Kocho
Title
Chronology
Position in the Genji
Synopsis
Around March 20, when the cherry blossoms and purple wisteria are at their height, Genji holds a concert performed on board boats on the vast lake that connects the spring quarters of Murasaki to the autumn quarters of Akikonomu. He also invites the ladies-in waiting of Empress Akikonomu - the women act as substitutes for the Empress, who is too exalted to come in person to merely view a garden. The prow of each boat has been carved in the shape of a different mythical animal. At night music and feasting goes on, and court nobles and imperial princes join in the festivities. Among them is Hyobukyo no Miya (Genji's younger half-brother), one of the suitors for Tamakazura, and he eagerly pleads with Genji to allow him to marry her.
The next day, there is a reading of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra (Hannyakyo, Prajnaparamita sutra) sponsored by Empress Akikonomu at the autumn wing, and the court nobles who have enjoyed the concert on boats also participate. Lady Murasaki sends young girls gorgeously dressed in butterfly costumes to deliver flowers for the memorial service, and exchanges waka poems with the empress. Genji's estate is presented as an equivalent of paradise, or of the Horai islands of the immortals.
Summer arrives, and letters from suitors such as Hyobukyo no Miya, Higekuro (The Commander of the Right) and Kashiwagi (son of To no Chujo, who is ignorant of the fact that Tamakazura is in fact his elder half-sister) come one after another to Tamakazura, who is growing more elegant and lovely with the day. Although Tamakazura trusts him as a parent, Genji begins to find himself attracted to her as well.
When reading and rating the letters, Genji can not control his attachment to Tamakazura, and one moonlit evening after a rainfall, he finally confesses his longing for her and lies down beside her. In the end he is able to restrain himself and nothing more happens, but Tamakazura is surprised and perplexed, experiencing the first of many days of worry. She doesn't know how to deal with these romantic feelings from her adopted father. The sexual aggression of Genji towards Tamakazura, made all the more perverse by their pretended father-daughter relation, is a severe blot on the paradise at the Rokujo Estate.
Genji-e