Sleeping Beauty Part II: The Other Woman

Note: This blog post is about the second half of Sun, Moon, and Talia, an Italian version of Sleeping Beauty. You can read about the first half here.

You are a queen. You have no children. And what is a queen good for, if she’s not producing heirs?

Your husband travels a lot, these days. You see him seldom. After all, what could he be expected to do with you, as useless as you’ve proven to be?

You used to love each other, you think. Things were better than this, at least. But you are too old now for children; even if you had been useful in your youth, it would all be over now.

One day your husband returns, after a journey of many months, with a young girl and two infants in tow. The children have his eyes, his nose, and the girl is a child, fifteen at most. She is small and frightened and confused, but she looks at your husband like he hangs the moon.

You could feel pity for the child. You should, perhaps. She still has baby fat of her own, as well as the lingering traces of the pregnancy. You ask her how it happened, between her and your husband. She tells you she doesn’t know, she was asleep at the time.

You should feel pity.

But you have lived too many years alone, and this is not the first time your husband has chased after children to give him what you can’t. And this one, this one he brought into your home, sat her across the dinner table like it was nothing, her own gorgeous suite of rooms, a thousand beautiful jewels and dresses. All the things he gave you when you were young, as if you were not still here to stand by his side. He leaves your marriage bed cold to visit her every night. You should feel pity. Instead you feel anger. Instead you feel fear.

Perhaps you go mad. Women in your position often do; stories of it date back to the Greek tragedies. Perhaps you go mad. Perhaps you are simply evil. Certainly you are jealous. And this is Sleeping Beauty’s story—there is no room for you as anyone but the villain.

You decide to boil the children, and feed them to their father for dinner. (All right, so you’ve probably gone mad.) The cook is kinder, saner, less invested in this drama than you are. He hides the babies away, and serves your husband lamb.

For the girl herself, sleeping little girl who stole your husband’s heart, and your whole life along with it—for the little girl you take matters into your own hands. The water boils. The child screams. Foolish, selfish girl, her children have been missing for days, but it is only now, as the heat rises around her, that she thinks to be afraid. She screams; your husband comes running.

You burn. You boil. You die. Perhaps the little girl eats you, as you intended to eat her. You don’t know; you’re dead.

You’re dead. You’re dead, and your husband marries the little girl. He raises a family with her. She’ll live happily ever after, perhaps. She doesn’t know any better.

More likely, ten years from now, her husband will bring home another pretty child to replace her.

You burn, you boil, you die. She marries the man who raped her, because what else does she know to do? At least this one can bear children to keep him happy.

You die. It isn’t fair. None of it is fair.

Sleeping Beauty

Let’s talk about Sleeping Beauty. No, let’s talk about Talia. “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” published in Giovanni Batiste Basile’s Il Pentamerone. Let’s talk about consent. Let’s talk about all the little girls who never had the chance to say no.

I could write an analytic paper about all the themes and elements in this story. I could get cute and ranty and give you a snarky list of reasons why it pisses me off. But I’m too upset, right now, for that kind of rant, so let’s skip straight to the part where the story gets interesting.

It doesn’t say how old Talia was when her story begins. Let’s assume that she’s a child. An unmarried Italian princess from a story recorded in the 1600s? Let’s go ahead and assume she’s a little girl. Let’s say fourteen. That’s how old I was, the first time I read this story. I was innocent at fourteen. Naïve. Clueless. More innocent than most fourteen year olds ever get the chance to be. I read this story three times before I realized it was about rape.

She falls asleep. Talia falls asleep, like Sleeping Beauty does, and she wakes up a mother.

Let’s talk about the kind of despicable person who does this kind of despicable thing to some defenseless girl.

He was a king. He was married. He found a comatose child in the woods and had his way with her.

He went home and forgot about her, and she woke to find herself utterly alone with two infants. It was several months before he thought to stop by and check in on his human blow up doll again, and when he found her awake, he took her home.

I could talk a lot about how this scumbag’s poor wife is the villain of the piece, but let’s save that for another day. All you need to know is that she dies in the end, and Talia marries the king and, of course, lives happily ever after.

Let’s talk about young women being manipulated by older men. Let’s talk about the number of girls who were raped while unconscious last year. Let’s talk about the number of girls who were raped, period.

Let’s talk about the number of viral videos the rapists have made about it.

Let’s talk about how children, who have been hurt in one of the worst ways imaginable, who have been violated in the cruelest possible way, are afraid to tell people what happened. Let’s talk about how many real life Talias have been blamed for waking up with two children, and let’s talk about how many of them would go home with the king because they’re afraid to do anything else.

Let’s talk about how this story, in which the rapist gets to live happily ever after with his victim, is four hundred years old. Four. Hundred. Years. Kingdoms have risen and fallen. We’ve gone through slavery, and suffrage, and we’ve done all these things that are supposed to make the world better—we have made the world better, in some ways, but something that was acceptable in fiction four hundred years ago still happens in real life, like it’s no big deal, every single day.

Lives are destroyed. People are hurt in so many ways, people lose their agency, people get pregnant and get STDs, and no one cares enough to stop it.

Newsflash: when the newspaper reads like seventeenth century Italy, you’re doing something wrong.

I will defend fairy tales to the death, but I won’t pretend they don’t have issues. So let’s take this opportunity to learn something. Forget about the monsters. Kill Prince Charming.

This isn’t a fairy tale. This is real life. And the rapist lives happily ever after in both.