Psyche's descent into the regions of the dead signifies that it is only after death that the soul realizes its true happiness. Even if we did not know just when this myth originated, we might guess from this teaching that the myth was a late one, for the earliest Greeks and Romans did not believe in a real happiness after death. They believed in existence after death, but it was a very shadowy existence, with the most negative sort of pleasures. Later, the Romans, even before they accepted Christianity, had their beliefs more or less modified by their contact with Christians. We may sum this myth up by saying that it is an allegory of "the soul of man, the deathless soul, Defeated, struggling, purified and blest." As you read this story of Cupid and Psyche, some incidents in it doubtless seemed familiar to you; you had come across them before in various fairy tales. Thus the story of Psyche's arrival at the palace and of the way in which she was waited upon by invisible beings will remind you of certain parts of Beauty and the Beast, while the labors set for Psyche by Venus will recall The Three Tasks. Now, while some of the fairy stories are undoubtedly borrowed from this old, old tale, it is a singular fact that there is an old Norse story which contains some of the same incidents, and yet could not have been taken from this. One of the most interesting things about the study of mythology is the attempt to discover how widely separate nations came to have similar stories. Many learned men have worked much over this question, and some of them say that, having the same facts to explain, or the same things to express in allegory, the various ancient peoples naturally hit upon the same explanations. Others believe that this similarity of myths shows that far, far back, the ancestors of these different people must have had intercourse with each other. Probably there is some truth in both theories, though most authorities believe that the former theory covers more cases than does the latter. We have said that this story is an allegory; do you understand just what an allegory is? There are different types of allegories; in some, each person that appears represents some quality or some influence; in others, a general truth is set forth, but there is no attempt to make every minor character fill a place in the allegory. To which type do you think the story of Cupid and Psyche belongs? Do Psyche's sisters, for instance, represent anything? What was the real fault of Psyche--the folly that cost her her happiness? The word "Psyche" means in Greek, the SOUL; it is also the word for BUTTERFLY. Can you see any reason why the one name should be used for both? There are still some very, very old pictures which show a man with a butterfly just fluttering out from between his lips. Remembering that the butterfly was the emblem of the soul, can you imagine what the artists meant to show by this? THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN