Harold Edgeworth Butler, Cupid and Psyche, 1922
Facets of Apuleius’ Golden Ass in the Brotherton Collection at Leeds
Apuleius, Opera, 1588
Philander, The Golden Calf, 1749
Voltaire, La Pucelle d'Orleans, 1762
William Adlington, Cupid and Psyche, 1903
Harold Edgeworth Butler, Cupid and Psyche, 1922
Boccaccio, 1511
Minturno, 1559
Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675
Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675 (2)
Jean de la Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, 1814
Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, or love's mystery, 1702
Thomas D'Urfey, A new song in honour of the glorious assembly at Court on the Queens birthday
Mary Tighe, Psyche or The legend of love, 1812
Christoph Wieland, Fragments of Psyche, 1767
William Morris, The earthly paradise, 1868-70
A note by William Morris on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press, 1898
William Morris collected by Alf Mattison
Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche, 1885
Victor de Laprade, Psyché, 1857
Edward Carpenter, The story of Eros and Psyche, 1900
Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean, 1885
Georges Jean-Aubry and Manuel de Falla, Psyché : poème, 1927
Pierre Louÿs, Psyché, 1927
Even though the story of Cupid and Psyche was often treated like a separate story, divorced from the narrative of the Metamorphoses, it was sometimes set back into its original context. This is done, in part at least, by the classical scholar Harold Edgeworth Butler (1878-1951), who edited and translated many classical texts, including Apuleius’ Florida and Apology, on the latter of which he also wrote an important commentary together with A.S. Owen.
This book treats Cupid and Psyche as a school text, because it is “romantic and exciting” (Butler’s preface). Consequently, the difficult passages are translated into English, the easier to translate passages are left in Latin. “As far as possible the more difficult passages are given in translation. A few excisions have been made, while a few difficult phrases have been cut out or slightly modified.” (Butler, preface). Butler’s editing does however not pertain to linguistic concerns alone.
Unsurprisingly, Cupid and Psyche’s wedding night is one of the sections that have been excised (p. 36), with a summary of events offered in italics filling the gap between the passages, but omitting any reference to the erotic nature of the scene.
The title is somewhat deceptive, since Butler’s edition also covers more than just the tale of Cupid and Psyche alone, namely parts of its frame narrative, i.e. the first part of what is commonly called the “Charite complex”, Met. 4.23-7.15. In the novel, an old woman tells the girl Charite, who had been kidnapped by robbers, the story of Cupid and Psyche to calm her down. Butler’s book ends with the rescue of Charite by her fiancé. Butler therefore omits the tragic second half of the story, in which Charite and her husband find tragic early deaths. He therefore romanticises the frame narrative just as much as he makes Cupid and Psyche palatable for his sensitive readers. This suggests, misleadingly, that both stories have a happy ending.
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