The Clear Mirror: A Chronicle of the Japanese Court During the Kamakura Period (1185-1333).

Brown, Philip C.

The Clear Mirror: A Chronicle of the Japanese Court During the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), edited and translated by George W. Perkins. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1998. xiv, 342 pp. $49.50 U.S.

The Clear Mirror is an anonymous history, probably written by a court noble in the late fourteenth century. Its pages traverse events from 1180 until the end of Japan's first Shogunal administration, that of the Minamoto. While the starting point of this narrative is often taken as a point of departure for the eventual rise of warrior government, this is not a history of that grand historical development. Rather, it fits roughly within a broad genre of literary histories such as the Okagami ("Great Mirror"). While there certainly is historical veracity within such works, they were literary vehicles and authors attempted with varying degrees of success to capture their audiences with this literary merit.

The main device for telling the tale of court life is a narrative related in the voices of an old Buddhist nun, supposed witness to many of the events described, and a male author who records her words. It is a rather nostalgic story, displaying a yearning for the old court styles. The nun's story stops with Emperor GoDaigo's return to the capital in 1333 after a brief exile. To end the story here is to preserve Imperial glory; however, it avoids bringing GoDaigo's tale and that of the Imperial household to its historical conclusion. GoDaigo's efforts to reassert Imperial authority resulted in a split court, a substantial loss of that authority, and ultimately, a descent into near oblivion from which there was no rebound until Oda Nobunaga and his successors reinvigorated the Imperial institution in the late sixteenth century. While military personages are a part of the tale, it does not deal much with the affairs of the Shogun and concentrates instead on developments within the court.

While recent scholarship has emphasized the political involvement of the court even after the rise the Shogun, the strongest image in this work lies in the description it conveys of a detached court, caught up in its internal competitions and literary whirligigs. Not only is there little focus on court-Shogunal relations, but also the Mongol invasions of 1274 and 1281 that had such a major impact in destabilizing the Minamoto (Kamakura) Shogunate, get short shrift. The most substantial reference -- to the second invasion -- is less than a page in length. Other references in the text are few and confined to single sentences. Thus, reading The Clear Mirror makes it easy to understand why scholars have long thought the court isolated from politics.

The Introduction provides a general historical background that compensates for the lack of a systematic treatment of major politico-military developments in the text. While reasonably comprehensive, brevity renders it quite dense. Japanese terms, even when translated or explained in the text, do not always show up in the glossary (for example, Kanto moshitsugi). Some terms are used in English translation in the appendices (such as Kanto Liaison, Table I), although they are not listed in the index and apparently only the Japanese is used in the text. Furthermore, no parenthetical equivalence is established in the index. The fifty-plus page glossary indicates the daunting number of names and specialized terms that translator and reader alike must confront.

Much like a play script, each section of the edition translated begins with a clear indication of the chronological era covered, along with a brief statement of the chapter's main subject, and a cast of the major characters, helping readers to organize the material that follows. Sometimes grouped by Emperor (including various levels of retired Emperor), prominent women, Imperial regents, and poets, the thumbnail sketches help to familiarize readers with unfamiliar names and provide a simple introduction to the chapter. Chapters are not strictly chronological, with some overlapping and some years skipped altogether.

Like that of others of its genre, the prose can be quite flowery, especially in paeans to revered Emperors. Narratives are liberally laced with poems, reflecting a combination of the literary preoccupations of the court being described, the importance of poetry in Japan's aristocratic tradition, as well as enhancing the literary merit of the tale. The translation is very fluid and readable.

I have several problems with the manner in which the translator has attempted shortcuts. He has elected to refer to a number of persons by their given names only. Even when footnoted, a non-specialist will be hard put to find close at hand the full identification to pursue an individual further (see, for example, the list of poets, p. 32 and "Teika," p. 34 with its associated note). One must look up the individual in the glossary.

In addition, Perkins has clearly expended a great deal of effort in the compilation of his glossary. The effort is commendable and will do a great deal to enhance a reader's understanding of Japan's medieval culture. Many of the entries are for individuals and historic figures mentioned in the text or for official titles. However, given all of this effort and the great number of entries of other, less obvious sorts, it is unfortunate that the translator and editors did not find some way to signal readers which terms or phrases in the text have glossary entries.

Such reservations notwithstanding, there is much of merit for the specialist here.

Philip C. Brown

Ohio State University