Sun, Moon, and Talia: The Non-Bowdlerized Sleeping Beauty

For school, we had to rewrite a fairy tale using sesquipedalian words. This is mine, based on Giambattista Basile's Sun Moon and Talia.

Thanks to Disney, Aurora has become metonymic with Sleeping Beauty.  However, modern versions of this story are funambulists on the line of changing a story. Over the years, it’s become a locus classicus of censorship, however understandable. Now I’m just getting desultory, so here is Giambattista Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia.

As you might know, Talia (aka Sleeping Beauty) was a princess. But it wasn’t an evil fairy that placed a curse on her-it was predicted by astrologers that she would “incur great danger from a splinter of flax.” So, because her father was extremely overprotective, and because he could, he banished all flax, hemp, etc. 

One day, years later, Talia found a lady spinning on a wheel. She was curious, so she carelessly grabbed the needle-which found its way under her fingernail, killing her. Then the lady presumably ran down the Penrose steps, at least that’s what I can gather from “when the old woman saw this, she became frightened and ran down the stairs, and is running still.” Either that, or it’s one hell of a staircase.

So, Sleeping Beauty’s actually dead. Not comatose, not knocked out, not taking a really long nap, dead. So that should be the end, right?

Nope.

Because this story is so freaking weird, her father can’t stand the idea of a pretty girl actually getting buried, so he flaunts his authority and wealth by giving her an entire freaking mansion. And then he abandons her. Just like that.

You’d think that now she’s got this nice big house, and is completely spoiled, even though she’s not alive, it’d be over. But you’d be wrong, again.

This other king is out hunting and decides to pull a classic Goldilocks. But instead of finding some creepy brat who should be in juvie, he finds this beautiful-and, once again, dead-girl and she is his new idee fixe. So...what does he do?

“Well, DUH, he kisses her and she wakes up and they live happily ever after, right?”

Wrong again. He rapes her. Which is pretty bad alone, but remember: she’s DEAD. Also, he’s married, which is pretty obvious, considering he apparently doesn’t get much action at home. But apparently, your basic female sexual functions don’t go away once you stop breathing. Because nine months later, she has kids. And she’s still dead.

Then, some fairies come to help the twins-Sun and Moon-breastfeed and stuff. Wow. And that’s not all the cannibalism in this story, trust me. Except once, one of them accidentally sucks on her finger instead of her b***s. (I’m guessing it’s the girl who did that.) And she sucks the flax out, and Talia comes back to life.

“And then she finds the king and they live happily ever after.”

Will you just shut up and let me finish the story? 

By now, the king’s forgotten her. But he suddenly remembers that one-night stand he had with a comatose chick, so he went back to the mansion and saw the three of them. He explains what happened, and she doesn’t call the cops, for some reason. 

Then, when he gets back, he keeps remembering them and calling their names-in bed-and his wife is-rightfully-suspicious. So she threatens the secretary to tell her about it, and he does, due to his lyssophobic nature, and her lyssoic nature, “calling bread bread and wine wine.” I don’t see why he didn’t call it “dough that got hot” and “that grape stuff in the fancy glasses that gets you drunk,” but oh well.

And now it gets creepier again. She tells the cook to make some food out of Sun and Moon for her husband. Yup, not just some kids sucking on a dead lady’s b***s. Full-on cannibalism. But, because the cook has some sense of sanity and self-respect, he just cooks lamb and pretends it’s the kids. And the king thinks it’s the apotheosis of meals, or something. And then he goes to his special villa for yoga and spiritual enlightenment. So the psychotic, cannibalistic, almost-clinically insane wife invites Talia over, where she basically screams, “GO TO HELL, B***H!” (Actually it’s more like, “So you are the...cruel b***h...you are welcome in purgatory,” but it’s close enough.)

So the poor naive Talia tries to explain that he “took possession of her territory while she was drowned in sleep,” but the lady doesn’t care that her hubby’s a rapist. (She’s a cannibal and a psycho, everybody has their flaws, right?) She decides that Talia should be thrown in a pit of fire. She’s also pretty greedy, and lets Talia take off her clothes so she can have them. So Talia keeps screaming, and the king hears this euphony, and he comes to her rescue. So he has the queen and secretary thrown into the pit. And the cook-but he explains that “I didn’t murder your kids, okay? Even though that b***h has got some nerve.” So the cook’s wife brings up Sun and Moon, and the cook gets promoted, and everybody who isn’t a psycho b***h lives happily ever after, “thus experiencing the truth of the proverb:

Those whom fortune favors

Find good luck even in their sleep.”

Which basically means, “if luck likes you, you’ll be lucky, so you’ll get lucky.” What a beautiful and meaningful syllogism.

I'm sorry if I ruined your childhood.