Storytelling Week 7: Eternal Beauty

Thousands of people come and visit her every year. She is a figure of awe and inspiration across generations. Everyone who has looked upon her face claims that they have seen the face of divinity. She has been here for centuries, no one remembers her past or her name, but legends have sprung up around her. There are tales, about how she must have saved the world, how she tricked the gods, or enchanted men with her beauty, and other such fanciful quests. Despite all this reverence, she is simply a beautiful corpse, there is no life in her lungs, no glimmer of mischief in her eyes, no flush of blood lies in her cheek. All the devotions and prayers in the universe will not change that she is simply a lifeless husk preserved in crystalline tomb. Nor will it change the truth, that all the stories about this nameless beauty are all wrong.

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Let us call this poor woman Princess Shītǐ. She was the only daughter of a wealthy king. When she was born, Shītǐ was graced with two things. The first being otherworldly beauty. Her skin was as pale as alabaster, her hair was darker then pitch with glimmers of raven within, and her eyes glimmered like liquid silver. She was perfect in every way, except one. Shītǐ was cursed. She had never ending bad luck. She would often be wounded in the most bizarre of circumstances and would narrowly escape death. Though she was quite intelligent she often made foolish mistakes that cost her dearly.

When Shītǐ was old enough, her father decided it was time for her to marry. She was to throw a bouquet of flowers over her shoulders and whoever caught it would be her husband. As she was walking down the path, she saw a young beggar man, called Cáifù, who was blessed by luck. Thinking that his luck may counteract her own dismal one she tossed the flowers over her shoulder at him. After he had caught the flowers, Shītǐ's father came up and asked her why she had chosen a poor urchin rather than a handsome prince. When she told him, he went into a rage and banished her from his presence forever. Distraught, Shītǐ fled to her new husband. They lived for several years in a small hut on the edge of town, just barely avoiding poverty, until her husband left to seek his fortune. Cáifù promised to return just as soon as he had succeeded in guaranteeing them a happy life. With this noble thought in mind, he left Shītǐ there, forgetting that she had no one other than him.

Many years later Cáifù returned, now rich and prosperous. In his travels, he had become wealthy and admired. That once destitute man was an emperor in his own right. But he had returned to his bride too late. Poor Shītǐ, was dying. Her life had drained out of her limbs. Her once lustrous black hair had turned silver with stress and worry. Limbs that had held power, now looked as delicate as the brittle bones of a bird. Her skin no longer glowed with an inner light, instead it was like marble, cold and distant. Shītǐ was still a thing of beauty, even as she lay dying upon her bed, but was a changed beauty from human perfection to something otherworldly. Cáifù rushed to her bedside, frightened for her in her fragility. Either it be by his great luck or her disastrous misfortune or some morbid mix of the two, he had arrived just in time for his wife to take her final breath and depart the plane of men forever.

Distraught, Cáifù took his wife's body back to his palace. He spared no expense in preparing her body. He placed her upon a bed of silks. She lay there resplendent in the finest of fabrics and adored with valuable gems, cleaned and perfected by the midwives. There the body of Shītǐ lays today, encased in transparent crystal for eternity. As for Miserable Cáifù, he went on to be a great ruler. Through his works, his people were able to overcome great battles and famines. His ingenuity brought his people into a new age where they thrived for generations afterward.

But no one remembers this. They only see the enchanting beauty of the woman and her misery. I guess it is true after all, time forgets everyone, it turns great men into memories and forgotten men into heroes.

Sleeping Beauty (Slightly Altered) by Charlie-Bowater
DeviantArt 

Bibliography: Chinese Fairy Book by R. Wilhelm: online source

Authors note: This story is more of "what happens afterword" the changing the original tale. In the original the beggar turned thief finds his wife and they go to his palace together-everything else is pretty much faithful to the original (physical changes aside). Unfortunately, in the original the princess dies anyway, just 18 days later. I decided it would be more tragic if she died in his arms when he had come back for her, not that big of a change. The important thing of my story was the irony. The princess did absolutely noting to earn her 'fame', not in life and certainly not in death. One would think she would be forgotten. Instead, her husband, who did many things that he should be remembered by, was forgotten. On a side not their names do mean something. Cáifù means wealth and Shītǐ means corpse.