“The Pillow Book”, Sei Shonagon, 1002, Japan, Osaka
.. not only resolutely refuses to acknowledge these sorrows, but that largely refuses to acknowledge sorrow itself, and gives us in its place a world of exquisite delight.
The mountain dove is a very pure-hearted and touching bird — they say it can be comforted by showing it a mirror when its longing for its mate.
You wake during the brief nights of the rainy season, and lie there waiting, determined to be the first to hear the bird — then suddenly your heart is utterly transported with delight, as that dear, exquisite voice comes ringing through the darkness.
Refined and elegant things — … snow on plum blossoms …
Embarrassing things — heart of a man. Man should see women’s heart, but she should not see his.
After the service the sake went round, and the men proceeded to recite Chinese verses. Secretary Captain Tadonobu’s strong voiced recitations of the poem
Once more the moon comes round to autumn, but where is he gone who loved it then?
was wonderfully appropriate. How did he manage to come up with such a perfect poem for the occasion, I wonder?
I left the proceedings, and made my way through to where Her Majesty was sitting. I met here as she was coming out. ‘That was marvellous,’ she declared. ‘He must surely have prepared that poem especially for today’s proceedings.’
‘I left off watching to come and say that very thing to Your Majesty myself.’ I said. ‘I do think it was quite wonderful.’
‘Yes, I’m not surprised that you think so,’ was her teasing reply.
Tadanobu often made a point of calling me out to meet him, and whenever we met he would start on his complaints. ‘Why can we never really get close?’ he would say. ‘I know you don’t dislike me, so I find it very strange. Such a long-standing acquaintance as ours surely can’t simply end without intimacy. Come this time when I’m no longer at the palace night and day, what will I take away with me as memory of our relationship?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ I replied. ‘There’d be no difficulty in our getting together. But if we did, I wouldn’t be able any longer to sing your praises to others, and that would be a great shame. How can we afford to become too close, when it’s my role to praise you to Her Majesty? So please just love me from a distance. I’d be too embarrassed and conscience-stricken to say anything good about you if we were lovers.’
‘But why is that? I know people who praise their lovers more than they seem to deserve.’
‘Well, that’s all very well, but I happen to hate that sort of thing. I can’t stand people, men or women, who adore their lovers, and are always taking their side and praising them, and get upset when anyone refers to some little fault of theirs,’ I replied.
‘Oh, you’re hopeless!’ said he, which amused me greatly.
Clothing
“I wasn’t liked, and I didn’t like it . . . “
Indeed the heart is a creature amazingly prone to lurching. It even lurches in sympathy with another woman when the next-morning letter from a man who stayed with her for the first time the night before is later in arriving.
Things that look ordinary but become extraordinary when written — Strawberries.
Things that are near yet far — the first day of the new year, seen from the last day of the old.
Things that are far yet near — Paradise. The course of a boat. Relations between men and women.
“I withdrew into the background, not wishing him to see the untimely ‘morning glory’ of my sleepy face.”
“.. — and how absolutely wonderful it is to discover, when you unearth the charcoal from beneath the fine ash, that fire is still as alive as ever, with no burnt-out blackened bits.”
.
.
.
time is so short,
how wonderful it is then that thousand years ago
some gentlelady was putting her heart into these pages
passed and inspired generations and centuries
and I am software engineer from small Ukraine town
travelled around the world only to end up in Singapore
to read this marvelous work
to learn from Sei and follow her heart
beauty and love
🌸