Hahakigi
Title
"Hahakigi" means "broom tree," and is indeed a plant from which brooms were made. On top of that, it had the poetic reputation of being visible from afar and disappearing when approached. It is used in that sense in a poem exchange between Genji and Utsusemi, the woman who had frustrated him by making herself inaccessible.Waley, Seidensticker and Tyler all translate the chapter title as "The Broom Tree;" only Washburn has "Broom Cypress."
Chronology
Between the first and second chapters the novel skips five years. Genji, after marrying Aoi at age twelve in the previous chapter, is now seventeen and a Captain of the Palace Guards. We are told nothing about the intervening years, except for an allusion in this chapter to an attempted affair with Asagao.Position in the Genji
At the end of the first chapter, Genji has had the town house that belonged to his mother rebuilt, and this has become his primary residence, although he also continues spending much time in the palace. The house is called the "Second Avenue Residence" as it is located on Nijo Avenue (the east-west streets in Heiankyo were numbered from one to nine).From now on, until Genji settles down after his return from exile in Suma, we get examples of Genji's love affairs. He knows that he stands in the limelight as the (commoner) son of the Emperor and the "Shining Genji," and tries to preserve outward appearances and hide his "dallying," but that is difficult as the gossipers usually find out his little adventures.
"Hahakigi," together with the next chapters of "Utsusemi" and "Yugao", is called the "Broom Tree Group" of chapters. "Utsusemi" and "Yugao" have been considered as parallel (narabi) chapters of "Hahakigi," as they elaborate on the key theme of "Hahakigi." They are a sort of supplementary chapters that echo and amplify the base chapter. Many scholars also include chapter 6, "Suetsumuhana," in this group, and consider "Yomogiu" (15) and "Sekiya" (16) as two sequels. This group focuses on Genji's private life and his amorous adventures with middle- or lower-rank women, who have no impact on his public life.
[Court ladies in junihitoe dress]
Synopsis
The chapter can be divided into two halves. The first half could have been named "Rainy Night Conversation," for much of it is dedicated to a discussion of the qualities of women by To no Chujo, Genji's friend and brother-in-law, and two other young men in a conversation during a night of summer rains, when the court is in ritual seclusion. The young men chat about women (something of all times), volunteering love anecdotes, and also discuss various "types" of women, while Genji listens intently although pretending to be asleep. This takes place in the Fifth Month (traditional calendar, which is six weeks off - this would have been roughly six weeks later in our calendar), so during the Rainy Season.One friend gossips about a woman who was very jealous and another one who was promiscuous. Another friend relates an anecdote about a scholar's daughter who was very learned but also unladylike (this may refer slyly to Sei Shonagon, the learned author of the Pillow Book, who was a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu and belonged to a rival "salon," that of Empress Teishi).
To no Chujo tells about a shy, introverted woman he started courting in secret, without any intention to make the affair official, as he considered their relationship of only a temporary nature. In spite of his rare visits, the woman did not show any jealousy, but behaved like a wife towards him. She was living alone as her parents were already dead. At one time she sent him a poem about a flower, a Pink, implying she has a daughter by him, which makes him go and visit her. That, however, is the last time he sees her because during his next absence she vanishes without a trace. Later he learns that she has been subjected to harassment by his wife’s family – something that as an inexperienced young man he had not noticed at all (“A Decontextual Stylistics Study of the Genji Monogatari, with a focus on the Yugao story,” by Stina Jelbring, Stockholm University, p. 20). This story refers to Yugao, whom Genji will meet in Chapter Four, but as no further details are given, Genji fails to link Yugao with this story or with his friend.
Genji is particularly interested to hear his conversation partners discuss women of the middle ranks of the aristocracy, women who remain hidden but have surprising charms. This in contrast to women of top aristocratic rank, like his wife Aoi, who are haughty and interested in status rather than in love. This interest prefigures the story in which Genji will fall in love with just such unknown, middle-ranking women, as Murasaki and the Akashi Lady - and not to forget Utsusemi in this chapter.
The next day Genji visits his wife - and here an explanation about Heian marriage customs is necessary. Women did not live with their husband, but stayed at home with their father. The husband would regularly visit her there and then spend a few nights. Only when they had children, or after the death of the father, the main wife might set up a house with the husband. This system obviously made polygyny possible for the husbands; on the other hand, it also led to more freedom for the wives (who in addition in the Heian period were allowed to own property, so their position was in fact not as bad as in later times).
After the visit to his wife - who is cold as usual - Genji doesn't return straight home because of a so-called "directional taboo" (kataimi). Based on Chinese Yin-Yang thought, the School of the Five Elements and Daoism, which were very influential in the Heian-period and together known in Japan as "Onmyodo," there were lucky and unlucky directions at particular times of the day or year; some directions were forbidden. This was for example the case when Nakagami, the Lord of the Center, was present in that particular direction. This deity traversed the heavens in a 60-day cycle, and was thought to bring disaster on travelers who trespassed in his domain. So Genji has to move in another direction than his own house, and therefore goes to stay at the Inner River Mansion of the Governor of Kii, a retainer of the Minister of the Left (his father-in-law) and therefore also his own subordinate (he could have stayed longer with Aoi, his wife, but that is apparently not something he likes to do).
There a new "adventure" unfolds, for at the villa is also the Governor's young stepmother, Utsusemi ("Cicada Shell"). But before telling her story, we should first look at the way men and women met each other in Heian-period aristocratic society.
The answer is that they (almost) didn't: women always stayed inside, in their own quarters and they never showed themselves to men (even not to their nearest of kin). When at all meeting with others, they would be hidden by screens and curtains. They would sit in their thick robes in rooms that because of the overhanging eaves were often half dark even in the daytime. They were however never alone (nobody was ever alone in Heian society), but always in the company of many attendants, women who at night would sleep in the same room. Usually, aristocratic women didn't even let their voice be heard by men (!), but spoke via-via, such as through ladies-in-waiting, or by the exchange of letters and poems (this "via-via" is sometimes not made explicit by Murasaki Shikibu, as it was too ordinary to mention, but must often be assumed). When they went out, women would ride in curtained carriages (but would often let their colored sleeves hang out of them) and also wear veils - but such outings happened only seldom, during festivals as the Aoi Festival of the Kamo shrines (the greatest festival in Kyoto at that time) or when they went on a pilgrimage to a temple. For a man to see a woman, or penetrating inside her curtains, was synonymous with having sexual contact.
Utsusemi had once been considered for court service, but the early death of her father (who was of high chunagon rank) prevented this and she became the second wife of the Iyo Deputy, the father of the Governor of Kii. She has brought her twelve-year old brother Kogimi with her (her marriage is still childless). Although she will not become a central character in the story, Utsusemi is memorable as the first woman Genji courts in the novel (he has many other affairs which are not described) and also as the first to resist him.
Genji has come to his retainer's house to avoid a directional taboo, and the women of the Iyo Deputy's household, Utsusemi included, have by coincidence also been forced by ritual purification to temporarily reside in the same place. It is the discussion about women of middle rank of the evening before that now causes Genji to take notice of Utsusemi. He already knows that the Governor's step-mother is young and potentially attractive, and by courting her he will be able to distract himself from his forbidden love (which may have reached the stage of realization already). Utsusemi in fact serves as Genji's first "replacement" of his incestuous desire for Fujitsubo.
That very same night, Genji steals into the women's quarters and pretending to be a lady-in-waiting (Utsusemi is calling for "Chujo," which is not only the sobriquet of her servant but also happens to be Genji's current rank of captain), in the pitch-dark he slips next to Utsusemi under the covers. Once she realizes that a man has suddenly entered her "bed," she is of course terrified and would like to call for help, were it not that she is fully aware of the shame such a discovery would bring her. But she rejects Genji's advances and keeps up a strong defense despite his seductive words. At the end, Genji can only think of taking her away to a more private location (as there must have been numerous ladies-in-waiting in the same room, only separated by curtains or screens). As he carries her out of the room, he encounters the real Chujo who is more than ready to defend her mistress against this unknown intruder until she realizes who he is - Genji's rank and status are simply too high for her to dare raise a commotion - she and Utsusemi would be the ones to suffer.
[Chodai in the Imperial Palace, Kyoto]
By the way, I put "bed" in the above between quotation marks, because there were of course no beds in Heian Japan. The higher ranking persons slept on a chodai, a "curtain-platform", a 9 feet square and 2 feet high platform covered with straw mats and cushions and surrounded by curtains; but any part of the floor in the room or at the ends of corridors could serve as sleeping place. The sleeping person would lie down fully clothed on the straw mat and cover herself with a counterpane or a heavy piece of clothing. Note the total lack of privacy: many people slept in the same room, and - as it was also pitch-dark - it was easy to penetrate into the chodai as we see Genji do.
Once Genji has carried the small and light Utsusemi to another, more private room, he continues to pour out sweet words and promises, yet Utsusemi "resembled the supple bamboo, which does not break." Whether he has his way with heris a matter about which scholars are divided. The text is ambiguous. On the one hand Murasaki uses the above mentioned verb "miru," to see, which has the connotation of carnal knowledge, implying that Genji forces his will on Utsusemi despite her resistance, but on the other hand the next few days he again chases after her, which can mean that he has not yet been able to attain his purpose.
In fact, Utsusemi does not dislike Genji, but she makes clear to him that a relation with him is odious to her, because she is of a much lower rank than he, so she will just be "used." Although the governorships of Iyo and Kii were among the most prized middle-rank appointments in Murasaki Shikibu's day, for a man of Genji's high rank, the wife of a provincial governor (or his deputy) was no higher in status than his own female attendants (meshiudo), who often were drawn from that class. This social chasm deeply disturbs Utsusemi. It is all about rank in the aristocratic society of the Heian period...
Genji again tries to meet Utsusemi, returning to the house where she is staying (he can do this as the house belongs to his father-in-law's retainer, the Governor of Kii, who would therefore also be his own household retainer), but Utsusemi again resolutely refuses him. She this time manages to take refuge in another wing of the house, where she surrounds herself with her ladies-in-waiting as a line of defense.
In a poetry exchange she now has with Genji, in which the broom tree figures, she again alludes to their difference in status. In legend, the "broom tree" was a tree that looked like an upside-down broom from a distance, but that disappeared when approached. In the poem Genji sends Utsusemi, the broom tree is used as a metaphor for a lady who, though seemingly amenable, mysteriously escapes the man's grasp. For Utsusemi, by contrast, the broom tree which grows in a shabby hut becomes a symbol of her social inferiority.
Genji does not give up and next makes her younger brother his attendant and intermediary, having him many times carry messages to Utsusemi. But she keeps adamantly refusing, making Genji compare her to the strict Kaguyahime, the heroine from the famous Taketori Monogatari (The Bamboo Cutter's Tale). Frustrated, Genji ends up sleeping with the boy, "not finding him a bad substitute for his ungracious sister," as Murasaki Shikibu writes.
Genji has in fact fallen in love with Utsusemi because of her weakness, her helplessness. In pre-modern Japanese literature romantic love is frequently associated with vulnerability, with the impulse to nurture someone who is frail or in distress (see the article by Margaret Childs mentioned below). Women (and also men) often inspired love by first arousing someone's compassion or pity. This can be linked to the contemporary concept of amae (behaving childishly in the hope that others will indulge you) as proposed by the psychologist Doi Takeo in The Anatomy of Dependence. Utsusemi is not consciously "playing the baby," but her frailty has the same effect on Genji. Also remember that Genji felt alienated from his wife, Aoi, because of her haughty and cold nature - the opposite of vulnerability or amae.
Genji-e
In pictorial representations of this chapter, "The rainy night discussion" is the most frequently illustrated episode, but anecdotes from that discussion, as well as Genji's parting from Utsusemi at dawn are also depicted. In the above illustration we see Genji with Utsusemi, while his attendants are asleep on the verandah. Note Utsusemi's diminutive figure and the fact that Genji is actually shown touching her.
Suggested readings of other literature besides this chapter in the Genji:
A full translation of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter can be found in "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: A Study in Contextualization" by Maiko R. Behr, University of British Columbia 1998.
Information about the relations between men and women in the Heian period, as well as notes on superstitions and material culture, can be found in The World of the Shining Prince by Ivan Morris.