#'there was a lovely courtesan. an eagle carried one of her sandals to Pharaoh. he used it to find her and married her. The End." | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rudjedet · 4 years

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I hope it's fine since I couldn't check the faqs on mobile. I have a blurred memory about Cinderella's most ancient version being Egyptian. Is it true (with a pharaoh, the Nile and a shoe made of papyrus? 🙄). And if it's really so, how old is it? Where can we read that story? Thank for all your down to earth Egyptian curiosities! Take care!

It’s more or less Egyptian - that is, the tale is said to take place in Egypt, but whether its origins are completely Egyptian is doubtful. It was likely an oral tradition, and it was first recorded by Strabo in his Geographies around 7 BC. The girl in question is called Rhodopis, and he writes the following passage about her:

They tell the fabulous story that, when [Rhodopis] was bathing, an eagle snatched one of her sandals from her maid and carried it to Memphis; and while the king was administering justice in the open air, the eagle, when it arrived above his head, flung the sandal into his lap; and the king, stirred both by the beautiful shape of the sandal and by the strangeness of the occurrence, sent men in all directions into the country in quest of the woman who wore the sandal; and when she was found in the city of Naucratis, she was brought up to Memphis, became the wife of the king.

I’m not aware of a fuller version than this passage by Strabo, and a much later version noted down by the Roman orator Aelian in his Miscellaneous History. As far as I know more elaborate recountings don’t exist. Aelian does specify the Pharaoh’s name as Psammetichus (pardon the old-fashioned translation):

The Egyptians relations affirm that Rhodopis was a most beautiful Curtizan ; and that on a time as she was bathing her self, Fortune, who loveth to doe extravagant and unexpected things, gave her a reward : sutable, not to her mind, but her beauty. For whilest she was washing, and her Maids look’d to her clothes, an Eagle stooping down, snatched up one of her Shoes, and carried it away to Memphis, where Psammetichus was sitting in Judgement, and let the Shoe fall into his lap. Psammetichus wondring at the shape of the Shoe, and neatness of the work, and the action of the Bird, sent throughout Ægypt to find out the Woman to whom the shoe belonged ; and having found her out, married her.

As for the origins of this story - Herodotus wrote down a somewhat similar story about the Thracian courtesan Rhodopis about five centuries before Strabo’s passage, and I believe this documentation of events is considered the origin of the later tale, but I’m not a Greek scholar so I’m not qualified to comment on it. Herodotus’ backstory of the courtesan specifies that during the time of Amasis II, Rhodopis was a fellow-slave of Aesop, and that she was taken to Naucratis by her owner. Here, Sappho’s brother Charaxus, who was there as a wine merchant, fell in love with her and bought her freedom.

(2.134) This king, too, left a pyramid, but far smaller than his father’s, each side twenty feet short of three hundred feet long, square at the base, and as much as half its height of Ethiopian stone. Some Greeks say that it was built by Rhodopis, the courtesan, but they are wrong; [2] indeed, it is clear to me that they say this without even knowing who Rhodopis was (otherwise, they would never have credited her with the building of a pyramid on which what I may call an uncountable sum of money was spent), or that Rhodopis flourished in the reign of Amasis, not of Mycerinus; [3] for very many years later than these kings who left the pyramids came Rhodopis, who was Thracian by birth, and a slave of Iadmon son of Hephaestopolis the Samian, and a fellow-slave of Aesop the story-writer. For he was owned by Iadmon, too, as the following made crystal clear: [4] when the Delphians, obeying an oracle, issued many proclamations summoning anyone who wanted it to accept compensation for the killing of Aesop, no one accepted it except the son of Iadmon’s son, another Iadmon; hence Aesop, too, was Iadmon’s.

(2.135) Rhodopis came to Egypt to work, brought by Xanthes of Samos, but upon her arrival was freed for a lot of money by Kharaxus of Mytilene, son of Scamandronymus and brother of Sappho the poetess. [2] Thus Rhodopis lived as a free woman in Egypt, where, as she was very alluring, she acquired a lot of money—sufficient for such a Rhodopis, so to speak, but not for such a pyramid. [3] Seeing that to this day anyone who likes can calculate what one tenth of her worth was, she cannot be credited with great wealth. For Rhodopis desired to leave a memorial of herself in Greece, by having something made which no one else had thought of or dedicated in a temple and presenting this at Delphi to preserve her memory; [4] so she spent one tenth of her substance on the manufacture of a great number of iron beef spits, as many as the tenth would pay for, and sent them to Delphi; these lie in a heap to this day, behind the altar set up by the Chians and in front of the shrine itself. [5] The courtesans of Naucratis seem to be peculiarly alluring, for the woman of whom this story is told became so famous that every Greek knew the name of Rhodopis, and later on a certain Archidice was the theme of song throughout Greece, although less celebrated than the other. [6] Kharaxus, after giving Rhodopis her freedom, returned to Mytilene. He is bitterly attacked by Sappho in one of her poems. This is enough about Rhodopis.

So Sappho wrote a poem ridiculing her brother’s decisions in this matter, though she named the woman in question Doricha instead of Rhodopis. Because of that, as far as I know “Rhodopis” is considered either Herodotus just doing his usual by giving as her name the Greek equivalent of “rosy cheeks”, or the woman Doricha’s actual “stage name” as courtesan.

Whatever the origin of the name Rhodopis, it seems acceptable that the name of the girl in Strabo’s recounting of the tale was taken from Herodotus’ writings and/or the courtesan herself. In most if not all modern adaptions of the “Cinderella story”, Strabo’s and Herodotus’ accounts are definitely conflated and mashed together.

This, then, leads to a reconstructed story about the slave girl Rhodopis whose freedom is bought by a kind merchant called Charaxus who lives in Naucratis. She becomes part of his household, either like a daughter or a lover, and the first gift he gives her is a pair of beautiful red slippers. One day, one of the slippers is stolen by an eagle (or in some adaptations, a falcon, which is a far more appliccable bird for a story set in Egypt) as she is bathing. The bird flies to Memphis and drops the slipper in the lap of Pharaoh Amasis. The Pharaoh, blown away by the beauty and craftsmanship of the slipper, and impressed by the majestic bird, takes this as a sign from the gods and vows to wed the woman to whom the slipper belongs. Eventually Rhodopis is tracked down, and brought to Memphis to marry the king. They live happilly ever after.

Related fun fact: I wrote a retelling of the story myself back in 2006, but it’s crap because I was 17!

If you enjoyed this little foray into the classics and ancient versions of fairy tales, please consider donating to my Ko-fi. This has the added benefit of keeping me fed tea while I write better stories about ancient Egypt than I did when I was 17.

#Egyptology #Classics #Rhodopis #Cinderella #ancient Egypt #sayaka19fan

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