Having thus sung, the feast was concluded at dawn, and they all retired. Next morning the two Deities,[1] His Augustness Ohoke and His Augustness Woke, took counsel, saying: "All the people of the Court go to Court in the morning, and assemble at Shibi's gate at noon. "So[2] Shibi must surely now be sleeping, and moreover there will be
- ↑ The word used in the original is hashira, the Auxiliary Numeral for Deities. It recurs at the commencement of the next Section, where however it is not convenient to translate it.
- ↑ "The original here has the character 亦, "again" or "moreover." But this must be, as Motowori points out, a copyist's error. Almost immediately below the same character recurs where it is equally out of place. The translator has followed Motowori in rendering it the first time by "so," and the second by "surely."
with that of the "Chronicles of Japan," we find that in the first Song of the series the young Prince half jokingly remarks on the fact of the Grandee Shibi appearing in public with the damsel who was to have been his (the Prince's) bride. Shibi's name, which, as already stated, signifies "tunny," furnishes the occasion for the marine metaphors borrowed from the currents and the breakers. Shibi's answer (Song II,—in the "Records" wrongly ascribed to the prince), takes up the same strain, but in a more taunting tone: the prince is likened to a fisherman who would fain make a futile attempt to spear the great tunny, and his (the tunny's, i.e., the Grandee Shibi's) presence must indeed be pain and grief to him. In a third Song, which is given in the "Chronicles," but not in the "Records," the prince retorts that he relies on his good sword to win the girl for him in the end, and in Song IV the Grandee jeers at the dilapidated condition of his palace, and by implication at the sorry state of his fortunes,—a taunt to which the prince replies in Song V by saying that if the palace is dilapidated, and the Empire in disorder, the fault belongs to none other than to the Grandee himself. Songs VI and VII, which are not found in the "Records," only serve to continue the growing war of words, which in Song VIII (in the "Records" wrongly attributed to the Grandee) comes to a climax by the prince exclaiming that if he does not force his way into the Grandee's mansion to seize his lady-love, it is only on account of the magnanimity of his disposition. To this the Grandee replies in Song IX (in the "Records" erroneously attributed to the prince) by a sort of tu quoque, vowing that he will cut and burn his way into the prince's palace. This is not the end of the dispute in the pages of the "Chronicles," but it is all that need detain the reader of the "Records." It should, however, be mentioned that in the "Chronicles" the name of the girl is Kage-hime: Ofuwo, "Big Fish," which is here given, would seem to be nothing more than a nickname, which perhaps arose from the incidents of this metrical war of words.
