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    The Diary of Lady Murasaki
    The Diary of Lady Murasaki
    The Diary of Lady Murasaki
    Ebook99 pages1 hour

    The Diary of Lady Murasaki

    By Shikibu Murasaki, Amy Lowell, Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Derived from the journals of an empress's tutor and companion, this unique book offers rare glimpses of court life in eleventh-century Japan. Lady Murasaki recounts episodes of drama and intrigue among courtiers as well as the elaborate rituals related to the birth of a prince. Her observations, expressed with great subtlety, offer penetrating and timeless insights into human nature.
    Murasaki Shikibu (circa AD 973–1025) served among the gifted poets and writers of the imperial court during the Heian period. She and other women of the era were instrumental in developing Japanese as a written language, and her masterpiece, The Tale of Genji, is regarded as the world's first novel. Lady Murasaki's diary reveals the role of books in her society, including the laborious copying of texts and their high status as treasured gifts. This translation is accompanied by a Foreword from American poet and Japanophile Amy Lowell.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateDec 18, 2019
    ISBN9780486845722
    The Diary of Lady Murasaki

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    Reviews for The Diary of Lady Murasaki

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      Interesting as being the diary of the author of the Tale of Genji, though the diary itself is not as colorful as that of her contemporary Sei Shonagon. The most interesting moment may be the one in which she rejects the powerful Fujiwara chancellor
    • 4/5
      As Richard Bowring, the translator and editor of THE DIARY OF LADY MURASAKI, points out, this compilation of Lady Murasaki's writings is a mixed bag -- partially diary, partially a public account of the birth of the Emperor's first son, and partially a discussion and description of Murasaki's fellow court attendants and the royal family. It's more interesting as a commentary on Heian court life than as a memoir or a narrative. However, it is pale background to Murasaki's masterpiece, THE TALE OF GENJI.
    • 3/5
      Murasaki is the author of one of Japan's acclaimed literary accomplishments, [The Tale of Genji]. While I've read excerpts of this novel in college, and own a lovely hardcover boxed edition, I haven't actually read it yet. The book currently resides on my "interested, definitely will read someday but not quite yet, because it's an important piece of literary history" shelf. I only bought the diary as a companion for when I actually read Genji, so why am I reading it now? I have this challenge, you see, with 9 categories of books, and one of them is for autobiographies and such, and I had this trip to China and needed a light book, and ... voila. Another seemingly random book choice based on a variety of factors.Am I the only one that creates endless (and endlessly revised) reading lists only to discard them at the last moment in favor of a book that I hadn't even thought of before but somehow now feel is entirely appropriate?This diary is mildly interesting, but I think it would be much better in conjunction with the book that inspired me to buy it. I am interested in the Heian period in Japanese history, but the diary is limited to a small period of time covering approximately two months. Not a lot of history is revealed. Add to that the fact that this is a diary, which means that Murasaki assumes the reader (just herself, or was it court instigated?) will have immense amounts of knowledge which I am lacking. The footnotes were helpful, along with the lengthy introduction, but I was in desperate need of better context. The self reflections, where Murasaki dissects her fellow courtiers and herself, are much easier to read. Seeing that world from the view of one of its inhabitants, and a female at that, is fascinating. It made me eager to read other diaries from the period, ones that are more complete. It also reinvigorated my wish to read [Tale of Genji]. Maybe I will consider that book as an addition to another challenge category, unfinished college books.This book is exactly what it claims to be: a diary by Murasaki Shikibu, with all the limitations a diary would manifest. My best recommendation would be to read this along with the famous story by that author, or if you have a scholarly interest in Murasaki, Heian Japan, or Japanese cuture, because the book as a whole reads like research material. I was interested, not terribly excited, but inspired to read more from that period.

    Book preview

    The Diary of Lady Murasaki - Shikibu Murasaki

    DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

    GENERAL EDITOR: SUSAN L. RATTINER

    EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: STEPHANIE CASTILLO SAMOY

    Copyright

    Copyright © 2019 by Dover Publications, Inc.

    All rights reserved.

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2019, is an unabridged republication of the Lady Murasaki text from Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan: Murasaki Shikibu and Others, originally printed by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, in 1920.

    International Standard Book Number

    ISBN-13: 978-0-486-83665-2

    ISBN-10: 0-486-83665-7

    Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications 83665701

    www.doverpublications.com

    2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

    2019

    CONTENTS

    Foreword by Amy Lowell

    The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu

    Appendix A: Old Japanese Calendar

    Appendix B: Chronological Table of Events Connected with the Diary

    Notes

    ILLUSTRATIONS

    Old Print of a Nobleman’s Dwelling in the Azumaya Style

    Royal Dais and Kichō, Sudaré, etc.

    A Nobleman’s Carriage

    Screened Dais Prepared for Royalty

    FOREWORD

    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 AD 710 and endured until 794; all before that may be classed as archaic. Previous to the Nara Period, the Japanese had been a seminomadic 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 this charming diary, it is necessary to know a little of the world the author lived in, to be able to feel the atmosphere and recognize her allusions.

    We know a good deal about Japan today, but the Japan with which we are familiar only slightly resembles that of the diary. 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 this writing 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 practiced 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 author behind the dark military ages, we must go back a long way, even to the century before her own, and so gain a sort of perspective for her and her time.

    Chinese literature and civilization were introduced into Japan somewhere between AD 270, and 310 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 diary shows. 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. Lady Murasaki would have been extremely familiar with these volumes; her 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 Zuihitsu (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. One of the most remarkable women is the author of the diary; another to be named with her, 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 Lady Murasaki lived in the very middle of it.

    By this time Japan was thoroughly civilized; she was, indeed, a little overcivilized, a little too fined down and delicate. At least this is true of all that life which centered 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

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