Parallel Myths (23 page)

NOTE
: The Greek and Roman mythologies were full of tales of romances with object lessons. The Latin poet Ovid, in particular, retold many myths of love and is our source for most of these stories. Hence the names of the gods are in their Roman forms.

CUPID AND PSYCHE

T
here was once a king with three beautiful daughters, the fairest of whom was Psyche, the youngest. Her name means “soul” and “butterfly” in Greek. Her beauty was such that the entire world soon knew of her and men swooned at the very mention of her name. Not only was she physically beautiful, but she was a kind and innocent girl as well. Through no fault of her own, people began to compare her with Venus [Greek: Aphrodite], the goddess of beauty. In time, the temples of Venus were ignored; no one brought sacrifices or invoked the name of the goddess for help. For, as the people saw it, Venus was a distant goddess who lived on Mount Olympus, while the very picture of beauty, Psyche, lived in their midst.

Venus became very angry about the attention given this mere mortal girl and she called her son Cupid [Greek: Eros] to assist in solving this problem. The arrows of Cupid are irresistible and invincible; anyone they strike falls hopelessly in love. Venus asked Cupid to make the vilest, ugliest man on earth fall in love with Psyche.

Upon inspecting the situation, however, Cupid fell in love with the girl himself and forgot all about his mother’s command. Venus merely took the silence of her son as his assent that he would do her bidding, certain that the matter would be taken care of promptly.

But as time went on, not only didn’t a terrible man fall in love with Psyche;
no one
fell in love with Psyche. Men still looked at her and praised her beauty, but not a single one approached her. Her two sisters had married well, while this most beautiful of mortals appeared to be headed for a lonely spinsterhood. Her parents despaired and decided to seek the advice of the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi.

Apollo himself was known for his taste for beautiful mortal women, but he was also the brother of Venus and did not wish to incur her wrath. So, speaking through the oracle, he did the diplomatic thing, telling the parents that Psyche would indeed have a lover—a horrible winged serpent. The parents were advised to take her up to a lonely
rock to meet her lover, who was as strong as the gods and could not be resisted.

Sadly, her father obeyed this advice and left the beautiful Psyche on the mountaintop. Filled with sorrow, fear, and dread, she wept inconsolably until she fell asleep. The gentle southern wind, Zephyr, soothed her with gentle breezes.

When she awoke in the morning, she found herself in a palace more grand than any she had ever imagined. Dozens of beautiful servant girls attended her every whim. They placed her in the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in. During the night she was gently awakened by the loveliest voice she had ever heard—it was her lover. In the darkness, his skin and body felt like that of a beautiful youth, not a winged monster. She was certain that this was a youth of great beauty, perhaps even a god. After their first night together, she was resolved to see his face.

He was insistent, however, that she should never, under any circumstances whatsoever, look at his face. Once she had seen his face, he would have to leave her forever. So she endured this rule for a time, while still pleading to see his face. He consistently refused, which made her curiosity all the more powerful.

One day she coaxed him into allowing her sisters to visit the palace. He was reluctant to do this, but was so completely in love with her that he could not refuse. So, during the day, the gentle wind Zephyr whisked the sisters up to the palace for a visit. The sisters, though married to wealthy men, were unprepared for the splendor they saw and became insanely jealous of Psyche. The visiting sisters began to ask Psyche probing questions about her lover while they feasted on exquisite foods. As she had never seen his face, her answers were full of inconsistencies.

The sisters noted the holes in Psyche’s stories and they began to taunt her by saying, “This is a splendid palace, but that is still too high a price to pay for having to sleep with a monster.” When the sisters left, Psyche was filled with doubt. On the one hand, she was fairly certain that her lover was a handsome young man. On the other, maybe the sisters had a point; she had never seen his face. Perhaps he
was
a monster.

Psyche resolved that she would try to see his face by stealth. She stayed up waiting for him to return. When he finally walked into the dark bedroom and fell into a sound sleep, she slipped down the hall and grabbed an oil lamp, which she brought to the bedroom. Seeing him for the first time in the light, she could not believe her eyes: This was the most handsome youth in the world, perhaps even a god. She leaned over to kiss him. Then some of the hot oil spilled from the lamp onto his shoulder, waking him with a start.

He leaped up from the bed and shouted, “I told you
never
to look at my face!” Taking on the divine mantle of invisibility, he fled the room. She raced down the hall after him, but it was too late. As he ran, she heard him identify himself—he was Cupid, the god of love himself. And his final words to her that night were that love could not dwell where there is no trust.

Cupid went to the home of Venus, his mother. He had a painful burn on his shoulder where the hot oil had dripped, and he wanted her to tend to it. When he told his mother the story of Psyche, she became enraged. She now hated the beautiful mortal more than ever. Beauty is always least beautiful when threatened by a rival; nor is there any greater womanly spite than that of a mother against her son’s lover when that love has gone sour. Venus was absolutely determined to destroy Psyche; the girl had not merely been a threat to the cult of Venus, she had had an affair with Venus’s own son!

Likewise, Psyche knew that she was doomed. Not only was it clear enough that her affair with Cupid was over, but her very life was in danger. All that she could do was to throw herself on the mercy of Venus and vow to serve her all her days. She was hoping that the goddess had at least one ounce of compassion left.

Zephyr carried Psyche to the chambers of Venus, who was relishing the chance for revenge on her mortal rival. Psyche flung herself at the feet of the goddess, pleading for mercy. Venus decided to give Psyche an impossible task and then destroy her. So she handed Psyche a pile of the smallest of seeds—poppy, millet, and mustard seeds—and ordered her to have them separated by kind before nightfall. The task was impossible. Psyche began to cry. As her tears hit the floor, the ants took pity on her. The queen ant ordered her subjects
to help Psyche separate the seeds by kind. Soon, with thousands of busy little ants working, the job was done. When Venus returned and saw this, she was angrier than before. In fact, the ants still live underground to avoid her wrath.

As night fell, Psyche became very hungry. But Venus gave her only a morsel of dry bread and forced her to sleep on the cold stone floor. Venus knew that nothing could destroy beauty like deprivation.

The next day Venus gave Psyche another impossible task, to gather golden fleece. Down in a valley near a river, Venus kept a flock of sacred sheep with golden fleece. However, these sheep had heads like lions and had torn many a mortal to shreds. Psyche went down to the riverbank and wept, resigned to her doom. Utterly despondent, she contemplated drowning herself in the river. Just then she heard a sweet little voice, like that of a child. Between her toes was a tiny reed that advised her to pick the golden fleece from the thorny brambles where the sheep had passed through. This way she could gather plenty of the golden wool in safety. Soon Psyche had gathered as much golden wool as she could carry. She had completed Venus’s second impossible assignment.

Venus was still prepared to destroy Psyche, so she gave the girl a pitcher and ordered her to fill it with water from the falls on the River Styx, the river that is the border between the lands of the living and the dead. When she arrived, it again appeared that she was doomed: In order to reach the waterfall, she had to climb up slippery rocks alongside boiling rapids that could sweep her down to the land of the dead. Left to her own devices, Psyche would have been finished.

But a great eagle—probably Jupiter [Greek: Zeus] in disguise, as he is an incurable romantic—swept her safely up to the waterfall. Psyche filled the pitcher to the brim and returned to Venus.

At this point you may well wonder how it could be that a goddess would act so spitefully, stupidly, and cruelly. Remember that Venus is the goddess of beauty. With beauty comes vanity; and vanity, when threatened by a rival, causes beauty to become very ugly indeed.

Venus next sent Psyche directly into the land of the dead. Psyche was to ask Proserpina [Greek: Persephone], queen of the Underworld,
for some of her beauty. All of the stress and strain of plotting revenge had taken its toll on Venus’s looks.

Very few mortals have ever visited the Underworld and returned to tell about it. It is the abode of the dead, and the living cannot return unless they have the help of the gods. Psyche passed a magic tower, where a guide took compassion on her. The guide told her that she would need to pay a fare to Charon, the ferryman of the dead, to take her across the River Styx into the land of the dead. When Psyche responded that she had no money, the guide told her that Charon was especially partial to honey cakes and gave her a cake to give the ferryman. It is very likely that this “guide” was the god Mercury [Greek: Hermes], who directs the dead to the Underworld, protects travelers, and makes a point of helping lost causes.

Psyche entered the Underworld without incident. Charon, usually quite gruff, was charmed by her beauty—and the cake—taking her across the Styx without any thought of a fare. When she arrived at the throne of Proserpina, the goddess gladly put some of her beauty in a box and sent it with Psyche.

Now here is where Psyche failed miserably. For however wise and good a woman may be, she will do anything for the secret of eternal beauty. Psyche held it right in her hands, and her curiosity was killing her. As she walked along, she grew obsessed by the contents of the box. She opened it; it appeared empty. Then she fell into a deep sleep, more beautiful than ever.

Before Venus had time to wonder what was keeping Psyche, Cupid stepped in to save the mortal girl. Healed from his wounds, he escaped from the palace of Venus—for not even gods can imprison love. He immediately found Psyche, put some of the beauty back into the box, and kissed her. With the beauty returned to the box, Psyche awoke. Cupid told her to take the box immediately to Venus without fear.

As Psyche started on her way, Cupid went to Jupiter to proclaim his love for Psyche and ask the help of the master of all gods in uniting them forever.

Jupiter, as we have said, is a romantic. He listened sympathetically to Cupid’s story and then told the young god: “Once physical
love
[eros
in Greek] and the soul
[psyche
in Greek] are united, not even the gods can separate them. Therefore you and Psyche shall be husband and wife.” Jupiter sent for Psyche and she drank the celestial ambrosia that transforms mortals into immortals. Psyche and Cupid lived happily among the gods. Venus was so pleased to have her mortal rival off the earth, out of sight of the human beings whose adoration Venus desired, that she actually turned into a rather nice mother-in-law. And so it was that physical love and the soul were united, but only after many difficult trials.

PYRAMUS AND THISBE
*

P
yramus and Thisbe were two very beautiful youths who lived in the city of Babylon. They grew up in adjacent houses, separated only by a thin wall, and grew to love each other very much. However, their parents did not allow them to see each other, and the two yearned with desire. They discovered a tiny hole in the wall just large enough for them to whisper through. It was still too small for them to kiss through, let alone see each other. However, the more that lovers are separated, the more resolved they are to be together.

So the two made plans to escape and be together. The plan was to slip just outside the city to the tomb of Nimus and meet underneath a mulberry tree there. It was widely known that a fierce lioness guarded the tomb, but the young lovers had no fear.

Thisbe came out and tiptoed around the side of the tomb, but Pyramus was nowhere to be found. Then, to her horror, she saw the lioness, whose jaws were dripping with blood. She thought the very worst—that Pyramus had been killed. Thisbe ran in terror from the lioness and in her haste she dropped her cloak.

Pyramus, very much alive, came on the scene only to see the fierce lioness standing on a girls cloak. He too thought the worst—
that his lover had been a victim of the lioness. Stricken with grief, he watched the lioness walk away. Then he took the bloodstained cloak in his arms and wept, saying, “It is I who killed you! You came here to meet me and didn’t find me. I will join you, my love.” With that Pyramus took his dagger and plunged it into his heart. His blood spurted upward and stained the berries of the mulberry tree.