The twenty-first emperor, Yūryaku, is drawn as the most violent figure in the Kojiki. Around his accession he struck down brothers and cousins who stood in his way and spared no one who displeased him. He was called both “the greatly wicked emperor” and “the emperor of virtue.”
One day, climbing Mount Katsuragi, he saw a procession moving along the facing ridge. Looking closely, he found their robes, their number and their order exactly the same as his own.
“In this land of Yamato there should be no great king but me,” he cried. “Who are you?” The other returned the very same words. Angrier still, he set an arrow to his bow — and the other did the same.
When he demanded a name, the other named himself first: “I am the god who speaks ill in one word and good in one word: Hitokotonushi of Katsuragi.” At this the emperor was struck with awe. He offered his sword and bow, and even the robes stripped from his attendants, and worshipped. The god, pleased, escorted him down as far as the entrance of Hatsuse.
Even the most violent king bows before a god: the scene draws sharply the line between worldly power and what lies beyond it.
Yet Yūryaku also left a rich world of poetry. There is the tale of Akaiko, a beautiful girl he met by the Miwa River and told to await his summons — whom he then forgot for eighty years, and to whom, when she appeared at last as an old woman, he sent a poem of deep shame.