The following essay contains mythological nudity and sexual themes of a Greek and Roman nature and a scathing rebuke of the lack of original story ideas from the ancient times until today. Also, there’s an iPhone, in case that triggers any readers. It certainly triggered the author.
Less now—perhaps because he resembles Renaissance angel paintings—do we get to see the cherubic little lad with his love arrows flying around this time of year. That may be for the best. The entire idea of a flying baby with a projectile weapon is dangerous and frankly implausible. However, it may be worth stepping back in time a bit to understand the significance of that airborn infant just in case he makes an appearance on the day.
When two immortal beings (we'll just call them gods with lowercase ‘g's’) are attracted to one another, they may sneak off behind a doric arch for a romantic tryst. In mythology, like on day time television, this is how trouble begins. Blind passion, fierce attraction, a little too much of Bacchus’ delight and nine months later (or however long it takes to gestate a god) along comes the wee one. In this case, the lovebirds Aphrodite and Ares consummated their deific lust and brought forth Eros. Okay, perhaps it was Venus and Mars and they had Cupid. From the Roman point of view, the story you're about to hear is true; only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Like all kids, Cupid bore the genetic stamp of his folks. Momma was a fertility god. Papa was a god of war. Cupid presents the personality of physical intimacy, lust, physical affection and the ordeal of unrequited love, infatuation and snuggling. Forever young, this lanky young fellow with curling locks and white wings is usually displayed by the Greeks as a boy in his teens, full of latent adolescent tumescence and bearing well developed abs. Artistically, Cupid had a serious case of Benjamin Buttonism. As time progressed, he reverted from lanky teen to chunky kid and eventually, thanks to the resurgence of some Hellenistic representations in art, he became a tiny, mainly nude baby (always carefully covered by floating bits of cloth) with an arrow and bow. For our purposes, though, the Greek teenager is how we'll think of him now.
The Romans understood the war aspect of love; to conquer someone else’s firm resignation with acts of devotion, and they knew about the ordeal of infatuation that goes unheeded. Love that burns or rages in the blood and seeks for release but has none is what the boy represented for the Romans. Cupid's arrows were the darts of love and when struck by them, individuals were filled with the kind of untamable desire that modern literature can only produce by the pastiche of love potions or curses. Back in his prime (if a kid with wings can be said to have a prime) it was considered good fun to shoot someone and watch as they became desperate and fawning, groveling love slaves to people they had originally hated. All a lot of entertainment for the boring life of sociopathic immortals who lived in the sky, I guess.
Enter Psyche. The youngest and fairest daughter (of them all?) of an unnamed king and queen, she is thought to be the offspring of a secret union between the king and Venus. Her beauty is timeless for a young girl and all the local boys are quite fond of her. Meanwhile, a horrible serpent ranges about their kingdom wreaking absolute havoc. Because Venus is jealous of the girl's beauty, innocence and virtue (and purity, we assume) she instructs her son, Cupid, to shoot Psyche with his arrows so that the girl will fall in love with the hideous beast and be devoured all the while feeling adoration for it (and, one presumes, taking care of an illegitimate demigod offspring?) Always the obedient son, this Cupid sets out to do, but he is so startled by Psyche’s beauty that he scratches himself on the blade of an arrow and falls madly in love with her.
The day comes when the girl is to be fed to the beast (lots of good foreshadowing to feeding a virgin to a dragon trope of the medieval era) and she is wheeled up to a smoking cave and stripped bare. The outward thought being that, if she is devoured, it will satiate the beast's murderous antics and stop the destruction. The king and queen hope that with the pretty one gone, some of the eligible bachelors who were falling all over Psyche might actually pay some attention to her two older sisters. Does any of this sound familiar?
Anyway, in the meantime, the god of the wind conjures a tornado and sweeps the poor, shuddering girl up into the air where she faints presumably from lack of oxygen. When she awakens, she finds that she is in a beautiful garden bathed by trickling fountains and boasting a small, ornately decorated cabin for two. Inside she finds food, wine, beautiful silk robes and an iPhone 15 Pro. She eats, drinks, covers herself with the robes and quietly surfs the Internet and gets to feeling quite lovely. Suddenly, she hears a deep voice call to her and she gets up and goes into a darkened room where she is ravished by an unseen lover. When she wakes up he is gone.
As is usually the case, Psyche finds out that she is pregnant and goes home to mom and dad, where she certainly has some ‘splainin’ to do. Meanwhile, momma Venus has some questions for dear old sonny boy.
Psyche, assuming that it was the beast that she spent the night with, gets a pretty unhappy response from mom and pop who try feeding her to the monster again. This was before libraries, so they didn't have a lot to go on. Once again (now preggers) Psyche is taken up without a stitch on her to the cave. Once again Uncle Windy comes along and saves her and puts her down at the honeymoon suite. Once again, she eats a bit and drinks a bit and she's feeling pretty good. Here comes that beautiful rich voice calling her to the bedroom. She goes back there and the lights are off. She waits for the beast.
Later, she wakes up, but realizes that her lover is still in bed with her. She goes to turn on a lamp so she can stab the beast (this was before The Clapper) and accidentally scratches herself on an arrow (these kids are a walking advert for weapon safety). She falls immediately in love with the boy on the sheets who is none other than Cupid. She “accidentally” spills warm oil on him and he wakes up and is shocked by her advances and departs. Isn’t that just like a man?
When his mother finds out what he's been up to, Venus lashes out and injures the lad. Meanwhile, out of pure jealousy and rage, she sets Psyche impossible tasks and mocks her relentlessly for conceiving a child out of wedlock. Fully under the control of Venus because of her unborn child, Psyche realizes that she has no choice but to obey.
While she is wandering around and trying to do the bidding of the goddess, she meets several other lesser goddesses who she implores for help. In each trial she finds a way to overcome impossible odds, but none of the goddesses can actively take part against one of their kind. Fearing that she will forever be held as a slave to Venus’ rage, she intends to drown herself on her way to the underworld for a final trial.
Venus is jealous of the wife of Pluto. He is god of the underworld and his wife has perfect and enduring beauty. Psyche goes to Proserpina to ask for her undying looks for Venus and pleads her plight. Proserpina has no love for Venus and as the goddess of the underworld she also has no rules to follow so she agrees to help the girl and gives her a box with the beauty in it.
Psyche intends to take this to her mother-in-law to be, hoping to be free of her debt, but she gets really curious as soon as she crosses the bridge into the mortal lands and opens the box to see what’s inside. Immediately she is hit with a stupor and falls to sleep. Cupid, meanwhile, has healed up and goes looking for the girl, finds her sleeping and takes off the sleep and puts it back into the box. He takes her before Zeus and pleads for her to be spared. Zeus likes what he sees and tells old Cupid that, if his wish is granted, he must forego his unruly behavior and focus his love only on the girl. Cupid agrees and Zeus marries them and their child (Voluptas) is born. They are often considered an ideal couple.
The allegory is fairly clear. Love rebels against rationality and often hasty and sometimes forbidding problems arise from insatiable desire; but sometimes, if we are lucky (and the gods smile on us) we can unite Cupid (love) and Psyche (soul or mind) in ourselves and enjoy the conception of Voluptas (pleasure), not just for a night, but for an entire lifetime.
May love’s arrows give you amiss, but may you find true happiness of heart and soul. Happy Valentine’s Day.
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