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Title: A House of Pomegranates

 

Author: Oscar Wilde

 

Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #873]

[This file was first posted on April 8, 1997]

[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]

 

Edition: 10

 

Language: English

 

Character set encoding: ASCII

 

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES ***

 

Transcribed from the 1915 Methuen and Co. edition by David Price,

email [email protected]

A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES

Contents:

 

The Young King

 

The Birthday of the Infanta

 

The Fisherman and his Soul

 

The Star-child

THE YOUNG KING

[TO MARGARET LADY BROOKE—THE RANEE OF SARAWAK]

 

It was the night before the day fixed for his coronation, and the

young King was sitting alone in his beautiful chamber. His

courtiers had all taken their leave of him, bowing their heads to

the ground, according to the ceremonious usage of the day, and had

retired to the Great Hall of the Palace, to receive a few last

lessons from the Professor of Etiquette; there being some of them

who had still quite natural manners, which in a courtier is, I need

hardly say, a very grave offence.

 

The lad—for he was only a lad, being but sixteen years of age—was

not sorry at their departure, and had flung himself back with a

deep sigh of relief on the soft cushions of his embroidered couch,

lying there, wild-eyed and open-mouthed, like a brown woodland

Faun, or some young animal of the forest newly snared by the

hunters.

 

And, indeed, it was the hunters who had found him, coming upon him

almost by chance as, bare-limbed and pipe in hand, he was following

the flock of the poor goatherd who had brought him up, and whose

son he had always fancied himself to be. The child of the old

King’s only daughter by a secret marriage with one much beneath her

in station—a stranger, some said, who, by the wonderful magic of

his lute-playing, had made the young Princess love him; while

others spoke of an artist from Rimini, to whom the Princess had

shown much, perhaps too much honour, and who had suddenly

disappeared from the city, leaving his work in the Cathedral

unfinished—he had been, when but a week old, stolen away from his

mother’s side, as she slept, and given into the charge of a common

peasant and his wife, who were without children of their own, and

lived in a remote part of the forest, more than a day’s ride from

the town. Grief, or the plague, as the court physician stated, or,

as some suggested, a swift Italian poison administered in a cup of

spiced wine, slew, within an hour of her wakening, the white girl

who had given him birth, and as the trusty messenger who bare the

child across his saddle-bow stooped from his weary horse and

knocked at the rude door of the goatherd’s hut, the body of the

Princess was being lowered into an open grave that had been dug in

a deserted churchyard, beyond the city gates, a grave where it was

said that another body was also lying, that of a young man of

marvellous and foreign beauty, whose hands were tied behind him

with a knotted cord, and whose breast was stabbed with many red

wounds.

 

Such, at least, was the story that men whispered to each other.

Certain it was that the old King, when on his deathbed, whether

moved by remorse for his great sin, or merely desiring that the

kingdom should not pass away from his line, had had the lad sent

for, and, in the presence of the Council, had acknowledged him as

his heir.

 

And it seems that from the very first moment of his recognition he

had shown signs of that strange passion for beauty that was

destined to have so great an influence over his life. Those who

accompanied him to the suite of rooms set apart for his service,

often spoke of the cry of pleasure that broke from his lips when he

saw the delicate raiment and rich jewels that had been prepared for

him, and of the almost fierce joy with which he flung aside his

rough leathern tunic and coarse sheepskin cloak. He missed,

indeed, at times the fine freedom of his forest life, and was

always apt to chafe at the tedious Court ceremonies that occupied

so much of each day, but the wonderful palace—Joyeuse, as they

called it—of which he now found himself lord, seemed to him to be

a new world fresh-fashioned for his delight; and as soon as he

could escape from the council-board or audience-chamber, he would

run down the great staircase, with its lions of gilt bronze and its

steps of bright porphyry, and wander from room to room, and from

corridor to corridor, like one who was seeking to find in beauty an

anodyne from pain, a sort of restoration from sickness.

 

Upon these journeys of discovery, as he would call them—and,

indeed, they were to him real voyages through a marvellous land, he

would sometimes be accompanied by the slim, fair-haired Court

pages, with their floating mantles, and gay fluttering ribands; but

more often he would be alone, feeling through a certain quick

instinct, which was almost a divination, that the secrets of art

are best learned in secret, and that Beauty, like Wisdom, loves the

lonely worshipper.

 

Many curious stories were related about him at this period. It was

said that a stout Burgo-master, who had come to deliver a florid

oratorical address on behalf of the citizens of the town, had

caught sight of him kneeling in real adoration before a great

picture that had just been brought from Venice, and that seemed to

herald the worship of some new gods. On another occasion he had

been missed for several hours, and after a lengthened search had

been discovered in a little chamber in one of the northern turrets

of the palace gazing, as one in a trance, at a Greek gem carved

with the figure of Adonis. He had been seen, so the tale ran,

pressing his warm lips to the marble brow of an antique statue that

had been discovered in the bed of the river on the occasion of the

building of the stone bridge, and was inscribed with the name of

the Bithynian slave of Hadrian. He had passed a whole night in

noting the effect of the moonlight on a silver image of Endymion.

 

All rare and costly materials had certainly a great fascination for

him, and in his eagerness to procure them he had sent away many

merchants, some to traffic for amber with the rough fisher-folk of

the north seas, some to Egypt to look for that curious green

turquoise which is found only in the tombs of kings, and is said to

possess magical properties, some to Persia for silken carpets and

painted pottery, and others to India to buy gauze and stained

ivory, moonstones and bracelets of jade, sandal-wood and blue

enamel and shawls of fine wool.

 

But what had occupied him most was the robe he was to wear at his

coronation, the robe of tissued gold, and the ruby-studded crown,

and the sceptre with its rows and rings of pearls. Indeed, it was

of this that he was thinking to-night, as he lay back on his

luxurious couch, watching the great pinewood log that was burning

itself out on the open hearth. The designs, which were from the

hands of the most famous artists of the time, had been submitted to

him many months before, and he had given orders that the artificers

were to toil night and day to carry them out, and that the whole

world was to be searched for jewels that would be worthy of their

work. He saw himself in fancy standing at the high altar of the

cathedral in the fair raiment of a King, and a smile played and

lingered about his boyish lips, and lit up with a bright lustre his

dark woodland eyes.

 

After some time he rose from his seat, and leaning against the

carved penthouse of the chimney, looked round at the dimly-lit

room. The walls were hung with rich tapestries representing the

Triumph of Beauty. A large press, inlaid with agate and lapis-lazuli, filled one corner, and facing the window stood a curiously

wrought cabinet with lacquer panels of powdered and mosaiced gold,

on which were placed some delicate goblets of Venetian glass, and a

cup of dark-veined onyx. Pale poppies were broidered on the silk

coverlet of the bed, as though they had fallen from the tired hands

of sleep, and tall reeds of fluted ivory bare up the velvet canopy,

from which great tufts of ostrich plumes sprang, like white foam,

to the pallid silver of the fretted ceiling. A laughing Narcissus

in green bronze held a polished mirror above its head. On the

table stood a flat bowl of amethyst.

 

Outside he could see the huge dome of the cathedral, looming like a

bubble over the shadowy houses, and the weary sentinels pacing up

and down on the misty terrace by the river. Far away, in an

orchard, a nightingale was singing. A faint perfume of jasmine

came through the open window. He brushed his brown curls back from

his forehead, and taking up a lute, let his fingers stray across

the cords. His heavy eyelids drooped, and a strange languor came

over him. Never before had he felt so keenly, or with such

exquisite joy, the magic and the mystery of beautiful things.

 

When midnight sounded from the clock-tower he touched a bell, and

his pages entered and disrobed him with much ceremony, pouring

rose-water over his hands, and strewing flowers on his pillow. A

few moments after that they had left the room, he fell asleep.

 

And as he slept he dreamed a dream, and this was his dream.

 

He thought that he was standing in a long, low attic, amidst the

whir and clatter of many looms. The meagre daylight peered in

through the grated windows, and showed him the gaunt figures of the

weavers bending over their cases. Pale, sickly-looking children

were crouched on the huge crossbeams. As the shuttles dashed

through the warp they lifted up the heavy battens, and when the

shuttles stopped they let the battens fall and pressed the threads

together.