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A few more of her enumerations may be added. DREARY THINGS. A nursery where the child has died. A brazier with the fire gone out. A coachman who its hated by his ox, The birth of a succession of female children in the house of a learned scholar. A letter from one’s country home with no news in it. 114 JAPANESE LITERATURE \ DETESTABLE THINGS. Of these the author has a long list, of which the _ following are a few :— A visitor who tells a long story when you are in a hurry. If he is a person you are intimate with, you can pack him off, saying that you will hear it another time. But those whom you cannot treat in this way are very detestable. An exorcist who, when sent for in a case of sudden illness, recites his charms as if he were half asleep. Babies that cry or dogs that: bark when you want to listen. The snoring of a man whom you are trying to con- ceal, and who has gone to sleep in a place where. he has no business. People who ride in a creaking carriage. Such people must be deaf, and are very detestable. When you ride in such a carriage yourself it is the owner who is de- testable. People who interrupt your stories to show off their own cleverness. All interrupters, young or old, are very detestable. People who, when you are telling a story, break in with, “Oh, I know,” and give quite a different version from your own. Either at home or in the palace to be roused up to receive an unwelcome visitor, in order to avoid whom you have been pretending to be asleep. While on friendly terms with a man, to hear him sound the praises of a woman whom he has known. This is detestable even when some time has elapsed, much more so if he is still acquainted with her. . MAKURA ZOSHI Sars People who mumble a prayer when they sneeze. N.L.—Loud sneezing is detestable, except in the case of the gentlemen of the house. Fleas are very detestable, especially when they get under your clothing and jump about. As a contrast to “Detestable Things,” a few ‘“ Things which give one a Thrill” may be added :— To see sparrows feeding their young. To pass by where infants are playing. To find that your Chinese (metal) mirror is beginning to get dim. To be asked the way by a handsome man who stops his carriage for the purpose. Among “Things which Excite Regrets for the Past,” Sei Shonagon enumerates :— Withered hollyhocks. (Reminding one of the festivals they have been used for.) : On a wet day to turn over the letters of a person once loved by us. Last year’s fans. (No doubt with sentimental Tanka written on them.) Bright moonlight nights. Here are a few “Cheerful Things” :— Coming home from an excursion with the carriages full to overflowing, to have lots of footmen who make the oxen go and the carriages speed along. A river boat going down stream. Teeth nicely blackened. To hear a well-voiced professor of magic recite his purification service on a river bank, 116 JAPANESE LITERATURE A drink of water when awake during the night. When in a dull mood, to have a visitor neither so inti- mate as to be uninteresting, nor too great a stranger to be unreserved, who will tell us what is going on in the world—things pleasant or odious or strange, now touch- ing on this, now on that, private matters or public—in just sufficient detail not to be tedious. This is very agreeable. Here follow the “points” of carriage-oxen, horses, coachmen (who should be big men, of a ruddy counte- nance, and a consequential demeanour), footmen, pages, cats, and preachers. The last subject is treated at some length. “A preacher,” she says, ‘ought to be a good-looking man. It is then easier to keep your eyes fixed on his face, without which it is impossible to benefit by the discourse. Otherwise the eyes wander and you forget to listen. Ugly preachers have therefore a grave respon- sibility. But no more of this!” She adds, however, “Tf preachers were of a more suitable age I should have pleasure in giving a more favourable judgment. As matters actually stand, their sins are too fearful to think of.” If any apology is needed for the length of these extracts, it may be pleaded that they represent that which is best and at the same time most quotable in Japanese literature. They are taken almost exclusively from the first two of the twelve volumes (646 pp.) of which this entertaining miscellany consists. It is hard to realise that it was written in Japan nine hun- dred years ago. If we compare it with anything that Europe had to show at this period, it must be admitted MAKURA ZOSHI I17 that it is indeed a remarkable work. What a revelation it would be if we had the court life of Alfred’s or Canute’s reign depicted to us in a similar way. Both the Genji Monogatari and the Makura Zéshz are only imperfectly intelligible even to educated Japanese, and they are little read at the present day. This is to be regretted, as modern writers would derive much benefit from making these old masterpieces their study and example. CHAPTER VI SOME MINOR WORKS THE author of the Sagoromo Monogatari was a court official named Daini no Sammi, the daughter of Murasaki no Shikibu. Her work, a love-story of considerable length, is an obvious imitation of the Geujz Monogatarz, but much inferior both in style and matter. It is be- lieved to have been written about A.D. 1040. The Sarashina Nikki, by a daughter of Sugawara no Takasuye, a descendant in the sixth generation of the famous statesman Sugawara no Michizane, was com- pleted in the reign of the Emperor Go Rei-zei (1046- 1068). It is the record of a journey from Shimosa to Kioto by the Tokaido in 1021, and of a second journey from Kidto to Sarashina, in the province of Shinano, some years later. It is written in a vein of melancholy sentiment, and is plentifully adorned with doleful Tanka. Nothing is known as to the date and authorship of the Zorikayebaya Monogatari. It is believed to have been written subsequently to the Sagoromo, and would therefore belong to the middle or end of the eleventh century. The Zorzkayebaya Monogatari is a story of the difficulties experienced by a nobleman in the education of his two children, a boy and a girl. The boy is fond of feminine pursuits and amusements, and the girl just the reverse, much to the annoyance of their father, who used 338 UJI MONOGATARI. /— 119 frequently to exclaim, “Torikayebaya!” that is, “Oh! if I could only exchange them.”1 All he can do is to have the boy dressed in girl’s clothes and treated accord- ingly, while the girl is brought up as a boy. The results are unsatisfactory from a moral point of view. The author of the collection of stories entitled Wz Monogatart was a court noble named Minamoto no Takakuni, better known as Uji Dainagon, from his place of residence and rank. He died A.D. 1077, at an advanced age. Being a fat man, and greatly disliking the hot weather, he used to retire for the summer season to Uji, a village not far from Kioto, on the bank of the river which flows out of Lake Biwa. Here he built a little tea-house on the roadside near his country-seat, where tea was offered to the passers-by. They were then in- vited to tell stories, which the Dainagon, sitting behind a screen, took down from their mouths. Most of the stories so collected are obviously fictitious; but, true or false, they have a special interest, inasmuch as they present a fuller and livelier picture of the lives and ideas of the middle and lower classes than most other works of this period. As might be expected from the manner of its com- pilation, the U7z Monogatari contains a large element of folk-lore. The style is easy and unpretentious. Thirty of the sixty thin volumes of which it consists are assigned to Japanese stories, the remainder containing tales of Chinese or Indian origin. Probably not all of these were collected in the manner above described, and a certain 1 The reader may think that this is a great deal to express by the one word, “6 Tori-kaye-ba-ya!” Itis literally ‘“ Take-change-if-oh !”” Note the absence of personal pronouns, to the use of which the genius of the Japanese language is averse, 120 JAPANESE LITERATURE | proportion, it is believed, have been added by later editors. The following outlines of a few may give some idea of the general character of this collection :— A painter named Kawanari has an intimate friend, an architect and engineer called Hida no Takumi. The latter, having built a small square pavilion, invites his friend to enter it. The painter approaches the south door, when by some mechanical coritrivance it shuts in his face. When he tries to go in by the west door, it closes and the north door opens. And so on. In revenge for the practical joke thus played on him, Kawanari paints on a screen the picture of a corpse so loathsome and repulsive, that when Hida no Takumi is made to approach it unawares he starts back in horror and rushes out into the garden. A Buddhist monk, a renowned player of Go, 1s invited to visit a mysterious lady. With a screen interposed between them, they play a game which ends in the total massacre of the monk’s men. The lady is never heard of again, and is presumed to have been a supernatural being. A professor of magic, by some mistake in his cere- monies, excites the wrath of the infernal demons. They pursue him. He gets off his horse and lets it go home by itself, while he hides among the sheaves in a rice-field by the way. The demons follow the tracks of the horse’s feet, and thé magician escapes, having learnt from the conversation of his pursuers as they pass his hiding- place how to circumvent them when they renew their attack upon him. A professor of magic goes to perform a ceremony of purification from evil influences.