TRANSLATION
While I stand ready for travel,
You bad lot! ’Tis you that I mean!
This weight of travel you’d lay on me;
These bad ones sit with impudent stare:
And so it is I that must go!
The opposition of the sisters was based largely on Hiiaka’s youth and inexperience. The girl did not understand nor give them credit for this generous regard for herself; she saw only their disobedience and disloyalty to Pele’s command.
Pele, impatient at her vacillation, broke out on her savagely: “Here you are again! Be off on your journey! You shall find no food here, no meat, no raiment, no roof, no sisterly greeting, nothing, until you return with the man. It would have been useless to dispatch these homely women on this errand; it seems equally useless to send a beautiful girl like you.”
To this outburst Hiiaka retorted:
Ke hanai a’e la ka ua[1] i ka lani: