Kagerō Nikki
The “Kagerō Nikki” is the journal of a noblewoman known only as “the mother of Michitsuna.” Beyond what she herself tells us, almost nothing is known of her life except that she probably died in 995. Her journal covers the years 954 to 974 and deals principally with her unhappy marriage to a distant kinsman, Fujiwara Kaneie (the “Prince” in the excerpts given here), who later became civil dictator. In this selection an attempt has been made to trace the main aspects of her relations with her husband by giving excerpts from the first two of the three volumes of the journal. It should be remembered that at this period husbands and wives of the nobility lived in separate establishments.
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The years of my youth have passed, and I can see little in them that suggests greatness. It is, I suppose, natural that I should have fallen into such mediocrity. I am less handsome than most, and my character is hardly remarkable. But as the days and nights have gone by in monotonous succession, I have had occasion to read most of the old romances, and I have found them masses of the rankest fabrication. Perhaps, I think to myself, the events of my own life, if I were to put them down in a journal, might attract attention, and indeed those who have been misled by the romancers might find in it a description of what the life of a well-placed lady is really like. But I must begin at the beginning, and I see that my memories of those first years have blurred. I shall not be surprised then if one finds traces of fiction here too….
It had become clear that I was to have a child. I passed a most un-
