Then the Princess of Nuna-kaha, without yet opening the door, sang from the inside, saying:
"Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! Being a maiden like a drooping plant, my heart is just a bird on a sand-bank by the shore; it will now indeed be a dotterel. Afterward it will be a gentle bird; so as for thy life, do not deign to die. Oh! swiftly flying heaven-racing messenger! the tradition of the thing, too, this!"
Second Song of the Princess
"When the sun shall hide behind the green mountains, in the night black as the true jewels of the moor will I come forth. Coming radiant with smiles like the morning sun, thine arms white as rope of paper-mulberry-bark shall softly pat my breast soft as the melting snow; and patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing ourselves on each other's jewel-arms true jewel-arms and with outstretched legs, will we sleep. So speak not too lovingly, Thine Augustness the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! The tradition of the thing, too, this!"[1]
THE CUP PLEDGE
Again this deity's Chief Empress,[2] Her Augustness the Forward-Princess, was very jealous. So the deity her husband, being distressed, was about to go up from Idzumo to the Land of Yamato; and as he stood attired, with one august hand on the saddle of his august horse and one august foot in the august stirrup, he sang, saying:
"When I take and attire myself so carefully in my august garments black as the true jewels of the moor, and, like the birds of the offing, look at my breast though I raise my fins, I say that these are not good, and cast them off on the waves on the beach. When I take and attire myself so carefully in my august garments green as the kingfisher, and, like the birds of the offing, look at my breast though I raise my
- ↑ The drift of the poem is this: "Being a tender maiden, my heart flutters like the birds on the sandy islets by the beach, and I can not yet be thine. Yet do not die of despair; for I will soon comply with thy desires."
- ↑ I.e., chief wife.
kuni. The nuye is a bird which must be fabulous if most of the accounts given of it are accepted. The "Commentary on the Lyric Dramas" tells us (with variations) that "it has the head of a monkey, the body of a racoon-faced dog, the tail of a serpent, and the hands (sic) and feet of a tiger," adding, as the reader will make no difficulty in allowing, that "it is a strange and peculiar creature." The Wa-Kun Shiiwori says that "it is a bird much larger than a pigeon, and having a loud and mournful cry." It is likewise said to come out at night-time and retire during the day, for which reason doubtless Mabuchi likens it to the owl.
VOL.—XIII. 4.
