titudinous road-forkings.... I fulfil your praises by
declaring your NAMES, Youth and Maiden of the Many Road-forkings
and Come-no-further Gate, and say: for the OFFERINGS set up that
you may prevent [the servants of the monarch] from being
poisoned by and agreeing with the things which shall come
roughly-acting and hating from the Root-country, the
Bottom-country, that you may guard the bottom (of the gate) when
they come from the bottom, guard the top when they come from the
top, guarding with nightly guard and with daily guard, and may
praise them--peacefully take the great OFFERINGS which are set
up by piling them up like a range of hills, that is to say,
providing bright cloth, etc., ... and sitting closing-up the way
like innumerable piles of rock in the multitudinous
road-forkings, deign to praise the sovran GRANDCHILD'S
augustness eternally and unchangingly, and to bless his age as a
luxuriant AGE.

Retreating to another part of the world--that is, into southwestern
Japan--Izanami purified himself by bathing in a stream. While washing
himself,[5] many kami were borne from the rinsings of his person, one of
them, from the left eye (the left in Japanese is always the honorable
side), being the far-shining or heaven-illuminating kami, whose name,
Amateras[)u], or Heaven-shiner, is usually translated "The Sun-goddess."
This personage is the centre of the system of Shint[=o]. The creation of
gods by a process of cleansing has had a powerful effect on the
Japanese, who usually associate cleanliness of the body (less moral,
than physical) with godliness.

It is not necessary to detail further the various stories which make up
the Japanese mythology. Some of these are lovely and beautiful, but
others are horrible and disgusting, while the dominant note throughout
is abundant filthiness.

Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has done the world such good
service in translating into English the whole of the Kojiki, and
furnishing it with learned commentary and notes, has well said:

"The shocking obscenity of word and act to which the 'Records'
bear witness is another ugly feature which must not quite be
passed over in silence. It is true that decency, as we
understand it, is a very modern product, and it is not to be
looked for in any society in the barbarous stage. At the same
time, the whole range of literature might perhaps be ran