TRANSLATION: Sangokushi: The Peach Garden

A new translation of one of Asia’s greatest epics in 10 volumes

NEW RELEASES

• Romance of the Three Kingdoms Vol. 1: The Peach Garden by Eiji Yoshikawa

• 795: The Complete Waka of Genji Monogatari by Murasaki Shikibu

THE EMPIRE, NOW UNITED, MUST DIVIDE

Yoshikawa Eiji’s Sangokushi is the most widely read retelling of the Three Kingdoms saga ever written. Serialized from 1939 to 1943 in the Chūgai Shōgyō Shinpō — the forerunner of Japan’s Wall Street Journal — it reached a readership of tens of millions and has remained continuously in print for over eighty years. Where the original Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a dry historical chronicle, Yoshikawa reimagined it as a living novel: his Liu Bei is not a symbol of virtue but a complicated man struggling with ambition and doubt, his Cao Cao is brilliant and terrifying in equal measure, and his Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are as vivid as any characters in modern fiction. It is through Yoshikawa, more than through any other writer, that East Asia’s greatest epic entered the bloodstream of modern Japanese culture and, from there, inspired the manga, anime, films, and video games that have carried the Three Kingdoms story around the world.

The Peach Garden opens in the last days of the decaying Han Dynasty, when the empire is rotting from within and peasant rebellions are consuming the provinces. In a marketplace, a straw-sandal weaver named Liu Bei meets a fugitive butcher named Zhang Fei, and shortly after, a warrior named Guan Yu who is on the run for killing a corrupt official. The three men swear an oath of brotherhood in a peach garden, to live and die together, and to restore justice to the realm. They set out with nothing but their pledge and their weapons to make a place for themselves in a world that is falling apart. From that oath, everything follows: the rise of warlords, the burning of cities, and the first stirrings of the war that will tear China into three kingdoms.

This is the first volume of a complete English translation of all ten volumes of Yoshikawa’s Sangokushi. Over the next two weeks, all ten volumes will be released. This is the weekly subscription book and has already been sent to the subscribers. Now available on Amazon.

Excerpt

Lousang Village in Zhuo county was a small post station of no more than two or three hundred houses, but travelers moving north to south and south to north with the seasons would tether their donkeys here in considerable numbers, so that wine shops lined the main road, and rustic entertainers played the two-stringed fiddle, and the place had a liveliness out of proportion to its size.

The district fell under the jurisdiction of Governor Liu Yan, administered on his behalf by Commandant Zou Jing, whose offices were in the town. But the rampant incursions of the Yellow Turbans in recent years had cast a pall over the region, and Lousang Village was no exception. Every evening, well before dark, the iron doors of the village gate were shut fast, and all traffic, whether of travelers or residents, was cut off until morning.

The gate closed when the sun hung red and enormous on the western rim of the continent and the watchman in the tower above struck six beats on the drum. The people of the district called it the Six Drum Gate for this reason, and today, as on every other day, the red sun was settling against the iron doors and the drums had already sounded two, three, four times in succession.

“Wait! Please, wait!”

A lone traveler came driving his donkey hard from the distance, waving one arm overhead. He had very nearly missed the gate by a single beat and would have spent the night outside the walls.

The last drum was on the point of sounding when he reached the entrance and dismounted.

“I beg your pardon. Please let me through.”

He submitted to the standard inspection at the checkpoint. The guard took one look at his face and said, “Well now, aren’t you Liu Bei?”

Liu Bei was a resident of Lousang Village, and everyone knew him by sight.

“I am. I’ve just returned from my travels.”

“Your face is passport enough. No need for inspection. But where on earth have you been? This trip of yours has been a long one.”

“The usual trading business, but with the Yellow Turbans running wild in every direction, it’s been impossible to do proper business anywhere.”

“I can believe it. Fewer travelers come through the checkpoint every day. Go on, get through.”

“Thank you kindly.”

Liu Bei was remounting his donkey when the guard called after him.

“Oh, one more thing. Your mother, isn’t it, who used to come to the gate every evening asking whether her son had come through yet? Whether Liu Bei had passed today? She hasn’t been seen these ten days or so. Word is she’s taken ill and is bedridden. You’d best get home and show her your face.”

“What? My mother has fallen ill while I was away?”

A sudden dread seized his chest. He drove the donkey through the gate and into the town at a gallop.

The familiar streets passed in a blur of evening color. He did not spare them a glance. The road through the narrow, short post town gave out quickly, and the way opened again onto the unhurried countryside.

A gentle stream. Rice paddies. It was autumn, and the villagers had already begun the harvest. Here and there, figures in the fields and the dark shapes of water buffalo were turning homeward toward the scattered farmhouses.

“There. I can see the house.”

Liu Bei shaded his eyes from the back of the donkey. In the last of the sinking light, one dark roof stood alone, and beside it, visible even from this distance, a tree so vast it looked like an enormous parasol. That was the mulberry. That was the house where Liu Bei had been born.

How she must have waited for him. And what had he done? He had set out meaning to serve her, and all he had accomplished was to pile unfilial absence upon unfilial absence. Mother, forgive me.

The donkey seemed to know his heart, for it quickened its pace unbidden, and soon they had come to the foot of the great mulberry tree.

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THE COMPLETE POETRY OF GENJI MONOGATARI

The Tale of Genji, written a thousand years ago by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu, contains 795 poems woven into its prose. It is the largest and most complex body of waka embedded in any work of Japanese literature. These poems are not ornaments. In the world of the Heian court, poetry was the primary medium of communication between lovers, rivals, parents, and children. To compose well was to demonstrate breeding, intelligence, and depth of feeling. To compose poorly was to reveal yourself as graceless and unworthy.

795: The Complete Waka of Genji Monogatari presents all 795 waka from a new English translation of The Tale of Genji. Each poem has been translated using a tiered system designed to make the character’s poetic ability audible in English, just as it is in the original Japanese. When Prince Genji composes, you hear the easy fusion of passion and technique that marks a genius. When Murasaki no Ue responds, you hear a woman whose artistic ability matches his own. When Lady Rokujō writes, her poems burn with an intensity that borders on the dangerously insane.

But not every character in the Genji is a master poet. The Safflower Princess composes with painful earnestness and no ear for rhythm. Her poems are technically correct and emotionally inert, and the translation renders them so. The Lady of Ōmi rattles off verse with the confident gracelessness of someone who has never understood what poetry is for. Among the men, the poems of minor courtiers and provincial officials often lack the subtlety and allusive depth of Genji’s circle. These differences are not accidental. Murasaki Shikibu used poetry as characterization, and the quality of a person’s verse is important in telling the reader who they are. This translation preserves that aspect of her work.

Organized by chapter, with each poem numbered sequentially from 1 to 795 and indexed in a complete reference list, this volume serves both as a companion to The Tale of Genji and as a standalone anthology of Heian court poetry, the most intimate record we possess of how the men and women of a thousand years ago spoke to each other when words alone were not enough. Now available on Amazon.

Excerpt

花散里

Hana Chiru Sato

Wochika heri

おちかへり
えそしのはれぬ
ほとゝきす
ほのかたらひし
やとのかきねに

Returning,
the cuckoo cannot bear it,
cannot hold back its cry,
at the hedge of the house
where once we faintly spoke.

Hototogisu

ほとゝきす
ことゝふこゑは
それなれと
あなおほつかな
さみたれのそら

The cuckoo speaks
and the voice
is indeed his,
yet how uncertain
the sky of the rainy month.

Tachibana no

たち花の
かをなつかしみ
ほとゝきす
はなちるさとを
たつねてそとふ

Drawn by the scent
of the orange blossoms,
the cuckoo comes,
seeking the village
where the flowers fall.

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