[Sect. XXV.—The Cup Pledge.]
Again this Deity’s Chief Empress,[1] 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 fins, [I say that] these, too, are not good, and cast them off on the waves on the beach. When I take and attire myself so carefully in my raiment dyed in the sap of the dye-tree, the pounded madder sought in the mountain fields, and, like the birds of the offing, look at my breast,—though I raise my fins, [I say that] they are good. My dear younger sister, Thine Augustness! Though thou say that thou will not weep,—if like the flocking birds, I flock and depart, if, like the led birds, I am led away and depart, thou wilt hang down thy head like a single eulalia upon the mountain and thy weeping shall indeed rise as the mist of
- ↑ I.e., chief wife.
male deity, as do the white arms, strange though such an expression may appear as applied to a man. The goddess represents herself and her lover as using each other’s arms for pillows. The word “jewel-arms” means simply “beautiful arms.”
