Psyche’s tragic love story with curiosity

This year's Valentines day marks the year that I've been single for 10 years. Something I regret and when I do I'm quickly reminded why not to. Psyche's love story is one of these stories. We like to think of love as an algorithm gone rogue. A glitch in the system. Swipe right, send a DM, cross your fingers and hope your serotonin hits. But real love is never easy. It is messy, full of plot holes, and rigged with unwinnable side quests.

This is her story: one of beauty weaponized against her, a love affair built on secrecy, a god with abandonment issues, and a woman willing to take on impossible trials just to be reunited with him. And because this is Greek mythology, of course, it all starts with a curse. And there is also a box… not that box. Another one.

Too beautiful for her own good

Painting: "Psyche Showing Her Sisters Her Gifts from Cupid" – Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1753) – National Gallery, London

Psyche wasn't just beautiful. She was main-character beautiful. So beautiful that people stopped worshiping Aphrodite and started treating her like the original influencer. And like any aging celeb watching a new star rise, Aphrodite wasn't having it.. The goddess of love didn’t take well to being upstaged, and like any spiteful influencer watching their follower count drop, she set out to ruin the competition.

Aphrodite sent her son, Cupid, to make Psyche fall in love with the most wretched man alive. Cupid, ever the chaotic agent, took one look at Psyche and in a moment of god-tier clumsiness, pricked himself with his own arrow. Now he was doomed to love her. And because Greek gods are incapable of solving anything in a straightforward way, he decided to keep their love a secret.

Love in the dark

Painting: "Cupid and Psyche" – François Gérard (1798) – Louvre Museum, Paris

Psyche was abandoned on a mountaintop and taken to a mysterious palace where she lived in luxury, but there was a catch. She could never see her lover's face. At night, her mysterious lover would visit her. The two of them lived like this, wrapped in shadows, speaking softly in the dark.

But love without truth is fragile. Psyche’s jealous sisters convinced her that her unseen lover was actually a monster. That she was sleeping next to a beast. That she needed to find out the truth, or risk her life. So one night, she lit an oil lamp while Cupid slept.

The betrayal

Painting: "Psyche’s Sisters Giving Her a Lamp and a Dagger" – Luca Giordano (1697)– Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

And there he was. Not a monster, but Cupid himself. The god of desire. The original heartthrob, depending on who you ask, either a winged baby with commitment issues or a dangerously attractive immortal. Psyche was so stunned that she let a drop of oil spill from the lamp onto his shoulder. He woke in pain and, seeing her betrayal, fled.

Love was over. The palace vanished. Psyche was alone in the wilderness, left with nothing except regret. But she refused to accept the ending. If she wanted love back, she’d have to earn it. And that meant going straight to Aphrodite, not realizing Aphrodite had set her up for failure.

Trials of the brokenhearted

Painting: "Psyche Receiving the First Task from Venus" – Luca Giordano (1690–1700) – Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Aphrodite didn’t welcome Psyche with open arms. More like a mother-in-law who had already decided you weren’t good enough for her son. She handed Psyche four impossible tasks, each crueler than the last, the divine equivalent of "prove you're worthy or get lost."

The first? Sorting an entire mountain of seeds before dawn. It should have been impossible, but ants, moved by the sheer tragedy of her heartbreak, helped her complete it. The second? Collecting golden wool from violent rams. The third? Fetching water from the River Styx itself. Each time, nature intervened to help her survive.

But the final trial was different.

A fatal mistake

Painting: "Psyche Opening the Golden Box" – John William Waterhouse (1903) – Private Collection

For the last trial, Aphrodite sent Psyche to the underworld to retrieve Persephone’s beauty in a small golden box. There was only one rule. Do not open the box.

And, spoiler, I bet she never heard of Pandora. Otherwise, this next part of the story would be a lot less predictable. Time for the most predictable twist since the other most-beautifull-woman-ever-Pandora cracked open her little disaster jar.

After everything she had been through, the suffering, the loss, the impossible odds, Psyche hesitated. She had lost everything because she wasn’t good enough for a god. What if she could be?

Painting: Cupid and Psyche – Anthoon van Dyck (1639–40) – Private Collection

She opened the box. Inside wasn’t beauty, but death itself. She collapsed, lifeless. 

Game over.  

Love resurrected

Sculpture: "Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss" – Antonio Canova (1793) – Louvre Museum, Paris

But love never really dies.

Cupid had been lurking. Less god of love, more obsessive ex with unlimited tracking abilities. He had been watching her downfall like someone repeatedly checking an ex’s profile at 3 a.m. But when he saw her lying there, permanently offline, he panicked. There and then he did the one thing no god had ever done for a mortal. He put himself on the line. He realized that without her, even godhood wasn’t worth it. He swooped down, kissed her, and brought her back to life. Then he flew to Zeus himself and demanded a favor, one even Aphrodite couldn’t deny.

Zeus granted Psyche immortality. She was no longer just Cupid’s lover. She was now a goddess, his equal. And this time, there were no secrets, no shadows, no betrayals.

Their wedding was held on Olympus, with all the gods in attendance. Even Aphrodite showed up, probably pretending she was totally fine with it. Love had won in the end, though she likely took credit for the whole thing, claiming it was all part of her divine matchmaking plan.

Painting: "The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche" – François Boucher (1744) - Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Rouen, France

Not for me 

Now this is probably why the gods have no love plans for me. They know I would be perfectly content with the lovemaking in the darkness of a luxurious palace. I bet Cupid was a good lover, so I would not complain. A man that gives you all your corporeal needs and then leaves you alone for the rest of the day? Sounds ideal.