The Pillow Book is a diary composed by Sei Shōnagon, a young woman who served in the imperial court at Kyoto during Japan’s Heian period. Specifically, Sei was a gentlewoman in the service of the Empress Teishi, from roughly the year 993 until 1000 C.E. Sei herself was born in an outlying province where her father served as a governor. Once she moves into Empress Teishi’s household in early adulthood, however, the rural province of her birth seems like an entirely different world. This shift is reflected in Sei’s diary, which tends to draw a firm distinction between court life and common life. By generally describing aspects of court life as delightful and contrasting them with undesirable common life, Sei creates a picture of higher imperial society as inherently worthy of being seen and enjoyed, and of commoners’ lives as rightly disparaged and ignored.
Sei sees court life (that is, higher society) as a more valuable form of existence than life as a commoner. Sei views commoners as generally unworthy of being seen or heard: “Women without prospect, who lead dull earnest lives and rejoice in their petty little pseudo-pleasures, I find quite depressing and despicable. People of any standing ought to give their daughters a taste of society. They should show them the world and let them become familiar with its ways, by serving as attendants at the palace or other such positions.” Sei’s tangible disdain for such women’s “dull earnest lives” reflects her own change in status once she moves from the country to the court. Though the Empress’s court is a small, self-contained universe in its own right, Sei believes it’s a world that offers more authentic pleasures and prospects than anything the provinces have to offer. In a list Sei titles “Unsuitable things,” her bias against the “common” comes through again: “Snow falling on the houses of the common people. Moonlight shining into such houses is also a great shame. So is meeting with a plain roofless ox cart on a moonlit night, or seeing a cart of this sort being drawn by an auburn-coloured ox.” (An endnote clarifies that auburn-colored oxen were prized by the aristocracy.) The reason Sei considers each of these things to be “unsuitable” is that things of great beauty—snow, moonlight, auburn oxen—are set against a background of “common” life. The suitability, and hence the worthiness and desirability of something, seems to depend on its fittingness within its setting—meaning that, for Sei, “common” things can never really be beautiful. This attitude suggests that Sei is trying to distance herself from her own provincial upbringing.
Whereas common things lack beauty and are even despicable (unworthy of being seen) by Sei’s estimation, court life is largely based upon displaying beauty and enjoying others’ beauty. A significant aspect of court life is the complicated system governing the types and styles of clothes which differentiated various members of the Japanese imperial court. For example, Sei describes “a Chamberlain of the sixth rank” as being a particularly “splendid” sight “in those special green robes he’s allowed to wear.” Subordinate officials look “inconsequential,” “but if they become Chamberlains they undergo an astonishing transformation,” like “heavenly beings descended to earth!” In other words, court culture dictates that only specific officials are allowed to wear certain colors and fabrics, and being granted the privilege of wearing particular clothing transforms the way others see that individual—to such an extent that these individuals go from being regarded as “inconsequential,” unworthy of notice, to “heavenly.” Ideally, most activities of court life involve opportunities to display beauty that’s befitting of one’s rank, and to be recognized by others of equivalent rank. Sei describes an occasion when a group “sets off together from the palace to visit a temple or some other place. The sleeves spill tastefully out from their carriage, scrupulously, even overscrupulously, arranged […],” but there are no passersby to admire them. Sei continues, “It’s quite extraordinary how, from sheer vexation, you find yourself longing for even some passing commoner to have the sensibility to appreciate the scene, and later spread the word.” Sei’s mentioning “even some passing commoner” implies that such commoners, who are unable to embody beauty themselves, are nevertheless useful to flatter the whims of court members. In other words, commoners aren’t worthy of notice or respect in themselves; they’re only valuable insofar as they recognize the beauty of the court, reinforcing the latter’s self-perception as beautiful.
Indeed, throughout the book, there’s generally a correspondence between the beauty of one’s attire and the “quality” of the wearer. When a beautifully-dressed member of the court behaves in a way that doesn’t match his attire (that is, he behaves more like a commoner), that person is scorned and shamed. Sei describes a notoriously foolish chamberlain as follows: “Masahiro is a great laughing-stock. […] He comes from a household where they prepare their clothes beautifully, and seeing him wearing those wonderfully coloured train-robes and elegant cloaks […] people sigh and say, ‘If only they were on someone else instead of Masahiro!’” Masahiro’s shame, in other words, is that he embodies a mismatch between imperial elegance and oafish awkwardness, which only befits a commoner. When there’s a mixing of these two worlds, as in Masahiro’s case, the logic of court life is disrupted, and the undesirable contaminates the elegance of the desirable.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Court Life vs. Common Life ThemeTracker
Court Life vs. Common Life Quotes in The Pillow Book
There are also those times when you send someone a poem you’re rather pleased with, and fail to receive one in reply. Of course there’s no more to be done about it if it’s to a man you care for. Even so, you do lose respect for someone who doesn’t produce any response to your tasteful seasonal references. It also dampens the spirit when you’re leading a heady life in the swim of things and you receive some boring little old-fashioned poem that reeks of the longueurs of the writer, whose time hangs heavy on her hands.
The uguisu is made out to be a wonderful bird in Chinese poetry, and both its voice and its appearance are really so enchanting that it’s very unseemly of it not to sing inside the grounds of our ‘nine-fold palace’. People did tell me this was so but I couldn’t believe it, yet during my ten years in the palace I did indeed never once hear it. This despite the fact that the palace is near bamboo groves and there are red plums, which would make it a fine place for an uguisu to come and go. Yet if you go out, you’ll hear one singing fit to burst in a nondescript plum tree in some lowly garden. […] In summer and right through to the end of autumn it maunders on and on in a wavery old voice, and lower sorts of people change its name to ‘flycatcher’, which I find quite unfortunate and ludicrous.
Unsuitable things—Snow falling on the houses of the common people. Moonlight shining into such houses is also a great shame. So is meeting with a plain roofless ox cart on a moonlit night, or seeing a cart of this sort being drawn by an auburn-coloured ox.
A Chamberlain of the sixth rank. He’s a quite splendid sight in those special green robes he’s allowed to wear, and he can wear damask, which even a high-ranking young nobleman is forbidden. Subordinate officials in the Chamberlain’s office […] look quite inconsequential at the time, but if they become Chamberlains they undergo an astonishing transformation. When they appear as bearer of an imperial pronouncement, or present the imperial gifts of sweet chestnuts and so forth at one of the great ministerial banquets, from the magnificent way they’re received you’d think they were heavenly beings descended to earth!
When I went out to meet him, he said admiringly, ‘I would have expected the person who received that to respond with some half-baked poem, but your reply was brilliant. A woman who fancies herself as a poet generally leaps at the chance to compose, but I much prefer someone who doesn’t behave like that. For the likes of me, a person who loves to reply with a poem comes across as actually having a much poorer sensibility than someone who doesn’t.’
[…] It’s very unseemly of me to boast like this, I know, but on the other hand I do think it’s an entertaining story.
I never intended this book to be seen by others, so I’ve written whatever came into my mind, without worrying about whether people would find it strange or unpleasant.
This is the final dance, and no doubt that’s why you feel particularly bereft when it draws to a close. As the nobles and others all get up and file out after the dancers, you’re filled with a frustrated longing for more, but this is assuaged in the case of the Provisional Kamo Festival by the Returning Dance. There’s a most moving and marvellous atmosphere then, with the slender ribbons of smoke rising from the courtyard watchfires and the wonderful wavering pure notes of the kagura flute lifting high, and the voices of the singers. It’s piercingly cold, the glossed silk of your robes is icy against the skin and your hand as it clutches the fan is chilled, but you notice none of this. I like the way the head dancer takes a terrific pleasure in performing the long-drawn-out call that summons the comic entertainers for the interlude.
When I first went into court service, everything seemed to overwhelm me with confusion and embarrassment, and there were times when I could barely hold back my tears. I attended Her Majesty each night, behind her low standing curtain, and she would bring out pictures and so on to show me, but I was so hopelessly nervous that I could scarcely even stretch out a hand to take them. She described what was in each picture, asked what I thought was happening and generally tried to set me at ease with her talk. […] It was a fearfully cold time of year, and the glimpse of her hands emerging from the wonderful, glowing pale plum-pink sleeves filled me with deep awe. I remember gazing at them in astonishment, still fresh from home and new to all I saw, and thinking, ‘I never knew someone so marvellous could exist!’
I particularly despise people who express themselves poorly in writing. How horrible it is to read language that rides roughshod over manners and social conventions. It’s also very poor to be over-polite with people who should rightly be treated less formally. It’s bad enough to receive poorly written letters oneself, and just as disgraceful when they’re sent to others.
Generally speaking, even when you hear someone use language in this sort of slovenly way when talking face to face, you wince and wonder to yourself how they can say such things, and it’s even more appalling when it’s directed to someone eminent. Though when it’s some country bumpkin who’s speaking like this, it’s actually funny, and therefore quite appropriate to them.
One young man, who married into the household of a man at the height of his fame and fortune, was never very diligent in calling on his new wife, and ceased coming altogether after a mere month. He was roundly condemned on every front […] Then in the New Year he was made a Chamberlain. […] In the sixth month of that year, everyone gathered to attend the Lotus Discourses that a certain person was dedicating, and there was this son-in-law the Chamberlain, dazzlingly attired in damask skirted trousers, black hanpi jacket and so forth, seated so close to the carriage of his neglected wife that his jacket cord might well have snagged on the tailpiece of her carriage. All the people in the other carriages who knew the details of the situation were thinking, ‘Poor thing, how must she be feeling to see him there?’ […] It does seem that men don’t have much sympathy for others, or understanding of how they’re feeling.
‘You see me as some upstart then?’ I inquired, to which another lady responded, ‘More on the level of a stable boy.’ Nevertheless, it was a glorious moment, to have the honour of being permitted to watch from above. No doubt it’s unseemly for me to be boasting like this, and it may well redound unforgivably on Her Majesty’s reputation, by giving an opportunity to those who would set themselves up as shallow judges of worldly matters to wag their heads sagely and declare, ‘To think that Her Majesty should favour such a creature!’ - yet I can only write the facts as they stand, after all. I freely admit that I was of a quite unworthy station to be the recipient of Her Majesty’s special attentions in this manner. […] But these events, which seemed to us so splendid and auspicious at the time, all look very different when compared with the present, and this is why I’ve set it all down in detail, with heavy heart.
