Cupid is the son of Venus and the god of Love; in Latin he is called Amor, and in Greek, Eros. He is usually shown as a winged child. His attributes are a bow, arrow and quiver. Those hit by his arrows become lovers.
In Roman culture, Cupid was the child of the goddess Venus, popularly known today as the goddess of love, and Mars, the god of war.
Venus, the Roman goddess of love (Aphrodite in Greek mythology), features prominently in literature and painting in Renaissance Europe, often alongside her son Cupid, the god of desire, who is armed with a bow and arrows.
Cupid is, quite literally, the child of the goddess of love, Venus. In Greek mythology, he is known as Eros, and, depending on the source, was thought to be a primordial god who came into the world either asexually, from an egg, or the son of Aphrodite (Venus' Hellenistic counterpart).
The side of the box advertises Cupid as being the daughter of Eros. Eros is the Greek god of love. As a noun, the word eros means "erotic love or desire." The Romans got the idea to have a god of love from the Greeks, but they named their god Cupid (from the Latin word cupido which also means desire).
His earliest depictions are that of a handsome young man, but during the time of Alexander the Great, poets began to reimagine Eros as mischievous child. As time went on, he continued to age in reverse until he finally became an infant during the Hellenistic period (323-31 BC).
But despite his infant form, that baby, widely known these days as Cupid, began his mythological life as a man who had more power than any god. “In the [Greek] literary sources we have, he's depicted as just unconquerable,” Richard Martin, a classics professor at Stanford University, tells TIME.
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.470-74. Cupid = Eros = Kama.
In Roman mythology, Voluptas or Volupta is the daughter born from the union of Cupid and Psyche, according to Apuleius. The Latin word voluptas means 'pleasure' or 'delight'; Voluptas is known as the goddess of "sensual pleasures".
Love, adventure, and tragedy make a story exciting. The story of Venus and Adonis is one such tale. Here's how it goes: Venus, the goddess of love, fell for the handsome hunter Adonis.
Venus orders her son Cupid to make Psyche love an unworthy man. However, Cupid falls in love with Psyche himself.
VENUS, the daughter of Jupiter and Dione, was at first the goddess of gardens (Met XIV.
Cupid and Greek Mythology
But later accounts of the lineage of Eros vary, describing him as the son of Nyx and Erebus; or Aphrodite and Ares; or Iris and Zephyrus; or even Aphrodite and Zeus—who would have been both his father and grandfather.
Cupid, the Roman god of love (Amor), was said to be the child of Venus (Aphrodite) and Mars, but his paternity also was attributed to Jupiter, Mercury, and Vulcan. He usually was represented as a winged, dart-bearing chubby naked infant and frequently was represented in Renaissance art as a little angel (putto).
Now Cupid is widely regarded as a Greek/Roman god, and not a demon.
Once Venus had a second son, Anteros, Cupid became older and stronger. Perhaps Cupid is usually seen as a baby because babies represent the combination of two people in love. In Greek mythology, his mother is Aphrodite. Cupid is the equivalent to the gods Amor and Eros, depending on which myths are told.
Isidore sees Cupid as a demon of fornication, who represents foolish and irrational love (Etym VIII. xi. 80). Petrus Berchorius says that Cupid, son of Venus Voluptaria, is the god of carnality; he is painted winged because love flies away suddenly, and he is also blind (De formis figurisque deorum, fol.
In present day depictions of Cupid, frequently seen as a cartoon, he's wearing a diaper. However, in most artistic and historical representations of this character, he is naked. This is said to be because love has nothing to hide and is innocent and pure, like the emotion itself.
Cupid and Psyche: Key Takeaways
The tale involves the love relationship between a mortal and a god, and it is a rarity in classical literature, in that it has a happy ending.
According to Roman mythology, Cupid fell madly in love with Psyche despite his mother's jealousy over Psyche's beauty. While he married her, he also told her never to look at him. He visited her only at night. Her sisters convinced her to look at Cupid despite his warning.
Like many Roman gods and goddesses, Cupid is a counterpart to a Greek god, that god being Eros. Looks wise Eros is the complete opposite of Cupid.
According to Cicero and Pausanias, Cupid had a brother, born after him to the same parents: Venus and Mars. Anteros is sometimes viewed as Cupid's enemy, representing spiritual rather than carnal love, and featured contending for victory by struggling over a palm.
Some early artists pictured Cupid as being blindfolded. According to Shakespeare, the reason was because as a chubby little boy, Cupid often changed his feelings about things especially those having to do with love.