Der geraubte Schleir(The Stolen Veil)　

2022年09月19日

今日はバレエ白鳥の湖の原作を見ていきましょう。(English) Today we look at the original story of the ballet Swan Lake.

Der geraubte Schleir(The Stolen Veil)

There was a pond in the Kingdom of Saxony called Schwanenteich - Swan Pond.

This pond was nothing to humans.

However, it could benefit people with specific fairy blood, and this was one of those ponds for fairies.

An old hermit named Benno, respected as a saint by the villagers, lived on a hill overlooking the pond.

Fleetbert, a Swabian soldier, was defeated in battle against the Meissen army.

He also escaped the pursuit of the soldiers and arrived at this swan pond.

When Swabian soldiers asked for his help, Benno, who was old and crippled, decided to shelter him here as a servant.

Benno looked forward to the swans' annual visit to the pond.

Eventually, Benno began to tell Fleetbert why he had come to the Swan Pond on his deathbed.

Benno was a knight of Helvetia.

He had joined the Crusades as atonement for the murder of a man.

His ship ran aground on the island of Cyclades in the Aegean Sea.

Then he saw Zoë, Queen of Zeno, Marquess of the Cyclades, and fell in love with her.

He was caught when he tried to have a secret meeting with Zoë, using Benno's close friend and doctor Theophrates as an intermediary.

He was thrown into prison.

However, he was exiled at Zoë's pleas and escaped the island with Theophrates' help.

It was then that Theophrates gave him the secret plan to get Zoë.

The beautiful Zoë was no ordinary person but a descendant of the famous Leda.

She became a swan to preserve her eternal beauty and youth.

And she visits one of the lakes once a year, either Abyssinia, Mount Ararat, or Švänentäihi, where she has a spiritual experience.

She often goes to Švänentäihi, especially as it is close by.

She takes the veil and bathes there.

That famous family wears it at birth.

If you take that veil, you cannot be a swan, and you cannot escape.

Therefore, you can always make her yours, he said.

Four years passed as he waited at the Swan Pond with suspicion.

That summer, he visited Schwanenteich to bathe with the beautiful Zoë and the other swan maidens.

10)

But Benno was so happy that he secretly forgot to take the veil away.

He then went before the maidens and came forward.

The startled maidens immediately put on the veil and flew away, leaving Benno with regrets.

11)

The next day Benno went to the pond to see if the swan maidens had returned to the pond.

He found a glove and a ruby ring by the lakeside that appeared to belong to Zoë.

Benno took it as a message from Zoë.

Then he just kept waiting for her at the swan pond.

12)

Swans come every year.

And on rare occasions, a maiden transformed into a swan also came.

But the beautiful Zoë finally did not appear.

And if you want to get lucky, Ben told him, you should try.

13)

Fleetbert waited for the Swan Maiden to arrive at the Swan Pond after Benno died.

He made money by selling Benno's clothes, who was a respected saint.

14)

A few years later, the three swan maidens came and began bathing.

Fleetbert then hid one of the veils from the lakeside.

Soon, one swan could not fly away, returned, and became pessimistic.

A beautiful maiden - Caliste - came to the house where Benno lived.

15)

Calliste was the daughter of Zoë.

Her mother had told her not to go to this northern lake.

However, she ended up coming to this pond with her sisters.

Fleetbert pretended to sympathize.

Together they searched for the veil but could not find it.

Eventually, Caliste agreed to marry Fleetbert.

16)

Fleetbert decided to return to his native Eglingen Haus der Alp with Cariste to marry her.

Fleetbert used the money he had secretly saved and returned with his beautiful fiancée as a worthy soldier.

He delighted his mother, who had been pessimistic because he had been missing for so long.

17)

The day before the wedding.

Kaliste was unhappy because she did not like the veil.

Fleetbert's mother tells him about the beautiful veil her son had told her about the day before.

It was about a veil for Kaliste to become a swan.

18)

An angry Caliste feigned calm and had the veil brought to her.

As soon as she realized it was hers, she immediately put it on, became a swan, and flew away.

19)

Fleetbert's mother was surprised that she was the devil.

She wanted to put her son on a religious trial.

But he escaped from it and followed Calliste to the Cyclades.

The way to the Cyclades was to go in the reverse direction of the story of Benno.

20)

However, when he arrived in the Cyclades, he could not find any news of Kalliste.

Fleetbert wanted a distraction.

He decided to participate in a jousting tournament to celebrate the wedding of Isidorus, Lord of Paros, to Calliste's sister Irene.

21)

Fleetbert won with flying colors, and he said his name.

Irene rewarded him.

He was allowed to kiss the hand of the beautiful Zoë, already old but still alive and well as an honourary beauty princess.

22)

Zoë noticed the ring that Fleetbert was wearing.

It was the ring that Zoë had left at the Swan Pond to that Benno.

She said the ring was something she had lost.

So she offered to give it to him.

23)

Fleetbert said that he had sworn to dedicate the ring to his wife.

He told her that if Zoë wanted the ring, she should negotiate with his bride when she married him.

Zoë thought it would be easy and gathered a group of beautiful women to be his brides.

She welcomed Fleetbert with open arms.

24)

Zoë was frustrated that Fleetbert's bride had not been chosen after several months.

Zoë asked him again.

He confessed that he was in love with one of the portraits in the palace.

25)

Zoë showed him the paintings, hoping inwardly that he might be referring to a portrait of herself as a young woman.

In front of one of the paintings, Fleibert said that this was the woman.

It was a portrait of Calliste.

Zoë was disappointed in two ways.

26)

She then told Fleetbert that my daughter, Caliste, had escaped from a man who had cheated on her.

But my daughter continues to love that man, she said, and she cannot accept the love of others, so she is shut up in a convent.

So she told him that she would never be his wife.

27)

Fleetbert said he did not want to take a wife other than Caliste.

He said that if he could not marry her and she died, he wanted himself to be buried beside her.

He also told her that he wanted to give a ring to Calliste as a pledge to her.

28)

Zoë wanted the ring, so she decided to let Fleetbert see Caliste.

Fleetbert asked as his mother's emissary.

Kaliste did not see him at all at first.

But then she looked at the man kneeling there forever to see if he had something important to do.

She was upset when she realized that he was the man who had been deceiving her.

29)

Caliste slandered Fleetbert, but he earnestly appealed to her for love.

Caliste did not hate him either.

She then vowed to spend the rest of her life with him, and they returned to the palace.

30)

Zoë was surprised to see her daughter Caliste, who was supposed to have become a recluse, return with a man, radiant and happy.

31)

Fleetbert, who had made up a knight's title, married Caliste.

He gave Zoë that ring and told her about his story with Benno.

Zoë had deliberately left the ring behind, just as Benno had thought.

32)

And they were supposed to go to Swan Pond again.

However, a chatty cousin told her husband about what had happened at Swan Pond.

She said her angry husband tore the veil and could not go to Swan Pond because she could not be a swan again.

And she was pleased that Benno had thought of her forever.

33)

Fleetbert and Calliste lived happily together.

However, Caliste regretted that old Fleetbert did not have the privilege of retaining his youth and beauty.

It is not told whether their happiness continued afterward.

Ref)

This story, which has parallels worldwide, may remind many people of the Japanese legend of the heavenly robe of feathers.

The other two of the three theories of the original Swan Lake story are the influence of Wagner's Lohengrin, and the other is based on various so-called heretical marriages and legends but is a complete creation.

Lohengrin tells the story of Gottfried, who is transformed into a swan by Ortoluto.

However, it is a man who is transformed into a swan.

The original Norse mythology also tells of three brothers who hide the plumage of the Valkyries, who become swans and take them as their wives. (They miss the battlefield and return.)

This one is a woman, but she becomes a swan of her own volition and is not swanned.

There are two other works besides this original one.

One, "The White Duck," is a Russian folktale.

A wicked witch turns him into a white duck, not a swan.

The witch then transforms herself into a princess.

Another is the story of the Blue Parrot.

A king who doesn't want to marry becomes ready to marry.

This is also the king, but he is transformed into a look-alike.

The Swan Fairy.

The wizard (King Ismenor) has a daughter.

They seem to be similar and dissimilar.

If we were to mix a script with several works, we would like to see the white duck (a swan would be perfect...) from a Russian folk tale as a candidate.