AMOR AI\TI)PSYCHE The Psy.hic

Development tlfthe Feminine

A Commentary on the TaIe bV ATtttlt'ttt:l

ERICFI NEUMANN

"

BOLLINGEN SERIES LIV

ffiOR,4.X$D IPSYCHtr,

THE PSYCHIC DEVELOPMENT

OF THE FEMININE

A COMMENTARY ON THE TALE BY APULEIUS

tsY ERICH NEUMINN

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

RALPH MANHEIM

BOLLINGEN SERIES LIV

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright @ r956 by Bollingen Foundation Inc., New York, N.Y.

Published by Princeton University Press

+

THIS IS THE FIFTY_FOURTH IN A SERIES OF WORKS

SPONSORED BY BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION

Originally published in German as

Apuleius: Amor und Psyche, mit einem Kommentar uon Erich

IYeumann: Iiin Beitrag zur seelischen Entuicftlung des Weiblichen

Ily Rascher Verlag, Zurich,, rg52

Library of Congress Catalogue Card No. 56- t o4z5

Manufacture d in the LJnited States of America

+

First Princeton/Bollingen Paperbacft Edition, I 97 I

T hird printing, I 97 I

/SBl/ o-69I -o I 772-7 (Pa?erbacft edn.)

/SBN o-69I -og7oI - r (hardcouer edn-)

ISBN-L3: 978-0-691-0t772-3 (pbk.)

r7 r9 r8

CONTENTS

EDITORI AL N OTE

vii

THE TALE

Amor and Psyche, from the Metamorpltoses

or Golden Ass of Lucius APuleius

3

THE COMMENTARY

The Psychic Development of the Feminine

57

Postscript

r53

LIST OF WORKS CITED

165

INDEX

T7L

EDITORIAL NOTE

The texr used for the tale of Amor and Psyche is

from FI. E. Butler's translation of T he Meta-

ffiorphoses or Golden Ass of Aryuleius of Madauro,

prrbiirh.d ar rhe Clarendon Press, Oxford, r9ro, in

two volumes, and used with the permission of the

Press. Archaic forms of address have been changed

to modern forms except in passages where a mortal

addresses a god or goddess, or a creature or in-

animate thing addresses a mortal. In a few other

cases, the language has been modified to remove

rather .*rr.*. aichaisms or to conform with the

German translation (by Albrecht Schaeffer) orig

inally used by Dr. Neumann' where this was neces'

sary to bring out Dr. Neumann's meaning. In

general, the ,rr*. of the god is given as Amor

Ihro,rghout the tale rather than Cupid'

Acknowledgmenr is gratefully made, also, to

the Hogarrh Pr.r, for a quotation from r. B. Leish-

man's translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's Poemsl

ro Farrar, Srraus, and cudahy for a passage from

Robert Graves' translation of T he Golden Ass

(U.S. copyright rg5r by Robert Graves); and to

Miss Emily chirhol* for a Passage from her ulr-

llublished translation of Rilke's "Alcestis"'

THE TALE

Jrnor and PsYche

from the METAM9RPH9SES or G9LDEN Ass

of Lucius -4quleius+

BASED ON TTIE TRANSLATION OF II' E' BUTLER

,AM OK AND PS Y C HE

.tfrq a certain city there once lived a king and queen.

ll They had three daughters very fair to view. But

JL *h.r.r, it was thought that the charms of the two

eldest, great as th.y *.i., could yet be worthily cele'

brated 6y mortal praise, the youngest daughter was so

strangely and *ot d.rfully fair that human speech *tt-

all ,oo poor to describe it.t beauty, of even to tell of

its prair.. M"ny of the citizens and multitudes of strang-

ers were drawn to the town in eager crowds by the

fame of so marvelous a sight and were struck dumb at

the sight of such unapproachable loveliness, so that,

raising their right hands to their lips, with thumb erect

and the first firg.t laid ro its base, th.y worshiped her

with prayers of adoration as though she were the goddess

Venus herself. And now the fame had gone abroad,

through all the neighboring rowns and all the country

round about, that the goddess, who sprang from the blue

deep of the sea and was born from the spray of the foam-

ing waves, had deigned to manifest her godhead to all

,h. world and was dwelling among earthly folki or, if

that was not sor it was certain, they said, that heaven

had rained fresh procreative dew, and earth, not sea,

had brought forth as a fower a second Venus in all the

glory of her maidenhood.

This new belief increased each dty, until it knew no

bounds. The fame thereof had already spread abroad to

the nearest islands and had traversed many a province

and a great portion of the earth. And now many I rnof-

t3]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

tal iourneyed from far and sailed over the great deeps

of o..rn, flocking to see the wonder and glory of the

age. Now no man sailed to Papho$ or Cnidos, of even

,o' Cyrhera, that they might behold the goddess Venusl

her rires were pur aside, her temples fell to ruin, her

sacred couches were disregarded, her ceremonies neg-

lected, her images uncrowned, her altars desolate and

foul wirh fireless ashes. It was to a girl men prayed,

and it was in thc worship of mortal beauty that they

sought to aPPease the Power of the great goddess' When

thelaid *.rr, forth at morning, men propitiated the

name of Venus with feast and sacrifice, though Venus

was nor there; and as the maid moved through the

sffeets, rnultitudes prayed to her and ofiered fowers

woven in garlands or scattered loose at will.

But the ffue Venus was exceedingly angry that di-

vine honors should be transferred thus extravagantly to

the worship of a rnorrar maid. she could bear her fury no

io"g.t, h.i head shook, a deep groan burst from her lips,

and rhus she spoke with herself : "Behold, I the first

parent of created thitrgs, the primal source of all the ele-

L.rr,r, behold, I Venus, th. kindty mother of all the

world, rnust share my maiesty and honor with a mortal

maid, and my name ,irr, dwells in the heavens is dragged

through the earthly muck. shall I endure the doubt

casr uy this vicarious adoratioflr this worship of my

godhead that is shared with her ? shall a girl that is

doomed to die parade in my likeness ? It was in vain the

shepherd, on whose impartial iustice |ove ser the seal of

his approval, preferred me over such mighty goddesses

for rny .*prrrirrg beauty. But this girl, whoever she be,

t4I

THE TALE

that has usurPed *y honors shall have no ioy thereof: Iwill make her repent of her beauty' even her unlawful

Ioveliness."

straighrway she summoned her winged headstrong

bo/, that *i.t .d boy, scorner of law and order, who,

armed with arrows and torch aflame, speeds through

others' horires by night, saps the ties of wedlock' and all

unpunished commits hideous crime and uses all his

po*., for ill. Him then, though wantonness and lust

are his by birth, she fired still further by her words,

and leading him to that city showed him Psyche-for

so the *ril was called-face to face' Then, groaning at

the far_flown renown of her fair rival, her utterance

broken with indignation, she cried: "I implore you by

all the bonds of love that bind you to her that bore You,

by the sweer wounds your arrows deal and by the

honeyed smart of your fires, avenge your mother, YeS'

avenge her to the full and srernly punish this rebellious

beauty. Bur this, this only, this beyond all else I would

have you do and do with a will' Cause the maid to be

consumed with passion for the vilest of men' for one

whom Fortune has condemned to have neirher health,

nor wealth, nor honor, one so broken that through all

the world his miserY has no Peer'"

so spoke she, and with parted lips kissed her son long

and fervently. Then she returned ro the shore hard by,

where the sea ebbs and fows, and treading with rosy feet

the topmost foam of the quivering waves' plunged down

to the deep's dry foor. The sea gods tarried not to do

her service. It was as though she had long since colll-

manded their presence, tho"grt in truth she had but itttt

tsI

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

formed the wish. The daughters of Nereus came singing

in harmony, Neptune, also called Portunus, came withbristling beard of azure, his wife Salacia with fish-teem-

ittg womb, and their babe Palaemon, rider of the dolphin.

Now far and wide hosts of Tritons came plungingthrough the seas; one blew a soft blast from his echoing

shell, another with a silken awning shaded her head

from the fierce heat of the sun, a third held up a mirrorbefore his mistress's eyes, while others swam yoked be-

neath her car. Such was the host that escorted Venus,

as she went on her way to the halls of ocean.

Meanwhile Psyche, for all her manifest beauty, had

no ioy of her loveliness. All men gazed upon her, yet

never a king nor prince nor even a lover from the com-

mon folk came forward desirous to claim her hand inmarriage. Men marveled at her divine loveliness, but as

men marvel at a statue fairly wrought. Long since, her

elder sisters, whose beauty was but ordinary and had

never been praised through all the world, had been be-

trothed to kings who came to woo, and they had become

h*ppy brides. But Psyche sat at home an unwedded

maid and, sick of body and broken in spirit, bewailed

her loneliness and solitude, loathing in her heart the

loveliness that had charmed so many nations. Where-fore the father of the hapless girl was seized with great

grief; suspecting the anger of heaven and fearing the

wrath of the gods, he inquired of the most ancient oracle

of the Milesian god, and with prayer and burnt offeringbesought the mighty deity to send a husband to wed the

maid whom none had wooed.

Apollo, though an Ionian and a Greek, in order not to

THE TALL,

embarrass the author of this Milesian tale delivered his

oracle in Latin as follows:

On some h,igh crag, O fuing, set forth tlte maid,

In all the PomP of funnal robes 4v741€d-

Hope for no bridegroorn born of mortal seed,

But fierce and wild a'nd of the dragon breed-

He suoops all-conquering, borne on airy wing,

With frrt and samd he mafres his ltaruestingi

Trembles before him f oue, utltom gods do dread,

And quafres the darfrsome riuer of tlte dea,d.

The king, once so happy, on hearing the pronouncement

of the sacred oracle returned home in sorrow and distress

lnd set forth to his wife the things ordained in that ill-starred oracle. They mourned and wept and lamented forrnany days. But at last the time drew near for the loathsome

pcrformance of that cruel ordinance. The unhappy maid

was arrayed for her ghastly bridal, the torches' flame

lrrrrned low, clogged with dark soot and ash, the strains

,,[ the fute of wedlock were changed to the melancholy

l ,yclian mode, the glad chant of the hymeneal hymnt'rrtled in mournful wailing, and the girl on the eve ofrrurrriage wiped away her tears even with her bridalv..il. The whole city also joined in weeping the sad fate

,,1' the stricken house, and the public grief found expres-

:,i,n in an edict suspending all business.

lltrt the commands of heaven must be obeYed, and the

urrlrappy Psyche must go to meet her doom. And so

rvlrcn all the rites of this ghastly bridal had been per-

l,,r'rrrcd amid deepest grief, the funeral train of the

lrvirrg dead was led forth escorted by all the people. It

t6] t7]

lTMOR AND PSYCHE

was not her marriage procession that Psyche followeddissolved in tears, but her own obsequies. Bowed in griefand overwhelmed by their sore calamity, her parentsstill shrank to perform the hateful deed. But their daugh-ter herself addressed them thus:

"Why torment your hapless age with this long weep-ingl Why with ceaseless wailing weary the life withinyou, life more near and dear to me than to yourselves ?

Why with vain tears deform those fearures that I so

revere? Why lacerate your eyesP Your eyes are mine!Why beat your bosoms and the breasts that suckled me ?

Lo! what rich recompense you have for my gloriousbeauty! Too late you perceive that the mortal blow thatstrikes you down is dealt by wicked Envy. When nx-tions and peoples gave me divine honor, when with onevoice they hailed me as a new Venus, then was the timefor you to grieve, to weep and mourn me as one dead.Now I perceive, now my eyes are opened. It is the nameof venus and that alone which has brought me to mydeath. Lead me on and set me on the crag that fate has

appointed. I hasten to meet that blest union, I hasten tobehold the noble husband that awairs me. Why do Iput off and shun his coming ? Was he not born ro de-stroy all the world ? "

So spoke the maid and then was silent, and with step

unwavering mingled in the crowd of folk that followedto do her honor. They climbed a lofty mounrain andcame to the appointed crag. There they placed themaiden on the topmost peak and all departed from her.The marriage torches, with which they had lit the waybefore her, were all extinguished by their tears. They

THE TALL

left them and with downcast heads prepared to return

home. As for her hapless Parents, crushed by the weight

of their calamity, they shut themselves within their

house of gloom and gave themselves over to perpetual

night. Psyihe meanwhile sat tremblittg and afraid upon

the very summit of the crag and wepr, when suddenly

^ soft air from the breathing west made her raiment

wave and blew out the tunic of her bosom, then gradu-

ally raised her and, bearing her slowly on its quiet

breath down the slopes of that high cliff, let her fall

gently down and laid her on the flowery sward in the

bosom of a deep vale.

+

Psyche l"y sweetly reclined in that soft grassy place on

" .o,,.h of herbage fresh with dew. Her wild anguish of

spirit was assuaged and she fell softly asleep. When she

had slumbered enough and was refreshed, she rose to

her feet. The tempest had passed from her soul. She

beheld a grove of huge and lofty trees, she beheld a

transparent fountain of glassy water. In the very heart

of the grove beside the gliding stream there stood a

palace, built by no human hands but by the cunning of

a god. You will perceive, as soon as I have taken you

within, that it is the pleasant and luxurious dwelling of

some deity that I present to your gaze. For the fretted

roof on high was curiously carved of sandalwood and

ivory, and the columns that upheld it were of gold. Allthe walls were covered with wild beasts and creatures of

the field, wrought in chased silver, and confronting the

gaze of those who entered. Truly it must be some demi-

te]{8}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

god, or rather in very truth a god, that had power bythe subtlety of his matchless skill ro put such wild lifeinto silver. The pavement was of precious stones cutsmall and patterned with images of many kinds. Mostsurely, yes, again and yet again I say it, blessed are thosewhose feet tread upon gems and jewels. The resr of thehouse through all its length and breadth was preciousbeyond price. All the walls were built of solid irrgot, ofgold and shone with peculiar splendor, making; dry-light of their own within the house, even though the sunshould withhold his beams. Such were the lightningsflashed from bedchamber and colonnade and from ,h.very doors themselves. Nor were the riches in the resrof the house unworthy of such splendor. It seemed aheavenly palace built by grear Jove that he might dwellwith mortal men.

Allured by the charm and beauty of the place, psychedrew near and, as her confidence increased, crossed thethreshold. Soon the delight of gazing on such lovelinessdrew her on ro explore each grory, until ar last on thefarther side of the house she beheld a lofty chamberpiled high with countless treasure. Nothing may befound in all the world that was nor rhere. But wondrousas was the sight of such vast wealth, yet more marvelouswas it that there was no chain nor bar nor sentinel toguard the treasure of all the world. Deep ioy filled herat the sight, when suddenly a bodiless voice spoke toher: "why, lady," it said, "are you overwhelmed at thesight of so grear wealth I Art is yours. Go now ro yourchamber, refresh your weariness upon your couch, andbathe when it pleases you so to do. We whose voices

THE TALE

you hear are your servants who will wait upon youdiligently and, when you have refreshed your body, willstraightway serve you with a royal banquet."

When she heard these disembodied voices Psyche per-

ceived that their instructions and all the treasure of thepalace must be the gift of some god that watched overher. First for a while she slept, then, waking, bathed torefresh her weariness. This done, she beheld hard by a

couch shaped like a half-moon, and, deeming from thedinner service spread beside it that it was meant for herrefreshment, gladly lry down. Forthwith she was servedwith wine like nectar and many a delicious dish. Still noone waited on her, but all things seemed wafted to heras it were by some wind. Neither could she see any per-son, she only heard words that fell from the air, andnone save voices were her servants. After she had feastedthus daintily, one whom she could not see entered andsang to her, while another struck the lyre, though never

'. lyre was to be seen. Then the harmony of a multitude

.f musicians was borne to her ears, so that she knew that:r choir was there, though no one was visible. These de-

lights over, Psyche wenr to her bed, for the hour was late.Now when night was well advanced a soft sound

(-ame to her ears. She trembled for her honor, seeingtlrat she was all alone; she shook for terror, and herf'r:ar of the unknown surpassed by f.ar the fear of any

1,cril that ever she had conceived. At length her un-k.own husband came and climbed the couch, madeI'.syche his bride, and departed in haste before the dawn.A'd forthwith the voices came to her chamber andt,'rved all her needs. So for a long time her life passed by,

t10] t11 ]

,,,4.MOR AND PSYCHE

till at length, 3s nature ordains, what seemed sffange at

first by force of continued habit became a delight, and

the sound of the voices cheered her loneliness and per-

plexity.Meanwhile her parents grew old and feeble by reason

of the tireless torment of th.it grief' The news of it was

noised abroad and the elder sisters learned all that had

befallen. Then grief and mournitrg straighTry fell upon

rhem, they left their homes and vied with one another

in their haste ro have sight and speech of their parents

once again.

Now that very night Psyche's husband thus addressed

her-for though she saw not her unknown spouse' her

hands had felt him, and her ears could hear him:,.sweet Psyche, mY beloved wife, Fortune is turned

cruel and threatet, yo., with deadly peril' watch' b'

most cautious and beware. your sisters berieve you dead

and are distraught with grief. They will seek you and

visit yonder crag. But ii you should chance to hear

their lamentadons, answer them notr do not even look

forth from the house, or you will drive me ro bitter woe

and yourself to utter destruction"'

Psyche assented and promised she would do as her

husband willed. Bur wtren he left her with the passing

of night, the poor girl burst into weeping and consumed

the whole dry in tears and lamentadon, crying that now

in truth she was utterly undone; for she was kept a

close captive within the walls of her luxurious prison and

deprived of all human conversation' She might not even

bring consolation to her sisters, who mourned her loss'

nor even so much as set eyes on them' she would take

{12}

THE TALE

no refreshment, she neither bathed nor ate but, weeping

floods of tears, rerired to sreep. After a little her husband

came to her side somewhat earlier than his wont, caught

her still weeping to his arms' and thus upbraided her:

,,was this your promise, ffiY sweet Psyche ? what can

I, your husband, now hope or exPect of you ? Night and

d,yyouceasenotfromyouranguish,notevenwhenyour husband clasps you to his heart. come, now' be it

as you willl obey your heart, though its craving bring

you nothing but harm. only remember, when later you

,.prrrr, thrt"I warned you in good earnest"'

But Psyche, when ttt. heaid these words, broke into

enffeades, then threatened that she would slay herself'

and ar last prevailed upon her husband to grant her

desire, that she might see her sisters, soothe their sor-

rows, and have speech with them. He yielded to the

prayers of his new-wed bride, and further gave her

reave to present her sisrers with what she would of gold

or iewels. Bur he warned her again and again' with

words that struck terror to the soul, never to let her

sisrers p€rsuade her by their irl counsels to inquire what

her husband was rike; if she yierded r? the impious

l)romptings of curiosity, she would exile herself forever

from his embraces ,rri from all the profusion of wealth

that ,now was hers. she thanked her husband, and her

soul was somewhat cheered. Then said she: "sooner

;""ra I die a hundred deaths than be robbed of your

sweet love. For whoever you are' I love you til adore

you passionately. I love you as I love life itself' com-

'ared with ]ourcupid's own- self would be as nothing'

llut grant ,hi, boo. also, I beseech You, and bid your

t13]

,.,{MOR AND PSYCHE

servant, the wind of the West, to bring my sisters hither

even as he bore nle."

Then she rained on him beguilirg kisses and endear-

irrg words and ernbraces that should constrain him to

h., will, and beside these alluremenrs called him "hus-

band sweet as honey, psyche's life and love." Her hus-

band yielded to the power and spell of her passionate

murmurs, yielded ,grirrrt his will, and promised to do

all; and th.rr, ,, dawn drew near' he vanished from his

wife's arms.

Meanwhile her sisters had made inquiry as to the situ-

ation of the crag where psyche had been left, and they

hastened to the spot. And when they were there, they

began to beat theit breasts and weep their eyes blind'

.rrriil all the rocks and cliffs made answer, echoing to

their ceaseless cries of grief. And now they began to call

on their unhappy sistei by name, till the piercing sound

of their lamentable crying descended into the valley, and

psyche ran forth from the house in an ecsrasy of trem-

bting ioy. "why do you torment yourselves with these

vain cries of woe ? " she cried. "I whom you mourn am

here. cease your mournful cries and dty those cheeks

that so long have streamed with tears, for even now you

may embrace her whom you bewailed." Then, calling

the west wind, she told him of her husband's com-

mand, and he did ar once as he was bidden and bore

them down into the valley safe and sound on the wings

of his soft breath. There the sisters embraced with eager

kisses and took delight of one another, till the tears that

they had dried welled forth again for very ioy'Then said Psyche: "Come now, enter with ioy the

THE TALE

house that is my house and refresh your aflicted hearts

with the presence of your own Psyche"' So saying, she

showed them all the riches of the golden house and

made known to their ears the grear household of voices

that waited on her. Then she refreshed their weariness in

the fairesr of baths and with all the rich dainties of that

celestial table till, their senses sated with the affiuence

of her heavenly wealth, they began to foster envy deep

in their inmost hearts. At length one of them began to

cluestion her rvithout ceasing' very closely and curiously,

as to who was the lord of these celestial marvels, and

who or of what sort was her husband. Nevertheless,

psyche would in no wise ffansgress her husband's ordi-

nance or banish it from the secret places of her soul,

but on the spur of the moment feigned that he was

young and fair to view, his cheeks iust shadowed with

a beard of dovrn, and that he was for the most part oc-

cupied with hunting among the mountains or along the

.olrr,ryside. Then, io, f.rr that as their talk went on she

might make some slip and betray her secret, she loaded

tSem with gifts of wrought gold and ieweled necklaces

Irnd, calling the West Wind, committed them to his

charge, to b. .rrried back to the place from whence they

came.

This done, those good sisters of hers returned home,

'nd the gall of rising envy burned fierce within them,

'nd they b.grt to talk with one another often and loud

nnd angrily. n, last one of them spoke as follows: "oh!

cruel and unkind, unprofitable Fortune! was this thy

will that we, born of the same parents as Psyche, should

c'clure so difierent a lot? Are w€r the elder, who have

tls]t1-4]

,/4.MOR AND PSYCHE

been given ro alien kings to be their handmaidens and

banished from our home and countrlr to dwell like

exiles far from our parents ? And is she, the youngest'

the last oflspring of o.r, mother's weary womb, to be the

mistress of such treasure and have a god for husband ?

Why, she has not even the wit to know how to use such

overflowing fortune rightly. Did you see' sister, how

many and ho* rich are the iewels that lie in her house,

what shining raimenr and what glistenittg gems are

there, and how wherever one goes one walks on gold,

abundanr gold ? why, if she has a husband as fair as she

told usr there lives no happier woman in all the world.

Woman, did I say ? It may be that as his love increases'

and his passion gathers its full force, the god whom she

has wedded will make her also a goddess. In good truth

she is a goddess already; such was her carriage, such

her rnien. The woman who has voices for handmaicls,

and can command even the winds, is aiming high and

breathes a goddess's pride even now' Whereas I, poor

wretch, hrul gor a hurband older than my father, balder

than a p,rrrrpkirr, and feebler than any child, and he

keeps the whole house under lock and key."

The orher took up the strain: "I am aflicted by a

husband so doubled and bent with rheumarism that he

neve r gives a thought to love. I have to rub his gnarled

and stony fingers iitt my soft hands are blistered with

his dirty banJrg.s, and stinking lotion, and filthy plas-

ters. I am more than an attentive wife, I am a hard-

worked sick-nurse. you may bear your misfortunes with

patience, or rather-for I will speak my mind plainly-

with servility. As for IIt€r I cannot any longer endure

THE TALL

that such wealth and fortune should have fallen to one

so unworthy. Remember with what pride and arrogance

she dealt with us, with what boastful and extravagant

ostentation she revealed her haughty temPert How scanty

were the gifts she gave us from the vastness of her store,

and how grudgin*Jy she gave! And then, when she was

dred of our presence, she had us bundled ofl and blown

away upon ; whistling breeze. If I am a woman and

have a spark of life in me, I'[ oust her from her fortune.

And if, as I should suppose, our outrageous Ueatment

rankles in your heart tt i, does in mine, let us both take

resolute action. Let us not reveal our wrong to our par-

ents or any other human being; let us not even seem to

know ,rryrhirrg of how she fares. It is enough that we

have seen what we would gladly not have seen' without

our declaring such glad news of her to our parents and

nll mankind. Those are not truly rich whose wealth is

knowntonornan.Sheshalllearnthatwearehereldersisters and not her handmaids. But now let us go to our

husbands and revisir our homes, which, even if they are

[)oor, are at least respectable. Then, when we have taken

earnest thought ttti formed our plans, let us return in

our might to crush her Pride"'This counsel of evil, *h.t. good should have been'

pleased these wicked women. They hid all the precious

gifts they had received and began with feigned grief to

weep once more, rending their hair and tearing their

filces, as indeed they deserved to be torn' Then, after

hastily deterring their parenrs from further search by

rekindling the burning anguish of their grief, they went

rwollen *i,tt mad rage to their own homes, there to

t17)t16]

,AM OR AN D PSY CHE

contrive their wicked schemes against their innocent

sister, y€s, even to devise her death'

Meanwhile Psyche's unknown husband once rnore ad-

monished her as he talked with her in the darkness of

night: "Do you see," he said, "what great peril you are

in ? Fortuns as yet but skirmishes at the outPosts' tln-

less you are firm and cautious while she is yet fat off'

she will close hand ro hand. Those false she-wolves are

weaving soITIe deep plot of sin against You' whose pur-

pose is this: ro persuade you to seek to know my face'

which, xs I hrn. told You, if once you see, you will see

no more. And so if hereafter those wicked ghouls come

hither armed with their dark designs-and they will

come, that I know-speak not at all wit! them' or if

your sirnple, unsurp..iirrg soul is too tender to endure

that, at reast neither give ear nor utterance to anything

concerning your h.rrbrtd. For soon we shall have issue'

and even now your wornb, a child's as yet' bears a child

like ro you. If you keep my secrer in silence, h. shall be

a god; if Yo.t divulge it, a mortal"'

This news made ery.h. glad; she lifted her head and

refoiced that she should be blest with a divine child'

she exurted in the glory of the babe that should be, and

was proud that she should be called a mother. Anxiously

she counted the days as they increased and the months

that passed by, ,rrd marveled as the promise grew' But

now those two curses, those foul furies breathing adder's

poison, hastened toward their goal and came sailing on

their course with impiou, ,p..J. Then her husband' who

came not save fo, ^ the uti.r space oj night, warned

Psyche once again: "The last day, the final peril is upon

{78}

THE TALE

you;thosehatefulwomen,yourkinandyetyourfoes,have put their armor oor have struck their carripr set

the battle in attalt and blown the ffumpet blast; your

monstrous sisters have drawn the sword and seek your

rife. Alas! sweetesr psyche, what calamities are upon us!

pity yourself and me; keep holy silence and save your

house, your husband, yourrelf, and our young babe from

the doom of ruin that lowers over them' Neither see nor

hear those wicked women-sisters I may not call them-

for they have conceived unnatural hate for you and have

trodden underfoot the bonds of b100d' oh! take no heed

when, like the sirens, they stand forth uPon the $ag

and make the cliffs echo with their fatal voices."

Psyche replied, her voice broken with tearful sobs:

,.Long ,in..l I think, you have had proof of my fidelity

anddiscretion.Notless,evennow'willlshowhowsteadfast is my sour. only once more bid our servant the

West Wind ; perform his office. You have denied me

sightofyourholyform,grantmeatleastthatlmaysee my sisrers. By your lo.k, that hang all round your

brow, sweet as scent of cinnamon, by the soft delicate

cheeks so like mine, by your bosom that burns with

strangeheat,Iimplo'e'you'bymyhopesthatatleastI may behold your face in trt. face of our babe' I be-

seechYoU,grantthepiousprayerofmyanguishedeo-trextlr suffer me to .nloy the embraces of my sisters, and

make the soul of Psyche, your votary, take new life for

ioy.Iseeknomoretoseeyourface;noteventhedarkof night can be ahindrance to my ioy, for I hold you

in my arms, light of my life." with these words and soft

cmbraces she charmed her husband to her will. wiping

tle]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

away her tears with his own locks, h. propised he would

do as she desired and straightway departed before the

tight of dawning dty'The leagued conspirators, the two sisters, did not so

much as set eyes on their parents but hastened with

headlong speed to the crag. They tarried not for the

coming of the wind that should bear them, but with

presumptuous daring leapt forth into the abyss. But the

West Wind forgot not the bidding of his king, though

he had gladly done so, and caught them to the bosom

of his breathittg air and set them down upon the ground.

They made no delay, but entered the house side by side;

and there they that were Psyche's sisters only in name

embraced their prey and, hiding beneath a cheerful mien

the guile that was stored within their hearts as if it had

been a treasure, spoke to her with these fawning words:

"Psyche, you are no longer a child, flo, you are even now

a mother. Think what a ioy to us you bear in your womb,

with what delight you will make glad all our home. Ah!

blessed are we who shall reioice to nurse your golden

babe, who if he match, as match he should, his parents'

beauty, will be born a very CuPid."

Thus step by step with feigned love they wormed their

way into their sister's heart. And straightwalr when she

had bidden them sit down, and had refreshed them from

the weariness of their iourney, and cheered them with

steaming water at the bath, she feasted them royally in

her banquering hall on all those wondrous dainties and

savory stews. She bade the harp sound, and its chords

made melody; she bade the flute play, and its voice was

heard; she bade the choir sing, and their chant pealed

THE TALE

forth. The hearts of those who heard were made glad by

all this ravishing music, although they saw no one. Butyet not even the honeyed sweetness of those strains could

allay the wicked purpose of those accursed women. Theyturned their speech to frame the snare that their guilehad made ready, and with false words began to ask her

what her husband was like, what was his family, whathis rank. Then Psyche, in the utter simplicity of herheart, forgot her former tale and devised a new false-

hood, and said that her husband came from the next

lrrovince, had vast sums invested in business, and was

rrriddle-aged, his hair iust gr\zzled with a few gray hairs.She spoke only for a moment on this matter and then,krading her sisters once more with cosdy gifts, sent them:rway in the chariot of the wind.

Ilut, when the soft breath of the West had lifted them, rn high, and they were returnirg homeward, they began

Io speak thus one to the other : "What are we to srlrsistcr, of so monstrous a falsehood as that which the poorlrrrl told us? The first time her husband was a youthwith manhood's first down upon his chin; now he isrrriddle-aged in all the glory of white hairs. Who can he

l,c whom so short a space of time has thus transformedrrrto an old mant My sister, there are but two alternatives.l',ither the wretch lies, or else she does not know whatlrcr husband is like. Whichever of these explanations isI r r rr', it is our duty to cast her forth from that wealth ofIrcr s as soon as we may. But if she has never seen herlrrrslrand's face, clearly she has married a god, and it is a

F'r(l that she bears in her womb. Now, if she come to be

,.rlled the rnother of a baby god-which heaven forbidl

t21 ]t20]

,AM OR AN D PSY CHE

-I will ger a noose and hang myself. Meanwhile, let us

return home to our parents and devise some cunning

deceit such as may suit our Present discourse"'

so hot with anger were they that they had scarcely

a word of greetinj for their parenrs and passed a sleep-

less and disturb.d night. on the morrow these abandoned

women hastened to the crag and swooped swiftly down

as before under the protecrion of the wind. Then forcing

a few rears from their eyes by rubbing their lids, they

addressed their young sisrer with these crafty words:.,Ah! you are hrppy, for you live in blessed ignorance

of your evil ptigfi and have no suspicion of your peril.

But we .rrrrro, ,1..p for the care with which we watch

over your happiness and are torn with anguish for your

misfortunes. For we have learned the truth, and' since

we are partners of your grief and hapless plight, we may

not hide it from you. He that lies secretly by your side

at night is a huge serpent with a thousand tangled coils;

blood and deadiy poison drip from his throat and from

the cavernous horror of his gaping maw' Remember

Apollo's oracle, how it proclaimed that you should be the

Uiia. of some fierce beast. Moreover, many a farmer,

many a hunter of this neighborhood, and many of those

who dwell round about have seen him as he returns

from devourirrg his prey or swims in the shallows of the

river. And all affirm that you will not much longer feast

on such dainties or receive such loving service, but so

soon as your time has cofne' he will devour you with the

ripe fr,lit of your womb. The hour has now come when

you must choose whether to believe your sisters, whose

sole care is for your dear safety, to flee from death and

THE TALL

live with us, free from all thought of peril, or find a

grave in the entrails of a cruel monster. If the musical

solitude of this fair landscep€, if the ioyr of your secret

love still delight you, and you are content to lie in the

embraces of a foul and venomous snake, at least we, your

loving sisters, have done our duty."

Poor Psyche, for she was a simple and gentle soul, was

seized with terror at this melancholy news; she was

swept beyond the bounds of reason, forgot all her hus-

band's warnings and all her own promises. Headlong

she fe[l into the deeps of woe, her limbs trembled, her

face turned pale and bloodless, and in stumbling accents

.s[e stammered forth these scarcely articulate words:

"l)earest sistefsr" she said, "you are true to your love for

ffi€, as is fitting. And I think that those who told you

these things are not lying. For never have I seen my hus-

band's face nor known at all whence he comes. Only at

'ight I hear soft murmured words and endure the ern-

lrraces of a husband who shuns the light and whose shape

I know not. You say well that he is some sffange beast,

:urcl I accept your words. For ever with stern speech he

terrifies me from seeking to have sight of him, and

rhreatens grear woe to me should I strive curiously to

look upon his face. Now, therefore, help rrle, if there be

;uly succor you may bring to your sister in her hour of

pr.ril. For you will undo all your former good deeds, ifyou allow indifference to usurp the place of love."

'fhen since they had reached their sister's inmost heart

,rnrl laid it bare to view, and its portals stood open wide,

r lrrsc evil women abandoned the secret stealth of their

rlrrrk scheming, unsheathed the swords of guile, and in-

t23]t22]

,/4MOR AND PSY CHE

vaded the dmorous thoughts of the simple-hearted girl'

Then said one of them r r'sirr.. the ties of birth bid us

disregard all peril, if only we may save You' we will

make known to you the course ttrat 10ng thought has

reveared ro us, the sore path that 1eads to safety' Take

the sharpesr of razor, ,ni whet it yet sharper by rubbing

it softly against the palm of your hand, then hide it on

the side "i ;;r, .orr.h where you are accustomed to lie'

Take roo some handy lanterrr, iilltd with oil and burning

with a clear light, and place it beneath the cover of some

vessel. concear all these preparations most' carefully' and

then, when he enters, irritirrg his moving coils' and

climbs ro his couch as is his cusrom, wair till he is

stretched ar full rength and caught in ,]. stupor of his

first sleep, and his breathing ttll' you that his slumber

is deep; then glide from tt . u.a and barefoor, on tiptoe'

moving soft *irf, ,irry steps' free the lantern from its

prison in the blind dark. Let the light teach you how

best to perform your glorious deed, then raise your right

hand, pur forth all yoir strengrh, and with the twocdged

brade hew through the loint that knits the head and

neck of the deadry serpenr. our aid shall not fail you'

As soon as you have *o,, safety by his death, we will

hasten eagerly to your side, loin hands with yours to bear

awayallyourffeasure,findyouawedlockworthyofyourprayers,anduniteyouto^husbandashumanasyourself"' tt I ^L ^:- -iorartc hrrrninpyuur DUrlr

with these words they enflamed their sister's burning

heart-for in truth her heart was all afire-and then left

her, for they feared exceedingly to remain on the spot

where so great acrime was a u. done' As before' they

THE TALE

were borne to the crag's top

breeze, sped away in hastY

and departed.+

by the blast of the winged

flight, entered their shiPs,

Psyche was left alone-and yet she was not at all alone'

for the fierce furies that vexed her soul were ever with

her. She tossed to and fro upon a tide of troubles vast

as the sea. Her resolve was made and her heart fixed'

yet as she strove to nerve her hands for the deed' her

i,urpor. failed her and was shaken, and she was dis-

traught by the host of passions that were born of her

rrnguish. Impatience' indecision, daring and terror' dif-

llclence and ,rg.r, all strove within her, and, worst of

*lr, in the same body she hated the beast and loved the

husband. Yet as evenirrg began to draw on to night' with

lrrecipirare haste she Ltd. all ready for her hideous

crime. Now night was come and with it her husband;

he caught h., in his arms, kissed her, and sank into a

,lcep sleep.

Then Psyche-for though fesh and spirit were weak

,rnd tr.mbi.d, yet the fierce will of destiny gave her

l-'rce-summoned all her strength, drew forth the lan-

Ir.f o, and seized the razor; a sUdden courage displaced

rlrc weakness of her sex. But as soon as the lamplight re-

vcaled the secrets of the couch, she saw the kindest and

sweetest of all wild beasrs, Amor himself, fairest of gods

,rrcl fair even in sreepr so that even the flame of the lamp,

rvhen it behetd him, b.rrrr.d brighter for ioy' and light-

rrings flashed from the razor's sacrilegious blade. But

Psyche ar the marvel of that sight was all dismayed, her

t2s){24}

,.,{IfiOR AND P.,YCHEsoul was distraughtr.a sickry palror came over her, faint_irg and trembrirg she ,rrk ; her knees and sought rohide the blade in h., own hearr. And this she would as-suredly have done, had not the steer ,ifp.a from herrash hands for terror of so ill a deed. W.rry and desper-ate' fallen from her hearth of mind and body, she gazedagain

"rtq again upon the beauty of that divine face andher soul drew joy and srrengri. sh. beherd the glorioushair of his gorden head ,,ir*irg with arnbrosia, thecurling locks that strayed over his snow-white neck andcrimson cheeks, some caught in a cornery tangre, somehanging down in front, others behind; and before theIightnings of their exceedirg splendor .u., the light ofthe larnp grew weak and rirri. From the shourders ofthe winged god sprang dewy pinions, shinirg like whitefowers, and the toprnosr f..ih.rr, so soft and dericatewere they, quivered tremulously in a restless dance,though all the rest were sdll. His body was smooth andvery lovely and such as venus mighr be proud ro haveborne. Before the feet of the god r^y bo.., quiver, andarrows, the kindry weapons of the grear god. psychegazed on them with insatiate heart and burning curiosity,took them in her hands, and rnarvered ar her husband,sarmory' Then, taking an arrow from the quiver, she triedits point against h.rlhurnb. But her hrrd trembled andpressed too hard upon it, till the point pricked roo deepand dny blood-drops bedewed the ,urfr.. of her skin.so all unwittir& yet of her own doing, psyche feil inIove with Love] Th.rr, as her passion for passion,s lordburned her ever more- and **., she cast herserf uponhim in an ecsrasy of love, rr."p.a wanton kiss on kiss

{26}

THE TALEwith thirsty hastenitg lips, till she feared he might awake.But even as her swoonirg spirit wavered in rn. ecstasyrf such bliss, the ramp, wh.th.r foul farseness or guiltycnvy moved ir, or whether it longed itself ro touch andkiss so f.air a body, sputtered forth from the top of itsflame a drop of burning oil, wlich feil upon the god,s'ight shoulder. Ah! tash, overbold l*pl Lou.,s unw}*r,'scrvant, thou burnest

.rh. very lord of fire, "rthoughsurely thou dost owe thy being to some rover who de_vised thee that even by rrryht hJmight have ail his desire.Iror the god, when he feri the burning smarr, leapt fromt'e couch and, seeing his secrer thus fouily betrayed,tore himself from the kisses and embraces of his un_lrappy bride and flew away with never a word. But poorl'syche' even as he rose, caught hold of his right reg withlnth her hands, crung to him as he soared on high, andwould nor leave hh, but foilowed him for the last time:rs he swept through the clouds of air, till ar last over_wcaried she fell to earth.

But the god her lover left her nor lying thus on earth,lrut few ro a cypress hard by, and from its-lofty top spokeIr her thus in accenrs of woe, ,,1h! psyche, simpre_lrearted' I forgot the commands of my mother v.rrur,who bade me fire you with passion fo*o*.'-*tJfi.;rbject man and yoke you in wedlock ro him, and my_sclf flew to your side that I might be your lover in his

'lace. But this I did thoughtl.riry, as now I know. Forl, the far-farned archer, wounded myself with my own.slrafrs, and made you my bride to win this reward_thatyou should think me a wild beasr, and plot ro hew offr'y head with blade of steel, that head where dwell these

{zr1

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

eyes that love you so dearly. Again and again I bade you

beware of all that you have done, and in my love fore-

warned you. But those admirable women' your coull-

selors, shall forrhwith pay the penalty for their disastrous

admonitions; you I will only punish thus-by fying

from you." And rvith these words he spread his pinions

and soared into the sky'

But Psyche, rhough she lty bowed to the earth' fol-

lowed her husband's flight as far as sight could reach

and rormented her soul with lamentation. when the beat

of his wings had borne him far, and the depth of air

had snatchecl him from her sight, she flung herself head-

long from the brink of a river that flowed hard by. But

th.-t indly srream feared for himself, and, to do honor

to the goi who kindles even waters with his fire, straight-

way .Jught her in his current and laid her unhurt upon

a bank deep in flowering herbage. k chanced that at that

moment Prrr, the god of the countryside, sat on the

river's brow with Echo, the mountain goddess' in his

arms, teaching her to make melodious answer to sounds

of every kinJ. Close by along the bank, goats wandered

as they browsed and played wantonly as they plucked the

river's leafage. The goat-footed god called Psyche to him

gently, for rrt. was bruised and swooning, and he knew

moreover what had befallen her; and he assuaged her

pain with these gentle words:,,Fair maiden, I am but a rude rustic shepherd, but

long old age and ripe experience have taught me much'

If i gr.rs -rightly

(lhough men that are wise call it no

g.r.rf, but ,"th., divination) ' your weak and tottering

steps, your body's exceedittg pallor, your unceasing sighs'

THE TALE

and still more your mournful eyes' tell me that you are

faint from excess of love. Wherefore give ear to me and

seek no more to slay yourself by casting yourself head-

long down, nor by any manner of self-slaughter' Cease

from your grief and [ty aside your sorrow, and rather

addres, A*-or, rhe mightiest of gods, with fervent prayer

and win him by tender submission, for he is an amorous

and soft-hearted Youth."so spoke the shepherd god. Psyche made no answer'

but worshiped the i.ity ,ft", had showed her the path of

safety and wenr upon i'r., way.When she had wandered

no small way *iif, weary feet, about close of dty she

came by a p"th she knew not to a certain town' where

the husband of one of her sisters hetd sway' When she

lcarned this, Psyche begged that her presence might be

.nnounced to her sister. bn. was led into the palace and

t here, when they had made an end of greeting and efll-

bracing one another, her sister asked her the reason of

Irer coming. Psyche made answer thus: "You remember

t hc counsel you gave frrer when you urged me to take

rr rwo-edged razor and slay the wild beast that lay with

r'c under the false name oi hurband, before my wretched

lrody fell a victim to his voracious maw' But as soon as

I took the lamp for my witness-for such, alas! was

your counsel-and looked uPon his face, I saw a won-

,lr1us, a celestial sight, the son of Venus, Amor himself'

lying hushed in gentle slumber. Transported by the sight

,,[ so much ioy, t"d distraught by ttty great gladness' my

rcstxst was almost more than I could endure' But at

t lrat moment, by a cruel stroke of chanc':, the lamp

rl,rrrred forth a drop of burning oil, which j;ell upon his

t2e]t28j

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

shoulder. The pain wakened him from sleep, he saw me

armed with fire and blade of steel and cried, 'In atone-

ment for the foul crime you have purposed, begone from

my couch and take with you what is yours. I will marry

your sister'-and he mentioned your name-'with all

due ritual.' So saying, he bade the West Wind blow me

beyond the confines of the house."

Psyche had scarcely finished when her sister, goaded

by the stings of mad lust and guilty envy' tricked her

husband with a cunningly contrived lie, pretending that

she had iust received the news of her parents' death, and

without more ado took ship and went to that same ctag.

And there, though it was no wind of the West that blew,

yet, aflame with all the greed of blind hope, she cried:

"Take ffi€, Amor, a wife that is worthy of thee, and thou,

wind of the West, bear up thy mistress." So saying, she

hurled herself headlong in one mighty leap. But not even

in death might she reach that h"ppy place. For her limbs

were tossed from rock to rock among the crags and torn

asunder, and afterwards, as she deserved, she provided

food for the birds and beasts who devoured her entrails.

Such was the manner of her end.

Nor was the doom of Amor's second vengeance long

delayed. For Psyche once more was led by her wandering

feet to another city, where the other sister dwelt, as had

dwelt the first. And like the first, she too was ensnared

by Psyche's guile and, seeking in wicked rivalry to sup-

plant her sister as the bride of Love, hastened to the crag,,

and perished by the same death.

Meanwhile, as Psyche wandered in search of Amorfrom people to people, h. l"y in his mother's chamber

THE TALE

groaning for the pain of the wound that the lamp haddealt him. Then that white bird, the sea mew that swimsover the surface of the waves oared by its wings, hastilyplunged into the <ieep bosom of ocean. There he foundVenus, as she was bathing and swimmirg, and taking hisstand by her told her that her son had been burned,that he was full of anguish ar the wound's grear painand l^y in peril of his life. Further he told her that thewhole household of Venus had been brought into evilrcpute, and suffered all manner of railing, "becauser"said the bird, "both thou and he have retired from theworld, he to revel with a harlot in the mountains, andt hou, goddess, to swim the sea. And so there has beenno pleasure, no joy, no merriment anywhere, but alltlrings lie in rude unkempt neglect; wedlock and truel'r'icndship and parents' love for their children have van-ishcd from the earth; there is one vast disorder, one hate-lrl loathing and foul disregard of all bonds of love."sr rch were the words with which that garrulous andt n,st inquisitive bird, as he chattered into Venus' ear,l.rt'r'rated the reputation of her son. Venus was filled with.urllc:r and cried with a sudden cry: "And so that goodr)r of mine has got a mistress! Come tell ffie, bird, my,rrl/ faithful servant, what is the name of this womanrvlr,, has thus distracted my son, a simple boy not yet

f 'rrrrroted to the garb of manhood? Tell m€r is it one oftlr,' Ny*phs or Hoursl Or is it one of the Muses'choir,,,r (,nc of my own attendant Graces?"

'l'lrc: loquacious bird had no thought of silence. "Mis-l1r'',:i," he replied, "I know not who she is. I think, how- rr r'( r, i[ my remembrance does not play me false, that he

t30] t3L]

,/4MOR AND PSY CHE

was head over ears in rove with l girl called Psyche"'

Then Venus in her indignation cri.d yet louder still:

,,What! he loves Psyche, the supplanter of rny beauty

and the rival of my famel why, the young scamp must

think me his procuress' for it was I who showed him the

girl, and it w., th,o,,gh me that he came to know her!''

Shriekirrg such *ori, as these, she emerged from the

seaandstraightwaysoughthergolden.chamber.Andfindingtheboylying,i.t.even"'shehadheard,sherailed loudly at him as soon as she reached the door of

the room: "Truly your behavior is most' honorable and

worthyofyourbirthandyourowngoodname'firsttotrample your mother,s, or rather your queen's, bidding

underfoot, to refuse to torment my enemy with base de-

sires, and then actually to take her to your own wanton

embraces, mere boy as you are)so that I must endure my

enemyasmydaughter-in.1aw!oh!youseducer,youworthless boy, you matricidal wretch! You think' no

doubt, that you "1o,,.

can have offspring and that I am

roo old to bear achild. I would have you know that I

willbearafarbeffersonthanyouh*..been.No,togive the insult a sharper sting, i wilt adopt one of my

own young slaves' giut him youf feathers and your

fames, your bow "rra arrows and all the trappings I

gave you for use far other than that which you have

made of them. po, ,othing of a* thar went to make up

your accouterments came flom your father's estate! You

have been badly trained from your babyhood till now;

you rrru. sharp talons and havs often beaten your elders

in the most irreverent manner' why' you have robbed

your own mother, yes, you rob me daily''you unnatural

t32]

THE TALE

son! You have often stricken frler you treat' me with

scorn as bein g awidow, and show not the least reverence

for your stepfather, the greatest- and bravest of all war-

riors. why, ror have .n.r, provided him with paraffIours'

because you are an gry *iti, my love for him! But' I will

make you rue those tricks and your marriage shall be as

bitter gall in your mouth. But what shall I do now to

avenge my mo.kery ? where shall I turn ? How shall I

restrain this four rittre eft ? shal I seek aid from my foe

sobriery, whom I have so often offended ro satisfy his

whims? No, I cannor endure the thought of speaking

to a creature so rude and unkempt. on the other hand'

my vengeance is not to be despised, from whatever source

it may come. I wi[ seek he*id "rrd

hers alone. she shall

punish that young ne'er-do-well right soundly' empty

his quiver and blunt his arrows, ,,,,,,,i''g his bow and

extinguish the flames of his rorch, yes, and apPly even

sharper remedies to his body itself' only then shall I

feel *rorrg appeased, when she has clipped his hair close'

that hair ro which I with my own hands gave its sheen

of gold, and when she has shorn away those wings

which I steeped in nectar as he l"y in my bosorn"'

so speaking, she fung out of doors in bitter anger'

*nd ah! how bitter rhe" wrath of venus can be! But

oeres and |uno straightway met her and' seeing htI face

tSus distorted with passion, asked why she had im-

lrrisoned all the .h.r* of her flashing eyes with so fierce

:r frown. she answered: "It is well you have met me!

li.r my heart is all on fire, and I should have done some

violence. But go, I Pray You, with all your might seek

our that wretch, nry.h., *ho has made off as if on wings']

t 33 ]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

For you cannot be ignorant of the shame that has be-

fallen my house, nor of the deeds of my unspeakable son."Then, although they knew well what had come to

pass, they strove to soothe the wrath of Venus. "Whatgreat crimer" they asked, "has your son committed thatyou should denounce his pleasures so fiercely and seek

to kill her whom he loves ? Even if he has smiled notunwillingly on a charmirg girl, is that a crime ? Don'tyou know that he is a man and young ? Or have youforgotten the number of his years ? Or do you think hemust always be a boy merely because he carries his years

so fairly ? And must you, his mother, a sensible womantoo, always be prying curiously into your son's amuse-ments, blaming him for a wanton, taunting him with hisloves, and denouncing your own arts and your owncharms that live again in your fair son ? Who arnong godsand men will permit you to sow passions broadcastamong the peoples of the earth, while you forbid yourown household the charms of love, and debar them fromall enjoyment of woman's foibles, &r enjoymenr that isopen to all the world I "

Thus the goddesses, in fear of Amor's arrow, gladlytook up his defense and fattered him even in his absence.

But Venus, indignant that her wrongs should be treatedwith such ridicule, passed them by and departed in theopposite direction, seeking the sea with hasty steps.

Meanwhile Psyche wandered hither and thither in rest-less agitation. Night and dry she sought her husbandand her heart could not find rest. And more and moreshe yearned, if the tender blandishments of a wife might

THE TALE

not allay his anger, at least to appease him with the

prayers of a slave. At last she saw a temPle on the crest

of a high mountain. "FIow do I knowr" she said, "that

my lord may not dwell yonderl" And there she hastened,

for hope and desire lent wings to her feet, though they

were fainting beneath her for very weariness of her un-

ending toil. And now she had nimbly surmounted the

high ridge and entered and approached the sacred couch.

There she saw sheaves of wheat piled in a heap or twined

into garlands; sheaves too of barley were there, and

sickles and all the implements of the reaper's calling.

But all l"y at random, confused and uncared for, as

though they had been cast idly down by the reapers'

hands in the heat of noon. Psyche separated them all

with care and arranged them in due order, each in itsseparate place; for she thought that she ought not to

neglect the shrines or ceremonies of any Bod, but rather

appeal to the kindness and pity of all. While she was

thus engaged with anxious industrl, kindly Ceres came

upon her and straightway cried aloud, "Is it You, poor

Psyche ? Venus in the madness of her heart tracks your

steps anxiously through all the world, seeking that she

may mete out to you the most cruel of punishments, and

eager to avenge her wrong with all the might of her god-

head. And yet do you now watch thus over my offerings,

and have you thought for your own safety I "Then Psyche cast herself down on the ground before

her, bedewitg the goddess's feet with floods of tears and

sweeping the ground with her hair. And with manifoldentreaties she besought that she might win pardon. "Bythy right hand that bringeth fruit to the earth, by the

t34] t3s]

,AMOR AND PSYCHEglad rites of harvest, by the silent mysteries of thy sacredarks, by the winged chariots drawn by the dr"gons thatserve thee, by the furrows of sicilian fields, by the rav_isher's chariot and the imprisoning earth, by the deepabyss where the lightless *.dlo.k oi Proserpine was cele-brated, by the joyous return to the light when thou hadstfound thy daughter, and by all .rre that the shrine ofAttic Eleusis shrouds in siience, I beseech theg succorthe soul of helpless psyche, thy suppliant. suffer me roIie hid, if only for a few ,hori dryrl amid yonder heapof sheaves, that the wild anger of that mighty goddessmay be assuaged by lapse of ti-., or at least thai I mayfind a brief space of rest and refreshment for my strengththat my long toil hath broken."

crres answered: "your tearful prayers awaken my pityand I long to aid you, but I may nor quarrel with onewho is my kinswoman. Moreover, I am bound to heralso by old ties of friendship, and she has a good heartafter all. And so you must reave my tempre without'more ado, and counr it for the best that I have not keptyou here, nor given you my protection.,,

This unlooked-for repulse doubled Psyche's affiiction,and she turned back from the temple. As she ;;;;;.saw in a twilight grove within a d..p valley a templebuilt of cunning workmanship, and since she wished toleave no path to fairer hope untried, however doubtfurit might k, but rather to implore the aid of every god,she approached the sacred portalr. she saw there preciousgifts and cloths embroidered with lefters of gold hang-itg from the boughs of ffees or fastened ro the door-posts' And all these bore witness to the name of the god-

{so1

THE TALE

dess to whom th.y had been dedicated in gratitude forboons received at her hand. Then Psyche sank to herknee and, casting her hands about the alar, still warmwith sacrifice, wiped away her tears and made herPrayer:

"sister and bride of mighty |ove, whether thou hold-est thine ancient home at Samos, which alone hath gloryfrom thy birth, thine infant wailing, and thy nrri rr.;or whether thou hauntest thy rich home in lofty Car-thage, that honors thee as the maid that came down fromheaven borne on the lion's back; or rulest thou over theglorious walls of Argos by the banks of Inachus, whoproclaims thee bride of the Thunderer and queen ofgoddesses, thou whom all the East worships as zygiaandall the West hails as Lucina, be thou to me in -y grearneed ]uno the Savior, and free me from the fear oi i--minent peril; for the toils I have endured are great andI am very weary. Ay., and I know that, even uncalled,thou aidest mothers in peril when their time is near."

So prayed she, and forthwith |uno revealed herself toher in all the august mai.tty of her godhead, and straighr-way said: "Right gladly, by my honor, I swear ir, ,ightgladly would I granr your prayers. Bur for very ,hame Imay not aid you against the will of venus, ffiy son'swife, whom I have ever loved as a daughter. Moreover,I arn prevented by the laws forbiddirg harborage roothers' runaway slaves, save only with their master'sconsent.tt

This second shipwreck of her fortunes filled Psychewith terror. She had sought her winged husband rit in p

vain and, despairing utterly of safety, thus brooded with-

{37}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

in herself : "what help now may I seek for the healing

of my woes, since even these goddesses, for all their good

wi1l, may nor lift their voice in my defense ? whither

now may I turn, that am caught in so vast a snare ?

What house, what darkness may hide me safe from

great Venus' inevitable eyes! Come then, take heart of

!r"..! your poor hopes are shattered. Renounce them

boldly and yield of your own free will ro your mistress,

and assuage the fierce onset of her wrath by submission,

late tho.tjh it be. Who knows but you may even find

the husband you have sought so long, there in his moth-

er,s house !" And so she made ready for the uncertain

issue of her submission, or rather for certain death, and

meditated how she should begin her entreaties'

venus, meanwhile, had abandoned all attempts to

search her out on earth and sought the skies. She bade

her chariot be prepared, the chariot that Vulcan had

wrought for her ;i gold, and finished carefully with

subtle art, and given her as a marriage gift, before they

passed the threshold of the bridal chamber. It shone

where the arrisr's file had thinned the metal awolr and

the very loss of the gold had made it more precious. Four

white doves, our of all the many that nested round their

mistress's bedchamber, appeared and, hopping gaily

forth and writhing their painted necks, entered the

ieweled yoke; their mistress mounted the cat, and they

few forth bearing her on their way with ioy' Sparrows

wantoned in the air with twittering harmooY, as they

attended the chariot of the goddess, and every manner

of sweet songbird proclaimed her coming with the

melodious **i. of their honeyed strains. The clouds

THE TALE

yielded before her path, heaven opened to his daughter'

and the heights of air welcom.d her with ioy; nor had

the musicat''servants of mighty Venus any fear of pounc-

irrg eagle or greedy hawk'

Then she turned her course to ]ove's royal castle and,

superb even in her supplicadons, demanded that Mer-

cufl, god of the ,ingi"g voice, should be placed at her

disposal to lend her hi; aid. |ove's dark brow nodded

assent, and straightway Venus descended from heaven in

an ecsrasy of loy ana .aatessed Mercury, who went' with

her, in these earnest words: "Arcadian brother, you

know that your sisrer Venus has never done anything

without the aid of Mercury, and you cannot but be

aware how rong I have searched in vain for that hand-

maiden of mine who hides from me. There is nothing

left for me but to employ you as my herald and publish

^reward for her dir.oulry. See then that you ne{or.m

my behest with speed and set forth clearly the marks by

which she may be knowor that no one who has wickedly

and unlawf.rity taken upon him to conceal her may

plead ignorance as an excuse." So saying, she gave him

^ handbill containirrg Psyche's name and all else that

was necessary. This done, she went home'

Mercury did not neglect to do as he was bidden' For

he sped fa, arrd wide, iisiting all the peoples of the earth'

and thus performea tfr. ta'k of proclamation with which

he had been enrrusted: "If any man can stay the fight

or point our the hiding place of a runaway princess'

handmaid of venus, ,rrr*.rirrg to the name of Psyche'

let him meet Mercury, who makes this proclamadon'

behind the Murcian pyramids, and he shall receive as

{se}{38}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

the reward of his information seven sweet kisses fromVenus' own lips and one yet more honeyed than the

rest from the tip of her sweet tongue."When Mercury delivered his proclamation in this

wise, a wild desire seized all mankind, and they vied

with one another in the hope of winning so marvelous

a reward. This circumstance more than all else finallybanished every thought of further delay from Psyche's

soul. And as she was already approaching the doors ofher mistress, one of Venus' servants, Habit by name,

met her and at once cried with all the strength of her

voice: "So at last you have come to understand who isyour mistress, you worthless slut! Or do you still pre-

tend not to know what trouble we have had in lookingfor you I It would be in keeping with the rest of youreffronte ry if. you did. But it is lucky you have fallen intomy hands. Hell has you in its claws now, and you shallpay bitterly for your disobedience, now without more

ado." Then without a moment's hesitation she thrust herhand into Psyche's hair and dragged her after her.

+

Psyche made no resistance, but was led into the house

and brought into the presence of Venus. The goddess

no sooner beheld her than she burst into a wild laugh,such as men will ufter when mad with wrath; then shak-

itg her head and scratchirg her right ear, she cried:"So, at length you have thought fit to come and greetyour mother-in-law I Or have you come to visit yourhusband, who is in danger of his life, thanks to thewound you gave him? But you need not be frightened!

THE TALE

I will give you such a welcome as a good daughter-in-

law deserves." Then "Wherer" she cried, "are my hand-

maidens Trouble and Sorrow?" They were summoned,

and Venus handed over Psyche to their charger so that

they might rorture her. In obedience to their mistress's

command, they scourged poor Psyche with whips and

racked her with other torments, and then once more

brought her into the presence of their mistress.

Then Venus laughed loud once again and said: "Be-

hold, she thinks to move me with Pity because she is big

with child and the time is near when the fair fruit of

her womb shall make me a happy grandmother. Truly,

I am highty blessed that I should be called a grand-

mother, though yet in the flower of my t1e, and that

the son of e vile serving-wench should be known as

Venus' grandchild! But I am a fool to call him her soll.

He is no true son, for the parties to the marriage were

not of equal birth, while the wedding took place in a

country house unwitnessed and without his father's con-

sent. It cannot therefore be regarded as legitimate' and

the child will be born a bastard, at least if we allow you

to become a mother at all."

So saying, she flew upon her, tore her clothes in many

places, dishevelled her hair, buffeted her about the head,

and beat her cruelly. Then, taking corn and barley and

millet and poppy seed and chick Peas and lentils and

beans, all f umbled and confused in one heap, she said to

her: "I cannot conceive that any servingwench as hideous

as yourself could find any means to attract lovers save

by making herself their drudge; wherefore now I my-

self witl make trial of your worth. Sort that disordered

t40] t41 ]

,/4MOR AND PSY CHE

heap of seeds, place each kind of grain apart in its own

pl.c., and see that you show me the work completed

before the evening."

Having thus assigned her this vast heap of seeds, the

goddess departed to a marriage feast. But Psyche never

p", a hand to that disordered and inextricable mass' but

*t in silent stupefaction, overwhelmed by the vastness

of the task. Then the ant, the little ant, that dweller in

the fields, understanding the difficulty of her huge task,

pitied the sorrow of the grear god's bride and, abhorritg

,t. cruelty of her morher-in-1aw, ran nimbly hither and

thither and summoned and garhered all the host of ants

that dwelt around. "Pityr" it cried, "O ye nimble nurs-

lings of earth, the mother of all; pity a lovely girl, the

spouse even of Love himself. Be prompt and swift and

aid her in her hour of need!" ThereuPon, wave upon

wave, the six-footed hosts rushed to the rescue' and one

by one, with the utmost zeal, separated the whole heap,

grai' by grain. And after they had parted and distributed

the several grains, each after their kind, they vanished

swiftly from sight.

And now at nighdalt Venus returned from the wed-

ding feast, heavy with wine and sweet with balsam

scenrs and all her body bound about with shining roses.

And when she saw with what marvelous diligence the

task had been performed, she cried: "This is not your

doing, vile wretch, nor the work of your hands, but the

*ork of him whose heart you won to your own hurt,

yes, and to his hurt alsg." Then, finging her a crust of

common bread, she departed to her couch. Meanwhile

Amor was kept under close ward in the inner part tlf

THE TALE

the house within the four walls of his own chamber,partly that he might not infame his wound by the per-versity of his wanton passions, partly that he mighr notmeet his beloved. And so those two lovers dragged outthe night of woe beneath the same roof, but sunderedand apart. But when Aurora had just begun to ride forthin the rky, Venus called Psyche to her and thus ad-dressed her: "Do you see that grove that fringes thelong banks of the gliding stream, whose deep eddiescome rushing down from yonder mounrain ? Therewander sheep whose feeces shine with hue of gold, andno man guards them as rhey graze.I bid you take a wispfrom the wool of their precious feece as best you mayand bring it to me with speed."

Psyche arose willingly, not indeed that she might per-l',rm her task, but that she might find rest from herwoes by casting herself down a cliff that overhung ther ivcr. But from the river's bed a green reed, nurse ofswcet music, breathed on by some breath divine, with;ic'ntle murmur whispered forth this melodious prophecy:" l'.syche, racked though thou art by so man y a woe, pol-lrrtc not my sacred waters by slaying thyself thus mis-,'r:rbly, nor at this hour approach those terrible sheep.li,r' they borrow fierce heat from the blazing sun andrvrltl f.renzy maddens them, so that wirh sharp hornsrurrl foreheads hard as stone, and sometimes even withv.nornous bites, they vent their fury in the destruction,l nrcn. But till the heat of the noonday sun has as-rrr.rgt:d its burning, and the beasts are lulled to sleep bytlrr s,ft river breeze, thou canst hide thee beneath yonderl,,lt y plane tree, which drinks of the river water €ven

t42] t4s]

,/TMOR AND PSYCHE

as I. And, when once the sheep have abated their mad-

ness and allayed their anger, go shake the leaves of

yonder grove, and thou shalt find the golden wool cling

ittg here and there to crooked twigs"'

Th.r, did that kind and simple-hearted reed teach

psyche in her deep distress how she might win to safety.

She listened with an artention which she had no cause

to regret and thus instructed made no delay, but ob-

,.ru.d alt the bidding of the reed, stole the soft yellow

gold with easy theft, and returned ro venus with her

6oro* full of it. And yet she won no approval from her

misrress for having overcome the peril of her second

task. For Venus, with a frown upon her brow and a

bitter smile upon her lips, said: "I am well aware who

was the ,..r.i author of this deed no less than the last.

But now I will Put you to a shrewd trial that I may

know whether you have a stout heart and prudence be-

yond the prudence of woman. Do you see the high

mountain p..k that crowns yonder lofty clifr, where-

from the swarthy waves of a black srream flow down till,

caught in the neighboring valley's walled abyss, they

flood the Stygian swamps and feed the hoarse streams

of Cocytus I Go, draw me icy water even from where

on the high summit the fountain's farthest waves well

forth, andbrirg it to me with alt speed in this small urn."

So saying, she gave her a small iar carved out of crystal,

and threatened yer more cruel torments if she failed.

Then Psyche with swift steps sought the topmost

height of the mountain, sure that there at least, if all

elre failed, she could pur an end ro her miserable exist'

ence. But as soon as she reached the slopes near the afore-

THE TALE

said peak she perceived how vast and difficult was her

task, and how fraught with death, For it was a rock ofmeasureless height, rough, slippery, and inaccessible, andfrom jaws that gaped in its midst it vomited forth a

hideous stream that, from the very point where it burst

from the hollows of a deep slanting cavern and fell overthe rock's sloped face, had worn out a narrow channelfor its path and, thus concealed, rushed secretly into theneighboring valley. To right and left from crannies inthe crag there crept forth fierce dragons, with long cran-ing necks and eyes sworn to unwinking wakefulness,

whose pupils keep watch forever and shrink not fromthe light. And even the very waters had voices that for-llade approach. For they cried "Flence!" and "What dost

thou? Have a care!" and "What wouldst thou? Beware!"lnd "Fly!" and lastly "Thou art doomed to die!" Psyche

fclt herself turned to stone by the impossibility of hertask. Though she was present in the body, her senses hadllown far away from her and, quite overwhelmed bystrch vast inevitable peril, she lacked even the last solace

,,f tears.

Ilut the anguish of her innocent soul was not un-nrarked by the grave eyes of kindly Providence, for ther ,,yal bird of highest fove suddenly spread both his pin-u )ns and came to her with timely aid, even the eagle, ther;rvisher, mindful of the ancient service rendered |overvhen at Love's bidding he had swept from earth theI'lrrygian boy who is his cupbearer. He honored Love's

;=',,rlhead in the woes of his bride and, leaving the shin-r nH paths of the high vault of heaven, swooped past

I'ryche's face and thus began: "Dost thou, simple-hearted

t44] t4s]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

and all unversed in such labors, hope to have power to

steal or even touch so much as one drop of that most'

holy and also most cruel fountain ? Thou trast surely

heard tell, even if thou hast never read, that even the

gods and |ove himself dread yonder stygian waters' and

even as you mortals swear by the divinity of the gods'

so the gods swear by the maiesty of Styx' But come' give

me rhar urn !" straightway he seized it and caught it to

his body; then poised on the vast expanse of his beating

pinions, swiftly he oared his way among the fierce f aws

of teeth and the forked rongues of dragons that flickered

to left and right. The *",.r, de*ied him access and bade

him depart *. he took some hurt, but he feigned that

he sought them at venus' bidding and was her servant'

Whereupontheysufferedhimtoapproachsomewhatless gr,ragingly. So he took of the water and Psyche re-

ceived the full urn with ioy and bore it back with all

speed to Venus.

Yet not even then could she appease the will of the

frenzied goddess. For she rhrearened her with shameful

torments yet worse and greater than before and thus

addressed her with a baleful smile upon her lips: "Irr

ffuth, I believe you are some great and potent sorceress'

so nimbly have you obeye,c my hard commands! But

you *.rri do me yet this one service' sweetheart' Takt:

this casket"-and with the words she gave it-"antl

straighrway descen,c to the world below and the ghastly

halls of orcus himself . There present the casket tt t

Proserpine and salr 'venus begs of thee to send her :r

small portion of thy beauty, '*h at least as may suffit r'

for the space of one brief d"y. For all her beauty is wortt

THE TALE

and perished through watching over her sick son" But

sce that you corne back with all speed, for I must anoint

rnyself with it before I go to heaven's theater""

Then Psyche felt more than ever that her fortune was

come to its last ebb, and knew that all veil of pretense

was laid aside, and that she was being driven to swift

<lcstruction. Well might she think so! For she was con-

st rained with her own feet to tread the way to Tartarus

,rrrd the spirits of the dead. She hesitated no longer, but

rvcn[ to a certain high tower that she might throw her-

,,t.lf headlong from it. For thus she thought rnost swiftly

,rrrd with greatest honor to descend to the world below.

Ilut the tower suddenly broke forth into speech and

, , icd: "Why, poor wretch, seekest thou to slay thyself

lry castitg thyself headlong down I And why rashly dost

tlrou faint before this task, the last of all thy perils? For

rl ,r)ce the breath be severed from thy body, thou wilt.,,,i,rrredly go to the depths of Tartarus' but thou shalt in

!!(f wise have power to return thence. Give ear to file.

I .r, t'claemon, a famous city of Achaea, is not far distant.

i t, , t l'rou seek Taenarus, that lies upon its borders hid-,tr n in a trackless wild. There is the vent of l)is, and

r!,i,,rrgh its gapitg portals is shown a path where no man

ii, .rtls. Cross the threshold and launch thyself upon the

1,rrl, :rnd forthwith thou shalt find a straight way to the

i i r \, palace of Orcus. Yet thou must not go empty-

lr rrr,L'rl through the gloom, but must bear in both thy

i r ' r r ls cakes kneaded of pearl barley and mead, and ini !, i, rr routh itself thou must bear two coins. And when

rlr,,,r lurst traversed a good part of thy deathly iourney,rlr,,i, ,'lrllt meet a lame ass bearing wood and with him

t46]t47]

/4MOR AND PSY CHE

a lame driver who will ask thee to hand him a few

twigs that have fallen from the load' But do thou speak

never a word, but pass on thy way in silence' And forth-

with thou shart come ro the river of the dead, where

charon hath charge and asks the ferryman's toll before

he conveys th. tr"ueler to the farther shore in his seamy

bark. For avarice lives even among the de-ad' nor will

charon, or even the great god that is lord of hell' do

anything unpaid; but ,lt. poor man when he dies must

seek for lourney money, and if there be no coin of bronze

to hand, no one will .u., suffer him to breathe his last'

Thou musr give this filthy graybeard by way of toll one

of the .oit, which thou shalt take with thee' But re-

member, he must take it with his own hand from thy

mouth. Likewise, as thou crossest the sluggish river' a

dead man that is foating on the surface will Pray thee,

raising his rotting handi to take him into thy boat' But

be thou nor moved wittr pity for him, for it is not law-

ful. And when thou hast crossed the river and gone a

litde way farther, old weaving women, 8s they weave

their web, will b.g thee lend them the aid of thy hands

for a little. But thou must not touch the web; it is for-

bidden. For all these snares and many others spring

from venus' crafty designs against thee, that thou may-

esr ler fall at leasr one o1 th. cakes from thy hands. But

think nor the 10ss of that worrhless piece of barley paste

matters but litde; for if thou lose but one' thou shalt

lose with it the light of d"y. For there is a huge hound

with three vasr heads, wird and terrible, that bays with

thunderous throat at the dead, though they are past all

hurt that he might do rhem. Terrifying them with vain

THE TALE

threats, he keeps sleepless watch before the very thresh-

old of prospeiirr.', dark halls and guards the empty

house of Dis, Bridle his rage by leaving him ^ cake to

prey upon, and thou shalt pttt him by with ease' and

forthwith enrer the very ho're of Proserpine. she shall

welcome thee with kindly courtesy' bidding thee sit

down and partake of a rich feast' But do thou sit upon

the gro.rtd, and ask for coarse bread and eat it' Then

tell wherefore thou hast come, take whatsoever shall be

given thee and, returnitg back, b.ty off the hound's rage

with the remaining cake. Then give the greedy mariner

the coin thou hadst kept back and, when thou hast

crossed the river, ,.rr".. thy former stePs till thou be-

hold once more yonder host of all the stars of heaven.

Ilut I bid thee, above all, beware that thou seek not to

open or look within the casket which thou bearest, of

,,rrn at all with over-curious eyes to view the ffeasure

of divine beauty that is concealed within"'

Thus did that far-seeirrg tower perform its task of

prophecy. And Psyche tarried not, but went to Taenarus

nnd, duly taking ih. coins and the cakes, ran down the

'ath to ifr. underworld, passed by the decrepit donkey-

rlriver in silence, paid the river's toll to the ferryman,

tlisregardecl the prayer of the foating dead, spurned the

crafty entreaties of the weaving women and, after she

6rd lulled the dread fury of the hound by giving him ^

t'ake to devour, entered the house of Proserpine' And

r hough her hosress offered her a soft chair and dainty

Itxxl she would have none of them, but sat lowly at her

[eet, content with common bread, and delivered the

*lessage with which venus had enrrusted her. straight-

t4e]{48}

-4MOR AND PSYCHE

way the casket was filled and sealed in secret' Psyche

rook it in her hands, silenced the hound's barking maw

with the second cake, paid the second coin to the ferry-

man, and, rerurnirrg iro* the world below far more

nimbly than she had descended, regained the shining

daylight and worshiped it with adoration.

Bur then, although ,h* was in haste to bring her task

to its conclusion, her mind was overwhelmed with rash

curiosity. "Oh! what a footr am I," she said"'for I carry

the gifi of divine beauty and yet sip not even the least

drop therefroffi, even though by so dolng I should win

the grace of my fair lover." with the words she un-

.l"rp.d the casket. But there was no beauty therein' nor

anything at all save a hellish and ffuly Stygian sleep

which, so soon as it was set free by the removal of the

lid, rushe,c upon her and poured over all her limbs in

a thick cl0ud of slumber" she fell in the very parh wherc

she stood, and the sleep possessed her where she fell'

There she l*y motionless, no better than a sleeping

corpse +

But the god Amor, who was recovering from his wouncl'

which had now healed, unable to endure the long atr

sence of his sweet Psyche, slipped through the lofty

window of the bedchamber where he was confined antl'

since his wings had been refreshed by their long resl '

flew forth swifter than ever and hasrened to the side r[.

his bel0ved psyche. carefully he wiped the sleep f r.r'

off her and confined it in the casket, its former reccl)

racle. Then waking Psyche with a harmless prick fr.ttr

THE TALE

one of his arrows, h. said: "My poor child, your curi-

osity had almost brought you to destruction yet a second

time. But meanwhile make haste to perform the task

with which my mother charged you; I will see to the

rest." So saying, her lover rose lightly upon his wings'

and Psyche wiif, ail speed bore the gift of Proserpine to

Venus.

Meanwhile Amor, pale-faced and devoured with very

great love, and fearing the sudden earnestness that had

lrorr.rr.d his mother, had recourse to his old tricks'

swi{t-winged he soared ro heaven's farthest height, b.-

sought great |ove to aid him, and set forth his case'

'l'hereupon ]ou. pinched Amor's cheek, raised his hand

Io his iipr, kisseJ it, and thus made answer: "My son

,rnd master, you have never shown me the honor de-

, ,'ced me by'the gods, but with continued blows have

rvounded this heart of mine whereby the laws of the ele-

r r rcnts and the motions of the stars are ordered' and

lr:rVe brought shame upon me by often causing me to

t.rll into ealthly lusrs; y;u have hurt my good name and

l,rrnc by tempting me to base aclulteries in defiance of

1,,rlrlic ir* t"a ord.r, *hy, you have even led me to

rr:ursgfess the |ulian law itself ; you have made me foully

rr, .lisfigure my serene countenance by taking upon me

il,,' likeness of serpents, fire, wild beasts, birds, and catde

, il rhc field. Yet, notwithstanding, mindful of my clem-

,1rt f and remembering that you have grown up in my

iinrs, I will grant you all your suit on one condition' You

l, rll be on your guard against your rivals and, if there

i,, o' earrh a girl of surpassing beauty, shall repay my

t,rr'',('nt bounty by making her mine"'

ts0]

,/4MOR AND PSYCHE

Having thus spoken, he bade Mercury forthwith sum-

mon all the gods to an assembly and make proclamation

that, if any one absented himself from the council of the

heavenly ones, he should be fined ten thousand pieces.

The fear of this caused heaven's theater promptly to be

filled, and |ove, towering above the assembly on his high

throne, thus gave utterance: "Gods whose names are

written in the Muses' register, you all know right well,

I think, that my own hands have reared the stripling

whom you see before you. I have thought fit at last to

set some curb upon the wild passions of his youthful

prime. Long enough he has been the daily talk and

scandal of all the world for his gallantries and his mani-

fold vices. It is time that he should have no more occa-

sion for his lusts; the wanton spirit of boyhood must be

enchained in the fefters of wedlock. He has chosen a

maiden, and robbed her of her honor. Let him keep her,

let her be his forever, let him enioy his love and hold

Psyche in his arms to all eternity." Then, turning toVenus, h. added: "And You, my daughter, be not down-

cast, and have no fear your son's marriage with a mortal

wilt shame your lofty rank and lineage. For I will see to

it that it shall be no unworthy wedlock, but lawful and

in accordance with civil law." Then straightway he bade

Mercury catch .tp Psyche and bring her to heavell. This

done, he oflered her a goblet of ambrosia and said:

"Psyche, drink of this and be immortal. Then Amor

shall never leave your arms, but your marriage shall

endure forever."

Forthwith ^ rich nuptial banquet was set forth. The

bridegroom reclined on the couch of honor holding

THE TALE

Psyche to his heart. So, too, |ove lay by the side of ]uno

his spouse, and all the gods took their places in order.

Then the shepherd boy that is his cupbearer served |ove

with a goblei of nectar' which is the wine of the gods,

and Liber served the orhers, while vulcan cooked the

dinner. The Flours made all things glow red with roses

and other fowers, the Graces sprinkled balsam, and the

Muses made melody with tuneful voices. Apollo accom-

panied his lyre with soog, fair venus danced with steps

,n", kept time to the sweet music played by the or-

chestra she had provided; for the Muses chanted in

chorus or blew the flute, while Satyr and young Pan

played upon the pipe of reed. Thus did Psyche with all

,ol.*rity b.come Amor's bride, and soon a daughter was

born to them: in the language of mortals she is called

Pleasure.

tss]{s2}

THE COMMENTARY

T he P sychic D euelopment

of the Feminine

FOREI/OTE

IN our interpretation we have not spoken of Cupid

and Psyche as in Apuleius' text, which thus mixes

Roman and Greek elements, but of Eros and

Psyche, and we have uniformly translated the name

back into its Greek form. It is not out of philo-

logical pedantry, which would be particularly un-

suited to this text, that we have transposed the

names of the gods into Greek. From a literarystandpoint, there is no doubt that the frivolouslate-Roman pantheon surrounding Psyche consti-

tutes a part of the tale's charm. But in our interpre-tation, which stresses mythical modfs, it seems

more fitting to speak of the Eleusinian mysteries ofI)emete r, rather than of Ceres, and to call the

Argive goddess Flera rather than |uno. Still more

important, it is Aphrodite and not Venus, who inour eyes is associated with the Great Goddess, and

in the myth Psyche's lover and husband is the

mighty, primordial god Eros, and not Amor or

Cupid-the cunning little cherub known to us

even from ancient works of art.E.N.

T he Psychic Deuelopment

of the Feminine

/-Tf\ nr tale of Eros and Psyche falls into five parts-

ll the introduction, the marriage of death, the act,

JL the four tasks, the htppy end-and we shall fol-

low this division in our interpretation. Psyche, the sub-

limely beautiful princess, is worshiped as a goddess.

Men neglect the cult of Aphrodite and undertake Pil-grimages to Psyche. This arouses the deadly jealousy ofAphrodite, who bids her son Eros to avenge her and to

destroy Psyche by making her fall in love with the

"vilest of men."

With all her beauty, Psyche is unloved. In order to

obtain a husband for her, her father consults the oracle

:rnd receives this terrible answer:

On some high crag, O king, set forth. the maid,

In all the pomp of funeral robes arrayed.

Hope for no bridegroorn born of mortal seed,

But fierce and a,,ild and of the dragon breed.

He suoops all-conquering, borne on airy wing,

With firt and suord he mafres his ltaruestingi

Trembles before him loue, uhont' gods do drea:d,

And quafres the darfrsome riuer of tlte dead.

In obedience to the oracle's command, the unhappy

parents abandon Psyche to the marriage of death withthe monster. Surprisingly, Psyche is not slain; carried

ofl by Zephyr, she enters upon a paradisaical life with the

invisible husband, Eros, who has chosen her for his wife.

ts7]

"A,MOR AND PSYCHE

But her envious sisrers break in upon this idyll of Psyche

and Eros. Despite Eros' warnings, Psyche gives ear to

her sisters and decides to surprise the monster (for her

sisters have rePresented her husband as such) by night

and ro kill him, In the nexr parr psyche, disobeying

Eros' cornmand, looks uPon him by the light of her

lamp. She recognizes Eros as a god, but a scalditg drop

of oil awakens him, so rhat, iust as he had warned her,

she loses him ar the same dme. There follow Psyche's

search for her lost lover, her struggle with Aphrodite's

wrath, her performance of the labors imposed on her by

the goddesr. Th. conresr ends with the defeat of Psyche,

*ho opens Persephone's box and falls into a deathlike

sleep. itt the final chapter Psyche is redeemed by Eros

and received on Olympus as his immortal wife'

The tale begins with the conflict between Psyche and

Aphrodite. Psyche's beauty is so great that she is wor-

shiped as a goddess" It is said among mortals that the

goid.ss, "who sprang from the blue deep of the sea and

was born from the spray of the foaming waves, had

deigned ro manifest her godhead ro all the world and

*r, dwelling among earthly folk.'n But sdll more of-

fensive to elhtodite is the profoundly symbolic belief..that h.au.r, had rained fresh procreative dew, and

earth, not sea, had brought forth as a fower a second

venus in all the glory of her maidenhood." Accorditg

to this strange belief, Psyche was no longer an incarna-

tion of Aphrodite, a norion that the goddess might con-

ceivably have tolerated; instead she was "a second Aphro-

diter" newly begotten and newly born. unquestionably

this ,.new tefief" contains an allusion to the birth of

THE COMMENTARY

Aphrodite, who, accordirrg to the myth, was created

from the severed phallus of Lrranus, which had fallen

into the sea. Pryche, by contrast' the "new Aphrodite"'

is held to have been born of the earth impregnated by

a drop of heaven's procreative dew'

It will becom. .uid.nt in the course of our discussion

that this .,new belief" is nor the product of any arbi-

trary interpretadon on our part but touches the very

core of th. myth. The corrfli.t between Aphrodite and

Psyche at the very beginnirrg of the tale shows this to be

the central modf.

The birth of psyche is a critical evenr in human his-

torlr as is shown by the radical transformation of man's

relation to Aphrodite. It corresponds exacrly to the cry

.,Great pan i; dead!" that rang out ar the end of 8n-

tiquity. "And now many a mortal iourneyed from fat

"rra sailed over the great deeps of ocean, focking to see

the wonder and gloty of the age. Now no man sailed to

Paphos or Cnidos, of even to Cythera, that they might

behold the goddess Venus; her rites were put aside' her

temples fell to ruin, her sacred couches were disregarded,

her ceremonies neglected, her images uncrowned' her

altars desolate and foul with fireless ashes. It was to a

girl men praYed' . . ."In reaction-to all this, Aphrodite, as a "class{onscious"

goddess, works herself uP into a great rage' She, - the

,,first parent of created things, the primal source of all

the elements,,, to be treated thus! Her name "that dwells

in the heavens,, has been "dragged through the earthly

muck." Her vanity is wounded, she is a iealous womant

thirsting for vengeance, and, what is more, for the most

{s8} tsej

I

.IbTOR AND PSY CHEj ';

:

,, i:r i.i r,r r, rrrrderhanded vengeance she. rlll la'(',rltrrrn +^ I .

-rl (JU aS

;:l^:]::rrucrion. Fo, her the rnain issuelre auty.

?HncoMMENTARYmen ir.1,. , too such indescribable misery. Then, after Aphro-Olte ha

^ 't jlPressed her desire ro see this lovely, virginalIlower of

!u**n womanhood consumed by desperatelrlove tor a. hideous, inhuman monster, she goes "to thelrsnore hard by, wh.re the sea ebbs and fows, and tread-

rng *t':, tssl feet the ropmosr foam of the quiveringwaves' plunged

down ro the deep,s dry floor. The seagods tarried not to io lr., service. It was as though sheltr

::i|n'il9, "1... c.rnmanded their presence, though in

, t had but iurt formed the wish." And there fol-rows ,rrt:1'

but just formed the *i'h"' A

,ite crui .tttttn.ing, color-drenched picture of Aphro-stng the r.r, surrounded by Nereids singing a

part song ,tnd Tritons, one blowing softly on a conch

t rr'snell' ttltl:: shielding her from the sun with a silkawning' a third l,otairrg amirror before her eyes' This

",f;ffi:,:u'^:-h."u.'b e a u r y, n fi ';

"' l" r" TIl J' Ii*:, ; i::,, t" $;, T:ffi:love or h6ad .lrrrrJlo,tnA'

she began to hate the "loveliness that

ns,n. ";:i. ;,iH,,:1,:"l.:;i:: lil_3*t :::f:;the dire a

Here o;;,I': ::::il*:il;rul chaprer. rhough the"marriage of deaanrJt ,* barely intimated in the prologt"to the dranation "r,r,l',i:'f[: T:::::,,,*

o;il,il,1?:f:*::-ful weddir.t -t

Ig'. the te)rches burning low, "clogged withoarK soot t1d q5hr"

the ,'strains oI the flute of wedlock'.' changtg to the rnelancholy Lydian mode"-this isthe rnatriarchtl.titua<l

of the marriage of death precedingthe lament for Ado;-is. k is a vestige of the ancien, *y,lr-

can think up.her instrurnentis a rivalry in

The lively' sophisticated treatment of this situationshould not mislead us into see.ing tt. .pisode as a genrepicture' something far deep., i, inuolu.i. Aphrodite andher son Eros, *ho-.r1. i*pror.s by the bond of motherIove, kissing him ,,wirh prJ; Iips . . .-iorg and fervent_Lyr" are rnighty, ru.-inou, godr. with ,lr. free, utterryarbitrary will of divine por.rir.r., , forwhom mortar man;J,l,l',*:t;:': or.,,tr,,i ,r,. Great Moth., and hertare or p,y.h. o#,':ffi il:'::j,:ffilr:[trtragedy.

The radianr, rnarignanr beauty of this immortar pairexerts a fascination which no reader of the tare canescape. [165-the headstrong, trut y ,,wicf,.a boyr,, whosearrows threaten even hi, ow; -orh.r and father, Aphro_dite and Zeus-is asked to J.rrroy psyche with theweapon of Aphrodite

iid Eros, with lou.. The princessmusr "be consurned with prrrio' for the v'est of rnen' ' ' one so broken that {rroush at the worrd his mis_ery has no peer." The ,il-po#.rfur goddess, the GreatMother' whose prirnordiar ^i-rg.

breathes an aura ofwirchcrafr rrd rnagic, incrudrr;?J;";;'. turn meninto beasts' displayi 1", deadly jou.

magic with the grit-tering sharnelessness of a aiuin.ty *.i.it.r, and trury

;:':T:ffiil.*J divine u"u,v, overpowering van-r,..ar.,,, ji,rru,,r-a. jo1;'H;irJTT,.jTr*1*l

{oo1

t61 ]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

ical agc, rising into the late fairy-tale world of the Alex-

andrine Aphrodite.The ancient, primordial motif of the bride dedicated

to death, of "death and the maidenr" is sounded. And

here we discern a central phenomenon of feminine-matri-

archal psychology.

Seen from the standpoint of the matriarchal world,

every marriage is a rape of Kore, the virginal bloom, by

Hades, the ravishiog, earthly aspect of the hostile male.

From this point of view every marriage is an exposure

on the mountain's summit in mortal loneliness' and a

waiting for the male monster, to whom the bride is sur-

rendered. The veiling of the bride is always the veiling of

the mystery, and marriage as the marriage of death is a

central archetype of the feminine mysteries.

In the profound experience of the feminine, the rnar-

riage of doom recounted in innumerable myths and tales,

the maiden sacrificed to a monster, dragon, wizatd, or

evil spirit, is also a hieros gamos. The character of rape

that the event assumes for womanhood expresses the pro-

iection-typical of the matriarchal phase-of the hostile

element upon the malt. It is inadequate, for example, to

interpret the crime of the Danaides, who-all but olle-murdered their husbands on their wedding night, as the

resistance of womanhood to marriage and the patri-

archal domination of the male. Unquestionably this in-

terpretation is right, but it applies only to the last phase

of a development that reaches much farther back.

The fundamental situation of the feminine, as we have

elsewhere shown, is the primordial relation of identity

between daughter and mother. For this reason the ap-

THE COMMENTARY

proach of the male always and in every case means sep-

aration. Marriage is always a mystery, but also a mystery

of death. For the male-and this is inherent in the es-

sential opposition between the masculine and the fern-

inine-marriage, as the matriarchate recognized, is pri-

marily an abduction, an acquisition-a rape.

When we concern ourselves with this profound mytho-

logical and psychological stratum, we must forget cul-

tural development and the cultural forms taken by the

relationship between man and woman and go back to the

primordial phenomenon of the sexual encounter between

them. It is not hard to see that the significance of this en-

counter is and must be very different for the masculine

and the feminine. What for the masculine is aggression,

victory, rape, and the satisfaction of desire-we need only

take a look at the animal world and have the courage to

recognize this stratum for man as well-is for the femi-

nine destiny, transformation, and the profoundest mys-

tery of life.It is no accident that the central symbol of maiden-

hood is the flower, which delights man with its natural

beauty, and it is extremely significant that the consum-

mation of marriage, the destruction of virginity, should

be known as "defoweritg." In his interpretation of Per-

sephone, Kerdnyit has pointed to the death of the maiden

Kore and the fluid boundary between being and noll-

being at the gates of Hades. Our aim is to provide psy-

chological clarification of this mythological datum. For

1 "The Psychological Aspects of the Korer" in lung atdKer6nyi, Essays on a Scienie of Mytltology. [See List of Works

Cited.]

t6s){62}

,/4MOR AND PSYCHE

the feminine, the act of defloration represents a truly

mysterious bond between end and beginning, between

ceasing to be and entering upon real life. To experience

maidenhood, womanhood, and nascent motherhood in

one, and in this transformation to plumb the depths of

her own existence: this is given only to the woman, and

only as long as it remains open to the archetypal back-

ground of life. For good reason this act originally struck

the masculine as numinous and utterly mysterious. In

many places and at all times it has accordingly been ab-

stracted from the context of private life and enacted as

a rite"It becomes particularly clear how decisive the transi-

tion from maiden-flower to fruit-mother must be in the

life of the feminine, when we consider how quickly

women age under primitive conditions, horv quickly the

strength of the fertile mother is consumed by hard work.

The transition from girlhood to womanhood is always

felt more keenly where, as so frequently happens, 3 care-

free yourh is immediately followed by the constraint and

regularity of adulthood and marriage.

Flere it may be argued that in primitive society therc

is often no question of a defforation, since an uninhibited

and unaccented sexuality enters into the games of child-

hood, and that consequently the emphasis we seem to bc

putting on the factor of "marriage" is very much exagger-

ated if not entirely out of ptrace. But as we have already

pointed out, when we speak of "marriager" we have in

mind an archetype or archetypal experience, and not a

merely physiological occurrence. The experience of thc

original situation of the marriage of death rnay coinciclc

THE COMMENTARY

with the first real consummation of marriage, the deflora-

tion, but it need nor, any more than the original situa-

tion of childbearing need coincide with actual childbear-

ing. It is true that innumerable women consummate

marriage or perform the act of childbearing without going

through the corresponding "experlgnss"-x5, to our sur-

prise, we often observe in modern women-but this does

not do away with the marriage situation as an archetype

and cenrral figure of feminine psychic reality. Myth is al-

ways the unconscious representation of such crucial life

situations, and one of the reasons why myrhs are so sig-

nificant for us is that we can read the true experiences of

mankind in these confessions unobscured by conscious-

tless.poetry, which in its highest form is animated by the

same primordial images as myrh, may disclose motifs and

forrnulations which recapitulate mythical ones, and our

myrhological interpretation is gratifyingly confirmed

when a poem strikes the same primordial note as re-

sounds in the myth. |ust this occurs in Rilke's poem

"Alcestis," in which the poet, delving down f.ar deeper

than the modf of conjugal love, reaches the primordial

stratum of the marriage of death.

Accordirg to the familiar tale, the gods granted

Admetus the privilege of buying off his own death with

the death of anorher. when the hour of his death had

( ome, his mother, father, and friend were unwillitg to

give their life for his, but his wife Alcestis, whom Flomer

, alls "divine among wom€r," this wife celebrated for her

c'nfugal love, willingly took death upon herself. Like

r 5c Egyptian Isis mournitg for Osiris, the classical

{64}

.l*

t6s]

,,{MOR AND PSYCHE

Alcestis of patriarchal Greece was the "good wifer" and

her death, which casts a none too favorable light on l:tpatriarchal husband, who exacted and accepted this

death, becomes intelligible only when we consider that

even Euripides ,.grrd-.d the tif. of ^

man as infinitely

more valuable than that of a woman''

But in Rirke,s poem somethittg different happens'

simply because the poer's mythotogical intuidon shifts

the -episode

to the wedding d"Y'

. . . and' uthat catne forth uas she'

a little smaller notu than he had thought her'

slend,er and sad. in h.er pale bridal gouln'

T he others all are but a, Iane f o, her,

through which she cornes or,d cotnes-(soon she'll

be there,

held in ltis arms' fl'ung open wide in grief )'

Yet as he waits, she spea\si not to Admettts'

but to the god who listens to her words;

the others h'o' them onlY in the god'

"None ca'n rePlace him; none but l'I arn his f o,feit" For none is at an end

as I am here. W hat a'rn' I now of that

w|tich once l was? Nothiflg, unless l die.

Did slte not tell you athen she charged you then-

the brid,al bed that tuaits for us within

isoftheund'qworld'?Ihaaesaidfarewell,farewell u7on fareuell'No dying soul could bid tnzre sure

I wedded

f areweIIs.

2 Rose, A Hand.boo\ ol Greefr Mytholog)1, P' I4I'

{66}

T HE C OMMENT ARY

tltat all that buried lies under ffiy husband

should flo*, distill, resolue'-

Lead tne utuay, for I witt die for ltitn."3

At first Rilke's interpretation might s€em to be arbi-

trary poetic license, buJwhen we consider it more closely

we find that here again Poetry has profound laws and

sensuous roots, that its freedom is far from arbitrary'

Modern scholarship has established that Alcestis had a

number of cults and was originally a goddess'n The corn-

plete harmony between the modern poem and the bride-

of-death motif in the myth becomes aPParent when we

learn that this goddess Alcestis was a Kore-Persephone'

a goddess of death and the underworld, whose husband

Admetus was originally the indomitable Hades him-

self,o and that th. belonged to the grouP of the great

maffiarchal Pheraia goddesses who reigned in the pri-

rnordial age of Greece. It was only in the course of

6istorical J.u.lopmenr that the goddess Alcestis became

rhe ,,heroine,, r"a her divine husband the mortal king

Admetus, a typical example of secondary person altza-

r irn in which originally ar.h.typal elemenrs are reduced

Io a personal level.

I{ilke doubtless came to know the myth in this Per-

,,, r^alized form. But what did he do, or rather, what hap-

lrt.ned to him ? For him Alcestis was transformed into a

lrr ide. Moreover, she became the bride of death, Kore-

I't'rsephone, and the drama that was enacted within her

t r :illscended the personal sphere' transcended her hus-

n Tr. Emily Chisholm (unpublished){ Irhilippson, Thessalische Mythologie, p' 88.

n lbid., p. 85.

t67]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

band, King Admetus. It became a dialogue between her

and the god-the god of death, that is to ssy, the Ad-metus of the underworld, her original husband. Themythological constellation, overlaid by the changingtimes, is recaptured in poetry. The image in the poet's

soul shakes off the disguise imposed on it by time andhuman history and emerges again in its original formfrom the primordial font of myth.

In his lines on Eurydice, Rilke sounds the modf ofdeath and the maiden in still another k.y. Eurydicecomes from death; Orpheus seeks to regain her for the

upper world and life, but in her authentic being, her

maidenhood, her "budlikeness," as Kerdnyi has said,

hence in her inviolable "inherselfnessr" she already be-

longs to the perfection of death.

Hidden in herself slre uuent. And lrer being dead

Fulfilled lter eaen to fullness.Full as a. fruit with sueetness and uitlr darfrness

Was slte uith h.er great death, ailtich uas so nela

Tltat for the time she cornpreltended notlriog.

Slre h.ad attained a rreu uirginityAnd uas intangible; lrer ser ltad closed

As a young flouer closes touards euening,

And her pale ltands a)ere from tlte rites of marciage

So far estranged tltat euen tlte slim god's

Endlessly gentle contact as lte led lrer

Repelled her as A too great intimacy.u

Thus the archetypal efficacy of the maiden's marriage

6 "Orpheus. Eurydice. Flermes"

T HE C OMMENT ARY

of death exrends from matriarchal prehistorlr through

the ritual sacrifice of the maiden and the ritual consum-

mation of marriage, into modern times. And the lllsf-

riage of death also occupies a central position in the tale

of -pryche,

although it seems at first to be represented

merely as Aphrodite's vengeance'

strang.ly .rrough, and incomprehensibly if we consider

only psyche's ,'simple-mindednessr" her reply to her selr-

tence, springirrg fio* her unconscious, is in profound

accord with the mysrery of the feminine faced with this

situation of death. she does not respond with struggle,

protest, defiance, resistsnce' as a masculine ego must

hru. done in a similar situation, but, quite the contrary,

with acceprance of her fare. with absolute clairvoyance

she perceives the underlying meaning of what is htp-

pening, and this is the only instance in the tale where it

is suggested that this meaning is known to the human

characters. She replies: "When nations and peoples gave

me divine honor, when with one voice they hailed me as

a new Aphrodite, then was the time for you to grieve,

ro weep and mourn me as one dead." Taking the hybris

(of mankind, of course' and not of her Person, her cgo)

and its punishment quite for granted, she declares her

readiness to be sacrificed: "I hasten to meet that blest

union, I hasten ro behold the noble husband that awaits

me. why do I pur ofi and shun his coming ? was he not

born to dertroy all the world ?" And with this, Psyche,

abandoned on a lonely crsgt is all at once removed from

the sphere of the lamentirg throng and of her parents

as well.Then comes the reversal, the surprise, the episode(tt.

]t68

Leishmxrr p. 43).

t6e]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

which at first sight gives the strongest impression of afairy tale. This is the third phase: Psyche in the paradise

of Eros.

The marriage, ushered in with the great mythical

splendor of a marriage of death, is consummated in a

setting familiar to us from the much later tales of the

Arabian Nights. There is an almost rococo lightness

about the scene. "Now when night was well advanced

a soft sound came to her ears. She trembled for her

honor, seeing that she was all alone ; she shook for terror

and her fear of the unknown surpassed by far the fear

of any peril that ever she had conceived. At length her

unknown husband came and climbed the couch, made

Psyche his bride, and departed in haste before the dawn."

Soon "what seemed strange at first by force of corl-

tinued habit became a delight, and the sound of the

voices cheered her loneliness and perplexity." Shortly

thereafter she declares: "sooner would I die a hundred

deaths than be robbed of your sweet love. For whoever

you are, I love you and adore you passionately. I love

you as I love life itself. Compared with you Eros' own

self would be as nothing." Yet this ecstasy in which she

murmurs "Husband, sweet as honey" and "Psyche's life

and love" is an ecstasy of darkness. It is a state of not-

knowing and not-seeitg, for her lover can only be felt

and heard, but Psyche is satisfied, or so it seems, and lives

in paradisaical bliss.

But every paradise has its serpent, and Psyche's lloc-

turnal rapture cannot last forever. The intruder, the

snake (of this paradise), is represented by Psyche's sis-

ters, whose irruption brings the catastrophe, which here

T HE C OMME NT ARY

again is expulsion from paradise. Here we should seem

to have the simple and familiar fairy-tale modf of the

envious sisrers. But analysis shows that fairy-tale modfs

are anything but simple, that they actually consist of

many different layers and are extremely meaningftl'

Despite the urgent warning of Eros, Psyche meets her

sisters I smitten with envf, they plot to destroy her happi-

ness. The method they choose is again consonant with a

universal modf, for the essenrial is nor the murder of

psyche's husband, but that psyche should be persuaded

to break the raboo, ro rhrow lighr on the hidden secret:

in this case, ro look upon her husband. For this is the

prohibition that Psyche's unseen husband had imposed

ott her; she may not see him, she may not know "who

he is." It is the ever-recurring "Never question mer" the

order not to enter the "closed roomr" whose infringement

is to encomPass PsYche's ruin'How are these sisters characterized, and what is their

meaning in the development of Psyche's story I Let us

set aside the superficial, personal, fairy-tale traits, and

seek to discern their underlying content.

supposedly the sisters are happily married, but actually

they h.,. their husbands ro the boftom of their souls, in

so far as we may speak of a soul in connection with such

furies; they are prepared to leave them at once and under

any conditions. Their marriages are a symbol of patri-

archal slavery, typical examples of what we call "the

slavery of the feminine in the patriarchate." They are

..given to alien kings to be their handmaidens"; one de-

scribes her husband as older than her father, "balder than

a pumpkin and feebler than any child." Thus she must

t70] { 77 }

,/4MOR AND PSY CHE

plry the role of a daughter to him in every respect, while

her sister has the no less unpleasant life of a sick-nurse.

Both sisters are intense man-haters and represent' as we

may say by way of anticipation, a typical position of the

matriarchate.This contention is not hard to document' we must not

take the obvious modf of envy as the ultimate attribute of

the sisters, although it has its place in the total situadon'

The clearest symptom of the sisters' man-hating matri-

archal attitude is their charac tertzation of Psyche's hus-

band.when the sisters speak of the "embraces of a foul and

venomous snake," when they say that the beast will de-

vour Psyche and her child-for Psyche has meanwhile

become pregnant-they are expressing more than the

sexual .tuy of unsatisfied women' Their slander-for

they speak the truth on a note of slanderous misunder-

standing-springs frcm the sexual disgust of a violated

and insulted matriarchal psyche. The sisters succeed in

evoking this man-haring matriarchal srrarum in Psyche

herself. she finds herself in a confict that is expressed in

these simple words: "In the same body she hated the

beast and roved the husband." This already transparent'

relation to the matriarchate and the man-slaying Dana-

ides is intensified when the sisrers advise Psyche nor t.

flee from her unknown husband, but to kill him and cut

off his head with a knife, an ancient symbol of castra-

tion sublimated ro the spiritual sphere. The hostilc

male, woman as victim of the man-beast, the man's mur-

der and castration as matriarchal symbols of self-defens,'

or domination-how do these come to Psyche' whll

THE COMMENTARY

meaning and purpose have they in the myth of Psyche's

development ?

The activity of the man-haring matriarchal sisters con-

rrasrs ,hrrpli with the genrle devotion and self-efface-

ment of nry.h., who hat wholly surrendered herself to

the sexrrrl bondage-for that is what it is-of Eros' The

appearance of the sisters brings the first movement into

,lr. prradise of sensual pleasure that Apuleius paints with

such a wealth of color. In our interpretation the sister

figures represent proiections of the suppressed or totally

unconscious matriarchal tendencies of Psyche herself'

whose irruption produces a conflict within her. Psycho-

logically speaking, the sisters are Psyche's "shadow" as-

1,ir, but tlr.i, plurality shows that they reach down into

I ranspersonal strata.

The appearance of the sisters for the first time gives

l'syche a certain independence. Suddenly she sees her

t.xisterc€ with Eros as a "luxurious prison" and yearns

r.rr human companionship. Thus far she has drifted along

rrr the stream oi rt unconscious ecstasy, but now she sees

rlrc ghostlike unreality of her sensual paradise' and be-

11irrs, in contact with her lover, to take cognrzance of her

w'roxohood. she makes "scenes" and ensnares the en-

',irltrer with t'passionate murmurs"'

We musr wlofly disregard the surface intrigue if we

rvish to understand the real function and meanirg of this

r r r rrpdon of the shadow-sisters. Paradoxical as it may

.,r-r.lrr, the sisters represent an aspect of the feminine con-

.,i rr)'srress that determines psyche's whole subsequent de-

,,, lopment, and without which she would not be what she

r.,, nlmely the feminine psyche. Despite its negative form'

t 72 ] t 73 ]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

the anti-masculine and rnurderous agitation of the sisters

embodies a true resistance of the feminine nature against

Psyche's situation and attitude, the beginnitg of a higher

feminine consciousness. Not that the sisters represent

this consciousness, they are only its shadowy, that is,

negative, precursor. But if Psyche succeeds in attaining

ril higher level, it is only because she starts by subordi-

nating herself to the negarive directive of her sisters. It

is only by breaking the taboo that Eros has imposed on

her, by responding to the seduction of her sisters, that

she comes into .otrfli.t with Eros, who, as we shall show,

is the foundation of her own developmenr. As in the

Biblical episode, the heeding of the serpenr leads to ex-

pulsion from paradise and to a higher consciousness.

For with af its raprure is this existence in the sensual

paradise of Eros not an Lrnworthy existence ? Is it not a

,r"r. of blind, though impassioned, servitude, against

which a feminine self-consciousness-and such is the

rnatriarchal attitude of the feminine-must protest'

against which it must raise all the argumenrs that are

,*ir.d by the sisters ? psyche's existence is a nonexistence,

a being-irr-th.-dark, a raprure of sexual sensuality which

may firtingly be characterized as a being devoured by ^

demon, a monster. Eros as an unseen fascination is every-

thing that the oracle of Apollo, cited by the sisters, has

said of him, and Psyche really is his victim.t

? psyche's existence in the dark paradise of Eros is an interest

irrg variant of the hero's engulfment by the whale-dragon'

monster. Frere the containment and captivity in the darkness are

overlaid by the qualiry of pleasure, but this situation too is

archetypal and not exceptional. The danger of engulfment is

often disguised by the l,rt. of a (regressive) paradise whiclr,

T HE C OMME NT ARY

The basic law of the matriarchate forbids individual

relations with the man and acknowledges the male only

as an anonymous power, representing the godhead. For

Psyche this *rrorry*ity is fulfilled, but at the same time

'he has incurred the profound, ineradicable disgrace of

succurnbing to this manhood, of falling into its power.

From the utrrrdpoint of the matriarchate there is only

one answer to thi, clisgrace: to kill and castrate the mas-

culine, and that is what the sisrers demand of Psyche.

Ilut they not only embody regression; a higher feminine

principle is also at work, as is made plain by the sym-

trolism with which the myrh literally "illuminates"

l'syche's unconscious situation'

In her confict with Eros, psyche repeatedly resists his

iniunction ro break off relations with her sisrers; and

with a puzzling persistence that appears to contradict

her seeming ,oftt.rr, she Preserves her bond with them

in the face of the most urgent warning' In the course of

r his conflict she umers the revealing words that are the

l,.y to her inner situation: "I seek no more to see your

like the gingerbread housc in the tale of Hansel and Gretel,

,,,nceals " d.uo,tring monsterl here the devourer is the dragon

l,.ros; in the fairy -tale it is the witch. As in the night sea

voyage the male solar hero kindles the light in the belly of the

rrr.nst€r and then cuts himself out of the darkness, Psyche tolr

, n her liberation from the prison of darkness, is equipped Yilllr11ht and knife. But in the masculine solar myth the hostile, kill-

,,;; acdon of the hero occupies the- foreground; even where it,.,'k"o*ledge, it kills and 'tismembers" its obiect, the dragon'

r' its feminine variant this need of knowing remains bound up

with the greater need of loving. Even where the heroine Psyche

r.; colnp.f.a to wouncl, she pi.r.tu.t her bond with her lover'

rr,,lrr)rn she never ceases to conciliate and transform'

tfr

It74] tTsj

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

facel not even the dark of night can be a hindrance tomy joy, for I hold you in my arms, light of my life."

But at the very moment when Psyche seems to accept

the darkness, that is, the unconsciousness of her situation,and in seemingly total abandonment of her individualconsciousness addresses her unknown and invisible loveras "light of my life," a feeling that has hitherto been un-noticeable breaks to the surface. She speaks negatively ofthe burdensome darkness and of her desire to know herlover. She exorcises her own fear of what is to come andreveals her unconscious awareness of what is happening.She was imprisoned in darkness, but now the drive to-ward light and knowledge has become imperious; ar thesame time she senses that a great menace is gatherirgover her head. This is what makes it so touching whenshe seeks to exorcise the reality of the darkness by ad-dressing Eros as "light of my life." For though it is

true in an ultimate sense that Eros is the light that shinesbefore her, showing her the way through all her perils,this Eros who shows her the way is nor the boyish yourhwho embraces her in the dark and seeks by every meansat his disposal to restrain her from disturbirg the para-dise of their love.

Psyche-as the continuation of the srory emphaticallyshows-is far from being merely "gentle" and "simple-hearted"; on the contrary, the attitude of the sisters, theirprotest and hostility, correspond to a current in Psycheherself. The matriarchal protest that surges up in heragainst the impossibility of the situation in which Erosholds her captive is borne in on her from outside by hersisters and impels her to action. It is this situation that

THE COMMENTARY

makes possible the conflict in Psyche: "fn the same body

she hated the beast and loved the husband"; and it is this

alone that enables the sisters to seduce her. Psyche does

not know how Eros, her lover, really looks. Thus far the

opposition, beast and lover, has been present in her un-conscious but has not penetrated her consciousness. It is

the sisters who make her conscious of the monster-beast

aspect. Now Psyche comes into open conflict with her

conscious love relation, in which Eros was only her "hus-

band." She can no longer preserve her old unconscious

state. She must see the real form of her partner, and thus

the ambivalence, the opposition between a psyche thathates the beast and a psyche that loves the husband,

is proiected outward and leads to Psyche's act.

Armed with knife and lamp, Psyche approaches her

unknown lover and in the light recognizes him as Eros.

First she attempts to kill herself with the knife she had

held ready for the "monster," but she fails. Next, whilegazing at her lover in the light, she pricks her finger on

one of his arrows; aflame with desire for him, she stoops

to kiss him and a drop of scalding oil springs from the

lamp, burning and wounditg Eros, who awakens. See-

irg that Psyche has disobeyed his command, he flies offand vanishes.

What does Psyche experience when, driven by the man-

hating matriarchal powers, she approaches the bed tokill the supposed monster and beholds Eros ? If we re-

store the mythical grandeur of the scene, which Apuleius'delicate filigree diminishes and almost distorts, we per-

ceive a dram a of. great depth and power, a psychic trans-

formation of unique meaning. It is the awakening of

t76] t77]

.A,M OR AN D PSY CHE

Psyche as the psyche, the fateful moment in the life ofthe feminine, in which for the first time woman emerges

from the darkness of her unconscious and the harshness

of her matriarchal captivity and, in individual encounterwith the masculine, loves, that is, recognizes, Eros. Thislove of Psyche's is of a very special kind, and it is onlyif we grasp what is new in this love situation that we can

understand what it means for the development of thefeminine as represented by Psyche.

The Psyche who approaches the bed on which Eros iC

lying is no longer the languorously ensnared being, b+witched by her senses, who lived in the dark paradise ofsexuality and lust. Awakened by the incursion of her sis-

ters, conscious of the danger that threatens her, she as-

sumes the cruel militancy of the matriarchate as she

approaches the bed to kill the monster, the male beast

who has torn her from the upper world in a marriageof death and carried her off into darkness. But in theglow of the newly kindled light, with which she il-lumines the unconscious darkness of her previous exist-

ence, she recognizes Eros. Slte loues. In the light of hernew consciousness she experiences a fateful transforma-tion, in which she discovers that the separation betweenbeast and husband is not valid. As the lightning bolt oflove strikes her, she turns the knife against her own heartor (in other terms) wounds herself on Eros' arrow. Withthis she departs from the childlike, unconscious aspect ofher reality and the matriarchal, man-hating aspect as

well. Only in a squalid, lightless existence can Psyche

mistake her lover for a beast, a violator, a dragon, andonly as a childishly ignorant girl (but this too is a dark

{78}

T HE C OMME NT ARY

aspecr) can she suppose that she is in love with a "higher

husband" distinct lro* the lower dragon. In the light of

irrupting love Psyche recognizes Eros as a god, who is

the upper and the lower in one, and who connects the

two.psyche pricks herself on Eros' arrow and bleeds. "so all

unwitring, yet of her own doing, Psyche fell in love with

Love." Th; beginnit g of her love was a marriage of

death as dying, being-raped, and being+aken; what Pty-

che now experiences may be said to be a second defora-

tion, th. ,."1, active, voluntary defloration, which she ac'

complishes in herself. she is no longer a victim, but an

actively loving woman. She is in love, enraptured by

Eros, who has seized her as a power from within, Do

longer as a man from without. For Eros as a man out-

side sleeps and knows norhing of what Psyche does and

what goes on within her. And here the narrative begins

to disclose a psychological acuteness that has no equal'

psyche's aci of love, in which she voluntarily gives her-

self to love, to Eros, is at once a sacrifice and a loss. She

does not renounce the matriarchal stage of her wornan-

hood; the paradoxical core of the situation is that in and

through her act of love she raises the matriarchal stage

to its ".rth.rrtic

being and exalts it to the Amazonian level-

The knowing Psyche, who sees Eros in the full light

and has broken the taboo of his invisibility, is no longer

naive and infantile in her attitude toward the masculine;

she is no longer merely captivating and captivated, but is

so completely changed in her new womanhood that she

loses and indeed must lose her lover. In this love situa-

tion of womanhood growing conscious through eII-

t7e]

,A.MOR AND PSYCHE

counter, knowledge and suffering and sacrifice are identi-

cal. with psyche's love that burst forth when she "sees

Eros,,, there comes into being within her an Eros who is

no longer identical with the sleeping Eros outside her.

This inner Eros that is the image of her love is in truth

a higher and invisible form of the Eros who lies sleeping

before her. It is the adult Eros which pertains to the

conscious, adult psyche, the Psyche who is no longer a

child. This grearer, invisible Eros within Psyche musr

necessarily come into conflict with his small, visible in-

carnarion who is revealed by the light of her lamp and

burned by the drop of oil. The Eros hidden in the dark-

ness could still be an embodiment of every image of Eros

that lived within psyche, but the Eros who has become

visible is the divine, finite reality of the boy who is Aphro-

dite's son.t

And, we musr nor forget, Eros himself did not want

such a Psyche ! He threatened her, he fervently implore tl

her to remain in the paradise-darkness' he warned hcr

that she woul,C lose him forever by her act' The uncon-

scious tendency toward consciousness (here toward con-

sciousness in the love relationship) was stronger in Psychc'

than everythirg else, even than her love for Eros-or so'

at least, the masculine Eros would have said. But wrongly

s But for psyche it is essential that she unify the dual strtr('

ture of Eros, which is also manifested in the antithetical figures

of Eros and Anteros, and transform the lower into the higher

Eros. Flere it is interesting to note that the twofold Eros, tlrr

Eros of Aphrodite and the Eros of Psyche, "rfis -A'lpodirrls xcrl

,frs *rxfis ,Epc,tro," is already mentioned in the Egyptian mlgit

papyrus. See Reitzenstein, Dot Miirchen uon Amor und Psychr

bei Apuleius, P. 80.

{80}

THE COMMENTARY

so, for though the Psyche of the paradisaical state was

subservient to Eros, though she had yielded to hirn in the

clarkness, she had not loved him. Something in her,

which may be designated negatively as matriarchal ag-

gression, or positively as a tendency toward consciousness

and a fulfillment precisely of her feminine nature' drove

her imperiously to emerge from the darkness. It is in the

light of knowledge, her knowledge of Eros, that she be-

gins to love.

The loss of her lover in this moment is among the

tlcepest truths of this myth; this is the tragic moment in

which every feminine psyche enters upon its own destiny.

lrros is wounded by Psyche's act; the drop of oil that

lrrrrns him, awakens him, and drives him away is in every

:,('rse a source of pain. To him, the masculine god, she

wlrs desirable enough when she was in the dark and he

1 ,,,ssessed her in the dark, when she was the mere com-

1,:rnion of his nights, secluded from the world, living,rrl/ for him, without share in his diurnal existence, in

lris reality and his divinity. FIer servitude was made stillr k'c'pef by his insistence on his divine anonymity : she

\v:rs still more "devoured" by him. This childlike girl,r l, is "simple and gentle soul" (a masculine misunder-

'.r,rnding if ever there was one!), approaches the sleeper

n,rth knife and lamp to slay him. Inevitably her willing-n(':is to lose him must burn and wound the masculine

l' r os most painfully.l'syche emerges from the darkness and enters upon her

, l, ',t iny as a woman in love, for she is Psyche, that is,

l', r ('ssence is psychic, an existence in paradisaical dark'

t81-]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

ness cannot satisfy her.n It is not until Psyche experiences

Eros as more than the darkly ensnarittg one' not until

she sees him (ht after all has always seen her), that she

really encounters him. And in this very moment of loss

and alienation, she loves him and consciously recognizes

Eros.

With this she enacts the matriarchal sacrifice of the

lover on a higher plane and with the full f ustification of

her human claim to consciousness. By freeing herself

from him with dagger and lamp, which she bears in

place of the rorch of Flecate and the other matriarchal

goddesses, and so surpassing him and her servitude to

him, she deprives Eros of his divine power over her.

Psyche and Eros now confront one another as equals.

But confrontation implies separateness. The uroboricto

original unity of the embrace in the darkness is tran-

scended, and with Psyche's heroic act suffering, guilt,

and loneliness have come into the world. For Psyche's

act is analogous to the deed of the hero who separated thc

original parents in order to produce the light of coo'

sciousness; in this case, it is Psyche and Eros themselves,

during their soiourn in the paradise of darkness, who are

the original parents.

But Psyche's act only appears to be a "masculine" deetl

e This is a repetition on a different plane of the matriarclrel

act of the Am ^ion,

who sacrifices her womanhood, her breastll

nor only in order to fight as a man in her struggle with the mate

for independence, but also in order to fortify the Great Goddelt

of the matriarchate. The "many-breasted" Ephesian Arterrrir

wears a cloak of breasts, which are the symbols of the brelrtlsacrificed to her by the Amazons, if not these breasts themselvcl,

Cf. Picard, "Die Ephesia von Anatolienr" EI rg38'10 The uroboros is the circular snake, biting its tail, that syltt=

bolizes the One and All.

T HE C OMMENT ARY

resembling that of the hero. For there is one cruciallyand fundamentally diflerent factor: although Psyche's actcorresponds to the necessary development of conscious-rress, it is not an act of killing, indeed it is this very acr

that gives rise to Psyche's love. And whereas the mascu-line goes on from his act of heroic slaying to conquer theworld, whereas his hieros gaftros with the anima figurehe has won constitutes only a part of his victoryrll Pry-che's subsequent development is nothing other than anIrttempt to transcend, through suffering and struggle, thescparation accomplished by her act. On a new plane, thatiri, in love and full consciousness, she strives to be re-rrnited with him who had been separated from her andtrrake whole again by a new union what necessity hadirnpelled her to sacrifice. Thus Psyche's acr is the begin-rring of a development which nor only embraces Psychelrut must also seize hold of Eros.

I'.ros, as he himself relates, was wounded at the very

'utset b1' his own arrow, that is, he loved Psyche fromt lrc start, whereas Psyche, who wounds herself in ac-,,,rnplishing her deed, falls in love with Eros only in thisnrornent. But what Eros calls "his love" and the mannerur which he wishes to love her confict with Psyche andIr.r act. By her courageous readiness to embark on herrrr,k'pendent development, to sacrifice him in order tolirrow him, Psyche drives Eros and herself out of the

l'.rr:rrlise of uroboric unconsciousness. It is through Pry-,lrr"s act that Eros first suffers the consequence of the,u r uw of love that he has aimed at himself.t'

I I ( :f. my Origins and History ol Consciousness, pp. rg5 ff.t r

I t need not concern us that this is a logical development oftlrr rrrythical figure of Eros, who was originally less and moretlr,rrr lrn actual god.

{83}t82]

THE COMMENTARY,AMOR AND PSYCHE

Here somethitg should be said about the symbolism of

the scalding oil that burns Eros. "Ah ! rash, overbold

lamp !" says our tale, "thou burnest the very lord of fire."

The bringer of suffering is not a cutting weapon, like

the arrow, but the substance that feeds the lamp, which

is the principle of light and knowledge. The oil as es-

sence of the plant world, an essence of the earth, which

is accordingly used to anoint the lord of the earth' the

king, is a widespread symbol. In this case it is signifi-

cant as the basis of light, and to give light it must kindle

and burn. Similarly in psychic life, it is the heat, the fire

of passion, the flame and ardor of emotion that provide

the basis of illumination, that is, of an illumined con-

sciousness, which rises from the combustion of the funda-

mental substance and enhances it.Through her act Psyche achieves consciousness of Eros

and her love, but Eros is only wounded and is by no

means illumined by Psyche's act of love and separation.

In him only one part of the necessary process is fulfilled:the basic substance is kindled, and he is burned by it. He

is stricken with an affective pain, and through Psyche's

act he is flung from the intoxication of blissful union into

the pain of suffering. But the transformation is involun-

tarlt and he experiences it passively.

When gods love mortals, they experience only desire

and pleasure. The suflering had always been left to the

mortal part, the human, who was usually destroyed by

the encounter, while the divine partner went smilingly

on to new adventures equally disastrous for humankind.

But here somethitg different happens: Psyche, for all her

individuality a symbol of mortal

active part.

woman s soul, takes an

Eros, as we have seen in the beginning, was a boy, a

youth, the son-lover of his great mother. He has circum-

vented Aphrodite's commandment and loved Psyche in-

stead of makitg her unhappy-but has he really circum-

vented her command, has he not made her unhappy

after all, has he not forced her into marriage with ^

monster, the "vilest of men" I In any event, he has not

freed himself from the Mother Goddess but has merely

deceived her behind her back. For his design was that

everything should take place in darkness and secrecy'

hidden from the eyes of the goddess. His "affair" withPsyche was planned as one of the many little digres-

sions of Greek gods, far from the light of public opinion,

which is typically represented by the feminine deities.

This situation with all its advantages for Eros is dis-

turbed by Psyche. Psyche dissolves her participation mys-

tique with her partner and flings herself and him into

the destiny of separation that is consciousness. Love as an

expression of feminine wholeness is not possible in the

dark, as a merely unconscious process; an authentic en-

counter with another involves consciousness, hence also

the aspect of suffering and separation.

Psyche's act leads, then, to all the pain of individuation,

in which a personality experiences itself in relation to apartner as somethitg other, that is, as not only con-

nected with the partner. Psyche wounds herself and

wounds Eros, and through their related wounds their

original, unconscious bond is dissolved. But it is this two-fold woundirg that first gives rise to love, whose striv-

t8s]{84}

i'

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

irg it is ro reunite what has been separated; it is this

wo,rrrdirg that creates the possibility of an encounter,

which is prerequisite for love between two individuals.

In plato's Sy*posium the division of the one and thc

yearning to reunite what has been sundered are repre-

,.rrt.d as the mythical origin of love; here this same in-

sight is repeated in terms of the individual.

br.hofen writes: "The power that leads back togethcr

again that which has been cut apart is the egg-born gocl,

*ho* the orphic teachings call Metis, Phanes, Erico-

paeus, Protogonos, Heracles, Thronos' Eros, the Lesbians

Enorides, rhe Egyptians Osiris."ts There the feminine is

always the egg and the conrainer, while the masculine is

that which is born and that which parrs the primordiill

unity; in our contexq however, the exact opposite is trtrc'

Eros, the Eros of Aphrodite, holds Psyche capdve, (:tr

snared in the darkness of the egg, and Psyche, with knil't'

and lamp, parts this perfect existence of the beginninli;

with her r.r, and sufferings she restores the origirr;rl

unity on a celestial Plane.psyche's acr ends the mythical age in the archetyl':rl

world, the age in which the relation between the scx.t

depended otly on the superior power of the gods, wltrl

held men at their mercy. Now begins the age of hurrr:rtr

love, in which the human psyche consciously takcs llr''

fateful decision on itself. And this brings us to the bil. I'

ground of our myth, namely the conflict between Psyt'lr',

the "new Aphroditer" and Aphrodite as the ( ) t r'tt

Mother.

1s Bachofen, Versuch iiber die Griibersymbolifr der Altut, !'l'

93 fr.

{86}

THE COMMENTARY

The rivalry began when men, beholdirg the beauty ofl'syche, neglected the cult and the temples of Aphrodire.'l'his pure contemplation of beauty is in itself contrary tot he principle represented by Aphrodite. Aphrodite, too,is beautiful and represents beaury, but her beauty is onlyir means to an end. The end seems to be desire and:;r'xual intoxicarion; actually it is fertility. Aphrodite istlrc Great Mother, the "original source of all five ele-rrrcnts." When, like the Babylonian Ishtar and the Greek| )cmet€rr she hides herself in anger, the world growsl,;rrren. "After the Lady trshtar has descended, the bull* longer mounts the cow, the ass no longer bends overrlr. she-ass, and the man no longer bends over the womanrir the street: the man slept in his place, the woman slept-t l, tlle.tt14

when Kerdnyi says t "Aphrodite is no more a fer-r r lr r y goddess than is Demeter or Herar"tt he negativelyt "r.tlrlishes the term "fertility goddess" in order to reject

r r li ut all three, as "primal source of all the elementsr"ii,' nranifestations of the Great Mother, the matriarchalr,(.rr.ix of life and of the fertility of living things; and it,. rlris aspect, and this alone, that gave the Great Motheri,' r 'riginal dignity, the queenship by virtue of whichi,,= i.vested the king with his power. Flence, although\1'lrirdite as goddess represents an eternal sphere of be-

!!!r', nhc is only one aspect of the archetype of the GreatI l,,r lr.r. Aphrodite's beauty, seducdveness, and pleasure, i*rJl are weapons in a celestial sport, like the color of

'' "f )ic Hollenfahrt der Ischtar," in ungnad, Die Religion d,er!; ,!'vlr,nicr und Assyrier.

''' li.r inyi, Ttichter der Sonfl€, p. t65.

t87]

,A.MOR AND PSYCHE

the flower, which, reachitg beyond its beauty and charm'

serves the primordial-maternal PurPose of the species'

But the alliance rePresented by Aphrodite and Eros

also embraces the beauty and charm of human relations'

as is revealed by the words of the sea mew, who declares

that the world is out of sorts because Eros has flown

down to some mountain "to revel with a harlot" and that

Aphrodite herserf has abandoned her divine rasks ancl

gor. off for a seaside holiday' "And so there has been

no pleasure, no ioy, no rnerriment anywhere, but all

things lie in rude unkempt neglect; wedlock and tru('

friendship and parenrs' Iove for their children have va'

ished from th. earth; there is one vasr disorder, on('

hateful loathirrg and foul disregard of all bonds of lovc."

when Aphrodite vents her indignation over Eros' lovc',

Hera and Demeter speak even more plainly: "wltt '

among gods and men will permit you to sow passiotts

broadcasr among the peopl., of the earth, while you f'r

bid your own ho,tr.hold the charms of love' and dcllrr

them from all enioymenr of woman's foibles, 30 eni,y

ment that is open to all the world ?" The sowing ol

,,passions" and rule over "woman's foibles" are Aphl"

disian attributes of the Great Mother, and in what hi;ilr

degree the ,,old,, Aphrodite still represents this aspc(:r rn

.uid.rrt from her confict with Psyche.

Aphrodite's indignation begins when, in the httttt'ttt

realm, whose nature it was to serve her, to celebratc ly r

power, and to do her work-when in this realtrr "l

"earthly muck" something absurd happens' whetr I lr-

"new Aphrodite" is worshiped in pure contempl.t r' 'rr

Helen was sdll Aphrodite's rrue handmaiden, f'r r,lr.

THE COMMENTARY

aroused desire and fomented war, the fateful movementof human heroism which Aphrodite loved in Mars. Forthe phallic power of Mars is connecred with blood lusr,which had always been closely related to sexual lusr.Helen, like Aphrodite, never ceased to renew rhe calami-tous mixtures of rapture, magic, and destruction thatmake up the fascination of the Great Mother, who is also

a mother of fate and death, But what is Psyche, this "newAphrodite," who is beautiful, yer not desired by human-kind, but instead, though human, is worshiped conrem-

Platively like a goddess, and, worsr of all, desired by therlivine Eros ?

Psyche intervenes in the sphere of the gods and cre-:rtcs a new world. With her act rhe feminine as a human

l,sychic force comes into confict with the Great Mother;rrtd her terrible aspect, to which the matriarchal exist-('rce of the feminine had been subservient. And Psychef rrrns not only against the Great Mother, against Aphro-, litc, the mighty ruler over feminine existence, but also.,ri:rinst her masculine lover, against Eros. How feeble isri,t: position of the human Psyche in this struggle withilr. gods and powers! How hopeless seems her situation,ilr<' .situation of the feminine-human life principle that,l.rr.r:s to set itself against a divine archetype!

with the self-sacrifice of her act she gives up every-rlrr*g and enters into the loneliness of a love in which,i! ,nce unconsciously and consciously, she renounces theiiir:rction of her beauty that leads to sex and fertility.urrt,' she sees Eros in the light, Psyche sets the love prin-, ,!,1. of encounter and individuarion beside the principle',i l.rscinating attraction and the fertility of the species.

ts8] {8e}

,/4MOR AND PSYCHE

In this context we can understand the mythological

"genealogies" accorditg to which Aphrodite is born of

union between the generative sky and the sea, whilc

Psyche, the "new Aphrodite," is the product of a union

of heaven and earth. For the sea preserves all the anonym'

ity thar is characteristic of the collective unconscious,

while the earth symbolizes the higher, "earthly" form.

Aphrodite represents the union of the anonymcus powers

of Above and Below; in uniting the masculine and femi-

nine she operates as a universal and anonymous powcr.

With Psyche, 4r earthly, human realtzation of the samc

Aphrodisian principle has come into being on a highcr

plane. But earthly and human means unique, in accortl

with the principle of individuality and-ultimately-tfindividuation. Over the material-psychic love principlt'

of Aphrodite as goddess of the mutual attraction betwcctr

opposites rises Psyche's love principle, which with th is

attraction connects knowledge, the growth of consciotts

ness, and psychic development. With Psyche, then, thct'r'

appears a new love principle, in which the encounter lrt'

tween feminine and masculine is revealed as the basis ol

individuation. From the standpoint of Aphrodite lls ;r

nature principle, the union of feminine with masctllirr,'

is not essentially different in man and in the anim:tl',,

from the snakes and wolves to the doves. But oncc llrt'

relation between Psyche and Eros has transcended tlrrr

stage through Psyche's act, it represents a psycholngy ,'l

encounter; a uniquely loving one fulfills his existc'rt,,'

through this love, which embraces suffering and s('l),1

ration.For the first time Psyche's individual love rises trl) rrr

THE COMMENTARY

rnythological rebellion against the collective principle ofscnsual drunkenness represented by Aphrodite. Paradoxi-. al as it may sound, poor Psyche has still to conquer, inl.act to develop, her lover. Aphrodite's son-beloved mustlrt:come a human lover, Eros must be saved from therr rurspersonal sphere of the Great Mother and broughtir rto the personal sphere of the human Psyche. It re-r r r uins to be seen whether Psyche will prove stronger thanA phrodite, whether she will succeed in winning Eros.

ln this situation Aphrodite regresses into the wickedrrrother, the stepmother and witch of the fairy tales. "Your r;rrnpl€ your mother's bidding underfootr" she screams.rr liros, "instead of tormenting my enemy with base de-',r(:s!" She behaves like a "terrible motherr" as grotesque.r.' :ur/ we find described in the textbooks of psychology.i,lrr: sounds the motif of the outraged mother who fearsilr.rt a daughter-in-law will carry off her son, hithertolr,'lrl captive in an incestuous relationship, and rings allrl,,' changes on it. "Matricidal wretch!" she calls Eros atrl','height of her harangue, and here we must recall that*'lrt'r) she first set odt to ruin Psyche, she had imploredr lr r'; son "by all the bonds of love that bind us" and "withI , rr tt'rl lips kissed her son long and fervently." And of

' r , r !r sc she points out that this son owes everythirg to1,, r rrnd her alone and swears to acquire another son.ll'rV very earthly and familiar it sounds to the psycholo-, r',r when she cries: "Truly, I am highly blessed that Iirr rrltl be called a grandmother, though yet in the flower

, ,l r r r / age, and that the son of a vile serving-wenchl ',

,, r lr l be known as Aphrodite's grandchild !"liirr *hy, one may reasonably ask, does Aphrodite re-

{e0} {e7}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

gress into the Bad Mother rather than the Great Mother;

why do all the personalistic traits of family life come out

in her, rather than the mythological traits of the Great

Mother, as we rnight expect IThroughout this tale the principle of "secondary per-

sonalization"to is dominant. With developing conscious-

ness, transpersonal and archetypal phenomena have as-

sumed a personal form and taken their place in the frame-

work of an individual history, a human life situation.

The human psyche is an active ego which dares to op-

pose transpersonal forces-and successfully so. The con-

sequence of this enhanced position of the human, herc

the feminine, personality is to enfeeble what was for-

merly all-powerful. The tale of Psyche ends with thc

deification of the human Psyche. Correspondingly, thc

divine Aphrodite becomes human, and so likewise Eros,

who through suflering prepares the way for union withthe human Psyche.

When it becomes clear to Aphrodite that her mascu

line offspring, who has always been her obedient slavt',

has exceeded his function of son-beloved, instrument atttl

helper, and made himself independent as a lover, a corr

fict arises within the feminine sphere, and a new phlts,'

begins in the development of Eros. Psyche, the humrtrt

woman, sets herself up against the Great Mother, wlt,,

hitherto, in league with her son, had prescribed the dcsr i

nies of human love. In establishing an independent ft'ttt

inine consciousness of love through free encounter, I"yche rejects the dark anonymous love that consisted orrly

ro My Origins, index, s.v.

THE COMMENTARY

of drunken lust and fertility, the transpersonal love thathad hitherto governed all life. And in rejecting Aphroditeshe also rejects an Eros who fears Aphrodite's aurhorityand at most circumvents'her in secret, but does not dareto stand independently by the side of his loved one. Inrejecting both Aphrodite and Eros, Psyche, all unknow-irg and unwillirg, enters into a heroic struggle of thefeminine that ushers in a new human era.

In her wrath Aphrodite turns to Demeter and Flera,who grant their support neither to her nor to Psychewhen she appeals to them for help. They remain neutralin the conflict that has broken our in the realm of thefeminine, to which they too belong. Fundamentally theybelong to Aphrodite, their threefold power is opposed tol)syche, but fear of Eros holds them in check.

When Psyche abandons her flight from Aphrodite,which is really a quest for Eros, and surrenders to thesoddess, she is prepared for "certain death."

Aphrodite's plan to destroy Psyche revolves aroundt he four labors that she imposes upon her. In perform-irrg these four strange and difficult labors in the service,,[ Aphrodite, Psyche becomes a feminine Heracles; herrrrother-in-law plays the same role as Heracles' step-rnother. fn both cases the Bad Mother plays the role oft lcstiny, and in both cases this destiny leads ro heroism,rnd "memorable deeds." For us the essential is to notelrrw the heroism of the feminine differs from that of ther r, asculine.

'fhe Jabors imposed on Psyche by Aphrodite seem ar

lirst sight to present neither meaning nor order. But anr rr tcrpretation base d on an understanding of the sym-

te2] {e3}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

bolism of the unconscious shows the exact opposite r<r

be true.t?

The first labor, ro sort out a huge mound of barley,millet, poppy seed, peas, lentils, and bean s, is known tous from the tale of cinderella and many other fairytales.l8 Aphrodite inrroduces it with the cynical words:"I cannot conceive that any serving-wench as hideous asyourself could find any means to attract lovers save bymaking herself their drudge; wherefore now I myselfwill make trial of your worth." Flere Aphrodite soundslike a fishwife, and a particularly coarse and mean oneat that. we mendon this not for the sake of moral in-dignation, but because these touches in the narrative dis-close the depths of the conflict. What interests us is northe charac terization of Aphrodite's nastiness, but thehatred of a goddess and queen menaced in the verycore of her being.

obviously Aphrodite thinks that this first labor is im-possible to perform. It consists in sorting out a hopelessmuddle of seeds. The mound of seeds primarily sym-

17 our interpretation of Psyche's labors is the product of acollective effort. It grew out of a seminar in Tel-Aviv, in whichthe author expounded his "psychology of the feminine," ofwhich the chapter on Psyche forms a part. Valuable additionswere also made by the members of a course on the tale of Psycheat the C. G. Iung Institute, in Zurich.

Here I should like to thank the members of these seminars,whose collaboration rnade it possible for me to interpret thissection of the tale, which at first struck me as incoherent. Iwish also to thank Dr. Iung and Mrs. Iung for their useful com-ments on my manuscript.

18 weinreich, "Das Mrrchen von Amor und psycher" ch. x inFriedlinder, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms,Vol. IV.

THE COMMENTARY

bolizes a uroboric mixture of the masculine, that is tosalr a promiscuity typical of Bachofen's swamp stage.le

The creatures that come to Psyche's help are not thedoves, the birds of Aphrodite, which many cenrurieslater come to the help of Cinderella, but the anrs, themyrmidons, the "nimble nurslings of earrh, the motherof all."

what does it mean that Psyche, aided by the ants,should succeed in putting order into masculine promis-cuity I Ker6n yL'o has pointed to the primordial humancharacter of the earthborn ant peoples and their connec-tion with autochthony, that is, the earrhborn narure oflife and particularly of man.

Here, as always, the helpful animals are symbols ofthe instinct world. When we reflect that the ants areknown to us from dreams as a symbol correlated withthe "vegetative" nervous system, we begin to understandwhy these chthonian powers, these creatures born of theearth, are able to order the masculine seeds of the earth.Psyche counters Aphrodite's promiscuity with an in-stinctual ordering principle. While Aphrodite holds fastto the fertility of the swamp srage, which is also repre-sented by Eros in the form of a dragon, a phallic serpent-monster, Psyche possesses within her an unconsciousprinciple which enables her ro select, sift, correlate, andevaluate, and so find her way amid the confusion of themasculine. In opposition to the matriarchal position of

1e Bachofen's "hetaerism" should be understood as a psychicstratum and phase, namely the uroboric phase characterized bythe relation of identity, not as a historical or social fact.

20 "(Jrmensch und Mysterieor" EI rg47.

es]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

Aphrodite, for whom the masculine is anonymous-andfundamentally sor as is shown by the rires of Ishtar, forexample, and by many mysreries-Psyche, even in herfirst labor, has reached the srage of selectivity. Even arthis dark stage she is aided by an ordering instinct whichillumines her situation with the "light of nature."

This brings us to a more universal interpretation ofthe labor. The confused heap of seeds, fruirs, and grainsalso represents the disordered welter of fruitful predis-positions and porenrialities that are presenr in the fem-inine nature as understood by Aphrodite. Psyche's acrbrings order into them and so for the first time enablesthem to develop. An unconscious spiritual principle isalready at work withiri Psyche. k works fo, he, r"a byputting order into matrer makes it serviceable to her.

In other words, Psyche's development does not runcounter to the unconscious and the instincts, the "powersof the earth." she represents, to be sure, a developmenttoward consciousness, light, and individuation, but, incontrast with the corresponding developmenr in the male,she preserves the umbilical cord thar artaches her ro theunconscious foundation.2l The "neutrality" of Hera andDemeter may also be understood in this light. The con-fict between Psyche and Aphrodite takes place in thesphere of the feminine. It is not a confict between anindividual, whether man or woman, and the feminine-maternal which this individual seeks to relinquish ordirectly oppose. we have stressed that psyche's behavior

21 Characteristically, "fools" and children have a similar de-velopment in fairy tales and myth. They roo are often helped byanimals.

THE COMMENTARY

is "feminine," and the narrative contains innumerableallusions to this facr. Her naivet6, ?s well as the type ofscene to which she subjects Eros, her "passionate mur-murs," as well as her propensity for despair, are thor-oughly feminine. Still more so is the quality of her loveand will, which, though not unswerving as in men, arefor all their suppleness amazingly tenacious and firm.

Let us not forget who it is that Psyche first meers afterEros has forsaken her and after the river has frustratedher attempt at suicide, so proving to her that regressionis impossible. As so often in this tale, what would seemto be a mere incidental, a touch in an idyllic genre pic-ture, proves to be filled with profound mythologicalmeaning. "It chanced that at that moment Pan, the godof the countryside, sat on the river's brow with Echo,the mountain goddess, in his arms, teaching her. . . ."With his "divination," as "men that are wise call it," herecognizes her situation at once, and it is he who givesPsyche the lesson with which she goes on living, andwhich profoundly influences the whole ensuing acrio.n."Address Eros, the mightiest of gods, with fervenr prayerand win him by tender submission, for he is an amorousand soft-hearte d youth."

Pan is the god of natural existence, taught by "longold age and ripe experience," a "rustic shepherd," closeto the earth and animals, a lover of life and living crea-tures-hence the benefits of "long old age." His adviceto Psyche is this : Eros is the gre atesr of the gods; andas for you, Psyche, b. feminine and win his love. It isno accident that he has Echo in his arms, the unamain-able beloved, who transforms herself into music for him,

te6]{e7}

,/4.MOR AND PSYCHE

and with whom he holds an eternal loving dialogue. FIeis wise, loving, natural, Psyche's true mentor. His figureremains entirely in the background, and yet this "oldsage" determines Psyche's development.

On the surface the labors that Aphrodite irnposes onPsyche are only deadly perils devised by the hostile,treacherous goddess with a view to destroyirg her. ButPan's advice that Psyche should win Eros' love bringsmeaning into what seemed meaningless. It is throughthese words of the old sage that Aphrodite's labors be-

come Psyche's acts. It is because Pan has opened Psyche's

eyes to the meaning hidden in Aphrodite's seeminglyarbitrary labors that the events take on a direction, name-

ly a direction toward Eros, and that Psyche's course

from labor to labor becomes a ,t)6y.

The second, still stranger labor that Aphrodite dc-

mands of Psyche is to gather a hank of the wool of the"shining golden sheep." Flere it is the whispering reeds

that tell Psyche how to go about ir. What is this laborexacted by Aphrodite ? how does Psyche manage to per-form it ? what does it mean ? and what is the role of the"kind and simple-hearted reed" ?

The sheep, or rather rams, whose wool Psyche is ex-

pected to gather, are described by the reed as destructivemagic powers. The reed's words make their relation tothe sun clear enough, even if we did not know the solar

significance of the ram from Egypt, from the legend ofthe Golden Fleece, and various other examples.'"

Psyche is warned against going among these "terrible"sheep until the sun has gone down. "For th.y borrow

22 Ker6nyi, Tdchter, pp. 30 ff.

te8]

THE COMMENTARY

fierce heat from the blazing sun and wild frenzy mad-dens them, so that with sharp horns and foreheads hardas stone, and sometirnes even with venomous bites, theyvent their fury in the destruction of men." The rams ofthe sun, symbols of the destructive power of the mas-

culine, correspond to the negative masculine death prin-ciple as experienced by the matriarchate. Cynically con-

fident that this will be her doom, Aphrodite sends thefeminine Psyche to disarm and rob this destructive mas-

culine principle, the devourirg sun, whose hair-rays are

the wool of the solar ram. For this, as so often in myth,is the meaning behind the order to steal a hair, a lockof hair, and so forth. And this symbolic "castration"must be taken to signify a taking-possession-of, an over-powering, a "depotentiation."'8 This is the meaning ofDelilah's shearing of Samson, the solar hero, and of theprimordial, Amazonian crime of the Danaides.

Psyche seems condemned to destruction by the over-powerirg masculine principle; it seems as though she

must melt in the destructive noonday fire of this mas-

culine solar power, for the rending golden rams of thesun symbolize an archetypally overpowering male-spirit-ual power which the feminine cannot face. The arche-

typal power of this deadly spiritual principle is that ofthe "paternal uroboros"t* in its negative aspect, in con-

tact with which the feminine must burn like Semele inthe presence of Zeus, or go mad like the daughters ofMinyasrtu who vainly opposed Dionysus. Only a total

zs My Origins, p. 59.24 Cf.. my "Die psychologischen Stadien der weiblichen Ent-

wicklung."26 Aelian, Varia hist., llI, 42.

tee]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

religious openness toward this spiritual principle thatturns its creative aspect toward the feminine can enablethe feminine to survive. But then it is captivate,C by themasculine, with all the blessings and perils that such aseizure involves.

The rams, however, represent the negative aspect ofthis principle, whose deadly aggression is a ,y-bol ofthe fatal incursion of the unconscious powers into thepsyche. On the personal level this is manifested from thefirst in Psyche's tendency toward suicide. psyche feelsunequal to the struggle with the archetypal world-thenature of the gods. over and over again it proves toomuch for her. It is only with increasi"g integration, withthe advancirg developmenr of the ,e*, thrt the humanPsyche can resist this assault. Once again psyche seemsdoomed to failure.

But she is aided by the reed, the hair of the earrh, thatis connected with the water of the depths, the contraryelement to the ram fire-and it is from the water thatthe reed derives its elastic supplerress. The reed whispersto her with his Pan-like, vegerative wisdom, the wisdomof growth: wait, be patient. Things change. Time bringscounsel. It is not always high noon, and the masculineis not always deadly. one must nor arrack with force. Atime will come when the sun is no longer ar the zenithbut on its way to set, a time when the heat is no longerrabid and ruinous. Evenirg comes, and night, when thesun returns home, when the masculine principle ap_proaches the feminine and Helios "iourn.y, ,o th. d.pth,of the sacred dark night, to the mother and ro his wifeand many children."ru

20 stesichorus, quoted in Ker6nyi, Tcicltter, p. 2g.

tloo]

THE COMMENTARY

Then, as the sun is setting, there arises the love situa-tion in which it is natural and safe ro take the goldenhair of the sun rams. Both physically and pry.lricallythese hair-rays are the fructifying powers of the mascu-Iine, and the feminine, as positive Great Mother, is thegreat weaver who plaits the threads of the sun seedsinto the web of natu re." A parallel is the negative deedof Delilah, who steals the hair of Samson m h. sleeps,exhausted by the feats of love. She too is a nocturnalfeminine figure whose person alized, form, like that ofSamson, conceals a mythical figure.r8

Thus the ruin of the feminine, as planned by Aphro-dite, is averted with the help of the reed; the feminineneed only consult its instinct in order to enter into afruirful relation, that is to say, a love relation, with themasculine at nightfall. And thus the situation in whichmasculine and feminine face one another in deadlyhostility is transcended.

The wisdom of the mantic reed proves superior to thekeen knowledge of the burning and killing mal. spiritualPrinciple. This feminine wisdom belongs to the "matri-archal consciousnessr"'n which in its waitful, vegetative,ttocturnal way takes "what it needs" from the killingpower of the male solar spirit. It does not expose itselftcr the killing fullness of the ram's power ; for, if thefcminine srrove ro take what it requires by confrontingt he ram directlY, it would be doomed to destruction. But

27 lbid., p. 8tr.28 She is negatively feminine, the destructive anima; but she is

:rlso the deadly mother goddess of canaan in struggle with theYHWH principle and with consciousness.

'o My "Uber den Mond und das matriarchale Bewusstsein.,,

t101]

,AMOR AND P.SYCHE

at nightfall, when the masculine solar spirit rerurns rothe feminine depths, the feminine-as though in pass-ing-finds the golden strand, the fruitful ,e.d of light.

Flere again the solution to the problem consists not instruggle but in the creation of a fruitful contact betweenfeminine and masculine. Psyche is an exact reversal ofDelilah. She does not rob a disarmed and enfeebled manof his power in order to kill him in the manner of theTerrible Mother and the kindred figure of the negativeanima. Nor does she, like Medea, sreal the GoldenFleece by trickery and violence; she finds the element ofthe masculine that is necessary to her in a peaceful situa-tion, without harmirg the masculine in

""y way.In our interpretation, the two first labors thus present

an "erotic problem." And strange to s./r Aphrodite, whohad presented these labors not as an "erotic problemr,,but as a sorting out of seeds and the quesr foi " strandof golden wool, artributes the solution to the help ofEros. "f am well aware who was the secret author of thisdeed." And yet she musr have known perfectly well thatEros was sick and imprisoned in her prlrce. rn spite ofeverythirg there seems to be some hidden ,rpport be-tween Aphrodite and Psyche through which Aphroditeunderstands the "erotic" character not only of 6er prob-lems, but also of Psyche's soludons.

On the surface, the third labor seems unrelated to thiscontext. Aphrodite sends psyche to fill a crystal vesselwith the water of the spring that feeds Styx and Cocytus,the streams of the urrder*orld. The undertaking ,..*,perfectly hopeless. The spring flows from th. lighestcrag of a huge mountain; it is guarded by eternally

THE COMMENTARY

watchful snakes, and Psyche i; further discouraged bythe sffeam itself, which murmurs to her: "Hence! Be-ware !" Ffere the deus ex machina is Zeus' eagle, whohad carried off Ganymede and who, remembering theassistance given him by Eros on this occasion, comes toPsyche's help.

This labor is a varianr of the quest for the warer oflife, the precious substance hard to obtain. It is nowherementioned what qualities the warer of our spring pos-sesses, and not even implied that it is any special kindof water. Frence we may assume that the secret does notIie in the quality of the warer but in the specific diffi-culty of attaining it. The essenrial feature of this springis that it unites the highest and lowest; ir is a uroboriccircular stream that feeds the depths of the underworldand rises up again to issue from the highest crag of the"huge mountain." The problem is to capture in a vesselthe water of this spring, symbolizing the stream of vitalenergy, 4o Oceanus or a Nile on a reduced mythicalscale. Aphrodite regards the task as hopeless, because toher mind the stream of life defies caprure, it is eternalmovement, eternal changer gerieration, birth, and death.The essential quality of this stream is precisely that ircannot be contained. Psyche then, as feminine vessel, isordered to contain the stream, to give form and rest towhat is formless and flowing; as vessel of individuarion,as mandala-urn, she is ordered to mark ofi a configuredunity from the flowirg energy of life, to give form to life.

Here it becomes evident that, in addition to its generalmeaning as the uncontainable energy of the uncon-scious, the life stream possesses a specific symbolism in

t1o2] t1o3]

,/{MOR AND PSY CHE

relation to Psyche. As what fills the mandala-urn thisstream is male-generative, like the archetypally fecundat-irg power of innumerable river gods all over the world.In relation to the feminine psyche it is the overwhelm-irg male-numinous power of that which penerrares tofructify, that it, of the paternal uroboros. The insolubleproblem which Aphrodite sers Psyche, and which psyche

solves, is to encompass this power without being shat-tered by it.

For a better understanding of this context, we mustinterpret the various symbols that appear in the rext.what does it mean that the eagle should make possiblethe performance of this labor ? Why the eagle, thi, mas-culine spirit symbol, belongirg ro zeus and the realmof the air I And *hy, in particular, "rhe eagle of Gany-mede," who carried ofr. zeus' favorite to olympus I Fleremany motifs seem to be intertwined, but all serve to clari-fy the situation of Psyche in her conflict with Aphrodite.

To begin with, there is an evident parallel betweenGanymede and Psyche. Both are human beings loved bygods, and both are ultimately carried ofi to Olympus asearthly-heavenly companions of their divine louerr. Thisis the first intimation of Zeus' sympathy with psyche,

which decides the final ourcome of her ,rory. He sideswith his son, Eros, partly out of masculine symparhy,for he too knows the meaning of seizure by lou., ,rrjpartly out of protest against the Great Goddess, who asHera strives to check her husband's freedom to love, andas Aphrodite tries to restrict her son in the same way.

It is no accident that the homosexual love relation ofzeus and Ganymede should come ro the help of Eros

THE COMMENTARYand Psyche. Elsewhereto we have shown that homoeroticand homosexual male pairs act as ,,strugglersr,,

takingup the war of liberation against the domit ation of theGreat Mother. And here again Eros musr be freed fromhis status as a son-lover before he can enter into a freeand independent relation with psyche.

It is not irrelevant to what has gone before that themasculine spirit aspect, whose central symbol is theeagle, should come to Psyche's aid in this third labor.The second labor, accordirg to our interpretation, con-sisted in the "taming" of the hostile *rr..rline principle,in the erotic binding of what might have been destructivein the form of the paternal uroboros. It is this reconcilia-tion with the masculine that enables Psyche to enrer intocommunication with the masculine spirit worl,c of Gany_mede's eagle. In the first labor the instinctual powers

"fnature had worked "unconsciouslyr" as it were, in theirordering and sifting; in the second, psyche had managedto avoid the overpowering assaurt of the masculine ,1iritand to take from it what was necessary and fruitful forher, the single strand of golden wool. In the third labora further development befalls her. The spiritual prin-ciple that helps her, the eagle of the *rr.uline ,pirir,who spies the boory and .arri.s it ofi, enables her ro con-tain some

9f $e living stream of life and give it form.The eagle holding the vessel profoundly ,y;Uolizes thealready male-female spiritualiiy of nry.h., *ho in oneact "receives" like a woman, that is, gathers ,like a vesseland conceives, but at the same time apprehends andknows like a man. The circular power of this rife stream,

to My Origins, pp. 96 f.t104] tlos]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

which is experienced by the feminine psyche as bothmale-fecundating and overpowering, belongs ro the pre-configurative stage that we designate as paternal urobo-ros. Its blinding, destructive brightness is symbolized inthe sun rams, while its uncontainable, overpowering en-ergy is embodied in the circular srream. The masculineprinciple of the eagle enables psyche to receive a part ofit without being destroyed.

In the one instance, 3 strand of wool is detached fromthe fullness of the light; in the orher, a cupful of wateris removed from the fullness of the sffeam. Both sym-bols, on different planes, mean that psyche can receiveand assimilate the masculine and give it form, withoutbeing destroyed by the overwhelming power of the nu-minosum,

Because Psyche is born of the earrh, she can only re-ceive and give form ro a parr of the infinite that iswithin her reach, but this precisely is what befits herand makes her human. This capacity for form-givinglimitation is the basis of the principle of individuationthat she embodies. In designating the pile of disordereclseeds in the first labor, the destructive masculine bright-ness of the second, and the fecundaring energy of rhcthird as paternal uroboros, we had in mind the over-whelmirg numinous power of the masculine. But, exam-ined more closely, these three manifestations may also [rc,

said to be manifestations of Eros as the dragon-monster.For fecundation, dazzling radiance, and dynamic powcr-are three stages of his efficacy, three forms of his reality.

In this light the "disappearance of Eros" takes on 'new and rnysterious meaning. on the surface Eros dis

THE COMMEN?ARY

irppears because Psyche has disobeyed his command; ont he next deeper level he returns "to the motherr" for thisis symbolized by the cypress, rree of the Great Mother,i' which he sits like a bird, and by his rerurn to cap-tivity, to the palace of Aphrodite. But on the profou"a-t'.st level we must understand that Eros disappears be-cause Psyche wirh her lamp could nor recognize him forwhat he "really" is. Subsequently it turns out that Eros

''cveals his true forrn to her only gradually, in the course,,f her own development. His manifestation is dependent,. her, he is transformed with psyche and thro.rgh her.With each of her labors she apprehends-withou, krro*-ing it-a new category of his reality.

'fhe labors she performs for him are a rectilinearr;rowth of her consciousness of herself, but also of her;rwareness of Eros. Precisely because this occurs by de-g'e es' and because she manages not to be d.rtroyed byt he overwhelming power of the numinosum that is alsoliros, she becomes with each labor more secure and more;r<lcquare ro the divine power and figure of Eros.

It is with the help of the eagle, the unconscious mas-t uline spirit, that Psyche performs the labor of individ-rration into which Aphrodite had ironically tricked her.'l 'his is the surprisitg thing about Psyche's development:rlrat it is a development toanrd consciousness that is ac-r r rtlrpsnied throughout by consciousness. Yet with hertlrc unconscious forces play a more conspicuous part thanirr the development of mascurine consciousness; the in-' lt'Pendent activity of Psyche as an ego is less powerfultlrrn in the corresponding careers ol masculine heroes,.is for example those of Heracles or perseus. But the in-

t106]

j-llii .,,L

t107]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

dependent activity of her unconscious wholeness, towhich she submirs, is all the more compelling.

It is characteristic of the "labors of Psyche" that thecomponent of relatedness, that is, the Eros-component,is increasingly accompanied by

" masculine spiritual ele-

ment, which is ar first unconscious but gradually de-velops into a conscious attitude.

Since we must interpret the action "in terms of thesubjectr" we must understand the helpful animals as

powers inside Psyche. Bur Psyche herself is acrive, eventhough her acrs are performed by powers within her.Although, as in the crearive process, not the ego but in-ner powers provide the dynamic, there is a certain iusti-fication for imputing the acr ro the individual in whomthese powers are at work.

Psyche's process of individuation is a formation of hith-erto unformed uroboric powers. At first ph. lives underthe spell of the Eros-dragon, in total unconsciousness, inBachofen's swamp stage; here the uroboric cycle oper-ates in darkness, broken by no consciousness, disturbedand confused by no illumination. It is "life" as such, alife of drives in the dark, sensual paradise of the dragon,a circle that begins and ends in the darkness of the un-conscious. Psyche's act shatters the circle forever. Thereis an irruption of light and consciousness; the individualrelation and love take the place of anonymous lust andthe dark embrace of the mere drive.

If we recognize Psyche's development as an arche-typal process, the Psyche-Eros constellation becomes thearchetype of the relation between man and woman. Thephase of their engulfmenr in the dark paradise of the

THE COMMENTARY

trnconscious corresponds to the initial uroboric situation.rf psychic exisrence. It is the phase of psychic identity,in which all things are bound together, fused and in-cxtricably intermingled,tt as in the srare of. participationmystique. Psychic life is in a phase of dark, that is ro s?/,unconscious mixture, of unconscious stimulation, em-brace, and fecundarion. And the symbolism of a psyche

united with Eros in the darkness is eminently suited tothis universal interrelation of contents in the collectiveunconscious.

Psyche's act, as we have seen, brings with it a newpsychic situarion. Love and hare, light and darkness,conscious and unconscious enter into conflict with oneanother. This is the phase of the separation of the orig-inal parents, in which the principle of opposition comesinto being. The light of consciousness with its power ofanalysis and separation breaks into the precedirg situa-tion and transforms unconscious identity into a polarrelation of opposites. But this opposition was constellatedin Psyche's unconscious even before her act; in fact, ithas led to her act.

The embrace of Eros and Psyche in the darkness rep-resents the elementary but unconscious attraction of op-posites, which impersonally bestows life but is not yerhuman. But the coming of light makes Eros "visible,"it manifests the phenomenon of psychic love, hence of allhuman love, as the human and higher form of the arche-type of relatedness. It is only the completion of psyche's

development, effected in the course of her search for theinvisible Eros, that brings with it the highest manifesra-

81 Cf. my Origins, pp.5 ff.

{10e}t10s]

,AM OR AN D PSY CHE

tion of the archetype of relatedness: a divine Eros ioinedwith a divine Psyche.

Psyche's individual love for Eros as love in the light

is not only an essential element, it is the essendal ele-

menr'in feminine individuation. Feminine individuation

and the spiritual development of the feminirc-xnd here-

in lies the basic significance of this myth-are always

effected through love. Through Eros, through her love

of him, Psyche develops not only toward him, but to-

ward herself.

Thc new factor which emerges with the independence

of Psyche's love, and which Aphrodite had regarded as

impossible, is that a feminine bcing should have a "stout

heart and prudence beyond the prudence of woman."

Aphrodite gives no woman credit for these masculine

attributes. What is said of Psyche's light-bringing deed ic

true of Psyche herself. With Psyche, "courage displaced

the weakness of her sex." But the unique feature of

Psyche's dcvelopment is that she achieves her mission not

directly but indirectly, that she performs her labors with

the hetp of the masculine, but not as a masculine being.

For even though she is compelled to build tp the rrlsscu'

line side of her nature, she remains true to her wofiilrl'hood. This is perhaps most clearly shown in the last labor

imposed on her by Aphrodite.

In fairy tales and myths the tasks are usually three in

number, but in Ps"ghe's case there is characteristically an

additional fourth labor. Four is the symbol of wholencsE.

The first thrce problefitsr as we have seen' are solved by

"helpefs," that is, by inner Powers of Psyche's uflcoll'

scious. But in this last task Psyche herself must do whrt

T HE C OMMENT ARY

is asked of her. Hitherto her helpers belonged to theplant and animal world; this time she is sustained by thetower, as symbol of human culture. In her first threetasks Psycher 3s we have attempted to show, wrestledwith the masculine principle. In her last and fourth taskshe enters into a direct struggle with the central femininelrrinciple, with Aphrodite-Persephone.

What is here expected of Psyche is neither more norlcss than a journey to the underworld. while in the pre-ccding labor Psyche had ro take a precious substancefrom the highest heights, rhe topmosr crngr here the ob-iect of her quesr is in the lowest depths, in the hands ofl'crsephone herself.

Hitherto we have had to interprer the task in order torrnderstand the helper; here we must take the oppositet''urse. The tower is a symbol on many levels. As man-,lala-precinct it is feminine: fortress and city and moun-tnin, whose cultural equivalent is the graduated tower,rnd temple tower, the pyramid; it is no accident that thesrrmmit of the wall is the crown of the great femininepi, rclhead. But the tower is also phallic a$ earrh phallus:Ir ce, stone, and wall. Aside from this bisexual signifi-clnce, the tower is an edifice, something erected by hu-lrrrtrl hands, a product of man's collective, spiritual labor;thus it is a symbol of human culture and of the humanr nltsciousness and is therefore designated as a "far-seeinglr l14rg1.tt

'l'his tower shows Psyche how she as an individual, astrvnrnan and human being, can defeat the deadly alliance,l the goddesses who, as Aphrodite, Hera, and Demeter,g'vern the divine-upper sphere and, as persephone, the

t1L1]t110]

C\[-

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

divine-lower sphere. fn this "extreme journey" psyche isfor the first time herself. No animal can help her, for onthis journey norhing and no one can substitute for her.

All alone Psyche undertakes this heroic parh of re-birth for the sake of her love, for the sake of Eros, armedwith the tower's instructions and the desperate yearningof her heart to find her loved one again in defiance ofall obstacles. It had been the eagle's task to carry some-thing human to celestial heights; psyche musr carrysomethirg hidden beneath the earth up into the world.

The details of the journey ro Persephone need not con-cern us; the paymenr of the coin ro Charon and thethrowing of lhe sops to Cerberus are traditional modfs,not specific ro the story of Psyche. The same is true ofthe conventional behavior of Persephone. The rule againsttaking food in the underworld is an archetypal featureof the journey to Hades (*. find a parallel in America,for exampl.), without specific bearing on psyche's jour-ney. But it strikes us as a different matter that psyche

should be forbidden ro help the donkey driver, thecorpse, and the weaving women.

Flere again we may possibly have traditional motifs,but they take on a special significance for psyche. As thetower teaches Psyche, "pity is not lawful." If, as we shallproceed to show, all Psyche's acts present a rite of initia-tion, this prohibition implies the insistence on ".go sra-bility" characteristic of every initiation. Among men thisstability is manifesred as endurance of pain, hunger,thirst, and so forth; but in the feminine sphere it charac-teristically takes the form of resisrance to pity. This firm-ness of the strong-willed ego, concentrated on its goal,

THE COMMENTARY

n cxpressed in countless other myths and f.airy tales, withtlrcir injunctions not to turn around, not to answer, and

t lrc like. While ego stability is a ve ry masculine virtue,r t is more; for it is the presupposition of consciousness

.rnd of all conscious activity.The feminine is threatened in its ego stability by the

.langer of distraction through "relatednessr" throughIiros. This is the difficult task that confronts every femi-rrine psyche on its way to individuation: it must suspend

t he claim of what is close at hand for the sake of a dis-

tant abstract goal. Thus the tower is perfectly right insaying that these dangers are "snares" set by Aphrodite.'['he Great Mother, as we recall, also has her lifegivirgand life -preserving aspect, but in the conflict between

Aphrodite and Psyche she reveals only the negative side.'fhis means that here she represents only nature and the

species in opposition to the requirements of the indi-vidual,t' and from this standpoint the merciful attitudeof the Good Mother can be forbidden to the individual.

The universal component of relatedness is so essential

a part of the collective structure of the feminine psyche

that Briffault regdrds it as the foundation of all humancommunity and culture, which he derives from thefeminine group with its bond between mothers and chil-dren.tt But this bond is not individual but collective; itpertains to the Great Mother in her aspect as preserver oflife, as goddess of fertility, who is not concerned withthe individual and individuation, but with the group,which she bids to "be fruitful and multiply."

az My Origins, pp. 284, 2g8.33 Briffault, T he Motherr, I, pp. r5r ff.

t1L3]{112}

,/TMOR AND PSYCHE

For this reason the prohibition of piry signifies Psyche'sstruggle against the feminine narure. originally ;h.lp-irg" always means a participation mystiqu,e, which pre-supposes or creates an identity and is therefore not with-out danger. It may, for example, lead to a possession bythe one who is helped. In the Tlrousand and. One Niglrts,the hero relieves the witch of her burden, and by way of"thanks" she leaps up on his back and cannot be shakenoff. And there are countless other examples.

Primitive peoples, as Ldvy-Bruhl reportsrrn are not"thankful" to their rescuers or helpers-to doctors, forexample-but keep making more and more demands onthem. In a sense the rescuer continues to be responsiblefor the life he has saved, as though it were his owrr. H.lp,like eating in common, accepting presents, or being i;-vited to the house of another, establishes a communion.That is why Psyche must refuse Persephone's invitation,for by accepting it she would have fallen into her power.And now let us pass over the remainirg detailsiu andturn to the central problem of psyche's last task.

Psyche's mission to seek out Persephone in Hades isa heroi. iourney which, if successful, will be equivalentto the night sea iourney of the sun through the drrknessof the underworld. The precedirg tasks seemed im-possible and might well have been fatal, for example, if

flL6vy-Bruhl, Primitiue Mentality, ch. rr.35 The weaving women are a weli-known symbol of the Great

Mother; the donkey driver is known to us as Aucnus, whosemythical significance has been elucidated by Bachofen;

"nd tt icorpse who asks Psyche to help him may readily be understoodto represent the danger of being possessed by the dead man, bythe ancestral spirit.

tL14]

THE COMMENTARY

l)syche had approached the sun rams at noon. DeathIurks in every one of the hero's "hard labors," but it is

the hardest labor of all that requires direct battle withtlcath or the underworld.

At the outset of every labor Psyche is overcome by a,

tlcspair in which suicide seems to be the only solution.Now this strange motif falls into a meaningful context.

lly a surprising turn, the marriage of death to whichshe had been destined was not consummated, but re-

l,laced instead by the dark paradise of Eros. But con-

$ummation of the marriage of death, as the oracle ofApollo has proclaimed, is an archetypally given re-

tluirement of her relation to Eros. Up to now she has

not been conscious of this fact, it has only been mani-fcsted in her recurring tendency to suicide. Her journey

to Persephone signifies that she must now consciously

look death in the face. Now, at the end of her develop-

rnent, she confronts this death situation as one trans-

formed, flo longer as an inexperienced girl, but as one

who loves, who knows, and who has been tested.

This "extreme journey" becomes possible for Psyche

rrnly when, through her labors, she has acquired a coll-sciousness that far transcends the merely instinctiveknowledge she possessed to begin with. Thanks to her

runion with the powers symbolized by the ants, the

rced, and the eagle, she is able to adopt the attitude ofconsciousness that is represented by the "far-seeing tow-cr.n' Now that Psyche is conscious of her goal; now thatshe has attained ego stability, she is no longer willing tofollow the merely natural demands of her being, and is

capable of seeing through the guile of the hostile powers.

tLls]

,-,{MOR AND PSYCHE

she succeeds in returnirg to the earth because she hasassimilated the masculine-spiritual ascendirg power ofthe eagle that enables her to rise upward from the dark-ness and see things "from above." And the symbol ofthe upreared tower signifies that this is no longer a mereinstinctive power, but a "having," a possession.

Psyche is senr by Aphrodite ro persephone, from thegoddess of the upper world ro the goddess of the lowerworld; but both are only aspecrs of the one GreatMother, who is hostile to Psyche. Seldom has the arche-typal identification of Aphrodite and persephone, rc.peatedly shown in their cuhs, been made so clear as inthis situation.

The splitting up of the primordial archetype into sep-arate goddesses leads ro individual cults. The fusion ofall the feminine deities into one, as in Apuleius' hymnto Isis, which scholars have mistakenly regarded as theproduct of a late "syncretistic" conception, is only a latereflection of an authentic primordial conrext. This is anarchetypal fact restricted to no one culture or culturalsphere. The Tibetan Book of the Deaduu teaches that thefavorable and unfavorable gods are only two aspects ofthe One, and this is the truth. It can be demonsrrared frlrBabylonia and India as well as for Egypt and Greece.

"The nocturnal implications of Aphrodite are l)ro.found, although thore involving th. night of dcnt hrather than the night of love are passed over in silerrceby the classical tradirion. Still, we know that in Delphlan Aphrodite 'of the tombs,' an 'Epitymbidia,' was ulsrtworshiped. In Greek Lower Italy wonderful monumentt

36Ed. Evans-Wentz (q.u., List of Works Cited).

{116}

THE COMMENT ARYrf arr show us directly how persephone, the goddess ofthe underworld, can assume an Aphrodite aspect, andt hat a profound rerigious experience was reflected byr he Pythagorean belief in rwo Aphrodites: the one celes-t ial, the other subterranean. Aphrodite also had herI'crsephone aspect, and where this was known, in thesouth Italian Greek city of Tarentuffi, she was called:(.)ueen."sI

Although the fourth task can be interpreted only;rgainst the background of the Eleusinian mysteries and.l' the Demeter-Kore relationship, which we have ex_'rtuined in another contextrss we must here give at leasts,rne indication of the area in which this episode wast'r r ltcted.

'l'he content of Psyche's act was that she burst throughtlrt: matriarchal sphere and in her knowing love of Eros-rr'ined the psychic sphere, "the experience of the femi-trirrc in encounter," which is the presupposition of femi-ttittc: individuation. We have recogn itii psyche,s hostile',lr,rrlow sisters as matriarchal powers. But with Aphro-'ltlt"s intervention the conflict was transferred from theI't'rsonal to the transpersonal plane.

K,re-Persephone and Aphrodite-Demeter are the twol1r t'rtt poles and rulers of the central mysteries of thelr.r,inine, the Eleusinian mysteries, concerning whoset,rrrrcction with the tale of Psyche we shall have moretrt

"i:ry' In her last labor, Psyche finds herself placed be-

I \1,('(.n these two poles.'l'ltc first three tasks have made it plain that psyche,sa t l(r.r6nyi, Tdchter, p. r7o.n" My The Great ltloiher, pp. 3o5 ff. 7

{117}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

downfall was to be encompassed by the primordial atti-

tude of the matriarchate. Behind the "impossibility" of

performirg these tasks stood the characteristic matri-

archal conception of a negative masculine principle

which, Aphrodite had hoped, would prove too much forPsyche. As the labors unfolded, this negative principle

was manifested as masculine promiscuity, the deadly

masculine, and the uncontainable masculine. Aphro-

dite's attempt to destroy Psyche in this way reaches its

climax in the fourth task.

First we must penetrate the meaning of the box of

ointment that Psyche is to bring from Persephone. The

task is imposed by Aphrodite, Psyche's mortal enemy;

the beauty ointment for which Psyche is sent comes

from Persephone; and when Psyche opens the box, she

is overcome by a deathlike sleep. Our interpretation isbased on these three facts.

The beauty ointment, it seems to us, represents Per-

sephone's eternal youth, the eternal youth of death. Itis the beauty of Kore, the beauty of the "deathlike sleep."

It is known to us from the tales of Sleeping Beauty and

Snow White, where it is also induced by the Bad Mother,the stepmother, or the old witch. It is the beauty of the

glass coffin, to which Psyche is expected to regress, the

barren frigid beauty of mere maidenhood, without love

for a man, as exacted by the matriarchate. This beauty

of existence in the unconscious gives the feminine a nat-

ural maidenly perfection. But preserved forever, it be-

comes a beauty of death, a beauty of Persephone, who isinhuman since her existence is one of divine perfection,

without fate, suffering, or knowledge. It is Aphrodite's

THE COMMENTARY

:;t:cret aim to make Psyche "dier" to make her regress tot lrc Kore-Persephone stage, which was hers before her('ncounter with Eros.

Flere it is the seducdon of narcissism that threatens tooverpower Psyche. Aphrodite wishes Psyche to regressl'rom the woman who loved Eros, who was "carried:rway" by her love for him, and to become once moret hc maiden immured in narcissistic love of herself as in:r glass coffin, who sees only herself, and whose woman-lrood slurnbers.tn To put Persephone's beauty ointmentin Psyche's hands is a trick quite worrhy of Aphrodite,with her thorough knowledge of womankind. Whatwoman could resist this temptation, and how could a

I)syche in particular be expected to resisr it IPsyche "fails," if we may charac terize the events be-

ginning with the opening of the box as "Psyche's fail-Lrre." Heedless of the tower's warning, as formerly ofIiros' warning, she opens the box and falls into a death-like sleep. Everything that she had gained up to thispoint by her arduous acts and sufferings seems lost. Fall-irg into the sleep of death, she returns ro Persephone inthe manner of Eurydice after Orpheus had turnedaround. Overpowered by the death aspecr of Aphroditeherself, she becomes Kore-Persephone, carried back tothe underworld not by Hades, the masculine bridegroomof death, but by the victorious Great Mother as morherof death.

But just as Demeter's intrigue against Hades was notfully successful, because Kore had already entered into

3e A mythological example for such a regression is the death ofEurydice in the poem of Rilke quoted above (p. 68).

t118] tLle]

,/4MOR AND PSYCHE

a bond with Hades and eaten of the fertility symbol ofthe pomegranate, so likewise Aphrodite's arrempt tomake Psyche regress into the matriarchate is vain. ForPsyche is pregnanr, and her impregnation by Eros, as

will be made clear later oD, is in. ,ymbol oi her pro-found individual bond with him. psyche is nor con,.cerned with the fertility of narure-which is the onlything that interests Aphrodite-but with the fertility ofindividual encounter. It is apparent that Psyche's inde-pendence begins in the period of her pregnancy. whilein the matriarchal sphere pregnancy leads to a reunionof mother and daughter,a' here psyche's awakening tothe independence that begins with her pregnancy driuesher toward her individual relation to Eros, toward loveand consciousness.

The hrppy ending that follows, Eros coming ro awak-en Psyche, is not a typical "deus ex machina', episode,as it may seem ar first sight, but is full of deep meaningand is-if correctly understood-the most ingenious turnin this very ingenious mythical rale.

what has been the cause of psyche's ',failurer" whydoes she "fail" just now, at the end, after she has er-dured so much and proved herself in so many situations P

Is it only an irresistible, deplorable feminine curiositymingled with vanity that prevents her from fulfillingher mission as messenger in the service of the goddessiscosmetic needs, that impels her to open the box on

a0 Kerdnyi's observations on the Eleusinian mysteries (,,ThePsychological Aspects of the Kore") musr be completed by apsychological interpretation which shows these feminin. *yri.r-ies to be the central mysteries of the matriarchal Weltanscltauung,And see my The Great Mother, pp. 3o5 ff.

t12o]

THE COMMENTARY

which her whole fate depends I Why does Psyche fail,oriented as she is by the far-sighted tower, endowedwith a developed consciousness and a stabilized ego thatlrave proved equal to the journey of death into the under-world I

Psyche fails, she must fail, because she is a femininepsyche. But though she does not know it, it is preciselythis failure that brings her victory.

one can conceive of no more entrancing form of femi-nine dragon fight. Elsewhere we have shown that thefeminine manner of defeating the dragon is to accept it,and here this insight assumes the surprisirg but nonethe less effective form of Psyche's failure. She has trav-eled the hero's way (*. have followed it in all its stages),she has developed a consciousness so strong and radicalthat through it she has lost her beloved. But now, onestep before the end, she disregards the warning of themasculine tower-consciousness and flings herself intothe deadly peril that is called Aphrodite-Persephone.And all this for nothing, or nexr ro norhing, all this justto make herself pleasing to Eros.

When Psyche decides to open the box and use thebeauty ointment of the goddesses for herself, she mustbe perfectly well aware of the danger. The tower hadwarned her urgently enough. Nevertheless she decides

not to give what she had acquired with such grear painsto the Great Mother, but ro steal it.

The story began with the motif of beauty, which nowreappears on a new plane. When Psyche was called thenew Aphrodite because of her beauty, when she arousedthe admiration of men and the iealousy of the goddess, p

t12L]

,4MOR AND PSYCHE

she looked on rhis gift as a misfortune. But now, just toenhance her beauty, she is willing ro take the gr.r,.r,misfortune on herself . This change in psyche h* oc-curred for the sake of Eros; it conveys, profoundlythough unemphatically, an insight that L nor withoutits tragic aspect.

Psyche is a mortal in a conflict with go,cdesses; that isbad enough, but since her beloved is rl* a god, how canshe face up to him I she srems from the earthly sphereand aspires ro become the equal of her divine lover. Infeminine, all too feminine wise, yer not wholly wirhoutawareness of her partner's psychology, she seems to sayto herself r My acts, rny sufferings nnay move him, mayforce admiration from him, b"i soul alone may nor beenough. Yer one thing is cerrain: no Eros will be ableto resist a Psyche anointed with divine beauty. so shesteals the ointment which confers the beauty that con-nects Persephone with Aphrodite. And now, when theterrible happens, and the deathlike sleep (which we haveinterpreted as regression) descends on her-it is no acci-dent that Kore was ravished in the valley that bears thename of the opium poppyot-the negative regressionwhich we have seen ro be the substance

'f Fry.h.',danger seems to set in.

why does Eros come to save her at just this point, andwhy are we nor willing ro agree that this is an appendedhtppy ending I Why do we conrend that this is a mean-ingful and essential parr of the whole I

In the beginning psyche sacrificed her E,ros-paradisefor the sake of her spiritual developmenr; but now she

al See my The Great Mother, p. zg6.

{122}

THE COMMENTARY

i.s just as ready to sacrifice her spiritual development fort he immortal beauty of Persephone-Aphrodite, whichwill make her pleasing to Eros. In so doing, she seems

indeed to regress, but it is not a regression to somethitgold, to the matriarchal position, for example. By prefer-

ring beauty to knowledge, she reunites herself, rather,

with the feminine in her nature. And because she does

this lovingly and for Eros, her "old" femininity enters

into a new phase. It no longer consists in the self<on-

tained beauty of a young girl who sees nothing beside

herself, nor is it the seductive beauty of Aphrodite, whohas only the "natural purpose" in mind. It is the beauty

of a woman in love, who wishes to be beautiful for the

beloved, for Eros, and for no one else.

We have elsewhere shown that centroversion as atendency toward wholeness is reflected at the primitivelevel in a general body feeli ng,o' and that the body then

rnay be said to represent the totality, the self. The rela-

tion to this body-totality is manifested in what has er-

roneously and negatively been termed "narcissism," an

increased emphasis on one's own beauty and wholeness.

This phase, which in the masculine development is super-

seded and replaced by another constellation, is perma-

nently maintained in the woman, whose original relationto the self remains more strongly in force.

In taking so paradoxical a decision at this point,Psyche renews her bond with her feminine center, her

self. She professes her love and holds fast to her indi-vidual encounter with Eros, but at the same time, inopposition to all-masculine-reason, she discloses her

+z My Origins, p. 3o7.

t123]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

primordial femininity. The masculine accenr required byher labors is replaced by

" feminine accent, and it seems

to us that it is just this which, without her knowledgeor will, brings her the forgiveness of Aphrodite-pJr-sephone. This, we believe, is the innermori ,.rson whyAphrodite suddenly abandons her opposition and acceprsZeus' deification of Psyche, for Aphiodite, as we know,has often enough resisted the will of zens. A psychewho fails, who for the sake of love renounces all prin-ciples, throws all warnings to the winds, and forsakesall reason, such a Psyche musr ultimately find favor withAphrodite, who assuredly recognizes a good parr of her-self in the new Aphrodite.

This paradoxically feminine failure of Psyche alsoleads Eros himself ro intervene, makes the boy into aman, and transforms the burned fugitive into a savior.By her failure-and this is the profound symmerry ofour myth-Psyche has repaired precisely what was un-done by the act that drove Eros away. On that occasion,impelled by something that appeared to her as hatred,at the risk of losing Eros she "made light"; now, im_pelled by n motive that appears ro her ,, lou., she is pre_pared to "make darkness" in order to gain Eros. Andit is this situation, in which Psyche, a new Kore-per-sephone, sleeps once more in the glass coffin, that givesEros the possibility of encounreri"s her again on a newplane, as savior and hero. In ,r.rifi.irg -the

masculineside, which, necessary as it was, had l; to separation,she enters into a situation in which, by her u.ry help-lessness and need of salvation, she saves the captive Eros.

unguestionably Psyche is aware of the danger she is

THE COMMENTARY

incurring by opening the box. But here again, and now,n a higher plane, she enacts the marriage of death withlrros. She dies for him, she is prepared to give herself

:rnd everythirg she has acquired for him, for-and this ist he profound paradox of the situation-with the opening

<,f- the box she becomes divinely beautiful in death. Thenatural naive beauty and perfection of the maiden whorlies in the marriage of death with the male become the

l<nowitrB, psychic-spiritual beauty of a Psyche who dies

lor Eros and voluntarily sacrifices her 'whole being

lor him.With this the divine principle undergoes somethitg

totally unique and new. Through Psyche's sacrifice and

death the divine lover is changed from a wounded boy

to a man and savior, because in Psyche he finds some-

thing that exists only in the earthly human middle zone

between heaven and underworld: the feminine mystery

of rebirth through love. In no goddess can Eros experi-

ence and know the miracle that befalls him through the

human Psyche, the phenomenon of a love which is con-

scious, which, stronger than death, anointed with di-

vine beauty, is willing to die, to receive the beloved as

bridegroom of death.

Now we are also in a position to understand the alli-ance between Zeus and Eros, resulting in Psyche's recep-

tion into heaven. The supreme masculine authority bows

to the human and feminine, which by its superiority inlove has proved itself equal to the divine.

Thus Psyche's failure is not a regressive, passive sink-

ing, but a dialectical reversal of her extreme activity into

devotion. Through the perfection of \er femininity and

{124} t12s]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

love she calls forth the perfect manhood of Eros. Inabandoning herself our of love, she unwittingly achievesredemption through love.

with her redemprion by Eros, psyche has completedher four labors and thus accomplished the initiate,sjourney through the four elements. But it is character-istic that the feminine Psyche musr nor simply travel"through" the elements, like the male initiate of themysteries of Isis; she must make them her own throughher acts and sufferings and assimilate them as the helpfrlforces of her nature: the anrs that belong to the earth,the reed that belongs ro the water, ze,rr' .lgl. of the air,and finally the fiery, celestial figure of ,h. redeemirgEros himself.

There still remains one point which throws a brightlight on Psyche's failure and shows how consequentlymeaningful it is for the myth as a whole, Once again wecan only admire the inner architecture of the myth, whichis discernible to the attentive eye despite the idyllicfancies with which it is overgrown.

It is no accident that the scene of Psyche's failure, theplace where she opens the box that carries all the asso-ciations of Pandora's box of doom, shoulc1 be the earth.It is only after she has succeeded in rerurnirg from therealm of Persephone that psyche resolves to open thebox, but by then she is on her own earthly, humanground, halfway between Aphrodite's heaven and per-sephone's underworld.

If she had opened the box in the underworld, thesphere of Persephone's power, there is no doubt that anirremediable catastrophe would have occurred. But the

THE COMMENTARY

.situation is fundamentally changed now that she has

returned from the underworld "to the heavenly choirof the starsr" now that the treasure has been removedfrorn the underworld. Psyche has taken what she re-ceived frorn Persephone into her own possession; itbelongs to her lawfully. Instead of giving up what she

has acquired to Aphrodite, she make s it her own; likea feminine Prometheus she, the human Psyche, takesFersephone's treasure for herself. As a human being andan individual, she takes what "properly" belongs ro thearchetypes, the goddesses, so enacting the deed of thehero, who always incorporates into his own personalitythe treasure originally guarded and possessed by thedragon of the unconscious. But if Psyche's whole careeris interpreted as a process of feminine initiation, thequestion arises: how are we to understand the role ofAphrodite I

The Aphrodite of our story is not the Great Goddessof classical Greece. She is more and less. More, because

behind her we discern the grandiose demonic image ofthe archaic Terrible Mother; less, because she discloses

personalistic traits more reminiscent of a hurnan homelife molded by terrible mothers than of a divine reality.

We know that the Great Mother may appear as afigure of the feminine self.nu To what extent, we must ask

then, does Aphrodite play the parr of the self in our rale,or rather, to what extent does the self use the archetype

of the Great Mother for its purposes ? nn

43 Cf. my The Great Mother, p. 336.aa we find the same problem in the myth of Demeter and

Kore, where Gaea beyond 'any doubt favors the abduction of

-nt "-

{126} { 1.27 }

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

In the life of the masculine hero, which we haveanalyzed elsewhere,nt we encounter the relation of theself to the parent archetype in a similar siruarion. Thehero is frequenrly opposed by the negative parent arche-type, often personalized as the Bad Father or Bad Moth-er, but also in the archetypal form of a divine persecuror.The best known example of this constellation is, as wchave said, the relation between Flera and Fleracles. Butas Hera spurs on the hero to his heroism, so here tooAphrodite drives Psyche ro her acr. Seen from this as.

pect, the "bad, persecuting" archetype shifts into tht:archetype that sets development in motion and so pro-motes individuadon. For Psyche, then, there is not onlya negative unity of Aphrodite,Persephone, but also tht.superior though still nameless unity of a Great Godde.ss

as guiding Sophia-Self, one aspecr of whom is reprcsented by Aphrodite as Terrible Mother, who keePs"sending her on her way."

Flere the contrast between the masculine and feminineview of the archetypal feminine becomes clear, and it is

a contrast that belongs to the psychic background oI

Apuleius' book. Aphrodite-Fortuna was the heimarmencof that period; she was "bad fortune" and TerriblcMother, in opposition ro Isis, who as Good Mother an,tSophia was the goddess of the "good fortune" trau s

formed by the mystery. It is in the lighr of this opp'.sition that the feminine appears ro a masculine psychololy, and so also to Apuleius in his final chapter on rlrr-

Kore, so that an antagonism between Gaea and Demetcrevident.

+s My Origins, pp. r3r tr"

THE COMMENTARY

initiation into the rite of Isis. But this is not so forPsyche herself, this "incarnation" of the feminine andits psychology.

The conception of the archetypal feminine as a unityis one of woman's fundamental experiences. The ancientlrantheon with its antithetical goddesses srill representedr his conception, but in the patriarchal world it was dis-srlved. In the patriarchate the split into the Good andrhe Bad Mother caused the negative side of the femininetr be thrust back very largely into the unconscious. Andr.oreover, precisely because this splitting-off of a,,bad"l.r'om a "good" feminine archetype was only partially suc-t't:sr^ful, the goddess was entirely banished from heaven,

'rs in the patriarchal monotheistic religions. The deifica-t ion of the human Psyche in our myrh represenrs a kind,,[ countermovement to this degradation of the god-,lcsses.

Ilut Psyche's experience of the unity of the archetypall,'nrinine is not the primitive experience of opposites.'r ill joined in numinously uroboric unity; ir is the ex-;,,'r'ience of totality, which woman in her individuadonil rcurs as a product of her own process of becomirgrv lrole.

I Iere it should be stressed that the myrh of Psyche ls.rrr hetypal and in this sense historically paradigmaric; ir.ru)ounces a development that had not yet taken placeI I I t lre individual man of andquity. Psyche herself doesr r r ,r come consciously to her experience of the archetypallr nrinine as a unity, but this experience is the effectiver , .r lit y behind her de velopment.

{128} t12e]

.AMOR AND PSYCHE

We have seen that in Aphrodite the figure of the Bad

Mother is rnerged with that of the feminine self as

Sophia, driving toward individuation" But the connectionbetween Great Mother, the psychology of the matriarch-ate, the role of the sisters, the feminine self, must be

further clarified and interpreted, although we cannot dis-

cuss the entire problem of the primordial feminine rela-

tion, the relation between mother and daughters"as*

In its development the feminine personality must pass

through a number of phases, each of which is character-

ized by definite archetypal phenomerla. The develop-

ment runs from the original situation, with its far-reach-itg identity of mother-daughter-self-ego, by way of thematriarchate, in which, despite the greater freedom and

independence of the ego, the archetype of the GreatMother is still dominant, and by way of the paternaluroboros, to the patriarchate, in which the dominanceof the Great Mother archetype gives way ro that of theGreat F'ather. 'fhis situation of the patriarchate-knownto us particularly from its Western development-ischaracterized by a recession of feminine psychology and

its dominants; now feminine existence is almost entirelydetermined by the masculine worid of consciousness and

its values.

The collective phase of the patriarchate with its sub-

ordination of the ferninrne gives way to the phase of"encounter," in which the masculine and the ferninineconfront each other individi-rally. Then, in the phase ofindivicluation., woman frees hersel{ frorn the decisive in-

asa $gs my The Grtat Mothcr, pp. 3o5 f.

t 1s0 ]

THE COMMENTARY

fiuence of encounter with the masculine and is guided bythe experience of her self as a feminine self.nu

The self stands for wholeness. Not only does it tendin centroversionat toward the formation of the ego andconsciousness, but it goes further toward individuarion,in which the self is experienced as the cenrer of whole-ness. When the unconscious forces of a phase that isbeing transcended resist the ego and the development ofindividuation, wc always have a conflict between theunconscious as Great Mother, holding fast to that whichis born from her, and the self which tends toward thedevelopment of wholeness.

Now it is an essential difficulty of feminine psychologythat the feminine must develop toward and beyond thernasculine, which represents consciousness over againstthe unconscious. Herein it comes into conflict with theGreat Mother, the feminine archetype of the uncon-scious, and with the primordial feminine relation as

exemplified in the myth of Demeter and Kore. But thisdevelopment in conflict with the Great Mother musr notlead to a violation of the feminine nature by the mas-

culine and its peculiar psychology; nor must it cause

woman to lose contact with the unconscious and thefeminine self. The difficulty of distinguishing between

the progressive character of the self and the regressive

a0 This schematic representation of the development does not,of course, correspond to the reality, in which there is no recti-linear development. Moreover, a new phase does not simply re-place the preceding phase, but forms a new level in the psychicstructure, which had hitherto been determined by the otherphases and their laws.

*z My Origins, pp. z6r fr.

{131}

,/T4OR AND PSY CHEcharacter of the Great Mother is one of the centrar prob_Iems nor only of feminine psychology.n,

In Psyche's development the psychology of the matri-archate is represettt.d by the sisters, ."hl' symbo lizethesister bond of the feminine group and at the same timeits hostility toward the p.rr;.I mar. Matriarchal hos-tility toward encounter with the man, that is, towardIove, rnust indeed be overcome, and the patriarchate rep_resents a llecessary transition stage even for feminine de_velopment, but "imprisonment in the patriarchater,,"harem psychorogyr" is a regression over against thematriarchal independence of io*rrrhood. For this rea_son an essential and positive element is contained in theoppo'sition of the matriarchal powers to the imprison_ment of the feminine in the p.rrirrchate as well as itsservitude to the Eros-dragon, ilr. paternal uroboros.In this sense "regression,, to the matriarchal powersoften has a progressive meaning, as may be ascertainedin the psychology of modern *o--rrr. Even if the powersrepresenr e parr of the feminine shadow, their assimila-tion, as in the case of psyche,s act, may lead to anewintegration and a broad.rirg of the personality.This, however, occurs ont when the powers are ac_cepted in favor of a still unknown and broadened per-sonality' a movement toward psychic wholeness, andnot when the psyche surrenders ,o , destructive, person_ally regressive shadow aspect such as the sisters representin the tale of psyche. Th. negativity of the sisrers is ar_ready manifested in the ,r.gr"'riu. designs of their con_sciousness with regard to iry.h.; it b..o-., perfectly

*t My "Die mythische wert und der Einzerne.,,

{132}

THE COMMENTARYclear when we consider their subsequent development-iftheir doom may be calred a d.u.ropment. significantpsychological and mythological .l.m.rrrs are concealed inthis episode, which is ,.pi.r.nted as the vengeance ofEros and Psyche on the ,irt.rr. At the risk of [eing sus_pected of an over-interpretation, we shall point our theseconnecdons, although their ful signific"rr.. can be dis_closed only by an exposition of feminine deveropment inall its phases.

The death of the sisrers through Eros is a typicar ex-ample of the desrruction of the feminine through thepaternal uroboros. {-/nconsciously the sisters are as muchpossessed by Psyche's lover as she herself, if not more so.They take fi* for a god armost ar once and rightly asso-ciate with him the sensual paradise that nry.h. reailyexperiences with Eros. The fascination by this divineIover is highly "personalized" in the trl., for palace,gold, jewels, and so forth appear here as ,,earthly,,

at_tracdons, but behind them the power of the supraper-sonal fascination by Eros is still discernible. We must notforget the situation of these sisters, captives to patri-archal marriage, pining away in the ,ol. of drrgirerlyor motherly sick-nurses. Despite their comic aspect, theirenvy and malignanr hate-jealousy of psycher ?s well astheir headlong readiness to abandon everythirg and fingthemselves into the arms of Eros, they

"r. ,ot without asecret tragic quality. Their end, characteristically, iswholly mythical. In their feverish hailucination theyleap down from a cliff, the crassical cliff of the brideof death, where Psyche had stood-and are dashed topieces' In the uncanny justice of the myth, the blinded

t133]

-4MOR AND PSY CHE

sisters with their madness bear witness ro the ffuth ofall the negarive sraremenrs they had made to psyche re_garding her invisible lover, and in a darkly tragic wayreplace Psyche in the fulfillment of her death. For themEros is really the devourirg masculine monster, thegrim beast of the pythian oracle. Beyond their man_murdering consciousness, they are seized by Eros in themanner of Dionysian maenads; it is in amorous frenzythat they fing themserves off the clifi. They are trueparallels to the women who are unconsciously seized byDionysus in amempting ro resisr him, and who die inmaenadic madness.

But in the course of her developmenr psyche has freedherself both from the matriar.hrl po*.r, which hadgiven her her revolutionary impetus and from captivityin the sensual paradise that Eros as paternal uroboroshad offered her. The herp of the feminine-of Demerer-Hera-was denied Psyche and she has been compelledto travel the masculine road, on which she had start.dwith dagger and lamp, to the bittersweet end. with trr.invisible assistance of Pan she has performed the matri-archal tasks set her by Aphrodite; and this means thatin her encounter with Eros she has gone forward tostrata of her unconscious in which masculine powersand figures are dominant.

The masculine powers in the feminine unconsciousextend far beyond the so-called "animus" figures.*, Theyinclude uroboric forms that exceed the "pirr.ly mascu-

*n Jung, "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconsciousr,,pp. r 86 tr.

THE COMMENTARY

Iiner"uo as well as extrahuman configurations. In thefeminine unconscious animals such as the serpent, butalso the bull, ram, horse, and so forth, symbo ltze thestill-primitive fructifying power of the masculine spirit,and the birds, from the fructifying spirit-doves to Zeus'eagle, are likewise symbols of such spiritual powers, asthe rites and myths of all peoples show. The lructifyingmasculine in the vegetable world, for example, as eatenfruit, is archetypally just as effective as the inorganicpower of thc stones or the wind, which like every fiucti-fying principle always bears a spiritual elemenr withinit. This anonymous masculine spiritual principle, withits productive and destructive side, this principle thatwe designate as the paternal uroboros, represents a psy-chic Power which operates at the fringe of the animusworld of the feminine, and beyond ir.

with her first three acrs psyche ser in motion theknowledge-bringing masculine-positive forces of her na-ture. But, in addition, she converted the unconsciousforces that had helped her into conscious activity and soliberated her own masculine aspect. Her *ry, consciouslytraveled by the ego in opposition to the Grear Mother,is the typical career of the masculine hero, at the end ofwhich Psyche would have been transformed into a Nike.A very questionable triumph, as feminine developmen$in this direction have sufficiently shown. For ro achievesuch a victorious masculine developmenr at the price ofher erotic attraction-that is, her attraction for Eros-would have been a catastrophe for a feminine Psyche,whose actions were undertaken for love, that is, under

so My "Uber den Mond."t134] t13s]

,/4MOR AND PSYCHE

the sign of Eros. This outcome is prevented by what wehave interpreted as "Psyche's failure."

After becomirg conscious of her masculine compo-nents and realizing them, and having become wholethrough development of her masculine aspect, Psyche

was in a position to confront the totality of the GreatMother in her twofold aspect as Aphrodite-Persephone.The end of this confronrarion was the paradoxical vic-tory-defeat of Psyche's failure, with which she regainednot only an Eros transformed into a man, but also hercontact with her own central feminine self.

At this point Psyche is received into Olympus, guidedupward by Flermes, deified, and united forever withEros. Here Hermes once more fulfills his true and

proper function as psychopompos, guide of souls. As hc

served Aphrodite in the beginnirg, he was norhing morethan the "messenger of the gods," the secondary antleasily caricature d figure of the Roman pantheon. Butnow that Psyche attains the immortality she has earnecl,

Flermes too is redeemed, regainirg his primal myrhicalform; his true he rmetic effic acy as guide of the femininc:soul becomes discernible.

When Psyche is received into Olympus as the wife o[Eros, an epoch-rnakirg development of the feminine an<l

of all humanity is rnanifested in myth. Seen from thr.

feminine standpoint, this signifies that the soul's incli-

vidual ability to love is divine, and that transformationby love is a mystery that deifies. This experience of tlrr.feminine psyche takes on special importance against thr'

background of the ancient patriarchal world with il s

THE COMMENTARY

collective feminine existence, subordinated to the rule ofthe fertility principle.

The human has conquered its place on Olympus, butthis has been done not by a rnasculine deified hero, butby a loving soul. Human womanhood as an individualhas rnounted to olympus, and here, in the perfectionachieved by the mystery of love, woman srands beside thearchetypes of mankind, the gods. And paradoxicallyenough, she has gained this divine place precisely by hermortality. It is the experience of mortality, the passage

through death to rebirth and resurrection to Eros, thatmakes Psyche,divine in a mystery of transformation thatcarries her beyond the inhumanity of the "only godly"as conceived by the ancients.

In this connection we are enabled to understand a

last problem, that of the child born of Psyche's unionwith Eros. This child, whose growth accompanies Pry-che's whole development and calvary, is first mentioned

iust as Psyche discloses the early stirrings of independence.

After the first visit of the sisrers, Eros tells Psyche of herpregnancy and utters the nrysterious words: "Yourwomb, a child's as yet, bears a child like to you. If youkeep my secret in silence, h. shall be a god; it you di-vulge it, a mortal""

What can these words mean ? Are we takirg them tooseriously in supposirg that th.y must be interpreted IFor after all Psyche does bear a divine child, and itwould seem at first sight that she scarcely kept the"secret'n silent-assuredly not if Eros' invisibility was

its substance. Since we rnust exclude this interpreta-

{1s6} t137 ]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

tion, the question rises: what was the secret that psyche

must not profane ?

The ffue and ineffable mystery, the "secret" that mustnot be "divulged" and profaned, consists in psyche's in-ner loyalty ro Eros, the loyalty of the human psyche roher mysterious and "impossible" love, and to the es-sential ffansformation that she undergoes through herrelationship with her divine partner. For from a ,,pro-

fane" point of view, as seen by Aphrodite and every-one else, this love is an absurdity and a paradox; it i,something both forbidden and impossible. The true secreris observed by Psyche even in opposition to Eros himselfand over his re sistance, for the ineflable secrer of herlove is exPressible only through Psyche's life, throughher acts and transformation. Although Psyche blurts oureverythitg that can possibly be blurted out, this inner-most kernel of her love retains its efficacy as an un-uttered secret within her. Even Eros himself is enabledto discern it only through Psyche's self-sacrifice, for theunderstanding of what love and its true secrer are be-comes accessible to him, becomes living experience forhim, only through Psyche's love. Hitherto he had, ex-perienced love only in the darkness, as a wanton game,as an onslaught of sensual desire in the willing ,.ruiceof Aphrodite; but through Psyche's act he experiencesit as a travail of the personality, leading through suffer-ing to transformation and illumination.

Marriage of death, existence in the paradise of the un-conscious, fight with the dragon, calvary of labors, jour_ney to the underworld and acquisition of the precioussubstance, failure as second death (which in myth often

THE COMMENTARY

takes the form of imprisonment) rot redemption, hierosgarnos, resurrection, rebirth as a goddess, and birth ofthe child-these are not separate archetypal modfs; theyrepresent the whole canon of archetypes, which runs notonly through myths and fairy tales, but occurs in themysteries as well, and has also disclosed countless vari-ants of its basic structure in the religious systems, inGnosticism for example. This mystery career does notconsist only in action; usually its meaning lies in thegrowth of knowledge, of gnosis. But here (.r in theEleusinian mysteries) it takes a specifically differentform. It is not a mystery of gnosis, that is, of the logos,

but a mystery of Eros. And accordingly the child who isborn, contrary to the expectations of Erosroz is a girl.

In her love for Eros, Psyche is not only different fromAphrodite or any other goddess; she is somethirgwholly rlew. The triumph of Psyche's love and her as-

cension to Olympus were an cvent that has profoundlyaffected Western mankind for two thousand years. Fortwo millenniums the mystery phenomenon of love has

occupied the center of psychic development and of cul-ture, art, and religion. The mysticism of the medievalnuns, the courtly love of the troubadours, Dante's lovefor Beatrice, Faust's Eternal Feminine-all refect thisnever-resting mystery-like development of the psyche inwoman and man. It has brought both good and evil,but in any event it has been an essential ferment of the

ot My Origins, p. 3r9.52 weinreich, "Das Mirchen von Amor und Psycher" in Fried-

linder, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms. See Apr-leius' tale, p. r 8, above.

{13s} t 1.3e ]

,AMOR AND PSY CHEpsychic and spiritual life of the West down to the pres-ent dry.

This love of Psyche for her divine lover is e cenrralmotif in the love mysticism of ail dmes, and psyche,sfailure, her final self-abandonmenr, and the god who ap-proaches as a savior at this very moment correspondexactly to rhe highest phase of mystical ecstasy, in whichthe soul commends itself to the godhead.

For this reason it is said that 'i' th. language of mor_tals" Psyche's child "is called Pleasure.,, But in the lan-guage of heaven-and it is a heavenly child whom thedeified Psyche bears in heaven-this child is the mysticalioy which among all peoples is described as the fruit ofthe highest mystical union. It is "Ioy indeed, but sur-passing sensuality.,'ut

The "birth of the divine child" and its significance areknown ro us from mythorogy, but even more fuily fromwhat we have learned of the individuation process.u*while to a woman the birth of the divine son signifies arenewal and deification of her animus-spirit aspect, thebirth of the divine daughter represenrs a still more cen-tral process, relevant to woman's self and wholeness.

It is one of this myth's profoundest insights that makesit end with the birth of a daughter who ls pleasure-]oy-Bliss' This last sentence relating the transcendent birthof the daughter, which actuailf surpasses the myth it-self, suggests a corner of inner ferninine experience

63 Tejobindu upanishad g (i' Deussen , sechzig Llpanishad,s,p. 66s).64cf. fung's works, The secret of the Goldcn Flowr,.,rhe

Psychology of the child Archerype,' psychorogy and Archemy,etc"

THE COMMENTARY

which defies description and almost defies understand-ir& although it is manifested time and time again as.thedetermining borderline experience of the psyche and ofpsychic life.

We have repeatedly stressed that this tale embodies amyth, that is to solr a complete, self-contained acdon ,,in

archetypal space ." Preciscly because it is an archetypalaction, its meaning must be taken in a collective ht mansense and not personalistically, that is, not as somethingthat takes place in a particular man or a particulaiwoman, but as a universal "exemplary action."

Frere it will not be possible to describe the psycholog-ical difference between the "Psyche-archetype" and thatof the anima in manr or of the feminine self in woman.A few indications may suffice. It is no accident that wespeak of the "soul" of man as well as woman;ou and it isno accident that analytical psychology defines the to-tality of. consciousness and the unconscious as the"psyche." This psyche as the whole of the personalitymust be characterized in man as well as in woman asfeminine, because it experiences that which transcendsthe psychic as numinous, as "outside" and "totally differ-etlt." For this reason, the mandala figure, which appearsin man and woman as the totality of the pry.ti., isfeminine in its symbolism as circle and round, or uroboricas that which contains the opposites.

Where this psyche undergoes experience, the sym-bolically masculine sffucture of the ego and of con-sciousness seeffis, both in man and woman, to be so rela-

66 In contrast to the 'toul-image" in the man and in the

{141 }{140}

,AM OR AND PSYCHE

tivized and reduced that the feminine character of psy-chic life is predominanr. Thus the mystical birth of-thegodhead in the man does nor take place as birth of theanima, i.e., of a partial structure of psychic life, but asbirth of the totality, i.e., of the psyche.uu

what in the myth of Psyche is born as a daughter issomethirg that transcends the psychic; it is an emotionalrcality, a metapsychic situation that is constellated whenthe human psyche is united with its divine partner. Andthus the secular meaning of Psyche's deification is dis-closed from a new angle.

The situation of the mortal psyche was this: sheseemed to be at the mercy of a hostile world of arctretypalfeminine powers; Eros clung without independence-rothese powers, whose incarnation was Aphrodite; andZeus, the father archetype, stood aside, inacdve. From apsychological point of view, this means that the worldof the unconscious, in its inhuman, antihuman constel-lation, dominated human action, and that man's relationto this world-Eros-was also wholly passive. The psy-chic aspect of the human was utterly at the mercy of thegods and their whims.

But in the myth Psyche is so active that all actions andtransformations start with her; she performs a decisiveact while Eros sleeps and completes her labors whileEros lies wounded in his mother's house; she, the earth-born woman, succeeds in integrating the four earthlyelements of her nature and so in resisting all the intrigues

60 This variation on |ung's dcfinition of the anima strikes meas a necessary consequence of |ung's own observations of the in-dividuation process.

t142]

THE COMMENTARY

of the unconscious and its goddess. So great is psyche's

inner strength, so great is her power of integration, ac-quired through suffering and love, that she can stand upto the disintegrating power of the archetypes and con-front them on an equal footing. Yer all this does notoccur in a Promethean-masculine opposition to the di-vine, but in a divine, erotic seizure of love, which showsher to be even more deeply rooted in the center of thedivine Aphrodite.

While formerly, as an ancient representation showsus,ut Aphrodite literally rode on Psycher or in otherwords, the archetype of the Great Mother dominatedPsyche, Psyche has now been deified through her ca-pacity for love and is borne aloft by Flermes. Throughher ascension to Olympus she demonstrates that a newepoch has begun. That Psyche has become e goddessmeans that the human is itself divine and equal to thegods; and the eternal union of the goddess psyche withthe god Eros means that the human bond with the di-vine is not only eternal, bur itself of. a divine quality.

The psychic turn of the divine, the inward journey ofthe gods into what we call the human psyche, withinwhich this divine principle now appears, has its arche-typal beginnirg in this apotheosis of Psyche.

Strangely enough, the tale of Psyche thus represenrs adevelopment which in an extra-christian area, withoutrevelation and without church, wholly pagan and yertranscending paganisffi, symbolizes the transformationand deification of the psyche. rr was another fifteen hun-dred years before it again became possible and meaning-

57 see in Reitzenstein , Das Miirchen aon Amor und psyche.

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",4MOR AND PSYCHE

ful, under entirely new circumstances, to speak of adeification of the human psyche. It was orly after themedieval ban on the feminine€arrhly side of psychiclife-a ban laid down by a spiritual world one-sidedlyoriented toward celestial-masculine values-began to belifted that the divine in earthly narure and the humansoul could be rediscovered.ut Thus in the modern era anew development of the feminine ser in, iust as, with therise of depth psychology, a new form of psychic develop-ment and transformation is beginning to be discerniblein the West.

All these developments are realizations of what is ex-emplified on an archetypal plane in the myrh of psyche

and her deification. Thus it may not be without meaningthat this work on Eros and Psyche should appear at thevery momenr when the catholic church, with thedogma of Mary's physical assumption into heaven, isrepeating, renewing, and confirmirg what was enactedin the person of Psyche on the pagan clympus.ot

The archetype of Psyche united with Eros, taken to-gether with the child of loy, strikes us as one of thehighest forms that the symbol of the coniunctio has takenin the West. It is the youthful forrn of Shiva united withhis Shakti. The hermaphrodite of alchemy is a later but

58 See my "I)ie Bedeutung des Erdarchetyps fiir die Neuzeitr"EI rgst.

5e To the Christian Trinity corresponds the "trinitarianduality" of Zeus and Eros, who in his highest stage of mani-festation as winged Eros possesses the charaiter both of Son andHoly Ghost; and the figure of psyche is analogous to Mary" Thepsychological meaning of the diflerence between the ancientHellenistic and the modern Christian tetrads cannot concern ushere.

THE COMMENTARY

lesser form of this image, because, as lung has pointedout, it actually represents a monstrosity, contrastingsharply with the divine pair, Eros and psyche. -

Frorn the standpoint of the feminine, Psyche erernallyunited with Eros is the feminine self joined with themasculine godhead. Frere rhe accent lies on psyche, whoexperiences the transcendent figure of Eros as the lumi-nous aspect of the redeemirg logos in herself, throughwhich she attains to illumination and deificarion. In con-ceptual sirnplification, this means that she experiencesEros as gnosis, through love.

From the masculine standpoint, psyche united withEros is again the union of the psyche as the totality ofthe male personality (as known to us, for example, fro-the archetype of the mandala) with the transcendentrnasculine-divine manifestation of the self. But for themasculine the accent is less on Psyche than on the divineEros. Flere the transformation of the masculine logosaspect leads to a principle of divine love, which joinswith the psyche to produce illumination and deificadon.or, in conceptual simplification, the masculine experi-ences Eros as love, through gnosis.

The interweaving of these rwo divine figures andmystical experiences constitutes the archetype of theconiunctio of Eros and Psyche. Their gloriole, and ar thesame time the supreme fruit of their union, whoseeerthly reflecdon is pleasure, is their divine child, heav-enly bliss.

When we survey the development of psyche as awhole, it becomes clear-and it is already apparent fromthe connection between the tale and Apulei.rr' novel in

t144] {14s}

t

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

which it is set-that this mythical tale represenrs amystery action. What is this mysrery action and whatposition does it occupy in Apuleius' Golden Ass?

From the initiation of Lucius Apuleius into the riteof Isis, with which the novel ends, we learnuo the es-sential elements of the mystery. The rite consists in avoluntary death and a redemption from death throughgrace-the journey to the realm of persephone and backagain. It centers in the vision and cult of the upper andlower gods; and significantly it begins with a journeyto Flades and a passage through the four elemenrs. (Forthe present we shall disregard the final srage, that ofthe transformation in Helios.)

The correspondences with the myth of psyche areobvious; we cannof but assume that Apuleius knew ex-actly what he was doing in includirg the tale in theGolden Ass. our next question is: what is the relationof the story of Psyche to the initiation rite described inthe novel I

Here we cannot dispense with a few additional re-marks about matriar.hrl and patriarchal psychology, forit is the conflict between them that makes the myth ofPsyche intelligible. Contrasting with the solemn initia-tion, which is described with all the pomp and ceremonyof the mystery terminology, the tale is a profane inter-polation. It is conceived as a sort of folkloristic prologue.

In the Golden Ass the srory of Eros and psyche isrelated by an old woman to a young girl. On her wed-ding dny this girl had been snatched "from her morher's

60 Dibelius, "Die Isisweihe bei Apuleius und verwandte Initi-ations-Riten."

THE COMMENTARY

arms" by robbers who wished to extort a ransom fromher parents. The motif of rape and marriage of death, aswell as that of feminine initiation, is discernible in theveiled form characteristic of Apuleius.

The tale of Psyche, which the old woman tells theyoung bride by way of consolarion, is an initiation intothe feminine destiny of developmenr through suffering,for it is only after misfortune and sufieri"g that Pry.1i.is retmited with her beloved. That this old *o-r' comesfrom Thessaly, the land of witches and of Flecate, thatit, the land of Pheraia,ut the great pre-Hellenic MotherGoddess, broadens the background and gives us aglimpse of the matriarchal mysreries in their mythicaldepth.

It was Bachofen who first gained an intimation ofthese contexts. To be sure, he forced the tale into hisschema and dealt most arbitrarily with the texr, whichunder the circumstances he was bound to misunder-stand. But even so, he recogn ized the story's trend andmystery character. "The feminine soul, first in the serv-ice of Aphrodite, a slave to matter, condemned at everystep to new and unexpected sufferiogs, and finally leddown into the deepest morass of sensuality-but thenarising to a new and more powerful existence, passingfrom Aphrodisian to Psychic life. The lower phase b.a*a tellurian, the higher a uranian character. . . . In pry-che Aphrodite herself attains to the lunar srage, the high-est which woman's materiality can affain. Beside herstands Eros as Lunus."6,

61 Philippson, T hessalische Mythologie.62 Versuch tiber die Griibersymbolifr, p. 46.

t146] {147}

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

He failed to perceive the conflict between psyche andAphrodite or the independently feminine characrcr ofthe myth, for the grear discoverer and admirer of thematriarchate remained hampered by Platonic, Christian,patriarchal conceptions. He could apprehend the femi-nine-psychic principle only as a stage subordinated tosolar-masculine spirituality.

with his Platonizing interpretation and disregard ofthe myth's details, Bachofen could recognize only

" very

general "purificadon" of the soul in the tale of psyche.

He speaks of the details as "legendary morifs" (as thoughthis meant anything other than archctypal traits) .naloses himself in vague generalities. Such an interpretfl.tion fails to note what is most essential to this *yth andtale, namely the feminine psychology with its crises, de-cisions, and specifically feminine activity.

Contrary ro Bachofen, we believe that a myth of thcfeminine is discernible in the tale of Psyche. And if thisis so, it means that we have here a later and higher stagcof feminine initiation than that embodied in the Eleusin-ian mysteries.

In psychological terms the Eleusinian mysteries, likethose of Isis, are matriarchal mysteries that difler c8.sentially from the masculine-patriarchal mysrery. Thcmasculine mystery is bound up with the active heroiCstruggle of the ego and based on the cenrral insight thrt"r and the father are one."68 But the primordial ferni.ninemysterieshaveadif[erentstructure.They8rCfir}&teries of birth and rebirth and appear predominantly inthree different forms: as birth of the logos, son of lightg

ut My Origins, pp. 265 f.

t14s)

THE COMMENT ARYas birth of the daughter, the new serf; and as birth ofthe dead in rebirth. Wherever we find this elemen oryfeminine symbolism, we have-psychorogically speaking

-matriarchal mysteries, regardless of whether those initi-ated are men or women.

while the masculine mysteries start from the priorityof the spirit and look upon the reality of the phenomenalworld and of marter as the crearion of the spirit, thefeminine mysteries srart from the priority of the phe-nomenal, "material" world, from which the spiritual is"born.''ut rn this sense the patriarchal mysteries are upperand heavenly, while those of the feminine seem rowerand chthonian; in the patriarchal mysreries the accenr ison the generative numinosity of the invisible. The twoare complemenhry, and it is only taken together thatthey yield an approach to the whole ffurh of the mystery.

Psychologically speaking, it is by no means indifierenrwhether a man is initiated into matriarchal mysteries ora woman into patriarchar mysteries, or the reverse. Themasculine may be initiated into matriarchal mysteries intwo essentially different ways, both of which lead to en-tirely different psychic developmenrs than the .,patri-archal mysrery" of the father-rl, relationship.

The one way consists in identification with the born'son' that is, a return to the myster y of the mother arche-type; the second is identification with the feminine, in-volving a self-abandonment of the masculine. (Here itneed not concern us whether this loss is symbo lized inreal castrarion, in the tonsure, in the drinking of a medi-

oa See my The Great Motherrpp. zgr f.

t14e]

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

cine that renders impotent, or in the adoption of femi-nine dress.)

If we now return to Lucius and the mystery of Isisn

we understand that his "solificationr" his transformationinto Sun-Light-God, is ar the same time a transforma-tion into the son of Isis, into Horus-Osiris or Harpoc,rates, who is born and reborn by the grace of the GreatMother Goddess.

At all evenrs, it is the feminine which assumes theguidance in the redemption of Lucius by Isis and hirinitiation into her mysreries. It was the evil goddess offate who stood behind the meramorphosis of Luciurinto an ass and all his sufferings, and now it is a goodgoddess of fate, as Sophia-Isis, greatesr of the goddesser,who takes possession of him and leads him to salvation.0aAnd here-almost imperceptibly-a new link is forgeclbetween the initiation and the tale of Psyche.

In the tale the course of events is also determinedthrough the activity of the feminine parrner, of psyche,

The transformations of Eros, Eros as dragon, Eros ar

monster and husband, Eros as sleeper, and finally Eroras redeemirg god who awakens Psyche to supreme be.ing-these stages are attained not by the efforts ofFros himself, but by Psyche's acts and sufferings. It iralways she who undertakes, suffers, performs, and conr.

65 Ffere we cannot go into the question of whether the GoldenAss throws any light on the authenticity or inauthenticity ofApuleius' experience of initiation: whether the novel is character.istic only of the psychology of this period, when "everyone" wel"always" undergoing initiation; or whether Apuleius' narrativepoints to a psychologically authentic process of transformation,

{1s0}

THE COMMENTARYpletes, and even the manifestation of the divine, of Eros,is ultimately induced by the lovirg and knowing activityof the feminine aspe*, of the h,i*r' psyche.

In Eros as in Lucius, the developmenr ;r every stagesrarts nor from the activity of the masculine .go, butfrom the initiative of the feminine. In both cases theprocess-for good and evil-is carried out by this femi-.ine principle, in opposition to a resisting and passivemasculine ego. And such developments, .in

which ,,thespontaneity of the psyche" and itr living guidance arethe crucial determinants in the life of the-masculine, areknown to us from the psycholog y of the creative process:tnd of individuation. In all tha. processes *h.r. ,,pry-che leads" and the masculine follows herruu the ego re_Iinquishes its leaditg role and is guided by the totality.In psychic developments which prove ro be centered

"und the nonego, the self, we have creative processes;rnd processes of initiation in one.

While in the tale of Psyche the myth of feminine in-tlividuation leads to the supreme union of the femininewith the divine lover, Apuleius' novel, as though to"rmplement this feminine initiation with a masculinet tne, ends with the introduction of Lucius into therrrystery of Isis, where the Great Mother manifests her-sclfl as sophia and the Eternar Feminine.

Ap.rleius prays to the Goddess: "Floliest of the Hory,Pt'rpetual comfort of mankind, you whose bountifulllrace nourishes the whole world; whose heart turns to-

tr' These developments are best known to us where the mascu-lrrtc is led by a partial structure of the psyche, a partial aspect,l its directive totalitn namery the anima.

t IsL ]

-lrrFFF--

,AMOR AND PSYCHE

wards all those in sorrow and tribulation as a mother'sto her children. . . . The gods above adore you, the godsbelow do hornage to you, you ser the orb of heavenspinning around the poles, you give lighr to the sun,you govern the universe, you trample down the powersof Hell. At your voice the stars move, the seasonr r*..rr,the spirits of earth rejoice, the elements obey.,' And heconcludes: 'of wiil keep your divine countenance alwaysbefore my eyes and the secrer knowledge of your ji-vinity locked deep in my treart.',6t

In these lines we perceive a magnificent prefigurationof a song composed almost two thousand y.*or- later, asong that is full of the voice and image of psyche:

Bliafret auf zum R.etterbticfrAIle reuig Zarten,Euclt zu seligem GeschicfrDanftend umzuarten.Werde jeder bessre SinnDir zum Dienst erbotig;

lun gfrau, Mutter, Konigin,Gottin, bleibe gncidig.u8

67 Tr. Robert Graves.68 [Goethe, Fa*st, Part ltr, closing scene" *'Look up to the

saving look, all ye tender penitents, and so in thankfuiness re-rnold yourselves tn a blissful destiny. Thee let every better naturebe ready to serve; Maid, Mother, eueen, Gocidess, still be thougracious!" (Tr" Willard R." Trask.)J

POSTSCRIPT

TnE sroRy of Amor and Psyche transmitted to us in theGolden Ass was nor the invention of Apuleius. whatwas narrated in the form of a tale by Apuleius, born inA.D. r2g actually originated in a much earlier dry.t

Like almost all folk hles, this one conrains mythicalsubstance that was excluded from the myrhology recog-nized by the dominant culture. The Egyptian tale ofBata, for example, has preserved the original myth ofIsis and osiris. But the tale of Psyche is unique in farmore than this. The most fascinating aspect of it is that,along with its abundance of mythical traits and con-texts, it represents a development whose content is pre-cisely the liberation of the individual from the pri-mordial mythical world, the freeing of. the psyche.

The scholarship of recent years has disclosed a wealthof actual and possible sources and infuences which seemto have converged in the tale of psyche. Bur this dis-cussion is only of secondary interest to us. What con-cerns the psychologist is nor so much the origin andhistory of the parts as the meaningf,.tl unity of the wholein relation to its parts.

But just as we can often arrive at the meaning of adream only by an amplification of its parts, so an under-standing of the new synthesis of the traditional material

1 Fulgentius tells us that Apuleius borrowed the tale from theAthenian storyteller Aristophontes, but this is no more helpfulto us than the fact that art works of the classical period ,ho*familiarity with the story. Rohde, Der griechische Roman undseine Vorkiufer, p. 37r n.

{ 1"52 } { 1s3 }

,,4MOR AND P.'Y CHEthrows light on the meaning of the whole. It is neithersurprisitg nor very illumiriadng that compararive re -search should have disclosed a large number of fork-tale rnotifs in the tale of psyche,, Io, this only rneansthat the sarne archetypar *orif, occur in difierent praces.And the question of whether we have ro do with ami-

.

gration or with a spontaneous reappearance of thescmotifs is irrelevant fo, our purpor.r.It has been said that in ,ili, tare ,,rhe desriny of thehuman soul purified by div.r;. trials is represented afrerthe rnodel of the platonic allegories.,,, Th.r. is no doubta certain banal truth in this

''rr",.-ent, but taken as ageneralization it is just as false as the confusion betweenPlatonic symbols and allegori;.'

Like all interpretadonrlhr, disregard the comprexityand originality of the Psyche myth, this one, which makesApuleius' Platonism responsible for the whore rare, rnusrbe rejected' still, there is no doubt that a tradition trans-rnitted by prato praye{ an i-p*tant part in shaping thernyth, and of this we shall have ,

Yet it is equallv absurd to ,o:f'J"rft,l,;I;;,i pur-pose" in the Golden Ass, which^hn, not yet become clearin the tale of psyche.o Frere, as so often, Bachofen intui-tivelyt perceived and interprered highry imporranr rera-tionships' It is true that *. ngr.. with rr- onry incertain points, because we are no longer hampered bythe christian-ethicar dogmatisrn of Ba;1of.rr, rime, and2weinreich, "Das Mdrchen von Amor_und psyche,,, in Fried_Idnder' Darste'u"gt; ;;, .a1 sittengesclticltte Roms.

:iffi*,'],:J:,ru"s zu Aputeius, i'r, Gotdene Eset,p. iii5 Versuch ciber die Grribersymbotift.

{1s4}

THE COMMENTARYtake the insights of depth psychorogy as our srarringpoint. Be that as it nay, Bachofen ;;, the first writerto see that the story of psyche reflects an important sec-tor of feminine-psychic deveropmenr. rn this connectionwe must bear in mind the *rgt ificent passage in Bachof_en's "Mother Rightr"u *h.r. he .qu"r., Eros withDionysus and derives certain basic situations of femininepsychology from the Psyche-Dionysus relation, and theIong section on the myth of psyche in his essay on thesymbolism of the ancient tombs.?

on the other hand, a significant contribution to theknowledge of the parts ,yrrih.sized in the myth as it hascome down to us was made by Reitzenstein with hisdiscovery of psyche as an oriental goddess.8 In anEgyptian magic papyrus Reitzenstein found the figureof Erosn as a boy and living god, bearing the epithets"dweller in the palace of h.rtit desire ,rr"a lord of thebeautiful couch" and "winged dragon.,, The goddessT-f 7 t'Psyche, for her part, "gives the universe movement andanimation, and one d^y when Hermes leads her, shewill bring it joy"; her partner is an omniscient dragon-monster.

Reitzenstein's reference to the Gnosdcism of Apuleius,d^y is fruitful, but, as we shail see, it does not take us veryf'ar' Reitzenstein points to the Gnostic belief that God in-

6 Das Mutterrecht, Vol. II, p. 5g5.7 Versuc/t, p. 94,B Reitzenstein, .,Die Gottin psyche.,,e on the name Eros as. Amot + Cupid, see my forenote, above,p. 56. Also see ]ahn, Bericltt tibe*n;i, ,"i 'E;;;

und psychebezrigliche Kunsttaerfte; pagenstecher,,,Eros und psyche,,; andReitzenstein, "Eros und Psyche in d., altigyptisch-griechischenKleinkunst."

tlss]

,ZfuIOR AND P.,Y CHEvisibln but quite carnally, consorrs with the soul of theelect' who from him ,e.eiu.s the seed of immortality.Arnid distress and temptation the sour musr keep faithwith this invisible bridegroo*, if it is really to beholdGod after the death of th"e R.ri and celebrare a heavenlymarriage with Him.to Reitzenstein aptly quotes philorlas saying that "in ,1. mysrery of gr..hu, that srate ofecstasy is designated as a being-viorated by Erosr,, andpoints to certain rnodern fotk il.riefs, ,u.h as the trgyp_tian notion of a zar, or spirit, to whom a maiden mustactually be given in marriage, The states of ,.possession,,

by a spirit, known ro us from the demonorogy of ailtimesrt' may be considered in the same context.But this means that we have ro do with an archetypalprocess which is enacted between the feminine and aninvisible masculine spirit, a process which operares in allmystical experience' and o* of .ourr. il. r"und in allthe "sources."

on closer scrutiny the similarity of these ..sources,, tothe myth of psyche is armosr overshadowed by an equalor greater divergencyl and, though we cannot stop todemonsffate it here, we find that the sim'arity is forthe mosr parr archetypar, wh'e g: divergence is spe_cific' This is true, for example, of the ,.lriio, betweenour myth and Reitzenstein's Gnostic myth, in whichPsyche is abducted by the prince of darkness but finaryredeerned by the pr.romatic supreme godhead.

10 Reitzenstein, .,Die Gcittin psyche, ,, p. 21'.tr De aita contemplaiua,

473 lrI.12 cf' Ansky's intiresting pi"y The Dybbyk, or Betueen TuoWorlds, whicir is basJ-o, ,u.h "

..possessio',, of love.

t1s6]

THE COMMENTARY

The archetypal dualism of Iranian Gnosticism is some-thing entirely different from the twofold srrucrure ofEros in our myth, where the essential is precisely the op_posite, namely a synthesis of opposites as experienced inthe partner, in Eros. we might ,r, very much the samein regard to Reitzenstein's construction of an orientalmyth of Psyche, accorditg to which Psyche has slain Erosand undertakes her iourney to the underworld in order tobring him the water of life. To begin with, this orientalmythologem, known to us from Ishtar and Tammuzhas nothing to do with the myth of psyche,r, since ,Jr;accents are exactly reversed. Even if an oriental mytholo-gem of this sorr had infuenced the tale of nry.h., itwould-and this is the crucial point-have been elabo_rated in an entirely different *ry. The same applies toKerinyi's attempt to relate "the goddess with the bowl,,lato Psyche. If he is right in setting up a parallel betweenthe "goddess with the bowl" o" the one hand andAriadne and Theseus-Dionysus on the other, and in-terpreting the bowl as that which "requires fulfillmenr,,by the masculine, this attitude of receiving and waitingfor redemption forms a direct antithesis to what is thevery crux of the Psyche myth, namely the actiaity ofPsyche, who creates her own redemp,iorr. As we haveshown, this "need for fulfillment" can apply only to thefinal situation. But this mysdcal situation is itself arche-typal, and has no need of a comparatist ,,derivation.,,

1t Tht Egyptian terra cotta of Psyche and Eros which Reitzen-stein ("Dic G-ottin Psyche") and "fi., him Kerdnyi (,,Die Gottinmit der schale")- interpret as representing psyche slaying Erosshows rothing of the *rt.

1a "Die Gcittin mit der Schale."

t1s7]

,AMOR AND PSY CHEThus only the vaguest connection can be found be-tween the oriental mythorogem and our myth of psyche.

The ancient Greek fork ot. of psyche presents a farcloser parallel. Although we have no'r.*, of this rale, weknow for certain from its numerous reflections in ancientart that in it Eros nor onry brings suffering to p.syche,often shown as a moth (for this is the meaning of theword psyche), but that he himself is tormented by psychein exactly the same way.ru This shows the antiquity ofcertain central motifs of our Psyche myth, which are norto be found in the above-mentioned orienrar myths. Theidea that the human sour is nor passivery creansed andpurified, but actively imposes the same purification uponthe loving Eros, is prefigur.d in the fork tale and achievesits full meaning in th. myth of psyche. Here it is norPsyche alone who is transformed; her destiny is indisso-lubly intertwined with that of Eros, her parrner. We havethen a myth of the reration between man and woman.To follow the mythorogical history of this Eros is farbeyond our scope. But it is no accident that his mythshould always be connected with ,,matriarchar

myster_ies"' Eros as son of Aphrodite has been compared toHorus,tu and this parallel shows his connection with thegreat sphere of the matriarchal mysreries, dominated byIsis, mother of Frorus, Furthermore, recent schorars be_Iievett the ancient Greek Eros to have been a successorof the young pre-Heilenic creran god, corresponding tosuch divine youths as Adonis and Attis, with their evi-15 |ahn, Bericltt"10 Perss on, The Religion17 lbid., p. r5r.

of Greece in prehistoric Tim€s, p.

{Lss}

THE COMMENTARY

dent relation to the Great Morher. This Cretan origin ofEros takes us back to the prepatriarchal, that is, matri-archal stratum of the Mediterranean cultures, whosebeginnings go back to prehistoric rimes.tt

In this connection there remains one vitally importantparallel: the Eros introduced in Plato's Symposium byDiotima, whom Socrates plainly characrerizes as a

priestess of feminine mysteries.tn In his study on the"Great Daemon of the symposium,"'0 Ker6nyi has bril-liantly interpreted this E,ros and his mystery. The workof the mystery is "to engender and bear in the beautiful,"to bear "a mysterious child who impregnares the body as

well as the soul by his presence," and this pregnancybears witness to the presence and activity of Eros. Thefulfillment of this pregnarrcy, the end of Eros' pain, is"birth in beauty." The highest form of this birth, as

Socrates learns from the matriarchal mysteries of Di-otima, is self-birth in the "rebirth of the initiate as adivine being."

There is no doubt that if Apuleius, as a Platonist,understood Diotima's mystery of Eros in the sense set

forth by Ker 6nyr, he must have relared it to the mysreriesof Isis, the Eleusinian mysteries, and the ancient folktale about the suffering Psyche. Gnostic and orienral in-fluences may also have played their part. And yer, arevery step in this mythical taie, we are overwhelmed by

18 Levy, Tlte Gate of Horn; Thomson, 7'he prehistoric Aegean.le It is again to Bachofen that we owe our knowledge of the

connection between the Mantinean Diotima and the Pelasgian-matriarchal, that is, pre-Hellenic, cultural sphere. (Bachofen,Das Mutterrecht, Vol. II, pp. 8++ {I.)

20 Der grosse Daimon des Sl,rnposion.

I 19.

,ns$ffi,1

tlse]

,AMOR AND PSY CHEits unity and the unity of the feminine psychorogy whichflows from it, and which cannot have

-been derived en-

tirely from source material alone. It becomes understand-able only against the background of an archaic ,,matri-archal psychology," an operarive psychic srrarum dis-cernible in any number of myths, rites, and mysreries.r,

And now perhaps we are in a position to understandhow a man should have been able to produce the tale ofPsyche, this central document of feminine psychology,for there is no doubt that he did nor merely transmit it,but also helped to give it form. seen objectivery, variousstreams of archaic matriarchal psychology have con-verged in ir. Through the mysrery of I;;, Egypt ex-erted a shong influence on the Hellenistic mysreries ofinitiation; while the Eleusinian mysreries, as well as theGreek and pre-Hellenic mysteries of Eros, stem from thematriarchal, pre-Hellenic Mediterranean culture, and in-fluenced Plato and the pratonist Apuleius throughMantinea-Diodma. simila rly, the myths and *yrr.ri.,of Aphrodite are not Greek but come from the NearEastern precinct of the Great Mother, of whom all theGreek goddesses represent partial aspecrs. The orientalmythologems of the Great Mother and her young son(that of Ishtar, for example) are likewise matriarchar,and the Gnostic myths, with their archetypal spirit-heaven world, clearly revear the struggle of a rising mas-culine patriarchal ideology against the domination ofthe archetype of the Great Mother.r,

For Apuleius, as for many men of his time, this ob_21 See my The Great Mother, pp. zgr fi.zz My Origins, pp. 163 f., 46o i., .t .

THE COMMENTARY

iective cultural datum became subjective experiencethrough his initiation into the mysreries of Isis, whichhe describes in his Golden Ass, and in which matriarchalpsychology becomes masculine experience. But anotherreason why with Apuleius the experience of religiousinitiation became the personal experience of the ** isthat he was one of those creative men who, like thefeminine, must give birth, one of those "whom psyche

guides."

{ 160 } {161}