Category: Biographies
1. I have here translated about a quarter of the _Pillow-Book_.[1] Omissions have been made only where the original was dull, unintelligible, repetitive, or so packed with allusion that it required an impracticable amount of commentary.
1. I have here translated about a quarter of the _Pillow-Book_.[1] Omissions have been made only where the original was dull, unintelligible, repetitive, or so packed with allus...
2. Part 2Shōnagon 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 t...
3. Part 3We are now in the fourth month of 995. To understand how Korechika gave the desired opportunity to his enemies it is necessary to go back some years. In 984 the Emperor Kwazan h...
4. Part 4It was a favourite saying of his that people never sent him poems so long as they liked him. ‘It’s a sure sign that they have turned against one,’ he used to say. ‘When you have...
5. Part 5If one hears a servant girl say about anyone, ‘He’s an awfully nice gentleman,’ one at once feels a slight contempt for the person in question. One would really think better of...
6. Part 6It is important that a lover should know how to make his departure. To begin with, he ought not to be too ready to get up, but should require a little coaxing: ‘Come, it is past...
7. Part 7I shared it with several of the younger girls. We were all so tired that we did not bother about anything, and went straight to sleep. Our room was in the east wing, and had a s...
8. Part 8[2] Since this was written there has appeared _Les Notes del’Oreiller_, by K. Matsuo and Steinilber-Oberlin, containing extracts which amount, like mine, to about a quarter of t...