“The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde


                                     



               The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde is a fairy tale in which the first character that appears is a Student. He is sad because a girl promised to dance with him on condition that he brought her red roses, but he did not find any of this colour; there were white and yellow roses, but he could not find red ones. While he was moaning because her love would not dance with him, four characters from nature started to talk about him. A little Green Lizard, a Butterfly and a Daisy asked why he was weeping, and the Nightingale said that he was weeping for a red rose. The first three characters said that weeping for a red rose was ridiculous.



                      The Nightingale, who understood the Student’s feelings, started to fly until ‘she’ saw a Rose-tree. She told him to give her a red rose and she promised, in exchange, to sing her sweetest song, but the Rose-tree told her that his roses were white, and he sent the Nightingale to his brother that grew round the old sun-dial. The Nightingale went to see this new Rose-tree and, after promising the same in exchange for a red rose, the Rose-tree told her that his roses were yellow, but he sent the Nightingale to his brother, who grew beneath the Student's window. So the Nightingale went there, and when she arrived, she asked the Rose-tree to give her a red rose. The Rose-tree said that his roses were red, but that winter had chilled his veins and the frost had nipped his buds, so he could not give her a red rose. The Rose-tree suggested a solution: he told her that if she truly wanted a red rose, she had to build it out of music by moonlight and stain it with her own heart's blood. She had to sing to the Rose-tree with her breast against a thorn; the thorn would pierce her heart and her life-blood would flow into the Rose-tree veins. The Nightingale said that death was a great price to pay for a red rose, but at the end, she accepted.

               The Nightingale went to see the Student and told him that he would have his red rose, that she who would build it up with her own blood; the only thing she asked him for in return was to be a true lover. The Student looked at her, yet he could not understand anything because he only understood the things that were written down in books. But the Oak-tree understood and became sad because he was fond of the Nightingale, and asked her to sing the last song; when she finished, the Student thought that the Nightingale had form, but no feeling. At night, the Nightingale went to the Rose-tree and set her breast against the thorn. She sang all night long. She pressed closer and closer against the thorn until the thorn finally touched her heart and she felt a fierce pang of pain. The more the rose got red, the fainter the Nightingale's voice became, and after beating her wings, she died. The rose was finished, but she could not see it.

               The next morning, the Student saw the wonderful rose under his window. He took it and went to see the girl to offer her the rose, but she just said that the rose would not go with her dress and that the Chamberlain's nephew had sent her real jewels, adding that everybody knew that jewels cost far more than flowers. After arguing with her, the Student threw the rose into a gutter, where a cart-wheel crushed it, and he said that Love was a silly thing and that he preferred Logic and Philosophy.



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