In Sleeping Beauty's Bed by Mitzi Szereto

Author:Mitzi Szereto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2010-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

PUNISHED PRIDE

Classified by folklore scholars as a seduction/humiliation tale, the punishing of prideful princesses always takes center stage in the many versions of “Punished Pride.” Known from the shores of Ireland to the steppes of Russia, the tale even has echoes in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, which clearly indicates that the theme of prideful females who must be subdued has been the fodder for storytellers both peasant and nonpeasant alike.

Collected by the Brothers Grimm in the familiar form of “König Drosselbart” (King Thrushbeard), “Punished Pride” is believed to have arisen in Central Europe during the Middle Ages, with Italy being the likeliest candidate. However, its actual roots may go beyond those of the medieval, for elements in the story can be traced to pre-Christian days in the legend of the Teutonic god Wotan, who (like the folktale king) goes about in the guise of a beggar. In fact, the German name for Thrushbeard closely matches in meaning that of Wotan—that is, Horsebeard, thereby providing evidence of a Germanic influence upon the tale’s development.

As the Baroque flourished in Italy, Giambattista Basile would create his own version of the story. In “Pride Punished,” the haughty princess Cinziella—for whom no suitor is ever good enough—rejects a king, who later disguises himself so that he can take employment at the palace of the princess’s father. Although the first part of Basile’s tale parallels “The Swineherd,” the humiliation of the princess soon becomes a major theme as she finds herself greatly humbled by a pregnancy caused by a man thought to be the palace gardener. As Basile wrote, “The miserable Cinziella, agonized at what had befallen her, held it to be the punishment of Heaven for her former arrogance and pride, that she who had treated so many kings and princes as doormats should now be treated like the vilest slut.” Hence the princess is forced to flee her father’s kingdom with the man responsible for her condition, whereupon the disguised king inflicts upon the banished princess indignity after indignity. Only when he believes that she has finally learned her lesson does he reveal his true identity.

Although Basile would carry forth the sixteenth century’s tolerance for sexual frankness in folktales into the seventeenth century, in the years following his Pentamerone a change in attitudes began to take place—a change exemplified by an increasing shame and embarrassment about bodily functions, specifically those related to sexual matters. By the nineteenth century, references to sex were all but gone. In “King Thrushbeard” by the Grimms, not a word can be found of the princess becoming pregnant. Instead, her lessons of humiliation derive solely from the tasks she has been made to perform, rather than from any unsanctioned sexual behavior. It would appear that the men have acted in conspiracy against her as the princess’s father arranges for his daughter to take for a husband the first beggar who comes to the palace door—in this case, a common fiddler. In reality the fiddler is a rejected suitor, a king who, according to the mocking princess, has a chin that resembles a thrush’s beak.

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