The Emperor's New Clothes
Told by Hans Christian AndersenDenmarkTale type ATU 1620
- Age
- 4 to 9
- Reading time
- 9 minutes
- Scariness
- 1 of 5Mild tension, resolved at once
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The story
There was once an emperor who cared about clothes.
That is not putting it strongly enough. He spent all his money on them. He did not care about his soldiers and he did not care about the theatre, and he only enjoyed driving out through the city because it gave people a chance to see what he had on. He kept a coat for every hour of the day. Of other rulers it is said that they are in council. Of this one it was said that he was in the wardrobe, and nobody meant it unkindly. That was simply where he was.
One day two men arrived in the city and said they were weavers. They were not weavers. They said they could make a cloth of extraordinary beauty, which had one further quality worth knowing about. It was invisible to anybody who was stupid, or who was not fit for the job he held.
The emperor thought about that. A cloth like that would be genuinely useful. He could walk through his own court in it and find out in a single afternoon which of his officials ought not to be there. He gave the two men a large sum of money and a hall to work in, and asked them to begin at once.
They set up two looms, sat down at them and began to work at nothing at all. They asked for the finest silk. They asked for gold thread. The silk and the gold went into a bag under the table, the looms stayed empty, and the two of them sat there late into the night with the candles lit, moving their hands.
After a week the emperor wanted to know how the work was coming along. He also found that he did not want to go and look himself. He was not worried, he explained to nobody in particular. He simply thought it would be sensible to send somebody else first.
He sent his old minister, who had served him for forty years and had never once been found wanting.
The old minister went into the hall, stood in front of the looms and looked at them for some time. He had good eyes. He could see the grain in the wood and the dust on the floor and the two men working with their hands in the air, and he could see, with perfect clarity, that there was nothing on the looms whatsoever.
"Well," said one of the weavers. "The colours."
"The colours," said the old minister.
"And the pattern."
"And the pattern," said the old minister.
They described the pattern to him at length, and he listened very carefully, because he knew he would have to repeat it later. He did repeat it. He told the emperor it was the finest thing he had seen in forty years of service, and he got the pattern almost exactly right.
A few days afterwards the emperor sent a second official, a sensible man of excellent reputation. He came back and said the same thing in different words, so that it would not sound rehearsed.
By now the whole city was discussing the cloth. Nobody had seen it. Everybody had heard about it from somebody who had.
At last the emperor went himself, with a crowd of chosen men, including the two who had already been. The weavers held up their empty arms and turned them slowly in the light.
"Notice how it takes the light," said one.
The emperor noticed how it took the light. He looked at the loom, and at the wall behind the loom, and at the shadow of the loom on the wall.
I cannot see anything, he said, inside his own head, in a very small voice. There is nothing there.
"It is charming," he said out loud. "It has our highest approval."
He nodded. Everybody else nodded. Every man in that room was looking at the same nothing, and every one of them believed he was the only one.
The weavers were made Imperial Court Weavers, which is a title, and given more gold, which is not. On the last night they burned sixteen candles and cut the air with large scissors and sewed with needles that had no thread in them, in front of an open window, so that people going past could see how hard they were working.
In the morning they dressed him. They did it slowly, one garment at a time, in front of the tall mirror, naming each piece as it went on. The emperor turned round twice and said that it fitted him very well.
"It is as light as a spider's web," said one of the weavers. "You would think you had nothing on."
"Yes," said the emperor.
The canopy was waiting in the courtyard. Two chamberlains bent down behind him, took hold of the train, which was not there, lifted it to the correct height and held it. Nobody had told them to. They had simply worked out what would be expected.
The streets were full. People had come in from the villages and were sitting on walls. And from the windows and the doorways and the front of the crowd they all said what a magnificent suit it was, how well it hung, what a train, because not one of them was willing to be the only fool in the city.
Then a small child, who had been lifted onto a barrel so that she could see over the heads, said, "But he hasn't got anything on."
"Listen to the innocent," said her father, quickly, and not very quietly.
The man beside him said it. The woman behind said it. It went along the street the way a crack goes across ice, and inside a minute the whole crowd was saying it together, out loud, to nobody in particular. He hasn't got anything on.
The emperor heard them. He also agreed with them. He thought, quite calmly, that they were almost certainly right.
Then he thought: the procession has started.
So he lifted his chin and walked the whole route, past every single person in his city, at the correct pace. And behind him the two chamberlains held on tighter than ever to a train that did not exist, and carried it with great care, and did not put it down until they were indoors.
What is the moral of The Emperor's New Clothes?
If a thing is not there, you are allowed to say so.
The usual reading is that adults are fools and children see clearly. Andersen's tale is stranger and funnier than that. Every adult in it can see perfectly well. The minister sees an empty loom. The emperor sees an empty loom. The whole street sees a man with no clothes on. What none of them can do is be the first to say it out loud. The child is not wiser than they are. The child simply has no post to lose.
Talk about it
- Everybody in this story can see there is no cloth. Why do you think not one of them says so?
- The old minister had worked for the emperor for forty years. What did he think would happen if he told the truth?
- Why is it a child who says it, and not one of the grown-ups?
- At the end the emperor keeps walking instead of stopping. Was that brave, or was it silly?
- Have you ever agreed with everybody else about something when you did not really agree? What made you do it?
Who is in the story
The Emperor
protagonist · human
A ruler who has arranged his entire life, his diary and a good deal of his empire around the business of getting dressed.
- Kind
- 6 out of 10
- Brave
- 4 out of 10
- Clever
- 5 out of 10
- Honest
- 3 out of 10
- Curious
- 5 out of 10
- Patient
- 7 out of 10
The Two Weavers
antagonist · human
Two men who arrived in the city with a bag, a story and no wool, and who never once had to raise their voices.
- Kind
- 2 out of 10
- Brave
- 7 out of 10
- Clever
- 10 out of 10
- Honest
- 1 out of 10
- Curious
- 6 out of 10
- Patient
- 10 out of 10
The Chamberlains
attendant · human
Two palace servants whose job is to carry the emperor's train, and who carry it whether or not there is one.
- Kind
- 7 out of 10
- Brave
- 3 out of 10
- Clever
- 4 out of 10
- Honest
- 5 out of 10
- Curious
- 2 out of 10
- Patient
- 10 out of 10
The Child
catalyst · human
The one person on that street with no office, no reputation and nothing at all to lose.
- Kind
- 8 out of 10
- Brave
- 5 out of 10
- Clever
- 5 out of 10
- Honest
- 10 out of 10
- Curious
- 10 out of 10
- Patient
- 3 out of 10
The Old Minister
official · human
Forty years of loyal service, excellent eyesight, and one afternoon that undoes the point of both.
- Kind
- 7 out of 10
- Brave
- 2 out of 10
- Clever
- 8 out of 10
- Honest
- 4 out of 10
- Curious
- 4 out of 10
- Patient
- 9 out of 10
In a nutshell
An emperor who cares about nothing but clothes is sold a suit that only clever, capable people can see. His minister cannot see it. Nor can the emperor. Nor can anybody in the city, and every single one of them decides to say nothing about it, until a small child at the front of the crowd says the obvious thing out loud.
Scene by scene
20 moments from the tale.
- Scene 1The Wardrobewry
A coat for every hour
The emperor's working day is a rail of coats. He does not neglect the empire out of malice. He simply has an appointment with eleven o'clock and eleven o'clock has a coat.
Other rulers were in council. This one was in the wardrobe.
- Scene 2The High Streetsly
Two men and a story
Two strangers come into the city and announce a trade. Nothing they say is checked, because nobody has any reason yet to check it.
They arrived with a bag, a story and no wool.
- Scene 3The Wardrobetempting
The one further quality
The weavers describe their cloth to the emperor and add the detail that matters. It cannot be seen by anybody stupid, or by anybody unfit for his post.
Beautiful cloth. And one further quality worth knowing about.
- Scene 4The Weaving Hallbrisk
A large sum and a hall
The emperor hands over a large sum and a cold high room. He has worked out that the cloth will tell him which of his officials ought not to be there, which strikes him as an excellent afternoon's work.
He gave them money and a room, and asked them to begin at once.
- Scene 5The Weaving Hallabsurd
Two looms and nothing at all
The looms are set up properly and worked properly. Shuttles pass, treadles go down, hands move in and out. There is no thread anywhere in the room.
They sat down at the looms and began to work at nothing at all.
- Scene 6The Weaving Hallquiet
The bag under the table
Everything they are given goes into a bag under the table. Then they light the candles and sit up late, moving their hands, because being seen working late is part of the material.
The silk went into a bag. The looms stayed empty.
- Scene 7The Wardrobeuneasy
Somebody else first
After a week the emperor wants to know how the work is going, and discovers that he would rather not go and look. He sends his old minister, forty years in service and never once found wanting.
He was not worried. He simply thought it sensible to send somebody else.
- Scene 8The Weaving Hallsinking
He had good eyes
The old minister stands in front of the looms for some time. His sight is excellent. He can make out the grain of the wood, the dust on the boards, and the fact that there is nothing there at all.
He could see the grain in the wood and the dust on the floor. And nothing on the looms.
- Scene 9The Weaving Halldeadpan
The colours
A weaver offers him the colours. The minister accepts the colours. He is then given the pattern in detail and listens with great care, because he knows he will have to give it back later.
Well. The colours. The colours, said the old minister.
- Scene 10The Wardrobegrave
Almost exactly right
The minister reports. He calls the cloth the finest thing he has seen in forty years, and repeats the pattern back, and gets it almost exactly right.
The finest thing he had seen in forty years of service.
- Scene 11The Weaving Halltense
Notice how it takes the light
At last the emperor goes himself, with a crowd of chosen men, including the two who have already been. The weavers hold up their arms and turn them in the light, and everybody watches the air between them.
The weavers held up their empty arms and turned them slowly in the light.
- Scene 12The Weaving Hallhollow
The same nothing
Inside his own head, in a very small voice, the emperor says that there is nothing there. Out loud he calls it charming and gives it his highest approval. He nods. Everybody nods.
Every man in that room believed he was the only one.
- Scene 13The Weaving Halltheatrical
Sixteen candles
On the final night they burn sixteen candles, cut the air with large scissors and sew with needles that have no thread in them, in front of an open window, so that anybody going past can see how hard they are working.
They cut the air with large scissors, in front of an open window.
- Scene 14The Mirror Hallceremonial
They dressed him
They dress him slowly in front of the tall mirror, naming each piece as it goes on. He turns round twice and says that it fits him very well. A weaver mentions that he would think he had nothing on.
One garment at a time, naming each piece as it went on.
- Scene 15The Mirror Hallabsurd
Nobody had told them to
The canopy is waiting outside. Two chamberlains bend down behind the emperor, take hold of the train, lift it to the correct height and hold it there. Nobody had told them to. They had simply worked out what would be expected.
Two chamberlains bent down and took hold of a train that was not there.
- Scene 16The High Streetpublic
The streets were full
People have come in from the villages and are sitting on walls. From the windows and the doorways and the front of the crowd they all say what a magnificent suit it is, how well it hangs, what a train.
Not one of them was willing to be the only fool in the city.
- Scene 17The High Streetclear
But he hasn't got anything on
A small child has been lifted onto a barrel so that she can see over the heads of the crowd. She says the obvious thing. Her father says listen to the innocent, quickly, and not very quietly.
A small child, lifted onto a barrel so that she could see over the heads.
- Scene 18The High Streetrippling
The way a crack goes across ice
The man beside him said it. The woman behind said it. It went along the street the way a crack goes across ice, and inside a minute the whole crowd was saying it out loud, to nobody in particular.
Inside a minute the whole crowd was saying it together.
- Scene 19The High Streetresolute
The procession has started
The emperor hears the crowd and agrees with them. He thinks, quite calmly, that they are almost certainly right. Then he thinks that the procession has started, lifts his chin, and walks the whole route at the correct pace.
He agreed with them. Then he thought about the route.
- Scene 20The High Streetabsurd
They did not put it down
Behind him the two chamberlains hold on tighter than ever to a train that does not exist. They carry it with great care and do not put it down until they are indoors.
They carried a train that did not exist, with great care, all the way home.
Where it happens
The High Street
street
The route of the procession, lined on both sides, with people sitting on the walls and leaning out of every window.
The Mirror Hall
room
The dressing hall with the tall mirror, where the emperor is put into his new clothes on the morning of the procession.
The Wardrobe
room
The room where the emperor actually works, lined floor to ceiling with coats, one for every hour of the day.
The Weaving Hall
hall
A cold high room the emperor gave the weavers, containing two looms, a table, and nothing else that matters.
How they are connected
The EmperorThe Two Weaversadversary
Two men who never tell the emperor a single lie about the cloth, and one emperor who supplies every lie himself.
The EmperorThe Old Ministerally
Forty years of trust, spent in a single afternoon, by both of them at once and neither of them out loud.
The Old MinisterThe Two Weaversadversary
A trap with only one exit, set by two men who never once raise their voices, and a very clever old man walking into it politely.
The ChildThe Emperorstranger
They never speak to one another. She says one sentence about him, in an ordinary voice, and he hears it and agrees with it and keeps walking.
Things you might not know
The most famous moment in the story was a last-minute change. Andersen's first ending had no child in it at all: the pretence simply held and nobody spoke. Publication was delayed, for reasons nobody has established, and he used the extra time to rewrite the ending so that the truth came out through the voice of a child. We know about the delay from a letter of 25 March to Edvard Collin, who often helped him get his manuscripts printed.
Andersen did not invent this story and never pretended he had. It comes from Count Lucanor by Don Juan Manuel, a Spanish collection of fifty-one cautionary tales written in the 1330s. Andersen could not read Spanish and met it in a German version. He listed the tale among the ones he had rewritten from someone else, apart from the ending, which he said was entirely his own.
In the Spanish original the cloth is not invisible to fools. It is invisible to any man who is not his father's legitimate son, which in that setting meant losing your inheritance and, for a king, possibly your throne. Andersen swapped that for cleverness and competence, which turned a story about family scandal into a story about office politics.
The emperor is never caught, never dethroned and never humiliated. He hears the crowd, privately decides they are almost certainly right, thinks that the procession has already started, and walks the entire route at the correct pace. That is the actual last page.
The two swindlers get away with it completely. They are handed more gold and the official title of Imperial Court Weavers, and after the procession begins Andersen simply never mentions them again. In the older Spanish version the weavers at least have to flee the city with the loot.
Of other rulers it was said that they were in council. Of this one it was said that he was in the wardrobe. He kept a coat for every hour of the day, and the line is not an insult in the story. It is just where he was.
Nobody knows whether the child is a boy or a girl. Andersen writes only a little child, and the next voice belongs to the child's father. Every illustrator and film-maker since has had to pick one, and the story itself never does.
The title turned into an English phrase. To say the emperor has no clothes now means pointing at something everybody can see is false but nobody will admit to, and the tale is regularly used to illustrate pluralistic ignorance: nobody believes it, and everybody believes that everybody else does.
What things stand for
- The two empty looms
- Worked at all day in front of an open window. The swindlers never hide anything and never need to. The evidence sits in plain view from the first morning to the last.
- The invisible cloth
- A test with only one safe answer. Anybody who says what he sees has just announced that he is a fool, so nobody says what he sees, and the cloth becomes real by agreement.
- The tall mirror
- He looks straight at himself with nothing on, and turns round twice to admire it. It is the one moment in the story where a man is alone with the truth and still picks the other thing.
- The train that is not there
- Two chamberlains carry it at the correct height because it would be strange not to. Nobody instructed them. By the end of the story the lie has staff.
- The child's voice
- Not wisdom, and not exactly courage. Just the one person in the street with no office, no reputation and nothing whatsoever to lose.
The same story elsewhere
Folk tales are not owned by whoever wrote them down first.
Of that which happened to a King and three Impostors
Spain, the 1330s
The source. From Count Lucanor by Don Juan Manuel. A king, not an emperor, and three impostors rather than two. The cloth can only be seen by a man who is his father's legitimate son, so the king risks his throne rather than his dignity. The truth is told by a man of the lowest rank who has nothing to lose, the king beats him for it, and the weavers escape with everything they were given.
Lilavatisara
India, 1283
Written by Jinaratna, summarising a lost anthology of 1052. A dishonest merchant called Dhana offers the king of Shravasti a supernatural garment that cannot be seen or touched by anybody of illegitimate birth. The court admires it, the king is paraded through the city, and the crowd asks whether he has become a naked holy man. He works out the trick, but the swindler has already gone.
Was einem Koenige mit drei Schaelken begegnet
Germany, before 1837
The version Andersen actually read, in Karl Eduard von Buelow's German collection, since he did not read Spanish. His diary points to it. Still three swindlers, still the question of legitimate birth.
Andersen's discarded ending
Denmark, 1837, thrown away before printing
Andersen's own first ending, which he cut during his final corrections. It had no child in it. The whole world wanted to be deceived and deceived itself, the procession went by, and nobody said anything at all.
Where you might already know it from
Most children meet a screen version first. Here is what those changed.
Illustrations for Andersen's fairy tales
book, Vilhelm Pedersen
Pedersen was the very first artist to illustrate Andersen's tales. His drawings were cut into wood engravings for the Danish and German editions.
The Emperor's New Clothes
film, Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky, 1919
A short silent film made in Russia only two years after the revolution, and one of the earliest screen versions of the tale.
Carevo novo ruho
film, Ante Babaja, 1961
A Croatian feature film, written by Bozidar Violic, which turns Andersen's few pages into a full-length film for cinemas.
Questions parents ask
- What is the moral of The Emperor's New Clothes?
- If a thing is not there, you are allowed to say so.
- What is The Emperor's New Clothes about?
- An emperor who cares about nothing but clothes is sold a suit that only clever, capable people can see. His minister cannot see it. Nor can the emperor. Nor can anybody in the city, and every single one of them decides to say nothing about it, until a small child at the front of the crowd says the obvious thing out loud.
- What age is The Emperor's New Clothes for?
- The Emperor's New Clothes suits ages 4-9.
- How long does The Emperor's New Clothes take to read?
- About 9 minutes read aloud.
- Where does The Emperor's New Clothes come from?
- The Emperor's New Clothes is a traditional tale from Denmark.
Sing it
Every story here has its own song. This one is wry, conspiratorial, building to something bigger, about 104 beats a minute.
Nobody Said a Word
Nordic chamber folk, dry and comic, in three
There is no recording yet. The words are here so you can sing it yourself.
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