The Tale of Genji: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Junichiro Breakdown of Genji)

by Murasaki Shikibu

  Playing backgammon

  Genji's horses were then led to a spot nearby and fed un-threshed rice from a structure, visible some way off, vaguely resembling a granary. His fascinated friend sang a bit of “Asukai,”82 and they talked on amid tears and laughter about the life they had been leading. “His Excellency finds your little boy's utter innocence so sad that he sighs about it day and night,” he said, and Genji was overcome. To repeat their whole conversation or even a part of it would be impossible. They spent the night not sleeping but making Chinese poems. Still, the Captain was sensitive to rumor after all, and he made haste to leave, which only added to Genji's pain. Wine cup in hand, they sang together, “Tears of drunken sorrow fill the wine cup of spring.”83 Their companions wept. Each seemed saddened by so brief a reunion.

  In the first light of dawn a line of geese crossed the sky. Genji said,

  “O when will I go, in what spring, to look upon the place I was born?

  What envy consumes me now, watching the geese flying home!”84

  The Captain still had no wish to go.

  “With lasting regret the wild goose knows he must leave his eternal home,

  although he may lose the way to the City of blossoms.”85

  The presents he had brought Genji from the City were superb. When they parted, Genji gave him a black horse in thanks. “This may be an awkward gift,”86 he said, “but you see, he neighs whenever the wind blows.”87 The horse was a very good one.

  “Keep this to remember me by,” his visitor said, and he gave him among other things a fine flute of considerable renown, although that was all, for they exchanged nothing that might stir criticism.88 By and by the sun rose, and Genji's friend set out in haste, with many a backward glance. Genji only looked sadder than before as he watched him go.

  “When will I see you again?” his friend asked. “Surely this is not to be your fate forever.”

  “You who soar aloft so very close to the clouds, O high-flying crane,

  look down on me from the sky, blameless as the sun in spring,”89

  Genji replied. “Yes, I keep up hope, but men like me, even the wisest in the past, have never really managed to rejoin the world, and I remain doubtful; in truth, I have little ambition to see the City again.”

  “Forlorn in the clouds, I lift in my solitude cries of loneliness,

  longing for that old, old friend I once flew with wing to wing,”

  the Captain answered. “I now so often regret, after all, having enjoyed the undeserved privilege of your friendship!” His departure was not easy, and it left Genji blank with sorrow the rest of the day.

  On the day of the Serpent that fell on the first of the third month, an officious companion observed, “My lord, this is the day for someone with troubles like yours to seek purification”; so Genji did, since he also wanted a look at the sea. After having a space roughly curtained off, he summoned the yin-yang master who came regularly to the province, and had him begin the ritual. He felt a sense of kinship as he watched a large doll being put into a boat and sent floating away:90

  “I, sent running down to the vastness of a sea I had never known,

  as a doll runs, can but know an overwhelming sorrow.”91

  Seated there in the brilliance of the day, he displayed a beauty beyond words.

  The ocean stretched unruffled into the distance, and his thoughts wandered over what had been and what might be.

  “Myriads of gods must feel pity in their hearts when they look on me:

  there is nothing I have done anyone could call a crime,”

  he said. Suddenly the wind began to blow, and the sky darkened. The purification broke off in the ensuing confusion. Such a downpour followed that in the commotion the departing gentlemen could not even put up their umbrellas. Without warning a howling gale sent everything flying. Mighty waves rose up, to the terror of them all. The sea gleamed like a silken quilt beneath the play of lightning, and thunder crashed. They barely managed to struggle back, feeling as though a bolt might strike them at any moment.

  “I have never seen anything like this!”

  “A storm gives warning before it starts to blow! This is terrible and strange!”

  Through their exclamations the thunder roared on, and the rain drove down hard enough to pierce what it struck. While they wondered in dismay whether the world was coming to an end, Genji calmly chanted a scripture. At dark the thunder fell silent for a time, but the wind blew on through the night.

  “All those prayers of mine must be working.”

  “The waves would have drowned us if that had gone on any longer!”

  “I have heard of people being lost to what they call a tidal wave, but never of a storm like this!”

  Toward dawn they finally rested. When Genji, too, briefly dropped off to sleep, a being he did not recognize came to him, saying, “You have been summoned to the palace. Why do you not come?” He woke up and understood that the Dragon King of the sea, a great lover of beauty, must have his eye on him.92 So eerie a menace made the place where he was now living intolerable.

  13

  AKASHI

  Akashi

  Akashi, like Suma, is a stretch of shore backed by hills. It was then in Harima Province, while Suma, only five miles to the east, was in Settsu. The border between them divided Harima from the “home provinces” that were at least nominally under direct imperial rule.

  RELATIONSHIP TO EARLIER CHAPTERS

  “Akashi” continues “Suma” without a break. It begins in the third month, when Genji is twenty-seven.

  PERSONS

  Genji, first stripped of rank, then promoted to Acting Grand Counselor, age 27 to 28

  A retainer from Nijō

  Genji's lady at Nijō, 19 to 20 (Murasaki)

  His Late Eminence, Genji's father, after his death (Kiritsubo In)

  The Akashi Novice, around 60 to 61 (Akashi no Nyūdō)

  Yoshikiyo, the Minamoto Junior Counselor, Genji's retainer

  The daughter of the Akashi Novice, 18 to 19 (Akashi no Kimi)

  Her mother, early 50s (Akashi no Amagimi)

  His Majesty, the Emperor, 29 to 30 (Suzaku)

  The Empress Mother (Kokiden)

  The Chancellor, her father, formerly Minister of the Right (dies) (Udaijin)

  The Heir Apparent, 9 to 10 (Reizei)

  Her Cloistered Eminence, Fujitsubo, 32 to 33

  The Gosechi Dancer

  The lady of the village of falling flowers (Hanachirusato)

  It rained and thundered for days on end. Genji's miseries multiplied endlessly until his unhappy history and prospects made it too hard for him to be brave, and he wondered in despair, What am I to do? I will be more of a laughingstock than ever if this weather drives me back to the City before I have my pardon. No, let me rather disappear far into the mountains—although if they then start saying I could not take a little wind and a few waves, future generations will know me only as a fool.

  The same being kept haunting his dreams. Day followed day without a break in the clouds, and he worried more and more about the City, meanwhile fearing miserably that he himself might well be lost; but no one came to find him, for the weather was too fierce to put one's head outdoors.

  Someone from Nijō struggled through, though, barely recognizable and soaking wet. Genji's rush of warm feeling for the man, whom he might have swept from his path if he had met him on the road, wondering whether he was really human, struck even him as demeaning and brought home to him how low his spirits had sunk.

  She had written, “There is never a lull in this terrifying storm, and the very heavens seem sealed against me, for I cannot even gaze off toward where you are.

  How the wind must blow, where you are, across the shore, when the thought of you

  sends such never-ending waves to break on my moistened sleeves.”

  Her letter was full of sadly distressing matters. Darkness seemed to engulf him as soon as he opened it, and the floodwaters threatened
to overflow their banks.

  “The City, too, takes this wind and rain for a dire, supernatural warning,” the man said haltingly, “and I gather that there is to be a Rite of the Benevolent King.1 For senior nobles on their way to the palace the streets are all impassable, and government has come to a halt.” His none too clear account disturbed Genji, who summoned him and had him questioned further.

  “It is strange and frightening enough that for days now there has been no letup in the rain, and that the wind has kept blowing a gale,” the man said, “but we have not had hail like this, such as to pierce the earth, or this incessant thunder.” His face as he sat there betrayed sheer terror, and their gloom only deepened.

  At dawn the next day Genji wondered whether the world was coming to an end; a mighty tempest howled, the tide surged in, and it seemed amid the waves' furious roar as though neither rocks nor hills would be spared. Thunder boomed, lightning flashed with such awesome violence that they feared a strike at any time, and none of them remained calm. “What have I done to deserve such a fate?” they groaned. “To think I must die without ever seeing my father or mother, without setting eyes on my dear wife and children!”

  With his companions in such panic Genji collected himself. Despite his conviction that no misdeed of his required him to end his life on this shore, he had many-colored streamers2 offered to the gods and made plentiful vows, praying as he did so, “O God of Sumiyoshi,3 your dominion embraces all these lands nearby. If you are a god truly present here below, I beg you, lend me your aid!”

  His companions forgot their own troubles to grieve bitterly that such a gentleman should face so unexampled a doom. Those still somewhat in possession of their senses roused their courage and called out to the buddhas and gods that they would give their lives to save their lord's. “Reared in the fastness of our Sovereign's palace and indulged with every pleasure, he has nonetheless extended his profound compassion throughout our Land of Eight Isles,4 and he has raised up many who were foundering! For what crime is this prodigy of wind and wave now to swallow him? O Heaven and Earth, discern where justice lies! Unjustly accused, stripped of rank and office, torn from his home to wander afar and to lament his lot dawn and dusk beneath cheerless skies, does he meet this dire fate and now face his end to atone for lives past or for crimes in this one? O gods, O buddhas, if you are wise, we beg you to grant this our anguished prayer!”

  Genji turned toward the shrine5 and made many vows. He had vows made also to the Dragon King of the sea and to countless other divinities, whereupon the heavens redoubled their thunder and a bolt struck a gallery off his own rooms. Flames leaped up and the gallery burned. Everyone was struck witless with terror. They moved him to a structure in the back, one that he took to be the kitchen, where they all huddled, high and low together, weeping and crying out to rival the thunder. The day ended beneath a sky as black as well-ground ink.

  At last the wind fell, the rain let up, and stars appeared. Mortified to see Genji so strangely lodged, they considered moving him back to the main house. “The remains of the fire are horribly ugly, there are all sorts of people still tramping aimlessly about, and besides, all the blinds have been blown away,” one objected; and another, “We should wait until morning.”

  While they wavered, Genji pondered what had happened and meanwhile called in great agitation on the buddhas. The moon came out, and the high-tide mark showed just how close the tide had come. He opened his brushwood door and contemplated the still-violently lunging and receding surf. In all the surrounding region there was no one wise, no one familiar with past and future and able to make sense of these things.

  The humble seafolk now gathered where the gentleman lived, and despite the strangeness of the jargon they spoke among themselves, one he found impenetrable, no one drove them away. “If the wind had gone on much longer, the tide would have swallowed up everything,” they were saying. “The gods were kind.”

  “Despair” is a pale word for the listening Genji's feelings.

  “Had I not enjoyed divine aid from those great gods who live in the sea,

  I would now be wandering the vastness of the ocean.”

  He was so exhausted after the endless turmoil of the storm that without meaning to he dropped off to sleep. While he sat there propped upright, for the room was unworthy of him, His Late Eminence stood before him as he had been in life, took his hand, and drew him up, saying, “What are you doing in this terrible place? Hasten to sail away from this coast, as the God of Sumiyoshi would have you do.”

  Genji was overjoyed. “Since you and I parted, Your Majesty, I have known so many sorrows that I would gladly cast my life away here on this shore.”

  “No, you must not do that. All this is simply a little karmic retribution. I myself committed no offense during my reign, but of course I erred nevertheless, and expiation of those sins now so absorbs me that I had given no thought to the world;6 but it was too painful to see you in such distress. I dove into the sea, emerged on the strand, and despite my fatigue I am now hurrying to the palace to have a word with His Majesty on the matter.” Then he was gone.

  Genji, who could not bear him to leave, wept bitterly and cried out that he would go with him; but when he looked up, no one was there, only the shining face of the moon. He did not feel as though it had been a dream, because that gracious presence seemed still to be with him; and meanwhile, lovely clouds trailed aloft across the sky. He had seen clearly and all too briefly the sight he had longed for through the years but always missed, even in his dreams; and with that dear image now vivid in his mind he reflected wonderingly how his father had sped to save him from dire affliction and impending death, until he was actually grateful for the storm, for in that lingering presence he felt boundless trust and joy. With his heart full to bursting, he forgot in this fresh turmoil every grief of his present life, and dream or not, he so regretted not answering his father better that he disposed himself to sleep again, in case he should return; but day dawned before his eyelids would close.

  Two or three men had brought a little boat up on the beach and were now approaching the exile's refuge. His companions asked them who they were. “The Novice and former Governor is here from Akashi,” they said. “He would be grateful to see the Minamoto Junior Counselor,7 if he is present, and explain.”

  Yoshikiyo could not get over it. “I knew the Novice well when I was in his province, and I talked to him often over the years, but then he and I fell out a little and have not corresponded for ages. What can have brought him here through such seas?”

  Genji remembered his dream. “Go and meet him,” he said; and so Yoshikiyo went to see the Novice in his boat. He could not imagine how the man had set sail so quickly through so violent a storm.

  “In a dream early this month a strange being gave me a solemn message that I found difficult to believe,” the Novice began, “but then I heard ‘On the thirteenth I will give you another sign. Prepare a boat and, when the wind and rain have stopped, sail to Suma.’ I got a boat ready just in case, and then I waited until fierce wind, rain, and lightning made me fear sufficiently for his lordship that I have now kept the appointed day and brought him my message, though he may not heed it, because in other realms, too, faith in a dream has often saved the land. An eerie wind followed my boat when I set out, and my arrival shows how truly the god spoke. I wonder whether here as well his lordship might have had a sign. I venture to hope that you will be good enough to tell him.”

  Yoshikiyo quietly informed Genji, who considered the matter. Neither his dreams nor his waking life encouraged complacency, and in the light of these apparent warnings he contemplated what was past and what yet to come. I do not want to risk calumny from those who will eventually pass my story on, he reflected, but if I ignore what may really be divine assistance, I may, worse yet, become a mere laughingstock. One avoids crossing even mortals. I should certainly have been more cautious in small things, too, and heeded those older than I am or higher in rank and
more generally respected. There is no blame in yielding, as a wise man once observed.8 Just now I was in mortal danger and witnessed disasters of all kinds. No, it hardly matters, even if my name suffers in the end. After all, my father and my Sovereign admonished me even in my dreams. Can I doubt any longer?

  He replied in this spirit. “In this wilderness where I am a stranger I have suffered every outlandish affliction, and yet no one brings me words of comfort from the City. Your fishing boat is a welcome refuge,9 when my only old friends here are the sun and the moon in their course across the sky! Could your shore offer me a quiet place to hide?”

  The Novice was very pleased and expressed his thanks. “At any rate, my lord, do go aboard before it is day,” Genji's men said to him; and so he did, with the usual four or five close companions. The same wind blew, and the boat fairly flew all the way to Akashi. So short a journey took hardly any time, but one could only marvel at the will of the wind.

  Reed-thatched cottage on the shore

  The coast there was indeed exceptional, its only flaw being the presence of so many people. By the sea or among the hills, there stood on the Novice's land here a thatched seaside cottage for the pleasures of the seasons; there, by a stream that invited pure thoughts of the next life, an imposing chapel for his meditation practice; for the needs of this life rows of rice granaries replete with sufficient bounty from the autumn fields to last him through the fullness of his age; and, elsewhere, whatever pleasant feature the setting and the season might suggest. He had lately moved his daughter to the house below the hill, in fear of the monstrous tides and also so that Genji might freely occupy the mansion on the shore.