'Psyché aux enfers' by Adolphe Lyre

Psyché aux enfers (1904), oil on canvas painting by French artist Adolphe La Lyre (1848-1933), located at Musée Thomas-Henry, Cherbourg-Octeville, France

According to Greek mythology, traditions and popular folklore, Psyche was the deification of the human soul, often portrayed in ancient mosaics as a goddess with butterfly wings. Literally the Greek word psyche means ‘spirit, breath, life or animating force’.

Psyche was the youngest daughter of the King and Queen of Sicily, and the most beautiful person in Sicily. She used to boast that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite (Venus) herself, and Aphrodite sent Eros to transfix her with an arrow of desire, to make her fall in love with the nearest person or thing available. But, instead of punishing her, because of her beauty, even Eros (Cupid) fell in love with her, and took her to a secret place, eventually marrying her and having her made a goddess by Zeus (Jupiter).

By the 17th century, folk tales and mythological themes became a legitimate literary genre in Europe. The poet T. K. Harvey wrote:

They wove bright fables in the days of old,
When reason borrowed fancy's painted wings;
When truth's clear river flowed o'er sands of gold,
And told in song its high and mystic things!
And such the sweet and solemn tale of her
The pilgrim heart, to whom a dream was given,
That led her through the world, Love's worshipper,
To seek on earth for him whose home was heaven!

In the full city, by the haunted fount,
Through the dim grotto's tracery of spars,
'Mid the pine temples, on the moonlit mount,
Where silence sits to listen to the stars;
In the deep glade where dwells the brooding dove,
The painted valley, and the scented air,
She heard far echoes of the voice of Love,
And found his footsteps' traces everywhere.

But nevermore they met! Since doubts and fears,
Those phantom shapes that haunt and blight the earth,
Had come 'twixt her, a child of sin and tears,
And that bright spirit of immortal birth;
Until her pining soul and weeping eyes
Had learned to seek him only in the skies;
Till wings unto the weary heart were given,
And she became Love's angel bride in heaven!