Prince of Cups (Traditional: Page of Cups): Animal messengers, frog kisses and recognizing sacred time.
Prince of Cups Final Painting
Animal bride stories are plentiful in fairy tale collections and appear several times in my own Fairy Tale Tarot. I don’t know exactly why, but I’m drawn to the idea of animals testing humans to see if their hearts are truly in the right place. Let’s face it, many (not all) modern humans tend to see themselves as the most superior of sentient creatures (otherwise we wouldn’t be obliterating their natural habitats left and right), but many myths and stories throughout history have presented animals as divine entities. All manner of animal worship has existed and still exists today. Why is this? Are they symbols of our conscience? Who doesn’t have animal visitors in their dreams? What explains their ubiquity in cartoons? Why do they appear as authorities in product advertising? Why do we ooh and ahh whenever there is an anomalous animal encounter? In stories, they almost seem omniscient with their intuitive rapport and demonstrative ways. Perhaps they’re one step ahead of Homo sapiens, recognizing the very fallibilities that prevent us silly humans from attaining a higher sense of self. From what I can tell, animals are born enlightened and live the moment in ways we can only strive to do. Therefore, I believe animal-messengers in fairy tales make total sense. And when animals personified or anthropomorphised are vested with an emotional quality like love, the results to the reader can be quite sublime. It’s hard not to cry about the crestfallen beast, or the injured deer, or the mistreated frog!
Prince of Cups sketch
When the princess bargains with the frog, she does so with a non-consequential mindset–symptomatic of humanity’s ignorance? But when the frog appears at her father’s palace to be part of the princess’ domicile, the princess who sees him as nothing but a repugnant amphibian rejects him. Much to her disgust, she is required to eat and sleep with the frog, after all, her wise father reminds her, “Honor it you must—a promise is a promise!” But in the end, after a particularly violent tantrum, the princess realizes her mistake when her impetuosity results in the frog’s transformation into a prince. Thus the princess’ destiny is changed forever.
Prince of Cups B&W
I have small frog statues and a dragon gargoyle along my front walkway. I’ve seen frogs sitting on their resin likenesses and lizards perched on the sculpted dragon as if they know they’re sacred creatures on this sacred planet—interlocutors in a world where time is no faster than the moment in which they exist. Of course, this makes me wonder why a frog would want to turn back into a human prince in the first place!
Lizard on Frog Photo: Kort Kramer
Are these ladylike topics to be discussing!?
Ha ha ha!!
Very interesting blog post and follow-up comments!
Excellent points and you’re right, there are sexual overtones in this story and other animal bride narratives, although in this particular context I did want to focus more on emotional growth rather than sexual maturation–but it’s something to consider as I approach the edits. Perhaps enchantment serves as a metaphor for those natural impulses that we deny, repress and distort. We can see these kinds of symbolic suggestions in Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and even Sleeping Beauty: enchantments appearing in the form of beast, tower, or a prick of the needle (and subsequent bleeding)–complete with phallic/sexual connotations. Fairy Tales are loaded with interesting symbolism and offer endless material for analytical conversation, don’t you think?
As far as who posed? I think it was a combination of us–I’ll have to retrieve the reference and post it on my fairy tale site.
And now we know why the frog chose to turn into a prince! Racy indeed! Thanks for pointing that out.
Love the painting! The pose looks familiar – was this one of the ones I posed for?
What a fun post. I’ve always considered the Frog Prince a particularly resonant tale.
Anyway, here’s what comes to mind for me. Yup, there’s definitely the “nature as messenger to access our higher self” aspect of the story. However, in some symbolism, the frog represents sexuality and fertility. For example, there’s Heket, an Egyptian frog fertility goddess. Others consider the frog to look like a fetus, especially in tadpole form; also male genitals (very Freudian, I know!). Anyway, taking this symbolism into consideration, one can look upon the Frog Prince fairy tale as a parable about the feminine acceptance of the masculine, in the form of a sexual/romantic coming of age story. After all, once the princess accepts the frog into her bed, he turns into a prince (even if she does initially throw him out in a fit). Pretty racy stuff!