Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/85

Rh come to her while retiring within the palace of shadow. She tarried there so long, His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites would not wait any longer; so having taken and broken off, this mythology goes on to say, one of the end-teeth of this close-toothed comb stuck in the left bunch of his hair, he lit a light and went in and looked. Alas, his wife-deity was rotting with swarming maggots; in her head, it is written in the book, dwelt the Great Thunder, in her breast the Fire-Thunder, in her belly the Black Thunder, in her private parts the Cleaving Thunder, in her left hand the Young Thunder, in her right hand the Earth Thunder, in her left foot the Rumbling Thunder, in her right foot the Couchant Thunder, thus altogether eight Thunder Deities dwelt there. His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites, indeed, overawed at the sight, fell back, while his wife, who grew mad, exclaimed: “Thou hast put me to shame,” and sent the eight Thunder Deities with a thousand and five hundred warriors of Hades to pursue him; but when they failed to meet him, Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites came out herself in pursuit. She was blocked by a huge rock at the Even Pass of Hades which the male deity had placed there for his own protection; here these two deities stood opposite to one another, and Her Augustness the Female-Who-Invites was first to speak, and she said: “If thou doest like this, I will