The Story of Cupid - a Story of True Love

Cupid is considered to be the little diapered boy who brings love to folks every Valentines Day. But, has he himself tasted love? In Greek mythology, there is a legend that describes this in detail.

Venus, Cupid’s mother, was extremely jealous of a mortal woman because she was very beautiful. Her name was Psyche. Venus asked her son to pierce Psyche with his arrow in order to have her fall in love with a terrible creature. However, Cupid leaned over to kiss Psyche and accidentally pierced himself causing him to fall in love with her.

When Psyche’s parents could not find a man to take her as a wife, they left her up on a mountain. But, the west wind, Zephyrus, carried her away to safety. Cupid would then visit her every single night under the cover of darkness and never allow her to show light upon him or know his true identity.

When Psyche became pregnant with Cupid’s baby, her two sisters were jealous of her and lied to Psyche by telling her that Cupid was a serpent that would destroy both her and the unborn child. They told her to hide a knife beside a lamp by her bed and to use it when Cupid fell asleep. When she lit the lamp to follow her sisters’ instructions, she recognized him as the god Cupid and inadvertently and accidentally pierced herself with one of his arrows thus, causing her to fall madly in love with him. He awakes when a drop of oil from the lamp falls on him and he flies away, mad that she knows who he is and she becomes heartbroken.

She then goes on a quest to find her lost love and realizes that it was her sisters and their jealousy that caused her this grief. She then tricks them by telling them that Cupid has chosen her as his wife and that this occurred when she jumped off of the mountain. Her sisters want to be wives and decide to go up on the mountain and jump too. But, they fell to their deaths when Zephyrus, the west wind, refused to carry them away.

Psyche continues her search and ends up in a temple where Ceres, the goddess of motherly love, tells her that she must speak directly to Venus about these matters, which she does. Venus, who still hates this mortal woman because of her striking beauty, attempts to dissuade and basically trip up Psyche by giving her three tasks expecting her to fail.

The first is to separate all the grains that are in a basket and to do it before nightfall. This is completed when an ant colony assists Psyche in the separation. The second is to get some golden wool from the very vicious golden sheep. She is told by a river-god that if she waits until the sheep crosses the field to get into the shade, she will be able to get the wool that they had left stuck to the trees. She takes the advice and succeeds. The third task is to get water from a cleft. A cleft that is heavily guarded by large serpents and quite dangerous. An eagle helps her to get the water and she once again succeeds in completing the task.

Of course, Venus is quite furious at her success and tells Psyche that throughout the birth and caring for her son Cupid, she has lost a bit of her beauty and asks Psyche to go to ask the Underworld Queen if she would place a small amount of Psyche’s beauty into a box for her.

Psyche agrees and goes to a tower in order to throw herself off to her death, expecting that that would be the quickest way to the Underworld. But, when she is at the top of the tower, the tower itself speaks to her and tells her the true way to go and that she would be able to stay alive this way. It also tells her how to avoid the many perils that are along the way. She listens to it and gets both in and out unscathed.

After coming out of the Underworld, she decides to look in the box and to take a portion of the beauty for herself. When she does, there is nothing there but a sleeping gas and it overcomes her. Cupid flies down to her rescue and wipes this sleep away from her face and encases it back into the box.

Cupid then follows his heart and goes to Mount Olympus to ask Zeus, the almighty god, to assist both him and Psyche and help them become a couple.

Zeus calls together a meeting of all the gods and says that he wants Cupid to take Psyche as a wife. Cupid brings Psyche to Mount Olympus and Zeus gives her a drink that is Ambrosia and it enables her to become immortal. Venus gives in to this, forgives her, and accepts Psyche as her son’s wife.

And the couple lived happily ever after…