in the West so brave and strong as we two.[1] Yet in the Land of Great Yamato there is a man braver than we two,—there is.[2] Therefore will I offer thee an august name. From this time forward it is right that thou be praised as the August Child Yamato-take.[3]” As soon as he had finished saying this, [the Prince] ripped him up[4] like a ripe melon,[5] and slew him.[6] So thenceforward he was praised by being called by the august name of[7] his Augustness Yamato-take. When he returned up [to the capital] after doing this, he subdued and pacified every one of the Deities of the mountains and of the Deities of the rivers and likewise of the Deities of Anado,[8] and then went up to [the capital].
[Sect. LXXXI.—Emperor Kei-kō (Part VI.—Yamato-take Slays the Idzumo Bravo).]
Forthwith entering the Laud of Idzumo, and wishing to slay the Idzumo bravo, he, on arriving, forthwith bound [himself to him in] friendship. So, having secretly made [the wood of] an oak [-tree[9]] into
- ↑ There is Motowori’s authority for thus understanding the bravo’s words. Taken still more literally, they would seem to imply that there were no brave and strong men in the West excepting himself and his brother.
- ↑ The words “there is” are an attempt at rendering the termination keri of the original. See Sect. X, Note 1.
- ↑ I.e., “Yamato-Brave,” q.d., “the Bravest in Yamato.” It is by this name that the hero is always commonly spoken of. Remember that “august child” signifies prince.
- ↑ 折, “broke,” in the text is, as the commentators observe, an evident error for 柝, “ripped.”
- ↑ Or specifically, the “musk-melon.”
- ↑ The translator has followed Motowori’s restoration of this passage, in which, by the transposition of the characters 也 and 故, the end of this sentence and the beginning of the next were mixed together in the older editions.
- ↑ Lit., “[they] praised the august name, calling him,” etc.
- ↑ Or, “of the Ana passage” (lit. door), the modern Strait of Shimonoseki. The word ana signifies “hole,” and there is a tradition (which Motowori quotes in his note on this name in Vol. XXVII, pp. 26–29 of his Commentary) to the effect that formerly the Main Island and the island of Kiushiu were continuous at this point, there being only a sort of natural tunnel, through which junks could pass.
- ↑ The species mentioned (ichihi) is the Quercus gilva.
