Once upon a time, in a beautiful city, there stood a statue of a prince on a tall column. The statue was made of gold and had sapphires for eyes and a ruby on his sword. The people in the city admired the statue, calling it the “Happy Prince.” But they didn’t know that the statue was actually the spirit of a prince who had lived long ago.
When the prince was alive, he had lived in a palace and had never seen any suffering. He had never known hunger, pain, or poverty. But after his death, his statue was placed high on a column, and from there, he could see the suffering of the people in the city.
One night, a little swallow, tired from her long journey, came to rest at the foot of the statue. The prince, seeing the swallow, asked her if she could help him. He explained that he was once a happy prince, but now, he could see the misery of the people around him, and he wanted to help them.
The prince told the swallow to take the ruby from his sword and give it to a poor woman who had no money to buy food for her children. Then, he asked her to take the sapphires from his eyes and give them to a young man who was freezing in the cold.
The swallow, touched by the prince’s kindness, did everything the prince asked. As winter arrived, the swallow decided to stay with the prince instead of flying south. Eventually, the swallow died in the cold, lying at the foot of the statue, and the statue became dull and grey without the jewels.
When the city’s mayor came to inspect the statue, he was upset that the once-beautiful statue was now ugly. He ordered the statue to be melted down. But when they tried to melt it, they couldn’t, because the prince’s spirit had gone to heaven, and the statue had become a symbol of selfless love and sacrifice.