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

(‘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 autumnand 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?
    Together we spent the night gazing out, finally going inside only when dawn arrived. Wrapping up a long root, she gave it to me with the following:
Sweet flags afloat
In the sad and muddy waters of this mundane world –
What of this root and what of my tearful voice today?
    My reply was:
What it is I cannot fathom.
Today too this sleeve of mine
Can neither hold this root or stem my tears.
    The above fragment constitutes very strong evidence that the compiler of the Eiga monogatari had more than the present diary at her disposal. The reason why more of it does not actually appear in