The Princess

“ For if ye be the Princess, I will love ye,
Indeed I will, and honour ye, fight for ye,
Come, wipe your eyes; by Heaven she stinks; who art thou?
Stinks like a poyson'd Rat behind a hanging?
Woman, who art? like a rotten Cabbage.
2 Capt. Y'are much to blame, Sir, 'tis the Princess. ”

“ Answered the Princess, "O wretched old woman, where is my beloved, the handsome youth who lay last night in my bosom? Tell me whither he is gone." Now when the duenna heard this, the light starkened in her sight and she feared from her mischief with sore affright, and said to her, "O my Lady Budur, what unseemly words are these?" Cried the Princess, "Woe to thee pestilent crone that thou art! I ask thee again where is my beloved, the goodly youth with the shining face and the slender form, the jetty eyes and the joined eyebrows, who lay with me last night from supper-tide until near daybreak?" ”

“ There at a board by tome and paper sat, With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, All beauty compassed in a female form, The Princess; liker to the inhabitant Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, And so much grace and power, breathing down From over her arched brows, with every turn Lived through her to the tips of her long hands, And to her feet. ”

“ Then the Princess, just and noble of soul, recollected herself, regretting her words, knowing well that the burden of the Gods’ purpose is their own and cannot be charged upon a man, and she spoke gently to him, and when he was gone she sat alone mourning, recalling the face and voice of her Prince, and slowly as the strong grief overburdened her she slipped down strengthless from the golden cushions and lay upon the ground, her empty arms stretched out before her. ”

“ Could the Princess hurry away from the heart upon which her being bloomed and took root,—she, like a torn-up rosemary twig, whose roots, at the same time with those of a germinating wheat-grain, take a double hold of the earth? ”

“ Ere long, a wind from the west, from islands where palm trees blossom above the purple foam, brings in its breath the odour of unknown flowers to mingle with the balms of the garden, and the sweet suspiration of the princess—the princess who dreams, listening to the wind, that her lover, the captain of the emperor’s most redoubtable trireme of war, sailing the sky-blue seas beyond the horizon and the sunset, has remembered her wild and royal loveliness, and has breathed in his heart a secret sigh. ”

“ QUEEN (discovering the worst) . No! No! Not bread!
YELLOW PRINCE. Bread, madam, the staff of life. Come, madam, will you not eat? (She tries desperately.) What can be more delightful than a crust of bread by the wayside?
(The QUEEN shrieks and falls back in a swoon. The KING rushes out to her.)
KING (to YELLOW PRINCE) . Quick, quick, find the Princess.
YELLOW PRINCE. The Princess—find the Princess! (He goes vaguely off and we shall not see him again. But the WOODCUTTER and the PRINCESS do not need to be found. They are here.) ”

“ One day when she had grown up, her father looked at her, and saw that she was exactly like her mother, so he said to his councillors, ‘I will marry my daughter to one of you, and she shall be queen, for she is exactly like her dead mother, and when I die her husband shall be king.’ But when the Princess heard of her father’s decision, she was not at all pleased, and said to him, ‘Before I do your bidding, I must have three dresses; one as golden as the sun, one as silver as the moon, and one as shining as the stars. ”

“ Doth it contain a complaint of oppression or demand for the price of the stuff?' 'Out on thee!' answered the princess. 'There is none of this in it, nought but words of love and gallantry. This is all through thee: else how should this devil know me?' 'O my lady,' rejoined the old woman, 'thou sittest in thy high palace and none may win to thee, no, not even the birds of the air. God keep thee and keep thy youth from blame and reproach! Thou art a princess, the daughter of a king, and needest not reck of the barking of dogs. ”

“ The princess, as she left me to go down a long corridor to the dining apartment, took leave of me in a manner the most gracious, honouring me with a message to her majesty the queen of England, of her most respectful homage, and with her kind and affectionate remembrance to all the princesses, with warm assurances of her eternal attachment. ”

“ The days went by and the Princess grew more and more discouraged.
"Isn't it sad," the courtiers began whispering, "how the Princess has lost her looks! Do you suppose she ever was really beautiful or did we just imagine it?" ”

“ So the boy set forth on his journey home, with his friends for company; his heart full of gladness when he thought of the promise of the princess. But, one by one, his comrades dropped off at the places where they had first met him, and he was quite alone when he reached his native town and the gates of the palace. With the golden hen under his arm he presented himself before the king, and told his adventures, and how he was going to have for a wife a princess so wonderful and unlike all other princesses, that the star on her forehead could turn night into day. ”

“ As the White Lady, gliding between rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startling the Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam of moonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of all that is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. ”

“ The Princess received the homage of the glittering circle with the complacency of conscious rank, and repaid every bow with one of those sweet smiles, which to a courtier are irresistible evidences of his personal merit; to a lover, are spells that raise him from the lowest depths to the most rapturous altitudes; and to a woman, cost nothing whatever. ”

“ Surely he will abstain and return not to the like of this.’ ‘I fear,’ said the princess, ‘that, if I write to him, he will conceive hopes of me.’ Quoth the old woman, ‘When he reads thy threats and menace of punishment, he will desist.’ So the princess called for inkhorn and paper and pen of brass and wrote the following verses:
O thou who feignest thee the prey of love and wakefulness And plainst of that thou dost endure for passion and distress,
Thinkst thou, deluded one, to win thy wishes of the moon? Did ever any of a moon get union and liesse? ”

“ All the years of her life had never held half so much happiness as now lived in each of the moments when she held her little baby in her arms. And the years went on, and the King grew more and more clever at magic, and more and more disagreeable at home, and the Princess grew more beautiful and more dear every day she lived. ”

“ The Princess.
Are you absolutely certain that that is the princess?
Strübel.
Why, who else could it be?
The Princess.
Oh, 'round about a princess like that--there are such a lot of people. For instance, there is her waiting-woman, there's the seamstress and her assistants, there's----
Strübel.
But my dear young lady, if you only understood anything about these matters, you would have been certain at the very first glance that it was she--and no one else. Observe the nobility in every motion--the queenly grace with which she bends over the embroidery-frame----
The Princess. ”

“ The princess had admired his good looks and his self-devotion from the first, but when she found him so admired and courted by all the world too, her esteem and her love for him grew every day, till at last she consented to fulfil the king’s wish, and they were married with great pomp and rejoicing. Never was there a handsomer pair; and never was there a braver procession of lords and ladies and attendants, than that which followed them that day, with music and with bells, and the Three Black Dogs behind. ”

“ She clings to his arm——"
"Well, the path is rough," pleaded the Princess.
"And he supports her. He talks eagerly as he goes, but she says little, yet she looks at him, and bends her head to listen to him——"
"The water rippling over the stones makes such a noise," said the Princess. ”

“ But, alas! the Princess had a most terrible temper, and never was pleased with anything; so the young men, and even the old ones, were afraid to come near her.
She scolded from morning till night; she stamped her pretty foot with rage when any one spoke to her; and if ever her brothers tried to reason with her she boxed their ears so soundly that they were glad to let her alone. ”

“ When the princess heard that, she cast a sidelong glance, and beheld that noble lover of hers* [10] standing in the midst of his companions, looking like the moon having descended from heaven begirt by the planets, like the standard by which beauty is tested in others, raining nectar into the eyes. ”

“ The princess laughed scornfully and exclaimed, "What a foolish girl! She's giving herself trouble for nothing. No one who is not a princess can ever grow wings."
The princess turned the matter over in her mind, and when she arrived at her father's palace she went into her chamber, anointed herself with sweet-smelling perfumes, and then went down into the palace garden to wait for her wings to come. ”

“ Here the queen endeavoured to calm the princess by soft words. 'Daughter,' said she, 'how could any man come to you?' But instead of hearing her, the princess interrupted her, and flew out into such violence as obliged the queen to leave her, and retire in great affliction to inform the king of all that had passed. ”

“ The princess is one of those impenetrable women; she can make herself what she pleases to be: playful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or reflective, serious, and profound enough to excite anxiety. She came to Madame d'Espard's dinner with the intention of being a gentle, simple woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions: a woman full of soul, and calumniated, but resigned,—in short, a wounded angel. ”

“ Presently the eagles came flying in, and changed themselves into young men, and in a moment the Princess recognised her husband amongst them all, and tried to come out of her hiding-place; but the old man held her back. The youths seated themselves at the table; and now the Prince said again, while he took up the cup of wine:
‘A health to my dearest lady,
Long may she live and well!
But a curse on the cruel mother
That burnt my golden shell!’
Then the Princess could restrain herself no longer, but ran forward and threw her arms round her husband. ”

“ How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver. ”

“ When she entered, so beautiful she was that all the people turned to look at her. "Some high-born Princess has come!" they whispered to each other; and in her splendid gown and head-dress even her two sisters did not recognize her as the one they had left in her little attic room. ”

“ As time went on all the promises of the fairies came true. The Princess grew up so beautiful, modest, kind, and clever that every one who saw her could not but love her. Now it happened that on the very day when she was fifteen years old the King and Queen were away from home, and the Princess was left quite alone in the castle. ”

“ It was an emerald of marvellous beauty. It opened the moment the Princess touched it, and she found it contained a rose leaf, on which she read these verses.
Let the world learn, to its surprise, The wondrous power of thine eyes. Such is the love I bear to thee, It makes e'en torture dear to me.
The Princess could not recover from her astonishment. At length she called to her attendants, who were as much [Pg 136] surprised as Imis at the sight of the table and the baskets. The King, the Queen, and Philax hastened to the spot on the news of this extraordinary event. ”

“ It is dreadful!’
Now they perceived that she was a true Princess, because she had felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down quilts.
No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive. ”

“ Deep within every heart lies the slumbering Princess still. A hundred years and many another hundred have gone by, and round her palace-wall, round her star-broidered coverlet, her gold-fringed pillow, and her jet-black hair, the hedge has woven its ivies and woodbine, thorns and mistletoes. ”

“ These women of a past generation have carried off with them secrets which are very typical of their age. The Princess had a certain turn of the head, a way of dropping her glance and her remarks, a choice of words, which I look for in vain, even in my mother. ”

“ The Princess, overjoyed at finding yet another avenue of escape; for she thought that her father could never bring himself to sacrifice the ass, went to find him, and unfolded to him her latest desire. ”

“ The Princess is a massive lady with the organisation of an athlete and the confusion of tongues of a valet de place. She contrives to commit herself extraordinarily little in a great many languages, and is entertained and conversed with in detachments and relays, like an institution which goes on from generation to generation or a big building contracted for under a forfeit. ”

“ The Princess and her ama travelled quickly with the prince to the kingdom which claimed to possess the most beautiful princess in the world. It was already the night of the appointed festa when they arrived. The king’s army was drawn up to slay the prince. No one dreamed that the poor fisherman would be able to bring any princess at all with him, much less a beautiful one. The prince hid the princess in the box which the old ama carried on top of her head. ”

“ Princess?"
"I will go to the Council Chamber with milord," she answered. "And read most heavy papers of State; for if he shares my play I must share his work."
"To attend to the duties of sovereignty instead of listening to minstrels in a scented room is a fitting stone for the Princess to place in the invisible wall," commented the Wizard; then he looked around at the courtiers. ”