fierce longing. The flames from his chariot still lingered in
reflected glories on sea and hill and sky. The very leaves of the
budding trees of spring were outlined in gold. And through the dim
wood walked Daphne, erect and lithe and living as a sapling in the
early spring.
With beseeching hands, Apollo followed her. A god was he, yet to him
had come the vast humility of passionate intercession for the gift of
love to a little nymph. She heard his steps behind her and turned
round, proud and angry that one should follow her when she had not
willed it.
"Stay!" he said, "daughter of Peneus. No foe am I, but thine own
humble lover. To thee alone do I bow my head. To all others on earth
am I conqueror and king."
But Daphne, hating his words of passionate love, sped on. And when his
passion lent wings to his feet and she heard him gaining on her as she
fled, not as a lover did Daphne look on deathless Apollo, but as a
hateful foe. More swiftly than she had ever run beside her mistress
Diana, leaving the flying winds behind her as she sped, ran Daphne
now. But ever did Apollo gain upon her, and almost had he grasped her
when she reached the green banks of the river of which her father,
Peneus, was god.
"Help me, Peneus!" she cried. "Save me, oh my father, from him whose
love I fear!"
As she spoke the arms of Apollo seized her, yet, even as his arms met
around her waist, lissome and slight as a young willow, Daphne the
nymph was Daphne the nymph no longer. Her fragrant hair, her soft
white arms, her tender body all changed as the sun-god touched them.
Her feet took root in the soft, damp earth by the river. Her arms
sprouted into woody branches and green leaves. Her face vanished, and
the bark of a big tree enclosed her snow-white body. Yet Apollo did
not take away his embrace from her who had been his dear first love.
He knew that her cry to Peneus her father had been answered, yet he
said, "Since thou canst not be my bride, at least thou shalt be my
tree; my hair, my lyre, my quiver shall have thee always, oh laurel
tree of the Immortals!"
So do we still speak of laurels won, and worn by those of deathless
fame, and still does the first love of Apollo crown the heads of those
whose gifts have fitted them to dwell with the dwellers on Olympus.
"I espouse thee for my tree:
Be thou the prize of honour and renown;
The deathless poet, and the poem, crown;
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And, after poets, be by victors worn."
Ovid (_Dryden's translation_).
PSYCHE
Those who read for the first time the story of Psyche must at once be
struck by its kinship to the fairy tales of childhood. Here we have
the three sisters, the two elder jealous and spiteful, the youngest
beautiful and gentle and quite unable to defend herself against her
sisters' wicked arts. Here, too, is the mysterious bridegroom who is
never seen and who is lost to his bride because of her lack of faith.
Truly it is an old, old tale--older than all fairy tales--the story of
love that is not strong enough to believe and to wait, and so to "win
through" in the end--the story of seeds of suspicion sown by one full
of malice in an innocent heart, and which bring to the hapless reaper
a cruel harvest.
Once upon a time, so goes the tale, a king and queen had three
beautiful daughters. The first and the second were fair indeed, but
the beauty of the youngest was such that all the people of the land
worshipped it as a thing sent straight from Olympus. They awaited her
outside the royal palace, and when she came, they threw chaplets of
roses and violets for her little feet to tread upon, and sang hymns of
praise as though she were no mortal maiden but a daughter of the
deathless gods.
There were many who said that the beauty of Aphrodite herself was less
perfect than the beauty of Psyche, and when the goddess found that men
were forsaking her altars in order to worship a mortal maiden, great
was her wrath against them and against the princess who, all
unwittingly, had wrought her this shameful harm.
In her garden, sitting amongst the flowers and idly watching his
mother's fair white doves as they preened their snowy feathers in the
sun, Aphrodite found her son Eros, and angrily poured forth to him the
story of her shame.
"Thine must be the task of avenging thy mother's honour," she said.
"Thou who hast the power of making the loves of men, stab with one of
thine arrows the heart of this presumptuous maiden, and shame her
before all other mortals by making her love a monster from which all
others shrink and which all despise." With wicked glee Eros heard his
mother's commands. His beautiful face, still the face of a mischievous
boy, lit up with merriment. This was, in truth, a game after his own
heart. In the garden of Aphrodite is a fountain of sweet, another of
bitter water, and Eros filled two amber vases, one from each fountain,
hung them from his quiver, and
"Straight he rose from earth and down the wind
Went glittering 'twixt the blue sky and the sea."
In her chamber Psyche lay fast asleep, and swiftly, almost without a
glance at her, Eros sprinkled some of the bitter drops upon her lips,
and then, with one of his sharpest arrows, pricked her snowy breast.
Like a child who half awakes in fear, and looks up with puzzled,
wondering eyes, Psyche, with a little moan, opened eyes that were
bluer than the violets in spring and gazed at Eros. He knew that he
was invisible, and yet her gaze made him tremble.
"They spoke truth!" said the lad to himself. "Not even my mother is as
fair as this princess."
For a moment her eyelids quivered, and then dropped. Her long dark
lashes fell on her cheeks that were pink as the hearts of the fragile
shells that the waves toss up on western beaches, her red mouth,
curved like the bow of Eros, smiled happily, and Psyche slept again.
With heart that beat as it had never beaten before, Eros gazed upon
her perfect loveliness. With gentle, pitying finger he wiped away the
red drop where his arrow had wounded her, and then stooped and touched
her lips with his own, so lightly that Psyche in her dreams thought
that they had been brushed by a butterfly's wings. Yet in her sleep
she moved, and Eros, starting back, pricked himself with one of his
arrows. And with that prick, for Eros there passed away all the
careless ease of the heart of a boy, and he knew that he loved Psyche
with the unquenchable love of a deathless god. Now, with bitter
regret, all his desire was to undo the wrong he had done to the one
that he loved. Speedily he sprinkled her with the sweet water that
brings joy, and when Psyche rose from her couch she was radiant with
the beauty that comes from a new, undreamed-of happiness.
"From place to place Love followed her that day
And ever fairer to his eyes she grew,
So that at last when from her bower he flew,
And underneath his feet the moonlit sea
Went shepherding his waves disorderly,
He swore that of all gods and men, no one
Should hold her in his arms but he alone;
That she should dwell with him in glorious wise
Like to a goddess in some paradise;
Yea, he would get from Father Jove this grace
That she should never die, but her sweet face
And wonderful fair body should endure
Till the foundations of the mountains sure
Were molten in the sea; so utterly
Did he forget his mother's cruelty."
William Morris.
Meantime it came to be known all over that land, and in other lands to
which the fame of the fair Psyche had spread, that the mighty goddess
Aphrodite had declared herself the enemy of the princess. Therefore
none dared seek her in marriage, and although many a noble youth
sighed away his heart for love of her, she remained in her father's
palace like an exquisite rose whose thorns make those who fain would
have it for their own, fear to pluck it from the parent stem. Her
sisters married, and her father marvelled why so strange a thing
should come about and why the most beautiful by far of his three
daughters should remain unwed.
At length, laden with royal gifts, an embassy was sent by the king to
the oracle of Apollo to inquire what might be the will of the dwellers
on Olympus concerning his fairest daughter. In a horror of anxiety the
king and his queen and Psyche awaited the return of the ambassadors.
And when they returned, before ever a word was spoken, they knew that
the oracle had spoken Psyche's doom.
"No mortal lover shall fair Psyche know," said the oracle. "For
bridegroom she shall have a monster that neither man nor god can
resist. On the mountain top he awaits her coming. Woe unutterable
shall come to the king and to all the dwellers in his land if he dares
to resist the unalterable dictum of the deathless gods!"
"... Of dead corpses shalt thou be the king,
And stumbling through the dark land shalt thou go,
Howling for second death to end thy woe."
William Morris.
Only for a little while did the wretched king strive to resist the
decrees of fate. And in her own chamber, where so short a time before the
little princess had known the joy of something inexpressible--something
most exquisite--intangible--unknown--she sat, like a flower broken by the
ruthless storm, sobbing pitifully, dry-eyed, with sobs that strained her
soul, for the shameful, hideous fate that the gods had dealt her.
All night, until her worn-out body could no longer feel, her worn-out
mind think, and kind sleep came to bring her oblivion, Psyche faced
the horror for the sake of her father and of his people, that she knew
she could not avoid. When morning came, her handmaids, white-faced and
red-eyed, came to deck her in all the bridal magnificence that
befitted the most beautiful daughter of a king, and when she was
dressed right royally, and as became a bride, there started up the
mountain a procession at sight of which the gods themselves must have
wept. With bowed heads the king and queen walked before the litter
upon which lay their daughter in her marriage veil of saffron colour,
with rose wreath on her golden hair. White, white were the faces of
the maidens who bore the torches, and yet rose red were they by the
side of Psyche. Minstrels played wedding hymns as they marched
onwards, and it seemed as though the souls of unhappy shades sobbed
through the reeds and moaned through the strings as they played.
At length they reached the rocky place where they knew they must leave
the victim bride, and her father dared not meet her eyes as he turned
his head to go. Yet Psyche watched the procession wending its way
downhill. No more tears had she to shed, and it seemed to her that
what she saw was not a wedding throng, but an assembly of
broken-hearted people who went back to their homes with heavy feet
after burying one that they loved. She saw no sign of the monster who
was to be her bridegroom, yet at every little sound her heart grew
sick with horror, and when the night wind swept through the craggy
peaks and its moans were echoed in loneliness, she fell on her face in
deadly fear and lay on the cold rock in a swoon.
Yet, had Psyche known it, the wind was her friend. For Eros had used
Zephyrus as his trusty messenger and sent him to the mountain top to
find the bride of him "whom neither man nor god could resist."
Tenderly--very tenderly--he was told, must he lift her in his arms,
and bear her to the golden palace in that green and pleasant land
where Eros had his home. So, with all the gentleness of a loving nurse
to a tired little child Zephyrus lifted Psyche, and sped with her in
his strong arms to the flowery meadows behind which towered the golden
palace of Eros, like the sun behind a sky of green and amber and blue
and rose. Deeply, in the weariness of her grief, Psyche slept, and
when she awoke it was to start up with the chill hands of the
realisation of terrible actualities on her heart. But when her eyes
looked round to find the barren rocks, the utter forsakenness, the
coming of an unnameable horror, before her she saw only fair groves
with trees bedecked with fruit and blossom, fragrant meadows, flowers
whose beauty made her eyes grow glad. And from the trees sang birds
with song more sweet than any that Psyche had ever known, and with
brilliant plumage which they preened caressingly when they had dipped
their wings in crystal-sparkling fountains. There, too, stood a noble
palace, golden fronted, and with arcades of stainless marble that
shone like snow in the sun. At first all seemed like part of a dream
from which she dreaded to awake, but soon there came to her the joy of
knowing that all the exquisite things that made appeal to her senses
were indeed realities. Almost holding her breath, she walked forward
to the open golden doors. "It is a trap," she thought. "By this means
does the monster subtly mean to lure me into his golden cage." Yet,
even as she thought, there seemed to be hovering round her winged
words, like little golden birds with souls. And in her ears they
whispered, "Fear not. Doubt not. Recall the half-formed dreams that so
short a time ago brought to thy heart such unutterable joy. No evil
shall come to thee--only the bliss of loving and of being loved."
[Illustration: THUS DID PSYCHE LOSE HER FEAR, AND ENTER THE GOLDEN
DOORS]
Thus did Psyche lose her fear, and enter the golden doors. And
inside the palace she found that all the beautiful things of which she
had ever dreamed, all the perfect things for which she had ever
longed, were there to greet her. From one to another she flitted, like
a humming-bird that sucks honey from one and then from another
gorgeous flower. And then, when she was tired with so much wearing out
of her thankful mind, she found a banquet ready spread for her, with
all the dainties that her dainty soul liked best; and, as she ate,
music so perfect rejoiced her ears that all her soul was soothed and
joyous and at peace. When she had refreshed herself, a soft couch
stood before her, ready for her there to repose, and when that strange
day had come to an end, Psyche knew that, monster or not, she was
beloved by one who had thought for her every thought, and who desired
only her desire.
Night came at last, and when all was dark and still, and Psyche, wide
awake, was full of forebodings and fears lest her happy dreams might
only be misleading fancies, and Horror incarnate might come to crown
her peaceful day, Eros softly entered the palace that was his own.
Even as he had gone to the palace of her father he went now, and found
Psyche lying with violet eyes that stared into the velvety darkness,
seeking something that she hoped for, trembling before something that
brought her dread.
His voice was as the voice of spring when it breathes on the sleeping
earth; he knew each note in Love's music, every word in the great
thing that is Love's vocabulary. Love loved, and Psyche listened, and
soon she knew that her lover was Love himself.
Thus, for Psyche, did a time of perfect happiness begin. All through
the day she roamed in her Love's dominion, and saw on every side the
signs of his passion and of his tenderness. All through the night he
stayed by her, and satisfied all the longing of her heart. Yet always,
ere daybreak, Eros left her, and when she begged him to stay he only
made answer:
"I am with thee only while I keep
My visage hidden; and if thou once shouldst see
My face, I must forsake thee; the high gods
Link Love with Faith, and he withdraws himself
From the full gaze of knowledge."
Lewis Morris.
So did time glide past for Psyche, and ever she grew more in love with
Love; always did her happiness become more complete. Yet, ever and
again, there returned to her the remembrance of those sorrowful days
when her father and mother had broken their hearts over her martyrdom,
and her sisters had looked askance at her as at one whose punishment
must assuredly have come from her own misdoing. Thus at length she
asked Eros to grant her, for love's sake, a boon--to permit her to
have her sisters come to see for themselves the happiness that was
hers. Most unwillingly was her request granted, for the heart of Eros
told him that from their visit no good could come. Yet he was unable
to deny anything to Psyche, and on the following day Zephyrus was sent
to bring the two sisters to the pleasant valley where Psyche had her
home. Eagerly, as she awaited them, Psyche thought she might make the
princely palace wherein she dwelt yet fairer than it was. And almost
ere she could think, her thoughts became realities. When the two
sisters came, they were bewildered with the beauty and the
magnificence of it all. Beside this, their own possessions were paltry
trifles indeed. Quickly, in their little hearts, black envy grew. They
had always been jealous of their younger sister, and now that they
found her, whom all the world believed to have been slain by a
horrible monster, more beautiful than ever, decked with rare jewels,
radiant in her happiness, and queen of a palace fit for the gods,
their envy soon turned to hatred, and they sought how best to wreak
their malice upon the joyous creature who loaded them with priceless
gifts. They began to ply Psyche with questions. He who was her lord,
to whom she owed all her happiness, where was he? Why did he stay away
when her sisters came to be presented to him? What manner of man was
he? Was he fair or dark? Young or old? And as they questioned her,
Psyche grew like a bewildered child and answered in frightened words
that contradicted one another. And well the wicked sisters, who
brooded evil in their hearts, knew that this husband whom Psyche had
never seen must indeed be one of the deathless gods. Wily words they
spoke to her then.
"Alas! unhappy one," they said, "dost think to escape the evil fate
the gods meted out for thee? Thy husband is none other than the
monster of which the oracle spake! Oh, foolish Psyche! canst not
understand that the monster fears the light? Too great horror would
it mean for thee to see the loathsome thing that comes in the
blackness of night and speaks to thee words of love."
White-lipped and trembling, Psyche listened. Drop by drop the
poisonous words passed into her soul. She had thought him king of all
living things--worthy to rule over gods as well as men. She was so
sure that his body was worthy sheath for the heart she knew so
well.... She had pictured him beautiful as Eros, son of
Aphrodite--young and fair, with crisp, golden locks--a husband to
glory in--a lover to adore. And now she knew, with shame and dread,
that he who had won her love between the twilight and the dawn was a
thing to shame her, a monster to be shunned of men.
"What, then, shall I do?" piteously she asked of her sisters. And the
women, pitilessly, and well content, answered:
"Provide thyself with a lamp and a knife sharp enough to slay the man
or monster. And when this creature to whom, to thy undying shame, thou
belongest, sleeps sound, slip from thy couch and in the rays of the
lamp have courage to look upon him in all his horror. Then, when thou
hast seen for thyself that what we say is truth, with thy knife
swiftly slay him. Thus shalt thou free thyself from the pitiless doom
meted out by the gods."
Shaking with sobs, Psyche made answer:
"I love him so!... I love him so!"
And her sisters turned upon her with furious scorn and well-simulated
wrath.
"Shameless one!" they cried; "and does our father's daughter confess
to a thing so unutterable! Only by slaying the monster canst thou hope
to regain thy place amongst the daughters of men."
They left her when evening fell, carrying with them their royal gifts.
And while she awaited the coming of her lord, Psyche, provided with
knife and lamp, crouched with her head in her hands, a lily broken by
a cruel storm. So glad was Eros to come back to her, to find her
safely there--for greatly had he feared the coming of that treacherous
pair--that he did not note her silence. Nor did the dark night show
him that her eyes in her sad face looked like violets in a snow
wreath. He wanted only to hold her safely in his arms, and there she
lay, passive and still, until sleep came to lay upon him an omnipotent
hand. Then, very gently, she withdrew herself from his embrace, and
stole to the place where her lamp was hidden. Her limbs shook under
her as she brought it to the couch where he lay asleep; her arm
trembled as she held it aloft.
As a martyr walks to death, so did she walk. And when the yellow light
fell upon the form of him who lay there, still she gazed steadily.
And, lo, before her she saw the form of him who had ever been the
ideal of her dreams. Love himself, incarnate Love, perfect in beauty
and in all else was he whom her sisters had told her was a
monster--he, of whom the oracle had said that neither gods nor men
could resist him. For a moment of perfect happiness she gazed upon his
beauty. Then he turned in his sleep, and smiled, and stretched out
his arms to find the one of his love. And Psyche started, and,
starting, shook the lamp; and from it fell a drop of burning oil on
the white shoulder of Eros. At once he awoke, and with piteous,
pitying eyes looked in those of Psyche. And when he spoke, his words
were like daggers that pierced deep into her soul. He told her all
that had been, all that might have been. Had she only had faith and
patience to wait, an immortal life should have been hers.
"Farewell! though I, a god, can never know
How thou canst lose thy pain, yet time will go
Over thine head, and thou mayst mingle yet
The bitter and the sweet, nor quite forget,
Nor quite remember, till these things shall seem
The wavering memory of a lovely dream."
William Morris.
He left her alone then, with her despair, and as the slow hours
dragged by, Psyche, as she awaited the dawn, felt that in her heart no
sun could ever rise again. When day came at last, she felt she could
no longer endure to stay in the palace where everything spoke to her
of the infinite tenderness of a lost love. Through the night a storm
had raged, and even with the day there came no calm. And Psyche, weary
and chill, wandered away from the place of her happiness, onward and
ever on, until she stood on the bank of a swift-flowing river. For a
little she stayed her steps and listened to the sound of its wash
against the rocks and tree roots as it hurried past, and to her as she
waited came the thought that here had she found a means by which to
end her woe.
"I have lost my Love," she moaned. "What is Life to me any longer!
Come to me then, O Death!"
So then she sprang into the wan water, hoping that very swiftly it
might bear her grief-worn soul down to the shades. But the river bore
her up and carried her to its shallows in a fair meadow where Pan
himself sat on the bank and merrily dabbled his feet in the flowing
water. And when Psyche, shamed and wet, looked at him with sad eyes,
the god spoke to her gently and chid her for her folly. She was too
young and much too fair to try to end her life so rudely, he said. The
river gods would never be so unkind as to drive so beautiful a maiden
in rough haste down to the Cocytus valley.
"Thou must dree thy weird like all other daughters of men, fair
Psyche," he said. "He or she who fain would lose their lives, are ever
held longest in life. Only when the gods will it shall thy days on
earth be done."
And Psyche, knowing that in truth the gods had spared her to endure
more sorrow, looked in his face with a very piteous gaze, and wandered
on. As she wandered, she found that her feet had led her near the
place where her two sisters dwelt.
"I shall tell them of the evil they have wrought," she thought.
"Surely they must sorrow when they know that by their cruel words they
stole my faith from me and robbed me of my Love and of my happiness."
Gladly the two women saw the stricken form of Psyche and looked at her
face, all marred by grief. Well, indeed, had their plot succeeded;
their malice had drunk deep, yet deeper still they drank, for with
scornful laughter they drove her from their palace doors. Very
quickly, when she had gone, the elder sought the place where she had
stood when Zephyrus bore her in safety to that palace of pleasure
where Psyche dwelt with her Love. Now that Psyche was no longer there,
surely the god by whom she had been beloved would gladly have as her
successor the beautiful woman who was now much more fair than the
white-faced girl with eyes all red with weeping. And such certainty
did the vengeful gods put in her heart that she held out her arms, and
calling aloud:
"Bear me to him in thine arms, Zephyrus! Behold I come, my lord!" she
sprang from the high cliff on which she stood, into space. And the
ravens that night feasted on her shattered body. So also did it befall
the younger sister, deluded by the Olympians to her own destruction,
so that her sin might be avenged.