One of my favourite myths is that of Cupid and Pysche.
Psyche’s quest to win back Cupid’s love when it is lost to her first appears in The Golden Ass of Lucius Apuleius in the 2nd century AD. Psyche is a princess so beautiful that the goddess Venus becomes jealous. In revenge, she instructs her son Cupid to make her fall in love with a hideous monster; but instead he falls in love with her himself. He becomes her unseen husband, visiting her only at night. Psyche disobeys his orders not to attempt to look at him, and in doing so she loses him. In her search for him she undertakes a series of cruel and difficult tasks set by Venus in the hope of winning him back. Cupid can eventually no longer bear to witness her suffering or to be apart from her and pleads their cause to the gods. Psyche becomes an immortal and the lovers are married in heaven.
From the British Library Online Gallery ““ Mythical Quest.
The whole story can be found here -: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/cupid.html
So do you have a favourite myth and if so, what is it?
When writing Rain, I was influenced by myths, legends and fairytales. And I hope I’ve managed to infuse the story with a myth like feel.
Blurb
On the mountain, high above the village of Farran ““ Nuri is caught between heaven and hell. Two men fight for her love and her soul. The first is Maras, an elemental being who follows the storms. Nuri knows that he is not human, he’s something more. She believes he is her beautiful fallen angel. Yet he is transient and is bound to the elements and their love may be as fleeting as the storm itself. The second is Brother Erebus, a pious monk whose tortured soul is twisted by his desire for her.
But Nuri may sacrifice more than her heart when the Church brands her angel a demon. As Brother Erebus will do anything to protect her soul from the silver haired devil, even if he has to crush her body to do it.
Extract
Nuri couldn’t sleep; the straw mattress was hard and lumpy. She had kept a candle burning, an extravagance, but she needed the dim light to stop the stark stone walls of the cell from crowding in on her. She turned and she tossed, but it was her mind that would not allow her to sleep.
Thoughts of Maras kept turning in her brain. She had seen his pale eyes warm when he looked at her, and her skin burned at his touch. He would leave her when the season changed and the storms blew over the mountain, but until then he was hers. With a sigh, she threw back the blankets and got off the narrow bed. She shivered as her feet touched the chilly stone floor of the cell. These small rooms were the guest accommodation for Farran Chapel, but they felt more like prison cells. There was one high window that was closed with a wooden shutter, the gray walls, and the floor ““ everything stark and hard, especially the bed.
Mayhap Erebus was right. Perhaps he could see her more clearly than she could see herself. For at that moment, she would have given nearly anything to have the courage to walk into Maras’s room. The more she thought about it, the more she came to believe she and Maras were destined to be together ““ not forever, but until the rain came.
She wanted him. She wanted him to hold, kiss, and touch her. She wanted him in every way, even if it put her on the path that Erebus feared so much. Maras made her feel alive. Galfridus wanted her to marry, but she knew she would not, as no other man could measure up to her angel.
She stood next to the wall that adjoined their rooms, and placed her flattened hand against it. Her courage had failed her. What if she went to him and he turned her away?
~* * *~
Maras stood by the gray stone wall and placed his hand on it. He could hear Nuri moving about the room, restless. It took all his determination to stop himself from going to her. He knew that he was leaving, and that he had no right to complicate her life, as he would never be able to share his own with her. But with each passing day, he was drawn more and more to her beauty and her quiet, gentle spirit. He treasured the moments when she would lift her head and smile at him, the way her hands would glide over his skin and make it tingle. From the moment he had seen her, he had tried to fight the overwhelming desire to feel her arms about him, to taste her lips, to take her.
Nuri made him feel wanted and needed. It was a feeling that he had long forgotten. She made him feel…human.
He stood in his dark cell and wondered what she would do if he went to her, even though he didn’t have the right. Would she welcome him to her embrace, to her bed, or would she turn him away?
If she did, wouldn’t that destroy him?
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