MY TSQ-IV POST CYCLE - PART ONE

Hans Christian Andersen gives us a perfect story about the young female ruler of an unidentified European land (the Kingdom of Autumn? Or that of Knowledge?), who sets up a test of character for prospective consorts:

In this kingdom, the crown princess, who will soon be crowned queen, is renowned far and wide for her unusual cleverness. She has read all newspapers in the world and then forgotten them, so clever is she! She owns as many books as her pet crow has feathers, and she studies art, and philosophy, and foreign languages, and other such things. The late king made the daughter his heir (and he gave the supreme captaincy of the royal guards to her younger brother, the other child of the household) because the crown here goes to the eldest child. So he had her reared as a boy and trained in statescraft instead of the usual occupations of blue-blooded young women.

A short time ago, at the end of her guardians' regency, having been crowned at the age of eighteen, she was sitting on her throne when she remembered that old nursery rhyme about getting married. So she turned to her advisors and began to sing that song: “Why shouldn’t I get married in my life?” And she thought it was a great idea. So she determined to marry if she could find a husband who knew what to say when he was spoken to, one as intelligent as she: not only a young and dashing one who could only look grand, smile, and wear a uniform properly (for that would be so tiresome!).
No, she wanted a real prince: dashing, brave, intelligent, able to encourage the arts in times of peace, and to lead the army to victory in case of war. Long story short, she wanted a prince like none she had ever seen on all the thrones on Earth.
But the princess did not despair at all to find what she wished for, decided as she was not to give up and accept an arranged marriage, and to choose, no matter his rank, a spouse worthy of her.

Then she assembled her entire court together in the palace gardens and made them aware of her intentions, to much rejoicing and acclaim.

The princess's advisors suggested putting notices in the newspapers, but she declined on the grounds that this would attract too many men of the ordinary sort. Instead, she wrote a proclamation out herself, in Classical Latin, and had it copied out and affixed to the doors of every University in three kingdoms.

The notice said that every good-looking young gentleman of an age comprised between twenty and twenty-five was free to visit the royal court, and make themselves quite at home there, but she would choose the most eloquent one, the one who spoke best, and the one who in her eyes had got the most intellectual and moral qualities, to become her consort.

One would have expressed surprise at this unusual method of selecting a husband.

Scholars and alchemists and theologians and other learned men and upstarts and tricksters came in crowds from all parts of the kingdom and from foreign lands, for two days, until the royal gardens were full of suitors (who had even encamped there), and the palace was quite crowded with men in black silk gowns (there was such a crowd that they did not recognize each other!), but not even one of them was able to meet the requirements. They all could express themselves very well on the street, by the campfire, and in a lecture hall... but when they saw the royal guards in blue coats with silver lace, and the valets in gold brocade, and the vast halls brilliantly lighted with dozens of chandeliers, they were dazzled by the overwhelming splendour. Their courage forsook them.

When they stood in the great hall of the palace, surrounded by gilded plasterwork, and rose-red tapestries, and great silver mirrors that glowed with the light of a thousand candles, and saw the counts and barons and countesses and baronesses in all their finery, and the guards in blue and silver uniforms, they grew nervous and felt themselves shabby, though most of them wore their best academic robes of black silk.

And when they were called into the throne room, to stand before the princess with her golden hair as bright as the candles, they had to look for the right words, but they couldn't think of anything worth to say. None of them did succeed: in fact, they could do nothing but echo Her Majesty's words, while standing in awe and looking down, and thus she did not need to hear any more words, and she knew from the first impression what to expect from them, so she grew bored with this routine, and had them sent away to where they came from.
There were suitors who just collapsed before the throne, exhausted as they had arrived in haste, and they were just whisked back into the gardens by the royal guards.
It appeared as if all of those young men had consumed a drug that clouded their minds, and that they did not recover the faculty of speech until they had left the palace grounds. And only then did the faculty of speech return in excess, all of them spoke at unison, replying to each other what they should have said to the princess, even though there was so much prattling that they could barely understand each other. There was, at the garden gate, a whole queue of local bourgeois waiting for their exit, and laughing at their disappointment.

Now, on the third day, a strapping young gent stepped into the picture. He was tall and thin, clean shaven with very dark hair, and he came on foot. Instead of a black robe like the others, he wore a tattered uniform and a little knapsack on his back. His dark hair was long and tangled, and his eyes twinkled with confidence.

When he saw the guards in their blue uniforms decked with silver lace, he saluted them. When he saw the valets in gold brocade livery at the foot of the stairs, he winked at them and told them that it was quite tiresome to stand there all day long: he would go further inwards. When he saw the nobles in all their splendour, the youth was not the least embarrassed, though his own clothes were faded and worn, and icy glares and careful whispers were constantly fixed upon him.

The halls were lit with dozens of dazzling chandeliers, that really blazed with light. Councillors of state, excellencies, and dignitaries were walking about barefoot (not to make any noise), carrying golden tableware. There was enough splendour to distract the most brilliant orator. But, though the lad's knee-high boots creaked terribly, he didn't even flinch.

And thus, he dauntlessly entered the throne room. Her Majesty sat on a throne decorated with a pearl the size of a spinning-wheel, with all her court ladies, and ladies' maids, and ladies' maids' maids, and courtiers, and courtiers' valets, and courtiers' valets' valets, and courtiers’ valets’ valets’ pageboys, standing up in a half-circle around her royal person. And the closer they were to the door, the lower was their rank and the haughtier their look. Everyone of them was dressed so finely that they shone as brightly as the mirrors. Even the servants wore cloth of gold! The courtiers' valets' valets' pageboys in their slippers, closest to the door, stood too tall to be looked at in the eye. And everyone in the royal entourage would not even cast a glance on the stranger, because he had come to the palace with ink on his fingers.

The youth was not only good-looking, but cheerful and confident as well, quite solemn and not at all afraid. He was a picture of good looks and gallantry, and he said he hadn't come to woo Her Majesty (whether to sire her children, for her wealth, her rank, or her beauty), but to check her knowledge, to hear her wise conversation, and she was as pleased with him as he was with her. Or, to say it the other way round, he was as pleased with her as she was with him. He admired her just as much as she admired him!

When evening turned into night, moonlight was turning the snow-covered flowerbeds into great sheets of silver. The royal gardeners had set little statues carved of ice atop the dry and frozen fountains, to take the place of the streams of water. The leaves were falling one by one in the great linden avenue of the palace gardens, and they had already begun to crunch beneath the courtiers' feet... and the happy fiancés, after being led up the long staircase, walked hand in hand through passageways decked with pink satin with embroidered gold and silver flowers, through a series of halls, each one grander than the one before (a hall lined with tapestries of crimson silk featuring damsels and unicorns, one hung with battle paintings of such size and magnificence that it was conditio sine qua non to admire the richness of the tints and the skill of the brush strokes, one with a floor of black and white marble laid in squares like a chessboard and the walls hung with mirrors in gilded frames), deeper into the grand baroque palace, until they reached the royal bedchamber. The roof of its cupola resembled a sunflower or palm tree of Bohemian crystal glass, which made the ceiling transparent and opened the night sky before their eyes. Two lily-shaped beds hung on thick cords from a golden stem: hers was white, and his was scarlet red.

He made a sign and she slid out of her lily-white bed, into that of her bridegroom, and he pulled the scarlet bed-curtains, thickly embroidered with gold and silver thread. Through a narrow gap in the bed-curtains, the moon and the captain of the guards (a most fearsome young firebrand, who guarded his sister’s welfare most faithfully) could see a head of dark hair, quite black.

The princess and the new prince were asleep in one another's arms, his face quite hidden in her golden hair.

Sandra Dermark.
After Hans Christian Andersen: "The Snow Queen, Fourth Story".