Urashima　浦島

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

The hero and title of an ancient tale of a fisherman and his magical journey to a palace beneath the sea. The details vary, but the basic narrative tells how a fisherman Urashima Tarou 浦島太郎 (alternately Urashima no ko 浦島の子 or Shima no ko 島の子) meets a beautiful young woman who takes him to her father's fabulous undersea palace. In some versions the woman's original form is that of a sea turtle either caught by the fisherman or rescued by him from malicious children. The woman often was associated with Otohime 乙姫, daughter of the Dragon King, and the undersea Dragon Palace, Ryuuguu 龍宮. In any case, Urashima marries the woman and they live together for three happy years until he decides to make a brief trip home. His wife grants him his wish, giving him a magic box that will allow his return but with the warning that it should never be opened. Urashima reaches his former home only to find everything changed and himself a stranger there. Confused, he opens the box. From it rise wisps of white smoke and instantly the young Urashima becomes a wizened old man and dies. In fact, he had been absent for 300 years. The oldest extant version is found in the TANGO FUDOKI 丹後風土記 (Local Records of Tango, 713), with alternative versions in the SHOKUNIHONGI 続日本紀 (797). Extant examples of the story, entitled The Legends of the God Urashima Urashima myoujin engi 浦島明神縁起, depicted both on a handscroll *emaki 絵巻 in the early 14c, and a hanging scroll *kakemono 掛物 in the early 16c, were kept in Ura Jinja 宇良神社, Kyoto, where the event took place, according to the YUURYAKUKI 雄略記. The illustration of Urashima became popular in the Edo period, typically with a young fisherman seated on a tortoise and holding a fishing rod, or with an old man holding a small box. *Ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists associated the theme with views of Kanagawa (where the events took place according to some later accounts) or with *mitate-e 見立絵 versions that feature a beautiful woman in place of the fisherman.

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