Thomas D'Urfey, A new song in honour of the glorious assembly at Court on the Queens birthday
Facets of Apuleius’ Golden Ass in the Brotherton Collection at Leeds
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Apuleius, Opera, 1588
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Philander, The Golden Calf, 1749
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Voltaire, La Pucelle d'Orleans, 1762
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William Adlington, Cupid and Psyche, 1903
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Harold Edgeworth Butler, Cupid and Psyche, 1922
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Boccaccio, 1511
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Minturno, 1559
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Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675
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Thomas Shadwell, Psyche, 1675 (2)
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Jean de la Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, 1814
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Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, or love's mystery, 1702
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Thomas D'Urfey, A new song in honour of the glorious assembly at Court on the Queens birthday
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Mary Tighe, Psyche or The legend of love, 1812
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Christoph Wieland, Fragments of Psyche, 1767
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William Morris, The earthly paradise, 1868-70
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A note by William Morris on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press, 1898
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William Morris collected by Alf Mattison
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Robert Bridges, Eros and Psyche, 1885
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Victor de Laprade, Psyché, 1857
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Edward Carpenter, The story of Eros and Psyche, 1900
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Walter Pater, Marius the Epicurean, 1885
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Georges Jean-Aubry and Manuel de Falla, Psyché : poème, 1927
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Pierre Louÿs, Psyché, 1927
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The potentially serious nature of Cupid and Psyche allowed the story to be used in genteel, even royal, environments.
Thomas D’Urfey (1653-1723) composed plays, operas and songs, including court songs such as this one. Cupid and Psyche are so well known that their story can here serve as a foil for court celebrations. This song for Queen Anne (1665-1714) favourably compares her glorious appearance with the pageant of all the gods, and Cupid and Psyche themselves at their wedding. Apuleius’ myth becomes a set scene that pales in comparison with the Queen in her beauty and splendour. The final stanza digresses and describes the sword of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1665-1736), which the Queen had given to him as Defender of the Faith. In the end, the song hopes, peace will prevail. Cupid and Psyche’s wedding is tied into a political poem as a symbolism of the peace that the queen and the military commander will bring to England, just as Apuleius’ divine wedding has ended strife and restored order on Olympus.
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