Tag: Books

The Final Days and Legacy of Lady Murasaki

At last, the historical drama about Lady Murasaki has come to an end this week, and sadly I watched the last episode. The drama was slower than other past Taiga Drama on NHK, but it was a lovely tribute to an amazing woman. Lady Murasaki, author of the Tales of Genji, her eponymous diary, and a famous poem in the Hyakunin Isshu left a lasting mark on Japanese culture and world literature.

The final title card for the Japanese historical drama “Hikaru Kimi E”.
The concluding title card for the historical drama: hikaru kimi é (光る君へ, “to you, my radiant one”).

Details of Lady Murasaki’s final years are pretty sketchy, but it seems that she eventually retired from service in Fujiwara no Michinaga’s household, and gradually took up travel. She was born in the year 973, but some scholars believe she may have passed away in 1014 at the age of 41. Others believe she may have lived to the year 1025 (age 52). For the premodern era, this is a pretty typical lifespan for many people, including nobility. Still, as someone who’s older than her, it’s hard to imagine her dying so young.1

Her grave is located in Kita-ku ward of Kyoto:

With her passing, a couple attempts were made to preserve and edit her magnum opus. Fujiwara no Teika (poem 97, こぬ) who compiled the Hyakunin Isshu itself undertook one of these efforts, creating the Aobyōshibon (青表紙本) edition. At this time in Japan, manuscripts had to be hand-copied, and so across several centuries, limited efforts were made to hand-copy works from Lady Murasaki’s time, which helped preserve them across the medieval period, but were inaccessible to general audiences.

A woodblock print of Lady Murasaki from 1889 made by Yoshitoshi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By the Edo Period, 17th century, block printing and a flourishing of “book culture” greatly expanded the audience of the Tales of Genji, and Lady Murasaki enjoyed a surge in popularity, rescued from obscurity, and even today is high revered. Lady Murasaki is to Japanese culture what Shakespeare is to the English-speaking world. The historical drama that concluded is arguably an extension of this revival.

Finally, I wanted to explore the relationship between Lady Murasaki and her patron, Fujiwara no Michinaga. In the historical drama, they shared a relationship since childhood (historically improbable), and even had a love child together even though they never married. Political marriages were common among the nobilty at the time, as was infidelity, and so Fujiwara no Michinaga having an official marriage yet carrying a number of romantic trysts would not be surprising. The Hyakunin Isshu poetry is rife with such romances.

And the real, historical relationship between Lady Murasaki and Michinaga is unclear. It’s widely believed that the main character of the Tales of Genji was patterned from Michinaga. Her diary also shows her flirting with Michinaga somewhat. And yet, it’s also implied that she fended off his romantic advances too. The fact that she worked under him, the most powerful political figure in Japan at the time, made their relationship even more complicated. If her daughter, Daini no Sanmi (poem 58 of the Hyakunin Isshu, ありま) was indeed Michinaga’s, as the drama depicts, it may help explain how she was brought into the court inner circle too, alongside her mother. And yet, evidence one way or another is pretty limited, so one can only speculate.

Lady Murasaki herself was woman perpetually out of place in the courtly life of the late Heian Period. Her diary shows her frequently introverted, melancholy, out of place, and exhausted by the back-biting of other women, or the rowdiness of drunk men. Her father had lamented that in spite of her literary talents, her being born a woman in that era meant her talents would go to waste. Such was the period of the time.

One can easily imagine a brilliant woman like Lady Murasaki in modern times sitting in cafe, writing a romance novel, feeling alone, yet observing the world around her in a way that is beautiful and poetic, pouring her heart into her work. What Lady Murasaki conveyed through her writing was something can we can appreciate even today, eleven centuries later.

Out of all the literature of the time, nothing quite epitomizes the sentiments and milieu of the Heian Period, an era now lost to time, yet strangely familiar, quite like Lady Murasaki did.

P.S. The drama definitely took some historical liberties for the sake of drama, but I have to admit that it did a nice job of showing Lady Murasaki as a complex person, and all the different challenges she had to deal with. The last several episodes were really touching and brought tied up things nicely. I might try to purchase the drama next year if I can, but it’s quite expensive ($300-$500 USD), so time will tell.

1 As someone who also spent some time in the ER earlier this year with emergency surgery, I can imagine that I too would have likely died in my 40’s without modern medical care. Modern people often forget how brutal and short life was for the average person before medical science, and how many people never lived past 50, or did so with crippling conditions.

Hello from Japan, new items

Hello readers,

I am writing this post while staying with my in-laws house in Japan. We will be doing a bit of traveling later, but are mostly fighting jet lag and record heat + humidity for now.

In the meantime I am excited to share some items I picked up, including these new books:

The first book explores the Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, the second Lady Murasaki’s diary. These texts are both pivotal to appreciating the life and culture of people back then, the same people who composed the poetry of the Hyakunin Isshu. It’s a window to a world that simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Further, this book series, 眠れないほど面白い (nemurenai hodo omoshiroi, “so interesting you can’t sleep!”) has been a huge boon for the blog. It’s provided a lot of fun, historical information about the Heian Period, the Hyakunin Isshu, the Manyoshu, etc., that is simply not available in English. The Japanese is sometimes difficult to read at my level, but it’s been a labor of love, so I enjoy the challenge and have been learning a lot. So I am excited to delve into these two books as well.

Also, it’s noteworthy that both books above mention the current drama series 「光る君へ」as a tie-in.

Yesterday, on a day trip to Tokyo I visited the Karuta shop Okuno Karuta (奥野かるた店). It was very easy to find from the Jinbocho train station (just head left and walk down a few blocks). The store was larger than the Tengu-do and includes lots of neat card sets not related to Karuta. I was on a budget so I tried not to spend too much. I did pick up a mini Karuta set though:

This set looks just like the first set I got, both Tengu-dō brand, but roughly half the size. It’s not suitable for competitive karuta but it’s cute and fun to own.

Anyhow, the staff at Okuno Karuta were very nice and helpful. While I was perusing, a tour group of elderly Japanese came through for a while, and the staff had to handle the rush of customers, before things quieted down again.

Hopefully I can post more updates soon.

P.S. also picked up an obscure Fire Emblem game too:

Lady Murasaki Drama

Hi folks!

I have been away for a while due to various life circumstances, but I’ve been wanting to share this news with readers.

The Japanese public TV station, NHK, broadcasts a new Taiga Drama (大河ドラマ) every year. These are big productions featuring some aspect of Japanese history, with big name actors and so on. I was very fond of the last one. Usually these cover periods of warfare or conflict, and male historical figures from Japan’s long history, but this year’s drama, titled Hikaru Kimi E (ひかる君へ, “Addressed to You [my dear Radiant One]”), features Lady Murasaki as the main character!

(Image by NHK, all rights reserved)

Lady Murasaki, poem 57 of the Hyakunin Isshu, needs little introduction. She composed the Tales of Genji, as well as her eponymous diary. She was the first female novelist in Japanese history, and has been a subject of interest ever since. The biographical details of her life are somewhat scant, unfortunately, and the drama does embellish quite a bit, including hinting strongly at a romance that probably didn’t happen in real life. My impression is that they are using romantic themes from her novel, the Tales of Genji, as the backdrop for the drama.

Nonetheless, I have been watching this series on Japanese TV1 and I enjoy it. It is somewhat different than past Taiga Drama, since it features a female main character, and this period of history (the late Heian Period), had little warfare, but it does have tons of scandal and intrigue as the Fujiwara clan tighten their grip on the reins of government. This drama is surprisingly risqué in parts, something you usually don’t see in a conservative Japanese drama. However, such scenes remind me more a more subdued Victorian romance than something in modern, American television.

That said, it’s a darn good drama thus far.

The drama frequently shows other people of the Heian period aristrocracy, many of whom were poets of the Hyakunin Isshu. To name a few who have been featured in the drama:

I admit I am particularly fond of the character Sei Shonagon. In historical pop culture, Sei Shonagon and Lady Murasaki are treated as rivals as they were both famous writers of the same generation who belong to rival cliques in the aristocracy, but in reality they probably didn’t interact much. Nonetheless, they frequently talk in the drama, and the actress who plays Sei Shonagon, stage name is “First Summer Uika” (ファーストサマーウイカ), is a talented actress and total babe:

She is on Instragram, too:

First Summer Uika also recently visited a Shinto shrine devoted to Sei Shonagon in Kyoto called Kurumazaki Jinja (車折神社), which even sells Sei Shonagon charms (omamori):2

But I digress.

Because the drama features so many people related to the Hyakunin Isshu, the drama subtly works in many poems from the anthology. It’s been great to suddenly recognize a poem being recited, even if I am a bit slow to recall. The settings, costumes, and cast are all amazing, and even though the historicity is questionable, it’s been a great watch.

I really hope they eventually make an English subtitle version so people outside Japan can watch. The quality of Taiga Dramas are terrific, and they are well worth watching if you can.

Update: while visiting Kyoto in 2024, we found a local NHK display of the drama:

The second photo above is First Summer Uika as Sei Shonagon.

1 Sadly there are not foreign translations, and no subtitles, and it is not always modern Japanese, so I admit I struggle at times to follow the story. At other times, I can follow easily enough.

2 We are going to visit Japan again this year (the last for our teenage daughter), including Kyoto. Visiting this shrine is definitely on the itinerary, even thought it’s pretty small.

Names in the Hyakunin Isshu

Hello readers,

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, and gotten to know some of the authors of the Hyakunin Isshu, then you may have noticed some patterns with the names of the authors. The authors are rarely listed by their birth name, and instead are listed under a sobriquet, or just their official title in the Imperial Court.

Why was this done?

My book, the Hyakunin Isshu Daijiten, explains that this was because in this period of Japanese history, names were thought to be tied to one’s life. People at this time, both the Nara (8th c.) and increasingly in the Heian (9th – 12th c) periods, were often worried about curses, evil spirits, and such, and went to elaborate lengths to avoid spiritual calamities (see background for poem 24 for example). So, to avoid risk of one’s name (and thus one’s life) being subject to evil magic, people often hesitated to share their personal names with others.

It’s unclear how commoners in the Nara/Heian Period named themselves; there is just not enough information, but for the nobility who all belong to the hierarchical Imperial Court, certain naming conventions developed.

Men

Men with important titles, or positions in the court often used their titles as their sobriquet. Lower-ranking men in the Hyakunin Isshu did not have this privilege.

  • Titles for members of the Imperial Family – Emperor Tenji, (poem 1), Retired Emperor Go-toba (poem 99), and Prince Motoyoshi (poem 20).
  • Positions in the Imperial Court – Sanjō Minister of the Right (poem 25), Major Counselor Fujiwara no Kintō (poem 55), and Master of the Grand Empress’s Palace (poem 83)
  • Clerical names – Dharma Master Jakuren (poem 87) and Former Major Archbishop Gyōson (poem 66)
  • Poetic names – Sarumaru Dayū (poem 5)

Women

Due to the Confucian, paternalistic culture of the Japan in antiquity, women were not given titles wihtin the Imperial Court (though they did earn rank just as men did), and seldom used their real name. Instead, they used a different naming convention.

  • Male relatives or spouses – Lady Ise (poem 19), whose husband served as governor of Ise Province, Lady Izumi (poem 56) whose tenure as governor of Izumi Province, “The Mother of Michitsuna, Major Captain of the Right” (poem 53), Taiyu of the Household of Princess Ryōshi (poem 90), and Ukon (poem 38) named after her father’s position as Captain of the Guards.
  • Poetic sobriquets – Lady Murasaki (poem 57) named after a character from her own novel the Tales of Genji, Akazome Emon (poem 58).

Because women were more often kept out of sight than men in the Imperial Court, biographical information about women authors of the Hyakunin Isshu is often much thinner than the men (except lower-ranking men). This makes learning about women like Lady Murasaki or Lady Izumi difficult.

In any case, the idea that names are tied to one’s lifespan is a fascinating cultural belief, and it’s likely you would find this in other pre-modern cultures as well.

The Gossamer Years

Hi all,

This somewhat different than my usual posts, but I after posting by poem by the Mother of Michitsuna (poem 53), I decided to read her diary, titled the Gossamer Years, or kagerō nikki (蜻蛉日記) in Japanese.

The “Mother of Michitsuna” is never named as per the culture of the Heian Period of Japan. She lived a generation or two before other famous female authors such as Sei Shonagon (poem 62), Lady Murasaki (poem 57), Lady Izumi (poem 56), etc. The translator, Professor Seidensticker, did a masterful job translating this difficult text. In reading the footnotes, you can see he struggled a lot with the vagaries of the text, and with the language, where it’s not always clear from the context who’s talking about whom.

At the time, she was from a lesser branch of the powerful Fujiwara Family, but she married Fujiwara no Kane’ie, who was gradually moving up the ranks of the Heian Court. Fujiwara clan, Kane’ie had to contend with various other members of the court, and even his own clan, to gain the prestigious position of Regent, which he finally accomplished in 986 as regent for Emperor Ichijō. His sons, Michinaga and Michitaka both became regents and the most powerful men in the Heian Court. Lady Murasaki (poem 57) served under Michinaga, by the way, and they are the subject of a Japanese historical drama in 2024.

Suffice to say, Kane’ie was a very ambitious and influential man. As such, he married a few women, as per Heian Period custom, and also carried on various affairs, having yet more children on top of this. One of these children is the author of poem 52.

The Mother of Michitsuna began her diary when Kane’ie first met her, and courted her. Her own father was the governor of a remote province, a mediocre position in the Court, but he gave his blessing and they were married. In the early part of the Diary, she writes about all the passionate love poems they exchanged and such. It seemed like a good relationship early on, but the Mother of Michitsuna wasn’t Kane’ie’s first wife. She was probably his second or third wife (the diary isn’t clear on this), and his time was divided between his wives. When he was not around, she stayed in one of the outer rooms of his mansion and just passed the time with her hand-maidens.

But as the diary shows, Kane’ie’s visits came less and less often. In time she tracked him down to an alleyway where he’d spend the night with some girl, presumably a bastard child of one of the emperors, and rumor has it that she had a son by him as well. The author was not surprisingly furious and jealous, but completely powerless to stop him. She writes about the sound of his carriage driving by the residence, but not even stopping by to say hello, while she spent night after night alone.

Later, in Book 3, she finds about more of his affairs and children, and adopts the daughter of another of his lovers so that she doesn’t have to spend her young life in a monastery. Strangely, Kane’ie’s brother takes an interest in the child (his own niece) and gets very pushy about marrying her which again was not unusual at the time among the nobility. The Mother of Michitsuna expends a lot of effort to delay and make excuses for the girl, and pleads with her husband to help her, with only modest success.

This agonizing loneliness and sense of abandonment is the primary theme of the Gossamer Years. There are times when Kane’ie and the Mother of Michitsuna grow closer briefly, such as when Kane’ie falls gravely ill or when the Mother of Michitsuna loses her own mother to old age, but after a while he forgets her again. Their relationship is quite strained in the diary though, because she is frequently enraged by his insensitivity, but Kane’ie gets frustrated by her “moods” and can’t seem to understand why she is mad at him. Worse, he blames her regularly as to why he doesn’t come anymore.

At one point, the Mother of Michitsuna, now old and a has-been, has had it with Kane’ie and abruptly moves out of the mansion and retreats to a monastery which causes quite a stir at the Court and humiliates Kane’ie. Furious he tries to send messenger after messenger to bring her back, but she refuses for a long time. Finally, after a combination of threats and pleading, she agrees to return home, but they soon fall into the old routine again.

The Mother of Michitsuna only had one child with Kane’ie, Michitsuna of course (who rose to be a minister of the Court, though not as powerful as his half-brothers), and Kane’ie seems to take much pride in his son, but also periodically uses him as a weapon for getting back at his mother.

Thus, the Gossamer Years is a long, and often very depressing diary of a noblewoman in a very unsatisfying marriage who spent many dreary days alone. The diary ends abruptly one day when there’s a knock at her residence, and it appears that she never took up the brush again. Nobody knows why. As for the diary itself, it is full of poems exchanged back and forth. Most of these are mediocre poems, though as you can see, Fujiwara no Teika did include one of them in his famous Hyakunin Isshu anthology. However, these other poems are also waka poems, just like the ones you read here on this blog, and it’s amazing how many poems people exchanged in those days just to express things like “how are you?” or “can you come over?”.

In today’s modern age where text-messages replace letters or poems, we can send messages much quicker now, but it’s amazing how much skill and subtlety it took to get a simple point across to someone back then. Not surprisingly, the kinds of feelings of frustration a broken-hearted woman might have were probably much worse then because they were traditionally very isolated in their homes. It was uncommon for women, especially powerful noblewomen, to go out on their own without permission from their husbands, and their lifestyle and huge robes made it difficult to travel far anyway. Customs and such would also get in the way too. In short, women spent most of their time indoors in their home with nothing to do.

As for the Mother of Michitsuna herself, it’s tempting to make her a tragic, almost saintly figure, but in reality she was prone to faults of her own. When the “woman in the alley” had the misfortune of losing her home to a fire, the author felt a moment of triumph and petty revenge without any remorse. In another, more troubling scene late in book one, she encounters a defeated rival (it’s not clear who) and gloats over her:

At the Hollyhock Festival in the Fourth Month I recognized the carriage of a lady who had once been my rival, and I deliberately had my own carriage stopped beside it. While we were waiting, rather bored, for the procession to go by, I sent over the first line of a poem, attached to an orange and a hollyhock: “The hollyhock should promise a meeting, but the orange tells us we have yet to wait.” After a time she sent back a line to complete the couplet: “Today for the first time I know the perverseness of her who sends this bitter yellow fruit.” “Why just today—she must have had similar feelings for years,” said one of my women. When I told the Prince [Kane’ie] of the incident, he remarked, to our considerable amusement, that the closing line the lady really had in mind was probably more like this: “This fruit you send me, I would like to grind it to bits with my teeth.”

pg. 59, trans. Seidensticker.

Clearly the Mother of Michitsuna was not above petty rivalries or revenge when it suited her.

Anyhow, what makes the Gossamer Years such a significant work of literature is that it was the first and only real diary of the Heian Period to really express how a woman felt in that small, cloistered world. The Heian Period had many great works of literature, both by men and women, but these works were either fiction (e.g. Tales of Genji), poetry (e.g. Tales of Ise) or just dry, stodgy journals about oval events. The Gossamer Years is much more “raw” and unfiltered than other works at the time. The Mother of Michitsuna is not a strong or witty writer like Sei Shonagon or Lady Murasaki, but you can really feel her pain at times, and wonder why she puts up with him. Then again, the customs of the time gave her few options.

But as you see later in Book 3, it was the culture of the time, not unlike the cloistered French Aristocracy centuries later. The marriage laws from the Taika Reform were vague and full of loopholes, so men could marry as often as they could afford, and affairs were pretty rampant as other poetry in the Hyakunin Isshu regularly show. So while I do enjoy the Hyakunin Isshu and the culture of the Heian Period very much, the Gossamer Years was a sobering reminder that there was a serious side to it as well.

P.S. Featured photo is a scene from the Genji Monogatari (“The Tales of Genji)”, Chapter “YADORI GI”( mistletoe ), by Lady Murasaki (poem 57).  Imperial court in Kyoto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons