Again he sang, saying:
“Let those whose life may he complete stick [in their hair] as a head-dress the leaves of the bear-oak from Mount Heguri,—those children!”
This Song is a Land-Regretting Song.[1] Again he sang, saying:
“How sweet! ah! from the direction of home clouds are rising and coming!”
This is an Incomplete Song.[2] At this time, his august sickness was very urgent. Then, he sang augustly, saying:
“The sabre-sword which I placed at the maiden’s bed-side alas! that sword!”[3]
As soon as he had finished singing, he died. Then a courier was despatched [to the Heavenly Sovereign.]
[Sect. XC.—Emperor Kei-kō (Part XV.—Yamato-take Turns into a White Bird).]
Thereupon [his] Empresses[4] and likewise [his] august children,
- ↑ I.e., a Song of loving regret for his native land.
- ↑ “Incomplete Song” must be understood as the designation of a poem of a certain number of lines, viz., three, and was probably given by comparison with the greater length of poetical compositions in general.
- ↑ This poem is an exclamation of distress at the thought of the sword which he had left with his mistress Princess Miyazu and which, if he had had it with him, would doubtless have preserved him from the evil influences of the god of Mount Ibuki, which were the beginning of his end.—“Sabre-sword” (tsurugi no tachi) is a curious expression, which Motowori interprets as signifying “sharp sword,” while Moribe thinks it means “double-edged sword.”
- ↑ I.e., wives. It will be remembered that the historian habitually mentions Yamato-take as if he had been Emperor.
should have commenced with a nigori’ed syllable. “Complete” signifies “healthy.” Mount Heguri is preceded in the original by tatamikomo (Moribe reads tatamigomo with the nigori), a Pillow-Word whose import is disputed. In any case, being a punning one, it cannot be translated. For the “bear-oak” see Sect. LXXII, Note 19. Moribe labours, but without success, to prove that “come,” the last word of the translation, signifies “go,” and imagines that the prince is expressing his envy of the clouds which are rising and going off in the direction of the home which he will never revisit.
