Starting from the theme of choice in King Lear and The Merchant of Venice, Freud refers to well-known myths with corresponding themes: in Paris's judgment with the goddess of love, in Psyche in Apuleius's tale, in Cinderella, in the Hours and Fates of the Ancients, in the Parcae of the Latins, in the Normen of northern mythology, seeking the key to interpretation in the choice between gold, silver, and lead and how the goddess of death herself can take the place of the goddess of love in a transformation of desire.