take the bow and arrows, and sent him to the maiden’s house, where both his apparel and the bow and arrows all turned into wistaria-blossoms. Thereupon the Youth-of-the-Haze-on-the-Spring-Mountains hung up the bow and arrows in the maiden’s privy. Then, when the Maiden-of-Idzushi, thinking the blossoms strange, brought them [home, the Youth-of-the-Haze-on-the-Spring-Mountains] followed behind the maiden into the house, and forthwith wedded her. So she gave birth to a child.[1] Then he spoke to his elder brother, saying: “I have obtained the Maiden-of-Idzushi.” Thereupon the elder brother, vexed that the younger brother should have wedded her, did not pay the things he had wagered. Then when [the younger brother] complained to his mother, his august parent replied, saying: “During my august life the Deities indeed are to be well imitated; moreover it must be because he imitates mortal men[2] that he does not pay those things.” Forthwith, in her anger with her elder child, she took a jointed bamboo[3] from an island in the River Idzushi, and made a coarse basket with eight holes,[4] and took stones from the river, and mixing them with brine, wrapped them in the leaves of the bamboo[5] and caused this curse to be spoken:[6] “Like unto the becoming green of these bamboo-
- ↑ Literally, “one child.”
- ↑ The Japanese original of the words here unavoidably rendered by “mortal men” in order to mark the antithesis to the word “Deities,” has been more literally translated by “living people” in an earlier passage of the work (see Sect. IX, Note 17). The signification of the entire sentence is: During my lifetime, thy brother should be careful to imitate the upright conduct of the gods. For if, instead of doing so, he be dishonest and untruthful as are the sons of men, it will be at his own peril.”
- ↑ Or, according to the more usual reading, “a one-jointed bamboo;” but in either case the meaning is obscure. Motowori, who adopts the reading that has been followed in the translation, suggests that the expression may simply be a periphrasis for the bamboo in general.
- ↑ 八目荒籠. Motowori remarks that the word “eight” in this place (where, to indicate a considerable number, we should rather expect “eighty”) is curious, and he surmises that 八 may be an error for 大, “large.” The word “coarse” itself is sufficient to show that the apertures left in the plaiting of the basket were large.
- ↑ Scil. of which the basket was woven.
- ↑ Scil. by her younger son.
