The Nightingale and the Rose

Oscar Wilde

‘She said, “I will dance with you if you bring me a red rose”, ‘cried the young student, ‘but in all my garden there is no red rose. I have studied all that the wise men have written; yet my life is spoiled because I have no red rose and don’t know how or where to get one. What little things can make so great a difference to our happiness!’ His eyes filled with tears.

A little nightingale heard him from her nest in the old tree. She looked out through the leaves, and wondered at him.

‘Here at last I see a true lover’, said the nightingale. ‘I have sung about true love night after night, but I never saw a true lover. Night after night I have told the story of true love to the stars – and now at last I see a true lover!’

‘There will be a dance at the palace tomorrow’, said the student. ‘The Prince will be there, and my loved one will be among the company. If I bring her a red rose, she will dance with me until the sun comes up into the sky. If I bring her a red rose, I shall hold her in my arms and her hand will be in mine. But there is no red rose in my garden: so I shall sit alone and she will pass me by. She won’t need me, and my heart will break.’

‘Here indeed is the true lover’, said the nightingale. ‘He suffers what I sing about: what is joy to me is pain to him. Love is a wonderful thing. Gold and jewels can never buy it’.

The student cried, ‘the musicians will play and my love will dance to the music. Lords and great men, and rich men in their fine clothes, will crowd round her; but she won’t dance with me because I have no red rose to give her’. He lay down on the grass and put his face in his hands, and wept.

‘Why is he weeping?’ asked the little living things in the garden. ‘Why is he weeping?’ asked the flowers.

‘He is weeping for a red rose’, said the nightingale.

‘For a red rose!’ they cried. ‘How silly!’ and they laughed. But the nightingale understood. She spread her brown wings and flew up into the air. She passed across the garden like a shadow.

There was a beautiful rose-tree standing in the center of a grassy place. When she saw it, she flew down to it.

‘Give me a red rose’, she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song’.

‘I’m sorry’, said the rose-tree. ‘My roses are white – white as the snow on the mountain. Go to my brother on the other side of the garden. Perhaps he will give you what you want’.

So the nightingale flew to the other rose-tree. ‘Give me a red rose’, she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song’

I’m sorry’, answered the rose-tree; ‘my roses are yellow – yellow as the golden corn in the field. But go to my brother who grows below the student’s window, and perhaps he will give you what you want’.

So the nightingale flew over to the rose-tree, which was growing below the student’s window.

‘Give me a red rose’, she cried, ‘and I will sing you my sweetest song’.

‘My roses are red’, it answered, ‘but the winter cold has frozen my flowers and they have fallen, and the storm has broken my branches. I shall have no roses at all this year’.

‘One red rose is all I want’, cried the nightingale. ‘Only one red rose! Is there no way by which I can get it?’

‘There is a way’, answered the tree, ‘but I dare not tell it to you’.

‘Tell it to me’, said the nightingale. ‘I am not afraid’.

‘If you want a red rose’, said the tree, ‘you must build it out of music by moonlight and the redness must come from your hearts blood. You must sing to me all night long, and the thorn must cut open your heart and your life-blood must flow into me and become mine’.

‘Death is a great price to pay for a red rose’, cried the nightingale, ‘and life is very dear to us all. I love to sit in the green trees and watch the sun go down in gold and the silver moonrise up into the sky. I love to smell the flowers and wonder at their beauty. But love is better than life, and what is the heart of a bird beside the heart of a man?’

So she spread her brown wings and flew up into the air. She passed over the garden like a shadow. The young student was still lying in the grass and the tears were not yet dry in his eyes.

‘Be happy’, cried the nightingale. ‘You shall have your red rose. I’ll build it out of music by moonlight, and for its redness I’ll give it my own heart’s blood. All that I ask of you is that you will be a true lover, for love is wiser than the wise, and stronger than the powerful’.

The student looked up from the grass and listened, but he could not understand what the nightingale was saying to him, for he only knew the things, which are written down in books.

But the old tree understood, for he loved the little nightingale who had built her nest in his branches.

‘Sing me one last song’, he said. ‘I shall be sad and alone when you are gone’.

So the nightingale sang to the old tree, and her voice was like drops of water falling from a silver jar.

When she had finished her song, the student stood up and took out a notebook.

‘She has some beautiful notes in her voice, but her song does not mean anything or do any real good; it isn’t really useful. She hasn’t got true felling. She thinks only of her music. She is like most artists; the thinks only of her art and herself, not about others’.

He went into his room and lay down on his bed and began to think of his love. After a time he fell asleep.

When the moon shone in the sky, the nightingale flew to the rose tree. She pressed herself against the thorn. She sang all night, pressing against the thorn, and the cold moon listened. All the long night she sang, and the thorn went deeper and deeper, and her life-blood flowed away from her.

She sang first of the birth of love in the heart of a boy and a girl: and a wonderful rose came on the highest branch of the rose-tree. As song followed song, it opened. At first it was white – white as the cloud that hangs over the river, silver as the wings of the morning before the sun rises up into the sky.

The rose-tree cried to the nightingale to press closer against the thorn: ‘Press closer, little nightingale, or the day will come before the rose is finished.’

So the nightingale pressed closer against the thorn, and her song became louder, for she sang of the birth of love in the hearts of a man and a woman. The rose became red, but the heart of the rose remained white, for only the heart’s blood of a nightingale can color the heart of a rose.

The rose-tree cried to the nightingale to press closer against the thorn. ‘Press closer, little nightingale’, cried the rose-tree, ‘or the day will come before the rose is finished’.

So the nightingale pressed closer against the thorn. The thorn touched her heart and pain shot through her. As the pain became worse and worse, her song became wilder and wilder, for she sang of the love which is made perfect by death.

The rose became deep red. The heart of the rose was as red as a jewel. But the nightingale’s voice became weaker and weaker; her little wings no longer moved, and darkness came over her eyes.

Her voice rose up in a last wonderful song. The moon heard it and waited in the sky. The red rose heard it and opened wide to the cold morning air.

‘Look! Look!’ cried the rose-tree, ‘the rose is finished now’. But the nightingale made no answer, for she was lying dead in the log grass with the thorn in her heart.

At midday the student opened his window and looked out.

‘Ha!’ he cried, ‘here is a red rose! Just what I wanted! I have never seen any rose like it in all my life. I am sure it is so beautiful that it has a long name in the Latin language’. So he put out his hand and took it.

Then he put on his hat and ran to the learned doctor’s house with the rose in his hand. The learned doctor was the student’s teacher, and the student loved his daughter. She was sitting at the door of the house and her little dog was lying at her feet.

‘You said that you would dance with me if I brought you a red rose’, cried the student. ‘Here is the reddest rose in the entire world. You can wear it tonight next to your heart, and, as we dance together, it will tell you how I love you.’

‘I’m sorry’, said the girl: ‘it won’t go with the color of my dress, and the captain has sent me some real jewels, and everyone knows that jewels cost far more than flowers’.

‘Well! Said the student angrily: ‘that’s all the thanks I get!’

He threw the rose into the street and a cartwheel went over it.

‘How dare you speak to me like that’! She got up from her chair and went into the house.

‘What a silly thing love is!’ said the student, as he walked away. ‘It isn’t nearly as useful as reason; it doesn’t prove the truth of anything. Love is always telling us of things which are not going to happen, and making us believe things which are not true. It is quite useless. In these difficult times we must learn useful things. I shall go back to my studies’.

So he returned to his room, and took out a big dusty book, and began to read.

Oscar Wilde. From his masterpiece: “The young king and other stories”

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