The Tales of Ise (Penguin Classics)

by Donald Keene

a prince named Kaya: Prince Kaya appears in this episode as the lady’s lover only at the beginning; he then disappears from the narrative, which develops with no direct connection to him.

  44

  Undo a Train

  Another episode based on the theme of friendship, this has parallels with Episode 16 in its depiction of the great kindness and sincerity that the hero shows towards a friend, here departing to take up an official post in the provinces. The poem composed by the hero in honour of his friend belongs to a genre known as muma no hanamuke, from an old farewell ritual involving the use of horses. Though, in the Japanese, the first sentence has no explicit subject, it refers to the man (the hero) who is hosting the party. Similarly, though not so designated, the subject of the second sentence, the person who ‘had a servant serve him sake’, is the man’s wife. In normal circumstances, a lady would have been sitting behind a curtain or screen, as was the custom on such occasions, so the fact that she was in attendance at all means that the guest had close ties to both husband and wife. This is also hinted at by the phrase in the opening paragraph, ‘As the friend was close to the family’.

  The departing friend is given a set of women’s robes as a farewell gift. It was the custom to do so even if the recipient was a man. The train (mo) was attached to the waist and fell behind the garment. It derived from a type of skirt worn by women in the eighth century and earlier. During the Heian period, from around the ninth century onwards, styles became more Japanese, as opposed to simply mimicking the previously influential Chinese fashion in customs and attire. Because women increasingly tended to assume a prone, rather than a standing, position, the ‘skirt’ changed into a long train that extended from the rear of the garment. The train was attached to ceremonial dress only on formal occasions. In poetry, mo is a homophone meaning both ‘the train of the garment’ and ‘misfortune’.

  The man composes the poem on behalf of his wife (see daisaku (proxy composition)) but we can only tell this because it is implied in the voice of the poem itself, spoken as a lady removing her train. Although in the poem the wife claims to have taken off her own train to give to her husband’s friend, in actuality what was presented would almost certainly have been a new one.

  45

  Fireflies, Please Tell the Wild Geese

  Though on the surface Episode 45 concerns the death of a young lady, perhaps the real significance of the episode is, as Katagiri argues, that it is a part of the expanding portrait of the hero, Narihira, whose kindness extends to expressing sadness for a girl whom he has never even met but who dies because of her love for him. While the story may appear vague to a non-Japanese audience, it has traditionally been a favourite in Japan.

  Unable to disclose her feelings even to her parents, the well-brought-up girl falls ill and says nothing until she is near death. After the hero is told, he panics and hurries to her house. But it is too late and, in mourning, the hero composes two poems. The first is subject to a number of interpretations. One suggests that a firefly is the spirit of a dead person. Another sees the poem as a plea to the girl’s spirit, here likened to a wild goose, to return on the autumn breezes. Included in collections such as the Gosenshū simply as an autumn poem, the poem is thought to have had no connection originally with the story of the girl.

  The second poem, unusually following on the first poem without a headnote, expresses the poet’s sense of futility at the loss of the young girl. Of this tale Hori Tatsuo writes: ‘When I read such an episode, I am filled suddenly with something that indefinably clutches at my heart, something sorrowful, like a requiem … In it can clearly be heard the involuntary sigh of a heedless man.’

  the man shut himself away: Because of taboos related to death pollution, after the death of the girl, the hero is unable to leave the house. Katagiri points out in his commentary on the episode that the Rinjisaishiki (Special Festivals) section of the Engishiki (Laws of the Engi Era; 927) stated that it was forbidden to go to court for thirty days after a death. Because the hero may have had direct contact with the girl, he would have been subject to this rule.

  the last day of summer … he played music: The text gives the time as the end of the sixth month of the lunisolar calendar, which would be the last days of summer. The playing of music would have been not only to relieve the hero’s own tedium during his period of isolation but also to console the spirit of the dead girl.

  46

  A Special Friend

  This episode centres on the hero’s reply by poem to a letter he has received from a close friend who had left the capital for the provinces. Countering the reproach made by his friend that ‘it is quite natural to forget someone whom one never sees’, the hero’s poem revolves around the words that appear in the letter. Here omokage (literally, ‘vision’ or ‘phantom’) is translated as ‘image’ – that of the friend constantly present in spirit even if not in person (see also commentary to Episode 63).

  It is not unusual in the Tales to find men exchanging poems as if they were lovers. Episodes 11, 16, 38, 44 and 48 are other examples. (For more on the theme of friendship, see here and poetic exchanges between men.)

  47

  A Sacred Wand

  Episode 47 features a witty exchange of poems between a lady whom the hero desperately wants to meet but who believes him to be a philanderer (ada) and therefore behaves ever more coldly towards him.

  Both poems are based on the image of a sacred streamer (Ōnusa) – a wooden wand with strips of paper, linen or cotton attached that was and still is used in Shinto purification rituals. People would rub parts of their bodies on the streamer, transferring any ‘pollution’ to the strips of paper. The wand was then thrown into a river, carrying away any impurities with it. In the first poem, the hero is compared to the streamer when it is being pulled by ‘many hands’, to illustrate his philandering ways. The second poem extends the metaphor, when the wand settles in one place on the river, to assure the lady that the hero will eventually devote himself to her alone.

  Both poems appear in the Kokinshū (nos. 706 and 707) as an exchange between Narihira and an anonymous lady, and it is thought that this episode of the Tales was adapted from that work. Like Episode 39, this is one of the few episodes in which the man, rather than the woman, exemplifies the concept of irogonomi (see here).

  48

  The One Who Waits

  Like Episode 44, this episode offers another example of the farewell poem (muma no hanamuke). Here the hero organizes a farewell party for someone who does not turn up, and the poem is written as though the two were a man and a woman in love. The words hito matamu / sato (translated here as ‘the one who waits for me’) conjure up a situation in which a woman is waiting for a man. In its evocation of the agony of waiting, the poem is very similar in sentiment to the one in Episode 38. (See also poetic exchanges between men.)

  This poem is included in the Kokinshū (no. 969) as a poem by Narihira, with a headnote explaining that it was composed when a man called Ki no Toshisada was setting out for Awa Province – part of present-day Tokushima Prefecture – to take up a post in the provincial bureaucracy. It is very probable that this episode, like Episode 47, was adapted from the Kokinshū.

  49

  New Grass of Spring

  Episode 49 is striking for its depiction of incestuous feelings on the part of the hero towards his sister. It is important to keep in mind, however, that such sentiments would not have been as shocking as they are today, because marriage between half-brothers and -sisters appears to have occurred in Japan up until the beginning of the ninth century. Commentators have debated whether the girl was the man’s full or half-sister. The latter is more likely, however, as there is no evidence that the historical Narihira had sisters.

  This episode was used by Murasaki Shikibu in Chapter 47 in The Tale of Genji, in which Prince Niou shows an illustration of the episode to his full sister, the First Princess (Oigimi), to see her reaction. She, however, finds his teasing offensive and does not repl
y. This suggests that illustrated versions of the Tales may have been circulating by the time the Tale of Genji was written (c.1008).

  In the first poem, the brother expresses his feelings to his sister. The word wakakusa (translated here as ‘New Grass of Spring’) was a common metaphor for a young person. On its own, ura in Urawakami (‘young and pretty’) means ‘tip’ or ‘shoot’ (i.e. the youngest part of a plant). In neyoge (‘I would like to lie with you’; literally, ‘to appear good to sleep with’), ne is a homophone meaning both ‘sleep’ and ‘root’. Ura (tip), ne (root) and musubu (to knot) are associative words (engo) linked to kusa (grass). Kusa o musubu is a standard phrase in Japanese, literally meaning to ‘tie grass’ but also used as an image for pledging love, praying for long life, etc. Hito no musuban (the future tense of musubu) in the poem means ‘to be married to someone else’, translated here as ‘that you will be someone else’s’.

  The reply expresses both the sister’s surprise at receiving an erotic poem from her brother and a rebuke. The word mezurashiki (rare, lovely) is a pillow word (makura kotoba) for Hatsukusa (first grass); koto no ha (what you say) is synonymous with ‘words’ (kotoba), referring in particular to words used in a poem. Here, it also serves as an associative word for Hatsukusa. The phrase koto no ha (literally, ‘leaves of your words’, based on ha meaning ‘leaf’) is commonly used in classical poetry.

  50

  Lovers’ Quarrel

  Episode 50 features a rather acrimonious exchange of poems between the hero and a lady, each accusing the other of infidelity. But the acrimony is alleviated by the playful nature of the episode, including the incorporation of a Chinese proverb and various Buddhist ideas, which would have given it great appeal to the sophisticated readers of the time.

  In the first poem, the metaphor of eggs piled on top of one another derives from a Chinese proverb, ‘more hazardous than a pile of eggs’. The impossibility of the task is emphasized by the sheer number of eggs, with ‘hundred’ being expressed in the original as ten times ten (tō zutsu tō). The second poem, given in reply, refers to dew (tsuyu in Asatsuya) to signify something fleeting, reinforced by kono yo (evanescent and unreliable). From its basic meaning of ‘society in general’ or ‘human relations’, it can also be interpreted as referring to relations between a man and a woman.

  The theme of transience continues in the third poem with the reference to cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms, which are soon scattered, were widely used in waka to represent impermanence; much the same metaphor is used, for example, in Episodes 17 and 90. In the fourth poem, the woman tries to outdo the man with yet another image for the ephemeral: ‘writing numbers / on flowing water’ (Yuku mizu ni / kazu kaku). The expression ‘like writing on water’ (derived from the Nirvana Sutra, where it is a symbol of the evanescent nature of life) appeared in Japan as early as the Man’yōshū in the form ‘like writing numbers on water’ – probably relating to the way (still common in Japan) of recording numbers by drawing lines. This poem is thought to have been taken from the Kokinshū, where it appears as no. 522.

  The fifth poem effectively ends the quarrel by drawing together the various images from the other four – ‘flowing waters’, ‘scattering blossoms’ and ‘passing years’ – into a lament about impermanence. Using images from nature to convey the impermanence of a love affair was common in classical Japanese poetry.

  In his final comment, the narrator casts an ironic eye on the whole affair: the hero and the lady have simply been competing in a battle of wits when they are probably both involved with multiple partners.

  51

  Deep Roots

  Episode 51 features a simple poem composed upon the planting of chrysanthemums. In China, the chrysanthemum was associated with the realm of the immortals and therefore had the image of perpetual youth and longevity, associations that were carried over with the flower when it was brought to Japan in the Heian period. The chrysanthemum does not appear at all, for example, in the earlier collection, the Man’yōshū. In this good-fortune poem, the poet prays for the health and prosperity of the recipient.

  The poem appears also in the Yamato monogatari (no. 163), in which the ‘someone’ in the episode is said to be the Empress of the Second Avenue. In the Tales, however, the recipient remains unidentified. The same poem is also found in the Kokinshū (no. 268), with the following headnote: ‘Attached to some chrysanthemums, for someone to plant in his garden. By Ariwara no Narihira.’ Thus Narihira is identified as the author of the poem.

  garden: The word senzai, translated here as ‘garden’, refers specifically to plants, such as shrubs and flowers, grown in the front garden that could be enjoyed from close proximity. In the Heian period, the term referred in particular to autumn plants like chrysanthemums, bush clover and pampas grass.

  52

  Sweet Flags and Pheasants

  One of the problems of Episode 52 is that the poem and the prose refer to two different gifts. The poem is sent, together with a pheasant, in thanks for the gift of rice cakes. However, the poem does not mention the cakes and refers instead only to the flowers (‘sweet flags’); both the cakes and the sweet flags are associated with Tango no Sekku, the festival of the fifth day of the fifth month, known today in Japan as Children’s Day. It is highly likely that the rice cakes were wrapped in sweet-flag leaves, and that is how I would suggest the reader interprets this tale, but it is not clearly stated in the text, so there appears to be a discrepancy.

  The poem compares the difficulties encountered by the friend, in procuring sweet flags, with those of the hero, in hunting pheasants. It was a convention in poetry at the time to exaggerate the trouble to which a person had gone in order to acquire the gift that was being presented. Here, the hero is both thanking the friend for his trouble and reminding him of his own. It is not known why he gave a pheasant as a return gift; hunting does not fit seasonally, since it was generally a winter activity. My guess is that the pheasant was chosen because it allowed the poet to make a pun on the verb ‘to hunt’ with the verb ‘to cut grass’ (or, in this case, flowers), as both are pronounced karu in Japanese. Thus the verb karu acts as a pun (kakekotoba) in the form of a homophone that links the two parts of the poem. The hero does not think that his friend has actually gone out and gathered the sweet flags, and he is simply teasing him that just as his friend went out to cut grass, he has also hunted in the fields. Similar examples of gifts being used to enhance poetic expression can be found in Episode 3 and elsewhere.

  The poem itelf is one of the more cryptic in the Tales and has generated many interpretations; my translation here is based on the standard interpretation.

  beautifully wrapped rice cakes: The rice cakes, made from washed glutinous rice, would have been wrapped and decorated with multicoloured silk thread. Nowadays, these cakes are wrapped in broad bamboo grass leaves, tied with string and steamed.

  sweet flags: The sweet flag has tiny flowers and its leaves, which have a strong fragrance, were hung from the roof to ward off malign forces.

  53

  Heart of the Night

  Episode 53 can be read in two different ways, depending on how one interprets monogatari nado suru (translated here as ‘talking’; see monogatarau), which can mean either small talk or pillow talk following sex. If the phrase is taken to mean only ‘talking’, then the two did not have sex. In such an interpretation, the hero, having finally met the woman he has been trying to meet for some time, then suddenly realizes that they have spent the whole night simply talking.

  Common sense suggests that for a lover as ardent as Narihira an entire night of conversation is a little hard to believe. Yamamoto thus argues that they probably did have sex. By contrast, Katagiri sees this episode as a variation on Episode 2, in which the hero only talks to the lady he desires without enjoying physical relations with her. He argues that the verb monogatarisu, which appears here and in Episodes 82 and 95, always only means ‘talking’. Equally, the ambiguity – the fact that the word may
be interpreted in different ways – could be intentional.

  the cock crowed: See crowing of the cock.

  my heart … is still deep within the night: Depending on how one interprets monogatari nado suru (see above), this suggests either that the lovemaking between the hero and the lady has been so passionate that he wishes it would go on longer or that he is feeling frustrated because they did not consummate their love.

  54

  The Path of Dreams

  Episode 54 features a lovely poem in which the hero complains to a lady of his inability to see her even in his dreams because of her indifference towards him. The ‘path of dreams’ (yumeji) traditionally leads to the home of one’s beloved. In Heian romance, if a man is unable to reach a lady even in his dreams, it means that she is not thinking of him. The hero weeps because he knows that he can never attain the lady’s love no matter how hard he tries; the dew (tsuyu) on his sleeves represents the tears of grief that he sheds because of this.

  The first time that the word yumeji was used in classical Japanese poetry was in two beautiful poems by Ono no Komachi (see here) in the Kokinshū (nos. 657 and 658):

  Filled with love

  the night comes on.

  But if we only meet in dreams

  and not reality,

  no one can fault our love.

  (Kagirinaki / omoi no mama ni / yoru mo komu / yumeji o saeni / hito ha togameji)

  I visit you always

  in my dreams

  but in reality

  I have yet to know the joy