Chapter 42 - Niou-Miya

"Niou-Miya" is Chapter 42 of The Tale of Genji, introducing the next generation's leading male characters: Prince Niou (a grandson of Genji, brilliant and attractive but also vain and unreliable) and Kaoru (Genji's supposed son, actually Kashiwagi's child, serious and melancholy). These two young men will carry the remaining narrative of the novel through the Uji chapters, their contrasting characters — Niou's impulsiveness versus Kaoru's introspection — generating the novel's final tragic complications. Ebina's print establishes these two figures as the heirs of Genji's complex legacy.