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The Tale of Genji- A Visual Companion

Page 28

by Melissa McCormick


  the Right, as well as many senior

  nobles and offi

  cials. Soon, the

  assembled party was heading for the

  Rokujō Estate. The excursion took

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  42

  The

  Fragrant

  Prince

  Niou miya

  Miko no Emon no Kami, Gon no

  Chūnagon, Udaiben nado, saranu

  kandachime amata kore kare

  norimajiri, izanaitatete, Rokujōin

  e owasu. Michi no yaya hodo furu

  ni, yuki isasaka chirite, ennaru

  tasogaredoki nari.

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  Chapter Forty-Two opens eight years after Genji’s

  Ochiba. Both women live in the northeast quarter,

  death — the so-called eclipse of radiance ( hikari

  which was previously Yūgiri’s home with his care-

  kakuretamai) — and all under heaven have been left

  giver Hanachirusato, and which is where a similar

  feeling that a “light has been extinguished” ( hi wo

  postarchery event occurred in Chapter Twenty-

  kechitaru yō ni). This phrase is borrowed from the

  Five. The setting for the event is thus the sixth

  description of the death of the Buddha in The Lotus

  daughter’s residence, and Yūgiri’s ulterior motive

  Sutra and conveys the magnitude of Genji’s passing

  in sponsoring the event is to entice potential sons-

  for the characters in the tale. Two male protago-

  in-law, primarily Prince Niou. Yūgiri has already

  nists take Genji’s place from this point on: Kaoru,

  triumphed in the marriage politics of the day, hav-

  who is believed by the world to be Genji’s son but

  ing betrothed his fi rst two daughters to Niou’s two

  is in fact Kashiwagi’s son by Genji’s wife, the Third

  older brothers, imperial princes born to Yūgiri’s half

  Princess, and Niou, the Akashi Empress’s third son

  sister, the Akashi Empress. Prince Niou diff ers from

  and Genji’s grandson. In a world gone dark from

  his older brothers, however, and openly expresses

  Genji’s absence, visual form recedes and other his lack of interest in Yūgiri’s daughter. Doted on by senses come to the fore, and indeed the personas of

  Murasaki and Genji and raised separately at Rokujō,

  these two young protagonists are characterized by

  he has grown into something of a dandy and prefers

  their distinctive aromas. Kaoru (meaning “scent,”

  to keep his options open. The one woman who has

  “smell”) exudes a scent that is natural, uncontrived,

  caught his eye is the only child of Emperor Reizei,

  and that mingles organically with that of the fl owers

  a daughter born to his Kokiden Consort. Kaoru, on

  around him to intoxicating eff ect. Niou (meaning

  the other hand, has numerous aff airs, but has some-

  “fragrance”), on the other hand, must concoct his

  how managed to avoid commitments to particular

  own fragrances to perfume himself, an enterprise

  women without accumulating any ill will.

  he undertakes with determination as he attempts

  Rather than depicting the banquet at the Rokujō

  to outdo his rival Kaoru, much like Genji competed

  estate, the album painting focuses on a moment of

  with Tō no Chūjō. Niou’s fragrances are derived

  transition as the party moves from the palace to

  not from ordinary fl owers but from those such as

  Genji’s former residence on the way to the ban-

  the chrysanthemum and the wisteria, fl owers with

  quet, symbolically leading the reader into a new

  connotations of the highest imperial pedigree, a era of characters and their interrelationships. Snow pedigree to which Niou, as a prince and Genji’s

  grandson, can legitimately lay claim. Kaoru’s scent

  is ethereal and of his essence, while Niou’s is super-

  fi cial, but sensual, and stirring. Chapter Forty-Two,

  despite its title, reintroduces both Prince Niou and

  Kaoru, last seen as young children living together at

  Rokujō, now around twenty years of age and eligi-

  ble bachelors.

  Their marriageability motivates the episode

  depicted in the album leaf, as Yūgiri, now a pow-

  erful Minister and inheritor of the Rokujō Estate,

  leads a procession of young courtiers in ox-drawn

  carts from the palace for a postarchery banquet at

  his residence. Among the women now living at

  Rokujō is Yūgiri’s sixth and youngest daughter by

  the Principal Handmaid (Koremitsu’s daughter),

  Rokunokimi, who is being raised by Yūgiri’s wife

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  scenes in the tale often triggered remembrances for

  the one in the foreground, includes an attendant

  Genji, the drifting fl akes having a dreamlike eff ect,

  with a sword, indicating that this is the vehicle

  bringing associations with diff erent moments in belonging to Yūgiri, the Minister. This would also time. Eight years have passed since the last scene

  then indicate the presence of Prince Niou, and his

  in the album, but it seems as though the snow con-

  two younger brothers, whom the tale tells us share

  tinues to fall from the previous leaf, an eff ect that is

  Yūgiri’s carriage. Kaoru sits in one of the other

  enhanced by the image of the solemn, stately march

  carriages, since Yūgiri invited him to join the pro-

  of the courtiers en route, characters moving onward

  cession after spotting him attempting to depart the

  without Genji. Three black carts pulled by black and

  palace unnoticed.

  brown oxen march through the city streets, taking a

  The fi gures of the young men remain obscured

  sharp turn at the corner of a walled residence in the

  behind the drawn blinds of the carts in which they

  center of the composition. The sides of the wall are

  ride, a fi tting approach to the introduction of two

  covered in silver paint, which stands out against the

  characters who are known principally by their

  gold-covered ground, producing a luminous eff ect

  scents. Seemingly standing in for them is the plum

  for this twilight snow scene. As described in the

  tree in this painting, which is growing in the court-

  calligraphy excerpt, the drifting snow at dusk gives

  yard around which the procession turns. Mitsunobu

  the scene a seductive glowing appeal ( ennaru). Each

  eschews painting the buds on the tree limbs, opting

  cart is escorted by two or three attendants in white

&n
bsp; instead for a barren tree as if it was still the middle

  garments. Managing each animal is an oxherd with

  of winter in the story. The fl owerless plum in eff ect

  a stick in hand; they are identifi able by their darker

  creates a visual echo with the tree in the previous

  robes and long hair, which is cinched in the style

  album painting, which marked Genji’s last appear-

  of a juvenile. Only the fi rst cart in the procession,

  ance in the album.

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  Something on its mind,

  The wind wafting the f ragrance

  Of the garden plum

  Wonders why the warbler thinks

  Not yet of coming to call.

  cranston, p. 903

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  43

  Red Plum

  Kōbai

  Kokoro arite

  Kaze no niowasu

  Sono no ume ni

  Mazu uguisu no

  Towazu ya arubeki

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  Chapter Forty-Three tells the story of Kōbai, Tō

  backing embellished with designs in gold. Kōbai

  no Chūjō’s second son and Kashiwagi’s younger concentrates as he wields his brush, f reshly inked brother, who in his earlier appearances in the tale

  f rom the well in the elegant writing box before

  was often lauded for his beautiful singing voice. As

  him. The poem speaks suggestively of the f ragrant

  a young boy in Chapter Ten (Sakaki), he performed

  plum in his garden (his daughter), waiting for the

  the saibara folk song “Takasago” and received gen-

  warbler (Niou) to land on its branches. He plans

  erous gifts and accolades from Genji. Thereafter he

  to send it with the sprig of blossoms lying on the

  was often required to lend his voice to the musical

  fl oor, all the better to tempt the “f ragrant prince.”

  entertainments of Genji’s banquets, and he was com-

  In contrast to the barren winter plum tree shown

  pared in poems to the warbler, and the bell cricket (as

  in the previous album painting, the red plum tree

  in the Hatsune, Kagaribi, Umegae, and Fujinouraba

  in Kōbai’s garden is represented at its peak. Spikey

  chapters). Now, in his mid-fi fties, he is a high-rank-

  branches lean in f rom the left of the composition

  ing Major Counselor and remarried to Makibashira,

  toward the veranda of the luxurious residence, pre-

  as his fi rst wife is deceased. Makibashira, the daugh-

  senting clusters of fully opened pink blossoms, and

  ter of Higekuro and the ash-dumping lady from round, red buds, that are evocative of the alluring Chapter Thirty-One, suff ered from her parents’ f ragrance noted in the tale’s description of the tree.

  divorce and ensuing separation from her brothers

  The scent’s delivery on the wind is mentioned in the

  and her family home. Before marrying Kōbai, she

  poem and visualized in the painting by a few pink

  had reluctantly married Genji’s half brother, the late

  petals that have wafted down on the breeze and

  Sochinomiya (Prince Hotaru), with whom she had

  fl oat on the surface of the garden stream.

  one daughter. Kōbai thus has a blended household:

  The pivotal fi gure in this painting, however, is the

  with two daughters from his fi rst marriage, and youth on the veranda, the only biological child born a new stepdaughter from Makibashira, Kōbai has

  to Makibashira and Kōbai as a couple, a young man

  three young women under his roof, whose marital

  who has earned the favor of both the Crown Prince

  options occupy much of his attention.

  and Prince Niou while serving as a palace page. He

  Kōbai’s matchmaking provides the background

  acts as an intermediary, delivering his father’s letters

  for the scene depicted in the album painting, which

  and Niou’s responses about his sister, similar to the

  shows him composing a letter to Prince Niou, role Utsusemi’s younger brother Kogimi played in whom he is trying to entice into a relationship with

  Chapter Two. The conspicuous gold cloud hover-

  his second daughter. He raises his brush in his right

  ing above him, which is used so often in the album

  hand as he writes out the single poem that appears

  to highlight Genji and his prominence as the pro-

  in the adjacent calligraphy leaf in the album. In the

  tagonist, suggests, however, that he is more than

  painting, the letter is brushed on paper with a red

  a go-between, as Joshua Mostow has pointed out.

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  on Prince Niou’s charms and decides that he alone is

  the true inheritor of Genji’s radiance, likening him

  to Ananda, fi rst disciple of the Buddha. His desire for

  Niou as a son-in-law for his second daughter mingles

  with his own desire for a memento of Genji, and for

  the pleasure of Niou’s company in his household.

  That pleasure can also be experienced vicariously,

  through his son’s relationship with the prince.

  The boy seems to fi nd Niou just as attractive as his

  father does, and the narration directly expresses his

  “delight at being able to lie so intimately with him”

  ( ke chikaku fusetamaeru wo . . . tagui naku ureshiku

  natsukashu omoi kikoyu). While similar interactions

  occurred between Genji and Kogimi earlier in the

  tale, Kōbai’s son seems more demonstrative of his

  The boy is as visually stunning as the plum blos-

  desire. The depiction of physical attraction by other

  soms, which are positioned on either side of him,

  men to Prince Niou heightens his appeal and shows

  f raming his fi gure. He wears distinctive apparel: him to be Genji-like in his ability to cross gender purplish trousers with a tortoise shell pattern cov-lines as an object of desire.

  ered in shimmering mica, and a pink tinted robe

  Relationships between men outside the con-

  with a bright red undergarment peeking out f rom

  fi nes of marriage also work to defi ne the primary

  between the arm seams. The colors of the boy’s

  importance of heterosexual marriage in terms of

  dress mimic the pink and red of the plum blossoms

  the perpetuation of a lineage. Lineal concerns often

  and buds and suggest that they be interpreted as

  dictate attractions between men and women in

  a symbol for the yo
uth himself. The plum was in

  subterranean ways in the tale. Niou, for example,

  fact a common symbol for beautiful boys, known as

  inherits Genji’s aversion to women who represent

  chigo in stories popular in the fi fteenth and sixteenth

  Fujiwara control over the imperial line. He rather

  centuries, in which they fi gured as the objects of

  curtly dismisses Kōbai’s overtures proposing a match

  aff ection by older men, usually Buddhist priests. with his second daughter, preferring instead Kōbai’s Tosa Mitsunobu knew such illustrated tales and stepdaughter by Makibashira, who shares with employed their conventions for beauty in depicting

  Niou the same imperial “ancient bloodline” ( furume-

  the boy, giving him full eyebrows, wisps of hair on

  kashiki onaji suji nite). She is the granddaughter of a

  the side of the face, and delicate features on a white,

  prince on Makibashira’s side, and the great-grand-

  thickly powdered face. The text mentions that Kōbai

  daughter of the Kiritsubo Emperor through her

  in this scene admires his son’s hair, which he wears

  biological father. For her own part, however, she

  loose rather than in the twin loops appropriate for

  has no desire to marry, a sentiment with which her

  service as a page. Interestingly, Mitsunobu chooses

  mother sympathizes. While previous female char-

  neither of those options for the painting, but depicts

  acters, such as Princess Asagao, were able to opt

  the boy’s long tresses cinched in the back, a style

  out of marriage, none expressed the desire to do

  typical of chigo characters. In so doing, the artist

  so as explicitly as the stepdaughter in this chapter.

  emphasizes the implicit content of the Heian period

  In this way, both Kōbai’s son’s expression of desire

  text in a sixteenth-century visual language.

  for Niou and the stepdaughter’s clear assertion that

  When Kōbai looks at his son, he sees a vision of

  she wants to remain single stand out as independent

  himself at the same age, a time that he fondly recalls

  voices in this chapter that throw into high relief the

  as having been spent in Genji’s service. He refl ects

  conventional nature of marriage in the narrative.

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