Talk:Cupid and Psyche

Discussion cut from main page
I took this commentary from the main page -- it is opinion that fits more properly on the Discussion page (particularly since someone titled it "Discussion"):

Discussion
Nowadays we already understand, this story only symbolized in the era of around 1800 years ago, women's freedom is only to be packed as a product and only could be chosen by men.

'''Now most people had already known that this story belongs to a kind of fantasy, not in reality. Because they 2 people actually had no mature minds to experience what is life, and their love were only similar to those teenagers. '''

I will bite my tongue about the bad grammar, and only hope the original Wikipedians who pos kbkbibgiigbiygiygigted these comments will expand their discussion further. --Procrastinatrix 18:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Cupid or Eros - cleanup needed
The novel is a very late literary form (hence the name novel, which means new) and should be used sparingly to describe any work of literature written before the eighteenth century;it should never be used to describe a work that pre-dates Cervantes' Don Quixote, which is considered the first novel.70.24.91.8 (talk) 14:22, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Greek and Latin authors wrote works whuch have beeb described as novels ever since at least the 1700's.Poihths (talk) 14:10, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Pick one name and stick to it. I would suggest Eros, as all the other names seem to be Greek rather than Roman. --71.223.178.110 02:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC) '
 * But what about the fact that this article is titled "Cupid and Psyche"? Shouldn't that mean we should stick to the use of all Roman names, or change the page name? --France3470 14:29, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I deleted all the parenthetical references to Eros except for the first reference, identifying Eros as the Greek counterpart of Cupid. France3470 is right; the article is about the tale as told by Apuleius, who writes in Latin and calls the character Cupid. It's useful to note that Cupid = Eros (cautiously), but the article offers no scholarship on the question of Greek sources, and the boneheadedness of continually placing Eros in brackets resulted -- if the person doing this had bothered to notice -- in a major error: the parenthetical Eros was inserted into the Image tag for one of the Waterhouse paintings, and therefore the image wasn't showing up. It was also inserted into the title of the painting, which implied that the title was something other than it is.

This is far from the only shortcoming of the article, which consists largely of breathless summary (though clearly the author(s) love the story, which I don't mean to minimize) and lists. I corrected only the Eros business in a cursory manner, because of the two major errors it generated. The solution to naming is to call the characters what Apuleius called them, if the article is about the tale from the Metamorphoses (or the popular title as used here, "The Golden Ass"), and to call them the names used by the poets and artists who produce works drawing on the original tale. But the article as it stands is an undisciplined mess. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Why Psyche can be the daughter of the King
Psyche was an architect and interior designer for her father, her father liked her work so that let him to be his daughter. So Psyche is talent in art this field and other beautiful things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Powercode2008 (talk • contribs) 13:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverting to earlier version
I have no clue what happened to this page, but sometime in the past few months, what was originally a fairly comprehensive and well written article has been replaced by something else entirely. I'm reverting back to the Revision as of 20:53, 6 October 2007 by Gawaxay, because after that the article has been replaced by someone's own unreferenced version of the story. I doubt there will be any objections to this but if there please just leave a note here. --France3470 14:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

why is the word "sex" in boldface? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.30.218.110 (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Pernanaia/Phorne
Once upon a time I learned that Psyche did not receive her name before she was deified, taken up into the heaven of the Olympus; and that her name as earthly princess of Sicily was Pernanaia (personified selling or marketing) or Phorne (prostitute). Perhaps this is merely a modern attribution to the story, but I find it interesting. If there are someone who are able to help me find where I've got this from I'd be pleased.--Xact (talk) 18:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Neither "Pernanaia" nor "Phorne" is Greek. "pernemi" was a word used by epic poets for "piprasko" meaning to sell. "Porne" was the Greek for prostitute. There is some muddle here, but I can't reconstruct it. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 17:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What's with the Vedas?
The extensive section about a (roughly) similar Vedic myth is interesting, but what is it doing here? //roger.duprat.copenhagen

How they fell in love
Cupid once scratched himself with one of his own arrows by mistake. He was looking at a woman called Psyche, and fell in love with her. He knew that his mother Venus would be angry, so he hid Psyche away and told her that she must never try to look at him. Psyche thought that she had been captured by a hideous monster, and, of course, couldn't resist taking a peep. She was enchanted by the first sight of her handsome husband, and while playing with his arrows, scratched herself as well. So now they were both desperately in love with each other, see right. Venus drove Psyche away, and she had many adventures before she was allowed to stay with Cupid, and Venus became reconciled to being a mother-in-law! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.27.164.135 (talk) 18:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

The exegesis on the soul
I posted this for further reference to incorporate into this article. It will have to be re-written because I didn't write it. Thought I'd "talk" about it before writing my own summary.


 * The Fall and deliverance of the soul are portrayed in a dramatic and graphic manner. The soul is a female (the Greek word for soul, psyche, is feminine). Originally she is a virgin, androgynous in form, living in the presence of the heavenly Father. When she falls into a body, however, she is defiled: after abandoning her Father's house and her virginity, she falls into sexuality and prostitution, and is abused by the wanton adulterers of this carnal world. Desolate and repentant, she prays to her Father for restoration, and he hears her prayer. She is returned to her former condition, and restored to androgynous union with her brother. This union is achieved through spiritual and her bridegroom "become a single life," inseparable from each other. Thus the ascent of the soul to the Father is accomplished, and the soul is again at home in heaven. [The Nag Hammadi library in English], By Marvin W. Meyer, James McConkey Robinson. 68.0.151.39 (talk) 02:41, 16 December 2009 (UTC)Psyche

The British Psychological Society logo.
The logo of the BPS depicts Psyche and her lamp, as homage to the origin of the word Psych and Psychology. Seems worth a mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.23.57.181 (talk) 07:49, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

The legend section
The legend as told in this article is completely different to what is told in Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and no citations are given for the new elements of the story. I'm accordingly rewriting it completely!Wwallacee (talk) 03:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Missing hyperlink to Cupid
I feel like this article needs a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid but I'm not sure what the rules are for how to best introduce a link, I'm guessing it should be in a sentence about Cupid himself, but there's no such sentence in the top part of the article. 46.252.130.50 (talk) 12:12, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Lead img
Hi Cynwolfe‎, I've had this page watchlisted for years and delighted to see the expansion and clean up. Suggesting that the Bouguereau painting is replaced as lead image. Frankly he makes my skin crawl! Otherwise this is just great work here. Ceoil (talk) 10:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much. Me too on watchlisting. Many of the superficially candy-colored images are creepy when you look at them. It's more than I really wanted to take on now, but I was working on Cupid before Valentine's Day and got distracted here by the mess. (Willingly distracted, maybe, since when you open the candy wrapper on Cupid you get some pretty putrid stuff underneath too.) As I suspected, after reorganizing the random list at the bottom of this article I eventually convinced myself of what I should've known all along: what's really needed is a chronological overview of reception. I'm going to make a gesture toward that today and tomorrow, but may not spend much more time on the article after that. It's an enormous topic, and fairly exhausting.


 * About the current top image: I'm not wedded to it, but it does still strike me as representative of major themes and artistic approaches: Psyche's nudity, combining a sort of carnal in-your-faceness with the upward heavenly ascent, the passivity of Psyche (she goes on quests, but in Apuleius her intention is always just to die until some divine force takes pity on her and saves her). And "Cupid and Psyche" is a subject that B. revisited multiple times, so in terms of the choice of artist, he can be justified. I've often changed the top image in mythology articles on female figures because they struck me as chosen on the basis of "most naked" or "sobbing/terrified woman in sexual peril", rather than the most characteristic or informative portrayal. Other than the "lifting up to heaven" scene, Psyche revealing Cupid with the lamp might be the best encapsulation of the story in a single image. For the summary section at Cupid, I placed an image I haven't even used here, because I thought it "read" well as the sole image to illustrate the story. However, the more interesting and arguably more important depictions of that scene are the harder to read ones, like the Crespi in the narrative section. So far, the current top image is the one that seems to me most generally representative of the whole narrative, while identifiable at a glance, as I'm completely creeped out by the ones that show Cupid as maybe 12, and Psyche voluptuously older (whatever's going on there doesn't seem expressive of either Apuleius or the allegorical tradition). Commons lacks some significant paintings on this subject, but among those excluded so far I haven't seen one that I thought was more typical and useful as a top image. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:14, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for such a thoughtful and considered, and ahem, biting, reply. Im inclined to agree - now- looking closer, which I never did because some of them are pretty dreadful, the choice is fair enough. Bouguereau's stock has been weak since, oh I dunno, thinking people had eyes and brains, but there are worse the David picture for eg. Overall though, I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "candy wrapper", I'd love to be corrected, but from the examples, painting has not outdone itself with this topic. Which is not at all to say I dont appreciate the work I'm seeing on the article. Ceoil (talk) 01:22, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Cynwolfe, you're inspiring me with the amount of work you're doing! At some point when you slow down, I'll check the sources I have to see if more can be added. But seriously, incredibly good work. I think with some polishing this is headed at least toward GA status if you're into reviews. I know why you chose the lead image and it works well for me. Agree with you re the very creepy young teenage Cupid - those are just weird. I was impressed though by the Marlborough gem - good find! I looked on the Boston Museum website for the original but can't find it. If/ when I ever do, I'll upload. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ceoil, I hope you read what I said as directed at the perverse subject matter, and not as a fending off of what you said. I have one interesting thing I'm about to put in about Bouguereau. Truthkeeper, I used to have a link in another article to the Marlborough gem, but I checked and it no longer works. The gem doesn't even turn up in a search of their collections, as you must've found This seems to be the original. I have something else I need to look at today from a library book that's been recalled, but if I think I won't be getting back to this topic soon I'll reciprocate your exceptional courtesy by letting you know. I really feel as if I'm scratching the surface in a fairly hit-and-miss way, so I appreciate the encouragement. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I've updated the link at Marlborough gem to the Boston MFA, to this. It's maybe worth more of a mention, as are Renaissance prints, of which there are many of C&P. Johnbod (talk) 15:29, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll update my other link. I did get gallons of C&P stuff, so I don't know what I did to overlook the gem, or exclude it with my search terms. When I started checking out the External Links section, I began to despair at the sheer volume of material. I'm thinking that if the "Classical tradition" section overview can present intellectual and aesthetic movements in which the C&P tale played a significant role, with key literary/critical/artistic interpretations, then the following sections could deal with the subject matter from a more media-oriented perspective? Looking more specifically and separately at the art historical development and the trope in poetry or fiction? And in the "Performing arts" section, how the subject matter lent itself to staging (in contrast to the earlier section where the choice of subject matter reflects the general interest in the possibilities of the tale). I probably won't come back to this for at least a week. The lack I feel most keenly in the "Classical tradition" section at present would be the circle of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, which is now only scattered bits. (Incidentally, Johnbod, wouldn't Morris fit in your recently debated category of "Artist-writers"?) Cynwolfe (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Created in 2007 actually (& recently saved at CFD), but still far from complete; I've added him. I keep spotting obvious people missing there. Johnbod (talk) 17:58, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent work with the images guys. Ceoil (talk) 12:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Probable Typo
Section Psyche and the underworld, in the quotation is the below text.

The airway of Dis is there

Should probably by stairway - but I don't have any reference around to check. Could someone knowledgeable edit?
 * Airway is correct. I don't know whose translation this is, but my daughter found another translation of the same passage at http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/TheGoldenAssVI.htm - "There is a breathing-hole of Dis, and through its gaping portal..." -- John of Reading (talk) 21:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Could someone fix the first sentence or two?
It reads like the Metamorphoses is the same as the Golden Ass, and in the rest of the sentence, if you don't know already, it is hard to tell which work is being referred to. I don't know for sure, but it is possible that this is what is meant: "Cupid and Psyche is a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses, that is retold (at greater length?) in The Golden Ass, which was written in the 2nd century AD by Apuleius. The story concerns..." Also I don't see a reason why "Metamorphoses" is not linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses. I'm not sure of the relationship between the two works, because I've only read the Metamorphoses, but there is detail of the story that I don't remember from Ovid, so that is why I suggested that the tale was retold "at greater length" in Apuleius. But if someone who knows could just reword the beginning of the article so that it is clear when it is talking about Ovid, when Apuleius, and when the generic story itself, that would be helpful. FideliaE (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, someone recently changed that and I let it go because I didn't know, I will change it as you suggested. Raquel Baranow (talk) 19:07, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I went back and looked it up, but I can't find the story in Ovid at all. (I should have looked before commenting, sorry!)  What I can find is this quote from the note at the end of "Till We Have Faces" by C. S. Lewis (the note is also by Lewis): "The story of Cupid and Psyche first occurs in one of the few surviving Latin novels, the Metamorphoses (sometimes called The Golden Ass) of Lucius, Apuleius Platonicus, who was born about 125 AD."  Actually, I think the mention of Ovid is just wrong here, so since I added to the confusion, I'll try to fix it. FideliaE (talk) 15:34, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

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Mga tauhan
Sino-sino ang mga tauhan 49.145.231.141 (talk) 10:55, 22 August 2022 (UTC)