The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics)

by Donald Keene

  A man would take an interest in a woman based on hearsay about her virtues or after having somehow caught a glimpse of her (kaimami – see here). In the Heian period, women of high rank were confined indoors, so men often saw them for the first time only just before they made love, which could lead to disappointment on both sides. As they could not speak to or see each other, convention demanded that, in order to establish a relationship, they had to exchange poems, and proficiency in poetry composition was expected. Until they actually met, the way men and women evaluated prospective partners was based on the quality of the poems, the tastefulness of the paper on which they were written, and the beauty of the calligraphy.

  The man would normally begin sending love letters and poems to the woman and this marked the beginning of love. These exchanges had to adhere to a particular code of conduct. For example, in the woman’s initial replies, it was the convention to feign disinterest before eventually agreeing to a meeting. And if one received a poem on spring, the poem composed in reply was expected to be on the same season; if it were on another season, it would be a sign of a lack of taste. Replies were also expected to cleverly pick up an element of the original poem and quote from it or refer to it in the reply. There would, of course, have been differing levels of skill in composing and appreciating poems, but a basic knowledge of the art of composing poetry was de rigueur for all courtiers; indeed, without such skills they could have expected little success in the art of love.

  Courting began with the man secretly visiting the woman after dark and leaving before daybreak for fear of discovery and consequent damage to their reputations. On the morning after the third night, the tokoro arawashi ceremony would take place, in which the man would remain at the woman’s home until after daybreak and consume a meal with her parents, thus revealing himself to them. In many cases, the parents would have already selected this man to be their daughter’s husband and would therefore know who the suitor was, but the ritual was followed none the less. For these three days, it was important for the man to send the woman a ‘morning-after poem’ (kinuginu no uta – see here) after returning home the next morning, if the relationship had been consummated. If the visits did not continue for three nights, the relationship was considered to have ended.

  Japan is said to have originally been a matriarchal society, with the family home and fortune passed down from mother to daughter. In the Nara period (710–94), Confucian patriarchy was imported from China, and men became the centre of the household, but elements of the earlier matriarchal system retained a strong presence into the Heian period, especially in marriage customs. As several of the tales imply, the ideal for a man was a marriage that would support him financially and further his standing at court, while the bride’s family looked for a well-connected groom whose career seemed assured. In keeping with the matriarchal tradition, even at the beginning of the marriage, the man’s clothing and other daily necessities and costs were paid for by the woman’s household (as illustrated in Episode 23).

  In the capital, the most common marital arrangements were based on visits by the man to the woman (known as kayoikon, ‘commuting marriage’, or tsumadoikon, ‘wife-visiting marriage’). While it was customary among the nobility for a husband to live near the wife’s parents, the couple often did not reside together, and because the husband was not in the family home continuously, it was possible for other men to visit. This meant also that a husband could take more than one wife, as illustrated in Episode 23. This is the social context underpinning many of the romantic episodes in the Tales.

  Since married couples did not live together, and attitudes towards love and sex were freer among both men and women, having multiple partners was not frowned upon as much as it is today. This is reflected in the Tales in the concept of irogonomi (literally, ‘a love of colour’), which may be translated as ‘a penchant for having love affairs’ or a person with such a penchant. For men, exchanging poems and finding opportunities to approach women were all part of irogonomi, a critical weapon in the lover’s armoury. However, the expression was also applied to those who engaged in this behaviour to an extreme, implying both criticism and amusement. Putting it in modern terms, someone who does not know how to play might be considered dull, but someone who does nothing but play might be looked down on as a playboy. The expression is not as negative as ‘lascivious’ and ‘wanton’ are in English, but it does have different connotations depending on gender. It may be translated as ‘fickle’ in reference to women, as in ‘changing one’s affections frequently’, and ‘gallant’ in reference to men in the sense of ‘a man who pays special attention to women’ or who is ‘knowledgeable in the affairs of the heart’, depending on the context. For men, the term thus means those who are somewhat frivolous and interested in having numerous relationships, and, for women, those who quickly tire of lovers.

  The Tales is told entirely from a male point of view and tends to be more critical of women, including many references to the word irogonomi in relation to them. The women, who are ‘fond of colour’ are coquettish, eager and charming lovers, but also unfaithful. They are adept in affairs of the heart, take pleasure in the pursuit of romantic liaisons, and twist the earnest hero around their little fingers.12 But it is precisely these qualities that attract the attention of the hero, so his ‘suffering’ clearly includes an element of pleasure. The hero’s encounters with these fickle women fulfils an important function in the Tales, showing us Narihira’s sincerity in responding to cruelty and coldness, and enhancing the image of the hero as the ideal lover of his time.

  Despite his many affairs, the hero himself is rarely described in the Tales as an irogonomi. Episode 58 is one of the few examples in which Narihira is referred to by the term, although here it is used in conjunction with an expression referring to him as a man of refined taste and gives an essentially positive impression. The term may be translated here as ‘knowledgeable in the affairs of the heart’. In Episode 61, a woman from Tsukushi uses the term in reference to a rumour about the hero, though he makes no approaches to her in the end. By contrast, Itaru, who is introduced as the most famous gallant in all the land, does make advances, flirting with the woman in question even though she is in mourning. The heroes of the Tales and The Tale of Genji both show a strong penchant for affairs of the heart, but, unlike Casanovas such as Itaru, they are always completely sincere in their feelings.

  The Theme of Friendship

  While romantic love is the most celebrated theme of the Tales, the work was also the first in Japanese literature to highlight male friendship, a theme that would also be of importance in The Tale of Genji. One major literary precedent on intimate exchanges between close male friends is the great Chinese poet Bai Juyi (772–846), who often wrote about his close friend Yuan Zhen, also a poet, in his Baishi wenji (Collected Works of Bai Juyi). Their relationship was one of the great friendships in Chinese literary history. Friendship is also a virtue in Confucianism, one of the major intellectual doctrines of Heian-period Japan. Once two individuals become friends, they are meant to be true to each other to the end, even in the direst of circumstances.

  Informed by this tradition, friendship has many manifestations in the Tales. The motif is established early on, when the hero travels eastwards on a difficult journey, accompanied by his friends. Later, Tsuneyuki (see Appendix 2, here) and Narihira show their heartfelt love and devotion to the cloistered prince (Saneyasu, a son of Emperor Ninmyo) after his renunciation of the secular world. And Episode 83 recounts the hero’s visit to Prince Koretaka’s snow-covered abode, after he has become a recluse. That Narihira remains true to him even after he loses his imperial status is of the utmost importance here and his braving the deep snow of midwinter to visit his friend proves his fealty. Indeed, the main interest in friendship in the Tales is devotion to another person despite declining fortunes, a theme that underlies not only the behaviour of the characters, but also the aesthetic vision of the entire work. Episode 81 – a paean of lo
ve and respect for Minamoto no Toru, an early ninth-century nobleman – is another fine example of this. Whereas love between men and women is often fickle and fleeting, loyalty, devotion and friendship between men are lasting bonds in the Heian universe.

  Expressions of friendship have much in common with expressions of love. Episode 38 features an exchange between the hero – who is visiting the house of the absent Ki no Aritsune (see here) – and Aritsune himself, who returns later. The first poem states that Narihira had not known until this point what the world calls ‘love’, but now he understands it thanks to his friend’s late return, and he teasingly chides Aritsune for being late. The usual object of ‘love’ in poetry is someone of the opposite sex, but the verb kou (to long for), from which the noun koi (love) derives, has a broad range of meanings and can refer to love for a friend. Male Heian courtiers found nothing unnatural or unusual about using ‘love’ playfully with regard to a male friend. Female friendship, by contrast, does not exist in the Tales.

  In many lovely scenes, the pleasure of friendship is celebrated on excursions to the countryside. Episodes 66, 67 and 68, while ostensibly composing poems on the genius of place, also depict the joys of such outings with friends and loyal retainers. Episode 82 presents a wonderful depiction of the pleasures of fealty and friendship informed by deep affection. Watching the cherry blossom together, all the members of the gathering compose poems, regardless of rank and social differences. The hero composes one of the most memorable poems in the Tales, a meditation on the poet’s deep love of cherry blossom, and the whole party decorate their hair with blossom and twigs, drink sake and compose more poems until late into the night. Poems on friendship also appear in the Kokinshū,13 but the theme of friendship would eventually fade in later Japanese literature, to be replaced by the theme of absolute loyalty in the samurai tradition.

  Style and Language

  One of the key aspects of the Tales is the celebration of language. The work is replete with every kind of stylistic innovation and wordplay and specific examples are examined in detail in the commentary. Another important element is the belief in ancient Japan that words contained spirits and were therefore sacred, hence uttering celebratory words could lead to fortuitous events coming to pass. Known as kotodama shinko, this distinctive feature of the Tales also underpins the concept of kotohogu (see here), uttering words of felicitation either before or after an auspicious event. Such blessings were traditionally delivered by a ‘venerable old man’ (okina), an important figure in Heian culture.14 In the Tales, the hero, Narihira, is frequently depicted celebrating auspicious events and invoking blessings and good fortune through poetry, thus fulfilling the role of the okina in those episodes where he is depicted as an old man. (For more on the role of the okina in the Tales, see here.)

  The Tales is also highly experimental, not least in its innovative poem-tale structure. Many of the episodes recast existing narratives or place poems, setting them in a new context. For example, Episode 76 takes a poem of celebration from the Kokinshū (no. 871) and transforms it into one hinting at a former love affair between the hero and the Empress of the Second Avenue.15 Changing the context of a poem could ascribe new meanings to it, and this is a central preoccupation of the Tales. Indeed, there is no doubt that much of what delighted its original readers was the playful way in which changing the narrative settings gave new life to famous characters and poems. In Episode 6, for instance, the addition of a comment on a ‘real’ event by the narrator at the end of the story – an adaptation from the Chinese Shijing (Classic of Poetry), in which poems are followed by interpretive commentary from a Confucian standpoint – provides a striking contrast to the more fantastical tale that precedes it as well as being very innovative in the way that it brings together two different genres.

  The narrative technique of the Tales is itself highly innovative, characterized by the repeated use of the verbal form omoiken, which roughly means ‘what could he have been thinking of …’, to examine the motives of the characters, especially the hero. Such questioning by the narrator is meant to encourage the reader to decide for himself what psychological state the hero is in, especially when this is rarely described directly. In many cases, of course, the reader knows perfectly well the reasons behind the character’s actions (usually desperate or intense love), so the conjecture is mostly intended as a humorous rhetorical aside, contributing to the playful narrative style.

  Indeed, the Tales is full of exuberant and sometimes offbeat humour. Episode 120, for example, contains a hilarious poem based on the Tsukuma Festival, at which women in attendance were required to balance as many pots on their head as they had had lovers. On other occasions amusement derives from men playfully assuming female roles in poetry exchanges, such as in Episode 121 – another tale featuring eccentric headgear – and Episodes 58 and 105.

  Humour and playful language can also be tools in the game of love: in Episode 3, for example, the poet sends a gift of a particular seaweed known as hijiki to his beloved because its name is a homonym of hijikimono (bedding), to express his wish to share a bed with her. Play, especially verbal play, is central to the Tales and no doubt one of the features that have made it so enduringly popular.

  The Tales also subverts convention and literary expectations to striking effect. The most openly subversive moment occurs in Episode 69, in which the hero is depicted as having the briefest of affairs with the emperor’s daughter. The relationship would have been doubly taboo because the princess, in addition to being the daughter of the emperor, was serving as priestess of the sacred Ise shrine and thus forbidden to have relations with men. Several other episodes depict violations of taboo or convention, usually because of love. In Episode 63, a woman nearly one hundred years old visits the house of the hero to catch a glimpse of him. Catching a glimpse of a lady was a trope often exploited in tales to announce the onset of romance. As women were usually expected to remain indoors, however, it was generally men who did the glimpsing. The great age of the woman marks a further deviation from the norm. By turning literary convention on its head, this episode offers a radical and comic subversion of romantic conventions.

  Important Sub-themes of the Tales

  In addition to the main themes of love and friendship, outlined above, several sub-themes can be identified in the Tales, including journeys and excursions and the divide between the country and the capital – discussed in the commentary to specific episodes. Related to these is the trope of exile, and the Tales is an important work in the development of this theme within Japanese literature. The journey to the east in Episodes 7–15 is based on the motif of the exile of a young nobleman (kishu ryūritan), in which the hero, of high birth and status, is banished or goes into voluntary exile from the court and encounters various challenges before he returns home. Such tales are ubiquitous in Japanese mythology and classical literature: Prince Yamato Takeru can be cited as an earlier example in the eighth-century Kojiki, a collection of myths concerning the origin of Japan and one of the oldest chronicles in the country; the warrior chief Minamoto no Yoshitsune is a famous later example; while The Tale of Genji includes an episode describing Genji’s self-imposed exile to the lonely coast of Suma.

  Exile also acts as an important narrative device in the Tales because it takes the hero into situations of crisis in which he can write exquisite poems in response, as well as reinforcing the sense of his being on the periphery. Being on the losing side of history naturally heightens one’s sensitivity as a poet and attracts sympathy from the readers, and the Japanese have always had a special place in their hearts for tragic heroes and outsiders, rather than the victorious.

  Also central to the Tales is the idea of elegance (miyabi), a term that encompasses a broad spectrum of meanings, from skill in calligraphy and poetry and refinement of taste in dress and décor, to, more importantly, kind and courteous behaviour. Having a romantic heart and a deep and poetic commitment to the way of love is bound up with elegant behaviour, and in
this the protagonist proves himself a paragon. The hero’s display of elegant behaviour through kindness is depicted in Episode 107, in which his actions as head of the house are described as both kind and considerate – the embodiment of miyabi. In the episode in which the hero makes love to an elderly woman (no. 63), the deed is made possible because of his great kindness, even to those whom he does not necessarily hold dear. Another aspect of the depiction of miyabi is the fond recollection of the time when a noble family flourished in the past, highly praising the elegant tradition that they represent and longing for their return; Episode 77 offers a good illustration of this. The antithesis of miyabi is hinabi, or that which is countrified – the courtly versus the rustic. Several scenes in the Tales contrast the sophisticated ways of the capital with the lack of refinement displayed by rural dwellers. There has been a tendency in modern times to see miyabi as epitomizing the aesthetics of the Tales and Heian noble culture; however, the word appears only once in the text (in Episode 1), and though it is certainly important, it is more appropriate to see it as only one of the many concepts that enrich the Tales.

  The aesthetic concept of setsugekka (snow, moon and flowers) is another important sub-theme in the Tales. It derives from a poem by Bai Juyi addressed to his dear friend Yuan Zhen whom he describes as remembering most fondly when he sees the snow, moon or flowers. Snow refers to winter, the moon to autumn, and flowers to spring – three words that indicate aesthetic appreciation of the seasons. Another way to think of them is as representations of three forms of white: that of snow, the moon and of flowers (which almost always meant plum or cherry blossom).16 The colour white was especially valued in the Japanese aesthetic because of its purity; combined in poetry with the various sensory delights of each season, it is the perfect colour for expressing the loneliness and isolation felt by the hero. The passing of spring (see here) is also celebrated in several episodes, as the epitome of poignant regret.