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.