On his walking out singing thus, he hit with his august staff a large stone in the middle of the Ohosaka[1] road, upon which the stone ran away. So the proverb says: “Hard stones get out of a drunkard’s way.”
[Sect. CXII.—Emperor Ō-jin (Part IX.—Troubles Which Followed His Decease).]
So after the decease of the Heavenly Sovereign, His Augustness Oho-sazaki, in conformity with the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, ceded the Empire to Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. Thereupon His Augustness Oho-yama-mori, disobeying the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, and anxious in spite thereof to obtain the Empire, had the design to slay the Prince[2] his younger brother, secretly raised an army, and prepared to attack him. Then His Augustness Oho-sazaki, hearing that his elder brother had prepared an army, forthwith despatched a messenger to apprise Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. So, startled at the news, [the latter] set troops in ambush by the river-bank, and likewise, after having drawn a fence of curtains and raised a tent on the top of the hill, placed there publicly on a throne[3] one of his retainers to pretend that he was the King,[4] the manner in which all the officials[5] reverentially went and came being just like that [usual] in the King’s presence. And moreover, preparing for the time when the King his elder brother[6] should cross the river,
- ↑ See Sect. LXIV, Note 25.
- ↑ 皇子. This is the only passage in the work where this expression occurs. Uji-no-waki-iratsuko is the personage thus designated.
- ↑ The same expression has been in Sect. XXXI (near Note 16) rendered “couch.” The characters in the original are 呉床 or 胡床.
- ↑ I.e., Uji-no-waki-iratsuko.
- ↑ The Chinese phrase 百官, “the hundred officials,” is here used.
- ↑ Q.d., his Augustness Oho-yama-mori.
liquor,”—in Japanese koto nagu shi we-gushi-ni,—are in reality extremely obscure, and Moribe understands them to signify, “Oh! how difficult it is for me to speak! Oh! how ill at ease I am!” In order to do so he has. however, to change and add to the text; and the translator, though not sure of being in the right path, has preferred to follow Motowori, whose interpretation, without requiring any such extreme measures, yet gives a very plausible sense.
