Romantic myth telling how the mortal Psyche became the immortal wife of Eros.
Overview
Eros and Psyche, also called The Tale of Eros and Psyche or Cupid and Psyche, is a mythic love story that belongs to the wider group of Aphrodite and Eros myths and later Greco-Roman love tales. It tells a quest-like romance in which the mortal Psyche, whose great beauty makes Aphrodite jealous, is secretly loved by the god Eros and forced to face a series of trials set by the gods.
The story focuses on Aphrodite’s persecution of Psyche, Psyche’s marriage under a strict taboo to an unseen husband, the loss of Eros when she breaks the rule against looking at him, and the difficult tasks she must complete to win him back. With help from sympathetic beings and, in the end, from Eros himself, Psyche finishes these tasks. This includes a journey to the Underworld and an encounter with a deathlike sleep, after which Zeus steps in.
Zeus grants Psyche immortality and officially approves her marriage to Eros. This brings about her apotheosis and makes their union legitimate among the gods. The tale is best known from Apuleius’ Latin novel Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), Book 4.28–6.24, and is usually seen as a late but very influential Greco-Roman mythic romance.
The story takes place in an undefined mythic time and is told as a model love story with fairy-tale elements, not as a tale tied to a specific historical period. Within Apuleius’ work, it appears as a story inside the main narrative and mixes folktale motifs, hints of allegory, and the traditional theme of love between a god and a mortal.
Background
The background of the story of Eros and Psyche begins with the effects of Psyche’s extraordinary beauty. Men turn their admiration, and even their worship, away from Aphrodite and toward the mortal princess. This shift is seen as an insult to Aphrodite’s honor and makes the goddess angry. She decides to punish Psyche for rivaling her in beauty.
Although many suitors admire Psyche, none dares to marry her. She remains unmarried, which deeply worries her royal parents. This problem, together with Aphrodite’s divine jealousy, leads to the ominous oracle that announces Psyche’s fate.
In terms of family, Psyche is the youngest daughter of an unnamed king and queen. She is a mortal princess whose beauty surpasses that of all others. Eros, in contrast, is the son of Aphrodite and a powerful love-god linked with the Olympian gods and, in Apuleius’ account, implicitly connected to the circle of Zeus (Jupiter), while still under his mother’s influence.
The story assumes the usual hierarchy of the Olympian gods. Aphrodite is a major goddess whose cult and honor must not be reduced, and Zeus holds the highest authority. He has the power to grant immortality and to approve marriages between gods and mortals.
The opening setting is an unnamed human kingdom where Psyche’s fame has spread across the world. In this kingdom, people turn to Apollo’s oracle to deal with the troubling fact that Psyche remains unmarried. The story draws on wider Greek myth motifs of divine jealousy toward beautiful or honored mortals, such as Niobe or Semele. It also uses traditions that show Eros as a strong, sometimes unruly love-god who acts both at Aphrodite’s command and sometimes in tension with her wishes.
Within the tale, this background sets up the main conflict between divine honor and mortal beauty. Psyche appears as an innocent victim whose fate is driven by divine emotions and an oracular decree, rather than by her own choices.
Plot Summary
The plot of Eros and Psyche centers on the results of Psyche’s unmatched beauty. Human worship turns away from Aphrodite toward Psyche, and this provokes the goddess’s anger. In response, Aphrodite orders her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with a worthless creature. Instead, Eros is struck by his own power and falls in love with her himself.
Psyche’s worried father goes to Apollo’s oracle to ask about her unmarried state. The oracle declares that Psyche must be left on a mountain as the destined bride of a monstrous being. Obeying this command, her parents abandon her on the height. Zephyrus, the West Wind, then carries her to a marvelous, invisible palace.
In this palace, unseen servants attend Psyche, and each night she is visited by an unseen husband who tells her she must never look at him. Psyche lives happily until her envious sisters come to visit. They see her wealth and convince her that her mysterious husband must be a monster planning to devour her.
Driven by their warnings, Psyche breaks the rule and, by lamplight, discovers that her husband is the beautiful god Eros. Startled and admiring him, she accidentally burns him with the lamp’s oil and injures him with his own tools. Eros flees, leaving her alone.
Grieving, Psyche wanders in search of Eros and makes unsuccessful appeals to several deities. At last she falls into Aphrodite’s hands. Aphrodite enslaves her and sets a series of tasks that seem impossible. Psyche must sort a huge pile of mixed grains, gather golden wool from dangerous rams, and draw water from a high, perilous spring guarded by serpents.
Psyche receives help from kind creatures and divine agents. Ants sort the grains, reeds by the river tell her how to collect the wool safely, and Zeus’s eagle brings back the water from the dangerous spring. Finally, Aphrodite orders Psyche to go down to the Underworld and bring back a box of beauty from Persephone.
Psyche completes this descent (katabasis) and receives the box. On her way back, she opens it, hoping to increase her own beauty, and falls into a deathlike sleep. Eros, now healed, comes to her, wakes her from the enchanted sleep, and appeals to Zeus on her behalf.
At the climax, Zeus gathers the gods, declares Psyche immortal, and gives her ambrosia. This confirms her marriage to Eros and settles the dispute with Aphrodite. In the end, Aphrodite stops persecuting Psyche, satisfied that Psyche’s new divine status no longer threatens her honor among mortals.
After this, Eros and Psyche can live together openly as a divine couple. Their daughter Voluptas (Hedone, Pleasure) is born at the close of the tale. She represents the union of Love and Soul and marks the restoration and stabilization of divine and cosmic order.
Key Figures
The main figures in the story of Eros and Psyche are the mortal heroine Psyche and the god Eros. Psyche starts as a mortal princess and later becomes immortal. Her exceptional beauty angers Aphrodite and sets the story in motion. Psyche enters a secret marriage with an unseen divine husband, loses him when she breaks the rule against seeing him, undergoes a series of hard labors including a journey to the Underworld, and finally gains immortality and a lawful, divinely approved union with Eros.
Eros is a god and a powerful love-god. Aphrodite sends him to punish Psyche, but he falls in love with her instead. He becomes her hidden husband and leaves when she breaks the taboo. Later, he secretly helps her complete her tasks, wakes her from the deathlike sleep caused by Persephone’s box, and wins Zeus’s decision that grants her immortality.
Among the other characters, Aphrodite is the main antagonist. Her jealousy of Psyche’s beauty starts the plot. She orders Eros to punish Psyche, captures and enslaves her, and sets the impossible tasks. She is eventually reconciled to the marriage once divine authority confirms Psyche’s new status.
Psyche’s father, a king, is the anxious parent who follows Apollo’s oracle and exposes his daughter on the mountain as a bride for the supposed monster. Psyche’s mother, a queen, shares in the grief and mourning before this act. Psyche’s sisters, mortal women marked by envy, visit her in the hidden palace, plant fear and doubt about her unseen husband, and persuade her to break the taboo. This leads directly to Eros’s departure. In Apuleius’ version, the sisters later die as a result of their actions.
Zeus (Jupiter), the chief god, is the final judge. He calls the divine assembly, grants Psyche immortality by giving her ambrosia, and officially approves the marriage, which ends the conflict. Zephyrus, the West Wind, is the divine helper who carries Psyche from the mountain where she is exposed to Eros’s magical palace, making their secret marriage possible.
Persephone, queen of the Underworld, supplies the “box of beauty” that Psyche must obtain during her descent, providing the key object for the final trial. Their daughter Voluptas (Hedone, Pleasure), a deity or personified concept, appears at the end of the story as the child of Eros and Psyche and expresses the result of their union.
The divine figures in the tale include Eros, Aphrodite, Zeus, Zephyrus, Persephone, and various unnamed gods who attend the assembly and wedding feast. Psyche is the main heroic figure. Aphrodite and Psyche’s jealous sisters act as the main antagonists, with the sisters serving as human agents who bring about the crisis.
Supporting groups include Psyche’s household and subjects. They admire her beauty but fail to find her a mortal husband, which adds to her ominous isolation. The invisible servants and personified attendants of Eros’s palace, whose voices and automatic service care for Psyche, highlight the enchanted and divine nature of her hidden life.
Important helpful creatures are the ants that kindly sort the huge pile of mixed grains in Psyche’s first labor, the reeds by the river that tell her how to gather golden wool safely from the dangerous rams, and Zeus’s eagle that helps her draw water from the perilous, serpent-guarded spring. In the structure of the story, Aphrodite and Psyche’s sisters create conflict, while Eros (after he withdraws at first), Zeus, Zephyrus, the ants, reeds, eagle, and Persephone act as helpers and allies. The final resolution comes through Zeus, who grants immortality and confirms the marriage; Aphrodite, who accepts the result once divine order is reestablished; and Eros, who restores Psyche and resumes their union.