A history of the Japanese people : $b from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji eraBrinkley, F. (Frank)
History
A history of the Japanese people : $b from the earliest times to the end of the Meiji era
Brinkley, F. (Frank)
Japan -- Civilization; Japan -- History
After the composition of the quarrel described above, Princess Rich
Gem arrived from the castle of the ocean Kami, and built a
parturition hut on the seashore, she being about to bring forth a
child. Before the thatch of cormorants' feathers could be completed,
the pains of labour overtook her, and she entered the hut, conjuring
her husband not to spy upon her privacy, since, in order to be safely
delivered, she must assume a shape appropriate to her native land.
He, however, suffered his curiosity to overcome him, and peeping in,
saw her in the form of an eight-fathom crocodile. It resulted that
having been thus put to shame, she left her child and returned to the
ocean Kami's palace, declaring that there should be no longer any
free passage between the dominions of the ocean Kami and the world of
men. "Nevertheless afterwards, although angry at her husband's having
wished to peep, she could not restrain her loving heart," and she
sent her younger sister, Good Jewel, to nurse the baby and to be the
bearer of a farewell song to Hohodemi.
The Records state that the latter lived to the age of 580 years and
that his mausoleum was built to the west of Mount Takachiho, on which
his palace stood. Thus for the first time the duration of a life is
stated in the antique annals of Japan. His son, called Fuki-ayezu
(Unfinished Thatch), in memory of the strange incident attending his
birth, married Princess Good Jewel, his own aunt, and by her had four
sons. The first was named Itsuse (Five Reaches) and the youngest,
Iware (a village in Yamato province). This latter ultimately became
Emperor of Japan, and is known in history as Jimmu (Divine Valour), a
posthumous name given to him many centuries after his death.* From
the time of this sovereign dates and events are recorded with full
semblance of accuracy in the Chronicles, but the compilers of the
Records do not attempt to give more than a bald statement of the
number of years each sovereign lived or reigned.
*Posthumous names for the earthly Mikados were invented in the reign
of Kwammu (A.D. 782-805), i.e., after the date of the compilation of
the Records and the Chronicles. But they are in universal use by the
Japanese, though to speak of a living sovereign by his posthumous
name is a manifest anomaly.
THE EXPEDITION TO YAMATO
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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