Cupid circumvents his mother and loves the maiden instead, but he takes her away to his castle and commands that she accept him as her invisible lover. For example, Venus curses Psyche to marry a hideous monster. Her tale, a mythic parable of the union of Desire and the Soul, offers some of the earliest recorded Beauty and the Beast elements. In his animal form, Lucius overhears the story. She is charged with guarding a young bride the thieves have kidnapped and tells her the story to pass the time. He cannot change back until he is able to eat roses, and as he travels in his new animal form, he hears several other tales.ĭuring his adventures, Lucius, the naive protagonist, learns of the story of Cupid and Psyche from an elderly woman who has been enslaved by thieves. The larger narrative by Apuleius is about a man who finds salvation after his natural curiosity leads to him being turned into a donkey.
One of the earliest versions of Beauty and the Beast occurs in a frame narrative from the second century CE, The Golden Ass (also called The Metamorphoses of Apuleius). This tale type contains numerous versions with distinctive histories, and some features may reach even back to pre-historic times.įairy tales are difficult to date because of the oral tradition and the uncertain paths between teller and audience, yet Beauty and the Beast stories are different because several of their elements can be traced to distinct print versions that have influenced the large tale type for centuries. Several of the story elements cross into other tale types. Beasts can be male or female, frogs, pigs, hideously ugly, cruel, or kind. A Story As Diverse as the Animal World: Beauty and the Beastīeauty and the Beast stories span the globe, and the tale transforms as often as Cinderella changes dresses.
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