785. RB to Anna Brownell Jameson
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 1–2.
[London]
Wednesday Night. [ca. 1841] [1]
Dear Mrs Jameson,
What can I say to excuse nearly a month’s silence after you had told me to speak? Or, may I call one day or night and try hard to say something? Here comes in, anyhow, forlorn and halting, my explication of the Picture you described to me. Apuleius, Metamorphoseon, Lib. VI. [2] Psyche, having fallen thro’ her curiosity into Venus’ clutches, is dispatched on a spiteful errand to Proserpine; Venus is out of Beauty, having spent a deal in tending Cupid, sick a-bed with his burnt shoulder—nor can she present herself befittingly at Olympus unless replenished from Proserpine’s stock: for this purpose she furnishes Psyche with a casket. Such a sample of Step-damehood causes, it should seem, the very stones to cry out—since a huge Tower, from which Psyche is about to precipitate herself in despair, takes voice, counsels her against short cuts to Hell, puts her upon another course, and after pointing out sundry snares in store for her, and proper methods of frustrating the same, especially enjoins a letting alone all prying into casket and contents: Psyche obeys the other injunctions to the letter, gets her casket filled, and bids Proserpine farewell—but no sooner has she paid Charon [3] his back-fare (“old man in the distance”) and revisited the light—than a rash curiosity takes possession of her. “Shall she fetch-and-carry Divine Beauty, and yet venture on no tiniest appropriation-clause to the Venus’ Revenue Bill? Never so little a snatch would recommend her to Cupid!” No sooner said than done—the casket is opened, and forth issues only “an infernal and truly Stygian sleep”—which catching her up and casting her down—on the spot—leaves her “nothing but a sleeping corpse.” At this juncture Cupid,—whose wound is well and wings want exercise,—breaks bed-room bounds, seeks out Psyche, and awakens her with the innocuous end of his arrow. “And, behold,” says he, “once again had you almost perished, unfortunate that you are, thro’ a like curiosity”! (“Psyche seated in a disconsolate attitude—Cupid standing with a casket in his hand.”) [4]
(N.B. No attempt at fun in what goes before—but strict rendering, as far as I remember—having read the story this morning.)
Pray forgive and believe me,
Dear Mrs Jameson,
Yours ever faithfully,
R Browning.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: R.H. Taylor Collection.
1. Although the paper is watermarked 1840, RB’s general usage suggests that this letter would not have been written before 1841.
2. Lucius Apuleius (fl. 2nd century A.D.) studied successively in Carthage, Athens and Rome. Many of his works are no longer extant; the eleven books of his Metamorphoses (better known by the alternative title, The Golden Ass) remain popular.
3. Charon, son of Erebus and Nox, ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx, for which he was paid an obolus, this coin having been placed under the deceased’s tongue for that purpose.
4. RB’s description fits the painting, by William Etty (1787–1849), entitled “Psyche Having, After Great Peril, Procured the Casket of Cosmetics from Proserpine in Hades, Lays It at the Feet of Venus, While Cupid Pleads in Her Behalf.” It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836.
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