Editing Cupid and Psyche (section)

====Violation of trust====
[[File:Tapete KGM W-1982-59.jpg|thumb|left|''Psyche Showing Her Jewelry to Her Sisters'' ([[Neoclassicism|Neoclassical]], 1815–16), [[grisaille]] [[wallpaper]] by [[Merry-Joseph Blondel]]]]
Psyche's family longs for news of her, and after much cajoling, Cupid, still unknown to his bride, permits Zephyr to carry her sisters up for a visit. When they see the splendor in which Psyche lives, they become envious, and undermine her happiness by prodding her to uncover her husband's true identity, since surely as foretold by the oracle she was lying with the vile winged serpent, who would devour her and her child.
[[File:Giuseppe Maria Crespi - Amore e Psiche - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Amore e Psiche'' (1707–09) by [[Giuseppe Crespi]]: Psyche's use of the lamp to see the god is sometimes thought to reflect the magical practice of [[Lampadomancy|lychnomancy]], a form of divination or spirit conjuring.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Nelson|first=Max|date=2000|title=Narcissus: Myth and Magic|journal=Classical Journal|number=95.4|pages=364}}, citing {{cite journal|last=Lancel|first=S.|date=1961|title=''Curiositas'' et préoccupations spirituelles chez Apulée|journal=Revue de l'histoire des religions|language=fr|number=160|pages=41–45}}</ref>]]
One night after Cupid falls asleep, Psyche carries out the plan her sisters devised: she brings out a dagger and a lamp she had hidden in the room, in order to see and kill the monster. But when the light instead reveals the most beautiful creature she has ever seen, she is so startled that she wounds herself on one of the arrows in Cupid's cast-aside quiver. Struck with a feverish passion, she spills hot oil from the lamp and wakes him. He flees, and though she tries to pursue, he flies away and leaves her on the bank of a river.

There she is discovered by the wilderness god [[Pan (mythology)|Pan]], who recognizes the signs of passion upon her. She acknowledges his divinity (''[[numen]]''), then begins to wander the earth looking for her lost love.

Psyche visits first one sister, then the other; both are seized with renewed envy upon learning the identity of Psyche's secret husband. Each sister attempts to offer herself as a replacement by climbing the rocky crag and casting herself upon Zephyr for conveyance, but instead is allowed to fall to a brutal death.