Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 13.djvu/67

Rh Then the Princess of Nuna-kaha, without yet opening the door, sang from the inside, saying:

"Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! Being a maiden like a drooping plant, my heart is just a bird on a sand-bank by the shore; it will now indeed be a dotterel. Afterward it will be a gentle bird; so as for thy life, do not deign to die. Oh! swiftly flying heaven-racing messenger! the tradition of the thing, too, this!"

"When the sun shall hide behind the green mountains, in the night black as the true jewels of the moor will I come forth. Coming radiant with smiles like the morning sun, thine arms white as rope of paper-mulberry-bark shall softly pat my breast soft as the melting snow; and patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing ourselves on each other's jewel-arms true jewel-arms and with outstretched legs, will we sleep. So speak not too lovingly, Thine Augustness the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears! The tradition of the thing, too, this!"

Again this deity's Chief Empress, Her Augustness the Forward-Princess, was very jealous. So the deity her husband, being distressed, was about to go up from Idzumo to the Land of Yamato; and as he stood attired, with one august hand on the saddle of his august horse and one august foot in the august stirrup, he sang, saying:

"When I take and attire myself so carefully in my august garments black as the true jewels of the moor, and, like the birds of the offing, look at my breast though I raise my fins, I say that these are not good, and cast them off on the waves on the beach. When I take and attire myself so carefully in my august garments green as the kingfisher, and, like the birds of the offing, look at my breast though I raise my