As though to compound the confusion, two other examples of the same pattern lack the erotic tone evident in [1] and [2], presumably because the watchers this time are women. In “Sakaki,” Fujitsubo contemplates her young son, the future Emperor Reizei:
[3] The older he grew, the kinder his eyes became, as though Genji’s face had slipped over his own. Mild decay affected his teeth, darkening the inside of his mouth and giving him a smile so winsome that she would gladly have seen such beauty in a girl [onna nite mitatematsurahoshū kiyora nari].[11]
The translation “would gladly have seen such beauty in a girl” is ambiguous, since it could mean that girls as pretty as this boy are rare. In the original, Fujitsubo clearly would prefer to see him as a girl. Why? His being Genji’s son, not the Emperor’s, has caused her anxiety now multiplied by his recent appointment, in a hostile political environment, as heir apparent. Things might indeed be easier if he were a girl, but that seems not to be the issue; nor, presumably, is desire. Passage [3] has given scholars seeking to grasp the onna nite miru pattern particular trouble. At any rate, something similar appears in this description of retired emperor Suzaku (“Eawase”):
[4] His Eminence’s looks were such that one would have gladly seen him as a woman [onna nite mitatematsuramahoshiki o], but Her Highness [Akikonomu] did not seem unworthy of him, and they would have made a handsome pair.[12]
The observer is probably a generalized one, resembling above all a gentlewoman like the narrator.[13] Her high but somewhat conventional-sounding praise of Suzaku’s looks seems intended mainly to extol Akikonomu’s. Despite the repetition of onna nite miru, these two passages seem remote from the first pair cited.
[11] TTG, 205; GM 2:116.
[12] TTG, 322; GM 2:372.
[13] It could also be Genji who appraises Suzaku this way. Most modern editors refrain from committing themselves on the subject, but one explicitly includes this sentence in an interior monologue passage attributed to Genji (Abe Akio, Kanpon Genji monogatari, 387–8). In Yanai et al. (Genji monogatari 2:170, n. 7 [SNKBT]), onna nite mitatematsuramahoshiki o is interpreted as “be a woman in his intimate company”; but Abe et al. (Genji monogatari), and Ishida and Shimizu (Genji monogatari), take it as translated here.