MYTH 996: Week Three Reading Notes Part A

Source story: "Cupid and Psyche" from Apuleis's book The Golden Ass (translated by Tony Kline)

In this first story we are introduced to the main character of the book - Lucius - who has been turned into a donkey. He is being used as pack animal by a gang of robbers, and so he happens to witness them returning from an attempted night of thievery with only a captive noblewoman for their spoils, who they plan to hold ransom. She thinks to kill herself, but the old woman with the gang of robbers threatens to see her roasted alive if she doesn't settle down.

The captive woman explains to the old woman that she was kidnapped on her wedding day, and that she has just had a dream of the robbers killing her husband-to-be. She is greatly distressed, so the old woman offers to comfort her with a story.

We learn about the legend of Psyche, a princess so beautiful that the people began to worship her as they did Venus. Venus is, of course, deeply angered by the idea that a mere mortal woman could usurp some of her praises and glory, and so she calls her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a miserable, wretched man. She then bestows a very disturbing kiss on her son and walks off onto the ocean, with all the ocean-dwellers following along and singing her praises.

Unfortunately for Psyche, she is admired by people the world over, but has no suitors, as people view her more as a work of art than as a marriageable princess. So her father goes to an oracle, who tells him she must go to a marriage ceremony of death, essentially. Her parents resist, but she tells them it is for the best, rather than having her go on living in sadness at being alone. So they take her to a rocky crag and leave her out in a red wedding veil to await her supposed husband. After all the other people leave her there alone, she is lifted up by a gentle breeze and placed on a soft bed of grass.

Psyche awakes outside a glowing magical palace, in which she finds treasures of all kinds. Invisible servants explain to her that this all belongs to her, and that she may sleep in her room and bathe. She also sits down to eat a "sumptuous" meal, served again by invisible servants and followed by music by invisible musicians.

Psyche is visited night after night by her husband, who has marital relations with her but never lets her see who he is. He warns her that her family grieves for her and that her sisters might soon come to try to see her, but that she shouldn't look at them or talk to them or she'll make him very sad. But of course she is sad, so he agrees to let her speak with her sisters as long as she doesn't take any advice from them about trying to figure out who he is. She then professes her love for him and he departs.

Psyche's sisters do indeed come to visit her, and Zephyr (the wind which brought Psyche to her palace before) brings them to her palace. They are overjoyed to see her at first, but when they leave with gifts of gold and jewelry, they are overcome by jealousy that she should be so rich and have a god for a husband. So they determine to devise a plan to have her cast down from her castle.

Once again, Psyche's mysterious husband warns her that her sisters are bad news, but agrees to let her see them again so she won't be so sad and lonely. He also tells her that she is pregnant with his child, and that if she can keep her husband a secret, the child will be born a god; if she can't he will be born mortal. He warns her once more that if she ever tries to look at him, she will lose him forever. She reassures him that she will keep whatever secrets he asks her to keep.

Psyche's sisters realize that she has been lying to them about what her husband looks like, so they determine that she must not know herself. So they convince her that he is actually an evil serpent (as was mentioned in the oracle's prophesy), and he will eat her as soon as she gives birth. They convince her to hide a lamp in her room and a blade under her pillow, and to look on him and kill him when he falls asleep.

Psyche carries out her sisters' plan with the lamp, but stays her weapon when she realizes her husband is Cupid himself. She then accidentally pricks herself with his arrow, causing her to fall even more deeply in love with him. She admires him for awhile, but then the lamp drips oil on him and he awakes, and flies away. She holds onto his leg and is carried along, but eventually falls. He explains to her that he defied his mother and married her, shooting himself with his own arrow, then says he must punish her sisters, and he must leave her.

Psyche attempts suicide in her despair, but the stream she throws herself into fears Cupid and keeps her from drowning. She has a brief encounter with the god Pan, who advises her to seek Cupid's favor if she is suffering from heartache. Then she goes and tricks each of her sisters into jumping to their deaths from the rocky crag from which Zephyr usually carries them on their way to see Psyche at her palace. She tricks them by telling them that her husband was really Cupid, but upon her betrayal, he declared he wished to marry her sister instead.

MYTH 996