Editing Cupid and Psyche (section)

==As allegory==
[[File:Apuleius Metamorphoses c. 24.jpg|thumb|upright|Psyche in the grove of Cupid, 1345 illustration of the ''Metamorphoses'', [[Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]]<ref>Manuscript Vat. Lat. 2194, [[Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana]].</ref>]]

The story of Cupid and Psyche was readily allegorized. In [[late antiquity]], [[Martianus Capella]] (5th century) refashions it as an allegory about the fall of the human soul.<ref>Danuta Shanzer, ''A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's ''De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii'' Book 1'' (University of California Press, 1986), p. 69.</ref> For Apuleius, immortality is granted to the soul of Psyche as a reward for commitment to sexual love. In the version of Martianus, sexual love draws Psyche into the material world that is subject to death:<ref>Relihan, ''The Tale of Cupid and Psyche'', p. 59.</ref> "Cupid takes Psyche from Virtue and shackles her in [[adamant|adamantine chains]]".<ref>[[Martianus Capella]], ''De Nuptiis'' 7; Chance, ''Medieval Mythography,'' p. 271.</ref>

The tale thus lent itself to adaptation in a Christian or [[Mysticism|mystical]] context, often as symbolic of the soul.<ref>Mattei, Marina. "Literary and Figurative Themes. Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius' fabula, crucible of all the fairy-tales in the world". In: ''The Tale of Cupid and Psyche: Myth in Art from Antiquity to Canova''. Edited by Maria Grazia Bernardini. L'Erma de Bretschneider, 2012. p. 42. {{ISBN|978-88-8265-722-2}}.</ref> In the [[Gnostic]] text ''[[On the Origin of the World]]'', the first rose is created from the blood of Psyche when she loses her virginity to Cupid.<ref>Patricia Cox Miller, "'The Little Blue Flower Is Red': Relics and the Poeticizing of the Body," ''Journal of Early Christian Studies'' 8.2 (2000), p. 229.</ref> To the Christian mythographer [[Fabius Planciades Fulgentius|Fulgentius]] (6th century), Psyche was an [[Adam]] figure, driven by sinful curiosity and lust from the paradise of Love's domain.<ref name="autogenerated56">Entry on "Apuleius," ''Classical Tradition, ''p. 56.</ref> Psyche's sisters are Flesh and Free Will, and her parents are God and Matter.<ref>Relihan, ''The Tale of Cupid and Psyche'', p. 64.</ref> To [[Boccaccio]] (14th century), the marriage of Cupid and Psyche symbolized the union of soul and God.<ref name="autogenerated56"/>

The allure to interpret the story as a religious or philosophical allegory can still be found in modern scholarship. Psyche by her very name represents the aspirations of the human soul—towards a divine love personified in Cupid. This simplistic interpretation overlooks the original characterisation of Cupid as a corrupter who delights in disrupting marriages (''[[The Golden Ass]]'' IV. 30) and was "notorious for his adulteries" (VI. 23), as well as the descriptions of his sensual unions with Psyche (V. 13), the aid Jupiter offers to Cupid in return for a new girl that Jupiter may seduce (VI. 22), and the name given to Cupid and Psyche's child (''[[Voluptas]]/''Pleasure). However, when he admits that "I [Cupid], the famed archer, wounded myself with my own weapon, and made you [Psyche] my wife" (V. 24), having cut himself on [[Cupid's arrow|his own magic arrow]] (which induces passionate love for the first person the victim lays eyes on), the temptation for an allegorical interpretation of the story becomes somewhat complexified but not inherently contradictory or unsubstantiated. The arrows of desire make it so that the victim cannot be satisfied with anyone except the sole target of their newfound affections; thus, Cupid's former predilections no longer occupy the same prominence they once held in his character, so that he changes from a wanton homewrecker to a devoted husband by the end of the narrative.