Item
The Nightingale: A Tale of Compassion
- Title
- en_US The Nightingale: A Tale of Compassion
- en_US Famous Fables
- en_US FF26
- Description
- en_US This is a hardbound book (hard cover)
- en_US First printing
- en_US Retold by Sarah Albee
- Creator
- en_US Albee, Sarah See all items with this value
- Contributor
- en_US Branch, Beverly
- Date
- 2016-01-25T20:35:59Z
- en_US 2013-04
- en_US 2006
- Date Available
- 2016-01-25T20:35:59Z
- Date Issued
- en_US 2006
- Abstract
- en_US This is a perennial story that is, I believe, sometimes presented as a fable. I find it highly romantic. It involves several key phases, and that fact may militate against its being considered a fable. First, an emperor discovers that he has a bird of unusual quality in his empire. Next, he brings it to his palace, where it is treated with respect but also confined and restricted. In a crucial next phase, a mechanical bird is brought in alongside of and even in competition to the natural nightingale. The mechanical bird can sing only one song, while the natural nightingale sings many. The nightingale reacts after a time by flying away, and the emperor in response banishes the natural nightingale from his palace. One might ask in an interjection if this banishment is not rather, from the nightingale's perspective, a liberation. The emperor eventually grows sick, and the mechanical bird fails. The natural nightingale returns, and the emperor grows healthy again. The nightingale promises to visit often. The emperor had wept the first time he heard the nightingale sing. When he asks from his sickbed what he can do to repay the nightingale, she answers that those tears long ago were already her payment.
- Identifier
- en_US 9781599390208
- en_US 8959 (Access ID)
- Language
- en_US eng
- Publisher
- en_US Reader's Digest Young Families
- en_US Pleasantville, NY
- Subject
- en_US PZ8.2.F368 Nig 2006 See all items with this value
- en_US One story See all items with this value
- en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value
- Type
- en_US Book, Whole
- Item sets
- Carlson Fable Collection Books