Chapter Five: Cupid and Psyche

(from Mythology for Today ­­­Hamilton’s Mythology)

1. Venus becomes jealous because Psyche’s surpassing beauty has transfixed all the mortals, so that they forget Venus, and neglect her temples and altars. 2. Venus plans to have her son, Cupid, shoot Psyche with a love arrow, so that Psyche will fall in love with a hideous creature. Venus’ plan fails because Cupid himself falls in love with the beautiful Psyche. 3. Psyche’s father believes that he must leave her on the summit to be claimed by her serpent‐husband, for this is what he has been told by the Oracle of Apollo. However, the truth is that Cupid has arranged this himself, so that he can carry Psyche away as his own bride. 4. Her sisters become jealous of Psyche’s superior riches and treasures. 5. Psyche is torn between her love for and her faith in her husband, and the doubt and fear her sisters cause her to feel. She is unable to live with the uncertainty of not knowing the truth. 6. When Psyche sees that her husband is a beautiful youth, she feels too ashamed of her suspicion that she is about to plunge the knife intended for him into her own breast. However, her hand trembles and the knife falls. This faltering saves her own life, but also causes her to drip some lamp oil on Cupid, who sees that she has betrayed him and runs away. 7. Psyche is made to separate by kind a huge mixed mass of tiny grains; ants separate them for her. She is made to collect golden fleece from wild and fierce sheep; a reed advises her to collect the wool that has caught on the briars by the riverside. She is made to collect a jar of water from a waterfall of the dangerous river Styx.; an eagle collects the water for her. She is made to visit the Underworld, and collect from Proserpine a box containing some of her beauty; Cupid saves her from the dangers posed by her own curiosity. 8. She is unable to resist the temptation to look upon her lover, and the temptation to see what is inside the box which contains some of Proserpine’s beauty. 9. Psyche is welcomed to Olympus by Zeus and tastes the ambrosia, food of the gods, which makes her immortal. 10. Venus realizes that it is good to have a daughter‐in‐law who is herself a goddess; also, as a goddess residing on Olympus, Psyche will no longer command the attention of the mortals on earth.