Chapter 4: The Punishment

Since divine honors were being diverted in an excessive way to the worship of a mortal maiden, it fiercely kindled the wrath of the true Venus. In a fit of anger, she could not control herself and tossed her head back with a deep growl like a lioness.

"Here am I, the ancient mother of the universe," she seethed, "the founding creator of the elements, the goddess that tends the entire world! Yet I am compelled to share the glory of my beauty with a mortal!"

She paced her chamber of pearl and ivory with a look of irritation. Even the nectar in her golden cup tasted bitter in her mouth. Venus would not rest until she had done something terrible.

"My name which is highly respected in heaven is now degraded by the foulness of the earthling below."

She wouldn't share her majesty and divine power with a lowly human, allowing a girl to strut around posing as her double. This girl, whoever she was, was not going to enjoy the same honors that were hers.

"I will teach that silly maiden a lesson," she decided. "How dare she go about pretending to be as beautiful as I? When I get through with her she will wish she'd been born ugly as a toad!"

Venus at once summoned her daughter Cupid, that winged, most beautiful youth, who went rampaging through people's houses at night armed with her torch and arrows. The goddess undermined the marriages of all and always got away with her deeds for she was almost always invisible.

Cupid arrived at her mother's palace, still fluttering her enormous wings after a long day of shooting her beloved arrows. Her work was her entertainment.

She found Venus sitting poised in her garden. The fountains of laughing water and sweetly scented blooms didn't seem to enliven her mother's mood as they always did. Floating down and landed by the padded recliner, she went to Venus, who welcomed her into her lovely white arms.

"Mother, why do you seem so sad today?"

"Daughter, your mother has been insulted," Venus said to her. "See that castle down there?"

She pointed to the water of the fish pond. The clear surface rippled and the reflection changed, showing a city, a palace and then a chamber. In the bower there, a maiden lay asleep.

"I beg you by the bond of a mother's love, by the sweet wounds which your darts inflict and the honeyed blisters left by this torch of yours, please, ensure you go pierce her with one of your arrows."

"While she is asleep, mother? What good will it do?" Cupid said.

"No good at all, my dear, nothing but evil, which is exactly what I plan for her," Venus said with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

After showing Psyche in the flesh to her daughter, Venus began to tell the whole story of their rivalry, and grumbling and growling with displeasure. Cupid couldn't see Psyche's face clearly, but she knew by the perfect slender form of her body and how her mother had reacted that the girl must be extremely beautiful.

"Be sure that your mother gets her full revenge, and punish harshly this mortal girl and her arrogance," Venus said. "Be willing to perform this single service for me, my girl. See that Psyche is possessed by consuming passion."

"But she can fall in love only with the one she is looking at when my arrows pierce her. Why bother when she is asleep?" Cupid asked her mother innocently.

"Because if you scratch her with the arrow while she sleeps, she will form a passion for the first one she sees when she awakes. And I will take care to supply her with someone very special. The lowest possible specimen of humanity, for one who has lost status, a man so disreputable that nowhere in the world can he find an equal in wretchedness."

Cupid frowned. She was always delighted to perform her task, but she had never been asked to do such a vile deed.

"This is a cruel trick, Mother." She looked back at Venus, but the older goddess's eyes only focused on the water of the pond, which showed her new victim. Her gaze shone with vengeance and hatred.

"Yes, it's meant to be cruel. I tell you the girl has irritated my heart. Now, will you go and do your work for me?"

With these words, Venus kissed her daughter long and sweetly with parted lips until Cupid acquiesced to the plan.

Cupid picked up her bow again and flew off Olympus towards the shore lapped by waves.

That night, the winged goddess flew towards Psyche's palace. She made herself invisible and went through the window of her chamber. The goddess stood looking at the canopied bed where a brilliant form lay.

Cupid walked towards the sleeping maiden and parted the sheer curtains. From a mortal eye, it would seem as if the wind had flicked them apart.

"She is very beautiful," the goddess gasped in astonishment. "Too beautiful for her own safety, poor girl."

She leaned over her, holding her dart so as to delicately scratch her fair shoulder. But then Psyche turned her face around and opened her eyes. She gazed pierced into hers, though she could not see the goddess. And those huge brilliant eyes and beautiful face startled Cupid and the dart slipped, scratching her own hand. The goddess stood there feeling the sweet poison spread in her veins, confused, growing dizzy with joy and lust and strangeness.

Cupid had spread love, but never felt it, shot others, but never been wounded by her own arrows. And she did not know her heart could be this way. Psyche closed her eyes and went to sleep again. Cupid stood still looking at her. Suddenly, Psyche had become the most wonderful, the most precious, the most valuable thing in the world to her.

And the goddess knew that she would never let the maiden come to any harm if she could prevent it. Cupid thrust her dart back into her quiver and flew away to Olympus.

Meanwhile, the King had returned to his kingdom and unfolded the prophecy of that ominous oracle to his wife. They held each other and wept in grief and lamentation for several hours. But they knew the warnings of heaven shall come to pass, and they must obey.

The grim prediction of the dread oracle Delphi from Apollo, the god of prophecy, loomed over them, urging them to prepare the marriage for their ill-fated daughter with a winged monster, and Psyche's presence was demanded to meet her appointed punishment.