Yūgao
[from Genji Monogatari] by Murasaki Shikibu
“The Tale of Genji,” probably written during the first decade of the eleventh century, is the great masterpiece of Japanese literature. It is a novel of complexity and magnitude, which deals mainly with the loves of Prince Genji, the son of an emperor by a consort of inferior rank. The episode of Yūgao, given here, occurs early in the book, when Genji is seventeen. Shortly before, he and some other young nobles had been classifying women according to their qualities, and had decided that the “lowest class” was quite unworthy of consideration. But it is in Yūgao, a woman of that class, that Genji finds his first great love, and her memory returns frequently to haunt him even when he has won women of far greater attractions.
The translation by Arthur Waley is a marvelous re-creation of the original, capturing its beauty and its unique evocative power.
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It was at the time when he was secretly visiting the lady of the Sixth Ward.[1] One day on his way back from the palace he thought that he would call upon his foster mother who, having for a long while been very ill, had become a nun. She lived in the Fifth Ward. After many inquiries he managed to find the house; but the front gate was locked and he could not drive in. He sent one of his servants for Koremitsu, his foster nurse’s son, and while he was waiting began to examine the rather wretched-looking by-street. The house next door was fenced with a new paling, above which at one place were four or five panels of open trelliswork, screened by blinds which were very white and bare. Through chinks in these blinds a
- ↑ Lady Rokujō. Who she was gradually becomes apparent in the course of the story.
