Eros and Psyche

***Miscellaneous Myths: Eros and Psyche*** is the fourteenth episode of the Miscellaneous Myths series, centered around Greek mythology and the love story between Eros, the god of love, and Psyche, a mortal princess, as Eros’ mother Aphrodite does her best to keep the two lovers apart.

## Summary

For the Ancient Greeks, “love” had many meanings; there was *agape* (pure, unconditional love), *philia* (brotherly love), *storge* (familial love) and *eros*, romantic love and the most known. The latter was personified by the Greeks as Eros, god of sexual desire.

Eros has been through many incarnations; there’s primordial Eros, older than even the Olympians, there’s Eros the son of Aphrodite as consequence of beauty, and then there’s Cupid (we don’t like to talk about him).

Eros’ major myth concerns his and Psyche’s love story. Psyche is lonely beautiful princess even more beautiful than Aphrodite (plot twist?). Aphrodite, furious that people worship Psyche over her, decides that Psyche’s punishment would be to fall in love with something hideous, so she calls her son Eros over to do the job.

Eros does visit Psyche at night with the intention to do the deed, only to be totally enamored with her beauty and prick himself with an arrow instead, falling in love with the princess.

Meanwhile, Psyche is incredibly lonely, because her beauty is so great it causes people to admire her from afar, and thus she cannot find love. She goes to the oracle, and is told that she will find love, but it will be with something gross even gods fear.

Psyche is taken to a cliff so her husband can claim her. Zephyrus, the west wind, gently carries her over her new husband’s some luxurious palace. Her husband is invisible (even when they make love) and so are his servants, but Psyche is well taken for and lives comfortably.

Psyche is happy (and pregnant), but one day she is visited by her two sisters, who grow jealous of Psyche’s good fortune. They convince her to find out the identity of her husband, and kill him, if he truly is a hideous monster.

That night, Psyche sneaked into her husband’s room, holding a lantern and a dagger. The lantern shed light on the ‘monster’, revealing it to be none other than the handsome god of love, Eros. Psyche, shaken with this sight, accidentally pricked herself with one of Eros’ arrows, falling doubly in love with him. Unfortunately the lamp oil also fell in love with Eros and splashed on senpai, trying to get closer. Eros woke up, saw Psyche, and hurt by her betrayal, flew away in the middle of the night. He went to his mother, Aphrodite, to nurse him back to health, who grew even more hateful at Psyche.

Aphrodite went to Psyche, and told her that if she wanted to have Eros back, she’d have to undergo a number of trials. The first to to sort a mix assortment of grain into piles by type within a day. At first Psyche lost all hope, but, being a proto-Disney Princess, soon some ants appeared to do the job for her.

Aphrodite, pissed, made the next task even more dangerous; she had to collect some golden fleece from the sun sheep that lived across the river. As Psyche, in despair, was trying to drown herself, a local river spirit warned her that those sheep would kill her if she got too close, and the best tactic was to collect the wool caught on some thorn bushes, as she did.

The third task involved filling a goblet with water from the river Styx, which was one cliff and several dragons away. At this point even Zeus was done with the absurdity, and so sent an eagle to bring her the water.

For the last task, Aphrodite told Psyche to go to Hell and bring some of Persephone’s beauty, put it in a box, and bring it to her. By this point, Eros had forgiven Psyche and longed to be united with her, but Aphrodite kept him confined in her house.

Psyche made it to the Underworld, and explained the situation to Persephone, who gladly agreed to help her. As she got in the world above, however, and realized that she was soon to see her husband again, while unkempt and dressed in rugs, Psyche decided to use some of Persephone’s beauty for herself. So she opened the box, and the box containing pure murder, killed her.

Eros however had escaped from Aphrodite, and flew to Psyche, bringing her back to life. Together they flew to Olympus and Zeus, who agreed to marry them, despite Aphrodite’s protest. Psyche was given to drink ambrosia, the drink of the gods, making her a goddess, so she could marry Eros as equals. In time, their daughter Hedone (“pleasure”) was born.

## Credits

In the credits, Red sings a cover of *Ten Minutes Ago* by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and explains how the story ties to other tales, such as a Balkan folktale and *Beauty and the Beast*.

## Characters appearing

Psyche

Aphrodite

Eros

Zephyrus

Psyche’s sisters

River nymph

Persephone

Zeus

Hedone

## Trivia

* This video omits several details from the myth, such as the death of Psyche’s sisters or the role Demeter and Hera had.
* For all the details of the myth not depicted in the video, a black card appears explaining what happened, such as “by the way she has an unborn child” and “by the way her sisters fell off a cliff and died”.