Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's "Rashōmon": My Own Translation

I'll post updates directly to this document as they happen, and post notices of changes to it elsewhere (e.g., Twitter). Note that there may be changes within the body of the text as I go along.

I've left in the original Japanese text for the sake of comparison, which I've retrieved from Project Gutenberg at this link.

[Licensing: This translation may be freely reused in any context, provided my translator's credit is preserved and its text remains unaltered.]

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羅生門
Rashōmon

芥川龍之介
Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Tr.: Serdar Yegulalp

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或日の暮方の事である。一人の下人が、羅生門の下で雨やみを待っていた。広い門の下には、この男の外に誰もいない。ただ、所々丹塗の剥げた、大きな円柱に、きりぎりすが一匹とまっている。羅生門が、朱雀大路にある以上は、この男の外にも、雨やみをする市女笠や揉烏帽子が、もう二三人はありそうなものである。それが、この男の外に誰もいない。

It was on a certain day, at sunset, when beneath the Rashō Gate — the Rashōmon — there sat a single genin[1] waiting for the rain to stop. There was nobody else underneath the wide gate — well, save for a single cricket, clinging to a massive pillar whose red lacquer was gradually flaking off. Since the Rashōmon was situated on Suzaku-oji, a major thoroughfare, it ought to have provided shelter for two or three other people — maybe a woman in a reed hat, or a courtier wearing his folded felt cap. That said, there was no one else there except that man.

何故かと云うと、この二三年、京都には、地震とか辻風とか火事とか饑饉とか云う災いがつづいて起こった。そこで洛中のさびれ方は一通りでない。旧記によると、仏像や仏具を打砕いて、その丹がついたり、金銀の箔（はく）がついたりした木を、路ばたにつみ重ねて薪の料（しろ）に売っていたと云うことである。洛中がその始末であるから、羅生門の修理などは、元より誰も捨てて顧みる者がなかった。するとその荒れ果てたのをよい事にして、狐狸（こり）が棲む。盗人が棲む。とうとうしまいには、引取り手のない死人を、この門へ持って来て、捨てて行くと云う習慣さえ出来た。そこで、日の目が見えなくなると、誰でも気味を悪がって、この門の近所へは足ぶみをしない事になってしまったのである。

The reason was, for the last two or three years one disaster after another — from earthquakes to whirlwinds, conflagrations to famine — had come to Kyoto, and the capitol had fallen into a decline that had no precedent. According to the chronicles of the age, people would smash up Buddhist statuary and implements, stack up the scraps on the side of the road — paint and gold foil and silver leaf still hanging from them — and sell them for firewood. Given the state that the capitol was in, the Rashōmon had been abandoned by most everyone anyway. Bit by bit it fell into ruins, and foxes and badgers began living there. Bandits as well. And finally, the top level of the gate soon became a dumping ground for corpses abandoned and unclaimed. Consequently, most everyone felt unnerved by the whole neighborhood and avoided it after the light of day could no longer be seen.

その代り又鴉が何処からか、たくさん集まって来た。昼間見ると、その鴉が何羽となく輪を描いて、高い鴟尾（しび）のまわりを啼きながら、飛びまわっている。殊に門の上の空が、夕焼けであかくなる時には、それが胡麻をまいたようにはっきり見えた。鴉は、勿論、門の上にある死人の肉を、啄みに来るのである。ーー尤も今日は、刻限が遅いせいか、一羽も見えない。唯、所々、崩れかかった、そうしてその崩れ目に長い草のはえた石段の上に、鴉の糞（くそ）が、点々と白くこびりついているのが見える。下人は七段ある石段の一番上の段に洗いざらした紺の襖（あお）の尻を据えて、右の頬に出来た、大きな面皰（にきび）を気にしながら、ぼんやり、雨のふるのを眺めているのである。

That said, innumerable crows flocked to that place. When seen during the day, their wings drew circles in the air; they cawed at each other as they rounded the high cornices and flitted back and forth. When seen at sunset, in the reddened sky over the gate, they resembled sesame seeds that had been sprinkled there. The crows were drawn, as could well be expected, to peck at the flesh of the dead piled above the gate. — But today, at that late hour, there was not one crow in sight. Gradually, all about, it had decayed, and as it had decayed tall grass had sprung up over the stone steps that were dotted with the crow’s white droppings. The genin had parked himself at the topmost of the seven stone steps; there, clad only in a robe of washed-out blue and with a huge, freshly-bloomed pimple bothering him on his right cheek, he stared blankly at the falling rain.

作者はさっき、「下人が雨やみを待っていた」と書いた。しかし、下人は、雨がやん でも格別どうしようと云う当てはない。ふだんなら、勿論、主人の家へ帰る可き筈であ る。所がその主人からは、四五日前に暇を出された。前にも書いたように、当時京都の 町は一通りならず衰微していた。今この下人が、永年、使われていた主人から暇を出さ れたのも、この衰微の小さな余波に外ならない。だから、「下人が雨やみを待っていた」 と云うよりも、「雨にふりこめられた下人が、行き所がなくて、途方にくれていた」と 云う方が、適当である。その上、今日の空模様も少なからずこの平安朝の下人の Sentimentalismeに影響した。申（さる）の刻下がりからふり出した雨は、未だに上 がるけしきがない。そこで、下人は、何を措いても差当たり明日の暮しをどうにかしよ うとしてーー云わばどうにもならない事を、どうにかしようとして、とりとめもない考 えをたどりながら、さっきから朱雀大路にふる雨の音を聞くともなく聞いていた。

I did write earlier that “the genin was waiting for the rain to stop”. However, it cannot be said that he had any real idea of what to do once the rain stopped. Under normal circumstances, of course, he would have returned to his master’s house. His master, however, had released him from his duties some four or five days ago.

[1] The word genin means “menial” or “person of low rank”, something that neither “servant”, “serf”, “underling” or “page” seemed to convey properly to my ears. Jay Rubin’s excellent translation uses “lowly servant”, but here I decided to simply use genin. Using the word untranslated in English (albeit annotated) actually seems to have the effect of making him that much more solitary — which seems entirely fitting here.