Urashima Tarō (浦島太郎) is a Japanese otogi-zōshi in one volume.
Date, genre and title
Urashima Tarō was composed during the Muromachi period.[1] It is a work of the otogi-zōshi genre.[1] Most of the surviving manuscripts of the work give its title as simply Urashima, written in hiragana.[1]
Plot
Urashima Tarō of Tango Province spares the life of a turtle he has caught and releases it.[1] The next day a beautiful woman arrives on a small boat, and requests Tarō escort her back to her country.[1] He takes her to her home in the Dragon Palace, and becomes her husband.[1] Three years later, he becomes homesick and requests her leave to go visit his home.[1] His wife protests, but allows him to return home for time, admitting that she is the turtle[a] he saved and entrusting him with a box as a keepsake, which she warns him never to open.[1] On Tarō's return to his home, he learns to his shock that 700 years have passed.[1] Without thinking, he opens the box he had received from his wife, and from it emerges purple cloud[b] and his form changes.[1][c] He becomes a crane and at Hōrai meets again with the turtle.[1][d] After this, he appears as the god Urashima-myōjin (浦島明神).[1]
Textual tradition
The work is generally in one kan (scroll or book).[1] It survives in numerous manuscripts, including:
a fragmentary picture scroll in the holdings of the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum, dating to the middle of the Muromachi period and including only the latter portion of the work;[1]
a picture scroll from the late Muromachi period, also in the holdings of the Japanese Folk Crafts Museum;[1]
^Picture scrolls from the mid-Muromachi period, but not later, have smoke from his funeral pyre seen in the Dragon Palace, and Oto-hime transforming into a turtle to come and mourn him herself.[1]
^Picture scrolls from the late Muromachi period end the story here.[1]
