So for the ones out there that don’t know much about Greek mythology I’ll get you started pretty easily. Eros is Cupid. He isn’t a baby with a diaper, wings and a bow with arrows. He’s portrayed as a young man in Greek mythology but he does still have wings and a bow with arrows, just not a diaper because that would be weird... anyways the story I’m talking about today is how Eros, the God of Love, met his wife, Psyche.
Once upon a time in a faraway land(Ancient Greece to be exact) there lived a king with three daughters(more or less, can’t remember the exact amount). We will not mention the name of the two eldest as they don’t matter in this story and they have already been married off to other countries. We care about the youngest daughter, Psyche, the heroine of the story. You see, Psyche was very beautiful and her father the king kept rejecting marriage proposals because he felt his daughter was only worthy of marrying a god based on how completely beautiful she was. She was also seen as the most beautiful woman in the world at that time but they made a grave mistake when describing her beauty. They bragged she was more beautiful than Aphrodite, The Goddess of Beauty, who also happens to be Eros’ mother and extremely vain and petty. Aphrodite became enraged once she found out the mortals were saying there was a woman more beautiful than her! She immediately went to Eros and told him to go to the mortal world and make Psyche fall in love with a monster. Eros sneaks into her room at night while she’s sleeping. As he approaches her bed he’s mesmerized by how beautiful she is. At this pint Psyche wakes up and seems to be staring at Eros. Eros completely startled since no juman should be able to see him when he’s invisible accidentally pricks himself with the arrow he had ready for Psyche and falls in love with her. He immediately leaves and goes to Apollo and asks him to make a prophecy that Psyche will marry a monster and where she needs to be sent. Psyche is completely devastated by it while her sisters gloat behind her back as they had always been jealous of her, their beautiful and perfect younger sister. Psyche is then taken to the palace where her monster husband is waiting for her. The palace is beautiful, with invisible servants that play music for Psyche music the whole day and feed her anything she could possibly want. Her room is full of luxurious materials she’s never even seen before. When she questions the servants as to when she will see her husband, they inform her he will only come at night when all is dark and they warn her to never turn any lights on. Psyche patiently waits at night for her husband to come and they consummate their wedding. She slowly becomes used to her new life, servants in the morning to cater to her every whim and an attentive husband at night. She starts falling in love with her husband little by little based on the story one they spend together and their nightly conversations but she’s becoming a bit homesick so one night she asks if her sisters can come visit and her husband agrees. The next day her sisters are brought to the palace where Psyche admits to being pregnant and in love with her husband. The sisters jealous over how beautiful and luxurious the palace is tell Psyche her husband is a horrific monster that will eat her child as soon as she gives birth and convince her to kill her husband that same night. Psyche scared for the life of her newborn child waits for her husband to fall asleep and approaches the bed with a lot candle and a dagger in her hand. When she gets to the bed she realized her husband isn’t a monster but the god Eros! She’s mesmerized by his beauty and accidentally drops wax on him causing Eros to wake up and upon seeing the candle in her hand flies away screaming “without trust there can be no love”.
Now this is the part I call bs on. Sure, psyche didn’t trust him and that’s why she used a candle to see who he was but she had a good reason. Eros,on the other hand, didn’t have a good enough reason for not telling her who he was and letting her believe she married a monster. I did recently start a podcast that says gods couldn’t show themselves to humans but I don’t think it’s true since I’ve heard stories of the gods showing themselves to humans in their godly form and Psyche even saw Persephone in person. Anyways, they were both in the wrong and didn’t trust each other at all. And now to the story once again.
Psyche is devastated after Eros leaves and she gets kicked from the palace. She wanders around until she comes to one of Aphrodite’s temples and begs the goddesses to tell her son to come back. Aphrodite shows herself to Psyche and tells her that as long as she can complete three trials she will be able to see Eros again. Psyche agrees and starts her first trial which is to separate all the grains in Aphrodite’s temple by morning. Psyche starts working on it knowing she won’t be able to complete it until a group of ants comes and offers to help her. When Aphrodite comes in the morning she sees all the grains separated and decides to set an even more difficult task. The next task is to collect wool from human eating sheep. When Psyche arrives there, the voice of a god tells her to wait for the sheep to leave the area they are currently in and pick up the wool from the bushes. Psyche does exactly that and finishes her task very fast. Aphrodite enraged over this decides to make the last task impossible to complete without dying. Psyche is to go to the Underworld and ask Persephone for a bit of her beauty for Aphrodite. Once again, Psyche hears the voice of a god as she’s about to jump off a cliff to her death, how to get into the Underworld without dying. Psyche then makes her way to the Underworld and asks Persephone for the box prepared for Aphrodite. Once she receives the box she decides to open it as her skin has gotten dry and she isn’t looking her best and wants to look beautiful when she sees Eros again. As soon as she opens the box she falls into an eternal sleep. Eros rushes to her, having seen her going through all the trials and helping her finish every single one of them and takes her to Zeus asking for her to be turned into a goddess. Psyche turns into a goddess and is able to marry Eros and give birth to a few kids who’s names I don’t even remember 🤷♀️ Aphrodite still probably hates her but they don’t truly mention it.
And that’s the end of the story or at least the version I know by memory. This happens to be my favorite story of the gods so I hope that maybe someone else will like this story after reading it. ☺️🤗