puleius (c 124 – c 170) lived in provincial North Africa (in present-day Algeria) and was the author of the only surviving complete novel in Latin. His work, entitled Metamorphoses, or alternatively The Golden Ass, includes the tale of Cupid and Psyche as a story within the story.

According to Apuleius’s narrative, Psyche (Roman Anima) is a mortal of unsurpassed beauty, outshining even the goddess of love Venus (Greek Aphrodite) herself. Jealous Venus sends her son Cupid (Greek Eros) to exact revenge by making Psyche fall in love with the most miserable and vilest of men. Cupid, however, falls in love with her himself. He later arranges her rescue from sacrifice to a monster and installs her in a sumptuous palace and visits her there every night. Cupid, however, withholds his true identity and forbids Psyche to…