Offering of life
1992 (Year C) 4 October / Pentecost 17
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
This is obviously the Oscar Wilde story, but was written out and edited…
High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for his eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large ruby glowed on his sword hilt.
He was very much admired. ‘He looks like an angel,’ said the Charity children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores. One night there flew over the city a little swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful reed. He had met her in the spring and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
‘Shall I love you?’ said the swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the reed made a deep low bow. So he flew round and around her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship and it lasted all summer.
After the other swallows had gone he began to feel lonely. He began to tire of his lady-love. ‘Will you come with me?’ he said to her, but the reed shook her head. ‘You’ve been trifling with me,’ he cried. ‘I’m off to the pyramids. Good-bye.’
All day long he flew until he reached the great town. Then he saw the statue on the great column. ‘I will stay there,’ he cried. ‘It’s a fine position with plenty of air.’ ‘I have a golden bedroom,’ he said to himself But just as he prepared to go to sleep a large drop of water landed on his wing. He looked up but could see no cloud in the sky. Then he noticed the Happy Prince’s eyes were filled with tears. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘I am the Happy Prince,’ came the reply. ‘Then why are you weeping?’
‘When I was alive I did not know what tears were, for I lived in a palace where sorrow is not allowed. But now I am dead they’ve put me up here and I can see all the ugliness and misery in my city, and though my heart is made of lead I cannot chose but weep.’ ‘Far away,’ he continued, ‘there is a little street and in a poor house a woman is seated at a table. She is a seamstress. On a bed in the room lies a little boy. He has a fever and his mother has nothing to give him. Will you take the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened and I cannot move. Give it to her, then she can buy food for the child.’ ‘I am waited for in Egypt,’ said the swallow, but the price looked so sad that the swallow agreed to stay one night and act as the prince’s messenger. He took the ruby to the woman and flew back to the prince.
The next night the swallow flew up to the Happy Prince to say goodbye. ‘Little swallow,’ said the Prince. ‘Far away across the town I see a young man in a garret. He is trying to compose a play but the room is so cold he cannot write. Pluck out my eye and take it to him . He will be able to buy wood and then light a fire.’ The swallow agreed to stay one night more.
The next day he flew up to the Prince. ‘I have come to say goodbye,’ he said, but the prince still looked sad. ‘In the square below,’ said the Prince, ‘is a match girl, she is crying for she has dropped all the matches in the gutter. She needs money to take home to her father, pluck out my other eye and give it to her then she will be able to go home.’ ‘I will stay with you one night more but I will not pluck out your other eye. If I do you will be quite blind.’ ‘Do as I say,’ said the Prince. So the swallow took the last eye. ‘I will stay with you forever,’ he said when he came back to the Prince, ‘for you are quite blind now.’
The next day the swallow flew up to the Prince. ‘Go out over my city and tell me all you see,’ he was told. So the swallow flew out and reported all he saw. The rich making merry, whilst the beggars sat at their gates. ‘I am covered with fine gold,’ said the Prince. ‘Take it off leaf by leaf and give it to the poor.’ Leaf after leaf the bird took until the statue looked quite shabby.
Then the snows came. The swallow grew colder and colder until at last he knew he was to die. He had just enough strength to fly up to the prince. ‘Goodbye dear Prince,’ he said. ‘Will you let me kiss your hand?’ ‘I am glad you are going to Egypt,’ said the Prince. ‘You have stayed too long here, but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.’ ‘It’s not to Egypt I am going,’ said the swallow, ‘I am going to the house of death.’ And he kissed the prince on the lips and fell down dead at his feet. At that moment a strange crack sounded inside the statue as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two.
Early next morning the mayor was walking past the statue. ‘How shabby the Happy Prince looks,’ he said, ‘and here is actually a dead bird at his feet.’ So they pulled down the statue and melted it in a furnace, but they heart wouldn’t melt so they threw that, together with the bird onto the dust heap.
Bring me the two most precious things in the city,’ said God to one of his angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
‘You have rightly chosen,’ said God, ‘for in my garden of paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.’ AMEN