Psyche’s Prayer
The shrines that Psyche visits are like the earthly homes of
those goddesses, where they can find people. I find that a really interesting
way of looking at divinity and gods’ relationships with humans!
Psyche is quite the pitiful picture in this scene. She wipes
the floor of Ceres’s shrine with her hair and and says the sweetest things to
the goddesses, crying and begging to be kept safe.
The goddesses seem to really care for her, but they aren’t
willing to get on Venus’s bad side even though they know she’s wrong to be
hunting Psyche out of jealousy. Psyche accepts this rather readily, which I
suppose most humans would do when in a goddess’s shrine!
Psyche’s situation is sad, but this scene is enshrouded in
beauty. One shrine is on a mountain’s summit, and the other is in a grove in a
valley. Juno’s shrine is covered in offerings with precious metals,
embroidering, and beautiful lettering. The description of the landscapes and
the shrines makes Psyche’s journey sound almost pleasant, until we remember
that she has lost her husband and is being hunted by a powerful goddess!
Venus and Psyche, painting by Raffaello Sanzio.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Psyche’s Tasks
I am grouping Psyche’s tasks together for my notes, because they
follow a similar pattern: she receives a ridiculously difficult task from Venus,
is overwhelmed by it, and is eventually helped by animals or other creatures
who approve of her sweet nature.
Task 1: sort out a huge pile of different types of seeds and
beans. Ants come to Psyche’s rescue, sorting for her and spreading the word to
build up a big workforce.
Task 2: Retrieve a handful of golden wool from the sheep in
the wood by the stream. Psyche plans to jump off a cliff, but a green reed
gives her instructions, and the task ends up being quite easy for her since she
knows that the trick is to wait until later in the day when the sheep are not
riled up by the sun.
Task 3: Draw liquid from the river Styx. Jupiter’s eagle
collects the liquid for Psyche, who surely would have died if she had tried to
collect it herself.
Task 4: Visit the Underworld and bring back a jar of beauty
from Prosperine. This is the most interesting task to me, because Psyche does
it all herself after receiving detailed instructions from a tower (which she
tries to throw herself off of). She then falls to her desire for a bit of pure
beauty, which I found ironic since she already has incredible amounts of
beauty, and that beauty got her in trouble in the first place. This is the
second time her curiosity has hurt her, although I think it was more excusable
in the first instance since she wasn’t sure whether she could trust her mystery
husband. This time, she falls into a deep sleep until she is awoken by Cupid.
Bibliography: The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Link to the reading online.
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