Читать книгу Urashima Taro and Other Japanese Children's Favorite Stories - Florence Sakade - Страница 8

Urashima Taro

A long, long time ago in Japan there was a young fisherman who lived by the seashore. His name was Urashima Taro. One day while he was walking along the beach, he saw that some boys had caught a big turtle from the sea and were teasing it and hitting it with sticks.

Now, Taro was very kindhearted and hated to see people being cruel to animals. So he said: “Boys, please let the turtle go. It’s a nice animal and you shouldn’t be mean to it. Put it back in the sea.”

Then the boys were ashamed of themselves. They put the turtle back in the water and watched it swim happily away.

Several days later, Taro was again walking along the beach when he heard a voice saying: “Taro! Taro!”

He looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. “Who is calling me?” he called out.

“Here I am,” said a voice from the sea. It was a turtle, who came crawling up on the sand. “I’m the turtle you saved the other day. When I returned to the palace under the sea, I told the Sea Princess what you had done. This made her very happy, and she asked me to bring you to see her.”

Taro said: “I’ve always wanted to visit the bottom of the sea.” So he climbed on the turtle’s back and was carried off very far and very fast to the great palace on the floor of the deepest sea.

He was taken inside the beautiful palace, which was made of coral and crystal, and there he met the beautiful Sea Princess. “Taro, you were very kind to my good subject, the turtle,” she said to him. “I wanted to thank you, so I had him bring you here. Please be my friend and stay in the palace forever. We will be very happy, and you shall have everything you want.”

So Taro stayed in the palace with the Sea Princess. He ate wonderful food, saw wonderful things and was very happy at first. But after a while—after only a few days, he thought—he began to be lonely for his home and his friends back on the shore. He wondered how his father and mother were.

Finally, one day he said to the princess: “I’ve been very happy here, but I want to go back to the land and see my home and my friends. Please send me back.”

“All right, Taro,” the princess said, “if you are determined to go, then I’ll send you back. But I’ll be sorry to see you go. We’ve been so happy together. In memory of your stay here I’ll give you this beautiful box. As long as you have this, you may come back to see me any time you wish. But, Taro, don’t open this, ever. If you open it, you’ll never be able to come back. Be sure! Do not open it!”

So Taro took the box, thanked the princess for the wonderful time, climbed on the back of the turtle, and went back to his home.

When he got to the beach, the village had changed. He could no longer find his own house. He asked some people on the beach, “Where is Urashima Taro’s house, and where are his parents?”

“Why, young man,” they answered, “you’re asking about things that were here many, many years ago. Urashima Taro was drowned before most of us remember. What strange person are you that you do not know this?”

Taro was very puzzled. How could this be? He was the same—or so he thought—and only the people and the place were different. Could it be that the secret of this strange thing was in the box that the Sea Princess had given him? He thought about this for some time, and then at last he decided to open the box, even though the Sea Princess had warned him not to do so.