Thoughts from Episode 12: The seasons in Torikae baya

I took a break from posting last week because I just had too much happening – more on that in a future post! – but I’m back today to talk about Episode 12 and to say a bit more about a topic that I’ve touched on previously.

In this chapter, Tsuwabuki and Shi no Hime’s affair continues. Tsuwabuki finds out the sad story about Shi no Hime’s scar, but to her surprise, it doesn’t faze him. She wonders whether his passion for her is a stronger love than she has with Sara, whom she now suspects might love somebody else instead, and wishes she and Sara could connect in the same way.

One day, as she feeds the birds Sara rescued in Episode 10, the long-suffering Saemon points out that Shi no Hime hasn’t had a period in three months. Cut to Kakumitsu’s excitement at her pregnancy! This comes as quite a shock to Sara, who had no involvement and who wonders who the father could possibly be. The news quickly spreads, and eventually Sara breaks down in tears in front of his father Marumitsu. Sara tells Marumitsu and his mother Nishi that he might either break up with Shi no Hime or tell her the truth and try to continue as before, but Nishi is opposed.

Meanwhile, it turns out that Togu is going on a trip to Yoshino and that Sara will be part of the entourage. On the way there, Togu comments on Sara and Suiren’s physical similarity and tells them about her remarkable relative, Yoshino no Miya, a man she believes can predict the future.

A few weeks ago, I tried to go over Torikae baya’s timeline, and today I want to say a bit about the seasons and their significance in the narrative. In that previous post, I mentioned that details like seasonal events and flowers give some indication of the time of year and the passage of time more generally. This week’s chapter in particular makes thematic use of this.

Not much time has passed over the last few chapters, but notably it’s been spring throughout, as indicated mainly by the presence of cherry blossoms and wisteria. Episode 10 drew attention to the season in its title, A Spring Night’s Moon (春の夜の月). Because of the original phrasing, I’m inclined to think that this title is an intentional reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is just one example of something we’ll see more of: deliberately unseasonal references.

Episode 12 also refers to the season in its title, with The End of Spring (春の終わり). It’s a literal description of where we’ve got to in this busy year, but it’s also metaphorically apt. Sara and Shi no Hime’s marriage began in winter and has figuratively blossomed during the spring, but Shi no Hime’s pregnancy signals the end of that.

During this chapter, Shi no Hime muses that Sara’s kindness towards her is like “dappled sunlight in spring” – matching the season where she has come to know him. This is in contrast with Tsuwabuki’s intense love, which she describes as “like an autumn storm is relentlessly blowing me off my feet”, complete with autumnal visual imagery. The “autumn storm” in this case is 野分, the name for a typhoon in the early autumn (and a chapter in The Tale of Genji). So while she is comforted by the seasonally appropriate affection of Sara, Tsuwabuki’s unseasonal passion comes as a shock and a thrill.

There will be more moments like this later too! We’ve had instances of late-blooming cherry blossoms already, and there is another major one in a future chapter, which itself is called 野分. But I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until later to hear more about that!

Thoughts from Episode 10: Tsuwabuki, no!

A little bit of time has passed since the previous chapter, and now we see that Sara and Shi no Hime are getting along better: Sara brings her a nest of orphaned chicks to raise, they watch the moon together, and Shi no Hime calls Sara “se no kimi” (背の君), which Saito helpfully notes as a term of endearment for one’s husband. At night, though, Sara worries that he isn’t doing enough, while Shi no Hime worries that he might not really love her.

Elsewhere, Tsuwabuki tests his new theory that he might be into men, by hugging his work buddies and seeing what happens. Just as he’s driving them nuts with his behaviour, the Emperor’s brother-in-law Shikibu-kyo no Miya appears and offers to teach Tsuwabuki about the joys of loving men, causing him to run off in a panic.

One evening, when Umetsubo is visiting her father Kakumitsu (remember that Shi no Hime is another of his daughters), Tsuwabuki suddenly appears and wants to see Sara. While Sara goes to deal with him, Umetsubo insinuates that Sara might not treat Shi no Hime “like a husband should”, eliciting a VERY defensive response. Sara and Tsuwabuki have a rowdy drinking session together, and when Tsuwabuki wakes up after passing out, Sara has already left for night watch duty. Tsuwabuki pathetically sniffs Sara’s coat until he hears someone playing the koto – Shi no Hime, the woman he coveted for so long! After hearing her recite an oddly sad poem for a happy newlywed, he decides to go and introduce himself… the only way he knows how.

Title page of Episode 10 from volume 2, page 149.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

This is the final chapter of the second volume, giving us a cliffhanger just as things really start going wrong. Tsuwabuki has recognised that he has feelings for Sara, but still hasn’t quite given up on trying to explain them away, with worse and worse results.

The thing I want to take a closer look at today is the chapter’s title page. I mentioned in an earlier post that the Episode 3 title page has some interesting details, portraying the then-Togu dressed like a Buddhist deity. There are many other wonderful title pages, showing off the major characters in a variety of flashy and often meaningful outfits. They’re often good examples of how Saito embeds symbolic details in the artwork, as I discussed a couple of weeks ago.

The title page this time shows Tsuwabuki, looking sad and thoughtful as he holds a coat (or an outer robe, but there aren’t always great equivalent terms for all the items of clothing they wear) close to himself. There are some decorative wisteria flowers in the background, and the coat he’s holding has a wisteria motif too. The image of Tsuwabuki holding the coat evokes the scene later in the chapter when he finds that Sara has left his coat as a blanket for him, while the flowers give us some sense of when this is taking place.

At first, I thought it was Sara’s coat in this image, but then I realised the pattern was different. I was happy enough at that point to say that the wisteria pattern just matched the flowers in the background, until I went through the chapter once again. In the scene when Tsuwabuki awkwardly hugs his friends, several men are taking wisteria branches to put in their caps, and Shikibu-kyo no Miya gives one to Tsuwabuki, lamenting that he no longer decorates himself with his trademark tsuwabuki flowers. And on top of that – when Shikibu-kyo no Miya appears, he is wearing the coat from the title page.

This adds more complexity to the coat situation, as if it weren’t bad enough already (Tsuwabuki even puts Sara’s coat on, so he’s trying it on with Shi no Hime in her husband’s clothes*). Now, the title page isn’t just a nice brooding picture of Tsuwabuki with a reference to the scene with Sara’s coat. By replacing the garment with Shikibu-kyo no Miya’s coat, it ties that scene to the worries Tsuwabuki has elsewhere in this chapter about his own sexual/romantic preferences.

And besides the significance of this particular image in this particular chapter, it’s good just to keep in mind (again) that for the translation, the visuals matter as well as the text!

*his other sins in this chapter include watching Shi no Hime through some blinds – just like he did with Suiren – and then introducing himself using the exact same words (“I am the Chancellor Colonel” – 宰相の中将にございます) as he did with Suiren…………