he will not receive them, saying, ‘I still want the original fish-hook.’ So I weep and lament for this.” Then the Deity Salt-Possessor said: “I will give good counsel to Thine Augustness;”—and therewith built a stout little boat without interstices,[1] and set him in the boat, and instructed him, saying: “When I shall have pushed the boat off, go on for some time. There will be a savoury august road;[2] and if thou goest in the boat along that road, there will appear a palace built like fishes’ scales,—which is the palace of the Deity-Ocean-Possessor.[3] When thou reachest the august gate of that deity [’s palace], there will be a multitudinous [-ly branching] cassia-tree[4] above the well at its side. So if thou sit on the top of that tree, the Sea-Deity’s daughter will see thee, and counsel thee.” So following [these] instructions, [His Augustness Fire-Subside] went a little [way], and everything happened as [the Deity Salt-Possessor] had said; and he forthwith climbed the cassia-tree, and sat [there]. Then when the handmaidens of the Sea-Deity’s daughter Luxuriant-Jewel-Princess,[5] bearing jewelled vessels, were about to draw water, there was a light in the well.[6] On looking up, there was a beautiful young man. They thought
- ↑ I.e., as is supposed, a punt or tub made of strips of bamboo plaited so tightly that no water could find its way in between them.
- ↑ I.e., simply “a pleasant road.” Michi, “a road” is properly a compound,—mi-chi, “august road,”—the single syllable chi being the most archaic Japanese word for “road.” It is in this place written 御路, showing that the etymology was not yet quite forgotten at the time of the compilation of these “Records.” Generally, however, throughout the work we have 路 or 道 alone.
- ↑ See Sect. VI, Note 8, where the Adjective “Great” is prefixed to the name.
- ↑ See Sect. XXXI, Note 10.
- ↑ Toyo-tama-bime.
- ↑ The character 光, properly “light,” “refulgence,” is here taken by Motowori in the precisely opposite sense of “shadow” (the parallel passage in the “Chronicles” having 人影 “human shadow”), and his view is absolved from unreasonableness by the fact of the confusion between light and shade which has always existed in Japanese phraseology. Thus hi-kage may signify either “sunlight” or “a shadow cast by the sun.” It is safest, however, to adhere to the Chinese characters employed by the author; and in this special instance we may well suppose him to have intended to say that a celestial light shone from the body of the god in question. Such an idea is not foreign to classical Japanese ways of thought and expression. See also Sect. XLVI, Notes 9–10.
