Now if the jelly-fish had minded his books at school, would he have been hoodwinked by the monkey? You may believe not. But his grandmother always said he would come to a bad end.
“I shall be some time finding it,” said the monkey. “You’d best be getting home to Dragonland. The King would be loath for you to be out after dark. You can call for me another day. _Sayonara._”
The monkey and the jelly-fish parted on the best of terms.
The minute the Dragon King set eyes on the jelly-fish, “Where’s the monkey?” he said.
“I’m to call for him another day,” said the jelly-fish. And he told all the tale.
The Dragon King flew into a towering rage. He called his executioners and bid them beat the jelly-fish.
“Break every bone in his body,” he cried; “beat him to a jelly.”
Alas for the sad fate of the jelly-fish! Jelly he remains to this very day.
As for the young Dragon Queen, she was fain to laugh when she heard the story.
“If I can’t have a monkey’s liver I must needs do without it,” she said. “Give me my best brocade gown and I will get up, for I feel a good deal better.”
Urashima was a fisherman of the Inland Sea.
Every night he plied his trade. He caught fishes both great and small, being upon the sea through the long hours of darkness. Thus he made his living.
Upon a certain night the moon shone brightly, making plain the paths of the sea. And Urashima kneeled in his boat and dabbled his right hand in the green water. Low he leaned, till his hair lay spread upon the waves, and he paid no heed to his boat that listed or to his trailing fishing-net. He drifted in his boat till he came to a haunted place. And he was neither waking nor sleeping, for the moon made him mad.
Then the Daughter of the Deep Sea arose, and she took the fisherman in her arms, and sank with him, down, down, to her cold sea cave. She laid him upon a sandy bed, and long did she look upon him. She cast her sea spell upon him, and sang her sea songs to him and held his eyes with hers.
She told him, “The Daughter of the Deep Sea.”
“Let me go home,” he said; “my little children wait and are tired.”
“Urashima, Thou Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Thou art beautiful; Thy long hair is twisted round my heart; Go not from me, Only forget thy home.”