Psyche

Cupid and Psyche (1798), by the French neoclassical painter François Gérard (1770-1837). Cupid (or Eros) was a popular subject in mythological and sentimental works of art, where he is often portrayed as a winged child with a bow and arrows, which he shoots through the hearts of men and women, causing them to fall in love. He fell in love with Psyche, a Greek nymph who personified the soul.

Late Greek personification of the soul as a winged girl or young woman. In Greek mythology, she was the youngest and most beautiful of three princesses. Incensed by her beauty, Aphrodite ordered her son Eros, the god of love, to inspire Psyche with desire for the vilest creatures. Instead, he fell in love with her, in some traditions by accidently grazing himself with his arrow.

Unseen and unknown, Cupid visited Psyche each night until her envious sisters told her that she was embracing a hideous monster in the darkness. The princess shone her lamp while he slept and revealed his handsome form, but a drop of hot oil fell on his shoulder, and he woke and fled. Wandering in search for him, she eventually found the god and entered into an immortal union.

The love story of Eros and Psyche is described by the Roman writer Apuleius in his prose fantasy The Golden Ass or Metamorphoses.

Psyche

Opera by Locke (libretto by Shadwell), produced London, Dorset Gardens Theatre, 27 February 1675. Princess Psyche suffers the evil plots of her sisters Cidippe and Aglaura, who are jealous of her beauty. Venus, also jealous, arranges with Apollo for Psyche to marry a serpent, but Cupid saves her.