HIIAKA CONSENTS TO PELE’S PROPOSITION
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Hiiaka arrived at the Pit in good time to partake with the others of the frugal feast ordered by Pele. At its conclusion, Pele turned to the girl Hiiaka and put the question in her blunt way, “Will you be my messenger to fetch our lover—yours and mine—from Kaua’i? Your sisters here”—she glanced severely about the group—“have refused to go. Will you do this for me?”
The little maid, true to her sense of loyalty to the woman who was her older sister, the head of the family, and her alii, to the surprise and dismay of her other sisters, answered, “Yes, I will go and bring the man.”
It was a shock to their sense of fitness that one so young should be sent on an errand of such danger and magnitude; but more, it was a reproof that slapped them in the face to have this little chit accept without hesitation a commission which they had shrunk from through lack of courage. But they dared not say a word; they could but scowl and roll the eye and shrug the shoulder.
“When you have brought our lover here,” continued Pele, “for five nights and five days he shall be mine; after that, the tabu shall be off and he shall be yours. But, while on the way, you must not kiss him, nor fondle him, nor touch him. If you do it will be the death of you both.”
In spite of the gestured remonstrances of the group, Hiiaka, in utter self-forgetfulness and diplomatic inexperience, agreed to Pele’s proposition, and she framed her assent in a form of speech that had in it the flavor of a sacrament:
Kukulu ka makia a ka huaka’i hele moe ipo:
Ku au, hele, noho oe.
E noho ana na lehua lulu’u,
Ku’u moku lehua i uka o Ka-li’u, e.
Li’uli’u wale ka hele ana
O ka huaka’i moe ipo.
Aloha mai ka ipo—
O Lohiau ipo, i Haena.
TRANSLATION
Firm plant the pillar, seal of our love-pact;
Here stand I, begirt for this love-quest;
You shall abide, and with you my groves—
Lehua and hala—heavy with bloom.
The journey is long and toilsome the task
To bring our fine lover to bed.
Mark! a love-hail—from beloved Lohiau!
Beloved Lohiau of Haena!
(I am impelled by my admiration for this beautiful song to give another version of it:)
Ku kila ke kaunu moe ipo;
Ku au, hele, noho oe, a no-ho,
A noho ana i na lehua o Lu-lu’u,
O ka pae hala, moku lehua, i uka o Ka-li’u.
Li’u-li’u ho’i, li’u-li’u wale
Ka hele ana o ka huaka’i moe ipo.
Aloha mai ka ipo,
O Lohiau ipo, e!
TRANSLATION
Fixed my intent for the lover-quest:
Here I stand to depart; you remain,
And with you my bloom-clad lehuas,
And the palm-groves that wave in Ka-li’u.
Long, wearisome long, shall the journey be
To find and to bring our lover—
That dearest of lovers, Lohiau!
Hiiaka would sleep on it. Her start was to be in the morning. The next day, while Hiiaka was climbing the long ascent up the crater-pali, her sisters, anxious and appreciating the danger of the undertaking, were quietly weeping outside the cave; but they dared not utter a word that might come to the ears of Pele. They began, however, to beckon and signal to Hiiaka to return. She saw them and turned back, uttering the following plaint: