Crisis Diaries: Lady Daibu

[Hiroshige ga: Lady Kenreimon-in Ukyo no Daibu taking Buddhist vows after her lover Taira no Sukemori was killed at the battle of Dannoura) (1847)]

Lady Kenreimon-in Ukyo no Daibu
(c.1157-c.1235)

set text:

Harries, Phillip Tudor, trans. The Poetic Memoirs of Lady Daibu. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980.

[Jan 3. 1176]:

One year a fire broke out near the palace at the time of the Gosechi Celebrations, and in view of the imminent danger, sedan chairs were made ready for us at the South Hall. From the commanders downwards, the members of the guards looked very striking, each dressed in his own style; and I shall never forget how even amidst the general uproar, I could not help thinking that this was a sight I would hardly see in the outside world. Word came that Her Majesty was to leave in a hand-drawn carriage. The Komatsu Grand Minister made a particularly vivid impression when, as a guards commander, he came to the Empress's quarters wearing a quiver of arrows over his ordinary clothes.

Here above the clouds,
Even the sight of people
Scrambling in chaos
Through the fire and smoke,
How it entrances me!

- The Poetic Memoirs of Lady Daibu (1980): 109.

Select Bibliography:

other Japanese diaries:

Bashō, Matsuo. A Haiku Journey: Bashō’s Narrow Journey to a Far Province. Trans. Dorothy Bretton. Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International, 1981.

Bashō, Matsuo. The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches. Trans. Nobuyuki Yuasa. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960.

Bowring, Richard, trans. The Diary of Lady Murasaki. 1982. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.

Brazell, Karen, trans. The Confessions of Lady Nijō. 1975. London: Zenith, 1983.

Morris, Ivan, trans. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh Century Japan. 1971. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.

Morris, Ivan, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. 2 vols. 1967. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.

Omori, Annie Shepley & Kochi Doi, trans. Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan: The Sarashina Diary; Diary of Murasaki Shikibu & Diary of Izumi Shikibu. Introduction by Amy Lowell. 1935. Tokyo: Kenkyushu Ltd., 1961.

Seidensticker, Edward, trans. The Gossamer Years (Kagerō Nikki): The Diary of a Noblewoman of Heian Japan. 1964. Tokyo & Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1981.

Shōnagon, Sei. The Pillow Book. Trans. Meredith McKinney. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006.

Waley, Arthur, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon. 1928. London: Unwin Books, 1960.

chronicles & histories:

Aston, W. G., trans. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A. D. 697. Translated from the Original Chinese and Japanese by W. G. Aston. 1896. Tokyo & Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1988.

Chamberlain, Basil Hall, trans. The Kojiki: Records of Ancient Matters. 1882. Tokyo & Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1988.

Philippi, Donald L., trans. Kojiki. Princeton & Tokyo: University of Princeton and University of Tokyo Press, 1969.

Heian fiction:

Kitagawa, Hiroshi & Bruce T. Tsuchida, trans. The Tale of the Heike: Heike Monogatari. Foreword by Edward Seidensticker. 2 vols. 1973. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1978.

McCullough, Helen Craig, trans. The Tale of the Heike. 1988. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

Murasaki, Lady. The Tale of Genji: A Novel in Six Parts. Trans. Arthur Waley. 1935. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957.

Sadler, A. L., trans. The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike: Being Two Thirteenth-Century Japanese Classics, The “Hōjōki”and Selections from the “Heike Monogatari.” 1928. Tokyo & Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1972.

Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Edward Seidensticker. 1976. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981.

Shikibu, Murasaki. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Royall Tyler. 2 vols. New York: Viking, 2001.

Whitehouse, Wilfrid, & Eizo Yanagisawa, trans. Ochikubo Monogatari: The Tale of the Lady Ochikubo. A Tenth-Century Japanese Novel. 1934. London: Arena, 1985.

Biography & Secondary Literature:

Bowring, Richard. Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji. Landmarks of World Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Dalby, Liza. The Tale of Murasaki. 2000. London: Vintage, 2001.

Keene, Donald, ed. Anthology of Japanese Literature to the Mid-Nineteenth Century. 1955. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968.

Keene, Donald, ed. Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to Present Day. An Anthology. 1956. New York: Grove Press, 1960.

Keene, Donald. Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from the Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century. A History of Japanese Literature. Volume 1 of 4. 1993. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Keene, Donald. World Within Walls: Japanese Literature of the Pre-Modern Era 1600-1867. A History of Japanese Literature. Volume 2 of 4. 1976. New York: Grove Press, 1978.

Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era – Poetry, Drama, Criticism. A History of Japanese Literature. Volume 3 of 4. 1984. New York: Henry Holt, 1987.

Keene, Donald. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature in the Modern Era – Fiction. A History of Japanese Literature. Volume 4 of 4. 1993. New York: Henry Holt, 1999.

Keene, Donald. Travelers of a Hundred Ages: The Japanese as Revealed Through 1,000 Years of Diaries. 1989. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Keene, Donald. Modern Japanese Diaries: The Japanese at Home and Abroad as Revealed through Their Diaries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Morris, Ivan. The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. 1964. Peregrine Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.

Seidensticker, Edward G. Genji Days. 1977. Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International, 1983.