The Pillow Book

Sympathy for others, Shonagon explains, is “wonderful” in both men and women (208). Sympathy is less meaningful when it comes from reliable, close friends, “but if someone unexpected responds to the tale of your sorrows with reassuring words, it fills you with pleasure” (208). Someone who expresses such sympathy impresses Shonagon.

In Chapter 251, Shonagon explains that gossip is natural; she is bothered by the sense that “it seems it’s wrong to discuss others” (208). She sees not problem with laughing at the expense of someone who she is not close with.

The next chapter is a short meditation on the endless attraction of faces, as opposed to paintings and other pictures. “People’s appearance,” Shonagon writes, “really is endlessly attractive” (209). Unfortunately, a similar type of attraction happens with ugly facial features.

Shonagon goes on to explain the unattractive, old-fashioned way of dressing in trousers. Then, she tells of a curious outfit for which her friend was mocked when a group traveled out for a walk in the moonlight.

Briefly, she speaks of some people’s talent for hearing. Captain Narinobu, she remembers, “could very cleverly pick out any voice, from even the softest murmur” (210). The Minister of the Treasury could hear so well that “he truly could have heard the fall of a mosquito’s eyelash” (210).