35 pages • 1 hour read
ApuleiusCupid and Psyche
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 170A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Psyche
Psyche is the protagonist of the story, the character whose goals and choices drive the plot. A mortal girl and princess, Psyche’s beauty is her defining feature, yet her appearance is never described. Despite her beauty and the attention it gains her, Psyche is not portrayed as vain. Rather, her beauty is a curse that leaves her lonely, for no one wishes to marry her. She does not wish to be treated like an object, admired like “an exquisitely carved statue” (77); she would rather be loved. Later, this longing for human companionship from her sisters will lead to the rupture in Psyche’s marriage. The tender night-time company of her unseen husband and the comforts of unseen servants during the day are not enough to make her feel whole or happy.
When Psyche accepts the decree of Apollo and tries to console her parents, whom she calls “dearer to me than to yourselves” (78), she exhibits the important Roman virtue of piety, which means obedience to and proper respect for the gods. She shows this virtue again when she awaits her husband on their wedding night, though she “trembled and shuddered in fear” (81). Her bravery and will see Psyche through her later trials, and her resolution is one of her most marked qualities, with two significant moments of weakness.
Though Psyche is described as simple, innocent, and naïve, she is also affectionate and trusting. She doesn’t question why her husband asks her not to see him. Instead, she obeys his wishes and puts off the questions from her sisters with stories that, out of innocence or forgetfulness, she can’t keep straight. Despite her loneliness during the day, Psyche tries to make the best of her situation. She is overjoyed to learn she is pregnant and hopes to see her husband’s features reflected in their child so she might feel closer to him.
These qualities of piety and affection, two of her strengths, are also what compel Psyche to listen to her sisters instead of her husband and break the first taboo. Her sisters remind her that the oracle said she would marry a horrid dragon and they promise that, if she kills the beast, they will help carry away her riches and marry her to a human husband. They prey on Psyche’s fear for her unborn child and her longing to be truly loved and have a marriage that provides her companionship during the day as well as at night.
Though she struggles over her decision, deeply torn because “she loathed the beast but loved the husband” (92), Psyche again shows resolution when she decides to follow through: “her plan was formed and her determination fixed” (92). This struggle leads to a turning point in Psyche’s character development when she realizes that her husband is, in fact, the gloriously beautiful god Cupid. She falls “in love with Love” (93), recommitting to him, which will sustain her through her subsequent trials.
Psyche’s frequent thoughts of suicide bear exploration. To some readers, it will seem a sign of weak-mindedness. In early Roman culture, however, suicide was considered a fitting punishment for certain crimes, including impiety. And under some circumstances, suicide was deemed a noble act. When she discovers Cupid by lamplight, Psyche considers plunging the knife into her breast as punishment for her impious intention to harm her husband and a god. Likewise, when she throws herself into the river upon his leaving, Psyche is fulfilling her vow that she “would rather die a hundred times than forgo the supreme joy of my marriage” (83). That she never succeeds in her attempts supports a reading of Psyche as representing the human soul, which in both Platonic and Christian thought is considered indestructible.
When she sets out to fund Cupid, Psyche again demonstrates piety and resolution. She pays “reverential homage” (95) to Pan, tidies the temple of Ceres, and prays to Juno. When these efforts fail, she submits to Venus and bears the anger of the goddess without complaint. Psyche believes in the right of the gods to order or compel humans, but she also hopes to win back her lover, which is why she breaks the second taboo—not to look in Proserpina’s box. Despite her resolve elsewhere, Psyche cannot resist hoping that the ointment will make Cupid desire her again.
Though she perseveres through her trials, when she falls into the sleep of Hades, Psyche’s agency ends. Cupid and Jupiter decide her fate. Though the story has focused on Psyche’s journey, the reader doesn’t see her reaction to becoming immortal, being united with Cupid in lawful marriage, or giving birth to a daughter. The narrator merely suggests that she is happy with the outcome when he says that, at the “lavish wedding-feast” (113), Cupid reclined on “the couch of honour, with Psyche in his lap” (113).
Cupid
Because earlier versions of the story no longer exist, it isn’t known what Apuleius might have made up or borrowed about the character of Psyche. In the case of Cupid, however, the character is best considered in the well-established context of his representation in Greek and Roman culture.
The Greek god of love, Eros, is described in the earliest sources as a sort of primordial force, with the power to bring harmony and order to chaos. Surviving art from ancient Greece represents him in one of two ways: as a strong and handsome youth, often winged, or as a chubby boy keeping company with his mother, Aphrodite. Roman art and literature tended to depict Cupid as a mischievous prankster, representing the changeable nature of sexual desire. The English word cupidity reflects that Cupid’s kind of love was excessive, greedy, and usually sexual. The Roman poet Ovid (who wrote his Metamorphoses about 150 years before Apuleius’s time) described Cupid as having two types of arrows: a gold-tipped arrow that inflamed the subject with passion and a lead-tipped arrow that made the recipient immune to desire. Paintings and statuary sometimes depicted Cupid with a torch or lamp, another tool with which he inflamed his target with lust.
Apuleius first describes Cupid as “that winged, most indiscreet youth whose own bad habits show his disregard for public morality” (76). He is portrayed as a homewrecker, “rampaging through people’s houses at night armed with his torch and arrows, undermining the marriages of all” (76). Apollo hints at this same reputation when he tells Psyche’s father that Psyche’s destined bridegroom is a terror who, “[f]litting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, / Plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart” (78).
However, the partner Psyche enjoys as her husband shows a different, wiser, and more steadfast nature than his reputation as a “wanton and extravagant youth” would suggest (95). Cupid is nurturing, protective, and tender; at one point he dries her tears with his hair. He cherishes Psyche’s “native innocence and soft-heartedness” (86), and he warns her to ignore her sisters so they can preserve the happiness of their marriage. Though Cupid doesn’t explain why he doesn’t want Psyche to see him, a likely explanation is that he doesn’t want his mother to discover he disobeyed her command.
Cupid is very beautiful. Before she sees him, Psyche notices that his hair smells of cinnamon and that his cheeks “are as soft and smooth as my own” (87). When she gazes upon him, she swoons at the beauty of his golden hair, his “milk-white neck and rosy cheeks” (93), and his hairless body, which all conform to Greek ideals of masculine beauty. His “dewy wings” are “fluttering even at rest” (93), emphasizing his otherworldliness.
Although he leaves as punishment for breaking the prohibition on seeing him, Cupid cannot bear his separation from Psyche. His love proves loyal and steadfast, like hers for him. After seeing what she has gone through, he enlists Jupiter’s help in ending his mother’s torment of Psyche. Far from being the “good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer” (97) that Venus accuses him of being, Cupid demonstrates a kind of love far superior to that which Venus understands.
The other gods don’t seem to realize that falling in love changed Cupid. In his final ruling, Jupiter does not seek to reunite devoted lovers so much as he wishes to curb a troublemaker and uphold social order. He decrees that “the hot-headed impulses of [Cupid’s] early youth need to be reined in” and “his juvenile behaviour must be shackled with the chains of marriage” (113). The noble and respectable bonds of matrimony will tame Cupid’s tendency toward mischief and turn the once-capricious god of love into a faithful husband.
Venus
The Roman goddess Venus inherited many aspects of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, but in addition to being the goddess of love, beauty, and charm, the Roman Venus is powerful and ancient. This aspect is acknowledged by the Venus of Apuleius, who calls herself “the ancient mother of the universe, the founding creator of the elements, the Venus that tends the entire world” (76).
Yet in “Cupid and Psyche,” Venus behaves less as a goddess than as the stepmother in a fairy tale, motivated by vengeance and envy. Venus is vain and wishes to be adored. She becomes “absolutely livid” (97) when she is not obeyed, to the point that other goddesses do not want to cross her. She shows no regard for the welfare of others, not even when her son is injured. She is bent on punishing Psyche, first for “appropriating the honours that are mine” (76) and then for daring to love her son Cupid.
Despite being the goddess of love, Venus is the chief antagonist of the story, doing everything she can to keep Cupid and Psyche apart. She complains that Cupid and Psyche’s union “was not between a couple of equal status” but rather “it took place in a country house, without witnesses and without a father’s consent, so it cannot be pronounced legal” (105). She is more concerned with the law and appearances, as well as her reputation; she scoffs that she will be made a grandmother by a “cheap maidservant” (105), even though Psyche is a princess.
The “harsh goddess’s resolve” is a reflection and foil to Psyche’s steadfast determination (108). But the character of Venus does not develop or change over the course of the story; rather, in the end, she simply ceases her antagonism. Perhaps she does not dare oppose Jupiter, or perhaps she is mollified that Psyche becomes immortal, which puts them on more equal footing. Though there is no expressed reconciliation between Venus and her son or daughter-in-law, Venus seems content with the marriage and even “danced prettily” at the wedding feast (113), reverting to her customary role as the goddess of beauty and charm.
