A love too fierce for flesh. In this haunting Mayan legend, a princess named Cuzán defies her royal duty to pursue a forbidden love. When her father discovers her affair, he spares her beloved Chalpol from death but transforms him into a jeweled beetle, destined to live forever near her heart. The Princess and the Beetle tells a tale of devotion, transformation, and the enduring pulse of memory—where even insects carry the weight of myth.
The Princess and the Beetle
As soon as Cuzán became old enough for marriage, her father arranged a union with the son of Halach Uinic from the great city of Nan Chan. The prince Ek Chapat, her fiancé, was the future lord of the kingdom. One day, when the princess visited her father to thank him for the treasures he had plundered in a recent war and given to her, she discovered him with a handsome youth named Chalpol. People called him Chalpol, which means red head, due to his flaming red hair.
From that moment on, their souls were trapped in a bond of fire. They swore to never forget each other. They passionately pledged their love under the sacred ceiba tree. There, the gods heard their mortal pleas. When the king found out that Chalpol was his daughter’s lover, the king ordered him to be put to death. Cuzán begged her father not to kill him. She promised she would never see him again and that she would obediently accept her role as wife of the prince of Nan Chan.
In the solitude of her bedroom, the princess walked the path of mystery. During the silence of the night, Halach called her to present herself. Then a wizard appeared and offered her a beetle. He said: “Cuzán, here is your beloved Chalpol. Your father granted him his life, but he asked me to change him into an insect for having the audacity to love you.” The princess took him into her hands and said to him: “I will never leave you and I will keep my promise.”
The Princess and the Beetle
The best jeweler of the kingdom covered him with precious stones and attached a fine gold chain to his tiny foot. As soon as it was ready, she attached it to her chest and said: “Maquech, you are a man, hear my heartbeat, you will live here always. I have sworn to the gods to never forget you.” And she added: “Maquech, the gods have never known a love as intense and alive as this which consumes my soul.”
That is how princess Cuzán and her beloved Chalpol, who became maquech, loved each other through the passage of all time.
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