Shining-Great-August deity sat in her awful weaving-hall seeing to the weaving of the august garments of the deities, he broke a hole in the top of the weaving-hall, and through it let fall a heavenly piebald horse which he had flayed with a backward flaying, at whose sight the women weaving the heavenly garments were so much alarmed they died of fear.[1]
THE DOOR OF THE HEAVENLY ROCK-DWELLING
So thereupon the Heaven-Shining-Great-August deity, terrified at the sight, closed behind her the door of the Heavenly Rock-Dwelling,[2] made it fast,[3] and retired. Then the whole Plain of High Heaven was obscured and all the Central Land of Reed-Plains darkened. Owing to this, eternal night prevailed. Hereupon the voices of the myriad deities were like unto the flies in the fifth moon as they swarmed, and a myriad portents of woe all arose. Therefore did the eight hundred myriad deities assemble in a divine assembly in the bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven, and bid the deity Thought-Includer, child of the High-August-Producing-Wondrous deity, think of a plan, assembling the long-singing birds of eternal night and making them sing, taking the hard rocks of Heaven from the river-bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven, and taking the iron from the Heavenly Metal-Mountains, calling in the smith Ama-tsu-ma-ra,[4] charging Her Augustness I-shi-ko-
- ↑ In the parallel passage of the "Chronicles" the goddess injures herself with her shuttle, but without dying of the effects of the accident.
- ↑ Motowori says that the word "rock" need not here be taken literally. But it is always (and the translator thinks rightly) so understood, and the compound considered to mean a cave in the rocks, which is also the expression found in the "Chronicles."
- ↑ The word sasu, which is here used, implies that the goddess made the door fast either by sticking something against it or by bolting it—perhaps with a metal hook.
- ↑ Ama tsu signifies "of Heaven," but the rest of this name is not to be explained. Motowori adopts from the "Chronicles" the reading, Ama-tsu-ma-ura, where the character used for ma signifies "true," and that for ura signifies "sea-shore." (It should be remarked that the forging of a spear by this personage is referred by the author of the "Chronicles," not to the "Divine Age" but to the reign of the Emperor Sui-zei.) Motowori also proposes to supplement after the name the words "to make a spear."
