PRELIMINARY NOTES
1. I have here translated about a quarter of the Pillow-Book.[1] Omissions have been made only where the original was dull, unintelligible, repetitive, or so packed with allusion that it required an impracticable amount of commentary.
2. Short extracts from the Pillow-Book will be found in Aston’s Japanese Literature (1899), Florenz’s Geschichte der Jap. Litteratur (1906), and Revon’s Anthologie de la Littérature Japonaise (1910). Save for a line or two here and there, and two anecdotes (pp. 78 and 113), parts of which are translated by Aston and Revon, I have avoided what has been translated before, not on principle, but because it seemed to me that, on the whole, the least interesting passages had been chosen.[2]
3. The text I have used is that of the Makura no Sōshi Hyōshaku (first published, 1924; 2nd edition in one volume, 1926), by Kaneko Moto-omi, to whose commentary I am greatly indebted. The proofs have been read by Miss Sybil Pye and Mr. Tadao Doi, to both of whom I am very grateful.
THE PILLOW-BOOK OF SEI SHŌNAGON
