The Apple of Discord

Jacob Jordaens (1633)

Venus, Juno, Athena are tricked by Eris, Godess of Discord into debating who is the fairest, an apple that is for the fairest is dropped at wedding party Rivals choose a judge among mortals, this judge is Paris

Judgment of Paris 

Joachim Wtaewael (1615) 

Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite are judged by Paris, Hera offers Paris kingdom, Athena offers wisdom, Aphrodite offers Helen. The expedtion to retrieve Helen from Troy as prize for Paris starts the Trojan War 

The Capitoline wolf (now known to be Mediaeval; the boys are late 15th cent.

Romulus and Remus suckling from Wolf. 

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne (ca. 1520)

Ariadne had been abandoned on the Greek island of Naxos by Theseus, whose ship is shown in the distance. The picture shows her initial fear of Bacchus, but he raised her to heaven and turned her into a constellation, represented by the stars above her head.'

Bernini, Apollo and Daphne (ca. 1625)

Metamorphoses, Daphne is turned into a Laurel tree by Peneus her father after being chased by Apollo

Titian, Diana and Actaeon (1555–9)

Actaeon sees Diana and her nymphs bathing after hunting. 

Titian, The Death of Actaeon (1559–75)

Diana turns Actaeon into a wolf and he is eaten by his dogs. 

Bernini, The Rape of Proserpina(ca. 1620)

depicts the Abduction of Proserpina, where Proserpina is seized and taken to the underworld by the god Hades

Caravaggio, Narcissus(ca. 1595)

Narcissus sees his reflection and falls in love with himself. 

Boreas carries off Oreithyia (krater, ca. 360 BCE)

Boreas, the north wind, fell in love with her. At first he attempted to woo her, but after failing at that he decided to take her by force, as violence felt more natural to him. says  Plato She may have been killed on the rocks of the river when a gust of northern wind came, and so she was said to have been 'taken by Boreas'.

F.-É. Picot, ca. 1817

Apuleius's tale of Cupid and Pysche tale of Cupid and Psyche (or "Eros and Psyche") is placed at the midpoint of Apuleius's novel, and occupies about a fifth of its total length.Venus is offended, and commissions Cupid to work her revenge. Cupid instead scratches himself with his own dart, which makes any living thing fall in love with the first thing it sees. As soon as Cupid scratches himself he falls deeply in love with Psyche and disobeys his mother's order to make Psyche fall in love with something hideous.She gradually learns to look forward to his visits, though he always departs before sunrise and forbids her to look upon him, and soon she becomes pregnant. Pyche's sisters are jealous and convince her to figure out who is visiting her at night. 

Jacopo Zucco, 1589

One night after Cupid falls asleep, Psyche carries out the plan her sisters devised: she brings out a dagger and a lamp she had hidden in the room, in order to see and kill the monster. But when the light instead reveals the most beautiful creature she has ever seen, she is so startled that she wounds herself on one of the arrows in Cupid's cast-aside quiver. Struck with a feverish passion, she spills hot oil from the lamp and wakes him. He flees, and though she tries to pursue, he flies away and leaves her on the bank of a river.

J.W. Waterhouse, 1903

The last trial Venus imposes on Psyche is a quest to the underworld itself. She is to take a box (pyxis) and obtain in it a dose of the beauty of Proserpina, queen of the underworld.As soon as she reenters the light of day, however, Psyche is overcome by a bold curiosity, and can't resist opening the box in the hope of enhancing her own beauty. She finds nothing inside but an "infernal and Stygian sleep," which sends her into a deep and unmoving torpor.

Raphael and workshop, Rome, Villa Farnesina, Loggia di Psiche, 1517

The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche

Antonio Canova, 1793

Cupid and Pysche

Antonio Canova, 1793

Cupid and Pysche

Salvatore Rosa (ca. 1665)

Michelangelo, Sibyl of Cumae, Sixtine Chapel (1508–12)

Virgil’s first work were the Bucolics, a collection of ten single poems, called eclogues; hence the collection is also know as the Eclogues. These poems are pastoral, in the sense that they depict the life of herdsmen, which is mostly devoted to love and singing. The fourth eclogue is characterized by Virgil as ‘somewhat loftier’. It may be seen as a herdsman’s song reporting a prophecy form the Sibyl of Cumae

Jacopo Zucchi ca. 1580; from the Villa Medici in Rome, now in the Uffizi Galleries, Florence

Pietro Da Cortona 1641, Pitti Palace, Florence

Golden age depiction

Nicholas Poussin, Et in Arcadia ego (1637–8)Pastoral Arcadia: idyllic, nostalgic

Ingres, ‘Oedipus explains the riddle of the Sphinx’ (final version 1827)

Hung over Freud's famous couch