Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold

by Stephen Fry

  Love, Love, Love

  The Greeks had at least four words for love:

  AGAPE – this was the great and generous kind that we would describe as ‘charity’ and which could refer to any holy kind of love, such as parents for their children or the love of worshippers for their god.fn3

  EROS – the strain of love named after the god, or after whom the god is named. The kind that gets us into most trouble. So much more than affectionate, so much less than spiritual, eros and the erotic can lead us to glory and to disgrace, to the highest pitch of happiness and the deepest pit of despair.

  PHILIA – the form of love applied to friendship, partiality and fondness. We see its traces in words like ‘francophile’, ‘necrophilia’ and ‘philanthropy’.

  STORGE – the love and loyalty someone might have for their country or their sports team could be regarded as storgic.

  Eros himself, while later portrayed by Renaissance and Baroque artists in the manner I have described – a giggling, pert and dimpled cherub (sometimes wearing a blindfold to signify the wayward and arbitrary nature of his marksmanship) – was to the Greeks a fully grown young man of great accomplishment. An artist, an athlete (both sexual and sporting), he was regarded as a patron and protector of gay male love as well as a presiding presence in the gymnasium and on the running track. He was associated with dolphins, cockerels, roses, torches, lyres and, of course, that bow and quiverful of arrows.

  Perhaps the best-known myth involving Eros and Psyche – Physical Love and Soul – is almost absurdly ripe for interpretation and explanation. I think, however, that it is best told like all myths, not as an allegory, symbolic fable or metaphor, but as a story. Just a story. It has many of the rhythms and plot turns we associate with later quest narratives and fairy tales,fn4 perhaps because it comes down to us from what many regard as the strongest candidate for First Ever Novel: The Golden Ass, by the Roman writer Apuleius.fn5 The story’s influence on so much Western thought, folk literature and art – not to mention its charm – justify, I hope, its retelling in long form.

  Psyche

  Once upon a time, in a land whose name is now lost to us, lived a king and queen and their three beautiful daughters. We will call the king ARISTIDES and the queen DAMARIS. The two eldest girls, CALANTHE and ZONA, were lovely enough to be admired everywhere; but the youngest, whose name was PSYCHE, was so entirely beautiful that many in the kingdom abandoned the cult of Aphrodite and worshipped this young girl in her place. Aphrodite was a jealous and vengeful goddess and could bear no rivalry, least of all from a mortal. She summoned her son Eros.

  ‘I want you to find a pig,’ she said to him, ‘the ugliest and hairiest in all the land. Go to the palace where Psyche lives, shoot your arrow into her and make sure that the pig is the first thing she sees.’

  Used to his mother’s charming ways Eros set off on his errand cheerfully enough. He bought an especially bristly and foul-smelling boar from a swineherd who lived not far from the palace and led it that evening to the window of the room where Psyche slept. More clumsily than you might think of a slim athletic god, he tried to clamber through the window with the pig under his arm without making a noise.

  A number of things happened very quickly.

  Eros landed safely in the moonlit room.

  Psyche slumbered peacefully on.

  Eros wedged the pig firmly between his legs.

  Eros reached behind his shoulder to pluck an arrow from his quiver.

  The pig squealed.

  A flustered Eros scratched his own arm with the point of his arrow as he drew the bow.

  Psyche woke up with a start and lit a candle.

  Eros saw Psyche and fell deeply in love with her.

  What a business. The god of love himself lovestruck. You might imagine that the next thing he would do is fire an arrow at Psyche and that all would end happily. But here Eros comes out of the story rather well. So real, pure and absolute was his love that he could not think of cheating Psyche out of her own choice. He took one last longing look at her, turned and leapt out of the window and back into the night.

  Psyche saw the pig running round in wild, snuffling circles on her bedroom floor, concluded that she must be dreaming, blew out the candle and went back to sleep.

  Prophecy and Abandonment

  The next morning King Aristides was alarmed to be told by a servant that his youngest daughter seemed to have turned her bedroom into some kind of piggery. He and Queen Damaris had been worried enough already that, unlike her sisters Calanthe and Zona who had allied themselves to rich landowners, Psyche had stubbornly refused to marry. The news that she was now consorting with pigs made up his mind. He travelled to the oracle of Apollo to find out what the girl’s future might be.

  After the correct sacrifices and prayers had been offered up, the Sibyl made this answer. ‘Garland your child with flowers and carry her to a high place. Lay her on a rock. The one that will come to take her for its bride is the most dangerous being of earth, sky or water. All the gods of Olympus fear its power. So it is ordained, so it must be. Fail in this and the creature will lay waste all your kingdom and discord and despair shall come in its train. You, Aristides, will be called the destroyer of your people’s happiness.’

  Ten days later a strange procession wound its way out of the town. Carried high on a litter, festooned with flowers and dressed in the purest white, sat a gloomy but resigned Psyche. She had been told of the oracle’s pronouncement and had accepted it. Her so-called beauty had always been a source of irritation to her. She hated the fuss and stir it caused, how oddly it made people behave in her presence and how freakish and set apart it made her feel. She had planned never to marry, but if she had to then a rapacious beast would be no worse than a tedious fawning prince with mooncalf eyes. The agony of its attentions would at least be over quickly.

  With piteous wails of grief and sorrow the crowd laboured up the mountainside until they came to the great basalt rock on which Psyche was to be laid for sacrifice. Her mother Damaris howled, shrieked and sobbed. King Aristides patted her hand and wished himself elsewhere. Calanthe and Zona, their dull, elderly but rich husbands at their sides, each tried their best to conceal the deep satisfaction they felt at the knowledge that they were soon to be the unchallenged fairest in the land.

  As she was bound to the rock Psyche closed her eyes and breathed deeply, waiting for everyone to have done with indulging in their lamentations and shows of grief. Soon all suffering and pain would be over.

  Singing hymns to Apollo the crowd wound its way down the hill, leaving Psyche alone on the rock. The sun shone down upon her. Larks called in the blue sky. She had pictured boiling clouds, shrieking winds, lashing rain and dreadful thunder as accompaniments to her violation and death, not this glorious idyll of late-spring sunshine and rippling birdsong.

  Who or what could this creature be? If her father had reported the oracle correctly then even the high Olympians feared it. But she had heard of no such terrible monster in all the legends and rumours of legends on which she had been raised. Not even Typhon or Echidna had the power to alarm the mighty gods.

  Suddenly a warm breath of wind ruffled her white ceremonial robes. The breath became a gust that pushed a cushion of air between her and the cold basalt on which she lay. To her great surprise Psyche felt herself being lifted up. The wind seemed to be an almost solid thing – it supported her, holding her fast and carrying her up into the air.

  The Enchanted Castle

  Psyche was flying high above the ground, safe in the strong but gentle arms of ZEPHYRUS, the West Wind.

  ‘This cannot be the beast we are all meant to fear,’ she thought to herself. ‘This wind must be the beast’s messenger and herald. He is taking me to my doom. Well, at least it’s a comfortable way to travel.’

  She looked down on the city in which she had grown up. How small and neat and trim everything looked. So unlike the overgrown, ill-smelling and ramshackle township she knew and hate
d. Zephyrus gained speed and height and soon they were swooping over hills and along valleys, soaring over the blue ocean and flashing past islands, until they were in a country she did not recognize. It was fertile and densely wooded, and as they made a gradual descent she saw, set in a clearing, a magnificent palace, cornered by round towers and crowned with turrets. Gently and easily Psyche was lowered, until she landed with a gliding step on the flowered grass in front of a pair of golden gates. With a fizz and a sigh the wind flew away and she found herself alone. She heard no growls, roars or rapacious snarls, only a distant music floating from the palace’s interior. As she made her tentative approach the gates swung open.

  The royal palace in which Psyche grew up was – to the ordinary citizen of her country – ornate, opulent and overwhelming, but next to the gorgeous and fantastical edifice she was entering it was nothing but a crude hovel. As she made her way inside her amazed eyes passed over columns of gold, citron-wood and ivory, silver-relief panels carved with an intricacy and artistry she had never dreamed possible and marble statues so perfectly rendered that they seemed to move and breathe. The light glittered in the shimmering gold halls and passageways, the floor she stepped over was a dancing mosaic of jewels and the mysterious music grew louder and louder as she penetrated deeper inside. She passed fountains where crystal waters played in miraculous arcs, shaping and reshaping and quite defying gravity. She became aware of low female voices. Either she was dreaming or this palace was divine. No mortal, and surely no monster, could have ordained so fabulous a habitation.

  She had arrived at a square central room whose painted panels showed scenes of the birth of the gods and the war with the Titans. The air was perfumed with sandalwood, roses and warm spices.

  Voices, Visions and a Visitor

  The whispers and music seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, but all at once they ceased. In the loud silence left behind, a quiet voice called to her.

  ‘Psyche, Psyche, don’t be shy. Don’t stare and twitch like a startled faun. Don’t you know that all this is yours? All this beauty, all these gemstones, this grand palace and the lands around it – all yours. Go through that doorway and bathe yourself. The voices you hear are your handmaidens, here to do your bidding. When you are ready a great feast will be laid out. Welcome, beloved Psyche, welcome and enjoy.’

  The dazed girl made her way into the next room, a vast chamber hung with tapestries and silks, lit by flaming torches in bronze brackets. At one end was a gleaming copper bathtub and in the centre a simply colossal bed whose myrtle-wound frame was of polished cypress and whose linen was strewn with rose petals. Psyche was so tired, so befuddled and so unable to make sense of things that she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, in the confused hope that sleep might wake her up from this wild dream.

  But when she awoke she was still inside the dream. She got up from the soft brocaded cushions and saw that there was steam rising from the bath. She stepped from her clothes into the water.

  This is when things became entirely strange.

  A silver flask by the side of the bath rose up, danced in the air and tipped its contents into the water. Before she had time to scream out her surprise a glorious cloud of unknown fragrances assailed her senses. Now an ivory-handled brush was scrubbing her back and a ewer of hot water was being emptied over her hair. Invisible hands kneaded, stroked, pummelled, teased and pressed. Psyche giggled like a little girl and allowed it all to happen. Whether this was a dream inside the real world or a moment of reality inside a dream no longer seemed important. She would enjoy the adventure and see where it took her.

  Damasks, silks, satins and gossamer tissues flew from concealed closets and glided down onto the bed to shimmer beside her, rustling in anticipation of being chosen. She selected a chiffon gown of lapis blue – loose, comfortable and exciting.

  The doors of her chambers opened and with shy uncertain steps she made her way back to the main hall. A great feast was laid out on the table. Unseen hands were moving backwards and forwards with platters of fruit, cups of fermented honey, dishes of exotic roast birds and plates of sweetmeats. Never had Psyche seen or imagined such a banquet. Beside herself with joy she dipped her fingers into dishes of such exquisite deliciousness that she could not help crying out in delight. The swine in the piggeries of her parents’ farms did not snuffle and truffle at their wooden troughs with more uninhibited abandon than she did at the magical vessels of crystal, silver and gold that filled and refilled themselves as fast as she could empty them. Napkins flew up to dab her wine-stained lips and food-smeared chin. An invisible choir sang soft ballads and hymns to human love as she gorged and guzzled in ecstasy.

  Finally she was done. A feeling of great warmth and well-being stole over her. If she was being fattened up for an ogre then so be it.

  The candles on the table now rose up and led Psyche back to the bedchamber. The flickering torches and soft oil lamps had died down and the room was in almost complete darkness. The unseen hands pushed her gently to the bedside and her chiffon gown lifted up and away. Naked she lay back between the satin sheets and closed her eyes.

  An instant later she gasped in shock. Someone or something had slipped into bed beside her. She felt her body being gently pulled towards this figure. Sweet warm breath mingled with hers. Her skin met the body, not of a beast, but of a man. He was beardless and – she knew this without being able to see him – beautiful. She could not see even the outline of him, only feel his heat and youthful firmness. He kissed her lips and they entwined.

  Next morning the bed was empty and Psyche was bathed once more by the invisible handmaidens. As the long day passed she at last summoned the courage to ask them questions.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Why, you are here, your highness.’

  ‘And where is here?’

  ‘Far from there but close to nearby.’

  ‘Who is the master of this palace.’

  ‘You are the mistress.’

  Never a straight answer. She did not press. She knew that she was in an enchanted place and could sense that her handmaidens were slaves to its rules and requirements.

  That night, in pitch darkness, the beautiful young man came to her bed again. She tried to speak to him, but he placed a finger to her lips and a voice sounded inside her head.

  ‘Hush, Psyche. Ask no questions. Love me as I love you.’

  And slowly, as the days passed, she realized that she did love this unseen man very much. Every night they made love. Every morning she awoke to find him gone.

  The palace was glorious and there was nothing Psyche’s handmaidens would not do for her. She had everything she could ever want, the best to eat or drink and music to accompany her everywhere. But what long, lonely days stretched out between the evenings of delicious love, how hard she found it to pass the time.

  The ‘monster’ with whom she slept every night was, you will have guessed, the god Eros whose self-inflicted dart had caused him to fall in love with Psyche, a love now magnified by their repeated nights of mutual bliss. The oracle had been right to say that Eros was a being whose powers frightened all the gods, for there was not one Olympian who had not been conquered by Eros at some time. Perhaps he was a monster after all. But he could be sensitive and sweet as well as capricious and cruel. He saw that Psyche was not entirely happy and one night, as they lay together in the darkness, he quizzed her tenderly.

  ‘What ails you, beloved wife?’

  ‘I hate to say this when you have given me so much, but I get lonely during the day. I miss my sisters.’

  ‘Your sisters?’

  ‘Calanthe and Zona. They believe me to be dead.’

  ‘Only unhappiness can come from consorting with them. Misery and despair for them and for you.’

  ‘But I love them …’

  ‘Misery and despair, I tell you.’

  Psyche sighed.

  ‘Please believe me,’ he said. ‘It is for the best that you do not see them.�
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  ‘What about you? May I not see you? May I never look into the face of the one I love so well?’

  ‘You must not ask me that. Never ask me that.’

  The days passed and Eros saw that Psyche – for all the wine and food, for all the music and magical fountains and enchanted voices – was pining.

  ‘Cheer up, beloved! Tomorrow is our anniversary,’ he said.

  A year! Had a whole year passed already?

  ‘My present to you is to grant your wish. Tomorrow morning my friend Zephyrus will await you outside the palace and take you where you need to be. But please be careful. Do not allow yourself to become too involved in the lives of your family. And you must promise never to tell them about me. Not one word about me.’

  Psyche promised and they fell into each others arms for a night of anniversary love. Never had she felt more passionate adoration or physical delight, and she sensed equal feelings of ardour and love in him too.

  The next morning she awoke, as ever, to an empty bed. In a great fever of impatience she allowed herself to be dressed and served breakfast by the handmaidens before running excitedly to the great gate at the front of the palace. She had barely stepped out before Zephyrus swept down and flew her away in his strong, supportive arms.

  Sisters

  Meanwhile, back in the land of Psyche’s birth, the populace had been marking the anniversary of her capture by the fabled unseen monster. King Aristides and Queen Damaris had led the procession of mourning up the hillside to the basalt slab on which their daughter had been bound – since named ‘the Rock of Psyche’ in her honour. Now there remained at the monument only the two princesses, Calanthe and Zona, who had loudly made it known to all that they wished to stay behind and lament in private.

  Once the crowd died away they pulled back their mourning veils and began to laugh.