of-Great-Food.[1] Next they gave birth to the Fire-Burning-Swift-Male-Deity,[2] another name for whom is the Deity Fire-Shining-Prince, and another name is the Deity Fire-Shining-Elder.
[Sect. VII.—Retirement of Her Augustness the Princess-Who-Invites.]
Through giving birth to this child her august private parts were burnt, and she sickened and lay down.[3] The names of the Deities born from her vomit were the Deity Metal-Mountain-Prince and next the Deity Metal-Mountain-Princess.[4] The names of the Deities that were born from her fæces were the Deity Clay-Viscid-Prince and next the Deity Clay-Viscid-Princess.[5] The names of the Deities that were next born from her urine were the Deity Mitsuhanome[6] and next the Young-Wondrous-Producing-Deity.[7] The child of this Deity was called
- ↑ Homonymous with the alternative personal name of the Island of Aha. (See Sect V. Note 8.)
- ↑ Hi-no-haya-yagi-wo-no-kami. If, as seems likely, yagi is an incorrect reading for kagi, we should have to translate by “shining” the word here rendered “burning.” The alternative names are Hi-no-kaga-biko-no-kami and Hi-no-kagu-tsuchi-no-kami. In “One account” of the “Chronicles” and elsewhere in the “Rituals” this fire-god is called Ho-musubi, i.e. “the Fire-Producer.”
- ↑ “Lying down” (koyasu) is a term often used in the Archaic language in the sense of “dying.” But here it must be taken literally, the death (“divine retirement”) of the goddess being narrated a few lines further on.
- ↑ Kana-yama-biko-no-kami and Kana-yama-bime-no-kami. The translation of this pair of names follows the plain sense of the characters 金山 with which they are written, and which seems appropriate enough, coming as they do between the deity of fire and deities of clay. Motowori however, declaring both characters to be merely phonetic, derives kana-yama from kare-nayamasu, “to cause to wither and suffer,” and interprets the names accordingly. This is at any rate ingenious.
- ↑ Hani-yasu-biko-no-kami and Hani-yasu-bime-no-kami.
- ↑ The signification of this name is not to be ascertained. In the text it is written phonetically 彌都波能賣, and two passages in the “Chronicles,” where this deity is mentioned as 水神罔象女 and 水名爲嚴罔象女; with directions in each case to read the name with the sounds here given to it, do not help us much, except in so far as they show that Mitsuhanome was conceived of as the deity of water and as a female.
- ↑ Waku-musu-bi-no-kami.
