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"Bride-Stealing" and Royal Power in Classical Japanese Literature by Aki Hasebe B.A., Kokugakuin University, 1992 A THESIS SUBMITTED LN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF ASIAN STUDIES We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA July 1999 © Aki Hasebe 1999 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. 1 further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of A S] (Xh Stud)?.S The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date July 26 . /99 9 DE-6 (2/88) ABSTRACT In premodern Japanese literature, we often find episodes that can be described as being about "bride-stealing": a man steals a woman to make her his mate. However, this kind of episode has not been focused on as a literary trope. This kind of episode is a literary tradition which we can trace back to the earliest written works in Japan, such as the Kojiki (721). This thesis aims to find out the connections between these earliest works and Heian fiction and the development of this literary tradition in relation to the trope of "bride-stealing." Turning my attention to the facts that the abducted women are usually related to the royal family, and that the noblemen who successfully execute their abductions seem also to be successful in their political careers after this event, I hypothesize that the concept of the trope of "bride-stealing" includes not only stealing a woman but also a stealing of the imperial power (pkeri) or right to rule. To examine whether this hypothesis is correct, I discuss the trope in the earliest works, the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki (720), and then I examine if my hypothesis applies to the "bride-stealing" episodes in each of the following premodern works: Tales oflse (early 10th century), The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo (ca. 990), The Tale of Genji (early 11th century), The Tale of Sagoromo (late 11th century) and Ariake no Wakare (late 12th century). I also examine the inter-textual relations between the episodes in these works. The episodes I examine seem to be based on the same trope, "bride-stealing," and it does in fact appear that these episodes have the same concept: in order to gain the power to control the monarchy, the protagonists steal certain women. Although its appearance in each episode is not exactly the same, it seems to be certain that all these literary episodes originate in the same "bride-stealing" trope. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Introduction 1 "Bride-Stealing" from an Anthropological and Folkloric Perspective 4 Earliest Works 8 Kojiki 19 Tales of Ise 24 The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo 32 The Tale of Genji 43 The Tale of Sagoromo 52 Ariake no Wakare 65 Conclusion 74 Notes 78 Bibliography 122 iii Introduction "Bride-stealing," or yome nusumi tan {W&fcm), is a narrative type, or wakei ) often seen in literary works of the Heian period: a man steals a lady in order to make her his mate. There are three representative examples among Heian works: Tales oflse (early tenth century) and The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo (ca. 990), and The Tale of Genji (early eleventh century). Episode Six of Ise reads: A certain man had for years courted a most inaccessible lady. One pitch- black night he finally spirited her out of her apartments and ran off with her. As they passed a stream called the Akutagawa, she caught a glimpse of a dewdrop on a blade of grass and asked him what it was. The journey ahead was long, the hour had grown late, and a torrential rain was pouring down, punctuated by frightful peals of thunder. The man put the lady inside a ruined storehouse and stationed himself in the doorway with his bow and quiver on his back, never dreaming that the place was haunted by demons. But while he was standing there longing for daybreak, a demon ate the lady up in one gulp. A thunderclap muffled her scream of terror. When the sky finally began to lighten a bit, the man peered inside and saw that the lady was gone. Frantic with helpless grief, he recited, Shiratama ka When my beloved asked, Nani zo to hito no "Is it a clear gem Toishi toki Or what might it be?" Tsuyu to kotaete Would that I had replied, Kienamashi mono wo. "A dewdrop!" and perished. (Watanabe, SNKS 2: 18-9; McCullough, 72-3) 1 As we can see, the lady is abducted by the man. Akiyama Ken suggests that the man gets the lady's consent before taking her away, but not the permission of her guardians.1 According to Akiyama, in this case, "stealing" should be considered a kind of elopement. In the next example chronologically, The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo, the Lady Ochikubo is stolen away by Michiyori, Major-General of the Bodyguard of the Right. They have been secretly married by the time Michiyori takes her away, and because he cannot endure Ochikubo's step-mother's harsh treatment of Ochikubo, he steals her away to his mansion. This stealing is done without telling her guardians, that is, her parents, but the Lady Ochikubo does not object to leaving her house. Also, Akogi, who is Ochikubo's attendant, feels pity for Ochikubo and once says,"I wish that I could persuade some paragon of a man to carry off!" (Inaga, NKBS 14; Whitehouse, 15), and she in fact helps Michiyori take Ochikubo away. Therefore, this episode too can be categorized as an elopement. However, since these two people have already been married, it is a little strange to consider it an elopement, which usually happens before a couple gets married. In the last example, The Tale ofGenji, Murasaki is stolen by Genji, the protagonist. Genji becomes interested in Murasaki because she resembles Empress Fujitsubo for whom Genji strongly longs. Without getting the consent of her father, Genji abducts Murasaki when she is small, raises her, and gets married to her "formally" after she grows up. It is obvious that the purpose of this abduction is not elopement, because when Murasaki is stolen away, she is too young to be Genji's bride or to understand what is going on. Since this stealing episode is not considered an elopement, is it different from the episode in he and Ochikubo ? As we have seen in these three episodes, we cannot generalize all episode of "bride- stealing" as elopement, but we can say that some sort of bride-stealing seems to be a frequent occurrence in Heian fiction. Takamure Itsue, a notable scholar of woman studies, analized this 2 kind of abduction episodes and said that "This stealing is interpreted as a synonym for the depth of love."" In other words, strong longing is the motivation for a man to steal a woman. This seems to apply to the episodes we have seen above, but since yome nusumi tan is considered a trope, there should be some common theme or aspects in these episodes.3 For instance, the basic plot of another well-known trope, kishu ryuri-tan, coined by Origuchi Shinobu, a well-known folklorist in Japan, is that a nobleman is exiled from the capital, usually due to transgression of sexual relations, wandering a strange land. Some become successful after overcoming many hardships, and some die but later are deified.4 Mitani Ei'ichi suggests that this exile is based on tsuka girei, or a rite of passage.5 In this way, tropes should have outlines and concepts, and in fact, "bride-stealing" episodes also seem to be a literary tradition which we can trace back to the earliest works in ancient Japan, such as the Kojiki (712) and the Ninon shoki (720), and there is also a common significance in these episodes: stealing a lady means stealing imperial power, or dken (US). The purpose of this thesis is then to find out the connections between the earliest works and Heian fiction and the development of this literary tradition in relation to the trope of "bride- stealing." As for the methodology, I would like to follow what Shimauchi Keiji suggests as a proper method for studying tropes, that is, "at first, as a working hypothesis, we assume a trope and then grasp to what extent we can inteipret concrete literary worlds by [applying the trope to literary works]." 6 Therefore, at first, I will discuss this concept in the earliest works, and later I will return to its appearance in he, Ochikubo, Genji and other works in the Heian period in order to discuss how these episodes relate to each other and how they develop through time. 3 "Bride-Stealing" from an Anthropological and Folkloric Perspective Before I begin the main discussion, I would like to explain the concept of "bride- stealing" from an anthropological and folkloric perspective in order to demonstrate that we should distinguish this kind of bride-stealing from the one in ancient Japanese literature. There seem to be some differences and gaps between the "bride-stealing" from an anthropological and folkloric perspective and "bride-stealing" episodes in ancient Japanese literature.

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