The Rabbit in the Moon
by Ryokan, Zen Monk-Poet of Japan
It took place in a world long long ago they say:
a monkey, a rabbit, and a fox struck up a friendship,
morning frolicking field and hill,
evenings coming home to the forest,
living thus while the years went by,
when Indra, sovereign of the skies,
hearing of this,
curious to know if it was true,
turned himself into an old man,
tottering along,
made his way to where they were.
"You three," he said, "are of separate species
yet play together with a single heart.
If what I've heard is true,
pray save an old man who's hungry!"
then he set his staff aside,
sat down to rest.
Simple enough, they said, and presently
the monkey appeared from the grove behind
bearing nuts he'd gathered there,
and the fox returned from the rivulet in front,
clamped in his jaws a fish he'd caught.
But the rabbit,
though he hopped and hopped everywhere
couldn't find anything at all,
while the others cursed him
because his heart was not like theirs.
Miserable me! he thought,
and then he said
"Monkey, go cut me firewood!
Fox, build me a fire with it!"
and when they'd done what he'd asked,
he flung himself into the midst of the flames,
made himself an offering
for an unknown man.
When the old man saw this his heart withered.
He looked up to the sky,
cried aloud,
then sank to the ground,
and in a while,
beating his breast, said to the others,
"Each of you three friends has done his best,
but what the rabbit did touches me the most!"
Then he made the rabbit whole again
and gathering the dead body up in his arms,
took it and laid it to rest in the palace of the moon.
From that time till now
the story's been told,
this tale of
how the rabbit came to be in the moon,
and even I
when I hear it
find the tears
soaking the sleeve of my robe.
Translation Burton Watson:
(The poem is a retelling of one of the Jataka
stories, tales of the Buddha in his earlier
incarnations when he performed various acts of
self-sacrifice. Ryokan follows the version of
the tale found in chapter five of the Konjaku
monogatari, a collection of stories in Japanese,
many Buddhist in nature, compiled around 1100.
This version relates the jataka tale to the odd
Chinese legend of a rabbit who inhabits the moon.
There are numerous versions of the poem with slight
textual variations; I follow the text given in
Yoshino Hideo's collection, PP. 319-22.)
