Oto-bime,[1] daughters of King Tatasu-michi-no-ushi[2] prince of Taniha, should serve thee, for these two queens are of unsullied parentage.”[3] So at last [the Heavenly Sovereign] slew King Saho-biko, and his younger sister followed him.[4]
- ↑ I.e., the “Elder Princess and the Younger Princess.”
- ↑ Motowori is probably right in explaining tatasu as the Honorific Causative of tatsu, “to stand” and michi no ushi as michi-nushi or kuni-nushi, i.e., “owner of the province,” “ruler.”
- ↑ Lit., “are pure subjects.”
- ↑ I.e., was slain with him.
youth, freshness, and beauty, is here used as an Honorific. The “small pendant” is interpreted by Mabuchi and Motowori to signify the “inner girdle,” which held together the under-garment of either sex. The old literature of Japan teems with allusions to the custom of lovers or spouses making fast each other’s inner girdle, which might not be untied till they met again, and the poets perpetually make a lover ask some such question as “When I am far from thee, who shall loosen my girdle?” The translator cannot refrain from here quoting, for the benefit of the lover of Japanese verse (though ho will not attempt to translate them), the two most graceful of the many stanzas from the “Collection of a Myriad Leaves” brought together by Motowori to illustrate this passage:
Wagimoko ga
Yuhiteshi himo wo
Tokame ya mo:
Toyeba tayu to mo
Tada ni afu made ni.
Una-bara wo
Tohoku watarite
Toshi fu to mo:
Ko-ra ga musuberu
Himo toku na yume.
Tanigaha Shisei also appropriately quotes the following:
Futari shite
Musubishi himo wo
Hitori shite
Ware ha toki-mizhi
Tada ni afu made ha,
A literal rendering of which would run thus: “I will not, till we meet face to face, loosen alone the girdle which we two tied together.”
