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Nihongi.
Thereafter, Izanagi no Mikoto went after Izanami no (I. 18.) Mikoto, and entered the land of Yomi.[1] When he reached her they conversed together, and Izanami no Mikoto said: 'My lord and husband, why is thy coming so late? I have already eaten of the cooking-furnace of Yomi.[2] Nevertheless, I am about to lie down to rest. I pray thee, do not thou look on me.' Izanami no Mikoto did not give ear to her, but secretly took his many-toothed comb and, breaking off its end tooth,[3] made of it a torch, and looked at her. Putrefying matter had gushed up, and maggots swarmed. This is why people at the present day avoid using a single light at night, and also avoid throwing away a comb[4] at night. Izanagi no Mikoto was greatly shocked, and said: 'Nay! I have come unawares to a hideous and polluted land.' So he speedily ran away back again. Then Izanami no Mikoto was angry, and said:
- ↑ The original has "yellow springs," a Chinese expression. Yomi or Yomo is Hades. It is no doubt connected with yo or yoru, night.
- ↑ This is a feature of many old-world and savage myths. In the legend of the rape of Proserpine by Pluto, as told by Ovid, Jupiter replies to Ceres, who demanded back her daughter—
". . . Repetat Proserpina caelum,
Lege tamen certâ: si nullos contiget illic
Ore cibos."But Proserpine already—
"Puniceum curvâ decerpserat arbore pomum
Sumta que pallenti septem de cortice grana
Presserat ore suo."Compare also the story of Nachikėtas from the Taittiriya Brāhmana, and the Katha Upanishad:—
"Three nights within his (Yama's) mansion stay,
But taste not, though a guest, his food."
Muir's Sanskrit texts, Vol. V., p. 329.The resemblance of the name Yama of the Indian God of the Lower World to the Japanese Yomi has been noted, and also some points of similarity in the myth of Yami and Yama to that of Izanagi and Izanami. See Lang, "Custom and Myth," p. 171.
- ↑ End-tooth is in Japanese wo-bashira, i e. male-pillar, for which see above, note to p. 11.
- ↑ The "Adzuma Kagami" mentions a superstition that any one who picks up a comb which has been thrown away is transformed into another person.
