Story: Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche

(Diana and Cupid by Henry Townsend, Wikimedia Commons)

In a land far away, past the magical forest and the snowy mountains, there was a kingdom with a huge palace. In the palace lived the adored king and queen, with their three precious daughters. The first two daughters were of average beauty, but very intelligent. However, the youngest daughter, Psyche, had immense beauty. Some claimed that she was as beautiful as Venus, Goddess of love.

Venus was considered to be the most beautiful thing in existence, so people had to see the young girl for themselves in order to believe it. People traveled oceans just to see Psyche’s beauty in person. Once they laid eyes upon her, they would all agree in unison that her beauty was in fact comparable to that of Venus.

Eventually, Venus heard word of the girl’s beauty, and found out that people were comparing them to each other and she became furious.

How can a mere mortal be as lovely as I? I am Venus, Goddess of love, and known for my beauty. Surely she is not as beautiful as the other morals have claimed.

Venus paced her room, trying to think of a solution. After a few hours, she jolted up from her throne with excitement.

“CUPID,” she shouted. Within seconds, her dearest son fluttered in with his bow and arrows. Cupid was very mischievous and had a habit of destroying relationships and marriages on a daily basis simply because he had the power to.

“Yes mother?” Cupid replied.

“I am in need of a favor, my dear,” Venus said.

“Anything for you, mother,” Cupid said.

And with that, Cupid and Venus came up with a plan on how to deal with Psyche.

Per Venus’s instructions, Cupid flew to the kingdom where Psyche and her family lived. When Cupid had arrived at the palace, he tried to find Psyche.

Within a few minutes, he came across a large gathering of people, surrounding a girl. He could not actually see the girl because she was caught up in the ruckus, but he assumed she was Psyche since everyone was admiring her. He glanced around the rest of the room and noticed a queue of people, waiting in line just to see Psyche. Cupid scoffed at this, rolled his eyes, and decided to wait until midnight to deal with her.

Several hours later, the moon was high up in the sky and it was finally midnight. It was time for Cupid to follow through with the plan: shoot her with one of his arrows so that she would be cursed with a life without love. This meant that no matter how beautiful she was, nobody would love her and she would die alone.

Cupid fluttered into Psyche’s room, and was immediately struck by her beauty. Cupid tried to shake it off, but he could not believe how gorgeous she was. He physically could not shoot her with the cursed arrow. Confused by this odd conflict, he decided to wait until she woke up.

Surely she isn’t a genuinely good person at heart, so it’ll be easier to deal with her when she is awake and when her beauty does not blind me.

The next morning, Psyche woke up to find Cupid fluttering over her.

“Hello there,” Psyche said.

“Hi. My name is Cupid and I can see that the rumors are true. You really are absolutely stunning,” he replied.

Psyche looked sad all of a sudden and Cupid grew curious.

“What’s wrong with being beautiful?” he asked.

“Nobody likes me for who I am inside. They only come here to see what’s on the outside,” Psyche almost shouted.

For some reason, Cupid felt pity for the poor girl. He got the feeling that maybe she was a good person at all, and could not get himself to shoot her with his cursed arrow. They spent the rest of the day talking about life and their histories and what they wanted to do. Cupid felt this weird butterfly sensation in his stomach. He just wanted to get to know her even more.

The two spent days, then weeks, then months talking and spending time together. They eventually fell in love and wanted to get married. Venus was furious that Cupid hadn’t dealt with her, but since she was the Goddess of love, she could see that Cupid was truly in love and had had a change of heart. Venus gave Cupid permission to marry her and they have been happily married ever since. From that point on, Cupid vowed to not only love her with all of his heart, but to also help others find their own kind of love, rather than trying to destroy it. 

Author's Note: My story is spinoff of Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche, where a group of robbers and an old lady have a horse, a goat, and a young woman in their possession. The old lady eventually tells the story of Cupid and Psyche, where Psyche is a beautiful girl who is being compared to Venus. Venus is filled with anger so she curses Psyche to only be with bad and crooked men. In my story, I wanted Cupid to end up as a good character by having him fall in love with Psyche.

Bibliography: Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche; link to the reading online