Week Three Reading Notes Part B - Cupid and Psyche

Source story: "Cupid and Psyche" from Apuleis's book The Golden Ass (translated by Tony Kline)

• "Venus and the Goddesses"
• A seagull tells Venus of what Cupid has done, threading the story with gossip and lies to make his actions out to be worse than what they were. Venus is deeply angered, and goes home to chastise Cupid. She tells him she will either bare another son to replace him or adopt one of her slave boys for the purpose, and that she will have the goddess Moderation clip his wings and shave his hair and ruin all his godly gear. Juno and Ceres show up as she leaves and try to make her see reason, but she is just more angered that they don't support her.
• "Psyche's Prayer"
• Psyche is searching for her husband and stumbles upon two temples. At the first, the temple of Ceres, she tends to the temple and Ceres shows up. She begs Ceres to help her and protect her from Venus, but Ceres sadly states that she is unable to do so for fear of offending Venus. She then finds the temple of Juno, whom she begs for the same and from whom she is met with the same result.
• "Venus and Mercury"
• Psyche resolves to surrender to Venus and hope for mercy. Meanwhile, Venus has been unable to locate Psyche on earth, so she enlists Mercury to spread the word that Venus will reward whatever person can bring Pysche to her with seven kisses and "a caress of her tongue." Psyche goes to the appointed place to turn herself in.
• "Venus and Psyche"
• Venus has servants torture Psyche, then takes a turn beating her as well. Once Psyche is truly destitute, Venus also threatens that she may decide to kill the baby in Psyche's womb as well. She decides to test Psyche by bringing in a huge pile of different sorts of grains and telling her to sort them into piles by type by evening. After Venus leaves her to her impossible task, an ant notices Psyche's plight and takes pity, and so brings an army of ants who do the task for her and then depart.
• "Psyche's Next Task"
• Next Venus tells Psyche she must gather the golden fleece of a nearby flock of deadly sheep. Psyche goes and plans simply to kill herself by throwing herself into a river, but a reed prophesies to her and tells her not to commit suicide but instead to hide in wait until the sheep are in the mid-afternoon shade (they soak up the sun and become angry, attacking and killing people who get close), then to go into the woods where the sheep had been and simply collect the fleece that came off on the trees. Venus is still angry, though, and assigns her another task: to collect a phial of the freezing water from the black spring that feeds the rivers Styx and Cocytus.
• "The Third Task"
• Psyche sees the impossibility of the task: she cannot hope to reach the source of the water, and snakes guard it on all sides, and the water itself is alive and threatening. Luckily, Jupiter's eagle has helped Cupid before, and offers to gather the water for her. He takes her phial and flies past the snakes, tricking the water into not attacking him by claiming he is gathering it on Venus's behalf.
• "The Jar of Beauty"
• Once again Psyche seeks to kill herself after Venus tells her of her next task: going to the underworld and trading the phial of Stygian water for a jar of Persephone's beauty. But the cliff she intends to throw herself off of speaks and tells her not to kill herself, but to follow his advice on how to navigate the underworld without falling into any of Venus's traps. She follows his advice and receives the jar of beauty, but fails to follow his last piece of advice: not to open the jar of beauty or look inside it at any cost. She thinks instead that taking a drop for herself would be wise and would help her to please Cupid.
• "The Sleep of the Dead"
• The jar, instead of beauty, contains Stygian sleep, which immediately causes Psyche to collapse. But Cupid, who is now healed from his burn, breaks out of his mother's house and flies to Psyche, wiping the sleep off of her and putting it back in the jar for her to take to Venus. Meanwhile, he goes to Jupiter to beg his favor and support. Despite his better judgment, Jupiter agrees to offer his support on the condition that "you beware of making me your rival by giving me, in payment for this favour, some other girl of outstanding beauty."
• "The Wedding Feast"
• Jupiter arranges a wedding for Psyche and Cupid and makes Psyche into a goddess. Venus is placated by Jupiter, and Psyche bears a daughter named Pleasure. We then return to the story of Lucius the man/donkey. He relates that the robbers have returned with a lot of loot, and run him to exhaustion carrying it. They discuss the idea of killing him, as they think he is the cause of their bad luck and he is going lame besides, and then they go to bed.
• "The Escape"
• Lucius resolves to escape rather than be killed, and so he breaks his bonds. But the old woman grabs his rope as he flies past her, and holds on tightly. The captive girl wrestles the rope away from the older woman, mounts Lucius's back, and they ride toward what they hope will be freedom, praying to the gods all the way.

Woman and Donkey by a Roadside Shrine (John Gadsby Chapman)