Tag Archives: The Golden Ass

SOGI as anti-bullying legislation

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in bullying, Sexuality

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Shah Abbas I of Persia with a boy by Muhammad Qasim, 1627. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity)

  • sex as “dirty”
  • diversity
  • sex as learned behaviour
  • celebrations of one form of sexuality

A controversy has arisen in British Columbia, Canada. A programme called SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) is now part of the curriculum and its purpose is to promote an acceptance of a sexual orientation that differs from heterosexuality, and to protect transgender individuals.

Most of us are heterosexuals. We engage in sexual intimacy with a person whose sexuality is different. Men and women make love, which is how humanity perpetuates itself. But sexuality is diverse, and children should know. The difficulty is not necessarily the subject matter, but the way in which children learn that there are differences in sexuality and that some men are born inside the body of a woman and some women, inside the body of a man. This is a subject some teachers may not be able to teach because they are insufficiently informed or are themselves intolerant of diversity in human sexuality.

I was not familiar with SOGI, but someone sent me an email inviting me to look at a Facebook page, which I did. I therefore watched an American news broadcast where SOGI, a Canadian programme, was looked upon as potentially destructive. A human sexuality programme need not be destructive. For example, given entrenched prejudices, it may be difficult for a homosexual adolescent to accept his or her sexual orientation. In this regard, SOGI can be helpful. Our adolescent, gay or lesbian, may feel better about accept his or her sexuality.

As noted above, heterosexuality, sexual attraction between a man and a woman, is the most common form of sexual orientation. It is often presented as “dirty.” Heterosexuality isn’t dirty, nor are other forms of sexuality, such as homosexuality, attraction to a person of the same sexual orientation, bisexuality, attraction to both men and women, and asexuality. Asexual human beings are not sexually attracted to another human being.

What is potentially destructive is the denigration of one form of sexuality and the promotion and celebration of another form. What is also potentially destructive is any suggestion that human beings choose their form of sexual orientation and that children may be indoctrinated into a form of sexuality that isn’t theirs. A human being’s sexuality is determined before children enter kindergarten. In my opinion, this should be common knowledge. (See Social Learning Theory, Wikipedia.)

So, although children cannot choose their sexual orientation, there is no room in Canadian classrooms for exhibitionism. In other words, exposing children, particularly small children, to readings by a drag queen whose appearance is frightening cannot be very constructive. It is a sensationalized depiction of homosexuality. (See Sensationalism, Wikipedia.) Therefore, I cannot applaud the producers of the news broadcast presented below:

 

Canadian anti-bullying legislation

I researched SOGI which led me to an article published in Toronto’s Globe and Mail. Human sexuality is a subject matter that may be poorly taught and taught by biased teachers, but it is consistent with Canada’s anti-bullying legislation, and bullying is a form of behaviour that must be discouraged, as it is a form of hatred and may lead a child or adolescent to commit suicide. Canadian children are being asked to respect “sexual” otherness (sexual orientation and gender identity) as well as other forms of “otherness:” nationality, colour, language, stammering, disabilities, etc. This cannot be achieved if teachers are themselves intolerant and teach in a manner that reinforces rather than reduces prejudicial and, at times, criminal behaviour. Children can be cruel.

The Globe and Mail reported that a father (shown below) was afraid to take his fifteen-year-old transgender offspring to school, because the child could face bullying. At the age of 15, a child has usually entered adolescence, and, in the hands of adolescent bullies, a transgender child could indeed be at risk.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-battle-grips-bcschools/article36681034/

Bullying varies from school to school, but if a school has a significant number of bullies, a transgender child may indeed be entering an unsafe environment, hence the legitimate fears of a father (shown below) and the relevance of anti-bullying legislation and SOGI.

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Cole, 15, with his father, Brad Dirks, prepares to head off to school in Langley, B.C. on Oct. 20. Brad has been supportive of programs that help transgender students find acceptance at school.
JIMMY JEONG/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

sogi20nw3

Brad Dirks with his sons Cole, 15, and Jake, 11, before heading to school in Langley, BC on October 19, 2017.
JIMMY JEONG/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

Human sexuality, briefly

  • a continuum
  • Heterosexuality
  • Homosexuality (gays [males] and lesbians [females])
  • Bisexuality, etc.

Given the purpose of SOGI, which is acceptance of difference, of otherness, a description of heterosexuality and homosexuality need not be too graphic and detailed. It may suffice to point to the heterosexual–homosexual continuum, which admits diversity in sexual orientation.

Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum.

and

Scientific research has shown that homosexuality is a normal and natural variation in human sexuality. (See Homosexuality, Wikipedia.)

If a presentation of human sexuality is too detailed and too graphic, small children could feel perturbed. Age matters. If age didn’t matter, pederasty (pedophilia) may be looked upon as acceptable, which it was in ancient Greece, but is no longer. However, it seems appropriate to tell children that some people differ from “Mummy” and “Daddy,” who are heterosexuals.

Sexuality as a choice

According to most experts, human beings do not choose their sexual orientation. In other words, sexual orientation is not learned. (See Social Learning Theory, Wikipedia.)  A little discretion is necessary, whatever one’s sexual orientation. In some cases, there is no choice other than repressing one’s sexual urges. Pedophilia is abusive. There is an age of consent. But the fact remains that a child’s sexuality is determined in very early childhood and that some children are born into the wrong body, which is the plight of transgender people.

Transgender people

Transgender people feel their sexuality does not correspond to their assigned sex. (See Sex Assignment, Wikipedia.) There was a time when little could be done to correct transgender sexuality, or the discrepancy between sex assignment and gender identity. However, transgenders may now undergo a treatment programme called sex reassignment. I am not familiar with the details, or the nitty gritty, of sex reassignment, but, broadly speaking, sex reassignment consists in a “combination of psychological, medical, and surgical methods intended to physically change a person’s sex to match their gender identity.” (See Sex reassignment, Wikipedia.)

“Greek love”

In ancient Greece, pederasty (pedophilia) was accepted. (See Pederasty in ancient Greece, Wikipedia.) French scholar Michel Foucault, the author of The History of Sexuality (1976), wrote an essay entitled “Greek love.” Ancient Greece was a homosocial culture. Homosociality “implies neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality.” (See Pederasty in ancient Greece, Wikipedia.)

Akhilleus_Patroklos_Antikensammlung_Berlin_F2278

Achilles and Patroclus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, ancient Greece is not present-day Greece. Although pedophiles, or pædophiles, do not choose to be pedophiles or pederasts, in most societies, pedophilia is looked upon as sexual abuse. An adult male cannot force a younger male, a child, to engage in sexual activity. Nor, for that matter, should an older male assault a young girl. In fact, no one should force another person into sexual intercourse or a pregnancy. Sexual exchanges must be consensual and pregnancies are far too invasive to be coerced.

Conclusion

Allow me to conclude poetically. Metamorphoses were a favourite subject matter in Greco-Roman antiquity. Few books have been as influential as Roman poet’s Ovid (20 March 43 BCE – CE 17/18) Metamorphoses. Roman novelist Lucius Apuleius (c. 124 – c. 170 CE) also wrote a Metamorphoses, a picaresque novel entitled the The Golden Ass,  based on a Greek narrative. Lucius wished to be transformed into a bird, but he was mistakenly transformed into an ass. The Golden Ass contains in-set tales, one of which is the story of Cupid and Psyche, a tale we are familiar with.

Poet Ovid wrote that the son of Greek mythology’s Aphrodite (Venus in Rome) and Hermes prayed to a god asking to be forever united with water nymph or naiad, Salmacis. As Hermaphroditus, he was both a female and a male. The combination of male and female genital attributes is called androgyny.

We all share male and female attributes, to a greater or lesser extent. Men and women befriend one another. It seems therefore that we need to emphasize the notion of a  heterosexual–homosexual continuum.

Fabuliste Jean de La Fontaine‘s motto was diversité: Diversité c’est ma devise. That precludes bullying. SOGI is anti-bullying legislation. Bullying borders on criminality and may be criminal behaviour.

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Love to everyone ♥

Otello’s Nessun maggior dolore by Gioachino Rossini

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Nessun maggior dolore by Simeon Solomon (Photo credit: Arcadja Auctions)

© Micheline Walker
20 February 2018
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Cupid and Psyche, or Magical Realism

07 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Art, Literature

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The Fiddler, by Marc Chagall, 1913 (Photo credit:  Wikipaintings)
Marc Chagall  (6 July 1887 – 28 March 1985) 
 

Cupid and Psyche  as Magical Realism

Mythology and Magical Realism

According to Professor Matthew Strecher’s magic realism is “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.”[1] Magical Realism is a main characteristic of Latin-American literature, but it has gained adherent elsewhere and it is not new. It present readers with a juxtaposition of what is usually considered the “real,” the “unreal,” and the “surreal.” An angel just may enter a room and play a role in a fictitious text. (See Magic Magic Realism, Wikipedia,)

The author of Wikipedia’s entry on magic realism states that “[t]his critical perspective towards magical realism as a conflict between reality and abnormality stems from the Western reader’s dissociation with mythology, a root of magical realism more easily understood by non-Western cultures.” (See Magic realism, Wikipedia)

Marc Chagall

In the visual arts, Marc Chagall (6 July 1887 – 28 March 1985) presents us with better examples of what could be called “magical realism,” whatever “school” his paintings are attached to. In the so-called “real” world, people seldom float in mid-air. But the world is not always real and the human imagination pushes its limits. We know that angels do not exist, but we nevertheless make room for them. In fact, we swear on the Bible, in which, ironically, angels dwell.

Apuleius’ Golden Ass

Apuleius‘ (c. 125 – c. 180 CE) Golden Ass is a novel, the first novel we have inherited in its entirety from Greco-Roman antiquity. First entitled Metamorphoses, the novel was renamed by Augustine of Hippo (St. Augustine). It is rather lewd, but The Tale of Cupid and Psyche isn’t, and mere mortals mix with immortal gods. This may confirm that magical realism has replaced mythology, but it may not.

It consists of a frame story and inner stories called “digressions.” One of these digressions, the third, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche, belongs to mythology and is a distant forerunner of magical realism in that its dramatis personæ  includes mortals and immortals who mingle informally. Venus, the immortal Roman goddess of love, whose Greek counterpart is Aphrodite, is featured next to Psyche’s father and seems a mere mortal.

Paris through the Window, by Marc Chagall, 1913 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
The Birthday, by Marc Chagall, 1915 (Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
 
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the-birthday-1915_jpg!HD.2 

The Tale of Cupid and Psyche

In The Golden Ass, Lucius is transformed into a donkey, which normally is not  possible. Metamorphoses belong to a realm most would look upon as “unreal.” It is fantasy. Yet Ovid‘s (20 March 43 BCE – 17/18 CE), Metamorphoses is one of Western culture’s most influential books. Human beings do not float in mid-air, with the exception of astronauts, nor can they fly, but the human imagination can imagine another reality and that reality possesses a form of “truth.”

It remains, however, that Apuleius’ mythological third digression, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche, is pure fiction. Psyches lives in a world where gods and mere mortals mingle, which is not possible outside fiction. Consequently, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche seems an instance of magical realism avant la lettre, i.e. before the term was coined.

For instance, early in the narrative, Psyches’ father, who would like his unfortunate daughter to find a suitable husband, went to Milet, an ancient Greek city, now found in Turkey, and called Miletus, “to receive the Oracle of Apollo, where he made his prayers and offered sacrifice, and desired a husband for his daughter whose elder daughters are married to kings.” Although Apollo is a Greek god, he replies in Latin and says:

Let Psyches corps be clad in mourning weed
And set on rock of yonder hill aloft:
Her husband is no wight of humane seed,
But Serpent dire and fierce as might be thought.
Who flies with wings above in starry skies,
And doth subdue each thing with firie flight.
The gods themselves, and powers that seem so wise,
With mighty Jove [Jupiter] be subject to his might,
The rivers blacke, and deadly flouds of paine
And darkness eke, as thrall to him remaine.
 
(Apuleius, The Golden Asse, Book 4, Chapter 22
Translated by William Adlington
The Gutenberg Project [EBook #1666]) 
 

Having heard the Oracle, Psyches’ father does take her up a hill and sets her “on rock of yonder hill aloft” where she is left “weeping and trembling,” but is “blowne by the gentle aire and of shrilling Zephyrus, and carried from the hill with a meek winde, which retained her garments up, and by little and little bought her downe into a deepe valley, where she was laid in a bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers.” 

Instead of taking her where “she may fall in love with the most miserablest [that word should be reinvented] creature living,” as Venus has asked Cupid, Venus’ son, makes himself invisible and has the wind “Zephyrus” transport her to a “bed of most sweet and fragrant flowers.” Here again, we have an example of magical realism, even if Psyches is “clad in mourning weed,” which suggests that she has died. However, her sisters, mortals, visit her.  

The “fairy tale” begins and, after the compulsory tasks—three in most fairy tales—have been performed, Psyches is transformed into a goddess, which may be her rightful self. In the “real” world, she is the victim of envy. In fact, Venus herself, a goddess who mingles with mortals, which is magical realism, is so envious of her that she wants her destroyed. However, In fact, Venus herself, a goddess who mingles with mortals, which is magical realism, is so envious of her that she wants her destroyed. However, as the most beautiful woman in the world, Psyches is an oddity, so her becoming a goddess seems appropriate.

The Golden Legend

We may have forgotten the names of the god and goddesses of mythology. However, the human imagination is such that if mythology did not exist humans would probably invent a replacement, such as magical realism. The bestseller of the Middle Ages was not the Bible, but Jacobus de Voragine’s fanciful Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), an embellished hagiography or telling of the lives of saints, in general, and martyrs (martyrologies), in particular. 

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LIST OF MODERN AUTHORS: Magical Realism

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The Promenade, by Marc Chagall, 1918  (Photo credit: Wikipaintings) 
                      

[1] Matthew C. Strecher, “Magical Realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki,” Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 25, Number 2 (Summer 1999), pp. 263-298, at 267.

W. A. Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
Piano Concerto n° 23 (Adagio)
 
the-blue-house-1917The Blue House, by Marc Chagall
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
 
© Micheline Walker
6 August 2013
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Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche

04 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Love, Metamorphosis, Myths

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Psyche opening the Golden Box, by John William Waterhouse (1903) 
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
 
The Golden Ass is a Project Gutenberg publication: [EBook #1666] Book 4, Chapter 22[i]
Ovid (20 March 43 BCE – CE 17/18) is the author of the Metamorphoses, a fifteen-book Latin narrative written in dactylic hexameter, the “noble verse.”
 
Apuleius (c. 125 – c. 180 CE) is the author of the Golden Ass (Asinus Aureus) an eleven-book Latin narrative, first entitled Metamorphoses, but renamed The Golden Ass by Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine).
 
 800px-WLA_brooklynmuseum_Wedgewood-Marriage_of_Cupid_and_Psyche 
 
Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (ca. 1773), jasperware by Wedgwood based on the 1st-century Marlborough gem, which most likely was intended to depict an initiation rite (Brooklyn Museum) Photo credit: Wikipedia
 

Fables

In November 2011, I wrote a post on Apuleius‘ Golden Ass, the only novel that has come down to us from Latin Antiquity in its entirety and which happens to be about metamorphoses. I am revisiting the Golden Ass because we have looked at fables in which a cat and a mouse are metamorphosed respectively into a woman and a maid.  In the world of fables, a realistic world, nature will out, so our cat and mouse return to their natural selves.

Other fiction featuring metamorphoses

  • Fairy tales;
  • Werewolf stories (lycanthropy).[ii]

Fairy tales are home to metamorphoses. Beast is turned into a beast and will remain a beast until Beauty accepts to marry him as he is, i.e. as Beast. The moment Beauty tells Beasts that she will marry him, a curse is lifted and beast returns to his former princely self. Such is the stuff of fairy tales. But let us look at sources.

Ovid and Apuleius

The theme of metamorphosis is rooted mainly in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses and, to a lesser extent, in Apuleius‘ The Golden Ass, first entitled Metamorphoses. In The Golden Ass, Lucius is accidentally metamorphosed into an animal and that animal happens to be a donkey, which may explain why Augustine of Hippo (St Augustine) “demoted” Apuleius’ Metamorphoses by giving it a different title. Augustine renamed the book The Golden Ass and The Golden Ass it has remained, despite one rather lofty “digression,” the tale of Cupid and Psyche. Psyches, the most beautiful woman in the world, will be metamorphosed into a goddess by the ultimate fairy godmother, the gods of Greco-Roman antiquity assembled.

The Golden Ass

The Outer Story

The Golden Ass combines an outer story and inner stories. The outer story is called a frame story. The inner stories are sometimes called in-set stories. In the case of The Golden Ass, the outer story is a rather lewd account of the transformation of Lucius, as in Lucius Apuleius (Apulée), into a donkey.

Lucius wishes to become a sorcerer, or a witch, so he can transform himself into a bird and is told by his friend Milo that Milo’s wife is a witch who can transform herself into a bird. Lucius watches her metamorphosing herself into a bird and accidentally turns his own person into a donkey. At the end of the novel, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, Lucius retrieves his human form, assisted by Isis, a goddess and a magician.

The Inner Stories or “Digressions” are:

  1. Aristomenes’ Tale
  2. Thelyphron’s Tale
  3. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche
  4. The Tale of the Wife’s Tub
  5. The Tale of the Jealous Husband
  6. The Tale of the Fuller’s Wife
  7. The Tale of the Murderous Wife

By and large, the inner or in-set stories or tales bear some resemblance to the outer story. The story is different but the tone is that of Lucius, now transformed into a donkey. The exception is Cupid and Psyche. We are transported into a world filled with gods and goddesses, but these gods and goddesses sometimes mingle with mere mortals. We therefore have a taste of magic realism. Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.” (See Magic Realism, Wikipedia.)

In psychology the word “psyche” refers to the mind but to a large extent, it also refers to the soul, which is immortal. The “digression” or in-set tale is entitled Cupid and Psyche, but Psyche’s name is Psyches. She is the third daughter of a King, a motif which links her to fairy tale protagonists. Moreover, Psyches has two married but jealous sisters, as does Cinderella. However, the third daughter marries a god. Cinderella has to settle for a mere prince.

Consequently, the tale of Cupid and Psyche is a “digression.”  The main link between Cupid and Psyche and The Golden Ass is a metamorphosis, except that  Psyches does not turn into an animal. On the contrary, her appearance does not change and her story is one of upward mobility. Psyche means soul. She escapes mortality, the human condition, by becoming a goddess. The soul is immortal.

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Cupid and Psyche, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1889)
(Photo credit: Wikipaintings)
 

Cupid and Psyche  

(quotations, including the spelling, are from [EBook #1666] Book 4, Chapter 22)
The Romans borrowed Greek mythology but changed the name of each god.  Venus is the Latin name for Aphrodite. 
 
The story has several variants, but basically it is about jealousy. Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love is jealous of a human being, Psyche or Psyches, the third and only unmarried daughter of a King and Queen. She is considered more beautiful than Venus and people travel long distances to see her. Venus is jealous and sends her son Cupid (Eros) to find “the most miserablest creature living” and make him Psyches’ husband. 
 
Meanwhile, Psyches has been placed at the top of a hill as her parents think a man might take her at last. She is not married. Cupid, who has made himself invisible, does not perform his dastardly deed. Psyches is “blowne by the gentle aire and of shrilling Zephyrus” to a castle. They become man and wife: “after that hee had make a perfect consummation of the marriage.” But he only visits during the night and he has directed her not to look at him during his nightly visits.
 
Psyches is pregnant and misses her sisters, so Cupid allows them to visit. When they arrive, they praise her: “O dear sister Psyches, know you that you are now no more a child, but a mother: O what great joy beare you unto us in you belly?”
 
Both older sisters are unhappily married and jealous of Psyche who lives in a castle. To get rid of the husband she is not allowed to see, they fool Psyche into thinking that Cupid is a monstrous serpent and must be killed. As her sisters suggest, Psyches carries a candle so she can see Cupid and kill him: “with your bare feet goe and take the lampe, with the Razor in your right hand and with valiant force cut off the head of the poisonous serpent, wherein we will aid and assist you: and when by the death of him you shall be made safe, we wil marry to some comely man.” Psyches sees Cupid and falls in love, but a drop of hot wax falls from the candle and burns Cupid inadvertently. He wakes up and leaves as he had warned he would: “hee commaunded Zephyrus to carry me away from the bounds of his house.”
 
After she has been abandoned, Psyches goes looking for Cupid. At one point, she seeks the help of Venus, not knowing that Venus is her enemy. Venus asks Psyches to perform impossible tasks, the last of which is deadly. Venus wants Psyches to fetch beauty from Proserpina, Queen of the Underworld, put some of that beauty into a golden box, and return the box to her. Alas, one does not return from the Underworld, which means that Psyches will die if she goes to the Underworld. 
 
Knowing that she must die, Psyches climbs to the top of a tower and is about to throw herself down when the tower starts to speak. She is told how to appease Cerberus (Kerberos), the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld. Proserpina (Persephone) gives Psyches the box, but instead of beauty, it contains infernal sleep. Psyches is curious, opens the box, and lapses into a coma.
 
By then, Cupid (Éros), who has wings, the equivalent of a magic carpet, has forgiven Psyches and flies to her rescue. A kiss revives her and they then go to Jupiter (Zeus). Cupid asks Jupiter to transform Psyches into a goddess. Jupiter appeases Venus and he then convenes the gods who, after deliberating, grant Cupid’s request. Cupid’s Psyches is therefore transformed into a goddess by drinking ambrosia (“ambroisie,” or Nectar), the drink of Greek gods, and therefore escapes the human condition: mortality.
 
“And then he [Jupiter] tooke a pot of immortality, and said, Hold Psyches, and drinke, to the end thou maist be immortall, and that Cupid may be thine everlasting husband. By and by the great banket and marriage feast was sumptuously prepared, Cupid sate downe with his deare spouse between his armes: Juno likewise with Jupiter, and all the other gods in order, Ganimedes filled the port of Jupiter, and Bacchus served the rest.  Their drinke was Nectar the wine of the gods, Vulcanus prepared supper, the howers decked up the house with roses and other sweet smells, the Graces threw about blame, the Muses sang with sweet harmony, Apollo tuned pleasantly to the Harpe, Venus danced finely: Satirus and Paniscus plaid on their pipes; and thus Psyches was married to Cupid, and after she was delivered of a child whom we call Pleasure.”
 
 
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Proserpina, by
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1874),
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
 

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Psyche

In Apuleius, Psyche is Psyches and has parents. She seems a human being. Moreover, in mythology, gods lose their godliness through sexual contact, generally, with a mortal being. Psyches is a human being and, therefore, a mortal. So it is not possible for her to be transformed into the mortal she already is. Therefore, Apuleius presents us with a complicated “digression.” Psyches is metamorphosed into a goddess, an immortal being, by drinking ambrosia, and then gives birth to a child named Pleasure. It is all very fanciful. Psyche means the soul and the soul is immortal.

A Fairy Tale: to a certain Extent

The tale of Cupid and Psyche provides us with a template associated with fairy tales: the rags to riches narrative of Cinderella. Psyches becomes a goddess. We also have jealous sisters, not to mention a jealous Venus, a mother-in-law (a stepmother). As for the invisible Cupid, he could well be a monstrous beast, in which case, Cupid and Psyche could be associated with Beauty and the Beast. The tale of Cupid and Psyche  is in fact associated with Beauty and the Beast.

“The fairy tales which modern scholars most often discuss in relation to an antecedent myth are those which involve an animal as bride-groom, best known by versions of ‘Beauty and the Beast’.”[iii] 

According to the Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, the story of Cupid and Psyche is both a myth and a fairy tale, but the theme is not consistent with fairy tales. Unlike Beauty, Psyches does not have to lift a curse by saying she will marry Cupid. She must perform chores,  imposed by Venus, to be reunited with Cupid, but there is no disenchantment, i.e. no curse has turned Cupid into an animal-groom, so no curse has to be lifted.

“In fairy tale versions the question normally ends with a disenchantment motif as the heroine regains her partner by ending the spell which has enchanted him.”[iv]

Conclusion

Although Cupid and Psyche has affinities with fairy tales, it may be prudent not to classify it as such, except loosely. Classifications are helpful, but they should not be a Procrustean bed. The bed would always be too short or too long, and limbs therefore stretched or amputated. In Cupid and Psyche a man, albeit a god, comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress who is despised because she is the most beautiful woman in the world. The story moves forward propelled by a feeling inextricably linked with love which, in literature,  may be jealousy.

However, in Cupid and Psyche, the wedding that constitutes the proper ending of fairy tales and comedies seems out of place, but is it?  Cupid and Psyche became man and wife after he flew her to her castle: “after that hee had made a perfect consummation of the marriage.” She was not allowed to look at him, but when night fell, he “visited” her. This seems consistent with a myth. However, the tale of Cupid and Psyche is that of a pre-existing union. Consequently, the wedding takes on other virtues.  It could well be the official celebration of a threatened marriage. “All’s well that ends well.”

From the point of view of literary history, authors such as Chaucer (the many Tales), Shakespeare, Dante and Boccaccio (The Decameron) were inspired by tales contained in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses. The first translation of the Metamorphoses in English was by William Caxton in 1480. Caxton is also the first English printer. He printed Reynard the Fox. Apuleius’ Golden Ass inspired Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) and Jean de La Fontaine. 

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Psyche’s Wedding, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1895), Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

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[i] The Golden Asse. Translated by William Adlington, first published 1566. This version is as reprinted from the edition of 1639. The original spelling, capitalisation and punctuation have been retained. [EBook #1666]
[ii] A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or an therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. via a bite or scratch from another werewolf). Early sources for belief in lycanthropy are Petronius (c. 27 – 66 BCE) and Gervase of Tilbury (c. 1150 – c. 1228 CE). 
(See Werewolf, Wikipedia.)
[iii] John Stephens, “Myth/Mythology and Fairy Tales,” ed. Jack Zipes, The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 330-334.
[iv] Loc. cit.
 
 
César Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890)
Psyché et Éros
William Revelli (12 February 1902 – 16 July 1994)
 
 
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4 August 2013
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Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss
Antonio Canova (1757 – 1822)
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Metamorphism: Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche

03 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Antiquity, Literature

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love-and-psyche-1899

Cupid and Psyche

William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1889
www.wikipaintings.org
 

We associate metamorphism with Ovid (20 March 43 BCE –  17/18 CE) and Apuleius (c. 125 – c. 180 CE), but metamorphism is also frequent in fairy tales and has a dark side in lycanthropy, or werewolf stories.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is our fundamental text on this subject.  There were Greek stories of metamorphoses, but Greece did not have an Ovid.  Nor did it have an Apuleius.  For the time being, I will leave Ovid’s Metamorphoses aside and take a peak at Apuleius’s version of the myth of Cupid and Psyche. That story is a ‘digression’ in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, a novel in which a man becomes a donkey, at least temporarily.

Apuleius:  The Golden Ass

Apuleius’s Golden Ass is the only complete novel we have inherited from Greco-Roman antiquity.  It was written in the 2nd century AD.  Its structure resembles that of Ibn Al-Muqaffa’s Tales of Kalilah wa Dimna.  There is a main story in which are inserted many stories or ‘digressions.’  For this reason, it could be labelled a picaresque novel, except that an old woman tells the myth of Psyche and Cupid, as a digression, which seems very odd, given the outer narrative and other inner stories.

The Outer Story

In the outer story, the protagonist is Lucius who wishes to become a witch so he can transform himself into a bird.  He is told my his friend Milo that Milo’s wife is a witch who can transform herself into a bird.  Lucius watches her turning herself into a bird and, accidentally transforms himself into a donkey.  At the end of the novel, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, Lucius retrieves his human self, assisted by Isis, a goddess and a magician.

The Inner Stories

As for the inner stories, they too are lewd, except for the beautiful myth of Cupid and Psyche, the last of the inner stories.  It is told by an old woman through several books and it resembles fairy tales.

As the story goes, Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love, is jealous of a human who is the most beautiful woman in the world, Psyche, and claims to be more beautiful than Venus.

Venus is jealous and therefore sends her son Cupid (Eros) to kill Psyche with one of his arrows.  However, Cupid, who has made himself invisible to perform his dastardly deed, falls in love with Psyche and takes her to a castle.  They become man and wife, but he only visits with her in the night.  Moreover, she is directed not to look at him during his nightly visits.  One night she is fooled by her sisters into carrying a candle and killing Cupid who, they claim, is a monstrous serpent. She does as her sisters suggest, sees that her husband is Cupid and burns him with her candle.  She falls in love, but Cupid leaves her as he had warned.

After she has been abandoned, Psyche goes to Venus to request help.  Venus tells her to perform four impossible tasks, three of which she performs through the mediation of ants, a river god and an eagle.  But the fourth task is truly impossible.  Venus asks Psyche to fetch beauty from Proserpina (Persephone), Queen of the Underworld, which means that Psyche must die.  So she climbs to the top of a tower and is about to throw herself down when the tower starts to speak.  She is told how to go to the Underworld.  However, the box she is given does not contain beauty;  it contains infernal sleep.  She therefore falls into a coma.

By then, Cupid (Eros), who has wings has forgiven her and flies to rescue her.  He goes to Jupiter (Zeus) to ask the gods’s permission to transform Psyche into a goddess.  Jupiter and the other gods deliberate and end up granting Cupid’s request.  Psyche is therefore transformed into a goddess by drinking ambrosia.  She has escaped the human condition:  mortality.

* * *

Questions

In Greek mythology, Psyche is the soul.  Her role in the myth we have just glimpsed is therefore quite different.  In fact, she is a human being, but a human being promoted to the state of godliness, which is the reverse of most myths.  Usually, gods lose their godliness though sexual contact with a human.

The myth of Cupid and Psyche is part of mythology and does not seem to belong to folklore.  As in The Golden Ass, the narrative seems once again out of place, yet is not.  Could this be an early manifestion of magical realism?  I must investigate further.

There is definitely more to metamorphism than meets the eye.

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November 2, 2011