Now, let's take a look at section 1.
Kenko starts this section with the sentence, "It is enough, it would seem, to have been born into this world for a man to desire many things". In this section, at first, he refers to inherited social class and its innate dignity. He states that "persons of lower rank, fortunate enough to achieve some success in keeping with their station, are apt to wear looks of self-satisfaction and no doubt consider themselves most important, but actually they are quite insignificant".
Second, he refers to acquired social status. The translator uses the word, "priest", and I think it's O.K. but if it were translated in original faithfully, it would be replaced by the word "monk", because the argument in this paragraph is about "hermit". He actually uses the quotation from Seishonagon to describe it "like stick of wood". Because seeking worldly fame violates the Buddhistic doctrine, he raises the example of a monk in the comparison of a true hermit.
Third, in this paragraph, the translator makes a mistake. Kenko refers to both men and women. He refers to people's appearance and culture. The translator talks about only a male, but it is a mistake. Original text in this paragraph, Kenko uses the word "people" to generalize the object, but his allusion refers to a female. The female status of the Heian period in Japan is very high in a contrasting world situation in which most of the other countries were a patriarchal society. Throughout our whole history, education has been always important, but especially in that era, women's education was taken as an extremely important element for social life. If you read this paragraph replacing all the words from men to women, then everything will make sense.
In the final paragraph of section 1, now, he refers to a male. In addition to the third paragraph, accepting a little sake is an important element for being social. Interestingly, this still exists as deeply-rooted culture in present days, and we call it "nominication (飲みニケーション)". "nomi (飲み)" is declension of "nomu (飲む)" which means "drink". So we mix the words, "drink" and "communication", and neoterize the word "nominication", and is socially accepted word as one of the important element for especially Japanese businessman.
Thus, in section 1, he lists up desirable figures taking an example of aristocratic society. This way of writing can be associated with an image of Seishonagon's Pillow Book. "Hateful Thing" is one of the stories from "Pillow Book", and he actually took Seishonagon's name on this paragraph. Although Kenko was born about 300 years later than Seishonagon, his writing is seeking his ideal style in the aristocratic world described in the "Pillow Book". I can deduce his reluctance to the lost generation, for he lived in the turbulence from the end of the Kamakura period through the South and North courts period.
I mentioned in the previous article, Part 1, that I would explain which part would actually have the sound of the Heian period, and his perspective in section 1 makes me think that way.
It is sure that Kenko's use of words is slightly closer to the modern language; however, it is still old Japanese language and I can observe that he bears in mind the notion of the Heian period in his work. For that reason, in the interpretation of the words "demented feeling" in the preface, I think it is more natural to interpret the meaning of the words as "absurd feeling".
To be continued on Part 3
