Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/62

50 Now this is the story of Eros and Psyche, as it is told by Apuleius, in his book of Metamorphoses written nearly two thousand years ago. But the story was told ages before Apuleius by people other than the Greeks, and in a language which existed long before theirs. It is the tale of Urvasî and Purûravas, which is to be found in one of the oldest of the Vedas, or Sanskrit sacred books, which contain the legends of the Aryan race before it broke up and went in great fragments southward into India, and westward into Persia and Europe. A translation of the story of Urvasî and Purûravas is given by Mr. Max-Müller, who also tells what the story means, and this helps us to see the meaning of the tale of Eros and Psyche, and of many other myths which occur among all the branches of the Aryan family; among the Teutons, the Scandinavians, and the Slavs, as well as among the Greeks. Urvasî, then, was an immortal being, a kind of fairy, who fell in love with Purûravas, a hero and a king; and she married him, and lived with him, on this condition—that she should never see him unless he was dressed in his royal robes. Now there was a ewe, with