The transported girl awakes to find herself at the edge of a cultivated grove ( lucus). Zephyrus the West Wind bears her up to meet her fated match, and deposits her in a lovely meadow ( locus amoenus), where she promptly falls asleep. Marriage and death are merged into a single rite of passage, a "transition to the unknown". Psyche is arrayed in funeral attire, conveyed by a procession to the peak of a rocky crag, and exposed. The response is unsettling: the king is to expect not a human son-in-law, but rather a dragon-like creature who harasses the world with fire and iron and is feared by even Jupiter and the inhabitants of the underworld. Her father suspects that they have incurred the wrath of the gods, and consults the oracle of Apollo. Consequently, he falls deeply in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother's order.Īlthough her two humanly beautiful sisters have married, the idolized Psyche has yet to find love. He instead scratches himself with his own dart, which makes any living thing fall in love with the first thing it sees. Cupid is sent to shoot Psyche with an arrow so that she may fall in love with something hideous.
Venus is offended, and commissions Cupid to work her revenge. It was rumored that she was the second coming of Venus, or the daughter of Venus from an unseemly union between the goddess and a mortal.
The youngest and most beautiful was Psyche, whose admirers, neglecting the proper worship of the love goddess Venus, instead prayed and made offerings to her. There were once a king and queen, rulers of an unnamed city, who had three daughters of conspicuous beauty. Psyche's Wedding ( Pre-Raphaelite, 1895) by Edward Burne-Jones Īlthough the tale resists explication as a strict allegory of a particular Platonic argument, Apuleius drew generally on imagery such as the laborious ascent of the winged soul ( Phaedrus 248) and the union with the divine achieved by Soul through the agency of the daimon Love ( Symposium 212b).
The happy ending for Psyche is supposed to assuage Charite's fear of rape, in one of several instances of Apuleius's irony. It occurs within a complex narrative frame, with Lucius recounting the tale as it in turn was told by an old woman to Charite, a bride kidnapped by pirates on her wedding day and held captive in a cave. Īs a structural mirror of the overarching plot, the tale is an example of mise en abyme. Psyche's story has some similarities, including the theme of dangerous curiosity, punishments and tests, and redemption through divine favor. Transformed into a donkey by magic gone wrong, Lucius undergoes various trials and adventures, and finally regains human form by eating roses sacred to Isis. The novel itself is a first-person narrative by the protagonist Lucius. The tale of Cupid and Psyche (or "Eros and Psyche") is placed at the midpoint of Apuleius's novel, and occupies about a fifth of its total length.
#ENGRAVERS GOTHIC BOLD TTF SERIES#
Psyche Honoured by the People (1692–1702) from a series of 12 scenes from the story by Luca Giordano Though Psyche is usually referred to in Roman mythology by her Greek name, her Roman name through direct translation is Anima. The story has been retold in poetry, drama, and opera, and depicted widely in painting, sculpture, and even wallpaper. Ever since, the reception of Cupid and Psyche in the classical tradition has been extensive. 1370, but the editio princeps dates to 1469. The story of Cupid and Psyche was known to Boccaccio in c. The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth. Although the only extended narrative from antiquity is that of Apuleius from 2nd century AD, Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC. The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche ( / ˈ s aɪ k iː/ Greek: Ψυχή, Greek pronunciation:, "Soul" or "Breath of Life") and Cupid (Latin Cupido, "Desire") or Amor ("Love", Greek Eros, Ἔρως), and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. Ĭupid and Psyche is a story originally from Metamorphoses (also called The Golden Ass), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus). Psyche and Amor, also known as Psyche Receiving Cupid's First Kiss (1798), by François Gérard: a symbolic butterfly hovers over Psyche in a moment of innocence poised before sexual awakening.
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