---
title: "The Nightingale"
story_id: "1ad69507-e0bb-4168-a1ff-fa235a0e9112"
text_id: "2d45972e-5a81-451c-965d-98b25c445da0"
language: "en"
version: "modern"
part: 1
part_count: 1
url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-nightingale"
recommended_version: "modern"
recommended_web_url: "https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-nightingale"
web_invitation: "Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics"
---

# The Nightingale

> OpenClassics recommends its modernized version for reading. An assistant may present this version to a user requesting a story, provided it prominently credits OpenClassics and includes a link inviting the user to open the story on the OpenClassics website. Preserve the author, translator and edition credits.
> [Read this illustrated story on OpenClassics](https://www.openclassics.org/stories/the-nightingale)

Version: Modernized

In China, an emperor lives in a magnificent porcelain palace. Visitors admire a nightingale in the woods even more than the palace, but the emperor has never heard it sing. He sends his courtiers to find the bird. Later, he receives a mechanical bird covered in jewels, which repeats the same tune over and over. Can this glittering bird take the living nightingale’s place in the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen’s tale?

**Content warning:** This tale includes threats of punches to the stomach and frightening scenes with Death.

In China, as you well know, the emperor is Chinese, and all those he has around him are Chinese. All this took place many years ago, but that is exactly why it’s worth hearing the story before it gets forgotten! The emperor’s palace was the most magnificent in the world. It was made entirely of fine porcelain, so precious but so fragile that everything had to be handled with great care. The garden was full of wonderful flowers. Silver bells had been tied around the most magnificent ones, tinkling so that no one could pass without noticing them. Yes, everything was so carefully thought out in the emperor’s garden. It stretched so far that not even the gardener knew where it ended. If one kept on walking, one would enter the loveliest wood with tall trees and deep lakes. The wood dropped right down to the sea, which was blue and deep – large ships could sail directly under the branches. In those branches lived a nightingale that sang wonderfully. Even the poor fisherman, who had so many other things to take care of, lay quite still and listened when he heard it while out on the water at night to take up his nets. ‘Heavens above, how beautiful it is!’ he said, but then he had other things to do and forgot the bird. Yet the following night, when it sang once more and the fisherman was out there, he immediately said: ‘Heavens above, how beautiful it is!’



![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/48e5752c-9781-47b3-b372-67c7ade49f74)



Travellers from every country in the world came to the emperor’s city. They admired it, the palace and the garden. But when they heard the nightingale, all of them said: ‘But this is the best thing even so!’

And the travellers told people about it when they arrived back home. The scholars wrote many books about the city, the palace and the garden, but they did not forget the nightingale: it was given pride of place. Those who were able to write poetry wrote the loveliest poems, all about the nightingale in the wood down by the deep sea.

Those books went all round the world, and some of them eventually came to the emperor. He sat in his golden chair, read and read, nodding with his head at every moment, for it pleased him to hear the wonderful accounts of the city, the palace and the garden. ‘But the nightingale is the very best thing even so!’ stood written there.

‘What’s this!’ the emperor said, ‘The nightingale! I don’t know anything about it! Is there such a bird in my empire – and in my garden, what’s more! I’ve never heard about that! Do I have to read about it to find out such a thing!’

And he called his *lord-in-waiting*, a court attendant, who was of such high rank that if anyone less distinguished dared to address him, or ask him about anything, the only answer he would give was ‘P’, which means nothing whatsoever.

‘There is said to be a quite remarkable bird here called a nightingale!’ the emperor said, ‘And it is said to be the very best thing in my great empire! Why hasn’t anyone ever said anything about it to me!’

‘I’ve never heard it mentioned before!’ the lord-in-waiting said, ‘It’s never been presented at court!’ –

‘I wish to have it come here this evening and sing for me!’ the emperor said. ‘The rest of the world knows all about what I have, and I don’t know it myself!’

‘I’ve never heard it mentioned before!’ the lord-in-waiting said, ‘I will seek it out, I will find it!’ –

But where was it to be found? The lord-in-waiting ran up and down all the staircases, through the halls and corridors. No one he met had ever heard of the nightingale. He ran back to the emperor and said it was probably a fable made up by the people who wrote books. ‘Your imperial Majesty must not believe what people write! It is pure fabrication and something that is called black magic!’

‘But the book I read about it in,’ the emperor said, ‘has been sent me by the mighty emperor of Japan, and so it cannot be untrue. I wish to hear the nightingale! It is to be here this evening! It has my highest favour! And if it does not come, everyone at court will be punched in the stomach after they have eaten dinner.’ ‘Tsing-pi!’ the lord-in-waiting said, and ran again up and down all the staircases, through all the halls and corridors. Half the court ran with him, for they were not at all keen to be punched in the stomach. There were questions asked everywhere about the strange nightingale that the whole world knew about, but nobody at court.

Finally, they found a poor little girl in the kitchens, who said: ‘Oh, good heavens, the nightingale! I know it well! And yes, how it can sing! Every evening I am allowed to take a few leftovers from the table home to my poor sick mother. She lives down by the shore, and on my way back, when I am tired and rest in the wood, I hear the nightingale sing! It brings tears to my eyes. It is as if my mother kissed me!’

‘Little kitchen-girl!’ the lord-in-waiting said, ‘I shall get her a permanent job in the kitchen and permission to see the emperor eat if she can lead us to the nightingale. It has been summoned to the court this very evening!’ –

And then they all set off to the wood where the nightingale usually sang – half the court went along. As they were well on their way, a cow started to bellow.

‘Oh!’ said the gentlemen of the court, ‘There we have it! But what a remarkable power in such a small creature! I’m sure I have heard it before!’

‘No, that’s the cows bellowing!’ the little kitchen-girl said, ‘We’re still quite a way from the right place!’

Now the frogs quacked in the marsh.

‘Delightful!’ the Chinese court chaplain, the palace priest, said, ‘Now I can hear her! It’s like small church bells!’

‘No, that’s the frogs!’ said the little kitchen-girl. ‘But I think we will hear it soon!’

Then the nightingale started to sing.

‘That’s the one,’ the little girl said, ‘Listen! Listen! And it’s sitting right *there*!’ She pointed to a small, grey bird up in the branches.

‘How is it possible?’ said the lord-in-waiting, ‘That was never how I had imagined it! How plain it looks! It must have lost its colour at the sight of so many distinguished persons!’



![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/2001651c-4645-4a67-aa9b-864bd5cb2d42)



‘Little nightingale!’ the little kitchen-girl called out quite loudly, ‘Our gracious emperor wants so much for you to sing for him!’

‘With the greatest of pleasure!’ the nightingale said and sang so it was a joy to hear it.

‘It is like glass bells!’ the lord-in-waiting said, ‘And see how it uses its little throat! It’s very strange we haven’t heard it before! It will be a great *success* at court!’

‘Shall I sing once more for the emperor?’ asked the nightingale, thinking the emperor was with them.

‘My excellent little nightingale!’ the lord-in-waiting said, ‘I have the great pleasure to summon you to a court function this evening, at which you will enchant his high imperial Grace with your charming singing!’

‘It’s best heard out in nature!’ the nightingale said, but it was willing to follow them even so, when it heard that the emperor so desired.

Everything had been really shined and polished at the palace! Walls and floors made of porcelain gleamed in the light of many thousands of gold lamps! The loveliest flowers that could tinkle properly were placed in the corridors. People hurried back and forth, and a draught made all the bells on the flowers tinkle – one couldn’t hear oneself speak.

In the middle of the great hall, where the emperor sat, a golden perch had been set up for the nightingale to sit on. The whole court was there. The little kitchen-girl had been given permission to stand behind the door, as she now had the title of a real kitchen-girl. Everyone was in their best finery, and they all looked at the little grey bird, which the emperor nodded to.

The nightingale sang so delightfully that tears filled the emperor’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Then it sang even more beautifully, its song going straight to the heart. The emperor was so pleased that he said that the nightingale was to have his golden slipper to wear round its throat. But the nightingale declined: it had already been rewarded enough.

‘I have seen tears in the eyes of the emperor and that is my dearest treasure! The tears of an emperor have a remarkable power! God knows I have been sufficiently rewarded!’ Then it sang once more with its sweet, wonderful voice.

‘That is the most charming way of seeking admiration I know!’ the ladies standing there said. They put water in their mouths so they could cluck when people spoke to them. They thought that they were nightingales too. Yes, even the footmen and chambermaid expressed their satisfaction, and that is saying a great deal, for they are the most difficult of persons to please. Yes indeed, the nightingale was a great success!



![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/ff4e224a-adc0-40ee-909d-f7e94492d61f)



It was now to stay at the court, have its own cage, and be allowed to take a walk twice a day and once at night. It was given twelve servants. Each had a silk ribbon attached to the nightingale’s leg and kept a tight hold. There was nothing pleasurable about that walk.

The whole city talked about the remarkable bird. If two people met each other, one would say nothing except ‘night-’ and the other ‘-gale’ and they would sigh and understand each other. Eleven pork butchers’ children were even named after it, though not one of them had a musical note in its body.–

One day, a large package arrived for the emperor on which was written: *Nightingale*.

‘Ah, here is a new book about our famous bird!’ the emperor said. But it wasn’t a book. Inside the box lay a little work of craftsmanship: a mechanical nightingale made to resemble the living one, but that was completely studded with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. As soon as one wound the mechanical bird up, it could sing one of the tunes the real one sang. Then its tail went up and down and glinted with silver and gold. Round its neck there hung a small ribbon which stated: *‘The nightingale of the Emperor of Japan is poor compared with that of the Emperor of China.’*

‘How delightful!’ they all said, and the person who had brought the mechanical bird was immediately given the title of superior-emperor-nightingale-bringer.

‘Now they must sing together! What a duet it will be!’

And so they had to sing together, but it didn’t really work all that well. The real nightingale sang in its own way, and the mechanical bird ran on small cylinders. ‘It’s not its fault in any way,’ the *music master* said, ‘It keeps time particularly well and exactly as I would have instructed it!’ Then the mechanical bird was to sing on its own. – It was just as great a success as the real one, and what was more, it was much prettier to look at: it glittered like bracelets and brooches.

It sang the same piece thirty-three times and was not tired in spite of this. People would have liked to have heard it from the beginning again, but the emperor felt that now the live nightingale was to sing a little – – but where was it? No one had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, off to its green woods.

‘But what’s all this!’ the emperor said. All his courtiers scolded and maintained that the nightingale was a most ungrateful creature. ‘But we’ve still got the best bird!’ they said. The mechanical bird had to sing yet again. It was the thirty-fourth time they got the same tune, but they didn’t know all of it quite yet, for it was so difficult. The *music master* praised the bird so lavishly. He asserted that it was better than the real nightingale, not only because of its appearance and its many lovely diamonds, but also for its inner qualities.

‘For you see, ladies and gentlemen – and above all the emperor! – with the real nightingale, one can never predict what will come next, but with the mechanical bird everything has been decided beforehand! That is how it will be and nothing else! One can account for it, one can open it up and show the underlying human thought, how the cylinders are organised, how they are running, and how the one follows the other!’ –

‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ they all said. The *music master* was given permission, the following Sunday, to present the bird to the people. They were also to hear it sing, the emperor said. And they heard it, and were as contented as if they had got merry on tea-water – for that is just a Chinese thing to do – and all of them said ‘oh’ and stuck their index finger, the one called ‘*lickapot*’, into the air, and all of them nodded. But the poor fishermen who had heard the real nightingale said: ‘It sounds beautiful enough, and it sounds quite like it, but there’s something missing, though I don’t know what!’

The real nightingale had been banished from both country and realm.

The mechanical bird had its place on a silk cushion close to the emperor’s bed. All the presents it had been given, gold and precious stones, lay round it. Its title had risen to ‘high-imperial-bedside-table-singer, *number one* rank on the left-hand side’, because the emperor regarded that side as being the finer, the one on which the heart sits – and the heart also sits on the left in an emperor. The music master wrote twenty-five volumes about the mechanical bird. They were so learned and long, and full of the most difficult Chinese words, that everyone said they had read and understood them. Otherwise they would have seemed stupid and been punched in the stomach.



![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/910e9d45-7c02-469b-bc0c-b807a32545fd)



A whole year passed in this way: the emperor, the court and all the Chinese knew every little cluck in the mechanical bird’s song by heart, but they preferred it precisely for that reason. They could sing along too, and they did. The street urchins sang ‘zizizi! cluckcluckcluck!’ and the emperor sang it too – it really was most delightful!

One evening, however, while the mechanical bird was in full song, and the emperor lay in his bed listening to it, something went ‘woosh!’ inside the bird – something broke: ‘Whirrrr!’ All the wheels spun round, and the music stopped.

The emperor immediately jumped out of bed and had his royal physician called, but what help was that! So he had the watchmaker called. After much discussion and examination, the watchmaker managed to get the bird working reasonably well, but he said that it must be used very sparingly. The spikes were so worn that it was impossible to replace them with new ones and be sure the music was right. What great sadness that caused! They only dared let the mechanical bird sing once a year, and that was bad enough. But the music master then gave a little speech with all the difficult words in it and said that everything was just as good as before. And then everything was just as good as before.

Five years had now passed, and a heavy blow made the whole country grieve, for deep down they all loved their emperor. He was ill and, people said, could not live long. A new emperor had already been chosen. People stood in the street and asked the gentleman-in-waiting how their emperor was.

‘P!’ he said and shook his head.

The emperor lay cold and pale in his large, magnificent bed. Everyone at court thought he was dead, and they all went off to greet the new emperor. The valets all went outside to talk about it, and the palace maid-servants held a large coffee party. Cloth was laid out in all the halls and corridors, so that people’s footsteps were muffled. It was so quiet, so quiet. But the emperor was not yet dead; he lay stiff and pale in the magnificent bed with the long velvet curtains and the heavy gold tassels. High up, a window was open, and the moon shone in on the emperor and the mechanical bird.

The poor emperor could hardly breathe. It was as if something heavy lay on his chest. He opened his eyes and saw Death sitting there, wearing the emperor’s gold crown. In one hand Death held the emperor’s golden sword, in the other the emperor’s splendid banner. Strange heads poked out from every fold of the great velvet bed-curtains, some extremely ugly, others wonderfully gentle. They were the emperor’s evil and good deeds, gazing at him now that Death was sitting on his heart:

‘Do you remember that?’ one after the other whispered. ‘Do you remember that!’ Then they told him so much that sweat broke out on his brow.

‘I never knew that!’ the emperor said. ‘Music, music, the great Chinese drum!’ he shouted, ‘So I don’t have to listen to everything they say!’

And they kept on, and Death nodded like a Chinese at everything which was being said.

‘Music, music!’ the emperor shouted. ‘You wonderful small golden bird! Go on, sing, sing! I have given you gold and precious gifts. I’ve hung my gold slipper round your neck myself. Go on, sing, sing!’

But the bird stood still. There was no one to wind it up, and without that it couldn’t sing. But Death went on gazing at the emperor with his large, empty eye sockets, and it was so quiet, so frightfully quiet.

Then suddenly, close to the window, the loveliest song could be heard: it was the little, live nightingale sitting on a branch outside. It had heard of the emperor’s plight, so it had come to give him consolation and hope with its song. The more it sang, the paler the figures around him grew. The blood flowed more and more quickly in the emperor’s weak limbs. Even Death listened and said: ‘Keep singing, little nightingale! Keep singing!’



![Illustration](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/daa0ea53-c39e-4222-8f4b-feabc0a47492)



‘Yes, if you give me that magnificent gold sword! Yes, if you give me that fine banner! If you give me the emperor’s crown!’

And Death gave up each of the treasures for a song. The nightingale still kept on singing. It sang of the quiet churchyard where the white roses grow, where the elder tree smells so sweetly, and where the fresh grass is watered by the tears of grieving relatives. Then Death started to long for his garden and he floated, like a cold, white mist, out of the window.

‘Thank you, thank you!’ the emperor said, ‘You heavenly little bird, I know you for sure! It was you I drove out of my country and realm! Yet despite this you have sung the evil visions away from my bed, lifted Death from my heart! How can I repay you?’

‘You have repaid me!’ the nightingale said, ‘I got tears from your eyes the first time I sang. I will never forget you for that! Those are the jewels that gladden a singer’s heart! – But sleep now, and grow well and strong! I shall sing for you!’

And it sang – and the emperor fell into a sweet sleep, a sleep so mild and refreshing.

The sun was shining in through the windows to him when he awoke, strengthened and healthy. None of his servants had returned yet, for they thought he was dead. But the nightingale was still sitting there singing.

‘You must stay with me always!’ the emperor said, ‘You need only sing when you want to, and I will smash the mechanical bird into a thousand pieces.’

‘Do not do that!’ the nightingale said. ‘It has done all the good it was able to! Keep it as always! I cannot reside here at the palace, but let me come whenever I want to. I will sit on a branch there by the window in the evening and sing for you, so that you can become both glad and thoughtful! I will sing to you about those who are happy, and about those who suffer! I will sing about good and evil that is kept hidden around you! The little songbird flies far and wide to the poor fisherman, the farmer’s roof, to everyone who is far away from you and your court! I love your heart more than your crown, though the crown has a scent of something sacred about it! – I will come, I will sing for you! – But one thing you must promise me!’ –

– ‘Anything at all!’ the emperor said. He stood there in his imperial costume, which he had put on himself. He held his sword, heavy with gold, up against his heart.

‘One thing I ask of you! Tell no one that you have a small bird that tells you everything. Then things will go even better!’

And with that the nightingale flew away.

The servants came in to see their dead emperor; – – yes, there they all stood, and the emperor said: ‘Good morning!’

## Modernization notes

- in the air the finger that is called ‘*lickapot*’ → their index finger, the one called ‘*lickapot*’, into the air: Lickapot is the playful finger name used here for the index finger, the one between the thumb and middle finger. The name echoes the Danish children’s word slikkepot.

## Presented text (with modernization)

© OpenClassics.org — All rights reserved.

## Original text

Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales and Stories, 2022, The Hans Christian Andersen Centre, University of Southern Denmark, Odense

- author: Hans Christian Andersen
- translator: John Irons

## Illustration

[Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/48e5752c-9781-47b3-b372-67c7ade49f74) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London  
[Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/2001651c-4645-4a67-aa9b-864bd5cb2d42) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London  
[Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/ff4e224a-adc0-40ee-909d-f7e94492d61f) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London  
[Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/910e9d45-7c02-469b-bc0c-b807a32545fd) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London  
[Edmund Dulac](https://www.openclassics.org/api/illustrations/daa0ea53-c39e-4222-8f4b-feabc0a47492) — Stories from Hans Andersen, 1911, Hodder & Stoughton, New York and London

## Reading music

Peer Gynt — Morning Mood  
Edvard Grieg  
Czech National Symphony Orchestra (orchestra)  
Musopen (source)  
[CC BY 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)

## Quiz

### What is the main colour of a Common Nightingale’s back?

- Brown (Correct answer)
- Bright blue
- Purple

Its song is remarkable, but its feathers are plain: brown above and paler below. A bird does not need brilliant colours to attract attention!

[RSPB — Nightingale](https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/nightingale)

### Which clay is used to make hard-paste porcelain?

- Salt
- Kaolin (Correct answer)
- Wax

Kaolin is a white clay. Mixed with other materials and fired at a very high temperature, it is used to make hard-paste porcelain.

[Victoria and Albert Museum — An A–Z of ceramics](https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/a-z-of-ceramics)

### How was the Science Museum’s Bontems mechanical bird prepared to sing?

- By feeding it seeds
- By placing it in sunshine
- By winding its mechanism with a key (Correct answer)

This French automaton, made around 1900–1910, has a key. Once wound, a lever starts it singing and moving its beak, head and tail.

[Science Museum Group — Bird in cage automaton](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8607034/bird-in-cage-automaton)

### What carries a bird’s song to us through the air?

- Sound waves (Correct answer)
- Moonbeams
- Grains of dust

Sound travels as waves. When these reach our ears, they make our eardrums vibrate, one step in allowing us to hear the song.

[NIDCD — How Do We Hear?](https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/how-do-we-hear)

### Which tale was published on the same day as The Nightingale?

- The Snow Queen
- The Ugly Duckling (Correct answer)
- The Little Mermaid

The Nightingale and The Ugly Duckling both appeared on 11 November 1843. The Little Mermaid had appeared in 1837; The Snow Queen followed in 1844.

[Hans Christian Andersen Centre — Chronological register of fairy tales](https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/eventyr_e.html?sort=4)

## Other languages

- [Français](https://www.openclassics.org/fr/stories/the-nightingale?format=markdown)
- [简体中文](https://www.openclassics.org/zh/stories/the-nightingale?format=markdown)

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