Wakara[1] in Yamashiro, King Take-hani-yasu, who had raised an army, was waiting to intercept [their passage], and [the two hosts] stood confronting and challenging each other with the river between them.[2] So the place was called by the name of Idomi,[3]—what is now called Idzumi. Then His Augustness Hiko-kuni-buku spoke, begging the other side[4] to let fly the first arrow.[5] Then King Take-hani-yasu shot, but could not strike. Thereupon, on His Augustness Kuni-buku shooting an arrow, it forthwith struck King Take-hani-yasu dead. So the whole army was routed, and fled in confusion. Then the [Imperial troops pursued] after the fugitive army as far as the ferry of Kusuba, when, harrassed by the pursuit, exierunt [hostium] excrementa, quæ bracis adhæserunt. Quare isti loco impositum est nomen Kuso-bakama. In prœsenti nominatur Kusu-ba.[6] Again, on being intercepted in their flight and cut down, [their bodies] floated like cormorants in the river. So the river was called by the name of U-kaha.[7] Again, because the warriors were cut to pieces, the place was called by the name of Hafuri-sono.[8] Having thus finished [the work of] pacification, they went up [to the capital] to make their report [to the Heavenly Sovereign].
- ↑ Wakara-gaha. It is what is now called the Idzumi-gaha. Of Wakara we have nothing but an altogether untenable etymology given in the parallel passage of the “Chronicles.”
- ↑ More literally, “each having put the river in the middle, and mutually challenging.”
- ↑ I.e., “challenging.” The more likely etymology of Idzumi, which is written with the character 泉, is “source” or “spring.”
- ↑ The original has the very curious expression 廂人, literally, “people of the side-building,” which was a great crux to the early editors. Motowori is probably right in interpreting it in the sense of “the other side,” i.e., “the enemy.”
- ↑ 忌矢, literally “the arrow to be shunned, or avoided,”—but rather, in accordance with Archaic Japanese parlance, “the sacred arrow.” Motowori says: “At the commencement of a battle it was the custom for each side to let fly an initial arrow. Being the commencement of the affair, this arrow was considered specially important, and was shot off reverently with prayers to the Gods,—whence its name.”
- ↑ I.e., “excrementis [fœdatæ] bracæ.” But it is not at all probable that this is the correct etymology of the name. The stream is a small one in the eastern part of the province of Kahachi.
- ↑ I.e., “cormorant-river.”
- ↑ I.e., “the garden of cutting-to-pieces.”
