Though thou sayest thou willst not weep If like the flocking birds, I flock and depart, If like the led birds, I am led away and Depart; thou wilt hang down thine head like A single Eulalia upon the mountain and Thy weeping shall indeed rise as the mist of The morning shower. Then the Empress, taking a wine-cup, approaches and offers it to him, saying: Oh! Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! Thou, my dear Master-of-the-Great-Land indeed, Being a man, probably hast on the various island headlands thou seest, And on every beach-headland that thou lookest on, A wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas! Being a woman, I have no man except thee; I have no spouse except thee. Beneath the fluttering of the ornamented fence, Beneath the softness of the warm coverlet, Beneath the rustling of the cloth coverlet, Thine arms, white as rope of paper-mulberry bark softly patting my breast soft as the melting snow, And patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing ourselves on each other's arms, True jewel arms, and with outstretched legs, will we sleep.* *B. H. Chamberlain. "Having thus sung, they at once pledged each other by the cup with their hands on each other's necks." It is, nevertheless, from among the children born on the occasion of the contest between the Sun goddess and Susanoo that the Great-Name Possessor first seeks a spouse--the Princess of the Torrent Mist--to lay the foundation of fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy renders invaluable aid to the Great-Name Possessor. But the useful little Kami does not wait to witness the conclusion of the work of "making and consolidating the country." Before its completion he takes his departure from Cape Kumano in Izumo to the "everlasting land"--a region commonly spoken of in ancient Japanese annals but not yet definitely located. He is replaced by a spirit whose coming is thus described by the Chronicles: