of his tool. The Emperor accordingly rebuked him, saying:—"Where does this fellow come from that, without respect to us, he gives such heedless answers with unchastened heart?" So he handed him over to the Mononobe to be executed on the moor.
Now amongst his comrades there was a carpenter who lamented for Mane, and made a song, saying:—
Carpenter of Winabe—
The ink-cord he applied,—
When he is no more,
Who will apply it?
Alas! that ink-cord![1]
When the Emperor heard this song, his feelings changed to remorse, and he said with a sigh of regret:—"How many men I have destroyed!" So he mounted a messenger of mercy on a black horse of Kahi, and made him gallop to the place of execution to stop it and pardon him. The cords with which he was tied were unbound, and he, too, made a song, saying:—
Black was the horse of Kahi—
Had they but saddled him,
(XIV. 38.) My life were lost—
Ah! that horse of Kahi!
Instead of "My life were lost," one book has, "He would not have arrived (in time)."
A.D. 470. 14th year, Spring, 1st month, 13th day. Awo, Musa no Sukuri, and the others, in company with envoys from the Land
- ↑ The ink-cord is a contrivance for ruling lines on wood, used to this day by Japanese carpenters. A cord is passed through a pot of ink and then drawn taut, and let go so as to strike the wood. A chalked line is sometimes used in the same way in this country. See illustration in "Transactions of Japan Society," Vol. II. p. 217. The metre of this poem is irregular, being a tanka with an additional line of seven syllables between the second and third.
- ↑ This is one of many explanations of the conventional epithet nubatama, applied to dark or black things.
