Come, mad-woman! Why all this fuss about a basket? You call it your lord’s basket; what lord can you mean?
TERUHI.
What lord should I mean but the lord of this land of Sunrise? Is there another?
Then follow a “mad dance” and song. The courtier orders her to come nearer the Imperial litter and dance again, that her follies may divert the Emperor.
She comes forward and dances the story of Wu Ti and Li Fu-jēn.[199] Nothing could console him for her death. He ordered her portrait to be painted on the walls of his palace. But, because the face neither laughed nor grieved, the sight of it increased his sorrow. Many wizards laboured at his command to summon her soul before him. At last one of them projected upon a screen some dim semblance of her face and form. But when the Emperor would have touched it, it vanished, and he stood in the palace alone.
COURTIER.
His Majesty commands you to show him your flower-basket.
(She holds the basket before the EMPEROR.)
COURTIER.
His Majesty has deigned to look at this basket. He says that without doubt it was a possession of his rural days.[200] He bids you forget the hateful letter that is with it and be mad no more. He will take you back with him to the palace.