Psyche’s beauty was so extraordinary that suitors were too shy to woo her, and unlike her sisters, she remained unmarried. Psyche thus found herself living in loneliness.
In distress, her father consulted the oracle of Apollo at Miletus in search of a remedy. Apollo’s reply was that Psyche should be exposed on a mountaintop to await her future husband, a hideous monster. The king duly followed
The oracle’s instructions. This part of the story also echoes elements of other Greek myths: kings often sacrificed their daughters to monsters or dragons. The best known example is that of Greek princess Andromeda, who was chained to a rock as an offering to a sea monster but then rescued from her fate by the hero Perseus.
Psyche’s rescuer was Zephyrus, the west wind, who carried the princess off to a magical kingdom. There she dwelled in a luxurious palace located in a forest paradise. Psyche was waited on by invisible servants who continually replenished her food. She found herself visited every night by a mysterious and passionate lover. However, he used the darkness to conceal his identity, always leaving before daybreak. He also insisted that Psyche should never try to find out who he was and warned her that if she ever set eyes on him or learned his identity, she would lose him forever.
After a while, Psyche arranged for her sisters to visit her in her magical palace. However, the sisters were jealous of Psyche’s new life and tried to play on her doubts and worries. They suggested that Psyche’s mysterious lover might be the terrible monster to whom she should have been exposed on the mountain. Psyche’s lover had warned
Below: This painting by Italian artist Egisto Ferroni (1835-1912) depicts Psyche being carried off by Zephyrus, the west wind.
Her about the envious nature of her sisters, but she was still swayed by their arguments. Psyche eventually allowed her doubts to win her over.
One night Psyche took a lamp to her bedroom so that she could see her lover’s face. She also took a knife with her so that she could cut off his head if he really was the fearsome creature that her sisters had warned her about. However, when she lit the lamp, what she saw was not a monster, but an extraordinarily beautiful young man. Psyche’s lover was Cupid himself, who had fallen in love with the girl while carrying out the mission his mother had given him to destroy her.
While gazing on the features of her lover, Psyche idly fingered Cupid’s bow and arrows, which were lying at the foot of the bed, accidentally pricking her finger. This
Caused her to fall hopelessly in love with Cupid. However, at that very moment, a drop of hot oil fell from Psyche’s lamp onto Cupid’s shoulder. Cupid awoke immediately and fled from the building, returning to his mother. Furious at his betrayal, Venus locked him up in her palace.
Disconsolate, Psyche began to wander the world in search of her lost love. She became so dejected that at one point she even tried to drown herself. However, the god Pan found her and urged her to be resolute instead. Psyche sought help from the goddesses Ceres and Juno, the patronesses, respectively, of motherhood and marriage. However, both were unwilling to risk offending Venus and refused to help her. Psyche finally decided to appeal to the goddess of love herself.
Parallels with Other Myths
The story of Psyche echoes those of a number of other Greek myths. For example, the idea of a hero who ignores a warning and then is punished for his or her contrariness is common. Just as Psyche could not stop herself from looking at her lover's face, the mythical singer Orpheus could not resist one quick glance at his wife, Eurydice, whom he had just rescued from the underworld. Hades had allowed Eurydice to return to the land of the living on the condition that Orpheus not look at her before he reached the surface. Like Psyche, Orpheus was punished severely for his foolishness; his wife slid back to the depths of the underworld, never to return. Unlike Psyche, Orpheus received no reprieve. He
Wandered the countryside in grief until he was finally torn limb from limb.
This part of Psyche's story also has parallels with the story of Erichthonius, a mythical king of Athens. Erichthonius was the son of Hephaestus and Athena. When he was a baby, Athena put him in a chest and entrusted him to the daughters of Greek king Cecrops. Athena instructed them not to look into the chest under any circumstances. However, the princesses could not resist peeking inside. What they saw was a creature that was half-human and half-snake. Driven mad with terror, they threw themselves to their deaths from the top of the Acropolis, the highest hill in Athens.
Venus reacted angrily to Psyche’s pleas. However, in a move that has parallels with the actions of a number of other figures in Greek myth, Venus did not reject Psyche outright. Instead, she set her a number of seemingly impossible tasks to perform. First, Venus presented Psyche with a great heap of thousands of mixed seeds to be sorted out by nightfall. Then she demanded that Psyche collect wool from a flock of wild sheep. Unexpectedly, Psyche succeeded in performing both labors. In the first test, she
Was helped by a colony of ants. In the second, a river god warned her that the sheep ate human flesh and advised her that, rather than approach the sheep directly, she should collect the loose pieces of wool attached to nearby bushes. Venus then demanded that Psyche bring her water from the waterfall that flowed into the Styx itself The Styx, the river that flowed through the underworld, was guarded by terrible dragons. Again Psyche received miraculous assistance, this time from the eagle ofJupiter.
Finally, Venus demanded that Psyche enter the land of the dead and bring back in a box a little of the beauty of Persephone, queen of the underworld. At this last request. Psyche went to a high tower in despair, once again intending to commit suicide. However, the tower itself told her how she could enter the underworld, instructing her how to pass by Cerberus, the monstrous dog that guarded the entrance to the land of the dead, and persuade the ferryman Charon to take her across the Styx. The tower also warned her not to look into the box that Persephone would give her. By following the tower’s instructions. Psyche managed to complete the task. However, like many Greek heroines before her (see box), she could not resist peeking into the box, just as before she had not been able to resist taking a glimpse at the sleeping Cupid. She was immediately overcome by the sleep of death that the box contained.
By this time Cupid had found out that he was unable to live without his beloved Psyche. He awoke his lover by pricking her with the tip of one of his divine arrows. Cupid then pleaded with Jupiter to make Psyche immortal
Left: Cupid and Psyche by Italian sculptor Antonio Canova is one of the most famous depictions of the couple.
Above: Charon and Psyche by English Pre-Raphaelite painter John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829—1908) depicts Psyche preparing to cross the Styx River.
So that she could become his bride. Jupiter was so enchanted by the young Cupid that he granted his request, then he reconciled Venus to her son’s love. Cupid and Psyche were married in a grand wedding attended by all the gods, and in due course the pregnant Psyche gave birth to a child, Voluptas (Pleasure). Reunited after overcoming seemingly impossible challenges and long separations, the young couple were rewarded with a long and happy marriage. The Soul, to read the story symbolically, as many subsequently did, was ultimately reunited with Love, after suffering many tribulations.
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