Nihon Shoki (I)
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- W. G. Aston
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Recorded or compiled by others
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~170,000 words · 819 passages
Cite this work
- APANihongi. (n.d.). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan, Vol. I (Aston) [Nihon Shoki (I)] (W. G. Aston, Trans.). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nihongi/nihongi-chronicles-of-japan-vol-i-aston
- MLANihongi. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan, Vol. I (Aston) [Nihon Shoki (I)]. Translated by W. G. Aston. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nihongi/nihongi-chronicles-of-japan-vol-i-aston.
- ChicagoNihongi. Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan, Vol. I (Aston) [Nihon Shoki (I)]. Translated by W. G. Aston. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nihongi/nihongi-chronicles-of-japan-vol-i-aston.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The first volume of the Nihon shoki, the chronicle of Japan of 720, in W. G. Aston's English translation: from the age of the gods down to the early emperors.
Context and history
This first volume is the more mythological of the two, and therefore the one to read with most caution as history: it opens with the separation of heaven and earth and comes down to reigns whose chronology matches nothing verifiable. It was compiled at court command and written in classical Chinese. It is also worth knowing that the catalogue carries this same text a second time, by error, under the author name 'Kojiki': the Kojiki is a different and earlier work.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
The purer and clearer part was thinly drawn out, and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. — The finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth was established subsequently. Thereafter Divine Beings were produced between them.’ Hence? it is said that when the world began to be created, the soil of which lands were composed floated about in a manner which might be compared to the floating of a fish sporting on the surface of the water. Atthis time a certain thing was produced between Heaven and Earth. It was in form like a reed-shoot. Now this