The Sweet-Scented Name/The Dress of the Lily and of the Cabbage
The Dress of the Lily and of the Cabbage
IN a flower-bed in a garden grew a lily. She was all white and red—proud and beautiful.
She spoke gently to the wind passing over her. "Be more careful," said she. "I am a royal lily, and even Solomon, the wisest of men, was not clothed so luxuriously and so beautifully as I."
Not far away, in the kitchen garden, a cabbage was growing.
She heard the lily's words, and she laughed and said:
"That old Solomon, in my opinion, was just a sans-culotte. How did they clothe themselves, these ancients? They cut out somehow or other a garment to cover their nakedness, and they imagined that they were arrayed in the very best fashion. But I taught people how to dress themselves, and the credit ought to be given to me.
"You take a bare cabbage-stalk and you put on it the first covering, an under-vest; over that something to fasten it; then an under-skirt and fastenings for it; over this you put a skirt and its fastenings, and then a buckle. After the buckle you put on another vest and skirt and fastenings and bodice and buckle. Then you cover it all up from the sides, over the top and up from the bottom, so that the cabbage-stalk is quite hidden. And then it's quite warm and decent."