Thoughts from Episode 34: The sky is falling

The cliffhanger last time saw Sara, now ready to take over Suiren’s old position as naishi no kami, coming face to face with San no Hime (daughter of Kakumitsu and sister of Sara’s former wife Shi no Hime). It soon emerges that in the wake of the invasion of Togu’s quarters, Kakumitsu had most of her existing staff dismissed in favour of San no Hime and her attendants, leaving Togu isolated and distrustful. When Sara finally gets to see her in private, she quickly confirms that he is not the Suiren she knows, and San no Hime takes him away.

Just as Sara and Suiren are scrambling for a solution, an ominous falling star appears in the night sky. Suiren seeks advice from Yoshino no Miya, who writes back telling them that it will recur for three nights. The siblings then devise a plan. On the third night, Sara advises Togu to copy sutras in the Daigokuden, where priests are doing the same; Suiren appears and they convince Togu by discreetly confirming her suspicion that they have switched places. When the meteor is gone the following night – just as Yoshino predicted – this happy outcome is attributed to Togu’s efforts. As a consequence, Sara cements his position as (one of) Togu’s trusted naishi no kami, and the Emperor resolves to continue backing Togu.

Among the interesting little details in Episode 34 is the casual identification of a now-former member of Togu’s staff as “Senji no kimi” (宣旨の君). Senji here refers to a high-ranking female servant of an emperor, crown prince, regent, etc, who was something like a chief secretary. This character worked alongside Suiren throughout her time as naishi no kami, making appearances in more than ten chapters by my count – so why did it take until now for her to be referred to by rank? Well, that’s because the same thing happens in the source material! When the siblings return to court after their switch, there’s an abrupt mention of a “senji no kimi”, and then one more reference later adding that she is the daughter of Togu’s late mother’s wetnurse (that is, she was to Togu’s mother as Torako and Toramitsu are to Sara). I don’t know whether this version of Senji is that accurate to the original, but I do have a feeling that Saito discovered late on that this character existed and probably corresponded to the one she’d already included up to this point. Anyway, this all means that Suiren’s former colleague is actually one of the very few characters specifically identified in the original Torikaebaya monogatari!

Panel from volume 7, page 146.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

This chapter also returns us to the Daigokuden, an important palace building atop which Sara, Tsuwabuki and the then-Togu confronted another astronomical phenomenon all the way back in Episode 3. The now Emperor even points out the significance of warding off two bad omens in the same building, bringing memories flooding back for Sara.

But the similarities between these events don’t stop there. While the eclipse was tied to Sara’s frightening visions of a tengu threatening to devour the sun/Emperor, the falling star in Episode 34 has a name that is also connected to tengu myths: Amatsukitsune (written 天津狐 in Torikae baya), meaning “heavenly fox”. When I wrote about the eclipse the first time, I mentioned the tiangou, a Chinese mythical dog said to eat the sun. The earliest appearance of the word 天狗 (which we read as “tengu”, at least now) in Japan is in the Nihon shoki, an important history book of the 8th century CE, where it refers to an ominous star crossing the sky from east to west, its naming clearly influenced by those earlier Chinese legends.

With time, what was once imagined as a dog far up in the sky became a birdlike entity a bit closer to earth. But more importantly, glosses used to guide readers in how to understand the Classical Chinese of the Nihon shoki in the local language give us the pronunciation “amatsukitsune”. That means that the meteor that appears in this chapter of Torikae baya is a specific phenomenon recorded in the earliest Japanese histories, which is closely tied to the developing legends of the tengu. And considering Yoshino’s apparent connection to the tengu in the story, it might not just be his scientific knowledge that allows him to give such convenient advice about the Amatsukitsune.

We’re now very close to the point where my translation skips ahead to the final volume, but I’m afraid I’ll have to make you wait a bit longer! I’m taking a break next week, so my post about Episode 35 will probably come in two weeks’ time. See you then! 👋

Thoughts from Episode 24: Whither the weather?

This chapter covers the immediate aftermath of Sara’s sudden disappearance: his friends are confused, Shi no Hime feels ashamed, Suiren sees Sara in her dreams, and Marumitsu is so upset he can’t contain himself, even in front of the Emperor. Even we don’t see any sign of Sara, apart from in Suiren and the Emperor’s imaginations. Suiren writes to Yoshino no Miya, who doesn’t know where he is either.

But Suiren doesn’t have time to mope, because she has to accompany Togu into the mountains to perform prayers. On the way, the rain picks up and the men in the party slip and drop Togu’s palanquin – luckily Togu gets out just in time! While they go to recover it, Suiren and the ladies walk with Togu through the mist until they come across a shrine, where Suiren and Togu are temporarily left alone together. Togu wants Suiren to check her leg for swelling, which soon ends in tension and blushing, before the party regroups and Togu becomes oddly distant.

Elsewhere, Kakumitsu is frantic about his missing son-in-law, irritating his daughter Umetsubo, Sara’s leading hater. In fact, she’s so annoyed that she decides to cause problems by revealing the gossip about her sister Shi no Hime. Stunned, Kakumitsu runs off to see his granddaughter Yukihime, and realises that sure enough, she doesn’t look like Sara but does look like Tsuwabuki.

Suiren carries Togu in the mist.

Panel from volume 5, page 135. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

Episode 24 kicks off a section in the story where we mainly spend time with Suiren for a few consecutive chapters. The chapter title is “Obscured by Mist”, originally 霧の迷い (kiri no mayoi). It’s an expression that can be used literally – a situation where one can’t see through the mist – or figuratively, referring to emotional conflict or anxiety.

And in the context of this chapter, I also feel like it carries a bit of a double meaning. One storyline sees Suiren and Togu lost in the mist, developing feelings for each other, but at the same time, this expression also seems to fit the way Sara vanishes without a trace. Marumitsu considers whether Sara might’ve been whisked away by a supernatural entity – using the term 神隠し (kamikakushi) that you might know from a film and which happens to be associated with beings like tengu. And Sara’s sudden disappearance accompanied by a weather metaphor in the chapter title also reminds me of The Tale of Genji, where the hero’s death is represented by a chapter that consists only of the title “Vanished into the Clouds” (雲隠, kumogakure) after which the story continues with his descendants instead.

So today, I’d like to say a little more about the weather in Torikae baya. Our attention is mainly drawn to the weather when it is bad, and particularly when that causes a problem in the story. For example, inclement weather derails the outing in this week’s chapter as well as leading Sara and Suiren to their dramatic meeting with Yoshino no Miya much earlier. It is also the reason for Sara’s recent work, where he had to manage river flooding.

On the other hand, sometimes bad weather has more convenient results. Sudden gusts of wind accompany the Emperor on multiple occasions, granting him opportunities to see people otherwise hidden. The then-Togu prays for rain to hide the ominous eclipse. In a chapter after this one, a storm provides helpful background noise to prevent eavesdroppers from hearing an intimate conversation. Similarly, it rains heavily outside during the scene where Sara confronts Tsuwabuki about his affair with Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki ends up getting a hint about Sara’s own secret; it isn’t made clear that the rain stops people from listening in on this conversation, but the connection is there.

And as with the title of this chapter, there are metaphorical examples too. I said before that Shi no Hime compares Sara to spring (this association came up again much more recently too) and Tsuwabuki to autumn, but she doesn’t only mention seasons. Sara’s affection is like gentle sunlight, while Tsuwabuki’s is a storm. Sara, without whom “it was as if a light had been extinguished in the palace”, is compared with the sun at other points too, his bright demeanour contrasting with Suiren’s. That last point links also to yin and yang, but I’m afraid that as I said the last time I brought that up, exploring that route better will have to wait for another day!

Thoughts from Episode 19: Fly me to the moon

Sorry about the slow posting schedule lately! To be honest, it’ll probably continue to be quite irregular, as the actual work of translating this manga is keeping me very busy. That means I’m several chapters ahead of what I’m covering on the blog, but one upside is that writing the blog posts then lets me come back to previous chapters with a bit more distance and hopefully get a new perspective.

Anyway, Episode 19 sees the Emperor continue to give Sara extra attention, now that he’s witnessed the beauty of Sara’s sister (who actually was Sara). After an archery event, Kakumitsu takes Sara to one side to question why he’s been neglecting his wife Shi no Hime (Kakumitsu’s daughter), and Sara realises that Tsuwabuki hasn’t been spending time with her either.

Sara gets Tsuwabuki and leads him away. Tsuwabuki is initially excited, until they end up visiting Shi no Hime together. During the following awkward scene, Sara and Shi no Hime seem to get along nicely, and Sara takes their daughter Yukihime away to look at the birds Shi no Hime has kept since Episode 10. He deliberately releases one of the birds, then goes off supposedly to bring it back, leaving Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki alone to work out their… situation.

Panel from volume 4, page 145.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

The title of this chapter is “A Pair of Birds” (つがいの鳥), where つがい refers to a mated pair*. Of the four birds Shi no Hime had, one has died, leaving three left. Sara releases one of the three so it can find a mate in the wild; at the same time, he removes himself from the situation to let the lovers Shi no Hime and Tsuwabuki be together. It’s a sad bit of imagery that I found quite evocative, especially at this point:

SARA stands in the long grass, holding up his hand and looking up to the sky. The bird is flying in front of the moon and KAKUMITSU’s residence is visible in the background.

SARA                                    [thinking] You should leave the cage behind and live by yourself.

                                                  In the outside world,

SARA turns his head thoughtfully.

SARA                                    [thinking] maybe you can find a mate.

Meanwhile, the image of Sara walking out sadly under the moonlight at the end reminds me of some other moments in the story featuring the moon – of which there are quite a few! And this is something that also comes up a lot in the original Torikaebaya monogatari. The moonlight is often described, reminding us of something I was getting at last time, which is that life in general in the Heian court was dimly lit. Moonlit scenes stand out because it’s genuinely unusual for anything to be clearly visible at night!

The moon plays a recurring role in both literal and metaphorical forms, so just now I’ll go over a few examples of each from the manga. There are other memorable instances of characters looking forlornly at the moon: Tsuwabuki in Episode 9, Sara himself in Episode 4 and Shi no Hime in Episode 10. Watching the moon can be an enjoyable activity too, though, as we see when Sara and Shi no Hime do it together in Episode 10 and when the Emperor plans a seasonal moon viewing party in Episode 18.

References to the moon also come up as a euphemism for menstruation. Early on, Umetsubo speculates that Sara’s monthly breaks from work are evidence of tsuki no sawari, and the first sign that Shi no Hime is pregnant is that she has missed her tsuki no mono. And when Tsuwabuki and Sara do their crossdressing Yamato Takeru performance for greedy local governors in Episode 14, the lyrics feature similar lunar references.

But the reason I think the moon has symbolic significance is the way it shows up in poems. For example, I’ve already mentioned Episode 10 – which is aptly titled “A Spring Night’s Moon”. When Tsuwabuki encounters Shi no Hime in the moonlight, she recites a sad poem about how the moon reflects her emotions, and Tsuwabuki jumps in with a smooth reply (I posted translations of this pair of poems here).

The scene where Sara gazes sadly at the moon in Episode 4 is a more complicated case. There, he recites a poem (referenced again later) about how his tears should flow just as easily as Tsuwabuki’s – which comes up in a slightly different situation in the original Torikaebaya monogatari. However, this is the same scene where he first encounters Umetsubo, and at the equivalent point in the original story, he does come up with a Sad Moon Poem:

月ならば　かくてすままし　雲の上を　あはれいかなる　契りなるらん

I like the poem Saito chose to include here, but this one would’ve worked pretty well too! The sentiment it conveys – that he’s sad about being unable to operate at court quite like other young men – fits the scenario well.

In the manga, there’s at least one more Sad Moon Poem yet to come. Terrible events we’ve yet to cover here result in Sara being miserable in Uji, and he recites a lonely poem as he watches the moon over the river. And apart from that, there are a lot of other intriguing links to the moon throughout Torikae baya – the fact that the eclipse sees the sun (symbolising the Emperor) hidden by the moon, maybe some connection between sun/moon and yin/yang, the fact that Suiren’s name (being used by Sara as a court official) is literally “Moonlight” (月光)!

Altogether it’s far too much for me to cover here, and it’s something I need to spend more time thinking about, but perhaps I can get to that in a future post!

*The word つがい is also part of the title of Saito’s current manga series Hi no Tsugai, which continues her recent run of Heian period stories.

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!