There is a story, called Kaguya hime in Japanese classical literature.
Most of people in Japan have read this story in our childhood.
"Hime" means princess.
This is a story about a princess that came from the moon.
The storyline is like below.
There were old man and woman who don't have children.
One day, when he was working in the mountain, he found a bamboo
whose root was shining. He cut the bamboo. He found a small cute girl
in the bamboo.
The old man and woman raised the lovely girl with warmed heart.
They named the girl "Nayotake no Kaguya hime"
She became a so beautiful woman.
A lot of noblemen got to know the woman. They were curious of Kaguya hime.
They tried to get married with her. However, she refused that.
And an emperor also heard of Kaguya hime.
The emperor wanted to get married with Kaguya hime as well.
Kaguya hime refused emperor's requirement.
One day Kaguya hime disclose the old man and woman
that she was a women from the moon. And she told she had to
go back to the moon soon. Kaguya hime tells some messengers would come there
soon. Of course, the old man and woman did not wanted her to go back the moon.
And also the emperor did not.
The old man and woman tried to stop the messengers
The emperor also tried to stop.
However, their trials were in vain.
Eventually, Kaguya hime went back to the moon. She gave
a medicine instead of returning to the moon. That was the elixir of life.
The emperor depressed so much . And he decided to burn the medicine
at the place where is the closest to the sky. The emperor got to know the
highest mountain was Mt. Fuji and he went there with a lot of soldiers.
Then, he ordered to burn the medicine there.
The story is like this.
When you write Mt. Fuji by Kanji, you write like this. 富士
And "Fu" 富 means "a lot of"
Ji 士 means "soldiers".
The origin of the name of Mt. Fuji may be from this story.
Some one named 富士 because the emperor went the mountain with
a lot of soldiers to burn the medicine.
By the way, in Japanese, the Kanji of the elixir of life is 不死.
Hu 不 means "no"
JI 死 means death.
And the pronunciation of 不死 is "Fuji". So there is also rhyme here.
Classical literature is so deep...
2 comments:
This story is nice. Interesting enough, when I read the beginning, I thought of another story I read some time ago - about a little boy that was found by an old child-less couple in a big peach floating down the river - momotarou.
Before I started learning Japanese, every time I heared "fujisan", I would think that the "san" part was the honorific suffix san. Later,I found out about the on-reading and finally figured out that san is just another way to read the yama kanji ... I felt really stupid :)
Shantal ForSD
Your mistake is natural
"San" sounds the same.
We often hear the story
begins with this phrase,
"There were old man and woman
long time ago..."
Momotaro begins from this
phrase.
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