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Updated: June 29, 2025
The weather was fine and the sea and sky were both blue and soft in the tender haze of the summer morning. Urashima got into his boat and dreamily pushed out to sea, throwing his line as he did so. He soon passed the other fishing boats and left them behind him till they were lost to sight in the distance, and his boat drifted further and further out upon the blue waters.
But Urashima had remembered his old parents, and in Japan the duty to parents is stronger than everything else, stronger even than pleasure or love, and he would not be persuaded, but answered: "Indeed, I must go. Do not think that I wish to leave you. It is not that. I must go and see my old parents. Let me go for one day and I will come back to you."
I must go back at once without letting one more day pass." And he began to prepare for the journey in great haste. But now I must say good-by. I must go back to my old parents." Then Otohime Sama began to weep, and said softly and sadly: "Is it not well with you here, Urashima, that you wish to leave me so soon? Where is the haste? Stay with me yet another day only!"
Startled, and wondering who or what it was that had called him so clearly, he looked in all directions round about him and saw that without his knowing it a tortoise had come to the side of the boat. Urashima saw with surprise that it was the very tortoise he had rescued the day before. "Well, Mr. Tortoise," said Urashima, "was it you who called my name just now?"
As soon as the young pair had pledged themselves in the wedding cup of wine, three times three, music was played, and songs were sung, and fishes with silver scales and golden tails stepped in from the waves and danced. Urashima enjoyed himself with all his heart. Never in his whole life had he sat down to such a marvelous feast.
But one day Urashima did not return. His mother watched long, but there was no sign of her son's boat coming back to the shore. Day after day passed, and Urashima was mourned as dead. But he was not dead. Out on the sea he had met the Sea-God's daughter, and she had carried him off to a green, sunny land where it was always summer. There they lived for some time in great love and happiness.
Somehow he began to feel strangely anxious, he could not tell why. "Excuse me," said he to the man who was staring at him, "but till within the last few days I have lived in this house. My name is Urashima Taro. Where have my parents gone whom I left here?" A very bewildered expression came over the face of the man, and, still gazing intently on Urashima's face, he said: "What?
Somehow, he knew not why, he felt unusually happy that morning; and he could not help wishing that, like the tortoise he set free the day before, he had thousands of years to live instead of his own short span of human life. He was suddenly startled from his reverie by hearing his own name called: "Urashima, Urashima!" Clear as a bell and soft as the summer wind the name floated over the sea.
All the time that the kind fisherman was speaking he was walking quickly to the shore and out upon the rocks; then putting the tortoise into the water he watched the animal disappear, and turned homewards himself, for he was tired and the sun had set. The next morning Urashima went out as usual in his boat.
Some say that the land tortoise, or 'stone tortoise, only, is the servant of Kompira, and the sea tortoise, or turtle, the servant of the Dragon Empire beneath the sea. The turtle is said to have the power to create, with its breath, a cloud, a fog, or a magnificent palace. It figures in the beautiful old folk-tale of Urashima.
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