RECORDS OF ANCIENT MATTERS.
Vol. I.[1]
PREFACE.[2]
- ↑ Literally “Upper Volume,” there being three in all, and it being the common Japanese practice (borrowed from the Chinese) to use the words Upper, Middle, and Lower to denote the First, Second and Third Volumes of a work respectively.
- ↑ The peculiar nature of this Preface, which is but a tour de force meant to show that the writer could compose in the Chinese style if he chose to do so, has been already hinted at in the Introduction. It is indeed a laboured little composition, and, but for the facts stated in its latter portion, has no value except perhaps as a specimen of the manner in which the legends of one country may be made to change aspect by being presented through the medium of the philosophical terminology and set phrases of another. It may be divided into five parts. In the first the writer, in a succession of brief allusions antithetically balanced, summarizes the most striking of the legends that are detailed in the pages of his “Records,” and in a few words paints the exploits of some of the early emperors. In the second the troubles that ushered in the reign of the Emperor Tem-mu and his triumph over Prince Ohotomo are related at greater length in high-flown allusive phrases borrowed from the Chinese historians. The third division gives us the Emperor Tem-mu’s decree ordering the compilation of the “Records,” and the fourth tells how the execution of that decree was delayed till the reign of the Empress Gem-miyō (A. D. 708–715), on whom likewise a panegyric is pronounced. In the fifth and last the compiler enters into some details concerning the style and method which he has adopted.
- ↑ The First Personal Pronoun is here represented by the humble character 臣, “vassal,” used in China by a subject when addressing his sovereign in writing.
- ↑ This is the compiler’s personal name. His full name and titles, as given at the end of this preface, were 正五位上勲五等太朝臣安萬侶, i.e., the Court Noble Futo no Yasumaro, an Officer of the Upper Division of the First Class of the Fifth Rank and of the Fifth Order of Merit. The family of Futo claimed to descend from His Augustness Kamu-yawi-mimi, second son of the Emperor Jim-mu. Yasumaro’s death is recorded in the “Chronicles of Japan Continued,” under date of 30th August, A. D. 723.
- ↑ I.e., I report as follows to Her Majesty the Empress.
