Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/86

82 in one day strangle to death a thousand of the folk of thy land.” Then His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites replied: “If thou doest this, I will in one day set up a thousand and five hundred parturition houses, and make the women bear children. Suppose a thousand people may each day die; but each day a thousand and five hundred people will be born.” Thus birth conquered over death, the land of light over the land of shadow.

The great deity who defeated death and persuaded the deities of shadow not to pursue any more, said: “How hideous! I have come to a hideous polluted land; I will perform the purification of my person.” Then he went into a plain and by a river near Tachibana in the island of Tsukushi, and began to purify and cleanse himself; it is written in the book, that, when he threw down his girdle, the Deity Road-Long Space was born thence, the Deity Master of Trouble from his upper garment he put aside, the Deity Master of the Open Mouth from his hat, and so on; thus the twelve deities altogether were born from his taking off the things that were on his person. And then from the bathing of his august person itself the other fourteen deities came into existence, among them the three illustrious children at whose birth His Augustness the Male-Who-Invites was rejoiced, the Heaven Shining Great August Deity from his left eye,