The Dark Disney Story Behind Sleeping Beauty
Public DomainIn the fairy tale “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” Sleeping Beauty is sexually assaulted and gives birth to twins while she sleeps.
Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is a classic tale of a princess in distress and the prince who gallantly comes to her rescue. The original 17th-century Italian tale, “Sun, Moon, and Talia” by Giambattista Basile, has similar beginnings: The princess, named Talia in this version, pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into a deep sleep, fulfilling an earlier prophecy. But the rest of Talia’s story was too gruesome for Disney.
The man who comes to Talia’s “rescue” is a king, not a prince. And his kiss does not awaken Talia. Instead, he “gathered the first fruits of love” — a more poetic way of saying he rapes her while she is unconscious.
Nine months later, Talia gives birth to twins and wakes when one of them sucks the poisoned splinter from her finger while trying to nurse. The king ultimately returns and falls in love with Talia, but he is still married to the queen. When his wife discovers what happened, she orders a chef to cook the infants and feed them to the unwitting king.
The chef spares the children and serves lamb instead, and the tale ends with a disturbing moral: “Those whom fortune favors / Find good luck even in their sleep.”
While the dark Disney story of a cursed princess is horrifying enough, Basile’s telling needed significant edits before it could be transformed into a movie for children.
