The Story Psyche is so beautiful that the jealous goddess Venus commands her son Cupid to make her fall in love with an unworthy man. However, Cupid falls in love with Psyche himself.
Cupid and Psyche
Instead, Cupid became so enamored with Psyche that he married her—with the condition that she could never see his face. Eventually, Psyche's curiosity got the better of her and she stole a glance, causing Cupid to flee in anger.
Cupid is sent to shoot Psyche with an arrow so that she may fall in love with something hideous. He instead scratches himself with his own dart, which makes any living thing fall in love with the first thing it sees. Consequently, he falls deeply in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother's order.
Cupid was a wonderful lover and husband to Psyche, but there was one odd thing about their relationship: He made sure Psyche never saw what he looked like. Psyche didn't mind. She had a fulfilling life with her husband in the dark, and, during the day, she had all the luxuries she could ever want.
Once Venus had a second son, Anteros, Cupid became older and stronger. Perhaps Cupid is usually seen as a baby because babies represent the combination of two people in love. In Greek mythology, his mother is Aphrodite. Cupid is the equivalent to the gods Amor and Eros, depending on which myths are told.
They named him Cupid, a synonym for Eros that also translates to “desire.” (His mother was likewise Venus, the Roman version of the Greek Aphrodite.) For the Romans, the character of Cupid was always a cherubic little boy who followed his mother's wishes to make people fall in love. Venus and Cupid, circa 18th century.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.470-74. Cupid = Eros = Kama.
Each night when he comes to her in bed, she's supposed to entertain him and then go to sleep without ever getting a peek at her lover. Psyche's jealous sisters eventually convince her that she's got to get a look at the dude she's sleeping with, and so Psyche breaks her word to Cupid. On one level, this is betrayal.
In Greek mythology, Psyche was a mortal woman whose beauty was so great that it rivaled that of the goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite became so jealous of Psyche that she sent her son, Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest man in the world.
PSYKHE (Psyche) was the goddess of the soul and the wife of Eros (Roman Cupid) god of love. She was once a mortal princess whose extraordinary beauty earned the ire of Aphrodite (Roman Venus) when men began turning their worship away from the goddess towards the girl.
Cupid, the boy god who makes people fall in love by shooting them with his golden arrows, is often portrayed as being either blind or blindfolded because the targets of his arrows seem selected at random. This notion gave rise to our expression "love is blind."
Wandering the earth in search of him, Psyche fell into the hands of Venus, who imposed upon her difficult tasks. Finally, touched by Psyche's repentance, Cupid rescued her, and, at his instigation, Jupiter made her immortal and gave her in marriage to Cupid.
The council of gods convinced Venus that it would be good for Cupid to settle down. So Psyche was made immortal. The two married and their child was called Pleasure. They lived happily ever after, although that's difficult to believe with the brat around.
In Roman culture, Cupid was the child of the goddess Venus, popularly known today as the goddess of love, and Mars, the god of war.
Cupid and Psyche: Key Takeaways
The tale involves the love relationship between a mortal and a god, and it is a rarity in classical literature, in that it has a happy ending.
Hence, he and Venus came to be associated, and this facilitated their equation, as father and daughter, with the Greek deities Zeus and Aphrodite. She was, therefore, also a daughter of Dione, was the wife of Vulcan, and was the mother of Cupid.
Zeus begrudgingly agreed, and so Aphrodite was married off to Hephaestus. Unsurprisingly, Aphrodite was not happy about this trickery, as she had been dating Ares, God of War. This led to a very unhappy marriage with many affairs. Eventually, Hephaestus divorced Aphrodite.
Aphrodite held Adonis in her arms as he bled to death. As she cried over her beloved, her tears fell into the pools of blood around them, and they were transformed through her love: from those tears mingled with the blood there bloomed the most beautiful anemone flowers.
Who was Aphrodite married to? Aphrodite was compelled by Zeus to marry Hephaestus, the god of fire. However, they were an imperfect match, and Aphrodite consequently spent time cheating with the god of war, Ares, as well as a slew of mortal lovers, such as the Trojan nobleman Anchises and the youth Adonis.
After successfully completing these tasks, Aphrodite relents and Psyche becomes immortal to live alongside her husband Eros. Together they had a daughter, Voluptas or Hedone (meaning physical pleasure, bliss).
Psyche and Eros were faithful to one another and had no other lovers. According to some sources (cuz history/mythology is confusing) Hephaestus did have children with lovers before Aphrodite, but during their marriage remained faithful - then some sources say he divorced her and had other lovers.
But Eros also fell in love with Psyche and was completely mesmerized by her beauty. Despite all the men coming her way, Psyche stayed unmarried, but she wanted to marry the man she would love.
Now Cupid is widely regarded as a Greek/Roman god, and not a demon.
In the later classical tradition, Cupid is most often regarded as the son of Venus and Mars, whose love affair represented an allegory of Love and War. The duality between the primordial and the sexually conceived Eros accommodated philosophical concepts of Heavenly and Earthly Love even in the Christian era.
Isidore sees Cupid as a demon of fornication, who represents foolish and irrational love (Etym VIII. xi. 80). Petrus Berchorius says that Cupid, son of Venus Voluptaria, is the god of carnality; he is painted winged because love flies away suddenly, and he is also blind (De formis figurisque deorum, fol.