The Pillow-Book of Sei Shōnagon (4 page)

Motosuke held a series of governorships; but he, too, is best known as a poet and student of poetry. He lectured upon the text of the
Many
ō
sk
ū
, a collection of ancient poems that were already becoming difficult to understand, and was one of the compilers of the
Gosensh
ū
, the second official anthology. He was appointed to his last governorship, that of Bingo, in 986 and died in 990.

A year later Sh
ō
nagon, now aged about twenty-four, entered the service of the little Empress Sadako, who had arrived at Court the year before. The Empress, a daughter of the Prime Minister, Fujiwara no Michitaka, was now fifteen: she died in childbirth ten years later, and it is with these years, from 991 to 1000, that
The Pillow Book
deals.

It consists partly of reminiscences, partly of entries in diary-form. The book is arranged not chronologically, but under a series of headings, such as “Disagreeable Th ings,” “Amusing Things,” “Disappointing Things,” and the like; but often this scheme breaks down and the sequence becomes entirely arbitrary.

To keep some kind of journal was a common practice of the day. No other miscellany like
The Pillow Book
exists; but there may well have been others, for Heian literature has not survived in its entirety. Thus, Sh
ō
nagon gives us a list of her favorite novels. Out of eleven, only one (
The Hollow Tree
) survives; and from other sources we know the names of over twenty novels belonging to this period, all of which are lost. The question whether the particular form in which she cast her book, that of grouping the entries under headings such as “Disagreeable Things,” “Amusing Things,” etc., was suggested to her by some previous work is difficult to decide. There exists a book
*
by the Chinese poet Li Shang-yin (813-58) called
Tsa Tsuan
, or “Miscellaneous Notes,” which is arranged on this principle, though its matter is very different, the author remaining content with mere enumerations, for example:
Things that certainly won’t come.
A dog, if called to by a man with a stick in his hand.
A singing-girl, if summoned by a penniless student.

Inappropriate Things.

For a Persian to be poor. For a doctor to fall ill. For a schoolmaster not to recognize an ideogram. For a butcher to recite the Scriptures.
†

Things that make a Bad Impression.

To fall off one’s horse at polo. To choke when eating with one’s superiors. To return to worldly life after having been in a monastery or convent. To lie on someone else’s bed with one’s boots on. To sing love-songs in the presence of one’s parents.

Whereas Sh
ō
nagon almost always illustrates her categories by long anecdotes and reminiscences, the Chinese writer, as we have seen, confines himself to bald lists. Sh
ō
nagon is concerned with her own likes and irritabilities; Li Shang-yin merely expresses a sort of generalized proverbial wisdom. Her experience is drawn exclusively from the Court; his illustrations are drawn from marketplace and farm.

Despite these differences, the particular form in which
The Pillow Book
is cast might quite conceivably be due to the
Tsa Tsuan
. The difficulty is that Li Shang-yin’s book does not seem to have reached Japan till many centuries later. That no single copy of the
Tsa Tsuan
existed in Japan at a particular date is a thing that obviously cannot be proved. The question is not in itself of much importance, but it is worth mentioning in order to call attention to the Chinese book, which is a singularly interesting document of social history.

Sh
ō
nagon protests, as do most diarists and makers of journals, that
The Pillow Book
was intended for herself alone. But it quickly fell into other hands. In 1002 she writes: When the present Captain of the Bodyguard of the Left (Minamoto no Tsunefusa) was governor of Ise (i.e. in 995 or 996) he one day called on me at my home. By accident a mattress that was pushed out into the front room for him to sit on had my book lying on it. The moment I realized this I snatched at the book and made frantic efforts to recover it. But Tsunefusa carried it offwith him and did not return it till a long time afterwards.

So far as I remember, this was the beginning of my book being handed about at Court.

What Tsunefusa saw and handed round in 995—6 was, of course, only part of the work, most of it having been written later than this.

Printing did not become general in Japan till the seventeenth century.
The editio princeps
of
The Pillow Book
is in movable type and is said to date from the Keich
ō
Period, 1596—1614. Many mediæval manuscript-copies exist; but their relative age and trustworthiness have not been fully investigated.

Concerning her arrival at Court, Sh
ō
nagon writes as follows: When I first entered her Majesty’s service I felt indescribably shy, and was indeed constantly on the verge of tears. When I came on duty the first evening, the Empress was sitting with only a three-foot screen in front of her, and so nervous was I that when she passed me some picture or book to look at, I was hardly capable of putting out my hand to take it. While she was talking about what she wanted me to see—telling me what it was or who had made it—I was all the time wondering whether my hair was in order. For the lamp was not in the middle of the room, but on a stand immediately beside where we sat, and we were more exposed than we should have been even by daylight. It was all I could do to fix my attention on what I was looking at. Only part of her Majesty’s hand showed, for the weather was very cold and she had muffled herself in her sleeves; but I could see that it was pink and very lovely. I gazed and gazed. To an inexperienced homebred girl like me it was a wonderful surprise to discover that such people as this existed on earth at all. At dawn I hurried away, but the Empress called after me, saying I seemed to be as frightened of the daylight as the ugly old God of Katsuragi.
*
I lay down again, purposely choosing an attitude in which she could not get a full view of me. The shutters had not yet been opened. But soon one of the ladies came along and the Empress called out to her, “Please open those things!” She was beginning to do so, when the Empress suddenly said, “Not now!” and, laughing, the lackey withdrew. Her Majesty then engaged me in conversation for some time, and said at last: “Well, I expect you are wanting to be off. Go as soon as you like.” “And come back in good time tonight,” she added. It was so late when I got back to my room that I found it all tidied and opened up for the day. The snow outside was lovely. Presently there came a message from the Empress saying it was a good opportunity for me to wait upon her in the morning. “The snow-clouds make it so dark,” she said, “that you will be almost invisible.” I could not bring myself to go, and the message was repeated several times. At last the head-girl of our room said: “You mustn’t shut yourself up here all the time. You ought to be thankful to get a chance like this. Her Majesty would not ask for you unless she really wanted you, and she will think it very bad manners if you do not go.” So I was hustled off, and arrived once more in the Imperial Presence, in a state of miserable embarrassment and confusion.

Sh
ō
nagon goes on to describe the ease and nonchalance with which those in attendance upon the Empress went about their duties or lay “with their Chinese cloaks trailing across the floor.” “How I envied the composure with which they took and handed on the Empress’s notes and letters; standing up and sitting down, talking and laughing without the slightest trace of embarrassment! Would a time ever come when I should feel equally at home in such surroundings? The mere thought made me tremble. . . . Presently there were loud cries of ‘Make way!’ Someone said it was the Prime Minister, and a great scuffling began, everyone clutching at whatever possessions they had left lying about and making hastily for the alcove.”

Sh
ō
nagon goes on to tell us that the visitor turns out to be not Michitaka, the Prime Minister, but his son, Korechika, the Empress’s favorite brother, then a lad of eighteen.

Korechika:
These last two days I have been supposed to be in retreat.
*
But I wanted to see how you were getting on in this tremendous snowstorm.

Empress:
I did not expect you. I thought “no roads were left. . . .”
*

Korechika:
Did you think that would stop me? I made sure “your heart was filled with pity. . . .”

What, I thought, could have been more elegant than such a conversation as this? It was up to the most high-flown passages in any of the novels I had read. . . . After a while my Lord Korechika asked who was behind the curtains-of-state, and someone having told him it was I, he rose to his feet, intending, as I first thought, to go away. But instead, he came close up to the curtains and spoke about something that he heard had happened to me before I came to Court. I had already been feeling utterly awe-struck as I gazed at him through the curtains; and now when he actually came up and began to address me, I almost fainted.

Sometimes at festivals and processions he had seemed to be looking in the direction of our carriage; whereupon we had immediately made fast the blinds and even hidden our faces with our fans, lest he should get a momentary view of our profiles. And now, sitting terror-stricken before him, I wondered how it was that I had ever consented to embark upon a career for which I was so hopelessly ill-qualified. Even the fan with which I was attempting to hide my embarrassment he now took from me. I felt certain at once that my hair was straggling down in the wildest disorder, and whether it really was or no, probably I looked quite as distraught as I was feeling. Twisting my fan in his fingers, he began asking who painted it, and other questions—I all the while hoping only that he would soon go away. But it was clear he had no intention of doing so, for he was now reclining on his back close to the curtains. I think her Majesty felt at last that his long stay was disconcerting me, for she called to him: “Come over here! I want you to tell me whose writing this is.” How thankful I felt! But Lord Korechika replied: “Send it along and I will look at it!” and when she still insisted that he should come to her, he said: “I would come; but Sh
ō
nagon here has hold of me and will not let go.” This, of course, was whimsical enough, but rather embarrassing for me, considering the immense difference in our ages and positions.

Her Majesty was now looking at some piece or other of writing in cursive syllabary. “If you want to know who wrote it, show it to this lady. I’ll be bound there’s not a hand in the world that she would not recognize.” So he went on, always trying to say something that would get an answer out of me.

“Sh
ō
nagon, do you like me?” the Empress asked presently. “Why, Madam, what else do you suppose?” I was beginning to reply, when someone in the breakfast-room sneezed violently. “There!” cried her Majesty. “That shows you are not telling the truth. Of course, it would be nice if you liked me, but it can’t be helped.”

Next morning, when Sh
ō
nagon is in her room, someone brings her a note written on light green paper, and very prettily got up. In it is the poem: “Never had I known, never had known that false was false; save for the God of Truth whose voice resounded in the empty air.” “It had been dictated,” Sh
ō
nagon continues, “to one of her ladies. I felt terribly mortified and confused. How I should have liked to get hold of the person who produced that unlucky sneeze!”

Sh
ō
nagon’s reply—“Thankless my lot who, for the trespass of another’s nose, am thought of shallow heart”—contains puns and ingenuities, which it would be tedious to explain.

Thus began Sh
ō
nagon’s career at Court. There are, however, in
The Pillow Book
two passages that refer to an earlier period in her life. In 986, when she was about twenty, she attended a Buddhist Ceremony at the palace of Fujiwara no Naritoki, Colonel of the Bodyguard and Assistant Councillor of State. “The heat,” she says, “was desolating, and we had things to attend to that could not be left over till next day; so we meant only to hear a little of the service and then go home. But such surging oceans of carriages had pressed in behind us, that it was impossible to escape. When the morning part of the ceremony was over we sent word to the carriages at the back of us that we were going away, and being glad enough to get a little closer, they at once let us through, and themselves moved up into line. We had to put up with a good deal of chaffing as we retired. . . . His lordship Yoshichika
*
called to me as we passed: ‘You
do well to retire
.’ At the moment I was suffering so much from the heat that I did not see the point: but afterwards I sent a man to him with the message: ‘Among five thousand arrogants, you too will surely find a place.’”

The allusion (and nothing would so have covered Sh
ō
nagon with shame as that it should be thought she had not recognized it) is to a passage in the
Lotus S
ū
tra
where five thousand of Buddha’s hearers walk out during one of his sermons. Buddha makes no attempt to stop them, saying only: “Arrogant creatures, they
do well to retire
.” It is precisely this part of the
Lotus S
ū
tra
that is read at the end of the morning service on the first day of the ceremony in question, so that Sh
ō
nagon, who became the great pastmaster in the art of capping quotations, begins her career with a very light ordeal.