Since its completion during the Heian period, The Tale of Genji until then had all existed in the form of manuscripts, and it was a time-consuming work to compile one manuscript because a person had to transcribe it one by one, therefore ordinary people could not obtain it easily. |
それまでの源氏物語は平安時代に成立して以後、すべて写本の形で存在しており、1冊ずつ人の手で写さなければならないものであるために作成に手間と時間がかかり、一般の人々が容易に入手出来るものではなかった。 |