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When ... Izanami ... had deigned to bear the many hundred myriads of gods, she also deigned to bear her dear youngest child of all, the Fire-producer god, ... and said: "My dear elder brother's augustness shall rule the upper country; I will rule the lower country," she deigned to hide in the rocks; and having come to the flat hills of darkness, she thought and said: "I have come hither, having borne and left a bad-hearted child in the upper country, ruled over by my illustrious elder brother's augustness," and going back she bore other children.
Izanami yielded up her life upon the birth of her son, the fire-god; or, as the sacred text declares, she "divinely retired" into Hades. From her corpse sprang up the pairs of gods of clay, of metal, and other kami that possessed the potency of calming or subduing fire, for clay resists and water extinguishes.
He obtains respite twice; first by throwing down his head-dress, which is converted into grapes, and then casting away his comb, which is transformed into bamboo sprouts, and while the hag stops to eat these delicacies, he flees. Then Izanami sends in his pursuit the eight Kami of thunder with fifteen hundred warriors of the underworld.
And Izanagi-no-Mikoto answered her, saying, "My beloved younger sister, if thou dost so, I will cause in one day to be born fifteen hundred ...." But the deity Kukuri-hime-no-Kami then came, and spake to Izanami some word which she seemed to approve, and thereafter she vanished away ....
Izanagi and Izanami, though married but a short time, began to quarrel, for Izanami had once told her husband not to look at her when she hid herself. But Izanagi did not do what she requested, but intruded on her privacy when she was unwell, and stared at her when she wished to be alone. Izanami then got very angry, and went down to the lower world of darkness, and disappeared.
The old man says that he is an earthly Kami, son of the Kami of mountains, who was one of the thirty-five Kami borne by Izanami before her departure for hades.
On the other hand, the tale of which the birth of the sun and the moon forms a part, namely, the visit of Izanagi to hades in search of Izanami, is an obvious reproduction of the Babylonian myth of Ishtar's journey to the underworld in search of Du'uzu, which formed the basis of the Grecian legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Izanami cried out, "What a lovely man!" But Izanagi rebuked her for speaking first, and said they must try it again. Then they walked round the island once more. When they met, Izanami held her tongue while Izanagi said, "What a lovely woman!" Being now both in good humor, they began the work of creating Japan. The first island brought up out of the water was Awaji; and then the main island.
"The eternal endurance of the dynasty of the Mikado is a complete proof that the 'way, called Kami no michi or Shinto, infinitely surpasses the systems of all other countries. The 'holy men' of China were merely unsuccessful rebels. The Mikado is the sovereign appointed by the pair of deities, Izanagi and Izanami, who created this country.
The names of the three gods, Youth and Maiden of the Many Road-forkings, and Come-no-further Gate, are expressed and invoked in the praises bestowed on them in connection with the offerings. Retreating to another part of the world that is, into southwestern Japan Izanami purified himself by bathing in a stream.
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