Page:Kojiki by Chamberlain.djvu/340

254 On his walking out singing thus, he hit with his august staff a large stone in the middle of the Ohosaka road, upon which the stone ran away. So the proverb says: “Hard stones get out of a drunkard’s way.”

So after the decease of the Heavenly Sovereign, His Augustness Oho-sazaki, in conformity with the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, ceded the Empire to Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. Thereupon His Augustness Oho-yama-mori, disobeying the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, and anxious in spite thereof to obtain the Empire, had the design to slay the Prince his younger brother, secretly raised an army, and prepared to attack him. Then His Augustness Oho-sazaki, hearing that his elder brother had prepared an army, forthwith despatched a messenger to apprise Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. So, startled at the news, [the latter] set troops in ambush by the river-bank, and likewise, after having drawn a fence of curtains and raised a tent on the top of the hill, placed there publicly on a throne one of his retainers to pretend that he was the King, the manner in which all the officials reverentially went and came being just like that [usual] in the King’s presence. And moreover, preparing for the time when the King his elder brother should cross the river,