“Alas and alack,” they cried, “what ails the Divinely Descended? Of a surety he is bewitched. Woe! woe! for he will die upon our hands.”
“Out upon them, every one,” cried the Mikado, “for a pack of tedious fools. As for me, I will do my own will and pleasure.”
He took her to his Summer Palace, where he prepared a great feast in her honour. To the feast were bidden all the highest of the land, princes and lords and ladies of high estate; and, willy-nilly, to the Summer Palace they all repaired, where was the Mikado, wan and wild, and mad with love, and Tamamo by his side, attired in scarlet and cloth of gold. Radiantly fair she was, and she poured the Mikado’s _saké_ out of a golden flagon.
“Other women are feeble toys beside you,” he said. “There’s not a woman here that’s fit to touch the end of your sleeve. O Tamamo, how I love you....”
He spoke loudly so that all could hear him, and laughed bitterly when he had spoken.
Now as the high company sat and feasted, the sky became overcast with black clouds, and the moon and the stars were hid. Suddenly a fearful wind tore through the Summer Palace and put out every torch in the great Hall of Feasting. And the rain came down in torrents. In the pitchy darkness fear and horror fell upon the assembly. The courtiers ran to and fro in a panic, the air was full of cries, the tables were overturned. The dishes and drinking-vessels crashed together, the _saké_ spilled and soaked into the white mats. Then a radiance was made visible. It came from the place where Tamamo was, and it streamed in long flames of fire from her body.
The Mikado cried aloud in a terrible voice, “Tamamo! Tamamo! Tamamo!” three times. And when he had done this he fell in a deathly swoon upon the ground.
And for many days he was thus, and he seemed either asleep or dead, and no one could recover him from his swoon.
Then the Wise and Holy Men of the land met together, and when they had prayed to the gods, they called to them Abé Yasu, the Diviner. They said:
“O Abé Yasu, learned in dark things, find out for us the cause, and if it may be, the cure, of our Lord’s strange sickness. Perform divination for us, O Abé Yasu.”
Then Abé Yasu performed divination, and he came before the Wise Men and said: