Reading Diary A- Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche Table of Contents

The Captive Woman

• We meet our donkey-hero, the old lady, and the captured lass. She is inconsolable even after the robbers assure her they do not plan to take her honor or torture her. The old lady is told to soothe her, but she still pleads for death. She wants to kill herself and the old lady gets tired of her crap and, in essence, tells her to shut her dang trap!

Her Dream

• As it turns out, the robbers kidnapped our young maiden on her wedding day. The girl tells the old lady of her dream in which her fiance is searching for her and lamenting over her capture before being beaten to death with a large rock by one of the robbers. The old woman decides to tell her a story to take her mind off of things. 

Psyche's Beauty

• There's a king and queen with 3 beautiful daughters, the youngest of which is the most stunning. Citizens came from far and wide to behold her beauty and pray to her as if she was the goddess Venus. Soon, people began to say she actually was an incarnation of Venus and people no longer visited Venus' shrines and temples. They no longer performed their rites and rituals in dedication to her. Instead, they traveled to see this young daughter. 
• Venus got tired of everyone worshiping a mere mortal instead of her. Venus briefly monologues to herself, but says, "she’ll reap no joy from usurping my honours, whatever she may be: I’ll soon make her regret that illicit beauty of hers." So, she summons her son, Cupid (a naughty little guy who goes house to house  making adulterers out of husbands and wives, and generally engaging in much tomfoolery). She begs him to make her fall in love with the most wicked and wretched of men; someone who is broke, insignificant, and preferably not very healthy. Then, she sends him off to do her dirty deeds.

The Oracle of Apollo

• Everyone wanted to gawk at Psyche, but no one wanted to marry her. Both of her sisters were married and she was left a lonely virgin stuck at home. So, her dad suspected the gods were angry with her and consulted the oracle of Apollo. The oracle told him that she would be married in a "fatal" marriage and not spawn mortal children, but serpent-like, winged creatures who would spread fire and misery about the land. Obviously, her dad was pretty upset; he slumped back to his home and told his wife of the prophecy told to him by the oracle. They cried, but made preparations for the dark wedding (complete with fiery red veil). She walked to the high mountain perch accompanied by her parents and a throng of citizens, all of which wept and grieved for what was to come. They reached the peak and said goodbye before leaving Psyche all alone to face her future. She waits, terrified, before a gust of divine wind sweeps her off the cliff and lays her on a bed of grass. 

The Magical Palace

• Psyche falls asleep on this bed of grass and dreams of a beautiful palace. She walks through the palace halls before is told by a disembodied voice to retire to her room for some rest and a bath before there will be a great feast. She took a nap, had a bath, then sat down at a table where food magically appeared and music played but no one was in sight.

The Mysterious Husband
Mysterious Invisible Man

• Psyche finishes dinner and goes to bed where she is greeted by an invisible man who has sex with her. This happened many nights before she learned to enjoy the sex and the halls of the palace were filled with her pleasure. While she lived in this dream palace, her parents got very old and news of their frailness and Psyche's supposed death spread to her sisters, who quickly made way to their hometown. Psyche's still-invisible husband tells her that when her sisters look over the cliff and see her, she must not answer their cries or move even an inch or she will cause him great pain and ruin (as well as her own ruin). 
• She agrees but spends all day and night grieving and threatening to kill herself until he finally says, FINE! Ignore what I said, do what you have to, but don't expect any special treatment from me when you come back crying and wishing you had listened to me. But, he said, if you do this I will no longer be your husband. Her tone quickly changes, because she doesn't want to lose his love. She compares him to cupid himself before begging him to have her sisters brought to her instead of going against his command. He succumbs. 

The Jealousy of Psyche's Sisters

• Psyche brings her sisters to her palace and shows them of her new beautiful life and lies to them, telling them her husband is a handsome young man with a little facial hair. This made her sisters incredibly envious. They claimed that she hoped to be turned into a goddess and had planned for this fortune to befall her the entire time. HOW UNFAIR (sarcasm)! They complain about their lives and agree to return home, but to come back and punish her sister for having better luck than they do. 

Psyche's Husband Warns Her

• The sisters plan to murder young Psyche. Pysche's husband returns and warns her of her evil sisters' plans. He tells her that when they return she must not talk to them, or at least to not listen to anything they say for if she keeps their secret she will bear a divine child, but if she lets slip the truth of her husband, her child will be mortal. Psyche grew bigger and bigger as her pregnancy continued; she adored her growing belly and looked on in surprise at how much her body was changing. Soon though, her husband warned, her evil sisters (who he compares to harpies, furies, and sirens) will soon return and they will want to kill her but she must not look at them or listen to what they say or she will lose everything. Psyche cries and wishes to see her husband, but if she cannot see him she wants to see her sisters. The mysterious husband agrees to have the wind bring them to see her once more before disappearing. 

Fears and Doubts
Check out this story here!

• The sisters arrive and flatter Psyche, telling her of their excitement for the new baby. Psyche offered them rest, baths, food, and music before the evil wenches steered the conversation to the mysterious husband. They asked about his background and Psyche told them he was a middle aged man from a neighboring place, an obvious lie to the evil sisters. The sisters left and when they returned they claimed that Psyche's mysterious husband was actual an evil, monstrous serpent similar to what was prophesied by Apollo's oracle. They say that when she delivers the baby, he will devour her. They tell her to trust them, and in her innocent ignorance Psyche became terrified. She cried out for them to help her and in an instant they seized her, holding her down with blades to her throat. 
• They then tell her to dim the lights and hide a blade under her pillow so that when he hops into bed with her she can decapitate him. After which her sisters would be waiting to help her find a mortal husband. With this they left, leaving Psyche to her thoughts. After much debate, she prepared to carry out the evil deed and as with every night her husband slipped into bed and fell asleep.

Psyche's Husband Revealed
It's Cupid!

• Psyche goes to kill her husband, but in the light of the lamp it is revealed that her husband is in fact the god Cupid. Psyche dropped the knife and smiled to herself as she explored her husband's arrows. She was touching the tip of one of the arrows when she accidentally pricked her finger and fell even farther in love with Cupid. She leaned over and covered him in kisses, holding a hot oil lamp so she could examine her love. However, a drop of oil fell onto his shoulder and he awoke, startled and upset that she had found out who he was, he tried to fly off but she grabbed his ankle and they both fell to the floor. 
• He told her that his mother wanted him to sentence her to a terrible marriage, but that he came to her as her lover instead but was made out to be a terrible  monster. He knew she had planned to kill him and he promised to enact revenge on her sisters. As for her, he would punish her by leaving her all alone, and so he flew off into the night. 

Amore e Psiche (1707–09) 

by Giuseppe Crespi, found on Wikipedia

Psyche's Despair
This should really be titled "Psyche's Revenge"

• In her sadness, Psyche tries to kill herself by jumping into a river, but the water catches her as it respects Cupid, and gently lays her on the riverbank. Here, she runs into Pan the god of the wild who notices that she is obviously in some sort of love-centered distress. He tells her to pray to Cupid for aid, she thanks him and walks on before arriving at the residence of one of her sisters. She tells her sister that in his anger, Cupid banned her from her bed, drove her from the palace, and planned to wed her sister in revenge. The sister quickly came up with a plan to ditch her husband, she told him her parents were dying and headed back to the cliff where she'd jumped to visit her sister. She leapt, but this time there was no wind to catch her, and she fell to her death. After this, Psyche traveled to meet her other sister and told her the same story. Not surprisingly the second sister also jumped off the cliff hoping to marry Cupid but instead fell to her death.