Emperor Suinin垂仁天皇

Ikumeirihiko Isachi no Mikoto dwelt in the palace of Tamagaki in Shiki (師木玉垣宮) and ruled all under heaven.

This emperor took to wife Sawajihime no Mikoto (佐波遲比賣命), the younger sister of Sahobiko no Mikoto, and the son born was Homutsuwake no Mikoto (品牟都和氣命).

He also took to wife Hibasuhime no Mikoto (氷羽州比賣命), the daughter of Hikotatasu Michinoushi no Miko of Taniwa, and the children born were Inishiki no Irihiko no Mikoto (印色之入日子命), next Ohotarashihiko Oshirowake no Mikoto (大帶日子淤斯呂和氣命), next Ohonakatsuhiko no Mikoto (大中津日子命), next Yamatohime no Mikoto (倭比賣命), and next Wakakiirihiko no Mikoto (若木入日子命).

He also took to wife Nubata no Iribime no Mikoto (沼羽田之入毗賣命), the younger sister of that Hibasuhime no Mikoto, and the children born were Nutarashiwake no Mikoto (沼帶別命), and next Igatarashihiko no Mikoto (伊賀帶日子命).

He also took to wife Azami no Iribime no Mikoto (阿邪美能伊理毗賣命), the younger sister of that Nubata no Iribime no Mikoto, and the children born were Ikobayawake no Mikoto (伊許婆夜和氣命), and next Azamitsuhime no Mikoto (阿邪美都比賣命).

He also took to wife Kaguyahime no Mikoto (迦具夜比賣命), the daughter of Ohotsutsuki Tarine no Miko, and the son born was Ozabe no Miko (袁邪辨王).

He also took to wife Karihatatobe (苅羽田刀辨), the daughter of Ohokuni no Fuchi (大國之淵) of Yamashiro, and the sons born were Ochiwake no Miko (落別王), next Ikatarashihiko no Miko (五十日帶日子王), and next Itoshiwake no Miko (伊登志別王).

He also took to wife Otokarihatatobe (弟苅羽田刀辨), another daughter of that Ohokuni no Fuchi, and the children born were Iwatsukuwake no Miko (石衝別王), and next Iwatsukubime no Mikoto (石衝毗賣命), whose other name is Futaji no Iribime no Mikoto (布多遲能伊理毗賣命).

In all, the children of this emperor were sixteen kings. So Ohotarashihiko Oshirowake no Mikoto ruled all under heaven.

Next, Inishiki no Irihiko no Mikoto made the pond of Chinu (血沼池), and made the pond of Sayama (狹山池), and made the pond of Takatsu in Kusaka (高津池). He also dwelt in the palace of Kawakami in Totori (河上宮) and had a thousand long swords made and offered them into the Isonokami Shrine. Then, dwelling in that palace, he fixed the Kawakamibe (河上部).

Next, Ohonakatsuhiko no Mikoto is the ancestor of the Yamanobe no Wake and others. Next, Yamatohime no Mikoto offered worship at the great shrine of Ise. Next, Ikobayawake no Miko is the ancestor of the Anahobe no Wake of Saho. Next, Azamitsuhime no Mikoto was married to Inasebiko no Miko. Next, Ochiwake no Miko is the ancestor of the Otsuki no Yama no Kimi and others. Next, Ikatarashihiko no Miko is the ancestor of the Kasuga no Yama no Kimi and others. Next, Itoshiwake no Miko had no child, and so the Itsube was fixed. Next, Iwatsukuwake no Miko is the ancestor of the Hakui no Kimi and the Mio no Kimi. Next, Futaji no Iribime no Mikoto became the queen of Yamatotakeru no Mikoto.

When this emperor made Sahobime his queen, the elder brother of Sahobime no Mikoto, Sahobiko no Miko, asked his full sister, "Which do you love more, your husband or your elder brother?"

She answered, "I love my elder brother."

Then Sahobiko no Miko laid a plot and said, "If you truly love me, then let you and me rule all under heaven together."

At once he made a small knife with a cord, tempered eight times over, and gave it to his sister, saying, "Stab the emperor with this knife while he sleeps."

The emperor knew nothing of the plot, and slept with his head on the queen's knees. The queen raised the corded knife to stab the emperor in the neck, and lifted it three times, but she could not master her grief, and could not stab his neck, and her falling tears spilled over his face.

The emperor started up and asked the queen, "I have had a strange dream. A sudden rain came from the quarter of Saho and wet my face, and a small snake the color of brocade wound itself about my neck. Of what is such a dream a sign?"

The queen thought it could not be hidden, and said to the emperor, "My elder brother Sahobiko no Miko asked me, 'Which do you love more, your husband or your elder brother?' I could not stand up to the question asked to my face, and so I answered, 'I love my elder brother.' Then he lured me, saying, 'Let you and me rule all under heaven together, and so the emperor must be killed,' and he made a small knife with a cord, tempered eight times over, and gave it to me. So I meant to stab your neck, and I lifted it three times, but grief rose up in me of a sudden and I could not stab, and my tears fell and wet your face. Surely this is the sign of it."

The emperor said, "I was very nearly deceived."

At once he raised an army and struck at Sahobiko no Miko. That king built a fort of rice straw and waited to give battle. At this time Sahobime no Mikoto could not forsake her elder brother, and she slipped out by the back gate and went into that fort of rice straw.

At this time the queen was with child. The emperor could not bring himself to forsake her, both because she was with child and because he had loved and cherished her for three years, and so he turned his army back and did not press the attack.

While they lingered in this way, the child she carried was born. She set the child outside the fort and had this said to the emperor: "If you look on this child as the emperor's child, then take him and rear him."

The emperor hated her elder brother, yet still could not master his love for the queen. So a wish to win the queen back rose in his heart.

He picked out the strong and nimble men among his soldiers and said, "When you take the child, seize the mother king too. By the hair, by the hand, whatever you can catch, take hold of her and drag her out."

The queen knew this design beforehand. She shaved off all her hair and covered her head with it, she rotted a string of jewels and wound it three times about her hand, and she rotted her robe with wine and wore it as though it were whole. Having made ready in this way, she took the child in her arms and held him out beyond the fort.

Those strong men took the child and at once seized his mother. When they grasped her hair, the hair came away of itself. When they grasped her hand, the string of jewels broke. When they grasped her robe, the robe tore at once. So they got the child, but could not take his mother.

The soldiers came back and reported, "Her hair came away of itself, her robe tore easily, and the string of jewels wound about her hand broke at once. So we could not take the mother, and brought only the child."

The emperor was full of regret and bitterness, and in his hatred of the jewel makers he took away all their land. So the proverb says, "a jewel maker with no land of his own."

The emperor also commanded the queen and said, "The name of a child is always given by its mother. What shall this child's name be?"

She answered and said, "He was born in the fire, at the time when the fort of rice straw was burning. So his name should be Homuchiwake no Miko (本牟智和氣御子)."

He commanded again and said, "How shall he be reared?"

She answered and said, "Set a foster mother over him, and appoint a great bath attendant and a lesser bath attendant, and let him be reared so."

So he was reared as the queen had said.

He also asked the queen, "The mizu no obi — the fine sash that you tied — who shall loosen it?"

She answered and said, "The daughters of Hikotatasu Michinoushi no Miko of Taniwa, Ehime (兄比賣) and Otohime (弟比賣), those two female kings are clean and honest people, and it would be right to take them."

But in the end that Sahobiko no Miko was killed, and his full sister followed him in death.

This is how they played with that child. In Aizu (相津) of Owari there was a forked cedar, and they made a forked little boat of it and brought it up, and floated it on the pond of Ichishi (市師池) and the pond of Karu (輕池) in Yamato, and played there with that child.

Yet this child, though his beard had grown eight spans long down to his chest, was makoto towazu — he could not speak true words. But when he heard the cry of a swan passing high overhead, for the first time he made an agitohi — a babbling sound.

So Ohotaka (大鶙) of Yamanobe was sent to catch that bird. This man followed the swan from the land of Ki (木國) to the land of Harima, and passed on through the land of Inaba to the land of Taniwa and the land of Tajima, and turned east to the land of Chikatsuafumi, and crossed the land of Mino, and went by way of the land of Owari, and chased it as far as the land of Shinano, and at last reached the land of Koshi, where he spread a net at the river mouth of Wanami (和那美) and took the bird, and brought it up and offered it. So that river mouth is called the river mouth of Wanami.

When the child looked at the bird, he seemed about to say something, but he did not speak as he meant to.

At this the emperor was troubled, and when he slept a voice came to him in a dream: "Rebuild my shrine like the emperor's own hall, and the child will surely speak true words."

When this came to him, they divined with the futomani to learn whose heart it was, and the curse came from the heart of the great god of Izumo.

So when the child was to be sent to worship at the shrine of that great god, they divined who should be sent with him, and Aketatsu no Miko came out in the lot.

Then Aketatsu no Miko was commanded to make an ukehi — a pledge — and to say, "If by worshipping this great god there is truly a sign, then let the heron living in the tree of this pond of Sagisu (鷺巣池) fall by this pledge." When he said this, the heron fell to the ground and died as the pledge had it. And when he said, "By this pledge come alive again," it came alive once more. He also made the broad-leaved oak on the cape of Amakashi (甜白檮) wither by a pledge, and made it live again by a pledge.

Then a name was given to that Aketatsu no Miko, and he was called Yamato wa Shiki Tomi Toyo Asakura no Aketatsu no Miko (倭者師木登美豐朝倉曙立王).

So when the two kings Aketatsu no Miko and Unakami no Miko were sent with that child, the lot said that by the gate of Nara (那良戸) they would meet a man who could not walk and a man who could not see, and by the gate of Ohosaka (大坂戸) they would meet a man who could not walk and a man who could not see as well, and that only the gate of Ki (木戸) was a good gate. So they set out that way. At every place they came to, they fixed a Homujibe (品遲部).

When they came to Izumo and had finished worshipping the great god, on the way back up they laid a bridge of black logs across the middle of the Hikawa, and built a temporary palace and lodged him there. Then the ancestor of the Izumo no Kuni no Miyatsuko, a man named Kihisatsumi (岐比佐都美), dressed green leaves into the shape of a mountain and set it up at the lower reach of that river, and was about to offer the great food, when that child spoke.

"This thing at the lower reach of the river, made like a mountain of green leaves, looks like a mountain and is no mountain. Is it perhaps the great courtyard of the priest who serves Ashiharashikoo no Ohokami, who dwells in the So shrine of Iwakuma in Izumo (石𥑎之曾宮)?" So he asked.

At this the princes sent with him heard and rejoiced, and saw and were glad, and they lodged the child in the palace of Nagaho of Ajimasa (長穗宮) and sent up a post rider.

That child was wed for one night to Hinagahime (肥長比賣). But when he spied on that lovely woman in secret, she was a snake. He saw it and fled in fear. Then that Hinagahime grieved and lit up the plain of the sea and came after him by boat, and he feared her the more, and drew his boat over a mountain pass and fled away up country.

So they came back and reported, "Because he worshipped the great god, your great child has spoken. So we have come up."

The emperor rejoiced, and at once sent Unakami no Miko back to build the shrine of the god.

Then, because of that child, the emperor fixed the Totoribe (鳥取部), the Torikaibe (鳥甘部), the Homujibe, the great bath attendants, and the lesser bath attendants.

And as the queen had said, he called up the daughters of Michinoushi no Miko: Hibasuhime no Mikoto, next Otohime no Mikoto, next Utakorihime no Mikoto (歌凝比賣命), and next Matonohime no Mikoto (圓野比賣命), four in all.

But he kept only the two, Hibasuhime no Mikoto and Otohime no Mikoto, and sent the two younger kings back to their own land because they were very ugly.

At this Matonohime was ashamed and said, "That among sisters we should be sent back for being ugly, and that this should be heard in the villages round about, is a great shame."

When she came to Sagaraka (相樂) in the land of Yamashiro, she took hold of a tree branch and meant to hang herself and die. So that place was called Sagariki (懸木), and it is now called Sagaraka.

And when she came to Otokuni (弟國), she threw herself at last into a deep pool and died. So that place was called Ochikuni (墮國), and it is now called Otokuni.

The emperor also sent Tajimamori (多遲麻毛理), the ancestor of the Miyake no Muraji (三宅連) and others, to the land of Tokoyo to seek the fruit of the tokijiku no kaku tree (登岐士玖能迦玖能木實).

Tajimamori came at last to that land and gathered the fruit of that tree, and while he was bringing back eight branches with the fruit on them and eight spits of the fruit, the emperor had already died.

Then Tajimamori set apart four branches and four spits and offered them to the great queen, and four branches and four spits he offered and left at the gate of the emperor's tomb, and holding up the fruit of that tree he cried aloud and wept, and said, "I have brought the fruit of the tokijiku no kaku tree from the land of Tokoyo, and I come before you." And at last he cried aloud and wept until he died.

That fruit of the tokijiku no kaku tree is what is now called the orange (橘).

This emperor was one hundred and fifty-three years of age. His tomb is in the midst of the Mitachino (御立野) of Sugawara.

And in the time of that great queen Hibasuhime no Mikoto, the makers of stone coffins (石祝作) were fixed, and the Hajibe (土師部) was fixed as well. This queen was buried in the tomb of Terama in Saki (狹木之寺間陵).