Cupid and Psyche

The chubby, arrow-toting cherub who adorns modern Valentine's Day cards wasn't always such a minor figure. Originally Cupid (as Eros) was thought to have arisen out of Chaos, along with Tartarus and Earth. Later he became associated with Aphrodite, often as her son.

The love story with which he is chiefly associated comes from the second century Algerian writer Apuleius' Golden Ass (Aureus Asinus or Metamorphoses). Here's my re-telling:

Cupid and Psyche

Aphrodite, born from the foam near the island of Cyprus, was a jealous goddess, but she was also loving and sometimes her possessive instincts led her too far. When her son, Eros, found a mortal to love -- one whose beauty rivaled the Cyprian's -- Aphrodite did all in her power to thwart the marriage. Unfortunately for the young couple, she was not the only one trying to foul things up, for Psyche, which was the young woman's name, had two sisters as jealous as Aphrodite. When they learned about the luscious, extravagant lifestyle of their sister, they urged her to find out her husband's secret.

Eros was a god and for reasons known best to him, he didn't want his mortal wife to see his form. Psyche's sister didn't know he was a god, although they may have suspected it. However, they did know that her life was much happier than theirs, so knowing their sister well, they persuaded Psyche that her husband was a hideous monster. She assured them they were wrong, but since she'd never seen him, she had her own doubts. Psyche decided to satisfy their curiosity, so that night she took a candle to her sleeping husband in order to look at him. His angelic form was exquisite. While Psyche dawdled, ogling, she dropped a bit of wax. Her rudely awakened, irate, disobeyed husband-angel-god flew away.

"See, I told you she was a no good human," said mother Aphrodite. "Now you'll have to be content among the gods."

Eros might have gone along, but Psyche couldn't. Impelled by love of her gorgeous husband, she implored her mother-in-law to give her a chance. Aphrodite agreed saying, "I cannot conceive that any serving-wench as hideous as yourself could find any means to attract lovers save by making herself their drudge; wherefore now I myself will make trial of your worth," but she had no intention of playing fair. She devised four tasks (not three, this is a feminine story), each one more exacting than the last. Psyche passed the first three challenges with flying colors,

1. sort a huge mount of barley, millet, poppy seeds, lentils, and beans.
2. gather a hank of the wool of the shining golden sheep.
3. fill a crystal vessel with the water of the spring that feeds the Styx and Cocytus.

But the last one was too much for her:

4. Aphrodite asked Psyche to bring her back a box of Persephone's beauty cream.

Going to the Underworld was a challenge for normal mortals, but even this was not too much for Psyche. What was too much was the temptation to make herself more beautiful. If the perfect beauty of the perfect Aphrodite needed this cream, Psyche reasoned, how much more would it help an imperfect human. Thus, Psyche opened the box and fell into a deathlike sleep.

With Zeus' connivance, Eros brought his wife to Olympus where Aphrodite reluctantly reconciled with her pregnant daughter-in-law about to give birth to a grandchild Aphrodite could dote on, Pleasure.

C.S. Lewis took Apuleius' version of this myth and turned it on its ear in Till We Have Faces. The tender love story is gone. Instead of having the story seen through the eyes of Psyche, it's seen through her sister Orval's perspective. Instead of the refined Aphrodite of the Roman story, the mother goddess in C.S. Lewis' version is a far more weighty power.

More on C.S. Lewis and the re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth:
A Great Gulf Fixed: The Problem of Obsessive Love in C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces

Next page: Origins of Valentine's Day