Peacock:
The Death of the Princess
A Matriarchal Tale from Transylvania
Once upon a time,
the sultan’s lonely daughter
watched the royal peacock
rise up from the seashore,
soaring past her window
to settle in the courtyard,
a sombre prison courtyard
steeped in fearful silence.
From his cell, a prisoner
also saw the peacock
and could not help singing:
Peacock, peacock, peacock,
blue and silver fire!
Were I but a peacock
sleek in plumed attire,
free as my desire,
I’d rise with the pearly
dawn and set out early.
I’d fly high and higher,
let the light caress me,
wandering people bless me,
no-one to possess me.
I would, as I tire,
seek out secret fountains
and in time would sow my
plumes beyond the mountains.
Someone might discover
flames among the flowers:
Peacock feathers! Peacock!
Blue and silver fire
burning like desire! –
Give them to a lover…
Startled by the song,
the royal girl descended
to the prison courtyard,
for the singer’s yearning
made her body tremble.
Guards! Who is to blame
for a song so tender?…
In the sultan’s name,
surrender that offender!
Thus the doors were opened.
Who are you, who are you,
with those chains that scar you?
Poor man, he replied:
You can see, a captive
soldier in a trap –
once a cheerful fellow,
now singing in this cell
for a peacock’s sake –
once a man, till taken
on a bloody hillside
by the enemy –
Nobody am I
just a song in irons,
yet the guards are still
accountable for me.
Singing soldier, dear,
come away from here.
Where to?
Come, she said,
to my silken bed.
Lonely princess, why
can’t you see my irons?
But she bade the guards
to free the captive singer;
and she softly led him
to her own apartment
where she washed his wounds
and brought him food and wine
and dropped her royal veil.
Singing soldier, dear,
you are mine alone.
Flameplumed lonely princess,
do not be my jailer.
Nobody alive
had ever fled the jail.
The sultan would have loathed
a living precedent.
The guards gave their account.
So the singer sang no more,
his broken body buried
gently by the waves.
A jealous father battered
down his daughter’s door.
Don’t you fear the block,
disloyal royal daughter,
said he with a hiss.
Seek death in the water,
or in a serpent’s kiss,
or waste away – Away! –
behind the prison lock.
From the singer’s cell,
the castle’s lonely princess
watched the royal peacock
in the prison courtyard,
that sombre, sundrenched courtyard
steeped in fearful silence.
She could not help but sing:
Peacock, peacock, peacock,
blue and silver fire!
Were I but a peacock
free as my desire,
I’d fly high and higher,
let the light caress me,
wandering people bless me,
no-one to possess me…
So the guards complained
that the singing princess
made their bodies tremble.
Now the sultan sent
their prisoner an asp.
She received the serpent
in her naked hand,
singing till the killer
slept in harmless coils:
I would, as I tire,
seek out secret fountains
and in time would sow my
plumes beyond the mountains…
But the singing stopped
when the sultan hurled
his daughter in the sea.
And the waves received her
and they gently rocked her
form in timeless motion;
and they merged the tales
of the yearning singers
that will live as long
as someone still remembers
their blazing bird of passion.
Someone might discover
flames among the flowers:
Peacock feathers! Peacock!
Blue and silver fire
burning like desire!
Give them to a lover.
Thomas Ország-Land is a poet and award-winning foreign correspondent, who writes from London and his native Budapest. His next book: The Survivors (Smokestack, 2014).