Twice Told

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Jinnō shōtōki (1339): the passage on Emperor Kōrei and the First Emperor of Qin

Language
Japanese
Read from
National Diet Library Digital Collections, pid 943298, 神皇正統記評釈 (Ōmachi Yoshie, Meiji Shoin, 1925), call number 323-589, viewer image 39: the last paragraph on p. 62 and the first lines of p. 63
Reading
transcribed from the page image
Translation
ours
Retrieved
15 October 2026

The Jinnō shōtōki (神皇正統記), “Record of the Legitimate Succession of the Divine Emperors”, was written in 1339 by the courtier Kitabatake Chikafusa. The text below is read from the page images of a commentated edition of 1925 by Ōmachi Yoshie (pen name Keigetsu), which prints the original in large type and the commentary in small type. The commentary and the reading aids over the characters are left out. The passage sits under the seventh emperor, Kōrei; we stop before the sentence that begins “In Confucius’s time” (孔子の時すら). The spelling is that of the 1925 print, which differs in places from the Wikisource transcription of the same edition. One reading is marked with a question mark where the print was hard to make out.

○第七代孝靈天皇は、孝安の太子、御母は姉押姫、天足彦國押人命の女なり。辛未の年即位、大倭の黑田廬戶の宮にまします。三十六年丙午にあたる年、唐の周の國滅びて秦にうつりき。四十五年乙卯、秦の始皇即位、この始皇、仙方を好みて、長生不死の藥を日本に求む。日本より五帝三王の遺書をかの國に求めしに、始皇悉くこれを送る。その後三十五年ありて、かの國書を焼き儒を埋みければ、孔子の全經日本に留まるといへり。このこと異朝の書に載せたり。わが國には、神功皇后三韓を平げ給ひしより異國に通じ、應神の御代より經史の學傳はれりとぞ申しならはしたる。孝靈の御時より、この國に文字ありとは聞かぬ事なれど、上古の事は、たしかにしるし留めざるにや。應神の御代に渡れる經史だにも今は皆見えず。聖武の御時、吉備大臣入唐して傳へたりける本こそ流布したれば、この御代より傳へけむ事もあながちに疑ふまじきにや。凡そこの國をば君子不死の國ともいふなり。孔子世の亂れたる事を歎きて、九夷に居らむとの給ひける。日本は九夷のその一なるべし。異國にはこの國を東夷とす。この國よりは、又かの國をも西蕃といへるが如し。四海といふは、東夷、南蠻、西羌、北狄なり。南は蛇の種なれば蟲をしたがへ、西は羊をのみ牧ふなれば羊を[隨?]へ、北は犬の種なれば犬を從へたり。ただ東は仁ありていのち長し、よりて大弓の字を從ふといへり。

Translation

The seventh emperor, Kōrei, was the crown prince of Emperor Kōan. His mother was Princess Aneoshi (the print reads 姉押姫 and gives the reading Aneoshi-hime), a daughter of Ame-tarashi-hiko-kuni-oshihito. He took the throne in the year kanoto-hitsuji and lived at the Kuroda Ioto palace in Yamato. In his thirty-sixth year, a hinoe-uma year, the state of Zhou in China fell and power passed to Qin. In his forty-fifth year, kinoto-u, the First Emperor of Qin took the throne. This First Emperor loved the arts of the immortals and sought an elixir of long life and immortality from Japan. Japan asked that country for the surviving books of the Five Emperors and the Three Kings, and the First Emperor sent every one of them. Thirty-five years later that country burned its books and buried its Confucian scholars, and so it is said that Confucius’s complete classics stayed in Japan. This is recorded in the books of a foreign court.

In our country it has long been said that we had dealings with foreign lands from the time Empress Jingū subdued the three kingdoms of Korea, and that the study of the classics and histories came across from the reign of Emperor Ōjin. I have not heard that this country had writing as early as Kōrei’s time, but perhaps the affairs of high antiquity were simply not recorded with care. Even the classics and histories that came over in Ōjin’s reign can no longer be seen. The books that Minister Kibi brought back after travelling to Tang China in Emperor Shōmu’s time have circulated, so perhaps we should not flatly doubt that books came down from this reign, Kōrei’s, as well. This country is also called the land of gentlemen who do not die. Confucius, grieving at the disorder of his age, is said to have wished to live among the Nine Yi, and Japan must be one of the Nine Yi. Foreign countries call this country the Eastern Yi, just as from here we call that country the Western Barbarians. The “four seas” are the Eastern Yi, the Southern Man, the Western Qiang and the Northern Di. The south descends from snakes, so its character takes a worm; the west only herds sheep, so its character takes a sheep; the north descends from dogs, so its character takes a dog. Only the east has benevolence and a long life, and so, it is said, its character takes “great” and “bow”.

Notes

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