The Wedding of Psyche to Death

Edward Burne-Jones…….The Wedding of Psyche…….1895

The Golden Ass, by Apuleius
Book IV :32 -33

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche: the Oracle

Psyche, for all her conspicuous beauty, reaped no profit from her charms.

Gazed at by all, praised by all, no one, neither prince nor commoner, wishing to marry her, sought her hand.

They admired her divine beauty of course, but as we admire a perfectly finished statue.

Her two elder sisters, whose plainer looks had never been trumpeted through the world, were soon engaged to royal suitors and so made excellent marriages, but Psyche was left at home, a virgin, single, weeping in lonely solitude, ill in body and sore at heart, hating that beauty of form the world found so pleasing.

With prayer and sacrifice he asked the mighty god for a man to marry the unfortunate girl. Apollo, though Greek and Ionian too, favoured the author of this Miletian tale with a reply in Latin:

They moaned, they wept, they wailed for many a day. But the dire and fatal hour soon approached.

The scene was set for the poor girl’s dark wedding.

The flames of the wedding torches grew dim with black smoky ash; the tune of hymen’s flute sounded in plaintive Lydian mode, and the marriage-hymn’s cheerful song fell to a mournful wail.

The bride-to-be wiped tears away with her flame-red bridal veil; the whole city grieved at the cruel fate that had struck the afflicted house and public business was interrupted as a fitting show of mourning.

I realise that her name alone destroys me. Lead me now to that cliff the oracle appointed. I go swiftly towards this fortunate marriage, I go swiftly to meet this noble husband of mine.

Why delay, why run from the coming of one who’ll be born for the whole world’s ruin?”

With this, the girl fell silent, and went steadfastly on, accompanied by the throng of citizens around her.

They came to the steep mountain crag decreed, and placed the girl, as commanded, on its very top, then deserted her, one and all.

They left behind the bridal torches, lighted on the way, and now extinguished by their tears, and heads bent low began their journey home, where her unhappy parents, exhausted by this dreadful blow, shut themselves in the darkness of their room, and resigned themselves to endless night.

On the Loneliness of Psych and Her Marriage to Death

Robert Johnson

Psyche’s nature is so magnificent, so innocent, so unworldly, so virginal that she is worshipped; but she is not courted. This is an utterly lonely experience and poor Psyche can find no husband.

In this sense, there is a Psych in every woman, and it is an intensely lonely experience for her.

Every woman is, in part, a king’s daughter, too lovely, too perfect, too deep for the ordinary world.

When a woman finds herself lonely and not understood, when she finds that people are good to her but stay just a little distance away, she has found the Psyche nature in her own person.

This is a painful experience and women are often aware of it without knowing its origin.

To be caught in this aspect of the feminine character is to remain untouched and unrelated….

Oracles were unquestioned in Greek society; they were taken as absolute truth.

Psyche’s parents, believing, made a wedding procession, which was a funeral cortege, took Psyche as instructed, and chained her to the rock at the top of the mountain.

Mixed together were floods of tears, wedding finery, and funeral darkness. Then the parents extinguished the torches and left Psyche alone in the dark.

Her wedding is her funeral in this sense. Many of our wedding customs are actually funeral ceremonies carried over from primitive times.

The groom comes with his best man and friends to abduct the bride; the bridesmaids are the protectors of the virginity of the bride.

A battle, in ritual form, is carried out and the bride cries as is befitting the death of a section of her life.

A new life opens for her and the festivities are to celebrate the new power as bride and matriarch.

She

Pages 9-12