What (wo)men and gods are these?….
What mad pursuit?…
What pipes and timbrels?…
(with apologies to John Keats 1795-1821)
Once upon a time there lived in the Shire of Perthe-Betweene-River-and-Sea in the storied Kingdom of W’astralia a notoriously vain Empress of Royal Physicians whose only concern in life was to lavishly adorn herself in the elegant and arcanely embroidered, albeit pompous regalia that was the prevailing Medical Practitioners Act of the Lande.
Cloaked in this fine garment, she loved to flaunt its opulent inanity before her subjects, the erstwhile estimable, but ever more downtrodden physicians of the realm…especially those journeymen from afar who had once been summoned by the Wise Ones of Olde to buttress an epidemically anemic corps of native-borne medicine (wo)men. Drunken with power and utterly convinced of her own infallibility, she spared no opportunity to torment these wretched souls and to question their very existence with the selfserving whimsy of her ever-changing procedural vestments.
Word of the Empress’ hubris spread throughout her kingdom and beyond. As it happened, two immigrant physicians from the exotic Far East principality of Siambia, fearful of the increasingly imposing barriers to acquiring Royal Medical Registration and the spectre of impending bankruptcy as a consequence of the Special Decree excluding all such medical itinerants from the benefits of either Royal Healthcare or Royal Public Education for themselves and their families, were out of desperation forced to seek more secure employment. Upon hearing of the Empress’ vanity, they decided to use it to their advantage. They thus introduced themselves at the gates of the palace to the Captain of the Guards with a scheme in mind.
“Kind sir, we are two very experienced tailors. After many years of trial and error we have invented an extraordinary method of weaving a cloth of deception so light and fine that it will conceal her Majesty’s efforts to deter further incursion of Outsiders — who are each and every one of them, as her Excellency would surely agree, decidedly second rate — into the ranks of the Royal Profession. As a matter of fact, this marvelous fabric is invisible to anyone who is too stupid, incompetent and un-W’astralian enough to appreciate its quality. We would be honoured to offer our services to Her Majesty.”
The Captain of the Guards heard the scoundrels’ strange story and sent for the Court Chamberlain. The Chamberlain notified the Prime Minister,who ran to the Empress and disclosed the incredible news. The Empress’ curiosity got the better of her and she decided to see the two.
“Your Highness, though this wondrous cloth will be woven in subtly nuanced colors of quasi-legal obfuscation and interlaced with the threads ofan inscrutable examination process of near-our oborian repetitiveness created especially for her Grace’s pleasure, we assure your Eminence that itwill remain invisible to the Unworthy.”
The Empress, intrigued, gave the two men a bag of gold coins in exchange for their promise to begin working on the fabric immediately.
“Just tell the Royal Couturier what you require to get started and you shall have it,” she dismissively added.The two scoundrels asked for a loom,silk, gold thread and then pretended to commence weaving. The Empress smirked deviously. She thought she had spent her money well: in addition to acquiring an extraordinary robe that was empowered with the ability to keep out alien riff-raff – or at the very least, to relegate them to the nether regions of the Empire –, there was the added bonus of unmasking those of her subjects who were ignorant, incompetent and unpatriotic. These she would deal with in time. A few days later, she called the old and wise Prime Minister, who was considered by everyone to be a man of unflappable common sense.
“Go and see how the work is proceeding,” the Empress told him, “and come back to let me know.”
The Prime Minister was welcomed by the two scoundrels, who breathlessly intoned:
“We are nearly finished, but we need a lot more gold thread! Here, Excellency! Behold the colors, feel the softness! Surely, such richness oftexture will be a most welcome bulwark against the Evil at the gates. And as you will note, we have even stitched in loopholes that will most certainlystoke the egos of our illustrious anglophile allies on the Standing Medical Security Council* by granting unfettered entrée to the Empire to theirphysicians alone.” The old man bent over the loom and tried to see the fabric that was not there. He felt cold sweat on his forehead.
“I can’t see anything,” he thought. “If I see nothing, that means I’m stupid! Or incompetent! Or, worse, unpatriotic!” If the Prime Ministeradmitted that he didn’t see anything, he would surely be discharged from his office.
So he said instead, “What a marvelous fabric. I will inform the Empress straight away.” The two scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. More thread was delivered to finish the work.
Finally, the Empress received the announcement that the two tailors had come to take the measurements needed to fit her new robe.
“Enter,” the Empress ordered. Even as they bowed, the two scoundrels pretended to be holding a large roll of fabric.
“Here it is, your Highness, the result of our labour,” the scoundrels obsequiously offered. “We have worked night and day, but at last, the most beautiful fabric in the world is ready for you. Look at the colors and feel how fine it is! ” Of course, the Empress did not see any colors and could not feel any cloth between her fingers. She panicked and felt faint. But luckily the throne was right behind her and she sat down instead. But when she realized that no one could know that she did not see the fabric, she suddenly felt better. Nobody could find out she was stupid and incompetent. And best of all, everyone in the Royal Administrative Court of Genuine Professionals (RACGP) would praise her for her admirable patriotic ardor in fending off the teeming hordes clamoring to breach the borders of the Motherlande, thereby preserving the hallowed sanctity of Medicinus W’astralianus.
Of course, the Empress didn’t know that everybody else around her thought and did the very same thing.
The farce progressed as the two scoundrels had foreseen. Once they had taken the measurements, the two made a great show of cutting the air with scissors while sewing with their needles an invisible cloth. “Your Highness will have to take off her clothes to try on her new ones.” The two scoundrels draped the robes on her and then held up a mirror. The Empress was embarrassed, but since none of her bystanders obviously were, she felt relieved.
“Yes, this is a beautiful robe and it looks very good on me,” the Empress said, trying to look comfortable. “You’ve done a fine job.” And with that, the scoundrels bowed and withdrew.
“Your Majesty,” the Prime Minister said, “we have a request for you. The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new robe.” The Empress was doubtful about showing herself naked to the people, but she quickly abandoned her fears. After all, no one would know about it except the willfully ignorant, the obliviously incompetent and the insufficiently xenophobic. And surely, the only real objections would come from those terrorist-harbouring wastrels from the WADTOA and the WACCS! * But that was to be expected, was it not? And who gave a farthing what they thought?
“All right,” she said. “I will grant the people this privilege.”She summoned her carriage and the ceremonial parade was formed.
A group of dignitaries walked at the very front of the procession and anxiously scrutinized the faces of the people in the street. All the people had gathered in the main square, pushing and shoving to get a better look. Applause welcomed the regal procession. Word of the robes’ magical qualities had leaked to the people and now everyone wanted to know how stupid, incompetent or unpatriotic his or her neighbor was. However, as the Empress passed, a strange, forced murmur rose from the crowd.
Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear:
“Look at the Empress’ new clothes. They’re beautiful!”
“What a marvelous train!”
“And the colors! The colors of that beautiful fabric! I have never seen anything like it in my life!” They all tried to conceal their disappointment at not being able to see the clothes, and since nobody was willing to admit his own stupidity, incompetence or – horror! – un-patriotism, they all behaved as the two scoundrels had predicted.
A child, however, who had no important job, no interest in the status quo, and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.
“The Empress is naked,” he said.
“Fool!” his father reprimanded, running after him. “Don’t talk nonsense!” He grabbed his child by an ear and hastily led him away. But the boy’s remark, which had been overheard by the bystanders (indeed, the least jaundiced among them, if they had dared to admit it to themselves, had already been strangely and unsettlingly struck by the Empress’ coruscatingly capricious and callous – and hardly invisible – aura of arrogance), was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:
“The boy is right! The Empress is naked! It’s true!”
Hearing this, somewhere deep down the Empress was faintly aware that the people were right, but she, of course, could never admit to that. Instead, Her Highness thought it far better to continue the procession under the desperate delusion that surely anyone who couldn’t see and marvel at a cloak of such obvious procedural finery was either stupid, incompetent or contemptibly unpatriotic. And thus fortified, she stood stiffly on her carriage, while behind her a page haughtily held her imaginary train.
Anon
Paraphrased (and willfully plagiarized) from an eye-witnessed account
by one Sir Hans Christian Andersen, Esq.
*Standing Medical Security Council: composed of 5 “preferred nations”, according to the W’astralian
Medical Council: the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and the USA; WADTOA:W’astralian Doctors
Trained Overseas Association; WACCS: W’astralian Competition & Consumer Commission
About Mike Cadogan
