y beach-headland that thou lookest on,
A wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas!
Being a woman, I have no man except thee; I have no spouse except
thee.
Beneath the fluttering of the ornamented fence,
Beneath the softness of the warm coverlet,
Beneath the rustling of the cloth coverlet,
Thine arms, white as rope of paper-mulberry bark softly patting
my breast soft as the melting snow,
And patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing
ourselves on each other's arms,
True jewel arms, and with outstretched legs, will we sleep.*

*B. H. Chamberlain.

"Having thus sung, they at once pledged each other by the cup with
their hands on each other's necks." It is, nevertheless, from among
the children born on the occasion of the contest between the Sun
goddess and Susanoo that the Great-Name Possessor first seeks a
spouse--the Princess of the Torrent Mist--to lay the foundation of
fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential
to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the
functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and
wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna
Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by
the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing
sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy
renders invaluable aid to the Great-Name Possessor. But the useful
little Kami does not wait to witness the conclusion of the work of
"making and consolidating the country." Before its completion he
takes his departure from Cape Kumano in Izumo to the "everlasting
land"--a region commonly spoken of in ancient Japanese annals but not
yet definitely located. He is replaced by a spirit whose coming is
thus described by the Chronicles:

After this (i.e. the departure of Sukuna), wherever there was in the
land a part which was imperfect, the Great-Name Possessor visited it
by himself and succeeded in repairing it. Coming at last to the
province of Izumo, he spake and said: "This central land of reed
plains had always been waste and wild. The very rocks, trees, and
huts were all given to violence... But I have now reduced it to
submission, and there is none that is not compliant." Therefore he
said finally: "It is I, and I alone, who now govern this land. Is
there, perchance, anyone who could join with me in governing the
worl