The chubby, arrow-toting cherub who adorns modern Valentine's Day cards wasn't always such a minor figure. Originally, Cupid was known as Eros. Eros was a primordial being, thought to have arisen out of Chaos, along with Tartarus (Underworld) and Earth. Later Eros became associated with Aphrodite, often as her son.The love story with which Cupid is chiefly associated comes from The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses. This early, risque novel was written by a second century Algerian Apuleius, who ran into trouble when he was charged with magic.
Here's my re-telling of the love story of Cupid and Psyche that Apuleius included in The Golden Ass:
Cupid and Psyche
Aphrodite was born from the foam near the island of Cyprus, for which reason she is referred to as the Cyprian. Aphrodite was a jealous goddess, but she was also loving. Not only did she love the men and gods in her life, but her sons and grandchildren, as well. Sometimes her possessive instincts led her too far. When her son Cupid found a human to love -- one whose beauty rivaled the Cyprian's -- Aphrodite did all in her power to thwart the marriage*.Unfortunately for the young couple, Aphrodite 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 the goddess. When the sisters learned about the luscious, extravagant lifestyle of their lucky, beautiful sister, they urged Psyche to pry into the area of his life that Psyche's husband kept hidden from her.
Cupid was a god, and gorgeous, but 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 Psyche's life was much happier than theirs. Knowing their sister well, they preyed on her insecurities and persuaded Psyche that her husband was a hideous monster.
Psyche assured her sisters they were wrong, but since she'd never seen him, even she started having doubts. Psyche decided to satisfy the girls' curiosity, so that night she took a candle to her sleeping husband in order to look at him.
Her husband's angelic form was exquisite, so Psyche stood there gawking. 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 to Cupid. "Now you'll have to be content among the gods."
Cupid might have gone along with the de facto divorce, but Psyche couldn't. Impelled by love of her gorgeous husband, she implored her mother-in-law to give her another chance. Aphrodite agreed ungraciously, 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 Aphrodite had no intention of playing fair. She devised 4 tasks (not 3, this is a feminine story), each one more exacting than the last. Psyche passed the first 3 challenges with flying colors,
- sort a huge mount of barley, millet, poppy seeds, lentils, and beans.
- gather a hank of the wool of the shining golden sheep.
- 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 the bravest of ancient mortals, the Greek heroes. Hercules could go to the Underworld without much bother, but even Theseus had trouble and had to be rescued by Hercules. Psyche barely batted an eye when Aphrodite told her she would have to go to the most dangerous region known to mortals. What was too much for Psyche was the temptation to make herself more beautiful. If the perfect beauty of the perfect goddess Aphrodite needed this cream, Psyche reasoned, how much more would it help an imperfect human? Thus, Psyche retrieved the box successfully, but then she opened the box and fell into a deathlike sleep, as Aphrodite had secretly predicted.
At this point, divine intervention was called for if the story was to have an ending that made anyone really happy. With Zeus' connivance, Cupid brought his wife to Olympus. There Aphrodite reluctantly reconciled with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was about to give birth to a grandchild Aphrodite could dote on, Pleasure.
Next page: Origins of Valentine's Day
Lupercalia
Those looking for the origins of Valentine's Day inevitably encounter the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. Find out what we know about Lupercalia and how it is related to Valentine's Day in:The Roman Festival of Lupercalia - The History and Gods of the Lupercalia
* I condensed the story to the point at which Psyche and Cupid were married. Before that came the beginning of Apuleius' story about the meeting of Cupid and Psyche:
How Cupid and Psyche Met
Psyche was worshiped for her beauty in her homeland. This drove Aphrodite mad, so she sent a plague and let it be known the only way the land could get back to normal was to sacrifice Psyche. The king, who was Psyche's father, tied Psyche up and left her to her death at the hands of some presumed fearsome monster. However, it was Cupid who released and married the princess.
Another Story of Cupid and Psyche
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, chthonic Earth-Mother-Goddess 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
