Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan. Shikibu Murasaki

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      In the dead of night, moon-gazing,

      The thought of the deep mountain affrighted,

      Yet longings for the mountain village

      At all other moments filled my heart.

      Once, towards dawn, I heard footsteps which seemed to be those of many persons coming down the mountain. I wondered and looked out. It was a herd of deer which came close to our dwelling. They cried out. It was not pleasant to hear them near by.

      It is sweet to hear the love-call of a deer to its mate,

      In Autumn nights, upon the distant hills.

      I heard that an acquaintance had come near my residence and gone back without calling on me. So I wrote:

      Even this wandering wind among the pines of the mountain —

      I've heard that it departs with murmuring sound.

      [That is, you are not like it. You do not speak when going away.]

      In the Leaf-Falling month [September] I saw the moon more than twenty days old. It was towards dawn; the mountain-side was gloomy and the sound of the waterfall was all [I heard]. I wish that lovers [of nature] may see the after-dawn-waning moon in a mountain village at the close of an autumn night.

      I went back to Kioto when the rice-fields, which had been filled with water when I came, were dried up, the rice being harvested. The young plants in their bed of water – the plants harvested – the fields dried up – so long I remained away from home.

      'T was the moon-hidden of the Gods-absent month when I went there again for temporary residence. The thick grown leaves which had cast a dark shade were all fallen. The sight was heartfelt over all. The sweet, murmuring rivulet was buried under fallen leaves and I could see only the course of it.

      Even water could not live on —

      So lonesome is the mountain

      Of the leaf-scattering stormy wind.

      [At about this time the author of this diary seems to have had some family troubles. Her father received no appointment from the King – they were probably poor, and her gentle, poetic nature did not incline her to seek useful friends at court; therefore many of the best years of her youth were spent in obscurity – a great contrast to the "Shining-Prince" dreams of her childhood.]

      I went back to Kioto saying that I should come again the next Spring, could I live so long, and begged the nun to send word when the flowering-time had come.

      It was past the nineteenth of the Ever-growing month of the next year [1026], but there were no tidings from her, so I wrote:

      No word about the blooming cherry-blossoms,

      Has not the Spring come for you yet?

      Or does the perfume of flowers not reach you?

      I made a journey, and passed many a moonlit night in a house beside a bamboo wood. Wind rustled its leaves and my sleep was disturbed.

      Night after night the bamboo leaves sigh,

      My dreams are broken and a vague, indefinite sadness fills my heart.

      In Autumn [1026] I went to live elsewhere and sent a poem:

      I am like dew on the grass —

      And pitiable wherever I may be —

      But especially am I oppressed with sadness

      In a field with a thin growth of reeds.

      After that time I was somehow restless and forgot about the romances. My mind became more sober and I passed many years without doing any remarkable thing. I neglected religious services and temple observances. Those fantastic ideas [of the romances] can they be realized in this world? If father could win some good position I also might enter into a much nobler life. Such unreliable hopes then occupied my daily thoughts.

      At last45 father was appointed Governor of a Province very far in the East.

      [Here the diary skips six years. The following is reminiscent.]

      He [father] said: "I was always thinking that if I could win a position as Governor in the neighbourhood of the Capital I could take care of you to my heart's desire. I would wish to bring you down to see beautiful scenery of sea and mountain. Moreover, I wished that you could live attended beyond [the possibilities] of our [present] position. Our Karma relation from our former world must have been bad. Now I have to go to so distant a country after waiting so long! When I brought you, who were a little child, to the Eastern Province [at his former appointment], even a slight illness caused me much trouble of mind in thinking that should I die, you would wander helpless in that far country. There were many fears in a stranger's country, and I should have lived with an easier mind had I been alone. As I was then accompanied by all my family, I could not say or do what I wanted to say or do, and I was ashamed of it. Now you are grown up [she was twenty-five years old] and I am not sure that I can live long.

      It is not so unusual a fate to be helpless in the Capital, but the saddest thing of all would be to wander in the Eastern Province like any country-woman.46 There are no relatives in the Capital upon whom we could rely to foster you, yet I cannot refuse the appointment which has been made after such long waiting. So you must remain here, and I must depart for Eternity. – Oh, in what way may I provide a way for you to live in the Capital decently!"

      Night and day he lamented, saying these things, and I forgot all about flowers or maple leaves, grieving sadly, but there was no help for it.

      He went down47 on the thirteenth of the Seventh month, 1032.

      For several days before that I could not remain still in my own room, for I thought it difficult to see him again.

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      1

      Translation by Arthur Waley in Japanese Poetry.

      2

      Her father Takasué was appointed Governor of Kazusa in 1017, and the authoress, who was then nine years old, was brought from Kiōto to the Province.

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