trysts and troubles

Have you heard of the Tale of Genji? It has often been called the first novel in human history. It was written by a woman, Murasaki Shikibu, in Japan around the year 1008. It tells all about the life of a princely figure, Genji, and his dealings with women, mostly.

The court life at this time was pretty good if you were a man, and pretty lousy if you were a woman. Why? Because a man could have any number of wives, in addition to his "sleep around partners" and that was totally acceptable. A woman, however, was only supposed to have one man attached to her.

Anyway, I am writing a chapter of my thesis on a certain couple of episodes from this over 1000 page (in translation) book. The fun is trying to figure out how everyone fits together. For example, Aoi is Genji's first and main wife, but he doesn't really like her. Rokujo is a wealthy widow who was once favored by Genji, but now is pretty much abandoned. Yugao is a middle-class girl who enchants Genji by being...middle class and decent looking. They are all connected by spirit possession. Oh, the fun of living in a time where illness was blamed on anything but germs!

Genji ignores Rokujo and spends too much time with Yugao. He wakes up in the middle of the night to Yugai being possessed by a beautiful woman. Yugao dies. Genji is heartbroken. Aoi's carriage pushes aside Rokujo's, and Genji acknowledges only Aoi. Rokujo seethes. Aoi becomes possessed by a spirit while in labor. Genji goes to comfort her and finds that she is speaking in the voice of Rokujo and takes on the widow's appearance! Aoi bears a son and dies.

Genji thinks, Rokujo has done all of this!
Rokujo thinks, I didn't mean to do all this! I can't control my angry spirit!
I think, dead spirits are scary. Living ones are terrifying.

And then the story continues as if nothing happened.
Good times.