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Story #1or "The Bamboo Cutter's Tale" |
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My project for this week is retelling one of Japan's earliest stories. This story “Taketori Monogatari” or “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” has been told in Japan for over a thousand years! Scholars think it was first written in the ninth century A.D. since in the story Mount Fuji was not yet a dormant volcano. The Japanese still read and know this story well, although it is seen as a children’s fairytale nowadays. It is usually referred to now as “Kaguya-hime” which means “The Shining Princess”. Since there are obviously many different versions of this story, I am using a text written by Yasunari Kawabata and translated by Donald Keene to do my storybook project for this week. This book is also where I obtained some of the above information. 1
My inspiration for wanting to retell this story is that it's very old and familiar in Japanese culture, so I’ve seen it referred to in several different animes. One example is the popular Sailor Moon anime, well known even in America courtesy of Cartoon Network. The main character is named after the moon and used to live on the moon in her past life. I thought these ideas were pretty original when I first saw the show, but the author drew many of her ideas from Taketori Monogatari, as you’ll see. (I’m not saying that Naoko Takeuchi is unoriginal! I’m just saying that she used this story as part of her cultural heritage, on purpose or not.)
Another anime that draws heavily from this ancient story is Da! Da! Da!. In this case, the entire show is meant to be a modernized version the story Taketori Monogatari, just like some things we are doing in this class! In the eighth anime episode the characters even put on a play over this subject, just in case you as a viewer didn’t pick up on the parallels being drawn. For this series I found it helpful to know the story of Taketori Monogatari before watching the show. It allowed me to see some jokes I might have missed otherwise, although the series is pretty funny and crazy to begin with anyway. (Go here for more information on this show, if you are a fan of really silly and cute anime.) (And go HERE for a neat page about Bamboo, with a short slideshow presentation of Taketori Monogatari.)
Without further ado, on to the story!
The old man paused in his work. Was that the cry of a child he heard through the gently whispering bamboo stalks? He put down his things and began to search the grove. People had been known to abandon unwanted children in rice fields, hoping the babies would drown, but he had never heard of a child abandoned in a bamboo grove. Still, he felt compelled to investigate the cries.
To his side, one of the bamboo stalks was glowing! “Well, they do call me the Bamboo Cutter,” he thought, and he proceeded to cut down this mysterious stalk. But inside there was a tiny baby girl, only three inches high, shining with unearthly light.
He was surprised but delighted. He took this tiny infant home cupped in one hand. Together his wife and he decided the girl was their very own blessing from the gods, since they had long been childless. They took very good care of her, and just like the bamboo she came from, within three months she was full grown. The diviner was called, and named the girl Kaguya-hime, or the “Shining Princess”.
Illustration from text by Masayuki Miyata
Now from time to time, the Bamboo Cutter would return to the grove where he’d found the girl. When he did, he would find one bamboo stalk filled with gold. This meant that although his wife and he had been poor before their child came, now they had all the money they could ever need. They spent this money on the girl though, buying her beautiful clothes and presents, for they were very much in love with her. She was literally the light of their lives.
The Bamboo Cutter and his wife tried their very best to keep Kaguya-hime’s existence a secret. But after she’d been with them for many years, word eventually got around that something strange was going on in the old man’s hut, a hut now turned into a mansion. Suitors came from all over Japan begging the old man to give them his daughter’s hand in marriage. But remarkably, the old man replied that he did not have that authority. She was not his real daughter, he explained, so he did not feel comfortable forcing her to marry.
It became increasingly clear that Kaguya-hime had no intentions of marrying whatsoever. To the five most persistent suitors that stayed despite her father’s words, she offered difficult quests. Each man had to return with the object she desired of him, and only then would she marry him. And so it went, none of her suitors could complete their ridiculously hard tasks, mostly because they lied or were too foolish for their own good. Even the Emperor heard of lovely Kaguya-hime and wished to marry her, but she refused him the same as she had all the others.
The old man and his wife watched all these goings on with concern. The man knew he was getting on in years, and he loved Kaguya-hime with all his heart. He did not want to die and leave her all alone, and he worried about this night and day. Although he tried, he could not convince her to marry any man in the kingdom, even the Emperor. One night as he sat up, listening to his wife sleep and the quiet sounds of the night, he thought he heard Kaguya-hime crying.
The old man stole into her room, but Kaguya-hime was outside the sliding doors, looking up at the moon. As she looked at the moon, she wept softly, and the Bamboo Cutter's heart melted. He decided to apologize to her the next day for trying to force her into an unwelcome marriage. He would not try anymore, her happiness was most important of all.
But the next night, and the next, Kaguya-hime wept. For every night that the moon shone in the smooth, dark sky above, she could not control her tears, and only hid her sadness during the day when she thought her parents might see it. The old man wondered what was wrong but for many days was afraid to ask, not wanting to make her dwell on her problems. Finally he questioned her and she answered, tearfully, “I haven’t wanted to tell you, because I did not want to make you sad as well, but I cannot stay with you very much longer.”
“You found me in a stalk of bamboo, so you must know I am not of this world. I am from the Moon, sent here as punishment for a crime I once committed. But my term is over now, and when the moon is full, my people shall come to take me away. My real parents and family await me on the moon, so I suppose I should be happy, but... I don’t want to leave the two of you! I think of you as my family now. Still I must go. They will not give me any more time.”The old man and his wife were distraught, and in a fit the old man exclaimed, “Ridiculous! You’re my only child! You belong to us and I will never let anyone take you from me! I will message the Emperor, he will send guards and warriors. No one shall come near you that night, I swear it!”
The Emperor was moved by the old man's tale. If he felt that he loved Kaguya-hime, then surely her parents must feel the pain of this loss even more intensely, having lived with the princess for twenty years. He sent almost 2,000 men to surround Kaguya-hime's house that fateful night. But it was of no avail, for when the moon emerged from the clouds that night, every soldier began to feel weak and sleepy. Their limbs went numb and they were paralyzed by the sight of the most beautiful people they had ever seen, gracefully floating down toward the earth on moonbeams.
The old man alone was left to stand up to the people of the Moon, as the soldiers and archers began to fall asleep. He felt their power as well, but he had too much to lose to allow himself to succumb to this trance-like enchantment. Letting his nails bite into palms, he bowed before the Moon people. “I beg your forgiveness, but Kaguya-hime is sick, and cannot leave her room.”
But without a reply, all the doors slid open by themselves revealing Kaguya-hime and the old man’s wife huddled inside together on the floor. The old man tried again, in a frantic voice, “You cannot take her from us! We will have nothing without her. She doesn’t want to leave!”
“Simple old fool! What of all the gold we have given you in return for your services? She does not seriously consider staying with you. I cannot understand why she tarries in this ugly, mudane spot at all.” Turning to Kaguya-hime he continued, “Come now, it is time to go home, don’t delay us any longer.” So Kaguya-hime sadly walked outside, and said to her human parents, “I have left two letters, one for you and one for the Emperor. Please read your letter whenever you want to think of me. For the Emperor, please take him this jar as well”. She leaned forward and whispered, so the onlooking people from the moon would not hear her, “It is a little bit of the elixir of Immortality that my people take as nourishment, I hope it will keep you all in good health”. Then smiling one last time, she put on her celestial robes and rose into the sky, seeming to dim and disappear with each breath the old man took.“But what care we for our lives now, without you?” the old man cried. And so saying he gave the Emperor’s letter and the jar to one of the guards, retiring inside to his wife. They soon became sick but refused all doctors, and never left their house again.
The Emperor read his letter, and heard the fate of Kaguya-hime’s parents since the night she had vanished without a trace. He was very sad as well, and thought deeply for a while, finally commanding his men to take the jar and the letter to the top of Mount Fuji and throw them in, since the mountain was closest to the moon where Kaguya-hime resided. Since it was an elixir of immortality, ever since that day it has burned inside of Mount Fuji, and its’ smoke can be seen rising toward the moon at night.
Bibliography:
1. Kawabata, Yasunari. Taketori Monogatari: The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Trans. Donald Keene. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1998.
More interesting tidbits:
Don’t you find it interesting that the title of this story has changed over the years from "The Bamboo Cutter's Tale" to "The Shining Princess"? This says to me, that the focus of the story in the old days was on the father’s story, or the parent to child relationship. But in modern times the focus of the story is on Kaguya-hime, giving more emphasis to the romantic relationship between her and the Emperor. I didn't really cover this romance in my story 'cause I didn't have the space... My story was getting way too long :(
But if you want to talk about REAL changes, then how about these two pictures:
This is a screen capture I made from the opening sequence of Da!Da!Da! episode one.
What happened? The Bamboo Cutter and his wife are still in middle school? The princess has turned into a baby alien boy with the power to float? And then there is the whole issue of his magical cat...
And The Emperor (or at least the most persistent suitor) has turned into a two year old girl who won't take no for an answer! Aah! Run for your lives!
(I got the above image here.)
