Washington Irving: The Complete Travel Sketches and Memoirs Collection. Washington Irving
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the limited range of his servant’s intellect is at his command.”
“Tell me then, O most profound of sages, what is the nature of this thing called love?”
Eben Bonabben was struck as with a thunderbolt. He trembled and turned pale, and felt as if his head sat but loosely on his shoulders.
“What could suggest such a question to my prince — where could he have learnt so idle a word?”
The prince led him to the window of the tower. “Listen, O Eben Bonabben,” said he. The sage listened. The nightingale sat in a thicket below the tower, singing to his paramour the rose; from every blossomed spray and tufted grove rose a strain of melody; and love — love — love — was still the unvarying strain.
“Allah Akbar! God is great!” exclaimed the wise Bonabben. “Who shall pretend to keep this secret from the heart of man, when even the birds of the air conspire to betray it?”
Then turning to Ahmed—”O my prince,” cried he, “shut thine ears to these seductive strains. Close thy mind against this dangerous knowledge. Know that this love is the cause of half the ills of wretched mortality. It is this which produces bitterness and strife between brethren and friends; which causes treacherous murder and desolating war. Care and sorrow, weary days and sleepless nights, are its attendants. It withers the bloom and blights the joys of youth, and brings on the ills and griefs of premature old age. Allah preserve thee, my prince, in total ignorance of this thing called love!”
The sage Eben Bonabben hastily retired, leaving the prince plunged in still deeper perplexity. It was in vain he attempted to dismiss the subject from his mind; it still continued uppermost in his thoughts, and teased and exhausted him with vain conjectures. Surely, said he to himself, as he listened to the tuneful strains of the birds, there is no sorrow in those notes; every thing seems tenderness and joy. If love be a cause of such wretchedness and strife, why are not these birds drooping in solitude, or tearing each other in pieces, instead of fluttering cheerfully about the groves, or sporting with each other among flowers?
He lay one morning on his couch meditating on this inexplicable matter. The window of his chamber was open to admit the soft morning breeze, which came laden with the perfume of orange blossoms from the valley of the Darro. The voice of the nightingale was faintly heard, still chanting the wonted theme. As the prince was listening and sighing, there was a sudden rushing noise in the air; a beautiful dove, pursued by a hawk, darted in at the window, and fell panting on the floor; while the pursuer, balked of his prey, soared off to the mountains.
The prince took up the gasping bird, smoothed its feathers, and nestled it in his bosom. When he had soothed it by his caresses, he put it in a golden cage, and offered it, with his own hands, the whitest and finest of wheat and the purest of water. The bird, however, refused food, and sat drooping and pining, and uttering piteous moans.
“What aileth thee?” said Ahmed. “Hast thou not every thing thy heart can wish?”
“Alas, no!” replied the dove; “am I not separated from the partner of my heart, and that too in the happy springtime, the very season of love!”
“Of love!” echoed Ahmed; “I pray thee, my pretty bird, canst thou tell me what is love?”
“Too well can I, my prince. It is the torment of one, the felicity of two, the strife and enmity of three. It is a charm which draws two beings together, and unites them by delicious sympathies, making it happiness to be with each other, but misery to be apart. Is there no being to whom you are drawn by these ties of tender affection?”
“I like my old teacher Eben Bonabben better than any other being; but he is often tedious, and I occasionally feel myself happier without his society.”
“That is not the sympathy I mean. I speak of love, the great mystery and principle of life: the intoxicating revel of youth; the sober delight of age. Look forth, my prince, and behold how at this blest season all nature is full of love. Every created being has its mate; the most insignificant bird sings to its paramour; the very beetle woos its lady-beetle in the dust, and yon butterflies which you see fluttering high above the tower, and toying in the air, are happy in each other’s loves. Alas, my prince hast thou spent so many of the precious days of youth without knowing any thing of love? Is there no gentle being of another sex — no beautiful princess nor lovely damsel who has ensnared your heart, and filled your bosom with a soft tumult of pleasing pains and tender wishes?”
“I begin to understand,” said the prince, sighing; “such a tumult I have more than once experienced, without knowing the cause; and where should I seek for an object such as you describe, in this dismal solitude?”
A little further conversation ensued, and the first amatory lesson of the prince was complete.
“Alas!” said he, “if love be indeed such a delight, and its interruption such a misery, Allah forbid that I should mar the joy of any of its votaries.” He opened the cage, took out the dove, and having fondly kissed it, carried it to the window. “Go, happy bird,” said he, “rejoice with the partner of thy heart in the days of youth and springtime. Why should I make thee a fellow-prisoner in this dreary tower, where love can never enter?”
The dove flapped its wings in rapture, gave one vault into the air, and then swooped downward on whistling wings to the blooming bowers of the Darro.
The prince followed him with his eyes, and then gave way to bitter repining. The singing of the birds which once delighted him, now added to his bitterness. Love! love! love! Alas, poor youth! he now understood the strain.
His eyes flashed fire when next he beheld the sage Bonabben. “Why hast thou kept me in this abject ignorance?” cried he. “Why has the great mystery and principle of life been withheld from me, in which I find the meanest insect is so learned? Behold all nature is in a revel of delight. Every created being rejoices with its mate. This — this is the love about which I have sought instruction. Why am I alone debarred its enjoyment? Why has so much of my youth been wasted without a knowledge of its raptures?”
The sage Bonabben saw that all further reserve was useless; for the prince had acquired the dangerous and forbidden knowledge. He revealed to him, therefore, the predictions of the astrologers, and the precautions that had been taken in his education to avert the threatened evils. “And now, my prince,” added he, “my life is in your hands. Let the king your father discover that you have learned the passion of love while under my guardianship, and my head must answer for it.”
The prince was as reasonable as most young men of his age, and easily listened to the remonstrances of his tutor, since nothing pleaded against them. Besides, he really was attached to Eben Bonabben, and being as yet but theoretically acquainted with the passion of love, he consented to confine the knowledge of it to his own bosom, rather than endanger the head of the philosopher.
His discretion was doomed, however, to be put to still further proofs. A few mornings afterwards, as he was ruminating on the battlements of the tower, the dove which had been released by him came hovering in the air, and alighted fearlessly upon his shoulder.
The prince fondled it to his heart. “Happy bird,” said he, “who can fly, as it were, with the wings of the morning to the uttermost parts of the earth. Where hast thou been since we parted?”
“In a far country, my prince, whence I bring you tidings in reward for my liberty. In the wild compass of my flight, which extends over plain and mountain, as I was soaring in the air, I beheld below me a delightful garden with all kinds of fruits and flowers. It was in a green meadow, on the banks of a wandering stream; and in the centre of the garden was a stately palace. I alighted in one of the bowers to repose after my weary flight. On the green bank below me was a youthful princess, in the very sweetness and bloom of her years. She was surrounded by female attendants, young like herself, who decked her with garlands and coronets of flowers; but no flower of field or garden could compare with her for loveliness. Here, however, she bloomed in secret, for the garden was surrounded by high walls, and no mortal man was permitted to enter. When I beheld this beauteous maid, thus young and innocent and unspotted by the world, I thought, here is the