Cupid and Psyche

The myth of Cupid and Psyche is recurrent throughout Indo-Aryan cultures, from Scotland to India. The best known version of it is perhaps the Germanic fairy-story Cinderella (Slade 2003). However, the earliest documented version is by Apuleius in his book The Golden Asse (Apuleius 1566).
Apuleius’s tale about a man, Lucuis, who gets turned into an ass, includes the myth of Cupid and Psyche as an application of the central theme of the book into the wider realm of mythos. The central theme in both stories is the consequences that come with the attempted satisfaction of curiosity. Bulfinch’s version (Bulfinch 1855) is more meant for children and public readers, while Apuleius’s tale is directed towards the elite of society. This is why Bulfinch censored many facts of Apuleius’s story, such as the near death of Cupid by the oil, the murderous Psyche who plots with her sisters to cut off her husband’s head, and the tale Psyche’s sisters tell her about her husband being a ...