The legend of Urashima Tarō (浦島太郎) is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to the Palace of the Dragon God (or Ryūgū-jō) under the sea. He stays there for three days and, upon his return to his village, finds himself three hundred years in the future. The tale has been identified as the earliest example of a story involving time travel.[1]
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History
The name Urashima Taro first appears in the 15th century (the Muromachi period), in the book Otogizōshi, but the story is much older, dating back to the 8th century (the Nara Period). These older books, such as Nihon Shoki, Man'yōshū [2] and Tango no Kuni Fudoki (丹後国風土記) refer to Urashima Taro as Urashimako, though the story is the same. This represents a change in Japanese naming customs; in the previous eras, -ko (child) was used for both male and female names, while in later times it was mostly a female name element, replaced with -tarou, (great youth) in boys' names.
Story
One fine day a young fisherman named Urashima Tarō was fishing when he noticed a small turtle being tortured by some children. Tarō saved it and let it to go back to the sea. The next day,a huge turtle approached him and told him that the small turtle he had saved was the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, who wanted to see him to thank him. The turtle magically gave Tarō gills and brought him to the bottom of the sea, to the Palace of the Dragon God (Ryūgū-jō). There he met the Emperor and the small turtle, who was now a lovely princess, Otohime.
Tarō stayed there with her for a few days, then he was caught by the desire to go back to his village and see his aging mother, so he asked her permission to leave. The princess said she was sorry to see him go, but wished him well and gave him a mysterious box which she told him never to open, for some reason. Tarō grabbed the box, jumped on the back of the same turtle that had brought him there, and soon was at the seashore.
When he went home,he was surprised because everything had changed. His home was gone, his mother had vanished, the people he knew were nowhere to be seen. He asked if anybody knew a man called Urashima Tarō. They answered that they had heard someone of that name had vanished at sea long ago. He discovered that 300 years had passed since the day he had left for the bottom of the sea. Struck by grief, he absent-mindedly opened the box the princess had given him. Out of it came a cloud of white smoke. He suddenly aged, his beard grew long and white, and his back bent. He was now a very old man. And from the sea came the sad, sweet voice of the princess: "I told you not to open that box. In it was your old age ..."
As always with folklore, there are many different versions of this extremely famous story. In one, for example, after he turned into an old man he took the body of a crane, in another he ate a magic pill that gave him the ability to breathe underwater. In another version, he is swept away by a storm before he can rescue the turtle. Also, there is a version in which he dies in the process of aging (his body turns into dust), as no one can live 300 years.
Commemoration
A shrine on the western coast of the Tango Peninsula in northern Kyoto Prefecture, named Urashima Jinja, contains an old document describing a man, Urashimako, who left his land in 478 A.D. and visited a land where people never die. He returned in 825 A.D. with a Tamatebako. Ten days later he opened the box, and a cloud of white smoke was released, turning Urashimako into an old man.
Later that year, after hearing the story, Emperor Junna ordered Ono no Takamura to build a shrine to commemorate Urashimako's strange voyage, and to house the Tamatebako and the spirit of Urashimako.
Influence
The story influenced various works of fiction and a number of films. Among them are manga and anime such as Dragonball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, Urusei Yatsura, Love Hina (whose lead male character is called Urashima Keitaro), Doraemon, Kamen Rider Den-O, Cowboy Bebop[3], Ghost Sweeper Mikami and RahXephon.[4] It is retold in and used as the basis for the short story “Another Story” by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in her story collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, named for the character of this story. Urashima Tarō is referenced in the video game Policenauts, and is himself is a character in Ōkami.
The oldest known animated adaptation of the tale premiered in 1918.[5]
During the 1970s, VARIG, a Brazilian airline, used him in a series of commercials, with the turtle bringing him to Brazil. After a while, he enjoys his stay, but grows old and longs to return to his home in Japan, so a woman (presumably the princess) gives him a box with an airplane ticket home, which when he opens also becomes much younger.
Episode 17 of Choudenshi Bioman uses the story of Urashima Taro as basis for the main plot. In this episode, Doctor Man invented a device in order to read the genetic memory of Urashima Taro's descendant in order to locate the precise location of the Palace of the Dragon God which he believes to be overflowing with treasures.
Notes and references
- ^ Yorke, Christopher (February 2006), "Malchronia: Cryonics and Bionics as Primitive Weapons in the War on Time", Journal of Evolution and Technology 15 (1): 73-85, http://jetpress.org/volume15/yorke-rowe.html, retrieved 2009-08-29
- ^ Rosenberg, Donna (1997), Folklore, myths, and legends: a world perspective, McGraw-Hill, p. 421, ISBN 084425780X
- ^ "Sympathy For The Devil". Cowboy Bebop. WOWOW. 1999-12-16. No. 6, season 1.
- ^ Izubuchi, Yutaka (scenario) and Kiryu, Yukari (screenplay) RahXephon TV series episode 3
- ^ 90yo Japanese anime recovered
See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Urashima Taro |
- Tamatebako, an origami cube that causes the aging of Urashima Tarō in some versions of the story.
- Pandora's box, a magic box which spread disaster when opened in Greek mythology.
- King in the mountain, several legends of people hidden away in time.
- Rip van Winkle
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Kakudmi and Revati
- Herla
- Oisín
- The Voyage of Bran
External links
- Urashima Tarō (in English)
- The legend of Urashima Tarō in 24 images painted on a wall near Lake Saroma in Hokkaido
- from 1873 book (in English)
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