Court Women in Poetry Contests - Bundy

Josai University Educational Corporation
Court Women in Poetry Contests: The "Tentoku Yonen Dairi Utaawase" (Poetry Contest
Held at Court in 960)
Author(s): Rose Bundy
Source: U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, No. 33 (2007), pp. 33-57
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press on behlaf of Josai University Educational
Corporation
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42771966
Accessed: 03-06-2019 14:39 UTC
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.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Josai University Educational Corporation, University of Hawai'i Press are collaborating

with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to U.S.-Japan Women's Journal
This content downloaded from 143.106.200.111 on Mon, 03 Jun 2019 14:39:11 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Court Women in Poetry Contests:
The Tentoku Y onen Dairi Utaawase
(Poetry Contest Held at Court in 960)
Rose Bundy
Readers of the early eleventh-century Genji monogatari, Makura no sõshi, and Murasaki
Shikibu nikki are well aware of the role that women of the rear palace played in the
aesthetic life of the Heian court. Murasaki Shikibu's (d. 1014?) Genji reenacts countless
occasions on which women performed music, devised competitions, and commissioned
and took part in religious and other sorts of rituals. Her diary, and even more so Sei
Shönagon's (still living in 1017) Pillow Book, portray women accustomed to assessing
their world aesthetically, categorizing and judging nature, objects, and persons. We need
only recall Murasaki's appraisals of her fellow ladies in the entourage of the consort she
served- or Sei' s numerous lists and her attenti veness to those moments when she has
met some aesthetic challenge. It is likewise well known that these women who served the
consorts played a role in the power relationships in the palace. The consorts whom
Murasaki and Sei served were the daughters of two members of the Northern branch of
the Fujiwara, also known as the sekkanke , the lineage of the Fujiwara from which
chancellors and regents emerged. The fathers of the consorts, Michitaka (953-995) and
his brother Michinaga (966-1027), competed with each other to become the maternal
grandfather of an emperor by, among other things, gathering talented and beautiful women
to serve their daughters. Whether through literary skills, witty repartee, or simply by
Rose Bundy is Professor of Japanese Language and Literature at Kalamazoo College. She has
published several studies on the poet Fujiwara Teika, most recently "Solo Poetry Contest as Poetic
Self-Portrait: The One-Hundred-Round Contest of Lord Teika's Own Poems," in Monumenta
Nipponica 61, nos. 1 and 2 (2006). At present, she is continuing her work on Teika and on the place
of women poets in waka practice.
© 2007 by Jõsai International Center for the Promotion of Art and Science, Jösai University
34 U.S.-Japan Women's Journal No. 33, 2007
entertaining courtiers who came to call, these women worked to enhance the appeal of
their establishment to the emperor, thus increasing the likelihood that he would visit
frequently.
An aspect of the involvement of court women in the aesthetic and political life of
the court that is less widely known- and one that predates the rise of the literary salons of
the consorts of Emperor Ichijö in which Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shõnagon, and others
thrived- is their participation in poetry contests ( utaawase ). One of the many aesthetic
amusements of the Heian aristocracy, in which both men and women took part, the
poetry contest pitted two teams, the Left and Right, against each other as they brought
poems into competition before a judge. Focusing primarily on the Tentoku Yonen Sangatsu
Sanjūnichi Dairi Utaawase (Poetry Contest Held at Court on the Thirtieth Day of the
Third Month of Tentoku 4; hereafter "the Tentoku") of 960, this paper elucidates the
substance of court women's role on that occasion. As was common in tenth-century
poetry contests, the team members of the Tentoku were not the poets who composed the
verses for the contest. Thus this study examines the contest as an occasion of court
pageantry acted out by male courtiers and by women of the rear palace who were
members of the two opposing teams, rather than by the poets (whether male or female)
from whom compositions were solicited.1 1 consider what roles court women played in
the pageant of an utaawase from its planning stages to its enactment. A reading of the
Tentoku utaawase records opens a fascinating window onto how women spent their days
(and nights) in the Heian court.
At the same time, a fuller understanding of the significance of the Tentoku only
emerges when it is examined in relation to the configurations of power in the court in
which it was embedded. Thus the 960 poetry contest is considered here not merely as an
aesthetic event but as a pageant of imperial power and as an opportunity for consorts, the
women who served them, and the consorts' natal families to advance their own agen-
das-that is, to attract and sustain imperial interest. Organized by imperial command, the
Tentoku demonstrated in its rituals the emperor's power to command the resources of the
court, both human and material; with courtiers assigned roles and seating according to
rank and post, the utaawase also visually reenacted the hierarchical relationships among
the members of the court. At stake for a consort and her family, of course, was the
attention of the emperor and the birth of a prince who could be named heir to the throne.
Thus, as we will see, the utaawase was an integral part of the sexual/political competitions
in which the consorts and their male backers were engaged.2
Rose Bundy 35
The discussion below of women's place in the Tentoku is informed by insights

offered by John Wallace's study of the Murasaki Shikibu nikki in his monograph Objects
of Discourse, and by Carole Cavanaugh's analysis of the significance of clothing and the
textile arts in the Heian court.3 In provocative ways, both scholars situate women's
aesthetic concerns and activities within larger frameworks of power relations- between
genders and among other competing groups- to illuminate how the women played
active, even if constrained, roles within these relations. Wallace examines the "evaluation,
production, and performance of beauty by ladies-in-waiting as stimulated and regulated

under awareness of chains of social power."4 Cavanaugh "foregrounds [women's] part
in a web of economic and political exchanges made possible by female productivity
and expertise."5 Their work helps bring into focus the significance of the court women's
participation in the Tentoku utaawase.
The Nature of Poetry Contests and Their Connection with Women

Prior to the 1 100s, poetry contests were often not merely, or even primarily, literary
occasions. Rather, they were social occasions, even pageants. At times elaborately staged,
with complementary costuming for the Left and Right teams, they included miniature
artificial landscapes ( suhama ) on which poems were displayed and were accompanied
by food, drink, and musical performances.6 Although the origins of poetry contests
remain unknown, they had elements in common with archery and sumo ; poetry contests
were only one of many competitions the Heian aristocracy staged for their own entertain-
ment. The contesting of poems could also take place in conjunction with the contesting of
other things- iris roots and other plants, gardens, seashells, fans, even monogatari (tales).
The more modest in scale a poetry contest was (e.g., a small gathering in a private
residence), and as focus shifted by the twelfth century to poets contesting their
compositions against those of others, the more likely it was that the team members were
the poets themselves. However, in court poetry contests of the early period, there was
often a clear distinction between the Right and Left team members ( katodo , kata no hito)
and the poets who had written the verses that the two teams placed into competition.7 The
teams sometimes comprised all or some of the poets who had written the poems being
contested, but it was just as likely that poets had been commissioned beforehand to
submit compositions for consideration and had not been invited to the event itself.
Court women were associated with poetry contests from their beginning. Of the
first ten poetry contests for which some records are extant- which date between 885 and
around 900- five were hosted by or for an emperor's consort.8 A dozen years later, we
also see contests in which court women served as team members. Thus in the Engi Jūsarmen
Sangatsu Jūsannichi Teishi In Utaawase (Poetry Contest Held at the Teishi In on the
Thirteenth Day of the Third Month of Engi 13) of 913, two imperial princesses, daughters
of Retired Emperor Uda (867-931 , r. 887-897), were designated as leaders of the Left
and Right teams, which were otherwise made up of male courtiers.9 On this occasion, a
pair of court women also served as poem readers, reciting from behind bamboo blinds
that had been rolled up a bit.10 In the Engi Nijū-ichinen Gogatsu Kyõgoku Miyasudokoro
Hõshi Utaawase (Kyõgoku Lady-of-the-Bedchamber Hôshi's Poetry Contest of the Fifth
Month of Engi 21) of 921, the leader of the Left Team was one of Retired Emperor Uda's
daughters, and that of the Right was a sister of one of his consorts. Hõshi herself was one
of Uda's consorts. Left and Right team members were women who served in Retired
Emperor Uda's court. The Right's miniature landscape was carried in by four women;
that of the Left, by men. Apparently young girls were initially assigned the roles of
readers but were replaced by male courtiers for fear that the girls were not up to the task.11
In the next forty years, we find six other poetry contests hosted by an emperor, consort, or
imperial princess in which the team members were clearly, or were likely to have been,
court women in the service of the person hosting the contest.12 In two or three other
poetry contests, the teams were divided by gender, one consisting of male courtiers, the
other of court women.
The Role of Women in the Tentoku of 960
A closer look at the Tentoku Dairi Utaawase of 960, the most lavish poetry contest in the
history of the court, clearly shows the role that court women played in utaawase. First,
according to Emperor Murakami's (926-967, r. 946-967) record of the event, the contest
was suggested by some palace ladies ( myõbu ) and assistant handmaids ( tenji ) who felt
that the women should have a waka contest because the men of the court had had a
contest of Chinese poems. Of the five records for this poetry contest- two by women,
three by men- those written by the men specifically describe it as a court women's
poetry contest ( nyõbõ utaawase), 13 though only Emperor Murakami explains its origins,
invoking the familiar Chinese-language/masculine versus Japanese-language/female
dichotomization often said to characterize Heian aristocratic society.14 However, his
statement needs to be looked at carefully. First, some Japanese scholars regard the
statement as a fiction,13 and their reasoning seems persuasive. They point out that
Rose Bundy 37
Murakami's interest in poetry contests was well established (as described below), so that
he would not have needed the instigation of the court women. Indeed, all his earlier
poetic events, including the Chinese verse contest, can be seen as preparation for the
lavish scale of the Tentoku. His commissioning of the second royal collection of
Japanese poetry, the Gosenshū, in 951 also attests to his support of waka. To these points
we should add that Murakami's record of the Tentoku seems consciously to play with a
series of complementary pairs- men versus women, Chinese versus Japanese, and
autumn for the Chinese verse contest versus spring for the Tentoku- in order to portray
the aesthetic life of his court.
Second, even if the Emperor Murakami's statement is true, it should not be

assumed the women were consistently marginalized in the rituals of the court. The
Chinese verse contest had been Murakami's innovation and was clearly modeled on
waka contests in which women had long participated. Thus the women were not
reacting to a consistent pattern of exclusion from certain events caused by a linguistic
divide. However, the Chinese verse contest had been a large-scale palace occasion,
which Murakami's waka contests had thus far not been. What the women may have
wanted, if indeed they voiced their desires, was a full-scale palace poetry contest in
which they, too, could participate.
In any case, on the twenty-ninth day of the second month of 960, the emperor
assigned women to teams, and on the second day of the third month these names were
sent to the rooms of the concubines {kõi) ChOjõ kõi Fujiwara Shūshi (dates unknown)
and Ben no kõi (dates unknown), who were serving as leaders of the teams. Each team
also included another imperial concubine: on the Left Team, Saishõ kõi Minamoto Keishi
(dates unknown), and on the Right, Azechi no kõi Fujiwara Masahime (still living in
967). On the third day of the third month, the poem topics, which the emperor himself
had chosen, were dispatched. The teams were composed of mid- to lower-level court
women: concubines, (kõi) assistant handmaids ( tenji , naishi ), palace ladies ( myõbu ), and
lady chamberlains ( nyõkurõdo ).16 On the eighteenth or nineteenth day of the third month,
the male team members were assigned, ranging from Minister of the Left of Senior
Second Rank Fujiwara Saneyori (900-970) down to those of the fifth rank.
The team members were responsible for the multiple and complex preparations for
a formal court poetry contest. These included the poem stand ( bundai ), the score-keeping
instruments ( kazusashi ), lamps ( tõdai ), refreshments (kyö), cypress-wood food boxes for
the women ( nyõbõ hiwarigo), and room decorations ( sõzoku ).17 To these we need also
add, in the case of the Tentoku, the design and production of the suhama (the miniature
landscapes); the dyeing and sewing of apparel in contrasting red and blue-green for the
Left and Right teams, respectively; and the selection of distinctive perfumes for each
team. The utaawase records do not say much about the preparations or who performed
what tasks, but since the women team members were assigned two weeks earlier than the
men, the women may well have been responsible for much of the aesthetic design of the
event: the miniature landscapes, the costuming of all the team members. The Tentoku
team members did not compose the poems for the contest. Instead, poems were
commissioned from known poets, and the selected compositions were then placed into
rounds, probably by the emperor himself. Two of the fourteen poets were women:
Nakatsukasa (ca. 912-ca. 989) and Shõni no myõbu (dates unknown).18
Despite the Tentoku being designated in several of its records as a "court women's
poetry contest," there is little evidence that the women played an active or even visible
role. The women team members were seated in chambers of the Seiryõden to the right
and left of the emperor, behind blinds and screens. In contrast, the senior nobles of the
highest three ranks ( kugyõ ) were seated along the corridor between the Seiryõden and
Kõrõden, directly in front of the emperor's chamber. Courtiers of lower rank who were
team members sat along the veranda of the Kõrõden, facing the Seiryõden. 19The minia-
ture landscapes and score-keeping instruments were placed to the left and right of the
corridor between the two buildings. The account written by the woman who was a
member of the Right Team notes that the miniature landscape of the rival Left Team
and the colors of the garments of the children carrying it in could not be seen properly
because they failed to enter until it had grown dark.20 The event began around 4:00
p.m., but the fact that the women were seated behind blinds and screens probably did
not help matters. The judge in the Tentoku- and, as far as is known, in all Heian poetry
contests in which there was a designated judge- was a male courtier, in this case
Fujiwara Saneyori (mentioned above), who was also a member of the Left Team.21 The
Left and Right readers were male courtiers of the fourth rank from the respective teams.
The decision in the Kyõgoku Lady-of-the-Bedchamber Hôshi's Poetry Contest of 921

against having female readers seems to have established a precedent, so that the twelfth-
century Fukurozõshi records that the author's father once heard a lady read a poem
from behind some blinds and that her manner of recitation was unlike anything he had
ever heard.22 This seems to attest to how rarely women had occasion to speak publicly
to an assemblage of people.
Rose Bundy 39
The record of the judging of the Tentoku preserves traces of the interrelationships
between emperor, judge, and team members. The best example is the description of the
last round, round twenty, by the judge Fujiwara Saneyori:
I found both the Left and Right poems to be very elegant and stated that I could not
determine which was superior and which inferior. According to the Emperor, whose
words were related to me, he, too, found both poems exceedingly moving. Still, I
was to make a decision. I attempted to cede the decision to Major Counselor
Minamoto [Takaakira], but he bowed his head and would not respond. In the mean-
time, the members of the Left and Right teams were loudly reciting [their respec-
tive] poems, as though pressing for victory. I glanced over toward the Emperor, and
although no decision seemed to be forthcoming as yet, he was quietly intoning the
Right poem. The Major Counselor whispered to me that the Emperor seemed to
favor the Right poem, and so in the end I awarded it victory.23
As judge and ranking member of the Left Team, Saneyori acts cautiously, attempting to
enlist the help of Major Counselor of Senior Third Rank Minamoto Takaakira (914-
982), the ranking member of the Right Team and the emperor's younger brother.24
Takaakira, however, initially offers no help, apparently not wishing to risk opposing the
imperial will. Unfortunately, the records do not indicate which team members were
challenging the judgments or speaking in support of the team poems; they are identified
only collectively as Left or Right team members. Thus we have no way of knowing
whether the women team members participated in what seems to have been a sort of
cheering for one's side. Most likely they did, at least among themselves, but less
vociferously than the men, for reasons to which we now turn.
Food and drink were served to the team members before the poems were put into
competition, and were probably consumed throughout the evening. The men of each
team provided their female counterparts with refreshments- underscoring, according
to Hagitani Boku, editor of the Heianchõ utaawase taisei (Compilation of poetry
contests of the Heian period)- the centrality of women in court poetry contests like the
Tentoku.25 After each round of poems, the senior nobles of the winning team forced
those of the losing team to drink a penalty cup of liquor.26 Drinking continued at an
even livelier pace during the musical performances and dancing and singing that
followed the poetry contest, and went on until dawn of the next day. Takaakira's record
of the Tentoku utaawase describes the high-ranking courtiers as "greatly intoxicated
and playing music."27
The women were probably still present- both of the women who recorded the
event describe the revelry and music- but the degree of their participation in the
exuberant partying cannot be known. There seems to have been no clear prohibition
against women drinking in the Heian period.28 In her diary, Murasaki Shikibu notes
male drunkenness with distaste and describes how the women at a celebratory banquet
prepared poems to recite in case the "cup should come around to the women," though
greater anxiety appeared to attend having to recite a poem than having to take a drink.29
The Tentoku accounts only describe the drinking and drunken behavior of men. It is not
clear whether this represents textual decorum or actual female abstinence (which could
have been prompted either by women's awareness of their position as audience in the
proceedings or by a sense of appropriate female behavior).30 What is evident is that
despite some events being labeled "court ladies' poetry contests," women were not the
primary actors themselves. With the exception of the young girls who carried in the
suhama, no woman was afforded the opportunity to display herself- as poem reader,
judge, musician, or reveler. Instead, they remained concealed behind blinds.
The Utaawase as Pageants of Power

As a result, scholars have focused on the particular aesthetic sensibilities that court women
brought to the poetry contests. Setsuko Ito writes, "Women's contribution to [utaawase]
deserves special mention for they displayed remarkable ingenuity. Women were forever
devising new types of games by choosing different objects for comparison, such as comb
cases, sea shells, short stories, and illustrated books."31 Hagitani Boku, editor of the
Heianchõ utaawase taisei, yokes the attention to costuming in these early public poetry
contests to the centrality of women in these events, and to how the contests were
designed to attract female interest.32 In other words, women brought their specific predi-
lections to the utaawase and feminized the nature and staging of these early contests.
Although larger questions of gender distinctions in the Heian period still need to
be answered, these characterizations of the poetry contests do give a sense of the close
association between women and utaawase. More is said below about the relationship
between women and the costuming on display on these occasions. The authors quoted
above focus on the contests as aesthetic events that could be shaped by the participation
of women, yet they do not address why court women were so associated with poetry
contests and how they functioned within the power relationships between the emperor
and his consorts and their natal clans. The court utaawase functioned as pageants of
Rose Bundy 41
imperial power through which the emperor brought together potentially competing clans
and/or bestowed favor on one consort or another, and by extension on her paternal clan.
In turn, the various consorts and the women who served them used poetry contests to
attract and sustain imperial interest by fulfilling their roles as creators of beauty.
I borrow first from the insights offered by John Wallace's discussion of the Murasaki
Shikibu nikki in his monograph Objects of Discourse. Wallace proposes that "both as
writers and as women [the] presence and actions [of ladies-in-waiting in the court] were
privileged, eroticized, and politicized; their dress, manner and some of their literary
products are gifts of beauty constrained by and given up to social demands derived from
political agendas."33 He further writes, "[The gifts] include, among other things, func-
tional roles at rituals, fashionable attire, pleasant camaraderie, and poetry. This willing
production of beauty constrains itself to the aesthetic and ethic of 'courtliness' or courtly
elegance ( miyabi ), providing the complicit support of the social norms and chains of
authority."34 Wallace also reviews the notions of utagaki (literally, "song fences," but
better rendered as "song fests") and miko (shrine priestesses) as precursors to "the broader
and more political notion of 'celebratory banquets' ( matsuri )," which "had from the
beginning a governmental aspect since they were meant to bring benefits to the commu-
nity."35 And, he concludes, "Beyond matsuri , women were even more essential to social
and political alignments. The production of political heirs was at the heart of interclan
and intraclan jostling for political supremacy."36
There is no evidence linking the development of poetry contests directly to the
song fests (utagaki), and most scholars find the source of poetry contests in the coming
together of influences from such various entertainments as sumo , archery, and the
recitation of Buddhist texts.37 Nonetheless, Wallace reminds us that the presence of
the court women at utaawase was important precisely because they were purveyors
of courtly elegance (miyabi)- both as producers of some of the aesthetic elements of
the occasion and as erotized objects of beauty themselves. Moreover, we should step
back a moment to ask who the women were who were associated with utaawase and
what place they occupied in the rear court. Focusing just on Emperor Murakami's
reign, we find that he undertook, prior to the Tentoku, three contests in the court
residences of three different consorts : the junior consorts (nyõgo) Princess Sõshi (930-
1008) and Princess Kishi (929-985), and Lady of the Bedchamber (miyasudokoro)
Fujiwara Hõshi (still living in 967).38 A fourth contest was held in 957 in the court
for his soon-to-be empress, Anshi (927-964). Anshi herself hosted another contest in
958, at which Murakami was a guest.39 His remaining consorts at the time were socially
inferior concubines (kõi).*0
The height of Fujiwara marriage politics was still several generations away-
Anshi's father, Minister of the Right Fujiwara Morosuke (908-960), was Michinaga's
grandfather- but there was, even during Murakami's reign, little or no possibility of the
son of a woman not of the Northern branch of the Fujiwara being named crown prince.41
The junior consorts Sõshi and Kishi were daughters of imperial princes rather than of
Fujiwara courtiers; both had given birth to daughters, and Sõshi would bear a son in 964.
Hõshi, the daughter of Fujiwara Morotada (920-969)- the younger brother of Saneyori
(who judged the Tentoku ) and also of Morosuke (Anshi's father)- was the mother of two
sons.42 However, none of these three women could compete with Anshi, who gave birth
to seven children, among them the future emperors Reizei (950-101 1, r. 967-969) and
En'yu (959-991, r. 969-984). Morosuke's elder brother Saneyori had also sent a daugh-
ter, Jusshi, to court as a junior consort, but she had died in 947 at the age of fourteen.
According to the historical narrative Eiga monogatari, Emperor Murakami "treated each
of [his] ladies with a solicitude so unfailing that no disagreeable incidents, awkwardness,
suspicions, or jealousy marred their relations with each other."43 By bestowing a poetry
contest on each of the leading women of his rear palace, the emperor appears to have
acknowledged their status while balancing their and their male relatives' importance in
his court.44
Even among the leading women, however, the utaawase signaled differences in
status. Thus the 957 and 958 contests in which Anshi, named empress in 958, was in-
volved differed from those arranged for the other consorts. The contests for Sõshi, Kishi,
and Hõshi were held in their respective halls- the Reikeiden, Shõkyõden, and Sen'yöden-
with their women making up the teams and performing for the emperor and the consort in
question.45 Anshi resided in the Fujitsubo hall, closer to the emperor's private residence,
the Seiryõden,46 and the 957 contest that Emperor Murakami hosted for her may have
been held where the 960 Tentoku was staged. The emperor may also have been more
personally engaged in these two contests than in the others. Although no records are
extant for the 957 and 958 events save several poems in the poet Fujiwara Kiyotada's (d.
958) personal collection,47 they appear to have had teams made up of Anshi's ladies
versus the emperor's men. Through their proxies, emperor and empress took part in mock
challenges of wit and aesthetic taste, which even involved the possibility that the emperor's
team would be bested.48 Anshi's privileged position among the consorts is further under-
Rose Bundy 43
scored by the presentation of a miniature landscape from the Sen' yoden Miyasudokoro
Hõshi Nadeshiko Awase (Sen'yöden Lady-of-the-Bedchamber Höshi's Contest of Flow-
ering Pink Blossoms) of 956, most likely to Anshi's first son, Crown Prince Norihira
(950-101 1, the future Emperor Reizei). The gift was from Emperor Murakami, but the
movement of the suhama from the lesser consort's hall to the empress's also clearly
established the hierarchy between the two women.
For the 960 Tentoku itself, Anshi was absent, in mourning for a maternal uncle (as
was her father, Minister of the Right Morosuke).49 The women who were members of the
teams were a step below both Anshi and the junior consorts ( nyõgo ) for whom Emperor
Murakami had conducted the earlier poetry contests. Each team included two concubines
(kõi), the other members being palace ladies ( myõbu ) and handmaids ( naishi ).50 Little is
known about ChQjõ kõi Fujiwara Shūshi and Ben no kõi, who served as leaders of the
teams. Shūshi was the daughter of Fujiwara Asahira (917-974), 51 who was only of junior
fourth rank upper grade, but who as a consultant ( sangi ) could be counted among the
senior nobles. Ben no kõi may have been the daughter of Fujiwara Arisuke (d. 959).
Neither Shūshi nor Ben seems to have had offspring with the emperor. Hagitani (editor of
the Heianchõ utaawase taisei) speculates that both were young, recent favorites of the
emperor.52 The two other concubines involved in the contest, Saishõ kõi Minamoto Keishi
and Azechi no kõi Fujiwara Masahime (mentioned above), had been in court for some
time, judging from the birth dates of their children, and probably had prior experience
with poetry contests.53 They were probably selected for the teams in order to assist the
younger women.
However much these women enjoyed participating, and whether or not it is true
that they proposed the poetry contest to the emperor, they were, unlike Anshi and the
junior consorts, assigned to the utaawase teams. Thus they were required to create beauty
for the occasion. Pairs of kõi, competitors for the emperor's favor, were even obliged to
work together on behalf of their team in the staging of the contest, although there was
also an undercurrent of competition between the opposing teams for the emperor's favor.
The following are poetry exchanges between the emperor and a concubine from each of
the two teams:54
Sent by the emperor to Saishõ kõi the day before the contest:
Koto no ha wa I cannot compare,
kurabu no yama no In the dark of Kurabu Mountain
obotsukana The leaves of words,

fukaki kokoro no And tell which side will show
izure masareru A greater depth of heart.
Saishõ koť s response:

Michi shireru Since I am not one
kurabu no yama ni Who dwells on Kurabu Mountain,

aranu mi wa Knowing its paths,
fukasa wo yoso ni I only hear of its depths
kiku bakari nari From far away.
Again , the emperor sent to Ben no kõi:

Fuku kaze ni Blown by the wind,
yorube sadamenu The white waves that do not know
shiranami wa Where they may flow-
izure no kata e To which inlet could their heart
kokoro yosemashi Find itself drawing near?
Ben no koť s response :

Sadame naki Indeed their heart
kokoro nari to mo May flow this way and that,

shiranami no Those white waves,
yorite wa ikaga How then should they favor

aru to koso mime One inlet over another?
Even as the emperor asserts that he can make no determination, h

concubines of each team make it clear that he will be weighing their effor
Saishõ kõi assumes a humble stance, disavowing possession of the poet

would make her competitive. She may be gesturing to the fact that Chujõ
Left team leader, and to the fact that the poems were commissioned from
less, she realizes that she is being judged. The Right team leader Ben n
chides the emperor for overlooking the possibility of favoritism in his sel
as "the white waves." Yet whichever team or concubine he favors, th
remain lower in status than Anshi. Significantly, the miniature landsc

contest were shown to Anshi, and then the Left Team's was presented to t
princess betrothed to Anshi and Murakami's son Norihira, the future E

The consorts received the support, material and otherwise, of ma
example, the poem readers for the teams in the Tenryaku Jünen Ni
Rose Bundy 45
Reikeiden Nyõgo Sõshi Jõõ Utaawase (Reikeiden Junior-Consort Söshi's Poetry Contest
of 956) were Söshi's younger brothers.56 In the 960 Tentoku, the concubine Azechi no kõi
Fujiwara Masahime's elder brother Kuniteri (dates unknown) joined her on the Right
Team.57 Chüjö köi's father, Asahira, participated as a member of her Left Team and
played the flute at the after-party, while her uncle Fujiwara Asatada (910-966) was among
the poets from whom the team had commissioned poems.58 If Ben no kõi, the leader of
the Right Team, was indeed the daughter of Fujiwara Arisuke, her father was recently
deceased. The Heianchõ utaawase taisei editor Hagitani remarks that, in consequence
(i.e., owing to her lack of paternal support), the outcome of the contest, in which the
Right Team was defeated, was a foregone conclusion;59 with a final score of twelve wins
out of twenty rounds, the Left Team certainly seems to have been favored.60
The natal families of the concubines who took part in the Tentoku utaawase no doubt
made every effort to enhance the standing of their respective daughters at court, but they
had little hope of eclipsing Anshi, with her numerous children and powerful backing. Thus
the poetry contest is interesting as well for the way it elicited the participation of Fujiwara
and Minamoto members of court. The latter surname was adopted by imperial princes who
took commoner status, making themselves ineligible to ascend the throne. Within a decade
of the 960 contest, the Minamoto would clash so seriously with the Fujiwara over the
naming of an heir to the throne that one of them, Minamoto Takaakira, would be banished
from court. Among the Fujiwara, although neither Anshi nor her father, Minister of the
Right Morosuke, was present, eight male family members participated, including Anshi's
brother Kaneie (929-990), the husband of the Mother of Michitsuna (Michitsuna no haha,
d. ca. 995), still only a fifth-rank courtier. The makeup of the teams, however, does not
seem at first glance to reflect any rivalry between Fujiwara Saneyori, on the one hand, and
his brother Morosuke's sons and nephews, on the other, who are scattered on both teams.
And one of Saneyori's sons joined the Right Team, though his father was the ranking
member of the Left.
A somewhat different picture emerges when we look at the distribution of Fujiwara
courtiers and members of the Minamoto (Genji) clan, Emperor Murakami's male
relatives. Although Minamoto and Fujiwara are found on both teams, the three senior
nobles ( kugyõ ) of the Left Team were Fujiwara and the two senior noble of the Right
Team were Minamoto.61 In addition, the ranking noble of the Right Team, the emperor's
brother Minamoto Takaakira, was married to Anshi's younger sister and served as Master
of the Empress's Household. One wonders whether, at some point in the planning of the
contest, Minister of the Right Fujiwara Morosuke had been expected to be the ranking
member of Takaakira's team as Anshi's father. From the perspective of Takaakira's exile
to Dazaifu in 969, his position as the ranking noble of the Right Team, matched by Fujiwara
Saneyori's on the Left, seems to presage future conflicts of interest between the Fujiwara
and Minamoto.
In 966, Takaakira married his daughter to Emperor Murakami's son Prince Tamehira
(952-1010), taking the unusual step of sending her to court to reside with the prince.62 It
appears that Murakami and Anshi had hoped to make Tamehira heir to the throne after
Norihira (Emperor Reizei, r. 967-969). However, in consequence of Prince Tamehira's
marriage to a Minamoto- and hence the possibility of a later emperor whose natal clan
was not Fujiwara- the Fujiwara were hostile toward him. The prince's "resourceful
[Fujiwara] uncles solved the problem," according to the Õkagami, by having Tamehira's
younger brother Morihira (959-991) named crown prince prior to Murakami's death.63
In 969, two years after Murakami died, Takaakira, who had been named Minister of the
Left in 967, was accused of fomenting a revolt and was therefore banished to Kyushu.64
Tamehira and Morihira's "resourceful uncles" were Morosuke's sons Koretada (924-
972), Kanemichi (925-977), and Kaneie; Koretada and Kaneie were participants in the
Tentoku, as were two of Kanemichi 's sons. The Õkagami reports that some in the court
blamed Fujiwara Morotada (920-969), Saneyori and Morosuke's younger brother, for
slandering Takaakira and thus causing his exile. Morotada, the father of Murakami's
consort Hõshi, was second only to Saneyori in rank on the Left Team of the 960 Tentoku
and assumed the position of Minister of the Left in 969 but died within the year- perhaps
owing, according to the Õkagami, to Takaakira's resentment.

Minamoto Takaakira has been long regarded as a possible model for Murasaki
Shikibu's protagonist in her famous Tale ofGenji.65 Takaakira attempted to break the Fujiwara
monopoly on the position of emperors' maternal relatives; in Murasaki's novel Genji

succeeds in doing so through his trasgressive relationship with Fujitsubo. Both princes
were exiled, but only Genji returns in triumph to court.66 Clearly, Murasaki and the other
women of the court were well aware of the strategic uses of daughters as consorts, and of
the stakes for the family as a whole. During Emperor Murakami's lifetime, and perhaps
also because of Anshi's ascendancy in the rear palace, he possessed the authority to bring
together competing courtiers for an harmonious event such as the Tentoku, taking care to
distribute members of the same clan over the two teams to avoid a Fujiwara versus Minamoto
contest. Yet even he could not name Tamehira to be Reizei's crown prince.
Rose Bundy 47
In addition, one consort casts a shadow over Murakami's most lavish poetry contest,
the Tentoku, by her absence from it (and from all other utaawase, as far as we know). This
was Kõi Fujiwara Sukehime, the mother of Murakami's first son, Hirohira, who had been
passed over in favor of Anshi's son and Morosuke's grandson as crown prince. Norihira,
the future Emperor Reizei, suffered from mental illness, and the Eiga monogatari suggests
that his behavior resulted from possession by malignant spirits: both the spirit of Sukehime's
father, Motokata, who died in 953, and those of Sukehime and her son, both of whom, the
Eiga asserts, died soon thereafter.67 In fact, Sukehime lived until around 967, and her son
even longer. Asserting that all three died in rapid succession no doubt made a better story
(and one that gives shape to the resentments and humiliations felt by the consorts who
served their families' interests), and it may have been Sukehime's absence from such events
as Murakami's poetry contests that fed the Eiga's misapprehension.

These examples placing the Tentoku in the context of the events that surrounded it
reinforce Wallace's point, noted above, that poetry contests' "willing production of beauty"
provided "complicit support" for "the social norms and chains of authority" that bound
both the men and women who participated in such occasions, casting shadows beyond
their bright surfaces.
The Women's Gifts of Beauty

For their part, consorts of all levels and the women who served them may have used
poetry contests as an opportunity to display their mastery of the aesthetics of the event,
and thus to participate in the power relationships among the various consorts, their
natal families, and the emperor. It seems possible to view these events as an exchange
of the gifts of beauty and power: the emperor gave the consorts and their women the
opportunity to participate in an utaawase and show others their aesthetic tastes and
skill, thus enhancing their prestige in the rear palace, while the women, in turn, affirmed
the emperor's power through the elegance of the pageantry they unfolded before him.
As noted earlier, little can be said about who contributed the many objects used in poetry
contests to fashion their atmosphere of elegant play, though one item- costuming- has
been closely associated with women. Thus in the Heianchõ utaawase taisei editor's view,
attentiveness to costuming "distinguishes, in the absence of clear authorship, a kana record
as the work of a female writer."68 However, Heian women's interest in clothes may
represent not merely a feminine proclivity but a recognition of their distinctive contribution
to the utaawase.
In her study 'Text and Textile: Unweaving the Female Subject in Heian Writing,"
Carole Cavanaugh explores the Heian woman's "traditional monopoly over the textile
arts," calling into question the "marriage-politics construct [which] marginalizes the
possibility that productive, 'talented women' had some stake themselves in male power
struggles, or that their talents allowed them a more intricate involvement in economic
and political exchanges."69 Citing such texts as the Kagerö nikki and Genji monogatari,
Cavanaugh shows male dependence on women for the provision of apparel and, on
occasion, women's decision to withhold that service. Even high-ranking women were
"producers and supervisors of valuable clothing,"70 and Cavanaugh notes that "another
site [besides the uxorilocal household] for the production and transfer of textile knowledge
was the court salon." She goes on to write: "Transmission of sewing, embroidery, and
tailoring methods would have been an important and time-consuming enterprise that
brought women together in the salon as authorities and apprentices."71 In addition,
constructed garments, presented as gifts for services (roku), circulated almost as a form
of currency. As Cavanaugh puts it, "The capacity of constructed silk garments to symbolize
control over female productivity, to display hierarchy, and to designate difference would
have distinctly qualified clothing for use as a form of currency."72
Further, Cavanaugh relates these descriptions of sites of garment production to what
the historian Cornelius Kiley has termed "a basic principle of late Heian society: the
separation of 'the title to authority and the power to administer it.'"73 She notes as well
Peter Nickerson's elaboration of this principle to characterize such relationships as that
between the monarchy and the regency. "Typical structures," Nickerson writes,
"engendered by this sociological arrangement were cooperating groups in which members
of higher status were 'owners' of some property or prerogative that was 'possessed' by
their partners of lesser status."74 Cavanaugh then argues that "in the control of cloth wealth,
the superior-inferior division occurs according to gender: the male 'owns' the clothing
assets, while the female (inferior in status to her male relatives) 'possesses' them."75
However, this is not a relationship in which "one partner holds real authority and the other
provides labor or acts as a substitute or agent." Instead, "power is effected or legitimated

only through a network of cooperation: neither owners nor possessors can act alone."76
The Tentoku of 960 shows evidence of the use of constructed garments as gifts for
services. At the conclusion of the banquet, the emperor presented garments to the senior
nobles: to the Minister of the Left, a set of summer garments; to the Minamoto Major
Counselor, a white, figured women's robe; and so on, according to the men's status.77
Rose Bundy 49
Significantly, the teams of women also distributed gifts. The reader for the Left Team
received from its leader, ChOjõ kõi, a set of woman's garments;78 the women of the Left
Team also presents gifts to the Minister of the Left.79Along with the emperor, the women
team members thus enacted the role of those to whom services had been rendered.
More important for our purposes is the women's awareness of their particular
production of beauty- namely, the garments for the poetry contest- which accounts for
the detail expended on descriptions of clothing. Although all five of the Tentoku records
mention the clothes of the girls who carried the miniature landscapes into the garden in
front of the hall, only the two written by women describe the women team members'
costumes, with the record of the woman member of the Right Team providing great detail,
including descriptions of the women's perfumes. According to her account, the assistant
handmaids of the Left Team wore Chinese robes in layers of white lined with red and with
skirts dyed in a random pattern. The palace ladies and lady chamberlains wore the same
robes with purple skirts whose hue darkened from top to bottom. The Right Team wore
blue-green robes with purple skirts whose hue darkened from top to bottom.80
Thus all the record writers, men and women, reported on what they saw on the
"stage" of the pageant, taking place outside the Seiryõden, but only the women's records
describe what their fellow and opposing team members were wearing. Since the women
team members were seated behind screens and blinds, only they could readily see their
female companions' garments. But they probably knew in advance what each team was
to wear. Moreover, it is likely that the women lined up along the blinds to ensure
appropriate display of their garments to the male participants outside. Thus the fact that
the women were seated behind screens probably does not account for the failure of male
records of utaawase to give the women's garments much attention. Rather, the men and
women probably looked at the women's role in the event from different perspectives.
From the perspective of the male courtiers, perhaps the emperor and women team
members were host and audience for an event in which they themselves were the main
actors. The women were not insignificant - none of the Tentoku records describes the
garments worn by the emperor, at whose command the entire pageant unfolded- but
male courtiers may have been conscious primarily of their own role as performers before
the emperor and the women.

In contrast, the women team members may have believed themselves to be an
important part of the proceedings and their contributions worthy of note, so that their
eyes were focused on one another and the clothes they had made and were wearing, not
merely on the rituals of the contest unfolding beyond the blinds and screens. Through
men's control of women's productivity, such displays as the utaawase costuming made
visible the power of the emperor and of the women's male relatives. However, it was the
women who possessed the expertise that led to the aesthetic display of costuming.
Descriptions of garments are not merely evidence of women's feminine interest in
clothing but documentation of women's handiwork and of their cooperative role in the
emperor's pageant. To paraphrase Cavanaugh, the productive female subject is displaced
by an obsessive reference to clothing- "the fetishized product of her expertise."81
Finally, we should not overlook the erotic undercurrents of a poetry contest like
the Tentoku. As members of the rear court, the women on the two teams were potential
sexual partners of the emperor; as we know from such accounts as the Murasaki Shikibu
nikki and Makura no sõshi, they were available for various degrees of dalliance to male
courtiers as well. True, the women were barely visible behind bamboo blinds and screens,
but enough of their costuming, to which such attention had been paid, must have made
perceptible, as was their perfume, to make their presence known. In addition, the women
were afforded a view, though somewhat dimly, of many of the high-ranking courtiers.
For women serving the concubines in a court with a number of higher-ranking consorts,
such an opportunity may have been uncommon.82 The sights that greeted their eyes were
variously revealing and permitted the women opportunities of evaluation. The record of
one of the women members of the Right Team describes how at dawn the Minister of the
Left kept playing the koto, taking no notice that everyone was laughing at the sleepy
expression on his face, and how a male member of the Right Team cleverly punned
"Season me no more with drink" and hid out of sight.83 None of the other records gives
such details, but perhaps this woman's record was more private and informal than those
kept by the emperor, Takaakira, and the chamberlain. These utaawase records also give
no indication of men engaging in such drunken antics as those described in Murasaki
Shikibu's diary, such as "pull[ing] the curtains apart by the seams, leaving them in
disarray,"84 so as to get a better view of the women who were seated behind them.
Nonetheless, both men and women were probably aware of the gaze of the other.85
Conclusion
No poetry contest after the 960 Tentoku rivaled the scale of its pageantry, in which the
men and women of the court cooperatively participated. After the Tentoku, Emperor
Murakami would host a half dozen smaller utaawase, including several that matched
Rose Bundy 51
teams of men versus women. Ironically, the heyday of Fujiwara marriage politics and the
great flowering of women's prose literature in the first half of the eleventh century was a
period in which utaawase declined in number.86 By the end of the tenth century, true
political power had shifted to the sekkanke, or Northern, branch of the Fujiwara, whose
male members, through maternal connections with the emperor, monopolized major
governmental positions, including those of chancellor and regent. Without these maternal
connections, other clans- as well as non -sekkanke Fujiwara- became politically
unimportant, and the times did not favor the gathering together of courtiers of various
clans over whom the emperor held authority. Competition among consorts, even if they
were all Fujiwara women, may have precluded even the cooperation seen in such an
event as the Tentoku.
The connection between the rear court and utaawase did not vanish, however. For
example, in the mid-eleventh century the Former Kamo Priestess Baishi (Rokujõ Saiin
Baishi Naishinnõ), supported by her male relatives, hosted some twenty-five utaawase,
the participants in which were primarily her women and those serving other residents of
the rear palace.87 Likewise, in 1050, the Fujiwara grandfather of Imperial Princess Yushi
hosted a poetry contest for her birthday, the teams of which were divided by gender.88
Although the interplay of aesthetic and political ambitions continued to motivate these
events, none of them matched the scale of the Tentoku, and we can see in them the gradual
displacement of the aspects of entertainment and revelry by an increasing emphasis on

the utaawase as literary contest. More and more often, team members were the poets
themselves, and such decorative items as the miniature landscapes and elaborate
costuming faded in importance. These changes were caused not by the withdrawal of
women and their sensibilities from utaawase but by the redefinition of the poetry contest
from communal revelry to literary contest. Teams made up of male and female courtiers
who contested poems composed by others and the various aesthetic accoutrements of the
early utaawase diminished in importance together. Women continued to participate as
poets, but their role as providers of aesthetic and erotic beauty in the staging of the events
became far less prominent.
Notes
1. The relationship of women poets to utaawase- as well as the broader question of whether
a genderized notion of a woman poet existed in the Heian period, and if so, how it was defined-
are issues that I hope to address elsewhere.
2. Fictionally, the interplay of aesthetics and politics is nowhere more evident than in Genjť s
"Picture Contest" ( Eawase ), in which Genji and To no Chüjö provide paintings for the consorts
they respectively back in order to beguile the young emperor.
3. Carole Cavanaugh, 'Text and Textile: Unweaving the Female Subject in Heian Writing,"
Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 4, no. 3 (Winter 1996): 594-636.
4. John R. Wallace, Objects of Discourse (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies,
University of Michigan, 2005), 149.
5. Cavanaugh, "Text and Textile," 596.
6. Works in English on utaawase are not numerous. See Clifton W. Royston, "Utaawase
Judgments as Poetry Criticism," The Journal of Asian Studies 34, no. 1 (Nov. 1974): 99-108, and
Setsuko Ito, 'The Muse in Competition: Uta-awase through the Ages," Monumenta Nipponica 37,
no. 2 (Summer 1982): 201-22. In her overview of Heian utaawase , Ito introduces the Tentoku utaawase
and translates two of its records: Emperor Murakami's and Minamoto Takaakira's. Major Japanese-
language studies of utaawase are Minegishi Yoshiaki, Utaawase no kenkyü (Poetry contest research),
(Tokyo: Sanseido, 1969); Hagitani Boku and Taniyama Shigeru, eds., Utaawase shü (Collection of
poetry contests), vol. 74 of Nihon koten bungaku taikei (An outline of classical Japanese literature),
(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1976); and Hagitani Boku, ed., Heianchõ utaawase taisei (Compilation of
poetry contests of the Heian period), 10 vols. (Kyoto: Dõhõsha, 1979).
7. Some utaawase also speak of "supporters" (omoibito) who functioned to cheer their
team on. See Hagitani, Heianchõ utaawase taisei 2: 400 and 10: 3050-51.
8. Based on utaawase records in Hagitani, Heian utaawase taisei .
9. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shü , 53-66.
10. This is the only extant poetry contest in which women served as readers. In Uda's
judgment of poem 14, he criticizes the recitation of the poem, "mumbled as though [the reader]
were hunching her shoulders and not moving her lips." Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase
shü, 57.
11. Hagitani and Taniiyama, Utaawase shü , 68. The editors' note suggests that the poor
performance of the readers at the Teishi In utaawase of 913 played a role in this decision.
12. There are twenty-six utaawase for which at least one poem is extant between the years
921 and 960. For seven of these, fragmentary or incomplete records make it impossible to know
who the participants were.
13. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shü , 88. Excluding Fujiwara Saneyori's record of
judgments, the Tentoku of 960 produced five other accounts: (1) the emperor's account; (2) the
chamberlain's account; and those written by (3) a woman serving the imperial court; (4) a male
participant on the Right Team, most likely Minamoto Takaakira; and (5) a woman member of the
Right Team. Of the five, the emperor and the chamberlain wrote in kanbun , the others in kana
intermixed with kanji.
14. The editors of the Utaawase shü regard the statement as a fiction born of the emperor's
desire to evade a feeling of self-censure for his devotion to such aesthetic practices. Hagitani and
Taniyama, Utaawase shü , 25. Recent scholarship- of Tomiko Yoda, Atsuko Sakaki, and Joshua
Mostow- has seriously questioned the degree to which Heian women were excluded from the
Rose Bundy 53
sphere of Chinese language and texts, revising the image of Heian court society as divided into
two autonomous linguistic-cultural closures. See Joshua S. Mostow, "Mother Tongue and Father
Script," in Rebecca L. Copeland and Esperanza Ramirez-Christensen, eds., The Father-Daughter
Plot (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001), 115-42; Atsuko Sakaki, Obsessions with the
Sino-Japanese Polarity in Japanese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006);
and Tomiko Yoda, Gender and National Literature: Heian Texts in the Constructions of Japanese
Modernity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
15. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shü , 25.
16. Among the tenji's functions was helping to serve the imperial meals and supervising a
subordinate staff of female servants. They and the palace ladies were in the middle category of the
emperor's ladies-in-waiting. The lady chamberlains, who served as seamstresses, etc., were of a
lower category. McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortune (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1980), 2: 821-22.
17. This list is taken from Fujiwara Kiyosuke's (1 104-1 177) Fukurozöshi (Book of folded
pages), a twelfth-century collection of poetic anecdotes and guide to poetry contests. With the
Ikuhõ Mon' in Teishi Naishinnõ Neawase (Ikuhõ Mon'in Princess Teishi's Iris Root Contest) of
1093, an utaawase also with female and male team members, as his source, the author provides a
sense of the tasks for which each team was responsible. Ozawa Masao et al., eds., Fukurozöshi
chüshaku (Annotated Fukurozöshi ), (Tokyo: Hanawa Shobõ, 1976), 2: 15-23.
18. Nakatsukasa participated in a dozen poetry contests. She is included among the Thirty-
Six Poetic Geniuses and is very well represented in the royal collections. If Shõni no myõbu is the
same woman as Shõni no menoto, she was probably Emperor Murakami's wet nurse. She, too, is
represented in the royal collections.
19. A schematic drawing of the seating arrangement can be found in Hagitani, Heiancho
utaawase taisei 2: 403 and Ozawa et al., Fukurozöshi 2: 29.
21. Saneyori was a recognized poet, well represented in the royal collections.
22. Ozawa et al., Fukurozöshi 1: 72.
23. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shu , 88.
24. Takaakira became a commoner, taking the Minamoto surname, in 923.
25. Hagitani, Heianchö utaawase taisei 10: 3088.
26. Ibid. 2: 404.
27. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shü , 99-100. Ito translates this record, attributed
to Minamoto Takaakira, but gives a different rendering of the passage. See Ito, "Muse in
Competition," 217.
28. The list of susamajiki mono (awful/awfully incongruous things) in the Tötsurareki , a
late-Heian text with topic categories similar to those found in Pillow Book , contains the entry, "a
woman drunk." Mark Morris, "Sei Shonagon's Poetic Catalogues," HJAS 40, no. 1 (June 1980):
48. The Tötsurareki , however, carries no more prescriptive force than Murasaki's diary.
29. Richard Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu : Her Diary and Poetic Memoirs (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), 67, 89-93.
30. Commenting on the food boxes for the women ( nyõbô hiwarigo ) used in the Ikuhõ Mon* in
neawase , Ozawa et al. note that while the men enjoyed a banquet with drinks, the women
received the boxes. Fukurozõshi 2: 22. However, they provide no evidence for this conclusion.
31. Ito, "The Muse in Competition," 205.
32. Hagitani, Heianchõ utaawase taisei 10: 3081. Hagitani also notes that the most effective
test for determining whether a kana record of a poetry contest was written by a man or a woman is
the absence or presence of descriptions of clothing.
33. Wallace, Objects of Discourse, 157.
34. Ibid., 149.
35. Ibid., 159.
36. Ibid.
37. See, for example, Minegishi, Utaawase no kenkyû , 57-7 4, 348-50.

38. These were the Reikeiden Nyõgo Sõshi Jõõ Utaawase (Reikeiden Junior-Consort
Imperial Princess Soshi's Poetry Contest), held on the twenty-ninth day of the second month of
956; Saigü Nyõgo Kishi Jõõ Utaawase (Ise Virgin Junior-Consort Princess Kishi's Poetry
Contest), held on the twenty-ninth day of the third month of 956; and Sen' yõden Miyasudokoro
Hõshi Nadeshiko Awase (Sen'yöden Lady-of-the-Bedchamber Höshi's Contest of Howering Pink
Blossoms), held on the twenty-ninth day of the fifth month of 956.
39. These were the 957 Tenryaku Jüichinen hen Aki Dairi Senzai Awase (Palace Contest of
Miniature Gardens Held Prior to the Autumn of Tenryaku 1 1) and the 958 Tentoku Ninen Shichigatsu
hen Chūgū Utaawase (Empress's Poetry Contest Held Prior to the Seventh Month of Tentoku 2).
40. For a description of the status and roles of the women who resided in the rear palace
(women's quarters), see McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes 2: 818-23.
41. The first chapter of the Eiga mono gatar i , as well as sections of the Õkagami , deal with
Emperor Murakami's reign. See McCullough and McCullough, A Tale of Flowering Fortunes ,
and Helen C. McCullough, Õkagami : The Great Mirror (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1980). For an excellent study of the politics of Heian marriage practices, see Peter Nickerson,
"The Meaning of Matrilocality, Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-Heian," Monumenta
Nipponica 48, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 429-67.
42. Höshi's first son was born around 960. The Õkagami reports Anshi's intense jealousy of
Hõshi as well as the latter's accomplishment of memorizing every poem, more than one thousand,
in the Kokinshū. McCullough, Õkagami , 115-16, 128-29.
43. McCullough and McCullough, Tales of Flowering Fortune 1:71.
44. Emperor Murakami had nineteen children with eight women. Some of his consorts were
also childless, and so we do not have a complete count of his partners. See the chart in McCullough
and McCullough, Tales of Flowering Fortune 1: 371-72.
45. The poems themselves were commissioned from professional poets.
46. Jusshi, the daughter of Minister of the Left Saneyori, had occupied the Kokiden
chambers and was known as the Kokiden Junior Consort.
47. The 957 Tenryaku Jüichinen hen Aki Dairi Senzai Awase (Palace Contest of Miniature
Gardens Held Prior to the Autumn of Tenryaku 11) and the 958 Tentoku Ninen Shichigatsu lzen
Rose Bundy 55
Chügü Utaawase (Empress's Poetry Contest Held Prior to the Seventh Month of Tentoku 2) seem
to have had elaborate suhama (miniature landscapes). For the 957 utaawase , Kiyotada describes
artificial flowers and butterflies on whose wings his celebratory poems were attached. In the
empress's 958 contest, the winning, male team sent the defeated women's team a replica of Mount
Fuji made of aloe wood, with Kiyotada' s poem attached below the smoke rising from the peak.
Hagitani, Heianchõ utaawase taisei 1: 327-28.
48. Generally in utaawase , the emperor's poems are awarded victory. However, in these
contests the poems are not directly Emperor Murakami's. We know that the men's team won the
empress's 958 contest (see note 47 above), but no record is extant about the outcome of the 957
contest.
49. Morosuke would pass away on the fourth day of the fifth month of 960. McCullough
and McCullough, Tales of Flowering Fortune 1: 82. From the Eiga monogatari description,
Morosuke's was not a sudden illness and death. In his Heianchõ utaawase taisei 10: 2945,
Hagitani suggests that Murosuke, too, may have been in mourning for some family member, but
illness seems as likely.
50. Very little is known about these lower-ranking members, although a number went on to
participate in Emperor Murakami's Dairi Senzai Aw ase (Palace Landscape Contest) of 966.
51. Also read Tomohira. Shūshi may have been involved in at least one other poetry contest
at court. Based on a poem by Kiyowara Motosuke in his personal collection and the Shüishü ,
Hagitani's Heianchõ utaawase taisei 2: 417 also records a possible contest hosted by the Reikeiden
Junior Consort Sõshi and Shüshi. Unfortunately, neither the nature of the event nor its date can be
known, although it likely was earlier than the Tentoku.
52. Hagitani, Heianchõ utaawase taisei 2: 392.
53. Saishõ kõi Minamoto Keishi was the mother of two daughters, the first born in 948;
Azechi no Kõi Fujiwara Masahime was the mother of two sons, the first born in 951, and a daugh-
ter born in 949.
54. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shū , 103-4.

55. The emperor's record notes that Anshi returned both, and then the Left suhama was
presented to Princess Shõshi. The court lady's record states that Anshi kept the Right one. Hagitani
and Taniyama, Utaawase shū , 90, 96. Shõshi was the daughter of the late Emperor Suzaku, who
had wanted to make her empress. She did indeed become Emperor Reizei's empress, but Reizei
was mentally ill. The Eiga monogatari reports that Shõshi spent most of her time away from the
palace because she feared the spirits possessing him. McCullough and McCullough, Tales of
Flowering Fortune 1: 83.
57. The poetry contest record produced by a woman member of the Right Team notes
Kuniteri's looks of displeasure at what he thought was the judge Saneyori's favoring of his own
Left Team. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shū , 102.
59. Ibid. We should remember that the judge Saneyori was also a member of the Left Team.
60. The Right Team won three rounds, and five rounds were draws.
61. Senior nobles included holders of the top three ranks as well ministerial officers and
consultants (, sangi ). For genealogical charts, see Hagitani, Heianchõ utaawase taisei 2: 401-2.
62. The Eiga monogatari comments on the novel and modern nature of this virilocal
arrangement. McCullough and McCullough, Tales of Flowering Fortune 1: 81. Takaakira prob-
ably wished to keep the prince at court.
63. McCullough, The Great Mirror , 130. Morihira was the future Emperor En'yu (r. 969-
984). The implication in the Okagami and Eiga is that Emperor Murakami's hand was forced by
the Fujiwara.
64. This was the so-called Anna incident. Readers of the Kagerõ Diary will recall that the
Mother of Michitsuna (d. ca. 995, a diarist and accomplished poet) sent Takaakira's wife a long
poem of sympathy. It would be interesting to compare the teams of the 960 Tentoku to the teams
of Emperor Murakami's final court utaawase, the Dairi Senzai Awase of 966. Unfortunately, the
names of senior nobles who participated in the latter are not recorded.
65. Nickerson, 'The Meaning of Matrilocality," 460-61. See also Haruo Shirane, "Aesthetics
of Power: Politics in the Tale of Genii," HJAS 45, no. 2 (Dec. 1985): 624-25.
66. Takaakira returned to Kyoto in 972 but lived the remaining decade of his life in
retirement.
67. McCullough and McCullough, Tales of Flowering Fortune 1: 80. Interestingly, when
the Eiga monogatari first introduces Murakami's consorts, Sukehime is mentioned last, as a
kind of afterthought (page 74). The Eiga monogatari also reports that Motokata's was one of
the spirits tormenting Anshi during her final pregnancy and childbirth, which claimed her life in
964 (page 85).
70. Ibid., 601.
71. Ibid., 611.
72. Ibid., 603.
73. Quoted in ibid., 606.
74. Quoted in ibid.
75. Cavanaugh, ibid., 609.
76. Ibid., 610.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., 100.

80. Ibid., 101.
82. Interestingly, high-ranking consorts seem to have had little occasion to see each other
either, living as they did in separate halls. The Õkagami reports that Anshi once made a peephole
in a partition to get a look at her rival Hõshi, and, overcome with jealousy, had one of her women
throw a pottery fragment through the hole. McCullough, Õkagami , 121.
83. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shū , 103.
Rose Bundy 57
84. Richard Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu , 89.

85. The women's report on male antics brings to mind the possibility of a "female gaze." To
consider this notion fully in relationship to utaawase , we would need to examine a far greater
number of utaawase records. Provocative investigations of a female gaze in Heian women's prose
literature can be found in Norma Field's Splendor of Longing (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1987) and Edith Sarra's treatment of Sei Shönagon's Makura no sõshi , "The Poetics of
Voyeurism," in her Fictions of Femininity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 222-64.
86. Between 995 and 1027, there are only nine poetry contests for which any records are
extant, and none of these was sponsored by the imperial court. This contrasts with the twenty
during Emperor Murakami's reign (946-967), of which seven were directly hosted by the
emperor. This last number does not include contests held in the residences of consorts for which
the emperor was the true organizer.
87. The first contest was in 1048 or 1049. Baishi was only ten at the time; as an adult she
seems to have suffered from at least intermittent mental illness. She participated as a poet in many
of her contests, but the degree to which she took leadership as host for her many events is
questionable. For a discussion of Baishi's salon, see Charo B. D'Echeverry, Love After " The Tale
ofGenji" (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), 39-57.
88. The Yüshi Naishinnõ Utaawase was held on the fifth day of the sixth month of 1050.

Court Women in Poetry Contests - Bundy

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

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

Court Women in Poetry Contests - Bundy

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Josai University Educational Corporation

Josai University Educational Corporation, University of Hawai'i Press are collaborating

(Poetry Contest Held at Court in 960)

The discussion below of women's place in the Tentoku is informed by insights

production, and performance of beauty by ladies-in-waiting as stimulated and regulated

The Nature of Poetry Contests and Their Connection with Women

The Role of Women in the Tentoku of 960

Second, even if the Emperor Murakami's statement is true, it should not be

The decision in the Kyõgoku Lady-of-the-Bedchamber Hôshi's Poetry Contest of 921

The Utaawase as Pageants of Power

obotsukana The leaves of words,

izure masareru A greater depth of heart.

Saishõ koť s response:

kurabu no yama ni Who dwells on Kurabu Mountain,

Again , the emperor sent to Ben no kõi:

kokoro yosemashi Find itself drawing near?

Ben no koť s response :

kokoro nari to mo May flow this way and that,

yorite wa ikaga How then should they favor

Even as the emperor asserts that he can make no determination, h

Saishõ kõi assumes a humble stance, disavowing possession of the poet

remain lower in status than Anshi. Significantly, the miniature landsc

princess betrothed to Anshi and Murakami's son Norihira, the future E

A somewhat different picture emerges when we look at the distribution of Fujiwara

owing, according to the Õkagami, to Takaakira's resentment.

monopoly on the position of emperors' maternal relatives; in Murasaki's novel Genji

as Murakami's poetry contests that fed the Eiga's misapprehension.

The Women's Gifts of Beauty

provides labor or acts as a substitute or agent." Instead, "power is effected or legitimated

the emperor and the women.

displacement of the aspects of entertainment and revelry by an increasing emphasis on

became far less prominent.

37. See, for example, Minegishi, Utaawase no kenkyû , 57-7 4, 348-50.

54. Hagitani and Taniyama, Utaawase shū , 103-4.

79. Ibid., 100.

84. Richard Bowring, Murasaki Shikibu , 89.

You might also like