66. Troubles Which Followed His Decease
1So after the decease of the Heavenly Sovereign, His Augustness Oho-sazaki, in conformity with the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, ceded the Empire to Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. Thereupon His Augustness Oho-yama-mori, disobeying the Heavenly Sovereign’s commands, and anxious in spite thereof to obtain the Empire, had the design to slay the Prince his younger brother, secretly raised an army, and prepared to attack him. Then His Augustness Oho-sazaki, hearing that his elder brother had prepared an army, forthwith despatched a messenger to apprise Uji-no-waki-iratsuko. So, startled at the news, [the latter] set troops in ambush by the river-bank, and likewise, after having drawn a fence of curtains and raised a tent on the top of the hill, placed there publicly on a throne one of his retainers to pretend that he was the King, the manner in which all the officials reverentially went and came being just like that [usual] in the King’s presence. And moreover, preparing for the time when the King his elder brother should cross the river, he arranged and decorated a boat and oars, and moreover ground [in a mortar] the root of the Kadzura japonica, and having taken the slime of its juice, rubbed therewith the grating inside the boat, so as to make any who should tread on it fall down, and then himself put on a cloth coat and trowsers, and having assumed the appearance of a common fellow, stood in the boat holding the oar. Hereupon, when the King his elder brother, having hid his troops in ambush and put on armour beneath his clothes, reached the river-bank and was about to get into the boat, he gazed at the grandly decorated place [on the hill], thought the King his younger brother was sitting on the throne, being altogether ignorant [of the fact] that he was standing in the boat holding the oar, and forthwith asked the fellow who was holding the oar, saying: “It has been reported to me that on this mountain there is a large and angry boar. I wish to take that boar. Shall I peradventure get that boar?” Then the fellow holding the oar replied, saying: “Thou canst not.” Again he asked, saying: “For what reason?” [The boatman] answered, saying: “He is not to be got, however often and in however many places he be chased. Wherefore I say that thou canst not [catch him either].” When they had crossed as far as the middle of the river, [Prince Uji-no-waki-iratsuko] caused the boat to be tilted over, and [his elder brother] to fall into the water. Then forthwith he rose to the surface, and floated down with the current. Forthwith, as he floated, he sang, saying:
2“Whoever is swiftest among the boatmen of the Uji ferry will come to me.”
3Thereupon the troops that had heen hidden on the river-hank rose up simultanously on this side and on that side, and fixing their arrows [in their bows], let him go floating down. So he sank on reaching Kawara Point. So on their searching with hooks the place where he had sunk, [the hooks] struck on the armour inside his clothes, and made a rattling sound. So the place was called by the name of Kawara Point. Then when they hooked up his hones, the younger King sang, saying:
4“Catalpa bow, Evonymus standing by the ferry-bank of Uji! My heart had thought to cut [you], my heart had thought to take [you]; but at the base methought of the lord, at the extremity methought of the younger sister; grievously methought of this, sorrowfully methought of that; and I come [back] without cutting it,—the Catalpa bow, the Evonymus.”
5So the bones of His Augustness Oho-yama-mori were buried on the Nara mountain. His Augustness Oho-yama-mori (was the ancestor of the Dukes of Hijikata, the Dukes of Heki, and the Dukes of Harihara.)