Till We Have Faces

Last updated

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
Till We Have Faces(C.S Lewis book) 1st edition cover.jpg
First edition
Author C. S. Lewis
Cover artistBiggs
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Mythological novel
Publisher Geoffrey Bles
Publication date
1956
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages314 (Mass Market Paperback)

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is a 1956 novel by C. S. Lewis. It is a retelling of Cupid and Psyche, based on its telling in a chapter of The Golden Ass of Apuleius. This story had haunted Lewis all his life, because he realized that some of the main characters' actions were illogical. [1] As a consequence, his retelling of the story is characterized by a highly developed character, the narrator, with the reader being drawn into her reasoning and her emotions. This was his last novel, and he considered it his most mature, written in conjunction with his wife, Joy Davidman.

Contents

The first part of the book is written from the perspective of Psyche's older sister Orual, as an accusation against the gods. The story is set in the fictive kingdom of Glome, a primitive city-state whose people have occasional contact with civilized Hellenistic Greece. In the second part of the book, the narrator undergoes a change of mindset (Lewis would use the term conversion) and understands that her initial accusation was tainted by her own failings and shortcomings, and that the gods are lovingly present in humans' lives.

Characters

Royalty

Other people

Gods

Plot summary

Part One

The story tells the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, from the perspective of Orual, Psyche's older sister.

It begins as the complaint of Orual as an old woman, who is bitter at the injustice of the gods. She has always been ugly, but after her mother dies and her father the King of Glome remarries, she gains a beautiful half-sister Istra, whom she loves as her own daughter, and who is known throughout the novel by the Greek version of her name, Psyche. Psyche is so beautiful that the people of Glome begin to offer sacrifices to her as to a goddess. The Priest of the goddess Ungit, a powerful figure in the kingdom, then informs the king that various plagues befalling the kingdom are a result of Ungit's jealousy, so Psyche is sent as a human sacrifice to the unseen "God of the Mountain" at the command of Ungit, the mountain-god's mother. Orual plans to rescue Psyche but falls ill and is unable to prevent anything.

When she is well again, Orual arranges to go to where Psyche was stranded on the mountain, either to rescue her or to bury what remains of her. She is stunned to find Psyche is alive, free from the shackles in which she had been bound, and furthermore says she does not need to be rescued in any way. Rather, Psyche relates that she lives in a beautiful castle that Orual cannot see, as the God of the Mountain has made her a bride rather than a victim. At one point in the narrative, Orual believes she has a brief vision of this castle, but then it vanishes like a mist. Hearing that Psyche has been commanded by her new god-husband not to look on his face (all their meetings are in the nighttime), Orual is immediately suspicious. She argues that the god must be a monster, or that Psyche has actually started to hallucinate after her abandonment and near-death on the mountain, that there is no such castle at all, and that her husband is actually an outlaw who was hiding on the mountain and takes advantage of her delusions in order to have his way with her. Orual says that because either possibility is one that she cannot abide by, she must disabuse her sister of this illusion.

She returns a second time, bringing Psyche a lamp for her to use while her "husband" sleeps, and when Psyche insists that she will not betray her husband by disobeying his command, Orual threatens both Psyche and herself, stabbing herself in the arm to show she is capable of following through on her threat. Ultimately, reluctantly, Psyche agrees because of the coercion and her love for her sister.

When Psyche disobeys her husband, she is immediately banished from her beautiful castle and forced to wander as an exile. The God of the Mountain appears to Orual, stating that Psyche must now endure hardship at the hand of a force he himself could not fight (likely his mother the goddess Ungit), and that "You too shall be Psyche," which Orual attempts to interpret for the rest of her life, usually taking it to mean that as Psyche suffers, she must suffer also. She decries the injustice of the gods, saying that if they had shown her a picture of Psyche's happiness that was easier to believe, she would not have ruined it. From this day forward she vows that she will keep her face veiled at all times.

Eventually, Orual becomes a Queen, and a warrior, diplomat, architect, reformer, politician, legislator, and judge, though all the while remaining alone. She drives herself, through work, to forget her grief and the love she has lost. Psyche is gone, her other family she never cared for, and her beloved tutor, "the Fox," has died. Her main love interest throughout the novel, Bardia, the captain of the royal guard, is married and forever faithful to his wife until his death. To her, the gods remain, as ever, silent, unseen, and merciless.

While Bardia is on his deathbed, Orual decides she can no longer stand the sight of her own kingdom and decides to leave it for the first time to visit neighboring kingdoms. While resting on her journey, she leaves her group at their camp and follows sounds from within a wood, which turn out to be coming from a temple to the goddess Istra (Psyche). There Orual hears a version of Psyche's myth, which shows her as deliberately ruining her sister's life out of envy. In response, she writes out her own story, as set forth in the book, to set the record straight. Her hope is that it will be brought to Greece, where she has heard that men are willing to question even the gods.

Part Two

Orual begins the second part of the book stating that her previous accusation that the gods are unjust is wrong. She does not have time to rewrite the whole book because she is very old and of ill health and will likely die before it can be redone, so instead she is adding on to the end.

She relates that since finishing part one of the book, she has experienced a number of dreams and visions, which at first she doubts the truth of except that they also start happening during daytime when she is fully awake. She sees herself being required to perform a number of impossible tasks, like sorting a giant mound of different seeds into separate piles, with no allowance for error, or collecting the golden wool from a flock of murderous rams, or fetching a bowl of water from a spring on a mountain which cannot be climbed and furthermore is covered with poisonous beasts. It is in the midst of this last vision that she is led to a huge chamber in the land of the dead and given the opportunity to read out her complaint in the gods' hearing. She discovers, however, that instead of reading the book she has written, she reads off a paper that appears in her hand and contains her true feelings, which are indeed much less noble than Part One of the book would suggest. Orual thinks she has been speaking only a short time, but then when stopped, realizes she has been pouring out the story of all her inner conflict and turmoil for days, repeating herself over and over and over again, as the gods sat silently. Still, rather than being jealous of Psyche, as the story she heard in the temple suggested, she reveals that she was jealous of the gods because they were allowed to enjoy Psyche's love while she herself was not.

The gods make no reply. But Orual is content, as she sees that the gods' "answer" was really to hold up the mirror of her lies to herself, and make her understand the truth of her own life and actions. Then she is led by the ghost of the Fox into a sunlit arena in which she learns the story of what Psyche has been doing: she has herself been assigned the impossible tasks from Orual's dreams, but was able to complete them with supernatural help. Orual then leaves the arena to enter another verdant field with a clear pool of water and a brilliant sky. There she meets Psyche, who has just returned from her last errand: retrieving a box of beauty from the underworld, which she then gives to Orual, though Orual is hardly conscious of this because at that moment she begins to sense that something else is happening. The God of the Mountain is coming to be with Psyche and judge Orual, but the only thing he says is "You also are Psyche" before the vision ends. The reader is led to understand that this phrase has actually been one of mercy the entire time.

Orual, awoken from the vision, dies shortly thereafter but has just enough time to record her visions and to write that she no longer hates the gods but sees that their very presence, though mysterious, is the answer she always needed.

Conception

The idea of retelling the myth of Cupid and Psyche, with the palace invisible, had been in C. S. Lewis's mind ever since he was an undergraduate; the retelling, as he imagined it, involved writing through the perspective of the elder sister. He argued that this made the sister not simply envious and spiteful, but ignorant (as any mortal might be of the divine) and jealous (as anyone could be in their love). He tried it in different verse-forms when he considered himself primarily a poet, so that one could say that he'd been "at work on Orual for 35 years", even though the version told in the book "was very quickly written". In his pre-Christian days, Lewis would imagine the story with Orual "in the right and the gods in the wrong". [2] [3]

One of the inconsistencies of Apuleius's version was the fact that the sister's could see the palace. For Lewis, the theme of belief is central to the story and he felt that Apuleius missed the chance to give his version of the story a true mythic quality; that is to invoke what Rudolph Otto terms in his 1923 work The Idea of the Holy the idea of the numinous which is a feeling of awe in the presence of the spiritual or holy, the supernatural. [4] Orual does not posses the belief system that will allow her to enter into the realm of the numinous as she briefly catches sight of the palace before it vanishes. After this scene, her resolve to "protect" Psyche from the love of others is the root of her jealousy and the crux of her accusation against the injustices of the gods. [5] Conversely, Psyche, from an early age, exhibits the openness to embrace the numinous; she feels a civic duty to heal the citizenry of Glome, she willingly accepts her role as the Accursed and the conjoined penalty of death/marriage to the Shadowbrute, the god of the Grey Mountain.

Another theme that Lewis felt Apuleius did not fully develop revolves around sacrifice . [6] Till We Have Faces is a retelling of Apuleius's original story. Within Lewis's work there is also a retelling of the myth Orual has been telling her self represented by the segmenting of her narrative into Part 1 (the myth she tells (of) herself) and Part 2 (the retelling (to/of) herself with a new understanding of her self-awareness and outer connections to others). By the end of Part 1, Orual realizes that her love for Psyche has become perverted; it is a possessive love, unwilling to share Psyche's love with others. Bardia's widow, Ansit, points this out to Orual in a no-holds-barred confrontation after her husband's death; Orual has "consumed" the lives of her loved ones just as Ungit consumes sacrifices. This begins the dose of self-awareness that leads to Orual's "death of self" or sacrifice of her self to others, a higher, more universal power. On a societal or cultural level, the need to temper the natural loves, what Lewis would expand upon four years after TWHF in his 1960 book The Four Loves, with the subjugation of storge (affection), philia (friendship), and eros (romantic love) to that of agape (divine love) is the basis for one's ability to retain the ordered nature of those three natural loves; without the authority of agape, divine love, to govern them, the breakdown of the natural loves would ensue as a result of the back-biting nature of the three natural loves if left to their own devices. [7] This ideology goes as far back as Homer's era and the subject of the Trojan War which was used to exemplify to Greeks the effects of disordered love on socio-cultural mores (see Helen of Troy ).

Origin of title

C. S. Lewis originally titled his working manuscripts "Bareface". The editor (Gibb) rejected the title "Bareface" on the ground that readers would mistake it for a Western. In response, Lewis said he failed to see why people would be deterred from buying the book if they thought it was a Western, and that the working title was cryptic enough to be intriguing. [8] Nevertheless, Lewis started considering an alternative title on February 29, 1956, and chose "Till We Have Faces", which refers to a line from the book where Orual says, "How can [the gods] meet us face to face till we have faces?" [8] He defended his choice in a letter to his long-time correspondent, Dorothea Conybeare, explaining the idea that a human "must be speaking with its own voice (not one of its borrowed voices), expressing its actual desires (not what it imagines that it desires), being for good or ill itself, not any mask, veil, or persona." [9] [8] [3]

Myth & Setting

Myths, like fairy tales, are typically set in an enigmatic location with a nebulous orientation toward time. This draws the attention of the audience to the actions of the characters which signify the importance of the choices the characters make; it forces the focus on the moralizing aspects of the characters rather than on their surroundings and it relies on architypes to convey the anticipated actions. C.S. Lewis does something different in his approach to his retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth from Apuleius. He makes the fictitious setting of TWHF as real, as believable, as historic as possible in order to establish the historicity of his version. He painstakingly describes the geography of the region surrounding Glome and even goes so far as to have Orual speak in terms of how far places were distanced by would-be units of measure [10] ; "[Glome] is built about as far back from the river as a woman can walk in the third of an hour..." [11] , for example. [12]

This grounding of the story in the "historically concrete" establishes the validity to the historicity of the story which is precisely what Lewis's intentions were: to make the argument that myths are the embodiment of or basis for historical figures and their actions evolving culturally to epic proportions. He was well aware of the concept of euhemerism which the more sophisticated Greeks had developed to explain epistemologically their pantheon. Championed by Euhemerus and promulgated circa 300 B.C.E., this embryonic conception posits the notion that many of the gods were historical mortal personalities who became deified. [13] Lewis wrote to Clyde Kilby that TWHF is "'A work of (supposed) historical imagination. A guess at what it might have been like in a little barbarous state on the boarders of the Hellenistic world with Greek culture just beginning to affect it'". Doris T. Myers makes the case that it is a synthesis of both historical fiction and modern fiction, thus giving credence to the day-in-the-lifeness historicity and its intermingling with Jungian psychological archetypes of the narrative to the work.

Reception

Lewis called Till We Have Faces "far and away my best book". [14] This opinion was echoed by J. R. R. Tolkien.[ citation needed ] Robert Gorham Davis in the New York Times wrote that Lewis "still does not have all the equipment of a major novelist" but deemed it "much more convincing" than his religious novels. He praised it for being "firmly grounded in actual primitive religious practice" and wrote that the novel's "imaginative unity...exerts...[a] combination of awfulness, wonder and attraction". [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scylla</span> Nymph transformed into a sea monster by Circe in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Scylla is a legendary monster who lives on one side of a narrow channel of water, opposite her counterpart Charybdis. The two sides of the strait are within an arrow's range of each other—so close that sailors attempting to avoid Charybdis would pass dangerously close to Scylla and vice versa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adonis</span> Greek god of beauty and desire

In Greek mythology, Adonis was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone, who was famous for having achieved immortality. He was widely considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psyche (mythology)</span> Ancient Greek goddess of the soul

Psyche is the Greek goddess of the soul and often represented as a beautiful woman with butterfly wings. The name Psyche means "soul" in Greek and was commonly referred to as such in Roman mythology as well, though the direct translation is Anima. She was born a mortal woman and eventually granted immortality, with beauty that rivaled even Aphrodite, goddess of love. Psyche is known from the novel The Golden Ass, also known as Metamorphoses, written by the Roman philosopher and orator Apuleius in the 2nd century. In the myth, she was given multiple trials to be with her beloved, Eros, also known as Cupid, god of physical love and desire and son of Aphrodite. The cultural influences of Psyche's story can be depicted in art dating back to the 4th century BCE.

<i>LAmour et Psyché, enfants</i> 1890 painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau

L'Amour et Psyché, enfants is an oil painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau in 1890. It is currently in a private collection. It was displayed in the Salon of Paris in 1890, the year Bouguereau was President of the Société des Artistes Français. The painting features Greek mythological figures Eros and Psyché, sharing an embrace and kiss. Bouguereau was a classical-style painter in the Neoclassical era of art. The painting is characterized by the frothy background the figures delicately stand on. It depicts the beginning of the forbidden romance of Cupid and Psyche, a popular subject at the time of execution.

<i>The Golden Ass</i> Ancient Roman novel by Apuleius

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as The Golden Ass, is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cupid and Psyche</span> Classical story of Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from Metamorphoses, written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis. The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche and Cupid or Amor, and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. Although the only extended narrative from antiquity is that of Apuleius from 2nd century AD, Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC. The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hero's journey</span> Pattern in storytelling

In narratology and comparative mythology, the hero's journey, also known as the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home changed or transformed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olympians (Marvel Comics)</span> Fictional comic book species

The Olympians are a fictional species appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. These characters are based on the Twelve Olympians/Dii Consentes and other deities of Classical mythology. During the beginning of the 1960s, the exploits of the Asgardians Thor and his evil brother Loki demonstrated that an updating of ancient myths could again win readers. In 1965, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Olympians in Journey into Mystery Annual #1.

<i>Psyche Revived by Cupids Kiss</i> Sculpture in two versions by Antonio Canova

Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss is a sculpture by Italian artist Antonio Canova first commissioned in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell. It is regarded as a masterpiece of Neoclassical sculpture, but shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great emotion, characteristic of the emerging movement of Romanticism. It represents the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss. The story of Cupid and Psyche is taken from Lucius Apuleius' Latin novel The Golden Ass, and was popular in art.

Myth-o-Mania is a series of books for children by Kate McMullan.

<i>Psyché</i> (play)

Psyché is a five-act tragédie-ballet, originally written as a prose text by Molière and versified in collaboration with Pierre Corneille and Philippe Quinault, with music composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1671 and by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in 1684. The plot is based on the story of Cupid and Psyche in The Golden Ass, written in the 2nd century by Apuleius. It was first performed on 17 January 1671 before the royal court of Louis XIV at the Théâtre des Tuileries, with ballets by Pierre Beauchamps, Anthoine des Brosses, and Nicolas Delorge, and spectacular scenery and special effects designed by Carlo Vigarani.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eros</span> Greek god of love and sex

In Greek mythology, Eros is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart is Cupid ('desire'). In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is described as one of the children of Aphrodite and Ares and, with some of his siblings, was one of the Erotes, a group of winged love gods.

<i>Cupid</i> (2009 TV series) 2009 TV series

Cupid is an American comedy-drama television series that aired on ABC from March 31 to June 16, 2009, and was broadcast Tuesdays at 10:02 PM Eastern/9:02 PM Central. The series is a remake of the network's 1998 series of the same name, and, like the earlier series, was created by Rob Thomas, with both versions centering on a man, who may or may not be the Roman god Cupid, who believes he must bring 100 couples together in order to return to Mount Olympus. The series stars Bobby Cannavale and is set in New York City, whereas the earlier series stars Jeremy Piven and is set in Chicago. Like the original series, the 2009 Cupid lasted only one season, and was canceled on May 19, 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cupid</span> Ancient Roman god of desire, affection and erotic love

In classical mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and the god of war Mars. He is also known as Amor. His Greek counterpart is Eros. Although Eros is generally portrayed as a slender winged youth in Classical Greek art, during the Hellenistic period, he was increasingly portrayed as a chubby boy. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power: a person, or even a deity, who is shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire. In myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a main character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons, he experiences the ordeal of love. Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erotes</span> Greek love deities

In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Erotes are a collective of winged gods associated with love and sexual intercourse. They are part of Aphrodite's retinue. Erotes is the plural of Eros, who as a singular deity has a more complex mythology.

Eros and Psyche is a narrative poem with strong romantic and tragic themes: first published in 1885 by Robert Bridges. Bridges was licensed as a physician in England until 1882 when he was forced to retire due to a lung disease. He would then devote the rest of his life to literary research and writing and would be appointed as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1913.

<i>Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid</i> 1664 painting by Claude Lorrain

Landscape with Psyche Outside the Palace of Cupid, or The Enchanted Castle, 1664, is a painting, oil on canvas, by Claude Lorrain in the National Gallery, London. It was commissioned by Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, a Roman aristocrat. Its subject is taken from The Golden Ass (IV-VI), by Apuleius – the love story of Psyche the soul, and Cupid the god of love. It is not clear if Psyche sits in front of Cupid's castle before she meets him, or after he has abandoned her.

Tulisa, the Wood-Cutter's Daughter is an Indian legend published as an annex to Somadeva Bhaṭṭa's work, related to Cupid and Psyche.

<i>Love and Psyche</i> (David) Painting by Jacques-Louis David

Love and Psyche or Cupid and Psyche is an 1817 painting by Jacques-Louis David, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. It shows Cupid and Psyche. It was produced during David's exile in Brussels, for the patron and collector Gian Battista Sommariva. On its first exhibition at the museum in Brussels, it surprised viewers with its realist treatment of the figure of Cupid. Critics generally saw the painting's unconventional style and realistic depiction of Cupid as proof of David's decline while in exile, but art historians have come to see the work as a deliberate departure from traditional methods of representing mythological figures.

<i>Psyche Showing Her Sisters Her Gifts from Cupid</i> Painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Psyche Showing Her Sisters Her Gifts from Cupid is an oil painting by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard, painted in 1753, in the National Gallery in London. Its dimensions are 168.3 by 192.4 cm.

References

  1. ↑ Schakel, Peter (2003), Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, Lit encyc, retrieved 5 August 2008.
  2. ↑ Hooper 1996, p. IX:251, Lewis' letter to Christian Hardie, 31 July 1955.
  3. 1 2 Key bits of the wording of the letters are available at: "C.S. Lewis Bibliography III. C.S. Lewis on TWHF (letters from CSL to publisher of Till We Have Faces, etc)". Trent University. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  4. ↑ Carnell, Corbin S. (1974). Bright Shadow of Reality. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 15. ISBN   0-8028-1561-8.
  5. ↑ Schankel, Peter J. (1984). Reason and Imagination in C.S. Lewis: A Study of Till We Have Faces. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. pp. 38–9. ISBN   0802819982.
  6. ↑ MacSwain, Robert (2010). The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Cambridge University Press. pp. 287–8. ISBN   978-0-521-71114-2.
  7. ↑ MacSwain, Robert (2010). The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Cambridge University Press. p. 286. ISBN   978-0-521-71114-2.
  8. 1 2 3 Hooper 1996, p. IX:252 16 February 1956.
  9. ↑ Smith, Constance Babington (1964), Letters to a Sister from Rose Macaulay, p. 261
  10. ↑ Meyers, Doris T. (1994). C.S. Lewis in Context. The Kent State University Press. p. 196. ISBN   0-87338-497-0.
  11. ↑ Lewis, C.S. Lewis (1956). Till We Have Faces. HarperCollins. p. 4. ISBN   9780062565419.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  12. ↑ MacSwain, Robert (2010). The Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis. Cambridge University Press. p. 283. ISBN   978-0-521-71114-2.
  13. ↑ Meyers, Doris T. (1994). C.S. Lewis in Context. The Kent State University Press. p. 193. ISBN   0-87338-497-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  14. ↑ Lewis, C. S. (2007). Hooper, Walter (ed.). The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume III. New York City: HarperCollins. p. 1148. ISBN   978-0-06-081922-4.
  15. ↑ Davis, Robert Gorham (13 January 1957). "Cupid and Psyche". New York Times. Retrieved 23 October 2022.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.