Mujer Heike

Harvard-Yenching Institute
Gi: Women and Performance in the "Heike monogatari"

Author(s): Elizabeth Oyler
Source: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Vol. 64, No. 2 (Dec., 2004), pp. 341-365
Published by: Harvard-Yenching Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25066745 .
Accessed: 26/11/2013 11:26
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Harvard-Yenching Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 150.244.9.150 on Tue, 26 Nov 2013 11:26:11 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Gio: Women and Performance
in the Heike
monogatari
ELIZABETH OYLER
Washington University
in St. Louis
MANY
of the Heike
monogatar?s
?M$}W?
most
complex
and
important
roles
are
filled
by
female characters.
They
repre
sent the home that is abandoned
as men
leave for
war,
and their
stories of loss and
longing
are
among
the tale's most
moving.
Yet
because
they
are
the
ones who remain to tell the
tales,
to
pray
for
the
dead,
and to make
sense of
a
world that has been turned
upside
down
by
war,
they
also
are
entrusted with the vital task of
turning
event into
history.
The narratives about them describe their varie
gated
responses
to a
devastating
event,
which
they experience
as
victims,
accidental
participants,
and
occasionally primary
actors.1
Of their
stories,
one
of the most
engaging
and
unique
is that of Gi?
8c?E,2
the
shirabydshi
O?S?3
performer
whose
rejection by
Taira
no
1
In most recitational Heike
variants,
the
predominant
feminine role serves as a counter
point
to the active warrior-males who move the
plot along.
Nonetheless memorable roles are
also
played by
female characters of
political weight (such
as
Lady Ike,
whose intercession
with
Kiyomori spares
the sons of Minamoto Yoshitomo
following
the
Heiji uprising
of
1159-1160)
or
military prowess
(such
as Kiso Yoshinaka's retainer
Tomoe).
The
prominence
of women in more active roles is further
pronounced
in non-recitational
variants,
which also
stress the
importance
of such historical
figures
as
H?j?
Masako.
2
Also written with the characters
HEE
(Hyakunijukkubon
W^+'^J^
variant)
and
ffiBE
(some
texts of the Kakuichibon variant
line),
or in
hiragana.
3
The term
shiraby?shi
describes both the
art,
which flourished
during
the late Heian
period,
and the artists who
performed
it.
Shiraby?shi
were female
performers
who
sang
and danced
dressed in male
garb.
341
342 ELIZABETH OYLER
Kiyomori
^Pifi?
leads to her renunciation of the world and retreat
to a
life of
religious
devotion.
That
the "Gi?"
episode
is also the
longest
and one
of the most famous in the Heike
repertoire suggests
the
particular significance
of this anecdote about
a
peripheral,
inde
pendent
woman as
she confronts the
oppressiveness
of the
rigidly
hierarchical world of the Heike.
Gi?'s
story
resonates for medieval and modern audiences because
it
explores complex
and vital themes. In the Buddhist
context,
"Gi?"
is
a
paradigmatic example
of the
"revelatory story" (hosshin
setsuwa
^frtffifS)
that is
a
crucial
component
of medieval culture: it traces
Gi?'s
falling
fortunes and her
consequent
transcendence of
worldly
preoccupations
as
she
overcomes
Kiyomori's rejection.
As
an ac
count of
independent professional
women
who find
strength
and
community
while
repudiating
a
male-dominated world that treats
them
as
objects
of
pleasure,
it is also
a
moving rendering
of the
dilemmas faced
by
the female
subject.
And in its
foregrounding
of
the act of
performance
as a
medium
through
which tales
are
told
and lessons
learned,
it
provides
valuable metatextual
commentary
on the act of
performance
itself.
The
trope
of
performance
in the "Gi?"
episode provides
an
impor
tant narrative framework within the Heike and the basis for this
study. Specifically,
I address the
multiple
levels
on
which scenes
of
performance
are used to articulate the themes of female
subjectivity,
transcendence of
worldly
concerns,
and the
recounting
of
history.
How does the idea of the moment of
performance
frame the indi
vidual
narrative,
and what can that
framing suggest
about its char
acters and their role in the
longer
narrative of this
key period
in the
cultural
history
of
Japan?
What is the role of the "Gi?"
story
in
other
genres
and texts that intersect with and influence the mean
ing
of the Heike? In
exploring
these
issues,
I focus
primarily
on
the
Kakuichibon
%^^
variant of the
Heike,
though
occasional refer
ence to other variants will be
necessary.
BACKGROUND: THE
"GI?" STORY IN THE HEIKE AND OTHER
MEDIEVAL CONTEXTS
The "Gi?"
episode
opens
with Gi? at the
peak
of her success.
Talented and
beautiful,
she is the
object
of the sustained attentions
GI? IN HEIKE MONOGATARI 343
of
Kiyomori,
under whose
patronage
she and her
family?her
mother
Toji
^
and her sister
Ginyo
#??;
are
also
shiraby?shi?have
prospered
for three
years.4
Her status
inspires
both
awe
and
envy,
and she finds herself in a
position
of affluence and influence. At this
point,
Hotoke
{?s,
a
young, extremely
talented
shiraby?shi
from
Kaga,
appears
at
Kiyomori's
door
hoping
to
perform
before the most
pow
erful
man in the realm.
Gi?,
assured of her
position
and
sympa
thetic to the ambitions of
a
fellow
performer,
convinces her lord to
receive the
young
woman. The fickle
Kiyomori suddenly
becomes
enamored of
Hotoke,
and Gi? finds herself
cruelly
cast out of his
household. She is further humiliated
by being
asked back months
later to entertain the
unhappy
Hotoke,
whereupon
Gi? resolves to
take the tonsure. She leaves the
capital
with her mother and sister
and is
eventually joined by
Hotoke. The four live out their lives in
seclusion,
reciting
Buddha-invocations in
hopes
of rebirth in
Amida's Pure Land.
The
story
of this
group
of
worldly
women
who embrace the
way
of the Buddha is
among
the most
compelling
and memorable of the
Heike
monogatari repertoire.
Within the
longer
narrative of how
Kiyomori's cruelty
and
inconstancy
will
eventually
lead to the de
struction of his
clan,
the
episode describing
his heartless treatment
of Gi? is but one of the most salient
examples
of his unfitness to
rule. Yet Gi?'s
story
stands out as
well because it transcends the
larger
narrative of
Kiyomori's
rise and fall. In this
episode
the
pri
mary
character is not
Kiyomori,
but rather
Gi?,
along
with her fel
low
shiraby?shi?her
mother,
her
sister,
and her rival-turned-com
panion,
Hotoke.
"Gi?"
appears
as a
discrete
episode
in numerous
variants of the
Heike
monogatari.
In addition to the
Kakuichibon,
the
primary
text
for Heike biwa
^P^SS
recitation and the base text for the
present
study,
"Gi?" is found in the Yashirobon
Mf^,
the
Hyakunijukkubon,
the
Genpei jdsuiki
S?^S?S,
and the
Enky?bon gE??^,5
the oldest
4
The Heike notes that
Kiyomori supplied
the mother with "a fine house
. . .
and sent her
five hundred bushels of rice and a hundred thousand coins
every
month." Helen C.
McCullough,
The Tale
of
the Heike
(Stanford:
Stanford
University Press,
1988), p.
30.
5
The Yashirobon is a late Kamakura recitational
text;
the
Hyakunijukkubon
a late
Kamakura or
early
Muromachi recitational
text;
the
Genpei j?suiki
a
later,
much
longer
Muromachi-period
text
generally
considered
part
of the "read"
(yomihonkei fft^T^)
variant
344 ELIZABETH OYLER
extant Heike variant.6
Although
one
important
characteristic used
to differentiate individual variants
as well as
the "read" and "recited"
lineages7
into which modern scholars divide them is the narrative
structure of individual
episodes,
the "Gi?"
episode
is recounted
fairly
consistently
in all versions.
In most
texts,
"Gi?" is
integrated
into the tale
just
as
Kiyomori
is
reaching
the
apex
of his
power?usually
between
"Kiyomizudera
ensh?"
fi7K##?-t
(The burning
of
Kiyomizudera)
and
"Tenga
no
noriai"
JStTSio
(Horsemen
encounter the
regent).
These
episodes
appear
early
in the first
chapter
and indicate that
Kiyomori's
for
merly flowering
fortunes
are
about to
turn,
thanks to his
flagrant
abuse of
power.8
Until this
point,
he has received
blessings
from the
Kumano
deity,
and he and his
progeny
have
enjoyed unprecedented
successes in the
socio-political
realm. "Gi?" either initiates
or con
tinues his
ensuing
descent: like
"Tenga
no
noriai,"
with which it is
often
paired,
"Gi?" illustrates
Kiyomori's personal
weaknesses.
Moreover,
it
generally precedes
an
episode indicating
the
larger
line
(discussed
in n.
7,
below);
and the
Enky?bon,
dated to
1309,
is treated
by
most schol
ars as the
quintessential
"read" variant text.
6
The
colophon
of the earliest
manuscript
dates it to
Enky?
$?J?
2
(1309).
7
Modern scholars divide the Heike into two variant
lines,
most
commonly
referred to as
the "read" variants and the "recited"
(kataribonkei fH^^)
variants. The distinctions between
these two
groups
are intended to
help
determine textual
genealogies
for a diverse set of man
uscripts,
all of which narrate the events of the
Genpei
War
(1180-1185)
in
sufficiently
sim
ilar terms to
categorize
them as variants of the same text. Under the
general
rubric of the
Heike
monogatari,
the read variants are not
part
of the
performance
tradition and are
orga
nized
differently
from those intended
specifically
to be
performed.
Yet the variant lines over
lap
to the extent that
many
individual variants or
episodes
within variants are difficult to cat
egorize definitively.
One salient
example
of this
difficulty
is the
Genpei j?suiki?its
stories are
complex, lyrical,
and
meandering, yet
it is classified as a "read" text. For a discussion of
Heike
lineages
that raises
questions
about this
model,
see Yamashita Hiroaki
L?T^^,
"Gen
Heike no
omokage"
J^W-M^te %)frVf,
in Heike
monogatari
hikkei
^Mty?tm'J&M,
ed.
Kajihara
Masaaki
SHClBH
(Gakut?sha, 1998), pp.
14-18.
8
Among
the texts that
place
the "Gi?"
episode
in a different
sequence
from the Kakuichibon
considered
here,
some Kakuichibon
manuscripts
elide it
completely,
and some
place
it instead
between
"Wagami
no
eiga"
^? Jfîj!
(Kiyomori's flowering fortunes)
and "Twice an
Imperial
Consort." In the
Yashirobon,
it is included as an
excerpt (nukigaki feJr);
in the
Enky?bon,
it follows "The Careers of
Kiyomori's
Children"
(whose
content is
equivalent
to
"Kiyomori's
Flowering Fortunes");
and in the
Hyakunijukkubon
variant,
it is divided into two
episodes,
"Gi?" and "Gi?
no shukke no koto"
??:ElBI|c(?
(Gi?
takes the
tonsure),
which are situated
between "Gaku-uchi ron"
^?TI?
(The quarrel
over the
tablets)
and "Horsemen Encounter
the
Regent."
social ramifications of
having
a
poor
ruler?the disorder that char
acterizes the realm in
"Kiyomizudera
ensh?" or "Nidai kisaki"
Hft
Jg
(Twice
an
imperial consort)
is inscribed in the Chancellor's
capri
ciousness in "Gi?"
(and "Tenga
no
noriai").
The one variant devi
ating significantly
in its
placement
of the "Gi?"
episode
is the
Genpei
jdsuiki,
in which it follows
"Miyako
utsuri"
f?j?
(The
transfer of the
capital),
another moment
implicated
in the narration of
Kiyomori's
inevitable fall.
Although
scholars
generally
consider its Heike manifestation to be
the earliest version of the "Gi?"
story, they
believe that it first existed
as an
independent redemption story
(djd
setsuwa
??Ê15????)
or
hosshin
setsuwa,
and that it entered the Heike biwa tradition
relatively
late.9
That the "Gi?"
story
was added to the Heike
repertoire belatedly
explains
not
only
its modular nature and
independence,
but also its
translatability
into other
genres;
in fact this well-structured and
memorable tale forms the basis for a
wide
variety
of
"sequels" (goki
dan
H?i!?), plays
within the n?
canon,
extracanonical
(bangai #^)
n?
plays,
and
origin legends.
"GI?:" THEMATIZATION OF PERFORMERS AND PERFORMANCE
Within the
larger story
of the
Heike,
"Gi?" shifts the narrative
focus from
Kiyomori's
rise within the established
governmental
hier
archy
to the
expression
of his
power
in the somewhat less
overtly
political
realm of artistic
patronage.10
This
episode specifically
iden
tifies
Kiyomori
as the
patron
of
a
group
of
shiraby?shi performers.
Shiraby?shi
came to the cultural fore and flourished
as an
elite fasci
nation
during Kiyomori's
lifetime. The art of the
shiraby?shi
derived
9
Tomikura
Tokujir? H"?Sê?,
Heike
m&nogatarizeneh?shaku
^PUc^to^?:IR
(Kadokawa
shoten,
1978),
1:119. Heike biwa is the term used to describe the recitation of
episodes
from
the Heike to the
accompaniment
of the
biwa,
or
Japanese
lute.
10
See Nakashima
Miyuki 4*?Ji^,
"Heike no
monogatari
wo
yomu: josei
no
monogatari
wo
t?shite"
?fMtD^M
D
rjK3>?&1?<?%Jfi?:j?lLT,
in Heike
monogatari kenky?
to
hihy?
?~M
^?MM^tWuW,
ed. Yamashita Hiroaki
(Y?seid?, 1996), pp.
242-46. Nakashima asserts
that "Gi?"
represents
a shift from
"public"
to
"private" power,
a
paradigm illustrating
the
incoherence of the Taira
as an
uji J3?,
a
necessary
condition for
holding political power.
She
argues
that the
Minamoto,
as
Genji ?SUS,
are
portrayed
as a coherent
uji
whereas the Taira
constitute
merely
a
household
(ke f?c).
She
suggests
that this is textual indication of their im
minent fall.
346 ELIZABETH OYLER
some
of its allure from what
seems to have been a
playful layering
of
gender
markers in
performance: they draped
the overshirt
(suikan
^K^p), high
cap
(eboshi Hfll^),
and
dagger (shirasayamaki Sffi#),n
which were
customarily
worn
by
adult male
functionaries,
over
their
own
(feminine) clothing
as
they
sang
and danced.
A central
part
of the
shirabydsh?s repertoire
was
the
singing
of
"modern
style" (imayd ^fil) songs12 accompanied by
the tsuzumi
U
drum or a
tapping
fan.13 About their
dancing
little is
known,
other
than that it
was
described in terms of
"counting" (kazou Wi&)
and
"stepping" (fumu j@?),
but their
garb suggests
a
possible
relation
ship
to the kinds of
bugaku
M^
danced
by
attractive
young
men and
celebrated in works like the
Genji monogatari.
The
newly popular shirabydshi
art is most
closely
associated with
Kiyomori's contemporary
and
ally-turned-rival
Go-Shirakawa,
the
retired
sovereign.
Himself
an
avid
practitioner
of
imayd,
Go-Shirakawa
compiled
the definitive text about
shirabydshi,
the
Rydjin
hishd
ÂOJ
#,
a
collection of
imayd
songs
with
commentary
on
the execution of
the
shirabydsh?s
art. This work
grants
aesthetic
authority
to what
seems to have been
a
peripheral genre.
It moreover
further
com
plicates
our
idea of
gendering
and
gender politics
within the art of
shirabydshi,
for it
places
women
performing
in male attire in an
ambiguous position: they
are at once under
powerful
male
patron
age
while
serving
as the teachers of their
patrons. By creating
his
own
written record of the
shirabydshi,
Go-Shirakawa carved out a
cultural
space
for both client art and
patron.
The art derived
impor
tance from both his
patronage
and his documentation of the art's
specialness,
and the concretization o?
shirabydshi practices
gave
him
a
describable aesthetic
practice
about which he could cast himself
as the
authority.14
Kiyomori eventually
was
alienated
entirely
from
Go-Shirakawa,
11
The
shirasayamaki
is
distinguished by
a
silver-inlaid hilt and scabbard.
12
A
popular
vocal
genre
in the late Heian
period. Imay? usually
consisted of four
couplets,
which alternated
seven-syllable
and
five-syllable lines,
like those included here.
13
Sugano
Fumi
if if^t,
"Go-Shirakawa-in
no
imay?"
?? OMISg^^S!
> in Amino Yoshihiko
et
al., eds.,
Ch?sei no
sairei?ch?? kara chih?
e?Eft?^l?f?L?tf1:?feA*l^flfc?f/>s
Taikei Nihon
rekishi
togein?
ft^B?M? t^f?
(Heibonsha, 1991),
4:55.
14
Terry
Kawashima,
Writing Margins:
The Textual Construction
of
Gender in Heian and Kamakura
Japan (Cambridge:
Harvard
University
Asia
Center,
2001),
p.
86.
but his initial rise to
power
was
sanctioned
by
the
sovereign.
The
two
enjoyed
a
long patron-client relationship
that,
prior
to the
Genpei
War,
was
mostly mutually
beneficial and seems to have
influenced Go-Shirakawa's interest in
shiraby?shi.
The
Ry?jin
hish?
kudensh?
^?f?fibP??,
the second ten
chapters
of the
Ry?jin
hish?,
identifies the two men as
companions
at
key
moments in Go
Shirakawa's initial
exposure
to the art.15 The text further
implies
Kiyomori's
role in
encouraging
the retired
sovereign's
interest dur
ing
a
royal pilgrimage
to the Itsukushima shrine. This
strong
asso
ciation
suggests
a-broad cultural affiliation between
Kiyomori (and
extremely powerful
men
like
him)
and the art of
shiraby?shi
that
medieval audiences
might bring
to bear
on
their
interpretations
of
the
"Gi?"story.16
This
relationship
between
Kiyomori
and
shiraby?shi
lies at the
heart of the "Gi?"
story. Moreover,
the
concept
of
performance
itself
delineates the
parameters
of the narrative
on a
number of levels.
Most
fundamentally,
"Gi?" is about
performance
and
performers:
its main
characters,
shiraby?shi,
and their
relationships
to each other
and to
Kiyomori
are defined in terms of their
professional personae.
Gi? and Hotoke excel in
a
specific
art that is
brought
to life in front
of
an
audience. Considered
by
some
scholars
as
representatives
of
a new
kind of
woman
(or
at least
a new
kind of narrative
subject),17
they
are
professionals
whose livelihood
depends
on
their
mastery
of
dance and
song.
Unlike the heroines of Heian
romances,
they
are
identified both in the Heike and the
Ry?jin
hish?
as
members of often
matrilineal
performance lineages
rather than the
daughters,
moth
ers,
or wives of men within the court
system.
As
part
of the recitational Heike
repertoire,
"Gi?" is intended to
be
performed.
Even when treated as a text
narrative,
its structure
15
Baba Mitsuko
WzWjJt^?r,
"Heike
monogatari
to
shiraby?shi" ^M^Qvm
?
?I??^P,
in Heike
monogatari kenky?
to
hihy?, pp.
224-25.
16
The link between Go-Shirakawa and
shiraby?shi
is also
spelled
out at the end of the
Kakuichibon account of
Gi?,
which notes
that, following
their
timely deaths,
"'the
spirits
of
Gi?, Ginyo, Hotoke,
and
Toji' [were]
inscribed
together
on the memorial
register
at Retired
[Sovereign]
Go-Shirakawa's
Ch?g?d? Temple."
See
McCullough, p. 37; Tomikura, p.
140.
Although
the document can still be found at
Ch?g?d?,
it is
widely accepted
as a
fake, rep
resenting
one of the
many places
where Heike narrative
spawns authentic-looking
documen
tation that in turn
"proves"
the
history
it asserts.
17
Baba, p.
219.
348 ELIZABETH OYLER
is overlaid with the
musical,
recitational idiom of Heike biwa. It is
also
among
a core
group
of Heike narratives that have been
adapted
to the n?
stage.
Its
strong performative
character allows it to be eas
ily
animated in this other
performance
arena.
Finally,
Gi? is
one
of
several Heike
episodes exhibiting
a
fairly
clear
degree
of self-reflex
ivity:
the
porous
boundary
between narrator and narrative
subject18
serves to blur further the distinction between the
diegetic
and the
extradiegetic realms,19
as an
inquiry
into the
use of the
performance
trope
reveals.
The "Gi?"
episode exploits
the richness of the
concept
of
perfor
mance most
fully
when
employing
various
performance
scenes to
enable
important
actions in the
story.
The narrative in fact
pro
gresses
in a
sequence
of mise
en
abyme:
Hotoke's initial recital of
imayd
and dance before
Kiyomori;
Gi?'s
composition
of
a
poem
as
she
leaves
Kiyomori's
mansion;
Gi?'s
imayd singing
after she is called
back to entertain
Hotoke; and,
as a
reformulation of the idea of
per
formance,
the women's recitation of Buddha invocations that
brings
the
episode
to a
close. The first three
scenes take
place
in the same
performance space?Kiyomori's mansion?although
the roles of
performer
and audience
change markedly.
The last
scene
introduces
a new
locale,
which is intimated
by
a
complete reorganization
of the
performance
space:
the
sparse
hut of the
religious
recluse in the hills
replaces
the
worldly grandeur
of
Kiyomori's
mansion in the
capi
tal. Each scene
represents
a
reinterpretation
of the
preceding
one,
adding layers
of
signification
to the ideas of
performance, performer,
and audience/observer. The
progression
of these four
scenes
demon
strates the effect this
structuring
has
on
the narrative and
our abil
ity
to
interpret
it.
The first
performance
is initiated
by
Hotoke,
who wishes to dis
18
Hosokawa
Ry?ichi
Sfljllie?',
Heike
monogatari
no onnatachi:
dairiki, ama,
shiraby?shi ^Pff;
^}^(DtCTz^?^:t}
/g ?ffi^f
(Daishind?, 1998), p.
80. Hosokawa discusses narra
tor/character
permeability
within medieval
performing
arts associated with women
perform
ers. This sort of conflation of
perspective
is also exhibited in numerous other
episodes
involv
ing
characters who share the
shiraby?shVs
role as
performer,
be
they specific performance
artists
(including Senju
no Mae and Shizuka
gozen
ffM?M??)
or
the bereft
performing
reli
gious
rites for a deceased loved one
(Ario
?f 3E,
Tomoe
E, Kumagae
Naozane
JHIO?E^,
and Kenreimon'in
j?ft.P'?lS
are but a few
examples).
19
I use the terms
"diegetic"
and
"extradiegetic"
as
defined
by
G?rard Genette in Narrative
Discourse: An
Essay
in
Method,
trans.
Jane
E. Lewin
(Ithaca:
Cornell
University
Press,
1980).
play
her art before
Kiyomori,
the most
powerful
man
in the realm.
Although
she has received acclaim since
arriving
in the
capital
from
Kaga,
she has not been summoned to
perform
before
Kiyomori.
Therefore,
following
the "usual custom of entertainers"
(asobimono
no
narai
jfi#GQfe?>?>),
she
simply
appears
at his
gate, requesting
an
audience.20
The word that
McCullough
translates here as "enter
tainer" is asobimono
jfi#,
which is used
consistently throughout
the
Kakuichibon variant to refer to the
shirabydshi.21
Like the
many
other
expressions
used to
categorize performing
women
in this
period,
"asobimono" is
a term used with
some
variation
across
the
spectrum
of medieval literature and drama to evoke
a
variety
of
images.
It
alternatively
means the rootless
wanderer,
the
woman
who makes
her
living by trading
on
her
charms,
and the
professional perform
ing
woman. In this
passage,
asobimono
encompasses
shirabydshi,
but
its
polyvalence problematizes
some
prominent juxtapositions
em
bedded in the narrative. Most evident is that of the itinerant female
professional performer
versus
the static aristocratic
male,
but the
text also
implicitly challenges
the conventional
pairings
of static and
dynamic,
center and
peripheries,
men
and
women,
subject
and ob
ject,
and audience and
performer.
The dissonance between the
aso
bimono's actions and
Kiyomori's expectations
is
instantly
obvious:
he orders his
men to throw her
out,
claiming,
"Entertainers like her
are not
supposed
to
present
themselves without
being
summoned.
What makes her think she
can
simply
show
up
like this?"22 For
20
McCullough, p. 31;
Tomikura
p.
120.
21
As with
many
other terms used to
designate non-aristocrats,
asobi(mono)
is neither so static
nor monolithic as has often been
thought.
The
diversity
and
ambiguity
of the idea of the
asobi and the
degrees
to which it
overlapped
with other
concepts
used to frame the idea of
performing
women,
includingy?jo j6j?C,
asobime
ffi^C, kugutsu {Jlfi, shiraby?shi,
etc.,
are dis
cussed in
Kawashima, pp.
27-48. The
picture
is rendered more
opaque
because
among
the
performers' range
of activities
was
prostitution.
A modern bias
against prostitution
has often
pushed
all
performing
women to the
peripheries
of
society
and
power,
where mid-twentieth
century scholarship
believed that
prostitution necessarily belonged. Kawashima, responding
to Amino Yoshihiko and
others,
asserts that this value
judgment
is anachronous. The
process
of
retrieving
the asobi and
placing
them in the numerous contexts in which
they
were found
in late-Heian
Japan
remains
an
ongoing scholarly
endeavor;
acknowledging
the
possibility
that Gi? was seen
by
medieval audiences not
simply
as a
peripheral prostitute,
but rather as
an
integrated
and
sophisticated
member of
Kiyomori's
salon,
amplifies
the
poignancy
of the
story.
22
120.
350 ELIZABETH OYLER
Kiyomori,
the difference between himself and the asobimono is clear:
he is the master and
they
are
people
who must do his
bidding.
Gi?
counters his criticism of Hotoke's forwardness
by reminding
Kiyomori
that it is the
common
practice
for entertainers to call with
out
invitation;
she asks that he
permit
Hotoke to
perform.
The
piece
thus
opens
with
a
discourse
on
the
profession
of the
shirabydshi,
articulated in
large part by
Gi?.
By contradicting
Kiyomori,
she defines the
parameters
of the art: its
practitioners
commonly request audiences, and,
she
implies, they
set the terms
of each
performance.
The art
purveyed by shirabydshi
affords the
per
former both
mobility
and
agency.
Gi?'s definition undermines
Kiyomori's understanding
of the nature of the
relationship
between
himself
as male
powerholder
and Hotoke
(and Gi?)
as female aso
bimono,
precisely
because it asserts a
kind of
subjectivity
for asobi
mono
that he has been
unwilling
to
recognize.
Immediately preceding
Gi?'s assertion of asobimono
identity
is
a
brief narrative
digression describing
the status o?
shirabydshi
as
estab
lished artists: the narrator breaks into Gi?'s
story
to name
the first
practitioners
o?
shirabydshi
and
explain
the
origin
of the term.23 The
analeptic
insertion of
a
story
about the
origin
of
something
is
a con
ventional rhetorical
technique
used
throughout
the Heike and other
medieval narrative to assert historical
legitimacy
for it. In Gi?'s
tale,
as
elsewhere,
it serves to create the
sense of
temporal continuity
nec
essary
to establish artistic
authenticity.24
In the
GenpeiJdsuiki,
which
claims
Lady
Li
^#?A,
Yang
Guifei
1SJ|#B,
and
Wang Zhaojun
3:
23
Although
the
original Japanese shiraby?shi
cited here
appear consistently
across the Heike
variants, they provide
a
conflicting
view with that
posited by
Yoshida Kenk? in
Tsurezuregusa.
Kenk? claims Iso no
zenji
Wi<DW%
as the
originator
of the
art,
where the Heike variants and
the
Ry?jin
hish? assert Shima
no Senzai
?If^p??c
and Waka no mae
?Efft??-
The
origin story
for
the term
"shiraby?shi"
cited here is familiar in other texts but
probably
incorrect; many
schol
ars
believe that the character used for shira
originally might
have been
it,
"unadorned" or
"simple,"
a reference to the
simple rhythmic (rather
than
melodic) accompaniment
used for
the
performers'
dance
(Tomikura^p. 125).
Some sources
describing shiraby?shi performance,
most
famously
the Gikeiki
(l?^pB,
mention flute
accompaniment
as well.
Although
it is
uncer
tain whether the flute was
standard, optional,
or
only
recorded in fictional
accounts,
flute
players
are often included in
pictorial representations
of
shiraby?shi performances
from the
Edo
period.
24
This sort of
analeptic
reference can be found
throughout
the Heike to establish
(often
con
tinual)
historical
presence
for an art or an
object (a
sword,
musical
instrument,
etc).
0?ff
as
the first
shirabydshi,2^
the
technique
also
provides
an
oppor
tunity
to define Gi? and her
compatriots
as
descendants of the
great
Chinese beauties. The Kakuichibon traces the
history
of the shira
bydshi only
within
Japan,
but
by initially casting
Gi?'s
story against
the
backdrop
of
Kiyomori's capriciousness
and his
unseemly
attach
ment to
Gi?,
it too alludes to the
archetypal Yang
Guifei
story,
in
which
an
emperor's
infatuation with
a
beautiful consort leads to his
abandonment of his
political
duties and the fall of his
regime.
Con
sidering
Gi?'s
experiences
as a
variant of
Yang
Guifei's
represents
a
first
step
into
exploring
the
complexity
of the asobimono
as a nar
rative
subject,
as I shall show.
Acceding
to Gi?'s
request, Kiyomori
allows Hotoke to
perform,
whereupon
Hotoke is ushered in to the
performer's place
before
(and
below)
the lord and those assembled at his mansion.26
Ironically,
it
is not Hotoke's
attempt
to choose her audience but Gi?'s immobil
ity?her
status as a
dependent,
a
member of
Kiyomori's entourage?
that enables Hotoke to
perform. Kiyomori
allows Hotoke to
per
form not because
she,
a
young upstart,
has
come
calling,
but because
his
charming
and
gentle dependent
has
urged
him to
indulge
her.
This thus recasts
(and drains)
Hotoke's assertiveness.
Kiyomori
reinforces his control of her
performance by telling
Hotoke,
"'I
ought
not to have received
you
today;
I am
doing
it because Gi?
chose to make
a
point
of it.'"27 In
situating
himself
as
the male
me
dium
through
whom Gi?
speaks,
he
usurps
not
only
Hotoke's inde
pendence,
but Gi?'s
as
well?all communication is funneled
through
him. He
requests
that Hotoke
sing,
and the first
performance
scene
begins
with her
chanting
of a
felicitous
imayd:
&ffi(Dmf?%Mm\zmzjttstifoTM&tbti
25
Mizuhara
Hajime
tKJK-^ ed.,
Shintei
Genpeijosuiki
^T/E?fl?^P?S?^ptl
(Shin jinbutsu
?raisha
Sr?ftfi?#tt,
1988).
See 2:312.
26
The text remarks on the reaction of "all who watched and
listened,"
implying
a
sub
stantial audience. Illustrated texts from the
Tokugawa period depict
Gi? and several courtiers
in
attendance,
probably
an accurate
representation
of what an earlier audience would have
imagined
for the scene as well.
27
123.
352
ELIZABETH OYLER
Now that it has encountered
this lord for the first
time,
it will live
a
thousand
years?
the
seedling pine
tree.
Cranes
seem to have
come
flocking
to
disport
themselves
where Turtle Island rises from the
garden
lake.28
The
song
seems to be
a
variation
on an
imay?
from the
Ry?jin
hish?
describing
Mt. H?rai
H^,
the Taoist land of the immortals.29 Hotoke
draws the
analogy
between this
heavenly setting
and the realm under
Kiyomori's
control in order to
praise Kiyomori.
Her addition of the
concrete
image
of the lord
(kimi if),
which is not
present
in the
Ry?jin
hish?
text,
emphasizes
his role
as
both master of the realm and
patron
of her art. He
protects
the
seedling
and creates an
environment
where cranes can
play;
he
provides
the
setting
that the
shiraby?shi
need to survive. Within the
imay?,
Hotoke re-creates the
heavenly
realm as a mirror
image
of the
rigid hierarchy
of the real world: at
its
pinnacle
is the lord
upon
whom all beneath him
depend. By
reaching
outside the
song per
se and
initiating
a
dialogue
with her
audience about her
relationship
to that audience
(and Kiyomori
in
particular),
the
performer
focuses the listeners' attention
on
the
posi
tions of
performer
and audience vis-?-vis each other
as well as to
the
performed imay?.
The artist
emphasizes
the
dynamic possibili
ties of her art within the individual circumstances of a
specific perfor
mance?Hotoke has
manipulated
the
performance
text to
recognize
Kiyomori
as her
specific
audience. The artist's
ability
to
improvise
so
skillfully
is as much the contents of the
performance
as
the
song
text itself. The
imay?
is a success?the assembled courtiers
are
28
123. This
imay? appears
in the other variant texts as
well. The
Hyakunijukkubon,
however,
follows her dance
performance
with the recitation of
the additional waka:
?Wft&hh^Z t\t*&5 <\tÔ/P<D&Tfg?^1&g\ZftQ
(In
the vernal echo of the cuckoo's
song:
that our lord shall
reign
one
hundred
years!).
Mizuhara
Hajime,
ed.,
Heike
monogatari, j?
^fMQfawi-h-
In Shinch? Nihon koten sh?sei
$T$B 0 ^"?fftHlt?iG
(Shinch?sha, 1979), p.
60. This text also includes one more
poem by
Gi? as she
prepares
to
return to
Kiyomori's
mansion to entertain Hotoke.
29
The
Ry?jin
hish?
poem
is:
â^^S??J^T??S^ntf/Sti-reSflf?*v^T?B
iZWaZ-^T?&fctl
("At
the base of Turtle
Mountain,
which endures
through myriad years,
the
spring
is
deep.
/ In the moss covered
grotto
the
pine grows
old and the cranes
disport
among
the
branches").
Note that
here,
the "lord" of Hotoke's
song
is absent. Cited in
Tomikura, p.
124.
moved.
Kiyomori,
too,
is
enraptured,
but
we
later have
cause to
wonder
why.
Was it her
voice,
her
thinly
veiled
praise
of
Kiyomori,
her
beauty,
or
simply
his
acquisitiveness
that moved him? He next
asks to see
her dance. As he watches her
graceful
movements,
he
decides to make her his
own.
This first
performance
scene
articulates Hotoke's relative value
and
desirability
in terms of her skills
as an
artist: she is
beautiful,
it is
true,
but she also has
a sweet voice and flawless
intonation,
and
dances with
grace.
While this characterization in no
way suggests
that
Kiyomori's
attraction is limited to the theoretical realm of
art,
it does aestheticize the erotic attractiveness of the
performer
in
spe
cific terms: it is her
movements,
her
voice,
and her
appearance
that
he finds
alluring.30
Unlike the heroines of Heian romances
whose
desirability
stemmed from
being
hidden,
Hotoke's value
depends
on
being
seen.31 And her
performance
further enables another kind
of
display. Kiyomori,
the
sheltering
lord,
is the
object
of the
(osten
sibly) adoring gaze
of those who receive his benefice: the
shiraby?shi,
certainly,
but also the members of his household and his
greater
entourage; people
who,
like Gi? and her
family,
prosper
because of
him. Both
parties overtly
desire to be viewed: Hotoke and
Kiyomori
each validate and
empower
themselves
by becoming
the
objects
of
others' attention. The
performance
space
of
Kiyomori's
mansion
enables this elaborate and multileveled
performance
of
power?
Hotoke's
mastery
of her art
(and
her
audience),
and
Kiyomori's
of
the realm. For
Hotoke, however,
displaying
herself results in the
loss of
independence:32 Kiyomori
has her taken to a room in his
mansion,
where she finds that she has
usurped
Gi?'s
place.
More
over,
Gi?'s harsh dismissal at this
point
calls into
question
the char
acterization of
Kiyomori
as
the
sheltering
lord. He not
only expels
her,
but also cuts off his financial
support
to her
family.
30
It should be noted
again
that the dress of the
shiraby?shi
imitated adult male
garb; part
of the
allure, therefore,
stems from the
permeability
of
gender identity
embodied
by
the shira
by?shi.
While on one hand this
may point
to the inherent
transgressive
attraction of
play
with
gender,
I think it
more
importantly emphasizes
the
theatricality?the
aestheticized artificial
ity?of
the
professional
woman on
display.
31
In both
cases, however,
women
display
their
mastery
of arts to
suggest
their
possession
of cultural
capital.
The
multiple
forms that cultural
capital takes,
and the various
ways
it can
be
used, represent
one shared
aspect
between aristocratic wives and
peripatetic
women enter
tainers that make
juxtapositioning
them difficult.
32
Baba, p.
238.
354 ELIZABETH OYLER
After Hotoke's
dance,
the
scene
shifts
immediately
to the
private
quarters
of
Kiyomori's
mansion. Hotoke has" been taken there and
made to understand that she
may
not
leave,
despite
her wish to do
so.
She
attempts
to defer to
Gi?,
but her concern
about Gi?'s feel
ings prompts Kiyomori
to dismiss his former
favorite,
to whom he
sends "three
separate
messengers"33 ordering
Gi? to leave at once.
It
appears
here that Hotoke and
Kiyomori
are
together
in the inti
mate
space
of her
new
quarters,
while Gi? has been sent alone to
her own.34
Kiyomori again
has
usurped
the
agency
of the two women
as
performers by demonstrating
that he
can remove
them from the
public eye. Further,
he
once more
short-circuits direct communi
cation between the two women
by isolating
each of
them,
misinter
preting
Hotoke,
and then
using
Hotoke's
request
to be dismissed
as
an excuse to cast Gi? out.
Upon receiving Kiyomori's
messages,
Gi?
prepares
to leave im
mediately. Although
in
great distress,
she
manages
to clean the
room
and,
as
she
leaves,
she brushes
a
poem
on
the
door;
the narrator
notes that this is
"perhaps
to serve as a
reminder of
one who had
gone."35
The
poem
is a
waka,
scribbled
on a door of
a
soon-to-be
vacant room. It is
a
performance
of a
very
different kind?a silent
but
permanent
text,
enacted in
privacy,
left for
a
potential
future
audience whose
response,
presumably,
will be unknown to the
author.
Gi?'s
poem
speaks
in
near-transparent metaphor
of the situation
faced
by
the two women:
Since both
are
grasses
of the
field,
how
may
either
be
spared by
autumn?
the
young
shoot
blossoming
forth
and the herb
fading
from view?36
33
126.
34
The shift in scene in the Kakuichibon is
abrupt
and does not state that the location has
changed,
but,
based
on other
renderings
of the
story,
scholars
generally agree
that Hotoke
has been removed to
private quarters
here. See
Tomikura, p.
126.
35
126.
36
126. This
poem appears
as well in identical form in
GI?
IN HEIKE MONOGATARI 355
At
once
sorrowful and
ominous,
this waka laments the fate of the
fading
Gi? and
suggests
a
similar future for Hotoke in
light
of the
universality
of the
process
of
decay.
The
images
of
autumn,
degen
eration,
and sorrow contrast
markedly
with Hotoke's earlier felici
tation,37
but
they
also
point
to the
importance
for
performers
like
Hotoke of
showing
themselves. Gi?
regrets
and warns
of the
inevitability
of
"fading
from
view,"
the ultimate and unavoidable
cataclysmic
fate for artists
dependent
on
being
seen.
Without
an
audience,
performance signifies nothing.
The next scene of
performance
differs
strikingly
in tone from
Hotoke's debut
at-Kiyomori's
mansion. The scorned Gi? has
se
cluded herself in her mother's
house,
refusing
the attentions of ad
mirers who
hope
to benefit from her loss of
Kiyomori's patronage.
Although
set
free,
she is uninterested in
asserting
her
agency
as a
performer.
Even
Kiyomori's
summons
does not at first draw her
out;
she
clearly
wishes not to be
seen. Her mother's frantic
urging
in
response
to
Kiyomori's
veiled threats
finally brings
her
forth,
and
she returns to the exact same
space
where Hotoke had first
per
formed. The scene is
identical,
but the
configurations
within it
are
reversed: whereas Hotoke had asked for
an
audience,
Gi? is coerced.
Hotoke
now
occupies
a seat of relative
honor,
and Gi? is forced into
the
position
of the hired entertainer of whom
Kiyomori spoke
so
dismissively
when Hotoke first
appeared.
As in the earlier
scene,
Kiyomori
is
bestowing
a
gift,
but this time it is not
requested;
he
himself decides that
a
performance by
Gi? will be
appropriate
for
Hotoke
(which,
of
course,
it is
not).
Humiliated
by
the seat to which she is
directed,
Gi? does not re
ceive
an
apology
or
any
conciliatory
words from
Kiyomori;
he
non
chalantly (and seemingly
without
guile)
requests
her to
perform
an
imayd.
She
suppresses
her tears and
sings:
the other variant texts. The
stability
of the
poem may
stem from the
episode's
late
entry
into
the
general
Heike narrative.
37
The contrast is more
pronounced
with the
image
of the cuckoo's
spring
call in the waka
included in the
Hyakunijukkubon.
356 ELIZABETH OYLER
In
days
of
old,
the Buddha
was
but
a
mortal;
in the
end,
we
ourselves
will be
Buddhas,
too.
How
grievous
that distinctions
must
separate
those who
are
alike in
sharing
the Buddha-nature.38
The word she
uses for "Buddha" is
a
pun
on
Hotoke's
name,
which
draws
specific
attention to the conflation of Hotoke's
identity
with
that of the
Buddha,
an
important
association
particularly
in
light
of
the Buddhist
revelatory
message
of the
episode.39
It further demon
strates
again
the
witty spontaneity
that marks the skillful
practi
tioner's
performance.
Gi?'s tone is
simultaneously plaintive
and sar
castic,
but in both
extremes,
it is
a
challenge
to
Kiyomori:
she denies
the distinction between mortals
(herself)
and the Buddha
(Hotoke),
emphasizing
instead their shared nature.40 This
comparison
echoes
the shared fate of the
grasses
and
new
herbs in the waka she left be
hind when she
departed Kiyomori's
mansion. Gi?
subtly suggests
that the distinction between the two women is
artificial,
the conse
quence
of
Kiyomori's faltering patronage
and his
capricious
taste.
Now,
as if to demonstrate the
inadequacy
of his
powers
of discern
ment,
he
responds inappropriately.
Unlike the
"many
Taira senior
nobles, courtiers, gentlemen,
and samurai
[sitting]
in
rows
looking
on"41 who shed tears of
sympathy
for Gi?'s
particular plight
and the
cleverness with which she
weaves
it into the
imay?, Kiyomori
finds
the
song
diverting, deeming
it "an excellent entertainment for the
5542
occasion.
In the
larger
framework of the
Heike,
the Gi?
episode
is
one in a
series of stories
illustrating
that the world under
Kiyomori's
control
is amiss. Also
indicating
that the world has fallen into
disarray
are
38
131. This is a
slight
variation on the
Ryojin
hish?
poem:
tl.
Cited in
Tomikura, p.
133.
39
This is the second
occurrence of the same
pun;
when she first
appears
at
Kiyomori's
door,
he turns her
away, noting
that he has interest in
receiving
neither
"god" (kami f$)
nor
"Buddha"
(Hotoke ?A).
40
The content of Gi?'s
imay?
is
strikingly
darker,
more
resonant,
and
perhaps
more mature
than
Hotoke's;
it
might
be seen as a
demonstration of the older woman's
depth
of character.
41
McCullough,
p. 35; Tomikura, p.
132.
42
132.
his
rapid
rise in
rank,
the
unprecedented
success of his
progeny,
his
establishment of
a
network of
spies
to ensure
his continued
power,
and the
belligerent
behavior of his
offspring
to their betters.43
Kiyomori's inability
to discern the
meaning
of Gi?'s
song points
to
his
generad
failure to understand the destructiveness of his self
aggrandizing
behavior. In his obliviousness to the
meaning
of Gi?'s
song,
the
hegemon
demonstrates that he is
an
unworthy
audience,
lacking sophistication
and
subtlety.
He cannot read between the
lines,
and his assessment of the
piece
as "an excellent entertain
ment"
suggests
further that the
song's
least nuanced
meaning?the
ultimate
meaninglessness
of
earthly
distinctions and the
ubiquity
of
Buddha-nature?is lost
on
him. He is too
busy
with
worldly
affairs
to notice
even
this
irony.
He
provides
a
stark contrast to his son
Shigehira,
who,
later in the
tale, responds skillfully
and
sensitively
to the
equally apt
r?ei
?fjHc44
and
imay? performance
of another female
performer, Senju
no mae
^p^f?f.45
In this
scene of
performance,
then,
Kiyomori
comes
up
short. His
inadequate powers
of discern
ment
suggest
his
uncouthness,
his unfitness
as a
patron,
and his
larger incapacities
as a
ruler. For her
part,
Gi? is disabled
as a
per
former?Kiyomori
leaves before she has
a
chance to dance. She is
not
given
the
opportunity
to be
seen as
Hotoke had
been,
and this
performance
is
a
failure where Hotoke's had been
a success.
At this
point
in the
narrative,
the restrictiveness of the
perfor
mance
space
becomes
increasingly
clear.
Hotoke,
whose blithe free
dom
gave
her the
ability
to come to
Kiyomori's
door
unbidden,
is
trapped
in
genteel captivity
within his mansion. She becomes his to
display;
his
ability
to have the best
performer
in the
capital appear
on demand at his home further enhances his
prestige (which
he
demonstrates
through displaying
his
custody
of
her). By acquiring
43
Tomikura, pp.
116-17.
Baba, p.
221.
44
R?ei was a kind of
song
that consisted of
couplets
of Chinese verse or waka
accompanied
by
Chinese instruments.
45
Senju
no mae and Hotoke
possess
names
suggesting
their roles in
facilitating
a
step
to
higher understanding
for those around them. This has been remarked
upon
by Baba, p. 220,
and Yamashita Hiroaki in Katari to shite no
Heike
monogatari
f? 0 ?
UTO^P^feM
(Iwanami
shoten,
1994), pp. 123-26, among
others. Gi?'s
name,
although
not
explicitly
connected to
a
unique deity,
is often written with characters
implying
connection to
divinity (d, |jj).
The
kanji
?5
connotes her
femininity
and her
identity
as an
entertainer;
the
potential
for
sliding
between the two indicates
a conflation of the
earthly
and the divine.
358 ELIZABETH OYLER
him as a
patron,
Hotoke has lost control of her freedom to choose
her audience. She
appears
on
his
terms,
for audiences of his choice.
Cast out ofthat
position
of
privilege,
Gi? is nevertheless also sub
ject
to
Kiyomori's
whim. If he calls
her,
she must
go
or
face
poten
tial
expulsion
from the
capital altogether.
She is left in
a
bizarre
po
sition of
apparent
freedom within actual
captivity.
The male restricts
the female's movement
(her subjectivity)
and her
ability
to choose
her audience
(how
and
by
whom she is
objectified).
He
manipulates
her
capability
to show herself
freely,
which is in turn a
display
of
his
own
potency.
She is seen
only
when he
looks;
it is the
gaze
of
the male
subject
that activates the female
object.
In this
situation,
Gi? is left with the usual
options:
submit
to
Kiyomori's
will
explicitly,
or
resist it
through
suicide
or
withdrawal
from the secular realm. Given that she is
constitutionally
unable to
submit
further, only
these extreme choices remain. She
prefers
the
first,
arguably
more
dramatic,
possible
form of
resistance,
but is
urged by
her mother to reconsider. The
remaining option,
which
she
takes,
is still drastic: all three
women?Gi?,
her sister
Ginyo,
and their mother
Toji?become
nuns and retreat to a
hut in
Saga
to recite Buddha-invocations.
The final
performance
scene
closes the "Gi?"
episode:
the
women
are
secluded in
a
hut in
Saga chanting
Buddha-invocations. On the
most obvious
level,
the new
performance space
is that of the recluse
oriented toward the other
world;
the audience is
represented by
the
Buddhas before whom the
women
perform
their
prayers.
It is
a com
plete,
if
familiar,
reversal of the conventions of the earlier
imay? sing
ing
before
Kiyomori. By leaving
the
capital,
the
performing
women
have abandoned their
art;
by cutting
their hair and
becoming
nuns,
they
have further denied their sexual
viability,
a
characteristic that
had
previously
been
important
in
defining
them
as
both artists
and,
more
generally,
women.
Although
this
change
in
appearance,
like
their earlier
cross-dressing, represents
a
conventionalized alteration
of
gender marking (cutting
the hair
signaling
a
disguising
of the
"feminine"),
it is intended to deflate rather than enhance sexual
attraction. The desexualization affects not
only
their individual iden
tities
as
performers
and
women
but also their
art,
as
the matriarchal
lineage
of
shiraby?shi
is
replaced by
the
anti-lineage community
of
celibate
nuns,
and their art of
song
and dance
by
Buddha-invoca
tions. Gi?'s
suggestion
of the shared nature between mortals and
Buddhas
comes to fruition here in the conflation of debased
per
forming
woman
and
heavenly being
that is familiar in medieval
tales,46
and
a
Buddhist
reading (which
is
certainly viable)
would also
point
in the
same
direction. The failed secular
performance
ulti
mately
frees Gi?
spiritually.
One
evening, just
at
dusk,
the
nuns
hear
a
knock
on
the door of
their brushwood hut.
They
fear
a
malicious
spirit,
but,
placing
their
faith in the
Buddha,
they
open
the
door,
only
to discover
Hotoke,
who,
though
at the
height
of her
career,
has chosen to leave
Kiyomori's
mansion and take the tonsure. Gi?'s
poem
has found its
audience: Hotoke
recognized immediately
the truth of Gi?'s
words,
and from that
knowledge
drew the
strength
to leave. This silent
mes
sage-passing
is the first actual
sign
of direct communication between
the two women.
Hotoke
begs
Gi? to
forgive
her for the
misery
that
her
appearance
at
Kiyomori's
door has caused.
Gi?,
moved
by
the
young
woman's
ability
to renounce
the world without
having
expe
rienced
any great suffering,
is able to let
go
of her
bitterness,
and
the four live out their lives
together
in the hut in
Saga.
Each enables
the other to embrace
fully
their shared Buddha-nature and
pursue
their
goal
of rebirth in
harmony
and
peace.
In this final
scene, then,
the first
performance
is
reinterpreted
once more.
Hotoke
again
appears
of her
own
volition
and,
although
the inhabitants
are
afraid,
they willingly
invite her in. Unlike
Kiyomori, they
overcome
their hesitations
through
trust in the
Buddha,
and
they
are rewarded: the
reconciliation,
and indeed iden
tification,
between Gi? and Hotoke facilitates
a
complete
release
from
earthly suffering
for all the
women.
Performance
provides
the
metaphor through
which the
path
to Buddhist
enlightenment
can
be articulated. This visit of the
Buddha-as-performer,
Hotoke,
has
a
different outcome from her visit to
Kiyomori.
As an
allegory
for
Buddha's
truth,
she
brought Kiyomori
the
opportunity
to benefit
from her
presence,
but he used her for
display,
someone to fulfill
46
This is
implicit
in the aforementioned
naming
of Hotoke here and
Senju
no mae
later
in the
Heike;
it also underlies stories of
performing
women
revealing
themselves as Buddhas
or
bodhisattvas,
or
achieving
rebirth
(?j? Q:*?) through
the recitation of
imay?,
a common
topic
of setsuwa at the time. See
Kawashima, pp. 49-72; Baba, pp. 234-37; Tomikura, p.
119.
360 ELIZABETH OYLER
his
earthly
desire to demonstrate his
own
(earthly) power.47
Indeed,
at first he received Hotoke
grudgingly;
his interest
was
piqued only
when he
began
to see her
as
his
possession. Although
he invited her
in,
he stifled her rather than
actually entering
a
dynamic
and
pro
ductive
relationship
with her. Her
presence represented
an
op
portunity
for
development
as an
individual,
deepening
his under
standing
of his
surroundings
and
ultimately
the
growth
in his
relationships
with the
people
around him. But
instead,
he allowed
the
performer-audience relationship
to
operate
as
nothing
more
than
a
show.
In
contrast,
Gi? in this final
performance
scene overcomes her
fears,
places
trust in the
Buddha,
and is rewarded
by
the
appear
ance of
Hotoke,
who enables her release from
earthly
attachments.
Gi? is
a
receptive
audience for Hotoke's
performance:
Hotoke's
rejection
of the world and
request
to be taken in
move
Gi? to a
higher
level of
compassion.
For her
part,
Hotoke relies
on
Gi? for
release?it
was
Gi?'s
poem
that led her to realize the
futility
of
attachment to her
identity
as a
young,
talented
performer.
Theirs
is
a
mutually dependent
and
mutually
beneficial
relationship,
in
which the
productive
interaction between audience and
performer,
and even
the
interchangeability
of these
roles,
allows this
perfor
mance to be successful. The
illusory
distinction between
performer
and audience
disappears,
and the two become
one
voice,
embody
ing
the
imayd
Gi? had
sung
earlier.
The
metaphoric significance
of
performance
animates other the
matic concerns as well. "Gi?"
is,
after
all,
a
story
about
perform
ing
women and the
man
who both observes them and
manipulates
their destinies. From the
outset,
their identities and
relationships
are
inherently complex
and contested. As
performers,
Gi?, Hotoke,
Ginyo,
and
Toji
inhabit both
subject
and
object positions.
In enact
ing
a
song
or
dance,
they
exert
agency, giving
voice
(as
well as
indi
vidual
nuance)
to their
subject
matter. As
professionals, they
work
for
a
living, supporting
themselves in
a
way
that is not
merely
so
cially acceptable
but also desirable?for the
highest-ranking
men
of
47
Their
relationship, notably,
contrasts
starkly
with the
passionate
romances of the tale:
Kiyomori
here
displays
none of the devotion and romantic
longing
of avowed lovers like the
Sovereign
Takakura or Taira
Koremori,
to name but two.
the land
recognize
the
shiraby?shi
as
purveyors
of
a
meaningful
art.48
Yet
they
must be
objectified
to be successful:
they
are valued as aes
thetic markers and sexual
objects,
and
being recognized
as such nec
essarily
results in
compromising
their
mobility.
In conventional
interpretations
of the well-ordered
realm,
the
duality
and
fluidity implicit
in the
identity
of
shiraby?shi represent
a
potential danger. Shiraby?shi
occupy
a
special
social stratum that
can
easily
bleed into others and
disrupt
order. Uneasiness about this
sort of
disruption provides
the
impetus
for the "Gi?"
episode:
Kiyomori,
like the Chinese
emperor
Xuanzong,
has
placed
a
courtesan in an
inappropriate position.
Yet whereas
Emperor
Xuanzong's beguilement
with
Yang
Guifei is the
cause of social and
political upheaval, Kiyomori's
infatuation with Gi? is
merely
one
symptom
of the
larger disarray
into which he
already
has thrown
the world?the
ascription
of fault to
Kiyomori
alone here
presents
a
radical reassessment of the chain of
causality
in the
disintegration
of the realm
as
well
as a
challenge
to the idea of what order
really
means.
At the heart of this
reinterpretation
of the
cause
of societal tur
moil lies
a
refiguring
of the idea of the femme fatale. While it is
tempting
to
say
that the "Gi?"
episode represents
a
simple
contrast
of Gi?
as a
saintly
heroine
versus
Yang
Guifei
as a
vain
seductress,
the
overwriting
of the older
story
is
more
complex.
Gi? and Hotoke
embody
Buddha-nature
precisely through
their
alluring beauty;
their
goodness
cannot be
separated
from their worldliness.49 The confla
tion of the
holy
and the
worldly
is essential to their
identity,
as most
clearly
illustrated
by
Hotoke:
allegorically,
she is a
hotoke?a Bud
dha?whose
ability
to
bring
truth
depends
on
her
mobility
and desir
ability
as a
performing
woman. In this
respect,
she is
a
conventional
character
type
from the hosshin setsuwa tradition. Yet in the Heike
her
story
is
placed
within a variant of the
Yang
Guifei
story
with
Gi?
seemingly
at its heart. Her
appearance
disrupts
the
expected
Yang
Guifei
story
line about
a
woman's unassailable
power
over a
48
There is
suggestion
in the
Ry?jin
hish?,
as well as in other
stories,
that
imay? represented
one route to
enlightenment. Certainly,
the
religious pieces (h?mon
no uta
f?StJ?f?)
within the
imay? repertoire provide
one
explicit example
of this connection.
49
The ideal of the miko
M.?C,
a
religious performing
woman,
provides
an
analogous figure
that
might
have been
a touchstone for medieval audiences.
362
ELIZABETH OYLER
man,
as
Kiyomori's
attentions turn
swiftly
from Gi? to Hotoke: the
fundamental
problem
with the world is not the
presence
of a
vain
seductress who holds
a
ruler in her
thrall,
but rather the
capricious
ness of that
ruler,
whose
passions
flit from
one
object
to another
without
any
thought
of
consequence
or
responsibility. Allegorically,
Kiyomori
is
given
the chance to
recognize
the
futility
of his
own
path by
the arrival of the Buddha/Hotoke. Yet his
response
is not
to
accept
her
performance
but rather to
acquire
her
as
his
own. He
is thus able to maintain his
position
of
privileged viewing:
he receives
her
performance only
on
his
own
terms,
asserting
his
subjectivity
in relation to her
as
his
object.
In a context in which identification
between audience and
performer (and subject
and
object)
is the
goal,
Kiyomori
is
a
failure. It is the
objectified
women
themselves rather
than the male
subject
who
represent
a
good
audience for each other's
performance. They
can move
beyond
a
static
subject/object
di
chotomy
whereas the
observing
male cannot.
In this
respect,
the Gi?
story provides
a
potentially
harsh criti
cism of the established
story
line. The two women
claim for them
selves
(and by
association other
women
who have
preceded
them,
including Yang Guifei)
a different role in the destruction of the
realm. Because their
subjectivity
is
repressed,
the realm is in
danger.
Only by removing
themselves from the
daily
commerce of
worldly
concerns can
they ultimately
find solace and
recuperate
some sem
blance of
autonomy.
And
even
this retreat from
Kiyomori's
power
center is insufficient to restore
harmony;
the realm descends into
war
despite
the absence of
distracting
influence
over
the
power
holder. The women's fate is as
optimistic
as a
pessimistic
situation
will allow.
Although they
find Buddhist release and some sense
of
equilibrium,
the
price
is
extremely high.
In
shaking
loose their
earthly
attachments,
they
are also forced to cast
away
what
was most
fundamentally
their
own: their shared art and their individual tal
ents. As
performers, they
are
silenced. In an
episode placed
in the
context of
a
performed
narrative,
few other fates could offer such
damning commentary
on
the state of Gi?'s world.
The
performance metaphor
thus extends into the
extradiegetic
realm of the interaction between Heike biwa
performer
and audience.
The Heike biwa
performer
is,
after
all,
a
real-life incarnation of the
same sort of character
as
Gi? and Hotoke. He makes
a
living by
appearing
before
an
audience and
reciting
a
complex
tale. Like the
imay? performed
within the
episode,
the Heike itself embraces what
moderns divide into secular and sacred
(if
on a
larger scale).
It is
equally requiem
and
"history,"
meditation and entertainment. Heike
biwa
performers
mediated not
only
between
story
and
audience,
but
also between the
present
and the other worlds of both the
spirits
and
the historical
past.
The
performance represents
a moment that
embodies these various
extremes,
enacting
them
as a
coherent,
mul
tifaceted whole.
The
identity
of the
performer
of the Heike biwa text thus
slips
eas
ily
from the
extradiegetic
realm of the medieval
stage
to the
diegetic
one
of Gi? and
Hotoke,
leading
the audience into
a more
fluid rela
tionship
between its
own
reality
and that of the
story.
In its invita
tion to
identify
with both the
episode
and the
larger
historical tale
surrounding
it, however,
the
telling
of the tale also makes
an
impor
tant claim about the nature of
spectatorship.
The medieval audi
ence
is
given
the
example
of
a
bad audience in
Kiyomori,
who insists
on
maintaining
a
hierarchy
of
viewing
in which he is
always
the
superior (male)
viewer and
performers
are
inevitably
inferior,
fem
inized
objects
of his
gaze.
The "Gi?"
episode
deconstructs the idea
of hierarchical
viewing
and rehabilitates the audience in
more
egal
itarian
(and clearly Buddhist)
terms. The nature of
spectatorship,
like the nature of
reality, depends
on a movement
beyond
such hier
archical
relationships
that allows
a
dynamic engagement
with the
apparent oppositions
of
subject/object, male/female,
and viewer/
viewed.
One
potent
ramification of this textual self-awareness is the
way
it
brings
the audience into
relationship
with the
larger
historical
issues narrated in the Heike. A work
describing
a
catastrophic past
event,
the Heike both
brings
to life and
puts
to rest the demons of
the
past.
As a
memorial to and of the
war,
it
provides
the
degree
of identification between audience and
story necessary
to ensure a
sense
of cultural
continuity.
And in
activating
this sort of identifi
cation,
it
emphasizes
the
vitality
of the medium
through
which it is
articulated. We
are
always
aware
that
identification,
and movement
through
the
boundary
between
our
world and that of the
narrative,
is facilitated
by
the
performer.
"Gi?"
provides
a
particularly
strik
ing example
of how the
performer
in
performance negotiates
that
364 ELIZABETH OYLER
boundary, allowing
the audience to maintain its connection to the
past
while
living
in the
present.
CONCLUSION: "GI?" IN CONTEXT
As
a
Heike
episode,
the "Gi?"
story
exhibits
a
high degree
of inter
nal
cohesion,
and
although
it
operates
within the
longer
narrative
to elucidate
a
central
theme?Kiyomori's
rise and fall?it also
re
tains its
individuality, making
it
a
good
candidate for wholesale
movement to other
genres
and texts.
Plays
about Gi? and Hotoke
appear
in both canonical and extracanonical
n?;
they
also
are
por
trayed
as
heroines in
origin
stories associated with
temples
and other
specific
locales. Not
surprisingly,
Hotoke is
an
important figure
in
the
region
that
was once
Kaga (modern-day
Ishikawa
prefecture);
Gi? has taken
on
narrative life in
modern-day Shiga prefecture
and
other locales. Most of the stories affiliated with them
beyond
the
Heike
repertoire
narrate other events in their
lives,
some of which
are
incompatible
with the basic narrative of the Heike?the women
go
on to wander about the
country,
or
Kiyomori
does not
figure
at
all in their stories.50 Yet
a core
identity
is carried
through
all of their
tales: the
women are
invariably
talented
shirabydshi
who
perform
such
good
deeds
as
insuring
that
a
well is
dug,
or
caring
for
a
par
ent.
They
are
inevitably
wanderers. The recurrence of certain motifs
(filial piety, generosity,
and
mobility
as
performers)
suggests
the
great degree
to which the
core
characters and characteristics of Gi?
and Hotoke had
permeated
a
variety
of socio-cultural milieux and
extended
across
broad
geographical
terrain,
epitomizing
what
Barbara Ruch has termed medieval
Japan's
"national literature."51
As Ruch
points
out,
the
purveyors
of this literature
are
the mobile
performers
of the Muromachi
period, professionals
not unlike the
shirabydshi
described in "Gi?." It is not
surprising
that
shirabydshi fig
50
Hosokawa, pp. 58-74,
discusses several of these.
51
Ruch situates
Japanese medievality
in the Muromachi
period,
a
designation
I follow
here.
Although
the nature and
chronology
for
"medievality"
in
Japan changes depending
upon
what cultural
aspects
are
stressed,
for Ruch and other scholars of
emergent
broad-based
popular
culture,
the
early-
to mid-Muromachi
period
is the most fertile site. See Barbara
Ruch,
"Medieval
Jongleurs
and the
Making
of
a
National
Literature,"
in
Japan
in the
Muromachi
Age,
ed.
John
W. Hall and Takeshi
Toyoda (Berkeley: University
of California
Press,
1977), pp.
279-309.
GI?
IN HEIKE MONOGATARI 365
ure as
subjects
in
many
of the tales that circulated
widely
and were
imbued with the flavor of the
peripheral
tale-tellers.
That
performance
is thematized within this
widely circulating
cul
tural narrative further
suggests
the
vitality
of
performance
as both
medium and
message.
Although
as a
lowest common
denominator,
the
poignancy
of the "Gi?" narrative
certainly
must have moved
audiences,
the
centrality
of the
metaphoric
use
of
performance
indi
cates other
important
characteristics of the "national literature"
as
well. It embraces
a
model of
spectatorship
that
encompasses
a
much
broader
segment
of
society
than did models of
spectatorship
in
ear
lier arts. It criticizes the
stifling
nature of elite male
patronage by
Kiyomori, questioning
as
it does
so the
hierarchy
of
gender
that
feminizes
(and lessens)
both
performer
and,
more
broadly,
all other
social
categories
beneath the male aristocrat. In the context of
a
world in
flux,
where members of
a
newly emergent
non-central soci
ety
were
attempting
to reestablish their shared and individual iden
tities in
response
to various kinds of social and
political
turmoil
(the
Genpei
War,
the establishment of the
politicized
office of
sh?gun,
the external threat of the
Mongol
invasions,
and the
rending
of the
imperial
line
during
the Nanbokuch?
period),
this is
a
vital
asser
tion of
subjectivity
from beneath. Narratives like "Gi?"
were
impor
tant in
suggesting
ways
of
organizing
and
interpreting experiences
that would be both
intelligible
and
meaningful
for audiences. As a
performance
art that validated
viewership by
non-aristocrats and
invited them into
dialogue
with
performers,
"Gi?"
represents
a new
and radical
interpretation
of the role of
performing
arts,
perform
ers,
and
spectators
in the
emergent
medieval
Japanese
culture.

Mujer Heike

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Mujer Heike

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Harvard-Yenching Institute

Gi: Women and Performance in the "Heike monogatari"

You might also like