Three imposters claim they can weave a magical cloth that only legitimate sons can see. The King locks them in a palace and provides materials. He and others sent to check cannot see the cloth but pretend they can out of fear of being illegitimate. They praise the nonexistent cloth. On the day of a feast to show the finished clothes, the imposters dress the King in "invisible clothes." A man reveals the King has no clothes on, breaking the spell. The imposters fled with the King's goods.
Three imposters claim they can weave a magical cloth that only legitimate sons can see. The King locks them in a palace and provides materials. He and others sent to check cannot see the cloth but pretend they can out of fear of being illegitimate. They praise the nonexistent cloth. On the day of a feast to show the finished clothes, the imposters dress the King in "invisible clothes." A man reveals the King has no clothes on, breaking the spell. The imposters fled with the King's goods.
Three imposters claim they can weave a magical cloth that only legitimate sons can see. The King locks them in a palace and provides materials. He and others sent to check cannot see the cloth but pretend they can out of fear of being illegitimate. They praise the nonexistent cloth. On the day of a feast to show the finished clothes, the imposters dress the King in "invisible clothes." A man reveals the King has no clothes on, breaking the spell. The imposters fled with the King's goods.
Three imposters claim they can weave a magical cloth that only legitimate sons can see. The King locks them in a palace and provides materials. He and others sent to check cannot see the cloth but pretend they can out of fear of being illegitimate. They praise the nonexistent cloth. On the day of a feast to show the finished clothes, the imposters dress the King in "invisible clothes." A man reveals the King has no clothes on, breaking the spell. The imposters fled with the King's goods.
INTRODUCTION One hundred years before the European invention of The Three Imposters printing, Prince Manuel, nephew of the Spanish King Alfonso the Wise, wrote The Fifty Pleasant Stories, one of the real gems of early
T Spanish literature. He died hree imposters came to a king and told him in 1347, and the book was that they were weavers, and could produce a not printed until over two hundred years afterwards, cloth of such a strange kind that a legitimate when it appeared in Seville. son of his father could see it, but nobody else It lay forgotten until the could, even if they were believed to be legitimate. Madrid edition of 1642, and these two impressions Now the King was much pleased at this, thinking that by are today among the this means he would be able to distinguish those who rarest books in the world. were the sons of their supposed fathers from those who After nearly another two centuries it came out in were not. So he ordered a palace to be set aside for the Stuttgart (1839) and then making of this cloth. The three men, to convince him that in Paris the following year. they were genuine and sincere, agreed to be shut up in This story, ‘A King and this building until the cloth had been made; and this Three Imposters’, is said by Prince Manuel to come satisfied the King. from a Moorish source. It The weavers were given a large quantity of gold, silver is, of course, undoubtedly the basis of Hans Christian and silk and many other things to work with. They set up Andersen’s ‘The Emperor’s their looms in the palace and pretended that they were New Clothes’. working all day at the cloth. After some days, one of the men went to the King and told him that the cloth had been started, and he told him all kinds of things about it, and asked him to visit them, but asked that he should come alone. The King was very pleased, but thought that he would get another opinion of the magical fabric first, so he sent the
Lord Chamberlain to have a look. The Lord Chamberlain duly went
and could see nothing, but he dared not admit that the wonderful cloth was invisible to him, so he returned to the King and said that he had really seen it. The King then sent someone else, and received the same report. Now the King decided to see for himself. When he entered the Palace, the King found the men there, and they described the cloth in detail, including its design. They all agreed on these details, and even the origin and method of making of the cloth. The King could not see anything at all, for there was no cloth there. But he began to feel very uneasy, fearing that he might not be the true son of the King who was supposed to be his father. ‘If I cannot see it,’ he thought, ‘I might have to lose my kingdom, which depends upon inheritance.’ So he started to praise the cloth, and repeated the details which the imposters had outlined. When he returned to his own palace, the King continued to speak of the cloth as if it were real, though at the same time he inwardly suspected that something was wrong. After a few days, the monarch asked his Wakil, the officer of justice, to go and see the cloth. Exactly the same thing happened to the Wakil. He went into the palace of the weavers, who described the pattern, though he could see nothing of any cloth of any kind. Naturally the unhappy Wakil immediately imagined that he could not be the true son of his father, and that that must be the cause of the material remaining invisible to him. Fearing that the discovery of this fact about him would mean the loss of his important position, the Wakil set about praising the non-existent cloth in even more extravagant terms than the King and the Lord Chamberlain. He went back to the King, and told him that he had, indeed, viewed
the cloth, and that it was the most extraordinary tissue in the world. The King was deeply distressed: there could now, he thought, be no doubt that he himself was not the offspring of his father. But he hastened to agree with the rapturous descriptions of the wondrous fabric brought him by the law officer. And he did not forget to add unstinted praise for the inspired workmen who were weaving it. The King continued to send people to see the cloth, and they, not unnaturally, all came back to him with the same impressions as everyone else. This tale continued in just the same way until the King was told that the cloth was finished. He ordered that a great feast be prepared, where everyone should be dressed in clothes made from the miraculous material. The weavers thereupon presented themselves, with ‘some of the cloth’ rolled in fine linen, and asked his Majesty how much would be required; and the King told them the quantity and what kind of clothes were to be made. The feast day arrived, and the clothes were reported to be complete. The weavers came to the King with the magic robe which he himself was to wear. The King, of course, did not dare to say that he could not see it, or even feel it. Now the imposters pretended to dress the King in his new clothes; and he mounted his horse and rode into the city. Luckily it was summer time! People who saw the King pass were very surprised at what they beheld. But word had got around that only the illegitimate were unable to see the cloth, so people kept their distress and amazement to themselves. All of them did, in fact, except a black man who was among those lining the streets. He immediately approached the King and said: ‘Sire, it is of no interest to me whose son I am. So I can tell you that
in fact you are riding about without any clothes on!’ At first the King struck the black a blow, saying that he must be illegitimate and that was why the cloth was invisible to him. But other people, once the spell of silence and fear had been broken, saw that it was true, and said the same. Even the King and his court now realised that they had been tricked. The false weavers, of course, when they were sought, were found to have fled with the things which the King had given them ‘to make the cloth from’.
