The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics)

by Donald Keene

  The lady in Takayasu, who at first acts in a refined way in the hero’s presence, eventually begins to display vulgar behaviour – for example, by serving rice to her household servants herself. A head of the household apportioning rice as remuneration for the work of her servants would have been a common sight among wealthy commoners that employed servants, but the hero is an aristocrat through and through, and, despite his living in the countryside, finds it distasteful. The fourth and fifth poems are by the lady in Takayasu, as the narrative focus shifts to her from the first wife.

  some people living in the countryside: Various interpretations have been given for the ‘people’ here, the most likely being that they were members of the nobility who had once lived in the capital before being sent as officials to the country, where they then settled.

  24

  The Bow of the Crescent Moon

  Despite the somewhat far-fetched ending, Episode 24 is one of the most poignant of the Tales. Like Episode 23 (see the commentary above), it contains a poem that makes particularly fine use of alliteration.

  Like Episode 23, to which this story forms a good contrast, Episode 24 takes place in the countryside. A husband and wife live in a remote place, but the husband, wishing to find a position as a court official, leaves for the capital without returning for three years. Unable to wait any longer, the wife promises herself in marriage to another man on the very day that the original husband returns. The ‘new pillow’ (niimakura) the lady mentions in the first poem refers to a man and woman spending the first night of their marriage together.

  The second poem, a reply to the first, is based on a traditional folk song. The first two lines (Azusa-yumi / ma-yumi tsuki-yumi), full of beautiful alliteration in the Japanese, refer to three types of bow, made of different kinds of wood, though the underlying meaning is unclear. One theory is that since men of the time always carried a bow with them and handled it with great care, it represents something of importance to the man. This is the view of Yamamoto, who argues that the poem should be read as a plea from the first husband to the new one: ‘Just as a man handles a bow carefully, I have cherished my wife. Take care of her as I have done.’ The more standard interpretation, adopted in this translation, is that the man is comparing the long-stretched bow of the moon (tsuki) to his love, and the poem is addressed to his wife.

  The third poem also uses the bow as a metaphor to speak of the lady’s love for her former husband. When the bow is drawn, the frame bends and the ends come closer. This conceit of a bent bow was often used in the poetry of the time. Here, the lady asserts that, as in the past, her heart is drawn to his at all times. The translation is a slight adaptation of this conceit. Many poems in the Man’yōshū use a similar expression, and this poem is thought to have been based on them. The husband ignores the lady’s poems and leaves. She runs after him but is unable to catch him and collapses beside a spring. She writes the fourth poem on a nearby rock with the blood draining from her finger and then dies in despair. The melodramatic ending, ususual in this work, is surely another form of literary experimentation (see here), and may even have been read as somewhat comical.

  25

  The Sleeves of Morning

  Episode 25 has several noteworthy features: the adaptation of two poems that appear next to each other in the Kokinshū into an exchange that gave rise to the legend that Narihira and the legendary poet Ono no Komachi (see here) were lovers; the introduction of the ‘fickle lady’ (irogonomi – see here) who appears in several other episodes of the Tales; and the first use of the image of seaweed (mirume), which also appears repeatedly.

  The man’s poem plays on the trope that a lover always returns home crying at dawn, when the lovers must part: his sleeves are wetter from tears shed during the nights he has to spend alone than they would be if he had pushed his way through the bamboo grasses on the autumn plain covered in dew. This poem is included in the Kokinshū (no. 622, attributed to Narihira), with slightly different wording in the fourth line (awade koshi yo zo). In this version, the poet goes to the lady’s house but cannot meet her and so comes home alone. In the Tales version, he simply indicates that he could not meet her and must sleep alone. Both versions of the poem are typical of the skill of Narihira in that drops of dew and teardrops are implied but not actually stated. The translation also avoids mentioning these words.

  The fickle lady is clearly adept in the affairs of love and takes pleasure in the pursuit of romantic liaisons (see also Episodes 28 and 37). In the second poem, she coldly rebuffs the hero, who had been trying to arrange a rendezvous, without any inkling of her true feelings. The poem plays on the word Mirume, often employed in love poetry as it means both a kind of seaweed and ‘to meet one’s beloved’. ‘Shores’ (ura) and ‘fisherfolk’ (ama; translated here as ‘Man of the sea’) are associative words (engo) of ‘seaweed’ (Mirume). The word ura also suggests sorrow (u) and resentment (urami).

  This poem also appears in the Kokinshū (no. 623), where it is attributed to Ono no Komachi (see here). However, the two poems were not originally written as a pair and just happened to be placed one after the other in the Kokinshū. This episode is considered fictional, created out of the juxtaposition of the two Kokinshū poems to make them appear to be an exchange between the hero and the fickle lady. In classical Japanese literature, the second poem is expected to be based closely on the first. There is a discordance here, however, because the first poem is clearly about autumn, whereas the poem written in reply is about seaweed – another indication that this episode was written after the positioning of the poems in the Kokinshū.

  26

  A Harbour in My Sleeves

  Both the poetry and the prose in this episode are difficult to decipher. Some commentators assert that the poem described in the opening lines is written by the hero in reply to the lady he has failed to win; others maintain that the poem is a sympathetic response from the person addressed by the hero when he laments that he has failed to win the lady. Fukui argues that the poem is by the hero in reply to a sympathetic letter from a friend – and this is the interpretation adopted here. The ‘lady who lived on the Fifth Avenue’ is thought to allude to Takaiko, who later became the Empress of the Second Avenue (see Episodes 3, 4 and 5).

  The poem itself can be interpreted in different ways, and the one I have chosen follows Yamamoto. Trading ships from China (Morokoshi-bune) always appeared unannounced in Japanese ports, so the supportive letter from the hero’s friend, in arriving so unexpectedly, is likened to a ship from China, and moves him to tears. Because they were so large, the ships made ‘great waves’ when they came into port, which provides the central image for the poem, ‘the harbour of my sleeves’ (sode ni minato) – a beautiful metaphor for the great quantity of tears shed, as well as indicating that the hero cried into his sleeves. Wetting one’s sleeves with tears is a central trope of classical poetry and there are countless examples. (See also otoko naki (crying of men).)

  27

  Frogs in Pairs

  The most interesting features of Episode 27 are the hero’s listening in secret, which acts as a pivot for the action of the tale, and the second poem, which has given rise to multiple interpretations.

  The slatted cover mentioned was woven from bamboo. The nobility of the time would hold their hands over a basin, and a maid would pour water over them; the bamboo cover was placed over part of the basin to prevent water from splashing back over the person. When the lady removes the cover, she sees her face reflected in the water and remarks that there is a grieving person’s face beneath the water. It was a common device in the poetry of the time to pretend to mistake an image reflected in the water for something underwater.

  In the second poem, the hero claims that the face the lady saw in the water was in fact his own. Likening himself to a frog that cries together (morogoe: literally, ‘join voices together to sing’; translated as ‘cry in pairs’) with other frogs, he says that she is not the only one to grieve, because she make
s many men cry. (See also Episode 108.) It is not clear from the text whether the poem is sent to the lady or spoken as a soliloquy, but the latter is more probable. Though the hero overhears the lady’s poem, it is likely that she has no idea that he has composed a poem in response.

  The second line of his poem, ware ya miyuran, can be read as either ‘Did you see me?’ or ‘Did you see yourself?’ If read as the former, then it suggests that the hero is protesting that he also cries, with many other men, all of whom she has reduced to tears. If read as the latter, it implies that the lady sees her own face, which the man, jilted in love, compares to a frog’s. Takeoka takes this view, but other scholars (Katagiri, Yamamoto and others) claim that the ware of the poem refers to the hero rather than the lady, and I believe this interpretation is correct.

  frogs: Frogs (kawazu), which often appear in Japanese poetry of the time, are mentioned in the preface to the Kokinshū, the most authorative guide in classical Japanese literature on what constitutes a suitable topic for poetry. In classical literature, frogs have a positive image, as reflected in the reference to them in the Kokinshū preface: ‘Of all living things is there not one that does not sing?’

  28

  Cupped Hands

  In Episode 28 the inconstancy of the lady is contrasted with the single-minded loyalty of the hero, as revealed in his poem to her in which he laments the breaking of what he believed was a firm pledge of love between them. The reappearance of the figure of the ‘fickle lady’ (irogonomi – see here and Episodes 25, 27 and 42) and the technical brilliance of the poem are the most noteworthy features of this episode.

  The poem contains a number of puns that help reinforce its message: the word augo, pronounced ōgo, puns on ‘carrying pole’ and ‘an opportunity to meet’ (afugo); katami puns on ‘small bamboo basket’ and ‘difficult’; and musubu (in the form musubishi in the poem) plays on both ‘to scoop up water’ and ‘to pledge to each other’. The use of associative words (engo) concerned with drawing water, such as ‘carrying pole’, ‘bamboo basket’, ‘scoop up’ and ‘spilling’, enriches the underlying metaphor.

  29

  The Cherry Blossom Banquet

  Episode 29 features a well-constructed laudatory poem appropriate to a formal occasion, a blossom-viewing celebration held by the mother of the crown prince. Though he has enjoyed many such splendid occasions in the past, in the eyes of the hero none compares to this one.

  The cherry blossom party (hana no ga) was held to mark a decennial birthday. During this period in Japan, birthdays were not celebrated annually, but from the fortieth year, and every decade after that a celebration was held, as much of longevity as anything else. The time of year was not fixed. Here it is held during the spring, when the cherry trees are in bloom.

  The mother of the crown prince (haru no miya; literally, ‘the spring prince’) was the junior consort (nyōgo – see imperial consorts) of the emperor, hence her full title would be haru no miya no nyōgo. A number of headnotes in the Kokinshū use the expression to refer to Takaiko (Empress of the Second Avenue) before she became empress; some scholars take it to refer to her here as well, although by the time she turned forty, the crown prince had long since become Emperor Yozei, making her the Empress Mother (kōtaigō). It is unclear whose anniversary is being celebrated at the cherry blossom banquet, but it is natural to assume that the Empress of the Second Avenue was the host.

  According to Katagiri and others, the episode is really about the affair between Narihira and Takaiko, whose romance forms one of the central motifs of the Tales, and, whether correct or not, this is a delightful way to read it.

  30

  A String of Threaded Gems

  In Episode 30, a poem is sent in grief to a lady whom the hero can only meet occasionally. The poem employs the commonly used image of the short gaps between gems threaded together (tama no o) to evoke the brevity of their encounter in contrast with the long period of time for which the lady has remained indifferent to the hero.

  make love to a lady for only the most fleeting of moments: The expression hatsuka narikeru onna can mean either a lady with whom one could spend only a short time or one who is difficult to meet often, but the context of the poem suggests the former.

  31

  Sir Clump of Grass

  Episode 31 is a tale of bitter love with an unusual twist at the end. It tells of a high-ranking lady, perhaps a former lover of the hero, who reprimands him as he passes by her apartment in the palace, and his poem in reply. The basic meaning of her hostile words is: ‘Grass that seems full of vigour now will eventually wither, and that will be your eventual fate, too.’ In an instantaneous and witty reply, the hero reproves the lady, saying that it is the one who curses an unfaithful lover who will be forgotten.

  The narrator’s final sentence – in which a second lady, perhaps another lover of the hero’s, overhears the contretemps and feels left out – adds a comic twist to the episode. Even if the reply is cold, she is annoyed not to be the main focus of the hero’s attention.

  forgetting-grass: See wasuregusa.

  32

  A Spool of Love

  This episode is considered to have been added to the Tales at a later stage, when the image of Narihira as an ideal lover was already well established. The poem does not appear in any of the versions of the Narihirashū (Ariwara no Narihira’s personal poetry collection; see here), and in the Japanese the opening is quite different from the typical one in the Tales. The episode is also stylistically similar to other episodes (nos. 3, 33, 35, 53, 55, 62, 73, 110, 112 and 122) whose poems do not appear in the Narihirashū. These episodes all feature a different kind of fickle lady (irogonomi – see here) with whom Narihira engages – one who is unresponsive rather than inconstant – thus expanding the image of him as a lover through the range of love affairs that he conducts.

  The final statement by the narrator is somewhat open-ended, typical of many endings in the Tales, though suggesting that the lady did not return a poem and the relationship therefore went no further. In the following episode, by contrast, the final question posed by the narrator indicates that the lady’s poem could easily have invited a positive response from the hero, as the poem is an excellent one. Because of this, Episodes 32 and 33 are often considered a contrasting pair. When the poem was good, then the hero would be more likely to respond, and that would mean that the relationship would continue. Thus, what the narrator is really asking is not just whether the poem was good but whether it was good enough to elicit a response, and hence whether or not the relationship was likely to continue as a result. See Episodes 21 and 22 for a similar pairing of affairs – one that goes well and one that does not.

  The cleverness of the poem in this episode lies in the way it puns on the word kuri-kaeshi, which means both ‘unwinding’ thread and ‘winding back’ to an earlier moment in time. The word shizu refers to a simple kind of woven fabric that has been made in Japan since antiquity. The shizu no odamaki is thread wound on to a spool for weaving.

  33

  Reed Ditty

  Episode 33, like other episodes in the Tales, makes a contrast between the ways of the country and the ways of the capital, but more worthy of note is the ambiguous ending, which has generated considerable debate. Some commentators have seen the final question posed by the narrator as a condescending rejection of the countrywoman’s poem, but it should be noted that the words are addressed to the reader, leaving it to him or her to decide.

  Katagiri argues that the final comment appears to be written from the point of view of someone connected to the lovers and that they did in fact continue their relationship, because if it had ended negatively, the ending would have been more definitive, as in Episode 32 – with which this episode is often paired (see also the commentary there). This would mean that the poem was good enough to pass muster and generated a reply. The wordplay on ‘reeds’ (see below) may also suggest a positive response.

  The hero has been visiting a lady livi
ng in Ubara, and as he returns home, he gives her a poem telling her that his love for her is deepening. As the lady lives in Ubara on the coast, the poem is highly appropriate with its reference to ‘reeds / along the shore’. This matching of emotion to a specific location displays the sophistication of the poet and is a defining characteristic of some of the best Heian poetry. Many similar poems existed at the time that it was written, including one in the Man’yōshū (no. 617); indeed, the poem in this episode is thought to be based on this or on one of its variants.

  Although ostensibly by a countrywoman, the lady’s reply is highly accomplished, including a beautifully developed metaphor and several puns and associative words (engo). The word ‘pole’ (sao) serves as a preface (jokotoba) for ‘to plumb’ (sashite), which also puns on ‘to show clearly’. Both ‘pole’ and ‘plumb’ are associative words for ‘hidden cove’ (komorie).