Note 1 — INTRODUCTION
Arthur Waley translation
Diary, Hakubunkwan text, p. 51.
2 Died young, perhaps about 1012, while serving on his father’s staff in Echigo.
3 Diary, p. 51.
4 963–1035. Vestal at Kamo during five successive reigns. One of the most important figures of her day; known to history as the Great Vestal.
5 The third and fourth body of Po Chü-i’s poetical works, including Magic, The Old Man with the Broken Arm, The Prisoner, The Two Red Towers, and The Dragon of the Pool, all of which are translated in my ‘170 Chinese Poems.’
6 Michinaga.
7 ‘You have neither read my book nor won my love.’ Both poems contain a number of double-meanings which it would be tedious to unravel.
8 Kui-na means ‘water-rail’ and ‘regret not.’
9 The parent of the Empress.
10 Lady-in-waiting to the Empress Sadako, Akiko’s predecessor.
11 He was now 64.
12 Fujiwara no Kintō (966–1041), famous poet; cousin of Michinaga.
13 See p. 22. Shōnagon was about ten years senior to Murasaki. She was lady-in-waiting first to the Empress Sadako (died, 1000 A.D.); then to Sadako’s sister Princess Shigesa (died, 1002 A.D.); finally to the Empress Akiko.
14 Murasaki suggests that Shōnagon will lose Akiko’s confidence and be dismissed. There is indeed a tradition (Kojidan, vol. ii) that when some courtiers were out walking one day they passed a dilapidated hovel. One of them mentioned a rumour that Sei Shōnagon, a wit and beauty of the last reign, was now living in this place. Whereupon an incredibly lean hag shot her head out at the door, crying ‘Won’t you buy old bones, old rags and bones?’ and immediately disappeared again.
15 At the Prime Minister’s.
16 Her parents’ house.
17 After the death of her husband.
18 See below, p. 125.
19 For the Emperor’s remark, see above, p. 25.
20 Murasaki was outlived by her father, so that it is improbable that she reached any great age.