CHAPTER VI
SOME MINOR WORKS
The author of the Sagoromo Monogatari was a court official named Daini no Sammi, the daughter of Murasaki no Shikibu. Her work, a love-story of considerable length, is an obvious imitation of the Genji Monogatari, but much inferior both in style and matter. It is believed to have been written about A.D. 1040.
The Sarashina Nikki, by a daughter of Sugawara no Takasuye, a descendant in the sixth generation of the famous statesman Sugawara no Michizane, was completed in the reign of the Emperor Go Rei-zei (1046–1068). It is the record of a journey from Shimōsa to Kiōto by the Tōkaidō in 1021, and of a second journey from Kiōto to Sarashina, in the province of Shinano, some years later. It is written in a vein of melancholy sentiment, and is plentifully adorned with doleful Tanka.
Nothing is known as to the date and authorship of the Torikayebaya Monogatari. It is believed to have been written subsequently to the Sagoromo, and would therefore belong to the middle or end of the eleventh century. The Torikayebaya Monogatari is a story of the difficulties experienced by a nobleman in the education of his two children, a boy and a girl. The boy is fond of feminine pursuits and amusements, and the girl just the reverse, much to the annoyance of their father, who used
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