Valentine’s Day is coming up, yo. In honor of that (cause you know I love to celebrate me some holidays) I’m going to make my next couple of posts about something related to love and/or Valentine’s Day.
I know, that’s some los huevos patético right there. (look at my mastery of the language. I didn’t even take Spanish in high school, y’all!)
- So I totally get it if you suddenly remember that you have to go switch your cable service provider, or get back to work, or something stupid like that.
If Valentine’s Day and love and all that jazz aren’t your thing, no worries. I don’t blame you. Next Friday I’ll be back to my random shenanigans.
If you’re still here and reading along, then hooray! Today I’m going to share one of my favorite myths: Eros and Psyche.
Be warned, this gets mushy. Really mushy. Like, “I’m posting a whole scene from a play because it’s OMG so amazing and it speaks to me and you just have to read it!” mushy.
If you’re not familiar with the story of Eros and Psyche, the Wiki will catch you up.
- And if you don’t like reading, well… that’s odd cause you’re here. But if you don’t like reading, then look at this broad kissing a dude whom I suspect just drank a red bull.
I’m not sure what it is about the myth of Eros and Psyche. Like all myths, the story is a little messed up. I mean Psyche was just curious and wanted to take a peek at the dude who’s been “visiting her every night” (after her parents left her on a mountain cause she couldn’t find a husband?!) and suddenly she’s got to go through all these trials cause apparently he can’t handle a little hot oil even though he’s a god. DUDE.
I know, I know, this story is an allegory (and quite a great one at that) so all that weird stuff means something (English teachers LOVE me, btw).
So instead of explaining what you already know about the story and/or are all smart enough to figure out, I’m going to leave you with this scene from Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses. This is her version of Eros and Psyche and I find it wonderful. See? Total mushy.
Imagine a stage with the audience seated around it on three sides. The stage itself is a large, rectangular pool with a 3 foot deck that extends completely around the pool. Characters Q and A sit on opposite sides of the deck. Eros and Psyche interact in the pool.
Q: Who is this?
A: This is Eros, god of love.
Q: Why does he have wings?
A: So he can move quickly from body to body.
Q: Why is he naked?
A: To make us transparent.
Q: To make us what?
A: Transparent in our love. Foolish to others. Exposed.
Q: Why is he blind?
A: He is always pictured blind, but he really isn’t.
Q: Because in love we are so ignorant and so compulsive?
A: There’s that.
Q: What else?
A: He is blind to show how he takes away our ordinary vision, our mistaken vision, that depends on the appearance of things.
[Eros lies down on the raft to sleep. throughout the following, Psyche enters, carrying a candelabra. She makes her way down the stairs and along the deck, very slowly and quietly.]
Q: Who’s this coming down the stairs?
A: Her name is Psyche.
Q: Psyche? Her name is Psyche?
A: Yes.
Q: What’s she doing here?
A: She’s married to the god, but she’s never seen him.
Q: Why is that?
A: He forbids it.
Q: How did they meet?
A: Psyche was so beautiful, the goddess Aphrodite hated her. She sent her son to punish her, but he fell in love instead.
Q: Does she know that he is a god?
A: No. She suspects he is a monster.
[Psyche is startled by something. She looks over her shoulder, then continues along the deck.]
Q: Have they had sex already?
A: Oh yes.
Q: And how was that?
A: It was good.
Q: Then why does she suspect he is a monster?
A: Her jealous sisters told her so.
[Psyche is startled again. Then she continues.]
Q: And she listened to them?
A: Unfortunately, yes.
Q: So now she’s coming to see him as he sleeps?
A: Yes.
Q: To make certain.
A: Yes.
Q: With her eyes.
A: Yes. She’s very young. It happens all the time.
Q: She doesn’t trust what she has felt herself?
A: Not with the radical trust we need.
[Psyche steps into the pool. She moves slowly, so as not to make noise. She approaches the sleeping Eros and holds the candelabra over him, looking. This happens in silence.]
Q: What does the word “Psyche” mean?
A: In Greek it means “the soul.”
[Wax from the candles falls on Eros. He wakes suddenly and turns abruptly towards Psyche. They stare at each other a long moment. Then in one motion, she extinguishes the candelabra in the water. She and Eros begin to separate under the following.]
Q: What’s going to happen to her now?
A: She’s going to suffer.
Q: And?
A: She’s going to suffer.
Q: And?
A: She’s going to suffer.
Q: What does she have to do?
A: She is given horrible and lonely tasks by Aphrodite.
Q: Such as?
A: Sorting thousands of little seeds from the other.
Q: How did she manage?
A: Some little insects help her.
Q: Like in fairy tales?
A: Like in all the fairy tales.
Q: What else?
[Psyche sinks into the water.]
A. She had to go down to the Underworld, fetch various things.
Q: Wasn’t she afraid?
A: She was petrified, but she did it all the same.
Q: Wasn’t it hopeless?
A: It was hopeless, but she did it all the same.
Q: What did Love do in the meantime?
A: He healed his little wound. It hurt him so much when she looked at him like that. The wax from the candle fell on him and burnt him.
Q: How does it end?
A: She finishes her tasks and Zeus declares enough’s enough.
Q: He overrides Love’s mother?
[Eros and Psyche look at each other. They begin to move toward each other.]
A: Yes and further, he gives Psyche a special potion and she becomes immortal. the he declares their marriage will last forever.
Q: Does it?
A: Of course.
Q: So it has a happy ending?
A: It has a very happy ending.
[Eros and Psyche approach the raft and sit on it together.]
Q: Almost none of these stories have completely happy endings.
A: This is different.
Q: Why is that?
[Psyche and Eros kiss. And Kiss again.]
A: It’s just inevitable. The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul.
Q: It always happens?
A: If we’re lucky. And if we let ourselves be blind.
Q: Instead of watching out?
A: Instead of always watching out.
[Silence]
When I saw this play, there was not a dry eye in the house. Big old bearded dude next to me was BAWLIN.
- Ballin’?
Nope.
- Oh, ballllin’.
Nope.
- Oh…. OH!
Yup.
So tell me, what’s your favorite myth or love story?
