Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan. Shikibu Murasaki

cherry-blossoms,

      Has not the Spring come for you yet?

      Or does the perfume of flowers not reach you?

      I made a journey, and passed many a moonlit night in a house beside a bamboo wood. Wind rustled its leaves and my sleep was disturbed.

      Night after night the bamboo leaves sigh,

      My dreams are broken and a vague, indefinite sadness fills my heart.

      In Autumn [1026] I went to live elsewhere and sent a poem:

      I am like dew on the grass —

      And pitiable wherever I may be —

      But especially am I oppressed with sadness

      In a field with a thin growth of reeds.

      After that time I was somehow restless and forgot about the romances. My mind became more sober and I passed many years without doing any remarkable thing. I neglected religious services and temple observances. Those fantastic ideas [of the romances] can they be realized in this world? If father could win some good position I also might enter into a much nobler life. Such unreliable hopes then occupied my daily thoughts.

      At last45 father was appointed Governor of a Province very far in the East.

      [Here the diary skips six years. The following is reminiscent.]

      He [father] said: "I was always thinking that if I could win a position as Governor in the neighbourhood of the Capital I could take care of you to my heart's desire. I would wish to bring you down to see beautiful scenery of sea and mountain. Moreover, I wished that you could live attended beyond [the possibilities] of our [present] position. Our Karma relation from our former world must have been bad. Now I have to go to so distant a country after waiting so long! When I brought you, who were a little child, to the Eastern Province [at his former appointment], even a slight illness caused me much trouble of mind in thinking that should I die, you would wander helpless in that far country. There were many fears in a stranger's country, and I should have lived with an easier mind had I been alone. As I was then accompanied by all my family, I could not say or do what I wanted to say or do, and I was ashamed of it. Now you are grown up [she was twenty-five years old] and I am not sure that I can live long.

      It is not so unusual a fate to be helpless in the Capital, but the saddest thing of all would be to wander in the Eastern Province like any country-woman.46 There are no relatives in the Capital upon whom we could rely to foster you, yet I cannot refuse the appointment which has been made after such long waiting. So you must remain here, and I must depart for Eternity. – Oh, in what way may I provide a way for you to live in the Capital decently!"

      Night and day he lamented, saying these things, and I forgot all about flowers or maple leaves, grieving sadly, but there was no help for it.

      He went down47 on the thirteenth of the Seventh month, 1032.

      For several days before that I could not remain still in my own room, for I thought it difficult to see him again.

      1

      Translation by Arthur Waley in Japanese Poetry.

      2

      Her father Takasué was appointed Governor of Kazusa in 1017, and the authoress, who was then nine years old, was brought from Kiōto to the Province.

      3

      Prince Genj

1

Translation by Arthur Waley in Japanese Poetry.

2

Her father Takasué was appointed Governor of Kazusa in 1017, and the authoress, who was then nine years old, was brought from Kiōto to the Province.

3

Prince Genji: The hero of Genji-monogatari, a novel by Murasaki-Shikibu.

4

Yakushi Buddha: "The Buddha of healing," or Sanscrit, Bhaisajyaguru-Vaiduryaprabhah.

5

Original, Nagatsuki, September.

6

Ancient ladies avoided men's eyes and always sat behind sudaré (finely split bamboo curtain) through which they could look out without being seen.

7

High personages, Governors of Provinces or other nobles, travelled with a great retinue, consisting of armed horsemen, foot-soldiers, and attendants of all sorts both high and low, together with the luggage necessary for prolonged existence in the wilderness. From Tokyo to Kiōto nowadays the journey is about twelve hours. It took about three months in the year 1017.

8

Futoi River is called the River Edo at present.

9

Matsusato, now called Matsudo.

10

Kagami's rapids, now perhaps Karameki-no-se.

11

Common gromwell, Lithospermum.

12

Takeshiba: Now called Shibaura, place-name in Tokyo near Shinagawa. Another manuscript reads: "This was the manor house of Takeshiba."

13

Misu: finer sort of sudaré used in court or in Shinto shrine. Cf. note 2, p. 4.

14

Seta Bridge is across the river from Lake Biwa, some seven or eight miles from Kioto.

15

In those days noblemen's and ladies' dresses were perfumed.

16

Dera or tera = temple.

17

The original text may also be understood as follows: "After that the guards of the watch-fire were allowed to live with their wives in the palace."

18

In the Isé-monogatari (a book of Narihira's poetical works) the Sumida River is said to be on the boundary between Musashi and Shimofusa. So the italicized words seem to be the authoress's mistake, or more probably an insertion by a later smatterer of literary knowledge who inherited the manuscript.

Narihira's poem is addressed to a sea-gull called Miyakodori, which literally means bird of the capital. Narihira had abandoned Kioto and was wandering towards the East. Just then his heart had been yearning after the Royal City and also after his wife, and that feeling must have been intensified by the name of the bird. (Cf. The Isé-monogatari, Section 9.)

Miyakodori! alas, that wordFills my heart again with longing,Even you I ask, O bird,Does she still live, my beloved?

19

According to "Sagami-Fūdoki," or "The Natural Features of Sagami Province," this district was in ancient times inhabited by Koreans. The natives could not distinguish a Korean from a Chinese, hence the name of Chinese Field.

45

In an old chronicle of the times one reads that it was on February 8, 1032.

46

The country people of the Eastern Provinces beyond Tokyo were then called "Eastern barbarians."

47

Away from the Capital where the King resides is always down; towards the capital is always up.