Wonder Tales Page 20

  She forgot neither the pitcher full of the Water of Discretion nor the basket of clover nor the iron shoes; and, just when Magotine had concluded that she was dead, she appeared before her, the millstone round her neck, the iron shoes on her feet, and the pitcher in her hand. The fairy, on seeing her, uttered a great shriek; and then demanded where on earth she had come from? My lady, said she, I have spent three years fishing for water in a leaking jug, and at the end of that time I found a way of making it stay there. Magotine burst out laughing, thinking of all the weariness the poor queen must have undergone, and then she looked at her more closely. What do I see? cried she. Hidessa is grown altogether charming! and where did you obtain all this beauty? The queen told her that she had washed herself with the Water of Discretion and that this marvel had then come about. On hearing this Magotine in a fit of despair threw the pitcher on the ground. O Power that defies me, she cried, I shall be avenged! Prepare your iron shoes, said she to the queen, for you must go on my behalf to the Underworld and ask Proserpine for the tincture of longevity; I am always in fear of falling sick and even of dying; but when I have that antidote I shall have no further cause for concern – only make sure that you leave the seal on the bottle untouched, and do not taste the syrup she will give you, for you would lessen my dose.

  The poor queen had never been more surprised than she was by this command. What is the way to the Underworld? she asked. And is it possible for those who go there to return? Alas, my lady, will you ever weary of persecuting me? Under what star was I born? My sister is much happier than I am; it is impossible to believe that the constellations dispense all fates equally. She began to weep, and Magotine, full of triumph at the sight of her falling tears, burst out laughing: Come, come, said she, do not for one moment delay a journey which will bring me so great a satisfaction; and she filled a scrip for her with mouldy walnuts and crusts; and with these delightful provisions she set off, resolving to smash her head against the next rock to put an end to her troubles.

  She travelled on for some time in no particular direction, starting out one way, making a turn in another, and thinking that it was quite unheard-of, to be commanded to set out for the Underworld. When she got weary, she lay down at the foot of a tree and began to dream of the poor Worm, taking no further thought for her journey, when suddenly she saw before her the Guardian Fairy, who said: Are you aware, lovely queen, that in order to bring back your husband from the dark place where he is held at Magotine’s behest, you will have to go to the dwelling of Proserpine? I would go even further, if it were possible, replied the queen – but my lady, I do not know how to make my way down to those shadowy regions. Look, said the Guardian Fairy, here is a green branch – strike the earth with it, and recite these verses clearly. The queen clasped the knees of this generous friend, and then said:

  *

  O you who can disarm the Thunderer’s might

  Dear Love, come to my aid!

  Behold how I am made

  A plaything for the Fairy’s cruel spite.

  Lead me, I pray, into the land of Night,

  For in that darkness still your flame burns bright.

  Your power has worked in Pluto’s dreadful breast

  Proserpine’s hand smooths that dark brow to rest,

  Lead me, sweet Love, into the land of Night.

  My dear love has been cruelly stol’n away

  My sad eyes cannot bear the light of day,

  In pain I cannot draw each breath

  Yet cannot come to Death.

  She had hardly finished her invocation when the most beautiful boy in the world appeared in the midst of a cloud of mingled gold and azure; he flew down and came to rest at her feet; his head was crowned with a garland of flowers; the queen knew from his bow and arrows that he was Love himself, and he said to her:

  I have heard your cries

  And come through the blue skies

  To dry the tears that glisten in your eyes.

  I shall stand your friend

  The Green Worm’s pain shall end

  To the Dark World together we’ll descend

  To bring your husband back into the light

  And to confound the Fairy’s cruel spite.

  The queen, dazzled by the brilliance which surrounded Love, and delighted by his promises, cried:

  I am prepared to follow you to Hell

  To see the husband whom I love so well.

  And I shall find that dark and loathsome place

  Pleasant and bright, if I can see his face.

  Love, who rarely speaks in prose, struck three blows, singing these words with perfect expressiveness:

  O Earth, open your jaws

  Love bids you, let us go

  To that dark realm below

  Governed by Pluto’s laws.

  Earth obeyed, opened her wide womb, and through a dim path, where the queen was in great need of a guide as brightly shining as the one who had taken her into his care, she arrived in the Underworld; she was afraid of meeting her husband there in his serpentine form; but Love, who upon occasion takes trouble to perform kindnesses to the unfortunate, having foreseen all that would be required, had already ordered matters so that the Green Worm should return to the form he bore before his penance. And whatever Magotine’s powers, alas for her, what could she do against the power of Love? So that the first thing the queen came upon was her gentle husband; she had never seen him in this lovely form, and he had never seen her looking so beautiful as she had now become – nevertheless, a kind of presentiment, and perhaps Love, which was the third of their company, made it possible for them to guess who they both were. The queen immediately said to him, with great tenderness:

  I come to bend the iron bars of Fate

  Quick to release you from your prison’d state

  And join two hearts that none shall separate.

  So Hell, which others shake with fear to see

  Holds neither pain nor terror now for me.

  The king, carried away by intense passion, replied to his wife with all possible delight and joy; but Love, who dislikes wasting time, urged them to appear before Proserpine. The queen offered the fairy’s compliments to the goddess of the Underworld, and asked her to grant her the gift of the tincture of longevity. Now this was a kind of password between these goodly persons; so the goddess instantly gave the queen a small flask, not very well stoppered, to encourage her to try to open it; but Love, who was not new to this game, warned the queen to hold back from a curiosity which could still be fatal; and hurrying away from these dismal surroundings the king and queen came back into the light of day. Love had no desire to abandon them, so he himself took them into Magotine’s presence, and, to keep himself unseen, hid in their hearts. Nevertheless, his presence stirred up such unaccustomed good nature in the fairy that, although she had no idea why, she was very graciously disposed to these noble sufferers, and making a supernatural effort of generosity, she gave them back their Kingdom of Pagody. They returned there without more ado, and lived the rest of their lives as prosperously as they had so far endured misery and disgrace.

  Insidious curiosity

  Gives rise to evils of a hateful kind.

  On secrets which can shatter heart and mind

  Why cast an eye?

  This madness burns most hot in womankind –

  Call the first Woman (and the Snake), to mind,

  Model for Psyche and Pandora who,

  Eager for knowledge that the gods had hid,

  Uncovered hissing evils and so did

  Harm to themselves and harm to others, too.

  Hidessa shed intrusive light

  On the invisible Worm, by night,

  Which hurt them both, and this despite

  The warning clear in Psyche’s story

  Which was still fresh in her memory.

  The moral is, that humans cannot learn

  To be discreet, from stories or the past,

  But stubbornly experiment, and burn
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  Their fingers in old flames, and come at last

  To give advice to others in their turn

  Which others, in their turn, forget as fast

  As did Hidessa, those Greek Gods, and Eve.

  Ponder well, Reader! Now I take my leave.

  GLOSSARY

  The White Cat

  1 Rodillardus: Bacon-gnawer, the name of a cat borrowed by La Fontaine from Rabelais, see ‘The Rats’ Council’, Fables II, 11.

  2 Minagrobis: An echo of La Fontaine’s Raminagrobis in ‘The Rat League’, Uncollected Fables, which were only published posthumously, in 1696, i.e. not long before Mme d’Aulnoy wrote her tale. Grobis: Old French word for a haughty cat.

  3 Martafax: Another echo of La Fontaine, ‘The Battle of the Rats and the Weasels’, in which the doughty warrior rats are called Artarpax, Psicarpax and Meridarpax. Fables IV, 6.

  4 Lhermite: Another nod in the master fabulist’s direction, cf. ‘The Rat who Retired from the World’, Fables VII, 3.

  5 tilting at the ring: In this chivalrous variation on the tourney, the contestants do not drive at each other with lances lowered, but at a hoop or ring (often beribboned).

  6 Sinbad: John Ashbery’s only ‘liberty’ with the text, which has ‘Perroquet’ for the parrot’s name. As The Arabian Nights were soon to appear in Antoine Galland’s influential translation (1704–17), Sinbad seemed an apt anticipation.

  The Subtle Princess

  7 Count Ory: the hero of a medieval legend from Picardy, who inspired Eugène Scribe and Charles Gaspard Delestre-Poirson to write a one-act vaudeville play (1817), which Rossini then used for his opera buffa, Le Comte Ory (1828).

  8 Regulus: Roman consul executed by Carthaginians c.250 BC: his eyelids were cut off and he was left to stare at the sun, then rolled in a spiked barrel.

  Bearskin

  9 Letters of a Peruvian Lady: Lettres d’une Péruvienne by Mme Françoise de Graffigny (1695–1758) which appeared in 1747. Unless this passing tribute is an interpolation, it also suggests that the story was attributed to Mme de Murat afterwards.

  The Counterfeit Marquise

  10 M. Pellisson: Paul Pellisson (1624–93), lawyer and writer, friend of Mlle. de Scudéry, mocked by Molière, and famous for his high principles.

  11 D’Aleteff – Possibly a scrambled version of Mme de Lafayette’s name, and hence a possible tongue-in-cheek reference to the author of The Princesse de Clèves.

  12 Prince Sionad: Adonis, anagrammatically – paragon of masculine charms.

  13 afterpiece – A theatrical convention of the period: see R. W. Bevis, ed., Eighteenth-century Afterpieces (Oxford, 1970).

  14 violons – The King’s private string orchestra: consort of twenty-four violins.

  Starlight

  15 Lapiths and Centaurs: At the wedding feast of Pirithous and Hippodamia, the drunken Centaurs attempted to abduct the bride and her Lapith attendants and friends, whereupon a terrible battle broke out; in many interpretations, the conflict symbolised the struggle between the human (Lapiths) and the animal (Centaurs).

  The Great Green Worm

  16 zinzolin: a reddish-violet colour associated with cheap, woven fabrics; the poet Paul Scarron (1610–60), husband of Mme de Maintenon, introduced it into French in his burlesque poem Virgile travesti. It sounds as if it could be related to the English linsey-woolsey, meaning a coarse cloth.

  17 the author referred to is La Fontaine, who in 1669, published a story, The Loves of Psyche and Cupid. Corneille, Molière and Quinault were also to take up this episode from Apuleius’s Golden Ass to make a tragedy-ballet from it in 1671.

  NOTES ON THE AUTHORS, THE STORIES

  AND THE CONTRIBUTORS

  Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d’Aulnoy (c. 1650–1705)

  Born Normandy, into family with literary connections; married François de la Motte, Baron d’Aulnoy; the marriage was unhappy and the couple separated. Had four children, including one or two later. Published three volumes of travels and memoirs of Spain and England, supposedly based on experiences, though this is doubtful. First novel, Histoire d’Hippolyte, Comte de Duglas published to acclaim in 1690; her salon flourished thereafter. Produced several volumes of fairy tales 1690–1705, which were immediately translated into English and other languages. Famed for her wit, beauty, high spirits. Faded from view when children’s literature experts decreed her frivolous.

  ‘The Great Green Worm’: ‘Le Serpentin vert’, first appeared within the frame novel, Dom Fernand de Tolède, in Contes nouveaux (Paris, 1698).

  ‘The White Cat’: ‘La Chatte blanche’, in Contes nouveaux, ou, Les Fées à la mode, Vol. 2 (Paris, 1698).

  Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon (1664–1734)

  From a Parisian family with Norman connections; her father was one of the king’s many official historiographers, her mother a cousin of Charles Perrault. Poet, historian, salonnière; published several miscellanies which included her pioneering fairy tales. Wrote panegyrics to her close friends Madeleine de Scudéry, and Antoinette Deshoulières, feminists and women of letters like herself; inherited Scudéry’s salon after her death. Did not marry, possibly out of principle.

  ‘The Subtle Princess’: ‘L’Adroite Princesse, ou, Les Aventures de Finette’, first published in Oeuvres meslées (Paris, 1695).

  Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, Comtesse de Murat (1670–1716)

  Born Brittany; her father governor of Brest; aged sixteen, married to the Comte de Murat; made close friends with L’Héritier and other salonnières and writers of fairy tales in Paris. Strong temperament, fantastic taste in dress, outspoken; published many collections during her exile from the capital for a thinly disguised satirical fable about the king’s love affair. Also prosecuted by her husband’s family for unruliness; reprieved after Louis XIV’s death, but back at last in Paris, died of kidney stones.

  ‘Starlight’: ‘Etoilette’, and ‘Bearskin’: ‘Peau d’Ours’, appeared in the novel, Les Lutins du château de Kernosy (Paris, 1753, 2nd edition); republished in Voyages imaginaires, songes, visions, et romans cabalistiques, Vol. 35 (Amsterdam and Paris, 1789). As the stories are added to the novel after Murat’s death, the attribution to Murat cannot be certain. Storer, La Mode des Contes de fées (Geneva, 1928), p. 150 attributes them to Mlle de Lubert (c. 1710-c. 1779). Cf. Mlle de Lubert, ‘La Princesse Lionnette et le Prince Coquerico’, ‘Le Prince Glacé et la Princesse Étincelante’, and ‘La Princesse Camion’, Le Cabinet des fées, Vol. 33 (Paris, 1785); see also Zipes, Beauties, Beasts, op. cit., pp. 226–56. Future volumes of Wonder Tales hope to include Lubert.

  Charles Perrault (1628–1703)

  Published, 1697, aged 69, most famous, founding collection of fairy tales, Contes du temps passé. Otherwise his literary efforts unread today; they include autobiography, poems, polemic, panegyrics to the king and other great men of France. Académicien, but progressive: supported the cause of women and of the Moderns in the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns. Close to his cousin, L’Héritier, with whom he developed the modern fairy tale.

  François-Timoléon, Abbé de Choisy (1644–1724)

  Born Paris, lived as the ‘Comtesse de Barres’ and enjoyed numerous clandestine liaisons (with women); sent as envoy to Siam, found religion, and became a priest. His frank Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Louis XIV, published posthumously, include many surprises.

  ‘L’Histoire de la Marquise–Marquis de Banneville’: ‘The Counterfeit Marquise’, appeared anonymously in Le Mercure Galant, Février, 1695. For the controversy about authorship, see Jeanne Roche-Mazon (1928), and Paul Delarue, ‘Les Contes merveilleux de Perrault. Faits et rapprochements nouveaux’, Arts et Traditions Populaires, Nov. 3, 1954, pp. 251–74, esp. pp. 253–62. I am very grateful to Jacques Barchilon for his help; he disagrees however with the attribution, so any error remains my own.

  Translators

  Gilbert Adair has written three novels, The Holy Innocents, Love and Death on Long Islan
d and The Death of the Author, two sequels to classics of children’s literature, Alice Through the Needle’s Eye and Peter Pan and the Only Children, and several volumes of criticism. His translation of Georges Perec’s ‘e’-less novel, La Disparition, will appear later this year as A Void.

  John Ashbery is one of the most prolific and challenging of American poets. His most recent books are Flow Chart published in 1991, and Hotel Lautréamont, published in 1992. He is currently Professor of Literature at Bard College. Among many other awards, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and the 1992 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

  Ranjit Bolt worked as an investment adviser for eight years before taking up translation full time. His translations include The Learned Ladies and Tartuffe by Molière, The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville by Beaumarchais, The Illusion and The Liar by Corneille and The Double Inconstancy by Marivaux. He is currently working on a film script for Merchant Ivory.

  A. S. Byatt is an award-winning novelist and critic. Her novel Possession won the Booker Prize and the Irish Times/ Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize in 1990. Her other fiction includes The Shadow of the Sun, The Game, The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life and Angels and Insects. She was appointed a CBE in 1990.

  Terence Cave is Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St John’s College. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy. His publications include The Cornucopian Text: Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance (1979), Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (1988) and a new translation of Mme de Lafayette’s The Princesse de Clèves (1992).

  Illustrator

  Sophie Herxheimer is a young London-born artist. She trained in painting at Chelsea, since when her work has been widely exhibited and collected. She uses a variety of media; painted paper collages, oil paint, Indian ink, and has designed and illustrated several book jackets, notably the autobiography of Nobel peace prize-winner, Rigoberta Menchu Tum. Her graphic oeuvre includes designs for Paperchase, Collier Campbell and London Lighthouse. She is presently working on her own rhyming version of the fairy-tale, The Three Magic Oranges, to be published as a picture book.