“No,” said Snow-white, “I dare not take anything.” “Are you afraid of
poison?” said the old woman; “look, I will cut the apple in two pieces;
you eat the red cheek, and I will eat the white.” The apple was so
cunningly made that only the red cheek was poisoned. Snow-white longed
for the fine apple, and when she saw that the woman ate part of it she
could resist no longer, and stretched out her hand and took the
poisonous half. But hardly had she a bit of it in her mouth than she
fell down dead. Then the Queen looked at her with a dreadful look, and
laughed aloud and said, “White as snow, red as blood, black as
ebony-wood! this time the dwarfs cannot wake you up again.”
And when she asked of the Looking-glass at home—
“Looking-glass, Looking-glass, on the wall,
Who in this land is the fairest of all?”
it answered at last—
“Oh, Queen, in this land thou art fairest of all.”
Then her envious heart had rest, so far as an envious heart can have
rest.
The dwarfs, when they came home in the evening, found Snow-white lying
upon the ground; she breathed no longer and was dead. They lifted her
up, looked to see whether they could find anything poisonous, unlaced
her, combed her hair, washed her with water and wine, but it was all of
no use; the poor child was dead, and remained dead. They laid her upon
a bier, and all seven of them sat round it and wept for her, and wept
three days long.
Then they were going to bury her, but she still looked as if she were
living, and still had her pretty red cheeks. They said, “We could not
bury her in the dark ground,” and they had a transparent coffin of
glass made, so that she could be seen from all sides, and they laid her
in it, and wrote her name upon it in golden letters, and that she was a
king’s daughter. Then they put the coffin out upon the mountain, and
one of them always stayed by it and watched it. And birds came too, and
wept for Snow-white; first an owl, then a raven, and last a dove.
And now Snow-white lay a long, long time in the coffin, and she did not
change, but looked as if she were asleep; for she was as white as snow,
as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony.
It happened, however, that a king’s son came into the forest, and went
to the dwarfs’ house to spend the night. He saw the coffin on the
mountain, and the beautiful Snow-white within it, and read what was
written upon it in golden letters. Then he said to the dwarfs, “Let me
have the coffin, I will give you whatever you want for it.” But the
dwarfs answered, “We will not part with it for all the gold in the
world.” Then he said, “Let me have it as a gift, for I cannot live
without seeing Snow-white. I will honour and prize her as my dearest
possession.” As he spoke in this way the good dwarfs took pity upon
him, and gave him the coffin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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