The Tales of Ise
[Ise Monogatari]
“The Tales of Ise” is basically a collection of verse, by the nobleman and poet Ariwara no Narihira (823–880), but each verse is preceded by a prose passage indicating the occasion of its composition. It contains 125 chapters, varying in length from a few lines to two or three pages, depending mainly on the number of poems included. Some of these poems are by other contemporaries—and even by “Man’yōshū” poets—but the majority are by Narihira, and the work was apparently edited and enlarged by an unknown compiler not long after his death. Although the hero of most of the episodes is identified in the original only as “a man,” the work in large part is clearly autobiographical. The arrangement of the chapters is, however, haphazard, and in the excerpts given in the present translations an attempt has been made to restore a chronological order.
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In former times there lived a young nobleman named Narihira. Upon receiving the ceremony of initiation into manhood, he set forth upon a ceremonial falconry excursion, to review his estates at the village of Kasuga, near the former capital of Nara.
In that village there dwelt alone two young sisters possessed of a disturbing beauty. The young nobleman gazed at the two secretly from the shade of the enclosure around their house. It filled his heart with longing that in this rustic village he should have found so unexpectedly such lovely maidens. Removing the wide sleeve from the silk cloak he was wearing, Narihira inscribed a verse upon it and sent it to the girls. The cloak he was wearing bore a bold pattern of passionflowers.
