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context: literature > Heian
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon
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a fanciful Edo period print representing Sei Shonagon |
The Makurano Soshi was written in the 990s by Sei Shonagon (born c.965), a lady in waiting to the empress. The title has become associated with sex manuals given to newly married women, but this is nothing like that. It's a miscellany of lists, anecdotes, observations, opinions, diary entries, character sketches and the like. No one knows what order it should be in, and different editions organise it differently, in a few now traditional ways. The observations, of weather and flowers and clothes and so on, are particularly striking, and the book is full of intelligence and wit, plus a lot of snobbery (as one would expect in so hierarchical a society). Here is one brief entry:
Elegant Things
A white coat worn over a violet waistcoat.
Duck eggs.
Shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl.
A rosary of rock crystal.
Snow on wisteria or plum blossoms.
A pretty child eating strawberries.