Early illustrations for chapter 1 ("Kiritsubo")

• five monochrome prints from the 1650 Edo printed edition (Unesco)
• mid-18th century scroll (Dartmouth)
• Edo-period illustration (on site of Dr. Gerald Figal, Delaware)
• B/W woodblock from Genji mitate series by Masanobu Okumura (d. 1764). The term "mitate" means a kind of visual punning. In Edo period art, it commonly refers to a scene from a classic story in contemporary costume, a kind of teasing transposition to a new world (U. Michigan)
• --> for other examples of Edo updating, see this illustration of the heroine of books 2-3, Utsusemi as a woman of the pleasure quarters, or this very colourful woodblock print of Genji in Edo-period costume (the title says "Kiritsubo" but the go board suggests chapter 3).
• Genji and Korean physiognomist from album of Rinpa school, c. 1680. See also charming picture of ch. 24 Kochô / "Butterflies" and ch. 42 "Niou no miya" from same album. Useful explanation--apart from mispelling of Genji! (Etsuko and Joe Price collection).

Chapter 1 - Text editions

• The following are for those interested in calligraphy, the history of the book, or in how works like Genji were transmitted . From an exhibition at the National Institute of Japanese Literature (NIJL)
• first page in the Oshima manuscript, with modern Japanese transcription: izure no on-toki ni ka [In a certain reign (whose can it have been?), Tyler, p. 3] (Modern kana all derive from cursive forms of kanji. There used to be alternative forms of some kana, deriving from different kanji. This is why you can see small kanji next to some kana in the transcription.)
• major early Genji commentary Kogetsushô ("Lake and Moon Notes"), printed 1675. Right page gives chapter title "Kiritsubo" and an overview, the left page gives the opening of the chapter, with notes at the top. Not unlike the layout in modern Japanese editions of the classics...
• The partial translation published in 1882 by Baron Suyematsu (Kencho Suematsu as we would now write his name)is still available in a reprint from Tuttle. A pdf file (604 kb) has been made available from York University, Canada.
• The Oxford text archive translation by E.G.Seidensticker (1976) is available as a single page (more than 2 mb).

Photographs

• Genji AKI monogatari. Japanese page. Links to photo essays on TheTale of Genji and autumn. Part of a big Kyoto prefecture site on Genji that gives one idea of what the work means to modern Japanese.

Note that Tyler follows the modern Pinyin romanization of Chinese. The older Wade-Giles system is found in the Seidensticker Genji. To check reference works and the web, it is helpful to know both, just as you know both Beijing/Peking. In the notes below, Pinyin is given first, with Wade-Giles in parenthesis.

• Famous poem by Tang poet Bai Juyi (Po Ch-i, 772-846)
• Chinese title Changhen Ge, read Chkonka in Japanese. For name of poet and poem in kanji see K.J.Richard's page
• Original Chinese text: (C1)
• Japanese kundoku translation & modern translation (J1)(J2)
• translation (1) on A.S.Kline's T'ang China site
• translation (2) by Robert Payne (1947) -- scroll past Japanese
• translation (3) (unattrib.)
• printed translation: Paul W. Kroll in Mair, The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, 1994, pp. 478-485.
  • (1) China's Emperor yearning, for beauty that shakes a kingdom....
  • (2) The emperor prized beauty, and longed for a woman to topple a kingdom...
  • (3) This Chinese emperor, loving beauty, longed for the killer of Empires...
  • From this line comes an expression for a beautiful woman used in all traditional East Asian literatures, "state-toppler" (kei-koku in Japanese reading) or as Kroll explains it "a beauty for whom one would lose everything."
• The famous secret vow between Emperor and Yang Guifei at the end of the poem are referred to repeatedly in Japanese literature. In Payne's translation the lines read as follows:

"In the skies we shall be twin birds that fly together,
On earth we shall be trees with branches intertwined.
Heaven is enduring, earth long living, but they shall perish,
The everlasting sorrow will never come to an end."

• Two scenes from an Edo hand-painted picture book (ehon). (1) Chinese Emperor and Yang Guifei together; (2) the Emperor's armed guard watch as the imperial couple enter a carriage as they flee the capital
• One the masterpieces of Japanese art is the early 17th century scroll illustrating the poem. Now in the Chester Beatty Collection (Dublin, Ireland). See the scene of the Daoist (Taoist) wizard searching for the spirit of Yang Guifei (Yang Kuei-fei; J. Ykihi).
• 1660 woodblock print edition, text and illustration. Infant Genji, mother.
• undated woodblock print edition (c. 1661-3). Infant Genji, mother, father
• A deluxe Edo print ("surimono") of 1831 shows the wizard's encounter with Yang Guifei in the Palace of the Moon. (Good explanation.)

Emperor Xuanzong (Hsan Tsung) (685762)

hagi: Japanese "bush clover"

• close up photo on page quoting a poem of mourning from the Man'yosh: "The bush clovers in the autumn meadow of Takamado, / Do they bloom in vain and fall, / When there is no one to see?" [Soramitsu project on Nara history and geography]
• other photos: close-up of flower | bush | cluster
• some hagi flowers are white | close-up
• to search for images, use google http://images.google.co.jp/images?q=hagi
• Hagi is also the name of a Japanese sweet made with azuki beans and mochi rice, an important kind of ceramics, an old castle town in Yamaguchi Pref. in Kysh, and a personal name...
• The kanji has "autumn" under the plant radical kusa-kanmuri.

General comments on sets of illustrations. Whenever possible links below are to a general index or introduction.

The Edo woodblock illustrations mentioned above -- monochrome illustrations from a early printed edition, the E-iri Genji Monogatari of 1650 -- can be found conveniently together with chapter summaries by Mari Nagase on Unesco's "Global Heritage Pavilion" site. They are also reproduced in the Seidensticker translation.

Illustrations from the mid-18th century scroll (emaki) at Dartmouth University mentioned above, an anonymous work now in the Hood Museum. Illustrations from chapters 1-16 are reproduced online. In some cases, chapters are illustrated by two illustrations. The relevant passage is given from the original and in Prof. Eiji Shibuya's modern Japanese translation. Website by Mayumi Ishida.

Edo-period illustrations. On site of Dr. Gerald Figal, Delaware. No source given (a shame), but nice use of close up details, three or four for each illustrations. These are clues to help you identify the scene. Chapters 1, 4, 9, 12, 13.

modern Japanese artists (Kyoto Prefecture). Varied in quality, but of interest. Usually the same scene is chosen to illustrate as in early illustrations. There are two series of pages for all 54 chapters, English and Japanese. Both have plot descriptions--the English is good but don't rely on these too much!--but only the Japanese chapter page gives further information: the kaisetsu link goes to a page about the scene in the picture, with quotation and explanation, while the link in purple takes you to a passage in the Oshima manuscript, with careful modern transcription.

Modern woodblock prints by Miyata Kaori. Series of 11 (2001). The chapter titles are given in kana, so that you can refer to the romanized names in this index. Murata's illustrations are tasteful enough but typical of many unadventurous modern versions--there are more avant-guard illustrations as well as countless versions in manga style or worse. See if you can find some good and bad examples.

Many web sites exist to sell Edo woodblock prints. Unfortunately for teachers looking for links that last, the illustrations disappear when the prints are sold! Example: artsanddesignsjapan.com.

M.G.Watson. 2002.09. Return to GENJI top.