met his eyes, and record in his heart whatever struck his ears.[1] Forthwith Are was commanded to learn by heart the genealogies of the emperors, and likewise the words of former ages. Nevertheless time elapsed and the age changed, and the thing was not yet carried out.[2]
Prostrate I consider how Her Majesty the Empress, having obtained Unity, illumines the empire,—being versed in the Triad, nourishes the people.[3] Ruling from the Purple Palace, Her virtue reaches to the utmost limits of the horses’ hoof-marks: dwelling amid the Sombre Retinue, Her influence illumines the furthest distance attained to by vessels’ prows. The sun rises, and the brightness is increased; the clouds disperse, neither is there smoke. Never cease the historiographers from recording the good omens of connected stalks and double rice-ears; never for a single moon is the treasury without the tribute of continuous beacon-fires and repeated interpretations. In fame She must be pronounced superior to Bum-Mei, in virtue more eminent than Ten-Itsu.[4]
- ↑ I.e., he could repeat the contents of any document that he had once seen and remember all that he had ever heard.
- ↑ I.e., the Emperor Tem-mu died before the plan of the compilation of these “Records” had been carried into execution, viz., it may be presumed, before a selection from the various original documents committed to memory by Are had been reduced to writing.
- ↑ 得一光宅通三亭育. For the phrase “obtaining Unity,” which is borrowed from Lao Tzŭ, the student should consult Stanislas Julien’s “Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu,” pp. 144–149. The “Triad” is the threefold intelligence of Heaven, Earth, and Man. The general meaning of the sentence is that the Empress’s perfect virtue, which is in complete accord with the heavenly ordinances, is spread abroad throughout the empire, and that with her all-penetrating insight she nourishes and sustains her people.
- ↑ In the above four sentences the compiler expresses his respectful admiration of the Empress Gem-miyō, who was on the throne at the time when he wrote, and tells us how wide was her rule and how prosperous her reign. The “Purple Palace” is one of the ornamental names borrowed from the Chinese to denote the imperial residence. The “Sombre Retinue” (if such indeed is the correct rendering of the original expression 玄扈) is a phrase on which no authority consulted by the translator throws any light. The “utmost limits of the horses’ hoofmarks” and the “furthest distance attained toby vessels’ prows” are favourite phrases in the old literature of Japan to express extreme distance (see, for instance, Mr.
