The Daughter of Takasue 菅原孝標女
diarist · Heian Japan · 1008–1059?
Her own name is lost, so she is called by her father's. In the Sarashina Diary she looked back from her girlhood in the provinces, longing for storybooks, to about fifty.
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1021 (recalled c. 1060) · At fourteen, the day an aunt gave her the fifty-odd volumes of the Tale of Genji in their box
The Tale of Genji, which I had only glimpsed in snatches, in a hurry, never understanding it and aching to know more: to read it from the first volume, with no one about, lying behind my curtain and drawing out one volume after another, was a feeling I would not have traded for the rank of empress.
はしるはしる、わづかに見つつ、心も得ず心もとなく思ふ源氏を、一の巻よりして、人もまじらず、几帳の内にうち臥して、引き出でつつ見る心地、后の位も何にかはせむ。Sarashina Diary (Sarashina nikki)
1021 (recalled c. 1060)
All day long, and at night for as long as my eyes stayed open, I kept the lamp close and did nothing but read it.
昼は日ぐらし、夜は目の覚めたるかぎり、灯を近くともして、これを見るよりほかのことなければSarashina Diary (Sarashina nikki)
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