The Japanese have a convenient method of calling their historical
periods by the names of the places which were the seats of government
while they lasted. The first of these epochs of real importance is
the Nara Period, which began A.D. 710 and endured until 794; all
before that may be classed as archaic. Previous to the Nara Period,
the Japanese had been a semi-nomadic race. As each successive Mikado
came to the throne, he built himself a new palace, and founded a
new capital; there had been more than sixty capitals before the
Nara Period. Such shifting was not conducive to the development of
literature and the arts, and it was not until a permanent government
was established at Nara that these began to flourish. This is scarcely
the place to trace the history of Japanese literature, but fully to
understand these charming "Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan," it is
necessary to know a little of the world they lived in, to be able to
feel their atmosphere and recognize their allusions.
We know a good deal about Japan to-day, but the Japan with which we
are familiar only slightly resembles that of the Diaries. Centuries of
feudalism, of "Dark Ages," have come between. We must go behind all
this and begin again. We have all heard of the "Forty-seven Ronins" and
the Nō Drama, of Shōguns, Daimios, and Samurais, and many of us live
in daily communion with Japanese prints. It gives us pause to reflect
that the earliest of these things is almost as many centuries ahead of
the Ladies as it is behind us. "Shōgun" means simply "General," and
of course there were always generals, but the power of the Shōguns,
and the military feudalism of which the Daimios and their attendant
Samurais were a part, did not really begin until the middle of the
twelfth century and did not reach its full development until the middle
of the fourteenth; the Nō Drama started with the ancient religious
pantomimic dance, the Kagura, but not until words were added in the
fourteenth century did it become the Nō; and block colour printing was
first practised in 1695, while such famous print artists as Utamaro,
Hokusai, and Hiroshige are all products of the eighteenth or early
nineteenth centuries. To find the Ladies behind the dark military ages,
we must go back a long way, even to the century before their own, and
so gain a sort of perspective for them and their time.
Chinese literature and civilization were introduced into Japan
somewhere between 270 and 310 A.D., and Buddhism followed in 552. Of
course, all such dates must be taken with a certain degree of latitude;
Oriental historians are anything but precise in these matters. Chinese
influence and Buddhism are the two enormous facts to be reckoned with
in understanding Japan, and considering what an effect they have
had, it is not a little singular that Japan has always been able
to preserve her native character. To be sure, Shintoism was never
displaced by Buddhism, but the latter made a tremendous appeal to the
Japanese temperament, as the Diaries show. In fact, it was not until
the Meiji Period (1867-1912) that Shintoism was again made the state
religion. With the introduction of Chinese civilization came the art of
writing, when is not accurately known, but printing from movable blocks
followed from Korea in the eighth century. As was inevitable under the
circumstances, Chinese came to be considered the language of learning.
Japanese scholars wrote in Chinese. All the "serious" books--history,
theology, science, law--were written in Chinese as a matter of course.
But, in 712, a volume called "Records of Ancient Matters" was compiled
in the native tongue. It is the earliest book in Japanese now extant.
If the scholars wrote in a borrowed language, the poets knew better.
They wrote in their own, and the poetry of the Nara Period has been
preserved for us in an anthology, the "Manyoshu" or "Collection of
One Thousand Leaves." This was followed at the beginning of the tenth
century by the "Kokinshu" ("Ancient and Modern Poems"), to which,
however, the editor, Tsurayuki, felt obliged to write a Chinese
preface. The Ladies of the Diaries were extremely familiar with these
volumes, their own writings are full of allusions to poems contained in
them; Sei-Shōnagon, writing early in the eleventh century, describes
a young lady's education as consisting of writing, music, and the
twenty volumes of the "Kokinshu." So it came about that while learned
gentlemen still continued to write in Chinese, poetry, fiction,
diaries, and desultory essays called "Zui-hitsu" (Following the Pen)
were written in Japanese.
Now the position of women at this time was very different from what it
afterwards became in the feudal period. The Chinese called Japan the
"Queen Country," because of the ascendancy which women enjoyed there.
They were educated, they were allowed a share of inheritance, and they
had their own houses. It is an extraordinary and important fact that
much of the best literature of Japan has been written by women. Three
of these most remarkable women are the authors of the Diaries; a fourth
to be named with them, Sei-Shōnagon, to whom I have just referred, was
a contemporary.
In 794, the capital was moved from Nara to Kiōto, which was given the
name of "Heian-jo" or "City of Peace," and with the removal, a new
period, the Heian, began. It lasted until 1186, and our Ladies lived in
the very middle of it.
By this time Japan was thoroughly civilized; she was, indeed, a little
over-civilized, a little too fined down and delicate. At least this
is true of all that life which centred round the court at Kiōto.
To historians the Heian Period represents the rise and fall of the
Fujiwara family. This powerful family had served the Mikados from time
out of mind as heads of the Shinto priests, and after the middle of the
seventh century, they became ministers or prime ministers. An immense
clan, they gradually absorbed all the civil offices in the Kingdom,
while the military offices were filled by the Taira and Minamoto
families. It was the rise of these last as the Fujiwara declined which
eventually led to the rule of the Shōguns and the long centuries of
feudalism and civil war. But in the middle of the Heian Period the
Fujiwara were very much everywhere. Most of those Court ladies who
were the authors of remarkable books were the daughters of governors
of provinces, and that meant Fujiwaras to a greater or lesser degree.
At that time polygamy flourished in Japan, and the family had grown to
a prodigious size. Since a civil office meant a post for a Fujiwara,
many of them were happily provided for, but they were so numerous that
they outnumbered the legitimate positions and others had to be created
to fill the demand. The Court was full of persons of both sexes holding
sinecures, with a great deal of time on their hands and nothing to do
in it but write poetry, which they did exceedingly well, and attend
the various functions prescribed by etiquette. Ceremonials were many
and magnificent, and poetry writing became, not only a game, but a
natural adjunct to every possible event. The Japanese as a nation are
dowered with a rare and exquisite taste, and in the Heian Period taste
was cultivated to an amazing degree. Murasaki Shikibu records the
astounding pitch to which it had reached in a passage in her diary.
Speaking of the Mikado's ladies at a court festivity, she says of the
dress of one of them: "One had a little fault in the colour combination
at the wrist opening. When she went before the Royal presence to fetch
something, the nobles and high officials noticed it. Afterwards Lady
Saisho regretted it deeply. It was not so bad; only one colour was a
little too pale."
That passage needs no comment; it is completely illuminating. It is a
paraphrase of the whole era.
Kiōto was a little city, long one way by some seventeen thousand odd
feet, or about three and a third miles, wide the other by fifteen
thousand, or approximately another three miles, and it is doubtful if
the space within the city wall was ever entirely covered by houses.
The Palace was built in the so-called Azumaya style, a form of
architecture which was also followed in noblemen's houses. The roof,
or rather roofs, for there were many buildings, was covered with bark,
and, inside, the divisions into rooms were made by different sorts of
moving screens. At the period of the Diaries, the reigning Mikado,
Ichijo, had two wives: Sadako, the first queen, was the daughter of a
previous prime minister, Michitaka, a Fujiwara, of course; the other,
Akiko, daughter of Michinaga, the prime minister of the Diaries and a
younger brother of Michitaka, was second queen or Chūgū. These queens
each occupied a separate house in the Palace. Kokiden was the name of
Queen Sadako's house; Fujitsubu the name of Queen Akiko's. The rivalry
between these ladies was naturally great, and extended even to their
_entourage_. Each strove to surround herself with ladies who were not
only beautiful, but learned. The bright star of Queen Sadako's court
was Sei-Shōnagon, the author of a remarkable book, the "Makura no
Sōshi" or "Pillow Sketches," while Murasaki Shikibu held the same
exalted position in Queen Akiko's.
We are to imagine a court founded upon the Chinese model, but not
nearly so elaborate. A brilliant assemblage of persons all playing
about a restricted but very bright centre. From it, the high officials
went out to be governors of distant provinces, and the lesser ones
followed them to minor posts, but in spite of the distinction of such
positions, distance and the inconvenience of travelling made the
going a sort of laurelled banishment. These gentlemen left Kiōto with
regret and returned with satisfaction. But the going, and the years of
residence away, was one of the commonplaces of social life. Fujiwara
though one might be, one often had to wait and scheme for an office,
and the Diaries contain more than one reference to such waiting and the
bitter disappointment when the office was not up to expectation.
These functionaries travelled with a large train of soldiers and
servants, but, with the best will in the world, these last could not
make the journeys other than tedious and uncomfortable. Still there
were alleviations, because of the very taste of which I have spoken.
The scenery was often beautiful, and whether the traveller were the
Governor himself or his daughter, he noticed and delighted in it. The
"Sarashina Diary" is full of this appreciation of nature. We are told
of "a very beautiful beach with long-drawn white waves," of a torrent
whose water was "white as if thickened with rice flour." We need only
think of the prints with which we are familiar to be convinced of the
accuracy of this picture: "The waves of the outer sea were very high,
and we could see them through the pine-trees which grew scattered over
the sandy point which stretched between us and the sea. They seemed to
strike across the ends of the pine branches and shone like jewels." The
diarist goes on to remark that "it was an interesting sight," which we
can very well believe, since certainly she makes us long to see it.
These journeys were mostly made on horseback, but there were other
methods of progression, which, however, were probably not always
feasible for long distances. The nobles used various kinds of carriages
drawn by one bullock, and there were also palanquins carried by bearers.
It was not only the officials who made journeys, all the world made
them to temples and shrines for the good of their souls. There are
religious yearnings in all the Diaries, and many Mikados and gentlemen
entered the priesthood, Michinaga among them. Sutra recitation and
incantation were ceaselessly performed at Court. We can gain some idea
of the almost fanatical hold which Buddhism had over the educated
mind by the fact that the Fujiwara family built such great temples as
Gokurakuji, Hosohoji, Hokoin, Jomyoji, Muryoju-in, etc. It is recorded
that Mikado Shirakawa, at a date somewhat subsequent to the Diaries,
made pilgrimages four times to Kumano, and during his visits there
"worshipped 5470 painted Buddhas, 127 carved Buddhas sixteen feet
high, 3150 Buddhas life-sized, 2930 carved Buddhas shorter than three
feet, 21 pagodas, 446,630 miniature pagodas." A busy man truly, but the
record does not mention what became of the affairs of state meanwhile.
That this worship was by no means lip-devotion merely, any reader of
the "Sarashina Diary" can see; that it was mixed with much superstition
and a profound belief in dreams is also abundantly evident. But let us,
for a moment, recollect the time. It will place the marvel of this old,
careful civilization before us as nothing else can.
To be sure, Greece and Rome had been, but they had passed away, or at
least their greatness had, gone and apparently left no trace. While
these Japanese ladies were writing, Europe was in the full blackness
of her darkest ages. Germany was founding the "Holy Roman Empire of
the German Nation," characteristically founding it with the mailed
fist; Moorish civilization was at its height in Spain; Robert Capet
was king of poor famine-scourged France; Ethelred the Unready was
ruling in England and doing his best to keep off the Danes by payment
and massacre. Later, while the "Sarashina Diary" was being written,
King Canute was sitting in his armchair and giving orders to the sea.
Curious, curious world! So far apart from the one of the Diaries.
And to think that even five hundred years later Columbus was sending
letters into the interior of Cuba, addressed to the Emperor of Japan!
These Diaries show us a world extraordinarily like our own, if very
unlike in more than one important particular. The noblemen and women
of Mikado Ichijo's Court were poets and writers of genius, their taste
as a whole has never been surpassed by any people at any time, but
their scientific knowledge was elementary in the extreme. Diseases
and conflagrations were frequent. In a space of fifty-one years, the
Royal Palace burnt down eleven times. During the same period, there
were four great pestilences, a terrible drought, and an earthquake.
Robbers infested many parts of the country, and were a constant fear
to travellers and pilgrims. Childbirth was very dangerous. The picture
of the birth of a child to Queen Akiko, with which Murasaki Shikibu's
Diary begins, shows us all its bitter horror. From page to page we
share the writer's suspense, and with our greater knowledge, it is with
a sense of wonder that we watch the queen's return to health.
But, after all, diseases and conflagrations are seldom more than
episodes in a normal life lived under sane conditions, and it is just
because these Diaries reflect the real life of these three ladies that
they are important. The world they portray is in most ways quite as
advanced as our own, and in some, much more so. Rice was the staple
of food, and although Buddhistic sentiment seldom permitted people to
eat the flesh of animals, they had an abundance of fish, which was
eaten boiled, baked, raw, and pickled, and a quantity of fruits and
nuts. There was no sugar, but cakes were made of fruit and nuts, and
there was always rice-wine or saké. Gentlefolk usually dressed in silk.
They wore many layers of coloured garments, and delighted in the
harmony produced by the colour combinations of silk over silk, or of
a bright lining subdued by the tone of an outer robe. The ladies all
painted their faces, and the whole toilet was a matter of sufficient
moment to raise it into a fine art. Many of these lovely dresses are
described by Murasaki Shikibu, for instance: "The beautiful shape of
their hair, tied with bands, was like that of the beauties in Chinese
pictures. Lady Saémon held the King's sword. She wore a blue-green
patternless karaginu and shaded train with floating bands and belt of
'floating thread' brocade dyed in dull red. Her outer robe was trimmed
with five folds and was chrysanthemum coloured. The glossy silk was
of crimson; her figure and movement, when we caught a glimpse of it,
was flower-like and dignified. Lady Ben-no-Naishi held the box of the
King's seals. Her uchigi was grape-coloured. She is a very small and
smile-giving person and seemed shy and I was sorry for her.... Her hair
bands were blue-green. Her appearance suggested one of the ancient
dream-maidens descended from heaven." A little later she tells us that
"the beaten stuffs were like the mingling of dark and light maple
leaves in Autumn"; and, describing in some detail the festivity at
which these ladies appeared, she makes the comment that "only the right
body-guard wore clothes of shrimp pink." To one in love with colour,
these passages leave a very nostalgia for the bright and sophisticated
Court where such things could be.
And everywhere, everywhere, there is poetry. A gentleman hands a lady
a poem on the end of his fan and she is expected to reply in kind
within the instant. Poems form an important part in the ritual of
betrothal. A daughter of good family never allowed herself to be seen
by men (a custom which appears to have admitted many exceptions). A man
would write a poetical love-letter to the lady of his choice which she
must answer amiably, even should she have no mind to him. If, however,
she were happily inclined, he would visit her secretly at night and
leave before daybreak. He would then write again, following which she
would give a banquet and introduce him to her family. After this, he
could visit her openly, although she would still remain for some time
in her father's house. This custom of love-letter writing and visiting
is shown in Izumi Shikibu's Diary. Obviously the poems were short,
and here, in order to understand those in the text, it may be well to
consider for a moment in what Japanese poetry consists.
Japanese is a syllabic language like our own, but, unlike our own,
it is not accented. Also, every syllable ends with a vowel, the
consequence being that there are only five rhymes in the whole
language. Since the employment of so restricted a rhyme scheme would be
unbearably monotonous, the Japanese hit upon the happy idea of counting
syllables. Our metrical verse also counts syllables, but we combine
them into different kinds of accented feet. Without accent, this was
not possible, so the Japanese poet limits their number and uses them in
a pattern of alternating lines. His prosody is based upon the numbers
five and seven, a five-syllable line alternating with one of seven
syllables, with, in some forms, two seven-syllable lines together at
the end of a period, in the manner of our couplet. The favourite form,
the "tanka," is in thirty-one syllables, and runs five, seven, five,
seven, seven. There is a longer form, the "naga-uta," but it has never
been held in as high favour. The poems in the Diaries are all tankas in
the original. It can be seen that much cannot be said in so confined
a medium, but much can be suggested, and it is just in this art of
suggestion that the Japanese excel. The "hokku" is an even briefer
form. In it, the concluding hemistich of the tanka is left off, and
it is just in his hemistich that the meaning of the poem is brought
out, so that the hokku is a mere essence, a whiff of an idea to be
created in full by the hearer. But the hokku was not invented until
the fifteenth century; before that, the tanka, in spite of occasional
attempts to vary it by adding more lines, changing their order, using
the pattern in combination as a series of stanzas, etc, reigned
practically supreme, and it is still the chief classic form for all
Japanese poetry.
Having briefly washed in the background of the Diaries, we must notice,
for a moment, the three remarkable ladies who are the foreground.
Murasaki Shikibu was the daughter of Fujiwara Tametoki, a scion of a
junior branch of the famous family. She was born in 978. Murasaki was
not her real name, which was apparently To Shikibu (Shikibu is a title)
derived from that of her father. There are two legends about the reason
for her receiving the name Murasaki. One is that she was given it in
playful allusion to her own heroine in the "Genji Monogatari," who was
called Murasaki. The other legend is more charming. It seems that her
mother was one of the nurses of Mikado Ichijo, who was so fond of her
that he gave her daughter this name, in reference to a well-known poem:
"When the purple grass (Murasaki) is in full colour,
One can scarcely perceive the other plants in the field."
From the Murasaki grass, the word has come to mean a colour which
includes all the shades of purple, violet, and lavender. In 996, or
thereabouts, she accompanied her father to the Province of Echizen, of
which he had become governor. A year later, she returned to Kiōto, and,
within a twelvemonth, married another Fujiwara, Nobutaka. The marriage
seems to have been most happy, to judge from the constant expressions
of grief in her Diary for her husband's death, which occurred in 1001,
a year in which Japan suffered from a great pestilence. A daughter was
born to them in 1000. From her husband's death, until 1005, she seems
to have lived in the country, but in this year she joined the Court as
one of Queen Akiko's ladies; before that, however (and again I must
insist that these early dates are far from determined), she had made
herself famous, not only for her own time, but for all time, by writing
the first realistic novel of Japan. This book is the "Genji Monogatari"
or "Narrative of Genji."
Hitherto, Japanese authors had confined themselves to stories of no
great length, and which relied for their interest on a fairy or wonder
element. The "Genji Monogatari" struck out an entirely new direction.
It depicted real life in Kiōto as a contemporary gentleman might have
lived it. It founded its interest on the fact that people like to
read about themselves, but this, which seems to us a commonplace, was
a glaring innovation when Murasaki Shikibu attempted it; it was, in
fact, the flash from a mind of genius. The book follows the life of
Prince Genji from his birth to his death at the age of fifty-one, and
the concluding books of the series pursue the career of one of his
sons. It is an enormous work, comprising no less than fifty-four books
and running to over four thousand pages--the genealogical tree of the
personages alone is eighty pages long--but no reader of the Diary will
need to be convinced that the "Genji" is not merely sprightly and
captivating, but powerful as well. The lady was shrewd, and if she
were also kindly and very attractive, nevertheless she saw with an
uncompromising eye. Her critical faculty never sleeps, and takes in the
minutest detail of anything she sees, noting unerringly every little
rightness and wrongness connected with it. She watches the approach
of the Mikado, and touches the matter so that we get its exact shade:
"When the Royal palanquin drew near, the bearers, though they were
rather honourable persons, bent their heads in absolute humility as
they ascended the steps. Even in the highest society there are grades
of courtesy, but these men were too humble."
No one with such a gift can fail to be lonely, and Murasaki Shikibu
seems very lonely, but it is not the passionate rebellion of Izumi
Shikibu, nor the abiding melancholy of the author of the "Sarashina
Diary"; rather is it the disillusion of one who has seen much of the
world, and knows how little companionship she may expect ever to
find: "It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one
and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of
superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are
accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion."
I have already shown Murasaki Shikibu's beautiful taste in dress,
but indeed it is in everything. When she says "The garden [on a
moonlight night] was admirable," we know that it must have been of an
extraordinary perfection.
The Diary proves her dramatic sense, as the "Genji" would also do could
it find so sympathetic a translator. No wonder, then, that it leapt
into instant fame. There is a pretty legend of her writing the book at
the Temple of Ishiyama at the southern end of Lake Biwa. The tale gains
verisimilitude in the eyes of visitors by the fact that they are shown
the chamber in the temple in which she wrote and the ink-slab she used,
but, alas! it is not true. We do not know where she wrote, nor even
exactly when. The "Genji" is supposed to have been begun in 1002, and
most commentators believe it to have been finished in 1004. That she
should have been called to Court in the following year, seems extremely
natural. Queen Akiko must have counted herself most fortunate in
having among her ladies so famous a person.
The Diary tells the rest, the Diary which was begun in 1007. We know no
more of Murasaki Shikibu except that no shade of scandal ever tinged
her name.
One of the strangest and most interesting things about the Diaries
is that their authors were such very different kinds of people.
Izumi Shikibu is as unlike Murasaki Shikibu as could well happen. As
different as the most celebrated poet of her time is likely to be
from the most celebrated novelist, for Izumi Shikibu is the greatest
woman poet which Japan has had. The author of seven volumes of
poems, this Diary is the only prose writing of hers which is known.
It is an intimate account of a love affair which seems to have been
more than usually passionate and pathetic. Passionate, provocative,
enchanting, it is evident that Izumi Shikibu could never have been the
discriminating observer, the critic of manners, which Murasaki Shikibu
became. Life was powerless to mellow so vivid a personality; but
neither could it subdue it. She gives us no suggestion of resignation.
She lived intensely, as her Diary shows; she always had done so, and
doubtless she always did. We see her as untamable, a genius compelled
to follow her inclinations. Difficult to deal with, maybe, like strong
wine, but wonderfully stimulating.
Izumi Shikibu was born in 974. She was the eldest daughter of Ōe
Masamune, another Governor of Echizen. In 995, she married Tachibana
Michisada, Governor of Izumi, hence her name. From this gentleman she
was divorced, but just when we do not know, and he died shortly after,
probably during the great pestilence which played such havoc throughout
Japan and in which Murasaki Shikibu's husband had also died. Her
daughter, who followed in her mother's footsteps as a poet, had been
born in 997. But Izumi Shikibu was too fascinating and too petulant to
nurse her disappointment in a chaste seclusion. She became the mistress
of Prince Tametaka, who also died in 1002. It is very soon after this
event that the Diary begins. Her new lover was Prince Atsumichi, and
the Diary seems to have been written solely to appease her mind, and
to record the poems which passed between them and which Izumi Shikibu
evidently regarded as the very essence of their souls.
In the beginning, the affair was carried on with the utmost secrecy,
but clandestine meetings could not satisfy the lovers, and at last the
Prince persuaded her to take up her residence in the South Palace as
one of his ladies. Considering the manners of the time, it is a little
puzzling to see why there should have been such an outcry at this,
but outcry there certainly was. The Princess took violent umbrage at
the Prince's proceeding and left the Palace on a long visit to her
relations. So violent grew the protestations in the little world of
the Court that, in 1004, Izumi Shikibu left the Palace and separated
herself entirely from the Prince. It was probably to emphasize the
definiteness of the separation that, immediately after her departure,
she married Fujiwara Yasumasa, Governor of Tango, and left with him for
that Province in 1005. The facts bear out this supposition, but we do
not know it from her own lips, as the Diary breaks off soon after she
reaches the South Palace.
In 1008, she was summoned back to Kiōto to serve the Queen in the same
Court where Murasaki Shikibu had been since 1005. Whatever effect the
scandal may have had four years earlier, her receiving the post of
lady-in-waiting proves it to have been worth forgetting in view of
her fame, and Queen Akiko must have rejoiced to add this celebrated
poet to her already remarkable bevy of ladies. Of course there was
jealousy--who can doubt it? No reader of the Diaries can imagine that
Izumi Shikibu and Murasaki Shikibu can have been sympathetic, and we
must take with a grain of salt the latter's caustic comment: "Lady
Izumi Shikibu corresponds charmingly, but her behavior is improper
indeed. She writes with grace and ease and a flashing wit. There is a
fragrance even in her smallest words. Her poems are attractive, but
they are only improvisations which drop from her mouth spontaneously.
Every one of them has some interesting point, and she is acquainted
with ancient literature also, but she is not like a true artist who is
filled with the genuine spirit of poetry. Yet I think even she cannot
presume to pass judgment on the poems of others." Is it possible that
Izumi Shikibu had been so rash as to pass judgment on some of Murasaki
Shikibu's efforts?
Of course it is beyond the power of any translation to preserve the
full effect of the original, but even in translation, Izumi Shikibu's
poems are singularly beautiful and appealing. In her own country, they
are considered never to have been excelled in freshness and freedom of
expression. There is something infinitely sad in this, which she is
said to have written on her death-bed, as the end of a passionate life:
"Out of the dark,
Into a dark path
I now must enter:
Shine [on me] from afar
Moon of the mountain fringe."[1]
In Japanese poetry, Amita-Buddha is often compared to the moon which
rises over the mountains and lights the traveller's path.
Very different again is the lady who wrote the "Sarashina Diary,"
and it is a very different kind of record. Murasaki Shikibu's Diary
is concerned with a few years of her life, Izumi Shikibu's with one
episode only of hers, but the "Sarashina Diary" covers a long period in
the life of its author. The first part was written when she was twelve
years old, the last entry was made when she was past fifty. It begins
with a journey from Shimōsa to Kiōto by the Tōkaidō in 1021, which is
followed by a second journey some years later from Kiōto to Sarashina,
a place which has never been satisfactorily identified, although some
critics have supposed it to have been in the Province of Shinano. The
rest of the Diary consists of jottings at various times, accounts of
books read, of places seen, of pilgrimages to temples, of records of
dreams and portents, of communings with herself on life and death, of
expressions of resignation and sorrow.
The book takes its name from the second of the journeys, "Sarashina
Nikki," meaning simply "Sarashina Diary," for, strangely enough, we
do not know the author's name. We do know, however, that she was
the daughter of Fujiwara Takasué, and that she was born in 1009. In
1017, Takasué was appointed governor of a province, and went with his
daughter to his new post. It is the return journey, made in 1021, with
which the Diary opens.
Takasué's daughter shared with so many of her contemporaries the deep
love of nature and the power to express this love in words. I have
already quoted one or two of her entries on this journey. We follow the
little company over mountains and across rivers, we camp with them by
night, and tremble as they trembled lest robbers should attack them. We
see what the little girl saw: "The mountain range called Nishitomi is
like folding screens with good pictures," "people say that purple grass
grows in the fields of Mushashi, but it is only a waste of various
kinds of reeds, which grow so high that we cannot see the bows of our
horsemen who are forcing their way through the tall grass," and share
her disappointment when she says: "We passed a place called 'Eight
Bridges,' but it was only a name, no bridge and no pretty sight."
They reach Kiōto and a rather dull life begins, enlivened only by the
avid reading of romances, among them the "Genji Monogatari." Then
her sister dies giving birth to a child, and the life becomes, not
only dull, but sorrowful. After a time, the lady obtains a position
at Court, but neither her bringing up nor her disposition had suited
her for such a place. She mentions that "Mother was a person of
extremely antiquated mind," and it is evident that she had been taught
to look inward rather than outward. An abortive little love affair
lightens her dreariness for a moment. Life had dealt hardly with the
sensitive girl, from year to year she grows more wistful, but suddenly
something happens, a mere hint of a gleam, but opening a possibility
of brightness. Who he was, we do not know, but she met him on an
evening when "there was no starlight, and a gentle shower fell in the
darkness." They talked and exchanged poems, but she did not meet him
again until the next year; then, after an evening entertainment to
which she had not gone, "when I looked out, opening the sliding door on
the corridor, I saw the morning moon very faint and beautiful," and he
was there. Again they exchanged poems and she believed that happiness
had at last arrived. He was to come with his lute and sing to her. "I
wanted to hear it," she writes, "and waited for the fit occasion, but
there was none, ever." A year later she has lost hope, she writes a
poem and adds, "So I composed that poem--and there is nothing more to
tell." Nothing more, indeed, but what is told conveys all the misery of
her deceived longing.
The last part of the Diary is concerned chiefly with accounts of
pilgrimages and dreams. She married, who and when is not recorded, and
bore children. Her husband dies, and with his death the spring of her
life seems to have run down. Her last entry is very sad: "My people
went to live elsewhere and I lived alone in my solitary home." So we
leave her, "a beautiful, shy spirit whose life had known much sorrow."
[1] Translation by Arthur Waley in _Japanese Poetry._