Sections 1-12 Summary

In Section 1, Shonagon describes the four seasons and tells which time of day is most charming in each season. She says that in the spring, dawn is the most beautiful. Summers are most beautiful at night, autumns are beautiful in the evenings, and winter is most beautiful in the early morning.

Shonagon begins Section 2 by describing beautiful days throughout the year but she quickly turns to a story about a woman who hit a man in her household with a gruelstick. A gruelstick is a small stick that women carry around during the festival of the full-moon gruel. It is supposed to remind them of the festival, but many of the women use their sticks to hit people with. Shonagon notes that when women are hit with the sticks, they get angry or cry, but when men get hit, they think...