6.1    She caught sight of a temple   The Ceres who seemed so dismissive of Venus' anger at 5.30–31 proves very eager to do her bidding at 6.1–3. Once again Psyche is wandering, but it is not made clear that Cupid is guiding her steps here as he did when she found her sisters. If Cupid is at work here too, it can only be in the hopes of having her submit herself to Venus. Why would he want Venus, whom he is willing to disobey, carry out the punishment for Psyche's disobedience? We are moving away from the realm of Cupid as an active force to concentrate on the sufferings of Psyche, which she must, at least at first, face on her own.
    arranges them in right order   What Psyche does on her own here, sorting out the farmers' tools, anticipates her first labor, the sorting of the pile of seeds. It does not seem that she arranges the stalks of wheat and the barley in Ceres' temple.
    the pity and the charity of them all   Psyche presumes the gods to be sympathetic, and Venus has shown herself to be afraid of that sympathy; as Psyche will end up in the company of the gods, we see that it is reasonable for Psyche to believe that her fate is in fact bound up with all of the gods—similarly, when she approaches Juno's temple (6.3): "willing to approach any god or any goddess for grace and favor." Again, away from the world of the sisters, the story comes closer to its allegorical roots.

6.2    threw herself down at her feet   It is remarkable that the mortal Psyche is shown weeping on the feet of the august goddess Ceres. This is a gesture of supplication; one can more easily imagine this before a statue of Ceres than her living presence. But Ceres is more casual ("Are you serious?") than expected, and Psyche rises to a level of rhetoric she had not attempted before, delivering, in effect, a formal hymn.
    Thesmophoria   A festival in honor of Demeter (Ceres) held in cities throughout the Greek world, centered on agricultural fertility during the season when Demeter is in mourning for Persephone.
    Sicily   The reference is to the abduction of Persephone, said to have been taken down to the Underworld in Hades' chariot in Sicily.
    Eleusis   The village outside of Athens where secret rites of initiation were held, sacred to Demeter. Together, these references to the fertility rituals surrounding Ceres are the first serious expression of traditional religious cult in Cupid and Psyche; and it is significant that they all have to do with initiation and a belief in immortality. In Book 11, Lucius will begin his prayer to Isis, the goddess of many names, by reference to Ceres (11.2): "O Queen of Heaven! Be thou Ceres, alma mater, genesis of grain, you who were overjoyed at the recovery of your daughter, who banished the ancient acorn, fodder for flocks, who revealed civilized sustenance, who now devote yourself to the fertile fields of Eleusis; or be thou celestial Venus, who gave birth to Love and so wove the heterogeneity of the sexes into the web of the world's beginning, who perpetuate the human race by the ceaseless succession of offspring, who are now worshipped in your sanctuary on wave-washed Paphos. . . . "

6.3    treaty of friendship   Ceres remains more casual than Psyche. Here she refers to a well-known Latin phrase, "Without Ceres and Liber (god of wine), Venus grows cold."
    two-fold sorrow   That is, the loss of Cupid and the disappointment of her request for sanctuary.
    the name of the goddess   We are not told the name in the narrative, as we were not told Ceres' name above. At both temples, Psyche deduces the name of the goddess, but it is not hard in either case. It is a little suspense for the reader but, after Venus' encounter with the two goddesses and Psyche's meeting with Ceres, only a little. Again, the temple is surrounded by the offerings of grateful worshipers and petitioners. In a sense, Psyche left a dedication at Ceres' temple by arranging the implements; here she leaves nothing.
    the warmth of the altar   In contrast to Venus' temples, where no sacrifices are made and the altars are cold (4.29).

6.4    be thou in Samos   Psyche rehearses a life story of Juno: born on Samos, worshiped as a maiden at Carthage, worshiped as Hera, wife of Zeus, in Argos. This prayer is even closer in form to that made by Lucius to Isis at 11.2 (see above, 6.2, note, Eleusis) than was Psyche's hymn to Ceres.
    great with child   Psyche finally mentions her pregnancy to the goddess who is the patron of women in labor and childbirth.
    Juno makes herself manifest   Juno comes in response to prayer. Ceres, evidently, was there all along; she catches Psyche "in the act" of arranging the implements. At any rate, no mention is made at 6.2 of Ceres appearing.   Juno is more august than Ceres was, and we see Psyche moving up some sort of scale. Venus, when she meets Psyche, will be most frightening of all.
    daughter-in-law   Vulcan (cf. 6.6), husband of Venus, is the son of Juno.
    runaway slaves   Why is Juno bound by Roman law? This is another joke at the intersection of Greco-Roman mythology and Roman culture, but it hides another question: Why does Juno view Psyche as her slave, as she did at 5.31 and as Mercury will proclaim her at 6.8? It is a gesture of contempt and part of a plan to deny the marriage on the basis of Cupid and Psyche's very unequal status. But from Psyche's point of view, acceptance of servile status is a path to redemption; what is curious is that she is submissive to the wrong divinity. It is a surprise that Psyche's ordeals are not in service to Cupid.

6.5    the thoughts in her own mind   A soliloquy, another dramatic convention, parallel to Venus' aside at 5.30, with which this should be compared. Neither has anywhere to turn and they will soon confront each other.
    a man's courage   Compare 5.22, where Psyche "makes herself a man" as she steels herself to kill her unknown husband. We see now that, for Psyche, real courage will lie not in action but in submission or, as soon follows, in preparation for death, for "definite destruction."
    in the house of his mother   A lucky guess? Or does she come to the conclusion that all paths lead back to Venus' palace?

6.6    her chariot   The chariot is not so much described as invoked, as Apuleius creates another spectacular, if comic, scene: the golden chariot drawn by four pigeons rising up through the clouds. But there are monumental depictions of Aphrodite in her chariot being drawn by Eros and Psyche, each with wings (Schlam 1976, p. 5 and Plate II-1). I think that this dove-drawn chariot reminds the reader of who are not in harness.
    Caelus . . . Ether   The first is a Latin name, standing in for Ouranos, father of Aphrodite/Venus accordingly to one genealogy (but see below). In any event, there is an antiquarian feel to these names as, once again, the story implies a three-fold division of things: here, Caelus—Ether—Olympus.

6.7    royal palace   His real royal palace, not the facsimile of it that is Cupid's palace (5.1): "you would rightly conclude that here is a heavenly imperial residence fashioned by great Jupiter himself so that he may dwell among mortals."
    Mercury   Here functioning as the messenger of the gods. After the elaborate preamble of Venus' ascent to heaven, her stay is brief: she gets permission to take Mercury with her and back down she goes.
    O my brother   True if we take Venus as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, and Mercury as the son of Zeus and Maia. In other words, Venus has, in Platonic terms, just gone from being the Heavenly Aphrodite to being the Vulgar Aphrodite (Symposium 180c; cf., "To the Reader," p. xv in the printed volume): "One is an older deity, the motherless daughter of Uranus, the god of heaven: she is known as Urania, or Heavenly Aphrodite. The other goddess is younger, the daughter of Zeus and Dione: her name is Pandemos, or Common Aphrodite."
    against my law   That is, as a runaway slave.

6.8    the shrine of Murtia   Notorious as a haunt of prostitutes in Rome.
    seven sweet kisses   Seven is a number of perfection, and so comic by its application here to Venus in her sexual aspect, a provocative kisser. She had kissed her own son earlier "in open-mouthed osculation" (4.31). Later, Jupiter will order all the gods into assembly, with a fine of 10,000 sesterces for nonattendance (6.23); now that the sisters are out of the way, the terms of reward and punishment are serious as regards Psyche, but comic as regards everyone else.
    she walks up to the doors of her good mistress   The net effect of the proclamation is that Psyche instantly turns herself in, and no one gets Venus' reward. But the words "good mistress" show Psyche's change of heart: she is now willing to view herself as Venus' slave.
    Convention   The only appearance in Latin of Consuetud as a personification. The term can apply to habit in a number of ways, including regular sexual relations. One of the sisters was afraid of the effects of such consuetudo at 5.9: "as they become more and more accustomed to each other and their mutual affections are reinforced, perhaps this god will make her a goddess as well." The narrator speaks of it at 5.4: "what was new and unanticipated had bestowed joy upon her through accustomed habit and repetition."
    in all our searches for you   No one is actually depicted in the act of searching, but the point is made that all of the immortals are on the lookout for Psyche. While punishment may be their goal, their concerted efforts suggest what is at stake: Psyche's own relation to the immortals.

6.9    drag her inside   Psyche's torture begins here. The sequence of suffering and redemption in this religious context does suggest that we are to evaluate it as a religious initiation. But is it Psyche's goal to be Venus' devotee? Venus is trying to win Psyche away from Cupid, to make her her own handmaiden, but she will be frustrated in her attempt.
    laughter   This does not show Venus in a positive light; it should be imagined as the beginning of a sequence of menacing, theatrical gestures as she prepares to speak.
    or is it your husband   Venus reveals what Psyche had guessed or hoped would be true at 6.5, that by submitting herself to Venus she would find Cupid.
    Anxiety and Melancholy   If Convention ultimately reflects the positive side of sexual relations, these two are the negative side. This is not so much an allegory of the progress of the soul as it is of the nature of sexual love. The whipping takes place briefly, but Venus refers only to Psyche's pregnancy, not to her whipping. This is a token ritual of submission, proving Psyche's servile status more than anything else.
    a blessèd grandmother   The real issue now emerges: Venus is not ready to be a grandmother. This is much more a tale of mortals than immortals, and the divine characters are now allegories of the aspects of human social existence.
    not a marriage but a misalliance   Venus' concern is with the proper label for the sexual relationship between Cupid and Psyche and with the status of the unborn child. Again, the concerns are earthly and social: legitimacy and illegitimacy. Again, Venus' concerns are the sisters' concerns (5.18): "the foul and danger-fraught fornications of your cloak-and-dagger desires." Misalliance translates impares nuptiae, marriage between unequals. In the romance that is Cupid and Psyche, the pursuit of the equality of man and woman is the explicit goal of all concerned.
    bring the birth to term   The threat of a forced abortion is surprisingly cruel; Venus is now like the monster the sisters threatened Psyche with, who would devour the child along with the mother (5.18).

6.10    drubs her disgracefully   This violence is at home in the romance, but it represents a turning point in Venus' behavior. She has worked herself up into this state, but after this release of tension and frustration she removes herself from physical contact with Psyche.
    your lovers   Venus has no evidence that Psyche is involved with anyone else.
    your ceaseless service   The overtones are both religious, referring to her suppliant status in her pursuit of Cupid, and sexual. Again, the thought is that Psyche in fact has the god behind her. It is hard to see why Venus would submit Psyche to these tests unless she wants to prove to her that she has in fact been abandoned by Cupid. Psyche's help comes from other sources, as Cupid does not revive until 6.21; but the eagle explains at 6.15 that he is returning a favor for Cupid's services in acquiring Ganymede for Jupiter, and the reader still feels that somehow or other Cupid is making all of this work out right.
    Venus went off to some wedding feast   As often, Venus is seen leaving. Of course, from the point of view of the story, we can't have her watching while Psyche attempts her task; but if she truly wanted to humiliate Psyche she would have stayed to see what happens. Venus is now portrayed as a sexual, not a cosmic, principle; she presides over weddings, and so here anticipates the end of the tale, when she will dance in attendance at Psyche's wedding.
    that labyrinth   This translates the adjective inextricabilis, "incapable of being disentangled," used by Vergil to describe the Labyrinth on Crete (Aeneid 6.27). The word appears again at 6.14: the snakes that guard the source of the Styx are "this labyrinth of danger."
    an ant   First the tern served as Venus' informant; now we see that there are animals on Psyche's side too. How does the ant know that Psyche is the wife of Love? The ants clearly have been listening in. The world is literally alive with creatures and forces that sympathize with Psyche. What assures us of a light and comic touch here is the speech of the ant, as it is amusing to imagine how an ant can speak and be heard.

6.11    dripping with wine   Venus is drunk, and her unguents and roses also suggest that she has not been behaving in a chaste and restrained way. She is at home in the world of sex and celebration, but tries to deny these things to her son. The love between Cupid and Psyche comes to be seen as something more exalted than that which is the vulgar Venus' stock-in-trade.
    roses   As Lucius requires roses as an antidote to his transformation into an ass, this detail reminds us that he is listening too.
    This is not your work   This is seemingly immediately contradicted by the description of Cupid in solitary confinement in Venus' house, "under close watch." The reader is forced to wonder at the ultimate source of Psyche's help.
    a crust of bread   Compare 6.19 and 6.20, the slave's rations that Psyche is given to eat in the house of Proserpina. Note again the folktale concerns: food to eat, a bed to sleep in, not getting what you deserve. Venus is a very poor hostess; we are to contrast her behavior to the largesse shown by Psyche to her wicked sisters.
    under the same roof   This is a typical scene in love poetry, the couple separated by a wall, unable to meet; its fullest expression is Ovid's tale of Pyramus and Thisbe (Metamorphoses 4.55–166). It is not just a pathetic detail: it shows that the love between Cupid and Psyche is passing from the mysterious to the common. They are not in Cupid's palace, where he is invisible and she knows nothing; they are in Venus' palace, where they both suffer and long for each other.
    Do you see that grove   The scene slowly opens up. The first trial was purely an interior event, Psyche watching and doing nothing; now Venus gestures (through an open window?) at the neighboring countryside, and Psyche will actually have to walk outside and do something.
    this precious fleece   This looks like a parody of Jason and the Argonauts and their expedition for the golden fleece. More remarkable is Venus' nastiness here. According to her description, there is no danger involved; Psyche will next learn from the talking reed that the sheep are "savage, vicious, rabid, mad." Venus, eager to see Psyche fail, is now withholding information from her.

6.12    a suicide leap   Why would Psyche, just miraculously aided by a colony of ants, despair of retrieving fleece from sheep that, so far as she knows, are purely benign? It puts Psyche back into a state of dependence and ignorance; she is not learning from her trials. This stresses endurance, not understanding, as the key element in these trials.
    Do not pollute my sacred waters   Psyche's third suicide attempt. Similarly, the brook that carried Psyche to Pan at 5.25 does not cooperate with suicide.
    that towering tall sycamore   This is the plane tree. In a literary description of a pleasant country spot, the locus amoenus, this cannot help but remind the reader of the plane tree in Plato's Phaedrus 229a–b.

6.13    she took instruction   The point would seem to be that Psyche has to learn how to be taught, how to follow orders. Her success here anticipates the fourth and final labor in which she receives minutely detailed instructions for how to get to the Underworld and back, all but one of which she obeys.
    an acrimonious smile   Compare Venus' nasty laughter at 6.9 and her "smile of death and destruction" at 6.16. The robbers have a similar wicked smile at 6.29.
    the sable waters cascade from the black spring   This elaborate description of the waterfall that is the source of the Underworld River Styx, expanded on below at 6.14, should be compared to the description of the waterfall that is outside the robbers' cave (4.6; the narrator Lucius speaks): "There was a mountain, and it bristled with crags, was overshadowed with the foliage of the deep woods; above all, it was tall. The slopes of its circumference were very steep indeed, barred by broken and jagged boulders and therefore unscalable; the deep gorges, riven with gullies and hollows, stretched out in all directions, overgrown and overflowing with thorns and brambles—all these offered a natural, protective custody, and ringed the cave round. Cascading down from the peak of the summit was a spring of living water, gushing up and bubbling over in furious ferment; spilling down in its freefall it spewed out waves of silver, split into dozens of smaller watercourses, then flooded those gorges in wave upon wave of immobile water: like a becalmed ocean, like a somnolent river, it enclosed and encircled everything." We may imagine that the old woman is tailoring this scene to fit the experience of Charite; Lucius will recognize his situation and sympathize with Psyche as well.
    some still sterner admonitions   After the relatively trivial second task, the third is much more ominous. Cocytus and Styx (the river that is afraid of Cupid; 4.33) prepare us for the fourth task, the journey to the Underworld; Venus is not traipsing off to weddings now, but is making herself, and her tasks, as fatal as possible.

6.14    the end . . . of her life   Not actually a suicide attempt but clearly a suicidal thought and more plausible than her suicide attempt at the beginning of the second task.
    sadistic serpents   After the sisters lied about the monstrous serpent in Psyche's bed, we are now given a sight of real monstrous serpents, fulfilling the traditional function as guardians of treasure (as, for example, the snake that guards the golden fleece)—again, another similarity between Venus and the sisters.
    the very waters were singing out   The marsh-reed spoke at 6.12, and a tower will burst into speech at 6.17. But these are much more like the invisible voices of Psyche's palace; while those urged her to stay, these urge her to flee. This makes the serpents' lair an effective parody of Cupid's palace, reinforcing the fact that Cupid is not a monstrous snake.
    turned to stone   This is better than thinking of suicide. But, frozen with fear, she once again can only wait until something else comes along to do her work for her. We ask whether it is more important that Psyche be seen as resourceless or that the world be shown as full of forces that want to see her succeed.

6.15    Providence   Common in The Golden Ass in general, but rare within Cupid and Psyche itself (otherwise, only at 5.3, where Psyche's presence in Cupid's palace is called a "gift of . . . Providence"), Providence generally means good fortune. But there are other overtones here. Psyche's survival is not attributed to luck. Providence is personified here, and it is not just Cupid, but the order of the world at large that longs to see Psyche reunited with Cupid. Providence appears in the frame story at 6.29.
    the eagle of Jupiter   Various elements of the tasks are now anticipating the conclusion of the tale. Jupiter will be the ultimate guarantor of Psyche's fitness to marry Cupid, and the involvement of his bird here suggests that Jupiter as well as Providence looks out for Psyche.
    Ganymede   The Trojan boy abducted to be Jupiter's attendant also satisfies Jupiter's pederastic itches. Given the Platonic background to this tale of the soul and its wings, it is interesting that here is the only reference to the love felt by an adult male for a male youth that is supposed in the Phaedrus to provide intimations of the soul's immortality.
    You're a simple girl   The eagle speaks to Psyche in the same tone that Cupid did when he gave her warnings about her sisters (especially at 5.11 and 5.12). We feel that Psyche has learned her lesson and will do as she is told this time.
    the oarage of his wings   Cupid was similarly described at 5.25 (see above). This continues the comparison between the eagle and Cupid; like Cupid, he will be violating Venus' commands to do what he does and lies to the waters that advise him to withdraw.

6.16    joyfully   Finally we see Psyche happy; it is a real change, but her joy is short lived, snuffed out by the announcement of the fourth labor. Like a folktale heroine, she must have thought that tasks came in threes and that she was finished. The phrase cum gaudio appeared in the description of Ether accepting Venus at 6.6.
    sadistic   A key term throughout The Golden Ass, it translates the root saevus (see Index, s.v. sadism, sadistic). Venus rejoices in the suffering that she causes Psyche; Psyche's salvation (salus, health) will come with the cessation of these sufferings. We now see Venus on one side, Jupiter (through his eagle) on the other.
    smile of death and destruction   Compare Venus' "acrimonious smile" at 6.9.
    a great witch of the great abyss   Venus acts as if Psyche has proven her powers; she no longer refers to any outside help she may have gotten. Now she really is afraid that Psyche is her rival. Why doesn't Psyche just refuse the next task? That question never comes up.
    little jar   Not the same word (pyxis) as the little bottle that was filled with the waters of the Styx (urnula). A pyxis typically contains poison in The Golden Ass (10.27) or the magical ointments that resulted in Lucius' transformation (3.21, 3.24, 3.25).
    Proserpina   We had been introduced to her in Psyche's prayer to Ceres at 6.2. Here, her relation to the fertility myths of Ceres is not at issue, but only her beauty. Venus offers a frightening task for a trivial purpose, and because Psyche will at the last minute fail at this task, opening the cosmetic jar she was told not to open, we wonder whether Venus has found Psyche's true weakness at last: her feminine vanity.
    playing the nursemaid   This is a lie; Venus has not been shown ministering to her son, though we may imagine that the whole sequence of events has left her exhausted and careworn.
    the theater of the gods   This is not described, and may be a conscious lie. But Venus will appear in the assembly of the gods at the end of the tale; and she (as portrayed by a human mime) will have a prominent role at the end of Book 10 when the story of the Judgment of Paris is acted out in the theater at Corinth. Most important is that this time she is not going to a wedding; she is imagining how the gods will look at her, and her own vanity is at issue. She is neither cosmic principle nor symbol of marriage here, but the older woman in rivalry with her beautiful young challenger; we return to the beginning of the tale.

6.17    a towering tower   Psyche's fourth suicide attempt, here actually given a comic coloring by her imagining it as the quickest way to arrive in the Underworld. What this makes clear is that Venus does not give any sort of instructions. Just as she hid from Psyche the fact that the sheep were rabid, so here too she leaves Psyche with no idea that the Underworld can in fact be returned from. Psyche only hears an order that she kill herself.
    You poor little girl!   Again, help from an inanimate object; again, a speech like those given by Cupid as he tried to keep his Psyche safe. But the tower is rather more prosaic; it seems unnecessary to explain that if Psyche kills herself she can't return from the Underworld. This is the longest speech in Cupid and Psyche.

6.18    not far from here   We have no idea where "here" is, anymore than we know where the crag is or where the sisters live. This is no argument that we are to imagine Venus' palace as being in the Peloponnesus.
    Taenarus   The most famous of the entrances to the underworld, located in Spartan territory at the end of the central promontory of the southern Peloponnesus. The speaker of the prologue of The Golden Ass claims to come from three places in Greece—Attica, Corinth, and Spartan Taenarus—and that may have been an anticipation of the importance of the Underworld to the romance as a whole.
    lame and limping ass   This suggests Lucius who, as an ass, is constantly accused by his owners of being slow-footed. The old woman doesn't know about Lucius' speed, but Lucius would certainly overhear this as a reference to himself. Psyche is in some sense being instructed to avoid Lucius; this may be taken as suggesting that their two stories are not parallel and that the path of Lucius' salvation will be different from Psyche's.
    pass him by in silence   All of the obstacles in Psyche's way are ways in which she would be tempted to put down her barley cakes, as the tower later explains at 6.19. Rather than imagine that she could put them down and pick them up again, we should concentrate on the fact that the dead cannot be helped and that Psyche's obligations are entirely to herself.
    from your mouth   That is, she cannot offer it to him by hand, because she must keep a cake in each hand.
    swimming on the surface   A brilliant and pathetic detail, but probably representing no more than the traditional lost soul longing to reach the other side. Psyche as Soul cannot save other souls.

6.19    old women   It is hard to assign any particular meaning to these weavers. They do not suggest the Fates. But given the connection between weaving and poetry ("text" and "textile" are related), and given the nature of the narrator, perhaps the old woman storyteller is telling Psyche to beware of old women storytellers.
    Venus' treachery   If the tower is right, and subsequent events prove it to be so, then we have here what we had in the trial with the sheep: Venus knows more than she says, and she can be glimpsed behind the scenes in the narrative just as Cupid and other divinities can.
    a dog   Cerberus is not named in Cupid and Psyche, though he is elsewhere in The Golden Ass (1.15, 3.19, 4.20) as emblematic of death. Here, in a story of an actual descent to the Underworld, the name is ritually avoided to keep him at bay ("Speak of the Devil and he'll appear").
    She will receive you as a friend   Clearly, if one accepts the hospitality of Proserpina, one will be caught in the Underworld, even as Proserpina was caught by the eating of the pomegranate. For the coarse bread, cf. 6.11. What is not clear is whether she is to be seen as being in league with Venus. As Venus' request is to be made only after the rejection of Proserpina's hospitality, Proserpina would seem from that point on to be interested in Psyche's success, not her failure.
    the heavenly stars in their courses   As the tower juts into the sky, it by its nature points upward. Lucius will speak of his secret initiation into the rites of Isis in ways that recapitulate Psyche's journey (11.23): "I went up to the borders of Death; I put the threshold of Proserpina beneath my heel; I passed through trials of earth and air, fire and water; I came back up alive. At midnight I saw the sun flaring in bright white light; I went down to the gods below, up to the gods above, face to face; I worshiped them at their side."
    don't . . . look into the jar   A prohibition like this must be violated in any story; what is remarkable is that there are so many other commands and prohibitions that Psyche follows to the letter. We know that she will open the jar; the elegant recitation of Psyche's obedient journey that follows, with all of its exactitudes, lends an element of suspense: Will she or won't she?

6.20    stoppered in secret   This is the only surprise in this condensed narrative whose theme is that Psyche does as she was told. It focuses our attention on the jar and, of course, the prohibition; it also prepares us for the fact that Proserpina is deceiving Psyche.
    her prayer of thanks   The interlude with Ceres and Juno shows that Psyche knows how to make a prayer, but we are not told this prayer because it would break the suspense concerning the soon-to-be-violated prohibition. There is another reason as well: a prayer to the stars would be too abstract for this story, which keeps itself within the general confines of Classical mythology and the Olympian gods. Lucius in his devotion to Isis will show more of this sort of celestial interest and enthusiasm.
    her reckless desire   Fatal curiosity intrudes; the key word is "reckless," for Psyche has just demonstrated how her salvation depended upon following instructions to the letter. In other words, after all of this, Psyche has learned nothing. The model for this is Orpheus and his last-minute inability to follow the instructions of Pluto and not turn around to look while bringing Eurydice back with him up from the Underworld. The reader must think that all is lost and that Death has won.
    to please my own beautiful lover   Psyche is not shown thinking like Venus, that she needs this beauty to refresh herself after the exhaustion of her labors (6.16: "For the beauty that she had she has spent completely, worn away utterly, while playing the nursemaid to her sick little son"). She is the most beautiful of women, and Cupid, that most beautiful of gods, was content to hide his own beauty and never made any requests prior to this time that Psyche attend to her makeup. This is Psyche misunderstanding her own self and Cupid's desires. The reader need not be sympathetic to this misplaced vanity.

6.21    the sleep of the dead   So was Proserpina in on Venus' schemes? Or is this just a pathetic storytelling device, that the object of the quest cannot be retained? Rather, this is another variation on the need to avoid Proserpina's hospitality: one should avoid anything, not just the food, that is offered in the Underworld. This now appears to be a task that could not ever have been successfully completed. But Psyche's sleep frames her experiences with Cupid. When we first saw her asleep (5.1), she was about to explore the palace of Cupid; this second sleep precedes Cupid's return to her.
    a sleeping corpse   But of course this death can't be real death, and Psyche, like the Sleeping Beauty, waits for her prince to kiss her awake. As a bride she was a "living corpse" at 4.34.
    the prolonged absence of his Psyche   Now that Cupid is healed, he aches to rejoin his beloved. This is a sign that both halves of this couple are suffering and longing in unison and helps to establish the equality that will be necessary for their marriage. Cupid's house arrest, imprisonment, and escape are to be understood in parallel to Psyche's experience within Cupid's palace: for all of the mystery surrounding her life there, Psyche had been a prisoner.
    he rouses his Psyche   Another tease. He wipes the sleep from her eyes, he pricks her again with his arrow, but he does not kiss her. Once again we are deprived of the iconic sight of the couple embracing as equals. When we did see Psyche kissing Cupid (5.23), Cupid was asleep; the present scene mirrors the earlier one.
    the mission . . . at my mother's command   We never see Psyche present the bottle to Venus and can only imagine her frustration at Psyche's undeserved success. When we next see Venus, she is on Olympus and Jupiter is telling her to cheer up (6.23).
    I will see to everything else   From here on, Cupid is the dominant force, and Psyche, who had been so courageous, up to a point, in going to the Underworld now returns to a passive role as others sort out her claims and her status. Once again, Cupid flies away from her, but this time to complete, rather than to initiate (5.23–24), her trials.

6.22    abstinence   This was personified at 5.30 and could conceivably be capitalized here. Cupid refers, of course, to Venus' unexpected role as the divinity that opposes marriage.
    love-sick look   As Psyche had in the presence of Pan (5.25).
    back to his old tricks   That is, back to playing the bad boy who embarrasses the Olympians by involving them in demeaning love affairs. While the story clearly alludes to the notion of the two Cupids that correspond to the two Venuses, at the end of the tale the two will be inextricably intertwined.
    into the heights of heaven   Cupid's entry is parallel to that of Venus when she went to find Mercury at 6.6–7.
    kisses him   This kiss, very deliberately described, reminds us of Venus' immodest kissing of Cupid at 4.31 and reminds us that we haven't seen Cupid and Psyche kiss yet.
    the dignity that is decreed to me   So too did Venus complain about her treatment at Cupid's hands at 5.30; Ceres and Venus were said to be afraid of his arrows at 5.31.
    the four elements   What Venus claimed was under her control at the beginning of the tale (4.30) is now subject to Jupiter.
    the lex Julia on adultery   Another instance of Roman law comically intruding in divine affairs; cf. the law about runaway slaves at 6.4. The law, enacted by Augustus in 18 BCE, was designed to improve public morals. Jupiter, like Venus, wants to control Cupid's sexual relations, but he will be content to confine them by marriage rather than outlaw them all together.
    foul affairs and fornications   Compare this with the rumors reported by the tern at 5.28.
    metamorphosing my . . . countenance   Apuleius draws here on the passage at the beginning of Book 6 of Ovid's Metamorphoses in which Arachne, competing with Minerva in a weaving contest, weaves into her tapestry the adulteries of Jupiter.
    one proviso   Jupiter, like Psyche returned from the Underworld, has learned nothing. He still longs for his affairs with mortal women, and the deal is struck between Cupid and Jupiter with a nod and a wink. Such details cannot be worked into an allegory about the sublimity of divine love, but they make much sense as the conclusion to a domestic comedy.

6.23    Mercury   As part of the general shifting of authority from the female Venus to the male Jupiter, functioning as head of the family, Mercury is now in Jupiter's service, not in Venus' (cf. 6.7–8).
    ten thousand sesterces   The council of the gods is convened through fear of a monetary fine; there were fines for nonattendance in the Roman Senate, though specific amounts are not known.
    he has been slandered   Jupiter draws attention away from how he has himself been slandered when he speaks to this heavenly parody of the Roman Senate. People spoke of Cupid as "whoring in the mountains" (5.28), but Jupiter is disguising his own embarrassments by pretending that protecting Cupid's reputation is the issue.
    the bridal ball and chain   The cynical view of marriage, that it will keep the young man at home and away from other women; it is a form of abstinence, Venus' unexpected ally (cf. 5.30, 6.22). This resembles scenes from New Comedy, in which the father comes to terms with his son's rape of a virgin by legitimizing the arrangement in lawful marriage. Rape (literally, "abduction") is an act that deprives the father of the girl of his right to determine whom she should marry by presenting to him a fait accompli; in Cupid and Psyche, rape has offended the boy's mother, but the father figure is still called on to preserve proprieties through marriage. This social sleight of hand is comically at odds with the sublimity expected of a philosophical tale of the elevation of Soul through Love. This marriage is the end of a comedy.
    let him keep her, to have and to hold   A legal formulation of Roman marriage (teneat, possideat).
    Daughter of mine   This speech clearly puts the Latin reader in mind of Jupiter's conciliatory speech to Venus in the first book of the Aeneid, when he promises her that the fates of her people remain unchanged (1.257–96).
    social standing   Venus is afraid that her family will lose status through her son's unsanctioned relations with Psyche; she is concerned for family honor and position. Venus' fear of a misalliance was stated at 6.9.
    goblet of ambrosia   Typically, ambrosia is the divine food, but this is clearly a drink. Apuleius is the first to say that one can drink ambrosia; the point, I think, is to distinguish what makes Psyche immortal here from the nectar that everyone will drink at the subsequent banquet.
    be immortal    It is remarkable that the tale has engineered the apotheosis of Psyche, expected from the moment the reader learns her name, to be the satisfaction of Venus' concerns about her family's status. Psyche is finally Cupid's equal and the marriage may proceed as between social equals.

6.24    a wedding banquet   Two situations are present simultaneously. First, the wedding feast that signals the end of a comedy; second, the ritual meal appropriate for initiates in mystery religions. Psyche is now at the table of the gods, having suffered her trials and having become a god herself, seeing the gods face to face.
    fine food   This scene reminds the reader of the various magical dining and musical scenes in Cupid's palace; cf. 5.13, 5.15.
    Jupiter's own cup-bearer   Ganymede again; Jupiter's eagle helped Psyche to return Cupid's favor of securing Ganymede for Jupiter (6.15).
    cup of nectar   The typical drink of the gods, it is distinguished from the ambrosia that Psyche drank to become immortal.
    roses   Lucius will certainly hear this detail with longing.
    Apollo sang a song to the lyre   The sorts of things that had been invisible in Cupid's palace are now in plain sight (cf. 5.15, Psyche entertaining her sisters): "Psyche entertains them lavishly in her dining room with her marvelous, her blessèd, foods and pâtés and savory meat. She gives the order for the lyre to speak, and there is playing; for the pipes to perform, and their sound is heard; for the chorus to sing, and there is music. All of these together soothed the spirits of those who heard them with their sweet, sweet strains, though there was not a one of them to be seen."
    Venus came in on cue   This is the punch line, as it were; even Venus dances at the wedding she had so violently opposed.
    a daughter   The reader was probably expecting a son. Cupid uses the masculine gender when speaking of the child (5.11: infantem alium . . . divinum), but the masculine is obligatory when speaking in general terms; the feminine would have specifically referred to a girl. This is a surprise.
    Delight   Voluptas as a divinity is part of the cult of Cupid and of Venus at Rome but seems to function here more in reference to The Golden Ass as a whole; readers were promised joy at the end of the prologue if they paid close attention. The story is intended to bring delight, and hope, to Charite as well as to the reader. But it is not a harbinger of delight. Like a dream (4.27), the conclusion of Cupid and Psyche portends to Charite the opposite of what it seems, and the path of Lucius to salvation shall lie along a different path than that of sensual delight; see further Penwill 1998 for possible distinctions here between sensual pleasures and religious joys.

6.25    beguiling fiction   The narrator's words (tam bellam fabellam) suggest more prettiness than profundity; his reaction also needs to be taken into an accounting of the meaning of the tale. The fact that he couldn't write it down reminds us that we don't know exactly how these words came to be written down; Apuleius plays with our expectation that the narrator ought to be the author.
    maimed . . . in a right leg   The reader thinks immediately of the limping ass in the Underworld (6.18). The quick trip to the other cave for more loot is quickly described; its function is to maim the ass, so that the robbers can think about killing him.
 

6.26    the slaughterings of our bravest men   Just before Cupid and Psyche is told, a robber describes three exploits, all of which resulted in the deaths of their leaders (4.9–21). At the time, the stories were told to commemorate the robbers' bravery and intelligence, despite the outcomes; this is a more realistic appraisal.
    off a cliff   Not only the way that Psyche's sisters died (5.27, including the detail of being eaten by animals), but also the way that the robbers earlier disposed of another uncooperative ass (4.5).
    turned my hooves into wings   Lucius is perhaps thinking of Soul and Cupid and their wings. This is a parody, perhaps, of the themes of the tale: fear of death reminds him of his wingèd nature and saves him.
    they went to get their friends    Fortunately for Lucius, this time the robbers go off on foot and leave the animals behind.
    Why are you standing still?   This soliloquy is reminiscent of Psyche's when she encourages herself to submit herself to Venus at 6.5; the specific verbal echo is in "wrap a man's courage around you." Lucius is inspired by Psyche's example to take unexpected action and so save his life; there is a reversal here, as his method is flight from his persecutors, not submission to them.
    tissues of a leech   Not so; elsewhere Lucius speaks of his tough hide (3.24), but he is often beaten, and at 3.29 he says the robbers left it "not even serviceable as a sieve."
    this half-dead old woman   Note how quickly Lucius goes from overhearing the story to imagining killing the storyteller.
    Who would offer him sanctuary? Cf. again 6.5, Psyche's soliloquy: "Where can I turn my wandering steps when my feet are caught in snares like these? Under whose roof or in what murk and shadow can I hide from and escape the inexorable eyes of great Venus? So why don't you finally wrap a man's courage around you. . . . " Cf. also Venus' worries at 5.30.

6.27    a boldness that exceeds her sex   The old woman had been misunderstood all along. She is not half-dead, drunk, and incapable: her eye is sharp, she moves quickly, she holds on tight with an iron grip and is fiercely loyal to the robbers who abuse her (cf. 4.25, where she is eager that her robbers not be cheated of ransom by Charite's contemplated suicide). And she can't be killed with a single kick, as Lucius had just imagined.
    a Theban tragic scene   As at the beginning of the frame of Cupid and Psyche (4.26), we have a dramatic metaphor: this is reminiscent of tragedy. Dirce was the aunt of Antiope, mother by Zeus of the twins Amphion and Zethus; Dirce mistreats Antiope, and the twins, when they learn their true parentage, avenge their mother by killing Dirce, tying her to the horns of a bull.
    bravery of a man   Evidently, Charite takes the same lesson of courage from Psyche that Lucius did; or, at least, Lucius the narrator thinks so.

6.28    kiss the girl's delectable feet   There are some fairly obvious erotic overtones to the relation between Lucius and Charite. As he said when he first saw her (4.23): "She was a girl, believe you me, who could even win the love and desire of an ass like me." Cf. Shumate 1996, 125: "We become aware in spite of ourselves that this beauty and her beast share a spirit of mutual caring that is virtually unknown elsewhere in the world of the novel."
    the fortress of my liberation and my salvation   Charite clearly overstates the value of the ass.
    my mother and father   Like Psyche's parents, they will remain unnamed; Charite, unlike Psyche, is trying to get back home and not just to her fiancé Tlepolemus. Perhaps Charite's disasters are related to the fact that she, unlike Psyche, does not attempt to make a clean break from her origins.
    the food I'll set before you   Note that Charite offers as hospitality not food and bath but food and grooming, as befits an ass; the obsession with hair reflects both its prominence in Cupid's descriptions (not Psyche's) and in Lucius' own obsessions with hair, as he describes in great detail at 2.8–10.
    stars of the night sky   Compare the tower's recommendation that Psyche pray to the stars of heaven after her return from the Underworld at 6.19 (though she is said only to offer a prayer to the daylight at 6.20).
    march in triumph   The maiden will in fact ride in triumph on the ass when she returns home after her fiancé rescues her (7.13). But this is not as happy as Cupid's rescue of Psyche; her marriage to Tlepolemus excites the envy of the disappointed suitor Thrasyllus, who will ultimately kill Tlepolemus and try to seduce Charite.
    my savior   Again, Charite overstates Lucius' value and her own future happiness.

6.29    delighting in delectable foods   Lucius will be treated well and fed well (7.14: "subsequent to that, she called me her savior; now a lady, she took constant care of me, profusely; and on the very day of her wedding she gave orders for my crib to be filled with barley, higgledy-piggledy, and for enough hay to be supplied me to choke a two-humped camel"). But he is soon put to work grinding grain, and his fortunes decline from there.
    painted on a proper board   Such a painting would be a dedication, such as those found by Psyche at Juno's temple at 6.3, but here on display in Charite's own house. As such, it would be an image of liberation in contrast to the statue group in Byrrhena's atrium that told of the death of Actaeon and the dangers of curiosity (2.4).
    travelers' tales   Translating fabula; her story will be like Cupid and Psyche (told by word of mouth) and like The Golden Ass (in a work with an author). She wants notoriety in all media; yet some of these media are more appropriate for fiction than for fact.
    the wonders of ancient days   Suggesting what is mythical and untrue. Phrixus and Helle flew over the Hellespont on the back of a ram, whose fleece becomes the golden fleece. Herodotus (1.24) tells the story of Arion, a poet who escapes from pirates by leaping overboard and who is then rescued by a dolphin that carries him to shore. Jupiter's rape of Europa, taking her from Phoenicia to Crete, puts us back in the world of Cupid and Psyche and the references to his metamorphoses and love affairs at 6.22.
    there lies lurking a human face   Charite doesn't know how right she is. The joke is made elsewhere in The Golden Ass; at 8.25, an auctioneer suggests that there is a submissive human underneath the ass' skin. The idea that there may be a god within Lucius again suggests parallels between Psyche and Lucius.
    hurrying off to Hell   The mood changes quickly here; this is to emphasize that the destinies of Lucius and Charite are not inextricably linked. She and Lucius have different paths ahead of them.
    property line   Apuleius uses a rare legal term that means "dividing an inheritance" in reference to what is presented as a boundary dispute. It is an elaborate way to refer to a debate over which way to go; again, it intends to emphasize the different destinies of Charite and Lucius.
    a wicked smile   Like that of Venus at 6.13, placing Charite in Psyche's role.

6.30    fortress in the wilderness   The robbers use Charite's language (which they could not have overheard) from 6.28, where she also speaks of her mother and father. Lucius cannot save Charite.
    start in to limp   Again, Lucius is the limping ass, so that we can hear again about how he recently had wings on his feet (6.26) when the robbers joke about his being another Pegasus, the wingèd horse.
    cypress tree   The funereal cypress was the tree from which Cupid addressed Psyche before he abandoned her at 5.24.
    over a cliff   One last time, a body is thrown over a cliff; there is no one to save the old woman any more than there was a Zephyr to save the sisters in the tale that she told.

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