Psyche

by Louis Couperus

  Psyche went away, twice as sad as she had come: she had never expected such a rebuff. But soon she saw below her in the valley another beautifully constructed temple in the middle of a dark sacred grove. She feared to miss any chance, even a remote one, of putting things right for herself, so she went down to implore the protection of the deity of the place, whoever it might be. She saw various splendid offerings hanging from branches of the grove and from the temple door-posts; among them were garments embroidered with gold letters that spelt out the name of the goddess to whom all were dedicated, namely Juno, and recorded the favours which she had granted their donors.

  Psyche fell on her knees, wiped away her tears and, embracing the temple altar, still warm from a recent sacrifice, began to pray. “Sister and wife of great Jupiter! You may be residing in one of your ancient temples on Samos—the Samians boast that you were born on their island and uttered your infant cries there, and they brought you up. Or you may be visiting your happy city of Carthage on its high hill, where you are adored as a virgin travelling across Heaven in a lion-drawn chariot. Or you may be watching over the famous walls of Argos, past which the river Inachus flows, where you are adored as the Queen of Heaven, the Thunderer’s bride. Wherever you are, you whom the whole East venerates as Zygia the Goddess of Marriage, and the whole West as Lucina, Goddess of Childbirth, I appeal to you now as Juno the Protectress. I beg you to watch over me in my overwhelming misfortune and rescue me from the dangers that threaten me. You see, Goddess, I am very tired and very frightened, and I know that you’re always ready to help women who are about to have babies, if they get into any sort of trouble.”

  Hearing Psyche’s appeal, Juno appeared in all her august glory and said: “I should be only too pleased to help you, but I can’t possibly go against the wishes of my daughter-in-law Venus, whom I have always loved as though she were my own child. Besides, I am forbidden by the laws to harbour any fugitive slave-girl without her owner’s consent.”

  Psyche was distressed by this second shipwreck of her hopes and felt quite unable to go on looking for her winged husband. She gave up all hope of safety and said to herself: “Where can I turn for help, now that even these powerful goddesses will do nothing for me but express their sympathy? Tangled as I am in all these snares, where can I go? Where is there a building, or any dark place, in which I can hide myself from the inescapable eyes of great Venus? The fact is, my dear Psyche, that you must borrow a little male courage, you must boldly renounce all idle hopes and make a voluntary surrender to your mistress. Late though it is, you must at least try to calm her rage by submissive behaviour. Besides, after this long search, you have quite a good chance of finding your husband at his mother’s house.”

  Psyche’s decision to undertake this appeal was risky and even suicidal, but she prepared herself for it by considering what sort of appeal she ought to make to the goddess.

  Venus meanwhile gave up employing earthly means to find Psyche and returned to Heaven, where she ordered her chariot to be got ready. The fact that it had lost some of its gold—chiselled away to make a filigree decoration—made it more valuable, not less. It had been her husband the goldsmith Vulcan’s wedding present to her. Four white doves from the flock in constant attendance on her, flew happily forward and offered their rainbow-coloured necks to the jewelled harness and, when Venus mounted, drew the chariot along with enthusiasm. Behind, played a crowd of naughty sparrows and other little birds that sang very sweetly in announcement of the goddess’s arrival.

  Now the clouds vanished, the sky opened and the high upper air received her joyfully. Her singing retinue were not in the least afraid of swooping eagles or greedy hawks, and she drove straight to the royal citadel of Jupiter, where she demanded the immediate services of Mercury, the Town-crier of Heaven, in a matter of great urgency. When Jupiter nodded his sapphire brow in assent, Venus was delighted; she retired from Heaven and gave Mercury, who was now accompanying her, careful instructions. “Brother from Arcadia, you know that I, your sister, have never in my life undertaken any business at all without your assistance, and you know how long I have been unable to find my slave-girl who is in hiding. So the only solution is for you to make a public announcement offering a reward to the person who finds her. My orders must be carried out immediately. Her person must be accurately described so that nobody will be able to plead ignorance as an excuse for harbouring her.”

  And as she spoke she handed him a document indicating Psyche’s name and other particulars and immediately went home. Mercury did as he was told. He went from country to country crying out everywhere: “If any person can apprehend and seize the person of a king’s runaway daughter, Venus’s slave-girl, by name Psyche, or give any information that will lead to her discovery, let such a person go to Mercury, Town-crier of Heaven, in his temple behind the Circus column beside the temple of Murcia in Rome. The reward offered is as follows: seven sweet kisses from the mouth of the said Venus herself and one delicious thrust of her honeyed tongue between his lips.”

  A jealous competitive spirit naturally fired all mankind when they heard this reward announced, and it was this that, most of all, put an end to Psyche’s hesitation. She was already near her mistress’s gate when she was met by one of the household, named Habit, who screamed out at once at the top of her voice: “You wicked slave-girl, you! So you’ve discovered at last that you have a mistress, eh? But don’t pretend, you brazen-faced thing, that you haven’t heard of the huge trouble that you’ve caused us in our search for you. Well, I’m glad that you’ve fallen into my hands, because you’re safe here—safe inside the doors of Hell, and there won’t be any delay in your punishment either, you obstinate creature.” She seized Psyche’s hair violently and dragged her into Venus’s presence, though she came along willingly enough.

  When Venus saw her brought into her presence she burst into the hilarious laugh of a woman who is desperately angry. She shook her head and scratched her right ear. “So you condescend,” she cried, “to pay your respects to your mother-in-law? Or perhaps you have come to visit your husband, hearing that he’s dangerously ill from the burn you gave him? I promise you the sort of welcome that a good mother-in-law is bound to give her son’s wife.” She clapped her hands for her slaves, Anxiety and Grief, and when they ran up, gave Psyche over to them for punishment. Obeying their mistress’s orders, they flogged her cruelly and tortured her in other ways besides, after which they brought her back to Venus’s presence.

  Once more Venus yelled with laughter: “Just look at her!” she cried. “Look at the whore! That big belly of hers makes me feel quite sorry for her. By Heaven, it wrings my grandmotherly heart! How wonderful to be called a grandmother at my time of life! And to think that the son of this disgusting slave will be called Venus’s own grandchild! No, but of course that is nonsense. A marriage between unequal partners, celebrated in the depth of the country without witnesses and lacking even the consent of the bride’s father, can’t possibly be recognised by law; your child will be a bastard, even if I permit you to bring it into the world.”

  With this, she flew at poor Psyche, tore her clothes to shreds, pulled out handfuls of her hair, then grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her head a violent shaking. Next she took wheat, barley, millet, lentils, beans and the seeds of poppy and vetch, and mixed them all together into a heap. “You look such a dreadful sight, slave,” she said, “that the only way that you are ever likely to get a lover is by hard work, so now I’ll test you myself, to find out what you can do. Do you see this pile of seeds all mixed together? Sort out the different kinds, stack them in separate heaps and do the job to my satisfaction before nightfall.” When she had given this great heap of seeds to Psyche to deal with, she flew off to attend some wedding feast or other.

  Psyche made no attempt to set about the inextricable mass but sat gazing dumbly at it, until a very small ant, one of the country sort, realised the stupendous nature of her task. Pity for Psyche as wife of the mighty God of
Love set it cursing the cruelty of her mother-in-law and scurrying about to round up every ant in the district. “Take pity,” she said, “on this pretty girl, you busy children of the generous Earth. She’s the wife of Love himself and her life is in great danger. Quick, quick, to the rescue!”

  They came rushing up as fast as their six legs would carry them, wave upon wave of ants, and began working furiously to sort the pile out, grain by grain. Soon they had arranged it all tidily in separate heaps and had run off again at once.

  Venus returned that evening, a little drunk, smelling of fragrant ointments and swathed in rose-wreaths. When she saw with what prodigious speed Psyche had finished the task, she said: “You didn’t do a hand’s stroke yourself, you wicked thing. This is the work of someone whom you have made infatuated with you—though you’ll be sorry for it.” She threw her part of a coarse loaf and went to bed.

  Meanwhile she had confined Cupid to an isolated room in the depths of the house, partly to prevent him from playing his usual naughty tricks and so making his injury worse; partly to keep him away from his sweetheart. So the lovers spent a miserable night, unable to visit each other, although under the same roof.

  As soon as the Goddess of Dawn had set her team moving across the sky, Venus called Psyche and said: “Do you see the grove fringing the bank of that stream over there, with fruit bushes hanging low over the water? Shining golden sheep are wandering about in it, without a shepherd to look after them. I want you to go there and by some means or other fetch me a hank of their precious wool.”

  Psyche rose willingly enough, but with no intention of obeying Venus’s orders; she had made up her mind to throw herself in the stream and so end her sorrows. But a green reed, producer of sweet music, was blown upon by some divine breeze and uttered words of wisdom: “I know, Psyche, what dreadful sorrows you have suffered, but you must not pollute these sacred waters by a suicide. And, another thing, you must not go into the grove, to risk your life among those dangerous sheep, until the heat of the sun is past. It so infuriates the beasts that they kill any human being who ventures among them. Either they gore them with sharp horns, or butt them to death with their stony foreheads, or bite them with their poisonous teeth. Wait until the afternoon wears to a close and the serene whispers of these waters lull them asleep. Hide meanwhile under that tall plane-tree which drinks the same water as I do, and as soon as the sheep calm down, go into the grove nearby and gather the wisps of golden wool that you’ll find sticking on every briar there.”

  It was a simple, kindly reed, telling Psyche how to save herself, and she took its advice, which proved to be sound: that evening she was able to return to Venus with a whole lapful of the delicate golden wool. Yet even her performance of this second dangerous task did not satisfy the goddess, who frowned and told her with a cruel smile: “Someone has been helping you again, that’s quite clear. But now I’ll put your lofty courage and singular prudence to a still severer test. Do you see the summit of that high mountain over there? You’ll find that a dark-coloured stream cascades down its precipitous sides into a gorge below and then floods the Stygian marshes and feeds the hoarse River of Cocytus. Here is a little jar. Go off at once and bring it back to me brimful of ice-cold water fetched from the very middle of the stream at the point where it bursts out of the rock.”

  She gave Psyche a jar of polished crystal and packed her off with renewed and even more menacing threats.

  Psyche started at once for the top of the mountain, thinking that there at least she would find a means of ending her wretched life. As she came up to the ridge of the hill she saw what a stupendously dangerous and difficult task had been set her. The dreadful waters of the river burst out from halfway up an enormously tall, steep, slippery precipice; cascaded down into a narrow conduit, which they had hollowed for themselves, and flowed unseen into the gorge below. On both sides of their outlet she saw fierce dragons crawling, never asleep, always on guard with unwinking eyes and stretching their long necks over the water. And the waters themselves seemed to have voices, which called out: “Be off! What are you doing? Take care! What are you at? Look out! Off with you! You’ll die!”

  Psyche stood still as stone; the utter impossibility of her task was so overwhelming that she could no longer even relieve herself by tears—that last comfort. But the kind, sharp eyes of good Providence noticed when her innocent soul was in trouble, and Jupiter’s royal bird, the rapacious eagle, suddenly sailed down to her with outstretched wings. He gratefully remembered the ancient debt that he owed to Cupid for having helped him to carry the Phrygian cup-bearer to Jupiter, and so, flying past Psyche’s face, addressed her with these words: “Silly, inexperienced Psyche, how can you ever hope to steal one drop of this most sacred and terrifying stream? Surely you have heard that Jupiter himself fears the waters of Styx, and that just as human beings swear by the Blessed Gods, so they swear by the Sovereign Styx. But let me take that little jar.” He quickly snatched it from her grasp and soared off on his strong wings, steering a zigzag course between the two rows of furious fangs and vibrating three-forked tongues. The stream was reluctant to give up its water and warned him to escape while he still could, but he explained that the Goddess Venus wanted the water and pretended that she had commissioned him to fetch it; a story which carried some weight with the stream. Psyche, accepting the brimful jar with delight, quickly returned with it to Venus, but still could not appease her fury. Instead, threatening even worse and grimmer acts of villainy, she said with a smile which seemed to spell the girl’s ruin: “You must be a witch, a very clever, very wicked witch, else you could never have carried out my orders so diligently, but I have still one more task for you to perform, my dear girl. Take this box (and she gave it to her) and go down to the Underworld to the death-palace of Orcus. Hand it to Proserpine and ask her to send this box back to me with a little of her beauty in it, enough to last for at least one short day. Tell her that I have had to make such a drain on my own store, as a result of looking after my sick son, that I have none left. Then come back with the box at once, because I must rub its contents over me before I go to the theatre of the gods tonight.”

  This seemed to Psyche the end of everything, since her orders were to go down to the Underworld of Tartarus. Psyche saw that she was undisguisedly being sent to her immediate death. She went at once to a high tower, deciding that her straightest and easiest way to the Underworld was to throw herself down from it. But the tower suddenly broke into human speech: “Poor child,” it said, “do you really mean to commit suicide by jumping down from me? How rash of you to lose hope just before the end of your trials. Don’t you realise that as soon as the breath is out of your body you will indeed go right to the depths of Tartarus, but that once you take that way there’s no hope of return? Listen to me. The famous Greek city of Lacedaemon is not far from here. Go there at once and ask to be directed to Taenarus, which is rather an out of the way place to find. Once you get there you’ll find one of the ventilation holes of Dis. Open gates lead on to a pathless way which, once you have started along it, leads directly to the palace of Orcus. But take care not to go empty-handed through that place of darkness; carry with you two pieces of barley bread soaked in honey water, one in each hand, and two coins in your mouth.

  “When you have gone a good way along that deadly road you’ll meet a lame ass loaded with wood, and its lame driver will ask you to hand him some sticks which the ass has dropped. Pass him by in silence. Then you will soon reach the river of the dead, where the ferryman Charon will at once demand his fee before he takes you across in his patched boat among the crowds of ghosts. It seems that avarice flourishes even among the dead, because Charon, the tax-gatherer of Pluto, does not do anything for nothing. (A poor man on the point of death is expected to have his passage-fee ready; but if he can’t get hold of a coin, he isn’t allowed to die.) Anyhow, give the filthy old man one of your coins, but let him take it from your mouth, with his own hand. While you are being ferried acros
s the sluggish stream, the corpse of an old man will float by; he will raise a putrid hand and beg you to haul him into the boat. But you must be careful not to yield to any feeling of pity for him; that is forbidden. Once ashore, you will meet three old women some distance away from the bank. They will be weaving cloth and will ask you to help them. To touch the cloth is also forbidden. All these apparitions, and others like them, are snares set for you by Venus; her object is to make you let go one of the sops you are carrying, and you must understand that the loss of even one of them would be fatal—it would prevent your return to this world. They are for you to give to the huge, fierce, formidable hound with three massive heads, whose thunderous barking assails the dead; though they have no need to be frightened by him because he can do them no harm. “He keeps perpetual guard at the threshold of Proserpine’s dark palace, the desolate abode of Pluto. Muzzle him with one of your sops and you’ll find it easy to get past him into the presence of Proserpine herself. She’ll give you a warm welcome, offer you a comfortable seat and have you brought a magnificent meal. But sit on the ground, ask for a piece of common bread and eat nothing else. Then deliver your message, and she’ll give you what you came for.

  “As you go out, throw the dog the remaining sop to appease his savagery, then pay the greedy ferryman the remaining coin and, after crossing his river, go back by the way you came until you see once again the familiar constellations of Heaven. One last, important warning: be careful not to open or even look at the box you carry back; that hidden receptacle of divine beauty is not for you to explore.”

  Such were the terms in which the prophetic tower offered its predictions. Psyche went at once to Taenarus where, armed with the coins and the two sops, she ran down the road to the Underworld. She passed in silence by the lame man with the ass, paid Charon the first coin, stopped her ears to the entreaties of the floating corpse, refused to be taken in by the appeal of the spinning women, pacified the dreadful dog with the first sop and entered Proserpine’s palace. There she refused the comfortable chair and the tempting meal, sat humbly at Proserpine’s feet, content with a crust of common bread, and finally delivered Venus’s message. Psyche filled the box with the secret substance and went away; then she stopped the dog’s barking with the second sop, paid Charon with the second coin and returned from the Underworld, feeling in far better health and spirits than while on her way down there and delighted to see the bright daylight again. Though she was in a hurry to complete her errand she allowed her curiosity to get the better of her. She said to herself, “I should be a fool to carry this divine beauty without borrowing a tiny touch of it for my own use: I must do everything possible to please my beautiful lover.”