Psyche was a mortal whose beauty threatened even Venus. People worshipped Psyche like a goddess and forgot about Venus.
Venus commanded Cupid to punish Psyche with an arrow: she should fall in love with the lowest of the low.

Cupid saw Psyche. And injured himself with his arrow.

He abducted her to a palace, visited her only at night, and made a single condition:
She was never allowed to see his face.

Psyche doubted. She lit a lamp, recognized Cupid, and lost him in the same moment.
What followed were impossible trials by Venus: sorting grain, fetching golden wool, getting water from the river of the dead, and a journey into the underworld.

Psyche almost broke down. Cupid saved her.
Zeus made her immortal.

Love without trust breaks. Love with courage survives even the gods.

Venus loved Mars, the god of war.
Cupid was the silent accomplice.

He distracted, deceived, and created spaces where passion was possible.
When Venus and Mars were unmasked, the gods laughed.
But no one dared to punish Cupid.

Where Cupid is at work, even order loses its authority.

In early Roman sources, Cupid is not romanticized.
He is portrayed as blind because love does not judge.
He is naked because she hides nothing.
He is armed because she is injured.

People did not ask for Cupid's favor.
They begged to be spared.

Cupid gives nothing away. He changes everything. "You call it love. I call it self-knowledge."