"Yes," said she, "I am pope."
"Well, wife," replied he, "it is a grand thing to be pope; and now you must be content, for you can be nothing greater."
"I will consider of that," said the wife. Then they went to bed: but Dame Alice could not sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last morning came, and the sun rose. "Ha!" thought she as she looked at it through the window, "cannot I prevent the sun rising?" At this she was very angry, and she wakened her husband and said, "Husband, go to the fish and tell him I want to be lord of the sun and moon." The fisherman was half asleep, but the thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed. "Alas, wife!" said he, "cannot you be content to be pope?"
"No," said she, "I am very uneasy, and cannot bear to see the sun and moon rise without my leave. Go to the fish directly."
Then the man went trembling for fear; and as he was going down to the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the rocks shook; and the heavens became black, and the lightning played, and the thunder rolled; and you might have seen in the sea great black waves like mountains with a white crown of foam upon them; and the fisherman said,
"O man of the sea!
Come listen to me,
For Alice my wife,
The plague of my life,
Hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"
"What does she want now?" said the fish.
"Ah!" said he, "she wants to be lord of the sun and moon." "Go home," said the fish, "to your ditch again!" And there they live to this very day.
[177]
The Grimm version of "The Sleeping Beauty" is, by all odds, the finest one. Its perfect economy in the use of story materials has always been admired. Perrault's version drags in an unnecessary ogre and spoils a good story by not knowing when to stop. The Grimm title is "Dornröschen," and the more literal translation, "Brier Rose," is the one generally used as the English title, rather than the one given by Taylor, whose translation follows. Tennyson has a very beautiful poetic rendering of this story in his "Day-Dream."