Lady Rokujō
William Mayer
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Introduction
Introduction
Lady Rokujō first appears in Murasaki Shikibu’s novel The Tale of Genji in the Heian era. In the story, Lady Rokujō is one of the titular Genji’s many lovers who becomes a mono no ke, or vengeful spirit, both while she is alive and after her death, and possess and kills many of Genji’s other lovers. Over time, stories about her from The Tale of Genji are adapted, particularly in the form of Noh dramas. As part of a work written by a woman, and in large part for other women, Lady Rokujō’s spirit in The Tale of Genji is a manifestation of the struggles and anxieties of the women of the story, and of the Heian period. However, in the theatre adaptations, there is a shift in focus from the suffering of the women of the story and society, to a focus more on Lady Rokujō herself and the pacification and redemption of her spirit.
The Tale of Genji
The Tale of Genji
Evening Faces (Yugao 夕顔)
Evening Faces (Yugao 夕顔)
Though Lady Rokujō herself does not appear in the flesh in this chapter, in fact she is not even introduced as a character yet in the novel, it marks what many believe to be the first appearance of her wandering spirit. The chapter begins Genji going to visit one of his lovers, presumably Rokujō, when he instead goes to see his old nursemaid. On his way, he stops at a neighboring home to admire some yugao flowers growing there. Curious as to who lives there, Genji inquires and learns that it is a lady, Yugao, whom his friend and rival was seen visiting. Genji arranges to meet with Yugao, a frail young woman, and he becomes infatuated with her. He then takes Yugao away to an old, abandoned mansion. During the night, Genji has dreams of a jealous woman, and when he awakes sees a spirit lingering by the sleeping Yugao. Genji tries to wake her, only to find that she is dead. Genji arranges for her funeral, but he is too shaken by the events to return to court. Soon after, Genji himself falls deeply ill for a long period of time.
The Heartvine (Aoi 葵)
The Heartvine (Aoi 葵)
The chapter begins with Lady Rokujō feeling neglected by Genji, so she goes to see a precession, where she has an encounter with Aoi, Genji’s wife. Aoi’s entourage knocks Lady Rokujō’s carriage off of its stilts, and the incident highly embarrasses and infuriates Lady Rokujō. Later, Aoi goes into labour. Priests attempt to ward of spirits while Aoi is vulnerable, but when Genji goes to see her, she becomes possessed by a particularly strong spirit. Through Aoi, the spirit speaks to Genji of its grievances, and Genji realizes that the spirit is Rokujō. Aoi gives birth, but dies shortly after. When Lady Rokujō awaken sin her room, she realizes that her spirit has been wandering, in part due to the scent of poppy in her hair which she cannot wash out.
The Sacred Tree (Sakaki 榊/賢木)
The Sacred Tree (Sakaki 榊/賢木)
By this point in the tale, people are beginning to talk about Rokujō's suspected involvement in the death of Aoi, and Lady Rokujō decides that she will leave the city and go to live with her daughter, the priestess of Ise Shrine. For the first time since Aoi's death, Genji goes to see Rokujō in order to convince her not to leave, but he fails to convince her and she goes. Genji follows Lady Rokujō to Ise to visit her, and he presents to her a branch from a sakaki 賢木 tree that he picked on his way. Genji reminisces on their affair together as he tears up, and then he leaves her for the final time.
New Herbs (Wakana 若菜)
New Herbs (Wakana 若菜)
Taking place much later in the tale, Lady Rokujō has since passed away in this chapter. Genji relays to his now longtime primary wife Murasaki his regrets over his relationships with Rokujō, and he hopes that she has forgiven him. However, later that night Murasaki falls ill, possessed by the returning spirit of Lady Rokujō. After several weeks with no success of exorcism by priests, Murasaki seemingly passes. However, Murasaki starts breathing again, and the spirit of Lady Rokujō speaks to Genji, telling him that she wants him to suffer as she has. Her hold on Murasaki weakened, Rokujō’s spirit is able to be channeled into a medium, then exorcised. When Rokujō leaves Murasaki’s body, she apologizes to Genji and asks that he pray for her. Genji does this, and he has scriptures read to appease her spirit. Murasaki never fully recovers from her illness, and later in the novel she dies.
The Sakaki 賢木
The Sakaki 賢木
In The Tale of Genji, iconography is very important. Most of the female characters of the tale have a particular item with which they are associated, usually a flower, and usually something emblematic of some character trait. In Lady Rokujō’s case, the item that seems to be the sakaki branch given to her by Genji in the likewise titled chapter. The sakaki, or cleyera japonica, is a type of evergreen tree native to Japan which has strong spiritual connections in Japanese mythology and literature (Rusu 1). One of the first appearances of the sakaki as a spiritual item is in the Kojiki, in the tale where Amaterasu hides away in a cave after her brother Susano-o desecrates her domain (Rusu 1). In an attempt to coax Amaterasu out of the cave, the gods dig a 500-branched sakaki tree up from Mount Kagu, and they attach jewels and presents to its branches (Rusu 2). Then, Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto uses branches from the tree to craft a headdress, which she wears when performing a provocative dance to lure out Amaterasu (Rusu 2). Curious as to what the commotion is about, Amaterasu leaves the cave to watch, and sunlight is restored to the land (Rusu 2). In the tale, kegare, or the impure or unclean, becomes dominant when Susano-o desecrates the realm and Amaterasu goes into hiding, soa ritual must be performed to restore things to their rightful way (Rusu 3). To this day, the sakaki continues to be used in Shinto rituals. Like in the tale, it is often given as an offering to kami and in purification rituals (Rusu 1). The sakaki is emblematic of Lady Rokujō’s spiritual nature, and perhaps is symbolic of an attempt at purification of her spirit following her murder of Aoi.
Spirit Possession and Womanhood in The Tale of Genji
Spirit Possession and Womanhood in The Tale of Genji
In many ways, Lady Rokujō’s spirit is a manifestation of the social anxieties and sufferings of not just the women of The Tale of Genji, but also of women of the Heian period. Heian Japan remained a patriarchal society, one with a particular social code. First, polygamy was common place, specifically among the aristocracy, of which the main character of The Tale of Genji are (Bargen 3). It was expected that men would take many wives, across which he divided his time and attention as he saw fit, much like Genji did (Bargen 3). Second, was the prevailing code of courtship, kaimami: “Peeping through a hole” (Bargen 3). Women were expected to be kept hidden from the views of men, and men were expected to try and “sneak a peek” at them, often times more than that (Bargen 3). Therefore, anxieties surrounding competition from other wives, neglectful husbands, or being violated would have been present among the class of aristocratic women of which most of the women of The Tale of Genji and Murasaki Shikibu herself are.
In her possession of Aoi, the spirit of Lady Rokujō is an expression, not only of her own social anxieties, but Aoi’s as well. Lady Rokujō is frustrated by the lack of regard Genji seems to have for her, not taking her as his wife, and humiliated by the carriage incident. Aoi has little relationship with her husband Genji, and is constantly neglected by him as he gallivants around with other women. Additionally, Aoi is going through childbirth, a particularly fragile time her given the time period and the conceptions of childbirth. Childbirth was something seem as “unclean,” as well as a state in which a woman was particularly susceptible to spirits (Bargen 6). So, when Lady Rokujō speaks through Aoi’s body to Genji to express her frustrations, it is also the voice of Aoi. Genji, however, assumes the voice to be Rokujō’s, once more neglecting the presence of Aoi (Bargen 83).
Lady Rokujō’s possession of Murasaki is similarly a manifestation of both of the women’s anxieties, but especially of Murasaki’s. Murasaki was taken by Genji as a child, raised and groomed by him, only for him to forcibly make her his wife. Furthermore, Murasaki is incapable of having children. She instead becomes adopted mother to the Akashi Lady’s daughter, Genji’s daughter by another one of his wives, and one he is vying to become the next empress. By the point of her possession, Murasaki has been through great trauma as well as anxieties over her place in Genji’s harem. It is perhaps the reason for Rokujō to resurface, Murasaki being at her weakest politically, and it serves as an expression of her distress, her being finally at her breaking point.
Lady Rokujō in Theatre
Lady Rokujō in Theatre
Noh theatre is based on ritual practices performances. These rituals consist of with two-part or one-part performances (Serper). In the two-part ritual, a medium enters a trance in which they are possessed by a spirit or kami, and someone calls upon the spirit to speak (Serper). In the second part, the medium appears in the form of the spirit manifested, wearing a mask and costume (Serper). Most Noh plays take a similar two-act structure. Furthermore, in these rituals, the medium is called the shite, and the summoner is called the waki (Serper). Likewise, Noh uses the same terminology, the shite being the protagonist, typically a spirit, and the waki being the deuteragonist, typically a priest (Serper).
Many tales from The Tale of Genji, were adapted into Noh plays during the medieval periods. Two particular plays about Lady Rokujō are Aoi no Ue and Nonomiya. In a typical Noh program, Aoi no Ue would be played following Nonomiya (Goff 125). In these adaptations, there is a shift in emphasis on Lady Rokujō’s anguish in particular, and the pacification and Buddhist salvation of her spirit, which is much more in line with the origins and aspects of Noh (Barnes 115).
Aoi no Ue tells the story or the Heartvine chapter in The Tale of Genji. However, many narrative changes are made. For starters, Genji is not even a character in this version, unlike the Tale of Genji, which is told from Genji’s perspective (Goff 126). Aoi is only represented by a robe on the floor, and in the end of the play her ultimate fate is left unanswered (Goff 126). Instead, the plays focuses on the spirit of Lady Rokujō, the shite, and her conflict with, and eventual pacification at the hands of Kohijiri of Yokawa, a priest and the waki (Goff 126). The conflict of exorcism of Lady Rokujō is the primary focus of Aoi no Ue, rather than the interpersonal conflicts between Genji, Aoi, and Lady Rokujō.
Nonomiya instead focuses on The Sacred Tree chapter, as well as the carriage confrontation that occurs in The Heartvine (Goff 129). The play starts many years after the events of the original tale, after Genji and Rokujō have passed, with her spirit telling her story to a wandering priest (Barnes 115). Unlike other versions of the story, Lady Rokujō is not vengeful or angry, rather she is a melancholy sprit who finds herself unable to leave the living realm (Banres 115). This is perhaps one of the more sympathetic portrayals of Lady Rokujō. In the second act, it flashes back to the carriage incident in The Heartvine. In the end, Rokujō simply gets back into the carriage and disappears, unable to release herself (Barnes 116).Once again, the emphasis is on Lady Rokujō and the suffering an danguish through which she is going through. Unlike Aoi no Ue however, Lady Rokujō is not put to rest in the end of the play, but her spirit continues to linger.
In the 1950s, there was an adaptation of Aoi no Ue of the same title, written by novelist Yukio Mishima (Barnes 117). This version updates the play to a modern setting, as well as shifting the focus away from exorcism, and bringing back Aoi and Genji. In this adaptation, Aoi is a patient in a psychiatric hospital (Barnes 118). Her husband Hikaru (Genji) is told that Aoi has been having terrible nightmares, and that she is being visited at nights by a well-dressed middle-aged woman, Lady Rokujō, a former lover of Hikaru’s (Barnes 118). Lady Rokujō entrances Hikaru in a dream while she confronts him about taking another lover (Barnes 118). Rokujō tells him that if he ever took a younger woman as a lover, her ghost would torment and eventually kill her (Barnes 118). Hikaru escapes the dream, but later Aoi dies (Banres 118). In this version, there is no peace for any of the three characters, there is no pacification or salvation, only suffering (Barnes 118). While less in the spirit of the original play, this take is perhaps more in line with the tale of the original novel, where none of the women really receive a happy ending.
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