Week 4 Story: Psyche's Psyche

“Alright, Psyche, why don’t you lean back and tell me how this all began?”

Psyche sighed, pushing her weight into the chaise longue and letting her wide eyes wander to the ceiling.

“I suppose it all started when I met my husband that first night. I was scared out of my mind, even though the palace was lovely and I had almost forgotten about the oracle. I was scared, not that he would be a monster as the oracle said, but that he would hurt me. He didn’t, though. He was sweet in voice and touch.”

She looked down at her hands, with their alabaster skin and long, slender fingers. She flipped them over so the palms faced the ceiling and slowly turned them back again, examining them.

“Well, if I’m being accurate, I guess it started with the oracle. I don’t like to think about it much.”

“Why don’t you like to think about the oracle?” asked the therapist.

“Receiving the oracle was a horrible time for my family. It inspired the deepest horror in my parents, and I was almost numb from worry. Imagine being ordered by the gods to be brought up to a cliff and left there by your family, and to be joined in marriage to a horrible monster. I don’t think you can imagine. I don’t like to think about it because of the pain it caused all of us, and because…” she trailed off with misty eyes.

“Why else, Psyche?”

“Because my sisters’ visit yesterday made me think that maybe it’s come true after all. Maybe I didn’t get lucky and escape the will of the gods.”

She quickly looked up and let her eyes dart around the room, not really seeing. Calling their attention back to her hands, she began ripping at her cuticles.

“He has never let me see him. It didn’t bother me before, because he’s shown me nothing but kindness and love since our first moment together. It was such a relief to find, after I had been left on that cliff for a marriage of terror and wretchedness, that he was to be my husband and that palace to be my home. I never questioned his loveliness. I trusted in him completely; how could I not? I know him!”

She was silent for a few moments, listening to the therapist’s whistling breaths.

“But if he’s not a monster, why won’t he let me see him?”

The therapist touched his pen to his lip. “Why are you suddenly concerned about his identity? Has he hurt you?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” breathed Psyche. She hesitated. “My sisters came to visit yesterday, and they told me they heard that a monster lives around here, and they asked me why my husband won’t let me see him. They told me that he’s going to hurt me once I bear a child. They said I can’t trust him.”

She stopped briefly to suck on the cuticle of her ring finger, which she had torn a little too vigorously. She tasted blood.

“And they’re my sisters! Of course my sisters want the best for me! My sweet, darling sisters are trying to save me, but my husband tells me not to listen to them. He says we’ll both suffer if I heed their warnings. Each side tells me I can’t trust the other. How does someone make that choice? How can I choose between people I love, when they’re all telling me that I have to trust them or I’ll get hurt? It feels impossible to make that choice. But I can’t stay in the middle.”

“What choice has to be made?” said the therapist slowly.

“If I don’t see who my husband really is, he might hurt me. Why else would he not allow me to see him? But if I do look at him, he says I’ll bring ruin upon us. If I look at him, I choose my sisters, and if I don’t look, I choose him. There are no options but to either look or not look.”

She spoke faster and faster, spiraling. “I feel crazy. I can’t trust anyone. I can’t know the truth. What can I do? Where can I go where I can be faithful to my sisters and my husband? Where can I go where I know I’ll be safe? In whatever choice I make, there is a threat. What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?”

“Time’s up,” said the therapist. Psyche stared at the ceiling, frozen in her impossible choice.

Author's Note: My story is based on “Cupid and Psyche,” which is about the princess Psyche who is so revered for her beauty that she inspires the jealousy of the goddess Venus. Venus orders Cupid, her son and the god of love, to make Psyche fall in love with a wretched, miserable man. Because of this order, Psyche’s father receives an oracle, or a message from the gods, that she will have to marry a horrible monster. After Psyche is left for the monster to come marry her, she finds not a monster but a beautiful palace. Her husband comes to her only at night and is good to her, but he tells her that she may never look upon him. When Psyche’s sisters find her alive and well, they become wildly jealous of all the nice things she has, and they try to destroy her by convincing her that she is living with a monster. Psyche falls for it, and looks at her husband only to find that he is the beautiful god Cupid! He wakes up and flees, explaining that he fell in love with her despite his mother’s command and could only remain married to her so long as she didn’t know who she was married to. I found the sisters’ conversation with Psyche particularly interesting, because I felt that Psyche was in a horrible bind. She is a very innocent, naïve character, and she wants to trust everyone. Eventually she falls for her sisters’ tricks, and it was easy for me to see how she made such an apparently “foolish” decision. I wanted to explore the inner turmoil that she must have had before deciding to look at her husband against his command.

Bibliography: "Fears and Doubts" from The Golden Ass by Apuleius. Link to the reading online.

Image Information  

Top picture: Chaise longue. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bottom picture: "Amore e Psiche," painted by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. Source: Wikimedia Commons.