psyche and eros

the name "psyche" means "soul" and her union with eros tells the story of how love and soul came to be together. here is how it happened. (by the way, this story is roman, not greek, but it works just as well with the greek, so that is how i shall tell it.)

long, long ago a king had three daughters. psyche, who was the youngest of the three daughters, was so incredibly beautiful that people in her village and outlying areas stopped praying to aphrodite, taking psyche for the goddess of beauty instead. that wasn't too good, because aphrodite got mighty pissed off, and when that happens, you don't want to be on her bad side. she went straight to the source: the innocent psyche. she grabbed eros (in this version he is her son) and instructed him to make poor psyche fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. eros, who had done jobs like this on his mother's behalf before, went down to earth to find her. but when he did he, too, was stunned by her beauty. he was so stunned that as he lay his golden arrow on her heart, he pricked himself and fell in love with her then and there. he was so in love that he erased all of what he had done to her, and went away.

after a while aphrodite realized that her darling son hadn't quite done his job, for psyche wasn't falling for anyone, let alone someone hideous. so aphrodite sent down a spell of her own on psyche. as soon as this happened, not another suitor knocked upon their door. her parents got worried, they wanted their youngest daughter to be a rich noblewoman at least. psyche's mother, the queen, went off to the oracle to hear what was wrong.

"psyche will never marry a mortal. she shall be given to one who waits for her on yonder mountain; he overcomes gods and men."

poor parents, poor psyche! it seemed that she was destined to marry a monster. no one wanted to let her go. whether because of her physical beauty or the beauty of her soul, everyone loved psyche. psyche, however, saw the futility of her situation, and knew that she had angered aphrodite, however mistakenly. she accepted what the fates had decreed and told her parents to take her to the mountain and leave her for the beast. after many denials, they finally agreed and most of the country accompanied her to her supposed death. as she watched them leave, her heart cried out in sorrow and though she stayed firm with courage she could not stop the tear from trickling down her cheek. zephyr, the kindly west wind, saw her sorrow and bore her away to the valley below the mountain into soft grass in place of the harsh rock of the mountaintop. it was there that she woke.

when she woke, she didn't see any monster around her but she did see a lush looking forest. eager for the protection it could offer she went in. as she entered she heard the sound of water and followed it. deeper and deeper into the forest she went until she found a bright pool with a fountain, and beyond it a beautiful palace. then she heard a voice around her, its speaker invisible,