Cupid and Psyche En

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Cupid and Psyche

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche(also referred to as The Tale of Amor and Psycheand

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 thesecond century A.D.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

foltale.!citation needed"

The Abduction of Psycheby #illiam$Adolphe%ouguereau

Story summary

&nvious and ealous of the beauty of a mortal woman named syche, enusass her son

*upidto use his golden arrows to cause syche to fall in love with the vilest creature on
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earth. *upid agrees but then falls in love with syche on his own, when he leans over

from a distance to view her, causing one of his own arrows to fall forward piercing him.

#hen all continue to admire and praise syche's beauty but none desire her as a wife,syche's parents consult anoracle, which tells them to leave syche on the nearest

mountain, for her beauty is so great that she is not meant for man. +errified, they have nochoice but to follow the oracle's instructions. %ut then ephyrus, the west wind, carries

syche away to a fair valley and a magnificent palace where she is attended by invisibleservants until night falls and in the darness of night the promisedbridegroomarrives and

the marriage is consummated. *upid visits her every night tomae love to her, but

demands that she never light any lamps, since he does not want her to now who he is.

*upid even allows ephyrus to tae syche bac to her sisters and bring all three down to

the palace during the day, but warning that syche should not listen to any argument that

she should not try to discover his true form. +he two ealous sisters tell syche, then

pregnantwith *upid's child, that rumor is that she had married a great and terrible serpent

who would devour her and her unborn child when the time came for it to be fed. +heyurge syche to conceal a nife 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 is as they said. sychesadly follows their advice. -n the light of the lamp syche recognies the fair form on the

bed as the god *upid himself. /owever, she accidentally prics herself with an arrow,

and is consumed with desire for her husband. 0he begins to iss him, but as she does, adrop of oil falls from her lamp onto *upid's chest and waes him. /e flies away, and she

falls from the window to the ground, sic at heart.

syche then finds herself in the city where one of her ealous elder sisters lives. 0he tells

her what had happened, then trics her sister into believing that *upid has chosen her as a

wife instead. 0he later meets her other sister and deceives her liewise. &ach returns tothe top of the pea and umped down eagerly, but ephyrus does not bear them and they

fall to their deaths at the base of the mountain.

syche searches far and wide for her lover, finally stumbling into a temple to where all isin slovenly disarray. As syche is sorting and clearing, *eres appears, but refuses any

help but advice, saying syche must call directly on enus, the ealous shrew that caused

all the problems in the first place. syche ne1t calls on in her temple, but 2uno, superioras always, says the same. 0o syche finds a temple to enus and enters it. enus orders

syche to separate all the grains in a large baset of mi1ed inds before nightfall. An ant

taes pity on syche and with its ant companions separates the grains for her.

enus is outraged at her success and tells her to go to a field where golden sheep graeand get some golden wool. A river$god tells syche that the sheep are vicious and strong

and will ill her, but if she waits until noontime, the sheep will go to the shade on the

other side of the field and sleep3 she can pic the wool that stics to the branches andbar of the trees. enus ne1t ass for water from the flowing from a cleft that is

impossible for a mortal to attain and is also guarded by great serpents. +his time an eagle

performs the tas for syche. enus, outraged at syche's survival, claims that the stress
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of caring for her son, made depressed and ill as a result of syche's lac of faith, has

caused her to lose some of her beauty. syche is to go to the 4nderworld and as the

5ueen of the 4nderworld, for a bit of her beauty in a bo1 that enus gave to syche.syche decides that the 5uicest way to the 4nderworld is to throw herself off some high

place and die and so she climbs to the top of a tower. %ut the tower itself speas to her

and tells her the route through that will allow her to enter the 4nderworld alive and returnagain, as well as telling her how to get by throwing him a cracer and by paying him a

golden coin, how to avoid other dangers on the way there and bac, and most importantly

to eat of no food whatsoever3 for otherwise she will dwell forever in the 4nderworld.syche follows the orders e1plicitly and eats nothing while beneath the earth.

/owever when syche has left the 4nderworld, she decides to open the bo1 and tae a

little bit of the beauty for herself. -nside, she can see no beauty3 instead an infernal sleep

arises from the bo1 and overcomes her. *upid (&ros), who had forgiven syche, flies toher, wipes the sleep from her face, puts it bac in the bo1, and sends her bac on her way.

+hen *upid flies to 6ount 7lympus and begs !, to aid them. 2upiter (eus) calls a full

and formal council of the gods and declares that it is his will that *upid might marrysyche. 2upiter then has syche fetched to 6ount 7lympus, and gives her a drin made

from Ambrosia, granting her immortality. %egrudgingly, enus and syche forgive each

other.

syche and *upid's daughter was oluptas, the goddess of 8sensual pleasures,8 whoseLatin name means 8pleasure8 or 8bliss8.

Relations and origin

-n 9ree and Roman mythology, syche was the personification of the passion of love.!citation needed"0he was the youngest daughter of the ing and 5ueen of 0icily. 0he was themost beautiful person on the island and suitors floced to as for her hand. -n the end she

boasted that she was more beautiful than Aphrodite (enus) herself, and Aphrodite sent

&ros to transfi1 her with an arrow of desire and mae her fall in love with the nearest

person or thing available. %ut even &ros (*upid) fell in love with her and too her to asecret place and eventually married her and had her made a goddess by eus (2upiter).

+he 9ree word 80:*/&8 literally means 80-R-+8 or 8074L8.!citation needed"

+hough concerning gods and goddesses, Apuleius' Cupid and Psychewas generally

relegated to the status of a 8mere8 foltale, or in &nglish a fairy taleor in 9erman

6;rchen. +hough a common errault'sMother Goose Talesand following popularity ofother such collections in


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Apuleius's narrative of *upid and syche has fre5uently been analyed as an allegoryof

latonism>

+he tripartite division of the soul, the desire of the soul to be united with the

divine, the fall of the winged soul to the earth because of its evil burden, and

the distinction between the heavenly and the vulgar types of love are latonicideas, which, according to some scholars, resemble specific events in the tale

of syche3 thus syche's name, the portrayal of her character in relation to hertwo sisters, her futile attempt to seie *upid and fly with him to the sy, and

the ambiguous role the goddess enus and her son *upid play in the heroine's

life are themes that seem to transform Apuleius' literary fairytale into a

philosophical allegory.!


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+ill free consent the gods among

6ae her his eternal bride3

And from her fair unspotted side+wo blissful twins are to be born,

:outh and 2oy3 so 2ove hath sworn.8

+he poet +. C. /arveywrote>

8+hey wove bright fables in the days of old,#hen reason borrowed fancy's painted wings3

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

And told in song its high and mystic thingsAnd such the sweet and solemn tale of her

+he pilgrim heart, to whom a dream was given,

+hat led her through the world,E Love's worshipper,E

+o see on earth for him whose home was heaven

8-n the full city,E by the haunted fount,E+hrough the dim grotto's tracery of spars,E

'6id the pine temples, on the moonlit mount,#here silence sits to listen to the stars3

-n the deep glade where dwells the brooding dove,

+he painted valley, and the scented air,0he heard far echoes of the voice of Love,

And found his footsteps' traces everywhere.

8%ut nevermore they met since doubts and fears,

+hose phantom shapes that haunt and blight the earth,/ad come 'twi1t her, a child of sin and tears,

And that bright spirit of immortal birth34ntil her pining soul and weeping eyes/ad learned to see him only in the sies3

+ill wings unto the weary heart were given,

And she became Love's angel bride in heaven8

0hacerley 6armionwrote a verse version of the Apuleius story called Cupid andPsychewhich was published in


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Psyche et L'Amour, by#illiam$Adolphe %ouguereau

6ary +ighein her poem Cupid and Psychefirst published in

Hor yet content, he from his 5uiver drew,

0harpened with sill divine, a shining dart>Ho need had he for bow, since thus too true

/is hand might wound her all$e1posed heart3

:et her fair side he touched with gentlest art,

And half relenting on her beauties gaed32ust then awaing with a sudden start

/er opening eye in humid lustre blaed,

4nseen he still remained, enchanted and amaed.+he dart which in his hand now trembling stood,

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

Drew with its daring point celestial bloodIrom his smooth nec's unblemished ivory>

/eedless of this, but with a pitying sigh

+he evil done now an1ious to repair,

/e shed in haste the balmy drops of oy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereauhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Tighehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereauhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Tighe


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7'er all the sily ringlets of her hair3

+hen stretched his plumes divine, and breathed celestial air.

-n the later part of her tale, +ighe's enus only ass one tas of syche, to bring her theforbidden water, but in performing this tas +ighe's syche wanders into a country

bordering on 0penser'sFairie Queeneas syche is aided by a mysterious visored nightand his s5uire *onstance and must escape various traps set by anity, Ilattery, Ambition,

*redulity, Disfida (who lives in a 89othic castle8), aria and 9eloso. 0penser's %latant%east also maes an appearance.

+ighe's wor was appreciated by #illiam #ordsworthand also an early influence on

2ohn Ceatswhose short Ode to Psycheappeared in

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