So seven days afterwards the Empress’s august comb drifted onto the sea-beach,—which comb was forthwith taken and placed in an august mausoleum which was made.
[Sect. LXXXV.—Emperor Kei-kō (Part X.—Yamato-take Slays the Deity of the Ashigara Pass).]
When, having thence penetrated on and subdued all the savage Yemishi[1] and likewise pacified all the savage Deities of the mountains and rivers, he was returning up [to the capital], he, on reaching the foot of the Ashigara Pass,[2] was eating his august provisions, when the Deity of the pass, transformed into a white deer, came and stood [before him]. Then forthwith, on his waiting[3] and striking [the deer] with a scrap of wild chive,[4] [the deer] was hit in the eye and struck dead. So, mounting to the top of the pass, he sighed three times and spoke, saying: “Adzuma ha ya!”[5] So that land is called by the name of Adzuma.
- ↑ This is the traditional ancient reading of what is according to the modem pronunciation Yezo, while the Chinese characters 蝦夷, with which the name is written, signify “Prawn Barbarians,” in allusion (if Motowori may be trusted) to the long beards which make their faces resemble a prawn’s head. The hairy barbarians known to English readers as Ainos, and whose name of Yezo is applied by the Japanese to the northernmost large island of the Japanese Archipelago, which is still chiefly tenanted by them, are almost certainly here referred to. In ancient times they inhabited a great part of the Main Island of Japan. The translator may add that the genuineness of the so-called ancient reading “Yemishi” appears to him doubtful. The name known to the people themselves, and which apparently can be traced as far as Kamschatka, is Yezo.
- ↑ Ashigara-zaka, one of the passes from Sagami into Suruga leading towards Mount Fuji.
- ↑ I.e., lying in ambush.
- ↑ Nira, the Allium odorum.
- ↑ I.e., “Oh! my wife!” Adzuma is still used as a poetical designation of
word sanenashi, here translated “where the true peak pierces” (Mt. Fuji being by some supposed to be thus alluded to) is of very doubtful interpretation. Motowori tells us that the final Particles ha mo, rendered by the initial Interjection “Oh,” should here be understood as an exclamation of grief, a signification more forcible than that which usually belongs to them. Finally Moribe points out that the Song does not suit the context in which it is found, and has probably been erroneously inserted here instead of in an earlier portion of the text.
