Week 7 Storytelling: Handsome King of the Apes

The Beauty of the Stone Ape

In the East, glittering in the Great Sea's mist

an island protrudes from the trembling ocean.

Chinese lore calls it the Mountain,

Mountain of Flowers and Fruits

for it blossoms with life overflowing.

Indeed, the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits

is enriched with colors exotic and vibrant,

covered in boundless waves of green

which shimmers gold

when the Sun lights the ground aflame.

There was but one blemish

which studded the promontory jutting

from the middle of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruits

called The High Rock.

It was round, long ago smoothed by the temper of the waves

when the sky and ocean were unmarred by the peaking of mountains

but made any eye that feasted on its image convulse

for it carried a hollowness, filled with a rotten egg

misshapen and stinking a fume green as the tree-leaves.

Unbeknownst to mortals, though well-known to the Heavens,

The High Rock had stood since the birth of Time.

Its perch allowed the roots of the stone

to drink the very power forgotten by the Earth and by Heaven.

On the place The High Rock lived

it soaked in the magic of the Sun and the Moon.

The High Rock was gifted with supernatural enjoyment

before it passed over its blessings to the inhabitant of the egg

which it had carried since the first kiss of the sky and the Earth.

From the egg burst forth a beauteous being

made of the same stone its bearer had worn

"with two streams of golden radiance"

that flowed from the rivers of his eyes

into the castle that the Lord of Heaven resided in.

The Stone Ape was magnificent

and so glorious he terrified the Lord of Heaven.

The people have recited his image

in a desire to repeat his greatness and celebrate his rapture

for to frighten and awe is the strength of beauty -

the beauty of the Stone Ape.

The Ape Stones in Korea from Beaverland

Author's Note: The original story's title is Handsome King of the Apes, but it spent very little time discussing what made him so handsome or how he was handsome.  It really only mentioned the line that I used, where his eyes have "two streams of golden radiance" beaming out of them.  There was another small hint to the heritage of the addition of the adjective by suggesting it was given out of homage due to his new wealth of stone pottery.  I was a little disappointed by that because I feel like he was probably a pretty great dude and he deserves a sonnet professing how beautiful he was.  Due to my disappointment, the poem (not a sonnet because that was actually really really hard) focuses mainly on his origin as opposed to retelling/rewriting the tale of the Handsome King of the Apes.  The original tale also reminded me of the Tangled movie by Disney so I tried to use that for inspiration as well.

Bibliography: "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" in The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).