Obsession with love and love to eternity became a normal part in
relations between men and women relatively late in history. The
written documents that describe obsessions with love begin to appear
in 10-13-th centuries, the time of knights and Crusades.
At this point it is interesting to imagine how would anyone coming say
from the time of Julius Ceasar (1 century B.C.) understand the Charles
Perrot fairy tale. Here is my version of such an understanding with
omission of some unnecessary details. :)))))
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The Sleeping Beauty (Or Unsatisfied Stupidity).
Once upon a time in the neighboring kingdom there lived a princess.
She was told by everyone that she was extremely beautiful. In fact,
everyone and everything in the kingdom sincerely believed that only
women that looked like the princess can be characterized as pretty.
``Oh, how wonderfully she walks,'' the citizens of the kindom said
whenever they were meeting the princess. ``Oh, how inricately she
dresses up. How marvelously she chooses the flowers for her
bouquet,'' the animals, birds, and insects wispered through the
forests of the kingdom. ``Oh, how delicate her face is! How sweet
are her talks!'' the fish and other water folk bubled in the rivers,
lakes, and seas of the kingdom.
The beautiful princes lived as if in a fairy tale. Everything she did
or intended to do was considered magical and extraordinary in the
kingdom. The kingdom lived for the princess that lived in it. Yet,
it wasn't a real fairy tale, for the princess had a great sadness.
She was alone. She could not play with young people of her age,
because she was prettier. She did not even have a boyfriend.
A long time ago she had a dream of a young and beautiful prince of a
foreign kingdom who was riding a white horse. The princess
immediately felt that it was he, the increadibly sensitive guy with a
good sense of humor, that was previously predicted to become the
greatest king of all times. Neither her parents, the king and the
queen, nor their servicemen knew of such a prince. People were sent
to the farthest corners of the Earth, but the prince was not found.
And sleeping beauty waited for that special guy.
She waited days and nights, winters and summers, and years. She
stopped eating, sleeping, smiling, and talking. She was lying in her
bed and waiting and waiting and waiting... The prince was not coming.
The people of the kingdom, especially those who lived close to the
palace stoped eating and smiling and talking too. They felt that by
doing so they may provoke G_d to send the wonderful prince to the
kingdom. But the prince was not coming. And the kindom fell into
darkness... The forests grew on its land and the spiders inhabitted
the houses.
More than a hundred years have passed since that time. A young
Open-Minded Guy together with his friends was riding horses
through the land that was a 100 ago a prosperous kingdom. The young
people were armed with swods and spears, as all the young men seeking
adventures are. These men saw the empty houses inside which they
could find nothing but the spiders and pictures of a young lady. They
were surprized with the unknown objects and writings. Suddenly a huge
and strangely looking palace appeared on their way. The young people
came in.
The palace was quiet but as the young people entered the Great Hall a
stangely deformed figure of a women started quickly approaching the
young men. The face of the woman resembled the face of a girl
pictured in every house, the young men passed on their way. ``Oh,
prince!!! You finally came!!!'' the woman was crying in her unknown
to the young people language.
``The witch'' fearfully wispered they, and the Open-Minded
Guy took his sword and killed the woman...
``But where is the kiss, that woke up a girl?'' you may ask. The
young Open-Minded Guy did find a girl in the palace, who was the great
granddaughter of the famous beautiful princess. The beutiful princess
eventually had unsafe sex with one stranger, who next morning
dissappeared and never came back. She had a son. She chose to bring
up the child alone and never got married, because only her beautiful
prince could be the perfect father. But this is another story, the
story of an uninteresting and unbeautiful life, that all of us have...
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Responces are widely appreciated.
Status: RO