Cinderella and Mary's song of reversal
the Magnificat--_exaltavit humiles._
The Latin is an exact fragment of Luke 1:52: ‘and he has exalted the humble.’ The Magnificat is Mary's song in Luke 1:46–55, named from its opening Latin verb, magnificat. Its immediate context sharpens Chesterton's comparison: God scatters the proud, removes the powerful, raises the lowly and feeds the hungry. Luke 1:46–55. In the Perrault-derived ‘Cinderella’ printed in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book (1889; inspected in Gutenberg's electronic transcription), the despised household servant marries the prince and forgives her sisters. Story's conclusion. Chesterton identifies a shared reversal of rank and pride; he is making an interpretive comparison, not claiming that Luke supplied the tale's historical source.
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