{"id":253245,"date":"2026-07-13T02:41:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-tale-unasked-lady-nijo-meredith-mckinney\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T02:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T23:41:11","slug":"a-tale-unasked-lady-nijo-meredith-mckinney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/a-tale-unasked-lady-nijo-meredith-mckinney\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale Unasked – Lady Nijo Meredith McKinney"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the night drew on, he called for cormorant fishing,164 and had a cormorant boat brought up and attached to his so that he could watch. He then decided to reward the three fishermen with the set of unlined gowns I wore.165 After he returned, more sake was consumed and His Highness became quite excessively drunk. Very late that night, he finally retired, at which point Lord Kanehira appeared once more. \u2018How dull it is to spend all these nights away from home!\u2019 he began.<\/p>\n

\u2018And besides, Fushimi is known from of old to cause sleepless nights.166 Here, light me a taper. There are sure to be all sorts of unpleasant creatures around.\u2019 On and on he went, driving me mad with his pestering. \u2018Go on, why don\u2019t you go to him?\u2019 His Highness himself urged. I was truly miserable. \u2018You must forgive an old man his perversities,\u2019 continued Lord Kanehira. \u2018Our ages may raise eyebrows, but there are plenty of examples from the past where an older man becomes a young girl\u2019s protector.\u2019<\/p>\n

He said all this right beside where His Highness was lying. Words cannot express how wretched I felt. His Highness was, as usual, in high spirits. \u2018I\u2019ll be lonely sleeping here by myself,\u2019 he declared, and insisted we stay close by, so I spent a second night with Lord Kanehira right next door to where he lay. The following morning there was a great flurry of preparation for departure before dawn. We rose and parted, leaving me feeling \u2018a mere empty shell\u2019.167 On the way back to the capital I sat behind His Highness in his carriage, along with Sanekane.<\/p>\n

All the carriages travelled together as far as the Kiyomizu bridge, but at Ky\u014dgoku Street His Highness\u2019s carriage continued north while Lord Kanehira\u2019s and the others turned west, and as I watched them receding into the distance the pang that I felt at parting astonished me to wonder just how I could have learned to feel like this. 1kitap1.com\/en (1281\u20131285) With everything becoming ever more difficult and distressing and no obvious way out of this oppressive situation, I longed constantly to leave the world and retreat to some mountain temple, and my failure to be able to fulfil this urge made me despise myself for my weakness and worldly attachment.<\/p>\n

Haunted by these thoughts, even my dreams portended a growing distance from His Highness. I did everything in my power to avert it, but to no avail.<\/p>\n

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Born in 1258 into a high-ranking aristocratic family in Japan\u2019s capital (present-day Kyoto), LADY NIJ\u014c was largely raised in the court of Retired Emperor Go-Fukakusa, and at fourteen became his concubine. Their increasingly difficult relationship continued until 1283, when Go-Fukakusa abruptly expelled her from the court. Nij\u014d subsequently became a Buddhist nun, and thereafter spent much of her time wandering Japan on pilgrimage.<\/p>\n

She died sometime after 1306. MEREDITH McKINNEY is a translator of Japanese literature, both classical and modern. She lived in Japan for twenty years and is currently Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. Her translations for Penguin Classics include The Pillow Book of Sei Sh\u014dnagon, Essays in Idleness and H\u014dj\u014dki by Kenk\u014d and Ch\u014dmei, Travels with a Writing Brush: Classical Japanese Travel Writing from the Many\u014dsh\u016b to Bash\u014d, and two novels by Natsume S\u014dseki.<\/p>\n

1kitap1.com\/en Lady Nij\u014d A TALE UNASKED Translated by MEREDITH McKINNEY 1kitap1.com\/en Table of Contents Introduction List of Principal Characters Timeline of Principal Events Map 1: The Capital and Surrounds Map 2: Nij\u014d\u2019s Travels A TALE UNASKED BOOK 1 (1270\u20131274) BOOK 2 (1275\u20131277) BOOK 3 (1281\u20131285) BOOK 4 (1289\u20131293) BOOK 5 (1302\u20131306) Acknowledgements Notes 1kitap1.com\/en To Royall Tyler, friend and mentor 1kitap1.com\/en Introduction In 1938 a scholar stumbled upon an old manuscript with the intriguing title of Towazugatari (A Tale Unasked) tucked away in the Travel section of the Imperial Household Library in Tokyo, and decided to take a closer look.<\/p>\n

He discovered it was a late seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century copy of a much earlier work that was about very much more than just travel, apparently written by a high-ranking lady at the court of Retired Emperor Go-Fukakusa (1243\u20131304) and containing startling and detailed revelations of the sexual politics of courtly life. He also realized very quickly that A Tale Unasked was an impressive work of literature that surely ranked with the great women\u2019s diaries1 of earlier centuries.<\/p>\n

Scholars were soon at work deciphering and transcribing the lengthy handwritten manuscript, and in 1950 this precious and long-forgotten classic was finally introduced to the public. Internal evidence dates the completion of A Tale Unasked to around 1306. The memoir spans more than thirty-five years, beginning with a detailed account of the events leading up to the author Lady Nij\u014d\u2019s first sexual encounter with Go-Fukakusa at the age of fourteen,2 and coming to an end when she was an ageing nun of forty-nine.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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