35 pages • 1 hour read
ApuleiusCupid and Psyche
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 170A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Cultural Context: The Roman Empire
The culture and religion of the Roman Empire were based on the belief that virtually every object or natural force possessed a divine spirit. Roman religion was both polytheistic—involving many gods—and animistic in that it assigned supernatural qualities to natural elements and living creatures. Gods and goddesses oversaw nearly every aspect of life. While some gods had a very broad influence—like Mars, the god of war—some had a smaller range. Romans made sacrifices to household gods and ancestral spirits that they believed looked after a specific family or place.
As the Roman world grew, it often adopted the gods of conquered peoples. The Romans imported most of the Greek pantheon and assigned them Latin names. Zeus, king of the gods, became Jupiter; his wife, Hera, became Juno; Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was renamed Venus. Hermes the messenger god became Mercury. Eros, Aphrodite’s son, became Cupid. A few Greek gods retained their name and function in Roman usage, including Pan, the god of wild spaces. In the Roman imagination, gods often behaved like humans, experiencing jealousy and anger as well as desire. They were free to move about the world, mingling with humans and interceding—or interfering—where they wished.
Religious observance in Rome was less a matter of belief than a set of rituals, observances, ceremonies, and festivals designed to acknowledge a god’s status and frame a request. One made offerings to one’s household and ancestral gods in addition to making offerings at the temples of major deities and observing their feast days. Roman piety was based on observance of rituals, in return for which one could hope for protection and favor.
These facts explain why Psyche’s father would consult an oracle and why Psyche makes offerings at temples. It was also accepted that gods moved among humans and might disguise themselves. Psyche’s jealous sisters conclude that, if she has never seen her husband, she might be married to a god. Greek and Roman mythology is full of stories in which gods or goddesses take human lovers, often resulting in children who are demigods or possess special qualities.
Authorial Context: Apuleius
Apuleius was born around 125 CE in the North African province of Numidia (modern Algeria), then a Roman colony. His father was a public official and Apuleius was educated in Carthage, Athens, and Rome, all major centers of learning. He studied the philosophy of Plato and his treatises on the subject influenced Medieval scholars.
Apuleius was known as a philosopher and a rhetorician. As a young man, he was accused of sorcery when he persuaded a wealthy widow, the mother of one of his friends, to marry him. To defend himself from the charges, which carried a sentence of death, Apuleius prepared a persuasive Apology, which he delivered in court and which won him exoneration. Much of what is known of Apuleius comes from this text.
Apuleius spent the last years of his life in Carthage, enjoying his fame as a writer and giving lectures. After his death, the city erected a statue honoring him as a Platonic philosopher.
His wealth allowed Apuleius to travel widely. He stayed in what is now Tripoli in Libya and toured many parts of Greece. He lived for several years in Rome. His education would have included the study of the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Apuleius wrote in a variety of literary forms, from lyrics to epigrams, and he wrote on topics ranging from agriculture and medicine to natural history and astronomy. Most of these works are now lost, but the breadth of his learning and his travels are reflected in The Metamorphoses, which he probably composed sometime after 160 CE. Because the work is so lively, and because it contains elements associated with Apuleius’s life, readers often confused the novel’s main character, Lucius, with the author, to the point that Apuleius is sometimes remembered as Lucius Apuleius Africanus (“the African”).
Literary Context: The Story of Cupid and Psyche
Apuleius did not invent the story of Cupid and Psyche, which was likely well-known long before he incorporated it into his novel. Surviving art from the 4th century BCE (like a terracotta statue of the lovers now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City) attests to the antiquity of the story. In the introduction to his romance, Apuleius announces that he is following a Greek model, but the source no longer exists. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses is the only Latin novel to survive intact from the ancient Roman world.
Only a single edition of The Metamorphoses survived the fall of Rome. A manuscript copy was made in the 11th century at the Italian monastery of Monte Cassino and later further copies were made. One came into the possession of the 14th-century Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio, who worked themes from “Cupid and Psyche” into his hugely popular writings. A Latin edition of The Metamorphoses was printed in 1469, and William Adlington translated the novel into English in 1566.
Following this rediscovery, The Metamorphoses had an immense impact on Western art and literature. The mishaps of Lucius are reflected in Spanish picaresque novels like Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the ass’s head appearing on Bottom is thought to be a reference to the transformation of Lucius. The story of Cupid and Psyche has inspired countless works of art, from the Renaissance sculpture by Antonio Canova to the lyric “Ode to Psyche” by Romantic poet John Keats.
Of the English translations, those of Adlington and Robert Graves (Penguin Classics, 1950) are thought to be the most poetic. The retelling by Edith Hamilton in Mythology (Penguin, 1940) is quite readable but changes some events. The retelling by Mary Pope Osborne in Favorite Greek Myths (Scholastic, 1989) is appropriate for younger readers. Readers interested in the original Latin will appreciate the facing-page editions of “Cupid and Psyche” by E. J. Kenney (Cambridge University Press, 1990) or the two-volume edition of The Metamorphosis translated by J. Arthur Hanson (Harvard University Press, 1989).
