The Tale of Genji

Readers of the Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated by Madame Omori and Professor Doi, will remember that the second of the three diaries is that of a certain Murasaki Shikibu. Such were the rêveries of one who read the Tale of Genji more than nine hundred years ago. I think that, could they but read it in the original, few readers would feel that in all those centuries the charm of the book had in any way evaporated. The task of translation in such a case is bound to be arduous and discouraging; but I have all the time been spurred by the belief that I am translating by far the greatest novel of the East, and one which, even if compared with the fiction of Europe, takes its place as one of the dozen greatest masterpieces of the world.