Love, Soul, Underage Driving

There was a boy called Phaeton. Now he wasn't the best boy, nor the luckiest. Phaeton told his friends that his father was Apollo (and he's not lying). After being kind of beat up by his friends who thought he was lying, he goes in search for his father. When he reaches the temple, Apollo acknowledges him as his son, and promises to grant him a wish by the name of Styx (a promise by the name of Styx must be done). Phaeton asks to drive the sun chariot (or the sun), to which Apollo didn't want to, for it was too dangerous. Yet, a promise was a promise, and the wish was fulfilled. Apollo told a bunch of safety precautions to Phaeton before he left on the chariot, but he didn't listen. He was attacked by constellations, burned the earth, and finally, dies when he falls into a river.

This is exactly why I oppose to underage driving. Just kidding.

I know that Phaeton encountered some poor fate, but I guess he deserved it. He should have listened to his father at least. Well, it's not like I always listen to my father. Anyways, according to this, he was the one that burned Africa, making all the deserts. Technically, he started global warming. He was also the one that burned the skin of the people in Africa, forming the black race. Now, now. Phaeton obviously made more trouble than an average Joe there. Let's just hope the river water cooled his mind off as he went to the underworld.


The next story was Eros (or Cupid) and Psyche. So Psyche was very beautiful, making Aphrodite mad. She sent Eros to her so that he could punish her, but Eros falls in love with her. Therefore, they are allowed to marry with one circumstance. Psyche is forbidden from seeing Eros. When Psyche's sisters come and talk about her new wife, they thought it was suspicious, and suggested that he might be a monster. Although Psyche loved her husband, she decides to take her sisters' advice and at night, sees the husbands face with the candle. She sees Eros, and as she is surprised, some wax falls on Eros, waking him. He leaves, saying something about how love can never be together with doubt. Psyche does all kinds of things to get Eros back (doing chores for Aphrodite, going to the underworld for this thing). She soon gets petrified, but soon healed and reunited wit Eros. Psyche is made a goddess, and they live happily ever after.

Now, this was one of the stories that I liked from the whole book. I liked how 'Psyche' also meant the soul (or a butterfly), and how this particular one is going towards love, no matter what is in the way. Maybe it's saying that the soul and love will always be together. Did that make sense? If it didn't, never mind.

In the story, although Psyche is shown as the 'good' main character, doing all those stuff just for love, it seems she has some bad things too. She didn't believe her husband, despite their love, creating disbelief between them. Also, she was petrified because of the box given from the underworld because of the curiousity (and partly greed, since she was told the box contained 'beauty'). As the people say: The curiousity killed the cat. No. The curiousity ALMOST killed the cat. Well, in this case, the curiousity almost killed the butterfly. Whatever. Forget it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that it is yet another happy ending story. I totally agree with what was said in the text:
Q: "So it has a happy ending?"
A: "It has a very happy ending."
Q: "Almost none of these stories have completely happy endings."

A: "This is different." "It's just inevitable. The soul wanders in the dark, until it finds love. And so, wherever our love goes, there we find our soul.

Speaking of which, what I said earlier about the soul/butterfly going towards love and being together wasn't total gibberish after all.