Oh My Gods, page 10
But as she drew near to kiss him, a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp onto his bare shoulder and woke him with a start.
“Psyche, why didn’t you listen to me?” Cupid cried in despair. “Don’t you know what you’ve done? I can never see you again—never. My love, all that we had is now lost.”
With that the god disappeared and left Psyche alone. She ran from the bedroom and fled into the woods, seeking only to end her newfound misery by drowning herself in a river. But the waters of the stream would not receive her. She lay on the grass weeping until the god Pan, who was in the same woods chasing a nymph, saw her and told her she should forget about suicide. He then led her to the home of one of her sisters. Once safely inside, Psyche collapsed in tears and told her sister everything that had happened. But instead of comforting Psyche, the wicked woman saw the girl’s misery as a golden opportunity. She ran all the way to the cliff above the god’s castle and launched herself into the air, crying, “Take me, Cupid! I will be a worthy wife to you.” But instead of the gentle wind that had previously carried her to the castle grounds, she felt only the rush of cold air as she fell down on the jagged rocks below. The other sister did the same when Psyche found her and told her the story of losing her husband forever.
Soon a bird flying over the earth saw Psyche wandering distraught through the forests and came to tell Aphrodite. The goddess was furious: “So, my precious son has a girlfriend, does he? Instead of doing his job he took up with that little bitch and got her pregnant! Did he think I was a common madam finding a harlot for him to play with? Besides, I’m too young to be a grandmother!”
Aphrodite found Psyche and brought her to her palace, but instead of servants and fine meals she received only beatings and abuse. At last the goddess, weary of tormenting the girl, told her she would be freed if she could complete a few tasks. She was first placed in a granary full of mixed wheat, barley, millet, poppy seeds, chickpeas, lentils, and beans and told to sort each grain into a separate pile by morning. If not, she would die. Psyche knew the goddess was only looking for an excuse to kill her, so she sat on the floor of the barn and waited for death. But a little ant passing by saw the girl and took pity on her. He brought all his friends to the granary and they began to sort the seeds according to kind. By morning, all the grains were separated as Aphrodite had ordered.
The goddess was furious at Psyche’s success and next ordered her to go among a flock of sheep whose fleece shone with gold. The only problem was, the sheep were vicious killers that would tear into pieces anyone who approached them. She was nonetheless to gather some of their wool and bring it to her or she would die. Again Psyche sat down to wait for death, but a slender reed growing from the banks of a nearby stream felt sorry for her and told her a secret. The sheep, it said, were ferocious in the heat of the day, but if she waited until evening she could gather some of their wool from the branches of trees they had brushed against in passing. Grateful, Psyche did this and dutifully brought the wool to Aphrodite, who was fit to be tied.
“You think you’re so clever, do you?” asked the goddess. “Well, for your next task you must draw a cup of water from a spring of the river Styx. It’s at the bottom of an impassable gorge in the mountains, but I’m sure that won’t be any trouble for you, my dear.” She laughed in wicked delight, then handed Psyche a crystal chalice and sent her on her way.
Psyche knew she could never descend the precipitous gorge, so she climbed instead to the cliff above it to throw herself off and end her life. Just then, however, the eagle who served Zeus was flying by and saw the girl about to jump. Cupid had once done him a favor, so he swooped down to the young god’s bride and told her to stop. Then he took the cup and filled it from the spring in the gorge below. Psyche ran back with the goblet and presented it to the goddess.
To Aphrodite, it was beyond all belief that this young girl could complete these deadly travails, so she decided on a final test so impossible, so dangerous, that Psyche would never be able to finish it alive. She was to go down into the land of the dead and fetch back some of the perfume of Persephone, wife of Hades. Aphrodite gave the girl a jar and kicked her out of her palace, confident that she would never see her again.
Psyche was just as certain that she could not complete this task since no mortal could journey to the realm of Hades and return alive. She climbed to the top of a tall tower to cast herself off, but the tower spoke to her and told her all was not lost. The journey to the underworld and back was difficult, but not impossible if she followed the tower’s instructions exactly. She was to go to a remote grove near Sparta, where she would find an entrance to the land of Hades. Going down into the cave, she was to carry two barley cakes in her hands and two coins in her mouth. She was to ignore all requests made to her by anyone she met on her journey through the shadowy kingdom. Only when she arrived at the house of Persephone was she to speak and make her request for the perfume—but under no circumstances was she to open the jar and look inside.
Psyche listened carefully and thanked the tower for its kindness. She found the entrance to the underworld and, taking her cakes and coins, entered into the dark world below. She met a crippled man with a lame ass who asked for her help, but she passed him by. Then she came to the river Styx and found the greedy ferryman Charon, who poled her across for one of the coins he took from her mouth. In midstream, she looked down into the water and saw a dead man who begged her to pull him into the boat, but she closed her eyes and ignored him. Then the girl came to some old women weaving who urged her to stay and spin with them, but Psyche walked on. Later she came to the vicious three-headed dog Cerberus, to whom she tossed one of the barley cakes so that she could pass by. At last she came to the palace of Persephone, who greeted her warmly and offered her a fine meal. Psyche declined and asked only for some of her precious perfume. Smiling, the goddess of the underworld agreed and filled the jar, sealing it tightly.
Returning the way she had come, Psyche gave her other cake to Cerberus and final coin to Charon for passage back across the Styx. The girl then labored back up the long, dark path and emerged at last into the land of the living. But then she began to wonder, if the perfume of Persephone was so powerful, perhaps it could help her win again the love of Cupid. She wanted so badly to have her husband back that she opened the jar, only to fall immediately into a sleep like death.
There in the forest Cupid found her and held her in his arms. He woke her with a gentle prick from his arrow and carried her to Olympus. After giving the perfume to his mother, he addressed Zeus and the rest of the gods, asking that his courageous bride be made a goddess to live with him forever. By this time even Aphrodite was impressed by Psyche’s bravery and devotion to her son, so she reluctantly consented to a formal marriage. With a nod from Zeus, Hermes brought forward a cup of divine ambrosia and gave it to Psyche. She drank deeply from the goblet and immediately felt the fire of immortality coursing through her veins. She kissed Cupid and everyone cheered the new goddess. Satyrs played their flutes, the Muses sang wedding songs, and Aphrodite herself danced to the music. In due time, the child of Cupid and Psyche was born, a daughter named Happiness.
GODDESSES
HERA
The queen of heaven was the patron of marriage and childbirth, but she was also the goddess whom troubled women turned to in all phases of their lives. Hera was worshiped as a young girl, as a bride, and as an old woman. Whatever pain and sorrow a mortal woman might feel, she could always count on Hera’s sympathetic ear, whether she wanted to find a husband, become pregnant, or face life alone as an aging widow. Although a mother of several children herself, Hera became a virgin again each year at her temple in Argos so that she could better serve the needs of young women. Hera was a goddess of renewal, of comfort throughout a woman’s life, and of hope for women young and old in a world dominated by men.
But in spite of her sympathy for women in distress—or perhaps because of it—she could be an implacable shrew when it came to her own husband. Io, Callisto, and Leda were only a few of the many innocent lovers of Zeus she tracked down and tormented to assert her rights as his legitimate wife.
Hera was never shy about confronting Zeus, especially when she thought he was up to something. One day when the sea goddess Thetis had come to the king of the gods seeking his favor for her son, Hera burst in and starting screaming at Zeus, “Which of the gods is plotting with you now? You never tell me anything! You and all your secret plans. Why don’t you have the guts to let me know what you’re up to?”
Zeus shot back: “Woman, I’ve had just about enough of you! Always suspicious, always prying into my business. If you keep on nagging me, I swear, you’re going to regret it, even if you are my wife. I’m the ruler of the gods, not you. I’m going to do what I think is right whether you like it or not!”
There are few myths that feature Hera in a predominant role, but stories of domestic quarrels between her and Zeus are frequent. One time they even argued about whether men or women enjoyed sex more. They decided to let the soothsayer Tiresias settle the matter since he had experienced lovemaking as both a male and female. This happened because once when he was walking through the woods he came upon two snakes mating and struck them with his cane, then was changed into a woman for seven years as punishment. After living life as a female for this time, Tiresias saw the snakes again and thought that perhaps striking them once more might change him back to a man, as it indeed did. Thus when the ruler of the gods asked him if men or women received more pleasure from intimacy, he was able to reveal that it was in fact women who enjoyed sex more—ten times more than men. Hera hated that this secret had been revealed and she struck Tiresias blind as punishment, but in compensation Zeus gave him the power of foresight so that he became a great prophet.
Like all goddesses, Hera was jealous of her famous beauty. When Side, the wife of the hunter Orion, boasted that she was fairer than the wife of Zeus, Hera cast her down into Hades forever. Likewise after Gerana, the queen of the Pygmies, claimed her own beauty was beyond compare, Hera transformed her into a crane. Some stories also claim that the daughters of the Argive king Proetus were not driven mad by Dionysus, but were in fact turned into cows by Hera because they thought they were more beautiful than her.
DEMETER
Like her sister Hera, Demeter was also a child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. But unlike Hera, Demeter cared little for love affairs or contests of beauty. Her domain was the fertile, green earth, where she presided over life-giving grain.
Not that she was wholly immune to matters of the heart. Once when she joined the other gods at the marriage of King Cadmus of Thebes and his bride, Harmonia, she fell madly in love with a mortal man named Iasion. True to her nature, the goddess lay with him not in a perfumed bed but in a thrice-plowed field. Some stories say that when Zeus found out he struck down Iasion with a thunderbolt for daring to sleep with a goddess. But other stories say that he lived a long life while Demeter sadly watched his hair grow ever more gray. The couple had two sons, Plutus, a god of riches under the earth, and Philomelus, a poor mortal farmer who nonetheless pleased Demeter by inventing the wagon.
However, Demeter could be terrible in her anger when she was offended. One mortal who dared to offend her was Erysichthon from Thessaly. Once when he was out cutting firewood he came upon a sacred grove of Demeter and took out his ax. The wood nymphs who were embodied in the trees cried out as he chopped and hacked at their limbs, but he ignored their cries and the blood dripping from their leaves. The surviving trees prayed to Demeter for vengeance and the goddess heard their prayer. She inflicted Erysichthon with an insatiable hunger. He fell to eating everything in his house, then he sold his daughter Mestra into slavery so he could buy more food. She was able to change shapes, a gift granted her by Poseidon, who had once made love to her. With this ability the dutiful daughter returned again and again to her father to be sold in new forms. Even so, the money they gained from this deceit was not enough. Soon Erysichthon began to gnaw at his own flesh and eventually ate himself alive.
But by far the best-known tale of Demeter is the story of what happened when her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the lord of the dead. It began one day when the maiden was gathering violets and roses in a grassy meadow far from home. Persephone stooped down to pick a particularly beautiful flower when suddenly a giant chasm opened in the ground before her. Out of it flew the god Hades in a chariot of gold drawn by immortal horses and he grabbed the girl. She fought back and called out to her father Zeus for help, but it seemed that no one heard her cries. Hades quickly flew back into the earth with his prize and closed the ground above him, leaving no trace of his shameful deed.
Persephone was taken to the dark palace of the underworld ruler where she sat weeping, longing to see again the light of day. Her sobs echoed throughout the realm of the dead but could not reach the land of the living. Still, somehow, Demeter sensed that her daughter was calling to her, though she could not tell where she was.
With an urgency only a mother could feel, the goddess flew down from Mount Olympus and began to search the world for Persephone. She looked everywhere and asked everyone she saw, mortal and god alike, if they had seen her daughter, but no one could tell her where Persephone was. For nine days she frantically raced across the whole earth seeking her child. At last she came upon the goddess Hecate, who told her an astonishing tale: “Noble Demeter, goddess of the fruits of the earth, giver of gifts, you wish to know who of mortals or gods has carried off Persephone and brought pain to your heart? I wish I could tell you, but I only heard her cry out. I did not see who stole her away.”
Demeter then sought out the sun god, Helios, who sees all from his chariot traveling across the sky. She came to his radiant home and begged him for news. Helios was reluctant at first, but finally told her the truth: “Daughter of Rhea, I am moved by your sorrow. It is none other than Zeus who is to blame for her disappearance. He allowed his brother Hades to seize the maiden while she gathered flowers. The lord of the dead now holds her in his underworld kingdom and will not let her go. She is there by the will of Zeus and there is nothing you can do to help her.”
Demeter was so angry at Zeus and Hades that she swore she would never return to Olympus. She put aside the appearance of a goddess and took on the form of an old woman. In this guise she wandered the earth in sorrow, mourning the daughter she would never see again.
One day she came to the town of Eleusis north of Athens and sat down in a shady spot by a well near the palace of King Celeus. It was the place to which all the women of the town came to draw water and it wasn’t long until the four daughters of Celeus came to fill their own brass pitchers. They greeted her politely and asked what brought a stranger such as herself to their town. Demeter said that she had been kidnapped from Crete by pirates, but that she had escaped in a nearby port. All she wanted now was a quiet place to live out her remaining days. Perhaps the girls knew a household that needed a nurse for a child?
The daughters said that indeed their own mother had recently given birth to a son and they were sure their parents would be happy to have such a distinguished-looking woman as herself to care for him. They led her back to the palace to meet their mother, who welcomed her and gladly offered her the job. When Demeter saw the small child, she loved him at once and promised his mother she would care for him as if he were her own.
From then on every night while the palace slept, the goddess nursed the baby on ambrosia and buried him in the hearth fire to burn away his mortality. But one night his mother walked in and screamed when she saw what Demeter was doing. The goddess reached into the fire and pulled the baby out, then addressed the mother: “I am Demeter, you foolish woman! I would have made your son free from old age and death. Now he will know the pain of life as a mortal.”
The goddess then ordered the people of Eleusis to build her a temple so that she could establish her cult in their city. The boy may have lost his chance at immortality, but she would show her followers the secret of how to escape the dismal land of Hades after death.
The king and citizens of Eleusis happily agreed and built Demeter a wondrous temple in their city. When it was finished and all the workers had gone home, the goddess entered and closed the doors. There she remained, mourning for her daughter and neglecting the care of earth’s bountiful harvests.
No seeds ripened, oxen plowed the fields in vain, and famine spread across the world. People began to starve as they called to the gods to help them—but none of them had the power to make grain grow. Only Demeter could restore fertility to the earth.
Zeus heard the cries of humanity and sent golden-winged Iris down to urge Demeter to return, but the heart of the goddess was unmoved. All the gods then made their way to her temple in Eleusis to beg her to make the earth bloom again, offering her fabulous gifts if only she would relent. They pleaded that without grain the people of the earth would die and there would be no one to offer sacrifices to the gods.
