The Myth of Eros and Psyche

The story of Psyche and Eros offers a great deal of insight into the archetype of Eros and his significance in the astrological chart. The most recent detailed mythology regarding Eros comes from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius in 170 AD and portrays the love story of Psyche and Eros.

This myth is no less relevant for its extensive study, analysis and use as models for relationship, the emergence of consciousness, and the path of erotic love.The story opens with a description of Psyche’s two older sisters. They were extremely beautiful, yet when Psyche grew into womanhood, it was said of her:

“ Yet the singular passing beauty and maidenly majesty of the youngest daughter did so far surmount and excel them two (sisters), as no earthly creature could by any means sufficiently express or set out the same.”

Psyche is a beauty. She enchants her father’s modest kingdom with an unobtainable and virginal loveliness that sets the inhabitants to worshiping. In only a short time, word of Psyche’s beauty has spread throughout the countryside and people swarm to see her. Meanwhile, Aphrodite’s temples are neglected.

Predictably, Aphrodite is insulted by this delinquency and filled with more than a little angst. In a jealous rage, she elicits the help of her son Eros to punish the usurping Psyche and the mortals that adore her. She instructs Eros to pierce Psyche with one of his golden tipped arrows causing her to fall in love with a worthless, wretched and vial being. While Eros and Aphrodite plot her demise, Psyche pines.

Psyche, although exceedingly beautiful, feels lonely and miserable. The known world may worship her, but no real man comes courting. She is like an object of art, a rare painting or precious vase. Apuleius goes on:

“Psyche…lamented her solitary life, and being disquieted both in mind and body, although she pleased all the world, yet hated she in her self her own beauty.”

Concerned by his youngest daughter’s despair, Psyche’s father seeks the advice of the Oracle of Apollo. He is shocked by what he hears for it seems the King’s precious daughter must be sacrificed to a demon god, or terrible ruin would befall the kingdom. Apuleius’ quotes the oracle:

“Let Psyches corps be clad in mourning weed And set on rock of yonder hill aloft: Her husband is no wight of humane seed, But Serpent dire and fierce as might be thought. Who flies with wings above in starry skies, And doth subdue each thing with firie flight. The gods themselves, and powers that seem so wise, With mighty Jove, be subject to his might, The rivers black, and deadly floods of pain, And darkness eke, as thrall to him remain.”

Psyche accepted her fate as the entire kingdom despondently joined the funeral procession to the lonely rock where she is to meet her “death” and marry the “serpent dire”. Psyche then questions her parent’s belated remorse.

“Why torment you your unhappy age with continual dolou? …Now you see the reward of my excellent beauty: now, now you perceive, but too late, the plague of envy. When the people did honor me, and call me the new Venus, then ye should have wept, then you should have sorrowed as though I had been dead: for now I see and perceive that I am come to this misery by the only name of Venus, bring me, and as fortune hath appointed, place me on the top of the rock, I greatly desire to end my marriage, I greatly covet to see my husband. Why doe I delay?

Why should I refuse him that is appointed to destroy all the world.”

No one suspects that Eros, the son of Aphrodite, the golden god of love, has accidentally pricked himself on one of his own arrows and fallen madly in love with the mortal Psyche. None of Psyche’s distraught family members could guess that Eros plans to abduct her for himself. Although at this point, we might examine the oracle of Apollo more closely and ask if it may actually be Eros the augury is referring to.

Eros then sends Zephyrs, god of the North wind, to retrieve Psyche from the rock and bring her to his palace. There Psyche’s wishes are tended by invisible servants who anticipate her every need. She rests, bathes and eats surrounded by gold, ivory and jeweled mosaics that adorn the enchanted home of the god of love.

With unseen musicians playing a heavenly symphony, Eros comes to Psyche by night and makes “perfect consummation” of their marriage. Night after night he keeps her company, stealing away only just before dawn. He has made Psyche promise to never look upon his face and initially she agrees. She is enchanted by the palace, her new husband and the magical servants who cater to her every need. Only the tiniest bit of loneliness befalls her in the day.

However, her loneliness and desire for human contact grows until she passes both the days and nights with tears of distress and longing. Eros, concerned by her condition, finally agrees to allow Psyche’s sisters to visit, but he warns her again not to gaze upon his face. Her curiosity, he said, would bring about the end of their life together and cause the child growing inside her to be mortal, not divine.

The visit from Psyche’s sisters turns out to be as destructive as Eros feared. Feigning joy at their reunion, Psyche’s siblings are actually stricken with fierce jealousy. They suggest her husband is an evil serpent who needs destroying before he devours Psyche and her unborn child whole. They press her to hide a razor and a lamp near the bed. When he falls asleep, she is to light the lamp and cut off his head. Psyche is flooded with anxiety mixed with the fear that they may speak the truth!

Torn between loyalty to her sisters and loyalty to her husband, she eventually gets up, lights the lamp and approaches the bed with the razor. When Psyche discovers that her husband is the stunning and resplendent god Eros, she is overwhelmed by the vision. In rapture she accidentally pricks herself on one of his arrows and adds “love upon love” to what she already feels for him. She covers him with kisses and in doing so a splash of hot oil burns the beautiful god and he jumps up, looks at her with astonishment and bolts. Psyche grabs his leg and holds on as he leaps into the air until she finally drops to the ground in exhaustion. He lands near her saying:

“O simple Psyche, consider with thy self how I, little regarding the commandment of my mother (who willed me that thou shouldst be married to a man of base and miserable condition) did come my self from heaven to love thee, and wounded mine own body with my proper weapons, to have thee to my Spouse: And did I seem a beast unto thee, that thou shouldst go about to cut off my head with a razor, who loved thee so well? Did not I always give thee a charge? Did not I gently will thee to beware? But those cursed adlers and Counselors of thine shalt be sufficiently punished by my absence."

Shocked, overwhelmed, and suffering greatly, Psyche experienced a crucial point in her relationship with Eros. At last, she discovers the inheritance of her unborn child. She also finally understands who it is she has fallen in love with. For Psyche, there is no turning back. She must reunited with Eros or die.

This point in the myth is not suggesting we never look at the face of Eros. or that by never questioning him will guarantee his presence forever. It is more an account of discovering what we really want and the steps necessary to obtain it. Until now, Psyche didn’t know who she loved. This knowledge, however, does not make Psyche any less despairing. As she watches his figure recede into the distance, she throws herself into a river in hopes of drowning.

As chance would have it, the river, being a friend of Eros, places Psyche back safely on the bank. As she looked up from the muddy shore, she saw Pan, instructing, or perhaps seducing, a young woman. He looked upon the disheveled Psyche and said:

“O faire maid, I am a rusticke and rude heardsman, howbeit by reason of my old age expert in many things, for as far as I can learn by conjecture (which according as wise men do term is called divination) I perceive by your uncertain gate, your pale hew, your sobbing sighs, and your watery eyes, that you are greatly in love.”

Pan goes on to suggest to Psyche that she forgo suicide and focus on devoting herself to winning Eros back. It seems his advice is taken to heart.

Psyche’s first action is to confront her jealous sisters. Upon entering her older sister’s city Psyche explains that it was the son of Aphrodite that was her husband but when he saw she had betrayed him, he sent her away and said he’d have her sister instead. Excited by this news, her sister raced to the mountain and beseeched Zephyrs to carry her to Eros, but as she leapt off the rock, no wind lifted her and she crashed to her death in the fall. The same happened to the second sister and thus Psyche was revenged.

Meanwhile, Eros fled to his mother’s house to have his burn tended. Empathetic at first, Aphrodite became enraged when she discovered Eros’s disloyalty in taking Psyche as his own. She admonishes Eros for betraying her wishes and removes his bow and arrows, cuts his hair and clips his wings. She probably slammed the door as she stormed out as well.Aphrodite then solicits the aid of Hera and Ceres to help her find Psyche, but they, fearing Eros’s darts at some point in the future, try to reconcile the mother to her son.

Aphrodite will not be soothed.

By now Psyche realizes her only course of action is to seek out the forgiveness of Aphrodite. She approaches the palace of the goddess of love to pray for redemption although that is not what she receives. Aphrodite humiliates Psyche, has her whipped and beaten and then presents her with a series of impossible tasks.

Psyche’s first task in regaining Eros is to sort an enormous pile of mixed grains. She must separate them by evening. As Aphrodite smugly shuts the door behind her, Psyche goes into a catatonic state of despair. She can not even attempt to sort the grains. The task is that impossible. As she lays crumpled on the ground sobbing, a tiny ant comforts her. Calling to his friends, more and more ants come and by evening the grains are sorted neatly into their individual piles by the tiny insects.

It is important to notice that the help offered to psyche is completely unconscious. She neither actively requests aid or contributes any effort in the sorting of the grains. This image may suggest the myriad mixed feeling and emotions that course through the mind and body of one “stricken with love”. It also may imply the innate ability of the body to sort those feelings out, one by one, although not with the aid of consciousness, but by its acquiescence.

When Aphrodite returns and sees the labor complete, she assigns Psyche a more difficult task. She instructs the girl to go out into a field in the burning sun and collect golden wool from the fleece of man-eating rams.

Psyches gets up, not to do as Aphrodite commanded but to throw herself headlong into the water again to drown. Then a green reed speaks to her saying:

“O Psyches I pray thee not to trouble or pollute my water by the death of thee, and yet beware that thou go not towards the terrible sheep of this coast, until such time as the heat of the sun be past, for when the sun is in his force, then seem they most dreadful and furious, with their sharp horns, their stony foreheads and their gaping throats, wherewith they arm themselves to the destruction of mankind. But until they have refreshed themselves in the river, thou maist hide thy self here by me, under this great plain tree, and as soon as their great fury is past, thou maist go among the thickets and bushes under the wood side and gather the locks their golden Fleeces, which thou shalt find hanging up on the briers.”

It seems the dangerous and passionate rams were unapproachable in their wild state. Direct confrontation would mean certain death, just as anger and hatred, although they can erupt along side of love, can also be love’s death.

Having contained the burning passion of the wild rams, Psyche presents handfuls of golden wool to Aphrodite by morning. Without pause, Psyche immediately receives another labor.
Now she must gather water from the deadly waters of the river Styx. She receives only a crystal bottle to contain the black liquid, the sight of which brings fear even to the hearts’ of the gods.

As Psyche climbed up the path towards the headwaters of Styx, she intended again to end her life. She could glean no hope of ever accomplishing her task. When she arrived at the crest she stopped stone still and gazed at the two giant and bloody necked dragons guarding the precipice which marked, hundreds of feet below, the caustic rive Styx.

Psyche faints again. She felt nothing in her body or her heart, neither could she take action of any kind. At this point, Zeus’s eagle offers to help. (It is not clear whether Zeus sent him or he came of his own accord, yet there is implication that Zeus felt indebted to Eros for the affair with Ganimedes, the young boy made cup bearer to the gods.) The great Eagle spoke to Psyche and offered to take the bottle and collect the deadly black water himself. This he does and Psyche, not of her own accord, completes yet another task.

Unlike the fierce and wild nature of the passionate rams, the waters of the river Styx may represent the cold cruel hatred of frozen feelings. It seems these too must be sought and contained if Eros is to be won back. Like the wool and the sorting of the grain, Psyche must step aside, stand still, or even sleep, allowing the unconscious to complete the task.

Readers who find it frustrating that Psyche never seems to gain any overt courage, resolve or strength from her subsequent tasks probably view this “stepping aside” as weak or degrading. On the contrary, in this case it is the necessary and only way to accomplish the labor. At times, to acquiesce takes more courage than to fight.

Aphrodite then gives Psyche a final task, requiring her to descend into the underworld. She has to borrow some of Persephone’s beauty and place it in a box. She must deliver the box to Aphrodite, unopened and untouched.

Again, psyche’s first and foremost response is suicide. What quicker way to get to Hades than to die? She climbs to the top of a tower and attempts to throw herself off. The tower, however, is inspired, (it is unclear by whom), and speaks to Psyche.

He instructs her on how to enter the underworld without dying, how to avoid the distractions that will play upon her virtue and humanity, how to behave with Persephone and how to get out alive, with the box of beauty intact. Finally, Psyche gets to perform a task herself!

She follows the tower’s instructions to the letter. She ignores the lame man, the floating corpses, and the desperate weaving women. She ignores her ego drives to aid and assist. She allows Charon to extract a coin from her mouth and she tosses honey cakes to the terrifying three headed dog, Cerberus, who guards the gates of Hell. She is careful to accept no nourishment while in the underworld. She humbly procures the box of beauty from Persephone and retraces her steps back past Cerberus, across the river Styx and into the light of day.

It is then, her final task completed with full consciousness, that she causes her own death.
“When Psyches was returned from hell, to the light of the world, she was ravished with great desire, saying, Am not I a fool, that knowing that I carry here the divine beauty, will not take a little thereof to garnish my face, to please my love with all? And by and by she opened the box where she could perceive no beauty nor any thing else, save only an infernal and deadly sleep, which immediately invaded all her members as soon as the box was uncovered, in such sort that she fell down upon the ground, and lay there as a sleeping corpse.”

As Psyche slips into a deadly coma, Eros finally rises from his brooding. He sneaks out of the tower room in his mother’s palace, finds his wings and flies straight to Psyche.
It appears that the labors of Psyche have simultaneously transformed Eros as well.

“Eros, the fiery flighty spirit who came and went secretly and refused to be seen in the light, has acquired at least the substance of a healed wound. The Eros she knows now is…produced by the Soul’s contemplation of the Divine Mind; it is the medium through which she can finally be present to “that other loveliness”. He is the carrier of divine beauty which must, to become united with psyche and soma, be touched by the pain of earthly life.

Eros awakens Psyche with a prick from one of his arrows, returns the beauty to its box and says.

“O wretched captive, behold thou were well-nigh perished again, with the overmuch curiosity: well, go thou, and do thy message to my Mother, and in the mean season, I will provide for all things accordingly."

Obviously, his anger with Psyche has lost its edge. What Eros provided for was Psyche’s immortality, bestowed by Zeus and blessed, finally, by Aphrodite. The banquet on Mt. Olympus was attended by all the gods and goddesses, greater and lesser, demonstrating their universal admiration and acknowledgement of the union.

Not long after, a divine child was born to Psyche and Eros. The name they gave her was Pleasure.

In pursuing (Eros), we pursue our greatest desire. Yet, after all, we live in ignorance of how it will approach. We can only listen, and pray, for the sounds of Eros’ soft, quivering wings.”