Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 13.djvu/58

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
40
THE SACRED BOOKS

Heaven and the Central-Land-of-Reed-Plains of course again became light.

THE AUGUST EXPULSION OF HIS IMPETUOUS-MALE-AUGUSTNESS

Thereupon the eight hundred myriad deities took counsel together, and imposed on High-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness a fine of a thousand tables,[1] and likewise cut his beard, and even caused the nails of his fingers and toes to be pulled out, and expelled him with a divine expulsion. Again he begged food of the deity Princess-of-Great-Food.[2] Then the Princess-of-Great-Food took out all sorts of dainty things from her nose, her mouth, and her fundament, and made them up into all sorts of dishes, which she offered to him. But His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness watched her proceedings, considered that she was offering up to him filth, and at once killed the deity Princess-of-Great-Food. So the things that were born in the body of the deity who had been killed were as follows: in her head were born silkworms, in her two eyes were born rice-seeds, in her two ears was born millet, in her nose were born small beans, in her private parts was born barley,[3] in her fundament were born large beans. So His Augustness the Deity-Producing-Wondrous-Ancestor[4] caused them to be taken and used as seeds.

THE EIGHT-FORKED SERPENT

So, having been expelled, His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness descended to a place called Tori-kami at the headwaters of the River Hi in the Land of Idzumo. At this time some chopsticks came floating down the stream. So His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness, thinking that there must

  1. I.e., "an immense fine."
  2. Oho-ge-tsu-hime-no-kami. This personage (but without the title of "deity") has already appeared as the alternative personal name of the Island of Aha.
  3. Or, less probably, "wheat."
  4. Kami-musu-bi-mi-oya-no-mikoto, the same deity as the one mentioned at the beginning of these "Records" under the shorter title of Kami-musu-bi-no-kami.