by Maria Tatar
So, calling Zephyr, she acquainted him with her husband’s commands, and he, promptly obedient, soon brought them across the mountain down to their sister’s valley. They embraced her and she returned their caresses. “Come,” said Psyche, “enter with me my house and refresh yourselves with whatever your sister has to offer.” Then taking their hands she led them into her golden palace, and committed them to the care of her numerous train of attendant voices, to refresh them in her baths and at her table, and to show them all her treasures. The view of these celestial delights caused envy to enter their bosoms, at seeing their young sister possessed of such state and splendor, so much exceeding their own.
They asked her numberless questions, among others what sort of a person her husband was. Psyche replied that he was a beautiful youth, who generally spent the daytime in hunting upon the mountains. The sisters, not satisfied with this reply, soon made her confess that she had never seen him. Then they proceeded to fill her bosom with dark suspicions. “Call to mind,” they said, “the Pythian oracle that declared you destined to marry a direful and tremendous monster. The inhabitants of this valley say that your husband is a terrible and monstrous serpent, who nourishes you for a while with dainties that he may by and by devour you. Take our advice. Provide yourself with a lamp and a sharp knife; put them in concealment that your husband may not discover them, and when he is sound asleep, slip out of bed, bring forth your lamp, and see for yourself whether what they say is true or not. If it is, hesitate not to cut off the monster’s head, and thereby recover your liberty.”
Psyche resisted these persuasions as well as she could, but they did not fail to have their effect on her mind, and when her sisters were gone, their words and her own curiosity were too strong for her to resist. So she prepared her lamp and a sharp knife, and hid them out of sight of her husband. When he had fallen into his first sleep, she silently rose and uncovering her lamp beheld not a hideous monster, but the most beautiful and charming of the gods, with his golden ringlets wandering over his snowy neck and crimson cheek, with two dewy wings on his shoulders, whiter than snow, and with shining feathers like the tender blossoms of spring. As she leaned the lamp over to have a nearer view of his face a drop of burning oil fell on the shoulder of the god, startled with which he opened his eyes and fixed them full upon her; then, without saying one word, he spread his white wings and flew out of the window. Psyche, in vain endeavoring to follow him, fell from the window to the ground. Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and said, “O foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After having disobeyed my mother’s commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you for ever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion.” So saying, he fled away, leaving poor Psyche prostrate on the ground, filling the place with mournful lamentations.
When she had recovered some degree of composure she looked around her, but the palace and gardens had vanished, and she found herself in the open field not far from the city where her sisters dwelt. She repaired thither and told them the whole story of her misfortunes, at which, pretending to grieve, those spiteful creatures inwardly rejoiced. “For now,” said they, “he will perhaps choose one of us.” With this idea, without saying a word of her intentions, each of them rose early the next morning and ascended the mountain, and having reached the top, called upon Zephyr to receive her and bear her to his lord; then leaping up, and not being sustained by Zephyr, fell down the precipice and was dashed to pieces.
Psyche meanwhile wandered day and night, without food or repose, in search of her husband. Casting her eyes on a lofty mountain having on its brow a magnificent temple, she sighed and said to herself, “Perhaps my love, my lord, inhabits there,” and directed her steps thither.
She had no sooner entered than she saw heaps of corn, some in loose ears and some in sheaves, with mingled ears of barley. Scattered about, lay sickles and rakes, and all the instruments of harvest without order, as if thrown carelessly out of the weary reapers’ hands in the sultry hours of the day.
This unseemly confusion the pious Psyche put an end to, by separating and sorting everything to its proper place and kind, believing that she ought to neglect none of the gods, but endeavour by her piety to engage them all in her behalf. The holy Ceres, whose temple it was, finding her so religiously employed, thus spoke to her: “O Psyche, truly worthy of our pity, though I cannot shield you from the frowns of Venus, yet I can teach you how best to allay her displeasure. Go, then, and voluntarily surrender yourself to your lady and sovereign, and try by modesty and submission to win her forgiveness, and perhaps her favor will restore you the husband you have lost.”
Psyche obeyed the commands of Ceres and took her way to the temple of Venus, endeavoring to fortify her mind and ruminating on what she should say and how best propitiate the angry goddess, feeling that the issue was doubtful and perhaps fatal.
Venus received her with angry countenance. “Most undutiful and faithless of servants,” said she, “do you at last remember that you really have a mistress? Or have you rather come to see your sick husband, yet laid up of the wound given him by his loving wife? You are so ill-favored and disagreeable that the only way you can merit your lover must be by dint of industry and diligence. I will make trial of your housewifery.” Then she ordered Psyche to be led to the storehouse of her temple, where was laid up a great quantity of wheat, barley, millet, vetches, beans, and lentils prepared for food for her pigeons, and said, “Take and separate all these grains, putting all of the same kind in a parcel by themselves, and see that you get it done before evening.” Then Venus departed and left her to her task.
But Psyche, in a perfect consternation at the enormous work, sat stupid and silent, without moving a finger to the inextricable heap.
While she sat despairing, Cupid stirred up the little ant, a native of the fields, to take compassion on her. The leader of the ant-hill, followed by whole hosts of his six-legged subjects, approached the heap, and with the utmost diligence taking grain by grain, they separated the pile, sorting each kind to its parcel; and, when it was all done, they vanished out of sight in a moment.
Venus at the approach of twilight returned from the banquet of the gods, breathing odors and crowned with roses. Seeing the task done, she exclaimed, “This is no work of yours, wicked one, but his, whom to your own and his misfortune you have enticed.” So saying, she threw her a piece of black bread for her supper and went away.
Next morning Venus ordered Psyche to be called and said to her, “Behold yonder grove which stretches along the margin of the water. There you will find sheep feeding without a shepherd, with golden-shining fleeces on their backs. So, fetch me a sample of that precious wool gathered from every one of their fleeces.”
Psyche obediently went to the riverside, prepared to do her best to execute the command. But the river god inspired the reeds’ harmonious murmurs, which seemed to say, “O maiden, severely tried, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among the formidable rams on the other side, for as long as they are under the influence of the rising sun, they burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth. But when the noontide sun has driven the cattle to the shade, and the serene spirit of the flood has lulled them to rest, you may then cross in safety, and you will find the woolly gold sticking to the bushes and the trunks of the trees.”
Thus the compassionate river god gave Psyche instructions how to accomplish her task, and by observing his directions she soon returned to Venus with her arms full of the golden fleece; but she received not the approbation of her implacable mistress, who said, “I know very well it is by none of your own doings that you have succeeded in this task, and I am not satisfied yet that you have any capacity to make yourself useful. But I have another task for you. Here, take thi
s box and go your way to the infernal shades, and give this box to Proserpine 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. Wherefore, to make no delay of what was not to be avoided, she goes to the top of a high tower to precipitate herself headlong, thus to descend the shortest way to the shades below. But a voice from the tower said to her, “Why, poor unlucky girl, dost thou design to put an end to thy days in so dreadful a manner? and what cowardice makes thee sink under this last danger who hast been so miraculously supported in all thy former?” Then the voice told her how by a certain cave she might reach the realms of Pluto, 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, of all things this is chiefly to be observed by you, that you never once open or look into the box nor allow your curiosity to pry into the treasure of the beauty of the goddesses.”
Psyche, encouraged by this advice, obeyed it in all things, and taking heed to her ways traveled 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.
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 which happened to be left open, 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.”
Then Cupid, as swift as lightning penetrating the heights of heaven, presented himself before Jupiter 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 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.
For full translations of the story of Cupid and Psyche and its frame tale in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass; or The Transformations of Lucius, published in the second century B.C., see the following:
Apuleius. The Golden Ass, translated by Jack Lindsay. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1932.
Apuleius. The Transformations of Lucius, Otherwise Known as The Golden Ass, translated by Robert Graves. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951.
Neumann, Erich. Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine, translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: Bollingen Series LIV, Princeton University Press, 1956, pp. 3–53.
THE GIRL WHO MARRIED A SNAKE
India
This story comes from the Panchatantra, a set of five books of animal fables in verse and prose contained within a frame narrative. Compiled between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D., the stories were attributed to a wise man named Bidpai, a Sanskrit term for “court scholar.” Boys of royal blood were the implied audience, and the stories were intended to teach them how to conduct exemplary lives. By the twentieth century, the Panchatantra had been translated into more than fifty languages. It reached Europe as early as the eleventh century, finding its way through Persian, Greek, Latin, and Arabic translations, and through oral channels of transmission.
In the city of Rajagrha there lived a Brahmin named Deva Sarma. His wife, who had no children, wept bitter tears whenever she saw the children of her neighbors. One day the Brahmin tried to comfort her by telling her, “Dearest of wives! You can stop grieving at last. Just imagine, while I was making a sacrifice so that we would have a child, I heard an invisible being say to me in the clearest language, ‘Brahmin, you shall have a son more handsome and virtuous than any other man, and good fortune will be his lot.’”
When she heard those words, the Brahmin’s wife was overjoyed, and she said, “May those exhilarating words come true.” Before long, the woman became pregnant and gave birth to—a snake. When her attendants, one and all, saw the snake, they advised her to toss it away, but she paid no attention to them and instead picked him up affectionately, bathed him, and made a home for him in a large, clean chest, where she fed him milk, butter, and all kinds of fine foods. In no time at all, the snake had grown to a mature state.
Once while the Brahmin’s wife was attending the marriage festivities of a neighbor’s son, tears began to stream down her face, and she turned to her husband and said, “You are showing nothing but contempt for me with your refusal to try to arrange a wedding for my darling boy!”
The Brahmin replied with these words, “Oh, noble wife! Do you really expect me to travel down into the depths of the underworld to ask Vasuki, King of the Serpents, for the hand of his daughter? Who else, oh, foolish woman, do you think would be eager to offer his beloved daughter to a snake?”
When he finished speaking, he realized that his wife looked utterly despondent. Because he loved her and wanted to make her feel better, he packed up some provisions and left on a long journey. After traveling for some time in distant lands, he reached a place known as the City of Warbling Birds. There, just as night was falling, he found shelter at the home of an acquaintance, a man with whom he had a respectful and affectionate relationship. At his home, he was given a bath, food, and everything he needed to restore himself for the night.
The next morning he was about to depart after thanking his host, when his host asked, “What brought you to this place, and where are you going now?”
The Brahmin replied, “I left my home to search for a woman who would make a suitable bride for my son.”
After hearing these words, his host said, “If that is the case, then I have a very beautiful daughter, and I am yours to command. Accept my daughter as your son’s bride!”
The Brahmin did not need to be asked twice, and he took the girl, who was accompanied by her retinue, back home with him. When the townspeople saw the girl and how beautiful, gifted, and charming she was, they opened their eyes wide with astonishment and said to her entourage, “How could anyone with any dignity at all deliver this priceless jewel of a young woman to a snake?”
After hearing those words, the girl’s kinfolk, their hearts heavy with anxiety, began to whisper, “Let this girl be taken far away from a boy who seems possessed by some evil spirit.” But the girl put an end to their chatter and said, “Enough! Stop that kind of talk and pay attention to the words of the verse:
A monarch speaks just once;
The wise and holy speak just once;
>
A maid is promised in marriage just once:
These three things are done once and once alone.
“And besides:
An act is paired with its inevitable end,
What is predicted must occur;
Nothing can change that; even the gods
Have no way of altering poor Little Blossom’s fate. . . .”
Having spoken those words and told a tale about Little Blossom, she secured the permission of her attendants and married the snake. She showed him proper respect and waited on him with devotion, serving him milk to drink and performing other tasks.
One night the snake left the large chest where he slept and climbed into his wife’s bed. She cried out, “Who is this creature in the form of a man?” Thinking it must be some stranger, she jumped up and, trembling in every limb, tore open the door and was about to dash off when the snake said, “Stay here, gracious lady! I am your husband.” To convince her, he reentered the snakeskin he had shed and then left it again to return to his human state. He was wearing a magnificent diadem, gleaming earrings, flashing armlets, and beautiful rings. His wife fell at his feet. They embraced and the two of them experienced the raptures of love.
The Brahmin, who had woken up before his son, saw how matters stood. He took the snakeskin out of the chest and threw it into the fire, saying, “He shall never enter it again.” Later that morning, the Brahmin and his wife, their hearts bursting with joy, introduced their lovestruck young man and his beautiful bride to everyone there. It was all marvelous beyond what anyone could imagine.
HASAN OF BASRA
Persia
The tangled skein that makes up The Thousand and One Nights and the history of its translations into English means that it is daunting to identify a standard version for any one particular story. A polyvocal anthology, the Nights is a treasure trove of tales put together from Persian fables, the culture of medieval Baghdad, fairy tales from Egypt in the Mameluke period, and other sources. The story of Hasan of Basra has been reshaped by many translators and transmitters, most recently by Marina Warner in her volume Stranger Magic. Warner retells the story for us, turning its extravagant, overwrought style and vertiginous lyrical outbursts into more accessible prose. As a forerunner of the Swan Maiden story in Occidental cultures, “Hasan of Basra” reminds us that the ocean of stories is vast and deep, and that motifs, tropes, and memes that seem quintessentially “European” are in fact part of a vast global network. The lengthy, convoluted narrative is summarized in what follows by Edwin Sidney Hartland, a British folklorist who wrote about the Swan Maiden story and its international cognates back in 1891.
