YUUGAO
September 20th 2008 23:29
YUGAO
The yuugao is also known as the Moonflower in English though the actual Japanese translates as EVENING FACE yuu kao. It's a flower frequently mentioned in Japanese poetry with its pale night opening blooms being compared to a woman's skin. Chiyo and other haiku poets refer to it.
The "Moon Flower
Moonflower is the name given to two species.
One is Ipomoea alba. This is Yorugao not yugao so dont confuse the two!
Yuugao is Lagenaria Siceria which is actually the humble calabash or bottle gourd known as hu lu (kua) in Chinese.
One can see why the name got changed bu some well meaning translator who thought gourd flower wasn't very poetic?
The word and character Yuu Seki XI Zik Tich is the 36th radical .
Kao or gao is yan2 in Chinese or ngaan in Cantonese. It's classified under Radical 181which forms the right side side of the character and therein lies a story and a pun of the sort Japanese poets loved.
There is a character called Lady Yuugao in the Tale of Genji. In SinoJpanese using the ON reading ( gao is the kun reading) Gao can be pronounced as GAN or GEN and the left hand side of the character as a separate character can mean elegant or learned but in archaic Japanese also : HIKO many boy.
Prince GENJI had his first encounter with Lady Yuugao as a distant glimpse and a educated Japanese reader on hearing the name would think of evenings flowers elegance and other things and the poetic resonance of both names containing GEN.
To finish off this blog here's a reproduction of Yoshitoshi's print of Yuugao's ghost which also shows moonflowers on the vine.
Lady Yuugao's Ghost and the flower she's named for in the foreground
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