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your-lovely-rose · 1 year

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“The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

Robert Browning's poem (published in 1842 in the volume Dramatic Lyrics) is based on a German legend written down by the Brothers Grimm, and recounts events that took place in the town of Hamelin on June 26, 1284.

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Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side;

A pleasanter spot you never spied;

But, when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,

To see the townsfolk suffer so

From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!

They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And eat the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,

And even spoiled the women's chats

By drowning their speaking

With shrieking and squeaking

In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body

To the Town Hall came flocking:

'Tis clear, cried they, our Mayor's a noddy;

And as for our Corporation — shocking

To think we buy gowns lined with ermine

For dolts that can't or won't determine

What's like to rid us of our vermin!

Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking

To find the remedy we're lacking,

Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!

At this the Mayor and Corporation

Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council,

At length the Mayor broke silence:

For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell;

I wish I were a mile hence!

It's easy to bid one rack one's brain —

I'm sure my poor head aches again

I've scratched it so, and all in vain.

Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!

Just as he said this, what should hap

At the chamber door but a gentle tap?

Bless us, cried the Mayor, what's that?

(With the Corporation as he sate,

Looking little though wondrous fat);

Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?

Anything like the sound of a rat

Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!

Come in! — the Mayor cried, looking bigger:

And in did come the strangest figure!

His queer long coat from heel to head

Was half of yellow and half of red;

And he himself was tall and thin,

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,

But lips where smiles went out and in —

There was no guessing his kith and kin!

And nobody could enough admire

The tall man and his quaint attire:

Quoth one: It's as my great-grandsire,

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!

He advanced to the council-table:

And, Please your honours, said he, I'm able,

By means of a secret charm, to draw

All creatures living beneath the sun,

That creep, or swim, or fly, or run,

After me so as you never saw!

And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole, and toad, and newt, and viper;

And people call me the Pied Piper.

(And here they noticed round his neck

A scarf of red and yellow stripe,

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque;

And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying

As if impatient to be playing

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled

Over his vesture so old-fangled.)

Yet, said he, poor piper as I am,

In Tartary I freed the Cham,

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;

I eased in Asia the Nizam

Of a monstrous brood of vampyre-bats:

And, as for what your brain bewilders,

If I can rid your town of rats

Will you give me a thousand guilders?

One? fifty thousand! — was the exclamation

Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

Into the street the Piper stept,

Smiling first a little smile,

As if he knew what magic slept

In his quiet pipe the while;

Then, like a musical adept,

To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,

And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,

Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,

You heard as if an army muttered;

And the muttering grew to a grumbling;

And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,

Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,

Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,

Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,

Families by tens and dozens,

Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives —

Followed the Piper for their lives.

From street to street he piped advancing,

And step for step they followed dancing,

Until they came to the river Weser

Wherein all plunged and perished

— Save one who, stout as Julius Caesar,

Swam across and lived to carry

(As he the manuscript he cherished)

To Rat-land home his commentary,

Which was, At the first shrill notes of the pipe,

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,

And putting apples, wondrous ripe,

Into a cider-press's gripe:

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,

And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,

And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,

And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;

And it seemed as if a voice

(Sweeter than by harp or by psaltery

Is breathed) called out, Oh rats, rejoice!

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!

'So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,

'Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!

And just as one bulky sugar-puncheon,

Ready staved, like a great sun shone

Glorious scarce an inch before me,

Just as methought it said, Come, bore me!

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me.

You should have heard the Hamelin people

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple;

Go, cried the Mayor, and get long poles!

Poke out the nests and block up the holes!

Consult with carpenters and builders,

And leave in our town not even a trace

Of the rats! — when suddenly up the face

Of the Piper perked in the market-place,

With a, First, if you please, my thousand guilders!

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;

So did the Corporation too.

For council dinners made rare havock

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;

And half the money would replenish

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow

With a gipsy coat of red and yellow!

Beside, quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,

Our business was done at the river's brink;

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,

And what's dead can't come to life, I think.

So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink

From the duty of giving you something for drink,

And a matter of money to put in your poke;

But, as for the guilders, what we spoke

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty;

A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!

The Piper's face fell, and he cried,

No trifling! I can't wait, beside!

I've promised to visit by dinner time

Bagdat, and accept the prime

Of the Head Cook's pottage, all he's rich in,

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen,

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor —

With him I proved no bargain-driver,

With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!

And folks who put me in a passion

May find me pipe after another fashion.

How? cried the Mayor, d'ye think I'll brook

Being worse treated than a Cook?

Insulted by a lazy ribald

With idle pipe and vesture piebald?

You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,

Blow your pipe there till you burst!

Once more he stept into the street;

And to his lips again

Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet

Soft notes as yet musician's cunning

Never gave th'enraptured air)

There was a rustling, that seem'd like a bustling

Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,

Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,

Little hands clapping, and little tongues chattering,

And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,

Out came the children running.

All the little boys and girls,

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood

As if they were changed into blocks of wood,

Unable to move a step, or cry

To the children merrily skipping by —

Could only follow with the eye

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.

But how the Mayor was on the rack,

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,

As the Piper turned from the High Street

To where the Weser rolled its waters

Right in the way of their sons and daughters!

However he turned from South to West,

And to Coppelburg Hill his steps addressed,

And after him the children pressed;

Great was the joy in every breast.

He never can cross that mighty top!

He's forced to let the piping drop,

And we shall see our children stop!

When, lo, as they reached the mountain's side,

A wondrous portal opened wide,

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;

And the Piper advanced and the children follow'd,

And when all were in to the very last,

The door in the mountain side shut fast.

Did I say, all? No! One was lame,

And could not dance the whole of the way;

And in after years, if you would blame

His sadness, he was used to say, —

It's dull in our town since my playmates left!

I can't forget that I'm bereft

Of all the pleasant sights they see,

Which the Piper also promised me;

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,

Joining the town and just at hand,

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,

And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

And every thing was strange and new;

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,

And their dogs outran our fallow deer,

And honey-bees had lost their stings,

And horses were born with eagles' wings:

And just as I felt assured

My lame foot would be speedily cured,

The music stopped and I stood still,

And found myself outside the Hill,

Left alone against my will,

To go now limping as before,

And never hear of that country more!

Alas, alas for Hamelin!

There came into many a burgher's pate

A text which says, that Heaven's Gate

Opes to the Rich at as easy a rate

As the needle's eye takes a camel in!

The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,

To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,

Wherever it was men's lot to find him,

Silver and gold to his heart's content,

If he'd only return the way he went,

And bring the children behind him.

But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavour,

And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,

They made a decree that lawyers never

Should think their records dated duly

If, after the day of the month and year,

These words did not as well appear,

"And so long after what happened here

"On the Twenty-second of July,

"Thirteen hundred and Seventy-six:"

And the better in memory to fix

The place of the Children's last retreat,

They called it, The Pied Piper's Street —

Where any one playing on pipe or tabor

Was sure for the future to lose his labour.

Nor suffered they Hostelry or Tavern

To shock with mirth a street so solemn;

But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column,

And on the Great Church Window painted

The same, to make the world acquainted

How their children were stolen away;

And there it stands to this very day.

And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there's a tribe

Of alien people who ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbours lay such stress

To their fathers and mothers having risen

Out of some subterraneous prison

Into which they were trepanned

Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,

But how or why, they don't understand.

So, Willy, let you and me be wipers

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers:

And, whether they pipe us from rats or from mice,

If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

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← [Differences/Divergences] | [Short summary] →

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itsmoonpeaches · 3 years

Note

For the dialogue prompt: 36 (“Tell me I’m wrong.”) & 37 (“Lie to me then.”) in the same ficlet? I also want you to know that the Bumi Babysitting ficlet was *adorable* and beyond my wildest hopes.

Oh a double whammy! This one is for @penguinsledder too because she also asked for #37! I hope you like this one as much as you liked the Bumi Babysitting one! :) It’s a bit of an AU!

She was Katara of the Southern Water Tribe. She should not feel this way. Not ever. There were ancient rules that they had to follow, and she was breaking all of them at once.

Not just anyone could become a companion to the Avatar, least of all have the lingering need for him that she held in her heart. It was a matter of decorum, of class. Someone like the Avatar was too important to have trivial relationships with.

She was not a companion. She was a friend. Katara and Avatar Aang had been students together, learning the art of waterbending when he was fifteen and she was seventeen. She had been much more advanced than him at first, but he caught up to her in months. She should have known that Aang, who had figured out on his own that he was the Avatar a year before he was supposed to, would be talented in more than one element.

He had already been a prodigy with the Air Nomads, becoming a master at twelve. But they said that as he was teaching a group of acolytes an advanced form one day, he had accidentally waterbended to save one from slipping into the nearby lake after a failed attempt at producing a tornado. His life had changed after that, and he was sent from the Southern Air Temple to the Southern Water Tribe to learn with Master Ila and her students.

Katara remembered the first thing Avatar Aang said to her. “I’ve never seen someone bend like you,” he had wondered aloud. “You bend like it’s a dance. It’s beautiful.”

He complimented her often, asked her to go penguin sledding with him and the children even. She had protested at first, stating that it was an activity meant for those much younger than them.

“Katara, you still are a kid, and so am I,” he told her that morning with a warm grin on his face. “It doesn’t matter that we’re older. It just matters that we remember how to have fun.”

She took his hand after that, laughing in his wake. Snow was a shimmering white curtain around them that made his silvery eyes sparkle in the sunlight. She liked his eyes.

But in just a year, it was time for him to leave. She could remember how her heart plummeted. It was like a part of herself was about to disappear. He had become her best friend in a short amount of time. They had become waterbending masters together.

Master Ila had become his companion. She traveled with him to the Earth Kingdom to learn from Master Hong, and then the Fire Nation to learn with Master Yuzuki.

In the two years that it took for him to travel the world to master the remaining elements, she and Aang wrote to each other. They saw each other on occasion. This was when he came to visit a dignitary from the Northern Water Tribe that had come to visit Katara’s home. Her older brother, Sokka, often came to greet him. Their father was considered a leader after all, but he was not as important as the chief.

At twenty, she was considered a little older than the marriable age which in the Southern Water Tribe was eighteen. Hahn asked her a few times for her hand. He was persistent and annoying.

“C’mon, you’re the most talented bender of our tribe! You and I would be a match made in the Spirit World!” he had exclaimed in front of her door. “With me being the best warrior and your bending, you would be the perfect wife!”

Katara admitted that she indulged the idea for a little bit. She had gone on a few dates, but Hahn was too self-absorbed. All he cared about was how he looked to the leaders and elders. He did not respect her, nor did he see her as an equal. He insisted that she have five children for him, that she cook for him every day, that she change her job from a combat teacher to a healer. She had the ability to heal, of course, and she was unique in being the only combat waterbender in the tribe who could also heal. However, her skills were too dynamic to save for one facet of her abilities, and the masters knew it too.

“I need to be respected, Hahn,” she told him as she walked away. She ignored him after that.

She could not help but imagine what it would be like to spend her life with someone else, someone who cared for her because of who she was and not what she was. When she saw the other men of her tribe on their knees at her feet, offering her family dowries of unimaginable worth, she wanted to see someone else there. Someone who brought her laughter and comfort, who knew her better than she knew herself.

It was his eyes she saw, the silver of a storm cloud. How he could make her smile with the easiest joke, a nudge to her shoulder. His kind words of “You’re the best of us,” and “There is no one else like you.”

So, when she heard the news, she was crushed under the unforgiving high tide. He was coming to the Southern Water Tribe to see his betrothed, they said in whispers that reached her ears on shards of ice.

He arrived past midnight, and for some reason she heard his flying bison land before she was out her door. She had to see him, had to know. Tears prickled at her eyes.

She ran into his chest with a thud that hurt her insides more than her throbbing head.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she begged, gripping the orange and yellow of his Air Nomad robes. “Tell me you’re not coming here to marry.”

She wondered for a moment who the lucky person was. Were they someone she knew? Was it the beautiful Umi, or the handsome Toklo? Was it someone else entirely? She felt bitterness and jealousy spurn in her gut, a feeling she was unfamiliar with. She hated herself for it. She hated herself for feeling this, for wanting someone she could not have. Most of all, she hated herself for figuring out that she loved him too late.

Katara saw him tilt his head downwards. There were flurries stuck on his dark eyelashes. He was taller than when she had last seen him.

“I can’t tell you that,” he breathed.

Puffs of soft air brushed against her cheeks. She shuddered, closing her eyes tightly. She could not look at him as she pulled away, could not let him see the heartbreak in her eyes. “Lie to me then,” she trembled, failing to keep her voice steady. She could feel the heat buildup in her eyes.

“Okay,” he said, words carrying in the wind. “I hate you. I haven’t come here to ask you if you want to marry me.”

Katara quaked, hugging herself. The tears were scorching as they flowed. Then, she felt his arms around her, and she had the courage to look at him.

“Did you hear what I said?” he intoned with a gentle tenor. “I just lied to you.”

It was then that Katara realized what he had told her. She stared at him, shocked. Her lips parted as she tried to respond. His face came closer to hers, so close that his lips threatened to touch hers.

“Will you marry me, Master Katara?” he murmured. His gaze never wavered.

She gulped, panic settling in. “I’m not important enough to marry the Avatar,” she responded without hesitation. Years of this thought were difficult to quash.

“You are important,” he said to her. “To me. Even if the world thinks you aren’t, they should. You’re you, and I can only hope to be your equal.”

Katara thought that she could stand to break a few more rules. She asked him to kiss her.

#ask #justoceanmyth #penguinsledder #kataang #kataangtag #itsmoonpeaches ficlet #ficlets #avatar the last airbender #atla fanfic #katara #aang #atla #avatar

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