P S Y C H (E) L O G I C U S

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On The Myth Of Psyche

As most of you know, psyche is the Greek word for soul. It's also the Greek word for butterfly. If you have a protagonist in a story whose name is Psyche, you might expect that she will go through a major transition and crisis. Will she survive it? Will she come through and be transformed, or will she die? ...

The form that Psyche broke was the understanding with her unseen lover who came every night. The piece of the story I want to focus on is what happens in an unconscious relationship when it is broken. ...

She breaks it by lifting up the lamp. Then the lamp sputters, and a drop of oil falls and hits Eros' shoulder. He awakens, hurt and angry, blaming Psyche for destroying the situation as it was. He's got wings, this god, so he flies away and leaves her. ...

-- Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D.

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Heroine ~

"The Heroine of a Greek allegory, Psyche represented the human soul, married to the loving heart personified as the god Eros. Psyche, the story goes, spent her days alone, making love each night in darkness with a husband she never saw; only under these conditions would he remain faithful to her. For a while she lived happily enough. But finally a fearful curiousity about his identity and a deep spiritual loneliness drove Psyche to bring a lamp into the bedroom. Hardly had the woman seen the beautiful winged body of her lover than a bit of oil from her lamp, awakening him. Instantly Eros flew away. Thus the soul, the Greeks knew, could remain happy in romantic union, until unmet needs demanded conscious knowledge of the lover's real identity."

"Next, the tale goes, Psyche was charged with many near-impossible tasks to gain back her beloved: sorting overnight a roomful of seeds; catching the fleece of the sun's sheep; travelling to the underworld to ask for magical beauty ointment. Intent on regaining Eros, she overcame these obstacles one by one."

"But as Psyche returned from Hades with Persephone's ointment box, vanity overcame her. She opened the jar to rub beauty cream on her weary face. Psyche fell into a swoon and might have died, but Eros persuaded the Olympian divinities that she had struggled enough. She acended to heaven and was reunited with her lover, bearing two children, named Love and Delight. In this allegory, the Greeks produced a magnificent tale of the relations of heart and mind, the journey through romance to real marriage, and the human joy born of the victorious struggle."

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Psyche's Dream

As Psyche, the most beautiful of mortals, sleeps among the flowers, she dreams of beholding the perfect face of Eros, her lover. Having found true love in each other, they float down the river of life forever.

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Psyche

“Psyche” refers to soul, self, and mind in Greek, hence its similar meaning in English; thus we also have psychology, psychic, etc.

In Greek mythology, Psyche was Eros' (Cupid's) mortal beloved. Psyche endured many trials foisted on her by Eros' mother Aphrodite (Venus), jealous of Psyche's beauty. This included a trip to the underworld. Eventually Zeus sanctioned the marriage of Eros and Psyche, and granted Psyche immortality.

In her sojourn to Hades, Psyche succeeded in retrieving a bit of Persephone's (the queen of the underworld's) beauty, in a box Aphrodite had given her. This box is sometimes confused with Pandora's jar (Pandora's "box"), ...

Upon returning, Psyche tried to sample a little of the contents of the box. This put her in a deep sleep, from which Eros eventually awakened her with a kiss.

They lived happily ever after their wedding, with the physical (Eros) and spiritual (Psyche) joined at last.

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Amor and Psyche