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Harold Edgeworth Butler, Cupid and Psyche, 1922

Adlington 1903c
Resource exploring aspects of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, through works from the Brotherton Collection in Leeds University Library, Special Collections.
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Apuleius Opera 1588
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Philander 1749
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Voltaire 1762a
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Adlington 1903b
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Butler 1922
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Boccaccio 1511
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Minturno
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LockPsyche1
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Shadwell Psyche 1
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De la Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyche, 1814
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Beaumont, Psyche, 1702
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Urfey
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Mary Tighe, Psyche, 1812
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Christoph Wieland, Fragments of Psyche, 1
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William Morris, Earthly Paradise, 1
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William Morris, Zephyrus
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Mattison Morris 2
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Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche, 1885
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Laprade, Psyche, 1
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Edward Carpenter, Eros and Psyche, 1900
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Walter Pater, Marius, 1
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Falla, Psyche, 1
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Louys, Psyche, 1
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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.

Copyright University of Leeds

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