The Pillow Book

Shonagon lists “venerable things” and songs in the next two chapters (230). Then, she outlines colors of gathered trousers, hunting costumes, shifts, formal train-robes, fan ribs, and cypress fans.

In Chapter 268, she lists deities. The deities of different places and shrines carry distinct memories of the natural beauty surrounding them. In Chapters 268 and 269, Shonagon lists promontories and huts. 

In Chapter 271, Shonagon describes “the calling of the night watch,” which she loves to hear (231). Then, she describes the sudden call of the Emperor, in the middle of the night, for his Chamberlains, or the “splendid” sound of music from his flute in the evening (232).

Shonagon tells, in Chapter 273, of the handsome and charismatic Captain Narinobu, who is the son of the Minister of War. Narinobu “never [hesitates] to criticize” while chatting on his frequent visits (232). Shonagon is confused by Narinobu’s ardorous visit to a woman at court on a stormy night. She thinks that “a moonlit night” is the best time to visit someone you love; rain is “so unpoetic that [she hates] it when there’s the least shower” (234). Visiting on a windy night is reasonable, and a snowy night is “most splendid of all” (235).

In Chapter 275, Shonagon lists “things of splendour and spectacle” (237). Ceremonies can be incredibly powerful. But thunderclaps, she explains next, are also commanding: they inspire great fear. Special thunder guards exit the building to protect it in a terrifying time.

On a cold night, when one is lost or has lost track of time, Shonagon finds great comfort in returning home to a warm brazier. When one has been at home, however, “so deep in conversation” as to lose track of time, she is bothered by the need to relight new charcoal for warmth (237).

In the third month, Shonagon departs court for a period of abstinence. She stays in some people’s homes. She is “overwhelmed with boredom” and awaits a message from the Empress (239). The message, when it arrives, expresses the Empress’s sadness in her absence. She returns to court the next morning, though the dramatic phrasing of her note back to the Empress earns her some mocking from the courtiers in her company.

She describes a service held on a snowy day in the twelfth month. The “pre-dawn moon” lights up the landscape (240). It is an “unspeakably marvellous scene” in which “the moonlight glows beautifully” on lustrous fabrics worn by men and women alike (240).

In Chapter 283, Shonagon describes gatherings of gentlewomen outside of the courts where they work. There, they praise their masters and gossip about others. They also read and reflect upon some poetry. Shonagon wonders “if it’s wrong to feel a fascination with the way those in high places live” (241).

Shonagon’s list of “things that irritate” is short, consisting of just “yawns” and “children,” but her list of “things one must be wary of” is longer and more complex (241). Boat crossings are especially precarious, and Shonagon goes to great lengths to explain the scene of a boat crossing and the numerous reasons why it is a precarious operation.

She tells more stories of interesting poems written by people, some of which she witnessed and some of which are simply stories she’s heard. 

Just as, in Chapter 289, Shonagon regrets hearing “some quite worthless person blithely reciting a poem” about which she cares, so too do others around her recoil when they hear “a mere common woman” praising a highborn man (244). At this point, the man is respected less, for “even ladies should not be praised by lowly people”: the poor should speak ill of those ranked above them (244).

In Chapter 291, Shonagon is disgusted by the way that Gate Watch officers sleep with women while on night patrol.

One day, a man approaches where Shonagon sits and asks to share his “tale of woe,” looking “ready to burst into tears on the spot” (246). His home caught fire, he explains, and “nothing could be saved” (246). The Empress laughs, and Shonagon writes a note to him, which the illiterate man cannot read. All are caught up in a fit of laughter as they send him off to seek someone who can read the note for him.

In Chapter 294, Shonagon tells the story of a man whose mother died and whose father took a new wife. He moves into a different part of the house and decorates it well. The Emperor likes the man, but his “heart [remains] somehow heavy” and he commits himself “immoderately into the affairs of the heart” (248). Shonagon begins to tell of his sister, but her commentary on the woman trails off.

A woman seeks Shonagon’s advice on what to write to a man who is courting her but is also pursuing another woman. In the next chapter, Shonagon responds to a woman who notices her agitation with a poem about “the racing waters of the heart” (249).

In Chapter 297, a person asks if it is true that Shonagon is “leaving the capital before long” (249). She replies, of course, in a poem.