Eros >, a la Shmoop.
A lot of you think you know me.
To you, I’m that little winged guy on 
Valentine’s Day cards.
I’m that mischievous imp...
...whose only pleasure in the world is
pricking people with my golden arrows
and making them fall in love with 
somebody they shouldn’t.
Like...oh say...a family member or a dog.
Fun stuff like that.
I won’t deny any of that. 
I mean, c’mon, isn’t it hilarious
 when somebody randomly marries a dog?
Well, I get a kick out of it.
Your general impression of me is right.
I am Eros, aka Cupid. 
My names are synonymous with lust and desire. 
I am what I am,
and I’m not ashamed of it.
There’s something you probably don’t 
know about me, though. 
I don’t admit this to a lot of people, so listen up.
There’s one thing I love more than causing
havoc in other people’s love lives. 
You’ll never guess. It is...
My wife! 
Did you see that one coming? 
It’s true, though. 
I love her more than anything in the world.
No doubt, we had a rocky start. The first
time I saw her I was actually breaking and
entering into her bedroom with full intentions
of doing her harm.
Hey, don’t look at me like that. My mom
Venus, aka Aphrodite, ordered me to do it
because she was jealous of Psyche’s beauty.
She wanted me to make Psyche fall in love
with the ugliest guy around.
Before you get all judge-y, you should know
that I didn’t go through with it. 
I saw how beautiful she was and was so taken aback
that I grazed myself with my own arrow.
Mom wouldn’t let her grudge drop, though.
Forgiveness isn’t exactly her strong suit.
She caused nobody to love Psyche at all. So,
even though Psyche was fabulously beautiful,
nobody would marry her.
At this point, Psyche’s parents got worried.
They asked an oracle of Apollo if she 
would ever get married. 
The oracle told them she’d marry a monster,
 so her parents abandoned her in the wilderness.
And people say I’m heartless?
I knew this was going to be my one and only
shot at making Psyche mine, so I jumped on it.
I built an amazing mansion in the woods
for her. It was full of treasure, awesome
food, and even an invisible singing chorus.
If you’re thinking that I stole this idea
from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,
it's the other way around.
I made a deal with Psyche. She could live
in my phat pad and be my wife. 
The only thing was that she could never look at me. 
I’d come to her each night in the dark, and she was
never allowed to light a candle to see my face.
Why did I make his stipulation? 
I don’t know. I’m just shy, I guess. 
That may seem weird for a dude who 
flies around naked, but what can I say?
One night, when I was sleeping I awoke to
a feeling of burning on my skin. 
There was Psyche standing over
me with a drippy oil lamp. 
My first thought was that this was some new 
game she’d read about in Cosmo,
but then I realized she was
using the lamp to see me.
Turns out, she was so amazed by my handsomeness
that she inadvertently let the lamp tip.
I was ticked. She’d lied to me. Broken her
promise. My one true love! 
I flew out of the room in a huff, telling her I never
wanted to see her again, 
taking the fabulous mansion with me.
Psyche didn’t give up on me. She
made her way to my mom and begged forgiveness.
Mom gets a kick out of making people do crazy
stuff...guess that’s where I get it from...
so she sent Psyche on an insane quest.
She had to get some golden fleeces from some
super mean rams.
And even travel through the dangers of the
Underworld to ask Persephone >
for a box of beauty.
I had some suspicions about the box that Persephone
gave Psyche, so I made myself invisible
and warned her not to open it no matter what.
Hm, if I can make myself invisible, 
why didn’t I just 
do that before so that she couldn’t see me? 
Details, details..
Of course, Psyche has never been good with
curiosity, and she opened the box anyway.
Not sure what kind of beauty 
Persephone put in that box, 
but whatever it was plunged Psyche
instantly into a coma.
Now, I could’ve been mad at Psyche for letting
her curiosity get the better of her again.
But after all she’d done to get me back,
I just couldn’t be angry with her anymore.
So I used one of my golden arrows to wake her.
Then we zipped up to talk to Zeus, who got
mom off of our backs.
Zeus was actually super cool
and made Psyche immortal. 
Now she’s the goddess of the soul, 
and we live together in eternal bliss.
She’s my everything, my one and only, and all that
other cheesy stuff you read in Valentine’s Day cards.
So there you go, people. 
You tell that story next time somebody
says Cupid doesn’t have a heart.
