Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 13.djvu/50

Great-August deity, and depart." With these words he forthwith went up to Heaven, whereupon all the mountains and rivers shook, and every land and country quaked. So the Heaven-Shining-Great-August deity, alarmed at the noise, said: "The reason of the ascent hither of His Augustness my elder brother^[1] is surely of no good intent.^[2] It is only that he wishes to wrest my land from me." And she forthwith, unbinding her august hair, twisted it into august bunches; and both into the left and into the right august bunch, as likewise into her august head-dress and likewise on to her left and her right august arm, she twisted an augustly complete string of curved jewels eight feet long, of five hundred jewels,^[3] and, slinging on her back a quiver holding a thousand arrows, and adding thereto^[4] a quiver holding five hundred arrows, she likewise took and slung at her side a mighty and high sounding elbow-pad, and brandished and stuck her bow upright so that the top shook, and she stamped her feet into the hard ground up to her opposing thighs,^[5] kicking away the earth like rotten snow,^[6] and stood valiantly like unto a mighty man, and, waiting, asked: "Wherefore ascendest thou hither?" Then His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness replied, saying: "I have no evil intent. It is only that when the Great August deity our father spoke, deigning to inquire the cause of

character here used which, from having the sense of "asking permission," has come to mean "bidding adieu."

1. He was her younger brother.
2. Literally, "heart," here and elsewhere.
3. The original is here obscure, but the translator has, as usual, followed the Chinese characters as far as possible, and has been chiefly guided by Moribe's interpretation. According to this, the "eight feet" (which Moribe takes to mean simply "several feet") must be supposed to refer to the length of the necklace which, he says, probably resembled a Buddhist rosary, only that the beads were somewhat larger. Mr. Satow, adopting some of the bolder etymologies of the Japanese commentators, translates thus: the "ever-bright curved (or glittering) jewels, the many assembled jewels," and concludes that "a long string of, perhaps, claw-shaped stone beads" was what the author meant to describe.
4. Hirata supposes this additional quiver to have been slung in front.
5. I.e., "both legs penetrated into the ground up to the thigh," a proof of the vigor with which she used her limbs in stamping.
6. Literally, "bubble-snow."