Urashima said, “There is the casket.” And he took it from his sleeve and opened it. There rose from it a faint white smoke that floated away and out to the far horizon.
“I grow very weary,” said Urashima. In a moment his hair turned as white as snow. He trembled, his body shrank, his eyes grew dim. He that had been so young and lusty swayed and tottered where he stood.
He made to shut the casket lid, but dropped it, saying, “Nay, the vapour of smoke is gone for ever. What matters it?”
He laid down his length upon the sand and died.
A pedlar journeyed with his pack upon the great high-road which leads to the city of Kioto. He found a child sitting all alone by the wayside.
“Well, my little girl,” he said, “and what make you all alone by the wayside?”
“What do you,” said the child, “with a staff and a pack, and sandals outworn?”
“I am bound for Kioto, and the Mikado’s Palace, to sell my gauds to the ladies of the Court.”
“You may come if you will,” said the Pedlar. So they went their ways together, and in time they came to Kioto and to the Mikado’s Palace. Here the child danced in the august presence of the Son of Heaven. She was as light as the sea-bird upon a wave’s crest. When she had made an end of dancing, the Mikado called her to him.
“Little maid,” he said, “what guerdon shall I give you? Ask!”
“O Divinely Descended,” said the child, “Son of the Gods ... I cannot ask.... I am afraid.”
The child murmured, “Let me stay in the bright presence of your Augustness.”
“So be it,” said the Mikado, and he received the child into his household. And he called her Tamamo.
Very speedily she became mistress of every lovely art. She could sing, and she could play upon any instrument of music. She had more skill in painting than any painter in the land; she was a wonder with the needle and a wonder at the loom. The poetry that she made moved men to tears and to laughter. The many thousand characters were child’s play to her, and all the hard philosophies she had at her fingers’ ends. She knew Confucius well enough, the Scriptures of Buddha, and the lore of Cathay. She was called the Exquisite Perfection, the Gold Unalloyed, the Jewel without Flaw.
Soon he clean forgot honour and duty and kingly state. Day and night he kept Tamamo by his side. He grew rough and fierce and passionate, so that his servants feared to approach him. He grew sick, listless, and languid, he pined, and his physicians could do nothing for him.