away," said one of his men, admirably informed, it would seem, in all the
annual observances.
Wishing to have a look at the seashore, Genji set forth. Plain, rough
curtains were strung up among the trees, and a soothsayer who was doing
the circuit of the province was summoned to perform the lustration.
Genji thought he could see something of himself in the rather large
doll being cast off to sea, bearing away sins and tribulations.
"Cast away to drift on an alien vastness,
I grieve for more than a doll cast out to sea."
<P 246>
The bright, open seashore showed him to wonderful advantage. The
sea stretched placid into measureless distances. He thought of all that had
happened to him, and all that was still to come.
"You eight hundred myriad gods must surely help me,
For well you know that blameless I stand before you."
Suddenly a wind came up and even before the services were finished
the sky was black. Genji's men rushed about in confusion. Rain came
pouring down, completely without warning. Though the obvious course
would have been to return straightway to the house, there had been no
time to send for umbrellas. The wind was now a howling tempest, every-
thing that had not been tied down was scuttling off across the beach. The
surf was biting at their feet. The sea was white, as if spread over with white
linen. Fearful every moment of being struck down, they finally made their
way back to the house.
"I've never seen anything like it, " said one of the men. "Winds do
come up from time to time, but not without warning. It is all very strange
and very terrible."
The lightning and thunder seemed to announce the end of the world,
and the rain to beat its way into the ground; and Genji sat calmly reading
a sutra. The thunder subsided in the evening, but the wind went on
through the night.
"Our prayers seem to have been answered. A little more and we
would have been carried off. I've heard that tidal waves do carry people
off before they know what is happening to them, but I've not seen any-
thing like this."
Towards dawn sleep was at length possible. A man whom he did not
recognize came to Genji in a dream.
"The court summons you." He seemed to be reaching for Genji. "Why
do you not go?"
It would be the king of the sea, who was known to have a partiality
for handsome men. Genji decided that he could stay no longer at Suma.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 13>{Akashi}
<N 1>
<P 247>
The days went by and the thunder and rain continued. What was Genji
to do? People would laugh if, in this extremity, out of favor at court, he
were to return to the city. Should he then seek a mountain retreat? But if
it were to be noised about that a storm had driven him away, then he
would cut a ridiculous figure in history.
His dreams were haunted by that same apparition. Messages from the
city almost entirely ceased coming as the days went by without a break
in the storms. Might he end his days at Suma? No one was likely to come
calling in these tempests.
A messenger did come from Murasaki, a sad, sodden creature. Had
they passed in the street, Genji would scarcely have known whether he
was man or beast, and of course would not have thought of inviting him
to come near. Now the man brought a surge of pleasure and affection--
though Genji could not help asking himself whether the storm had weak-
ened his moorings.
Murasaki's letter, long and melancholy, said in part: "The terrifying
deluge goes on without a break, day after day. Even the skies are closed
off, and I am denied the comfort of gazing in your direction.
"What do they work, the sea winds down at Suma?
At home, my sleeves are assaulted by wave after wave."
Tears so darkened Iris eyes that it was as if they were inviting the
waters to rise higher.
<P 248>
The man said that the storms had been fierce in the city too, and that
a special reading of the Prajn~a~pa~ramita~ Sutra had been ordered. "Th sstreets are all closed and the great gentlemen can't get to court, and every-
thing has closed down."
The man spoke clumsily and haltingly, but he did bring news. Genji
summoned him near and had him questioned.
"It's not the way it usually is. You don't usually have rain going on
for days without a break and the wind howling on and on. Everyone is
terrified. But it's worse here. They haven't had this hail beating right
through the ground and thunder going on and on and not letting a body
think." The terror written so plainly on his face did nothing to improve
the spirits of the people at Suma.
<N 2>
Might it be the end of the world? From dawn the next day the wind
was so fierce and the tide so high and the surf so loud that it was as if the
crags and the mountains must fall. The horror of the thunder and lightning
was beyond description. Panic spread at each new flash. For what sins,
Genji's men asked, were they being punished? Were they to perish without
another glimpse of their mothers and fathers, their dear wives and chil-
dren?
Genji tried to tell himself that he had been guilty of no misdeed for
<P 249>
which he must perish here on the seashore. Such were the panic and
confusion around him, however, that he bolstered his confidence with
special offerings to the god of Sumiyoshi.
"O you of Sumiyoshi who protect the lands about: if indeed you are
an avatar of the Blessed One, then you must save us."
His men were of course fearful for their lives; but the thought that so
fine a gentleman (and in these deplorable circumstances) might be swept
beneath the waters seemed altogether too tragic. The less distraught among
them prayed in loud voices to this and that favored deity, Buddhist and
Shinto, that their own lives be taken if it meant that his might be spared.
They faced Sumiyoshi and prayed and made vows: "Our lord was
reared deep in the fastnesses of the palace, and all blessings were his. You
who, in the abundance of your mercy, have brought strength through
these lands to all who have sunk beneath the weight of their troubles: in
punishment for what crimes do you call forth these howling waves? Judge
his case if you will, you gods of heaven and earth. Guiltless, he is accused
of a crime, stripped of his offices, driven from his house and city, left as
you see him with no relief from the torture and the lamentation. And now
these horrors, and even his life seems threatened. Why? we must ask.
Because of sins in some other life, because of crimes in this one? If your
vision is clear, O you gods, then take all this away."
Genji offered prayers to the king of the sea and countless other gods
as well. The thunder was increasingly more terrible, and finally the gallery
adjoining his rooms was struck by lightning. Flames sprang up and the
gallery was destroyed. The confusion was immense; the whole world
seemed to have gone mad. Genji was moved to a building out in back, a
kitchen or something of the sort it seemed to be. It was crowded with
people of every station and rank. The clamor was almost enough to drown
out the lightning and thunder. Night descended over a sky already as black
as ink.
<N 3>
Presently the wind and rain subsided and stars began to come out. The
kitchen being altogether too mean a place, a move back to the main hall
was suggested. The charred remains of the gallery were an ugly sight,
however, and the hall had been badly muddied and all the blinds and
curtains blown away. Perhaps, Genji's men suggested somewhat tenta-
tively, it might be better to wait until dawn. Genji sought to concentrate
upon the holy name, but his agitation continued to be very great.
He opened a wattled door and looked out. The moon had come up.
The line left by the waves was white and dangerously near, and the surf
was still high. There was no one here whom he could turn to, no student
of the deeper truths who could discourse upon past and present and
perhaps explain these wild events. All the fisherfolk had gathered at what
they had heard was the house of a great gentleman from the city. They
were as noisy and impossible to communicate with as a flock of birds, but
no one thought of telling them to leave.
"If the wind had kept up just a little longer," someone said, "abso-
<P 250>
lutely everything would have been swept under. The gods did well by us."
There are no words-- "lonely" and "forlorn" seem much too weak--
to describe his feelings.
"Without the staying hand of the king of the sea
The roar of the eight hundred waves would have taken us under."
Genji was as exhausted as if all the buffets and fires of the tempest
had been aimed at him personally. He dozed off, his head against some
nondescript piece of furniture.
The old emperor came to him, quite as when he had lived. "And why
are you in this wretched place?" He took Genji's hand and pulled him to
his feet. "You must do as the god of Sumiyoshi tells you. You must put
out to sea immediately. You must leave this shore behind."
"Since I last saw you, sir," said Genji, overjoyed, "I have suffered an
unbroken series of misfortunes. I had thought of throwing myself into the
sea."
"That you must not do. You are undergoing brief punishment for
certain sins. I myself did not commit any conscious crimes while I reigned,
but a person is guilty of transgressions and oversights without his being
aware of them. I am doing penance and have no time to look back towards
this world. But an echo of your troubles came to me and I could not stand
idle. I fought my way through the sea and up to this shore and I am very
tired; but now that I am here I must see to a matter in the city." And he
disappeared.
Genji called after him, begging to be taken along. He looked around
him. There was only the bright face of the moon. His father's presence had
been too real for a dream, so real that he must still be here. Clouds traced
sad lines across the sky. It had been clear and palpable, the figure he had
so longed to see even in a dream, so clear that he could almost catch an
afterimage. His father had come through the skies to help him in what had
seemed the last extremity of his sufferings. He was deeply grateful, even
to the tempests; and in the aftermath of the dream he was happy.
Quite different emotions now ruffled his serenity. He forgot his im-
mediate troubles and only regretted that his father had not stayed longer.
Perhaps he would come again. Genji would have liked to go back to sleep,
but he lay wakeful until daylight.
<N 4>
A little boat had pulled in at the shore and two or three men came up.
"The revered monk who was once governor of Harima has come from
Akashi. If the former Minamoto councillor, Lord Yoshikiyo, is here, we
wonder if we might trouble him to come down and hear the details of our
mission."
Yoshikiyo pretended to be surprised and puzzled. "He was once
among my closer acquaintances here in Harima, but we had a falling out
and it has been same time since we last exchanged letters. What can have
brought him through such seas in that little boat?"
<P 251>
Genji's dream had given intimations. He sent Yoshikiyo down to the
boat immediately. Yoshikiyo marveled that it could even have been
launched upon such a sea.
These were the details of the mission, from the mouth of the old
governor: "Early this month a strange figure came to me in a dream. I
listened, though somewhat incredulously, and was told that on the thir-
teenth there would be a clear and present sign. I was to ready a boat and
make for this shore when the waves subsided. I did ready a boat, and then
came this savage wind and lightning. I thought of numerous foreign sover-
eigns who have received instructions in dreams on how to save their lands,
and I concluded that even at the risk of incurring his ridicule I must on the
day appointed inform your lord of the import of the dream. And so I did
indeed put out to sea. A strange jet blew all the way and brought us to this
shore. I cannot think of it except as divine intervention. And might I ask
whether there have been corresponding manifestations here? I do hate to
trouble you, but might I ask you to communicate all of this to your lord?"
Yoshikiyo quietly relayed the message, which brought new considera-
tions. There had been these various unsettling signs conveyed to Genji
dreaming and waking. The possibility of being laughed at for having
departed these shores under threat now seemed the lesser risk. To turn his
back on what might be a real offer of help from the gods would be to ask
for still worse misfortunes. It was not easy to reject ordinary advice, and
personal reservations counted for little when the advice came from great
eminences. "Defer to them; they will cause you no reproaches," a wise man
of old once said. He could scarcely face worse misfortunes by deferring
than by not deferring, and he did not seem likely to gain great merit and
profit by hesitating out of Concern for his brave name. Had not his own
father come to him? What room was there for doubts?
He sent back his answer: "I have been through a great deal in this
strange place, and I hear nothing at all from the city. I but gaze upon a sun
and moon going I know not where as comrades from my old home; and
now comes this angler's boat, happy tidings on an angry wind. Might
there be a place along your Akashi coast where I can hide myself?"
The old man was delighted. Genji's men pressed him to set out even
