Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  The city lies in a basin surrounded on three sides by mountains. This makes it miserably hot in summer, which is why the empress was wearing “a nearly transparent gown” when the hermit first glimpsed her in no. 125. Ladies often dressed that lightly in summer, at least in private. To the northwest rises Mount Atago, where another hermit had his false vision (no. 121); to the north stretches a range where a man met a mountain god in the form of a white dog (no. 129); and to the northeast towers Mount Hiei, where all sorts of curious things went on (nos. 33, 34, and others).

  About thirty miles south of Kyoto is Nara, which became Japan’s first “permanent” capital in 710. (Before then the imperial residence had moved every time an emperor died.) Nara appears often in these tales because the eighth century was such a crucial period in the development of Japanese civilization, and because the religious institutions founded there remained important later on. Tōdaiji, no doubt the single most famous Buddhist temple in Japan and a must for every tourist, appears in nos. 23, 24, and 25; while the great Shinto shrine of Kasuga (nos. 31, 45) still preserves the music and dance tradition honored by hell itself in no. 46.

  The rest of Japan consisted of sixty-six provinces, whose names and boundaries were different from those of the modern Japanese prefectures. Those mentioned most often are the ones closest to the Capital, like Ōmi around the southern end of Lake Biwa; Yamato, where Nara is located; and Harima, which included the site of modern Kobe. For a courtier, the ends of the earth were represented by the nine provinces of Kyushu, such as Hizen, where Nagasaki eventually grew up; and Mutsu and Dewa in the far north of Honshu. Of the stories that take place in these more remote regions, many involve visitors from the Capital or persons bound for the Capital.

  EMPERORS, MINISTERS, OFFICIALS, SERVANTS

  The great nobles of this court-centered world, men whose birth destined them for the top ranks and posts in the government, figure prominently in the tales. Naturally the emperor had a special aura, even for the members of the nobility; but it is touching to glimpse (nos. 32, 67) how impressive even a provincial governor could look in his own province.

  Provincial governors were appointed and sent out from the Capital, although sometimes (no. 8) they stayed in the Capital and had their provinces run by subordinates on location. Dazzling in the hinterland, at court they impressed no one because they came too low in the official hierarchy. A special provincial post, however, was that of viceroy of Kyushu. The viceroy was normally of considerable rank, but no one coveted his office since Kyushu was so far away. In fact, appointment as viceroy of Kyushu could amount to exile. Fujiwara no Yamakage (no. 105) seems not to have minded too much, but Sugawara no Michizane’s appointment as viceroy of Kyushu meant his downfall and led to his becoming a vengeful god (nos. 101, 103).

  The emperor was of course supposed to rule Japan, and these stories assume that he really did. But it is remarkable how often, in Japanese history, real power has been held not by the figure with the great title, but by someone who is officially his subordinate. The great shogun who unified Japan in 1600 after a century of war legitimized his power with the fiction that he was ruling for the emperor at the emperor’s request. History provides many other such examples. No doubt it is natural that effective power should have passed from office to office, from clan to clan, and even from class to class over time. What is more surprising is that the emperor should never have been deposed, and should always have remained the ultimate source of legitimate political authority.

  In the time of these stories, real power had been captured by the Fujiwara clan, headed by a regent whose position was hereditary in one Fujiwara line. The Fujiwara were wealthier than the imperial family, and their “private” house administration rivaled the “public” (imperial) government nominally headed by the emperor, especially since so many of the top posts in the “public” government were inevitably held by the top Fujiwaras. Since most of the great lords belonged to the Fujiwara clan, this book is full of Fujiwaras great and small. Tadazane has already been mentioned, but the ultimate Fujiwara potentate was the Regent Michinaga (966–1027), whose little dog saves him from hostile magic in no. 63. Of the rest, most bore the surname Minamoto. Tōru (nos. 190, 191) was an illustrious Minamoto.

  The regent’s standing illustrates this state of affairs perfectly, for although there was no slot at all for a regent in the government’s official table of organization, he outranked every other official at court even if he held no other office. Normally his daughter was the emperor’s wife (no. 125), and therefore the mother of the next emperor. (No woman was allowed to succeed to the throne between 770 and 1630.) Michinaga had three emperors as his sons-in-law and four as his grandsons.

  Under these circumstances emperors were often children, or at least very young, and usually abdicated early. A retired emperor enjoyed a good deal more freedom than a reigning one. Retired Emperor Kazan (no. 39), forced to abdicate by the Fujiwara, ended up leading a life of Buddhist practice. As a reigning emperor he could never have left Kyoto on pilgrimage to see a holy man, as he does in the story. Retired emperors could even wield real influence. In the twelfth century they came to compete with the regents for power at court, leaving the reigning emperor, as usual, to play a largely ceremonial role.

  The highest formal post in the government was that of chancellor, the senior minister of state. Anyone weeping with joy to see an ox eat a handful of grass would be bound to raise a smile, but he is particularly amusing when he is a chancellor (no. 197). Below the chancellor came the Minister of the Left, then the Minister of the Right. Minamoto no Makoto, visited by angels in no. 44, was a Minister of the Left; while the “Sage Minister” of the Right, Fujiwara no Sanesuke, appears in no. 53 and elsewhere.

  In theory the chancellor was to be a man of outstanding character who could serve as an example for the emperor and the officials. The office was not supposed to be filled unless a suitably superior candidate was available. In fact the chancellor’s appointment depended largely on his standing in the Fujiwara clan. In any case, since the office carried little real power, eligible candidates often declined the honor — one reason why the post was often vacant. The Minister of the Left had far more genuine authority since he was the legal head of the government, and responsible for the working of the Council of State (no. 11). The Minister of the Right could substitute for him as needed, and did so as a matter of course when the Minister of the Left served concurrently as regent.

  Below the ministers were three grades of counselors. (Major Counselor Yasumichi and his fox-infested mansion appear in no. 80.) The two top grades belonged, like the ministers, to the Council of State. Among the many other, lower offices were those of controller (no. 11) and chamberlain. The controllers (there were between six and nine of them) supervised essential administrative activities which linked the Council of State with the central and provincial bureaucracies. Chamberlains were generally younger and of much lower rank than the officials just described, but their office was unusually glamorous because at least some of them, being private secretaries to the emperor, had frequent access to him. One chamberlain is the victim of a naughty joke in no. 7, and another has a strange dream in no. 56.

  Several stories concern members of the Palace Guards and the Imperial Police. Both were needed. Security in the Capital was doubtful, especially at night, even without the parades of demons that people occasionally met in the dark, deserted streets (see below). Robberies were not uncommon, and passersby could be murdered under the very walls of the palace compound. It is probably only since the seventeenth century that Kyoto has been as safe as it and other Japanese cities are now.

  The Palace Guards consisted of Gate Guards, Military Guards, and Inner Guards, each divided into Left and Right contingents. All six contingents besiege a mansion in no. 8, but only the Inner Guards come to grief. Since the Inner Guards served physically closer to the emperor and were therefore grander than the others, their undoing in no. 8 is all the funnier. The lea
ding officers of the guards were captains of various grades, like the gallant young man of no. 78. In fact the post of senior captain of the Inner Guards (either contingent would do, but Left was preferable since it meant higher prestige) was one of the most desirable of all for a very high-born young man (no. 168).

  The Imperial Police had their headquarters just outside the palace compound. Their chief (no. 102) was normally a counselor and had direct access to the emperor. They could be brave (no. 79) and they could be rough. For their dirty work they routinely used freed convicts like the ones in no. 173 who force a poor young man to carry a strangely heavy corpse.

  Below all these came the humble people who made up the bulk of the Capital’s population. When they appear in these stories they are nameless. The men seem usually to be saburai, or capable of being saburai if only they could find a job. The heroes of nos. 74 and 174 are that sort of person. The word meant “servant,” someone who served a nobleman in any one of many capacities. It comes from the same verb as the familiar samurai, or “warrior,” but in those days its meaning was less specialized. The assumption that a young man of humble station was or should be a saburai illustrates the overwhelming importance of the aristocracy in the life of the Capital.

  HOUSES

  Emperor or commoner, people lived in single-story houses where they sat and slept on the floor, as many Japanese still do. “Bed” in this book refers only to a sleeping-place, not to a piece of furniture or to any other structure. Covers were often just a layer of robes. Tatami, the thick straw flooring for which “traditional” Japanese houses are now famous, had not yet been invented. Floors were polished boards spread with straw mats. Having no permanent outside wall, rooms had no windows and generally no outside door. Interior doors were sliding panels.

  The boundary between outside and inside was a sort of continuous shelf a few feet wide which ran all around the house. “Veranda” is the word for it in these stories, although it was not really a veranda at all. The outside rooms opened onto this shelf. A gentleman might sit on the veranda to talk with a lady inside, the two often being separated by a hanging blind. In one episode (no. 213), a holy monk steps straight out of the empress’s room onto the veranda and does something quite disgusting.

  The rooms along the veranda could be closed off by latticework shutters, which were backed by boards and divided horizontally into upper and lower panels. When both panels were in place the room was supposed to be secure from sun, wind, rain, and prying eyes. However, the upper panel could swing up and outward, horizontally, leaving the room open. In no. 44 a gentleman finds three little angels dancing on an open shutter panel.

  The elaborate mansions of the great lords were composed of separate pavilions (sometimes referred to as “wings”) linked by covered, open-sided galleries. There was a large garden around them, and a pond in front with an island in it. No. 139 gives an idealized description of such a garden. The mansion faced south. On its east and west sides it had an entrance, and just inside each entrance a “middle gate” which gave access to the corresponding “wing” of the mansion proper. In no. 71 a devoted monk sits by a middle gate of the chancellor’s mansion to pray for the chancellor’s recovery.

  MEN, WOMEN, AND MANNERS

  You would not guess from these stories that a court lady of Michinaga’s time wrote one of the world’s greatest novels, though the Jijū of no. 57 does seem capable of practically any stroke of genius. Women played a major role in cultural life, but their presence here is subdued. In fact, the book contains not a single woman’s name. “Jijū” and the other seeming names are actually nicknames. Women did not use their personal names in public. Two woman writers of the age are known only as “Michitsuna’s mother” and “Takasue’s daughter.” “Mitsutō’s sister” is another example. Although no. 68 is really about her, not her brother, the story names and describes her brother before ever mentioning her, and never names her at all.

  Proper women stayed hidden, physically as well as figuratively, though peasant women must have been too active to imitate them. Not that women never went outside. But among the aristocracy, a gentleman seldom saw a lady’s face plainly in broad daylight. There was usually a curtain between them, and even when they were in bed together it was dark or at best dim.

  This is obvious in no. 177. When the young monk, newly arrived in the lady’s house, hears rustling in a room nearby, he knows right away what is going on: curtains on a portable frame are being moved in so that the lady can talk to him from behind them. He will not actually see her. This movable, curtained enclosure, forming a tiny room inside a room, plays a role in several stories (nos. 58, 73, 125).

  The monk does not see the lady until he takes a walk outside and spots a hole in one of the shutters that enclose her room for the night. (The literature of the time is full of men peering through such cracks and holes.) Naturally he falls in love. Later on, when she allows him into her room knowing that he will be joining her in bed, she still has a cushion laid for him outside her curtains. The only light in the room is from a dim lamp behind a screen. No doubt the lamp is out and her maids all asleep when he finally lies down beside her. She never sits simply talking with him face to face.

  Courting men were like bees visiting shy flowers, and courtship took place largely in the dark. Heichū (no. 57) has never seen the lady he is so desperate to make love to, and when he finally gets into her room it is naturally pitch dark. He can only assume that the woman lying there is the one he is courting; in fact, he must check whether she is a woman at all by feeling over her face and her long, cool hair.

  Both men and women seem to have wept freely and often in response to emotion. Courtship always involved tears. When you wept you dried your eyes with your sleeves, and if your grief was deep enough your sleeves got pretty wet. A man with conspicuously dry sleeves might appear insincere. Heichū (no. 56) knew this so well that he took a little bottle of water with him when he went courting, to dampen himself as needed.

  The transition from lover to husband was a passage from darkness and secrecy to daylight and public recognition. No. 220 summarizes this process. The bridegroom spends two nights with the bride, leaving while it is still dark. On the third night he stays in bed with her on into the morning, for her parents and household, and in fact for her, to see. Was there nothing else to getting married in those days? Of course there was, but this, together with some discreet rituals, was the gist of the “wedding.” Moreover, aristocratic husbands, who might have lesser wives and concubines as well as a principal wife, did not normally live with their wives but only visited them. The wife in no. 54 lives with her parents in a great lord’s mansion, and her husband just spends the night with her. The emperor did not live with his principal consort either (no. 125). In this sense, more modest people lived what seem more normal lives. The husband and wife of no. 130 obviously live together; and the husband of no. 134 is afraid of his wife in a manner recognizable the world over.

  Only women used the portable curtains just described, but in formal circumstances high-ranking men too might speak from behind blinds. The governor in no. 8 does just this when he finally admits his victims to his mansion. The emperor normally spoke or watched from behind blinds. Being made of thin bamboo or rush strips, blinds were more or less transparent to someone in a dim space looking out at a bright scene. Often rooms were screened from the outside only by blinds, like the residence of the Dragon King in no. 183.

  The tendency to avoid face-to-face contact also encouraged conversations conducted not directly but through servants. It was beneath a lord or lady’s dignity to speak directly to a humble person, even through a curtain or blind, and a servant would carry messages back and forth instead. Approximate equals would likewise become acquainted through letters and messages carried by intermediaries. This was possible because people had so many servants.

  It is difficult for us now to imagine a life so peopled by servants of all degrees. In no. 133 a man goes back to see the wife
he left many years ago. It saddens him to find the house falling to ruin, but his wife’s plight and the force of his own cruelty only sink in when he discovers that she has been too poor to keep a single servant. Even the starving young man of no. 172 has a servant to open the door for him. The poor woman in no. 175, abandoned by her husband, is reduced to living “a sad life in her poor, dreary house, alone but for a pair of maids.” Better-off people had servants and “retainers” of all sorts.

  As a result, a man’s “household” was much larger than what we would call his “family,” and whatever happened to him affected this larger group. The fox-girl of no. 82 takes the randy hero home to a beautiful house bustling with servants who welcome her effusively. In fact, to evoke a fine, prosperous residence, it was not enough to praise the size or luxury of the building. The place had also to be “bustling,” which meant that it had lots of servants and visitors. If it was not “bustling,” it looked forlorn and gave the impression that the occupant, whatever his or her means, had little real standing in the world.

  With so many servants, people were seldom, if ever, alone in our sense of the word. A lady like the one in no. 177 may have slept within her curtains, but several maids slept in the same room. Someone was always within earshot, if not within sight. The writers of the time did not insist on this since it was obvious to them and their readers, and since in any case servants did not really “count” in relation to their masters; but we need to be reminded. No one of the slightest standing went anywhere entirely alone. Even the wanderer of no. 127 has a servant with him on his travels, and so does the threadbare monk of no. 155.