Thoughts from Episode 13: An encounter with a tengu (?)

It’s been a while again! I’ve been on a trip, which is still ongoing, and it’s kept me a bit too busy to cope with weekly posts (especially yesterday, which was a VERY big day!). On the bright side, as I indicated last time, it is at least a trip that will give me plenty more to say at a later date. Look out for that in a few weeks’ time!

Anyway, we left Sara, Suiren and Nanten no Togu last time as they were approaching Yoshino. Yoshino was known even back then for cherry blossoms, but as our friends are going there in summer, Sara suggests the more seasonal activity of firefly catching. He brings Suiren and some attendants, but Sara and Suiren soon become separated from the group and encounter what appears to be a tengu. Sara boldly tries to attack the “tengu” only to get knocked out and taken away, followed by Suiren. The “tengu” speaks to them in his villa when Sara wakes up, and immediately works out the siblings’ big secret.

The next day, Sara and Suiren are back with Togu, who has heard they had an adventure – when suddenly, the “tengu” appears! It turns out that he is none other than Yoshino no Miya, a reclusive member of the imperial family. He and Togu discuss the difficulties going on back in the capital, which she worries is the result of having a girl as the heir to the throne. Yoshino tries to console her and talks about destiny. He later sends Sara and Suiren on their way, makes some more mysterious comments and says he is sure they will be back.

Finally, Sara returns to Kakumitsu’s residence just as Tsuwabuki is leaving. Tsuwabuki makes an awkward excuse for being in the area and goes on his way, but Sara then goes to see Shi no Hime and smells something that reminds him of a certain work colleague…

Episode 13 is actually the first chapter that I translated! About this time last year, I did a translation pilot to test out my approach and the format of the translation, so I decided to select two consecutive chapters that were fairly representative, had plenty of variety and exhibited a lot of what makes Torikae baya interesting. That means I actually dealt with Episodes 13 and 14 quite a long time ago – but of course they could do with some updates considering everything I’ve been doing since.

Panel from volume 3, page 87.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

One of the great things about this chapter is that it introduces Yoshino no Miya! He has an equivalent in the original Torikaebaya monogatari, but like many of the characters in the manga, his role and characterisation are expanded here. He is a learned man who has studied various esoteric subjects in China, and was once an important figure at court until he left amid controversy and became an ascetic.

When Sara and Suiren first encounter him, both are immediately reminded of the tengu that is supposed to have cursed them – something I talked about in a much earlier blog post. They have this impression because, like the tengu gang from Episode 1, Yoshino is dressed in the clothes of a yamabushi. His divination skills – predicting years earlier that the Togu we know would become Togu, determining Sara and Suiren’s secret just by looking at their faces – also contribute to the sense that he is supernatural in some way.

I’ve mentioned previously that the idea of the tengu’s curse is greatly expanded in the manga from what was, in the original text, a brief explanation of what the siblings’ deal was and why it had been resolved. Basically, in Torikaebaya monogatari, it is revealed in a dream far into the story that a tengu cursed the father due to bad karma, causing the siblings’ situation, but the curse has now been alleviated.* But in the manga, the siblings believe they themselves are cursed and don’t know what to do about it.

*In the published version of Willig’s translation, this is attributed to the father becoming a devout Buddhist – maybe due to editing an ambiguous line in the first version – but a reviewer said it was actually the tengu that found religion. Incidentally, the original original wording genuinely does seem quite ambiguous.

Combined with associations between tengu, yamabushi and other monks, this could be a reason for Torikae baya’s Yoshino to be repeatedly identified with the tengu. Apart from this first appearance, he also later compares himself with a tengu, he is very knowledgeable about fate/destiny, and he treats his old difficulties at court as a dark past he has struggled to turn his back on.

Altogether, we end up with a fascinating character and an important layer of the tengu/curse motif in Torikae baya, which is, for me, one of the most interesting examples of the manga expanding on aspects of the original story.

Thoughts from Episode 3: The Eclipse

After Episode 2 showed Sara starting his exciting new job working for the Emperor and meeting his new best friend (whether he likes it or not) Tsuwabuki, this chapter gets a bit more dramatic. Tsuwabuki shows up uninvited at Sara’s home with two of his friends, and gets terribly upset that Sara won’t introduce him to Suiren. As it turns out, everybody has heard about Suiren, even the Emperor! This causes Sara to have (apparently for the first time in a while) a nightmare about the tengu from Episode 1. The tengu tells Sara that he and Suiren are cursed, and that the curse will be lifted when the tengu devours the Emperor.

Three important men then show up from the on’yoryo (for now at least, I have this as the Bureau of Yin and Yang – this is where they practised divination, astrology, etc) to reveal that an annular eclipse is coming, and the Emperor immediately falls ill. While everyone in the palace prepares to hide him away from the ominous effects of the eclipse, the Emperor gives his younger brother (Togu, the crown prince) a crystal ball containing an image of Kundali, one of the Five Wisdom Kings. Sara, inspired by another vision of the tengu, decides to risk being cursed by the eclipse in order to break his own curse, and is soon joined by Tsuwabuki and Togu. They go to the roof of a high building, where Togu holds out the crystal ball and prays for rain. Clouds come and obscure the eclipse, and the Emperor recovers.

Title page of Episode 3 from volume 1, page 83. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

There are plenty of things to think about in this chapter! There’s new information about the tengu’s curse and how that ties into other aspects of the story, as well as plenty of details about the belief system at the court. Today, though, I’ll just take a look at the chapter’s title – which is quite enough to handle!

Episode 3 is titled 「金の輪の君」 (kin no wa no kimi). This is quite a bit more abstract than previous titles, which were just characters’ names. The meaning of “kin no wa” becomes clear when characters begin talking about the eclipse. The astrologers talk about a 金の環の日食 (kin no wa no nisshoku), referring to the annular eclipse. Usually this is written without the のs, as 金環日食 (kinkan nisshoku), but it’s same in practice, qualifying the eclipse (nisshoku) as one where a golden ring (kin no wa) is visible.

You might notice – not that I did at first! – that the spelling in the dialogue uses the kanji 環 where the title uses 輪. I was trying to figure out what difference this would make and why it would be worth writing it two ways, but I think it’s most likely for practical reasons. In the title, it’s standing alone, and as 輪 is more commonly used for “ring” as a noun, it makes a bit more sense in that context. On the other hand, when it appears again later, it’s in the full “annular eclipse” phrase. It uses the same words, and with the same meaning, but “kinkan nisshoku”, the usual term for an annular eclipse, uses the more abstract 環 and can’t be written with a 輪. Perhaps there is more to it, but that’s the only reason I can see for writing it two different ways.

Another side point here is about the word for eclipse itself: 日食, meaning that the sun is eaten. There are old Chinese myths about monsters eating the sun during an eclipse, including a black dog called the tiangou. This is written as 天狗, the same spelling as “tengu”, which in Japan came to be seen as birdlike monsters such as the ones we see pretty regularly in Torikae baya. So when the dream-tengu tells Sara it’s going to devour the Emperor – whom the people at the court handily point out is symbolised by the sun – it connects closely with old myths about eclipses.

Anyway, what about that title? How should it be translated? As we have the “kin no wa” but not the “nisshoku”, it doesn’t really seem right to translate this as “eclipse”. That would be providing information that the Japanese readers aren’t getting at this point. “Annulus” could make sense as that’s the part that is mentioned, but the fact it’s written as 金の輪 and not 金環 puts me off that too. And there’s a later line that makes me feel that it could be intended to evoke the idea of a halo as well, which then gels with the imagery of the title page. This all makes me lean towards a fairly literal answer, so that I’m not saying more than I should, and so that it remains mysterious. In the end, I came up with “He of the Golden Ring” – interpreting the “kimi” in the same way as it gets used as a term of respect in people’s (usually men’s) names.

I’m just glad not every translation choice is as complicated as this!

More thoughts from Episode 1: The Tengu of Kurama

It took a bit of time to get writing a follow-up to the previous post, because this time last week I was at the JF/BAJS PhD workshop! I talked about my project and heard some great presentations from other postgraduate students working on all kinds of different topics. One thing I prepared for my presentation but didn’t quite have time to elaborate on was Saito’s use of tengu as a recurring motif in Torikae baya. The first appearance of a tengu is in Episode 1, so I’ll say a bit about that today!

In Torikaebaya monogatari, there is a section in the middle of the story where the chunagon (Sarasoju’s counterpart) leaves Heian-kyo and the naishi no kami (Suiren’s counterpart) goes in search of him. During this time, their father is worried sick – mainly about the chunagon, because the naishi no kami’s role is so behind-closed-doors that nobody even notices she’s gone. The naishi no kami goes to Yoshino, learns that the chunagon is in Uji, and has the bright idea for them to switch roles and return to ease their father’s worries. Just as the naishi no kami is coming back to tell him the good news, the father has a dream. In the dream, he is told that his children were the way they were because of a tengu’s curse (“goblin” in Willig’s translation), but now the curse has been lifted and they will take on their “proper” roles.

This is the first and last mention of a tengu in the original story, but Saito takes it much further, presenting the tengu’s curse as something that Sara and Suiren themselves are worried about throughout the series. In Episode 1, we first encounter tengu when a young Sara and Suiren are on their way to the temple in Kurama, north of Heian-kyo, where their father Marumitsu hopes their odd behaviour can be set right. Kurama has a long association with tengu, and though that isn’t specified in the manga, Sara does remark on having heard tales of tengu descending from the mountains to snatch up children. Mountain locations, and especially the yamabushi (mountain ascetics) found there, are another link to tengu that will be important later in the manga.

Panel from volume 1, page 27. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

During the journey to Kurama, a gang of apparent tengu show up to ransack the palanquins, unceremoniously killing the servants in the process. They’re disappointed not to find much of value, with the exception of two pretty kids they can sell to some unnamed lecherous priest. Sara comes up with a risky escape plan: if the two switch clothes, Sara can attack/distract the tengu, allowing them both to run away. And it works! Sara discovers that the bandits can’t fly and aren’t real tengu, and he manages to lead Suiren to safety. This is a crucial moment, showing us that Sara and Suiren are better for not fitting their expected gender roles. It also sets up tengu as a source of fear, and as something that maybe is and maybe isn’t real.

Nowadays, tengu are often portrayed as generally humanoid but red and with an extremely long nose – and something like this does appear once later in Torikae baya – but this image is a comparatively recent development. In contrast, the gang of bandits that appear in this chapter wear beaklike masks and yamabushi-esque garments, and have unkempt hair. I’m not totally sure if all of these aspects are accurate to the time period, but the idea of tengu as sneaky bird-men who kidnap people existed by the time of Konjaku monogatarishu, which is from roughly the same time as Torikaebaya monogatari (late Heian).

Anyway, that’s as much as I’ll get into about tengu today, but you can expect to hear more about them soon!