Reading Diary A: Psyche and Cupid

(Psyche Abandoned)

The story I chose to read about was Apuleius's Psyche and Cupid. It is different from last weeks because it is a continuous story broken into chapters. It is about three sisters. The youngest of the three is proclaimed to be more beautiful than Venus by the common folk. This angers Venus and she sends her son, Cupid, to deal her a horrible fate. Instead, Cupid takes the woman as his wife, but does not allow her to ever see him even though he sleeps with her at night. Psyche's family grieves the loss(they think she's dead) hard. Once she catches word of this, she convinces Cupid to let her see her sisters. He advises her that they will try and ruin what she has and that even though she knows nothing about him that she must not disclose anything about him to her sisters because they will try and bring her down. The sister's come in and see that Psyche is living like a Goddess and become very jealous of her. They plot to bring their sister down from the life she is living. Cupid catches wind of this and warns Psyche. He also reveals to her that she is carrying his child and the child will live the life of a deity if she stays true to him, but will be a sad mortal if she does not. Her sisters come back and convince Psyche she is sleeping with a serpent that will kill her after she has his child. They tell her to sneak a knife and a lamp to bed with her and to use the two to cut of the serpent's head while he is sleeping that night. When Psyche shines the light on her husband she finds out he is Cupid and cannot bring herself to kill him. However, the lamp drips hot oil on him and wakes him up. Once he learns what Psyche was planning to do and that she did not heed his warning he flew her out of his palace and left her(see image above). She went to visit her sisters and tell them what happened and they both jumped to their death trying to get Cupid to claim them as his brides.

I really like the way this story emphasizes trust. It also includes the lesson that just because you cannot see a good thing in front of you doesn't mean you shouldn't trust it. You also learn that sometimes you put your trust in the wrong people.