The story of Cupid and Psyche is a classic love story, first appearing in the Metamorphoses by Apuleius in the 3rd century A.D., although it is probably based on traditional Greek tales. The story centers on a girl named Psyche, the astoundingly beautiful daughter of a king who, despite her beauty, is the last of the three daughters to be unmarried. Her father, seeking recourse for this social crime, speaks to the Oracle of Apollo, who gives a foreboding prophecy that says Psyche will be married, not to a human, but to a terrifying beast who will devour her and her child. Psyche is offered up on a craggy mount, presumably in hopes that the beast would not harm anyone else, and the western wind Zephyr carries her (as if she were a piece of paper?) to a meadow. In this meadow she discovers an exquisitely decorated home. This is to be the home where she will spend the remainder of her life with her fearsome husband, who resides in the home and sleeps with her but never reveals himself to her in the light. Finally, after a visit from her sisters who taunt her with the prophecy, Psyche decides to take a look at her monstrous husband while he sleeps. Instead, she sees a beautiful man (Cupid) who flees immediately. Psyche leaves the meadow, searching frantically for her husband, until finally she meets his mother Venus, who is - unbeknownst to Psyche - jealous of the mortal's beauty. Venus offers to direct Psyche to her son if she can complete three tasks. The last of these tasks is that Psyche must travel to the underworld and retrieve, in a box, an essence of Prosperina's (the Queen of the Underworld) beauty. Psyche succeeds, but opens the box out of curiosity and is put into a stupor by its contents. Ever the caring spouse, Cupid comes to save his wife and, with the permission of Zeus, marries her against his mother's wishes.
Cupid and Psyche seems, at first, to be a somewhat shallow story - there is little detail about what makes Psyche and Cupid click as a couple, although we're certainly meant to believe that they are each other's soulmates. Perhaps the reason why Cupid and Psyche is such an influential story is its infinite potential for symbolic interpretation. Cupid and Psyche, after all, are not simply Average Joe Roman characters - they represent, respectively, love and soul. The story is, it would seem, not only about love but about the way the soul and spirit interacts with love - often by a staggering progression. The greatest love stories, then, are love stories that acknowledge the imperfection and difficulty of love, not simply its beauty.
Obviously, no love story could ever really earn the distinction of the "greatest." Here is just one example of a work that I think captures the struggle to love, AND the beauty of it afterwards. Remember, though, that not all love is romantic love - the strongest love may be that which arises between two friends.
(Video is occasionally NSFW, much to my dismay)
The Reward from The Animation Workshop on Vimeo.
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