Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 13.djvu/257



HE "Genji Monogatari," although usually quoted by Japanese critics as the standard example of their classic prose, is little if at all in advance of several similar narratives of its period. Its author was a lady of the Japanese Court, who died 992, so that the story was probably written a few years earlier. The authoress is known to us only by her Court-name of Murasaki Shikib, which means literally, the "purple violet of the Shikib or ceremonial staff." That is to say, each person was known in Court by the official department in which they served or were ranked, and to this was added an individual name usually fanciful or poetic. So that this lady was called the "Ceremonial Staff's Violet." She was married, and lived long in retirement as a widow; she had a daughter, also an authoress, and kept a diary which is still preserved. The tomb of Murasaki Shikib is pointed out to-day as a sort of shrine in a Buddhist temple of Kyoto, the scene of her narrative.

The plot of the "Genji Monogatari" traces the various love-experiences of Genji, a young noble who flits, as was the fashion of the time, from one lady to another. The character of each of these ladies is carefully depicted; and modern Japanese critics tell us that the purpose of the whole was to portray these women and satirically contrast the loyalty of woman with the shallowness and selfishness of man. The original narrative is very long, containing over forty chapters, of which only the first five are here given, as the shifting love-affairs of Genji make it an easy matter to drop the rambling tale at any point. Indeed, the original passes on from Genji to his sons, and was probably completed by another and less artistic hand than that of the admired Murasaki.