Chapters 8-9: cultural footnotes
Again, since there's been summaries already, I'm just adding cultural footnotes. If I don't say where I got the info, it was pretty much ripped off directly from the footnotes in Tayler's translation.
Chapter 8: Under the Cherry Blossoms
The chapter starts with a cherry tree party, where the men of the court basically drew a character as in a lottery and then had to develop a verse playing on the rhyme.
--
The next day is a follow-up party of sorts, which is for a smaller circle of the highest rank, which makes it both less formal and more elegant.
--
The way the chapter ends, when Genji finds out who the lady he skanked on snuck in and slept with, goes "Yes, it was her voice. He was delighted, though at the same time..." in Tayler. Tayler unpacks that in a footnote - she's affianced to the Heir Apparent, which makes it a tricky political situation, and besides, Genji doesn't like her family's ostentation and may be disappointed by how easily she gave herself to him (which might go along with the trend I see developing in that Genji really tends to get stuck on those who play hard-to-get).
Chapter 9: Heart-to-Heart
Tayler's note on the translation of the chapter title is that the spelling of the word "aoi", which is a plant that features a pair of broad heart-shaped leaves on its stem that is used for decoration at the Kamo Festival, can also be read to mean "day of (lovers') meeting." Between that wordplay and the leaves' configuration, he chose "Heart to Heart" as the chapter title.
---
At the festival, "women in deep hats" (tsubo sozoku) are mentioned, which is a reference to the clothing suitable for a respectable woman outside: she drapes a shift over her head, then puts on a broad-brimmed hat and hitches her skirts up a little for walking. A little bit later, women with gowns over their hair was mentioned - women who weren't high enough in rank to wear the tsubo sozoku would tuck their hair beneath their outer robe when outside.
---
Even though the proper Heian lady had hair longer than she was tall, she had sidelocks cut to fall from her temples over her cheeks. (which reminds me irresistably of the anime convention of having bits of hair in front of the ears, although I harbor suscpicions that it's often due to the awkwardness of the ear/cheek boundary - there's so much space there that needs filling in order to make the eyes pop.)
Anyway, when Genji cuts her hair and then says a poem about seaweed, he's apparently playing in the custom of wishing that a girl's hair would grow a thousand fathoms long and adding his own creepy spin on it.
---
When an Ise Priestess is appointed, she's got months of purification ahead of her - The first purification is on the banks of the Kamo River, then she enters the Shosai-in (Hall of the First Abstinence) in the palace compound. In the autumn of the next year, after the second purification she goes to the Shrine on the Moor, a temporary shrine built on Saga Moor (Sagano) west of the city, and finally manages to get to Ise in the ninth month of the following year, after purification in the Katsura River.
---
While Aoi (the name readers have tagged Genji's wife with, after the title of this chapter) is sick, she quotes a poem that refers to tying a knot where two hems meet. This references an older poem-spell, which is to be repeated by one who has seen a ghost, which tells the speaker to knot the overlapping hems at the front of their robe.
---
Birth was typically in the squatting position. I'll put on my anthropology hat here and metnion that this is more common a position in most pre-modern times. The flat-on-back position came in at the same time that midwives tended to go out, and there's a lot of gender politics and Western/non-Western involved that I won't go into (other than to say - it's pretty juch easier for modern medical equipment to be used when the woman is lying down, but lying down also tends to make the birth harder on the woman and baby. Six of one, half dozen of the other. And the class was 15 years ago, so things may have changed since then.). I shall also metion to you that due to a class on medical anthropology (with a professor whose special interest was the rituals surrounding birth), I have been subjected to the film Birth in the Squatting Position which is nothing but birth after birth after birth after birth all in, you guessed it, the squatting position, and thus as a result I no longer fear hell. Miracle of nature, yeah, yeah, but dear God I was so not cut out to be a midwife.
---
During the birth of Genji's son, male Buddhist clerics drove the spirits plaguing Aoi into female mediums, to interrogate and dismiss them. I've checked out a book called A Woman's Weapon: Spirit Possession in the Tale of Genji by Doris Bargen. No clue if I'll manage to get to it, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone's interested.
---
The Rokujo Haven reeks of poppy seeds because poppy seeds are thrown on a fire to quell spirits during a rite.
---
After Aoi dies, while they watch over he in case her spirit comes back, they don't move her pillow - it's considered to be the resting place of the soul, and if it's moved the spirit may not be able to find the body again.
---
When Genji writes to teh Rokujo Haven, he's hesitant because a letter from someone in mourning, and this ritually polluted, might not be admissible into the house, since the Ise Priestess is currently living there.
---
After Genji's first night with Murasaki, he leaves a traditional morning letter (Morris calls it the Heian equivalent of the reassuring telephone call), whose knot indicates it's specifically about love. He leaves her writing implements because she is supposed to reply to it. When she doesn't, because she's angry with him, he fondly thinks of her as still a little girl because she is, you skank! of not following the proper etiquette.
---
Wedding rituals: in Heian Japan, the groom came to visit the bride three nights running, arriving after dark and leaving before dawn on the first two nights. The third night he stays and they're served a ritual meal of white rice cakes, served on silver dishes with silver chopsticks, and silver crane-shaped chopstick rests. According to Morris, the secrecy is conventional - there's little privacy in the Heian house, and the family and attendants usually know pretty much what is afoot. After the third night, the husband doesn't have to sneak off at daybreak, but can remain openly with his wife behind her curtain of state.
Shonagon, Murasaki's nurse, is visibly moved because she didn't realize Genji would go so far as to marry Murasaki formally, instead of having her just as a mistress.
Morris says that the minimum age of marriage was 14 for boys and 12 for girls (not mentioning if this is the Heian age, or our age, which is a year behind the Heian age, since they're 1 at birth), although upper-class boys were often betrothed at 12, and there were exceptions - the Emperor Ichijo was married at 10.
---
Chapter 8: Under the Cherry Blossoms
The chapter starts with a cherry tree party, where the men of the court basically drew a character as in a lottery and then had to develop a verse playing on the rhyme.
--
The next day is a follow-up party of sorts, which is for a smaller circle of the highest rank, which makes it both less formal and more elegant.
--
The way the chapter ends, when Genji finds out who the lady he skanked on snuck in and slept with, goes "Yes, it was her voice. He was delighted, though at the same time..." in Tayler. Tayler unpacks that in a footnote - she's affianced to the Heir Apparent, which makes it a tricky political situation, and besides, Genji doesn't like her family's ostentation and may be disappointed by how easily she gave herself to him (which might go along with the trend I see developing in that Genji really tends to get stuck on those who play hard-to-get).
Chapter 9: Heart-to-Heart
Tayler's note on the translation of the chapter title is that the spelling of the word "aoi", which is a plant that features a pair of broad heart-shaped leaves on its stem that is used for decoration at the Kamo Festival, can also be read to mean "day of (lovers') meeting." Between that wordplay and the leaves' configuration, he chose "Heart to Heart" as the chapter title.
---
At the festival, "women in deep hats" (tsubo sozoku) are mentioned, which is a reference to the clothing suitable for a respectable woman outside: she drapes a shift over her head, then puts on a broad-brimmed hat and hitches her skirts up a little for walking. A little bit later, women with gowns over their hair was mentioned - women who weren't high enough in rank to wear the tsubo sozoku would tuck their hair beneath their outer robe when outside.
---
Even though the proper Heian lady had hair longer than she was tall, she had sidelocks cut to fall from her temples over her cheeks. (which reminds me irresistably of the anime convention of having bits of hair in front of the ears, although I harbor suscpicions that it's often due to the awkwardness of the ear/cheek boundary - there's so much space there that needs filling in order to make the eyes pop.)
Anyway, when Genji cuts her hair and then says a poem about seaweed, he's apparently playing in the custom of wishing that a girl's hair would grow a thousand fathoms long and adding his own creepy spin on it.
---
When an Ise Priestess is appointed, she's got months of purification ahead of her - The first purification is on the banks of the Kamo River, then she enters the Shosai-in (Hall of the First Abstinence) in the palace compound. In the autumn of the next year, after the second purification she goes to the Shrine on the Moor, a temporary shrine built on Saga Moor (Sagano) west of the city, and finally manages to get to Ise in the ninth month of the following year, after purification in the Katsura River.
---
While Aoi (the name readers have tagged Genji's wife with, after the title of this chapter) is sick, she quotes a poem that refers to tying a knot where two hems meet. This references an older poem-spell, which is to be repeated by one who has seen a ghost, which tells the speaker to knot the overlapping hems at the front of their robe.
---
Birth was typically in the squatting position. I'll put on my anthropology hat here and metnion that this is more common a position in most pre-modern times. The flat-on-back position came in at the same time that midwives tended to go out, and there's a lot of gender politics and Western/non-Western involved that I won't go into (other than to say - it's pretty juch easier for modern medical equipment to be used when the woman is lying down, but lying down also tends to make the birth harder on the woman and baby. Six of one, half dozen of the other. And the class was 15 years ago, so things may have changed since then.). I shall also metion to you that due to a class on medical anthropology (with a professor whose special interest was the rituals surrounding birth), I have been subjected to the film Birth in the Squatting Position which is nothing but birth after birth after birth after birth all in, you guessed it, the squatting position, and thus as a result I no longer fear hell. Miracle of nature, yeah, yeah, but dear God I was so not cut out to be a midwife.
---
During the birth of Genji's son, male Buddhist clerics drove the spirits plaguing Aoi into female mediums, to interrogate and dismiss them. I've checked out a book called A Woman's Weapon: Spirit Possession in the Tale of Genji by Doris Bargen. No clue if I'll manage to get to it, but thought I'd mention it in case anyone's interested.
---
The Rokujo Haven reeks of poppy seeds because poppy seeds are thrown on a fire to quell spirits during a rite.
---
After Aoi dies, while they watch over he in case her spirit comes back, they don't move her pillow - it's considered to be the resting place of the soul, and if it's moved the spirit may not be able to find the body again.
---
When Genji writes to teh Rokujo Haven, he's hesitant because a letter from someone in mourning, and this ritually polluted, might not be admissible into the house, since the Ise Priestess is currently living there.
---
After Genji's first night with Murasaki, he leaves a traditional morning letter (Morris calls it the Heian equivalent of the reassuring telephone call), whose knot indicates it's specifically about love. He leaves her writing implements because she is supposed to reply to it. When she doesn't, because she's angry with him, he fondly thinks of her as still a little girl because she is, you skank! of not following the proper etiquette.
---
Wedding rituals: in Heian Japan, the groom came to visit the bride three nights running, arriving after dark and leaving before dawn on the first two nights. The third night he stays and they're served a ritual meal of white rice cakes, served on silver dishes with silver chopsticks, and silver crane-shaped chopstick rests. According to Morris, the secrecy is conventional - there's little privacy in the Heian house, and the family and attendants usually know pretty much what is afoot. After the third night, the husband doesn't have to sneak off at daybreak, but can remain openly with his wife behind her curtain of state.
Shonagon, Murasaki's nurse, is visibly moved because she didn't realize Genji would go so far as to marry Murasaki formally, instead of having her just as a mistress.
Morris says that the minimum age of marriage was 14 for boys and 12 for girls (not mentioning if this is the Heian age, or our age, which is a year behind the Heian age, since they're 1 at birth), although upper-class boys were often betrothed at 12, and there were exceptions - the Emperor Ichijo was married at 10.
---