After Psyche’s first task, which is to sort through a large pile of seeds, and the second task, which is to bring a wave of wild sun rams, comes the third task, which is to bring water from the icy waterfall of the River Styx that separates the earth from the underworld. What our soul learns this time and what it is that helps it to cope with the ordeal, in the text below by Marie Louise von Franz.
“The next task for Psyche is to get water in a carved crystal bottle from the ice-cold waterfall of the Styx, something which again surpasses her capacities. At this point again a typical fairy tale motif appears: the eagle of Zeus takes the bottle, fetches the water, and brings it back to her.
Merkelbach quite rightly connects the Styx with the water of the Nile. At the end of the novel we will return again to the question of the mystical vessel which contains the water of the Nile; that is the unspeakable mystery of Osiris. It is the water of death and at the same time of rebirth, but here it is represented in a Greek context.
Styx is a female goddess, the oldest of all, who rules over all the other gods. Her deadly water destroys any human being as well as every animal and cannot be put into any normal vessel, whether of glass, or lead, not even of gold, for it is even more destructive than the “water” of alchemy, which can be kept only in a golden vessel. Even the gods are terrified of this element, and their most solemn oath is pronounced in the name of Styx. If a god breaks this oath, he will lie dead for an entire year and be banished from Olympus for nine more years. The Styx symbolizes the frightening aspect of the mother archetype and in a certain sense also of the collective unconscious. The fact that we cannot “hold” it in a vessel seems to me to be very meaningful.
We cannot indeed entirely grasp or manipulate the collective unconscious. It resembles a wild river of psychic energy which we cannot regulate and which we cannot make use of. The collective unconscious is like a powerful stream of images upon which man has no influence. The only way to keep some of it, according to myth, is in the hoof of a horse, or the horn of a mythological (in reality nonexisting), one-horned Scythian ass. The horn, a phallic symbol, symbolizes the creative force of the Self, and the horse hoof has also, in a simpler form, the same meaning, because it was believed that horses could stamp springs out of the earth and that the kick of a horse fertilized the earth. So it shows that only the principle of creativeness in the human soul can hold its own against the destructiveness of the water of Styx.
Man never could—and from this mythologem it seems as though he never will—manipulate, voluntarily influence, or possess, even in part, the collective unconscious. This nature principle takes its own course through history. It supports civilizations or nations, or lets them decay, and nothing can prevail against it. One could say that the Roman Empire in the second century after Christ, the time of Apuleius, was already condemned to go under in the water of Styx. In the myth, Styx has also to do with the goddess of Nemesis, the mysterious, revengeful justice of nature.” If an empire or a religion is doomed to extinction because the collective unconscious does not express itself through it anymore, then man is absolutely helpless. The water of Styx governs military defeat or victory; from it stems Niké (“victory”), this mysterious power of fate, which in battle dooms a civilization or promotes its continuation in life.
If we look at the dust of history and consider how many wonderful human achievements have been destroyed again and again by barbaric forces, then we realize the meaning of the water of the Styx. It seems to be an inescapable destiny, the cruel justice of nature which we cannot halt. That is why we cannot hold this water: if Nemesis has decided destruction in the water of Styx, we cannot prevail against it, except with the “hoof of the horse.” That is the one comfort we can take from this myth. Nature seems to want to protect its own deepest creative power against everything; and it seems also at times to attach to human creativity a value superior to any other activity.
Only if we are in contact with our unconscious psyche can we be creative. Great creative achievements come from the depths of the psyche; if we can keep in contact with the depth of our psyche, we are able to form that which wants to be expressed through it. Sometimes this is a matter of life and death, for we simply do not know if we can bring it into reality. But if we can, then it looks as if nature rewards us with the highest price; and therefore one could say that creative achievement is the only “vessel” which can hold the water of Styx.
Here Psyche is given the vessel as a present. She cannot herself approach the water; the separation from Eros makes the solution of the task impossible for her. With him she might manage it, but alone she is up against an impossibility. However, through divine intervention, through the eagle of Zeus, the task is achieved. The eagle represents here intuitive spiritual elation and high-soaring thoughts. At the moment when the human psyche cannot act by itself, it is supported by a heroic, intuitive spirit which arises from the unconscious. One could call it the mysterious force of hope, for sometimes when one is up against an impossible situation, one has a kind of intuition that things will come right if only one can endure. That is grace. Here, because Psyche courageously makes an honest attempt, she is saved by such an act of grace, by the intuitive vision, which anticipates what she cannot yet do herself.
As the continuation of the story shows, the solution of the problem does not reach the conscious level. One could connect this with the fact that Psyche could not fetch the water of Styx herself. The eagle—an autonomous power—intervenes, as will Eros later, when Psyche will fall into a deathlike sleep after opening the box of beauty. In between these two events, however, Psyche experiences her descent into the underworld.
Marie Louise von Franz, “The Golden Ass of Apuleius”
- Source: Amor & Psyche
And so, the third part of Psyche’s trials helps us to understand the special place and role of destructive forces in our lives. When we know that they are the other face of creativity, we will understand their meaning – why they have come and for what purpose to use them. As Marie Franz says, nature is not sentimental at all – when the moment is ripe for renewal, nothing can stop it from getting rid of the old. And this applies to both individuals and the societies in which we live.
That is why the archetype of the Destroyer takes a very important place in the processes of spiritual transformation – the processes of initiation in the deeper layers of our psyche (the collective unconscious, the world of the afterlife) are connected with it. One of its favorite manifestations are the depressive states, the so-called “nigredo” in alchemy, which inevitably accompany the awakening of the soul and mark the beginning of the individuation process. The target of destructive forces here are many things, among them the illusion that our conscious Self (the ego) is the complete master of our lives.
Depression is the state in which the libido (our vital energy, the soul) retreats to the waters of the Styx, which is not only a river of death, but also of hatred. And although this plunges us into a world of emptiness, meaninglessness, unhappiness, grief and self-hatred, it is through these painful experiences that we are liberated from our earthly attachments and identifications. This is where I see the special place of the emotion of hate – that “passion of the subject that seeks the destruction of its object.” It gives us the impulse to separate ourselves by severing outdated ties and forging new ones in their place.
To be continued: Psyche’s fourth task – Persephone’s box of beauty cream
