SYRINGA

SYRINGA

TO

DORA

SYRINGA

A great many years ago there lived a King who spent his days in travelling about to find the woman he could love and take to be his wife. Though the richest and most beautiful princesses offered him their hands in marriage, for none of them could he entertain the smallest affection. “It seems that I have had a dream,” he said. “Somewhere my Love is, but I have not found her yet!”

In those days the country over which he was lord had two Kings, one reigned and the other ruled; and as long as this was so, since his brother-King who ruled was married, his councillors allowed him who merely reigned to wander about at will in pursuit of his strange fancy.

When, however, the King who ruled died without leaving an heir, then those same councillors said, “This will not do; the State can wait no longer. Princes are born, and Kings die; love or no love, for your people’s sake you must marry!”

“Then why does he not marry me?” said the Queen-widow of the King that ruled.

The King that reigned said, “Rather than marry her I would marry my scullery-maid!” He became so terrified at the thought of her proposal that he took horse secretly by night, and rode away into the most secluded and uninhabited parts of his dominion.

Now here, as he rode along over many miles of barren moor and hill, one day, crossing a high ridge, he met the wind coming softly up out of the valley below him, and its breath upon his face was full of the perfume of some sweet flower. At that his heart, which had been so long listless and sad, seemed to awake within him. “Flower of my dream!” he cried; and soon saw below him, nestling in a corner of the valley, a small garden half hidden in the embrace of tall girdling trees.

Down he went joyfully, following the fragrant call till he came to the entrance of the place; and there, dismounting from his horse, he entered its green ways. A natural lawn mounted and hollowed before him in glossy sweeps, flowering shrubs dotted its heights, for the summer of the year was begun; but the scent which had taken hold of his heart came from a great bush of white bloom in the centre of all.

Under the bush lay a young and beautiful girl, and the blossoms were sprinkling down, one by one, like dropped kisses upon her dear face. So soon as the King saw her he knew that his search was at an end, and that his dream of years had come true.

Their glad eyes met softly through the flowers; and he said, “You had but to breathe for me, and I came!” For all her face and breath smelt to him of the blossoms she lay under.

She answered, “Three years I have lain with my ear upon the ground, and heard you going and coming, searching the world through; and now at last you are come!” She rose up to the King’s embrace, and they were to each other like old lovers long parted and at last met, so long had they known of love in their dreams.

Twilight was beginning as they turned and went out of the garden. The King said, “What is your name all these years?”

And she answered him with a voice like a bird singing, “Syringa my name was, Syringa my name is, and will be while life lasts.”

When they left the valley and went mounting the side of the hill, a sweet wind rose and rose, and came following them. All the way, as they rode, white blossoms came showering behind them, falling upon their faces and their hair, and whitening the track at their feet. Up to the city gates, where all the King’s court and his councillors stood watching and waiting for his return, the blossoms kept following them, like little scented moths fluttering round them in the darkness.

When the gates were opened, the whole city became full of the scent of the bride’s name.

So the marriage of the King who reigned was celebrated with all the joy and noise imaginable; for all the people laughed and shouted and clapped their hands when their eyes saw the beauty of the new Queen. But the dowager Queen, the widow of the King who ruled, put on yellow weeds, and shut herself up in a corner of the palace, eating unleavened bread and bitter herb sandwiches till all the rejoicings were over.

In a little while, however, she appeared to forget her grief, and, concealing her jealousy, made friends with the King who reigned, and with his Queen; and the King was glad in his great happiness to think that no heart in all the kingdom remained under a cloud.

For nearly a year the happiness of the King and Queen lasted and grew perfect. Every day that they lived together they loved each other more and more. But the Queen-widow waited and watched till an opportunity for her evil working should come in.

Presently people who looked at Syringa’s beauty began to say, “Is not such beauty more than human? Where does it come from, and what keeps it alive?” And though many in course of time learned to talk like this, no one ever seemed to know from whom such talk first came. Later, folk began to whisper instead of to talk. “We have heard,” they said, “one way by which such beauty can be kept alive, yet only one.” Then others were heard saying, “Have you heard that this man’s wife lost her child before it was a week old, and knows not where it can be gone; and that that man’s wife lost hers in the same way a week before? And who will lose hers this week that’s coming, if we don’t know yet, we soon shall know!” And shortly, sure enough, all through the city there were mothers mourning for the loss of their children, who had gone, none knew where, before they were even a week old; and more and more the crowd was taught to say, “Look how beautiful the Queen grows!” whenever she walked or rode.

The Queen-widow listened to all this, and laughed. In her own chamber she had a cage filled with little blue birds, who cried lamentably all day long.

Now, just when all the city-talk and the dark looks of the people had grown to a head, Queen Syringa gave birth to a little son; and the King’s joy was beyond all bounds. “Now,” thought the Queen-widow, “now or never! Now I will ruin her or die!”

She watched her opportunity, till one day she found Syringa lying alone upon her couch with the child asleep between her arms.

The wicked Queen saw that Syringa also was asleep. She stooped down over the child, whispering a spell, and as she clapped her hands it started from between its mother’s arms and flew away in the form of a little blue bird.

The Queen-widow did her best to catch the bird, but could not; then she took blood, and, smearing the Queen’s hands and face with it, left her lying there asleep.

So Syringa was found; and the noise of it went through the city how she had killed her own child in order to keep alive her wondrous beauty. The King tried with heart and soul not to believe so wicked a story against the wife he loved, but the evidence was too strong. When asked, the Queen could explain nothing. “When I went to sleep,” she said, “my child was in my arms, and when I awoke it was gone!”

Outside the palace all the people were crying for her to be put to death. “Give back to their mothers the babies that you have eaten!” they cried.

The King sent for his foster-brother, and told him to take the Queen away to some lonely and desolate place, and there to make an end of her. “She is too beautiful,” he said, “and I loved her too much. Let her be very far away from me when she dies!”

So that night the King’s foster-brother took the Queen, and set out in the direction of the waste places and the hills. All the day following they journeyed, till toward evening they came to the head of a valley, where a wind came to them carrying the rich scent of flowers. The Queen lifted her head and took in a deep breath; then she said, “If I have to die, let me die under the scent of those flowers!”

They went on till they came to a little garden lying in a curl of the valley. There in the centre of a lawn stood the great bush white with bloom, and a sweet fragrance blew out of it, filling all that space.

“If I must die,” said the Queen again, “let me lie down and drink in the scent of those flowers; afterwards I shall not complain.” So the King’s foster-brother gave her leave to go and lie down under the tree, and sat down close at hand to keep watch, so that she should not escape.

A small blue bird came and perched upon the bush over her head.

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird, and two white blossoms fell off like kisses upon the Queen’s face. She lifted her hands and threw kisses up to the flowers, and more and more they came down and settled upon her face.

“Syringa, Syringa!” sang the bird; and, hearing it, the King’s foster-brother’s heart became ready to break for grief.

The twilight deepened in the air around. All through the hours the bird sang on, and the flowers dropped down like pale tired moths in the dusk of the summer’s night, till where the Queen lay became white with a mass of blossoms that never stirred.

The heart of the King’s foster-brother grew heavier; “What if, after all, she be not wicked but good! To-morrow at sunrise I must kill her.”

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird.

Towards dawn he saw the tree all blossomless, only a great heap of petals, like a snow-covered grave, showed where the Queen lay; and the song of the bird had stopped.

“If she sleeps now,” thought the King’s foster-brother, “it will be merciful.” He drew out his sharp hunting-knife, and went softly up to the spot to carry out the King’s command.

So covered was she with blossoms, he could not tell which way lay her head; the heaviness of their dying scent almost made him swoon. Softly with his hand he brushed the petals apart to find a place where he might strike.

How deeply they lay! They seemed to be without end here in the centre of all. Presently his hand came upon green grass bent with the weight of blossoms, and dank with dew. He shut his eyes and started away, for the colour and the touch made a strange sorrow in his heart, and he knew that the Queen was not there.

He went away to the furthest part of the garden, and returned, and again searched, and still she was not there; only blossoms in a pile, and under them green grass.

“Syringa, Syringa!” sang the bird; and now there was a sort of triumph in its note.

The King’s foster-brother turned and went back to the city. All the way the blossoms drifted and blew after him along the track; till at evening he stood at the palace door in a wind of syringa scent, and dead flowers blew over his feet as he crossed the threshold.

Then he told the King all that he had seen and heard, and the King knew surely that his Queen, who had died so gentle and beloved a death, had been innocent of the crime laid to her charge. So great was his grief he could not rest; that very night he rose and journeyed till he came by day to the little garden; there he found the tree blossomless, and in the top of it he heard the blue bird crying, “Syringa, Syringa,” sadly and without ceasing.

But to the King there came no sign or sound of his love. He laid his head upon the ground at the foot of the tree, sighing, “My love, you lay three years with your ear to the ground listening for my feet; now I will lie and listen for yours!”

All the grass became wet with the tears of sorrow that the King shed; the tree waved and grew more green. In three days new blossoms looked out among the leaves; at night they fell upon his face, and he dreamed that Syringa’s lips were laid to his ear, and the tale of her betrayal whispered to him.

Then, knowing all, but determined for a time to let the truth lie buried in his heart, he caused the tree to be lifted from the ground and carried back and set secretly in the palace garden. And of all this, and of what he knew, he said nothing to the Queen-widow.

To the little blue bird that had followed the tree, and perched in its boughs, he said, “Be silent, little blue bird, and do not sing that name here.” At his word the little blue bird became silent as death, and sat motionless in the heart of the tree, never once breathing Syringa’s name.

At night the Prince would come and press his lips to the leaves of the tree and whisper, “Ah, love, how long is my heart to stay broken? And when will forgiveness blossom?”

But to the Queen-widow it appeared that the Prince was recovering from his grief; and when a year had gone round she began wooing him by stealth, seeming to pity him for the sorrow that the wickedness of his dead Queen had caused him.

Little by little he seemed to listen and open his heart to her; once he said, “All my grief would go if one whom I love could know that my heart, which once turned from her, has become wholly hers again.”

When the Queen-widow heard that said, she thought, “Surely now, in a short time, all my schemes are to be brought to a good end.”

One day as they walked and talked together in the gardens of the palace, they came upon a tree white and covered with blossom. “How I love that flower!” said the King; but the Queen-widow as soon as she smelt the scent of it turned pale and trembled. Up among the branches sat a little blue bird silently.

“Come here, and sit under this tree,” said the King, “and let me speak freely, for I am in sore want of a wife!” He drew her close under the leaves of the tree. “Here,” he thought, “I will make her speak; she shall confess all!” Over them a bough leaned down.

One of its blossoms touched the Queen-widow on the throat. “It has bitten me!” she shrieked. The branch sprang away, the whole tree opened and waved. Out of it the blossoms flew like a white swarm of angry bees.

“Syringa, Syringa!” cried the bird.

The Queen-widow caught herself by the throat and moaned, and lay down upon the grass to die.

As soon as her breath was gone, all the blossoms rose up again like a white column of cloud; down into their midst flew the blue bird.

Then, this way and that, the blossoms cast themselves loose into the wind, and out of their midst came Syringa herself, carrying her child in her arms. At her feet the Queen-widow lay quite dead, with her hand upon her throat. The little blue birds in the palace had broken out of their cage and were calling for their mothers with childish voices and laughter.

But the King knelt down before Syringa’s feet, pale and trembling, seeking pardon for having ever believed in her guilt. Swiftly Queen Syringa bent down, and in token of forgiveness held her child’s lips to his. Over them both her face and breath were fragrant as a garden full of sunshine.

When the King had kissed the child’s lips, she gave him her own.