Aged Susanoo

I

After Susanoo had slain the serpent of Koshi, he married Kushinada-hime and at the same time became the head of the village that Ashinazuchi had ruled.

For the sake of the couple, Ashinazuchi built them a great palace at Suga in Izumo. It was so vast that its chigi roof-forks seemed to vanish into the clouds of heaven.

There, with his new wife, he began to live out tranquil mornings and evenings. The voice of the wind, the spray of the waves, even the light of the stars in the night sky could no longer lure him away into the boundless world of primordial heaven and earth. Already on the verge of becoming a father, he had found beneath the great ridgepole of that palace—within the four walls of his chamber, painted red and white with scenes of the hunt—the hearthside happiness that the land of Takamagahara had never granted him.

They ate together and talked over their plans for the future. Sometimes they would walk in the oak grove around the palace, treading on the little clusters of blossoms that had fallen to the ground, and listen to the dreamlike cries of birds. He was gentle with his wife. In his voice, in his gestures, even in his eyes, not even the shadow of his old savagery ever appeared again.

Yet on rare occasions, in dreams, monsters writhing in darkness and the gleam of swords brandished by unseen hands drew him once more into the spirit of desolate struggle. But whenever he awoke, he remembered his wife and his village at once, and forgot those dreams completely.

Before long they became father and mother. He gave their newborn son the name Yashima-shinumi. Yashima-shinumi, more than resembling his father, took after his mother Kushinada-hime, and was a boy of beautiful character.

The months and years flowed by like a river.

In that time he took several wives and became the father of still more children. When those children were grown, they led soldiers at his command and went out to bring the villages of the various lands into submission.

As his descendants multiplied, his name gradually spread farther and farther. Villages from many lands came one after another to present tribute to him. The boats that carried those offerings also brought the people of distant countries, who came to gaze up at the palace of Suga together with the silk, furs, and jewels they bore.

One day among such visitors he discovered three young men from the land of Takamagahara. They were all sturdy, powerfully built men, just as he himself had once been. He summoned them into the palace and personally gave them wine to drink. No one had ever before received such treatment from this valiant chieftain. At first the youths, unable to guess his purpose, seemed a little afraid. But once the wine began to work, they did as he asked: beating on the bottoms of the jars, they sang songs of Takamagahara.

When they were leaving the palace, he took up a sword and said,

"This is the sword I found in the tail when I cut down the serpent of Koshi. I am entrusting it to you, so take it back and present it to the noble lady of your homeland."

The young men lifted the sword in offering and knelt before him, swearing that even in death they would never disobey his command.

After that he went alone to the shore and watched the sail of the boat carrying them grow smaller and smaller beyond the rough waves. Catching the sunlight that broke through the mist, the sail flashed once like something moving across the empty sky.

II

But death spared neither Susanoo nor his wife.

When Yashima-shinumi had grown into a gentle young man, Kushinada-hime suddenly fell ill and died about a month later. Though he had several wives, she alone was the one he had loved as though she were his own very self. So when the mourning hut had been built, he sat before the still-beautiful corpse of his wife for seven days and seven nights without stirring, silently shedding tears.

During that time the palace was filled with the sound of wailing. Above all, the unceasing cries of the young Suseri-hime were enough to bring tears even to those who merely passed outside the palace. She—the only younger sister of Yashima-shinumi—was, just as her brother resembled their mother, a girl who took after her passionate father, spirited and more forceful than most men.

At last the body of Kushinada-hime was buried in the side of a low hill not far from the palace at Suga, together with the jewels, mirrors, and garments she had used in life. But to console her on the road to Yomi, Susanoo did not forget to have buried alive the eleven women who had attended her until then. All of them, splendidly dressed, hastened eagerly to their deaths. Seeing this, the old men of the village all frowned and privately condemned Susanoo's outrage.

"Eleven! His august lordship pays no attention at all to the old customs of the village. When the chief consort has died, what law is there that says only eleven attendants may go with her to Yomi? Only eleven, all told!"

After the funeral was completely over, Susanoo suddenly resolved to yield the world to Yashima-shinumi. Then he himself went with Suseri-hime to live in Ne-no-Katasu-kuni, a land far beyond the sea.

It was an uninhabited island ringed on all sides by the ocean, the place whose scenery he had loved most of all during his wanderings. There, on a little southern hill, he had a thatched palace built and decided to spend the rest of his days in peace.

His hair had already turned the color of hemp. Yet the fact that even old age could not rob him of his strength was plain enough in the fierce flashes that still crossed his eyes from time to time. Indeed, his face sometimes seemed to take on an even wilder vitality than it had had at the palace in Suga. Susanoo himself did not notice it, but since moving to this island the savagery that had long slept within him had gradually awakened once more.

Together with his daughter Suseri-hime, he tamed bees and snakes. The bees were, of course, for gathering honey; the snakes, for extracting the violent poison to smear on arrowheads. And in the intervals between hunting and fishing, he taught Suseri-hime one by one the martial arts and magic he had learned. In such a life Suseri-hime gradually grew into a woman as brave as any man. Yet in appearance she still retained the noble beauty that recalled Kushinada-hime.

The grove of mukunoki trees around the palace budded over and over again, and over and over again shed its leaves. Each time, more wrinkles were added to his bearded face, and more coolness to the eyes that were always smiling in Suseri-hime's face.

III

One day Susanoo was sitting beneath a mukunoki tree before the palace, skinning the hide of a great stag, when Suseri-hime, who had gone to bathe in the sea, came back with a young man he had never seen before.

"Father, I just had the honor of meeting this gentleman, so I have brought him here with me."

With those words Suseri-hime presented the youth from a distant land to Susanoo, who had risen reluctantly to his feet.

The young man was broad-shouldered and handsome enough to have been painted. Adorned with red and blue beads and wearing a thick Korean sword at his side, he looked almost like Susanoo himself made visible again in his own youth.

Receiving the young man's respectful bow, Susanoo abruptly threw out the rude question,

"What is your name?"

"I am called Ashihara-no-Shiko."

"What brought you to this island?"

"I wanted food and water, so I put in here on purpose."

The young man answered each question plainly, without the least embarrassment.

"I see. Then go over there and eat as you please. Suseri-hime, I leave it to you to show him the way."

When the two of them went inside the palace, Susanoo sat again in the shade of the mukunoki tree and resumed skinning the stag with deft movements of his knife. But before he knew it, his heart had begun to stir strangely. It was as though a shadow of clouds foretelling a storm had started to move across the sky of the calm life he had lived until now, a sky like the sea under clear weather.

By the time he finished skinning the deer and returned to the palace, dusk had already fallen. He climbed the broad steps and, as always, casually lifted the white curtain hanging in the doorway of the great hall. There he saw Suseri-hime and Ashihara-no-Shiko springing up in confusion from the rush mat like a pair of affectionate birds whose nest had been disturbed. He made a bitter face and lumbered into the room, then cast an openly hostile glance at Ashihara-no-Shiko and said in a half-commanding tone,

"Stay here tonight and rest from the fatigue of your voyage."

Ashihara-no-Shiko answered his words with a pleased bow, though he still could not quite hide his awkwardness.

"Then go at once over there and lie down without ceremony. Suseri-hime—"

Turning toward his daughter, Susanoo suddenly spoke in a mocking voice.

"Take this man straightaway to the bee chamber."

For an instant Suseri-hime seemed to lose all color.

"Hurry up!"

When he saw her hesitate, her father growled like a wild bear.

"Yes. Sir, this way, please."

After bowing once more politely to Susanoo, Ashihara-no-Shiko eagerly followed Suseri-hime out of the great hall.

IV

Once outside, Suseri-hime took the stole draped over her shoulders and, putting it into Ashihara-no-Shiko's hand, whispered,

"When you enter the bee chamber, wave this three times. Then the bees will not sting you."

Ashihara-no-Shiko could not make sense of what she meant. But before he had time to ask, Suseri-hime opened a small door and led him into the chamber.

Inside it was pitch-dark. When Ashihara-no-Shiko entered, he groped for her in the darkness. But his fingers only brushed the tip of her hair. The next instant he heard the hurried sound of the door being shut.

Still fumbling with the stole, he stood there in the chamber, stunned. Then, perhaps because his eyes had begun to adjust, the place gradually grew somewhat lighter than he had expected.

By that dim light he saw a number of hives hanging from the ceiling, each as large as a great barrel. And all around those hives crawled enormous bees, many of them larger by a good deal than the Korean sword at his hip.

Without thinking he spun around and rushed toward the door. But no matter how hard he pushed or pulled, the door showed no sign of opening. Worse still, one bee descended diagonally to the floor, and with a heavy droning of wings began creeping closer and closer toward him.

Completely beside himself, he tried, before it reached his feet, to stamp it to death in panic. But at that very instant the bee raised its buzzing to a higher pitch and flew up over his head. At the same time the other bees, too, apparently enraged by the presence of a human being, came dropping on him all at once like flaming arrows meeting the wind. ...

When Suseri-hime returned to the great hall, she lit the pine torch fixed into the wall. Its reddish blaze illuminated the figure of Susanoo lying stretched out on the rush mat.

"You did put him in the bee chamber, didn't you?"

Fixing his eyes on his daughter's face, Susanoo again spoke in that resentful voice.

"I have never disobeyed anything you told me to do, Father."

Avoiding her father's gaze, Suseri-hime took a seat in the corner of the hall.

"Is that so? Then of course you won't disobey me from now on either, will you?"

There was a mocking note in Susanoo's words. Fingering the beads around her neck, Suseri-hime answered neither yes nor no.

"Does your silence mean you mean to disobey?"

"No. But—Father, why do you..."

"If you do not mean to disobey, then hear what I say. I will not permit you to become that young man's wife. The daughter of Susanoo must have a husband who meets Susanoo's standards. Do you understand? Remember that much."

Late in the night, while Susanoo slept snoring, Suseri-hime alone leaned sadly against the window of the hall and watched the red moon sink soundlessly into the sea.

V

The next morning Susanoo went, as usual, to swim in the rocky sea. There, unexpectedly, Ashihara-no-Shiko came down from the direction of the palace after him at a brisk pace.

When he saw Susanoo, he smiled cheerfully and bowed.

"Good morning."

"Well then—did you sleep well last night?"

Susanoo stood by a jutting rock and looked the other man over sourly. In truth, how this vigorous young fellow had escaped being killed by the bees in that chamber lay wholly beyond his understanding.

"Yes, thanks to you, I slept very well."

As he answered, Ashihara-no-Shiko picked up a piece of rock lying at his feet and hurled it with all his strength over the sea. It traced a long arc through the red, clouded sky, and fell into the waves far offshore—so far, it seemed, that even Susanoo himself would not have been able to throw it that distance.

Biting his lip, Susanoo stared fixedly after the rock.

When the two returned from the sea and sat down to the breakfast trays, Susanoo, chewing on half a deer's haunch with a bitter face, said to the Ashihara-no-Shiko seated opposite him,

"If this palace pleases you, stay as many days as you like."

Sitting nearby, Suseri-hime tried to make Ashihara-no-Shiko refuse this ominous kindness, and sent him a meaningful glance. But at that very moment he happened to be reaching his chopsticks toward a fish on the tray, and without noticing her signal he replied cheerfully,

"Thank you very much. Then perhaps I will impose on you for another two or three days."

Fortunately, however, that afternoon, while Susanoo was napping, the two lovers were able to slip out of the palace and steal a hurried happiness together among the lonely rocks of the shore where his dugout canoe was tied. Lying on the sweet-smelling seaweed, Suseri-hime gazed up at Ashihara-no-Shiko's face for a while as if in a dream, but then, pulling herself free from his arms, urged him anxiously,

"If you stay here tonight as well, your life will be in danger. Do not worry about me. Please flee as quickly as you can."

But Ashihara-no-Shiko only laughed and shook his head like a child.

"So long as you are here, I have no intention of leaving this place, even if I am killed."

"But if anything at all should happen to you—"

"Then will you leave this island with me at once?"

Suseri-hime hesitated.

"Otherwise I am resolved to remain here forever."

Ashihara-no-Shiko tried once more to pull her forcibly into his arms. But pushing him away, she suddenly sprang up from the seaweed and said in an uneasy voice,

"Father is calling me."

Then, in an instant, she ran up through the rocks toward the palace, swifter than a young deer.

Left behind, Ashihara-no-Shiko kept smiling as he watched her go. Then he saw that where she had been lying there was another stole, like the one he had received the night before.

VI

That night Susanoo, without anyone's help, threw Ashihara-no-Shiko into another chamber facing the bee room.

Inside, darkness spread just as it had the day before. But unlike yesterday, here and there in that darkness glittered things like countless jewels buried deep beneath the earth.

Wondering what those gleaming things might be, Ashihara-no-Shiko waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark. Before long, as the chamber gradually became clearer around him, those star-like points of light turned into the eyes of monstrous serpents, each one terrible enough to swallow even a horse. And there was no end to them: some coiled around the beams, some slid along the rafters, some lay in loops on the floor, all writhing together hideously throughout the room.

His hand flew to the hilt of the sword at his waist. But even if he drew it, before he could cut down one serpent another would easily coil around him and crush him to death. Indeed, one serpent was already peering up at his face from below, while another, even larger, hung from a beam with its tail wound around it, slowly lowering its raised head toward his shoulder.

The chamber door, of course, would not open. And behind it, no doubt, the white-haired Susanoo was standing with a sardonic smile, listening intently to what was happening within. Gripping the hilt of his sword desperately, Ashihara-no-Shiko could do nothing for a while but move his eyes. Then the serpent at his feet slowly uncoiled its mountain-like loops, raised its head higher than ever, and looked ready at any moment to strike savagely at his throat.

At that instant it was as though a sudden light flashed through his mind. The night before, when the bees had swarmed around him, he had waved the stole Suseri-hime had given him and saved his life. If so, perhaps the stole she had left behind on the rocks might also possess the same miraculous power. The thought came to him in a flash. He pulled out the stole he had kept, and with all speed waved it three times in the air. ...

The next morning Susanoo again encountered Ashihara-no-Shiko on the stony shore of the sea, and the young man looked more vigorous than ever.

"Well then. Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yes. Thanks to you, I slept very well."

An expression of irritation flooded Susanoo's whole face as he glared at him. But then, for some reason, he returned once more to his usual cool tone and said in a voice meant to sound friendly,

"I see. Good. Then come along with me and have a swim."

At once the two stripped and swam out into the rough morning sea, farther and farther from shore. Ever since his days in Takamagahara, Susanoo had been a swimmer without equal. But Ashihara-no-Shiko surpassed even him, swimming with a freedom almost no less than a dolphin's. Before long, the two heads with their dark and white streaming hair, like a pair of gulls, had moved far away from the shore screened with walls of rock.

VII

The sea swelled ceaselessly, filling the waters around them with snow-white spray. Through that spray Susanoo kept casting spiteful glances toward Ashihara-no-Shiko. But the other man, no matter how high the waves rose, kept advancing at ease, riding over them one after another.

As this went on, Ashihara-no-Shiko gradually drew ahead of Susanoo. Susanoo clenched his teeth in secret and tried not to lag behind him by so much as an inch. But while two or three great waves scattered their foam, the young man effortlessly passed him. Then before Susanoo knew it he had vanished beyond the piled-up waves.

"So this time too I meant to drown that man and be rid of the nuisance..."

Thinking that, Susanoo felt more strongly than ever that unless he killed him, his rage would never be appeased.

"Damn him! A cunning drifter like that ought to be fed to the sharks."

But soon enough Ashihara-no-Shiko came back toward him as easily as if he himself were some great sea beast.

"Shall we swim farther?"

Rocking with the waves, he called to Susanoo from afar with the same easy smile as always. However stubborn Susanoo might be, he no longer felt inclined to swim any farther. ...

That afternoon Susanoo took Ashihara-no-Shiko out to hunt foxes and rabbits on the wilderness stretching west of the island.

The two climbed onto a great rock on the edge of the waste. As far as the eye could see, the withered grass of the plain streamed like waves in the wind blowing down from behind them. Susanoo watched that scene in silence for a little while. Then, setting an arrow to his bowstring, he turned to Ashihara-no-Shiko.

"The wind makes it less convenient, but let us compare our strength with the bow and see whose arrow flies farther."

"Yes, let us."

Even with bow and arrows in hand, Ashihara-no-Shiko looked entirely confident.

"Ready? We shoot at the same time."

Standing shoulder to shoulder, they each drew their bows to the full with all their strength, and loosed them together. The arrows flew far out over the rippling plain in a single line. But it was impossible to tell which had gone farther. Their fletching flashed only once in the sunlight, then both were lost together in the sky to leeward.

"Was there a winner?"

"No... shall we try once more?"

Frowning, Susanoo shook his head impatiently.

"No matter how many times we try, it will be the same. Instead, troublesome as it is, run and fetch my arrow for me. That is my treasured vermilion-painted arrow from the land of Takamagahara."

As Ashihara no Shikoo had said he would, he sprang into the windswept wilderness. The instant Susanoo saw his retreating figure vanish behind the tall dead grass, he quickly drew a fire-striker and flint from the pouch at his waist and set fire to the withered briars beneath a rock.

VIII

The colorless flames, in the blink of an eye, began to send up billowing black smoke. At the same time, from beneath that smoke, the crackling of burning thorn-bushes and dwarf bamboo burst harshly on the ear.

"This time I have finished him for good."

Standing rigid on a high rock, leaning on his great bow like a staff, Susanoo wore a savage smile.

The fire spread wider and wider. Birds, crying in distress, rose in flocks into the red-black sky. But at once they were caught again in the smoke and came tumbling back into the flames. Seen from a distance, it looked exactly like countless tree fruits, shaken loose by a storm, spilling endlessly through the air.

"This time I have finished him for good."

As Susanoo let that satisfied breath escape once more in the silence of his heart, he felt, for some reason, the faint stir of an indescribable loneliness. ...

At dusk that day, flushed with triumph, he stood with folded arms at the palace gate, gazing at the wilderness sky where smoke still drifted. Then Suseri-hime came there, absentmindedly announcing that the evening meal was ready. As though mourning the death of a close kinsman, she had somehow come to be dragging a pure white skirt through the evening light.

When Susanoo saw her like that, he was suddenly seized by the urge to trample on her grief.

"Look at that sky. By now Ashihara no Shikoo—"

"I know."

Suseri-hime kept her eyes lowered, but to his surprise she interrupted her father with unmistakable firmness.

"Do you? Then you must be grieving bitterly."

"I am grieving bitterly. Even if you yourself, Father, were to die, I do not think I should grieve as deeply as this."

Susanoo changed color and glared at Suseri-hime. But somehow he could not bring himself to punish her any further.

"If you are grieving, then cry as much as you like."

Turning his back on her, he strode roughly inside the gate. As he climbed the palace steps, he clicked his tongue in vexation.

"If I were my usual self, I would not waste words—I would beat her down on the spot..."

After he had gone, Suseri-hime still stood for a while with tear-filled eyes raised to the dark, flushed sky. At last she lowered her head and went back to the palace in dejection.

That night Susanoo could not fall asleep for a long time. It was because killing Ashihara no Shikoo seemed somehow to have driven a poison into the bottom of his heart.

"I do not know how many times before I have wanted to kill that fellow. But never have I felt as strange as I do tonight..."

Thinking this, he turned over again and again on the rush mat that smelled faintly blue and fresh. Yet sleep would not descend on him easily.

Meanwhile the lonely dawn had already begun to spread its pale chill beyond the dark sea.

IX

The next morning, when the sunlight was already striking the whole face of the sea, Susanoo, still heavy with lack of sleep, came shambling to the palace doorway, frowning against the brightness. And there, on the steps, in a sight past belief, sat Ashihara no Shikoo beside Suseri-hime, the two of them talking together with cheerful animation.

When they saw Susanoo appear, both looked startled. But Ashihara no Shikoo immediately sprang to his feet with his usual good spirits and held out a vermilion-lacquered arrow.

"Luckily, I found the arrow too," he said.

Susanoo was still too astonished to speak. Yet mixed with his amazement there was, somehow, a feeling almost like joy at seeing the young man safe and sound.

"You were not hurt?"

"No. I was saved entirely by chance. The fire came racing toward me just as I picked up this vermilion arrow. I plunged through the smoke and ran with all my might in the direction where the flames had not yet caught, but no matter how desperately I ran, I could never outrun a fire driven by the west wind. ..."

Ashihara no Shikoo paused for a moment and sent a smile toward the father and daughter listening to him.

"So when I had made up my mind that this time I was surely going to burn to death, something happened as I ran—the ground suddenly gave way beneath my feet, and I fell into a great hole. At first the inside of it was pitch-dark, but once the dead grass around the rim began to burn, it was instantly bright all the way to the bottom. And there around me were field mice—hundreds of them, I could not tell how many—packed so tightly together you could hardly see the earth itself...."

"Oh, but field mice were a blessing. If they had been vipers..."

For a fleeting instant, tears and laughter seemed to move together in Suseri-hime's eyes.

"No, one should not make light of field mice. The feathers are gone from this vermilion arrow because they ate them all then. But fortunately the fire passed over the ground above and burned on without harming me."

As Susanoo listened to this tale, hatred for this lucky young man began to stir in him again. More than that, once he had decided to kill him, he could not bear to abandon the attempt; his pride in a will that, from long ago, had never known defeat could not be satisfied otherwise.

"I see. Then fortune favored you. But fortune—one never knows when the wind may change. ... Well, never mind that now. Since your life was spared, come with me and pick the lice from my head."

With no choice, Ashihara no Shikoo and Suseri-hime followed after him through the white curtains of the great hall, where the morning sunlight streamed in.

Sitting cross-legged in the center of the hall with ill-tempered grandeur, Susanoo untied his hair and let it fall carelessly to the floor. Hair the color of withered reeds streamed down almost like a river.

"The lice on me are a little formidable."

Ignoring the words, Ashihara no Shikoo parted the white hair and tried to crush the lice as he found them. But writhing at the roots were not the tiny insects he had expected, but huge centipedes—poisonous-looking, copper-colored creatures.

X

Ashihara no Shikoo hesitated. Then Suseri-hime, who at some unnoticed moment had brought them concealed on her person, softly slipped into his hand a handful of mukunoki berries and some red clay. So he ground the berries between his teeth, took the red clay into his mouth with them, and began spitting them out onto the floor as though he were indeed catching and crushing the centipedes.

Before long, weariness from the sleepless night before overcame Susanoo, and without realizing it he drifted into a doze.

... Driven out from the Plain of High Heaven, Susanoo was climbing a steep mountain path, rocks cutting into feet whose nails had been torn away. Ferns among the stones, the cries of crows, and above all the cold steel-colored sky—every sight that entered his eyes was desolation itself.

"What crime have I committed? I was stronger than they were. But strength is not a crime. The fault lies rather with them. With those jealous, spiteful, unmanly creatures."

Brooding in this anger, he pressed on for a while along the painful path. Then on top of a great rock like a turtle's shell, blocking the road, there rested a white bronze mirror hung with six bells. Stopping before the rock, he carelessly dropped his gaze to the mirror. On its clear bright surface it reflected a distinct young face. But it was not his own face. It was the face of Ashihara no Shikoo, whom he had tried so many times to kill. ... At that thought, he woke suddenly from the dream.

He opened his great eyes and looked around the hall. Only the morning sunlight lay shining serenely there; Ashihara no Shikoo and Suseri-hime were nowhere to be seen. And then, noticing at last, he realized that his long hair had been divided into three strands and tied fast to the rafters above.

"They tricked me!"

In that instant he understood everything. Roaring with divine might, he shook his head with all his strength. At once there arose over the palace roof a crash more terrible than an earthquake. It was the sound of the three rafters to which his hair was bound splintering all at once. But Susanoo paid it no heed. First he thrust out his right hand and seized his mighty heavenly deer-bow. Then he thrust out his left and took up the quiver of heavenly feathered arrows. At last, planting both feet hard, he surged to his feet in a single heave and, dragging the three rafters behind him, swayed out of the palace in arrogant majesty like a collapsing bank of cloud-peaks.

The grove of mukunoki trees around the palace thundered at his footsteps. Squirrels nesting in the treetops fell rattling to the ground. He tore through those trees like a storm.

Beyond the grove was the top of a cliff; below the cliff lay the sea. Standing there, he shaded his brow with one hand and surveyed the wide expanse. Beyond the high waves even the sun itself had grown faintly blue. And there, amid the overlapping swells, a familiar dugout canoe was making for the open sea.

Bracing himself on his bow, Susanoo fixed his gaze upon the boat. As if mocking him, it flashed its little mat sail and lightly rode over the waves. And more than that, he could clearly make out Ashihara no Shikoo in the prow and Suseri-hime in the stern.

Susanoo slowly nocked a heavenly feathered arrow to the heavenly deer-bow. The bow drew tighter and tighter; the arrowhead took aim at the dugout below. Yet the shaft remained held straight and would not leave the string. And then, before long, something like a smile rose into his eyes. Like a smile—and yet there was also not absent from it something like tears. After lifting his shoulders once, he flung down bow and arrow carelessly. Then, as if unable to contain himself, he let out a peal of laughter greater than a waterfall.

"I give you my blessing!"

From the top of the high cliff Susanoo beckoned distantly to the two of them.

"Cultivate strength greater than mine. Sharpen wisdom greater than mine. Become more than I am—..."

Susanoo hesitated for just a moment, then continued his blessing in a voice deep with stored power:

"Be happier than I have ever been!"

His words rang out over the sea with the wind. At that moment our Susanoo was filled with a calm and spacious majesty nearer to the gods of heaven than when he had contended with the Sun Goddess, nearer than when he had been driven from the Plain of High Heaven, nearer even than when he had slain the great serpent of Koshi.

(Taisho 9 [1920])