文档介绍:睡美人(Sleeping Beauty)
我爱英语网  
【本文语音RM下载链接】
A long time ago there was a king and queen who said every day, "Ah, if only we had a child," but they never had one.
And finally the queen had a little girl who was so pretty that the king could not contain his joy, and ordered a great feast. When it came to an end, thirteen wise women came to bestow magical gifts upon the baby.
When eleven of them had made their promises, suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself for not having been invited, and she cried with a loud voice, "The king's daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, prick herself with a spindle, and fall down dead."
They were all shocked, but the twelfth, whose good wish still remained unspoken, came forward, and as she could not undo the evil sentence, but only soften it, she said, "It shall not be death, but a deep sleep of a hundred years, into which the princess shall fall."
The king, who wanted to keep his dear child from the misfortune, gave orders that every spindle in the whole kingdom should be burnt.
It happened that on the very day when the princess was fifteen years old, she climbed up a narrow, winding staircase in the castle and reached a little door. In the room sat an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning her flax.
"Good day, old mother," said the king's daughter, "What sort of thing is that, that rattles round so merrily,"