Reading Notes: Cupid and Psyche, Part A

Cupid and Psyche

Psyche's Husband Revealed: (Story Source: Apuleius's Golden Ass, as translated into English by Tony Kline (2013))

• After falling in love with her "invisible" husband and being warned by her malicious sisters that he was an evil serpent, Psyche lay in bed with her husband with the intent to kill him before he devoured her
• Her husband was asleep in the bed
• Psyche held the razor (to kill him) and oil lamp in her hand to reveal the image of her husband
• She discovered that it was Cupid and was shocked
• She felt ashamed for wanting to kill the god
• She admired Cupid's beauty and noticed his arrows lying at the foot of the bed
• She grabbed an arrow from the quiver and was trembling so hard that she began to bleed
• Upon looking at him, she unknowingly fell more in love and desired Cupid even more and kissed him while trying not to wake him
• Next, the a drop of oil from the hot lamp that Psyche was holding dropped onto Cupid's shoulder and woke him up
• He immediately awakened and flew away, trying to escape her
• She held onto him as he flew and then fell to the ground
• Cupid flew to a nearby tree and explained to her that Venus (his mother) commanded him to betray her 
• he also shot himself with an arrow and made Psyche his wife
• **maybe explain how she did this to him while he was asleep. Maybe the blood that she shed from the arrow dropped on him and caused him to fall in love with her before he was awakened
• Cupid then told her that he would punish her by flying away and disappeared

• This story mostly consists of text and a little dialogue
• The dialogue included however holds a lot of weight and is essential to the story
• It could be retold using more dialogue and less formal language so that it is easier to understand

(Psyche being abandoned by Cupid after he was discovered, Source: Wikimedia)