Blog Entry 7

In the story of “Cupid and Psyche,” the princess Psyche is said to be more beautiful than the goddess Venus. She is the youngest of the three daughters just like that of “The Frog King.” Venus then gets jealous; so Venus sends her son Cupid to get vengeance of the beautiful Psyche to fall in love with a monster. But Venus’ plan does not go so well because Cupid scratches himself with his own arrow and then falls in love with Psyche. They are then married before Psyche was actually able to see what he looks like. She is only with her husband at night because he bans her from seeing his face. After her jealous older sisters influence her that her concealed husband Cupid may be a monster that will eat her, the princess finally looks at him. She reveals his face but holding a lantern up to it and discovers that he is not a monster, but a god. Nonetheless, he flies away from her but she is able to win him back. They both live happily ever after together.

            “Cupid and Psyche” relates to the Grimm tale of “The Frog King.” A princess is the youngest of three but is forced to marry a frog because of the act of “kindness” he did for her by fetching the ball that landed in the well. She is terribly upset about the promise she made with the grimy frog and so she throws him against the wall which then reveals a handsome prince who was cursed by a witch. The princess marries the prince and lives happily ever after just like in the story of “Cupid and Psyche.”

            In both stories, the youngest princesses of three think they have married some type of beast. But it then turns out that these men were actually handsome princes. Even though in "Cupid in Psyche" the princess marries Cupid before she has seen his looks, she was able to discover his beauty. In the Grimm tale of "The Frog King" the princess did not actually marry him until she found out he was a handsome prince after his transformation from being a frog. Both stories are in relation to the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" because both princesses find happiness and love within the "beasts" or "monsters" before or after they have discovered the man's looks.