Sexual passion is portrayed in myth as a force more powerful than any other, capable of driving humans and gods alike into actions against their will, often ending in tragedy. The Greeks attributed it to the workings of the goddess Aphrodite, who, through afflicting men and women with uncontrollable passions, could bring madness and destruction on those who had offended her. Yet, passion is not, in itself, portrayed as a negative or immoral force. It is allied with strength, courage, sexual potency and the soul's response to beauty; it reflects the power and tenacity of the life-force itself; and because it is god-inspired, it is sacred. Myth teaches us that it is the manner in which mortals pursue their passions, and the degree to which passion overwhelms consciousness, that are the real sources of hurt, rejection and even catastrophe.
The tragedy of narcissistic love
This sad myth from Greece tells of passion and rejection, and shows how retaliation and revenge, far from bringing relief, only increase the agony. More importantly, it implies that if we do not know ourselves, we may spend our lives seeking this knowledge through self-obsession – which means that we are not able to offer love to others.
here was once a young man called Narcissus. His mother, anxious to know her son's fate, consulted the blind prophet Tiresias. ‘Will he live to old age?’ she demanded.
‘As long as he does not know himself,’ he replied. So she ensured that the child never saw his own reflection in a mirror. The boy grew up to be extraordinarily beautiful and was loved by everyone he met. Although he had never seen his own face, he guessed from their reactions that he was beautiful; but he could never be sure, so he depended on others telling him how beautiful he was in order to feel confident and assured. Thus, he became a very self-absorbed young man.
Narcissus took to walking alone in the woods. By this time, he had elicited so many compliments that he began to think that no one was worthy enough to look at him. In the woods lived a nymph called Echo. She had displeased the mighty goddess Hera by chattering too much and, in exasperation, Hera had taken away her power of speech except in answer to another's voice. And even then, she could only repeat the last words spoken. Echo had long loved Narcissus and followed him through the woods, hoping he would say something to her; for otherwise she could not speak. But he was so wrapped up in thoughts of himself that he did not notice her trailing behind him. At last, he stopped at a woodland pool to have a drink, and she took the opportunity to rustle some branches to attract his attention.
‘Who's there?’ he cried.
‘There!’ came back Echo's reply.
‘Come here!’ said Narcissus, becoming irritated.
‘Here!’ she echoed, and glided from the trees, holding out her arms to embrace him.
‘Begone!’ he shouted angrily. ‘There can be nothing between the likes of you and the fair Narcissus!’
‘Narcissus!’ sighed Echo sadly, and crept away in shame, whisper ing a silent prayer to the gods that this proud young man might one day know what it is like to love in vain. And the gods heard.
Narcissus turned back to the pool to drink and was presented with the most beautiful face he had ever seen. He instantly fell in love with the stunning youth before him. He smiled, and the beautiful face smiled back. He leaned into the water and kissed the rosy lips, but his touch broke the clear surface and the beautiful youth vanished like a dream. As soon as he withdrew and was still, the image returned.
‘Don't despise me in this way!’ Narcissus pleaded with the image. ‘I am the one that everyone else loves in vain.’
‘Vain!’ cried Echo sorrowfully from the woods.
Again and again Narcissus reached into the pool to embrace the lovely youth, and every time, as if in mockery, the image disappeared. Narcissus spent hours, days and weeks staring into the water, neither eating nor sleeping, only murmuring, ‘Alas!’ But his words only came back to him from the unhappy Echo. At last, his heavy heart stopped beating, and he lay cold and still amid the water lilies. The gods were touched by the sight of such a beautiful corpse and transformed him into the flower which now bears his name.
As for poor Echo, who had invoked such punishment on his cold heart, she gained nothing but grief from her answered prayer. She pined away until nothing was left of her except her voice; and even to this day she is still allowed the last word.
There are many profound themes embedded in this well-known myth. Narcissus is a dearly beloved son, and his mother, anxious to know his future, consults a prophet when he is still very young. The prophet advises that, if he is to reach old age, he should not know himself. So his mother, attempting to cheat fate (which is always a bad idea), keeps him sheltered and unaware, oblivious to the fact that, in doing so, she architects his fate herself. Narcissus grows up inconsiderate and self-absorbed, because all his energy is given to affirming his identity through the eyes of others. Because he is so beautiful, everyone forgives him his arrogant behavior. He has never actually seen himself; he only knows that everyone around him makes a great fuss of him and, therefore, he assumes he is better and more important than others, treating them with disdain. Beneath this disdain is deep dependency and corrosive self-doubt; for how can we value ourselves if we do not know who or what we are?
Then Echo falls in love with him. Her inability to communicate has rendered her naive and vulnerable; for only through communication can we come to know others' thoughts and feelings. We may surmise that Hera punished her because she talked too much and listened too little; so she never truly communicated. Echo falls in love with a beautiful face; she knows nothing of his real nature. When Narcissus rejects her, it evokes cruelty and anger in her. She prays for vengeance, and Narcissus is doomed to end his life as tragically as hers. In the end, both suffer – Narcissus through his self-obsession, and Echo through her mute rage.
One important lesson that can be drawn from this myth is that love can only flourish in an atmosphere of giving rather than taking; and this can only occur when both individuals are aware of themselves and able and willing to communicate. The term ‘narcissism’ is used in psychology to describe a person who is unable to relate to anyone other than himself or herself. This is usually the result of an upbringing in which the child is spoiled and cosseted but never really seen as an individual, and, therefore, never learns to see himself or herself. If we do not value ourselves as real people, we can never trust another's love, let alone offer our own. This myth warns us that such self-obsession can lead to cruelty, stagnation and the loss of all future growth and creative potential – a psychological death.
A child's natural self-absorption, tempered by a growing awareness of limits and the honest communication of the family, will eventually develop into healthy self-esteem. We all need to feel special and loved, but we need to feel it in relation to who we really are, not in relation to an idealized fantasy of perfection. Many relationships fail or generate great cruelty and unhappiness because both parties have never been loved as themselves. They have been ‘divine’ children, meant to fulfill a parent's dream, and adored because of what they can offer the parent rather than what they are in themselves. Thus, in childhood, they have not experienced genuine recognition as individuals, and, in adulthood, are constantly seeking to fill a terrible inner sense of emptiness through eliciting the love of others – and then rejecting it when they remember, deep down, that they are worthless. Echo and Narcissus are really two sides of the same coin, each mirroring the other's unreality.
The unhappy love lives of many public ‘icons’ bear testimony to this voracious hunger for love which is meant to replace what was missing early in life – a sense of being real as oneself. It may be that we all have a little narcissism in us, and this can impel us to make the best of our gifts. But a little goes a long way; and when self-absorption as a defense against emptiness enters a relationship, love flies out the window. When we become Narcissus, we do not see the lover; we are in love with the intoxicating experience of someone being in love with us. Then we may treat people cruelly when the old familiar emptiness creeps in, despite the lover's declarations, for we may fear their discovery of the thing we fear in ourselves. When we become Echo, we fall in love with an idealized image of what we wish we could be – and we may be treated cruelly if we have so little self-value that we can only echo the beloved. And Echo's revenge only causes her more grief. She too does not grow, but remains permanently frozen in unrequited love and anger which eats away at her until there is nothing left. Sadly, it is likely that every divorce lawyer has heard the tale of Echo and Narcissus many times.
The dangers of possessiveness
This is a stark and savage vision of jealous passion carried to excess. The tale is old: In central Turkey, Cybele's worship dates back at least six-thousand years. Yet the theme is also utterly contemporary, for it speaks of the tragic consequences of possessive love. Although the jealous lover is also the mother in this tale, many adult relationships involve unconscious feelings of infantile dependency and parental possessiveness. And it may be that we bring unresolved issues with our parents into our adult lives and enact the themes presented by this story – in subtler but psychologically similar ways.
he great Anatolian earth-goddess Cybele, creator of all the kingdoms of nature, bore one child, whom she called Attis. From the moment he was born, she was entranced by his beauty and grace, and there was nothing she would not do to make him happy. As he grew from infant to toddler to youth, her love deepened on every level and, as he came into manhood, she appropriated this manhood to herself and became his lover. She also made him the priest of her mysteries and bound him with a vow of absolute fidelity. Thus the two lived, locked into a sealed paradise-world, where nothing could mar the perfection of the bond.
But Attis could not be kept from the world outside forever, and one of his chief pleasures was roaming the hills. One day, as he was resting beneath the boughs of a huge pine tree, he looked up and saw a beautiful nymph; and he instantly fell in love with her and lay with her. But nothing could be hidden from his mother Cybele, and, when she realized her son-lover had been unfaithful, she fell into a terrible jealous rage. She struck Attis with a frenzied delirium and, in his madness, he castrated himself to ensure that he never broke his vow of fidelity again. When he recovered from his delirium, he was mortally wounded and bled to death in Cybele's arms beneath the pine tree where he had once lain with his beloved nymph. But, because Attis was a god, his death was not final. Each spring, the youth is reborn to his mother and spends the rich and fruitful time of summer with her; and each winter, when the sun reaches its lowest ebb, he dies once again and the earth-goddess grieves until the next spring comes at last.
The incest between Cybele and Attis need not be taken literally. The intense bond between mother and child is wrought of many feelings – sensuous, emotional and spiritual – and it is neither unusual nor pathological for a mother to look into the face of her newborn baby and find the child beautiful. Nor is it unusual or pathological for the bond between mother and child to be echoed in later life, when a young man or woman may seek, in the arms of a beloved, qualities and emotional responses similar to those experienced in early life. Most loving relationships contain elements of nurturing and dependency; it is, in the end, a question of whether there is also room in the relationship for equality and separateness, too. The tragedy of this myth lies in the absolute possession Cybele seeks to maintain over her beloved. While this, too, is not uncommon, in adult relationships as well as in mother–child bonds, the psychological consequences can be deeply destructive if the possessiveness is not acknowledged and contained.
Cybele cannot allow Attis to be an equal partner. She wishes him to be bound to her alone, utterly dependent on her and unable to have his own life apart from her. We may see echoes of this pattern in any relationship where one partner – male or female – resents the other's independent friends and interests. There may be jealousy of a partner's commitment to work or creative endeavors; there may even be resentment of the partner's withdrawal into his or her own thoughts. This is not relationship, but rather, ownership. Such absolute possessiveness invariably arises from deep insecurity which makes the individual feel threatened by any separateness existing within the bond. And such profound insecurity can invoke intensely destructive feelings – especially if the insecure person, like Cybele, has nothing else in life except the beloved.
Cybele's revenge on Attis' infidelity – which is, in essence, an attempt on his part to establish an independent male identity – is to drive him into self-castration. This is a frightening and brutal image and, fortunately, it is generally limited to the world of myth. But there are subtler levels of self-castration which may occur in everyday life. If anyone seeks to undermine the partner's independence through the power of emotional blackmail, that man or woman has, in effect, attempted to castrate the partner's potency in life; and if the partner colludes, because of the fear of losing the relationship, then Attis' self-castration has been accomplished on a psychological level.
The madness of Attis may be glimpsed in the emotional confusion that psychological manipulation can create when it is imposed on any individual who is not sufficiently conscious or emotionally mature to see what is being done. Imposing feelings of guilt, criticizing, emotional and sexual withholding as a power-ploy, and isolating the partner through subtly interfering with friendships and outside interests – these are all methods through which present-day Cybeles, male or female, may drive their partners into a state of uncertainty and self-doubt.
Intense passion and insecurity make a bad mix, for out of this mix arises the kind of possessive love this dark myth illustrates so graphically. Perhaps the insecurity must exist on both sides, for otherwise Attis would break free and make a new life. Cybele has the power to drive him mad because he needs her so absolutely; he is still a psychological infant and cannot bear to be separated from her. The dependency which he feels is that of a child for a parent. When we bring such intensely dependent feelings into our adult relationships, we may open the door to a great deal of suffering. Unless we can cope with being separate, we cannot withstand another person's attempts to manipulate and bind us; nor can we refrain from attempting to manipulate and bind others in order to keep them close to us. Caught in such a net, we cannot fully live our lives, but must give away the power to shape our own destiny because we are frightened of being alone. Neither Cybele nor Attis can bear the fundamental human challenge of independent emotional existence. Thus, they cannot become lovers who truly respect and appreciate each other's ‘otherness’. They doom themselves to a psychological state of fusion which results in the cyclical repetition of betrayal, hurt, confusion and self-destructiveness. This myth teaches us that it is not passion alone which unleashes tragedy, but the unwholesome mix of passion and the inability to stand as a separate human being.
Succumbing to temptation
The Biblical myth of Samson presents us with the tragic results of misplaced passion and may be interpreted, on one level, as a moral injunction against succumbing to temptation. But the mysterious relationship between Samson's strength and his hair, and his blinding at the hands of the Philistines, reveal deeper meanings which may teach us more about the role passion plays in self-discovery than about the moral rules by which society deems we should live our outer lives.
anoah the Israelite suffered because his wife was barren and they could not have a son. So Manoah prayed to the Lord. The Lord heard and answered, and Samson was born.
Samson grew tall and strong, and the spirit of the Lord began to move him to great anger as well as great feats of strength. One day, he saw a Philistine woman and wanted her for his wife. But, at that time, the Philistines had dominion over the Israelites, and his mother and father asked him why he could find no woman among his own people. But Samson was determined, and his anger was a source of fear; so, in the end, he took the woman as his wife. Later he tired of her, and she was given to one of his companions. But it came to pass that Samson visited her, and her father would not permit him to see her. In his anger, Samson set fire to the standing corn of the Philistines. When the Philistines found that he had done this, they burned his wife and her father to death in revenge. In retaliation, Samson slew many of them, and they tried to defeat and capture him. But the Philistines could not conquer him. And, thus, the ground was laid for bitter and unending hatred between Samson and his wife's people.
One day, Samson went up to Gaza and saw a harlot. He lay with her, and the Philistines waited to kill him as he left; but again they could not conquer him. Then he saw and loved a woman whose name was Delilah. The rulers of the Philistines approached her and asked her to entice him and discover for them where the secret of his great strength lay, so that they could prevail against him. And they offered her eleven hundred pieces of silver.
Delilah tried and tried to get Samson to tell her his secret. It came to pass that he became so vexed and sore from all this importuning that he told her all his heart. He told her that if his head were shaven, all his strength would go from him. And Delilah sent for the lords of the Philistines and told them Samson's secret, and they gave her the pieces of silver as agreed. Then, while Samson was asleep in her arms, a man came who shaved off the seven locks of his head; and Samson's strength went from him.
When Samson awoke, the Philistines took him and bound him with fetters and put out his eyes. He was put in the prison house, and all the Philistines rejoiced because their great enemy was conquered. He languished in prison for a long time, and then he was brought before the people for sport. But, in that time, Samson's hair had grown again. He was set, bound in chains, between the pillars of the palace, where three thousand Philistines had gathered to mock and laugh at him. Samson called upon the Lord and he took hold of the pillars on which the palace stood. Bowing himself with all his might, the whole building fell down upon the Philistines. Although Samson was killed, his enemy was vanquished.
The obvious moral implications of this tale need no elaboration: Samson errs, first by choosing an unsuitable wife, second by aggravating the enmity between the Israelites and the Philistines, third through his passion for Delilah (another unsuitable lover), and fourth through foolishly revealing his secret to her. He pays for his sins and, in the end, is redeemed through the destruction of his enemies. But we need to look more closely at both the details of this story and the character of Samson himself, if we are to understand the insights it offers about the nature of passion.
From the outset, Samson is an angry man. The ‘spirit of the Lord’ which moves him to excesses is an ambiguous spirit, because it makes him violent and self-willed. Like many Greek heroes, Samson is afflicted with hubris – in other words, he does not understand self-restraint and, therefore, does not seek to contain what drives him from within. When he wants something, he must have it, and this includes choosing a wife from amongst his enemies. Love is not the issue here. What we see is a passion fuelled by physical attraction which Samson, driven by his instinctual needs, must fulfill. When he tires of his wife, he puts her aside. When her father, understandably, will not allow him to see her afterwards, he wreaks havoc on the Philistine cornfields – and tragedy ensues. In short, Samson is not a likable character. He is violent, self-willed and unfeeling. He is the architect of his own tragedy.
For Samson, temptation is bound to succeed, as he has no capacity for reflection. He is not suspicious of Delilah's persistence, because his emotions and instincts drive him. In the end, he reveals all and thus loses his strength.
Hair – short, long, dark or pale – appears in the symbolism of many of the world's myths. Even historically, its symbolic importance is clear: the Merovingian kings of France, for example, did not cut their hair because they believed it was a mark of their God-given royalty. Freud associated hair in dreams with sexual potency and strength; to have one's hair cut in dreams can be an image of impotence. But Freud notwithstanding, we should remember that Samson's strength-producing hair grows on his head, and this is the seat of mind. Hair may be linked with one's thoughts; it is a symbol of the individual's power of reflection, which shapes and directs one's will and world-view. Our strength, in other words, lies in our capacity to think, to perceive the world and process it through our own consciousness. Only in this way can we contain our destructive impulses and avoid sinking into blind emotion. In allowing himself to be driven by physical passion, Samson gives away his independent consciousness. His hair is symbolically lost long before it is physically cut, because he ignores the power of reflection in order to feed his passions. His undoing lies not in feeling attracted to women, nor even in pursuing that attraction in unsuitable places. It lies in the way in which he freely abandons all capacity for reflection.
As a result, Samson is imprisoned and blinded. Blindness in myth is often linked with inner vision and with the understanding which comes from turning one's eyes away from the outer world. The blind prophet Tiresias in Greek myth – whom we met in the story of Narcissus (see page 109) – is an example of the wisdom which results from turning one's focus inwards; the self-blinding of Oedipus (see page 54) is also an image of self-discovery. In prison, Samson learns to look inward; and what does he find? His hair grows again; he gains a capacity for thought and reflection; he prays to the god he had forgotten; and his strength returns. We may surmise that, on the psychological level, this powerful man, accustomed to brutally claiming what he wants, is forced by life's limits and his own failure to recognize who and what he really is and to remember what ideal he really serves.
What can this teach us about passion in everyday human life? We need to balance its blind power with inner sight, with reflection and with a recollection of what ideals really drive us in life. Through the mistakes, messes and hurts we inflict and receive through pursuing our passions without reflection, we are humbled and forced to turn inwards. In this way, we may regain our strength and recover our individuality. Samson's death may also be taken symbolically, for in such a humbling recognition we, too, undergo a kind of death. We must let go of our arrogance and self-will, and recognize life's limits. The story of Samson reveals the transformative effects of passion, which can lead us into suffering, but also into self-revelation and a new understanding of ourselves and life.
Deception attracts a deceiver
Rationality, and even intellectual brilliance, may not be an antidote to passionate love. Although we may need to reflect, we cannot silence our hearts – or our bodies – through the power of reason alone. In fact, attempting to use the rational mind as a defense against passion may make any individual particularly vulnerable to blindness in relationships. Even Merlin, the great magician of Celtic myth, was helpless in the face of his passion for a certain woman.
erlin was King Arthur's advisor and friend, and his magical powers were awesome. Not only was he wise in all herbal lore, he could also foresee the future and was a shape-shifter, able to appear in many different forms, such as an old man with a sickle, a young boy, a beggar and a shadow. He guarded his powers jealously and was never known to share either his wisdom or his bed with any woman.
But perhaps because he did not allow himself to know women, he did not truly know himself. In the end, this wise and skilled enchanter met his undoing through the honey-trap of love and sexual desire. One day, Merlin met a beautiful maiden. Her name was Nyneve and, although Merlin was by this time an old man, he fell desperately in love with her the moment he saw her. In order to impress her, he took the form of a handsome young man and boasted of his prowess as a powerful magician. He conjured fabulous illusions out of the air, hoping to win her admiration: knights and ladies courting, minstrels playing, young knights jousting and fantastic gardens filled with fountains and flowers. And the young woman simply stood and watched, but said nothing.
Merlin was so preoccupied with making an impression, that he failed to notice that Nyneve did not return his feelings. Yet she promised to become his lover if he shared with her the secrets of his magic. He eagerly agreed, believing he had found a devoted disciple as well as a lover. Nyneve proceeded to coax more and more knowledge from him, learning all his spells and magical recipes, yet forever withholding herself and frustrating his desire. Merlin, in his wisdom, gradually understood what was happening, and knew that he was being tricked and deceived. Yet he could not help himself.
Seeing clearly what the future held for him, Merlin then went to King Arthur, warning the king that the end was near for his trusted advisor and enchanter. The king was baffled and demanded to know why Merlin, with all his wisdom, could do nothing to save himself. Merlin replied sadly, ‘It is true that I know many things. Yet in the battle between knowledge and passion, knowledge never wins.’
The unhappy enchanter, burning with unrequited passion, followed Nyneve everywhere, like a lovesick adolescent. But Nyneve never granted him his desire; she always promised and tempted, elicited yet more secrets, and withdrew again. Finally, he committed the folly of teaching her the secrets of those spells which can never be broken. In order to please her, he created a magical chamber hollowed into the great Cornish cliffs high above the sea and filled it with unbelievable wonders. He intended it to be a glorious setting in which they might finally consummate their love. Together, they walked through a secret passage in the rock and approached the chamber, hung with gold and lit by hundreds of scented candles. Merlin entered, but Nyneve lingered outside. Then she pronounced the words of a terrible spell that could never be broken, a spell she had learned from him. The door to the chamber closed, and Merlin was trapped inside forever. As Nyneve moved away down the passage, she could hear his voice faintly through the rock, begging for release. But she took no notice and continued on her way. They say that Merlin is there in his gold-hung chamber even to this day, just as he knew he would be.
This well-known myth of the enchantment of the great enchanter can be seen, re-enacted in everyday life. Look at those relationships where one individual, man or woman, has managed to avoid the pain, joy and transformative power of passion for many years, only to finally succumb to a passion which proves unrequited or destructive. ‘There's no fool like an old fool,’ the saying goes, but this truism does not apply to everyone who has reached the latter part of life. It is applicable only to those who have managed, throughout their youth and early adulthood, to avoid getting their hands and hearts stained with the confusion and ambiguity of powerful emotional and sexual needs. Such individuals, ultimately, cannot cheat nature or their own natures, and often fall for unsuitable love objects when it is too late to learn the wisdom that only direct emotional experience can bring.
In Merlin's jealous guarding of his secrets lies the seeds of his undoing. The enchanter is frightened of vulnerability and depends on power to sustain himself in life; and where there is a craving for power, there is little room for genuine relationship. Merlin has used his impressive intellect and knowledge to control life, rather than allowing himself to experience it and be changed by it. We, too, may attempt to control our passions in this way, because passion makes us vulnerable. When we need another person intensely, we are no longer in control, and are at the mercy of whatever life brings us. For those who have been wounded in childhood and have learned to mistrust love at an early age, knowledge and power may be the favored means by which they protect themselves from being hurt. Yet, such a hard defensive shell can leave us childlike and naive underneath. We cannot grow up because we will not permit ourselves to go through those experiences of frustration and separation which might mature us. And then, like Merlin, we are deeply vulnerable to exploitation.
We may often read about powerful older men who parade beautiful young women on their arms, boasting to the world through these ‘trophy’ wives and lovers that they are still virile and lovable; yet inwardly such men may live with the constant fear that they are wanted for their power and wealth, and not for themselves. As social attitudes become less rigid and puritanical, famous older women may also be observed, struggling to retain the illusion of youth through cosmetic surgery and stringent exercise and dietary regimes, parading handsome ‘toy boys’ on their arms. Without doubt, there are relationships between an older man and a younger woman, or between an older woman and a younger man, which are rich, loving and totally sincere. But there are also many such relationships in which position and power are the currency with which an illusory love is purchased.
If we look at Merlin's story through psychological eyes, we may see a man riddled with deep insecurity, confident only in the power of his wisdom and magic. His quest for power compensates for loneliness and self-doubt, and he is so lacking in feelings of self-worth that, when he meets the object of his passion, he can only think of impressing her with power rather than revealing a real and vulnerable person. This, too, can be observed in everyday life; for when we are unsure of ourselves, we may seek to impress with our power, money, talents or knowledge, never realizing that, in such betrayal of our real selves, we may be opening the door to rejection and hurt. In presenting ourselves as something we are not, we deceive, consciously or unconsciously; and in doing so, we may attract a deceiver. The story of Merlin has much to teach us about the sad outcome of passion when the passionate individual has no real belief in his or her worth and avoids the deep and truthful meeting of equals, which any enduring love ultimately requires. Samson, the Biblical hero whom we met earlier in this chapter (see pages 116–19), is in touch only with his physical desires, and has no capacity for intellectual reflection. Merlin, on the other hand, is frightened of his physical desires and only trusts his mind. Only a balance between the two can provide psychological health and the potential of a fulfilling relationship.