The Princess

The Princess is a long blank-verse narrative poem published in 1847 by Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892), Poet Laureate of Victorian England; the third edition of 1850 added several lyrical interludes. The poem uses a medieval romance framework: Princess Ida, pursuing the ideal of equality between men and women, refuses to marry the prince to whom she was betrothed since childhood and founds a university for women only, far from men, where female students receive higher education equal to that of men's universities. The prince, enamored of the princess, disguises himself and two friends as female students to infiltrate the campus; they are quickly discovered and flee, an incident that nearly triggers war between the two countries, until the two sides agree to settle the matter by a small-scale duel. The prince is gravely wounded, and at the crucial moment the princess has a change of heart, converting the palace into a temporary hospital and personally caring for all the wounded soldiers; under her nursing the prince gradually recovers and wins her love. The princess ultimately realizes that the true resolution of women's rights requires the joint efforts of both sexes. The poem also contains a frame narrative: seven young men and women gather on a summer night and take turns telling the story, their own circumstances mirroring the characters in the poem. The lyrical interludes interspersed throughout, such as "Sweet and Low," "Tears, Idle Tears," and "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal," are among Tennyson's most famous short poems, widely set to music, and the work itself was adapted into the Gilbert and Sullivan opera Princess Ida. The Chinese translation, rendered poem for poem by Associate Professor Cai Hecun of Huaqiao University, strives to reproduce the meter and language style of the original.