To catch a lover ass7/4/2023 ![]() The king consults the oracle of Apollo, who pronounces that Psyche is destined to wed not a man but a “fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster” (78). While her sisters find husbands, everyone seems content to admire Psyche from afar. Psyche pines with loneliness because no one wants to marry her. Venus commands Cupid to “punish harshly this girl’s arrogant beauty” (76) by making her fall in love with the ugliest, most unpleasant man he can find. His torch and arrows kindle a passionate desire in anyone they touch. She summons her son Cupid, who is known for making mischief. Seeing her temples deserted and a mere mortal enjoying the adoration due to her, Venus grows enraged. The girl draws so much attention that people neglect to make offerings to Venus herself. They hail her another Venus (the goddess of love), a human possessing the beauty of the divine. The old woman left to guard the maiden tells her the story of Cupid and Psyche while Lucius listens.Ī king and queen have a daughter who is so surpassingly beautiful that people come from abroad to see her. Lucius the donkey has been captured by pirates who have also abducted a young woman. The tale of Cupid and Psyche is the longest of these and occupies Books 4 through 6 of the text’s 11 chapters. Lucius the donkey spends the book in various predicaments as he attempts to transform back into a human, and his escapades provide opportunities for the author to insert several smaller stories into the narrative. For this reason-and possibly to prevent confusion with another book called Metamorphoses, written by the poet Ovid-Saint Augustine nicknamed Apuleius’s novel The Golden Ass, by which it is now popularly known. In the frame story of the novel, the title of which means “transformations,” a young man called Lucius, through a combination of foolishness and meddling with magical practices, gets turned into a donkey. Walsh found in The Golden Ass, published in the Oxford World’s Classics series in 1995. “Cupid and Psyche” has been translated from Latin several times and can be found in many different versions. Because Psyche is the ancient Greek word for “soul,” some scholars read Cupid and Psyche as an allegory representing how the human soul is led by love to union with the divine. The discovery of the manuscript during the Renaissance reintroduced Cupid and Psyche to the Western world, where their story enjoyed renewed popularity in art and literature.Īpuleius was a respected rhetorician and wrote several works on the philosophy of Plato. The story describes the love between Cupid, the god of love, and Psyche (pronounced SY-kee), a young woman, and the trials they undergo as the result of human and divine meddling.Īlthough the legend of Cupid and Psyche was widespread in the ancient world, the retelling by Apuleius is the only surviving version. ![]() “Cupid and Psyche” is a story from the ancient Roman novel The Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass) by Apuleius, written around 160 CE.
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