Cupid

Then came the Renaissance, and everybody went mad for ancient Greece and Rome, and ancient statues were worth a fortune.

In 1496, a 21-year-old sculptor in Florence carved a statue of the god Cupid asleep.

He was advised to make it look ancient and the statue was sold as a genuine antique to a cardinal in Rome.

The cardinal found out it was a fake He demanded his money back.

For throughout it there runs a vein of racy, homely satire on the love of magic then prevalent, curiosity concerning which had led Lucius to meddle with the old woman's appliances.

Be you my Venus, he says to the pretty maidservant, who has introduced him to the view of Pamphile, and let me stand by you a winged Cupid.

And freely applying the magic ointment, sees himself transformed, not into a bird, but into an ass.

Well, the proper remedy for his distress is a supper of roses, could such be found, and many are his quaintly picturesque attempts to come by them at that adverse season, as he contrives to do at last, when, the grotesque procession of Isis passing by, with a bear and other strange animals in its train, the ass following along with the rest, suddenly crunches the chaplet of roses carried in the high priest's hand.

I am told, they read, that when foreigners are interred, the old witches are in the habit of outracing the funeral procession to ravage the corpse, in order to obtain certain cuttings and remnants from it with which to injure the living, especially if the witch has happened to cast her eye upon some goodly young man.

And the scene of the night watching of a dead body, lest the witches should come to tear off the flesh with their teeth, is worthy of Théophile Gautier.

But set as one of the episodes in the main narrative, a true gem amid its mockeries, its coarse though genuine humanity, its burlesque horrors, came the tale of Cupid and Psyche, full of brilliant lifelike situations, speciosa loquis, and abounding in lovely visible imagery.

One seemed to see and handle the golden hair, the fresh flowers, the precious works of art in it, yet full also of a gentle idealism, so that you might take it, if you chose, for an allegory.

Cuánto duele que como amigo te perdí.

Cupido, no te entiendo, a él eras de ejemplo.

De juntar corazones, un experto en conexión.

Te fallaron las flechas y de tantas violetas que por ti he regalado, en mi jardín no hay ni una flor.

Dile al amor que no es grato en mi vida.

Dale mi despedida, cuéntale las razones.

[música alegre] Cupido, no entiendo si la suerte me odia y me ha dado de herencia la fortuna del desamor.

Y te pido disculpas, pero no aciertas una.