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Page from The Poetic Memoirs of Murasaki Shikibu (Murasaki Shikibu shū-gire)
Attributed to Fujiwara no Teika (Sadaie) Japanese
Not on view
The jagged handwriting of Fujiwara no Teika—the courtier-poet and literary arbiter par excellence of his era—stands out against a sedate background of stenciled plum-blossom motifs. Although most famous for compiling poetry anthologies of exemplary waka (thirty-one-syllable verse), Teika is also remembered for editing the definitive version of Genji that has been passed down to posterity.
The poem here reads:
つれ／＼とながきはる日はあをやぎの
いとゝうき世にみだれてぞふる
As I idle the time away
on this drawn-out spring day,
strands of the willow
get all tangled up, like the affairs
of this sad world of ours.
—Translation by John T. Carpenter
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