Psyche's Sisters

Psyche's sisters were the elder daughters of a king whose name Apuleius, the Roman author who told their story in the Metamorphoses, did not record. They were born before Psyche, the youngest child whose beauty was so extraordinary that men and women across the kingdom began to worship her as a goddess, leaving the altars of Venus empty and her temples untended. The sisters were beautiful by mortal standards, but they were overshadowed by their younger sibling from the moment she grew to womanhood. They watched as suitors from across Greece came to court Psyche, and they watched as those same suitors fell silent in her presence, unable to speak for wonder. The oracle of Apollo, the god of prophecy and light, declared that Psyche was not meant for any mortal husband, and she was taken to a mountain peak and left there as a bride for a monster. The sisters mourned her, or pretended to, but beneath their grief lay a secret relief: the most beautiful woman in the world was gone.

But Psyche was not dead. Zephyrus, the gentle west wind, carried her from the mountain to a hidden valley where a palace of impossible beauty stood, filled with invisible servants and treasures beyond imagination. Her husband came to her only in darkness, forbidding her to see his face or to learn his name. He was Eros, the god of love, the son of Venus and the winged archer whose arrows made gods and mortals alike fall helplessly in love. Psyche was happy, but she missed her family, and she begged her husband to let her sisters visit. Eros, against his better judgement, agreed. He warned her that her sisters would bring destruction, but Psyche was young and lonely, and she could not believe that her own blood would wish her harm.

The sisters arrived at the palace, carried by Zephyrus as Psyche had been, and they were overwhelmed by what they saw. The halls were lined with gold and precious stones, the gardens bloomed with flowers that never wilted, and invisible hands served them feasts of divine quality. They asked Psyche about her husband, and she told them that he was young and beautiful, that he came to her only at night, and that she had never seen his face. The sisters exchanged glances. They saw an opportunity. They told Psyche that her husband was not a young man at all but a monstrous serpent, a creature sent by the oracle to devour her. They claimed that he hid his face because it was too terrible to look upon, and that he would eventually grow tired of her and eat her whole. They urged her to take a lamp and a knife to his bed, to hide them beneath the mattress, and to look upon his face while he slept. If he was a monster, they said, she must kill him before he killed her.

Psyche, terrified by their words, did as they advised. That night, while Eros slept beside her, she lit the lamp and raised it over his face. She saw not a serpent but the most beautiful being she had ever beheld, the god of love himself with his golden wings and his perfect form. But a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp onto his shoulder, and he woke with a cry. He saw the lamp, the knife, and the betrayal in her eyes, and he flew from the palace in grief and anger. The palace vanished, and Psyche was left alone in the wilderness. The sisters had destroyed her happiness with a single conversation, and they returned to their father believing that she was dead.

But Psyche was not dead. She wandered the earth in search of her husband, and Venus, enraged that her son had married a mortal and that Psyche had seen his face, set her a series of impossible tasks. When Psyche had completed the first task, sorting a massive heap of mixed grains into separate piles with the help of ants, Venus learned that her son still loved his wife. She devised a cruel plan. She sent for Psyche's sisters and told them that Eros was sick and languishing in the palace, and that he had declared he wished to marry one of them instead. She offered them each a false hope: if they went to the rock from which Psyche had been carried and leapt from it, Zephyrus would bear them to the palace and they would become the bride of the god of love.

The sisters, consumed by greed and envy, did not hesitate. They went to the mountain, each believing she would be the chosen one, and they leapt from the rock. But Zephyrus did not come. The wind that had been gentle for Psyche was absent for them, and they fell, their bodies dashed against the stones below. Their bones were scattered on the mountain, and their blood stained the rocks. Venus had used them as weapons against Psyche and then discarded them, and their envy had consumed them as completely as it had consumed Psyche's happiness. In some later traditions, the sisters were given names: Aglaura and Cisaephone, though Apuleius left them nameless, perhaps to emphasise that their identities were swallowed by their sin.