Psyche's Fall In Love In Mythology By Edith Hamilton

In the reading of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, Cupid and princess Psyche fall in love in an interesting story. This story is one of love, revenge, and pettiness. Psyche goes through obstacles to prove she is worthy of Cupid’s love. A king and queen have three daughters but one is more beautiful than the others, the youngest Psyche. Her beauty is soon spread and men travel to adore her stunning qualities. Some even go as far as to say she is more beautiful than Venus, the goddess of beauty. As the number of people that come to see Psyche continuously grow, people slowly start to forget Venus. All her honors she has received are now being stripped of her and given to a mortal who is destined to die. Venus turns to her son for help, Cupid. Cupid

She finally convinces him to let them visit even though he warns her how badly it could end. When the sisters finally arrive they are jealous of the royalty that their youngest sister has gotten to live in and they come up with a plan to ruin her marriage. They make Psyche believe that her husband is a hideous monster, with much doubt Psyche decides to take it upon herself to go into the night to see if he is a monster and if so then stab him right through the heart. That night she lights a lamp and sees that her husband is the unbelievably handsome Cupid, with nervous trembling hands she spills hot oil on the God. Cupid wakes up stunned to see Psyche standing over the top of him. Cupid flees the palace and goes to his mother Venus, to heal him of his

Psyche defies Venus once again, Venus makes Psyche perform these certain tasks to prove she is worthy of her son, Cupid. Venus makes these tasks impossible knowing that Psyche will not be able to perform them especially since she is mortal. The first task is that Psyche has to sort a heap of seeds, wheat, and poppy into their own piles by nightfall. Psyche thinks to herself “how in the world am I going to finish this.” Then, little ants come and feel bad and decide to help her. They separate and divide until the work is done. Venus sees this and is very angry and says “Your work is by no means over” (p 130). Venus proceeds to give Psyche a piece of bread crust and makes her sleep on the ground because she feels if she were to starve her then that beauty of hers would soon go away. The next task is for Psyche to go near the river bank where there are sheep with fleeces of gold and wants her to catch some of their shiny wool. When she gets down to the river bank she hears a little voice tell her that if she waited until evening she could go and fetch wool that was caught on the fences. She takes a big quantity of it back to Venus but Venus tells her there was no way she did it by herself and someone must have helped her and that is unacceptable. The third opportunity she has to prove herself is to go to the terrible river, called Styx. Venus gives her a flask that she has to fill