PSYCHE (Gr. breath, or soul), a creation of the later mythology of Greece, or perhaps we should rather say, a personification of the human soul, devised by the later poets. Appuleius (q.v.) relates the following story about her, which is obviously allegorical. Psyche was the youngest of three daughters of a king. She was so exquisitely beautiful that mortals mistook her for Venus, and did not dare to love, but only to worship her. This excited the jealousy of the goddess, who sent Eros (Cupid) to inspire Psyche with a passion for the most contemptible of 'all men; but Eros was himself wounded as deeply by her glances as ever he had wounded other with his darts. Meanwhile, Psyche's father wished to see his daughter married, and inquired about her at the oracle of Apollo, by whom he was told to bear the maiden in funeral robes to the summit of a hill, and to leave her there alone, as she was destined to be the bride of a huge all destroying snaky monster, that terrified both gods and men. Amid loud wailing and lament, gsyche was borne to the fatal spot, and left trembling in horrible solitude, when suddenly a light-winged zephyr flew round her, and bore her off to a beautiful palace of pleasure belonging to Eros, who visited her, unseen and unknown, every night,•and left her before broke. Here Psyche would have enjoyed perpetual delight, had
she remembered the advice of her unknown lover, who warned her not to seek to know who he was. But her jealous sisters, whom, against Eros's injunction, she had allowed to visit her, working upon her curiosity, persuaded her that she was embracing a mon ster in the darkness of night; and having lighted a lamp when Eros was asleep, she saw with rapture that she was the mistress of the most handsome of gods. In her excite ment, she let a drop of hot oil fall on the sleeper's shoulder, who awoke, upbraided her for her mistrust, and vanished.. Psyche, gave way to the most passionate grief; she even thought of drowning herself. After wandering about for some time, she came to the palace of Venus, where she was seized by the goddess, and kept as a slave. Eros, how ever, who still loved her, invisibly helped and comforted the hapless maiden, reconciled her to his mother, and was finally united to her in immortal wedlock. All critics have agreed to consider the story an allegory of •the progress of the human soul through earthly passion and misfortune to pure celestial felicity.