The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon

In autumn the evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky. When the sun has set, one’s heart is moved by the sound of the wind and the hum of the insects.

In winter the early mornings. It is beautiful indeed when snow has fallen during the night, but splendid too when the ground is white with frost; or even when there is no snow or frost, but it is simply very cold and the attendants hurry from room to room stirring up the fires and bringing charcoal, how well this fits the season’s mood! But as noon approaches and the cold wears off, no one bothers to keep the braziers alight, and soon nothing remains but piles of white ashes.

Especially delightful is the first day of the First Month, when the mists so often shroud the sky. Everyone pays great attention to his appearance and dresses with the utmost care. What a pleasure it is to see them all offer their congratulations to the Emperor and celebrate their own new year!²

I also enjoy the seventh day, when people pluck the young herbs that have sprouted fresh and green beneath the snow.3 It is amusing to see their excitement when they find such plants growing near the Palace, by no means a spot where one might expect them.⁴

This is the day when members of the nobility who live outside the Palace arrive in their magnificently decorated carriages to admire the blue horses.⁵ As the carriages are drawn over the ground-beam of the Central Gate,⁶ there is always a tremendous bump, and the heads of the women passengers are knocked together; the combs fall out of their hair, and may be smashed to pieces if the owners are not careful. I enjoy the way everyone laughs when this happens.

I remember one occasion when I visited the Palace to see the procession of blue horses. Several senior courtiers⁷ were standing outside the guard-house of the Left Division; they had borrowed bows from the escorts, and, with much laughter, were twanging them to make the blue horses prance. Looking through one of the gates of the Palace enclosure, I could dimly make out a garden fence, near which a number of ladies, several of them from the Office of Grounds, went to and fro. What lucky women, I thought, who could walk about the Nine-Fold Enclosure as though they had lived there all their lives! Just then the escorts passed close to my carriage - remarkably close, in fact, considering the vastness of the Palace grounds - and I could actually see the texture of their faces. Some of them were not properly powdered; here and there their skin showed through unpleasantly like the dark patches of earth in a garden where the snow has begun to melt. When the horses in the procession reared wildly, I shrank into the back of my carriage and could no longer see what was happening.

On the eighth day⁸ there is great excitement in the Palace as people hurry to express their gratitude, and the clatter of carriages is louder than ever - all very fascinating.

The fifteenth day is the festival of the full-moon gruel,9 when a bowl of gruel is presented to His Majesty. On this day all the women of the house carry gruel-sticks, which they hide carefully from each other. It is most amusing to see them walking about, as they await an opportunity to hit their companions. Each one is careful not to be struck herself and is constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one is stealing up on her. Yet the precautions are useless, for before long one of the women manages to score a hit. She is extremely pleased with herself and laughs merrily. Everyone finds this delightful - except, of course, the victim, who looks very put out.

In a certain household a young gentleman had been married during the previous year to one of the girls in the family.¹⁰ Having spent the night with her, he was now, on the morning of the fifteenth, about to set off for the Palace. There was a woman¹¹ in the house who was in the habit of lording it over everyone. On this occasion she was standing in the back of the room, impatiently awaiting an opportunity to hit the man with her gruel-stick as he left. One of the other women realized what she had in mind and burst out laughing. The woman with the stick signalled excitedly that she should be quiet. Fortunately the young man did not notice what was afoot and he stood there unconcernedly.

‘I have to pick up something over there,’ said the woman with the stick, approaching the man. Suddenly she darted forward, gave him a great whack, and made her escape. Everyone in the room burst out laughing; even the young man smiled pleasantly, not in the least annoyed. He was not too startled; but he did blush a little, which was charming.

Sometimes when the women are hitting each other the men also join in the fun. The strange thing is that, when a woman is hit, she often gets angry and bursts into tears; then she will upbraid her assailant and say the most awful things about him - most amusing. Even in the Palace, where the atmosphere is usually so solemn, everything is in confusion on this day, and no one stands on ceremony.

It is fascinating to see what happens during the period of appointments. However snowy and icy it may be, candidates of the Fourth and Fifth Ranks come to the Palace with their official requests. Those who are still young and merry seem full of confidence. For the candidates who are old and white-haired things do not go so smoothly. Such men have to apply for help from people with influence at Court; some of them even visit ladies-in-waiting in their quarters and go to great lengths in pointing out their own merits. If young women happen to be present, they are greatly amused. As soon as the candidates have left, they mimic and deride them - something that the old men cannot possibly suspect as they scurry from one part of the Palace to another, begging everyone, ‘Please present my petition favourably to the Emperor’ and ‘Pray inform Her Majesty about me.’ It is not so bad if they finally succeed, but it really is rather pathetic when all their efforts prove in vain.

It is a great pleasure to break off a long, beautifully flowering branch from a cherry tree and to arrange it in a large vase. What a delightful task to perform when a visitor is seated nearby conversing! It may be an ordinary guest, or possibly one of Their Highnesses, the Empress’s12 elder brothers; but in any case the visitor will wear a cherry-coloured¹³ Court cloak, from the bottom of which his under-robe emerges. I am even happier if a butterfly or a small bird flutters prettily near the flowers and I can see its face.

How delightful everything is at the time of the Festival!14 The leaves, which still do not cover the trees too thickly, are green and fresh. In the daytime there is no mist to hide the sky and, glancing up, one is overcome by its beauty. On a slightly cloudy evening, or again at night, it is moving to hear in the distance the song of a hototogisu¹⁵ - so faint that one doubts one’s own ears.

When the Festival approaches, I enjoy seeing the men go to and fro with rolls of yellowish green and deep violet material which they have loosely wrapped in paper and placed in the lids of long boxes. At this time of the year, border shading, uneven shading, and rolled dyeing all seem more attractive than usual.¹⁶ The young girls who are to take part in the procession have had their hair washed and arranged; but they are still wearing their everyday clothes, which sometimes are in a great mess, wrinkled and coming apart at the seams. How excited they are as they run about the house, impatiently awaiting the great day, and rapping out orders to the maids: ‘Fit the cords on my clogs’ or ‘See that the soles of my sandals are all right.’ Once they have put on their Festival costumes, these same young girls, instead of prancing about the rooms, become extremely demure and walk along solemnly like priests at the head of a procession. I also enjoy seeing how their mothers, aunts, and elder sisters, dressed according to their ranks, accompany the girls and help keep their costumes in order.

A priest’s language.

The speech of men and of women.¹⁷

The common people always tend to add extra syllables to their words.

That parents should bring up some beloved son of theirs to be a priest is really distressing. No doubt it is an auspicious18 thing to do; but unfortunately most people are convinced that a priest is as unimportant as a piece of wood, and they treat him accordingly. A priest lives poorly on meagre food, and cannot even sleep without being criticized. While he is young, it is only natural that he should be curious about all sorts of things, and, if there are women about, he will probably peep in their direction (though, to be sure, with a look of aversion on his face). What is wrong about that? Yet people immediately find fault with him for even so small a lapse.

The lot of an exorcist is still more painful. On his pilgrimages to Mitake, Kumano, and all the other sacred mountains he often undergoes the greatest hardships. When people come to hear that his prayers are effective, they summon him here and there to perform services of exorcism: the more popular he becomes, the less peace he enjoys. Sometimes he will be called to see a patient who is seriously ill and he has to exert all his powers to cast out the spirit that is causing the affliction. But if he dozes off, exhausted by his efforts, people say reproachfully, ‘Really, this priest does nothing but sleep.’ Such comments are most embarrassing for the exorcist, and I can imagine how he feel must.

That is how things used to be; nowadays priests have a somewhat easier life.

When the Empress moved into the house of the Senior Steward, Narimasa, the east gate of his courtyard had been made into a four-pillared structure,19 and it was here that Her Majesty’s palanquin entered. The carriages in which I and the other ladies-in-waiting were travelling arrived at the north gate. As there was no one in the guard-house, we decided to enter just as we were, without troubling to tidy ourselves; many of the women had let their hair become disordered during the journey, but they did not bother to rearrange it, since they assumed that the carriages would be pulled directly up to the veranda of the house. Unfortunately the gate was too narrow for our palm-leaf carriages. The attendants laid down mats for us from the gate to the house, and we had to get out and walk. It was extremely annoying and we were all very cross; but what could we do about it? To make matters worse, there was a group of men, including senior courtiers and even some of lower rank, standing next to the guard-house and staring at us in a most irritating fashion

When I entered the house and saw Her Majesty, I told her what had happened. ‘Do you suppose it is only people outside the house who can see what a state you are in?’ she said. ‘I wonder what has made you all so careless today.’

‘But, Your Majesty,’ I replied, ‘the people here are all used to us, and it would surprise them if we suddenly took great trouble over our appearance. In any case, it does seem rather strange that the gates of a house like this should be too small for a carriage. I shall have to tease your steward about it when I see him.’

At that very moment Narimasa arrived with an inkstone and other writing implements, which he thrust under the screen, saying, ‘Pray give these to Her Majesty.’

‘Well, well,’ said I, ‘you really are a disgraceful man! Why do you live in a house with such narrow gates?’

‘I have built my house to suit my station in life,’ he laughingly replied.

‘That’s all very well,’ I said, ‘but I seem to have heard of someone who built his gate extremely high, out of all proportion to the rest of his house.’

‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Narimasa. ‘How remarkable! You must be referring to Yü Ting-kuo.²⁰ I thought it was only veteran scholars who had heard about such things. Even I, Madam, should not have understood you except that I happen to have strayed in these paths myself.’

‘Paths!’ said I. ‘Yours leave something to be desired. When your servants spread out the mats for us, we couldn’t see how uneven the ground was and we stumbled all over the place.’

‘To be sure, Madam,’ said Narimasa. ‘It has been raining, and I am afraid it is a bit uneven. But let’s leave it at that. You’ll be making some other disagreeable remark in a moment. So I shall be off before you have time.’ And with this he went away.

I shared this room with several of the younger ladies-in-waiting. We were all sleepy and, without paying much attention to anything, dozed off immediately. Our room was in the east wing of the house. Though we were unaware of the fact, the clasp of the sliding-door in the back of the western ante-room21 was missing. Of course the owner of the house knew about this, and presently he came and pushed open the door.

‘May I presume to come in?’ he said several times in a strangely husky and excited voice. I looked up in amazement, and by the light of the lamp that had been placed behind the curtain of state²² I could see that Narimasa was standing outside the door, which he had now opened about half a foot. The situation amused me. As a rule he would not have dreamt of indulging in such lecherous behaviour; as the Empress was staying in his house, he evidently felt he could do as he pleased. Waking up the young women next to me, I exclaimed, ‘Look who is there! What an unlikely sight!’ They all sat up and, seeing Narimasa by the door, burst into laughter. ‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘Don’t try to hide!’ ‘Oh no,’ he replied. ‘It’s simply that the master of the house has something to discuss with the lady-in-waiting in charge.’

‘It was your gate I was speaking about,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember asking you to open the sliding-door.’

‘Yes indeed,’ he answered. ‘It is precisely the matter of the gate that I wanted to discuss with you. May I not presume to come in for a moment?’

‘Really!’ said one of the young women. ‘How unpleasant! No, he certainly cannot come in.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Narimasa. ‘There are other young ladies in the room.’ Closing the door behind him, he left, followed by our loud laughter.

One day when the Empress was giving orders about the costumes for the little girls who were to wait upon the Princess Imperial,23 Narimasa asked, ‘Has Your Majesty decided on the colour of the garments²⁴ that will cover the girls’ vests?’ This made us all laugh; and surely no one could blame us for being amused. Next Narimasa discussed the Princess’s meals. ‘I believe it would look rather clumsy, Your Majesty, if they were served in ordinary utensils. If I may say so, she ought to have a smahl platter and a smahl tray.’²⁵

‘And be waited upon,’ I added, ‘by little girls with those garments that cover their vests.’

‘You should not make fun of him as the others do,’ the Empress told me afterwards. ‘He is a very sincere man, and I feel sorry for him.’ I found even her reprimand delightful.

Once when I was busy attending the Empress a messenger came and said that Narimasa had arrived and wished to tell me something. Overhearing this, the Empress said, ‘I wonder what he will do this time to make himself a laughing-stock. Find out what he has to say.’ Delighted by her remark, I decided to go out myself, rather than send a maid. ‘Madam,’ announced Narimasa, ‘I told my brother, the Middle Counsellor,²⁶ what you said the other night about the gate. He was most impressed and asked me to arrange a meeting for him at some convenient time when he could hear what you had to say.’

I wondered whether Narimasa would make some reference to his own visit the other night and I felt my heart pounding; but he said nothing further, merely adding as he left, ‘I should like to come and see you quietly one of these days.’

The cat who lived in the Palace had been awarded the headdress of nobility and was called Lady Myōbu She was a very pretty cat, and His Majesty saw to it that she was treated with the greatest care.27

One day she wandered on to the veranda, and Lady Uma, the nurse in charge of her, called out, ‘Oh, you naughty thing! Please come inside at once.’ But the cat paid no attention and went on basking sleepily in the sun. Intending to give her a scare, the nurse called for the dog, Okinamaro.

‘Okinamaro, where are you?’ she cried. ‘Come here and bite Lady Myōbu!’ The foolish Okinamaro, believing that the nurse was in earnest, rushed at the cat, who, startled and terrified, ran behind the blind in the Imperial Dining Room,28 where the Emperor happened to be sitting. Greatly surprised, His Majesty picked up the cat and held her in his arms. He summoned his gentlemen-in-waiting. When Tadataka, the Chamberlain,²⁹ appeared, His Majesty ordered that Okinamaro be chastised and banished to Dog Island. The attendants all started to chase the dog amid great confusion. His Majesty also reproached Lady Uma. ‘We shall have to find a new nurse for our cat,’ he told her. ‘I no longer feel I can count on you to look after her.’ Lady Uma bowed; thereafter she no longer appeared in the Emperor’s presence.

The Imperial Guards quickly succeeded in catching Okinamaro and drove him out of the Palace grounds. Poor dog! He used to swagger about so happily. Recently, on the third day of the Third Month,³⁰ when the Controller First Secretary paraded him through the Palace grounds, Okinamaro was adorned with garlands of willow leaves, peach blossoms on his head, and cherry blossoms round his body. How could the dog have imagined that this would be his fate? We all felt sorry for him. ‘When Her Majesty was having her meals,’ recalled one of the ladies-in-waiting, ‘Okinamaro always used to be in attendance and sit opposite us. How I miss him!’

It was about noon, a few days after Okinamaro’s banishment, that we heard a dog howling fearfully. How could any dog possibly cry so long? All the other dogs rushed out in excitement to see what was happening. Meanwhile a woman who served as a cleaner in the Palace latrines ran up to us. ‘It’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Two of the Chamberlains are flogging a dog. They’ll surely kill him. He’s being punished for having come back after he was banished. It’s Tadataka and Sanefusa who are beating him.’ Obviously the victim was Okinamaro. I was absolutely wretched and sent a servant to ask the men to stop; but just then the howling finally ceased. ‘He’s dead,’ one of the servants informed me. ‘They’ve thrown his body outside the gate.’

That evening, while we were sitting in the Palace bemoaning Okinamaro’s fate, a wretched-looking dog walked in; he was trembling all over, and his body was fearfully swollen.

‘Oh dear,’ said one of the ladies-in-waiting. ‘Can this be Okinamaro? We haven’t seen any other dog like him recently, have we?’

We called to him by name, but the dog did not respond. Some of us insisted that it was Okinamaro, others that it was not. ‘Please send for Lady Ukon,’31 said the Empress, hearing our discussion. ‘She will certainly be able to tell.’ We immediately went to Ukon’s room and told her she was wanted on an urgent matter.

‘Is this Okinamaro?’ the Empress asked her, pointing to the dog.

‘Well,’ said Ukon, ‘it certainly looks like him, but I cannot believe that this loathsome creature is really our Okinamaro. When I called Okinamaro, he always used to come to me, wagging his tail. But this dog does not react at all. No, it cannot be the same one. And besides, wasn’t Okinamaro beaten to death and his body thrown away? How could any dog be alive after being flogged by two strong men?’ Hearing this, Her Majesty was very unhappy.

When it got dark, we gave the dog something to eat; but he refused it, and we finally decided that this could not be Okinamaro.

On the following morning I went to attend the Empress while her hair was being dressed and she was performing her ablutions. I was holding up the mirror for her when the dog we had seen on the previous evening slunk into the room and crouched next to one of the pillars. ‘Poor Okinamaro!’ I said. ‘He had such a dreadful beating yesterday. How sad to think he is dead! I wonder what body he has been born into this time. Oh, how he must have suffered!’

At that moment the dog lying by the pillar suited to shake and tremble, and shed a flood of tears. It was astounding. So this really was Okinamaro! On the previous night it was to avoid betraying himself that he had refused to answer to his name. We were immensely moved and pleased. ‘Well, well, Okinamaro!’ I said, putting down the mirror. The dog stretched himself flat on the floor and yelped loudly, so that the Empress beamed with delight. All the ladies gathered round, and Her Majesty summoned Lady Ukon. When the Empress explained what had happened, everyone talked and laughed with great excitement.

The news reached His Majesty, and he too came to the Empress’s room. ‘It’s amazing, he said with a smile. ‘To think that even a dog has such deep feelings!’ When the Emperor’s ladies-in-waiting heard the story, they too came along in a great crowd. ‘Okinamaro!’ we called, and this time the dog rose and limped about the room with his swollen face. ‘He must have a meal prepared for him,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said the Empress, laughing happily, ‘now that Okinamaro has finally told us who he is.’

The Chamberlain, Tadataka, was informed, and he hurried along from the Table Room.32 ‘Is it really true?’ he asked. ‘Please let me see for myself.’ I sent a maid to him with the following reply: ‘Alas, I am afraid that this is not the same dog after all.’ ‘Well,’ answered Tadataka, ‘whatever you say, I shall sooner or later have occasion to see the animal. You won’t be able to hide him from me indefinitely.’

Before long, Okinamaro was granted an Imperial pardon and returned to his former happy state. Yet even now, when I remember how he whimpered and trembled in response to our sympathy, it strikes me as a strange and moving scene; when people talk to me about it, I start crying myself.

On the first day of the First Month and on the third of the Third I like the sky to be perfectly clear.

On the fifth of the Fifth Month I prefer a cloudy sky.

On the seventh day of the Seventh Month it should also be cloudy; but in the evening it should clear, so that the moon shines brightly in the sky and one can see the outline of the stars.³⁴

On the ninth of the Ninth Month there should be a drizzle from early dawn. Then there will be heavy dew on the chrysanthemums, while the floss silk that covers them will be wet through and drenched also with the precious scent of blossoms.³⁵ Sometimes the rain stops early in the morning, but the sky is still overcast, and it looks as if it may start raining again at any moment. This too I find very pleasant.

I enjoy watching the officials when they come to thank the Emperor for their new appointments. As they stand facing His Majesty with their batons36 in their hands, the trains of their robes trail along the floor. Then they make obeisance and begin their ceremonial movements³⁷ with great animation.

The sliding screen in the back of the hall in the north-east corner of Seiryō Palace is decorated with paintings of the stormy sea and of the terrifying creatures with long arms and long legs that live there.³⁸ When the doors of the Empress’s room were open, we could always see this screen. One day we were sitting in the room, laughing at the paintings and remarking how unpleasant they were. By the balustrade of the veranda stood a large celadon vase, full of magnificent cherry branches; some of them were as much as five foot long, and their blossoms overflowed to the very foot of the railing. Towards noon the Major Counsellor,³⁹ Fujiwara no Korechika, arrived. He was dressed in a cherry-coloured Court cloak, sufficiently worn to have lost its stiffness, a white under-robe, and loose trousers of dark purple; from beneath the cloak shone the pattern of another robe of dark red damask. Since His Majesty was present, Korechika knelt on the narrow wooden platform before the door and reported to him on official matters.

A group of ladies-in-waiting was seated behind the bamboo blinds. Their cherry-coloured Chinese jackets hung loosely over their shoulders with the collars pulled back; they wore robes of wistaria, golden yellow, and other colours, many of which showed beneath the blind covering the half-shutter. Presently the noise of the attendants’ feet told us that dinner was about to be served in the Daytime Chamber,⁴⁰ and we heard cries of ‘Make way. Make way.’

The bright, serene day delighted me. When the Chamberlains had brought all the dishes into the Chamber, they came to announce that dinner was ready, and His Majesty left by the middle door. After accompanying the Emperor, Korechika returned to his previous place on the veranda beside the cherry blossoms. The Empress pushed aside her curtain of state and came forward as far as the threshold.41 We were overwhelmed by the whole delightful scene. It was then that Korechika slowly intoned the words of the old poem,

As soon as the ladies serving in the Daytime Chamber had called for the gentlemen-in-waiting to remove the trays, His Majesty returned to the Empress’s room. Then he told me to rub some ink on the inkstone. Dazzled, I felt that I should never be able to take my eyes off his radiant countenance. Next he folded a piece of white paper. ‘I should like each of you,’ he said, ‘to copy down on this paper the first ancient poem that comes into your head.’

‘How am I going to manage this?’ I asked Korechika, who was still out on the veranda.

‘Write your poem quickly,’ he said, ‘and show it to His Majesty. We men must not interfere in this.’ Ordering an attendant to take the Emperor’s inkstone to each of the women in the room, he told us to make haste. ‘Write down any poem you happen to remember,’ he said. ‘The Naniwazu⁴³ or whatever else you can think of.’

For some reason I was overcome with timidity; I flushed and had no idea what to do. Some of the other women managed to put down poems about the spring, the blossoms, and such suitable subjects; then they handed me the paper and said, ‘Now it’s your turn.’ Picking up the brush, I wrote the poem that goes,

When he had finished reading, the Emperor said, ‘I asked you to write these poems because I wanted to find out how quick you really were.

‘A few years ago,’ he continued, ‘Emperor Enyū ordered all his courtiers to write poems in a notebook. Some excused themselves on the grounds that their handwriting was poor; but the Emperor insisted, saying that he did not care in the slightest about their handwriting or even whether their poems were suitable for the season. So they all had to swallow their embarrassment and produce something for the occasion. Among them was His Excellency, our present Chancellor, who was then Middle Captain of the Third Rank.⁴⁵ He wrote down the old poem,

When I heard His Majesty tell this story, I was so overcome that I felt myself perspiring. It occurred to me that no younger woman⁴⁶ would have been able to use my poem and I felt very lucky. This sort of test can be a terrible ordeal: it often happens that people who usually write fluently are so overawed that they actually make mistakes in their characters.

Next the Empress placed a notebook of Kokin Shū poems before her and started reading out the first three lines of each one, asking us to supply the remainder. Among them were several famous poems that we had in our minds day and night; yet for some strange reason we were often unable to fill in the missing lines. Lady Saishō for example, could manage only ten, which hardly qualified her as knowing her Kokin Shū. Some of the other women, even less successful, could remember only about half a dozen poems. They would have done better to tell the Empress quite simply that they had forgotten the lines; instead they came out with great lamentations like ‘Oh dear, how could we have done so badly in answering the questions that Your Majesty was pleased to put to us?’ - all of which I found rather absurd.

‘Those of you,’ said the Empress, ‘who had taken the trouble to copy out the Kokin Shū several times would have been able to complete every single poem I have read. In the reign of Emperor Murakami there was a woman at Court known as the Imperial Lady47 of Senyō Palace. She was the daughter of the Minister of the Left who lived in the Smaller Palace of the First Ward, and of course you have all heard of her. When she was still a young girl, her father gave her this advice: “First you must study penmanship. Next you must learn to play the seven-string zither better than anyone else. And also you must memorize all the poems in the twenty volumes of the Kokin Shū.”

‘Emperor Murakami,’ continued Her Majesty, ‘had heard this story and remembered it years later when the girl had grown up and become an Imperial Concubine. Once, on a day of abstinence,48 he came into her room, hiding a notebook of Kokin Shū poems in the folds of his robe. He surprised her by seating himself behind a curtain of state; then, opening the book, he asked, “Tell me the verse written by such-and-such a poet, in such-and-such a year and on such-and-such an occasion.” The lady understood what was afoot and that it was all in fun, yet the possibility of making a mistake or forgetting one of the poems must have worried her greatly. Before beginning the test, the Emperor had summoned a couple of ladies-in-waiting who were particularly adept in poetry and told them to mark each incorrect reply by a go stone.⁴⁹ What a splendid scene it must have been! You know, I really envy anyone who attended that Emperor even as a lady-in-waiting.

‘Well,’ Her Majesty went on, ‘he then began questioning her. She answered without any hesitation, just giving a few words or phrases to show that she knew each poem. And never once did she make a mistake. After a time the Emperor began to resent the lady’s flawless memory and decided to stop as soon as he detected any error or vagueness in her replies. Yet, after he had gone through ten books of the Kokin Shū, he had still not caught her out. At this stage he declared that it would be useless to continue. Marking where he had left off, he went to bed. What a triumph for the lady!

‘He slept for some time. On waking, he decided that he must have a final verdict and that if he waited until the following day to examine her on the other ten volumes, she might use the time to refresh her memory. So he would have to settle the matter that very night. Ordering his attendants to bring up the bedroom lamp, he resumed his questions. By the time he had finished all twenty volumes, the night was well advanced; and still the lady had not made a mistake.

‘During all this time His Excellency, the lady’s father, was in a state of great agitation. As soon as he was informed that the Emperor was testing his daughter, he sent his attendants to various temples to arrange for special recitations of the Scriptures. Then he turned in the direction of the Imperial Palace and spent a long time in prayer. Such enthusiasm for poetry is really rather moving.’

The Emperor, who had been listening to the whole story, was much impressed. ‘How can he possibly have read so many poems?’ he remarked when Her Majesty had finished. ‘I doubt whether I could get through three or four volumes. But of course things have changed. In the old days even people of humble station had a taste for the arts and were interested in elegant pastimes. Such a story would hardly be possible nowadays, would it?’

When I make myself imagine what it is like to be one of those women who live at home, faithfully serving their husbands - women who have not a single exciting prospect in life yet who believe that they are perfectly happy - I am filled with scorn. Often they are of quite good birth, yet have had no opportunity to find out what the world is like. I wish they could live for a while in our society, even if it should mean taking service as Attendants,50 so that they might come to know the delights it has to offer.

I cannot bear men who believe that women serving in the Palace are bound to be frivolous and wicked. Yet I suppose their prejudice is understandable. After all, women at Court do not spend their time hiding modestly behind fans and screens, but walk about, looking openly at people they chance to meet. Yes, they see everyone face to face, not only ladies-in-waiting like themselves, but even Their Imperial Majesties (whose august names I hardly dare mention), High Court Nobles,⁵¹ senior courtiers, and other gentlemen of high rank. In the presence of such exalted personages the women in the Palace are all equally brazen, whether they be the maids of ladies-in-waiting, or the relations of Court ladies who have come to visit them, or housekeepers, or latrine-cleaners, or women who are of no more value than a roof-tile or a pebble. Small wonder that the young men regard them as immodest! Yet are the gentlemen themselves any less so? They are not exactly bashful when it comes to looking at the great people in the Palace. No, everyone at Court is much the same in this respect.

Women who have served in the Palace, but who later get married and live at home, are called Madam and receive the most respectful treatment. To be sure, people often consider that these women, who have displayed their faces to all and sundry during their years at Court, are lacking in feminine grace. How proud they must be, nevertheless, when they are styled Assistant Attendants, or summoned to the Palace for occasional duty, or ordered to serve as Imperial envoys during the Kamo Festival! Even those who stay at home lose nothing by having served at Court. In fact they make very good wives. For example, if they are married to a provincial governor and their daughter is chosen to take part in the Gosechi dances,52 they do not have to disgrace themselves by acting like provincials and asking other people about procedure. They themselves are well versed in the formalities, which is just as it should be.

A dog howling in the daytime. A wickerwork fish-net in spring.⁵³ A red plum-blossom dress⁵⁴ in the Third or Fourth Months. A lying-in room when the baby had died. A cold, empty brazier. An ox-driver who hates his oxen. A scholar whose wife has one girl child after another.⁵⁵

One has gone to a friend’s house to avoid an unlucky direction,⁵⁶ but nothing is done to entertain one; if this should happen at the time of a Seasonal Change, it is still more depressing.

A letter arrives from the provinces, but no gift accompanies it. It would be bad enough if such a letter reached one in the provinces from someone in the capital; but then at least it would have interesting news about goings-on in society, and that would be a consolation.

One has written a letter, taking pains to make it as attractive as possible, and now one impatiently awaits the reply. ‘Surely the messenger should be back by now,’ one thinks. Just then he returns; but in his hand he carries, not a reply, but one’s own letter, still twisted or knotted57 as it was sent, but now so dirty and crumpled that even the ink-mark on the outside has disappeared. ‘Not at home,’ announces the messenger, or else, ‘They said they were observing a day of abstinence and would not accept it.’ Oh, how depressing!

Again, one has sent one’s carriage to fetch someone who had said he would definitely pay one a visit on that day. Finally it returns with a great clatter, and the servants hurry out with cries of ‘Here they come!’ But next one hears the carriage being pulled into the coach-house, and the unfastened shafts clatter to the ground. ‘What does this mean?’ one asks. ‘The person was not at home,’ replies the driver, ‘and will not be coming.’ So saying, he leads the ox back to its stall, leaving the carriage in the coach-house.

With much bustle and excitement a young man has moved into the house of a certain family as the daughter’s husband. One day he fails to come home, and it turns out that some high-ranking Court lady has taken him as her lover. How depressing! ‘Will he eventually tire of the woman and come back to us?’ his wife’s family wonder ruefully.

The nurse who is looking after a baby leaves the house, saying that she will be back presently. Soon the child starts crying for her. One tries to comfort it by games and other diversions, and even sends a message to the nurse telling her to return immediately. Then comes her reply: ‘I am afraid that I cannot be back this evening.’ This is not only depressing; it is no less than hateful. Yet how much more distressed must be the young man who has sent a messenger to fetch a lady friend and who awaits her arrival in vain!

It is quite late at night and a woman has been expecting a visitor. Hearing finally a stealthy tapping, she sends her maid to open the gate and lies waiting excitedly. But the name announced by the maid is that of someone with whom she has absolutely no connexion. Of all the depressing things this is by far the worst.

With a look of complete self-confidence on his face an exorcist prepares to expel an evil spirit from his patient. Handing his mace, rosary, and other paraphernalia to the medium who is assisting him, he begins to recite his spells in the special shrill tone that he forces from his throat on such occasions. For all the exorcist’s efforts, the spirit gives no sign of leaving, and the Guardian Demon fails to take possession of the medium.58 The relations and friends of the patient, who arc gathered in the room praying, find this rather unfortunate. After he has recited his incantations for the length of an entire watch,⁵⁹ the exorcist is worn out. ‘The Guardian Demon is completely inactive,’ he tells his medium. ‘You may leave.’ Then, as he takes back his rosary, he adds, ‘Well, well, it hasn’t worked!’ He passes his hand over his forehead, then yawns deeply (he of all people!) and leans back against a pillar for a nap.

Most depressing is the household of some hopeful candidate who fails to receive a post during the period of official appointments.⁶⁰ Hearing that the gentleman was bound to be successful, several people have gathered in his house for the occasion; among them are a number of retainers who served him in the past but who since then have either been engaged elsewhere or moved to some remote province. Now they are all eager to accompany their former master on his visit to the shrines and temples, and their carriages pass to and fro in the courtyard. Indoors there is a great commotion as the hangers-on help themselves to food and drink. Yet the dawn of the last day of the appointments arrives and still no one has knocked at the gate. The people in the house are nervous and prick up their ears.

Presently they hear the shouts of fore-runners and realize that the high dignitaries are leaving the Palace. Some of the servants were sent to the Palace on the previous evening to hear the news and have been waiting all night, trembling with cold; now they come trudging back listlessly. The attendants who have remained faithfully in the gentleman’s service year after year cannot bring themselves to ask what has happened. His former retainers, however, are not so diffident. ‘Tell us,’ they say, ‘what appointment did His Excellency receive?’ ‘Indeed/murmur the servants, ‘His Excellency was Governor of such-and-such a province.’ Everyone was counting on his receiving a new appointment,61 and is desolated by this failure. On the following day the people who had crowded into the house begin to slink away in twos and threes. The old attendants, however, cannot leave so easily. They walk restlessly about the house, counting on their fingers the provincial appointments that will become available in the following year. Pathetic and depressing in the extreme!

One has sent a friend a verse that turned out fairly well. How depressing when there is no reply-poem!⁶² Even in the case of love poems, people should at least answer that they were moved at receiving the message, or something of the sort; otherwise they will cause the keenest disappointment.

Someone who lives in a bustling, fashionable household receives a message from an elderly person who is behind the times and has very little to do; the poem, of course, is old-fashioned and dull. How depressing!

One needs a particularly beautiful fan for some special occasion and instructs an artist, in whose talents one has full confidence, to decorate one with an appropriate painting. When the day comes and the fan is delivered, one is shocked to see how badly it has been painted. Oh, the dreariness of it!

A messenger arrives with a present at a house where a child has been born or where someone is about to leave on a journey. How depressing for him if he gets no reward!⁶³ People should always reward a messenger, though he may bring only herbal balls or hare-sticks.⁶⁴ If he expects nothing, he will be particularly pleased to be rewarded. On the other hand, what a terrible letdown if he arrives with a self-important look on his face, his heart pounding in anticipation of a generous reward, only to have his hopes dashed!

A man has moved in as a son-in-law; yet even now, after some five years of marriage, the lying-in room has remained as quiet as on the day of his arrival.⁶⁵

An elderly couple who have several grown-up children, and who may even have some grandchildren crawling about the house, are taking a nap in the daytime. The children who see them in this state are overcome by a forlorn feeling, and for other people it is all very depressing.66

To take a hot bath when one has just woken is not only depressing; it actually puts one in a bad humour.

Persistent rain on the last day of the year.⁶⁷

One has been observing a period of fast, but neglects it for just one day - most depressing.⁶⁸

A white under-robe in the Eighth Month.⁶⁹

A wet-nurse who has run out of milk.

One is in a hurry to leave, but one’s visitor keeps chattering away. If it is someone of no importance, one can get rid of him by saying, ‘You must tell me all about it next time’; but, should it be the sort of visitor whose presence commands one’s best behaviour, the situation is hateful indeed.

One finds that a hair has got caught in the stone on which one is rubbing one’s inkstick, or again that gravel is lodged in the inkstick, making a nasty, grating sound.

Someone has suddenly fallen ill and one summons the exorcist. Since he is not at home, one has to send messengers to look for him. After one has had a long fretful wait, the exorcist finally arrives, and with a sigh of relief one asks him to start his incantations. But perhaps he has been exorcizing too many evil spirits recently; for hardly has he installed himself and begun praying when his voice becomes drowsy. Oh, how hateful!

A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything.

An elderly person warms the palms of his hands over a brazier and stretches out the wrinkles. No young man would dream of behaving in such a fashion; old people can really be quite shameless. I have seen some dreary old creatures actually resting their feet on the brazier and rubbing them against the edge while they speak. These are the kind of people who in visiting someone’s house first use their fans to wipe away the dust from the mat and, when they finally sit on it, cannot stay still but are forever spreading out the front of their hunting costume70 or even tucking it up under their knees. One might suppose that such behaviour was restricted to people of humble station; but I have observed it in quite well-bred people, including a Senior Secretary of the Fifth Rank in the Ministry of Ceremonial and a former Governor of Suruga.

I hate the sight of men in their cups who shout, poke their fingers in their mouths, stroke their beards, and pass on the wine to their neighbours with great cries of ‘Have some more! Drink up!’ They tremble, shake their heads, twist their faces, and gesticulate like children who are singing, ‘We’re off to see the Governor.’ I have seen really well-bred people behave like this and I find it most distasteful.

To envy others and to complain about one’s own lot; to speak badly about people; to be inquisitive about the most trivial matters and to resent and abuse people for not telling one, or, if one does manage to worm out some facts, to inform everyone in the most detailed fashion as if one had known all from the beginning - oh, how hateful!

One is just about to be told some interesting piece of news when a baby starts crying.

A flight of crows circle about with loud caws.

An admirer has come on a clandestine visit, but a dog catches sight of him and starts barking. One feels like killing the beast.

One has been foolish enough to invite a man to spend the night in an unsuitable place - and then he starts snoring.

A gentleman has visited one secretly. Though he is wearing a tall, lacquered hat,71 he nevertheless wants no one to see him. He is so flurried, in fact, that upon leaving he bangs into something with his hat. Most hateful! It is annoying too when he lifts up the Iyo blind⁷² that hangs at the entrance of the room, then lets it fill with a great rattle. If it is a head-blind, things are still worse, for being more solid it makes a terrible noise when it is dropped. There is no excuse for such carelessness. Even a head-blind does not make any noise if one lifts it up gently on entering and leaving the room; the same applies to sliding-doors. If one’s movements are rough, even a paper door will bend and resonate when opened; but, if one lifts the door a little while pushing it, there need be no sound.

One has gone to bed and is about to doze off when a mosquito appears, announcing himself in a reedy voice. One can actually feel the wind made by his wings and, slight though it is, one finds it hateful in the extreme.

A carriage passes with a nasty, creaking noise. Annoying to think that the passengers may not even be aware of this! If I am travelling in someone’s carriage and I hear it creaking, I dislike not only the noise but also the owner of the carriage.

One is in the middle of a story when someone butts in and tries to show that he is the only clever person in the room. Such a person is hateful, and so, indeed, is anyone, child or adult, who tries to push himself forward.

One is telling a story about old times when someone breaks in with a little detail that he happens to know, implying that one’s own version is inaccurate - disgusting behaviour!

Very hateful is a mouse that scurries all over the place.

Some children have called at one’s house. One makes a great fuss of them and gives them toys to play with. The children become accustomed to this treatment and start to come regularly, forcing their way into one’s inner rooms and scattering one’s furnishings and possessions. Hateful!

A certain gentleman whom one does not want to see visits one at home or in the Palace, and one pretends to be asleep. But a maid comes to tell one and shakes one awake, with a look on her face that says, ‘What a sleepyhead!’ Very hateful.

A newcomer pushes ahead of the other members in a group; with a knowing look, this person starts laying down the law and forcing advice upon everyone - most hateful.

A man with whom one is having an affair keeps singing the praises of some woman he used to know. Even if it is a thing of the past, this can be very annoying. How much more so if he is still seeing the woman! (Yet sometimes I find that it is not as unpleasant as all that.)

A person who recites a spell himself after sneezing.73 In fact I detest anyone who sneezes, except the master of the house.

Fleas, too, are very hateful. When they dance about under someone’s clothes, they really seem to be lifting them up.

The sound of dogs when they bark for a long time in chorus is ominous and hateful.

I cannot stand people who leave without closing the panel behind them.

How I detest the husbands of nurse-maids! It is not so bad if the child in the maid’s charge is a girl, because then the man will keep his distance. But, if it is a boy, he will behave as though he were the father. Never letting the boy out of his sight, he insists on managing everything. He regards the other attendants in the house as less than human, and, if anyone tries to scold the child, he slanders him to the master. Despite this disgraceful behaviour, no one dare accuse the husband; so he strides about the house with a proud, self-important look, giving all the orders.

I hate people whose letters show that they lack respect for worldly civilities, whether by discourtesy in the phrasing or by extreme politeness to someone who does not deserve it. This sort of thing is, of course, most odious if the letter is for oneself, but it is bad enough even if it is addressed to someone else.

As a matter of fact, most people are too casual, not only in their letters but in their direct conversation. Sometimes I am quite disgusted at noting how little decorum people observe when talking to each other. It is particularly unpleasant to hear some foolish man or woman omit the proper marks of respect when addressing a person of quality; and, when servants fail to use honorific forms of speech in referring to their masters, it is very bad indeed. No less odious, however, are those masters who, in addressing their servants, use such phrases as ‘When you were good enough to do such-and-such’ or ‘As you so kindly remarked’. No doubt there are some masters who, in describing their own actions to a servant, say, ‘presumed to do so-and-so’!74

Sometimes a person who is utterly devoid of charm will try to create a good impression by using very elegant language; yet he only succeeds in being ridiculous. No doubt he believes this refined language to be just what the occasion demands, but, when it goes so far that everyone bursts out laughing, surely something must be wrong.

It is most improper to address high-ranking courtiers, Imperial Advisers, and the like simply by using their names without any titles or marks of respect; but such mistakes are fortunately rare.

If one refers to the maid who is in attendance on some lady-in-waiting as ‘Madam’ or ‘that lady’, she will be surprised, delighted, and lavish in her praise.

When speaking to young noblemen and courtiers of high rank, one should always (unless Their Majesties are present) refer to them by their official posts. Incidentally, I have been very shocked to hear important people use the word ‘I’ while conversing in Their Majesties’ presence.⁷⁵ Such a breach of etiquette is really distressing, and I fail to see why people cannot avoid it.

A man who has nothing in particular to recommend him but who speaks in an affected tone and poses as being elegant.

An inkstone with such a hard, smooth surface that the stick glides over it without leaving any deposit of ink.

Ladies-in-waiting who want to know everything that is going on.

Sometimes one greatly dislikes a person for no particular reason - and then that person goes and does something hateful.

A gentleman who travels alone in his carriage to see a procession or some other spectacle. What sort of a man is he? Even though he may not be a person of the greatest quality, surely he should have taken along a few of the many young men who are anxious to see the sights. But no, there he sits by himself (one can see his silhouette through the blinds), with a proud look on his face, keeping all his impressions to himself.

A lover who is leaving at dawn announces that he has to find his fan and his paper.76 ‘I know I put them somewhere last night,’ he says. Since it is pitch dark, he gropes about the room, bumping into the furniture and muttering, ‘Strange! Where on earth can they be?’ Finally he discovers the objects. He thrusts the paper into the breast of his robe with a great rustling sound; then he snaps open his fan and busily fans away with it. Only now is he ready to take his leave. What charmless behaviour! ‘Hateful’ is an understatement.

Equally disagreeable is the man who, when leaving in the middle of the night, takes care to fasten the cord of his headdress. This is quite unnecessary; he could perfectly well put it gently on his head without tying the cord. And why must he spend time adjusting his cloak or hunting costume? Does he really think someone may see him at this time of night and criticize him for not being impeccably dressed?

A good lover will behave as elegantly at dawn as at any other time. He drags himself out of bed with a look of dismay on his face. The lady urges him on: ‘Come, my friend, it’s getting light. You don’t want anyone to find you here.’ He gives a deep sigh, as if to say that the night has not been nearly long enough and that it is agony to leave. Once up, he does not instantly pull on his trousers. Instead he comes close to the lady and whispers whatever was left unsaid during the night. Even when he is dressed, he still lingers, vaguely pretending to be fastening his sash.

Presently he raises the lattice, and the two lovers stand together by the side door while he tells her how he dreads the coming day, which will keep them apart; then he slips away. The lady watches him go, and this moment of parting will remain among her most charming memories.

Indeed, one’s attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking. When he jumps out of bed, scurries about the room, tightly fastens his trouser-sash, rolls up the sleeves of his Court cloak, over-robe, or hunting costume, stuffs his belongings into the breast of his robe and then briskly secures the outer sash - one really begins to hate him.

On the tenth day of the Second Month, with the sun shining down from a clear, peaceful sky, His Majesty was playing the flute under the eaves near the western part of the gallery. He was attended by that excellent flautist, Takatō, the Senior Assistant Governor-General. They played the Takasago77 tune in unison several times, and Takatō explained various points about the flute to His Majesty. To describe the scene as ‘most splendid’ would be hopelessly inadequate. I was sitting behind the bamboo blinds with some other women, and, as I observed everything, I felt that I had never in my life been unhappy.

Next the Emperor started to play the song of Suketada. Now, this Suketada⁷⁸ was a Secretary in the Bureau of Carpentry who had been appointed Chamberlain; but, since he was extremely uncouth, the high-ranking ladies and gentlemen at Court had nicknamed him ‘rough crocodile’ and written a song about him:

Dried hollyhock.80 The objects used during the Display of Dolls.⁸¹ To find a piece of deep violet⁸² or grape-coloured material that has been pressed between the pages of a notebook.

It is a rainy day and one is feeling bored. To pass the time, one starts looking through some old papers. And then one comes across the letters of a man one used to love.

Last year’s paper fan.⁸³ A night with a clear moon.⁸⁴

A palm-leaf carriage should move slowly, or else it loses its dignity. A wickerwork carriage,85 on the other hand, should go fast. Hardly has one seen it pass the gate when it is out of sight, and all that remains is the attendants who run after it. At such moments I enjoy wondering who the passengers may be. But, if a wickerwork carriage moves slowly, one has plenty of time to observe it, and that becomes very dull.

Oxen should have very small foreheads with white hair; their underbellies, the ends of their legs, and the tips of their tails should also be white.

I like horses to be chestnut, piebald, dapple-grey, or black roan, with white patches near their shoulders and feet; I also like horses with light chestnut coats and extremely white manes and tails - so white, indeed, that their hair looks like mulberry threads.

I like a cat whose back is black and all the rest white.

The driver of an ox-carriage should be a big man; his greying hair should have a slightly reddish tint, and his face should be ruddy. He should also look intelligent.

Attendants and escorts should be slim. I prefer gentlemen also to be on the slender side, at least when young. Stout men always strike me as sleepy-looking.

I like page-boys to be small. They should have beautiful hair that hangs loosely, lightly touching their necks. Their voices must be attractive and their speech respectful; for these are the marks of an adept page.

In earlier times men who had retired from the post of Chamberlain86 did not ride at the head of Imperial processions; in fact, during the year of their retirement they hardly ever appeared outside their houses, and did not dream of showing themselves in the precincts of the Palace. Things seem to have changed. Nowadays they are known as ‘Fifth Rank Chamberlains’ and given all sorts of official jobs.

Even so, time often hangs heavily on their hands, especially when they recall their busy days in active service. Though these Fifth Rank Chamberlains keep the fact to themselves, they know they have a good deal of leisure. Men like this frequently repair to temples and listen to the popular priests, such visits eventually becoming a habit. One will find them there even on hot summer days, decked out in bright linen robes, with loose trousers of light violet or bluish grey spread about them. Sometimes they will have taboo tags87 attached to their black lacquered headdresses. Far from preferring to stay at home on such inauspicious days, they apparently believe that no harm can come to anyone bent on so worthy an errand. They arrive hastily, converse with the priest, look inside the carriages⁸⁸ that are being lined up outside the temple, and take an interest in everything.

Now a couple of gentlemen who have not met for some time run into each other in the temple, and are greatly surprised. They sit down together and chat away, nodding their heads, exchanging funny stories, and opening their fans wide to hold before their faces so as to laugh more freely. Toying with their elegantly decorated rosaries, they glance about, criticizing some defect they have noticed in one of the carriages or praising the elegance of another. They discuss various services that they have recently attended and compare the skill of different priests in performing the Eight Lessons or the Dedication of Sutras.⁸⁹ Meanwhile, of course, they pay not the slightest attention to the service actually in progress. To be sure, it would not interest them very much; for they have heard it all so often that the priest’s words could no longer make any impression.

After the priest has been on his dais for some time, a carriage stops outside the temple. The outriders clear the way in a somewhat perfunctory fashion, and the passengers get out. They are slender young gentlemen, clad either in hunting costumes or in Court cloaks that look lighter than a cicada’s wings, loose trousers, and unlined robes of raw silk. As they enter the temple, accompanied by an equal number of attendants, the worshippers, including those who have been there since the beginning of the service, move back to make room for them; the young men install themselves at the foot of a pillar near the dais. As one would expect from such people, they now make a great show of rubbing their rosaries and prostrating themselves in prayer. The priest, convinced by the sight of the newcomers that this is a grand occasion, launches out on an impressive sermon that he presumes will make his name in society. But no sooner have the young men settled down and finished touching their heads on the floor than they begin to think about leaving at the first opportunity. Two of them steal glances at the women’s carriages outside, and it is easy to imagine what they are saying to each other. They recognize one of the women and admire her elegance; then, catching sight of a stranger, they discuss who she can be. I find it fascinating to see such goings-on in a temple.

One would imagine that it would be all right for ladies of quality to visit temples and take a discreet look at the preacher’s dais. After all, even women of humble station may listen devoutly to religious sermons. Yet in the old days ladies almost never walked to temples to attend sermons; on the rare visits that they did undertake they had to wear elegant travelling costume,90 as when making proper pilgrimages to shrines and temples. If people of those times had lived long enough to see the recent conduct in the temples, how they would have criticized the women of our day!

When I visited Bodai Temple to hear the Eight Lessons for Confirmation,⁹¹ I received this message from a friend: ‘Please come back soon. Things are very dreary here without you.’ I wrote my reply on a lotus petal:

Smaller Shirakawa is the residence of His Excellency, the Major Captain of the Smaller Palace of the First Ward. When the Eight Lessons for Confirmation were performed there under the auspices of the High Court Nobles, it was a very magnificent thing, and everyone went to hear the readings. We had been warned that late-comers would be unable to bring their carriages near the hall, so we all hurried to get up with the dew.94 And what a crowd there was! The carriages in front of the building were so crowded together that each was supported on the shafts of the one behind, and even people in the third row were close enough to hear the service. It was about the middle of the Sixth Month; the heat was overpowering. The only way to feel a little cooler was to gaze at the lotuses growing in the pond.

With the exception of the Ministers of the Left and the Right,⁹⁵ all the High Court Nobles were present. They wore laced trousers and Court cloaks lined with violet, through which one could make out the light yellow of their linen robes. Those gentlemen who had lately reached adult age were attired in white trouser-skirts and laced trousers of bluish grey, which gave an impression of coolness. Sukemasa, the Imperial Adviser, was dressed in a rather youthful fashion that seemed informal for so solemn an occasion. In every way it was a fascinating spectacle.

The bamboo blinds in the main room had been rolled up high. At the threshold of the veranda the High Court Nobles were seated in long rows facing inside, while on the veranda itself several senior courtiers and young noblemen, beautifully attired in hunting costumes and Court cloaks, wandered up and down, chatting agreeably. Sanekata, the Captain of the Guards, and Nagaakira, the Gentleman-in-Waiting, having both been brought up in this house, knew their way about better than the others and walked about freely. There were also two young noblemen, still only children, whom I greatly enjoyed watching.

Towards noon the Middle Captain of the Third Rank (as the Chancellor, Michitaka, was then styled) arrived at Smaller Shirakawa. Over a thin silk robe of dark orange he wore a dazzling white one of glossy silk; his Court cloak was lined with violet, and his laced trousers were the same colour, while his trouser-skirt was of deep red material. One might imagine that his costume would have settled too warm next to the light, cool attire of the other gentlemen; in fact he seemed perfectly clad. His fan, with its slender, lacquered frame, was slightly different from the others, but it was covered with red paper of the same tint. As I looked at all the men gathered there with their fans, I had the impression that I was seeing a field of pinks in full bloom.

Presently the messenger, looking so self-important that people could not help laughing, swaggered over to the carriage that Yoshichika had indicated and spoke to the lady inside. ‘No doubt she’s busy with a poem,’ someone joked, as the messenger stood there waiting. ‘Come, Captain Sanekata, why don’t you frame a reply?’ It was amusing to see how everyone, from the most dignified High Court Noble down to the ordinary people standing out in the open, was watching the carriage with mounting impatience. At last the man began walking off - had she finally given him a message? - only to be summoned back by a wave of the lady’s fan. It occurred to me that she may have made a mistake in the wording of her poem. But after taking such a long time? This was certainly not the proper way to do things.

After the messenger had reported, Michitaka remarked, ‘It seems to be the case of bending a very straight tree and breaking it in the process.’96 Tamemitsu burst out laughing, and everyone joined in without quite knowing why. I wondered whether the lady could hear them.

‘But look here,’ said Yoshichika to the messenger. ‘What did she say before she called you back? Tell us her exact words without trying to improve on them!’

‘Well, Sir,’ said the messenger, ‘she was a long time without replying at all. When I said that I had better be going, she called me back.’

‘And whose carriage is it - who is she?’ Yoshichika asked, just as the priest mounted his dais and everyone fell silent. While the entire congregation was attending to the service, the lady’s carriage disappeared as if it had vanished from the face of the earth. I remember that its inner blinds and other fittings looked brand new. The lady had worn a set of dark purple robes97 over a violet garb of figured material; above it all was a thin cloak of dark red; her formal skirt with its printed pattern had been allowed to spread so that its train hung over the back of the carriage. Who could she be, I wondered, and was her reaction to Yoshichika’s message as improper as it seemed? I have heard people suggest that no reply at all is better than a bad one, with which I quite agree.

Seihan, the priest who officiated at the morning service, looked resplendent on his dais; nothing could have been more impressive. But we did not want to stay. For one thing, the heat was overpowering. Besides, we had set out in the morning with the intention of hearing only part of the service, and had various things to finish at home that could not be put off. However, since our carriage was in the forefront, with row after row of other carriages piled up behind us like waves, it was impossible to retreat. We sent messages to the occupants of the other carriages saying that we should like to leave as soon as the morning service was over. No doubt delighted at the possibility of coming a little closer to the dais, they immediately began to make an opening for us.

Seeing us leave so early, many of the onlookers, including some elderly High Court Nobles, made quite audible jokes at our expense; but we paid no attention and refused to reply. As we were squeezing our way out, Yoshichika laughingly called to me, ‘Ah, you do well to depart!’⁹⁸ Overcome by the heat, I paid no attention to this quip, but later I sent a man with the message, ‘Your Excellency, too, will surely be among the five thousand.’ And so we left the crowd and returned home.

I remember a certain carriage that remained outside Smaller Shirakawa from the very beginning of the services until the last day. Not once did anyone go up to speak to the person who occupied it. I was much impressed by this mysterious vehicle that stood there as immobile as a carriage in a picture. ‘Who can it be in that splendid carriage?’ I said. ‘How can one find out?’ Overhearing me, Tamemitsu remarked, ‘It does not look very splendid to me. Quite the contrary - I am sure the occupant is an odious creature.’ I was amused by his comment.

I like to see a bright new straw mat that has just been spread out on a well-polished floor.99 The best place for one’s three-foot curtain of state is in the front of the room near the veranda. It is pointless to put it in the rear of the room, as it is most unlikely that anyone will peer in from that direction.¹⁰⁰

It is dawn and a woman is lying in bed after her lover has taken his leave. She is covered up to her head with a light mauve robe that has a lining of dark violet; the colour of both the outside and the lining is fresh and glossy.¹⁰¹ The woman, who appears to be asleep, wears an unlined orange robe and a dark crimson skirt of stiff silk whose cords hang loosely by her side, as if they have been left untied. Her thick tresses tumble over each other in cascades, and one can imagine how long her hair must be when it falls freely down her back.¹⁰²

Near by another woman’s lover is making his way home in the misty dawn. He is wearing loose violet trousers, an orange hunting costume, so lightly coloured that one can hardly tell whether it has been dyed or not, a white robe of stiff silk, and a scarlet robe of glossy, beaten silk. His clothes, which are damp from the mist, hang loosely about him. From the dishevelment of his side locks one can tell how negligently he must have tucked his hair into his black lacquered head-dress when he got up. He wants to return and write his next-morning letter103 before the dew on the morning glories has had time to vanish; but the path seems endless, and to divert himself he hums ‘The sprouts in the flax fields’.¹⁰⁴

As he walks along, he passes a house with an open lattice. He is on his way to report for official duty, but cannot help stopping to lift up the blind and peep into the room.¹⁰⁵ It amuses him to think that a man has probably been spending the night here and has only recently got up to leave, just as happened to himself. Perhaps that man too had felt the charm of the dew.¹⁰⁶

Looking round the room, he notices near the woman’s pillow an open fan with a magnolia frame and purple paper; and at the foot of her curtain of state he sees some narrow strips of Michinoku paper and also some other paper of a faded colour, either orange-red or maple.

The woman senses that someone is watching her and, looking up from under her bedclothes, sees a gentleman leaning against the wall by the threshold, a smile on his face. She can tell at once that he is the sort of man with whom she need feel no reserve. All the same, she does not want to enter into any familiar relations with him, and she is annoyed that he should have seen her asleep.¹⁰⁷

‘Well, well, Madam,’ says the man, leaning forward so that the upper part of his body comes behind her curtains, ‘what a long nap you’re having after your morning adieu! You really are a lie-abed!’

‘You call me that, Sir,’ she replied, ‘only because you’re annoyed at having had to get up before the dew had time to settle.’

Their conversation may be commonplace, yet I find there is something delightful about the scene.

Now the gentleman leans further forward and, using his own fan, tries to get hold of the fan by the woman’s pillow. Fearing his closeness, she moves further back into her curtain enclosure, her heart pounding. The gentleman picks up the magnolia fan and, while examining it, says in a slightly bitter tone, ‘How standoffish you are!’

The u no hana108 is a more modest plant and deserves no special praise; yet it flowers at a pleasant time of the year, and I enjoy thinking that a hototogisu may be hiding in its shade. When passing through the plain of Murasaki¹⁰⁹ on one’s way back from the Festival, it is lovely to see the white of the u no hana blossoms in the shaggy hedges near the cottages. They look like thin, white robes worn over a costume of yellowish green.

At the end of the Fourth Month and the beginning of the Fifth the orange trees have dark green leaves and are covered with brilliant white flowers. In the early morning, when they have been sprinkled with rain, one feels that nothing in the world can match their charm; and, if one is fortunate enough to see the fruit itself, standing out like golden spheres among the flowers, it looks as beautiful as that most magnificent of sights, the cherry blossoms damp with morning dew. But I need say no more; so much has been written about the beauty of the orange trees in the many poems that link them with the hototogisu.110

The blossom of the pear tree is the most prosaic, vulgar thing in the world. The less one sees this particular blossom the better, and it should not be attached to even the most trivial message.¹¹¹ The pear blossom can be compared to the face of a plain woman; for its colouring lacks all charm. Or so, at least, I used to think. Knowing that the Chinese admire the pear blossom greatly and praise it in their poems, I wondered what they could see in it and made a point of examining the flower. Then I was surprised to find that its petals were prettily edged with a pink tinge, so faint that I could not be sure whether it was there or not. It was to the pear blossoms, I recalled, that the poet likened the face of Yang Kuei-fei when she came forth in tears to meet the Emperor’s messenger - ‘a spray of pear blossom in spring, covered with drops of rain’¹¹² - and I realized that this was no idle figure of speech and that it really is a magnificent flower.

The purple blossoms of the paulownia are also delightful. I confess that I do not like the appearance of its wide leaves when they open up…. But I cannot speak of the paulownia as I do of the other trees; for this is where that grandiose and famous bird of China makes its nest, and the idea fills me with awe.¹¹³ Besides, it is this tree that provides the wood for the zithers from which come so many beautiful sounds. How can I have used such a commonplace word as ‘delightful’? The paulownia is not delightful; it is magnificent.

The melia tree is ugly, but I find its flowers very pretty indeed. One always sees them on the fifth day of the Fifth Month, and there is something charming about these dried-up, oddly shaped little flowers.¹¹⁴

There is nothing to equal the Festival of the Fifth Month,115 when the scents of the iris and the sage-brush mingle so charmingly. From the Ninefold Enclosure of the Imperial Palace down to the cottages of the common folk, there is not a place where people are not busy covering their roofs with leaves of iris and branches of sage-brush. Everyone wants his own house to be decorated most luxuriantly. All this is a splendid thing which never occurs on any other occasion.

On the actual day of the festival the sky is usually cloudy. Herbal balls, decorated with braided strings of many colours, have been brought to the Empress’s palace by the Bureau of the Wardrobe, and they are now attached to the pillars on both sides of the main hall in which stands Her Majesty’s curtain-dais.¹¹⁶ They replace the chrysanthemums that have been hanging there ever since the ninth day of the Ninth Month, wrapped in their plain cases of raw silk. The herbal balls are supposed to remain on the pillars until the next Chrysanthemum Festival; but whenever people need a string, they tear a piece off the herbal balls, so that before long nothing is left.

During the course of this festive day gifts are exchanged, and young people decorate their hair with iris; they attach taboo tags to their clothes, and adorn their coats and Chinese jackets with long iris roots or sprigs of azalea, orange, and other attractive plants, which they secure to their sleeves with plaited cords dyed in uneven shadings. Though there is nothing new about any of this, it is very charming. After all, do people tire of the cherry trees because they blossom every spring?

The little girls who trip along the streets are also decorated with iris, but the flowers they wear are smaller than those worn by the grown-ups. The children are proud of themselves and keep looking at the flowers on their sleeves, comparing them with those of their companions. This is all delightful, as are the little pages who play with the girls and snatch away their iris, making them burst into tears.

I also like to see melia flowers wrapped in purple paper; thinly rolled iris leaves done up in green paper and attached to people’s clothing; and iris roots tied to white paper. Some very elegant men enclose long iris roots in their letters, and it is a pleasure to watch the women who have received the contents discussing them with their companions and showing each other their replies. People who have chosen this day to send letters to a well-born girl or to a high-ranking gentleman at Court exude a particular grace. Indeed the Iris Festival is nothing but a delight until the hototogisu brings the day to an end by announcing its name.

The maple and the five-needled pine, the willow and the orange tree. The Chinese hawthorn * has a rather vulgar name; but, when all the other trees have lost their blossoms, its dark red leaves shine out impressively from the green surroundings.¹¹⁷

I shall say absolutely nothing about the spindle tree.

I realize that it is not a specific tree, but I must mention the name ‘parasite tree’ since I find it so moving.¹¹⁸

I particularly enjoy the sakaki on occasions like the Imperial sacred dances at the special festivals.¹¹⁹ Among all the trees in the world this is the one that people have always regarded as the tree of the Divine Presence - a very pleasant thought.

The camphor tends to grow by itself, avoiding clusters of other trees. There is something rather frightening about its tangled branches, and this estranges one from it; yet it is because the tree is divided into a thousand branches that it has been evoked to describe people in love.¹²⁰ (By the way, I wonder who was the first person to know how many branches it had.)

One does not see the hinoki cypress very often; but the palace of ‘three ridges, four ridges’ was built with the wood of this tree.¹²¹ In the Fifth Month it gives a pleasant imitation of the sound of rain.

The maple is an insignificant tree in itself; but its red-tinged leaves, all spread in the same direction, look very pretty on the branches, and there is something charming about its flowers, which seem as fragile as dried-up insects.

It is rare to come across the large-leaved cypress,122 and not much is said about it; but I understand that pilgrims returning from Mitake often bring back branches of the tree as souvenirs. These branches are said to be rough and disagreeable to touch. Yet the tree has been given a name meaning ‘tomorrow he will become a cypress’. What can be the point of such a prediction, and for whom was it made? I should really like to know.

The privet is also an uncommon tree. Its best feature is its tiny, delicate leaves.

The melia and the wild pear tree.

The pasania oak. It is strange that just this tree among all the evergreens should be mentioned as the one whose leaves do not change.

Of the trees that grow far away in the hills the so-called white oak is the least familiar; in fact about the only time one sees even its leaves is when they are being used to dye the robes worn by gentlemen of the second or third ranks. Though there is nothing very splendid or unusual about the tree, one always has the illusion that it is covered with snow, and it moves me greatly to recall the poem that Hitomaro wrote about the journey of the Storm God to Izumo.¹²³

Whether it be a plant or a tree, a bird or an insect, I can never be indifferent to anything that is connected with some special occasion or that has once moved or delighted me.

The yuzuriha has an abundance of pretty leaves, all green and glossy; but its stem is quite different from what one would expect, for it is red and glittering. There is something a little vulgar about its colour, yet I really like the tree. No one pays the slightest attention to it during most of the year, but on the last day of the Twelfth Month it comes into its own. I understand that the food offered to the dead on that day is spread out on yuzuriha124 leaves, and this I find very touching. It appears that the same leaves are used to serve tooth-hardening food, which is meant to prolong life. How can this be? It is of this tree also that the poet has written, ‘When the leaves turn red’. Indeed the yuzuriha is full of promises.

The common oak is a magnificent tree. To think that the God of Leaves lives there!¹²⁵ It is also fascinating that Captains and Lieutenants of the Middle Palace Guards should be named after this tree.

The hemp palm is an ill-shaped tree; but it is in the Chinese style¹²⁶ and does not grow outside the houses of common people.

The parrot does not belong to our country, but I like it very much. I am told that it imitates whatever people say.¹²⁷

The hototogisu, the water-rail, and the snipe; the starling, the siskin, and the fly-catcher. They say when the copper pheasant cries for its mate it can be consoled if one puts a mirror before it - a very moving thought.¹²⁸ What misery these birds must suffer if they are separated from each other by a gorge or a ravine!

If I were to write down all my thoughts about the crane, I should become tiresome. How magnificent when this bird lets out its cry, which reaches up to the very heavens!

The red-headed sparrow, the male grosbeak, the kinglet.

The heron is an unpleasant-looking bird with a most disagreeable expression in its eyes. Yet, though it has nothing to recommend it, I am pleased to think that it does not nest alone in Yurugi Wood.¹²⁹

The box bird.¹³⁰

Among water fowl it is the mandarin duck that affects me most. How charming to think that the drake and his mate take turns in brushing the frost ‘from each other’s wings’!¹³¹

The gull. The river plover - alas, that he should have lost his mate!¹³²

The distant cry of wild geese is a most moving sound.

It is charming to think of the wild duck sweeping the frost from its wings.133

The poets have extolled the uguisu¹³⁴ as a splendid bird, and so indeed it is; for both its voice and its appearance are most elegant and beautiful. Alas that it does not sing in the Ninefold Enclosure of the Palace! When I first heard people say this, I thought they must be mistaken; but now I have served for ten years in the Palace, and, though I have often listened for it, I have never yet heard its song. The bamboos in the Palace gardens and the plum trees with red blossoms should certainly attract these birds.¹³⁵ Yet not one of them comes here, whereas outside the Palace, in the paltry plum tree of some commoner’s house, one hears the uguisu warbling joyfully.

At night the uguisu is silent. Obviously this bird likes its sleep, and there is nothing we can do about that.

In the summer and autumn the uguisu’s voice grows hoarse. Now the common people change its name to ‘insect eater’ or something of the kind, which strikes me as both unpleasant and unseemly. I should not mind if it were an ordinary bird like the sparrow; but this is the magnificent uguisu, whose song in the spring has moved writers to praise that season in both poetry and prose. How splendid it would be if the uguisu would sing only in the spring.¹³⁶ Yet it is wrong to despise this bird just because its voice deteriorates in the later seasons. After all, should we look down on men or women because they have been ravaged by age and are scorned by the world? There are certain birds, like the kite and the crow, that people disregard entirely and would never bother to criticize; it is precisely because the uguisu is usually held in such high regard that people find fault with it when they can.

I remember that on a certain occasion, when we had decided to watch the return of the High Priestess’s procession from the Kamo Festival and had ordered the attendants to stop our carriages in front of Urin and Chisoku Temples, a hototogisu began to sing, not wanting to be hidden on this festive day. An uguisu sang in unison, perfectly imitating his voice. I was surprised by what lovely music these birds can make when they sing together high in the trees.

Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl.137

A rosary of rock crystal.

Wistaria blossoms. Plum blossoms covered with snow.

A pretty child eating strawberries.

The bell insect and the pine cricket; the grasshopper and the common cricket; the butterfly and the shrimp insect; the mayfly and the firefly.

I feel very sorry for the basket worm. He was begotten by a demon, and his mother, fearing that he would grow up with his father’s frightening nature, abandoned the unsuspecting child, having first wrapped him in a dirty piece of clothing. ‘Wait for me,’ she said as she left. ‘I shall return to you as soon as the autumn winds blow.’ So, when autumn comes and the wind starts blowing, the wretched child hears it and desperately cries, ‘Milk! Milk!’138

The clear-toned cicada.

The snap-beetle also impresses me. They say that the reason it bows while crawling along the ground is that the faith of Buddha has sprung up in its insect heart. Sometimes one suddenly hears the snap-beetle tapping away in a dark place, and this is rather pleasant.

The fly should have been included in my list of hateful things;¹³⁹ for such an odious creature does not belong with ordinary insects. It settles on everything, and even alights on one’s face with its clammy feet. I am sorry that anyone should have been named after it.¹⁴⁰

The tiger moth is very pretty and delightful. When one sits close to a lamp reading a story, a tiger moth will often flutter prettily in front of one’s book.

The ant is an ugly insect; but it is light on its feet and I enjoy watching as it skims quickly over the surface of the water.

In the Seventh Month, when there are fierce winds and heavy showers, it is quite cool and one does not bother to carry a fan. On such days I find it is pleasant to take a nap, having covered myself with some clothing that gives off a faint smell of perspiration.¹⁴¹

Snow on the houses of common people. This is especially regrettable when the moonlight shines down on it.142

A plain wagon¹⁴³ on a moonlit night; or a light auburn ox harnessed to such a wagon.

A woman who, though well past her youth, is pregnant and walks along panting. It is unpleasant to see a woman of a certain age with a young husband; and it is most unsuitable when she becomes jealous of him because he has gone to visit someone else.

An elderly man who has overslept and who wakes up with a start; or a greybeard munching some acorns that he has plucked. An old woman who eats a plum and, finding it sour, puckers her toothless mouth.

A woman of the lower classes dressed in a scarlet trouser-skirt. The sight is all too common these days.

A handsome man with an ugly wife.

An elderly man with a black beard and a disagreeable expression playing with a little child who has just learnt to talk.

It is most unseemly for an Assistant Captain of the Quiver Bearers¹⁴⁴ to make his night patrol in a hunting costume. And, if he wanders outside the woman’s quarters, ostentatiously clad in his terrifying red cloak, people will be sure to look down on him. They disapprove of his behaviour and taunt him with remarks like ‘Are you searching for someone suspicious?’

A Lieutenant in the Imperial Police who serves as a Chamberlain of the Sixth Rank, and therefore has access to the Senior Courtiers’ Chamber, is regarded as being splendid beyond words.145 Country folk and people of the lower orders believe that he cannot be a creature of this world: in his presence they tremble with fear and dare not meet his eyes. It is very unsuitable that such a man should slink along the narrow corridors of some Palace building in order to steal into a woman’s room.¹⁴⁶

A man’s trouser-skirt hanging over a curtain of state that has been discreetly perfumed with incense.¹⁴⁷ The material of the trouser-skirt is disagreeably heavy; and, even though it may be shining whitely in the lamp-light, there is something unsuitable about it.

An officer who thinks he is very fashionable in his open over-robe and who folds it thinly as a rat’s tail before hanging it over the curtain of state - well, such a man is simply unfit for night patrol. Officers on duty should abstain from visiting the women’s quarters; the same applies to Chamberlains of the Fifth Rank.

I was standing in a corridor of the Palace with several other women when we noticed some servants passing. We summoned them to us (in what I admit was a rather unladylike fashion) and they turned out to be a group of handsome male attendants and pages carrying attractively wrapped bundles and bags. Trouser-cords protruded from some, and I noticed that others contained bows, arrows, shields, halberds, and swords.¹⁴⁸ ‘Whom do these things belong to?’ we asked each of the servants in turn. Some of them knelt down respectfully and replied, ‘They belong to Lord So-and-so.’ Then they stood up and continued on their way, which was all very nice. But others gave themselves airs, or else were embarrassed and said, ‘I don’t know’, or even went off without replying at all, which I found hateful indeed.

Gentlemen should always have escorts. Even young noblemen, however handsome and charming, strike me as dull creatures if they are unescorted.

I have always regarded the position of Controller149 as a fine and honourable one; but it is a shame that the train of his under-robe should be so short and that he is not provided with an escort.

Once I saw Yukinari, the Controller First Secretary, engaged in a long conversation with a lady near the garden fence by the western side of the Empress’s Office.¹⁵⁰ When at last they had finished, I came out and asked, ‘Who was she?’ ‘Ben no Naishi,’¹⁵¹ he replied. ‘And what on earth did you find to discuss with her for such a long time? If the Major Controller had seen you, she would have left you quickly enough.’ ‘And who can have told you about that business?’ asked Yukinari, laughing.¹⁵² ‘As a matter of fact, that is precisely what I was discussing with her. I was trying to persuade her not to leave me even if the Major Controller did see us.’

Yukinari is a most delightful man. To be sure, he does not make any particular effort to display his good points and simply lets people take him as he appears, so that in general he is less appreciated than he might be. But I, who have seen the deeper side of his nature, know what an unusual person he really is. I said this one day to the Empress, who was well aware of it herself. In the course of our conversations he often says, ‘A woman yields to one who has taken pleasure in her; a knight dies for one who has shown him friendship.’¹⁵³ We used to say that our feelings for each other were like the willows on Tōtōmi Beach.¹⁵⁴

Yet the young women at Court heartily detest Yukinari and openly repeat the most disagreeable things about him. ‘What an ugly man he is!’ they say. ‘Why can’t he recite sutras and poems like other people? He really is most unpleasant.’ Yukinari, for his part, never speaks to any of them.

‘I could love a woman,’ he said one day, ‘even if her eyes were turned up,155 her eyebrows spread all over her forehead, and her nose crooked. But she must have a prettily shaped mouth and a good chin and neck, and I couldn’t stand an unattractive voice. Of course I would prefer her not to have any bad feature. There’s really something sad about a woman with an ugly face.’ As a result, all the Court ladies with pointed chins or other unattractive features have become Yukinari’s bitter enemies, and some of them have even spoken badly of him to the Empress.

I was the first person he employed to take messages to the Empress, and he always called on me when he wanted to communicate with her. If I was in my room, he would send for me to the main part of the Palace, or else he would come directly into the women’s quarters to give me his message. Even if I was at home, he would write to me or come himself, saying, ‘In case you are not returning to Court at once, would you please send someone to Her Majesty informing her that I have such-and-such a message.’ ‘Surely you could tell a messenger yourself directly,’ I said; but he would have none of it.

On one such occasion I suggested to Yukinari that one should ‘take things as they are’¹⁵⁶ and not always stick to the same habits. ‘But such is my nature,’ he replied, ‘and that is something one cannot change.’

‘Well then,’ I said in a surprised tone, ‘what is the meaning of “Do not be afraid”?’¹⁵⁷

Yukinari laughed and said, ‘There has no doubt been a lot of talk lately about our being so friendly. But what of it? Even if we were as intimate as people think, that would be nothing to be ashamed of. Really you could let me see your face.’¹⁵⁸

‘Oh no,’ I replied, ‘I cannot possibly do that. I am extremely ugly, and you said you could never love an ugly woman.’

‘Are you really?’ he said. ‘In that case you had better not let me see you.’

Often thereafter, when it would have been easy for Yukinari to look at me in the normal course of things, he covered his face with a fan or turned aside. In fact he never once saw me. To think that he took what I said about my ugliness quite seriously!

Towards the end of the Third Month it becomes too warm for winter cloaks, and often Chamberlains who are on night watch in the Senior Courtiers’ Chamber wear only the over-robes of their Court costumes, leaving off their trouser-skirts and trains. Early one morning in that month, when Lady Shikibu and I had been sleeping in the outer part of a room in the Empress’s Office, the sliding-door was pushed open and the Emperor and Empress entered. We were thrown into utter confusion and did not know what to do with ourselves, which greatly amused Their Majesties. Hastily we threw on our Chinese jackets, tucking our hair inside, and then we heaped the bed-clothes and everything else in a great pile. Their Majesties walked across the room and, standing behind this pile, watched the men going between the Palace and the guard-house. Several courtiers approached our room and spoke to us, without suspecting who was inside the room. ‘Do not let them see we are here,’ His Majesty said with a chuckle.

Lady Shikibu and I were still discussing how splendid Their Majesties had looked when, through a small opening in the blinds (where the frame of our curtain of state was pressed against the sliding-door in the back of the room), we noticed the dark silhouette159 of a man. At first we thought that it must be Noritaka¹⁶⁰ and continued to talk without paying any particular attention. Presently a beaming face appeared through the opening in the blinds. We still took it to be Noritaka, but after a quick look we were amused to find that we were mistaken. Laughing heartily, we rearranged our curtain of state so that we were properly hidden. Too late, though. The man turned out to be none other than Yukinari; and he had seen me full-face. After all my past efforts this was extremely vexing. Lady Shikibu, on the other hand, had been looking safely in the other direction.

‘Well,’ said Yukinari, stepping forward, ‘now I have really managed to see you completely.’

‘We thought it was Noritaka,’ I explained, ‘and so we didn’t bother to hide properly. But why, may I ask, did you examine me so carefully when in the past you said that you would never look at me?’

The roll-call161 of the senior courtiers is a delightful event, and I also enjoy it when the gentlemen in attendance on the Emperor have their names called. They tumble out of the buildings with a noisy clatter of footsteps. From the eastern part of Her Majesty’s wing of Seiryō Palace I and the Empress’s other ladies-in-waiting can follow everything if we listen carefully. How exciting when one hears some close friend answering with his name! It is exciting, too, to hear the voice of a man who is unfamiliar even though one knows he is on duty in the Palace. The women freely discuss the different styles in which the men have responded, and this is very amusing.

As soon as the roll-call is finished, one hears the loud footsteps of the Imperial Guards of the Emperor’s Private Office, who come out while twanging their bow-strings. Then the Chamberlain on duty proceeds to the balustrade at the north-east corner of the building, his shoes reverberating noisily on the wooden boards, and adopts the posture that I believe is called ‘high kneeling’. Facing the Emperor’s Palace, he asks the officer who stands behind him, ‘Is so-and-so present? And so-and-so?’ - all most impressive. Sometimes the answers are given in a soft voice, sometimes loudly; and sometimes the muster is cancelled, if there are insufficient men present. The Officer of the Guards announces this to the Chamberlain, who asks why the men are absent; when the necessary information has been given, he returns to the Palace to make his report to the Emperor.

Things do not go so smoothly when the Chamberlain on duty is Masahiro.162 Ever since some young noblemen advised him that he was being too lax about the report of the Officer of the Guards, he gets quite incensed on hearing of any absences among the men; he rebukes them severely, telling them that they must improve their behaviour. As a result Masahiro has become the laughing-stock, not only of the gentlemen at Court, but even of the common guardsmen.

On one occasion Masahiro actually left his shoes on the serving-board in the Emperor’s Dining Room. This caused great indignation, and it was said that whoever was responsible should be forced to do purgation. Some women in the Office of Grounds and a few others knew the name of the culprit and could not help feeling sorry for him. ‘Whose shoes can these be?’ they said. ‘There’s really no telling.’ In the midst of all this excitement Masahiro himself came to fetch the shoes. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, ‘those dirty things¹⁶³ belong to me.’

It is hateful when a well-bred young man who is visiting a woman of lower rank calls out her name in such a way as to make everyone realize that he is on familiar terms with her. However well he may know her name, he should slur it slightly as though he had forgotten it. On the other hand, this would be wrong when a gentleman comes at night to visit a lady-in-waiting. In such a situation he should bring along a man who can call out the lady’s name for him - a servant from the Office of Grounds if she is in the Imperial Palace, or else someone from the Attendants’ Hall; for his voice will be recognized if he calls her name himself. But, when he is visiting a mere under-servant or girl attendant, such a precaution is unnecessary.

The servants who follow one’s carriage must have at least a few good points. Some people choose slender young men who look as if they were really made to be after-runners, but then let them wear threadbare hunting costumes and trouser-skirts that are dark at the hems and actually seem to be of shaded material.164 This is a great mistake; for, as they amble along beside the carriage, these badly dressed young men do not seem to be part of their master’s equipage at all.

The fact is that the people in one’s employ should always be decently dressed. To be sure, servants often tear their clothes; but, so long as they have been wearing them for some time, this is no great loss and one can let the matter pass.

Gentlemen who have had official servants allotted to their households¹⁶⁵ must certainly not allow them to go about looking slovenly.

When a messenger or a visitor arrives, it is very pleasant, both for the master and for the members of his household, to have a collection of good-looking pages in attendance.

Hollyhock is a most delightful flower. To think that ever since the age of the Gods people have been decorating their hair with it at Festival time!166 The plant itself is also charming.

I like the water-plantain* and, when I hear its name, I am amused to think that it must have a swollen head.

The water-bur and the beach-parsley, the moss and the bearivy. I also enjoy the grass when its blades peep bright and green through the snow. Wood-sorrel makes an uncommonly pretty design on figured silk and other material.

Shrubs that grow in precarious places like the mountain’s edge make me uneasy, and I find them moving. Stonecrop¹⁶⁷ is especially pitiful; for it grows on crumbling walls and other places that are even more unstable than the mountain’s edge. Annoying to think that on a securely plastered wall it probably would not grow at all!

The kotonashi^† shrub. Either it has no worries, or whatever worries it did have are now gone - both explanations of its name are pleasant.¹⁶⁸

The shinobugusa^‡ sounds most pathetic, but it is amazing how vigorously this plant grows on the very edge of roofs and walls.¹⁶⁹

I am also interested in sage-brush and reed-mace, and I particularly like the leaves of the nut-grass. Bulrush, duckweed, green vine, and the scattered chigaya reeds. The so-called horsetail - I love imagining the sound that the wind makes when it blows through these rushes. Shepherd’s purse. A lawn of grass.

Floating lotus leaves are very pretty when they are spread out, large and small, drifting along the calm, limpid water of a pond! If one picks up a leaf and presses it against some object it is the most delightful thing in the world.

Goose-grass, snake’s beard, and mountain sedge; club moss, crinum, and the common reed.

To meet one’s lover summer is indeed the right season. True, the nights are very short, and dawn creeps up before one has had a wink of sleep. Since all the lattices have been left open, one can lie and look out at the garden in the cool morning air. There are still a few endearments to exchange before the man takes his leave, and the lovers are murmuring to each other when suddenly there is a loud noise. For a moment they are certain that they have been discovered; but it is only the caw of a crow flying past in the garden.

A lover’s visit is the most delightful thing in the world. But when the man is a mere acquaintance, or has come for a casual chat, what a nuisance it can be! He enters the lady’s room, where numerous other women are ensconced behind the blinds chatting to each other, and he gives no sign that his visit will be brief. The attendants who have accompanied him sit outside impatiently, convinced that ‘the handle of his axe will rot away’.170 They yawn loudly and complain of their lot. ‘Oh, the bondage!’ they mutter to themselves. ‘Oh, the suffering!¹⁷¹ It must already be past midnight.’ Probably they do not realize that anyone is listening, and in any case their words mean little.¹⁷² Yet it is disagreeable to hear such remarks, and one’s visitor finds that the things he would normally be enjoying on such a visit have lost their charm.

Sometimes the attendants do not dare put their sentiments into words but clearly show them by the look on their faces and by the great groans that they let forth. At such times I find it amusing to recall the poem about the ‘waters seething far below’.¹⁷³ But, if they go and stand by a fence in the garden and say, ‘It looks like rain,’¹⁷⁴ or words to that effect, I find it hateful.

The attendants who accompany young noblemen and other people of quality never behave in this rude way; but such things often happen with men of lower rank. When paying a visit, a man should take along only those attendants whose character is known to him.

The women’s apartments along the gallery of the Imperial Palace are particularly pleasant. When one raises the upper part of the small half-shutters, the wind blows in extremely hard; it is cool even in summer, and in winter snow and hail come along with the wind, which I find agreeable. As the rooms are small, and as the page-boys (even though employed in such august precincts) often behave badly, we women generally stay hidden behind our screens or curtains. It is delightfully quiet there; for one cannot hear any of the loud talk and laughter that disturb one in other parts of the Palace.

Bright green bamboo blinds are a delight, especially when beneath them one can make out the many layers of a woman’s clothes emerging from under brilliantly coloured curtains of state.175 The men who glimpse this sight from the veranda, whether they be young noblemen with their over-robes informally left unsewn in the back, or Chamberlains of the Sixth Rank in their costumes of green, do not as a rule dare enter the room where the woman is seated. It is interesting to observe them as they stand there with their backs pressed to the wall and with the sleeves of their robes neatly arranged. Charming also, when one is watching from the outside, is the sight of a young man clad in laced trousers of dark purple and in a dazzling Court robe over an array of varicoloured garments, as he leans forward into the woman’s room, pushing aside the green blind. At this point he may take out an elegant inkstone and start writing a letter, or again, he may ask the woman for a mirror and comb his side-locks; either is delightful.

When a three-foot curtain of state has been set up, there is hardly any gap between the top of the frame and the bottom of the head-blind; fortunately the little space that remains always seems to come precisely at the face-level of the man who is standing outside the curtains and of the woman who is conversing with him from inside. What on earth would happen if the man was extremely tall and the woman very short? I really cannot imagine. But, so long as people are of normal height, it is satisfactory.

I particularly enjoy the rehearsal before the Special Festival¹⁷⁶ when I am staying in the women’s apartments at the Palace. As the men from the Office of Grounds walk along, they hold their long pine torches high above them; because of the cold their heads are drawn into their robes, and consequently the ends of the torches are always threatening to bump into things. Soon there is the pleasant sound of music as the players pass outside the women’s apartments playing their flutes. Some of the young noblemen in the Palace, fascinated by the scene, appear in their Court costumes and stand outside our rooms chatting with us, while their attendants quietly order people to make way for their masters. All the voices mingle with the music in an unfamiliar and delightful way.

Since the night is already well advanced, one does not bother to go to bed but waits for the dawn when the musicians and dancers return from their rehearsal. Soon they arrive, and then comes the best part of all when they sing ‘The rice flowers from the freshly-planted fields’.177

Almost everyone enjoys these things; but occasionally some sober-sides will hurry by, without stopping to watch the scene. Then one of the women calls out laughingly to him, ‘Wait a moment, Sir! How can you abandon the charms of such a night? Stay for a while and enjoy yourself!’ But evidently the man is in a bad mood, for he scurries along the corridor, almost tumbling over himself in his haste, as though in terror of being pursued and captured.

It was during one of Her Majesty’s periods of residence in the building of the Empress’s Office. Although we were somewhat cut off from things, we enjoyed being in such a tall building and the ancient trees that stretched far into the distance behind the Office delighted us. One day it was reported that there was a demon in the main room. Everything had to be taken out, and we arranged the screens and other furniture so as to keep the demon out of the rest of the house. We told the maids to put Her Majesty’s curtains of state in the front part of the building, south of the main room, and we women moved into an adjoining chamber.

All the time we could hear the cries of ‘Make way!’ that preceded the approach of High Court Nobles and senior courtiers as they went from the gate of the Inner Palace Guards past the guard-house of the Left Guards. The cries for the senior courtiers were shorter than those for the High Court Nobles, and we had heated discussions about which were the ‘big cries’ and which the ‘small cries’.178 Since we had often heard these voices, we were usually able to recognize them. ‘That’s Lord So-and-so they’re announcing,’ one of us would say. ‘No it isn’t,’ another woman would insist, and then we would have to send a servant to find out who was right. It was amusing to hear the first woman say, ‘Well, you see I knew.’

Early one morning, when a pale moon still hung in the sky, we went out into the garden, which was thick with mist. Hearing us, Her Majesty got up herself, and all the ladies in attendance joined us in the garden. As we strolled about happily, dawn gradually appeared on the horizon. When eventually I left to go and have a look at the guard-house of the Left Guards, all the other women ran after me, crying that they wanted to come along. On our way we heard a group of senior courtiers, who were evidently bound for the Empress’s palace, reciting ‘So on and so forth - and the voice of autumn speaks’.¹⁷⁹ We therefore hurried back to the palace to converse with the gentlemen on their arrival there. ‘So you have been out moon-viewing,’ said one of them admiringly and composed a poem in praise of the moon.

Both during the day and at night the senior courtiers were always paying us such visits. High Court Nobles too, unless they were in an uncommon hurry, used to call on us whenever they were going to or from the Imperial Palace.

On the day after the Naming of the Buddhas the screens with the paintings of Hell were carried into the Empress’s apartments for her to see. They were terrifying beyond words.¹⁸⁰

‘Look!’ said Her Majesty. But I replied that I had no desire to see them; I was so frightened that I went and lay down in my room next door where I could hide myself from the screens.

It was raining very hard. Since the Emperor declared that he was bored, some of the senior courtiers were summoned to the Empress’s apartments for a concert. Michikata, the Minor Counsellor, played splendidly on the lute, Lord Narimasa played the thirteen-string zither, Yukinari the ordinary flute, and Captain Tsunefusa the thirteen-pipe flute.181 They gave a delightful performance of one piece; then, after the sound of the flute had stopped, His Excellency the Major Counsellor, Korechika, chanted the line,

The music stops, but the player will not speak her name.¹⁸²

While all this was going on, I lay out of sight in my room; but now I got up and went into the Empress’s apartments. ‘Whatever guilt this may bring upon me,’¹⁸³ I said as I entered, ‘I cannot resist such a charming recitation.’ Hearing this, the gentlemen all burst out laughing.

I recall that there was nothing very remarkable about the Major Counsellor’s voice; yet it seemed to have been made especially for the occasion.

The Captain First Secretary, Tadanobu,¹⁸⁴ having heard certain false rumours, began to speak about me in the most unpleasant terms. ‘How could I have thought of her as a human being?’ was the sort of thing he used to say.

One day I learnt that he had gone so far as to speak badly about me in the Senior Courtiers’ Chamber. I felt terribly ashamed, but I laughed and said, ‘How distressing if what he said were correct! As it is, he’s sure to find out the truth soon enough, and then he’ll change his mind about me.’ Shortly afterwards Tadanobu heard my voice when passing near the Black Door,¹⁸⁵ and, without even glancing at me, he covered his face with his sleeve. Despite his dislike of me, I never tried to explain matters, and let time pass without so much as looking at him.

Towards the end of the Second Month it rained a great deal and time hung on my hands. One day someone told me that Tadanobu was secluded in Seiryō Palace on the occasion of an Imperial Abstinence186 and that he had been overheard to remark, ‘After all, things do seem a bit dreary since I stopped seeing Shōnagon. I wonder if I shan’t send her a message.’ ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ I replied. Yet I spent the entire day in my room, thinking that a messenger might arrive, and by the time I went to the Empress’s apartments I found that she had already retired for the night. The ladies-in-waiting on duty were seated in a group near the veranda; they had drawn up a lamp and were playing a game of parts.¹⁸⁷

‘Oh, good!’ they cried when they saw me. ‘Come and join us!’ Yet I felt depressed and wondered why I had come. Instead of joining the women, I sat down by a brazier; but presently they had all gathered round me and we started chatting to each other. Just then there was a loud cry outside the room: ‘A messenger is here!’¹⁸⁸

‘That’s strange,’ I said. ‘I’ve only just arrived. What can have happened since I left my room?’ I sent a maid to find out; when she returned, she told me that the man was from the Office of Grounds and that he had a message which he must at all costs deliver to me personally. I went out and asked the man what had happened. ‘Here is a letter for you from the Captain First Secretary,’ he said. ‘Please answer it without delay.’

In view of Tadanobu’s attitude, I wondered what sort of a letter he could have written; but, since I did not want to hurry through it then and there, I told the messenger that he could leave and that I would send my reply presently. Tucking the letter in the breast of my robe, I returned to my companions.

We were once more chatting away when the messenger returned and said, ‘His Excellency, the Captain, ordered me to bring his letter back to him if there was no immediate reply. Please be quick.’ It was all as strange as a tale from Ise.¹⁸⁹ I examined the letter. It was elegantly written on heavy blue paper, and there was nothing about it to worry me. I opened it and read:

I was at a complete loss. If Her Majesty had been there, I should have asked her to look at the letter and give her opinion; but unfortunately she was asleep. I had to prove that I knew the next line of the poem, but were I to write it in my somewhat faltering Chinese characters it would make a bad impression. I had no time to ponder since the messenger was pressing for a reply. Taking a piece of burnt-out charcoal from the brazier, I simply added the following words at the end of Tadanobu’s letter:

‘How could anyone with such a vulgar name be staying here?’ I asked. ‘Now, if you were to ask for Jade Tower, you might get a reply.’191

‘Ah, good!’ said Tsunefusa. ‘So you are in your room. I was prepared to go all the way to the Palace to find you.’ He then told me what had happened on the previous evening. He and several officials of the Sixth Rank and above (all of them gentlemen of some talent) had been with Tadanobu in the Captain’s night-duty room. In the course of their conversation, while they were discussing various people and events, Tadanobu said, ‘I have completely broken with Shōnagon. But even now that it is all over between us I find it hard to leave things as they are. I have been waiting for her to make some move to bring us together again, but she does not seem to give it the slightest thought. Really, I find this indifference of hers most galling…. Well, tonight I am going to make up my mind about her once and for all and settle things properly.’

‘We all discussed the matter,’ continued Tsunefusa, ‘and it was decided that he should put you to the test by means of a letter. But, when the messenger returned, he told us that you had gone back to your room and could not read the letter at once. Hearing this, Tadanobu sent the man back again with the instructions, “This time seize her by the sleeve and get a reply from her willy-nilly! But in any case bring back my letter!”

‘Despite the heavy rain the messenger was soon back in the night-duty room. “Here it is,” he said, producing a letter from the folds of his robe. It was the same blue piece of paper that Tadanobu had sent. We wondered whether you had returned it without perusal. But, when Tadanobu unfolded it, he gave an exclamation of surprise, and we all gathered round him curiously. “What a rogue she is!” he said. “How can one break with a woman like that?” We examined the letter excitedly. “We’ll have to send it back to her with the first three lines added,”192 said someone. “Come, Captain Tsunefusa, you provide the missing lines!” We stayed up until late at night cudgelling our brains for the right words, but in the end we had to give up. We then decided that this was an incident that people must hear about.’

I was quite embarrassed by Tsunefusa’s praise. ‘So now,’ he added, as he hurriedly took his leave, ‘you have acquired the name of Grass Hut.’ ‘That’s all very well,’ thought I, ‘but it’s hardly a name I should like to keep indefinitely.’

Just then Norimitsu, the Assistant Master of the Office of Palace Repairs,¹⁹³ arrived in my room, ‘I thought you would be in the Palace,’ he said, ‘and I have just been there to tell you how delighted I was by the news.’ ‘Why so delighted?’ I said. ‘I haven’t heard about any official appointments. What post did you get?’ ‘No, no,’ replied Norimitsu. ‘It’s about your answer to Tadanobu yesterday evening. I’ve been waiting all night to tell you how pleased I was. There’s never been anything like it.’

‘Of course I was delighted, but I kept it to myself and simply said, “I am totally incompetent in matters of this kind.” “We aren’t asking for your criticism,” was the reply, “and we don’t even expect you to understand what she wrote. But we do want you to tell people about it.” This was rather mortifying for your eider brother, but I found some satisfaction in the difficulties they themselves had in framing a reply. “We simply can’t find the right opening lines,” they said. “But, after all, is there any special reason that we have to send a return poem?”194 Still they did not give up. Since they realized that to produce a feeble reply would be worse than nothing at all, they stayed there till the middle of the night racking their brains for the proper words.

‘Well now, surely we both have good cause to rejoice. Even if I had been given a promotion during the period of official appointments, it would have been as nothing compared to this.’ Listening to Norimitsu, I was most vexed at the idea that all these men had been sitting in judgement on me without my knowledge.

(As for the matter of ‘younger sister’ and ‘elder brother’, everyone from the Emperor and Empress down knew about it, and even in the Palace people called Norimitsu ‘elder brother’ instead of designating him by his office.)

Norimitsu and I were still talking when a servant came to my room and told me to report at once to Her Majesty. As soon as I was in her presence I realized that she had called me to discuss what I had written to Tadanobu. ‘The Emperor has been here,’ she said, ‘and he told me that all his gentlemen have your reply written on their fans.’ I was amazed and wondered who could have spread the news.

On the twenty-fifth of the Second Month in the following year Her Majesty moved to the Empress’s Office. I did not accompany her but stayed behind in Umetsubo Palace.195 On the next day a message came from Tadanobu: ‘Last night I visited the temple at Kurama. Since the direction to the capital is closed this evening, I am taking a detour and expect to be back before dawn.¹⁹⁶ There is something I must tell you. Please wait for me and be ready to open the door as soon as I knock.’

It happened, however, that Her Highness, the Mistress of the Robes,¹⁹⁷ sent me a message. ‘Why stay alone in your room?’ she wrote. ‘Come and spend the night here.’ Accordingly I went to her.

It was late on the following morning when I got up and returned to my room. My maid was waiting for me. ‘Last night,’ she said, ‘someone was knocking very loudly at the door. In the end I had to get up. The visitor ordered me to announce to my mistress that the man who had promised to come had now arrived. I replied that you would pay no attention to such a message and went back to bed.’

I was feeling very annoyed about all this when a messenger came from the Office of Grounds and said, ‘His Excellency, the First Secretary, wishes to inform you that he has to leave at once but that first he has something he must tell you.’

If Tadanobu were to visit me in my own room, he would probably open the blinds and do other such bothersome things. The idea made me nervous, so I told the messenger that I was going to the Palace on business; if His Excellency wanted to see me, he should come there. I then went to Umetsubo Palace and had just opened the half-shutters at the east end of the main room when Tadanobu arrived. I asked him to approach the blinds behind which I was sitting. He looked magnificent as he came towards me. His resplendent, cherry-coloured Court cloak was lined with material of the most delightful hue and lustre; he wore dark, grape-coloured trousers, boldly splashed with designs of wistaria branches; his crimson under-robe was so glossy that it seemed to sparkle, while underneath one could make out layer upon layer of white and light violet robes. As the veranda on which he sat was very narrow, he leaned forward so that the top part of his body came almost up to the blind and I could see him clearly. He looked like one of the gentlemen who are depicted by painters or celebrated by the writers of romances.

The plum blossoms in front of the Palace (red ones on the left and white ones on the right) were just beginning to scatter; yet they were still very beautiful. The sun brilliantly lit up the whole scene - a scene that I should have liked everyone to view. To make it still more charming, the woman nestling close to the blinds should have been a young lady-in-waiting with beautiful, long hair cascading over her shoulders. Instead it was I, an old woman who had long since seen her best years, and whose hair had become so frizzled and dishevelled that it no longer looked as if it belonged to her head.198 To make matters worse, we were still in mourning¹⁹⁹ and most of the ladies at Court wore special clothes, mine all being of such a light grey hue that they hardly seemed to have any colour at all and one could not tell one garment from another. Since Her Majesty was away, I was wearing an ordinary long robe without a formal skirt and train. Alas, there was not one good thing about me, and I quite spoiled the beauty of the scene!

‘I am on my way to the Empress’s Office,’ said Tadanobu. ‘Do you want me to take a message? And when will you be going yourself?

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘it was not yet dawn when I left the place where I stayed last night. Since I had already told you my plans, I expected that you would be waiting for me. It was a clear, moonlit night. As soon as I arrived from the West City,200 I came and knocked on your door. It took me a long time to arouse your maid. When she finally got out of bed, what a vulgar creature she turned out to be and how rudely she answered me!’ Tadanobu laughed, and went on: ‘It was a terrible disappointment. How can you have left someone like that in your room?’

Tadanobu had good reason to be annoyed, and as I heard his story I was both sorry for him and amused. He left soon after. It occurred to me that the people who had noticed him from the outside must have wondered what son of delightful woman could be hidden by the screens, while those who were in the back of the room and could see me from behind would never have imagined that there was such a splendid gentleman on the veranda.

At sunset I went up to the Empress’s Office. Her Majesty was surrounded by a group of ladies-in-waiting, who were arguing about various romances and citing passages that impressed them as good or clumsy or disagreeable. The Empress herself discussed the qualities and defects of Suzushi and Nakatada.²⁰¹ ‘Well, Shōnagon,’ said one of the ladies-in-waiting, ‘let’s hear your opinion of these characters. You must tell us at once. Her Majesty is always talking about Nakatada’s mean upbringing. What do you think?’

‘For my part,’ I replied, ‘I don’t see anything so wonderful about Suzushi. I admit that he may have succeeded in bringing a heavenly maiden down from the sky by his music, but when did he ever do anything important enough to win the hand of an Emperor’s daughter?’

‘Good!’ exclaimed the lady-in-waiting, realizing that I was on Nakatada’s side in the debate.

‘If you’d seen Tadanobu when he came here today,’ the Empress said, ‘you would have found him far more splendid than all these romantic heroes.’ ‘Yes indeed,’ put in another of the ladies-in-waiting, ‘today he was even more magnificent than usual.’

‘It was just so that I could let Your Majesty know at once about Tadanobu’s visit that I came here this evening,’ I said, ‘but I became involved in your discussion about romances.’ Thereupon I told them everything that had happened.

‘We’ve all seen him,’ they said, laughing, ‘but how could we possibly have pieced the whole story together?’ Then they described Tadanobu’s visit. ‘Oh, the desolation of the West City!’ he had said to them. ‘If someone had been there to share it with me…. The fences are all broken and everything is overgrown with moss.’ ‘And was there any fern on the tiles?’ Lady Saishō202 had asked. Extremely impressed by her question, Tadanobu had hummed the line, ‘It is not far from the city’s western gate…’

The women were all loud in praising this exchange, and I found their enthusiasm delightful.

When I stayed away from the Palace,²⁰³ I frequently received visits from senior courtiers and other gentlemen. The people of the household where I was staying used to complain about this and criticize me. If my visitors had included anyone to whom I was particularly attached, I should have resented their complaints, but such was not the case. As it happened, I had no desire to meet them. Yet, if a gentleman comes all the way to see one both during the daytime and at night, is it possible to reply that one is not at home and to send him away embarrassed?

Some of the men who visited my house were almost total strangers, and in the end it became too much for me. On the next time when I left Court I therefore decided not to announce where I was going - in fact I told hardly anyone except Tsunefusa and Narimasa.

On one occasion during my absence the Lieutenant of the Guards, Norimitsu, came to see me. In the course of our conversation he mentioned that on the previous day His Excellency the Imperial Adviser, Tadanobu, had insistently questioned him about my whereabouts. ‘After all,’ Tadanobu had said, ‘it hardly seems likely that you would not know where your own sister is staying.’ Norimitsu had continued to protest his ignorance, but Tadanobu had become cross and only pressed him the harder. ‘I really had a difficult time hiding the truth from him,’ said Norimitsu. ‘It was all I could do not to burst into laughter. To make matters worse, Tsunefusa was sitting directly next to us with an unconcerned, innocent look. I knew that if I so much as glanced at him I should start giggling. To save myself, I snatched from the table a common piece of seaweed204 and popped it into my mouth. It must have looked odd, but my ruse saved me from giving away your secret. As it was, Tadanobu decided that I really did not know where you were. I found it all most amusing.’

‘Well,’ I said, still more emphatically, ‘whatever you do, don’t tell him!’

Several days passed. Then late one night I heard a loud knocking at the gate. I wondered why anyone should make such a terrible disturbance, especially since the gate was quite near the house and an ordinary knock would have sufficed. I sent one of the servants to find out who was there. It turned out to be a messenger, a soldier in the Imperial Guards, with a letter from Norimitsu.²⁰⁵ Since everyone was asleep, I drew up a lamp for myself and opened the letter. ‘Tomorrow,’ I read, ‘is the Day of Conclusion of the Sacred Readings.²⁰⁶ Tadanobu is bound to spend all day in the Palace to attend the Emperor and Empress during their abstinence. If he urges me again to tell him where my younger sister is, there will be no help for it. I shall certainly not be able to hide it this time. Is it all right to let him know where you are? What shall I do? I shall act according to your instructions.’

By way of reply I merely wrapped a little seaweed in a piece of paper and sent it to him.207 When Norimitsu came to see me later, he told me that all night long Tadanobu had been after him for information. ‘Without even waiting to find a suitable place,’ said Norimitsu, ‘His Excellency took me aside and began interrogating me. I can assure you that it was most disagreeable to be put to the question like that. Besides, you never told me what I should answer, but simply sent that silly bit of seaweed wrapped in paper. I suppose you did it by mistake.’

‘What a strange mistake that would be!’ I thought. ‘Who would ever wrap up such an object and send it to someone?’ I was really disgusted with Norimitsu for having so completely missed the point, and without a word I took a piece of paper that was lying under the inkstone and wrote the following poem;

Norimitsu and I had always been on close terms and tried to help each other, but now, without anything particular having happened, a coolness came between us. Shortly afterwards I received this note from him: ‘I know that I may have put you out in some way, but please do not forget our pact. Even though we are apart, remember that I have been your elder brother.’

I have heard Norimitsu say, ‘People who are fond of me should spare me their poems or I shall have to regard them as enemies. When you feel that the time has come to break with me, just send one of those things.’ So it is possible that Norimitsu never actually read the following poem that I sent in reply to his note:

The expression of a woman plucking her eyebrows.210

Then a few months after our visit to the guard-house of the Left Guards I was staying at home when I received this message from the Empress: ‘Come back quickly. I keep remembering that early morning when you went to the guard-house. How can you be so indifferent to it all? Surely such an experience must have made a deep impression on you.’

In my reply I assured Her Majesty of my profound respect; then, as a personal touch, I added the following: ‘How could it fail to make an impression on me when even Your Majesty was so moved by the scene that she referred to us, her mere attendants, as “heavenly maidens hovering in the air”?’²¹¹ The messenger returned presently with these words from the Empress: ‘I wonder why you should have said something to bring discredit on Nakatada, who was such a favourite of yours. In any case, leave everything and come back here this very evening. I shall resent it greatly if you don’t.’

I sent the messenger back with this reply: ‘If Your Majesty had simply said “slightly annoyed”, I should consider it a terrible thing. Since you used the word “greatly”, I shall return even at the risk of my life.’ So saying, I went back to the Palace.

Once when Her Majesty was residing in the Empress’s Office, Perpetual Readings212 were held in the western part of the main hall. The usual paintings of the Buddha had been hung for the occasion, and several priests were in attendance. On the second day of the readings the voice of a common-sounding woman reached us from the veranda. ‘I expect there’ll be some scraps from the altar offerings,’ she said. ‘How could there be any left-overs this early in the service?’ replied one of the priests. I wondered who the woman might be and went on to the veranda to have a look. It turned out to be an old man dressed in a filthy cotton trouser-skirt which was so short and narrow that it seemed more like a sort of tube than an article of clothing. Over this she wore something equally dirty which was presumably meant to be a robe but which came only about five inches below her sash. She really looked like a monkey.

‘What do you want, woman?’ I asked.

‘Madam,’ she replied in an affected tone, ‘I am a disciple of the Buddha and I was hoping to receive the left-overs from his altar. But these priests are so stingy that they grudge the smallest gift.’ She now spoke in a bright, elegant fashion and I was rather touched to see her so crushed by misfortune. Yet there was a gaudiness about her manner that annoyed me and I said, ‘So you eat nothing but the Buddha’s holy left-overs! How worthy of you!’ Seeing my expression she said, ‘Why do you suppose that’s all I eat? It’s only when I can’t get anything else that I take left-overs.’

I put some fruit, flat rice cakes, and other things in a basket and gave it to her. She then became extremely familiar and began chatting away. Some of the younger ladies-in-waiting joined us on the veranda and plied her with all sorts of questions, such as ‘Do you have a lover?’ and ‘Where do you live?’, to which she replied with jokes and suggestive quips. When one of them asked her whether she could sing and dance, she burst out with

The Empress had heard all this and reprimanded us. ‘Why have you made her behave in such an embarrassing way?’ she asked. ‘I couldn’t bear to hear it and I had to stop up my ears. Here, give her this robe and send her away at once!’

The ladies took the robe and threw it at the woman, saying, ‘Her Majesty has generously given you this present. Take off your filthy robe and put on this nice clean one.’ The nun received it with a deep bow; then, draping it over her shoulders, she began to perform a dance of thanks.²¹⁵ She was really too repulsive, and we all went indoors.

Evidently this gift made her feel that she was now fully accepted in Her Majesty’s household; thereafter she was always coming and going, and soon she had acquired the nickname of Hitachi no Suke. She still wore her same dirty robe. We wondered what she had done with the one the Empress gave her and we felt quite disgusted with the creature.

One day when Lady Ukon paid a call, Her Majesty told her about the nun. ‘My ladies have taken it into their heads to befriend her,’ she said. ‘She’s always coming to see us these days.’ Then she asked Lady Kohyōe to give an imitation of the nun. Lady Ukon burst out laughing. ‘How can I arrange to see her for myself?’ she asked. ‘You really must show her to me. Don’t think I’ll try to take her away. I realize she is Your Majesty’s favourite.’

Later there came another nun - a cripple this time, but with a naturally elegant manner. She called to us from the veranda; when we went out, she begged for alms, in such an embarrassed way that we were truly sorry for her. Her Majesty ordered that she be given a robe and the nun prostrated herself on the ground. Her movements were much the same as the other nun’s, but there was nothing unpleasant about her. Just as she was leaving the veranda, weeping for joy, Hitachi no Suke happened to arrive and caught a glimpse of her. Thereafter Hitachi did not visit us again for a long time, and we soon forgot about her.

From the tenth day of the Twelfth Month it snowed very heavily. I and the other ladies-in-waiting gathered large quantities of snow and heaped it in lids; then we decided to build a real snow mountain216 in the garden. Having summoned the servants, we told them it was on Her Majesty’s orders, and so they all got to work. Men from the Office of Grounds, who had come to do some sweeping, also joined in, and soon the mountain was rising high above the ground. Next came some officials from the Office of the Empress’s Household, who made suggestions and helped build an especially beautiful mountain. There were also a few Assistant Officials from the Emperor’s Private Office and some more men from the Office of Grounds, so that soon we had about twenty people working away. In addition messages were sent to the servants off duty, saying that a special stipend would be given to anyone who helped on that day, but that those who did not appear for work could expect nothing. This brought the men rushing out, except for those who lived far away and could not be informed.

When the mountain was finished, officials from the Office of the Empress’s Household were summoned and given rolls of silk tied up in sets of two. They threw the rolls on to the veranda, and each of the workmen came and took a set. Having bowed low, they thrust the silk into their robes before withdrawing. Some of the Court gentlemen changed from their formal over-robes into hunting costume and remained in attendance at the Empress’s Office.

‘Well,’ said Her Majesty, ‘how long is that mountain likely to last?’

Everyone guessed that it would be ten days or a little more.

‘And what do you think?’ the Empress asked me.

Towards the twentieth it began raining. There was no sign that the snow was about to melt, but the mountain did shrink a little. ‘Oh, Goddess of Mercy of Shirayama,’217 I prayed frenziedly, ‘do not let our mountain melt away!’

On the day we built the mountain Tadataka, the Secretary in the Ministry of Ceremonial, arrived with a message from the Emperor. We gave him a cushion and joined him for a talk. ‘Today they’re making snow mountains everywhere,’ he told us. ‘The Emperor has ordered his men to build one in the garden in front of his Palace, and they’re also building them in the Eastern Palace and in the Koki and Kyōgoku Palaces.’²¹⁸ Hearing this, I wrote a poem and asked the woman standing beside me to recite it:

I had heard that Tadataka was very fond of poetry, and his behaviour surprised me. When I told the Empress about it, she said, ‘He obviously preferred not to reply at all unless he could produce something really good.’

Towards the end of the year the snow mountain seemed to have become smaller, yet it was still very high. About noon one day, when I and some of the other women were sitting out on the veranda, Hitachi no Suke arrived. ‘Why haven’t we seen you for such a long time?’ we asked her. ‘Oh, nothing special,’ she said. ‘It’s just that something rather sad happened to me.’ ‘And what may that be?’ we asked. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘I couldn’t help feeling that

She drawled out her poem, and we all laughed contemptuously. Since no one was paying much attention, she made her way up to the snow mountain and walked round it before leaving. Later we sent Lady Ukon a message about the visit, and she replied, ‘Why didn’t you bring her here? It was really too bad to abandon her like that and make her go all the way to that great mountain of yours by herself.’ This caused us to burst into laughter again.

New Year came without affecting the snow mountain in any way.

On the first day of the year it again started snowing heavily. I was happily thinking how the snow would gather on the mountain when Her Majesty said, ‘This has come at the wrong time. Leave what was there before and brush away all the new snow.’

Very early on the following morning, as I was going from the Palace to my room, I saw a man who looked like a head retainer. He was on his way to the Empress’s Office and was shivering with cold. On the sleeve of his night-watch costume, which was as green as a citron leaf, I noticed a piece of paper, also green, attached to a pine twig.²²⁰

‘Who sent this?’ I asked him.

‘The High Priestess of Kamo,’²²¹ he replied.

Realizing at once that this must be something pleasant, I carried the letter to the Empress’s room. Her Majesty was still in bed, and I did my best to open her lattice-door myself,222 using for this purpose a go board on which I stood as I tried to push up the heavy grating. The lattice was very heavy, but finally one side opened with a creaking sound that wakened the Empress. ‘Why are you doing that?’ she asked. ‘I have a letter from the High Priestess,’ I replied, ‘which I had to deliver to Your Majesty as quickly as possible.’ ‘Well,’ she said, getting up, ‘it certainly is early for a letter.’

Looking inside, she discovered a pair of hare-sticks, each about five inches long. They had been placed end to end so that they looked like a single hare-wand; some paper had been wrapped round the head of the sticks, which were prettily decorated with sprigs of wild orange, club moss, and mountain sedge. But there seemed to be no written message. ‘Can this really be all?’ said the Empress. Searching more carefully, however, we found the following verse written on a bit of paper wrapped round the end of the stick:

As I watched the Empress writing her reply to this letter (which turned out to be the beginning of a regular correspondence between her and the High Priestess), I was full of admiration. Determined to make her letter as elegant as the one she had received, Her Majesty took the utmost pains to correct the wording until she considered it just right. The messenger was rewarded with an unlined costume of white material and another of dark red that looked like plum blossom.²²⁴ I enjoyed watching the man set off in the falling snow with the clothes over his shoulder. Unfortunately I never found out what Her Majesty had replied.

Meanwhile our snow mountain, dirty and unattractive though it had become, showed no sign of melting; and one would really have thought that it belonged to the northern land of Koshi. I prayed that somehow it would survive until the fifteenth. I was convinced that I would win, but some people insisted that it would not outlast the seventh. We had all decided to wait and see what happened when suddenly on the third of the month the Empress was obliged to return to the Imperial Palace. This was a great disappointment, and at first I seriously thought that we would never know the outcome. ‘Well,’ said everyone (including Her Majesty), ‘it was all very delightful. What a shame we couldn’t see it to the end!’

After I had gone home on the seventh, I was still greatly concerned with the mountain and early each morning I sent someone to look at it. On the tenth my messenger delighted me by saying that it would last for another five days or so. On the night of the thirteenth, however, it rained very hard, and I thought with distress that now my mountain must surely have melted. I stayed awake all night, lamenting that it could not possibly survive another day, let alone the necessary two. The people who heard me laughed and said I was mad. As soon as there was a sound of stirring in the house, I got up and tried to arouse one of the maids. The lazy wench would not budge. Thoroughly annoyed, I sent another servant, who was already awake, to inspect the mountain. ‘Well, Madam’, she told me on her return, ‘it is now about the size of a round straw cushion. The gardener has been looking after it very efficiently and has not let any children come near. It should last like this until tomorrow or even the next day. The gardener says that he is now confident of receiving his reward.’

Anxiously I awaited the following day, and before dawn I gave my maid a large chip-basket,225 telling her to fill the cover with snow from those parts of the mountain where it was still white. ‘Use a rake’ I said, ‘and throw away all the dirty snow.’

She was back almost at once with the cover of the chip-basket dangling, still empty, from her hand. ‘It’s gone,’ she announced. I was dumbfounded. The splendid poem that I had composed with such effort, thinking that soon it would be on everyone’s lips, now seemed foolish and useless. ‘But how’, I asked dejectedly, ‘can such a large heap of snow have melted overnight?’

‘The gardener was wringing his hands,’ the maid said excitedly. ‘He told me that the snow was there until late last night and he was counting on his reward, but that now of course he would get nothing.’

Just then a messenger arrived with a note from the Empress asking whether the snow had lasted. Mortifying as it was, I had to reply that none was left. ‘Tell Her Majesty’, I said, ‘that the snow, which the older women said would melt last month and in any case before New Year’s Day, was still there yesterday at sunset. I don’t think I did so badly. If it had actually lasted until today, my prediction would have been too accurate. I dare say that during the night someone removed the snow out of spite and flung it away.’

‘Well,’ said the Empress after she had told me all this, ‘now you can see that it is just the same as if you had actually won. So please let me hear your poem.’

A Chamberlain of the Sixth Rank cuts a magnificent figure when he arrives with an Imperial mandate or when he brings the sweet chestnuts for the Great Council banquet.226 Observing how he is treated and entertained, one could imagine that he has come down from heaven.

A girl of noble birth has been chosen as Imperial consort; but she is still living at home, where they refer to her as ‘Princess’. When a Chamberlain visits her with a message from the Emperor, her lady-in-waiting, before even delivering the letter, first pushes out a cushion for him from behind the blinds. As she does so, she displays the sleeves of her dress - a rare sight for a man of such humble rank.

If, in addition to being a Chamberlain, the messenger belongs to the Imperial Guards, things are still more impressive. He sits down on the cushion, spreading out the skirts of his under-robe, and it is the master of the house himself who gives the man a wine cup. What must be his delight on receiving such treatment!

A Chamberlain can keep company with young noblemen as if he were their equal - yes, with those same young noblemen whose very sight used to overawe him and who in the past would not have deigned to sit in the same room with someone of such low rank. Now it is he who inspires jealousy, especially when people see how closely he attends the Emperor, fanning His Majesty and rubbing the inkstick for him when he wishes to write a letter.

The Chamberlain’s term of office is three or four years. During this time he is poorly dressed and there is nothing very elegant about his personal effects; yet he can mix freely with senior courtiers and other superiors. But what docs he have to show for it all when his term has expired? I am sure that, as the time approaches for him to receive the head-dress of nobility and forgo the privilege of being admitted into the Presence, he feels sorrier than if he were to lose his own life. It is sad to see how he bustles about the Palace in a frantic effort to secure some last favours from the Emperor. In the past, Chamberlains began lamenting the loss of their privileges from the very beginning of the year when they were to relinquish their posts. Nowadays they compete for new appointments.

I need hardly say how splendid I find a learned Doctor of Literature227 He may be of lowly appearance, and of course he is of low rank; but the world at large regards him as an impressive figure. As an Imperial Tutor, he is consulted about all sorts of special matters, and he is free to approach the most eminent members of the Emperor’s family. When he has composed one of his prayers for the Emperor or the introduction to some poem, he becomes the object of universal praise.

A learned priest is also splendid. It is impressive enough when he reads his breviary by himself, but how much more so when he is among several Lectors officiating in the Sacred Readings²²⁸ at one of the fixed periods! It is getting dark. ‘Why haven’t they brought the oil?’ says one of the Lectors. ‘How late they are in lighting the lamps!’ All the Lectors stop reading, but the learned priest continues quietly reciting the scriptures from memory.

An Imperial Procession by the Empress in daytime.

The Empress’s birth chamber.²²⁹

The ceremony of installing a new Empress.²³⁰ On this occasion tables are arranged in front of her dais together with the lion and the Korean dog. Then the people from the Table Office bring in the Imperial Cauldron. As one watches all this, it is difficult to believe that this same Empress was recently an ordinary person known simply as ‘Princess’.

The procession of the First Man. His pilgrimage to Kasuga Shrine.

Grape-coloured material.

Anything purple is splendid, be it flowers, thread, or paper. Among purple flowers, however, I do not like the iris despite its gorgeous colour. What makes the costume of Sixth Rank Chamberlains so attractive when they are on night duty is the purple trousers.

A large garden all covered with snow.

The eldest son of our present Emperor is still a child, but how splendid he looks when he is in the arms of Their Excellencies, hi; handsome young uncles, when he is being served by senior courtiers, or when his horse is led out for inspection! Seeing the young Prince at such times, one would say that nothing unpleasant could ever happen to him.231

One day when the Emperor visited Her Majesty’s rooms, we heard that he had taken along the lute called Mumyō*²³² and that some of the ladies-in-waiting were strumming it. We went to have a look, but no one was playing. One of our group toyed with the strings and asked what the instrument was called. ‘It’s far too insignificant to have a name,’²³³ said the Empress. Hearing her reply, I was once more reminded what an admirable mistress I served.

The Lady of the Shigei Sha,²³⁴ who had come to call on the Empress, mentioned in the course of conversation that at home she had a very fine thirteen-pipe flute which she had received from her late father. Hearing this, His Lordship the Bishop²³⁵ said, ‘Please give it to me. I have a splendid seven-string zither at home which I hope you will take in exchange.’ But the Shigei Sha paid no attention to him and continued chatting to the Empress. His Lordship repeated the request several times, thinking that in the end his sister was bound to reply; but still she said nothing. Thereupon Her Majesty said, ‘No, she certainly has no intention of exchanging it - any more than one would exchange the Inakaeji^†²³⁶ flute’. It was a delightful remark; but His Lordship, priest though he was, seemed unfamiliar with the name of this particular flute, and he only felt resentful. (This was at a time when Her Majesty was residing in the Empress’s Office and there was a flute known as Inakaeji in the Imperial collection.)

The zithers, flutes, and other instruments belonging to the Emperor have certainly been given some strange names. Among the lutes are Genshō, Mokuma, Ide, Ikyō, and Mumyō; the six-string zithers have names like Kuchime, Shiogama, and Futanuki. I have also heard about Suirō, Kosuirō, Uda no Hōshi, Kugiuchi, and Hafutatsu;237 and there are many others whose names I have forgotten. ‘Such objects,’ I remember Tadanobu saying, ‘deserve to be placed on the shelf of honour in Giyō Palace.’²³⁸

A group of senior courtiers had spent all day playing the zither and flute outside the bamboo blinds of the Empress’s apartments in Seiryō Palace. In the evening they retired and went their own ways. When the lamp was brought out, the lattices had not yet been lowered and it was possible to see clearly through the blinds into the Imperial apartments. There sat the Empress, holding her lute lengthwise. She wore a magnificent scarlet robe, and beneath it several layers of beaten and stretched silk. Her sleeve was elegantly draped over the glossy, black lute; and nothing could have been more splendid than the contrast between her dazzlingly white forehead and the dark wood of the instrument. Having glanced at this scene, I went up to one of the women who was standing near by and said, ‘The girl whose face was half hidden can certainly not have been as beautiful as this. And she, of course, was a mere commoner.’²³⁹ When she heard this, the woman forced her way into the Empress’s room and reported what I had said. Presently she came back and told me that Her Majesty had laughingly asked, ‘And do you know what Shōnagon meant by that?’, which amused me greatly.

Once in the Fifth Month during the long spell of rainy weather Captain Tadanobu came and stood next to the bamboo screen by the door leading to the Empress’s apartments. He used a most delightful scent, which it was impossible to identify. The air was very damp.240 Even though nothing noteworthy took place, there was something peculiarly elegant about the entire scene, which makes me feel bound to mention it. The Captain’s scent permeated the screen and lingered there till the following day. Small wonder that the younger ladies-in-waiting should have felt this was something unique!

One of Her Majesty’s wet-nurses who held the Fifth Rank left today for the province of Hyūga. Among the fans given her by the Empress as a parting gift was one with a painting of a travellers’ lodging, not unlike the Captain of Ide’s residence. On the other side was a picture of the capital in a heavy rainstorm with someone gazing at the scene. In her own hand the Empress had written the following sentence as if it were an ordinary piece of prose²⁴¹: ‘When you have gone away and face the sun that shines so crimson in the East, be mindful of the friends you left behind, who in this city gaze upon the endless rains.’ It was a very moving message, and I realized that I myself could not possibly leave such a mistress and go away to some distant place.

One has sent someone a poem (or a reply to a poem) and, after the messenger has left, thinks of a couple of words that ought to be changed.

One has sewn something in a hurry. The task seems finished, but on pulling out the needle one discovers that one forgot to knot the end of the thread. It is also very annoying to find that one has sewn something back to front.

One day when the Empress was staying in the Southern Palace,242 she went to visit His Excellency, her father, in the western wing. I and the other ladies-in-waiting were gathered in the main building with nothing particular to do. We wandered along the corridors, trying to distract ourselves in one way or another. Then a messenger came from Her Majesty. ‘A robe is wanted in a hurry,’ we were told. ‘All of you are to get together and make sure that it is delivered to the Empress, fully sewn, before the next watch.’ We were then given some plain silk material.

My companions and I assembled at the front of the main hall, each of us taking a piece of silk and each determined to be the first to finish her work. We sat side by side, not facing each other, and started sewing at great speed. Nurse Myōbu, who did the wide sleeves, finished her work before anyone else. In her haste, however, she did not notice that she had sewn one piece of material inside out. Without even tying the final knot, she laid down the sleeves and stood up.

When it came to putting the different parts of the dress together at the back, we soon realized that there had been a mistake. The ladies laughed and scolded the nurse, saying, ‘You’d better do it over again properly.’ ‘And who do you suppose would admit she had made a mistake in sewing?’ said the nurse. ‘With patterned silk, of course, one would have to start again if one had mistaken the front for the back, but with plain material like this what does it matter? If anyone has to do her work again, I don’t see why it should be me. Ask the girls who still haven’t finished their sewing.’

Since she could not be persuaded, the rest of us had to start our work over again. It was really amusing to watch the expressions of Gen Shōnagon, Shin Chūnagon, and the others as they sat there plying their needles and muttering, ‘How does she think she can get away with it?’ All this because Her Majesty intended to visit the Emperor that evening and had said, ‘I shall know that the one who gets her work done first really loves me.’

It is annoying when a messenger delivers a letter to a person not meant to see it. If he simply admitted his mistake, it would not be so bad. But when he begins insisting that he merely carried out orders, it is really infuriating. If I were not afraid that someone might see me I should rush up and strike him.

A child or grown-up blurts out something that is bound to make people uncomfortable.

One of the bowmen in an archery contest stands trembling for a long time before shooting; when finally he does release his arrow, it goes in the wrong direction.243

It was during the Abstinence of the Fifth Month²⁴⁴ when Her Majesty was residing in the Empress’s Office. The two-span apartment²⁴⁵ in front of the store-room had been especially decorated for the occasion, and I enjoyed seeing how different it looked.

From the beginning of the month it had been dark and rainy. ‘This is becoming a bore,’ I said one day. ‘I should like to go somewhere to hear a hototogisu singing.’ The other women enjoyed the idea and said that they wanted to accompany me. One of them suggested a bridge behind Kamo Shrine; it had an unpleasant name, something like Weaver Bridge.²⁴⁶ ‘The hototogisu sings there every day,’ she said. ‘Those aren’t hototogisu,’ said someone else. ‘They’re cicadas.’

Nevertheless we planned to go there, and on the morning of the fifth day we ordered the men from the Office of the Empress’s Household to get our carriage ready. Since it was the rainy season, we decided that no one would object if we left by the gate next to the guard-house at the north of the Palace.²⁴⁷ The carriage was pulled up to our veranda and four²⁴⁸ of us climbed inside. ‘Can’t we get another carriage of our own and go along with them?’ asked some of the other women, but the Empress refused. Though they were very disappointed, we set off without listening to their complaints or showing any sympathy.

As we passed the riding-ground, we noticed a throng of noisy people and asked what was happening. It turned out that they were doing archery practice with the great bow. We were invited to stay and watch for a while. ‘All the Middle and Minor Captains of the Left Guards Division are here,’ we were told. But we saw no one of the kind; there were only a few officials of the Sixth Rank wandering about the place. ‘Not very interesting, is it?’ said one of the women. ‘Let’s go on at once.’

So we continued on our way to Kamo, the road reminding us pleasantly of the Festival.249 Since Lord Akinobu’s²⁵⁰ house lay on our way, someone suggested that we should stop and have a look at it. We told our men to draw the carriage up to the veranda and we all got out. It was a plain, rustic place. The sliding paper-door with pictures of horses, the wickerwork screens, the water-bur blinds - everything seemed deliberately arranged to look old-fashioned. The house itself was designed in the simplest style; but, poor and cramped as everything was, it still had a certain charm. As for the hototogisu, they were singing to each other so loudly that we were almost deafened. It really was a shame that Her Majesty was not there to hear them; and we also felt sorry for the women who had wanted so badly to come with us.

‘When one visits a new place,’ said our host, ‘it’s always interesting to see the local activities.’ He sent for a large quantity of what I took to be rice plants,²⁵¹ and also summoned a number of quite pleasant-looking young girls from his own household and some common women from the neighbouring farms. Half a dozen threshed the rice, while a couple of others used a revolving machine of a type that I had never seen before. As they worked, they sang such a strange song that we all burst out laughing and completely forgot about writing our hototogisu poems.

Next Lord Akinobu ordered his servants to bring out some small tables of the kind one sees in Chinese pictures, and we were served a meal. Noticing that none of us paid much attention to the food, he said, ‘I am afraid this is only rough, country fare.252 But if you come to this sort of place and don’t like the food, you must tell your host quite frankly and he will serve you something more to your taste. You ladies really are the shyest guests I’ve ever had.’ He encouraged us to help ourselves. ‘Do have some of these fern sprouts,’ he said. ‘I picked them with my own hands.’

‘But really,’ I said, ‘how can you expect us to sit here eating in a row like a lot of common maid-servants?’²⁵³

‘Of course,’ said Akinobu and ordered his attendants to remove the dishes. ‘I should have realized that ladies-in-waiting like you are accustomed to the formality of life in the Palace.’ While the servants were bustling about, taking the dishes off the tables and putting everything in order, one of our men came and announced that it was going to rain. So we hurried back to our carriage.

‘I should have liked to write my hototogisu poem before we left,’ I remarked. ‘Never mind,’ said the others. ‘You can do it just as well on our way back.’

Before starting, we picked some long branches of u no hana, covered with white blossoms, and decorated our carriage with them, so that they hung out of the blinds and sides. It really looked as though a great white cloak had been spread across the roof. Our attendants were delighted and, laughing loudly, began to stick branches into every possible place, even through the bamboo framework of the carriage. ‘There’s still room for some here,’ they shouted, adding bough after bough. ‘And here’s another place.’

I was hoping that we would be seen by someone on our way back. Alas, all we met was an occasional indigent priest and a few other people too common to be worth mentioning. As we approached the Palace, we decided that we really could not let the outing come to an end without making sure that someone would see us and spread the news about our carriage. So we stopped next to the Palace of the First Ward and sent a servant to ask for His Excellency, Fujiwara no Kiminobu, the Gentleman-in-Waiting,254 informing him that we were on our way back from hearing the hototogisu. ‘I shall be with you at once, my dear ladies’, came the reply. The messenger added that His Excellency had gone to the Attendants’ Hall and was hurriedly changing into Court trousers. We replied that we could not possibly wait and told our driver to set off at full speed for Tsuchi Gate.²⁵⁵ Presently Kiminobu appeared, running after our carriage, and accompanied by a number of attendants and lackeys who had not even had time to put on their shoes. He had managed to get dressed with amazing speed, but was still tying his sash as he dashed along the road. ‘Wait a minute!’ he shouted. ‘Wait a minute!’ We told our driver to go still faster and had already reached Tsuchi Gate when Kiminobu caught up with us, gasping for breath and extremely flustered. It was only then that he saw how our carriage was decorated. ‘I cannot believe there are real people in there,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Do get out and let me see you!’ The men with him were greatly amused. ‘And what about your poems?’ he added. ‘You must let me hear them.’

‘No,’ I replied, ‘we have to show them to Her Majesty first.’

At that moment it started to rain in earnest. ‘I wonder why just this gate had to be built without a roof,’ said Kiminobu. ‘What a dreadful nuisance on a day like this! How am I ever going to get home? When I started running after your carriage, the only thought in my mind was not to miss you. It did not occur to me that I might be seen. Oh dear, I really must be getting back. How depressing!’

‘Come, come!’ I said. ‘Why don’t you go into the Palace with us?’

‘In my lacquered cap?’ he said. ‘How can I do that?’

‘Send for something more formal.’

But now it was really raining heavily, and our men, who had no head-covering, pulled in the carriage as quickly as they could.²⁵⁶ An attendant brought Kiminobu an umbrella from his palace, and someone held it over him while he started to make his way home; he walked slowly this time, and there was a melancholy expression on his face as he looked back at us over his shoulder. I was pleased to see that in his hand he carried nothing but a spray of u no hana.

When we came into the Empress’s presence, she asked us how things had turned out. The ladies who had been left behind were at first resentful and sullen; but, when we described how Kiminobu had run after us along the First Avenue, they all joined in laughing.

‘Why don’t you write the reply?’ I said to Lady Saishō.

‘No, I’d rather you did it,’ she answered.

Meanwhile it had been getting dark, and now the rain started coming down again, accompanied by great claps of thunder, which so terrified us that we could think of nothing except closing the lattices. In our confusion we quite forgot about the messenger.

The thunder continued rumbling until nightfall. When it eventually stopped, we set about writing our poem in earnest. But just at that moment a group of High Court Nobles and senior courtiers arrived to ask how the Empress had fared in the thunderstorm, and we had to go to the west entrance and talk with them.

Then at last we could concentrate on our poem. But now the other women withdrew, saying that only the person to whom the poem was addressed should be responsible. It was really a nuisance: poetry seemed to be having a bad karma258 that day.

‘We shall simply have to keep as quiet as we can about our outing,’ I said with a laugh.

‘I still see no reason,’ said Her Majesty, ‘why some of you who went to hear the hototogisu can’t write a proper poem about it. I suppose it’s because you have set your minds against it.’ She looked rather cross; yet even this I found charming. ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ I said, ‘but by now the whole thing’s become a bit pointless.’

‘Is it all that pointless?’ she said.

The matter of the poem was allowed to drop.

A couple of days later when we were discussing our excursion, Lady Saishō mentioned the fern sprouts that Akinobu said he had picked with his own hands. Her Majesty overheard us. ‘So that is the sort of thing you remember!’ she said, laughing. She picked up a stray piece of paper and wrote, ‘A longing for those fern sprouts lingers in her head.’

‘Now then,’ she said to me, ‘you must provide the opening lines.’²⁵⁹ I was delighted and wrote, ‘More than the cuckoo’s song she went to hear.’

‘Well, Shōnagon,’ said the Empress merrily, ‘I wonder how you dare mention that bird at all.’

‘How so, Your Majesty?’ I replied, rather embarrassed. ‘In any case,’ I continued, ‘I have decided to give up writing poetry for good and all. If each time there is a poem to be composed you call on me to do it, I don’t see how I can remain in Your Majesty’s service. After all, I don’t even know how to count the syllables correctly. How can I be expected to write winter poems in the spring and spring poems in the autumn and poems about chrysanthemums when the plum blossoms are in bloom? I realize that there have been many poets in my family,260 and of course it’s a great satisfaction if one of my verses turns out well and people say, “Of everything written on that day Shōnagon’s was the best. But that’s what one would expect considering who her father was.” The trouble is that I have no particular talent and, if I push myself forward and turn out some doggerel as though I thought it were a masterpiece, I feel I am disgracing the memory of my ancestors.’

I was speaking quite seriously, but the Empress laughed and said, ‘In that case you must do exactly as you wish. I shan’t ask you to write any more poems.’

Late one evening, not long after this incident, His Excellency the Minister of the Centre, Korechika, who was making elaborate preparations for the Night of the Monkey,²⁶¹ gave out subjects on which the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting were to write poems. They were all very excited and eagerly set themselves to the task. Meanwhile I stayed with the Empress and talked to her about various things. Presently Korechika caught sight of me. ‘Why don’t you join the others and write a poem?’ he asked. ‘Pick your subject.’

‘Her Majesty has excused me from poetry,’ I said, ‘and I don’t have to worry about such things any more.’

‘How odd!’ said Korechika. ‘I can hardly believe she would allow that. Very well, you may do as you like at other times, but please write something tonight.’

But I did not pay the slightest attention. When the poems of the other women were being judged, the Empress handed me the following little note:

No doubt she was thinking of a recent conversation when I had remarked in her hearing, ‘If I do not come first in people’s affections, I had just as soon not be loved at all; in fact I would rather be hated or even maltreated. It is better to be dead than to be loved in the second or third place. Yes, I must be first.’ Hearing this, someone had said, ‘There we have the Single Vehicle of the Law!’,262 and everyone had burst out laughing.

Now the Empress gave me a brush and some paper. I wrote the following note and handed it to her: ‘Among the Nine Ranks of lotus seats even the lowliest would satisfy me.’²⁶³

‘Well, well,’ said the Empress, ‘you seem to have lost heart completely. That’s bad. I prefer you to go on thinking as you did before.’

‘My attitude depends on the person in question,’ I replied.

‘That’s really bad,’ she said, much to my delight. ‘You should try to come first in the affections of even the most important people.’

His Excellency the Middle Counsellor, Takaie,²⁶⁴ visited the Empress one day and presented her with a fan. ‘I have found a most magnificent fan-frame,’ he told her. ‘I want to have it covered, but it can’t be done with ordinary paper. I am looking for something very special.’

‘What sort of a frame is it?’ asked Her Majesty.

‘It’s absolutely splendid,’ declared Takaie. ‘People say they’ve never seen anything like it before, and they’re quite right.’

‘Well then,’ I said, ‘it’s not a fan-frame at all. It must be the frame of a jelly-fish.’²⁶⁵

‘Very amusing!’ said Takaie. ‘Let’s take it that I meant to say that myself.’

This incident deserves to be included in my section on ‘embarrassing things’,²⁶⁶ and perhaps I should not have recorded it at all. But I have been told to leave nothing out, and so I really had no choice.

Once during a long spell of rainy weather the Secretary of the Ministry of Ceremonial, Nobutsune,267 arrived at the Empress’s palace with a message from His Majesty. A cushion was brought out for him, but he pushed it away even farther than he normally did on these occasions and sat down on the floor.²⁶⁸

‘Whom do you think that cushion is for?’ I asked him.

‘If I sat on the cushion after being out in this rain,’ he replied with a laugh, ‘it would get all nasty and stained with my footmarks.’

‘How so?’ I said. ‘Are you under the impression that the cushion is to couch your feet on?’²⁶⁹

‘There’s nothing very clever about that remark,’ said Nobutsune. ‘If I hadn’t mentioned my footmarks, you’d never have thought of your little joke.’

He then kept on pointing out that it was he, not I, who was responsible for the joke. At first I found this rather amusing, but after a while I could no longer bear to hear him praising himself so lavishly and, turning to the Empress, I told the following story: ‘Many years ago there lived in the palace of the Great Empress²⁷⁰ an attendant called Enutagi* who, despite her low rank, had made quite a reputation for herself. Fujiwara no Tokikara^† (who died while serving as Governor of Mino) was at that time a Chamberlain. One day he called at the room where many of the lower attendants were gathered and said, “So this is the famous Enutagi! Why don’t you look like your name?” “I do,” she replied, “but it depends on the weather.” Everyone, including the High Court Nobles and senior courtiers, found Enutagi amusing, because even when a trap was set for her in advance she always managed to acquit herself cleverly. And the stories about her must be true. They’ve been handed down for a long time without any change.’

‘Yes,’ said Nobutsune, ‘but it was Tokikara who put the idea into her head.271 As for myself,’ he continued, ‘I can compose a good poem in either Chinese or Japanese on any subject you give me.’

‘Really?’ I replied. ‘Very well, I’ll give you a subject and you will kindly write me a poem in Japanese.’

‘Splendid,’ said Nobutsune. ‘But why only one subject? I can just as well handle a whole lot.’

Hearing his boast, the Empress herself proposed a subject, at which Nobutsune promptly took his leave, saying, ‘Dear me, how frightening! I’d better be off.’

‘He has an appalling hand,’ someone explained after he had left the room. ‘Whether in Chinese characters or Japanese script, the results are equally poor. People are always laughing at him about it. That’s why he had to escape.’

One day when Nobutsune was serving as Intendant in the Office of Palace Works²⁷² he sent a sketch to one of the craftsmen explaining how a certain piece of work should be done. ‘Kindly execute it in this fashion,’ he added in Chinese characters. I happened to notice the piece of paper and it was the most preposterous writing I had ever seen. Next to his message I wrote, ‘If you do the work in this style, it will certainly turn out strangely.’ The document found its way to the Imperial apartments, and everyone who saw it was greatly amused - except, of course, Nobutsune, who was furious and after this held a grudge against me.

When the Lady of the Shigei Sha entered the Crown Prince’s palace on the tenth of the First Month,²⁷³ the ceremonies were carried out with great splendour. She wrote frequently to her sister, the Empress, but they did not actually meet.²⁷⁴ Then on the tenth of the following month the Shigei Sha sent Her Majesty a message that she would come to see her.

In honour of this visit the Empress’s apartments were decorated even more beautifully than usual, and everything was especially cleaned and polished. We ladies-in-waiting also prepared ourselves carefully.

The Shigei Sha arrived very late at night and was taken to the two-span apartment that had been prepared for her in the eastern wing of the Tōka Palace. As soon as it was dawn the lattices were raised, and presently her father, the Chancellor,275 arrived in a carriage with his wife.

In the morning I attended the Empress while her hair was being dressed. A four-foot curtain of state had been placed across the main hall, facing the back of the room. Her Majesty was seated in the front part of the room, while a group of ladies-in-waiting was gathered behind the curtain of state. Hardly any furniture had been put out - only a straw mat with a cushion for Her Majesty and a round brazier.

While her hair was being done, the Empress asked me whether I knew the Shigei Sha. ‘How could I possibly know her, Your Majesty?’ I replied. ‘The only time I came near her was during the memorial service at Shakuzen Temple,²⁷⁶ and then I just glimpsed her from the back.’

‘Very well then,’ said the Empress, ‘sit behind me and, if you look through the space between the curtain and that pillar, you’ll be able to see her. Isn’t she beautiful?’ I was overjoyed to see the Shigei Sha and longed for the time when I would get a really good view of her.

Now the Empress’s hair had been dressed, and she was ready to be robed. Over a three-layered scarlet dress of beaten silk she wore two plum-red robes, one of heavily embroidered material and the other more lightly worked. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Do you think the plum red really goes with dark scarlet? I know this isn’t the season for plum red, but I can’t stand colours like light green.’²⁷⁷

Unusual though the combination was, Her Majesty looked beautiful. The colour of her clothes went perfectly with her complexion and, as I gazed at her, I was impatient to have a proper look at the Shigei Sha to see whether she was equally pretty.

Presently Her Majesty crept out278 from where she had been sitting. Some of the women noticed how I had installed myself by the curtains and was peering at the people in the other part of the room. ‘What a way to behave!’ they said, much to my amusement. ‘Very suspicious.’

Since the hall was wide open, with no other curtains or screens, I had an extremely good view. Her Highness, the Chancellor’s wife, wore a white robe over two dresses of scarlet silk, and a formal skirt with a long train. Lifting the folds of her skirt, she moved towards the back of the room. Since she was turned sideways, I could not see her properly.

The Shigei Sha, who had moved back a little, was now facing in my direction. She had on several plum-red under-robes of different shades, an unlined costume of deep red damask, a long, flowing robe of darkish red, and an over-robe of richly embroidered light green silk which made her look very young. She held her fan steadily in front of her face. Altogether she was magnificent.

His Excellency, the Chancellor, wore a light violet Court cloak, laced trousers of light green material, and a scarlet under-robe. He faced towards us, leaning against one of the pillars between the main part of the hall and the veranda and fastening the cord round the neckband of his cloak in a loose knot. At the sight of his beautiful daughters he smiled with delight and chatted away in his usual bantering fashion.

I glanced again at the Shigei Sha, who was looking extraordinarily pretty. But, when I turned back to Her Majesty and saw her tranquil expression, her charming features which had recently taken on a more adult cast,²⁷⁹ and her complexion which went so beautifully with her scarlet clothes, I realized that no one in the world could equal her…

Now the attendants brought water for the Shigei Sha’s ablutions. As I recall, there were altogether six attendants - two young maids and four servants of lower rank - and they came along the galleries through Senyō and Jōgan Palaces.280 I noticed that only half a dozen ladies-in-waiting were seated under the Chinese roof at our end of the gallery. There was not enough room for all the Shigei Sha’s ladies, and the others had gone back after escorting their mistress to Tōka Palace.

The young attendants were very pretty in their loose, cherry-coloured coats, under-skirts of light green and plum red, and long trains; I enjoyed watching them take the basin of water from the servants and place it next to the Shigei Sha. Also in attendance were Lady Shōshō, the daughter of Sukemasa (Director of the Bureau of Imperial Stables), and Lady Saishō, the daughter of the Gentleman of Kitano of the Third Rank; they were seated next to the Empress, and the embroidered silk of their Chinese jackets emerged charmingly from beneath the curtain of state. The Palace Girls who were helping the Shigei Sha with her ablutions wore divided skirts of green and shaded material, Chinese jackets, waistband ribbons, and shoulder sashes; their faces were heavily powdered. The servants passed them what was needed for the ablutions, and I was pleased to see how everything was done with proper ceremony in the Chinese style.

When the time came for the Empress’s morning meal, the Palace hairdresser arrived to do the hair of the Lady Chamberlains and of the attendants who were to serve Her Majesty. The screen behind which I had been peeping was now pushed aside and I felt exactly like a demon who has been robbed of his straw coat.²⁸¹ I had not seen nearly enough and, rather annoyed by the interruption, I moved next to one of the pillars where I could go on watching the scene from between a bamboo blind and a curtain of state. However, my train and the skirts of my robe stuck out under the blind. His Excellency, the Chancellor, happened to notice this and said in a reproachful tone, ‘Who can it be - she whom I dimly glimpse through a clearing in the mist?’²⁸²

‘It must be Shōnagon,’ replied the Empress. ‘She is very curious to see what is going on.’

‘Oh, how embarrassing!’ said the Chancellor, with a smug look. ‘I’ve known her for a long time and I hate her to see what ugly daughters I have.’

Then the attendants brought in the Shigei Sha’s meal. ‘Really,’ said the Chancellor, ‘I’m becoming jealous. Now Their Ladyships have been served. I do hope they’ll finish their meals quickly so that I and my old woman can start on the scraps.’283 He continued joking like this all day long.

Presently the Major Counsellor and the Middle Captain of the Third Rank²⁸⁴ arrived with Matsugimi. The Chancellor, who had been waiting for them impatiently, picked up the little boy and put him on his knees in a most charming way. The veranda was too narrow for the men’s formal Court costumes, and their under-robes trailed all over the floor.

The Major Counsellor looked extremely handsome, and the Middle Captain was impressive for his age. As I observed the two young men, it occurred to me that, while the Chancellor could be expected to have such splendid sons, their mother’s good fortune must be the result of some special karma.²⁸⁵ The Chancellor told them to sit down on the straw cushions that were spread on the veranda; but they hastily took their leave, explaining that they had to report for duty.

Shortly afterwards a secretary (I do not know his name) came from the Ministry of Ceremonial with a message from the Emperor for his wife. The attendants placed a cushion for him in the room at the north of the buttery and he sat down, while the Empress hastened to write her reply.

Before there was even time to remove the cushion, Chikayori, the Minor Captain of the Inner Palace Guards, arrived bearing a letter from the Crown Prince to the Shigei Sha. Since there was no room for Chikayori on the veranda of the gallery, his cushion was placed at the east of the main veranda. He handed over the letter, which, after the Shigei Sha had examined it, was read in turn by the Chancellor and his wife and also by the Empress. ‘You had better make haste with your reply,’ the Chancellor told the Shigei Sha; but she did not seem to be in any hurry. ‘Why aren’t you writing?’ said the Chancellor. ‘I suppose it’s because I am watching you. Otherwise you’d have answered at once without any prompting from me.’ I was delighted to see the girl blushing slightly as she smiled at her father’s words. Now her mother also told her to hurry up and produce an answer. She accordingly sat down, facing the back of the room, and started to write with the help of her mother, who came and sat next to her. I noticed that the Shigei Sha was looking more and more embarrassed.

Meanwhile Matsugimi babbled away; everyone was delighted and made a great fuss over him. ‘I don’t suppose there would be any harm in passing him off as the Empress’s child,’ said the Chancellor. Of course he was joking, but his words made me worry about why Her Majesty had not yet done what His Excellency had in mind.286

At about the Hour of the Sheep the Emperor appeared with a great rustling of silk robes. So sudden was his arrival that there was not even time to announce that the mats leading to the entrance had been laid out for him. The Empress joined her husband and they both promptly retired to the curtain-dais, while the ladies-in-waiting went and sat in the front of the anteroom. I noticed that the gallery was full of senior courtiers. The Chancellor summoned servants from the office of the Empress’s Household and made them bring fruit and other dishes to be eaten with wine. ‘Now let everyone get drunk,’ he said. And everyone did get drunk.²⁸⁷ The gentlemen began to exchange remarks with the ladies-in-waiting and they all found each other extremely amusing.

At sunset His Majesty got up and called for the Major Counsellor, Yamanoi. Then, having ordered his gentlemen to help him on with his Court robes, he left for his Palace.288 He was resplendent in his cherry-blossom Court cloak and his crimson robe which reflected the light of the evening glow - but His Majesty is such an awe-inspiring figure that I cannot continue writing about him like this.

Yamanoi was not on very close terms with his brothers. He looked magnificent, handsomer even than Korechika; but unfortunately people were always running him down.

As he set out for his Palace, the Emperor was escorted by His Excellency the Chancellor, the Major Counsellor Yamanoi, the Middle Captain of the Third Rank, and the Director of the Imperial Storehouse.²⁸⁹ Later, Lady Uma no Naishi arrived with a message from His Majesty asking the Empress to come to him. She did not want to go, however, and replied that it was impossible for her that evening. ‘That will never do,’ said the Chancellor when he heard this. ‘You must go to him at once.’

There was also a constant stream of messengers from the Crown Prince. Ladies-in-waiting who had come from the Emperor’s Palace and from the Crown Prince’s residence were bustling about, urging Her Majesty and the Shigei Sha to make haste and join their husbands.

‘Very well,’ said the Empress, ‘but first you must escort my sister.’

‘How can I possibly go ahead of you?’ asked the Shigei Sha.

‘Whatever you may say,’ insisted the Empress, ‘it is I who will see you off.’ I found their conversation both amusing and delightful. Eventually the two sisters agreed that the one who had farther to go should leave first, and so the Shigei Sha went before the Empress. After she had gone, the Chancellor and the other gentlemen departed; then finally Her Majesty set off for the Emperor’s Palace. The people who accompanied the Chancellor were laughing so heartily at his jokes that they almost fell off the bridge.²⁹⁰

On the last day of the Second Month, when there was a strong wind, a dark grey sky, and a little snow, a man from the Office of Grounds came to the Black Door and asked to speak to me. He then approached and gave me a note which he said was from Kintō, the Imperial Adviser.291 It consisted of a sheet of pocket-paper on which was written,

The words were most appropriate for the weather; but what concerned me was that I was bound to produce the opening lines. I asked the messenger which gentlemen were present, and he gave me their names. They were all the type of men to put me on my mettle; but it was Kintō’s presence among them that made me most reluctant to give a commonplace answer. I felt very alone and wished that I could show the note to Her Majesty and discuss my predicament; but I knew that she was lying down with the Emperor.

The man from the Office of Grounds urged me to hurry; and I realized that if, in addition to bungling my reply, I was slow about it, I should really disgrace myself. ‘It can’t be helped,’ I thought and, trembling with emotion, wrote the following lines:

It turned out that the Captain of the Middle Palace Guards (who at that time held the rank of Middle Captain in the Inner Palace Guards) was present when my answer arrived, and he told me that Toshikata, the Imperial Adviser,293 gave the following judgement: ‘After this she deserves to be appointed to the Palace Attendants’ Office.’

Masahiro really is a laughing-stock. I wonder what it is like for his parents and friends. If people see him with a decent-looking servant, they always call for the fellow and laughingly ask how he can wait upon such a master and what he thinks of him. There are skilled dyers and weavers in Masahiro’s household, and when incomes to dress, whether it be the colour of his under-robe or the style of his cloak, he is more elegant than most men; yet the only effect of his elegance is to make people say, ‘What a shame someone else isn’t wearing these things!’

And how strangely he expresses himself! Once, when he was due to report for night duty at the Palace, he ordered that the clothes and other things he would need should be brought from his house. ‘Send two servants,’ he said. One man came and said that he could easily carry everything. ‘You’re an odd fellow,’ said Masahiro. ‘How can one man bring the things of two people? After all, can you put two measures in a one-measure jar?’²⁹⁴ No one had the slightest idea what he meant; but there was loud laughter.

On another occasion a messenger brought Masahiro a letter from someone, asking for an immediate reply. ‘You hateful fellow!’ said Masahiro. ‘Has someone been putting peas on the stove?²⁹⁵ And who’s stolen the ink and brush I had in this residence? Very odd! I could understand people taking rice or wine…’ And again everyone laughed.

When the Empress Dowager was ill, Masahiro was sent from the Palace to inquire after her. When he came back, people asked which of her gentlemen-in-waiting had been present. He named a few people, four or five in all. ‘Was no one else there?’ ‘Well, there were some others,’ replied Masahiro, ‘but they had all left.’ It is amazing that we could still laugh at him - so accustomed were we to hearing his foolishness.

One day when I was alone he came up to me and said, ‘My dear lady, I have something I must tell you at once - something that I’ve just heard.’ ‘And what may that be?’ I asked. He approached my curtain. ‘I heard someone who instead of saying, “Bring your body closer,” used the phrase, “Bring up your five parts.”’²⁹⁶ And again I burst into laughter.

On the middle night during the period of official appointments Masahiro was responsible for filling the lamps with oil. He rested his foot on the cloth under the pedestal of one of the lamps and, since the cloth happened to have been freshly oiled, his foot stuck to it. As soon as he started to walk off, the lamp fell over and, as he hurried along with the cloth stuck to his foot, the lamp dragged after him, making a terrible clatter.

One day when he thought he was alone in the Table Room, neither of the First Secretaries having reported for duty, Masahiro took a dish of beans that was lying there and went behind the Little Screen.297 Suddenly someone pulled aside the screen - and there was Masahiro, stealthily munching away at the beans. Everyone who saw him was convulsed with laughter.

On the last day of the Fourth Month we made a pilgrimage to Hase Temple by way of Yodo Ferry.²⁹⁸ Our carriage was put on the ferry, and as we crossed the river I observed the iris, water-oats, and other plants that grew out of the water. They looked quite short; but, when we told our attendants to pluck some of them, I discovered that they had extremely long stems. I enjoyed watching the passing boats laden with water-oats,²⁹⁹ and it occurred to me that this was the sort of scene described in the song of Takase Pool.³⁰⁰

When we returned on the third of the following month, it was raining heavily. We saw men and children setting out to pick irises;301 they wore tiny sedge hats and their clothes were tucked up high on their legs. It was just like a screen painting.

Pinks, cherry blossoms, yellow roses. Men or women who are praised in romances as being beautiful.

Pines. Autumn fields. Mountain villages and paths. Cranes and deer. A very cold winter scene; an unspeakably hot summer scene.

During the long rains in the Fifth Month, there is something very moving about a place with a pond. Between the dense irises, water-oats, and other plants one can see the green of the water; and the entire garden seems to be the same green colour. One stays there all day long, gazing in contemplation at the clouded sky - oh, how moving it is!

I am always moved and delighted by places that have ponds - not only in the winter (when I love waking up to find that the water has frozen over) but at every time of the year. The ponds I like best are not those in which everything is carefully laid out; I much prefer one that has been left to itself so that it is wild and covered with weeds. At night in the green spaces of water one can see nothing but the pale glow of the moonlight. At any time and in any place I find moonlight very moving.

Once I went on a pilgrimage to Hase Temple. While our rooms were being prepared, our carriage was pulled up to the foot of the log steps that lead to the temple. Young priests, wearing only their sashes and under-robes, and with those things called high clogs on their feet,302 were hurrying up and down the steps without the slightest precaution, reciting verses from the Sacred Storehouse³⁰³ or such scraps from the sutras as came into their heads. It was very appropriate to the place, and I found it charming. Later, when we suited to climb the steps, we were terrified and kept close to the side, clinging to the banisters. I was amused to see that the priests walked as freely as on an ordinary wooden floor.

Presently a priest told us that our rooms were ready and asked us to go to them directly; he brought us some overshoes and helped us out of our carriage. Among the pilgrims who had already arrived I saw some who were wearing their clothes inside out,³⁰⁴ while others were dressed in formal style with trains on their skirts and Chinese jackets. The sight of so many people shuffling along the corridors in lacquered leather shoes and short clogs was delightful and reminded me of the Palace.

Several acolytes and some young men who had the run of the temple grounds and buildings followed us, saying, ‘There’s a drop now,’ ‘Here the corridor goes up,’ and so on. Close behind us came another group (I have no idea who they were), and they tried to push their way ahead of us. ‘Wait a moment,’ our guides said. ‘These are ladies of quality. You people must keep your distance.’ Some bowed and fell back; but others paid no attention at all and hurried ahead, each determined to be the first before the Buddha.

On the way to our rooms we had to pass in front of rows of strangers. I found this very unpleasant; but, when I reached the chapel and got a view past the dog-barrier305 and right up to the sanctuary, I was overcome with awe and wondered how I could have stayed away for so many months. My old feelings were aroused and they overwhelmed all else.

The lamps that lit the sacred image in the sanctuary were not permanent ones, but had been brought by pilgrims as offerings. They burnt with terrifying brightness, and in their light the Buddha glittered brilliantly. Priest after priest reverently entered the sanctuary, and, kneeling on the platform of worship,³⁰⁶ held up his petition in both hands and read it aloud. So many people were bustling about that it was hard to make out what any particular priest was saying; but occasionally I could distinguish a strained voice pronouncing some phrase like ‘One thousand platforms³⁰⁷ on behalf of Lord So-and-so’.

I was kneeling down to pray, with the sash of my skirt hanging loosely over my shoulders,³⁰⁸ when a priest came up to me and said, ‘I have brought you this.’ He was carrying a bough of anise, and I was delighted by the gesture.

Presently another priest came from the dog-barrier. He told us that he had satisfactorily recited all our petitions and asked how long we expected to remain in retreat; he also gave us the names of some other people who were staying in the temple. When he had gone, the attendants brought us a brazier and some fruit. Our washing-water was poured into a bucket, and I noticed that we had been given a basin without handles. A priest called for our servants and explained where they would be lodged; then, one at a time, the servants went off to their cells.