By La’Niya Jones
Cupid, the chubby angel baby with a diaper who goes around shooting people with arrows to make them fall in love, has been the big staple for February 14th. The perfect symbol of love and amazing mascot for Valentine’s Day but, who exactly is Cupid?
Cupid is known as the Roman god of love and is said to be the son of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, and Venus, the goddess of love.
Like many Roman gods and goddesses, Cupid is a counterpart to a Greek god, that god being Eros. Looks wise Eros is the complete opposite of Cupid. Eros was known for being the handsome god of love, represented by a young man instead of a chubby infant.
Eros is first introduced by poet Hesiod around 700 B.C. in his poem “Theogony.” In this piece, Hesiod says that Eros was one of the primordial gods, meaning that he came into existence without parents and instead had Chaos (the emptiness of the universe) be his creator.
The story of Eros’ creation has been twisted many times. The most common is that people started to believe that Eros’ mother was Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, with his potential fathers ranging from Zeus, king of the gods, to Ares, god of war, and to Hermes, messenger of the gods.
Personality-wise Eros was described as a bit of a trickster. He was seen as being playful and mischievous at times, but that could instantly switch if you got on his bad side. He would plan surprise attacks and toy with his victims, leaving them in a daze of passion and confusion. With his arrows, Eros was able to make anyone fall in love, something that is still seen in Cupid. His arrows could lead to a bliss of love or torture.
For a long time during the Archaic period of Greece, Eros was represented by a very strong and attractive man who was alluring to many humans and gods. As time went on, he began to get younger and younger. In the Hellenistic period of Greece, Eros was morphed into a mischievous child, which played a role in the creation of the modern-day infant Cupid.
It is not clear exactly why Cupid went from a handsome young man to a curly-headed infant. It could be in relation to art during the Renaissance. During this time, putti (male babies or toddlers) were introduced in artwork; they were used to represent pure love and looked similar to angels. Cupid later took in some of their features to fit with the time period, and it has been like that since.
Cupid himself was not immune to love and ended up falling in love and marrying Psyche, the goddess of the soul, against Venus’s wishes. Venus was jealous of Psyche’s beauty, so she ordered her son to make her fall in love with a monster. That backfired, and instead Cupid took Psyche to a remote location to protect her from his mother, and they would meet in total darkness. Shortly, Cupid and Psyche started a relationship where Psyche couldn’t see Cupid’s face.
One day Psyche let her curiosity win and lit a lamp, resulting in her seeing a glimpse of Cupid’s face; Cupid was angered and flew away. Psyche searched every inch of the world and even fell into the hands of Venus, who gave her difficult challenges. Seeing how determined Psyche was for their love, Cupid rescued her, and she was granted immortality by Jupiter.
Due to his connection with love, 19th century Victorians, known as the people who popularized Valentine’s Day, started using him as a holiday mascot. Cupid is now placed everywhere in correlation with the day of love. So, when arrows fly this Valentine’s Day, know it’s all from your chubby baby friend Cupid.
