PWJ: S3E9 – TWHF (Pt 1, CH 12-13) – "The Riddle of Psyche"
Orual tries to work out what’s going on with Psyche by discussing the matter with Bardia and the Fox. Is she mad? Who is it that comes to her in the night? The god? The Brute? A man?
S3E9: “The Riddle of Psyche” (Download)
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Time Stamps
01:49 – Drink-of-the-week
02:35 – Quote-of-the-week
04:22 – Chit-chat
09:55 – Chapter 12 Summary
30:42 – Chapter 13 Summary
52:32 – Closing remarks
YouTube Version
After Show Skype Session
This Season, after each episode, Matt and I will be recording a ten-minute Skype conversation:
Show Notes
• I was joined by Matt “Swifty” Bush. For the uninitiated, Taylor Swift fans are known as “Swifties” and Matt is a massive fan.
• Matt was drinking a Yogi herbal tea for drink-of-the-week, while I was living on the edge drinking a “Screwball” peanut butter whiskey. In response, Matt recommended the movie Peanut Butter Falcon:
• The quote-of-the-week was from Chapter 13:
“I never doubted that I must now cross the river, or try to cross it, even if it should drown me. I must lie on the steps at the great gate of that house and make my petition. I must ask forgiveness of Psyche as well as of the god”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
• Lina Maslo sent us an early version of her children’s book about Lewis. We concluded that Matt is terrible at checking his mail, as well as my Slack messages…
• Marie and I went to see “An Evening with C.S. Lewis” in Los Angeles, which is produced by Bird and Baby Productions. We got hang out afterwards:
• I’m going to be at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Los Angeles on The Screwtape Letters. It’ll be called “Annoying the Devil: Resisting temptation with C.S. Lewis”.
• Matt is going to be speaking at a two-day conference at Notre Dame, the Edith Stein Conference. He’ll be speaking on February 7th.
• My friend Brigid will be starting a reading group, working through Lewis’ Cosmic trilogy. More people do this please!
• This was my summary of Chapter 12:
Orual leaves Psyche and returns to Bardia and together they spend the night on the edge of the valley. At twilight, Orual goes to get a drink and briefly sees Psyche’s Amber Castle, but it soon starts to fade. She tells no one of this experience. She returns to Bardia and then begin to travel back down the Mountain. They stop around noon and Orual tells him about the meeting with Psyche. After some pressing, he says that he believes Psyche’s testimony. When asked about why her husband doesn’t show his face, he says that it’s probably because he is ugly. Orual continues to try and make sense of things as they continue down the Mountain, concluding that it would be better for Psyche to die than be sport for the Brute. She parts ways with Bardia and she sneaks back into the Palace by the back route.
150-word summary of Chapter 12 from Till We Have Faces
• Bardia asks Orual’s permission to sleep near her so they can stay warm. Orual agrees, but she interprets it badly:
I said yes to that, and indeed no woman in the world has so little reason as I to be chary in such matters. Yet it surprised me that he should have said it; for I did not yet know that, if you are ugly enough, all men (unless they hate you deeply) soon give up thinking of you as a woman at all.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
• At twilight, Orual sees Psyche’s Palace:
I got my drink, ice-cold, and I thought it steadied my mind. But would a river flowing in the gods’ secret valley do that, or the clean contrary?… For when I lifted my head and looked once more into the mist across the water, I saw that which brought my heart into my throat. There stood the palace, grey — as all things were grey in that hour and place — but solid and motionless, wall within wall, pillar and arch and architrave, acres of it, a labyrinthine beauty. As she had said, it was like no house ever seen in our land or age.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
• In response to seeing the Palace, Orual realizes she needs to repent and beg forgiveness:
What would it do to me for my blasphemies and unbelievings? I never doubted that I must now cross the river, or try to cross it, even if it should drown me. I must lie on the steps at the great gate of that house and make my petition. I must ask forgiveness of Psyche as well as of the god. I had dared to scold her (dared, what was worse, to try to comfort her as a child) but all the time she was far above me; herself now hardly mortal. . . . if what I saw was real.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
However, when she begins to doubt what she’s seeing, the vision fades:
Perhaps it was not real. I looked and looked to see if it would not fade or change. Then as I rose (for all this time I was still kneeling where I had drunk), almost before I stood on my feet, the whole thing was vanished.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
Matt contrasted this with Psyche when she gets a glimpse of the West Wind. She doesn’t doubt. Matt and I discussed how much of this was a trained response in both sisters.
I suggested that Orual’s bodily position (kneeling) may be playing a part here, and quoted Screwtape:
At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Chapter 4)
On the subject of evidence, I commented that prominent Atheist, Matt Dillahunty, has said that he wouldn’t believe in God, even if he saw an ocean parted in Jesus’ name. I followed up by quoting Lewis from The Magician’s Nephew:
“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (Chapter 10)
Naturally, in response to all this, Orual assumes that all of this is the gods just mocking her:
Either way, there’s divine mockery in it. They set the riddle and then allow a seeming that can’t be tested and can only quicken and thicken the tormenting whirlpool of your guess-work. If they had an honest intention to guide us, why is their guidance not plain?
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
This seems to be an imitation of the King’s conception of the gods:
“That’s just like the gods,” he muttered. “Drive you to do a thing and then punish you for doing it…”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 6)
• Orual returns to Bardia, but doesn’t tell him about what she saw. She tells him what happened with Psyche and presses him for his opinion. Bardia doesn’t really want to get involved:
“the less Bardia meddles with the gods, the less they’ll meddle with Bardia.”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
Much like Lewis in Surprised By Joy, he just wants to be left alone:
I had always wanted, above all things, not to be “interfered with”
C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (Chapter 14)
• Bardia believes Psyche’s testimony about the god and her palace. He said she was clearly in her right mind. Why assume she’s lying?
“She says so, Lady. Who am I to give the Blessed One the lie?”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
When Orual asks why the god hides his face, he says that it must be because he is unattractive:
“I should say it was one whose face and form would give her little pleasure if she saw them.” after all, “They called her the Bride of the Brute, Lady”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
Orual concludes that Bardia’s opinion would likely be the opinion of the people of Glome:
As he thought, so, doubtless, every prudent, god-fearing man of our nation and our time would think too. My other guesses would not even come into their minds; here was the plain answer, clear as noonday. Why seek further? The god and the Shadowbrute were all one. She had been given to it. We had got our rain and water and (as seemed likely) peace with Phars. The gods, for their share, had her away into their secret places where something, so foul it would not show itself, some holy and sickening thing, ghostly or demonlike or bestial — or all three (there’s no telling, with gods) — enjoyed her at its will.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
• After thinking back on what she had previously said about preferring Psyche’s death rather than be left to the Brute, Orual wonders if she should just let Psyche be happy in her ignorance:
I even asked myself why I should save her from the Brute, or warn her against the Brute, or meddle with the matter at all. “She is happy,” said my heart. “Whether it’s madness or a god or a monster, or whatever it is, she is happy. You have seen that for yourself. She is ten times happier, there in the Mountain, than you could ever make her. Leave her alone. Don’t spoil it. Don’t mar what you’ve learnt you can’t make.”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
In the end, she concludes that she won’t let things remain:
My heart did not conquer me. I perceived now that there is a love deeper than theirs who seek only the happiness of their beloved. Would a father see his daughter happy as a whore? Would a woman see her lover happy as a coward? My hand went back to the sword. “She shall not,” I thought. Come what might, she should not. However things might go, whatever the price, by her death or mine or a thousand deaths, by fronting the gods “beard to beard” as the soldiers say, Psyche should not — least of all, contentedly — make sport for a demon.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 12)
I noted that “beard to beard” might be rendered “face to face”…
• I then read my 150-word summary of Chapter 13:
Orual is met by the Fox outside her door. After she has refreshed herself, she tells him of the events on the Mountain. He is overjoyed that Psyche is alive, but dismayed by the rest of the story. He assumes Psyche is sick.
150-word summary of Chapter 13 from Till We Have Faces
After discussing the possibility of invisible realities, the Fox concludes that Psyche has fallen into the grip of some kind of vagabond, and it is he who visits her at night. We find out that the King is to be called away to hunt lions and will be away for several days, which gives them some time to act. Orual suggests hiding Psyche in Bardia’s house, but he Fox rejects this idea and says it’s moot since they have no means of bringing Psyche back by force. The Fox, tired, retires for the evening, but Orual continues to reason and plan her next move…
• The Fox thanks Zeus again, a god he doesn’t think exists:
“See. I make a libation to Zeus the Saviour.”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
• Fox concludes that Psyche is sick:
Hellebore’s the right medicine, with rest, and peace, and loving care . . . oh, we’d bring her into frame again, I don’t doubt it, if we could nurse her well. But how are we to give her all or any of the things she needs?
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
The Fox wishes he was Hermes or Odysseus. I say I’m not entirely sure why he picks these two, but they are both Greek heroes known for their cunning. Hermes could also travel at speed and Odysseus has a connection to the subject of madness, since he feigned lunacy in an attempt to get out of going to the Trojan War.
However, Orual points out that Psyche didn’t seem mad:
“She talked so calmly. There was nothing disordered in her speech. She could laugh merrily. Her glance wasn’t wild. If I’d had my eyes shut, I would have believed her palace was as real as this”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
• The Fox and Orual discuss the possibility of invisible realities. The Fox gives a few examples:
“Justice, Equality, the Soul, or musical notes… Things behind our backs. Things too far away. And all things, if it’s dark enough.”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
I commented that to see things in the dark, we need illumination, sometimes natural illumination and sometimes supernatural illumination.
Fox hints that Orual might be losing her grip on reality and this shaming no doubt cements her decision not to tell him of her glimpse of the Palace.
• Fox concludes that a man is coming to Psyche, since it explains how she escaped, how she’s looked after and why she’s happy:
As I read it, some robber or runaway has found the poor child, half-crazed with terror and loneliness, and with thirst, too (likely enough), and got her out of her irons. And if she were not in her right mind, what would she most probably babble of in her ravings? Her gold and amber house on the Mountain, of course. She has had that fantasy from her childhood. The fellow would fall in with it. He’d be the god’s messenger . . . why, that’s where her god of the Westwind comes from. It would be the man himself. He’d take her to this valley. He’d whisper to her that the god, the bridegroom, would come to her that night. And after dark, he’d come back.”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
In relation to this, Matt and I discussed the Minimal Facts argument for the Resurrection.
When Bardia was speaking, she was convinced by his explanation, but following the Fox’s explanation she is convinced of his explanation. This reminded me of the following Biblical proverb:
He who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:17
• The Fox claimed that he needed no Oedipus to work out this riddle. Oedipus was the man who solved the riddle of the Sphinx:
“What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three at night?”.
The Riddle of the Sphinx
Oedipus answered: “Man: as an infant, he crawls on all fours; as an adult, he walks on two legs and; in old age, he uses a walking stick”
Matt isn’t smarter than Oedipus.
• We find out that the King is going to be away hunting lions, the same creatures which appeared in anticipation to the Great Offering. Orual doesn’t seem to recognize that Psyche predicted that the King wasn’t going to be an obstacle. She hopes that Redival might now be sacrificed!
Matt and I talked about why the King seems so happy about lions killing animals and people in his kingdom. I suggested that it was because this was finally a problem he knew how to solve!
• The Fox doesn’t think much of Bardia:
“He’s as amorous as Alcibiades”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
A vain man who consorted with courtesans, despite being married.
• Even after the Fox says that he’ll run away with them if Orual can convince Psyche to come down from the Mountain, Orual regards herself as alone:
The honour of our house — the very being of Psyche — only I am left to care for them
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
• The Fox criticizes Orual for her lack of control:
“Daughter, daughter. You are transported beyond all reason and nature. Do you know what it is? There’s one part love in your heart, and five parts anger, and seven parts pride. The gods know I love Psyche, too. And you know it; you know I love her as well as you do. It’s a bitter grief that our child — our very Artemis and Aphrodite all in one — should live a beggar’s life and lie in a beggar’s arms. Yet even this . . . it is not to be named beside such detested impieties as you speak of. Why, look at it squarely, as reason and nature have made it, not as passion would paint it. To be poor and in hardship, to be a poor man’s wife…”
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
• When the Fox is tired and goes to bed, Orual lets him leave, but is critical:
What could I do but send him away? This is where men, even the trustiest, fail us. Their heart is never so wholly given to any matter but that some trifle of a meal, or a drink, or a sleep, or a joke, or a girl, may come in between them and it, and then (even if you are a queen) you’ll get no more good out of them till they’ve had their way. In those days I had not yet understood this.
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
This was one of the passages which Andrew Lazo said he thought was evidence of Joy’s involvement in writing this story.
• Surprisingly, Orual then prays:
I spoke to the gods myself, alone, in such words as came to me, not in a temple, and without a sacrifice. I stretched myself face downward on the floor and called upon them with my whole heart. I took back every word I had said against them. I promised anything they might ask of me, if only they would send me a sign. They gave me none
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
The gods say nothing. Orual eventually concludes that, regardless of whether Bardia or the Fox is correct, something unpleasant is coming each night to her sister…which is unacceptable:
Both thought that some evil or shameful thing had taken Psyche for its own. Murdering thief or spectral Shadow-brute — did it matter which? The one thing neither of them believed was that anything good or fair came to her in the night. No one but myself had dallied with that thought even for a moment
C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces (Chapter 13)
“It shall not have her,” I said. “She shall not lie in those detestable embraces. Tonight must be the last night of that.”
• Next week we’ll be reading Chapters 14 and 15.