Psyche thus indued with a new and glorious nature, looked imploringly at mother Venus. Friendly influences stealing into her heart, the goddess yielded, and embraced her radiant daughter with maternal affection. The wedding banquet was prepared, and the Hours with roseate fingers decked the bride. Ganymede,[17] as commanded, poured for them the sparkling nectar, and cloud-capped Olympus echoed to the glad sounds of choral voices.
Neptune came from his ocean cave; Apollo and the Muses were attracted by the sweet notes of song; Minerva laid aside her helmet to grace the marriage feast with her presence; Mars, with swordless hand, and merry Bacchus, the grape wreath that bound his golden hair nodding as he stepped, all joined the festive company. The Graces had decorated the spacious hall; there were thrilling strains of music in the orchestra, and Venus herself danced for joy. Psyche, the admired of all, reclining on the bosom of her reconciled husband, in the bliss of so divine a union lost forever the remembrance of all her sorrows.
This beautiful fable, some say, represents the trials and destiny of human beings. The soul—so the mythologists held—though of divine origin, is here subjected to error and evil in its prison, the body. Trials and purifications are necessary, that it may become capable of purer pleasures and nobler aspirations. Two loves meet it, one earthly and degrading, the other heavenly and elevating. This, when victorious leads off the soul, disenthralled and purified, to the abodes of the blessed.
According to these expositors the myth is a moral one, and represents the dangers to which nuptial fidelity was exposed in such a country as degenerate Greece, and also gives an instance of true constancy subjected to many and strong temptations, but victorious over them all.
As allegorical myths are of doubtful interpretation, the reader may escape some perplexity by accepting the story as a tale of fancy, intended for innocent amusement, rather than for instruction in psychology or morals.