ONCE upon a time there lived a King and a Queen, who lacked but one thing on
earth to make them entirely happy. The King was young, handsome, and wealthy;
the Queen had a nature as good and gentle as her face was beautiful; and they adored
one another, having married for love—which among kings and queens is not always
the rule. Moreover, they reigned over a kingdom at peace, and their people were
devoted to them. What more, then, could they possibly want?
Well, they wanted one thing very badly, and the lack of it grieved them
more than words can tell. They had no child. Vows, pilgrimages, all ways were
tried; yet for a long while nothing came of it all, and the poor Queen
especially was in despair.
At last, however, to her own and her husband’s inexpressible joy, she give
birth to a daughter. As soon as the palace guns announced this event, the whole
nation went wild with delight. Flags waved everywhere, bells were set pealing
until the steeples rocked, crowds tossed up their hats and cheered, while the
soldiers presented arms, and even strangers meeting in the street fell upon
each other’s neck, exclaiming: “Our Queen has a daughter! Yes, yes—Our Queen
has a daughter! Long live the little Princess!”
A name had now to be found for the royal babe; and the King and Queen,
after talking over some scores of names, at length decided to call her Aurora,
which means The Dawn. The Dawn itself (thought they) was never more beautiful
than this darling of theirs. The next business, of course, was to hold a
christening. They agreed that it must be a magnificent one; and as a first step
they invited all the Fairies they could find in the land to be godmothers to
the Princess Aurora; that each one of them might bring her a gift, as was the
custom with Fairies in those days, and so she might have all the perfections
imaginable. After making long inquiries—for I should tell you that all this
happened not so many hundred years ago, when Fairies were already growing
somewhat scarce—they found seven. But this again pleased them, because seven is
a lucky number.
After the ceremonies of the christening, while the trumpeters sounded their
fanfares and the guns boomed out again from the great tower, all the company
returned to the Royal Palace to find a great feast arrayed. Seats of honour had
been set for the seven fairy godmothers, and before each was laid a dish of
honour, with a dish-cover of solid gold, and beside the dish a spoon, a knife,
and a fork, all of pure gold and all set with diamonds and rubies. But just as
they were seating themselves at the table, to the dismay of every one there
appeared in the door-way an old crone, dressed in black and leaning on a
crutched stick. Her chin and her hooked nose almost met together, like a pair
of nut-crackers, for she had very few teeth remaining; but between them she
growled to the guests in a terrible voice:
“I am the Fairy Uglyane! Pray where are your King’s manners, that I have
not been invited?”
She had in fact been overlooked; and this was not surprising, because she
lived at the far end of the country, in a lonely tower set around by the
forest. For fifty years she had never come out of this tower and every one
believed her to be dead or enchanted. That, you must know, is the commonest way
the Fairies have of ending: they lock themselves up in a tower or within a
hollow oak, and are never seen again.
The King, though she chose to accuse his manners, was in fact the politest
of men. He hurried to express his regrets, led her to table with his own hand,
and ordered a dish to be set for her; but with the best will in the world he
could not give her a dish-cover such as the others had, because seven only had
been made for the seven invited Fairies. The old crone received his excuses
very ungraciously, while accepting a seat. It was plain that she had taken deep
offence. One of the younger Fairies, Hippolyta by name, who sat by, overheard
her mumbling threats between her teeth; and fearing she might bestow some
unlucky gift upon the little Princess, went as soon as she rose from table and
hid herself close by the cradle, behind the tapestry, that she might have the
last word and undo, so far as she could, what evil the Fairy Uglyane might have
in her mind.
She had scarcely concealed herself before the other Fairies began to
advance, one by one, to bestow their gifts on the Princess. The youngest
promised her that she should be the most beautiful creature in the world; the
next, that she should have the wit of an angel; the third, a marvellous grace
in all her ways; the fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth,
that she should sing like a nightingale; the sixth, that she should play
exquisitely on all instruments of music.
Now came the turn of the old Fairy Uglyane. Her head nodded with spite and
old age together, as she bent over the cradle and shook her crutched staff
above the head of the pretty babe, who slept on sweetly, too young and too
innocent as yet to dream of any such thing as mischief in this world.
“This is my gift to you, Princess Aurora,” announced the hag, still in her
creaking voice that shook as spitefully as her body. “I promise that one day
you shall pierce your hand with a spindle, and on that day you shall surely
die!”
At these terrible words the poor Queen fell back fainting into her
husband’s arms. A trembling seized the whole Court; the ladies were in tears,
and the younger lords and knights were calling out to seize and burn the wicked
witch, when the young Fairy stepped forth from behind the tapestry, and passing
by Uglyane, who stood scornful in the midst of this outcry, she thus addressed
their Majesties:—
“Take comfort, O King and Queen: your daughter shall not die thus. It is
true, I have not the power wholly to undo what this elder sister of mine has
done. The Princess must indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but, instead of
dying, she shall only fall into a deep slumber that shall last for many, many
years, at the end of which a King’s son shall come and awake her. Whenever this
misfortune happens to your little Aurora, do not doubt that I, the Fairy
Hippolyta, her godmother, shall get news of it and come at once to render what
help I may.”
The King, while declaring himself infinitely obliged to the good Fairy
Hippolyta, could not help feeling that hers was but cold comfort at the best.
He gave orders to close the christening festivities at once, although the Fairy
Uglyane, their spoil-joy, had already taken her departure; passing unharmed
through the crowd of folk, every one of whom wished her ill, and riding away—it
was generally agreed—upon a broomstick.
To satisfy the King’s faithful subjects, however,—who were unaware of any
misadventure—the palace fireworks were duly let off, with a grand set-piece
wishing Long Life to the Princess Aurora! in all the colours of the rainbow.
But His Majesty, after bowing from the balcony amid the banging of rockets and
hissing of Catherine wheels, retired to a private room with his Chamberlain,
and there, still amid the noise of explosions and cheering, drew up the first
harsh proclamation of his reign. It forbade every one, on pain of death, to use
a spindle in spinning or even to have a spindle in his house. Heralds took
copies of this proclamation and marched through the land reading it, to the
sound of trumpets from every market-place: and it gravely puzzled and
distressed all who listened, for their women folk prided themselves on their
linen. Its fineness was a byword throughout the neighbouring kingdoms, and they
knew themselves to be famous for it. “But what sort of linen,” said they,
“would His Majesty have us spin without spindles?”
They had a great affection, however (as we have seen), for their monarch;
and for fifteen or sixteen years all the spinning-wheels were silent throughout
the land. The little Princess Aurora grew up without ever having seen one. But
one day—the King and Queen being absent at one of their country houses—she gave
her governess the slip, and running at will through the palace and upstairs
from one chamber to another, she came at length to a turret with a winding
staircase, from the top of which a strange whirring sound attracted her and
seemed to invite her to climb. As she mounted after the sound, on a sudden it
ceased; but still she followed the stairs and came, at the very top, to an open
door through which she looked in upon a small garret where sat an honest old
woman alone, winding her distaff. The good soul had never, in sixteen years,
heard of the King’s prohibition against spindles; and this is just the sort of
thing that happens in palaces.
“What are you doing, goody?” asked the Princess.
“I am spinning, pretty one,” answered the old woman, who did not know who
she was.
“Spinning? What is that?”
“I wonder sometimes,” said the old woman, “what the world is coming to, in these
days!” And that, of course, was natural enough, and might occur to anybody
after living so long as she had lived in a garret on the top of a tower.
“Spinning,” she said wisely, “is spinning, or was; and, gentle or simple, no
one is fit to keep house until she has learnt to spin.”
“But how pretty it is!” said the Princess. “How do you do it? Give it to me
and let me see if I can do so well.”
She had no sooner grasped the spindle—she was over-eager perhaps, or just a
little bit clumsy, or maybe the fairy decree had so ordained it—than it pierced
her hand and she dropped down in a swoon.
The old trot in a flurry ran to the head of the stairs and called for help.
There was no bell rope, and, her voice being weak with age and her turret in
the remotest corner of the palace, it was long before any one heard her in the
servants’ hall. The servants, too—in the absence of the King and Queen—were
playing cards, and could not be interrupted by anybody until their game was
finished. Then they sat down and discussed whose business it was to attend on a
call from that particular turret; and this again proved to be a nice point,
since nobody could remember having been summoned thither, and all were against
setting up a precedent (as they called it). In the end they decided to send up
the lowest of the junior page-boys. But he had a weakness which he somehow
forgot to mention—that of fainting at the sight of blood. So when he reached
the garret and fainted, the old woman had to begin screaming over again.
This time they sent up a scullery maid; who, being good-natured and unused
to the ways of the palace, made the best haste she could to the garret, whence
presently she returned with the terrible news. The servants, who had gone back
to their game, now dropped their cards and came running. All the household, in
fact, came pouring up the turret stairs; the palace physicians themselves
crowding in such numbers that the poor Princess Aurora would have been hard put
to it for fresh air could fresh air have restored her. They dashed water on her
face, unlaced her, slapped her hands, tickled the soles of her feet, burned
feathers under her nose, rubbed her temples with Hungary-water. They held
consultations over her, by twos and threes, and again in Grand Committee. But
nothing would bring her to.
Meanwhile, a messenger had ridden off posthaste with the tidings, and while
the doctors were still consulting and shaking their heads the King himself came
galloping home to the palace. In the midst of his grief he bethought him of
what the Fairies had foretold; and being persuaded that, since they had said
it, this was fated to happen, he blamed no one but gave orders to carry the
Princess to the finest apartment in the palace, and there lay her on a bed
embroidered with gold and silver.
At sight of her, she was so lovely, you might well have supposed that some
bright being of the skies had floated down to earth and there dropped asleep
after her long journey. For her swoon had not taken away the warm tints of her
complexion: her cheeks were like carnations, her lips like coral: and though
her eyes were closed and the long lashes would not lift, her soft breathing
told that she was not dead. The King commanded them all to leave her and let
her sleep in peace until the hour of her awakening should arrive.
Now when the accident befell our Princess the good Fairy Hippolyta, who had
saved her life, happened to be in the Kingdom of Mataquin, twelve thousand
leagues away; but news of it was brought to her in an incredibly short space of
time by a little dwarf who owned a pair of seven-league boots. (These were
boots in which you could walk seven leagues at a single stride.) She set off at
once to the help of her beloved goddaughter, and behold in an hour this good
Fairy arrived at the palace, in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons.
Our King met her and handed her down from the chariot. She approved of all
that he had done; but, greatly foreseeing as she was, she bethought her that,
as all mortals perish within a hundred years or so, when the time came for the
Princess to awake she would be distressed at finding herself orphaned and alone
in this old castle.
So this is what she did. She touched with her wand everything and everybody
in the palace: the King, the Queen; the ministers and privy councillors; the
archbishop (who was the Grand Almoner), the bishops and the minor clergy; the
maids-of-honour, ladies of the bedchamber, governesses, gentlemen-in-waiting,
equerries, heralds, physicians, officers, masters of the household, cooks, scullions,
lackeys, guards, Switzers, pages, footmen. She touched the Princess’s tutors
and the Court professors in the midst of their deep studies. She touched
likewise all the horses in the stables, with the grooms; the huge mastiffs in
the yard; even Tiny, the Princess’s little pet dog, and Fluff, her
black-and-white cat, that lay coiled on a cushion by her bedside.
The instant the Fairy Hippolyta touched them they all fell asleep, not to
awake until the same moment as their mistress, that all might be ready to wait
on her when she needed them. The very spits at the fire went to sleep, loaded
as they were with partridges and pheasants; and the fire went to sleep too. All
this was done in a moment: the Fairies were never long about their business in
those days.
But it so happened that one of the King’s councillors, the Minister of
Marine (his office dated from a previous reign when the kingdom had hoped to
conquer and acquire a seaboard) had overslept himself that morning and came
late to the palace without any knowledge of what had befallen. He felt no great
fear that his unpunctuality would be remarked, the King (as he supposed) being
absent in the country; nevertheless he took the precaution of letting himself
in by a small postern door and so missed being observed by the Fairy and
touched by her wand. Entering his office, and perceiving that his
under-secretary (usually so brisk) and all his clerks rested their heads on
their desks in attitudes of sleep, he drew the conclusion that something had
happened, for he was an excellent judge of natural slumber. The farther he
penetrated into the palace, the stronger his suspicions became. He withdrew on
tiptoe. Though by nature and habit a lazy man, he was capable of sudden
decision, and returning to his home he caused notices to be posted up,
forbidding any one to approach the castle, the inmates of which were suffering
from an Eastern but temporary affliction known as the Sleeping Sickness.
These notices were unnecessary, for within a few hours there grew up, all
around the park, such a number of trees of all sizes, and such a tangle of
briars and undergrowth, that neither beast nor man could find a passage. They
grew until nothing but the tops of the castle towers could be seen, and these
only from a good way off. There was no mistake about it: the Fairy had done her
work well, and the Princess might sleep with no fear of visits from the
inquisitive.
One day, many, many years afterwards, the incomparable young Prince
Florimond happened to ride a-hunting on that side of the country which lay next
to the tangled forest, and asked: “What were those towers he saw pushing up
above the midst of a great thick wood?”
They all answered him as they heard tell. Some said it was an old castle
haunted by ghosts.
Others, that all the wizards and witches of the country met there to keep
Sabbath.
The most general opinion was that an Ogre dwelt there, and that he carried
off thither all the children he could catch, to eat them at his ease. No one
could follow him, for he alone knew how to find a passage through the briars
and brambles. The Prince could not tell which to believe of all these
informants, for all gave their versions with equal confidence, as commonly
happens with those who talk on matters of which they can know nothing for
certain. He was turning from one to another in perplexity, when a peasant spoke
up and said:—
“Your Highness, long ago I heard my father tell that there was in yonder
castle a Princess, the most beautiful that ever man saw; that she must lie asleep
there for many, many years; and that one day she will be awakened by a King’s
son, for whom she was destined.”
At these words Prince Florimond felt himself a-fire. He believed, without
weighing it, that he could accomplish this fine adventure; and spurred on by
love and ambition, he resolved to explore then and there and discover the truth
for himself.
Leaping down from his horse he started to run towards the wood, and had
almost reached the edge of it before the attendant courtiers guessed his
design. They called to him to come back, but he ran on, and was about to fling
himself boldly into the undergrowth, when as by magic all the great trees, the
shrubs, the creepers, the ivies, briars and brambles, unlaced themselves of
their own accord and drew aside to let him pass. He found himself within a long
glade or avenue, at the end of which glimmered the walls of an old castle; and
towards this he strode. It surprised him somewhat that none of his attendants
were following him; the reason being that as soon as he had passed through it,
the undergrowth drew close as ever again. He heard their voices, fainter and
fainter behind him, beyond the barrier, calling, beseeching him, to desist. But
he held on his way without one backward look. He was a Prince, and young, and
therefore valiant.
He came to the castle, and pushing aside the ivies that hung like a curtain
over the gateway, entered a wide outer court and stood still for a moment,
holding his breath, while his eyes travelled over a scene that might well have
frozen them with terror. The court was silent, dreadfully silent; yet it was by
no means empty. On all hands lay straight, stiff bodies of men and beasts,
seemingly all dead. Nevertheless, as he continued to gaze, his courage
returned; for the pimpled noses and ruddy faces of the Switzers told him that
they were no worse than asleep; and their cups, which yet held a few heeltaps
of wine, proved that they had fallen asleep over a drinking-bout.
He stepped by them and passed across a second great court paved with
marble; he mounted a broad flight of marble steps leading to the main doorway;
he entered a guardroom, just within the doorway, where the guards stood in rank
with shouldered muskets, every man of them asleep and snoring his best. He made
his way through a number of rooms filled with ladies and gentlemen, some
standing, others sitting, but all asleep. He drew aside a heavy purple curtain,
and once more held his breath; for he was looking into the great Hall of State
where, at a long table, sat and slumbered the King with his Council. The Lord
Chancellor slept in the act of dipping pen into inkpot; the Archbishop in the
act of taking snuff; and between the spectacles on the Archbishop’s nose and
the spectacles on the Lord Chancellor’s a spider had spun a beautiful web.
Prince Florimond tiptoed very carefully past these august sleepers and,
leaving the hall by another door, came to the foot of the grand staircase. Up
this, too, he went; wandered along a corridor to his right, and, stopping by
hazard at one of the many doors, opened it and looked into a bath-room lined
with mirrors and having in its midst, sunk in the floor, a huge round basin of
whitest porcelain wherein a spring of water bubbled deliciously. Three steps
led down to the bath, and at the head of them stood a couch, with towels, and
court-suit laid ready, exquisitely embroidered and complete to the daintiest of
lace ruffles and the most delicate of body linen.
Then the Prince bethought him that he had ridden far before ever coming to
the wood; and the mirrors told him that he was also somewhat travel-stained
from his passage through it. So, having by this time learnt to accept any new
wonder without question, he undressed himself and took a bath, which he
thoroughly enjoyed. Nor was he altogether astonished, when he tried on the
clothes, to find that they fitted him perfectly. Even the rosetted shoes of
satin might have been made to his measure.
Having arrayed himself thus hardily, he resumed his quest along the
corridor. The very next door he tried opened on a chamber all panelled with
white and gold; and there, on a bed the curtains of which were drawn wide, he
beheld the loveliest vision he had ever seen: a Princess, seemingly about
seventeen or eighteen years old, and of a beauty so brilliant that he could not
have believed this world held the like.
But she lay still, so still … Prince Florimond drew near, trembling and
wondering, and sank on his knees beside her. Still she lay, scarcely seeming to
breathe, and he bent and touched with his lips the little hand that rested,
light as a roseleaf, on the coverlet. …
With that, as the long spell of her enchantment came to an end, the
Princess awaked; and looking at him with eyes more tender than a first sight of
him might seem to excuse:—
“Is it you, my Prince?” she said. “You have been a long while coming!”
The Prince, charmed by these words, and still more by the manner in which
they were spoken, knew not how to find words for the bliss in his heart. He
assured her that he loved her better than his own self. Their speech after this
was not very coherent; they gazed at one another for longer stretches than they
talked; but if eloquence lacked, there was plenty of love. He, to be sure,
showed the more embarrassment; and no need to wonder at this—she had had time
to think over what to say to him; for I hold it hot unlikely (though the story
does not say anything of this) that the good Fairy Hippolyta had taken care to
amuse her, during her long sleep, with some pleasurable dreams. In short, the
Princess Aurora and the Prince Florimond conversed for four hours, and still
without saying the half they had to say.
Meanwhile all the palace had awaked with the Princess. In the Council
Chamber the King opened his eyes and requested the Lord Chancellor to read that
last sentence of his over again a little more distinctly. The Lord Chancellor,
dipping his quill into the dry inkpot, asked the Archbishop in a whisper how
many t’s there were in “regrettable.” The Archbishop, taking a pinch of snuff
that had long ago turned to dust, answered with a terrific sneeze, which again
was drowned by the striking of all the clocks in the palace, as they started
frantically to make up for lost time. Dogs barked, doors banged; the Princess’s
parrot screamed in his cage and was answered by the peacocks squawking from the
terrace; amid which hubbub the Minister for Agriculture, forgetting his
manners, made a trumpet of his hands and bawled across the table, begging His
Majesty to adjourn for dinner. In short, every one’s first thought was of his
own business; and, as they were not all in love, they were ready to die with
hunger.
Even the Queen, who had dropped asleep while discussing with her
maids-of-honour the shade of mourning which most properly expressed regret for royal
personages in a trance, lost her patience at length, and sent one of her
attendants with word that she, for her part, was keen-set for something to eat,
and that in her young days it had been customary for young ladies released from
enchantment to accept the congratulations of their parents without loss of
time. The Prince Florimond, by this message recalled to his devoirs, helped the
Princess to rise. She was completely dressed, and very magnificently too.
Taking his beloved Princess Aurora by the hand, he led her to her parents,
who embraced her passionately and—their first transports over—turned to welcome
him as a son, being charmed (quite apart from their gratitude) by the modest
gallantry of his address. They passed into a great dining-room lined with
mirrors, where they supped and were served by the royal attendants. Violins and
hautboys discoursed music that was ancient indeed, but excellent, and the meal
was scarcely concluded before the company enjoyed a very pleasant surprise.
Prince Florimond, having no eyes but for his love, might be excused if he
forgot that his attendants must, long before now, have carried home their
report, and that his parents would be in deep distress, wondering what had become
of him. But the King, the Princess’s father, had a truly royal habit of
remembering details, especially when it concerned setting folks at their ease.
Before dinner he had dispatched a messenger to carry word to Prince Florimond’s
father, that his son was safe, and to acquaint him briefly with what had
befallen. The messenger, riding through the undergrowth—which now obligingly
parted before him as it had, a while ago, to admit the Prince—and arriving at
the out-skirts of the wood, found there a search-party vainly endeavouring to
break through the barrier, with the Prince’s aged father standing by and
exhorting them in person, to whom he delivered his message. Trembling with
relief—for he truly supposed his son to be lost beyond recall—the old man entreated
the messenger to turn back and escort him. So he arrived, and was ushered into
the hall.
The situation, to be sure, was delicate. But when these two kings, both so
well meaning, had met and exchanged courtesies, and the one had raised the
other by the hand to a place on the dais beside him, already and without speech
they had almost accorded.
“I am an old man,” said the Prince’s father; “I have reigned long enough
for my satisfaction, and now care for little in life but to see my son happy.”
“I think I can promise you that,” said the Princess’s father, smiling, with
a glance at the two lovers.
“I am old enough, at any rate, to have done with ambitions,” said the one.
“And I,” said the other, “have dreamed long enough, at any rate, to despise
them. What matters ruling to either of us two, while we see your son and my
daughter reigning together?”
So it was agreed, then and there; and after supper, without loss of time,
the Archbishop married the Prince Florimond and the Princess Aurora in the
chapel of the Castle. The two Kings and the Princess’s mother saw them to their
chamber, and the first maid-of-honour drew the curtain. They slept little—the
Princesshad no occasion; but the Prince next morning led his bride back to the
city, where they were acclaimed by the populace and lived happy ever after,
reigning in prosperity and honour.
MORAL
Ye Maids, to await some while a lover fond,
Rich, titled, debonair as Florimond,
Is reason; and who learns on fate to attend
Goes seldom unrewarded in the end—
“What! No one kiss us for a hundred years!”
There, la-la-la! I understood, my dears.
ANOTHER
Further, the story would suggest a doubt
That marriage may be happiest when deferr’d—
“Deferr’d?” you cry—“Deferr’d,” I see you pout,
—We’ll skip this moral, and attempt a third.
ANOTHER
Thirdly, our fable then appears to prove
Disparity of years no bar to love.
Crabb’d Age and Youth—But that’s an ancient quarrel,
And I’ll not interfere. There’s no third moral.
Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur. The
Sleeping Beauty and Other Tales From the Old French. Edmund Dulac,
illustrator. New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910.
MORE FAIRY TALES:
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/quillercouch/sleepingbeauty.html