wake, the Heavenly Sovereign who, dwelling in the palace of Hishiro at Makimuku, rules the Land of the Eight Great Islands; and my name is King Yamata-woguna. Hearing that you two fellows, the Kumaso bravoes, were unsubmissive and disrespectful, the Heavenly Sovereign sent me with the command to take and slay you." Then the Kumaso bravo said: "That must be true. There are no persons in the West so brave and strong as we two. Yet in the Land of Great Yamato there is a man braver than we two—there is. Therefore will I offer thee an august name. From this time forward it is right that thou be praised as the August Child Yamato-take."[1] As soon as he had finished saying this, the Prince ripped him up like a ripe melon,[2] and slew him. So thenceforward he was praised by being called by the august name of his Augustness Yamato-take. When he returned up to the capital after doing this, he subdued and pacified every one of the deities of the mountains and of the deities of the rivers and likewise of the deities of Anado,[3] and then went up to the capital.
YAMATO-TAKE SLAYS THE IDZUMO BRAVO
Forthwith entering the land of Idzumo, and wishing to slay the Idzumo bravo, he, on arriving, forthwith bound himself to him in friendship. So, having secretly made the wood of an oak-tree into a false sword and augustly girded it, he went with the bravo to bathe in the River Hi. Then, His Augustness Yamato-take getting out of the river first, and taking and girding on the sword that the Idzumo bravo had taken off and laid down, said: "Let us exchange swords!" So afterward the Idzumo bravo, getting out of the river, girded on His Augustness Yamato-take's false sword. Hereupon His Au-
- ↑ I.e., "Yamato-Brave," q.d., "the Bravest in Yamato." It is by this name that the hero is commonly spoken of. Remember that "august child" signifies prince.
- ↑ Or specifically, the "musk-melon."
- ↑ Or, "of the Ana passage" (literally, "door"), the modern Strait of Shimonoseki. The word ana signifies "hole," and there is a tradition to the effect that formerly the main island and the island of Kiushiu were continuous at this point, there being only a sort of natural tunnel, through which junks could pass.
