and enjoying a monopoly of his, with no distractions or jealousies to mar their happiness.  Cupid chides her for being sad and dissatisfied even amid his caresses and he again warns her against her scheming sisters; whereat she goes so far as to threaten to kill herself unless he allows her to receive her sisters.  He consents at last, after making her promise not to let them persuade her to try to find out anything about his personal appearance, lest such forbidden curiosity make her lose him forever.  Nevertheless, when, on their second visit, the sisters, filled with envy, try to persuade her that her unseen lover is a monster who intends to eat her after she has grown fat, and that to save herself she must cut off his head while he is asleep, she resolves to follow their advice.  But when she enters the room at night, with a knife in one hand and a lamp in the other, and sees the beautiful god Cupid in her bed, she is so agitated that a drop of hot oil falls from her lamp on his face and wakes him; whereupon, after reproaching her, he rises on his wings and forsakes her.

Overcome with grief, Psyche tries to end her life by jumping into a river, but Zephir saves her.  Then she takes revenge on her sisters by calling on them separately and telling each one that Cupid had deserted her because he had seen her with lamp and knife, and that he was now going to marry one of them.  The sisters hasten one after the other to the rock, but Zephir fails to catch them, and they are dashed to pieces.  Venus meanwhile had discovered the escapade of her boy and locked him up till his wound from the hot oil was healed.  Her anger now vents itself on Psyche.  She sets her several impossible tasks, but Psyche, with supernatural aid, accomplishes all of them safely.  At last Cupid manages to escape through a window.  He finds Psyche lying on the road like a corpse, wakes her and Mercury brings her to heaven, where at last she is properly married to Cupid—­sic rite Psyche convenit in manum Cupidinis et nascitur illis maturo partu filia, quam Voluptatem nominamus.

Such is the much-vaunted “love-story” of Cupid and Psyche!  Commentators have found all sorts of fanciful and absurd allegories in this legend.  Its real significance I have already pointed out.  But it may be looked at from still another point of view.  Psyche means soul, and in the story of Apuleius Cupid does not fall in love with a soul, but with a beautiful body.  This sums up Hellenic love in general. The Greek Cupid NEVER fell in love with a Psyche.

UTILITY AND FUTURE OF LOVE

The Greek view that love is a disease and a calamity still prevails extensively among persons who, like the Greeks, have never experienced real love and do not know what it is.  In a book dated 1868 and entitled Modern Women I find the following passage (325):