Who Is Sahobime (Saho-hime)?
The queen torn between brother and husband
Sahobime-no-Mikoto
Sahobime is the queen of Emperor Suinin and the full sister of Sahobiko. She loved both her husband and her brother, and is remembered as a tragic woman torn between them.
When her brother asked her, "Who is dearer to you, your husband or your brother?" she answered, "My brother," and he gave her a small dagger to stab the emperor. But as the emperor slept with his head on her lap, she raised the dagger three times and could not strike; her falling tears woke him, and she confessed everything. She then joined her brother in his fortress of rice bales, where she gave birth to the prince Homuchiwake. She handed the child over to the emperor, but had prepared her hair and clothes so that she could not be taken back, and died together with her brother.
The Kojiki says that at the end, when the emperor asked whom he should take as his next queen, she recommended the pure-hearted sisters Ehime and Otohime.
Episodes featuring this character2
NEWEpisode 6
She Raised a Blade Over Her Sleeping KingSahobiko and Sahobime
"Who do you love more, your husband or your brother?" Sahobime's brother asks her this, and she is the Emperor's wife. Three times she raises a blade over her sleeping husband, and three times she can't strike. Inside a burning fortress of rice she gives birth to a son. She sends the child to her husband and stays at her brother's side, choosing an answer that abandons neither of them.
19 pages
NEWEpisode 7
Chase the Swan Until the Prince SpeaksPrince Homuchiwake
Born inside a burning fortress, Prince Homuchiwake still has not spoken a word, even with a beard down to his chest. His father, Emperor Suinin, sends a hunter to chase a white swan to the ends of the land. But what finally wakes the prince's voice is the wish of a forgotten god in Izumo. This episode follows his first words, a night with a serpent princess, the death of a loyal servant who brought back fruit from the Everlasting Land, and the prince's vow to speak the words his father never heard.
19 pages