Page:Kojiki by Chamberlain.djvu/189

] him, the Deity Brave-August-Name-Firm said: “I will obey. Slay me not. I will go to no other place but this, neither will I go against the command of my father the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land. I will not go against the words of the Deity Eight-Fold-Thing-Sign-Master. I will yield up this Central Land of Reed-Plains according to the command of the august child of the Heavenly Deities.” So they returned again, and asked the Deity Master-of-the-Great-Land [saying]: “Thy children the two Deities the Deity Thing-Sign-Master and the Deity Brave-August-Name-Firm have said that they will follow and not go against the commands of the august child of the Heavenly Deities. So how is thy heart?” Then he replied, saying: “According as the two Deities my children have said, I too will not go against them. In accordance with the [heavenly] command, I will at once yield up this Central Land of Reed-Plains. But as to my place of residence, if ye will make stout the temple-pillars on the nethermost rock-bottom, and make high the cross-beams to the Plain of High Heaven like the rich and perfect august nest where the august child of the Heavenly Deities rules the succession of Heaven’s sun, and will deign to establish me, I will hide in the eighty (less than a hundred) road-windings, and wait on him. Again, as for my children the hundred and eighty Deities, if the Deity Eight-Fold-Thing-Sign-Master will be the Deities’ august rear and van and will respectfully serve them, there will be no disobedient Deities.”