Once Psyche was happy and settled into her new life, her two sisters payed her a visit. Supposedly they were seized with jealousy when they saw their sister so happy, so they chatted her ear off about how weird it was that she hasn’t seen her husband’s face.

I take issue with Greek Mythology reducing absolutely every female emotion down to either blinding love or extreme jealousy, so I have another take. Remember that prophecy we talked about last week? The one that said Psyche would marry a serpent who would turn upon her and eat her and her child? I think maybe, just maybe, they were worried about THAT.

Psyche, saw the logic in their very logical concern and was more than likely a bit worried about that herself, so she waited until her husband fell asleep one night and lit a lamp. He ends up being SO beautiful that she jerked back with surprise and scratched her skin on one of the arrows he apparently leaves lying around in dark rooms. Cause that’s safe. (In all seriousness, what if she hadn’t been trying to look at him? What if she needed to go to the restroom, or hello, pregnant woman, walk around.) When she jerked back, the oil from the lamp spilled on Cupid, startling him awake. He flew away, leaving a very confused, very enchanted wife.

Panicked, Psyche visited her sisters and tells them the entire story. NOW they might be jealous about how their sister married a god, because they do something stupid. They offered themselves to Cupid by throwing themselves off a cliff in hopes Zephyrs delivers them to his castle like he did for their sister.

Instead they both fell to their death.

Psyche visited temple after temple, appeasing goddess after goddess in search of her love. But as much as Ceres and Juno are super grateful she cleaned their temples, they didn’t want to get into the middle of this. Psyche eventually got the hint and headed to a temple of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite is not her biggest fan, so she assigns Psyche a series of tasks to perform to earn her maybe son/ maybe primordial deity back. More on that Friday.