The Pillow Book

Shonagon begins Chapter 60 with a wish that male lovers would not waste time at dawn fussing over their clothing. She describes what it would mean for a lover’s departure to be “tasteful” (55).

Chapters 61-63 list bridges, villages, and plants. Shonagon’s interest in and knowledge of plants is deep, and she wonders about the shapes and positions that plants take. Water plantains, for example, are like “a stuck-up person with her nose in the air” (57).

Flowering plants have their own chapter, and Shonagon describes both the colors and shapes of their flowers. She is curious about why plants became the way that they are.

From these flowers, the fragments turn to short lists of poetic anthologies and topics for poetry. Shonagon’s short list of topics is diverse: “The capital. The kudzu vine. The water burr. Horses. Hail” (59).

For a list of “disturbing things,” she has more words. Most of the disturbances have to do with people, specifically their behaviors. For example, disobedient servants and inconsolable children are disturbing.

Chapter 68 brings together a list of “things that can’t be compared,” like “laughter and anger” and “old age and youth” (59).

Once again, Shonagon describes the summer setting, a perfect time for love. Yet winter, too, is “delightful,” and morning’s arrival during both seasons is full of feeling (60).

In Chapter 70, Shonagon describes a situation in which a man waits for a group of women sitting behind screens. The man’s attendant grows impatient and complains loudly. Attendants, Shonagon complains, “are all like this”; in selecting retainers, one should try to “choose someone of good character” (61).

In Chapter 71, Shonagon lists “rare things,” like “a pair of silver tweezers that can actually pull out hairs properly” or “a retainer who doesn’t speak ill of his master” (61). “Two women,” or really any two people, “who vow themselves to each other forever” and manage to stay together are equally rare (61).

The rooms in which Shonagon lives are “marvellous,” she tells her reader, in both summer and winter (62). The windows allow light in, which allows her to observe the world outside and to listen easily to singing and ceremony.

Shonagon remembers a residency at the Office of the Empress’s Household, which was a time when “visits from senior courtiers never ceased day or night” (64).

In Chapters 74 and 75, Shonagon lists “things later regretted,” like “an adopted child who turns out to have an ugly face,” and “things that look enjoyable” (64).

Returning to the calendar of festivals and ceremony, Shonagon describes the practice, following the Litany of Buddha names, of viewing “hell-painting screens” that inspire “sheer horror” (65). On one particular occasion, she remembers rain outdoors and music brought in to entertain the group. The music heals her fear of the hellish images.

In Chapter 77, Shonagon remembers a time when negative rumors circulated about her. Captain Tadanobu believed the rumors and would no longer even look at her. One day, though, he decides to break the silence with a note. In the exchange that follows, Shonagon proves her cleverness, and Tadanobu changes his opinion of her.

The next year, Tadanobu comes to visit in the night, but the maid sends him away. Tadanobu persists, though, and sends another message “saying he had to leave at once, but first that he had something he must tell” Shonagon (70). When he arrives, he looks “magnificent” in “a gorgeous damask cloak” (70). She recognizes that, in the beauty of the scene, she is “an ageing woman well past her prime” (71). When their conversation is over, Shonagon is pleased that the Empress and all the other ladies speak highly of his splendor too.

Shonagon describes a visit home in Chapter 79. She tries to keep her visit as secret as possible. Her close relationship with a man named Norimitsu falls apart because Shonagon insists on writing her messages to him in poems. Writing those poems is a way to signal to him that she wants “to break off relations,” he says (74). 

The Empress requests that Shonagon return to court, saying that she will “absolutely hate” her if the return is delayed (75).

Back at the Empress’s home, away from the imperial palace, Shonagon describes a curious moment during a Buddhist ceremony. In a “remarkably bright and elegant” voice, a haggard old nun asks for offerings from the crowd (75). Shonagon shares her food, then they begin “to chatter about all manner of things” (76). The nun begins to sing grotesque and scandalous songs, equally entertaining and disgusting the young women around her. The Empress, unhappy about what’s happening, presents the old nun with a gown and sends her off. The visit, though, “apparently gave” the nun “a taste for visiting” (77).

Days after this encounter with the nun, a large snow falls. In a hurry to clear the snow away, laborers make a snow mountain that takes a long time to melt. It lasts even until the first day of the next year, when yet another heavy snow comes. Shonagon watches the snow mountain, even prays that it will not melt, and laments the thought that she would need to move back to the imperial palace “without ever knowing the moment of [her] mountain’s final end” (82). Even from the imperial palace, she monitors the mountain through a system of messengers; she bets that it will last until the fifteenth day, and she worries when rain arrives on the thirteenth.

When Shonagon sends a messenger to collect the small remaining amount on the fifteenth, she discovers that the snow is gone. Shonagon feels shame in explaining this to the Empress, especially because she had prepared a poem about the snow, but the Empress admits that she had ordered the snow mountain to be removed. The Emperor heard about the snow mountain and finds great humor in the betting contest between Shonagon and his courtiers.

Shonagon follows this long story with a list of “splendid things,” ranging from fabrics to images and “richly coloured clusters of wisteria blossom hanging from a pine tree” (85). Chamberlains, especially “in those special green robes” reserved for the rank, are splendid (85). Men “of scholarly accomplishment” are also splendid, especially when praised for intellectual work; this carries over to educated priests, too (86). Chapter 84 is a similarly diverse list of “things of elegant beauty,” from people to objects (87).

In Chapter 85, Shonagon describes the detailed costumes of the Empress’s Gosechi dancers on the night of the Day of the Dragon. The red cord on one woman’s outfit comes undone and Captain Sanekata ties it for her, an action that seems “rather suggestive” to those around (89). Around the Gosechi Festival, everything “becomes simply delightful,” Shonagon explains (90). A series of beautiful sights and events occur across the days.

In Chapter 88, Shonagon remembers touching and seeing a series of beautiful instruments in the Emperor’s collection, each of which has a name. In the Empress’s court, Shonagon can remember whole days when courtiers play music outside of the Empress’s rooms, from behind the blinds. 

In Chapter 90, Shonagon begins another list of “infuriating things,” many of which involve forgotten or regrettable actions (93). Sewing clothing incorrectly is particularly frustrating. Rudeness, too, is intolerable for Shonagon. Following this list comes a list of “things it’s frustrating and embarrassing to witness,” like the betrayal of secrets by a lover or gossip about another when they are “sitting within earshot” (95). Mostly, prideful behavior by the rude and uneducated is uncomfortable.

“Startling and disconcerting things,” like “an ox cart that’s overturned,” follow this list of frustrations (96). “Regrettable things” are different, usually frustrations that are outside of human control (96). When a Buddhist period of abstinence coincides with a festival, for example, Shonagon regrets this coincidence, though it is the result of no person’s actions.

Shonagon tells the story of one such period of abstinence in Chapter 94. She suggests to others that they “go off on an expedition to hear the hototogisu,” a poetry performance (97). They visit a “deliberately old-fashioned house” in the country where hototogisu are “calling back and forth, so loudly in fact that they [make] almost too much of a din for comfort” (98). The host invites them to see rice threshed in the fields.

As rain sets in, the group runs back to their carriage, gathering flowers with which to weave into the thatch along the way. They hope that people in the street will see them, but to their “great disappointment all [they] came across was the odd worthless commoner and a lowly priest or two” (99). They want to “make sure the story of this carriage” is told (99). They enlist Advisor Kiminobu to tell their story, and then, as the rain sets in, they run into the palace. They have not yet, though, written poems about the experience, and the Empress is disappointed that they lack something to show for the excursion. Within the next few days, though, Shonagon and the Empress write poems to one another that heal the disappointment.

In Chapter 95, Shonagon tells of a serene moment listening to the biwa (a kind of lute) in the Empress’s apartment. She is criticized for “looking too forlorn,” because she sits in silence. She replies, though, that she is “simply immersing [herself] in the spirit of the moonlight” (104).

One memorable event, for Shonagon, is the celebrations “around the time when the Shigeisa entered the court of the Crown Prince” (106). While she prepares Her Majesty’s hair, the Empress encourages her to stand “by the pillar behind the screen, and sneak a look” at the lovely woman when she arrives (107).

Shonagon notices, first, the woman’s clothing: she wears “layer upon layer of gowns in lighter and darker shades of plum-pink, with over this a rich damask gown” and an over-robe of “reddish maroon figured silk” with green brocade (108). She looks “utterly splendid and wonderful” (108). Though the young woman is nervous, and some poke fun at her, the evening is pleasurable for all who accompany her. Shonagon watches and records the ceremonial meals and events of the day.