Cupid and Psyche

There was once a king and queen with three daughters, and the youngest, Psyche, was so beautiful that travelers came from far countries to look at her. They began to say that even Venus herself was not as lovely. They came less to the temples of Venus, and more to the palace where Psyche lived.

Venus, in heaven, heard this and grew jealous. She called her son, the winged boy Cupid, and said: "Take this mortal girl. Make her fall in love with the lowest, most miserable man on earth. Punish her for what people are saying."

Cupid took his bow and arrows and flew down to the palace. He came at night to where Psyche slept, meaning to shoot her. But when he saw her, he was struck by his own beauty in her, and his hand slipped, and one of his own arrows pricked him. He fell in love with her in that moment.

Psyche, meanwhile, was unhappy. Her two older sisters had married kings. Men admired her, but no one came to ask for her hand. Her father, anxious, asked the oracle of Apollo what was wrong. The oracle answered terribly: "Dress your daughter in mourning robes and lead her to the top of a high mountain. There she will be married to a monster that even the gods fear."

Her parents wept, but they could not refuse the oracle. The whole city followed Psyche up the mountain in a black procession, like a funeral. They left her on the bare rock and went home.

The wind came and lifted her gently and carried her down into a green valley. She woke in a meadow before a palace of gold and ivory, with no one in sight. Voices spoke to her without bodies. They told her this was her home. Invisible servants bathed her, fed her, dressed her in fine clothes, and led her to a great soft bed.

That night she lay in the dark, and she felt someone come to her. He spoke softly. He told her he was her husband, and he loved her. She must not try to see his face. If she ever saw him in the light, she would lose him forever.

Many nights passed like this. By day she was alone in the palace; by night her unseen husband came. She grew used to him, and she came to love him.

But she missed her sisters. She begged her husband to let them visit. He warned her: "They will not be your friends. Do not listen to them, no matter what they say." She insisted, and he gave in.

The wind brought her sisters down to the valley. When they saw the palace, with its gold and its servants, they grew sick with envy. They asked her, "What does your husband look like?" Psyche, who had never seen him, made up an answer. They asked her again the next day. Her stories did not match. They guessed she had never seen him.

"He is the monster the oracle warned of," they told her. "He keeps you in the dark because he means to eat you when your child is born. Take a lamp tonight when he is asleep, and a knife. Look at his face. If he is a monster, kill him."

Psyche did not want to believe them. But the doubt they had planted grew. That night, after her husband was asleep, she lit a small oil lamp and lifted it over the bed. She held the knife in her other hand.

The light fell on the most beautiful young man she had ever seen. Wings, white as fresh snow, lay folded against his back. By the bed lay a bow and a quiver of arrows. She knew at once it was Cupid. She loved him so much in that instant that her hand shook, and a single drop of hot oil from the lamp fell onto his shoulder.

He woke. He saw the lamp and the knife. He looked at her in pain, and he said: "Love cannot live with suspicion." Then he flew up out of the open window, and was gone.

The palace vanished around her. Psyche stood in a bare field and wept. She wandered from country to country, asking everyone she met if they had seen her husband. No one had.

At last, in despair, she came to the temple of Venus and went in. She knew Venus would punish her, but she had nowhere else to go. Venus laughed at her and gave her four impossible tasks.

The first was to sort a great heap of mixed grains, all in one night. As Psyche sat weeping over the heap, the ants of the field came in their thousands and sorted the grains for her, working all night.

The second was to gather wool from the golden sheep that grazed by a river. The river-reeds whispered to her: wait until evening when the sheep are sleeping in the shade, and gather the wool that is caught on the brambles where they have passed. She did this and brought back a great bundle.

The third was to fill a crystal jar from a stream that ran down the side of a black mountain, where dragons lived. The eagle of Jupiter, taking pity, took the jar in his claws, flew up to the source, filled it, and brought it back to her.

The fourth was the worst. She was to go down to the underworld and ask Proserpina, queen of the dead, for a small box of beauty for Venus. A tower spoke to Psyche from a hilltop and told her how to make the journey: a coin for the ferryman, a sop for the three-headed dog, and one warning. "Do not open the box on the way back. Whatever you do, do not open it." Psyche obeyed. She went down. She came back with the box.

But she was tired and grieving and her face was no longer beautiful, and she thought: there is a little of Venus's gift in this box. If I take only a tiny bit, my husband will love me again when he sees me. She lifted the lid.

What came out of the box was not beauty. It was the sleep of the dead. It poured out in a black mist and covered her, and she fell down on the road and lay still, like a corpse.

Cupid had recovered from his burn. He had been searching for her. He found her there. He brushed the sleep off her and pricked her gently with one of his arrows to wake her, and lifted her in his arms. He carried her up to Olympus.

There, before all the gods, he asked Jupiter to make her immortal so they could be married. Jupiter agreed. He gave her a cup of nectar and said, "Drink this and become a god." Psyche drank, and she was changed. Venus, who could not resist Jupiter, made her peace.

Cupid and Psyche were married in heaven, and a daughter was born to them. They named her Pleasure.