The Pillow Book and Xianglu Peak

Reference Cultures and the Sino-Japanese Experience

As the old saying goes, if Murasaki Shikibu is a cherry blossom then her rival, Sei Shonagon, is a plum.

But what does that mean exactly?

Well, for starters: despite the fact that Murasaki Shikibu’s father was a famous scholar of Chinese, and Murasaki Shikibu was no slouch either, it was Sei Shonagon whose taste and intellect better reflected Chinese sensibilities; since China was the plum to Japan’s cherry blossoms and Shonagon knew how to think and dream in Tang poetry.

One of the things that is so wonderful about the Taiga drama this year is the way they are bringing so many famous scenes from Heian literature to life. Like this week, when Sei Shonagon, after divorcing her husband, finds her true destiny fulfilled in service to the Empress Consort Teishi (Sadako). How she admires Teishi.

And the world at court is so exciting…

This week, my heart skipped a beat when a famous scene from Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book was re-enacted, when her majesty says out of the blue,

‘Shōnagon, what do you make of the snow of Kōro Peak?’

Everyone seemed confused—except, of course, for Shonagon—that beautiful expert of all things Chinese— who instantly walks over to the heavy blinds and raises them high— revealing the beautiful snowscape outside.

Everyone laughs and complements her cleverness….

But if the empress merely wanted the blinds raised, why not just ask? And what is Koro Peak?

Mount Xianglu (simplified Chinese: 香炉峰; traditional Chinese: 香爐峰; pinyin: Xiānglú Fēng; lit. 'Censer Peak"/"Incense Burner Peak') is a mountain near Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China. Its summit has an elevation of 354 metres (1,161 ft).

It turns out that Mount Xianglu appeared in a well-known poem by Heian Japan’s favorite Chinese poet Bai Juyi:

日高睡足猶慵起
小閣重衾不怕寒
遺愛寺鐘欹枕聽
香爐峯雪撥簾看
　　　
匡廬便是逃名地
司馬仍爲送老官
心泰身寧是歸處
故鄕何獨在長安

The sun’s high and I’ve slept enough
And yet still I’m too lazy to get up

In this small room full of quilts piled up
The cold outside is not a problem

I prop myself up on my pillow,
Listening to the bell at Yiai Temple

Then rolling up the blinds, I gaze out
At the snow on Xianglu Peak

Lushan is the perfect place
To escape worldly affairs

And a lowly military marshal
A fitting post for old age

What a peaceful home to rest my heart
Chang’an is not my only home in the world

The relavant lines are:

And rolling up the blinds, I gaze out
At the snow on Xianglu Peak

Hence, when her majesty wonders about the snow piling up on Koro Peak, she is asking Shonagon to open the blinds so they can all enjoy the snowscape outside. And Shonagon ups the anty by not just referencing the poem back to her majesty, as would be customary in a poetry contest, but standing up to enact it.

My translation might be improved (or not) by spelling out the temple name: Yiai Temple 遺愛寺 is the temple of bequeathed love. Likewise Xianglu [Japanese Kōro] Peak 香爐峯 is “Incense Burner Peak.”

There is a book I want so badly: Wiebke Denecke’s Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons. Oxford University Press, 2014

The book presents Denecke’s understanding of the term “reference culture.” I cannot think of anything analogous from today’s world but I must be missing something. In the case of both Heian Kyoto and ancient Rome, the cultures were literary latecomers which developed against the background informed by an older and very culturally advanced reference. For the Romans, the ancient Greek culture was the ultimate exemplar—as Tang culture was for the Heian Japanese. Think of how Boethius was revered at first for his grasp of ancient Greek in order to imagine the social capital of what Sei Shonagon did. I was thinking of the TV show Suits, where the younger lawyer is constantly making movie reference and in-jokes based on TV to his boss…. kind of sad but that was as close as I got to this kind of thing—though maybe in my parent’s day, to speak French and be well-traveled in Europe might have carried a similar social cache?

Okay, I did buy the book!

Notes:

1. Top image: https://siginsiginsigin.seesaa.net/article/201102article_11.html

2. The excerpt from the Pillow Book (translated by Meredith McKinney)
   [279]
   The snow was piled high, and Her Majesty’s shutters were for once left down. We were all gathered in her presence chatting, with the square brazier alight, when her majesty said to me: ‘Shōnagon, what do you make of the snow of Kōro Peak?’

   Thereupon I ordered that the shutters be lifted, and raised the outer blind high. Her Majesty laughed. One of the ladies also remarked appreciatively, ‘I know the poem, and even use it in my own poems, but I wouldn’t have thought of that. You epitomize the sort of person who belongs in this court.’

3. VIDEO:【アニメで古文】枕草子・雪のいと高う降りたるを（あらすじまとめ）