given, names like Ameno-Minaka-Nushi or Takami Musubi or Umashi-Ashikabi-Higoji.
III
The date of A.D. 712 was given to Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), in fact, the first written book in Japan, in its completion; it is said that Yasumaro, the author, took it all down from the lips of a certain Hiyedano Are, a Kataribe or reciter whose official function, at the very early Mikado’s government of the Nara period, was to retell ancient records from his memory; it will be believed that they must have been changed, some parts perhaps omitted, or others added, during the process of retelling from one reciter to another. It is not my work to discuss here their value as legends of history; my important concern with them is their poetry, that is to say, the poetry of our Japanese ancestors, which runs through almost every page of the book. When I read love-songs diffused here and there in these three volumes it makes me think of a popular ditty like the following:
“What does never change,
Since the days of the gods,
Is the way how a river runs:
What does never change
Since the days of the gods,
Is the way how love flows.”
