81 Now the day of reckoning had come for the jelly fish. He quaked all over as he told his story. How he had brought the monkey halfway over the sea, and then had stupidly let out the secret of his commission; how the monkey had deceived him by making him believe that he had left his liver behind him.
81 クラゲの清算の日がやってきた。彼は自分の話をしながら全身を震わせた。彼がサルを海の途中まで連れてきて、愚かにも彼の任務の秘密を漏らしたこと。サルが肝臓を置き去りにしたと彼に信じ込ませて、どのように彼を欺いたか。
82 The Dragon King’s wrath was great, and he at once gave orders that the jelly fish was to be severely punished. The punishment was a horrible one. All the bones were to be drawn out from his living body, and he was to be beaten with sticks.
82 竜王の怒りはすさまじく、すぐさまクラゲに厳罰を命じた。その罰は恐ろしいものでした。彼の生きた体からすべての骨が引き抜かれ、彼は棒で打たれることになっていました。
83 The poor jelly fish, humiliated and horrified beyond all words, cried out for pardon. But the Dragon King’s order had to be obeyed. The servants of the Palace forthwith each brought out a stick and surrounded the jelly fish, and after pulling out his bones they beat him to a flat pulp, and then took him out beyond the Palace gates and threw him into the water. Here he was left to suffer and repent his foolish chattering, and to grow accustomed to his new state of bonelessness.
83 可哀想なクラゲは、言葉では言い表せない屈辱と恐怖に襲われ、許しを求めて叫びました。しかし、竜王の命令には従わなければならなかった。宮殿の使用人たちはすぐにそれぞれ棒を持ってきてクラゲを取り囲み、クラゲの骨を引き抜いた後、クラゲを殴って平らなパルプにし、宮殿の門を越えて連れ出し、水の中に投げ込みました。ここで彼は、愚かなおしゃべりに苦しみ、悔い改め、骨のない新しい状態に慣れる必要がありました。
84 From this story it is evident that in former times the jelly fish once had a shell and bones something like a tortoise, but, ever since the Dragon King’s sentence was carried out on the ancestor of the jelly fishes, his descendants have all been soft and boneless just as you see them to-day thrown up by the waves high upon the shores of Japan.
この話から明らかなように、かつてクラゲは亀のような甲羅と骨を持っていたが、クラゲの祖先に竜王の刑が執行されて以来、彼の子孫は皆軟弱であった.今日、日本の海岸の高い波に投げ上げられているのと同じように、骨がありません。
