Long last we meet, only for you to leave hurriedly, so I could not recognise you, like the moon hidden behind the clouds.1
めぐり逢ひて | meguriaite |
見しやそれとも | mishi ya sore to mo |
わかぬ間に | wakanu ma ni |
雲隠れにし | kumogakurenishi |
夜半の月かな | yowa no tsuki kana |
Murasaki Shikibu
Lady Shikibu from the Fujiwara clan
Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部 (around 973 – 1014 or 1025) is one of the most significant writers in the Japanese tradition. The Tale of Genji or Genji monogatari 源氏物語 that she wrote in the early 11th century is considered a seminal piece of classical Japanese literature, — its influence permeating everything from the sobriquet Murasaki Shikibu to arts and lives of the generations after her, all the way to this day.
Murasaki Shikibu was daughter of Fujiwara no Tametoki 藤原為時 (around 949–around 1029), great-granddaughter of Middle Counselor (中納言 Chūnagon) Fujiwara no Kanesuke 藤原兼輔 (877–933, Hyakunin Isshu 27), and mother of poetess Fujiwara no Kenshi (Kataiko) 藤原賢子 (999?–?), better known by sobriquet Daini no Sanmi 大弐三位 (Hyakunin Isshu 58).
Although Shikibu’s father was a low-ranking official, who only reached the Lower Grade of Senior Fifth Rank (正五位下 shōgoi no ge), she was was born into a family of considerable poetic pedigree. Her father was well-versed in Chinese poetry, while her great-grandfather Kanesuke was closely associated with poet Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 (868?–945; Hyakunin Isshu 35), who was one of the compilers of Kokinshū 古今集 (Collection of Early and Modern Japanese Poetry, 905).
As a child, Shikibu was allowed to join her brother Fujiwara no Nobunori 藤原惟規 (974?–1011)] and listen to classes on Chinese classics, in which she became incredibly proficient. As she recalls in a famous passage of her diary that is now called Murasaki Shikibu Nikki 紫式部日記 (Diary of Murasaki Shikibu):
When my brother, Secretary at the Ministry of Ceremonial [possibly Ministry of War, Bowring notes it could be a mistake], was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: ‘Just my luck!’ he would say. ‘What a pity she was not born a man!’
(trans. Bowring 2005, 57–58)
The education in Chinese classics that Murasaki Shikibu received in her youth is evident in both Genji monogatari, rich in Chinese intertext, and in her own biography, as at one point she was called to teach Chinese classics to a young Empress Shōshi (born Fujiwara no Shōshi [or Akiko] 藤原彰子 988–1074; also known as Jōtōmon-in 上東門院).
Murasaki Shikibu entered the Imperial palace as Shōshi’s lady-in-waiting in 1005 or 1006, where she was part of a talented literary salon, to which Izumi Shikibu 和泉式部 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 56), Akazome Emon 赤染衛門 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 59) and Ise no Tayū 伊勢大輔 (dates uncertain; Hyakunin Isshu 61) all belonged, and Murasaki Shikibu’s daughter Kenshi, better known as Daini no Sanmi, eventually joined.
By the time Murasaki Shikibu entered the imperial palace, her daughter was only a few years old. She was born after Shikibu married Fujiwara no Nobutaka 藤原宣孝 (?—1001) in 998, but he passed away just three years into the marriage. It is believed that it was after his death that Shikibu started writing Genji monogatari, and that by the time she entered the service of Shōshi, the tale was already of considerable fame.
While in the imperial palace, Murasaki Shikibu was not always known by her now-famous sobriquet. She was first known as Tō Shikibu 藤式部, literally Lady Shikibu of Fujiwara family. In this early sobriquet, Shikibu 式部 relates to an office at the Ministry of Ceremonial (式部省 Shikibushō), either held by her father or younger brother, while Tō 藤 is another reading of the first kanji of her family Fujiwara 藤原. Such a sobriquet was logical and natural but in the imperial palace she soon became known as Murasaki Shikibu, Murasaki coming from the name of Muraski no Ue 紫の上 − one of the central characters in Genji monogatari.
As one famous passage from Murasaki Shikibu Nikki 紫式部日記 (The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu) relates, the name of Murasaki could have been bestowed on her by one of the most talented poets of the day, Fujiwara no Kintō 藤原公任 (966–1041; Hyakunin Isshu 55):
Major Counsellor Kintō poked his head in.
‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Would our little Murasaki be in attendance by any chance?’
‘I cannot see the likes of Genji here, so how could she be present?’ I replied.
(trans. Bowring 2005, 31)
Tō Shikibu, Murasaki Shikibu, daughter of Tametoki, mother of Daini no Sanmi, writer − author of world’s first novel Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) and a fascinating diary, poet, considered one Late Classical Thirty−Six Poetic Immortals (中古三十六歌仙 Chūko sanjūrokkasen) with sixty poems in imperial collections starting with Goshūishū 後拾遺集 (Later Collection of Gleanings; 1075), — for a lady who lived a thousand years ago and was not of the highest status in the nobility, we can tell a considerable amount about her. But what was her real name? one might ask. And that, as is often the case when talking about women from the time of Murasaki Shikibu, is one of the mysteries we can probably never unravel. It is sometimes suggested that Murasaki Shikibu was born as Kaoriko 香子 but that is nothing more than a fascinating speculation about a lady whose works continue capturing minds of readers regardless of time or space.
A meeting, at long last
Murasaki Shikibu’s meguriaite poem in the Hyakunin Isshu is sort of a hidden gem, taken notice of the beginning of 13th century, the age of Shinkokinshū 新古今集 (New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern; officially presented in 1205), roughly two hundred years after Murasaki Shikibu.
During the compilation of Shinkokinshū, one of the people who suggested this poem for inclusion was Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 (1162—1241; Hyakunin isshu 97), who some thirty years later also is thought to have selected poems known today as Hyakunin Isshu. The poem itself may seem like a love poem, but in Shinkokinshū it is found among miscellaneous compositions with a headnote that goes against love poem interpretation. The headnote reads:
Written after a brief meeting with a childhood friend whom she had not seen for many years as that friend set off on the tenth of the Seventh Month
(trans. Rodd 2015, 616)
The poem is a masterfully crafted piece, where associations play a major role and the early autumn moon is beautifully likened to a childhood friend. Why would Seventh Month be early autumn, one might ask, but we must remember that until second half of the 19th century Japan used the Lunar calendar, in which spring started in the First Month, making the Seventh Month the first month of autumn.
As already mentioned, the poem uses associations, more precisely a technique called engo 縁語 or associated words, that „are not linked grammatically but are associated by meaning and by close cultural and poetic associations” (Shirane 2005, 367).
Looking closer, the associated words are meguru (to revolve around), kumogakure (hiding behind the clouds) and tsuki (moon).
めぐり逢ひて 見しやそれとも わかぬ間に 雲隠れにし 夜半の月かな
Meguriaite / mishi ya sore to mo / wakanu ma ni / kumogakurenishi / yowa no tsuki kana
The first line is composed one a single compound verb compound verb meguriau (to finally meet), where meguru is connected with au (written as afu; to meet). By itself, however, meguru is associated with with the tsuki, which is in the last line yowa no tsuki kana (the midnight moon!), and with kumogakure in the second-to-last line kumogakurenishi (hidden behind the clouds). To a knowledgeable reader, these word associations would have been immediately obvious, hence leaving a stronger impression.
But that is not all, — from the headnote, we know that the poem is about a childhood friend, and the poem plays on image of the moon, hence sore in the second line denotes both the friend and the moon. Reading from the headnote, it might feel at first as if one is reading a poem about a friend, but then reading it to the end, the layer of the moon is also added, and the moon plays as a metaphor for a childhood friend. As for why the moon would be associated with a friend, we must look at the classical waka tropes, among which we find the moon as a companion or a friend, hence the association is nothing new and would again be obvious to a reader of Shikibu’s time.
This time around, I rendered the poem in English as
At long last we meet,
but without a moment to recognise, —
was that you, —
you have hidden behind the clouds,
like the midnight moon!
Here, it is important to note the exclamation mark at the end. This exclamation mark is the kana in the original. It is, however, a Hyakunin Isshu-exclusive feature of the poem, that appeared during the transmission of Hyakunin Isshu, — in Shinkokinshū and Murasaki Shikibu Shū 紫式部集 (Collected Poems by Murasaki Shikibu), the poem ends with a line yowa no tsuki kage (light of the midnight moon), rendering it to something like:
At long last we meet,
but without a moment to recognise, —
was that you, —
you have hidden behind the clouds,
like the light of the midnight moon.
In modern versions of the Hyakunin Isshu, both versions can be encountered but in karuta, only the yowa no tsuki kana version is used.
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Notes
1 The translation used in Chihayafuru subtitles is “Long last we meet, only for me to leave hurriedly, for I could not recognize you, like the moon hidden behind the clouds” but I have given myself a liberty to modify a couple of words to make it closer to the original poem.