Prevod

Once upon a time there were a man and a woman who had long wished in vain for a child. At last the woman began to hope that the good Lord would grant their wish. At the back of their house they had a little window overlooking a splendid garden, full of the loveliest flowers and herbs. But a high wall surrounded it, and no one dared enter, for it belonged to an enchantress who had great power and was feared by everyone. One day the woman was standing at this window, looking down into the garden, when she caught sight of a bed planted with the finest rampion. It looked so fresh and green that her mouth watered, and she felt an overwhelming desire to eat some. Her craving grew stronger every day, and knowing she could not have any, she began to waste away and grew pale and miserable. Her husband was alarmed and asked, "What ails you, dear wife?" "Oh," she answered, "if I cannot have some rampion from the garden behind our house, I shall die." Her husband, who loved her dearly, thought, "Rather than let your wife die, you must fetch her some rampion, whatever the cost." So at dusk he climbed over the wall into the enchantress's garden, hastily dug up a handful of rampion, and brought it to his wife. She immediately made a salad of it and ate it eagerly. But it had tasted so very, very good that the next day her craving was three times as strong. If she was to have any peace, her husband would have to climb into the garden once more. So at dusk he went down again, but when he had climbed over the wall, he was terribly frightened, for there stood the enchantress before him. "How dare you," she said with an angry look, "climb into my garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall pay dearly for this." "Oh," he answered, "have mercy on me. Only dire necessity drove me to it. My wife saw your rampion from our window, and her craving is so great that she would die if she could not have some to eat." At this the enchantress's anger subsided, and she said to him, "If it is as you say, I will allow you to take as much rampion as you wish, but on one condition: you must give me the child your wife is going to bear. It shall be well cared for, and I will look after it like a mother." In his fear the man agreed to everything, and when his wife gave birth, the enchantress appeared at once, named the child Rapunzel, and took her away.

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her in a tower in a forest. It had neither stairs nor a door, only a little window at the very top. Whenever the enchantress wished to enter, she stood below and called:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Rapunzel had long, magnificent hair, fine as spun gold. Whenever she heard the enchantress's voice, she loosened her braids, wound them around a hook above the window, and let her hair fall twenty ells to the ground. Then the enchantress climbed up it.

After a few years, it happened that the king's son was riding through the forest and passed the tower. He heard singing so lovely that he stopped to listen. It was Rapunzel, who passed the time in her solitude by letting her sweet voice ring out. The prince wanted to climb up to her and searched for a door in the tower, but none was to be found. He rode home, yet the singing had touched his heart so deeply that he went out into the forest every day to listen. Once, as he stood behind a tree, he saw an enchantress approach and heard her call up:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." Then Rapunzel lowered her braids, and the enchantress climbed up to her. "If that is the ladder by which one gets up," he thought, "I too shall try my luck." The next day, as it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and called:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair." At once the hair fell down, and the prince climbed up. At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man came into her room, for she had never set eyes on one before. But the prince began speaking to her very kindly and told her that her singing had moved his heart so deeply that it had given him no peace, and he had been compelled to see her for himself. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked whether she would take him for her husband, she saw that he was young and handsome and thought, "He will love me better than old Mother Gothel does." So she said yes and laid her hand in his. "I would gladly go with you," she said, "but I do not know how to get down. Each time you come, bring a skein of silk, and I will weave a ladder from it. When it is finished, I will climb down, and you can take me on your horse." They agreed that until then he should visit her every evening, for the old woman came by day. The enchantress suspected nothing until one day Rapunzel said to her, "Tell me, Mother Gothel, why are you so much harder to pull up than the young prince? He is with me in an instant." "Oh, you wicked child!" cried the enchantress. "What is this I hear? I thought I had shut you away from all the world, and yet you have deceived me!" In her anger she seized Rapunzel's beautiful hair, wound it a few times around her left hand, snatched up a pair of scissors with her right, and snip, snap, it was cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the floor. So merciless was she that she took poor Rapunzel into a wilderness, where she was forced to live in great sorrow and misery.

That very evening, on the day she had cast Rapunzel out, the enchantress fastened the severed braids to the hook above the window, and when the prince came and called:

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair," she lowered the hair. The prince climbed up, but instead of his beloved Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who glared at him with malice and venom in her eyes. "Aha!" she cried mockingly. "You have come to fetch your sweetheart, but the pretty bird no longer sits in her nest and sings. The cat has carried her off, and it will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to you; you will never see her again." The prince was beside himself with grief, and in despair he leaped from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes. Then he wandered blindly through the forest, eating nothing but roots and berries, and doing nothing but lament and weep for the loss of his beloved wife. For several years he roamed about in misery, until at last he came to the wilderness where Rapunzel was eking out a wretched living with the twins she had borne, a boy and a girl. He heard a voice that seemed so familiar, and he went toward it. As he drew near, Rapunzel recognized him, threw her arms around his neck, and wept. Two of her tears fell upon his eyes, and they became clear again, and he could see as well as before. He led her to his kingdom, where he was welcomed with joy, and they lived in happiness and contentment for many years.