Father inquiring about His Majesty’s breakfast, I felt as though I could never face him again. I thought longingly of yesterday.

  After GoFukakusa had gone, I lay utterly still with my outer gown pulled up over my head, pretending to sleep, until the arrival of a letter from him threw me into even greater misery. To add to my wretchedness my stepmother and grandmother came in full of questions. “What’s the matter?” they asked. “Why don’t you get up?”