The Ise Stories: Ise monogatari

Introduction

1 Introduction Japan’s aristocratic age, the Heian period (794–1185), saw the emergence of the literary court romance, or monogatari. The best known of these works is without a doubt Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji). A fair amount is known about the Genji and its composition: it was written by a woman known as Murasaki Shikibu (ca. 973–ca. 1014 or 1025), and we can deduce from surviving parts of her diary that at least a substantial part of the tale was completed by the year 1008. The Genji is a long work (1,120 pages in the standard English edition) that draws its readers into its narrative universe, creating an idealized picture of the Heian imperial court and its inhabitants and achieving what some have called the world’s first psychological novel. Most modern translators have provided notes, chiefly in order to identify poems alluded to in the text that the modern reader, unlike Murasaki Shikibu’s contemporaries, cannot be expected to have committed to memory. The Ise Stories differs greatly from the Genji. Its authorship is obscure and multiple; its period of composition appears to have spanned decades, if not a century; and it is relatively short. More importantly, its brief, episodic structure hinders character development or even the telling of a continuous story. Instead the work presents a series of anecdotes and exemplary tales, the purposes of which have become obscured by time. Nonetheless, the Ise and its poetry remain a literarily satisfying and interpretively exciting reading experience. And it is for its poetry that the Ise became one of the three most important texts in the classical Japanese canon, along with the Genji and the first imperially commissioned anthology of Japanese poetry (chokusensh), the Kokinsh (905). The Ise has been essential reading for every educated Japanese, male or female, for most of Japan’s history. Authorship, Title, and Texts The authorship of The Ise Stories is unknown and plural. What is known is that many of the poems contained in the text are by Ariwara no Narihira (825–880). Narihira was the son of Imperial Prince Abo (792–842), a son of 2 The Ise Stories Emperor Heizei (774–824, r. 806–809). In 810, the retired Heizei’s consort, Fujiwara no Kusuko, together with her brother Nakanari, led an unsuccessful coup to attempt to return Heizei to the throne. As a result, Nakanari was executed, Kusuko committed suicide, and Abo was sent into exile. Abo was also reduced to commoner status and granted the surname Ariwara. He was later pardoned. Narihira, although an imperial grandson, therefore served in the court bureaucracy as a commoner. The Ariwara developed close ties to another family, the Ki, and Narihira is believed to have been married to a daughter of Ki no Aritsune (815–877). Aritsune’s sister, Seishi, was a consort of Emperor Montoku (827–858, r. 850–858) and gave birth to his eldest son, Prince Koretaka (844–897). (See Appendix B for a family tree.) The Ki and Ariwara therefore had reason to hope that they would benefit when Koretaka ascended the throne. However, the latter half of the tenth century saw the political rise of the Northern Branch of the Fujiwara, under the leadership of Yoshifusa (804– 872). Yoshifusa married his daughter Meishi to Montoku, under whom he became the first commoner to hold the office of Daijdaijin (Chancellor) and wield effective political power. Meishi gave birth to a boy, whom Yoshifusa put on the throne as Emperor Seiwa (850–880, r. 858–876) when still a child. He then appointed himself regent (sessh), establishing what was to become known as the Fujiwara Regency, through which the Northern Branch kept control of the government for hundreds of years by placing its daughters in the imperial harem and elevating the resulting grandsons to the throne while minors. Thus Seiwa was chosen as emperor over his much older brother, Koretaka, the candidate of the Ki and Ariwara families, who consequently suffered a further decline of power. In the Heian period, important imperial figures tended to serve as the focus of salons or smaller courts, sponsoring cultural and religious events and projects. Koretaka’s coterie included not only Narihira and Aritsune, but another former imperial prince, Minamoto no Tru (822–895). All these men were recognized poets and litterateurs. It is in this environment that the original core of the Ise monogatari is believed to have been created. While earlier English-language scholars have...