The old woman was spinning at her wheel near a fire of myrtle boughs
which burnt fragrantly in the open yard. Through the stone columns the
sea was visible, smooth, dark, and blue; the low sun bathed the brown
hills of the coast in a golden mist. It was December. The shepherds were
driving home their flocks, the work of the day was done, and a noise of
light laughter and rippling talk came from the Slaves’ quarter.
In the middle of the stone-flagged yard two little boys were playing at
quoits. Their eyes and hair were as dark as their brown skin, which had
been tanned by the sun. In one of the corners of the yard a fair-haired,
blue-eyed girl was nursing a kitten and singing it to sleep. The old
woman was singing too, or rather humming a tune to herself as she turned
her wheel. She was very old: her hair was white and silvery, and her
face was furrowed by a hundred wrinkles. Her eyes were blue as the sky,
and perhaps they had once been full of fire and laughter, but all that
had been quenched and washed out long ago, and Time, with his noiseless
chisel, had sharpened her delicate features and hollowed out her cheeks,
which were as white as ivory. But her hands as they twisted the wood
were the hands of a young woman, and seemed as though they had been
fashioned by a rare craftsman, so perfect were they in shape and
proportion, as firm as carved marble, as delicate as flowers.
The sun sank behind the hills of the coast, and a flood of scarlet light
spread along the West just above them, melting higher up into orange,
and still higher into a luminous blue, which turned to green later as
the evening deepened. The air was cool and sharp, and the little boys,
who had finished their game, drew near to the fire.
“Tell us a story,” said the elder of the two boys, as they curled
themselves up at the feet of the old woman.
“You know all my stories,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “You can tell us an old one.”
“Well,” said the old woman, “I suppose I must. There was once upon a
time a King and a Queen who had three sons and one daughter.” At the
sound of these words the little girl ran up and nestled in the folds of
the old woman’s long cloak.
“No, not that one,” one of the little boys interrupted, “tell us about
the Queen without a heart.” So the old woman began and said:--
“There was once upon a time a King and a Queen who had one daughter, and
they invited all the gods and goddesses to the feast which they gave in
honour of the birth of their child. The gods and goddesses came and
gave the child every gift they could think of; she was to be the most
beautiful woman in the whole world, she was to dance like the West wind,
to laugh like the stream, and to sing like the lark. Her hair should be
made of sunshine, and her eyes should be as the sea in midsummer. She
should excel in all things, in knowledge, in wit, and in skill; she
should be fleet of foot, a cunning harp-player, adept at all manner of
woman-like crafts, and deft with the needle and the spinning-wheel, and
at the loom. Zeus himself gave her stateliness and majesty, the Lord
of the Sun gave a voice as of a golden flute; Poseidon gave her the
laughter of all the waves of the sea, the King of the Underworld gave
her a red ruby to wear on her breast more precious than all the gems
of the world. Artemis gave her swiftness and radiance, Persephone the
fragrance and the freshness of all the flowers of spring; Pallas Athene
gave her curious knowledge and pleasant speech; and, lastly, the Seaborn
Goddess breathed upon her and gave her the beauty of the rose, the
pearl, the dew, and the shells and the foam of the sea. But, alas! the
King and Queen had forgotten to ask one guest. The Goddess of Envy and
Discord had been left out, and she came unbidden, and when all the gods
and goddesses had given their gifts, she said: ‘I too have a gift to
give, a gift that will be more precious to her than any. I will give
her a heart that shall be proof against all the onsets of the world.’
So saying the Goddess of Envy took away the child’s heart and put in its
place a heart of stone, hard as adamant, bright and glittering as a gem.
And the Goddess of Envy went her way mocking. The King and Queen were
greatly concerned, and they asked the gods and goddesses whether their
daughter would ever recover her human heart. They were told that the
Goddess of Envy would be obliged to give back the child’s heart to the
man who loved her enough to seek and to find it, and this would surely
happen; but when and how it was forbidden to them to reveal.
“The child grew up and became the wonder of the world. She was married
to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess
of Envy once more troubled the child’s life. For owing to her subtle
planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world,
and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia
to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men
and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for
ten years until the six-gated city was taken, and he brought his wife
home once more. Now during all the time the war lasted, although the
whole world was filled with the fame of the King’s wife and of her
beauty, there was not found one man who was willing to seek for her
heart and to find it, for some gave no credence to the tale, and others,
believing it, reasoned that the quest might last a life-time, and that
by the time they accomplished it the King’s wife would be an old woman,
and there would be fairer women in the world. Others, again, could not
believe that in so perfect a woman there could be any fault; they vowed
her heart must be one with her matchless beauty, and they said that even
if the tale were true, they preferred to worship her as she was, and
they would not have her be otherwise or changed by a hair’s breadth for
all the world. Some, indeed, did set out upon the quest, but abandoned
it soon from weariness and returned to bask in the beauty of the great
Queen.
“The years went by. The Queen journeyed to Egypt, to the mountains of
the South, and the cities of the desert; to the Pillars of Hercules and
to the islands of the West. Wherever she went her fame spread like fire,
and men fought and died for a glimpse of her marvellous beauty; and
wherever she passed she left behind her strife and sorrow like a burning
trail. After many voyages she returned home and lived prosperously.
The King her husband died, her children grew up and married and bore
children themselves, and she continued to live peacefully in her palace.
Her fame and her glory brought her neither joy nor sorrow, nor did she
heed the spell that she cast on the hearts of men.
“One day a harp-player came to her palace and sang and played before
her; he made music so ravishing and so sad that all who heard him wept
save the Queen, who listened and smiled, listless and indifferent. But
her smile filled him with such a passion of wonder and worship that he
resolved to rest no more until he had found her heart, for he knew the
tale. So he sought the whole world over in vain; and for years and years
he roamed the world fruitlessly. At last one day in a far country he
found a little bird in a trap and he set it free, and in return the bird
promised him that he should find the Queen’s heart. All he had to do was
to go home and to seek the Queen’s palace. So the harper went home to
the Queen’s palace, and when he reached it he found the Queen had grown
old; her hair was grey and there were lines on her cheek. But she smiled
on him, and he knelt down before her, for he loved her more than ever,
and to him she was as beautiful as ever she had been. At that moment,
for the first time in her life the Queen’s eyes filled with tears, for
her heart had been given back to her. And that is all the story.”
“And what happened to the harper?” asked one of the little boys.
“He lived in the palace and played to the Queen till he died.”
“And is the story true?” asked the other little boy.
“Yes,” said the old woman, “quite true.”
The boys jumped up and kissed the old woman, and the elder of them,
growing pensive, said:--
“Grandmother, were you ever young yourself?”
“Yes, my child,” said the old woman, smiling, “I was once young--a very
long time ago.”
She got up, for the twilight had come and it was almost dark. She walked
into the house, and as she rose she was neither bowed nor bent, but
she trod the ground with a straightness which was not stiff but full
of grace, and she moved royally like a goddess. As she walked past the
smoking flames the children noticed that large tears were welling from
her eyes and trickling down her faded cheek.