The birds vanish. The ripples of their passage subside. Moonlight floods the still lake and its wooded bank. There enters a young man, armed for the chase, whose dress and mien proclaim him noble. Retainers follow him. They cast searching glances around, and scan the placid surface of the lake. But whatever it is they seek eludes their vigilance. A second young man joins them—the Prince of the realm—who has been benighted in the course of a hunting expedition. He, too, looks eagerly about him, but is no more successful in his quest than the companion who preceded him. They take counsel together, and in the very midst of their conference are startled by a distant apparition. They peer anxiously into the heart of the wood which fringes the lake’s edge, and obedient to the Prince’s order, all retire stealthily into hiding. The Prince himself, cross-bow in hand, follows his men.
A moment later there enters a young maiden. She is fair to look upon, with a beauty that has a fatal quality of fascination. She is indeed the Queen Swan, wearing her temporary human guise, and only to be associated with her true form by the fillet of swan’s-down in her dark hair, and the snowy plumage with which her dress is adorned. This is the mysterious apparition which the Prince and his men have seen, lost, and now again discovered.
Lightly the fair creature flits across the glade, and as she nears the spot where he lies concealed, the Prince starts forth and confronts her. The Queen Swan would fly, but is held back. The Prince, already a willing victim to his captive’s beauty, would fain have the mystery of her appearance explained. Who is she? What does she here, and at this hour? Reluctant at first to confess her true nature, the Queen Swan yields to the passionate emotion which she, too, feels stirring within her, and relates a part, at least, of her strange history. She tells of the machinations of the evil genie by whose enchantment she and all her companions are bound, of their alternation between human guise and that of birds. The prince listens in horror, jumping too readily to the conclusion that his captive is a maiden doomed to periodic metamorphosis into the semblance of a swan, rather than a bird permitted now and again to assume a human shape. At mention of the ogre by whose spells this strange tyranny is maintained, he fingers his weapons menacingly, eager for an opportunity to attempt deliverance.
Such a chance presents itself with startling suddenness. In the midst of her narration the Queen Swan clutches her captor’s arm, and points upward into the trees. Peering down upon them, from a branch overhead, is some strange object, only half visible amidst the foliage. The Prince seizes his cross-bow and makes as if to shoot. But ere he can be sure of his aim, the apparition moves stealthily, and is gone.
The young man lowers his weapon and turns to expostulate with his captive. Again the colloquy is interrupted, this time by the invasion of a grim, gaunt monster, which silently regards them from a mound upon which it has suddenly emerged. Again the Prince seizes his bow and strives to launch a bolt at the intruder. But he is powerless to release the trigger. The genie’s magic paralyses him. The monster recedes unharmed into the woody depths, and the Prince, perturbed by this discovery of unseen influences encompassing him, impetuously urges his captive from the scene.
Hardly has the Queen Swan fled when her companions enter—a score of maidens in similar attire, scarcely less fair than their leader. As is their nightly practice, they dance in the moonlit glade, but have scarce begun when the Prince’s friend, followed by the huntsmen and attendants, break in upon these mystic revels. The swan-maidens, frightened, fly to one another for mutual protection, while the intruders, scarce knowing what to make of such unexpected objects of the chase, finger their weapons hesitatingly. Some, indeed, are fitting bolts to the cross-bows, but the hasty return of the Prince, who bids them stay their hands, prevents the wanton slaughter. Even as he gives his orders, two more swan-maidens join their frightened sisters, and with them comes the Queen Swan herself, who has sped the Prince from her side to avert the threatened disaster, and now comes herself to lead the petition for mercy which the hapless maidens pleadingly urge.
The Prince needs little persuasion to grant the boon, and the swan-maidens resume their dancing before the enraptured eyes of the Prince and his friend. In the midst of her companions the Queen Swan, unchallenged in the supremacy of her charms, completes the fascination she has already exercised upon the too susceptible Prince. With infatuated gaze he hangs upon her every movement, drinking in her beauty, the grace of her dancing, the elegance of her form. Every moment that she pauses, while her companions continue the movement of the dance, he woos her passionately, urging his suit with an eagerness that increases as the reluctance which she strives to maintain appears to give way.
The throbbing valse rhythm of the music hurries the young man’s hectic passion to a climax. Inspired by the ardour which the Prince’s impetuous wooing kindles in her, the Queen of the Swan-maidens surpasses herself in a dance which turns passion into ecstasy. She abandons herself to her lover’s arms.
But at this fateful moment the dreaded hour has struck. The swan-maidens are seized with nervous apprehension. They beckon their Queen, and as they see her recalled to her surroundings, hurry timidly away. The huntsmen watch them go, too much surprised by this sudden flight to attempt to intercept it. Not so the Prince. As the Queen Swan strives to release herself from his embrace, he seeks to detain her. Reluctant to go, yet fearful to stay, she persists in the effort to disengage herself. Ardently the Prince implores her to remain, but just as he would enforce the entreaty by strength she slips from his grasp and gains the bank that leads into the wood. Her lover would dash forward and restrain her, but she motions him back, waves a tender farewell, and is gone from his sight.
Mystified, the Prince and his men peer wonderingly across the enchanted mere. And as they look there glides across their vision a number of snow-white swans, swimming in stately procession toward the further shore. In advance of the rest moves one, which bears upon its head, so delicately poised on the slender sinuous neck, a golden crown. Upon the agonised Prince and his astounded retinue, watching in silence this strange portent, the curtain swiftly falls.