Cupid and Psyche

Yet another story from Ovid's Metamorhoses that sounds like the inspiration for a Twilight film. Seriously, I am very surprised this hasn't been made into a major motion picture. Anyway, a king and queen have three daughers, all of which are gorgeous, but Psyche, I mean dang, she is smoking compared to the other two. In fact, she was so smexy that people came from all around just to check her out, treating her like a goddess equal to that of Venus/Aphrodite. WELL THIS JUST CANNOT STAND. Venusdite gets super jealous that people think Psyche is more attractive, and so she sends out Cupid to shoot her with his famous arrows, so she will fall in love with someone who is not really gifted in the looks department. (lucky guy). So Cupid creeps up in her room at night to shoot her, but she is just so dang hot that Cupid accidentally hits himself with his own arrow, and falls head over heels in love with Psyche. So everyone continues to check out Psyche as usual, but since Aphrenus had it in for her, nobody ever actual falls in love with Psyche, so she remains alone at home while her two less attractive sisters have found husbands.

At this point her parents step in and are like: "Whoa, whoa, what's going on honey, you are smoking hot and haven't found a man yet. To the oracle!" So they go consult the oracle for Apollo who says that she is destined to fall in love with a hideous monster. And as a result, they leave her on a mountain alone to wait for her husband to show up. (very effective solution). But then, out of nowhere Zephyr, the wind, blows her away from the mountaintop and into a field of beautiful flowers where there is this huge castle. Inside, she finds a fancy castle full of all the treasures and artifacts someone could want, and she is told they are hers.  At night, her "husband" shows up and tells her that they are together, but she isn't allowed to see his face, which she is surprisingly cool with. Her sisters aren't however when they find out about this, so they convince her to take a sneak peak when her man is asleep. When she holds the oil lamp near him, he discovers it is indeed Cupid and she is blown away by his attractiveness, so blown away she drips oil on his face causing him to run away saying he will never return. Bummer. This is just the beginning of a very long story of trials and tribulations, but eventually, the two end up together and have a beautiful wedding and such. Yay!

I really, really don't care for love stories. I mean, I'm a guy what do you want me to do? Watch The Notebook. Ha! Ha! Ha! No. But love subplots are in every form of media so I've had my fair share of romance stories. The best love story that I'm familiar with in popular culture comes from Forrest Gump, the inarguably greatest film ever made. Forrest and Jenny are just destined to be together, and the events that seperate them and bring them back together again bear resemblance to classical mythology. You find yourself cheering for them to be together, and wish at some points Forrest new better (rescuing her multiple times), and at other points Jenny would stop being a hussy and doing coke and heroin. The ending is bittersweet though. I didn't even realize this until I rewatched the movie but the last third of the film is really kind of a downer compared to the beginning. His mother dies, he becomes more isolated, Jenny marries him but dies a few years later. But, sending his son off to school at the end of the movie reminds us to have hope for the future and reflect upon the past.



"I'm not a smart man...but I know what love is." -Forrest Gump