The tale of Genji
which joins Mount Katsuragi and Mount Kombu.
[6] Genji’s brother-in-law.
[7] His own palace.
[8] Foxes, dressed up as men, were believed to be in the habit of
seducing and bewitching human beings.
[9] We gather later that she was only nineteen.
[10] I.e. covered part of his face with a scarf or the like, a
practice usual with illicit lovers in mediæval Japan.
[11] _Shin Kokinshū_, 1701.
[12] Lady Rokujō.
[13] To summon a servant.
[14] The bringing of a corpse. Temples were used as mortuaries.
[15] I.e. pursued illicit amours.
[16] Pilgrimages to Kiyomizu Temple are made on the seventeenth day.
[17] Chūjō means ‘Captain’; see above, p. 71.
[18] From Tō no Chūjō’s wife, who was the daughter of the Minister of
the Right.
[19] Cicada.
[20] ‘Sedge upon the eaves ‘is _Nokiba no Ogi_, and it is by this name
that the lady is generally known.
[21] _Gwammon_.
[22] For forty-nine days the spirit of the dead leads the intermediate
existence so strangely described in the _Abhidharma Kośa Śāstra_; then
it begins its new incarnation.
CHAPTER V
MURASAKI
He fell sick of an ague, and when numerous charms and spells had been
tried in vain, the illness many times returning, someone said that in
a certain temple on the Northern Hills there lived a wise and holy man
who in the summer of the year before (the ague was then rife and the
usual spells were giving no relief) was able to work many signal
cures: ‘Lose no time in consulting him, for while you try one useless
means after another the disease gains greater hold upon you.’ At once
he sent a messenger to fetch the holy man, who however replied that
the infirmities of old age no longer permitted him to go abroad. ‘What
is to be done?’ said Genji; ‘I must go secretly to visit him’; and
taking only four or five trusted servants he set out long before dawn.
The place lay somewhat deep into the hills. It was the last day of the
third month and in the Capital the blossoms had all fallen. The
hill-cherry was not yet out; but as he approached the open country,
the mists began to assume strange and lovely forms, which pleased him
the more because, being one whose movements were tethered by many
proprieties, he had seldom seen such sights before. The temples too
delighted him. The holy man lived in a deep cave hollowed out of a
high wall of rock. Genji did not send in his name and was in close
disguise, but his face was well known and the priest at once
recognized him.
‘Forgive me’ he said; ‘it was you, was it not, who sent for me the
other day? Alas, I think no longer of the things of this world and I
am afraid I have forgotten how to work my cures. I am very sorry
indeed that you have come so far,’ and pretending to be very much
upset, he looked at Genji, laughing. But it was soon apparent that he
was a man of very great piety and learning. He wrote out certain
talismans and administered them, and read certain spells. By the time
this was over, the sun had risen, and Genji went a little way outside
the cave and looked around him. From the high ground where he was
standing he looked down on a number of scattered hermitages. A winding
track led down to a hut which, though it was hedged with the same
small brushwood as the rest, was more spaciously planned, having a
pleasant roofed alley running out from it, and there were trim copses
set around. He asked whose house it was and was told by one of his men
that a certain abbot had been living there in retirement for two
years. ‘I know him well’ said Genji on hearing the abbot’s name; ‘I
should not like to meet him dressed and attended as I am. I hope he
will not hear....’ Just then a party of nicely dressed children came
out of the house and began to pluck such flowers as are used for the
decoration of altars and holy images. ‘There are some girls with them’
said one of Genji’s men. ‘We cannot suppose that His Reverence keeps
them. Who then can they be?’ and to satisfy his curiosity he went a
little way down the hill and watched them. ‘Yes, there are some very
pretty girls, some of them grown up and others quite children,’ he
came back and reported.
During a great part of the morning Genji was busy with his cure. When
at last the ceremony was completed his attendants, dreading the hour
at which the fever usually returned, strove to distract his
attention by taking him a little way across the mountain to a point
from which the Capital could be seen. ‘How lovely’ cried Genji ‘are
those distances half lost in haze, and that blur of shimmering woods
that stretches out on every side. How could anyone be unhappy for a
single instant who lived in such a place?’ ‘This is nothing,’ said one
of his men. ‘If I could but show you the lakes and mountains of other
provinces, you would soon see how far they excel all that you here
admire’; and he began to tell him first of Mount Fuji and many another
famous peak, and then of the West Country with all its pleasant bays
and shores, till he quite forgot that it was the hour of his fever.
‘Yonder, nearest to us’ the man continued, pointing to the sea ‘is the
bay of Akashi in Harima. Note it well; for though it is not a very
out-of-the-way place, yet the feeling one has there of being shut off
from everything save one huge waste of sea makes it the strangest and
most desolate spot I know. And there it is that the daughter of a lay
priest who was once governor of the province presides over a mansion
of quite disproportionate and unexpected magnificence. He is the
descendant of a Prime Minister and was expected to cut a great figure
in the world. But he is a man of very singular disposition and is
averse to all society. For a time he was an officer in the Palace
Guard, but he gave this up and accepted the province of Harima.
However he soon quarrelled with the local people and, announcing that
he had been badly treated and was going back to the Capital, he did
nothing of the sort, but shaved his head and became a lay priest. Then
instead of settling, as is usually done, on some secluded hillside, he
built himself a house on the seashore, which may seem to you a very
strange thing to do; but as a matter of fact, whereas in that province
in one place or another a good many recluses have taken up their
abode, the mountain-country is far more dull and lonely and would
sorely have tried the patience of his young wife and child; and so as
a compromise he chose the seashore. Once when I was travelling in the
province of Harima I took occasion to visit his house and noted that,
though at the Capital he had lived in a very modest style, here he had
built on the most magnificent and lavish scale; as though determined
in spite of what had happened (now that he was free from the bother of
governing the province) to spend the rest of his days in the greatest
comfort imaginable. But all the while he was making great preparations
for the life to come and no ordained priest could have led a more
austere and pious life.’
‘But you spoke of his daughter?’ said Genji. ‘She is passably
good-looking,’ he answered, ‘and not by any means stupid. Several
governors and officers of the province have set their hearts upon her
and pressed their suit most urgently; but her father has sent them all
away. It seems that though in his own person so indifferent to worldly
glory, he is determined that this one child, his only object of care,
should make amends for his obscurity, and has sworn that if ever she
chooses against his will, and when he is gone flouts his set purpose
and injunction to satisfy some idle fancy of her own, his ghost will
rise and call upon the sea to cover her.’
Genji listened with great attention. ‘Why, she is like the vestal
virgin who may know no husband but the King-Dragon of the Sea,’ and
they laughed at the old ex-Governor’s absurd ambitions. The teller of
the story was a son of the present Governor of Harima, who from being
a clerk in the Treasury had last year been capped an officer of the
Fifth Rank. He was famous for his love-adventures and the others
whispered to one another that it was with every intention of
persuading the lady to disobey her father’s injunctions that he had
gone out of his way to visit the shore of Akashi.
‘I fear her breeding must be somewhat countrified,’ said one; ‘it
cannot well be otherwise, seeing that she has grown up with no other
company than that of her old-fashioned parents,—though indeed it
appears that her mother was a person of some consequence.’ ‘Why, yes’
said Yoshikiyo, the Governor’s son, ‘and for this reason she was able
to secure little girls and boys from all the best houses in the
Capital, persuading them to pay visits to the sea-side and be
playmates to her own little girl, who thus acquired the most polished
breeding.’ ‘If an unscrupulous person were to find himself in that
quarter,’ said another, ‘I fear that despite the dead father’s curse
he might not find it easy to resist her.’
The story made a deep impression upon Genji’s imagination. As his
gentlemen well knew, whatever was fantastic or grotesque both in
people and situations at once strongly attracted him. They were
therefore not surprised to see him listen with so much attention. ‘It
is now well past noon,’ said one of them, ‘and I think we may reckon
that you will get safely through the day without a return of your
complaint. So let us soon be starting for home.’ But the priest
persuaded him to stay a little longer: ‘The sinister influences are
not yet wholly banished,’ he said; ‘it would be well that a further
ritual should continue quietly during the night. By to-morrow morning,
I think you will be able to proceed.’ His gentlemen all urged him to
stay; nor was he at all unwilling, for the novelty of such a lodging
amused him. ‘Very well then, at dawn’ he said, and having nothing to
do till bed-time which was still a long way off, he went out on to the
hill-side, and under cover of the heavy evening mist loitered near the
brushwood hedge. His attendants had gone back to the hermit’s
cave and only Koremitsu was with him. In the western wing, opposite
which he was standing, was a nun at her devotions. The blind was
partly raised. He thought she seemed to be dedicating flowers to an
image. Sitting near the middle pillar, a sutra-book propped upon a
stool by her side, was another nun. She was reading aloud; there was a
look of great unhappiness in her face. She seemed to be about forty;
not a woman of the common people. Her skin was white and very fine,
and though she was much emaciated, there was a certain roundness and
fulness in her cheeks, and her hair, clipped short on a level with her
eyes, hung in so delicate a fringe across her brow that she looked,
thought Genji, more elegant and even fashionable in this convent
guise, than if her hair had been long. Two very well-conditioned maids
waited upon her. Several little girls came running in and out of the
room at play. Among them was one who seemed to be about ten years old.
She came running into the room dressed in a rather worn white frock
lined with stuff of a deep saffron colour. Never had he seen a child
like this. What an astonishing creature she would grow into! Her hair,
thick and wavy, stood out fan-wise about her head. She was very
flushed and her lips were trembling. ‘What is it? Have you quarrelled
with one of the other little girls?’ The nun raised her head as she
spoke and Genji fancied that there was some resemblance between her
and the child. No doubt she was its mother. ‘Inu has let out my
sparrow—the little one that I kept in the clothes-basket,’ she said,
looking very unhappy. ‘What a tiresome boy that Inu is!’ said one of
the two maids. ‘He deserves a good scolding for playing such a stupid