Reading Notes: Cupid and Psyche A
I read the first half of cupid and psyche for this reading. It was so good and I recommend it to everyone. The story is a story within a story. It begins with a man named Lucius who has been turned into a donkey and is stuck with a band of robbers. He witnesses a kidnapped girl being brought to the camp. The kidnapped girl was preparing for her wedding when she was stolen and was overcome with grief. An old woman who travels with the robbers tells the main story in this story to comfort her.
The story is about the youngest princess, named Psyche, in a family who is a beauty unlike any other. People across many nations begin to worship her for her beauty and this upsets the goddess Venus. To get her revenge, Venus sends her son Cupid to screw up Psyche's life. Meanwhile, no one was marrying Psyche so her father went to an oracle to tell her fortune. The oracle tells a dark tale about the girl's life and gives them directions to put her on a cliffside. They are grief-stricken but do as they were told. When they left Psyche on the cliffside, she was brought down by the wind to a grand palace full of treasures. That night her husband comes to her but they are in the dark and she never sees him. They fall in love but all their time is spent at night in the dark.
Eventually, her sisters come to the cliffside to grieve her death because they are unaware that she was brought to the palace. She has her sisters brought down but her husband told her not to tell them who he was. She comes up with lies but eventually mixes them up and tell her sisters the truth that she does not know who her husband is. Her sisters had become jealous of her and her grand home and riches, and so they reminded her that the oracle said her husband would be a terrible creature and convinced her to look at him in the light and then kill him.
That night she follows their directions but in the light she realizes her husband is Cupid and falls even deeper in love with him. While kissing him in his sleep, she splashes oil on him from the lamp and wakes him up. He gets mad and goes to fly away because of her break in trust, but she grabs onto his ankle. She falls into a field and he comes down to tell her why she couldn't see her and about his mother. She is sadden by his disappointment and tries to drown herself in the river but a god saves her and warns her to not try again. She then decides to seek revenge on her sisters. She goes to her first sister and tells her that she did as she was told and discovered that her husband was cupid. She then told her sister that he got angry and said he was going to turn to her sister instead. Tricked by this the sister left her husband and threw herself off the cliffside trying to get to Cupid. After her death, Psyche went to her other sister and did the same. Her second sister then died of the same fate.
Bibliography: Apuleius's Golden Ass, as translated into English by Tony Kline (2013).
The story is about the youngest princess, named Psyche, in a family who is a beauty unlike any other. People across many nations begin to worship her for her beauty and this upsets the goddess Venus. To get her revenge, Venus sends her son Cupid to screw up Psyche's life. Meanwhile, no one was marrying Psyche so her father went to an oracle to tell her fortune. The oracle tells a dark tale about the girl's life and gives them directions to put her on a cliffside. They are grief-stricken but do as they were told. When they left Psyche on the cliffside, she was brought down by the wind to a grand palace full of treasures. That night her husband comes to her but they are in the dark and she never sees him. They fall in love but all their time is spent at night in the dark.
(Cupid, SVG Silh)
Eventually, her sisters come to the cliffside to grieve her death because they are unaware that she was brought to the palace. She has her sisters brought down but her husband told her not to tell them who he was. She comes up with lies but eventually mixes them up and tell her sisters the truth that she does not know who her husband is. Her sisters had become jealous of her and her grand home and riches, and so they reminded her that the oracle said her husband would be a terrible creature and convinced her to look at him in the light and then kill him.
That night she follows their directions but in the light she realizes her husband is Cupid and falls even deeper in love with him. While kissing him in his sleep, she splashes oil on him from the lamp and wakes him up. He gets mad and goes to fly away because of her break in trust, but she grabs onto his ankle. She falls into a field and he comes down to tell her why she couldn't see her and about his mother. She is sadden by his disappointment and tries to drown herself in the river but a god saves her and warns her to not try again. She then decides to seek revenge on her sisters. She goes to her first sister and tells her that she did as she was told and discovered that her husband was cupid. She then told her sister that he got angry and said he was going to turn to her sister instead. Tricked by this the sister left her husband and threw herself off the cliffside trying to get to Cupid. After her death, Psyche went to her other sister and did the same. Her second sister then died of the same fate.
Bibliography: Apuleius's Golden Ass, as translated into English by Tony Kline (2013).
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