The Nightingale

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King Solomon held audience of all birds save the Nightingale who was missing. King Solomon sent off a bird with a letter reading: “Inform the Nightingale that it is of utmost necessity for us to meet!”

Once the message reached the Nightingale—since it had never left its nest—it held consultation with its companions: “The order of the Solomon is true and the messenger did not lie, indeed a meeting is required, If the King is out of the nest and ‘we’ are always in the nest then the meeting is impossible. And moreover the King cannot fit within the nest therefore there is no other way.”

One of the elders of the birds sang aloud: “Since the King does not fit within the nest and ‘we’ have never left the nest, the only solution is to leave the nest and come close to the King for a meeting. Otherwise the meeting is impossible.”

End.



Cast of the characters and elements of the story:

The King Solomon: the story is about holding audience with a King and not an ordinary person.

Solomon sent a bird as a messenger.

Why it was of utmost necessity to meet with the Nightingale?
 
The Nightingale: what is the meaning that it never left the nest, according to human experience?  

Why a Nightingale i.e. why a songbird was used for the story?

Why did the King need to see the Nightingale, why not another bird already in his presence?

Why or what caused the Nightingale to never leave the nest?

Who are his companions?

There was a doubt that the messenger-bird could be lying.

What is meant by ‘The King not fitting within the nest’?

How does the Nightingale’s inability to sort out the logic of ‘King not fitting the nest thus it has to leave the nest for the meeting’ relates to human spiritual experience?

Who is the elderly bird? Why it sang aloud? Of what nature is that singing?

Why the final logical solution of leaving the nest was so unobvious?



© 2005-2002,  Dara O. Shayda