at the foot of Mount Uka[1] in the nethermost rock-bottom, and make high the cross-beams to the Plain-of-High-Heaven, and dwell [there], thou villain!”[2] So when, bearing the great sword and bow, he pursued and scattered the eighty Deities, he did pursue them till they crouched on the august slope of every pass,[3] he did pursue them till they were swept into every river, and then he began to make the land.[4] Quamobrem Hera Yakami, secundum anterius pactum, [cum eo] in thalamo coivit. So he brought her with him; but, fearing his consort the Forward Princess, she stuck into the fork of a tree the child that she had borne, and went back.[5] So the child was called by the name of the Tree-Fork-Deity,[6] and another name was the Deity-of-August-Wells.[7]
[Sect. XXIV.—The Wooing of the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears.]
This Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears,[8] when he went forth[9] to woo the Princess of Nuna-kaha[10] in the land of Koshi, on arriving at the house of the Princess of Nuna-kaha sang, saying:
- ↑ Uka-no-yama. No satisfactory etymology of Uka is forthcoming.
- ↑ I.e., “Firmly planting in the rook the pillars forming the foundation of thy palace, and rearing its fabric to the skies, do thou rule therefrom the Land of the Living, thou powerful wretch, who hast so successfully braved me”!
- ↑ Or “hill.”
- ↑ This is taken to mean that he continued the act of creation which had been interrupted by the death of Izanami (the “Female-Who-Invites”). See Sect IX, p. 35, where her husband Izanagi says to her: “The lands that I and thou made are not yet finished making.” The words Kuni tsukuri (作國), here used for “making the land,” became a title for “Ruler-of-the-Land” and finally a “gentile name” (kabane).
- ↑ Q.d., to Inaba.
- ↑ Ki-no-mata-no-kami.
- ↑ Mi-wi-no-kami. He is supposed to have benefitted the country by digging wells in many places.
- ↑ In this Section, the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land is spoken of under this alias (See Sect. XX, Note 20).
- ↑ The characters 幸行 here, in accordance with the reading of the commentators, rendered by the words “went forth,” are Honorific, being only properly applied to the progresses of a sovereign.
- ↑ Nuna-kawa-hime. Nuna-kaha or Nu-na-kaha (“lagoon-river”) is supposed to be the name of a place in the province of Echigo.
