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Psyche was a mortal woman born to a King of Greece. Although not immortal, she was the most beautiful child in the land, and as she grew into her teens, every man that saw her was amazed by her beauty. But instead of having a court of lovers, men idealized her and worshipped her. Her earthly beauty was too bright to touch, and no man felt worthy of her. So Psyche was lonely and in her loneliness, wondered why she could feel no sense of intimacy with any young man.
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The Goddess of the Kingdom was the Great Goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite watched Psyche grow up with mounting jealousy of her beauty and in her thoughts wanted to humble the young beauty. So when the King and Queen, disturbed by their daughter’s lack of courtiers, went to her Oracle for a ’seeing’ about who Psyche should marry, the Goddess spoke through her Oracle saying that Psyche should marry Death.
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The Goddess’ Word was Law, and so the King and Queen prepared Psyche for her marriage. They carried her to the top of a mountain, chained her to a rock, and left her to be ravished by the Monster Death. Because Psyche’s fate was to meet Death, the mood of the marriage procession was somber and more like a funeral than a celebration. So she was taken up the mountain in her beautiful dress and left alone in the darkness to meet her mate.
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Aphrodite watched this with satisfaction. And wishing to inflict even more suffering on the young bride, directed her young son, Eros, to go to the mountain top and pierce the maiden with one of his magic arrows. Anyone pierced by Eros’ arrows would fall madly in love with the first being they saw, and Aphrodite wanted Psyche to fall in love with the monster Death as a final insult and torture. But startled at the Earthly beauty of the young woman, Eros fumbled his bow and arrow accidentally pricked his own finger on the arrow. And so Eros fells in love with Psyche.
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Not wanting Psyche to be the bride of Death, Eros secretly asked the West Wind pick the young woman up and float her gently into a nearby valley where she will be safe. The valley is a paradise and, carried gently down into the valley, Psyche was very grateful at being saved from her fate and for finding safety in this beautiful place. But she had no idea who has saved her.
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Eros came to her at night, hiding his face, fearing that his powerful mother will discover his betrayal. In the dark of night, he told Psyche that he could come to her only at night, and that she must never ask him questions nor ask to see his face. Each night he came to her and she slept beside him, wondering about him, who was he, where had he come from, but Eros steadfastly refused to tell her who he is or why he must hide his face from her.
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Psyche had two sisters, who were not particularly beautiful. They too grew up alongside Psyche, but being ordinary had become ever more jealous of her. After her disappearance on the mountain top, they started searching for her to discover what had happened to her. They soon discovered her living in the valley, but could not get down to her. So they stood on the heights and talked to her.
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Eros warned Psyche against her sisters, saying that their questions would cause trouble. If she honored his request to ask no questions and allow him to remain unknown, she will bear a son who will be immortal. But if she insists on asking questions or disobeying him, her child will be a mortal daughter. And if she disobeys, he will be forced to leave her.
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Psyche promises to honor his request, but is lonely for her family. So she begged Eros to allow her sisters to visit her in the valley, and he finally relented.
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Unknown to Psyche, her sisters were scheming to destroy the happiness of their more beautiful sister. They saw that Psyche was living in a fantasy about her lover, and they wished to destroy her happiness. So when they came to visit, they told Psyche a lie, saying that her suitor was a serpent, a monster, who was deceiving her. They said that when she bore its child, it would consume her. In her fear, Psyche believed her sisters. That night, she secreted a lamp beside her bed and a knife under her pillow. When Eros fell asleep, she would light the lamp and cut off the head of her monster lover.
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But once he fell asleep and she lit her lamp, she saw that her lover was a god?more, he was the god of love--the most beautiful male god on Olympus. Aghast at her mistake, she dropped her knife and stumbled, pricking her finger on one of his arrows. She is suddenly deeply in love with him.
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But hot oil from the lamp in her other hand spilled and dropped onto his shoulder. Eros awoke and saw the one he loved standing over him in the light. He realized that she had betrayed him! Being a winged god, he leaps up into the air, but Psyche clung to him. As he flew from her, she was dragged out of the valley and fell onto the barren slopes of the mountains around the secret paradise. Meanwhile, Eros returned to the House of his Mother.

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Psyche was emotionally destroyed. She first thought about committing suicide, but after awhile goes within herself to attend to her chaos. After a period, she walked to a nearby river. Here, she met the cloven-footed god, Pan, who was sitting beside the flowing water holding Echo in his lap.
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Soon, Psyche was coaxed into telling Pan her sad tale. She asked him what she must do to find Eros again to ask him to come back. Pan told Psyche that she must pray to the god of love, the god who understands when someone is inflamed by his arrows. Of course, the god of love is the very god she loved and lost. She must humble herself before her lover.
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But also in order to find Eros, Psyche must confront the terrible power of Aphrodite, the mother of Eros. Psyche fears the Goddess and does not want to confront her, so she goes first to all the other temples to ask other gods to intervene. None will. So finally, Psyche surrendered and went to one of Aphrodite’s Temples. There she was confronted by the powerful Goddess, who totally humiliated Psyche, reducing her to a scullery maid and reducing her to tears. But because Psyche asks her to see her son in a sacred way, she gives Psyche four tasks to test her.
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For the first task, Aphrodite showed Psyche a huge pile of assorted seeds. To accomplish the first task, she must sort these seeds into separate piles before nightfall. If she fails, she will be put to death. Aphrodite left. At first, Psyche thinks of suicide, but then she converses with an ant in the chamber. The ant agrees to help with her task. Shortly, an army of ants comes to her rescue and helps Psyche sorts the seeds.
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Aphrodite returned at nightfall, saw the task had been accomplished, and grudgingly admitted that the good-for-nothing Psyche did tolerably well.
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For her second task, Aphrodite told Psyche she must go to a field nearby and gather golden fleece from the rams gathered there. She was to be back by nightfall, on pain of death! Again, Psyche despaired and thought of suicide, but by the river she was addressed by the reeds on the bank of the river, which told her not to go near the rams during the daytime hours for she would be battered to death if she did. Instead, she must go at dusk and find the fleece which the rams have lost on the brambles and branches of their meadow. This way she could find what she needs without directly confronting the dangerous rams.
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At nightfall, she returned to the Temple and gave Aphrodite the fleece. Again, Aphrodite is surprised by the achievement of the young woman.
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For her third task, Aphrodite tells Psyche that she must fill a crystal goblet with the water from the River Styx. With this task, Psyche faces certain death, for the Styx is a circular river which tumbles from a high mountain, disappears into the Earth, goes down into the depths of Hell, and circles back up within the Earth to the top of the world. Psyche collapsed in shock, overcome by the impossibility of the task. But when Aphrodite left, the eagle of Zeus dropped out of the clouds and, alighting beside her, asked for the goblet. Clutching the goblet, the eagle flew to the waterfall and filled it with water. Returning, it presented the filled goblet to the shaken Psyche. This time, the great Goddess is astonished at Psyche’s accomplishment!
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For her fourth and final task, Psyche faces her most difficult task-- task impossible for a mortal. She is to go to the Underworld and ask Persephone--goddess of the Underworld and Queen of Mysteries--for a cask of her beauty ointment and return it to Aphrodite.
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Psyche, again despairing, went to a tower from which to hurl herself to her death. She knows that she cannot do this task unaided. A spirit in the tower, though, stopped her and promised to help her. She was told that she must find the breathing hole of the Underworld and entering into the cavern, follow the tunnels down into the Earth. She was to carry two pieces of barley cake in her hands, two halfpenny coins in her teeth, and sufficient fortitude to pass several difficult tests. She is warned not to help anyone, for in the Underworld, her energy will constantly be drained away. If she does not care for herself, she will not be able to make it back to the world of the living!
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Psyche found her way to the cavern, and followed the ’pathless path’ down into the Earth. She reached the River Styx, and there, met a lame man driving a lame donkey laden with sticks of wood. Some of the sticks fell to the ground. Despite what she has been told, she stopped to help the lame man pick up his wood.
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Then, she came to the ferry man, Charon, with his patched boat. He demanded one of her coins to carry her across the river. During the passage over the river, a drowning man called out to her for help, but she remembered the spirit?s instructions and refused. The man drowned.
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Now in Hades, Psyche walked on towards the palace of Hades and Persephone. Shortly, she met three women weaving the strands of fate on a loom. For the price of a barley cake, they offer Psyche an opportunity to weave on the loom herself, but she remembers the spirit’s instructions and walks by, refusing to weave.
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Next, Psyche confronted the guardian three-headed dog of Hades, Cerberes. To escape this terror, she threw one of her two barley cakes off the path and while the three heads of Cerberes fought over the bit of food, she slipped by and went on up the path.

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Finally, she reached the Hall of Persephone, the Queen of Mysteries, and was invited to participate in the feast. She knew that eating the food of Hades will bind her to these realms however, so she refused gracefully. She then approached and asked Persephone for the cask of her beauty ointment. Persephone agreed to gift her the cask without asking any questions, but told Psyche that the cask she will carry with her ’carries a mysterious secret.’
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Then, Psyche retraced her trip back out of Hades. She used the second barley cake to pass by Cerberes and the second coin to buy her passage back across the Styx.
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In sight of the light of the world, she paused, remembering the unearthly beauty of Persephone and wondering what the box might hold. Tempted, she stopped to open the box, but within was nothing at all! The ’nothing’ issued forth, and she fell into an infernal and deadly sleep in sight of the light.
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At this point, Eros, her young lover, came to her rescue. Eros had, after awhile, escaped from the imprisonment of his mother, Aphrodite, learned of Psyche’s distress, and flew to her side. He wiped the deadly sleep from her face and put it back into the cask; and awakened her with a prick of one of his arrows. He admonished her for having succumbed to her curiosity, which nearly killed her and then left her to her task of taking the cask to Aphrodite.
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Meanwhile, Eros flew to Olympia and approached his father, Zeus, to plead the cause of Psyche with the Gods. Zeus reprimanded Eros for his poor behavior, but finally honored him as his son and promises to help. All the gods were called together, and Hermes was sent to bring Psyche to the court.
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Zeus announced to the assembled gods that Eros’ tyranny of love has gone on long enough, and that it is time that he settled down. He was to be married to Psyche that they may grow together. Zeus gives Psyche a goblet of immortality and instructs her to drink from it. This brings her immortality and the promise the Eros will never again be parted from her.
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The marriage was held with all the pomp and ceremony that the gods are known for. Even Aphrodite relented and felt well about her son and new daughter-in-law.
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In time, Psyche bore a daughter, who was named Pleasure.

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Commentary

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How do you read a myth?

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Literal Interpretation
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A literal Interpretation would have it that this is a story of a young woman’s coming of age, trying to adjust to a new relationship with an immature suitor/husband, and then a humiliating confrontation and trial with her mother-in-law. But even on the level of an literal interpretation, there are important lessons.

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• The idealization of young beauty separates and isolates a young maturing woman. She is left without the ability to get close to her companions or experience a normal life. Without intimacy, she will live a lonely and anxious life, as many young movie stars discover, without getting a normal sense of reality in the world.
• Psyche was to be married to Death. The marriage ceremony was Psyche’s funeral, for a death is required of the young bride. She is leaving behind her a childhood and being thrust into a role, that of wife and mother, which will require her to grow up extremely quickly. Whether she has gained a strong sense of who she is or not, she must become self-less, supporting her often immature husband’s expectations from her and usually dealing with motherhood as well. Often young women have no idea that they are losing their childhood when they marry.
• The young Eros never allows Psyche to "see" him. Coming to her only the the dark, he is an unknown to her. And so it is often in marriage. Young suitors/husbands are all too often emotionally unavailable to their brides, hiding their vulnerabilities, sadness, failures, frustrations in life, relationship problems with their parents and more. Unwilling to be vulnerable or to appear weak in front of their new girlfriends/mates, they don’t talk about their feelings or sense of failures or overwhelm in their lives. As a result, the new couple really don’t know one another at all. They are in love with their own projections onto one another of idealizations.

The young Eros is still tied to his mother’s apron strings and under her power. Until a young man can cut his dependency upon his mother to feel self-assured and independent, he has not made the transition to manhood. Otherwise, whenever he is unable to cope, he "runs home to mother."

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Psyche allows her family to meddle in her relationship with her lover/husband, to disasterous effect. Young wives need to keep their families at a distance in their marriages, as should the husbands, while they work out their problems and needs together. It is hard though for families to let their newly-wed children go. Many mothers especially want to continue to "be involved" in their sons and daughter’s lives, offering advice and suggestions, and adding to the new couple’s difficulties in making a marriage work. Sometimes these interventions amount to meddling and can destroy a fragile relationship.

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Psyche finds at last that she must go through a humiliating test by her lover’s mother, as all new bride’s must go through. She must prove her worth, so to speak, by meeting the mother’s challenges. Whether these tests amount to preparing family meals or money management or dealing with the stresses of motherhood or fitting into the expanded family, these are tests all new brides will face.

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Psychological Interpretation

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Today, depth psychology teaches us that myth IS psychology. And within the myth lie the patterns and structures of Mind.
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Psyche represents the anima of the male. Eros represents the animus of the female. Anima and animus are internal psychic images representing the carriers of our soul. The anima mediates the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind of a man. And the animus mediates the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind of a woman.
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Usually, most humans are unaware of their animas or animus because they are so unconscious. Awareness of these carriers of soul generally comes only through depth psychoanalysis, using dreamwork or recall of awaking dreams.
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Psyche is the old Greek word for "soul". Eros is the old word for "Love", referring to sexual love. The myth psychologically is about the soul’s journey to knowledge of love and her "testing" in the realm of matter and death. The myth also is about the ascent of the Spirit, as Eros goes to Zeus in the end and is accepted as a Son.
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The soul (Psyche) must learn about love by immersion in the realm of Matter, and so Eros also represents her human male "host." Similarly, each human male must learn to relate with and communicate with his soul’s energy, his anima, in order to find meaning in his life and live out his life story.
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Each human female (Psyche) must learn about her inner power (which stems from knowledge of her inner masculine, or animus, and so she must learn to relate with and communicate with her sexual soul force within--which has an intelligence few realize), in order to find meaning in her life andlive out her life story.
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Learning to communicate with one’s anima or animus is normally done through dream work.
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These dream images act to assist us in our shadow work and in balancing the masculine and feminine energies within.
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Psyche (soul) wins her power by passing her tests as a woman cooperating with Nature; and then descending into the Land of the Dead (Hades) and returning with Penelope’s Beauty Ointment. Henceforth, she will always carries the Beauty of the Realms beyond the Veil. The secret to beauty, it turns out, is only the death of the ego and realization of selflessness.
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Eros (spirit) wins his power by breaking the domination of his Mother and healing his Mother Complex. He becomes a man, and in so doing is accepted by his Father as a man. He knows himself by discovering, accepting and loving his inner feminine energies which bind him to life on earth.
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Eros is already a god, or daemon, and a son of Zeus; thus a woman’s soul is a god to her and she is closer to the Mystery than is a man and knows of those realms intuitively.

Archetypal Interpretation
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Deep in the Collective Unconscious, there are archetypal energies playing out a myth. For the most part, people are unconscious of these energies and so they are at the effect of their unconscious urges; they "are lived" by the myth that is defining who they are and

what is happening to them.
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One goal of the individuation process is to dream the myth one is living and thereby become more conscious. Even where they are unconscious of the myths they are living, they experience a meaningful life when they accept the story which is living them.
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When one recognizes the myths they are living, they then are able to elect to follow the pattern outside into the outer world or refuse the myth. The consequence of resisting the myth may be surrendering meaning in one’s life and facing the Universe without it. The choice usually requires that the person have gone through the individuation process and "know himself", gaining some consciousness to face the Universe without the support of superstition or outer dogmas. If the individual accepts his myth, it becomes a destiny instead of a fate--a destiny that determines how he or she will die.
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To live the myth of Aphrodite, Psyche and Eros is to experience all the roles, feelings, and dynamics. The myth speaks to the experience of a young man entering into a relationship with his anima, or an image which holds the numinosity of his soul. It speaks of his difficulty in breaking the power of the Mother Archetype in his life, removing the projection of his anima which he cast upon his actual mother, and to open a dialog with his inner feminine.
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Opening such a dialog means that he will have to descend into the Land of the Dead, drop the defenses of his ego, and begin to follow the images arising in his dreams--to "know her" who must be obeyed, to learn of her own wish to be here in life as herself, to heal the wounded gods in the "complexes", to honor the soul-wish to be well again, and to accept his journey through life as his responsibility and "reward" for loving "her" and himself.

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There is no promise that his life will turn out well, happy, successful--and in fact it well may not, but these tragic possibilities are also part of the "reward" of his journey.
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However, the myth also speaks to that young man’s experience with a human woman, upon whom he has projected his anima. His ability to communicate and relate to his anima within is correlated to his ability to communicate with and relate to an outer woman.
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He must earn the respect of his father by becoming a colleague rather than a son and accept the responsibilities of fatherhood and husband-hood himself.
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He must grow up and become a man.
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And that, in essence, is the archetype of individuation itself.
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