Eros and Psyche

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The Abduction of Psyche by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The tale of Eros and Psyche first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the second century CE. Apuleius probably used an earlier tale as the basis for his story, modifying it to suit the thematic needs of his novel. Read on its own, it is for the most part a straightforward folktale.

1 Apuleius' tale
2 Relations and origin
3 Later adaptations
4 Eros and Psyche in popular culture
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Apuleius' tale

The goddess Aphrodite (in Roman mythology, Venus), jealous of the beauty of a mortal woman named Psyche, asked her son Eros (in Roman mythology, Cupid) to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. Eros agreed but then fell in love with Psyche on his own, or by accidentally pricking himself with a golden arrow.

Eros and Psyche

When all continued to admire and praise Psyche's beauty but none desired her as a wife, Psyche's parents consulted an oracle which told them to leave Psyche on the nearest mountain, for her beauty was so great that she was meant for a god. So it was done. But then Zephyrus, the west wind, carried Psyche away to a fair valley and a magnificent palace where she was attended by invisible servants until night fell and in the darkness of night the promised bridegroom arrived and the marriage was consummated. Eros visited her every night and they had sex; he demanded only that she never light any lamps because he did not want her to know who he was.

Eros even allowed Zephyrus to take Psyche back to her sisters and bring all three down to the palace during the day, only warning that Psyche should not listen to any argument that she should try to discover his true form. The two jealous sisters told Psyche, then pregnant with Eros' child, that rumor was that she had married a great and terrible serpent who would devour her and her unborn child when her time came for it to be fed. They urged Psyche to conceal a knife and oil lamp in the bedchamber, to wait till her husband was asleep, and then to light the lamp and slay him at once if it was as they said. Psyche sadly followed their advice. In the light of the lamp Psyche recognized the fair form on the bed as the god Eros himself, and cursing her folly, turned to run, but a drop of oil fell from Psyche's lamp and onto Eros' chest and he awoke, then fled, causing Psyche to mourn her stupidity.

Psyche Opening the Golden Box, by John William Waterhouse

The god Pan, who was nearby, advised Psyche to seek to regain Eros' love through service.

Psyche returned to her old home and told her two, jealous, elder sisters what had happened; they rejoiced secretly while "comforting" her and each separately returned to the top of the peak, hoping that Eros would pick them instead, but this time Zephyrus did not bear them and they fell to their deaths at the base of the mountain.

Psyche searched far and wide for her lover, finally stumbling into a temple to Demeter (in Roman mythology, Ceres) where all was in slovenly disarray. As Psyche was sorting and clearing, Demeter appeared, but refused any help but advice, saying Psyche must call directly on Aphrodite, the jealous shrew that caused all the problems in the first place. Psyche next called on Hera (in Roman mythology, Juno) in her temple, but Hera, superior as always, said the same. So Psyche found a temple to Aphrodite and entered it. Aphrodite ordered Psyche to separate all the grains in a large basket of mixed kinds before nightfall. An ant took pity on Psyche and with its ant companions separated the grains for her.

Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid's Garden, by John William Waterhouse

Aphrodite was outraged at her success and told her to go to a field where golden sheep grazed and get some golden wool. A river-god told Psyche that the sheep were vicious and strong and would kill her, but if she waited until noontime, the sheep would go to the shade on the other side of the field and sleep; she could pick the wool that stuck to the branches and bark of the trees. Aphrodite next asked for water from the Styx and Cocytus flowing from a cleft that was impossible for a mortal to attain and was also guarded by great serpents. This time an eagle performed the task for Psyche. Aphrodite, outraged at Psyche's survival, claimed that the stress of caring for her son, made depressed and ill as a result of Psyche's unfaithfulness, had caused her to lose some of her beauty. Psyche was to go to the Underworld and ask Persephone, the queen of the Underworld, for a bit of her beauty in a box that Aphrodite gave to Psyche. Psyche decided that the quickest way to the Underworld would be to throw herself off some high place and die and so she climbed to the top of a tower. But the tower itself spoke to her and told her the route through Tanaerum that would allow her to enter the Underworld alive and return again, as well as telling her how to get by Cerberus by throwing him a sop and Charon by paying him an obol, how to avoid other dangers on the way there and back, and most importantly to eat of no food whatsoever; for otherwise she would dwell forever in the Underworld. Psyche followed the orders explicitly and ate nothing while beneath the earth.

However when Psyche had got out of the Underworld, she decided to open the box and take a little bit of the beauty for herself. Inside, she could see no beauty; instead an infernal sleep arose from the box and overcame her. Eros, who had forgiven Psyche, flew to her, wiped the sleep from her face, put it back in the box, and sent her back on her way. Then Eros flew to Mount Olympus and begged Zeus to aid them. Zeus called a full and formal council of the gods, and declared it was his will that Eros might marry Psyche. Zeus then had Psyche fetched to Mount Olympus, and gave her a drink made from Ambrosia, granting her immortality. Although some say their daughter was named Bliss, and some say she was named Delight (in Roman mythology she was named Volupta, which can mean either), the meaning of the name was intended to be joyful. Begrudgingly, Aphrodite and Psyche forgave each other.

[edit] Relations and origin

One of Fyodor Tolstoy's Neoclassical illustrations to Dushenka, a Russian version of the Eros and Psyche theme.

Cupid and Psyche by Canova, at the Louvre Museum.

Though concerning gods and goddesses, Apuleius' Cupid and Psyche was generally relegated to the status of a "mere" folktale, or in English a fairy tale or in German Märchen. Though a common oral genre found world wide, it is not generally considered classical literature. Only with Charles Perrault's Mother Goose Tales and following popularity of other such collections in 17th century did folk tales become recognized in Europe as a legitimate literary genre.

[edit] Later adaptations

Psyche, by William Adolphe Bouguereau

William Adlington's English translation of 1566 is excellent reading and for some is still the definitive English translation.

At the conclusion of Comus (1634), the poet John Milton alluded to the story of Cupid and Psyche.

"Celestial Cupid, her famed son, advanced,

Holds his dear Psyche sweet entranced,

After her wandering labours long,

Till free consent the gods among

Make her his eternal bride;

And from her fair unspotted side

Two blissful twins are to be born,

Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn."

The poet T. K. Harvey wrote:

"They wove bright fables in the days of old,

When reason borrowed fancy's painted wings;

When truth's clear river flowed o'er sands of gold,

And told in song its high and mystic things!

And such the sweet and solemn tale of her

The pilgrim heart, to whom a dream was given,

That led her through the world,– Love's worshipper,–

To seek on earth for him whose home was heaven!

"In the full city,– by the haunted fount,–

Through the dim grotto's tracery of spars,–

'Mid the pine temples, on the moonlit mount,

Where silence sits to listen to the stars;

In the deep glade where dwells the brooding dove,

The painted valley, and the scented air,

She heard far echoes of the voice of Love,

And found his footsteps' traces everywhere.

"But nevermore they met! since doubts and fears,

Those phantom shapes that haunt and blight the earth,

Had come 'twixt her, a child of sin and tears,

And that bright spirit of immortal birth;

Until her pining soul and weeping eyes

Had learned to seek him only in the skies;

Till wings unto the weary heart were given,

And she became Love's angel bride in heaven!"

Shackerley Marmion wrote a verse version of the Apuleius story called Cupid and Psyche which was published in 1637.

Psyche et L'Amour

Mary Tighe in her poem Cupid and Psyche first published in 1805 explains the origin of Cupid's love for Psyche. She adds two springs in Venus' garden, one with sweet water and one with bitter. When Cupid starts to obey his mother's command, he brings some of both to a sleeping Psyche but places only some of the bitter water on Psyche's lips and prepares also to pierce her with an arrow:

Nor yet content, he from his quiver drew,

Sharpened with skill divine, a shining dart:

No need had he for bow, since thus too true

His hand might wound her all-exposed heart;

Yet her fair side he touched with gentlest art,

And half relenting on her beauties gazed;

Just then awaking with a sudden start

Her opening eye in humid lustre blazed,

Unseen he still remained, enchanted and amazed.

The dart which in his hand now trembling stood,

As o'er the couch he bent with ravished eye,

Drew with its daring point celestial blood

From his smooth neck's unblemished ivory:

Heedless of this, but with a pitying sigh

The evil done now anxious to repair,

He shed in haste the balmy drops of joy

O'er all the silky ringlets of her hair;

Then stretched his plumes divine, and breathed celestial air.

In the later part of her tale, Tighe's Venus only asks one task of Psyche, to bring her the forbidden water, but in performing this task Tighe's Psyche wanders into a country bordering on Spenser's Fairie Queene as Psyche is aided by a mysterious visored knight and his squire Constance and must escape various traps set by Vanity, Flattery, Ambition, Credulity, Disfida (who lives in a "Gothic castle"), Varia and Geloso. Spenser's Blatant Beast also makes an appearance.

Tighe's work was appreciated by William Wordsworth and also an early influence on John Keats whose short Ode to Psyche appeared in 1820.

William Morris retold the story in verse in The Earthly Paradise (1868–70). Robert Bridges wrote Eros and Psyche: A Narrative Poem in Twelve Measures (1885; 1894). A full prose adaptation was included as part of Walter Pater's novel Marius the Epicurean in 1885. Josephine Preston Peabody wrote a version for children in her Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew (1897). Thomas Bulfinch wrote a short adaptation for his Age of Fable which borrowed Tighe's account of Cupid's self-wounding.

The English scholar and novelist C. S. Lewis wrote a fantasy novel based on the story of Cupid and Psyche called Till We Have Faces (1954).

Beginning in 2000 Cupid and Psyche a musical adaptation by Sean Hartley with music by Jihwan Kim has appeared in various productions in various theaters.

The Beauty Of Psyche is a retelling of the folktale by the English poet and novelist Andrew Staniland. His novel uses paintings and sculptures, and has all the characters played by actors, to evoke the imaginary world of the story and the final emergence of Psyche as a goddess of the psyche.

In art Psyche is sometimes portrayed as a beautiful woman with the wings of a butterfly, especially by William Adolphe Bouguereau.

[edit] Eros and Psyche in popular culture

Cupid or Eros and Psyche appear in the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, frequently accompanied by mortals and often found in the guise of bikers.

Scritti Politti acknowledge the influence of the folktale on their modern day tales of romantic love and intrigue with the title of their album Cupid & Psyche '85. The chorus lyrics of The Word Girl in particular appear to allude to the nocturnal visits of Cupid (the 'word' in this case presumably being 'love'):

The first time that I came to you

I'd do things that you want me to

The second time baby that I came to you

Oh you found my love for you

The third time baby that I came to you

Oh Oh Oh I knew

The last time baby that I came to you

Oh how your flesh and blood became the word.

The short-lived television series Cupid starred Jeremy Piven as Trevor Hale, who believed that he was Cupid, exiled to Earth until he could unite 100 couples in true love without using magic. Diagnosed as delusional, he was placed in the care of Dr Claire Allen (Paula Marshall), with whom he shared an unspoken romantic tension. Claire was a psychologist, a punning reference to Psyche. Additionally, when confronted by Dr Allen about the contradiction between his denial of ever loving a mortal, and this story of Cupid and Psyche, Hale staunchly denied that the events of story ever took place.