Psyche- Roman FigureMortal"The Soul"

The Most Beautiful Mortal

Psyche was a mortal princess whose beauty drew crowds away from Venus's temples. People came to stare at Psyche instead of pray. Venus sent her son Cupid to make the girl fall in love with the most wretched creature alive. But when Cupid saw her, he pricked himself with his own arrow and fell in love.

Her beauty brought her no suitors. No mortal man dared approach her, and her father, desperate, consulted the oracle of Apollo. The oracle commanded him to dress Psyche in funeral garments and leave her on a mountaintop, where a fearsome winged creature would claim her as his bride.

The Invisible Husband

The West Wind carried Psyche from the mountaintop to a palace in a hidden valley. There an invisible husband visited her only in darkness and forbade her ever to look upon him. She lived attended by unseen servants but could not see the one who shared her bed.

Her sisters, visiting at Psyche's request, convinced her that her hidden husband must be a monstrous serpent. One night Psyche lit an oil lamp and held it over him as he slept. She saw Cupid. A drop of hot oil fell on his shoulder. He woke, and the palace vanished.

The Trials of Venus

Psyche wandered the world searching for Cupid. When she finally approached Venus herself, the goddess set her impossible tasks. Venus poured a mountain of mixed grains on the floor and told Psyche to sort them by nightfall. Ants came and did it for her. The next tasks were no easier, but each time something intervened on Psyche's behalf: a river reed, Jupiter's eagle.

The final task sent Psyche to the underworld to bring back a box of Proserpina's beauty for Venus. Armed with instructions from a prophetic tower, she descended to the realm of the dead and obtained the box. On the way back, she opened it. A deathlike sleep overwhelmed her where she stood.

Apotheosis

Cupid, healed of his burn, escaped his mother's house and found Psyche lying as if dead. He wiped the sleep from her face and sealed it back in the box. Then he carried her to Jupiter and asked for her life. Jupiter summoned the gods, gave Psyche ambrosia to drink, and declared the marriage legitimate. Their daughter was named Voluptas. Pleasure.