Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/92

88 was rescued. And after many happenings His Augustness the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand Spears grasped the hair of the father of the Princess, while he was sleeping, and tied it fast to the various rafters of the house, and after blocking up the floor of the house with a huge rock, he carried off his new wife on his back, and ran away. It is written in the book that when he ran away, the heavenly-speaking lute which he also carried on his back brushed against a tree and the beautiful voice of the lute resounded, shaking the earth. I think that our old ancestors had quite a developed sense of music; here is a story, the most beautiful of all the stories which illustrates their delicacy of feeling.

There was in the reign of the Emperor Nintoku a tall tree on the west bank of the river Tsuki; the shadow of this tree, on its being struck by the morning sun, it is said, reached to the Island of Ahaji, and on being struck by the evening sun, it crossed Mount Takayasu. When the tree was cut down, it was made into a vessel which proved to be a very swift-going one, and it was called by the name of Karanu. With this vessel the water of the Island of Ahaji was drawn morning and evening and presented as the great august water. The vessel became ruined and useless in time; some broken pieces of this old vessel were used as fuel to dry salt, and other pieces of wood that remained over from the burning were turned