Reading Notes: Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche, Part A

Notes:

Chapter: Captive Woman

- After they kidnap the woman, the bandits tell her not to fear for her life and to understand they just want money. I could change this part to have the bandits make fun of her lifestyle and how it is so easy and come to find out, the woman has a rougher life than some of the bandits, who then sit down next to her and relate to her. Of course, they still keep her captive. 

Chapter: Her Dream

- Instead of a cousin to who she was supposed to marry, I would change it to a little orphan boy who the family took in and raised to be a servant in the castle. The woman has fallen in love with him, and we find out later that the king and queen had planned for the boy to be kidnapped, but the head bandit got so greedy that instead of kidnapping the boy so the woman couldn't marry him, they kidnapped the woman (a princess instead) to get more money. 

Chapter: Psyche's Beauty

- Instead of the youngest girl being born from the sea, I would say she was born from a volcano. 

Psyche would be born from a beautiful volcano instead of the sea.
Photo: Flickr

Chapter: Fears and Doubts
- High on a mountain crag, decked in her finery,

Lead your daughter, King, to her fatal marriage.
And hope for no child of hers born of a mortal,
But a cruel and savage, serpent-like winged evil,
Flying through the heavens and threatening all,
Menacing ever soul on earth with fire and sword,
Till Jove himself trembles, the gods are terrified,
And rivers quake and the Stygian shades beside.

General thoughts near the end of reading Part A:

- Instead of cupid being invisible I would make him ugly, and right as Psyche holds the knife to kill her husband, he would immediately turn into the handsome god that he was, but it would be too late, because the other gods would force the knife in cupid's beautiful face and he would be wounded but handsome for eternity. 

Bibliography:

Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius