beams were her hands smoothing the wrinkles from his brow.
One of the moon-men offered the princess a medicine called the Elixir of Life, to purify her body from all earthly taint, this she tasted and folded some in the garment which she was to leave with Taketori. Another bright angel was about to wrap her in a mantle curiously wrought of brilliant feathers, when the princess exclaimed, “Wait a little! one who wears this garment breaks all earthly ties and I have yet one other duty to fulfil;” then, slowly, before them all, she began to write the following lines to the Mikado:
“Although Your Majesty has been pleased to send this great host to prevent my leaving this earth, yet I may not stay. I truly |
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grieve for Your Majesty's disappointment, for though I have been so rude as not to comply with Your August wishes, yet has Your Majesty deigned to keep me in Your Royal thoughts:” closing with these lines, “My latest thought on leaving earth, ere taking flight for heaven-has been of Thee.”
This she sent to the Mikado with the vial of the elixir.
Having thus bade farewell to earth, wrapped in the shining mantle,-old Taketori's grief and all her own sorrow forgotten,-mounting the chariot, accompanied by hundreds of warriors from the moon, the Princess Splendor rose towards the skies and vanished into the bright moonlight.
After the princess had gone her fosterparents, plunged in grief, wandered through |
