Week 3 Storytelling: Envy's Lament

Beauty, you know—it has a way of cultivating resentment. This girl, Psyche, she never had a chance.

“My friend,” I chided Fortuna when she bestowed the girl’s beauty upon her, “You were kinder to her sisters. This gift will only bring her pain.”

And I was right—I knew it the day Venus’ screams of anger echoed off the sheer sea cliffs. She needed not invoke me. My plan had been long due, long coming, and I had spent many days and nights planning Psyche’s sad fate.

I had stood many times in that throng of onlookers who had flocked to the city of Abyme to see its princess. Foolishly, they prayed to the princess as though she were the incarnation of Venus herself. I tsked—while Fortuna had foolishly blessed this girl with such beauty, Psyche knew nothing of the love that was Venus’ domain. She didn’t understand love’s fury, nor its power. Rumor had told of a girl whose beauty was cosmic, but my divine sight saw a girl with melancholy eyes, a mouth tightened with worry, and hair pulled thin by her own slender fingers in fits of anxiety.

If her beauty had been born from the sea, like Venus’, it was this sea, this ocean of people who carried her tale back with them to Paphos, Cnidos, and Cythera.

As Venus’ rage grew, so did Psyche’s despair. I was always near: a maid in passing by her doorway, a flickering candle on the edge of her bath, a songbird silent on her windowsill. Sorrow haunted her. She knew loneliness familiar only to those who were idolized, who were pushed far out onto a pedestal for worship.

Still, Venus’ indignation knew no limits. I watched her as she stood over Psyche’s bed one night and said, shaking with rage: “Behold me, the primal mother of all that is, the source of the elements, the whole world’s bountiful love and beauty—me, driven to divide my godly rights with a lowly human! Is my name, established in heaven, to be maligned by earthly pollution? Am I to suffer the whims of displaced admiration, a share in the worship of my divinity, instead of the whole? Is a mortal girl permitted to tread the earth in my likeness? Does it mean nothing that Paris chose me as the most fair and beautiful of all goddesses, when she walks the earth?” She cried out in blind anger, lashing out, and sent a nearby oil lamp to the floor. Psyche did not wake, but shifted, still wrapped in the folds of Night’s soft robes.

Venus’ anger was honest, and so was her heartbreak. Sympathetic, I spoke quietly: “She doesn’t mean to do you any harm. If anything, her beauty has kept her from knowing you and your gifts. She takes no pleasure in how the other humans treat her.”

“How dare you side with her?” Venus retorted. “You, the bringer of retribution against those who flaunt undeserved gifts of good fortune?”

“These things aren’t always accomplished with the kind of righteous anger you’re familiar with,” I said. “Love will not conquer this girl—loneliness will.”

This would be, in fact, the culmination of my plan for Psyche, the price she would have to pay. My job was to make her suffer all those years. Sympathetic though I was, it was my job to make sure Fortuna’s gift did not go unchecked. For every floral wreath thrown upon her head, I made sure another tear slipped down her cheek.

But Venus persisted. The only way she could see to solve this problem was through her own power. Make the girl suffer; make her fall in love with a wretched man. She knew what she wanted, and it was for the princess to suffer on her terms, not mine.

She disappeared, her final words echoing around Psyche’s bedchamber: “I’ll soon make her regret that illicit beauty of hers.”

And yet, when I next met Fortuna, walking through the streets of Abyme with Psyche’s strange wedding-funeral procession, she was smiling.

“Whatever you’re about to do,” I told her, “don’t. Whatever divine gifts you give her, I’ll have no choice but to make her suffer for them.”

Fortuna put her hands on my shoulders, smiling radiantly. “You, Envy, are among the most hardworking goddesses I know. You have meticulous plans for every mortal—I think, sometimes, you suffer more than they do for the sake of your job. We gods demand so much from you.” She squeezed my arms as people moved around us like water around two pebbles. “But I, too, have a plan. Psyche will endure many hardships at your hands; indeed, my gifts never were for those who could not undergo such trials. Our powers work in tandem, Envy. Psyche will find a balance between your torments and my gifts, as those who suffer often can grow to find goodness in small things and lessons in their many tragedies.”

As I sensed Cupid’s approach, I sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

 

Author's notes:
Some notes are in this post. To make this story different from the last one, I decided not to break it into short scenes, and instead write it more as a monologue. This one also, unlike the last one, follows the story more faithfully. In the original, Envy is only mentioned a few times, and never appears or interacts with any of the main characters. Envy is a goddess of retribution for undeserved gifts, and someone who maintains equilibrium via punishment. She was often associated with Fortuna, who was usually the one who bestowed those extravagant and undeserved gifts.

To summarize the original story, Psyche is a ridiculously beautiful girl who people begin to worship as if she were an incarnation of Venus herself. Venus gets mad and sends Cupid to punish her by making her fall in love with someone wretched and monstrous. So naturally, Cupid ends up marrying her. He takes her to his palace, but refuses to show her what he really looks like, so she has no idea she's married to Cupid himself. She's happy for awhile, until her sisters visit her and convince her to try and sneak a peek at her husband's true face. Psyche can't resist and does just that, using a lantern to look at him while he's sleeping next to her one night. Cupid feels betrayed and flies away, leaving her sorrowful and guilty. When she goes looking for him, Venus finds her and demands she undergo several deadly trials to prove herself worthy. Eventually, with the help of talking animals, reeds, and other Disneyesque things, she nearly completes the last trial, which is to deliver a box filled with divine beauty from Persephone to Venus. Of course, she gets curious and opens the box, and deep sleep overtakes her. Cupid, who can't stand not being with his lady love anymore, finds her, wakes her up with a kiss, and then goes to Jupiter to get his mother off his back. Jupiter grants Psyche immortality, and she and Cupid live forever in bliss.

TL;DR: Psyche is a Disney princess.

Source: Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius' Golden Ass, translated by Tony Kline: Web source


More sources: Envy (Theoi), Fortuna (Theoi)

Image: Arrows, taken by TheDigitalWay. Web source.