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.
天界中の神々が兵を率いて捕らえに来ましたが、如意棒を振るう彼を倒せる者は一人もいませんでした。手のつけようがなくなった神々は、とうとうお釈迦様に助けを求めることになったのです。
The gods sent down their armies to seize him, but no one could stand against the swing of his Ruyi Staff. At their wits' end, they finally appealed to the Buddha for help.
お釈迦様は穏やかに微笑み、孫悟空にこう言いました。「お前が私の手のひらから飛び出すことができたら、この天界をお前に譲ろう。」
The Buddha smiled calmly and said to Wukong, "If you can leap clear of the palm of my hand, I shall yield this heaven to you."
「そんなのは簡単だ」と孫悟空は筋斗雲に乗り、世界の果てまで一気に飛んで行きました。そこには天を支える五本の柱が立っており、彼は証拠としてその一本に自分の名前を書いて戻ってきたのです。
"That'll be easy," Wukong scoffed, and riding his Somersault Cloud he flew off at full speed to the edge of the world. There stood five great pillars holding up the sky, and as proof of his feat he wrote his name on one of them before returning.
ところが、お釈迦様が手のひらを開いて見せると、そこには孫悟空の書いた名前がそのまま残っていました。彼が世界の果てだと思っていた五本の柱は、実はお釈迦様の五本の指だったわけです。
When the Buddha opened his palm, however, the name Wukong had scrawled was still there. The five pillars he had taken for the world's end had been, in fact, the five fingers of the Buddha himself.
お釈迦様は孫悟空を岩山に押し込め、「ここで五百年、心を改めるのだ」と封じてしまいました。山の名は五行山。岩のすき間から日の光だけが差すなか、孫悟空はじっと反省の年月を重ねたのです。
The Buddha pressed Wukong down beneath a rocky mountain, sealing him there with the words, "Spend five hundred years in here and reform your heart." The mountain was called Wu Xing Shan, the Mountain of the Five Elements. With only thin shafts of sunlight reaching him through the cracks, Wukong sat and pondered through long years of repentance.
それから五百年後、インドへ経を求める旅の途中、三蔵法師という立派なお坊さんが五行山のそばを通りかかりました。三蔵法師が封印を解いてくれたおかげで、孫悟空はようやく自由を取り戻したのです。
Five hundred years later, on his way to seek the scriptures in India, a great monk named Sanzang happened to pass near the Mountain of the Five Elements. Thanks to Sanzang's breaking of the seal, Wukong at last recovered his freedom.
孫悟空はその恩返しとして、三蔵法師の弟子となり、長い長い旅の用心棒を引き受けることになりました。これが、後に語り継がれる『西遊記』の壮大な物語の、ほんの始まりだったのです。
To repay that kindness, Wukong became Sanzang's disciple and took up the role of guardian on the long, long journey ahead. This was only the very beginning of the grand tale that would come to be known as Journey to the West.