The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics)

by Donald Keene

  As in Episode 8, the hero sets off from the capital with a few close friends. Their first stop is at an area of marshland known as Yatsuhashi, where water from the local river divides into numerous channels, like the legs of a spider, each of which is crossed by a bridge. Here, ‘eight’, for the Eight Bridges (Yatsuhashi) simply means a large number. The irises mentioned bloom in the fifth month of the lunisolar calendar (June–July), suggesting that the journey takes place in midsummer.

  The accompanying poem is a lament about the hero’s longing for his beloved, whom he has left behind in the capital. The poems in the Tales make use of a whole range of poetic devices, but this one stands out on account of its acrostic or hidden word (mono no na no uta) in which each line starts with a syllable (ka-ki-tsu-ba-ta) that spells out ‘iris’. The poem includes other devices too, often overlapping each other. Kara-goromo (fine robes), forming a pillow word (makura kotoba) with ‘to wear’ (kiru), has been translated as ‘In these familiar lovely robes’. Kara-goromo originally meant ‘Chinese-style robes’ but here refers to beautiful and elegant clothing in general. There are several puns (kakekotoba) in this poem: the word ki included in kinuru means both ‘to come’ and ‘to wear’; the nare of narenishi means ‘beloved’ and, when prefixed with ki of kiru (to wear), gives the sense kinare (to become used to from habitual wear); tsuma means both ‘wife’ and ‘hem’; and harūbaru means ‘far away’ and ‘to full’, as in fulling silk. These words also function as associative words (engo) with ‘robes’ (kara-goromo). The translation also contains much of the wordplay of the original: ‘familiar’ carries the sense of both ‘intimate’ and ‘habitual’; ‘stretching’ puns on ‘extending into the distance’ and fabric that is pulled tight; ‘hem’ puns on both its literal and abstract meaning (as in ‘a journey tinged with …’).

  The second poem also uses wordplay based on the location, in this case Mount Utsu. By the mountain, the travellers meet a Buddhist priest travelling around the country to undergo religious training and ask him to carry back a letter to a highborn lady in the capital, whom we understand to be the Empress of the Second Avenue. The poem is based on a popular belief found in poetry from the time of the Man’yōshū (c.770) that seeing a loved one in a dream was proof that that person was thinking of you. By complaining that they can meet neither in the real world nor in dreams, the hero indicates that his beloved is not thinking of him. Here ‘Utsu’ serves as a homophonically related ‘preface’ (jokotoba) to ‘real world’ (utsutsu) later in the poem.

  In the third poem, on Mount Fuji, the hero playfully reproaches the mountain for not being aware of the seasons because it has snow on it at the hottest time of the year in mid July. Though light-hearted in style, the poem expresses an aesthetic appreciation of seasonal changes that was common in Heian poetry (see here).

  In comparing the size of Mount Fuji and Mount Hie, the narrator notes that the latter is ‘here at’ (rendered as ‘at’ in the translation) the capital, emphasizing how the capital is the geographic centre of the tale. Although the hero is supposed to be far away from the capital at Mount Fuji, the narrator inadvertently seems to have forgotten this and writes ‘here at’ (the capital) instead. Mount Hie (see Map 2) is north-east of the city, one of the highest mountains visible from it, on the border between the present-day Kyoto and Shiga prefectures.

  The narrator also speaks of Mount Fuji as resembling ‘a great mound of salt’ (shiojiri). The exact meaning of shiojiri has been uncertain since at least the thirteenth century when Fujiwara no Teika (see here) wrote in his edition of the Tales that the meaning was unclear. One theory is that it refers to the mounds of sand used in the production of salt. Seawater was poured over these mounds and left to evaporate in the sun, producing salt crystals. What can be said for certain is that the mounds were conical and that their shape resembled that of Mount Fuji.

  The crossing of the Sumida River provides the setting for the last poem in the episode. The crossing makes the travellers feel even more removed from the capital, and the scene is filled with elegiac poignance. The poem is addressed to the Bird of the Capital (miyakodori), asking it for news of the beloved in Heiankyo (Kyoto). But it is not a serious entreaty, since the poet well knows that the bird can tell him nothing. Miyakodori has been used partly because it contains within it the word for ‘capital’ (miyako) and thereby evokes the place itself. Hearing the poem, everyone on the boat weeps in sympathy. If interpreted literally, the last line can be read as asking whether his beloved is alive or dead. It has been interpreted in this way, but it can be more poignantly rendered as ‘is she alive and well?’; Katagiri, Yamamoto and Fukui, editors of the Shōgakukan edition on which this translation is based, all support the interpretation in this translation.

  province of Mikawa: The eastern part of the present-day Aichi Prefecture.

  dried rice: Dried rice is rice that has been boiled and then dried. It was a form of portable preserved food that could be eaten at any time simply by adding water to it. Here it is the tears of the travellers that provide the necessary liquid, and this improbable idea would have provoked a smile from the original readers.

  province of Suruga: The western part of the present-day Shizuoka Prefecture

  large river on the border between Musashi and Shimosa: The Sumida River (Sumidagawa) runs through Musashi, a region incorporating part of the present-day Kanagawa Prefecture, as well as Saitama Prefecture and the modern-day city of Tokyo. This is the same Sumida River that runs through Tokyo, although today it follows a different course. Shimosa is the ancient name for the area comprising the south-western part of Ibaraki Prefecture and the northern part of Chiba Prefecture.

  Everyone on the boat broke down in tears: See otoko naki (crying of men).

  10

  The Call of the Wild Goose

  Many of the scenes in the Tales contrast the elegant courtly sophistication of individuals from the capital with the (often amusing) rustic ways of people in the provinces, and this episode is one such example. The man from the capital woos a country girl whose mother is originally from the prestigious Fujiwara clan. The most powerful family in Japan at the time, their name commanded respect and deference even in the provinces. Many members of the court nobility eventually settled in the districts to which they had been sent to govern. But though the mother appears to be from such a family, the husband is of more common stock.

  The mother’s poem, expressing her support for the hero’s suit, seems simple on the surface but is rich in rhetorical features. As well as the metaphor of a wild goose (kari), to represent the woman’s daughter, the poem employs two puns: tanomu (‘to rely on’ or ‘to make a request’) puns on ta no mo (the surface of the rice field), the latter supplying the sense given in the translation but with the former implied (it is because she relies on the suitor that the daughter runs to him), and hitaburu ni, which means both ‘eagerly’ and ‘shaking a clapper’. (Hita, meaning ‘clapper’, is a device for scaring away birds and animals in the rice fields; the noise is made by a bamboo pipe hitting against a wooden board.)

  The hero’s reply is unusual in that it repeats almost word for word four of the five lines of the woman’s poem. While some commentators argue that repeating part of the original poem indicates that he is treating the woman’s poem lightly, this was in fact a common feature of such poetic exchanges. Moreover, the woman’s poem is very accomplished, believed to reflect her good bloodline and in marked contrast to the ‘uncouth’ style of the countrywoman’s poem in Episode 14.

  Commentators also disagree on the meaning of the final phrase – ‘he remained true to his ways’. Medieval commentators such as Kanera (see the commentary to Episode 6) read it as meaning that Narihira was a playboy even in the countryside, but modern scholars offer different interpretations. One such scholar is Takeoka, who interprets the last sentence in this episode to mean that even though poems produced in the countryside may be of inferior quality, the elegant convention of displaying courtly love throu
gh the exchange of poems (see here) was also common there. In other words, not unlike the tongue-in-cheek humour at the end of Episode 1, the narrator’s seeming criticism can also be read as veiled praise, asserting that the hero is always true to the way of love.

  province of Musashi: See the commentary to Episode 9.

  Iruma County: The modern-day city of Iruma in Saitama Prefecture.

  11

  The Revolving Moon

  Episode 11 gives us important insights into the process of composition of the Tales. The episode’s poem also appears in the Shūishū (no. 470), where it has the following headnote: ‘Tachibana no Tadamoto was secretly having a relationship with someone’s daughter, and, as he was about to leave for a distant place, he sent her this poem.’ Thus the original author of the poem is identified not as Narihira, but as Tachibana no Tadamoto (d. 955), a man who lived several generations after Narihira. This suggests that the episode was incorporated into the Tales no earlier than the second half of the tenth century, making it one of the last episodes to be included, and that the Tales therefore reached its present form no earlier than this time.

  The poem in this episode was originally a love poem, but it appears here as one of friendship, an important theme in the Tales (see here and poetic exchanges between men). For the moon as a symbol of the passage of time, see also Episode 88.

  journeying in the east: See the commentary to Episode 7.

  12

  Grasses of the Musashi Plain

  The original Japanese of Episode 12 is filled with contradictions and confusing narrative problems: it is not clear when the man is arrested; the conclusion is given at the beginning of the episode; and the storyline is difficult to follow. We are told that the hero fled after hiding the lady in the grass, yet the poem contradicts this: ‘My beloved hides here, / and I do, too.’ In the translation, this episode has been adapted very slightly for the sake of coherence.

  Commentators have long pointed out the entirely unrealistic content of the episode and its somewhat comical elements. Part of the humour arises from the use of the exaggerated ‘to steal’ instead of the more credible ‘to elope’; the translation opts for ‘stealing away’, which can be read in both ways. As in the tale of abduction in Episode 6, the elopement was probably voluntary, and it is unlikely that the governor would have been concerned with apprehending runaway lovers. This episode is similar in style to Episode 9 with its depiction of the fanciful idea of using tears to reconstitute rice; the far-fetched notions in both episodes would have seemed amusing to readers at the time.

  The poem in this episode also appears as an anonymous poem in the Kokinshū (no. 17), where it is set on the Plain of Kasuga (see Episode 1) instead of the Plain of Musashi (as in Episodes 9, 10 and 13). In either case, the poem is probably derived from a folk song about lovers meeting secretly on the plain and hoping that the grass would not be burned off on the day of their meeting. (Grass-burning took place every year in early spring to encourage new growth.) The term wakakusa (young grass) is a pillow word (makura kotoba) for tsuma, which means both the tips of the grass sprouting from the ground and ‘spouse’.

  13

  Stirrups of Musashi

  Episode 13 is distinguished by the virtuosity of the verbal play in the poems. The tale describes an exchange of poems between the hero, now in Musashi (see previous episode), and his former beloved in the capital. The word abumi (stirrups) plays an important rhetorical role. There are many conflicting interpretations of its meaning; Katagiri, for example, asserts that it should be read as aumi (to meet), as abumi and aumi were written in the same way at the time. The word also appears in the expression ‘to place one’s feet in the stirrups’ (abumi / sasuga ni kakete in the transliteration), which in turn evokes the expression ‘to be attached to someone’ (kokoro ni kaku) through a play on the word kaku (rendered kakaru in the transliteration), of which one form is kakete, as above. The word kakaru itself is used in a wide variety of phrases and idioms, the meaning depending on context, but with the general sense of some kind of attachment, both physical and emotional.

  The inscription of the letter – Musashi abumi – is thus a kind of riddle: ‘I have placed my feet in the stirrups to leave you far behind but, having journeyed far, I still think of you.’ The hero’s comment in the letter itself, ‘Should I tell you, it would make me blush’, implies that certain circumstances have led to his parting from the lady and his embarrassment in writing after such a lapse of time.

  In her poem, the lady develops the metaphor of the stirrups by cleverly punning on the word sasuga. As a noun, it means ‘metal buckles’ (of the stirrups); coupled with ni, as in sasuga ni, it means ‘in spite of that; none the less’, translated here as ‘still’. Thus the whole phrase sasuga ni kakete may be rendered: ‘as I am still attached to you’.

  According to Katagiri, Takeoka and others, the second poem concerns the confession of a two-timer. In other words, the hero has been unfaithful, and the stirrups hanging from either side of the saddle express his dilemma and embarrassment. The word kakeru can also be seen as punning on part of the expression futamata o kakeru, which means being unfaithful or ‘two-timing’. This translation follows Yamamoto’s version, which seems more in keeping with the tone of the work as a whole. Katagiri’s version could be rendered in the same way in English but with the addition of the word ‘love-torn’ before ‘Stirrups of Musashi’ in the fourth line.

  In the second poem, the Musashi stirrups create yet another pun on kakaru, a verbal inflexion of kakeru, here meaning ‘in such and such a situation/at times like this’ (kaku aru). While some interpreters believe that the hero recites the poem to himself, others consider it to be a reply to the lady, which is how I have chosen to present it.

  14

  Cocooning with Silkworms

  Episode 14 provides a clear illustration of a common motif in the Tales: the disdain of the nobility in the capital for country dwellers. The poems by the country girl in this episode deliberately employ a number of expressions that appear in many poems in the Man’yōshū, which by the Heian period were regarded as rustic and unsophisticated. Indeed, the girl’s first poem is a reworking of one in the Man’yōshū (no. 3086), its inclusion intended to illustrate her own lack of sophistication.

  The first poem, based on the conceit that the male and female silkworms live together inside one cocoon, appears to be a metaphor for a loving couple. But just as the silkworm is killed when the silk thread is removed, it also stands for the transience of life. To contemporary readers, the development of the metaphor in the poem may seem quite accomplished, but when read by Heian-period readers of the capital, the use of the image of the silkworm – which was bred domestically for making silk – to suggest evanescence, and the rough language of the poem, would have appeared rather uncouth. A poet in the capital would have been more likely to use the short-lived mayfly as a symbol of the ephemeral.

  The second poem also highlights the woman’s countrified ways and lack of sophistication. It includes a number of dialect words and colloquialisms: kitsu (a dialect word for ‘water trough’, translated as ‘pail’ here); hamenade (‘to dunk’ – perhaps another word in the local dialect); kutakake (used for swearing at fowl); and sena (used by women to refer to men).

  The third poem reveals the hero’s contempt for the young woman. It is probably a reworking of an anonymous poem in the Kokinshū (no. 1090), to which it is almost identical. The ‘pine tree / of Aneha in Kurihara’ was famous throughout the Michinoku region. Used as a metaphor for the girl, it suggests that the poet regards her as a country bumpkin. If only she had been more refined (‘if only [she’d] been human’ rather than a rustic ‘pine tree’), he would have taken her to the capital with him.

  The heartless treatment of the country girl is what stands out in this episode. She is criticized for her foolish joy based on her misunderstanding of the hero’s behaviour and his poem. The hero impolitely leaves her in the middle of the night, when custom w
ould have demanded that he stay until morning, and recites a rather offensive poem that she misunderstands. Her inability to recognize the way she is being treated emphasizes the naivety of her character and would have suggested to the Heian-period reader that her cruel treatment is deserved.

  province of Michinoku: See the commentary to Episode 1.

  crowing too early: See crowing of the cock.

  the man recited a poem: See kinuginu no uta (‘morning-after’ poem).

  15

  A Pathway to the Heart

  This is the penultimate episode in the series that began in Episode 7 concerning the hero’s journey to the eastern provinces. Episode 116 is in fact the final one in the series, reflecting how there is no particular order in the placing of these and other episodes as they were compiled by multiple authors over a long period of time, mixed and matched in various ways as the work progressed (see here).

  As in the previous episode, the disdain for country people is clear in the expression ‘the wife of a common fellow’, which implies that, from the perspective of a court aristocrat, the husband was a man with no redeeming features. Despite that, the hero falls for his wife. By contrast, in the final sentence, the narrator implies that little could be gained from gazing into the heart of such a rustic woman. Though the hero himself does not look down upon the woman, the narrator does, and the gap between the two is significant. The last sentence can also be read ironically, in which case the criticism is less severe.

  Michinoku: See the commentary to Episode 1.