Symbolically, Cupid's wings are thought to represent the flighty aspects of love. At times he is shown wearing a blindfold, illustrating that love is blind. The most important symbol associated with Cupid is his magical bow and arrow. According to the writer Ovid, Cupid's quiver houses two types of arrows.
He's also got his arrows, and a quiver on a sash, and he sometimes wears a blindfold -- not merely because love is blind, but in allusion to the darkness that gathers around sin.
Cupid sometimes appears blindfolded in art. His blindfold is essentially saying that love is blind.
To Theodulf, Cupid's quiver symbolized his depraved mind, his bow trickery, his arrows poison, and his torch burning passion. It was appropriate to portray him naked, so as not to conceal his deception and evil.
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.
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.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.470-74. Cupid = Eros = Kama.
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.
Cupid and Psyche
Instead, Cupid became so enamored with Psyche that he married her—with the condition that she could never see his face.
Like many Roman gods and goddesses, Cupid is a counterpart to a Greek god, that god being Eros. Looks wise Eros is the complete opposite of Cupid.
Because if Psyche saw his face she would know that he was a God and that would mean that they couldn't be together.
One with a barbed golden tip to make people fall in love, and one with a lead, or silver, blunted tip to make someone fall out of love, or even hate a person. Cupid had the divine power of using these arrows on both mortals and gods, and use them he did.
He often appeared as a winged infant carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows whose wounds inspired love or passion in his every victim. He was sometimes portrayed wearing armour like that of Mars, the god of war, perhaps to suggest ironic parallels between warfare and romance or to symbolize the invincibility of love.
Cupid breaks into Psyche's house one night and fully intends to do just this for his mother, but he becomes so smitten with Psyche that he accidentally pricks himself with his own poisoned arrow while watching her sleep.
Cupid is a powerful Roman god of erotic love and desire with his Greek counterpart being Eros, both of whom are represented as slender young men with wings. Putti are art figures represented as chubby male boys, usually naked and with wings. And amorini are putti representing cupids.
There has been a tradition of seeing Cupid as a demonic figure, and that seems like a far more fun side of Cupid to dig into. The tradition of Cupid as demonic monster can be traced back to a theologian named Isidore, who was writing in about the 600s.
In Roman mythology, Voluptas or Volupta is the daughter born from the union of Cupid and Psyche, according to Apuleius. The Latin word voluptas means 'pleasure' or 'delight'; Voluptas is known as the goddess of "sensual pleasures".
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.
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.
His earliest depictions are that of a handsome young man, but during the time of Alexander the Great, poets began to reimagine Eros as mischievous child. As time went on, he continued to age in reverse until he finally became an infant during the Hellenistic period (323-31 BC).
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 was a god, and, as beautiful as he was, he did not want his mortal wife to see his form. Psyche's sister didn't know he was a god, although they may have suspected it. However, they did know that Psyche's life was much happier than theirs.
What are cupids are cherubs? Cherubs and / or cupids are artistic representations of young angelic looking creatures. Today, the image evoked by both the word cherub and the word Cupid is that of a young, childlike chubby male with angel wings.
Third class cherubs are angels of Heaven who are part of a lower order colloquially known as "cupids." At one point there were dozens of them stationed on Earth who were responsible for locating humans deemed important enough by Heaven to make them fall in love.