The Sacred Tree/Introduction

by Murasaki Shikibu

INTRODUCTION

Fiction in Japan Previous
to "The Tale of Genji"

THE Tale of Genji was probably written about 1011-1015 A.D. We know the titles of a good many earlier stories and romances. About a dozen are mentioned in the Tale itself. But only three actual works of fiction survive, The Bamboo-cutter, The Hollow Tree ('Utsubo'), and the Room Below Stairs ('Ochikubo'). Besides these there are a few works which, though belonging to a rather different category, throw some light on the development of fiction and will be mentioned in due course.

The Bamboo-cutter dates from about 860-870. It is a harmless little fairy-story. An old peasant finds a minute child in a bamboo-stem. She grows up into a woman of surpassing beauty, is courted by numerous lovers to whom she sets a series of grotesque tasks which they entirely fail to perform. Finally celestial messengers arrive and carry her away to the sky.

The Hollow Tree cannot be much earlier than 980. No doubt in this interval of more than a hundred years much was written that is now lost. But it cannot be said that The Hollow Tree shows much sign of progress. As it exists to-day it is a very long book—more than half as long as Genji. But it is not quite certain whether, of the fourteen chapters which we now possess, any but the first (called Toshikage) is really earlier than Genji. Toshikage is the story of a man who on the way from Japan to China, regardless of geographical probabilities, gets wrecked 'on the coast of Persia.' In this country he falls in with supernatural beings from whom he obtains thirty miraculous zitherns and the knowledge of enchanted tunes. After a distinguished career on the Continent he returns to Japan with ten zitherns which he distributes among the grandees of the Court, keeping one for his small daughter, to whom alone he teaches the marvellous Persian tunes. He and his wife die, the daughter marries unhappily and is finally left with no possessions save the marvellous zithern and a little son of twelve. They take refuge in a hollow tree, but soon discover to their consternation that their new home is the den of a bear who, returning from his day's hunting, is about to devour them, when the little boy makes a speech of several pages. The bear is so much moved that, far from molesting the intruders, it puts the hollow tree at their disposition and trots off to look for another home. Finally the wicked husband repents, takes back the wife and child whom he had deserted and all ends happily. The child embarks upon its career as an infant prodigy and at the age of eighteen takes part victoriously in a musical competition at Court.

The remaining chapters deal chiefly with the rivalry of this young musician and other courtiers for the hand of the Prime Minister's daughter. They possess a certain historical interest as pictures of Court life, but are long-winded and boring to an almost unbelievable degree. Even Toshikage (the first chapter), which, when summarized, may sound mildly entertaining, is for the most part unendurably silly.

A little later, but not very far removed in date, is the Room Below Stairs. It is a feebly sentimental story about an ill-used step-child, somewhat in the manner of the edifying stories told in the Fairchild Family, but wholly lacking in the occasional felicities which spring unexpectedly from Mrs. Sherwood's pen. It is, however, a short book (only about 200 pages) and that is the best that can be said for it.

In none of these works is there any ability or desire to portray character. That is not in itself fatal to a work of fiction. The Arabian Nights are without it, and it exists only in the most rudimentary form in Defoe. But if this resource be neglected, something must take its place. There must be a fertility of narrative invention (as in Near Eastern fiction) or the building up of effect by sequences of actual word-texture (as in Virginia Woolf). Otherwise not literature but mere perfunctory anecdote will result, as has indeed happened in the case of Genji's predecessors.

Now Murasaki herself has every quality which these earliers writers lack. She exploits character, in a very restrained way, it is true, but with an unerring instinct how to produce the greatest effect with the least possible display. And to this she adds not only an astonishing capacity for invention, but also a beauty of actual diction unsurpassed by any long novel in the world. For none of these qualities was she indebted in any way to such of her predecessors as survive. Concerning lost works it is useless to speculate.

I have said that besides the three early stories there are other prose works which have some bearing on the history of Japanese fiction. To begin with there are the Tales of Ise, written somewhere about 890 a.d. They consist of 125 short paragraphs (often only two or three lines) containing little poems and a description of the circumstances under which they were written. They appear to concern the love-adventures of a single person, but are quite disconnected. I have translated one of the longer episodes in my Japanese Poetry. The Yamato Tales, about half century later, also centre round poems. They consist of rather trivial anecdotes about courtiers of the period.

We now come to the one book which, though it is not a work of fiction and though it lacks the qualities of deliberate art which make Genji so astonishing, at least seems to move in the same world of thought and feeling. This is the Gossamer Diary ('Kagerō Nikki').

The writer was mistress of the great statesman Fujiwara no Kane-iye (929-999). By him she had a son called Michitsuna, and her name not being recorded she is known to history as Michitsuna's mother. He made her acquaintance in 954 and Michitsuna was born the year after. But Kane-iye already had a wife, a legitimate family and numerous mistresses. Lady Gossamer (as we will for convenience call the writer of the Diary) could not expect undivided attention. This was a fact that she took years to recognize, and when the diary closes (in the twentieth year of their liaison!) she had indeed recognized her position, but was still as far from accepting it as at the start.

The record begins in 954, the year in which they met. 'For twenty days he has not been here at all.' 'This month he has written only twice. . . . Such entries are frequent from the beginning. Her grievance grew and grew. It became her whole life. When he did not come, she wept; when he came, she wept because he had not come sooner. She was immersed in perpetual devotions; while he, like our own eighteenth-century bucks whom in every particular he so strongly resembled, only turned religious when he was ill. Often he found her kneeling before an image of Buddha, lost in prayer; and one day, suddenly infuriated by this dismal reception, he kicked over her incense-bowl and, snatching the rosary from her hands, flung it across the room. He loved gaiety, noise, funny stories, practical jokes. She was shy, sensitive and, above all, terribly serious. His method of entertaining her was to repeat with immense gusto 'every piece of silly clownery or tomfoolery' that was current in the City, spiced with jokes and puns of his own.

She was incurably sentimental. Never for an instant could she recognize that time must bring changes, and after ten years she was still expecting him to court her with the ardour of arishi toki, 'the times that were.'

One night when she is awaiting him she lights the candles. No! She will let him find her in the dark, as in those old days when their love was still a secret escapade. She puts the candles out and, hearing him fumbling at the entry, cries Koko ni! (Here!) and stretches out her hand as she had often done before. But to-night he is in no mood for hide-and-seek. 'What game is this?' he cries angrily, 'light the candles at once. I cannot see my way into the room.' Then he asks if they can find him a snack of something to eat; he has had no supper. He eats his fish in silence, then says that he has had a tiring day, yawns, and falls asleep. At dawn his sons, the children of her rival, come to fetch him, and he calls her to the window to 'look what fine young fellows they have grown.'

His visits become more and more infrequent. She is desperately unhappy, talks of suicide, threatens to become a nun and on more than one occasion actually instals herself in a nunnery, but always allows herself to be 'rescued' at the last minute. The second flight was to a temple at Narutaki. Here she remained for many months in a state of the greatest agitation; but she did not take her vows, and in the end allowed herself to be fetched quietly away by Kane-iye and her son Michitsuna, now a boy in his 'teens.

It was at this moment that she actually began the composition of the Diary, the first part of which is not a day-to-day record but an autobiographical fragment composed many years later than the events which it records. But henceforward the book has all the character of a diary and is indeed very minute; scarcely a shower passes unrecorded. A new phase in the story begins with the adoption by Lady Gossamer of a little orphan girl aged twelve, a child of her lover Kane-iye by a woman whom years ago he had seduced and immediately abandoned. The child grows up and is ultimately courted by the head of the office in which Lady Gossamer's son Michitsuna is now working. Kane-iye gives his consent to the match; Lady Gossamer hears stories to the young man's discredit, foresees for her adopted daughter a life all too like her own and opposes the plan.

Here (in 974 a.d., twenty years after she first met Kane-iye) the Diary ends abruptly.

Publication in our sense of the word did not of course exist in those days. But no doubt a few copies of the book were made for those who were likely to be interested. Kane-iye himself, who lived on for another twenty-five years, surely possessed one. Now it was in the family of Kane-iye's legitimate son Michinaga^[1] that Murasaki, the authoress of the Tale of Genji, served as lady-in-waiting, and we know from Murasaki's diary that this Michinaga fell in love with her and courted her. It is more than probable that Michinaga had inherited a copy of the Gossamer Diary from Kane-iye and in that case it is also very probable that he showed it to Murasaki. This much at any rate is certain, that we find in the Gossamer Diary an anticipation of just those characteristics which mark off Genji from other Japanese romances,—apt delineation of character, swift narrative, vivid description and above all the realization that a story of actual life, such as is led by hundreds of real men and women, is not necessarily less interesting than a tale crammed with ogres and divinities. The following passage refers to the year 970, when Kane-iye (the lover) was 41, Michitsuna (the bastard) 15 and Lady Gossamer herself perhaps about 35.

'Every day he promises that it shall be to-morrow. And when to-morrow comes, it is to be the day after. Of course I do not believe him; yet each time that this happens I begin imagining that he has repented,—that all has come right again. So day after day goes by.

'At last I am certain. He does not intend to come. I did not think that about unhappiness I had anything fresh to learn; I confess that never before have I endured such torture as in these last days. Hour after hour the same wretched thoughts chase through my brain. Shall I be able to endure it much longer? I have tried to pray; but no prayer forms itself in my mind, save the wish that I were dead.

'But there is this lovely creature (her son Michitsuna) to think of. If only he were a little older and I could see him married to some girl whom I trusted, then I would indeed be glad to die. But as it is how can I leave him to shift for himself,—to wander perhaps from house to house? No, that is too horrible. I must not die.

'I might of course become a nun and try to forget all this. Indeed, I did once speak of it (i.e. to Michitsuna),—quite lightly, just to see how he would take it. He was terribly distressed and, struggling with his tears, he told me that if I did so he would become a monk, "For what would there be," he said, to keep me in the world? You are the only thing I care for." And at that he burst into a flood of tears. By this time I too was weeping; but seeing him almost beside himself with grief I tried to pass the thing off as a jest, saying "Well, I mean to one day; and what will your highness do then?" It happened that he had a falcon on his wrist, and jumping straight to his feet he set it free, reciting as he did so the verse: "Desolate must she be, and weary of strife, whose thoughts, like this swift bird, fly heavenward at a touch."

'At this, some of my servants who chanced to be sitting near by could not restrain their tears; and it may be imagined with what feelings I, in the midst of the unendurable misery and agitation with which I was contending, heard my child utter these words.

'It was growing dark when suddenly he (her lover) arrived at the house. For some reason I felt certain that he had come only to regale me with all the empty gossip that was going round. I sent a message that I was not well and would see him some other time.

'It is the tenth day of the seventh month. Every one is getting ready their Ullambana^[2] presents. If, after all these years, he should fail to send me anything for the festival I think the most hard-hearted person in the world could not help being sorry for me! However, there is still time.

'Last night, just when I was thinking I should have to get the offerings for myself and was weeping bitterly, a messenger came with just the same presents as in other years, and a letter attached! Even the dead were not forgotten.^[3] In his letter he quoted the poem: "Though never far away, yet wretched must I bide. . . ." If that is indeed how he feels, his conduct becomes more than ever inexplicable! No allusion to the fact that he has transferred his affections to some one else. Yet I am certain it is so.

'It suddenly occurs to me that there is a certain gentlewoman in the household of that Prince Ono no Miya^[4] who died the other day. I believe that it is she whom my lord is courting. She is called Ōmi, and I heard some one whispering not long ago that this Ōmi was having an adventure of some kind. He does not want her to know that he comes here. That is why he decided to break with me beforehand. I said this to one of my maids; but she doubted if there were anything in it. "O well, it may be so," she said, "but in any case this Ōmi is not the sort of person to ask many questions. . . ."

'I have got another idea. I think it is one of the daughters of the late Emperor. But what difference does it make? In any case, as every one tells me, it is no use just sitting and watching him slip away from me as one might watch the light fade out of the evening sky. "Go away, pay a visit somewhere or other," they say to me. I have thought about nothing else day or night but this hideous business. The weather is very hot. But it is no use going on talking about what I am going to do. This time my mind is made up. I am going to Ishiyama for ten days.

'I decided to tell no one, not even my brothers, and stole from the house very secretly, just before dawn. Once outside, I began to run as fast as I could. I had almost reached the Kamo River when some of my women came rushing after me laden with all sorts of stuff. How they discovered that I had filed and that this was the direction I had taken, I still do not know. The setting moon was shining very brightly and we might easily have been recognized; but we met no one. When we came to the river some one told me there was a dead man lying face downwards on the shingle. I did not feel afraid.

'By the time we reached the Awada Hill I began to be very exhausted and was obliged to rest. I had still not decided what I should do when I arrived,^[5] and in the agony of trying to make up my mind I burst into tears. I could not risk being seen in such a state and staggering to my feet I set out once more, just able to drag myself along a step or two at a time.

'By the time we reached Yamashina it was quite light. I felt like a criminal whose guilt has suddenly been exposed and became so agitated that I scarcely knew what I was doing. My women had now fallen behind. I waited for them and made them go in front, myself walking alone so that we might attract as little attention as possible. Yet the people I met stared at me curiously and whispered excitedly. I was terrified.

'Scarcely able to draw breath I at last reached Hashiri-i. Here they said it was time for breakfast, and having opened the picnic baskets they were just arranging the mats and getting things ready when we heard people coming towards us shouting at the top of their voices. What was I to do? Who could it be? I could only suppose that they were friends of one or another of the maids who were with me. "Could anything more tiresome have happened?" I was just thinking, when I saw that the people were on horseback and formed part of a large travelling party, consisting of numerous riders and a number of waggons and coaches. It was in fact the retired governor of Wakasa coming back from his province. Soon they began to pass the place where we were sitting. Fortunate travellers! Among them are many who from to-day onwards will kneel in my Lord's presence noon and night. This thought cut through my heart like a knife. It seemed to me that the drivers took the waggons as close as they could to where we had spread our mats. While they were passing us, not only the servants who were at the back of the coaches but even the drivers and grooms behaved disgracefully, making such remarks as I had never heard before. My ladies showed great spirit, hastily moving our belongings as far from the roadside as they could and calling out: "This is a public highway, isn't it? We have just as good a right to be here as you!" What an odious scene to be mixed up with! As soon as they were well out of sight we pressed on again, and were soon passing through the Ōsaka gate. I reached the quay at Uchide^[6] more dead than alive. My people whom I had sent on ahead had gathered long bulrushes and built for me a kind of shelter or cabin on the deck. I crept on board and lay down, scarcely noticing whether we had the boat to ourselves or not. Soon we were far out upon the lake. During the voyage, as we drew further and further from the City, I felt a loneliness, an anguish, an utter helplessness impossible to describe. It was well after the Hour of the Monkey (i.e. about 5 p.m.) that we reached the temple.

'As soon as I had taken a bath, I went and lay down. Again I began trying to make up my mind what I should do, and for several hours I lay tossing from side to side, unable to get any rest. At dusk I washed again and went into the Chapel.

'I began trying to make my confession to Buddha; but tears choked me and my voice fell to a whisper. It was now quite dark. I went to the window and looked out. The Chapel stood high, and below it was what seemed like a precipitous ravine; it lay in a cup or hollow and the steep banks on either side were overgrown with tall trees, so that the place was very closed-in and dark. The moon was some twenty days old and having risen late in the night was now shining with extraordinary brilliance. Here and there the moonlight pierced through the trees, making sudden patches of brightness; there was one such just at the foot of the cliff. Looking straight below me I could see what appeared to be a vast lake, but was indeed only a small drinking-pool. I went on to a balcony and leant over the railing. Among the grass on the steep bank far below me I could see something white appearing and disappearing, and at the same time there was a curious, rustling sound. I asked what it was and was told that these were deer. I was wondering why I had not heard them cry as one generally does, when suddenly from the direction of quite a different valley there came a faint weak sound like the wailing of a new-born child. Surely it must be a young doe crying a great way off? At first I thought that I was imagining the sound; but presently it became unmistakable.

'I was lost in prayer and knew nothing of what was going on around me, when a hideous yelling, seeming to come from the far side of the hills at which I had been looking, broke in upon my prayers. It was a peasant chasing some one off his land. Never have I heard a voice more pitiless, more ferocious. If such sounds as that proved to be common happenings in this place, I knew that I should not hold out very long and, utterly shattered, I sat for a while trying to recover my composure. At last I heard a sound of chanting in the temple; the monks had begun to sing the goya,^[7] and I left the chapel. Feeling very weak, I again took a bath. It was beginning to grow light, and looking about me I saw that a heavy night-mist was rolling away to the West, blown by a light, steady wind. The view beyond the river looked as though painted in a picture. Near the water horses were quietly grazing; they looked strangely small and far away. It was very lovely.

'If only my beloved child were in safe hands I would give everything up and arrange to end my days here. But the moment I think of him I long to be back in the City and become very depressed.

'He will be coming with the other boys on the excursion to Sakura-dani, which is not far from here. If he were to come, I could not bear to hear that he had passed so close. . . . I do not want to go back; but I think if any one fetched me I should consent to go. But should I? I worry about this all the time and cannot bring myself to eat anything.

'They came and told me they had been for a walk behind the monastery and found some meadow-sweet growing near a pond. I asked them to bring me some, which they did, and put the flowers in a bowl along with some lemons on stripped stems. It really looked very pretty.

'When it was dark I went back to the chapel and spent the night in confession and prayer, weeping bitterly the whole while. Towards daybreak I dozed for a moment and dreamt that I saw one of the monks (the one who seems to act as a sort of steward here) fill a bucket of water and put it on the seat on my right. I woke up with a start and knew at once that the dream had been sent to me by Buddha. It was certainly not of a kind to bring much encouragement.^[8] Presently some one said that it was now broad daylight, and breaking off my prayers I came down from the chapel. I found, however, that it was really still quite dark. Only across the surface of the lake a whiteness was creeping, against which were dimly outlined the figures of some twenty men clustered together on the shore. They seemed all to be gazing intently at something that was hidden from me by the shadow of the cliff. But though I could see nothing I knew that from the dark place would presently issue the boat for which they were waiting. A priest, who had just come from the early morning service, was standing on the cliff watching the boat put out from the shore, and as it drew further and further away from him, it seemed to me that he gazed after it almost wistfully. Should I too, if I had been here as many years, grow weary of the place and long for escape? It may be so. "This time next year!" the young men on the boat shouted; and by the time the priest had called "goodbye" they were already mere shadows in the distance. I looked up at the sky. The moon was very slim. Its narrow bow was reflected in the lake. A rainy wind was now blowing and presently the whole surface of the water became covered with glittering ripples. The young men on the boat had begun to sing, and though their voices were faint I could hear what song they were singing. It was "Haggard has grown the face . . ." and the sound of it brought back the tears to my eyes.

'Ikaga Point, Yamabuki Point,—promontory after promontory was now emerging from the darkness. And as my eye travelled along the shore I suddenly saw something moving through the reeds. Before I could see clearly what it was I began to hear the noise of oars, then the low humming of a rowers' song. A boat was drawing near. Some one standing further down the shore called out as it passed "Where are you making for?" "For the temple," a voice from the boat answered, "to fetch the lady. . . ."

'How my heart beat when I heard those words! It seems that despite all my precautions he^[9] caught wind of my plan, and sent some servants to escort me; but by then I suppose I had already started. They were at first wrongly directed; hence the delay. The boat pulled inshore, room was made for us, and soon we were on our homeward way, the oarsmen singing lustily. As we passed along the side of Seta Bridge it began to grow quite light. A covey of sand-plovers, with much frilling of wings, flew right across us; and indeed, before we reached the quay where two days ago I had taken boat, we had seen many lovely and moving sights. A carriage was waiting for me at the quay and I was back in the City soon after the hour of the Snake (10 a.m.). No sooner did I reach home than my women gathered round me full of lurid stories about all that had been going on in the world since my departure. It is really very odd that they should still think such things have any interest for me; and so I told them.'

In the Izumi Shikibu Nikki, the record of a love-affair which took place in 1003-1004, we find the romantic diary already becoming a rather effete and self-conscious genre. This little book (some forty pages) is utterly lacking in the intensity and directness of Lady Gossamer's journal; it has been translated into English^[10] and the environment of the story is so new to European readers that its weakness as literature tends to be condoned. Another work which preceded Genji by a few years was the Makura no Sōshi or 'Pillow Sketches' of Sei Shõnagon. This is a spirited commonplace-book, but it contains no connected narrative and therefore does not here concern us. The greater part of it was translated by the late Abbé Noël Péri, and no doubt his translation will one day be published.

 

The Art of Murasaki

Most critics have agreed that the book is a remarkable one and that Murasaki is a writer of considerable talent; but few have dealt with the points that seem to me fundamental. No one has discussed, in anything but the most shadowy way, the all-important question of how she has turned to account the particular elements in story-telling which she has chosen to exploit. The work, it is true, is a translation, and this fact prevents discussion of Murasaki as a poet, as an actual handler of words. But it has for long been customary to criticize Russian novels as though Mrs. Garnett's translation were the original; nor is there any harm in doing so, provided actual questions of style are set aside.

One reviewer did indeed analyse the nature of Murasaki's achievement to the extent of classifying her as 'psychological' and in this respect he even went so far as to class her with Marcel Proust. Now it is clear that, if we contrast Genji with such fiction as does not exploit the ramifications of the human mind at all (the Arabian Nights or Mother Goose), it appears to be 'psychological.' But if we go on to compare it with Stendhal, with Tolstoy, with Proust, the Tale of Genji appears by contrast to possess little more psychological complication than a Grimm's fairy tale.

Yet it does for a very definite reason belong more to the category which includes Proust, than to the category which includes Grimm. Murasaki, like the novelist of to-day, is not principally interested in the events of the story, but rather in the effect which these events may have upon the minds of her characters. Such books as hers it is convenient, I think, to call 'novels,' while reserving for other works of fiction the name 'story' or 'romance.' She is 'modern' again owing to the accident that medieval Buddhism possessed certain psychological conceptions which happen to be current in Europe to-day. The idea that human personality is built up of different layers which may act in conflict, that an emotion may exist in the fullest intensity and yet be unperceived by the person in whom it is at work—such conceptions were commonplaces in ancient Japan. They give to Murasaki's work a certain rather fallacious air of modernity. But it is not psychological elements such as these that Murasaki is principally exploiting. She is, I think, obtaining her effects by means which are so unfamiliar to European readers (though they have, in varying degrees, often been exploited in the West) that while they work as they were intended to do and produce aesthetic pleasure, the reader is quite unconscious how this pleasure arose.

What then are the essential characteristics of Murasaki's art? Foremost, I think, is the way in which she handles the whole course of narrative as a series of contrasted effects. Examine the relation of Chapter VIII (The Feast of the Flowers) to its environment. The effect of these subtly-chosen successions is more like that of music (of the movements, say, in a Mozart symphony) than anything that we are familiar with in European fiction. True, at the time when the criticisms to which I refer were made only one volume of the work had been translated; but the quality which I have mentioned is, I should have supposed, abundantly illustrated in the first chapters. That to one critic the Tale of Genji should have appeared to be memoirs—a realistic record of accidental happenings rather than a novel—is to me utterly incomprehensible. But the first painted makimonos that were brought to Europe created the same impression. They were regarded merely as a succession of topographical records, joined together more or less fortuitously; and Murasaki's art obviously has a close analogy with that of the makimono. Then there is her feeling for shape and tempo. She knows that, not only in the work as a whole, but in each part of it there is a beginning, a middle and an end, and that each of these divisions has its own character, its appropriate pace and intensity. It is inconceivable, for example, that she should open a book or episode with a highly-coloured and elaborate passage of lyrical description, calculated to crush under its weight all that follows. Another point in which she excels is the actual putting of her characters on to the scene. First their existence is hinted at, our curiosity is aroused, we are given a glimpse; and only after much manoeuvring is the complete entry made. The modern novelist tends to fling his characters on to the canvas without tact or precaution of any kind. That credence, attention even, may be a hard thing to win does not occur to him, for he is corrupted by a race of readers who come to a novel seeking the pleasures of instruction rather than those of art; readers who will forgive every species of clumsiness provided they are shown some stratum of life with which they were not previously familiar.

How finally does Murasaki achieve the extraordinary reality, the almost 'historical' character with which she succeeds in investing her scenes? Many readers have agreed with me in feeling that such episodes as the death of Yugao, the clash of the coaches at the Kamo festival, the visit of Genji to the mountains, the death of Aoi, become, after one reading, a permanent accession to the world as one knows it, are things which have 'happened' as much as the most vivid piece of personal experience. This sense of reality with which she invests her narrative is not the result of realism in any ordinary sense. It is not the outcome of those clever pieces of small observation by which the modern novelist strives to attain the same effect. Still less is it due to solid character building; for Murasaki's characters are mere embodiments of some dominant characteristic; Genji's father is easy-going; Aoi, proud; Murasaki, long-suffering; Oborozukiyo, light-headed. This sense of reality is due rather, I think, to a narrative gift of a kind that is absolutely extinct in Europe. To analyse such a gift would require pages of quotation. What does it in the last resort consist in, save a preeminent capacity for saying the most relevant things in the most effective order? Yet, simple as this sounds, I believe that in it rests, unperceived by the eye of the Western critic, more than half the secret of Murasaki's art. Her construction is in fact classical; elegance, symmetry, restraint—these are the qualities which she can set in the scales against the interesting irregularities of European fiction. That such qualities should not be easily recognized in the West is but natural; for here the novel has always been Gothic through and through.

NOTE ON THE TEXT

The Medieval Manuscripts

In the Middle Ages (from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries) the MSS. of Genji were divided into two groups. (1) Those which were founded on the copy made for Fujiwara no Sadaiye about the middle of the thirteenth century. His was known as the Blue Cover Copy and is the basis of all printed editions^[11] down to the present day. (2) Those which were founded on the copy made for Minamoto no Mitsuyuki early in the thirteenth century. His was known as the Kōchi Copy, owing to the fact that he was Governor of Kōchi. At first the more popular of the two, it was afterwards almost entirely disregarded.

 

Existing Manuscripts

The earliest existing Genji manuscript is a series of rolls illustrating some of the later chapters of the Tale. They are attributed to Tosa no Takayoshi (early twelfth century). Then comes a manuscript of Chapter xxiv (The Tide-Gauge), which is supposed to be in the handwriting of Fujiwara no Sadaiye and therefore to date from the first half of the thirteenth century. The earliest complete manuscript is the Hirase Copy, which is in private possession at Ōsaka. It was made during the years 1309-1311 and is founded principally on the Kōchi Copy. It has thus a quite different pedigree from the currently printed text. I know it only from facsimiles of Chapters i and xxxi kindly presented to me by Professor Naitō, on whose researches the above information is largely based. My translation is based chiefly on the Hakubunkwan edition of 1914; but numerous other editions have been consulted.

1. 966-1027 a.d.
2. Festival on the 15th day of the 7th month. The presents given are to be used as offerings to Buddha.
3. I.e. specially her mother. The festival was on behalf of the souls of dead parents and ancestors.
4. An uncle of Kane-iye's.
5. Whether she should stay permanently in the monastery.
6. The modern Ōtsu, now reached from Kyoto (her starting-point) by tramway in half an hour.
7. The late night service.
8. It foreboded ill to Kane-iye, who was at that time Marshal of the bodyguard of the Right. Water typifies weakness and death.
9. Kane-iye.
10. Diaries of Court Ladies, 1920.
11. The earliest printed edition known to me is that of 1650, of which there is a copy in the British Museum. I imagine this to be the editio princeps.