I don't understand Fujiwara no Sanesuke
I've been feeling the Heian period boom whenever I go to bookstores, and following the trend, I've been browsing Wikipedia pages of Heian nobles I had no interest in before. I regretted it when I looked at the profile of 'Fujiwara no Sanesuke'. I should have watched 'Hikaru Kimi e'.
Although Michinaga asked Sanesuke to compose a waka poem for a folding screen, Sanesuke refused until the end. However, their relationship did not deteriorate after that, and a few days later, Michinaga took Sanesuke by the hand, led him into the Jikiro (a private room), and showed him his costume.
Took him by the hand?
The folding screen incident is likely a fact, but surely taking him by the hand is a later invention, right?
I thought so, but this was also a fact. Sanesuke himself wrote it in his diary. 'Kei-yo-shu'. 'Taking my hand', he wrote.
What does it mean to take someone by the hand? Does it mean they held hands? Really? Isn't that too close for comfort? Did they do that in the Taiga drama?
If this were, for example, at the scene of a fire, and he said, 'Sanesuke-san, you're too slow at escaping! Let me give you a hand!', I could barely understand it.
But in this case, it was 'Sanesuke-san, come here! I have something to show you! My costume!'. Do Heian nobles hold hands on such ordinary days?
Or perhaps 'taking by the hand' had a different meaning in the Heian period? Like 'placing a hand on the waist to assist with walking' or 'beckoning'?
I wondered what Michinaga had to say, so I checked Michinaga's diary, 'Mido Kanpakuki', but it only briefly mentioned things like 'My daughter has become a nyogo. I drank with everyone,' and the incident with Sanesuke was not recorded.
Even when I searched the database of the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo, only Sanesuke recorded 'taking my hand' on that day.
There are a few documents that use the phrase 'taking hands', and as someone who cannot read classical Chinese, as far as I could glance at it, it only showed that the action of 'taking hands' was performed, and the meaning was not written.
Well, it's unlikely that someone would interrupt a story to explain, 'By the way, the meaning of taking hands here is...', so this effort might have been in vain.
Furthermore, among the documents that hit, I found one that said, 'Taking hands and feet, walking gradually up Ishiyama', (Fujiwara no Moromichi, 'Go-Nijo Moromichi-ki', 25th day of the 7th month, Kanji 2 (1088)).
What does it mean to take hands and feet? Is that the right way to use it? It created a new confusion.
I suppose 'taking by the hand' probably means 'holding hands', but if that's the case, what's up with the personal space of Heian nobles? 'Taking by the hand' and 'personal space' are spinning around in my head.
As I read Sanesuke's diary, 'Shoyuki', little by little, the word 'shisshin' (fainting) appears on the 13th day of the 8th month of Eiso 1 (989). It seems 'everyone fainted' due to rain and wind, which I assume was a typhoon, but should I take this 'fainting' in the modern sense? Is it a euphemism for 'passed away'? My questions are endless.
I don't understand Sanesuke's writing.
10/13 Update
When I looked at 'Shoyuki', Fujiwara no Yukinari was having a male noble with no blood relation use his lap as a pillow.
Heian nobles must have had much closer personal distances than people today.
National Diet Library Digital Collections
"Zōho Shiryō Taisei Bekkan 1" Rinsen Shoten, 1989, p. 157
"Midō Kanpakuki, Vol. 1" Nihon Koten Zenshū Kankōkai, 1929, p. 13
Complete Modern Japanese Translation: Kazuhiro Kuramoto, "Fujiwara no Michinaga 'Midō Kanpakuki' (Vol. 1)" Kodansha, 2009, p. 45
"Modern Japanese Translation: Shōyūki 2" Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2016, p. 80
"Modern Japanese Translation: Shōyūki 3" Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2016, p. 133