Arrayed in funeral attire, a young woman is taken by a procession to the peak of a rocky crag.  She is about to be thrown down to her death, for her father has seen an oracle prophesying that she will give birth to a terrifying monster who will terrorise the earth. However, to her luck, the West Wind, Zephyr, saves her and she would go on to fall in love with the god Cupid and eventually join him in marriage.

 

This is the story of Cupid and Psyche.  Although it is only documented in the writings of Apuleius, the story appears in Greek art as early as the 4th Century BC, and was undoubtedly well known in antiquity.

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Apuleius' account of the tale appears in his Metamorphoses as one of the numerous sub stories to the main plot.  It is told by an elderly woman who seeks to comfort the character Charite who has been kidnapped by thieves.  Constituting about a fifth of the whole novel, it is the largest and most elaborate of all Apuleius' sub tales.

 

The story begins with a king and queen, who were rulers of an unnamed city and who had three daughters of exceptional beauty.  The youngest of the three, Psyche, was the most beautiful and she was so admired that people were neglecting the proper worship of Venus because of her.  

 

The goddess, Venus, was offended and ordered Cupid to punish her by making her fall in love with a hideous monster.  However, Cupid accidentally scratches himself with one of his arrows, falls in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother’s orders.

 

When Psyche is about to be thrown off a cliff to her death, the West Wind, Zephyr, instead transports her to a serene meadow and she eventually arrives at the palace of Cupid. Together, Cupid and Psyche spend a few nights making love at night, and Psyche becomes pregnant, however Cupid forbids her to ever look at him. 

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Eager to hear of her latest circumstances, Psyche's sisters are allowed to be transported by the West Wind, Zephyr, up to Cupid's palace to visit their sister.  Seeing the splendour in which she lives, her sisters become jealous and persuade Psyche to look at her lover, convincing her that it is the terrifying monster that was predicted in the oracle.

 

Therefore, one night after Cupid falls asleep, Psyche brings out a lamp and dagger ready to slay the monster.  However, the light reveals the most beautiful creature she has ever she seen.  She is so astounded by the sight that she wounds herself with one of Cupid's arrows in the process.  

 

Induced with a feverish passion from the arrow, Psyche accidentally spills hot oil over Cupid and wakes him up.  The god flees into the sky, leaving Psyche, who had grabbed hold of him as he fled, to fall down and land by a river.

 

Thus ensues Psyche’s wanderings, trials and tribulations in search of her lost love.  Psyche serves Venus, who orders her to do a number of things including going to the underworld to retrieve a drop of beauty from Proserpina.  Psyche opens the box, which makes her fall asleep.  She is then rescued at last by Cupid and the gods agree to permit the marriage between herself and Cupid.  The Olympian gods attend the marriage ceremony and Psyche's child is born.

 

Although the story in itself is an example of Apuleius' irony as it is meant to assuage Charite's fear of rape after her capture by the robbers, Apuleius' story of Cupid and Psyche also has clear Neo-Platonic implications that allegorise the story of Lucius in the main tale.

 

In Book 2 of the Metamorphoses, Apuleius mentions a Plutarch, which is most probably an allusion to the Neo-Platonic writer, Plutarch, who lived around fifty years previously to Apuleius.  He published the philosophical treatise On Being a Busybody.  Most importantly, his work made the epistemological distinction between what was worthwhile enquiry and what wasn't. According to him, curiosity was a state of the soul, which hinders one's progress towards knowledge and virtue.

 

Within the tale of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche's attempt to look at her lover and her delving into Proserpina's box are examples of her misdirected curiosity, as is Lucius' pursuit of witchcraft in Apuleius' larger tale.

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Conversely, Psyche's saviour, Cupid, is portrayed as bastion of wisdom and rationality.  In the depiction of his palace, the theme of bright light features prominently.  This acts as a metaphor for his greater philosophical wisdom, which was a feature of Platonic imagery that linked back to Book 7 of the Republic where Plato sets forth his metaphor of the cave.

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Similarly, the notion that Psyche cannot look at Cupid may be a statement that Cupid acts as the bright light of "true reality".  In the Phaedrus, Plato states that it is the aim of the soul to gain a view at "true reality."  Likewise, in his depiction of Psyche clinging on to the leg of Cupid, Apuleius forms a similar image to the Phaedrus, where a soul rides in a chariot to the upper regions of heaven however is pulled down by the evil tainting it.  

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Apuleius may also have drawn on the Platonic idea of Daimon Love found in the Plato's Symposium,  which aids the soul to become immortal, which she does at the end of the tale.

 

Apuleius's tale of Cupid and Psyche was one of his most eloquently composed pieces of literature from the remains of his work.  The katabasis Psyche undertakes is a feature of epic literature as is the four ekphraseis he includes, along the with epic diction used throughout. 

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The tale of Cupid and Psyche has been much rewritten, including Niccolò da Correggio's rewriting in 1491, C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces and the numerous other adaptations throughout history.  It has also inspired multiple works of art from the modern era, beginning in Italy in the 15th Century AD and continuing to the present day.  

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It is a tale of love, despair and hope that has enthralled ages of history since its birth, and, as a coming-of-age romance we can all relate to, is sure to continue doing so.