Part Nine竹取物語 9

In this way they comforted each other's hearts, and when some three years had gone by, from the beginning of spring Kaguya-hime would look at the moon risen in its beauty and seem sunk in thought more than was her way. Someone checked her, saying, "To look upon the face of the moon is a thing to be shunned." Yet whenever she was alone she looked at the moon and wept bitterly. At the full moon of the seventh month she came out and sat, and her face was that of one sunk deep in sorrow.

Those who served close by told the old bamboo cutter, "Kaguya-hime has always felt the moon tenderly, but of late it seems no common thing. She must have some heavy sorrow. Watch over her well."

Hearing this, he said to Kaguya-hime, "What is it you feel, that you look at the moon with a face so full of sorrow? And the world so fair to you." Kaguya-hime said, "When I look at the moon, the world seems forlorn and full of sadness. What should I have to lament?"

He went to where Kaguya-hime was and looked, and still her face was full of sorrow. Seeing this he said, "My own Buddha, what do you think of? What is it that you think on?" She said, "There is nothing I think of. It is only that my heart is forlorn." The old man said, "Do not look at the moon. When you look at it, your face turns to sorrow." She said, "How should I live without looking at the moon?" And still, whenever the moon rose, she came out and sat and grieved and sorrowed. In the dark of the evening she had no look of sorrow. When the hour of the moon came, she would still sigh and weep from time to time. Those who served her whispered, "She has some sorrow after all," but no one, her parents first of all, knew what it was.

About the fifteenth of the eighth month she came out and sat in the moonlight, and Kaguya-hime wept most bitterly. Now she no longer hid herself from the eyes of others, but wept. Seeing this, her parents too cried out, "What is it?" and were in an uproar.

Kaguya-hime, weeping, said, "I meant to tell you before now, but I thought, 'Surely it will trouble your hearts,' and so I have let the days go by until this. I thought, 'It cannot go on so,' and so I speak it out. This body of mine is not of this land. I am of the capital of the moon. It was by a bond made in a former life that I came to this world. Now the time has come when I must go back, and on the fifteenth day of this month people will come from that first land of mine to fetch me. I must go, and there is no help for it, and because your grief would be a sorrow to me I have grieved and lamented since this spring." And she wept bitterly.

The old man said, "What is this you say? I found you in the bamboo, and you were no bigger than a mustard seed, and I reared you until you stood as tall as I. Who shall come and fetch away this child of mine? Shall I ever allow it?" And he said, "Then let me die," and he cried out and wailed so that it was hard to bear.

Kaguya-hime said, "I am of the capital of the moon, and I have a father and a mother there. I came from that land for what was to be a little while, and here in this land I have passed many years. I do not even remember my father and my mother in that land. Here I have played so long and grown used to you. I feel no gladness at all; there is only sorrow. Yet not by my own heart must I go." And they wept bitterly together.

Those who served her too had grown used to her through the years, and they thought of the parting. They had grown used to a nature so gentle and so lovely that the longing to come was past bearing, and they could not drink even water, and grieved with one heart.

The Emperor heard of this and sent a messenger to the house of the bamboo cutter. The old bamboo cutter came out to meet the messenger, and his weeping had no end. Grieving over this, his hair had gone white, his back was bent, his eyes were sore. The old man was about fifty this year, yet it was plain that "sorrow had made him old in a moment."

The messenger spoke to the old man as the Emperor's command: "Is it true that she grieves so, and so painfully?" The bamboo cutter, weeping, answered, "At this full moon, they say, they come from the capital of the moon to fetch Kaguya-hime. It is a kindness past deserving that he asks. At this full moon I would have men granted me, so that when the people of the capital of the moon come, we may seize them."

The messenger went back and told of the old man's state, and as he reported the words that had been spoken, the Emperor heard and said, "Even I, who saw her but once, cannot forget her. What must he feel, who has seen her morning and evening, to send Kaguya-hime away?" On that fifteenth day he gave command to every office, and named as his envoy a man called the Lesser Captain Takano no Okuni, and sent two thousand men, drawn from the Six Guards together, to the house of the bamboo cutter.

They came to the house, a thousand men on the earthen wall, a thousand on the roof; and with the people of the house, who were very many, they guarded it so that no opening was left. These guards too bore bows and arrows. Within the main hall women were set in watches to guard. The old woman was inside the storehouse, holding Kaguya-hime. The old man too barred the door of the storehouse and sat in the doorway.

The old man said, "With a guard like this, shall we be beaten even by the people of heaven?" And he said to the men on the roof, "If so much as a speck flies in the sky, shoot it dead at once." The guards said, "In a place guarded like this, if there were but a single bat we would shoot it down first and hang it outside." The old man heard this and took heart.

Hearing this, Kaguya-hime said, "Though you shut me in and guard me and make ready to fight, you cannot fight the people of that land. You cannot shoot them with bows and arrows. Though you shut me in like this, when the people of that land come, all will open. Though you would stand and fight, when the people of that land come there will be no one left with a fierce heart to use."

The old man said, "As for those who come to fetch her, I shall claw out their eyes with my long nails and crush them. I shall take them by the hair and drag them down. I shall bare their backsides and show them to all these officers and shame them." And he was in a rage.

Kaguya-hime said, "Do not speak so loudly. It is unseemly that the men on the roof should hear. It is a bitter thing that I must go without ever knowing all the kindness you have shown me. It grieves me to think, 'Our bond was not a long one, and so I must go before long.' I have done nothing at all to repay my parents, and the road I go cannot be an easy one. For a month and more I have come out and sat and begged for leave, if only for this year, and it was not granted at all, and that is why I grieve and lament so. It is sad and past bearing that I go, having only troubled your hearts. The people of that capital are very clear and fair, and they do not grow old. They have no sorrows. It is no great thing to me to be going to such a place. What I shall long for is that I shall not see you as you grow old and worn." And she wept.

The old man said, "Do not say what wounds my heart. I shall not give way even to messengers of so fair a form." And he was full of resentment.

While this went on, the early night passed, and about the hour of the rat the space about the house shone brighter than noonday. It was as bright as ten full moons put together, so that even the pores of a man's skin could be seen. Out of the great sky people came down riding on clouds, and stood in a row about five feet above the ground.

Seeing this, the hearts of those within and without were as if something pressed them down, and they had no heart to fight. Rousing themselves with hardship, they tried to take up bows and arrows, but the strength went out of their hands and they hung limp and bent. Among them a man of stout heart bore up and tried to shoot, but the arrow flew off elsewhere, and he too did not fight, and their minds were simply dazed as they looked on at one another.

Those who stood there were clad in a raiment whose clear beauty was like nothing else. They had with them a flying chariot. Over it a canopy of thin silk was raised. Among them one who seemed to be their king said, "Miyatsukomaro, come out of the house." And Miyatsukomaro, who had thought himself so fierce, felt as though he were drunk with something and fell on his face.

He said, "You, childish man, because you, old one, had made some small merit, I sent her down for what was to be a little while, to be your help. For many years you have been given much gold, and you have become as one whose body is changed. Kaguya-hime had made a sin, and for that she stayed a while with one as lowly as you. The term of her sin is at an end, and so we have come to fetch her, and you weep and grieve. It is no use. Give her back at once."

The old man answered and said, "It is more than twenty years that I have reared Kaguya-hime. You say it was to be a little while, and that is strange to me. Surely it is some other Kaguya-hime, in another place." And he said, "The Kaguya-hime who is here has fallen gravely ill and cannot come out." To this there was no answer. They brought the flying chariot up over the roof and said, "Come, Kaguya-hime, how should you stay long in an unclean place?"

The door of the place they had barred opened wide of itself at once. The lattices too opened with no one to open them. Kaguya-hime, whom the old woman held, went out. They could not hold her back, and they only looked up and wept.

The bamboo cutter lay fallen and weeping, out of his mind, and Kaguya-hime went to him and said, "Here too I go against my own heart. Send me off at least as I rise." But he said, "Why should I send you off in such sorrow? What am I to do, that you throw me away and rise up? Take me with you," and he lay weeping, and her heart too was troubled.

She said, "I shall write a letter and leave it before I go. Whenever you long for me, take it out and look at it." And weeping she wrote these words: "Had I been born in this land, I would have stayed until the time when I need not make you grieve. That I could not stay, but pass away and part from you, seems to me again and again against my true wish. Look upon the robe I leave behind as a keepsake. On the night the moon rises, look up toward me. Leaving you behind and going, I feel as though I should fall from the very sky." So she wrote and left it.

Among the people of heaven there was a box that one of them carried. In it was the feathered robe of heaven. In another was the medicine of no death. One of the people of heaven said, "Take the medicine in the flask. You have eaten the food of an unclean place, and your heart must be ill at ease." And he brought it to her, and she tasted a little of it. She would have wrapped a little in the robe she was leaving behind, to remain as a keepsake; but one of the people of heaven would not let her wrap it, and took out the feathered robe and would have put it on her.

At that Kaguya-hime said, "Wait a little." And she said, "They say that one who puts on the robe becomes changed in heart. There is one word I must leave behind." And she wrote a letter. The people of heaven said, "It is late," and were impatient. Kaguya-hime said, "Do not speak like one who knows nothing of reason." And very quietly she offered up a letter to the Emperor. She was without haste.

"Though you granted me so many men and would have kept me here, a company that will not be denied has come to fetch me and takes me away, and this is a bitter and a sorrowful thing. That I never served you at the palace was because I am of so troublesome a body. You must have thought it past understanding, and my hardening my heart and not obeying you has stayed in your mind as an unmannerly thing, and that is what stays in mine." And she wrote,

Now, they say, it is the end, and the feathered robe of heaven — at this moment when I put it on, it is my lord that I remember with a tender heart.

So she wrote, and she set the flask of medicine beside it, and called the Head Captain to her and had it presented. One of the people of heaven took it and passed it to him. As soon as the Captain had taken it, they quickly put the feathered robe of heaven upon her, and the pity and the sorrow she had felt for the old man were gone. One who has put on this robe has no sorrows left, and so she rode in the chariot and went up, with some hundred of the people of heaven attending her.

After that the old man and the old woman wept tears of blood and were beside themselves, but it was of no use. They read out to them the letter she had left behind, but they said, "For what should we hold our lives dear? For whose sake should anything be of use?" And they would not take the medicine, and from then on they could not even rise, but lay sick.

The Captain took his men and went back, and told in full how they had not been able to fight and keep Kaguya-hime. He presented the flask of medicine with her letter. The Emperor opened it and read it, and was greatly moved, and he would eat nothing, and there was no music or play. He called the ministers and the high nobles and asked, "Which mountain is near to heaven?" One of them said, "The mountain in the province of Suruga is near to this capital and near to heaven as well." When he heard this,

Meeting her again — for this body of mine, adrift in tears, even the medicine of no death, what use is it to me?

He gave the flask of the medicine of no death that had been presented to him, with a letter, to a messenger. As his envoy he called a man named Tsuki no Iwakasa, and commanded him to carry them to the summit of that mountain said to be in the province of Suruga. He had him taught what was to be done on the peak. He commanded that the letter and the flask of the medicine of no death be laid side by side, and fire set to them, and burned. Receiving that command, the man took many soldiers with him and climbed the mountain, and from that the mountain was named Fuji. They say that its smoke rises into the clouds even now.