Gossamer Days

【光る君へ】第5回

Gossamer is such a beautiful word in English, isn’t it? It speaks volumes to Arthur Waley’s literary genius that he used it to translate the title of the Kagero Diary 蜻蛉日記. Or as the later translator of the Diary Edward Seidensticker said, “The title makes up in poetic words for what it lacks philologically.” The earliest Heian period diary written by a woman— it is considered one of the influences on the later creation of the Tale of Genji.

Kagero written like this 蜻蛉 means mayfly, which suggests that the author felt her life was slipping away, short-lived and ephemeral, like the lifespan of a mayfly. This is how it appears these days on book covers. But, kagero written like this 陽炎 means something like a spring time heat-haze, which would suggest the author’s sad and hazy memories of her marriage. Maybe like her life feels more like a mirage. Her feelings ambivalent. And finally, when written in hiragana かげろう kagero means transparent, like light passing through silk. Gossamer.

Probably the author meant all of these things. Fragile and short-lived like dewdrops in the morning grass or a spider’s web strung across a doorway. The author explained the title like this:

なほ物はかなきを思へば、あるかなきかの心地する
かげろふの日記といふべし。

"When I think upon these fleeting things, I feel I do not even know if they really existed or not, and thus have named my diary the Kagero (gossamer) Diary." (translation)

Like everyone else probably, my heart leapt when the author of Kagero Nikki, known to us today as the Mother of Michitsuna (955-1020), made an appearance this week in episode five of the Dear Radiance Taiga Drama. The drama is doing such a fantastic job exploring possible influences on the young Murasaki Shikibu, especially the various texts influencing her to write her the Genji. With every episode, I am spending days looking things up and reading poetry— it’s hard to think of a similarly intellectually stimulating historical drama on American TV… hmmm… I guess I did love HBO’s John Adams with Paul Giamatti.

But back to Kagero Nikki. The author was married to Michinaga’s father, Fujiwara-no-Kaneie. In the Heian period, aristocratic men often had multiple wives. At first, the Mother of Michitsuna was thrilled with her marriage. He was a dashing and powerful man, who could also write a decent waka. Her diary started off as a record of the poems the two exchanged with each other. But as time went on and with the birth of their son, she was more and more left alone. Neglected. The Diary later is filled with complaints about his neglect.

For example, this poem by her is quite famous and was included in the Hyakunin Isshu

嘆きつつ　ひとり寝る夜の　明くる間は　いかに久しき　ものとかは知る

Do you know how long the nights are

Sleeping alone, sighing till the dawn breaks

Can you know how it feels?

I was really interested to take a look at Sonya Arntzen’s new translation. Choosing to keep the word Kagero untranslated, she approaches the text through the lens of feminist literature and delightfully inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Room of One’s Own. She makes the point in her introduction that like the Tale of Genji, the Kagero Nikki, is an emotion-driven narrative, where the telling is almost stream-of consciousness, in which memoir is blended with fiction and poetry to create something that feels incredibly modern to our ears today. In self-creation through writing, it is also potentially a healing occupation.

It is incredible to think these works are over a thousand years old!

Two Notes

1. About my post Music and the Ancient Rites last week, I should have recommended this marvelous book by Erica Fox Brindley, Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China

2. About kagero 陽炎. Because we have arrived at Risshun (立春), the time marking the arrival of spring, I wanted to re-share my post about this time of year that I love so much. When spring is just a kind of anticipation (depending on where you live)… a “time” that exists at the juxtaposition of the world and our imagination!

3. In interrogating possible influences on the Tale of Genji, last week, the show highlighted the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Below is a picture of my Kaguya Hime pin set.