The Diary of Lady Murasaki Read Online Free PDF Page B

states that he met some of the seventy Chinese refugees who had landed in Wakasa the previous year and that he exchanged poems with them.
    He returned to the capital around Chōhō 2 (1000), and was again without official post for some nine years. There are records of him taking part in numerous poetry competitions, however, so he was not entirely without friends nor entirely destitute. Then in Kankō 8 (1011).2.1 he was appointed Governor of Echigo. This time he took with him his son Nobunori, who fell ill and died there soon after his arrival. Suddenly in Chōwa 3 (1014).6.17 Tametoki abandoned his post and returned to the capital. Two years later in Chōwa 5 (1016).4.29 he retired to the temple at Miidera, where his third son, Jōsen,was a priest. His final rank was Senior Fifth Rank, Upper Grade. The last record we have is dated Kannin 2 (1018).1.21, where he is listed as being present at a banquet held by Regent Yorimichi; he must have died soon after, perhaps in 1020.
    When was Murasaki herself born? This is a subject of lively debate, but 973 is generally accepted as being close to the mark. Our knowledge of her early years is extremely sketchy. The prefaces to poems20–28 and 81–83 in the collection of her poetry suggest strongly that she accompanied her father to Echizen in the summer of 996, and she seems to have returned in 998 to marry Fujiwara no Nobutaka (950?–1001). Nobutaka was almost as old as her father and had a number of other wives – the mid-fourteenth-century genealogy Sonpi bunmyaku lists three women who bore him sons. He was in a somewhat similar position to her father and they had worked together under Emperor Kazan, but he had done rather better than Tametoki. From a passage in Sei Shōnagon’s Makura no sōshi (‘Pillow Book’) 5 we know him to have been a flamboyant character, and a document dated Chōhō 1 (999).8.27 tells of serious disturbances caused by his high-handed methods as a provincial governor. Tradition has it that his marriage to Murasaki was a happy one; they had a daughter in 999, but he was carried away by an epidemic in Chōhō 3 (1001).4.25.
    For the next four or five years Murasaki seems to have led a lonely widow’s existence, during which time she began the work of fiction that was to bring her fame and secure her a place at court. We do not know for sure but can assume that she began writing the Genji monogatari sometime in either 1002 or 1003, and had written a fair amount by the time she entered the service of Shōshi. It may well be that chapters were read at court and came to the notice of Michinaga, who decided that she would be an excellent addition to his daughter’s already impressive entourage.
    When Murasaki actually arrived at court is not known. We know from her diary that she entered on ‘the twenty-ninth of the twelfth month’ (p. 44), but we do not know whether this refers to 1005 or 1006. Much of the evidence is circumstantial, but on Kankō 3 (1006).12.29 Fujiwara no Tokitaka, brother of her deceased husband Nobutaka, was allowed back into court after some misdemeanour, and on Kankō 4 (1007).1.13 her own brother Nobunori was promoted to Sixth Chamberlain. Michinaga may have been rewarding Murasaki onentry into service. This and some matters of internal consistency within the diary suggest that 1006 is the correct date.
    It would seem from the diary that Murasaki had few specific duties to perform and acted as cultural companion-cum-tutor to Shōshi. Certainly she had time to record what was going on in some detail and could sit aside from those more active participants in various ceremonies as a kind of observer. It is possible that Michinaga asked her to record the events that constituted his finest hour – the birth of Atsuhira – although it could equally well be argued that women in her position were in the habit of recording such events anyway: the Eiga monogatari (‘A Tale of Flowering Fortunes’), an extended narrative covering the