むかしむかし、中国の花果山という山の頂に、天と地の気を吸い続けた一つの巨大な石がありました。ある日、その石が突然割れ、中から一匹の不思議な猿が飛び出してきたのです。
Long, long ago, at the summit of a mountain in China called Hua Guo Shan, there stood an enormous stone that had drunk in the energies of heaven and earth for countless ages. One day, the stone suddenly split open, and out leapt an extraordinary monkey.
並外れた力と知恵を持ったこの猿は、他の猿たちから王として認められ、自ら孫悟空と名乗るようになりました。仲間たちと果物を食べ、滝の裏に隠れた洞窟を住みかにして、自由気ままに暮らしていたのです。
Possessed of unmatched strength and cunning, this monkey was acknowledged king by all the other monkeys and took for himself the name Sun Wukong. He lived as he pleased with his fellows, eating wild fruit and making his home in a cavern hidden behind a great waterfall.
しかし、孫悟空はやがて「どうせ百年経てば、自分も死んでしまう」と気づきました。不老不死の術を学ぶため、はるか遠くにある仙人の山へ、何年もかけてたどり着いたのです。
In time, however, Wukong realized, "Once a hundred years go by, even I will die." To learn the secrets of eternal life, he traveled for years until at last he reached the far-off mountain of a Daoist sage.
仙人のもとで、孫悟空はさまざまな魔法を授かりました。なかでも、雲を呼んで瞬時に十万里を飛ぶ筋斗雲と、姿を七十二通りに変える術は、彼の自慢の力となりました。
Under the sage, Wukong was taught many arts of magic. Above all, he prized the Somersault Cloud, which carried him a hundred thousand leagues at a single bound, and the gift of changing his shape into seventy-two different forms.
修行を終えた孫悟空は、海底にある竜王の宮殿へ乗り込み、無理やり巨大な金棒如意棒を借り受けて出てきました。さらに、地獄の閻魔様のもとへ押しかけ、自分の名前を死の帳簿から消してしまったのです。
When his training was done, Wukong stormed into the undersea palace of the Dragon King and walked off, by force, with the great golden cudgel known as the Ruyi Staff. He then burst into the realm of the Lord of Hell and erased his own name from the ledger of the dead.
驚いた天界の神々は、孫悟空を罰するかわりに馬の世話係として雇い、おだてて天界へ呼び寄せました。ところが、自分の役職が低いと知った孫悟空はかっとなり、「斉天大聖」と名乗って、桃源の不老不死の桃を食べ、仙薬まで飲んでしまいました。
The astonished gods of heaven, instead of punishing him, hired him as a stablemaster and flattered him into ascending to the celestial realm. But when Wukong discovered how low his post really was, he flew into a rage, proclaimed himself the "Great Sage Equal to Heaven," ate the peaches of immortality, and even drank the elixir of the gods.