in Ata,[1] and begot children: there were two,[2]—His Augustness Tagishi-mimi,[3] next His Augustness Kisu-mimi.[4] But when he sought for a beautiful maiden to make her his Chief Empress,[5] His Augustness Oho-kume said: “There is here a beauteous maiden who is called the august child of a Deity. The reason why she is called the august child of a Deity is that the Princess Seya-datara,[6] daughter of Mizokuhi[7] of Mishima,[8] was admired on account of her beauty by the Great-Master-of-Things the Deity of Miwa,[9] qui, quum pulchra puella oletum fecit, in sagittam rubro [colore] fucatam se convertit, et ab inferiori parte cloacæ [ad usum] faciendi oleti virginis privatas partes transfixit. Tunc pulchra virgo cousternata est, et surrexit, et trepide fugit. Statim sagittam attulit, et juxta thalamum posuit. Subito [sagitta] formosus
- ↑ Ata is a place in Satsuma.
- ↑ Or, “there were two Deities.” The character employed is not that which itself actually signifies “deity,” but is the Auxiliary Numeral for divine beings.
- ↑ I.e., perhaps “rudder-ears.”
- ↑ Motowori adduces good reasons for believing this name to be but a slightly altered form of the preceding one, and for holding that in the original form of the tradition there was but one child mentioned.
- ↑ See Motowori’s Commentary, Vol. XX, pp. 10–13, for the reasons for thus interpreting the characters 大后 in the text. Elsewhere it has generally, for the sake of convenience, been simply rendered “Empress.”
- ↑ Seya-datara-hime. The signification of the name is obscure. Motowori supposes Seya to be a place and tatara (nigori’ed to datara) perhaps a plant written with the Chinese character 莘, said by Dr. Williams in his “Syllabic Dictionary” to be possibly a species of Heterotropa.
- ↑ It is uncertain whether this name should, or should not, be regarded as properly that of a place. The meaning is equally obscure. The Chinese characters with which it is here written signify “ditch-eater,” whereas those employed in the “Chronicles” signify “ditch-stake.” Perhaps both transcriptions are simply phonetic.
- ↑ A district in the province of Tsu (Settsu). The name signifies “three islands.”
- ↑ Miwa-no-oho-mono-nushi-no-kami. This god is supposed to be identical with Oho-kuni-nushi (the “Master of the Great Land,” see end of Sect. XX and following Sects.). The rigidly literal rendering of the name as here given would be “the Deity Great Master of Things of Miwa”; but the more intelligible version here given represents the Japanese author’s meaning. For the traditional etymology of Miwa see the story related in Sect. LXV.
