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Text | Reading Jun
It is abominable before death, and it is lovely after death.
Mourn this East Hedge Chrysanthemum, which was jointly supported in that year. This autumn flowers are dewy, and only one person's clothes are wet. One flower and one tree, the old people planted each other. It's a fool's errand to think about.
INTERVIEWER MURASAKI SHIKIBU, Genji's Pottery
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Mr. Cao Yu, known as China's "Shakespeare", once described an impressive "forbidden love" that transcends morality and ethics in the work "Thunderstorm", that is, the unclear relationship between Xuan Yi as a stepmother and his stepson Zhou Ping, that is, the so-called "mother-child love".
Zhou Ping, as the eldest son of the Zhou family, and Xuan Yi as his stepmother, the difference between the two is only seven or eight years old. The two lived under the same roof, and the old father was often not at home, so the two seemed to have a natural reason to be together.
"Thunderstorm" Xuan Yi and Zhou Ping Stills
Although both of them felt deeply remorseful and full of contradictions in their hearts, they could not restrain their impulses and broke the taboos of secular ethics. Afterwards, Zhou Ping was ashamed of herself: "I am sorry for myself, sorry for my brother, and even more sorry for my father." However, although he was ashamed of himself, it was only "duplicitous", and Zhou Ping had a strong possessiveness for his stepmother.
Later, Ma Xuanyi also deeply blamed herself, but although the woman complained and complained, she still loved Zhou Ping crazy.
Since ancient times, stories with such "Oedipal" and "Oedipal" plots, whether they are domestic or foreign literary works, can find such a shadow. Wei Xuangong in the "Left Biography" married his mother-in-law Yi Jiang as his wife and gave birth to Gongzi Qianzi. Ironically, after the urgent son became an adult, Xuangong again fell in love with his son's daughter-in-law, was fascinated by her beauty, and took her into his account and became his concubine, known as Xuanjiang. After Xuangong died, his son stubbornly married Xuanjiang again...
The chaotic relationship of this family can be described as subverting the three views, which makes people stunned.
Similar to the deformed love description of Xuan Yi and Zhou Ping and Xuan Gong's family, there is a novel in Japan that portrays this relationship description vividly, this novel is "The Tale of Genji", this novel is regarded by many as the originator of "love novels", in front of it, Qiong Yao's mournful "romance novels" that are sought after by thousands of young girls can only be eclipsed.
"The Tale of Genji" is the earliest novel in the history of world literature, and also the pinnacle of ancient Japanese literature, written between about 1001 and 1008, about 300 years earlier than China's earliest novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and nearly 500 to 600 years earlier than the earliest novel in Europe, "The Legend of the Giants".
The novel is regarded by the Japanese as a "national treasure", calling it "unique, unprecedented, and unparalleled." Many scholars refer to it as the Japanese version of Dream of the Red Chamber. However, objectively speaking, compared with "Dream of the Red Chamber", the portrayal of "power and desire" in "The Tale of Genji" is obviously more bold.
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What exactly does The Tale of Genji say?
The female writer Zi Shibu, the author of The Tale of Genji, once served as a court official, and this writer spent millions of words depicting the ups and downs of more than 400 characters (nearly 300 female characters) in the three dynasties of the time for more than 70 years. The book describes the erosion of the royal family and nobles, the exquisite life, and the intertwined emotional atmosphere between men and women. It can be said that this is an encyclopedic work that reflects the style of Japan's Heian period at that time, and the scene of court and aristocratic struggle.
The first protagonist of the novel, Guangguang Clan, has a dignified appearance and outstanding appearance, and has been handsome and lovely since he was a child, and at that time, even the people who had seen a wide range praised his beauty: "There is such a jade person who has come to the world!" ”
Like most rich children, this brother has not escaped labels such as "greed" after all. Of course, in addition to Mu Se, he is also very "obsessed". As many as 15 women who have emotional disputes with him are clearly described in the novel, and there are countless women without explicit names.
Many people compare the hero of Genji in "The Tale of Genji" with the protagonist Jia Baoyu in "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the protagonist Ximen Qing in "Jin Ping Mei". Indeed, his body has the general infatuation characteristics of Jia Baoyu, Genji is a considerate and gentle, understanding woman, and erotic person, he appreciates women, whether it is appearance, posture or personality. And he is also a greedy person, not only loyal to "monogamy", but lingering among women, no different from Ximen Qingqi.
Genji's origins were bumpy. Genji's biological mother, Kirito Changer, a low-born changer (a low-ranking female official serving the Emperor), was favored by Emperor Kirito because of her beauty and versatility, and later gave birth to Genji. However, the status of Tongju Changing was not high, because it was deeply favored by the emperor, so that the nobles at that time compared Tongju Changyi to Yang Guifei of China, and hated it to the bone.
Because the emperor was obsessed with changing clothes for the tongju, it caused the dissatisfaction and jealousy of many concubines. In the end, Kirito changed clothes under the pressure of years of squeezing and slander, and died of depression and illness, leaving the 3-year-old crown prince Genji. Due to the death of his mother and the lack of powerful foreign relatives as a patron, it was difficult to gain a foothold in the palace, and Genji was eventually demoted to a vassal by the emperor.
After the death of Tongju Changing, the Emperor's thoughts about changing clothes were not curtailed in the slightest. At this time, a woman with outstanding appearance, noble status, and a look similar to tongju changing clothes broke into the emperor's vision, this person was the fourth imperial daughter of the former emperor, barnacles. Everything looked almost perfect, and the emperor's thoughts about changing clothes could not help but turn to the barnacless and remarry her home. And this woman, genji's stepmother, can be said to be the beginning of Genji's "enlightenment".
The young Genji, who had been following the emperor's side, heard that the barnacles looked exactly like their birth mother, and could not help but have a different sense of affinity for barnacles. Over time, this sense of closeness turns into admiration, attachment. Unlike the many elderly concubines around the emperor, barnacle was one of the most fancy concubines at that time, with a shy appearance on weekdays, and genji often dodged shyly, and the two were only a few years apart.
When Genji reached his teenage years, the court held an adult ceremony for him. Now that he had become an adult, Genji could no longer enter the beaded curtain of his stepmother's barnacles as he had been a child. The teenager's thoughts about barnacles can only be comforted by the occasional sound of barnacles coming out of the curtain.
However, the two often stayed in the palace, and eventually the incident occurred across the thunder pool, and barnacles gave birth to a son for Genji. The child born became the Emperor of Cold Springs, and barnacles also relied on their son to "rely on their mothers to be precious". However, this is not the happy ending of the story, because of the special relationship between the two, this forbidden love is doomed to be fruitless.
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Genji and Jia Baoyu of "Dream of the Red Chamber" are somewhat similar, Genji, like Jia Baoyu, has a noble and glorious status in his life, especially with his son Lengquan Emperor born to his mother barnacles, and his status has been promoted to the status of quasi-Emperor Taishang.
However, Genji was not willing to be a magnate, but wandered among women from all walks of life. Because he couldn't love and couldn't bear the love and desire for the harem barnacles, he set his sights on the girl who looked exactly like the harem barnacles, and this girl was the niece of the barnacles, the illegitimate daughter of Prince Bingbu Qing, Zi Ji. In order to pin his thoughts on the barnacles that he thought about day and night and could not see, Genji even snatched Zi-hime away, adopted her as an adopted daughter, and raised her according to the standards of the lady, and took it for himself when the girl first grew up.
When Genji first met Zi-hime, he commented:
"This girl is of noble birth, of good character, of no jealousy at an early age, of easy union with people, and I can raise her to grow up as I please."
This method of losing morality and ethics for love is extremely frightening.
However, Genji is a popular figure, and although he loves Zi ji deeply, he is not only satisfied with Zi Ji. Genji steals incense everywhere and wanders among many women. For example, he had a private meeting with the right minister's daughter, Tsukizuki, and sneaked into the room of Kuki Izumi's stepmother Empty Cicada in the middle of the night, and used all kinds of rhetoric to trick the Empty Cicada, and even rudely forced it, and even carried the Empty Cicada into his bedroom, and even his aunt Rokujo Concubine, who was 7 years older than him, was also the object of his pleasure.
After marriage, the wife Zi ji often stayed alone in the empty room, for which women once had jealousy and sighs, jealous of those women whose love skills were far better than their own, and lamented that their husbands were not dedicated enough to themselves.
Objectively speaking, Genji's behavior of chasing flowers and butterflies and indulging in life is despised by morality. However, in the eyes of the Japanese, it is regarded as a kind of love. Genji's debauchery, the various women around him have basically no complaints. Of course, this "tolerant" attitude has a lot to do with the early Marriage Customs of the Japanese.
The so-called marriage custom, that is, the wife still lives in her own mother's house after marriage, and the husband will visit the wife regularly and live together for a period of time. This marriage custom is very similar to the marriage of the Mosuo people of the ethnic minority in Yunnan, China, where the man sneaks into the woman's home at night, leaves at dawn in the early morning, or lives together for a period of time and then returns to his home.
Second, this is also related to the Japanese aesthetic taste of material mourning. The Japanese are good at associating the growth and change of natural things with people's sadness and joy, which is somewhat old. However, the Portrayal of this aspect by the Japanese is obviously more mournful, and there is still a big difference between the transcendent thinking of Lao Zhuang in ancient China.
Purple Shibu, the author of "The Tale of Genji", is particularly good at this aesthetic creation of material sorrow, and it is a must. In describing the relationship between men and women, the author describes a kind of "mysterious enlightenment" of the changes between people and the four seasons, a kind of emotional fluctuations of grief, sadness, and impermanence of the world.
For example, it is described that women, after experiencing the great pain brought by love, chose to become a monk in order to stay away from the red dust and hope to regain the peace of mind, including barnacles, empty cicadas, rokujo concubines, and shimeme, all of whom have had emotional interweaving with Genji. This culture of mourning can be found in Japanese films, television dramas, and literary and artistic works.
Junichi Watanabe, Japan, once said in the novel "Paradise Lost": "Men and women cannot get too close, and too close to love will become a negative burden." ”
This sentence is most appropriately used in the description of the relationship between men and women and the narrative of material sorrow in the Tale of Genji.
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It can be said that "The Tale of Genji" is indeed a great and unique exemplar of oriental literature. This novel is not only about the ambiguous relationship between men and women, but also shows the culture and customs of Japan, customs and customs. The novel ushered in the era of "material mourning" in Japanese literature and profoundly influenced many Japanese writers and artists in various fields, including Yasunari Kawabata, Hayao Miyazaki, and Soseki Natsume. If you want to understand Japan and understand Japanese culture, The Tale of Genji is a very good reference book.
On the market, translations of the Tale of Genji are not uncommon, most of which were translated in the last century, and the words and sentences are relatively classical and obscure, and the reader is more difficult to read. Among the many editions, Mr. Zheng Minqin's new translation is recommended by Mr. Zheng Minqin, which has been continuously revised and improved, and the language usage is more in line with the reading habits of current readers, and does not lose the rhyme and reading beauty.
And the book also added contemporary Japanese painting master Okada Motoshi exclusively authorized 54 color illustrations, exquisite pictures, through the illustration readers can more intuitively feel the life of The Japanese Heian period aristocrats at that time.
In addition, this new translation adds nearly a thousand annotations, covering all aspects of politics and economy, social customs, marriage system, etc., which can better help readers understand and understand the relevant content knowledge. In addition, this translation is a large folio, and the inner text is bound with a lock line, which is more convenient to read and more comfortable to read.
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