Psyche

Psyche was born the youngest daughter of a nameless king and queen who ruled a wealthy Greek city. From the moment she entered the world, her beauty was so overwhelming that visitors from neighbouring lands came merely to gaze upon her face. As she grew, the people of her kingdom began to neglect the temples of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty who was born from the sea foam of the severed genitals of Uranus, the primordial sky-god, and instead they brought offerings to Psyche as if she were a goddess herself. Aphrodite, enraged that a mortal was stealing her worship, called upon her son Eros, the winged god of love whose arrows could make any being fall into uncontrollable desire, and commanded him to shoot Psyche with a poisoned arrow that would make her fall in love with the most vile creature on earth. But when Eros leaned over the sleeping princess, he pricked himself with his own arrow and fell hopelessly in love with her. Unable to obey his mother, he swept Psyche away to a hidden palace on a mountain peak, where the west wind Zephyr, the gentle breeze that carried spring flowers, lifted her from the rocky cliff and set her down in a garden of impossible splendour.

In the palace, Psyche was attended by invisible servants who laid feasts before her and dressed her in silk and gold. Each night, a husband came to her bed in the darkness, a warm and tender presence who spoke words of love but never allowed her to see his face. He warned her that she must never try to discover his identity, and that she must not listen to anyone who told her he was a monster. For a time, Psyche was happy, but she grew lonely and begged to see her two elder sisters. Reluctantly, her husband allowed the sisters to visit, carried to the mountain by Zephyr. When they saw the golden palace and the invisible servants, they were consumed with jealousy. They told Psyche that her husband was a terrible serpent who would devour her once she grew heavy with child, and they gave her a plan: hide a sharp knife and an oil lamp beneath her bed, and when he slept, cut off his head.

That night, Psyche lit the lamp and held the knife, but instead of a monster she saw the most beautiful being she had ever imagined. Eros lay sleeping, his golden wings folded, his face radiant with divine light. Overcome with love and shame, she leaned forward, and a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp onto his shoulder. Eros woke with a cry of pain, saw the lamp and the knife, and knew that she had betrayed his trust. Without a word, he spread his wings and flew from the palace, and the entire palace vanished behind him, leaving Psyche alone on the bare mountain. She threw herself from the cliff in despair, but the river below caught her and set her upon the bank, and she began her long wandering in search of her lost husband. She came at last to temples of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and of Hera, the queen of Olympus and wife of Zeus, the king of the gods, but neither goddess would help her against the wrath of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite found Psyche wandering and seized her with fury, declaring that she would never see Eros again unless she completed four impossible tasks. First, she poured a heap of mixed grains onto the temple floor and commanded Psyche to sort them by dawn. As Psyche wept, a colony of ants sorted every grain before the sun rose. Second, Aphrodite sent her to fetch golden wool from man-eating sheep. A reed whispered that she should wait until the sheep slept, then gather the wool caught on thorn bushes. Third, Aphrodite demanded water from the river Styx, the black river that flowed through the Underworld, the realm of the dead ruled by Hades, the gloomy god of the underworld, whose waters would shatter any jar. An eagle, the bird of Zeus, the king of the gods, swooped down and filled the jar. Finally, Aphrodite gave Psyche a box and commanded her to take it to Persephone, the queen of the dead, daughter of Demeter and wife of Hades, and ask her to fill it with a portion of her own beauty. A tower told Psyche how to enter the Underworld through a cave, how to pass the three-headed hound Cerberus, who guarded the gates of the Underworld, with a cake, and how to refuse all food among the dead. Persephone filled the box, and Psyche returned. But at the threshold of the living world, she opened the box hoping to steal a little beauty, and a death-like sleep poured out and overcame her.

Eros, who had been hiding in his mother's palace nursing his burned shoulder, felt Psyche's danger and flew to her. He brushed the sleep from her face and sent it back into the box, then carried her to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. He threw himself before Zeus, the king of the gods who ruled with his thunderbolt, and begged for mercy. Zeus, moved by their love, declared that Psyche would drink the cup of immortality and take her place among the Olympians. Hermes, the messenger god who moved between heaven and earth with winged sandals, led Psyche to the assembly, and Aphrodite, though still resentful, could not oppose the will of Zeus. Eros and Psyche were married on Olympus, and Psyche bore a daughter named Hedone, the goddess of pleasure, whose Roman name was Voluptas. From that day forward, Psyche was worshipped as the goddess of the human soul, the immortal bride of love itself.