The Mermaid.
Fairy Tale by Hans Christian Anderson.
“She became fonder and fonder of mankind, and longed more and more to be able to live among them; their world seemed so infinitely bigger than hers. . .”
Far out at sea
the water is as blue as the bluest cornflower,
and as clear as the clearest crystal;
but it is very deep,
too deep for any cable to fathom,
and if many steeples
were piled on the top of one another
they would not reach from the bed of the sea
to the surface of the water.
It is down there
that the Mermen live.
Now don’t imagine that there are only bare white sands at the bottom; oh no!
the most wonderful trees
and plants grow there,
with such flexible stalks and leaves,
that at the slightest motion
of the water
they move just as if they were alive.
All the fish, big and little,
glide among the branches
just as, up here, birds glide
through the air.
‘Fisherwoman’
The Palace
of the
Merman King
lies in the very deepest part;
its walls are of coral
and the long pointed windows
of the clearest amber,
but the roof
is made of mussel shells
which open and shut
with the lapping of the water.
This has a lovely effect,
for there are gleaming pearls
in every shell,
any one of which would be the pride
of a queen’s crown.
Perseus and the Origin of Coral, ca. 1671
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection, 1975 (1975.1.661)
To be continued . . .
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