1. See Zimmerman, M. et al (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Volume II: Cupid and Psyche (Groningen 1998)Google Scholar, and Penwill, J.L., ‘Reflections on a “Happy Ending”: The Case of Cupid and Psyche’, Ramus 27 (1998), 160–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. See P. James, ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Levis Amor in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, in Zimmerman (n.1 above), 42–44.

3. There has never been a shortage of ideas about the integration of this centrally placed story with the main narrative. These approaches tend to emphasise parallels between Psyche and Lucius, and to look for motifs and messages that link their journeys towards apparent salvation. There is a risk of marginalising the distinct narrator of the fable who announces this richly textured story as anilis fabula, an old woman’s story. In this discussion I shall attempt to restore her presence, at least at some points in the story, but not at the cost of suppressing Apuleius’ own overall narrative strategy for the novel.

4. Walsh, P.G., The Roman Novel (Cambridge 1970), 212Google Scholar (note on Met. 6.8).

5. Kenney, E.J., Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche (Cambridge 1990), 201.Google Scholar

6. Ovid, passim, is a prime example of this. See my discussion of Ars Amatoria 1.229–36 in James, P., ‘Cupid at Work and at Play’, GCN 1 (1988), 113–22Google Scholar, at 115. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid suggests that Hermaphroditus is seduced by Salmacis in her watery form although he has only just rejected her as a lustful and corporeal Naiad (Met. 4.317–79).

7. James, P., Unity in Diversity: A Study of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Hildesheim 1987), 140–79Google Scholar, and ead. (n.6 above), 113–21.

8. All translations taken from Arthur Hanson’s, J. Loeb edition, 2 vols. (Cambridge MA and London 1989).Google Scholar

9. Although Psyche is bound to attract the accusation of curiosity because she has broken the taboo and looked upon Cupid, there are other ways of viewing her behaviour in the revelation scene. She may have been taking considerable care in touching the divine bow and arrows (satis et curiosa, rimatur atque pertrectat et mariti sui miratur arma, 5.23), in which case her precipitately passionate actions after she has wounded herself heighten the contrast with her trembling and hesitant handling beforehand. For sensible distinctions between the Platonically weighted curiositas and its more prosaic uses see de Filippo, J., ‘Curiositas and the Platonism of Apuleius’ Golden Ass’, in S.J. Harrison (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel (Oxford 1998), 269fGoogle Scholar. Morton Braund, S., ‘Moments of Love: Lucretius, Apuleius, Monteverdi, Strauss’, in Morton Braund, S. & Mayer, R. (eds.), Amor/Roma: Love and Latin Literature (Cambridge 1999), 174–98Google Scholar, at 180–84, examines the stillness before the storm of passion in this scene and its sensuous flavour.

10. Kenney (n.5 above), 189. I am grateful to the critical readers of this article for comments on the timbre of 5.31 and the observation that officina suggests ‘brothel’.

11. Frangoulidis, S.A., Handlung und Nebenhandlung: Theater, Metatheater und Gattungsbe-wusstsein in der römischen Komödie (Stuttgart 1997), 162f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, makes the nice point that the two goddesses replace a possible encounter with Sobrietas and they usurp her function by advising Venus to exercise restraint and caution. Ironically, they are advising indulgence towards Cupid.

12. Again, Frangoulidis (n.11 above, 166) makes some pertinent comments about the New Comedy scenario: ‘The girl’s pregnancy presages her lawful marriage in the end.’

13. Penwill (n.1 above), 166.

14. Psyche continues to usurp the property and properties of Venus by opening the box allegedly containing repairs for the goddess’s beauty at 6.21. The substance inside induces ‘beauty sleep’ but this puts Psyche into a corpse-like slumber.

15. For instance, both the Love gods deny responsibility in any guise for an ill-judged and fatal passion in Ovid’s version of the Myrrha and Cinyras incest story (Met. 10.298ff.). See my discussion in James (n.6 above), 115f.

16. Kenney (n.5 above), 201.

17. This is, on the surface, a similar situation to Lucius at the Risus festival in Book Three, when mock threats of torture were made to the well-born hero and he felt himself ‘numbered in the family of Orcus’ (3.9).

18. For discussion on and references to usus and its controversial aspects see Dixon, S., The Roman Family (Baltimore & London 1992), 73Google Scholar and 207 n.59.

19. I am grateful to the critical readers for drawing attention to this theme.

20. The various psychological interpretations of Psyche’s state and the significance of the Soul’s defloration have been helpfully surveyed and assessed by Gollnick, J.T., Love and the Soul: Psychological Interpretations of the Eros & Psyche Myth (Waterloo Ont. 1992)Google Scholar. The role of Cupid and Venus, their symbolic polarity and interchangeability, have inspired a number of convoluted perspectives from the Oedipal/incestuous to the Jungian dynamics of individuation. As Gollnick observes, apart from a few noble exceptions the psychoanalytical approach invariably wrenches the characters from the immediate context of the fable and fails to address the nature of the story as a mise en abîme within the novel as a whole.

21. These invisible characters are passed over as part of the folktale and faery tale elements of what is frequently designated the ‘fable’ of Cupid and Psyche. It is almost as if Apuleius, or rather his female narrator, is bringing to life in these ethereal beings the numina of animistic superstition. Working within the framework of popular culture, these ‘preparers’ and repairers of the bride’s body could take on the names of Pertunda, Virginiensis, Prema, Subigus. However, they remain nameless and unseen, providing but poor comfort to Psyche as daytime companions.

22. Umor (line 1287), translated here as ‘water’ but best rendered by ‘liquid’, signifies seminal fluid at 1056 and 1065. Lucretius refers to the impregnating drops (umoris guttas) from father sky which make mother earth pregnant (2.993) and then again at the end of Book 4 he makes umor the source of dulcedinis&gutta impacting upon the heart as umor becomes amor—these observations thanks to John Penwill.

23. Godwin, J., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura IV (Warminster 1986).Google Scholar

24. Augustinian imagery suggests that the effects of consuetudo are to drag and weigh down its victims as opposed to the elevating properties of truth (ueritate subleuatus consuetudine praegrauatus, Confessions 9.2.1). This is discussed by Shumate, N., Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Ann Arbor 1996), 254CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in relation to Cupid and Psyche and the major role played by Habit in perpetuating ‘false’ or accustomed structures of value. James (n.2 above, 43 and n.14) raises the issue of both light and heavy properties enjoyed by supernatural beings.

25. Kenney (n.5 above), 219, notes the link with feci leuiter and the ambiguities of the phrase generally.

26. For the ‘moment of love, the moment when time stops, and breath, and life itself, seem to be suspended’ see Morton-Braund (n.9 above), 174, in her discussion of Lucretius and Apuleius. The idea that orgasm was earlier in the story the ‘little death’ for Psyche ties in with the image of her uirginitas interfecta, but at this point she is temporarily paralysed by Cupid’s beauty.

27. Thus Penwill sustains his view that the story of Cupid and Psyche reinforces the dominance of uoluptas ueneria throughout the first ten books, representing as it does a world where ‘the Olympians, themselves slaves to pleasure, ensure that the human soul will be for ever in the same state’ (n.1 above, 161), reiterating the position argued in his earlier articles ‘Slavish Pleasures and Profitless Curiosity: Fall and Redemption in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Ramus 4 (1975), 49-82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Ambages reciprocae: Reviewing Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Ramus 19 (1990), 1–25Google Scholar. I am grateful to John Penwill for his observations on my original paper, particularly his point that Apuleius is deliberately setting up an intertextual relationship with Lucretius to draw Lucretius’ negativity about Love into the story of Cupid and Psyche, especially as Psyche’s infatuation with Cupid is the kind of love Lucretius decries at De Rerum Natura 4.1061ff. Add to this the sort of frantic coupling Lucius indulges in with Fotis at Met 2.17 and we have an earlier example of the sort of violent attraction that has disastrous consequences. Lucius completes the list of Lucretian ‘don’ts’ by putting Fotis on a divine pedestal at 2.17.

28. The torments that accompany a state of passion are ‘capitalised’ upon by Plautus at Mercator 25–31. Among the entourage of Love, one finds insomnia, aerumna, error, terror et fuga,/ineptia, stultitia adeo et temeritas,/incogitantia excors, inmodestia,/petulantia et cupiditas, maliuolentia,/inertia, auiditas, desidia, iniuria,/inopia, contumelia et dispendium,/multiloquium, parumloquium (‘sleeplessness, anxiety, uncertainty, fear and flight, silliness, yes, and stupidity and recklessness, and senseless unreflection, immodesty, wantonness and lust, ill-will, inertia, inordinate desire, sloth, injustice, contumely and extravagance, garrulousness, tongue-tied-ness’). See Kenney (n.5 above), 202. As Ferguson, J., The Religions of the Roman Empire (London 1970), 72Google Scholar, oberved: ‘The habit of looking for numina died hard, and in a more sophisticated age took new forms.’ His chapter on ‘The Divine Functionaries’ provides a range of examples both in the sphere of early Roman abstractions and the later conveniently placed aspects of power, mercy and pietas which were associated with imperial virtues. Augustine (Ciu. Dei. 4.8) was not the first to be disdainful of the Roman propensity to proliferate worshipful abstractions. See also Cicero De Natura Deorum 3.40-48. Juvenal is a mischievous inventor of additions to the Roman religious lists. The satirist’s allusion to indignatio at Sat. 1.79 implies a new Muse of Inspiration and is taken by Victor Hugo as such: ‘Muse, Indignation, viens! (quoted Ferguson, op.cit. 117). Mens sana at 10.356 cries out for a temple and is yet another example of Juvenal’s mock elevation of a moral precept. For a pertinent discussion of personifications that alter the gender of the grammatical concept they represent (akin to the challenge of cupido as feminine noun) see Stafford, E.J., ‘Masculine Values, Feminine Forms: On the Gender of Personified Abstractions’, in Foxhall, L. & Salmon, J. (eds.), Thinking Men: Masculinity and its Self-Representation in the Classical Tradition (London & New York 1998), 43-56Google Scholar, on Greek abstractions, and also Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the Divine in Ancient Greece (London 2001)Google Scholar, for an illuminating general discussion. For the Roman exploitation of numina in a literary setting and as metaphorical tools, Howarth, K.R., Deified Virtues, Demonic Vices and Descriptive Allegory in Prudentius’ Psychomachia (Amsterdam 1980)Google Scholar, is recommended.

29. Like Consuetudo, Tristities has made a metaphorical appearance before finding a form in the house of Venus. However, the emotion tristities is attached not to Psyche but to Charite shortly before the fable of Love and Soul is told. In her attempt to comfort Charite at 4.27, the robbers’ housekeeper reassures the captive girl that nightmares often presage a happy state while those involving various successes, including the pleasures of sex, can paradoxically predict real anguish of mind (contra ridere et mellitis dulciolis uentrem saginare uel in uoluptatem Veneriam conuenire tristitie animi, languore corporis, damnisque ceteris uexatum iri praedicabunt, ‘conversely, laughing and stuffing the belly with honey-sweet pastries or joining in Venus’ pleasure will foretell that one is going to be harassed by mental depression and physical weakness and every other sort of loss’).

30. Once more, Augustine’s pronouncements, though post-Apuleian, are illuminating. See Shumate (n.24 above), 254, on Augustine and his precautions about the anaesthetising effects of Habit. He describes something like a drug-induced state and regards Habit as one of the tormenters allied to sexual desire: consuetudo satiandae insatiabilis concupiscentiae me captum excruciabat (‘the habit of trying to satisfy that insatiable desire tortured me and held me captive’, Confessions 6.12.22).

31. Penwill (nn.l and 27 above) and von Franz, M.L., A Psychological Interpretation of the Golden Ass of Apuleius (Zürich 1970).Google Scholar

32. The satirical reader could point out that the priest, in a less abrasive but equally chastising tone as Consuetudo, is celebrating the fact that Lucius has, like Psyche, finally recognised that he has a ‘mistress’ in the form of the goddess.

33. The fact that ‘we’ name the child of dubious status, Voluptas, is, as Penwill implies (n.l above, 182 n.74), a severe limitation on the spiritual claims such an earth-bound pleasure can sustain. In his 1975 article, ‘Slavish Pleasures’ (n.27 above, 52), Penwill discussed the final and complete subjection of Psyche, Soul, to Cupid as sexual desire, which is reinforced by a marriage cum manu, the legal recognition that a wife passed totally into the power and possession of her husband. (This puts a different perspective upon the pronouncement of Jupiter earlier in 6.23 that the wayward Cupid is to be chained down by marriage.)

34. Quoted n.29 above in relation to trisities.

35. Heiserman, A.R., The Novel before the Novel (Chicago 1977)Google Scholar, is a latter day sceptic and Winkler, J.J., Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass (Berkeley & Los Angeles 1985), 242–47Google Scholar, espouses the cynical view of Lucius’ salvation, although he incorporates it into his theory of the uncertainty principle Apuleius has deliberately fostered throughout the novel, culminating in open-ended ‘last lines’. The fact that Lucius sports his priestly bald head while not on the business of the god (Osiris) could be another example of his misunderstanding of ritual. He should be wearing a wig in everyday life.

36. Discovering the definitive Platonist interpretation of the story has never ceased to be a challenge, but did Apuleius actually throw down the gauntlet? Penwill (n.l above, 160–82) in restating his scepticism about a ‘happy ending’ for the Soul engages in a lively and convincing polemic with recent commentaries, e.g. Kenney (n.5 above), Schumate (n.24 above) and Harrison, S.J., ‘Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Aeneid’, MD 39 (1997), 53-73Google Scholar. I agree with Penwill (op. cit. 177f. n.27) that Apuleius’ Platonist leanings do not constitute an external imperative upon scholars to interpret the fable in Platonist terms. Bluntly, there are too many other things going on within the text and within the dialogue the author is conducting with past texts in ail their generic variety. For instance, John Penwill has pointed out to me that Book 11 would benefit from a Lucretian analysis with particular reference to Lucius’ ‘backsliding into religious servitude’ and subscribing to a cult which reinforces his ignorance about the true nature of gods and the soul.

37. Risus, the God of Laughter in Book 3, is a similar case in point. Heralded as the patron deity of Hypata and celebrated as such by the townspeople, Risus, it could be said, manipulates an unwilling Lucius into providing a mirthful occasion at his Festival. When Lucius spurns the laughter (abstract risus) of the Hypatans after the event (3.12), he is rejecting the god in one of his key manifestations. It is interesting to read the crowd reactions at the festival giving risus his capital R. For instance Milo is described as risu maximo dissolutum (‘broken up by a huge fit of laughing’)—there is a sacrificial sparagmos subtext here perhaps! We ignore the versatility of such double dealing deities/abstractions at our peril. See James (n.7 above), 87–91.

38. van der Vliet, J., Lucii Apulei Met. Libri XI (Leipzig 1897)Google Scholar. Cugusi, M.T.S., ‘Apul. Met. 1.7. e l’uso di Consuetudo in Apuleio’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Cagliari, n.s. 12 (1991), 119–24Google Scholar, supports consuetudo to describe Socrates’ predicament by a very useful survey of the range of meanings and their applications in Latin literature. Her conclusions on the appropriateness of consuetudo for a brief sexual encounter that becomes binding are very persuasive.

39. See James, P., ‘From Prologue to Story: Metaphor and Narrative Construction in the Opening of the Metamorphoses’, in Kahane, A. & Laird, A. (eds.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Oxford 2001), 256–66.Google Scholar

40. The original version of this article was delivered as a paper at the third International Conference on the Ancient Novel held at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands, in July 2000.1 would like to thank those who heard it on that and other occasions for their comments and suggestions.