once took the heavenly vegetable wax-tree bow and the heavenly deer-arrows bestowed on him by the Heavenly Deities, and shot the pheasant to death. Then the arrow, being shot up upside down[1] through the pheasant’s breast, reached the august place where the Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity and the High-Integrating-Deity[2] were sitting in the bed of the Tranquil River of Heaven. This “High-Integrating-Deity” is another name for the High-August-Producing-Wondrous-Deity. So, on the High-Integrating-Deity taking up the arrow and looking at it [he saw that] there was blood adhering to the feathers of the arrow. Thereupon the High-Integrating-Deity, saying: “This arrow is the arrow that was bestowed on the Heavenly-Young-Prince,” showed it to all the Deities, and said: “If this be an arrow shot at the evil Deities by the Heavenly-Young-Prince in obedience to our command, let it not hit him. If he has a foul heart, let the Heavenly-Young-Prince perish[3] by this arrow.” With these words, he took the arrow and thrust it back down through the arrow’s hole,[4] so that it hit the Heavenly-Young-Prince on the top of his breast[5] as he was sleeping on his couch, so that he died. (This is the origin of [the saying] ‘Beware of a returning arrow.’[6]) Moreover the pheasant returned not.
- ↑ This expression, as Motowori explains, signifies only that, as the arrow was shot from below straight up at a pheasant perching on a branch overhead, the feathers, which are properly considered to form the top part of the arrow, were naturally underneath.
- ↑ Taka-gi-no-kami. The name is written with the characters 高木神, which, taken ideographically, would give us in English “High-Tree-Deity.” But the translator has little doubt but that Motowori is correct in considering 木 to be here used phonetically, and the syllable gi, which it represents, to be a contraction of guhi (for kuhi), itself derived from kumu, and best rendered by the Verb “to integrate.”
- ↑ In Japanese magare, lit. “turn aside,” “become crooked,” i.e., “come to a bad end.”
- ↑ I.e., through the hole in the bottom of the sky through which the arrow had entered, or which the arrow had made for itself.
- ↑ Literally “high breast-hill.”
- ↑ The sentence placed between brackets is supposed by Motowori to be an addition to the text made by some copyist who had in his mind the parallel passage of the “Chronicles.” In the “Records of Ancient Matters Revised” the two characters answering to our word “beware” are omitted, and the resulting meaning is: “This was the origin of the practice of sending back arrows,” of shooting an enemy with the arrow he had himself just used.
