纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 058日本铜镜（4）

 

Untroubled by outside influences or new arrivals, Japan turned inwards for several centuries - a fact which still resonates today - and developed its own highly idiosyncratic culture. At the court in Kyoto every aspect of life was constantly refined and aestheticised in the pursuit of ever more sophisticated pleasure. It was a society in which women played a key cultural role. It's also the time of the first significant literature written in Japanese - written, in fact, by women. So it's a world we know quite a lot about, and it's the world of our mirror. The person who first used it could well have been reading that first great Japanese novel - indeed one of the first great novels of the world - the 'Tale of Genji' written by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu. Here's the novelist and expert on Japanese culture, Ian Buruma:

"Lady Murasaki was a little bit like Jane Austen... the 'Tale of Genji' gives you an extraordinary insight into what life was like in that aristocratic hothouse of the Heian period.

排除了外来影响，也没有新的舶来品，日本在接下来的几个世纪发展出独具特色的文化，留下了至今难以磨灭的影响。当时京都宫廷生活的各个方面都在不断改进，日渐变得精致而富有美感，追求考究的享乐。在那个社会的文化生活中，女性占据了主要地位。那段时期也是日本文学的诞生期，作者亦以女性居多。通过这些文字记录，我们得以细致了解那个时代，而那也正是我们这面铜镜诞生的时代。它的第一任主人很可能阅读过日本首部重要的小说《源氏物语》，它也是世界范围内最早的文学巨著之一，作者是宫廷女官紫式部。小说家与日本文化专家伊恩·布鲁玛对当时的社会背景做了补充：

紫式部有点像简·奥斯汀。《源氏物语》让我们得以深入了解日本平安时代的贵族生活。