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Cupid and Psyche
Psyche had the good fortune of having Cupid (Eros), the God of love, for a husband. Part of the deal was that she never look at him in the light. (Don't ask why. No one knows.) Curiosity got the better of her and she brought an oil lamp to their bed to see what he looked like. Awed by his beauty, she was distracted and dropped hot oil on Cupid. Angrily, he ran home to his mother. Psyche searched for Cupid and eventually went to see his mother, Venus.
Venus (Aphrodite) decided to torture Psyche by giving her impossible tasks under the guise that she was teaching her to be a proper wife. She threw a great multitude of several kinds of small seeds on the floor and told her she must sort them into piles by morning. Some nearby ants came and helped Psyche with the task.
Next Venus sent Psyche to fetch some wool from some very fierce and dangerous sheep with golden fleece. The reeds told her how to do it safetly and easily by picking the wool from the thorns of plants after the sheep had left. Although some versions of the story say she waited until nightfall when the sheep were sound asleep.
Then Venus made her fill a flask with water from a spring which fed the river Styx. But the spring was surrounded by sharp slimy slippery rocks. Luckily, an eagle came and did the task for her.
Venus was very angry that Psyche was not yet dead, and had completed all of the tasks. She devised one last impossible task. Handing a box to Psyche, she said, "Here, take this box, and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine (Persephone), and say, 'My mistress Venus desires you to send her a little of your beauty, for in tending her sick son she has lost some of her own.' Be not too long on your errand, for I must paint myself with it to appear at the circle of the gods and goddesses this evening."
Psyche was now satisfied that her destruction was at hand, being obliged to go with her own feet directly down to Erebus (a place of darkness which souls pass through to get to Hades). She went to the top of a high tower to jump off, thus to descend the shortest way possible to the shades below. But a voice from the tower said to her, " Great Zeus! Don't you get it by now? Someone or something always comes along to save you!" Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto (Hades), and how to avoid all the dangers of the road, to pass by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and prevail on Charon, the ferryman, to take her across the black river and bring her back again. But the voice added, "When Proserpine has given you the box, filled with her beauty, don't open the box! Never ever ever ever ever open the box! That box is to remain closed at all times! You got that! In fact, I'd say only a total idiot would open that box! So don't do it!"
Psyche, encouraged by this advice, obeyed it in all things, and taking heed to her ways travelled safely to the kingdom of Pluto. She was admitted to the palace of Proserpine, and without accepting the delicate seat or delicious banquet that was offered her, but contented with coarse bread for her food, she delivered her message from Venus. Presently the box was returned to her, shut and filled with the precious commodity. Then she returned the way she came, and glad was she to come out once more into the light of day.
But having got so far successfully through her dangerous task a longing desire seized her to examine the contents of the box. "What," said she, "shall I, the carrier of this divine beauty, not take the least bit to put on my cheeks to appear to more advantage in the eyes of my beloved husband!:" So she carefully opened the box, but found nothing there of any beauty at all, but an infernal and truly Stygian sleep, which being thus set free from its prison, took possession of her, and she fell down in the midst of the road, a sleepy corpse without sense or motion. Then a voice emmanating from the tower was heard echoing throught the land, "You Idiot!!! What did I tell you?"
But Cupid being now recovered from his wound, and not able longer to bear the absence of his beloved Psyche, slipping through the smallest crack of the window of his chamber, flew to the spot where Psyche lay, and gathering up the sleep from her body closed it again in the box, and waked Psyche with a light touch of one of his arrows. "Again," said he, "hast thou almost perished by the same curiosity. But now perform exactly the task imposed on you by my mother, and I will take care of the rest."
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Then Cupid, as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before Jupiter (Zeus) with his supplication. Jupiter lent a favoring ear, and pleaded the cause of the lovers so earnestly with Venus that he won her consent. On this he sent Mercury (Hermes) to bring Psyche up to the heavenly assembly, and when she arrived, handing her a cup of ambrosia, he said, "Drink this, Psyche, and be immortal; nor shall Cupid ever break away from the knot in which he is tied, but these nuptials shall be perpetual."
Thus Psyche became at last united to Cupid, and in due time they had a daughter born to them whose name was Pleasure.
The fable of Cupid and Psyche is usually considered allegorical. The Greek name for a butterfly is Psyche, and the same word means the soul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, grovelling caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the most fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. Psyche, then, is the human soul, which is purified by the sufferings of hard work and dedication, and is thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness.
Or maybe she's just really really lucky.
By now you have learned quite a lot about the underworld. I congratulate you on your journey! As you have seen, few mortals ever made their way back out of Hades. But I will allow you just this once to go back across the river styx and take the short-cut that AEneas took back to Gaia, your mother earth.
But who's that handsome shade staring into the river Styx? Could it be Narcissus?
