Week 2 Story: Pygmalion and Cressida

    Pygmalion had seen the daughters of his neighbor Propoetus happily married, walking arm-in-arm with their husbands along the streets of their town, and longed for what they had.
    A sculptor by trade, Pygmalion was more comfortable around marble and ivory than he was around other people, especially women. So while he waited to muster the courage to go out into the city and seek out the love his neighbors had found, he sculpted a woman from his mind. Her carved her out of rare amber marble, golden and warm like the sun. The figure was so lifelike that one almost expected it to start speaking. When the sunlight came through Pygmalion's studio window and hit the sculpture just right, the eyes sparkled with a brilliance that took his breath away. He found himself falling in love with his own creation, and it made his heart heavy to remember that it was not a real person, just cold, motionless stone.
    While Pygmalion works on his other projects, he talks to his marble companion. He calls her Cressida for her golden color, and speaks to her as if she were alive to hear him, as if they were old friends. His neighbors see him through the windows of his studio, speaking to no one, but they brush it off.
    "He must be lonely," Galatea, one of Propoetus' says to her husband, "Maybe this year Venus will bring a little companionship into his life."
    Soon the day of Venus' festival came, and as all of the island of Cyprus was celebrating, Pygmalion decided to pull himself away to join in the festivities. The air heavy with the smoke of incense, Pygmalion approached the altar and presented his offering.
    "If you wish to grant me anything, oh Goddess," the sculptor began, "I would like to a have a bride like..." He felt it foolish to say, "Like my statue," in front of the entire town, so instead he said, "Like my Cressida."
    The goddess Venus was indeed there, though hidden from mortal eyes, and knew what Pygmalion had meant to say in his heart. She and the other gods were fond of his sculpture, so she decided to grant his wish. The fire on the altar flared three times as a sign of Venus' approval.

Venus' transformation of Galatea (Source: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)

    Pygmalion went home that night to his empty house, and started to walk towards his studio to check on Cressida before he went to bed, as had become his custom. He found the door open, and panicking, he hurried inside.
    The pedestal the statue had normally stood on was bare, and there were dusty footprints on the stone floor all around it. Pygmalion felt his heart begin to race. Has someone stolen her? He thought to himself. He heard the door behind him creak, as if someone were pushing it aside, and he spun around, ready to shout at the thief.
    Instead of a thief, he found, to his surprise, a girl that looked remarkably like his Cressida. She was even wearing the same style of dress that he had carved over Cressida's body. The girl looked scared and confused, but didn't run away. She was looking at Pygmalion like she was trying to figure out if she knew him, and that is when the sculptor realized...it was Cressida.
    "Cressida?" He said her name questioningly.
    "Is that my name?" The girl responded, in a voice just like the one Pygmalion had always imagined she would have, "It sounds familiar. And you, you look familiar."
      "I think we've known each other for some time now." Pygmalion responded, smiling, "I'm Pygmalion. Do you remember me?"
    And Cressida realized that she had remembered him, in the distant, fuzzy way one remembers a dream. She felt in her heart that she was in a safe place, and as she smiled back at the sculptor, Venus looked down on the couple and smiled.
 

Author's Note: I did a little research into the legend of Pygmalion, and found that the first line of the story about Propoetus' daughters was a reference to prostitution. Something about Pygmalion's disgust with them and the comments about "the failings that nature gave the female heart" didn't sit right with me, so I decided to change that aspect of the story to make it all more positive. Instead of looking at Propoetus (who I assume must be a neighbor or something to Pygmalion) and his daughters and feeling derision and disdain, I wanted Pygmalion to see them happy, and want that for himself. Without judging an entire gender to the point that he had to create his own girlfriend, also.

In the original myth, the statue-come-to-life is given the name Galatea, which apparently means "milky white." Seeing as she is made from ivory, that makes sense. Since I changed the material and the color of the statue, I thought it fitting to find a name that matched that. Hence, Cressida, which is Greek for "golden." I kept a reference to the original statue's name, Galatea, by assigning it to one of Propoetus' daughters. 

Bibliography: "Pygmalion," Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000)