As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams:
Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan, by Lady Sarashina
translated by Ivan Morris
Sarashina Nikki (Sarashina Diary) is a wonderful book, but the title is a misnomer. It is not a diary, but a personal memoir, and it has nothing to do with Sarashina, a locality in Nagano (one of the poems in the book refers obliquely to Sarashina, but that is all). The translator, Ivan Morris, therefore opted for the the fancy title “As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams,” which is beautifully poetic and apt, as the author often describes her dreams (and it is a reference to the last chapter of The Tale of Genji, Lady Sarashina's favorite novel), but it is not satisfactory either because it seems to point at a wholly different book. So let’s keep the name Sarashina Nikki, under which it is after all known in Japan, and let’s for convenience sake call the author “Lady Sarashina” as is commonly done.
Yes, this is not only a book without an original title, it is also a book written by a woman with no name. That last defect is normal for the Heian period: women didn’t use their names in public, but were called by the names / titles of their husbands, fathers or other male family members. Our writer was the “Daughter of Sugawara no Takasue,” and she was born more than one thousand years ago, in 1008, and died after 1059. Her father, from the well-known Sugawara family (which by this time had lost its power), was a provincial administrator, so a middle-ranking aristocrat. She lived with her father, taking care of his household, but at age 31 also started to serve as part-time lady-in-waiting to one of the imperial princesses. At age 36 she married, with a husband who was six years her senior, and a provincial administrator like her father. This was a very late marriage, as in Heian times marriages at ages as young as 16 were normal. She had a son and two more children by her husband. When she was 49, her husband returned ill from one of his postings and died (postings to the provinces were often "tanshin funin" in modern business terms, i.e. without the family). She continued to write her memoir for two years more (it is assumed that most of it was written in her later years), and then her voice falls silent – we don’t know if she died herself, or perhaps took refuge in a temple as a nun.
[Statue of Lady Sarashina
in front of Goi Station
(Ichihara, Chiba prefecture)]
The author was one of a group of literary women who flourished in 10th and 11th c. Japanese court society. They were well educated, had leisure and a favorable social position. Murasaki Shikibu, the author of The Tale of Genji, was one of them; others were for example Sei Shonagon (The Pillow Book), Izumi Shikibu, and the author of the Kagero Nikki, again a nameless woman (and the niece of Lady Sarashina).
Our author is intensely personal in describing her feelings, hopes and disappointments, but she tells us very little of the practical facts of life, as was customary at the time. But what she describes, is all very beautiful. What makes her work outstanding are the interesting descriptions of travels and pilgrimages – she was the first author in the genre of travel writing, and a very accomplished one. Her father had been posted as assistant governor to what is now part of Chiba prefecture, and when Lady Sarashina was 12 the family traveled back to the capital Heiankyo (Kyoto), a three month long journey. Her remembrances of this journey open her memoirs, and although terse and sometimes geographically inaccurate (because she wrote so many years after the event), it is unique in Heian literature. She writes about Mt Fuji (then still an active volcano): “There is no mountain like it in the world. It has a most unusual shape and seems to have been painted deep blue; its thick cover of unmelting snow gives the impression that the mountain is wearing a white jacket over a dress of deep violet.”
In her 10s and 20s, Lady Sarashina was addicted to reading tales, Japan’s earliest fiction, and her favorite book was The Tale of Genji. There was of course no publishing industry, books were privately copied and re-copied by hand. After reading the "Wakamurasaki" chapter of the Genji, Lady Sarashina yearns to possess the whole novel, even dedicating a Buddhist statue so that this wish may be fulfilled. Her joy knows no bounds when after returning to Heiankyo, she is presented with a whole copy (“more than 50 chapters”, so the Genji at that time probably had the same length as today’s 54 chapters). She dreams of being a heroine like Yugao or Ukifune, with a smart lover as Genji – it would be enough if he visited only once a year, for the rest she would look forward to his beautiful letters… In this way, the memoirs are impressive records of Lady Sarashina’s travel and of her day-to-day life.
Later she blames herself for her addiction to tales, and for having neglected her spiritual growth. That is later in life, when she has become a sincere Buddhist, making frequent pilgrimages to famous temples as Kiyomizudera, Ishiyamadera and Hasedera. Such pilgrimages were usually long trips of many days; not only the journey itself was long, but the pilgrims would stay for several nights in the temple, sleeping in the hall and hoping for prophetic dreams. Lady Sarashina paid great attention to dreams and describes about a dozen. Her dreams are no fortuitous interludes, but are consciously grasped as having a definite, inevitable meaning.
The Sarashina Nikki is also a memoir of the poems the author wrote. As was usual at that time, she includes a generous amount of her poetry and describes the occasions at which the poems were written. The level of Lady Sarashina’s poems is very high and several became famous and were included in official imperial anthologies.
The most literary episode in the book is her “meeting” with a cultured courtier. Lady Sarashina herself seems to have been rather timorous, introspective and solitary – she never felt at home at court because of her awkwardness. She met the elegant courtier (whose name she never learned) on a dark, rainy, night, when he passed the room where she sat behind screens as usual at the time, They exchanged a few words and the man won her admiration for his lyrical description of the seasons. But nothing came of it – while an Izumi Shikibu might have taken the man as her lover, Lady Sarashina was too shy, and after this one, poetic discussion with him, she only met him once more, briefly. But it is an interesting episode, a whiff of the Genji in the life of one of that novel’s most assiduous readers.
Sarashina Nikki is remarkable for its wistfulness and sensibility. The vulnerable author found happiness neither at court nor in her family, but projected into her writing her dreams and poignant longings. The portrait of a young woman who lived entirely in books is very touching.
Other translations besides the one by Ivan Morris:
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, 1920 - the oldest English translation, by far not as good as the later ones, but freely available;
The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life in Eleventh-Century Japan, by Sonja Arntzen (2014, Columbia U.P.) - contemporary academic translation.
== I bought the Ivan Morris translation many years ago as a Penguin Classic, and am still satisfied with it. It has extensive notes and a good introduction, and reads smoothly. Ivan Morris (1925-1976) studied Japanese language and culture at Harvard University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He wrote widely on modern and ancient Japan (The World of the Shining Prince; The Nobility of Failure) and translated numerous classical and modern literary works. He was a friend of Mishima Yukio. ==
The Sarashina Nikki is also a memoir of the poems the author wrote. As was usual at that time, she includes a generous amount of her poetry and describes the occasions at which the poems were written. The level of Lady Sarashina’s poems is very high and several became famous and were included in official imperial anthologies.
The most literary episode in the book is her “meeting” with a cultured courtier. Lady Sarashina herself seems to have been rather timorous, introspective and solitary – she never felt at home at court because of her awkwardness. She met the elegant courtier (whose name she never learned) on a dark, rainy, night, when he passed the room where she sat behind screens as usual at the time, They exchanged a few words and the man won her admiration for his lyrical description of the seasons. But nothing came of it – while an Izumi Shikibu might have taken the man as her lover, Lady Sarashina was too shy, and after this one, poetic discussion with him, she only met him once more, briefly. But it is an interesting episode, a whiff of the Genji in the life of one of that novel’s most assiduous readers.
Sarashina Nikki is remarkable for its wistfulness and sensibility. The vulnerable author found happiness neither at court nor in her family, but projected into her writing her dreams and poignant longings. The portrait of a young woman who lived entirely in books is very touching.
Other translations besides the one by Ivan Morris:
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, 1920 - the oldest English translation, by far not as good as the later ones, but freely available;
The Sarashina Diary: A Woman's Life in Eleventh-Century Japan, by Sonja Arntzen (2014, Columbia U.P.) - contemporary academic translation.
== I bought the Ivan Morris translation many years ago as a Penguin Classic, and am still satisfied with it. It has extensive notes and a good introduction, and reads smoothly. Ivan Morris (1925-1976) studied Japanese language and culture at Harvard University and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He wrote widely on modern and ancient Japan (The World of the Shining Prince; The Nobility of Failure) and translated numerous classical and modern literary works. He was a friend of Mishima Yukio. ==