Vol. VI.]
Vol. I. Sect. X.
39
the Blocking-Great-Deity-of-the-Door-of-Hades.[1] So what was called the Even-Pass-of-Hades is now called the Ifuya-Pass[2] in the Land of Idzumo.
[Sect. X.—The Purification of the August Person.]
Therefore the Great Deity the Male-Who-Invites said: “Nay! hideous! I have come to a hideous and polluted land,—I have![3] So I will perform the purification of my august person.” So he went out to a plain [covered with] ahagi[4] at a small river-mouth near Tachibana[5] in Himuka[6] in [the island of] Tsukushi, and purified and cleansed himself. So the name of the Deity that was born from the august staff which he threw down was the Deity Thrust-Erect-Come-Not-Place.[7] The name of the Deity that was born from the august
- ↑ Sayari-masu-yomi-do-no-oho-kami.
- ↑ Ifuya-zaka. Moribe in his “Idzu-no-chi-waki” conjectures that Ifuya may be derived from Yufu-yami, “evening darkness,” an etymology which has at least the merit of suiting the legend.
- ↑ The words “I have” thus repeated are an attempt to render the concluding words ari keri of the sentence in the original, by which, though they have no particular sense, the author evidently set great store, as he writes them syllabically. They may be considered to emphasize what goes before and, says Motowori, “convey the idea of lamentation.” The idiom occurs some half-dozen times in the course of the present work.
- ↑ This botanical name is identified by Arawi Hakuseki and Hirata with the modern hagi, or “bushclover” (lespedeza of various species). The received opinion used to be that awoki (Aucuba Japonica) was here intended.
- ↑ Tachibana is understood to be the general designation of trees of the orange tribe. (See however Sect. LXXIV, Note 7.) Here it is used as a proper name.
- ↑ This name, which signifies “sun-confronting,” was not unnaturally bestowed on a province in the eastern part of the westernmost of the larger Japanese islands, as it might well be conceived as lying “opposite the sun.” It has, however, been supposed to have originally denoted the whole of the island in question. In any case the name is not inappropriate, as the island has a long eastern sea-board.
- ↑ In our text Tsuki-tatsu-funa-do. But funa should almost certainly be ku-na, and the name (which has here been translated accordingly) is then illustrated by the more extended version of this myth which is given in the “Chronicles,” where we read that the god (probably addressing his sister) threw down his staff with the words: “Come no further.” “Stand” must be understood in a Transitive sense: the god stood his staff up by thrusting it into the sand.
