child may it be?” [The Deities] replied, saying: “It is a male child.” Then [the Noble Take-uchi] requested more particularly, [saying]: “I wish to know the august names of the Great Deities whose words have now thus instructed us.” Forthwith [the Deities] replied, saying: “It is the august doing[1] of the Great-August-Heaven-Shining-Deity, likewise it is the three great Deities Bottom-Possessing-Male, Middle-Possessing Male and Surface-Possessing-Male.[2] (At this time the august names of these three great Deities were revealed.[3]) If now thou truly thinkest to seek that land, thou must, after presenting the offerings[4] to every one of the Heavenly Deities and Earthly Deities,[5] and likewise of the Deities of the mountains and also of all the Deities of the river and of the sea, and setting our august spirits[6] on the top of thy vessel, put into gourds[7] the ashes of the Podocarpus macrophylla tree,[8] and likewise make a quantity of chopsticks and also of leaf-
- ↑ Literally, “heart.”
- ↑ Soko-dzu-tsu-no-wo, Naka-dza-tsu-no-wo, and Uha-dzu-tsu-no-wo, three of the deities born at the time of the purification of Izanagi (the “Male-Who-Invites”) on his return from Hades, and known collectively as the Deities of the Inlet of Sumi. (See Sect. X, Notes 18 and 22.) The grammar of this sentence is, as Motowori remarks, not lucid. One would expect the author to say that it was “the august doing” of all the four deities mentioned.
- ↑ I.e., says Motowori, they then first informed Take-uchi who they were. Up to that time, it had not been known by what Deities the Empress was possessed. Mabuchi, however, rejected this gloss as a later addition.
- ↑ I.e., the sacred offerings of white and blue cloth.
- ↑ Here written with the Chinese locution 天神地祇, by some rendered “the Spirits of Heaven and Earth.” Conf. Sect. I, Note 11.
- ↑ Here, as before, the Singular would be at least as natural an interpretation as the Plural. The three ocean-deities are supposed to be specially referred to, and in that case, the three being easily conceived as one (like the deified peaches mentioned in Sect. IX, Note 10) owing to the want of discrimination in Japanese between Singular and Plural, wo might retain the Singular in English. Altogether the Sun-Goddess seems out of place in this passage, and it would be satisfactory to have some authority for expunging from it the mention of her name.
- ↑ Or, “into a gourd.”
- ↑ In the original maki (眞木). In modern parlance ma-ki signifies the P. macrophylla, as in the translation. It is however uncertain whether that or the Chamæcyparis obtusa (both being conifers), or simply any “true (i.e., good) tree” is here intended by the author.
