![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feb. 26th, 2022
(no subject)
Feb. 26th, 2022 12:42 pmThis sounds like a Rapunzel story with a Trojan Horse twist:
Jealousy, boredom, lust and deceit are punished here, with just one important exception — the Prince. He wins because in addition to being cunning and lustful he's also above the law. By comparison, in the Bath-sheba story, David was still the subject to Gods law, but only through the death of their first son. Moreover, their son Solomon inherited the kingdom through Bath-sheba scheming.
A certain merchant, who was addicted to jealousy, had a wife that was a model of beauty and loveliness; and of the excess of his fear and jealousy of her, he would not abide with her in any town, but built her a pavilion without the city, apart from all other buildings. And he raised its height and strengthened its doors and provided them with curious locks; and when he had occasion to go into the city, he locked the doors and hung the keys about his neck....
So he called up one of his pages, who brought him ink-case[203] and paper and wrote her a letter, setting forth his condition for love of her. Then he set 168it on the pile-point of an arrow and shot it at the pavilion, and it fell in the garden, where the lady was then walking with her maidens...
...
came under the window and said to her, “Let me down a thread, that I may send thee this key; which do thou take and keep by thee.” So she let down a thread and he tied the key to it.
...
So the Prince returned to his palace and fixing the padlock, the key whereof he had given the lady, on a chest he had by him, entered therein. Then the Wazir locked it upon him and setting it on a mule, carried it to the pavilion of the merchant.
...
she hurried the Prince back into the chest, but, in her confusion, forgot to lock it. .... So they took up the box by the lid, whereupon it flew open and lo! the Prince was lying within. When the merchant saw him and knew him for the King’s son....
“Go in, thou, and take the King’s son; for none of us may lay hands on him.” So the Minister went in and taking the Prince, went away with him. As soon as they were gone, the merchant put away his wife and swore that he would never marry again.
-- 591st & 592nd nights. The King's Son and the Merchant's Wife.
--- https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54525/54525-h/54525-h.htm#c167
Jealousy, boredom, lust and deceit are punished here, with just one important exception — the Prince. He wins because in addition to being cunning and lustful he's also above the law. By comparison, in the Bath-sheba story, David was still the subject to Gods law, but only through the death of their first son. Moreover, their son Solomon inherited the kingdom through Bath-sheba scheming.