he arranged and decorated a boat and oars, and moreover[1] ground [in a mortar] the root of the Kadzura japonica, and having taken the slime of its juice, rubbed therewith the grating[2] inside the boat, so as to make any who should tread on it fall down, and then himself[3] put on a cloth coat and trowsers, and having assumed the appearance of a common fellow, stood in the boat holding the oar. Hereupon, when the King his elder brother, having hid his troops in ambush and put on armour beneath his clothes, reached the river-bank and was about to get into the boat, he gazed at the grandly decorated place [on the hill], thought the King his younger brother was sitting on the throne, being altogether ignorant [of the fact] that he was standing in the boat holding the oar, and forthwith asked the fellow who was holding the oar, saying: “It has been reported to me that on this mountain there is a large and angry boar. I wish to take that boar. Shall I peradventure get that boar?” Then the fellow holding the oar replied, saying: “Thou canst not.” Again he asked, saying: “For what reason?” [The boatman] answered, saying: “He is not to be got, however often and in however many places he be chased. Wherefore I say that thou canst not [catch him either].” When they had crossed as far as the middle of the river, [Prince Uji-no-waki-iratsuko] caused the boat to be tilted over, and [his elder brother] to fall into the water.[4] Then forthwith he rose to the surface, and floated down with the current. Forthwith, as he floated, he sang, saying:
“Whoever is swiftest among the boatmen of the Uji ferry will come to me.”[5]
- ↑ The text has the character 者, which, in combination with the preceding word “oars,” gives the sense of “oarsman,” “boatman.” But Motowori reasonably suggests that it is an error for 亦, the grass-hand forms of the two characters closely resembling each other, and 亦 making much better sense; for who would talk of “decorating an oarsman?”
- ↑ A bamboo grating.
- ↑ Literally “that king’s son.”
- ↑ It must be understood that Uji-no-waki-iratsuko and his men, having planned to act thus, were on their guard, and did not fall into the water as did Oho-yama-mori, who was taken unawares.
- ↑ This is Motowori’s view of the meaning of the Song, which he interprets as a request for help to some friendly boatman. Moribe adopts quite a different
