Mighty waves rose up, writes Muraski Shikibu in the Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji. Photograph:Jean Guichard/CORBIS

Genji, the shining prince, seeks ceremonial purification. Also he wants to see the sea. “Suddenly, the wind began to blow, and the sky darkened. The purification broke off in the ensuing confusion. Such a downpour followed that in the commotion the departing gentlemen could not even put up their umbrellas,” reports the novelist Murasaki Shikibu, in Royall Tyler’s translation of the thousand-year-old Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji.

“Without warning, a howling gale sent everything flying. Mighty waves rose up, to the terror of them all. The sea gleamed like a silken quilt beneath the play of lightning, and thunder crashed. They barely managed to struggle back, feeling as though a bolt might strike them at any moment. ‘I have never seen anything like this!’ ‘A storm gives warning before it starts to blow! This is terrible and strange!’ Through their exclamations the thunder roared on and the rain drove down hard enough to pierce what it struck. While they wondered in dismay whether the world was coming to an end, Genji calmly chanted a scripture. At dark, the thunder fell silent for a time, but the wind blew on through the night. ‘All those prayers of mine must be working.’” Towards the dawn, there is sleep, disturbed for the hero by an ominous dream of a strange summons from an unrecognised being. The calm is illusory. In the next chapter, “it rained and thundered for days on end. Genji’s miseries multiplied endlessly.”