Not these days, but long ago, old man Taketori lived, wandered the mountains and valleys, chopped bamboo and made baskets and cages from them. And they called him Taketori - the one who cuts bamboo. Once old man Taketori went into the very depths of the bamboo thicket and sees: radiance is pouring from one tree, looking - what a wonder! In the depths of the bamboo stem a child shines - a little girl, only three inches tall.

“It can be seen that she is destined to become my daughter,” said the old man and carried the girl home. She was unusually beautiful, but tiny, and they put her in a bird cage to sleep.

Since that time, as old Taketori goes to the forest, he will find a wonderful bamboo, in each articulation of it there are gold coins. So he began to grow rich little by little. The tiny girl grew quickly and quickly and in three months turned into a wonderful girl. They made her an adult hairstyle and dressed in an adult dress, attached a long folded train. Because of the silk curtain, the girl was not allowed out, she was cherished and cherished. And everything in the house was illuminated by her wonderful beauty. And they called her the Radiant Maiden, slender like bamboo - Nayotake-no Kaguya-hime.

People heard about the incomparable beauty of Kaguya-hime, many grooms of simple rank and noble rich fell in love with her from other people's words and came to an unknown village, and only worked in vain and returned with nothing. But there were stubborn people who roamed around her house day and night, sent letters, composed plaintive love songs — there was no answer to their harassment. Days and months went by, hot, waterless days gave way to icy, snowy, but the five most stubborn suitors thought with hope that Kaguya-hime should choose a spouse. And then old Taketori addressed her with a speech: “My daughter, I’m already over seventy, and in this world it has become so common that men marry girls, and girls marry, their family multiplies, the house flourishes.” “This custom is not to my liking,” Kaguya-hime replies, “I won’t go married until I recognize the heart of my bridegroom, I need to experience their love in practice.”

The grooms also agreed that she wisely decided, and Kaguya-hime set tasks for all the grooms. She ordered one prince, Isitsukura, to bring a stone bowl from India, into which the Buddha himself collected alms. She ordered Prince Kuramoti to bring a branch from a golden tree with pearl fruits from the magical Mount Horai in the Eastern Ocean. To the right minister Abe-no Mimuradzi ordered a dress from distant China, woven from the wool of the Fiery mouse. Senior Advisor Otomo no Miyuki to get her a stone, sparkling with five-colored fire, from the neck of the dragon. And the average adviser Isonokami-no Maro should give her a swallow shell, which helps to easily give birth to children.

The princes and dignitaries heard about these tasks, were sad and went home. Prince Isitsukuri began to puzzle over how to be, how to get to India, where to find that stone bowl. And he announced that he was going to India, but he himself disappeared from human eyes. Three years later, he took, without thinking twice, the old cup that, covered in soot, stood in the temple on Black Mountain, put in a bag of brocade, tied to a branch of needlework flowers and brought a gift of Kaguya-hime with a poem, I read the beauty a letter, and there it is written in verse:

I passed a lot
Deserts and seas and rocks - I was looking for
This cup is holy ...
Day and night, he didn’t get off the horse, he didn’t get off -
Lanita irrigated my blood.

But the girl immediately saw that she did not come from the cup even a faint radiance, and returned it with derogatory verses, and the prince threw the cup in front of the gate in hearty chagrin. Since then, a proverb about such shameless people has gone: “To drink the cup of shame.”

Prince Kuramoti ordered Kaguya-hime to tell him that he had gone to look for a golden branch with pearls on Mount Khorai and left the capital. He sailed on a ship to the East Ocean, but three days later he returned secretly, built a house in a secret place, settled the masters' goldsmiths in it and ordered to make such a branch as the Radiant Maid wished. Three years later, he pretended to be back in the harbor after a long voyage. The prince put a branch in the travel casket and donated Kaguya-hime as a gift. There was a rumor among the people that the prince had brought a magic flower. Arriving at the old man Taketori’s house, the prince began to tell how he wore him for four hundred days and how he landed on Mount Khorai, completely covered with gold and silver trees, how he broke off one branch and hurried home with her. And Taketori, in response to his story, composed verses:

Day after day I searched for bamboo
On the mountain in a sunless bowl
I cut his knots
But you met with grief more often
Cutting the knots of fate.

And he began to prepare a bed for the young. But, as a sin, at this hour the masters who made a branch for the prince arrived at Taketori’s house of gold demanded to pay for the labors. As Kaguya-hime heard about it, she returned the branch to the deceiver and drove the prince out in disgrace. Prince Kuramoti fled to the mountains, and no one had ever seen him again. About such people they say: "In vain he scattered the pearls of his eloquence."

Right-wing minister Abe-no Mimuradzi, whom Kaguya-hime ordered to find for her a dress made of Fiery mouse wool, wrote a letter to Chinese guest Wang Qing asking him to buy this curiosity in China. The guest fulfilled the request and wrote that he had found the dress with great difficulty in the temple of the Western Mountains. The Minister was delighted and, clasping his hands, bowed in the direction of Chinese land. The dress arrived in Japan on a ship in a precious casket, and it itself was a deep azure color, the ends of the wools were golden. It seemed an invaluable treasure. They cleaned this fabric not with water, but with a flame; in the fire it did not burn, but became even more beautiful. The minister went in a luxurious dress to the girl, tying the chest to the flowering branch, and also tied the message to the branch:

I was afraid that on fire
My unlimited love
This marvelous outfit will burn
But here he is, accept him!
He shines with a flash of flame ...

But Kaguya-hime, wanting to test the groom, threw a precious dress into the fire, and r-time! - it burned to the ground. Kaguya-hime, overjoyed, returned to the Minister an empty chest from the outfit and enclosed a letter in it:

'Cause you knew in advance
What's in the flame without a trace
This marvelous outfit will burn.
Why say so long
Have you fed the fire of love?

And the unfortunate bridegroom returned home in shame. They say about such people: "His work was burnt out, smoke started."

Senior Advisor Otomo no Miyuki gathered his family members and said: “A gem sparkles on the dragon’s neck. Whoever gets it can ask for anything he wants. Dragons dwell in the depths of mountains and seas and, flying out from there, rush through the sky. It’s necessary to shoot one and remove a gem from him. ”

Servants and households obeyed and set off in search. But, going out the gate, they scattered in different directions with the words: "Such whimsy will come to mind." And the senior adviser, waiting for the servants, built for Kaguya-hime a luxurious palace with gold and silver patterns. Day and night he waited for his servants, but they did not appear, then he himself boarded the ship and set sail on the seas. And then a terrible storm with thunder and lightning came on the ship, and the senior adviser thought: “That's because I intended to kill the dragon. But now I will not touch the hair on it. Only have mercy! ” The storm calmed down a bit, but the senior adviser was so exhausted with fear that, although the ship safely landed on his native shore, he looked like an evil demon: some kind of illness blew him up in the wind, his stomach swelled up a mountain, his eyes became like red plums. With difficulty they dragged him to the house, and the servants immediately returned and said to him: "You yourself see how difficult it is to defeat the dragon and rob him of a multi-colored stone." People talked, and the word “cowardly” appeared, because the senior adviser always rubbed his eyes, red as plums.

The average adviser, Isonokami no Maro, set the task for the servants: to look for a shell in the nests of the swallows, which would give easy births, and the servants said that it was necessary to monitor the swallows at the cookery, where there were a great number of them. Not one, but the other will begin to lay eggs, and here you can get a healing shell. The middle adviser ordered the watch towers to be built and servants put on them, but the swallows were scared and flew away. Then they decided to put one servant in a basket and lift it to the nests, as soon as the swallow decides to lay an egg. But then the average adviser himself wanted to climb in the basket to the very roof, where the swallows lived. On the ropes he was lifted to the very top, and, lowering his hands into the nest, he groped for something solid and shouted: "Found, pull." And the servants pulled the rope too much, and it broke, and the middle adviser fell right on the lid of a large three-legged boiler for cooking rice. I came to my senses by force, unclenched my hand, and there was only a solid spool of bird droppings. And then he groaned plaintively: “Ah, this evil shell! In trouble, I climbed. " And it seemed to people: “Ah, all this is an evil rock of wine. Everything is useless. ” All days long, the average adviser lamented that he did not get the coveted shell, and finally weakened completely and lost his life. Kaguya-hime heard about the end of the middle adviser and was a little sad.

Finally, the emperor himself heard of Kaguya-hime and its incomparable beauty. He ordered his court lady to go to the house of old Taketori and find out everything about the Radiant Maiden. The court lady wanted to take a look at the young lady herself, but she flatly refused to obey the emperor's messenger, and she had to return to the palace with nothing. Then the emperor called old Old Taketori to him and ordered him to persuade Kaguya-hime to appear at court. But the Radiant Maiden again flatly refused. Then the emperor intended to go hunting in those places where there was the house of old Taketori, and as if by chance to meet Kaguya-hime. The emperor went hunting, entered Taketori's house, as if without intent, and saw a girl shining with indescribable beauty. Although she closed her sleeve quickly, the sovereign managed to make out and exclaimed in delight: “I will never part with her again!”

Kaguya-hime did not want to obey and asked, she prayed not to take her to the palace, saying that she was not a man, but a creature from another world. But they filed a palanquin, and they just wanted to put Kaguya-hime in it, how it began to melt, melt - and one shadow remained from it, And then the emperor retreated - and she immediately assumed her former form. Retiring to the palace, the emperor with tears in his eyes folded:

The moment of separation has arrived
But I linger in indecision ...
Oh feel my feet
My will is rebellious
Like you, Kaguya-hime!

And she sent him back:

Under the poor rural roof
Overgrown with wild grass
My early years have passed.
My heart does not attract
In the high royal palace.

So they continued to exchange sad messages for three whole years. Then people began to notice that every time during the full moon Kaguya-hime becomes pensive and sad, and they did not advise her to look at the lunar disk for a long time. But she kept looking and looking, and our world seemed dull to her. But in the dark nights she was cheerful and carefree. Once, on the fifteenth night of the eighth month, when the moon became the brightest of the year, she told her parents with tears that she was in fact a resident of the lunar kingdom and had been expelled to the earth to atone for sin, and now it was time to return. There, in the lunar capital, my mother and father are waiting for me, but I know how you will grieve, and I'm not happy about returning to my native lands, but I'm sad.

The emperor found out that celestials would appear for Kaguya-hime and take her to the moon, and he ordered the chiefs of six regiments of the imperial guard to guard the Radiant Maiden. Old man Taketori hid Kaguya-hime in a closet, troops surrounded the house, but at Mice’s hour on the fifteenth night of the eighth moon the whole house was lit up, unknown heavenly creatures descended on the clouds, and neither arrows nor swords could stop them. All the locked doors swung open by themselves, and Kaguya-hime left the house, shedding tears. It was a pity for her to leave her foster parents. The celestial handed her an outfit of bird feathers and a drink of immortality, but she, knowing that if she put on this dress, as she would lose everything human, wrote a letter to the emperor and sent with a drink of immortality:

Separation moment has come,
Now i will wear
Feathered clothes
But I remembered you -
And the heart is crying.

Then Kaguya-hime got into the flying chariot and, accompanied by hundreds of envoys, flew into the sky. The saddened emperor took the vessel with the drink of immortality to Mount Fuji and lit it; and it burns there still.