On page 140 of his 1976 book, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, author Bruno Bettelheim writes:
The verses Falada speaks three times—each time in response to the goose girl’s lament on encountering its head: “Oh, Falada, thou who hangest there”—do not so much bemoan the girl’s fate as express the helpless grief of her mother. Falada’s implied admonition is that not only for her sake, but also for her mother’sd, the princess should stop accepting passively whatever happens to her. It is also a subtle accusation that, had the princess not ated so immaturely in dropping and losing the handkerchief and in letting herself be pushed around by her maid, Falada would not have been killed. All the bad things that happen are the girl’s own fault because she fails to assert herself. Not even the talking horse can help her out of her predicament.
I really had difficulty in understanding what that paragraph's first sentence means, the one that without the part surrounded by dashes runs
The verses Falada speaks three times do not so much bemoan the girls fate as express the helpless grief of her mother.
Does it mean one of these three?
Falada doesn't bemoan the girl's fate as her (the girl's) mother does.
As Falada expresses her (the girl's) mother's helpless grief, he doesn't bemoan the girl's fate that much/
- Although Falada expresses her mother's grief, he doesn't bemoan the girl's fate that much/
I thought if express were expressing, it would make more sense. Whatever it is, I still don't understand what it means.
