delighted, respectfully sent her off, joining to her her elder sister Princess Long-as-the-Rocks, and causing merchandise to be carried on tables holding an hundred.[1] So then, owing to the elder sister being very hideous, [His Augustness Prince-Rice-ear-Ruddy-Plenty] was alarmed at the sight of her, and sent her back, only keeping the younger sister Princess-Blossoming-Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees, whom he wedded for one night. Then the Deity-Great-Mountain-Possessor was covered with shame at Princess Long-as-the-Rocks being sent back, and sent a message [to His Augustness Prince-Rice-ear-Ruddy-Plenty], saying: “My reason for respectfully presenting both my daughters together was that, by sending Princess-Long-as-the-Rocks, the august offspring[2] of the Heavenly Deity,[3] though the snow[4] fall and the wind blow, might live eternally immovable like unto the enduring rocks, and again that by sending Princess-Blossoming-Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees, [they] might live flourishingly like unto the flowering of the blossoms of the trees: to insure this,[5] I offered[6] them. But owing to thy thus sending back[7] Princess Long-as-the-Rocks, and keeping only Princess-Blossoming-Brilliantly-Like-the-Flowers-of-the-Trees, the august offspring of the Heavenly Deity shall be but as frail[8] as the
- ↑ I.e., every kind of goods as a dowry for his daughters.
- ↑ The usual word child (子) is employed in the text; but it here almost certainly has, as Motowori suggests, a more extended meaning, and signifies the posterity of the Sun-Goddess or of Prince-Rice-ear-Buddy-Plenty generally, i.e. the Emperors of Japan. The vaguer term “offspring” is therefore nearer to the author’s intention.
- ↑ I.e., either of the Sun-Goddess or of Prince-Rice-ear-Ruddy-Plenty. There is no difference in the sense, whichever of these two deities we take the speaker to refer to. The Sun-Goddess was his ancestress, and he was ancestor of the Japanese Emperors.
- ↑ Or “snow and rain,” the reading being uncertain.
- ↑ Or “having sworn this,” or “pledged [myself to the accomplishment of] this.”
- ↑ The Chinese characters used are those properly denoting the presenting of tribute.
- ↑ Motowori proposes an emendation in this passage of 此令 to 爾令, which would not materially alter the sense.
- ↑ The precise meaning of the syllables a-ma-hi-no-mi, here rendered by the words “but as frail” in accordance with Motowori’s and Moribe’s tentative interpretation, is extremely obscure. The parallel passage in the “Chronicles” is 木華之移落, i.e. “fading and falling like the flowers of the trees.”
