Christina of Sweden: Dancing the Goddess Cupid Could Not Conquer

Christina was twenty-two when she danced the part of a goddess Cupid could not conquer. Sweden wanted her to marry. In the ballet, the god of love ended up a prisoner.

On 1 November 1649, at Stockholm's royal palace, the Queen of Sweden performed as Diana in a court ballet whose Swedish text was called Then fångne Cupido, The Captive Cupid. Diana was the chaste goddess of the hunt, beyond the reach of the arrows that made everyone else fall in love. For Christina, who had spent that year resisting pressure to take a husband, it was a particularly suitable part.

She had been queen since she was five. Her father, Gustav Adolf, had been killed at the battle of Lützen in 1632, leaving his only surviving legitimate child to inherit the crown. Councillors governed in her name through her childhood while she was educated for the work that would eventually be hers. Sweden had accepted a little girl as its sovereign. The difficulty came when that girl grew into a woman who would not promise another generation.

Christina began governing in her own right in 1644. By 1649, her marriage was a matter for the council and the estates of the realm, the representatives of the nobility, clergy, townspeople and peasants. A queen's preference could become a constitutional problem remarkably quickly. If she died without a child, someone still had to inherit, and competing claims to a crown could be settled with armies.

There was a familiar candidate for both marriage and succession. Charles Gustav was her cousin, the son of the aunt who had helped bring her up. The two had known each other from childhood. He had been raised in Sweden and had proved himself as a soldier. To those urging the match, he offered the advantages of a royal marriage without the uncertainties of bringing in an unfamiliar foreign prince.

Christina wanted him as her successor. That did not mean she wanted him as her husband.

During the 1649 parliament, she declared that she did not intend to marry. The councillors who preferred a wedding also feared what might happen if an appointed heir became too powerful while the queen still lived. If she later married someone else and had children, Sweden might find itself with rival royal families. Christina and her opponents both invoked the danger of civil war. They differed over the arrangements that would prevent it.

Charles Gustav was designated her successor that year, in the absence of children of her own, but the settlement did not yet establish hereditary rights for his descendants. Christina had obtained an heir without agreeing to a marriage. The distinction had survived the argument.

Now it had a place in the palace entertainment.

Court ballet gave such questions music, verse and human bodies. Gods and goddesses could represent a ruler's virtues, obligations and victories. A royal performer did not leave rank and authority behind when taking a part; those were among the things the performance displayed. Christina's court drew on French fashions and theatrical forms, and the classical figures belonged to a language its audience was accustomed to reading.

The November ballet had been a long time coming. In September, a performance was expected within a few weeks. Later that month, it was expected within a fortnight. October brought another proposed day. Only on 31 October did the news finally become that the much-delayed ballet would be danced the next day.

The queen's mother, Maria Eleonora, was in the audience. The daughter who had inherited her husband's kingdom at five was now its adult ruler, performing the part of a goddess whose freedom depended on remaining beyond romantic conquest.

In the story, Cupid's power reaches almost everywhere. His arrows stir a passion that deprives its victims of freedom. Diana remains outside his dominion, and Venus, his mother, urges him against her. He attempts the conquest. Instead, he is disarmed, his bow and arrows broken and his wings clipped. The hunter of lovers becomes Diana's captive.

He even carries her portrait on his shield, marked as her prisoner. The god who makes others submit ends the evening wearing the proof of his own surrender.

For a court concerned with getting its queen married, the allegory had an awkwardly appropriate heroine. Diana's chastity was a source of strength, and the woman playing her had already refused the match others considered the answer to Sweden's future. The performance gave that refusal a flattering classical form. It needed no wedding, and no surrender by Diana, to reach its end.

The following year, the succession arrangement was extended to Charles Gustav's male descendants. In 1654, Christina abdicated and he became king.

At the palace that November evening, Christina had played the goddess who remained free while Cupid carried the sign of his captivity. Charles Gustav would eventually receive her crown. He never received her hand.