Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece

Cupid and Psyche

Erotes

The Greeks untangled love’s complexity by naming each separate strand and providing divinities to represent them. Aphrodite, the supreme goddess of love and of beauty, was attended by a retinue of winged and naked godlings called Erotes. Like many deities (Hades and his underworld cohorts, for example) the Erotes suddenly found themselves with much to do once humanity established itself and began to flourish. Each of the Erotes had a special kind of amatory passion to promulgate and promote.

ANTEROS – the youthful patron of selfless unconditional love.fn1

EROS – the leader of the Erotes, god of physical love and sexual desire.

HEDYLOGOS – the spirit of the language of love and terms of endearment, who now, one assumes, looks over Valentine cards, love-letters and romantic fiction.

HERMAPHRODITUS – the protector of effeminate males, mannish females and those of what we would now call a more fluid gender.

HIMEROS – the embodiment of desperate, impetuous love, love that is impatient to be fulfilled and ready to burst.

HYMENAIOS – the guardian of the bridal-chamber and wedding music.

POTHOS – the personification of languorous longing, of love for the absent and the departed.

Of these the most influential and devastating was Eros, in his power and his capacity to sow mischief and discord. There are two stories concerning his origin and identity. In one telling of the birth of the cosmos he was hatched from a great egg laid by Nyx and sprang from it to seed all life in the universe. He could therefore be counted amongst the very first of the primordial spirits that kickstarted the cascade of creation. In a view perhaps more commonly held across the classical world, he was the son of Ares and Aphrodite. Under his Roman name of CUPID he is usually represented as a laughing winged child about to shoot an arrow from his silver bow, a very recognizable image to this day, making Eros perhaps the most instantly identifiable of all the gods of classical antiquity.

Cupidity and erotic desire are associated with him, as is the instant and uncontrollable falling in love that results from being pierced by his dart, the arrow that compels its victims to fall for the first person (or even animal) they see after being struck.fn2 Eros can be as capricious, mischievous, random and cruel as love itself.

Love, Love, Love

The Greeks had at least four words for love:

AGAPE – this was the great and generous kind that we would describe as ‘charity’ and which could refer to any holy kind of love, such as parents for their children or the love of worshippers for their god.fn3

EROS – the strain of love named after the god, or after whom the god is named. The kind that gets us into most trouble. So much more than affectionate, so much less than spiritual, eros and the erotic can lead us to glory and to disgrace, to the highest pitch of happiness and the deepest pit of despair.

PHILIA – the form of love applied to friendship, partiality and fondness. We see its traces in words like ‘francophile’, ‘necrophilia’ and ‘philanthropy’.

STORGE – the love and loyalty someone might have for their country or their sports team could be regarded as storgic.

Eros himself, while later portrayed by Renaissance and Baroque artists in the manner I have described – a giggling, pert and dimpled cherub (sometimes wearing a blindfold to signify the wayward and arbitrary nature of his marksmanship) – was to the Greeks a fully grown young man of great accomplishment. An artist, an athlete (both sexual and sporting), he was regarded as a patron and protector of gay male love as well as a presiding presence in the gymnasium and on the running track. He was associated with dolphins, cockerels, roses, torches, lyres and, of course, that bow and quiverful of arrows.

Perhaps the best-known myth involving Eros and Psyche – Physical Love and Soul – is almost absurdly ripe for interpretation and explanation. I think, however, that it is best told like all myths, not as an allegory, symbolic fable or metaphor, but as a story. Just a story. It has many of the rhythms and plot turns we associate with later quest narratives and fairy tales,fn4 perhaps because it comes down to us from what many regard as the strongest candidate for First Ever Novel: The Golden Ass, by the Roman writer Apuleius.fn5 The story’s influence on so much Western thought, folk literature and art – not to mention its charm – justify, I hope, its retelling in long form.

Psyche

Once upon a time, in a land whose name is now lost to us, lived a king and queen and their three beautiful daughters. We will call the king ARISTIDES and the queen DAMARIS. The two eldest girls, CALANTHE and ZONA, were lovely enough to be admired everywhere; but the youngest, whose name was PSYCHE, was so entirely beautiful that many in the kingdom abandoned the cult of Aphrodite and worshipped this young girl in her place. Aphrodite was a jealous and vengeful goddess and could bear no rivalry, least of all from a mortal. She summoned her son Eros.

‘I want you to find a pig,’ she said to him, ‘the ugliest and hairiest in all the land. Go to the palace where Psyche lives, shoot your arrow into her and make sure that the pig is the first thing she sees.’

Used to his mother’s charming ways Eros set off on his errand cheerfully enough. He bought an especially bristly and foul-smelling boar from a swineherd who lived not far from the palace and led it that evening to the window of the room where Psyche slept. More clumsily than you might think of a slim athletic god, he tried to clamber through the window with the pig under his arm without making a noise.

A number of things happened very quickly.

Eros landed safely in the moonlit room.

Psyche slumbered peacefully on.

Eros wedged the pig firmly between his legs.

Eros reached behind his shoulder to pluck an arrow from his quiver.

The pig squealed.

A flustered Eros scratched his own arm with the point of his arrow as he drew the bow.

Psyche woke up with a start and lit a candle.

Eros saw Psyche and fell deeply in love with her.

What a business. The god of love himself lovestruck. You might imagine that the next thing he would do is fire an arrow at Psyche and that all would end happily. But here Eros comes out of the story rather well. So real, pure and absolute was his love that he could not think of cheating Psyche out of her own choice. He took one last longing look at her, turned and leapt out of the window and back into the night.

Psyche saw the pig running round in wild, snuffling circles on her bedroom floor, concluded that she must be dreaming, blew out the candle and went back to sleep.

Prophecy and Abandonment

The next morning King Aristides was alarmed to be told by a servant that his youngest daughter seemed to have turned her bedroom into some kind of piggery. He and Queen Damaris had been worried enough already that, unlike her sisters Calanthe and Zona who had allied themselves to rich landowners, Psyche had stubbornly refused to marry. The news that she was now consorting with pigs made up his mind. He travelled to the oracle of Apollo to find out what the girl’s future might be.

After the correct sacrifices and prayers had been offered up, the Sibyl made this answer. ‘Garland your child with flowers and carry her to a high place. Lay her on a rock. The one that will come to take her for its bride is the most dangerous being of earth, sky or water. All the gods of Olympus fear its power. So it is ordained, so it must be. Fail in this and the creature will lay waste all your kingdom and discord and despair shall come in its train. You, Aristides, will be called the destroyer of your people’s happiness.’

Ten days later a strange procession wound its way out of the town. Carried high on a litter, festooned with flowers and dressed in the purest white, sat a gloomy but resigned Psyche. She had been told of the oracle’s pronouncement and had accepted it. Her so-called beauty had always been a source of irritation to her. She hated the fuss and stir it caused, how oddly it made people behave in her presence and how freakish and set apart it made her feel. She had planned never to marry, but if she had to then a rapacious beast would be no worse than a tedious fawning prince with mooncalf eyes. The agony of its attentions would at least be over quickly.

With piteous wails of grief and sorrow the crowd laboured up the mountainside until they came to the great basalt rock on which Psyche was to be laid for sacrifice. Her mother Damaris howled, shrieked and sobbed. King Aristides patted her hand and wished himself elsewhere. Calanthe and Zona, their dull, elderly but rich husbands at their sides, each tried their best to conceal the deep satisfaction they felt at the knowledge that they were soon to be the unchallenged fairest in the land.

As she was bound to the rock Psyche closed her eyes and breathed deeply, waiting for everyone to have done with indulging in their lamentations and shows of grief. Soon all suffering and pain would be over.

Singing hymns to Apollo the crowd wound its way down the hill, leaving Psyche alone on the rock. The sun shone down upon her. Larks called in the blue sky. She had pictured boiling clouds, shrieking winds, lashing rain and dreadful thunder as accompaniments to her violation and death, not this glorious idyll of late-spring sunshine and rippling birdsong.

Who or what could this creature be? If her father had reported the oracle correctly then even the high Olympians feared it. But she had heard of no such terrible monster in all the legends and rumours of legends on which she had been raised. Not even Typhon or Echidna had the power to alarm the mighty gods.

Suddenly a warm breath of wind ruffled her white ceremonial robes. The breath became a gust that pushed a cushion of air between her and the cold basalt on which she lay. To her great surprise Psyche felt herself being lifted up. The wind seemed to be an almost solid thing – it supported her, holding her fast and carrying her up into the air.

The Enchanted Castle

Psyche was flying high above the ground, safe in the strong but gentle arms of ZEPHYRUS, the West Wind.

‘This cannot be the beast we are all meant to fear,’ she thought to herself. ‘This wind must be the beast’s messenger and herald. He is taking me to my doom. Well, at least it’s a comfortable way to travel.’

She looked down on the city in which she had grown up. How small and neat and trim everything looked. So unlike the overgrown, ill-smelling and ramshackle township she knew and hated. Zephyrus gained speed and height and soon they were swooping over hills and along valleys, soaring over the blue ocean and flashing past islands, until they were in a country she did not recognize. It was fertile and densely wooded, and as they made a gradual descent she saw, set in a clearing, a magnificent palace, cornered by round towers and crowned with turrets. Gently and easily Psyche was lowered, until she landed with a gliding step on the flowered grass in front of a pair of golden gates. With a fizz and a sigh the wind flew away and she found herself alone. She heard no growls, roars or rapacious snarls, only a distant music floating from the palace’s interior. As she made her tentative approach the gates swung open.

The royal palace in which Psyche grew up was – to the ordinary citizen of her country – ornate, opulent and overwhelming, but next to the gorgeous and fantastical edifice she was entering it was nothing but a crude hovel. As she made her way inside her amazed eyes passed over columns of gold, citron-wood and ivory, silver-relief panels carved with an intricacy and artistry she had never dreamed possible and marble statues so perfectly rendered that they seemed to move and breathe. The light glittered in the shimmering gold halls and passageways, the floor she stepped over was a dancing mosaic of jewels and the mysterious music grew louder and louder as she penetrated deeper inside. She passed fountains where crystal waters played in miraculous arcs, shaping and reshaping and quite defying gravity. She became aware of low female voices. Either she was dreaming or this palace was divine. No mortal, and surely no monster, could have ordained so fabulous a habitation.

She had arrived at a square central room whose painted panels showed scenes of the birth of the gods and the war with the Titans. The air was perfumed with sandalwood, roses and warm spices.

Voices, Visions and a Visitor

The whispers and music seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, but all at once they ceased. In the loud silence left behind, a quiet voice called to her.

‘Psyche, Psyche, don’t be shy. Don’t stare and twitch like a startled faun. Don’t you know that all this is yours? All this beauty, all these gemstones, this grand palace and the lands around it – all yours. Go through that doorway and bathe yourself. The voices you hear are your handmaidens, here to do your bidding. When you are ready a great feast will be laid out. Welcome, beloved Psyche, welcome and enjoy.’

The dazed girl made her way into the next room, a vast chamber hung with tapestries and silks, lit by flaming torches in bronze brackets. At one end was a gleaming copper bathtub and in the centre a simply colossal bed whose myrtle-wound frame was of polished cypress and whose linen was strewn with rose petals. Psyche was so tired, so befuddled and so unable to make sense of things that she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, in the confused hope that sleep might wake her up from this wild dream.

But when she awoke she was still inside the dream. She got up from the soft brocaded cushions and saw that there was steam rising from the bath. She stepped from her clothes into the water.

This is when things became entirely strange.

A silver flask by the side of the bath rose up, danced in the air and tipped its contents into the water. Before she had time to scream out her surprise a glorious cloud of unknown fragrances assailed her senses. Now an ivory-handled brush was scrubbing her back and a ewer of hot water was being emptied over her hair. Invisible hands kneaded, stroked, pummelled, teased and pressed. Psyche giggled like a little girl and allowed it all to happen. Whether this was a dream inside the real world or a moment of reality inside a dream no longer seemed important. She would enjoy the adventure and see where it took her.

Damasks, silks, satins and gossamer tissues flew from concealed closets and glided down onto the bed to shimmer beside her, rustling in anticipation of being chosen. She selected a chiffon gown of lapis blue – loose, comfortable and exciting.

The doors of her chambers opened and with shy uncertain steps she made her way back to the main hall. A great feast was laid out on the table. Unseen hands were moving backwards and forwards with platters of fruit, cups of fermented honey, dishes of exotic roast birds and plates of sweetmeats. Never had Psyche seen or imagined such a banquet. Beside herself with joy she dipped her fingers into dishes of such exquisite deliciousness that she could not help crying out in delight. The swine in the piggeries of her parents’ farms did not snuffle and truffle at their wooden troughs with more uninhibited abandon than she did at the magical vessels of crystal, silver and gold that filled and refilled themselves as fast as she could empty them. Napkins flew up to dab her wine-stained lips and food-smeared chin. An invisible choir sang soft ballads and hymns to human love as she gorged and guzzled in ecstasy.

Finally she was done. A feeling of great warmth and well-being stole over her. If she was being fattened up for an ogre then so be it.

The candles on the table now rose up and led Psyche back to the bedchamber. The flickering torches and soft oil lamps had died down and the room was in almost complete darkness. The unseen hands pushed her gently to the bedside and her chiffon gown lifted up and away. Naked she lay back between the satin sheets and closed her eyes.

An instant later she gasped in shock. Someone or something had slipped into bed beside her. She felt her body being gently pulled towards this figure. Sweet warm breath mingled with hers. Her skin met the body, not of a beast, but of a man. He was beardless and – she knew this without being able to see him – beautiful. She could not see even the outline of him, only feel his heat and youthful firmness. He kissed her lips and they entwined.

Next morning the bed was empty and Psyche was bathed once more by the invisible handmaidens. As the long day passed she at last summoned the courage to ask them questions.

‘Where am I?’

‘Why, you are here, your highness.’

‘And where is here?’

‘Far from there but close to nearby.’

‘Who is the master of this palace.’

‘You are the mistress.’

Never a straight answer. She did not press. She knew that she was in an enchanted place and could sense that her handmaidens were slaves to its rules and requirements.

That night, in pitch darkness, the beautiful young man came to her bed again. She tried to speak to him, but he placed a finger to her lips and a voice sounded inside her head.

‘Hush, Psyche. Ask no questions. Love me as I love you.’

And slowly, as the days passed, she realized that she did love this unseen man very much. Every night they made love. Every morning she awoke to find him gone.

The palace was glorious and there was nothing Psyche’s handmaidens would not do for her. She had everything she could ever want, the best to eat or drink and music to accompany her everywhere. But what long, lonely days stretched out between the evenings of delicious love, how hard she found it to pass the time.

The ‘monster’ with whom she slept every night was, you will have guessed, the god Eros whose self-inflicted dart had caused him to fall in love with Psyche, a love now magnified by their repeated nights of mutual bliss. The oracle had been right to say that Eros was a being whose powers frightened all the gods, for there was not one Olympian who had not been conquered by Eros at some time. Perhaps he was a monster after all. But he could be sensitive and sweet as well as capricious and cruel. He saw that Psyche was not entirely happy and one night, as they lay together in the darkness, he quizzed her tenderly.

‘What ails you, beloved wife?’

‘I hate to say this when you have given me so much, but I get lonely during the day. I miss my sisters.’

‘Your sisters?’

‘Calanthe and Zona. They believe me to be dead.’

‘Only unhappiness can come from consorting with them. Misery and despair for them and for you.’

‘But I love them …’

‘Misery and despair, I tell you.’

Psyche sighed.

‘Please believe me,’ he said. ‘It is for the best that you do not see them.’

‘What about you? May I not see you? May I never look into the face of the one I love so well?’

‘You must not ask me that. Never ask me that.’

The days passed and Eros saw that Psyche – for all the wine and food, for all the music and magical fountains and enchanted voices – was pining.

‘Cheer up, beloved! Tomorrow is our anniversary,’ he said.

A year! Had a whole year passed already?

‘My present to you is to grant your wish. Tomorrow morning my friend Zephyrus will await you outside the palace and take you where you need to be. But please be careful. Do not allow yourself to become too involved in the lives of your family. And you must promise never to tell them about me. Not one word about me.’

Psyche promised and they fell into each others arms for a night of anniversary love. Never had she felt more passionate adoration or physical delight, and she sensed equal feelings of ardour and love in him too.

The next morning she awoke, as ever, to an empty bed. In a great fever of impatience she allowed herself to be dressed and served breakfast by the handmaidens before running excitedly to the great gate at the front of the palace. She had barely stepped out before Zephyrus swept down and flew her away in his strong, supportive arms.

Sisters

Meanwhile, back in the land of Psyche’s birth, the populace had been marking the anniversary of her capture by the fabled unseen monster. King Aristides and Queen Damaris had led the procession of mourning up the hillside to the basalt slab on which their daughter had been bound – since named ‘the Rock of Psyche’ in her honour. Now there remained at the monument only the two princesses, Calanthe and Zona, who had loudly made it known to all that they wished to stay behind and lament in private.

Once the crowd died away they pulled back their mourning veils and began to laugh.

‘Imagine what sort of creature it was that took her away,’ said Zona.

‘Winged like a Fury …’ suggested Calanthe.

‘With iron claws …’

‘And fiery breath …’

‘Great yellow fangs …’

‘Snakes for hair …’

‘A great tail that – What was that?’

A sudden gust of wind made them turn round. What they saw made them shout in fright.

Their sister Psyche was standing before them, radiant in a shimmering white gown edged with gold. She looked appallingly beautiful.

‘But …’ began Calanthe

‘We thought …’ stammered Zona.

And then both together: ‘Sister!’

Psyche came towards them, her hands held out and the sweetest smile of tender sisterly love lighting up her face. Calanthe and Zona each took a hand to kiss.

‘You are alive!’

‘And so … so …’

‘This dress – it must have cost, that is to say it looks …’

‘And you look …’ said Zona, ‘so … so … Calanthe, whatever is the word?’

‘Happy?’ suggested Psyche.

‘Something,’ her sisters agreed. ‘You definitely look something.’

‘But tell us, Psyche, dearest …’

‘What happened to you?’

‘Here we are mourning, sobbing our hearts out for you.’

‘Who gave you that dress?’

‘How did you get off the rock?’

‘Is it real gold?’

‘Did a monster come for you? A beast? An ogre?’

‘And that material.’

‘A dragon perhaps?’

‘How do you keep it from creasing?’

‘Did it take you to its den?’

‘Who does your hair?’

‘Did it try to chew your bones?’

‘That can’t be a real emerald can it?’

Laughing, Psyche held up a hand. ‘Dear sisters! I will tell you everything. Better, I will show you everything. Come, wind, take us there!’

Before the sisters knew what was happening the three of them were lifted from their feet and were travelling swiftly through the air, safe in the arms of the West Wind.

‘Don’t fight it. Relax into it,’ said Psyche as Zephyrus swept them up over the mountain. Zona’s howls began to subside and Calanthe’s muffled sobs softened to a whimper. Before long they were even able to open their eyes for a few seconds without screaming.

When the wind finally set them down on the grass in front of the enchanted palace Calanthe had decided that this was the only way to travel.

‘Who needs a stupid horse pulling a rickety rackety old chariot?’ she said. ‘From now on I catch the wind …’

But Zona wasn’t listening. She was staring transfixed at the walls, the turrets and the silver studded door of the palace, all glittering in the morning sun.

‘Come in,’ said Psyche. What an exciting feeling, to show her dear sisters around her new home. It was a pity they couldn’t meet her darling husband.

To say that the girls were impressed would be criminally to understate the matter. Naturally therefore they sniffed, yawned, tittered, shook their heads and generally tut-tutted their way from golden apartment to golden apartment by silver-panelled corridors and jewel-encrusted passageways. Their tilted, wrinkled noses seemed to suggest that they were used to better.

‘Just a little vulgar, don’t we feel, darling?’ Zona suggested. Inside she said to herself, ‘This is the home of a god!’

Calanthe was thinking, ‘If I just stop and pretend to fix the laces of my sandals I could break off one of the rubies encrusting that chair …’

When the invisible staff of stewards, footmen and handmaidens began serving lunch the sisters found it harder to mask their wonder and astonishment. Afterwards they each took turns to be oiled, bathed and massaged.

Pressed for details of the castle’s lord, Psyche remembered her promise and hastily made something up.

‘He’s a handsome huntsman and local landowner.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘The kindest eyes.’

‘And his name is …?’

‘He’s so sorry to miss you. I’m afraid he always takes to the field with his hounds by day. He wanted so much to greet you personally. Perhaps another time.’

‘Yes, but what’s he called?’

‘He – he doesn’t really have a name.’

‘What?’

‘Well, he has a name. Obviously he has a name, everyone has a name, Zona, I mean really! But he doesn’t use it.’

‘But what is it?’

‘Oh my goodness, quick! It’ll be dark soon. Zephyrus won’t fly you at night … Come, dear sisters, help yourselves to some little things to take home. Here’s a handful of amethysts. These are sapphires. There’s gold, silver … Be sure to take gifts for mother and father too.’

Loaded with precious treasures the sisters allowed themselves to be transported back to the rock. Psyche, who had stood and waved them off, was both relieved and sorry to see them go. While she welcomed their company and the chance to show them round and give them presents, her determination to keep the promise she had made to her husband had made the evasion of all their questions an exhausting business.

Back home the sisters – despite the fabulous treasures they now possessed – were eaten up with envy, resentment and fury. How could their younger sister, the stupid, selfish Psyche, now find herself in the position more or less of a goddess? It was so appallingly unfair. Spoiled, vain, ugly creature! Well, not ugly, perhaps. Possessed of a certain obvious and rather vulgar prettiness, but scarcely a match for their queenly beauty. It was all too monstrously unjust: there was almost certainly witchcraft and wickedness at the bottom of it. How could she not even know the name of her lord and master?

‘My husband Sato’s rheumatism,’ said Calanthe, ‘is getting so bad that every night I have to rub his fingers one by one, then apply plasters and poultices. It’s disgusting and demeaning.’

‘You think your life is hell?’ said Zona. ‘My Charion is as bald as an onion, his breath stinks and he has all the sex drive of a dead pig. While Psyche …’

‘That selfish slut …’

The sisters clung to each other and sobbed their hearts out.

That night Psyche’s lover Eros had momentous news for her. She was pouring out all her gratitude to him, and explaining how well she had managed to avoid describing him to her sisters, when he placed his finger on her lips.

‘Sweet, trusting child. I fear those sisters and what they may do to you. But I am glad you are happy. Let me make you happier still.’ She felt his warm hand slide down her front and gently stroke her belly. ‘Our child is growing there.’

Psyche gasped and hugged him close, stunned with joy.

‘If you keep this secret,’ he said, ‘the child will be a god. If you tell a living soul, it will be mortal.’

‘I will keep the secret,’ said Psyche. ‘But before my condition becomes obvious let me at least see Calanthe and Zona one more time and say goodbye to them.’

Eros was troubled but could not see how he might deny so decent and sisterly a request, and so he assented.

‘Zephyrus will send them a sign and they will come,’ he said, leaning forward to kiss her. ‘But remember, not a word about me or about our baby.’

A Drop of Oil

The next morning Calanthe and Zona awoke to feel the breath of Zephyrus ruffling at them like a hungry pet dog panting and pawing at the bedclothes. When they opened their eyes and sat up the wind departed, but their instinct, greed and inborn cunning told them what the signal meant, and they hurried to the rock to await their transport. This time they were determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of their sister’s lover.

Psyche was there to welcome them when they were set down in front of the palace. Embracing her fondly the sisters hid the furious envy they felt at Psyche’s good fortune, presenting instead a flurry of solicitous clucking and tutting, accompanied by much head-shaking.

‘Whatever is the matter, Calanthe?’ a puzzled Psyche asked as she sat them down to a great breakfast of fruit, cakes and honey-wine. ‘Why so sorrowful, Zona? Are you not happy to see me?’

‘Happy?’ groaned Calanthe.

‘If only,’ Zona sighed.

‘What can be worrying you?’

‘Ah, child, child,’ said Calanthe with a moan. ‘You are so young. So sweet. So guileless.’

‘So easy to take advantage of.’

‘I don’t understand.’

The sisters looked at each other as if weighing up whether to reveal harsh truths.

‘How well – if at all – do you know this … this thing that comes nightly to visit you?’

‘He’s not a thing!’ protested Psyche.

‘Of course he’s a thing. He’s the monster foretold by the oracle.’

‘Scaly, I’ll bet,’ said Zona. ‘Or, if not scaly, hairy.’

‘He’s nothing of the sort,’ said Psyche indignantly. ‘He’s young and beautiful and kind. Soft skin, firm muscles –’

‘What colour are his eyes?’

‘Well …’

‘Is he blond or dark?’

‘Darling sisters,’ said Psyche, ‘can you keep a secret?’

Calanthe and Zona craned in close and pawed their sister lovingly.

‘Can we keep a secret? What a question!’

‘The thing is,’ said Psyche, ‘well, the thing is I don’t actually know what he looks like. I’ve never seen him, only … well … felt him.’

‘What?’ Calanthe was shocked.

‘You mean you’ve never so much as looked upon his face?’

‘He insists that I must not see him. He comes to me in the blackest black of night, slips between the sheets and we … well, we … you know …’ Psyche blushed. ‘But I can trace his outlines and what I feel is not the body of a monster. It is the body of a splendid and marvellous man. Just, in the morning, he’s gone.’

‘Oh, you silly goose!’ tittered Zona. ‘Don’t you know –’ She broke off here as if afraid to go on.

The sisters exchanged sorrowful and knowing glances.

‘Oh dear …’

‘Psyche doesn’t know!’

Calanthe responded with a sound that was something between a titter and a sigh.

Psyche looked from one to the other in perplexity. ‘Know what?’

Calanthe put her arms around her and explained, with Zona interposing her own observations and affirmations. The worst and most dreadful monsters – indeed the very kind that Apollo’s oracle had predicted would devour her! – possessed powers – always have done, were known for having, were celebrated the world over for having them! – the power, for example, to transform themselves, to take on deceitful shapes – forms that might seem thrilling and attractive to the touch of a young girl – but this was only to win the trust of the innocent – the innocent and foolish! – so as one day to plant their demonic seed inside her – poor girl, she doesn’t understand these things, but men can do this – and cause her to give birth to a new abomination, an even more terrible monster – a mutation – it’s how they breed, how they propagate their vile species.

Psyche held up a hand. ‘Stop! Please! I know you mean well, but you don’t know how tender, how kind, how gentle …’

‘That’s their way! That’s exactly their way!’

‘Don’t you see? If anything proves this monster’s ferocious cruelty it’s this very tenderness and gentleness!’

‘A sure sign that it must be a hideous fiend.’

Psyche thought of the new life growing inside her and of her husband’s insistence that she tell no one of it. And of his refusal ever to show himself. Oh dear. Perhaps her sisters were right.

They saw that she was wavering and they pounced.

‘Here’s what you do, my love. When he comes to you tonight you allow him to have his beastly way with you –’

‘Ugh!’

‘– and then let him fall asleep. But you must stay awake.’

‘On all accounts, stay awake.’

‘When you’re satisfied that he’s absolutely fast asleep you must rise and fetch a lamp.’

‘And that razor that your handmaidens use to cut your hair.’

‘Yes, you’ll need that!’

‘Light the lantern in the corner of the room and cover it so as not to wake him.’

‘Then steal over to the bed …’

‘Lift your lantern …’

‘And slice his scaly dragon’s neck …’

‘Saw away at his knotty veins …’

‘Kill him …’

‘Kill the beast …’

‘Then gather up all the gold and silver …’

‘And the gemstones, that’s most important …’

On and on the sisters talked until Psyche was fully persuaded.

And so that night it came about that, with Eros sleeping peacefully in the bed, Psyche found herself standing over him, a hooded lantern in one hand and a razor in the other. She raised the blinds from the lamp. Light fell on the curled-up naked form of the most beautiful being she had ever beheld. The warm glow danced on smooth, youthful skin – and on the most wonderful pair of feathered wings.

Psyche could not hold back a gasp of amazement. She knew at once whom she was looking at. This was no dragon or monster, no ogre or abomination. This was the young god of love. This was Eros himself. To think that she could have dreamed of harming him. How beautiful he was. His full, rosy lips were slightly parted and the sweetness of his breath came up to her as she leaned down to gaze more deeply. Everything about him was so perfect! The gentle heave and swell of muscles gave his youthful beauty a manly cast, but without that hard, bulging ungainliness she had seen on the bodies of her father’s champion athletes and warriors. His tousled hair gleamed with a warm colour that lay between the gold of Apollo and the mahogany of Hermes. And those wings! Folded beneath his body they had the fullness and whiteness of a swan’s. She reached out a trembling hand and ran her finger down the line of feathers. The soft fluttering whisper they returned hardly made a sound, yet it was enough to cause the sleeping Eros to shift and murmur.

Psyche pulled back and shaded the lantern, but within a few moments an even rhythmic breathing reassured her that Eros was still deeply asleep. She unmasked the lantern again and saw that he was now turned away from her. She saw too that his movement had caused a curious object to be brought into view. The lamplight fell on a silver cylinder that lay beneath his wings. His quiver!

Hardly daring to breath Psyche leaned forward and pulled out a single arrow. Turning it in her hand she slowly fingered its shaft of shining ebony. The arrowhead itself was affixed by a band of gold … Holding the lantern high in her left hand she ran her right thumb along the head and then – ouch! So sharp was the tip that it drew blood. The moment it did a feeling washed over her, a feeling of such intense love for the sleeping Eros, such heat, passion and desire, such complete and eternal devotion, that she could not refrain from moving to kiss the curls on the nape of his neck.

Alas! As she did so, hot oil from the lantern dripped onto his right shoulder. He awoke with a yelp of pain which, when he saw Psyche standing over him, grew into a great roar of disappointment and despair. His wings opened and began to beat the air. As he rose Psyche launched herself forward and clung to his right leg, but his strength was too great and he shook her off without a word and flew away into the night.

The moment he left, everything fell apart. The walls of the palace rippled, faded and dissolved into the night air. A despairing Psyche watched the gold columns around her shiver into a dark colonnade of trees and the jewelled mosaic tiles beneath her feet churn into a mess of mud and gravel. Before long, palace, precious metals, precious stones – all had vanished. The sweet singing of the handmaidens turned into the howling of wolves and the screeching of owls, and the warm, mysterious perfumes whipped into chill and unrelenting winds.

Alone

A frightened, unhappy girl stood in a cold and desolate wood. She slipped down the trunk of a tree until she sat on the hard roots. The only thought in her mind was to end her life.

She was awoken by a beetle scuttling over her lips. She sat up with a shiver and unpeeled a damp leaf from her brow. She had not dreamed the horrors of the night before. She really was alone in a wood. Perhaps everything before was a dream and this had always been the reality? Or she had awoken inside another episode of a wider dream? It was hardly worth the bother of trying to puzzle it all out. Dream or reality, everything was intolerable to her.

‘Don’t do it, pretty girl.’

Shocked, Psyche looked up to see the god Pan standing before her. The humorous frown, the thick curling hair from which two horns sprouted, the wide hairy flanks tapering down to goats’ feet – it could be no other figure, mortal or immortal.

‘No, no,’ said Pan, stamping the muddy ground with his hoofs. ‘I can read it in your face and it is not to be. I won’t allow it.’

‘You won’t allow what?’ said Psyche.

‘I won’t allow you to dash yourself onto the rocks from off a high cliff. I won’t allow you to court the deadly attentions of a wild animal. I won’t allow you to pick belladonna and drink its poisonous juices. I won’t allow any of that.’

‘But I can’t live!’ cried Psyche. ‘If you knew my story you would understand and you would help me die.’

‘You should ask yourself what brought you here,’ said Pan. ‘If it’s love, then you must pray to Aphrodite and Eros for guidance and relief. If your own wickedness caused your downfall then you must live to repent. If it was caused by others then you must live to revenge.’

Revenge! Psyche suddenly understood what needed to be done. She rose to her feet. ‘Thank you, Pan,’ she said. ‘You’ve shown me the way.’

Pan bared his teeth in a grin and bowed. His lips blew a flourish of farewell across the top of the set of pipes in his hand.

Four days later Psyche knocked on the gates of the grand mansion of her brother-in-law Sato, the husband of Calanthe. A servant ushered her into her sister’s receiving room.

‘Psyche! Darling! Did all go as planned? You look a little –’

‘Never mind me, dear sister. I will tell you what happened. I followed your instructions to the letter, shone a lamp over the sleeping form of my husband and who should he be but the great god Eros. Eros himself!’

‘Eros!’ Calanthe clutched at her amber necklace.

‘Oh sister, imagine my heartbreak and disappointment when he told me that he had only taken me to his palace as a means of securing you.’

‘Me?’

‘That was his dark plan. “Fetch me your beautiful sister Calanthe,” he said to me. “She of the green eyes and russet hair.” ’

‘More auburn than russet –’

‘ “Fetch her. Tell her to go to the high rock. Launch herself onto Zephyrus, who will pick her up and bring her to me. Tell the beautiful Calanthe all this, Psyche, I beg.” This is his message which I have faithfully relayed.’

You can imagine with what speed Calanthe prepared herself. She left a scrawled message for her husband explaining that they were not husband and wife after all, that their marriage had been a calamitous mistake, that the officiant who wed them had been drunk, incapable and unqualified, that she had never loved him anyway and that she was now a free woman, so there.

At the high basalt rock she heard the rustle of a breeze and, with a moan of ecstatic joy, launched herself onto what she thought was Zephyrus.

But the spirit of the West Wind was nowhere near. With a scream of frustration, rage, disappointment and fear, Calanthe tumbled down the hillside, bouncing from sharp rock to sharp rock until her whole body was turned inside out and she landed at the bottom as dead as a stone.

The identical fate befell her sister Zona, to whom Psyche told the same story.

The Tasks of Aphrodite

With her revenge meted out, Psyche had the rest of her life to consider. Every waking moment was filled with the love and longing she felt for Eros and with the pangs of misery that stabbed her, knowing she was doomed never to see him again.

Eros, meanwhile, lay in a secret chamber, racked by the agony of the wound on his shoulder. You and I could endure with ease the slight nuisance of a lamp-oil burn, but for Eros, immortal though he was, this was a hurt inflicted by the one he loved. Such wounds take a very long time to heal, if indeed they ever do.

With Eros indisposed the world began to suffer. Youths and maidens stopped falling in love. There were no marriages. The people began to murmur and grumble. Unhappy prayers were raised to Aphrodite. When she heard them, and learned that Eros was hiding away and neglecting his duties, she became vexed. The news that a mortal girl had stolen her son’s heart and caused him such harm turned her vexation to anger. But when she discovered that it was the very same mortal girl that she had once commanded Eros to humiliate, she grew livid. How could her plan to make Psyche fall in love with a pig have backfired so terribly? Well, this time she would personally and conclusively ensure the girl’s downfall.

Through enchantments that she did not know were being worked upon her, Psyche found herself knocking one day on a great palace door. Terrible creatures pulled her in by the hair and cast her into a dungeon. Aphrodite herself visited her, bringing sacks of wheat, barley, millet, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils and beans, which she emptied onto the stone floor and stirred together.

‘If you want your freedom,’ she said, ‘separate out all the different grains and seeds and sort them into their own heaps. Finish this task before next sunrise and I will free you.’

With a laugh that – unbecomingly for a goddess of love and beauty – fell somewhere between a cackle and a screech, Aphrodite left, slamming the cell door behind her.

Psyche fell sobbing to the floor. It would be impossible to separate those seeds, even if she had a month to do it.

Just then an ant, making its away across the flagstones, was engulfed by a hot, salt tear falling from Psyche’s cheek.

‘Watch out!’ he cried angrily. ‘It may be a little tear to you, but it’s a deluge to me.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Psyche. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t see you. My misery got the better of me.’

‘What misery can be so great that it causes you to go about half drowning honest ants?’

Psyche explained her plight and the ant, who was of an obliging and forgiving nature, offered to help. With a cry inaudible to human ears he summoned his great family of brother and sisters, and together they set about sorting the seeds.

With the tears drying on her cheeks Psyche watched in amazement as ten thousand cheerful ants shuttled and scuttled back and forth, sifting and separating the seeds with military precision. Well before rosy-fingered Eos had cast open the gates of dawn, the job was done and seven neat and perfect piles awaited Aphrodite’s inspection.

The frustrated fury of the goddess was something to behold. Another impossible chore was instantly devised.

‘You see the grove yonder, on the other side of the river?’ said Aphrodite, yanking Psyche by the hair and forcing her to look out of the window. ‘There are sheep there, grazing and wandering unguarded. Special sheep with fleeces of gold. Go there at once and bring me back a tuft of their wool.’

Psyche made her way out to the grove willingly enough, but with no intention of carrying out this second task. She resolved to use her freedom to escape not just the prison of Aphrodite’s hateful curse but the prison of hateful life itself. She would throw herself into the river and drown.

But as she stood on the bank, breathing hard and summoning up the courage to dive in, one of the reeds nodded – although there wasn’t a breath of breeze – and whispered to her.

‘Psyche, sweet Psyche. Harrowed by great trials as you are, do not pollute my clean waters with your death. There is a way through your troubles. The sheep here are wild and violent, guarded by the most ferocious ram, whose horns could tear you open like a ripe fruit. You see them grazing there under that plane tree on the further bank? To approach them now would mean a swift and painful death. But if you lie down to sleep, by evening they will have moved to new pastures and you will be able to swim across to the tree where you will find tangles of golden wool clinging to its lower branches.’

That night an enraged and baffled Aphrodite cast the golden wool aside and insisted that Psyche descend to the underworld to beg a sample of beauty cream from Persephone. Since she had thought of little else but death since Eros had left her, the poor girl consented willingly and followed Aphrodite’s directions to Hades, where she fully intended to stay and see out a miserable, lonely and loveless eternity.

The Union of Love and Soul

One day a garrulous swallow told Eros about the tasks which Psyche had been set by his jealous and intemperate mother. Trying to ignore the still agonizing pain of his wound, he rose up and with a mighty effort opened his wings. He flew straight to Olympus, where he demanded an immediate audience with Zeus.

Eros told his story to an enraptured audience of fascinated Olympians. His mother had always hated Psyche. Aphrodite’s dignity and honour as an Olympian had been threatened by the girl’s beauty and the willingness of a handful of foolish humans to venerate the mortal maiden ahead of the immortal goddess. And so she had sent Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with a pig. He put his case well.

Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld to fetch Psyche and an eagle to summon Aphrodite. When they were present before the heavenly company, Zeus spoke.

‘This has been an extraordinary and undignified entanglement. Aphrodite, beloved one. Your position is not threatened; it never can be. Look down at the earth and see how your name is everywhere sanctified and praised. Eros, you have too long been a foolish, impudent and irresponsible boy. That you love and are loved will be the making of you and may save the world from the worst excesses of your mischievous and misdirected arrows. Psyche, come and drink from my cup. This is ambrosia, and now that you have tasted it you are immortal. Here, witnessed by us all, you will for ever be yoked with Eros. Embrace your daughter-in-law, Aphrodite, and let us all be merry.’

All was laughter and delight at the wedding of Eros and Psyche. Apollo sang and played on his lyre, Pan joined in with his syrinx. Hera danced with Zeus, Aphrodite danced with Ares and Eros danced with Psyche. And they dance together still to this very day.fn6