Skip to main content

Week 3 Story: Bedtime Story


Author’s Note:

This story was inspired by the telling of "Cupid and Psyche" within the "Apuleiu's Golden Ass" translated by Tony Kline. In the original, the story of Cupid and Psyche is told by an old woman to a young girl who has been kidnapped by thieves the old woman works with. This way it is a story within a story. Similarly, I have included a condensed version of the story of Cupid and Psyche within this story about a mom and a daughter as a bedtime story. Here the mom is telling the story to the daughter, but she only gets half way through it before the daughter falls asleep where in the Golden Ass, the old woman finishes the tale. In the full story, Psyche goes on to betray Cupid, be tortured by Venus, and eventually be reunited with Cupid and made immortal. That seemed like a lot for a bedtime story so that is why this story only includes the first half.



Jane checked on her daughter Molly as she was getting ready for bed. As Jane leaned on the doorway she saw Molly brushing her teeth and humming some made up song. When Molly saw Jane standing there she finished up brushing, jumped down from the step stool in front of the sink, and ran to hug Jane. Looking up at Jane with a sweet smile, Molly asked, “Will you tell me a story before bed?” Jane, feigning indecision replied, “I don’t know sweetie. It is getting late. There might not be time for a story tonight.” Not quite understanding the joke, Molly starts to plead with her mother, “Please momma? I’ll go to bed extra early tomorrow if you’ll tell me a story tonight.” Never intending to withhold the bedtime story, Jane relented.

Once Molly was settled in bed, Jane sat down next to her and began to tell her the story of Cupid and Psyche. The story went something like this:

Once there was a girl named Psyche, so beautiful that all the people that saw her were convinced she was the goddess of love, Venus. Soon everyone but a few believed that she truly was Venus and began to worship her as such. Hearing this and becoming very angry that a human was being worshiped in her place, Venus told her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love and marry a terrible creature. When a prophecy foretold Psyche’s unfortunate marriage, she and her parents accepted the terrible fate and Psyche was left alone on a hill top for the creature to come and claim. But, when Cupid came to make Psyche fall in love he was captivated by her beauty and instead fell in love with her himself and swept her away to a fancy palace where they lived happily for a while.

Stopping to take a breath and remember the rest of the story, Jane looked over at Molly. She was already fast asleep. Quietly, Jane got up and shut out the light. The rest of the story would have to wait until tomorrow.


Bibliography: 
Cupid and Psyche from Apuleiu's Golden Ass, Translated by Tony Kline
Picture of a Bed and Book via pixabay by Pexels
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales, Part B

Hi! I missed the second reading for this week, so I am making it up today with these reading notes over Japanese fairy tales. This reading included three stories, one of and Ogre, a Goblin, and a Princess not unlike the story of Cinderella. All three of these are from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki, who is pictured above with her husband. Out of the three stories, I liked the story about the Princes Hase the best, so I took notes over that story specifically. Here are those notes. The story of Princess Hase is told from a third person perspective. In the story there is very little dialogue. In fact, the only dialogue in the pieces, is that of the step-mother right before her poisoning attempt backfires and at the end when Hase’s father finds her hiding in the mountains. I think that this sparing use of dialogue at the worst and best point in the story is an interesting style choice that creased a stronger connection to the story at those points. I think that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reading Notes: Persian Tales Part A

Hello!  This week I chose to read the Persian Tales unit and was not disappointed. Some of these fairy tales like “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” and “The Wolf-Aunt” reminded me of the Brother’s Grim Fairytales in their more original forms. The others seemed a little more child friendly like we might expect of fairytales today. Thinking of my story for this week, any of them could make a fun base for writing, but I think that the ones that would be the best to work with would be “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul,” “Nim Tanak,” or “Muhammad Tirandaz, The Archer.” For “The Boy Who Became a Bulbul” I would make the circumstances of the boy’s death make more sense to a modern reader, not just based on a bet with his father that he willingly submits to. I would also want to somehow bring the boy back, maybe instead of the Bulbul growing out of the stalk, he does. Or maybe his father doesn’t kill him but hides him instead. Either way I would like for the boy to live. For “Nim T...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 13 Review: Home Stretch

Hi there! I don't know about anyone else in this class but I am busting my butt to finish these assignments up so I can get an A in the class. Staying in the holiday spirit, I am so thankful for the extra week (Week 15). Because of it, I don't have to cram a bunch of extra credit assignments into next week, but instead can work on mostly standard assignments. I also caught a previous assignment that I did, but didn't do the declaration for so that was a nice treat to start this week off with. I took the time to read through the announcements for the last seven days, and that has thankfully helped me understand how class is working over the next couple weeks and what finishing up looks like for me. As I was looking through said announcements, I was completely distracted by the blurb about St. Catherine. My full name is Catherine and I come from a Catholic family, but I had never heard of her in detail. So I spent quite a while reading about her on Wikipedia and found out t...
Post a Comment
Read more