fashion of his weeping was such as by his weeping to wither the green mountains into withered mountains, and by his weeping to dry up all the rivers and seas.[1] For this reason the sound of bad deities was like unto the flies in the fifth moon[2] as they all swarmed,[3] and in all things[4] every portent of woe arose. So the Great August deity the Male-Who-Invites said to His Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness: "How is it that, instead of ruling the land with which I charged thee, thou dost wail and weep?" He replied, saying: "I[5] wail because I wish to depart to my deceased mother's[6] land, to the Nether Distant Land."[7] Then the Great August deity the Male-Who-Invites was very angry and said: If that be so, thou shalt not dwell in this land,"[8] and forthwith expelled him with a divine expulsion. So the great deity the Male-Who-Invites dwells at Taga[9] in Afumi.[10]
THE AUGUST OATH
So thereupon His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness said: "If that be so I will take leave[11] of the Heaven-Shining-
- ↑ Sic in the original, to the perplexity of commentators.
- ↑ "Flies in the fifth moon" is the received interpretation of the original term sa-bahe.
- ↑ The text has here the character "to be full," for which Motowori somewhat arbitrarily reads "to bubble up," taking this word in the sense of swarming. The translator has endeavored to preserve the vagueness of the original Japanese, which leaves it doubtful at first sight whether the flies or the deities should be regarded as the logical subject of the verb.
- ↑ Literally, "a myriad things," a Chinese phrase for totality.
- ↑ The Chinese character for the first-personal pronoun used here and below by this deity is the humble one signifying, literally, "servant." The commentators read it simply "I."
- ↑ The Japanese authorities simply read "mother." But the character which is used in this place specially designates a mother who is deceased.
- ↑ I.e., Hades.
- ↑ I.e., say the commentators, "in this realm of ocean which I granted to thee as thy domain." Probably, however, this is reading into the text more than it was meant to contain.
- ↑ Derivation unknown.
- ↑ From aha-umi, "fresh sea," i.e., "lake." The province of Afumi was doubtless so called from Lake Biha, which occupies a great portion of its surface.
- ↑ The English location "to take leave" exactly represents the Chinese
