The story of Eros and Psycke (Psyche) was a popular artistic choice in the neoclassical period.
Antonio Canova produced many versions of the theme; most were of terracotta, but he also sculpted some beautiful marble groups, 2 of which are in the Louvre: Eros and Psyche standing, and Psyche Revived by Eros’ Kiss.
One peak of interest in Eros and Psyche, occurred in the Paris of the late 1790s and early 1800s, which reflected in a proliferation of opera, ballet, Salon art, deluxe book editions, interior decoration such as clocks, wall paneling, and even hairstyles.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the myth became a vehicle for the refashioning of oneself.
In English intellectual and artistic circles around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the fashion for Eros and Psyche accompanied a fascination for the ancient mystery religions.
In writing about the Portland Vase, which was obtained by the British Museum around 1810, Erasmus Darwin speculated that the myth of Eos and Psyche was part of the Eleusinian cycle.
With his interest in natural philosophy, Darwin saw the butterfly as an apt emblem of the soul because it began as an earthbound caterpillar, “died” into the pupal stage, and was then resurrected as a beautiful winged creature.
The tale of Eros and Psykhe ( “Eros and Psyche”) is placed at the midpoint of Apuleius’s novel, and occupies about a fifth of its total length.
The novel itself is a first-person narrative by protagonist Lucius.
Transformed into a donkey by magic gone wrong, Lucius undergoes various trials and adventures, and finally regains human form by eating roses sacred to Isis.
Psyche’s story has some similarities, including the theme of dangerous curiosity, punishments and tests, and redemption through divine favor.
As a structural mirror of the overarching plot, the tale is an example of mise en abyme.
It occurs within a complex narrative frame, with Lucius recounting the tale as it in turn was told by an old woman to Charite, a bride kidnapped by pirates on her wedding day and held captive in a cave.
The happy ending for Psyche is supposed to assuage Charite’s fear of rape, in one of several instances of Apuleius’ irony.
Although the tale resists explication as a strict allegory of a particular Platonic argument, Apuleius drew generally on imagery such as the laborious ascent of the winged soul (Phaedrus ) and the union with the divine achieved by Soul through the agency of the daimon Love (Symposium ).
The short Version
There were once a king and queen, rulers of an unnamed city, who had 3 daughters of conspicuous (attracting notice or attention.) beauty.
The youngest and most beautiful was PSYKHE (Psyche).
PSYKHE (Psyche) was the goddess of the soul and the wife of Eros, god of love.
She was once a mortal princess whose extraordinary beauty earned the ire of Aphrodite (Roman Venus) when men began turning their worship away from the goddess towards the girl.
So blatantly evident that she attracted everyone’s attention something that, made her sisters quite jealous – people from distant kingdoms traveled long distances just to witness such beauty.
Aphrodite commanded Eros make Psykhe fall in love with the most hideous of men, but the god instead fell in love and carried her off to his hidden palace.
Eros hid his true identity and told Psykhe, she must never gaze upon his face.
Her jealous sisters, however, tricked her into disobeying and the angry god forsook her.
Psykhe searched the world for her lost love and eventually came into the service of Aphrodite.
The goddess commanded her perform a series of seemingly impossible tasks, which culminated in a journey to the Underworld.
Psykhe was afterwards reunited with Eros and the couple were married in a ceremony attended by all the gods.
Psykhe was depicted in ancient mosaic art as a butterfly-winged woman in the company of her husband Eros.
Sometimes a pair of Pyskhai (Psychae) were depicted–the second perhaps representing their daughter Hedone (Pleasure).
Aphrodite is offended, and commissions Eros to work her revenge.
Eros is sent to shoot Psyche with an arrow, so she may fall in love with something hideous.
He instead scratches himself with his own dart, which makes any living thing fall in love with the first thing it sees.
Consequently, he falls deeply in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother’s order.
Eros was amazed by psyches splendorous beauty. This fact, made his mother even more jealous of this mortal being – is no coincidence.
Eros could neither finish his mission, nor did he hurt Psykhe.
However, Aphrodite couldn’t let the princess go without any punishment. Despite her beauty, the young girl, would never be pursued by any claimant her sisters got married.
Psykhe the most beautiful, remained single. One of her sisters said, Psykhe you have always been enjoyed by all, but you remain single, while ,my sister and I are already quite well married with men of the finest noble lineage.
Although her two humanly beautiful sisters have married, the idolized Psykhe has yet to find love.
Her father suspects that they have incurred the wrath of the gods, and consults the oracle of Apollo.
The response is unsettling: the king is to expect no human son-in-law, but rather a dragon-like creature who harasses the world with fire and iron and is feared by even Zues and the inhabitants of the underworld – one who finds happiness and hurting mortal beings.
Your princess must be abandoned, near the abyss with wedding garments this is the place where she will be delivered to the dreadful creature.
He will be the cause of her death. Apollo was talking about Eros, the god of love. Apollo was deeply resentful of Eros, since he forced the god of music, to endure an unrequited love.
Psyche is arrayed in funeral attire, conveyed by a procession to the peak of a rocky crag, and exposed.
Zephyr the West Wind bears her up to meet her fated match, and deposits her in a lovely meadow (locus amoenus), where she promptly falls asleep.
The King felt desolated, so kept resisting the idea of having to lose her daughter,
Persuaded by Psykhes sisters, he decided to follow the Oracles guidance, to avoid an even bigger curse, which would certainly fall upon the kingdom. The princess was taken to the abyss , along with a wedding march- which resembled a funeral march more than anything else.
Psykhe listening to her father’s weeping, ( he didn’t want to be the cause of her death) said, why are you regretting my luck?
Some time ago, you were proud of seeing me being worshiped as a goddess. Even though, you were aware of how sacrilegious that was.
Now, take me to the peak of the mountain and let me find my fate. Psycke is arrayed in funeral attire, conveyed by a procession to the peak of a rocky crag, and exposed.
Marriage and death are merged into a single rite of passage – “transition to the unknown”.
Zephyr ,the West Wind bears her up to meet her fated match, and deposits her in a lovely meadow (locus amoenus), where she promptly falls asleep.
The transported girl awakes to find herself at the edge of a cultivated grove (lucus amoenus).
Exploring, she finds a marvelous house with golden columns, a carved ceiling of citrus wood, and ivory, silver walls embossed with wild and domesticated animals, and jeweled mosaic floors.
A disembodied voice tells her to make herself comfortable. She is entertained at a feast which serves itself and by singing of an invisible lyre.
Although fearful and without sexual experience, she allows herself to be guided to a bedroom, where in the darkness a being she cannot see, makes her his wife.
She gradually learns to look forward to his visits, though he always departs before sunrise and forbids her to look upon him.
Soon she becomes pregnant.
Violation of trust
Psyche’s family longs for news of her, and after much cajoling, Eros, still unseen to his bride, permits Zephyr to carry her sisters for a visit.
She asked, my love why do you always hide in the shadows? I’d love to see you as really are.
Eros- Is the love we share enough? All I’m asking, is that you not try to see me, because in the darkness, we are equals.
Psyche decided to abide by the husband’s request, and never mentioned the subject again.
However, as time went by Psycke started to miss her family. She said, my husband, I miss my family, so much and my heart aches knowing, they think I’m dead. I beg you, let me visit them, Eros.
He accepted Psykhes request, because according to his thoughts, if she decided to return, after having been released, it would be the ultimate proof of her genuine love.
Psyches relatives were surprised, by the young girl’s return, who they thought they would never see again.
Her return was nothing short of exhilarating moment!
When they hear the splendor, in which Psyche lives, they become envious, and undermine her happiness, by prodding her to uncover her husband’s true likeness, since surely as foretold by the oracle, she was lying with the vile winged serpent, who would devour her and her child.
One night after Eros falls asleep, Psykhe carries out the plan her sisters devised: she brings out a dagger and a lamp she had hidden in the room, in order to see and kill the monster.
But when the light instead reveals the most beautiful creature she has ever seen, she is so startled, that she wounds herself on one of the arrows in Eros cast-aside quiver.
Struck with a feverish passion, she spills hot oil from the lamp and wakes him.
He flees, and though she tries to pursue, he flies away and leaves her on the bank of a river.
There, she is discovered by the wilderness god, Pan who recognizes the signs of passion upon her.
She acknowledges his divinity (numen), then begins to wander the earth looking for her lost love.
Psyche’s use of the lamp to see the god is sometimes thought, to reflect the magical practice of lychnomancy, a form of divination or spirit conjuring.
Psyche visits first one sister, then the other; both are seized with renewed envy, upon learning the identity of Psyche’s secret husband.
Each sister attempts to offer herself as a replacement, by climbing the rocky crag and casting themselves upon Zephyr for conveyance, but instead, is allowed to fall to a brutal death.
Wanderings and trials
In the course of her wanderings, Psyche comes upon a temple of Demeter, and inside finds a disorder of grain offerings, garlands, and agricultural implements.
Recognizing that the proper cultivation of the gods should not be neglected, she puts everything in good order, prompting a theophany of Demeter herself.
Although Psykhe prays for her aid, and Demeter acknowledges she deserves it, the goddess is prohibited from helping her against a fellow goddess.
Aphrodite revels in having the girl under her power, and turns Psykhe over to her two handmaids, Worry and Sadness, to be whipped and tortured.
Aphrodite tears her clothes, bashes her head into the ground, and mocks her for conceiving a child in a sham marriage.
The goddess then throws before her a great mass of mixed wheat, barley, poppy seed, chickpeas, lentils, and beans, demanding that she sort them into separate heaps by dawn.
But when Aphrodite withdraws to attend a wedding feast, a kind ant takes pity on Psyche, and assembles a fleet of insects to accomplish the task.
Aphrodite is furious when she returns drunk from the feast, and only tosses Psyche a crust of bread. At this point in the story, it is revealed that Eros is also in the house of Aphrodite, languishing from his injury.
At dawn, Aphrodite sets a second task for Psyche.
She is to cross a river and fetch golden wool from violent sheep who graze on the other side.
These sheep are elsewhere identified as belonging to the Helios.
Psyche’s only intention is to drown herself on the way, but instead she is saved by instructions from a divinely inspired reed, of the type used to make musical instruments, and gathers the wool caught on briers.
For Psyche’s third task, she is given a crystal vessel in which to collect the black water spewed by the source of the rivers Styx and Cocytus.
Climbing the cliff from which it issues, she is daunted by the foreboding air of the place and dragons slithering through the rocks, and falls into despair.
Zeus, himself takes pity on her, and sends his eagle to battle the dragons and retrieve the water for her.
Psyche and the underworld
The last trial Aphrodite imposes on Psyche, is a quest to the underworld itself.
She is to take a box (pyxis)and obtain in it a dose of the beauty of Proserpina, queen of the underworld.
Aphrodite claims her own beauty has faded through tending her ailing son, and she needs this remedy in order to attend the theatre of the gods (theatrum deorum).
Psyche past a dead man in the water and the old weavers on shore.
Once again despairing of her task, Psyche climbs a tower, planning to throw herself off. The tower however, suddenly breaks into speech, and advises her to travel to Lacedaemon, Greece, to seek out the place called Taenarus, where she will find the entrance to the underworld. The tower offers instructions for navigating the underworld:
The airway of Dis is there, and through the yawning gates the pathless route is revealed. Once you cross the threshold, you are committed to the unswerving course that takes you to the very Regia of Orcus. But you shouldn’t go empty handed, through the shadows past this point, but rather carry cakes of honeyed barley in both hands, and transport two coins in your mouth.
The speaking tower warns her, to maintain silence as she passes by several ominous figures: a lame man driving a mule loaded with sticks, a dead man swimming in the river that separates the world of the living, from the world of the dead, and old women weaving.
These, the tower warns, will seek to divert her by pleading for her help: she must ignore them. The cakes are treats for distracting Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of Orcus, and the two coins for Charon the ferryman, so she can make a return trip.
Everything comes to pass according to plan, and Proserpina grants Psykhe’s humble entreaty. As soon as she reenters the light of day, however, Psyche is overcome by a bold curiosity, and can’t resist opening the box – in the hope of enhancing her own beauty. She finds nothing inside but an “infernal and Stygian sleep,” which sends her into a deep haze.
Meanwhile, Eros’ wound has healed into a scar, and he escapes his mother’s house by flying out of a window.
When he finds Psykhe, he draws the sleep from her face and replaces it in the box, then pricks her with an arrow that does no harm.
He lifts her into the air, and takes her to present the box to Aphrodite.
He then takes his case to Zeus, who gives his consent in return for Eros’ future help whenever a choice maiden catches his eye
Zeus has Hermes convene an assembly of the gods, in the theater of heaven, where he makes a public statement of approval and warns Aphrodite to back off. Psykhe is given ambrosia, the drink of immortality,so the couple can be united in marriage, as equals.
Their union, he says, will redeem Eros from his history of provoking adultery and sordid liaisons.
Zeus’s word is solemnized with a wedding banquet.
With its happy marriage and resolution of conflicts, the tale ends in the manner of classic comedy or Greek romances such as Daphnis and Chloe.
The child born to the couple will be Voluptas (Greek Hedone ‘Ηδονή), “Pleasure.
Details by, Antonio Canova who was born in the Venetian Republic city of Possagno to Pietro Canova, a stone cutter. 1. Gallery Eros and Psyche Standing – 2 Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,
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In 1761, his father died. A year later, his mother remarried. As such, in 1762, he was put into the care of his paternal grandfather Pasino Canova, who was a stonemason, owner of a quarry, and was a “sculptor who specialized in altars with statues and low reliefs, in late Baroque style”. He led Antonio into the art of sculpting. Antonio became an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures.
He died in Venice, Italy at the age of 64.