NPPF Comm3: Misc notes (6)

[David Morris]

Very nice Michael.  I'll have to look at this myth again.  I didn't know Psyche
was represented as a butterfly/moth.  Was it so in ancient times?  Can you pass
along some URL's or references?

--- Michael Joseph <mjoseph at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> 
> light images also touch lightly on the (Cupid) Psyche imagery of the poem.
> Psyche as human spirit, wed to a monster/death, harrower of hell, and
> ultimately immortalized by Jupiter at Cupid's request, is conventionally
> represented (e.g. Gerard, David, Canova)  as a butterfly, of which Shade's
> poem includes abundant examples. The Greek word Psyche specifically refers
> to a kind of night moth. Hazel's suicide (following her disastrous efforts
> on behalf of love) occurs at night, and could, conceivably, be thought of
> as a wedding to death (just as Psyche's marriage, arranged by the oracle,
> is portrayed as an execution). The ambiguous nature of revelation is
> nicely figured in Psyche's lamplight discovery of Cupid's reposing body--a
> discovery that simultaneously makes her fall deeply in love with him and
> precipitates his flight that leaves her bereft: the deadly ambiguity of
> the moth beating her wings against the flame.

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