Eros (Cupid) and Psyche - A Tale of True Love

Eros was the god of Love, and the most beautiful boy in all of the pantheon.
Stories about his origins differ. In most cases Venus (Aphrodite) goddess of Love, was named as his mother, but stories vary about who was his father. Venus was married to Vulcan (Haphaestus) the lame blacksmith and god of volcanoes. Unlike Juno (Hera) the goddess of marriage, Venus the goddess of love and beauty was not very faithful and she had many extramarital affairs. Among her best known lovers were Ares, Hermes (Mercury) and Adonis. Ares (god of War) and Hermes (Messenger god) are most often named as being the father.

Another version has it that Penia (Poverty) seduced an inebriated Poros (Plenty or Abundance) at a party in Aphrodite's honor, and that Eros (Love) was born of this union.
Eros appears to be born of either of the merging of Love and Communication, or of Plenty and Poverty. Either way, he sprang from the union, or balancing, of opposing factors:
Love & War
Plenty & Poverty

Marble sculpture
"L'Amour se faisant un arc de la massue d'Hercule" (Eros stringing the bow of Hercules)
Bouchardon, 1750
Housed at the Louvre in Paris

Psyche was a princess, and the oldest of 3 sisters.
She became renowned far and wide for her great beauty - both physical and beauty of character - and her wit and wisdom.
People actually began to pay tribute to her over Venus. This angered Venus and she decided to punish this mere mortal, Psyche.

Venus commanded her son, Eros, to wait for an ugly man to enter Psyche's view and then strike her with one of his arrows and she would suffer the humiliation of being smitten with love for an exceptionally ugly man. Eros was not prepared for what he saw. As a hideous-looking man approached, Eros crept closer and reached for one of his especially potent arrows. He was now close enough to really see Psyche and, startled by the sight of her enchanting beauty, he instead pricked himself before he could aim his bow. Big OOPS!

Eros was now smitten with Psyche beyond control, but he did have enough wits about him to know that the only way he could be with Psyche was in secret. He was very aware of his mother's wrath, but he was determined to be with Psyche and he had to be covert with both his desire and in executing his plan.

Though praised for her beauty by all, no one had yet approached Psyche for marriage. As the eldest of their three daughters, this concerned her parents the King and Queen.
Her parents sought the kingdom's oracle and received a strange message, and an even stranger command.
Psyche would never marry a mortal man, but was destined to be with a monster that "even the gods feared". She was to be dressed in clothes for mourning and left atop a mountain. Little did they know that it was actually Eros disguised as the oracle that delivered this cryptic message.

Fearing the wrath of the gods, her Parents obeyed the command, dressed her in the clothes of a mourner and took Psyche to the mountain top to await her fate. Zephyr (or Zephyrus), the West Wind, appeared and carried Psyche away.

Zephyr transported Psyche to a beautiful palace. Here she heard a calm and gentle male voice instruct her to eat dinner, have her bath and go to sleep in her new bed.
Exhausted from her long journey and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She was awakened in the night by the same loving voice that had welcomed her earlier, but was warned not to light a lamp or to seek to see the face of her host. They spend the night together in tender conversation and loving embrace, but when Psyche awoke the next morning, her companion was already gone.

Months went by in the beautiful palace, and though Psyche adored her night-time companion and lived a more-than-comfortable life, her days were very lonely. And there was still so much that she didn't know about him. Not his name, not his face, not from whence he came.

Over and again she begged her mystery man to allow her sisters to come for a visit. Not wanting to see his dearest love miserable, he finally gave in to her pleas.

The sisters arrived and were impressed with Psyche's luxurious new home, but they were wary when they could not meet the "man of the house". They were also jealous by nature and started to plant doubt in the mind of their sister. "Oh, what if he is some hideous monster, like the oracle said?"

Finally her sisters' badgering wore Psyche down. She must know who this man is. One night, after her lover is asleep, she carefully lights an oil lamp and walks quietly over to the bed. The light on his face reveals the stunning god of Love. Psyche is so startled that she spills hot oil from the lamp onto his shoulder and Eros is awakened.
Not only will his mother, Venus, now find out about his secret affair and betrayal of her command, but Eros is hurt by the oil as well as by Psyche's mistrust and he immediately leaves her for Mt. Olympus for healing his wounds.

Love cannot abide where there is no trust...

The palace vanishes around her. She is devastated and forlorn. She returns home with her sisters.

Venus sets forth a number of tests for Pscyhe to endure.

Coming soon-
Stay Tuned!

(But keep scrolling down, there is still more to see!)

Pictured: NEO ("Near Earth Asteroid") Eros

Right: Still photo
Left: Complex and erratic (or is that erotic?) rotation. Nice dancing, loverboy!



Between the countless chunks of rock and other things floating around in space, and our human urge to name things we find, we've ended up with acutal ASTEROIDS named after our Mythic Couple.

The fun part is that there are a couple of places to see them, in a virtual sense, on the web. The super-nifty links are below and in the next module (you can vote for the one where you had the most fun in the next section).

Here's the scoop!

Handy-Dandy Asteroids List:
(Name=#)
Psyche= 16
Eros= 433
Cupido= 763
Amor= 1221

JPL Orbial Simulator
This is just way too cool! It gives you a picture of the orbit of the object in the context of our solar system. It is INTERACTIVE too- tilt up/down, spin right/left, zoom in/out, watch it go forward or backward in time! You can even run it to your date of birth to see what the solar system looked like that day.
This will pop up on EROS. To see OTHERS, scroll to the very BOTTOM and enter the the Asteroid NAME OR NUMBER.

"My Astro", Astrodienst Website
Now, for those of you wanting a PERSONAL SKY MAP (Astrology chart) for the day you (or your sweetie) were born check out this site from Astrodienst to generate a FREE chart.
Bear with me here, this will take a few steps.
Click on the link and it will take you to the "My Astro" page. If you are already a registered member, then your login info will show up. If not you may choose to be a Guest User or a Registered User. (Both are free, the difference being the Guest User only stores 4 charts where the Registered User can store many, many more.)
You will need to ENTER the BIRTH DATA.
Click on CONTINUE.
Now you are at the Horoscope Selection page. Go to the bottom right and click on EXTENDED CHART SELECTION.
Go the the VERY BOTTOM of this page to ADDITIONAL OBJECTS.
Plug the ASTEROID NUMBERS into the data field.

Now click "Click here to show the chart" blue bar.
Presto! There is your chart PLUS the Asteroids.
ADD another person top & right.