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Cupid and Psyche Album
Cupid and Psyche Album
Bottom:
Psyche showing
her Sisters her
Gifts from
Cupid (1753) by
Jean-Honoré
Fragonard.
At last Psyche tells her husband
how lonely she is during the day and
asks him whether her sisters can
come to visit. Reluctantly he agrees
and the next day Zephyr brings her
sisters to visit her.
They are amazed at the wonders
and riches of Psyche’s palace, but
before long they start to ask about
her husband and where he is. At first
Psyche says he spends the days
hunting in the mountains, but when
they keep asking she admits she has
never seen him, whereupon they
remember the prophecy and convince
Psyche that she really ought to find
out who – or what – she is married
to, preferably with a knife in her
hand at the time.
Above: Amore e Psiche (1707-09) by
Giuseppe Crespi.
Right: Eros and Psyche by Troy Howell.
Below: Cupid and Psyche (1610-20) by Orazio
Gentileschi.
That night, while her husband is
asleep and even though she is sure
that he cannot really be a monster,
Psyche takes out the lamp she had
hidden beneath the bed.
In the lamplight she sees that her
husband is none other than the god
Cupid.
He is so handsome that she leans
over him to get a closer look and as
she does, she spills three drops of hot
oil from the lamp onto his shoulder.
Cupid wakes up with a scream and
sees his wife looking at him. In
sorrow he tells her that by showing
she cannot be trusted to keep her
word, their marriage will have to end.
Then he flies out of the window.
Right: Cupid Right: Psyche Abandoned
and Psyche by Cupid (c.1700) by
(1984) by Nicolas Colombel;
Barry
Johnston.
Left: Psyche -
Greek Goddess
of the Soul
(2011) by
Mystic Pagan.
Unfortunately, the beauty of
Proserpina is timeless and
unchanging, so as soon as Psyche
opened the box she fell into a deep
sleep from which the cold of night,
the hooting of owls and even the
dawn chorus could not wake her.
Below: Psyche
imagines failing
Venus’ tasks as
Cupid looks on
and despairs from
The legend of Amour
and Psyche (1766) by
Angelica Kauffmann.
Psyche explains she fears Venus
won’t allow her to be with him
because she has not completed her
tasks and can’t do so because the
beauty of Proserpina must have
escaped from the box when she
opened it and while she was asleep.
The End.
Layout and text,
including Choose Your Own Classical Adventure logo
© Eleanor OKell, 2014.
Cupid and Psyche on title page © lilfane, 2006