The diary of the poet and courtier, then thirty-eight and a middle-ranking official of the Kujo house. The entries for 1200 record Go-Toba's poetry commissions (the Shoji hundred-poem sequences of that year, which won Teika the retired emperor's favour), the court calendar, the regent Konoe Motomichi, illnesses and epidemics, fires in the capital, the estates of his family, and news from Kamakura as it reached Kyoto. Famous for the astronomical notes (a supernova, comets) it took from older records. A private, sharp-tongued view of the Kyoto court in 1200.
About this source
- Title
- Meigetsuki (明月記)
- Author
- Fujiwara no Teika (藤原定家)
- Author's dates
- 1162 to 1241
- Written
- 1180 to 1235, as a daily diary, with gaps
- Language
- Japanese in a Chinese-style written form (kanbun)
- Covers
- 1180 to 1235
- Kind
- Letters
No full translation. The 1911 edition is free at the NDL; the Reizei family's autograph scrolls and the Meigetsuki kenkyu series (1996 onward) are the modern basis and under copyright. Coverage of 1200 is partial; some months survive only in later copies.
Where to read it
Editions
- Meigetsuki, vol. 1 of 3 (Kokusho Kankokai, 1911), at the NDL Digital Collections
- Meigetsuki, manuscript copy, vol. 26 (covering 1192 to 1233), at the NDL Digital Collections