by Arthur Waley
† A member of the Minamoto clan; afterwards Governor of Awa.
* For “five limbs” the speaker uses a pedantic Chinese expression, corresponding to a Latinism in English.
† When the New Year appointments were announced.
* Cloth soaked in sticky oil.
† As opposed to the barrack roll-calls.
‡ The ladies-in-waiting’s quarters in the Empress’s apartments, as opposed to their rooms in the less prominent parts of the Palace.
* A movable partition which concealed the washing-place. On the inside was painted a cat; on the outside, sparrows and bamboos.
* Summer, 998 (?).
* In 996.
* The Minami no In, the palace of Michitaka, the Empress’s father. Th is episode must have taken place in the twelfth month of 992.
† I.e. two hours, the Japanese hour being twice ours.
‡ Reading hiraginu.
* Lespedeza bicolor.
† Eularia japonica.
* Which would be in Chinese, as these magicians worked according to a method deduced from the Chinese Book of Changes.
* Minamoto no Narinobu (born A.D. 972) was a son of Prince Okihira (953-1041).
* Temple of Kwannon, near Kyōto.
† Translated by de la Vallée Poussin, Geuthner, 1923 seq.; a treatise by Vasubandhu, expounding the philosophy of the Sarvāsstivādins.
* Slipped on over one’s outdoor boots, like the slippers worn in a mosque.
† Literally, the low rails in front of the altar.
‡ The priests were employed to make dedications on behalf of their patrons.
* Used in the decoration of Buddhist altars.
† Allusion not identified. Must be to a poem such as: “In this mountain temple at evening when the bell sounds, to know that it is ringing for our good, how comforting the thought!”
* When the great scholar Moto-ori visited this temple in 1772 he was startled by the sudden noise of the conch-horn, blown at the hour of the Serpent (9 a.m.). At once there came into his mind this passage from The Pillow Book and “the figure of Shōnagon seemed to rise up before me” (Sugagasa Nikki, third month, seventh day). It is in this same temple that, in The Tale of Genji, Murasaki lays the scene of the meeting between Ukon and the long-lost Tamakatsura. The local people (Moto-ori tells us) had no idea that the characters in Genji were imaginary, and pointed out to him “the tomb of Tamakatsura.”
† A note folded up and twisted into an elaborate knot. In this case it would contain instructions for special services or prayers.
* A kyōge or ritual for “instruction and transformation” of evil influences.
* The early service, at about 3 a.m.
† I.e. Kwannon, whose sūtra forms the 25th chapter of the Hokkeyō.
* A Chinese who became so completely absorbed in the Tao Tē Ching of Lao Tzu that he sat reading it on the edge of a river until (according to one version of the story) the spring floods carried him away.
† Of the Scriptures.
‡ Yoroshi, “good,” is used by Shōnagon just as we use the word “good” in such expressions as “a good while ago,” etc. Aston (p. 116) did not understand this and completely mistranslates the sentence.
* It was the anniversary of his father’s death, or the like, and he should have remained strictly closeted at home. The “taboo-ticket,” mono-imi no fuda, was worn as a sign that he must not be disturbed.
* The Empress’s brother, Ryū-en.
† A creature that squeezes its way into the shells of other fish.
‡ There is here a series of puns too complicated for explanation.
* What we should call bobbed hair; standing out fan-wise behind, and worn about six inches long over the temples.
* Like our Venetian blinds.
† Bringing messages from home, or the like.
* The examinations for officers of the Sixth Rank and under.
† I.e. Confucius. This is the ceremony in honor of Confucius and his disciples. In Chinese, Shih-tien. I quote this passage because it illustrates the extraordinary vagueness of the women concerning purely male activities.
* I.e. dream-interpreter. Modern experts have seldom been known to take this reassuring view.
* Light purple, lined with clear blue.
* Partitions made of thin pieces of wood, laid trellis-wise.
* The incantations of the priest cause the spirit which is possessing the sick person to pass into the medium, who, being young and healthy, easily throws it off.
* Not to be confused with Minamoto no Narimasa, mentioned above.
* The story of Yü Kung, who rebuilt his gate because of a conviction that his son Ting-kuo would rise to greatness, is told in the little handbook of improving anecdotes to which I refer below (p 120). Shōnagon is laughing at the fact that Narimasa should so easily have been impressed.
* Shōnagon was now about thirty-four; Narimasa was fifty.
* He uses an affected pronunciation.
* Died in 1018, at the age of nineteen.
* See above, p. 57.
* There is a good copy of this at the British Museum.
* The intimacy would, of course, be secret. Shōnagon’s embarrassment would proceed solely from her own conscience.
* Except in the case of uta, the small poems of thirty-one syllables.
† Higuchi Ichiyō (1872-1896).
