Istra

"They and it are all part of the same web, which is called Nature, or the Whole. That southwest wind came over a thousand miles of sea and land. The weather of the whole world would have to have been different from the beginning if that wind was not to blow. It's all one web; you can't pick threads out nor put them in (C.S. Lewis)."
About a week ago, I was tearing through my book shelves looking for my anthology of children's literature and I paused for a long moment when I came upon C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. I love this book and have read it a couple times. I always identified with the narrator, Orual, her isolation due to her lack of femininity and anger at the gods. A few days later, I was chatting with Oranda and she mentioned the book to me (I had lent it to her years ago, because I had loved it so) and that was my undoing. When one is on a quest it is dangerous to ignore signs such as these. I decided to read the novel again and upon entering my home I could here the book calling to me from deep within my stacks. I took it from its home on a high shelf and upon examining the cover realized there was much about this book that I had forgotten or possibly never noticed before. Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold is the full title and the back cover boasts: "this timeless tale of two princesses--one beautiful and one unattractive--and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is C.S. Lewis's reworking of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche."  The first few times I read the novel I had a very limited knowledge of mythology and the structure of romance. Excited to see how the story would read with my new eyes, I curled up with my kitty, and took to lovingly defacing the book with my trusty blue highlighter.
How does this story fit into the genre of romance? Does it belong there? Aside from Orual's anger at the gods this story reads like a fairy tale. Once there were two sisters, their mother died and their father was a cruel and violent king who purchased a Greek taken in battle to educate his future son. Because of his red hair the Greek was called the Fox and he taught the girls reason and philosophy while the King remarried in anticipation of a successor. (The Fox is Orual's most trusted companion and even though he is not literally an animal, he functions as a metaphorical animal companion for Orual.) The Kings second wife dies in childbirth, enraged by the sex of the child, the King bellows "Girls, girls, girls and now one girl more. Is there no end to it? Is there a plague of girls in heaven that the gods send me a flood of them? (Lewis, 16)" The child was named Istra, which translates to  Psyche in Greek and was "Prettier than Andromeda, prettier than Helen, prettier than Aphrodite herself (Lewis, 23)." With her mother dead and her father completely indifferent; she is an orphan. Orual takes to finding her a proper nurse and raising her as her own. Now there were three: Orual the ugly, Redival the pretty, and Psyche the beautiful. I think we find that three is a very important number in fairy tales.
Redival plays the role of the harlot and a young man she seduces is castrated for his attempt on her virginity. Orual and the Fox become Redival's jailers, warned by the King not to let Redival out of their sight for "if she  loses her maidenhead before I find her a husband, you will yell louder for it than she (Lewis, 26)". As Psyche grows her beauty remains beyond comparison and the King's people begin to worship her like a goddess, they even believe she can heal the sick. The meddling and jealous Redival informs the priest at the temple of Ungit, the principal goddess of the region, of Istra's growing reputation. When Psyche is unable to heal the sick, they turn on her and, with the growing drought and sickness, on the King.
In the land of Glome there are two great powers, the King and the Temple of Ungit. With the people positioned behind the house of Ungit the priest councils the King on what must be done to restore the land and satisfy the goddess. The people are convinced that the Accursed is among them. "We were overthrown long before your day by the King of Essur; and that was because there was a man in your grandfather's army who had lain with his sister and killed the child. He was the Accursed. We found him out and expiated his sin..for we all knew (and you may hold it for certain) that there will be no mending of our ills till the land is purged. Ungit will be avenged. It's not a bull or ram that will quiet her now...we must find the Accursed. And she (or he) must by the rite of the Great Offering (Lewis,46)."
"In the Great Offering, the victim must be perfect. For, in holy language, a man so offered is said to be Ungit's husband, and a woman so offered is said to be the bride of Ungit's son. And both are called the Brute's Supper. And when the Brute is Ungit it lies with the man, and when it is her son it lies with the woman. And either way there is a devouring...many different things are said...many great mysteries. Some say that loving and devouring are all the same thing. For in sacred language we say that a woman who lies with a man devours the man (Lewis, 49)."
"The lot fell on your youngest daughter, King. She is the Accursed. The Princess Istra must be the Great Offering (Lewis, 55)." As a result of Redival's meddling, Psyche must be sacrificed to the Brute at the Holy Tree the very next day. It is believed that the Brute tears apart the offering (sparagmos) and then eats it (omophagia). Orual visits Psyche in prison to comfort the child, but it is Orual that needs comforting. For as much as Orual believes that Psyche will be devoured by a monster, Psyche believes that she has been betrothed to a god. Psyche assures Orual that there is "little difference between dying and being married. To leave your home, to loose one's maidenhead, to bear a child--they are all deaths (Lewis, 73)." Despite Orual's best efforts, Psyche is taken and sacrificed at the Holy Tree. Believing her dead, Orual resolves to journey up the mountain to the tree and bury the lovely bones. She enlists the help of Bardia, a trusted soldier and rustic, to aid her in her journey.
When Orual finds Psyche alive, everything becomes dream-like and reality is split. There is no indication as to whose version of reality is correct--Orual or Psyche. This section of the novel mainly consists of the details of the Eros and Psyche myth. Later when Psyche agrees to Orual's demand that she shine a light on her phantom lover she tells Orual "it is like looking into a deep pit..to take my love for you...and make of it a tool, a weapon, a thing of policy and mastery, and instrument of torcher (Lewis,165)." Once the details of the myth have played out the god appears to Orual, "You also shall be Psyche" is his prophecy. This is the reinforcement of a doubling or mirroring that had been touched upon earlier in the novel when the hot tempered King made Orual look at herself in a large mirror.
The story continues and Bardia trains Orual to fight; they eventually become brothers in battle (as Orual kills what little femininity she possess). It is around this time that Orual veils herself and begins her metamorphosis into the Queen. Behind her veil she is a ghastly and mysterious creature, set to the task of suffocating Orual. The abusive King dies and Orual's first act as Queen is to fight to the death and win. "Yet I felt of a sudden very weak and my legs were shaking; and I felt myself change too, as if something had been taken from me. I have often wondered if women feel like that when they lose their virginity (Lewis, 220)." The Queen/Orual remains a virgin throughout the tale but metaphorically loses her virginity and is metaphorically with child. On a later journey she stumbles upon a temple to a young goddess named Istra, when the priest tells her the story of the goddess (the myth of Eros and Psyche) she becomes enraged at her portrayal in the tale. "It burned me from within. It quickened; I was with book, as a woman is with child (Lewis, 247)."
For those who have not been keeping track, the peripheral elements of romance evident in this tale are: violence, oracles, Eros, exposed infant/adoption, rustics, pastoral setting, doubling/mirrors, actual death, incest, sparagmos/omophagia, harlot, animal companions, and castration. There is both literal and metaphorical castration at work in this novel; there is the literal castration of Tarin and the Kings inability to produce a male heir can be seen as a metaphorical castration or a form of impotence. Even though I have not discussed it the seasonal cycle is a recurring theme in the novel. As far as required elements there is an apparent death and a quest; both the blanket quest of her complaint against the gods and several mini-quests.
Orual's remembrance/revelation comes when she removes her veil. At this point she is an old woman and Tarin sneaks back into the story and informs her of Redival's extreme hurt of being abandoned by Orual for the Fox and Psyche. "She used to say, 'First Orual loved me much, then came the Fox and she loved me little; then the baby came and sh loved me not at all' (Lewis, 255)." She realizes that she had cast Redival aside and herself devoured Psyche with her selfish love. This brings about a fall in which everything Orual had accepted as fact comes into question. In her dreams and visions Orual is tortured by hidden truths as she falls (she is told she is Ungit); she digs a pit and is told by her father's ghost to throw herself in. Then she must dig another pit and descend further and further until she reaches the below world; where the truth is revealed to her through a series of paintings. What is a great romance without a painting? While we are on the subject; what is a great romance without music? (There are several instances where either the situation or a person is compared to song.) All becomes clear; the gods plan for Psyche, the effect of Orual's actions on others, and the answer to the riddle You also shall be Psyche. As Orual watched Psyche complete her tasks so that she might be reunited with her husband it occurred to her that "she was all but unscathed. She was almost happy." Her guide informed her that this was true because "another bore nearly all the anguish (Lewis, 300)." She was also Psyche and she was also Ungit; it's all one web.
Happy ending? This is debatable but I believe it is a happy ending. Orual dies while feverishly trying to right the conclusion to the amendment to her book. She is a very old woman and knows she is dying; she dies at the end of writing her book which is a metaphorical death in itself. It is necessary that she die. Furthermore, the general feel of the book, especially towards the end, is that Death is no different from the lesser deaths (marriage, childbirth), it merely signifies a change. In addition, the really real end of the book is a note from the  man that discovered her corpse pleading for anyone that should read it and be heading to Greece to carry it there, "for that is what she seems mostly to have desired (Lewis, 309)." Perhaps my most important argument that this is a happy ending is that every time I have read this book I close it with a light heart and clear head.
Reading this novel in my naivety was a joy and with my new consciousness it was a pleasure. I believe this little side track has brought me a step further on my own personal quest, one I've been on for quite some time now. My quest, in the words of Maynard Keenan, is "to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human." I am convinced the only way to accomplish this is through literature, art, and music.