Hello everyone!
"Cinderella," a nasty case
The theme of Cinderella, the little slut who marries a prince, is ancestral. There is even a story dating back to the Pharaonic era cited by the geographer Strabo, with the anecdote of the lost slipper. Other fables circulate in Asia, America, and Europe where, once again, the fabulist Giambattista Basile proposed a text that inspired Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.
But as with Sleeping Beauty, her story is less saccharine than later versions. In her Gatta cennerentola (The Ashen Cat), young Zezolla is far from being the sweet young girl who coos with the birds. Indeed, faced with an unpleasant stepmother who imposes degrading tasks on her, she decides, with the help of her governess, to get rid of her... by breaking her neck with the lid of a heavy trunk. Unfortunately for our unscrupulous heroine, her accomplice, who will soon marry her father, is even more odious than her first stepmother, especially since she brings her six horrible daughters into the home. The rest of the story is roughly identical to the story we have heard (Perrault having added a magical, fairy-tale dimension).
Note, however, a few details that even Basile didn't dare retain: in older versions, the stepmother cuts off her daughters' heels and toes to make them fit into the tiny shoe; elsewhere, they are condemned to dance in red-hot iron clogs. It's easy to imagine the sight of those bloody, blistered feet tortured in transparent glass shoes...
Finally, while the magnanimous Perrault offers everyone a happy ending, Grimm drives the point home with this conclusion: "On the day her marriage to the king's son was to be celebrated, her two treacherous sisters went there with the intention of ingratiating themselves with her and sharing in her happiness.
As the bride and groom walked to church, the elder sister walked to their right and the younger sister to their left: then the pigeons gouged out one of each of their eyes. Then, when they returned from the church, the elder sister walked to their left and the younger sister to their right: then the pigeons gouged out the other eye of each of them. And so, as punishment for their wickedness and treachery, they were blind for the rest of their lives."
Good day and good game ;)
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