leaf 一
section · 一
Things that quicken the heartこころときめきするもの
- 一Sparrows feeding their young.
- 二To pass a place where babies are playing.
- 三To hear a man's voice in the morning, when one had thought oneself alone.
Inkstone · note a new thing⌘ ↩ to set
枕草子Liber Cervicalis · MMXXVI
枕 · 草 · 子
2026年7月4日
Liber Cervicalis · zuihitsu
The Pillow Book枕草子
Sei Shōnagon, gentlewoman to the Empress Teishi, kept beneath her pillow a stack of paper. She filled it with miscellaneous lists — things refined, things hateful, things that should be short — and in doing so invented the categorical essay a thousand years before the listicle.
Categories10
Seasonnatsu
Summer
夏6 · 7 · 8月
"In summer, the nights. Not only when the moon shines, but on dark nights too."
Marginalia
The categories begin with the originals from the Makura no Sōshi as recorded in section 14, 25, 28 and onward. Edit any entry by clicking it. Add your own categories below; they keep on this device.
Method
The pillow book — makura no sōshi — is a form of zuihitsu, "following the brush": miscellaneous notes set down in no particular order. Sei Shōnagon arranged hers as enumerated lists, observations, and short essays; her preferred unit was the categorical inventory.
On categories
The discipline is in the heading, not the items. A good category ("Things that should be short") performs more work than the entries beneath it. When something will not slot beneath an existing heading, invent the heading first and let the items accrete.
Colophon
Set in Cormorant Garamond italic & Shippori Mincho B1. Translations after Ivan Morris (Columbia, 1967) and Meredith McKinney (Penguin, 2006). All entries kept on this device.
fezcodex
MMXXVI枕
MMXXVI枕