A.D. 478. 22nd year, Spring, 1st month. Prince Shiraga was made Heir Apparent.
Autumn, 7th month. A man of Tsutsukaha in the district of Yosa in the province of Tamba, the child of Urashima of Midzunoye, went fishing in a boat. At length he caught a large tortoise,[1] which straightway became changed into a woman. Hereupon Urashima's child fell in love with her, and made her his wife. They went down together into the sea and reached Hōrai San,[2] where they saw the genii. The story is in another Book.[3]
A.D. 479. (XIV. 47.) 23rd year, Summer, 4th month. King Munkeun[4] of Pèkché died.
- ↑ Or turtle.
- ↑ "Mount Hōrai is the P‘eng-Lai-Shan of the Chinese, one of the Three Isles of the Genii, which were believed to lie in the Eastern Sea, opposite to the coast of China. This happy group was the paradise of the Genii, who there maintained a sempiternal vigour by quaffing the waters of the fountain of life which flowed for them in a perpetual stream. The pine, the plum, the peach-tree, and the sacred fungus grow for ever upon its rocky shores; and the ancient crane builds its nest upon the giant limbs of its never-dying pine." Catalogue of Japanese paintings in the British Museum, Anderson, p. 224. See also Dickins' "Taketori-Monogatari," in the "R.A.S. Transactions." The "Manyōshiu," an ancient collection of Japanese poems, contains a beautiful version of this legend, which has been rendered into English verse by Mr. B. H. Chamberlain, in his "Classical Poetry of the Japanese," and of which a prose version may be found in my grammar of the Japanese written language. The Chinese and Japanese legendary lore associated with Hōrai San is of boundless extent.
The Interlinear Kana renders Hōrai San by Tokoyo no Kuni, or Eternal Land, which is quite inadequate.
- ↑ The "Shukai" editor rejects this as an unauthorized addition.
- ↑ There is no Pèkché king of this name. King Sam-Keun (三斤), who died in this year (the month differs), is doubtless meant. The first
chin. Now Ung-chin or Ung-chhön (熊津 or 熊川) was a town in Kyong-syang-do, near the present Keumhè, and the meaning is Bear-port or Bear-river, evidently, therefore, the same with the Kuma-nari of the text. Kuma is for koma, the Corean word for bear, and nari is a dialectical or ancient form of năi (pronounced nè), river. It occurs above in the name of the river which the King of Silla swears by at p. 231. Ung-chin or Kuma-nari was in the Imna territory, the capital of which was Keumhè, then controlled by Japan, and it is not at all improbable that it should be ceded to Pèkché on this occasion.
The "Tongkam" mentions a Japanese descent on the eastern coast of Silla in 476. They were driven off with a loss of 200 men.
