Although written in the olden times, one of Apuleius’s story collections in the book of Metamorphoses entitled "The Tale of Cupid and Psyche" relates to the modern age issue of marriage and relationship. It reflects and gives hopes to some relationships that started wrong but ended up good. I will examine the story of “The Tale of Cupid and Psyche” and will relate its relevance to the modern times.
“The Tale of Cupid and Psyche” is a tale about the relationship that the God of Love, Cupid, has with a mortal named Psyche. Venus, the Goddess of beauty and the mother of Cupid, was offended when people believed in a rumour that Psyche, the most beautiful of the three daughters of the king and queen, is Venus’s daughter from a union with a mortal. She ordered Cupid to revenge in her behalf. However, Cupid, fell in love with Psyche.
One day, Psyche was led to a beautiful place until she was guided to a bedroom. An anonymous creature made love with her and due to the darkness; she was unable to see the creature. She then started to look forward to it, and the creature started to come to her every night but leaves before the sun rises. Psyche’s sisters pressured her to spy on the creature, whom they thought was a monster, by bringing a dagger and a lamp. One night, while Cupid was asleep, Psyche turned on the lamp and prepared the dagger to strike Cupid, but she saw the most attractive creature she has ever seen. Psyche unintentionally hurt herself with Cupid’s arrow that later resulted to a deeper passion. She then woke Cupid up by spilling the oil of the lamp. Cupid then flew away (Relihan 65).
The two sisters of Psyche were envious when they learned that Psyche’s lover was the God of Love. The two sisters offered t...
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...rs based on their status, which I think, is not a key to real joy and happiness.
Love knows no bound. There is always hope and anything wrong can be corrected if and only if there is true love between the two. There is always a second chance and anyone can improve and change for the better. Couples can overcome the trials in a relationship that comes along the way through love and trust, faith to God, and willingness for God’s guidance.
Works Cited
Relihan, Joel C. "The Tale of Cupid and Psyche". Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009. Print.
S Parker and P Murgatroyd. Love Poetry and Apuleius' "Cupid and Psyche", The Classical Quarterly pp. 400-44. Cambridge University Press. Web. 2000. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3556474
William E. Stephenson. The Comedy of Evil in Apuleius, Arion pp. 87-93. Boston University. Web. 1964. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20140428
In this essay I will examine the war-of the-sexes taking place in The Eumenides, the final play of The Oresteia. The plot of The Eumenides pits Orestes and Apollo (representing the male gods and, to a certain extent, male values in general) against the ghost of Clytemnestra and the Furies (equally representative of female values.) Of more vital importance, however, is whether Athene sides with the males or females throughout the play.
...s talk and the two sisters become awfully jealous of her. After they try to find out the truth of Psyche and her husband, they leave with some jewels. The night after the two sisters leave, Psyche can’t sleep at night and order her servants to bring her a lamp. She sneaks into her husband’s room, to find a beautiful creature with great, white folded, feathered wings. He is the son of Aphrodite’s, Eros – she says. As she quietly moves away, her oil lamp drops oil on Eros burning him and waking him up. He explains to Psyche that “mortals and gods are forbidden to marry” (p.137) that’s why she couldn’t see him and now he must go away from her. In this play we see that Pandora should’ve listened to her husband, Eros, and it caused herself bad in not listening to Eros, but we see that things can work out after something terrible occurs, such as the birth of a child.
"PSYCHE : Greek Goddess of the Soul | Mythology, Psykhe, W/ Pictures." THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGY, Exploring Mythology & the Greek Gods in Classical Literature & Art. Web. 8 Oct. 2011. .
Our opinion of the world, especially religious beliefs, shape who we become. C.S. Lewis retells the story of The Marriage of Cupid and Psyches in his book Till We Have Faces. In the original story, women are very shallow characters with little personality, power, or value. Lewis gives women more power and they become more godlike— Orual through her veil and Psyche through her moral goodness. This affirms the power and character of the gods.
The depiction of the Greek and roman myths are given unique insights from different authors. The Hymn to Demeter and Ovid's Metamorphosis provide and insight to Demeter's love for her daughter, Persephone, and explores its affect on the surrounding environments. The theme of separation and isolation is present in both of these myths, however, in Ovid's Metamorphosis, he symbolizes the environment in important events, has characters playing different roles, and empowers female deities.
Eupriedes, Medea and Sappho’s writing focus on women to expose the relationships between a variety of themes and the general ideal that women are property. The main characters in both pieces of literature demonstrate similar situations where love and sex result in a serious troll. These themes affected their relationship with themselves and others, as well as, incapability to make decisions which even today in society still affects humans. Headstrong actions made on their conquest for everlasting love connects to sacrifices they made to achieve their goal which ultimately ended in pain. Love and sex interferes with development of human emotions and character throughout the course
As one of the most well known ancient Roman love poets, Ovid has demonstrated bountiful talents within his writing. When reading myths from his book titled Metamorphoses, you gain an enlightening insight of how he viewed mythology. To Ovid, love was the origin of everything. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that most of his poems relate to the theme of love. However, not all poets are the same and every re-telling of a myth has its own unique perspective. In this paper I will compare and contrast the myth of Medea in Euripides Medea and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 7. I will then explain how Ovid’s approach to love and loss correlate to his general approach to myth as a whole. I will support my belief with evidence from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 14.
Finally, even though, for a long time, the roles of woman in a relationship have been established to be what I already explained, we see that these two protagonists broke that conception and established new ways of behaving in them. One did it by having an affair with another man and expressing freely her sexuality and the other by breaking free from the prison her marriage represented and discovering her true self. The idea that unites the both is that, in their own way, they defied many beliefs and started a new way of thinking and a new perception of life, love and relationships.
The faces of the gods do not change; but those of Psyche and Orual do, and in their developing we see the developing of character--the search for identity. Psyche, who was born nearly divinely beautiful, becomes even more so when she is married to the god, and her "brightface" appearance reflects the new joy and maturity created in her character by that union. Orual's character development takes longer, for she fights it; she is unwilling to believe in the god, and even when she sees his face she becomes bitter against him for her loss of Psyche. Yet through great suffering and a long time of facelessness, she too finds her face--her identity--and becomes beautiful in the end. She is finally able to meet the gods face to face, when she has a face of her own.
In the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul mates are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by telling the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes: male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented one’s soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote: “When a man’s natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it.
Can a simple emotion such as love be regarded as one of the greatest weapons to create or attain power? It’s a renowned fact that human beings are by nature designed to need, crave, and even require love as part of their survival mechanisms. It comes to no surprise that one of the first accounts of antique poetry maintains love and the craving for it as its main theme; thereby, reinforcing the deep importance that it upholds in the lives of many individuals. Sappho’s “Deathless Aphrodite” clearly epitomizes the suffering and bitterness that arises from an unrequited love. In Sappho’s case, which portrays the case of many, she constantly finds herself in loneliness and despair for though she tries repeatedly, she is only let down recurrently as no one reciprocates the love she gives. It is only the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who holds
The meaning of love is as intricate and unique as the purpose that it serves. It seems that the nature of love is found in the mind, the body and the soul. In Plato’s Symposium each member of the drinking party gives their own interpretation of love. As each speaker engages in their discourse, the concept of love is evaluated from different angles. According to Phaedrus, homoerotic love is the highest form of love and that sacrificing oneself for love will result in a multitude of rewards from the gods, while Pausanias believes that there are two forms of love: Commonly and Heavenly. As a physician, Eryximachus claims that love appears in every part of the universe, including plants and animals and that protection results from love. Before starting his speech, Aristophanes tells the group that his discussion about love may seem completely absurd, as he explains that in the beginning one body had two people who were eventually split in half by Zeus. This is meant to explain why people are constantly looking for their “other half”. Moreover Agathon, the poet the symposium is celebrating, critiques the previous speakers by stating that they failed to praise the god of love. He claims that love rejects feebleness and embraces youthfulness while also implying that love creates justice, courage and wisdom.
In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts. As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55).
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
Within the writings of Greek mythology women commonly display certain attributes that the Greek society associated with women or femininity back in the day. A common quality demonstrated amongst the women in Greek society, and more specifically in Greek mythology, is deception. Throughout the Greek literature discussed in class, women have commonly showed their deception and trickery in different ways and for numerous different reasons. The Odyssey, Theogony, and Homeric Hymm all displayed Greek women showing some form of deception within the stories and poems. These stories show various ways and reasons for Greek women being deceiving and disingenuous, reasons for which there needs to be more discussion.