Selasa, 27 Mei 2014
There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about to grant their desire.
These people had a little window at the back of their house from
which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beatiful flower and herbs. It was, however,
surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to
go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had great power and was
dreaded by all the world.
One day the woman
was standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a
bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion, and it looked so fresh
and green that she longed for it. She quite pined away, and began to look pale
and miserable.
Her husband was
alarmed, and asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?'
'Ah,' she replied,
'if I can't eat some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I
shall die.'
The man, who loved
her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, bring her some of the rampion
yourself, let it cost what it will.'
At twilight, he
clambered down over the wall into the
garden of the enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it
to his wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It
tasted so good to her - so very good, that the next day she longed for it three
times as much as before.
If he was to have
any rest, her husband knew he must once more descend into the garden.
Therefore, in the gloom of evening, he let himself down again; but when he had
clambered down the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress
standing before him.
'How can you dare,'
said she with angry look, 'descend into my garden and steal my rampion like a
thief? You shall suffer for it!'
* * *
'Ah,' answered he,
'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made up my mind to do it out of
necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the window, and felt such a longing
for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.'
The enchantress
allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him: 'If the case be as you say,
I will allow you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make
one condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into the
world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.'
The man in his
terror consented to everything.
When the woman was
brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the child the name of
Rapunzel, and took it away with her.
Rapunzel grew into
the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the
enchantress shut her into a tower in the middle of a forest. The tower had neither
stairs nor door, but near the top was a little window. When the enchantress
wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Rapunzel had
magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold,
and when she heard the voice of the enchantress, she unfastened her braided
tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the
hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.
After a year or two,
it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so
charming that he stood still and listened. It was Rapunzel, who in her solitude
passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to
climb up to her, and looked for the door
of the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so
deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and
listened to it.
* * *
Once when he was
thus standing behind a tree, he saw that an enchantress came there, and he
heard how she cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Then Rapunzel let
down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress
climbed up to her.
'If that is the
ladder by which one mounts, I too will try my fortune,' said he, and the next
day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower
and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
Immediately the hair
fell down and the king's son climbed up.
At first Rapunzel
was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes had never yet beheld, came
to her; but the king's son began to talk to her quite like a friend, and told
her that his heart had been so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he
had been forced to see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her
if she would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and
handsome, she thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and
she said yes, and laid her hand in his.
She said: 'I will
willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a
skein of silk every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and
when that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.'
They agreed that
until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked
nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it
happens that you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's
son - he is with me in a moment.'
* * *
'Ah! you wicked
child,' cried the enchantress. 'What do I hear you say! I thought I had
separated you from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!'
In her anger she
clutched Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand,
seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off,
and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless that she took
poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.
On the same day that
she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress fastened the braids of hair,
which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the king's son came
and cried:
'Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
Let down your hair to me.'
she let the hair
down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he
found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks.
'Aha!' she cried
mockingly, 'you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer
singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as
well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again.'
The king's son was
beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He
escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.
He wandered quite
blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries, and did naught but
lament and weep over the loss of his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in
misery for some years, and at length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with
the twins to which she had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a voice, and it
seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and when he approached,
Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two of her tears wetted his
eyes and they grew clear again, and he could see with them as before. He led
her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long
time afterwards, happy and contented.
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