Land of Reed-Plains. So then the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity and the High-Integrating Deity commanded and charged the Heavenly-Alarming-Female-Deity[1] [, saying]: “Though thou art but a delicate female, thou art a Deity who conquers in facing Deities.[2] So be thou the one to go and ask thus: ‘This being the road by which our august child is about to descend from Heaven, who is it that is thus there?’ ”[3] So to this gracious question he replied, saying “I[4] am an Earthly Deity named the Deity Prince of Saruta.[5] The reason for my coming here is that, having heard of the [intended] descent of the august child of the Heavenly Deities, I have come humbly to meet him and respectfully offer myself as His Augustness’s vanguard.”[6] Then joining to him His Augustness Heavenly-Beckoning-Ancestor-Lord, His Augustness Grand-Jewel, Her Augustness Heavenly-Alarming-Female, Her Augustness I-shi-ko-ri-do-me, and His Augustness Jewel-Ancestor,[7] in all five chiefs of companies,[8] they sent him down from Heaven. Thereupon they joined to him the eight-feet [long] curved jewels and
- ↑ Ame-no-udzu-me-no-kami, the goddess whose loud, bold merriment was the chief cause of the Sun-Goddess emerging from her retreat in the cavern (see Sect. XVI, Note 28).
- ↑ I.e., “Thy brazen-facedness allows thee to stare others out of countenance, and make them uneasy.”
- ↑ Between this sentence and the next, the Alarming-Female-Deity must be supposed to have gone on her embassy and to have delivered the message with which she had been entrusted.
- ↑ Written 僕, literally “servant.”
- ↑ Saruta-biko no kami. This is Motowori’s reading. The more usual reading is Saruda-hiko, transposing the nigori. Hirata prefers to read Sada-biko, and takes Saruta or Sada to be the name of a place, which indeed seems the most acceptable view. The name actually signifies “monkey field.” Motowori’s interpretation of its import is a marvellous example of Japanese etymological gymnastics (see Vol. XV, p. 16 of his Commentary). Moribe’a derivation from sari-hate-hiko (避果彦) is no better.
- ↑ Or “guide.”
- ↑ For these five names and for the Deity Thought-Includer and the [Heavenly] Hand-Strength-Male-Deity mentioned a few lines further on, see Sect. XVI, Notes 15, 16, 28, 12, 13, 7, and 27 respectively.
- ↑ Tomo-no-wo. This expression is here taken to refer to the various offices assumed by the five deities in question at the time of the withdrawal of the Sun-Goddess into the cave. It signifies properly the head of a company.
