The Pillow Book

The “S” chapters are part of the Sankanbon fragments of The Pillow Book. One version suggests “that they are found after Section 141,” but in the Sankanbon text they are found at the end of the text, as they are in this version.

S1 lists “things that are better at night,” a list that includes rich, lustrous hair and silks. Violet silk, though, is one of the items that looks “worse by firelight,” as the next chapter describes (249). S3 lists “things that are hard on the ear,” like “a drowsy priest droning mantras” (249).

In S4, Shonagon lists “things whose Chinese characters make no sense, though there must be some reason to them” (250). Then, she lists “things that look lovely but are horrible inside” (250). Colors for women’s outer gowns, Chinese jackets, trains, girls’ over-robes, figured silks, damask patterns, and thin or decorated paper are the subject of the next few fragments.

S 13-15 lists Shonagon’s preferences for writing implements, like boxes, brushes, and inksticks. Then, in S16-22, she lists preferences for shells, comb boxes, mirrors, lacquer designs, braziers, tatami mats, and palm-leaf carriages.

In S23, Shonagon breaks from this series of lists to describe a pine-shaded mansion where a handsome priest performs a ritual. Women bear witness, and a young girl serves as medium for the ritual. The young girl is a body that houses a suffering spirit. Brothers and relatives crowd around the girl. “Were she in her right mind,” Shonagon notes, the medium would be “ashamed” to see the crowd watching her. They are “filled with pity to witness her fearful lamenting and wailing” (252).

When the spirit is dismissed, after it grovels for forgiveness, the medium is suddenly “aghast” to discover that she is viewed publicly, not hidden behind curtains (252). The priest moves on to the next ritual. Shonagon ends the chapter by listing, once again, her preference for handsome and young priests.

In S24, Shonagon lists “the best places for a palace service,” but in S25 she simply describes the beauty of “a dilapidated house” that is “flooded with moonlight from a brilliant rising moon” (253).

A pond, in the springtime, is a sight that Shonagon finds “deeply affecting” to stare at for hours (254). She returns, as she often does, back to the sight of the pond in moonlight, for “all moonlight is moving, wherever it may be” (254).

In S27, Shonagon explains her displeasure in sharing temple space with commoners. On one occasion, she wants “to simply shove them over” (254). It seems “apparently impossible to control the mob” (254).

S29 explains, as a conclusion, that she has “written in this book the things [she has] seen and thought,” not “ever dreaming that others would see it” (255). The book “has come to light,” despite Shonagon’s efforts to keep it secret (255). The Empress had given her paper with the intention that Shonagon would create a “pillow” book, and she set to filling the pages “with all manner of odd things, so no doubt there’s much [in the book] that makes no sense” (255). Overall, she writes, she chose “to write about the things that delight, or that people find impressive” (255). These things were “for [her] personal amusement” but were “never intended” to “be placed alongside other books and judge on par with them” (256). She claims she is upset that people have seen the pages.