A History of the Japanese People. Kikuchi Dairoku
thou sayest thou willst not weep
If like the flocking birds, I flock and depart,
If like the led birds, I am led away and
Depart; thou wilt hang down thine head like
A single Eulalia upon the mountain and
Thy weeping shall indeed rise as the mist of
The morning shower.
Then the Empress, taking a wine-cup, approaches and offers it to
him, saying:
Oh! Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears!
Thou, my dear Master-of-the-Great-Land indeed,
Being a man, probably hast on the various island headlands thou
seest,
And on every beach-headland that thou lookest on,
A wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas!
Being a woman, I have no man except thee; I have no spouse except
thee.
Beneath the fluttering of the ornamented fence,
Beneath the softness of the warm coverlet,
Beneath the rustling of the cloth coverlet,
Thine arms, white as rope of paper-mulberry bark softly patting
my breast soft as the melting snow,
And patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing
ourselves on each other's arms,
True jewel arms, and with outstretched legs, will we sleep.*
*B. H. Chamberlain.
"Having thus sung, they at once pledged each other by the cup with their hands on each other's necks." It is, nevertheless, from among the children born on the occasion of the contest between the Sun goddess and Susanoo that the Great-Name Possessor first seeks a spouse—the Princess of the Torrent Mist—to lay the foundation of fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy renders invaluable aid to the Great-Name Possessor. But the useful little Kami does not wait to witness the conclusion of the work of "making and consolidating the country." Before its completion he takes his departure from Cape Kumano in Izumo to the "everlasting land"—a region commonly spoken of in ancient Japanese annals but not yet definitely located. He is replaced by a spirit whose coming is thus described by the Chronicles:
After this (i.e. the departure of Sukuna), wherever there was in the land a part which was imperfect, the Great-Name Possessor visited it by himself and succeeded in repairing it. Coming at last to the province of Izumo, he spake and said: "This central land of reed plains had always been waste and wild. The very rocks, trees, and huts were all given to violence … But I have now reduced it to submission, and there is none that is not compliant." Therefore he said finally: "It is I, and I alone, who now govern this land. Is there, perchance, anyone who could join with me in governing the world?" Upon this a divine radiance illuminated the sea, and of a sudden there was something which floated towards him and said: "Were I not here, how couldst thou subdue this land? It is because I am here that thou hast been enabled to accomplish this mighty undertaking." Then the Great-Name Possessor inquired, saying, "Then who art thou?" It replied and said: "I am thy guardian spirit, the wonderous spirit." Then said the Great-Name Possessor: "True, I know therefore that thou art my guardian spirit, the wonderous spirit. Where dost thou now wish to dwell?" The spirit answered and said, "I wish to dwell on Mount Mimoro in the province of Yamato." Accordingly he built a shrine in that place and made the spirit go and dwell there. This is the Kami of Omiwa.*
*Aston's Translation of the Nihongi.
After the above incident, another begetting of Kami takes place on a large scale, but only a very few of them—such as the guardian of the kitchen, the protector of house-entrances, the Kami of agriculture, and so forth—have any intelligible place in the scheme of things.
ENGRAVING: CRESTS
CHAPTER III
JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY (Continued)
THE SUBJUGATION OF JAPAN
THE dividing line between mythological tradition and historical legend is now reached. It will have been observed that, after the descent of Susanoo, the Kami on the "plain of high heaven" took no further part in "making" or "ruling" the "ever fruitful land of reed-covered moors, and luxuriant rice-fields," as Japan was called. Everything was left in the hands of Susanoo, the insubordinate Kami, who had been expelled from heaven for his destructive violence. His descendant in the sixth generation, the Great-Name Possessor, now held supreme sway over the islands, in conjunction with a number of his own relations, his seat of power being in the province of Izumo. At this juncture the goddess of the Sun decided that a sovereign should be sent down to govern the land of many islands, and she chose for this purpose the son of the eldest* of the five Kami born from her necklace during the procreation competition with Susanoo.
In the first place, however, it was considered necessary to reduce the country to order, observation having shown it to be in a state of tumult. For that purpose the second of the five necklace Kami—considered "the most heroic" of all the beings on the "plain of high heaven"—was despatched. But he "curried favour" with the Great-Name Possessor and took up his abode in Japan. At the end of three years,** seeing that he had not returned, it was decided by the Kami in council to send another envoy, the Heavenly Young Prince. But he proved even more disloyal, for he married the daughter of the Great-Name Possessor, famous for her beauty,*** and planning to succeed his father-in-law as sovereign of the land, remained in Izumo for eight years. A third conclave of the Kami was now convened by the Sun goddess and her coadjutor, the Great-Producing Kami,* and they decided to despatch a pheasant to make observations.
*This Kami married a daughter of one of the two Great-Producing Kami who belonged to the original trinity, and who co-operates with the Sun goddess throughout.
**This is the first mention of a measure of time in the Records.
***She was called Princess Undershining, because her beauty shone through her raiment.
The bird flew down and lit on a cassia tree at the gate of the Heavenly Young Prince's dwelling, whereupon the prince, at the instigation of a female spy, taking a bow given to him originally by the Great-Producing Kami, shot a shaft which pierced the bird's bosom, and, reaching the Milky Way where sat the Sun goddess and the Great-Producing Kami, was recognized by the latter, who threw it back to earth, decreeing that it should strike the prince were he guilty of treason, and leave him unharmed if the blood on the arrow was that of the earthly Kami whom he had been sent to quell. The shaft struck the prince and killed him.
At this point the course of the history is interrupted by an unintelligible description of the resulting obsequies—held in heaven according to the Chronicles, on earth according to the Records. Wild geese, herons, kingfishers, sparrows, and pheasants were the principal officiators; the mourning rites, which included singing, and dancing,* continued for eight days and eight nights, and the proceedings were rudely interrupted by the prince's brother-in-law, who, coming to condole and being mistaken for the deceased, is so enraged by the error that he draws his sword, cuts down the mortuary house, and kicks away the pieces.
*It has been conjectured, with much probability, that this singing and dancing was a ceremony in imitation of the rites performed to entice the Sun goddess from her cave. The motive was to resuscitate the dead.
These two failures did