February 11, 2000
Contact: Roger Martin, Research and Public Service, (785) 864-7239. Columnist Roger Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a webzine at www.research.ku.edu/explore/.
Have you ever been curious about Cupid, whose fabled marksmanship with the bow and arrow we celebrate today?
I was, so I called Tara Welch, assistant professor of classics at the University of Kansas, to learn more about him.
We think of Cupid as a chubby, mischievous tyke of a god, but he wasn't always that, says Welch.
Cupid was his Roman name. Centuries before, the Greeks had called him Eros. The Greek writer Hesiod tells us that Eros was one of the first four gods in the universe. Hesiod describes Eros as the "loveliest of all the immortals, who makes ... men's bodies go limp, mastering their minds and subduing their wills."
"Eros is not cute in the Greek conception," Welch said. "He's awe-inspiring." In Roman myth, Welch said, "Cupid is more frivolous but he's also more subtle, representing the emotional element of love as well as the physical anguish."
But don't doubt his power.
One shot from Cupid's bow made Pluto, the king of the dead, fall in love. Cupid even brought proud Apollo, the god of reason, to his knees. First he launched a gold-tipped arrow at Apollo, who fell for Daphne. Then he pinged Daphne with a lead-tipped arrow so she would be repulsed by him and run away.
"In many myths about Cupid," says Welch, "the love is unrequited. This often leads to the destruction of both people."
Eventually, Cupid gets a dose of his own medicine. His mother, Venus, gets angry at a woman named Psyche. She dispatches Cupid to work his magic and make her fall for a monstrous man, an outcast.
But when Cupid sees Psyche, he falls in love with her. Pretending to be a monster, he marries her after she accepts the condition that he will always remain invisible to her.
That works until, one night, overcome by curiosity, Psyche brings a lamp to the bed to gaze at Cupid as he sleeps. She sees he's no monster. But, when she accidentally spills hot oil on him, he awakens.
She pays for her curiosity by undergoing various trials. When they reconcile, Psyche bears a child named Pleasure.
The word "psyche" means soul, so the story serves as an allegory of the benefits of a fusion of love with soul, Welch said.
For the Greeks, Welch said, love was a primitive, uncontrollable force, independent of soul. But by the time of the Cupid and Psyche tale, the idea was that love and control could coexist.
"I think we're closer to the Romans than to the Greeks in the way we think about love," Welch says.
Even so, love can be profoundly humbling, as even Apollo discovered.
Nevertheless, there is a dash of beauty and hope at the conclusion of the story of him and Daphne.
Daphne escapes the love-maddened Apollo when she is turned into a laurel tree. But the spurned lover doesn't sulk.
He vows to craft objects from her wood, including a crown for himself and wreaths for Roman conquerors.
The moral of the story is clear. The chubby little ruler of Feb. 14th may torment us, but we are still free to make something creative from the cinders and ashes of unrequited love, or, at least, to try.