Brothers Grimm - The Frog Prince

The Frog Prince, by Brothers Grimm One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool spring of water with a rose in the middle of it, she sat herself down to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and catching it again as it fell.

After a time she threw it up so high that she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled along on the ground, until at last it fell down into the spring. The princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so deep that she could not see the bottom of it. She began to cry, and said, 'Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the world.'

Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, 'Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?'

'Alas!' said she, 'what can you do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.'

The frog said, 'I do not want your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off your golden plate, and sleep on your bed, I will bring you your ball again.'

'What nonsense,' thought the princess, 'this silly frog is talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he shall have what he asks.'

So she said to the frog, 'Well, if you will bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.'

Then the frog put his head down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the spring.

As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could.

The frog called after her, 'Stay, princess, and take me with you as you said,'

But she did not stop to hear a word.

The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a strange noise - tap, tap - plash, plash - as if something was coming up the marble staircase, and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the door, and a little voice cried out and said:

'Open the door, my princess dear, Open the door to thy true love here! And mind the words that thou and I said By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her seat.

The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, asked her what was the matter.

'There is a nasty frog,' said she, 'at the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning. I told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come in.'

While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said:

'Open the door, my princess dear, Open the door to thy true love here! And mind the words that thou and I said By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

Then the king said to the young princess, 'As you have given your word you must keep it; so go and let him in.'

She did so, and the frog hopped into the room, and then straight on - tap, tap - plash, plash - from the bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where the princess sat.

'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess, 'and let me sit next to you.'

As soon as she had done this, the frog said, 'Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.'

This she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I am tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the princess, though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long.

As soon as it was light the frog jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house.

'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be troubled with him no more.'

But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said:

'Open the door, my princess dear, Open the door to thy true love here! And mind the words that thou and I said By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.'

And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen and standing at the head of her bed.

He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights.

'You,' said the prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for but that you should go with me into my father's kingdom, where I will marry you, and love you as long as you live.'

The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying 'Yes' to all this; and as they spoke a brightly coloured coach drove up, with eight beautiful horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind the coach rode the prince's servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst.

They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince's kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great many years.

The End.

UncategorizedJack Dysonbrothers grimm, fairy tales, frog, princessComment
For the first of December

[audio http://dysonology.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/02-octet-in-f-d803-ii-andante-un-poco-mosso.mp3]

"Lines for Winter"

Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself -- inside the dome of dark or under the cracking white of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow. Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going. And you will be able for once to lie down under the small fire of winter stars. And if it happens that you cannot go on or turn back and you find yourself where you will be at the end, tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs that you love what you are.

by Mark Strand.

Strand wrote this for his friend Rosalind Krauss when she got the blues. I like it.

(photo copyright me though - it's on the river Thames near Hammersmith bridge on a cold day)

UncategorizedJack Dysonbrrrr, cold, december, lines for winter, mark strand, poem, poetry, winterComment
The Guy Quote - Alfred Hitchcock

A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theatre admission and the babysitter were worth it.

Actors are cattle.

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.

Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.

Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.

Give them pleasure - the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.

I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.

In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.

In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.

Revenge is sweet and not fattening.

Self-plagiarism is style.

Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.

Television is like the American toaster, you push the button and the same thing pops up everytime.

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'

+

[[ps - please check out some of my other quote collections here - The Guy Quote]]

UncategorizedJack Dysonalfred hitchcock, guy quote, man, quoteComment
Google Beatbox!

1. Go to Google Translate 2. Change language so it's from German TO German 3. Paste this: pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk 4. Click "listen"

Google beatbox!

(via)

WHO WANTS A REWIND? Paste this instead: zwkkzwkkzwkkzwkk. pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk (thanks Dan!)

Felix adds:

zk = suspended cymbal bschk = snare pv = brush bk = bass tk = flam1 vk = roll tap kt = flam2 kttp = flam tap krp = hi hat tap pv = short roll th = better hi hat thp, ds = instant rimshot.

Any more for any more?

UncategorizedJack Dysonbeatbox, google Comments
Shhh... I'm busy!

Excuse me a moment I’m just trying to reconstruct The curve of someone’s neck.

It’s fascinating, you see To isolate little bits of her And imagine how they feel.

I’m sure it’s important But it just can’t compete with our careless tangle of limbs Or the simple joy of holding her.

It’s nothing new to you, But that feeling of exploring someone for the first time – Well it changed the way things look to me.

I wish I could help you, But behind my eyes are the last moments Before we drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up, she was still there. And even though she’s not in the crook of my arm now, I plan to take her everywhere with me.

(c) me

UncategorizedJack Dysonpoem, poetryComment
The Jumblies

by Edward Lear, 1812-1888

I

THEY went to sea in a sieve, they did; In a sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter's morn, on a stormy day, In a sieve they went to sea. And when the sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!" They called aloud, "Our sieve ain't big; But we don't care a button, we don't care a fig: In a sieve we'll go to sea!" Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

II

They sailed away in a sieve, they did, In a sieve they sailed so fast, With only a beautiful pea-green veil Tied with a ribbon by way of a sail, To a small tobacco-pipe mast. And every one said who saw them go, "Oh! won't they soon be upset, you know? For the sky is dark and the voyage is long, And, happen what may, it's extremely wrong In a sieve to sail so fast." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

III

The water it soon came in, it did; The water it soon came in: So, to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet In a pinky paper all folded neat; And they fastened it down with a pin. And they passed the night in a crockery-jar; And each of them said, "How wise we are! Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long, Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong, While round in our sieve we spin." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

IV

And all night long they sailed away; And when the sun went down, They whistled and warbled a moony song To the echoing sound of a coppery gong, In the shade of the mountains brown. "O Timballoo! How happy we are When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar! And all night long, in the moonlight pale, We sail away with a pea-green sail In the shade of the mountains brown." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

V

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,-- To a land all covered with trees; And they bought an owl and a useful cart, And a pound of rice, and a cranberry-tart, And a hive of silvery bees; And they bought a pig, and some green jackdaws, And a lovely monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of ring-bo-ree, And no end of Stilton cheese. Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

VI

And in twenty years they all came back,-- In twenty years or more; And every one said, "How tall they've grown! For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone, And the hills of the Chankly Bore." And they drank their health, and gave them a feast Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast; And every one said, "If we only live, We, too, will go to sea in a sieve, To the hills of the Chankly Bore." Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue; And they went to sea in a sieve.

UncategorizedJack Dysonjumblies, lear, nonsense poetry, sea, sieveComment
A commander being armed for battle

A Commander being armed for Battle, by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577- 1640), painted in 1613 or 1614. Look at: the commander's implacable moral determination, facial expressions and the handling of the light. The contrast between the youths and the man. The general texture of it all.

Apparently the beardy man is Emperor Charles V, eldest son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad. Though always at war, Charles was essentially a lover of peace, and all his wars were virtually defensive. He was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Carlos I of Spain, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his abdication in 1556.

"Not greedy of territory," wrote Marcantonio Contarini in 1536, "but most greedy of peace and quiet."

peopleJack Dysona commander being armed for battle, art, old master, painting, rubensComment