Reading · Genji

Anyway, I bring something Genji-related for my first post: Liza Dalby's The Tale of Murasaki. It's a work of historical fiction based on Murasaki Shikibu's diaries, other historical accounts, and some reverse-engineering from The Tale of Genji. Liza Dalby is an anthropologist who studies Japanese culture, and has the distinction of being the first (and as far as I know only) non-Japanese woman to become a geisha. You can read more about her and the book at her website. I mention The Tale of Murasaki because it's one of my favorite books and it provides a great companion piece (or, in my case, introduction) to Genji.

Genji readers will recognize various elements of the tale in Liza Dalby's work, such as the "rainy day" conversation about women, the down-in-the-world Safflower-Nosed Princess, and the frustration and ennui occasioned by exile to the coast (in Murasaki's case, a self-imposed exile in which she accompanied her father to Echizen to put off her arranged marriage). The book is also a great read on its own.

From Ivan Morris' The World of the Shining Prince, a long quote that I had to share:

The procedure for issuing Imperial Decrees provides an example of Heian bureaucracy rampant. When the Great Council of State have decided on a proposal, they submit it to the emperor, whose secretaries rewrite it as a State dcoument, drafted of course in Chinese. After the emperor has read it, he automatically approves and signifies this by writing the day of the month in his own hand (the year and the month having already been filled in by the secretaries). The draft is then sent to the Ministry of Central Affairs. The minister makes a Report of Acknowledgement to the emperor. He then examines the document and (approval again being automatic) inscribes the Chinese character for "Proclaim" under his official title. The next stop is the office of the Senior Assistant Minister, who, after the usual delays, writes the character for "Received." The same procedure is followed by the Junior Assistant Minister, except that he writes the character "Perform." Now the draft goes to the Scribes' Office, where it is copied. The document is then sent back to the Great Council of State, where the Major Counsellor makes a Report of Acknowledgement. Next the emperor sees the document; this time he writes the character "Approved" and returns it to the Great Council. Here the document is thoroughly scrutinized and, if no stylistic mistakes are found, it is sent back to the Scribes' Office for multi-copying. Each copy is signed jointly by the Prime Minister and all other officials who are concerned with the matter in hand, and then sent to the palace for the ceremony of affixing the Great Imperial Seal (Seiin no Gi). Now finally the decree can be promulgated. Since, as often as not, it is concerned with some such question as the type of head-dress that an official of the Third Rank may wear at court, we can judge the prodigious waste of time and effort involved in government procedure.

Morris reports that the forms of bureaucracy were imported from China [*], but China, being somewhat larger, had more to occupy its bureaucrats.

[*] Except that one couldn't become a bureaucrat through a merit-based test.

Cross-posted to my journal.

So I, uh, kind of went crazy on the wiki today, to the detriment of both my hands and chapter 21.

However, now we have a page for each chapter, the start of a character list, and some links to outside resources. Since it's no longer bare, go forth and edit! (I would really love if someone with Tyler's translation created a chronology.)

To edit an existing page, click "edit" at the top. (This is also a good way to see the syntax, which is quite simple.)

To add a new page, make a link to it in an existing page and then click the resulting link—this also avoids creating an "orphan" page that no-one finds because it's not linked from a browsable page. (Yes, I know you can search, but with long Japanese names I'm much more likely to browse than search.) For example, if you figured out the name of Tô no Chûjô's daughter who is consort to Genji and Fujitsubo's son, you could add her name to the character list in double square brackets, like so: [[name]]. This would create a link to "name", and when you click on the link, you'll be asked to create a new page where you can say, "Tô no Chûjô's daughter and consort to the Reizei Emperor."

(Links to non-existent pages are shown in red in the default view. There are a fair number of characters that I referenced in the synopsis but didn't create pages for yet.)

It'll take a few entries for us to shake down what we want the formatting for the entries to be - for one, we'll have to decide which names we want as the primary entry. It's easy enough to set a page forward, so that nicknames or titles can forward to a name page.

At any rate, I don't want to say too much about it, because the style needs to be worked out through use, rather than before it gets started. :) I have a Style Guide up that I ripped off from another wiki I have, and you can track changes to any particular page by clicking the "Watch" tab at the top. I don't recommend you do that for the Recent Changes page - if you use an RSS reader, there's a link to its RSS feed in the lower left-hand corner, and that's much easier to follow changes to the wiki with.

On to the wiki! http://genji.magatsu.net/

Alright, here we go! I've gone with the Suma passage (Tyler p 233, from "Approaching the mirror stand..." or Seidensticker p 224, "As he combed his hair...". Sorry, I haven't the Waley page references for you old-fashioned types) and taken this from the Shibuya site because I'm too lazy to go to the library.

My plan is to wait a couple of days and then post my parsing and translation of at least the first sentence, and anyone who wants to can do the same, and then it's open for comments and/or pleas for help, depending on how well it goes. It would be awesome if people who are reading along give their alternate interpretations/criticism/hair-pulling, while people who don't read classical Japanese can ask questions/give comments if they're interested.

If someone with a livejournal account could post this to the main page, that would be great!

Lianne

御鬢かきたまふとて、鏡台に寄りたまへるに、面痩せたまへる影の、我ながらいとあてにきよらなれば、
　「こよなうこそ、衰へにけれ。この影のやうにや痩せてはべる。あはれなるわざかな」
　とのたまへば、女君、涙一目うけて、見おこせたまへる、いと忍びがたし。
　「身はかくてさすらへぬとも君があたり
　　去らぬ鏡の影は離れじ」
　と、聞こえたまへば、
　「別れても影だにとまるものならば
　　鏡を見ても慰めてまし」
　柱隠れにゐ隠れて、涙を紛らはしたまへるさま、「なほ、ここら見るなかにたぐひなかりけり」と、思し知らるる人の御ありさまなり。
　親王は、あはれなる御物語聞こえたまひて、暮るるほどに帰りたまひぬ。