is a late Heian period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...

 Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

. The author is unknown. The text is also known as , , and .

Contents

The text is composed of two short stories. The protagonist is based Ono no Takamura

Ono no Takamura

also known as was an early Heian period scholar and poet.-Life:Takamura is a descendant of Ono no Imoko who served as Kenzuishi, and his father was Ono no Minemori. He is the grandfather of Ono no Michikaze, one of the...

.

The first story draws its inspiration from poem #829 of the Kokin Wakashū:

Composed upon the death of my sister:

May my tears that I weep fall as rain

should the river rise

my sister may return to me.

While Ono no Takamura teaches the Chinese classics

Chinese classic texts

Chinese classic texts, or Chinese canonical texts, today often refer to the pre-Qin Chinese texts, especially the Neo-Confucian titles of Four Books and Five Classics , a selection of short books and chapters from the voluminous collection called the Thirteen Classics. All of these pre-Qin texts...

 to his half-sister, the two fall in love and the sister gets pregnant. When their mother discovers what is going on, she separates them. The sister closes herself up in a room and dies, only to reunite with Takamura as a ghost.

The second story is based on entry #186 in Honchō Monzui

Honcho Monzui

is Japanese book of Chinese prose and poetry. It was compiled around the middle of the 11th century during the Heian period by Fujiwara no Akihira.-Composition:...

. In the passage, Takamura asks the Minister of the Right

Udaijin

Udaijin , most commonly translated as the "Minister of the Right", was a government position in Japan in the late Nara and Heian periods. The position was consolidated in the Taihō Code of 702. The Asuka Kiyomihara Code of 689 marks the initial appearance of the Udaijin in the context of a central...

for permission to marry his daughter.

In the short story, Takamura seeks to marry the daughter of the Minister of the
Right. He is initially rejected by her elder and middle sisters, but eventually marries her. He is haunted by the ghost of his dead sister and the jealousy of his wife, but is eventually raises in fortune to become , Director of Palace Affairs. He then takes care of the elder and middle sisters who had fallen into misfortune.