Antonio Canova - Amor and Psyche (1796)
I never may believe
These antic fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever apprehends . . .
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to aery nothing
A local habitations and a name . . .
A Midsummer Night's Dream, V, 1 - William Shakespeare
'The first beast of the West was Eros, the god of love himself. In the romance of Cupid and Psyche, Eros/Cupid makes love, unseen in the dark, to a mortal Beauty - Psyche - who rivals his own mother Venus in seductiveness . . .'
From The Beast to the Blonde by Marina Warner
From The Beast to the Blonde by Marina Warner
