Story of the Foreign Fairy Chapter 31

All the songs of the East sing of the nightingale's love for the rose. In the quiet night when the stars are shining, the winged singer sings a love song to his fragrant flowers.

Not far from Smyrna (Note: Smyrna is a seaport in western Turkey.), under a tall plane tree, a businessman drove a group of camels carrying things. The herd of animals raised their long necks proudly and lumbered across the sacred ground. I saw a hedge of rose trees in full bloom. Wild pigeons fly among the tall branches. When the sun hits them, their wings glow like pearls.

There is a flower on the rose tree hedge, the most beautiful of all flowers. The nightingale sings to it the sorrows of his love. But the rose said not a word, and not a single dewdrop of a sympathetic tear appeared on its leaves. It just faces a few big rocks and hangs its branches.

"Here lies one of the greatest singers in the world!" said Rose. "I spread my fragrance upon his tomb; when the storm came, my petals fell upon it, and the singer of the Iliad became the dust of the earth from which I Sprout and grow from the dust! I am a rose that grows on Homer's tomb. I am too holy to bloom for a common nightingale."

So the nightingale kept singing until she died.