Enter Cupid

When you think of Cupid, I bet you see a cute, chubby baby with little wings and a bow and arrow. As many times as I've been in lust and in love (and if the truth be told, I was in lust a lot more than I was in love), I know that a diaper-wearing baby had nothing to do with it. It took a god with a devious mind and no morals to get me entangled with some of the women to whom I proclaimed eternal love.

So if you are thinking that you're going to hear a story about some rosycheeked little boy flying around in the clouds, you should close the book now. The Cupid I'm going to tell you about was a young man who was tall and very handsome. His body was so sculpted, you could see every muscle, sinew, and tendon. Long, flowing wings grew out of his shoulder blades like a melody looking for a singer.

Of all the deities, he was probably the most beautiful, which befits the god of love. His special emblem was the rose, and as you know, a rose is beautiful to look at and beautiful to smell, but its stem is studded with thorns. That is a good metaphor for describing Cupid. Behind his beautiful face and body was a personality the gods and goddesses did not want to get close to. They were always wary of making him angry, because he might shoot them with one of his arrows, and they would end up being passionately in love with a cow, or a stone wall.

The Greek poet Sappho described Cupid as "bittersweet," while Hesiod, another Greek poet, wrote that Cupid "loosens the limbs and overpowers the good judgment of people and gods." I wish someone had brought Hesiod's words to my attention when I was fifteen. Maybe I would not have spent so much of my life with loose limbs. If my judgment about women had been any worse, I would have been arrested and put in jail with no possibility of parole.

As I can testify, Cupid cared about nothing except spreading lust and passion with his gold-tipped arrows, and pain and confusion with the leadtipped ones. It did not matter to him if he created or destroyed relationships. It did not matter if the persons whom he infected with passion were exalted or crushed by the emotions that overwhelmed them. As long as passion and lust or pain and confusion reigned in the lives of mortals, Cupid was happy.

This was why Venus wanted him to take care of Psyche. No deity was better suited to carry out her revenge than her very own son, someone she could trust to do exactly as she wished.

She found Cupid in his basement woodworking shop, making a new set of arrows and tips. Arrows with tips of gold were dipped in a potion that infected mortals with the passions of love and lust. The arrows with leaden tips were dipped in another potion. These arrows turned lovers against each other and destroyed even memories of happiness in the most loving of couples.

Cupid had just completed making the new arrows and tips when Venus came in. "There's my darling boy!" she greeted him.

"Mother," Cupid responded warmly. He stopped what he was doing and gave her a hug and kiss. The two gazed into each other's eyes like lovers. I don't know about you, but I don't think that's the way mothers and sons are supposed to look at each other. But Venus was the only female in his life. Although he had a beautiful palace of his own hidden in a mountain valley of the Kingdom-by-the-Great-Blue-Sea, he spent scarcely any time there. Like a lot of men, he wanted to continue living at home and to be taken care of by his mother. This was fine with Venus. What she would do to the woman who tried to take him away from her would not be a pretty sight.

"I need a favor, son."

"Name it and it's yours. You know that."

"You are such a sweet boy."

"How could I not be, with a mother like you?"

Venus smiled. "There is a young woman in the Kingdom-by-the-GreatBlue-Sea. Her name is Psyche, a rather pretentious name for a mortal, if you ask me. She is very pretty, though in a rather plain and ordinary way. I suspect she is some kind of demon disguised as a mortal, because people are coming from all over to worship her as if she were, well, as if she were me. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life? Of course you haven't.

"Well, I can't allow this to continue. Could you make this Psyche fall in love with the most unlikely man in the entire kingdom, someone ugly beyond belief, someone who chews his food with his mouth open, snores loudly, and has no money? You get the idea. Would you do that for me, darling?"

"Consider it done, Mother."

"That's my sweet boy."

Cupid was surprised to see her forehead creased with tension and a nervous anxiousness in her eyes. He had never seen his mother so worried.

"Don't worry. Perhaps I'll make this imposter fall in love with a pig, or a large boulder. No one will want to worship her after they hear her declaiming love poems to a piece of stone."

Venus laughed, but her laugh was a little too loud and went on for a little too long. "I'll be waiting eagerly for your return," she said in a tight voice.

"I'll take care of things this evening," he assured her.

Cupid wondered why his mother was so distressed about a mortal woman. How could the beauty of any woman condemned to die rival that of an immortal goddess, and especially that of Venus? The thought was ridiculous. And what kind of woman would dare allow herself to be compared to, and even mistaken for, the goddess of love? He would teach this Psyche a lesson she would never forget.

Chapter end