Transcriber Note: The cover image was createdby the transcriber from the original cover and elements of the title page.It is placed in the public domain.
THE
TALE OF GENJI
By
LADY MURASAKI
TRANSLATED FROM THE JAPANESE BY
ARTHUR WALEY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1925
To
BERYL DE ZOETE
{7}
PREFACE
READERS of the Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated byMadame Omori and Professor Doi, will remember that the second of thethree diaries is that of a certain Murasaki Shikibu. The little thatis known of this lady’s life has been set forth by Miss Amy Lowellin her Introduction to that book. A few dates, most of them veryinsecure, will be found in Appendix I of this volume. It is, however,certain that Murasaki was born in the last quarter of the tenthcentury, that she lost her husband in 1001, and that a few years latershe became lady-in-waiting to the Empress Akiko. We know that she waschosen for this post on account of her proficiency in Chinese, asubject which the young Empress was anxious to study. Akiko was thenabout sixteen, so that Murasaki’s position in the house was what,in our parlance, we should call that of‘governess’rather than oflady-in-waiting. Akiko, though officially espoused to the Emperor,was still living at home, and her father soon began to pay somewhatembarrassing attentions to the new governess. From the Diary we knowthat on one occasion at any rate his solicitations were refused. Wasthe Tale of Genji or any part of it already written when Murasakicame to Court? We only know that in a passage of the Diary whichapparently refers to the year 1008 she speaks of her novel havingbeen read out loud to the Emperor. His majesty’s comment (‘This isa learned lady; she must have been reading the Chronicle of Japan’)shows that what was read to him must have been the opening chapter ofthe tale. For in the whole work there is only one sentence which couldpossibly remind any one of the Nihongi (‘Chronicle of Japan’), andthat is the conclusion of Chapter I. So though we may be certain thatthe first few books were already written in 1008, it is quite possiblethat {8} the whole fifty-four were not finished till long afterwards.But from the Sarashina Diary, the first of the three contained inthe Court Ladies of Old Japan, we know that the Tale of Genji inits complete form was already a classic in the year 1022. The unknownauthoress of this diary spent her childhood in a remote province. Hergreat pleasure was to read romances; but except at the Capital theywere hard to come by. She prays fervently to Buddha to bring herquickly to Kyoto, and let her read ‘dozens and dozen