The Pillow Book

In Chapters 10 and 11, Shonagon lists mountains and markets and the places where they are found. Then, in the next chapters, she describes the peaks, plains, and river pools in the area. She pauses, in these lists, to describe the “special feeling” that reflecting upon some places gives her (16). The Kashiko pool, for example, makes her “wonder what hidden depths someone saw in its heart, to give it such a name” (16).

Chapters 15 through 19 list bodies of water, imperial tombs, ferry crossings, large buildings, and residences of note. Occasionally, Shonagon provides commentary on which are “fine” or otherwise remarkable (17). 

In Chapter 20, Shonagon tells a story about some sliding doors at the entrance to the Empress’s room. The panels “are painted with scenes of rough seas, and terrifying creatures with long arms and legs” (17). On the day that she remembers, the gentlewomen wear “cherry-blossom combination Chinese jackets” and robes in “a fine blend of wisteria and kerria-yellow,” following a seasonal color pattern (17). Massive cherry blossoms festoon the area.

Shonegon remembers that, after his meal, the Emperor enters the space. When the Empress asks her to grind ink and then write “the first ancient poem that springs to mind,” she is “so agog at the scene” around her that she can hardly write (18). The Empress then tells a story of an Emperor long ago who asked his men in waiting to do the same. Shonagon tells of several of the tasks of memory and poetry with which courtiers have been challenged across history.

Chapter 21 is a meditation on the “women without prospect,” those “who lead dull earnest lives and rejoice in their petty little pseudo-pleasures” (22). Shonagon finds such women “depressing and despicable” (22). She believes that young women should become attendants to nobility because such roles expose them to society and they learn.

Shonagon also disparages men who believe that women who serve at court are “frivolous and unseemly” (22). She can understand where this false impression comes from, though. A married woman might be more respectable, “but surely there’s considerable honour in being called Chief Gentlewoman” (22). Time in court helps to refine her so that, when married, “she won’t make a fool of herself with the kind of stupid, boorish questions that country people ask” (22).

In the next long chapter, Shonagon lists “dispiriting things” like “a dog howling in the middle of the day” (22). Some of these examples are general, and some are relevant to daily life within a household. A letter coming from home in the provinces without a gift is a great disappointment, as is a carefully written letter responded to with a dismissive note that “there was no one in” (23).

Another dispiriting moment comes when a man ceases to visit his wife and instead goes “off with a lady of good family who serves at court” (23). Even so, it is “even more dispiriting for a man when a woman fails to visit him” (24). The “most depressing,” though, is when a marriage has passed four or five years without a “joyous birth celebration” (25).

Chapter 23 follows, then, with a list of “occasions that induce half-heartedness” (26). These are primarily religious. Then, she offers a short list of “things people despise,” followed by a list of “infuriating things” (26). People who behave boisterously or crave attention seem to infuriate Shonagon most.

After listing those behaviors, though, Shonagon lists less controllable sounds, like a baby crying or “a flock of crows clamouring raucously” (27). She continues to add to this list, also pointing out troublesome romantic frustrations, like when “a man you’re in relationship with speaks admiringly of some woman who was once his lover” (29).

After these layers of disappointment, Chapter 26 opens with a list of “things that make your heart beat fast” (29). These excitements are natural, like the birth of new birds, good lighting, or beauty rituals. The next chapters add “things that make you feel nostalgic” and “things that make you feel cheerful” (30). Shonagon finds pleasure even from a reading at a Buddhist altar recited “beautifully clearly and fluently, far better than you were expecting” (30).

This sense for the delicate reappears in Shonagon’s description of how different kinds of carriages “should move” (30). Even the motion of a vehicle has an effect on passersby that should mirror or reflect its intent.

Beauty and religion come together often for Shonagon. In Chapter 30, she appreciates the beauty of an attractive priest, even as she recognizes her own sinfulness in appreciating it. In Chapter 31, Shonagon describes receiving a message while attending a temple ceremony requesting that she return there. She responds, in the form of a poem, asking: “how should I leave this and go back / to that unhappy other world?” (33).

The ceremony, the Salvation Lotus discourses, is “a very special event” for which attendees arrive early (34). Shonagon describes the nobility who attend the ceremony, carefully noting details about their clothing, which is “utterly awe-inspiring and delightful” (34).

Shonagon describes a woman, whose “lover must have already left,” lying in the dawn light in the summertime (38). She luxuriously describes the woman’s garments and her casual posture. Then, she describes a man passing by, probably also from a nighttime visit to a lover, who sees this woman through the window. The woman notices him looking, and “she is vexed that he’s seen her like this” (39). The two flirt until the woman’s visitor’s next-morning letter arrives. Later, the man is “entertained to find himself wondering if another man had similarly been visiting the woman whose bed he earlier left himself” (39).

Immediately after this story, Shonagon lists the flowering trees that she knows. Compared to the many beautiful trees, “the blossoms of the pear tree are generally considered to be horrid things” (40). She finds some beauty in them, though, as she does in the melia, which “is an ugly tree” but has “lovely” flowers (41).

After this list, Shonagon adds a list of ponds and their various virtues and stories.

Seasonal palace festivals are the subject of Chapter 36, specifically the fifth month’s. There is nothing “rare and special” about the festivities, but Shonagon enjoys them nonetheless; “after all,” she thinks, “the cherry blossom blooms every year, but does anyone find it less lovely for that?” (42).

Chapter 37 catalogues “tree that have no flowers,” some of which have “nothing to be said” about them (43). Though many of these trees are unremarkable, Shonagon feels that she “can never be insensible to anything that on some occasion of other [she has] heard about and remembered because it moved or fascinated” her (44).

Perhaps this is the reason why, in a catalog of birds, the “quite horrible” looking heron still has, to Shonagon, some “charming” attributes (45). Shonagon notes the intricacies of different birds’ calls. When, in Chapter Thirty-Nine, she recalls “refined and elegant things,” that sense of intricacy remains (39). 

Chapter 40 accounts for different kinds of insects. Shonagon elaborates on the bagworm, which is both “a very touching creature” and “a demon’s child” (46). The snap-beetle seems to be a Buddhist, “for it continually touches its forehead to the ground in prayer as it walks along” (47).

Shonagon’s descriptions of summer continue, but in the seventh month, she writes, “your fan lies forgotten because of the sudden coolness in the air” (47).

From nature, in Chapter 42, Shonagon switches to “unsuitable things” (47). Matters of taste, class, and social order disgust her, like “an ageing woman who is pregnant” or “a commoner wearing crimson skirted trousers” (47).

Amid observations of moments and stations at court, Shonagon firmly presents her position that court life is a superior life. Even the palace groundswomen, whose work is “menial,” are well off (48). She fantasizes about having “a sweet-faced one of [her] own” to dress up (48).

Major Controller Yukinari trusts Sei Shonagon alone to deliver messages to Her Majesty the Empress. After a long time in this relationship, during which time Yukinari never sees Shonagon, he finally spies on her one day through a window opening. After they speak, “he [lifts] the blind and, well, it would seem that in he came…” (51).

In Chapters 47 through 49, Shonagon describes horses, oxen, and cats. She prefers specific kinds of white markings on darker animals.