The Nightingale and the Rose
"The Nightingale and the Rose" is a fairytale by Oscar Wilde in which a student falls in love with a professor’s daughter. The girl tells him she will dance with him if he brings her a red rose, but it’s winter and there are no red roses. The Nightingale overhears the student’s lament and decides to help him by sacrificing herself to create the rose. The Nightingale sings during the night, giving up her life for the sake of Love, allowing the rose’s thorn to pierce her heart to make a white rose red.
'Be happy,' cried the Nightingale, 'be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty. Flame-coloured are his wings, and coloured like flame is his body. His lips are sweet as honey, and his breath is like frankincense.'
In Our Version of the story, history is re-written, the Nightingale makes a partly red-stained white rose and recovers, and the student attends the ball with the girl he loves. She is overjoyed to receive the rose, telling The Great Poet his sentiments are worth more than all the assorted diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires in the universe and she dances with him all night. Love awakens, burning through her veins, turning her long hair bright flaming Red! The Great Poet recognizes he has found his True Love. He is grateful to the Nightingale for her part in bringing them together.
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Leonidas is the son of a Greek officer and Hilal is the daughter of a Turkish undercover soldier pretending to be Greek during the Greek occupation of Izmir. Writing under the name "Halit Ikbal", Hilal organizes with her friends to secretly publish a newspaper. The small publication gathers momentum among the people to take their first steps towards resistance. Leonidas, a lieutenant in the Greek army, discovers "Halit Ikbal" is Hilal and is the only person who knows her true identity, but he keeps the secret because he loves Hilal. Through her writing, Leon sees Hilal's commitment to exposing the deceptions of the occupiers and how she risked her life to stand up for the innocent and the oppressed. In one of the papers she distributed, she urges her people to not lose hope and each other, to go within and find the voice of Truth. The voice of your conscience will show you the right path...
Hilal as "Halit Ikbal" (Ep. 24, translated from Turkish):
Don't be fooled by the winter
Reunion (with homeland/freedom) is closer than ever
Everything that has been destroyed in the past
is now reborn from the ashes
Again there is hope growing in this land
Who would have believed
the enemy would become an ally,
and friends become lovers
You friend, O love,
the one who is an ally to us,
the voice of your conscience
Wait till the sun goes down,
hear that deep voice
...hear what the lands have to say
Wait where you hear the inner voice,
leaving your duty behind you
We will cross paths for sure
Leon realizes he can't support his father as commander of the Greek forces in Izmir. He writes his own letter to the Greek army under a pseudonym, calling for them not to fight anymore. He believes that war is not a solution to conflict. The “other side” is you; they want life and happiness and peace as much as you do.
Leonidas as "Andreas Zakis" (Ep. 31):
Everybody holds onto the reality they know
Sometimes that reality imprisons a person,
and sometimes the whole nation
What is the reality?
Who does the world belong to?
Who is the hero? Who is the traitor?
Who is Turkish? Who is Greek?
Who does the truth belong to?
Doesn't your enemy love his wife as you do?
Isn't he ready to sacrifice his life for his child?
But one won't make empty chatter with his enemy
while our finger is coming closer to pulling the trigger
against each other
We are both sentenced to lose
We'll lose love
We'll lose the truth
teach me how to love you
and i will teach you courage
for the sake of love’s homeland and breaking boundaries
and now i approach the most painful truth;
i write you letters that i will never read to you and, day by day, i lose my reality within these lines
i don’t know what will stay behind me
is it you, me, love, separation, death, life?
i beg of you
promise me a homeland in which we live and die together
— Leon to Hilal
Leon and Hilal secretly marry but are temporarily separated during the war. Their letters to each other keep their Love alive in every iteration and twist and turn of the story until they finally reunite! Vatanım Sensin (You Are My Homeland) a.k.a Tú eres mi Patria - Te amaré por siempre!
