Thoughts from Episode 6: New year, new ranks!

I’m back from my break, and I’ve been making some more progress with the translation! We left off last time at the end of the first volume, so now let’s move on to Episode 6: The New Emperor.

As that title suggests, this chapter opens with a range of characters gaining new roles at court. The poorly old Emperor has stepped aside in favour of his younger brother, and there are promotions for Marumitsu, Sara and Tsuwabuki. Kakumitsu misses out on a promotion, and he’s more eager than ever to make Sara his son-in-law. Meanwhile, the former Emperor is worried about his young daughter, who has now taken over as Togu (crown prince). He suggests that Suiren become her naishi no kami (a close attendant), leaving Marumitsu with two tricky requests to handle...

At first, Sara and Suiren both refuse. But soon, Sara realises that the only way to counter Umetsubo’s suspicions about him is to agree to marry Kakumitsu’s daughter Shi no Hime. Tsuwabuki is distraught about this because of his existing feelings for Sara Shi no Hime. He calls off his and Sara’s friendship – unless Sara helps him marry Suiren. Then, to deal with this new mess, Suiren agrees to go and work for Togu.

There’s a lot going on here! With the new Emperor crowned – he remains Emperor for the rest of the story – it reframes the first volume as a bit of a preamble. It’s now that characters move into their longer-term roles, and it’s now that Sara and Suiren’s problems really start to rack up.

What I’d like to focus on today is something I talked about back at the beginning: the various ranks and titles the characters hold. This time around, several of them change ranks/titles, and that changes how people refer to them. To summarise:

·       The Emperor (帝) is now Emperor Emeritus (上皇) or Suzakuin (朱雀院)

·       The Crown Prince or Togu (東宮) is now the Emperor (帝)

·       The former Emperor’s daughter (referred to briefly as 女一の宮, “girl first-born prince”) is now Togu (東宮, also 女東宮, “girl crown prince”) and is nicknamed Nanten no Togu (南天の東宮)

·       Old man Fujiwara, the one-time Chief Advisor to the Emperor (関白) has retired and entered the priesthood

·       His son Marumitsu, formerly a Provisional Upper Councillor of Court (権大納言), is now both Chief Advisor to the Emperor (関白) and Chancellor (左大臣)

·       His son Sara, formerly a fifth-rank Chamberlain (五位の侍従), is now a third-rank colonel of the Imperial Guards (近衛府の三位の中将)

·       Tsuwabuki, already a colonel, is now also a councillor (中将)

·       and Suiren is being offered a position as the new Togu’s naishi no kami (尚侍)

Many of these have been translated in multiple ways before in Willig’s two versions of Torikaebaya monogatari. I won’t necessarily use the same translations as Willig, but I want to be internally consistent at least. The tricky part, as I mentioned in that earlier post, is knowing when to come up with an English version and when to just transliterate.

So far, Togu is still Togu – this is partly to ensure that as in the original, the same term is used whoever holds the position. In my earlier notes, I had it as “Crown Prince”, even after Suzakuin’s daughter takes on the role. I think this does chime pretty well with the manga’s themes, so there’s still the possibility I’ll go back to this later, but we’ll see.

Elsewhere, some roles are translated, but I’ve opted for a transliteration when they’re used as a term of address, such as Marumitsu’s new dual role “Kanpaku Sadaijin”. On the other hand, I’m undecided about naishi no kami. Willig – and others – translated this as “Maid of Honour”, and maybe that’s what I’ll go with too, but I’m unsure. I don’t exactly have great alternatives either, so for the time being, it’ll continue to be naishi no kami, just transliterated.

It's lucky that a lot of these characters do also have nicknames so that we don’t have to refer to them only by their job titles the way the original Torikaebaya monogatari did. Other modern versions do this too – Willig’s published version (The Changelings) sort of does it as well – and for the sake of my sanity, I’m relieved that Saito followed in their footsteps!

Thoughts from Episode 5: Names, names, names

This week’s chapter revolves around a hunting trip organised by the Emperor. The most important people at the court go and have a good time in the outskirts of Heian-kyo (around here), and the citizens get an opportunity to see them in their finery. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that the stars of the event are to be Sara and Tsuwabuki!

But before the excursion, somebody comes and bothers Sara. This person is an unnamed woman who once worked for Suiren’s mother and now works for the jealous Lady Umetsubo. The woman learns that Sara takes a few days’ break every month and reports this back to Umetsubo, who quickly concludes that this is due to tsuki no sawari – menstruation. As ridiculous as her own attendants find this idea, Umetsubo becomes certain that Marumitsu has two daughters and has forcibly raised one to be a man.

On the hunting trip, Sara races into an early lead, causing Tsuwabuki to leave in a huff. Suddenly, a mysterious man (who we’ve just seen having a chat with Umetsubo!) starts firing arrows at Sara. Sara hurries back, and after an arrow narrowly misses the Emperor, a search party goes looking for the would-be assassin. But Togu sees that Sara was injured by an arrow, and Umetsubo of all people steps in to give him first aid. This is obviously a ploy to publicly expose Sara literally and figuratively. Just in the nick of time, Tsuwabuki returns and Sara makes an excuse to leave with his help.

The whole incident raises Sara’s profile even more, so Umetsubo changes her strategy. She tells her father Kakumitsu to do something she was previously so keen to avoid – arrange for Sara to marry Kakumitsu’s youngest daughter...

One aspect that’s been a bit challenging in the past few chapters has been characters’ names. In earlier posts, I talked about court ranks and briefly introduced some of the major characters. Something I mentioned previously is that they’re not always referred to in the same way (and in the original Torikaebaya monogatari, they don’t even get personal names) and this has already presented some difficulties.

For example, when somebody is addressed by their position, what should it be in my translation? So far I have gondainagon – Marumitsu’s title – as “Provisional Upper Councillor of State” (“provisional” and “of state” sometimes omitted), but I’m not sure this always works so well when he’s addressed directly. Similarly, I mostly keep the Crown Prince as Togu (東宮), mainly because this title will soon be inherited by the current Emperor’s daughter. However, I do find it necessary sometimes to say “Crown Prince” – like when he’s specifically listed alongside the Emperor, or even just for the sake of reminding the reader what a togu is. Maybe there’s an argument for referring to the Emperor as “Mikado” instead for consistency?

The other area where this has proven tricky is with characters whose names are said slightly differently in different contexts. Sarasoju no Kimi (沙羅双樹の君) is often just Sarasoju, but sometimes Sarasoju no Jiju (沙羅双樹の侍従). It gets shortened to Sara, or Soju if Tsuwabuki is speaking. These are generally fine, because we hear about Sara so often that if I just keep it as-is (or translate Sarasoju no Jiju to “Chamberlain Sarasoju”) it won’t actually be hard to follow.

But what about characters who rarely appear? Marumitsu’s wives are first introduced as Nishi no Ue (西の上) and Higashi no Ue (東の上). These “names” are literally just “west” and “east” plus an honorific. I was happy enough to transliterate them to begin with, but now that Umetsubo and her nosy attendant are talking about them, they say “kata” (方) instead of “ue”. This is still an honorific, but it isn’t the same one, so that complicates my earlier decision to call them Nishi no Ue and Higashi no Ue in the translation. In all likelihood, I’ll just go back and change them to Nishi and Higashi, but I’ll have to think about it a bit longer!

And with that, we’ve reached the end of the first volume! In some ways it’s been quite representative of the series as a whole – hitting the main story beats of Torikaebaya monogatari but with some added drama, angst and action – but in one big way, it isn’t. And that’s because volume 2 starts off with a big reshuffle where various characters get the job titles that they’ll hold for most of the story beyond that point. So basically, forget everything I just said about what everyone is called! T_T

There’s going to be a bit of a break before my next blog post on here. I’m going away for most of April, and unless there’s some big development during that time that I want to report on immediately, I doubt I’ll have a chance to write a post until I get back. So that’s probably it from me until next month! 👋

Digression: Who’s who in Torikae baya?

Something slightly different this week! So far I’ve been talking about quite a few different characters in Torikae baya, and I’ll be talking about many more in future posts. With that in mind, I want to give a bit of an overview of who makes up the cast of the manga, and who each character’s counterpart is in Torikaebaya monogatari.

First, we have the protagonists, Sarasoju (沙羅双樹) and Suiren (睡蓮). In the manga, each is named after flowers blooming nearby at the time of their birth: sarasoju is the sal tree, which is associated with the death of the Buddha, and suiren is the water lily. Family members tend to abbreviate “Sarasoju” to “Sara”, while his colleague Tsuwabuki calls him “Soju”. In Torikaebaya monogatari, neither sibling has a personal name and both are referred to by their job titles, Sara’s counterpart being a chunagon (中納言) and Suiren’s being a naishi no kami (尚侍) for most of the story.

Their father is Fujiwara no Marumitsu (藤原丸光). As in Torikaebaya monogatari, the father begins the story as a gondainagon (権大納言), with a brother (Kakumitsu, 角光, in the manga) who is the udaijin (右大臣). Fitting these names, Saito draws Marumitsu with rounder features and Kakumitsu with sharper features, but they otherwise look very similar.

Marumitsu has a wife in each wing of his residence, and each of them is mother to one of the protagonists. In the original story and in Torikae baya, his brother has four daughters: the two eldest are involved with the current Emperor and Crown Prince, and the youngest, called Shi no Hime (四の姫) in the manga, marries Sara.

Another major character is the chunagon’s amorous and troublemaking colleague, whose rank for most of the story is saisho no chujo (宰相中将). As with some of the other major characters, Saito gives him a more memorable name: Tsuwabuki (石蕗).

In both versions, the current Emperor abdicates early on in the story, allowing the Crown Prince (東宮) to take his place. Neither having a male heir, the title of 東宮 shifts to the abdicated Emperor’s daughter, who becomes known as 女東宮 (basically, “girl crown prince” – fascinatingly, the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten lists Torikaebaya monogatari as the earliest known appearance of this term). So far, I’ve been pencilling in both her and the first Crown Prince with the transliteration Togu.

Some characters in Torikae baya do have counterparts in the original story but are otherwise different in significant ways. Umetsubo (梅壺) is a member of the abdicated Emperor’s harem who, in Torikaebaya monogatari, appears just once, and we learn nothing about her, but in Torikae baya, she becomes a major antagonist.

Yoshino no miya (吉野の宮)’s counterpart in the original tale shares a similar backstory, but notably has two half-Chinese daughters; in Torikae baya, he is instead implied to be another character’s father (I won’t say whose just yet!).

One more example is the manga character San no Hime (三の姫), who plays quite a big role in the second half of the series, but is based on a character who is only ever really implied in the original – the udaijin’s unaccounted-for third daughter.

And this is definitely not an exhaustive list! Plenty more characters are identified throughout the manga, but these are at least most of the major ones. As you often see in a multi-volume series, there are handy relationship charts to kick off most volumes. At some point down the line, I might try to throw together an expanded version of those myself!