Cupid and Psyche chp. 1-3

Once upon a time there was a king and a queen who lived in some city. They had three beautiful daughters, the youngest possessing exceptional beauty. One day, the mother of all beauty grew jealous, and sought to ruin the beautiful girl's life. In a surprising turn of events, the girl ends up being happy and is entertained and taken care of by 'animated' things (the voices). On top of this, she is happy with her sweet husband.

Every detail just listed is very characteristic of classic fairy tales. First, there is some "rex et regina" in "quidam civitate" (line 1/ Chapter one). As most fairy tales do, Apuleius' story starts off very vague, as to make it so this could be happening anywhere, in any kingdom. Next, the king and queen have "tres filias pulcherrimas" (line 1/ Chapter one). In addition, one in particular, the youngest daughter, has remarkable beauty. In fact, she is so beautiful that human characteristics can't even describe her (lines 3 to 5). Further exemplifying itself as the classical fairy tale, Venus takes the position as the 'evil step mother' (lines 19 to 28/ Chapter one) and wishes to cause the girl harm. In Sleeping Beauty and even Shrek, the story is about the king and the queen's daughter. Also, the princess in all of these stories has too much beauty, and so was envied by some 'evil step mother' or equivalent role. Especially relating to Sleeping Beauty, some magical being is jealous and puts a curse on her. In this adaptation of Apuleius' story, the same basic thing happens, Venus takes it upon herself to ensure Psyche will not be happy with a decent husband (lines 27 to 28/ Chapter one). Moving to a more positive element of a classic fairy tale, the invisible voices help Psyche and make sure she's taken care of (lines 15 to 21/ Chapter three). This is seen in such fairy tales as Beauty and the Beast and also, less romantically, The Brave Little Toaster. The inanimate objects in Belle's scenario, or in Psyche's case the invisible voices, feed them and give them aid in every possible way. Lastly, as common in pretty much every fairy tale, the beautiful princess is happily in love with a sweet husband. Psyche is visited by her unknown husband every night, and considering she thought she was going to be alone or die, she is happy with her life (lines 24 to 26 and line 28/ Chapter three). Whether it be Cinderella, or The Little Mermaid, or probably any Disney movie, the princess has her prince.

When translating and reading this story, the parallels to other fairy tales are constant. Cupid and Psyche definitely set the fairy tale standard and can be considered the first fairy tale. Almost every detail of the story is a classical fairy tale characteristic.