But the nightingale missed his forest. He sometimes returned to it for a day
or two, and then the courtiers would wait in vain for a concert. The nightingale
grew sad over having to sing only for rich and powerful people. He missed the
fishermen who would listen with such simple, robust joy. Sometimes they would
cry openly, these great big men, just to hear his ode to the morning.
In comparison, the court was rife with gossip and intrigue. The nightin-
gale observed friends stabbing friends in the back to gain favor. He witnessed
lies and deception. He saw that those at court valued only material things like
silk, jewels, and property. As his heart grew more heavy, the nightingale sang
less, and he stopped coming to the window altogether. The empress grew quite
annoyed with him.
One night he finally came to her window and expressed his desire to go
home.
“Ungrateful bird,” she sniffed. “I honored you. I offered you a gilded cage
inmy palace, and you choose a silly tree in the woods. Your song is still pleas-
ing, but it is full of melancholy and brings thoughts I do not want. Go then,
and never return, you are no longer wanted here.”
But the nightingale paused. “These thoughts you speak of, what are these
thoughts?”
The empress shivered. “Thoughts you were meant to banish, not recall.”
The bird hopped a bit closer to the woman. Without her dazzling finery
and jeweled crown, her face looked older, pale, and sad. He saw worry had
drawn her mouth into a thin line.
“Ah,” he said, “you have done some very bad things to people, and now
they come and haunt you. You feel their ghosts collect around you.”
The empress jerked her head up in sudden rage. “How dare you criticize
the conduct of the daughter of glory! I am Empress Wu of the Zhou Dynasty,
and you are a silly bird who eats bugs and serenades fishermen! Guards! Catch
this bird! I will clip his wings and feed him to the cats!”
But the nightingale had no intention of being captured. He wisely flut-
tered away into the night with a single, haunting trill, one which brought all
the ghosts to haunt the empress from every corner of her mind. When the
guards arrived, they found her huddled in her great bed with pillows clutched
toher face, and she was moaning and crying, “No more! No more!”
So began the terrible illness of Empress Wu. She could not be left alone
and had a retinue of ladies to attend her, but she grew terribly paranoid of eachSTABBINGFRIENDS
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