The Diary of Lady Murasaki

by Murasaki Shikibu

  The best information we have about Murasaki’s life at court is, of course, the diary, although there are considerable gaps in what she is prepared to reveal. Sonpi bunmyaku states flatly that she was Michinaga’s concubine, but there is no evidence whatsoever to support this. By her own admission she seems to have been somewhat retiring and even severe. Any joie de vivre is carefully balanced by a pervasive melancholy. Perhaps this is one of the reasons her contemporaries never ranked her poetry very highly. Poetry was a social activity, and the reason why she does not appear in a number of important poetry competitions where one might expect to see her name may simply be that she did not wish to participate. There is also a remarkable lack of any record of correspondence or exchange of poems between her and any of her major female contemporaries. Sei Shōnagon had already dropped out of court circles with the death of Teishi in 1000, and we have no way of knowing whether she was alive at this point or not, but Akazome Emon certainly was around; she had been in the service of Rinshi, Michinaga’s main wife, for some considerable time. Izumi Shikibu, too, joined Shōshi’s entourage in the spring of 1009, but Murasaki’s reference to her in the diary suggests a very distant relationship indeed.

  As in most cases of women writers and poets of this time, her later years are clouded in uncertainty. Emperor Ichijō died on Kankō 8 (1011).6.22. On the sixteenth of the tenth month of that same year Shoōshi moved into the Biwa mansion, and Murasaki presumably went with her. The main clues as to when she might have died are as follows:

  (i) As mentioned above, Tametoki suddenly returned to the capital in 1014 and retired in 1016. Might this have been because of Murasaki’s death? Possibly, but he was in any case in his early seventies.

  (ii) In Murasaki’s collection of poetry there is an exchange with a woman called Ise no Tayū at the Kiyomizu temple that can be dated with fair certainty to Chōwa 3 (1014).1.20.

  (iii) A passage in the Eiga monogatari dated 1025 refers to her in connection with her daughter, but it is not clear from this whether she is alive or not.

  (iv) She is not listed among the ladies-in-waiting who accompanied Shōshi on a pilgrimage to the Sumiyoshi Shrine in Chōgen 4 (1031).

  (v) This evidence concerns her relationship with Fujiwara no Sanesuke, author of the diary Shōyūki and a constant critic of Michinaga. An entry in the Shōyūki for Chōwa 2 (1013).5.25 reads:

  Yesterday evening when I left Sukehira I sent him in person to the Dowager Empress, telling him to inform her that I would be unable to attend for the time being while the Crown Prince was ill. This morning he returned to say that he had met the lady-in-waiting – the daughter of Tametoki, Governor of Echigo, whom I have often used as an intermediary for various matters in the past – who said that the Crown Prince’s illness was not serious, but that he could not attend normal palace business as he still had a fever. Michinaga also felt under the weather, she added.

  There are a series of entries of a similar nature in the Shōyūki during 1013 and, although they do not mention Murasaki by name, the phrase ‘met the lady-in-waiting’ appears in many of them. The same is true of a later entry dated Kannin 3 (1019).1.5.

  The end result of all this is inconclusive. Murasaki may have died early in 1014 or she may possibly have continued serving Shōshi until as late as 1025. The maturity of vision in the latter part of the Genji monogatari suggests the later date, but in the absence of any more information this must remain mere speculation.

  Before we leave Murasaki, there are two other members of her family who deserve notice, her brother and her daughter. Her brother Nobunori, generally thought to be her younger brother, is first referred to as a scribe in Kankō 1 (1004).1.11. In Kankō 4 (1007).1.13, as we have seen, he was promoted to Sixth Chamberlain, but he seems to have been rather forgetful and not in the least interested in advancing himself. Apart from the few entries in Murasaki’s diary that refer to his lack of intelligence, we have two descriptions of his behaviour. The first is dated Kankō 5 (1008).7.17 and is from an anonymous record in the Imperial Library known as Fuchiki, other sections of which can be found translated in Appendix 2.

  A letter from the Palace. The messenger was Sixth Chamberlain and Secretary at the Ministry of War Fujiwara no Nobunori. He was given a seat in the first bay of the southern gallery of the main building. Four or five nobles pressed drink on him and he became quite tipsy. He was given a reply for the Emperor and then some gifts… He took them in his hand and, still sitting, gave a little nod of the head. Only once! Then he got up, went down into the garden, bowed once more and left.

  The second is from Sanesuke’s diary and is dated Kankoō 5 (1008).12.15.

  The priest at the early morning service was given a silver cane and some cotton as a gift. Fifth Chamberlain Hironari and Chamberlains Nobunori and Nobutō carried out a chest full of cotton and divided it into portions just where the priest was standing. Nobunori and Nobutō were the ones who actually carried the chest… then Nobunori went down on to the veranda, took the chest with the gifts of cotton for the acolytes in it, and started handing it out. He should have divided it equally among them but instead gave a whole pile of cotton to one man. The other priests started grabbing and there was absolute uproar. Chamberlains seem to have forgotten the rules of late. Every noble present was shocked.

  Perhaps as a result of such actions, Nobunori took the opportunity to go to Echigo with his father in 1011 but in any case died soon after his arrival. He seems to have had a fair reputation as a poet, leaving a personal collection and having ten poems chosen for imperial anthologies. His early death in Echigo and a possible relationship with Lady Chūjō, lady-in-waiting to the Priestess of the Kamo Shrines (alluded to in the preface to Poem 764 of the Gosenshū), are the subject of stories in a number of tale collections, but this was clearly not the kind of fame for which his elder sister had been hoping.

  Murasaki’s daughter Kenshi (999–?), on the other hand, more than made up for this disappointment, becoming the object of attention for a number of high-ranking men. In 1025 at the age of twenty-six she became wet nurse to the future Emperor Goreizei. Wetnursestraditionally had great power and it was a coveted position. She then married Takashina no Nariakira and produced a son in 1038. In 1045 she was raised to Junior Third Rank and was made Principal Handmaid (Naishi no kami). Still alive in 1078, she may have lived until she was 84. Known as Echigo no Ben and later as Daini no Sanmi, she had thirty-seven poems chosen for imperial anthologies and has left her own collection.

  The Diary

  STRUCTURE

  The work now known as the Murasaki Shikibu nikki (‘Diary of Lady Murasaki’) is a rather mixed bag, so the term ‘diary’ in the title should be taken as a convenient label rather than a definition. It is not a series of day-to-day entries in a journal, although it may have originated as such. Certainly the tradition of recording events for posterity was well established. Men, writing in Sino-Japanese, produced a series of such records ranging from banal everyday information about the weather and official life to more interesting and pungent comments on affairs of state. Women also produced detailed records of the events with which they were most involved, poetry and other competitions, and chronicled the progress of their domestic life, their frequently unhappy love affairs and, in the case of Lady Murasaki, the auspicious birth of a son to the Empress. Much of this diary seems to have been written (or re-written) in retrospect, however. It covers events, ceremonies and memorable scenes at the Japanese court over a two-year period (1008–10), but it also contains passages of intense personal reflection and critical analysis of life at court. It is not as consistently autobiographical as the Kagerō nikki (‘Gossamer Years’), nor is it as fictionally oriented as the Izumi Shikibu nikki (‘Diary of Izumi Shikibu’). Indeed, it has more often been compared to Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (‘Pillow Book’), with which it shares a love of description and anecdote together with a willingness to criticize fellow ladies-in-waiting. But the Pillow Book is also a guidebook to Hei
an sensibilities, and although Murasaki’s diary certainly partakes of the same preconceptions, its aims are very different. It is a highly idiosyncratic mixture of detailed description and penetrating self-analysis, and presents us with its own peculiar problems of interpretation which stem ultimately from the question of its structure. Is it complete? How does it fit together? Is it more than a random collection of observations and if so then for whom was it written?

  Figure I shows the structure in diagrammatic form:

  Figure 1

  The diary opens with a description of the beauty of the Tsuchimikado mansion in autumn. The year is Kankō 5 (1008). Empress Shōshi became pregnant early in the year and was moved away from the Ichijō Palace and into the mansion on the thirteenth day of the fourth month (21 May). Michinaga arranged for the whole panoply of Buddhist rituals to be set in train, including a grand reading of the Lotu Sūtra in thirty sessions, which began on the twenty-third (31 May). Shōshi went back to the Ichijō Palace on the fourteenth day of the sixth month (20 July), only to return to the mansion once again on the sixteenth of the seventh month (20 August). The Tsuchimikado mansion was Michinaga’s main residence and belonged, as we have seen, to Shōshi’s mother, Rinshi. The withdrawal from the Palace is not just because she will be with her mother; the main reason is that the Palace must be kept clear of any pollution. As Shōshi had been a consort for nine years and was already twenty-one, the pregnancy had been a long time coming. The birth will be the most important moment in Michinaga’s career so far, for it means that he will now have the potential to become grandfather to the next Emperor. Murasaki herself, however, ignores the wider political and historical context and we are immediately cast into a world with which familiarity is assumed. Not that Murasaki is unaware of this context; but it is common knowledge – perhaps one of the main reasons for her record – and so goes unsaid. We, of course, need commentary to make sense of much that follows.

  The first section begins with a general description, moves on to introduce Her Majesty, and then, in a pattern that we shall find repeated throughout, turns to self-analysis. The narrative proceeds via a series of vignettes, the order of which is far from random. We are introduced to the main figures in correct order of their importance for the ensuing narrative, as well as being given a feel for the atmosphere of court life. Amid awe-inspiring Buddhist ceremonies and the noise and confusion that surrounds the birth itself, we also see scenes that stress the quiet, unhurried nature of life in more normal situations. Michinaga is introduced early on, shown testing Murasaki’s own wit. Attention is drawn to the fugitive nature of memory.

  There follows a careful transition to a chronologically ordered description of the preparations for the birth of the Prince, which commenced on the ninth of the ninth month and was eventually completed on the morning of the eleventh (13 October). The passages dealing with the birth itself and the whole series of ceremonial events that ensued constitute the bulk of the record. But one of the things that makes this diary of unusual interest is the way that formal descriptions are interspersed with passages of self-analysis which always stem quite naturally from their contexts: in this sense the public and private domains are perfectly interwoven. The concern with detail is at times reminiscent of male diaries in Sino-Japanese, but the concern with the minutiae of dress and ornament and the occasional glimpse we get of rivalry among the women is something that could only have come from a female perspective.

  At the end of this main record, about seven tenths through the work, we have a second transition to a more concentrated analysis of Murasaki’s own immediate circle. The last dateable event is on Kankō 6 (1009).1.3, and then we shift imperceptibly into a discussion of her fellow ladies-in-waiting, from the point of view first of their looks and then of their characters. This is followed by criticism of the dullness of Shōshi’s entourage in general, the timidity of the Empress, and the spinelessness of present-day courtiers, all of which is set in train by the chance sight of a letter in which she and her colleagues are set to ridicule. Then we have tart descriptions of Izumi Shikibu, Akazome Emon and Sei Shōnagon, which lead in turn to further self-analysis. The whole of this section is marked by a strong awareness of a specific addressee through the ubiquitous presence of the auxiliary verb haberi, and it ends with what seems to be the finishing touches to a private letter.

  At this point we are faced with a complete break. There follow three separate vignettes which have proved strongly resistant to dating. The first is an illustration of Murasaki’s wit and learning; the others are poetic dialogues more in the style of the utamonogatari tradition, where context and poem follow each other in intricate procession. The last tenth of the work sees a return to the record style, but it deals with only a few events in the first month of Kankō 7 (1010). There is therefore a large gap between the early record and this last description, a gap in which, among other things, a second prince, Atsunaga, has been born. Then the account simply breaks off, not exactly in mid sentence but not at any clearly defined point either.

  As may be expected, such a strange arrangement has given rise to numerous theories as to the genesis of the work, many of which are mutually contradictory but equally possible. The first thing to be examined, however, is the evidence from other sources that the diary we have today may well be incomplete.

  EVIDENCE OF EXTRA FRAGMENTS

  (a) The ‘Nikkiuta’ appendix

  Murasaki’s collection of short poems exists in a number of different manuscripts, which scholars have analysed into two main groups, known as the ‘Old Recensions’ and the ‘Teika Recensions’. Appended to three extant copies of the ‘Old Recensions’ group is a set of seventeen poems collected under the subtitle ‘Nikkiuta’ or ‘Poems from the diary’. It is thought that these poems were probably collected by the scholar Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241) on finding that the ‘Old Recensions’ texts in his possession omitted many of the poems to be found in the diary. The problem here, however, is that the first five poems in this appendix do not in fact appear in the diary as we have it today. Their content and prefaces are such that they can be dated with fair certainty to Kankō 5 (1008).5.5–6, which strongly suggests that the person who compiled the appendix had in his or her possession a diary that was larger than the one we have today. Note that if this is the case, this passage would predate the present beginning sections, which must refer to autumn 1008.

  (b) The Eiga monogatari (‘A Tale of Flowering Fortunes’)

  It is well known that Murasaki’s diary was used extensively as a source by the compiler of the Eiga monogatari, to the extent that whole passages were sometimes simply lifted piecemeal.6 This borrowing is usually held to start with the very beginning of the diary – autumn at the Tsuchimikado mansion – but some of the prefaces to the five poems mentioned above also bear a striking resemblance to that part of the Eiga monogatari that immediately precedes the description of autumn and which deals with the readings of the Lotus Sūtra that started on Kankō 5.5.5. 7

  (c) Reconstruction

  A comparison of these texts reveals the following fragment:

  At the Tsuchimikado mansion the fifth scroll of the thirty readings of the Lotus Sūtra was read out on the fifth of the fifth month. It was the Devadatta chapter, which gave me to imagine that the Buddha had picked fruit not so much for Devadatta as for His Excellency himself today.

  Ah marvellous!

  Today is the fifth of the fifth they say;

  Eminently fitting for the fifth scroll of the Law.

  They must have taken special pains to prepare the offering branches. [The Eiga monogatari has a full description of the ceremonies on this occasion, but there is no other text with which comparisons can be made. Similarities resume with the following:]

  That evening Her Majesty was again present at the Hall of Dedication, where she must have spoken with her sister Kenshi. Right below us the lake looked even clearer than during the day, lit as it was by a combination of flares and ceremonial torches
, and I could smell the fresh scent of sweet flags. Although I had much on my mind, I fought back my tears, thinking as I did so of how interesting it all ought to have seemed.

  In the waters of the lake that reflect the brightness of the flares

  Dwells the light of the Law that will be clear for ever.

  Although I was evasively composing poems about the ceremony, Lady Dainagon sitting opposite me looked most distressed, belying both her age and her good looks.

  The flares that light the clear lake to the depths

  Are so dazzling, they put my own sad self to shame.

  The ladies-in-waiting returned to their rooms at dawn, walking down the corridors, over the bridge, along the veranda of the west wing and through the main building. As they passed in front of Her Excellency’s apartments, where suūtras were being recited, many of them must have been awe-struck by the sheer magnificence of the mansion; even those women who when on private pilgrimages usually try to convince themselves, if not others, of their own worth by surrounding themselves with attendants and who insist on having the way cleared for them with such an air of self-importance.

  Day was just dawning as I went out on to the bridge and leaned on the balustrade, watching the water flow from beneath the rooms in the back corridor. The sky was no less beautiful than when filled with spring haze or autumn mist. I knocked at the corner shutters of Lady Koshōshō’s room. She opened both halves, top and bottom, and came out on to the veranda. As we both sat there looking out over the garden, I composed:

  Now I see my face floating there

  My sad tears mingle with the stream

  To make a waterfall of complaint.

  To which she replied:

  One alone fighting back the tears;

  In the face of the water

  Whose is the other face sadly floating there?