file: Wikimedia commons (link).
Happy Valentine's Day!
Previous posts related to this anciently-observed day of the year include:
and
Above is an image of Eros and Psyche, an ancient myth of tremendous significance to our lives, and one whose importance has been discussed in numerous previous posts, including:
and
The story of Eros and Psyche is mentioned in numerous ancient sources, but perhaps the most complete version to survive from antiquity is found in the incredible "novel" by the talented Apuleius known officially as The Metamorphoses (not to be confused with the Metamorphoses of Ovid) but also as "The Golden Tale of the Ass" or more simply "The Golden Ass."
The story deserves to be read there in full (as does the entire tale of The Golden Ass, which is deeply esoteric in nature and was written by one who was likely an initiate into the ancient Mysteries of the goddess Isis), but in observation of Valentine's Day is presented below in shortened form below, using selected quotations from the excellent 1960 translation of Jack Lindsay, in which I have made one change when transcribing below, which is to use the more ancient Greek name Eros for the god, rather than Cupid.
This story contains elements which are very familiar to all of us, as the same pattern forms the basis for countless fairy tales, many of which find their way into movies we have seen.
The fact that Psyche is named "Psyche" is one very solid clue indicating that this ancient myth is about our own situation in this incarnate life -- and that Psyche represents our doubting, confused, and often self-sabotaging egoic mind, which arises as a kind of "defense mechanism" or "coping mechanism" during our earliest encounters with the rules, norms, restrictions, disappointments, and even traumas of childhood and the necessary interaction with society (including of course the family).
I spoke about this subject at the Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge in California this past October, and you can watch the video at the website of that conference here (along with other videos by the many terrific speakers who were part of that special event).
Once upon a time there lived in a certain city a king and a queen, and they had three daughters remarkably beautiful. But though the two elder girls were as comely as you could wish, yet it didn't strike you dumb with despair to have a look at them -- while as to the youngest girl, all man's passing words were too poor to touch (let alone becomingly adorn) a beauty so glorious, so victorious.
Citizens in crowds, and droves of pilgrims, were attracted by the fame of the extraordinary spectacle. They pressed about her, and stood moonstruck with wonder at her unapproachable loveliness. They raised their right hands to their lips, laying thumb and forefinger together and throwing her a kiss of reverence as though it were the goddess Venus herself that they adored. Already the word had gone abroad through the nearby cities that a goddess had been brought forth by the deep-blue womb of ocean, and nourished by the froth of curling waves; and that she now dwelt among mortals, allowing them to gaze promiscuously on her divinity -- or that, at the very least, Venus had had a Second Birth (this time from earth, not water): a Venus endowed with the flower of virginity, and germinated from a distillation of the stars.
[. . .]
Meanwhile Psyche, for all her manifest beauty, reaped no benefit from her pre-eminence. She was gazed at by all, praised and mazed; but no man, king or prince or even commoner, raised any pretensions to her hand in marriage. They admired her as a sample of divinity, but only as men admire an exquisitely finished statue. Long before, the two elder sisters, whose ordinary beauty had made no noise among distant populations, had been wooed by kings in good standing; and now they were happily married. But Psyche, lonely lass, sat sad at home, mourning her forlorn fate, weak in body and sick at heart; and she hated the beauty that gave pleasure to all the world save herself.
Accordingly the sorrowing father of this ill-fated girl suspected the wrath of the gods; and dreading some visitation from heaven, he consulted the ancient oracle of the Milesian God. [. . .] Apollo, though a Grecian and Ionic, yet (for love of the composer of this Milesian Tale) gave a Latin response which translates as follows:
King, stand the girl upon some mountain-topadorned in fullest mourning for the dead.No mortal husband, King, shall make her crop --it is a raging serpent she must wedwhich, flying high, works universal Doom,debilitating all with Flame and Sword.Jove quails, the Gods all dread him -- the Abhorred!Streams quake before him, and the Stygian Gloom.
[. . .]
The entire city turned out to show its mourning response for the afflicted family. A day of public lamentation was at once sympathetically ordered. But the necessity of obeying the dictates of heaven demanded that the sad-faced Psyche should be surrendered to her fate. The death-marriage was sorrowfully solemnized; and the funeral of the living bride moved on, attended by the whole populace. Thus the weeping Psyche was present, not at her marriage, but at her funeral; and while her anguished parents, horrified unendurably, strove to delay the ghastly procession, the girl herself exhorted them to submit.
'Why rack your old and harrowed limbs for ever on a cross of misery?' she cried. 'Why waste your breath, dearer to me than my own, in this endless mourning? Why do you disfigure with ineffectual tears those faces that I honour so truly? Why do you destroy the light of my life in those sad eyes of yours? Why do you tear your grey hair? Why do you beat your breasts, hallowed with the milk of love? Are these torments to be the glorious guerdon that you win through my surpassing beauty?
'Too late you realize that the deadly shaft of envy has cruelly smitten you. When the tribes and the nations were hymning me with divine honours; when all their voices chimed in titling me the second Venus, that was the hour for grief and tears, that was the hour when you should have given me up for lost. Now I feel, now I realize, that Venus is my murderess, and none other. Lead forward, and stand me up on the rock to which the response devoted me. Why should I lag? Why should I shrink aside from the coming of Him that has been born to destroy the world?' 107 - 109
Note in the above passages that the story emphasizes the alienation of Psyche -- she feels cut off from humanity and even from the divine realm.
But, although she does not even know it yet, does not even dream it yet, there is one in the divine realm who is pursuing her with love -- the god Eros, and he will cure her alienation.
This point is extremely significant, because I myself have heard literalist Christian preachers declare, almost in these exact words, that "the difference between the literalist Christian belief-system and all other sacred traditions is that all other sacred traditions represent mankind's search for the divine, while only literalist Christianity and literalist Christianity alone tells the story of the divine's search for and pursuit of mankind.'
However, as the ancient myth of Eros and Psyche shows, that assertion is completely incorrect. The story of Eros and Psyche is the story of our alienation from ourselves -- and this theme is present in myths around the world, where the problem of our own alienation, and the solution for that alienation, forms one of the central messages of the world's ancient wisdom, given to every single culture on our planet and not exclusive to any one tradition.
Continuing with the story:
The virgin said no more. She took her place in the flocking procession and strode onwards resolutely. At length they arrived at the appointed crag on a precipitate mountain-top; and there they deposited the girl and left her. The nuptial torches, with which they had lighted their way, now spluttered out in the tears of the onlookers, and were dropped. With heads drooping, the procession turned back. As for the poor parents, demoralized by their loss, they barred themselves up in their darkened palace and abandoned their lives to everlasting gloom.
But as Psyche lay trembling apprehensively and weeping on the top-shelf of the crag, a gentle breath of fondling Zephyrus fluttered and tweaked her dresses, and puffed them up. Gradually raised on the palm of a tranquil wind, she was smoothly wafted down the steep and rocky slope, and laid softly on the lap of the valley, on flower-sprinkled turf. 109
Psyche, exhausted but finally at peace, falls asleep upon the comfortable bed of grass. When she awakens the next morning, she finds herself in a beautiful natural landscape, and as she begins to explore, she makes her way to a mysterious palace, which is described as being encrusted with gorgeous silver worked into fantastic shapes beyond the craftsmanship of any known artist. The text tells us that the place clearly appears to be the pleasure-house retreat of some god or goddess.
Psyche goes inside and finds that her every need is attended to by invisible servants, who address her with audible voices although she cannot see anyone in the beautiful but apparently empty surroundings. She is told that all of this is for her, but she has no idea why. She dines on sumptuous food accompanied by music from an unseen orchestra, and at night when she becomes tired she retires to a lavish master bedroom and climbs into bed.
The story relates that Psyche becomes the beloved of an unseen god, who visits her only at night and disappears each morning before light, but with whom she falls in love, even though she can never see him. He tells Pysche that she must never inquire as to his identity, or he shall lose him and all the comforts of the palace.
However, the plot takes a turn when Psyche wants to ease the suffering of her family, who must believe that she has died, and asks her divine husband to allow her sisters to visit her in the palace in the mysterious valley, which he does. They are brought there by the gentle wind, and reunited with their sister. But of course, in a familiar pattern we recognize from so many other traditional tales, the sisters are completely overcome with jealousy over Psyche's newfound happiness. They cannot stand the thought that she is obviously married to a god, and -- the text informs us -- the idea that he will ultimately make Psyche a goddess as well sends them completely over the edge with envy and resentment.
So, the sisters plant the seeds of doubt in Psyche's mind, insinuating that her unseen husband must be some horrifying monster, since he never allows Psyche to see him. After their visit, proclaiming their love for Psyche, the sisters are carried back home by the west wind, and Psyche is left alone with her doubts.
What do you think will happen next?
If you said you think that Psyche's nagging doubts will grow and grow until eventually she will give in to her doubts, then you probably know something about human nature!
Note that the myths consistently characterize our egoic mind as wracked by doubt, and always prone to allowing those doubts sabotage what we are capable of attaining or achieving.
Thus, one fateful night, Psyche retires to the bedroom which she shares with her unseen husband. When he arrives, they embrace as usual, and later -- after she is sure that he is asleep -- she carefully gets out of bed and retrieves a lamp, and a knife, that she has hidden nearby.
But as soon as she raised the lamp and uncared the mystery of her bed, she saw the sweetest and gentlest of all wild creatures: Cupid himself [Eros], a beautiful god beautifully lying on the couch. At sight of him the flame burned cheerfully higher, and the razor dulled its sacrilegious edge.
[. . .]
And then, for all her faintness and fear, she felt her flagging spirits revive as she gazed at the beauty of the god's face. She saw the gay lovelocks of his golden head, drenched with ambrosia -- the curls gracefully drifting over his milky breast and ruddied cheeks, some in front and some behind -- while the very lamp-flame guttered before the flashing splendor.
On the shoulders of the flying god there bloomed dewy plumes of gleaming whiteness; and though the wings themselves were laid at rest, yet the tender down that fringed the feathers frisked in a continuous running flutter. The rest of his body was so smoothly warmly rounded that Venus could look on it and feel no pang at having borne such a child. At the foot of the couch lay his bow, his quiver, and his arrows: the gracious weapons of the mighty god.
[. . .]
But while she stirred above him in the extremity of agonized joy, the lamp (actuated either by treachery, or by base envy, or by a desire to touch so lovely a body -- to kiss it in a lamp's way) spewed a drop of glowing oil from the point of its flame upon the god's right shoulder.
O bold and reckless lamp! base officer of love! to burn the very god of Flame -- you that some lover, inspired by the need to possess the beloved even at night, first devised.
The god, thus burnt, leaped out of bed; and spying the scattered evidences of Psyche's forfeited truth, he made to fly mutely out of the clasp of his unfortunate wife. But Psyche, as he rose into the air, caught hold of his right leg with both hands and clung there, a wailing drag upon his upward flight. Into the cloudy zones they soared, until her muscles gave way and she dropped to the earth.
The god her lover did not desert her as she lay upon the ground. He alighted upon a nearby cypress and gravely admonished her from its swaying top:
'O simple-hearted Psyche! [. . .] This it was I bade you always to beware. This it was against which my loving-heart forewarned you. But as for those fine advisers of yours, they shall pay heavily for their pernicious interference. My flight is penalty enough for you.'
As he ended, he spread his wings and soared out of sight. 121 - 123
Thus it is that the doubts of the egoic mind sabotage our relationship with our own authentic self, represented in this ancient myth by the winged god Eros.
The good news is that Psyche is eventually reunited with Eros, but only after a long string of misfortune and suffering, ending in fact with her own death -- from which she is revived by the god, who returns to her and brings her back to life with the kiss of love.
This story is not some charming fairy-tale, despite the fact that so many fairy-tales are in fact patterned upon this very same plot-line. The story is about you. It is a story which applies to our situation in this mortal life, and the alienation from and loss of our essential self which the myths themselves are given to help us to reconcile and to recover.
image: Wikimedia commons (link).