The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics)

by Donald Keene

  earnest man: The expression mame otoko, translated here as ‘earnest man’, gives the opposite impression to the image of the playboy usually implied by irogonomi, and this has invited various interpretations, early commentators suggesting that, as the work is supposed to be by Narihira himself, he was merely using the occasion to praise himself.

  3

  A Gift of Seaweed

  Episode 3 provides a good illustration of the way in which poetry up to the early Heian period often sought to convey feelings of love with a childlike frankness. The hero sends a poem to a lady who would later become the Empress of the Second Avenue. A number of episodes in the Tales suggest that Narihira was romantically involved with her, although there is no historical evidence to support this.

  With the poem, the hero encloses a gift of ‘edible seaweed’. This is hijiki, eaten in Japan to this day but regarded at the time as a delicacy in the capital (Heiankyo/Kyoto – see Maps 2 and 3) as the city was distant from the sea. In the poem, the word for seaweed (hijikimo) puns on the word for ‘mattress’ or ‘bedding’, but appearing in a hyphenated form (hijiki-mono), making it a little difficult to detect. Just as the word for seaweed is hidden in the original Japanese, I have hidden it in the translation, highlighting the letters in bold (see also mono no na no uta).

  In sending a gift of seaweed with the poem, the hero is wittily reinforcing his invitation to his beloved to spread out their robes to make a bed. The hidden word gives the poem a delightful charm. It was common at the time to enclose a gift with a poem, especially one that enhanced the message of the poem.

  This episode ends with a comment on the empress that is very obviously not part of the main narrative, although it is unclear whether it appeared as a footnote from the outset or whether it was added at a later stage during the long formative process of the Tales (see here).

  If your love is true: The first line of the poem in the Japanese has been variously interpreted as ‘If there is such a thing as love’ or ‘If we love each other’. The poem is similar in theme to several poems in the Man’yōshū that feature a hut covered in reeds, such as the following (no. 2825):

  What good is a house

  strewn with pearls to me?

  Let it be a hut covered in weeds

  if I can be there

  with my love.

  (Tama shikeru / ie mo nani semu / yaemugura / ooeru oya mo / imo to oriteba)

  4

  The Spring of Old

  Episode 4 is famous for its ambiguous poem that has given rise to a plethora of differing interpretations. The episode, thought to be one of the original ones composed by Narihira himself (see here), depicts the hero devastated by the disappearance of a high-ranking lady with whom he had fallen in love. The most common explanation for her disappearance is that she became a consort of the emperor and thus inaccessible (in ‘a place where ordinary people could not go’). Visiting her former apartments and finding them in a dilapidated state with gaps in the floorboards, the hero writes of his desperation.

  Enigmatic and apparently incomplete, the poem has always been considered difficult, but its depth of feeling has never been questioned, and part of this depth is due to the ambiguity of its inarticulacy. Some have interpreted the opening lines as rhetorical questions and others as direct interrogatives. If one takes the former view, it means that the moon and spring are, of course, the same, and the lines would thus read: ‘Is the moon not the same? / Is the spring not the spring of old?’ But in the latter view, an opposite meaning emerges: the moon and spring appear to be totally different from the previous year.

  Katagiri, considered one of the greatest living authorities on the Tales, asserts that the poem is quite straightforward and simply means that the poet feels that everything has changed because his beloved is no longer there. Translated literally, the poem does not really add up to a complete statement, so in my rendering I originally sacrificed inarticulacy to intelligibility and added two lines, indicated by the italics: ‘Could that be the same moon? / Could this be the spring of old? / Only I am as I’ve always been, / but without you here / nothing seems the same.’ In revising the translation, however, I came to the conclusion that Narihira’s ‘inarticulacy’ is an essential component of his poetic nature and craft, and so I omitted the last line, leaving it up to the reader to complete it.

  This poem has long been admired by the Japanese for the way in which it allows for multiple interpretations. Ki no Tsurayuki, compiler of the Kokinshū (see here), writes in the preface to that anthology that Narihira’s poetry has ‘too much emotion and too few words’ and this statement is often interpreted in a negative way, with this poem in particular providing a good example of the shortcomings of Narihira’s verse. However, such a reading is supported by neither the text nor the Japanese commentaries. The poem is actually quite simple and does not employ any sophisticated rhetorical devices or conceits. In fact, if it is representative, it is because it is such a fine example of the admirable economy of Narihira’s style, in being able to convey so much emotion in so few words.

  The poem is also found in the Kokinshū (no. 747) with an unusually long headnote for that collection, and Narihira is named as the author. An early version of the Tales, presumed to have been written by Narihira himself, may have been the source for the Kokinshū headnote, which closely resembles the prose narrative of the Tales.

  Her Majesty the Empress Mother: The identity of the Empress Mother is not known, but the location (see below) suggests that it was the Empress of the Fifth Avenue. The name of the lady with whom the man falls in love is not specified, although later, perhaps under the influence of Episode 3, it came to be read as a tragic tale concerning the Empress Mother’s niece, the Empress of the Second Avenue.

  the eastern side of the Fifth Avenue: This is in a section of the capital (Heiankyo/Kyoto – see Maps 2 and 3) to the east of Suzaku Avenue, the north–south axis dividing the city (see the commentary to Episode 2). Large avenues crossed the city from east to west, starting with the First Avenue in the north and ending with the Ninth Avenue in the south.

  around the tenth day of the New Year: See lunisolar calendar.

  Bursting into tears: See otoko naki (crying of men).

  5

  Nod Off to Sleep

  Episode 5 closely resembles a tale in the fifth-century Chinese work Shishuo xinyu (A New Account of Tales of the World), by Liu Yiqing, and is thought to be based on it, providing a good example of the profound influence of Chinese literature on the Tales. The episode is also interesting in the way in which it exemplifies the Heian belief that an entreaty to the gods might elicit a response (see kotohogu). Other stories illustrating this belief (known as katoku setsuwa) can be found even earlier in Japanese literature, in the Nihon shoki (Chronicle of Japan; 720).

  Like the poem in Episode 4 – to which this episode is believed to be closely related – the poem here is included in the Kokinshū (no. 632) with an almost identically worded headnote. It is thought that the Kokinshū editors took both poem and prose from the Tales, which was already in existence at that time (see here). As with Episode 3 – whose poem is similar in sentiment – it has been suggested that the narrator’s final comment may have been an interpolation in later centuries, after the completion of the Tales, but now it is thought that it was added at some point during the long formative process of the work.

  a lady who lived on the eastern side of the Fifth Avenue: As in Episode 4, the identity of the lady is presumed, from the location, to be the Empress of the Second Avenue, as confirmed by the narrator’s final comment.

  the head of the house: The name and gender of the head of the house are not specified, but, as in Episode 4, the setting suggests that it was the Empress of the Fifth Avenue.

  Empress of the Second Avenue: See Appendix 2 (here).

  her brothers: Referring to Mototsune and Kunitsune – see Appendix 2 (here).

  6

  Pearls of Dew

  Episode 6, depicti
ng an elopement, is one of the most celebrated episodes in the Tales. The famous Noh play Unrinin (The Hall in Cloud Forest) is based on it. The ending, with its apparently factual interpretation of the opening narrative, is in marked contrast to the fairy-tale account of a lady being eaten by a demon. This is the only episode in the Tales where such generic fusion occurs, and the literary experimentation has tantalized readers for centuries. The reference in the final part to real historical figures – the Empress of the Second Avenue, Mototsune and Kunitsune – has also been the subject of debate. These figures did exist, and although the original readers may have regarded the episode as fiction, they would also have believed it to be inspired by a real incident. Today, the events described in the portion of text after the poems are thought to be entirely fictional.

  Yamamoto offers the most persuasive theory as to why the Tales splices together two such differing narratives. He claims that the episode mirrors the style of the Shijing (Classic of Poetry; Shikyō in Japanese), the earliest collection of Chinese poetry – some poems dating back to 1046 BC – which was widely studied in the Heian period. The poems in the Shijing are often followed by Confucian commentary, so the addition of a factual commentary to the clearly fictional part of the tale in this episode may be seen as borrowing from that text. According to Yamamoto, given the clearly fantastical nature of the first part of the episode, the factual commentary was necessary in order to maintain the fiction that the hero of the work was the historical Narihira. The concluding section is unusually long, and as with Episodes 3 and 5, it was previously thought that this note was added much later. More recent commentators, however, maintain that it was actually penned at the original time of writing to explain the uncharacteristic behaviour of the hero, as it would have been almost inconceivable for a person of such high rank to run off with a lady to a remote location.

  Another curious feature of this episode is the lady’s apparent inability to recognize dew. Perhaps this was simply a device to indicate her high rank: it suggests that she has been brought up indoors with the greatest care and has therefore never seen dew before. Alternatively, the lady’s question, ‘What are those?’, could have been included merely to provide a context for the poem, in which the hero, seeing the dewdrops (tsuyu), recalls her question and laments that it would have been better if he had passed away as quickly as dewdrops do. Over time, more and more fanciful interpretations of the episode were suggested, including the suggestion – based on the Buddhist view of the Tales as illustrating sex as the path to enlightenment – that the ‘dewdrop’ that the lady saw was in fact a drop of semen following intercourse, a theory that was eventually discredited by the great Muromachi-period scholar and aristocrat Ichijo Kanera (1402–81).

  One reason for the great popularity of this episode – rivalled only by that of Episodes 9, 23 and 69 – is that it is one of the original models for tales of forbidden love and elopement. The scene of Narihira as folkloric hero eloping with a lady on his back became an iconic image of the Tales itself. This episode also contributed to the establishment of Narihira’s reputation as the prototypical lover of the classical period. The fusion of a folk tale with fiction ostensibly based on a historical event created an intriguing indeterminacy which has appealed to the imagination of readers of all periods.

  stole away with her: The literal meaning of the word used here for ‘stealing away’ (nusumu) is ‘stealing’, which in this context can mean either forcible abduction or voluntary elopement. This tale concerns the latter, namely a secret elopement following a prolonged courtship. For another interesting example of a play on this word, see Episode 10.

  Akuta River: The Akuta River (see Maps 2 and 3) flows near present-day Takatsuki city in Osaka.

  demons: Belief in demons and other supernatural beings was widespread at the time, and men went about armed, always prepared to meet an enemy. Malign demons were believed to live under cover in deserted dwellings, out of sight of human beings and ready to cause harm to the unwitting traveller.

  rubbing his feet together: Bewailing the loss of the lady, the hero ‘rubs his feet together’ (ashizuri). It seems to have been a convention at the time for those stricken with grief to lay on their back and rub their feet together, but the exact meaning of the expression is not known.

  a consort of the emperor: A reference to the Somedono Empress.

  7

  The Returning Waves

  Episodes 7–15 depict the hero’s journey eastward (marked on Map 1). No clear reason is given for his exile, but the ill-fated affair with Takaiko, the Empress of the Second Avenue, described in Episodes 3–6, are seen as the most likely reason for the hero’s departure from the capital.

  The journey to the east (azuma-kudari), literally ‘descending to the east’, is based on the motif, common in Japanese mythology and classical literature, of the exile of a young nobleman from court (kishu ryūritan – see here). Here the hero travels from the capital, the cultural and political centre, into the lands of the east, a newly developing area in Japan, far from the long-established lands of the west. It is not known whether the historical figure Ariwara no Narihira ever went to the eastern provinces, but the details of the tale are unrealistic. It is also unlikely that a nobleman of the period would have undertaken such an ill-advised and potentially dangerous journey, indicating that the episode must be fictional.

  In the poem included in this episode, the hero expresses his desire to return to the capital, just as the waves of the bay seen from the shore appear to be returning home. The poet’s envy of the waves is expressed through the use of the verb kaeru, which in the poem means both ‘ebbing’ and ‘returning home’. Unlike the poet, the waves can go back to where they came from. The line ‘from whence I have come’ (sugiyuku kata) suggests both a place travelled from and a time in the past.

  The same poem appears in the Gosenshū (no. 1352), where it is attributed to Narihira, but the headnote merely says that it was written during a journey to the east and does not specify exactly where. According to the headnote, moreover, Narihira wrote the poem as he crossed a river, not when he was on the border of two provinces, so the ‘waves’ in his poem are those of a river, not the sea.

  Episodes 7 and 8 – similar to Episode 9, the main tale in Narihira’s ‘journey to the east’ – were long thought to have been the first of the series of stories to be composed about the hero’s journey. Today, however, they are thought to have been composed later, under the influence of Episode 9, and inserted into the text with no regard to the sequence of events.

  Ise and Owari provinces: Ise (see Map 2) is part of the present-day Mie Prefecture, and Owari is in Aichi Prefecture.

  8

  Mount Asama’s Peak

  Friendship is an important motif in Episodes 8–16, established by the willingness of the hero’s companions to accompany him on his difficult journey from the capital. Episodes 11 and 16 are particularly striking examples of this theme. The Chinese poet Bai Juyi, hugely popular among Japanese aristocrats of the Heian period, often wrote about male friendship (see here), and his influence is usually cited as one of the main reasons for the prominence of the theme in the Tales.

  Recent scholarship suggests that Episodes 7 and 8 were composed at a later date under the influence of Episode 9 and subsequently inserted into the text with no relation to the sequence of events. One cannot expect perfect continuity between the various episodes, since most of them were composed independently and compiled later.

  set off towards the east: See the commentary to Episode 7.

  Mount Asama in the province of Shinano: Shinano is the present-day Nagano Prefecture; Mount Asama (see Map 1) is an active volcano on the border between Nagano and Gunma prefectures. The ‘smoke’ from Mount Asama could not be seen from the Tokaido (Eastern Sea Road), along which the hero is supposed to have travelled, and this has long troubled commentators, but the significance of this has been exaggerated. Travel was very restricted at that time, and it would have been hi
ghly unlikely for the authors of these tales to have travelled the terrain described, so such mistakes in geography are quite natural. As the only two known active volcanoes at that time, Mount Fuji and Mount Asama were often employed in love poetry to express burning passion (see omoi or omohi).

  9

  Departing for the East

  Episode 9 is one of the most famous and splendid of all the Tales on account of the tour de force acrostic poem on the irises (kakitsubata) at Yatsuhashi (Eight Bridges – see Map 1) and the exquisite final poem. The eight bridges of the Yatsuhashi poem were traditionally depicted in period illustrations as zigzagging wooden bridges surrounded by irises, and this image captured the Japanese imagination. It has been portrayed in Japanese art so frequently that it has become the quintessential visual icon of the Tales. Particularly well known are two pairs of screens painted by the artist Ogata Korin (1658–1716): Yatsuhashi (in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); and Kakitsubata (in the collection of the Nezu Museum, Tokyo). The scene also inspired Komparu Zenchiku’s Noh play Kakitsubata, which influenced James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (see here).

  The longest episode in the Tales, Episode 9 also contains the most significant accounts of the journey to the east (see the commentary to Episode 7). It is made up of four scenes at four locations along the hero’s journey – Yatsuhashi, Mount Utsu, Mount Fuji and the Sumida River – each scene being built around a poem. As in Episodes 7 and 8, the scenes are believed to be largely fictional. The first and the fourth poems are included in the Kokinshū (nos. 410 and 411) with long headnotes very similar to the text of the Tales, which suggests that both poems and prose episodes (at Yatsuhashi and the Sumida River) existed before the Kokinshū. The scenes at Mount Utsu and Mount Fuji (see Map 1) were probably added at some later time during the long period of expansion and revision of the Tales (see here).