Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/159

Rh passage of the Gempei Seisuiki shows very clearly the different character of the two works. There is nothing in the latter about praying to Shinto deities or to Buddha, and no talk of a future Paradise. When the young monarch asks where his nurse is taking him, instead of the devout sentiments attributed to her by the Heike Monogatari, the Gempei Seisuiki tells us that she said, "The soldiers are shooting arrows at the august ship, and I have the honour to escort your Majesty to another one."

The honorifics characteristic of the Japanese language come in very oddly in some of these passages. Thus in the above the waves "respectfully" submerge the Mikado, the enemy's soldiers "respectfully" direct their arrows against the august ship, and so forth. It would be tedious to follow these peculiarities in a translation.

The authorship of the historical work called Midzu-Kagami ("Water-Mirror") is really unknown. It has been ascribed to Nakayama Tadachika, who was born 1131, and died 1195. Omitting the myths of the so-called "Age of the Gods," the writer begins his history with the legend of Jimmu Tennō, the first Mikado, and brings it down through fifty-four reigns to the death of Nimmiō in 850. It is of course impossible to give anything but a meagre outline of the history of this long period in three volumes of no great bulk. Its value is small. In the earlier part it is little more than an epitome of the Nihongi. The story is told in a plain, artless fashion, without rhetorical ornament, philosophical reflections, or the least attempt to trace the causes or connection of events. Whoever the author was, he was a devout Buddhist, to which fact is