Mythology: Part Two

There was once a king who had three daughters, all lovely maidens, but the youngest, Psyche, excelled her sisters so greatly that beside them she seemed a very goddess consorting with mere mortals.

The fame of her surpassing beauty spread over the earth, and everywhere men journeyed to gaze upon her with wonder and adoration and to do her homage as though she were in truth one of the immortals.

As they thronged in ever-growing numbers to worship her loveliness no one any more gave a thought to Venus herself.

Already, because of Psyche’s stumbling and contradictory answers when they asked her what her husband looked like, they had become convinced that she had never set eyes on him and did not really know what he was. They did not tell her this, but they reproached her for hiding her terrible state from them, her own sisters.

Immediately, however, a deadly languor took possession of her and she fell into a heavy sleep.

This story is found only in Ovid. It is quite characteristic of him at his best: well-told; several rhetorical monologues; a little essay on Love by the way.

The fierce beast had made a kill; her jaws were bloody and she was coming to slake her thirst in the spring.

She ventured to go back to the tree of the tryst, the mulberry with the shining white fruit.

He sailed with Jason on the Argo, and when the heroes were weary or the rowing was especially difficult he would strike his lyre and they would be aroused to fresh zeal and their oars would smite the sea together in time to the melody.

A little while we tarry up on earth.
Then we are yours forever and forever.

After the young birds are hatched the charm is broken; but each winter these days of perfect peace come, and they are called after her, Alcyone, or, more commonly, Halcyon days.

No woman ever born, no statue ever made, could approach it. When nothing could be added to its perfections, a strange fate had befallen its creator: he had fallen in love, deeply, passionately in love, with the thing he had made.

It must be said in explanation that the statue did not look like a statue; no one would have thought it was ivory or stone, but warm human flesh, motionless for a moment only. Such was the wondrous power of this disdainful young man.

This singular passion did not long remain concealed from the Goddess of Passionate Love. Venus was interested in something that seldom came her way, a new kind of lover, and she determined to help a young man who could be enamored and yet original.

Snow-white heifers whose horns had been gilded were offered in numbers to her; the heavenly odor of incense was spread through the island from her many altars; crowds thronged her temples; not an unhappy lover but was there with his gift, praying that his love might turn kind.

The two gods, accordingly, took on the appearance of poor wayfarers and wandered through the land, knocking at each lowly hut or great house they came to and asking for food and a place to rest in.

Not one would admit them; every time they were dismissed insolently and the door barred against them.

At last they came upon a little hovel of the humblest sort, poorer than any they had yet found, with a roof made only of reeds.

But it is said, too, that her passion brings her only a burden of pain, fraught with many sighs.

A Greek poet would never have thought of an elegant dress and coiffure for the wood nymph.

As he ran, he sent his voice ahead of him, entreating her, persuading her, reassuring her. “Do not fear,” he called. “Stop and find out who I am, no rude rustic or shepherd. I am the Lord of Delphi, and I love you.”

Teacher of strange ways is Love, that knavish boy, maker of mischief.

The usurper Pelias had been told by an oracle that he would die at the hands of kinsmen, and that he should beware of anyone whom he saw shod with only a single sandal.

So they questioned each other. But Pelias came in hot haste at the tidings and when he saw the single sandal he was afraid.

He hid his terror in his heart, however, and addressed the stranger: “What country is your fatherland? No hateful and defiling lies, I beg you. Tell me the truth.”

You and I must rule ourselves by the law of right—not appeal to brazen swords or spears.

Do you go upon this quest, and I swear with Zeus as witness that I will give up the kingdom and the sovereign rule to you.

Hera was helping Jason, and it was she who kindled in each one the desire not to be left behind nursing a life without peril by his mother’s side, but even at the price of death to drink with his comrades the peerless elixir of valor.

Jason took in his hands a golden goblet and, pouring a libation of wine into the sea, called upon Zeus whose lance is the lightning to speed them on their way.

They must forbear to kill the hounds of Zeus, she said, but she swore by the waters of the Styx, the oath that none can break, that they would never again trouble Phineus.

Amazed and abashed she stole back to her chamber.

This was to yoke two bulls he had, whose feet were of bronze and whose breath was flaming fire, and with them to plow a field.

Often he had to pause and clear his dazzled eyes, but the errand which had brought him was so urgent that his purpose held fast and he pressed on, up to the palace, through the burnished doors, and into the throne-room where surrounded by a blinding, blazing splendor the Sun-god sat.

Worst of all is the descent, so precipitous that the Sea-gods waiting to receive me wonder how I can avoid falling headlong.

Whatever came of it he could not change now. Not that he wanted to in that first exhilarating rush through the air, so swift that the East Wind was out-stripped and left far behind.

Jove seized his thunderbolt and hurled it at the rash, repentant driver.

She said to him, “Asleep? Nay, wake. Here is what will charm the steed you covet.”

The Chimaera was held to be unconquerable. She was a most singular portent, a lion in front, a serpent behind, a goat in between—
A fearful creature, great and swift of foot and strong, Whose breath was flame unquenchable.

Twins, huge-bodied, who strove with their hands to destroy the high heavens,
Strove to push Jupiter down from his kingdom supernal.

Both Ovid and Apollodorus tell this story. Apollodorus lived probably more than a hundred years after Ovid. He is a very pedestrian writer and Ovid is far from that. But in this case I have followed Apollodorus. Ovid’s account shows him at his worst, sentimental and exclamatory.