The Diary of Lady Murasaki by Murasaki Shikibu Read Free Book Online

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 thingsthat 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 beexamined, 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