ABSTRACT
The translations present five Cinderella or Cinderella-related tales of persecuted heroines beginning with Strabo’s version of Rhodopis, with a slipper-test that wins the persecuted slave-turned-courtesan a marriage with the pharaoh. A matching story in Herodotus offers men with helpful-animal or plant names, and the beginnings of the persecution. A Jewish ‘take’ supplies ashes and a supernatural godfather, while a pastoral novel supplies more animal helpers and a further slipper test with golden slipper-tokens. A long story in Aelian translates flight from the ball into reluctance to flirt with Cyrus at a Persian drinking-session.
The Snow Whites include Ovid’s Chione (Snow Girl), with two rapes and a murder instead of three murder attempts; the boastfulness of the heroine is her downfall and produces a tragic ending, while there is a dwarf connexion for Pygmalion (‘little fist’) and instead of the revival of a girl in a glass case, a stone statue whose body comes to life.
