Do its white clouds arise,
Do its white clouds all come.”
His sickness and weariness made him feel more and more faint, and he sang in his distress:
“Oh! the sharp sabre-sword
I left by the bedside
Of Princess Miyazu—
The sabre-sword”.[13]
Yamato-Take sank and died as soon as he had finished his song.
In time his wives came and built for him a mausoleum, weeping and moaning the while, because he could not hear them or make answer. Then Yamato-Take was transformed into a white bird,[14] which rose high in the air and flew towards the shore. The wives pursued the bird with lamentations and entered the sea. They saw the bird flying towards the beach, and followed it. For a time it perched on a rock. Then it flew from Ise to Shiki, in the land of Kafuchi, where a mausoleum was built for it, so that it might rest.[15] But the white bird rose again to heaven and flew away. It was never again seen.
After Mikado Kei-ko, father of Yamato-Take, had passed away, Sei-mu reigned until he was 108 years old. Then followed the Mikado Chiu-ai. His capital was in the south-west on the island of Kyushu. A message [[385]]came from the goddess through the Empress Jingo, who was divinely possessed, promising him Korea, “a land to the westward” with “abundance of various treasures, dazzling to the eye, from gold and silver downwards”.