[our father] spoke, deigning to enquire the cause of my wailing and weeping, I said: ‘I wail because I wish to go to my deceased mother’s land,’—whereupon the Great-August-Deity said: ‘Thou shalt not dwell in this land,’ and deigned to expel me with a divine expulsion. It is therefore solely with the thought of taking leave of thee and departing, that I have ascended hither. I have no strange intentions.” Then the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity said: “If that he so, whereby shall I know the sincerity of thine intentions?” Thereupon His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness replied, saying: “Let each of us swear,[1] and produce children.” So as they then swore to each other from the opposite banks of the Tranquil River of Heaven,[2] the august names of the Deities that were born from the mist [of her breath] when, having first begged His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness to hand her the ten-grasp sabre which was girded on him and broken it into three fragments, and with the jewels making a jingling sound[3] having brandished and washed them in the True-Pool-Well of Heaven,[4] and having crunchingly crunched them, the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity
- ↑ I.e., “pledge our faith,” “bind ourselves,” in order to show forth the sincerity of our intentions.—Hirata has a long note on the word ukehi, here rendered “swear” (elsewhere as a Substantive, “oath”), which the student will do well to consult. It is contained in his “Exposition of the Ancient Histories,” Vol. VII, pp. 61–63.
- ↑ Ame-no-yasu-kaha (according to Motowori’s reading Ame-no-yasu-no-kaha), our Milky Way. The “Chronicles of Old Matters of Former Ages” perhaps preserve the true etymology of the word by writing it Ama no ya-se kaha, i.e., “the Heavenly River of eight currents (or reaches).” This would mean simply “a broad river.” The text literally says: “having placed the Tranquil River of Heaven in the middle,” etc.; but the sense of the clause is that given in the translation.
- ↑ These words seem, as Motowori says, to have been erroneously brought in here from the next sentence, where they come in appropriately.
- ↑ Ame-no-ma-na-wi. The interpretation adopted is that which has the authority of Motowori and Hirata. Perhaps only “Heavenly Well” is intended. The above authorities warn us that the word wi, “well,” was not in ancient days restricted to its modern sense, but was used to designate any place at which water could be drawn, and Motowori thinks that Heaven contained several such. That mentioned in the text seems to have been a pool in the bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven.
