An Excerpt From Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book

I was supposed to be finishing up the first draft of an article I will be submitting to a magazine.  I'm close to finishing, but I couldn't help myself.  I hadn't posted anything on this blog for close to a month, and I might not have time to write here again until another month from now.  I decided I wanted to post a brief excerpt from my copy of Sei Shonagon's millennium old text The Pillow Book.  My copy came in the mail about a week after I began this blog.  I've only skimmed some of the book.  Besides writing short descriptive pieces of things in her life and in Japan 1000 years ago, Sei Shonagon wrote down a lot of lists. She seems to have been a finicky, but poetic and honest lady, someone I would enjoy chatting with over a cup of tea or coffee or whatever the drink of choice was in her day, as long as it didn't contain alcohol.  I don't drink alcohol.  

I was just looking through her book trying to relocate a description she wrote of the emperor gathering his friends at night and playing his favorite musical instrument for them.  She claims listening to him play at night was quite pleasant.  Hopefully she wasn't being sycophantic, but from the little I have skimmed, she probably wasn't or at least not completely. 

Here is one of her lists, an excerpt from her book, as translated by Ivan Morris.  I like her lists because they give a hint about her personality, skills of observation, and her poetic spirit.

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.
Wistaria blossoms.  Plum blossoms covered with snow.
A pretty child eating strawberries.

*The leaves and stems from the liana vine were used as a sweetener before the introduction of sugar to Japan, according to the notes in Ivan Morris' translation of Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book.