Haruo Shirane identified Honosuseri with Suzaku in the tale, but in practice this correspondence has not received much attention. The Kakaishō author implied it, but he did not mention it. Many pages of the preceding essays have been devoted to the relationship between the two brothers and to the proposition that it is complex, meaningful, and even dramatic. However, most readers take the narrator at her literal word and believe the brothers to be close, with only warm feelings for each other. Suzaku viewed in this way may be weak, but he is also kind, tolerant, upright, and without personal bitterness toward Genji. He has even been described as simply Genji’s “inevitable shadow.”[101] Nonetheless, the defeated Honosuseri (if he were a character anything like as developed as Suzaku) could hardly help resenting his brother’s victory deeply. The Tale of Genji read in this light acquires a new depth that in no way displaces its more obvious brilliance. Nearly three decades ago Mitoma Kōsuke reached a comparable, although less-developed conclusion. Citing the Hikohohodemi myth, among other examples from early literature, he classified the story of Genji and Suzaku, through Part One of the tale, as an example of what he called the basshi seikō tan (“younger brother outdoes elder”) pattern.[102] In Part Two, however, the Genji author carried the story of the brothers far beyond anything suggested either by the myth itself or by its historical association with Sumiyoshi and the Azumi. Hikohohodemi and his line triumphed forever over the Hayato, but the story that begins in Part Two takes a different course.
It is in Part Two (“Wakana Two”) that Genji makes his second and last pilgrimage to Sumiyoshi. The occasion is grand, and the narrative gives it generous space, but it raises few questions, and perhaps for that reason it is relatively little discussed. It seems to close a phase of Genji’s life. The main reason for the pilgrimage is the Akashi Novice’s insistence that his daughter should go to Sumiyoshi and thank the deity for answering his prayers. Genji takes the occasion to renew his own thanks as well.
It was the middle of the tenth month; the kudzu vines clambering along the sacred fence had turned, and the reddened leaves beneath the pines announced not only in sound the waning of autumn. The familiar Eastern Dances, so much more appealing than the solemn pieces from Koma or Cathay, merged with wind and wave; the music of the flutes soared on the breeze through the tall pines, conveying a shiver of awe not to be felt elsewhere; the rhythm, marked on strings rather than on drums, was less majestic than gracefully stirring; and the place lent its own magic to the whole…Dawn broke slowly, and the frost lay thicker still. While the cressets burned low, kagura musicians too drunk by now to know what they were singing gave themselves to merrymaking, oblivious to the spectacle they made, yet still waving their sakaki wands and crying “Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!” until one imagined endless years of happy fortune.[103]
The scene recalls the close of Zeami’s famous Takasago, when the Sumiyoshi deity, in the form of a beautiful young lord, dances to the music and chorus of his people;[104] but in the tale the scene is poignant as well. The shadows are falling over Genji and Murasaki, whom “ten thousand years” do not await, and over Suzaku as well. Sumiyoshi has had his way, but all he has done now merges into the greater current of karma and time.