What it is
A late canvas by Waterhouse showing Psyche, from the Roman tale told by Apuleius, kneeling in a bare landscape and lifting the lid of a small box.
What it represents
Curiosity and what it costs. Venus's last task for Psyche was to carry a box back from the underworld and never open it.
The symbolism
The box was supposed to hold a portion of divine beauty. It holds only a deathlike sleep. The picture is about the exhaustion that follows too much wanting, and about being undone by the very thing you were sent to bring home.
Poems and letters beside it
poem
Sonnet 66, "Tired with all these"
William Shakespeare (1609)
Weariness with everything one was sent to carry. Psyche, box in hand, is the picture of being tired by what was asked of her.
poem
The Leaden Echo
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1882)
A poem about the tiredness that comes from feeling too much, and the hope of finding a way through it.
