[ p. 407 ]
¶ SECT. CLXI.—EMPEROR YŪ-RIYAKU (PART XII.—SONGS BY THE EMPEROR AND PRINCESS WODO).
On the day of this copious feast the Heavenly Sovereign, when Princess Wodo of Kasuga [^2351] presented to him the great august liquor, sang again, saying:
“Oh! the grandee’s daughter holding the excellent flagon! [If] thou hold the excellent flagon, hold it firmly! Hold it quite firmly, more and more firmly, child holding the excellent flagon.” [^2352]
This is a Cup Song. [^2353] Then Princess Wodo presented [326] a Song. That Song said:
“Would that I were [thou,] the lower board of the arm-rest whereon our great lord who tranquilly carries on the government stands leaning at morn, stands leaning at eve! Oh! mine elder brother!” [^2354]
This is a Quiet Song.
[ p. 408 ] [327]
¶ SECT. CLXII.—EMPEROR YŪ-RIYAKU (PART XIII.—HIS AGE AND PLACE OF BURIAL).
The Heavenly Sovereign’s august years were one hundred and twenty-four. His august mausoleum is at Takawashi in Tajihi [^2355] in Kafuchi,
[ p. 409 ]
¶ SECT. CLXIII.—EMPEROR SEI-NEI (PART I.—SEARCH FOR A SUCCESSOR TO HIM).
His Augustness Shiraka-no-oho-yamato-ne-ko dwelt at the palace of Mikakuri at Ihare, [1] and ruled the Empire. This Heavenly Sovereign had no Empress, and likewise no august children. So the Shiraka-Clan [2] was established as his august proxy. So after the Heavenly Sovereign’s decease, there was no King to rule the Empire. Thereupon, on enquiry [being made] for a King who should rule the sun’s succession, Oshinumi-no-iratsume, [3] another name for whom was Princess Ihi-toyo, younger sister of Prince Ichinobe-oshiha-wake, [4] [was found to be] residing at the palace of Tsunusashi at Takaki in Oshinumi in Kadzuraki. [5]
¶ SECT. CLXIV.—EMPEROR SEI-NEI (PART II.—PRINCES OHOKE AND WOKE ARE DISCOVERED).
Then Wodate, Chief of the Mountain Clan [6] when appointed governor of the land of Harima, arrived just at [ p. 410 ] [328] [the time of] a rejoicing for the new cave of an inhabitant called Shizhimu. [7] Hereupon, when the feasting and the drinking were at their height, they all danced in turn. So two young children [8] [employed] to light the fire sat beside the furnace. [9] These young children were made to dance. Then one of the young children said: “Do thou the elder brother dance first.” The elder brother likewise said: “Do thou the younger brother dance first.” When they thus yielded to each other, the people who were met together laughed at their manner of yielding to each other. [10] So at last the elder brother danced, [and when he had] finished, the younger when about to dance chanted, saying:
“On the bamboos on the mountain-slopes, behind which are hidden as soon as they appear my warrior-mate’s sword, on whose hilt red earth was daubed, for whose cord red cloth was cut, and his red flags that were set up!:—Beggarly descendants of King Ichinobe-no-oshiha, august child of the Heavenly Sovereign Izaho-wake, who ruled the Empire as it were cutting the [bamboos’] roots and bending down their extremities, and like playing on an eight-stringed lute!” [11]
[329] Then forthwith Chief Wodate, starting at the sound [of these words], and rolling off his couch, [12] drove away the people of the cave; and having set the two [13] princes [one] on his left knee and [the other] on his right and wept and lamented, he collected the people together, and having built a temporary palace, and set [the two princes] [ p. 411 ] to dwell in that temporary palace, he sent a courier up [to the capital]. Thereupon their aunt, Queen Ihi-toyo, delighted to hear [the news], made them come up to the palace.
[ p. 412 ] [330]
¶ SECT. CLXV.—EMPEROR SEI-NEI (PART III.—THE GRANDEE SHIBI). [14]
So when the government of the Empire was about to be assumed, [15] the Grandee Shibi, [16] ancestor of the Grandees of Heguri [17] mixed in the Songs, and took the hand of the beautiful person whom His Augustness Woke was about to wed. This maiden was a daughter of one of the Headmen of Uda, [18] and her name was Ofuwo. [19] Then His Augustness Woke likewise mixed in the Song-Hedge. [20] Thereupon the Grandee Shibi sang, saying:
(iv) “The further fin of the roof of the great palace is bent down at the corner.” [21]
When he had thus sung, and requested the conclusion [ p. 413 ] of the Song, His Augustness Woke sang, saying:
(v) “It is on account of the great carpenter’s [331] awkwardness that it is bent down at the corner.” [22]
Then the Grandee Shibi sang again, saying:
(viii)“The great lord, on account of the magnanimity of his heart, does not enter and stand in the eight-fold hedge of branches of the child of a grandee.” [23]
Hereupon the Prince sang again, saying:
(i) “Looking on the breakers of the briny current, I see my spouse standing by the fin of the tunny that comes sporting.”
Then the Grandee Shibi, getting more and more angry sang, saying:
(ix) “[Though] the eight-fold hedge of branches of the Prince the Great Lord be made fast at eight places, be made fast all round, ’tis a hedge that shall be cut, ’tis a hedge that shall be burnt.” [24]
Then the Prince again sang, saying:
(ii) “Oh fisherman that spearest the tunny, the great fish! He being [there], thou must be sad at heart, tunny-spearing fisherman!” [25]
Having thus sung, the feast was concluded at dawn, [332] and they all retired. Next morning the two Deities, [26] His Augustness Ohoke and His Augustness Woke, took counsel, saying: “All the people of the Court go to Court in the morning, and assemble at Shibi 's gate at noon. So [27] Shibi must surely now be sleeping, and, [ p. 414 ] [333] moreover there will be nobody at the gate. So unless it be now, it were hard to plot against him,” [28]—and forthwith they at once raised an army, and beleaguered the house of the Grandee Shibi, and slew him.
[ p. 415 ]
¶ Footnotes
407:1 Kasuga no Wodo-hime. See Sect. CLIX. Note I. ↩︎
407:2 This Song is simply a reiterated, and playful injunction to the maiden to hold firmly the flagon containing the intoxicating liquor; and Motowori is, as Moribe remarks, putting more into the words than they are really meant to convey, when he says that they imply praise on the Monarch’s part,—The English words “grandee’s daughter” represent the Japanese omi no omina, a somewhat remarkable expression, which is interpreted by Motowori to signify “attendant maiden.” The translator prefers the view propounded in Moribe’s comment on this Song, and has therefore adopted it. The expression is in the original preceded by the untranslatable Pillow-Word minasossoku (Moribe reads the last syllable with the nigori,—gu), The word rendered “excellent flagon” is ho-dari, the first element of the compound being explained by the commentators in the sense of “excellent,” i.e., “big,” while the second is the same as the modern word taru, “a cask.” In ancient times, however, the signification of tari or taru was that of a vessel to pour liquor from, not p. 408 to store liquor in,—i.e., a flagon, not a cask. The words “quite firmly, more and more firmly” represent the Japanese shita-gataku ya-gataku according to Moribe’s exegesis. Motowori’s interpretation of them in the sense of “[take the] bottom firmly and the top firmly” is less acceptable. ↩︎
407:3 Thus does the editor of 1687, who is followed by Moribe, understand the original expression uki-uta. Motowori’s interpretation, “Floating Song,” seems less good. ↩︎
407:4 So enamoured is the maiden of the Sovereign that she would fain be even the board of the arm-rest on which he leans.—The expression “lower board ”is misleading, for it refers simply to the self-evident fact that the board forming the top of the little low table used as an arm-rest by one squatting on his mat is below the arm, as whose support it serves. The words “stands leaning” must probably be understood to signify “sits” or “squats leaning.” The expression “our great lord who tranquilly carries on the government” is a frequently recurring periphrasis for the word “Emperor,” and has been explained in Sect. LXXXVII, Note 4. The words “at morn” and “at eve” are literally in the original “at morning doors” and “at evening doors,” the reference being to the fact that the doors of a house are respectively opened and closed in the early morning and at nightfall. The exclamation “Oh! mine elder brother” is addressed to the board of the arm-rest. Conf. the first Song in Sect LXXXIX, where Yamato-take apostrophizes a pine-tree in the same terms. ↩︎
408:1 For Tajihi see Sect. CXXXII, Note 4. Takawashi signifies “high eagle.” ↩︎
409:1a For Ihare see Sect. XLIII, Note 26. Mika-kuri signifies “jar-chestnut.” ↩︎
409:2 Shiraka-be. ↩︎
409:3 In Sect. CXXXI (Note 7) this name appears as Awomi-no-iratsume. Both Awomi and Oshinumi are supposed to be names of places. The latter is the name of a district in Yamato. Its etymology is obscure. For Ihi-toyo see Sect. CXXXI, Note 8. ↩︎
409:4 See Sect. CXXXI (Note 5), where however the title of wake (“Lord”) is omitted. ↩︎
409:5 For Kadzuraki see Sect. LV, Note 1, and for Oshinumi see Note 3 to the present Sect. Takaki seems to signify “high castle,” while Tsunusashi is obscure. (See Motowori’s remarks on these two names in Vol. XLIII, p. 3 of his Commentary.) ↩︎
409:1b Yama-be no murazhiwodate. Yama-be has already appeared. Wo-date signifies “small shield.” ↩︎
410:2 For this name see Sect. CXLIX, Note 5. A similar festival at the inauguration of a new cave is mentioned in Sect. LXXX. ↩︎
410:3 Motowori’s vain attempts to reconcile the dates with this statement of Princes Ohoke and Woke being “young children ”at this time, after an interval of two reigns since the death of their father, will be found in Vol. XLIII, pp. 10-11, of his Commentary. ↩︎
410:4 I.e., as the commentators suppose, a place or vessel holding a light with which to kindle other lights for the feast. The word can scarcely here have its common signification of a “kitchen-range.” ↩︎
410:5 I.e., at the fact of their being so courteous to each other. ↩︎
410:6 This so-called “chant,”—it is not a Song, because not in metre, and is accordingly not transcribed syllabically,—is at first sight so difficult as to seem to defy translation, and to make the student apply to the whole of his interpretation Motowori’s closing remark on his exegesis of one of phrases contained in it,—“this is mere guess-work, and the text demands further consideration.” A little inspection shows, however, that the drift of the words is by no means so inscrutable as its partly ideographic and partly phonetic transcription makes it appear. The first part down to the colon and dash is a “Preface” to the second, the “Pivot” joining the two parts in the original Japanese being the word “bamboos.” The laws of English construction unfortunately do not admit of the force of the original, which entirely depends on the position of the words, being rendered into our language. The appropriateness of the Preface to the body of the chant rests on the consideration that the bright articles mentioned in it, viz., the sword painted and decorated with red streamers (or perhaps tied on with a red sash) and also the red banners are easily hidden behind the thick leaves of a bamboo-grove, just as the Imperial origin of the two young Princes was hidden beneath the vile office which they filled in Shizhimu’s household. The clause “cutting the [bamboos’] roots and bending down their extremities” forms the chief difficulty. Indeed the word “roots” is supplied by Motowori, and his interpretation of the phrase is merely tentative. We may, p. 412 however, until some better explanation is offered, see in it a reference to the energetic manner in which the Empire was ruled by the young princes grandfather, the Emperor Izaho-wake (i-chiū), or else perhaps by their father Ichinobe-no-Oshiha. This latter view is preferred by Motowori, though according to the history Ichinobe-no-oshiha never actually ascended the throne. The position of the Verb “ruled” in the Japanese text permits of either interpretation. The comparison of the government of the Empire to playing on a lute is poetical and appropriate. It should be noticed that in the Japanese text the construction of the sentence forming the main body of the chant is the reverse of what it is made to appear to be in the translation. The words “beggarly descendants,” by which, as a climax, the singer reveals his own and his brother’s illustrious descent, therefore come last of all and produce on Wodate the startling effect which we read of in the next sentence. ↩︎
410:7 Or, “seat.” In ancient times each person in a room sat on a special mat, and it is that small mat which is here meant. ↩︎
410:8 The Numeral is accompanied by the Auxiliary hashira, properly used for gods and goddesses. ↩︎
412:1 p. 414 The student should compare the version of the story in this Sect. with that give in the “Chronicles of Japan,” where it is placed some years later at the commencement of the reign of the Emperor Mu-retsu, and not only do many of the details disagree, but the arrangement and number of the Songs is different. It is impossible to make a consistent whole out of the story as here given; so, while noticing the linguistic peculiarities of each of the Songs in the order in which they appear in the present text, the translator has thought it advisable, following Moribe, to give in Note 12 a consistent scheme of interpretation for the whole. The small Roman numbers placed in brackets at the commencement of each Song indicate its place in the text as restored by Moribe. ↩︎
412:2 By one or other of the two Princes Ohoke and Woke. “Each,” we are afterwards told, “ceded the Empire to the other,” and it therefore remained for some time uncertain which was to be the Sovereign. ↩︎
412:3 Shibi no omi. In some of the Songs that follow there is a play on the identity of this name with that of the tunny-fish (shibi). But whether that be really the derivation it is difficult to ascertain. ↩︎
412:4 Heguri no omi. Conf. Sect. LXI, Note 45. ↩︎
412:5 Uda no obito-ra. Uda is the name of a place in Yamato. ↩︎
412:6 I.e., “big fish.” But see the remark on this name in Note 12. ↩︎
412:7 Uta-gaki. The derivation of this curious expression is disputed; but the meaning seems to be “strophic” or “choric song,” or “a place where singing in which more than one takes part is going on.” ↩︎
412:8 In this Song the “further fin” (woto tsu hata-de, explained by the characters
or 
is supposed to signify a pent-roof, or the eaves of the roof, or else an out-house connected by a slanting roof with the main building. The “great palace” is the palace of Prince Woke. ↩︎413:9 The “great carpenter” is the carpenter employed to build the roof above-mentioned. ↩︎
413:10 The “eight-fold hedge of branches” is simply a “hedge,” and the “child of a grandee” the Grandee Shibi himself. ↩︎