Psyche

The ancient Greeks and Romans both had a folk-tale about Psyche, a woman so beautiful that the goddess of love (Venus to the Romans, Aphrodite to the Greeks, ) became jealous of her. The goddess told her son, Cupid to the Romans, Eros to the Greeks) to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man on earth.

However, when Cupid saw Psyche, he accidentally stuck himself with one of own arrows, and fell in love with her himself. No mortal man would marry Psyche. Her parents consulted an oracle, who told them to leave her on a mountain, because she was so beautiful, she was meant for a god. On the mountain, Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, carried Psyche to a beautiful palace, where invisible servants waited on her all day.

At night, in the dark, Cupid came to her, and they made sweet love. Cupid told her that he would only come to her at night, and she could never see him. However, Cupid allowed her two sisters to visit her during the day. The sisters were jealous, and told Psyche that the reason her husband wouldn't let her see him was that he was a monster. They told her he would eat her and the child that she was expecting.

Psyche didn't believe her sisters, but she wondered about the true identity of her husband. And so, she prepared herself with both a lamp and a dagger, to see her husband, and to kill him or herself if he proved to be the monster they predicted.

That night, Cupid came to visit her, as usual. After he went to sleep, Psyche lit the lamp, and held it up to see her husband. Instead of a monster, she saw a most beautiful youth, bearing wings, and she knew he was a god. She felt such love for him, she wanted to give herself to him. However, she spilled some burning oil from the lamp on him. He awoke, and immediately flew away.

After that, Psyche was consumed with the need to win him back. She went to many temples, praying for his return. The goddess Ceres told her she must pray to the goddess Venus to allow him to come to her.

Psyche sought out a temple to Venus, and prayed for the forgiveness of the goddess. Venus was glad to wreak her vengeance on Psyche, and told her she must perform several tasks in order to win forgiveness. First, Venus told Psyche, she must separate all the grains in a large pile of different kinds of grains, into their unique kinds, and present each one into a bundle offered to Venus.

Venus did her best to separate the grains -- a great pile of wheat, barley, millet, vetches, beans, and lentils -- each into its own kind. An ant saw what she was doing, and offered it services, and those of its kind, to separate the grains. At the end of the day, the ants had sorted the grains, and placed them into piles. When Venus appeared to Psyche, she had to accept that Psyche had performed the task assigned to her.

However, Venus next assigned a second task: to gather the wool from some golden sheep that were very dangerous. When Psyche went to accomplish the task, a river god warned her that the sheep were dangerous while they were awake, but if she waited until later in the day, the sheep would be asleep, and so she could gather some of their fleece that stuck to the branches and bark of the trees. Psyche gathered the wool, as the river god told her, and presented it to Venus.

At last, Venus told her she must go to the Underworld, and ask Persephone, the goddess of that place, to give Venus a bit of her beauty, in a box that Venus gave Psyche. Venus claimed that the care she had to give her son, because of Psyche's fault, had made lose some of her beauty.

Psyche made her very dangerous way into the Underworld, where she asked Persephone, as Venus had requested. Persephone placed her gift to Venus into the box, and told Psyche to go.

When Psyche returned to the Earth plane, however, she could not resist opening the box, so she could share some of the beauty Persephone gave Venus. However, Persephone had filled the box with an eternal sleep, which overcame Psyche.

When Cupid saw what had overcome Psyche, he went to her and wiped the eternal sleep from her eyes. He then went to Jupiter, the king of the gods, and begged him to grant immortality to his wife, Psyche. Jupiter then called a full and formal council of the gods, and declared it was his will that Cupid might marry Psyche. The gods then granted them permission to marry, and allowed Psyche to drink of the ambrosia that gave her eternal life.

English word: Psyche gives us many words, starting with psyche, itself, meaning the soul or spirit. Also, it gives us psychology, the science of the spirit, and psychiatry, the science of the mind along with a medical degree, and its related words, psychiatrist and psychiatric. It also gives us psychic, meaning perceiving by mind and spirit. In addition, we find the phrase Psyche's knot, referring to the hair-style of Psyche, and psychometry, the process of detecting information about the owner of objects using only the mind, and psychosis, a sickness of the mind.

Venus

To the ancient Romans, Venus (Greek, Aphrodite) was the goddess of love. She was the wife of Vulcan and the mother of Cupid (although Vulcan was not necessarily his father).

English word: From Venus get the name for Venus, the second planet from the sun, which is often the morning or evening star. We also get venereal, relating to sexual intercourse, especially to describe sexually transmitted disease.

Vulcan

To the ancient Romans, Vulcan (Greek, Hephaestus) was the god of fire, especially in its fearful aspects. He was also the god of metal working, the smith of the gods. Ironically, this ugly god was the husband of the beautiful Venus.

English word: More than one word comes to us from Vulcan, including volcano, vulcanism, and vulcanize. In "Star Trek," Mr. Spock is from the planet Vulcan. Also, many corporations use Vulcan in their names.

Eros

Eros was an ancient Greek god of love (Latin, Cupid), commonly said the be the son of Aphrodite (Latin, Venus). This is the same little guy with the bow and arrows that made people and gods fall in love.

English word: Eros is the source of erotic and related words.

Cupid

To the ancient Romans, Cupid was a god of love (Eros to the ancient Greeks), sometimes called Amor. The myths of his origins vary, but a common one says he was the son of Venus (the goddess of love) and Mars (the god of war). He was usually portrayed as a child or baby with wings, who carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. When he shot someone with one of his arrows, the person fell in love. One of the best-known of the stories about Cupid is the story of how he fell in love with Psyche, but that one I'll save for later.

English word: The name of this god has survived in English, and the image of the winged baby with bow and arrows is the common symbol for Valentine's Day. The phrase cupid's bow describes shapely lips. Cupidity means inordinate greed for wealth. Even Kewpie doll comes from Cupid.