By: Izabella Galvan (7th)
Have you ever wondered who cupid is, what his origins are, and if people celebrated valentine’s day back then? You’re not alone with wondering this! Let’s discuss who the valentine mascot really is.
Modern Cupid
Modern Cupid is known far and wide, he’s a little baby with wings and a bow he shoots at people to make people fall in love. Cupid is the symbol of love and often pops up in advertisements, songs, or television shows or movies on the subject. People like this little cherub a lot! Although, modern Cupid was mainly molded by Christianity so he was changed quite a bit.
Old vs Modern Cupid
Everyone knows modern cupid, he’s a little cherub holding a bow with arrows that make people fall in love. He’s the perfect mascot for Valentine’s Day, but was he back then? Cupid can be “Traced back to 700 BC” according to https://time.com, so of course he was different. Back then he used to follow around his mother (Venus) and make people fall in love, but now he’s seen by himself shooting people to make them fall in love.
The old Cupid used to represent the desire or want of love and erotic love while modern Cupid seems to symbolize simple falling in love.
There are more stories for old Cupid than there are about modern Cupid. One story is where he falls in love with a beautiful girl named Psyche when he accidentally stabs himself with one of his arrows. If you want to know more about that myth you can read https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/cupid.html for the full story.
The modern Cupid doesn’t have as much personality as the old Cupid, his only defining feature is that he’s a baby that makes people fall in love. Cupid back then was never meant to be an angel, but instead he was a demon. He was seen as a demon because of the way in some myths he was said to make people fall in love and his bow used to symbolize trickery. The old Cupid also used to ride a dolphin.
Cupid Origins
According to https://www.britannica.com Cupid came from ancient Rome and was the god of all love varieties just like his Greek counterpart Eros. His parents were Venus (Greek counterpart: Aphrodite) and Mercury (Greek counterpart: Hermes.) Back then he looked very similar to how he did back then, a little winged baby holding a bow and arrows that have the power to make people fall in love. He can be dated all the way back to 700BC.
There’s one question though: did Eros or Cupid come first? “Greek mythology was chronicled in the epic Iliad by Homer. Roman mythology was chronicled in the book Aeneid. Greek mythology predates Roman mythology by about 700-1,000 years.” states https://www.diffen.com/difference/Greek_Gods_vs_Roman_Gods
So there’s the answer, Eros came first.
Happy Lupercalia!
An article in on Times.com says that in ancient Rome, every February 15th Romans would celebrate Lupercalia which today was shaped into being Valentine’s day. The Romans would celebrate by having huge festivals and rituals instead of giving out flowers and candy to a partner. The types of rituals they would do were very creepy nowadays, but back then for the god Lupercus sacrificing goats was just a causal Lupercalia. Although there were no sacrifices to Cupid. There’s really no mention of Cupid in the holiday, which is strange.
So how did Cupid get added to Valentines? “What began as a Christian feast day honoring two or three early Christian martyrs – the original “Valentines” – is now associated with flocks of winged cherubic Cupids, whose innocuous-looking bows and arrows symbolize gentle romance instead of death-dealing war. Somehow, the phrase “struck by Cupid’s arrow” is supposed to be exciting rather than excruciating.” is how https://fortune.com/2023/02/08/valnetines-day-cupid-roman-god-mythology/ explains it.
Myths About Cupid
There are plenty of stories about gods I’m sure you’ve heard, but have you heard any stories about Cupid? I already mentioned that one story about Cupid meeting his love, but have you heard the story about Cupid making the god Apollo fall in love? https://www.nga.gov/ explains the story as “Daphne, a beautiful mountain nymph, had the bad luck of attracting the affection of Apollo, the god of reason, music, and poetry.
Apollo was returning from slaying a monster named Python when he saw Cupid. Apollo bragged to Cupid that his bow was bigger than Cupid’s. Angered by the insult, Cupid shot him with a golden love arrow causing Apollo to fall in love with the first person he saw. Cupid then shot Daphne with a lead-tipped arrow causing her to be impervious to love. At that moment, Apollo caught sight of Daphne, who was out hunting, and fell in love.
But Daphne was not interested. He began to chase her. Daphne, a superb athlete, tried to run away, but she was no match for Apollo. He was close behind when she reached her father, the river god Peneus. Hearing her cries for help, Peneus quickly transformed Daphne into a laurel tree. Seeing the havoc he caused, little Cupid hides behind Daphne’s white robes.”
Conclusion
Cupid’s myths and facts should be more widely known! Modern Cupid is missing the old mischievous personality he used to have. I hope you learned something new about the most popular cherub, have a nice Valentines Day Jags!