The King and the Country Girl

February 15, 2005

With so many people's thoughts focused on love this month, I thought I'd share my favorite love story of all time, of how two people from opposite sides of society ended up as the world's happiest couple.

The King and the Country Girl

There was once a wise and noble king who, as kings can, was able to do anything he chose to do and have anything he asked for, according to the law of the land. There was no king more mighty, more successful, more benevolent and more revered than he. All who knew him loved him. His enemies feared him and fled before his armies. He was good and just.

In short, he was everything a king should be. He had every possession a king could wish for. And so he should have been happy. But he was not, for he was lonely.

No matter how well his servants worked diligently to please him, no matter how adroitly his advisors provided him with the best counsel, no matter how many battles his generals won for him, no matter how many peace treaties his ambassadors negotiated for him, and although he was constantly surrounded by people who served him, he was still unhappy and lonely.

Everyone agreed that he ought to choose a high-born maiden of impeccable lineage. Such was only fitting for the greatest of all kings. They then paraded past him all the most beautiful, the most wealthy, and the best pedigreed women in all the land. But the king saw no one who matched him, and they were all sent away.

Finally his advisors asked what kind of person he was looking for. The king replied simply that he wanted someone he could love with his whole heart and to be loved thusly in return for himself as a man and not because he was king.

His advisors concluded that since he had rejected all the eligible women of the kingdom, there was no woman on the face of the earth to match him, let alone in his kingdom, and he was thus doomed to live alone to the end of his days.

"Not so," the king insisted, for he had once seen such a person afar off -- one of low birth, whose garments were poor and stained, but whose face was so beautiful and her spirit so vibrant that he loved her the moment he cast his eyes upon her.

Now this was surely a problem. For it was not only the law of the land that a king must marry one of his own kind, but it was a part of nature. Even the peasants had the saying, "A pulling pair has but one yoke alone. So they best be of equal strength and heart, or the load they pull will be upsot." It didn't rhyme or scan, but it was a pithy saying, oft-quoted even by scholars as a truism.

The sad fact was, that although he might be king, he could not marry a peasant woman, even if she were the fairest of all women. A king could not go against his own law, nor could he change it.

The whole kingdom waited to see what the king would do. It seemed all were holding their collective breath, anticipating his next move.

But did I not tell you he was the wisest king who had ever lived? You see, the king had plan.

One night when the moon was full, with the help of only his closest servant, he disguised himself as a peasant and slipped out of the palace and into the city until he at last reached the gate. There he left the city behind with only the clothes on his back, a walking staff, some bread, a waterskin, a fire-starter, and, secreted away where none would ever find it, his royal signet ring.

His boots traveled all the same paths worn by so many peasant feet down the years. He found shelter each night as any low-born man might. He labored when necessary to earn his bread. He was often maltreated by cruel-hearted men, but he was just as likely to be well-treated by those whose hearts were good.

His quest to find the woman who had touched his heart took him across every inch of his kingdom, from the heights to the valleys, from the meanest hovels to the scrubbed-clean homes of village elders and businessmen, to barns and stables and caves. He searched along the mud-clogged streets of tiny villages, trudged through fields, forests and thickets, through rain, sleet and snow, sometimes into the teeth of the bitterest of winds. Other days, the gentlest of spring breezes at his back, he walked the loveliest of flower-filled meadows, heard the songs of larks, watched wildlife at play and beavers at work as he forded streams and tramped the highways and byways of his land. He saw predators stalking prey. Sometimes he was the prey.

All these things he endured, absorbed, and embraced, the process subtly changing him. Although he was still king, he had also become a peasant. He lived as a peasant, ate as a peasant, spoke as a peasant. And yet everyone who encountered him knew he was somehow different, that there was something special about him. They just didn't know quite what.

One day as he crossed the marketplace of a far-flung village at the outermost edge of his kingdom, he glimpsed the face he had been seeking. His heart swelled within him at the sight of her. He had found his beloved.

But now, how would he win her? Well, did I not tell you he had a plan?

The country girl had never met anyone like the stranger. As far as she was concerned, he was too good to be true. No one could be that good.

He first showed up with one of her uncles at a feast day gathering. Others in the clan seemed to know him, or know of him. He was much talked about whenever he was out of earshot. But everyone treated him with such deference that she was doubly wary.

Still, as he began to frequent their clan get-together, she had to admit, there was something about him. She was impressed with how he played with the children, how patient he acted with the elder-most grandmothers who could be so annoying, and the old men who told endless tales, how adroitly he handled the match-makers and the clan chiefs, how he fit in so well with everyone from the oldest to the youngest.

When his glance would meet hers he always smiled. At first her shyness kept her from doing aught else but dropping her eyes and blushing. But it was soon clear even to herself that she was as attracted to him as a bee to honey.

There was something noble and good about him that was irresistible. The reports about him had not done him justice.

Her fascination with him grew until one day when she found herself face to face with him, she did not turn away as she once might have done, nor did she lower her eyes. She found herself studying his eyes. The light emanating from them seem to have originated in his heart, and it pierced her to the core of her being. From that day onward she knew that he held her heart in his hands.

Her clan formally accepted him into their midst, according to their traditions. He took their clan name, declaring from that day forward that he was one of them.

He began courting her, according to the clan's customs, and yet he had his own way of doing things, too. He constantly drew her beyond what was comfortable and still she went with him wherever he would go. One day he took her hiking into the mountains. He leapt from rock to rock and she was afraid. He laughed gently and called out to her that it was about to rain, and that she must come up to the shelter of an overhang. It was too far for her to go back down the mountainside. And yet it seemed so high and so far to climb up to where he was.

He disappeared from view and she felt alone and frightened. "Where are you?" she cried.

His words came to her from overhead, "Follow my voice, Beloved, and don't look down. Just climb."

She had always thrilled to the word "Beloved" on his lips. But this was not like the man she had come to know. Why was he doing this to her? She might die on this mountainside, her body broken upon the rocks below.

His voice came again from somewhere up ahead. "Trust me, Beloved, and come to me. You can do this. And I am waiting here for you where it is safe. I have traveled this way already and it is passable. Just follow my voice and climb, step by step."

Despite her anger-tinged terror, the sound of his voice suddenly calmed her. This was her beloved. He would not ask her to do something she was unable to do.

One foothold she found, then another, sometimes feet or fingers slipping. The urge to look down was almost overwhelming. Once she did glance backward when the rain began, and she was nearly undone. Clutching the rock, she clung to it until her dizziness and trembling subsided. Again her beloved's voice came to her, and she clung to the sound of it, strength returning, giving her a new heart.

Each time that her way seemed impassable, his voice reached her, even though it seemed it was only an echo in her heart. Yet after hearing each encouraging word, a handhold or a resting place was always within reach.

And then suddenly she came upon the covert where her beloved was waiting. He gathered her into shelter of his arms, calmed her trembling, dried her tears, kissed away her anger and gestured outward to show her how far she had come.

How had she climbed such a precipice, she who had always feared to climb? Had she not loved him so, she would never have reached such a height.

The vista stretching out before her took away her breath. She could see her village, a cluster of tiny toy houses so small she was humbled by its size and ashamed that she had ever thought it grand. The Great Forest, which stretched the width of her province, was merely a dark green patch between meadows and hills and streams. And in the distance, so far off she could not be sure it was real, sparkled the tip of the dome of the palace at the top of the king's mountain, where lay the capital city league upon league away.

He was a man who had traveled far and abroad, who only moments before, had identified the king's palace for her as the morning sun split through a rain cloud and glittered on its dome. She was a mere country girl. How could he love her? Why did he love her?

And yet, when she was with him, he made her feel like a queen, and he her very own king.

He stepped out of the shelter atop the precipice and urged her to join him. There was still more to climb. Hand-in-hand they climbed, and with each step he seemed to change before her eyes. He neither did nor said anything different, and yet somehow he was not just a peasant to her. There was something kingly about him. It had always been there, but when she looked at him expecting to see a peasant, that had been what she saw. Now she noticed the regal profile, the way he held himself, almost as if he were a soldier.

Recognition smote her and fear clutched at her heart. There was no doubt in her mind who he was. The one gold piece she had tucked away for her dowry bore the image of the king. She had traced the profile so often that her mother had her put it away, lest she wear it down. This was a profile she knew.

And yet it was also her beloved. How could this be?

They stopped at the very top of the mountain, more vistas stretched before them from the other side, and yet the view did not hold her interest this time. She reached up to trace the line of his cheek, his nose and his mouth.

"I know who you are," she whispered. "Somehow I think I have always known. Except I have just now discovered it."

Her brow furrowed and he smiled at her confusion, taking her hands in his. "I felt so from the moment I first saw you. It is why I have traveled the length and breadth of my kingdom to find you."

"When did you see me before you came here?" she asked, still unable to fathom that her beloved was the king and that he loved her.

"You journeyed to my city for the high feast days when you were but a child. I saw you then and knew that I loved you, that one day you would be my queen."

She shook her head, tears springing to her eyes, her heart feeling as though it would break. "But it is the law that a king may not marry a common woman."

He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "But a member of your clan may marry whomever he chooses. This is also the law of the land, and a stronger law, for it protects the people far more than the law concerning whom a king may marry. It is only that until now, no king has ever joined himself to the common people in this way."

"But my king, have you renounced your throne?" she asked, trying to take in the import of all that was happening. "Say that you have not! You are good and just and powerful. We need such a king as you."

"The kingship is my birthright. But I am also of your clan. I am now both king and common man. The common man's law supersedes the law of kings. We shall marry -- if you are willing."

And so they were wed. Such a wedding had never been seen and never will be again. Everyone in the clan was invited to the feast, and great was the rejoicing throughout the kingdom that at last the king had found his match.

"Why did you do this?" his advisors asked. "Why would you leave your throne and humble yourself so?"

"In order to woo and win her, I had to become like her. She would never have dared to approach me in the glory and splendor of my courts."

Again they questioned him. "But how can she be a proper queen?"

He smiled. "She is learning my ways as I learned hers. I became like her, and she is becoming like me. I have clothed her in royal garments, put my ring upon her finger and set a crown upon her brow. Although she is still learning to be queen and not yet perfected in her duties and in comportment as queen, nevertheless, she is queen and we will reign together for all our days."

And so they did.

And so they do still, for the king is God who became one of us, to woo and win those whom He foreknew. He is stretching us beyond our comfort zone to trust Him for each step. One day we will corporately "wed" Him, and our union with God in Christ through the Spirit will be a mutual abode for eternity. This is New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. We are the bride.

Today He is wooing us. Today His voice is calling us from the covert of the precipice. Heed His voice, for He loves you and cares about everything to do with you. And He will guide you to safety, though the way be steep and treacherous, into His arms.

If you want to know where this story came from, it is based loosely on The Song of Solomon and from various references elsewhere in the Bible. The idea is not original, but the words are.

Copyright 2005 Deborah K. Gallardo