There is a song by Swedish heavy metal band Tiamat. No explicit literary allusions are found in the lyrics, but the song still sounds and reads like a nineteenth-century poem:
viernes, 29 de marzo de 2013
A COLD ROSE OF STONE
Recently, I read a folktale that I woud like to share with you readers...
The story is a widespread one, about a marriageable princess (young, beautiful, and powerful as usual) with thousands of suitors, who would give her heart away to the one who brought her a blue rose, which does not exist in nature and could not obtained artificially in those days. The quest was, obviously, a test of character.
And so, the most confident of all suitors showed up at court, each with a different likeness of a blue rose.
Let the tale speak for itself:
"Another of the suitors, whose name I have forgotten, was a warrior and extremely brave; he mounted his horse, and taking with him a hundred archers and a thousand horsemen he marched into the territory of the King of Five Rivers, whom he knew to be the richest king in the world and the possessor of the rarest treasures, and demanded of him the Blue Rose, threatening him with a terrible doom should he be reluctant to give it up. The King of the Five Rivers, who disliked soldiers, and had a horror of noise, violence, and every kind of fuss (his bodyguard was armed solely with fans and sunshades), rose from the cushions on which he was lying when the demand was made, and, tinkling a small bell, said to the servant who straightway appeared, "Fetch me the Blue Rose." The servant retired and returned presently bearing on a silken cushion a large sapphire which was carved so as to imitate a full-blown rose with all its petals.
"This," said the King of the Five Rivers, "is the Blue Rose. You are welcome to it." The warrior took it, and after making brief, soldier-like thanks, he returned to his prospective bride's palace, claiming that he had brought her the wished-for blue rose.
The Princess took the precious object in her hands, and after examining it for a moment, said: "This is not a rose at all. It is a sapphire; I have no need of precious stones." And she returned the stone to the warrior, with many elegantly-expressed thanks. And the warrior went away in discomfiture. Many other suitors (foreign rulers, merchants, courtiers...) failed as well. All of them sought in various ways for the Blue Rose. Some of them travelled all over the world seeking it; some of them sought the aid of wizards and astrologers, and one did not hesitate to invoke the help of the dwarfs that live underground. But all of them, whether they travelled in far countries, or took counsel with wizards and demons, or sat pondering in lonely places, failed to find the Blue Rose. After this there was no one in the whole country who ventured on the quest of the Blue Rose. Until a certain passing-by wandering minstrel appeared at court. One evening he was playing his one-stringed instrument outside a dark wall. It was a summer's evening, and the sun had sunk in a glory of dusty gold, and in the violet twilight one or two stars were twinkling like spear-heads. There was an incessant noise made by the croaking of frogs and the chatter of grasshoppers. The minstrel was singing a short song over and over again to a monotonous tune.
As he sang he heard a rustle on the wall, and looking up he saw a slight figure, white against the twilight, beckoning to him. He walked along under the wall until he came to a gate, and there some one was waiting for him, and he was gently led into the shadow of a dark cedar tree. In the twilight he saw two bright eyes looking at him, and he understood their message. In the twilight a thousand meaningless nothings were whispered in the light of the stars, and the hours fled swiftly. When the East began to grow light, the Princess (for it was she) said it was time to go.
"But," said the minstrel, "to-morrow I shall come to the palace and ask for your hand."
"Alas!" said the Princess, "I would that were possible, but my father has made a foolish condition that only he may wed me who finds the Blue Rose."
"That is simple," said the minstrel, "I will find it!" And they said good-night to each other.
The next morning the minstrel went to the palace, and on his way he picked a common white rose from a wayside garden. Once in the throne room, he claimed that he had found the real Blue Rose.
The Princess took the rose in her hands and said: "Yes, this is without doubt the Blue Rose." And, when courtiers and ladies spoke against her word, the young and dashing minstrel told her that they couldn't realize it because all of them were colour-blind.
So the minstrel married the Princess, and they settled on the sea-coast in a little green house with a garden full of white roses, and they lived happily for ever afterwards."
The rose of love didn't need to be blue, but to be offered with true love, and not with selfish intentions of greed, ambition and lust for power. A cold rose of stone is less precious to the pure-hearted than a live flower. So do they prefer a warm heart to a cold one.
Many fairytale husbands are torn apart from their wives by the call of duty, to return with heavy hearts and dizzy heads. They usually find their wives and children in exile, accused of crimes that they didn't commit. This problem has affected Othello and the spouse of the Maiden Without Hands, to name two of its victims. Some of them do not come home from the wars.
Machiavelli once said that it is better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved. Ever since, many great leaders have followed his advice by scaring their subjects away from contradicting their decrees through public executions and invading nearby lands to increase their power: Philip II, Kaiser Ferdinand II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and all the Fascist and Communist dictators of the latest century.
"Love thine enemy", someone had said centuries before Machiavelli. And those words, after all those wars and revolutions, repression and bloodshed, have proved to speak louder than the Renaissance thinker's. The sapphire rose was not blue, but purple: stained with blood. While the living white flower was dyed blue with true love and creativity, sprung from the fountains of Emotion and Reason, respectively.
The story is a widespread one, about a marriageable princess (young, beautiful, and powerful as usual) with thousands of suitors, who would give her heart away to the one who brought her a blue rose, which does not exist in nature and could not obtained artificially in those days. The quest was, obviously, a test of character.
And so, the most confident of all suitors showed up at court, each with a different likeness of a blue rose.
Let the tale speak for itself:
"Another of the suitors, whose name I have forgotten, was a warrior and extremely brave; he mounted his horse, and taking with him a hundred archers and a thousand horsemen he marched into the territory of the King of Five Rivers, whom he knew to be the richest king in the world and the possessor of the rarest treasures, and demanded of him the Blue Rose, threatening him with a terrible doom should he be reluctant to give it up. The King of the Five Rivers, who disliked soldiers, and had a horror of noise, violence, and every kind of fuss (his bodyguard was armed solely with fans and sunshades), rose from the cushions on which he was lying when the demand was made, and, tinkling a small bell, said to the servant who straightway appeared, "Fetch me the Blue Rose." The servant retired and returned presently bearing on a silken cushion a large sapphire which was carved so as to imitate a full-blown rose with all its petals.
"This," said the King of the Five Rivers, "is the Blue Rose. You are welcome to it." The warrior took it, and after making brief, soldier-like thanks, he returned to his prospective bride's palace, claiming that he had brought her the wished-for blue rose.
The Princess took the precious object in her hands, and after examining it for a moment, said: "This is not a rose at all. It is a sapphire; I have no need of precious stones." And she returned the stone to the warrior, with many elegantly-expressed thanks. And the warrior went away in discomfiture. Many other suitors (foreign rulers, merchants, courtiers...) failed as well. All of them sought in various ways for the Blue Rose. Some of them travelled all over the world seeking it; some of them sought the aid of wizards and astrologers, and one did not hesitate to invoke the help of the dwarfs that live underground. But all of them, whether they travelled in far countries, or took counsel with wizards and demons, or sat pondering in lonely places, failed to find the Blue Rose. After this there was no one in the whole country who ventured on the quest of the Blue Rose. Until a certain passing-by wandering minstrel appeared at court. One evening he was playing his one-stringed instrument outside a dark wall. It was a summer's evening, and the sun had sunk in a glory of dusty gold, and in the violet twilight one or two stars were twinkling like spear-heads. There was an incessant noise made by the croaking of frogs and the chatter of grasshoppers. The minstrel was singing a short song over and over again to a monotonous tune.
"But," said the minstrel, "to-morrow I shall come to the palace and ask for your hand."
"Alas!" said the Princess, "I would that were possible, but my father has made a foolish condition that only he may wed me who finds the Blue Rose."
"That is simple," said the minstrel, "I will find it!" And they said good-night to each other.
The next morning the minstrel went to the palace, and on his way he picked a common white rose from a wayside garden. Once in the throne room, he claimed that he had found the real Blue Rose.
The Princess took the rose in her hands and said: "Yes, this is without doubt the Blue Rose." And, when courtiers and ladies spoke against her word, the young and dashing minstrel told her that they couldn't realize it because all of them were colour-blind.
So the minstrel married the Princess, and they settled on the sea-coast in a little green house with a garden full of white roses, and they lived happily for ever afterwards."
The rose of love didn't need to be blue, but to be offered with true love, and not with selfish intentions of greed, ambition and lust for power. A cold rose of stone is less precious to the pure-hearted than a live flower. So do they prefer a warm heart to a cold one.
Many fairytale husbands are torn apart from their wives by the call of duty, to return with heavy hearts and dizzy heads. They usually find their wives and children in exile, accused of crimes that they didn't commit. This problem has affected Othello and the spouse of the Maiden Without Hands, to name two of its victims. Some of them do not come home from the wars.
Machiavelli once said that it is better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved. Ever since, many great leaders have followed his advice by scaring their subjects away from contradicting their decrees through public executions and invading nearby lands to increase their power: Philip II, Kaiser Ferdinand II, Napoleon Bonaparte, and all the Fascist and Communist dictators of the latest century.
"Love thine enemy", someone had said centuries before Machiavelli. And those words, after all those wars and revolutions, repression and bloodshed, have proved to speak louder than the Renaissance thinker's. The sapphire rose was not blue, but purple: stained with blood. While the living white flower was dyed blue with true love and creativity, sprung from the fountains of Emotion and Reason, respectively.
domingo, 24 de marzo de 2013
MORE ALICE SHOUT-OUTS IN PRETTY CURE
Do you remember the post where I discussed literary allusions in the latest Pretty Cure anime, for instance, a heroine called Alice?
This is a follow-up to that post. I watch Pretty Cure once a week, following every new episode, and new allusions have popped up recently.
In the last episodes, Alice and her friends (kindly Aida and clever Rikka) have discovered the reason why they have become Pretty Cures (that is, warrior magical girls): they have to fight to deliver an invaded country, located in another dimension, and simultaneously prevent the invaders from taking over Earth as well (obviously, standard adventure anime/warrior magical girl anime fare).
Now the ruler of this conquered kingdom, Queen Marie-Ange, managed to escape to Earth (where she's living undercover in exile somewhere) through a magic mirror in the throne room. The "queen + magic mirror" binome makes me immediately think of "Snow White" and "The Snow Queen", not to mention Alice (in Book Two and some of the film adaptations, the heroine enters Wonderland through a looking-glass, that is, a mirror).
This is a follow-up to that post. I watch Pretty Cure once a week, following every new episode, and new allusions have popped up recently.
In the last episodes, Alice and her friends (kindly Aida and clever Rikka) have discovered the reason why they have become Pretty Cures (that is, warrior magical girls): they have to fight to deliver an invaded country, located in another dimension, and simultaneously prevent the invaders from taking over Earth as well (obviously, standard adventure anime/warrior magical girl anime fare).
 |
| Marie-Ange and her personal guard Makoto, after crossing the magic mirror. |
Now the ruler of this conquered kingdom, Queen Marie-Ange, managed to escape to Earth (where she's living undercover in exile somewhere) through a magic mirror in the throne room. The "queen + magic mirror" binome makes me immediately think of "Snow White" and "The Snow Queen", not to mention Alice (in Book Two and some of the film adaptations, the heroine enters Wonderland through a looking-glass, that is, a mirror).
EASTER
Easter is just around the corner.
Easter eggs, Easter bunnies, Easter nests and Easter baskets... dum-dee-dum...
Easter eggs, Easter bunnies, Easter nests and Easter baskets... dum-dee-dum...
THE LATEST BOOK I HAVE READ
Gustavus Adolphus: a Historical Poem.
By Frederic Swinborne.
1884.
Against the backdrop of my favourite strategist's many encounters with the Catholic enemy ranks (from landing to Lützen, through Leipzig and the Lech), Swinborn narrates the love story of Rhineland damsel Hilde and Swedish lieutenant Erik. Is the young officer condemned to die on the battlefield where his liege lord will also meet an untimely fate? I won't tell you readers, so you will have to find out by reading this detailed and thorough epic, that gets inside the minds of Gustavus Adolphus, Tilly, and Wallenstein while giving accounts of the everyday lives of officers, privates, and camp followers in those troubled times.
Here's the link (you can download the book on .pdf):
http://archive.org/details/gustavusadolphus00swinrich
By Frederic Swinborne.
1884.
Against the backdrop of my favourite strategist's many encounters with the Catholic enemy ranks (from landing to Lützen, through Leipzig and the Lech), Swinborn narrates the love story of Rhineland damsel Hilde and Swedish lieutenant Erik. Is the young officer condemned to die on the battlefield where his liege lord will also meet an untimely fate? I won't tell you readers, so you will have to find out by reading this detailed and thorough epic, that gets inside the minds of Gustavus Adolphus, Tilly, and Wallenstein while giving accounts of the everyday lives of officers, privates, and camp followers in those troubled times.
Here's the link (you can download the book on .pdf):
http://archive.org/details/gustavusadolphus00swinrich
lunes, 18 de marzo de 2013
THE FOUNTAIN OF SALMACIS
British 1970s pop band Genesis drew, during the Peter Gabriel era, heavily from myth, literature, and sacred texts.
Both the Salmacis story and "The Snow Queen" fired my imagination when I wrote "The Tale of Katinka". In its second (Swedish) part, there are interesting parallels: Gustav Adolf (as innocent as both Kay and Hermaphroditus), loved by a female pixie, loses all feelings he had for the titular heroine after having drunk from a spring that said pixie had deliberately enchanted.
I first discovered this band at the age of eleven. "The Fountain of Salmacis", the last song in Nursery Cryme, was (together with "The Snow Queen") one of my favourite works at this stage in my life.
Whether the plot, narrated in Book IV of Ovid's Metamorphoses, is a folktale or a literary tale is still the subject of debate: the illegitimate child of two beautiful deities grows into a dashing young gentleman. The nymph of a spring falls for him, but he doesn't love her. Salmacis, for that is the nymph's name, doesn't give up and makes a wish to the powers that be (the gods in these stories, despite having human flaws, can do almost anything, regardless of the laws of physics)... and she is fused together with her beloved!
Here's the song, with lyrics:
Both the Salmacis story and "The Snow Queen" fired my imagination when I wrote "The Tale of Katinka". In its second (Swedish) part, there are interesting parallels: Gustav Adolf (as innocent as both Kay and Hermaphroditus), loved by a female pixie, loses all feelings he had for the titular heroine after having drunk from a spring that said pixie had deliberately enchanted.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS: THE SONG
Many a work of fiction has inspired the lyrics of a song.
For instance, who doesn't know the "Wuthering Heights" song by Kate Bush, that retells the story of the deceased tragic heroine, Cathy?
For instance, who doesn't know the "Wuthering Heights" song by Kate Bush, that retells the story of the deceased tragic heroine, Cathy?
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