Page:Kojiki by Chamberlain.djvu/30

xx only is the style (excepting in the Songs, which had to be left as they were or sacrificed altogether) completely Chinese,—in fact to a great extent a cento of well-worn Chinese phrases,—but the subject-matter is touched up, re-arranged, and polished, so as to make the work resemble a Chinese history so far as that was possible. Chinese philosophical speculations and moral precepts are intermingled with the cruder traditions that had descended from Japanese antiquity. Thus the naturalistic Japanese account of the creation is ushered in by a few sentences which trace the origin of all things to Yin and Yang, the Passive and Active Essences of Chinese philosophy. The legendary Emperor Jim-mu is credited with speeches made up of quotations from the “Yi Ching, ” the “Li Chi, ” and other standard Chinese works. A few of the most childish of the national traditions are omitted, for instance the story of the “White Hare of Inaba,” that of the gods obtaining counsel of a toad, and that of the hospitality which a speaking mouse extended to the deity Master-of-the Great-Land. Sometimes the original tradition is simply softened down or explained away. A notable instance of this occurs in the account of the visit of the deity Izanagi to Hades, whither he goes in quest of his dead wife, and among other things has to scale the “Even Pass (or Hill) of Hades.” In the tradition preserved in the “Records”" and indeed even in the “Chronicles,” this pass or hill is mentioned as a literal geographical fact. But the compiler of the latter work, whose object it was to appear and to make his forefathers appear, as reasonable as a learned Chinese, adds a gloss to the effect that “One account says that the Even Hill of Hades is no distinct place, but simply the moment when breathing ceases at the time of death”;—not a happy guess certainly, for this pass is mentioned in connection with Izanagi’s return to the land of the living. In short we may say of this work what was said of the Septuagint,—that it rationalizes.

Perhaps it will be asked, how can it have come to pass that a book