Beauty and the Beast

by Maria Tatar

  Lee, H. Chuku. Beauty and the Beast. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.

  Lee, Tanith. Red as Blood; or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer. New York: DAW Books, 1983.

  Lüthi, Max. The European Folktale: Form and Nature, translated by John D. Niles. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982.

  McKinley, Robin. Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast. New York: HarperCollins, 1978.

  ———. Rose Daughter. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1997.

  Manley, Kathleen E. B. “Disney, the Beast, and Woman as Civilizing Force.” In The Emperor’s Old Groove: Decolonizing Disney’s Magic Kingdom. New York: Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 79–89.

  Murai, Mayako. From Dog Bridegroom to Wolf Girl: Contemporary Japanese Fairy-Tale Adaptations in Conversation with the West. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015.

  Pallottino, Paola. “Beauty’s Beast.” Merveilles et Contes 3 (1989): 57–74.

  Pauly, Rebecca M. “Beauty and the Beast: From Fable to Film.” Literature-Film Quarterly 17 (1989): 84–90.

  Roche, Thomas. “Beauty and the Beast.” In Happily Ever After: Erotic Fairy Tales for Men, edited by Michael Ford. New York: Masquerade Books, 1996.

  Sax, Boria. The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature. Blacksburg, Va.: McDonald and Woodward Publishing, 1998.

  Shell, Marc. “Beauty and the Beast.” Bestia: Yearbook of the Beast Fable Society 1 (1989): 6–13.

  Steptoe, John. Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters. New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1987.

  Swahn, Jan-Ojvind. “‘Beauty and the Beast’ in Oral Tradition.” Merveilles et Contes 3 (1989): 15–27.

  Swan, Susan Z. “Gothic Drama in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast: Subverting Traditional Romance by Transcending the Animal-Human Paradox.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 16 (September 16, 1999): 350–69.

  Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002.

  ———. Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

  Teverson, Andrew. Fairy Tale. London: Routledge, 2013.

  Tiffin, Jessica. Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009.

  Walker, Barbara. “Ugly and the Beast.” In Feminist Fairy Tales. New York: HarperCollins, 1996, pp. 49–51.

  Ward, Donald. “‘Beauty and the Beast’: Fact and Fancy: Past and Present.” Midwestern Folklore 15 (1989): 119–25.

  Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.

  ———. Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Belknap, 2012.

  ———. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

  Wilson, Susan. Beauty. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.

  Yep, Lawrence. The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

  Zipes, Jack. Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment: Classic Fairy Tales. New York: New American Library, 1989.

  ———. Beauty and the Beast and Other French Fairy Tales. New York: Signet Classics, 1997.

  ———. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

  ———. The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy Tale Films. New York: Routledge, 2011.

  ———. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012.

  Acknowledgments

  It began to rain Beauty and the Beast stories once I set out on the hunt for a “tale as old as time” (that’s Mrs. Potts in Disney’s film version of the fairy tale). The story has been with us for centuries, and this volume aims to help us understand exactly why. I am grateful to John Siciliano for encouraging a project that required thinking broadly about fairy tales and understanding their global reach. “Beauty and the Beast,” as I quickly discovered, is a narrative far more complex, fractured, and contested than I had imagined, and it is a story that has been preserved precisely because its cultural authority is forever being challenged. My thanks also go to Emily Hartley at Penguin for guiding the book through the intricacies of the production process and making sure that I did not lose my way in the forest of fairy tales, folktales, and wonder tales collected by those with a stake in understanding the eccentric ways of the popular imagination. With lightning speed, Doris Sperber brought me books and tracked down sources, solved puzzles and decoded mysteries, all the while keeping track of errors in my many “final” drafts.

  MODEL COUPLES FROM ANCIENT TIMES

  ZEUS AND EUROPA

  Ancient Greece

  Edith Hamilton, born in Dresden, Germany, and educated at Bryn Mawr College, studied briefly in Munich before returning to the United States to become head of the Bryn Mawr School for Girls in Baltimore. Her book Mythology was published when she was in her seventies and remains the premier introductory text on the subject. Hamilton tried to capture the multiple voices behind each of the stories she retold. The source material for Hamilton’s retelling of the story of Zeus and Europa can be found in Neil Hopkinson’s Theocritus, Moschus, Bion. Moschus was a Greek poet who lived in Syracuse in the second century B.C. The poem about Zeus and Europa is one of his few surviving works.

  Io was not the only girl who gained geographical fame because Zeus fell in love with her. There was another, known far more widely—Europa, the daughter of the King of Sidon. But whereas the wretched Io had to pay dearly for the distinction, Europa was exceedingly fortunate. Except for a few moments of terror when she found herself crossing the deep sea on the back of a bull she did not suffer at all. The story does not say what Hera was about at the time, but it is clear that she was off guard and her husband free to do as he pleased.

  Up in heaven one spring morning as he idly watched the earth, Zeus suddenly saw a charming spectacle. Europa had waked early, troubled just as Io had been by a dream, only this time not of a god who loved her but of two Continents who each in the shape of a woman tried to possess her, Asia saying that she had given her birth and therefore owned her, and the other, as yet nameless, declaring that Zeus would give the maiden to her.

  Once awake from this strange vision which had come at dawn, the time when true dreams oftenest visit mortals, Europa decided not to try to go to sleep again, but to summon her companions, girls born in the same year as herself and all of noble birth, to go out with her to the lovely blooming meadows near the sea. Here was their favorite meeting place, whether they wanted to dance or bathe their fair bodies at the river mouth or gather flowers.

  This time all had brought baskets, knowing that the flowers were now at their perfection. Europa’s was of gold, exquisitely chased with figures which showed, oddly enough, the story of Io, her journeys in the shape of a cow, the death of Argus, and Zeus lightly touching her with his divine hand and changing her back into a woman. It was, as may be perceived, a marvel worth gazing upon, and had been made by no less a personage than Hephaestus, the celestial workman of Olympus.

  Lovely as the basket was, there were flowers as lovely to fill it with, sweet-smelling narcissus and hyacinths and violets and yellow crocus, and most radiant of all, the crimson splendor of the wild rose. The girls gathered them delightedly, wandering here and there over the meadow, each one a maiden fairest among the fair; yet even so, Europa shone out among them as the Goddess of Love outshines the sister Graces. And it was that very Goddess of Love who brought about what next happened. As Zeus in heaven watched the pretty scene, she who alone can conquer Zeus—along with her son, the mischievous boy Cupid—shot one of her shafts into his heart, and that very instant he fell madly in love with Europa. Even though Hera was away, he thought it well
to be cautious, and before appearing to Europa he changed himself into a bull. Not such a one as you might see in a stall or grazing in a field, but one beautiful beyond all bulls that ever were, bright chestnut in color, with a silver circle on his brow and horns like the crescent of the young moon. He seemed so gentle as well as so lovely that the girls were not frightened at his coming, but gathered around to caress him and to breathe the heavenly fragrance that came from him, sweeter even than that of the flowery meadow. It was Europa he drew toward, and as she gently touched him, he lowed so musically, no flute could give forth a more melodious sound.

  Then he lay down before her feet and seemed to show her his broad back, and she cried to the others to come with her and mount him.

  For surely he will bear us on his back,

  He is so mild and dear and gentle to behold.

  He is not like a bull, but like a good, true man,

  Except he cannot speak.

  Smiling she sat down on his back, but the others, quick though they were to follow her, had no chance. The bull leaped up and at full speed rushed to the seashore and then not into, but over, the wide water. As he went the waves grew smooth before him and a whole procession rose up from the deep and accompanied him—the strange sea-gods, Nereids riding upon dolphins, and Tritons blowing their horns, and the mighty Master of the Sea himself, Zeus’s own brother.

  Europa, frightened equally by the wondrous creatures she saw and the moving waters all around, clung with one hand to the bull’s great horn and with the other caught up her purple dress to keep it dry, and the winds

  Swelled out the deep folds even as a sail

  Swells on a ship, and ever gently thus

  They wafted her.

  No bull could this be, thought Europa, but most certainly a god; and she spoke pleadingly to him, begging him to pity her and not leave her in some strange place all alone. He spoke to her in answer and showed her she had guessed rightly what he was. She had no cause to fear, he told her. He was Zeus, greatest of gods, and all he was doing was from love of her. He was taking her to Crete, his own island, where his mother had hidden him from Cronus when he was born, and there she would bear him

  Glorious sons whose sceptres shall hold sway

  Over all men on earth.

  Everything happened, of course, as Zeus had said. Crete came into sight; they landed, and the Seasons, the gatekeepers of Olympus, arrayed her for her bridal. Her sons were famous men, not only in this world but in the next—where two of them, Minos and Rhadamanthus, were rewarded for their justice upon the earth by being made the judges of the dead. But her own name remains the best known of all.

  CUPID AND PSYCHE

  Ancient Rome

  This version of “Cupid and Psyche” comes from Bulfinch’s Greek and Roman Mythology. Its author, Thomas Bulfinch, declared his purpose to be an “attempt to popularize mythology, and extend the enjoyment of elegant literature,” as well as to “teach mythology not as a study, but as a relaxation from study.” He wanted to give his work the “charm of a story-book, yet by means of it to impart a knowledge of an important branch of education.” Bulfinch was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of the architect who built the Massachusetts State House and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

  A certain king and queen had three daughters. The charms of the two elder were more than common, but the beauty of the youngest was so wonderful that the poverty of language is unable to express its due praise. The fame of her beauty was so great that strangers from neighboring countries came in crowds to enjoy the sight, and looked on her with amazement, paying her that homage which is due only to Venus herself. In fact Venus found her altars deserted, while men turned their devotion to this young virgin. As she passed along, the people sang her praises, and strewed her way with chaplets and flowers.

  This perversion of homage due only to the immortal powers to the exaltation of a mortal gave great offence to the real Venus. Shaking her ambrosial locks with indignation, she exclaimed, “Am I then to be eclipsed in my honors by a mortal girl? In vain then did that royal shepherd, whose judgment was approved by Jove himself, give me the palm of beauty over my illustrious rivals, Pallas and Juno. But she shall not so quietly usurp my honors. I will give her cause to repent of so unlawful a beauty.”

  Thereupon she calls her winged son Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Psyche to him and says, “My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give thy mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph.”

  Cupid prepared to obey the commands of his mother. There are two fountains in Venus’s garden, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter. Cupid filled two amber vases, one from each fountain, and suspending them from the top of his quiver, hastened to the chamber of Psyche, whom he found asleep. He shed a few drops from the bitter fountain over her lips, though the sight of her almost moved him to pity; then touched her side with the point of his arrow. At the touch she awoke, and opened eyes upon Cupid (himself invisible), which so startled him that in his confusion he wounded himself with his own arrow. Heedless of his wound, his whole thought now was to repair the mischief he had done, and he poured the balmy drops of joy over all her silken ringlets.

  Psyche, henceforth frowned upon by Venus, derived no benefit from all her charms. True, all eyes were cast eagerly upon her, and every mouth spoke her praises; but neither king, royal youth, nor plebeian presented himself to demand her in marriage. Her two elder sisters of moderate charms had now long been married to two royal princes; but Psyche, in her lonely apartment, deplored her solitude, sick of that beauty which, while it procured abundance of flattery, had failed to awaken love.

  Her parents, afraid that they had unwittingly incurred the anger of the gods, consulted the oracle of Apollo, and received this answer: “The virgin is destined for the bride of no mortal lover. Her future husband awaits her on the top of the mountain. He is a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist.”

  This dreadful decree of the oracle filled all the people with dismay, and her parents abandoned themselves to grief. But Psyche said, “Why, my dear parents, do you now lament me? You should rather have grieved when the people showered upon me undeserved honors, and with one voice called me a Venus. I now perceive that I am a victim to that name. I submit. Lead me to that rock to which my unhappy fate has destined me.” Accordingly, all things being prepared, the royal maid took her place in the procession, which more resembled a funeral than a nuptial pomp, and with her parents, amid the lamentations of the people, ascended the mountain, on the summit of which they left her alone, and with sorrowful hearts returned home.

  While Psyche stood on the ridge of the mountain, panting with fear and with eyes full of tears, the gentle Zephyr raised her from the earth and bore her with an easy motion into a flowery dale. By degrees her mind became composed, and she laid herself down on the grassy bank to sleep. When she awoke refreshed with sleep, she looked round and beheld nearby a pleasant grove of tall and stately trees. She entered it, and in the midst discovered a fountain, sending forth clear and crystal waters, and fast by, a magnificent palace whose august front impressed the spectator that it was not the work of mortal hands, but the happy retreat of some god. Drawn by admiration and wonder, she approached the building and ventured to enter. Every object she met filled her with pleasure and amazement. Golden pillars supported the vaulted roof, and the walls were enriched with carvings and paintings representing beasts of the chase and rural scenes, adapted to delight the eye of the beholder. Proceeding onward, she perceived that besides the apartments of state there were others filled with all manner of treasures, and beautiful and precious productions of nature and art.

  While her eyes were thu
s occupied, a voice addressed her, though she saw no one, uttering these words: “Sovereign lady, all that you see is yours. We whose voices you hear are your servants and shall obey all your commands with our utmost care and diligence. Retire, therefore, to your chamber and repose on your bed of down, and when you see fit repair to the bath. Supper awaits you in the adjoining alcove when it pleases you to take your seat there.”

  Psyche gave ear to the admonitions of her vocal attendants, and after repose and the refreshment of the bath, seated herself in the alcove, where a table immediately presented itself, without any visible aid from waiters or servants, and covered with the greatest delicacies of food and the utmost nectareous wines. Her ears too were feasted with music from invisible performers; of whom one sang, another played on the lute, and all closed in the wonderful harmony of a full chorus.

  She had not yet seen her destined husband. He came only in the hours of darkness and fled before the dawn of morning, but his accents were full of love, and inspired a like passion in her. She often begged him to stay and let her behold him, but he would not consent. On the contrary he charged her to make no attempt to see him, for it was his pleasure, for the best of reasons, to keep concealed. “Why should you wish to behold me?” he said; “have you any doubt of my love? have you any wish ungratified? If you saw me, perhaps you would fear me, perhaps adore me, but all I ask of you is to love me. I would rather you would love me as an equal than adore me as a god.”

  This reasoning somewhat quieted Psyche for a time, and while the novelty lasted she felt quite happy. But at length the thought of her parents, left in ignorance of her fate, and of her sisters, precluded from sharing with her the delights of her situation, preyed on her mind and made her begin to feel her palace as but a splendid prison. When her husband came one night, she told him her distress, and at last drew from him an unwilling consent that her sisters should be brought to see her.