Reading, translating, sexing early Japan. The Kojiki 古事記 as quintessential source language text.

Nobody really knows how to read the Kojiki. The restitution to early Japanese of its Chinese-looking prose lies in authoritative yet conjectural lessons. The choices one has to make in reading the work are not dissimilar to those one has to make in translating. The first half of the essay shows how the original, its reading, its comprehension, and its translation may interplay. The second half deals with the distance between the original and the translations of the Kojiki regarding gender explicitness. Sexing Amaterasu is analyzed as an emblematical case through a review of the textual clues possibly suggesting that the deity is a womanly mythical character and the way some dozen translations handle the topic.