Eros & Psyche: a myth of love lost and won

The God of Love loses his heart to a mortal girl in this timeless tale of passion, devotion and eternal love.

Eros is the goddess Aphrodite’s son and taskmaster, shooting his love-tipped darts at gods and humans alike to stir their passions for good or ill. When his mother becomes jealous of Psyche, the beautiful daughter of a king, Eros is sent to seal the girl’s doom – but with a scratch of his own arrow, he falls in love with her himself.

Psyche wants more than to be married off to a suitor of her father’s choosing. When the Oracle foretells she will marry the “Almighty Monster, to whom men and gods alike are enslaved,” she is abandoned to meet her woeful fate. Instead, she is spirited away to a spectacular palace tended by unseen servants, and discovers tenderness and passion in the arms of her husband Eros, even as remains invisible and forbids her to know his name. When mistrust shatters their bliss, Psyche must win back her beloved through many labors at the hands of the beautiful and terrible Aphrodite.

Lisa Peers, author of the rock-and-roll romance Love and Other B-Sides, writes in a more classical vein in her poetic version of the most romantic story in Greek mythology. This tale is at the heart of her upcoming novel about love, lust and the 1970s film scene, Desired Effect.