GREEN WILLOW & OTHER JAPANESE FAIRY TALES (1912)

Grace James

TAMAMO, THE FOX MAIDEN
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.
"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 was mad with love for Tamamo.
He took her to his Summer Palace, where he prepared a great feast in her honour. To the feast were bidden all the highest in 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 sake out of a golden flagon.
He looked into her eyes.
"Other women are feeble toys beside you," he said. "There's not a woman here who's fit to touch the end of your sleeve.
O Tamamo, how I love you..."