Chapter 7: Separation
After rebuking Psyche, Cupid flies back to his mother’s, where Venus rebukes him (7a, by Giulio Romano). He retreats to his room to recover. Thus in this story the puer’s fear is that of the mother, a fear that imprisons him.
There was an alchemical allegory of Sulphur imprisoned by his mother; Jung in Mysterium Coniunctionis identified them as Cupid and Venus. Cupid longs for Psyche (7b, entitled “Morgen,” morning).
It is not hard to suppose that Cupid might pull strings behind the scene to provide information to Psyche that will lead her toward their eventual reuinion.
Venus complains to her aunts, Ceres and Juno, about Cupid’s behavior (7c, by Giulio Romano).
Von Gierke’s version of this scene, entitled “Venus three together” or, in colloquial English, “Venus Threesome”(7d), shows how the goddesses mirror Venus the way Psyche’s sisters mirrored her (image 6e), telling her things she knows but would rather not have to face. The goddess is doubled, the below being like the above and vice versa.
In this mirror picture, unlike 6e, the figures face each other rather than being absorbed in their own preoccupations. In the story, both the goddesses and the sisters act out of their own private preoccupations as well as speaking directly to the one they are advising.
Psyche leaves her palace (7e, entitled “Sonnenweg,”or “Sun’s Path.”)
In this painting, what is Psyche sitting on as she ties her shoe? Is there a winged figure upper left silhouetted in the shadows cast on the wall?). She visits her sisters and tells them she has been cast aside, and that he wants her as his wife. They run to the mountain and jump off, thinking Zephyr will carry them again; she has led them to their deaths. Christian commentators saw it as the repudiation of the body and of free will, neither of which the painters agreed with. So they ignored the whole episode.
Psyche wanders the earth. I am reminded of the Egyptian myth of Isis in search of Osiris, after Seth sent him floating down the Nile locked in a wooden casket. Psyche asks first Juno (7f, Giulio Romano) and then Ceres what they know. They profess ignorance.
She runs into Pan, the nature god who is also “the all” (what pan means in Greek). He is more supportive but again offers no information (7g, by Burne-Jones).
But Psyche comes away with the idea that perhaps Cupid is at his mother’s. She goes to Venus's nearest shrine, planning to beg Venus to let her see him.
There was an alchemical allegory of Sulphur imprisoned by his mother; Jung in Mysterium Coniunctionis identified them as Cupid and Venus. Cupid longs for Psyche (7b, entitled “Morgen,” morning).
It is not hard to suppose that Cupid might pull strings behind the scene to provide information to Psyche that will lead her toward their eventual reuinion.
Venus complains to her aunts, Ceres and Juno, about Cupid’s behavior (7c, by Giulio Romano).
Von Gierke’s version of this scene, entitled “Venus three together” or, in colloquial English, “Venus Threesome”(7d), shows how the goddesses mirror Venus the way Psyche’s sisters mirrored her (image 6e), telling her things she knows but would rather not have to face. The goddess is doubled, the below being like the above and vice versa.
In this mirror picture, unlike 6e, the figures face each other rather than being absorbed in their own preoccupations. In the story, both the goddesses and the sisters act out of their own private preoccupations as well as speaking directly to the one they are advising.
Psyche leaves her palace (7e, entitled “Sonnenweg,”or “Sun’s Path.”)
In this painting, what is Psyche sitting on as she ties her shoe? Is there a winged figure upper left silhouetted in the shadows cast on the wall?). She visits her sisters and tells them she has been cast aside, and that he wants her as his wife. They run to the mountain and jump off, thinking Zephyr will carry them again; she has led them to their deaths. Christian commentators saw it as the repudiation of the body and of free will, neither of which the painters agreed with. So they ignored the whole episode.
Psyche wanders the earth. I am reminded of the Egyptian myth of Isis in search of Osiris, after Seth sent him floating down the Nile locked in a wooden casket. Psyche asks first Juno (7f, Giulio Romano) and then Ceres what they know. They profess ignorance.
She runs into Pan, the nature god who is also “the all” (what pan means in Greek). He is more supportive but again offers no information (7g, by Burne-Jones).
But Psyche comes away with the idea that perhaps Cupid is at his mother’s. She goes to Venus's nearest shrine, planning to beg Venus to let her see him.
posted by Michael S Howard at 10:48 PM
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