Weird Ladies: Narrative Strategy in the Genji monogatari

Author(s): Aileen Gatten

Source: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese , Apr., 1986, Vol. 20, No.
1 (Apr., 1986), pp. 29-48
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Japanese

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 29

WEIRD LADIES:
NARRATIVE STRATEGY IN THE GENJI MONOGATARI

by Aileen Gatten

There are two indisputably weird or anomalous

characters in the Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji):
Suetsumuhana, also known as the Hitachi or safflower
princess; and an elderly court lady, Gen no Naishi no
Suke (hereafter referred to as Naishi). They comprise
half of the corpus of so-called comic characters in
the Genji; the other two are the Omi lady (To no
ChujZ5's daughter) and the minor provincial official
in Kyushu who pays unwelcome court to Tamakazura.
There is a basic difference between the two groups:
the Omi lady and the man from Kyushu are aberrant
because they are rustics, possessing all the quaint
manners and crude accomplishments of the born provin-
cial. But the safflower princess and old Naishi are
not yokels: they are women of high birth, reared in
the capital. Their bizarre qualities come from other
quarters.

I would like to focus on two questions regarding

the latter pair of ladies. First, what makes the
safflower princess and Naishi anomalous characters?
How can we tell what has been intentionally depicted
as aberrant in characters from a thousand-year-old
novel written by a member of a society whose customs
and beliefs often strike us as thoroughly alien?
Second, how does Murasaki Shikibu manipulate these
two characters to perform different functions that
elicit very different responses?

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30 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

The safflower princess is the heroine of two chap-

ters in the Genji, "Suetsumuhana" ("The Safflower") and
"Yomogiu" ("The Wormwood Patch"); she makes short
appearances thereafter. The Genji narrative states
that she was brought up by her old-fashioned father in
the grand style befitting a princess. At the begin-
ning of "Suetsumuhana," the chapter in which she is
introduced, we are told that the princess has fallen
on hard times: her parents are dead, she seems to have
little financial support, and her house and garden
badly need repair and attention. To make matters
worse, she has been reared so strictly that she seems
never to have been taught how to cope with society.
The few suitors she attracts give up in disgust when
their letters produce no response. The exceptional--
and eventually successful--suitor is of course Genji.

Naishi is a lesser but vivid character, an elderly,

flirtatious court lady. Her cameo performance is in
"Momiji no ga" ("An Autumn Excursion"). The young
Genji, curious to widen his experience of women, and
both fascinated and repelled by the coquettish Naishi,
has a risque verbal exchange with her that leads to a
love affair. Their romance ends in farce when the
couple is discovered in bed by a rival, Genji's
brother-in-law To no ChDuj. Genji, barely dressed,
hides behind a screen, To no ChDjO draws his sword in
mock fury, and old Naishi begs the young men not to
come to blows over her. Naishi makes two more brief
appearances in the Genji, the last as a nun, but she
remains interested in men to the last.

These two characters might be called urban

aristocratic grotesques. A grotesque, according to
one definition, is a design or form characterized by
distortion or unnatural combinations. In literature,
grotesque characters are created through various
means: the narrator's stance, the response of other
characters, implicit and explicit contrast with those
other characters, and the language chosen by the
author to depict the grotesque character. Marcel

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 31

Proust gives a virtuoso performance of grotesque

characterization in Le temps retrouve (The Past
Recaptured). The narrator attends a party at which
he discovers his old friends, lovers, enemies, and
acquaintances transformed by the passage of time.
Most have not changed for the better, including the
formerly glamorous Duchesse de Guermantes:

I had just noticed [the Duchesse] walking

between a double row of staring folk who,
unconscious of the miraculous artifices of
toilette and aesthetics which were being
used on them and impressed by the tawny
head of hair and the salmon-pink body barely
emerging from its fins of black lace and
wrapped round with strands of jewels, gazed
upon the inherited sinuousness of its lines
as they might have looked upon some ancient
sacred fish, laden with precious stones...

Proust achieves his grotesque effect by exaggerating

the artificiality of the Duchesse's elaborate
toilette: the unnatural, salmon-pink color produced
by excessive layers of makeup is the starting point
for a fish metaphor that is first suggested and
finally stated explicitly near the end of the sen-
tence.

Comparing an aged but meticulously made-up

woman's skin to that of an "ancient sacred fish" is
an effective device because we can be persuaded that
there is something nonhuman--as well as dignified,
sumptuous, and awe-inspiring--about an overdressed
old duchess. But our view does not always coincide
with the author's intent, particularly when we are
speaking of Heian literature. What jars the Heian
sensibility often does not bother modern readers at
all, and vice versa.

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32 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

The Murasaki Shikibu nikki, written around the

first decade of the eleventh century, mentions an up-
roar at court caused by ladies who enter the royal
presence wearing robes layered in improper color com-
binations. Murasaki Shikibu describes two of the
offending costumes. Both ladies seem to have been
guilty of wearing what we would call gradations of
color--one woman, for example, wears red underrobes
and rose-colored overrobes with a light pink jacket.
This does not strike us as a particularly inappropri-
ate outfit; but the unfortunate ladies were roundly
condemned for their bad taste.2 If Murasaki Shikibu
had described only their costumes, omitting her con-
temporaries' reaction, even the most learned modern
reader would have trouble understanding the intended
significance of the passage. We know that the ladies
lack taste only because Murasaki Shikibu tells us.

On the other hand, some perfectly proper Heian

practices cannot help but strike us as odd. In the
"Kashiwagi" ("Oak Tree") chapter of the Genji, the
dying Kashiwagi prepares to receive his old frienc
Yugiri. Kashiwagi is too weak to get up to dress, so
he must have his last interview with Yugiri in bed,
wearing the Heian equivalent of a nightshirt. Certain
proprieties must nevertheless be observed, since
Yugiri is a man of high rank. Kashiwagi is helped to
sit up in bed, and he puts on his hat. This is not a
nightcap, it is a tate-eboshi, a high-crowned court
cap worn by the more eminent nobility. The text
states that the court cap is Kashiwagi's concession
to etiquette, his way of demonstrating that he really
ought to be receiving his visitor in proper attire and
out of bed. That he can manage only to put on the cap
is a sign of his extreme weakness.

Heian gentlemen wore their hair long, tied up in

a ponytail and bound into a neat topknot at the crown
of the head. Unless a nobleman was in very private
surroundings, he wore a hat that covered the topknot.

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 33

To go outdoors or receive guests without one's hat

would have been as shocking as a modern Western
gentleman mingling in society in underwear or pajamas.
Not only was it a sign of great deshabille, it showed
disrespect. The Okagami (The Great Mirror) mentions
one noble who was so conscientious about wearing a hat
that if he happened to forget his he would cover his
head with his sleeve.3 There is no doubt that Kashi-
wagi's action is admirable, and was so interpreted by
Heian readers. For those of us reading the text of
"Kashiwagi" and Murasaki Shikibu's Nikki in the twen-
tieth century, however, the response is bound to be
different. We know how we are supposed to react,
because the author tells us. But the great differences
between our cultures ensure that we will not be
entirely convinced; we are puzzled and mildly amused
by the color controversy and the wearing of a dressy
hat in bed.

All this is by way of saying that we may not grasp

every cultural clue provided in the Genji monogatari,
and we may well misinterpret others. Murasaki Shikibu
nevertheless makes sure that most of the data about her
characters will be correctly interpreted. She does
this partially through conventional means, such as
having her narrator comment favorably on a character's
actions or appearance. The author also applies a less
predictable convention of characterization: she uses
certain attributes and accomplishments as signs or
markers that delineate and amplify a character's per-
sonality. The incense competition in "Umegae" ("A
Branch of Plum") enhances the reader's impressions of
those characters who blend the various kinds of
incense.4 Other signs of taste and talent employed by
Murasaki Shikibu in her characterizations include
calligraphic skills; the choice of writing paper
appropriate to the season and circumstance; taste in
clothes, both for oneself and for others; a knowledge
of waka, including the ability to quote from royal

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34 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

anthologies and personal collections; a talent for

composing impromptu poems befitting the situation at
hand; and familiarity with at least one musical instru-
ment.

These are more than polite accomplishments in the

Genji; rather, they are very much like symbols. When
ladies in a Jane Austen novel play the piano or sing,
their performance is generally used as a backdrop for
the principal characters, not as a vital revelation of
personality. Consider this evening scene from Pride
and Prejudice:

...[Mr. Darcy] applied to Miss Bingley and

Elizabeth for the indulgence of some music.
Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to the
piano-forte, and after a polite request that
Elizabeth would lead the way, which the other
as politely and more earnestly negatived, she
seated herself.
Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while
they were thus employed Elizabeth could not
help observing as she turned over some music
books that lay on the instrument, how fre-
quently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her....
She could only imagine... that she drew his
notice because there was something about her
more wrong and reprehensible, according to
his ideas of right, than in any other person
present....
After playing some Italian songs, Miss
Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch
air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing
near Elizabeth, said to her--
"Do not you feel a great inclination,
Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of
dancing a reel?"
She smiled, but made no answer.5

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 35

We learn indirectly from the passage that Miss

Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are accomplished at singing and
playing entertaining airs on a pianoforte; but we know
already that they are ladies of fashion, and because
piano and song are part of any eighteenth- or
nineteenth-century lady's repertoire, their perform-
ance is not in itself especially significant. We do
not know if they played and sang well or poorly,
perfunctorily or with feeling; or if their audience
was moved, bored, or delighted by the performance.
Its principal reason for being is to provide a foil,
to give Mr. Darcy an opportunity to gaze intently at
Elizabeth during a musical interlude, and for Elizabeth
to misinterpret the meaning of his gaze. Pride and
Prejudice has several scenes involving Elizabeth,
Darcy, and a pianoforte. Such scenes forward the plot
by stressing the conflict between the hero and heroine.
Austen uses other aesthetic pastimes similarly: Emma
Woodhouse's drawing sessions and Mr. Elton's "charade"
poem in Eama are there principally to further the sub-
plot of Emma's matchmaking; the drawing and the poem
themselves only confirm what we have already been told
about the characters--namely, that Emma is a fairly
good portraitist, clever at exaggerating her subject's
good points, and that Mr. Elton is an ass.

In the Genji, on the other hand, characterization

is heavily dependent on the cultural signs allotted by
Murasaki Shikibu. Genji's cousin Princess Asagao is a
good example: if we knew nothing of her waka style,
calligraphy, talent for incense blending and presenta-
tion, and general good taste, she would hardly exist as
a character--her personality would be a blank. The
narrator devotes very little space to a conventional
description of Princess Asagao. We have to form our
view of her in accordance with the signs given us in
the narrative.

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36 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

A character's handwriting is an essential comment

on his or her personality in the Genji. A hand is not
described as merely good or bad, it is analyzed in terms
of depth, attractiveness, strength, and lasting impres-
sion. The configuration of the lines of a letter or
poem, the gradations of ink, and the texture and color
of the writing paper are other important contributing
factors. The most admirable female characters have
superlative handwriting, while the best that can be
said of a character like the safflower princess is that
her calligraphy is "commonsensical and straightforward"
("kotowari kikoete shitataka [nari]").6
Murasaki Shikibu's preoccupation with such details
can be frustrating to those who do not realize the
point behind emphasizing a character's flawless taste
in clothes, or the ability to tie a love-letter to a
flower in just the right stage of bloom. These are
not random excursions into aremote aesthetic, but a
subtle, varied way of giving depth and scope to a char-
acter. Jonathan Culler reminds us that "we must read
a novel on the assumption that we have been told all
we need to know: that significance inheres at precisely
those levels where the novelist concentrates."7 In
the Genji, this applies equally to admirable and
peculiar characters. What Murasaki Shikibu tells us
is what is significant.

One of the less significant traits of a Genji

character is physical beauty. Of course the most
admirable female characters are beautiful, but then
they approach perfection in nearly every other respect
as well. On the other hand, a lady is not condemned
to being a grotesque simply because she is unattractive,
nor do good looks guarantee a good character. Two
other of Genji's ladies, Hanachirusato (the lady from
the village of falling flowers) and Utsusemi (the lady
of the locust shell) are plain women redeemed by sensi-
tivity and taste; the rustic Omi lady and the man from
Kyushu are physically attractive but beneath notice in
terms of accomplishment.

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 37

Let us turn now to the two "weird ladies." What

signs does Murasaki Shikibu use to inform us that Naishi
and the safflower princess are indeed grotesques?

Naishi is well-born, intelligent, and greatly

respected at court, where she holds the office of
assistant handmaid. Twenty or thirty years earlier,
she would have been a model court lady: she is
attractive, a superlative biwa player, a fashionable
dresser, and is prompt at composing poetic replies.
She is also promiscuous; but that would hardly have
been noticed at the sexually tolerant Heian court.
Other court ladies in the Genji are equally indiscrim-
inate in their choice of partners, yet are not condemned
for it. But what is acceptable behavior for a twenty-
five-year-old will not do for a woman whom the nar-
rator of the Genji calls "very old indeed." Her age is
later given as 57 or 58 (14: 290, 295). Old age was
thought to begin at forty in the Heian period, and so
Naishi is in fact an ancient creature in the eyes of
her contemporaries. We know that her undiminished
appetite for young men is inappropriate because of the
responses her behavior elicits from the narrator, Genji,
and his father the emperor. For example, the emperor
sees Genji flirting with Naishi, and remarks to himself
what an ill-matched couple they make ("nitsukuwashi-
karanu awai kana"; 14: 292). Later in the story,
during Genji's mock fight with To no Chuj5 in Naishi's
boudoir, the old lady creates a spectacle that the
narrator calls "most unbefitting" ("ito tsukinashi";
14: 295). Comments by narrator and characters are one
way of emphasizing Naishi's weirdness.

There are other, hidden signs, implicit contrasts

with characters in earlier literature and in the Genji
itself. Murasaki Shikibu's contemporaries would imme-
diately have identified Naishi with the old woman in
Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise) who makes a fool of her-
self over the young, handsome Narihira;8 a similar
comic character, this time an old man, menaces the
heroine of the Ochikubo monogatari (The Tale of

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38 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

Ochikubo). The implicit message is that the very old--

those over fifty--should abandon the way of the flesh
and prepare for the life to come. This does not mean
that Murasaki Shikibu disliked old women. There are
plenty of elderly ladies in the Genji, some of whom are
imposing figures. But they behave differently from
Naishi. In most cases, they remain concealed behind
curtains and blinds, models of reticence and experts
at dignified poetic exchanges. One thinks of great
ladies like Princess Omiya, the mother of To no Chujo
and Aoi, or of Princess Ochiba's mother Miyasudokoro.
Even the safflower princess' decrepit ladies-in-waiting
are deeply concerned with proprieties.

The single most important sign of Naishi's charac-

ter--her symbol, one might say--is her fan. In
"Momiji no ga," Genji initiates his conversation with
Naishi by tugging playfully on her train. She turns
halfway toward him with her fan open and held beneath
her eyes. The pose is typical of court ladies. At
this point, the fan is described only as "splendidly
decorated" ("enarazu egakitaru"; 14: 290); its
splendor, we are told, makes a jarring contrast with
her dark, sunken eyelids and the wisps of hair framing
her face. "What an inappropriate fan," Genji thinks
(the word he uses in the original is again
"nitsukawashikaranu"). He then examines it more
closely:

A grove of tall trees was painted subtly on

paper so bright a red it positively shone. On
one side of the fan were verses jotted down in
a hand that, though thoroughly past its prime,
was not without merit: "The woodland under-
grasses / Have grown old and sere."
"Of all the poems she could have chosen,"
thought Genji. "Isn't she outrageous!" (14:
291)

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 39

Heian aristocrats generally decorated their own

fans. Naishi has chosen to color hers a shocking red;
the grove of trees is probably painted in gold or sil-
ver. So vivid a fan would overpower even a younger
woman. Its effect is disastrous for Naishi. Not only
is Genji struck by this evidence of Naishi's bad taste:
the red fan also accentuates the very signs of age that
she labors so hard to conceal.

But what is "outrageous"("utate") about the

poetry quotation? Naishi quotes from a poem in the
first miscellaneous section of the Kokinshu (17: 892):
"The woodland undergrasses / Have grown old and sere /
In the Oaraki forest: / Ponies do not linger there, /
Nor do men come harvesting." The speaker laments that
age has rendered her unattractive: her charms are the
"woodland grasses," and the ponies and harvesters sig-
nify lovers. Genji is shocked by the allusion because
it amounts to a general invitation to visit Naishi's
bedroom. But he cannot resist a teasing reply. "Yet
in summer, that very forest," Genji says. He alludes
to a poem in a personal waka collection, the Saneakira
sh2: the poem celebrates the Oaraki forest as the
summer home of a host of songbirds. Naishi's "forest,"
in other words, is already well frequented by many
"birds." With so many lovers at her command, Genji
hints, Naishi hardly needs another. Naishi is charac-
teristically quick to reply. She recites a poem in
which her undergrasses--though admittedly past their
prime--are offered as food for Genji's pony. This is
probably as close as Genji ever comes to being propo-
sitioned. The explicitness of Naishi's innuendo must
have titillated Heian audiences, who were probably not
accustomed to encountering so sexually aggressive an
old lady in fiction. Narihira's elderly ladylove in
the Ise monogatari uses one of her sons as a go-between.
Naishi manages very well on her own.

These events take place in "Momiji no ga." In the

chapter that follows it, "Hana no en" ("The Festival of
the Cherry Blossoms"), a character appears who is

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40 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

probably intended to stand in direct contrast to old

Naishi. This is Oborozukiyo (the lady of the misty moon),
a young lady new at court whom Genji seduces one lovely
spring night. Oborozukiyo's naivete and youthful beauty
contrast well with Naishi's rather hardened approach to
love; but it is the young girl's taste, and Genji's
response to it, that make the more striking contrasts.
Like Naishi, Oborozukiyo alludes to a Kokinsha poem at
her initial meeting with Genji, but Oborozukiyo's choice
is chaste and romantic, a spring poem about the misty
moon that neither shines nor is obscured. Her innocence
and susceptibility captivate Genji, who is reluctant to
leave her side even when dawn begins to break. This
pretty scene contrasts with Genji's eagerness to escape
Naishi's barrage of innuendo and reproach. But the
most striking difference between the two ladies is their
fans. Like Naishi's, Oborozukiyo's is carefully
described. It is a cherry pink that shades toward
rose; the rose-colored part has a painting of a misty
moon reflected in water. Genji finds the fan "quite
commonplace, but appealing because it was hers" (14:
309). Cherry-pink and rose are appropriate colors for
a fan carried by a young lady in spring; the misty moon
is evocative of late spring, and of the elegant poem the
girl quotes earlier. It is perhaps significant that no
other fans are so carefully described in the Genji.
The garish red fan with its tasteless quotation and the
cherry-pink fan celebrating the misty moon are placed in
opposition, like the autumn and spring seasons in which
the respective stories are set.

Naishi is grotesque because her originally accept-

able behavior and taste no longer match her present age.
The case is somewhat different with Suetsumuhana, the
safflower princess. Like Naishi, Suetsumuhana refuses
to act her age. On the other hand, taste is one of the
few things the princess has in her favor. The taste is
not her own, however: it is that of her father, the
late Prince Hitachi, and of other long-dead relatives.
In the absence of any personal aesthetic standards,
Suetsumuhana unquestioningly adopts those set by her

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 41

ancestors. Fortunately for the princess, her family was

blessed with excellent taste. Although her blind
loyalty to the antiquated family aesthetic occasionally
produces dismaying results, by and large it is a bene-
ficial attribute that does much to make the safflower
princess a sympathetic figure rather than a repellent
one.

The princess' oddness originates from two sources:

her shyness and the decayed state of her tasteful,
inherited possessions and surroundings. Both shyness
and decay are purposely exaggerated by the author to
obtain the desired bizarre effect. Of the two, the
princess' shyness is undoubtedly the greater flaw.

The princess is repeatedly described as retiring

and reticent, having been strictly brought up by an
elderly, old-fashioned father. But she proves to be
more than ordinarily shy. When Genji first comes
courting, she agrees to receive him only if she need
not say anything to him, and if he will address her
through closed shutters. The modern equivalent might
be to leave a visitor standing on the doormat, conversing
through a closed front door. When prospective lovers
send poems and letters, the princess does not answer.
This is rude, tasteless behavior, as one such hopeful,
T6 no ChOuj, puts it (14: 243). During her first real
encounter with Genji, the princess is speechless and
extremely bashful. Sheltered young girls are expected
to be shy with men; but, as the text of "Suetsumuhana"
repeatedly states, grown women on their own, like the
princess, are to comport themselves in a more worldly
manner. The princess, like old Naishi, refuses to
accept the fact that she has grown older and must act
accordingly.

Childishness is one aspect of the safflower

princess' grotesque character (the narrator calls her
"ito uiuishige"; 14: 247). Another is her famous
ugliness: she is too tall and thin, and her long,
drooping, red nose is compared to a safflower and an

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42 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

elephant's trunk. But looks are not crucial. Neither

Genji nor his intermediary, the court lady Tayu no
MyObu, wishes the princess were prettier: they would
rather see her sweeter, brighter, more responsive and
modern. Looks are less important than temperament in
Murasaki Shikibu's view.

As noted above, the princess relies in matters of

taste on standards set by long-dead forebears. Her
taste in clothing is consequently conservative to the
point of absurdity. The princess and her ladies dress
in soot-stained clothing that is worn and shabby with
age. Similarly, when Suetsumuhana sends Genii a gift
of clothing at New Year's, he is "shocked" ("asamashi to
obosu"; 14: 262) by the old-fashioned cut of the robe,
by the material used, and by its color combinations
(which are various gradations of red, as in the
Murasaki Shikibu nikki passage mentioned earlier).

When the princess is obliged to make an aesthetic

decision, her lack of taste is obvious. The princess'
poems, for example, are written on singularly unsuitable
notepaper: not only is it discolored and puffy with
age, it tends to be the kind of no-nonsense paper used
for court documents and business letters. Her poetic
diction is clumsy and overly observant of literary
primers; her handwriting is strongly characteristic of
early tenth-century styles. Having glanced at the first
of the princess' letters, Genji "let it fall. It was
not worth looking at" (14: 252).

The princess lives in a large, decaying mansion

which seems to rot before our eyes. By the end of
"Suetsumuhana" a gallery roof has fallen in; but true
ruin begins with "Yomogiu," when the servants' quarters
are struck by lightning and burnt down,and practically
every part of the house but the central room of the
main building has become unfit for human habitation.
The garden is desolate and lonely. As the narrative
progresses, the grounds become a tangle of weeds and

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 43

vines, overgrown trees, and unruly bushes. Tree-spirits

and foxes haunt the place. It seems a perfect setting
for a ghost story: the princess' elderly attendants in
their dirty dresses, eating meager meals off imported
celadon, might easily be apparitions seeking to ensnare
a tasty morsel like Genji. Yet the safflower princess'
house and grounds are generally praised as "elegant"
("okashi"). The house and staff may be old and battered,
but they are the best. When Genji peeps through the
shutters one night and sees several ladies in their
shabby but impeccably proper costumes, he does not
wonder if he is frequenting a haunted house: he
thinks the old ladies are "elegant," and imagines that
there must be others like them in certain bureaucratic
centers of the royal palace (14: 255).

It is the romance of the old house and the high

status of its occupant that attract Genji and T5 no
Chujo in the first place. Genji imagines the lonely
mansion as the setting for one of those old stories
about a sheltered, conservatively-reared heroine. Such
stories no longer survive. We can conjecture from
Genji's expectations that the old stories he has in
mind featured scenes in which the beautiful, reticent
heroine, living out her days in a tumbledown mansion,
played the koto on moonlit nights. Old Prince Hitachi
played the koto well; Genji first visits the princess'
house eager to discover if she has inherited her
father's talent. He hears her play, but only briefly
and at a distance. His initial impression is that the
princess' koto sounds "elegant fokashi]; her style was
not deeply moving, but the extraordinary quality of the
instrument made it impossible to find many faults" (14:
238). The essence of Genji's first impression is re-
stated frequently throughout the chapter: the safflower
princess, with no taste or talent of her own, is
rescued time and again by accessories of superior
quality. If the princess had played her brief musical
selection on a mediocre instrument, Genji would have
thought her performance less than elegant. To make
another analogy to our own world, a few chords played

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44 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

by an amateur pianist will sound much more impressive on

a 1929 Steinway grand than on a living-room spinet of no
particular pedigree.

Incense is another Hitachi family treasure that

helps to compensate for the princess' shortcomings.
Genji's first physical impression of her is favorable,
thanks to her elegant, expensive scent. At the begin-
ning of their first interview, Genji is given a seat
before a firmly shut sliding door to await the princess'
approach. Genji, who has already toncluded that he
finds the old mansion more refined (okuyukashi) than
fashionable modern houses, hears the princess nearing
the other side of the door. "There was a sense of quiet
composure and gentility, accompanied by the pleasant
scent of sandalwood. 'Just as I expected,' thought
Genji" (14: 249). He is disappointed later that night,
after he discovers how shy and inept she really is; but
the princess' romantic surroundings and her pleasant
scent soften what might have been a far more negative
reaction. He finds her "aware" and "namaitoshi," both
adjectives connoting pity, sympathy, and concern. He is
touched by her awkward ways and feels respect for her
high rank. Genji's combined emotions convince him that
the princess must be taken under his wing.

The princess' splendid, richly-scented sable coat

(an exotic item to the eleventh-century reader) and the
"exceedingly old-fashioned" gentleman's comb- and
toiletry-boxes and mirror also have an antique charm
for Genji (14: 266).

The princess' romantically decayed house and

grounds, as portrayed in "Suetsumuhana," attract Genji
to the Hitachi household and soften his initial impres-
sion of the princess herself. But the house has another
role: to supplement the character of the grotesque
princess, so enabling this awkward, unprepossessing
woman to occupy center stage through two substantial
chapters.

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 45

Grotesques in the Genji appear to be sustainable

only in short passages. They flourish in vignettes.
The safflower princess occupies more space than any
other grotesque character, urban or rustic, thanks to
the added interest provided by her house and grounds.
"Suetsumuhana," "The Safflower," true to its title,
is about the red-nosed princess herself. It estab-
lishes her character and sets up her connection with
Genji. The house occupies a subsidiary position at
this point. But with "Yomogiu"--"The Wormwood Patch"--
the house becomes a character in its own right.

Genji is in exile at Suma during the major part of

"Yomogiu." Without his active, articulate presence,
the chapter seems doomed, for the mute, static princess
can offer little diversion on her own. When she is
paired with the tumbledown house, however, an interest-
ing plot takes shape. Because of the increasingly
alarming decay of her house in "Yomogiu," the princess'
life becomes more and more precarious. Most of the
house is no longer inhabitable; all but the most loyal
servants leave in despair or disgust; foxes and
spirits regularly manifest themselves in the neglected
garden. The collapsing house underscores the princess'
penury and isolation; it also provides the necessary
background for the trials the princess undergoes in
the course of the chapter. When her saintly brother
the monk pays one of his rare visits, he is so
unworldly that the shocking state of the house and
grounds makes no impression. Needless to say, he does
not offer any assistance.

Later in the chapter, the princess' obnoxious

maternal aunt, a governor's wife, mocks her threadbare
elegance, scornfully offers her a job as the family
governess, and finally takes away the princess' faith-
ful young maid Jiju. Such indignities are unlikely to
have been visited on a princess--unless she is living
in conditions so wretched that, to insensitive members
of society, she no longer merits treatment commensurate
with her rank.

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46 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

The princess' ruined house also sends a signal to

various connoisseurs and entrepreneurs who, correctly
assuming that the princess needs income, inquire into
purchasing the family antiques and timber. Thus the
house provides the impetus for the princess' visitors
to come and subject her to various trials. The trials,
moreover, give the princess the opportunity to show
herself at her best: she is brave in the face of
adversity, a filial daughter who upholds her father's
standards and admonitions.

The safflower princess and her house are an insep-

arable couple. No single Genji character is so
strongly linked with his or her surroundings. The
ominous presence of the Uji River does much to set the
tone of the Uji chapters, and is strongly associated
with the Eighth Prince and his family as a whole, but
it would be difficult to identify it with any one
character. Genji's beloved Murasaki has a "spring
garden" at the Rokujo mansion, but it pales when com-
pared to the safflower princess' bizarre house and
grounds. One remembers that Murasaki's garden has
all her favorite spring plants, arranged in the best
of taste; but that is all. Who, on the other hand, can
forget the safflower princess' ruined mansion, its
garden choked with weeds and infested with mischievous
spirits, its grand, rotting gate so rarely used that
the doddering gatekeeper cannot force it open? The
mansion has a personality of its own. In fact, its
air of decayed gentility evolves into a stronger, more
positive presence than that of the princess herself.
Without her mansion--that is, after Genji moves her to
his Nijo house at the end of "Yomogiu"--she loses her
appeal. She is trotted out occasionally to produce
one of her typically odd poems or to look awkward in a
tasteful set of robes chosen by Genji or Murasaki. But
she has lost what is most appealing about her character:
the sense of romantic decline that softens her
grotesque qualities. Without the house, the princess
becomes a dull if still bizarre lady.

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Association of Teachers of Japanese 47

The two weird ladies, old Naishi and the young

safflower princess, are cast from the same mold, though
the author's skillful characterization transforms them
into different types of characters performing different
roles. Naishi is a burlesque figure, a stock character
whose purpose in each of her appearances is to provide
a few laughs in the midst of some of the graver pas-
sages of the Genji. The princess is less easy to fit
into a set role. She is a complex character, pitiable
for her gaucheries but admirable for the staunchness
with which she upholds paternal admonitions. Some have
wondered if she serves any purpose at all. I suspect
that "Suetsumuhana" was intended as a comic interlude
after the tragic events in an earlier chapter, "Yugao
("Evening Faces"). Murasaki Shikibu is fond of paired
chapters, particularly in the early part of the Genji:
consider "Momiji no ga" and "Hana no en," depicting
autumn and spring festivities at court; "Aoi" and
"Sakaki," centering around two great Shinto events;
and "Suma" and "Akashi," the chapters about Genji's
exile by the Inland Sea. "Yugao" and "Suetsumuhana,"
the stories of the "evening face" and the "safflower,"
are strikingly similar in theme, structure, and
language.

The grotesque character is an anomaly in the

Genji; but such oddities as Naishi and the safflower
princess are actually very beneficial to the narrative.
They give variety to the first section of the novel,
make the admirable female characters seem even more
tasteful and talented, and give the radiant Genji the
opportunity to exhibit his magnanimous nature to the
full. Weird ladies are welcome additions indeed to
the Genji monogatari.

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48 Vol. 20, No. 1 Journal of the

NOTES

Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured, Frederick A.

Blossom, trans.; vol. 7 of Remembrance of Things Past
(New York: Random House, 1927, rpt. 1932; 2 vols.),
2, p. 1035.

Ikeda Kikan and Akiyama Ken, eds., Murasaki

Shikibu nikki; Nihon koten bungaku taikei 19 (Iwanami
Shoten, 1958), pp. 507-08.

Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Okagcani: The

Great Mirror (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980), p. 107.

Aileen Gatten, "A Wisp of Smoke: Scent and

Character in The Tale of Genji," Monumenta Nipponica,
XXXII: 1 (1977), pp. 44-46.

5jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: DelI,

1959, rpt. 1970), p. 72.

Yamagishi Tokuhei, ed., Genji monogatari; Nihon

koten bungaku taikei, vols. 14-18 (Iwanami Shoten,
1958-63), 14, p. 265. Henceforth sources of quota-
tions from Genji will be given in parentheses.

Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (Cornel 1

University Press, 1975, rpt. 1976), p. 232.

Helen Craig McCullough, trans., Tales of Ise:

Lyrical Episodes from Ten-CeCentury Japan (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 110.

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