Psyche

by Louis Couperus

  The Sphinx was silent.

  Then Emeralda tugged at her reins.

  The maddened horses reared, snorting, foaming, panting, trampling, pulling, and dashed against the Sphinx.

  But the foremost horses were dashed to pieces against the god-like basalt.

  Then Emeralda uttered cry after cry, one hoarse cry after another, which resounded through the desert. She tugged at the reins; the horses, despairing of their attack against the immovable, drove at the Sphinx, and fell back crushed, falling over one another and trampling one another to death; the triumphal chariot split, and the splinters of sparkling jewels flew up like cracking fireworks, and Emeralda fell between the still revolving wheels. And her heart of ruby broke. All her dazzling splendour suddenly faded. The terrifying fan-like aureola suddenly grew dim, and the desert was grey and gloomy, with a gentle rain of thick white ash falling down.

  The Sphinx was silent, and looked on …

  XXVII

  PSYCHE WAS ALIVE AGAIN, soaring through the air, and felt so light and ethereal; pearl-whiter she was than ever, and naked.

  And on her tender shoulders she felt two new wings fluttering! …

  She hovered away over her own dead body into a drifting cloud, a fragrant mist, which farther on she lost sight of; and light, white, and ethereal, she looked with wonder at her trampled corpse and laughed …

  Strange, clear, and childlike sounded her laugh in the cloud and vapoury fragrance …

  “Psyche!”

  She heard her name, but so dazzled and astonished was she, that she did not see. Then the wind blew about her; the cloud moved, the fragrance ascended like incense, and she saw many like herself, restored to life, hovering in the fragrant cloud, and round her she distinguished the outlines of well-known faces.

  “Psyche!”

  She recognised the voice, deep bronze, but yet strange. And the wind blew about her and she saw a bright light before her, and recognised the Chimera!

  “You promised me: once more!’’ exclaimed Psyche.

  She threw herself on to his back, she clung to his mane, and he soared aloft.

  “Where am I?” said Psyche. “Who am I? What has happened? And what is going on around me? Am I dead, or do I live? Chimera, how rarefied is the air! How high you ascend! Are you going to ascend higher, higher still? Why is everything so dazzlingly bright about us? Is that water, or air, or light? What strange element is this? Who are going up with us—ethereal faces, ethereal forms? And what is the viol that is playing?

  “I heard that once before. Then it sounded plaintively; now it has a joyous sound!

  “Chimera, why is the air so full of joy here? … Look! below us is the Kingdom of the Past.

  “It lies in a little circle, and the castle is a black dot. Chimera, where are you going so high? We have never been so high before. Chimera, what are those circles all round us, the splendour of which makes me giddy? Are those spheres? Do they get wider and wider? Oh, how wide they get, Chimera, how wide! How high it is here, how wide, how rarefied and how light is the air! I feel myself also so light, so ethereal! I feel myself also so light, so ethereal! Am I dead? … Chimera, look! I have two new wings, and I shine pearl-white all over. Do I not shine like a light? It is true I have been very sinful. But I was what I had to be! Is it good to be what we have to be? I do not know, Chimera: I have thought of neither good nor bad; I was only what I was. But tell me, who am I now, and what am I? And where are you taking me so quietly, so safely; up and down go your wings, up and down. The stars are twinkling round us; around us whirl the spheres, and wider and wider they become! … How light, how ethereal! What is that I see on the horizon? Or is it not the horizon? Opal islands, aerial oceans … O Chimera! I see purple sands wrinkling far, far away, and round them foams a golden sea … We saw that once before, but not as it is now! For then it was delusion, and now! … The sands are growing more distinct; I see the ripple of the golden sea … Chimera! What land is that? Is that the rainbow? Is that the land of happiness, and are you the king?”

  “No, Psyche, I am not a king, and that Land …”

  “—And that Land? …”

  “Is … the Kingdom of the Future!”

  “The Future! the Future! O Chimera, where are you taking me to? Will the Future not prove to be a delusion? …”

  “No, here is the Future. Here is the Land. Look at it well … well …”

  “It is wider than the widest sphere, wider than anything I can think of. Where are the limits?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “How far and how wide is the widest sphere?”

  “Immeasurably far, indescribably wide …”

  “And what stretches away round the widest sphere?”

  “The unutterable, and the All, All! The …”

  “The? …”

  “I know no names! On earth things are called by names; here not …”

  “Chimera! … On the purple strand I see a town of light, palaces of light, gates of light … Do beings of light dwell there? … Are these the fore-spheres of the farthest sphere? … Is that the way through circles to the Chimera? I see forms, I see the people of light! O Chimera! I know them! That is my father, and that—O joy, O joy! … that is Eros! Eros! Quicker, Chimera—annihilate the space which separates us; speed on, ply your wings faster—away, away! Oh, faster, Chimera! Can you not go faster? You fly too slowly for me! You fly too slowly! I can fly faster than you.”

  She spread out her tender, light, butterfly wings; she rose above the breathless, winged horse, and … she flew! … She glided over the Chimera’s head toward the strand, toward the city, toward the blessed spirits. There she saw her father, there she saw Eros—Eros, godlike and naked, with shining wings!

  Round her the viol of joy played its joyous notes, as if all the spheres rejoiced. In the divine light, the faces of the cherubim began to blossom like winged roses. She glided swiftly through the air to her father and Eros, and embraced them. She laughed when she saw the flaming Chimera approaching, because she could fly faster than he!

  “Come!” cried Eros joyfully. And he wanted to take her to the gate, from whence sunbeams issued like a path of sunny gold: a path along which enraptured souls were going hand in hand …

  But the kingly shade stopped them for a moment, when they, Eros and Psyche, intoxicated with love, embraced each other …

  “Look!” said the shade. “Look down below …”

  They saw the Kingdom of the Past, with their glorified minds, lying visible, deep in the funnel of the spheres. They saw the castle, fallen to ruins, with a single tower still standing. They saw Astra, old, grey, and blind, sitting before her telescope, gazing in vain. They saw her star flicker up for a moment with a bright and final light.

  Then they saw Astra’s blind eyes … see! Astra looked and beheld the land of light, and the little band of happy, loving, dear ones in their shining raiment. Then they heard Astra murmur: “There! There … the Land! … The … Kingdom … of … the … Future!”

  And they saw her star extinguish:

  She fell back dead …

  The viol of gladness trilled.

  CUPID AND PSYCHE

  Translated by

  Robert Graves

  I

  ONCE UPON A TIME there lived a king and queen who had three very beautiful daughters. It was possible to find human words of praise for the elder two, but to express the breathtaking loveliness of the youngest, the like of which had never been seen before, was beyond all power of human speech. Every day thousands of her father’s subjects came to gaze at her, foreigners too, and were so dumbfounded by the sight that they paid her the homage due to the Goddess Venus alone. They pressed their right thumbs and forefingers together, reverently raised them to their lips and blew kisses towards her. The news spread through neighbouring cities and countries that the goddess, born from the deep blue sea and nourished upon the froth of its foaming waves, had now come among the multitudes of mortal men and everyone was
allowed to gaze at her; or else, that this time, the earth, not the sea, had been impregnated by a heavenly emanation and had borne a new Goddess of Love, all the more beautiful because she was still a virgin. The princess’s fame was carried farther and farther to distant provinces and still more distant ones, and people made long pilgrimages over land and sea to witness the greatest wonder of their age. As a result, nobody took the trouble to visit Paphos or Cnidus or even Cythera to see the Goddess Venus. Her rites were put off, her temples allowed to fall into ruins, her sacred couches trodden underfoot, her festival neglected, her statues left ungarlanded and her altars left bare and unswept, besmirched with cold ashes.

  Worship was accorded to the young woman instead and the mighty goddess was venerated in human form. When she went out on her morning walks, victims were offered in her honour, sacred feasts spread for her, flowers scattered in her path and rose garlands presented to her by an adoring crowd of supplicants who addressed her by all the titles that really belonged to the great goddess of Love herself. This extraordinary transfer of divine honours to a mortal greatly angered the true Venus. Unable to suppress her feelings, she shook her head menacingly and said to herself: “Really now, so I, all the world’s lovely Venus whom the philosophers call ‘the Universal Mother’ and the original source of the elements, am expected to share my sovereignty, am I, with a mortal girl! And to watch my name, which is registered in heaven, being dragged though the dirty mud of Earth! Oh, yes, and I must be content, of course, with the reflected glory of worship paid to this girl, grateful for a share in the worship offered to her instead of to me—and allowing her, a mortal, to display her appearance as mine! It meant nothing, I suppose, when the shepherd Paris, whose just and honest verdict Jupiter himself confirmed, awarded me the prize of beauty over the heads of my two goddess rivals? No, I can’t let this creature, whoever she may be, usurp my glory any longer. I’ll very soon make her sorry about her good looks—they’re against the rules.”

  She at once called her winged son Cupid, that very wicked boy, with neither manners nor respect for the decencies, who spends his time running from building to building all night long with his torch and his arrows, breaking up everyone’s marriage. Somehow he never gets punished for all the harm he does, though he never seems to do anything good in compensation. Venus knew that he was naturally bent on mischief, but she tempted him to still worse behaviour by bringing him to the city where the princess lived—her name was Psyche—and telling him of her rival beauty. Groaning with indignation she said; “I implore you, as you love your mother, to use your sweetly wounding arrows and the honeyed flame of your torch. You’ll give your mother revenge in full, most secretly, against the impudent beauty of that girl. You’ll see that the princess falls desperately in love with some perfect outcast of a man—someone who has lost rank, fortune, everything; someone who goes about in such complete degradation that nobody viler can be found in the whole world.”

  After she had uttered these words she kissed him long and tenderly and then went to the nearby seashore, where she ran along the tops of the waves as they danced foaming towards her. At the touch of her rosy feet the deep sea suddenly calmed, and she had no sooner willed her servants from the waters to appear, than up they bobbed as though she had shouted their names. The Nereids were there, singing in unison, and Portunus, with his bristling bluish beard, and Salacia, with her bosom filled with fishes, and the little Palaemon riding on a dolphin. After these came troops of Tritons swimming about in all directions, one blowing softly on his conch-shell, another protecting Venus from sunburn with a silken veil, a third holding a mirror before the eyes of his mistress, and a team of them yoked two and two, harnessed to her car. When Venus proceeds to the ocean she’s attended by quite an army of retainers.

  Meanwhile Psyche got no satisfaction at all from the honours paid her. Everyone stared at her, everyone praised her, but no commoner, no prince, no king even, dared to make love to her. All wondered at her beauty, but only as they might have wondered at an exquisite statue. Both her less beautiful elder sisters, whose reputation was not so great, had been courted by kings and successfully married to them, but Psyche remained single. She stayed at home feeling miserable and ill, and began to hate the beauty which everyone else adored.

  The poor father of this unfortunate daughter feared that the gods and heavenly powers might be angry and hostile, so he went to the ancient oracle of Apollo at Miletus and, after the usual prayers and sacrifices, asked where he was to find a husband for his daughter whom nobody wanted to marry. Apollo, though an Ionian Greek, chose, for the sake of this teller of a Milesian tale, to deliver the following oracle in Latin verse:

  On some high mountain’s craggy summit place

  The virgin, decked for deadly nuptial rites,

  Nor hope a son-in-law of mortal birth

  But a dire mischief, viperous and fierce,

  Who flies through æther and with fire and sword

  Tires and debilitates all things that are,

  Terrific to the powers that reign on high.

  Great Jupiter himself fears this winged pest

  And streams and Stygian shades his power abhor.

  The king, who until now had been a happy man, came back from the oracle feeling thoroughly depressed and told his queen what an unfavourable answer he had got. They spent a number of days weeping, mourning and lamenting. But the time for the grim fulfilment of the cruel oracle was now upon them.

  The hour came when a procession formed up for Psyche’s dreadful wedding. The torches chosen were ones that burned low with a sooty, spluttering flame; instead of the happy wedding-march the flutes played a querulous Lydian lament; the marriage-chant ended with funereal howls, and the poor bride wiped the tears from her eyes with her flame-coloured veil. Everyone had turned out, groaning sympathetically at the calamity that had overtaken the royal house, and a day of public mourning was at once proclaimed. But there was no help for it: the divine commandment had to be obeyed. So when the ceremonies of this hateful wedding had been completed in deep grief, the entire city followed the tearful Psyche, a living corpse, in procession, escorting her not to her marriage but to her grave.

  Her parents, overcome by grief and horror, tried to delay the dreadful proceedings, but Psyche exhorted them: “Why torment your unhappy old age by prolonging your misery? Why weary your hearts—which I claim as my own rather than yours—with continual lamentations? Why spoil the two faces that I love best in the world with pointless tears? Why bruise your eyes—which are mine as well? Why pull out your white hairs and beat your breasts, which I so deeply revere? Now, too late, you at last see the reward that my beauty has earned you; the deadly curse of hateful jealousy for the extravagant honours paid me. When the people all over the world celebrated me as the New Venus and offered me sacrifices, then was the time for you to grieve and weep as though I were already dead; I see now, I see it clearly, that the one cause of all my misery is this use of the goddess’s name. So lead me up the rock as Fate has decreed. I am looking forward to my lucky bridal night and my marvellous husband. Why should I hesitate? Why should I shrink from him, even if he has been born for the destruction of the whole world?”

  After uttering these words, she walked resolutely forward. The crowds followed her up to the rock at the top of the hill, where they left her. They returned to their homes with bowed heads, extinguishing the wedding-torches with their tears. Her broken-hearted parents shut themselves up in their palace and gave themselves up to unending darkness.

  Psyche was left alone weeping and trembling at the very top of the hill, until a friendly air of the gently breathing West Wind sprang up. It gradually swelled out her clothes until it lifted her off the ground and carried her slowly down into a deep valley at the front of the hill, where she found herself gently laid out on a bed of the softest turf, starred with flowers.

  And so Psyche, reclining comfortably in this soft and herbaceous place, upon a bed of dewy grass, began to feel
rather more composed, and fell peacefully asleep. When she awoke, feeling thoroughly refreshed, she rose and walked calmly towards the great, tall trees of a nearby wood, through which a clear, crystalline stream was flowing. This stream led her to the heart of the wood where she came upon a royal palace, too wonderfully built to be the work of mortal man. You could see, as soon as you went in, that some god must be in residence at so pleasant and splendid a place.

  The ceiling, exquisitely carved in citrus wood and ivory, was supported by golden columns; the walls were sheeted with silver on which figures of many kinds of beasts were embossed and seemed to be running towards you as you came in. To have created this masterpiece, with all those animals engraved in silver, was clearly the work of an exceptionally gifted man, or rather of some demi-god, or, truly, some god, and the pavement was a mosaic of all kinds of precious stones arranged to form pictures. How lucky, how very lucky anyone would be to have the chance of walking on a jewelled floor like that! And the other parts of the palace were just as beautiful and just as fabulously costly. The walls were faced with massive gold blocks which glittered so brightly with their own radiance that the house had a daylight of its own even when the sun refused to shine; every room and portico and doorway streamed with light and the other riches of the house were in keeping. Indeed, it seemed the sort of palace that Jupiter himself might have built as his earthly residence. Psyche was entranced. She went up to the entrance and after a time dared to cross the threshold. The beauty of what she saw lured her on; and every new sight added to her wonder and admiration. She came on splendid treasure chambers stuffed with unbelievable riches; every wonderful thing that anyone could possibly imagine was there. But what amazed her even more than the stupendous wealth of this treasure of ecumenical dimensions, was that no single chain, bar, lock or armed guard protected it.