|
|
MAKURA NO SOSHI
枕草子
- C. 1002 A.D.-
|
|
SEI SHONAGON清少納言
（Ｃ。９６６―？）
FATHER WAS KIYOHARA
NO MOTOSUKE清原元輔 (908-990),
COMPILER OF GOSENSHU後選集
C. 951、THE SECOND OF THE IMPERIALLY
COMMISSIONED ANTHOLOGIES OF POETRY.
300 SHORT SECTIONS IN
NO PARTICULAR ORDER.FIRST EXAMPLE OF THE ZUIHITSU随筆OR 'RANDOM ESSAY' SUB-GENRE OF PROSE
NARRATIVE.
PAGE REFERENCES IN THIS SECTION ARE TO THE COMPLETE
AND MASTERFUL ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THIS WORK IN 
MORRIS,
IVAN TR. THE PILLOW BOOK OF SEI SHONAGON (COLUMBIA, 1991)
AND TO
KEENE,
DONALD ED. ANTHOLOGY OF JAPANESE LITERATURE FROM THE EARLIEST ERA TO THE MID-NINETEENTH
CENTURY (GROVE, 1988)
MAIN POINTS:
OKASHIをかしAS THE MAIN AESTHETIC OF THE WRITING
ACUTE AND OVERT
VISUAL INSPECTION OF WORLDLY MATTERS WITHOUT INTERVENING SENSE OF SADNESS OR
LOSS.
OKASHI CONTRASTS NICELY WITH THE AWARE (FUSION OF SADNESS
AND JOY) IN THE TALE OF GENJI, A CONTEMPORARY WORK BY COLLEAGUE AND
PERHAPS RIVAL MURASAKI SHIKIBU. BOTH WOMEN WRITERS SERVED AT THE COURTS OF TWO
SUCCESSIVE HEIAN EMPRESSES, BOTH DAUGHTERS OF FUJIWARA NOBLEMEN.
THE TWO COURTS CAN BE
CONTRASTED AS FOLLOWS:
FUJIWARA
MICHITAKA: 藤原道隆 (９５３―９９５）
FATHER OF FUJIWARA
NO TEISHI藤原定子 (976-1001)、
EMPRESS TO ICHIJO一条（９８０―１０１１）
WAS SERVED ON BY SEI
SHONAGON WHO COMMENTS IN THE PILLOW BOOK ON HER MISTRESS AND THEIR LIFE
CHARACTERIZED BY OKASHI.
FUJIWARA
MICHINAGA: 藤原道長 (９６６―１０２７）
FATHER OF FUJIWARA
NO SHOSHI: 藤原彰子 （９８８―１０７４）
EMPRESS TO ICHIJO
WAS SERVED ON BY
MURASAKI SHIKIBU WHO COMMENTS IN HER DIARY ON HER LIFE AT THIS COURT
CHARACTERIZED BY AWARE.
LITERARINESS:
LIFE-DESCRIBING
ADJECTIVES OKASHI (CHARMING) AND MEDETASHI (SPLENDID), ITO
OKASHI (VERY CHARMING) AND ITO MEDETASHI (TOTALLY SPLENDID).
CATEGORIZATION:
1. ) EXHAUSTIVE
LISTS OF PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS
(RUIJU TEKI SHODAN類従的章段）
2. ）DIARY ENTRIES
(NIKKI TEKI SHODAN日記的章段)
3. ）PERSONAL REMINISCENCES
(ZUISO TEKI SHODAN随想的章段)
4.) MISCELLANEOUS 雑的章段
· SAMPLE SECTIONS:
NATURE DESCRIPTIONS FROM LISTS -SECTION 1
” Spring is best at dawn as gradually the hilltops lighten, while, the light
grows brighter until there are purple-tinged clouds trailing though the sky.
Summer is best at night. That goes
without saying when there is a full moon.
But when fireflies flit here and there in a dark sky, that too is
wonderful. It is even wonderful when it is raining.
Autumn
is best at dusk as the hills, now in the full direct sunlight, seem quite
closer, and as crows fly away from ones vantage point into their nesting places
in threes, then in fours, then in pairs; how moving it is, this combination of
light and darkness. It is more wonderful even when geese and the like, in
formation, fly away and become specks in the sky. The sun finally sets, and
then it is the sound of the wind, and the chirupping of insects.
Winter
is best at the time of early morning prayers, particularly when it has been
snowing. When the ground is frosty and very white, or even when it isn’t and
blazing coals are being hurried around, in the extreme cold, to all the room
heaters, this too is full of interest. But by noon when the coals have cooled,
leaving only gray ash in the big oval braziers and in our smaller round ones, I
feel deprived. “
Things that are at odds with Nature- SECTION 22
A dog barking in the
afternoon. A fishing weir left in Spring after its usefulness is gone. A woman wearing
the Red Plum combination of sleeves, that for
winter, during the summer months. A parturition room where the baby has died. A
charcoal brazier whose coals will not stay lit. A big monstrous fire pit. A
herder whose ox has died. A poor
Professor to whom a succession of daughters has been born. (After all, only a
son can inherit his father’s post at the university!) A house that does NOT
provide a banquet and other embellishments when one visits during a directional
taboo when one must necessarily be away from ones own normal estate. How dare
them! And I really have no use for the bean throwing festival at the outset of
Spring. A letter that arrives from the Provinces without the usual gift
attachments. It is one thing for us urbanites to NOT be in the practice of
sending gifts out with our letters (after all we are doing them the favor of
giving them all the gossip). They should be satisfied with knowing. No gifts
necessary. A letter that comes back unopened that one has taken great care to
write in the most beautiful of script. One waits and waits for an answer, and
then when it is much, much too overdue and one is waiting impatiently, the
thing comes back (doesn’t matter whether it is a folded personal letter or a
more formal letter with an outer wrapping), all soiled, rumpled up (even the
signature on the wrapping has been smudged out). Then one is told the intended
recipient was either not home, or unable to receive your letter because of some
sort of superstitious taboo. This is the worst disappointment imaginable.
Depressing isn’t the word for it!
Or again, when one
sends a carriage out to fetch someone over to your house for a visit, and then
the carriage returns and one is delighted and sends someone out to greet the
visitor, only to see the carriage being drawn away toward the garage, and one
hears the sound of the harness being plopped on the ground. And when one asks
what has happened, one is informed that the person in question was not at home,
and so, of course, was unable to come over. I am depressed when I see the ox
being led away. Another thing that
I find quite depressing is when a prospective groom, in the end, refuses to
show up at the intended bride’s home. And how much worse it all is when the
family in question has intentions of seeing its daughter into service at the
court, and would just like to get the question of the husband out of the way.
A wetnurse leaves
her job with a new baby, saying she will be gone just a short time. Then when
the situation becomes desperate and an attempt is made to get her back in a
hurry, she replies only that she cannot make it back that evening. As though she didn’t think that would
make a person go mad! Insulting and depressing isn’t the word for it! What
would a man do, I wonder, in that rare case when he takes it on himself to be
waiting for his intended lady to arrive. What would he do? Speaking of
waiting—say one is waiting for a gentleman to arrive, and it has grown somewhat
late when suddenly one hears a knock at the gate and one’s heart begins to race
and one sends a servant out to see him in. And then one hears a totally
different voice announcing himself, someone furthermost from one’s mind. Oh,
the utter disappointment of that is not to be matched!
One has hired an
exorcist to get rid of a marauding spirit. He arrives with his paraphernalia
(his rosary and his little mace), wrings an incantation from a voice that he
has squeezed to sound like summer crickets, intones but to no effect. He even
tries to use a medium to get the spirit to transfer itself, and as the
intensity increases, people in attendance grow quite nervous. He groans on for nearly two hours until
the next watch is announced, but the spirit is unmoved. He takes back his
rosary from the medium, pronouncing that there can be no cure. Scratching his
head in dismay, finally he yawns, leans against a pillar, and proceeds to take
a nap. Not my idea of fun.
The house of an
official who receives no promotion in the New Year lists. Assuming that this
would be the year, all of his friends and acquaintances, some even who have
been posted to remote areas, gather at his house, crowding the courtyard with
the their carriage harnesses, coming and going, eating and drinking and making
merry. But, even at dawn, there has still not been the knock at the gate
announcing the promotion. Everyone pricks up his ears, listening for a signal,
until finally one hears the voices of the runners announcing that the senior
officials have left the palace with their announcements. One of the poor fellows sent out the
previous evening to be the first to hear, returns to the house, shaking with
the cold and obviously dejected. No one dares to ask. And when an outsider does
ask what has transpired, the house answers simply that he has been named the
Governor of so-and-so
Province. Those who were
counting on this promotion for their own ends are quite chagrined. And so
morning comes, and quietly, one by one, the entourage slips away. Those bosom
friends who can not make their exit as easily as this, count on their fingers
the number of Provincial appointments that will come up for grabs in the
following year’s lists, ambling listlessly about. All of this is so sad and
depressing!
One sends out a poem
of which one is quite proud, and receives no answer. How much more true this is
when the thing is a love letter!
And when the poem is in keeping with the seasons, not to answer shows a
great lack of human feeling. But, then again, I hate it when one is busily
occupied with fabulous observances and such, to receive a note from a less than
useful acquaintance who has a lot of time on her hands and who has allowed her
memory of the sweet past to take effect in a most unremarkable poem. What a
waste of time!
One sends the gift
of a fan out to a particularly suitable person who might paint it appropriately
for the occasion one has in mind, but when the appointed day arrives and the
fan is returned, one finds, to ones astonishment, a painting for which one is
entirely unprepared.
Not to offer gifts
in payment to the couriers who bring items to a nursery, or provide a sendoff
on setting out on a journey is out of keeping. At least send them away with
decorative medicine balls or snow peach branches with paper streamers to ward
off evil. Give them something. They will be grateful to receive such when they
are least expecting it. What’s the point in depressing those who have come
thinking they had a special task to achieve?
A house with a new
groom and no babies to show for it after four or five years. It is certainly
not fitting for grown children, nearly adult, or a couple old enough to have
grandchildren crawling up their arms, to be caught napping during the day. In
the first place, in the minds of children old enough to be working at the
palace, it is a shame to see their parents, on whom they so depend for their
future positions, to be caught napping.
It makes me mad to
have to think about being doused with hot water immediately in the morning when
I awake. Taking baths is hard enough.
When it rains on New
Year’s Eve. Is this the retribution I must pay for neglecting to fast and
purify myself for at least 100 days?
Wearing summer white
clothes into autumn. Unbearable.
What can I say about
a wetnurse who has run out of breastmilk?
HATEFUL THINGS -
SECTION 25
“ A guest who keeps chattering on and on
when one is in a hurry. When he is a troublesome person of very little worth,
one can simply dismiss him, but when he is an intimate, one finds it hateful.
An inkstone where a
hair has gotten caught on the grinding surface. Or when there is sand in the
inkstick that makes it grate on the surface. Eek.
I hate it when one
has gone out of ones way to seek the services of an exorcist for a friend who
has fallen ill (when either he was not in his usual location, or when he had to
rooted out after a long search), to find only that when the fellow finally
arrives to the great anticipation of the client and one orders the mantras to
be read, the man seems tired of exorcising evil spirits or whatever, I can not
know, and simply sits down to recite in a rather sleepy voice. The lack of
attention is unnerving.
A man who had
nothing to recommend him proceeds to go on and on, big smile on his face, to
tell one all sorts of unwanted things.
A person who insists
on rolling his hands, over and over, smoothing out the wrinkles, on the edge of
my hand warmers, or even around a large communal brazier, as though they were a
couple of fish to fry. I am hesitant to say that I have even experienced young
people who do this! I have even
heard of rather despicable old people who splay their legs up on the edges of a
heater while talking away and massaging their poor limbs! I have even heard
that when it comes to such behavior that people will go to such lengths to make
their seating arrangements satisfactory as to tap the surface with their fans
to brush away specks of dirt, or spread their legs without the least concern
for decency, or who simply hike up the skirts of their hunting cloaks and stuff
them into their sashes. I have no words to express my dismay for such actions,
and how am I, I ask you, to restrain from remarking about it to the likes of a
Mr. Master of Ceremonial, or to the former Governor of Suruga?
How about a man who drinks and raves, who
sticks his fingers in his mouth, or pets his beard, I ask you? And then forces others to have a drink
from the same cup? There’s more. He speaks from the corner of his drunken lips
to order others to have another drink; then he carouses like a child singing a
lewd ditty, wiggling his backside. It is completely ridiculous for a man of
means, particularly one who is greatly respected, to behave in such a fashion!
It is really quite hateful when a person is
envious of others, complains about his station in life, makes idle talk about
others, gets riled up about the merest detail of some incident and wants to
tell everyone about it, or is bitter about what the lack of information he is
able to gather, or who is such a Mr. Know-it-all that he prates and prattles to
the edification of everyone. How utterly despicable!
A baby who seems to be trying to say
something, but who then cries.
Crows flying about cawing at each other.
A dog who barks knowingly at a lover whom
one wants to let enter one’s quarters secretly. Makes one want to pound the
poor creature to death!
A lover with whom one is somewhat secretive
and with whom one is trysting in an out of the way place, proceeds to snore! Or
when one is trying to keep a secret about a lover’s arrival and he is wearing a
formal high hat that he manages to bang up against the doorjamb. What is worse
is that he cries out in astonishment! One also hates it when a fellow just
hikes the bamboo blinds up over his shoulder (instead of quietly sneaking in
behind them), making a loud swish! I must add from experience that the effect
is much magnified if the blinds tend to be more solid and hemmed when he tries
to pick them up! One should know that there is a way to be absolutely quiet
when lifting up the blinds of a lady’s room!
It is also despicable when the sliding doors
are simply rammed open! Can’t they know that just lifting them up a bit helps
them to slide quietly? Also, if one is not adept at the larger paper sliders,
one is in for an even noisier surprise! They can be very creaky!
One is very sleepy and has lain down to rest
when a mosquito announces itself in a reedy voice, flying and walking about
ones face. One can even feel the blast of air from its wings it is so close to
ones body. How one hates this!
Riding around with a person whose carriage
has squeaky wheels. Makes one wonder whether or not the person is hard of
hearing. Frightful! I become hateful not just of the silly carriage, but of its
owner as well. This is too much!
Someone who butts into the middle of a story
one is telling who wants to tell the ending. Children, as well as adults, who
butt in are despicable!
Someone who ruins a perfectly wonderful old
story by butting in with a version of her own. Downright despicable! Almost on
the level of one’s hatred for rats who scamper about!
A child who has just stopped in for a brief
visit is entertained with the other young servants in the house and given a
bevy of gifts, but who then makes a practice of such uninvited drop-ins, and
who becomes a general nuisance.
Whether one is at home or on duty at the
palace, and one is caught napping when an unexpected visitor arrives, one is
awakened forcibly by one’s own servants, and literally dragged out in a stupor
to meet with the person. I can hardly bear it!
One is most turned off by a lady new to
palace service who takes it upon herself to be the mistress of know-it-all and
who proceeds to solicit everyone else!
A man with whom one is having an affair
proceeds to hint to one about another woman he has previously known. It doesn’t
much matter whether the tale is an old one or not; just to mention such things
at all is despicable behavior! So
much more so when the event in question is more recent! But then, over and gone
or recent, it does not really matter. It is all unspeakably rude!
Anyone who sneezes while reading a prayer.
While one is on the subject of sneezing, anyone other than the master of the
house who does this willfully and loudly, is just unbearable!
Fleas. One has to hate them. They get up
under the hems of ones kimonos, almost seeming to lift them off the floor.
Terrible! Also, dogs howling in concert; it is not only unlucky, it is
spiteful!”
DIARY ENTRIES - SECTION 7 Myobu the Cat and Okinamaro the Dog
“There was once a
cat who lived in the palace who had been crowned and given a rank. She was known
as Lady Myobu, much petted and loved. Once when Myobu had been exhibiting
herself openly on the veranda, another real Lady of the same rank who name was
Muma shouted at her to come in immediately. But, Myobu disregarded the command,
preferring instead to go on sunning herself and sleeping. At this, the Lady
decided to frighten her away, and called out for Okinamaro the dog to fetch
her. The silly wretch, of course, came bounding out, anxious to please, wagging
his tail, and bounding right into our private quarters. We were in the morning
room where we had our meal, and the Empress was present. When she saw what was
happening, she became very agitated. Taking the cat to her bosom, she ordered
the guards to her side. When Tadataka appeared, she ordered him to beat
Okinamaro, and banish him from the palace immediately. The guards were ordered
together and proceeded to hunt the dog down. Poor Muma was made to take the
blame. The Empress ordered a change in her waiting women, and Muma was no
longer allowed in her presence. The dog was found by the inner palace guards of
the Takiguchi, and thrown out.
‘What a shame. How
he wagged his tail with pride! Remember the third day of the third month when
Yukinari[Fujiwara Yukinari in the year 995-Ministerial Aide] placed a willow
wreath on his head, and we garlanded him with peach blossoms, and he wore a
belt of budded plum branches? How grand he looked. Who would have thought this
could have happened to him?’ All of us in the palace concurred. ‘Don’t you
remember how, when the Empress had her meals, he would always lie quietly
opposite her, waiting for some forlorn scrap?’ Several days passed.
At noon on the day in question, we heard
a dog’s terrible barking. Just as we were absorbed in trying to figure out why
the dog had been barking for such a long time, all the other dogs formed a
melee in search of the source of the sound. A servant in charge of the latrines
gave us the news that several captains of the guard had beaten a dog, and that
it was on the verge of death. Apparently, the dog had been banished, but found
its way back. The attempt had been to put it out of its misery. What a shock we
had when we learned it was indeed Okinamaro. Someone said it had been Tadataka
and Sanefusa who had done the beating his time. We sent someone to put a stop
to it, when suddenly the whimpering stopped. The order had been given to throw
the body outside the gates as soon as it was dead. While we waited and grieved
into the evening of that fateful day, a terribly bloated, severely injured,
forlorn and shaken dog appeared. We all cried out ‘Could it possibly be
Okinamaro? Could he still be alive?’
One of us called out to him by his name, but he did not seem to hear. As
all of us bandied the question back and forth as to the identity, we decided to
call in Ukon, one of the Empress’s most trusted ladies. She knew the dog well.
It was called an emergency, so the lady soon appeared. When we asked her
whether this dog was Okinamaro, she replied: ‘There is a resemblance, but this
dog is so horribly beaten up. And when one called his name, he always
responded, but now he does not. I’m afraid it is not the same dog. ‘ When the
admission was made that the dog had been beaten to death by two soldiers and
thrown over the wall, the Empress was visibly upset.
It grew dark. We
tried to feed the animal, but it would not eat. We left it that the dog was not
ours, until the next morning. Then, as the Empress went to the place where she
normally had her hair combed and where she washed, and her mirror was brought
to her, she saw the reflected figure of a dog hunched down against a pillar.
Just as we were all commiserating about how Okinamaro had been beaten, about
how saddened we were by the incident and his death, wondering what he would
become in the next incarnation, realizing the terrible pain he must have been
in, the dog in the Empress’s mirror began to tremble, wag its tail, and shed
copious tears. It was incredible. We all realized that this was indeed
Okinamaro, and that he had hidden the evening before, enduring all the pain. It
was terrible for us! I put the Empress’s mirror down on the floor in front of
Okinamaro and asked him, ‘Are you Okinamaro?’ He lay down meekly and whimpered.
Astounded and
frightened, her Majesty smiled. All the ladies assembled with the Empress, and
she called for Ukon who best knew the dog. When all was confirmed, everyone
present roared with laughter and relief, so much so that the Emperor himself
caught wind of the commotion, and hurried in to see. He was amused to learn
that even a dog was capable of emotions usually reserved for humans. Every
woman in the palace now joined in the amusement. When the dog was called to,
this time he stood up. His face was still very swollen. It was I who said we
should provide first aid for the dog. The Empress laughed and told me that now
she knew I had sided with the dog. When Tadataka heard of it, he called from
the anteroom: ‘How can it be true? Let me see him.’ ‘What are you talking
about? There is no such dog here,’ I replied. ‘No matter. Eventually I will see
for myself. You can’t hide him from me forever,’ Tadataka replied.
Thereafter, the dog
was restored to his former position of respect. Even now we feel sorry for him, and
every time he wags his tail and barks at us, we know that we have seen and
heard a truly remarkable story no one else could believe. It makes my friends
cry to hear me tell them about it. “
REMINISCENCES AND PERSONAL THOUGHTS, SECTION 317 Thoughts on the ideal lover
“I like to think of
the single man, living alone, amorous, who has come back at dawn from some
unnamed rendezvous location, but who remains awake, and who, even though now
sleepy, takes his time to draw up his inkstone and writing brush, to
methodically grind his ink to the right consistency, and who then, not just
with a throwaway thought or logic, musters his innermost feelings to write to
his lady. How sexy when he loosens his garment and gets comfortable!
He is wearing
several layers of white silk overlaid with a coat of yellow and russet. The
single inner layer of white, of course, is quite rumpled from the night’s
activity, but still he makes no attempt to remove it, gazes at it fondly while
he finishes the writing. Then rather than pass his letter to the servant at his
side, he considers which of the young attractive serving boys would be most
appropriate to deliver his note, calls the boy to this side and whispers the
address. Still in this frame of mind even after the boy has left, he gazes for
a time at the garden, humming to himself some of the appropriate passages from
the scriptures. Now, since preparations for his bath and his breakfast have
been completed, the young man goes inside. Later we find him at his normal
writing desk where he finds several letters waiting. He seems to be reciting
various interesting sections to himself. This is simply wonderful!
He then washes his
hands, casually puts on his overjacket without the trousers, and begins to
recite a passage from the Lotus Sutra. Just when he seems as his most elegantly
absorbed, there are signs that his messenger boy has returned. His lover must
live very nearby, it seems. Immediately he puts down the sutra, and takes up
his lover’s reply. Ah, what a waste to see a lovely young man stop short when
reading a sutra, but then, I suppose, love takes precedence.”
MISCELLANEOUS
SECTION 312
Things that Arrest me About a
Lover’s Face
“What strikes me as
most arresting about a lover’s face is the way I see it every day; always the
same yet totally wonderful every time. Think of a painting. One soon tires of
looking at it. An astoundingly beautiful screen can be placed right in front of
ones eyes, yet one pays it no attention. By comparison, a lover’s face is
infinitely more arresting. One tries always to find the good points among all the
ugly furniture one find oneself surrounded with. And one finds that ugliness,
in a way, is a natural phenomenon worthy of attention too.”
Section 313: Seeing
workmen eat is appalling.
“Seeing workmen eat is
really an appalling sight. They are working on building a set of palatial
buildings connected with bridges and so on, and so they sit down in a line on
one of the verandas to have their food. I go out to the eastern front of the
building to watch them and what do I see? First, as though the bowls couldn’t
be passed around quickly enough for them, they gobble up the soup, setting the
earthenware bowls to the side without a thought. Then they make short shrift of
the main course so quickly that I think that a rice course would be quite
unnecessary, but before I can blink my eyes, the rice is consumed, gone just
like that. Because there were three or four such carpenters and I saw that each
of them ate in exactly the same manner, I had to conclude that this was what
workmen were like. All of them. It is utterly gross!”
Compiled by Ken Richard in October, 1996, revised June, 2002. Translations by
Ken Richard added in June, 2003.