Don't Look Now

One of the stories that's always haunted me and that ended up having a role in The Other Island is the myth of Cupid and Psyche. There's a very similar plot in the Scandinavian story East of the Sun and West of the Moon. It has an arc called "The Lost Husband."

Psyche is a lovely girl who inspires the envy of Venus. Venus sends her son, Cupid, to shoot one of his arrows into her heart and make her fall in love with some monster in order to punish her. Instead, Cupid sees her beauty and shoots himself. He invites Psyche to marry him, but hides his identity and says she must never look at him. Someone, envious sisters or the jealous Venus, makes her doubt her husband and say he must be a monster. In the middle of the night, she lights a candle to look at him. Struck by his great beauty, she lets drops of wax fall on him and he wakes up in alarm, says he has to leave and she won't find him until she completes a number of impossible tasks. She gets to work and wins him back.

Or at least that's how I remember it. There are many elements that I love about this story. In the Scandinavian version the young woman is wooed by a great white bear, which I find enormously appealing. Illustrated versions of the tale show the woman being carried away into a snowy night on the back of the enormous beast. Sometimes it's the tasks that catch my fancy. I like the version in which she just has to walk. She doesn't have a destination, but she must keep going until she wears out seven pairs of iron shoes, seven iron mantles, and fills seven bottles with her tears.

But the main plot points that bring me back to the story again and again to read for my own pleasure, or to use in my writing, are two powerful and opposing forces: Doubt and determination. She doubts her love, or her lover. She has to see. As a skeptic, of course I understand this action, even though it condemns her over and over. Even if it's not doubt, it could be curiosity. It could be the very natural impulse to want to know all about the one you love, warts and all. How can you love if you don't know? How can you be loved without being seen? The other driving force of the story is her redemption, when she sees everything she has and loses it all in the same act. She knows exactly what she wants and will do anything to get it. I think of the satisfaction she has along with the pain as she walks along the road or weeps into the neck of a wine bottle or makes her shirts of nettle.

One thing that doesn't get asked enough is why exactly her love interest has to hide from her in the first place. I suppose he has his reasons, but the story isn't about him.