The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu (Murasaki Shikibu Nikki), written from circa 1008 to 1010
Original version, edited by Hokiichi Hanawa:
https://ja.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%B4%AB%E5%BC%8F%E9%83%A8%E6%97%A5%E8%A8%98_(%E7%BE%A4%E6%9B%B8%E9%A1%9E%E5%BE%9E)
Modernised edition, edited by Eiichi Shibuya:
English translation in Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan (1920), compiled and translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi
Above: Murasaki Shikibu in a 17th century portrait by Tosa Mitsuoki.
Murasaki Shikibu (紫 式部, born circa 973 or 978, died circa 1014 or 1031) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be the world's first novel, written in Early Middle Japanese between about 1000 and 1012.
Heian era women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1031.
Murasaki wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale of Genji. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. Early in the 20th century her work was translated; a six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak. Since the 13th century her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known ukiyo-e woodblock masters.
At the Japanese imperial court in the Heian period, it was considered extremely rude and overfamiliar to refer to people by their given names, so everyone was called by nicknames based on anything from the colour of their clothing to the government or court position of that person or a male relative of theirs. As a result, Murasaki Shikibu's given name is unknown, but it is believed to have been Fujiwara no Takako or Kaoruko, who is mentioned in a 1007 court diary as a lady-in-waiting. "Shikibu" is not a modern surname, but refers to Shikibu-shō, the Ministry of Ceremonials where Murasaki's father was a functionary. "Murasaki", an additional name possibly derived from the color violet associated with the wisteria flower, the meaning of the word fuji (an element of her clan name), may have been bestowed on her at court in reference to the name she herself had given to the main female character in The Tale of Genji. After her husband's death in 1001, Murasaki went to the imperial court to serve as lady-in-waiting and tutor to the young Empress Shōshi. Based on descriptions of her personality that she wrote in her diary, one of the precious few surviving contemporary biographical sources about her, it is possible that Murasaki was autistic. Asian literature scholar Thomas Inge believes she had "a forceful personality that seldom won her friends." She was very aware that the other ladies-in-waiting saw her as "pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful". "Do they really look on me as such a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am …. [Shōshi] too has often remarked that she thought I was not the kind of person with whom one could ever relax …. I am perversely stand-offish; if only I can avoid putting off those for whom I have genuine respect." "That I am very vain, reserved, unsociable, wanting always to keep people at a distance — that I am wrapped up in the study of ancient stories, conceited, living all the time in a poetical world of my own and scarcely realizing the existence of other people, save occasionally to make spiteful and depreciatory comments upon them — such is the opinion of me that most strangers hold…"
Murasaki wrote the following poem hastily in around the year 1008 (known in Japanese as Kankō 5) at the playful request of the Empress's father, Prime Minister Fujiwara no Michinaga, who was a distant relative of Murasaki from a more prominent branch of the Fujiwara clan. Poetry writing was a very important part of communication and social life at court: one's reputation depended heavily on the quality of one's poetry.
The poem:
女郞花盛の色をみるからに露のわきけるみこそしらるれ
Romaji transliteration (in reconstructed Early Middle Japanese):
Wominafesi-mori no iro wo mirukarani
Ro no wa kikeru mi koso sirarure
With modernised spelling/language:
女郎花盛りの色を見るからに 露の分きける身こそ知らるれ
Romaji transliteration:
Ominaeshi-mori no iro o mirukarani
Ro no bun kikeru mi koso shirarure
English translation (from source 3):
Flower-maiden in bloom —
Even more beautiful for the bright dew,
Which is partial, and never favors me.
Above: The "flower-maiden", Patrinia scabiosaefolia; photo courtesy of Qwert1234 at Wikimedia Commons.
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