General Comments:

This is a remarkable chapter. Genji's most important women are brought together in this chapter, in some cases in very complicated ways. Rokujō is in the background, Akashi's circumstances are introduced, Aoi makes a brief and cold appearance, the hot pain of the secret shared with Fujitsubo is given a small but powerful corner of this chapter, and Murasaki, who will become Genji's life-long companion, makes her appearance and is captured by a Genji who cannot control himself.

That Murasaki is very young (about 10) when Genji proposed to those who look after her that she be given to him, and the same age when first he shares a bed with her (but not sexually yet), is the extreme behavior that gets censure from those in the story who know of his actions as well as the narrator who tells us of them. However, that censure is qualified and this clashes with our modern sensibilities. How to interpret the narrator's position on this event and what conclusions to draw about contemporary readers are key to deciding numerous difficult translating challenges.

Murasaki, in these first five chapters, has now more or less laid out her vision of amorous desire. If we can assume that Genji's father was a man who understood female beauty, and was deeply moved by it, then we might suggest that his consort Kiritsubo (Kiritsubo no kōi) is one of the most compelling, beautiful women in the story (at least to him) and caused in the emperor such desire and love that he was unable to maintain a sense of balance and discretion. Then, when he lost her he could not embrace the fact of that loss and found, at last, a second, teenaged woman of equal or superior female power and beauty. However, bringing such a remarkably attractive woman into the orbit of a prepubescent Genji (his son and obviously as attracted to and capable of being emotionally moved by women as his father) created the circumstances for an intimacy between the two that was unforeseen by the father. (By the way, that Fujitsubo looks like Genji's mother is, in my opinion, not greatly important. I would suggest that this point has been over-emphasized, usually more often repeated uncritically than deployed with care by readers and critics. It is seductively Oedipal -- Genji is attracted to his father's young wife who looks like his mother -- and one needs to ask whether pop-Freudian thinking is getting too much of a role in making this conclusion. This is true of the Genji-seeking-to-recover-his-mother explanatory model as well.) Genji and Fujitsubo's young and careless passion creates between them a child -- thought to be her emperor's and destined to become an emperor -- and in so doing binds them powerfully together in a shared fear of the outing of this secret as well as the living reality of their physical intimacy. Genji cannot stop the powerful flow of desire that he has for the remarkable Fujitsubo, a young woman who was selected after a wide and serious search, as the one woman who might rival the utterly attractive (at least to the emperor) Kiritsubo. But given her status as her father's consort and then, given the truly unacceptable pregnancy, Genji and Fujitsubo, though bonded karmically together, cannot be together. Like Genji's father, Genji's unbridled attraction to Fujitsubo is given a new direction in Murasaki, Fujitsubo's niece and clearly someone who Genji sees as a beautiful and necessary substitute for Fujitsubo. Here, too, Murasaki the writer suggests that there is some quality in a particular woman that creates an uncontrollable passion in a particular man and that quality, whatever it is, can either appear in another woman as simply a resemblance (Kiritsubo / Fujitsubo) or can appear in another woman because of a quality shared within the family (Fujitsubo / Murasaki) and that, whatever the quality is, it can be perceived by the man when the "woman" is a girl of ten and that it causes a desire so strong that real social norms are transgressed (Emperor Kiritsubo's excessive love that causes Kiritsubo's death, Genji's sexual intimacy with his father's consort, Genji's inability to wait until Murasaki is of an appropriate age and the subsequent kidnapping of her).

Basic Story Summary:

Feeling unwell (this follows the death of Yūgao though there is no explicit connection made) Genji travels to the hills north of the capital. (While geographically this is not a great distance, socially is it definitely separated from the capital and this area has a number of long and narrow valleys with single narrow roads providing access. A number of temples and such found this area attractive.) There he discovers (by looking in on an intriguing house) the young Murasaki and feels an immediate connection. Murasaki, it turns out, like him, has: a) lost her mother at a young age because of the jealous hatred of other woman, and b) is the daughter of Fujitsubo's brother by a mistress, not his main wife. Being raised by the ailing 40-something nun-mother of the now dead mistress-mother (rather than the biological father), Murasaki is someone who lacks strong parental support and is being raised in a culturally disconnected location, qualities which create the possibility of Genji spiriting her away to the capital for himself. Genji is refused when he puts a proposal for Murasaki to the grandmother-nun and her brother Kitayama no Sōzu (T: His Reverence, a distinguished Prelate / S: bishop) but this refusal is measured. They make it clear that they like the offer but its timing is wrong; they ask that he wait 4-5 years. However, when the nun dies, it becomes likely that the girl Murasaki will be given to the care of her father Hyōbukyō no Miya (T: His Highness of War, Murasaki's father / S: Prince Hyōbu, royal father, father). Genji sweeps in and takes away the girl the day before the father arrives to claim her. The text suggests that this is, in fact, the better option: at her biological father's place she would be subjected to the uncaring treatment of his primary wife and would be seen as inferior to the other children living there. Murasaki, and her attendants, are beside themselves with this event but Murasaki herself seems to adjust to the new location (Genji's Nijō estate).

Blended into this story line is the revealing of the pregnancy of Fujitsubo. He sees and sleeps with her once in this chapter but the time with Genji when this child is conceived is chronologically before this and quite definitely not narrated by choice not oversight. The evidence of that meeting, however, becomes horribly evident to Fujitsubo's close aids and Genji. Genji tries his best to keep in touch through letters, but she answers briefly or not at all. Fujitsubo is clearly suffering great psychological pain from conceiving a child not by the emperor. This secret runs at a deep level in the text and the reader should not expect a much explicit narration of it.

Early in this chapter the background of the lady at Akashi is laid out. Rokujō is evident in the background as a destination for his nighttime travels. Aoi is shown to be cool towards her husband Genji; their relationship is not going well at all.

Reading notes:

Reading this chapter was, for me, very difficult at the level of language. I found I often wanted to check Tyler against Seidensticker against the original and that it was sometimes difficult to know exactly how Tyler or Seidensticker might have wanted us to take their words as well as how to interpret the original. I found myself disagreeing with both translations frequently on points that were important to me but that I wasn't sure were important to anyone else. For me, whether Genji is sleazy or a rascal, or just charmingly love-sick in this chapter is an important issue and one that can't really be resolved. I'm not sure either Tyler or Seidensticker have a consistent view of Genji through this difficult chapter but, all-in-all, I sense Tyler seeing Genji as a bit more towards the rascal side of things than do I or Seidensticker. Seidensticker, however, avoids translating some critical phrases that make Genji a little more of a gentleman than we are likely to conclude if those phrases were translated. Both, I think, miss what I see as considerable narrative gymnastics to make the unreasonable kidnapping of a young girl more reasonable by various means. It is shocking at one level that he has done this but in the larger scheme of things it can be seen as an event with its plusses for Murasaki. For example (others will be given below): when Murasaki first sees Genji she remarks: "He is much better-looking than Father!" (T 94) "Even handsomer than Father" (S 96) 宮の御ありさまよりも、まさりたまへるかな (NKBT 1:298). This could be translated: "Why he is more impressive than the Prince!" This is not a functional translation in terms of relating broadly to the flow of a total translation, but the point is that she does not say, specifically, "handsome," nor does she say "father". Indeed, throughout the chapter both Tyler and Seidensticker translate 宮 (miya, prince) as "father" and, while this is true and even accurate, it creates a feeling of a bond between Murasaki and her father that is not really there. She doesn't know him well and does not refer to him as father but rather as "the Prince" though she knows that he is her father. Further, "handsome" brings my mind at least too closely to the idea of physical beauty if not physical attraction from a woman's (Murasaki's) point of view, odd for a 10-year-old and misleading, as if she would choose her father based on looks. Rather, I would suggest that the "honorable visage/deportment/form" (御ありさま) of the passage extends beyond looks and refers more specifically to the impression Murasaki gets about the capacity of the man in general as a man of culture, means, and the ability to provide a good life with a good future. In brief passages like this, Murasaki the writer, subverts our tendency to view Genji's obtaining of Murasaki as scandalous. While it is, it also is not: the father is not much of a father to her and Genji is anyway the better provider. Moving children into other families adoptively to better their future was acceptable. (Akashi will give her daughter to Murasaki to raise into a little empress later in this tale.)

The early scenes between Genji and Murasaki's guardians Tyler 88 / Seidensticker 90:

Beginning here over the next several pages Genji speaks with His Reverence / the bishop (brother of the nun-grandmother who is looking after Murasaki), trying to find out about the girl, then advancing his ideas about her. These three or so pages open, however, with Genji feeling the secret pain of his affair with Fujitsubo (footnoted in Tyler, not so in Seidensticker which says only "lured into an illicit and profitless affair") and Buddhism has a heavy presence in these pages: not only the northern hill setting and the house itself and the nun and the bishop as the protectors of Murasaki, but also the Buddhist chanting, which would be a powerful, sacred sound in a quiet and secluded location such as this. Murasaki the writer opens her own journal (Murasaki shikibu nikki) with a similar sound; it was clearly a sensory experience that she found rich and evocative.

Seidensticker 89:

"General Genji" is an over-translation of "Middle Captain" 中将.

Genji and discovering interesting ladies on Tyler 87 / Seidensticker 89:

the several sentences beginning "What an enchanting girl ..." (T) "What a discovery ... " (S) Tyler translates correctly; Seidensticker has missed this one.

The gift exchange on Tyler 92-3 / Seidensticker 94:

Prince Shōtoku lived 574-622 so this would be a very special gift indeed in the 11th c.! ... Murasaki's descriptions of gift exchanges reminds me very much of her descriptions that can be found in her journal (Murasaki shikibu nikki). I am sure she had many opportunities to see such exchanges and was probably charged with recording them at times, too.

Seidensticker 95:

"flageolet" translates 篳篥、ひぢりき hichiriki.

Genji and Fujitsubo's love tryst Tyler 96-97 / Seidensticker 98-99:

My own reading experience of this passage in the original is that it has a heightened drama relative to the earlier passages about Murasaki, dramatic as that discovery was. This passage conveys Genji's absolute urgency in seeing Fujitsubo again as well as the near horror of the situation they find themselves in. I think the "color" of the text is just a little different here and that "color" does not stand out with the same amount of clarity in either Tyler or Seidensticker. The heat of this relationship seems just different from some of his others. Perhaps I am overreading.

The lavender / murasaki poem on Tyler 100 / Seidensticker 102:

Notice here as elsewhere how Murasaki the writer is layering Fujitsubo and Murasaki together. They are different women who experience different fates but in Genji's loving and desiring heart-mind, they are not so distinctively individuals.

Genji learns of the nun's death on Tyler 100 / Seidensticker 103:

For me, Tyler's "and so on" などありて suggests a lack of sympathy in the listening Genji. Further, "now getting on" いかならむ has a similar effect on me. Seidensticker has a warmer Genji in his paragraph as he drops the "and so on" and has the more interpretive "she must be utterly lost". Perhaps this is a minor issue but we often make character judgments on minor moments when we think someone is perhaps revealing a bit of themselves. I see a less calculating, more emotional Genji in the original of this passage. In general, in the process of this slow rereading of the text, my image of Genji is swinging towards the more sympathetic.

Genji's first physical contact with Murasaki on Tyler 102 / Seidensticker 104:

Tyler says of Murasaki's hair that it is "beautiful" while Seidensticker says it is "a delight to touch" and this, I think, is very typical of their approaches. The original is うつくしう思ひやらる utsukushū omoiyararu: "... found himself thinking how utukushi" or "... felt the delight of it" (if you don't want to give content to his thought but say that a state of emotion is being described). Utsukushi in Heian-period Japanese is a type of beauty but it is almost always a youthful, charming, sometimes even childish beauty. In English it has a wide range, too. "Beauty of her hair" gives a certain oldness to the hair, in my mind, where the discovery here is of youthful freshness. I think Seidensticker's more emotive "delight" captures that but is definitely more distant from the original words of the passage though not the effect of the words of the passage. ... More critical is the following "But I am the one who is going to love you now. Be nice to me!" (T 102) "I am the one you must look to now. You must not be shy with me." (S 104) まろぞ思ふべき人。Seidensticker has missed the grammar on べし. Here it is in a first person phrase and so Tyler is definitely correct in taking it to mean a statement of Genji's volition, not a suggestion about appropriate behavior ("should ..."). But, at the same time, "going to love" has a sort of shock appeal in the English in this scene where an older man is speaking to a young girl. Since the word in question is 思ふ, omou, we can also translate: "I, more than he, intend to look carefully and lovingly after your needs" because omou is an all-embracing word that has to do with loving care not just physical intimacy and zo is not just emphatic but is emphatic in contrast to an implied something else. Genji here is saying that she need not be afraid because Genji's intentions for her are more protective than the father whom she hardly knows. Maro is an intimate way of addressing oneself with others, which can be taken in this context as shockingly too familiar or Genji choosing his words to try to create a comfortable "family" feeling for Murasaki. ... Still, any way you look at this passage, he takes her to bed (with hail falling outside) and there is mention of her skin. He definitely does not make love to her but the moment is very intimate and a real, and really unsettling, mixture of fatherliness and sexuality. Seidensticker omits the reference to her flesh in his translation which softens the impact a little.

Genji reflecting on what others would think of him should he bring the 10-year-old Murasaki to his estate on Tyler 105 / Seidensticker 107:

for すきがましき, amorous, playboyish, overly interested in amorous pleasures, etc. Tyler uses "debauched" and Seidensticker uses "his appetites were altogether too varied".

Murasaki's nurse's reaction upon her arrival to Genji's grand estate on Tyler 106 / Seidensticker 109:

Tyler has "With a wry smile" Seidensticker has "Weeping helplessly". Tyler's text has わらひて, definitely. And that would be "to laugh", nothing else is an option. However the NKBZ headnote writes that "a text" has わりなくて which would match Seidensticker's choice. It is doubtful that Seidensticker's main text had this phrase since it is apparently not a frequent variant at this point (the headnote does not specify a text or list it with the textual variants at the end of the volume), but it makes more sense at this stage. Here Tyler has stayed faithful to his original, Seidensticker likely has mined a footnote for a more fitting option, without indicating the fact.