in separate seclusion, their door was closed and prohibited, and they had no liberty of movement. In such misery they passed the year. The writing of Wobito, Naniha no Kishi, says:—"The Chief Envoy to Great Thang struck on an island and was overturned.[1] The Associate Envoy had a personal audience of the Emperor and showed him some Yemishi. Upon this the Yemishi presented to the Emperor a white deer-skin, three bows, and eighty arrows."
15th day. By a decree to the Ministers, the Empress had the Urabon[2] Sutra expounded in all the Temples of the capital, and requital made to the ancestors for seven generations.
In this year, the Kuni no Miyakko of Idzumo was commanded to repair the shrine of the Itsuki[3] God.
A fox bit off the end of a creeper which a labourer of the district of Oü held in his hand, and went off with it. Moreover a dog brought in his mouth a dead man's hand and forearm and laid it in the Ifuya shrine. [Signs that the Empress was about to die.]
Again, the Koryö Envoys had a bear-skin[4] on which they put a price of sixty pounds of floss silk. The market commissioner laughed and went away.
A Koryö painter, named Komaro,[5] on the day on which he entertained guests of his own surname in his private house, borrowed seventy official Polar bear-skins for them to sit upon. The guests were ashamed and astonished and went away.
A.D. 660. 6th year, Spring, 1st month, 1st day. The Koryö Envoys, the Eul-syang, Ha Chhyu-mun, and his suite, numbering over one hundred persons, anchored in Tsukushi.
(XXVI. 16.) 3rd month. Abe no Omi was sent on an expedition with a fleet of 200 ships against the land of Su-shēn. Abe no Omi made some Yemishi of Michinoku embark on board his own ship. They arrived close to a great river.[6] Upon this over a
- ↑ Sic in original.
- ↑ Ullambana in Sanskrit.
- ↑ The character rendered Itsuki (with several variants) means stern, severe, and at first sight would seem a general epithet for the Gods of Idzumo. But there was a Temple of Itsuki in this province, so that the word seems to have become a proper name. The same root occurs in Itsuku-shima, the sacred island in the Inland Sea, near Hiroshima.
- ↑ A shiguma skin. See above, XXVI. 10.
- ↑ Obviously a Japanese name.
- ↑ Perhaps the Ishikari river.
