Fear

Throughout Cupid and Psyche, fear comes at many different times and from many different characters. The first major instance of fear comes from the king, Psyche's father. He originally consults the Oracles because he fears "the anger from above." (iram superim metuens). This ultimately leads to his great despair, but Psyche's great happiness. This is significant in showing one of fear's opposites, happiness. From the terror of her parents, Pysche finds great happiness. The next example of fear in the text is that of the sisters. They run away from their fear after they explain their nefarious plan to Psyche. They run away fearing that what they have done will eventually hurt them. (statim deseruerint metuentes ne quid mali ipsae acciperent). They do not want to be injured by their actions showing another opposite of fear, saftey. Instead of their fear making them do something rash, they instead overcome these feelings and do something thoughtful. All of these characters have fear, but none of them like that of Pysche. Her fear comes at many points in the story. She fears many times over her husband. She fears that he is a really a monster whose purpose is to eat her. This fear shows one of its opposites, love. Her love for the unknown husband, Cupid, makes her initially sceptical of him being a monster. However, there was too much fear and it overpowered the love of Psyche. Psyche fears again when she has seen who her husband really is. (et Psyche tant aspectu perterrita). She fears for what she wanted to do and for questioning his love. This leads to one of the greatest opposites of fear, self-infliction to get rid of the fear. (ferrum quaerit abscondere, sed in tuo pectore).
As seen many times through the text, fear is an underlying emotion. Feat has many opposites which occur in people during times of great fear. It is very probable that fear will again and again show up in the text with other varying degress of its' opposite.

Question Following Chapter Three

So far, the story has had many traditional fairy tale elements in it. At the beginning, the family structure shown to you is close to that of Cinderella. Psyche, like Cinderella, is a beautiful girl (at puellae inioris...poterat) who is repressed by her older sisters who go off and get married. This story is also like that of the movie Hercules. She is beyond human in her beauty but because she lives with mortals, no one understands her and no one will ever want to marry her. (non rex... nuptias petit). Finally, the story has the fairy tale elements of Romeo and Juliet. She likes her life and the love she has, (Pysche tali vita delectari coepit) but it can never be true as some part of it must be hidden from the world.