| The Peacock (A Matriarchal Tale from Transylvania) Once upon a time, the sultan's lonely daughter watched the royal peacock rise up from the seashore, soaring past her window to settle in the courtyard, a sombre prison courtyard steeped in fearful silence. From his cell, a prisoner also saw the peacock and could not help singing: "Peacock, peacock, peacock, blue and silver fire! Were I but a peacock sleek in plumed attire, free as my desire, I'd rise with the pearly dawn and set out early. I'd fly high and higher, let the light caress me, wandering people bless me, no-one to possess me. I would, as I tire, seek out secret fountains and in time would sow my plumes beyond the mountains. Someone might discover flames among the flowers: Peacock feathers! Peacock! Blue and silver fire burning like desire! ─ Give them to a lover...” Startled by the song, the royal girl descended to the prison courtyard, for the singer's yearning made her body tremble. "Guards! Who is to blame for a song so tender?... In the sultan's name, surrender the offender!" Thus the doors were opened. "Who are you, who are you, with those chains that scar you?" Poor man, he replied: "You can see, a captive soldier in a trap ─ once a cheerful fellow, now singing in this cell for a peacock's sake ─ once a man, till taken on a bloody hillside by the enemy ─ Nobody am I just a song in irons, yet the guards are still accountable for me." "Singing soldier, dear, come away from here." "Where to?" "Come," she said, "to my silken bed." "Lonely princess, why can't you see my irons?" But she bade the guards to free the captive singer; and she softly led him to her own apartment where she washed his wounds and brought him food and wine and dropped her royal veil. "Singing soldier, dear, you are mine alone." "Flameplumed lonely princess, do not be my jailer." Nobody alive had ever fled the jail. The sultan would have loathed a living precedent. The guards gave their account. So the singer sang no more, his broken body buried gently by the waves. A jealous father battered down his daughter's door. "Don't you fear the block, disloyal royal daughter," said he with a hiss. "Seek death in the water, or in a serpent's kiss, or waste away ─ Away! ─ behind the prison lock." From the singer's cell, the castle's lonely princess watched the royal peacock in the prison courtyard, that sombre, sundrenched courtyard steeped in fearful silence. She could not help but sing: "Peacock, peacock, peacock, blue and silver fire! Were I but a peacock free as my desire, I'd fly high and higher, let the light caress me, wandering people bless me, no-one to possess me..." So the guards complained that the singing princess made their bodies tremble. Now the sultan sent their prisoner an asp. She received the serpent in her naked hand, singing till the killer slept in harmless coils: "I would, as I tire, seek out secret fountains and in time would sow my plumes beyond the mountains..." But the singing stopped when the sultan hurled his daughter in the sea. And the waves received her and they gently rocked her form in timeless motion; and they merged the tales of the yearning singers that will live as long as someone still remembers their blazing bird of passion. "Someone might discover flames among the flowers: Peacock feathers! Peacock! Blue and silver fire burning like desire!" Give them to a lover. Thomas Land |
