flowers of the trees.” So it is for this reason that down to the present day the august lives of Their Augustnesses the Heavenly Sovereigns[1] are not long.
[Sect. XXXVIII.—The August Child-Bearing of Princess-Blossoming Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees.]
So later on Princess-Blossoming-Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees waited on[2] [His Augustness Prince Rice-ear-Ruddy-Plenty, and said: “I[3] am pregnant, and now the time for my delivery approaches. It is not fit for me to be delivered of the august offspring of Heaven privately;[4] so I tell thee.” Then [His Augustness Prince-Rice-ear-Ruddy-Plenty] said: “Princess-Blossoming-Brilliantly![5] what! pregnant after one night![6] It cannot be my child. It must surely be the child of an Earthly Deity.”[7] Then she replied, saying:
- ↑ The characters rendered “Heavenly Sovereign” are 天皇, a common Japanese designation of the Emperor. It would, especially in the later volumes of this work where the expression is repeated on almost every page, be more convenient to translate by the single word “Emperor.” But the commentators lay great stress on the high significance of the component portions of the title, which, they contend, was not borrowed from China, but was first used in Japan. It is first met with in Chinese history in the middle of the seventh century of our era, just early enough indeed for it to have been borrowed before the time of the compilation of these “Records.” But as there was no difficulty in putting together the two component parts “Heavenly, Sovereign,” it is possible that the contention of the Japanese commentators is correct. The ancient pure native term seems to have been Sumera-mikoto, for which Mr. Satow has proposed the rendering of “Sovran Augustness.”
- ↑ More literally “came to”; but the character which is employed implies that her visit was to a superior.
- ↑ Written with the character 妾, a “concubine” or “handmaid,” a common self-depreciatory equivalent of the First Personal Pronoun in Chinese, when the speaker is a woman.
- ↑ I.e. “secretly,” “without telling thee.”
- ↑ In this one instance only is the name thus abbreviated. Motowori supposes it to be on account of the scorn implied in the god’s words.
- ↑ Literally, “one sojourn.”
- ↑ See Sect. I. Note 11. Here of course one of the gods of the same countryside is meant.
