had begun in this way, I waited till things seemed to have come to a momentary pause and then plotted with Lady Saishō to slip away and hide. Presently however the Prime Minister's sons and other young Courtiers burst into the room; a fresh hubbub began, and when they heard that two ladies were in hiding they tracked us down and flung back the screen behind which we had ensconced ourselves. We were now prisoners. . . .'
The Diary contains a series of notes chiefly upon the appearance but also in a few cases upon the character of other ladies at Court. Her remarks on Lady Izumi Shikibu, one of the greatest poets whom Japan has produced, are of interest: 'Izumi Shikibu is an amusing letter-writer; but there is something not very satisfactory about her. She has a gift for dashing off informal compositions in a careless running-hand; but in poetry she needs either an interesting subject or some classic model to imitate. Indeed it does not seem to me that in herself she is really a poet at all.
'However, in the impromptus which she recites there is always something beautiful or striking. But I doubt if she is capable of saying anything interesting about other people's verses. She is not intelligent enough. It is odd; to hear her talk you would certainly think that she had a touch of the poet in her. Yet she does not seem to produce anything that one can call serious poetry. . . .'
Here, too, is the note on Sei Shōnagon,[1] author of the famous Makura no Sōshi: 'Sei Shōnagon's most marked characteristic is her extraordinary self-satisfaction. But examine the pretentious compositions in Chinese script which she scatters so liberally over the Court, and you will
- ↑ See p. 22. Shōnagon was about ten years senior to Murasaki. She was lady-in-waiting first to the Empress Sadako (died, 1000 A.D.); then to Sadako's sister Princess Shigesa (died, 1002 A.D.); finally to the Empress Akiko.
