SLEEPING BEAUTY

by Charles Perrault

 

Once upon a time there were a king and a queen who were very unhappy that they did not have any children, so unhappy that it can hardly be expressed. They went to all the watering places in the world, tried vows, pilgrimages, and acts of devotion, but nothing would do. Finally, however, the queen did become pregnant and gave birth to a daughter. They had a fine christening, and for godmothers they gave the little princess all the fairies that could be found in the country (and seven of them were found) so that when each of them had given her a gift, as was the custom of fairies in those days, the princess would in this way have all the perfections imaginable.

After the christening ceremonies, the whole company returned to the palace of the king, where a great banquet was held for the fairies. A magnificent set of dinner things was placed before each one of them, with a case of heavy gold in which there were a spoon, a fork, and a knife of solid gold ornamented with diamonds and rubies. But as everyone was taking his place at the table, there appeared an old fairy who had not been invited because she had not left her tower for fifty years, and she was believed to be dead or enchanted.

The king ordered a place set for her, but he was unable to give her a solid gold case, as he had the others because he had had only seven made for the seven fairies. The old fairy thought she was being held in contempt and muttered several threats under her breath. One of the young fairies who was near her overheard her, and since she suspected that she might give some harmful gift to the little princess, she went and hid herself behind the tapestry as soon as they got up from the table in order to be the last to speak and to be able to undo as much as possible the evil that the old fairy might do.

Meanwhile the fairies began to present their gifts to the princess. The gift of the youngest was that she should be the most beautiful person in the world; of the next fairy, that she should have an angelic disposition; of the third, that she should do whatever she did with a wonderful grace; of the fourth, that she should dance perfectly; of the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; of the sixth, that she should play all sorts of musical instruments with absolute perfection. When the turn of the old fairy came, she said, shaking her head more from spite than from old age, that the princess should pierce her hand with a spindle and that she should die of it.

This dreadful gift made the whole company shudder, and there was not a single person who did not weep. At this moment, the young fairy stepped out from behind the tapestry and spoke these words in a loud voice: "Be assured, King and Queen, that your daughter shall not die. It is true that I have not enough power to undo completely what my elder has done. The princess will pierce her hand with a spindle, but instead of dying she will only fall into a deep sleep that will last one hundred years, at the end of which the son of a king will come to awaken her."

The king, to attempt to avoid the misfortune announced by the old fairy, had an edict published forbiddlng everyone to spin with spindles or to keep spindles in their homes, on the pain of death.

After some fifteen or sixteen years, while the king and queen were away at one of their country estates, it hap pened that the young princess was running about in the castle, and going from room to room, she went up to the top of a tower, and there in a little garret was an old woman who was sitting alone at her distaff, spinning. This good woman had never heard of the king's prohibition of spinning with a spindle. "What are you doing there, my good woman?" said the princess.

"I'm spinning, my pretty little one," said the old woman, who did not know who she was.

"Oh, isn't that fascinating!" said the princess. "How do do that? Give it to me so that I may see if I can do as well." No sooner had she taken the spindle than she pricked her hand&emdash;either because she was too hasty or too careless, or because the decree of the fairies had so ordained it&emdash;and she fell down in a swoon.

.

The old woman, in great confusion, called for help, and people rushed in from all sides. They threw water on the princess' face, unlaced her, chafed her hands, and rubbed her temples with Queen of Hungary water, but nothing could bring her to.

Then the king, who had come upstairs when he heard the noise, remembered the fairies' prediction, and deciding that this had had to happen because the fairies had said it would, had the princess placed in the most beautiful apartment in the palace on a bed with hangings embroidered in gold and silver. She was so beautiful she might have been thought an angel, for her swoon had not taken away the color of her complexion. Her cheeks were still rosy and her lips were like coral; her eyes were closed, but one could still hear her breathing softly, which made it clear that she was not dead.

The king ordered that she be allowed to sleep in peace until the hour of her awakening had come. The good fairy who had saved her life by condemning her to sleep a hundred years was off in the kingdom of Mataquin, a thousand miles away, when the accident happened to the princess, but she had been informed of it in an instant by a little dwarf who had seven-league boots (these are boots with which one can go seven leagues at one step). The fairy left immediately and appeared within an hour in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons. The king went to hand her from the chariot. She approved of everything he had done, but since she was extremely foresighted, she thought that when the princess came to awaken she would be quite distressed to find herself all alone in the old castle. Accordingly she did the following:

She touched with her wand everyone who was in the castle (except the king and queen)&emdash;governesses, ladiesinwaiting, chambermaids, gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullery boys, errand boys, guards, Swiss mercenaries, pages, and footmen; she also touched the horses in the stable and the grooms, the huge mastiffs in the stableyard, and little Puff, the princess' puppy, who was beside her on the bed. As soon as she touched them, they all fell asleep, and they would not wake up until their mistress did so that they would all be ready to serve her when she needed them&emdash;the very spits on the fire, all loaded with partridges and pheasants, went to sleep, and the fire also. All this was done in a moment&emdash; fairies do not take long at their work.

Then the king and queen, when they had kissed their darling child without awakening her, left the castle and had notices put up forbidding anyone to approach it. These notices were not necessary, for within a quarter of an hour there grew up around the park such a great number of trees, large and small, as well as brambles and thorns, all intertwined with one another, that neither man nor beast could have passed through. One could see only the tops of the towers of the castle, and that only from quite a distance. It can hardly be doubted that the fairy had exercised a bit of her skill in this so that the princess would not have to fear curious visitors while she was sleeping.

At the end of the hundred years, the son of the king who was then reigning, who was of a different family from that of the sleeping princess, was hunting in that vicinity and asked what were those towers that he could see beyond the large, dense forest. Everyone told him what he had heard said about it. Some said it was an old castle haunted by ghosts, others said that all the magicians in the country held their witches' sabbath there. The most common opinion was that an ogre lived there, that he carried off all the children he could seize in order to eat them at his leisure, and that no one could pursue him since he alone had the power to make his way through the woods.

The prince did not know what to think until an old peasant spoke up and said to him, "Prince, it was more than fifty years ago that I heard my father say that there was in this castle the most beautiful princess that anyone had ever seen and that she had to sleep a hundred years until she was awakened by the son of a king for whom she had been destined."

At this speech the young prince felt himself all on fire. Without worrying too much about it, he believed that he could bring about the conclusion of such a fine adventure, and spurred on by love and honor, he resolved on the spot to undertake it. Hardly had he advanced toward the woods when all those huge trees, brambles, and thorns opened of themselves to let him pass. He walked toward the castle that he saw at the end of a broad avenue into which he had entered, and what surprised him was that he saw that none of his servants could follow him because the branches came together again after he had passed. He did not turn back from his path&emdash;a young Prince in love is always valiant. He went into a great forecourt where everything he saw at first might have frozen him with fear. The silence was horrible and the image of death appeared everywhere in the bodies of menand animals stretched out on the ground apparently dead. He realized, however, from the pimpled noses and crimson faces of the Swiss guards that they were only asleep, and their cups, in which a few drops of wine remained, showed clearly that they had fallen asleep while drinking.

He passed through a great court paved with marble climbed the staircase, and entered the guardroom, where the guards were lined up in a row, their muskets on their shoulders, snoring away. tic crossed several rooms full of lords and ladies, all asleep, some standing and others sitting, and went into a room all done in gold, in which he saw the loveliest sight he had ever seen&emdash;a princess who seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen years old, the splendor of whose striking beauty seemed to have something divinely luminous about it. He approached her trembling with wonder, and knelt down beside her

Then, since the end of the enchantment had come, the princess woke up, and looking at him with eyes more tender than a first glance would seem to permit, she said to him, "Is it you, my prince? You have indeed waited a long time!" The prince, charmed by these words, and even more by the way in which she spoke them, did not know how to express his joy and gratitude; he assured her that he loved her more than himself. Their conversation was halting but it was the more pleasing because of this&emdash;little eloquence, much love. He was more confused than she, and one should not be surprised at this since she had had the time to dream about what she should say to him. It seems (although history does not say anything about it) that the good fairy had obtained for her the enjoyment of pleasant dreams during that long sleep. Even after they had spoken together for four hours, they still had not said half the things they had to tell each other.

However, all the palace had awakened with the princess and each person thought of carrying out his duty, but since they were not in love, they were all dying of hunger. The chief lady-in-waiting, famished like the others, lost patience and told the princess firmly that dinner was served. The prince assisted the princess to arise; she was magnificently dressed, but he refrained from telling her that she was dressed like his grandmother and that she was wearing a high collar. She did not appear any the less beautiful because of this.

They went into a hall of mirrors, and there they dined, served by the princess' household. The violins and oboes played tunes that were old but still excellent, although they had not been played for nearly a hundred years. After dinner, without losing any time, the lord almoner married them in the palace chapel, and the chief ladyin-waiting drew the curtains. Actually they slept very little, since the princess hardly needed any sleep, and the prince left her as soon as it was morning to return to the city where his father had naturally been much worried about him. The prince told him that he had lost his way in the forest while hunting and that he had spent the night in the hut of a charcoal burner who had given him black bread and cheese to eat. The king, his father, who was a good soul, believed him, but his mother was not convinced, and seeing that he went hunting every day and that he always had a ready excuse when he had to spend two or three nights away from the castle, she suspected that he had a mistress. He lived this way with the princess for more than two years and had two children by her, of whom the first, who was a daughter, was named Dawn, and the second, a son, was called Day because he seemed even more beautiful than his sister.

The queen said several times to her son, in order to get him to explain himself, that he really ought to settle down, but he never dared to trust her with his secret. Although he loved her, he feared her because she was descended from the race of ogres, and the king had married her only because of her great wealth. It was even rumored at court that she had ogreish inclinations, and that when she saw little children she had all the trouble in the world to keep herself from pouncing upon them, and thus the prince did not want to tell her anything.

But when the king had died, which happened at the end of the two years, and the prince realized that he was his own master, he acknowledged his marriage publicly and went with great ceremony to fetch the queen, his wife, from her castle. She came to the capital city with her two children on each side of her, and she was given a magnificent reception.

Some time afterward, the king went to make war on the Emperor Cantalabutte, his neighbor. He left the regency of the kingdom to the queen, his mother, and commended his wife and children to her care. He had to be at war all summer, and as soon as he had gone, the queen mother sent her daughter-in-law to a country house in the woods in order to satisfy her horrible desire. She went there several days later and said to the steward one evening, "I want to eat little Dawn tomorrow for my dinner."

"Ah, Madame," said the steward.

"I want to," said the queen (and she said it in the tone of an ogress who longs to eat fresh meat). "And I want to eat her with a sauce Robert." The poor man, seeing clearly that it would not do to trifle with an ogress took his large knife and went up to the room of little Dawn. She was then about four years old and came jumping and laughing and threw herself upon him, demanding some candy. He began to cry, and the knife fell from his hand. He then went to the stableyard and cut the throat of a young lamb and made a sauce for it that was so good that his mistress assured him that she had never eaten anything so delicious.

A week later the wicked queen said to her steward, "I want to eat little Day for my supper." He did not reply, but decided to deceive her as he had the other time. He went to look for little Day, whom he found with a little foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a large monkey, although he was only three years old. The steward took him to his wife, who hid him with little Dawn, and substituted a very tender young kid for little Day, and the ogress found it admirably cooked.

Things had gone well up to this point, but one evening this wicked queen said to the steward, "I want to eat the queen with the same sauce in which I had her children." Then the poor steward really despaired of being able to deceive her. The young queen was past twenty, not counting the hundred years that she had slept, and her skin, although fair and lovely, was a little tough. The problem was to find an animal in the menagerie just that tough. He decided to cut the queen's throat in order to save his own life and went up to the queens room with the intention of doing it at once. He roused himself to a fury and entered the queen's room with a dagger in his hand. He did not wish, however, to take her by surprise, and he told her, with great respect, the order he had received from the queen mother. "Do it, do it," she said, stretching out her neck toward him. "Carry out the order you have been given, and I shall see my children again&emdash;my poor children, whom I loved so much." She thought they were dead since they had been taken from her without any explanation.

"No, no, Madame," answered the poor steward, deeply moved. "You shall not die and you will not fail to see your dear children again, but it will be at my home where I have hidden them, and I shall deceive the queen again by having her eat a young roe in your place." He immediately took her to his room, where he left her embracing her children and crying with them while he went down to dress the roe, which the queen ate for her supper with as good an appetite as if it had been the young queen. She was quite pleased with her own cruelty and prepared to tell the king when he returned that wild wolves had eaten the queen, his wife, and his two children.

One evening as she was prowling through the courtyards and stableyards of the castle, as was her custom, to see if she could scent any fresh meat, she heard in one of the lower rooms the sound of little Day crying because the queen, his mother, wished to whip him for some naughtiness, and she also heard little Dawn, who was asking that her brother be forgiven. The ogress recognized the voices of the queen and her children, and furious at having been deceived, she gave orders in a frightful voice that the next day in the morning there be brought into the courtyard a huge vat, which she had filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and serpents in order to have the queen thrown into it along with her children and the chief steward and his wife and servant girl, and she gave orders to have them brought forth with their hands tied behind their backs.

They were already there, and the executioners were preparing to throw them into the vat when the king, who was not expected back so soon, rode into the court. He had come back posthaste and asked in astonishment what this horrible sight could mean. No one dared inform him, and the ogress, unable to think what to say, threw herself headfirst into the vat and was devoured in an instant by the ugly beasts she had had put in it. The king could not help being distressed&emdash;after all, she was his mother&emdash;but he soon consoled himself with his wife and children.

MORAL

It is natural to wait a little while to get a rich, handsome, gallant, and gentle husband, but no woman today can sleep peacefully enough to wait a hundred years for a husband, sleeping all the while. This story thus seems to give us to understand that often the pleasant bonds of matrimony are no less happy for being put off and that one loses nothing by waiting. But the female sex yearns so ardently for the nuptial vows that I have neither the strength nor the heart to preach them this moral.