The second couple in the tale are also heterosexual. The lovers on the balcony do not seem to be successful in their relationship and have communication problems. The man is romantic and passionate whereas the maid-of-honour is portrayed as being cold, selfish, vain, and loveless. For example, the man romances the girl saying: "How beautiful the stars are, and how wonderful is the power of love!"; however, she replies that she is worried her dress will not be ready for the State-Ball and complains that the seamstress is "so lazy". Jacobs predicts that the indifference of the maid-of-honour and her inability to understand the lives of those who work for her will break down the lovers' relationship and the girl will be to blame. The relationship between the lovers... The female character conveys an attitude towards life and is unfocused on the fundamental needs of her relationship.
It is interesting to note that prior to the twentieth century, it was fully acceptable for men to express themselves romantically with poets such as Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth as their role models.
Jacobs writes that Wilde inverts the usual stereotypes of the "manly male" and the "romantic female" rendering the last as materialistic, callous, and aggressive.
Este fragmento de Wilde fue traducido por Jorge Luis Borges a la tierna edad de nueve años.
From a dense forest of tall, dark, pinewood,
Mount Ida rises like an island.
Within a hidden cave, nymphs had kept a child;
Hermaphroditus, son of gods,
so afraid of their love.
When fifteen years in Ida's cool retreat
The boy had told, he left his native seat,
And sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil...
As the dawn creeps up the sky
The hunter caught sight of a doe.
In desire for conquest,
He found himself, within a glade
he'd not beheld before.
Hermaphroditus: “Where are you my father.
Give wisdom to your son.”
Narrator: “Then he could go no farther.
Now lost, the boy was guided by the sun”
And as his strength began to fail
He saw a shimmering lake.
It shew'd the bottom in a fairer light,
Nor kept a sand conceal'd from human sight.
The stream produc'd nor slimy ooze, nor weeds,
Nor miry rushes, nor the spiky reeds;
But dealt enriching moisture all around,
The fruitful banks with chearful verdure crown'd,
And kept the spring eternal on the ground.
A shadow in the dark green depths
Disturbed the strange tranquility.
A nymph presides, not practis'd in the chase,
Nor skilful at the bow, nor at the race;
Her sisters often, as 'tis said, wou'd cry,
"Fie Salmacis: what, always idle! fie.
Or take thy quiver, or thy arrows seize,
And mix the toils of hunting with thy ease."
Nor quiver she nor arrows e'er wou'd seize,
Nor mix the toils of hunting with her ease.
But oft would bathe her in the chrystal tide,
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide;
Now in the limpid streams she views her face,
And drest her image in the floating glass:
On beds of leaves she now repos'd her limbs,
Now gather'd flow'rs that grew about her streams,
Salmacis: “The waters are disturbed
Some creature has been stirred”
Narrator: “The waters are disturbed
The naiad queen Salmacis has been…
stirred”
As he rushed to quench his thirst,
A fountain spring appeared before him
And as his heated breath
brushed through the cool mist,
A liquid voice called “Son of gods,
drink from my spring”.
The water tasted strangely sweet.
Behind him the voice called again.
He turned and saw her, in a cloak of mist alone
And as he gazed, her eyes were filled
with the darkness of the lake.
Salmacis: “We shall be one.
We shall be joined as one”
"Bright youth," she cries, "whom all thy features prove
A God, and, if a God, the God of love;
Blest are thy parents, and thy sisters blest:
But oh how blest! how more than blest thy bride,
Ally'd in bliss, if any yet ally'd.
If so, let mine the stol'n enjoyments be;
If not, behold a willing bride in me!"
Narrator: “She wanted them as one.
Yet he had no desire to be one”
The boy knew nought of love, and toucht with shame,
He strove, and blusht, but still the blush became:
In rising blushes still fresh beauties rose;
The sunny side of fruit such blushes shows,
And such the moon, when all her silver white
Turns in eclipses to a ruddy light.
The nymph still begs, if not a nobler bliss,
A cold salute at least, a sister's kiss:
And now prepares to take the lovely boy
Between her arms. He, innocently coy,
Replies, "Or leave me to my self alone,
You rude uncivil nymph, or I'll be gone."
"Fair stranger then," says she, "it shall be so";
And, for she fear'd his threats, she feign'd to go:
But hid within a covert's neighbouring green,
She kept him still in sight, herself unseen.
The boy now fancies all the danger o'er,
And innocently sports about the shore,
Playful and wanton to the stream he trips,
And dips his foot, and shivers as he dips.
The coolness pleas'd him, and with eager haste
His airy garments on the banks he cast;
His godlike features, and his heav'nly hue,
And all his beauties were expos'd to view.
His naked limbs the nymph with rapture spies,
While hotter passions in her bosom rise,
Flush in her cheeks, and sparkle in her eyes.
She longs, she burns to clasp him in her arms,
And looks, and sighs, and kindles at his charms.
Now all undresssed upon the banks he stood,
And clapt his sides, and leapt into the flood:
His lovely limbs the silver waves divide,
His limbs appear more lovely through the tide;
As lilies shut within a crystal case
Receive a glossy lustre from the glass.
He's mine, he's all my own, the Naiad cries,
And flings off all, and after him she flies.
And now she fastens on him as he swims,
And holds him close, and wraps about his limbs.
The more the boy resisted, and was coy,
The more she clipt, and kissed the struggling boy.
Hermaphroditus: “Away from me
cold-blooded woman. Your thirst is not mine”
Salmacis: “Nothing will cause us to part
Hear me O gods”
The restless boy still obstinately strove
To free himself, and still refus'd her love.
Amidst his limbs she kept her limbs entwined,
"And why, coy youth," she cries, "why thus unkind!
Oh may the Gods thus keep us ever joined!
Oh may we never, never part again!"
Unearthly calm descended from the sky
And then their flesh and bones
were strangely merged
Forever to be joined as one.
For now she finds him, as his limbs she prest,
Grow nearer still, and nearer to her breast;
'Till, piercing each the other's flesh, they run
Together, and incorporate in one:
Last in one face are both their faces join'd,
As when the stock and grafted twig combin'd
Shoot up the same, and wear a common rind.
The creature crawled into the lake
A fading voice was heard:
“And I beg, that all who touch this spring
may share my fate”
(He prayed, but wonder'd at his softer tone,
Surprised to hear a voice but half his own.)
You parent-gods, whose heav'nly names I bear,
Hear your Hermaphroditus, grant my prayer;
Oh grant, that whomsoe'er these streams contain,
If man he enter'd, he may rise again
Supple, unsinew'd, and but half a man!
The heav'nly parents answer'd from on high,
Their two-shaped son, the double votary,
Then gave a secret virtue to the flood,
And tinged its source to make his wishes good.
Salmacis: “We are the one, we are the one”
Narrator: “The two are now made one.
Demi-god and nymph are now made one”
Both had given everything they had.
A lover's dream had been fulfilled at last,
Forever still beneath the lake.
Here, I combine the classical seventeenth-century translation of Ovid with the Genesis song retelling the myth from which I first learned to know it. She takes the lead in the relationship, he retreats, resists, fights for his rights, and finally surrenders. Not only is he defiled by her, but their bodies are even fused together in response to her wish that they never be parted.
Not only is the villainess always portrayed as aggressive, dynamic, self-centered and self-reliant; she often fixes the bridegroom a drink that puts him into an altered state and turns him basically into the rival bride's pleasure object. This is one of my favourite fairytale motifs EVER. I have even turned it into an EPIC Haikara-san fanfic...
