sword, and instructed the butlers, saying: “When ye hear me sing, cut [them down] simultaneously.” So the Song by which he made clear to them to set about smiting the earth-spiders said:
“Into tho great cave of Osaka people have entered in abundance, and are [there]. Though people have entered in abundance, and are [there], the children of the augustly powerful warriors will smite and finish them with [their] mallet-headed [swords], [their] stone-mallet [swords]: the children of the augustly powerful warriors, with [their] mallet-headed [swords], [their] stone-mallet [swords], would now do well to smite.[1]
Having thus sung, they drew their swords, and simultaneously smote them to death.
[Sect. XLIX.—Emperor Jim-mu (Part VI.—The Prince of Tomi and the Shiki Brethren).]
After this, when about to smite the Prince of Tomi,[2] he sang, saying:
- ↑ The import of this poem is too clear to stand in need of explanation. The word mitsumitsushi, here rendered “augustly powerful” in accordance with Moribe’s view, is understood by Motowori to mean “perfectly full,” in allusion to the fully or perfectly round eyes of the deity Kume, to whose name he supposes there to be a reference. Mabuchi, on the other hand, explains the word to signify “young and flourishing.” But Moribe’s view both of this and of the import of kume as “warriors” seems so greatly preferable to any other, that the translator has not hesitated to follow him (conf. Sect. XXXIV, Note 7). The “children of the warriors” are of course the warriors themselves. With regard to the signification of the two kinds of swords here mentioned it has, however, been thought best to adhere to the usual view, and Note 10 to Sect. XXXIV should be referred to.
- ↑ See Sect. XLIV, Notes 28 et seq. The apparent want of sequence in this portion of the narrative is not noticed by Motowori. We might endeavour to harmonize it by supposing that after having slain the “earth-spiders,” etc., the Emperor Jim-mu turned round again to tight with the Prince of Tomi, who had harrassed him in the earlier portion of his career as conqueror of Central Japan.
