[ p. 284 ] [229]
¶ SECT. XCVI. EMPEROR CHIŪ-AI (PART II.—THE POSSESSION OF KOREA DIVINELY PROMISED).
This Empress, Her Augustness Princess Okinaga-tarashi, was at that time, [^1729] divinely possessed. So when the Heavenly Sovereign, dwelling at the palace of Kashihi in Tsukushi, was about to smite the Land of Kumaso, [^1730] the Heavenly Sovereign played on his august lute, and the Prime Minster the Noble Take-uchi, being in the pure court, [^1731] requested the divine orders. Hereupon the Empress, divinely possessed, charged him with this instruction and counsel: “There is a land to the Westward, [ p. 285 ] and in that land is abundance of various treasures dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver downwards. [^1732] I will now bestow this land upon thee.” Then the Heavenly Sovereign replied, saying: “If one ascend to a high place and look Westward, no country is to be seen. There is only the great sea;” and saying, [^1733] “They are lying Deities,” [1] he pushed away his august lute, did not play on it, and sat silent. Then the Deities were very angry, and said: “Altogether as for this empire, it is not a land over which thou oughtest to rule. Do thou go to the one road!” [2] Hereupon the Prince Minister the Noble Take-uchi said; “[I am filled with] awe, my Heavenly Sovereign! [3] Continue playing thy great [230] august lute.” Then he slowly drew his august lute to him, and languidly played on it. So almost immediately the sound of the august lute became inaudible. On their forthwith lifting a light and looking, [the Heavenly Sovereign] was dead.
[ p. 286 ]
¶ SECT. XCVII.—EMPEROR CHIŪ-AI (PART III. PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONQUEST OF KOREA).
Then, astonished and alarmed, they set him in a mortuary palace, [4] and again taking the country’s great offerings, [5] seeking out all sorts of crimes, such as flaying alive and flaying backwards, [6] breaking down the divisions of rice-fields, filling up ditches, evacuating excrements and urine, marriages between superiors and inferiors, [7] marriages with horses, marriages with cattle, marriages with fowls, and marriages with dogs, and having made a great purification of the land, [8] the Noble Takeuchi again stood in the pure court and requested the Deities’ commands. Thereupon the manner of their instruction and counsel was exactly the same as on the former day: “Altogether this land is a land to be ruled over by the august child in Thine Augustness’s august womb.” [9] Then the Noble Take-uchi said, “[I am filled with] awe, my Great Deities] The august child in this Deity’s [231] womb, [10] what [sort of] child may it be?” [The Deities] replied, saying: “It is a male child.” Then [the Noble Take-uchi] requested more particularly, [saying]: “I wish to know the august names of the Great Deities whose words have now thus instructed us.” Forthwith [the Deities] replied, saying: “It is the august doing [11] of [ p. 287 ] the Great-August-Heaven-Shining-Deity, likewise it is the three great Deities Bottom-Possessing-Male, Middle-Possessing Male and Surface-Possessing-Male. [12] (At this time the august names of these three great Deities were revealed. [13]) If now thou truly thinkest to seek that land, thou must, after presenting the offerings [14] to every one of the Heavenly Deities and Earthly Deities, [15] and likewise of the Deities of the mountains and also of all the Deities of the river and of the sea, and setting our august spirits [16] on the top of thy vessel, put into gourds [17] the ashes of the podocarpus macrophylla tree, [18] and likewise make a quantity of chopsticks and also of leaf platters, [19] and must scatter [232] them all on the waves of the great sea, that thou mayest cross over.” So when [she] punctually fulfilled these instructions, equipped an army, marshalled [^1753] across their backs, and a strong favourable wind arose, and the august vessel followed the billows.
[ p. 288 ]
[ p. 289 ]
¶ SECT. XCVIII.—EMPEROR CHIŪ-AI (PART IV.—THE EMPRESS JIN-GŌ CONQUERS KOREA)
So the wave [20] of the august vessel pushed up onto the land of Shiragi [21] reaching to the middle of the country. Thereupon the chieftain [22] of the country, alarmed and trembling. petitioned [23] [the Empress], saying: “From this time forward obedient to the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, I will feed his august horses and will marshal vessels every year, nor ever let the vessels’ keels [24] dry or their poles and oars dry, and will respectfully serve him without drawing back while heaven and earth shall last.” [25] So therefore the Land of Shiragi [26] was constituted the feeder of the august horses, and the Land of Kudara [133] was constituted the crossing store. [27] Then the Empress stuck her august staff on the gate of the chieftain of Shiragi, and having made the Rough August Spirits [28] of the Great Deities of the Inlet of Sumi [29] the guardian Deities of the land, she laid them to rest, [30] and crossed back. So while this business [31] was yet unconcluded, [the child] with which she was pregnant was about to be born. Forthwith, in order to restrain her august womb, she took a stone and wound it round the waist of her august skirt, [32] and the august child was born after she had crossed [back] to the Land of Tsukushi. [33] So the name by which the place was called where the [234] august child was born was Umi. [34] Again the stone which she wound round her august skirt is at the village of Ito [35] in the Land of Tsukushi.
[ p. 290 ]
[ p. 291 ]
¶ SECT. XCIX.—EMPEROR CHIŪ-AI (PART V.—THE EMPRESS JIN-GŌ FISHES IN TSUKUSHI).
Again when, having reached the village of Tamashima [36] in the Department of Matsura [37] in Tsukushi, she partook of an august meal on the bank of the river, it being then the first decade of the fourth moon, she then sat on a shoal [38] in the middle of the river, picked out threads from her august skirt, used grains of rice as bait, and hooked the trout [39] in the river. (The name by which the river is called is the Wo-gaha; [40] again the name by which the shoal is called is Kachi-do-hime. [41]) So down to the present time it is an uninterrupted [custom] for women in the first decade of the fourth moon to pick out threads from their skirts, use grains as bait, and hook trout.
[ p. 292 ] [235]
¶ SECT. C.—EMPEROR CHIŪ-AI (PART VI.—THE EMPRESS JIN-GŌ SUBDUES YAMATO).
Hereupon, when Her Augustness Princess Okinaga-tarashi was returning up to Yamato, she, owing to doubts concerning the disposition [42] of the people, prepared a mourning-vessel, [43] set the august child in that mourning-vessel, and let a report ooze out that the august child was already dead. While she went up thus, King Kagosaka and King Oshikuma, [44] having heard [of the circumstance], thought to waylay [45] her, went forth to the moor of Toga, [46] and hunted for an omen. Then King Kagosaka climbed up an oak-tree, [47] and then [48] a large and angry boar came forth, dug up the oak-tree, and forthwith devoured King Kagosaka. His younger brother, King Oshikuma, undaunted by this circumstance, raised an army and lay in wait [for the Empress], to close with the mourning-vessel as being an empty [49] vessel. Then an army was landed from the mourning-vessel, [50] and joined in combat [with the opposing forces]. At this time King Oshikuma made the Noble Isahi, [51] ancestor of [236] the Kishi Clan of Naniha, [52] his generalissimo; [53] and on [ p. 293 ] the august side of the Heir Apparent His Augustness Naniha-ne-ko-take-furu-kuma, [54] ancestor of the Grandees of Wani, [55] was made generalissimo. So when [the Empress’s troops] had driven [King Oshikuma’s troops] as far as Yamashiro, [the latter] turned and made a stand, and both [sides] fought together without retreating. Then His Augustness Take-furu-kuma planned, and caused it to be said that, as Her Augustness Okinaga-tarashi was already dead, there was no need for further fighting,—forthwith snapping his bowstrings and feigning submission. Therefore King Oshikuma’s generalissimo, believing the falsehood, unbent his bows and put away his arms. Then [the Empress’s troops] picked out of their topknots some prepared bowstrings (one name [of the bowstrings] was usa-yu-dzuru; [56]) stretched [their bows] again, and pursued and smote [the enemy]. So [these] fled away to Afusaka, [57] rallied, and fought again. Then [the Empress’s troops] pursued on, and defeated them, and cut to pieces that army at Sasanami. [58] Thereupon King Oshikuma, together with the Noble Isahi, being pursued and pressed, got on board a vessel and floated on the sea, and sang, saying:
“Come on, my lord! rather than be stricken [237] by Furu-kuma’s hurtful hand, I will plunge like the grebe into the Sea of Afumi,—I will!” [59]
Forthwith they plunged into the sea, and died together.
[ p. 294 ]
¶ Footnotes
284:1 At what time, we are not told. ↩︎
284:2 See Sect. V, Note 17. ↩︎
284:3 This is Motowori’s interpretation of the obscure original word sa-niha, which is written phonetically. He supposes it to have been so called as being a place used for enquiring the will of the gods, and therefore kept clean and held in reverence. “Place” would perhaps represent the Japanese word niha as well as “court,” though “court” has been its usual acceptation in later times. ↩︎
285:4 Literally, “making gold and silver the origin.” ↩︎
285:5 Motowori tells us to understand “saying ”in the sense of “thinking.” ↩︎
285:6 As already frequently remarked, the Japanese mind does not occupy itself much with the distinction (to us all-important) of Singular and Plural. The reason why the translator renders the word kami by the Plural “Deities” throughout this passage is because we learn later on that four divine personages were intended by the author. ↩︎
285:7 p. 286 With the commentators we must accept this as an alternative name of Hades, without being able satisfactorily to explain it. The expression “eighty road-windings” (yaso kumado) in Sect. XXXII (Note 27) may be compared with this one. ↩︎
285:8 I.e., “I tremble Sire, for the consequences of thine impiety.” ↩︎
286:1 p. 287 A temporary resting-place for the corpse before interment. (See Sect. XXXI, Note 20.) ↩︎
286:2 Or, if, with Motowori, we take country in the Plural, “the great offerings of the countries,” i.e., of the various countries or provinces of Japan or of Kiushiu. These “offerings” (nusa) are the same as those mentioned in Sect. XVI (Notes 24 and 25) under the names nigi-te and mitegura. They consisted of cloth, for which in later times paper has been substituted. ↩︎
286:3 There are different views as to the exact bearing of this curious expression. Conf. Sect. XV, Note 10. ↩︎
286:4 I.e., incest between parents and children. ↩︎
286:5 I.e., a general purification. ↩︎
286:6 The Deities now speak to, as well as through, the Empress. Before the quotation marks announcing their words we must understand some such clause as and they added this divine charge.“ It would p. 288 also be possible to translate the whole passage thus: ”Thereupon the manner of their instruction and counsel. was ‘[Things] being exactly as on the former day, altogether this land,’" etc., etc. ↩︎
286:7 I.e., in the Empress’s womb. Motowori supposes that she is thus spoken of as a Deity on account of her being at that moment divinely possessed. ↩︎
286:8 Literally, “heart.” ↩︎
287:9 Soko-dzu-tsu-no-wo, Naka-dzu-tsu-no wo, and Uha-dzu-tsu-no-wo three of the deities born at the time of the purification of Izanagi (the “Male-Who-Invites”) on his return from Hades, and known collectively as the Deities of the Inlet of Sumi. (See Sect. X, Notes 18 and 22). The grammar of this sentence is, as Motowori remarks, not lucid. One would expect the author to say that it was “the august doing” of all the four deities mentioned. ↩︎
287:10 I.e., says Motowori, they then first informed Take-uchi who they were. Up in that time, it had not been known by what Deities the Empress was possessed. Mabuchi, however, rejected this gloss as a later additions. ↩︎
287:11 I.e., the sacred offerings of white and blue cloth. ↩︎
287:13 Here, as before, the Singular would be at least as natural an interpretation as the Plural. The three ocean-deities are supposed to be specially referred to, and in that case, the three being easily conceived as one (like the deified peaches mentioned in Sect. IX, Note 19) owing to the want of discrimination in Japanese between Singular and Plural, we might retain the Singular in English. Altogether the Sun-goddess seems out of place in this passage, and it would be satisfactory to have some authority for expunging from it the mention of her name. ↩︎
287:14 Or, “into a gourd.” ↩︎
287:15 In the original maki (
). In modern ma-ki signifies the P. macrophylla, as in the translation. It is however uncertain whether that or the Chamæcyparis obtusa (both being conifers), or simply any “true” (i.e., good) tree is here intended by the author. ↩︎287:16 I.e., broad shallow platters made of the oak-tree, and used for placing food on. ↩︎
287:17 Viz., that in which the Empress herself took passage. ↩︎
289:1 p. 289 I.e., “the wave on which the august vessel was riding.” ↩︎
289:2 In Sinico-Japanese Shin ra (
), one of the three states into which Korea was anciently divided, the other two being known in pure p. 290 Japanese as Kudara and Koma (in Sinico-Japanese Hiyaku-sai 
and Kōrai 
). Shiragi is evidently a mere corruption of the Sinico-Japanese form, which closely resembles the native Korean Shin-la. The origin of the pure Japanese forms of the other two names is obscure. ↩︎289:3 The editions previous to Motowori’s have “King” (
instead of 
); but as the latter character is used in all parallel passages of this work, we must attribute the occurrence of the former in this single place to a copyist’s error, and accuse the author rather than his commentator of the ill-natured degradation of the Korean King into a mere chieftain (more literally a “master”). ↩︎289:4 The character
, which is here used, is that employed in speaking of a subject’s addressing his sovereign. ↩︎289:5 Literally “bellies.” ↩︎
289:6 Literally, “with heaven and earth.” ↩︎
289:7 See Note 2. ↩︎
289:8 I.e., the sea-store." The author means to say that from the Land of Kudara tribute was to be paid with the regularity implied by the King’s asseveration to the effect that the keels, poles, and oars of the [tribute-bearing] vessels should never remain dry. ↩︎
289:9 Ara-mi-tama, the antithetical term to which is Nigi-mi-tama, ‘’ Gentle August Spirit.“ We also find Saki-mi-tama and Kushi-mi-tama, which signify respectively ”August Luck-Spirit “and ”Wondrous August Spirit.“ In this passage it must be understood that the spirits which floated above the Imperial junk to protect it were the ”Gentle August Spirits,“ while the ”Rough August Spirits" presided at the Empress’s feats of arms and kept the enemy in subjection. Motowori warns us not to fall into the mistake of supposing that the Rough and Gentle Spirits of a god were separate individualities, they being only, according to him, various manifestations of the same individuality. The student is advised to consult his beautifully written note on the subject of these spirits in Vol. XXX, pp. 72-76 of his Commentary. ↩︎
289:10 See Sect. X Note 22. ↩︎
289:11 Literally “established and worshipped.” Motowori says that this mention of their being laid to rest is made with an implied reference to the journey on which the deities in question had accompanied the Imperial army. He also tries to prove that this laying to rest of the deities must have occurred after the return of the Empress to Japan, as it is not possible to suppose that the gods could find a home in a foreign land (!). But the wording of the text is against him ↩︎
289:12 p. 291 Literally “government” ↩︎
289:13 I.e., as Motowori suggests, “she wrapped the stone up, and tied it into the waist of her skirt in something resembling a sash.” ↩︎
289:14 In South-Western Japan. ↩︎
289:15 I.e., “bearing.” The word, however, also signifies “sea.” According to the “Chronicles” the original name of the village was Kada. ↩︎
289:16 This word signifies “thread,” and would therefore, one might think, find a more appropriate place in I the legend next narrated, where the “threads ”of the Empress’s garment are specially mentioned. ↩︎
291:1 p. 291 I.e.. “jewel-island.” ↩︎
291:2 Matsura-gata. The “Chronicles” give an absurd derivation of Matsura from the Adjective medzurashi, “astonishing,” which the Empress is supposed to have ejaculated on finding a trout hooked to her line! The obvious etymology is matsu-ura, “pine-beach.” ↩︎
291:3 The character in the original is
(for 
), in Japanese iso, which may or may not be connected with the word ishi, “stone.” In any case Motowori is not justified in saying that it must be understood to mean p. 292 “stone ”in this place, as iso means rather a sandy than a stony place, rising above the water level. ↩︎291:4 In Japanese ayu, a small species of the salmon family (Plecoglossus altivelis). ↩︎
291:5 I.e., “little river.” ↩︎
291:6 I.e., “princess of the gate of victory.” But though the words lend themselves to this interpretation, it can hardly be supposed that such is their real etymology, and indeed the editor of 1687 draws attention in a Note to the difficulty of accepting the statement in the text. ↩︎
292:1 p. 293 Literally, “the hearts.” ↩︎
292:2 I.e., a boat or junk containing a coffin. We might also (adopting the interpretation given by the older editors to the character in this passage) translate by “specially prepared a mourning-vessel.” ↩︎
292:3 These two princes, who are first mentioned at the end of Sect. p. 294 XCII (Notes 40 and 41), were. according to the story, elder sons of the late monarch Chiū-ai, and therefore step-sons of the Empress Jingō and half-brothers to the young Emperor Ō-jin. ↩︎
292:4 Literally, “wait for and catch.” This “catch” is always taken by Motowori to mean “slay.” ↩︎
292:5 Taga-nu. It was in the province of Settsu. The etymology of the name is obscure. ↩︎
292:6 The species mentioned in the text the Quercus serrata. ↩︎
292:7 Motowori’s conjecture that the character
, “then,” is a copyist’s error for 
, “saw ”or “looked,” seems hardly called for, and the translator has therefore not departed from the traditional reading. ↩︎292:8 I.e., defenceless, not filled with troops. ↩︎
292:9 Which of course was in reality no mourning-vessel, but full of the soldiers who had just returned from conquering Korea. ↩︎
292:10 Isahi no Sakune. Isahi or Isachi is supposed to mean “leading elder.” ↩︎
292:11 Naniha no Kishi be. Naniha is the old name of the sea and river-shore on which I now stands the town of Ohosaka. The name Kishi is said by Motowori to be properly a Korean official designation (
), but it is one whose origin is to be sought in China. ↩︎292:12
, Shōgun. This is the earliest mention of this office, which, passing from the military to the political sphere, played such a great part in the mediaeval and modern history of Japan. ↩︎293:13 The signification of all the elements of this compound name is not clear, but it is partly Honorific and descriptive of the bravery of its bearer. ↩︎