“No man more dead than he. His sons are dead and their sons are dead. Good even to you, stranger.”
Then Urashima was afraid. But he said, “I must go to the green valley where the dead sleep.” And to the valley he took his way.
He said, “How chill the night wind blows through the grass! The trees shiver and the leaves turn their pale backs to me.”
He said, “Hail, sad moon, that showest me all the quiet graves. Thou art nothing different from the moon of old.”
He said, “Here are my sons’ graves and their sons’ graves. Poor Urashima, there is no man more dead than he. Yet am I lonely among the ghosts....”
“Who will comfort me?” said Urashima.
The night wind sighed and nothing more.
Then he went back to the seashore. “Who will comfort me?” cried Urashima. But the sky was unmoved, and the mountain waves of the sea rolled on.
Urashima said, “There is the casket.” And he took it from his sleeve and opened it. There rose from it a faint white smoke that floated away and out to the far horizon.
“I grow very weary,” said Urashima. In a moment his hair turned as white as snow. He trembled, his body shrank, his eyes grew dim. He that had been so young and lusty swayed and tottered where he stood.