Emperor In-giyō (Part V.—Prince Karu Loves His Sister Princess So-tohoshi)

Basil Hall Chamberlain, 1882 · 3 paragraphs · Read at the source

141.1After the decease of the Heavenly Sovereign, it was settled that King Karu of Ki-nashi should rule the Sun’s succession. But in the interval before his accession, he debauched his younger sister the Great Lady of Karu, and sang, saying: “Making rice-fields on the mountain, making hidden conduits run on account of the mountain’s height:—to-day indeed [my] body easily touches the younger sister whom I wooed with a hidden wooing, the spouse for whom I wept with a hidden weeping.”

141.2This is a Hind-Lifting Song. Again he sang, saying: “The rattle-rattle of the hail against the bamboo-grass:—After I shall have certainly slept, what though I be plotted against by people! When I shall have slept a good sleep delightfully, if there is the disorder of the cut Hydropyrum latifolium, let there be disorder,—when I shall have slept a good sleep!”

141.3This is a Rustic Lifting Song.