Psyche

Psyche was a former human and later the goddess of soul and the consort of Eros in Greco-Roman mythology.

Mythology[edit | edit source]

Psyche was a human woman whose beauty rivaled that of Aphrodite. The jealous goddess order her son, Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with an ugly and unworthy man. Eros instead, fell in love with the woman himself after accidentally pricking himself with his own arrow after shooting her. After various trials and tribulation on both lover's parts, they overcome them and are eventually married.^[1]

Influence[edit | edit source]

After imbibing lotus flower wine, Barnabas had three visions concerning his wife Leda. In one of these, he swore that Psyche showed him Leda drinking wine with a witch.^[2]

By the 2nd century CE, Eros and Psyche's love story was written about by Apuleius in his book, The Golden Ass. A book that the Assassin Mentor Ezio Auditore da Firenze would later purchase a copy of in the early 16th century.^[3]

In 1526 or 1528, the Italian painter and sculptor Giulio Romano painted a scene of the two lovers, and entitled it simply as Cupid and Psyche.^[4] In 1808, another painting by the same name was completed by the British-American painter Benjamin West.^[5]

In 2012 Clay Kaczmarek included the story of Psyche and Cupid in a set of puzzles he'd hidden within the Animus for his follower to find. In Clay's puzzle it was suggested that Psyche's story was one of those in which "the seeds were planted as two worlds became one."^[4] In a former puzzle, Psyche was excluded from a list of individuals known to have possessed an Apple of Eden.^[5]

Behind the scenes[edit | edit source]

Psyche is a mythological figure and a character introduced in Assassin's Creed II in the Glyph puzzles. She is also mentioned in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Ψυχή (psūkhḗ) is Greek for 'soul'. Her name has been loaned into multiple language to denote consciousness.