There was tumult in the world, and one’s mind could not remain at ease.[1] For at this time, the lord suffered a lengthy illness from about the spring, and he recovered somewhat upon entering the 4th month. However, Major Captain Michifusa, his son, then fell prey to the circulating illness. After seven days, he passed away.[2] To say his death was terrible would be a mere platitude. He was twenty that year. Needless to say, the lord was devastated, and his grief was tremendous. Sorrow also filled the late captain’s mother and his father-in-law, Major Counselor Morofusa. There was no way to describe what they felt in their hearts; one could not possibly replicate their emotions. People of other households, too, mourned Michifusa’s passing. At the prime of his life, he had cut an impressive figure. “There’s been nothing like this loss,” the lord’s men lamented, looking up precedents from the past.
There had, in fact, been Michiyori, the Yamanoi Major Counselor. Unlike Michifusa, he had been twenty-five, though, at the time of his death, and a major counselor.[3] His father, Regent Michitaka, had a good many other children: Governor Korechika of Dazaifu, Provisional Middle Counselor Takaie, and Empress Teishi, for instance. (Major Counselor Michiyori was born of a different mother.) In appearance and comportment, Michiyori was exceptionally well-endowed, and his character was so impressive that his loss was truly regrettable. However, Michifusa was an only child.[4] His appearance, comportment, age, his rank and position, all pointed to the height of manhood, another loss that was extremely lamentable.
On the night of the funeral, Michifusa’s wife was almost delirious with sorrow, but regaining some awareness, she composed, still lost in thought:
The empty shell of a locust, I do not intend to depend upon,
but how shall I part with him forever?
空蝉のからを頼むにあらねどもまたこはいかに別れ果つらん
Inside the curtained-dais where he had slept, she saw a spider spinning a web:
That person from whom I parted will obviously not be coming back,
yet why does the spider act like this?[5]
別れにし人は来べくもあらなくにいかに振舞ふささがにぞこは
The response from Saishō no Kimi:
The spider’s antics tell not of our master’s return,
only making me feel our thread has been severed for good.
君来べき振舞ならぬささがにはかきのみ絶ゆる心地こそすれ
On the day of the forty-ninth day services, the gathered men and women all had on mourning, their only difference being the lightness or darkness of their robes.[6] Seeing this scene, Michifusa’s wife composed:
Gazing across, I see everyone in ink-stained robes;
standing or sitting—an air of sadness.
見渡せばみな墨染の衣手はたちゐにつけてものぞかなしき
After the services, Abbott Gyōen returned to Mount Hiei, and sent the following poem:
Though time passes since our parting from the unparalleled lord,
the color of my falling tears has not changed.[7]
たぐひなききみが別れはほど経れど落つる涙の色ぞ変らぬ
In response, Major Counselor Morofusa:
Did we foresee—with this unforeseen parting,
to be shedding tears of deep sorrow on our sleeves.
思ひきや思ひのほかの別れして深き涙をかけんものとは
In the spring in which Major Captain Michifusa began visiting his wife [1042], he had idly practiced his hand on a fan belonging to her. Now after his death, she found this fan under her inkstone, and she wrote on it:
Idly following his hand, he must have seen these words as fleeting traces,
but now they have become mementos for eternity.
手すさびにはかなきあとと見しかども長き形見になりにけるかな
Since Michifusa’s wife had not heard for a long time from Enshi 延子,[8] the daughter of Yorimune, the master of the crown prince’s household, she wrote:
As I was contemplating this world’s ephemerality, did my body, like the dew,
also disappear, for no one has come to visit?
はかなしと思ひしほどに露の身も消えやしにけん訪ふ人のなき
In response:
Even my sympathy for you has evaporated like the dew,
unable to find words, I can do naught but sigh.
思ひやる心も露と消え返りえもいひやらで嘆かれぞせし
“You have reverted to just a small child with no discernment of what is going on around you,” the major counselor’s wife, Sonshi, said to her daughter, along with this poem:
The harsh winds leave no place for the white dew to rest—
my concern leaves me saddened by everything.[9]
風はやみ置きどころなき白露を心にかけてものぞ悲しき
In response, the former Saiin’s wet-nurse, Chūnagon no Naishi no Suke:
As someone who does not count, I can relate to
the innumerable limits tested upon the heart by the autumn, white dew.[10]
数ならぬ身にしみてこそ思ひやれ心づくしの秋の白露
Even as the days passed, the lord did not find any comfort to lighten his sorrow. He remained mired in terrible grief. In the past, whenever the major captain’s out-runners heralded their master’s arrival, the lord would open all the doors in his son’s path, and wait attentively for his arrival. Despite looking after his son with this much care in all manner of things, the lord had continually thought that his ministrations were insufficient. Such was the degree to which Michifusa had been the object of his father’s devotion, and now that he was gone, there was no way to describe the horrible anguish in his heart. As autumn came and progressed, everyone mourning Michifusa experienced a profound sorrow.
The days and months sped by, and in the 9th month, the Buddha Invocations were held at the retired empress’s chapel in the northeast corner of Hōjōji. Princess of the First Rank Shōshi attended with a restrained retinue of just ten attendants. However, various nobles gathered in profusion. The princess sat in the northeast of the chapel. The curtains of her dais were made of thin silk, dyed the color of bush clover, with charming painted illustrations. From underneath the curtains, the young attendants displayed their sleeves in a lovely manner. The patterns of some women’s garments were based on the verse, “wind above the miscanthus, dew below the bush clover,”[11] while others had “the wind in the miscanthus ripples across the lake,” “I only regret,”[12] or “the dew does not vanish.”[13] They were all quite witty, and so beautiful that one needed not “to see [them] on the boughs.”
Sanmi[14] had on a robe the color of burnet, and a fulled, pink robe, over which she wore a red Chinese jacket. She looked refreshingly beautiful. The way her hair flowed and the shape of her shoulders were also quite superior. Among the various chrysanthemum color combinations, one found, to one’s delight, white chrysanthemum sleeves, despite how the “frost bewilders us.”[15]
As the day grew dark, the moon shone brilliantly, and the color of the fulled robes shone through the thin silk of the Chinese jackets. Strings of crystal beads had been sown on the jackets to mimic dew—the effect was truly enchanting. The way Sukenaka the minor captain approached the women, saying “only to break its branches,”[16] charmed as well.
On the fourteenth, it unfortunately rained. Idewa no Ben recited:
Washing away our sins, yesterday and today, the rain falls
equally one for all—how blessed are we.[17]
罪すすぐ昨日今日しも降る雨はこれや一味と見るぞうれしき
Yamato[18] replied:
As one who has no sins to wash away, the falling rain
only obstructed my view of the moon—how lamentable.
すすぐべき罪もなき身は降る雨に月見るまじき嘆きをぞする
Soon, Consort Enshi of the Reikeiden found herself in an irregular condition. Her father, Master of the Crown Prince’s Household Yorimune, could not have been more elated. At about the same time, Yorimune became a major captain.[19] In hearing him thank the emperor for his appointment, the lord could not help remembering his son, and felt terribly pained.
After the 20th of the 12th month, the emperor developed a boil, and some doctors came.[20] They said to His Majesty that it might be slightly uncomfortable for a while. Will His Majesty’s condition recover, one wondered anxiously.
The chapter title refers to the spider in Michifusa’s wife’s poem, grieving the loss of Michifusa.
[1] As is soon evident, the narrator is referring to an epidemic ravaging the capital at this time (Fusō ryakki, 1st month, Chōkyū 5 [1044]).
[2] Michifusa died on the 27th of the 4th month, Chōkyū 5 [1044] (Fusō ryakki).
[3] Michiyori died in 995. His death is described in Book 4 of Eiga (EM 1:222–23). He was actually a provisional major counselor at the time of his demise.
[4] Yorimichi had five other children by Minamoto no Gishi (Michifusa’s mother). Four of them were boys, but he had let them be adopted, or in the case of one of his sons, made him into a monk. So, the narrator’s observation is essentially true in that Michifusa was his only heir at the time.
[5] This poem alludes to Sotoorihime’s poem in the Kokinshū: “I know in advance / from the acts of this spider / like a tiny crab: tonight is surely a night when my beloved will come” わが背子が来べき宵なりささがにの蜘蛛のふるまひかねてしるしも (Trans. McCullough, Kokin wakashū, 248).
[6] The darker the color, the closer the relationship the wearer had to the deceased.
[7] It was believed that extreme sadness resulted in blood-colored tears. Gyōen declares that his tears are still bloody, having not yet recovered from Michifusa’s shocking death.
[8] The mother of Michifusa’s wife was Sonshi, the sister of Yorimune, so they were cousins.
[9] The white dew represents Michifusa’s wife (Sonshi’s daughter). The dew that cannot settle upon a leaf points to Sonshi’s daughter’s state of shock, which has similarly rendered her unanchored to the present reality. The absent leaf stands for Michifusa and his death.
[10] Here, the white dew of autumn symbolizes the tears shed for Michifusa’s death.
[11] A verse from a poem by Fujiwara no Yoshitaka: “In fall, special indeed is dusk with the wind above the miscanthus, dew below the bush clover” 秋はなほ夕まぐれこそただならね荻の上風萩の下露 (Yoshitaka shū).
[12] A verse from a poem by Ise, “Dew collects on the autumn bush clover, only to break its branches—I only regret the ephemerality of this world” うつろはむことだに惜しき秋萩におれぬばかりも置ける露かな (Shūishū).
[13] A verse from an anonymous poem in the Kokinshū: “The bush clover’s dew / vanished as I grasped the drops / to string them like beads, / so if you want to see it / you must see it on the boughs” (Trans. McCullough, Kokin wakashū, 57) 萩の露玉にぬかむととれば消えぬよし見む人は枝ながらみよ. The remark plays with the permanence of the painted dew. The allusion continues into the next sentence.
[14] Her identity is not clear.
[15] A reference to a Ōshikōchi Mitsune’s poem from the Kokinshū: “Wishing to pick them, / must we resort to guesswork? / The season’s first frost / bewilders us when we seek / white chrysanthemum blossoms” 心あてに折らばや折らむ初霜の置きまどはせる白菊の花 (Trans. McCullough, Kokin wakashū, 69).
[16] Sukenaka is referring to the earlier poem by Ise (note 12), but his message is actually conveyed by the verse he does not say: “I only regret the ephemerality of this world.” In other words, he regrets the passing of this occasion.
[17] Idewa no Ben compares the nenbutsu services to the ichimi no ame metaphor from “The Parable of the Medicinal Herbs” chapter of the Lotus Sutra. There the teaching of Buddha is compared to rain that nourishes all kinds of plants: “The rain falling from one blanket of cloud accords with each particular species and nature, causing it to sprout and mature, to blossom and bear fruit. Though all these plants and trees grow in the same earth and are moistened by the same rain, each has its differences and particulars. . . . [The Thus Come One] appears in the world like a great cloud rising up. With a loud voice he penetrates to all the heavenly and human beings and the asuras of the entire world, like a great cloud spreading over the thousand-millionfold lands” (Trans. Burton Watson, The Lotus Sutra, 98).
[18] She might be Yamato no Senji, the daughter of Taira no Korenaka, and the wife of Yamato Governor Fujiwara no Yoshitada. Before marrying Yoshitada, she had been the wife of Michimasa, the son of Korechika. In Ōkagami, the narrator states: “for some unaccountable reason, Korenaka’s daughter has run off and entered the service of Grand Empress Kenshi, where she is known as Yamato no Senji” (The Great Mirror, 174–75). Her impulsiveness might be reflected in her rather shameless poem.
[19] In Book 34, we read of how Yorimune was disappointed that Michifusa was appointed a major captain instead of him. With the death of Michifusa, Yorimune became a major captain on the 23rd of the 11th month, Kantoku 2 (1045).
[20] According to Ichidai yōki, the emperor developed a feverish boil on his left shoulder, and three doctors (two tenryaku no kami and one gon no ihakase) came on the 27th of the 12th month (1045) to lance the boil.