drew a thousand-draught rock,[1] and with it blocked up the Even-Pass-of-Hades, and placed the rock in the middle; and they stood opposite to one another and exchanged leave-takings;[2] and Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites said: "My lovely elder brother, thine Augustness! If thou do like this, I will in one day strangle to death a thousand of the folk of thy land." Then His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites replied: "My lovely younger sister, Thine Augustness! If thou do this, I will in one day set up a thousand and five hundred parturition-houses.[3] In this manner each day a thousand people would surely be born." So Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites is called the Great-Deity-of-Hades.[4] Again it is said that, owing to her having pursued and reached her elder brother, she is called the Road-Reaching-Great deity.[5] Again, the rock with which he blocked up the Even-Pass-of-Hades is called the Great-Deity-of-the-Road-Turning-back,[6] and again it is called the Blocking-Great-Deity-of-the-Door-of-Hades. So what was called the Even-Pass-of-Hades is now called the Ifuya-Pass[7] in the Land of Idzumo.
THE PURIFICATION OF THE AUGUST PERSON
Therefore the great deity the Male-Who-Invites said: "Nay! hideous! I have come to a hideous and polluted
- ↑ I.e., a rock which it would take a thousand men to lift.
- ↑ That some kind of leave-taking and separation is intended seems certain; but the precise import of the characters in the text is not to be ascertained. Moribe, in his critique on this commentary, argues that "divorced each other" is the proper signification of the words, and supports his opinion by the parallel passage of the "Chronicles."
- ↑ I.e., "I will cause fifteen hundred women to bear children." There was a custom of erecting a separate hut for a woman about to be delivered.
- ↑ Yomo-tsu-oho-kami. On this rather embarrassing statement Motowori is silent, and Hirata simply says: "It must be supposed that the 'deities of Hades' previously mentioned had been its 'Great Deities' up to this time, a position which was henceforward assumed by Her Augustness Izana-mi (the Female-Who-Invites)."
- ↑ Chi-shiki-no-oho-kami.
- ↑ Because the goddess was turned back by it on the road where she was pursuing her brother-husband.
- ↑ Ifuya-zaka. Moribe conjectures that Ifuya may be derived from Yufu-yami, "evening darkness," an etymology which has at least the merit of suiting the legend.
