Chapter XIV: Introduction: To the Ode to Psyche

In one of his long journal-letters to his brother George, Keats writes, at the beginning of May, 1819: 'The following poem--the last I have written--is the first and the only one with which I have taken even moderate pains. I have for the most part dashed off my lines in a hurry. This I have done leisurely--I think it reads the more richly for it, and will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion--I am more orthodox than to let a heathen goddess be so neglected.' _The Ode to Psyche_ follows.

The story of Psyche may be best told in the words of William Morris in the 'argument' to 'the story of Cupid and Psyche' in his _Earthly Paradise_:

'Psyche, a king's daughter, by her exceeding beauty caused the
people to forget Venus; therefore the goddess would fain have
destroyed her: nevertheless she became the bride of Love, yet
in an unhappy moment lost him by her own fault, and wandering
through the world suffered many evils at the hands of Venus,
for whom she must accomplish fearful tasks. But the gods and
all nature helped her, and in process of time she was
re-united to Love, forgiven by Venus, and made immortal by the
Father of gods and men.'

Psyche is supposed to symbolize the human soul made immortal through love.

NOTES ON THE ODE TO PSYCHE.

PAGE 117. l. 2. _sweet . . . dear._ Cf. _Lycidas_, 'Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear.'

l. 4. _soft-conched._ Metaphor of a sea-shell giving an impression of exquisite colour and delicate form.

PAGE 118. l. 13. _'Mid . . . eyed._ Nature in its appeal to every sense. In this line we have the essence of all that makes the beauty of flowers satisfying and comforting.

l. 14. _Tyrian_, purple, from a certain dye made at Tyre.

l. 20. _aurorean._ Aurora is the goddess of dawn. Cf. _Hyperion_, i. 181.

l. 25. _Olympus._ Cf. _Lamia_, i. 9, note.

_hierarchy._ The orders of gods, with Jupiter as head.

l. 26. _Phoebe_, or Diana, goddess of the moon.

l. 27. _Vesper_, the evening star.

PAGE 119. l. 34. _oracle_, a sacred place where the god was supposed to answer questions of vital import asked him by his worshippers.

l. 37. _fond believing_, foolishly credulous.

l. 41. _lucent fans_, luminous wings.

PAGE 120. l. 55. _fledge . . . steep._ Probably a recollection of what he had seen in the Lakes, for on June 29, 1818, he writes to Tom from Keswick of a waterfall which 'oozes out from a cleft in perpendicular Rocks, all fledged with Ash and other beautiful trees'.

l. 57. _Dryads._ Cf. _Lamia_, l. 5, note.