From the book "She : Understanding Feminine Psychology." Revised Edition. Copyright © 1989 by Robert A. Johnson. Published by Harper & Row, New York, NY 10022.
Introduction
The Greek myth of Eros and Psyche is one of the most instructive stories there is on the feminine personality. It is an ancient, pre-Christian myth, first recorded in classical Greek times, having had a long oral tradition before that; yet it is relevant for us today.
This is not as strange as it might seem. Since human biology appears to be the same today as it was in Greek times, so also the unconscious psychological dynamic of the human personality is similar. Basic human needs, both physiological and psychological, have remained stable although the form in which those needs are satisfied may vary from time to time.
This is why it is instructive to go to the earliest sources to study the basic patterns of human behavior and personality. Their portrayal is apt to be so direct and simple we cannot fail to learn from them. Also we can begin to see the changes and variations peculiar to our own time.
The Role of the Myth
Myths are rich sources of psychological insight. Great literature, like all great art, records and portrays the human condition with indelible accuracy. Myths are a special kind of literature not written or created by a single individual, but produced by the imagination and experience of an entire age and culture and can be seen as the distillation of the dreams and experiences of a whole culture. They seem to develop gradually as certain motifs emerge, are elaborated, and finally are rounded out as people tell and retell stories that catch and hold their interest. Thus themes that are accurate and universal are kept alive, while those elements peculiar to single individuals or a particular era drop away. Myths, therefore, portray a collective image; they tell us about things that are true for all people.
This belies our current rationalistic definition of myth as something untrue or imaginary. "Why, that is only a myth; it's not true at all," we hear. The details of the story may be unverifiable or even fantastic, but actually a myth is profoundly and universally true.
A myth may be a fantasy or a product of the imagination, but it is nonetheless true and real. It depicts levels of reality that include the outer rational world as well as the less understood inner world.
This confusion concerning the narrow definition of reality may be illustrated by the thinking of a small child after a nightmare. A parent may say, to be comforting, "It was only a dream; the monster was not real." But the child is unconvinced, and rightly so. To him it was real, as alive and real as any outer experience. The monster he dreamed about was in his head and not in his bedroom, but it had, nonetheless, an awesome reality, with power over the child's emotional and physical reactions. It had an inner reality for him that cannot and should not be denied.
Myths have been carefully studied by many psychologists. C. G. Jung, for example, in his studies of the underlying structure of the human personality, paid particular attention to myths. He found in them an expression of basic psychological patterns. We hope to do the same with our study of Eros and Psyche.
First we must learn to think mythologically. Powerful things happen when we touch the thinking which myths, fairy tales, and our own dreams bring to us. The terms and settings of the old myths are strange; they seem archaic and distant to us, but if we listen to them carefully and take them seriously, we begin to hear and to understand. Sometimes it is necessary to translate a symbolic meaning, but this is not difficult once we see how it can be done.
Many psychologists have interpreted the Eros and Psyche myth as a statement of the feminine personality. Perhaps it would be wise at the very beginning of this study to say that we are speaking of femininity wherever it is found, in men as well as in women. To confine this story to women's personalities alone would be to limit it severely.
Dr. Jung, in one of his most profound insights, showed that, just as genetically every man has recessive female chromosomes and hormones, so, too, every woman has a group of masculine psychological characteristics that make up a minority element in her. The man's feminine side Dr. Jung called the 'anima'; the woman's masculine side he called the 'animus.'
Much has been written about the anima and animus and we will have more to say about both of them later. At this point, whenever we speak of the feminine aspects of the Eros and Psyche myth, we are speaking not only about women, but also about the man's anima, his feminine side. The connection may be more obvious to a woman, since femininity is her major psychological quality, yet there will also be something of a parallel to the interior feminine aspect of a man's psychology.
Chapter One The Birth of Psyche
Our tale begins with the line---Once there was a Kingdom. From this we know that we will be given vision and insight into that kingdom, which is our own inner world. If you listen to the old language of the tale you will see into that inner realm, seldom explored by the modern rational mind. A gold mine of information and insight is promised by a few words---Once there was a Kingdom.
The Story Begins
There is a king, and queen, and their three daughters. The two eldest are ordinary princesses, not very remarkable.
The third daughter is the very embodiment of the inner world and even bears the name Psyche, which means 'soul'. She will take us on a journey to the inner world. She is as much of the mythic kingdom as she is of the earthly kingdom.
Do you know these three in yourself? Who can be unaware of the ordinary part of one's self and that special unearthly inner self who does so badly in the ordinariness of everyday life?
So great was the power of this extraordinary princess that people began saying, "Here is the new Aphrodite, here is the new goddess who will take the place of the old one, drive her from her temple, and entirely supersede her." Aphrodite, known as Venus to the Romans, had to bear the insult of seeing the ashes of the sacramental fires in her temples grow cold and the cult of this new slip of a girl take her place.
Now, Aphrodite was the goddess of femininity who had reigned since the beginning---no one knew how long. For her to see the rise of a new goddess of femininity was more than she could bear! Her rage and jealousy were apocalyptic and the whole course of our story is determined at this moment. To stir the rage or demand change of a god or goddess is to shake the very foundations of one's inner world!
The Mythic Elements
The origins of the two goddesses, Aphrodite and Psyche, are interesting. Wielding a sickle, Cronus, the youngest and craftiest son of Uranus, the god of the sky, severed his father's genitals, and flung them into the sea thus fertilizing the water and Aphrodite was born. Aphrodite's birth was immortalized by Botticelli in his magnificent painting, the Birth of Venus: she, in all her feminine majesty, is being born upon a wave, standing on a shell. This is the divine origin of the feminine principle in its archetypal form, which may be vividly contrasted with the human birth of Psyche who was said to have been conceived by dewdrops that fell from the sky. What curious language! But this language is rich in psychological insight if you can hear its archaic, timeless message.
The difference between these two births, if properly understood, reveals the different natures of the two feminine principles. Aphrodite is a goddess born of the sea: she is primeval, oceanic in her feminine power. She is from the beginning of time and holds court at the bottom of the sea. In psychological terms, she reigns in the unconscious, symbolized by the waters of the sea. She is scarcely approachable on ordinary conscious terms; one might as well confront a tidal wave. One can admire, worship, or be crushed by such archetypal femininity but it is extremely difficult to relate to it. It is Psyche's task, from her human vantage point, to do just that---to relate and soften the great oceanic, archetypal feminine. This is our myth.
Every woman has an Aphrodite in her. She is recognized by her overwhelming femininity and vast, impersonal, unrelatable majesty.
There are marvelous stories about Aphrodite and her court. She has a servant who carries a mirror before her so that she may constantly see herself. Someone continually makes perfume for her. She is jealous and will stand no competition whatsoever. She is constantly arranging marriages and is never satisfied until everyone is busily serving her fertility.
Aphrodite is the principle of mirroring every experience back into our own consciousness. As man is occupied with expansion and exploration and finding that which is new, Aphrodite is reflecting and mirroring and assimilating. Aphrodite's mirror is symbolic of a most profound quality of the goddess of love. She frequently offers one a mirror by which one can see one's self, a self hopelessly stuck in projection (prediction) without the help of the mirror. Asking what is being mirrored back can begin the process of understanding, which may prevent getting stuck in an insoluble emotional tangle. This is not to say there are not outer events. But it is important to realize and understand that many things of our own interior nature masquerade as outer events when they should be mirrored back into our subjective world from which they sprang. Aphrodite provides this mirror more often than we would like to admit. Whenever one falls in love, sees the god or goddess-like qualities in another, it is Aphrodite mirroring our immortality and divine-like qualities. We are as reluctant to see our virtues as our faults and a long period of suffering generally lies between the mirroring and the accomplishment. Psyche takes just such a long journey between her falling in love with Eros and the discovery of her own immortality. (I am indebted to Betty Smith for this insight.)
This Aphrodite is the great mother goddess as seen through the eyes of her future daughter-in-law. When a woman mediates beauty and grace to the world, often it is the Aphrodite or Venus energy at work. But when Aphrodite is confronting her daughter-in-law she is jealous, competitive and determined to set out hurdles for Psyche at every turn. This drama of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is acted out in every culture and is one of the psychic irritants which can contribute so much to a young woman's growth. For a young woman to cope with her mother-in-law's power system is to attain feminine maturity. She is no longer that dewdrop which came so naively into the world and into her marriage.
It is embarrassing for a modern, reasonably intelligent woman to discover her Aphrodite nature and the primitive, instinctive tricks it can play. Aphrodite often shows her tyrannical side and thinks her word is law.
Naturally, when a new kind of femininity appears on the stage of evolution, the old goddess will be irate. She will use any means at her disposal to down an opponent. Every woman knows this through her own sudden regressions to her Aphrodite nature; a woman is a terrifying figure when she falls prey to it. It is a rare and intelligent household where, in her sudden eruptions, Aphrodite can be called by her true name and that sublime energy put to its real use.
Aphrodite energy is a valuable quality. She is in the service of personal development and wields her terrible power to make those around her grow. When it is time for growth, the old ways and the old habits must welcome the new. The old way seems to hinder the new growth at every point, but if you persevere, this way will bring a new consciousness to birth.
There is a story about the first elephant born in captivity. At first its keeper was delighted, but then he was horrified when the other elephants in the compound gathered in a circle and tossed the new baby to each other around the circle. The keeper thought they were killing it, but they were only making it breathe.
Often, when new growth occurs, the most dreadful things seem to happen, but then we see that they were exactly what was required. Aphrodite, who is criticized at every turn, does what is necessary to make Psyche's evolution possible. It is easy to be optimistic after the fact, but it is devilishly painful while it is happening. There is a sort of inner chaotic evolutionary warfare happening during this time. The old way, the Aphrodite nature, is regressive. It pulls a woman back into unconsciousness, while at the same time it forces her forward into new life---sometimes at great risk. It may be that evolution could be accomplished in another way; or it may be that at times Aphrodite is the only element that can bring about growth. There are women, for example, who might not grow unless they have a tyrant of a mother-in-law or stepmother.
The Collision
Much of the turmoil for a modern woman is the collision between her Aphrodite nature and her Psyche nature. It helps to have a framework for understanding the process; if she can see what is happening, she is well on her way to a new consciousness.
Chapter Two The Youth of Psyche
Having seen something of the nature of Aphrodite, the older, more primitive level of femininity, let us look at the new expression of the feminine. Unlike Aphrodite, who was born from the sea, Psyche was born when a dewdrop fell on the land. This change from the ocean of Aphrodite to the land of Psyche is a progression from the early oceanic feminine quality to a new form which is more human-like. From oceanic proportions we move to a smaller more comprehensible scale.
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 Psyche 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.
All manner of nonsense goes on when a woman tries to bring her Psyche nature into the everyday give-and-take of relationship. If the Psyche nature is a large part of a woman, she has a painful task on her hands. She bursts into tears and says, "But nobody understands me." And it is true! Every woman has this quality within her; it makes no difference what her station in life may be. If you see this quality and can touch it in a woman, the great beauty and divinity of a Psyche can be made conscious in her and a noble evolution begins.
If a woman is very beautiful, the problem is compounded. Marilyn Monroe is a touching example; she was worshipped far and wide and yet had great difficulty relating closely to any one person. Finally she found life intolerable. Such a woman is the carrier of a goddess-like quality, an almost unapproachable perfection that finds no place in the ordinary human realm of relationship. You can set in motion the evolution required of Psyche if you understand this dynamic.
I once saw a film in which two horribly disfigured people in an institution fell in love with each other. Through the magic of fantasy each became infinitely beautiful to the other and a love affair went on between these two handsome, beautiful people. At the end of the movie, the camera blurred back to show the two originally disfigured faces; but the audience knew where they had been; they had seen the god and goddess within, which were stronger than the outer reality of disfigurement. This shows the breach between the interior goddess and the exterior every-dayness that is the heart of our story.
The Marriage
Psyche is the despair of her parents because, while her two older sisters have happily married neighboring kings, no one asks for Psyche's hand. Men only worship her. The king goes to an oracle, who happens to be dominated by Aphrodite, and she, irate and jealous of Psyche, has the oracle give a terrible prophesy! Psyche is to be married to Death, the ugliest, the most horrible, the most awful creature possible. Psyche is to be taken to the top of a mountain, chained to a rock, and left to be ravished by this dreadful creature, Death.
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.
What can we make of this? Psyche is to be married---but to Death! In truth the maiden does die on her wedding day; an era of her life is over and she dies to many of the feminine elements she has lived thus far in her life. 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.
We are not sufficiently aware of the dual aspect of marriage and try to see it only as white and joyous; the dying to an old part of life should be honored or the emotions will surface later in a less appropriate form. For example, some women may experience a fierce resentment toward marriage months or even years later.
I have seen pictures of a Turkish wedding party in which boys of eight or nine each had one foot bound to their thigh and were hopping on one leg. This was to remind everyone that pain was present at the wedding as well as joy.
In African weddings, unless the bride arrives with scars and wounds, it is not a valid wedding. Unless she has been abducted there is no true wedding. If the sacrificial element of a wedding is given its due, the joy of the marriage is possible. Aphrodite does not like maidens to die at the hands of men. It is not her nature to be carried off by a man. So the Aphrodite in a woman weeps at the ending of her maiden-hood. Aphrodite plays her paradoxical role of demanding the wedding but resenting the loss of the maiden. These echoes from long ago still lie deep in us and are best honored by conscious ceremony.
Here again we observe the paradox of evolution. It is Aphrodite who condemns Psyche to death but who is also the matchmaker who brings about the very wedding she is opposing. The forward evolution toward marriage is accompanied by a regressive tug of longing for the autonomy and the freedom of things as they were before.
I once saw a insightful cartoon that summed up the archetypal power of a wedding. It showed the thoughts of each of the parents during the wedding. The father of the bride is angry at that fellow who is audacious enough to snatch his darling away from him; the father of the groom is triumphant at the supremacy of the males of the community; the mother of the bride is horrified at the beast who is carrying away her child; the mother of the groom is angry at the vixen who has seduced her son away from her. Many of the ancient archetypes, those embedded patterns of thought and behavior laid down in the unconscious of the human psyche through countless years of evolution, were depicted in the cartoon. If we do not observe them at appropriate times they will intrude later and cause much trouble.
Chapter Three Eros
In order to destroy Psyche, as she wished to do, Aphrodite engages the assistance of her son, Eros, the god of love. Eros, Amor, and Cupid are various names that have been given to the god of love. Since Cupid has been degraded to the level of valentine cards, and Amor has been shorn of his dignity, let us use the name Eros for this noble god.
Eros carries his quiver of arrows and is the bane (woe) of everyone on Olympus; not even the gods escape his power. Yet Eros is under the thumb of his mother who instructs him to enflame Psyche with love for the loathsome beast who will come to claim her, thus ending Psyche's challenge to Aphrodite. One of Aphrodite's characteristics is that she is constantly regressive. She wants things to go back where they were; she wants evolution to go backward. She is the voice of tradition, and ironically, it is this very tendency that carries our story forward in its evolution.
There are many levels from which to view Eros. He may be seen as the outer man, the husband, or the male in every relationship; or he may be seen as the principle of union and the harmony that is the culmination of our story. Eros is not only sexuality: remember that he aims his arrows at the heart, not at the genitals. We will speak of these aspects of Eros as our myth continues.
The Wedding of Death
Eros goes to do his mother's bidding, but just as he glimpses Psyche, he accidentally pricks his finger on one of his own arrows and falls in love with her. He decides instantly to take Psyche as his own bride and asks his friend, the West Wind, to lift her very gently down from the top of the mountain into the Valley of Paradise. The West Wind does this, and Psyche, who was expecting Death, finds herself in a heaven-on-earth instead. She does not ask Eros any questions but luxuriates in her unexpected good fortune. Eros comes to Psyche, and even beautiful as he is, he is death to her. All husbands are death to their wives in that they destroy them as maidens and force them into an evolution toward mature womanhood. It is paradoxical, but you can feel both gratitude and resentment toward the person who forces you to begin down your own path of growth. The oracle was right; a man is death to a woman in an archetypal sense. When a man sees an anguished look on his partner's face, this is a time to be gentle and cautious; it may be that she is just waking up to the fact that she is dying a little as maiden. He can make it easier for her at this moment if he will be gentle and understanding.
A man rarely understands that marriage is death and resurrection both for a woman, since he has no exact parallel in his own life. Marriage is not a sacrificial matter to a man, but there is much of that element in a woman's experience. She may look at her husband in horror one day because she realizes she is bound in her marriage as he is not. She is even more profoundly bound if there are children. She may resent this, but not to be caught in this way by life is an even worse death.
There are women of fifty who have never been to the Death mountain, though they may be grandmothers. The dewy quality is not off the world for them even in middle age. There are also young girls of sixteen who know that experience, have been through it and survived it and have a terrifying wisdom in their eyes.
These things do not happen automatically at any particular age. I knew a girl of sixteen who had a baby. She went off to have it privately and quietly and gave the baby away in adoption so that she never saw it. She came back and nothing had happened to her; she had not learned anything of the Death mountain. Several years later she married, and if anybody could be called virginal, she had that quality. Psychologically she had not been touched, even though she had been through the experience of childbirth.
The Eros in each woman terminates her naivety and childlike innocence at vastly different times in life; it is not just when she marries. Many girls are through it very early in life, which is a cruel experience; others never experience it at all.
Marriage is a very different experience for a man than for a woman. The man is adding to his stature; his world is getting stronger, and he has risen in stature and position. He generally does not understand that he is killing the Psyche in his new wife, and that he must do this. If she behaves strangely, or if something goes dreadfully wrong, or there are many tears, he usually doesn't understand that marriage is a totally different experience for her than for him. A woman takes on a new stature in her marriage but not until she has been through the Death mountain experience.
The Garden of Paradise
Psyche finds herself in a magnificent paradise. She has everything one could wish. Her god-husband, Eros, is with her every night and puts only one restriction on her; he extracts from her the promise that she will not look at him and will not inquire into any of his ways. She may have anything she wishes, she may live in her paradise, but she must not ask to know or see him. Psyche agrees to this.
Nearly every man wants this of his wife. If she will not ask for consciousness and do things his way there is perfect peace in the house. He wants the old patriarchal marriage where the man decides all the important issues, the woman agrees, and there is peace. Most men harbor the hope that things will go in this manner and for a little while there is the possibility that marriage will be like this.
This is likely an echo of some primitive patriarchal structure in which the woman is subject to the man. There are still remnants of this patriarchal world in our modern customs, for example, when a woman bears the man's name. Eros insists that she not ask any questions, never see him; these are the conditions of the patriarchal marriage.
Every immature Eros is a paradise-maker. It is adolescent to carry a girl off and promise her that she will live happily ever after. That is Eros in a secretive stage; he wants his paradise, but no responsibility, no conscious relationship. There is a bit of this in every man. The feminine demand for evolution and growth---and most growth comes from the feminine element in the myths---is a terrifying experience to a man. He wants just to remain in paradise.
Listen to lovers build a paradise! The talk and vocabulary is of another world, the paradise world. It is a brief preview of a true paradise that will be attained much later by very hard work. One can not criticize such a preview, but an onlooker knows the first glimpse of paradise will not be stable or long-lasting.
There is something in the unconscious of a man that wishes to make an agreement with his wife that she shall ask no questions of him. Often his attitude toward marriage is that it should be there for him at home but it should not be an encumbrance. He wants to be free to forget about it when he wants to focus elsewhere. This is a great shock to a woman when she discovers this attitude in her man. Marriage is a total commitment for a woman; it is not so all encompassing for a man. I remember a woman who told me she cried for days when she discovered that their marriage was only one aspect of her husband's life though it was the primary fact of hers. She had discovered her husband in his Eros, paradise-making nature.
Paradise Lost
All paradises fail. Each one has a serpent in it that demands the opposite of the peace and tranquility of the Garden of Eden.
The serpent quickly appears for Psyche's paradise in the form of her two sisters, who have been mourning her loss---though not with deep sincerity. They hear that Psyche is living in a garden paradise and that she has a god as a husband. Their jealousy knows no bounds! They come to the crag where Psyche had been chained and call down to her in the garden, send their best wishes, and inquire about her health.
Psyche naively reports all this to Eros. He warns her over and over that she is in great danger. He tells her that if she pays attention to her inquiring sisters, there will be a disaster. And if Psyche continues unquestioning, her child will be a god and immortal; but if she breaks her vow of not questioning, the child will be born a girl and a mortal. Worse than this, Eros will leave her if she ever begins questioning him.
Psyche listens and again agrees to ask no questions. The sisters call again and finally Psyche extracts permission from Eros to let them come for a visit. Soon after, the sisters are wafted down from the high crag by the West Wind, and are deposited safely in the lovely garden. They admire everything and are entertained lavishly. Of course they are consumed with envy and jealousy at what has happened to their young sister. They ask many questions and Psyche, in her naivete, describes her husband through her own fantasy though she has never seen him. She heaps extravagant presents upon her sisters and sends them home.
Eros warns again and again, but the sisters come back. This time Psyche, forgetting what she had told them before, tells a different fantasy about her husband. When the sisters return home they discuss this and brew up a venomous plan. On a third visit they will tell her that her husband is actually a serpent, a loathsome creature, and that when her baby is born, he plans to devour both mother and child!
The sisters also have a plan to save Psyche from this horrible end. They advise Psyche to get a lamp, put it in a covered vessel, and have it ready in the bedchamber. She is to take the sharpest knife available and have it beside her on the couch. In the middle of the night, when her husband is fast asleep, she must expose the lamp, see her loathsome husband for the first time, and sever his head with her knife. Psyche quickly falls under the spell of this advice and prepares herself to unmask her terrible husband.
Eros comes to the couch after dark and falls asleep beside Psyche. In the night she takes the cover off the lamp, grasps the knife, stands over her husband, and looks at him for the first time. To her utter amazement and bewilderment, and now overwhelmed with guilt, she sees that he is a god, the god of love, the most beautiful creature in all of Olympus! She is so shaken and terrified by this that she thinks of killing herself at her terrible mistake. She fumbles with the knife and drops it. She then accidentally pricks herself on one of Eros' arrows and falls in love with the husband she has seen for the first time.
She jostles the lamp and a drop of oil from it falls on Eros' right shoulder. He wakes in pain from the hot oil, sees what has happened and, being a winged creature, takes flight. Poor Psyche clings to him and is carried a little way just far enough to be taken from the paradise garden. She soon falls to the earth exhausted and desolate. Eros lights nearby and says that she has disobeyed, broken her covenant, and destroyed the paradise garden. He tells her, as he had warned, her child will be born a mortal and a girl. He will go away, punishing her by his absence. Then he flies away to his mother, Aphrodite.
The Modern Drama
This is a drama replayed countless times in many marriages. What does this archaic, poetic, mythic language tell us about woman and her relationship to man---both inner and outer?
The sisters are those nagging voices within, and often without, who do the double task of destroying the old and bringing consciousness of the new. Mid-morning coffee-klatches are often the scene of the two sisters brewing up destructive plots. The two sisters are often at work doing their double duty of challenging the old patriarchal world and urging each other on to a consciousness that will cost more than they realize. We are likely to pay a Promethean cost for the consciousness we so bravely demand.
The questioning sisters are a frightening spectacle, for, though they are the harbingers of consciousness, there is the danger that you can be caught in their stage of development and remain destructive for the rest of your life. Just as you can stay on the mountain of Death and see men as purveyors of disaster, so you can also be caught in the stage of the two sisters and destroy anything that a man tries to create.
A woman is likely to go through a bewildering series of relationships with her partner. He is the god of love, and he is death on the top of the mountain; he is the unknown one in paradise, and he is the censoring one when she demands consciousness. And finally he is the god of love at the summit of Olympus when she comes to her own goddesshood. All this is bewildering to a man. Small wonder that he peers around the door a little gingerly when he comes home each day to see which role is waiting for him. Add to this his own anima involvements and it makes a complex story---but a beautiful one.
The sisters are the demand for evolution from an unexpected source. They may be Psyche's shadow. Dr. Jung described the shadow elements in a personality as those repressed or unlived sides of a person's total potential. Through lack of attention and development, these unlived and repressed qualities remain archaic or turn dark and threatening. These potentialities for good and evil, though repressed, remain in the unconscious, where they gather energy until finally they begin to erupt arbitrarily into our conscious lives, just as the sisters came into Psyche's life at a critical moment.
If we see ourselves consciously as pure loveliness and gentleness only, as Psyche did, we are overlooking this dark side and it may emerge to push us out of our self-satisfied, naive paradise into new discoveries about our true nature.
Dr. Jung said that the demand for growth in consciousness often comes from the shadow. So the sisters, those less than lovely and imperfect parts of Psyche, serve her well.
(C. S. Lewis treats this aspect of the myth with genius---Psyche's naive identification with her own loveliness and the less lovely sisters' reaction to it---in his book, "Till We Have Faces".)
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