HIIAKA ADDRESSES POHAKU-O-KAUA’I—THE TWO WOMEN RIG UP A CANOE—SHE SALUTES KAENA—SALUTE TO HAUPU—SEES LOHIAU’S SPIRIT FORM
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
TRANSLATION
Famed Haupu, the mighty hill,
Lifts head till she touches heaven;
On her back strapped a suckling child,
While she fondles a fleecy cloud,
And Niihau swims the ocean tide.
Oh, my lehuas! spoiled by the birds!
Alas, my lehuas, alas!
“What a notion!” Wahine-oma’o exclaimed. “Who in the world is meddling with your lehuas?”
While they were sailing along the precipitous coast of Ka-lalau, set in the windward wall of the island, Hiiaka saw standing at the mouth of a cave high up on the precipice, the spirit form of one who was no other than Lohiau, and again she was moved to song:
A Ka-lalau, a Ke-é,
A ka pali au i Haena,
E peahi mai ana ka lawakua6 ia’u la;
Peahi, e peahi mai ana ka lawakua ia’u.
Owau keia, o ka maka o ke aloha, la,
O ke aloha, ho’i, e!
TRANSLATION
Off the coast of Lalau, off Ke-é,
When nigh the cliffs of Haena,
The loved one beckons, he beckons,
The loved one beckons to me.
I am the one—the eye-scout of love:
Love, indeed, is my errand, aye love!
The ghost-form of Lohiau still continued to show itself as they sailed; and when it signalled a recognition of Hiiaka by beckoning to her, she could but answer it:
Ua pu’e ia e ke one ka lehua o uka;
Ua ho-á iki ka ula i ka papa;
Ua huná i ke kino i ka pohaku;
O ka pua na’e, ke ahu nei i ke ala—
Alanui hele o Ka-unu-kupukupu;7
Hele li’u-lá8 o ka poha-kau,9 e;
Kaulia10 a ka poha-kau he kilohana11 ia;
He maka’ika’i ia no Ka-hua-nui;12
He kahiko ia no ka wai o kaunu,13 e.
A kaunu anei, o ke aloha ia?
A ia’u la, éha oe!
TRANSLATION
The upland lehua is clinker-heaped;
Wee flame-buds crop up on the plain;
The tree-trunk is hidden with rocks,
Yet its flowers encarpet the path: