Psyche's Beauty

Besides being so beautiful, Psyche was also very intelligent, unlike her sisters who thought about nothing except what clothes to put on. Psyche, however, thought about the important things, like Who am I? and What is the meaning of my life? Every morning when she looked in the mirror, she wondered: "What is beauty? What do others see that makes them think I am beautiful?"

She would stare at her image in the mirror and try to see herself as others did. Unlike her sisters, Psyche's hair was dark and gleaming because each night before going to bed she stood on the balcony outside her room and brushed nightshine into her hair until it was radiant with blackness. Sun was as entranced by her beauty as were people, and when she came outside, if only to walk in the palace garden, he stroked her skin with his softest light until she was the color of sand.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she wondered: "Does my beauty reside in my heart-shaped face, large eyes, and full lips? What makes one person a joy to look at while another is not, and still another's face leaves people's hearts neither gladdened nor repulsed?"

Eventually, she would sigh and move away from the mirror, her questions unanswered. She did not understand what beauty was, but she knew this: being beautiful made her lonely. Noblemen came to the palace and courted Thomasina and Calla, and before long, both were married and moved away to nearby kingdoms.

But no young men came for Psyche. When the king had banquets in the Great Hall of the palace, he would seat Psyche between single men of the best families, but in the presence of her beauty, the young men's tongues were as heavy as mountains. Yet, with the other young women present at those banquets, words flowed from those same tongues like melodies from the throats of birds in the spring.

One day Psyche asked her parents, "What is it that makes me beautiful? And what is beauty?"

They were not sure how to answer either the question or the look of concern on their daughter's face, nor the anguish in her voice.

The king laughed nervously. "Those are questions for my philosopher. I'll send him to you tomorrow. He will tell you more about beauty than you want to know."

"No, Father. I'm asking you and Mother."

It was now the queen's turn to give a nervous laugh. "Don't concern yourself with questions that have no answers. Be glad you are not ugly."

The king saw tears come into Psyche's eyes and realized that he and the queen were not taking Psyche seriously enough.

"Is it that you want to know what others see when they look at you?" he asked quietly.

Psyche nodded, grateful that perhaps he understood.

The king thought for a long while, then said, "There was an orchid that used to grow in the mountains. It was very rare and its beauty was unlike that of any flower ever seen. My grandfather took me to the copse where it grew, because this orchid was found no other place in the world. I could not have been more than seven years old, yet I still remember it as if it were only this morning. A few months after he showed me the orchid, the gods sent terrible storms off the Great Blue Sea. The salt water from the sea blew far inland and destroyed many trees and plants. The following spring, my grandfather and I returned to the copse where the orchid grew. Alas, the storm had filled the ground with salt and the orchid could not grow. However, each spring I go back to that place and look for it. It is gone, but the memory of the orchid's beauty has stayed with me all these years. I cannot tell you what it was about the orchid that made it so beautiful. It may have been its colors, its shape. Or it may have been the combination of the two, which created something more than the two did separately. I can only tell you that seeing the orchid made me feel wonderful, made me feel that my life, even at age seven, was greater than everything I knew and everything I would know. The memory of that orchid continues to expand my life beyond the limitations of my body and my mind." He smiled. "So it is with your beauty, my darling girl. It is a gift to all those who have the privilege of seeing it. People look at you and they feel better."

But Psyche was not so easily mollified. "I suppose it's nice that my beauty is a gift to others, but that does not answer my question. What is that beauty to me? That is what I want to know."

"You are an ungrateful child!" her mother rebuked her. "Every female in the kingdom would do anything to have your beauty."

"There are days I wish I could give it to them," Psyche responded sadly.

"Let one of them live with this loneliness."

And the king and queen and their youngest daughter lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

Chapter end