Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

The Nightingale and the Rose

(1888)

Oscar Wilde

(October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900)

"The Nightingale and the Rose" Notes

This short story was first published in the collection The Happy Prince and Other Tales published in 1888 after Wilde's tour of the US and Canada (1882) and after his marriage to Constance Lloyd (1884), when Wilde was thirty-four years old, his first son Cyril was three and his second son Vyvyan was two.

• The Holm Oak of Ventnor Downs, National Trust
  The Holm oak, Quercus ilex, is one of the few evergreen oak trees in the country but it is not a British native. It was introduced from the Mediterranean in the 1600s and brought to Ventnor around 1900 by the Victorians, who returned with many exotic plants from their travels abroad.
• Quercus ilex, Royal Horticultural Society
  Q. ilex is a large evergreen tree with black, finely cracked bark, developing a massive, rounded crown. Glossy dark green, ovate leaves, whitish beneath contrast with whitish young foliage and yellow catkins

• nightingale, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (with audio and video clip)
  Nightingales are slightly larger than robins, with a robust, broad-tailed, rather plain brown appearance. They are skulking and extremely local in their distribution in the UK while in much of southern Europe, they are common and more easily seen. The famous song is indeed of high quality, with a fast succession of high, low and rich notes that few other species can match.
  A secretive bird which likes nothing better than hiding in the middle of an impenetrable bush or thicket.
  They arrive in April and sing until late May and early June. They leave again from July to September. They can be heard singing throughout the day, as well as at night.

• "Hyacinthus," A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 2, ed. William Smith (London: Taylor and Walton, 1846) 532.
  HYACINTHUS (ϓάκινθος). 1. The youngest son of the Spartan king Amyclas and Diomede (Apollod. iii. 10. § 3; Paus. iii. 1. § 3, 19. § 4), but according to others a son of Pierus and Clio, or of Oebalus or Eurotas (Lucian, Dial. Deor. 14; Hygin. Fab. 271.) He was a youth of extraordinary beauty, and beloved by Thamyris and Apollo, who unintentionally killed him during a game of discus. (Apollod. i. 3. § 3.) Some traditions relate that he was beloved also by Boreas or Zephyrus, who, from jealousy of Apollo, drove the discus of the god against the head of the youth, and thus killed him. (Lucian, l. c; Serv. ad Virg. Eclog. iii. 63; Philostr. Imag. i.24; Ov. Met. x. 184.) From the blood of Hyacinthus there sprang the flower of the same name (hyacinth), on the leaves of which there appeared the exclamation of woe AI, AI, or the letter ϒ, being the initial of ϓάκινθος.
• Philostratus the Elder, Imagines, trans. Arthur Fairbanks (London: William Heinemann, 1931)
  Read the hyacinth, for there is writing on it which says it sprang from the earth in honour of a beautiful youth; and it laments him at the beginning of spring, doubtless because it was born from him when he died. Let no the meadow delay you with the flower, for it grows here also, not different from the flower which springs from the earth. The painting tells us that the hair of the youth is ‘hyacinthine,’ and that his blood, taking on life in the earth, has given the flower its own crimson colour. It flows from the head itself where the discus struck it.
• Ovid, Metamorphosis, book 10, trans. Brookes More (Boston: Cornhill, 1922)
  Then, when the youth and Phoebus were well stripped, and gleaming with rich olive oil, they tried a friendly contest with the discus. First Phoebus, well-poised, sent it awhirl through air, and cleft the clouds beyond with its broad weight; from which at length it fell down to the earth, a certain evidence of strength and skill. Heedless of danger Taenarides [Hyacinthus] rushed for eager glory of the game, resolved to get the discus. But it bounded back from off the hard earth, and struck full against your face, O Hyacinthus! Deadly pale the God's face went—as pallid as the boy's. With care he lifted the sad huddled form.
  The kind god tries to warm you back to life, and next endeavors to attend your wound, and stay your parting soul with healing herbs. His skill is no advantage, for the wound is past all art of cure. As if someone, when in a garden, breaks off violets, poppies, or lilies hung from golden stems, then drooping they must hang their withered heads, and gaze down towards the earth beneath them; so, the dying boy's face droops, and his bent neck, a burden to itself, falls back upon his shoulder: `You are fallen in your prime defrauded of your youth, O Oebalides [Hyakinthos]!' Moaned Apollo. `I can see in your sad wound my own guilt, and you are my cause of grief and self-reproach. My own hand gave you death unmerited—I only can be charged with your destruction.—What have I done wrong? Can it be called a fault to play with you? Should loving you be called a fault? And oh, that I might now give up my life for you! Or die with you! But since our destinies prevent us you shall always be with me, and you shall dwell upon my care-filled lips. The lyre struck by my hand, and my true songs will always celebrate you. A new flower you shall arise, with markings on your petals, close imitation of my constant moans: and there shall come another to be linked with this new flower, a valiant hero shall be known by the same marks upon its petals.'
  And while Phoebus, Apollo, sang these words with his truth-telling lips, behold the blood of Hyacinthus, which had poured out on the ground beside him and there stained the grass, was changed from blood; and in its place a flower, more beautiful than Tyrian dye, sprang up. It almost seemed a lily, were it not that one was purple and the other white. But Phoebus was not satisfied with this. For it was he who worked the miracle of his sad words inscribed on flower leaves. These letters AI, AI, are inscribed on them. And Sparta certainly is proud to honor Hyacinthus as her son; and his loved fame endures; and every year they celebrate his solemn festival.
• Hyakinthos, Theoi Greek Mythology

The next thing particularly noticeable is that everybody seems in a hurry to catch a train. This is a state of things which is not favourable to poetry or romance. Had Romeo or Juliet been in a constant state of anxiety about trains, or had their minds been agitated by the question of return-tickets, Shakespeare could not have given us those lovely balcony scenes which are so full of poetry and pathos.

America is the noisiest country that ever existed. One is waked up in the morning, not by the singing of the nightingale, but by the steam whistle. It is surprising that the sound practical sense of the Americans does not reduce this intolerable noise. All Art depends upon exquisite and delicate sensibility, and such continual turmoil must ultimately be destructive of the musical faculty.

There is not so much beauty to be found in American cities as in Oxford, Cambridge, Salisbury or Winchester, where are lovely relics of a beautiful age; but still there is a good deal of beauty to be seen in them now and then, but only where the American has not attempted to create it. Where the Americans have attempted to produce beauty they have signally failed. A remarkable characteristic of the Americans is the manner in which they have applied science to modern life.

Review Sheet

Characters

Nightingale – "'Here at last is a true lover,' said the Nightingale" (28)
Oak-tree –"But the Oak-tree understood, and felt sad, for he was very fond of the little Nightingale who had built her nest in his branches" (34)

Girl – "daughter of the Professor" (39); "'the Chamberlain's nephew has sent me some real jewels, and everybody knows that jewels cost far more than flowers" (40)

Sample Student Responses to Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose"

Study Question: 

Response 1:

Reference

Wilde, Oscar. "The Nightingale and the Rose." The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Illus. Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. 1888. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1894. 25–42. Print.

Further Reading

Mason, Stuart. Bibliography of Oscar Wilde. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1914. Print.

McCormack, Jerusha. "Telling Tales." The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde. Ed. Peter Raby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 102–7. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. De Profundis and Other Writings. Middlesex: Penguin, 1979. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. Essays and Lectures. 3^rd ed. London: Methuen, 1911. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. Five Plays. New York: Bantam, 1964. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. Oscar Wilde. Ed. Isobel Murray. Oxford: OUP, 1990. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. Oscar Wilde's Oxford Notebooks: A Portrait of Mind in the Making. Eds. Philip E. Smith II and Michael S. Helfand. New York: OUP, 1989. Print.

Wilde, Oscar. Plays, Prose Writings and Poems. Introd. Terry Eagleton. London: David Campbell, 1991. Print. Everyman's Library 42.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. London: Penguin, 1994. Print.

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Last updated August 16, 2015