Psyche, meanwhile, felt no joy in her beauty. Men marveled at her as at a lovely statue finely wrought, but none came to ask for her hand. Her sisters had long been married happily to kings who came to claim them, but Psyche grew increasingly broken in spirit. And so it came that her father the king, suspecting that something divine had gone awry, consulted the oracle of Apollo. To his horror, he was given this advice:

But though they mourned and wept, the oracle must be followed. In her ghastly bridal dress of funeral robes, and with the mournful wailing of the procession that led her, Psyche walked to her doom.

THE SURRENDER OF THE FEMININE

Here, the story takes a precipitous turn. Aphrodite's warning that Psyche is to be united with a vile and monstrous being turns into reality as Apollo's oracle ordains that she is to be married in a funeral ceremony to a terrible dragon. But even before this terrifying oracle, we learn that Psyche's extraordinary fame and beauty are not entirely positive gifts. Not only have they enraged Aphrodite, they also have alienated her from other humans. So beyond the reach of mortals is her loveliness that she cannot find the ordinary creature comforts of life – home, husband, and family – that come naturally to her less beautiful sisters.