Page from The Poetic Memoirs of Murasaki Shikibu (Murasaki Shikibu shū-gire)
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.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
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
Artwork Details
- 藤原定家書 紫式部集切
- Title: Page from The Poetic Memoirs of Murasaki Shikibu (Murasaki Shikibu shū-gire)
- Artist: Attributed to Fujiwara no Teika (Sadaie) (Japanese, 1162–1241)
- Period: Kamakura period (1185–1333)
- Date: first half of the 13th century
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Booklet leaf mounted as a hanging scroll; ink on decorated paper
- Dimensions: Image: 3 7/8 × 7 5/8 in. (9.8 × 19.4 cm)
Overall with knobs: 50 1/4 × 16 1/4 in. (127.6 × 41.3 cm) - Classification: Calligraphy
- Credit Line: Lent by a private collection
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art