Summary | Tale | Similarities | Analysis |
Summary of Cupid and Psyche: There is a young woman named Psyche would is so lovely that the goddess Aphrodite grows jealous of the attention the young woman receives. She commends her son to kill the girl, but Cupid accidently touches pne of his arrows at the same time he looks at her, and so falls in love. He has her carried away to his home, and visits her every night, commanding her never to look at him. One night her curiousity grows too strong, so she sneaks a lamp into the bedchamber. When she sees the sleeping god, she is startled, and a drop of oil splashes on his shoulder. He awakes and abandons her out of anger. She goes to his mother, begging to be reunited with her husband. Aphrodite sets her about a number of tasks, the last of which is to fetch a box from the underworld. On returning from her journey, Pysche opens the box to look inside, and is overcome by a powerful sleep. Cupid finds her there, and asks the other gods to restore her and make her a Goddess. This wish is fulfilled, and the two are united again.
Once upon a time there lived a maiden so beautiful that she was thought to be lovelier than even Venus, Goddess of Love. Venus, out of jealousy, commanded that her son, Cupid, ensure that no man would ever love her. Cupid went to Psyche, but accidently stuck himself with the tip of one of his arrows, and fell in love with her. He followed his mother's orders, making it so that no man would look upon her with love, and then he left.
Her family, surprised to find that their daughter was no longer sought by any suitor when before men had travelled some distance to court her, consulted the oracle of Apollo. The Oracle said that the daughter had angered the Gods in some way, and must be sacrificed to a monster to appease them. In sorrow, they took their daughter to the top of a nearby mountain and left her there, to await her fate.
Soon Zephyr, the God of the winds, came along and carried her along to a beautiful palace. A voice addressed her, though she saw no one, and it instructed her to enjoy the house and grounds around her. At night, when she retired to bed, she was joined in her bed by a lover, who said he was her husband but that she must never look upon him. He was gentle, but he was gone by morning.
For some time Psyche lived like this, though she often requested to see her husband's face. He would cover her in a gentle blanket and refuse to let her see. Finally, one night Psyche kept an oil lamp nearby, and when she knew her husband to be asleep she lit the lamp. Lying in her bed was the God Cupid, and what she had taken as a soft blanket was his wings. In her shock, she spilled a drop of hot oil and it dropped onto his shoulder.
Cupid awoke, and was angry with Psyche for breaking his command to not look upon him. He fled, and abandoned her. She chased after him, but as she could not fly she was soon left behind.
Unable to find her husband again, Psyche went to Venus, his mother, and begged her for help. Venus, who was still angry at the mortal, refused to help unless Psyche agreed to perform labours to show her devotion. Psyche agreed and was set about a number of tasks.
She was asked to sort out a storehouse full of grains by their type. Despairing, she asked for aide, and an army of ants came to help her, sorting the grains out. She was next directed to gather a handful of wool from some wild and dangerous sheep. Again, she asked for aide, and the briars by the riverside told her to wait, and after the sheep had drunk, she could gather the wool from their briars that they had pulled out. Venus was not happy to find that the girl had performed her tasks so well. For a final task,s he gave Pysche a box, and told her to go to see Proserpine, wife of Hades, God of the underworld, and ask for a little of her beauty.
Pyshce travelled to the underworld and met the Queen of the dead, who gave her a box, commanding her not to open it. Psyche travelled out of hell again, but onher way, felt that she had worked so hard for so long that she deserved some reward. She thought to open the box and take a little of the beauty out for her own use. However, when she opened the box she found instead that what lay inside was a deathly sleep, and she collapsed on the ground.
By this time Cupid had recovered from his wound, and was sorry he had left Pysche in such a manner. He sought out to find her, and discovered her laying as if dead. He went to her, brushed away the sleep from her body, and embraced her again.
While Psyche brought the box to Venus as requested, Cupid went to the Gods and pleaded for their help. After hearing his tale, the Gods agreed to make Psyche one of their own. She was given a cup of ambrosia to drink, to make her an immortal, and butterfly wings so that she might fly alongside her husband.
Cupid and Psycheis believed o be the tale which inspired the story of Beauty and the Beast so it is not unusual that there should be similarities between these two tales if Tam Lin and Beauty and the Beast are also similar. However, there are other elements held in common between Cupid and Psyche and Tam Lin that do not appear in BatB, and many of the elements shared between BatB and Tam Lin do not occur in Tam Lin. Cupid and Psyche has a strong female figure (Venus) who is controlling or directing the action to some extend in a similar manner to the Fairy Queen in Tam Lin; Beauty and the Beast does not. Beauty and the Beast shares the symbols of the woods and the forbidden roses with Tam Lin, Cupid and Psyche does not. The relationship between these three stories is not a linear one; one did not descend from another.
Cupid and Psyche comes from a different mythos than Tam Lin. C&P is from Greek and Roman mythology, while Tam Lin is Celtic. The basic relationship between humans and the Fairies and humans and the Olympian Gods is very different. The Fairies were the old race, but they did not generally have the right to command humans, nor did the humans generally seek out the Fairies for their advice. While intermarriage between Fairies and Humans does occur in folklore (usually with sad results), those stories do not indicate that a human can become a fairy in the way that Psyche becomes a Goddess. Psyche also seems to be more at the mercy of the Gods than Janet is to that of the Fairies. Cupid takes a more active role in his interactions with Psyche than Tam Lin does with Janet, he seeks her out, and he rescues her at the end, to the extent that the roles are almost reversed. It may be a reflection of the roles of women in Greek society versus that of ancient Scottish society, but Pyche, for all that she is the central figure in the story, plays a largely reactive role, and most of the actions she makes of her own free will, such as looking at her husband and opening the box, are ones that result in bad consequences.
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