Mythos (2019 Re-Issue)

by Stephen Fry

  Psyche held up a hand. “Stop! Please! I know you mean well, but you don’t know how tender, how kind, how gentle . . .”

  “That’s their way! That’s exactly their way!”

  “Don’t you see? If anything proves this monster’s ferocious cruelty it’s this very tenderness and gentleness!”

  “A sure sign that it must be a hideous fiend.”

  Psyche thought of the new life growing inside her and of her husband’s insistence that she tell no one of it. And of his refusal ever to show himself. Oh dear. Perhaps her sisters were right.

  They saw that she was wavering and they pounced.

  “Here’s what you do, my love. When he comes to you tonight you allow him to have his beastly way with you—”

  “Ugh!”

  “—and then let him fall asleep. But you must stay awake.”

  “On all accounts, stay awake.”

  “When you’re satisfied that he’s absolutely fast asleep you must rise and fetch a lamp.”

  “And that razor that your handmaidens use to cut your hair.”

  “Yes, you’ll need that!”

  “Light the lantern in the corner of the room and cover it so as not to wake him.”

  “Then steal over to the bed . . .”

  “Lift your lantern . . .”

  “And slice his scaly dragon’s neck . . .”

  “Saw away at his knotty veins . . .”

  “Kill him . . .”

  “Kill the beast . . .”

  “Then gather up all the gold and silver . . .”

  “And the gemstones, that’s most important . . .”

  On and on the sisters talked until Psyche was fully persuaded.

  And so that night it came about that, with Eros sleeping peacefully in the bed, Psyche found herself standing over him, a hooded lantern in one hand and a razor in the other. She raised the blinds from the lamp. Light fell on the curled-up naked form of the most beautiful being she had ever beheld. The warm glow danced on smooth, youthful skin—and on the most wonderful pair of feathered wings.

  Psyche could not hold back a gasp of amazement. She knew at once whom she was looking at. This was no dragon or monster, no ogre or abomination. This was the young god of love. This was Eros himself. To think that she could have dreamed of harming him. How beautiful he was. His full, rosy lips were slightly parted and the sweetness of his breath came up to her as she leaned down to gaze more deeply. Everything about him was so perfect! The gentle heave and swell of muscles gave his youthful beauty a manly cast, but without that hard, bulging ungainliness she had seen on the bodies of her father’s champion athletes and warriors. His tousled hair gleamed with a warm color that lay between the gold of Apollo and the mahogany of Hermes. And those wings! Folded beneath his body they had the fullness and whiteness of a swan’s. She reached out a trembling hand and ran her finger down the line of feathers. The soft fluttering whisper they returned hardly made a sound, yet it was enough to cause the sleeping Eros to shift and murmur.

  Psyche pulled back and shaded the lantern, but within a few moments an even rhythmic breathing reassured her that Eros was still deeply asleep. She unmasked the lantern again and saw that he was now turned away from her. She saw too that his movement had caused a curious object to be brought into view. The lamplight fell on a silver cylinder that lay beneath his wings. His quiver!

  Hardly daring to breathe, Psyche leaned forward and pulled out a single arrow. Turning it in her hand she slowly fingered its shaft of shining ebony. The arrowhead itself was affixed by a band of gold . . . Holding the lantern high in her left hand she ran her right thumb along the head and then—ouch! So sharp was the tip that it drew blood. The moment it did a feeling washed over her, a feeling of such intense love for the sleeping Eros, such heat, passion, and desire, such complete and eternal devotion, that she could not refrain from moving to kiss the curls on the nape of his neck.

  Alas! As she did so, hot oil from the lantern dripped onto his right shoulder. He awoke with a yelp of pain which, when he saw Psyche standing over him, grew into a great roar of disappointment and despair. His wings opened and began to beat the air. As he rose Psyche launched herself forward and clung to his right leg, but his strength was too great and he shook her off without a word and flew away into the night.

  The moment he left, everything fell apart. The walls of the palace rippled, faded, and dissolved into the night air. A despairing Psyche watched the gold columns around her shiver into a dark colonnade of trees and the jeweled mosaic tiles beneath her feet churn into a mess of mud and gravel. Before long, palace, precious metals, precious stones—all had vanished. The sweet singing of the handmaidens turned into the howling of wolves and the screeching of owls, and the warm, mysterious perfumes whipped into chill and unrelenting winds.

  ALONE

  A frightened, unhappy girl stood in a cold and desolate wood. She slipped down the trunk of a tree until she sat on the hard roots. The only thought in her mind was to end her life.

  She was awoken by a beetle scuttling over her lips. She sat up with a shiver and unpeeled a damp leaf from her brow. She had not dreamed the horrors of the night before. She really was alone in a wood. Perhaps everything before was a dream and this had always been the reality? Or she had awoken inside another episode of a wider dream? It was hardly worth the bother of trying to puzzle it all out. Dream or reality, everything was intolerable to her.

  “Don’t do it, pretty girl.”

  Shocked, Psyche looked up to see the god Pan standing before her. The humorous frown, the thick curling hair from which two horns sprouted, the wide hairy flanks tapering down to goats’ feet—it could be no other figure, mortal or immortal.

  “No, no,” said Pan, stamping the muddy ground with his hoofs. “I can read it in your face and it is not to be. I won’t allow it.”

  “You won’t allow what?” said Psyche.

  “I won’t allow you to dash yourself onto the rocks from off a high cliff. I won’t allow you to court the deadly attentions of a wild animal. I won’t allow you to pick belladonna and drink its poisonous juices. I won’t allow any of that.”

  “But I can’t live!” cried Psyche. “If you knew my story you would understand and you would help me die.”

  “You should ask yourself what brought you here,” said Pan. “If it’s love, then you must pray to Aphrodite and Eros for guidance and relief. If your own wickedness caused your downfall then you must live to repent. If it was caused by others then you must live to revenge.”

  Revenge! Psyche suddenly understood what needed to be done. She rose to her feet. “Thank you, Pan,” she said. “You’ve shown me the way.”

  Pan bared his teeth in a grin and bowed. His lips blew a flourish of farewell across the top of the set of pipes in his hand.

  Four days later Psyche knocked on the gates of the grand mansion of her brother-in-law Sato, the husband of Calanthe. A servant ushered her into her sister’s receiving room.

  “Psyche! Darling! Did all go as planned? You look a little—”

  “Never mind me, dear sister. I will tell you what happened. I followed your instructions to the letter, shone a lamp over the sleeping form of my husband, and who should he be but the great god Eros. Eros himself!”

  “Eros!” Calanthe clutched at her amber necklace.

  “Oh sister, imagine my heartbreak and disappointment when he told me that he had only taken me to his palace as a means of securing you.”

  “Me?”

  “That was his dark plan. ‘Fetch me your beautiful sister Calanthe,’ he said to me. ‘She of the green eyes and russet hair.’”

  “More auburn than russet—”

  “‘Fetch her. Tell her to go to the high rock. Launch herself onto Zephyrus, who will pick her up and bring her to me. Tell the beautiful Calanthe all this, Psyche, I beg.’ This is his message which I have faithfully relayed.”

  You can imagine with what speed Calanthe prepared herself. She left a scrawle
d message for her husband explaining that they were not husband and wife after all, that their marriage had been a calamitous mistake, that the officiant who wed them had been drunk, incapable, and unqualified, that she had never loved him anyway and that she was now a free woman, so there.

  At the high basalt rock she heard the rustle of a breeze and, with a moan of ecstatic joy, launched herself onto what she thought was Zephyrus.

  But the spirit of the West Wind was nowhere near. With a scream of frustration, rage, disappointment, and fear, Calanthe tumbled down the hillside, bouncing from sharp rock to sharp rock until her whole body was turned inside out and she landed at the bottom as dead as a stone.

  The identical fate befell her sister Zona, to whom Psyche told the same story.

  THE TASKS OF APHRODITE

  With her revenge meted out, Psyche had the rest of her life to consider. Every waking moment was filled with the love and longing she felt for Eros and with the pangs of misery that stabbed her, knowing she was doomed never to see him again.

  Eros, meanwhile, lay in a secret chamber, racked by the agony of the wound on his shoulder. You and I could endure with ease the slight nuisance of a lamp-oil burn, but for Eros, immortal though he was, this was a hurt inflicted by the one he loved. Such wounds take a very long time to heal, if indeed they ever do.

  With Eros indisposed the world began to suffer. Youths and maidens stopped falling in love. There were no marriages. The people began to murmur and grumble. Unhappy prayers were raised to Aphrodite. When she heard them, and learned that Eros was hiding away and neglecting his duties, she became vexed. The news that a mortal girl had stolen her son’s heart and caused him such harm turned her vexation to anger. But when she discovered that it was the very same mortal girl that she had once commanded Eros to humiliate, she grew livid. How could her plan to make Psyche fall in love with a pig have backfired so terribly? Well, this time she would personally and conclusively ensure the girl’s downfall.

  Through enchantments that she did not know were being worked upon her, Psyche found herself knocking one day on a great palace door. Terrible creatures pulled her in by the hair and cast her into a dungeon. Aphrodite herself visited her, bringing sacks of wheat, barley, millet, poppyseed, chickpeas, lentils, and beans, which she emptied onto the stone floor and stirred together.

  “If you want your freedom,” she said, “separate out all the different grains and seeds and sort them into their own heaps. Finish this task before next sunrise and I will free you.”

  With a laugh that—unbecomingly for a goddess of love and beauty—fell somewhere between a cackle and a screech, Aphrodite left, slamming the cell door behind her.

  Psyche fell sobbing to the floor. It would be impossible to separate those seeds, even if she had a month to do it.

  Just then an ant, making its away across the flagstones, was engulfed by a hot, salt tear falling from Psyche’s cheek.

  “Watch out!” he cried angrily. “It may be a little tear to you, but it’s a deluge to me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Psyche. “I’m afraid I didn’t see you. My misery got the better of me.”

  “What misery can be so great that it causes you to go about half drowning honest ants?”

  Psyche explained her plight and the ant, who was of an obliging and forgiving nature, offered to help. With a cry inaudible to human ears he summoned his great family of brothers and sisters, and together they set about sorting the seeds.

  With the tears drying on her cheeks Psyche watched in amazement as ten thousand cheerful ants shuttled and scuttled back and forth, sifting and separating the seeds with military precision. Well before rosy-fingered Eos had cast open the gates of dawn, the job was done and seven neat and perfect piles awaited Aphrodite’s inspection.

  The frustrated fury of the goddess was something to behold. Another impossible chore was instantly devised.

  “You see the grove yonder, on the other side of the river?” said Aphrodite, yanking Psyche by the hair and forcing her to look out of the window. “There are sheep there, grazing and wandering unguarded. Special sheep with fleeces of gold. Go there at once and bring me back a tuft of their wool.”

  Psyche made her way out to the grove willingly enough, but with no intention of carrying out this second task. She resolved to use her freedom to escape not just the prison of Aphrodite’s hateful curse but the prison of hateful life itself. She would throw herself into the river and drown.

  But as she stood on the bank, breathing hard and summoning up the courage to dive in, one of the reeds nodded—although there wasn’t a breath of breeze—and whispered to her.

  “Psyche, sweet Psyche. Harrowed by great trials as you are, do not pollute my clean waters with your death. There is a way through your troubles. The sheep here are wild and violent, guarded by the most ferocious ram, whose horns could tear you open like a ripe fruit. You see them grazing there under that plane tree on the farther bank? To approach them now would mean a swift and painful death. But if you lie down to sleep, by evening they will have moved to new pastures and you will be able to swim across to the tree where you will find tangles of golden wool clinging to its lower branches.”

  That night an enraged and baffled Aphrodite cast the golden wool aside and insisted that Psyche descend to the underworld to beg a sample of beauty cream from Persephone. Since she had thought of little else but death since Eros had left her, the poor girl consented willingly and followed Aphrodite’s directions to Hades, where she fully intended to stay and see out a miserable, lonely, and loveless eternity.

  THE UNION OF LOVE AND SOUL

  One day a garrulous swallow told Eros about the tasks which Psyche had been set by his jealous and intemperate mother. Trying to ignore the still agonizing pain of his wound, he rose up and with a mighty effort opened his wings. He flew straight to Olympus, where he demanded an immediate audience with Zeus.

  Eros told his story to an enraptured audience of fascinated Olympians. His mother had always hated Psyche. Aphrodite’s dignity and honor as an Olympian had been threatened by the girl’s beauty and the willingness of a handful of foolish humans to venerate the mortal maiden ahead of the immortal goddess. And so she had sent Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with a pig. He put his case well.

  Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld to fetch Psyche and an eagle to summon Aphrodite. When they were present before the heavenly company, Zeus spoke.

  “This has been an extraordinary and undignified entanglement. Aphrodite, beloved one. Your position is not threatened; it never can be. Look down at the earth and see how your name is everywhere sanctified and praised. Eros, you have too long been a foolish, impudent, and irresponsible boy. That you love and are loved will be the making of you and may save the world from the worst excesses of your mischievous and misdirected arrows. Psyche, come and drink from my cup. This is ambrosia, and now that you have tasted it you are immortal. Here, witnessed by us all, you will forever be yoked with Eros. Embrace your daughter-in-law, Aphrodite, and let us all be merry.”

  All was laughter and delight at the wedding of Eros and Psyche. Apollo sang and played on his lyre, Pan joined in with his syrinx. Hera danced with Zeus, Aphrodite danced with Ares, and Eros danced with Psyche. And they dance together still to this very day.101

  96. The well-known aluminum statue by Alfred Gilbert that forms the focus of the Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus, London, is actually not of Eros but of Anteros, deliberately chosen to celebrate the selfless love that demands no return. This was considered an appropriate commemoration of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury’s great philanthropic achievements in hastening the abolition of child labor, reforming lunacy laws, and so on.

  97. Cupid draw back your bow

  And let your arrow go

  Straight to my lover’s heart for me, for me . . .

  © Sam Cooke

  98. The King James Bible renders the conclusion of the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to th
e Corinthians (written in Greek of course) as: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” In modern translations “charity” is rendered simply as “love.”

  99. You might notice strong resemblances to Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella, for instance.

  100. Apuleius, who flourished in the second century a.d., was from North Africa but wrote in Latin and so used the names Cupid (interchangeably with Amor) for Eros, Venus for Aphrodite, and Anima for Psyche, a translation that conveys the word’s sense not just of “soul” but of “breath of life”—“that which animates.” If you were to translate Apuleius literally you would get a very allegorical tale indeed. “Love said to Soul, you must not look at me,” “Soul fled from Love,” etc.

  101. In due time Psyche gave birth to their child: a daughter, HEDONE, who was to be the spirit of pleasure and sensual delight. The Romans called her VOLUPTAS. Hedonism and voluptuousness, unsurprisingly, are hers.

  THE TOYS OF ZEUS

  Part Two

  MORTALS

  IO

  The humans of the Mediterranean world at this time were mostly ruled over by kings. How these autocrats established dominion over their peoples varied. Some were descended from immortals, gods even. Others, as is the human way, seized power through force of arms or political intrigue.

  INACHUS was one of the very earliest rulers in Greece. He was the first King of Argos in the Peloponnese peninsula, then a bustling new town and now one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Inachus was later semi-deified and turned into a river, but during his life as a human his consort MELIA bore him two daughters, IO and MYCENE.102

  Mycene was satisfactorily married off to a nobleman called ARESTOR, but Io’s fate was to be the first mortal girl to attract the predatory attentions of Zeus. Inachus had chosen Hera, the Queen of Heaven, as the patron deity of Argos, and his daughter Io had been brought up as a priestess in the most important shrine to Hera in the Grecian world. For Zeus to dally with any female would be enough to cause his wife indignation, but any attempt to defile one of her own priestesses would stretch her anger to its limits. Yet he desired the lovely Io very much. How to have her without Hera finding out.