This is a true story.
Last year, spring quarter, for my third quarter of
Greek thought and literature
I took a course on love (;
My teacher was an absolutely GORGEOUS man,
~with a beautiful accent and the most piercing of eyes~
and one of the things he taught us was that for the Greeks,
love had many different meanings
There was Agape, the unconditional love of one's fellow humans
Philia, platonic love of one's friends,
Storge, love of family,
And Eros.
Now, of these four, Eros is definitely the most well known.
It's the deep passionate love one feels for a romantic
and or sexual partner.
And, not so coincidently, it's also the name of the Greek God of love.
Eros, as far as gods go,
has been through many many incarnations
There is the aspect of Eros that's an ancient primordial deity
older than the gods themselves
and in that incarnation, Eros is characterized as a being even more powerful than Zeus.
In part because he can jerk the guy around like a puppet.
see every myth were Zeus couldn't keep it in his pants.
also known as EVERY myth
There is the aspect of Eros that's the child of Aphrodite
representing love as a consequence of beauty
and then there's...
Cupid...
We don't like to talk about him.
Now typically, those first two representations exist concurrently in the same character.
Eros will simultaneously be Aphrodite's son and a powerful and ancient force that even the gods fear.
I say "typically" but really there's only one data point to draw from.
There's one major legend(27) about Eros.
and that is the myth of Eros and Psyche.
So Psyche is a princess.
but not just any princess,
a beautiful princess!
Plot twist?
but she's not just any beautiful princess
she's a lonely beautiful princess!
Plot twist?!
But she's not just any lonely beautiful princess
She's a lonely beautiful princess even more beautiful than Aphrodite!
Aw, that ain't good!
In fact, since Psyche is so incredibly beautiful,
People have started worshiping her instead of Aphrodite.
My God, it's just like high school...
Now those of us familiar with Aphrodite through the golden apple, the Iliad,
or just Greek mythology in general,
know that she doesn't really handle people being prettier than her very well.
But Aphrodite has just the plan to take Psyche down!
She'll make her fall in love with a hideous monster.
Aphrodite, you are a goddess!
Why don't you just kill her?
Aphrodite knows just the guy to call
And summons her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with something gross.
Eros scoots down to the mortal world to do the thing
But when he sees the beautiful Psyche, he is startled by her gorgeousness
And accidentally stabs himself with one of his arrows.
Way to go, smart guy.
But meanwhile back in the mortal world
Psyche is (We recall part 2 of her characterization)
Very very lonely
See, she's beautiful but in a way that people worship from afar.
She wants to be loved, but she's just
~too beautiful for this sinful world~
And it's really starting to get on her nerves.
So she goes to the oracle and asks her if she'll ever find true love
and the oracle responds that she will!
Buuuutttt....
She'll fall in love with a terrible monster that even the gods fear (foreshadowing)
So Psyche is taken to a big scary cliff and left there so her monster boyfriend can find her
And Zephyr, the west wind,
Carries her off to her monster boyfriend's gorgeous and luxuriant palace.
Man, Greece has WAY classier monsters than we do.
Anyway, turns out that her monster boyfriend is invisible
And he tells her that she will be totally safe and provided for by his many invisible servants
...but she can never see him.
Not even when they do the sex thing.
So Psyche is totally chill with living in luxury with her invisible monster boyfriend
But one day she is paid a visit by her two sisters
Who are jealous of her living situation.
And convince her to find out the identity of her monster boyfriend.
And if he really is a monster, to kill him before he kills her and her unborn child.
So that night, Psyche sneaks into her monster boyfriend's room with a lantern to see him
and a dagger to maybe murder him with.
But as soon as the light touches him, she sees her invisible monster boyfriend is actually
A very visible super-hot boyfriend, none other than Eros himself.
Surprised by his gorgeousness, Psyche (say it with me now)
accidentally stabs herself with one of Eros's arrows.
Damn, that's hard to say.
And is now double in love with him.
Buuuuttttt...
the lamp oil also thinks Eros is super cute
and a little bit tries to get closer to senpai and ends up splashing on him
That's not hyperbole,
the book actually says that.
Not the senpai part but you know.
So Eros wakes up because ow and
flies off because ~betrayal~
leaving Psyche alone and regretting her life choices.
Eros flies back to Aphrodite to nurse his minor burn and feel sorry for himself
And Aphrodite now like twice as mad at Psyche
scoots over to her and tells her that if she wants her boyfriend back
she needs to accomplish four tasks for her.
Yay???
So Psyche agrees
and after Aphrodite slaps her around for a minute to make herself feel better
She gives Psyche her first task
She throws a mixed assortment of grains on the ground and tells Psyche she has one day to sort them all by type
This is obviously some BS but Psyche is basically an archetypal Disney princess
so while she is sitting there pondering the BS-itude of her current situation,
A nearby nest of ants take pity on her and sort the grains for her
So obviously Aphrodite is pissed that Psyche managed to do the thing
So she makes the next task even more problematic.
and tells her to go get some golden fleece from the sun sheep that live across the river.
While Psyche is busy trying to drown herself,
A local spirit tells her that the sheep will kill her if she not careful
so rather than try to rip a chunk of their fleece off
She should just gather fleece that got caught on the nearby thorn bushes
so she does and Aphrodite gets even more pissed
so she tells Psyche to take this goblet and go get some water from the river Styx
which is a problem because there is a cliff face and several dragons in the way
but this time, Zeus himself helps her out.
And sends down an eagle to beat up the dragons and bring her the water.
So last but not least, Aphrodite gives up on the subtlety and literally orders Psyche to go to hell
specifically, to bring a fancy box to the underworld, take a little bit of Persephone's beauty and put it in the box
And then bring it back and give it to Aphrodite
By the way, at this point,
Eros is all better and has long since forgiven Psyche for the whole betrayal of trust thing.
But Aphrodite is having none of that and keeps him confined to her palace
while she tries to do the vengeance thing.
So again, with help from various household objects and noted landmarks,
Psyche makes her way to the underworld and gives the box to Persephone
who does something to it and then gives it back
So Psyche leaves the underworld with the box
But then it occurs to her, that if the box contains pure beauty and she's about to go see her boyfriend again
She might as well use the magic beauty box to freshen up a little
Unfortunately, as soon as she opens the box
it turns out that the only thing in it is murder!
So Psyche low key dies.
But Eros escapes Aphrodite's palace while his mom is distracted
and flies to Psyche casually fixes the whole dead thing
And flies up to Olympus with Psyche to be properly married
Zeus is cool with it
tells Aphrodite to back off
and gives Psyche some ambrosia, which makes her into an immortal goddess
She and Eros are married as equals and when their kid is eventually born
they name her Hedone which roughly translates to Joy
c: