鏡

解説

付記

満洲国の王は、不思議な鏡を持っていた。 それを覗いた者は誰であれ、自分の姿ではなく、王の姿しか映らない。 ある廷臣が言った。 「その奇跡の鏡を私にお与えください。 たとえ陛下の御前を離れていても、朝夕その面影を拝し、 大宇宙の真昼の太陽たる御顔を仰ぎ、ひれ伏すことができましょう」 王は喜んで鏡をその者の館に運ばせた。 だが、後日こっそり立ち寄ってみると、 鏡はがらくたの部屋に打ち捨てられ、 埃にまみれ、蜘蛛の巣に覆われていた。 王は激怒し、拳で鏡を打ち割って自らも手を傷つけた。 さらに怒りに駆られ、廷臣を投獄し、 鏡を修復させて宮殿へ戻した。 しかし再び覗き込むと、そこにあったのは王の姿ではなく―― 冠をかぶったロバの姿。 後ろ脚には血に染まった包帯が巻かれていた。 （細工師たちは最初からそれを見ていたが、恐れて報告できなかったのだ） 悟りを得た王は廷臣を釈放し、 鏡を玉座の背に据えて、長く正義と謙虚さをもって治めた。 そしてついに王が玉座で息絶えたとき、 鏡には光り輝く天使の姿が現れ、 今もそこに残っているという。

管理人コメント

Original

A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.

Additional notes

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king: "Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!" Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its hinder hooves—as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure of an angel, which remains to this day.