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SEMINAR IV CHAPTERS 34-41 |
WAKANA JO
"Murasaki husbanded every scrap of information that came her way....she sought out the acquaintance of these women, her presumed rivals. From "The First Warbler" (Hatsune) through "New Herbs, PartOne"(Wakana Jo), four such first meetings are recorded: (1) with Tamakazura, on the occasion of the New Year's singers' visit; (2) with Akikonomu, at the Akashi Princess's coming-of-age ceremony; (3) with the Akashi Lady, when the Akashi Princess enters the Crown Prince's household; and (4) with the Third Princess, when the Akashi Princess returns to the Rokujoin for her lying-in. (Given that all these women occupied the same residence, what a degree of formality must have prevailed to require the passage of years and these special occasions for their meeting.)" F. 182.
"When Tamakazura reappears in "New Herbs, Part One," it is to signal an end to the rhetorical glory of the Rokujoin." F. 159.
"Tamakazura, as a representative of the unknowing public within the tale, touches upon its great secrets: in her youth she is moved by the stunning resemblance of the Reizei Emperor to Genji; in her middle age, she is struck by Kaoru's resemblance to her own late brother Kashiwagi. Beautiful yet sensible, utilitarian, and protean, Tamakazura, who is denied the grand gestures of negation, is doomed to live out her life as a stepchild in the kingdom ofthe Genji, never empowered to see, never permitted to become."F. 159.
The young Akashi princess, now thirteen years of age, is pregnant by the crown prince, Suzaku's son. She is reunited with her mother for the first time in eight years when she is taken back to her mother's quarters in the Rokujoin's Winter Garden to await the birth of her child. F. 78, S. 570-71. Interesting exchange of poems from grandmother, to daughter, to mother.
The Akashi priest sends notification of his intent to spend the remainder of his days in silent contemplation. He recounts an early dream in which he realized that a destiny awaited him. Genji was part of the destiny in the old man's plan. "Up to this point, we have followed Genji's rising star as the manifestation of his own fate, but the revelation of his dream suggests that is was but part of the fate of a crazed provincial governor, belonging in turn to a larger fate encompassing Genji's undistinguished mother as well." F.83. "Phophecy whether is concerns Genji or a mad priest, works as an intrafictional sacred force to undermine the role of calculation--in fact, madness reinforces the sense of the sacred." F.ibid.
"If prophecy in the Tale of Genji functions as a theological device to mask mundane calculation, its theological stature is in turn undermined in the unfolding of the fiction" F.84 In other words, Genji is as much a manipulator of his fate as a receiver of destiny.
Read the description of Genji's return to Murasaki's bedside on a snowy night after a required nuptial meeting with the Third Princess, as a pair with the scene of Murasaki's wedding night in the Aoi chapter. Idea from Field p. 186.
"Murasaki as a child may not have known what a "husband" was, but she could understand human attachment; in this light, even her jealousy becomes a sign of her superiority." F. 187
WAKANA GE
Sixteen years after her death, the Rokujo Lady's spirit appears to malign Murasaki who has become ill anyway over the appearance of the Third Princess in her world at the Rokujo no In palace. Do we still think the avenging spirit is interesting? pp. 58-60.
"From the great "New Herbs" chapters onward, the writing has been turning steadily inward, with the protagonists brooding, speculating on each other's thoughts, willing illness and even death upon themselves. Whereas the Rokujo Lady's earlier appearances as a possessing spirit had offered flashes of psychological revelation when the surrounding tale was largely innocent of introspection, here her spirit turns demonlike and unrecuperably otherworldly." p. 60.
"Murasaki, having led the most confined life among the heroines (the Sumiyoshi pilgrimage with Genji and the Akashi women in ...{Wakana Ge} is an exceptional outing) wanders furthest internally. She is the noble travelerof the mind." F. 186.
YUUGIRI
Compare the wonderful translation by Field on p.198 of Murasaki's thoughts about the world as created by men, with the Seidensticker on p. 699.
MINORI
Consider those other characters in The Tale of Genji who wish to take orders: Rokujo Lady. Akashi Priest, Fujitsubo, Utsusemi, the Third Princess, Ukifune, and, of course, Murasaki. "In Murasaki's case, her history reveals an insistent religious streak...Murasaki's garden, where spring flourished long after it had yielded to summer elsewhere, was a Buddhist other world realized on earth." F. 190. Is Murasaki, when allowed to take orders, like the others?
"Murasaki is not the realization of a fantasy, but the substitute realization of a fantasy. Given this, as well as her lineage, it is not surprising that the spirit of the Rokujo Lady should follow her to the Nijoin and deliver a near-fatal blow. Murasaki's climactic illness in the Nijoin reveals her state of radical homelessness."F. 191
The Minori, or Rites, of this chapter refer to the Hoke Hakoo, or Eight Sermons on the Lotus Sutra ,that are offered three other times in the Tale of Genji: Fujitsubo in memory of the Kiritsubo Emperor on the first anniversary of his death, then by Genji upon his return from exile, for his father too. Murasaki's is the third. The fourth is by the Akashi Empress in the Kageroo chapter in memory of her father Genji and her adoptive mother Murasaki. All the above are memorial services for the dead. "Murasaki's Hoke Hakkoo is nothing other than a staging of her own death." F. 192
There is a triad of poems sharing the same theme on S. 717. This is called a shoowa, or chorus, like voices in unison. It sound to me like the trios in operatic tradition. Necessary at climactic moments like this one.
MABOROSHI
"Since the end of "The Rites" (Minori) chapter, he {Genji} has been living in the women's quarters (whether in the Nijoin or the Rokujoin is unclear). shunning the eyes of others, he has all but become a woman himself."F. 201
"Life was lived second-and thirdhand by highborn women, who heard the cuckoo's song through the reports of their attendants. Once they were seen (wedded or violated), however, they could begin to see, which could eventually lead, perhaps, to their choosing to renounce life. For Kashiwagi and Genji, the process Is reversed. For men, being seen is the necessary consequence of success, of public splendor." F. 201
A marvelous discussion in Field on pp. 203-04 on the poems Genji exchanges with the Akashi lady, he last to Genji. We learn how Murasaki made Genji visible, made success possible in the artificial world of the Rokujoin.
The poem on Field p. 729 that Genji recites to Chujo about the "heartvine", the aoi, does not refer to his first official wife, but to the first poem he exchanged with Murasaki in which he uses the word 'tsumu' to pick, and 'tsumi' which means sin. "Chujo's poem is a rupture in a chapter filled with prayers, incense, and lugubrious talk, and Genji's response breaks with his spiritual is not his physical abstinence." F. 205-06
"What makes the role of the calendar, and expecially the poetic calendar, particularly conspicuous here is that the tale has been stripped of all action, and plot complications. Within the confines of his world of grief, Genji behaves as the seasons and the corresponding poetic convention srequire. This is the Rokujoin with a vengeance, with its regulator now regulated." F. 206
"Most of the "topics"(dai) ...are the natural objects that have acquired fixed seasonal associations in the history of Japanese poetry." F. 208. Field, on pp. 207-09 gives an ouline of all the poems in the chapter and their organization.
While the poems in the spring and summer sections include natural objects such as heartvine (aoi)and the cuckoo (hototogisu), the autumn and winter poems replace these with rituals such as the Tanabata in the seventh month, and the Toyo no akari sechie in the winter.
"There are twenty-six poems in "The Wizard"(Maboroshi), quite a number for a short chapter. Poetry has acquired unprecedented promise in the portrayal of the close of Genji''s life. Is this in response to a new demand--is prose deemed to be inadequate to the task at hand?" F. 211
"What we are witnessing in "The Wizard" is the Genji's ritualization of its own past." F. 214
"Once Genji, as the ruler of the Rokujoin and surrogate ruler of the cosmos, ensured the harmonious(the aesthetically pleasing) progression of the seasons...By contrast, in "The Wizard" Genji is compelled, by poetic and by cosmic order, to trace the circumference of a circle that is closing without regard for his will." F. 214
"Geni's lifelong pursuit of the murasaki women--Fujitsubo, Murasaki, and the Third Princess, a strong thread in the complicated weave of the tale--is an outstanding example of the former {the minuses on the balance sheet of Genji's life}, in contrast to the Akashi connection, which belongs to the latter {the plus balances on Genji'slife sheet}." F. 215
"The symbol of Genji's triumph, his attaiment of a rank equivalent to that of a retured emperor, is also the symbol of original and permanent loss. Indeed, it is this enduring lack that makes Genji a hero...."S. 215
"Since "religion" is yet another mode of representing both the deficiency and a conventional solution, for Genji to take vows would be to nullify the deficiency by surrendering to it--a sure sign of his end as a hero. "The Wizard" manages to close Genji's life gently, without depriving him of his heroism...."F. 216