Lady Nijō

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2020}}{{Short description|Japanese noblewoman, poet and author (1258 – after 1307)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Lady Nijō

| native_name = ごふかくさいんのにじょう
後深草院二条

| native_name_lang = jp

| birth_date = {{Birth year|1258}}

| birth_place = Kamakura Japan

| occupation = Imperial consort, Buddhist nun, writer

| language = Late Middle Japanese

| period = Kamakura period

| genre = Diary

| notable_works = Towazugatari

| spouse = Emperor Go-Fukakusa

| partner = Saionji Sanekane
Prince Shojo

| children = 4

| relatives = Koga Michiteru (paternal grandfather)
Minamoto no Michichika (paternal great-grandfather)

| years_active = early 14th century CE

}}

{{Nihongo|Lady Nijō|後深草院二条|Go-Fukakusain no Nijō}} (1258 – after 1307) was a Japanese noblewoman, poet and author. She was a concubine of Emperor Go-Fukakusa from 1271 to 1283, and later became a Buddhist nun.{{Cite journal |last=Tonomura |first=Hitomi |date=2006 |title=Coercive Sex in the Medieval Japanese Court: Lady Nijō's Memoir |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25066446 |journal=Monumenta Nipponica |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=283–338 |doi=10.1353/mni.2006.0036 |jstor=25066446 |issn=0027-0741}} After years of travelling, around 1304–07 she wrote a memoir, Towazugatari ("An Unasked-For Tale", commonly translated into English as The Confessions of Lady Nijō), the work for which she is known today, and which is also the only substantial source of information on her life.{{Cite book |last=Meeks |first=Lori Rachelle |title=Nuns, court ladies, and female bodhisattvas: The women of Japan's medieval Ritsu-school nuns' revival movement |publisher=Princeton University |year=2003}}

Court life

Lady Nijō was a member of the Koga family, a branch of the Minamoto clan descended from Emperor Murakami through Prince Tomohira, his seventh son.{{Cite book|last1=Marra|first1=Michele|title=The Aesthetics of Discontent: Politics and Reclusion in Medieval Japanese Literature|last2=Marra|first2=Michael F.|publisher=University of Hawaii Press|year=1991|isbn=0-8248-1336-7|location=Honolulu|pages=104}} The clan's station at court was established through the allegiance made by Tomohira's son, Minamoto no Morofusa, with Emperor Go-Sanjō. Lady Nijō's father and paternal grandfather held important positions at the imperial court, and many of her relatives and ancestors had high reputations for their literary abilities. Her real name does not survive. The name "Nijō" was given to her at the court: it was common practice at the time to designate court ladies by street names, and "Nijō" ("Second Avenue") designates a high rank. It indicates proximity to the First Ward, which is where the Imperial household was located.{{Cite book|last1=Chakrabarti|first1=Chandana|title=Revisiting Mysticism|last2=Haist|first2=Gordon|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|year=2020|isbn=978-1-84718-558-7|location=Newcastle upon Tyne|pages=8}}

According to the Towazugatari, Emperor Go-Fukakusa was in love with Nijō's mother, Kinshi, the daughter of Shijô Takachika and a {{Nihongo3|assistant handmaid|典侍|naishi no suke}}, who would have been the fourteen-year-old emperor's initiation to sex. However, Kinshi died shortly after Nijō was born, and Go-Fukakusa turned his affections to Nijō. She was taken to the court at the age of four, and was subsequently raised there; the death of her mother and the lack of a maternal home, where aristocratic children were normally raised, away from the court, rendered her effectively homeless. In 1271, Nijō, aged 14, was given by her father to Go-Fukakusa as a concubine.{{Cite book|last=Shirane|first=Haruo|title=Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, Abridged Edition|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-231-15730-8|location=New York|pages=383}} It is unclear whether Nijō should be considered a formal wife (seisai) or a concubine (meshudo): there is evidence in the Confessions to support both interpretations.{{Cite book|title=Aspects of classical Japanese travel writing|last=国際文化教育センター.|first=城西大学.|date=2007|publisher=Center for Inter-Cultural Studies and Education, Josai University|oclc=603749273}} In the Towazugatari she describes being raped by Go-Fukakusa at age 14. However, she gained a certain amount of influence and protection when she was adopted by Lady Kitayama, the wife of the powerful Saionji Saneuji, the most politically powerful man of his day.

Nijō's life at the court was plagued by numerous troubles. Her father died when she was 15 and it hampered her circumstance because there was no influential figure to advance her cause.{{Cite book|last1=Musume|first1=Nakanoin Masatada no|title=The Confessions of Lady Nijō|last2=Brazell|first2=Karen|publisher=Stanford University Press|year=1976|isbn=0-8047-0929-7|location=Stanford, CA|pages=ix}} Additionally, she was forced to have sexual relations against her will with court men, including Takatsukasa Kanehira. Her relationship with the emperor also became strained from the beginning, because she took several other lovers over the years, including one whom she knew before becoming a concubine. Matters were complicated further by Nijō's pregnancies: the only child she bore to Go-Fukakusa died in infancy, and the other three children she had were not by the emperor. Go-Fukakusa's consort, Higashi-nijō, was greatly displeased with Nijō's behaviour and Go-Fukakusa's apparent affinity for the concubine. Ultimately, it was due to Higashi-nijō's request that Nijō was expelled from the court in 1283.

Religious life

Nijō's life after leaving the imperial court are revealed in Books 4 and 5 of Towazugatari. Like many women in medieval Japan whose lives met with unfortunate circumstances, Nijō became a Buddhist nun. She traveled to sacred and historical places, following the footsteps of the famous poet and priest, Saigyō, returning to the capital regularly. Kimura Saeko notes that some of these visits never actually took place, meaning that sections of Nijō's travels are fictionalised. Book 4 begins in 1289, skipping several years (thus leading scholars to believe that some material may be missing); Book 5 skips some more years and describes Nijō's grief at Go-Fukakusa's death in 1304. Towazugatari ends in 1306, and nothing is known about what happened to Nijō afterward or when she died.

''Towazugatari''

Towazugatari was written c. 1307 and covers events of the period from 1271 to 1306. The work is considered one of the greatest works of Japanese literature,{{cite book|title=The Confessions of Lady Nijō|translator=Karen Brazell|place=Stanford|publisher=Stanford University Press|date=1976|isbn=0-8047-0930-0|chapter=Preface}} as well-being a rare account of events not typically recorded in premodern Japanese literary works, such as sexual coercion.{{cite journal|title=Coercive sex in the medieval Japanese court|author-last=Tonomura|author-first=Hitomi|journal=Monumenta Nipponica|volume=61|issue=3|date=2006|pages=283–338|doi=10.1353/mni.2006.0036|jstor=25066446|s2cid=162292906}}

Nijō's autobiography did not enjoy wide circulation, potentially due to later factionalism that split the imperial family or the fact that Nijō's portrayal of Emperor Go-Fukakusa was both intimate and humanising. A single 17th-century copy was discovered among the holdings of the Imperial Household in 1940 by Yamagishi Tokuhei,{{Cite web|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/12/23/books/book-reviews/confessions-lady-nijo-memoir-timeless-depth-beauty/#.XJwLN7jLjIU|title='The Confessions of Lady Nijo': a memoir of timeless depth and beauty|last=Jones|first=T. C.|date=23 December 2017|website=The Japan Times|access-date=27 March 2019}} with several gaps in Book 5, noted by the scribe. The book was published in 1950, with a complete annotated edition following in 1966. There are two English translations:

Karen Brazell. The Confessions of Lady Nijo. A Zenith book, published by Arrow Books Ltd., London, 1973. {{ISBN|0-600-20813-3}}
Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa. Lady Nijo's own story; Towazugatari: the candid diary of a thirteenth-century Japanese imperial concubine. Tuttle, Rutland, Vt. 1974. {{ISBN|0-8048-1117-2}}

Genealogy

=Ancestors=

{{ahnentafel

|collapsed=yes |align=center

|boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc;

|boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9;

|boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc;

|boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc;

|boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe;

|1= 1. Lady Nijō
後深草院二条

|2= 2. {{ill|Minamoto no Masatada|jp|源雅忠|vertical-align=sup}}
源雅忠

|3= 3. Dainagon Tenji Chikako
大納言典侍近子

|4= 4. Koga Michiteru
久我通光

|5= 5. Kousuke
督典侍

|6= 6. {{ill|Shijo no Takachika|jp|四条隆親|vertical-align=sup}}
四条隆親

|7= 7.

|8= 8. Minamoto no Michichika
源通親

|9= 9. Fujiwara no Hanshi
藤原範子

|10= 10. {{ill|Fujiwara no Norimitsu|jp|藤原範光|vertical-align=sup}}
藤原範光

|11= 11.

|12= 12. Shijo no Tachihira
四条隆衡

|13= 13.

|14= 14.

|15= 15.

}}

=Issue=

Partners and their respective issue:{{cite book|title=Lady Nijo's Own Story: The Candid Diary of a Thirteenth-Century Japanese Imperial Concubine|author-last1=Whitehouse|author-first1=Wilfrid |author-last2=Yanagisawa|author-first2=Eizo|place=Rutland and Tokyo|publisher=Charles E. Tuttle|date=1974}}