Urashima untied the red silk thread and slowly, fearfully opened the lid of the box. Suddenly there rushed out a little white cloud; it lingered a moment, and then rolled away far over the sea. But a sacred promise had been broken, and Urashima from a handsome youth became old and wrinkled. He staggered forward, his white hair and beard blowing in the wind. He looked out to sea, and then fell dead upon the shore.
Professor Chamberlain writes: "Urashima's tomb, together with his fishing-line, the casket given him by the maiden, and two stones said to be precious, are still shown at one of the temples in Kanagawa."
The Land of the Morning Calm
Chosen, the Land of the Morning Calm, was the old name for Korea,[2] and however poetical the phrase may be, it was, nevertheless, totally inapplicable to actual fact. In its early history it was a country divided against itself, and later on it was troubled with the invading armies of China and Japan, to say nothing of minor skirmishes with other countries. There is certainly a pathetic calm in Korea to-day, but it is the calm of a long-vanquished and persecuted nation. It now rests with Japan whether or not the Koreans rise from serfdom and regain something of that old hardihood that was at one time so prominent a feature of her northern men.
Long ago Korea came under the glamour of the Chinese civilisation, and it haunts her people to this day. Japan borrowed from Korea what Korea had borrowed from China. It was because Japan went on borrowing from the West when she had exhausted all that Korea and China could teach her that she eventually became, with the progressive stream of thought and action flowing vigorously through her, a world-power, while Korea remained a forlorn example of an almost stagnant country.
When Japan had succeeded in convincing Korea that she alone could be her faithful guide, Russia came, like a thief in the night, and established a military outpost at Wiju. The Russo-Japanese War resulted, and Korea became a Japanese colony, an experimental ground for social and political reform. Japan has waited long for Korea. May she find it at last, not a turbulent and rebellious country, but in very deed the Land of the Morning Calm. Korea in the past has contributed to the making of Japan's greatness in handing on the religion, art, and literature of China. Now it is Japan's turn to succour an impoverished country, and if the Morning Calm is united with the Rising Sun, there should be peace and prosperity in her new possession.
Professor J. H. Longford, in The Story of Korea, writes in regard to the invasion of the Empress Jingo: "Dr. Aston....contemptuously dismisses the whole as a myth founded on two very distinct historical facts—that there was, at the time of the alleged invasion, an Empress of Japan, a woman of real determination and ability, and that not one, but several Japanese invasions of Korea did occur, though at later periods, in which the Japanese did not invariably meet with the triumphant success that they claim for the Empress." We give below the picturesque legend of Japan's first invasion of Korea.
The Tide Jewels
One night the Empress Jingo, as she lay asleep in her tent, had a strange dream. She dreamt that a spirit came to her and told her of a wonderful land, a land in the West, full of treasures of gold and silver, a dazzling land, fair to look upon as a beautiful woman. The spirit informed her that the name of this country was Chosen (Korea), and that it might belong to Japan if she would set out and conquer this wealthy land.