Cupid and Psyche

“ Psyche, in vain endeavoring to follow him, fell from the window to the ground. Cupid, beholding her as she lay in the dust, stopped his flight for an instant and said, "O foolish Psyche, is it thus you repay my love? After having disobeyed my mother's commands and made you my wife, will you think me a monster and cut off my head? But go; return to your sisters, whose advice you seem to think preferable to mine. I inflict no other punishment on you than to leave you forever. Love cannot dwell with suspicion." ”

“ As he leaned nearer to the sleeping maiden one of his own arrows grazed his side, and all unknowingly he was wounded. Not wishing to harm the beauty that he was now beginning to love, Cupid softly left the room and went back to Olympus.
When Venus found that her rival was not dead, and that Cupid refused to hurt a thing so fair, she began to persecute poor Psyche until life grew unbearable for the helpless maiden, and she determined to kill herself. So she stole secretly from the palace and climbed up a high mountain, where there was a ledge of rock overhanging a steep cliff. ”

“ Drayton,
Polyolbion
, viii. (1612) .
Cunstance or Constance (See CUSTANCE) .
Cupid and Psyche [Si.ky] an episode in The Golden Ass of Apuleius. The allegory represents Cupid in love with Psychê. He visited her every evening, and left at sunrise, but strictly enjoined her not to attempt to discover who he was. One night curiosity overcame her prudence, and going to look upon her lover a drop of hot oil fell on his shoulder, awoke him, and he fled. Psychê now wandered in search of the lost one, but was persecuted by Venus with relentless cruelty. ”

“ You remember that Venus, in a fit of jealousy, ordered Cupid to inspire Psyche with a love for the most contemptible of all men, but Cupid was so stricken with her beauty that he himself fell in love with her. ”

“ The fable of Cupid and Psyche is usually considered allegorical. The Greek name for a butterfly is Psyche, and the same word means the soul. There is no illustration of the immortality of the soul so striking and beautiful as the butterfly, bursting on brilliant wings from the tomb in which it has lain, after a dull, grovelling, caterpillar existence, to flutter in the blaze of day and feed on the most fragrant and delicate productions of the spring. ”

“ How, then, shall lovers make him the father of strife? Shall Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cockatrice's egg? or the soul be filled with love, the likeness of the immortals, to burn with envy and jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose has its thorn: but it leaves poison and stings to the nettle. Cupid has his arrow: but he hurls no scorpions. Venus is awful when despised, as the daughters of Proetus found: but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies. Surely he who loves aright will not only find love lovely, but become himself lovely also. ”

“ I have tried to go down into her heart, but I have always stopped on the first step of the staircase, at her flesh or her mouth. Despite the intimacy of our corporeal relations, I feel that we have nothing in common. Never has an idea of the same tenor as mine spread its wings in that youthful, smiling head; never has that heart, overflowing with life and fire, whose palpitations cause that firm, white breast to rise and fall, beaten in unison with my heart. My soul has never coalesced with hers. Cupid, the god with the hawk's wings, has not kissed Psyche on her fair ivory brow. ”

“ It was rather fearful to look down into the valley from the rocky ledge, and for a moment Psyche's heart failed her; but then she remembered the daily annoyances that Venus inflicted upon her, and she remembered also the words of the oracle which said that her future husband was to be "no mortal, but a monster whom neither gods nor men can resist." So, summoning all her courage, she threw herself over the cliff, expecting to be dashed to pieces upon the rocks below. But Cupid had been watching over her, ever since she began her weary journey up the mountain ”

“ All would have gone well with Psyche if she had not grown curious. That was why her road to the dwelling place of the gods was so long and difficult. Psyche was always mixing up a little bit of earth with her good intentions. Having come so far successfully with her dangerous task, she wanted to open the box.
"I would take only the least bit of this beauty from Venus," Psyche thought, "to make myself more fair for Cupid if I ever behold him again." ”

“ Thereupon she calls her winged son Cupid, mischievous enough in his own nature, and rouses and provokes him yet more by her complaints. She points out Psyche to him and says, "My dear son, punish that contumacious beauty; give thy mother a revenge as sweet as her injuries are great; infuse into the bosom of that haughty girl a passion for some low, mean, unworthy being, so that she may reap a mortification as great as her present exultation and triumph."
Cupid prepared to obey the commands of his mother. There are two fountains in Venus's garden, one of sweet waters, the other of bitter. ”

“ But Cupid, not so light of heart, returned to the heavens, saying not a word of what had passed.
Venus waited long; then, seeing that Psyche's heart had somehow escaped love, she sent a spell upon the maiden. From that time, lovely as she was, not a suitor came to woo; and her parents, who desired to see her a queen at least, made a journey to the Oracle, and asked counsel.
Said the voice: "The princess Psyche shall never wed a mortal. She shall be given to one who waits for her on yonder mountain; he overcomes gods and men." ”

“ Psyche (i. e. the soul) , in the later Greek mythology the youngest of three daughters of a king, and of such beauty as to eclipse the attractions and awake the jealousy of Venus, the goddess of beauty, who in consequence sent Cupid, her son, to inspire her with love for a hideous monster, and so compass her ruin. Cupid, fascinated with her himself, spirited her away to a palace furnished with every delight, but instead of delivering her over to the monster, visited her himself at night as her husband, and left her before daybreak in the morning, because she must on no account know who he was. ”

“ Psyche, sunk on her knees, is imploring Cupid’s forgiveness, and the sweet smile on his lips shows that her prayer is inwardly accepted. Laymen, at least, can hardly look without rapture on the exquisite beauty of the forms, and the lovely expression of the countenances. ”

“ Here we conclude, having traced parallels to Cupid and Psyche in many non-Aryan lands. Our theory of the myth does not rest on etymology. We have seen that the most renowned scholars, Max Müller, Kuhn, Roth, all analyse the names Urvasi and Pururavas in different ways, and extract different interpretations. We have found the story where these names were probably never heard of. We interpret it as a tale of the intercourse between mortal men and immortal maids, or between men and metamorphosed animals, as in India and North America. ”

“ Even those who know nothing of the work as a whole, or who would relegate it to obscurity for its occasional gross indecency, know and love the story of Cupid and Psyche, if not in the original at least in many a work of art, and in the pages of La Fontaine, Walter Pater, or William Morris. ”

“ All of them were very beautiful, but Psyche, the youngest, was lovelier even than Venus. The people worshipped her as she walked the streets, and strewed her path with flowers. Strangers from all parts of the world thronged to see her and to adore her. The temples of Venus were deserted, and no garlands were laid at her shrines. Thereupon, the goddess of love and beauty grew angry. She tossed her head with a cry of rage, and called to her son, Cupid, and showed him Psyche walking the streets of the city. ”

“ Now it was not long since the shepherd Paris had given the goddess the golden apple, in token that neither on the earth nor even on Olympus was a woman to be found as fair as she. And when she heard of the honours paid to Psyche, she rose up in her wrath and sent a winged messenger for Cupid, her son. ”

“ Did not Psyche believe that Cupid was a serpent? Your adventure resembles hers. You are not less beautiful. If it were Cupid who loves you, would you not return his passion?" "If Cupid and the unknown were the same person," said the Princess, blushing, "I should love Cupid ”

“ To one so jealous as Venus, this homage paid to Psyche was an enormous crime, and she determined to take vengeance for the offence, by punishing her in the tenderest part of a woman's nature; for she commanded Cupid to make her fall deeply in love, with the ugliest being he could find. ”

“ Even those who have no little games of their own are wont to look on sympathetically, or, better still, to turn away the understanding eye. The long, lazy, somnolent days and the magic nights, star-spangled above and lit with phosphorescent seas below, lend themselves to the dangerous kind of flirtation that says little and looks much, and if there is any place in the world where Cupid is rampant and "Psyche may meet unblamed her Eros," it is on the deck of a liner in the tropics. ”

“ The people continued, however, to call Psyche the goddess of beauty; and when Venus saw her own temple forsaken and her shrines ungarlanded, she was so incensed at the insult that she vowed to punish poor Psyche, who had been a most unwilling object of all this mistaken devotion. The goddess summoned her son Cupid to her presence and bade him go slay the maiden who had presumed to be her rival in beauty. ”

“ The god awakes, and without a word flies out of the window. Palace and garden disappear, and Psyche is left alone to suffer the consequences of her foolish curiosity. After wandering long in search of the lost one, she wins the sympathy of Ceres, who advises her to seek out Venus and offer reparation. She becomes the slave of the goddess, who imposes cruel tasks upon her. But at length Cupid can no longer endure to be separated from her, and goes to Jupiter, who intercedes with Venus and wins her forgiveness for Psyche. ”

“ Like every mother, Venus had great ambitions for the future of her son, but she was not always able to follow him, for Cupid had wings and a golden bow and arrows with which he was fond of playing among mortals. What was Venus' wrath to discover at last that Cupid had lost his heart to Psyche, the lovely maiden of earth! It [Pg 262] was like a fairy story in which a prince marries a peasant girl and may not bring her home to the palace because of her mean birth. Venus quite refused to recognize Psyche or award her a place in the honored family of the gods. ”

“ X comes from Cupid’s own mark, used by him in the days before writing was invented and every one had his or her own particular mark to sign checks, I. O. U’s, and Love Letters.
We are indebted to the British Museum for allowing us access to their treasure chambers. There we find this mark on many dainty billet-doux left upon Psyche’s dressing table by Cupid.
The symbol, for many centuries, of True Love, and many variations of it were used; such as:
X girls are usually thought of with great tenderness by a man, but they are sometimes a considerable annoyance, as, for example, Xanthippe. ”

“ Thereupon he bade Mercury produce Psyche in heaven; and holding out to her his ambrosial cup, “Take it,” he said, “and live for ever; nor shall Cupid ever depart from thee.” And the gods sat down together to the marriage-feast.
On the first couch lay the bridegroom, and Psyche in his bosom. His rustic serving-boy bare the wine to Jupiter; and Bacchus to the rest. The Seasons crimsoned all things with their roses. Apollo sang to the lyre, while a little Pan prattled on his reeds, and Venus danced very sweetly to the soft music. Thus, with due rites, did Psyche pass into the power of Cupid ”

“ Those who have seen our turnip fields in early summer, with the hoers at their work, will understand our reference. If any one wishes to read these really remarkable volumes, we would advise them to begin with “Season Changes” and “Emma, a Tale.” We give two Odes on Psyche, which are as nearly perfect as anything out of Milton or Tennyson.
The story is the well-known one of Psyche and Cupid, told at such length, and with so much beauty and pathos and picturesqueness by Apuleius, in his “Golden Ass.” Psyche is the human soul—a beautiful young woman. ”

“ She is only restored to her senses by contact with the arrow of Cupid, at whose entreaty Jupiter makes her immortal and bestows her in marriage upon her lover. The meaning of the allegory is obvious. Psyche, as the personification of the soul, is only permitted to enjoy her happiness so long as she abstains from ill-advised curiosity. The desire to pry into its nature brings suffering upon her ”

“ Commentators have found all sorts of fanciful and absurd allegories in this legend. Its real significance I have already pointed out. But it may be looked at from still another point of view. Psyche means soul, and in the story of Apuleius Cupid does not fall in love with a soul, but with a beautiful body. This sums up Hellenic love in general. The Greek Cupid NEVER fell in love with a Psyche.
UTILITY AND FUTURE OF LOVE The Greek view that love is a disease and a calamity still prevails extensively among persons who, like the Greeks, have never experienced real love and do not know what it is. ”

“ Thou’ll see what a demon has won all thy sighs.”
—Moore.
Psyche’s curiosity and suspicions overcame her discretion and accordingly when Cupid was asleep she took a lamp and, bending over him, beheld not135 a hideous monster, but the most beautiful of the gods. In the excitement of joy and fear, a drop of hot oil fell from the lamp upon his shoulder. He opened his eyes and fixed them full upon her, then spreading his white wings, flew away only stopping long enough to say:
“Farewell—what a dream thy suspicion hath broken! ”