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Eusden. Cupid was the beautiful but mischievous son of Venus. He was never without his bow and quiver of arrows, and whoever was hit by one of his magic darts straightway fell in love. The wound was at once a pain and a delight. Some traditions say that he shot blindfold, his aim seemed so often at random.
“With bandaged eyes he never sees
Around, below, above.
His blinding light
He flingeth white
On God’s and Satan’s brood,
And reconciles
By mystic wiles
The evil and the good.”
—Emerson.
Although nursed with tender solicitude, he did not grow as other children, but remained a small, rosy, chubby child with gauzy wings and dimpled face. Alarmed for his health, Venus consulted Themis (Law), who oracularly replied, “He is solitary; if he had a brother he would grow apace.” In vain the goddess strove to catch the subtile significance of the answer. When Anteros, god of passion, was born, the secret was revealed. When with his brother, Cupid grew until he became a graceful, slender youth, but when away from him he always resumed his childlike form and bewildering pranks.
INTERPRETATION.
Cupid was the lord of the dawn. To a youthful race of men love was like a “morn radiating with heavenly splendor over their souls, pervading their hearts with a glowing warmth, purifying their whole being like a fresh breeze, and illuminating the whole world around them with a new light.” To express this feeling, the dawn of love, there was but one similitude,—the blush of day, the rising of the sun. They said “The sun has risen” where we say “I love.”
ART.
Cupid makes one of the most attractive subjects in sculpture. We know him at a glance, whether beside his mother, with Psyche, or alone.
The Cupid of the illustration is the work of Michael Angelo. It was discovered forty years ago hidden away in the cellars of the Ruccelli Palace, Florence, and passed by purchase into the possession of the English nation and is now in the South Kensington Museum.
Cupid is seen in the statue as a well-grown youth, a noble conception of the young god. He seems to stand for a love that is determined, for a love that conquers every obstacle. He has dropped on one knee to take an arrow from the ground. In his raised left hand he holds the bow.
