今は昔、竹取の翁と呼ばれる老人がいた。彼は毎日のように野山に分け入って竹を切り取り、生活に必要なさまざまな道具にこしらえては、町でそれを売って細々と暮らしを立てていた。
Long, long ago, there lived an old man known as the Bamboo Cutter. Each day he would go off into the hills and groves to cut bamboo, fashion it into all the household tools that a simple life required, and sell them in town — scraping out a modest living from what little he earned.
ある日のこと、いつものように竹林に踏み入った翁は、奥のほうで一本だけ根元がぼうっと光り輝いている竹を見つけた。不思議に思って近寄ってみると、なんとその竹の筒の中では、小さな手のひらほどの女の子が、ちょこんと座っているではないか。
One day, walking as ever into the bamboo grove, he caught sight of a single stalk deep among the rest whose base glowed with a soft, mysterious light. Drawing nearer in wonder, he found inside the hollow of that stalk a tiny girl, no larger than the palm of his hand, sitting quietly all by herself.
「これはきっと天が私のもとへ授けてくれた子に相違ない」と翁は思い、その子をそっと両手に抱えて家へと連れて帰った。子のなかった老夫婦にとって、この出会いはまさに長年の願いがかなった奇跡にほかならなかった。
"This child has surely been sent down to me from Heaven itself," the old man thought, and gathered her gently in both hands and carried her home. For an old couple who had had no children of their own, this meeting was nothing less than a miracle granted to a wish they had nursed for long, long years.
その日を境に、翁が竹を取りに行くたびに、黄金がぎっしりと詰まった節を持つ竹を立て続けに見つけるようになった。家はみるみるうちに豊かになり、もはや細々とした暮らしは過去のものとなったのである。
From that day on, each time the old man went out to cut bamboo, he kept finding stalks whose joints were filled to bursting with gold. The household prospered before their eyes, and the threadbare life of before became something they only spoke of in the past tense.
不思議なことに、その娘はわずか三ヶ月のうちに一人前の女性へと成長を遂げ、世にも稀なほどの美しさを備えていた。やがて村の長老たちが集まり、彼女に「かぐや姫」という名を授けた。
Stranger still, in only three months the little girl grew into a young woman fully formed, of a beauty rarely seen in this world. Before long the village elders gathered to bestow upon her a name: Kaguya-hime.
かぐや姫の美しさといったら、見た者は誰一人として目を奪われずにはいられないほどであった。その噂はあっという間に都にまで届き、身分の高い貴公子たちまでもが、競って彼女に結婚を申し込みに来るようになった。
As for Kaguya-hime's beauty, there was not a soul who saw her and was not stopped in his tracks. The rumor of her loveliness soon reached even the capital, and noblemen of high rank vied with one another in coming to ask for her hand.
中でも特に熱心だったのは、五人の高貴な公達であった。彼らは何としてもかぐや姫を妻にしようと、毎日のように翁の家の前に押しかけ、頭を下げ続けた。
Among them, five young nobles of high birth were the most persistent of all. Determined to win Kaguya-hime as their wife by any means, they would gather every day in front of the old man's house, bowing their heads and pleading for her hand.
困り果てたかぐや姫は、一計を案じ、五人それぞれに別々の難題を出すことにした。仏の御石の鉢、蓬莱の玉の枝、火鼠の皮衣、龍の首の珠、燕の子安貝——およそ普通の人間の力では手に入れようがないものばかりであった。
At wit's end, Kaguya-hime hit upon a stratagem and set each of the five a different impossible task — the Buddha's stone begging-bowl, a jeweled branch from Mount Horai, a robe of fire-rat fur, a jewel from a dragon's neck, a swallow's cowrie-shell — all of them things no ordinary mortal could ever hope to bring back.
五人の公達は意気込んで宝を探しに出かけたものの、ある者は偽物にだまされ、ある者は嵐に遭って命を落としかけ、結局、誰一人として本物を持ち帰ることはできなかった。
The five noblemen set out with high spirits in search of their treasures, but one was duped with a fake, another nearly lost his life in a storm at sea, and in the end not one of them returned with the true article.
かぐや姫の評判を伝え聞いた帝もまた、彼女の美しさを一目見ようと、自らお忍びで翁の家を訪ねるほどであった。しかし姫は、帝の前でさえ姿を消そうとし、決して首を縦に振ることはなかった。
Even the Emperor, when word reached him of Kaguya-hime's reputation, was so eager to see her beauty for himself that he went in disguise to call upon the old man's house. But the maiden would vanish even from the Emperor's presence; in the end she could not be brought to nod her consent.
それでも帝は諦めず、かぐや姫のもとに繰り返し歌を贈り続け、姫もまた礼儀正しく歌を返した。二人の間には、結ばれることのない不思議な情のような絆が、しずかに育っていったのであった。
Even so, the Emperor would not give up. He sent poem after poem to Kaguya-hime, and she in turn replied to each in courteous verse. A quiet bond grew between them — a strange affection of a kind that could never come to a wedding.
やがて秋が深まり、夜空に満月がひときわ美しく輝く頃になると、かぐや姫は毎夜縁側に座っては月を見上げて、深いため息をつくようになった。心配した翁が幾度も理由を尋ねた末に、姫はついに重い口を開いた。
At length, as autumn deepened and the full moon shone with a singular beauty in the night sky, Kaguya-hime began every evening to sit out on the veranda gazing up at it and sighing deeply. After the old man had pressed her again and again to tell him why, the maiden at last opened her heavy lips.
「実は、私はもともとこの国の人間ではなく、月の都の住人なのです。次の満月の夜には、迎えの者が降りてきて、私を月へと連れ帰ることになっているのです」と、彼女は涙ながらに打ち明けた。
"The truth is, I am not of this country at all. I am one of the people of the Moon Capital. On the night of the next full moon, those who are coming for me will descend, and I am to be taken home to the moon," she confided through her tears.
翁とその妻は、わが子を奪われるかのような深い悲しみに沈んだ。話を聞いて驚いた帝は、何としてもかぐや姫を守り抜こうと、数千人の屈強な兵士を翁の家の周囲にぐるりと配備した。
The old man and his wife were plunged into a grief deeper than if their own child had been taken from them. Astonished to hear the news, the Emperor was determined to defend Kaguya-hime no matter what, and he stationed several thousand of his strongest soldiers in a ring around the old man's house.
いよいよ運命の満月の夜が訪れた。月の中ほどから、目もくらむほどのまばゆい光がさしてきたかと思うと、その光の中から、雲に乗った天人の一行がしずしずと地上へと降りてきた。
At last the appointed night of the full moon came. From the heart of the moon a light broke forth that dazzled the eyes, and from within that light a procession of celestial beings riding upon clouds came descending slowly down to the earth.
兵士たちは矢を放とうとしたが、その光に目がくらみ、手も足も思うようには動かなかった。とても戦うどころではなく、ただ立ち尽くすほかなかったのである。
The soldiers tried to nock their arrows, but the light blinded them, and their arms and legs would not move as they wished. There was no question of fighting; they could only stand where they were, helpless.
天人の長は厳かに告げた。「かぐや姫は罪あって地上に下されたが、その時もすでに満ちた。もはや一刻も留まることはできぬ」と。
The chief among the celestials announced gravely: "Kaguya-hime was sent down to earth in atonement for an old offense, and the term of that punishment is now fulfilled. She can remain here no longer, not for a single moment more."
かぐや姫は涙にむせびながら、翁と妻に深々と頭を下げ、これまで育ててくれた恩を心からの言葉で謝した。そして、別れの記念にと、帝への手紙と不死の薬を残し、天の羽衣をまとった。
Weeping softly, Kaguya-hime bowed her head deeply to the old man and his wife and thanked them from the bottom of her heart for all the care with which they had raised her. Then, as a parting keepsake, she left behind a letter for the Emperor and an elixir of immortality, and slipped on the celestial feather robe.
羽衣を肩に羽織った瞬間、かぐや姫の心からは地上の記憶も愛着もすうっと消え去り、振り返ることもなく月の都へと昇っていったのである。
The moment that feather robe settled on her shoulders, all memory of the earth and every attachment she had known there slipped quietly out of her, and without once looking back she rose up to the Moon Capital.
残された翁夫婦は、悲しみのあまり食事も喉を通らず、なすすべもなくただ泣き暮れるほかなかった。後に帝は、不死の薬を「姫のいない世で長生きしても何になろうか」と嘆き、駿河の国の山頂で焼かせたという。その煙が今も絶えず立ち上り続けているのが、富士の山だと語り伝えられている。
The old couple left behind could not even bring themselves to eat for grief; helpless, they could do nothing but weep their days away. Later, it is said, the Emperor sighed over the elixir, "What good is a long life to me in a world without her?" and had it burnt on the summit of a mountain in Suruga. The smoke from it is said to rise unceasingly even to this day — and that mountain, men say, is none other than Mount Fuji.