After a long wait here she is in all her glory, and for the first time ever, this one-of-a-kind tattooed and costumed doll will be available to purchase from an ebay auction which begins on Monday, Dec 9th and ends Saturday, Dec 14th. And now read her story!
In the history of the Venetian carnival, there are three origin stories:
The most romantic version is that it’s a festive celebration in honor of liberating the women from the captivity of pirates. The most banal one, is a victory of the people over a greedy patriarch of Venice, while the most common origin story, is that of a harvest festival; a good rest after hard work.
That’s all well and good, but where then did the masks come from? Who is hiding from whom and why: slaves from owners, owners from slaves, pirates from the people or people from the patriarch? Maybe they were all hiding from the God Saturn, the patron of the people. Perhaps, but I think there is something more to it. Just beware that it's a really sad story. No, not like Romeo and Juliet, but a much sadder one, because it’s a story about a stalker and his victim, the unknown tale of Apollo and Daphne.
Let me tell you how it really went down.
Once upon a time, there lived a mighty God Saturn and his wife Cybele. In that age, there also lived a beautiful nymph Daphne and a young shepherd Attis. Of course God Apollo also lived in those distant times. There can’t well be a story without Apollo, that golden-haired playboy of the antiquity, can there?
So it happened that the beautiful Daphne fell in love with the mortal Attis, while the no less lovely Cybele, though a goddess, also fell in love with him. God Apollo, who could not miss a single skirt had began scheming as soon he laid his eyes on the exquisite Daphne. Attis in the meantime decided to kill two birds with one stone and had affairs with both Daphne and Cybele simultaneously. Only Saturn was wise enough to stay out of this love polygon.
“Do what you like” he said, while presumably shaking his head and rolling his eyes, and then went drinking with his buddy Zeus. The mighty Zeus had long wanted to hang out on Mount Olympus with a bottle of brandy.
