that Onakatsu, in compliance with the recognized usage,
might be constrained to place her sister at his disposal. It fell out
as Inkyo wished, but there then ensued a chapter of incidents in
which the dignity of the Crown fared ill. Again and again the
beautiful Oto refused to obey her sovereign's summons, and when at
length, by an unworthy ruse, she was induced to repair to the palace,
it was found impossible to make her an inmate of it in defiance of
the Empress' jealousy. She had to be housed elsewhere, and still the
Imperial lover was baffled, for he dared not brave the elder sister's
resentment by visiting the younger. Finally he took advantage of the
Empress' confinement to pay the long-deferred visit, but, on learning
of the event, the outraged wife set fire to the parturition house and
attempted to commit suicide. "Many years have passed," she is
recorded to have said to the Emperor, "since I first bound up my hair
and became thy companion in the inner palace. It is too cruel of
thee, O Emperor! Wherefore just on this night when I am in childbirth
and hanging between life and death, must thou go to Fujiwara?" Inkyo
had the grace to be "greatly shocked" and to "soothe the mind of the
Empress with explanations," but he did not mend his infidelity. At
Oto's request he built a residence for her at Chinu in the
neighbouring province of Kawachi, and thereafter the compilers of the
Chronicles, with fine irony, confine their record of three
consecutive years' events to a repetition of the single phrase, "the
Emperor made a progress to Chinu."

It is not, perhaps, extravagant to surmise that the publicity
attending this sovereign's amours and the atmosphere of loose
morality thus created were in part responsible for a crime committed
by his elder son, the Crown Prince Karu. Marriage between children of
the same father had always been permitted in Japan provided the
mother was different, but marriage between children of the same
mother was incest. Prince Karu was guilty of this offence with his
sister, Oiratsume, and so severely did the nation judge him that he
was driven into exile and finally obliged to commit suicide. With
such records is the reign of Inkyo associated. It is perplexing that
the posthumous name chosen for him by historians should signify
"sincerely courteous." Incidentally, four facts present
themselves--that men wore wristbands and garters to which grelots
were attached; that a high value was set on