Our final example is more akin to what we might think of as a fairy tale.

It is the story of Cupid and Psyche, found in the novel, 'Metamorphoses' (a.k.a. 'The Golden Ass') written by the 2nd century AD novelist and rhetorician, Apuleius (Cupid and Psyche). Once upon a time there was a king with three daughters. They were all beautiful, but by far the most beautiful was the youngest, Psyche. She was so beautiful that people began to neglect the worship of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Venus was very jealous, and asked her son Cupid (the boy with the arrows) to make Psyche fall in love with a horrible monster. When he saw how beautiful she was, Cupid dropped the arrow meant for her and pricked himself, and fell in love with her. Despite her great beauty no-one wanted to marry Psyche. Her parents consulted an oracle, and were told that she was destined to marry a monster, and they were to take her to the top of a mountain and leave her there. The west wind took her and wafted her away to a palace, where she was waited on by invisible servants. When night came her new husband visited her, and told her that he would always visit her by night and she must never try to see him. Although her invisible husband was kind and gentle with her, and the invisible servants attended to her every desire, Psyche grew homesick. She persuaded her husband to allow her sisters to visit her. When they saw how she lived they became very jealous and talked Psyche into peeking at her husband, saying that he was a monster who was fattening her up to be eaten and that her only chance of safety was to kill him. Psyche took a lamp and a knife, but when she saw her beautiful husband, Cupid, she was so surprised she dripped some hot wax onto his shoulder, waking him. He took in the situation at a glance and immediately left Psyche and the magnificent palace she had been living in disappeared in a puff of smoke. Psyche roamed about looking for her husband, and eventually in desperation approached his mother, Venus. Still angry, the goddess set various tasks for Psyche, all of which she passed, with a bit of help from ants and river gods. At last Cupid found out what was going on, and he persuaded Jupiter to order Venus to stop her persecution of Psyche. Then they were married and lived happily ever after - and it really was ever after since Psyche was made a goddess. The similarity to modern day fairy stories such as Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella is obvious

1.(Examiner's Note: This article is the first of five exploring the connection between myth, fairy tale, and the psychological background of culture. The articles will focus on the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche and Disney's Beauty and the Beast.)

We remember the civilizations of the past through many diverse avenues of thought. We try to reconstruct patterns of behavior through ancient records and forensics on remains, but these more often than not give us a superficial look at the people of the past. The greatest psychological records left to us are in the ancient myths and religions of these people. An entire epoch of psychological life can be related to us through these stories and parables. Then in relatively recent history the fairy tale, after toiling in literary limbo, was considered to be able to convey this sort of message to us. In our modern times the myth has gone by the wayside, seemingly strange soap operas of long-gone Greeks we can puzzle over. A myth is something to be busted, or we see it referenced as something that must be seen through, such as Thomas Szaszs The Myth of Mental Illness. However, the fairy tale saw a revival in the works of Walt Disney, which saw a boom in popularity during my generation. The Lion Kingbrought us a retelling of Hamlet; Aladdin revived the tales of djinns and nefarious court wizards in mysterious Arabia; Hercules reintroduced us to the plotting of the gods in Ancient Greece. This also followed with re-releases of popular movies from Disneys past such as Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, and Peter Pan.

There was no movie that captured imaginations during that time like Beauty and the Beast. Based off of a French fairy tale of the same name, it was widely regarded not only as one of the finest animated movies of 1991, but as one of the finest movies of any category for the year. It told a timeless

story of romance amid magic and song. It also happens to be in the long line of retellings of the Greek myth, as told by Apuleius in The Golden Ass, of Eros (Cupid) and Psyche. The story spans the psychological life of Western Civilization from Ancient Greece to post-modern America. Changes in the telling of the story can reveal to us changes in culture.

Since it can be assumed that more people have seen the movie than read the story, it bears a brief retelling here. Psyche was a woman of unparalleled beauty, so much so that even Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of beauty, was wildly jealous of her. She seeks to kill this beauty and employs her son Eros (Cupid) to do so. Instead of killing her, Eros falls deeply in love with her, pricked by one of his own arrows. Eros marries Psyche, but tells her that she can never look upon his face, or that there would be grave consequences. Curious Psyche could not help but wish to look upon the face of her husband and one night after they have had sex, holds a lamp up to his sleeping face to reveal that it is in fact Eros who she is married to. She spills a bit of hot candle wax onto Eros and wakes him from his slumber. Furiously, he flies off and banishes her from the castle.

Psyche is devastated and goes to the temple of Aphrodite and offers her servitude if she can see Eros once more. She is given four impossible tasks in order to find atonement. Each time she is about to cave into despair, some form of nature seeks to help her with the tasks. First an army of ants, then a river god, an eagle, and even a tower animates itself to guide her through the four tasks. At the completion of the fourth task Psyche falls into a comatose state due to her wishing to take some of the beauty of Persephone she had gathered for Aphrodite. Eros rescues her and then asks Zeus if she may become an immortal. Zeus grants this wish and Psyche drinks the Ambrosia, taking her place among the gods.

This story contains many elements of fairy tales throughout history. Along with being the inspiration for Beauty and the Beast one can see elements of Sleeping Beauty and Phantom of the Opera as well. More than that it presents us with the psychological story of Eros pursuing Psyche. Freud would later designate Eros as the life force, or that which strives to build towards ever-growing levels of complexity. Psyche is translated as soul, such as we see in the original intention of psychology: not a study of the mind, but a search of the human soul. Eros makes itself known to Psyche, the life force does its work through the human soul. Seemingly imperiled on the way towards this great energy, by good gratis Psyche is saved and blessed with immortality. All joy desires eternity, desires deep, deep eternity.

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al-Butur
al-Butur, in full Ab Ubdah al-Wald ibn Ubayd Allh al-Butur (born 821, Manbij,Syriadied 897, Manbij), one of the most outstanding poets of the Abbsid period (7501258). Al-Butur devoted his early poetry, written between the ages of 16 and 19, to his tribe, the ayyi . Sometime after 840 he came to the attention of the prominent poet Ab Tammm, who encouraged his panegyrics and brought him to the caliphal capital of Baghdad. Al-Butur met with little success there and returned to Syria in 844. On his second visit to Baghdad, c. 848, he was introduced to the caliph, ... (100 of 234 words)

Buhturi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Buhturi, Arabic, ( al-Wald ibn `Ubayd Allh al-Buhtur) (820897) was an Arab poet born at Manbij in Syria, between Aleppo and the Euphrates. Like Abu Tammam, he was of the tribe of Tai. While still young, he went to visit Abu Tammam at Homs, and by him was commended to the authorities at Ma'arrat an-Nu'man, who gave him a pension of 4000 dirhams yearly. Later he went to Baghdad, where he wrote verses in praise of the caliph al-

Mutawakkil and of the members of his court. Although long resident in Baghdad, he devoted much of his poetry to the praise of Aleppo, and much of his love-poetry is dedicated to Aiwa, a maiden of that city. He died at Manbij in 897. His poetry was collected and edited twice in the 10th century, arranged in one edition alphabetically (i.e. according to the last consonant in each line); in the other according to subject. It was published in Istanbul in 1883. Like Abu Tammam, he made a collection of early poems also known as the Hamasah.