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18

“Ko-ji-ki,” or Records of Ancient Matters.

[Vol. IV.

Deity the Male-Who-Invites, next his younger sister the Deity the Female-Who-Invites^[1].

From the Earthly-Eternally-Standing Deity down to the Deity the the Female-Who-Invites in the previous list are what are termed the Seven Divine Generations. (The two solitary Deities above [-mentioned] are each called one generation. Of the succeeding ten Deities each pair of deities is called a generation^[2]

[Sect. III.—The Island of Onogoro.]

Hereupon all the Heavenly Deities commanded the two Deities His Augnstness^[3] the Male-Who-Invites and Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites, ordering them to “make, consolidate, and give birth to this drifting land.” Granting to them an heavenly jewelled spear,^[4] they [thus] deigned to charge them. So the two Deities, standing upon the Floating

↑ Izana-gi-no-kami and Izana-mi-no-kami. There is some slight diversity of opinion as to the literal signification of the component parts of the names of these the best-known of the Deities hitherto mentioned, though the gist of the meaning remains unchanged. Motowori would prefer to read Iza-na-gi and Iza-na-mi, taking the syllable na as the Second Personal Pronoun “thou,” and understanding the names thus: “the Prince-Who-Invites-Thee” and the “Princess-Who-Invites-Thee.” It seems however more natural to look on izana as forming but one word, viz., the Root of the Verb Izanafu, “to invite.” The older native commentators mean the same thing when they tell us that na is an Expletive. The syllables gi and mi are of uncertain etymology, but occur in other Archaic words to denote the male and female of a pair. The appropriateness of the names of these deities will be seen by referring to Sect. IV.
↑ For explanatory notes which are printed in small type in the original, small type is likewise used in the translation.
↑ For this rendering of the Japanese title Mikoto see Introduction, p. xvi, last paragraph.
↑ The characters translated “jewelled spear” are 沼矛, whose proper Chinese signification would be quite different. But the first of the two almost certainly stands phonetically for 瓊 or 玉,—the syllable nu, which is its sound, having apparently been an ancient word for “jewel” or “bead”, the better-known Japanese term being tama. In many places the word “jewel” (or “jewelled”) seems to be used simply as an adjective expressive of beauty. But Motowori and Hirata credit it in this instance with its proper signification, and the translator always renders it literally, leaving the reader to consider it to be used metaphorically if and where he pleases.

[1] Izana-gi-no-kami and Izana-mi-no-kami. There is some slight diversity of opinion as to the literal signification of the component parts of the names of these the best-known of the Deities hitherto mentioned, though the gist of the meaning remains unchanged. Motowori would prefer to read Iza-na-gi and Iza-na-mi, taking the syllable na as the Second Personal Pronoun “thou,” and understanding the names thus: “the Prince-Who-Invites-Thee” and the “Princess-Who-Invites-Thee.” It seems however more natural to look on izana as forming but one word, viz., the Root of the Verb Izanafu, “to invite.” The older native commentators mean the same thing when they tell us that na is an Expletive. The syllables gi and mi are of uncertain etymology, but occur in other Archaic words to denote the male and female of a pair. The appropriateness of the names of these deities will be seen by referring to Sect. IV.

[2] For explanatory notes which are printed in small type in the original, small type is likewise used in the translation.

[3] For this rendering of the Japanese title Mikoto see Introduction, p. xvi, last paragraph.

[4] The characters translated “jewelled spear” are 沼矛, whose proper Chinese signification would be quite different. But the first of the two almost certainly stands phonetically for 瓊 or 玉,—the syllable nu, which is its sound, having apparently been an ancient word for “jewel” or “bead”, the better-known Japanese term being tama. In many places the word “jewel” (or “jewelled”) seems to be used simply as an adjective expressive of beauty. But Motowori and Hirata credit it in this instance with its proper signification, and the translator always renders it literally, leaving the reader to consider it to be used metaphorically if and where he pleases.

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