Baby Angel with a Golden Bow and Arrow
Cupid, (often shown as a baby angel with a golden bow and arrow in his hands,) is the god of love in Roman mythology. The word ‘Cupid’ owes its origin to a Latin word ‘Cupido,’ meaning ‘desire.’
Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, and Mars, the god of war. It was believed that when Cupid shot people with his arrows, they madly fell in love with whomsoever they saw first after being shot.
The Story of Cupid and Psyche
Even Cupid fell desperately in love once because of his arrows. Cupid’s mother, Venus, was extremely jealous of the beauty of a mortal princess, Psyche. Psyche was so beautiful that people from near and far came to worship her, completely forgetting to pay homage to goddess Venus.
This made Venus so angry that she ordered Cupid to go and punish Psyche by making her fall in love with someone ugly. When Cupid met Psyche, he had accidentally scratched himself with one of his arrows and fell deeply in love with her. Cupid married Psyche, but as she was a mortal, he forbade her to look at him.
One day, Psyche tried to get a glimpse of her husband which infuriated Cupid. Cupid abandoned her and left for heaven. Psyche started looking for her husband to apologize to him .
She met goddess Venus who gave her a set of seemingly impossible tasks to perform. Psyche successfully accomplished all the tasks, except one, which was to retrieve a sealed box from the underworld.
When she was coming back with the box, she wanted to know what was inside the box, and she opened it. As soon as she opened the box, Psyche fell in deep sleep midway. By this time, Cupid had also started missing Psyche and he decided to find her and bring her to the leader of the gods, Jupiter (a.k.a Zeus).
Jupiter (a.k.a Zeus) could see that the couple was truly in love and he gave Psyche the boon of immortality so that she could be with Cupid forever.
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