Twice ToldTsunamitsu-ko ki, Bun'an 6 (1449), 6th month, 8th and 9th days
- Language
- Japanese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
The Tsunamitsu-ko ki is the diary of Hirohashi Tsunamitsu (1431 to 1477), a court noble, covering 1446 to 1467. The text is a modern annotated edition of the manuscript, set vertically in two registers per page. The editors add small bracketed glosses beside names and use a black square for an unreadable character; the glosses are left out below, and the two entries printed here have no damaged characters. The mark 〳〵 repeats the word before it. After 莫言〳〵 the entry for the 8th carries on with unrelated business.
八日、晴、白比丘尼参御所云々、年八百歳之由申、怪異此事也、今日帰国云々、定篇解物歟、不吉事歟、不審沙汰有条々者也、莫言〳〵、
九日、白比丘尼御所参由、昨日有御聞き、雖然不参云々、尤以珍重〳〵、猶々希代事也、
Translation
8th, clear. It is said that the white nun comes to the palace. She says she is eight hundred years old. This is a strange business. It is said she goes home today. Surely a creature in disguise? An ill omen? There are several doubtful things said about it. Say no more, say no more.
9th. It was heard yesterday that the white nun was coming to the palace. But it is said she did not come after all. All the better, very good. Still, it is an exceptionally rare thing.
Notes
The two entries follow one rumour: on the 8th the nun is said to be coming to the palace (参御所云々), and on the 9th it is said she did not come (不参云々). The verb 参 can mean “went” or “is going to go”, and the entry does not fix which. 御所 is the palace; the entry does not say whether it means the emperor’s or the shogun’s household. 昨日有御聞き is read as “it was heard yesterday”; the honorific 御 suggests someone of high rank heard it, and who is not stated. 定篇解物歟 is printed this way in the edition. 篇解 is most likely a spelling of へんげ (変化), a creature that has taken another shape, so “a creature in disguise”; that reading is an inference from the sound and the context, and the characters themselves are as printed. Togashi Akira’s quotation (Kokugakuin Daigakuin kiyo 54, p. 173) prints the same characters. Yanagita Kunio, whom Togashi cites, knew the diary as 唐橋綱光卿記, a slip for Hirohashi (廣橋) Tsunamitsu; the same page carries Tsunamitsu’s signature, 藤原綱光, under a poem for the Tanabata festival. The page also records quakes on the 3rd and 4th of the month (猶地震不断; 暁鐘程大地震) and, in the entry for the first of the next month, that the shaking had lasted more than 75 days (已七十五日余).