Week 2 Story: Pygmalion's Guide to the Perfect Woman

Are you a hero who has been unlucky in love because all the women in your town are terrible?

Do you also happen to be able to sculpt life-like statues of women?

Then Pygmalion’s Guide to the Perfect Woman is for you!

Hi I’m Pygmalion and I was once like you- a hero to all of Rome who to the outside world, seemed to have it all, but I had no one to share it with. Then I followed these simple steps to create the woman of my dreams and now I have everything!

Step 1: Be a Hero

For this to have a happy ending, you must be a well-established hero to the people of Rome.  when you marry your perfect woman at the end of the process, you won’t be total a total creep for falling in love with a statue. Instead, it’s charming and humanizes you to the public.

Step 2: Be in the Gods’ Good Graces

If you have made any of the gods mad at any time in your life, things may not turn out exactly the way you plan. These mishaps may include: your bride turning back into a statue occasionally, her rejecting you, or any number of things Venus thinks up. If you have angered Venus in anyway please close this book now and either accept that you will be alone for the rest of your life or marry one of those terrible girls in your town. Venus must be happy with you for this process not to end in complete tragedy.

Step 3: Sculpt Your Ivory Girl

Yes, you must be able to carve a statue of your most beautiful and perfect woman. She will be so perfect to you that you can’t tell if you are touching flesh or ivory when you stroke her cheek. You will kiss her lips and believe that hers are returning the kiss with twice the passion. You will hold her so tightly that you will be afraid to leave bruises on her flawless skin. You will compliment her and bring her the kind of gifts women love. You will dress her in the most beautiful clothes and adorn her in the most luxurious jewelry. You will share your bed with her at night and you will treat her like a queen because you love her so.

Step 4: Make Your Offering to Golden Venus

When the time is right, and you know that you just cannot live without your perfect girl any longer, attend Venus’s festival. After you have thrown your offering to Venus into the fire, pray that if the gods are pleased with you, then they will give you your ivory girl. If Venus deems you worthy, the fire will flare three times. When you return home that night, your girl of ivory will have become a real girl.

Step 5: Marry Her

For the final step, wife that girl up! Don't forget to invite Venus to the wedding to let her know how much you appreciate all she has done for you and your bride. 

I really hope all you heroes can now find the woman of your dreams! And once you've completed all five steps and are ready to take things to the next level, check out my next book: Pygmalion's Guide to Raising a Son So Great That Islands Will Be Named After Him.

Author's Note: This story is based off of the Roman myth of Pygmalion. In the myth, Pygmalion, a hero, lives the life of a bachelor but longs for love. He carves a statue of a beautiful woman and falls in love with it. Eventually, he prays to the Goddess of Love, Venus, that she will allow him to be with his "ivory girl." To show the gods' gratitude toward him and all that he has done for Cyprus, Venus grants his request by turning his statue into a real woman. Pygmalion immediately marries her and they soon have a son, Paphos, who the island is eventually named after. I really liked this story and felt it was one of the only myths to have a happy ending. I originally thought about changing the happy ending to a tragic one but then decided that was too cynical and instead decided to expand the happiness to other heroes in the myths. I thought that creating a guide for other people to follow made the whole statue love thing a little less creepy and really I just wanted people to get a good laugh out of it.


Bibliography. Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Tony Kline (2000). Web Source.

Image Information. Pygmalion Seeing His Statue Come to Life by François Le Moine (1729).